Lessons in Laughing Out Loud (8 page)

“I’m saying . . . Will, learn to take a compliment, darling. And anyway, well done,” Victoria said with satisfaction. “I thought you played that whole good cop, bad cop thing marvelously well.”

“I didn’t know I was playing good cop, bad cop.” Willow frowned.

“Yes, darling, I beat her up, you comfort her. Now she trusts you. I’m quite sure that between the two of us we’ll be able to keep her on the straight and narrow.”

“As opposed to what?”

“As opposed to her blabbing and blubbering all over the press. That skinny little scrap is my retirement plan and I will not let her fuck up my getting a yacht in Saint-Tropez.”

“You already have a yacht in Saint-Tropez.”

“Do I? Well then, I will not have her fuck up my yacht in Saint Barts. From now on you are on call for India Torrance. Either you keep her under control and out of the limelight or I’ll be forced to stage her suicide myself so that I can make money out the serialization of the book about her tragic life.”

Willow would have laughed but she wasn’t entirely sure that Victoria was joking.

Chapter
           Five

W
illow slid her front door key into the lock but hesitated in turning it. Normally she felt pure relief to be able to finally lock herself away from the world but she had felt uneasy about leaving India alone in her suite at Blakes and wondered if she should go back, her desire to be at home fighting with the splinter of discomfort that nagged at her.

India had seemed so fragile in the midst of all the black silk and gilded furniture, lost in opulence, out of place despite her acquired sense of entitlement. She was famous, world-famous, but unlike many of the stars that Willow had dealt with since she came to work for Victoria, India’s celebrity seemed to sit uneasily on her narrow shoulders.

“All this crying has made me ugly,” India had said in that perfect cut-glass English accent of an age gone by. As soon as Willow unlocked the door to her room, she had crossed to a gigantic rococo-style mirror that hung over the dressing table to examine herself, her fine fingers tracing their way over her cheeks and down her neck, as she lifted her chin, peering down her arrow-straight nose at her reflection. “I think I’ve aged ten years, at least.”

“Well, you only looked about eleven to begin with so, that’s okay then,” Willow said. Victoria had told her to check the
room for anything that might be used for self-harm and instructed her to remove it, but as there were enough swags and curtain ties to strangle a small army in this room inspired by bedouin tents and Arabian nights, she decided the task would be impossible without hiring a removal van. Besides, although India was deeply upset, certainly, she didn’t seem suicidal. Willow had once seen the look of a person who didn’t care if they lived or died and India didn’t have it.

Willow hovered hopefully by the door.

“Anything you want me to organize for you before I go?” She silently prayed that India wouldn’t ask her to stay. To be so close to someone so fragile, so out of control, scared Willow, as if the younger woman might somehow draw her back into the emotional chaos that daily threatened to engulf her if she failed, even for one second, to keep it at bay.

Trailing over to the bed, India collapsed into its black silk duchesse satin depths. Her alabaster skin contrasting starkly with the surroundings, she looked like a pre-Raphaelite oil painting or one of the perfume ads she’d been cast to star in. Willow suspected she was trying to think of some demands appropriate to a celebrity of her status.

India propped her head on her hand and assumed a haughty expression. “Yes, some water please, room-temperature, and some fruit, not mango, I hate mango. I’d like some strawberries, organic, from inside the EU, keep down the air miles, and some grilled skate, with a side of fennel—but the fish must be fresh, caught this morning, I don’t like to eat anything that has had more than twenty-four hours to rot.” She lifted her head and smiled apologetically. “Is that okay?”

‘”This is Blakes, if you wanted chocolate-coated oysters served on a bed of kitten, that would be okay.” Willow smiled. “Are you okay, though, don’t you have anyone, any of your people, to keep you company? A friend or PA or something?”

It was the inevitable truth that the more famous a person became the more they had to pay someone to be there for them.

