After the Honeymoon (3 page)

But only five people in the world knew where Winston and Melissa were
really
going. He and his bride; Poppy (who had arranged the decoys plus the real booking); his agent; and Melissa’s ex, Marvyn damn him. In case of emergency, since he was looking after the kids.

‘Just one thing,’ Poppy added, one of her immaculately manicured fingers poised over her iPad. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to do an exclusive with the
Globe
? It’s a very good deal and I’ve got a contact there who’s promised copy approval, even though it’s not officially allowed. So if there’s anything you don’t like, you can take it out before they go to press.’

Winston King drew himself up to his full six foot seven inches and gave his assistant the look he reserved for anyone who had stepped seriously out of line. It was a stance he had mastered in the Royal Marines, where it had been drummed into them that it wasn’t just physique that you needed for the job. It was attitude too. And intelligence.

‘I’ve told you,’ he said, in a voice which journalists had described as a Russell Crowe growl or a James Bond seductive whisper, depending on his mood. ‘Melissa and I want complete and utter privacy. Especially on our honeymoon. We don’t want to end up on a front cover.’

‘Sure. Simply checking.’ She gave a patronising shrug. ‘And by the way, they call it a mini-moon if it’s less than a fortnight. At least, that’s what
Charisma
magazine says.’

Poppy gave another glance at the iPad. ‘Mini-moons are either for people who can’t afford a longer one or for really busy couples.’

Was that so? Still, a week was enough, wasn’t it? Melissa didn’t want to leave the kids for longer and he had his programme to get back to. Besides, it was all arranged, and when Winston made up his mind to do something, he never backtracked. It was part of his make-up; a birthright passed on by his haughty West Indian grandmother, who had insisted that nothing was out of his reach. Not even the elite public boys’ school she had sent him to when his parents had died, a historical institution where he could so easily have sunk, instead of swum, were it not for his intimidating height, his strangely attractive bald head (a result of falling out of a tree at ten), and his sporting abilities.

‘What if someone needs to know where you are?’ asked Poppy, picking up her iPhone. It was amazing how people couldn’t seem to function unless they were ringing or texting or emailing. Danger to them was a poor audience rating or a broken fingernail – not a burned out body on the field and the roar of gunfire.

Calm down, calm down.

Winston selected a clove of garlic from the dish in front of him and chewed it carefully. A clove a day kept you in tip-top condition; it was a tip on his website.
But clean your teeth afterwards, especially if planning close contact with someone!

‘Need to know where we are?’ he repeated. ‘Simply tell them we’re incommunicado.’ Forcing himself, he gave Poppy one of his brilliant smiles that the camera loved so much. ‘And by the way, I won’t always have my mobile on.’

Her eyes flickered. ‘But what if I need you urgently?’

Winston took a swig of warm water with a slice of lemon and grated ginger. Fantastic for the circulation. Another tip on his website.

‘Poppy, if I was in a coma, would you be able to ask me something important?’

‘No, but …’

He felt his smile growing tight. ‘Remember? No buts. Just
toned
butts.’

That was another of his
Work Out With Winston
slogans. The audience loved them.

If someone had told him a few years ago that he was going to have his very own breakfast television show, advising the nation how to tone up their pecs and abs
and
the rest, he’d have laughed in their face. He was a Royal Marine, not a fitness clown. Or at least, he had been a Green Beret until signing his release papers, just after his thirty-fifth birthday, when the horrors of war had finally got to him.

Block it out, Winston told himself fiercely. It was the only way to survive.

After getting out, he’d met up with a former batch mate who was working as a fitness instructor for an exclusive health club in London. ‘You ought to do the same, mate,’ said the man, who was more of a colleague than a friend. Winston didn’t do friends; it wasn’t good to let someone get too close. His parents’ early death had taught him that. ‘The money’s great, and you won’t believe the celebrities I come across. There’s …’

But Winston wasn’t bothered about big names. It was a job he needed. Something regular that could help him obliterate the images that had been indelibly stamped on his mind over the years. So many stories, so many lives, some of which he’d been able to save and others where it had been impossible. The little girl desperately screaming at him for help, before the sniper’s crack felled her to the dusty ground. The burning shack where he had instructed his men to stay outside while, ignoring his own safety, he had stumbled in to drag out a woman screaming for her children. The kid with one leg who followed them around, pleading with them to take him home. ‘UK good place. This bad.’ The screaming masses who spat at them, who blew up the tanks, who would cut their throats if they could – and did.

