Chapter 19 #2
‘Feisty,’ he whispers.
Our table is one of three closest to the stage in the room that must seat at least a thousand people.
The colours from the reception shine in even brighter swags and swaths throughout the room.
The walls have been draped in black curtains and the cheerful shades burst like shooting stars, lights twinkling against the darkness.
As Gregory guides me to our table to the continuing sound of Violet, the pianist, playing through large speakers, I can’t help thinking back to the children’s ward of the hospital.
It was the day after Gregory and I had first made love.
Sandy and I visited my dad whilst Gregory went to Paediatrics.
Once we’d said goodbye to my dad for the day, we went in search of Gregory, finding a man dressed in a giant lion head and a ward full of giggling children.
One of the first moments I knew I was unequivocally in love with him.
The children loved him, too. He was incredible with them.
There wasn’t a nurse without a smile as he broke the mould of white-collar CEO.
The room is exactly how those children were that day.
Sick, some of them dying, the truest darkness of the world.
Yet their smiles really were like shining stars, just like the lights glimmering around the room.
We take our seats at a table for which Gregory has paid.
We’re joined by Lara and Lawrence, Norah and Thomas, Stella and Jean-Pierre, Lawrence’s niece Emily and her fiancé Harry, and Gordon and Vivienne, a couple I remember from the fateful night of Lara’s bonfire party.
A night I push quickly from the forefront of my mind.
Once the lights are dimmed, Norah makes her way to the stage to welcome the guests.
She speaks about the purpose of the night before inviting up to the stage the chairs of Early Birds, Transformed and Brainy Children.
They give frankly shocking and astoundingly moving speeches about their respective charities and give the guests details of a silent auction and various other fundraising things happening throughout the evening.
Norah returns to the microphone with a beaming smile.
‘Well, I would like to tell you all a little bit about the fabulous charity, Dreams. But, tonight, we have a very special guest of honour. She is a shooting star. A burning light we should all take inspiration from. Her mum tells me this little girl demanded to stay up beyond her bedtime tonight to come here and tell us how amazing she thinks Dreams is and what the charity has done for her. This brave girl has fought two bouts of leukaemia in her short five years and is currently nearing the end of her third round of treatment. The doctors say she’s doing very, very well.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage tonight, the star of the evening, Isabella Willows. ’
It’s the little girl from the hospital. Isabella, Gregory’s ‘girlfriend’, who’d informed me that it was okay for Gregory to have two girlfriends.
Her mum helps her navigate the four steps to the stage, pausing on each to take a breath.
With each step, I will her frail, tiny legs to win, the lump in my throat and constriction in my chest building with every anxious second.
The piano music changes to ‘Part of Your World’ from The Little Mermaid and the whole scene has my eyes full for the second time tonight.
In the middle of the stage, Isabella pauses, gathering her breath.
She waves to a table and a man who I guess is her dad.
He in turn blows her a kiss. Then she looks around the room; those big, bright eyes that melted my heart the first time I saw her are shining, distracting from the dark circles beneath and her hairless head, which is decorated with a white hairband with one big daisy.
When I think I can take no more, she turns to our table and shouts above the piano, ‘Gregory!’
He waves but she holds out her hands towards him.
His jaw tenses and I can read his mind. His image as a stern, ruthless CEO will be shattered if he goes.
If he doesn’t, he denies that little girl, standing there with her weak arms outstretched.
He debates it for a second then rises from his seat and goes to Isabella, bending to the stage as she wraps her arms around his neck.
I have no idea what he says to the little angel but she laughs, the most profound and wonderful sound.
* * *
It was unintentional, but Gregory made sure his public image was angelic tonight.
Nothing has leaked about bribes. Yet. But anything is possible whilst Katrina Martin is still lurking and tonight has done no harm to his reputation.
That’s something his head of PR, Sydney and I agree on as we subtly discuss the situation over an after-dinner coffee.
As I’m talking to Sydney, Francis, the jerk in finance or, more specifically, private equity, who Gregory obviously can’t stand but doesn’t upset due to his willingness to invest in a broad portfolio of business, brings his stunning and much younger wife, Adriana to say hello.
From the corner of my eye, I watch Adriana throw her head back, flicking her long, black hair back and forth across her shoulder as she laughs at absolutely nothing.
‘Oh Francesco,’ she fake laughs. ‘You’re so baaaaad.’
Francesco. I’ve never heard of Francis coming from Francesco. I continue my conversation with Sydney until Lara asks me to accompany her to the ladies’ room.
‘Scarlett, I’m sorry if I was a little intense earlier about the wedding.
I’m just excited. He’s my only child and—’ She stops when she notes the unintentional but – in hindsight – extremely obvious pull back of my head.
‘He told you about her.’ Her eyes immediately fill and my frosty reaction wanes.
‘Elsa. Yes, he did.’
‘Scarlett, you have to understand. I wanted to leave—’
I hold a hand up gently to stop her. ‘Lara, you don’t have to explain anything to me. Will I ever understand how you stayed? Probably not. But that’s because I’ve never been in that situation; I don’t know what it was like. All I do know is that it must have been horrific for all three of you.’
She opens her mouth and I will her not to speak. One day, we might have that conversation, but not here, not now.
She raises her lips silently in a look that I think may be the most authentic I’ve ever seen on her.
That front-of-house show she puts on for other people isn’t here in this room.
She’s just a woman, as fallible as everyone else, who went through something horrific.
Something neither she nor Gregory have to hide from me any more.
Going to the bathroom in a floor-grazing gown is not the easiest thing I’ve done in my life. After navigating the going and flushing part, I work at putting my dress back in the right places, twisting, shuffling.
‘She’s so ordinary. I mean, a lawyer, really?’
‘He’s just having a final fling before he finds the right woman. And he will, ladies.’
‘I bet she’s rubbish in bed.’
‘I bet she sleeps in pyjamas.’
‘Well, I hate to state the obvious, ladies, but she’s beautiful and there must be something about her to have landed the bachelor of the century. She’s finally taken Gregory Ryans off the market. That’s something women in this room have tried and failed to do.’
‘Oh, please, no man is ever completely off the market.’
My hand is frozen on the door. Part of me wants to go and put them in their place; part of me thinks they’re right. Gregory could have any woman he likes, and maybe he will get bored of me.
‘Let me tell you something about my son.’ Lara’s voice cuts through the catty voices.
‘He is a good man. A man of integrity. And that woman you’re talking about is the best thing that’s ever happened to him.
She’s worth a thousand of you all. So why don’t you take your bitchy tantrums back to your husbands and leave my son to be happy with a genuine and honest, good-hearted woman. ’
I hold my fingertips to my mouth, waiting for the toilets to clear.
When I come out from hiding, there’s only Lara left, reapplying lipstick in the over-sink mirrors.
‘Thank you,’ I tell her.
‘I meant it,’ she says, dropping a hand to my shoulder before she leaves me washing my hands.
As far as mothers-in-law go, maybe she won’t turn out too bad.
A man in a suit catches the corner of my eye as I step back out into the corridor.
‘Fancy seeing you here.’
Nick Henshaw, the director who tried to take Gregory’s company from him after the shooting. The director Gregory forced to resign from Constant Sources. He moves close to me, too close.
I offer him a fleeting glance of disgust before turning my back on him but he slaps the wall above my head, preventing me from walking further. As I turn, he leans towards me, forcing me back against the wall.
‘I have nothing to say to you,’ I spit.
‘That’s good. Then you can stand there whilst I tell you a few things.’
His breath smells of alcohol. Hard liquor. His six-foot frame towers over me. His stone-cold grey eyes bore into mine.