‘No, not you, my little narcissist. It’s not always about you.’
‘Then what?’
There are some things that Ellie doesn’t need to know. Christ, Ari goes hot and cold and feels as if a platoon of ghosts have walked over her grave at the thought of some truths coming out.Truths that she and Ellie might not be able to come back from. But there are other truths that Ellie is probably old enough to deal with. ‘Music things,’ Ari says vaguely. ‘Copyright issues. Won’t bore you with the details.’
‘Does he owe you money?’ Ellie’s eyes narrow. ‘Did you write some of his songs on that first album? You know, Tom always says—’
Ari knows what Tom and Tabitha and Chester and, God, even her brother-in-law Sidney say about the songs, about how many millions are hers by rights, but they could never understand that when they eventually met again, Ari had wanted to face Billy as his equal.
‘What I wish is that I hadn’t spent years chasing this elusive dream that I was going to make it,’ she says to her daughter. ‘That I’d become famous and fêted and my songs would mean something to generations upon generations so I could show Billy that I didn’t need him, that I was better off without him.’
‘Well, that’s crap,’ Ellie says sharply enough that Ari looks at her in surprise because there’s a new edge to her daughter that Ari hasn’t seen before. ‘The fact that you never gave up on your dreams, that you never settled, is amazing. It’s inspired me my whole life. You’ve inspired me.’
It’s all getting too saccharine sweet. Any moment, Ellie might break into the chorus from ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’. Ari nudges her. ‘Yeah, well, it wasn’t so inspiring when you were a kid and I was trying to soundcheck at some dive in God knows where, and you wouldn’t stop nagging me for a bottle of Coke and a bag of crisps.’
Ellie nudges her back. ‘OK, just so you know, it’s not so inspiring either when you insist on climbing up on a speaker stack and I’m terrified that you’ll break a hip.’
‘You little bitch!’
Ellie looks at her with those dark eyes that technically she inherited from Billy, except Ellie’s are always warm, always twinkling, full of love, except now when they’re swollen and glassy with unshed tears. ‘Do you regret having me?’ she asks baldly. ‘Your life would have been different if I hadn’t been in it. I mean, you could have really focused on your music. You could have been famous …’
‘No!’ It might be Ari’s turn to cry. ‘No! Don’t you get it, Ellie? You are the love of my life. Sometimes I wish things had turned out differently, but I don’t even want to think what my life would be like if you hadn’t been in it.’
‘But …’ Ellie gestures at nothing. ‘Your dreams might have come true if you hadn’t had me.’
‘They were just dreams. But you’re real.’ Ari takes Ellie’s hands and places them over her heart. They don’t often have chats like this, talk about their feelings, but it’s important that Ellie knows this before it’s too late. Before she confronts whatever’s waiting for them in these offices. ‘I’m not the best mother in the world, I know that. There were lots of things I should have done, should have given you, but you’ve always been loved, Ellie. You don’t even know how much you’re loved.’
‘I do,’ Ellie says, and she does burst into tears then, and Ari cuddles her and promises her that everything will be all right.
After a while Ari makes Ellie blow her nose, tells her to do something about her make-up and she wonders if she shouldn’t just hustle her daughter the hell away from here, but then some grey-faced, grey-suited lawyer comes in and says that they’re ready for them in the conference room.
Chapter Thirty-four
They were shown into another wood-panelled room with portraits of doughy old men on the walls. Lara and Rose and a gaggle of young blondes were seated at one end of a large conference table, a couple of starchy-looking men in suits gathered down the other end talking to Olivia Kay, who seemed remarkably smiley for someone whose husband was a serial philanderer and, by all accounts, a total dick.
Then Ellie wasn’t paying any attention to Olivia because David walked into the room and he looked stony-faced, which was when he looked his best – apart from those few times when his eyes were all pupil and his jaw was clenched as he thrust inside her. Ellie blushed a bright, rosy red as David strode to the head of the table, ran his eye around the room and settled on her.
Everything else – people, furniture, fittings, ugly portraits – ceased to be, and it was just her and David.
