Love in a Warm Climate (7 page)

“Mummy, quick, come here, quick, quick.” Thankfully I can drag myself away from assessing my own state of decay as all three children are shouting from the kitchen again. I run from the bedroom, throwing my nightie back on as I do so in case the postman decides to show up carrying a large package.

“What is it?” I gasp, expecting to find an axe murderer in the house or at least some blood somewhere. But they are all staring at the television.

“Your boyfriend's on TV again,” says Emily, pointing at the screen.

I look at the small television I have had since I owned my first flat in Fulham and that now sits on the counter in our French kitchen and is fully hooked up to Sky (obligatory for any Chelsea fan moving abroad). Classical music blares out from it. A familiar figure is in the middle of the screen, wearing black trousers and a white shirt. His hair is back-lit, making it look
even more wild and curly than it normally is. He is staring intently at me with sparkling blue eyes. It is Johnny Fray, someone I met at work and who has since become a huge film star.

Emily is wrong: he was never my boyfriend. But he might as well have been, I never forgot him. I knew him for almost two years and lusted after him for even longer.

The first day I met him was the day he came for a job interview at Drake's, the hotel I was working at. He looked me in the eyes and smiled. Two thoughts came into my head almost at the same time. The first one was “Oh my god, his eyes are the most incredible blue I have ever seen”. The second was “Why did I pick today to wear these trousers that make me look like a maiden aunt and forget my lip gloss?”

He started telling me about drama school where he was studying at the time.

“What sorts of things do you study at drama school?” I asked him.

“Today we learnt all about how to kiss without really kissing,” he said. “What they call ‘on-screen kissing'.”

“Oh? Any tips?”

“I wouldn't have thought as a hotel manager you would ever need to fake a kiss,” he laughed. “But I'd be happy to show you if you like.”

“That's not part of the job description,” I replied, ignoring his flirtatious tone, trying my best to sound professional and not give away that what I was really thinking was how I wanted to run my fingers through his thick black hair and try any kind of kiss with him at all.

He started work the following night and fitted in right away. The clients loved him, especially the women: he was attractive, efficient and
good-natured
. Even Lady Butterdish, the hotel's notoriously difficult and grumpy owner, was mesmerised. She was actually called Lady de Buerre, but Johnny Fray nicknamed her Butterdish because he knew it would annoy her if she ever found out and also because it made everyone else laugh.

One time I overheard Lady Butterdish invite him to spend a weekend on her yacht in St Tropez. I was so relieved when I heard he had said no.

I started to look forward to his shifts and hated it when he wasn't there. Every time I saw him I liked him more. I think one of the major things that attracted me to him was his drive and ambition. I had never seen anyone work so hard, even if this was just his way of making some extra cash. And of course his looks: he reminded me of Heathcliff from
Wuthering Heights
– dark and swarthy, with a mass of black curly hair.

Johnny was tall, about six foot two, and well-built. But he had the most delicate hands, like a pianist's – small with long elegant fingers. Sometimes I
had to stop myself looking at them and wondering what they would feel like over my body.

But it wasn't just his looks that I liked. He was also an amazingly kind person. I remember once when I gave up smoking we went into a newsagent's together so I could buy a packet of chewing-gum to take my mind off the cigarettes. Johnny took the whole box from its stand and bought it for me in a typically generous and flamboyant gesture. And he was more mature than other men of his age. His parents had both died when he was just six years old and that was probably partly why he was so determined to do well in life, he had no one to look after him.

Looking back on it now it seems insane that nothing really happened between us. There was so much obvious attraction there and yet it was almost like every time we got close, something got in the way. One week we were out for a drink after work, alone for the first time in several weeks. We had just settled down for a drink when my phone rang. It was my mother, frantic because husband number four had been caught with his secretary in the boardroom doing more than going through the books.

