‘Umm, yes. Nice to meet you too.’
‘So what are you doing here, James?’ Ingrid says, and I give up. My bubble deflates in a split second, and as I back away from the pair of them neither notices, each completely wrapped up in the other.
How is it that you can go from feeling on top of the world to feeling like shit in less than a minute? If this weren’t our party, weren’t the opening of my dream, I’d leave right now and go to bed. But of course I can’t do that, so I choose the only other option available. Booze.
I drink and I drink and I’m about to drink a bit more, when Lucy comes over and gives me a stern look, subtly removing my champagne glass as she introduces me to yet another potential customer to charm. I give her a grateful look, because tonight, the opening of our shop, is not the time to be disgracing myself, and, although I’m definitely tipsy, Lucy has managed to save me from thoroughly disgracing myself.
At some point I become aware that Si is trying very gently to steer me into the stock room, and then I look over his shoulder and do a double take. Or perhaps that should be a quadruple take, because walking this way is someone who looks very like Portia.
‘Hello, Cath,’ she says coolly, as I practically keel over with shock. ‘Long time no see.’
Chapter twelve
It’s very strange to see someone again after ten years. Strange to see how that person has changed, whether they have, in fact, changed.
I remember bumping into three girls I went to school with a couple of years ago. I hadn’t seen them in twelve years, and they were all mortified because I said they hadn’t changed at all, but it was true. Their faces were older, their hairstyles more sophisticated, but I would have known them anywhere.
Yet although Portia should not have changed, I can see that somehow she has. Her face seems harder, and, even though she is still tremendously beautiful, her look more polished than even I could have imagined, there seems to be something brittle about her. We stand there for a few seconds, both half smiling, both unsure of how to greet one another after all this time.
And though I know my face doesn’t give it away, I’m nervous as hell and I can feel my heart beating wildly, and I just hope that when I speak I’m not completely breathless with nerves.
‘Oh my God!’ Si’s shrieking breaks the reverie, and he flings his arms around her in a bear hug before she can say anything. She laughs and gently disengages herself, then leans forward and gives me a kiss on the cheek.
‘But how did you…? What are you…?’ Si is as surprised as I am, and I realize that this isn’t his set-up, his surprise.
‘Don’t ask,’ she smiles. ‘I got your message, but you never left your phone number. I read about this in the local paper and it mentioned your name, so I thought I’d pop in to say hello.’
‘You look amazing,’ I find myself saying, unable to help myself, because she does, she looks as if she has just stepped from the pages of a glossy magazine. Make that an expensive glossy magazine. Her hair is a rich sweeping curtain of mahogany, her eyes bright and clear, and her voice rings with a confidence and authority that has evidently developed tenthousandfold over the years.
Put it like this: if you spotted Portia walking down the street, even if you had no idea who she was, you would assume she was a high-powered media star who always gets exactly what she wants.
‘Thank you,’ she smiles. ‘And it’s a relief to find you look exactly the same. The same old Cath. Still presumably as disinterested in fashion as ever, although,’ and she fingers my jacket and takes a close look, ‘do I detect a hint of Emporio in here?’
Si gasps with pleasure. ‘I told you,’ he nudges me. ‘Told you it was worth the money. I’ve been trying, Portia’ – he looks at her with a shrug – ‘but you know Cath. This is the first decent thing she’s worn in the last ten years.’ It’s odd to hear his tone of voice, friendly, light, familiar. Almost as if it has only been a week since we last saw her.
‘You look good too,’ she says to Si. ‘This is so weird, coming here and finding that you’re all here and still friends and still looking the same.’
‘Because you’ve had to imagine us these last few years?’
Portia looks bemused but is poised enough not to look embarrassed; she simply raises an eyebrow as a question.
‘I should say I’m angry, but actually I’m rather flattered, because Steen is gorgeous.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Well, it’s us, isn’t it?’
Portia laughs. ‘God, you wouldn’t believe the number of times I’ve heard people say they know it’s about them. Si, I hate to disappoint, but they are fiction.’
