A Year of New Adventures

by Maddie Please

  ‘I don’t think I would be a very good—’

  ‘Yes you would, Billie. I know you would.’

  He pulled me against his side. I could smell his cologne. I stood not knowing what to do, the knife still in my hand.

  If I stuck the knife in him it would ruin his beautiful cashmere sweater. Perhaps that particular aspect wasn’t the first thing I should worry about?

  ‘Sorry, am I interrupting something?’

  I turned to see Oliver watching us.

  I could have wept with relief. Then I realized I was probably making something out of nothing. I’ve watched every episode of Friends. Americans were friendly people; they didn’t have the same reserve as we did. They weren’t as obsessed with the notion of ‘personal space’ as English people.

  Gideon was unruffled. ‘Ah, Ollie, there you are. I’ll stay for lunch if I’m invited?’

  ‘Did you want something particular?’

  ‘No, just thought I’d have a last run-through with you about tomorrow if you have a few minutes?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Oliver’s face was expressionless, but I knew he was annoyed. ‘You’d better come through into the study.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  The following day was the book launch. Oliver came out of his room at eight dressed in dark chinos and a grey cashmere sweater and stood and looked out of the window at the sky. It was heavy with rain clouds, whipping across the horizon.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I said. ‘You don’t look it.’

  He didn’t either. He looked a bit rocky to be honest.

  ‘Oh I don’t know … I’m not really looking forward to today,’ he said at last.

  He didn’t look at me. In fact, he rested his forehead on the windowpane.

  ‘Why ever not? You must have done these things before,’ I said, trying to be reassuring.

  ‘Nope. I did the first one and then – well something happened that meant I didn’t do any other big launch events. Until now.’

  ‘Well you must have missed out on some great parties! Don’t you like people telling you how marvellous you are? I would. I’d love it.’

  He shook his head against the window then came and sat down at the table and reached for some apple juice.

  ‘It’s just a book, that’s all. What matters is getting the next one out there.’

  I stood and looked at him, my hands on the back of a chair. ‘But you’ve made it! Doesn’t that thrill you?’

  Oliver sipped his juice. He still hadn’t looked at me. I wanted him to look at me; I wanted him to talk to me properly, not just see me as a woman waiting to make his breakfast.

  He flicked me a quick glance. ‘What’s your favourite thing? Don’t think about it – just say the first thing you think of. My favourite thing is …’

  ‘Do you mean—’

  ‘Just say anything.’

  ‘Toblerone,’ I said. ‘I mean the giant ones you get in airports.’

  I was three-quarters of the way through the one I had bought on the way out. Perhaps I should get another one when I went home?

  ‘What if I said you could have a giant Toblerone at every meal for the rest of your life? After breakfast? After lunch? After dinner?’

  ‘I’d pretty soon get sick of them.’

  ‘Being well known, having people telling you you’re fantastic is eventually the same thing as Toblerone three times a day.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ I said. ‘What about the money?’

  ‘In the end money means nothing.’

  ‘Ha! Funny how you never hear poor people saying that,’ I said.

  Oliver shook his head. I went to put the toaster on.

  ‘The launch is just people wanting me to sign books for them. And photographs. Random journalists taking pictures with me as though we’re mates. And all of them asking the same questions. Am I like Major Harry Field? Why does he always try to save someone who can’t be saved? Can’t I write anything else? Always avoiding – And Gideon.’ He stopped suddenly. ‘Oh yes, Gideon. He’ll be there, schmoozing and glad-handing people like the old pro he is.’

  ‘He offered me a job,’ I said.

  Oliver’s head came up. ‘You’re not considering it?’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘You mustn’t!’ Oliver said. ‘I absolutely forbid you – you mustn’t.’

  ‘Forbid me? You can’t forbid me.’ I laughed. Who was he to tell me what to do? ‘That might be an adventure, don’t you think?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Oliver snapped.

  I started polishing the worktops. They didn’t need it, but it was something to do.

  ‘And?’ he said.

  ‘And what?’

