Katy Carter Wants a Hero (43 page)

‘Gabriel!’ I hiss, shoving him away. ‘Are you insane? How can we possibly be engaged? We’re breaking up on Monday, remember?’

Gabriel tosses his golden mane, beaming toothily at a photographer. ‘Sorry, but I’m sure Angela Andrews is on to something. She’s been making peculiar comments all evening. I didn’t think you’d mind. We might have to postpone the break-up.’

‘Well I do mind. And there’s no way we’re carrying this farce on.’ I try to shake his arm off my shoulder. ‘Sod Monday. I’m ending this arrangement right now.’

‘You can’t!’ Gabriel snarls, dragging me into a corner and pinning me under his arm, so that it appears to all and sundry that we’re kissing. I can’t see Ollie but I can feel his gaze burning into my back. ‘You’ll make me look a fool.’

‘Do you know what?’ I shoot a glance at Frankie, standing alone at the foot of the stairs, his pale face a perfect study in despair. ‘I think you’re making a pretty good job of that yourself.’

I crane my neck, and sure enough, Ollie’s watching this unfolding scene in disbelief. He mouths, ‘Congratulations, ’ before turning swiftly on his heel.

‘Frankie knows the score,’ says Gabriel. ‘And so do you. You agreed to this. One more weekend, you said.’

‘I never agreed to getting engaged. Get your hands off me!’ I try to shove his arm away but it’s clamped on to my shoulder like a vice. ‘Our agreement’s over.’

‘It bloody well isn’t.’ Gabriel’s fingers increase their grip. ‘Not yet, anyway.’

Across the crowds in the hallway I watch Ollie’s head as it bobs towards the door. I can’t let him leave!

‘Let go of my arm!’ I raise my voice, but nobody can hear above the din of the Queens. ‘Get off me! I mean it, Gabriel. Our arrangement’s over.’

‘I’ve paid you until the end of the weekend,’ he snarls, ‘so do your job and smile; that’s
OK
! magazine’s photographer over there.’

‘Sod
OK
!. You can have every penny back. Get off me, Gabriel, I’m serious. I won’t let you do this to Frankie or to me any more.’ I twist and turn but I can’t shake him off; for such a pretty boy he’s got an amazingly strong grip. All those hours in the gym must have been good for something. ‘I want to be with Ollie. He loves me and I love him and no money you can throw at me will change that. I’m leaving with him.’

‘You’re not! Not now, with Angela Andrews watching. I won’t let you screw my career up just for some whim.’

‘Ollie’s not a whim!’ I’m yelling now. ‘I love him! I always have!’

Teaching for seven years has given me a shout that could compete decibel for decibel with the Space Shuttle taking off. Heads swivel and suddenly we’re the subject of intense interest. Gabriel pales, but his grip doesn’t slacken. ‘I’m begging you, Katy. Just one more hour. Please!’

Frankie pushes through the guests. ‘For God’s sake, Gabriel, have you gone mad? What are you doing to her?’

Gabriel’s eyes are the cold blue of Glacier Mints. ‘She only wants to ruin everything by running off with your bloody cousin. She promised she’d give us this final weekend, and now she wants to go back on our agreement.’

‘If I don’t catch Ollie up he’ll leave thinking I’ve chosen Gabriel,’ I half sob to Frankie. ‘I can’t lose him again.’

‘Let her go to him, Gabe,’ says Frankie, trying to prise those pincer-like fingers from my bicep. ‘They’re meant for one another.’

‘She’ll ruin everything I’ve worked for,’ Gabriel spits. ‘I can’t risk it.’

‘Gabe, this isn’t about you any more,’ Frankie points out gently. ‘Not everything is, you know.’

But Gabriel doesn’t look convinced.

‘Darlings!’ Jewell rushes over, hand on her heart and face pale. ‘Please don’t fight! This is supposed to be a happy occasion.’

‘Well it isn’t!’ I kick Gabriel on the shin and he winces because my tart boot has a very pointy toe. ‘I love Ollie, Gabriel. I can’t let him leave thinking I’m with you.’

The idea is unbearable. Ollie is somewhere outside in the darkness thinking… well, whatever he’s thinking doesn’t bear contemplating. Suffice it to say that I don’t think I’ll come out of it looking much like Mother Teresa.

More like a two-timing harpy.

‘I’ve got to sit down!’ gasps Jewell, staggering backwards and collapsing into a chair. ‘I must have had too many champagne cocktails.’

