The Show (32 page)

‘You’ve all got work to do.’ He clapped his hands together loudly, like a cotton grower summoning his slaves. ‘So stop gawping and get back to your desks.’

At his own desk five minutes later, David began taking the first of what would be a long morning of calls. The first was from his publisher, Damian Blythe.

‘Sir Edward Wellesley’s dropped the lawsuit.’

The relief in Blythe’s voice was palpable.

David laughed. ‘What did I tell you? It’s only libel if it’s not true, Damian. By the way, did I mention I’m thinking of counter-suing for defamation?’

The publisher’s relief evaporated. ‘You can’t do that.’

‘Why not? Eddie’s been all over the TV, calling me a liar and a scumbag and God knows what. I want an apology.’

‘His wife almost died,’ Damian Blythe pointed out. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, David, people don’t like you very much at the moment.’

‘So?’ Carlyle scoffed. ‘I’m not running for office. What do I care? As long as they’re buying my book and my paper, I’m laughing. So should you be.’

However, to his immense irritation, David’s lawyer gave him the same advice as his publisher.

‘A defamation suit would be a disaster.’

‘You mean I’d lose?’

‘You might win the battle. But you’d lose the war. Wasn’t your entire aim in this to derail Eddie Wellesley politically?’

‘My aim was to tell the truth,’ David said archly. ‘I’m a journalist. That’s what I do.’

‘
Touché
,’ said his lawyer. ‘Very good. But be aware that if you take Wellesley to court over this, you run the risk of cementing his popularity with voters. Public sympathy right now is overwhelmingly on Eddie’s side, David. Overwhelmingly.’

David clenched his fists. He knew that this was true. His desk was littered with polls confirming it. But he still found it hard to credit.

‘His wife’s a whore and he tried to cover up for her,’ he snarled. ‘How stupid can people be?’

‘Come on,’ said his lawyer. ‘Wellesley didn’t know. It all happened years before he met her.’

‘You can’t seriously believe that?’ said David.

The lawyer paused. ‘It doesn’t matter what I believe,’ he said carefully. ‘People believe it. Don’t go to court, David. It’s not in your interests.’

David Carlyle hung up.

Fuck it. The wilfully blind voting public could think what they liked. The fact was that they all bought his book, and his newspaper, because deep down they were desperate to know the Wellesleys’ dirty little secrets. Eddie was in hell this morning, while he, David, was getting richer and richer.

I’m the winner here
, he told himself.

There was something wonderfully old-fashioned about Worthing Hospital. Eddie wasn’t sure whether it was the neatly ironed uniforms of the nurses with their pocket watches and hats, or the fifties feel of the architecture, or the cups of tea provided from a pot on a trolley rather than the ubiquitous dispensing machines. But he felt safe here, protected from the press as far as possible, and amongst friends.

Annabel’s private room was small and sparsely furnished, but like the rest of the place it was cheerful and clean. A simple vase of peonies, Annabel’s favourite flower, basked in the winter sunshine beneath the window, from Penny de la Cruz of all people. Annabel felt dreadful when she remembered how vile she’d been to Penny the day they first met, right after they’d moved in to Riverside Hall. It all felt so very long ago now. Cards from other friends and family littered every available surface. To Eddie, the room smelled of hope and kindness. A new day. He was incredibly grateful for the miracle that had been performed here. Worthing’s doctors had brought Annabel back from the dead.

Nothing mattered apart from that. Nothing at all.

‘We should talk, Eddie.’

Annabel’s voice was as weak as she was. Propped up on oversized pillows, her skin still waxen-white, she looked as tiny and fragile as a child’s doll.

Eddie shook his head. ‘There’s nothing to say. Just rest.’

‘There’s everything to say.’ The pain in her eyes was beyond tears. Eddie couldn’t bear to look. ‘It’s true, Eddie, it’s all true. Well, apart from the stuff about my parents. They were the ones who abandoned me, not the other way round. Although the Scottish estate and all of that was a lie …’

‘Please, darling. Rest. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.’

‘It does to me. I lied to you. About who I was, about where I came from. But not because I didn’t love you, like they said in the paper. Because I
did
love you.
I thought … I was afraid you’d reject me if you knew.’ Her bottom lip trembled. She looked about twelve.

‘I fell in love with
you
.’ Eddie took her hand, close to tears now himself. ‘Your name, your background … I couldn’t care less about those things.’