‘Portia, we’re not stupid,’ I interject gently at this point, not wanting to push the point, because what if we are all wrong? Although I know we’re not.
‘But it’s fiction,’ she repeats, refusing to admit anything, doubtless for fear of being sued.
‘Anyway,’ I say brightly, ‘you’ve done so well. We had no idea the show was yours.’
‘Thank you,’ she smiles. ‘I haven’t done too badly.’ She looks around the room and says, ‘Josh must be here. I’d love to see him.’
‘And Lucy, you haven’t even met Lucy,’ Si says protectively, shooting me a warning look. ‘You’ll love her. Let’s go and find them.’
I’ve always been fascinated by memory. Fascinated by the fact that you can avoid thinking about the past for years and years, and then something will trigger a memory, and you find yourself swept back to times you are absolutely certain you have forgotten.
As I lead Portia through the room, towards Lucy, and Josh, I remember Elizabeth. I remember Portia entwining Josh like a snake, before cruelly dumping him, and I think of Lucy’s shining face and bright eyes.
And as I walk I thank God that these ten years have passed, and that Portia is not, presumably, the insecure girl she was at eighteen, and that Josh and Lucy are the strongest couple you could ever hope to find.
I say I thank God, but lying in bed, later that night, I realized that I was actually praying.
Chapter thirteen
By the time the three of us manage to reach the other side of the room, the party has thinned considerably. People have come, as they said they would, to show their support and have now moved on to feed families, step into local restaurants, and even, in a few cases, grab a minicab and whizz up to the West End to continue drinking in one of the trendy bars in Soho.
And yet, despite the thinning numbers, it is clear that Portia is known. I see one of the journalists from the local press turn to a colleague and whisper, pointing Portia out, and I notice other people nudging each other as we pass.
How did we possibly manage to miss all this? Me, I could understand. Lucy and Josh I could certainly understand, but Si? How could Si not have known how famous Portia is?
Lucy is perched on one of the stools at the bar, talking animatedly to Keith, a reporter from the Kilburn Herald, and, as I walk past, Lucy grabs me and pulls me over.
‘This is Cath,’ she says, ‘and this is Keith, who’s promised to write lovely things about us, haven’t you, Keith?’
Keith smiles, and disappears to find another drink.
‘Lucy,’ I say, as Si and Portia stand behind me, waiting to be introduced. ‘There’s someone here I’d like you to meet.’
‘More people?’ Lucy laughs, looking behind me at Si. ‘I thought I’d met everyone in this room.’
‘Not everyone,’ Portia steps forward, her right hand extended, and Lucy beams at her and shakes her hand.
‘I’m Portia. And you must be Lucy.’
‘Now this,’ Lucy says, her gentle face breaking into a broad smile, ‘is truly a surprise.’ Lucy pats the stool next to her and Portia obediently sits down, her posture, her poise, her elegantly crossed legs making Lucy appear rounder and plumper than ever, but Lucy wouldn’t notice, wouldn’t care: too intrigued by this apparition from a past she never knew.
‘S
o do you like my bookshop, Portia? Do you think it will be a huge success?’
‘Yes and yes. I think it’s wonderful,’ Portia says. ‘Although I haven’t been here long. Just long enough to see Cath, and Si, and now to meet you. You’re not what I expected.’
Lucy, to her credit, doesn’t ask what Portia might have expected. She just smiles and says, ‘And you, Portia, are far more beautiful, now that you have actually appeared in the flesh. Has my Josh seen you yet? He’ll be, well, I don’t know. Thrilled? Certainly. Speechless? Far more likely. Shall we go and find him?’ and Lucy stands up, links her arm through Portia’s and leads her off, as Si and I stand there watching them, open-mouthed.
‘What do you reckon?’
‘What do you mean?’ I look at Si in surprise.
