Friends & Rivals

  She woke up panting, fists clenched, adrenaline pumping unpleasantly through her veins. After the initial relief of realizing it was just a dream, and she was not in fact plummeting towards certain death, depressing reality set in. Last night’s fight with Ivan. That’s why she was waking up in a hotel room. It was a fine line between keeping Ivan on his toes and pushing him away completely, and Kendall was frightened she might have crossed it this time.

  Not that he hadn’t deserved it. Ever since Talent Quest had become a reality, Ivan had spent more time worrying about his nascent television stardom and less time focusing on Kendall’s album, her first with Fascination and a critical turning point in her career. She’d risked a lot, leaving Jack and Los Angeles and Matador and putting all her eggs in Ivan and Jester’s basket. The least Ivan could do was to give her the attention she not only deserved but needed. Why should she be expected to sit at home like the little wife, glued to his stupid TV show? Jack wouldn’t have needed that kind of validation. Then again, Jack wouldn’t have been sleeping with her in the first place. He couldn’t even cheat on a dead wife, never mind a living one.

  Jack.

  It had been several months since Kendall’s defection broke up the Jester partnership and put an abrupt end to her and Jack’s professional relationship. Any hopes she might have had back then of her absence making Jack’s heart grow fonder had long since withered on the vine. She’d heard nothing from him. Not a word of congratulation when she released her first UK single, nor when she made Rolling Stone’s ‘Ones to Watch’ cover back in October. Lex was pissed at her too, but at least he still emailed every few weeks. Kendall always asked after Jack in her replies. She missed him, she missed them both. But Lex pointedly never responded to these enquiries, other than with a curt ‘He’s fine.’

  Career-wise, it was no secret that Jack Messenger was far from fine. That he’d lost, if not everything, then certainly the bulk of his clients when he’d walked away from Jester. Kendall longed to talk to him about it. Not to apologize exactly – she still felt she was right to take the Polydor deal – but at least to explain that she had never intended to destroy Jester, or to hurt Jack professionally. But that bridge had not so much been burned as incinerated. There could be no way back, no leap across the cliff.

  Which left her with Ivan. Ivan could be vain, self-centred and insecure, all traits which irritated Kendall, perhaps because she recognized them in herself. But when he let go of his anxieties, he was still terrific fun: rude, witty and unpredictable in a way that made life exciting. Sexually he was dynamite – they were dynamite together. He told Kendall that he and Catriona no longer slept together, that they hadn’t for years and, despite it being the ultimate cliché, Kendall was inclined to believe him. Certainly his hunger for her, his wild, toxic need, was a strong indication that something pretty fundamental must be missing in his marriage. And yet, increasingly, Kendall felt threatened by Catriona Charles. When Ivan went home to Oxfordshire for the weekends, he returned to London refreshed, calmer, visibly happy. Kendall, on the other hand, spent weekends in a frenzy of activity – shopping, clubbing, having lunch with Stella Bayley and her coterie of Primrose Hill celebrity friends, snapped everywhere she went by the ubiquitous paparazzi. But invariably by Sunday evening she felt depressed, anxious and deeply lonely. When Ivan came home she would pick a fight with him, and they would end up having wild, intense, make-up sex. By Monday things had settled back to ‘normal’. But Kendall was left with a deep fear of Ivan abandoning her, going back to his kind, comfortable, country wife and leaving her to fend for herself in London. She couldn’t let that happen.

  After a long, hot shower and a room service breakfast of poached eggs, granary toast and a positively ambrosial fruit compote, Kendall felt considerably better. She would check out later this morning, return to the flat and make things up with Ivan. Perhaps she’d stop by La Perla on Sloane Street on the way and pick up something tiny and lacy and provocative to help seal the deal.

  The phone rang. The room phone. No one knows I’m here except Ivan. He’s calling to apologize, to make the first move. Feeling hugely relieved, Kendall took a few seconds to compose herself, then picked up.

  ‘Hello?’ Her voice was deliberately languid and sleepy. She wouldn’t want him to think she’d been up for hours, worrying.

  ‘Was it you?’

  There was nothing apologetic in Ivan’s tone. It was cold and accusatory.

