Someone Like You (68 page)

‘Oh God,’ she groaned.

‘I’m kidding, you fool. You were fine,’ he said. ‘Apart from the bit…’

Leonie held her breath. He was about to say apart from the bit where you tried to snog me.

Instead, he said, ‘… where I had to watch you stagger up the drive to your front door. The taxi driver and I were taking bets on how long it’d take you to get your door keys out of your handbag. I should have walked up with you,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Leonie with relief. ‘I shouldn’t have had that last Irish coffee. It sent me right over the edge.’

Danny came in with a pot of tea.

‘I have to go. I’ll see you soon,’ she said to Doug.

‘Thanks for last night.’

‘Oh, I forgot to tell you, Mum,’ Danny said, helping himself to one of the chocolate biscuits he’d put on the tray with the tea. ‘The girls phoned this morning, early.

They got there safely last night so they rang to say they were fine.’

‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ wailed Leonie.

‘You were asleep,’ protested Danny, injured.

‘I’ll ring them now,’ she said frantically.

‘They’re going out for the day, Mel said,’ Danny pointed out. ‘Fliss is bringing them shopping. To some market or something, I can’t remember exactly. You know Mel, dead excited about shopping.’

‘Did you speak to Abby?’ his mother asked in a small voice.

‘Yeah. She sounded excited too. I’m going out, Mum,’

he added. ‘I’ll probably be late tonight. See you.’

‘See you,’ echoed Leonie sadly.

When Hugh phoned later, she was delighted to hear from him. She’d spent such a lonely day in the house. Penny had done her best to comfort her, shoving her cool wet nose into her mistress’s hand occasionally, saying, I’m here. But Leonie felt so inconsolable that even her beloved Penny couldn’t cheer her up.

Hugh’s phone call, therefore, was welcome. Perhaps he’d rung to tell her there was a change of plan and that they were going out after all.

‘Are you still bringing Jane to the theatre?’ she asked hopefully.

‘Yes,’ Hugh said. ‘She’s so excited about it. Poor love is all cut up about that awful ex-boyfriend of hers.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Leonie said untruthfully. She wished Hugh had cried off from his trip with his daughter. Leonie could have done with some company tonight. But kids had to come first, she thought dully. Except Jane wasn’t a kid.

‘You don’t suppose there’s any way Jane would cope if you cried off tonight and came to see me instead?’ Leonie said daringly.

Hugh sounded horrified. ‘I can’t, Leonie,’ he said in shocked tones. ‘That bastard of a boyfriend was stringing her along for ages, she’s so upset about him. She needs me.’

But what about me? Leonie wanted to cry. I need you too. My daughters have gone and they’re more precious to me than some boyfriend-of-three-weeks is to bloody Jane. But she said nothing.

Three months later

Felix’s proposal became the stuff of interviews. Another fact to be sculpted into a media sound-bite. The lovely story of how he’d arrived at her house with fifty bouquets (a smidgen of exaggeration was de rigueur for interviews, Felix explained) and a huge diamond, only to end up waiting outside for hours for his beloved to arrive, whereupon he’d nearly developed hypothermia and had needed half an hour in front of the fire before his teeth had stopped chattering.

Hannah was heartily sick of their life becoming fodder for interviews. At least their Caribbean wedding hadn’t made eight pages in Hello! (although Hannah reckoned it was only because Bill, Felix’s agent, had failed to get what she considered a suitable offer from the magazine), but several Sunday newspapers had featured some of the photos. Hannah had been very critical of herself in the simple ankle-length Ben de Lisi gown with her hair trailing down her back and flowers entwined in it. She’d felt fat and pregnant beside Bill, who turned out to be a chain-smoking, over-the-top Londoner who felt a day was wasted if she hadn’t screamed at someone that they were a ‘fucking idiot!’

Short, thin to the point of emaciation, and with big hair the colour of damson jam, Bill turned more heads than the bride did when she arrived at the beachside wedding in a cream trousersuit with nothing on underneath. Apart from the bouffant hair, she looked very Bianca Jagger.

Hannah, who’d been brought up to believe that it was rude to upstage the bride by wearing white or cream, was furious. She’d felt perfectly dressed beforehand. Her skin was a golden colour and gleamed with a healthy sheen thanks to a silken moisturizer with hints of gold in it.