Not to mention Nick. Always Nick. Sitting on his shoulder. Cemented into his memories.

Initially, when he’d returned to the UK, Winston had still expected someone to take a potshot at him. It took every ounce of strength not to jump if a car backfired or a siren screamed in his ear. At times, he loathed London with its crowds and shop windows full of clothes and unnecessary stuff for the house, with crazy price tags. How he despised all those self-centred people, obsessed with buying things to make themselves ‘happy’ when there was a whole world out there, just trying to survive.

At other times, he marvelled at the beautiful buildings; the art galleries (he was particularly fond of the Royal Academy, where his grandmother used to take him during school holidays); and the parks.

As luck would have it, his physical instructor friend broke a leg the week after their conversation. ‘Any chance of you taking over for me, King? I don’t want them to get anyone else in case I lose the job altogether. It’s only for six weeks, but it will give you experience.’

Winston was grateful for the tailor-made opportunity. Luckily for him, the gym was only half an hour away from the two-bedroom flat in Kensal Rise he’d bought using his grandmother’s legacy, which gave him just enough space between work and home. Winston had had enough of living on the job. Some men, when they left the Royal Marines, missed the noise and banter of everyone around them.

After Nick, he just wanted peace.

Rather to his surprise, Winston took to his new life like a duck to water. ‘You’re doing well,’ said his supervisor after one particularly demanding overweight woman had told him that Winston was a ‘real asset’. ‘Keep going like this and you could stay on if you want.’

‘Not if it means kicking my mate out of his job,’ he retorted, fixing the bloke with what his mates used to call ‘His Majesty Look’. ‘But I’d appreciate a reference.’

He got it. Four weeks later, he moved on to another gym where he was equally successful. There were even more celebrities here, although to Winston, each client was the same.

‘Would you consider private sessions at my house?’ one of his clients, whose agency had instructed her to lose a stone before the next film, had asked. ‘I’ll make it worth your while.’

She named a figure that stunned him. Why not? Even though his grandmother had left him enough money to buy the Kensal Rise flat, he still needed an income. Besides, it wasn’t as though he had a girlfriend to moan about him working all hours. And it helped to block out everything else.

It was at this actress’s house that he got his big break. By chance (his grandmother always used to say he was lucky), a TV producer friend called round with a script. ‘We could do with someone like you,’ he said, eyeing Winston in his black lycra leggings and bare chest. ‘Ex-Marines, you say?’

‘Royal
Marines,’ Winston had replied, gritting his teeth.

‘How old, if you don’t mind me asking?’ The producer sucked in his breath at the reply. ‘Might get away with it. Take my card. Give me a ring.’

Quite how it happened so fast, Winston wasn’t sure. All he knew was that the television world worked very differently from anything he’d known before. If he’d still been in the corps, he’d be doing his morning pyhs (the name for the gruelling dawn workout) and then heading for morning prayers (the daily briefings) before going out on ops (operations).

Instead, here he was under the hot studio spotlights, doing a five-minute stint every morning on breakfast television. He earned more in a month than he’d done in a year. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up like the Londoners he’d loathed when he’d first come here. To ease his conscience, Winston made some substantial donations to the Royal Marine Benevolent Fund.

Meanwhile, the nation loved him and the emails were pouring in, praising the lithe Marine – he was always having to add the
Royal
bit – who appealed to everyone from teens to grans. All the nationals wanted to interview this rising star who insisted on cycling instead of using the studio car. Even
Charisma
, not to mention
The Times
and
Tatler
.

