No Matter What (141 page)

She looked back down at her script, sticking the end of her pen in her mouth. “Two days in July, if you’re lucky.”

“No wonder you left then.”

She looked up as Ethan came crashing into the trailer, closely followed by JJ. Ethan, her beautiful baby boy.
 
He was so much like Michael now, and every day he seemed to take on another aspect of his famous dad’s mannerisms.
 
It was something
India
had always wanted, for him to be like his dad,
 
but it never stopped hurting every time she looked at him, wondering what could have been if things had been different.

He clambered up onto the sofa next to her, scrolling through the songs on his iPod.
 
India
looked at JJ as he down on the arm of the sofa, leaning over to kiss her quickly.
 
Her son, meanwhile, had stopped studying his iPod and was smiling up at her.

“Hey, baby,” she smiled back, ruffling his dark hair.
 
“Has JJ been showing you around?”

Ethan nodded, putting his iPod into the pocket of his jeans.
 
“We’ve been having breakfast with Uncle Ray.”

India
looked back at JJ.
 
“Everything ok?”

JJ knew that she wanted to ask if Michael was about so he gave her a look that said everything was fine.
 
She seemed satisfied with that and turned her attention back to Ethan.

“Ok, baby.
 
Do you want to go with Bobby now and he’ll take you over to hair and make-up and show you where they make mummy look like the character I’m going to be playing in this movie?”

Bobby closed the laptop lid and smiled at Ethan.

“Come on, Munchkin.
 
Hair and make-up’s my favourite place because that’s where they make everyone look fabulous!
 
We’ll go and see if Scott’s there yet and he’ll show you just what he can do with a can of hairspray and a bronzer kit.
 
The man’s a legend, he really is, ask your mother.
 
He’s been making
her
look fabulous for years.”

Ethan looked up at
India
with his huge blue eyes.
 
“Mommy, can Scott give me a Mohican?
 
Like this, look!”
 
He started to push his hair up from the sides until it stood up in the middle of his head and
India
couldn’t help laughing.

“Yeah, ok.
 
If he’s not busy.”

Bobby gave an exasperated sigh and rolled his eyes.
 
“Almost seven years I’ve been your Godfather, Ethan Walsh, and none of my style has rubbed off on you.
 
None of it.
 
Where have I been going wrong?”

Ethan slid off the sofa and ran over to Bobby, stopping at the doorway and turning back to look at
India
once more.
 
“When can I see daddy?”

JJ gently rubbed
India
’s back, feeling her tense up at the question.

“Soon, baby.
 
You can see him soon.”

As soon as the door closed behind them,
India
stood up.

“I’m going to talk to him.”

“Talk to who?” JJ asked, still sitting on the arm of the sofa.

“Michael.”

“
Now
?”

“Yes, now.
 
Before Ethan sees me and his dad together for the first time he can ever remember in his short little life.”

“Is that the
only
reason?”

She looked at JJ.
 
“What the hell is
that
supposed to mean?”

“You were in love with him once.”

She just stared at him, not trusting herself to say anything.

JJ stood up, pushing a hand through his hair.
 
“I’m sorry.
 
I’m sorry, baby.
 
I don’t know what made me say that.”

India
shrugged off his hand as he tried to touch her, turning away from him. “I’ve got to sort something out, Joe.
 
There’s got to be some kind of relationship there whether I like it or not, or this just isn’t going to work.”

“I know,” JJ sighed, coming over to her.
 
He gently touched her waist, and this time she didn’t shake him off.
 
She turned round and let him hold her loosely.
 
“I understand that now.
 
Really, I do.”

She looked up at him.
 
“Do you?”

He nodded.
 
“I’m just being stupid.
 
We’ve only been married a few weeks and I guess I’m just not ready for the honeymoon to end yet.
 
Ignore me.”

India
couldn’t help smiling, wrinkling up her nose.
 
“Well, to be honest,

Joseph, you’re pretty hard to ignore so, that’s going to be a bit difficult.”

He smiled too.
 
“I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok.”

He kissed her slowly.
 
“Do you want me to come with you?”
 
Because he wanted to.
 
He really wanted to.

She shook her head, playing with the collar of his jacket.
 
“No.
 
I need to do this on my own.
 
I’ve got to grow up and deal with this because it was always going to happen, I know that now.
 
I just never really wanted to face up to it before.
 
Not until I had to.”

He kissed her again, pulling her close.
 
“Just be careful, ok?”

She smiled again, gently stroking his face.
 
“I’ll be fine, really.
 
I’ll be fine.”

JJ let her go and watched as she left the trailer, sitting back down on the arm of the sofa, looking down at the wedding ring on his left hand.
 
He knew exactly why he’d reacted the way he had just then.
 
Of course there was a reason.
 
Michael Walsh was back in her life and, despite their past, despite everything that had gone on between them, he could see something in her eyes.
 
Her ex-husband was back in her life and that worried JJ.
 
