Chapter 6 #4
‘Oh, and guess what! I met one of the producers of Irish Supermodel Search and she said there may be a vacancy for a new judge on the show next season! She kind of implied the job would be mine, if I wanted it.’
‘And do you want it?’
‘Well, it would be a great introduction to working in TV – and very well-paid. But, even better, it would mean I’d be based in Ireland.’
Will didn’t say anything.
‘That’d be pretty great, wouldn’t it?’ she said.
‘Yes – if that’s what you want.’
‘Anyway, got to go,’ she said. ‘Apparently the clouds are lifting.’
She hung up, throwing her mobile onto the sand and gazing out across the beach from beneath a giant umbrella.
‘Doesn’t look like that lot’s going anywhere,’ the lighting director called to her, pointing to the sky. ‘We might as well call it a day.’
Tina hugged her long legs and rested her chin on her knees. It really was beautiful here, she thought, watching the clouds scud across the sky. She knew it was beautiful, she just wished she could feel it.
She picked up a handful of sand and let it trickle through her fingers.
She had hoped Will would be more enthusiastic about the idea of her moving to Ireland.
He had become distant lately, and she could feel him drifting further and further away from her.
But she wasn’t someone who let things slip away – not without a fight.
She was hard-working and ambitious, personally and professionally, and she wasn’t about to give up on Will.
She knew they had drifted apart, and they weren’t in the heady ‘in love’ phase any more – but who was?
That didn’t last for anyone, but it didn’t mean you just gave up.
She and Will made sense as a couple. They belonged to the same world and they belonged together. She would show him that. She would take the TV job and move to Ireland, and she would prove it to him.
‘Tina, you okay?’ one of the crew stopped to talk to her as he left the beach.
‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ She smiled up at him.
‘You seem a bit down in the dumps.’
‘Oh, it’s nothing a few toots won’t cure,’ she said, brushing sand off her hands and holding one out for him to pull her up.
‘Don’t forget we’ve got a really early start in the morning. You might want to have an early night.’
‘Oh, fuck that! Where’s the party?’
* * *
‘Oh, Will,’ Grace accosted him as soon as he returned to the house, ‘you didn’t seem to pick up that I was trying to give you an opening earlier to get more flirty with Kate. Maybe I was being too subtle.’
‘No, Grace, you weren’t.’
‘Oh! Then why—’
‘Look, I’ve offered Kate the job in Tuscany, but as for the rest, I can’t do it.’
‘But, Will, you’ve met the Tree-hugger—’
‘Yes, and I agree Kate deserves better – a lot better. But she doesn’t deserve to have me winding her up, toying with her affections.’
‘It’s only because we care about her.’
‘I care about her, too, but—’
‘You do?’ Grace said.
‘Yes, of course. I’d like to see her give that smug, self-important git the elbow just as much as you would. He isn’t good enough for her.’
‘Oh, well, if that’s how you feel…’
‘It is,’ Will said firmly.
‘Well, let’s hope she takes the job in Tuscany, then.’
‘Yes, let’s hope.’ Will couldn’t believe she was going to let him off the hook that easily.
Grace smiled to herself as Will walked away. She knew it – he did have feelings for Kate. Why else would he be so vehemently opposed to the Tree-hugger? He just needed to spend more time with her to realise how he felt – time they would have in Tuscany. Kate just had to take that job.
* * *
This is it, Kate thought, as she stood in the garden at the centre embracing a tree and swatting flies. I’m an official Tree-hugger.
‘Really engage with your tree,’ Joe had exhorted them. ‘Really hug it. Feel its energy – let it guide you.’
Then she was supposed to turn to the west and say goodbye to something in her life, and turn to the east and say hello to something she wanted to welcome into her life – or was it the other way around? It was hard to think spiritual thoughts when you were being eaten alive by midges.
She tried to centre herself and meditate on the direction of her life, but when she tried to empty her mind of all thoughts, Lorcan’s hissed remark about Will popped into it and wouldn’t go away. Had Will said something to him, or was it just something he suspected?
Bringing herself back to the matter in hand, she peered through the trees to see what stage everyone else was at.
They seemed to have finished the hugging part and were turning to the west, still maintaining contact with their trees.
Kate copied them and tried to think of something she wanted to say goodbye to.
‘Listen to your heart,’ Joe had said. ‘Don’t try to think of anything consciously – just open your mind and see what comes up.’
