The Proposal (4 page)

‘The end . . .’ she whispered, realising what was unfolding in front of her. She thought about the Tiffany gift box in his drawer, remembering that she had come here hoping, believing, he might actually propose. She laughed out loud at her own stupidity.

‘I should leave,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster.

‘Amy, stop. Let’s discuss this . . .’

‘Leave me alone,’ she roared, shrugging him violently away from her.

She began to run, the heels of her shoes wobbling as they hit the carpet.

Outside, she inhaled the cold night air and closed her eyes, glad to be out of there, glad, for once, to be alone.

Hot tears prickled in the cavity behind her eyes but she blinked them away as fiercely as she could.

Shivering, she realised that her coat was still in the cloak-room.

She turned and walked back to the Pavilion, stopping in her tracks when she saw a familiar figure standing by the exit. It was a moment before she saw that it was not Daniel, but Stephen Lyons.

‘Going without saying goodbye?’ he asked, lighting up a cigarette and putting the packet back in the pocket of his dinner jacket.

Arrogant bastard
, she thought to herself. Stephen Lyons was in his late fifties but he clearly thought he was a character out of
Mad Men
. She didn’t like to admit to herself that it wasn’t too far from the truth. The lines of his jacket were sharp, his cold, hard eyes were the same icy shade of blue as his son’s, his arrogance worn with the confidence of someone with millions in the bank who no longer needed to prove himself.

Behind her she could hear the voices and the laughter from the party. A band was playing now and she imagined those crusty old couples getting up to dance politely, arms held out straight so as not to touch each other too much.

‘Goodbye, Mr Lyons,’ she said, not even meeting his gaze.

‘Stephen,’ he replied casually, exhaling a line of smoke through his nostrils.

‘Goodbye, Stephen,’ she said, feeling goose bumps pop on her forearms.

‘Do you need a car? Or money for a taxi?’

‘I don’t want your money,’ said Amy. ‘I never did,’ she added more quietly as he stepped towards her.

‘I know this must be hard for you,’ said Stephen Lyons, his expression changing from mock concern to something more businesslike. ‘But you have to be realistic. This is about Daniel’s career, not your relationship.’

‘Quite clearly the two are linked,’ said Amy, hating the bitterness in her voice – but why hide it? They both knew that she had just been dumped in favour of a job.

Stephen tilted his head to one side – a gesture of sympathy, mixed with condescension.

‘I’m sure Daniel cares for you,’ he said. ‘But you have to understand he is devoted to achieving his potential. Always has been, ever since he was a little boy. Always put in that little bit extra to keep ahead of the pack.’

‘And I’d get in the way of all that?’

Stephen pulled a face.

‘Amy, Daniel’s posting to Washington is just the start of it.
Entre nous
, there’s talk of an ambassadorship for him within three or four years. Do you know how unusual it is for anyone to snap up a senior diplomatic post under thirty-five?’

He crushed his cigarette stub under his shoe and continued.

‘Daniel wants to go all the way. We
know
he can go all the way. HM Ambassador to France, hell, even the US ambassadorship itself. And for that to happen, for him to do the job as well as it can be done, he needs the right partner by his side.’

‘And you’re suggesting that I wouldn’t support him?’

‘Not wouldn’t,’ said Stephen. ‘
Couldn’t
. The wife of a senior ambassador is a very specific role. You need to understand etiquette, procedure, small talk, how to handle delicate situations. It’s not for everybody. And not everyone can do it.’

‘This is about the artichoke, isn’t it?’

Stephen laughed, his eyes lingering on her body just a fraction too long.

‘No, it’s not about the artichoke.’

He reached into his pocket, pulled out a card.

‘I should go back in,’ he said finally. ‘But perhaps we could meet again under more pleasant circumstances. I used to like dancers myself, back in the day. Old habits die hard, as they say.’ He said the word ‘dancers’ as though it was one step up from prostitutes.

‘Screw you,’ growled Amy, hot tears of humiliation threatening to fall.

