Tell Him About It (8 page)

“Thank you. Mr Cooper will be welcome to come back too of course. You make a great couple, or double-act, so to speak.”

*

After the event Sara and Adam chose to walk back to the hotel, rather than call a taxi. There was a refreshing, cooling breeze riding in the balmy air and a ripe moon showcased a sky studded with stars. They both walked slowly and followed as scenic a path as possible, as if neither of them wanted the night to end. When they reached the hotel they ordered a drink and sat outside on a bench in the garden. They chatted about each of their families. Sara mentioned her sister, who regrettably she rarely saw nowadays. During their teens her sister, Carly, resented Sara for the attention she received from boys and their parents for being a model. She had envied her success.

“Ironically I envied Carly for her anonymity. For growing up in a normal environment, with real friends, doing what she wanted... We don’t actively argue. Partly because we just don’t see each other, which is a shame as she’s due to have a baby later in the year and I’d like to be a better aunt than I was – am – a sister...”

In was only in telling Adam how she felt that she fully realised it. Sara made a promise to him, as well as to herself, that she would get in touch with her sister when she got back to London.

The author – who preferred to write about his issues rather than talk to people about them – also opened up. Although he had only known Sara for a week he felt a strange, but strong, sense of trust and admiration towards her.

“I wanted to live near my parents, partly to keep an eye on them as they’re becoming a bit frail. I must be the only person to have moved from Richmond to Eltham this year... My parents did a good job bringing me up, as much as I brought myself up when I hit my teens... I grew estranged from my parents, as well as my brother and sister, in my early twenties. I couldn’t really talk to them about my time in Afghanistan... The more I isolated myself the more they would try to reach out to me... Work, writing, saved me when I came back from Helmand though... Strangely, when they stopped trying to work me out, they accepted me more... I often visit my parents and regularly go for a drink or meal with my brother and sister... I’ll introduce you to them all at the dinner next week. My sister in particular would love to meet you. My parents would enjoy meeting you too. You’re a good Catholic girl – with a devilish sense of humour... You should come around for lunch or dinner one Sunday, if you want.”

I want.

Adam realised that he was speaking to Sara more as a friend, or even girlfriend, than publicist.
But it feels right. Let her in.

*

Would I let him in if he knocked on the door?

Sara knew the answer to her question before she even asked it, as guilty as she felt when she saw the missed call from Simon. His voicemail said that he was now out for the evening.

Speak tomorrow, babe. Wink.

Sara was back in her hotel room, lying on the bed. Her dress was hanging up on the wardrobe door, opposite her. She smiled and almost laughed as she pictured the look on Adam’s face in the bar earlier, when he had turned with his eyes lit up on seeing her in the dress. Rosie might have called Adam ruggedly handsome, but Sara was attracted to his good nature and his sense of humour, which shone in his boyish/roguish expression. As Sara lay in bed, half reading a novel, she also listened to various songs on her iPad (by Elton John, Michael Bublé and – of course – Billy Joel among others). Maybe the wine fuelled her imagination, but it seemed that all the love songs made sense and resonated, as if composed for her and how she was feeling. She had seldom, if ever, thought of Simon like she thought of Adam when listening to certain lines from her favourite songs. Something sang in her heart. But maybe it was just all down to the wine, she mused.

Behind her hotel room door Adam raised his hand, to knock.
Will she let me in?
His heart was galloping, like a wagon train of horses out of control.
I can’t stop thinking about her. And it’s not just the wine.

Yet Adam paused, and lowered his hand, reining in his heart.
Life doesn’t play itself out like a love song.
If it had been any other woman he would have knocked on her door.

Don’t hurt her.

13.

Grey clouds smudged the sky. Rain slapped upon the window in the morning and woke Sara up before her alarm. An annoying draught also whistled through a thin gap between the pane and frame. The birdsong from yesterday had disappeared too.

