Good at Games (10 page)

Jaz would be back soon. Celeste lay back in the bath, envisaging what he was doing now. More often than not, following a meeting, those who didn't have to rush off retired to one of the cafés nearby for a coffee and an informal chat. These chats drove Celeste to distraction. It was like being forced to listen to a bunch of fat people discussing their diets when you only weighed seven stone and had never needed to count a calorie in your life. It was like listening to people telling you about their own dreams, like listening to paint dry…

Oh, it was all fascinating stuff as far as Jaz was concerned, because AA had saved his life. Celeste understood that, and she was grateful, of course she was, but her patience was starting to wear alarmingly thin. In fact, she was beginning to think that if anything could turn her
into
an alcoholic it was being forced to attend any more of those bloody boring meetings. Truly, it was enough to drive the saintliest teetotaler to drink.

Closing her eyes, letting the bubbles wash over her narrow shoulders, Celeste recalled the night when she and Jaz had first met. She smiled to herself at the memory, at the flukiness, the sheer
chance
of it. That, though, was what life was all about, surely? Spotting an opportunity and making the most of it.

She had always had a crush on Jaz Dreyfuss. Photographs of him, painstakingly cut from magazines, had covered her bedroom wall from the age of fifteen onward. While her school friends had drooled over Take That and Boyzone, Celeste had remained true to Jaz. She loved his music, his wildness, and his gorgeous brown eyes. Better still, he lived in Bristol and so did she, which had to shorten the odds against them one day clapping eyes on each other, enabling Jaz to fall in love with her at first sight.

To Celeste's great disappointment, this seemed destined not to happen. At every opportunity she had dressed herself up to the nines, caught the bus across the city to Clifton, and hung around the streets and outside bars waiting to accidentally bump into him. But she never did. And the next thing Celeste knew, Jaz had disappeared off the scene completely. When he reemerged, a couple of months later, it was to announce that he had been through rehab and had now stopped drinking, hopefully for good.

Celeste was pleased for Jaz's sake, but it was bad news for her. If he'd given up the booze, there was no longer much point in her hanging around Clifton's many pubs and bars.

It was the end of her beautiful dream. She stopped going to Clifton and instead started going out with an apprentice butcher named Alan, from Brislington.

And then, two months later, it happened.

Typically, Celeste was wearing her awful office clothes and no makeup. But Alan was no longer worth putting on makeup for, and she didn't care what he saw her looking like. The romance had by that time well and truly worn off.

Waiting at the curbside as darkness fell, Celeste stuck her cold hands in her pockets and silently cursed Alan for being late. Six o'clock he was supposed to pick her up from work and there was still no sign of him. And now, to add insult to injury, her view of the approaching traffic had been blocked by some selfish idiot parking his flashy car right where she didn't want him to park…

Her heart skipped several beats as she realized who was driving the car. Holding her breath, Celeste watched Jaz Dreyfuss climb out, lock the doors, and, head bent, make his way rapidly across the road.

Without stopping to think, Celeste followed him. As she reached the pavement on the other side, Alan's white van trundled into view. Celeste ducked down behind the row of parked cars so he couldn't see her, and scurried—like Groucho Marx—along the pavement after Jaz.

When he headed up the steps of an anonymous gray building, Celeste didn't hesitate for a second. Jaz was out of sight, but she could hear his footsteps echoing along the corridor to her left. She followed the sound of the footsteps, then rounded a corner and stumbled to a halt. Jaz was there, waiting outside some kind of hall…and he appeared to be waiting for
her
…

Giddy with excitement and trepidation, Celeste gazed at him in a kind of stupefied silence. Would Jaz be furious with her for following him? Would he yell at her, tell her to go away? And what was he doing here anyway? Through the glass in the door she could see a motley collection of people pulling up chairs…oh no, don't say Jaz had gone and gotten himself involved with some religious group?

But he didn't seem angry. In fact, he was smiling at her. Almost, Celeste realized, in an encouraging way.

“First time?” When he spoke, his voice was gentle.

“Y-yes.”

“Coming in, then?”

