Love Letters (31 page)

‘Laura, what’s wrong? You skipped out of here without a care in the world and now you’re all edgy and anxious. What happened? Was anyone unkind to you in the shop?’

He sounded slightly bemused and just for a second she considered telling him what his beloved Bridget had said to her but then realised she couldn’t. Bridget was the old friend; she wasn’t. She couldn’t say, ‘Your old friend, the one you’re so fond of, has made me feel like a hooker and that you wouldn’t be needing my services now she’s home.’

‘Oh no, nothing like that.’ She stirred furiously. ‘It’s just I realised my flight is earlier than I thought it was. I have to go almost immediately.’

‘But we were going to have breakfast together. In bed, I thought.’

He was still maintaining the act. She managed a breezy laugh. ‘Oh no, I’m afraid not. In fact my taxi will be here at any moment.’

He scratched his head, frowning. ‘Have they changed the flight back to England then? It was always in the evening.’

‘Oh yes, they’ve changed it.’ She turned off the heat and dropped the wooden spoon. ‘I’ll just go upstairs and make sure I haven’t left anything.’

But she didn’t need to look to knew that she’d left two things she couldn’t retrieve: her virginity and her heart. Both were gone for ever.

Chapter Sixteen

Unfortunately for Laura, they hadn’t changed the flight to England: she had a very long wait at the airport for it, which gave her plenty of time to realise that she’d given her all to a man who just wanted her at that moment, not for ever. He hadn’t tried to stop her, or ask her again if anything had happened; he’d just stood there, looking baffled, as if he couldn’t comprehend why she hadn’t fallen into his arms again, all ‘Aren’t you wonderful, Dermot’ and ‘Let me wait on you hand and foot, Dermot’. What’s more he obviously had a girlfriend, but being the sort of man he was, since she was away, he’d found a substitute. In other words, he was your classic – albeit charming – bastard. How long would it take her to get over him? Knowing he was a bastard wouldn’t necessarily make it any quicker.

Eleanora was going to pick Laura up from the airport, whence they would go to Somerby. Laura was not looking forward to the questioning that would go on from the moment she and Eleanora had located each other. Eleanora would be bound to ask about Dermot and she had rehearsed some suitably bland phrases like: ‘He’s fine now. Eating well! Seemed quite happy when I left him.’ Fenella would ask about the festival and she could hardly tell her that she hadn’t actually asked him if he was coming, because she couldn’t possibly tell her why not. After the row when he’d accused all and sundry of selling his story to the papers, and she’d accused him of being pretentious, and what happened next, all thoughts of the festival had been wiped from her mind – really amazing sex and subsequent humiliation had that effect.

On the plane, when she acknowledged that she couldn’t have him electronically wiped from her brain, and that she would have to see him and deal with him again, she decided she’d send him an email, asking him if he would indeed appear, hoping that he’d at least answer it and say yes or no. Although, he would have to admit, she thought bitterly, she had fully complied with his original conditions and it would be a breach of promise if he didn’t.

In spite of her sadness, however, she knew she wouldn’t regret making love to him, even though he had set an impossibly high standard for the rest of her life. What had happened afterwards, at the shop, she tried to put firmly out of her mind. She stayed in a state of bitter-sweet reminiscing until the plane landed.

Eleanora kissed her cheek, patted her shoulder and, as Laura had known she would, launched straight in. ‘How did you get on, darling? How is Dermot? Is the wretched man going to appear at the festival or not? We’re all on tenterhooks.’

Laura appeared to consider, although in fact she’d planned what to say already. ‘Well, he’s fine, in that he’s not ill or anything, but about the festival, I’m not sure.’ She felt proud of how normal her voice sounded, despite her inner turmoil.

Eleanora wasted several seconds being irritated and then moved on to more important things. ‘No sign of any writing, was there?’

Laura thought back. All that cleaning would have turned up any signs of work and in the bedroom she’d had to use a receipt as a shopping list. ‘No, I would have noticed if there’d been anything to see.’ She surrendered her bag to the cab driver.

