A Funny Thing About Love (31 page)

At that moment a taxi went by and Will hailed it for her. ‘Take care, Carmen. Maybe one day we'll get our timing right.' He gave her the lightest of kisses on the
cheek and Carmen had to resist the temptation to throw her arms round him. Where did that impulse come from? She really was fickle.

Back to banter: ‘Have fun on the piste. Don't forget you'll be doing it for Octavia slash Mercedes slash Lexi. But I think I prefer Octavia; I really do think Mercedes is too flashy, unless you're Spanish.'

A resigned shake of the head from Will. And then she was alone in the taxi travelling back to Mayfair, where she was staying with Marcus. Why had Will said those things to her, hinting at deeper feelings between them? He'd had a dash of devil-may-care about him tonight. Maybe things were going badly at work or with Tash, and Carmen had just been a welcome distraction. Maybe that was what she always had been to him – a distraction.

‘Well, I love the first three episodes,' Marcus declared the following morning, as they sat having tea in their pyjamas (well, Carmen was in PJs, Marcus was in a luxuriously fluffy white robe, the kind you get in really expensive hotels). Leo had left for work at the ungodly hour of four forty-five. Carmen so rarely saw him that sometimes she thought it might be possible that he was a figment of Marcus's imagination. ‘I think it's time you got someone else's input on it, someone who is an expert in this.' He paused, ‘Someone like Will.'

Carmen groaned. ‘Why do you persist in mentioning Will?'

‘Because he's a great agent and he knows his stuff. And because I've agreed that we will meet him for breakfast at Rico's' – Marcus checked his Omega watch, he really was a watch whore – ‘in an hour, so go and get ready.'

Carmen remained sitting on the sofa.

‘It's not enough to write a good drama – you know that, you need contacts. Will's a good contact, now go and get ready.'

She still sat.

‘And because I may be starting a production company
and I just may be interested in new up-and-coming writers of comedies, but only if they do exactly as I say.'

That shifted her. ‘Really?'

‘Really. Leo thinks it's a good investment, I've just got to get the talent together. I've already asked Will if he'll consider joining as executive producer, and he's thinking about it. So you see, as one of my best friends, your future is inextricably linked with Will.'

‘He's with Tash,' Carmen said through gritted teeth, ‘and I'm with Daniel.'

‘A man who's into skateboarding, has a tattoo of his supposedly ex-wife's name on his shoulder, has a picture of himself naked above his fireplace, has photographs of his supposedly ex-wife all over his walls. Are you sure?'

In spite of being one of her best friends, Marcus had a cruel streak which made him say things which he probably shouldn't, all in the pursuit of getting his own way. Carmen suddenly felt an all-too-familiar feeling of insecurity invade her. She called it the wobbles, a horrible, sickening feeling. She'd had it constantly when she and Nick were going through IVF, feeling that she was balancing on the top of a very high building and that any minute she would lose her grip and tumble. She had hardly discussed Imogen with Daniel, took him at his word when he said he was over her, but it was more than possible he wasn't, more than possible that she, Carmen, was yet again just a distraction.

Marcus saw the look on Carmen's face and realised he'd gone too far. ‘Sorry, I didn't mean it. I just want
what's best for your work.
Please
come and meet Will. Forget what I said about Daniel. He's got baggage, so what? We've all got baggage. I could bloody fill bloody Terminal Five with mine and so could you.'

Rico looked as if he might possibly burst with happiness when Carmen walked into the café, which was in full festive swing, adorned with garish gold stars and red and green tinsel hanging in loops from the ceiling and an enormous fibre-optic Christmas tree which kept changing colour. He actually abandoned his post behind the counter to rush round and give her three kisses on the cheeks, though there was the briefest moment when he looked as if he might kiss her on the mouth, but then Mamma Mia's voice boomed out, ‘
Carissima Carmen!
' and he hastily redirected his lips.

Will had walked in just after Carmen. ‘What is it with you and men wanting to kiss you all the time?' Will asked, amused. But then he found himself the subject of one of Mamma Mia's bear hugs and her hefty kisses and so Carmen didn't need to answer.

