‘Yeah, sure.’ Liam gave Amy a theatrical wink. ‘As long as Amy here doesn’t object.’
‘Why would she?’ Jo did a double take when she noticed Amy’s rigid stance and wooden expression. She paused and then spoke again, this time with a little less exuberance. ‘Ah, actually mate . . . on second thoughts, how’bout I get back to you on the timing and stuff? I’m forgetting how busy Stephen’s been lately. I’ll give you a call. Anyway, we’re just about to head out for a girls’ night.’
‘Yeah?’ Liam looked disappointed, which was no surprise. With Jo in the room, he’d probably thought he’d be able to stick around for ages.
‘Bye,’ Amy said brusquely. ‘Jo, can you see him out? I’ve gotta get ready.’ Without even waiting for Jo’s reply, she hurried to the bathroom and locked the door, reaching the toilet bowl just in time to lose the coffee and cake she’d eaten. Breathing in deeply, she stumbled over to the tiny basin above the sink and looked at her face in the mirror.
‘You’re not eighteen,’ she reminded her reflection in a whisper, reaching for her toothbrush and toothpaste with shaky hands. Making sure she took enough time for Liam to be gone, she brushed her teeth, touched up her lipstick, straightened her floral green shirtwaist dress and matching cardigan, then walked back to the front of the salon.
‘You right there?’ Jo asked. She was leaning down to buckle up a tan ankle boot.
‘Fine, petal.’ Amy looked around. ‘He gone?’
‘Yeah.’ Jo moved to her other boot. ‘It was good to see him. What’s up? You guys thinking of getting back together?’ Her tone was hopeful.
‘Nope. I didn’t want to talk about it when we broke up and I don’t now,’ Amy replied, her voice too loud and higher pitched than usual, betraying her anxiety. She couldn’t do a confrontation with Jo right now, especially not about this.
Awkward, stifling silence filled the room as Jo’s dark brown eyes studied Amy’s tightly clasped hands and rigidly set shoulders.
‘Fair enough. Didn’t mean to step on your toes, Ames.’
‘That’s alright.’
‘Even if they’re covered in squashed frogs.’
Amy felt herself almost puddle with relief. ‘You should never be nasty to the woman who cuts your hair.’ She forced a cheeky grin and lightened her tone.
‘Easy, tiger.’ Jo held up her hands. ‘Or you’re never riding on my bike again.’ She was referring to her vintage Triumph. Amy loved riding on the back of it, but Jo rarely let her because she refused to wear anything but heels. It had turned into a long-running joke.
‘Heaven forbid. Hurry up and get your stuff. I’m hungry.’ Amy whisked around the salon, collecting her handbag and turning off the record player and the lights. ‘If you don’t get moving, I’m not letting you drive my mini again.’
‘Heaven forbid.’
‘Come on, boy. You’re driving me crazy here.’ Amy stood on her porch watching Gerald’s vaguely grey shape waddle around her front yard, sniffing and snuffling at every available leaf, twig and tree while he decided which particular spot to bequeath his business on.
She shivered as the chilly wind blowing in from the coast cut right through her wrap and thin nightie, triggering a run of goose bumps down her spine. A sharp cracking noise from somewhere in the dark startled her and she jumped, squinting through the trees, unable to see anything without the aid of her glasses or better lighting.
‘Hurry up, boy. Why is two in the morning the only time you voluntarily want to go to the loo?’ she called out to the dog again, shifting her weight anxiously from one foot to the other. Unfortunately, Gerald either didn’t understand or was ignoring her in his quest for the perfect spot.
It took the dog another five minutes to finally complete his business and by that time Amy was twitchier than a fat chicken living next door to a KFC restaurant. Although she had every confidence in Gerald’s ability to deter a burglar, she’d still much rather be inside in the warm with the door locked.
‘You happy now?’ she asked him as he lumbered through the front door, brushing past her legs. Her only answer was a wheezing sigh before he made his way over to the beanbag in the living room and clambered laboriously up on top of it before collapsing. Amy gave him a quick scratch behind the ear before turning on her TV and flopping down on her couch to continue watching
s
. She’d given up on sleeping tonight.
