Best of Friends (59 page)

There was silence in the car on the way to the Andersons’ house. Jess looked as if she’d had just as bad a night as Abby had. Abby herself had tossed and turned all night, barely able to get a wink of sleep worrying over Jess and Tom and the whole mess she seemed to be making of her life. Jess’s eyes were as puffy as her mother’s and she was pale and wan.

Abby turned the radio on loud, grateful for the early morning disc jockey’s inane banter that meant that she and Jess didn’t actually have to talk. They hadn’t spoken at all since the row the night before. Jess hadn’t come out of her room all evening until Abby had gone to bed. Then, she’d heard Jess’s door opening and could hear her daughter’s footsteps going down the stairs and into the kitchen. Abby had tried to console herself with the knowledge that at least Jess was getting something to eat. When she finally drove into Gartland Avenue, after an hour and a half in the rush-hour traffic, she thought she’d better say something to mend the quarrel.

“I’m sorry I’m going away and leaving you overnight, darling,” Abby said tentatively. “And …” She paused. “I’m sorry about last night. I wasn’t throwing your dad’s stuff out. I was just sorting it out so that he could come and take it whenever he’s ready.” No matter how she put it, it still sounded all wrong. There was no easy way to tell your teenage daughter that her father would inevitably be setting up home somewhere else and that there really was no hope of him coming back to live a blissful family life.

Maybe that’s what Jess had been hoping for, maybe that’s why she had been so annoyed when she’d seen all Tom’s belongings out on the landing. She must still be harbouring hopes that Abby and Tom would get back together.

Abby’s heart bled for her daughter. She really didn’t want to hurt Jess but she had to let her know the truth. “Jess, you do know that Dad will have to buy another house and that we’ll have to sell Lyonnais? You do understand that, don’t you?” She turned to look at Jess’s profile. Even sideways, she could see the exhaustion in her daughter’s face, the baggy eyes and the drooping mouth.

“Yeah,” muttered Jess. She wished her mother would stop with all this touchy-feely, telling-her-the-truth stuff. She hated it. She wouldn’t mind if they could have a grown-up conversation about everything, but it seemed they couldn’t.

Staring out of the window, Jess looked at people walking along the footpath on Gartland Avenue: ordinary people going to work, walking dogs. Mums dragging small children off to day nurseries. They all looked like normal happy people with normal happy lives. Not like her horrible screwed-up family.

Abby stopped outside the Andersons’ house.

“Please, Jess, don’t be miserable,” she begged. “After all, we’re going on to Florida in a couple of days. Won’t that be fun?” She looked eagerly at Jess, mentally begging her daughter to give her some sign that their lives weren’t a total mess, that Jess could forgive her, some day. But Jess just stared stormily ahead. “Come on, Jess,” Abby tried again. “Florida will be fun, won’t it?”

Jess’s answer was to unhook her seat belt. She reached into the back of the Jeep and pulled out her bulging rucksack, stocked with her overnight things.

“Yeah, right, Mum,” she said sarcastically. “A holiday is really going to solve everything in our horrible fucking lives.”

Abby stared at her daughter in shock. Jess never swore like that, certainly not in front of Abby. But before she could say anything Jess wrenched open the car door and was out. Without saying so much as goodbye, she slammed the car door shut and stomped off up the Andersons’ driveway. Abby watched her go miserably. Jess was right. A holiday wasn’t going to solve their problems, was it?

Normally, Abby enjoyed flying. She loved sitting at the front of the plane—since she had become a television presenter she travelled business class for work—and getting tea, coffee or even champagne from friendly stewardesses. She liked the feeling that her success and her hard work had given her the right to leave economy class behind. But today, she could have flown to Dublin tied onto the wing and it wouldn’t have mattered.

She sat in her seat and stared blankly out of the window as the baggage handlers hefted huge packs of luggage onto the plane. Even when the stewardess recognised her—“Hello, Mrs. Barton. Lovely to have you on board again today”—Abby didn’t cheer up. What use was being a recognised face when your life was such a disaster? Anyway, she didn’t care to be recognised today. She hadn’t had time that morning to put on any make-up except for a little mascara and lipstick, so she knew she looked pale and haggard. She accepted nothing but a cup of coffee and a newspaper from the stewardess and buried herself behind the broadsheet. She knew she ought to be psyching herself up for the audition later but, somehow, Abby didn’t really care. So what if her career went down the toilet? The rest of her life was too.

