by Anita Notaro
‘I’m sorry you had to come all the way in. Naturally, I’ll pay you anyway.’
Annie felt tired. This had taken the edge off her perfect day and she couldn’t stop thinking about how Libby Marlowe must be feeling tonight.
‘Come on, I’ll drop you home. I’ll just put a message on the machine explaining that we’re open tomorrow, in case anyone rings.’ Owen stood up and Annie got her coat.
Normally she’d have refused his offer, as her house was miles away from Sutton and he could have taken the toll bridge, but tonight she was very glad not to have to make the two agonizingly slow bus journeys home.
He took a bottle of red wine from the giant rack near the cash register. ‘There you go, a present. You look like you could do with a drink.’
‘You are an angel. I was going to stop somewhere on the way home. I don’t think I can simply go to bed. It’s funny, but I feel as if I knew them, which is ridiculous.’
They drove in tired silence and Annie was relieved when Owen dropped her off. She switched on both the heating and the electric fire to try and ease the chill that had crept into her bones. Within five minutes she was in her dressing-gown snuggled up on the couch, wine open, watching the main evening news, anxious for more information. Sleep was not an option, she was way too wired. The report at the end of the bulletin was dissatisfyingly brief, the station obviously anxious to protect the privacy of one of its biggest stars.
*
That star was now heavily sedated, following a day of intense emotion. Her mother had tried to persuade her to stay in bed after she’d heard a thud and found her on the floor. But phones kept ringing and cards and flowers started to arrive and neighbours called to see if they could do anything and Vera and Christina were exhausted from talking and Libby went from being very quiet to crying uncontrollably. She refused to see anyone until at last her mother had followed her instincts and called Donald Barton, their family doctor, who’d known Libby since her MMR vaccine. He was a calm, gentle giant with a mop of grey hair and a moustache that Libby used to twiddle as a child and he sat on her bed now and held her hand as if she was still five years old.
‘Please, give me something to take away the pain, please Barty,’ she begged.
He stroked her head and made soothing noises. ‘I wish I could, child. I really wish I could.’
‘But it’s not fair. How could he leave me like this?’ She sounded as she had when she was a little girl and things weren’t going her way. Back then she’d usually managed to turn things to her advantage somehow and the pattern had continued throughout her life.
‘I won’t be able to cope on my own.’ She was crying softly. ‘He did everything for me.’
The doctor knew it was true. She’d gone from an adoring father to a husband who had indulged her and now, for the first time, she was truly alone. Maybe it would bring mother and daughter closer, he mused, but Libby was a man’s woman, always had been, and David’s loss would have a huge impact on her life. He listened to her rambling on about her husband, and hoped the future wouldn’t be too difficult. She was a woman of extremes and he felt life could go either way for her now.
Eventually, he gave her something to help her sleep and promised to call round in the morning, after she pleaded with him not to leave her alone.
‘You’ll feel a little better once you’ve rested, my dear, I promise.’
‘I want him back. That’s all I want.’
‘And I’d do anything to be able to give him back to you. I know how much you loved him.’ He’d been at their wedding and felt angry that such a young life had been quenched. For the millionth time he was baffled by the ways of this God of theirs. Being a doctor and seeing life and death at such close quarters was never easy and he felt that now might be a good time to retire. Either it was getting harder or else he was getting too old. Seeing gorgeous Libby, always one of his favourite people, lying like a battered rag doll and begging for his help was difficult to bear. He kissed her forehead, something he’d never done before. The equivalent of the lollipop he always had for her when she was little. This time, however, he couldn’t make it better.
Chapter Eleven
THE MORNING OF the funeral dawned suspiciously bright. Libby woke at six, feeling drugged. The pain hit her like a physical blow. She closed her eyes tightly then rolled over and clutched her stomach, curling up like a baby. She wished herself dead: the day ahead was just too impossible to contemplate.
