Chapter 15
Peter
Iagreed, perhaps that hadn’t been the wisest of moves, but at the time? I hadn’t really thought of it like that, still stuck in panic mode with thoughts swirling erratically around in my head.
Some weird illusion of trying to protect Oliver from the lunatic I clearly was. Trying to protect my boys from the embarrassment of seeing their father lose his senses on national television.
Or web TV or whatever they were calling that…spectacle they were producing.
I’d spent time on big film sets. I’d sat in trailers for hours on end, waiting for my wife to get back from a shoot. I’d seen the back end of every theatre in the West End, and some on Broadway too. This hadn’t been my first rodeo in the world of entertainment, but…
I shook my head in unease, standing at my kitchen table in my threadbare pyjamas.
I’d only been back home for less than twenty-four hours, and I was still stuck in that constant surge of panic. I had no idea what time it was or who I was or what on earth I was supposed to be doing.
Feeling. Saying. Living. How was I supposed to do this?
The boys had obviously been here at the weekend, trashing the place with the mindset of coming back at some point to clear their messes.
Or not? There were plates caked in mould on the table.
Glasses on the floor in the living room.
A half-eaten takeaway gracing the shelf in the fridge, and…
the smell was not good. I needed to take the bins out, but I didn’t want to risk running into Mrs Patel next door and then have to explain myself.
Mrs Patel didn’t forget anything and was supposed to water my houseplants. Keep an eye on things.
Obviously not tidy up after Cal and Ed.
I shook my head again and let my body shudder in unease.
My boys. I was desperate to ring them, but? My phone was still locked away somewhere in a studio complex in East London, and I was here wearing nothing but pyjamas.
I’d showered at some point yesterday.
Slept. Tossed and turned. Agonised over things I had no control over.
I’d walked out. Just like that.
Simply and effectively gathered my belongings, throwing them in my holdall. Got rid of that suit that wasn’t mine and walked out wearing the tracksuit I’d arrived in. I hadn’t even said goodbye, just stomped out the door, and demanded the studio person call me a taxi.
They had. And I’d left.
Then…nothing. Because what was there to say? I refused to open the laptop that was sitting on my desk. Refused.
Mostly because of fear. Of having to handle all this. Fear was a powerful thing, and it was currently overwhelming every part of me. Even the sensible, rational part.
“Oh, Mary,” I panted out. “Fucking hell, Mary.”
I rarely cursed, preferring to stick to a calm manner. I had no idea where Peter Felton had gone because the guy standing here? No idea who I was supposed to be.
The words were spilling out into the silence, sharp syllables against the dusty surface I was leaning on. Random crumbs on the table, moving gently with every heavy breath I let escape.
“It was not for me. I need to remember that. I walked away because this was not for me.”
Who was I kidding? It was actually the truth. I hadn’t fallen in love. Not been swept off my feet. I’d been the neutral point in the middle. Needle in the white. No opinion, no sway.
So why was I feeling so incredibly guilty? I’d made no promises, nor had I broken any.
And there was the small niggling fact that I missed him. How insanely stupid was I?
“Mary, I have nothing to say for myself.” I spoke to the empty room. “Nothing. I probably treated him badly by doing this, but…”
But what, Peter?
Nothing, I whispered in my head. Nothing at all.
So instead I busied myself cleaning. Starting by the front door, meticulously working through the ground floor. Hoover. Mop. Dust. Tidy away. A bin-liner waiting by the front door. The minute I opened that dustbin lid outside? I would have given myself away.
I wasn’t supposed to be here. So why was I hiding?
For the first time today, I laughed at myself. Really laughed. I’d once been…
Work. I needed to get back to work, the sooner the better, so I could get my life back under control. And anyway, they would probably completely cut me out of the finished show because I’d been there like…three weeks? Four? Not much usable footage, and with me gone?
They would have someone else brought in for Oliver. Someone kind and handsome, his age, who would charm him and love him and give him…
I had no idea why I was even thinking that, standing in the bathroom with a rag in my hand, trying to wipe toothpaste splatter off the mirror.
The mirror where I couldn’t even meet my own gaze. The reflection mocking me as a swift rap on the front door shook me out of my destructive spiralling thoughts.
Fear. There were a lot of things I didn’t want to deal with right now, and before I’d even got to the front door, I was met by the sound of a key in the lock and the familiar shove of the wood to get inside.
And here was Mrs Patel. Armed with a wooden spoon.
“Oh good,” she said calmly, lowering her makeshift weapon. “I was going to smack whoever was making a racket with the hoover in here.”
“I doubt a thief would have been cleaning,” I replied flatly.
“You never know these days. Young people and their ideas.” She snorted. “Like your boys would learn to clean up. I did ring Edward and threatened him, for leaving the house in a state like this.”
“Did you now?” I smiled.
Mrs Patel. Had been Mary’s best friend for all the years we’d lived here, and still I always called her just that.
“What have you done now?” she continued, crossing the room with determination in her step. “I will bring your dinner later, but why are you here? Are you on some kind of break? Is the filming going well?”
Not a moment to breathe, then. Not even a hot drink and a calming bit of chatter.
“You will make me a cup of tea,” she demanded. Nothing new there. “I will sit here patiently.”
“Mrs Patel,” I said…calmly. Calm. Oliver had said that a lot. I rolled my eyes. What had I become? A sentimental old fool, that was what I had become. “Mrs Patel, this programme…”
“I have watched both episodes.”
“Both what?”
“The first two episodes.” She waved her hand impatiently towards the kettle. “And I have questions.”
“I have signed NDAs,” I said sternly.
