What She Wants (57 page)

coping with another one. Toby sleeps so badly as it is …’ She broke off.

‘Has he been sleeping very badly while I’ve been away?’ asked Matt.

‘Not great,’ said Hope, which was another lie. Toby had been a light sleeper since he was a baby, waking up at the slightest noise. But he had improved since they’d been in Redlion. The heavy country air made them all sleep more soundly.

‘So you’re not broody? I thought you were,’ said Matt.

Hope wriggled round to face him and laid her face against his chest. ‘Let’s enjoy the pair we’ve got for the moment before we start planning any more, okay?’ she said lightly.

Matt kissed the top of her head. ‘Yeah, you’re right.’

By the time Matt left for what Hope prayed was his final stint in Bath, she had almost convinced herself that nothing had happened between her and Christy. Life had slipped back to normal with surprising ease. Matt went off to the creative centre to write most days, although he got back earlier than he used to and wanted to spend more time playing with the children.

‘When you’re away from them, you realize that you’re missing them growing up,’ Matt told Finula one day when she dropped in unannounced for coffee and was put out to discover that Matt had a picnic planned with the children and wasn’t cancelling it for anyone.

‘I’m afraid you’re stuck having coffee with me,’ Hope said a touch vindictively to Finula, as Matt and the children set off down the lane with a bag of sandwiches made up by Hope and jam jars to collect tadpoles in the stream.

‘Super,’ said Finula, in a voice that made it plain the situation was anything but super.

While Matt had been away, Hope had managed to avoid seeing too much of Finula. She’d been forced to go to dinner with the Headley-Ryans once when Finula wouldn’t take no for an answer and had spent the evening bored out of her

skull. Luckily, without the lure of Matt, Finula wasn’t too interested in spending time with Hope, so she’d been spared any other invitations. This meant she’d almost forgotten how irritating she found the other woman. With her little finger crooked in what she fancied was a posh way, Finula drank her coffee and gobbled up half a plate of chocolate biscuits with astonishing speed for someone who claimed to have a wheat allergy. Typically, she couldn’t resist showing off. ‘We were in the Pigeon Club for dinner the other night,’ she announced. ‘It was wonderful, the food is superb. I had the most wonderful lamb.’ Hope, who knew just how good the food was in the Pigeon Club, nodded. ‘Really.’ ‘The owner is a personal friend of ours. I’m sure you’d like it, Hope. I know Matt would,’ Finula preened, as if she had the inside track on what Matt Parker did and didn’t like. It nearly killed Hope not to say that she’d met Liam, the owner, that she’d had the most fabulous lunch there with a genuine friend of Liam’s and that Liam had given them the best table in the house. In fact, it was nearly a bed, never mind a table. She gritted her teeth and poured more coffee, resisting the impulse to pour it all over Finula’s swollen head. ‘Finula drives me mad,’ snarled Hope later, when Matt returned with two mucky children, one with a big scrape on her knee, and no tadpoles. ‘She’s all right,’ Matt placated her. ‘She’s just insecure at heart.’ ‘Insecure?’ raged Hope. ‘That woman is as insecure as Chairman Mao. She cannot stop boasting. Do you know she told me three times that she and Ciaran are getting a brand new Cherokee next January, and I lost count of the number of times she mentioned “our holidays in Antigua”. I hope they get stopped by Antiguan customs for suspected

dope smuggling and get locked up in jail for the entire three weeks!’ Matt further annoyed Hope by laughing. ‘Hope, you’re hilarious. Of course Finula’s insecure. Why else would she keep telling you things like that - because she’s jealous of you and the only way she can deal with that is to keep reminding both of you about her holidays and her jeep and her famous friends. She’s sweet, I like her.’ Hope wondered how she and Matt could possibly be compatible when they had such wildly different views on people. ‘Anyway,’ she demanded, as an argument clincher, ‘why would Finula be jealous of me? What do I have that she wants?’ Matt grinned wickedly. The, darling.’

Although Hope worked in the Manoir for six mornings when Matt was home, she never once bumped into Christy. It was as if he sensed she was off his radar and he knew he had to leave her alone. Hope, who found her enjoyment of working with Una and Janet tinged with anxiety that Christy would walk in at any moment, was relieved that there was no sign of him. By the sixth day, she had managed to almost convince herself that their passionate kisses had been like an episode of Dallas - and that she’d merely been dreaming. ‘I’m going to be away for a week soon,’ Una confided as they had their elevenses. ‘I don’t suppose you’d be able to come in for the whole week and help Janet out?’ ‘I’ll have to check it out with the creche but it shouldn’t be a problem,’ Hope said confidently. The whole Christy thing was over after all. She had nothing to worry about.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Nicole sat on her bed and looked at her picture in the evening newspaper. It had been one thing to see the promotional photos in the comfort of a Titus office, dark and moody shots where her cheekbones stood out so that she looked like some sort of Indian princess, but seeing them in a genuine newspaper in the ‘up and coming’ slot was another thing entirely.

