A Class Apart Read online

  “You haven’t drunk your brandy.”

  “Ashley . . .”

  They spoke at the same time.

  He came to sit beside her and tried to take her hand, but she reached out for the coffee and began to pour.

  “Black or white?” she said.

  “Black, please.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  She handed him a cup, and turned back to pick up a brandy. Julian caught her hand and, turning her to face him, put his coffee back on the table. She tried to turn away.

  “Ashley, please, listen to me.”

  “Don’t you want your coffee?”

  “Ash, darling, please. Look at me.”

  She bowed her head. “I can’t.”

  He pulled her into his arms. “Darling. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. What can I say?” He felt her stiffen. “I thought you knew. I thought you had always accepted that one day it would be . . .” he stopped.

  “Over? Is that what you were going to say?” There was no trace of bitterness in her voice, only sadness. “Of course I did.” She was struggling to hold back the tears. “And, Julian, I’m sorry for what I said, I take it all back. Please, forget it.”

  “I never meant to hurt you, Ash.”

  “I know you didn’t.”

  Suddenly she could feel the panic beginning to bite. It had come from nowhere, shouting to her, telling her that this was the end. They had had their last dinner. Never again would she see him smile into her eyes in that way that had seemed to tell her he loved her. No more days together, no more nights, no more laughter. It was over. She had lost him, but then, in truth, had she ever really had him? She felt his hand stroking her hair, and for one terrifying moment she thought she was going to beg him to stay.

  “I’ve been a fool,” she said. “It’s my fault. You never made any promises, you never said you would leave Blanche. But in my naivete I wanted to believe that you would.”

  “No, it’s my fault. I should never have let things get this far.”

  “No, please don’t say that. It means you regret that it ever happened.”

  “To see you so hurt, I do regret it.”

  She sat up straight, still not looking at him, and tried to laugh. “Oh, but I’ll survive,” she said, hoping by her words to give herself strength.

  “Of course you will,” he said. “Soon you will meet someone. Someone who is . . . well, right for you.”

  A flash of anger sparked in her eyes. “Someone Jewish, is that what you mean?”

  “No, that’s not what I meant. I’m sorry.” He wanted to tell her how much it hurt him to think of her with another man, any man.

  She turned away from him, trying to dose herself from his presence. Julian knew that by staying he was only prolonging the pain, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave. The moment he walked through that door it would be the end, he could never come back.

  His hand was resting on her back, and he felt her shoulders begin to shake. She was crying. Pulling her round into his arms, he tried to hold back his own tears. God knows, he had never felt like this before. It was as if his insides were being crushed. He held her for a long time, and she cried into his shoulder, trying to pour out the pain of losing him. He stroked her hair, and kissed the top of her head, cursing the fate that had led them to this.

  Finally she looked up, and this time she looked into his face. He looked back at her, tear-stained and dishevelled, and knew that he had never loved her more.

  “Kiss me, Julian,” she whispered.

  As he covered her mouth with his, feeling her lips begin to tremble, he knew that it would be the easiest thing in the world to throw everything to the wind and tell her how he felt. To forget the rest of his life, and stay with her. But his plans had been made, and he must see them through.

  “Will you make love to me, Julian?” she breathed. “Just one last time.” He looked at her, feeling the need for her rising. But seeing her face so filled with distress, he knew it would be the wrong thing to do. He shook his head, and she fell away from him, sobbing.

  “You know it wouldn’t be right,” he said, taking her hand. “It will only make it worse when I go.”

  Hearing those words, Ashley wanted to die.

  She stood up, straightening her dress and flicking her hair. He heard her swallow before she spoke. “Would you like me to resign now, or would you like it in writing on Monday?”

  He sighed and shook his head.

  “I can’t continue working for you, Julian. You must see that. I feel so humiliated. God, I’ve made such a fool of myself.”

  “Don’t! Don’t say that. I don’t want you to leave.”

  She ran her fingers nervously through her hair. “I just don’t know what to do.”

  “Would it help if you took some time off? Came back again after Christmas?” He saw her flinch as he said the word and looked away.

  “Maybe,” she said.

  “At least that way we won’t have to keep bumping into one another for a while.”

  “No.”

  He knew he was being selfish suggesting it, but perhaps it would be for the best. It would be painful for him too, to keep seeing her and wondering what she was doing, how she was coping.

  “Right now I feel as though I never want to see you again,” she said. “It might be easier that way.”

  “Why don’t you decide in the New Year?”

  She nodded and gave him a weak smile. His heart turned over. Perhaps now he should go. Before he gave in.

  “Promise me one thing, Julian,” she said.

  “If I can.”

  “Never call me. Never write me a letter. Never ask me how I am.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Please, Julian, promise me. Promise me that you will never again try to get in touch with me out of the office. That you will never speak to me again, about us.”

  “But . . .”

  “Please. If you make me this promise then I will know that it is over. That I can never hope. Then I will never sit beside the phone praying that you will call. Never go into the office praying that today you will say something. For me, Julian, please promise.”

