Strictly Love (26 page)

Chapter Thirty-three

 

‘How are you feeling?’ Rob asked Katie as they stood waiting one Saturday night for their turn in the ballroom of a hotel a few miles from Thurfield. It was the first round of the competition Isabella had suggested they enter, and Katie was already wishing she'd said no. Her hands felt clammy, her knees were knocking together, and she felt ridiculously overexposed in the skimpy dress she had somehow ended up wearing.

‘Sick,’ said Katie. She'd watched the other competitors in awe. Even though they had entered the beginners’ section, everyone else looked so much more accomplished than them. She pulled at her skirt. Why had she gone for tassles? Seduced by watching the new series of
Strictly Come Dancing
, now in its fifth week, and persuaded by Rob that they really, really did need to dance in the Latin section, she'd made the mistake of ordering her outfit online: a gold sparkly dress with a halter-neck top and a fringe skirt. The skirt had looked considerably longer in the picture than it was in reality. However much she fiddled with it, it wasn't going to cover more of her legs. The top part of the dress was cut extremely low, and her back felt exposed. What on earth had she been thinking? Although it had to be better than Rob's top. He had gone for exposing his hairy chest in a ridiculously over-the-top blouson-type purple shirt complete with ruffles. His trousers were more subdued, being straight and black, but –

‘I don't believe it, you're wearing Cuban heels.’ Katie had only just realised. She burst out laughing.

‘Of course,’ said Rob, giving her a mock bow.

‘The next dance is Rob and Katie dancing the salsa, beginner level, first heat,’ the compere was saying.

The small crowd clapped and whistled, and Katie and Rob stepped out into the spotlight. They took their positions at opposite sides of the room. Katie swallowed hard.

She vaguely heard a voice say ‘Music please’, and then she started counting. Rob smiled at her, and, doing the basic step, they swung towards each other as they'd practised.

‘Don't forget to smile,’ said Rob as he took her in an open hold. ‘Three and four, and back and forward, and step and turn …’

Within seconds, Katie had forgetten that all eyes were on her and was losing herself in the rhythm of the dance.

‘And open and turn,’ Rob was reminding her, as for a moment she stumbled and nearly forgot the step. ‘And back, and forward, and cha cha.’

Rob stood still as Katie cha chaed around him. This was great. Better than great. All too soon, they had reached the last turn, and Rob executed a dramatic spin they'd spent weeks practising, and she ended up in his arms.

The floor erupted as Rob and Katie took their bows. After hearing their marks – three 9s and an 8 (Katie groaned – that must have been for her mistake) – they were ushered off to wait to hear if they had progressed to the next round.

‘That was so much fun,’ said Katie. ‘I think I could get to enjoy this.’

Rob squeezed her hand. ‘Me too,’ he said.

Mark sat nervously in the GDC committee room, wondering how on earth he'd ended up here. It was nearly Christmas already, and for the best part of a year he had been fretting about his career. Was he about to find out that it was all over?

James had tried to reassure him that he had nothing to worry about, but Mark couldn't feel as confident as his rep did. It was, after all, their job to present a positive spin on events. They hadn't lain awake all night fretting anxiously about the outcome, or had to fight their way through a media scrum to get to the GDC offices on Wimpole Street, where the hearing was to be held passing a radiant Jasmine giving a fevered account of all of his misdemeanours to Sky News. The tight knot he'd had in the pit of his stomach for weeks now had twisted itself into a new spasm of pain. He didn't think he could take much more of this.

At the front of the room was a long desk, flanked with computer screens, behind which sat three dentists who were going to be his judges, jury and executioners. To either side were the rest of the panel, made up of a combination of his peers and lay people. To his right, sat Jasmine and her medico-legal representative. Mark's fate was in their hands. So far nothing much had happened. Mark had told the hearing who he was and listened while Jasmine's representative outlined his many misdeeds, making him sound like a monster little short of Jack the Ripper. The rest of it had been incredibly boring and, even despite his anxieties, Mark had been on the verge of dozing off.

‘Can we hear from Tony Cavendish please?’ the chair of the panel said.

With a start, Mark realised that Twinkletoes Tone was taking the stand. He'd almost forgotten the footballer's real name.

