Deranged Marriage (48 page)

How I believed I was special, a star, how I believed I actually had a television career ahead of me. A long and successful career because I was a celebrity. How people asked me for my autograph, and how they all recognised me, and how I enjoyed that adulation. How special I believed I was. I told her how it had all gone wrong. Cordelia was involved, but young, sweet Debbie had talked to the press, told them we were in love. That I loved her and not Holly, because that’s what she believed. I told her how I’d behaved so badly towards Debbie, shouting at her at work, how I’d hit the big guy, how he’d thrown me out on to the street. How the press had captured it all; my last and finest moment. How I hadn’t seen the papers, how I hadn’t spoken to anyone. I told her that I called her because something told me to, and that something was my reason returning. I told her how I stayed in bed for days and days and how I felt empty and alone. I told her that I hated myself, detested myself. And as I told her, I felt as if I was hearing it for the first time; hearing what really happened. But it hadn’t happened to me, it had happened to a stranger. A stranger that was me. Finally I asked her for help.

She came as soon as she could. The moment I saw her I knew that she was the one for me; had been all along and always would be. I knew that whatever I had been doing, I was wrong and now it was time to stop. Stop and start all over again.

‘I’ve missed you so much,’ she said. I held out my arms and felt so relieved when she walked into them.

‘I’ve missed you too, Julia,’ I replied.

Chapter Forty-three

She looked exactly as I remembered her. She was wearing her favourite perfume, Obsession, that was it. I realised the moment my senses registered the fragrance just how much I missed her. She looked jet-lagged and I loved the way her eyes smouldered when she was tired. Sexy eyes. I always told her that. Her hair was slightly messy, but I wanted to stroke it. I wanted to touch her, to make sure she was real. I needed her so badly.

We held each other and talked for hours and hours.

‘I’m not sure how I feel, George,’ she said when I had told her my story again. ‘I feel responsible, as soon as I found out you had left I felt awful but it took longer to realise how much I loved you. I did the wrong thing but I didn’t get a chance to tell you that, until now.’

‘And now you have to listen to my crazy story.’

‘It is mad, George. Those women, the press, Holly. It’s too much to take in.’

I knew then that I had to make her understand. I asked her to tell me what she had been doing since we parted. Her story was simpler than mine.

It had taken her a couple of months to fully realise how she felt about me. The proposal had come as a shock and she had panicked. She believed that she valued her independence above all but once she had it, she didn’t want it, she wanted me. She believed that my leaving was a sign that I would never forgive her, and so she didn’t try to track me down. She found out from one of my colleagues that I was expected back at some point and decided the best thing she could do was wait. I shuddered as I realised how close I’d come to losing her for ever, and what a fool I’d been. If only I had waited in New York, not acted so hastily. If only...if only.

‘I love you so much, Julia I behaved so badly. I am sorry. Really, really sorry.’

‘George we need time with this. I can’t just forget that you slept with Holly before you proposed to me, and I can’t just forget the other women, not the fact that you slept with them more the way you treated them. And of course let’s not forget you might be the father of Holly’s baby. I knew as soon as you called me that I had to come. I do love you George, but there’s so much to consider.’

I put her to bed soon afterwards, she needed sleep desperately. A few hours later she got up, showered and we started talking again. The initial relief at seeing her, holding her, hearing her voice had been wonderful, I couldn’t risk losing her again. If I did, I would only blame myself.

‘Julia, I have no idea how or why I went so mad. You know me, I am normally a stable, sensible, person. Always serious, always doing the right thing. Never acting hastily. I don’t know what came over me. I’m not trying to make excuses but I am trying to make you understand. Even though I can’t fully understand it myself yet.’

‘George, I think you may have had a nervous breakdown.’

‘Maybe. But breakdowns don’t happen to people like me usually. That’s what I always thought.’

‘They can happen to anyone. You were always so certain about your life that you couldn’t cope with something happening that wasn’t in your plan. I mean George, only a complete control freak would fly to London to sleep with someone before proposing to their girlfriend, just in case they might be the right woman.’

‘I know.’ I hung my head.

