Now, since Izzy’s perceptive housekeeper had virtually raised the subject anyway, she decided to take the plunge and say aloud the question that had been buzzing around in her mind ever since she’d woken up.
‘OK,’ she said, bracing herself. ‘Lucille, if
you
really liked a man and knew he liked you in return, but because you were old friends nothing was actually happening . . . well, would you carry on as you were and just hope it might happen naturally? Or do you think it would be better to come out and say something?’
She could feel perspiration prickling the back of her neck. God, it was hard enough even saying this to Lucille . . .
But the housekeeper’s broad smile told her all she needed to know.
‘Bless you,’ declared Lucille triumphantly, feeling almost as if she had engineered the entire fairy-tale herself. ‘And there I was, wondering how long it was going to take you to come to your senses! Of course you must tell him. He’ll be relieved and delighted to know how you feel, and that’s a promise!’
‘Are you sure?’ said Gina, sagging with relief. ‘Really? I wouldn’t want him to think I was being . . . well, pushy.’
‘Sure, I’m sure,’ Lucille replied, her sweeping gesture towards the window encompassing the entire male population of north London. ‘Don’t three-quarters of them need a bit of a push and a shove to get them started at the best of times? You mark my words, a fine man is a rare enough creature to track down these days. If you’re fortunate enough to find one, you have to thank your lucky stars and then hang on to him by your very fingernails.’
‘Bugger, bugger and damn!’ shrieked Izzy, slamming down the phone just as Gina wandered into the kitchen.
Katerina, who was standing at the stove stirring a great panful of molten chocolate fudge, raised her eyebrows.
‘My mother, the celebrated song-writer. Can’t you just picture Michael Parkinson introducing her on next week’s show? And now ladies and gentlemen, here to give us a rendition of her latest single, “Bugger, bugger and damn”, will you please welcome—’
‘That was Doug,’ snapped Izzy, ignoring her. ‘The concert organisers in Rome have just informed him that if I don’t get over there tomorrow night they’re going to sue the pants off me for breach of contract.’
‘Oh, I get it now.’ Katerina grinned. ‘Bugger, bugger and damn is a firm of solicitors.’
‘I could always have you adopted, you know.’
Gina, sitting down at the kitchen table, interceded. ‘Is it really so terrible?’ she asked cautiously, in case Izzy rounded on her as well. ‘I thought you were looking forward to going to Rome.’
Izzy was exhausted. Weeks of working punishing hours in the recording studios had taken more out of her than she’d realised. The dozens of interviews and personal appearances had been mentally draining too, since she always had to guard against saying the wrong thing and permanent perfection didn’t come easily, particularly when the subject of Tash Janssen was so often on every interviewer’s lips. She was tired of smiling and endlessly being diplomatic. She was tired of working, sometimes until midnight, with her brilliant but unbelievably picky producer. The only thing that hadn’t been tiresome had been the prospect of a week in Rome, which was somewhere she’d always longed to visit, but that had had to be cancelled when Gina was taken ill.
And this is all the bloody thanks I get, she thought mutinously. So much for making the great sacrifice and promising to look after the invalid. Here was Gina, sitting opposite her, wearing violet eyeshadow and urging her to bloody well go anyway.
‘Don’t be cross,’ said Gina, bewildered by her obvious irritation. ‘I’m trying to help, that’s all.’
‘You’re ill,’ replied Izzy bluntly. ‘I thought
I
was supposed to be the one trying to help
you
.’
Finally understanding, Gina’s face cleared. ‘And you have,’ she said with genuine gratitude. ‘More than you’ll ever know. But you’ve made enough sacrifices already, and you can’t possibly let those Italians sue you. I’ll be
fine
,’ she added persuasively, thinking of Sam but smiling at Izzy. ‘Really. It’s only going to be for a few days, after all.’
‘Ah, but a lot can happen in a few days,’ put in Katerina, sighing with pleasure as she tasted the first spoonful of still-warm chocolate fudge.
Izzy, somewhat mollified, said, ‘Such as?’
‘Mum, I know what you’re like with Italians.You could go over there to do the concert and come back married.’ Rolling her eyes for emphasis, she added solemnly, ‘To a devastatingly attractive Roman solicitor called Buggeri . . .’
The last time she had packed her suitcase for Rome, Sam had ended up making love to her on top of it.
Izzy felt it suitably ironic, therefore, that Gina should have chosen this particular evening and this moment in which to confide her earth-shattering decision.
The difference, of course, was that this time she was having no fun at all.
‘. . . so you see, I know it sounds crazy, but I really do love him,’ Gina concluded, while Izzy, like an automaton, continued to pack. ‘Oh God, it’s such a relief to be able to tell you this! But do
you
think I’m crazy?’
Unable to speak for a moment, Izzy shook her head. How could falling in love with Sam Sheridan be crazy, when she’d done the very same thing herself? And how desperately she wished now that she hadn’t insisted upon keeping their relationship a secret.
‘You really should be using tissue paper,’ said Gina, eyeing the haphazard jumble of silks and cottons spilling over the rim of the case. ‘It stops things getting creased.’
‘Mmm.’
‘Everything that’s happened, you see, has made me rethink my life. Particularly now that I might not have much of it left.’
‘Don’t say that,’ said Izzy numbly, but this time Gina wasn’t being self-pitying.