‘Mr Cavendish,’ intoned the chair, who had the most ponderous manner that Mark had ever witnessed in someone who was still awake, ‘tell us what happened on the night of February twelfth this year?’

‘I'd arranged to meet Kerry,’ began Tony.

‘And Kerry is –’

‘Oh, yeah, right. Kerry's sort of – like – she was my bird for a bit when I split up with Jasmine.’ Tony shot an anxious look
at his girlfriend when he said this, but she smiled sweetly at him and blew him a kiss.

‘I see,’ said the chair. ‘Carry on.’

‘So she says to me, “You seen the papers?” And I says, “No, why?” Then she says, “Your ex-girlfriend. Someone's sold them the story about her tooth, and I know who it is.”’

‘And who was it?’

‘He's sitting right over there,’ said Tony, and pointed at Mark.

Mark was fuming. He couldn't believe the barefaced cheek of Tony's lie. But, much as he wanted to leap up and deck Tony one, he could feel James warning him to control his anger.

Mark sat back and listened with increasing horror as witness after witness took the stand to completely and utterly defame his character. Kerry was called, to Mark's dismay. He wondered again, if she had had something to do with all of this. But the incoherence of her evidence, which consisted mainly of Vicky Pollard type utterances like ‘yeah, no, but that was what happened, innit?’, suggested she knew nothing of import, and were so ridiculous, they elicited the only smile Mark had managed all day.

Someone had found two witnesses from the stag weekend who had seen Mark dancing to White Snake with his trousers round his ankles. And, finally, the scrote of a reporter who had taken pictures got up to report that he had sat at a bar with Mark for several hours, during which Mark had downed whiskies, vodkas, Bacardi Breezers – you name it, Mark seemed to have drunk it

– galore. The picture they painted was of a family man whose life started going down the pan after his divorce. Mark sat in silent despair as he watched his career slip away from him.

Emily, who had come along to witness proceedings, and was sitting a little way behind Mark, was horrified as she watched Mark's reputation being destroyed. It was worse than she could have imagined, and made it all the more urgent that she do something about finding out the truth. She'd spent the weekend trying to
track down Graham Harker. It was easy to find him by Googling his name. Famous for dozens of exposés of the nefarious doings of the zedlebrity set, he was often used as a talking head in shows about 'stars’ who'd fallen from grace. No wonder his name was familiar. It was not so easy to get access to him though – she hadn't managed to find an email address or a phone number for him, but he was, coincidentally, represented by A-Listers.

Was
it a coincidence that the reporter who had stitched Mark up so effectively seemed to be involved somehow? Emily didn't quite know whether she was clutching at straws or not, but she definitely smelt a rat. Even more so after Kerry gave her fumbling evidence. It all made sense now. As soon as Emily saw Kerry she recognised her as the girl from the nightclub. Kerry had definitely been hiding something. Maybe it was worth having another go at her. Jasmine and Tony were bound to be on the front covers of the papers tomorrow; it might be worth going to rub some salt in the wound …

The end of the day came all too soon, and if Emily had been into gambling she wouldn't have rated Mark's chances too highly. She longed to go to him. He looked so defeated and lonely sitting in his seat, sure, no doubt, that the panel had already condemned him, as indeed they must have after what they'd heard.

Emily scuttled out of the room at the end of the session, determined not to let Mark see she'd been there, but as luck would have it, he and his rep were exiting the building at the same time she was.

‘Mark, I'm so sorry,’ she said, ‘that was awful.’

‘I hope you're satisfied,’ said Mark. ‘I can't believe that your lot have set me up with such a pack of lies.’

‘Mark, I had nothing to do with that, honestly,’ said Emily in dismay. ‘I had no idea they were going to come out with all that stuff.’

‘I don't believe you.’ Mark looked tense and unhappy.

‘Mark, please –’ Emily began.

‘Just leave me alone, Emily,’ said Mark. ‘I think you've done enough damage.’

He strode off down the corridor, to the front steps of the GDC headquarters, where the marauding hordes of reporters and photographers lay in wait.

Emily leaned against the wall biting back the tears. Now more than ever, she had to find out the truth.

‘Is everything all right, Wednesday?’