She was described as the latest LGBK signing, ‘the hottest new singer in years,’ according to Sam Smith, who was also quoted as saying there’d been a lot of competition to sign the golden-voiced Nicole. ‘We’re thrilled that she’s signed with us because we discovered her and she’s going to be a huge star,’ Sam said.

Nicole’s mum had been delirious when she saw the photo and had bought six copies of the paper, going round to all her friends in Belton Terrace to show them how well Nicole was doing. As always, when her mum went overboard, Nicole had compensated by going underboard, as it were.

‘It’s nothing, Mum,’ she’d said when Sandra arrived home with her collection of papers. ‘Only a picture in the paper. It doesn’t mean anything.’

‘It means you’re famous,’ Sandra said reverently.

‘No it doesn’t,’ Nicole replied. ‘Now, are you ready for your dinner or not? I’ve done egg and chips.’

Sharon had phoned half-way through dinner. ‘Everyone at Copperplate has seen you in the paper!’ she squealed delightedly. ‘Even old iron knickers Sinclair! The whole place was talking about you in the canteen.’

Nicole briefly felt a moment of nostalgia for her old job. But it was only brief. It was only just over a month since she’d left the building for the final time and already it seemed a million years ago. Since then, she’d been working on her album - even thinking those words gave her goosebumps and doing things like photoshoots, which sounded glamorous but were actually so boring that she couldn’t imagine how models ever stuck it. Hours upon hours of posing woodenly, prefaced only by hours of getting plastered in make up. All a zillion miles away from sitting beside Sharon down the back of the motor department trying to think of ways to wind up Ms Sinclair or longing for her lunchbreak or for the weekend. These days, life seemed to be one long, weird weekend. ‘Wow, Nic, you’re famous.’ Even Sharon sounded impressed. Hearing her say it made Nicole sad. She and Shaz had been best pals for ages, ever since they’d joined Copperplate at the same time, as nervous eighteen-year-olds. Shaz knew what sort of person she really was. She should have known that Nicole was still going to be Nicole, no matter how many times her bloody picture was in the paper. ‘What are you up to tonight?’ Nicole asked to change the subject. Sharon groaned. ‘Going on a double date with Michelle, her fella and his best friend.’ “I thought you’d been saying no to that for ages,’ Nicole protested, seeing the possibility of going out with Sharon disappearing. ‘You think Michelle’s fella is a plonker.’ ‘Yeah, well, it’s something to do, isn’t it?’ Sharon said. ‘How about you? Something dead cool, I suppose?’ Nicole looked at the kitchen table with the remains of her mother and Pammy’s dinners congealing on their plates. Both had finished and left all the dishes and cutlery just lying there, the way they normally did. Sandra was not the sort of person who couldn’t relax until the kitchen was tidy. She could quite happily leave the dishes to pile up for days,

which meant that Nicole was the family’s main washer-upper. She knew from past experience that fried egg set solid on plates and needed a lot of effort to remove it. She wouldn’t have minded clearing up if she’d thought she could go out with Sharon afterwards and celebrate having her picture in the paper. But it was obvious that Sharon had found a new best friend in her cousin Michelle and that she, Nicole, was assumed to have an exciting new social life for herself with her record company pals. She was off the radar to her old friends. ‘Nothing,’ she replied to Sharon. ‘I’m not doing anything. It’s been a mad week, I might go to bed early.’ When Sharon had hung up, Nicole threw the remains of her cooling dinner in the bin and began to wash up. The egg on all three plates was stuck solid, as she’d guessed. She scrubbed energetically and wondered if this was how other would-be singers spent their Friday nights. She had been invited to a party by Peta, one of the Titus publicity people, but she’d said no. It was an album launch and Peta had said that it would be great for Nicole’s profile if she went but Nicole couldn’t really tell her that she was nervous of the idea of big, glam parties. Sharon would have loved the launch, Nicole reflected, since it was for one of her favourite bands. But it probably wouldn’t be okay to bring a friend. Nicole knew that big stars often had an entourage of friends with them, but they were big stars and she was just a hopeful star that nobody had even heard of yet. Imagine how embarrassing it would be if she turned up with Sharon and nobody let them in? When everything was tidy in the kitchen, Nicole went to her room and indulged in a few minutes looking at her photo in the paper. Incredibly, she looked beautiful. Like a stranger, almost. Anyone looking at that wide-eyed girl in the photo with the jewelled ethnic collar around her slender neck, would have thought that she’d be out partying every night. Not stuck at home.

