Kiss Heaven Goodbye (23 page)

Alex glared at him. ‘You
gave
her to me?’

‘Yeah, like after I’d finished with her. Warmed her up for you, didn’t I?’

Emma had always denied going near Jez Harrison when they had all lived in the big house in Fallowfield, but Jez was always making sly suggestions that they had slept together.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ whispered Jez. ‘Our little secret, eh?’

‘Piss off and do your interview, Jez,’ said Alex, walking out of the bar. ‘And try not to be a total cock this time.’

Emma was waiting for him by the pool. ‘I’m off,’ she said, kissing him. ‘Phone me the second you hear about the chart.’ She looked at him and frowned. ‘What’s up with you?’

Alex groaned. ‘Sorry, it’s Jez. All this time I’ve known him and I still can’t work out what drives him. Apart from spite, of course.’

‘You do know he’s jealous of you?’ Emma smiled, lighting a cigarette and looking at Alex sideways.

‘I wouldn’t say that,’ said Alex.

‘All right, he feels threatened, then,’ said Emma. ‘You’re a better singer, musician and songwriter, plus you get more attention from the girls.’

‘I do not!’ he protested.

‘Hey, I didn’t say you took them up on it, did I?’ She grinned.

‘Well, I can’t help it, can I?’ said Alex. ‘Am I supposed to wear a mask?’

‘Absolutely not. I’m not having my very gorgeous boyfriend hiding away from anyone.’

He paused for a moment. ‘Can I ask you something?’

Emma glanced at her watch. ‘I was supposed to be in London an hour ago. But seeing as it’s you . . .’

‘Did you ever shag him?’

She looked at him with confusion. ‘Shag who?’

‘Jez, of course,’ he said, annoyed.

Her face started to cloud with anger. ‘Alex, I’ve told you a dozen times I didn’t.’

‘It’s just that on the night I first met you, Gavin said he’d slept with one of the girls upstairs ...’

‘I can’t believe we’re having this conversation, Alex. It was so long ago.’

‘So you
did
sleep with him?’

‘No, I didn’t. I told you.’ She shook her head in frustration. ‘You’re an idiot, d’you know that? It’s the biggest bloody day of your career so far and what are you doing? Arguing like children with Jez Harrison. Well, get over it, Alex, because Jez is part of the band. Yes, he’s a wanker, but he’s a bloody good frontman, and without a frontman there is no Year Zero.’

‘I can’t believe you’re siding with him!’ said Alex petulantly.

‘I’m not siding with him!’ cried Emma, throwing her hands up in the air. ‘Are you even listening to the point I’m trying to make here? This isn’t about me and Jez, it’s about you and your insecurities.’

‘You said you were late,’ he said sulkily, refusing to meet her gaze. ‘Hadn’t you better go?’

‘Yes, I think I should,’ she said, pointedly throwing her cigarette into the pool with a fizz and stalking off to her waiting car.

Despite the nagging guilt over his argument with Emma, Alex had to admit he had actually quite enjoyed the rest of the day’s shoot, especially the part where Jez drove them both into the pool. Alex had insisted on riding shotgun in the Rolls, reasoning that he was paying for at least a quarter of it and should get at least half the fun. It had been bloody freezing in the water, though, so he had come up to the band’s day room to strip off his wet clothes and have a shower. Opening the bathroom door in a cloud of steam, he padded out into the room with a fluffy white hotel towel wrapped around his waist.

‘Oh bugger,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

Liz Gold was sitting at the table hunched over a notebook.

‘Come to keep me company?’ She smiled mischievously.

‘Uh, no. Just come to get my jeans,’ he said, nodding behind her where they had been drying on the radiator. As he leant over her to get them, she reached out and pulled at his towel, her hand stroking his limp cock.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ he snapped, recoiling from her.

‘Doing what every rock and roll star would want doing in this situation,’ said Liz, completely unruffled.

‘I have a girlfriend,’ he stuttered.

‘You and every other musician on the circuit,’ she said, laughing.

‘But if you’re going to get anywhere in this business, you have to learn that you need to keep certain people
onside
.’

Shocked and embarrassed, Alex grabbed the rest of his clothes and stumbled out into the corridor, hastily pulling them on. Jesus, what was all that about?