Then David looked past her, as if Ellie wasn’t even there, and folded his arms. ‘Before we get started, if you’re not related to either a Cohen or a Kay or employed by this firm, you need to leave,’ he said coolly. There was a brief pause, then the blondes seated on either side of Lara and Rose got up and left.
‘Oh, but Georgie’s on her way over,’ Olivia Kay said with a bright smile. She looked remarkably poised in white trousers and a crisp navy blouse. She also looked as if no one ever said no to her. ‘She’s one of us.’
‘Only family,’ David repeated in a voice that made every single hair on Ellie’s body stand to attention. ‘I have to insist.’
‘Have I ever mentioned that I hate lawyers?’ Ari groused under her breath. She had, many times. ‘Is that a Wyndham, a Pryce or a Lewis?’
‘Sshh! Stop talking, Mum.’ Ellie gave Ari’s hand a warning pinch as David turned and glared at both of them. Ellie glared back just to show that her feelings hadn’t changed since their showdown yesterday morning.
It was just that her feelings were complicated. Her head was thinking of the hurt he’d inflicted and the hurt that was yet to come if she let him back in her life, but her heart was thinking, oh God, it’s his stern face. I adore his stern face.
‘Now, nobody is leaving this room until we’ve reached a resolution,’ he said grimly. He wasn’t looking at her any more, or Ari, or Lara and Rose. Or even Olivia, who was leaning against the wall and more interested in her BlackBerry than David’s stern face. He was looking at a middle-aged man in dark glasses, wearing a blue suit with a purple pinstripe running through it and a Ramones T-shirt. His hair was a preternatural blend of silver and white and styled in an Artful Dodger cut, which looked odd, though it probably photographed well. It was a man that Ellie had barely noticed as she’d squeezed past him to sit down.
It was Billy Kay. Her body gave a quick painful jerk of recognition, then she was unable to do anything. Couldn’t even keep holding Ari’s hand with suddenly boneless fingers as she stared at Billy Kay, who was steadfastly looking at … it was hard to know exactly what he was looking at as he was wearing shades indoors.
So strange that she hadn’t noticed him because her attention had been focused on David. Even in a room full of people, David was the only person Ellie could see.
Except now. It was creepy to keep staring at Billy Kay. Ari said something but Ellie didn’t hear her. She barely even registered Rose Kay’s shocked giggle as she saw where Ellie’s attention was riveted.
‘This whole business needs to be brought to a swift close.’ David’s voice pierced the miasma that was clouding Ellie’s senses. It was a relief to turn her head and watch him pace up and down. ‘Enough is enough.’
‘But, David, Billy has his retrospective and tour coming up,’ Olivia demurred with a tinkling little laugh. ‘There wouldn’t be much point in going ahead if there was no publicity campaign in place.’
‘In light of the Chronicle’s latest scoop, I think it would be wise for all parties to curtail any press activity. Or maybe I should make all of you write out a hundred times, “I will maintain a dignified silence.”’ He smiled without even trace amounts of humour. ‘It’s time to close ranks, if only from a legal standpoint. After the hacking scandal …’
David talked about the Leveson Inquiry and how the Kays’ right to privacy would be seriously eroded if anyone knew that they or their representatives might be placing false stories in the press. He
used lots of long words, which Ellie usually found quite a turn-on, but today he might just as well have been talking Dolphin.
To her left Billy Kay was a shadowy dark presence with tendrils snaking out towards her, ready to reel her in, so she kept her gaze fixed on David.
Then David stopped talking and went into a little huddle with Olivia Kay and his crabby-looking colleagues. There was a lot of whispering and gesticulating, then David shrugged, his shoulders flexing though the view was obscured somewhat by his grey suit jacket. Ellie stared at him like a thirteen-year-old girl greedily gazing at her crush. No wonder Ari was giving her the side-eye.
But if she wasn’t looking at David, then she was forced to look at Billy Kay. He was staring down at his hands, adorned with chunky silver rings. Lara said something to him and he took a long time before he answered her with a terse monosyllable.
