Fast Friends (46 page)

‘So I hope that you have all had the enjoyable evening she
worked so hard to achieve,’ continued de
Lazzari. ‘And I trust
that you will put your hands together and applaud
your lovely
hostess, particularly when I
tell you that the money raised by
the
sale of Vampires –
all
the money raised by the sale of Vampires – has
been donated by Loulou to the charity for
which this evening was
arranged. Funds for the much-needed research into the tragic condition known as
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or Cot Death, have been boosted by over two
million
pounds, thanks to this magnificent
young lady. So will you
please join me . .

Tears were streaming down Camilla’s
cheeks as she
applauded
wildly along with everyone else. She couldn’t get
close to Loulou; at the moment she was being engulfed by
hugs
from people congratulating her. It was
several minutes before
she could manage to disentangle herself and make
her way over to Mac, who had hung back. Camilla watched as she approached him,
almost shyly, and held out one hand.

‘I did it for you, too,’ Loulou told him, her voice husky.
‘Vampires was the cause of our splitting up.
I decided that I
could do without it.’

Wordlessly,
Mac took her into his arms and held her.

‘
And if you tell me off for playing such a lousy
game of
cards,’ Loulou added some time later, ‘then all I can say is how
well would you play if you’d been in labour
for the last two and
a half hours?’

‘
Jesus!’ exclaimed Mac, his black eyes filled with
horror.
‘You really
are
mad. You should be in hospital . .

Loulou hesitated for a second, before asking the most
difficult
question of her life. ‘Mac, I was wondering. I know it’s an enormous favour to
ask . . . but would you come with me? Please?’

Chapter 35

Pacing the tiny, smoke-filled
waiting-room, Mac watched a
murky grey dawn break over the spires and roofs of London
from his eighth-floor window. Earlier, another man had
paced with him, accentuating his own tormented anxieties.

‘Your first baby?’ he had asked Mac, and Mac had felt a
tightening in his chest as he sought a suitable
reply. How on earth
could he say: ‘It might be,’ to this equally
agitated stranger?

In the end he had nodded and prayed that a nurse would not
erupt into the room announcing ‘Mr
Mackenzie, your ex-wife
has given birth to a fine healthy black baby.’
If she had to say it, then at least let it be when he was on his own ..

And thankfully, when the nurse did at last arrive, she had
beamed at the other man. ‘Congratulations, Mr Rowlands, you have a handsome
baby son. If you’d like to come along with me now . .

Mac had shaken hands with the
stranger, had wished him and his family well. ‘A son,’ the man had said over
and over
again,
pumping Mac’s hand and shaking his head with disbelief.
‘I have a son. Well, good luck,’ he
had added over his shoulder
as he left
the room with the nurse.

‘Thanks,’ said Mac awkwardly. Good luck. That was some
thing he needed. He might be just about to become
a father
himself. And on the other
hand, he thought with dismal
uncertainty,
he might not. He might be just about to become
. . . nothing at all.

He would know, of course, from the expression on the nurse’s
face when she arrived. What he would do after
that he had
absolutely no idea.

At nine twenty-four on the morning of 6 November the nurse
returned.

He knew, of course, from the
expression on her pink face.
And turned
away to gaze fiercely at the pale green wall.

‘
Mr Mackenzie?’ she
enquired, and with reluctance Mac
turned slowly back to look at her.

‘
Yes?’ He felt sorry
for her. It couldn’t be easy, having to
alter the format. She spoke carefully. ‘Miss Marks has a
beautiful
baby girl. If you’d like to come with me . . .?’

He felt as. if he were being slowly
torn apart. His whole
world had collapsed. For a brief moment the sea green walls
swam before him. He wasn’t a new father. The nurse knew
that. He was
nothing.

‘
Miss Marks
asked to see you,’ said the young nurse, embar
rassed
by his silence and by the entire situation. She had only
been working in obstetrics for four months and it
was the first
time something like this
had happened. The mother should
have told them, she thought with a trace
of resentment, then at least they could have been more prepared.

Mac wanted to say, ‘Give me five minutes on my own first’,
but he knew that if he did, he would never go in. Still without saying a word,
he moved towards the door and indicated with a slight nod of his head that she
should lead the way.

Loulou lay back, propped up by half a dozen pillows,
strands of blonde hair clinging to her damp forehead. Her enormous
silver-grey eyes, Matt noticed, were filled with
incandescent
joy and for just a fraction of a second he felt a surge of
hope.

It was
dashed for ever, a moment later, as Loulou foldedback the white blanket in
which the baby – not
his
baby – was wrapped. Mac, trying hard not to
look, briefly glimpsed honey-coloured skin and a tangle of delicate black hair.
Loulou reached
out to him with her free
hand, just as she had last night at
Vampires,
and fighting the sick, stone-like sensation in the pit
of his stomach, Mac went towards her, forcing
himself to plant
a dry kiss on her temple.

‘
Oh darling, isn’t it incredible? I’ve done it . . . actually
done
it,’ breathed Loulou, and he straightened, stood awkwardly
beside the bed, avoided looking at the baby cradled in her
slender
arms.

‘Congratulations.’

‘
Isn’t she fabulous?
Don’t you think she’s just the most
gorgeous thing ever? Would you like
to hold her, darling?’