The truth was, as a teenager he had fantasised about something like that happening when he became a rock star – it was why you got into a band in the first place, wasn’t it?
Maybe I need to loosen up a bit,
he told himself.
I have been getting too uptight about everything, letting Jez get to me, taking it out on Emma
. As he reached the door leading to the pool, he could see the band standing by the deep end, all looking up towards the hotel.

‘Alex! Get yourself over here!’ screamed Gavin.

‘What is it?’ he called, sprinting across the grass.

Gavin pointed to the hotel, where they could see Nathan Fox through an open window.‘He’s got the record company on the blower.’

‘The chart position?’ said Alex nervously.

Pete nodded, putting a nervous hand on Alex’s shoulder.

Through the window, they could see Nathan put the phone down and turn towards them, his face stony.

‘You’re not going to like this, lads,’ he said mournfully, then his face broke out into a Cheshire Cat grin. ‘Number fucking nine!’ he shouted.

Jez screamed and dragged one of the fairies into the swimming pool with a splash.

‘Yessss!’ yelled Alex. ‘Fucking yessss!’

Nathan came running out of the hotel holding a magnum of champagne then shaking it up and spraying the sticky foam over everyone, Formula One-style.

‘Top ten, Alex!’ he laughed, pulling him into a bear hug. ‘You’re on your way now!’

‘Oh shit!’ said Alex, suddenly thinking of his promise. ‘I’ve got to make a call,’ he added, running back to the bar and grabbing the phone at the end of the counter. He dialled the Camden flat and Emma picked up immediately.

‘Hello?’ she said.

‘You’re home.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Number nine!’ yelled Alex. ‘Number bloody nine!’

‘I knew it!’ she screamed. ‘I just knew it. I never doubted it for a minute.’

‘And I never doubted you either,’ he replied, wondering how they could possibly have argued earlier.

‘Oh, I love you, Alex,’ she said.

‘I love you too,’ he said, suddenly realising it was the first time he had ever said it to her. ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’

Hanging up, he bounced back outside, where he sank on to the grass and smiled. Champagne fizzed in his belly, the sun was warming his face; he felt like he’d just finished a very long race and – to his surprise – had actually won. Across the grass, he watched as Jez climbed out of the water, stripped off his wet clothes and, naked, began to chase the unicorn across the lawn, whooping, ‘Number nine, horsey! Number nine!’ And for once, all Alex could do was chuckle.

21

October 1992

‘How long have you known this friend exactly?’ said Isabella Hernandez, her tone dripping with disapproval. Grace turned away from the window to face her formidable mother-in-law. She had been staring out past the Hernandez estate El Esperanza, across miles of velvety rainforest, hoping to catch a glimpse of the car bringing Caro to visit her, but as usual, Gabriel’s mother wanted to talk. Or rather, to grill her. Isabella was not yet sixty but looked much older, her face creased with a lifetime of worry for her menfolk, her raven hair streaked at both temples with silver. If Grace had been ten years younger, Isabella Hernandez would have terrified her, but now as an adult, a wife and mother, she accepted her, enduring the daily interrogations and frosty looks, yearning for the day when she could set up a family home of her own. Not that she didn’t appreciate living in one of the largest and grandest houses in Parador, but when you had to share that space with an indomitable, interfering mother-in-law, even in the wide hallways and drawing rooms sometimes it felt hard to breathe.

‘Oh, we’ve only been friends a couple of years,’ said Grace. ‘Caro was there the day I met Gabriel actually. In fact if she hadn’t sent me out to buy supper, I don’t think I’d be here now.’

Isabella raised an eyebrow that, in one tiny gesture, communicated her general disdain. ‘And will this “friend” be gone before the rally in Palumbo?’

Grace knew exactly where this conversation was heading. ‘I don’t know. Even if she has left, I’m not sure I’ll be going.’

‘Really? How so?’

‘Well, Gabe has turned out to be a natural politician, hasn’t he? I’m not sure he needs me hanging around, trying to drum up extra support.’

‘Oh, but you must,’ said Isabella urgently.‘It’s important to understand that you’re not just married to the opposition leader, Grace, you’re a part of the election. And you are the lady of the house here now.’

Grace was in no mood to be bullied into anything. Motherhood did that to you. Sleepless nights and demanding children toughened you up.