‘But the affairs. I
did
take money from those men, Eddie. I did. I was young and poor and desperate to change my life. But it’s no excuse. Can you forgive me?’

‘There’s nothing to forgive,’ Eddie said fervently. ‘It was before we met, Annabel. We all do stupid things when we’re kids. If anyone should be asking forgiveness, it’s me.’

‘How do you work that out?’ Annabel smiled weakly.

‘I should never have tried to go back into politics, back into public life. I knew Carlyle would stop at nothing. Stupidly, I thought it might be Milo he’d go after. I never dreamed it would be you. But I put you at risk, put all of us at risk.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’ She closed her eyes. The effort of conversation was exhausting. ‘Politics is your life. Our life. It was what we both wanted.’

‘Yes, well, not any more,’ said Eddie. ‘
You’re
my life. I love you so much, Annabel. Please, don’t leave me.’

They sat in silence for a while. Then a mask of anguish descended again over Annabel’s features as a new thought occurred to her. ‘Milo! Oh God. What must he think of me? Have you seen him?’

‘Milo’s fine,’ said Eddie. ‘He’s coming in this afternoon to see you.’

‘Oh, no. No, no. I can’t face him, Eddie. Not yet.’

‘Yes, you can,’ Eddie said gently. ‘You can face anything after this, my darling. We all can. Do you know, I’m actually starting to think that David Carlyle’s done this family a favour?’

Annabel’s eyes widened.

‘I mean it. No more secrets. No more lies. No more politics.’

No more politics …

Collapsing back onto the pillows, Annabel wondered what a life without politics might be like. Was it good news, or bad? Did Eddie even mean it? Was he capable of it? Was she? The picture was too vague and unformed to hold on to, like trying to imagine the afterlife.

It was still slipping through her fingers as she drifted back into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Laura sat in the front row at the school play feeling her irritation build.

‘Is this seat taken?’

Rachel Cantor, another St Hilda’s mum who’d been one of the leading voices in the early anti-
Valley Farm
campaign and had never approved of Laura, pointed at the empty seat beside her.

‘Actually, yes, sorry,’ said Laura. ‘I’m saving it for my husband.’

‘Yes, but he isn’t here, is he?’ Rachel said crossly. ‘It’s not really fair to save seats for parents who can’t be bothered to show up, when so many of us who
are
here are having to stand.’

Laura smiled thinly. ‘The seat’s taken.’

Rachel huffed off to rejoin her gaggle of gossips at the back of the hall, muttering furiously about ‘entitlement’ and the ‘bloody Baxters’. Earlier Laura had heard the women bad-mouthing Annabel Wellesley, and had only just restrained herself from giving them a piece of her mind. One of Laura’s New Year’s resolutions was to try to relax more and to pick her battles.

Tonight’s battle was going to be with Gabe.

They’d had a lovely Christmas and New Year. Gabe was clearly making an effort to be more thoughtful and less selfish, and Laura was snapping less. The break in filming meant more sleep and less stress, which had worked wonders for their relationship. But in the last few days, things had started to slide. With Eddie stuck in England, closeted away at his wife’s bedside, Macy had flown to LA alone. But, without a producer, the meetings would be a disaster. She’d called Laura for help.

‘Please come. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need you.’

This, Laura knew, was true. Macy no doubt relished a week in Laura’s company about as much as Laura looked forward to spending that time with Macy. The fact that it was LA, a city Laura loathed with a passion, and that it meant a whole week away from the kids, only made things worse. But there was nothing for it. With enormous reluctance, Laura had agreed to go in Eddie’s stead. But if she was looking for support from Gabe, she didn’t get it.

‘I can’t believe you’re moaning. I’d love to have a week in the California sunshine, hanging out with Macy,’ he said, tactlessly.

‘We won’t be “hanging out”,’ Laura said crossly. ‘And we won’t be sunning ourselves either. It’s work.’

The LA trip meant that Laura suddenly had a hundred and one things to do, not least pack. But as usual when she needed Gabe to take over with the boys, he’d done one of his disappearing acts, swanning up to town for more mysterious ‘meetings’. He’d promised her faithfully he’d be home in plenty of time for tonight’s performance of
Tom Thumb
– Hugh, bless him, was in the title role. But, yet again, he’d broken his word.

‘Excushe me. Shorry. Coming through.’

