Katy Carter Keeps a Secret (19 page)

Guy looks at me pleadingly.

“Go on, Katy,” he says. “You know you want to.”

Of course I know I want to. My heart is doing this weird boingy thing in my chest and I can’t quite believe it. New York. Seriously? Me?

“You want
me
to go to New York with you?” I ask, hardly able to take this in.

“Guy can’t go on his own. You’re terrified, aren’t you, sweetie?” says Holly.

Her six-foot strapping fisherman fiancé nods miserably. “I’m crapping myself about being in a city, never mind getting on a bloody plane.”

“So why put yourself through it, mate?” Ollie asks.

“Because if I can get some publicity through a documentary I’ll be able to raise a lot more awareness of how the politicians have stitched up the British fishing fleet,” Guy replies, as though this should be totally obvious. “Bloody good idea, eh?”

I’m sure it would be if I had a clue what he’s on about. Seeing my confused expression, my sister adds, “Think about Jamie Oliver and the school dinners thing. If Guy gets a bit of media exposure he might be able to do something similar for the fishing industry. Unfair fishing quotas will be the new junk food and everyone will be talking about them. You wait and see. He’ll be TV gold. Look how much the Americans love Gordon Ramsay. They’ll go bonkers for Guy.”

Sometimes I think my sister’s spent far too much time with her fiancé. She’s as nuts as he is.

“Don’t look at me like that. It really could work,” Holly says firmly. “There’s a whole new political and media career waiting for Guy if he can just pull this off. He can’t go to sea forever; it’s too dangerous, especially now he’s going to be a dad.”

Guy kisses her cheek and then nods. “I can’t be a coward and chicken out on this, no matter how much I hate bloody cities or the thought of flying. So I guess what I’m saying is: Katy Carter, how do you feel about coming with me on an all-expenses-paid trip to visit Pinchy in New York?”

And of course there’s only one answer to a question like that, isn’t there?

It looks as though I’m going to New York!

Chapter 15

Throb

Fiction that’s red hot and ready!

Eros Towers * Sherrington Boulevard * W14 6BY

Dear Katy,

Many thanks on the behalf of Throb
for delivering
Kitchen of Correction
ahead of schedule. We are delighted to tell you that we are able to push publication forward as a result of this and look forward to the book being a big success.

Everyone on the team was surprised by the imaginative energy and vivid detail of the work. None of us will ever be able to see clothes pegs or cabbages in the same way again. Your author copies will be delivered shortly by courier.

We do hope you like them!

Thanks also for the parcel of Cornish pasties. Yes, you were correct in fearing that they might arrive a little bit squashed. We donated your kind gift to the builders working next door. They were thrilled and send their regards.

Unfortunately, we cannot forget about the ‘small clause’ which says the author must be available and willing to promote the novel. If you look carefully at the third paragraph in your contract you will see that it is clearly stated that once the document is signed it is legally binding.

We look forward to seeing I Lovett out and about very soon!

Best wishes,

Lisa Armstrong (Senior Commissioning Editor)

“Don’t look so worried!” Mads says as she wheels my suitcase towards the check-in desk. “The flight will be a piece of cake. All you need to do is sit back, watch a few movies and enjoy all the booze. I can’t tell you how jealous I am.”

“I’m not worried about the flight,” I say, which is one hundred percent true. Any nerves I may have harboured about flying have been well and truly overshadowed by the letter from Throb that arrived this morning and the threat of Pete the Post handing Ollie the parcel full of my author copies. In terms of the carnage it could cause, it might as well be a bomb with a lit fuse. Mads has promised to do her best to pre-empt the delivery, but short of staking out the Post Office or camping on our doorstep I can’t see how. My only hope is that the books arrive on a school day and have to be collected later on. If not, I’m going to have an awful lot of explaining to do. So is Mads, since she helped me to finish the book in record time. And Nicky too, who I have to say was the real genius behind it all.

The problem is that even if Ollie
doesn’t
see the books I have a nasty feeling that I’ll still have a lot of explaining to do, since Throb
are insisting on promotion and publicity. After everything I’ve promised him too about not bringing St Jude’s into disrepute! I can’t believe that in spite of all my best efforts Throb are refusing to release me from that annoying clause in the contract – almost as much as I can’t believe I never spotted it. OK, maybe I
can
believe I never spotted it, since I didn’t read the contract in the first place. I’m going to be kicking myself all the way to the United States.