It was the last day of the Outward Bound course, and Rob couldn't wait for it to be over. He had enjoyed bits of it, the canoeing earlier on in the term had been fun, but it had taken up far too much time at the weekends, and if Jen so much as suggested he did it again, he was going to have to thump her. Plus they'd saved the worst for last, as he was going to have to face his fears and use the climbing wall. Gemma clearly had as many reservations as he did, because she'd bottled out of their practice session earlier. He had a feeling her rather bitchy friend Shelly might have been giving her a hard time about it.

‘Yes, fine,’ snapped Gemma. ‘Why wouldn't I be?’

‘I couldn't help noticing you seemed a bit upset before,’ said Rob, ‘and I thought maybe Shelly was being a bit unkind?’

‘There's nothing wrong, I'm fine,’ said Gemma. Her demeanour, as ever, was one of spiky aggression, but he could tell she was fighting to keep control.

‘You don't look fine,’ said Rob. ‘What is it? You can tell me.’

‘No, I can't,’ said Gemma. ‘I can't tell you, because there's nothing wrong. So just leave me alone.’

She flounced off with a defiant air, but Rob wasn't fooled for a second. Mark had mentioned that Gemma had been in a lot of trouble at school recently, and was worried that she might be getting led astray by Shelly. It wouldn't surprise him if that were the case. From what he'd seen, Shelly was a poisonous little cow. But he couldn't help Gemma if she didn't want him to.

He sighed and called the next group to take their turn, and spent the next half an hour shouting words of encouragement as the kids climbed the wall with varying degrees of success. Then it was the turn of Gemma's group. She came back looking incredibly unhappy, and he could see that Shelly was whispering to a girl next to her.

‘Right, who's up first?’ Rob asked.

‘Gemma.’ Shelly shot a sly look at Gemma. ‘After all, she did so well earlier.’

Gemma blushed, and Rob felt for her instantly.

‘I think for that it should be you who goes first,’ said Rob. ‘Let's just hang on until Chris gets back, though.’

Chris, the course instructor, had just popped out to answer the phone, so Rob spent the next few minutes reminding the girls how to secure their hawsers properly. He was busy showing someone how to tie a figure-of-eight knot for the umpteenth time when he became aware of a scuffle at the other end of the line.

‘I am so not a coward, Shelly Osbourne,’ shouted Gemma, and ran towards the climbing wall.

‘Wednesday, what are you doing?’ Rob yelled. ‘Come back at once!’

He watched in horror as Gemma swarmed up the wall without a rope, a hat, in fact with no safety equipment at all. Chris had been quite clear that no one was to climb the wall without supervision. She was going to get herself killed.

Gemma was a quarter of the way up when she turned and called to Shelly, ‘See who's the coward now?’

‘Gemma, come down.’ Rob was frantic.

‘Oh all right.’ Gemma's usual sulkiness asserted itself, and she edged her foot downwards to find a hold. She started her descent, but her foot hadn't engaged properly, and she put it into thin air. Frantically she tried to find a foothold and couldn't. Gemma let out a little whimper and clung to the wall.

‘Gem, it's okay.’ Rob could see that the bravado was fading and she was beginning to panic. ‘I'll come and get you.’

He started to climb up to meet her, trying to talk to her reassuringly, but Gemma was clearly terrified and didn't seem to be listening to a word he was saying.

Rob had nearly reached her. He stretched out his hand and said, ‘Gem, it's okay, I'm here.’

She looked down at him, but her fear made her flustered, and instead of reaching for his hand, she attempted to find the foothold again. She swung her foot towards it, but she missed.

‘I can't hold on,’ she sobbed.

‘Yes, you can,’ said Rob. ‘Come on, grab my hand.’

‘I – can't.’ Gemma was hysterical now, her fear palpable.

‘I'm here,’ said Rob, reaching out again. This time Gemma let one hand go and attempted to grab his. She missed, her foot slipped, and she let out a piercing scream.

‘No!’ yelled Rob. He watched in horror as she fell to the ground. He swarmed back down as fast as he could. Gemma lay on the ground at an awkward angle. She was horribly, horribly still.

Chapter Thirty-four

 

Mark had just got in from the shops when the phone call came.

It was Sam and she was hysterical.

‘You have to come now,’ she sobbed. ‘It's Gemma.’

‘Come where? What's happened?’ Mark felt sick. What had Gemma done now?

