Chapter 12 #3
‘Oh, so you’re back!’ They looked up to see Owen storming across the terrace towards them. Georgie followed him, darting anxious looks between him and Will.
‘You can get right off your high horse,’ Will snapped, his anger rising.
‘Oh, I can, can I? Would you like to take this outside?’ Owen’s eyes blazed.
‘What? Oh, for fuck’s sake! We’re already outside, Owen.’
‘Okay, then, bring it on.’ Owen beckoned Will towards him.
‘I’m not going to hit you, Owen, tempting though it is.’
‘Come on – you know you want to.’ Owen raised his fists threateningly.
‘I don’t have time for this,’ Will said, scraping his chair back and getting up. ‘I’ve got a plane to catch.’ He turned and went to the French windows.
‘Where are you going?’ Owen asked.
Will turned in the doorway. ‘Not that it’s any of your business,’ he said coldly, ‘but I’m going to Ireland – to get Kate.’
‘Oh!’ Owen dropped his fists. ‘That’s all right, then.’
* * *
Will read the headline from one of yesterday’s tabloids:
Love Rat Will Returns to Italy!
Louise had given him a bundle of cuttings to read on the flight to Dublin to bring him up to speed with what the press were saying about him and Kate.
As he thumbed through them with mounting dread, he was glad he hadn’t opened them until he’d got on the plane.
If he’d known how bad it was he might not have had the nerve to show his face in Dublin.
Bloody Tina! He’d always known that when they broke up she’d turn it into a career move, but he was outraged by the blatant lies she was telling.
What appalled him most was the treatment meted out to Kate.
The amount of sheer vitriol aimed at her was astonishing.
The ones who championed her were almost worse, he thought, disgusted – celebrating her as some kind of saucy sex kitten, salivating over her lush body and inviting her to ‘get her kit off’ for their readers’ delectation.
He wanted to punch their lights out, every last one of them.
One picture of her was particularly heartbreaking.
Eyes down, jacket pulled closed, she was shielding her face from the camera with one hand, but you could tell she was close to tears.
Will lingered over the picture, absently tracing the outline of her beautiful full lips, and felt a lump come to his throat.
He wished he had been there to protect her.
By the end of the week, Tina had cut her losses and let it trickle out that she couldn’t forgive Will his infidelity and had decided to end their relationship.
She called off her long-planned lavish birthday party and set about lobbying for martyred sainthood.
In the current issue of Wow! she was pictured cavorting on a Cambodian beach with a horde of smiling orphans.
Somehow she had got a gig as ambassador for a children’s charity, and eight pages of the magazine were devoted to a gushing interview, amply illustrated with pictures of her looking stunningly beautiful and caring as she carried out her new role, cuddling and playing games with the children, chatting with local charity workers, all in her:
trademark grace and style.
You had to hand it to Dev Tennant, Will thought, he was good. He certainly worked fast. It was amazing. In a week, Tina had transformed herself into a shining angel of mercy, smiling valiantly through her tears, her eyes attractively dewy and luminous as she held a sick baby in her arms.
‘She’s lovely, that Tina Roche, isn’t she?’ the woman beside him said, peering over his shoulder. ‘So caring.’
‘Mmm.’
‘Some of those big so-called stars could learn a lot from her. All they ever think about is their fancy haircuts and designer clothes. And she’s gorgeous, too, isn’t she?’
‘Beautiful.’
‘That fella of hers wants his head examined, if you ask me, doing the dirt on a beautiful woman like that. Must be mad.’
‘Tonto!’ Will agreed.
He went back to the interview with Tina.
‘Seeing the plight of these children puts your own problems into perspective,’ says Roche, looking impossibly glamorous in Cambodian traditional dress, surrounded by children.
‘I’ve been hurt in the past,’ she adds obliquely.
‘I’ve been betrayed by those I love. But when I see the bright, happy smiles on the faces of these children, it just puts my troubles in the shade.
These children have been hurt – they’ve been betrayed by the people closest to them in many cases.
But they’re still smiling, they’re still trusting, they still have hope for the future. If they can do it, so can I.’
‘Excuse me,’ he said to the woman beside him, ‘will you be using your sick bag, do you think?’
‘Er – no.’ She eyed the one in front of his own seat.
‘Would you mind?’ he nodded to hers. ‘It’s just that I feel this article may be a two-bag job.’
* * *
By the time he got off the plane, Will felt depressed.
He hadn’t had a lot of sleep in the past week, and the reading he had done on the plane had left him feeling guilty and dejected.