‘You’ve got to do it,’ squealed the producer when
Work Out With Winston
became so popular it was offered its own half-hour slot. So he did, making sure that he only allowed the interviewers to get so far before pulling the covers over his personal life.

Then one day he came into the studio to find a different make-up artist from the usual jolly, grandmotherly Carole. Winston took one look at the gorgeous woman waiting for him and suddenly found it hard to breathe.

It wasn’t just her striking height (five foot eight at a guess). Or her glorious shoulder-length mane of wavy dark hair, black eyes, creamy complexion and high cheekbones. Nor was it her rangy, boyish build, accentuated by the clingy top she was wearing over stretchy jeans and little red boots. It was the combination of all of them.

Nick
, he thought immediately.

‘Hello,’ she said shyly, although behind her eyes he was certain he detected a certain toughness. ‘I’m Melissa Greenwood.’ Her voice was surprisingly deep and gravelly. ‘Carole’s not well so she asked me to cover at the last minute. We used to work together years ago, before I had kids.’

At this point, she glanced at the mobile in her hand before slipping it into her blue suede bag. ‘I hope that’s all right.’

The resemblance to Nick was striking – or was it because it was four years to the day since it had happened, and he’d been thinking about it all morning?

The post-traumatic stress counsellor had assured him it was natural to ‘see’ Nick because it gave him hope. It was a bit like when you went on holiday, she’d told him. You thought you saw people you knew on the plane or in the resort because it made you feel secure. The difference was that coincidences might well happen like that in real life.

But not when someone was dead.

He sat down on the chair, ready for her to start work. Don’t be so ridiculous, he told himself firmly. He had to get a grip, otherwise he’d go back to the way he’d been during those crazy months after it had happened when his sanity had been, very seriously, on the line.

Luckily Melissa Greenwood was talking, so he used the opportunity to stop his hands from shaking through sheer will power. He wasn’t sure what she was saying but that gravelly cadence was soothing. Restful. Peaceful. Something that Winston hadn’t experienced for a very long time.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her glancing at her phone again and then delving into her bag. ‘I’ve bought you a pot of honey, as a sort of thank you. For letting me do your face, that is.’

She was stammering: maybe she was less tough than he’d initially suspected. ‘I mean, I’m sure you get lots of presents from fans, but my next-door neighbour keeps bees and I just thought you might like it.’

Somehow Winston found his voice. ‘Thank you. That’s very kind.’

‘I adore your programme,’ she said, biting her lip as though confessing a deep secret. As she spoke, there was a shrill ring from the blue suede bag. Instantly, that creamy white complexion developed two little red spots on each cheek. ‘Whoops. I’ve just got to take this.’

He stood up and moved to the window to give her privacy but could hear words like ‘in the fridge’ and ‘homework’.

‘So sorry,’ she said, making a point of switching off the phone and putting it in her bag. ‘Is it all right if we start now?’ She was speaking, he observed, with a mixture of amusement and irritation, as though
he
had delayed
her
.

Then Melissa sat down on the chair next to him and examined his features with a completely different look on her face. The rather nervous woman was replaced now by the professional. Without looking, he could feel her taking him in.

‘A bit of shading here, I think,’ she was saying, opening one of her palettes. ‘And a touch of foundation on the neckline.’ She locked eyes with him in the mirror. ‘Broad, generous lips. I like that.’

Carole liked to work in silence but this one clearly enjoyed a chat. Normally it would annoy him but he found he didn’t mind Melissa’s chatter.

‘Tell me, Winston. It is all right if I call you that, isn’t it?’ She was talking while working with her pencil, her tongue showing slightly between those small white teeth in concentration. ‘What did you really want to do when you were little? Did you have a big passion in your life?’

To his surprise, he found himself telling this pretty woman with a pale white space on her wedding finger that he had dreamed of being an artist like his mother, who had died along with his father in a train crash in India.

‘I used to love watercolours,’ he added.

‘Wow! I do a bit myself, with my children in the holidays, to keep them amused. Do you still do it? Paint, I mean?’ She added a touch of brown to his eyebrows.