Another time it was Lucy on the phone in a state of despair because Perfect Patrick (her then crush at law school and now husband) had a girlfriend back home, and, what was worse, her mother was French. “How can I compete with a French woman?” she wailed. “Even Kate Moss couldn't compete with a French woman – look what happened to Johnny Depp.”

“Patrick is not Johnny Depp and she's only half French,” I consoled her, wondering what, if anything, was ever going to happen with my own version of Johnny Depp.

Then a third time (lucky for some but not for us) we finally kissed.

It was about a year after he started at Drake's. We were moving a table in the restaurant together. We had a hen party of twenty coming for dinner and needed to put two of our biggest tables together. At one stage we let go at the same time because it was so heavy. We stared at each other. I had such terrible butterflies I could hardly breathe. There was no one else in the restaurant.

Johnny walked towards me. I kept looking at him, half in panic, half in joy. I was frozen to the spot. He stood opposite me, looking down at me. He smiled, cupped my face in his hands and kissed me. It was probably the most memorable kiss of my life. He gently leant down to touch my lips with his. Tentatively at first and then with more determination. I felt dizzy. My whole body seemed to float. I sometimes think about the significant things I will remember on my deathbed – walking down the aisle, the first moment I held
the twins, my first (and only) pair of Manolo Blahniks (50% at the Selfridge's sale), Nick proposing – and I still think that kiss would be right up there.

After a minute or so he let me go.

“I'm guessing that was a real kiss?” I asked, struggling to find my voice.

Johnny laughed. “Yes. But as you said, it's not in the job spec.”

“Oh forget the job spec,” I said, lifting my face towards his, smiling. “Kiss me again.”

“Hardly the kind of attitude I expect from one of my most promising and certainly my youngest managers.”

Her voice cut through our intimacy like a knife through butter. Johnny and I sprang apart. It was Lady Butterdish herself, looking like the witch from
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
in a cream white fur coat and black stiletto boots that almost certainly cost more than my annual salary each.

“Both of you, to my office,” she commanded and stormed off.

We obeyed orders and followed her. She started with me and made Johnny wait outside. I knew what was coming. I had the ‘I'm so disappointed in you' speech and the ‘I trusted you despite your age and inexperience' lecture.

“If you are here to seduce the staff, Sophie, then I think we had better terminate our agreement,” she concluded. “Either you are serious about this job or you're serious about him. You can't have both.”

I was a girl at the beginning of her career. Lady Butterdish could have made sure I never worked in London again. So what did I do? I lied to her, of course. I lied to save myself. I behaved like a coward.

“Of course the job means more to me,” I said, practically choking on my words. “He's only a waiter.”

“Sensible girl,” smiled Lady Butterdish. “I am pleased to hear that. You'll go far. Now send him in.”

I was planning to wink at Johnny, to smile to give him some sign that I did care and that everything would be all right. But when I opened the door to let him in, he had already gone.

He didn't show up for work the next day, or ever again. He didn't answer my calls. I once went to RADA to see if I could spot him leaving or arriving. I did see him, laughing and chatting with a pretty dark-haired girl. I gave up after that.

Six months after he left, I met Nick.

“Johnny Fray stars in Peak TV's brand new adaptation of
Jane Eyre
, starting Friday at 8 o'clock,” says a moody-sounding voiceover. I feel something move in the pit of my stomach but can't really identify it. Could it be hunger? I haven't eaten since Nick left. No, the thought of food makes
me feel sick. I gaze at the TV. So now he's going to play Rochester, my other all-time crush? A man who looks like Heathcliff playing Mr Rochester. You couldn't make it up.

“Can we watch?” asks Charlotte. “Please? Johnny would like us to.”

They love Johnny. They only met him once, but he made a lasting impression on them. Partly because he took such an interest in them, but also because he gave them
£
20 each to spend on whatever they wanted. Edward bought a pair of Spiderman shoes that flash when you walk (very useful if I ever lose him in a dark room), Charlotte bought a huge furry dog and called it Johnny, and Emily bought two DVDs:
High School Musical
and
The Sound of Music.

