Always and Forever (36 page)

‘We’re on a bit of a break now.’

Zsa Zsa was taken aback briefly. ‘Lots of fish in the sea,’

she added. ‘You can come fishing with me.’

‘Yeah,’ said Daisy, reaching into her handbag for her phone. Why was everyone trying to set her up with men?

She was a one-man woman. Anyway, al relationships went through difficult times, didn’t they?

‘One missed cal ’ read the phone display. Alex’s number flashed up first when she scrol ed into the missed cal s menu. He hadn’t left a message, so Daisy dial ed his number. If he was in a meeting, so what.

‘It’s me,’ she said, unnecessarily. His phone had a smiling photo of her that came up when she rang. Or it did have.

‘Hold on a moment,’ Alex said in his office voice.

She heard footsteps and imagined him walking out of wherever he was, away from people listening. That was good. He had something to say to her.

She sipped her champagne and smiled over at Zsa Zsa, who

was talking animatedly to the person on her left. The place was stil buzzing after the launch and Daisy felt a confidence from both the alcohol and the excitement of the day. She was good at buying for the shop, she had a good eye. And people were glad to see her. She wasn’t a hopeless person, after al . And Alex would see that.

‘Daisy, I couldn’t talk. I was in a meeting.’ Once, Daisy would have apologised for dragging him out of the meeting, but she didn’t this time. Her self-help books had been showing her that always being the one to say sorry had set a precedent in their relationship. She said sorry and he accepted it, no matter who had actual y screwed up. ‘I was worried when I hadn’t heard from you,’ she said, holding on to the stem of her glass and twirling it. ‘Worried, why?’

‘After the other night,’ she prompted. ‘Us,’ she lowered her voice, ‘making love.’

‘What about it?’

Daisy felt the old melting sensation in her bones, as if she was dissolving in to a giant puddle of nothingness. ‘What it meant, what you said,’ she whispered. She got up and hurried to the lobby where it was quieter.

‘I didn’t say anything,’ he snapped.

‘You did, you said I was wonderful and ‘

‘You were. Forgiving - you were forgiving, Daisy, but that was al . We’re not back together or anything. It was just sex.’ ‘You don’t mean that,’ she said, stunned.

‘I do, Daisy. Jesus, don’t do this every time. It’s over and you’ve got to accept it.’

‘But why did you make love to me?’ she said it so softly. ‘It just happened.’ He sounded annoyed now. ‘Sex happens. It doesn’t have to mean anything. I’m with Louise now, Daisy.

Don’t go al weird on me.’

‘But why did you do it?’ she asked again. How could that have been just sex?

‘You were there, it happened, so what? It won’t happen again. I thought you knew. You said you understood,’ he added almost plaintively.

‘I understood nothing, except that we’d made love and you must have been going to come back to me. That’s what I understood and then you didn’t phone ‘

‘OK, Daisy,’ interrupted one of the jewel ery organisers.

‘We’re booking cabs to take people back to work …’ Daisy shook her head and held a hand up to show she couldn’t talk.

‘Listen,’ said Alex, ‘you’ve got to get a grip, Daisy. You and I are over. I thought we could see each other and be friends, but I guess I’m wrong. That night was a mistake - forget about it. I’m going to forget about it.’

‘Because it might hurt Louise,’ Daisy whispered. ‘She doesn’t need to know, and if you think you’re going to cause trouble by tel ing her, then you’re a bad bitch,’ he hissed at her.

That was what final y made her see that he was serious.

Alex never spoke to her like that. But he just had, which meant it was over. She was no longer anything to him. She was his past, someone he’d rather forget, someone he’d never be with again because it might come back to haunt him and Louise. ‘I wouldn’t do that …’ she began, but she was talking to herself: Alex had hung up. Daisy felt that huge emptiness inside her. She was hol ow, so hol ow she could never feel warmth or life again. How could you live with that inside you, that vacuum?

Never to have Alex again, never to hold him close to her and feel his breath on her skin as he kissed her lightly? He no longer loved her and she stil loved him. And no matter how hard she wanted to make him love her, she couldn’t.

She was powerless. She could see for ever and it looked bleak and lonely, stretching out in front of her.

Flashes of the night before came to Daisy as she lay in her bed the fol owing morning, the dul pulse of pain beating in her head.

The party had started with cocktails at the Diamond Bar, a city centre venue close to where the jewel ery show had been held. When it rol ed on to nine o’clock and they’d been partying since the afternoon, some sensible person had suggested going out to dinner.