India dragged herself into a sitting position, hugging a pillow over her abdomen. “Victoria says no. She says that someone tipped off the press, that some hack might have gotten lucky and come across me and Hugh together with a long lens but that it took an insider to get the phone messages and the details of where we . . . met up. She says once she’s found out who it is she’ll arrange to have them disappeared . . . but that’s just her idea of a joke, right?”

“Probably.” Willow nodded, noncommittal.

“So, no PA for me, for now. Although I’m sure it wasn’t Martha, she is more of a friend than an employee, she just wouldn’t. I’m sorry, how boring for you, to be dumped with all this.”

“Not at all, it’s my job. I’ve done worse. Really.” India’s gaze drifted away and she stared out of the window at the wet, gray afternoon outside, the sky so low and dark it felt as if night might have already fallen. Willow cringed, thinking of her sofa. All the wonders that Blakes Hotel had to offer didn’t compare to the thought of putting her feet up and falling asleep in front of the TV with a family-size bag of crisps and half a bottle of wine. But still . . .

“I could stay?” she offered reluctantly.

India shook her head, smiling weakly at Willow. “No, I want to be alone, in the words of Garbo. I need to miss him, and if you’re here I’ll have to be keeping my chin up and going on about what a bastard he is. The sorry truth is I don’t feel that way, and I just can’t believe he feels the way he is talking about me.”

“Right then, well, you’ve got my number, so any problem at all . . .”

“Do you think I disappointed him?” India lifted the neck of her sweatshirt and peered down it, before looking back up at Willow. “Physically, I mean. Look at me, I have the body of a boy. You have very big breasts.” She cocked her head to one side as she unashamedly observed Willow’s bosom. “My head could fit in one of your cups. I’ve got no tits at all. Hugh said he loved my body, untouched by life he said. But he wasn’t ever very . . . enthusiastic. I thought it was because our love was more spiritual than carnal. Do you think I’d look good with bigger breasts?”

Willow patted the door handle affectionately and took a few steps back into the room.

“Well, it’s easy enough to get to a G cup, although honestly I don’t know why anybody would want to. There’s no need for people to pay thousand of pounds for surgery, all you have to do is eat double your own weight in KFC at least twice a week on a sliding-scale ratio and Bob’s your uncle. A cleavage you could sink the
Titanic
in.”

India’s smile was barely there but at least it was present. “I would do that, but actually it doesn’t matter what I eat, I can’t put weight on. There was a story and a photo of me in
Grazia
the other week, wondering if I had an eating disorder, but the truth is I’m just skinny. I could eat my own weight in KFC every day and all that would happen would be I’d die of a heart attack before the age of thirty.” India patted her concave tummy and then rested her palm on it, her deep furrow slotting between her brows. “I wanted to say something, say I’m not anorexic, but Victoria says you must never say anything. Keep them guessing, that’s what Victoria says.”

“To be honest, Victoria doesn’t think that a spot of anorexia is necessarily a bad thing. The big fashion houses make a lot of noise about ‘healthy’-size models, but really the thinner the better.”

“I’ve never understood that.” India tightened her squeeze on the pillow over her stomach, as if she were imagining a wider girth. “Look at you, you’re not skinny and you’re gorgeous. If I was a man I’d much rather be in bed with a woman like you than a woman like me; you’ve got bits and bobs to fiddle with in all the right places. You’ve definitely lost weight since that awards thing Victoria made me go to.”

Willow thought about what had become of her nemesis and obsession, the digital scale in her bathroom. The number had steadily crept up by three pounds since that event.

“I don’t think I have. I think it’s these shoes, I think they must make my legs look longer or something.” In one fluid and entirely uncharacteristic movement, Willow left the refuge of the doorway entirely, popped her shoe-clad foot onto the lacquered bedside table, and pulled up her trouser leg.

India gasped, her eyes widening. “They are perfect! I’ve never seen any shoes that are so . . . just lovely and I’m normally a trainers sort of person.”

“They’re one-offs, a vintage pair, I found them in this weird little junk shop. Just sitting there. They fit me perfectly, and they must do
something
for me because ever since I’ve put them on people keep complimenting me, and no one ever compliments me.”