  ‘You can’t possibly take a job with Gideon. You’re not nearly … Didn’t you say you work for your uncle?’

  ‘It’s temporary and part time. I’m thirty soon. I need to find a proper career. I’ve got an English degree. I’m not an idiot you know …’

  ‘I never suggested you were!’

  ‘Well I could start working in publishing couldn’t I?’

  Oliver spluttered.

  ‘God forbid. Not for Gideon. Do something else, anything else! Forget about Gideon; write your nice little book. Is your main character like you? Does she make cakes? Or knit perhaps? Or do needlepoint? Most books seem to have heroines who do. Or they talk to their cats. I bet you have a cat?’

  Cat? Nice little book? Patronizing sod!

  I pulled back from the pleasing mental image I had been constructing of myself, having somehow dramatically lost weight and learned how to straighten my hair, in a tight, designer suit and stilettos wafting around a glass-walled office, organizing Gideon’s diary with a Mont Blanc pen.

  I was outraged. ‘Actually no I don’t have a cat. Occasionally I borrow the cat from next door to talk to and he talks more sense than many men I’ve met. The rest of your prejudiced nonsense is so not true!’

  He wasn’t listening to me.

  ‘And they have friends who are so cutely crazy they are almost certifiable. And usually there’s a similarly cute dog. Or a house rabbit. Every book seems to have cupcakes in the cover and some mention of a village fete. And there’s always a dotty old aunt. And a handsome vet or doctor. Why is that?’

  I was fuming and suddenly I didn’t feel like sucking it up any longer.

  ‘You don’t have a very high opinion of contemporary women’s fiction then? Or women for that matter. Just because you’re in a bad mood about this launch, don’t take it out on me. You’re making a sweeping bloody generalization if ever I heard one! Maybe the women’s fiction you buy is like that’ – hurrah, thought of an acidic retort immediately rather than at half past two tomorrow morning – ‘but there’s plenty of choice. Some wonderful psychological dramas, historicals, sagas – it’s endless.

  ‘You might just as well say all men’s fiction had pictures of submachine guns on the front and buildings on fire and a lantern-jawed hero coming out of a sandstorm with a scarf round his face carrying a woman with a twisted ankle. I mean what’s the one you’re bringing out next? Death somewhere?’

  He raised one eyebrow. ‘It was originally called Death in Damascus. It was about a man fighting as a mercenary in Syria but then …’

  ‘I bet he has a drippy girlfriend who falls over all the time? Why don’t you write about a woman who saves him for once instead of the other way round?’

  He glared at me furiously and then looked away.

  ‘That would be interesting,’ I said. I knew I’d overstepped the mark. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No, by all means carry on! I mean this sort of conversation is just what I need,’ Oliver snapped. ‘And after all what would you know about it? What would you know about producing a book every year? What would you know about the stress? The criticism? Unreasonable deadlines? What would you know about the pressure?’

  He was getting very annoyed now but in my state of mind at that moment I didn’t care.

 
; ‘Oh please!’ I said. I should have shut up, but the worm had turned and I couldn’t stop myself. ‘Try having no job and no money and no pension. Try working overnight in a supermarket stacking shelves. Or in a hospital dealing with the worst that life can chuck at you. Think how that feels.’

  ‘I was a teacher for many years. I know all about the worst life can chuck at you!’

  ‘What? Don’t make me laugh! Try having a car that any day soon is going to vomit its engine up onto the road and collapse forever. Come to think of it, imagine how awful it must be for Pippa to work for a boss who never says thank you, or treats her with any sort of respect. Even when she’s got her arm in a splint. You should be able to remember how difficult that can be.’

  ‘What? I don’t! Has she said something?’

  ‘She doesn’t have to. You talk to Pippa as though she’s dirt,’ I said.

  I was probably tired. Or, as my mother would say, overtired. I still had jet lag. I’d been on my feet for the best part of three days. But I was going home tomorrow. I had a return ticket in my handbag. Maybe Oliver wouldn’t pay me after all? Maybe he would deduct fifty per cent from my fee for sheer insolence?

