The Out of Office Girl (30 page)

‘Is this about me and Marisa?’ he says, seemingly reading my mind. ‘Look, it was a long time ago, and I can’t help having dated other people in the past.’

How dare
he be so patronising? Now I’m definitely not going to let him know why I’m upset.

‘No,’ I say. ‘That has nothing to do with it. We did have
a good time. I’m sorry if I seem distracted, but I’m here to do a job and I can’t afford to get sidetracked.’

He steps back. ‘Fine,’ he says shortly, looking annoyed. ‘Understood.’ And he marches off down the corridor. Watching him go, I still feel hurt,
but I’m angry too, and in a strange way, that makes me feel better. It’s so much better than just feeling hurt.

The rest of the morning reminds me partly of a treasure hunt and partly of those fairy tales where the girl has to spin a barnful of hay into gold, or some such. While Luther sleeps the rest of us run around like mad things. Maria Santa serves breakfast at the speed of light and bustles
around making everything look even more spotless. Sam reckons the best thing is if they land the helicopter on the beach, and he goes to look up the tides to see how much longer we have. I don’t know what to do about the manuscripts. There is a computer and printer in the house but they’re very slow. I swallow my pride and ring Marisa and cast myself on her mercy.

As I knew she would, she comes
through. She says her cousin runs a stationery shop, and Federico has a printer in his office so she can print three copies there. She can get cream paper by nine, and can have it around at our place, printed, by ten. She’ll also buy the mint smokes, which have seriously made Dominique go down in my estimation. That was what we smoked in school – how is she still on them?

The water is the hardest
part. I’ve looked online, in vain, for suppliers in Italy. I ask Marisa, and she’s never heard of it.

‘I don’t think you’re going to find this in Sicily,’ she says doubtfully. ‘Maybe in Milan, but . . .’

I find myself thinking frantically of how to get water from Milan in time for this morning – FedEx? A concierge service like Quintessentially? But then I think better of it.

‘Forget it,’ I
say to her. ‘We’re not going to be able to get it, and that’s that. Let’s just get some San Pellegrino.’

When Luther hears that Dominique is coming, he goes very quiet, but I can tell he’s excited, and also nervous. He doesn’t get involved in all the chasing around getting things straight. Instead, he paces around the terrace a lot. I feel sorry for him. And also nervous, albeit for different
reasons. Because if she’s come here for some sort of showdown – if she’s decided not to co-operate – then we’re in deep trouble.

I’ve realised, there’s no point in sending anything to Olivia or Brian until we find out what Dominique is going to say. But meanwhile, I print out the page of what I’ve written up of the Hawaii story – Hawaiigate, as I’m now calling it – and give it to Luther to show
Dominique. If he’s OK with it and if she doesn’t object, I’ll send it to the others.

‘You’re sure you’re OK with this going into the book?’ I ask him.

‘Sure,’ he says. ‘And it’s good that I can show it to her now.’

I nod, feeling uneasy.

At around 10.30, we see the helicopter arriving. It hovers for what seems like ages, then starts to descend towards the beach.

‘How on earth are they going
to be able to land there?’ I say.

‘It’s flat and clear of rocks and the tide won’t reach it for another eight hours,’ Sam says, even though I wasn’t asking him. ‘It’s totally illegal, but they should be fine. They’re going to fly back to a helipad inland once they’ve dropped her.’

I wonder how Dominique is going to arrive up at the house. Is she going to be willing to climb the fifty or so steps?
I suppose she could see it as part of her daily workout,
which must be fairly punishing, judging from her slender figure. Or will she be carried on a litter or something?

Marisa, Sam and I peer over the terrace edge to look down. Luther is waiting down on the beach. We can’t hear anything because of the noise, but we see about six people emerge, one of whom has Dominique’s distinctive long black
hair. She steps forward and we see her kiss Luther, very formally, on both cheeks, without removing her sunglasses. They all stand around for a few minutes, presumably talking, before they slowly turn towards the house.

‘It’s like a state diplomatic visit,’ I say.

‘That’s exactly what it is,’ Sam replies.

A few minutes later, Dominique and her entourage, plus Luther, emerge on to the terrace.
She looks exactly as she does in photographs: immaculate. The only surprise is how tiny she is – like a child. She’s wearing cotton cargo pants and a plain white tank top, with her wavy black hair tumbling down her back. Her entourage is made up of men and women, all seemingly laden down with bags and clipboards. It’s hard to look at anything but her, though. Her expression seems totally blank,
but that might just be the dark glasses.

I feel genuinely nervous. Of all the famous people I’ve ever met, she is definitely the most famous. Or is ‘meet’ the right word? I’m not even sure if I am going to meet her at all. Marisa and Maria Santa have made themselves scarce, but Luther is introducing her to Sam. Sam seems to know one person in her entourage, and he greets both her and Dominique
very nicely. Dominique extends a hand which he shakes.

Then Luther says, ‘And this is my editor, Alice.’

Her face moves in my direction, but it’s hard to say if she sees me. Perhaps she has a special kind of vision that can only see important people. There’s a faint nod, or twitch,
and then she says something to a member of her entourage, who says something to Luther.

‘Please,’ he says. ‘Come
and sit down.’

And he leads them all over towards the table under the canopy. I decide not to join them, and stay standing here. But strangely enough, I don’t feel humiliated – if anything, I feel excited and privileged to have seen her. I suppose that must be star quality.

Marisa appears beside me. ‘How was she?’ she murmurs.

‘Beautiful,’ I whisper back.

