Pitch Imperfect (20 page)

Anjuli shook herself out of her dreamlike state and stepped forward. It was time to say her piece and then she would talk to Rob. Here and now. She extended her hand for the microphone, stopping short when she saw Mac’s expression—cruel, and cold enough to freeze molten lava.

Mac called everybody’s attention and the applause ceased. “I thought long and hard on how to secure the first prize in the Common Riding Ball competition.” She looked at the three officials at the nearest table. “The Best Common Riding Ball judges, along with everybody else in the village, will be delighted to know that the notorious Anjuli Carver has agreed to break her singing silence and delight us with a rendition of our Official Common Riding song, ‘Heaverlock Lads and Lasses’.”

Mac thrust the microphone at Anjuli and she took it reflexively, clutching it to her breast. The unexpected urge to sing had disappeared at the end of Rob’s performance and all Anjuli felt was rising nausea, warning her of an imminent panic attack. Hundreds of faces gazed back at her expectantly, and she knew she had to say something.
Do
something. Councillor Hamish’s smile faded and Mac’s widened. People shifted in their seats. Her dress was too tight and her chest too compressed, strangling her efforts to find a gracious excuse.

Mac raised a brow. “Are you ready?” she asked loudly. “I, for one, would love to hear your voice.”

Anjuli scanned the room, avoiding Rob’s table. She didn’t want to see his face, didn’t want the sight of it to derail what little control she had left. Ash clutched Viking’s arm, shaking her head as if she expected Anjuli to crumple into a heap, break into sobs, or faint.

Pride came to Anjuli’s rescue. And experience. One should never let the audience down, no matter the circumstances. The villagers were mumbling and when she looked at Mac, well, she was enjoying her predicament, expecting her to fall flat on her arse or refuse to sing. Her face practically glowed with delight. She wanted to hurt her, embarrass her, get revenge.

Screw that
. Anjuli tapped the microphone, and the room quietened. She could do this, damn it; she could sing again. Hadn’t she been praised for her ability to delight audiences with husky blues and powerful cantatas? What challenge a simple ballad for a singer of her calibre?

Anjuli nodded at the pianist. “C major, sixteen bar intro.”

The air charged with excitement as the jovial notes of a fast reel filled the room. Anjuli smiled at Ash and tapped her hip to the beat. Staccato in C major with a slur before the coda to the end. Short and sweet. Her stomach roiled and she tried to ignore it, telling herself it didn’t matter if she was out of practice.

She missed her cue.

The pianist began again, slowing slightly when it was time for her to take over the melody. She had to sing four bars before the other instruments joined in. Sixteen simple notes, that’s all. Anjuli opened her mouth but not a sound emerged. She tried again and...nothing. A deep breath as the piano commenced another intro, willing her rusty vocal cords to obey her command. A hoarse, flat sound emerged from her throat, trailed off and stopped.

The pianist stopped and gaped, and the ballroom blurred into a different scene. Village faces mutated into a crowd of strangers at her final performance, in America. Once again she heard the loud applause and the calls for an encore. “More,” they’d cried, applauding as she’d left the stage.

And she hadn’t wanted to disappoint them.

Images of Chloe’s laughing eyes danced tauntingly in front of her, morphing into skewed pictures of her pale, lifeless little body. Decisions...
ifs
and
should haves
and
why didn’ts
...Moments she couldn’t change and would give everything she possessed to live again. She relived the raucous applause of her comeback concert, her joy at being back on tour, singing to her fans. The silence as Chloe was covered in dark, mountain soil, her grief and desperation, and her guilt.

“I’m so sorry,” Anjuli whispered, and dropped the microphone. She couldn’t see people’s faces, couldn’t hear what they were saying or feel anything except the need to escape. Her dress tore as she ran down the stairs to the back exit and out onto the village green. Off went her heels so she could sprint across the dewy grass to Ash’s car.

“Anjuli...Wait!”

Someone was calling her, telling her to stop, and that spurred her to jam her foot on the accelerator, to leave him and the village behind. A black 4X4 followed her all the way home, lights blazing, but she barely registered it until it turned onto the road to Heaverlock Castle. Anjuli tore into Castle Manor and ran into her sitting room, panting and clutching her chest. Seconds later Rob followed, looking just as wild as she felt.

