I suppose …’
‘Ah, Mr Kissinger. I didn’t recognize you without the glasses,’ said Tom, moving over to the toaster as it popped.
Cate forced a smile. ‘You know why I’m here, Tom – Serena. She says you’ve been avoiding her calls for the last week. She’s going spare.’
She looked at him imploringly, but he just grunted and turned back to the Aga, feeling embarrassed and a little guilty. He really liked Cate. In fact he’d often wished that his girlfriend could be a little more like her older sister, to have the same heart and humility. It was just like her to be here on a peace mission and he hated to disappoint her.
‘Cate, I … it’s complicated …’
‘Come on, Tom,’ said Cate, ‘you can’t just turn your back on five years with somebody. How are you going to sort all this out if you won’t even speak to her?’
‘Sort out what?’ he snapped, turning to face Cate, and for the first time she noticed the dark hollows under his eyes. ‘What exactly is there to sort out? A one-sided relationship that was going nowhere? Some sort of fairy-tale ending?’ Tom trailed off and gazed down at his plate intently. ‘Look, you shouldn’t have come all this way,’ he said. ‘It’s good of you, but …’
There was a long pause as Tom rubbed at a grease-spot on the worktop, then he looked up and fixed Cate with his movie-star eyes.
‘Do you know why I jumped off that boat?’ he asked.
‘Ridiculously wankered on margaritas?’ offered Cate with a twisted smile.
‘Actually, yes.’ He smiled briefly, then turned to the window, staring out at the long lawn that swept down to the cliffs. ‘I’ve not been unfaithful, Cate. I’ve just been miserable. For months – years, maybe. When I jumped, it was like I was liberating myself from my life and the way I was living it. Of course I care about Serena,’ he added. ‘She’s beautiful, yes. And at one point, we really used to have fun.’ He trailed off wistfully as he remembered snapshots of better times. ‘But that London life is such shallow shit. The same crowd going to the same old boring parties. And she got so taken in by it all. Sometimes I just wished she was a bit more grounded. Like you.’
There was a long tantalizing moment that passed between them, then Cate moved a step backward to stop herself thinking a forbidden thought. Tom looked at her a moment longer, then shrugged.
‘Well, Serena loves the scene, and if I stay with her it’ll just be really difficult to get rid of all that stuff from my life.’
Cate had known for years that Tom had had a drink problem in his early twenties when he was doing the fringe theatre circuit and mixing with a troubled, boozy crowd. She knew as well that he was drinking again now and that there’d be countless dinner parties where they quaffed wine and finished with port, but Cate had no idea how hard it was for him to keep his drinking under control.
‘Just give her a ring,’ Cate offered, forgetting momentarily that Serena was in Mustique.
Tom turned back to the stove and irritably stabbed a sausage. There was a quiver of anger when he spoke. ‘And say what? “Sorry, darling, been a bit of a mix-up. I’ll be home in a couple of hours”?’
Cate blinked at him.
‘So that’s it?’ she asked.
He shrugged and pushed the abandoned breakfast away. ‘I’ll talk to her when I’m ready, Cate. I just think it’s better to have a bit of distance sometimes, you know? I don’t want to get talked into a situation I don’t want to be in. Do you know what I mean? She’s very good at that.’
They both laughed, knowing how difficult, charming and manipulative Serena could be.
Tom led Cate through a sun-filled conservatory and out into the garden. The gulls squawked around their heads and in the distance the sounds of the waves crashed up on the rocks. Cate watched him walk ahead, ambling towards the cliff edge, which sloped down to the beach, kicking a pebble along the grass with his shoe. Trust Serena, she thought. To have a movie star who made a mean fry-up, then blow the relationship royally. Cate wondered whether to tell him about Michael, but she didn’t want to make it sound like blackmail.
‘Anyway, Miss Balcon,’ said Tom, picking up the stone to throw it over the cliff. ‘What’s happening in your life? Editor of Vogue yet? Any sexy suitors on the horizon I should know about? I will, of course, have to vet them ruthlessly. Serena never tired of telling me you have terrible taste in men.’
‘The answer to that is no and no. My love life, as you probably know, has been nonexistent for aeons. I did meet someone in New York, a photographer. But he hasn’t called.’
Tom laughed.
‘And the other thing you obviously don’t know,’ continued Cate, ‘I got fired last week.’
‘Oh shit. I’m sorry.’
‘Yeah. I’m livid.’
Tom threw her a lopsided smile. ‘No wonder. And what are you going to do in the meantime?’ he asked, flinging another rock towards the sea. ‘You can come and be my script assistant, if you like. There’s plenty of room in this old place for another London refugee.’
For a second Cate hoped he was serious. It might be nice just giving it all up and moving out here with the gulls and the waves. If she was honest, she hadn’t told anybody about her plan to launch a magazine because she was afraid that people would laugh at her lofty – and possibly unrealistic – ambitions. But the longer she kept it a secret, the longer it would take to get anything off the ground.
‘I was going to freelance. But …’ She looked at Tom’s open, honest face and she knew she could trust him with her plans. ‘… I developed a dummy magazine last year which I was going to present to the company. That didn’t happen and I still have the dummy, so I was thinking –’
‘You’re going to publish it yourself?’
She grimaced. ‘Well, possibly.’
‘Let’s go back into the house.’
Tom led Cate into the study, a snug space with just enough room for a desk and a big leather-backed chair. He picked up his big black Smythson diary and flipped it open.
‘I think you should phone a friend of mine,’ he mumbled, scribbling down a phone number on a pink Post-it note. ‘Do you know Nick Douglas?’
Cate shook her head, looking at the number as he passed it over. ‘I know the name,’ she fibbed.
‘I’ve known Nick since school. He’s a really good friend of mine. You’ll like him. He’s been publisher of some sports magazine in America for a couple of years and he’s just come back wanting to do the same as you, to publish his own stuff. I’ve no idea how far he’s got raising finance or even if he’s got an idea for a magazine, but it won’t hurt to talk to him.’
‘OK, thanks. I’ll do that this week,’ she said, putting the number in her bag. She knew she needed to work with a publisher to get her idea off the ground, but had already started making phone calls to contacts she knew. She was seeing Cecil Bradley on Tuesday to see if she could get him involved in some way. The old man had more than enough time on his hands. With a bit of luck, she wouldn’t need Tom’s charity.
‘In fact, let’s give him a ring now.’ Tom pulled his silver mobile out of his jeans pocket, flipped open its lid and started dialling.
‘No – you don’t have to. I’ll call him –’
Tom held up a finger. ‘He only lives in Highgate and you’re still in Notting Hill, right?’ he whispered, walking out into the hall. ‘Bloody crap reception around here. Can only get a signal in certain parts of the house.’
He disappeared and Cate perched on the edge of Tom’s desk, leafing through the property section of the Sunday Times, occasionally