The previous night at the removal had been bad enough. A silent queue had snaked its way up the centre aisle and sides of the church as friends and family and colleagues came to pay their respects. A million hands to hold and endless sad eyes to mirror her own. Today she had to face it all over again and at the end of it he would be gone away for good, swallowed up by the black, wet, cold earth.
Libby jumped out of bed and threw herself into the shower. She dried herself roughly and wrapped a dressing-gown tightly round her icy body. Her mother appeared with a cup of tea, already dressed in draining black.
‘Did you sleep?’ She was gentle.
‘I don’t know, I think so. I had so many dreams. When I woke I thought for a split second that it was all a nightmare. Then I realized where I was, not tucked up safely in my own home, listening to David in the shower.’ She sat down heavily. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to get through the day.’
‘You will, don’t worry. I’ll be there beside you.’
‘I want him beside me.’ She almost stamped her foot.
‘I know. I know, darling.’ Christina sat down on the bed and smoothed her daughter’s hair and wished she could make it all right again. ‘Come down and have some breakfast, it will help.’
Libby shook her head.
‘You’ve eaten nothing for three days. You’ll make yourself ill. Please.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Try, for me. Just some toast and juice.’
Libby followed her mother listlessly to the kitchen, where everything had already been prepared. She poured coffee and sat with her head in her hands.
‘What am I going to do, Mum?’ She gulped the coffee and searched for answers. ‘Why did I let myself rely on him so completely? I don’t even know how much money is in my bank account.’
‘Don’t worry about anything for now. Just let’s get through today.’ Her mother poured some freshly squeezed juice and buttered small slices of toast, pushing them gently towards her daughter. Libby continued to stare at the table.
‘Please just try and eat something.’
‘I feel sick all the time. I can’t face food.’
‘Just one slice, it’s warm and comforting and you always ate masses of toast as a child when you were ill.’
Libby bit into what tasted like a piece of cardboard.
‘Good girl. The hair and make-up people will be here shortly.’
Her daughter jumped up, eyes glassy. ‘I don’t want anyone near me. I told you that last night.’ She was crying now, and lashing out. ‘I don’t want to look my best saying goodbye to my husband. Can’t you understand that? Are you stupid? I want to look wrecked because that’s how I feel, all smashed up inside.’
‘I know, darling. But there will be a lot of people to meet and you’ll feel better if you’re not worrying about how you look.’
‘I couldn’t care less about how I look. My life is over. It’s all gone. He took it all away, everything. He took it with him.’
‘It’s OK, shush now.’ Her mother was at her side in an instant and Libby let herself be led back upstairs, where she sat at her old dressing-table. She didn’t recognize the grey, shadowy face that stared back at her.
The house was soon alive again. Vera bustled about as usual. Her mother’s two sisters had stayed overnight. The doorbell sounded continuously. Jonathan, Libby’s current favourite hairdresser, and Laura, an old friend who’d been doing her make-up for TV for ages, arrived together. They all tiptoed round her. No-one said anything and somehow that
made it all worse. Everyone was trying to pretend it was OK.
She sat like a child while her hair was blow-dried. ‘I’d like it straight, please,’ was all she said. David had seen it like that once and loved it. Jonathan nodded, unsure. Normally her hair was tousled and urchin-like and very sexy. He didn’t ask.
Laura smiled sadly at her.
‘Hi.’
‘Hi.’
Libby wondered why some people preferred not to refer to it when someone died; she assumed it was because they were afraid of upsetting the bereaved person. Or reminding them. But she wanted to talk about David, wanted them to understand how ripped apart her life was, wanted them to know how very much she’d loved him, but in a funny way she was afraid of upsetting them, so she said nothing either.
Laura did her make-up, her touch gentle and strangely comforting, probably because as Libby sat in the chair cocooned in a black plastic sack she felt normal. She was well used to having her face done. She sat like this three or four times a day when they were recording a show.
‘Not too much, please. I don’t want to look made up,’ was all she said.
Libby thanked Laura and Jonathan and they left as silently as they’d arrived.
