Valentine (25 page)

In the star-studded foyer – here a Sienna Miller, there
an Orlando Bloom, but alas no George Clooney –
Valentine realised that she'd forgotten to get a picture of
herself in the dress, and she'd promised her mum. She
scrabbled for her phone in her Chanel clutch bag (another
gift from Piers, after Olivia had seen the vintage gold
bead bag she had planned to take and vetoed it – she
probably thought vintage was unhygienic). 'Saul, please
could you take a picture of me?'

Saul looked taken aback at the request. 'This isn't really
the place, Valentine,' he replied huffily. 'It makes you look
like a tourist, and you're supposed to belong here,
remember?'

'Take a chill pill Saul, it's just a picture,' Valentine
replied. Saul was the last person she wanted to ask a
favour of, but needs must. 'I could always ask someone
else if you think it's such a big deal.'

'Don't draw attention to yourself,' Saul shot back. 'Just
give me the fucking phone.' She handed him her mobile
and he furtively took the shot, barely giving Valentine
time to pose, then tossed it back at her. She checked the
image and saw to her dismay that he'd only got her head
and shoulders. He was such a git.

'Saul, you haven't got the whole dress,' she started
saying, but Saul's attention had been claimed by another
guest and she was left standing there holding her phone
and feeling self-conscious, even though she knew for a
fact that Piers had asked him to look after her. She scanned
the crowd looking for Piers, then realised that she had no
reason to seek him out. What was she supposed to do
now? She'd never been to a film premiere before and
had no idea of the etiquette. She didn't know anyone.
Should she go and introduce herself to some people
or should she just stand here like a lemon? Albeit a lemon
in a very expensive dress.

'Well, well, Valentine Fleming.'

Oh my God, it couldn't be, could it? She spun round at
the sound of the familiar voice – adrenalin pumping through
her along with that tiny flicker of hope because there
standing in front of her was Jack. He looked devastatingly
sexy in black tie, his dark-brown hair cut shorter than the
last time she'd seen him. Valentine felt suitably devastated.
Even in the tightly fitted Spanx Jack had an impact and
Valentine was reminded of Lottie's saying.

'Here with Daddy, I see,' he continued, dryly.

'He doesn't want anyone to know yet, so promise you
won't say anything.' She couldn't bring herself to mention
the confidentiality contract.

Jack shrugged. 'What's the big deal, aren't you good
enough for him? Though I see he's got you dressing the
part.' He whistled as he took in the Valentino dress. 'Not
sure about the hair, though. It's a bit First Lady, isn't it?'

'Oh.' Instinctively Valentine put a hand up to her hair.
Jack had always liked her to wear it down, as wild as
possible, but Ivana had told her that Olivia had a phobia
about finding stray hairs anywhere near her and had
asked that Valentine always wear her hair tied back in
her company.

'And have you got fake tan on?'

'I might have.'

'Be careful Valentine, it's a thin line to becoming one
of the orange people.'

Valentine looked at her arms in alarm. No way was
she orange; she had a sunkissed glow, damn him. To hide
her discomfort she changed the subject. 'So why are you
here?'

'I'm here with Tamara.'

Wham, that was a blow. The flicker of hope went out
again. Valentine had hoped by now the novelty of Tamara
would have worn off.

'And Piers invited me.' Jack curled his lip dismissively.
'He seems to want to offer me a role in his next movie.
Big wow.
'

Valentine was stung by Jack's disdain, even though
she knew he had always preferred art house over blockbusters.
'You don't have to audition,' she answered.
'There are plenty of other actors out there who would
jump at the chance of working for my—' she lowered
her voice to a whisper – 'dad. His films are very
successful. Don't be such a snob because they're mainstream.
Not everyone can be Alejandro González
Iñárritu!' She stumbled over the pronunciation of one
of Jack's favourite directors.

'That's not the reason. Piers's films are so crushingly
predictable, where the actors get to show the emotional
range of fish.' He paused. 'So, are you here with Finn?'

She shook her head. 'I did see him for a while, but
then we broke up. For good.'