Buoyed up by at least six Martinis, each with the kick of a mule, Daisy had shrieked ‘No!’ at the top of her voice.

Dinner would be boring and normal, and if she ate, she might start to sober up and the pain would kick in again.

Sitting down to eat with people who weren’t Alex, who would never be Alex, would ruin the evening.

The crowd - Daisy and Zsa Zsa; a grizzled, seen-it-al photographer named KC; a couple of session make-up artists; a cosmetic company PR named Ricardo; and an avant-garde interior designer - considered the options.

‘Dinner would be fabulous,’ pleaded Sita, one of the makeup artists, who’d been up since five that morning on a television advertising shoot and was now ravenous. ‘You can’t al be on diets.’

‘But it might put a dent in the party atmosphere,’ interrupted Zsa Zsa, who was keeping up with Daisy in the Martini stakes. ‘And we’ve already eaten. See, six olives,’ she added, waggling her last one on a silver cocktail stick.

‘That’s food. We’re not . al on diets.’ An inspired idea hit her, like Michelangelo realising that ceilings were where it was at and that wal s were passe.

‘Forget dinner. Let’s go to Pilgrimage instead and start the night early.’ Pilgrimage was the latest club, so cool it didn’t look like a club, had an unlisted phone number and had a door policy second only in entry requirements to the Freemasons. Natural y, it was always ful and impossible to get into without having your name on the guest list at least two days earlier. Rock stars, record industry people and the fashion crowd were the only types who stood a chance of getting in without prior notice.

‘Pilgrimage is such an incredible name,’ sighed Zsa Zsa.

Everyone agreed.

Daisy gave her olive to Zsa Zsa. For the first time in weeks, she wasn’t hungry. ‘Let’s put it to the vote,’ she said, mental y hoping they’d go to the club, where she could have lots more lovely Martinis to numb the pain. Oblivion was what she craved. Everyone voted for the club. Only Sita wanted to stop and eat.

‘Pilgrimage it is,’ cried Zsa Zsa happily, and waved for the bil before anyone could order any more Martinis.

From the comfort of her duvet, Daisy pieced together what happened next. The actual trip to the club was a bit hazy in her head, but she certainly remembered lounging around on very low nubian-brown leather seats, with clear liquids in Scandinavian shot glasses in front of them al . And the music … she remembered how she’d whooped with joy when the DJ played Sister Sledge’s ‘We Are Family’.

Daisy loved that song. She had a vision of herself twirling around in front of the others, not even on the dance floor, if she remembered correctly. And taking off her filmy cobweb Lainey Keogh cardigan because it was too hot, and hearing Ricardo tel her she had to put it back on because the management didn’t feel that a bra, even one that was part of a lovely wild rose set courtesy of El e Macpherson, was suitable as a top.

‘It matches my knickers,’ Daisy kept insisting sadly, because this was important. Women who cared about such details always kept their men, she was sure of it. It was the women who adopted a couldn’t-care-less attitude to lingerie and things like cherishing their men who got dumped. Not ones who cherished to beat the band.

Daisy was good at cherishing. She had taken Alex’s clothes to the dry-cleaners regularly without him ever having to mention

it; she remembered the toothpaste he liked and bought only that; she always folded his shirts when he went on business trips. And she kissed his neck, just like the magazine supplements mentioned. Men’s Adam’s apples were highly erogenous zones and kissing there could drive them wild with desire. She did al those things and look how it had turned out. Ricardo had held her close, a warm, kind hug.

He was a very tactile person and holding Daisy seemed to come natural y to him. He was tal er than she was and slim, rather like Alex in some ways. Daisy fitted into the curve of his arms with her cardigan draped loosely around her and inhaled the scent of Ricardo’s white linen shirt and vetiver cologne. Being held was so nice. Would nobody ever hold her again? The thought made her cry and she nuzzled closer to him, wondering if he liked her or not. He felt so good and she’d missed a man’s arms. Gently, Ricardo detached himself from Daisy’s embrace and settled her down on her seat. As if he was dressing a mannequin, he managed to get her back into her cardigan and did up the buttons without once touching her skin.

‘Don’t you like me?’ she asked, so drunk that she didn’t care about the neediness dripping from her every pore. ‘I’m thinner than I used to be five years ago, you know.’ And she was. The mirror told her so, although the remnants of her self-esteem refused to believe it.