Sara reached over to the bedside table and checked her phone for any messages from Simon, but it only flashed with a number of emails from work. Although Simon had not made the greatest of efforts to get in touch since being in New York Sara still felt guilty in having ignored him over the past day or so. She also felt guilty in relation to the thoughts and feelings she’d experienced for Adam. Although a few boyfriends had cheated on her over the years, Sara had never been unfaithful. In some ways yesterday felt like a dream. Let it remain a dream, a fancy, Sara told herself.

When she met Adam downstairs at breakfast she reverted to a more formal stance towards him. She wasn’t rude or cold, but Sara did act in a far more pronounced business-like manner – similar to when they had first met. She talked about the weather and the forthcoming signings and events. Any other conversation seemed stilted. Sara was also conscious of mentioning, on more than one occasion (during breakfast and their train journey to Manchester) that she had a boyfriend. Adam duly took the hint and, although he still tried to crack the odd joke and have Sara open up to him, he too, for her sake, behaved like an author should with his publicist. He took consolation from the fact that at least he hadn’t succumbed to temptation and knocked on her hotel door the night before.

Life plays itself out through sad songs.

For the most part during the train journey they both sat in silence and worked. Adam finally finished his book proposal and emailed it off to his agent. To ease the tension and protracted silences Adam also pretended to be asleep on the train. It was while he pretended to do so that Sara locked herself in the toilet and cried, for reasons that she couldn’t quite understand. The heart has its own reasons.

*

The signing at the bookshop in Manchester was not quite a complete wash-out, but they only sold around a quarter of the books that they had sold in Birmingham. The events manager at the shop and Sara made certain excuses – blaming the rain or that people had started to go away for their summer holidays – but Adam had taken part in enough events to know that not everything works and he was neither angry nor upset. He filled up some of the time by speaking to a few creative writing students from the nearby university, who had come to meet him. As well as providing some advice and encouragement Adam also kindly bought the students a book each – signing and dedicating the copies.

Towards the end of the event a pudding-faced journalist turned up from the local paper to profile the author. He first asked Adam questions about the book and the current state of affairs in Afghanistan (the journalist having not read the former and being ill-informed about the latter). He then asked Adam if he would like to comment about the rumour that his ex-wife was dating James Cardinal, the wild-boy Shakespearean actor.

“No comment,” the ex-soldier replied, with more than just a little steel in his voice and expression.

The warning shot across his bow was sufficient enough to encourage the hack to stick to his brief of just talking about the book. After the journalist left Sara apologised to her author, saying that she had spoken to him beforehand about the parameters of the interview.

“There’s no need to apologise Sara. I know it wasn’t your fault. He’s a journalist. If a vulture spots a carcass he’s going to want to feast,” Adam remarked philosophically.

*

The rain continued to fall. After the signing Adam suggested that they have lunch. He recommended a nice, independent Italian restaurant which was a short walk away (remembering how Sara had mentioned the previous evening that Italian was her favourite food). But she said that she had to get to the hotel and catch up on some work. She felt guilty in snubbing him – and lying to him – but Sara felt guiltier still in regards to Simon. This had been the longest period, for some time, that they hadn’t spoken to each other. She needed to go back to the hotel and call him.

As Sara got back to her room she received another email from Margaret Duvall. The first part mentioned how she had locked herself out from her twitter account again and the second part asked for an update on whether any of the newspapers had bitten in regards to an interview with Adam Cooper. Sara was more than tempted to open up the mini bar after reading the message, but she merely sighed and poured herself a glass of water.

In contrast to the hotel in Birmingham, where her room had looked out upon a garden and some pear trees at the back of the hotel, Sara now gazed upon a half empty staff carpark and some over-filled bins. She felt compensated however as she noticed a card by the phone in her room, advertising that the hotel offered its guest thirty minutes of complimentary international calls. As phoning Simon on his mobile would be costly she decided to take advantages of the offer. It would now be morning in New York and she hoped to catch him before he left for work. She would doubtless spend more time listening to him, rather than talking, when they shared their week but that was fine. After all, her week had so far involved possibly falling for another man.

“Hello, Simon Keegan’s phone,” a woman answered, professional politeness mixed with slight confusion from the strange number coming up on the caller register.

