‘Yeah. Don’t look so alarmed, nothing unseemly. Just that you’re two minds with a single thought. Anyway, you enjoying it here?’
‘Oh, Rex, I love it so much. It’s heaven. After all those years mopping up mess, and dealing with temper tantrums.’
‘Sounds a bit like a creative department,’ said Rex, laughing. ‘It’s really nice to see you, Eliza.’
He grinned at her; he was very sweet, she thought. ‘Eliza,’ said Rob’s secretary, putting her head round the door, ‘message from Rob. He’s going to be at least another thirty effing minutes, his words not mine, so why don’t you and Rex go out and have a coffee or something and come back in forty-five?’
‘OK,’ said Eliza, ‘we will. Thanks. Come on, Rex, licence to play.’
‘I don’t know about you,’ he said, ‘but I rather fancy a drink. Bit more fun than coffee.’
They walked down to Browns Hotel, ordered a bottle of champagne.
‘You should come with us, you know, it’s going to be fun. You know we’re shooting near Balmoral, we’ve found the perfect spot, on the moors, with the castle in the background.’
‘Yes, of course I know,’ she said gloomily.
‘It’s going to be a gas. And only two nights. Why not?’
‘Oh – Matt wouldn’t let me.’
‘What? Am I hearing this right? Christ, Eliza, hasn’t he heard of women’s rights?’
‘He calls them women’s wrongs.’
‘Things not good between you and Matt?’
‘Yes, of course they are.’
He shrugged. ‘OK. It’s nothing to do with me. But I don’t believe you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Eliza, I can remember how you were when we were all starting out. When you were at
Charisma
, just an assistant, but still so sure of yourself, what you wanted, even when you were taking sessions for Fiona and should have been completely out of your depth. You were brilliant, Eliza, we all thought so. We still do.’
Eliza suddenly wanted to cry. She knew why; he had brought her back to those heady days when she had been happy, sure of herself, successful, when they had all been so young and she had first been with Matt and he had seemed so utterly sexy and totally what she wanted, and it had all been so perfect and exciting and wonderful. Where had that gone, where where where?
‘Hi, you two. Is that a private party or can anyone join in?’ It was Rob; he sat down beside them and took Eliza’s glass of champagne and drained it. ‘Mmm, nice, let’s get another of those. We can have our meeting here. Now then, Rex, have you managed to talk Eliza into coming to Scotland with us next week?’
‘Actually,’ said Eliza, and it was as if someone else was speaking for her suddenly, ‘actually, yes, he has. I’ve decided to come.’
The sun was very warm up on the moor. Surprisingly so. Eliza pulled off her sweater and lolled back, leaning on her elbows. The sky was intensely blue, the view all around breathtaking, a vast wooded valley, the mountains beyond still topped with snow. There was a constant sound of running water from endless small streams, and far, far above, curlews wheeled and cried. Balmoral lay half-hidden in the trees.
‘Wine?’ said Rob Brigstocke.
They were all there on the Scottish moor, having a picnic, Rob, Rex, the twin models, Hugh Wallace and her. The shoot was going well; the polaroids looked wonderful. There had been a slight problem, when they’d realised that the twins couldn’t be roller skating with the castle behind them, sunk in the valley as it was, but they’d got some great shots of them whizzing down the track laughing, past a bemused looking trio of Highland cattle who had most conveniently placed themselves on the verge; Eliza had thought Rob would have a coronary with excitement when they ambled into view.
‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ he yelled, ‘Rex, Rex, get over here, quick and you two, Pinky and Perky, it’s you I’m talking to, OK, concentrate, that’s what you’re paid for, get in the truck, Hugh, you drive them twenty yards up and then, girls, jump out and just skate down towards us, past them. And don’t fuck it up, those animals won’t wait around for a reshoot.’
The twins, aristocratic creatures whose real names were Hattie and Tilly, didn’t seem to mind the rather unflattering nicknames Rob had bestowed upon them or the insults he threw at them constantly.
After the cattle had removed themselves, they had found a field full of sheep, and a local farmworker, as bemused as the cattle, but anxious to oblige. He had corralled a couple of rams and showed the girls how to hold them by their horns and stand astride them – ‘that looks fucking brilliant,’ yelled Rex, ‘hold it, hold it’ – and then drove his Land Rover truck along the track, with the girls standing up, laughing in the back, amidst a crowd of sheep.
