‘You were a child,’ said Jack.
Kendall shrugged. ‘Ivan didn’t think so. And you know it was fun in the beginning. Flattering. He can be very charming.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ said Jack.
‘And you were so bloody serious all the time, not to mention pig-headed about the money.’ She drained her glass and poured herself another. ‘You pushed me away.’ She smiled, but she was clearly only half joking.
‘Perhaps I did,’ said Jack quietly. ‘I was so angry with Ivan myself at that point, the way he was neglecting the business and messing around on Catriona.’
‘You really have a soft spot for Catriona, don’t you?’ said Kendall archly.
‘She’s a nice woman,’ said Jack. He didn’t want to admit, even to himself, how much he had missed Cat in recent months. The business, Ava, and his affair with Lisa Marie had all been distractions. But mentally, Catriona was the mother-ship to which his thoughts always seemed to return. Deep down, he felt guilty about this. As if Catriona were somehow ‘pushing Sonya out’. But he hadn’t untangled his own feelings yet, and certainly wasn’t ready to talk about them.
‘Ivan’s still in love with her, you realize.’
Kendall’s words hit him like a slap in the face.
‘He told you that?’
She shook her head. ‘He doesn’t have to. It’s obvious. Every time he’d come back from visiting her and the kids, he’d hit the bottle. Like clockwork. I wouldn’t be surprised if they got back together eventually.’
Jack shook his head, as if trying to dislodge such an unpalatable idea. ‘Christ, I hope not. That really would be the last straw.’
He’s still so attractive, thought Kendall, gazing unsteadily into his blue eyes in the candlelight. They were the only customers left in the café now, and she felt as if they were the only two people on earth. Lex shacking up with Ava had been the last straw for her. But Lex wasn’t here. He was probably in bed with Ava somewhere right now, making love to her, telling her not to worry about tomorrow. And she was here, alone, with Jack.
Reaching out for what she thought was Jack’s hand she ended up grabbing the salt-shaker instead. Shit. She must be drunker than she’d thought. Seconds later she felt Jack’s warm, dry hands wrap themselves around hers.
‘You deserved better, you know,’ he said gruffly. ‘I knew Ivan was a shit. I should have come back for you when I raided the other Jester acts. Taken you back to LA and talked some sense into you.’
‘Why didn’t you?’ Kendall asked him. She no longer felt bitter about it, but she’d always wondered.
‘I don’t know. I should have,’ said Jack. ‘Too angry I suppose. And Lex would have killed me. To lose one partner might be considered a misfortune, but to lose two starts to look like carelessness. I couldn’t have gone against his wishes, not when it came to you.’
The Oscar Wilde reference went straight over Kendall’s head. All she heard was Lex didn’t want you. He probably already fancied Ava and had his sights set on her from afar. Not that Kendall could blame him. Ava was a beautiful girl. And if Jack had pushed her away, how much harder and more cruelly had she pushed poor Lex away, when she staged those pictures at the Chateau Marmont? It was all such a mess.
Marco, the good-natured manager, came over to the table. ‘Sorry, guys, but I really need to close up now.’ Jack looked at his watch and saw with horror that it was almost midnight. He had a six o’clock start in the morning, taking Ava to perform live on ITV’s new breakfast show, Sunburst. But he didn’t want Kendall to go, not yet. There was still so much he wanted to ask her, especially about Ivan and Catriona. If she went home now, God knew when he would next get the chance.
‘Come back to The Berkeley for coffee,’ he blurted out.
Kendall hesitated. She could certainly use a coffee. All that wine had really gone to her head. But she was staying at Stella’s at the moment while Ivan used the flat and she wouldn’t score any brownie points by staggering in at four in the morning. On the other hand, finally burying the hatchet with Jack was a big deal. Stella would understand that, wouldn’t she?
‘OK,’ she said eventually. ‘One coffee. But I can’t stay long.’
Back at the hotel, the lobby was still surprisingly busy. To avoid attention they decided to order coffee in Jack’s private suite.
‘I feel like Mata Hari,’ joked Kendall, looking over her shoulder to check the corridor was empty before slipping in to room 508. ‘Like I’m sneaking into enemy territory.’