Her thoughts were a whirling mess and had been ever since Liam’s visit to the salon. She knew that she couldn’t let the situation go on, especially not since she’d gotten home after her dinner with Jo on Saturday night to find another abusive letter slipped under her front door. Normally she threw the letters out the minute she found them, but she’d kept this one. The minute she got a chance, she was going to take it down to the police station and see what they could do about him. With luck, it would be grounds for a restraining order.
As much as she wanted to protect Jo’s feelings, Amy had had enough, more than enough. If she didn’t do something now, who knew how long Liam would go on harassing her? It didn’t seem like the idiot had a life. He’d been stalking her, in all senses of the word, for nearly nine years. If she didn’t do something there was a good chance he’d still be stalking her in her retirement home when she was ninety.
‘Colin, as much as I find myself thinking fondly of you, I wasn’t happy to see you in the flesh this time and I’ll be a sight happier if I don’t see you again for another few months,’ Ben said as he walked through Heathrow Terminal Five’s sliding doors and reached into his pocket for his passport.
‘You shouldn’t.’ Colin trotted along behind him, just narrowly missing a collision with a large Pakistani family in the process of organising their luggage. ‘That was the last of it. I don’t think there will be anything more now you’ve signed on the dotted line. If I didn’t say it before—’
‘You did. Countless numbers of times.’
‘I really am sorry.’
Ben heaved his overnight bag onto his shoulder, stopping abruptly to scan the information for departing flights on an overhead screen. He had forty minutes until take-off but that didn’t worry him. What was first class for if one couldn’t arrive just in the nick of time?
‘I’ve said it a million times and I meant it every time. You’re forgiven.’ He turned to regard Colin with affectionate exasperation, noticing for the first time his employee’s lime-green tracksuit straining at the seams around his generous midriff.
‘Velour, Colin?’ He winced.
‘You only just noticed? It’s comfortable,’ Colin said defensively. ‘And it
is
midnight.’
‘Yes, I understand that. But really? Velour? What does Sharif have to say about this?’ Ben advanced to the check-in counter with Colin bringing up the rear.
‘He hates it.’
‘I’m not surprised.’
‘I like it.’
‘You must do. Anyone who wants to look like he’s a perambulating apple would have to.’ Ben nodded his thanks to the woman at check-in as she handed him his passport along with a boarding pass. He turned and caught Colin’s frown.
‘A dapper apple,’ he corrected, his mouth lifting at the corner.
‘You’re a prince, Ben.’
‘Aren’t I always? You know, once the media frenzy blows over you’re welcome to come stay with me in Perth for a few weeks. Bring Sharif. You were saying the other day that he doesn’t take enough holidays.’
‘Sharif would love that, but you know I really don’t like the heat.’
‘Build a bridge and get over it, my friend.’ Ben grinned at Colin’s grimace and patted him on the shoulder. ‘I’ll talk to you soon and no offence, but unless you take me up on my offer, I don’t want to see you or Dear Old Blighty for at least another six months.’
The minute Ben settled himself on the plane, he felt himself truly begin to relax for the first time in four days. In a completely uncharacteristic cock-up, Colin had managed to let Ben’s impending brief return to England slip out in conversation to a friend who just happened to work for one of the biggest muckraking publications in the country. Colin had then compounded things even more by leaving his phone at the table while he went to the restrooms, giving his Judas friend a chance to get a hold of Ben’s private number.
From the moment he’d returned to London, Ben had been beset by a barrage of calls from the baying British tabloid media demanding his response to Marcella’s tell-all vomit, which artistically painted him as a sexually deviant, misogynistic sadist who stole sweets from children on his day off. As it was, he’d barely been able to make it to Bright Star Studios to discuss another round of revisions to
Power to the Devil
. Or more to the point, to discuss the paltry amount they were planning on paying him for what was, essentially, a total rewrite now that they’d decided that it wasn’t just their movie star’s dialogue that needed fixing.
He knew what their concerns were about. He knew they were on a tight budget, but that wasn’t his problem. It hadn’t been his decision to hire a Hollywood hack to work over his nuanced masterpiece, it had been theirs, and they could swallow their bitter pill and pay him to clean up their mess.
