That kind of stuff wasn’t really me – I’d prefer to do beautiful shoes and pretty nails – but Ruben said, ‘It’s not who you are, it’s who we decide you are.’
Salvation came from Gilda, who said, ‘I’ll do it. And your Twitter stuff too. And your blog, if you want.’
‘But –’
‘I know. You can’t pay me. That’s okay.’
I wrestled with the rights and wrongs of the situation, then I gave in, because I simply couldn’t cope with the torrent of Ruben’s demands.
‘Someday, somehow, your goodness will make its way back to you.’
‘Oh please.’ She waved away my gratitude. ‘It’s nothing.’
Ruben’s demand for written articles remained relentless. And there wasn’t a hospital, a school or a physical rehab place in the tri-state area (basically anywhere that it didn’t cost money to send me) to which I wasn’t despatched, to do a speech.
It was around the end of October that Betsy met Chad. He’d come into the gallery and brazenly said he’d buy an installation if she would go out with him.
I was shocked and worried: he seemed all wrong for Betsy. He was far too old – only five years younger than me – far too mercenary and far too cynical.
He was a lawyer and corporate to the bone. He worked twelve-hour days and lived a life of suits and limos and dark expensive restaurants.
‘What is it you like about him, sweetie?’ I asked, cautiously. ‘He makes you laugh? He makes you feel safe?’
‘Oh no.’ She shivered. ‘He thrills me.’
I stared at her, mildly horrified.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m totally not his type. But he’s going through his kooky-girl phase.’
‘… What about you?’
‘And I’m going through my older lawyer-guy phase. It’s all good!’
I lifted a pile of leggings, searching for my make-up palette. Gilda had assembled a bespoke kit which had all the eyeshadow, blush, concealer and lipgloss I’d need for my three-week tour, but I couldn’t find it. Clothes were everywhere, strewn on the bed, on the dresser and in the suitcase on the floor. I took a look in a drawer. It wasn’t in there. It would want to turn up soon; we were leaving tomorrow. Maybe I’d left it in another room.
I raced into the living room, where Mannix was, and said, ‘Have you seen my –?’
Immediately I knew something was terribly wrong. He was sitting at his desk, his head in his hands.
‘Mannix? Sweetie?’
He turned to me. His face was grey. ‘Roland’s had a stroke.’
I rushed to his side. ‘How do you know?’
‘Hero just called. She doesn’t know exact details but she says it’s serious.’ He picked up the phone. ‘I’m calling Rosemary Rozelaar. Apparently he’s under her care.’
Jesus. Small world.
‘Rosemary?’ Mannix said. ‘Bring me up to speed.’ He scribbled lines back and forth onto his jotter until eventually the page tore. ‘CT scan? MRI? Ptosis? Loss of consciousness? Complete? How long? Fuck. Ischaemic cascade?’
I didn’t understand most of the words. All I knew about strokes was a horrible television ad that went on about FAST – it made the point that a stroke victim had to get treatment quickly to ensure any kind of decent outcome.
Mannix hung up. ‘He’s had an ischaemic stroke, followed by an ischaemic cascade.’
I hadn’t a clue what that meant but I let him talk.
‘How fast did he get to hospital?’ I asked.
‘Not fast enough. Not in the first three hours, which are the critical ones. His heart rhythm is abnormal which suggests atrial fibrillations.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means …’ The doctor in him was trying to talk to the civilian in me. ‘It means he might have a heart attack. But even without that complication, he’s in a coma. Whatever happens in the next three days is what counts.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘If there’s no indication of normal brainstem activity, he’s not going to survive.’
I was appalled; but this wasn’t my tragedy, this was my time to be strong.
‘Okay.’ I took charge. ‘We’re going to Ireland. I’ll look up the flight times.’
‘We can’t. You can’t cancel your tour.’
‘And you can’t not go to Ireland.’
We stared at each other, paralysed by the novelty of our situation. We had no road map, no idea how to behave.
‘Go to Ireland,’ I said. ‘And take care of your brother. I’ll go on the tour. I’ll be fine.’