‘You’re not sneaking. I invited you. And I’m not the enemy.’
Not any more, thought Kendall happily.
While Jack put the coffee on in the en suite kitchen, Kendall snooped around. Jack’s desk was piled high with press releases, schedules and reams and reams of sales figures. Tucked under a stack of correspondence from JSM’s other clients, Kendall pulled out two photographs of Ava. They were similar to the cover shot for her Christmas single, ‘Home’. As with that picture, Ava was staring straight at the camera with her short, silver-blonde hair swept back and a beach (Malibu?) in the background. But whereas in the official ‘Home’ image she looked fierce and combative, in these pictures she was laughing. Her short, snub nose was wrinkled, her mouth opened wide, and her eyes had receded into two slits of merriment. It was a totally natural expression, uncontrolled and spontaneous. Because of that, she looked beautiful.
‘Did Lex take these shots?’ asked Kendall.
Emerging from the kitchen, Jack handed her a mug of strong black coffee, sweetened with enough sugar to kill an elephant. ‘Uh huh. They’re great, aren’t they? We tried to persuade Columbia to use them but they wanted something with more “edge”.’
‘She looks lovely,’ said Kendall wistfully. ‘So happy.’
Jack smiled. ‘I think she is happy. Lex has been really good for her. They’ve been good for each other.’
Kendall looked as if she’d just had acid thrown in her face. Mistaking her expression for sadness at her own situation, Jack put his arms around her. ‘You’ll be happy again too, sweetheart. I know you don’t think it now, but you will. You’ll find the right guy and it’ll all work out for the best.’
‘Will it?’ Turning her body to face him, Kendall stood up on tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his neck. Lex was gone, lost to her for ever. She must accept it. But in that moment all she wanted was to feel a man’s arms around her. Any man’s.
Jack stiffened. Her loneliness was palpable and he felt for her. God knew he understood that feeling. But the last thing either of them needed was to fuck up their minutes-old reconciliation with a stupid, drunken fling.
‘Come on,’ he said, gently disengaging himself from her embrace. ‘That’s not the answer, is it?’
When Kendall opened her eyes it was still dark outside. Her head ached and her mouth was dry and for a moment she wondered where she was, until she felt the soft cashmere of the sofa blanket laid over her and realized she must have fallen asleep on Jack’s couch.
God, how embarrassing. I must have been seriously drunk. Still, she couldn’t regret yesterday, running into Jack the way she had, sharing intimacies and apologies over too many bottles of wine. It had been wonderful to see him again, and to rekindle their friendship. Like the closing of a circle.
Pulling the blanket around her like a towel, she padded quietly into the bedroom.
‘Jack.’ She whispered. ‘Jack.’
‘Hmm?’ Jack sat up, disorientated. His hair stuck out at a hundred crazy angles, which gave him the look of a bewildered schoolboy. ‘Is everything OK?’
‘Everything’s fine,’ she smiled. ‘Except my head. I’m heading back to Stella’s to sleep it off. I just didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye.’
Leaning over the bed to plant a kiss on his cheek, she was startled when the door to the suite suddenly burst open.
‘Jack, what the fuck? It’s six-fifteen, man, Ava’s got Sunburst this morning, we gotta …’
&
nbsp; The words died on Lex’s lips. From the door he had a direct line of vision into the bedroom. No. It couldn’t be!
‘It’s not what it looks like,’ began Jack, rubbing his eyes. ‘Nothing happened.’
‘He’s telling the truth,’ Kendall chimed in. ‘I came up for some coffee and I passed out cold.’
Lex held up his hand. ‘Please. You don’t owe me any explanation.’ The look on his face could have melted stone. ‘It’s none of my business.’
Kendall could have wept. He hates me.
Turning away, Lex said gruffly, ‘The car’s downstairs, Jack. We can wait another five minutes, then we’re out the door.’
Both Jack and Kendall winced as the door to the room slammed shut behind him.
‘He’ll be all right,’ said Jack. ‘I’ll talk to him. Explain.’
Kendall said nothing. Her sweet dream of friendship renewed had just become a nightmare. She wanted the bed to open up and swallow her.