‘I’d say my son got off lightly. Can you imagine that sort of language at the embassy,’ he said, and disappeared back into the Pavilion.

She got off the tube at Leicester Square and started to walk. The streets of London flashed past her like streaks of fireworks in the night sky, cars beeped as she darted between them, her brain barely processing how close they were to clipping her as she cut across Shaftesbury Avenue and into the bowels of Soho. Blinking back the tears, she reminded herself that she was tough – you didn’t grow up in a blue-collar area of New York and let men get to you – but by the time she arrived at the Berwick Theatre her eyes were red-ringed and raw.

The show had long finished, and there was just a dribble of people on the pavement, drunks, and theatregoers hanging around the stage door in the hope of seeing some of the stars. Amy joined them, leaning against the wall to pull off her shoe and massage her toes. The shoes she had chosen to show Daniel how sexy and sophisticated she was.
Proposal shoes
, her mind mocked her, the ones she would never throw away, the ones that were going to have such special meaning in years to come. Well, the moment she got home – whenever that was – she was going to throw them in the trash. They were ugly and tainted, and anyway, they were too damn tight.

‘Good God, woman, you look like the sky’s fallen in.’

Amy sighed with relief as she saw her friend Annie Chapman bustle out of the stage door.

‘Something like that,’ she said, ready to cry all over again.

Annie noticed her tear-streaked cheeks and pulled her towards her.

‘Sweetie pie, what’s wrong? When you texted and said it was urgent, I was worried, and look at you . . . Dear me, I think we’d better get you back to the Bird’s Nest, huh?’

Amy choked back a laugh, knowing that her friend had instantly sized the situation up and was taking control. As wig mistress to various shows, Annie Chapman had found a profession that suited both her flamboyant personality and her innate skills as a no-nonsense agony aunt. The wig mistress’ chair seemed to function in the same way as that of a hairdresser or a shrink: actors felt they could tell Annie anything, and she was happy to dispense home-spun wisdom where she could.

‘Annie, he’s ended it,’ whispered Amy, too angry, too shocked, too everything to even say Daniel’s name.

‘I can see that, sweetie,’ said Annie, pulling off her leopard-skin fur coat and wrapping it around Amy’s shoulders.

‘No, you’ll freeze,’ protested Amy, nodding to the vintage fifties dress Annie was wearing.

‘I think I can manage, darling – I’m much more insulated than your skinny arse. Come on. Let’s go. And I think we need to stop off for Chinese on the way.’

‘Honestly, I don’t think I can face anything,’ said Amy miserably.

‘It’s not for you, it’s for me,’ smiled Annie, slipping her arm around Amy’s waist and guiding her to a small shop in Chinatown, the front strung with soy-glazed chickens, where Annie ordered what sounded like a mountain of food. ‘And make sure you put in some fortune cookies, Phil,’ she said to the wizened old man behind the counter. ‘I think we might need a peek into the future tonight.’

It was only five minutes’ walk to Annie’s Covent Garden flat, known affectionately as the Bird’s Nest because of its artistic chaos. It had been left to Annie by her grandmother, a 1940s showgirl who had been the mistress of a wealthy aristocrat. Inside, you could still see the traces of what it had been like when she had entertained her lover there – the elaborate flock wallpaper, the lampshades rimmed with black lace tassels – though Annie had added her own larger-than-life personality. There was a full-sized dressmaker’s mannequin standing by the door dressed in a French maid’s outfit (‘Makes me feel as if I have servants,’ Annie had explained upon Amy’s first visit), an easel with a half-finished nude in oils, swatches of garish material, piles and piles of books, not to mention virtually every available wall surface being covered in posters and photographs from the great shows. Just being in the Bird’s Nest always made Amy feel like a performer, which was one of the reasons she so loved to come.

‘Right, sit there,’ said Annie, steering Amy to a plush velvet armchair leaking its stuffing from the seams. ‘You put out the food, I’m going to fix you my pat-pending pick-me-up.’

