but I got the impression his heart wasn’t in it. I think maybe he was beginning to think about other things he wanted to do in life.’
Elizabeth doubts this. She can’t imagine Ricky enjoying a life out of the spotlight. And she isn’t entirely sure they can judge him, notorious as he was for his volatile mood swings, by just one day’s good behaviour. But of course it’s irrelevant now. Pointless. Poor Ricky. She suddenly finds her eyes welling. ‘Well… That’s a real shame, given…’ A tear creeps out of the corner of her eye and she rubs it away, fiercely.
Matthew grabs her hand. ‘I know, I know. It’s terrible, Elizabeth. I’m going to miss him too. He was brilliant in his heyday. Unbeatable. But he was living on the edge – you know he was. His appetites were too large. He was caning it, night after night. He’s not a child, he knew what he was doing. It’s not your fault. It’s not our fault.’
‘But he was a child in so many ways… We indulged him just like we would a child! And it feels like my fault. I was supposed to be in charge this evening. Why didn’t I spot it? Why didn’t I see that he was so ill?’ A shuddering sob escapes.
‘Elizabeth, listen. In this business, we’re all control freaks. But there are some things we simply can’t control. No producer – not even one as good as you – can stop nature taking its course.’ He smiles at her. She knows that she will tuck away his rare compliment for a future rainy, otherwise unrewarding day, but for now she gratefully accepts the neatly pressed hanky he hands her.
‘Have you got a car to take you home?’ he asks, still smiling. ‘Take mine. I might walk for a bit.’
‘Are you sure?’
The Controller is very sure. Elizabeth’s phone call had pulled him away from a meeting in a discreet hotel room where the irresistibly long-legged hostess of his lunchtime consumer show is waiting to consume him. She’s blonde and favours the sort of wrap dresses that show just about enough of a luscious cleavage (although some viewers have written in to complain that her breasts are putting them off their sandwiches). He figures that he’ll get more comfort there than he will from going home to Hampstead and his wife, the history don, who despairs of absolutely everything to do with his job – other than its considerable income.
Tears are now falling freely down Elizabeth’s cheeks and she allows herself to be ushered into Matthew’s Mercedes with its deep leather seats and the heady smell of aftershave. Winston, Matthew’s driver, tilts his mirror to look at her in the back seat and then silently hands her a box of tissues. As the car pulls away from the kerb, she sees Deniz Pegasus, Ricky’s friend and manager, lurking in the shadows of the building. He steps out and moves towards the car but without saying anything, Winston gently presses down on the accelerator and they glide smoothly past him. Elizabeth turns and looks out of the back window to see Deniz standing in the street, his legs apart, his arms outstretched, watching her go. ‘Thank you,’ she says to Winston. He nods at her in the rear-view mirror. She pulls the hood of her parka low down over her face, sinks back into the seat and Winston turns up some soft jazz. The car slides like a snake, stealthy and smooth, through the London night.
Elizabeth woke alone in her flat the following morning, having had no more than a couple of hours’ sleep and feeling parched and nauseous. The day was already bright and spring-like. The cherry blossom in the street was showering dusty blooms, leaving a pale pink underlay on the pavement. She reached for her mobile to check her messages. The blank screen was a stark reminder of how changed things already were and brought with it a fresh wave of grief. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d woken to a morning with no texts. Especially none from Ricky. He’d spend his nights sending her random ideas for the shows, feverish thoughts – and the occasional ridiculous demand. There had been middle-of-the-night phone calls as well, always in theory about some urgent piece of show business, but quite often giving way to monotone, paranoid monologues, where he lectured her on the failings of her production team.
There was no text from Hutch, either. Over the last few months, he’d sometimes send her funny, sexy, late-night messages – usually comments on the poems she was making him read (‘I’ve got that old letch John Donne in bed with me tonight. Unruly son. He’ll do/ But he’s not you.’) Elizabeth didn’t always respond to these suggestive texts; she was uncomfortably aware that they were sometimes sent when he was hiding in the bathroom or lurking in the shadows of his back garden. But there was nothing today. It was possible that he still hadn’t seen any of the gossip circulating on social media, and she hadn’t called or texted to tell him the news last night. She’d felt too drained somehow, too tired, too sick; she hadn’t wanted to talk about it. Over the last few weeks – since Ricky’s party – she’d felt that in every conversation with Hutch she was dancing on eggshells.
She pulled on a jumper he’d left in her room the night before last, when he’d told her that he loved her and she’d allowed herself to believe the world was still rich with possibilities. She wandered barelegged into the tiny kitchen, opened the fridge door and drank milk straight from the bottle. Then she leaned against the long sash window, gazing down at the street, where a road sweeper was wheeling his barrow of blossoms while jabbering away on his mobile in Polish. The jumper still smelled of Hutch and she hugged it round her, closer. Ricky dead! How was that possible? The man who had seemed so much larger than life!
Elizabeth knew something about loss. She knew that things can be snatched away when you’re least expecting it, perhaps when you’re still not grown up, not fully the person you’re going to be. That you might get a phone call in the wrong place or at the wrong time of day and that moment will not only change your life, it will change your entire view of life. Elizabeth was seventeen when her dad died out of the blue. She was at school and she had to go and see the headmistress, who sat on the wrong side of the desk and looked very sad. She handed her the phone and Elizabeth could hardly recognise the voice of her mother, cracked and hoarse, the terrible words strangled in her throat. The school organised a taxi to take her home and Elizabeth knew even then, in the back of the cab, that she’d just learned a lesson many people escape ever having to learn: that the world can be very fragile and your grip on it uncertain.
Elizabeth made some tea and forced herself to eat some dry toast. She was always astonished to find her kitchen empty of anything resembling butter or jam. She knew these things had to be purchased with forethought from a supermarket – she just never seemed to have the forethought. Jamie, when he’d lived with her, had been good at keeping up the supplies, religiously filling out the Tesco order online, taking care to seek out all the organic options, replacing Elizabeth’s Jammie Dodgers with nourishing seeds and nuts. At times like these, Elizabeth hated living alone. She didn’t want to be by herself, this morning of all mornings. She missed the lie-ins, the cuddles, the cups of tea in bed, the cleaning of teeth side by side, spitting in unison into the basin. She missed Jamie.
Jamie! The day that should’ve been her happiest – her wedding day – was a year ago, almost to the day. Another terrible May day.
When Elizabeth told her mum the date of her wedding six weeks beforehand, the corners of Maureen’s mouth had drooped and she’d murmured, ‘Marry in May and rue the day.’ Elizabeth had been furious. But later she had to acknowledge that her mum, through some spooky umbilical instinct, seemed to know something then that Elizabeth barely knew herself.
The whole wedding had been a whirlwind, although she and Jamie had met in their first week at uni and had shared a flat for the last ten years. Elizabeth had assumed they’d just continue to live together and then – quite soon, she hoped – have a baby. Jamie had often described marriage to her as an outmoded, patriarchal, state-imposed institution and as a full-time feminist, Elizabeth felt that she ought not to feel excited about the idea of a day when everyone would treat her like a fairy-tale princess. (Although she and Lola did quite often find themselves poring over wedding dresses in Hello!,