Ricardo sat down beside her and gazed into her bleary eyes with his pale ones. ‘We’re not compatible,’ he said softly. ‘You mean I’m not your type,’ Daisy muttered. She was never anyone’s type. She’d only ever been Alex’s type.

His hands cradled her face with such kindness, like a parent holding a child’s shining little face up for a bedtime kiss. ‘No, but you’re lovely,’ he said, and she could see retreat in his eyes. Of course, he was gay, she thought now with a burst of embarrassment, wanting to sink under the duvet and not emerge until everyone had forgotten how drunk she’d been.

She didn’t real y know Ricardo and could sort of remember Zsa Zsa tel ing her that, but, even so, she should have known, though Ricardo didn’t wear his gayness on his sleeve. A card - she’d send a card to apologise.

Another wave of memory made her flinch. KC, the photographer. Oh no, what had she done with him? Nobody was quite sure what KC stood for, although Mary Dil on, who’d once used him on a shoot for Georgia’s Tiara, said it might be Kinda Cute, because he was sexy in an unshaved way. He wore a denim shirt that looked moulded to his body and smoked like a trooper, but this didn’t detract from his appeal and if the Marlboro men were looking for a new, sexily dirty cowboy, he could be their poster boy.

He’d sat down beside Daisy at some point.

‘Life’s a bitch,’ he’d said, lighting up a cigarette. ‘You can’t smoke in here.’ Daisy was shocked, even through the Martini haze. It was il egal to smoke in clubs or restaurants, which was why the people who made giant outdoor ashtrays were doing such business. Zsa Zsa, who didn’t smoke, said she often went outside the door with the smokers just for fun because you met such interesting people.

‘So?’ KC blew a smoke ring into the air.

Some long-dormant part of Daisy flared up. ‘You’re right,’

she said. What had being a good girl ever done for her?

‘Give me one,’ she said defiantly. She’d never been a smoker, even though her mother had never been spotted without a cigarette dangling from one elegant hand.

She inhaled and felt the kick of the drug filtering into her body. It did work, she thought. It was relaxing, or was it al the Martinis?

‘You’re breaking the law,’ said a grim voice. Daisy looked up to see a menacingly large doorman hovering over her and KC. ‘I’l have to ask you to leave. We are very strict on our no smoking policy.’

KC’s eyes, already slitty with tiredness and smoke, narrowed down to boa constrictor slits. He dropped his half-smoked

cigarette on the floor, ground it in with his cowboy boot and drained his drink.

Daisy, suddenly feeling like a wild girl saying ‘eff off to the headmistress, did the same.

‘We’re leaving anyway,’ KC growled, and pul ed her away with him.

Daisy shifted uncomfortably in her nest of pil ows. She’d left with KC and there were a lot of blanks, but she dimly remembered taking him back home and sitting in front of the fire kissing and then … please no …

She opened her eyes, turned over in the bed but she was there alone.

‘Thank you,’ she said in relief. Whatever else had happened, at least she hadn’t gone to bed with him. That would be unforgivable, stupid, utterly moronic, not to mention disloyal to Alex. How could she tel Alex about it?

But she didn’t have to. Alex wasn’t a part of her life; he had no rights of jealousy. As the shame of her behaviour the night before filtered back into her consciousness, Daisy cringed, trying to take comfort from the fact that at least she hadn’t ended up in bed with KC, right?

But she must have been incredibly drunk. She was stil wearing her very unsexy opaque black tights over her knickers. Too plastered to take her clothes off. Charming.

Gingerly, she got up, head pounding. Tea would help, she thought, stumbling a little. She reached for her dressing gown in its habitual place on the wardrobe door and then, she saw them. A pair of cowboy boots at the end of the bed, obviously abandoned the way their owner had stepped out of them. The detritus of a man’s pockets lay scattered around on the floor beside the boots. Shame, remorse, regret and lots of other things from the Big Mistake section of the dictionary swept through Daisy. She was stil half-dressed, so clearly nothing of a sexual nature could have happened. But that was a smal mercy compared to the embarrassment.

Two painkil ers - damn, they were good; she must get another pack because they disappeared so quickly for some reason and five minutes with the toothbrush later, Daisy felt closer to human. Then, she risked a look in the mirror. She didn’t know what appal ed her most: the smel of booze seeping out from her body or the bloated, grey state of her face. She felt so utterly ashamed. Tying her dressing gown more tightly around her, she padded out of the bedroom.