Christmas on Primrose Hill (31 page)

Nettie tried tuning out again as the people continued to talk, trying to exorcise their ghosts, but the details filtered through – a son, drugs; a sister, mental illness; a husband, money troubles . . . Common, everyday troubles that millions of people suffered – and endured. Why hadn’t their loved ones managed it too?

She swallowed a hiccup. Her body was still jangling from the outburst in the kitchen, her nervous system flayed from the emotional assault; she saw Jamie’s reproachful face with every blink, and she pressed the beads of her spine hard against the unyielding pew. How much longer?

She looked to the front again. The last person was standing at the lectern now, a woman in her fifties with thin blonde bobbed hair and glasses, wearing a navy overcoat with a silk scarf. Her voice was timid and tremulous as she read from a sheet of lined A4 paper, all her longing and devastation captured and pressed into that page like a dried flower. Nettie held her breath as she listened to this last story – a horror story told by a neat middle-aged woman, of drug offences and prostitution arrests, the words tripping off her tongue, sleek from practice. How had this tale become
her
narrative? The woman looked like she should run a book club, listen religiously to
Woman’s Hour
every morning while she did her ironing or took tea and a biscuit.

She watched as the woman walked back to her seat, head bowed, the man she sat down beside putting his arm round her shoulder and whispering something in her ear.

Nettie didn’t notice the cello had started up. Not immediately.

It was only the shuffle of the choir rising to stand that made her look front again. To her surprise, it wasn’t the choristers, who had made the procession past earlier in their red-and-white cassocks, hymn books opened in their palms, but instead an ensemble cast wearing black trousers and red T-shirts with the charity’s logo across the front in yellow.

The cello’s song rose and swelled like steam. The cellist was out of her line of sight, but the notes from the honeyed strings filled the arched space like sunlight and Nettie felt the fibres in her muscles tighten and quiver, as though they were being pulled up on pulleys.

‘Come on, then,’ her father whispered, patting her hand, as eager as she to escape, and sliding along the pew, keeping low and trying to remain unnoticed.

The choir began to sing.

‘
In my dreams, I see your face, walk with you, hold you safe . . .
’

Transfixed, she reached for her father’s sleeve without looking, holding him in place, as the words fell like rain. ‘
I’m so empty and silent without you
. . .’

Most of the singers were women, but not all, their arms hanging empty and still at their sides, eyes on the conductor as they sang in precise synchronicity. Nettie straightened, trying to get a better look as the purity of sound swirled around her like a wistful wind. They didn’t look remarkable, these people; she was quite sure that to hear them sing individually, they would probably be nothing special, but together they were more than the sum of their parts, their voices gathering her up and folding around her. She felt held.

Her father felt it too, relaxing back into the bench again, his hand falling warm and heavy over hers. They sat like that together, at the back of the church, unseen and unknown as the song put exquisite voice to the loss that both filled them up and hollowed them out. It was the first time . . . the first time since
that day
that she didn’t feel alone.

And when the voices hushed, when the singularity of their collective loss and pain began to fade to an echo, her father stood up. And after four years of denial and pretence and soldiering on, he finally began to speak.

Chapter Eighteen

Daisy was loitering by the lifts and filing her nails when the doors opened and Nettie stepped out into the office the next morning. She immediately noticed someone had put up a blue LED-lit Christmas tree in the corner by the loos and strung it with silver tinsel; a couple of empty red foil boxes sat at the foot of the tree like they’d been kicked there by the cleaner and all festive feeling deserted her at the sight of it.

So this is Christmas, she thought wryly.

‘Hi, Daise,’ she mumbled, walking past with a wan smile as she shook snowflakes from her hair. It had begun snowing again overnight but still wasn’t settling in the city – although the Home Counties had had up to four inches, much to the dismay of London’s children, who wanted to build their first snowmen of the season. ‘How was your dinner party?’

‘Just tell me. You may as well spit it out,’ Daisy said, hurrying after her as Nettie unbuttoned her coat and hung it on the coat rack, her hair already picking up static from the carpet.

‘Tell you what?’

‘About Saturday! The concert!’

‘Oh.’ Nettie hesitated, unwanted memories, images and sensations flashing unbidden through her mind again. ‘It was fine.’

