Friends & Rivals (52 page)

‘Great,' said Hector, and proceeded to talk about rugby and his love life for the next twenty minutes. Jack listened attentively. It was a relief not to have to hear how blissfully happy Ivan and Catriona were together, although inevitably that conversation was to come. As it turned out, Hector didn't mention either of his parents till he was halfway through his first course.

‘Dad's been to a couple of my matches,' he said, wolfing down his roast potatoes one after the other like a dog swallowing treats. ‘It's incredible how quickly he's recovered, not just physically but mentally. He's even started a new TV production company and got Jeremy Clarkson and Adrian Gill to back him. So much for retirement.'

‘That's great,' said Jack. Despite everything, he couldn't help but feel a sneaking admiration for Ivan's irrepressible energy and ambition. He didn't doubt that the new company would be a success and would put Ivan back on top. He was the ultimate comeback kid.

‘Mum always said it would never last, the whole “taking it easy” thing. But I don't think even she imagined he'd be back in the saddle quite this fast.'

Desperate to move the conversation away from Catriona (Jack wished her happiness with Ivan but he wasn't ready to hear about it and wasn't sure he ever would be), he asked Hector about his sister.

‘And how's Rosie doing? Did she get into Exeter?'

‘Of course she did. Straight As in her exams. Rosie never fails at anything.' It was said with an eye-roll but no real bitterness.

‘She must be pleased to have your father back home,' said Jack.

Hector looked at him strangely. ‘She's pleased he's better. We all are. But he's not living at Mum's any more.'

Jack put down his knife and fork slowly. ‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean he's got his own place in Chipping Campden. It's only rented. I'm sure he'll end up back in London eventually.'

‘So … so …' Jack struggled to stop himself from trembling. ‘He and your mother aren't back together?'

‘Back together?!' Hector burst out laughing, spraying Coke all over the table. ‘Jesus Christ, no! Mum wouldn't have Dad back if he were the last man on earth. And, actually, Dad knows deep down it would never work out between them. He likes excitement and Mum likes, well, gardening. She only took him in because he was so ill and had nowhere else to go. She's such a soft touch. Not that I'm complaining,' he grinned. ‘Sometimes it pays to have a saint for a mother.'

‘So, er … are either of your parents, you know, seeing anyone?' Jack asked nervously.

Hector shrugged, as unconcerned with his parents' romantic lives as only a sixteen-year-old boy could be. ‘No idea. Dad's probably got some bimbo on the go somewhere. I don't think Mum's really interested in all that stuff. Anyway, she's far too old to get remarried now.'

‘Nonsense,' said Jack sternly. ‘Your mother could marry anyone she wanted to. She's gorgeous.'

Hector raised an alarmed eyebrow. ‘Rosie Huntington-Whiteley's gorgeous, Uncle Jack. Mum's … Well, she's just Mum, isn't she? She never changes.'

‘No,' said Jack wistfully. ‘She never does.'

In Burford, Catriona crouched down in her walled garden, half hidden behind a holly bush and with an ancient 1970s Nikon camera perched on her knee. Three feet in front of her a puff-chested robin was stabbing away at the frozen ground with its beak, determined to unearth a worm. It was an old bird, with worn, frayed feathers and certain stiffness to its movements that lent it a sort of pathetic charm.
Like me
, thought Cat, keeping as still as she could as she snapped away. The robin started at the first click of the shutter, but was too hungry to give up and fly away. At last he prised the worm free, turning direct to camera triumphantly with the thing dangling in his beak before finally hopping away.

Cat stood up, gratified, and stretched her aching legs. That was a perfect shot. She'd begun turning her hand to nature photography recently, bored by the portrait work that had become her bread and butter. Ivan's accident had taught her a lot of things, but one of the main ones was that life was both short and fragile. Rosie had told her an old Inuit saying over Christmas. ‘
Yesterday is ashes. Tomorrow wood. Only today does the fire burn brightly.
' From now on Catriona was going to be all about today.