‘He used to write in longhand on big foolscap pads, on one side of the paper only. Apparently when each page was finished, he’d throw it on to the floor and only collate it when the work was finished.’

She shook her head sadly. ‘No sign of any foolscap pads, let alone any tottering piles of complete pages. The house was in a frightful state but I think if they existed they’d have been obvious.’

Eleanora shook herself as if shrugging off disappointment. ‘No change there then. Get in, darling, we should press on.’

When they were both settled in the back seat, sucking mints, she said, ‘So why didn’t you press him about the festival? A simple “no” would have done.’

‘I couldn’t really. The time just wasn’t right. He was so angry about being outed to the press.’

‘He has got a truly awful temper.’ Eleanora frowned. ‘He wasn’t unkind to you, was he? He can be merciless.’

‘No, he wasn’t unkind.’ Although the effect was the same as if he had been. She was sure he certainly never meant to be unkind, or to hurt her in any way – as bastards went, he was a nice one.

‘So what will you do about the festival? Fenella is beside herself, wanting to know. She thinks it’s going to be embarrassing if all these authors agree to come because of him and then he doesn’t pitch up.’

‘I’ll email him. It’s all I can do, really.’ She certainly wasn’t going to contact him except in the most formal manner. ‘But going on the number I’ve sent him in the past and never had any reply to I think he goes through phases when he never even looks at his emails.’

‘You’re probably right. But never mind, now the news is out, we can finally advertise him as coming, even if he doesn’t.’

‘But surely that would be deception, or advertising false goods or something?’

‘No. We don’t know he’s
not
coming.’ Eleanora paused. ‘Or do we?’ she regarded Laura beadily, possibly suspecting Laura hadn’t told her everything.

Laura hadn’t but she also hadn’t lied about the festival. ‘Really, I don’t know either way.’

‘Then it’s fine to advertise him. We’ve hinted enough as it is, after all. Fenella is having some banners made to go over all the posters. Apparently ticket sales have increased like mad. But more importantly, a lot of the big-name authors who wouldn’t commit themselves have agreed to come. They’re all mad to meet Dermot. And we’re the only ones who suspect he might not make it – we’ll keep it to ourselves.’

‘So when’s the big dinner?’ Laura asked.

‘Oh, the one for all the writers who are appearing? Next Friday, before the big opening. Laura dear, you can’t have forgotten. We talked about it. You wrote and invited everyone.’

‘Sorry. I’m a bit distracted.’

Eleanora shot Laura a glance that made her blush. Was it possible that losing your virginity and having glorious sex showed from the outside? Laura’s blush deepened. Only part of it was because of the glorious sex; the other part was the feeling Bridget had given her: that she was a fill-in for her and no better than a prostitute.

In the end, Fenella was philosophical about Dermot possibly not appearing. She hushed the sea of dogs, led Eleanora and Laura down to the kitchen and handed them both a large glass of wine. Laura suspected that Rupert, now staring into the oven, had been instrumental in calming her down.

‘Well, if he comes, he comes, there’s nothing much else we can do about it,’ she said, shooting Laura a glance that suggested she didn’t quite believe her words. ‘Have some olives, Laura.’

‘He always has been a law unto himself,’ said Eleanora. ‘That’s very good wine, Rupert.’

‘Bogof,’ said Fenella. ‘I got it at the supermarket.’

‘Oh. Well, it’s very nice.’

‘So, Laura, was it very terrifying bearding Dermot in his den?’ asked Fenella. ‘Eleanora has told us how utterly scary he can be.’

Her aunt nodded her agreement, happy to sip her wine and not interject with a pertinent opinion for once.

‘He was a bit tough with some of the students,’ agreed Laura. ‘And I suppose it was a bit nerve-racking. I had to break into his house.’

Rupert snorted with laughter. ‘I don’t see you as a housebreaker, Laura.’