I was thinking that maybe Betsy would come with me. That was, if I could persuade her to leave Chad’s side. She was practically living in his downtown apartment and we hardly saw her these days.
It was then that the doorbell rang. It was Gilda, dropping off some drapey cashmere things that were part of the wardrobe plan she’d done.
‘I’ve got blue, which would work really well with your hair, but I saw this russet and I thought – What’s happened?’
‘Mannix’s brother has had a stroke. It’s serious. We’ve got to get Mannix back to Dublin as soon as possible.’
‘And you?’ Gilda asked. ‘Are you still going on the tour?’
‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’m going to ask Betsy to come with me.’
‘I’ll come,’ Gilda said. ‘I’ll be your assistant.’
‘Gilda, that’s really nice, but I don’t have the money to pay you.’
‘Let me talk to Bryce.’
‘Gilda. It’s for three weeks. Eighteen-hour days –’
‘Let me talk to Bryce.’
‘Okay. But –’
‘Don’t worry,’ Gilda said to Mannix. ‘I’ll take care of her.’
‘Have you got Bryce’s cell?’ I asked.
‘Yeah. From when I was seeing Laszlo.’
‘… Oh. Okay …’
I’d just said goodbye to Mannix at Newark airport when Gilda rang.
‘Blisset Renown are paying me. It’s handled.’
‘How?’
‘It just is.’
‘Nothing.’ Mannix’s voice echoed on the line. ‘Absolutely no response.’
‘Stay hopeful,’ I said. ‘There’s still time.’ It was two days since Roland had had his stroke.
‘Mum and Dad have arrived from France.’
I swallowed hard. If Roland’s parents had shown up, things must be really serious.
‘We’re doing another MRI later today,’ Mannix said. ‘Maybe some brainstem activity will show up.’
‘Fingers crossed,’ I said.
‘I miss you,’ he said.
‘I miss you too.’
I wanted to tell him I loved him, but to say it now, on the phone and in these circumstances, would just sound like pity.
I’d put so much importance on saying the words that I’d painted myself into a corner. I’d told myself too often that the situation had to be right, and I realized now that the situation would never be perfect.
‘How’s it going with you?’ he asked. ‘I hear Gilda is actually making you exercise. You can’t just lie on the floor and breathe heavily into the phone, like you did on the other two tours.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘She rang, to give me a progress report. Listen, Stella, if you’re not able for the running as well as all the work, just tell her. So what city are you in now?’
‘Baltimore, I think. We’re just about to go to a charity dinner.’
‘Call me when you get back, before you go to sleep.’
‘I will. And promise me you’ll try to be positive.’
‘I promise.’
In every conversation I had with Mannix, I forced myself to sound upbeat, but I felt sick with worry.
What if Roland died? I was full of grief at the thought of a world without Roland. He was such a special person.
… But a special person with a lot of debts. Someone was going to have to pay them. My selfish thoughts were fl
eeting, but they shamed me.
And what would it do to Mannix if Roland didn’t make it? How would he cope with the death of the person he loved the most?
Even if Roland didn’t die, his recovery was going to be lengthy and expensive. How were we going to manage that?
Maybe someone should have suggested to Roland that being massively overweight wasn’t a good idea. But when you knew how funny and clever and sweet he was, it would have been like kicking a puppy. And God knows, he’d tried his best. He’d been working with a personal trainer since he’d got back from his holiday in California.
I sighed, then slid on my high heels, picked up my evening bag and knocked on the door that connected my room to Gilda’s. After a second, I stepped inside.
‘Oh!’ She was working on her laptop and quickly she shut it.
‘Sorry.’ I stopped short. ‘I knocked. I thought you heard.’
‘Oh … okay.’
‘Sorry,’ I repeated, backing towards the door. ‘I’ll just … Let me know whenever you’re ready.’
I wondered why she was being so secretive, but she was entitled to a life.
‘No, Stella, wait,’ she said. ‘I’m just being stupid. There’s a … sort of project I’ve been working on. If I show you, promise you won’t laugh.’