‘Let Katy go to Ollie,’ Frankie orders Gabriel. ‘You don’t need to pretend any more. You can be a single man again because I’m leaving you. All this deception’s turning you into a monster; you’re not the person I thought you were. It’s over.’

Gabriel releases me so abruptly that I stumble and cannon into Jewell’s chair. Amazingly she appears to have fallen asleep right in the middle of all this kerfuffle, her chin resting on her chest and her feathers drooping. One knotted old hand hangs limply over the arm of the chair. A brindled terrier, one of Jewell’s many dogs, trots over and paws at her lap. Over and over and over he claws at her leg, desperate for attention, until her head tips forward and the feathered headdress slithers on to the floor. Jewell, normally vain, doesn’t even stir, not even with the cool air blowing against the thin tufts of hair on her scalp.

‘Auntie?’ I say, softly at first, and then a bit louder. ‘Auntie?’ I give her a little shake but there’s no response.

The dog stops pawing Jewell and, abruptly throwing back its head, begins to howl; loud, heart-wrenching howls that rip through the champagne-fuelled chatter. It’s the most chilling and primeval sound, speaking of distances, wide-open spaces and utter, utter unbearable loneliness.

Oh my God. What have Gabriel and I done?

Guy, trained in first aid, firefighting and goodness knows what other health and safety stuff, is quickly at Jewell’s side. With a tenderness far removed from his usual brisk manner, he takes her frail wrist in his large hand and gently touches her neck. I don’t need to see the way he shakes his head to know what has happened.

Ripples of mingled horror and morbid excitement spread around the room like a mill pond disturbed by a pebble. People gasp and murmur, and someone starts to wail.

My knees turn to water. I couldn’t run after Ollie even if I tried. I’m frozen with disbelief and time seems to go into slow motion.

My mouth’s so dry I can’t speak.

Unfortunately James doesn’t feel the same. He pauses by my side and looks at poor Jewell. Then he murmurs into my ear, so quietly that only I can hear, ‘It looks as though your collateral has just gone seriously up.’

I stand trembling in a room that feels emptier by the second and stare in disbelief at Jewell lying in Guy’s arms.

Outside in the street a car door slams and an elderly engine splutters. It roars into life, loud and throaty at first before growing fainter and fainter.

It’s over. Ollie’s driving away, into the distance and out of my life, because he thinks I’ve chosen Gabriel.

Jewell’s house might be crowded, but I’ve never felt as alone in my life as I do right now.

Normally I love autumn; it means snuggling up in front of huge fires, making vats of jam from hedgerow blackberries, new pencil cases for school and the relief of being able to hide my squidgy bits under baggy jumpers. I’ve always loved the smell of bonfires and the grey misty mornings and looked forward to stomping through heaps of russet leaves in my new winter boots. But not this year. It may only be early September but I can’t help but feel that everything is tinged with melancholy. From the drifting leaves and blue wood smoke to the ploughed fields it all just seems so sad, season of mist and mellow fruitfulness and all that gloomy stuff.

It’s late morning in Tregowan and I’m sitting outside the rectory, my hands wrapped around a chunky mug, watching the village below me. The sun is a blood orange in the pewter sky, the air has a nip in it that wasn’t there before and the seagulls huddle together on the rooftops. It’s a dismal day, which is fine by me because I’m in a dismal mood.

Jewell’s funeral takes place at two o’clock. I don’t think I could bear it if the weather was all sparkly and sunny — that wouldn’t be right when it feels like all the glitter and fizz has been sucked out of my life. I want to be like King Lear in his howling storm or like Catherine Earnshaw running into the rain and dying for love.

I want the whole world to mourn.

I take deep lungfuls of cold air and turn my face towards the pallid sun, watching clouds of my breath rise heavenwards. I wonder if they will eventually drift past Jewell. Will she recognise them if they do?

How weird death is. How can somebody be there one moment and then gone the next? Where does that vital part of a person, the bit that makes you
you
, go to? I’m trying to be logical about this but I’m finding it increasingly difficult. I mean, who do I listen to? Richard would have me believe Jewell’s floating around with a harp somewhere, Mum’s convinced that she’s been reincarnated and Frankie says life is nothing but a simple chemical reaction. Who’s right? Is there really a pattern to it all? Is it like a tapestry and I’m just confused because I’m looking at the back, with all the tangled threads and knots, rather than the overall pattern?

Trouble is, I’m crap at sewing.

