Someone Like You (71 page)

Putting Penny’s lead on, she walked briskly down to his house.

He emerged from his studio with tired eyes, his old jeans covered with paint.

‘Fancy a walk?’ she asked brightly.

He grinned. ‘Great idea. I’ll be ready in two minutes.

We could do a few more miles on the Wicklow Way.’

The answering-machine light was flashing hysterically when she got home from the walk with Doug and the three delirious dogs. Hugh had left four messages, each more anxious than the one before.

‘I’m sorry, Leonie. We’ve got to talk,’ he said each time.

Talk to a bloody psychiatrist! she hissed as she pressed the delete button. The walk had calmed her down, although she hadn’t told Doug what had happened. He was very intuitive, so he had probably figured out that something was wrong. But he would never pry.

Hugh rang again that night.

Leonie was reasoned and calm this time, having regretted her earlier outburst.

‘I respect the fact that you have children, Hugh,’ she said, cutting off his ‘I’m sorry, Leonie,’ before he could even say it. ‘And in the same way, you’ve got to respect the fact that I have too.’

‘I do,’ he protested.

‘You don’t seem to,’ she said sadly. ‘I know that when people of our age meet, we have a lot of emotional and physical baggage, but we’ve got to learn to cope with that.

I find it hard to deal with Jane and you, apparently, find it hard to deal with my children.’

‘I don’t,’ he repeated.

‘Hugh, you didn’t want the girls to go on holiday with us.’ Leonie couldn’t think of anything more hurtful than that. ‘We’re a package deal, Hugh. You get me, you get the kids too. It’s that simple.’

‘Other people’s children are hard to deal with,’ Hugh said. ‘The only child I ever really got on with was Jane.

Even with Stephen I wasn’t great. I’m not good with kids.’

‘That’s a cop out,’ she said frostily. ‘I made an effort with Jane even though she hates my guts. You won’t even try with my children. How often did you want to come here and have dinner with us? Once, that’s all. You preferred to meet in town or at your place, and now I know why.’

‘Jane doesn’t hate you,’ Hugh said, still stung by Leonie’s remarks about his daughter.

Leonie lost her temper. ‘Wake up and smell the coffee, Hugh! She hates any woman who tries to take you away from her. Are you honestly telling me that she doesn’t?’

‘She’s sensitive about my dating someone,’ he said.

If it hadn’t been such a serious conversation, Leonie would have laughed out loud. Jane, sensitive?

‘Hugh, if you think it’s because she’s sensitive, that’s your business,’ Leonie said, resisting the impulse to say that Jane was an obsessive, manipulative, control freak who needed a sharp injection of reality to make her cop on. ‘I think we should cool things for a bit, step back and consider our relationship.’

‘Why?’ he demanded. ‘That’s code for breaking up, you know it, Leonie.’

‘It’s not. It’s giving us time to think. You need to decide if you want to date a woman with three children and I need to decide if I want to date you.’

There was a pause. ‘You’re very hard about this, Leonie.’

‘I’m not being hard,’ she said. ‘I’m being realistic. I actually worried over whether Penny would get on with your dogs. I should have been worried about whether you’d get on with Abby, Mel and Danny, and how I’d get on with Jane and Stephen. And, crucially,’ she paused, ‘how they’d feel about us.’

‘We can’t break up over something so silly,’ Hugh blustered.

‘It’s not silly and we’re not breaking up. We’re taking time out,’ Leonie pointed out. ‘I’ll phone you in a couple of weeks when we’re all feeling less emotional.’

‘But what about our holiday?’ Hugh wailed.

‘Go with Jane.’

When she hung up, Leonie thought about how she felt.

Would she burst into tears and head straight for the gin?

No. She smiled grimly. She wasn’t emotional at all. Hugh had been a nice idea: a lovely man to go on dates with, see films with and have sex with. But he’d been nothing more than that. He wasn’t the one to fill her with passion and longing. If he had been, she’d have been sobbing her heart out now. She’d have fought tooth and nail to loosen Jane’s stranglehold over him. And he’d have understood how much she loved her kids. He wasn’t the One after all.

She went into the kitchen and decided what to cook for dinner. Poor Hugh, she thought as she chopped up vegetables for a stir-fry, he’d never escape from the claustrophobic embrace of Jane. He longed for love and she’d frighten off any woman who dared to get close to him.

