The Birthday Party (36 page)

Of course they were, she told herself, and decided to run herself a bath before going down to supper. The bath was scarred
with rust stains, and the water came out in juddering spurts, but it was boiling hot and the lavender salts provided soon
filled the air with their pungent scent. As she slid into the warmth, Delilah felt comforted and cleansed, and she lay there
for almost an hour before finally pulling out the plug.

She went down to supper in her new cords and a jumper, her face free of make-up and her hair in a long plait. She felt like
an impostor, but she quite enjoyed her new role. It was certainly quicker to get ready.

Elizabeth had laid supper for them in the dining room, and lit a peat fire. They sat at a round mahogany table set with well-worn
Irish silver, crystal and linen, all of which had obviously been in the family for generations. Around the dark red walls
were ancestral portraits and hunting scenes.

‘All my husband’s mad relatives.’ Elizabeth explained them away with a wave of her hand.

Her husband had been the local doctor, taking over from his father before him. He had retired fifteen years ago, and died
five. She hadn’t wanted to leave Gortnaflor.

‘Of course not!’ exclaimed Delilah. ‘Why would you?’

She’d been running it as a bed and breakfast ever since.

‘Though I do dinner for guests I like.’ She smiled, then her face became sad. ‘It’s a struggle. The garden’s a mind of its
own. There’s just me and Johnny Roche keep it in hand. But I love it. I’m seventy-eight next birthday, but I’d rather die
here
struggling than bored to tears in one of those terrible homes. I’ve a girl who comes in from the village to help with the
cleaning. Regine.’ She poured Delilah a tiny glass of her raspberry liqueur. ‘It’s a magical place, Gortnaflor. It helps people
forget.’

‘Then maybe I was meant to come here.’

Elizabeth’s wise blue eyes gazed at her. Delilah blushed, wondering if she’d given too much away.

‘It was the Tourist Board sent you here, not the leprechauns,’ said Elizabeth gently. ‘But we’ll do our best.’

At ten o’clock, Delilah climbed the stairs. She was exhausted. She opened the window in the bedroom and leaned out into the
velvety blackness, relishing the silence, and the cool night air on her face.

She climbed into bed. The sheets were heavy Irish linen, cold at first, and rather scratchy, but somehow they moulded themselves
to her body and the blankets soon warmed her up and before she knew it she had drifted off into the most deliciously healing
sleep.

The next morning she woke with a lump of dread in her throat and a sudden sense of panic at what she had done.

She had spent so much of her life being responsible that suddenly doing something rather reckless didn’t sit easily with her.
She started to run through all the people who would be affected by her disappearance, and felt increasingly uncomfortable.
What would the girls think? Did they even know? And poor Polly would be getting the brunt of the drama, running round like
a headless chicken. Tony, too, would be pulling his hair out.

She didn’t care how Raf was feeling. Not one jot. In fact, she hoped he hadn’t slept a wink all night.

However, she did feel she ought to do something to stop everyone panicking. She had effectively disappeared without trace.
What if the police had been called? They would be combing the country now, trying to track her down. And she
supposed they would, eventually – they would find her details on the ferry booking system, and where she had spent money.

The last thing she wanted was to be found. She knew the police wouldn’t do anything until she had been missing for twenty-four
hours – it was just coming up to thirty since she had left Bath – so if she got in contact any search would be called off.

She got up and dressed quickly, and went down for breakfast. She could only manage a piece of toasted soda bread and some
thick-cut marmalade.

‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a computer here?’ she asked Elizabeth, not holding out much hope. There wasn’t even a television
as far as she could see.

‘I have not,’ replied Elizabeth. ‘My son’s always on at me to get one. And a mobile phone. But I can honestly say I have never
felt the need for either.’

‘You lucky thing,’ said Delilah. ‘My whole life is ruled by emails and text messages.’

‘The girls in the tourist office will let you use theirs. I’ll ring them.’

An hour later, Delilah was opening her Hotmail account on the Tourist Board computer system. She chewed the side of her finger
as she composed a suitable missive. She’d send it to Polly, who was at the centre of operations.