‘
Fine?
’

‘Great. It was great. He was—’

‘Amazing, right?’ Daisy perched one small buttock on her desk, her long legs wrapped round each other in a gangly spiral.

Nettie nodded and tried to smile as she slipped into her seat and booted up the computer. She could feel last night’s sense of communion beginning to desert her. She didn’t want to think about him.

‘That’s it? That’s all you’re giving me?’ Daisy demanded, arms outstretched.

Nettie racked her brain, trying not accidentally to spill any details about how Jamie had kissed her with his hands around her cheeks, or the groove along his stomach, or how he’d made her laugh with butterfly kisses on her inner thigh – all the usual thoughts that were occupying her every waking and sleeping moment. She held a finger in the air, pleased as she thought of something. ‘We went to the after-party at Bodo’s Schloss. I drank a cocktail from a ski boot.’

‘Who was there?’ Daisy’s eyes were on stalks, her palms flat on the table.

Damn, she’d barely noticed. She’d had eyes only for him. ‘Um, Tinie Tempah—’

She was saved by the sudden heavy thud of Jules’s bag being swung onto the desk – although judging by the look in Jules’s eyes, maybe ‘saved’ wasn’t quite the word.

‘Morning,’ Daisy said tartly, taking in Jules’s office warrior pose – her hands on her hips and eyes trained on Nettie like sniper rifles. ‘What’s up with y—’

‘Give us a minute, would you, Daise?’ Jules ordered, without looking at her.

Nettie swallowed as Daisy – for once – did as she was told first time, shooting Nettie an ‘oh crap’ look as she left.

Behind her, Nettie could hear the sound of the kettle boiling, a small clatter of cups being brought down from the cupboard, the sucker of the fridge door being opened. Daisy’s face appeared sporadically around the yucca plant.

‘I could be dead.’ Jules’s words were hard and metallic, glinting and cold.

Nettie opened her mouth to respond, but Jules was too quick, too angry for her to compete.

‘For all you know, I’ve been raped and murdered and dumped in a landfill in Solihull.’

Nettie’s mouth opened again. Solihull? ‘Jules, I’m sorry. You looked like you were having a great time. I didn’t think—’

‘No. You didn’t. Because not only did you not know if
I
was OK, none of us knew if
you
were OK either. Did you ever stop to think about that? No one knew where you were.’ Jules flicked her eyes up to check no one was standing too close. She leaned forward, her voice so low it was more of a rumble. ‘I rang him, you know. Gus gave me his number. He didn’t know where you were either.’

Nettie felt her cheeks stain at the rebuke, at the thought of them all discussing her. ‘I am not a child. I don’t have to account for my whereabouts to anyone.’

‘You just ran out, he said.’

She swallowed, humiliation like a rain that poured upon her. ‘Yesterday was just a bad day, OK?’

Jules shook her head. ‘No, it’s not OK. You would think that you, of all people, would understand—’

‘Don’t!’ Nettie was astonished to realize she was on her feet again, her finger jabbed towards Jules in warning, her own eyes blazing. ‘Don’t you dare!’

‘Ladies.’ They turned to find Mike standing by the desk, watching them both with concern. ‘Everything OK?’

Jules straightened up, tugging down irritably on the hem of her top. ‘Fine, Mike,’ she said through gritted teeth, shooting another fierce look towards Nettie and making it perfectly apparent that it wasn’t fine at all.

‘Nettie?’ Mike asked, plainly able to see her rapid breathing and flushed cheeks.

She blinked and looked across at him. ‘Fine,’ she replied too after a moment.

‘Good,’ he said with evident scepticism. ‘Well, let’s get the meeting underway, then, shall we? Caro’s bringing the teas.’

Both women looked down at their desks in silence, shuffling papers aggressively and slamming drawers as they hunted for pens.

In the conference room, Nettie sat down in her usual seat, watching in disbelief as Jules pointedly walked to the other side of the table and sat with Daisy and Caro.

Both Daisy and Caro swapped looks.

Nettie sighed and placed her attention on Mike. Fine, let Jules be petty, then, she thought, sticking her nose in the air. If she wanted to involve the entire office in her tantrum, that was her business.

Mike looked out upon the unorthodox seating arrangement with a furrowed brow. ‘Right,’ he said slowly, twiddling his pen between his fingers. ‘Caro, if you could brief us on the latest figures, please.’