How was it possible to feel this empty? wondered Mac, his
mouth set with pain, his fists clenching. How
could he be
grieving for the loss of a
baby which had never existed, not
even
for a moment? And how the
hell
could Loulou lie there and ask him to
hold this baby, this cuckoo which had lain so
long in the nest of her
womb, and which was nothing to do with him at all?

The grief and unfairness of it all
threatened to engulf him
and he turned away. ‘I have to go. I’ll let Camilla know .. .
she’ll come and see you . .

‘
Mac, wait,’ said
Loulou, but he had gone. So quickly that she hadn’t even realized he was
leaving. She sighed and sank
back
against the pillows, stroking the dusky, petal-soft skin of
her daughter’s perfect cheek. Mac didn’t understand,
she
realized. He was upset. She could understand that, because she
had expected to feel the same way herself, after
hoping for so
long that the child would turn out to be his.

But what she hadn’t expected was the
incredible tidal wave
of
rapturous, uncomplicated, delirious joy which had swamped her at the exact
moment of birth. Nothing had prepared her for
that,
and it was presumably why Mac had been unable to
understand, as she did with an incredible, perfect certainty, that
it didn’t
matter
who the father of her baby
was. The fact that
she had been born was all that mattered . . .

Nico and Caroline were having a
monumental row when the
phone rang, the first really major one of their relationship. It
was almost a relief, Nico realized, to hear her screaming
out her
grievances, to know that she, too,
had recognized the faults in
their marriage.

And how ironic, he thought to himself as Caroline yanked a
nicely framed Hockney print from the wall and hurled it across
the room, that the source of this fight should be
Loulou, of
whom Caroline had so reminded him when he had first
encountered her on that hot, dusty street in Las Vegas.

At least she had gone up in the world,
he decided, struggling
to keep a
straight face; then she had been throwing a packet of soap powder around. Now
it was an expensive bit of artwork.

‘
You care more about
that tart than you do about me,’ she
yelled, reaching for the next print
along the wall. Nico lunged forward and grabbed both her hands, his green eyes
fiery with anger.

‘
She is
not
a tart, and if you throw one
more picture I’ll . . Words failed him; he didn’t know what he would do. And
how
could he deny the former accusation when
they both knew it to
be true?

‘
Of course she’s a tart.’ Caroline winced as his
grip on her
wrists tightened, but the expression on her face remained
ferocious, mean with jealousy. The healthy tan she
had worn
when she first met him had faded now and her pale skin looked
tired and dull. Even the striking dark blue of her eyes seemed to
have dimmed in the months since they had been back
in
England. Only the thick, tawny brown hair and her spectacularly
curving figure were unchanged, he realized. And they no longer thrilled him.

The attraction – it had never been
love – had withered and
died.

‘
I’m your
wife,’
she
was shouting now, pulling against the
iron
grip of his fingers, ‘and you told me on the phone last
night that you couldn’t get back from Paris until
the weekend.
Oh but then, this morning,’ she went on, her voice awash
with
sarcasm, ‘you somehow managed to hear
that your precious
Loulou had given birth. And
somehow
you
managed to drop
everything and catch the
first plane back here. And without
even
letting me
know
that you were back you went straight to
the
bloody hospital to see her. You bastard, can’t you understand
how that makes me feel? Hasn’t it even occurred to
you to
wonder what other people are going to make of it all . . . not to
mention the Press?’

Nico shook her, not hard enough to hurt her, just enough
to make her listen.

‘Lou’s been a friend of mine for years. A damn good
friend. She’s just had her first child. She isn’t in the easiest of situations,
and at the moment she
needs
her friends. The last show in Paris
was cancelled because of a television strike and
maybe, just
maybe, if you had just
given birth to your first child I would
have flown back and visited
you
first.’

‘Well, that really would be a miracle,’ shrieked Caroline,
her mouth stretching into a furious narrow line, ‘because I don’t
know how they think it happens in bloody Italy, but
over here
you have to have some kind of a sex-life before the woman gets
pregnant.’

In the loaded silence which followed they realized that
the telephone on the table beside them was ringing. Caroline jerked away and
lashed out with one foot in its direction. With a swift
movement Nico released her and picked up the phone. Any
excuse to interrupt the argument. Even if it was
Monty Barton,
he thought grimly, calling to complain about the striking
French technicians, he would keep him talking for half an hour.

‘Yes?’ he said curtly into the receiver.

‘
Hi,’ said Mac, his own
tones equally curt. ‘It’s me. Isn’t life
a bitch? Are you busy tonight
or would you keep an old friend company while he really ties one on?’

‘
I’ll join you,’ said Nico, relieved. ‘Hang on;
I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.’

Chapter 36
The usual
gaggle of papparazzi were hanging around outside
Luigi’s when Nico and Mac arrived by taxi, but at least once
they were inside they would be undisturbed. Having
had an
armful of fan mail flung into his face by Caroline earlier,
accompanied by a wailed; ‘If they knew what a sod
you really
were they wouldn’t write
this crap,’ Nico had chosen the
evening’s watering hole with care. As
soon as they had run the
gauntlet of
exploding flashbulbs at the door, Luigi himself
would ensure that they had privacy and the freedom to behave
as
badly as they liked.