She put on a simple black dress and matching coat, a Gucci classic, with sheer black stockings and high heels. She wore the heavy pearl strand with the magnificent clasp and slender chain around her neck and added matching earrings that David had bought her as a mini-surprise in her Christmas stocking weeks before. Her hands she left bare except for her platinum and diamond wedding ring. She didn’t bother to check the finished product in any mirror. Had she done so she would have seen a tall, gaunt, beautiful woman with poker-straight, shiny hair, dark blue, swollen eyes and a pale, lifeless face, despite the faint hint of false rosiness in her cheeks and the muted, damson lips. The only touch of light about her came from the natural sheen of real pearls.
The ceremony itself was exactly the way David would have wanted it. A truly magnificent string section played some of his favourite pieces of music, little-known works that he’d listened to regularly, and his all-time favourite, Bruch’s First Violin Concerto, which brought memories tearing back for Libby. Sarah Jansen, an internationally renowned soprano who had been at college with David, sang some of the classic, old-style hymns. His brothers, so like him in their gestures that Libby kept wanting to touch them, did the readings. Before communion his father read one of his favourite poems and broke down in the process.
Just as the ceremony finished the priest announced Libby, as she had requested. Her mother had been very unsure but Libby was insistent. She needed to speak about him. They had to understand what it was like for her.
‘I’ve known David for less than nine years, which is probably a lot less time than most of you here. Love caught both of us unexpectedly, and I think I fell first, although David always told friends that I should have come with a health warning.’ She gave a little smile, remembering. ‘I was feeling bored at a party and wondering how I could make my escape when I saw him and I . . . I just knew. Oh, I had all the usual symptoms – wildly beating heart, stomach churning, everything – but I didn’t need them to tell me that this man was going to be very important in my life.
‘He was gorgeous to look at, as you all know, but more important he was lovely inside as well. He was a mass of contradictions and made me laugh from the moment I met him. The way he could be as coarse as a sailor at rugby matches, but melted into putty when we once found an injured fox in the woods. The way he adored opera yet his singing at parties often caused a riot – for the wrong reasons. How he loved his parents and wasn’t afraid to tell them. How he danced Mrs O’Connell round the kitchen one morning when she won 5,000 euro on the lotto. The way he told jokes when he was drunk and always got the punchline wrong. Or once slept in the bath with a towel over him because we’d had a row, then laughed like crazy when I turned the tap on him next morning because I was so angry. The way he jumped out of the car one night when we were on our way to a function because a dog was trying to cross the road in the rain and almost got killed. He was wearing black tie and I was in a see-through dress and we ended up in the vet’s till ten o’clock and missed dinner, yet he was deliriously happy because the dog had a chip and the owners were traced and it turned out he’d wandered over thirty miles and a little girl had been crying somewhere for nearly a week.’
She closed her eyes for a moment as the memories flooded in. ‘When he asked me to marry him I was the happiest girl alive. And the love between us grew until it threatened to overwhelm at least me, sometimes.
‘And just as he came into my life without warning, the other night he left me the same way and a light went out and the warmth of him around me faded. And now, there’ll never be a full moon for me again and the stars will never shine quite as brightly and the sun will never feel as good on my shoulders and the sea will never have that shimmery, perfect blue haze. And I’m angry. I want the birds to stop singing and children to stop laughing and flowers to die and Santa not to come and no dog to ever lick me and no baby to smell sweet.’ She looked out into the overflowing crowd and couldn’t see a thing.
‘But I know he would hate that, would kick and scream and fight against it, so even though my love, my best friend and my greatest ally is being buried today, I know he’d want me to keep going until somehow, a light switches on inside me and I come alive again. In fact,’ she managed a thin smile, ‘I’m sure he’s up there right now using one of his favourite expressions and telling me to go kick some ass.’
She lowered her head and swallowed hard, then slowly returned to her seat, touching his coffin as she passed, a bit taken aback to find people crying all around her. Her own eyes were empty.