  ‘Was it me, what?’

  ‘Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Did you leak the story to the Mail on Sunday? We’re all over the front page, and a six-page fucking spread inside. I’ve just got off the phone to Catriona. She’s in pieces.’

  Kendall took a moment to digest what he was telling her.

  ‘A tabloid’s running a story about our relationship. Is that what you mean?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I mean,’ snapped Ivan. ‘Someone must have tipped them off and it sure as hell wasn’t me.’

  ‘Well it wasn’t me either!’ she said indignantly. ‘For God’s sake, calm down. Where are you now?’

  ‘Where do you think I am?’ said Ivan. ‘I’m in the car on the bloody M40 trying to get home. There are reporters camped outside my front fucking gates. Poor Catriona’s under siege in there.’

  ‘I see,’ Kendall said coolly. ‘Poor Catriona, eh? And what about poor me? Who’s going to help me deal with the reporters? Have you even called Sasha yet?’

  Sasha Dale was Kendall’s newly appointed publicist. Five foot one, blonde and with an angel’s face, Sasha had the mind of a sewer rat and the hide of a rhinoceros. Stories like this were her bread and butter. She would know how to handle the situation.

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ said Ivan. ‘My marriage is about to implode and you’re worried about your image?’

  ‘Well one of us needs to be,’ Kendall shot back. ‘About both our images. Even if you don’t give a shit as my boyfriend about the entire country branding me a home-wrecker, as my manager it is your fucking job to care!’ She was properly angry now. ‘How dare you put this all on me? It’s not my fault your wife is upset, it’s yours. No one forced you to fuck me, Ivan.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that,’ said Ivan, wincing at the harshness of her language. ‘It’s ugly.’

  ‘Yeah, well, sometimes the truth is ugly. But clearly that’s all I am to you. A fuck. A cheap, disposable fuck.’

  ‘That’s not true.’ Ivan sighed heavily. His head throbbed horrendously and sweat soaked through his shirt. This was unquestionably the worst morning of his life. ‘Look, I’m sorry I accused you, OK?’

  Kendall said nothing.

  ‘Calling Sasha’s a good idea,’ Ivan went on. ‘You should do that, and stay where you are for now, lay low. It may take me a few days to smooth things over at home with Cat, but I’ll call you as soon as I can.’

  ‘No,’ said Kendall.

  The traffic slowed. Ivan’s Jaguar eased to a halt behind an articulated lorry.

  ‘What do you mean, “no”?’

  ‘I mean I’m not going to sit around and wait for you to figure out a way to have your cake and eat it. Either you get back to London by seven tonight, prepared to tell the world we’re together. Or I’ll be on the nine o’clock flight back to LA.’

  Kendall was almost as shocked to hear the words coming out of her mouth as Ivan was. She hadn’t intended to give him an ultimatum. Apart from anything else, the practical problems of her upping sticks and leaving – the most immediate of which was that she was expected in a recording studio in Shepherd’s Bush tomorrow morning to start laying down the rest of her Polydor album – were overwhelming. She could always go and crash with Lex for a few weeks, but then what? Her contract required that she spend at least eight months of the year in the UK. Besides, she didn’t need a publicist to tell her that the one thing sure to make her look like the guilty party in the media was running away. If she wanted the British public to buy her records, she had t
o stay and fight her corner.

  But she’d been overcome by the emotion of the moment. Listening to Ivan’s concern for his wife, versus his knee-jerk rage against her, Kendall had a sudden, terrifying glimpse of the future. If she let him go to Catriona now, if she didn’t take control of events, she would lose him. Certainly as her lover, and in all probability as her manager too. She had to take action, to threaten something so drastic, so unexpected, that it would force his hand. She had to make Ivan feel the same gut-wrenching fear that she felt. It was self-defence.

  ‘Kendall, be reasonable,’ said Ivan, whose hands were starting to slip off the wheel with nervous sweat. ‘I have a family. You knew that. I have kids.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to leave your kids.’ Kendall struggled to keep the tremor out of her own voice.

  ‘But you’re asking me to leave my wife.’