  ‘You’re talking rubbish! You don’t know what it’s like! Forcing yourself to think, to write … You don’t have people door-stepping you when they see you talking to any woman under fifty. And writing rubbish about me and how I get my inspiration, and Jessie—’

  He stopped and drummed his fingers on the table.

  ‘Who’s Jessie?’ I said.

  He made an exclamation of annoyance. ‘No one, forget I said anything.’

  I felt I was on the edge of a cliff. Not a real cliff obviously, but a sort of metaphorical cliff, and if I took a step more something would happen.

  The silence between us stretched on until I could almost feel it throbbing in my ears. I’m not one to let a silence go unfilled; anyone who knows me will tell you that.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said at last, re-wiping the worktops for the third time.

  I chucked my cloth down and went to stand in front of him.

  It was time to lighten the atmosphere.

  ‘Now, what do you want for breakfast?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Don’t sulk. I’m going to make you scrambled eggs,’ I said, willing him to join in, to allow himself to be encouraged into a better mood.

  He glared up at me for a moment. It was not to be. ‘I’m not sulking. I have a job to do and I’m going to do it. I suggest you do the same.’

  I took a deep breath and held it.

  I wasn’t going to say anything else was I?

  Was I? I was. Of course I was.

  ‘Tomorrow I will be going home and the chances of us ever meeting again are between nil and zero. On that basis I’d like you to know that you are the rudest man I’ve ever met. I don’t care if your book launch is today. You’re a self-obsessed nightmare. No wonder your PA is permanently on the verge of a nervous breakdown.’

  He stood up. ‘And you are the noisiest, most maddening, interfering woman I’ve ever met. You did warn me that hardly anything shut you up didn’t you; I should have paid more attention. You’re a walking migraine.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Right. Tell Jake and Pippa to take the other car. I’ll see them in the village. And I don’t expect to be kept waiting.’

  He stamped out of the house and I heard his car start up and drive away.

  About ten minutes later Pippa and Jake came downstairs.

  ‘Is Oliver about?’ Jake asked, taking a bagel from the hot plate and buttering it. ‘I thought I heard his voice earlier.’

  ‘He’s gone,’ I said. ‘We had words.’

  Jake laughed and Pippa drew in a horrified breath.

  ‘But it’s his launch day!’ she said.

  ‘Doesn’t excuse him for being a rude git,’ I muttered, ‘or for talking to you as though you’re a moron.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, I’m used to it,’ she said.

  ‘Well you bloody well shouldn’t be!’ I said furiously.

  ‘But he must be so tense,’ she wailed. ‘Oh God he’s going to be impossible. What did you say?’

  ‘I told him he was rude and self-obsessed and he didn’t know the meaning of the word stressed. If he wanted to find out what real stress is go and work in a supermarket stacking shelves overnight for the minimum wage.’

  Jake roared with laughter and Pippa gave a little moan of distress.

  ‘Well that’s been a long time coming,’ Jake said. ‘Come on, Pippa, we’d better go and smooth his feathers down.’

  ‘Oh God, what shall I do?’ she said, clenching her hands together so tightly that her knuckles showed white.

  Jake went over to her and kissed her forehead. ‘Pip, calm down. Oliver is my oldest friend, but he has become rude and self-obsessed. It won’t hurt him to hear the truth from someone.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Apparently, despite my outburst the launch went well. I guessed this when they all returned after midnight, Pippa spectacularly drunk and held up by Jake. He helped her across to sit at the kitchen table and I went to fetch her a glass of water. She slumped, the full skirts of her beautiful red dress crushed like flower petals.

  I nudged the glass towards her and she looked up at me.

  ‘Oh look, it’s Betty,’ she said and hiccupped.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh didn’t you know? Gideon calls you Betty. You know Betty Crocker? Because you’re always making cakes and you’re such a whizzy creature in the kitchen. Always such a feeder aren’t you? Always running after Oliver. He really should have bought you one of those frilly aprons.’

  ‘Pippa, stop it,’ Jake said, shaking her shoulder.

