She walked again. But it was different this time. Her eyes weren’t casting into every crevice, following sounds or chasing shadows. She wasn’t fidgety and alert, every fibre in her muscles ratcheted to full tension, ready to tear. Instead, her feet dragged, her head lolled, her face obscured by the deep hood of her coat. Occasionally she stopped and looked for a road sign, something to tell her where she was – not that it mattered anyway. It wasn’t ‘where’ that mattered; it was ‘who’, and she didn’t have the answers to that anymore. She didn’t recognize the daughter who turned her back on her mother and left her father exposed to public scrutiny, who neglected her friends for the good of a corporate secret, who fell for a star but treated him like dirt.
She was adrift, caught between worlds, and as she walked through the quiet, frosted streets, it was with the intention of getting lost. She wanted to hide, not seek this time, be the little girl who got to curl up in a cupboard and hear everyone calling her name; she wanted to be sought, for once. She was so tired of being the one to count to ten and go to find. She just wanted it all to stop.
Her feet moved, though she gave no conscious commands. She didn’t know what time it was, only that the Royal Parks were locked, forcing her to walk the perimeters and stay in the light, moving from one amber street-lamp pool to the next when all she wanted was the shadows.
No car had passed her for fifteen minutes by the time she got back to the black gates of Primrose Hill. It was the witching hour, the very dead of night, although shadows fell long and thin along the pavements from the full moon.
She stood by the railings, one hand clasped round the cold steel and staring up at the Hill’s small white summit. The yellow house was a four-minute walk away behind her; the journalists would be sure to have gone for the night – they couldn’t stay out all night in the snow, surely – and she could slip in unnoticed, dive under her duvet and sleep for a year. Instead, she scaled the railings with the ease and experience of someone who’d been doing it all her life – she had been nine when she’d first jumped the gates and it was second nature now. She didn’t want comfort, or oblivion; she didn’t want to feel slaked. She just wanted, for once, to feel.
She broke into a sprint up the path, fists pumping, her body fierce and light – the soup at Dan’s had gone untouched, the two of them too distracted to eat – surprised by how shaky her legs felt as she got to the benches at the top. She walked round the mount with her hands on her hips, like a marathon runner in recovery, London slumbering like a black dragon before her.
At her feet was the Blake quote, ‘I have conversed with the spiritual sun. I saw him on Primrose Hill.’ She didn’t need to read it; she knew it by heart. How many days had she spent on this spot, waiting for her own epiphany? A miracle that would never come.
She sank down onto her bench, the one with her mother’s name on it, the one that her father had sold their car for, in order to afford – a public love token intended, if ever her mother saw it, to propel her home to them. But if her father had been standing in her place at the nursery today, would he have done the same and turned his back? Would he have recognized her as his wife? She had been so much changed. Nettie realized it wasn’t just her mother she had been missing; it was the idea of her too – but she didn’t correspond to that now. The person staring back at her through the glass had been no one’s mother, no one’s wife, no one’s daughter. Her mother hadn’t just removed herself from their lives; she had removed from herself what she was in their lives. Their connection had snapped, a thread that been pulled too taut and sprung back into itself.
Her phone in her pocket buzzed suddenly, making her jump.
‘And the view’s so nice.’ She stared at it in alarm. What? Who? The number was unrecognized in her contacts list.
She knew the line well enough: it had been written on the path for years, till the rain had eventually washed it away. But why would someone send her that at this time of night? And why would they send it unless they knew she was here?
The hairs rose on the back of her neck. Someone was watching her.
She looked out into the shadows, her body tight and coiled, ready to run, her lungs full, ready to scream.
‘Blur, in case you didn’t know. Though I’m guessing you probably did.’ His voice was gentle, wary of frightening her. She stared at him in disbelief, too many questions rushing forwards at once as he stood just off the summit on the path, his hands jammed in his pockets, his shoulders hunched around his ears in the plunging temperatures.
Convinced she wasn’t going to scream bloody murder, he walked up to the bench. ‘May I?’