“What the
fuck
is wrong with you? You were driving like a maniac. What happened back there?”

She flung her hands out. “Weren’t you watching?”

“I want you to tell me!”

“And I want you to stop asking!”

They were shouting, and it was exactly what she needed. Over a year of trying to cry and not being able to, of not being able to shout or scream or express how she felt had finally taken its toll, and now she wanted to do all three until her voice could no longer sustain another note.

Rob took a deep, calming breath and closed the distance between them. “What happened to you, lass? Why can’t you sing?”

His voice was tender, compassionate, and the combination was almost too much to bear, draining her of anger and leaving only sorrow. She fixed her gaze on Heaverlock Castle’s sombre silhouette. In the fading light it looked exactly as she felt, bleak and ruined.

“I had a child,” she said, shutting her eyes. “A daughter...Chloe.”

Silence, and then, “Was she Brendan’s?”

“Yes, and I killed her.” Anjuli heard the sharp intake of breath but didn’t turn to look at him.

“Tell me, lass. Tell me everything, starting from when you left me.”

Anjuli stared outside, seeing the past. “My career took off and I was lonely and naive, surrounded by strangers who wanted to make money out of my voice. Busy all the time, and expected to present a certain type of image at performances. Chat shows, promotional tours, whatever, I had to be perfect.

“I missed you so much, but I knew you hated me so I decided to forget you. I should have marched back to Heaverlock and told you that I loved you, that I was miserable in spite of my success. That I regretted what I had done and wanted you back. But I was too proud, too hurt that you never contacted me, although I had no right to be. As time passed I blamed you for my unhappiness, angry that you didn’t love me enough to come after me.”

She smiled bitterly. “And when I came back in March, I was selfish enough to be upset when Mrs. P. told me you’d found someone else so quickly.” At his confounded expression, she held up her hand. “I would have found out anyway, and it’s okay. Really. Not my place to be upset. Or jealous.”

Rob frowned. “I need to tell you—”

“No! You don’t owe me explanations. I threw away your love and that’s all there is to it. You were bound to find somebody else, sooner or later.”

“Like you did?”

His gaze was steady, and though she found no anger or jealousy in his eyes, she was acutely aware that he didn’t want to hear her say yes. “When I met Brendan we became friends, bumping into each other at charity concerts and award ceremonies. One of these was on my birthday, and I was so damned tired of feeling exhausted, of having to pretend my life was wonderful when it wasn’t. Brendan comforted me and well...it only happened the one time. He was lonely too.”

A small muscle moved in Rob’s jaw but he didn’t speak.

“When I discovered I was pregnant I was over the moon. Finally, I was going to have somebody to love, somebody just for me. Selfish, I know. Brendan’s lawyer suggested we get married for tax reasons, but we never lived together. We didn’t love each other and I didn’t care that he continued his life the same as before. He played his gigs and I prepared for the baby. The gossip mags had a field day, making up stories about me while I secreted myself away in the French Alps.”

Rob let out a slow breath. “That’s why you disappeared for so long.”

“Chloe was everything a mother could dream of. She had the most gorgeous smile you’ve ever seen and when she laughed it was like the sound of sunshine. I used to hold her little body right here,” she said, placing her palm under her breast. “She would fall asleep in my arms while I sang to her, nestling into me like a little bird.”

Rob looked at her intently. “But it wasn’t enough.”

Anjuli shut her eyes against the pain. “I loved her, but I missed performing and sometimes I felt trapped by motherhood. How awful is that? I was bored being a stay-at-hideout-in-France mother. My agent phoned one day and suggested a comeback tour in America and I agreed. The road is no place for an eight-month-old baby so I hired a nanny. I thought nothing could go wrong in four weeks. Blandine was highly qualified, from a local agency, with excellent references. After she’d been with us for two weeks I went on tour.” The next words came out in a whisper. “Chloe was asleep when I kissed her goodbye.”

Rob looked as if he would say something, but mercifully, he didn’t. One word, one touch, one look and she wouldn’t be able to continue, and she had to. She needed to make him understand what kind of person she was.

“I sang all across America, L.A., Vegas, Houston, New Orleans and finally, New York. I was so happy to be singing again, I was walking on a cloud. But as the weeks passed I missed Chloe so much it hurt. I realised that I wanted to sing, but not if it meant being without her. We would find a way to make it work. A lot of other celebrities kept their families safe from prying eyes while they worked, and so would I.

