The Show (37 page)

‘Oh God, I’m sorry.’ Dressed now, he sat down on her side of the bed. ‘It’s not you,’ he said contritely. ‘You’re lovely. This is my fault. There’s something wrong with me.’

‘No there isn’t,’ said Macy.

Gabe shook his head bitterly. ‘There is. FUCK! I am such a fucking dickhead.’

‘Why? For wanting some support? Some affection? Some love?’ Macy could hear the desperation in her own voice but she couldn’t stop the words from coming out. ‘Laura takes you for granted! She doesn’t love you. Not the way I do.’

‘Don’t say that,’ Gabe pleaded.

‘It’s the truth. I love you so much, Gabe.’

Gabe stood up again and started pacing like a trapped animal. The guilt was unbearable. Combined with his hangover he felt like he’d just swallowed a pint of battery acid.

‘I’m sorry, Macy. I am. I think you’re incredible. But I love Laura.’

Macy looked down at her hands, suddenly fascinated by the web of lines on her palms. How was it possible to go from being so perfectly happy to so utterly crushed in just moments, she wondered, as if all this were happening to someone else, a character in a play. She knew she ought to get up and get dressed, to get out of Gabe’s hotel room, to end this awful, gut-wrenching scene, to exit stage left. But she couldn’t seem to move.

‘Laura can never know about this,’ said Gabe, an audible tremor of fear in his voice.

Macy nodded.

‘Never.’

‘I understand.’

Turning away from her, Gabe picked up the phone by the bed. ‘Yes, I need Virgin Airlines, please. Ticketing. I have to fly back to London tonight.’

Five hours later, Gabe stared out of the plane window as they climbed through the clouds. Beneath him, Los Angeles disappeared like a bad dream.

Guilt still squatted in his chest like a malignant tumour. Guilt towards Laura, to Hugh and Luca, to Macy, and to James Craven, whom he didn’t know well but who had always struck him as a really decent guy. None of them deserved this. But his panic of this morning had subsided.

Nobody knew what had happened besides him and Macy, and Macy wasn’t going to say anything. She wasn’t the vengeful type.

With any luck this offer from Fox would firm up. Then Macy could front the US version of
Valley Farm
, marry James, and their lives would naturally drift apart. Laura and Eddie would hire a new co-presenter to work with Gabe on the original UK show, and everything would be fine. Jennifer Lee, the vet, might even want to step up and do it. Ever since the showdown with the vicar she’d been a big hit with viewers. Right now, all Gabe had to do was go home, keep his mouth shut, smooth things over with Laura, and spend the rest of his life being the model husband she deserved.

If Fast Eddie Wellesley could do it, so could he.

Gabe closed his eyes and drifted into a fitful sleep.

By the time Gabe emerged into the arrivals hall at Heathrow, he felt almost human again. Just seeing the grey, rainy weather when they touched down had been reassuring, a return to reality after the madness of the last forty-eight hours. A kind stewardess had brought him two bacon sandwiches and a large mug of strong black coffee before landing, further strengthening his resolve.

You fucked up
, he told himself, swinging his bag off the carousel,
but you can fix it.

Then the electric doors to arrivals swung open like the gates of hell.

Hundreds of flashbulbs exploded in Gabe’s face, blinding him.

‘Gabe! Do you have any comment about the
Sun
’s pictures?’

‘Where’s Macy? Can you confirm you’re having an affair?’

‘Do you love her, Gabe?’

‘Have you spoken to your wife?’

The questions shot through the air like bullets. There were cameras and microphones and a human wave of people, pressing around him from all sides, like vultures trying to pull him to pieces. Putting his head down like a bull, Gabe charged through them.

‘Will you get a divorce, Gabe?’

Gabe spun round towards the voice so fast he could have got whiplash.

‘Absolutely not.’

Another battery of flashbulbs. Through the maelstrom, Gabe suddenly caught sight of a familiar face. Before he knew what was happening, Santiago de la Cruz was at his side, taking his bag and wrapping a protective arm around his shoulder as he steered him towards the lift leading to the parking bays. Gabe didn’t think he’d ever been so pleased to see a person in his life.

‘Santiago!’ The vultures temporarily switched targets.

‘Have you spoken to James Craven?’

‘Is the engagement off?’

‘Fuck off, all of you,’ Santiago snarled.

‘Gabe! Gabe!’