‘She’s a cow,’ she longed to hiss to somebody as she stood beside the pretty altar which was decked out in all manner of exotic blossoms. But there was nobody to hiss to. They were on St Lucia and the guest list consisted of herself, Felix, Bill, her assistant - a lanky young bloke who practically never spoke even when Bill screamed at him and the official who was going to marry them.

Hannah would have killed to have just one close friend with her on this special day. Even Gillian from the office would have been welcome: just someone she could talk to normally.

By the time Felix had finished his telling of it, the wedding had become a last-minute decision and they’d simply left their home with just the clothes they were standing up in (which didn’t quite explain Hannah’s exquisite dress that had to be ordered three weeks in advance and altered twice to cope with her ever-growing five-months-pregnant belly) and hopped on a plane to the Caribbean.

Just like the romantic charmer he’s playing in his new series, Felix Andretti couldn’t resist marrying his fiancee, Hannah, in the most idyllic manner possible.

Instead of spending months organizing church, flowers and the reception, two months ago Felix whisked brunette Hannah off to St Lucia where they married in a simple beachside ceremony with just two close friends as witnesses.

‘We wanted it to be as simple and pure as possible,’

Felix says earnestly, unable to tear his eyes away from his stunning Irish wife. ‘I’m a romantic sort of guy and I’d always thought that when I met the right woman, I’d want to get married immediately with no fuss. Marriage is sacred to me and the idea of marrying outdoors with the ocean and nature all around made sense: you’re at one with nature and the one you love.

We were both barefoot on the sand. I’ll never forget it. It was just a wonderful spur-of-the-moment thing.’

The couple spent their honeymoon enjoying lazy days swimming and taking moonlit walks along the same beach where they’d got married, mere steps away from their lovely hotel, the charming Rex St Lucian. Felix even tried his hand at scuba diving while Hannah, who’s pregnant with the couple’s first baby, lounged around enjoying the sunshine.

Hannah could barely cope with reading the glowing report in the magazine. Felix had gone scuba diving all right, leaving her alone with bloody Bill for days on end.

As Bill’s notion of having a good time meant knocking back as many rum-based cocktails as possible, she didn’t make a very lucid companion.

Some days, Bill held off drinking long enough to play a quick game of tennis with the hotel’s handsome pro, before ending up in the buffet having the odd lettuce leaf with a bottle of chilled white wine. Hannah, who felt too hot to sunbathe, spent most of her time in the air conditioned bedroom, looking out at the happy couples beside the pool.

She bet she was the only honeymooner in the place who’d spent most of her time on her own.

On their last day there, she’d begged Felix to forget his scuba diving so they could have one day together, perhaps drive around the island and have lunch somewhere …

‘I’ve paid for today,’ Felix protested. ‘It’d be a waste of money to miss the last dive.’

‘It was a waste of money asking me to come with you!

You could have saved by not bringing me, since you haven’t spent five minutes with me since we got here!’ Hannah screamed, throwing an ashtray at him.

Felix ducked and the ashtray crashed loudly into the wall, leaving a big dent in it.

‘Now look what you’ve done,’ he said in exasperation.

Hannah burst into tears.

‘If you’re going all hormonal on me, I’m leaving,’ he muttered.

She went for a facial in a hotel nearby and then sat and drank an iced tea at the poolside bar before going for a short walk along the beach. It was too hot to stay outside for long, so she bought some magazines, and went back to her room.

She’d just lie down on the bed and have a snooze …

Felix woke her up at seven. ‘Come on, darling, let’s have dinner. I’m ravenous.’

Disorientated, Hannah couldn’t remember where she was for a moment. But Felix was here, wasn’t he? His skin glowing with a deep golden tan, his hair bleached white in the sun, he looked better than ever. A white linen shirt and beige linen trousers hung elegantly on his lean frame?

His teeth were brilliant white against the dark skin, his mouth a sensuous slash on his face. He leaned forward and kissed her. Hannah could smell the tang of salt water and the unmistakable scent of tanned flesh. Sleepily, she let him undo the buttons of her sundress and cup the newly heavy breasts in his hands. His tongue, hot and slick, moved over her skin, tasting and nibbling, sending her reeling with pleasure.