In the cemetery it was grey and raw. Libby stood, hand in hand with his parents as the final prayers were said. The tears finally came as she laid the traditional single rose and stood and looked down at his coffin and said her final goodbye to the man of her dreams.
Chapter Twelve
ANNIE FELT SHE was really living for the first time in years. She was excited, exhilarated, scared, challenged. The morning spent in studio was terrifying, although everyone greeted her warmly and she felt as though she knew them all already. She was being ultra-careful not to call them by the name of their character, a classic newcomer’s mistake.
The sets looked tiny, even the pub, which seemed huge on TV. A large crew was involved and they were clearly working under pressure, yet appeared relaxed. The running order showed that there were eighteen scenes to be recorded that day. This morning all the bits in the pub were being done, out of sequence and from different episodes, which made it very difficult for cast and crew. For each scene there was a walk-through with the director, then a rehearsal for cameras followed by a dress rehearsal and then finally it was recorded. It was all over in about twenty-five minutes. Annie couldn’t believe it. No time if you forgot a line, or hit a wrong mark. It just didn’t happen, from what she’d seen so far.
Later in the morning all that changed. Actors forgot whole pages, a light went in the middle of a take, an extra entered at the wrong moment and all hell broke loose as the director got more and more irritated. A coffee break was called to restore humour and Annie trooped off with the rest of the cast to the green-room, where hot tea and coffee with scones and jumbo sausage rolls were pounced on eagerly.
At twelve-thirty Mike Nichols stopped by.
‘Seen enough?’
‘Enough to ensure I don’t get a proper night’s sleep until I’ve recorded at least one episode. It’s so busy.’
‘I know, and believe me this is a quiet day. It’s a bit like working on a production line, the machines keep turning, churning out the product and you’ve just got to keep up.’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t let you down. I’ll be word perfect.’ Annie smiled shyly.
‘Would you stop it, you don’t owe me anything. I didn’t make the final decision.’
‘No, but usually the hardest part is to even get considered for an audition.’
‘Enough. Come on, a couple of people from the office are heading off to the local pub. It’s Isobel’s birthday so we’re deserting the canteen. I told them I’d bring you along. We only take an hour, same as studio, so we’d better get going.’
Annie was delighted to be included. Max Donaldson was there along with most of the others she’d met at the audition.
‘Annie, welcome, sit down.’ The boss greeted her warmly. ‘How did you find this morning?’
‘Terrifying.’ She grinned. ‘Everyone is just so good and the speed at which you record scenes left me breathless.’
‘Well, they don’t all go so smoothly. We have one or two prima donnas and boy, do we have our moments.’ He had no intention of elaborating.
‘Well, I’ll try not to give you any grief.’ It was so great to be part of all this. ‘Happy birthday, by the way Isobel.’
‘Thanks, Annie. Glad you could join us. We don’t get to socialize with the cast that often at lunchtime. Usually they go off together and bitch about us and vice versa.’
‘And then whoever’s around on Friday evening at the end of recording goes for a pint where we all kiss and call each other darling and make up,’ Max grimaced. ‘I usually have to grovel to somebody or other because I’ve made life hell for them.’
‘Don’t mind him,’ Mike interjected. ‘He gets us to do all the dirty work. The cast love him and hate the rest of us.’
On and on the banter went as they tucked into quiche and lasagne and thick cuts from the joint of the day. One or two people had a glass of wine, including the birthday girl, but most of them drank no alcohol, it was all Diet Cokes and sparkling mineral waters. Annie was surprised. So much for her father’s theory.
* * *
In the afternoon, she met with wardrobe and make-up. Eileen Waters was the senior costume person on the show. ‘I’ll be on for your four episodes,’ she greeted Annie warmly. ‘Come through, I’ll show you what I’ve bought so far.’ She opened a copybook at a page with the name BOBBY in large letters in gold ink, surrounded by tiny, scribbled flowers. On the following few pages, she’d stuck in cutouts from various magazines and scribbled notes beside each one.
