Love Lies

‘You’re panicking. You’re rushing things.’

‘Scott wants to marry me. Scott loves me. This thing you two did tonight –’ I gesture towards the bed ‘– it doesn’t have to mean anything. People get through these things.’

Ben looks suffocated with rage. His chest is heaving up and down as he tries to catch his breath. He makes a huge effort to recapture some calm. He’s silent for a moment and then he adds, ‘Fern, Scott wants to win over the American market, he thinks you’ll help him do that. You are part of that deal.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘He doesn’t love you, he needs you, or some bride at least – to guarantee Wedding Album will resonate with the Americans. They demand sincerity and you are the nearest he could come up with.’ Ben’s face is granite.

‘No, no, that’s not true.’ I cower away from Ben as though he might hit me. But I already know that no physical blow could hurt me as much as the words he’s just spoken. Everything is unravelling, like knitting stitches, and I’m the wool, I’m left knotted and damaged. ‘You were a fling. He was drunk. I’m his true love,’ I insist. ‘He’s written songs about me. Wedding Album has my name in three tracks.’

‘He wrote most of those songs before he even met you. He dropped your name in and changed the odd

‘How long have you known this?’

‘A while.’ He looks at his feet.

‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

Ben sighs and clasps his hands over his head, elbows touching as though cradling his thoughts. ‘At first I thought it might work, that he might make you happy. You seemed happy. You left Adam for him. You made your choice. You’re a big girl, I assumed you knew what you wanted.’

‘So why tell me now?’

‘I’m in love with him. You’re in love with Adam.’

‘Adam doesn’t want me.’

‘But two wrongs don’t make a right.’ Ben’s tone is pleading but I can’t be sympathetic.

‘You just don’t want him to marry me because you want him to yourself,’ I argue, lamely.

‘You know what, Fern? I think I could make him happy, at least for a while, because I know him, faults and all. You think you do, yet you don’t. But I’m not trying to stop this wedding to save Scott for myself. I’m trying to stop this wedding to save you. You are my friend and you are throwing your life away.’

69. Scott

What is it with these people? The more you tell them you are unreliable and unstable the more they cleave to you and then they are disappointed. I told Fern I wasn’t to be trusted. I told her addicts are fucking terrible people to care about and pop stars are worse. I told her I could resist anything other than temptation and now she’s all surprised because I slept with her best friend.

OK, I admit it, not my wisest move ever, nor the kindest. I am genuinely sorry I hurt her but what could I do? Ben made a pretty determined play and yes, I was curious. He’s a bright guy; he’s funny, interesting and, well, he’s hot.

‘You shouldn’t have been doing this abstaining from sex thing,’ grumbles Mark. ‘You were pushing yourself too hard, testing yourself too severely. No drink, no drugs and no sex, it’s not rock and roll. You’re straight back in the clinic, as soon as we get this mess straightened out.’ He scowls. ‘Although how the hell I straighten this one out, I don’t know. There’s a real danger that everything is properly fucked now. If this gets out, you have so lost the American market. Who the hell is going to buy the records of a cad who swaps teams for his fiance’s best man the night before the wedding?’ Mark looks really stressed. He’s sweating and pacing and swearing by turn. ‘You’re going to have to go on a full charm offensive and

‘I hadn’t forgotten.’

In a way he’s right, it is properly fucked now. I can’t see a happy way out of this. If I don’t marry her, if I tell her how I’m feeling about Ben, then my career is over, but if I do marry her I’m only going to continue hurting her and that’s not right. I don’t want to hurt Fern. We should never have picked an innocent. I am surrounded by women who would rather die than imbibe carbs but would swallow the sperm of an influential stranger faster than you could say ‘coke or poke’. I should have got engaged to someone like that. Someone robust enough for this life. But I liked Fern, still do. Love her, perhaps. What I feel for her is a lot like love. Yes, sometimes I can go as far as to say that. But it’s my experience that loving one person doesn’t stop you loving another and it certainly doesn’t stop you having great sex with someone else. And the sex with Ben was excellent. Mark must catch me smiling to myself, and he probably catches the drift as to why I’m smiling because he hitches his anger up a notch.

‘This isn’t a fucking joke, Scott.’ He’s a total guttersnipe when he’s under pressure. ‘Do you know how much bloody money is riding on this? Besides the cost of the wedding – a limitless, dazzling exhibition, a multi-million- pound trifle – there’s all the money we stand to lose if Wedding Album sinks. How could you have been so fucking stupid?’ Neither of us actually expects me to respond to that, so he just carries on. ‘Well, we’ll get her posh mate in. What’s her name?’

‘Lisa.’

‘Yeah, Lisa, she seems a bright girl, she’ll point out what side Fern’s bread is buttered. She’ll talk Fern into going ahead. She likes nice handbags. And Colleen and Saadi, they can have a word too. Do you think between them they might be able to persuade her to go through with the wedding?’

‘No.’

‘You don’t?’ Mark was grey before; now he’s so pale he’s practically transparent.

‘I think I have to go to her. I have to be honest.’

‘We are dependent on you being honest?’

‘It’s our only hope.’

‘Well, it’s like I said then. We’re fucked.’

70. Fern

I tell Ben to get out of my room. I don’t expect to sleep, but I need some time to think. My body is aching with tiredness and so, despite my squeamishness about lying on the scene of their treachery, I flop on to my bed. What to do? What to do?

Scott has the decency to look terrible when he turns up in my room. I don’t want to look at him. I don’t want to see him. I can’t imagine a time when I gaped at his image on a calendar, let alone ogled him in the flesh. I wonder whether he’s going to tell me to leave the wedding dress in my closet because he’s coming out of his. After one sneaky glance at him, to check he looks genuinely remorseful, I stare at the ceiling. He sits down on the end of the bed, leans forward and lets his head fall, like a tonne weight, into his hands.

‘Have I a hope of getting back in your heart?’ he asks.

I think about what he’s just said. It sounds oddly familiar and I can’t help but worry whether it’s a lyric from one of his songs, or, worse – someone else’s song. I don’t answer. He moves up the bed towards me. Gently he places his arms around me and I’m so in need of comfort that I allow myself to sink into his chest and start to cry. He rocks me backwards and forwards, patiently waiting for my tears to subside. He thinks it’s the least he can do

He whispers, ‘I can’t love you any more than I do right now.’

And that might be true. But it’s not the comfort he wants it to be.