We ran into Johnny when I took the children to stay with my mother in Devon last summer. We went for a pub-lunch in a small beautiful Exmoor village called Bampton. It was one of those rare British summer days that brings everyone outside. I spotted him as soon as we sat down in the garden with our food although I hadn't seen him for more than fifteen years. My heart was thumping so hard I was worried everyone around us would hear it.

He was with a whole gang of people who were all laughing at his jokes and gazing at him adoringly. He hadn't changed at all. The unruly hair was the same, the ubiquitous cigarette was lit. But I suppose I would have recognised him from the television even if I hadn't known him. Since I knew him and we had that kiss he had won an Oscar, which led to several TV shows and A-list celebrity status.

He walked over to us as soon as he saw me. “Cunningham,” he said. He had always called me by my surname. “Still as lovely as ever. How are you, girl?”

“Fine thanks,” I said, shaking all over. It was so strange to see him after so long. I wondered briefly if his first thought was ‘Oh my God, she's got so fat'. If it was, it didn't show – he stared at me with total affection.

“How are you? Well, I mean I know how you are – rich and famous.” I added, rather embarrassed.

“Yes, not bad for ‘just a waiter,'” he said, smiling. I was catapulted back to that meeting with Lady Butterdish.

“Johnny, I didn't mean it, you know…”

“Cunningham, don't be silly,” he said interrupting me by putting his hands on my shoulders. I felt my knees buckle slightly as he touched me. “We were young and silly and you did what you had to do to keep your job. Do you mind if I join you?”

“Of course not,” I said. It was so good to see him. He still looked great;
he didn't look a day older and his eyes were just as mesmerising.

He turned to my mother. “Hello Mrs Cunningham, how lovely to see you again. Last time I saw you was at Drake's at Sophie's birthday, wasn't it? You haven't aged a day.”

“Thank you,” said my mother, looking terribly chuffed. Like most women, she actually believes people when they tell her she hasn't aged in twenty years.

“And are these your children?” he said turning to me.

“Yes, this is Charlotte, Emily and Edward,” I said gesturing to the children, who all, rather miraculously, stood up, smiled and said hello. I was terribly proud of them. Nothing like a real live film star to make them pay attention.

“Good Yorkshire names,” he grinned. “I'm a very old friend of your mother,” he told them. “Life throws at you many things, but very few friends. In fact, I fancied her. But I was too ugly for her.” He pulled a stupid face that made them all laugh.

“You're only ugly when you pull faces,” said Emily. “Otherwise you're not.”

She was right. Actually he looked better than most people do even when he was pulling a silly face.

“Thank you, miss,” said Johnny. “You'll be a good friend and you'll have good friends. Look after them – life throws at you many things but few true friends.” As he spoke he turned to me and took my hand.

“I've never forgotten your kindness to me all those years ago in London, giving me that job when I had no experience at all,” he said quietly, almost as if he were referring to the intimacy we had shared. For some reason it made me blush.

“Your mother is a wonderful person,” he told the children. “I loved her when I was a boy.”

“Why didn't you get married with each other?” asked Edward. “Was she your darling?”

“Maybe because you smoke,” Emily interrupted him, briefly removing her thumb from her mouth. “Mummy hates smoking.”

Johnny laughed and thankfully didn't tell them that in those days I used to smoke as well.

He spent the afternoon with us, charming my mother and the children, who then didn't stop talking about him for the rest of the holiday. As he sat chatting with us people would come up and ask for his autograph. It was a bit like hanging out with, well, a film star.

He charmed me too; age had mellowed him slightly and made him more
mysterious. And there's nothing like a few millions and celebrity status to make a man more attractive. But more than any of that was the way he kept looking at me, with a mixture of curiosity and affection. And the memory of that kiss.

“We'll see,” I tell Emily who is tugging on my waistband and looking at me pleadingly.

“It's on terribly late.”

“And Daddy might not like it,” says Emily. “He doesn't like Johnny like we do.”