At Dublin airport, a driver from the 727 Network met her at arrivals and, for the first time that day, Abbey began to perk up a bit. A driver, wow. Beech had never sent her a driver. Beech’s idea of presenter relations was to phone for a taxi if she was very lucky. Normally she had to make her own way to and from airports but this new TV company certainly seemed keen.

“Ms. Barton, lovely to see you,” said the driver, instantly taking her small overnight case.

Abby was just about to correct him and say it was Mrs. Barton when she decided not to. He probably called every woman he picked up Ms. because it was easier and you didn’t want to offend anyone in the business by calling them by the wrong title. And she probably would be Ms. Barton very soon. She couldn’t go back to her maiden name. Abby Costello didn’t have the same ring to it, but Ms. Barton would have its own message, she thought.

In the back of the car—a sleek black Mercedes—Abby began to apply some make-up. She didn’t want to put on too much because she knew the make-up department in the TV company would plaster her up nicely, but she didn’t want to go into the studio looking like Uncle Fester from the Addams Family.

She’d just finished the tricky job of applying eyeliner when Mike Horowitz phoned.

“How’s my favourite client?” he enquired cheerily.

Abby laughed for the first time that day. “You know, I hate it when you say that sort of rubbish, Mike,” she chided. “It’s insincere and you know it. If
I’m
your favourite client, what do you say to all the others? ‘Hello to my second favourite client, hello to my third favourite client?’ I doubt it. Flattery gets you nowhere,” she finished.

Mike laughed. “It doesn’t get me anywhere with you,” he agreed. “But that’s why I like you—you’re very straight and you don’t want to be told how wonderful you are ten times a day. That’s very refreshing in our business.” Sitting in the back of the car, surrounded by all her make-up, Abby allowed herself a rueful smile. Being straight with people didn’t get you anywhere, either. She’d tried to be straight with Jess that morning and that hadn’t worked, had it?

“What’s the plan?” she asked.

Mike explained that he was going to meet her at the 727 Network offices, where they’d talk to the show’s producers and generally shoot the breeze until it was time for the audition. It was all going to be very laid-back, he explained to Abby.

“It’s nothing more than a simple pilot episode,” he explained. “Nobody’s expecting miracles, it’s all going to be low-key and relaxed. They’ve got two guests lined up for you to interview. As you know, they were going to use staff to stand in for guests but I don’t think that works, so we’ve got two proper guests, one an actor and the other a novelist. They know it’s a pilot show but they’re happy to be involved. On the basis, of course, that if the show
does
get off the ground, they’re among the first guests.”

Abby was shocked. “What do you mean—a pilot episode?” she asked in alarm. “I thought this was just an audition to see how I looked on camera.”

“But my assistant emailed all the details to your assistant,” Mike said sharply.

Abby thought of the long-winded message that her part-time assistant, Katya, had left on the phone. Katya had definitely said something about checking emails but, what with all that had been going on, Abby hadn’t even switched on the computer for a couple of days.

“They know what you look like on camera; they’ve watched your show,” Mike was saying. “They need to see how you react when you’re interviewing people properly.”

“Oh God,” moaned Abby. “I knew this day was going to be a disaster. I’m not ready for that, Mike, I’m not ready at all. I didn’t sleep last night …” her voice began to get higher with anxiety, “and I had a huge row with Jess—”

Mike interrupted her. “Don’t worry about any of those things, Abby,” he said very calmly. “You’re going to be absolutely fine.”

“Yeah, absolutely fine,” repeated Abby as if the words were a mantra and could carry her through what was to come.

Afterwards, Abby never knew if it was because of her stress or despite it, but the pilot TV show went fabulously well. Once the cameras started rolling, she somehow relaxed, although she had no idea how.