I take a sip of coffee but it tastes of nothing. Just like the plates of food that Mads has forced me to eat. It’s like all the colours and all the pleasures have bled away. I’ve lost the two people I love the most within moments of one another and my world is a dark and grey place without them.

It’s six days on from Jewell’s party and I’m still reeling with shock. Everything’s a bit hazy and events have taken on a rather dreamlike quality. From the magical moments out in the garden with Ollie to James’s threats and Gabriel’s stupid proposal, everything seems unreal.

Except that James’s threats are totally real. They keep popping up on my phone like evil mushrooms. He’s convinced that Jewell’s left me everything, and unless I pay quickly he’s going straight to the press. Gabriel may not be my favourite person on the planet but I’m not inclined to wreck his career just yet. Some of that karma stuff that my parents are always on about has rubbed off on me by osmosis, which is a bit scary. When I start cooking lentil casseroles I’ll know I’m in trouble.

I delve deep into the pocket of my patchwork coat and pluck out a tissue. It’s all screwed up and in danger of disintegrating at any minute. A bit like me, in fact.

I dab my eyes and remind myself that Jewell wouldn’t approve of tears. She mopped enough of mine up over the years, that’s for sure, and I wish she was here now because I really need to talk to her. Ollie’s vanished and there’s no way of contacting him. I texted him until my finger was numb before I remembered that Nina has his mobile. He’s somewhere far, far away, all alone and thinking that I chose money and success over his love for me. I can’t bear it. Every time I go to bed and close my eyes, Jewell’s party plays over and over again in my mind’s eye like some hideous movie. I see myself running out into the street, minutes too late, where there’s only a patch of oil and the faint smell of exhaust to prove Ollie’s camper van was ever there. I feel again the tarmac under my knees and wake with tears running down my face. At this rate I’ll have to buy shares in Kleenex.

Nobody knows where Ollie has gone, but I should imagine that it will be as far away from me as possible.

To the world I’m still Gabriel’s girlfriend, but as soon as I’ve figured out what to do about James, I’ll be sorting that one out. Actually, Gabriel has undergone something of a personality transformation these last few days. I guess he’s blaming himself. He hasn’t given any interviews and even cancelled his appearance on
Jonathan Ross
. He’s spent a lot of time closeted with Seb too, so something must be up…

Frankie, bless him, has stuck by what he said to Gabriel. No more lies and no more pretending. He’s ignoring Gabriel’s calls, of which there are about ten an hour, and immersing himself in writing mournful songs.

At least I assume they’re mournful. Listening to them certainly makes me miserable.

He’s desperately unhappy and has spent the past six days in Maddy’s spare bedroom, only coming out to shower or make a drink. All his camp inflections and bitchy comments have gone and instead he drifts around the cottage like a tear-stained shadow of his former self. He hasn’t nicked my make-up for days. He must really love Gabriel.

I can’t indulge my own broken heart when there’s a funeral to sort out and Frankie to look after. Besides, poor Mads doesn’t have an infinite amount of sympathy and Earl Grey, so I save my tears for late at night when everyone else is tucked up in bed. Then I can think about Ollie while the tears roll down my cheeks and on to the pillow. The sea licks the sand and whispers to the rocks and eventually lulls me into sleep, where I dream restless, uneasy dreams. I can’t even turn to my writing for comfort because bloody Seb nicked my manuscript and I haven’t the heart to write anything new.

I’m kind of off romance anyway, if I’m honest.

Once the guests left Jewell’s party, Guy gathered her poor little body into his arms and carried her gently up to her bedroom. Telephone calls were made, the doctor visited and then an ambulance. The mechanics of death swung neatly into operation while I sat shivering in a Lloyd Loom chair, holding a brandy in one hand and Jewell’s cooling fingers, the skin papery thin and embroidered with blue veins, in the other.

In the peace of Jewell’s room, all pretences were dropped. Guy smoked out of the window, Gabriel and Frankie huddled close together, their earlier row forgotten, and my parents skinned up. The other guests drifted home and from downstairs there was only the chink of plates being collected and scraped as the caterers packed away.

In the gloom of the bedroom a tasselled lamp soothed the bedside a little. The dogs came and lay outside the door, heads drooping sadly on their paws and eyes big with sorrow. Richard Lomax talked to undertakers and murmured prayers, which made me smile in spite of myself. Jewell would have adored to have prayers uttered for her by Ozzy Osbourne.

‘This is my fault,’ Gabriel said, his face white with shock. ‘I upset her. I get so carried away, so obsessed…’