“The last concert was at Carnegie Hall, and it was jam-packed. I phoned home while my supporting act played a set and Blandine told me that Chloe was feverish. I didn’t worry too much. She was teething and often had little fevers because of it. I told her to give Chloe a spoonful of Calpol and put her to bed. At the end of the performance I was going to phone and check on her. But then they asked me for encore after encore. For my final song I gave them ‘The Heart Loves But One,’ my biggest hit, and the crowd went wild. Nobody knew that I sang for Chloe.”

Anjuli looked out at barely visible moors, dark mounds in the distance. “She died while I was singing. The fever had made her fractious and she must have turned and got tangled in her bedding. She...she suffocated to death.”

Tears streamed down Anjuli’s face but she didn’t notice, seeing instead the backstage dressing room and hearing Blandine’s hysterical voice, telling her that Chloe wouldn’t wake up, that the ambulance had come but she wasn’t responding. That she was dead.

“If I had phoned like I was supposed to Blandine would have checked on her earlier and Chloe would be alive. I made a terrible, selfish mistake and Chloe paid for it with her life. That’s why I’ll never be able to sing again. Why I can’t—” She hugged her arms and shuddered.

Rob had come to a stand behind her, his heat against her shivering back. Gently, he turned her around and cupped her chin with a firm, warm hand. “When Jamie died I blamed myself. His passing screwed with Ben’s head even more and yet we’re no’ the ones bought him drugs. We’re the ones who didn’t notice we were losing him, the ones who didn’t act when we should have. And now we can’t change the fact that he’s gone. That’s something I’ll take to my grave.”

He pressed his lips to her forehead. “But you couldn’t have predicted what happened that night and that’s the truth. You may have been told this before and I don’t give a damn if you have. I’m telling you now and you’re going to listen, lass, because I would never lie to you.”

Anjuli stared at him, half defiant, half hopeful. “You don’t know how it feels...”

“Aye, but I know one thing. Even if you had phoned your nanny the same thing would have happened, three, ten, twenty minutes later. On tour or not. Had you been home would you have spent the entire night, watching your daughter sleep?”

“I would have been there and—”

“And you would have been asleep, too. Or hadn’t you slept through her fractious nights before?”

“Yes,” she said slowly. “But I could have prevented what happened. I might have—”

“Fuck, Anjuli, are you omniscient? If so, then thanks for warning me about Jamie.” He gave her shoulders a tiny shake. “Who’s going to die tonight because you haven’t phoned? Ash, maybe? Or Mrs. Wilson? She’s been ticking along for years, outliving all her GPs. I understand your father’s triple bypass last year went well, but you’d better get on that phone just in case.”

His logic scouted at the edges of Anjuli’s mind, looking for a crack in its perimeter, one second advancing, the next retreating.

Rob rubbed his hands down her arms. “You should have told me in London.”

Anjuli trembled, seeing again that cold, bittersweet night. “When you walked into the bar I wanted to turn back the clock. The only times I’ve ever been happy are with you and then with Chloe.” She pounded her hands on his chest. “But I can’t change the past and I can’t have her back.”

Rob caught her hands and pressed them together. “No, lass, you can’t, but you can still be happy, and I’m going to make sure that you are.”

Deep breaths and deflect the trigger.
She wrenched away from Rob and he pulled her back, wrapping his arms around her torso.

Her body shook violently. “I can’t do this.”

“You can. I won’t let you go.”

That bittersweet promise again. Anjuli dug her nails into Rob’s arms. Didn’t he see she was close to the edge, that she had to jump back before she fell? She tried to break free, couldn’t, and slapped him, making vicious contact with his cheek. He remained immobile, holding her tightly.

“Do your worst,” he challenged.

She should have been horrified at her behaviour, apologetic, but instead she pummelled his chest with her fists, fighting against his hold as she fought against her grief. Impossible, in the end, to conquer either. Tears streamed from her eyes, saltiness burning her skin like acid. She didn’t want to cry, damn it. She wanted to hit something. Hit
him
, crack her fist against his jaw, because he was making her face her sorrow. Anjuli drew her fist back and Rob braced himself.