Coming inside she put down her camera and threw another pair of logs into the wood-burner. The combination of crisp winter's air and wood smoke never failed to delight her, and she smiled as she warmed her hands over the flames. Her thoughts turned briefly to Hector. He'd planned to have lunch with Jack Messenger in Oxford today, and she wondered if the meeting had actually happened. But she forced her curiosity aside. Thinking about Jack did not make her happy. Her New Year's resolution was to stop doing things that did not make her happy, be it big things like dwelling on the past, or little ones like taking the wrong sort of photographs. Besides, Jack clearly wasn't thinking about her. She hadn't heard a peep from him since Christmas, and only knew he was in Oxford because the children had mentioned it.

Yesterday is ashes.
Time to move on.

When Jack first saw her through the parlour window, she was sitting in an armchair by the wood-burning stove, doing
The Times
crossword. With a pair of reading glasses perched halfway down her nose, a pencil in her mouth and a thoughtful frown on her un-made-up, slightly charcoal-smeared face, it was true that she was no Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. But Jack wouldn't have traded Catriona's earthy beauty for all the supermodels ever to grace the pages of
Sports Illustrated
, or her corduroy gardening trousers and holey Guernsey sweater for all the couture gowns in the world.

He stood outside for a long time, staring. By the time some sixth sense made Catriona look up, he was so cold his nose and ears were glowing red and his breath was escaping in smoky plumes in front of him.

‘Hi,' he mouthed, waving lamely.

Catriona jumped out of her seat. Her hands flew despairingly to her hair (
greasy, tied up with knickers)
her face (
haggard and bare)
and her clothes (
tramp
).
Why?
Surely there should be some sort of guidebook, some compulsory reading for men, that taught them it was completely unacceptable to appear at a woman's house unannounced, when the woman in question may very well be looking like a dog's breakfast?

You're being vain
, she told herself sternly, pulling the knickers out of her hair and stuffing them under a cushion as she got up to let Jack in.
Vain and ridiculous. He doesn't see you in that way anyway.

Opening the door, she tried to smile. ‘Jack. What a nice surprise.'

Jack stood in the doorway, hopping from foot to foot like a nervous teenager. When Hector had told him it was over between Cat and Ivan – more than that; that it had never really even begun, he'd paid the bill at Carlo's, jumped in a taxi and driven straight out to Burford. It wasn't even a choice. It was as if some magnetic force had pulled him here. But now that he
was
here, and the magnetic force was right in front of him being sweet and polite and,
Oh God
, totally uninterested, he had no idea what to do.

‘Please, come in,' said Cat. ‘You must be freezing.'

Jack dutifully stepped inside.

‘Would you like some tea and cake?'

Oh Jesus. Shoot me. She'll start asking me about the weather next.

‘Thanks. That'd be nice.'

Jack perched awkwardly on the sofa while Catriona faffed around in the kitchen. When she returned with a tray laden with fruitcake, tea and home-made biscuits, he noticed that she'd wiped the black charcoal smear off her cheek, powdered her nose and sprayed on some sort of perfume.

‘I saw Hector today,' he began. ‘He came into the city for lunch.'

‘I know,' said Cat, trying not to focus on how long and lean his legs looked in those jeans or how the shadows under his eyes somehow managed to make him look even more preposterously handsome. ‘How was he?'

‘Fine,' said Jack. ‘He talked about rugby mostly.'

Cat smiled. ‘Ah yes. His new love. I'm afraid he's a little bit obsessed.'

‘And Ivan,' said Jack. ‘He told me the two of you … that Ivan wasn't living here any more.'

‘That's true,' said Cat. ‘He's much better now and living in Chipping Campden. He can cope on his own.'

‘I can't,' said Jack.

Catriona looked up, confused.

‘I can't cope on my own. Without you. I just can't. I thought I could, but that's when I thought you and Ivan were back together. As a couple I mean.'

‘A
couple
?'

‘Yes. Hugh Storey told me—'

‘Hugh Storey?' said Catriona crossly. ‘What on earth would Hugh Storey know about it? What did he say?'

‘Well, come to think of it, all he actually said was that Ivan was living with you and that he was happy. I suppose I put two and two together and made five.'