‘For goodness’ sake. Really? Really?’ David turned away from the huddle and one of the other men stepped forward.
‘Miss Cohen?’
‘Ms Cohen,’ Ellie and Ari said in unison, which made David smile faintly.
‘Ms Cohen, junior. Our client is keen to effect a mutually agreeable settlement. May I ask exactly what you require in order to facilitate this?’
Ellie looked at him blankly. Then she turned to Ari, who shook her head as though she didn’t have a clue either. ‘What?’ She sounded unbelievably stupid. ‘I mean, can I have, like, um, some clarification, please?’
The two older lawyers and Olivia Kay regarded Ellie coolly, then went back to their huddle, David joining them when Olivia tugged lightly at his jacket sleeve.
He was the first to emerge from this new caucus. The atmosphere in the room was tense and stuffy, and everyone seemed to be watching David as he walked to a small desk to fetch pen and paper and wrote something on it.
‘Is this clarification enough?’ he asked. He leaned across the table so he could push the paper towards Ellie and she caught the citrussy hint of his aftershave.
She hooked the paper with a fingertip and pulled it closer; the marks on it blurry and indistinct. Each time they swam into focus, Ellie would blink and they’d go back to being hieroglyphics again.
Then she heard Ari say, ‘Fuck me,’ and the next time she looked down, Ellie could read the figures quite clearly.
Five hundred thousand pounds was written in David’s immaculate copperplate script. Obviously the massive tax bill hadn’t completely wiped out the Kay coffers and they were still able to scrounge together some loose change.
In terms of sheer numbers and weighted to inflation it recompensed Ellie for all the things she’d missed out on when she was growing up. Not just the everyday burden of food, utilities and new shoes but the ballet lessons she’d desperately wanted. Clothes that hadn’t been bought from one of Camden’s many charity shops. The school trips she’d missed because Ari was too pigheaded to ask Sadie and Morry for cash, which they’d gladly have given.
She wanted to say very calmly, ‘Shall I give you my bank details so you can transfer the funds, and will I have to pay tax on it?’ Of course, she did – she was only human – but she didn’t really need compensation for all the things that Lara and Rose and even Charlie had been given, while she’d gone without. Despite the lack of funds, Ellie’s childhood had been rich in other ways. There’d been trips to the V&A, the National Portrait Gallery and the Science Museum. Long summer afternoons playing rounders and picnicking in Regent’s Park. Dancing like a wild thing on the stage while one of Ari’s bands had been sound-checking. Most importantly, there’d been more love than one little girl knew what to do with.
The only thing missing, the one thing that she’d really wanted, was sitting at the other end of the table and still ignoring her from behind his Raybans.
Ellie glanced at Ari just to be sure. Ari made her feelings obvious with another squeeze of her daughter’s hand. ‘No!’ Ellie said flatly. ‘How rude!’
Lara and Rose nudged each other. The lawyers looked as if their flabber had been well and truly gasted. But David didn’t miss a beat. ‘Seven hundred thousand pounds, not a penny more,’ he said coolly. ‘That’s what’s on the table.’
‘I don’t—’
‘It’s offered without prejudice and on the understanding that you and your mother will sign a confidential agreement that clearly states that you have no claim on any further monies from my clients, who accept no liability for any of the events that may or may not have resulted in this settlement.’ He sounded so bored, like this whole business was beneath him and that he’d much rather get back to his office and draw up a few watertight contracts so some dumb teenagers with a newly minted recording contract would sign their souls away. ‘Furthermore, you will never talk to any media organisations or post anything on any social media sites even tenuously related to the Kay family.’
‘You mean you want to buy me off and hit me with a gagging order at the same time?’ Ellie queried. She rested her chin on her hand and tried out her most piercing stare on Billy Kay. ‘You can’t even look at me, can you? Look at me!’
‘Hey, easy tiger,’ Ari said softly. She took Ellie’s hand again, hidden by the table, and stroked the thundering pulse with her thumb, the way she always had when Ellie was younger and needed to calm the fuck down.