‘We need to do a lot of talking, and a lot of soul-searching. Can you give me time?’ I nodded.

Over the next few days we did just that. We didn’t go out of the flat; ordering in food when we needed it. We talked, ate, slept, and talked some more. There was so much to figure out and I think we succeeded. I think we figured it all out.

After three days of this, she asked me a question.

‘George, you asked me on Christmas morning if I’d marry you. I said no, I said we should break up but I’ve spent so long regretting it. So I want to ask you, will
you
marry me?’ I cried and hugged her and I accepted because this was the girl I wanted, I was sure of that now. I was more than one hundred per cent sure, and I always should have been.

She persuaded me to call my boss and tell him I was ready to come back. It was amazing how quickly I pulled myself together. It wasn’t just the media that had obliterated George-the-Marriage-Pact-Man, I had too. My boss told me he would be more than delighted to have me back. Thankfully, the story hadn’t made it to New York. I could really start all over again and erase that part of my life from my memory. In New York there would be no one to remind me. I would be George the lawyer once more.

We made plans for the future; I
had
a future. But I also had a past which needed dealing with.

I took Julia to visit my parents. They were so relieved that I was all right that they forgave me without recrimination.

‘I am so sorry for the distress I must have caused you,’ I said.

‘George, we knew you’d come to your senses,’ my mother said. ‘That’s why we let you be, because we knew you’d be back one day.’

‘Is that it? Don’t I get a telling-off?’ I don’t know what I was expecting.

‘I haven’t seen my son in months. The last time you came home I didn’t recognise you. George, I am just so relieved to have you back that I would forgive you anything.’ They didn’t dwell on it, and Julia and Mum talked weddings while Dad and I went to the golf club.

‘You know son, mistakes are all right, as long as you know they’re mistakes.’

‘There’s a lot of things I’d like to take back.’

‘I know, and that’s what life is about. Of course you went too far, you went to extremes but now you’ve regained your senses.’

‘I hurt a lot of people.’

‘George, if they can forgive you then you can forgive yourself.’ My father was a wise man.

Arriving home I asked Julia to go for a walk with me. I led her round my childhood haunts.

‘My father said that if other people can forgive me then I can forgive myself.’

‘Well, I’ve forgiven you, although I blame myself so that’s no surprise.’ She laughed nervously. ‘They’ve forgiven you, your parents, I mean, so that’s good.’

‘Why did you forgive me?’

‘Because I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I’m just such a bonehead.’

‘We both are.’

‘I think the three days we spent talking were the most honest of our relationship.’

‘We should talk more, then.’

‘Things have to change. I have forgiven you, I’ve just about forgiven myself but we need to make our relationship stronger as a result of this.’

‘I agree.’

‘I was so relieved you called. I began to think you’d never come back.’

‘George the celebrity, nearly didn’t,’ I smiled.

‘This tour you’re giving me, it’s not really the childhood tour, it’s the George and Holly tour isn’t it?’

‘It’s hard to separate my childhood from Holly.’ I felt like a different person as I held on to the hand of my future wife. I felt sane and sensible and heady and happy. A weird mix of emotions, but none which I remember from my time in London. That man was horrible. I cringed when I thought of some of the things I’d done and said, and the way I had treated Holly. I was pretty embarrassed about the way I had spoken to her, the way I had spoken to everyone. I believed I would be cringing over that part of my life for a long, long time.

‘She’ll always be a part of you, because she is a part of your past.’

‘Yeah, but I screwed things up for her.’

‘It wasn’t all you, but you’re right. You need to speak to her.’

‘No way.’ There was no way I could ever speak to her again, no way she’d want to speak to me.

‘George, you need to explain, you need her to forgive you.’

‘I doubt she ever will.’

‘But you at least should try to speak to her before we leave.’

‘A parting shot?’

‘Let’s leave all our ghosts here shall we?’

‘Meaning Cordelia and Debbie?’

‘Write to them at least. Write apologising and then after you speak to Holly, there will be nothing left to haunt us.’

‘The baby?’

