‘I can’t actually remember how big a king-size Snickers bar is,’ Neve replied, as she heard the front door open, then Max’s voice calling out.
‘Honey? I’m home. I skipped out after the speeches.’
‘He has his own key!’ Celia exclaimed, as Neve jumped out of her chair and hurried into the hall.
‘You didn’t bother to get dressed?’ Max asked as he shrugged out of his dinner jacket, which he was wearing with a Clash T-shirt and jeans. ‘Well, that’s going to save us some time.’
Before Neve could tell him that she had one very inquisitive little sister on the premises, Max grabbed her and kissed her for so long and so hard that Neve completely forgot she even had a little sister.
‘Hey, you two, get a room,’ the little sister said from behind them. ‘Up the stairs, second door on the left. I’m going before I’m scarred for life.’
Neve smiled vaguely at Celia from the security of Max’s arms and Max murmured something that might have been, ‘Hello,’ or, ‘Goodbye,’ or even, ‘Don’t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out.’
Neve felt a pang of guilt for driving Celia out of her second home, but she couldn’t find it in her heart to feel that bad. She was pretty sure that she’d see Celia every day for the rest of her life, but having quality time with Max, quality naked time, was a very rare commodity.
Then May gave way to June, and it felt as if time was slipping through her fingers. Because all they had left was just over a month. Mere weeks really, if William came back when he said he would, but William had become a vague, blurred figure that Neve couldn’t focus on when all she could think about was Max. She’d received two letters from him and countless emails and she’d read them immediately but it was more force of habit than because she wanted to get that giddy high from poring over each of William’s words like she usually did. All Neve felt was horribly conflicted as she sent William a quick email claiming: things are really busy at work. Will write properly when I have a chance. There were subjects she’d shied away from with William like her weight-loss and her adventures in dating, but she’d never lied to him before, and although it wasn’t something she was proud of, it was necessary. William was her golden future and Max was the here and now.
So when Max was sent to LA at twenty-four hours’ notice to salvage a cover-shoot for Skirt, which was rapidly becoming a clusterfuck between the celebrity stylist, the celebrity photographer and the actual celebrity and her publicist who’d taken to calling Max at three every morning to scream at him, it felt a lot like the end of the world, even if she did get Keith as a flatmate for the rest of the week.
Neve didn’t need much persuasion to duck out of work early to accompany Max to Heathrow so they could cling to each other at Passport Control as if he was going off to war.
‘I’ll be back by the weekend,’ Max said, once his gate number had been called, and they were forced to stop smooching.
Neve’s face fell. It was Monday afternoon and Saturday seemed light years away. ‘You promise?’
‘I promise. Even if I have to shoot the cover with my camera phone.’ Max cupped her cheek. ‘It won’t be so bad. You said yourself that you had a ton of stuff to do this week.’
‘That would be all the stuff that I was putting off because I didn’t want to do it,’ Neve said. She straightened the collar of Max’s black shirt. ‘It feels very strange kissing you with …’
‘… our clothes on?’
‘I was going to say with all these people around, but that works too.’ Neve knew she should stop pawing at Max, but she couldn’t stop herself from trying to smooth down his hair. Getting through the next five days was going to be agony. ‘How do you feel about phone sex?’
‘I’m very pro-phone sex,’ Max said emphatically. ‘Also email sex, text sex and wishing that your laptop had a built-in webcam like mine.’
Neve looked up at the departures board. ‘Your flight leaves in thirty-five minutes. You need to go.’
Max swooped in for another kiss and just as Neve had decided that another five minutes wouldn’t hurt, he pushed her away. ‘You go first.’
‘No, you go first,’ she countered.
‘But I can’t go anywhere if you’re standing there looking so kissable.’
‘But if you go first, then I can have at least two minutes longer to look at you before you disappear from view.’
‘You just want to perv at my arse,’ Max sniffed, then his gaze softened. ‘Seriously, you go first.’
‘No, you.’ Neve didn’t know when she’d become one of those sappy, silly girls who used to irritate her beyond all measure when she’d heard them on the bus cooing at their boyfriends on their phones, ‘You hang up first.’
At least she wasn’t giggling.
‘I’m going,’ she told Max decisively. ‘I have a huge to-do list that I need to get through without you cluttering up the flat and distracting me.’
Max put a hand to his heart and pretended he was mortally wounded, but then they heard his flight being called. ‘I really should go,’ he said seriously. ‘If I miss my flight, I’ll be looking for another job.’
Neve thought about having one last kiss, but in the end the only way she could leave was to walk away without looking back.
It was torture to have to slip back into her boring old routine. Eight hours’ sleep a night, two hours in the gym consecutive mornings and evenings, three proper meals a day, plus two low-carb, low-calorie snacks, getting to work on time and sitting in the bath with her laptop on her knee and the noise-cancelling headphones firmly in place because Charlotte had got wind that Neve was no longer entertaining a gentleman caller and was putting in extra time with her broom handle.