Santiago bundled Gabe into the lift, blocking the reporters’ path with his body until the doors closed behind them.

The sudden silence was deafening. Gabe looked at his friend, still in shock.

‘Thanks for picking me up.’

‘I came as soon as I saw the paper,’ said Santiago. Grimly, he pulled a copy of this morning’s
Sun
out from his inside jacket pocket. ‘You’d better take a look.’

Gabe shook his head. ‘Not now. In the car.’

He knew that, once he opened that newspaper, the next chapter of his life would begin. It was a chapter he desperately, desperately didn’t want to read.

The car journey back to Fittlescombe was one of the longest in Santiago’s life. Watching Gabe was torturous. As he sat slumped over in the passenger seat, staring at the photographs of himself and Macy kissing passionately at Shutters’ beach bar, as if by looking hard enough he could somehow will them away, his remorse hung in the air of the little Volkswagen like a living thing.

And then there were the questions! God, they were awful.
How had Laura taken it? Had he or Penny seen her?

Santiago told him the truth. But he knew that with each answer he was twisting the knife into a dying man.

Laura had taken it badly.

Yes, Penny had seen her this morning. She’d collapsed in Penny’s arms.

‘Is she going to leave me?’

The misery in Gabe’s voice was just horrendous.

‘I don’t know, mate,’ said Santiago. ‘She might.’

There was a long silence. Eventually, Santiago filled it, probing Gabe as tactfully as he could about what had happened.

‘So, you and Macy. Has it been, you know … going on for a while?’

‘No!’ Gabe looked appalled. ‘Christ, no!’

‘Because the papers are suggesting—’

Gabe cut him off. ‘There is no “me and Macy”.’

Santiago raised an eyebrow.

‘It was nothing,’ Gabe insisted. ‘Just a stupid, stupid mistake. I was very drunk. We both were. Laura and I had been fighting. Macy was just … there. I mean, she’s a nice girl. I like her, I do. And, you know. She’s beautiful. But I love my wife.’

His voice was starting to break. Santiago put a hand on his leg.

‘I know you do. It’ll be OK.’

Gabe’s mind snapped back to Macy, saying the same thing to him less than twenty-four hours ago, lying naked in his bed.

It’ll be OK.

But it wouldn’t. Nothing would ever be OK again.

A cluster of press had gathered in front of Wraggsbottom Farm’s closed gates, huddled together against the bitterly cold February wind. Against Santiago’s advice, Gabe got out of the car and spoke to them briefly.

He was not having an affair with Macy Johanssen.

He deeply regretted what had happened in Los Angeles.

He couldn’t make any further comment till he’d spoken to his family.

‘I really need you guys to leave now,’ he said, agreeing to pictures. Once they had their shots, the reporters all wished him luck and respectfully dispersed.

‘That was incredible,’ said Santiago. ‘They’d never do that for me!’

‘That’s because you keep telling them to fuck off.’ Gabe smiled sheepishly for a moment, before the gloom descended again. ‘They’re only doing their job.’

‘Do you want me to come in with you?’ asked Santiago. ‘Or I could wait out here? Just in case …’ He left the thought hanging.

‘Thanks,’ said Gabe. ‘But you’ve done enough. I’ll take it from here.’

He waited in the farmyard as Santiago drove away and the gates swung closed behind him. Then he walked slowly up the path to the front door, past Luca’s discarded tricycle and the egg-carton wind-chimes that Hugh had made on his first day at primary school, re-taped for the umpteenth time to the beam over the front porch.

All he wanted in that moment was to see his sons. To hear their sweet little voices and press their soft faces to his own and hug them like he would never, ever let them go.

His hand shook as he slipped his key in the door and let himself into the hallway.

‘Laura? Boys?’

Inside, the familiar chaos of family life was everywhere. Toys, wellington boots and odd socks littered the floor. This morning’s breakfast dishes were still on the kitchen table, and Laura’s papers sat piled up messily on her desk, next to the picture of the two of them on their wedding day. But without the usual soundtrack, of shouts and squeals and TV in the background, everything looked wrong.

Gabe ran upstairs, but he already knew no one was home. This wasn’t a momentary silence, but a heavy, total absence of sound. It was the silence of abandonment. The silence of loss. Of death.

