Martha leaned against the balcony rail and looked out at the view over the pool. It reminded her of an all-inclusive holiday they’d once taken with the children, the way the sunbeds were all lined up in neat rows.
Unlike the all-inclusive, however, where there was an unseemly scramble for the sunbeds each morning, many of the beds were available. Those that weren’t were mainly occupied by extremely attractive young women, clearly hoping to be ‘discovered’ either by a passing movie director or, failing that, a very rich man who would provide a passport into a life of Hollywood luxury.
Every fifteen minutes or so, a handsome young man in an emerald green polo shirt and stone-coloured shorts would approach the sunbathers and top up their water jugs or refill their glasses.
At any other time, Martha would have lapped up this whole experience. She was in one of the best hotels in Beverly Hills, surrounded by beautiful people, celebrities and God knows how many potential stories, but she just couldn’t get excited about it.
She and Jamie had talked for hours, with Jamie desperately trying to get her to focus on the good times they had had together. They had reminisced about the early days of their relationship and all the things they had achieved together; they remembered the days their babies were born and how scared they had felt bringing them home for the first time. But underlying everything was both of them trying to make sense of what had happened and why he had done it. Eventually, Jamie had succumbed to exhaustion and jet-lag, and was still fast asleep.
Martha stepped back into the room – she hadn’t used the other room they had booked yet – and pulled the doors closed behind her, blocking out the sunshine and the smoggy heat of the city. She sat down on the sofa and watched Jamie as he slept, thinking how troubled he looked, with the deep frown lines across his tanned forehead that moved up and down as if they were having a conversation all of their own, his square jaw clenching every now and again as he ground his teeth together. There were still traces of the three scratches she had left on his cheek when she had clawed at him that first morning, which gave Martha a strange sense of satisfaction. She decided that it was because she had inflicted pain on him the way he had inflicted it on her. Was it really less than a week since all that had happened?
Jamie jolted violently in the bed and groaned. Clearly his dreams were as bad as hers. She had loved this man so, so much and yet, watching him, she realised how close love was to hate, because hate was definitely her over-riding emotion now. How could he have done it to her? But worse, how could he have done it to their children?
She wondered what Charlie was doing right now and why she was missing him. Probably because he had been so kind to her, she told herself. She could picture his long-lashed, dark eyes, watching her with sympathy and understanding as she talked. It was the sympathy of someone who knew exactly how she felt.
Martha shook her head, trying to clear all thoughts of Charlie from her mind, but it was hopeless. She needed to see him. Casting another glance at Jamie, she picked up her phone and left the room. She made her way along the plushly carpeted corridor to the lift and pressed the button for the pool area.
As she walked out into the sunshine, she was immediately hit by a gush of dry heat and she instinctively dropped her sunglasses against the glare. Her eyes felt sore enough without exposing them to the sun’s rays. Now she understood why so many Hollywood stars were never seen without their shades. It would have been impossible to function without them here.
She headed for one of the sunbeds and was just about to lay down when one of the attendants darted in front of her and placed a thick cream towel on the sumptuous padding and another one rolled up for her head. Martha smiled her thanks and sank down onto it, suddenly grateful that she was wearing a sundress rather than a bikini, judging by the model-like beauties draped over some of the other beds.
She dialled Charlie’s number and felt a stab of disappointment when he didn’t pick up. She knew that he had her number in his phone; was he deliberately screening her calls because he was pissed off that she had agreed to meet Jamie? Surely not. Jamie was her husband and the father of her children. She couldn’t let him come all the way to LA and ignore him.
As instructed by an automated voice, she left a message. ‘Hi Charlie, it’s me. Martha, that is,’ she added, laughing nervously. ‘I just wanted to . . . um, speak to you, I suppose.’ She was trying not to sound too desperate. ‘Anyway, please give me a call if you get this message. Uh, thanks. Bye.’
She hung up and laid her head back on the rolled-up towel at the top of the sunbed, feeling strangely upset. ‘Hi there!’ said a ridiculously good-looking blond-haired man in his twenties, looming over her and making her jump. ‘Can I get you a drink from the bar?’
‘Oh!’ Martha stuttered, sitting up quickly and automatically pulling down the hem of her dress. ‘No, er, I’m fine, thank you. I’m with someone . . . he’s just upstairs!’ she trilled over-brightly. She knew she had started to blush. It was a long time since a man had hit on her and she didn’t know how to deal with it.
The man managed to smile and frown at the same time. ‘No problem, just give me a shout when you’re ready to order!’
‘Will do,’ Martha muttered, feeling idiotic and lying back down as flat as she could, in the hope that she could disappear altogether. Of course he hadn’t been hitting on her. He worked here.