Though he was desperate to see Kate and put things right, he was also anxious about facing her after all he had put her through.
And he had deep misgivings about his welcome at the O’Neills’.
So he was amazed and touched when he came into the arrivals hall and saw Lorcan in the throng at the barrier.
At least Lorcan still had faith in him, he thought, smiling at him as he made his way towards him.
It didn’t even register at first that Lorcan wasn’t smiling back, but as he got closer, he noticed that his friend’s mouth was set in a grim line and his eyes were spitting fire.
Still, he was here, Will thought – at least he was giving him the benefit of the doubt. ‘Lorcan, it’s so—’
Wham! The next thing Will knew, he was lying on the floor, his face throbbing.
He would have said he didn’t know what had hit him, but he had seen Lorcan’s arm move and had at first expected him to throw it around his shoulder.
Instead, he had landed a ferocious punch on Will’s nose.
By the time he sat up and opened his eyes, all he saw was his friend’s rapidly retreating back as he stalked out of the airport, shoulders hunched.
Still dazed, Will had just picked himself up and was brushing himself off in front of an audience of open-mouthed onlookers when a flash went off in his face.
‘Will! Will!’ the eager photographer called, but he was lurching towards the doors. His nose stung and his eyes were pumping water.
By the time he got outside, Lorcan had disappeared, but he soon found Dave, his driver.
‘Home, Will?’ Dave enquired, looking at him curiously as he tossed his bag into the boot.
‘No, drop me at Lorcan’s, then take the luggage home.’
Realising for the first time that his nose was bleeding profusely, he took a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to his face.
Catching sight of himself in the driver’s mirror, he was shocked by his appearance.
He looked totally dishevelled and washed out.
His clothes were bloodstained and grubby, his face deathly pale.
He looked like a kid who had been beaten up in the playground – and by his best friend, he thought, feeling thoroughly sorry for himself.
‘You all right?’ Dave asked, making eye contact with him in the mirror.
‘I’m okay, thanks,’ Will answered. ‘Just stings a bit,’ he said, in an attempt to explain away the tears that, to his mortification, were welling in his eyes.
He was shaking uncontrollably, and he knew it had less to do with the physical trauma than with the shock that Lorcan could have done such a thing.
On top of everything else he had been through in the past week, it was the last straw.
He longed to crawl under a duvet and cry his eyes out.
Carmen answered the door on the third ring.
‘Hi, Carmen.’
‘Hello, Will.’ She didn’t ask him in. ‘Lorcan doesn’t want to see you,’ she said apologetically.
‘Please, Carmen, I have to talk to him.’
She thought for a second, then nodded wordlessly, standing back to let him in and waving him towards the living room.
‘He’s in there.’ She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, then slipped quietly out of the house.
Lorcan was pacing twitchily around the living room. When he saw Will in the doorway, he came to an abrupt halt. His eyes widened in surprise and his face froze, his mouth set in a furious line. ‘Did Carmen let you in?’ he asked, his eyes as hard as Will had ever seen them.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, you can let yourself out again,’ he said coldly. ‘I don’t have anything to say to you.’
Will was momentarily rendered speechless by Lorcan’s bitterness. ‘Lorcan,’ he began, ‘please, just let me explain.’
‘What’s there to explain?’ Lorcan raged, eyes blazing. ‘Did you or did you not shove your dick in my sister’s mouth?’
‘It’s not like they say in the papers.’
‘Oh, which bit did they get wrong? The bit where you screwed her and ditched her? Or the bit where you whined to your precious girlfriend that it didn’t mean a thing and you couldn’t live without her?’
‘Where did you get that? Wow! magazine?’ Will snarled, his anger rising now to meet Lorcan’s. He noticed a bundle of tabloids on the coffee table – they weren’t Lorcan’s normal reading.
‘They make it sound so sordid and… commonplace,’ he said.
Lorcan hooted derisively. ‘Whereas this was one of those magical blow jobs that only comes along once in a lifetime?’
‘Exactly,’ Will countered defiantly. ‘God, I shouldn’t even be discussing this with you,’ he said, tugging at his hair distractedly.
‘Fine by me. You know where the door is.’
‘I need to see Kate.’
‘You stay away from her,’ Lorcan said. ‘I think you’ve done enough, don’t you?’
‘I cannot believe you feel you occupy some sort of moral high ground here,’ Will fumed.
‘Me?’ Lorcan howled. ‘Why? What have I done?’
‘Don’t play the innocent. You were practically pimping your sister to me—’
‘Pimping?’ Lorcan was beside himself.