‘I'm at the hospital,’ said Sam. ‘Gemma's had an accident, and she's in a coma.’

‘I'm on my way.’ Mark only waited for Sam to give him the details of where to go before grabbing his car keys and ran to the car. It took a couple of minutes to undo the lock; his hands were shaking too much. Gemma was in a coma. What on earth had happened?

He drove like a maniac to the hospital – it wasn't their local one, but one about half an hour away, close to the centre where Gemma had gone for her adventure training. It felt like a lifetime had passed since he'd seen his daughter. Was it only Sunday that they'd been together? A quiet fear took hold: suppose she was brain-damaged? Suppose they had her on life support? Fear bubbled under the surface as he tried to concentrate on practicalities: indicate, turn left, slow down for the traffic lights, stay calm. Stay calm. His eldest daughter was injured; how could he possibly stay calm?

Memories flooded back of Gemma's birth – a protracted affair that had taken several days to come to fruition, but then, miraculously, there she'd been, this little scruffy pink bundle looking
back at him. The fruit of his loins, the apple of his eye. Then later – pictures of her toddling, learning to speak, being completely and utterly cute, always so cute. Those had been happy days for him and Sam, playing happy families together. Where had it all gone wrong?

And now, lately, the early images of the cute little girl had been replaced by the spiky, difficult teenager who snarled and grumbled her way through life, but nonetheless had remained
his
despite it all. The thought that he wouldn't ever have to tell her off for playing music too loud, or for being rude to him, suddenly seemed too dreadful to contemplate.
Don't go there, don't go there
, he willed his brain. She would get better. She had to.

Eventually, Mark pulled into the grounds of Eastwick Hospital. After some delay, he managed to park the car and ran like a mad thing towards A&E.

As usual in these places, it was packed. He went up to the desk and said, ‘My daughter, I think my daughter's here. Gemma Davies?’

The look of polite disinterest became one of overwhelming concern, which Mark didn't think was a good sign.

‘Ah yes, Mr Davies,’ she said. ‘Your daughter was admitted a couple of hours ago. They're about to do a brain scan. Your wife's with her. I can take you to her now.’

‘How is she?’ Mark felt himself wobble as he asked the question.

‘I'm sorry, you'll have to ask the doctor,’ said the receptionist, ‘but she's in the best hands.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Mark, following her down a sterile white corridor. The tawdry Christmas decorations which were clearly meant to brighten it had never seemed more inappropriate.

‘Mark, thank God you're here. No one will tell me anything.’ Sam ran into Mark's arms and burst into tears.

‘Where's Gemma?’ Mark asked, holding Sam to him. It felt weirdly natural to have her in his arms again.

‘In there,’ said Sam. ‘The doctor's with her now. They want her to have a brain scan. Oh Mark, I'm so scared.’

Mark stroked her hair and made soothing noises. He was as scared as she was, but someone had to be in control.

‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘Do we know?’

‘It was an accident,’ said a familiar voice. ‘God, Mark, I'm so sorry.’

Rob stood there in a state of deep distress.

‘I tried to stop her. Honestly I did, but she wouldn't listen. She fell off the climbing wall, and it was all my fault.’

Emily knew she'd found the right house by the number of gaudy Christmas decorations outside – they seemed in keeping with Kerry's character somehow. She paused for a moment, wondering whether she was doing the right thing. It had seemed like the obvious thing to do after she'd seen Mark. She'd rushed back to the office, found Kerry's address in the file, then gone straight to her house. Now she was standing right outside it didn't seem like such a good idea. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Emily rang the doorbell.

There was a long pause before a rather large woman opened the door. She was dressed in a velour tracksuit and her fair hair was slicked back into a greasy ponytail. She could have been anything between twenty-five and forty-five, but given Kerry was in her early twenties, Emily settled on forty. Presumably this was Kerry's mum.

‘Yeah?’ The woman was hardly welcoming, but then Emily wasn't here to make friends.

‘Is Kerry here?’ Emily asked.

‘She's in the lounge watching TV. Lazy cow. She never goes out now. Not since that footballer ditched her.’

‘May I see her?’

Kerry's mum looked Emily up and down suspiciously.

‘You're not DSS, are you?’ she said. ‘Only we‘ve had them snooping around.’