  He rubbed his thumb and forefinger against his eyes, loving her for trying to be so brave. “OK, I promise,” he said finally.

  He looked at his watch. She saw him look, and turned away as he stood up.

  In silence they walked to the door.

  “Take care of yourself,” he said, stroking her hair from her face.

  She nodded but couldn’t look at him. “Yes, you too.”

  When he’d gone she fell back against the wall, fighting against the pain and the panic. She looked around. The place seemed so empty.

  Slowly she walked back to the drawing room. The Christmas tree winked at her from the corner, and she walked over to switch off the lights. As she turned away her foot knocked against something. She looked down to see the parcel that he had tried to open earlier when he had arrived. She picked it up and looked at it. What would she do with them all now? But this was only the first hurdle. How was she to face Christmas without him when she had made such plans? And the New Year? How was she going to face life at all now? Did she even want to? The whole world seemed to be closing in upon her, and she knew what was to come. Having to deal with the rejection, the pain, the loneliness. It had happened before when her marriage ended. She had survived. But not this time. She didn’t want to have to go through it all again. The way her thoughts would torture her whenever she thought of him with Blanche. The emptiness at the end of each day, with nowhere to go, no one to see. The yearning of her body in the night when she ached for him to hold her close. She knew what was in store, and she knew she couldn’t face it.

  Walking towards the bathroom, it was as though life had slipped from focus, and the pain that had earlier bitten into her heart with savage teeth now came in slow, relentless waves. She kept seeing his face, serious yet smiling down at her. The love that she thought she saw burnin
g in his eyes. And as if it was a long time ago, she remembered saying the words: “I love you, Julian, I love you.” And she remembered, too, how he had said nothing.

  The aspirins were in her hand. She looked down at them, surprised. There must have been twenty or thirty, small and white, resting innocently on her palm. She pushed them around with her finger, dropping some on the floor.

  She took a glass from the shelf and let the water run until it was spilling over. Looking up to the mirror she hardly recognised the person who stared back, and with wide, frightened eyes she watched her reflection as she placed two pills on the end of her tongue. They slipped down so easily, carried away by the cold, refreshing water. She lowered her eyes and looked at the others, still in her hand.

  Suddenly an ambulance siren blasted into the night. It was followed by another, and then another. She waited for the noise to die, then looked back to the mirror.

  Her shoulders began to shudder as the sobs tore through her body. She threw her hand violently against the wall and scattered the pills across the floor. “Julian! Oh Julian!” She clutched the sink and fell to her knees. What was she thinking? Was she so weak that she would think of ending her life? He would ring. He would break his promise and ring her. It wasn’t over. It couldn’t be. He cared too much for her just to walk away and leave her like that. “He will ring,” she cried aloud. “Oh God, please, he’s got to ring.”

  THREE

  Trying to get interviews around another film shoot was always difficult, but even more so when it was raining. Jenneen’s crew had already been irritable when they’d arrived late grumbling that the directions to the location had not been good enough, so it was almost no time at all before they had begun to lose patience with the director, who on the best of days seemed incapable of making a decision, but today . . .! Well, Jenneen should have been warned when he rang her at seven thirty that morning to ask her what he should wear. Freezing rain and a force nine wind around the wharf, and the man didn’t know what to wear!

  “Try Bermudas and a bowler,” she had snapped, and hung up.

  Still, the pop star she had gone to interview had been a nice enough guy. Waiting around the sets of pop videos could be eternally dull business, but he had seemed to keep his cool. Which was more than she could say for that pompous bitch of an agent of his. Jenneen had made a mental note to cut her out of the film altogether, with the exception of the “up the nose” shot she had had no difficulty in persuading the cameraman to do. With that sourpuss edited out Jenneen felt sure it would be a good film. And that was what Jenneen Grey was about – making good films.

  When she had first come to London at the raw age of twenty-two, and had thought herself so very grown-up and sophisticated, it had come as a brutal shock to hear her Northern accent being so mercilessly mimicked by the grand researchers and reporters she had worked with then. She had been unable to laugh along with them, knowing that despite their laughter, their cruelty and snobbery was real. In the end, deciding that if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, she had invested part of her then meagre salary in elocution lessons. She had been a good student, and within a year had virtually discarded the broad Yorkshire tones. Only when she was angry did she sometimes slip back into them. But not often.

  She laughed to herself now, to think of how eager she had been to please everyone in those days. It had seemed so important then. But things looked very different now, standing where she was, so near to the top of the tree. Bill Pruitt, the editor of the afternoon show she presented each week, was determined that she was going to make it to the very top. It was almost nine years ago when he had first asked her what it was that she really wanted.

  “The truth?” she had said.

  “Mmm,” he nodded. “The truth.”

  “Promise you won’t laugh?”

  He had smiled. “I promise.”

  “I want to be famous,” she announced, quite calmly, but her eyes were burning.

  “Famous?”

  “Yes. Famous. But not only famous. I want to have earned my fame for the good, entertaining and necessary programmes that I make,” and she had blushed at how trite he must have thought she’d sounded.