It also meant that Neve had to deal with her outstanding correspondence. Jacob Morrison had emailed with a summons to his club. He hadn’t mentioned the six and a half chapters she’d sent, which could only mean that he was going to let Neve down gently. Or worse, wanted her to hand over everything Lucy-related so he could get a proper writer to do the honours. Or even worse, he hated Lucy’s poems and short stories and was washing his hands of her. There was also an email from her father, who was coming into town at the end of the week and wanted to book two tickets for the new Jennifer Aniston film.
Neve decided to get those two obstacles over in one day, so she could block out six hours to ride a tsunami of extreme agitation instead of spreading it out over the whole week. If she saw them both on Thursday, then she could brood until lunch-time on Friday, when she’d stop brooding and start getting excited at the prospect of Max coming home.
There were also the two briefly read letters from William that she’d stuffed into a drawer. But on Thursday morning, which she’d christened D Day (D for difficult and dreadful and dejected), Neve steeled herself to revisit them. Normally she committed to memory every single last syllable, but now as she smoothed out the crumpled airmail paper, she realised that she’d only skimmed them before and could scarcely remember any of the contents.
The belief that one day they’d be together had been such a constant and comforting theme over the three years, that Neve was relieved to find that she wasn’t ready to give up on it just yet, as she finally gave William’s letters the attention they deserved. What she had with Max was wonderful, but it was never built to last; while what she and William shared was something deeper and more profound than just sexual attraction.
He held her soul in his hands.
Dearest Neve
It’s always sunny in California and you can’t imagine how boring and monotonous the relentless sunshine can be.
I long for grey, damp days with tea and toast and The Times. I miss walking in the rain and seeing the world around me all green, glistening and ripe with promise.
English sun is not the same as the golden light in the Napa Valley or the heat haze hovering over Los Angeles. It’s a delicate, ephemeral illusion.
Can you tell that I’m homesick? There are many things I
’ll miss about LA and I wish I could bring some of them back with me in my carry-on luggage, but I’m so ready to be back in London and whatever the weather, I want to walk with you along the Thames and talk about everything and nothing. Even to share a companionable silence with you would be bliss.
On a more prosaic note, can I humbly request more teabags and a bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk?
All my love, as always
William
Neve sighed as she tore open the second letter. William’s words were no longer the panacea that they used to be, but were like little daggers stabbing into her heart, as if on some level he knew that she’d made room there for Max too.
Dear Neve
Have you forsaken me? You always reply to my letters much quicker than I would have thought possible, given the vagaries of the Royal Mail, but two weeks have gone past and there’s been nothing from you in my mailbox.
I got your email to say how busy you are at work. Once again, I wonder if being surrounded by those dusty books and files is the best use of your academic gifts, but this is something we can talk about when I get back.
I’m still yearning for a decent cup of tea and some proper chocolate (though one of my dearest LA friends has turned me on to the refreshing delights of frozen yogurt or ‘froyo’ as I never call it) so if you could see your way clear to sending me some, I’d be eternally in your debt.
Not long now, Neve, before we can share a pot of tea in person.
Much love
William
Neve only had time to read both letters twice, when her phone beeped. As soon as she saw Max’s name on the screen, her heart sped up, just as it used to when she’d read William’s letters.
Can I shag you senseless courtesy of Orange at 11 p.m. your time? Max x
Unlike any correspondence from William, all it took was fifteen words from Max for her breasts to swell and to feel that spot between her legs start to pulse with longing.
The feelings that Max aroused in her were thrilling, but they were just about sex. It wasn’t romance and it certainly wasn’t love, so there was no need for Neve to feel so guilty as she texted Max back: I think that can be arranged! Neve x, before she went to get ready for her appointment with Jacob Morrison.
Chapter Thirty-one
It was very hard to plan an outfit that would take you from afternoon tea and rejection from a super-agent to the cinema with your estranged father.
Neve wanted to look cool and in control and banish all memories of the sweaty, flustered mess she’d been the last time she’d seen Jacob Morrison – or her father, come to that. After one false start with a black wrap dress, she decided her new trouser suit and the cherry-print blouse gave the right impression. Usually she wore trousers with a long top or tunic that covered belly and bum, but after contorting this way and that in the bathroom mirror, she had to admit that neither belly nor bum looked offensive enough to be covered up. It was also the first time she’d dressed for a major event without texting Celia photos of her outfit options, Neve realised, as she clipped the foam wedge to the crown of her head and managed a bouffant ponytail after only two attempts.
Then wearing her Converses, but with her three-inch heels in her bag, Neve stopped off at the Post Office to post William a box of PG Tips, two huge bars of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk and a quick apologetic note that she was sorry for the delay and sorry for the airmail silence, and just generally sorry. Neve felt so guilty that she hadn’t had time to go to Sainsbury’s and get William his preferred Red Label teabags that she sent the package priority airmail for a sum that would have made her eyes water if she hadn’t been determined to keep her mascara from smudging. But as soon as she shoved the parcel towards a post office employee, Neve felt as if she was shoving William away to be dealt with at a later date and she could set off to meet Philip with a clear conscience and a fair-to-middling number of butterflies in her stomach.
They holed up in the café across the road from Jacob Morrison’s club with a cup of greasy tea each so Neve could listen to the latest instalment of Philip’s relationship woes, which were exactly the same as all the previous instalments.