‘No, nothing like that,’ said Emily. ‘I've come about the court case where Kerry's a witness.’

‘Oh.’ Kerry's mum looked blank, then yelled, ‘Kerry, someone to see you.’

She ambled off into the house, and Emily followed her down a dark dingy corridor into a small lounge crammed full of furniture that had evidently been the height of fashion circa 1984 but was looking decidedly ropy now. Kerry was sitting on a beanbag that had seen better days, watching
Neighbours
on the largest plasma TV screen that Emily had ever seen.

‘You're that lawyer woman, aren't you?’ Kerry looked suspicious.

‘Emily Henderson,’ said Emily. ‘I work at Mire & Innit. Our firm's representing Jasmine Symonds against your old boss, Mark Davies. You remember coming in to sign a witness statement, don't you?’

‘So?’

‘You do realise, when it goes to court you're going to have a horrible time when they find out your witness statement is a pack of lies.’

‘It's not lies,’ said Kerry.

‘Oh, I think it is,’ Emily said. ‘And, judging by your performance today, you're not going to make a very credible witness. If you thought that lot today were bad, they'll tear you apart when this gets to court.’

‘Don't care,’ said Kerry, but Emily noticed she sat up a little straighter.

‘You are lying, aren't you?’ continued Emily. ‘It wasn't Mark who rang the papers, was it? I think it was you.’

‘It was Tony's idea,’ Kerry burst out sulkily. ‘He said that Jasmine needed to be shown a lesson, and that she was too big for her boots.’

‘So why did you get involved?’ Emily asked.

Kerry looked a little shamefaced.

‘I fancied him, didn't I? Besides, Mark was going to give me the sack.’

‘I can't think why,’ muttered Emily. She felt vaguely dirty. It was horrible doing this, but she had to for Mark's sake.

‘So what happened?’ asked Emily.

‘I stayed after work one night and rang the papers up. Then I emailed a copy of Jasmine's notes to them. I did it from Mark's computer, so it looked like they were from him.’

‘Thanks to you, a really decent man is going through hell at the moment,’ said Emily, resisting the urge to strangle Kerry. Much as she wanted to, she needed her help. ‘So I think it's about time you changed your story, don't you?’

An hour later, Emily triumphantly left the house with a new statement from Kerry saying that not only had she lied about Mark's involvement, and had informed the papers herself, but also that she was fairly sure that Graham Harker had done something to Mark's drink.

Now all Emily needed to do was track Graham down and get him to spill the beans.

Katie was listening to carols and baking mince pies with the children – it was weird how normal and cosy it felt, even though her life had changed so much – when the doorbell rang. To her surprise, Rob was on the doorstep, in a state of deep distress.

‘Can I come in?’ he asked.

‘Of course,’ said Katie. ‘Rob, are you okay? You look shocking.’

Rob didn't say anything, but followed Katie into the kitchen, where the children had abandoned the mince pies in favour of the tv, where
Home Alone
was showing for the umpteenth time. Molly sat gurgling in her high chair, quite content as long as she had a breadstick to eat.

‘Wine or beer?’ Katie offered.

‘Nothing, thanks,’ said Rob. ‘I'm not even supposed to be here,
but I didn't know where else to go. I couldn't stay at the hospital, obviously …’

‘Rob, whatever's wrong?’ He was shaking now.

‘It's Gemma,’ he said. ‘She's had a terrible accident and it's all my fault. Oh God, Katie, I can't believe it's happened again.’

It took Katie several minutes to prise the whole story out of Rob, and when she had she said, ‘But Gemma knew the rules and she didn't listen to you. You told her to stop. Then you tried to get her down safely. It was an accident. It's not your fault.’

‘That's what Mark said too,’ said Rob, ‘which is pretty bloody noble of him. I think if it were the other way round I might be tempted to thump him.’

‘No, you wouldn't,’ said Katie. ‘Mark's not stupid. He knows you'd never do anything to hurt Gemma.’

‘Yes, but I did.’ Rob looked so bleak that Katie reached out for his hand.

‘Rob, it's not your fault,’ she said. ‘Really, it isn't. It sounds to me as though Gemma was misbehaving. You didn't make her climb that wall. And you tried to stop her. It was just an awful accident.’

‘You think?’