Until now there’d been no distractions, nothing to get in the way and this new situation, it didn’t feel right and it scared him, this uncertainty, this development he didn’t want to have to deal with.
 
They’d just got married and he was still in that stage where all he wanted to do was look at his new wife, to try and believe that she was actually his.
 
From a fantasy in a photograph to reality in his bed, that’s what India Walsh was to him and he didn’t want anyone to get in their way.

But if only he could have realised, if only he could have seen what was coming.
 
If only he could have seen that.
 
But he had no idea.
 
He had no idea at all.
 
Nobody did.

***

Michael saw her coming towards his trailer through the window and he felt his stomach do a major somersault, his heart suddenly starting to beat faster and a child-like excitement washed over him as he ran around the trailer, tidying up papers, straightening cushions, throwing cups and glasses into the sink and he had no idea why, maybe it was a nervous reaction.
 
But
she
was coming to
him
, and that had to be a good thing, didn’t it?
 

He stopped what he was doing and looked in the mirror, leaning forward slightly, his fingertips tracing the lines around his eyes.
 
He looked older; there was no getting away from it.
 
He didn’t look his age, far from it, but he looked older and today – today he
felt
older, something he hadn’t experienced before, something he’d never thought he would.
 
But it was today that he’d realised it had been
India
keeping him young, and seeing her new, younger husband hadn’t helped.
 
She’d chosen someone so far removed from him, so different.
 
Had what he did made her hate him so much that she’d gone for a man who couldn’t be further from the person he was?

The knock on his trailer door made him start slightly, and he quickly pulled himself together, taking a deep breath as he opened it.

“Can I come in?” she asked, not waiting for his answer as she pushed past him into the trailer.
 
He closed the door, watching as she walked over to the window, looking out briefly before turning round to face him.

“You ... you haven’t got Ethan with you,” Michael said, keeping a distance he sensed she wanted between them.

“No, I haven’t.
 
I wanted to talk to you first, before he sees us together.
 
God knows this is confusing enough for him as it is.”

Michael looked down at the ground for a second, shoving his hands in his pockets.
 
“Me and you ... we’re his mom and dad and yet ... we’ve never talked about him, together.”
 
He looked up at her.
 
“We’ve never talked about him together,
India
. Have we?”

What could she say to that?
 
It was true.
 
They hadn’t, and how they’d managed to do that still amazed her.
 
But today, standing here in front of Michael, it also made her sad.
 
The last time they’d spoken about their child he’d been seven months old.
 
Just a baby.
 
They’d never gone to his school together, never gone to his plays or his parents’ evenings together.
 
They’d always taken it in turns.
 
Ethan always got one of them but he’d never got them both and that hadn’t been fair on him.
She
hadn’t been fair.
 
He may be growing up in
Hollywood
where nothing was unusual, and his teacher’s had never batted an eyelid at the strange set up they had but, it wasn’t fair.
 
Not on Ethan.
 
It wasn’t fair.

“He’s growing up so fast, isn’t he?” Michael went on, unable to look away from her.
 
She was still so beautiful, still the same beautiful
India
and he couldn’t just switch those feelings off, even after all this time, he couldn’t do it.

India
nodded, not really knowing what to say anymore.
 
“He’ll always be my baby,” she whispered.
 
“He’s an amazing little boy, Michael.
 
Despite the crap we’ve put him through.”

Michael looked down at the ground again.
 
“Look ... we have to talk,
India
.
 
For Ethan’s sake.”

“I know.
 
But, before we do anything let’s get one thing straight.
 
He’s going to ask questions, he’s going to wonder what’s going on and he’s probably going to be very confused because this is a situation you can’t really explain to a child his age.
 
But one thing we don’t do - one thing
you
don’t do - is give him any hope, any false hope that you and I are going to get back together, ok?
 
That isn’t going to happen and he needs to know that.”

Michael felt his heart sink as he watched her face, the determination, the hardness, it hadn’t been there before.
 
She was different in some ways.
 
She looked the same, she’d felt the same, but she was different.

“What happened at the hotel …”

“… was a mistake, Michael.”

“I saw it in your eyes,
India
, I saw what you were feeling, and that was real, baby.
 
That was real.”

She wasn’t going to let him wear her down again, she wasn’t going to let him do that.
 
She couldn’t regret what they’d done in
London
, she couldn’t lie to herself and say she hadn’t wanted to feel him touch her or kiss her again because she had.
 
But she couldn’t go back.
 
She had to move forward or this mess was only going to get worse, so she had to get strong all over again and make him understand that she wasn’t coming back.
 
Even if, deep down inside, there was a tiny part of her that wished she was.

“It won’t happen again, Michael.
 
Whatever it was, if it was anything at all, it isn’t going to happen again.”

He couldn’t say anything.
 
He couldn’t get any words out.
 
She felt this way now, of course she did, this was all new, this had all been thrown at her at once and she was bound to be wary, bound to be careful, but what Michael had to do was cling onto the hope that things would change.
 
It was early days.
 
Things
could
change, and so could she.