  ‘No, Ivan. I’m just telling you that if you go back to your wife tonight and throw me under a bus, I won’t be here waiting. I’m telling you you have to choose. The choice you make is entirely up to you.’

  She hung up and sank down on the bed, shaking.

  What have I done? What the hell have I done?

  Then she pulled herself together and picked up the phone again. ‘Sasha? Yeah, hi, it’s me, Kendall. I guess we should talk.’

  Catriona Charles sat down on the dog-eared sofa in the library, then got up and walked across the room, then walked back and sat down again. Ivan was on his way, he’d be here any minute, and she literally had no idea what to do with herself. It was as if, in a few short hours, everything had changed, so that even her own body felt unfamiliar, awkward and out of place.

  Ned Williams, God bless him, had taken the children ice-skating in Oxford. A couple of reporters were already hanging around outside The Rookery’s gates as they drove off, but Ned texted Cat to say that he’d told Hector and Rosie they were there about Talent Quest and neither of the kids had questioned him. Of course, they’d have to know eventually, probably before tomorrow. But Ned was right. This was Ivan’s mess. He could bloody well tell them.

  He’d called about an hour ago, and to Catriona’s great shame all her intentions to remain calm and dignified had flown out of the window. He hadn’t got any further than ‘I’m so sorry, Cat,’ and she’d started sobbing and howling like a wounded animal, screaming at him that he was a dirty old man and that the children would never forgive him. He’d tried to tell her it was nothing, a fling, but every word was like a needle in her eyeball and in the end Catriona had simply turned off her mobile, unable to stomach any more.

  There had been affairs before, and they’d hurt, but not like this. Catriona knew Kendall. She liked her. Had liked her. Seeing the pictures hadn’t helped, of course. As long as she lived she would never get those images out of her mind. But it was more than that. Things had been so good lately between her and Ivan, so close and loving, almost like the old days. Yes, there were tensions with his work and the children. But Cat had genuinely believed he’d grown out of the womanizing, that all this nonsense was behind them. What a fool I was, she thought bitterly. A trusting fool.

  At last Ivan’s Jaguar pulled into the drive, spraying gravel in an arc into the snowy lavender bushes. Cat smoothed down her skirt and fiddled with her hair. She felt ridiculously nervous all of a sudden, as if she were the one who’d done something wrong. The front door opened and closed. ‘Catriona?’

  ‘In here.’

  Her voice sounded strange and strangled. Ivan walked into the library and saw at once the turmoil of emotions playing across her face. Hurt, pain, anger, fear, confusion. In a long brown tweed skirt and mismatched yellow sweater, with her pale face stained and bloated from crying, she was not looking her best. But there was a poignancy to her unattractiveness that somehow made the encounter even harder. It was impossible not to pity her, and not to hate himself for reducing her to this sad, dishevelled state.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘I know it’s hopelessly inadequate but I don’t know what else to say.’

  ‘There’s nothing else to say,’ said Catriona. She sat back down on the sofa. Ivan joined her, tentatively reaching for her hand. She let him take it, but felt nothing inside. Numb. As if the hand didn’t belong to her. For a long while neither of them spoke. Then Ivan said, ‘Where are the children?’

  ‘Out. With Ned.’

  Irrationally the mention of Ned’s name made Ivan bristle. ‘Where?’

  ‘Oxford. They’ll be back soon, I expect.’

  ‘Do they … have you told them anything?’

  Catriona shook her head. ‘You’ll have to tell them, Ivan. It’s all a complete nightmare. Can you imagine the stick they’re going to get at school?’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘We might have to move them. Or, at the very least, take some time away as a family. A month abroad, maybe, until the worst of the storm dies down.’

  Ivan withdrew his hand awkwardly. ‘I can’t leave England, Cat. Not now. I’m under contract to ITV and I’m up to my neck with Jester—’

  ‘Screw IT bloody V!’ Catriona recoiled, furious. ‘And screw your precious career! This is not about you, Ivan. It’s about us, our family, our marriage. I assume you’ve told Kendall it’s over? Because I swear to God, if I find one sniff of that child in our flat or anywhere else around this family, I’ll …’

  She stopped short. Ivan had stood up and walked over to the window. He had his back to her, but something about his body language, the oppressed hunch of the shoulders, the bowed head, made the hairs on her arms stand on end.