Finding it slightly more challenging to gracefully remove her leg from the table, Willow half stumbled, half hopped across India and collapsed on the bed next to her, gratified to hear the young woman chuckle as she landed, an audible puff of air being expelled with some force from the goose-down pillows.

“Show me again,” India commanded, and Willow cheerfully obliged, lifting her leg up slightly and pointing her toe as she displayed one shoe and then the other.

“Perhaps that’s what I need, shoes,” India said wistfully.

“If I was more sophisticated, if I dressed like an adult then maybe . . . maybe Hugh wouldn’t have just left me. Have you seen his wife? She looks so proper, like a proper person. Not like me, I don’t look proper at all. Perhaps if I have better shoes . . .”

“New shoes cure almost everything, but very rarely to that extent.”

“Maybe, or maybe I can substitute shoes for love, and be happy. Like you.” India realized what she said the second it came out of her mouth, clapping her hands over her offending orifice, her green eyes widening. “I didn’t mean . . .”

“No, it’s fine.” Willow was not offended. “Maybe I have substituted shoes for love. I’m fifteen years older than you, I’ve had plenty of lovers, I’ve been married and still . . . well, still there isn’t anyone who appears to love me. And maybe that and some wonderful shoes is just my life.”

“But that’s so sad,” India said, impulsively putting her hand on Willow’s knee. “And so not true. No one is meant to be alone, there is always someone for everyone.” Her head alighted unexpectedly on Willow’s shoulder.

“Only one, you think, in the whole world?” Willow smiled, touched by the unexpected gesture of girlish affection. “And what if he doesn’t live in Wood Green? What if he lives in Katmandu and he’s a . . . goatherd or something. If there’s only one person for me in the whole wide world, then the odds are that I will never meet him. I don’t believe in true love. It’s just not practical.”

“I know you don’t mean that, I know you don’t. I know that true love exists, just as I know that I will never love again,” India informed her solemnly.

“Oh, you will,” Willow promised her. “Only next time he will be young and have hair and no intermittent erectile dysfunction.”

“How did you know?” India gasped, sitting up and staring down at Willow.

“It’s an open secret. Although probably not much of a secret for much longer if Victoria’s got anything to do with it.”

“It didn’t matter to me.” India sighed. “I told him our love was more than just an erection.”

She said it so seriously, so dramatically, that it took a second or two for her to catch Willow’s eye and to match her smile with laughter.

“Besides, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you,” Willow reassured her, privately surprised by how raw, how visceral India was, her tender heart beating furiously away on her sleeve. No, she wasn’t the sort of person who endured fame very well at all.

No sooner had Willow closed her apartment door, leaning back on it for a moment with a sigh of contentment, than the phone rang. Holly.

“It’s India Torrance staying in my flat to avoid the press. If you tell anyone I will lose my job,” Willow said, cutting out the small talk that simply wasn’t necessary when you spoke to a person four or five times a day.

“You’re having India Torrance to stay at your flat?” Holly shrieked in a tone so high that luckily only dogs and any passing dolphins would have understood what she said. “You’ll need to clean out your fridge.”

“How do you know my fridge needs cleaning?” Willow asked as she plonked her keys on the table and went to the fridge, peering gingerly into its depths.

“Because I haven’t visited you for over a month and you never do it yourself. Wow, Willow, India Torrance and new shoes! Your life is so exciting.”

Willow smiled. Holly did that from time to time; it was her
way of being kind. To pretend that she didn’t adore her husband and children, or her picture-perfect house by the sea, and that Willow’s life, which bounced between the office and her flat, was much more enthralling than hers. Then again she also pretended that she didn’t mind bearing the brunt of caring for their mother, who’d been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis almost twenty years ago, although Willow knew that Holly thought of it as some kind of penance. By no means did Holly have it all, but of the two sisters she was the one who could still look their mother in the eye.