Dear Polly, she wrote. Just a note to tell you not to panic. I expect you’ve heard what’s happened by now. I’ve gone away
for a while to get my head together. Please look after Doug for me, or if you can’t get Tyger to move into The Bower. I’m
safe and well. Love to the girls. And to you. Delilah

She didn’t put a kiss. She wasn’t in a kissy mood. She pressed Send, then felt a sense of relief. She’d done the responsible
thing – nobody could accuse her of a melodramatic disappearance – and the police wouldn’t be interested. She was safe in her
little bubble for the time being.

P
olly put her hands over her ears while Tony exploded.

He had turned up at The Bower that morning to find Delilah missing, and quickly put together the missing pieces of the jigsaw,
finding out from Miriam that both Delilah’s show and her book had been dropped. He got straight on the phone to Raf.

‘Why the hell didn’t she tell me?’ Tony thundered. ‘She knows the bloody rules. It would be pretty embarrassing if the press
started phoning for comments and I didn’t even know. What’s she thinking of?’

‘Um …’ Raf said awkwardly. ‘There might be something else on her mind.’

‘What? What else could be more important?’

Raf told him about Pandora.

Tony hit the roof.

‘For God’s sake, haven’t you learned from your mistakes? You’ve got the chance for a clean slate, a new beginning, and you
go and fuck it up. Royally.’

‘Nobody knows. We were very discreet.’

‘For fuck’s sake, don’t be so naive. Pandora might as well be walking around with an
I’ve shagged Raf Rafferty
T-shirt on. Where is she? I need to talk to her.’

‘Calm down, Tony. It’s all cool. Pandora knows to keep her mouth shut.’

‘She’s an
actress
. If she thinks she can get some good publicity out of this, she’ll squeal. I need to make sure she
knows exactly what this all means. I’ll come down. Take her out for lunch. Put her in the picture.’

‘OK.’ Raf knew there was no point in trying to stop Tony when he was on a roll. After all, this was what he was being paid
for. And he did have a point.

‘We need a game plan. We don’t want the press finding out Delilah’s done a runner. If we’re going to salvage anything from
this fiasco, we’ve got to be watertight. I’ll draft a press release about her being dumped and get it sent out. It’s better
they find out from us than someone leaks it.’ He paused momentarily for breath. ‘Tell Pandora I’ll be there by one o’clock.’
And he slammed the phone down.

Polly looked at him.

‘Raf and Pandora Hammond,’ Tony told her. ‘Caught in delicto by Delilah. Full marks to him for a monumental cock-up. I knew
this would happen. I warned him to be careful. I must admit, I had my money on Genevieve Duke, but at least she would have
had the sense not to get caught. Not like some publicity-hungry little slut—’

‘Tony …’ Polly was staring at her inbox. The email from Delilah had just appeared. She printed it off and handed it to Tony,
who read it with an impassive expression.

‘Well, at least we know she hasn’t jumped off Beachy Head.’ He crumpled the message up and fired it across the kitchen. He
feigned fury, but Polly privately thought that Tony was rather enjoying the drama. He got terribly bored if there wasn’t anything
cooking, and this was brewing up nicely.

‘You don’t know where she’s gone, do you?’ His eyes bored into Polly. ‘Only I know how much she trusts you.’

‘No, I don’t!’ Polly protested.

Disgruntled, Tony sat down and compiled a press release. After fifteen minutes huffing and puffing, he read it out:
‘Delilah Rafferty and her production company have decided that the time has come for her to take a well-earned break from
her television commitments so she can concentrate on her other projects
. What the fuck they are I’ve got no idea, but it sounds good. She is
on
holiday at the moment, recharging her batteries, but she has lots of ideas for the future, and is welcoming the opportunity
for a change of direction. Watch this space!’
He looked at Polly. ‘All PR speak for
she’s been fired and had a nervous breakdown
, but you’ve got to go through the motions. What do you think?’

Polly looked upset. ‘I think we should call the police.’

‘That’s the last thing we should do. We know she’s all right. Send that off to all the appropriate people. I’m off to Bath.
Book me somewhere for lunch with the fragrant Miss Hammond, will you? Text me the details.’

And he was gone.

Polly looked after him with her mouth open. How rude could you get? She was employed by the Raffertys, not him – she wasn’t
his personal assistant. But it wasn’t in Polly’s remit to rock the boat, and so she went online to find a restaurant and booked
him a table, then dutifully sent off the press release.