Seize the moment. Spot an opportunity and grab it. Or spend the rest of your life kicking yourself.

“Yes.” She began to tremble.
Please don't let it be one of those weird cults where you have to have sex with dozens of ugly men. There's only one man in this building I want to have sex with…

“You're shaking,” Jaz told her. His warm hand closed around her icy one. “It's OK. Don't worry, you'll be fine.”

* * *

He was right, of course. And to Celeste's intense relief it wasn't some nutty religious cult he was dragging her into. As soon as the first woman stood up to announce that her name was Glenda and she was an alcoholic, Celeste had known what she had to do.

“My name is Celeste, and I'm an alcoholic.” Addressing a group of strangers had been nerve-racking, but that had worked to her advantage. Throwing herself into the role, she had blurted out, “I can't carry on like this. I have to stop drinking. It's wrecking my l-l-life.” The tears had come easily, pouring down her cheeks. She had given a stupendous performance.

And afterward, when the meeting was over, she had rushed from the room like a teenager bolting from school.

Returning to his car minutes later, Jaz had found her sobbing on the pavement as if her heart would break.

“I can't do it,” wailed Celeste, burying her face in her hands. “I can't, I c-can't!”

“Yes, you can.” He pulled her upright and gazed down at her white, tearstained face. “I'll take you for a coffee. You can tell me all about yourself.”

“You don't want to hear,” Celeste mumbled. “I'm a hopeless case.” Her chin trembling, she looked fearfully up at him. “I pour vodka on my cornflakes.”

“Wrong,” said Jaz. “You used to pour vodka on your cornflakes. You don't anymore.”

She shook her head. “Why should you care anyway?”

“Because we're all in this together.” With one finger, he carefully wiped away her tears. “And if I can stop drinking, you can too. Come on, sweetheart, get in the car.”

And that had been that. A lifetime of being irresponsible and pleasing no one but himself had meant that Jaz had never actually cared for anyone else before. Delighted to discover that he was now in a position to help another human being, he had thrown himself into the task of helping Celeste.

In the bath, Celeste smiled to herself and lazily soaped her arms. She heard the front door slam downstairs. Oh yes, she had spotted her opportunity and grabbed it with both hands, and she'd never for a moment regretted it. Hankering occasionally for a nice glass of red wine and not being able to have one was a small price to pay for living with Jaz. Never having been much of a drinker anyway, she was more than happy to make that sacrifice.

The bathroom door opened, and she smiled at Jaz.

“You're back. How did it go?”

He came and sat down on the side of the bath.

“Jeff's wife is pregnant. They're thrilled.” He paused. “Dave thinks his girlfriend's going to leave him.”

“Poor old Dave.”
Serves him right for being so boring
, Celeste privately thought. Her gaze roamed over Jaz's body, so fit and lean and gorgeous in his black sweatshirt and cream jeans. He was everything she'd ever wanted, her dream come true.

“And Jeff said didn't I think it was about time I got back into the business,” Jaz went on, his voice level.

Celeste looked at him. This was a subject that had arisen before. In Jaz's mind, alcohol and the music business were inextricably linked. They went together. Since drying out, he had given up work completely, refusing to record an album, or tour, or even attempt to write any more songs. She knew he was worried that a return to his old life might mean he wouldn't be able to resist the temptation to start drinking again.

“You don't have to go back to work. Not if you don't want to.” Gently, Celeste squeezed his arm. She didn't want him to resume his career anyway. They were happy together and they had more than enough money…the thought of Jaz plunging back into the wild rock-and-roll lifestyle made her nervous. Not just because of the drink, but because of the groupies…

“Don't worry; I won't let them pressure me into it.”

Jaz smiled faintly. Three and a half years, he knew, was a considerable break by anyone's standards. And he was torn, because he
did
want to get back to work. It didn't matter that the royalty checks were still rolling in—he couldn't spend the rest of his life doing nothing.

“You're healthy,” said Celeste. “That's all that matters. Jeff just likes to stir things up. He's jealous because you've got more than he'll ever have.”

