worry about him, Ellie. Rufus knows all my secrets and his lips are sealed—aren’t they, Rufus?’
Rufus agreed by remaining silent, his thick neck motionless.
‘See?’
Ellie groaned. Was she really so transparent that every passing stranger could read the contents of her head?
‘I trust Mark one hundred percent,’ Kat said, giving her a meaningful look. ‘Some managers sign up young talent and work them like crazy until they drop. Then it’s on to the next fresh young thing. But Mark’s not like that. He always looks after me.’
Kat looked down at her lap. ‘I just split up from my boyfriend. I thought he was perfect. They do say love is blind, don’t they?’
Ellie squeezed her hand softly. Kat sniffed.
‘It’s hard to get over it when I see pictures of him in the papers almost every day. On a beach with some girl. In a nightclub with some other girl. At a premiere with—you get the picture, right? But Mark has been great. I can’t count the number of times he’s handed me tissues as I told him the latest sob story.’ A fat tear rolled down her cheek and she sighed and looked out of the window at the lush tropical scenery. ‘Sometimes I wish I could run away for a bit and have a little time to myself to get over it. But just when I think I’m on my own, bam! There’s a telephoto lens sticking out the bushes. I can see the headlines already: “Kat’s Secret Anguish Over Split.”’
Ellie felt her own eyes grow wet. Mark was right. Kat was a great girl, and she lived a difficult life for a seventeen-year-old. When she spoke, there was a croaky edge to her voice.
‘My husband used give me a piece of advice that I’m going to pass on to you—’
Kat jumped round to face her, eyes stretching wide open.
‘You’re married!’
‘I was married. I’m not now,’ Ellie said quickly. ‘Long story. Anyway, Sam used to tell me that life should never feel small. I’m a bit of a tortoise by nature, I’m afraid, much happier if I’m all tucked in inside my shell, where I’m safe and warm. But I’m starting to remember that safe and warm can be incredibly dull and lonely. Sometimes we’ve just got to have the courage to step out and live, no matter what happens.’ She turned to look Kat in the eye. ‘I can see that kind of strength in you. You will get through this.’
They hugged as far as the seat belts would allow, then Kat shifted in her seat and stared out the window.
‘What happened to…to your…? Did you get a divorce?’
Ellie tried to eliminate any trace of emotion in her voice. ‘No. He died.’
Kat’s head snapped round. An involuntary hand covered her mouth, trying to catch the words that had already escaped.
‘And here’s me snivelling about a man who doesn’t deserve my tears…’
Ellie’s smile was braver than she felt. ‘It’s okay.’
‘When did it…? I mean, how did he…?’
‘He and my daughter were killed in a car accident a few years ago.’ Ellie glanced down at the date function on her watch. ‘In fact, it will be exactly four years in a week’s time.’
A tear ran down Kat’s face. ‘Oh, Ellie!’
‘Don’t you start!’ She pressed the heels of her hands into her own soggy eyes. ‘Now you’ve got me going.’
A small noise from the front seat made them both look up. Did she really see Rufus dab a finger under his eye?
‘Does Mark know?’
Ellie nodded. ‘About my family? Yes.’
‘No, I mean about next Friday.’
Ellie shook her head as the car pulled up under the canopied front awning of their hotel. Rufus got out of the car, leaving it to the valet, and headed round to open Kat’s door for her.
Kat continued, despite Ellie’s shaking head. ‘You should tell him—you ought to, Ellie. He’s really sweet and supportive. You know, he even postponed an important business trip to come to an awards thing a couple of months ago. I was petrified—more of winning than of sinking into the background—and Mark cancelled everything to be there for me. You could do with a friend like that right now.’
Ellie had no chance to respond as Rufus opened the door and bundled Kat through the hotel lobby before anyone could mob her. Ellie followed in their wake, taking advantage of the invisible path before it was filled by holidaymakers and bellboys with trolleys. They walked out into the hotel gardens and Kat headed for her cool white cabin with its low tiled roof and wraparound veranda. Ellie stood alone on the terrace steps and watched their progress. Just before the mismatched pair disappeared behind a clump of bushes lining the path, Ellie saw Kat mouth a message to her: Tell him!
Tell him? Tell him what, exactly? There was so much to choose from.
Tell him it was the first time the dreaded anniversary hadn’t filled her with panic? That something had made it different this year, and that he was the something? There was too much to say, and most of it needed to be left unsaid.
She weaved her way back through the bustling lobby, confident in the knowledge that no paparazzi were going to be somersaulting from the light fittings in order to snap her picture, thank goodness.
The yellow umbrellas by the pool were calling to her. Time to get intimately acquainted with an outlandish cocktail with pineapple bits and paper parasols. She marched up to the poolside bar and ordered one that came in a glass the size of a small goldfish bowl.
The thick icy liquid struggled its way up the straw and she aimlessly watched the tanned bodies diving into the pool.
Kat was right. Mark was sweet and loyal and dependable—absolutely nothing like her first impressions of him. She’d been so blinkered. But now…Now she could see it all.
It reminded her of the visual neglect she’d experienced for a couple of months following the accident. For a while she’d only been aware of half the things in her field of vision. The weird thing was she hadn’t even realised anything was wrong. But she’d found reading confusing, because when she’d read a magazine she’d only seen half of each sentence on the page. And she’d only washed one side of her face. When the nurses had realised they’d developed strategies to help, and gradually, as her brain had started to heal itself, she’d been able to process information from both sides of her visual field again.
Why and how had she chosen to see only half of Mark? And only negative things too? Ellie put her glass down on the bar. She’d made up her mind about him, set its trajectory, before she’d even met him. Her thought patterns had got stuck in one of their grooves yet again.
But now she saw all of him…
Oh.
And she saw all of herself too—all the things she felt for him.
A jumble of images, sensations and smells hit her all at once. As