After a few moments Martha must have dozed off because she was awoken by a voice accompanied by a hand on her arm. ‘No!’ She opened her eyes in alarm. ‘I’m still fine for a drink, thank you!’
‘Martha, it’s me, Charlie,’ said the voice, as Charlie stepped slightly to one side so that the sun wasn’t behind him and she could make out his face.
‘Oh, hi!’ she said, aware that she was grinning now. ‘I just called you.’
‘Actually, you called me a while ago but I was at the hospital.’
‘Hospital?’ Martha echoed, sitting up in alarm. ‘Why? What’s happened?’
Charlie sighed as he sat down on the sunbed nearest to her, upon which the ever-present attendant had already placed two towels.
Around the pool, Martha could see a couple of people glancing surreptitiously over the top of their sunglasses at him, and she realised with a start that it was because he was easily the most famous person here. Already it seemed as if Martha had forgotten that Charlie was a VIP – she just thought of him as the same as everyone else.
‘It was Liv. She had some sort of funny turn—’
‘Like the other day?’ Martha cut in, turning sideways so that she was facing him, planting her bare feet on the ground.
‘I guess so. Looked like she was having a heart attack but I doubt it’s that – she’s too young and fit.’
Martha shook her head as she absorbed the news. ‘I did notice that she seems to be drinking a lot. Do you think it might have something to do with that?’
Charlie shrugged. ‘Who knows? I guess we all go through those sort of phases . . .’
‘Poor Liv. So, is she still at the hospital?’
‘Yes, they’re running lots of tests so there wasn’t really anything I could do. I thought I’d go and get Felix from school later and take him back to get her. Then I saw that you’d called, so I decided to call in . . . to see how you were getting on.’
‘I’m glad you did,’ Martha said, then clamped her mouth shut, wondering if she had said too much.
Charlie looked at her curiously. ‘So, where is he then? He hasn’t gone home already?’ he added, almost hopefully.
‘No. He’s sleeping. The jet-lag finally caught up with him, so I left him to it.’
Charlie nodded and smiled at her. Martha had never noticed before but he had a slight dimple in his cheek that became more pronounced when he smiled.
‘So, what are you going to do then, Martha?’
She shook her head slowly. ‘I just don’t know, Charlie. I feel a bit . . .’ She tailed off and shrugged helplessly.
‘A bit what?’ he prompted gently.
‘A bit trapped,’ she admitted. ‘I mean, I don’t really have a choice, do I? I don’t want my children to grow up in a broken home. To have their lives blow up in front of them. Jamie swears it was just some kind of terrible aberration and I’m not sure I have any other option than to believe him. This woman picked him up and offered it on a plate. He says he was bored and lonely at home on his own all day and, although it was a terrible thing to do, he will regret it for the rest of his life.’
Charlie looked at her without speaking and she tried to read his expression but couldn’t. ‘What?’ she said at last.
‘We all have choices,’ he said quietly. ‘But I know what you mean about feeling trapped. It must be very tough for you. I think . . .’ he paused as if trying to formulate his thoughts. ‘I think that if you do decide to give him another chance, you should definitely have counselling.’
‘But I’ve got you,’ she smiled. ‘You’re my counsellor!’
Charlie laughed, but she noticed that a nerve in the side of his cheek had begun to pulse. ‘I’m not a counsellor, Martha. I don’t know why he did this. If I was your . . . Anyway,’ he changed tack quickly, ‘you need to get to the bottom of why he did this. You need to be one hundred per cent sure that he’s never going to do it again, and you won’t be able to do that unless you know why it happened.’
Martha gulped. She had always hated the thought of counselling, convinced that it could make things worse by opening up all sorts of issues that were best left buried. And what was it that Charlie had been going to say?
‘I think we’d better get home as soon as possible. We can’t stay here indefinitely . . .’ she motioned around her as she spoke. ‘And by the way, I insist that we pay you for our stay here.’
Charlie waved away her words with his hand. ‘Forget it.’
‘Well, anyway, we also need to get back to the children. They must be feeling so confused by what’s going on.’
Charlie nodded slowly and looked around him. ‘I’ll miss you,’ he said quietly, as he looked back at her and held her gaze.
Martha felt a shiver of excitement pass through her. She tried to look away but it was impossible. ‘This can’t happen,’ she whispered.
‘I know,’ Charlie whispered back, a look of intense sadness crossing his features.
As he spoke he leaned forward until his face was just a couple of inches from Martha’s. Without realising quite what she was doing, she leaned forward too and their lips brushed. For a second they looked at each other in surprise, then Charlie reached out and cupped the back of her head with his hand as he pulled her forward again and kissed her.
When they broke apart, their eyes still locked, Charlie held out his hand and pulled Martha to her feet. Without speaking, they walked hand-in-hand towards the lifts.