She scooted over slightly, even though there was enough room for eight people on there. ‘Why are you here, Jamie?’
‘I was worried about you. We all were. Jules has been frantic.’
She swallowed and looked away, the humiliation sweeping over her like a million pinpricks. He already knew, then. It was official – her shame was public and tomorrow the rest of the city would wake to find her in the headlines again. ‘Jules knows I’m fine. I got Dan to tell her.’ Her voice was as stiff as if it had been whipped.
He smiled. ‘It’s not the same as seeing you, though.’ He stared at her profile, noticing the dampness on her lashes, the jut of her lip. ‘Nothing is.’
She glanced at him, immediately wishing she hadn’t. She turned away again, back to London. ‘How did you find me?’ Her voice was small and sullen.
‘Jules told me about your walks. Every Sunday, no matter what, she said.’ His tone invited an answer to the implicit question, but she remained silent. ‘I thought you might be on one today, so I’ve been driving around on my Vespa.’ His gaze was fixed on her profile. ‘I caught up with you at Baker Street.’
She looked at him again. Baker Street? But that was several miles away. He’d followed her all that time? ‘You didn’t think to offer me a lift?’ she asked archly, no trace of a smile on her lips.
‘You looked like you needed to walk. I just hung back.’
‘Why? You’d found me. I was safe. Why not just go home?’
‘I wanted to be sure you stayed safe.’ His expression darkened. ‘And thank God I did, frankly. I’m mad as hell with you – you must be crazy coming into a park on your own like this after dark.’
She gave a shallow sigh, the sound clipped and irritable. ‘I don’t care. I don’t care what happens anymore,’ she said dismissively. She was all out of manners, all out of cute. She was done. Spent. ‘Nothing I do makes any difference anyway.’
He stared at her. ‘You don’t mean that. You’ve just raised a small fortune in under—’
‘That wasn’t me. It was a freak thing that took on a life of its own. I had very little say in any of it.’
There was a small silence. She watched a faraway plane flash in the jet sky.
‘Well, you turned up, didn’t you?’
She raised an eyebrow, the expression in her eyes bleak. ‘Before you attribute any nobility to my actions – if that’s even possible in that bloody costume – I thought I was going to get fired. You, on the other hand, did it all for your brother,’ she added pointedly.
But he was undeterred. Seemingly tonight was all about her. ‘So? You still put yourself on the line. You’ve risked injury, embarrassment, humiliation . . . the very real threat of falling in love with me.’
‘Ha!’ The laugh was a curt dismissal. She didn’t have the appetite for jokes tonight.
‘You are a cruel mistress, you know that?’ He rested his arm on the back of the bench, propping his head in his hand, his eyes on her as he shook his head. ‘Besides, I knew what I was getting myself into. The second I clapped eyes on you, I knew I’d risk pretty much anything to get you.’
‘Well you must be regretting it now,’ she muttered after a pause, her chin down, eyes on her feet as she scuffed them lightly in the snow.
‘No.’
She gave him a sideways look. ‘No? Not even after Watergate?’
He laughed at her pun. ‘I figured you were pissed off about the photos of me and Coco – which was the point. The record label’s been trying to encourage a thing with me and Coco for months. I played along for once.’
‘And how. They couldn’t believe their luck when you said what you said on The One Show,’ she said bitterly.
‘Because you were driving me nuts, Nettie!’ he said passionately. ‘Don’t you get it? Nothing’s ever happened with her. I just wanted to make you jealous. I wanted to see if you even gave a damn.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Be careful what you wish for, right?’
‘Oh.’ Her heart missed a beat. ‘Well actually, it wasn’t the photos. Well, not only, the photos. I was pissed off that you called me a groupie.’
He pulled a face. He looked upset. ‘You heard that?’
She looked away, giving a careless shrug even though her heart was pounding again.