He, Billy Kay, moved. Rested his hands flat on the polished table top and glanced in Ellie’s direction. ‘I’m looking at you. Happy?’ His voice was sour and sharp like vinegar. It made her die inside a little.
He was looking at her now, but as if Ellie shouldn’t be there. Like she was a minute speck of dirt on a clear, smooth surface.
As she sat there and he sat there with his dark glasses and his sharp suit and silly hair and mocking sneer on his face, Ellie realised that her life had been great precisely because Billy wasn’t in it. Lara and Rose were flawed and a bit fucked up. They didn’t have any family. Didn’t seem to have much in the way of friends. All they had was money. They were obsessed with it, and not in the honest ‘if you want the good life, then you have to work bloody hard for it’ Cohen way.
Ellie couldn’t bear to look at Billy Kay any more and inevitably because her heart was the brains of the operation, she went back to looking at David. He raised his eyebrows, then was still; wasn’t going to give anything away.
They should have been the two most important men in Ellie’s life and in a really dark, terrible way they were. Because they were taking it in turns to destroy her spirit, to try to make her as cynical and bitter as they were.
Both of them were hopeless, but Ellie still had hope. ‘I don’t want anything from you,’ she said, eyes sweeping round each Kay, her shadow family. ‘I absolve you of any responsibility towards me. I’ll sign whatever you want.’
Ellie stood up on legs that were much more shaky than she would have liked. ‘You’ve spent all my life pretending that I didn’t exist, that I was some shameful secret marring your rock ’n’ roll back story, then you drag me out when it suits you so you can pimp your digitally remastered back catalogue.’ Shoulders back, chin up. ‘Well, you don’t deserve to have me in your life.’
When Ellie stepped out from behind the table, it felt like she had only recently learned how to walk. She waited until she was almost at the door, before she turned and she couldn’t look at David any more, but she could look at his colleagues. ‘Just give David that senior partnership already. Put his fucking name on the shiny plaque outside.’ It was one of the three worst moments of her life, but she could still manage the moxie to give a hollow little laugh that was pure Bette Davis in All About Eve. ‘Believe me, he really went the extra mile to get it.’
Clerkenwell, London, Present Day
Ellie makes a spit-and-sawdust speech that’s pure gumption, because she’s her mother’s daughter, then she storms out. The lawyer, the tall, intense one with a voice like knives who’s been gazing at her daughter with a dumbstruck expression when he thinks no one is looking, storms after her. Ari can
hear them shouting in the corridor outside.
Ellie never shouts.
I’m too old for this shit, Ari thinks.
They sit and they wait and wait for the other lawyer to come back.
The atmosphere in the room is so thick you could cut it into individual slices. Ari doesn’t want to be here with these people. The past is always something she feels guilty about, and yes, she does feel guilty for what she put Billy’s women through. Though it doesn’t compare to how they’d suffered at Billy’s own hands as he moulded their souls until they were as misshapen as his.
It’s obvious the other lawyer isn’t coming back. Before Ari can make her excuses, Billy’s daughters get up and go without a backward glance. There’s a cough and the other two suits, who have been deep in conversation, approach her.
Ari can have the money, same terms and conditions. Isn’t she a lucky girl?
She’s been waiting for this moment for half a lifetime. She should be word perfect as she slowly and deliberately scrunches up the piece of paper. Then she turns to Billy. ‘You think this even begins to compensate me for advances and back royalties, digital rights, licensing? Not even close. Not even in the same ballpark as close.’
No one looks confused, because they all know what he did, and Ari thought she was long past this but the anger feels like corrosive acid running through her veins.
Billy takes off his shades. Ari holds her breath. She doesn’t want to fall again, but his eyes are dead and cold. Not a spark left in him. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he says so calmly that she can’t quite take it in. ‘Sweetheart, back then you only knew three chords and started every song with the “Be My Baby” drumbeat.’
Billy sounds so supremely unbothered by her accusation that Ari’s rendered mute. She’d been expecting defensive bluster, shouting even, but not flat denial.
‘You did. You know you did,’ she says helplessly, because she’s waited three decades for this showdown and this is not how it’s meant to play out.