Second Chance (27 page)

Saffron has spent a horrified couple of days holed up in a hotel – whisked there by Pearce’s manager as soon as the news broke – flicking through every TV station, feeling more and more sick as she hears what they are saying.

A lot of it is false. She froze in horror when one of the entertainment shows had as their guest that bitch Alex from the meeting, introduced as a ‘close friend’ of the couple. The more she listened to Alex, the more she suspected that she was the one who gave the story away.

But enough of it is true. Enough of it makes her shrink with horror at the people coming out of the
closet to talk about her, to give their opinions, to share some minor piece of information about Saffron that she hasn’t thought about for years.

Her parents have offered her refuge at their house, but given that they too are surrounded by the press, as is her flat, there seems to be little point. Nowhere feels safe. Never has she felt so exposed. The only thing she wants to do is bury her head under the ground and come out when it has all been forgotten.

Pearce rings and says, ‘I love you. And it will all be fine. This will pass.’

‘Are you saying anything?’

‘Nope. My managers have advised me to keep quiet. Marjie and I are doing this ridiculous fake romantic dinner tonight to try to calm things down.’ Saffron feels her heart sink as he says this – the last thing she expected was for him to pretend to the world that everything was normal, that Saffron didn’t matter, that his marriage was far stronger than the public now believed.

‘Are you okay?’ Pearce can tell from her silence that she is not.

Saffron takes a deep breath. This is what she’s learnt in recovery. Not to say I’m fine, I’m fine. But to explain how she feels. Clearly and kindly.

Say what you mean, mean what you say, don’t say it mean
.

It’s still hard, though. Even after all these years, it’s still so hard to tell someone how she really feels, especially someone she loves. The fear has always been, still is, that they won’t like her. That somehow she will end up being abandoned for expressing her needs.

‘To be honest,’ she says quietly, ‘I’m hurt that you’re telling the world that you and Marjie are fine. I feel…’ She stops to think about how she does feel. ‘Well, apart from feeling frightened and overwhelmed and upset, I feel completely irrelevant in your eyes.’

Pearce sighs. ‘I’m so sorry, Saff. I never want you to feel that way, and it has never been my intention to hurt you.’

Saffron lets out a bitter laugh. ‘Even though this is such an awful thing to happen, there’s a part of me that thinks this will allow you to leave and be with me.’

There’s a long silence. ‘Saff,’ Pearce says eventually, ‘I do want to be with you. More than anything in the world. I also have my career to think of, and my life. I believe you and I will be together, but my managers say there will be nothing more destructive than me leaving Marjie now to be with you.’

Saffron forces her voice to stay calm, light, unemotional. ‘So where does that leave us?’

‘The same place we’ve always been. I love you and I want to be with you, but you need patience, my darling. The one thing I’m certain of is that we can’t be seen together until all this blows over.’

Saffron pouts in silence. He’s right. Of course he’s right. It’s just not what she wants to hear.

‘So how is Marjie taking it?’ she asks finally, curiosity getting the better of her.

‘She couldn’t care less about you and me, but she feels she’s been publicly humiliated, and she’s pretty damn furious about that.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Saffron says sadly.

‘So am I. But I’m most sorry I can’t be with you now, making you feel better. Did someone from my management team talk to you about England?’

‘Yes. They’re putting me on a plane in the morning and I’m going to hole up there for a bit until it dies down. Mum and Dad have been besieged by the press, but I just left messages for old friends. Hopefully one of them will come through.’

‘Just make sure you stay in touch and let me know where you are. I’ll call you later, my darling, and remember: whatever happens, I love you.’

‘Saffron? Are you okay? We’ve left messages, we tried to call. We just read… Well, we were a little bit worried about you.’ Anna bites her tongue quickly, stunned to have picked up the phone to find Saffron on the other end.

‘I’m sort of okay, if being holed up at the Beverly Hills Hotel with bloody bodyguards outside the door while millions of press try to break into my room by pretending to be room service, counts as okay. It’s pretty fucking horrific, that much I will say.’