Jack gave a bitter laugh. 'So he went off with his other
girlfriend, did he? I could have predicted that one.'

'Actually I broke up with
him
,' Valentine replied, not
at all liking Jack's tone of voice.

'Well that's probably the best thing you've ever done.
Pity it all came too late in the day.'

She was shocked and hurt by the venom in his voice.
He sounded as if he hated her. She was about to reply
when he said, 'There's Tamara. I'd better go. Enjoy the
film, Valentine.'

Stung as she was by Jack's words and by his tone, she
knew she couldn't be that surprised. She had hoped that
by now he might have been feeling more forgiving, but
clearly this was not the case. Nonetheless she spent the
time before the film started scanning the vast auditorium
for him, still longing to see him.

'Stop looking around,' Saul hissed. 'It's so uncool to
be star-spotting here.'

She ignored him. She couldn't see Jack anywhere, but
Piers was sitting several rows in front. 'Why aren't we on
the same row as Piers?' she asked.

Saul rolled his eyes at her naivety, and said bitterly,
'I'm only the writer, remember. I'm surprised they asked
me along at all.' Valentine didn't add
you're one of the writers,
because it had taken ten of them to put together the
screenplay.

A sudden hush fell in the auditorium as the lights
dimmed and the midnight-blue velvet curtains rippled
back revealing the huge screen. Usually Valentine loved
going to the cinema and losing herself in the drama, but
right now she knew she had to concentrate one hundred
per cent on the film, so she could come up with something
penetrating and intelligent to tell Piers afterwards.
It was an action movie – Piers's speciality – set way in
the future, when the earth had been decimated by global
warming, and invaded by aliens, who had enslaved the
surviving humans. Naturally only one man could save
mankind and defeat the alien hordes. She so wanted to
see the good in it, but it was devoid of humour and
nuance,
Die Hard
minus the comedy and great one-liners.
Halfway through, Valentine felt her concentration waning.
She was in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with
Jack – the actors only got to show a fraction of what they
could do. But they were showing more range than fish,
she decided; it was more like the range cats would show.
To entertain herself she recast the film with cats. The
hero would be half pedigree, making him sleek and arrogant,
and half moggy, making him streetwise and fearless.
The heroine would be Siamese, pretty and pampered with
bewitching blue eyes and the villains would be white
Persians, all with one green eye, one blue, a shocking cat
stereotype she knew, but what the heck. She was in
formulaic hell.

'Why are you smiling?' Saul hissed in her ear. 'This is
supposed to be the really emotional part.'

Oops, Valentine had been trying to imagine if a cat
would be able to work the controls of an Uzi automatic
while before her the hero lay dying, shot so many times
that surely he had no chance of surviving. The heroine
was cradling his head in her hands, tears raining (she was
watching clichés, she sure as hell could use them) down on
his face as she told him she was pregnant. This was unusual
in Piers's films – the hero never died, but credit to him for
breaking the pattern; she'd have to remember to mention
that. Then again not, as the hero's unfeasibly blue eyes
opened and he croaked, 'I'm going to be there for my son.'
Not dead at all. In fact the door was wide open for a sequel.

Cheers and wild applause rose up from the auditorium
as the credits rolled. Valentine turned to Saul. 'That was
brilliant,' she tried to say with as much sincerity as she
could muster, conscious of how fake she sounded.

'Do you think so?' Saul asked anxiously, temporarily
not his usual confident, poisonous-toad self.

Valentine knew only too well from her own acting
career that after any performance you
always
said the
person was marvellous, even if they weren't, and left the
savaging to the critics. She figured the same rule applied
to the film world. 'Absolutely,' she continued. 'That's going
to be such a huge hit.'

'What?' he looked horrified. 'Did you say pile of shit?'

Valentine resisted the urge to giggle. 'Of course not,
I said huge hit!'