Nicole threw the paper on the floor. She didn’t have to be stuck at home, though, did she? When she couldn’t get through to Peta on the phone, Nicole phoned Bob Fellowes’s assistant, Isya, because she didn’t want to phone Bob himself with something so unimportant. When she’d appointed him as her manager and they’d signed the deal with Titus and the LGBK label, he’d insisted that she phone him about anything. But Nicole was still shy around him and Isya was always utterly sweet to her and much more approachable. She couldn’t talk to Bob about a party. Isya listened to the problem gravely. ‘Of course you don’t need an invitation,’ Isya said in her soft voice. ‘Leave it to me. I’ll get the stylist over to you and the limo will pick you up at nine. Lorelei, another DMF client, is going and you could go with her. You need to meet her anyway because you’ll be doing the Teen Stars roadshow together.’ Nicole put down the phone in shock. Lorelei was a big star, she’d had two top ten singles. The limo, and a stylist to do Nicole up for the party, were coming. Nicole breathed out shakily. She was on the celebrity express train and there was no getting off.

The stylist dressed Nicole up in a minuscule leather skirt and a chiffon top that wouldn’t have fitted Pammy’s Barbie. Lorelei was wearing something even more daring. Needless to say, guys were drooling over them all evening. Not ordinary guys of the variety that Nicole knew how to deal with, but semi-famous ones, like the lead singer with Coral Fish, a dead-eyed giant named Zol who wore nothing but leather and had roving hands. He’d smoked a joint right beside her and asked her if she fancied coming back to his hotel room later. Nicole had laughed nervously at that. Her habitual cool deserted her and she downed cocktail after cocktail to cope with it all. She hadn’t said yes to Zol but he seemed to think she’d agreed to go back to his hotel

room later anyway because he kept patting her bum in a proprietorial manner and fiddling with her hair.

‘I’ll look after you,’ Lorelei had said when they’d met for the first time in the limo going to the party, but she’d more or less abandoned Nicole, which was why Nicole lunged delightedly at Darius when he arrived with the Density guys.

‘Thank God you’re here,’ she’d hiccuped. ‘It’s mad here, they’re all mad.’

‘Nicole,’ Darius said, as he held her hot swaying body in his arms. ‘Are you all right? You seem a bit woozy.’

‘Zombies,’ she said, raising her half-empty cocktail glass to him. ‘I’ve had loads. Four at least. It’s scary here. Nobody seems normal.’

‘That’s because you’ve been with the abnormal people,’ he said, putting down her glass and taking her to sit down in a quiet corner away from the dance floor and the bar. Nicole flopped into the big squashy sofa with the insouciance of the very drunk.

‘I didn’t think you were coming tonight,’ Darius said gently, taking in the skimpy chiffon top that barely hid her small breasts and the leather skirt that revealed at least five inches of leg above the knee. Nicole’s granny would have a fit if she saw her granddaughter in that outfit.

‘I wasn’t. I had to wash up the egg and chips plates and I was bored and lonely.’ Her slender fingers curled themselves round Darius’s collar and she gazed up at him hungrily, her shining black eyes liquid with desire. ‘You’re so nice, Dariush,’ she slurred sweetly.

Darius gulped. He was crazy about Nicole but he had no intention of taking advantage of her when she was drunk out of her mind. He hated seeing her like this. She shouldn’t have been there at all. Nicole was talented and just starting out. She didn’t need to learn any lessons from dope-heads like the Coral Fish people or from cast iron little madams like Lorelei. Both would be on the way out in two years, he was sure of it, their limited talent squandered and their

chances blown because of the way they messed people around. Even Density, whom he thought were hugely talented, were stretching his patience with their demands. But Nicole could be a huge star for a long time and it would ruin her to get caught up in the jaded lifestyle of the likes of Coral Fish. He gently unhooked her hands. ‘I really like you too, Nicole,’ he said softly. ‘But not here, not tonight.’ Suddenly, they were interrupted. ‘Well hello,’ purred a purposefully low voice. Lorelei, five foot six, seven stone and with a diamond-hard, truculent little face, appeared with a waiter in tow and three more cocktails on a tray. ‘Who have we here? Don’t keep all the beautiful ones for yourself, Nicole.’ Lorelei eased herself onto the sofa beside Darius like toothpaste oozing from a tube. ‘Hello.’ Her long manicured talons were a direct contrast to Nicole’s short, clear-coated ones and she laid one hand on Darius’s long, lean thigh. ‘I’m Lorelei.’ Lorelei expected this intro, delivered in her trademark (and carefully worked upon) drawl, to work wonders. Some men had drooled when she’d delivered it, agog at the sight of her silicone breasts shoved up under her chin in a Wonderbra. Unfortunately, it didn’t have the desired effect this time.