Caro opened her laptop. ‘Twitter – five hundred and fifty-eight thousand followers now – there was a spike after the batmanning, not so much with the owling that we posted the day before. The public is clearly liking the direct connection between Bunny and Jamie, the alliance seems to be going over well, so I think we should home in on that for the remainder of the campaign.’

‘Good, we’ll feed that back to White Tiger,’ Mike said, making a brief note. ‘What else?’

‘YouTube is at one point three million views now, if you combine the clips of the ice course, Ice Bucket Challenge and Shard all together, although Ice Crush is still the leader individually. Obviously that’s generating some serious income now, but as I think I’ve said before, it would be good if we could get more film footage up, and not focus quite so much on stills for the last few days. It gives the followers something to really keep sharing and coming back to. A photo is more disposable, more forgettable.’

‘Nice point. Duly noted,’ Mike said, again scribbling notes. ‘So the pot now stands at . . . ?’

Caro smiled and shook her head. ‘Donations to Tested via Nettie’s link now total £633,792.’

Mike whistled, dropping his pen to clap Nettie. Caro and Daisy joined in too and Nettie quickly clapped them back. ‘Team effort, everyone.’

‘Damned right – it was my idea,’ Jules muttered, her hands pointedly flat on the table. ‘All you are is the model.’

Nettie blinked at her, hurt by the viciousness in her tone.

‘Right, well, moving on,’ Mike said quickly. ‘I’ve had a call from Jamie Westlake’s manager this morning.’

Nettie’s head jerked up. Dave?

‘Yeah, where are they? At the meeting in the bar on Friday, they said they’d be here,’ Daisy said with evident disappointment. Nettie realized she was wearing lipstick.

‘Well, he’s emailed to say they can’t make the meeting.’

Nettie froze. He was supposed to be here? ‘Is this because of that melee in Topshop at the weekend?’ Caro asked.

‘What melee?’ Mike asked sharply.

‘You must have heard about it, Mike – it was all over the Interweb. Jamie sauntered into Topman on Oxford Street and there was practically a riot.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe nothing to do with it. Just saying.’

Nettie thought she was going to be sick.

‘Well, his no-show today doesn’t change the plans we’ve already got in place to coincide with the launch of his new single this Friday,’ Mike continued. ‘You may recall we were discussing ways we could tie in with the publicity for that, join forces if you will – obviously getting the bunny in the music video is one way of increasing exposure.’

‘Yes, but not necessarily donations. I still like the idea of a song vote,’ Jules said. ‘It’s dynamic, interactive, and Jamie seemed well up for it.’

‘Yes, the problem with that idea, Jules, as Dave clearly pointed out at the time, is that these decisions about what song’s going to be released from the album and when are made by the record company well in advance.’

‘I get that, but it’s not like there’d be any chance of our song beating his anyway. It’d just be a stunt to get the public involved.’

‘Sorry, can we rewind a bit, please?’ Nettie cut in. Exactly how much had she missed at the bar in the hotel? She had assumed they’d all just been flirting with the star, not actually working. ‘What’s this?’

Jules didn’t reply, prompting Mike to sigh impatiently, and Caro explained on her behalf.

‘Jamie had an idea for a song vote, a bit like a “battle of the bands” skit, although given that none of us can play any instruments, we can hardly perform . . .’ She shrugged. ‘So he said we could do it with a choice of songs instead, getting people to vote for which song he should release as his next single. The public get to choose by donating to either the one that we, or rather you, would endorse, or the real one which he’d endorse. We’d split into teams – “hashtag teamjamie” and “hashtag teambunny” – get everyone to vote, and whichever song raises most money, he’ll release. He was well up for it.’

Nettie blinked. ‘And what would our song be called?’

Daisy frowned. ‘“Ships In the Night”, was it?’

“Night Ships.” The song he’d told her he wanted to release all along. No wonder he was behind the idea. A sick feeling swilled in the pit of her stomach as a thought came to her – what if all this,
them
, was just a marketing ploy to boost his sales? They were assuming this campaign was benefiting from the link-up with him, but was he riding on
her
coat-tails? Had he really been chasing after her, or her profile? Hadn’t he told her that his label wanted a younger fanbase?