Get a grip
, Gabe told himself.
She’s probably out at a friend’s house, avoiding the press.
But then he walked into the bedroom and saw the mess of clothes strewn across the bed and floor. In the boys’ room, the chest of drawers had been completely emptied, the drawers jutting out at Gabe like shocked, gaping mouths, appalled at what he’d done.

Gabe gripped the wall, nauseous.

They’re gone.

Carefully, trying not to run, he went back downstairs to the kitchen, picked up the phone and started calling.

He would find her. He would talk to her. He would make this right.

He had to.

Laura’s parents lived in a rather horrible, modern house on the Kent border. It was beyond Laura why anyone would choose such a soulless home, especially in a part of the country so chock-f of charm. Even the name was awful: Holmlea. It sounded like cheese. But Laura’s mother liked it because it was ‘low maintenance’, whatever that meant, and because she and Laura’s father could walk to the railway station that took them straight back to London, the city they had just escaped from in order to enjoy a country retirement, in under an hour.

Hugh and Luca weren’t keen on their grandparents’ place either, although Grandpa’s cuckoo clock and the two tortoises in the garden, Gin and Tonic, took the edge off their boredom for the first few hours at least. Even so, when they saw their father’s car pull up outside, both boys hopped up and down with delight at the prospect of being taken back to Wraggsbottom.

‘Daddy! Daddy’s here!’

Hugh ran to the door, oblivious to the strained looks between his mother and grandparents.

‘Are we going home now?’

‘No,’ Laura said brightly. ‘We’re staying the night at Granny’s, remember? I told you.’

Hugh’s face fell, then brightened. ‘Can Dad sleep in my room?’

Before she had time to answer, Gabe was out of the car. Running outside, Hugh launched himself into his father’s arms, swiftly followed by a toddling Luca.

Gabe stood and hugged them for a long time, burying his face in their hair, smelling and kissing them with an intensity that brought tears to Laura’s eyes. Finally, after what felt like an age, he set them down on the tarmacked drive. He and Laura looked at each other. Neither of them spoke.

‘Come and see the tortoises!’ Hugh tugged at Gabe’s hand. ‘They’re having a strawberry-eating race. Tonic’s winning.’

‘Let Mummy and Daddy talk first.’ Laura’s father scooped Hugh up and dangled him upside down over his shoulder, producing gales of giggles. ‘We can have some of Granny’s chocolate cake while we’re waiting.’

Easily trumped by the prospect of a slice of cake, Gabe watched his boys disappear inside the house and the door close behind them. He felt a terrible sense of dread.

It got worse when Laura started speaking.

‘What do you want, Gabe?’

She sounded tired. Resigned. Eerily without emotion.

‘I want you to come home. I want to talk to you. I’m sorry, Laura. I love you.’

She held up a hand for him to stop. ‘Please. Don’t.’

‘Don’t what? Don’t say I love you? But I do, desperately.’

She gave him a small, sad smile. ‘Not desperately enough, it seems.’

He took a step towards her but she immediately moved back. ‘It was a mistake. It meant nothing. Look, I’m not minimizing it, but I was drunk out of my mind. So was Macy. I was upset after our conversation … Please, Laura. Look at me.’

She did, and Gabe instantly wished he hadn’t asked her to. Her gaze was so clear, so
blank.
There was no anger there, no fight. For Laura, it was already over.

‘We’ll come home in a few days,’ she said. For an instant Gabe’s hopes soared. ‘Once you’ve gone,’ Laura clarified, sending them crashing down again.

Gabe opened his mouth to speak but she shut him down.

‘I know you’re sorry,’ she said. ‘And I know you love me. I love you too. But I can’t do it, Gabe. I wasted my entire twenties on a man who lied to me. Who wasn’t what he seemed to be. The pain was so bad I thought I would die, but I didn’t. I survived. And I promised myself, never again.’

‘Oh, come on!’ Gabe raised his voice. His fear was making him angry. ‘You can’t seriously be comparing me to John Bingham? The man was a total arsehole. And he was married.’

‘So are you,’ Laura said quietly.

‘Yes, and I’ve been faithful,’ said Gabe. ‘For ten years! And then, yes, I made a mistake. One mistake. One night. And I know I was wrong and I’m sorry, but come
on
,
Laura. Surely you aren’t going to throw away our life, our family over that?’

For the first time, a flash of real anger crossed Laura’s face. ‘I’m not throwing away anything, Gabe.
You
did that! This is all
you.
So if you’re looking for someone to blame, I suggest you start with the mirror.’