under the trees.
Someone rustled over the grass behind her.
‘There you are. I’ve been hunting for you.’ To her partial relief it was not Ed but Angela, and she was carrying a bottle and two glasses. ‘Shall we sit here?’
There was a secluded bench with a low light beside it that hollowed an egg-shape of lush greenery out of the darkness. They sat down and Connie obediently took the glass that Angela gave her. Angela kicked off her shoes and rested her head against the back of the bench.
‘I meant it, you know. About not surviving this week without you.’
‘You would have done,’ Connie laughed.
‘I don’t think so. Christ. Tara? Sheringham? And that other woman, you’d think no one in the history of the world has ever had the shits before this week. Sorry. Listen to me. I just needed a quick moan.’
‘It’s over now.’
‘Until the next one.’ They clinked their glasses and drank.
‘How is it with you and Rayner?’
Angela exhaled. ‘Oh. You noticed?’
‘Well. Yes. Probably no one else did, though.’
Angela’s smile was a sudden flash in the gloaming. ‘He’s amazing. We’ve been working together quite a lot, and we started seeing each other…it’s difficult because he’s still officially married to Rose and he’s very close to his kids, so we’re keeping the lid on it, especially on shoots, but in time I think we’ll be really good together. You know, he’s so special, such a talented director; that has to come first a lot of the time.’
Connie did her best to receive this information optimistically. Angela was elated now, probably because Rayner had given her a sign for later. She was revelling in the anticipation of him slipping into her room, locking the door behind him. Connie could remember what all that felt like, more or less. But the provisos sounded too ready, and they were ominous.
Not that I’m the one to judge, she thought.
Maybe Rayner Ingram will turn out to be loyal, tender, considerate and generous. And maybe he will be all of those things for Angela and no one else. And her friend was enviably happy tonight, Connie could feel the pulse of it in her. Somehow everything had turned round since the tense ending of the afternoon, and she should be able to bask in the moment without anyone spoiling it for her with sage advice. Angela wasn’t a child, or any kind of innocent.
‘Don’t put his happiness before your own,’ was all Connie advised.
‘They’re the same thing,’ Angela breathed.
They sat in silence for a moment.
‘Anyway, I wanted to talk about you, not me,’ Angela began again.
‘Why’s that?’
Angela waved her glass. ‘About here. And why you stay, and what…Are you hiding from something, maybe? Out here. On your own, you know what I’m saying, ever since you split from Seb. Why don’t you come back to London? Be with your friends, everyone you know. Don’t your family miss you, apart from anything else? You’ve got a…sister, haven’t you? And that amazing flat. And it’s not as though you don’t get plenty of work. Honestly. You can’t stay out here for ever, you need to come back and…connect. Think about it, at least, won’t you? Aren’t you lonely? Don’t you ever think, is this what I really want?’
Angela was warming to her subject. She was happy, and in her benign daze she wished the same for everyone. They had both had quite a lot to drink, Connie allowed. She tilted her glass, then gazed around at the glimmering garden. The frogs were loud, but the noise of the party was eclipsing them. Soon, probably, the other guests in the hotel would start complaining. That would be something else that Angela would have to deal with.
‘Connie, are you listening?’
‘Yep.’
She was wondering which end to pull out of the tangle of Angela’s speech. She didn’t say that she only asked herself what she really, really wanted when her solitude was compromised.
‘I do come back to London. Quite often.’
‘You slip in and out of town like a…like a…’
‘Mouse into its hole?’
‘I was trying to think of something polite.’
‘I like my life.’ It was true, she did.
‘But – don’t you want – love, marriage? A family?’
‘I’m forty-three.’
‘That’s not an answer.’
‘No, then.’
That silenced Angela for a moment. Eight years younger and uncomfortably in love, she couldn’t imagine any woman not wanting those things.
Love, marriage, family?
Love Connie did have, and she had come to the conclusion that she always would. Love could exist in a vacuum, without being returned, with nothing to nourish it, without even a sight of the person involved. It was always there, embedded beneath her skin like an electronic tag, probably sending out its warning signals to everyone who came within range.
Yes but no. Available but not.
The truth was that Connie had loved Bill Bunting since she was fifteen, and Seb hadn’t been the first or even the last attempt she had made to convince herself otherwise. She wasn’t going to marry Bill, or even see him, because he was another woman’s husband. He wouldn’t abandon his wife, and if he had been willing to do so Connie would have had to stop loving him. That was the impossibility of it.
And family…
It was significant that even Angela, who had been a friend for more than ten years, had to think twice about whether Connie had a family or not, and what it consisted of.
That was the way Connie preferred it to be.
She turned to look at Angela and started laughing.
‘What’s funny?’
‘Your expression. Angie, I know what you’re saying to me, and thank you for being concerned. Your advice is probably good. But I’m happy here, you know. I’m not hiding. And it’s very beautiful.’
‘Do you feel that you belong here?’
‘Do we have to feel that we belong?’
There was a sharp scream and a splash followed by some confused shouting.
‘What now?’ Angela groaned.
‘It sounded like Tara.’
‘Will you think about what I’m saying, though?’
‘Yes, I will.’
‘It’s
