Cold Comfort (29 page)

“I swear to you, Delilah, on my life, on my
mother’s life, I wanted nothing more than to love you.”

“Love me? What about Clarissa? And whoever
else. All those times you couldn’t come to the UK for the summer, but you could
hang out with her… and the others. I remember the sorts of things people got up
to at those parties. You asked me to wait for you, and I did. Turned out waiting
was a one-way thing.”

“Delilah, if I could change anything it
would be some of those choices I made then. I was so stupid. Young and stupid. I
risked the one thing I really cared about for some instant gratification. I won’t
make excuses for what I did, but I never had full intercourse with another
woman in the time we were together. In my head that meant I was faithful to
you.”

“Not in mine,” I said, letting him see
exactly how hurt I was.

“I realise that now. Jesus, I wish I could
change things. When I got back and you’d left… I… Jesus, I thought I would
never be able to breathe again. I spent weeks looking for you.”

“Weeks?”

“I found you quite quickly. I was very
determined.”

“But you didn’t contact me until recently? Why?”

“I wanted to make sure you were okay. I
nearly stepped in when you struggled to find somewhere to live, but then you
met Eddy and I could see you were okay… happy. I thought you deserved some time
to heal. I would have left you alone for longer, but then I saw you with
him
,
and I couldn’t let that happen.” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Delilah,
but he’s not good enough for you. He’s a serial womaniser and does drugs. You
deserve so much more.”

“Pot meet kettle. I hardly think you’re in
a position to judge the quality of my relationship based on those criteria. I’d
like you to take me home, please,” I said, draining my cup. He was right. It
was good coffee.

“Of course.” He stood and escorted me back
to the car, holding the door until I was seated. I pulled out my phone. There
were another seven missed calls that had come in during the time I’d had the coffee,
plus a text. All from Cat. I opened the text.
You’re with him at his house? Seriously?
What the fuck?
I closed the phone, feeling my heart thump in my chest.

“Everything okay?” Hardy asked, looking
over at me, concerned.

“No, not really,” I said with a sigh.

“If you need me, Delilah, you know I’m here,
right? I mean I know we aren’t together right now, but I’ve never stopped
loving you. I’ve loved you since I was ten. I can’t see that ever changing.”

“I love you too,” I said, acknowledging the
feelings my heart still held. “But I don’t trust you any more. You hurt me too
much. The lies damaged whatever we had, and I can’t see a way past that.”

“I know… I know,” he whispered. He looked
devastated and stayed that way for the duration of the journey. We didn’t speak
again. There was nothing much left to say.

He pulled into the hotel and stopped in
front of the doors, jumping out to run round and open my own door. “Who’s the
guy, Delilah?” a photographer asked, getting right in our faces. Hardy moved in
front of me and ploughed a path forward until we were inside the hotel.

“Thank you,” I said, turning to face him.

“Anytime, Delilah. Whatever you need. Just
… anything.” He leant forward and kissed me gently on the forehead. I turned
quickly and fled towards the lifts before my traitorous heart could make me do
something I’d regret. I knew he’d stood and watched me until the doors on the
elevator closed behind me. I couldn’t look at him again.

Part of me wanted to run back to my room
and hide like the proverbial ostrich, but I knew that would only delay the
inevitable. It was time to bite the bullet and face Cat. I headed straight for
his suite, knocking sharply on the door until someone opened it. It was Henry,
looking smug. “Look who it is,” he said with a grin. “He’s in there,” he said,
nodding towards the bedroom. I marched past him and opened the door.

Cat was reclining on the bed naked. Tiff
was between his legs giving him head, equally naked. He barely looked up as I
walked in. I picked up the nearest thing to hand and threw it at them. It was
one of his size-eleven boots, and it got their attention. “Delilah,” Cat said,
jumping up, oblivious to his nakedness. “You’re here. They said you went to
him, but you’re here… you came back to me.” He pushed Tiff away from him when
she tried to grab hold of his arm. She was pissed at first, scowling up at me
from where she reclined on the bed, before purring to Cat;

“Baby, come back to bed and fuck me again. I
need more of your loving.”