‘… so he’s moved in this little twink who I’m pretty sure has a meth habit,’ Philip finished at the end of a rambly monologue listing the many wrongs that Clive had done him. ‘Do you really think love conquers all?’
‘But do you really love him?’ Neve asked bluntly. ‘I mean, do you connect on a spiritual level?’
Philip faltered because there was absolutely nothing spiritual about Clive, apart from his vodka intake. ‘Well, no, but …’
‘So is the sex absolutely phenomenal? Like, when you see him, you’re not really listening to anything he says because all you can think about is how long it’s going to be before you’re both naked? You can’t eat or sleep because you’re thinking about the sex, and all he has to do is send you a text message and you’re we— you get an erection.’
‘God, no. We haven’t had sex for weeks. Clive says that he sees me more as an emotional outlet than …’ Philip’s eyes blinked rapidly from behind his glasses. ‘Did you just say erection without even lowering your voice?’
‘It’s a perfectly acceptable word,’ Neve said defensively. ‘I think you’d do better to ignore my vocabulary and concentrate more on the actual content.’ She took a moment to gather herself. ‘You have to dump him.’
‘Dump him?’ Philip echoed incredulously. ‘I can’t just dump him.’
‘Why can’t you? You don’t live together, you don’t have any dependants and he makes you utterly miserable. I’d say that dumping him was your only option.’
Philip stared down at his cup of coffee. ‘He can be very kind and caring when he wants to.’
Neve refrained from asking Philip to give her three examples of Clive being kind and/or caring. ‘I know it’s hard with this being your first gay relationship, but—’
‘I don’t know why you suddenly think you’re the expert on gay relationships or any other kind of relationships,’ Philip said huffily. Philip saying anything huffily was a huge deal as he hated confrontation. He couldn’t even watch EastEnders because all the shouting and fighting in and around Albert Square upset him so much. ‘You’ve only been in a relationship for a matter of weeks.’
‘Months actually,’ Neve said, just as huffily, until she remembered that she was meant to be gathering. ‘I know it’s not a real relationship but, well, I’m happy, and if I can feel like that in a fake relationship then you should feel like that in a real one. Honestly, Phil, we’ve been having the same conversation about Clive for three years.’
‘Not the same conversation. There are variations on the theme.’
‘But the variations are that he’s treating you even worse than he was the last time we talked about him. Promise me you’ll at least think about telling him to shove off.’ Neve pushed away her tea, because it had a rancid, oily aftertaste. ‘I mean, if you’re not even having sex, then what’s the point?’
‘Well, there’s no need to ask you if that aspect of your fake relationship is going well,’ Philip said tartly.
Neve waited for her cheeks to heat up, and when they didn’t, she decided there was no harm in an enigmatic smile, though it felt more like an ear-to-ear grin. ‘I have no complaints,’ she said. ‘Well, I have plenty of complaints but they’re more to do with having to see Jacob Morrison in fifteen minutes.’
‘Maybe he wants to congratulate you on your glittering prose style.’ Philip finally admitted defeat and pushed his tea away too. ‘Then he’ll promise that he can get you a six-figure advance and you’ll stop coming into work and taking my calls.’
‘Hardly,’ Neve said, but she allowed herself a few seconds to try to imagine what it would be like if Philip’s words came to pass. It seemed so implausible that she gave up. ‘And I would always take your calls. Or I’d get my PA to take your calls.’
‘You never know, Neevy. People do get agents and they do get book d
eals. It’s not completely unheard of.’
‘All I really want is for him to tell me that he’s going to submit Dancing on the Edge of the World to publishers. Then he’ll tell me that while he enjoyed reading my pitiful attempt at writing a biography, I should stick to transcribing. God, I never asked him to read it,’ Neve said crossly. ‘And I will tell him that. Well, I won’t, but I’ll be thinking it very loudly.’
‘You’re being very ornery today, Neve. What on earth has got into you?’
This time the enigmatic smile was more of a smirk. ‘A lady never kisses and tells.’ She looked at the clock on the wall. ‘I suppose I’d better get this over and done with. And will you at least think about what I said? You deserve to be with someone who makes you happy.’
Neve thought that it would take more than one stirring pep talk to convince Philip to break free of decades spent being a doormat. It was hard to change, but it wasn’t impossible, and if she kept gently pushing him in the right direction, then maybe he’d break free from Clive’s evil clutches and kick his evil ex-wife to the kerb too while he was at it.
She was still grinning at her mental picture of a single, self-assured Philip dancing on the podium in a gay nightclub surrounded by admiring, muscle-bound men as she walked through the dining room of Jacob Morrison’s club to what appeared to be his usual table, tucked away in an alcove. He probably preferred that table so there weren’t many witnesses when he reduced hapless wannabe writers to tears.
Jacob didn’t look up from his BlackBerry as Neve approached, but as he never willingly acknowledged her existence, she was expecting that. She’d also forgotten to change out of her Converses, she noticed as she pulled out the chair, but it wasn’t as if he’d asked her there to discuss her choice of footwear.