‘We’ve done well,’ said Rob, reaching for a sandwich, ‘three fantastic shots already, and it’s only lunchtime. Well done, girls.’
‘We still haven’t got the shot the client’s expecting,’ said Hugh Wallace gloomily. ‘The one with Bamoral behind the girls.’
‘Oh, shut up, you miserable old bugger,’ said Rob, ‘these shots are far better than that, far more original. Just stop fussing, Wallace, the client is going to be over the moon when he sees these. But we’ll do the boring old Balmoral thing as well, don’t worry. OK, come on, let’s get moving again, before the light goes. Eliza, can we have the red kilts now, and I think those funny spat things you found …’
Eliza climbed into the back of the van, starting sorting through the rails, pulling clothes out, directing the girls what to wear. God, this was fun. Such fun. Forty-eight hours – no, more than that, three days – of working, being with adults, and her favourite breed of adults too, with no need to clock-watch, to get ready her excuses to leave, just to be able to immerse herself in the job in hand, and then at the end of the day, to laugh and drink and eat and gossip and no one glowering at her, or criticising her, or making her feel guilty – she really couldn’t believe it was happening.
It had been comparatively easy to organise, actually; astounded at her calm, she simply told Matt she was going away for a few days the following week, it was work, she had to go, it was very important. She arranged for Margaret to stay the two nights, together with her invalid mother, and for Sarah to come up and live in the house; she even told a couple of the mothers from school she was going away, and Emmie’s teacher too, so that any problems that Emmie might have, she would be surrounded by people she knew and loved.
Matt said she wasn’t to go, wasn’t to leave Emmie; she said she was going to, no matter what he said.
‘I don’t remember you consulting me about your business trip this week. And what are you going to do? This is about my work and it’s very important to me and it will be the first time I’ll have left Emmie in nearly six years—’
‘Might I remind you of Milan?’
‘Oh, yes, Milan,’ she said and her voice was thick with contempt, thicker even than his. ‘Yes, I forgot that, how I left her in Milan in a friends’ house for an evening while I went to the opera with only three people in charge of her. Dreadful. Matt, I’m going. I’ll be back on Friday afternoon, almost as soon as Emmie gets home from school. She’ll hardly know I’ve gone. Now please excuse me, I have to pack.’
She had rung home each evening, every morning; spoken to Margaret or Sarah, been assured Emmie was fine, was going out to tea, that Margaret had taught her to knit; had spoken to Emmie herself, who had told her she missed her, wanted her to come home, even put a sob into her voice in true Emmie style and then said she had to go, Margaret was waiting to take her to the park.
The second evening, they all had dinner at the hotel, a rather grand establishment in Ballater, and got extremely drunk. Even Hugh Wallace joined in, demonstrated a fine line in dirty jokes, and then recited a whole string of absolutely filthy limericks. Eliza threw in one of her own of those for good measure – and then was surprised when Hugh suddenly said, ‘I’d like to propose a toast. To Eliza.’
‘Oh,’ she said, astonished at being singled out in this way, ‘goodness, how nice, but why me?’
‘Because you’ve brought such wonderful style to the session. I know the client was immensely reassured when he heard you were coming, as indeed was I. And also because I know it wasn’t easy for you to leave your domestic commitments. We all really appreciate it.’
‘Hear, hear,’ said Rob, raising his glass and grinning at her, ‘we do. To Eliza.’
‘Eliza!’ said Rex, and ‘Eliza’, said the twins in unison, adding ‘super clothes’ and ‘marvellous ideas’ several times.
And Eliza sat there, savouring the entirely unfamiliar sensation of being admired and appreciated, smiling slightly foolishly and thinking that whatever unpleasantness lay at the other end of the London to Scotland railway line it had been indisputably worth it.
Margaret was sitting in her room reading after an early supper when she heard Emmie call out and then, almost at once, start vomiting; calmly cheerful, she had put her in a bath, changed her bed and put her back in it in a clean nightie; fifteen minutes later it happened again. This time Sarah heard what was going on and appeared; the third time, Matt put his head round the nursery bathroom door.
‘She looks terrible,’ he said, ‘very hot, anyone thought to take her temperature?’