I felt my heart splinter for the second
time in my life. “Was it all bullshit, Cat? Everything you said?” I asked, hurt
and disappointed with the speed at which he’d fallen back into this life. He
stood in front of me, still naked, trying to pull me into his arms. “You have
to be joking!” I screamed, upset turning to anger. “You think I’d want you
after this?” I said, pointing at the state of him, and her. “I want no part of
this. I might not have much, but I have enough pride to not allow anyone to
treat me like this. I believed you when you said you wanted to make this work. I
believed you really cared about me. And you do this to me? Enough. I’ve had
enough.” I spun on my heel and careened into Henry.

“Leaving already?” He laughed in my face.

“You’re toxic,” I hissed at him. “You have
lost the ability to care about anything but yourself. Someone once dared to
hurt you, so now you can’t stand to see anyone else happy, and when you do see
it you have to destroy it, just to make sure they feel as shit as you do. Well,
congratulations. Job done. The trouble is you’re going to grow old alone, Henry.
All of this…,” I said, pointing around me at the suite, “it doesn’t last. There’ll
be another band that everyone loves more than you at some point soon, and you’ll
fade into being just another has-been rock star. And then all you’ll have left
is a world of people who only want to be with you for your money, or what they
think you can do for them. Users. No one will actually care about you. Because
no one would want to care about what you’ve become – the piece of shit you
are now. And that’s bad enough, but do you know what’s worse?” He blinked at me
as if to say something, but I carried on before he could answer. “Not happy just
to destroy your own life, you have to bring him down with you,” I said,
pointing at Cat over my shoulder. “Destroy him with your drugs, so you can reduce
him to the same level of pond scum you aspire to be. Well, I hope you’re happy.
You have to carry that on your conscience, and I hope it keeps you awake at
night as he slowly destroys himself because of you. ” I slow-clapped him. “Good
job,” I said. “I hope you both rot in this self-inflicted hell you’ve created.”
Then I walked past his silent form and slammed the door behind me.

I made it back to my room, somehow found my
key, and walked inside. Eddy was there. Eddy had always been there for me ever
since I’d met him. Loyal, supportive. My only friend. And as always I collapsed
into his waiting arms. “I want to go home,” I cried.

The fallout from my hospital trip had been
horrific. I’d been bombarded by press, in part because a YouTube video of me
singing had been posted and had already been viewed nearly a million times. Then
after that they hounded me because news had leaked about my fight with Cat at
the hotel. Tiff had made the most of her fifteen minutes of fame, participating
in a full newspaper spread, complete with pictures of her in her underwear,
where she described at length how I had walked in on her and Cat in flagrante. She
conveniently left out the part about the drugs.

I hadn’t spoken to Cat in person since that
day, although the papers had been filled since with stories about the stream of
women he was connected to – and the drugs he was accused of habitually
using now. He was painted as flaky and unreliable, a junkie. The most awkward
point had been when I’d received a call a few days after things had unravelled,
telling me we needed to make a video for the single. I’d flat-out refused to
participate at first, but then was reminded that I was contractually obliged. In
the end we’d got around any difficulties by filming Cat and me in different
locations, on different balconies in different parts of the world, singing to
one another while apart. It worked with the lyrics of the song, and the
finished piece was heartbreakingly lovely.

A few weeks ago the shit seemed to have hit
the fan, and after a particularly vivid run of stories that I couldn’t seem to
help myself reading about, describing a man who’d gone completely off the
rails, rumours of overdose and hospital, I’d read that he’d admitted himself to
a rehab unit. But it was hard to know what was fact and what was fiction.