‘I’m just trying to explain,’ she went on, willing Izzy to understand. ‘Whenever you’ve wanted something, you’ve gone out and got it. I’ve always admired you for that. And here you are, happy and successful . . . you have everything you could possibly want! So I’ve decided to be like you. I love Sam and he’s what
I
want. I would have been too scared to tell him before, but now I know that life’s too short to be scared.’ She shrugged, with more bravado than she felt. ‘The worst he can do, after all, is turn me down.’
Except that he can’t, thought Izzy, her expression bleak and her stomach a clenched knot. Because you’ve got a brain tumour and Sam’s practically your dying wish. So he doesn’t really have a lot of choice.
Chapter 52
Knowing that she was entirely responsible for her own misery wasn’t making Izzy feel any better. Last night she had dreamt that during a fearful confrontation she’d told Gina she couldn’t have Sam because he loved
her
. Gina, utterly distraught, had drowned herself in Izzy’s weed-choked fish pond and Sam, in turn rounding on Izzy, had icily informed her that Gina was the only woman he’d ever really loved anyway.
It was all very disturbing and she had woken up in floods of tears, only to realise that what actually
had
happened was just as hopeless. Gina had begged for reassurance that she was doing the right thing and all she’d been able to do in return was agree. How, after all, could she deny her friend that last chance of happiness when she had already endured a year of such awful misery and despair?
It would have been so much easier, as well, not to have had to face Sam and pretend that nothing had happened, but even that small luxury had been denied her. By sheer chance, an urgent business meeting had prevented him visiting Gina the previous night and when he’d phoned to explain, she had told him of Izzy’s imminent departure. Izzy, consequently, hadn’t had any choice in the matter when Gina had happily informed her that Sam would pick her up at nine-thirty the following morning and drive her to the airport himself.
It was an unfairly beautiful November morning too, brightly sunny and glittering with frost like something out of a Disney cartoon. Still haunted by her earlier dream, Izzy gazed silently out of the car’s side-window at the dazzling blue-whiteness of Hyde Park and didn’t even notice they were slowing down until Sam had brought the car to a full stop.
‘What?’ she said, startled, as he switched off the ignition.
‘My sentiments exactly,’ replied Sam, his tone dry. Leaning across her, undoing her seat belt and opening the passenger door, he added, ‘Come on, we’re going for a walk.’
Anticipating somewhat warmer weather in Rome, Izzy was wearing a pink-and-green striped blazer over a short pink dress. She shivered as an icy blast of air invaded the car, but all Sam did was hand her his own scuffed leather jacket and motion her to get out.
‘Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?’ he said eventually, when she had trudged along beside him in silence for several minutes.
It was the last thing Izzy felt able to do. Instead, she gave him a brittle smile. ‘I’m cold.’
‘You’re playing some kind of game,’ he countered, not returning her smile. ‘And I want to know what it is. Even more, I’d like to know why you’re doing it.’
And I want to tell you, she thought miserably, more than anything else in the world. But I can’t, because that would mean betraying Gina’s confidence. It wouldn’t be fair.Worse than that, it would be downright cruel . . .
‘Look,’ she said, shoving her hands deep into the pockets of the leather jacket and quickening her pace in order not to have to meet his unnervingly direct gaze, ‘I’m really not playing games. I’ve thought a lot about . . . what happened the other night, and I know now that it was a mistake.’
‘Oh, right.’ Even though she couldn’t see his expression, the sarcasm in Sam’s voice was unmistakable. ‘Of course it was. The biggest mistake ever. I thought of writing to Clare Rayner myself—’
‘Don’t start,’ she said unhappily. ‘I’m trying to explain, that’s all, and you aren’t making it any easier.’
A hand on her arm stopped her in her tracks. Frosted leaves crunched beneath Izzy’s feet as Sam swung her round to face him.
‘But I don’t want to hear this bullshit. So, why should I make it easier?’
It was unfair. Everything was unfair. Even the fact that Izzy knew her nose and cheeks were red with cold yet Sam’s face remained as smooth and brown as a ski instructor’s was unfair.Why on earth, she thought with mounting resentment, couldn’t he at least go blotchy like everyone else?
‘Look,’ she said, trying again. ‘When it comes to mistakes, I’m an expert. I can spot them a mile off. And I’m fed up with
making
them . . . so for the first time in practically my entire life I’m trying to do the sensible thing instead.’
She stood her ground as Sam stared at her in disbelief.
‘Maybe,’ he said finally, ‘you should define
sensible
.’
This wasn’t easy. She hadn’t had time to practise. And it had to sound believable . . .
‘I don’t want to make any more mistakes,’ said Izzy, pushing her hair away from her face with a defiant gesture. ‘Sam, we’re an unmatched pair. Look at how Vivienne drove you up the wall with her untidiness and the way she couldn’t cook a meal to save her life . . . I’m
just
like her, only worse! I know that if we even tried to make a go of it we’d end up hating each other. It simply wouldn’t work.’
‘I think it would.’
‘Only because you’re being pig-headed,’ she retaliated. ‘And because you’ve probably never
been
turned down before.’
‘I’ve certainly never heard such feeble excuses before.’ He was almost smiling now. ‘Got any more, or was that the entire repertoire?’
‘I’m being serious!’ Izzy shouted, infuriated by his refusal to believe her. ‘We have no future, so what
would
be the point of even pretending we have?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘So that really is all you’re worried about? The fact that you can’t cook?’
‘No.’ Slowly, she shook her head. ‘We have no future because I’m thirty-seven years old. I have a grown-up daughter and a career that’s finally taken off. You want a nice little wife, and children of your own.’ She paused, giving the words time to sink in. ‘And that’s what you should be looking for, Sam. A wife.’