‘Look, I was trying to get Coco off the scent. She knew I was getting involved with someone and I didn’t want her knowing it was you. Discretion isn’t her strength.’ He shifted position slightly, turning to face her. She remained silent. ‘Anyway, how could I be sure you weren’t one? After you ran out, I didn’t know what to think. I was half expecting a selfie you’d taken in the bathroom to pop up on Instagram.’ He saw her expression. ‘What? You think it’d be the first time it’s happened? You gave me nothing else to go on.’
She looked away but he reached over and hooked her chin with his finger, forcing her to look at him. ‘Listen, I’ve been in this industry a long time now. I got my first record deal at seventeen. Every week a different country, a different hotel—’
‘A different girl?’ she asked tartly.
‘Yeah. And it gets old.’ His eyes fell to her mouth, making her breath quicken, but his hand dropped down and he pulled back slightly.
She saw him notice the brass plaque between them. She watched him read it. ‘For Sian Watson, who loved to sit here. Much missed.’
She looked away before he could pin a look on her again, wrapping her arms around herself as she shivered. She hadn’t been warm enough today.
He looked at her for a moment, before standing up. ‘Come on.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘I’m taking you home.’
She shook her head. ‘I can’t go home. The press are there.’
‘Welcome to my world,’ he said dryly. ‘OK, then, you can come back with me. But I’m warning you now – I’m going to kick you out before you can run out. I’m not going through that again.’
She stared up at him, a smile twitching on her lips. How had he come into her life, this man? This extraordinary man who commanded armies of fans across the planet but wore the adulation lightly, who tracked her down in a city of millions and made her feel like the only person in it, her guardian angel in black denim, with eyes the colour of olives.
She took his hand. ‘Well, I couldn’t possibly risk that. You’d better take me home, then.’
He tucked her arm under his so that their bodies were close as they walked down the path. ‘You know if you’d just told me, things could have been different?’ His voice was low. ‘All that misery this week—’
‘Yeah, but then you’d have pitied me. No, thanks.’ She arched an eyebrow. ‘I much preferred being an enigmatic mutant bunny.’
He laughed. ‘I don’t pity you. It sucks, yes, big time; I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. But if I had to choose between thinking you’d run out on me because you were just up for the glory shag or because you’ve got to find your missing mum, I’d take the missing mum every time, thanks.’
She laughed gently, joshing him in the ribs with her elbow. ‘It’s not funny.’
‘No. But I am glad that it’s a clear-cut case of “It’s not you, it’s me.”’
She laughed again. ‘Stop it.’
They walked in easy silence, their strides perfectly matched, their shadows long upon the bumpy snow. They reached the railings. ‘Do you need a leg-up?’ he asked.
‘Do you?’ she grinned, vaulting over easily and leaving him on the other side.
He looked impressed. ‘You’re good at that.’
‘I’m good at lots of things.’
He landed like a cat beside her, his eyes drawing her up with him as he straightened, as though there was some static charge around him that brought her body into alignment with his. He took a step closer, his hand finding hers again. ‘You know I told you I’m going away for Christmas? A friend of mine’s got a place in the Bahamas.’
She chuckled softly, dropping her forehead against his chest. ‘Oh God, you’re talking about Necker, aren’t you? I know you are.’
He shrugged, amused by her reaction.
‘It’s not normal,’ she laughed, suddenly worn out, pounding his chest lightly with her fist.
He smiled. ‘I want you to come with me. I’m flying out tomorrow night. Seven o’clock. Terminal five. What do you say? You, me, no complications. Let’s get away and start over, do it properly, away from all this madness.’
She stopped laughing, the moment’s levity gone in a flash. She looked up at him, feeling the usual tension ratchet tightly within her chest, holding her heart in a vice and threatening to crush it. Didn’t he understand? How could she leave her father alone at Christmas? How could she leave him ever? She was all he had left in the world now. There was no starting over for her, no escape, no new horizons. This was her life.