Hannah sat on a cushion on the sitting-room floor, carefully unwrapping ornaments from tissue paper. She’d unwrapped everything from the kitchen and had painstakingly put every cup, plate, saucer and bowl away, after carefully washing out the cupboards first. Now she was working on the sitting-room boxes. There were so many of them. How did she have so much stuff ?

The front door slammed and the china she’d left on the floor rattled with the vibration.

‘Hannah!’ roared Felix. ‘Are you home?’

Where the hell else would I be? Hannah growled. I don’t know anybody, all my friends are in Ireland and I don’t have a car. Where am I going to go?

‘In here,’ she called.

Two hands appeared at the door, one holding a big pink gift bag, the other, an enormous bouquet of lilies.

Then Felix appeared, his handsome face lit up with a giant grin. ‘Pressies for you, my love. Because you’re the most wonderful woman in the world.’

In spite of herself, Hannah smiled. He strolled over to her, bent down and presented her with the bouquet. She inhaled the wonderful scent.

‘There’s more,’ Felix said, handing her the pink gift bag. Inside was a bottle of champagne which she held up and waggled at him. ‘I can’t drink, you dope,’ she said mildly.

‘That’s for me,’ laughed Felix, taking it from her. ‘The rest is for you.’

The rest was a bottle of Chanel’s Allure, one of her favourite perfumes, a box of hand-made chocolates that would go straight on to her already swelling tummy, Hannah grinned, and finally, a sliver of amber silk that shimmered as she held it up to admire it. A slinky, short nightdress that must have cost an arm and a leg. An arm and a leg they didn’t have. Since the backing had collapsed for the film Felix was supposed to be making in September, money was even tighter than ever.

‘Felix,’ she said, lost in admiration, ‘we can’t afford this.’

‘Yes we can, my love,’ he said, sitting on the floor beside her and nuzzling her neck. ‘We’re in the money again.

They’ve approved a second series of Bystanders and the wages have gone mega.’

‘Oh, Felix,’ she said gratefully. ‘That’s fantastic. I was so worried about money …’

‘And about me, I suppose,’ he said ruefully. ‘I know, I’m sorry. I’m a bastard to live with when I’m out of work.

I’ve been horrible, but I’m going to make it up to you.

Forgive me?’

She nodded tremulously.

Felix began to pull her cardigan off. ‘Let’s see what this wonderful nightie looks like on,’ he murmured.

‘Felix, we can’t!’ said Hannah. ‘It’s still light. The curtains are open. Anyone could come up the path and see us.’

His laughter was rich and earthy. ‘Won’t that be fun?’

He dozed off afterwards on the couch, strands of blond hair falling across the perfect profile. Hannah never ceased to be amazed by his ability to sleep anywhere. He could doze off on a plane while she was fretting at the turbulence.

He’d even fallen asleep on the Tube with her when they were only travelling from Green Park to Covent Garden.

She covered him with his jumper and got up slowly to put the flowers in water.

Her eyes were soft with love as she gazed at him. She loved him, for all his moods and melancholy. It had to be the artistic temperament. The insecurity of acting combined with the soul-searching required for every role: it had to have a lasting effect on a person. That was Felix’s problem, Hannah decided. She had to learn to cope with that. You couldn’t be an actor’s wife and become emotional each time he became depressed. Other people might feel that they never quite knew where they stood with Felix, but not her. She was his wife, the one he brought flowers and love gifts to. They understood each other perfectly. Walking quietly so she wouldn’t wake him, she went down to the below-stairs kitchen. She was sure she’d unpacked a vase, but where was it?

Doug insisted on driving Leonie to the airport to pick up Mel and Abby.

‘I can’t take you away from your work,’ she said, knowing he was close to finishing an important painting he’d been working on.

‘I was in at the start of this Delaney family drama and I want to be in at the finish,’ Doug said. ‘Anyway, I need to go into town to see my friend with the gallery. If you come with me, we can have lunch and then go to the airport, killing two birds with one stone.’

‘If you’re sure …’ Leonie hesitated.

‘What are you like?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve said I’m sure.

Unless you want Hugh to go with you?’

‘No,’ mumbled Leonie. She still hadn’t said anything about Hugh and the breakup to Doug. She felt so foolish.

Doug would be horrified to think that Hugh wasn’t interested in the twins. He adored them and he wasn’t even dating her. Leonie shuddered. It was appalling to think she’d gone out with a man who didn’t care for her children.