‘Are you all right to get home?’ Jack was already up, pulling on clothes and grabbing his cell phone from the charger by the bed. 'Do you have somewhere you need to be this morning? Can I get you a car?’
‘A meeting with Ivan in the office, but not till eleven.’ Kendall’s voice was a monotone. This wasn’t happening to her. It was all happening to someone else. ‘Then promotion all day. I’ll go to Stella’s now for a sleep. I’ll be fine.’
Jack kissed her on the top of the head. ‘OK, well, if you’re sure. I’m sorry to cut and run, but this is a big day for Ava. For both of you. Here.’ He pressed a wodge of notes into her hand. ‘For a cab and anything else you need. Take care of yourself, kiddo.’
He was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Thankfully, over the next few days, Kendall had no time to brood over what Lex Abrahams might be thinking, still less to analyse her own feelings after her night with Jack. There was work to be done.
Ava’s single, ‘Home’, was a terrific track: catchy, poppy, upbeat and instantly memorable. Without exception the radio stations loved it, shooting it to the top of their playlists. By contrast, Kendall’s more thoughtful, melodic ‘Sweet Dreamer’ began to sound a little dreary. The fact that Kendall’s single had already been out for almost two weeks gave ‘Home’ an additional novelty bounce. This was what Ava’s management had been counting on, of course, but it was a risky strategy. There was typically a time-lag between airplay and sales. This was even more pronounced at Christmas, when music bought as gifts tended to be purchased as much as a month in advance. Ava was putting on one hell of a final sprint, but was it too late to catch Kendall?
Two days after the release of ‘Home’, the Mail on Sunday ran a gushingly approving feature spread on Ava. For the first time since she got to England she had free rein to tell her side of the story on the Ivan/Talent Quest affair and her defection to America.
‘All I ever wanted was to make music, and to learn from the best. America’s not my home. England is.’
Lex featured heavily in the picture spreads, striding hand in hand with Ava across a snowy field, raising pints of Guinness with her rosy-cheeked father. Kendall scanned his face for signs of doubt and unhappiness. Not so long ago, photoshoots like this one would have turned Lex’s stomach. But his contentment seemed as genuine as his girlfriend’s. Kendall felt sick.
‘Don’t look so horrified,’ said Ivan, watching her skim through the piece again a couple of days later. ‘It’s too little too late. If we’re not number one on Friday, I’ll eat my way through Philip Treacy’s showroom.’
They were sitting in Ivan’s office on Sloane Street having a last-ditch strategy meeting. Kendall’s publicist Sasha and a posse of minions from Polydor sat together on the oversized Chesterfield sofa. Martin Higgis, the PR guru and Ivan’s close friend, was playing table football in the corner, and Ivan stood at his desk, surveying the mass of newspapers in front of him like a general studying maps of the battlefield.
He looks well, thought Kendall. Energized. There was nothing Ivan enjoyed more than a good fight, as long as he was winning. As a lover he’d had his pluses and minuses, as a husband he’d been unremittingly awful, but as a manager, Svengali and overall career strategist, he was brilliant, in a class of his own. Both he and Kendall wanted to continue working together after they announced their split in the New Year. Although, of course, if he got back with Catriona, all bets would be off.
The scrupulous politeness that had marked Ivan and Kendall’s relationship since they agreed to split extended to a newfound respect for one another’s privacy. Kendall hadn’t asked what was going on with his ex-wife, just as Ivan had made no enquiries into her love life or social plans. As for her night with Jack, and Lex walking in on them, she had not breathed a word of it to Ivan or anyone else – and she never would.
‘It’s simple,’ said Martin Higgis, looking up from his game. ‘Ava’s people are hoping that a late boost to her personal popularity will bring them their numbers swing. We have to fight fire with fire.’
‘Meaning?’ snapped Kendall. Martin was widely considered a PR genius and Ivan loved him, but Kendall had always found his cryptic, soundbite pronouncements to be an irritant. If Ava didn’t make UK number one this Christmas, she would no doubt be disappointed and return to LA and her US career with her tail between her legs. But she would still have a US career, with potentially decades of life left in it. Kendall had no such safety net. Her whole career was here, now, and her livelihood depended on Friday night’s chart.