  ‘You have ended it, haven’t you?’

  Slowly, painfully slowly, Ivan turned around. He couldn’t meet Catriona’s eye. ‘It’s not that easy,’ he mumbled.

  Catriona felt as though she was having an out-of-body experience. Was this really happening? When she spoke, her voice sounded distant, almost detached.

  ‘Why not? On the phone you said … you said it was just a fling.’

  ‘It is. It was.’ Ivan looked desperately to left and right, as if searching for an answer. ‘I didn’t intend any of this to happen, Cat. It just snowballed and … I don’t know.’

  ‘Are you in love with her?’

  Ivan forced himself to look at her. ‘She makes me feel young,’ he said helplessly.

  Catriona let out a short, joyless laugh. ‘Oh. And I make you feel old, I suppose?’

  ‘It’s not you,’ said Ivan miserably. ‘None of this is about you, Cat. It just happened. One minute I felt like everything was slipping away from me. Like the best of my life was all behind me. Don’t you ever feel like that?’

  ‘No,’ said Cat truthfully, ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Of course you don’t,’ Ivan smiled. ‘You’ve always been more confident than me. More mature. It’s why you’re such a good mother.’

  ‘Please,’ said Catriona. ‘Stop.’

  ‘But I need more. I can’t help it, I just do. Kendall’s reawakened something in me, my ambition, my lust for life. It’s hard to explain.’

  For a moment Catriona just stared at him. She knew him so well, his strengths and weaknesses, faults and kindnesses. In so many ways he was still a little boy. But rightly or wrongly, she loved him.

  ‘And what about us?’ she asked him.

  Ivan glanced out of the window, searching for escape. He couldn’t answer that question. There was no answer to that question. But instead of divine inspiration, he heard the ominous rumble of Ned Williams’s car.

  ‘The children,’ said Catriona mindlessly.

  Seconds later they burst into the house, brandishing bruised knees and elbows and talking over one another about their ice-skating prowess. Ned nodded briefly at Ivan and made himself scarce. He didn’t dare look at Catriona, who seemed oddly frozen on the sofa, as if someone had pointed a remote at her and pressed pause.

  ‘We saw your programme last night. You were very good,’ said Rosie loyally, wrapping her arms around Ivan’s wa
ist.

  Hector hung back in the doorway, trying not to show how pleased he was that his dad was home. ‘So, how long are you staying this time? Just for a night?’ His chin jutted out defiantly, daring Ivan to contradict him. But it was Catriona who spoke.

  ‘Daddy’s going away for a while,’ she said dully. ‘He just came home to get some things.’

  The look on Hector’s face could have stripped paint off a wall from fifty paces. Without a word he turned on his heel and stomped off to his room. Rosie looked more confused.

  ‘What do you mean, “going away”? Going away where? When will you be back, Daddy?’

  Ivan tried to speak but the words stuck in his throat. At last he managed a stammered, ‘I’ll see you soon, Rosie, OK?’ and bolted out to his car, driving guiltily away like a thief in the night.

  ‘I thought you said he came to get some things?’ Rosie looked at her mother. Catriona was staring straight ahead, unmoving, almost catatonic. Something was clearly very wrong. ‘Mummy?’

  Cat looked up as if seeing her daughter for the first time.

  ‘Your father’s met someone else,’ she said quietly. She wished there were a way to soften the blow, but she knew from experiencing her own parents’ divorce that honesty was the only policy. ‘He’s in love with her.’

  Rosie’s eyes widened in disbelief. ‘Who? Who’s Daddy in love with?’

  Catriona sighed, defeated. ‘Kendall Bryce.’

  Speeding along the A40 towards Woodstock, Ivan gazed at the road ahead in a daze. This morning, everything had been fine, everything had been normal. He was married, he was seeing Kendall, and the two compartments of his life co-existed in what looked with hindsight like perfect harmony. But now that was all gone. Kendall had put a gun to his head and told him to jump, and he’d jumped. All he could think about was the look on Hector’s face as he turned away from him. What have I done?

  He was still in shock when his mobile rang.