‘We’ll have dinner later,’ Felix pronounced as he slid the dress off and slipped his hands into her cotton panties.

A woman recognized Felix at Birmingham airport. He and Hannah were waiting for their luggage and talking about whether they’d go for a quick sandwich or not before heading to Felix’s mother’s house. It was a good three-quarters of an hour away by taxi and they were both famished, having not eaten since the meal on the plane from St Lucia.

Even for the figure-conscious Felix, a small packet of cheese-flavoured nibbles on their connecting flight from Heathrow didn’t constitute lunch. Then a middle-aged woman in a neat navy blazer and cream skirt came racing up excitedly, pulling a tiny trolley case behind her.

‘You’re the bloke off the telly! Off Bystanders, aren’t you? The carpenter who lives in the flat downstairs to the two girls.’

Felix smiled boyishly at her. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am.’

The woman blossomed under his smile. She roared to her friend to come over too. Soon, the three of them were talking animatedly, with Felix signing autographs with the easy expertise of someone who’d been doing it for years.

He chatted away to the women as if they were all great friends, asking them questions and answering theirs.

Hannah stood to one side and watched in amusement.

Felix had such charm, she thought proudly. He had the two fans eating out of his hands.

She kept an eye out for their luggage and listened in on the conversation.

‘Is she your girlfriend?’ asked the first woman, who was now identified as Josephine.

Hannah whipped her head round and grinned.

‘No,’ Felix said, pride in his voice, ‘she’s my wife.’

‘Lovely looking, too,’ said Josephine admiringly.

Hannah felt about six feet tall. She’d done her best to look good, on the grounds that she’d be meeting her beloved’s mother for the first time. She’d worn her rather chic red Jasper Conran dress that used to cling to her svelte curves becomingly, along with long suede boots and a new square gleaming leather handbag that cost four times more than any handbag she’d ever owned. The dress was straining around her belly now, even though it was cut generously, so she’d draped a beautiful black and white shawl she’d bought in St Lucia over one shoulder to take people’s eyes away from her bump.

The effect was elegance personified and Felix adored it.

He’d never said that his mother would adore it or her, though. In fact, there hadn’t been many mentions of his mother at all and Hannah was beginning to feel a bit nervous about meeting Mrs Andretti.

‘Must go, Josephine and Lizzie,’ Felix said now to the two fans. ‘I can see our luggage on the conveyor belt.’

With ‘good luck’ ringing in their ears, Hannah and Felix collected their belongings and left the airport. ‘Mum is bound to start cooking when we arrive,’ Felix said, explaining why he’d decided they shouldn’t bother with a sandwich at the airport. ‘Even if you arrive announced, she gets the frying pan out.’

‘You mean you haven’t told her we’re coming?’ Hannah asked in surprise as she settled herself in the back of the taxi. She was sure when Felix declared he was bringing her to meet his mother that he’d actually told the poor woman he’d just got married and was planning to turn up with a wife in tow.

‘No,’ he said cagily. ‘We’re not that sort of family, not into big get togethers.’

Felix rarely mentioned his family - second-generation Spanish parents, from what Hannah could gather. In fact, she’d learned that from his TV Times biography when Bystanders began its six-week run. He’d never discuss them with her, merely saying they weren’t close. ‘They’re my past, you’re my future,’ he’d say mysteriously.

She’d assumed that they were traditionally Spanish, valuing the family and keen on marvellous family feasts where all generations got together. Felix’s problem had obviously been that nobody in the family felt acting was a proper job. They couldn’t think that now, Hannah decided.

Felix’s career was on the up. She thought of telling his mother about how successful he was, and the notion of bringing this estranged family back together gave her a warm glow. She’d even secretly studied a Spanish-English phrase book, trying to pick up the odd word so his family wouldn’t think she was rude by not knowing any of their language.

‘What will I call your mum?’ she asked, deciding to keep quiet about Felix’s having neglected to tell his family they were coming.

‘Vera,’ he said.

‘That’s not very Spanish,’ Hannah joked.

‘Hannah, love, before we get there, I’ve got to explain something. Actors take stage names, you know that. Cary Grant was Archibald something or other and John Wayne’s real first name was Marion. I changed my name, right?’

‘You mean you’re not partly Spanish?’ she asked. ‘It was in the TV Times.’