‘Of course I won’t laugh.’ But I would have said anything because I was dying to know what was going on.
She hit refresh and a page of colour burst into life. It said: Your Best Self: A Woman’s Optimum Health from Ten to One Hundred by Gilda Ashley.
‘Oh my God, it’s a book.’ I was astonished.
‘It’s just something I’ve been playing around with …’
‘Can I look?’
‘Sure.’ She gave me the laptop and I scrolled through the pages. Each chapter focused on a decade in a woman’s life, the correct food and exercise, the changes in physique to expect and the best ways to embrace age-specific ailments. Every decade had its own beautifully coloured background and information was dotted about the pages in friendly bullet points or pretty little sidebars.
The layout was great. No page was overcrowded with text and the fonts changed as the decades advanced, starting off cartoon-y for the teens and becoming more elegant for the thirties, forties and fifties, then bigger and easier to read for the sixties onward.
‘It’s brilliant,’ I said.
‘It’s getting there,’ she said bashfully. ‘But it’s still missing something.’
‘It’s great,’ I insisted.
Its simplicity was what made it so perfect – people were put off by hefty tomes with dense text. This was accessible and informative and, with its beautiful colours and deftly placed illustrations, it felt fundamentally optimistic.
‘The graphics are amazing,’ I said.
She squirmed. ‘Joss helped me with them a little. Well, a lot.’
‘How long have you been working on it?’
‘Oh for ever … at least a year. But it’s only really come together since I met Joss. Hey, Stella, do you mind?’
And I had to admit that I did feel rattled. Partly because she’d kept it secret from me. But I was just being childish. And mean-spirited – why shouldn’t Gilda write a book? This wasn’t a zero-sum game, where only a limited number of people were allowed to be writers. After all, it was ridiculous good fortune that I’d got a book deal.
‘I don’t mind,’ I made myself say. ‘Gilda, this is good enough to be published. Would you like me to show it to Phyllis?’
‘Phyllis? The crazy lady who won’t do physical contact and who steals cupcakes for her cats? I’m good, thanks.’
We both started laughing but I couldn’t sustain it for long.
‘Gilda?’ I asked, tentatively. ‘You’ve met other literary agents, yes?’ I was trying to allude to her time with Laszlo Jellico, without causing upset. ‘Are they all as tough as Phyllis?’
‘Are you kidding me? She’s insane. Eccentric, I get; that can be fun and a lot of agents are a little cuckoo. But she’s horrible. You were unlucky because you had to make a quick decision. If you’d had more time, you could have interviewed several agents and picked somebody nice.’
‘Mannix says I don’t have to like her. That it’s just business.’
‘Good point,’ she said. ‘But can I tell you what’s so crazy?’
‘Okay,’ I said, nervously.
‘Mannix would make a great agent.’
On the third day of his coma, there was a flicker of response from Roland’s brainstem. But any celebrations were premature. ‘There’s a ninety per cent chance that he’s not going to survive,’ Mannix told me. ‘And if he does, it’ll be a long road back.’
Gilda and I soldiered on through the book tour – Chicago, Baltimore, Denver, Tallahassee … On the fifth day I had to stop exercising. ‘I’ll die, Gilda. I’m sorry, but I will.’
I did my interviews and talks and book-signings on autopilot. Gilda was a godsend. Over and over again, she reminded me where I was and what I was doing there.
I missed Mannix terribly; but, whenever I got to speak to him, he was barely present. Now and again he tried to connect with me by saying something like, ‘Gilda said there was a good turnout last night.’ But his heart wasn’t in it.
Over eleven days Roland went into cardiac arrest three times. Each time, he was expected to die, but miraculously he hung on.
The tour ended. Gilda and I came back to New York and I wanted to go immediately to Ireland to be with Mannix, but Jeffrey needed me more. Esperanza and a nanny had taken care of him while I’d been on tour and to fly off again so soon would be like an abandonment. I toyed with taking him out of school two weeks before term ended, and both of us going to Ireland, but it would be wrong to interrupt his education.