The after-film party was being held in the ballroom of
one of the swish hotels lining Hyde Park. It had been
dressed to look like a desert in homage to the film. Sand,
about a metre deep, had been scattered all over the floor,
which was frankly annoying as it made walking in heels
difficult and waiters had to keep rescuing guests whose
heels had got stuck. There were huge artificial palm trees
with girls in skimpy silver bikinis performing trapeze acts
from them while silver-suited waiters – no doubt intended
to mimic the aliens' silver skin – handed out champagne.
Valentine quickly noticed that she was the only guest who
ever seemed to thank them. She'd done her share of waitressing
and had vowed never to treat waiters badly. She
wanted to have a wander around and see if there just
might be someone she recognised, but Saul gave her strict
instructions to stay with him. 'I don't need babysitting,'
she told him petulantly.

'Piers wants us to stay together,' was Saul's answer.
So she was forced to stand at Saul's side, smiling
supportively while people congratulated him on the film.
Inevitably, after the guest had heaped enough praise on
Saul, they would ask her the question dreaded by struggling
actresses the world over: 'So what are you in at
the moment?'

'I'm between projects,' she replied, smiling fixedly, and
would see the instant waning of interest in the other
person's eyes.

Sometimes they would go on to ask an additional question.
'So what movies have you been in?'

'Oh I've only been in one film; I'm not sure if you
would have seen it. It was only shown at film festivals,'
Valentine would reply. And that would be the final nail
in the coffin of the conversation, and they would make
their excuses and go off and talk to someone way more
interesting and higher up the food chain.

'These people make me feel so worthless,' Valentine
said bitterly to Saul after she'd endured another such
conversation.

'Well you don't exactly sell yourself, do you?' Saul
replied nastily and for a second Valentine almost felt like
telling him what she had really thought of the film. But
then Piers and Olivia joined them.

'So what did you think?' Piers asked.

Valentine took a deep breath and launched into her
carefully prepared speech. 'I thought it was amazing! Such
a powerful film with such strong themes about life and
death and survival and identity. It was an epic really,
wasn't it?' She knew she was gushing, but she really wanted
to impress Piers.

'Good, good,' he replied, nodding in agreement. 'I'm
glad you got all that. Did you pick up where I was
influenced by Bergman? Anyway, we can talk about this
tomorrow in more detail; I've got a window after my
training session with Kelly. Shall we discuss it over breakfast?
And I really want to talk about your career Valentine.
I definitely want you to have a part in my next film.'

Valentine was simultaneously thrilled at the prospect
and horrified at the thought of having to come up with
something else to say about the film. It really had been
the most dreadful load of predictable bollocks. And what
the hell had been the Bergman influence? She took a
super-sized sip of her champagne. Hopefully there would
be some reviews already up on the net and she would be
able to glean something from them. She looked round
the room, half-hoping, half-dreading that Jack would be
there. Saul and Piers were chatting to a journalist, Olivia
was deep in conversation with the very good-looking hero
of the film, and she was left feeling like a lemon again.

Suddenly she caught sight of Jack and Tamara walking
towards them. She noticed that Tamara didn't look quite
so polished as usual – she had bags under her eyes, her
usually glowing skin looked sallow and she seemed to have
lost even more weight. What was that about? Valentine
wondered. As Tamara went into raptures over the film
to Piers (she hadn't lost her ability to be really annoying),
Jack stood at her side looking moody. He caught
Valentine's eye and moved next to her. 'Shall I tell you
what the reviews will say tomorrow?' he whispered in her
ear. 'They'll all say that it was a turkey. No, that's too
generous; it was a Turkey Twizzler.'

She turned to him. 'Shut up! It was not! It had all
these really strong themes in it, and had so much to say
about the planet. I think it will be a classic. Didn't you
pick up on the Bergman influence?'

'You know that's bollocks,' Jack replied, smiling at her
feeble attempts. It was the first time he'd smiled at
her since the break-up.

'Come on, let's go outside and talk. I can't hear myself
think with so much sycophantic crap flying around.'

Maybe this was the moment Jack was going to tell her
that he'd made a huge mistake and that he wanted her
back. Her heart did the crazy racing thing as she followed
him out of the room, the small flicker of hope reignited.
Seeming to know exactly where he was going, Jack led
her down the long corridor and into an empty conference
room.