There has to be a way of getting out of this. I just haven’t thought of it yet, that’s all. I’ve got a long flight to come up with something and then ten days in America. I’ll go and find Frankie and Gabriel. Maybe they can help? Otherwise I’m doomed. Ollie will never forgive me and he’ll run away with Carolyn and I’ll die of a broken heart. The thought of living for even a millisecond without Ol makes my heart lurch and my eyes prickle. What am I thinking, going the USA when there’s all this mess to deal with and the man I love is miles away? I can’t go to New York! I need to get back to Cornwall immediately!

I know I’ve thought of nothing else but this trip for the past few weeks, but I’ve changed my mind.

I want to go home!

I stop dead in my tracks. All around me the airport throngs with travellers lugging cases, queuing at the check-in desks or craning their necks to peer up at the information boards. I’m sure it’s very noisy but I can’t hear a sound and everything’s slowing down. I think I’m having a panic attack. To be honest I don’t know how it’s taken me this long. Should I ask for a paper bag? And what would I do with one anyway?

Maddy stops wheeling, places her hands on my shoulders and peers at me intently. “Babes, are you all right? You’re ever such a funny colour. Are you worried about the flight?”

I shake my head but my best friend isn’t convinced. “You looked like this when we went to Shagaluf on that girls’ holiday. You had a meltdown at the boarding gate and we had to score some Valium off an old lady, remember?”

I don’t stand a chance of
not
remembering with Maddy constantly reminding me of it. It wasn’t one of my finest moments – but in fairness to me we had been binge-watching the
Lost
boxset the night before and my imagination was working overtime. Mads has never forgotten, which is why she’s insisted on accompanying me to Bristol Airport today. Ollie’s working and I was quite happy to travel up with Guy and Holly, but my best friend wasn’t having it.

“The truth of the matter is I need some respite from the twins,” she’d confessed. “And I’ll be able to go to shopping on the way home without Richard having a hissy fit or checking the bank balance afterwards. You’d be doing me a favour if you said you needed a bit of handholding.”

So an elaborate charade had followed, with Mads playing the role of supportive friend while I took the part of nervous traveller, or at least when Richard was around anyway. Ollie thought I was mad, but then again this was nothing new. He’s looking totally frazzled and I have a horrible feeling he’s secretly looking forward to a break from lava-lamp disasters and living-room excavations.

“It’s not the flight,” I say, and I sound as though I’ve been inhaling helium. “It’s all this business with the book.”

Mads nods. “I can see why that could be stressful, but the way I see it is that nobody knows who the mysterious I Lovett is yet, do they? And nobody from the publishing house has met you yet either, have they?”

It’s a good point.

“And if they do want to see you,” Maddy continues, “then they’ll just have to wait because you’re out of the country. That’ll give us enough time to figure out what to do.”

I ought to feel reassured by the way she’s including herself in this mess but somehow I don’t, probably because whenever Maddy gets involved everything in my life becomes far more complicated.

“I’ll get Nicky to keep an eye out for those books,” she continues, grabbing the case in one hand and my arm in the other as she propels us to the check-in. “Fear not, between us we’ll sort it.”

“Nicky should be focusing on his A-levels, not sitting around waiting for the postman! I’m worried enough as it is that he’ll get distracted doing all that work for Tansy.”

Maddy grins. “The amount he’s earning I’m not surprised. Are you sure Tansy isn’t a secret drug dealer?”

“Ssh!” I glance around nervously. Call me paranoid but I’m always terrified there’s a stray reporter lurking in wait for a Tansy story and I’ll have a writ slapped on me before you can say “lawsuit”. I’m not kidding: the paperwork I signed when I became Tansy’s ghostwriter made the Throb
contract look like a comic.

Still, it’s certainly true that Nicky’s been working very hard for Tansy’s new venture. He’s already earned enough to buy a scooter, and all his spare time’s spent driving to various venues. I never thought Nicky would enjoy waiting tables quite so much but he actually seems to be thriving on it. Last week he even had a haircut and got Maddy to tweeze his eyebrows, so it’s nice he’s interested in looking smart for work. He’s stopped asking me if he can borrow money too, which is a bonus. In fact, I had to beg a twenty from
him
yesterday.

