One In A Billion (18 page)

I was starving. In my excitement, I'd forgotten that the last meal we'd had was on the plane, several hours ago.

'Are you ready to eat?' Devizes said, as if he was reading my mind.

'That would be incredible', I said, a smile beaming across my face.

We sat on the third floor balcony, ate a banquet of fish that had been caught that very morning by a personal team of dedicated fisherman, and drank several bottles of very expensive champagne.

'You know how to have a good time', I said.

'I try', Devizes said.

'So what's your story, you never did tell me?' I was a little drunk, and I felt like prying.

'My story is a boring, business one, Alice, I'm sure yours is a much better read.'

'Your publishers should be able to tell you that', I said.

'Falling Away?' Devizes said, the penny dropping.

I nodded. 'Everything you need to know is in there', I said.

'Is it all true?' Devizes asked.

'Absolutely, one hundred percent', I said and winked at him. 'I couldn't make that stuff up.'

'I'll have to read it', Devizes said.

'I'm shocked you haven't already', I said, feigning hurt.

'I was never a very competent reader', Devizes said. 'I don't think my brain is set up in the right way.'

'I thought you had a creative bent', I said. 'Don't you collect art work?'

My glass was empty, and I was spinning it about absent-mindedly on the wooden table surface. Devizes took this as a cue and filled up in, even though I didn't really need any more. He rubbed the feet I had long ago lifted up onto his lap.

'I do, but I couldn't tell you the difference between a Botticelli and a fettuccine', he said, and smiled coyly. I loved how the edge of his lips would raise a little and cause a crease to run nearly all the way to the corner of his eye. 'Really I have an adviser to do that for me. I buy them as an investment.'

'And there I was thinking you had a fine appreciation of the artistic world.'

'Sorry to disappoint you', Devizes said.

'God that feels good', I said, arching my neck and reclining into the recess of the armchair Devizes had laid out on the patio instead of simple wooden chairs, while he pushed his thumb into the hollow of my foot.

'Was that a ploy then?' I said. 'To talk to me at the National Portrait Gallery.'

'It was a way in, I suppose', Devizes said. 'I like people who can appreciate art, because it's something I can't do. Really I'm very boring.'

I laughed, 'that tickles', I said.

Devizes pulled my chair closer to him, so I could wrap my legs around his waist.

'Private jets, tropical islands', I said. 'That's not boring.'

'It's not quite tropical', Devizes said. 'It's sort of on the edge.'

'You know what I mean', I said.

Devizes had his hand on my leg, dancing towards my thighs.

'I guess it's ok if you have someone to share it with', he said.

'Don't you?'

'I might do now', he said.

Devizes leaned in. He was about to plant lips on mine, a kiss I had been waiting for all evening, when his god damn phone rang. He was an inch away from me, his hand somewhere secret and warm, my legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer and closer into me, and his stupid bloody phone went off.

I laughed. 'Leave it', I said.

Devizes kissed me and then pulled away. 'I thought you said no work', I said.

'I did', Devizes said. 'Now I'll tell the same to whoever this is, and then we can carry on where we left off.

Devizes took the phone from his jacket pocket, looked at the caller ID and took the call in another room.

'I won't be long', he said, squeezing my shoulder softly as he left, avoiding my attempts to pull him back to me. 'I have to take this.'

I watched the blackness of the water while he was gone, and the blanket of white that turned slowly in the sky as the earth rotated. I couldn't hear who he was talking to, or what he was talking about, but as a natural worrier, I couldn't help but think he was going to come back and tell me that everything had been a huge mistake, that he couldn't pay me a million pounds to leave my job and write full time, and that I had to leave his tropical island immediately, even if it meant swimming to shore.

A million pounds, I thought. I still couldn't believe it. I'd never had more than a thousand pounds at any one time in my bank account, half of that in my hand. I was still thinking about what that actually meant, the reality of that offer not quite sinking in, when Devizes came back.

'Pick a number from one to thirteen', he said, poking his head around the door.

'Do you promise the phone won't go again?' I said.

'I can't promise it won't go, but I do promise not to answer it.'

'Mmm', I said. 'I suppose that's fair. Which ones are in the towers?'

'One, two, three and four', Devizes said.

'Then take me to one, and we'll work our way around.'

'We only have five days', Devizes said, lifting me carefully out of my chair.

'Then we'll only do two laps instead of three', I said, and nuzzled into his neck.

Suddenly I was quite tired. The alcohol, the journey, the excitement all hit me at once. Devizes could tell. He lifted me up like Superman would, pushed open the door to the house with his foot and carried me up the winding stairs to tower number one.

There, he lay me carefully on the bed. 'Do you want me to let you go to sleep, or wake you up?' he said.

'Can you do both?' I said, as he climbed on top of me to lift up the T-shirt I knew he'd been desperate to pull off me all night.

'I can do everything and anything that you want', Devizes said, sending kisses along the bare skin of my torso.

'Then do exactly that', I said, rolling onto my side, and pulling lazily at my jeans, a dozen breaths from sleep. 'Kiss me, cuddle me, and fuck me to sleep.'

Devizes tore off his shirt. As he descended on me like a shadow, he could do nothing to keep the pleasures of my dreams at bay.

When I woke, Devizes wasn't with me. I had no idea what time it was, but the windows in the tower had been opened, and I could smell the saltiness of the sea air. It was a little windy, and looking out at the sky and the sea that surrounded us, I could tell the day was already moving along with itself.