‘Oh you poor thing. And you must want to speak to Paul, but he has gone out and he has left his mobile behind. I can get him to call as soon as he is home.’

‘So are there no press outside your house?’

Anna snorts with laughter. ‘No! Should there be?’

‘They’ve managed to infiltrate pretty much everyone else. Look, Anna, I know you and I don’t know each other, but I’m desperate for somewhere quiet to stay until this blows over. Is there any chance I could come
and stay with you and Paul? I know it’s a huge imposition, and I promise I wouldn’t ask unless I was completely desperate, but I don’t know where else to go.’

‘Of course you can come and stay. As it happens, you could even stay in the country if you wanted some serious peace and quiet. We have got an old barn we are doing up in the middle of nowhere in Gloucestershire, which would be much better for you, although at the moment it is a bit of a dump. We are just starting to do it up, but at least there is now a nice bathroom. If you stayed with us here, the press would find you very quickly – north London is not exactly the easiest place to hide, but Gloucestershire, I think, would be perfect.’

‘Oh Anna! I don’t know you but I love you already. Thank you, thank you, thank you!’

‘So when are you coming?’

Now it’s Saffron’s turn to sound sheepish. ‘Actually I’m hiding in the first-class lounge at LAX about to get on a flight.’

‘You mean you were flying over here with nowhere to stay?’

‘I didn’t know what else to do.’

‘Well, of course you are welcome here! Do you need anyone to pick you up from the airport?’

‘No. Pearce has organized a driver. Should I go straight down to the country? I just feel a bit weird about going somewhere I’ve never been before, by myself.’

‘You know, you will be fine. We will take you down there to start you off, show you where everything is, and you will be perfect. I am sure long walks in the
country and roaring log fires will do you the world of good.’

‘You have roaring log fires?’

‘Ah. Well. No, actually. Not until we get someone up to check the flue, but he swears blind that that will be within the next couple of days. But they do at the pub at the end of the road, and there is no better place to curl up with a good book. No one will bother you there, and we will come down at the weekend, if you would like, come and bring you bottles of wine and delicious food.’

‘No wine for me, thanks,’ Saffron says, knowing that at some point she will have to explain. She always does, but not yet. ‘But if you wouldn’t mind coming down with me that would be lovely.’

‘Oh by the way,’ Anna says slowly, ‘how do you feel about sleeping bags and floors?’

‘It doesn’t look like I have much of a choice.’ Saffron laughs. ‘I’ll pick up one of those inflatable mattresses on the way.’ And promising to call as soon as she lands, she puts the phone down.

The first-class lounge is quiet, but, even with few people there, Saffron is aware that everyone is staring at her. The staff have been whispering non-stop behind the bar, shooting surreptitious glances over at her, and free newspapers are scattered around for everyone to read the latest instalment.

She supposes a part of her ought to be grateful. Who was it said there’s no such thing as bad publicity? But being famous has never been her motivation. Acting,
for Saffron, is a craft, and the only reason she would want to be famous would be to get better roles in movies. This sort of publicity is not what she has ever wanted although she knows there are many – Alex, for one – who would kill for this kind of attention, however badly they may come across.

For that is what is so hard. Nobody is reading about the wonderful love story that Saffron has with Pearce. They are painting Saffron as a marriage-wrecker, a cheap harlot who set her sights on Pearce and is determined to break him up with his wife. Ghastly men she has dated once or twice have emerged to say that Saffron is the most ambitious woman they have ever met, that she has always said she would do anything to go out with a Pearce or Mel or Tom, that nothing could stand in the way of her drive.

None of it is true.

An hour to go before her flight is called, Saffron finds herself walking past the bar. A wall of free drinks. In the old days, she would have perched on a stool and ordered one after another, just because it was free and because she could.

But she doesn’t do that any more.

‘God grant me the serenity…’ she starts to recite in her mind, but the serenity prayer is drowned out by a buzz. A buzz she hasn’t felt for a long time, a buzz that seems to drown out everything else, all sane thoughts, any mechanisms she may have used to stop herself.