‘You’d be surprised how good I was at it. I—’ Just in time she stopped herself telling him how often she’d sneaked in and out of houses lately. ‘I had the advantage of not minding if anyone caught me doing it. I’d have asked any passer-by for help.’

‘But there weren’t any?’

‘No. Never is when you need one.’

‘You did exactly the right thing, not pressing him too hard,’ said Eleanora. ‘I should have gone myself. His childish tantrums don’t scare me! Did I ever tell you? Once when we were at the Ivy . . .’

Laura began to relax. No one seemed to be blaming her for not bringing Dermot’s promise to appear written in blood and now Eleanora was telling a vivid and amusing story of Dermot in a rage. Her possible failure was being seen as a sensible withdrawal. What Laura couldn’t say was that she wasn’t remotely frightened of Dermot’s temper, although she’d seen a glimpse of it. Once he’d started making love to her she’d just forgotten all about the damn festival.

The following morning, in the room designated as the Festival Office, Fenella and Laura went through the details. Eleanora was off inspecting some of the venues with Rupert.

‘Kathryn Elisabeth has confirmed,’ said Fenella.

‘Ooh, I must tell my old neighbour. She was a crusty old thing but she got interested in the festival. She’ll be thrilled.’

‘Everyone is. She’s very popular. She’s doing a writing course. We’ve sold fifteen tickets so far, but we can only take twenty, and I’ve got some people who I’m fairly sure will take the other places.’

Laura was grateful no one knew how she was feeling inside and for being thrown straight back into festival matters.

‘Brilliant. We must make sure we have all her backlist. Talking of which, is Henry organised? Has every author who’s appearing got lots of copies to sign and sell?’

‘He’s been ace! Not only has he got books by all the authors we’ve invited, but quite a few other authors in similar genres. He said you had him very well trained.’

Laura laughed. ‘He trained me actually.’ She paused. ‘So what are we going to do about the authors who haven’t confirmed? With only a week to go it’s cutting it a bit fine.’

‘There is only one of those now.’ Fenella took a sip of her coffee, fixing Laura with a stare from behind her mug.

Laura hoped Fenella didn’t notice her blushing. ‘We’ll have to plan events to fill his slots. Remind me what we had planned for him.’

‘Apart from the main interview? An “Evening of Irish Music and Literature”.’

Laura thought. ‘Oh yes. In the pub, to recreate an Irish atmosphere.’

Fenella nodded. ‘Except that we couldn’t use the pub. We could only have got about ten people in and the publican wasn’t keen. And I’ve got cold feet about the poetry, to be honest. We’re a new festival – poetry might not be that popular. Is his poetry wonderful?’

Laura put her head on one side. ‘Yes, but not as wonderful as his prose.’

‘Shall we scrub it then? Especially as he’s quite likely not to turn up?’

‘That would be a shame. We could have the music and someone could just read bits of Irish literature. I could choose some pieces. They don’t all have to be Dermot’s. Have we got someone who could read them?’

‘You’ve got no faith in Dermot turning up then?’ Fen asked.

Laura sighed. She no longer had any faith in her judgement. She’d thought she had known Dermot, and then Bridget had appeared before her like a banshee in modern dress and she didn’t feel she knew anything about him. ‘I just don’t know. I think we’d better make elaborate plans for his non-appearance, then he’ll turn up just to annoy us.’

Fenella laughed. ‘Would it annoy you?’

‘If we had gone to huge trouble to fill in for him it would. Who might read the pieces? Do you know any actors?’

‘No, but Hugo, Sarah’s husband, has got a beautiful speaking voice.’

‘We need a bit of Irish, really. Hugo’s rather posh, isn’t he?’

‘We’ll think of someone. Rupert can do a brogue, if drunk. He does have Irish blood.’

Laura made a note. ‘Rupert, drunk, to read selections of Irish literature. L to make selection. That sounds great! Not!’

‘It will be great. Monica’s boyfriend’s band will be lovely. We’ll give everyone free beer, it’ll go down a treat.’

‘Well, bang goes your profit straightaway. And is Monica’s boyfriend’s band lovely?’