‘No, Annie, I don’t want—’

But her friend silenced her by holding up a finger and pursing her lips. ‘Annie knows best,’ she said, crossing to the tiny galley kitchen and rummaging around in the American-style fridge. ‘Besides, I always like a squirty cream daiquiri after a hard night at the wig face,’ she added, ‘so don’t be selfish.’

Amy covered the coffee table with the little boxes of food and Annie handed her a huge glass – half cocktail, half ice-cream sundae, complete with sprinkles and a paper umbrella on the top. ‘It’s laced with Ukrainian brandy. After a while, you won’t feel a thing,’ explained Annie as Amy dutifully sipped at the concoction and found, to her surprise, that it tasted pretty good.

‘Right, you tell me everything while I get stuck into this lot,’ said Annie. ‘Leave nothing out.’

Taking a deep breath, Amy related the events of the past few days, beginning with the discovery of the Tiffany box, going through the excitement of the dance audition and ending with her tussle with Daniel’s father, pausing every now and then to blow her nose on Annie’s pastel tissues and watching in awe as Annie wolfed down satay, spring rolls and dumplings.

‘So to sum it up,’ said Annie, dabbing at her bright red lips with a napkin, ‘Daniel’s family are a bunch of hideous snobs, they don’t think you’re good enough to be an ambassador’s wife and Daniel himself has the backbone of a jellyfish.’

Amy let out a sad giggle, despite herself.

‘You got it. It would have been fine if I was a ballet dancer,’ she added softly. ‘I bet Darcey Bussell isn’t slipped business cards with a nod and a wink to come and practise the horizontal tango.’

Annie crossed the room and sat on the arm of the chair.

‘Daniel’s parents don’t want a beautiful, talented woman by their son’s side; they want a Barbie doll in Chanel who knows her place. You were never going to fit into their narrow little world, so don’t start thinking things could have been any different.’

Amy nodded silently. She knew Annie was right, that she had just been a convenient distraction for Daniel while he waited for his big break.

‘But I love him,’ she said, her voice croaking.

Sitting in the Bird’s Nest, which felt a million miles away from the formality of the Tower, all she could think of was the good times she had shared with Daniel. She had first met him at a nightclub in Chelsea – she couldn’t even remember what she was doing there, but she could remember the way he had smiled at her across the dance floor and then tracked her down with a glass of champagne that had been cold and delicious, if not quite as delicious as the way it had tasted on his lips when they had finally kissed two hours later. Quite simply, life was more exciting and magical with Daniel Lyons in it. Without him, she was a struggling dancer living in a tiny apartment three thousand miles away from home, going nowhere, dreams fading. With him, she was whisked away to a world of five star mini-breaks to Paris, Rome and Prague, where he could always speak the native language and single out the hippest hotels and the hottest bars. He made her laugh. And he had the cutest Hugh Grant accent. And the bluest eyes this side of Paul Newman. And he was good, so good in bed . . .

Too good
, she thought with the realisation that sometimes crept into her thoughts.

Daniel Lyons was a superstar in whatever environment you put him in. She was an ordinary girl from Queens with a thick accent, a bad toe and a tattoo of a daisy on her shoulder obtained on a night out in Harlem after the K Double Swagg video shoot. Whatever had made her think she could be a beautiful and elegant diplomat’s wife?

‘Listen, sweetie, why don’t you go home?’

She felt Annie’s hand on her knee and looked up, attempting a smile. ‘I’m not sure the contents of my purse will stretch to a cab,’ she said, taking a last sip of her cocktail. ‘Do you mind if I pull out the sofa bed?’

‘Of course not, dimbo. But I don’t mean tonight, I mean for Christmas. I mean why don’t you go back to New York?’

Amy looked up at her friend.

‘To my mom and dad’s?’

‘Why not? It’s the holiday season, isn’t it? The perfect time to be around your family and friends and remember what’s important.’

‘Yes, and for that reason, I’m not going to get an air fare for less than a thousand bucks at this late notice.’

‘Well, I can lend it to you.’

Amy squeezed Annie’s hand.