Right on cue, Gabe arrived at the village hall, making the sort of entrance that only he could. Handsome, dishevelled, grinning and quite obviously the worse for drink, he clattered his way through the rows of metal chairs like the proverbial bull in a china shop.

‘Made it!’ he said proudly, sitting down next to Laura and adding, too loudly, ‘You look sexy,’ as he ran a hand unashamedly up her thigh.

‘Stop it,’ Laura whispered, blushing scarlet. Despite her annoyance, his hand felt wonderful against her skin, warm and rough and just the right amount of possessive. Even drunk and late, he still had the ability to turn her on like a flipped switch. ‘And keep your voice down.’

‘I love you,’ Gabe slurred, only slightly quieter.

‘You’re drunk,’ said Laura. Although it was hard to keep her anger going as he planted kisses on her neck.

The lights went down. A few minutes later Hugh toddled onstage dressed like an acorn with a brown papier-mâché cone on his head and two large green felt leaves sewn onto the back of his T-shirt. Gazing at the audience without a hint of stage fright, he started to sing, his reedy little voice floating through the air like the most fragile of butterflies unfurling its wings.

Gabe welled up. Clasping Laura’s hand he said, ‘I can’t believe how big he is.’

‘Neither can I.’

‘I wish you weren’t going to America.’

‘That makes two of us.’

Laura returned the pressure of his fingers as she stared up lovingly at their son. Marriage to Gabe was like a rollercoaster, even after all these years. Ten minutes ago she’d been furious with him, with every reason. But now she felt nothing but love. Sometimes she resented the way he could flip her emotions like a pancake. She knew that, far too often, it meant he got away with murder. But at the same time it was part of what held them together as a couple, part of their romantic glue. And she didn’t want to go away for a whole week on the back of a row.

Gabe hoped she couldn’t hear his heart pounding. He knew he’d cut it too fine tonight. Laura wouldn’t have forgiven him if she’d missed Hugh’s play, and he wouldn’t have forgiven himself either. But these industry parties were an important part of making the show a success. Laura didn’t want to admit it, but it was true. As
Valley Farm
’s presenter, schmoozing with the network was part of Gabe’s job. Of course, he’d probably have a better chance of convincing Laura of that if he weren’t three sheets to the wind every time he got home …

New Year’s resolution number 104: Drink less.

Leaning into him, Laura hoped Gabe hadn’t done anything stupid up in London while he was drunk. The Wellesleys’ scandals were more than enough for the show to have to deal with right now. In the past, unexpected displays of affection from Gabriel had a nasty tendency to spring from a sense of guilt.

Think positive.
That was one of Laura’s New Year’s resolutions.

Closing her eyes, she allowed the sweet sounds of Hugh’s song to carry her away.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Paul Meyer dripped with sweat beneath the punishing midday sun as he jogged behind his client through Nichols Canyon. It was January, supposedly the depths of winter, but as usual nobody had sent Los Angeles the memo. Today’s temperatures were set to top ninety degrees.

How do people do this for fun?
the legendary agent thought, watching another group of tanned, smiling, lithe-limbed young people bound past him like a flock of Disney-happy gazelles, while his own lungs screamed with pain with every breath. Seriously. He felt like he was inhaling razor blades. And meanwhile Macy Johanssen just kept getting faster.

It must be a Gentile thing
, Paul decided. A scorching canyon in the Hollywood hills was no place for a Jewish man pushing sixty. It was a testament to his affection for Macy, whom he hadn’t seen in a year, that he had let her talk him into it.

‘Stop!’ he called after her, leaning over with his hands on his knees and wheezing like a concertina. ‘I need a break.’

Macy jogged back down the hill. ‘C’mon, Paul. We just started!’ she teased, skipping from foot to foot like an Energizer Bunny on pause.

‘Uh-uh.’ He shook his head. ‘We just finished. I want to talk.’

‘So talk.’

‘To your face, not your ass. Lovely as your ass is,’ he added, still panting.

Once Paul got his breath back, they continued along the path at a leisurely walk. It was a glorious day, hot and clear, with blue-sky views all the way from the mountains to the ocean. Just being back in Nichols Canyon on a day like today made Macy’s heart open and her spirits soar. She knew she’d missed LA, but she hadn’t realized quite how much until this moment. She felt like a mole, emerging into sunlight for the first time, blinking joyously at the warmth and the light and the clear, dry, flower-scented air.