If I’d known how lucrative waiting tables could be I’d never have become an English teacher.

Maddy hugs me. “That was a joke! Relax, everything’s going to be fine this end, I promise. All you have to do is explore the Big Apple and babysit Guy. And if you don’t eat pastrami on rye, wear a tutu and drink a cosmo on my behalf then I’m never talking to you again!”

As we take our place in the check-in queue for JFK I’m feeling slightly more reassured but I’m also really wishing Ollie was coming with me. Just think of the fun we could have had together! Shopping in Macy’s, walking hand in hand through Central Park, cruising up the Hudson, visiting the Statue of Liberty… I feel quite sad that I’ll be having all of these amazing experiences without him. But of course Ollie is working and since it’s the run-up to the exam season there’s no way he can come too. In his usual generous way he’s told me to go and have the time of my life, and I know he means it too, but this doesn’t stop me wishing things were different. I know if we could only have some time away together we’d be able to talk properly.

I might even pluck up the courage to tell him about my secret alter ego…

But this is all hypothetical, and since Ollie’s busy taking extra revision classes and crammer sessions even at the weekends I’ll be exploring New York with my prospective brother-in-law instead. Never mind
Crocodile Dundee
; Guy is Fish Cornwall. And, talk of the devil, here he comes now, dressed as though he’s about to hop aboard his trawler rather than fly across the pond.

“He’s wearing a smock and rigger boots,” giggles Mads, watching Guy trail behind my sister – who’s striding across the concourse with an expression of grim determination all over her face.

“Sorry we’re late,” Holly puffs. “We’ve parked miles away and then Guy insisted on checking out the shops. I lost him for ages before I eventually found him in Dixons.”

Guy, clutching a giant Toblerone to his chest, looks mutinous.

“Of course I was in Dixons. Where did you think I’d be? Claire’s sodding Accessories?”

Holly ignores him and pushes her glasses up her nose with her forefinger, always a sign of intense concentration. “Now, Katy, you’ll have to look after his wallet, tickets and passport because he’ll only lose them. I’ve also packed him a pasty to eat in Departures and he’s got a couple of diazepam too for if he gets nervous on the flight. Make sure he doesn’t drink with them, OK? He mustn’t mix those with alcohol. “

That’ll be easier said than done, since it’s lager rather than blood that flows through Guy’s arteries.

“You’re giving Katy the passports and tickets?” Mads looks worried. “Is that wise?”

“I think I can cope,” I say.

“You left your rucksack on the airport shuttle earlier,” she reminds me.

Yes. OK. I did. And I also had a big telling-off from the security man, who was apparently only minutes away from cordoning Departures off and blowing my poor bag up. I still feel a bit hot under the collar just thinking about some of the things he said to me. But I won’t do it again. No way. From now until we reach our hotel I’m not letting my bag out of my sight.

“Guy can’t have them. His smock pockets are full and he won’t carry a manbag,” Holly says.

“Manbag? Who do you think I am? Bloody Frankie?” grumbles Guy. He glances across the concourse to the café. “Christ. I need a beer.”

“I don’t think I can keep Guy away from booze,” I say to my sister. “Maybe he shouldn’t have any tablets?”

“He needs them. He’s absolutely terrified,” Holly whispers as we edge closer to the desk and her fiancé shuffles miserably forward. “He’s never flown – he’s hardly even left Cornwall. Look after him for me, Katy? Please? I know Guy makes a big noise but he’s a jelly underneath. It’s all bluster and I’m not sure how he’ll cope in a city. Oh God, I wish I was coming too, to look after him.”

I give her a hug. “He’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

But my sister isn’t convinced. “The thing is, Katy, that I actually
did
find him in Claire’s Accessories at one point – and unless my fiancé has developed a sudden liking for glittery hair slides, it’s obvious he was hiding. If you hang onto his wallet, he can’t go to ground in the bar. Make sure you don’t let him out of your sight!”

As we check in I bear her comments in mind. It’s true to say that Guy has gone a very funny colour, and several times he’s looked as though he’s about to make a break for freedom. How I’ll keep hold of him is anyone’s guess. Parking him in the bar had been my preferred plan of action, but now I’ll have to drag him through duty-free with me. Perhaps that’s a good thing? As always he smells of diesel and fish, so if by the time we board he’s a pungent mix of every aftershave Chanel makes, that can only be an improvement.