‘It's great what you've written so far,' Will told her when he was finally free of Mamma Mia and the trio were installed in one of the booths with coffee and croissants. Mamma Mia had also insisted on having a photograph taken with Marcus, something he usually resisted at all costs, but she was not a person to be resisted. Her will was stronger, and if that failed she had the look of a woman from a James Bond movie, circa Sean Connery's era, who would gladly sit on a
man with her meaty thighs wrapped round his neck until he acquiesced to her every demand.

Will was in work mode and there wasn't a trace of last night's flirtation. The blue eyes were serious, businesslike, she could read nothing more in them. That was the downside to blue eyes: they could be so cold. Carmen registered the disappointment and instantly felt guilty.

‘I've got a few suggestions which we can go through, but what we really need to think about is casting, and I've got some suggestions for that as well.'

‘Would you like to perhaps finish the drama as well?' Carmen put in. While she was pleased by Will's praise, she had forgotten what a forceful presence he had. She was half in awe, half in rebellion that he should have ideas about her work. She would say her baby, but she never used that word any more when she could possibly avoid it.

Will shrugged. ‘You're the creative one, I'm just someone who can help make it happen. You can't be precious; you know that I'll only make suggestions that will improve it.'

Carmen set her mouth in a stubborn line. ‘But I'm not joining Fox Nicholson, and anyway I doubt Tiana would want me on her books.'

‘Who said anything about Fox Nicholson? If I worked on your drama it would be if I joined Marcus's production company.'

Instantly Marcus perked up and Will nodded at him. ‘I'll have an answer for you at the end of the week, I promise. And if I do join, I want to bring some
colleagues from Fox Nicholson with me, as I explained the other day. I think it could work if we were both a production company and an agency.'

‘Shouldn't it be in twenty-four hours?' Carmen asked. The two men looked at her. She was forced to explain herself: ‘Well, in movies whenever something big happens the hero or heroine – invariably hero, movies are so sexist except for Lara Croft and Linda what's-her-name in
Terminator
– only ever has twenty-four hours to save the world from a meteorite, a tidal wave, a virus or a demented loon who can close down the entire mobile phone and power systems and so render mankind helpless because no one can remember phone numbers any more.'

A perfectly arched eyebrow from Marcus, ‘Sweetie, this is real life; Will can take as long as he wants.' He looked back at Will. ‘I'm having doubts about her temporary relocation to Brighton. I think she's been watching too many DVDs with the gardener.'

‘And the UGG boots have got to go,' Will put in. ‘She must realise that they are the most unsexy piece of footwear ever created.'

‘Hello!' Carmen raised her hand. ‘I am sitting here. My relocation may be permanent, Marcus, and UGGs are not the most unsexy piece of footwear ever created; that accolade goes to Crocs. Obviously.'

‘I bet come next summer you'll be wearing them. It's a slippery slope from UGGs.'

Carmen had no intention of ever wearing Crocs again and was irked by Will's critique of her footwear.
Being with the two men, both such strong personalities, made her dig deep for her feminist streak. ‘So what would you rather? That women's feet were enslaved in toe-pinching stilettos, or worse a high slingback that offers no support and is notoriously difficult to walk in?'

‘If it was a choice between them and UGGs, the painful ones every time. Anyway,' and finally the blue eyes had lost their glacial quality, ‘I give good foot massage.'

Carmen was sure he did.

‘I bet the green-fingered one is good at them too.' Marcus had put on a deliberately pervy voice.

‘Yuck! Don't say it, just don't say it!' Carmen knew that the pervy voice was a prelude to Marcus coming out with her all-time least favourite word.

‘And I bet he's especially good at peeling off your p-p-p-panties!'

The bastard had said it!

‘I hate you, Marcus! You should never have made it. You should still be in Balham performing to homo-phobic old men in a pub stinking of urine and broken dreams and Cheesy Wotsits!'

Will was looking at the pair in bemusement. ‘What happened there?'

‘It's all because Carmen hates the word—' but before he could come out with it again, Carmen pressed her hand over his mouth.

‘Oh, panties,' Will put in. ‘Carmen hates the word panties. I see. Any particular type of panties? Silk panties? Cotton panties? Synthetic panties? Satin
panties? Leopard-print panties, lacy panties, crotchless panties? I could go on.'