‘Is she or isn’t she up to something?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Si. Why do you always have to be so bloody negative and pessimistic when it comes to Portia?’ Which perhaps isn’t entirely fair, given that it’s been ten years since we’ve seen her, but it is true that after that night with Elizabeth, none of us managed to ever quite trust her again.
He looks at me as if he’s about to say something, then shakes his head, as if to dislodge the thought. ‘Come on. Let’s go and see the reunion.’
We cross the room to find Lucy beaming at Josh, who does, as she predicted, look shell-shocked. In fact it would be fair to say that he is completely lost for words, and Lucy appears to be making conversation for both of them.
‘Do you know what would be lovely?’ she says, surveying the room. ‘A proper reunion. We’re all dying to know everything you’ve been doing, and I’d love to get to know you properly. Would you come to our house for supper one night, Portia?’
Portia nods and I realize that she probably doesn’t know quite what to make of Lucy, that Lucy is not someone she knows how to handle, because even in the short space of time since they have been introduced, it is clear that Lucy is not intimidated by anyone, and certainly not by Portia.
And that, as I remember, is, or certainly was, the one thing of which Portia could always be certain, and the one thing that gave her that slight aloofness. Portia could be as giggly and girly as the rest of us, but that wasn’t her natural demeanour, and in an instant she could switch to the cool, calm sophisticate, a manner that seemed to suit her far better.
But how could she not respond to Lucy? Lucy is so warm, so welcoming, Portia cannot help but be swept away by her charm, and she tells Lucy that supper sounds wonderful and that she can’t believe it’s been ten years, and that there is so much to catch up on.
Josh doesn’t really say anything, but then again he doesn’t need to, and once Lucy has pressed their phone number into Portia’s hand, and Portia has handed over a thick cream business card of her own, Josh shakes Portia’s hand awkwardly and says he’ll look forward to seeing her during the week. And then he excuses himself to help clear up.
Portia turns to Si.
Si has been watching this from a distance, observing as if it were a play. ‘Come on you,’ she says, nudging him. ‘What’s been happening in your life? Tell me everything.’
The three of us go to one of the leather sofas, recently vacated, and collapse gratefully on it as Si starts talking to Portia about work. She is fascinated, and it doesn’t take long before they find people in common, television and film being so closely linked, and Si apologizes repeatedly for not realizing what she was doing, quite how known she had become.
And, as cautious as Si has been, I can see him loosen up, warm to his theme, and the more he talks the more Portia concentrates, and you could honestly believe that she has never in her life met anyone more fascinating than Si.
‘And what about your love life?’ she asks finally, and Si gives her a blow by blow account of his relationship with Will, insisting that this time, despite what I have told him, it may well be The One.
‘What about you?’ he says. ‘You don’t look married, and’ – he picks up her left hand before letting it drop gently down into her lap again – ‘there’s no ring. So are there any potential Mr Fairleys lurking on the scene?’
‘God, no,’ she groans. ‘The only men I seem to meet these days are middle-aged television executives who are all married and desperate for a glamorous bit on the side. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been invited for a “quick drink after work”.’
‘Do you ever go?’
Portia laughs. ‘I did in the beginning. Before the series, back when I was naïve and desperate for my big break. Also before I understood that a quick drink after work meant a quick bonk in the shabby hotel around the corner.’
‘Oh.’ I don’t say anything else, too busy trying to picture Portia in a shabby anything, anywhere, but it doesn’t quite work.
‘They could at least have booked Claridge’s,’ sniffs Si, and we all start laughing.
‘I know,’ Portia says. ‘That’s exactly what I said to him when I turned on my heel and left.’
‘So you didn’t…’ Only Si could have asked that question.
‘No! I most certainly did not.’
‘So how does it feel to be this huge success?’ I ask. ‘Do you love it? Has it changed your life?’
‘Absolutely.’ She looks at me. ‘And it’s wonderful, but it’s also very strange. I always used to think that the one thing I wanted more than anything in the world was to be famous. I used to have daydreams about being a film star, or anything really, just being recognized, being loved by everyone.’