‘George, I wish to God that the baby is Joe’s. I don’t know if I can cope with a reminder of that, I don’t. But there is no way to prove that yet and what I want to do is get us working before we have to deal with that,
if
we have to deal with it. I love you enough, I know that and I can’t lose you, but let’s just deal with the things we can for now.’

‘Yeah, we will.’ I turned and kissed her and remembered that I had Julia back, which is more than I could ever have asked for. My story had a happy ending even if it didn’t have a public one. Although, I didn’t deserve it.

As I dressed to meet Holly I wondered if I’d miss Celebrity George. Even though I knew that I shouldn’t have done it, the way it made me feel was undeniable. I thought my ego would always miss it a bit.

I wore a pair of jeans, and a blue shirt. All clothes that Julia had made me buy when she went through the wardrobe and saw what I had been wearing.

‘You wore all this to be in the public eye?’ she asked, looking at the suits, the shirts, the ties.

‘I did.’

‘Then you will give them to a charity shop, you need a new image. The man in those suits is gone for ever.’ I needed her assertiveness. I didn’t care about the clothes, they weren’t important, Julia was all that mattered now.

No, I didn’t miss the fame, that man was a different man, Julia was right. That man wouldn’t have asked for forgiveness, he didn’t think he needed it. He was in the right, he was hard done by, he was a moron.

*

When I called Holly she sounded surprised to hear from me, reluctant to listen to me and definitely not keen to meet me. I begged her, I apologised over and over, and begged some more. At first she said that she would have to think about it, but then I kept pushing because I couldn’t leave with baggage. I wouldn’t be able to sleep, or get on with my life until I explained something to her. I know, even after everything, I was still a selfish bastard. Finally, she capitulated and we agreed to meet in a café on the Kings Road. She chose it, I think because it was neutral territory, although I didn’t question her.

‘Wish me luck, honey,’ I said, as I left.

‘Good luck and remember, whatever happens I love you.’ That was all I needed.

I walked down the street and people looked at me. I groaned as I realised that this was the kind of thing I’d invited not long ago. Someone shouted something but I didn’t hear it. People stopped and stared at me.

‘There’s that wanker who was in the papers,’ a guy said to his girlfriend. I felt myself turning red, my ears were hot as I felt embarrassment. It was a five minute walk to the café, it seemed everyone was staring at me, people stopping, saying things. I wanted to hide, to run away, but this was all my fault and the recognition that I had craved was now haunting me. I had to get out of this country. New York was the answer.

She was there when I walked in, sitting at a table with a cup of herbal tea in front of her. I smiled at her and she looked up. ‘George,’ she said hesitantly.

‘Holly,’ I said, noticing how big she was.

‘Not long now,’ I continued, not knowing why exactly. I thought about the baby, her baby and for the first time I hoped that it wasn’t mine. How selfish I was to want her and the baby just so I didn’t feel unloved. Because that was all it was.

‘No, not long.’

I went to the counter to order a coffee, flinching slightly, because it reminded me of Debbie. I had been such a bastard. It was depressing and confusing. I tried to pull myself together. Sorry wasn’t adequate. Nothing was adequate. I sat down with my coffee.

‘There’s something you should know,’ Holly said. She was still the same amazing girl that she’d always been. She was still my best friend. Julia might have that place now, but Holly was that girl, the first girl that I loved, even if the love then was platonic.

‘What?’

‘When you called me, you told me you wanted to apologise, but I want to tell you that that thing, the thing with the waitress. Well, we had a detective follow you and that’s how the press discovered it. Actually, before that, Cordelia told us you were behaving like a gigolo, so we hired the detective and when we got photos of you and her, Freddie called the
Daily
News
. They went to see her and managed to persuade her to talk about your relationship. That put an end to it.’ Her words rushed out, as if she was embarrassed. But she had nothing to apologise for.

‘I wish that I had put an end to it, I wish I’d stopped it. I shouldn’t have let it get as far as it did. I don’t blame you for the private detective, not after all I did to you, and I certainly don’t blame Cordelia. She’s a bitch but I hurt her feelings. Shit, I hurt everyone.’