‘See you at half eleven tomorrow then,’ Doug said.

She almost didn’t recognize him when he arrived the next day. In all the time she’d known Doug, she’d never seen him out of his shabby old jeans and lumpy jumpers the colour and consistency of wet cement. Today, he looked startlingly different. His wild auburn hair was tamed and brushed neatly back, and he wore a dark grey suit with a deep blue shirt that looked incredible with his hair. A sober steely grey tie completed the ensemble. Leonie stared at the urbane man about town in front of her. He looked so polished and elegant. You’d hardly notice his scars now: they were fading wonderfully. Ever since Leonie had read about the vitamins and minerals which help the body heal, she’d been forcing Doug to take a handful of tablets every morning. He joked that he rattled when he walked, but they, or something, were certainly working on the scars.

‘I’m not welded into my old work clothes, you know,’

Doug said, a mischievous glint in his eyes as Leonie goggled at him. ‘I do have other clothes and, occasionally, I like to dress up.’

‘But… you look so different!’

‘Better?’

She angled her head. ‘You look fantastic,’ she said, ‘but I love your old stuff. I’d never have felt so relaxed with you if I’d met you first like this,’ she added. ‘As the queen of jumble-stall grunge, I would have been far too intimidated to talk to you in your finery.’

‘This was Caitlin’s favourite suit,’ he said reflectively.

‘She hated my sloppy work clothes, insisted I clean the paint off and dress up in the evenings. She thought suits were very sexy. Does Hugh wear suits?’ he enquired suddenly.

‘Don’t mention Hugh, would you?’ Leonie groaned.

‘Having a fight?’

She nodded. It was easier to let him think that than get into complicated explanations.

In the city, Doug parked outside a gallery in Ballsbridge.

‘It will take me a few minutes to bring the canvases in,’

he said. ‘Why don’t you go in and browse around.’

‘I’ll help,’ she offered.

‘You will not,’ he said firmly. ‘They’re heavy. Go on and browse. I’ll be with you in a few minutes.’

While Doug and a man from the gallery with mad bouffant hair and a pink tie brought in the paintings, Leonie wandered around, admiring vivid oils and gentle, dreamy watercolours and spiky, aggressive sculptures in the middle of the floor. Everything was very expensive. Doug’s paintings would probably be even more costly. Hugh had told her that Doug Mansell paintings were a serious investment.

‘You could buy a cheap one from him,’ Hugh had said, eyes lighting up as he planned a bit of money-making, ‘and in a few years sell it for a tidy profit.’

Leonie had been horrified: make money from a friend?

No way.

She was peering at a large modern picture and trying to figure out exactly what it was supposed to be, when the gallery door slammed loudly. Leonie’s head swivelled round to see a petite blonde woman march in.

Vivacious would be how you’d describe her, Leonie thought idly. And energetic. Energy fizzled out of the woman like bubbles from champagne. From behind a weird piece of sculpture, Leonie admired the woman’s extravagantly red trouser suit, perilously high funky boots and her short, spiky blonde hair. She didn’t dye that herself, Leonie thought, with an expert eye. The woman reached Doug and then leaned up to take his face in her hands and kiss him.

Leonie’s eyes widened. It couldn’t be …

‘Hello, Caitlin. I didn’t think you’d be here,’ Doug said evenly.

‘I heard you were coming in,’ Caitlin answered in a Marlboro rasp.

Leonie did her best to melt into the background. She admired a horrible daub of a painting and tried not to eavesdrop. But she couldn’t help it. This was the woman who’d destroyed Doug when she left him.

‘How have you been?’ Caitlin asked, one small hand still touching Doug’s arm.

She was much shorter than Doug, and had to arch her slender neck to look up at him. Vivacious, definitely, with that expressive little face and huge dark eyes. She never stopped moving, one foot tapping constantly as she spoke.

‘I missed you, you know,’ she said.

‘Did you? You never called. You knew where I was living,’ Doug answered.

Leonie felt her heart ache for him. He’d longed for Caitlin and she’d abandoned him. The bitch.

Caitlin angled her body closer to his, one hand sneaking up to touch the lapels of his jacket in an intimate gesture.

‘You wore my favourite suit,’ she said softly, looking up at him.

‘Yes.’

One word could say so much. He’d worn it for Caitlin, Leonie knew.

She couldn’t take any more of the tortured eye contact between the two of them.