From here, I could see now what I had been unable to see last night. We were effectively in the middle of a dense forest, at the edge of the sea, with a line of white sand beach below us and absolutely nothing at all on the horizon. The water glistened as the sun hit it, dazzling like a sheet of gold.

'Devizes', I called as I climbed down the stairs. When I got to the bottom, I was disappointed to see he was on the phone, this time out on the same balcony we'd had dinner on the night before.

'I thought'- I said, and Devizes put his hand up to stop me.

I sat down at the table where breakfast had already been laid out. There was coffee, croissants, bread, juices, fruits and a basket of different teas. I poured myself some juice and waited until Devizes was done, watching him and listening into his conversation, the context of which I couldn't quite understand.

'Alice', he said, when he'd finally finished. He came over and kissed me.

'Do you break all of your promises?' I said.

'I'm sorry, I know I said I wouldn't answer the phone, but this one I just had to take. You would have wanted me to.'

'I would have wanted you to?' I said, confused.

'It was about your book', Devizes said. 'They've set the date for the campaign. They needed my go ahead.'

'Wow', I said. 'That's amazing.'

'Am I forgiven?' Devizes said.

'Of course', I said. 'Look, you can answer your phone if you like, I don't mind. I was being silly yesterday. I know you have to work.'

'They'll begin putting the posters up next weekend', Devizes said. 'They've set the launch date for the 21st, how does that sound?'

'That's two weeks from now', I said. 'That's fast.'

'Is that ok?'

'Of course it's ok.'

'You'll have to do a book signing, a speech and a reading, the normal kind of thing. Do you think you can handle that?'

'Sure', I said. 'I still can't believe it though. This is really happening.'

'It's really happening', Devizes said.

'Thank you so much', I said, and showered him with kisses.

'They're planning to use the picture of you from the back cover of the book, but I said we could take another one here, perhaps of you relaxing on the beach, and send it to them to use instead. What do you say?'

'Ok', I said. 'Whatever you think works best.'

'We'll take one, send it, and let the professionals decide, while we relax on our tropical island with private beach. Which reminds me, what would you like to do today?'

'Mmmmm, let me think', I said. 'Sex, more sex, beach, food, sex, more food, champagne, sex, and sleep. How does that sound?'

'That sounds like music to my ears', Devizes said and pulled me into him once again, my nakedness exposing itself accidentally below my Egyptian cotton dressing gown.

Chapter 12

Alice stared up at her parents in disbelief.

'James', she said, looking over to him.

'What can we do?' James said, shrugging his shoulders.

'Why didn't you tell me before?' Alice protested, her eyes red where she'd been rubbing the tears away with the palms of her hands.

'Would it have made a difference?' Peter said.

Pam was sat next to Alice, trying to console her daughter, who pushed her away at every attempt.

'And what about Toby?' Alice said.

Peter scoffed. 'Toby', he said. 'What's that little runt got to do with this?'

'I hate you', Alice said. She pushed away from her mother's outstretched arms and headed up to her bedroom.

'They'll be plenty of decent boys in London', Peter called after her as she ran up the stairs, slamming every door she could on the way to her bedroom.

'Do you want to do the same?' Peter said to James.

'She'll get over it', James said. 'It wasn't like I didn't when we got here.'

***

It was results day at school. Toby, who now had his head shaved, and his left ear pierced with a stud, sat with Alice at the end of the football field, smoking a joint. They were with Lisa, Clare, Lisa and Clare's boyfriends, Cal and Jack - two of the jerks that used to bully Toby relentlessly on the school bus home - and a group of less popular kids, who formed a sort of outside circle around them. Each one had their school uniform covered in graffiti, scrawled over by friends and teachers alike. They were only sixteen years old, but already looked like men and women. Toby was a far cry from the floppy haired eight year old with sticky out ears he was when Alice met him. Alice hadn't changed much. She'd gone from a pretty child, to an even prettier adult.

'Aren't you going to open it?' Alice said to Toby.

'Maybe later', he said. 'What did you get?'

'What do you think she got?' Lisa said, 'little miss brain-box.'

Toby held up the joint up and Clare took it. He had little scars all over reddened knuckles.

'I did well enough', Alice said. 'Not as well as I wanted to.'

Toby leaned back on the grass. 'Fuck school', he said.

'Amen', Cal said.

Alice stretched her legs out and rested her head on Toby's thigh. He ran his fingers through her hair.

'What will you do now?' Jack said.

'No idea. That depends what's written on the inside of that envelope. If I did well enough in art, I'm going to college to study it.'

'There's no way you won't get an A', Alice said. 'You're better than anyone else in the school.'

'If they like my style', Toby said. 'It's not exactly conventional. They didn't like the graffiti I did on the wall of the geography block for instance.'

'What if they didn't grade you?' Lisa said.

'Then I'll do something else',  Toby said.

'I'm going to be a famous actress', Clare said, posing theatrically. Cal threw a handful of daises at her. 'It's better than geologist. I mean how fucking boring is that?'

'I never knew you were such a geek, Cal', Toby said.

'I like rocks, what can I say', Cal said. He was so strong, no one would argue with him even if it was geeky. If there was one person who could get away with being a geek, it was Cal. He had arms like thick tree branches, and knew his way around a fight.

The joint came round to Alice and she shook her head. She took it anyway and passed it to Toby.

'What about you, Lisa?' Alice said.