‘I know,’ said Katie firmly and squeezed his hand tightly. ‘It'll be all right. You'll see.’

They sat holding hands as it grew dark, and the lights from Katie's Christmas tree sparkled in the conservatory, and shadows gathered in the corners.

Eventually, Rob took his hand away and said, ‘I'd better get home. And I should call in at the hospital on the way.’

‘Are you okay to drive?’ Katie asked. ‘Only I could get Mum to come over if you want?’

‘No, I'll be fine,’ said Rob. He gave her a quick hug, and she watched him go to his car looking so desolate it tugged at her heart. Poor Rob. Poor Mark. Poor Gemma. Poor bloody everybody. She
had tried to be positive for Rob's sake. She only hoped she was right.

‘Here.’ Mark proffered a coffee at Sam. It was just the two of them, as Sam had arranged for Beth to stay with a neighbour. They had been sitting at Gemma's bedside for hours now, and there'd been no change. He'd lost all sense of time. In the end, seeing that Sam looked close to collapse, Mark had persuaded her to take a break. Somehow, seeing Sam, who was always so feisty and in control, in such a state, was stopping Mark from breaking down himself. One of them had to stay strong and in charge. From the minute he'd entered the hospital, a kind of steely determination had taken him over. He had boxed off his emotions concerning Gemma and put them away under lock and key, only to be dealt with when he could. Much as he wanted to cry, he wasn't going to be any use to his daughter if he collapsed in a puddle too.

‘It's my fault,’ she said. ‘If I hadn't been so bloody determined to go to work, none of this would have happened.’

‘Don't be daft,’ Mark said. ‘Whether you went to work or not, Gemma would have still disobeyed orders and climbed that wall. You know what a little madam she's been recently. It's no more your fault than Rob's.’

Mark thought back: he had never seen his happy-go-lucky friend like that before.

‘It was an accident,’ said Mark, and then repeated what he'd said to Rob. ‘If it's anyone's fault it's Gemma's. She should have known better than to go climbing that wall without equipment.’

‘But that's my point,’ said Sam, sipping her coffee and leaning back against the wall. ‘God, that's disgusting. She's been behaving so badly recently. It's my fault. I've not been there for her.’

‘Don't you think,’ said Mark gently, ‘it might be both our faults? I've thought for a while now that she seems to be reacting much worse to the split than Beth has. And, let's face it, we could
probably be better at dealing with things than we are. She perhaps doesn't get the consistency she needs.’

‘Since when have you become an expert in parenting?’ sniffed Sam.

‘I'm not,’ said Mark. ‘None of us are, are we? I just think sometimes we could both handle things better.’

He sat back, half-expecting Sam to launch into a tirade about his inadequacies, which had been a standard feature of their rows towards the end of their relationship, but she sat silently, toying with her cup.

‘I think I could,’ she said eventually. ‘I think you've handled things pretty well considering.’

‘Oh.’ This was unexpected. Sam wasn't one to take responsibility for her actions.

There was a long pause, then Sam said, ‘Do you think maybe we made a mistake?’

Now Mark was truly stunned. The one thing he'd wanted to hear from her for months, and now she'd said it and the only thing he could think about was that he'd rowed with Emily and he wished he hadn't.

‘Well, I did,’ said Mark. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘Oh Mark,’ Sam burst out unhappily. ‘I was so miserable stuck at home, and I blamed you for it. You were always working so hard, and never seemed to be around when I needed you. And then the kids got bigger, and I got that job, and I met Kevin, and it all sort of snowballed. And –’

‘You can't turn the clock back,’ said Mark. ‘What's happened has happened. But if you're not happy with Kevin, you should do something about it. It's not fair on the kids.’

‘It's not that I'm not happy with him, exactly,’ said Sam. ‘It's just he's not very interested in the kids really. And today he barely said anything when I rang him about Gemma. He wouldn't even have Beth for me, which is why Alison picked her up from school. I can't believe how unsupportive he's been. Whereas you –’

‘I'm Gemma's dad,’ said Mark. ‘It's different.’

‘No,’ said Sam. ‘You're different. And it's taken this for me to see what a fool I've been.’

‘Let's not dwell on that, eh?’ said Mark, putting his arm around her. ‘Let's concentrate on getting our daughter better. Gemma's the most important thing right now.’