  She turned, buried her face in his side and burst into tears.

  ‘Oh, Jake. I’m so miserable. He’s gonna sack me. I know he is. But if he does I’ll – hic – neverseeyouagain.’ This last bit came out as a sort of wailing sob.

  Jake looked at me over the top of her head. ‘Sorry, she’s a bit … you know.’

  ‘Pissed? We’d better get her to bed, Jake. You need to be up early tomorrow. The car is coming to collect us at midday. You have to be up, packed, dressed, and ready. And it’s not going to be much fun with a monster hangover is it?’

  Pippa looked over at me, her eyes unfocused and tearful.

  I followed her upstairs and helped her into her room, leaving the door open. She stood and swayed a little, before she rushed into the bathroom and vomited rather dramatically.

  I waited until I heard her groaning ‘Oh God, I’m never drinking again’ and I left her to it.

  Downstairs Jake had disappeared and Oliver was wandering around the sitting room, putting out the lights.

  He looked exhausted. I felt terrible, remembering the way I had spoken to him.

  ‘Is she OK?’ he said. ‘She was on a mission tonight.’

  ‘She’s throwing up. Probably the best thing she could do,’ I said. ‘I’m going to bed now.’

  As I walked past him he took hold of my arm and looked down at me. ‘Billie, look I wish—’

  I stood and looked at him for a moment. ‘I’m sorry I spoke to you like that this morning,’ I said.

  He shook his head. ‘I’m trying to apologize to you.’

  Well that was a shock. I didn’t reply immediately; I just stood there enjoying the feeling of his hand on my skin. His thumb rubbed backwards and forwards over my wrist.

  ‘Well go on then.’

  ‘Go on what?’ he said.

  ‘Apologize.’

  ‘I’m not very good at that,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t get enough practice. Look I talk too much. I’m well known for it.’

  ‘You don’t say,’ he said.

  I looked up at him. He smiled and I felt the most incredible jolt of attraction shoot through me. I swear I nearly fell over.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he said at last.

 
OK in what way exactly? I wondered.

  OK in that I was looking forward to going home?

  OK because I had enough clean clothes for tomorrow?

  OK that I fancied the pants off one of the most successful writers of the last decade? Who had sneered, ridiculed, and irritated me just about every time I’d been in the same room as he was?

  ‘Great,’ I said, my mouth suddenly dry. ‘I’ll apologize if you do?’

  ‘OK, I’m sorry,’ he said, and we shook hands. His grip was warm and strong and – bloody hell, I felt a bit light-headed for a moment.

  ‘And I’m sorry,’ I said, my voice rather wobbly and funny.

  There was a tiny beat then. A moment when I could convince myself he was going to kiss me. He just needed to take one step towards me and I would probably have flung myself at him. But he didn’t and the moment passed.

  ‘I hope you have a good trip back. Now I must check the garage is locked up.’

  He let go of my hand and I watched him go off into the darkness.

  Perhaps he would come back in and ask if I wanted a nightcap? And I’d say yes and he’d stir up the fire and we would sit and drink bourbon in crystal tumblers and the flames would flicker off the glass. Although it might be something else, because I don’t think I like bourbon. And then he would be kind and funny and perhaps this time he really would kiss me.

  The minutes passed and none of these things happened and I wondered – not for the first time – whether this particular adventure was worth having and if it wasn’t, what the hell I was doing.

  I woke up several times during the night unable to get comfortable. The pillows – so soft before – were lumpy as old socks. First my hands and feet were cold; an hour later I was too hot. It was like having Reynaud’s Syndrome and the menopause at the same time.

  I watched the clock crawl round until it was five o’clock and then I made myself a cup of tea and went to sit in bed and wait for the alarm to go off at six. Then I would go downstairs and make them all breakfast for the last time.

  I sat and thought about Oliver and felt a bit fluttery and annoyed and silly in a way I hadn’t felt – well ever I think.

  I went back through the events of last night like a fourteen-year-old with a strange crush. His face, his voice, what he had said, the feel of my hand in his. The way his thumb had stroked my wrist.