“Come back to bed babe. You’ve played secretary enough on this trip. You need to role play something else,” Simon announced suggestively in the background.

“Hello, who is this?” the woman, which Sara now recognised as being Lisa, Simon’s secretary, asked.

“Simon’s ex-girlfriend.”

Lisa gasped, but before she could say anything else Sara hung up the call. Sara bent over, as if she were about to be sick, and then fell onto the bed. Blood rushed up to her face – she was embarrassed and ashamed. And then her face grew redder with anger... She felt dizzy and sobbed, almost to the point of choking – gasping for air. Sara replayed Lisa’s voice – and his – over in her head again and wanted the ground to swallow her up. Or she wished that the ground could swallow them up. Bury all trace of him.

She received a call back from him, but ignored it, throwing the phone down on the bed as if it were poisonous. His snake-like face popped-up on the screen and she winced. The hurt almost manifested itself into a physical pain. The room seemed to spin and Sara curled up in a ball and clutched a pillow, as if to anchor her down.

I hate him.

Again her phone flashed up with a call from Simon – and she ignored it. If he wanted to talk to someone he could talk to
her
, his
fun and friendly
secretary.

Sara finally reached over and took a sip of water. Her hand trembled as she did so.

He’s dead to me.

It was the one sin she couldn’t forgive. It was over, she determined. She felt like the past six months had been a waste, or a lie at the best. She wouldn’t fight for him.
She
could have him – and he would cheat on her accordingly.

Tears streamed down her cheeks as Sara gently rocked upon the bed, clutching the pillow again – feeling dead to herself.

All men are bastards.

14.

Tired, physically and emotionally, Sara eventually drifted off to sleep. When she woke her eyes were still puffy and she felt like someone had a cut a piece out of her. She mechanically replied to a few emails on her iPad but then picked up her phone, which seemed to now weigh as heavy as a brick in her hands. She listened to the voice messages from Simon.

The first thing Sara noticed was that he seemed to be whispering – and the acoustics were strange. She realised that he must have retreated into the hotel bathroom and was talking quietly, to avoid Lisa from hearing him. The first message desperately – and unconvincingly – urged Sara not to get the wrong idea. He knew that Sara was on the other end of the line when Lisa picked up the phone and he was just playing a joke on her. He begged her to call him back immediately. During the second call, which followed shortly afterwards, Simon apologised. They had both got drunk the night before, celebrating a deal. “She means nothing to me.” Again he asked her to call him. “We need to talk. You shouldn’t throw the past six months away over just one night. This could make us stronger.” He argued that if she should had have cheated on him then he would have forgiven her. “What we have is too good... We need to be grown-ups about this...”

Sara didn’t call Simon back. She did call Adam however and said that she would be unable to make the event this evening, a dinner and book signing organised by one of his fellow officers from his old regiment. Adam said he was disappointed that she couldn’t make it, but he would be fine flying solo. The main thing was for her to feel better. He asked if he could get anything for her from the pharmacist, but she said that it would hopefully just be a twenty-four hour thing. She just needed some rest – and to be left on her own.

Adam had been sweet and understanding on the phone, but the last person she wanted to spend the evening with was another serial cheat, or “love rat”, as Rosie often termed it when she wrote an article for her local paper. How different was he really from Simon? Sara didn’t feel like putting on an outfit and make-up and smiling in the face of the world at the event tonight, which would be filled with (happy) couples having dinner together or soldiers trying to chat her up.

Shortly afterwards Sara called Rosie and spent an hour or so talking – and crying – on the phone to her friend. Rosie tried – and to a small extent succeeded – to console her flatmate. Simon didn’t deserve her, Rosie posited. Sara was right to want to end things. It was better to find out now what he was like, rather than later. She couldn’t commit to him because deep down Sara knew he was more of a Wickham than Darcy – and that she didn’t love him. She was happy to collect any things belonging to Sara that Simon still had at his apartment. After talking to Rosie Sara switched on the TV and removed more than just a bottle of water from the mini-bar.