But under the circumstances the only thing she wanted to get rid of was the midges, and she didn’t think that was the right sort of thing.
Maybe I should ring Lorcan and ask him what he meant, she thought. Surely Will hadn’t said something to him. If he had, it couldn’t have been today – Lorcan hadn’t been at the house for very long and Will hadn’t been alone with him at any point.
Oh, forget about Will, she told herself.
Maybe she should say goodbye to her ridiculous obsession with him and move forward into her future with Brian.
Facing west, she resolved to put Will behind her and solemnly bade him farewell.
Feeling calm, purposeful and in control of her destiny, she turned east to greet her future with Brian.
As she did so, she saw a car pull into the driveway, the sun glinting off it, and felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. It was Will’s Jag.
So he wasn’t to be dismissed from her life that easily.
There must be a word for this, she thought – synergy, serendipity, fate?
Or just plain old Sod’s Law? Whatever, it was downright spooky.
She watched as he parked and got out. When he spotted her, he waved and strode across the grass towards her.
Kate’s heart gave a familiar leap.
‘Hi! I came to spring you.’ He gestured at the car.
‘Hello, Will,’ she said, still holding her tree. Right now he was the most welcome sight in the world and she mentally threw her arms around him and welcomed him into her life.
* * *
Kate was never so glad to be home. The drive back had been somewhat tense.
Brian hadn’t taken kindly to being dragged away early, protesting that they’d miss the final ‘sharing circle’, but Kate had raced to the car and had thrown herself in as if she was being rescued from kidnappers.
Will had seemed pleased with himself for having pulled off this coup, and the more pissed off Brian was, the more cheerful he became.
Kate had the impression he enjoyed winding Brian up.
She was so glad to be home that she hadn’t even protested when they were all herded into the sitting room to watch Tom and Rachel’s wedding DVD. After the day she had had, it was a relief to do something so normal and undemanding.
The DVD began with a cringe-making pastiche of Rachel getting ready, while Prince sang ‘The Most Beautiful Girl in the World’. Josie let out a hoot of laughter, earning herself a dagger-glare from Rachel.
‘Who chose the music for this?’ she asked Kate under her breath.
‘Who do you think?’ Kate was glad Lorcan wasn’t there – he’d never have been able to keep a straight face.
They watched Rachel getting her nails done, Rachel having her hair put up, Rachel mugging for the camera as she had her makeup applied and, finally, Rachel appearing downstairs in the dress to the gasps and admiration of her family.
‘This must have been edited for family viewing,’ Conor said. ‘They cut out the bit where you had a shower.’
‘Oh shut up!’ Rachel tutted, unable to tear her eyes from the screen.
Kate thought the DVD wouldn’t have been too bad if it was all like this – a sort of montage of the day’s highlights set to music, like a pop video.
But once they reached the church it was pure fly-on-the-wall documentary and they were forced to sit through the whole wedding ceremony all over again.
Jack was snoring loudly by the time Tom and Rachel were taking their vows.
Rachel kept making comments like ‘Oh, I look quite good there,’ and ‘My hair turned out well, didn’t it?
’, trying to sound surprised and self-effacing.
She even threw others an occasional bone, gushing, ‘Oh, doesn’t Mum look pretty?
’ and ‘You should wear makeup more often, Kate – it really does wonders for you.’
It could be worse, Kate told herself, I could be back at the workshop.
The reception part proved more entertaining.
The cameraman, gay and evidently besotted with Owen Cassidy, zoomed in on him the moment he arrived and kept the camera trained on him throughout almost the entire proceedings, occasionally swinging back dutifully to the wedding party at key moments.
So, a hasty shot of Tom and Rachel cutting the cake, Rachel giving her biggest Hollywood smile, was followed by a lingering close-up of Owen scratching his armpit.
Tom and Rachel were seen taking to the floor for the first dance, then abandoned in favour of Owen making a wanking gesture at the choice of music.
Even during the speeches the camera cut back to Owen for reaction shots – a waste of time as Owen, clearly paying no attention whatsoever, made no reaction, apart from some raucous whooping and hollering when Will stood up to speak.
Later, as the evening wore on, the camera zoomed through the crowd as the dancing became drunkenly uninhibited and couples snogged or slunk off together.
‘This is where I came in,’ Brian said – as he could be seen in the background kissing Kate. He stretched and got up. ‘I’m going out for a walk. Want to come?’ he asked Kate, who shook her head.