“Bah.” She shifted impatiently in her seat. “When has an NDA ever stopped anyone? I knew about Omar Thakur and Eleanor Havenshall before anyone else. I knew about Michaela Fairbrooks. I knew everything. Did I ever get anyone into trouble, Mr Fenton?”
“No,” I admitted. She wasn’t lying. She’d been a solid friend to my late wife. And to me.
“What was it that Mary and I always said? A bit of gossip is good for the soul. And a problem shared is a problem half solved.”
“She didn’t say that.” I had to laugh. Gosh. It felt good to laugh.
“So…” Another nod. Towards the darn kettle. “This tea isn’t making itself.”
“Kenya or Ceylon,” I questioned. Safe. Safe ground.
“Peter,” she whined.
Yes. Yes, okay.
Tea made, I took my seat opposite her, letting her gently stir the sugar into her cup. One cube at a time. The way she’d always done it. A small ritual that cut a deep slash in my chest.
This had been the way. And now it was just me sitting here, with…
“I miss her too,” she said, Mrs Patel.
“Amara, it’s…”
“Oh shush.” She smiled and carefully lifted her cup to her lips. “She’s always here, and always looking out for you. She promised she would.”
Words that should bring comfort, and usually did. Today? I didn’t know why. They made me embarrassed.
“Doesn’t mean you don’t move on, Peter,” she said in her soft, lilted accent. “Because it is allowed.”
“It’s not…” I sighed, as she tutted gently.
“I was going to ask.” She lowered the cup. Folded her hands gently around it. Familiar gestures, ones I’d seen so many times before. Yet this time it felt wrong. Like I shouldn’t be here, and I didn’t want to and why was I not just…
“Gerald. He really was in love with Anne, and he just let her go. What a big mistake.”
“Did he?” I blinked nervously. “Gerald? You mean Jorge?”
“Two episodes in, and he just let her go.”
“Mrs Patel,” I said sternly. “You know this. Shows like this, it’s all scripted.”
“It’s very well done. Realistic. I felt so bad for him when she rejected him like that. Just left their room and went to sleep on the sofa.”
“That’s not what happened…” I stopped. “She what?”
“Then Chloe-Catherine tried it on with that Wren woman right in front of poor Ben. He was so hurt when she rejected him. Such a nice boy.”
I spat something out, then tried to swallow down my half-arsed guttural attempts at words. “There’s been two episodes out?”
“Two. The third one is rumoured to drop tonight if you believe the RealityUK account. That GossipSpeaks account is good too; she seems to know her stuff. Rose-and-Thorn is my favourite. Full of advance snippets and behind-the-scenes stuff. The first eviction is tonight. I assume there will be some hearts broken when people are sent home.”
“I wasn’t sent home.”
Here I was, defending myself from…what exactly?
“I wasn’t sent home,” I repeated sternly.
“I left. I walked out, Amara, because that…” My arm now in the air, waving aggressively.
“That bloody idiotic production couldn’t have put two more mismatched people together if they’d tried.
Did they get some three-year-olds to just pick cards off a table or what?
It’s all scripted. It’s not real. Nothing in there is real. ”
“That’s TV for you. But you knew that going in, didn’t you?” She spoke softly. Calm to my now ragged breaths.
“Yes. No. Well…”
“You knew. Because this is how these things work. And still?”
“Still…what?”
“Oh, Peter.” She smiled, patting my hand. “Now. Gerald. Tell me. When he proposed that he and Diane could perhaps become a thing, and Diane rejected him. Anne was right there in the room, wasn’t she? It was genius, really. Those reactions were priceless.”
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
What the hell?
“And…Thom. He’s my favourite. Very charming young man, but he’s been playing games from the start. Then Priti. Bless that child, so naive about everything.”
“Priti…” I started, then stopped. No. What? “Look. I don’t know. I have no idea, and I really…I really don’t want to talk about this. Not right now. Is that okay?”
“Of course,” she said gently, once again lifting her cup. A quiet sip. “I just want to let you know that you can. That I’m here. And that your grass needs cutting.”
The grass?
“The grass,” she repeated. “It’s too long. We need to keep up appearances around here. Mr Patel popped over the fence and picked off the worst of the weeds at the weekend, but your camellia bush needs trimming for winter. We don’t want a repeat performance from last year.”
“I’m sorry about the fence.”
Surreal. But then again. Normal.
“We got it repaired. No worries.”
I nodded, wishing for her to just…leave. Leave me to sit here and stew in this whole…mess I’d created.
“When are you going back?”
“To work? Not sure. Soon.”
“No, to him?”
“Who?”
“Filming? Studio?” She waved her finger around in obvious irritation.
“I left. I told you.”
“Bad move.”
“No, Amara. Good move. For my sanity.”
She laughed. Tapped her teaspoon against her cup.
“Sanity is underrated. Smiles are good. I saw some good smiles.”
“None of them were mine, I can assure you.”
“I don’t believe that.” She scrunched up her nose. “And remember, Peter. I have known you for a very long time.”
“I know,” I said sternly. “And on that note? End of today’s gossip.”
“I see.” She stood herself up, elegantly swishing her long scarf back into place. The soft movement of fabric against the obvious scowl on her face. I knew her. As she knew me.
“Dinner is in the oven. I’ll pass you a plate over the fence at six sharp. Unless you prefer to come eat at the table like civilised people.”
“Fence is fine,” I said flatly.
“Return the plate.”
“I always do.”
She slowly walked over to the front door. Opened it and turned around in the doorway, once again pinning me down with her stare.
Expecting me to talk when I had no words left to say. I never did. Because they’d all left me five years ago when my life had changed forever.
“And Peter?”
“Yes?”
“Life changes. We just have to learn to change with it.”
Lies. All lies.