‘Why didn't you call?' asked Catriona, not yet quite brave enough to meet Jack's eye. ‘You could have asked me yourself, but I haven't heard from you in months. You just disappeared.'

‘I was giving you some space! I thought you were rebuilding your marriage.'

‘I don't believe this.' Catriona shook her head. At last she looked up at him. When she did there were tears in her eyes. ‘And what if I
had
got back together with Ivan?' She was angry now, although she didn't know why. ‘What then? Would that have made it OK for you to drop me as a friend? Do you know how much it hurt, hearing that you were in Oxford of all places, from bloody Rosie?'

Jack stood up and walked to the window. ‘I'm sorry. But if you had got back with Ivan, the answer is no. I couldn't have been your friend. I
can't be
your friend, Cat, don't you see?' He turned to look at her. ‘I love you.'

Glued to the chair, Catriona felt as if she'd been shot with a stun gun.
He loves me. He loves me!
She knew he was waiting for her to react, to say or do something, anything, but every one of her faculties seemed to have deserted her.

The silence went on forever. Jack felt his hopes die. Fighting back tears, he looked out of the window again. Outside people were milling up and down the hill, shopping and chatting to one another, getting on with their lives as if the world hadn't just ended.
Fools.

‘I don't expect you to feel the same way,' he said bleakly. ‘I know everybody says I'm arrogant, but I'm not that arrogant. Why should you want me? I've been distant, and childish about this feud with Ivan, and I daresay you have plenty of reasons not to love a stubborn, workaholic widower who …'

He stopped. Catriona was behind him, her arms wrapped around his waist, her soft, womanly body pressed against the hard wall of his back. She still hadn't said anything. But she pulled at him gently, urging him to turn around. When he did, he saw she was crying. Crying, and smiling. And moving towards him, her face tilted upwards, her beautiful, full, sexy lips parting in what could only be an invitation, an affirmation, a reciprocation of the love that was threatening to burst out of him like water through a dam.

And then it did burst. It was more of an explosion than a kiss, a bomb erupting between them the moment their lips made contact, fusing them together like two atoms in a nuclear reactor. It went on for a long, long time. And when it finished it began again, in a delicious, slow series of aftershocks. By the time they finally surfaced for air, still locked in one another's arms, a small crowd had formed on the pavement outside. Somebody started clapping. Soon the whole street seemed to have joined in, whooping and cheering as if Jack and Catriona had just won the doubles at Wimbledon.

Jack laughed. ‘That's community spirit for you. I think I'm going to like living here.'

Blushing, Catriona closed the curtains.

‘Living here? I thought you said you weren't that arrogant! Don't you think that's a little presumptuous, after one kiss?'

‘You're right,' said Jack, scooping her off her feet and into his arms and marching upstairs to the bedroom. ‘One kiss doesn't cut it, does it? But by the time I'm finished with you, Catriona Charles, believe me: you're going to be begging me to stay.'

Catriona did believe him.

She would never doubt him again.

The wedding of Kendall Bryce to Lex Abrahams was the music-business event of the year. Rock stars, managers, producers and record-company moguls all waited eagerly to hear whether they would be among the favoured few attending the service itself, held in a small chapel in Montecito, or merely making up the numbers at the lavish, star-studded reception at the famous San Ysidro Ranch.

It was Vernon Bryce, Kendall's long-absent movie-producer father who'd insisted on the San Ysidro.

‘It's the best, and my daughter deserves the best. Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier were married there. You could hardly ask for a better omen than that.'

‘Couldn't you?' said Lex. ‘She was a manic depressive who would berate her husband so violently she used to pass out afterwards, then cheated on him, divorced him and died of TB.'

Kendall giggled.

‘Well, what about Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, then?' Vernon countered. ‘They got married here. And they're still together.'

‘Great. We could have kids called Banana and Peaches and write songs that make people wanna slit their wrists.'

But Vernon had prevailed, largely because of Kendall's desire to keep the peace. Also because she wouldn't have cared if she'd married Lex in a lay-by off the 405. All that mattered was that they were getting married. The rest was for other people. A
lot
of other people.