  And now, all these years on, she was almost there.

  Bill had warned her about keeping a squeaky clean reputation, telling her that it would be for her own good, as well as the good of the TV station. But that was something she had not handled quite so well. Not that anyone knew about her private life; at least, not yet, but she didn’t know how much longer she would be able to keep it out of the press.

  Wearily she pushed her feet into her slippers, and went into the kitchen to collect the cocoa she had made. She looked at her watch then picked up the telephone and dialled Ashley’s number. No answer.

  Jenneen wondered if she should go round there. But Ashley had said something about working late so there was probably nothing to worry about, Ashley would be at the office, burying her pain in paperwork.

  Jenneen, Kate and Ellamarie had spent the whole of the previous day with Ashley, trying to make some sense of what had happened. They had all quite genuinely believed that Julian was as crazy about Ashley as she was about him, and now they each blamed themselves for having got it so wrong. Ashley had spent most of the day in a daze, and Jenneen had known that it had been as much from lack of sleep as from losing the man she loved. The most bitter blow of all was that it had happened now – only two weeks before Christmas.

  Jenneen leaned back in her chair and, curling her feet under her, let her filming notes fall to the floor as she began to think about Christmas. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this year, just for once, she could meet someone she really liked. A man who was just waiting to meet a woman like her. Petite, blonde, very feminine, so her friends told her, and with a quick tongue that never ceased to surprise even those who knew her. It was laughable at times, to see people’s eyes widen in disbelief when they had tried to manipulate her into doing something she disagreed with. Her mild and affable face belied the sharp brain behind, and the quick response of her tongue could send people reeling. But Mr Right, well, he would love her for her complexity. He would make her feel secure, protected from all those vicious tongues at the studios. He would make her feel loved. Funny though, but try as she might, she just couldn’t imagine it – or him either, come to that.

  A car door slammed outside, breaking her reverie. Dismissing her romanticism she retrieved her notes from the floor. As she began to read she heard footsteps crunching up the steps outside. Automatically she tensed. “Please God, don’t let it be my bell that rings,” she breathed.

  But she already knew. It was almost as if she could smell him.

  The bell rang. “Go away,” she hissed, “please God, please, make him go away.”

  Slowly she got to her feet and walked over to the window. Pulling back the curtains an inch she peered down into the street below. Sure enough, there was the beaten old Audi parked right outside, and oh God, there he was, looking straight up at her. What a fool she had been to look out.

  The bell rang again, more insistently this time.

  Without speaking on the intercom she pressed the buzzer to release the door downstairs. Pulling open her own front door, she went back into the sitting room to wait.

  She could hear his footsteps, taking the stairs two at a time. God, anyone would think he was eager to see her. The bastard! She hated him with such venom that at times it frightened her. She wished she knew what she had to do to get him out of her life, but short of murder, what else was there?

  She heard the door close, and could feel the cold air he had brought in with him.

  “Hello, Jenneen,” he grinned, taking off his coat and going to help himself to a drink. “Ready for bed?” he said, looking at her dressing gown.

  She didn’t answer. She had nothing to say to him.

  “Oh, I see,” he said, “bad day was it?”

  Her eyes were fixed on the chair opposite so he sat in it. She turned
away.

  “Oh come on now, Jenn, you’re going to have me thinking you aren’t pleased to see me.”

  She looked at him, taking in his short, cropped hair that used to be fair but was now a manky mousy colour, and the bloodshot grey eyes that darted about the room before they came to rest on her again. She shuddered as he slurped on the Scotch he had poured himself, then turned to pour himself a refill.

  “Just say what you want and get out!” she snapped.

  “Now, that is no way to treat an old friend, is it?” He took another large mouthful of whisky and gasped as it burned his throat. “Good whisky, Jenn.”

  “It’s cheap, especially for you,” she answered.

  “Dear oh dear, Jenn, now is that a way to speak to a friend who visits you so often, who cares about you like I do? A friend who so closely guards your little secret?”

  No preamble, just straight in for the kill. She stared into the fire.

  “Look, I’d be a little happier, Jenneen, if you’d be a touch more hospitable to me. After all, I am doing you a favour, you know, by telling no one.”

  “No one would believe you, you scum!”

  “Ah, but you don’t know that for sure, do you?”

  “Get out of here. Go on, just get out of here. Get out of my life!”

  He ignored her and began to play with the remote control of the TV set. After flicking through the channels he decided there was nothing he wanted to watch, so put it down again.

  “I’m hungry, got anything in?”

  “No.”

  “You must have something. And I know you wouldn’t like to see me go hungry.”

  Her lip began to curl. “You filthy, rotten bastard. You come here to blackmail me, and you have the fucking cheek to expect me to feed you.”

  A dangerous glint flashed in his eyes. “Calm down, Jenneen. You don’t want to make me angry, now do you?”

  “What the hell have you got to be angry about! You’ve got a damn nerve coming in here, taking my drink, demanding food, upsetting my life . . .”