A vacation was what they needed, she thought. A couple of weeks away from it all, relaxing on a private beach in the Seychelles, that would do the trick.

“Forget Jeff.” Jaz changed the subject. “What did you do this evening?”

“Actually, I've been quite busy,” Celeste gaily announced. “Helping your new next-door neighbors move in.”

* * *

“Come on then,” Suzy said two hours later. “I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours.”

“It might make you feel a bit funny,” Lucille warned.

“It won't, I promise. I'm interested. Oh, this is so great!” Suzy waved her arm happily around Lucille's new bedroom. “
Tons
more fun than bowling. I've never had a roommate before.”

Giving in, Lucille reached over the side of the double bed and hauled up the bag Celeste had tried to investigate earlier.

“Wait, I'll go get mine.” Suzy leaped off the bed. “We'll take turns, start from the beginning, see how we compare.”

* * *

Lucille had been right; it did feel a bit funny looking at photographs of your own mother suddenly being somebody else's mother. In a strange house, smiling into the eyes of a strange man, proudly showing off a strange baby…

Except it wasn't a strange baby, Suzy had to keep reminding herself. It was Lucille.

“You had
hair
,” she said accusingly, nudging Lucille with her forearm. “And look at you, you were
gorgeous
. Well, I'm sorry, but this isn't very fair.”

“You were lovely too,” Lucille protested, pointing to a snapshot of Suzy at six months, lying in her baby carriage.

It was a valiant lie.

“I looked like a Sumo wrestler and I was as bald as an egg until I was two. According to my mother, I was the ugliest baby in Bristol.” Suzy sighed and turned to the next page of the album. “Happily, I blossomed. By the time I was three, I was
totally
gorgeous.”

“Not to mention modest,” said Lucille, her head bending over the photos. “Is this your dad? He looks nice.”

“That was taken at Julia's birthday party. She was ten, I think. Going on fifty,” Suzy added with a smile. In the photo, a group of girls clowned for the camera while Julia, her pristine blue party dress teamed with white knee-length socks, stood stiffly at attention, clutching her father's hand.

“Where's Mum?” Lucille noticed that Blanche wasn't featured in any of the photos taken on Julia's birthday.

“Don't know. Probably with you,” said Suzy. She pointed to one of the photos in Lucille's album, of Lucille splashing in a paddling pool while Blanche looked on. “And there's your dad.” She peered more closely at the smiling, dark-skinned man sitting next to Blanche. “Wow, he was handsome.”

They carried on leafing through the albums, following each other's progress through childhood, comparing clothes, hairstyles, and vacations. On the beach at Bournemouth with Lucille, and in a pool on the Algarve with Suzy, their mother wore the same yellow daisy-patterned bikini.

“That was the villa we stayed in,” Suzy pointed out.

“And that was our caravan,” said Lucille. “In Mudeford.”

Suzy experienced a pang of guilt.

“Didn't you ever wish you could go abroad?”

Lucille looked astonished.

“We had brilliant vacations. As long as Mum was there, I was happy. Nothing else mattered.”

Suzy was still trying to imagine Blanche roughing it in a tatty caravan park.

In Mudeford, Dorset.

Actually enjoying herself.

It was hardly the Zambezi, was it?

Suzy shook her head. “She must have really loved you and your dad.”

Proudly, Lucille said, “Oh, she did. And we loved her.”

Weirder and weirder. From the sound of things, Blanche had been a better mother to Lucille than she'd ever been to her legitimate family. Actually, it explained a lot—not least the toy parrot from Paraguay—
allegedly
—which she had later spotted on the shelves of the souvenir shop at the Bristol Zoo.

“All those years,” Suzy murmured, “she was sharing herself with—my God, there's
Harry
!” Glad for the diversion, she pounced on the next photo in the album, of two teenagers on bikes pretending to push each other off. Lucille, her hair cropped short and her brown eyes bright with laughter, was wearing a Frankie Say Relax T-shirt and pink shorts. Next to her, Harry wore tight black jeans and a billowing crimson, pointy-collared shirt. He was grinning broadly, and his hair, which was long and curly, looked suspiciously blow-dried.