She took a proffered cup of tea and wrapped her fingers around the mug. ‘Yes, it’s a long way to come, I know,’ she said hesitantly, unsure how to bring up the subject of Serena. ‘Fabulous place, though. Does anyone know you’re here?’
Tom shook his head happily. ‘There’s about ten paparazzi stationed outside my place in Gloucestershire, even one in a helicopter circling over the house, but the only gawking you get around here is from the seagulls. Bless Dorothy Whetton. She’s even stocked the kitchen up for about a month, so I don’t need to leave the house too often. After those pictures of me leaping off Roman’s damn boat and that barmaid in my local pub with her mad fantasies about an affair, I think I need to keep a fairly low profile.’
Cate noticed that his cheeks were flushing slightly. ‘So the barmaid was lying?’ she probed, thinking back to the tabloid kiss-and-tell.
‘Yes. It was a lie,’ Tom repeated softly, deliberately. ‘Anyway,’ he continued more happily, ‘I’m definitely enjoying the splendid isolation.’ He pointed to an untidy heap of paper and a titanium laptop sitting on the kitchen counter –
‘I’m writing a script about Donald Campbell – you know, the nineteen-fifties land-speed record guy? I’m really excited about it: it’s one of those stories that’s got the lot. Cars, romance, tragedy, handsome men in flying goggles.’
‘Sounds great. I’m sold,’ smiled Cate, pleased to see his boyish enthusiasm returning.
‘If it gets the green light I wouldn’t mind playing Campbell myself.’
‘The handsome man in the flying goggles?’
They laughed, both glad for a brief respite from the awkwardness between them.
Tom moved the pan off the heat and turned towards her. ‘Look, Cate, why are you here?’ His expression was sad.
‘Well, a peace mission I suppose …’
‘Ah, Mr Kissinger. I didn’t recognize you without the glasses,’ said Tom, moving over to the toaster as it popped.
Cate forced a smile. ‘You know why I’m here, Tom – Serena. She says you’ve been avoiding her calls for the last week. She’s going spare.’
She looked at him imploringly, but he just grunted and turned back to the Aga, feeling embarrassed and a little guilty. He really liked Cate. In fact he’d often wished that his girlfriend could be a little more like her older sister, to have the same heart and humility. It was just like her to be here on a peace mission and he hated to disappoint her.
‘Cate, I … it’s complicated …’
‘Come on, Tom,’ said Cate, ‘you can’t just turn your back on five years with somebody. How are you going to sort all this out if you won’t even speak to her?’
‘Sort out what?’ he snapped, turning to face Cate, and for the first time she noticed the dark hollows under his eyes. ‘What exactly is there to sort out? A one-sided relationship that was going nowhere? Some sort of fairy-tale ending?’ Tom trailed off and gazed down at his plate intently. ‘Look, you shouldn’t have come all this way,’ he said. ‘It’s good of you, but …’
There was a long pause as Tom rubbed at a grease-spot on the worktop, then he looked up and fixed Cate with his movie-star eyes.
‘Do you know why I jumped off that boat?’ he asked.
‘Ridiculously wankered on margaritas?’ offered Cate with a twisted smile.
‘Actually, yes.’ He smiled briefly, then turned to the window, staring out at the long lawn that swept down to the cliffs. ‘I’ve not been unfaithful, Cate. I’ve just been miserable. For months – years, maybe. When I jumped, it was like I was liberating myself from my life and the way I was living it. Of course I care about Serena,’ he added. ‘She’s beautiful, yes. And at one point, we really used to have fun.’ He trailed off wistfully as he remembered snapshots of better times. ‘But that London life is such shallow shit. The same crowd going to the same old boring parties. And she got so taken in by it all. Sometimes I just wished she was a bit more grounded. Like you.’
There was a long tantalizing moment that passed between them, then Cate moved a step backward to stop herself thinking a forbidden thought. Tom looked at her a moment longer, then shrugged.
‘Well, Serena loves the scene, and if I stay with her it’ll just be really difficult to get rid of all that stuff from my life.’
Cate had known for years that Tom had had a drink problem in his early twenties when he was doing the fringe theatre circuit and mixing with a troubled, boozy crowd. She knew as well that he was drinking again now and that there’d be countless dinner parties where they quaffed wine and finished with port, but Cate had no idea how hard it was for him to keep his drinking under control.
‘Just give her a ring,’ Cate offered, forgetting momentarily that Serena was in Mustique.
Tom turned back to the stove and irritably stabbed a sausage. There was a quiver of anger when he spoke. ‘And say what? “Sorry, darling, been a bit of a mix-up. I’ll be home in a couple of hours”?’
Cate blinked at him.
‘So that’s it?’ she asked.
He shrugged and pushed the abandoned breakfast away. ‘I’ll talk to her when I’m ready, Cate. I just think it’s better to have a bit of distance sometimes, you know? I don’t want to get talked into a situation I don’t want to be in. Do you know what I mean? She’s very good at that.’
They both laughed, knowing how difficult, charming and manipulative Serena could be.
Tom led Cate through a sun-filled conservatory and out into the garden. The gulls squawked around their heads and in the distance the sounds of the waves crashed up on the rocks. Cate watched him walk ahead, ambling towards the cliff edge, which sloped down to the beach, kicking a pebble along the grass with his shoe. Trust Serena, she thought. To have a movie star who made a mean fry-up, then blow the relationship royally. Cate wondered whether to tell him about Michael, but she didn’t want to make it sound like blackmail.
‘Anyway, Miss Balcon,’ said Tom, picking up the stone to throw it over the cliff. ‘What’s happening in your life? Editor of Vogue yet? Any sexy suitors on the horizon I should know about? I will, of course, have to vet them ruthlessly. Serena never tired of telling me you have terrible taste in men.’
‘The answer to that is no and no. My love life, as you probably know, has been nonexistent for aeons. I did meet someone in New York, a photographer. But he hasn’t called.’
Tom laughed.
‘And the other thing you obviously don’t know,’ continued Cate, ‘I got fired last week.’
‘Oh shit. I’m sorry.’
‘Yeah. I’m livid.’
Tom threw her a lopsided smile. ‘No wonder. And what are you going to do in the meantime?’ he asked, flinging another rock towards the sea. ‘You can come and be my script assistant, if you like. There’s plenty of room in this old place for another London refugee.’
For a second Cate hoped he was serious. It might be nice just giving it all up and moving out here with the gulls and the waves. If she was honest, she hadn’t told anybody about her plan to launch a magazine because she was afraid that people would laugh at her lofty – and possibly unrealistic – ambitions. But the longer she kept it a secret, the longer it would take to get anything off the ground.
‘I was going to freelance. But …’ She looked at Tom’s open, honest face and she knew she could trust him with her plans. ‘… I developed a dummy magazine last year which I was going to present to the company. That didn’t happen and I still have the dummy, so I was thinking –’
‘You’re