Whenever Mannix could spare the time away from the hospital, he Skyped me. I tried to be positive and light-hearted. ‘Think of Shep, Mannix. You, me and Shep, playing on the beach.’ But I could never make him smile; his worry had made him unreachable.
Betsy fluttered in and out of our lives, bringing us gifts of strange things like ribbon-wrapped boxes of marrons glacés. ‘Chad’s opened an account in my name at Bergdorf Goodman,’ she said. ‘I’ve got two personal shoppers. I’m being totally re-imaged – right down to my underwear.’
‘Betsy!’ I was appalled. ‘You’re not a doll –’
‘Mom.’ She gave me a woman-to-woman look. ‘I’m an adult. And I’m having fun.’
‘You’re only eighteen.’
‘Eighteen is grown-up.’
‘These things are disgusting.’ Jeffrey had abandoned his marron glacé. ‘They’re like chickpeas.’
‘I think they are chickpeas,’ Betsy said. ‘Like, sweet ones.’
I could have wept. All that money on her expensive education for her to become a rich man’s toy and to think that chestnuts were chickpeas.
At the Blisset Renown Happy Holidays party, I bumped into Phyllis. ‘Where’s Mannix?’ she asked.
‘Not here.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘He’s in Ireland.’
‘Oh yeah?’
I refused to expand any further: Phyllis had had plenty of opportunities to stay current with my life and she hadn’t bothered.
‘I hear your Betsy is running around town with a man twice her age.’
‘How do you know that?’
She winked at me. ‘And how’s that angry kid of yours? Jeffrey?’
I sighed and gave in. ‘Still angry.’
‘I see from my diary you’re due to deliver your second book to Blisset Renown on February first. You going to make it?’
‘I am.’
‘It’s good?’
Was it? Well, I’d tried my hardest. ‘Yes, it’s good.’
‘Well, step up your game,’ she said. ‘Make it great.’
‘Happy holidays, Phyllis.’ I moved off. I was looking for Ruben and I found him by a platter of ceviche.
‘Ruben??
??
‘Yeah?’
‘I was wondering … you know … any news on the charts?’
‘Yeah. Too bad.’
‘One Blink didn’t chart?’
‘Not this time round. Hey, it happens.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I felt crippled with guilt.
I couldn’t tell Mannix, he had far too much to worry about, but later I rang Gilda and she was shocked. ‘You asked Ruben? You? Stella, never ask that question. If your book had charted, believe me, twenty different people would be calling you, every one of them taking the credit.’
The day Academy Manhattan closed for the Christmas break, I went to Ireland with Betsy and Jeffrey.
The kids stayed with Ryan and I stayed in Roland’s flat with Mannix. But he was hardly ever there; he was practically living at the hospital.
Mannix had said that Roland had made progress, but the first time I visited him, I was shocked. He was conscious, his right eye was open but his left side was paralysed and a constant stream of drool poured from the left side of his mouth.
‘Hi, sweetheart,’ I whispered and tiptoed towards him. ‘You’ve had us all very worried.’
Carefully I picked my way through all the cords and wires connected up to him, so I could kiss his forehead.
A sound came from Roland, like a weak howl. It was so pathetic and strange, it scared me.
‘Answer him,’ Mannix said, almost impatiently.
‘But –’ What had he said?
‘He says you look beautiful.’
‘I do?’ Forcing cheer into my voice, I said, ‘Thanks very much. In fairness, I’ve seen you looking better.’
Roland howled again and I looked at Mannix.
‘He’s asking how your tour went.’
‘Well!’ I took a seat and tried to produce entertaining anecdotes, but this was horrific. I knew myself how hellish it was to be unable to speak and it must be far, far tougher for a person as articulate as Roland.
I tried not to show my discomfort. But I was having flashbacks to my time in hospital and I was certain that Roland was deeply shamed by his condition.
‘He’s delighted to see you,’ Mannix insisted.
For every one of the ten days I was in Ireland I sat with Roland and told him stories. When I’d get to the end of the tale, he’d let out one of his terrible howls and the only person who could make sense of them was Mannix.