Eddy and I had returned almost immediately to
Brighton. How I would have coped without him I had no idea in retrospect. I may
have been physically present, but emotionally I was lost. When I walked into our
apartment that day I felt safe for the first time in what felt like an age. The
feeling was so overwhelming I burst into tears. Eddy had, as ever, held me and
comforted me. He had been my rock at a time when I was completely at sea
emotionally. Even a visit from my Mama hadn’t mended my heart completely.

In the meantime I hadn’t heard anything
from Hardy, but I knew he was there, watching. I sensed him sometimes. I think
Eddy thought I was going mad, or having a breakdown of some sort, but I knew Hardy
was waiting for me to call him, looking out for me. There were days I came
really close to calling, but something always stopped me.

My return to college, much anticipated as a
way to move on with my life, was a bit of a disaster in the end. When I turned
up on the first day of term I was met with a bank of press. They followed me
around the campus, taking photos, interviewing people who claimed to know me
and trying to get into lectures. Photos of me appeared everywhere. If it wasn’t
the paparazzi taking pictures, it was students who then sold them to the
tabloids. I felt like a goldfish. It reached a real low when Robbie sold his
story about the time we’d spent together. If it hadn’t been so embarrassing
seeing it all splashed over the papers like a bad romance novel – the events
certainly bore no resemblance to reality – it would have been funny.

Eventually the college called me in and
said that my presence was too disruptive and that they needed to consider the
needs of all their students. They asked me to take a sabbatical. I think the dean
and I both knew I wouldn’t be going back. So I watched my dreams crumble. On
the very same day when I arrived back at the apartment my first royalty check
for the single was waiting for me. The song had been number one in forty-two
countries and was still in the top ten in the UK and the US. Judging by the number
of zeros on the cheque I was going to be okay financially for a while.

That was how I’d reached this point, in the
apartment with Eddy, holding the business card from Bill Morrison. Since I’d left
university I’d locked myself away and used my time to immerse myself in music –
just like I had when I was little and teaching myself to play guitar. This time
I was composing. Some good must have come out of everything I had experienced,
because at my last count I figured I had at least an album’s worth of songs now.
Possibly two. I just couldn’t seem to decide if I should make the call to Morrison
or not.

“What have you got to lose?” Eddy asked
from his place beside me. He’d sacrificed a lot to be my friend. He barely saw
or spoke to Matt now, still too angry at how complicit he had been in the
events that had led up to the end. He described him as an enabler. I felt bad
about that, promising myself that one day soon I’d mend that bridge for him. From
where I was sitting Matt wasn’t the bad guy. He just got caught up in the
crossfire.

“Fuck it,” I said, pressing the numbers
into my phone and then listening as it started to ring. A man’s voice answered
after only a couple of seconds.

“Bill Morrison.”

“Mr Morrison, I’m not sure if you remember
me. You gave me your card a while back.”

“Delilah? Is that you?”

“Yes, it is,” I said, surprised at the
instant recognition. “Um, I wondered if you would be free to have a coffee
sometime. I’ve written some tracks for an album I was thinking about putting
together, and I wanted to get an opinion on them before I recorded anything. Um…
You mentioned you might be interested in being my manager…” I trailed off,
uncertain what to say next.

“Yes to the coffee, and yes to being your
manager. Yes, Delilah. I’m delighted. I was praying you’d call me when you were
ready. I’m genuinely sorry for everything you’ve been put through. I think you’ve
been amazingly dignified about it all.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, tears
threatening.

“I’m going to help you, Delilah. We’re
going to do it your way, with authenticity, so you can feel proud of what you’ve
achieved, but I have to warn you… I am going to make you a star, because you
deserve it. I saw the YouTube video of that single you performed at the
hospital. Amazing. If any of the rest are half as good as that, well…” He
continued on for another ten minutes, insisting we meet as soon as it was
physically possible so we could start putting plans into place.

I put my thumb up to Eddy, my eyes full of
tears as I listened to Bill tell me what he was going to do for my career and
felt the bud of excitement grow within me. Eddy smiled and reached for my hand,
squeezing it. With him by my side I could do it.

I was going to be okay. For now.

The End