I catch Si’s eye, and I know immediately what he’s thinking. That of course Portia would have wanted fame, that the only thing she thought would make her feel secure would be the adulation of strangers, and that if anything it was astounding that she wasn’t now starring in Hollywood on the silver screen.
‘Not that I’m famous now,’ she says quickly, ‘but I am known. I’ve gone from being the journalist, the one who does all the interviews and asks all the right questions and has the power to rip someone apart if she so chooses, to being the vulnerable one, and I’m not sure how much I like it.’
‘But I would have thought you’d love it.’ Si echoes my thoughts. ‘You must have changed more than we thought.’
‘I don’t think so,’ she smiles. ‘I haven’t really changed, but I never expected to feel so vulnerable. You never know what someone’s agenda is. And when the series first took off every paper and magazine wanted to interview me, and I thought I needed to do everything, so I did.
‘So I’d let people into my home, trust them in my personal space, open up to them and be as honest as I knew how, and then open the paper a week later to see that they’d torn me apart. And I know I used to do the same thing, but then I thought that this was the price people paid for being in the public eye, and that it wasn’t personal. Except most of the time it is.’
‘Jesus,’ whistles Si. ‘Sounds like a nightmare. I’d be slashing my wrists every day.’
‘It’s amazing how quickly you develop a shut-off mechanism,’ she says. ‘But it never really stops hurting. You just try to avoid the negative pieces because all it’s going to do is upset you, and it’s not as if anyone’s giving you constructive criticism, they’re just slagging you off because they don’t like you and because they can.’
‘But what about the good things? Aren’t you going off to amazingly glamorous parties and hobnobbing with the stars at premières and things?’
‘Sometimes,’ she says, shrugging, ‘but actually it’s not very exciting at all. If you’re willing to play the game, then it’s great – you go to two or three things a night, air kiss the same people, do a few lines of coke to keep you going, and have the same vacuous conversations as the ones you had the night before.’
‘God, if you ever need an escort, I’m usually free,’ Si grins, throwing up his hands and saying, ‘I’m joking, I’m joking’ when he sees the look on my face.
‘I would have thought the trick is to surround yo
urself with people you trust. Just the really good friends,’ I say. ‘So you can go to all these things, but you know that it’s not real, and that the real people, the true friends, are the ones you spend your real time with, rather than the fake people you see at these do’s.’
Portia thinks for a while. ‘In theory you’re absolutely right, Cath. Of course that’s what you should do. I suppose I’ve just been so busy with my career I haven’t had a chance to find the sort of people I’d want to surround myself with.’ There’s a long pause. ‘I haven’t found those sorts of people since university,’ and with that she looks first at me, and then at Si, and I pray that my blush doesn’t become any more fierce, for we, after all, chose to lose contact with her when we had all graduated. We were the ones who hadn’t returned her calls.
So is she saying that she’s missed us, that she valued the friendship we once had, that it isn’t too late for us to resurrect it, which would be the point of her turning up this evening?
‘God, I’m boring you!’ she says suddenly, turning to me and laying a hand on my arm. ‘Cath, you will never know how good it is to see you after all this time. It’s your turn. Tell me everything.’ And I do.
Half an hour later, or possibly an hour, or might it even be three, Lucy comes over with a tray of steaming lattes for us, refusing to sit down because there are still a handful of people here who need looking after.
‘Oh, damn,’ she says, turning round just as she’s started to walk off. ‘Cath, I forgot. The gorgeous James was looking for you.’
‘Was he?’ I perk up for a second, as Portia raises an eyebrow.
‘The gorgeous James? I thought you said there weren’t any men in your life.’
‘There aren’t,’ I say quickly, as Lucy laughs and shouts over her shoulder, ‘Not yet, but he’s definitely her not-so-secret admirer.’
‘I don’t think so.’ I haven’t forgotten what happened earlier, but nevertheless it is encouraging to hear he’s been looking for me.