Margaret looked at him and said that vomiting didn’t usually go hand in hand with a fever, but that she would take it anyway; the thermometer read one hundred and two.
‘Right, well, I’m turning in,’ said Hugh Wallace, ‘we’ve still got one shot to do in the morning, haven’t we, outside Crathie church, and I imagine we’ll be starting pretty early.’
‘Yeah,’ said Rob, ‘we need to catch the dawn light. Down here, what time do you reckon, Rex?’
‘Oh – six should do it. Yeah, I’m definitely off to get my beauty sleep. I’m fucking exhausted. What about the rest of you?’
The twins said they would be going up right away as well; Rob ordered another bottle of champagne.
‘I think she’s probably just got a bug,’ said the doctor, ‘but she does seem a little disorientated. I’d give it another hour and then if she’s no better, I’d get her along to Casualty. She could become seriously dehydrated—’
Sarah looked at Emmie, lying on her pillows, her eyes closed, her face flushed and then at Matt, and spoke the unspeakable.
‘I wish Eliza was here,’ she said.
Rob and Eliza were sitting on the deep sofa in front of the fire; she felt happily exhausted and said so.
‘Or maybe you’re exhaustedly happy,’ said Rob.
‘Maybe. It’s been such fun. I’ve enjoyed it all so much.’
‘Us too. Nice of Auntie Hugh to propose that toast to you.’ He looked at her and grinned. ‘You look much better for your break from domesticity. You should do it more often. It clearly suits you.’
‘I don’t think I’ll be able to do it again for a long time,’ she said with a sigh.
‘Really? Why not?’
‘Rob, you know why not.’
‘I really don’t know what keeps you with the bugger,’ he said. ‘He’s obviously not very nice to you.’
‘Now how can you tell that?’
‘It’s bleedin’ obvious. You’re pale, thin, quite jumpy. Not exactly overflowing with happiness and fulfilment.’
‘Yes, and you’re a great expert on relationships, of course.’
‘Well, I’m certainly experienced. You’re so lovely,’ he said suddenly, reaching out his hand and touching her cheek, ‘and so fucking loyal. You haven’t said anything mean about him, haven’t complained once. I think you’re a bit of a star, Eliza Shaw. And I fancy you something rotten, you know that?’
‘Don’t come over all stud creative director on me.’
‘Why not? I am a stud creative director anyway. And in stud creative director language, I think you’re incredibly sexy and I have a very strong urge indeed to get into your knickers. Right now, as a matter of fact.’
‘Rob – don’t be – don’t spoil everything,’ she said. ‘Please.’
‘Now why do you think I would spoil everything?’ he asked. ‘Do you think we wouldn’t have a very nice time? Because I know we would. I’m not asking you to marry me, Eliza.’
‘No,’ she said, laughing, ‘although on your past form, I don’t think anything would surprise me—’
‘Well,’ he said, leaning forward, kissing her on the cheek, ‘I’m not. Not this time. But I think you should try to overcome your moral scruples, just for one night, and just enjoy yourself. Have some fun.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Eliza,’ he said, bending over her, moving his mouth onto hers, slowly, carefully, determinedly, his tongue working at her and somehow deep, deep within her as well, and it took all her strength and determination to pull away from him and say, while hearing her own voice feeble and uncertain, ‘Rob, no, no,’ and ‘Oh, yes, yes,’ he said, ‘come on, Eliza, let’s go up to bed. You want it just as much as I do, you know you do,’ and suddenly it was gloriously, headily wonderful to be desired again, rather than repelled and rejected, and so fantastically uncomplicated and joyful, and it was true what he said, she did want it, in a harsh, hungry, needy way that she had almost forgotten, and she heard herself saying, as she pulled herself away from him, her eyes fixed on his, her mind on him and what he might do for her, ‘Yes, yes, I’m going up to my room now, don’t be long,’ and then with no further thought of how insanely reckless she was being, of the risks she was running, taken over by a sort of madness that wanted her to be herself again, young, and sexy, and sure of herself, instead of somehow dying slowly, frigid and frightened, and without being sure how she got there, she was lying in the bed naked, waiting for him with a sort of crazed intensity, and there was not a thought in her head that she might be doing anything wrong, or even unwise …