She was suddenly struck by the blinding realisation that recording a pilot for a TV show didn’t actually matter that much in the grand scheme of things. She could only do her best.

Free from the usual last-minute nerves of being on TV, she was able to concentrate on her guests rather than on herself or on her hair. She didn’t have a moment to think, do I look fat in this outfit? She just got on with the job in hand. There were two guests for her to interview and she was going to switch on all the depth and compassion she possessed. The actor turned out to be a sweet but famously reserved man in his late sixties who’d starred in a TV soap for over twenty years before being unceremoniously dumped. Abby knew how that felt. Roxie would have her out on her ear if she could.

And that knowledge gave her an insight into exactly how to talk to him. Sitting on two squashy armchairs, she and the actor chatted as if they were old friends.

“It must have been very difficult to see your career on the show ending that way,” she said gently, “particularly since you’d been instrumental in making it a success.”

“Yes,” he admitted, “I felt that I had been dumped because I was over the hill and that I would never act again. You can’t imagine what that was like,” he said.

“I think many people in the world can empathise with you on that,” Abby interrupted him with a smile.

The actor grinned wryly at her. “It’s not easy, is it?” he said. “Your whole being is tied up in what you do for a living and for twenty years I had been playing Colin on
Family and Friends,
and, in an instant, it was all gone. I have to say I was devastated.”

“And it doesn’t affect just you, does it?” Abby asked kindly. “It touches everyone around you, especially your family.”

“Oh, you should talk to my poor wife,” said the actor. “It was a complete nightmare for Eleanor because she was coping with me being depressed and miserable every day, and she was trying to keep her chin up for both of us.”

“Eleanor started out as an actress, too, I gather,” said Abby, casting her mind back to the brief notes she’d read moments before going on air. “She’s been a huge support to you during your career, hasn’t she?”

“I don’t know what I’d have done without her,” he sighed, and proceeded to talk about his wife and how they’d gone through the bad times together.

It was easy to talk to Abby, he found: she wasn’t pushy, digging around for information, but she had such a warm, kind manner and she looked as though she understood.

Behind the cameras, the producers and Mike looked at each other in sheer delight. Abby Barton had it—there was no doubt about it. She could get blood out of a stone. The producers had only found the TV soap actor at the last minute and they thought he’d be a pretty hard person to interview, because he didn’t like to give much of himself away. But under Abby’s gentle probing, he was opening up in a way he never had before and it made fantastic television.

Mike watched his client with unalloyed delight. Abby might have said she wasn’t his favourite client but if he was doing out a list, she came pretty high in the ranking. He loved her honesty, her sense of humour and the fact that she really didn’t like the show business bullshit and flattery. As a professional, he also liked the fact that she was incredibly talented, although—a rarity in the industry—she didn’t seem to realise it. She’d have to realise it now. This pilot would undoubtedly get the green light and it would make Abby Barton an even bigger star than she had been before. He just hoped that she was ready for what came with being a star.

On set, Abby wasn’t aware of the grand plans going on behind the cameras. She was concentrating on conducting the best interview she could with this man she felt sorry for. She could remember seeing him in the soap series and certainly hadn’t liked the hard-bitten character he played. But now, in the flesh, he seemed sort of soft and vulnerable, and she was drawn to him. She wanted to know what made him tick, what it was like to experience the huge fame he had known all through his life and then see it fade away. They talked about celebrity and how all it took was two seasons off the television for nobody to even remember your name anymore. They joked about walking through the supermarket and having complete strangers smile at you and the actor told her how nobody ever remembered his real name, but everyone called him Colin, his character from the series.

Then they moved on to his family: his kids and his three grandchildren. Now he had time to play with his grandchildren for the first time in his life, and he loved that.

“So, if they asked you back on
Family and Friends,
would you go?” probed Abby carefully.

The actor laughed. “Nobody’s ever dared to ask me that before,” he said.

Abby could see the studio manager telling her to wrap up the interview. “I’m only asking because I think I know the answer,” she said cleverly.

The actor grinned at her: the answer would be no, he said. He’d discovered too much else to enjoy in life.