For weeks she’d been pushed by Isabella and Gabe to get more involved in ‘the cause’, and transform herself into some Latino Jackie Kennedy. But politics, or at least the South American version of it, swinging between the chilling isolation of a bulletproof limousine and the complete emotional overload of a rally – the weeping, the screaming, the thousands of hands reaching out to her in adulation – left her cold. The real truth of it was that she felt a fraud. To accept the adulation felt self-indulgent and, more importantly, hypocritical and wrong. She wasn’t a saviour. She was a twenty-three-year-old woman struggling to find her own place in life and she certainly didn’t have the answers to Parador’s many problems.

Nor could she really blame her mother-in-law for her frosty reception: it was not as if Grace was anybody’s idea of a perfect daughter-in-law. Appearing out of the blue the night before Carlos’ funeral to announce that they were getting married was never going to be a great start, especially when it became clear that she was a foreigner, albeit a wealthy one. She was still pregnant and, even worse, a Protestant. Of course, Gabriel had gently suggested that Grace could convert to Catholicism, but she had refused point blank, not from any strong spiritual conviction, more that she could picture herself locked in a confessional booth being forced to tell a priest that she had left a young man dying on a beach. In fact, in this recurring nightmare she would have to confess that she suspected her brother of having killed the boy and that she had done nothing about it except flee to the other side of the world.

Outside there was the crunch of car tyres on the drive.

‘I think your friend is here,’ said Isabella flatly before sweeping out of the room.

Grace clattered down the marble stairs and out into the courtyard as the dusty car drew up. It was hot and humid and the white linen fabric of her skirt stuck to her calves, but as Caro stepped into the sweltering Parador heat, Grace ran forward to hug her.

‘Oh honey, you don’t know how good it is to see you!’ she cried, grinning all over her face.

‘Hey, you too. You look amazing. Like a proper lady of the manor. And tell me that’s just a shiny green rock on your finger and not a big chunk of emerald.’

‘It’s an emerald.’

‘I can’t believe it. And to think I gave Gabriel to you.’

Grace laughed happily. In fourteen months Caro hadn’t changed a jot. She was still thin and her clothes still looked as if they could do with a good wash, but most of all she still had that irreverent twinkle in her eye, something Grace had missed more than she had realised.

‘Well come and see the manor.’ She smiled, moving to take her friend’s rucksack.

‘No, no, Señora Hernandez, allow me,’ said José, Gabriel’s driver, stepping forward.

‘Ooh, servants now.’ Caro giggled.

‘It’s a long way from Macrossan Street, put it that way,’ said Grace.

She gave Caro a guided tour of the house, smiling as her friend gasped at the long formal dining room, the mosaic-adorned indoor pool, their huge bedroom, the voile-draped windows giving an amazing view of the hazy valley below.

‘Stone the bloody crows,’ breathed Caro as Grace led her out on to the terrace. The infinite green shades of the rainforest looked spectacular from there, especially in the softening light of the late afternoon with the soothing breeze and the soft caw of toucans coming from the treetops. Although it was only ten miles outside the capital city of Palumbo, it felt as if they were in the middle of the throbbing Amazon jungle.

Over excellent mojitos mixed by Isabella’s butler, the girls gossiped about old times and new. Caro’s life appeared to have changed little – in Goa she had found men, parties and an exotic, bohemian way of life that suited her down to the ground. Excitedly she quizzed Grace about her intimate yet elegant wedding, a candlelit ceremony and reception at El Esperanza. Grace told her how glorious she had felt in her long flowing gown; ripe and luscious like a Botticelli painting, thin folds of chiffon swooping from an empire-line gown disguising her belly from the most conservative and Catholic of guests. It was only in the telling of it that Grace realised just how crazy, exotic and alien her life had become since she had left Port Douglas.

‘You’re used to it though, aren’t you?’ said Caro. ‘The high life?’

‘What do you mean?’

Caro looked away. ‘I found a copy of
Hello!
magazine in this hostel in Goa. I flicked through it and there was this story about you getting married to Gabe. Grace, your dad is the twenty-third richest man in the United Kingdom.’

‘He’ll be disappointed to have slipped out of the top twenty,’ said Grace, trying to smile. She shrugged. ‘I know I should have told you, but I was . . . well, I was embarrassed. Plus I was trying to get away from all that money and luxury.’

‘Doesn’t look like you tried very hard.’ Caro grinned, looking up at the decorated ceiling of the sitting room. ‘I always wondered why you never talked about your family. I mean, what do they make of it all?’