It had been a vicious dogfight, but Ben had ultimately won the war. In return for his services, Bright Star would be paying the modest fee he’d negotiated and sharing a generous cut of the profits, if any, that eventuated if the film actually ever made it as far as the cinema. All he had to do was hold up his side of the bargain, which wouldn’t be hard. Unbeknown to his dear new friends at Bright Star, Ben already possessed a drafted and polished script for
Power to the Devil
that he’d completed a few years before he’d sold the rights. At the time, he’d been harbouring grand plans to make the film himself before sanity had interjected. All he needed to do now was tweak it to best show off Cameron Bell’s acting prowess and hand it over. It would be a week’s work at most, which would free him up to spend his time on other, more pleasurable things–or more to the point,
people
. That’s if the particular person he was interested in was still talking to him.
His little scheme to have Amy come to him hadn’t quite worked out as planned, thanks to this nightmare trip. He just hoped to hell she hadn’t been trying to contact him.
‘Fuck.’
The word echoed off the walls of Ben’s house as he saw he’d missed not one but three calls from Amy. One on Friday evening, one on Saturday morning and one from the day before. Given that it was just after midnight, he’d have to cool his heels until a respectable hour.
He ended up calling the minute he woke at ten the next morning.
‘Hello?’ Amy’s voice was almost drowned out by the sound of chattering females and the whirring of a hair dryer in the background.
‘Amy? It’s Ben. I’m a shit. I didn’t return your calls.’ Ben rubbed a hand over dry, tired eyes. He’d managed less than twelve hours’ sleep split over the past four days. He hadn’t been able to locate the off switch for his mind and now he was paying for it.
‘Ben? Are you alright? You sound strange.’
‘Yes. Fine. Exhausted but fine. I just flew in from London.’
‘
Again?
’
‘Yes. More’s the pity. I’d like to see you again. Preferably naked. Bear in mind I said preferably, not mandatorially.’ He grinned at her stunned silence. She didn’t take long to recover, however.
‘I got the boxed set.’
Ben felt an acute rush of satisfaction. It had been an impulsive gesture but obviously the right one. ‘You liked it?’
‘I love it. Thank you.’
‘Just how grateful are you?’
‘Grateful enough to cook you dinner. I’ll come to you. Tonight okay?’
‘Tonight?’ It was Ben’s turn to be caught off-guard.
‘I’ll see you at seven.’ She hung up.
Ben stared at the phone for a good few seconds with a bemused expression as the stress of the past few days flitted away. He then rolled out of bed and yanked opened the heavy black bedroom curtains to reveal a spectacularly clear blue winter sky before making his way downstairs for a desperately needed coffee.
Despite his present state of exhaustion, he was feeling remarkably inspired to work. Not on the film script, of course. He didn’t even want to think about that for another few days, but maybe Ross’s idea of a travel book wasn’t such a bad one. He could ask Amy to be his local guide to deciphering the peculiarities of Australian culture. He had a feeling she was something of an anomaly, but that didn’t matter. That just made her all the more interesting.
Ben’s latest column featuring his experiences with the outdoor toilet in a post-sex daze had certainly gone down well if comments on the
Enquirer
’s website were anything to go by. His readers loved Amy and he’d loved sharing her with them. He worried momentarily that she wouldn’t be comfortable with the intimate details he’d alluded to, but squashed the feeling dead. He hadn’t said anything that would identify her and besides, she’d no doubt be flattered and touched he’d devoted so much line space to her. His other lady friends would certainly have been ecstatic for the publicity–or understanding, at the very least.
He made a large part of his living off anecdotes from his private life and any woman getting involved with him knew that. Okay, so Amy didn’t know much about his career other than what he’d shared, but was that his problem? One search on Google would reveal all there was to know about him. Come to think of it, one search on Google at the moment would bring up Marcella’s tell-all story. If anything,
that’s
what he needed to worry about.
Later that afternoon, Ben answered the door to a five-foot-tall, double-dimpled ray of sunshine. He blinked as he processed the sight of Amy in a pair of loose white linen pants and a soft yellow jumper cinched at that waist with narrow pink belt. He glanced down. As usual she was wearing heels. This time they were a yellow that matched the jumper. He’d never had a thing for women’s footwear before, but he definitely liked the idea of seeing her clad in nothing but those shoes and her birthday suit. Some time in the next five minutes preferably.
‘Nice to see you, too. I missed you as well.’ She stepped forward and kissed him. Apples and bubblegum greeted his senses.