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‘Unexpected,’ I say, sitting next to him on a plastic seat. Just us two, amongst rows and rows of empty mustard-yellow seas, behind us, and in front. ‘Right up your street, then.’
Jack chuckles and pulls the sunglasses resting on his head down over his eyes.
I unscrew the water Owen brought into the studio for me and sip. A cool hot-dog-van-tinged breeze cools my skin, gently blows the hair from my hot face. I’d hoped Jack would find me eventually, and although I wasextremelyembarrassed to see him as I was being buried in plastic screens, I felt a sweep of relief over me when I saw him standing in the tiny, little hot-box of a studio, looking like something from a spring/summer magazine spread – neat, straight-legged navy-blue chino shorts, a pressed, white T-shirt, his hair, short but messy, and his legs – they remind me of footballers’ legs. (I really hope he hasn’t clocked me looking at them out of the corner of my eye.) And Ilikebeing with Jack. Jack Shurlock makes me feel at ease. And also, a bit .?.?. giddy? Which feels like a relaxing minibreak away from everything else at the moment. The serious, deep, messy everything of a life A. E. Not least, that embarrassing scene with Owen just now.
‘Owen laughed, didn’t he?’ I say quietly, as below, Flye TV crew members mill about like clockwork ants. The doors open soon, and these seats, this stand we sit high up in, will be full of screaming fans. For now, though, it’s like it belongs only to us. Jack and I looking down on a whole miniature terrarium. My Sundays normally look the same. Laundry, long walks, a roast at the Crooked Billet with Ralph, someMade in Chelsea. But this, up here – this is totally new. And my brain is very happy with that fact. It feels clean. Freshly oiled.
‘Owen laughed, but Chloe didn’t so much as smile,’ says Jack.
‘Hatred.’ She’d stomped off, Owen following in pursuit.
‘Neither did Petra.’
‘Girl code.’
‘And, all right, I knowIlaughed,’ says Jack, ‘but know mine came from a nice place. Akindplace.’
I turn to him. ‘Um, you laughed the loudest.’
Jack holds a large hand at his chest, tips his head back. ‘I kept most of it in for when we were out here, didn’t I? Away from everyone else. And –Mr Kalimeris.’ And when Jack says that, there’s a piss-takingness to his words. His eyes are hidden behind glasses, but I just know they rolled. ‘And those screens are unpredictable, to be fair.’
‘Thank you.Everyone else was acting like they were so easy.Here, let me help, ooh, look at that, I did it in under a second and all while you were buried in it, how on earth did you manage that!’
Jack taps the corner of his phone absentmindedly against his knee. Someone on the pitch below shouts something through a megaphone, the muffled words, lost to us up here. ‘Unusual, actually,’ says Jack, thoughtfully. ‘To see him helping.’
‘Who?Mr Kalimeris?’ I repeat, and Jack gives a single nod. ‘Mm. Really?’ I remember all the stories Owen would come home with after an event. He’d talk about how he’d barely had a break to go to the toilet or have a coffee, that he’d been ‘on the ground with the rest of the boots’, supporting the crew, teaching them; how they couldn’t cope without him .?.?. ‘Have you worked with Owen a lot, then?’
‘Not loads,’ says Jack, casually, ‘but I have, yeah. He’s usually in the truck on his director’s throne.’ He gives a smirk.
‘Ah, yes, well, I burst into the truck on him and Chloe having a big discussion, so I probably disrupted his throne time, I’m afraid.’
Jack shrugs. ‘Well, theyareat work, so .?.?.’
‘Poor Chloe looked horrified, though,’ I carry on. ‘Looked at me like I was the scarecrow who walks at midnight. But then, she probably feels like she can’t escape me. This woman who’s the reason she isn’t getting married.’ It’s true, though, isn’t it? There I am, at reception every day, loitering outside cafes like a fan waiting for an autograph, in a tiny room with her fiancé .?.?.
Jack sighs. ‘Millie dot Chandler,’ he says, gruffly. And God, I love the way he says my name. I am completely ambivalent towards my name, but when Jack says ‘Millie Chandler’, even with the silly dot in the middle, I’m glad the name is mine. I like the little rumble in his throat when he says the ‘and’ in ‘Chandler.’
‘Jack dot Shurlock,’ I mimic. ‘Or should I say, Shurlock dot Jack?’
He turns his face towards me. ‘Do you really think you’re the reason?’ he asks, softly, and just as I’m thinking that I’m very glad he’s wearing sunglasses because I’d have to be confronted with those playful hazel eyes, right next to me, and I’m already struggling to stifle this little crush I have on him, this man who is going to leave for Quebec and New Zealand and alpaca farms soon, he lifts his shades. He eyes fix on mine. Gosh, he’s close. ‘Well? Be straight up.’
‘Yes,’ I announce, then I look away, to the rugby pitch below, ‘and I think saying it isn’t the emails is denial. Of course it was. I said what I said, I wrote what I wrote. Me.’
‘Fuck the emails,’ he says, almost lazily, and I swing around to look at him, in surprise.
I laugh. ‘Excuse me, Operations Manager slash Chief of Staff?’
‘Seriously,’ he says, his mouth a crooked half-smile. ‘What does it even matter? Really? It happened. It’s done. And we can’t possibly control what’ll happen next, so—’
‘Ugh, so, what,be present?’ and I say the last two words in a stupid, mocking voice.
‘Yes.’
‘No,’ I say.
He freezes, dips his head. ‘No?’
‘No.’