Then she went out into the garden and sat on the bench. She started to peel an orange – she was trying to be good, and only
snack on fruit – but she had barely got the skin off before big, fat tears began trickling down her cheeks.

She’d put Raf on a pedestal for all those years. Of course, she knew about his womanising in the old days, but she thought
that was all in the past. She thought he was devoted to Delilah. To think she had wasted all that time worshipping him, when
he was no better than all the other low-rent celebrities who couldn’t keep it in their trousers.

Raf Rafferty, her god, her hero, was nothing but a sleaze.

Three hours later, Tony sat Pandora down for a discreet lunch in the Queensberry Hotel in Bath. He made it clear he wasn’t
going to spend much time on small talk.

‘We’ll have the
menu rapide
,’ he told the waiter.

That was fine by Pandora, who didn’t feel much like eating.

‘I’ll cut straight to the chase,’ Tony said as soon as their food arrived. ‘I can’t impress on you quite how important it
is that
this doesn’t get out. We’re rebuilding Raf’s brand from womanising pisshead to style-icon and family man, so we don’t want
anyone getting wind of him getting his leg over.’

Pandora looked at him, her violet eyes wide and brimming with unshed tears.

‘I’d never do anything to hurt Raf or his reputation. I feel terrible about what’s happened.’

Not so terrible you couldn’t keep your legs shut in the first place
, thought Tony viciously. He leaned forward.

‘The thing is, if it does come out, then it won’t look good for you. The press are never very keen on the ‘‘other woman’’.
They’ll rake up all sorts of dirt about you, and what they don’t rake up they’ll make up. So best just to keep schtum in the
first place, eh?’

His message was pretty clear. What the press didn’t dig up, he would provide.

‘Of course,’ Pandora agreed, but her chin was wobbling. ‘I can’t believe this has happened. I don’t know what to do. I’ve
got no one I can talk to about it. I …’

She took in a deep breath, ready to unburden herself. Tony rolled his eyes.

‘Don’t tell me. You love him.’

She nodded, weeping into her tuna carpaccio. Tony looked at his watch and heaved a sigh. He really didn’t have time for this.
Bloody women. They were all the same. One orgasm and they thought they were in love.

Raf put a kindly arm around a red-eyed Pandora when she came back to the shoot after her lunch with Tony.

‘He wasn’t too tough on you, was he?’

‘He was a pig,’ she blurted out. ‘I don’t know why you have someone like that working for you.’

‘Because he’s good at his job,’ said Raf. ‘I’m sorry if he was harsh.’

‘Don’t be nice to me,’ pleaded Pandora. ‘I’ll start crying again.’

Genevieve came over with a cup of tea and a vial of Optrex. Dickie was looking increasingly stressed, and the crew were looking
curious. They sensed that something was up.

‘Go and put some of these in before people start asking questions.’ Genevieve handed Pandora the eye-drops, then turned to
Raf with a rueful smile.

‘I feel like bloody Brown Owl,’ she told him. ‘Tea and sympathy. It’s really not my thing, you know.’

‘You’ve been a star,’ he said gratefully. ‘I don’t know where I’d be without you.’

‘On the front page of the News of the World, probably. Any word from Delilah?’

‘No. Not since her enigmatic email to Polly.’ Tony had given him the details. In the meantime, Raf had given up trying to
phone Delilah. It was obvious she wasn’t going to answer. ‘I’m going to have to go home tonight. Tell the girls in the morning.’

Genevieve winced. She imagined the news would go down with those three like a cup of cold sick.

‘Do you want me to come with you? Give you a bit of moral support? Or should that be immoral support?’

‘Would you?’ Raf was really starting to value Genevieve’s friendship. She’d proved a stalwart throughout the whole thing.
‘It’s really going beyond the call of duty.’

‘There but for the grace of God,’ she told him with a shrug. ‘And it keeps my mind off the fact that I’m too old to see any
action.’

The next morning, Polly eyed up the island in the centre of the kitchen and decided that if there was anything missing it
was tough. She’d laid out blueberry muffins, maple and pecan Danish pastries and a huge white platter of fruit – slices of
mango, pineapple, peaches and nectarines and a mound of cherries. Coffee was brewing, and there were jugs of blood orange
juice and bottles of water.