‘All panties!' Carmen was forced to say it to shut them up. ‘What's wrong with saying knickers or pants or, if you must wear them, even though no one looks good in them, a thong!' Her anti-pantie speech had become heated and other customers had paused in their coffee drinking to stare at her.

‘Just not as good as saying panties,' Will replied, as usual determined to get in the last word. And treated her to his most wicked smile. Goddamn him for being the man who could wind her up more than anyone else and yet whose approval she always wanted!

At that moment Will's BlackBerry vibrated with an incoming text. ‘Shit!' he exclaimed as he read it. ‘I'm due to meet Tash at the hospital, I'll have to go.' He stood up, ‘Marcus, I'll be in touch. Carmen, keep your panties on, less hot sex with the gardener, more focus on finishing the comedy. And I've got something important to tell you, but it'll wait till next time.' And with that he was gone, though not before Mamma Mia had got him in another of her embraces.

There was no chance for further discussion with Marcus as Carmen was due at Millie's nativity play in the afternoon and had to dash off to Victoria and get the train. Christmas was just over a week away. In Carmen's old life that would have meant a steady stream of Christmas parties in the run-up, which required one to have the constitution of an ox and drink a lot of Red Bull the morning after, culminating in the office party where
Matthew would take them all out for dinner at Rico's restaurant and they would go back to the Ship and down quite spectacular amounts of alcohol and dance wildly and very badly. It was all about getting merry and deriving much pleasure from seeing who got off with whom. Oh, and trying to avoid Connor, the postboy. But now she had a different life and Christmas was all about being a grown-up, and not disgracing oneself by throwing up in one's handbag (two years ago) on the Tube home, or stealing flowers from outside a very swish hotel (three years earlier). Christmas was about doing grown-up things like going to your boyfriend's daughter's nativity play, even though, much as you liked his daughter, it was the very last thing you wanted to do.

It was only when she was installed on the train in a window seat (tick), not in front of anyone clipping their nails (tick), that she thought about Tash's hospital appointment. And suddenly all the verve and sparkle went out of Carmen's day when she came up with the conclusion, the only possible conclusion for a healthy thirty-something to be having a hospital appointment, given that Will didn't seem upset, and that was this: Tash must be pregnant. Octavia was real! Tash was texting Will to remind him to turn up at the first scan. It was so glaringly obvious! Plus hadn't he said that he had some big news for her? No wonder he needed time to consider Marcus's offer – he had to weigh up the pros and cons of leaving Fox Nicholson knowing that he was having a baby; maybe that was why he had said those things last night – a man on the brink of becoming
a father remembering his last great flirtation and what might have been. That would be just like a man. Nick was having a baby and now so was Will; Daniel wanted one but as long as he was with her, zero chance of that. Carmen caught sight of the smartly dressed elderly lady sitting opposite her looking at her sympathetically and couldn't work out why until a tear sploshed down on her copy of
Grazia
.

The school hall was already packed with proud parents and grandparents, all vying for the best position from which to view, film and photograph their progeny.

‘Hey, you made it,' Daniel said as she found him standing at the back, digital recorder at the ready. Carmen longed to put her arms round him and not let go, but she was too aware of the inevitable eyeballing they were attracting and had to make to do with a quick kiss on the cheek.

‘Millie will be so pleased; she was worried you might not come.'

‘I'd never let her down!' Carmen exclaimed.

‘Not like her mother,' Daniel muttered, ‘who still hasn't said if she is coming back for Christmas or not.' His handsome face took on a sombre, brooding expression.

‘I'm sorry,' Carmen replied, unsure of what else to say.
Have yourself a merry little dysfunctional Christmas
didn't seem entirely appropriate under the circumstances.

Daniel hugged her shoulders. ‘You've got nothing to be sorry for.'

Carmen scanned the rows looking for Jess. It had been over a week since she'd seen her friend, though she had texted her every day. Jess's replies had all been bland, reiterating ‘I'm fine', so Carmen had no idea how things really were. She didn't manage to locate Jess, but Ilsa caught her eye and indicated that there was a seat free next to her.