His eyes dropped from hers as he saw her answer. ‘Yeah, I thought not,’ he murmured eventually, finding her hand again and kissing it, before pulling her into a slow walk, tucking her arm beneath his. She could feel the warmth of him as they walked through the chill, and she briefly allowed herself to rest her head against his shoulder. She felt so tired suddenly. Her eyes closed as he kissed the top of her head.
They walked past the bookshop and grocer’s, the cafe and toy shop, turning to walk past the library and then, moments later, the square opened out ahead of them.
They stopped at the very edge, their eyes scanning for reporters.
‘Oh.’ She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting – a bank of them, lined up by the slide, waiting for the moment she opened the front door? Rows of tents on the grass, like some sort of asylum camp for the press?
‘Don’t worry. They’ll be back again by five,’ he murmured, tugging her onwards. ‘I know their routines as well as they know mine.’
They walked round to the yellow house on the back edge of the square, her right hand trailing lightly against the black railings. She was sorry there wasn’t further to go. She liked walking with this man. It felt good not to walk alone.
They stopped on the pavement outside. The house was dark, the wooden shutters downstairs closed. Jamie turned to face her, his left hand finding her right one. ‘So. You’re back safe and sound.’
‘Thank you,’ she replied. She watched as his eyes tiptoed over her features like fairy footsteps.
‘What shall we do about tomorrow? I’m happy to run the gauntlet and pick you up. I could be your decoy.’ He winked.
She knew how much he hated the paparazzi’s intrusive lenses and couldn’t decide if she was tickled or horrified by the idea. ‘I think that’s called fanning the flames,’ she smiled, before biting her lip. ‘No, you’d better go ahead and do it without me.’
His expression changed. ‘Why? It’s the last day. You have to be there.’
‘I need to stay with Dad.’ She saw him go to argue and cut in first. ‘He never asked for any of this, from Mum or me.’
Jamie was quiet. Even charity couldn’t compete with that argument.
‘Jules will do it. I bet she was great today, wasn’t she?’
He nodded. ‘Yeah, she nailed it.’ He shook her hands lightly, his eyes on their clasped fingers before he looked back at her. ‘I want it to be you.’
‘I want it to be you, too.’ Her words were a whisper. She knew they weren’t just talking about the campaign now. ‘But there’s too much in the way.’
‘No, there isn’t. Not if you don’t want there to be.’
‘But it’s not about what I want. If my life was about what I wanted, I wouldn’t be living in a vacuum in my childhood home, waiting for a ghost to walk back through the door.’ Her voice cracked and she pulled her hand out from his, pressing the back of her hand to her top lip, trying to stop the swell of tears. ‘And even if my life wasn’t insane, yours is. You can’t pretend you’re just a normal guy, Jamie. You’re not. You cross the world twice in a week. You probably have stalkers! There’s no way we could support both our dysfunctional lifestyles.’
‘But you should know by now that all that fuss is nothing to do with me or who I am. It’s hype. It isn’t personal. It’s projection. You’ve seen that for yourself.’
It was true: the bigger her stats had become, the less she had felt it had anything to do with her. She had glimpsed enough of the insider’s view to know that fame was bigger than the personalities it cherry-picked.
She placed her hands on his chest, able to feel the rapid thump of his heart beneath her palm. ‘In my world, people walk out the door and they don’t come back again. Your job means you do that for a living. I just can’t be with someone like you.’
She stared back at him, unaware of the tear sliding down her cheek as she watched him absorb the futility in her words, the flat argument that would brook no response.
‘We can’t just . . . buy you a new mum?’
It was a terrible joke, the shock of it making her laugh, but in the next moment he had bent to kiss her, his hands cupping her head, his lips warm on hers, and she closed her eyes, committing the memory to her DNA and imprinting it on her heart. Because this was the end, this kiss, they both knew it now – the full stop to a love affair that had never quite been. Its potential had been colossal – life-changing, world-beating, an electrical storm that charged the air around them and had made anything seem possible.
But what they wanted things to be and how they really were was a breach too wide to span, and she pulled away, turning onto the garden path in silence. And without looking back, she let herself in to the yellow house.