Chapter 20
Noah
Jackson has upgraded my return flight, so I’m in business class with the James family.
It’s a generous move, but it adds to the pain I’ve had to endure for the past forty-eight hours.
Thankfully, in a few hours I’ll be home in Westbourne Grove without feeling like a third wheel in Jackson and Honor’s marriage.
I considered changing my flight back, but that feels excessively cowardly. So here I am with Di, sitting right behind Jackson and Honor at the front of BA’s spanking new cabin. I feel uncomfortably like part of their entourage. Excellent.
We managed to find a rhythm for the rest of the holiday that assuaged Honor’s worry on my behalf and her bizarre, but real, fear that her family entanglements had put me off her.
Even so, the past couple of days have been a combination of my working hard to give Honor space while making a genuine effort with Jackson (surprisingly easy, given the guy has bucket loads of charm and hilarious anecdotes and is pretty fucking impressive when he’s not cheating on his wife) and seizing the occasional opportune moment to show Honor I’m still wild about her.
There have been fleeting, hot-as-hell kisses in the butler’s pantry at breakfast. Surreptitious gropes and brushes of limbs in the pool. Innuendos and light flirtations and even a moment in the cabana when we ‘coincided’ by the showers, the mere memory of which makes my trousers tighten.
The flight itself is fine. I’m directly behind Honor, by the window, and if I squeeze my hand between her seat back and the wall of the cabin, I can graze the soft, bare skin of her arm without Jackson seeing anything at all.
She covers my fingers with hers, and I close my eyes and lay my forehead against the back of her seat.
God only knows what toxic fucking entanglement I’ve got myself into.
Di’s eyes are mainly trained on the aisle.
Once or twice she intercepts random members of the public from further down the plane who try to get surreptitious phone shots of Honor and Jackson, and even the kids, on their way back from the front loos.
How they handle this bullshit constantly, I do not know.
As we stand to retrieve our overhead baggage, Honor dons oversized sunglasses and her enormous hat. I’m not sure how that thing fit in the overhead compartment. Jackson pulls his baseball cap further down over his eyes and makes sure the kids are wearing theirs, too.
‘You may want to keep your distance from us when we get through customs,’ he tells me. ‘Or stick a cap on, if you’ve got one. The paps are expecting us.’
I know this already. Honor briefed me yesterday evening.
Apparently, their publicist thinks their arrival back in the UK en famille is a golden opportunity to present a united front.
It seems to me the James family’s publicist is hedging her bets.
Keep speculation about Jackson and his co-star alive in the papers, but throw the press a few money shots of him and his family looking sun-kissed and relaxed on the way home from an idyllic holiday.
If only they knew the truth: that Honor, the long-suffering wife in the eyes of the world, has finally started enjoying herself and sampling some physical delights outside of her marriage.
Thinking of it sends a warm glow through me.
It’s something I’ve been able to give her: a secret she gets to hold on to all by herself.
The press is oblivious. And I hope it goes a tiny way towards insulating her from all the bullshit the tabloids throw at her.
‘Got it.’ I nod and exchange a brief look with Honor. Her smile is tight, the apology it holds clear.
‘Will it really be that much of a circus?’ I ask Di.
‘Wait and see.’ She smacks her gum. ‘It’ll be a fucking shit show. But that’s what Jackson wanted. This time.’
Di’s been acting as a buffer between them and the public the whole time they’ve been travelling.
It’s clear why they normally fly private.
The French have largely left them alone (I suspect the French know exactly who they are but are way too cool to publicly crush on anyone) but numerous British holidaymakers approached them with excited faces and phones at Nice Airport.
We thank the cabin crew, all of whom are still bright-eyed and giggling from their interactions with Jackson and Honor. I can empathise. They’re not the only ones who are star struck.
Baggage collection is eye-opening. The James-Chapman family doesn’t travel light. Jackson, Di and Jackson’s bodyguard pile trolleys with case after case of sleek, cappuccino-coloured Louis Vuitton luggage that’s far too precious to have entrusted to the Heathrow baggage system.
‘We should probably say our goodbyes here.’ Honor glances towards the frosted doors standing between us and whatever circus awaits us. ‘That way, you can make yourself scarce.’
‘Yeah, mate. Run for the hills, that’s what I say.
You don’t want any of this bullshit.’ Jackson bro-hugs me, and as I feebly bang his enormous back with my fist, I can’t help but feel the irony of his choice of words.
It’s utterly unconscious, and probably excellent, advice.
I should run for the bloody hills. Unfortunately, Honor’s cast a spell on me and I’m no more capable of running, or even walking, away from her than I am of choosing not to breathe.
‘Of course. Good idea. I’ll hang back here.’
I lean over and duck beneath the brim of Honor’s hat to kiss her on both cheeks. Quick. Casual. No reaction to the musky, floral scent of her perfume—the scent that’s lingered on my own skin over the past few days.
‘I’ll see you soon. At the hospice.’ I nod and take a step back.
‘I’ll be there tomorrow. I’m keen to see Mum.’ Her voice is artificially bright and she darts her head around, but Jackson’s larking around with Rollo and Di’s scanning the room.
‘Of course. See you then, perhaps. Good luck out there.’ I jerk my head towards the doors.
‘Thanks.’ She throws me a weak smile and pulls the brim of her huge hat further over her face before grabbing Rollo and Serena by the hand.
She’s reapplied her scarlet lipstick on the flight, and her floaty white sundress is pristine.
She’s a knockout. A creature from another world.
And in this moment, as she prepares to face paparazzi mayhem with her beyond-famous husband standing next to her, I feel as far away from her as I could possibly be.
That feeling intensifies as their little entourage heads for the doors, and as they walk through them, camera flashes and shouts assault them. It’s feeding time at the fucking zoo, and they’re the prey. I keep a safe distance and walk out behind them.
The press is a solid, writhing bank, and the noise is deafening.
Jackson! Over ‘ere, mate!
Where’s your girlfriend, eh? Where’s Leila? She on holiday too?
You ‘ave a nice trip, Honor? Where you been, then? Family holiday, was it? France? Nice.
Like your dress. Nice ‘at, Honor.
Jackson, you playing the family man this week?
Honor, what d’you make of the rumours of your husband and Leila?
Jackson’s bodyguard leads the way, and Di brings up the rear. They should use those trolleys as battering rams. They could do some serious damage with that many cases. Honor holds her children by the hand, her head dipped. Hopefully, the brim of her hat is affording her some privacy.
I can’t believe these cretins are yelling this kind of stuff at them in front of their children.
How anyone can actively seek out this level of fame and media intrusion is beyond me.
How Honor can tolerate this in the name of building her family’s brand is a fucking mystery.
Not tolerate: cultivate. It’s beyond comprehension.
The paps peel away from the Arrivals doors to pursue their targets and I duck gratefully away towards the anonymity of the lifts to the Underground.