She should call her sponsor. Call someone in the programme. Anyone who could talk her down from this.

But the buzz has propelled her to the bar.

Fuck it. After what I’ve been through, I deserve a drink. Just one, just to calm me down, and who wouldn’t deserve a drink after this? What normal person wouldn’t be entitled to one drink after all this?

And what harm could it do? I mean, really. What harm could it possibly do?

Holly phoned Marcus that morning and asked if they could go out for dinner that night. It’s been a long time since they have properly talked, and there are some things Holly wants to discuss.

And this time Holly really does want to talk. Her conversation with Maggie has stayed with her, and although, as time progresses, she is becoming more and more unhappy, she knows that she can’t just let things slide without involving Marcus. She’s never told him anything about how she feels about him or their marriage, other than the perfunctory ‘I love you’ after they have sex, or occasionally on the phone.

They never talk about what each of them wants, where they are going, or whether they are continuing to grow in the same direction. This, particularly given her growing friendship with Will, bothers Holly the most.

What if Marcus could be a different man? she keeps thinking. Would I love him then? Would I be happier? The devil on her shoulder repeatedly whispers that people don’t change and that Marcus isn’t a different man. She will have to accept it. But the angel persuades her to give him a chance, to at least let him know how she feels.

And yet… it is so very hard for her to find the willingness given that she has switched off, has, almost
without realizing it, absented herself emotionally and mentally from her marriage. The only move left to make is physical.

And it is so hard given that the only person occupying her thoughts, twenty-four hours a day, is Will.

Their emails and occasional lunches have progressed to phone calls. When things happen to Holly during the day, if the children make her laugh, or she reads something interesting, or she is thrilled with herself for a new card design, the very first person she calls – the only person, in fact – is Will.

Her initial discomfort at her attraction to him has waned somewhat. She still thinks he is the most handsome man she has ever seen, but she has grown comfortable with him. They are able to tease each other, she is able to reveal things to him she has never told anyone else, and certainly not Marcus.

There are things in her past that Marcus would find abhorrent, shameful or disgusting. Stories he could never enjoy. He never enjoys hearing about who Holly was before she became his wife. Who the real Holly is.

‘What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?’ Will asked her one day when they were having lunch.

Lunch has become a somewhat regular occurrence these days. It feels safe to her: friends meet for lunch all the time, and there is nothing that needs to be read into lunch.

She is also mindful of Maggie’s advice. As humiliated as she was at having been ‘caught’, she did hear Maggie
when she told her to be careful. Not that she can help the way she feels, but she certainly doesn’t have to act upon it.

‘I hate those questions.’ Holly rolled her eyes. ‘Why would I possibly tell you something that’s completely embarrassing? And anyway, I can never remember things like that.’

‘Oh go on. I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.’ He grinned at her, knowing she was going to talk.

Holly groaned. ‘Oh God. I can’t believe you’re going to make me tell you something embarrassing. Okay. One time I was in Jamaica on holiday…’

‘How old were you?’

‘Sadly, old enough to know better. I was twenty, I think. Maybe twenty-one. I was in a bar with some guys we’d met at the beach that day who seemed really nice. I ordered a rum and Coke, and instead I got a huge glass of every conceivable alcoholic drink you can imagine, with Coke splashed in for colouring.’

‘So you didn’t drink it, right?’

‘Yes, I bloody drank it. I’ve never been a big drinker, and I’ve always hated rum. I was just drinking it because everyone else seemed to drink rum and Coke, and it never occurred to me that it was particularly disgusting because of the mix.’

‘So let me guess, you passed out?’

‘Well, yes, but not before jumping up on stage to take part in a wet T-shirt competition, snogging about eight men in the club, then projectile vomiting from the stage onto the entire front row.’

‘Wow!’ Will leant back, his whole body shaking with laughter. ‘Holly. That’s really disgusting.’

‘Yeah, well. Told you.’

‘Quite like the idea of the wet T-shirt contest, though… Fancy a rum and Coke?’ As he said it, he started to gesture the waiter over, and Holly yelped and smacked him on the arm.