‘Meaning she knows we can’t beat her on the song. She has a better song.’ Kendall scowled disapprovingly but didn’t disagree. ‘But we’re stronger on personal approval ratings. People have been buying Kendall’s record because they like her, not necessarily because they like it. Ava’s making a late bid for some of that action.’
‘Too late,’ said Ivan confidently.
‘Probably. But we can’t afford to get complacent. If she’s playing the happy couple card with her ugly boyfriend, we need to get you and Kendall out there doing the same.’
‘Lex isn’t ugly,’ Kendall blurted, earning herself a curious look from Ivan.
‘Well, he’s no Brad Pitt,’ said Martin bluntly. ‘Ivan’s far more charming, far more photogenic. But we need to make your romance a story again. Reignite the public interest.’
Kendall and Ivan exchanged glances. It wouldn’t be easy, going out there and faking happily-ever-after, knowing what was going on behind closed doors. But it had to be done. Walking over to Kendall, Ivan put an arm around her and kissed her.
‘We’re up for it, aren’t we?’
Kendall nodded. ‘Absolutely.’
‘Just tell us what needs to be done.’
The next three days were a circus. Both Kendall and Ava threw themselves headlong into a firestorm of promotion, each trying to portray herself as the nation’s sweetheart and their respective relationships as the ultimate Christmas love story.
Graham Norton’s viewers were treated to a nauseating interview with Ava, in which she and Lex pawed one another like lovesick teenagers and declared that they spent twenty-four hours a day in one another’s company.
‘What, even when you go to the loo?’ teased Norton.
‘He can come if he wants to,’ giggled Ava.
‘I’ll bet he can.’
Mercifully, Kendall hadn’t watched this exchange. She was too busy walking out of Nobu and gasping with prescripted delight at the fifty-piece orchestra in white tie that Ivan had laid on as a ‘surprise’ for their first wedding anniversary. Uncannily, a fleet of television crews and newspaper photographers just happened to be walking down Park Lane at the time, so were able to catch the happy couple’s tears of joy as Ivan danced with his young wife, having first pinned a single white rose in her hair and presented her with a diamond pendant in the shape of a snowflake.
‘Christmas is a very special time for us,’ he gushed to interviewers afterwards.
‘What’s the
best Christmas present he could give you, Kendall?’
‘I don’t need presents. Ivan’s love is enough. Although it would mean the world to me if ‘Sweet Dreamer’ made number one. I guess we’ll have to see.’
In the days leading up to Christmas Eve, Ivan and Kendall visited Leeds, Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol and Oxford for CD signings. They were photographed at six different romantic restaurants, guested on eighteen radio stations and made eleven separate television appearances. They streamed a live video of themselves putting up Christmas decorations on YouTube and tweeted with joy after attending the carol service together at the Royal Albert Hall.
Meanwhile, Ava’s Mail on Sunday effect seemed to be wearing off. Ratings for her chat-show appearances were consistently lacklustre, and she was booed at a shopping centre in Birmingham during a live performance of ‘Home’, with hecklers shouting, ‘Go back to America if you love it so much!’
By the time Christmas Eve morning dawned, Kendall’s confidence was soaring. Unfortunately, so was her temperature.
‘There’s no way she can make the party tonight,’ said Stella firmly, elbowing Ivan aside to plump up Kendall’s pillows and hand her a steaming mug of Lemsip. ‘She has a hundred-and-two-degree fever. She’ll collapse.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ croaked Kendall inaudibly.
During the last few days’ media blitz she’d moved back into the Cheyne Walk apartment with Ivan, and was sleeping in the master while he bunked in the spare room. So far no one had noticed Kendall’s regular sleepovers at Stella’s place in Primrose Hill, but now would not be a good time for them to start.
‘She doesn’t have to stay long,’ said Ivan. ‘But she must put in some sort of an appearance.’ Polydor had laid on a lavish ‘Number One’ bash at The Box tonight, to celebrate what now looked like certain victory in Kendall’s battle with Ava Bentley. Kendall and Ivan were both physically and emotionally exhausted, but it had been worth it.