Dragging herself out of bed, Anna staggers to the door. She opens it with a short-tempered “What?”
But Bella ignores it all as she sweeps in. “You’ve got to help me,” she demands. “James is being all pissy. He’s cross I didn’t say goodbye to him. And he’s cross about the photos I posted.”
“Are you surprised?” Anna can’t help herself. Her own astonishment at Bella’s attitude shows in her voice.
“In case you’ve forgotten, I was helping you.Youasked me to go to Tolly Hyde’s party with you. And you never did tell me how you know Tolly Hyde, either.”
Anna is disconcerted by Bella’s change of direction. But she feels the need to obfuscate, like she is somehow protecting Tolly. “His family is friends with my family.” It’s not a lie, but it’s far from the truth. She waves a hand in the air vaguely, as if the whole thing is not important.
Bella seems to accept it. She probably thinks the whole of the British nobility know one another, anyway. “Oh well. I was still doing you a favour.”
“I didn’t realise you were in bed with James at the time! I’d never have suggested abandoning him. I thought you’d already said your goodbyes. From your behaviour at the party, I reckoned you’d already moved on. When James called me the following morning, I didn’t know what to say.”
“He called you? When? What did you say?”
Anna tries to recall another life. She feels there will always be a marker in her timeline – before Tolly’s kiss and after, like she has before the pandemic and after, before Eleanor’s epilepsy and after. She shuffles to the bed and sits on the end. “Early yesterday morning,” she says. “He was in a tizz because he couldn’t get hold of you. I said you were probably asleep. That’s all.”
“Oh!”
“Anyway, what do you care? Aren’t you busy with your new Hollywood friends? What about the guy you were with by Tolly’s pool?”
“He’s not replying to my calls.”
Anna forbears to point out the obvious. Then she remembers Randy. “Or your writer friend? Isn’t that what all those photos were about?”
“I was high! You can’t blame anyone for what they do when they are high!”
“The courts would beg to differ. And I’m not sure how well that line will go down with James, either.”
Bella groans. “It didn’t. Anna, you’ve got to help me.”
Privately, Anna doesn’t feel in the least obliged. Aloud, she says, “I don’t think there is anything I can do.”
“Talk to him for me. He likes you, respects you. If anyone can make him see sense, you can.”
“I think you are vastly overestimating my capabilities.” Purely to get Bella out of her room, she says, “I will talk to him, but I doubt it will help. James is his own person.”
But Bella continues to flounce around the room. Anna shuts her eyes, then has an idea. “Why don’t you talk to your brother?” she suggests. “Get the male perspective. He might have some ideas.” Although Anna believes the day John has an original idea, pigs will fly, it seems to work on Bella.
Her friend stops, electrified. “Why didn’t I think of that?” she says. Then she turns and barrels out of the room.
The quiet left behind her feels blessed. Until Anna remembers what task she still has to do. One final message to Tolly. It takes her ages. Frequent deletions, some additions and endless variations later, she has her message ready.
I am sorry I was not with you when you awoke but Ryan asked me to leave.
It takes every iota of charity in her not to dob the agent in, but it would serve nothing to drive a wedge between Tolly and the man who is charged with furthering his career.
I wanted to ask if you can find space in your calendar, please could you squeeze in a celebrity visit to Seth’s hospital? It was good of him to come out in his own time to help us on a Friday evening.
I also wanted to thank you. I had a wonderful time yesterday, perhaps the best time of my life. But all good things come to an end and I return home today. My work is in London and yours is in Los Angeles. There can be no future in that. I think it is easier if I leave now for good. So please don’t call or text. This is how it has to be.
Her eyes are watering so badly, she struggles to read the message through. Then she takes a deep breath and presses send.
She wants to bury her head in a pillow and howl, but she long ago developed the iron control that enables her to continue functioning in the face of emotional pain. She has a plane to catch and a suitcase to pack and a man to forget. Best to get started.
It is a very subdued Anna who stands in the bag drop queue. The flight is full and the queue is shuffling forwards slowly. She ignores the attempts at conversation from the youth in front of her, who inches his enormous rucksack forwards with his high-top-clad toe, focussing intently on her phone. It is a ruse. She is on a Hollywood gossip site, regularly refreshing, hoping to see news of Tolly. She kicks herself for not ensuring he was okay before sending her message. For now, she has no way of knowing how well he has recovered other than a news feed. Tolly and Ryan had both mentioned his scheduled evening appearance at an event tonight. If he makes it, she will know he is recovered.
As she approaches the bag drop desk, she gives up. She schedules an alert for Tolly’s name and drops her phone back into her jacket pocket. It will have to do until she is through security. Once she is airside, her stomach reminds her it needs feeding. She finds a burger place and orders before sitting down and checking her phone again. Nothing. She wonders if he or Ryan has cancelled. A finger of fear licks up her spine at the thought of Tolly experiencing complications, but logic prevails. It is extremely unlikely. While she has never encountered paralytic shellfish poisoning before, she did a thorough review of the literature available on it last night. Neither had Seth flagged any additional concerns aside from the known issue of respiratory trouble, and by the time she had left him, he was clear of that problem. She is jumping at shadows.