We stand together to see how Maria
Santa’s refreshments go down. She’s brought out a big glass decanter filled with water, and Luther and Sam are explaining how, although Fiji water was unavailable, we’ve got chilled mineral water plus some special naturally sparkling Sicilian spring water which we’ve decanted into traditional glass bottles. Only Marisa and I know that it’s actually San Pellegrino. There’s an agonising pause, but
then it seems to go down OK.

After a few minutes, we realise that we’re standing there like idiots, and we decide to go inside. Once we’re in the house, we look at each other and start laughing, but manage to stay quiet.

‘It’s exciting, eh?’ says Marisa in a low voice. ‘Like a visit from royalty.’

‘Or outer space,’ I reply. We both giggle at that, but quietly.

I start doing edits on the book
and Marisa plays patience. I don’t feel exactly the same about her as I did before, but I’m glad she’s still here – the more hands on deck, the better, in case some special request suddenly comes through from the terrace. It would be nicer for us both to be outside by the pool, but we both know, without any discussion, that we need to stay out of sight for now. After about twenty minutes, Sam comes
in.

‘She wants to read it,’ he says.

The manuscripts are waiting on a side table. I hand them to him. ‘How is it going?’ I ask.

‘Hard to say, but at least she wants to see the book,’ he says.

Sam goes back to the table, and hands the manuscripts to one of the entourage, who – I can’t believe my eyes – hands them to someone else, who takes two of the copies and hands one to Dominique. They
then all withdraw, leaving just Luther with Dominique. They talk a few minutes more, and then Luther gets up and walks away ceremonially – almost, it seems, without turning his back. It’s like something in a martial arts film.

Dominique changes position to sit cross-legged with her back to the terrace, with the manuscript set out in front of her in a very neat pile. After a minute she turns a
page very precisely. I’ve never seen anyone sit with such a straight back, and I remember reading that she trained as a ballet dancer. From time to time she makes a note in a separate notebook. Marisa and I watch for a while until it starts to become ridiculous, and we go off and resume our work. From time to time, though, I can’t help getting up and peeking out at Dominique, still sitting completely
upright, reading with extraordinary concentration, a cigarette burning in the ashtray beside her. Luther is sitting near her, perched on the edge of his chair, looking at her.

At around 1 p.m., Luther comes in to us.

‘How’s it going?’ we both ask him.

He shrugs. ‘I don’t know. She’s still reading. She hasn’t said anything yet.’

‘Can you gauge her reaction at all?’ I ask him.

‘Nope,’ he says.
‘She’s quite the poker player.’ He sounds admiring.

‘We should eat,’ says Marisa. ‘Luther, will we offer her some lunch?’

‘I already asked,’ says Luther. ‘She’s not hungry.’

‘But what about all her – people?’ I say.

‘They don’t eat if she doesn’t eat.’

‘Jesus,’ says Sam, who’s just joined us. ‘OK, let’s eat in the kitchen.’

So we do. Maria Santa lets us raid the fridge for cherry tomatoes,
mozzarella, cured ham and olives, which we eat with slices of bread dipped in olive oil and salt. Looking at Luther hoovering up his lunch, I realise I’ve never appreciated just how easy he’s been to deal with. Sure, he’s self-centred, but compared to Dominique, he’s Joe Normal.

‘Has anyone heard from Annabel?’ asks Marisa. ‘Is she still with her boyfriend?’

‘Oh yeah,’ says Luther. ‘I almost
forgot about her. I had a message from her yesterday. I’ll call her back after Dom goes.’

After lunch, Marisa goes off to the beach, and I continue with the editing. It’s pretty dismaying to realise how big a part of the book Dominique is – if she’s not happy we could end up losing an awful lot. If she makes loads of changes, on the other hand, it could become incredibly bland.

‘That’s quite
a sigh,’ says Sam, coming inside.

‘Sorry,’ I say awkwardly. ‘I didn’t realise I was sighing.’

‘Do you want me to go check on her – scope out the lie of the land?’

That’s incredibly good of him. ‘Are you sure?’ I say, tentatively.

‘Yeah. And you can print it out for me too, and I’ll start reading it.’

I look at him. He doesn’t look very friendly, but he clearly means it. And I realise that
no matter what his feelings for me are, or what happened between us, he is still going to keep his promise to me.

‘Thank you,’ I say. I print him out a copy, and he starts reading it as it comes out.

We both continue working for the rest of the afternoon and early evening. Occasionally, I sneak covert looks at Sam, and wonder if I’ve made a huge mistake. When I think of how he was with me the
other night, and the day we spent together, it does seem hard to believe that he could be having some sort of thing with Marisa on the side. But then I keep coming back to the same thing: why did he lie about going to Rome with her? And something else is nagging at me. How come
she
never told me that she was his ex? We’ve talked about everything else – why not that, unless there was something
she didn’t want me to know?

Maybe they’re not having a full-on affair; maybe it’s something more complicated. Maybe he’s planning to marry her so she can get a visa and work in the US, or something. Or . . . Americans always date multiple people, don’t they? Maybe he thinks it’s fine to see both of us at once, and if I ask him about it, he’ll think I’m being unreasonable and unsophisticated and
possessive . . .

That thought is just too horrible, so I decide to put it all out of my mind and try and concentrate on Luther’s book. In general, I’m really pleased with it. I’m making notes as I go, but aside from bringing out a few more dramatic moments and cutting here and there, there isn’t all that much that needs changing.

Except, of course, adding the producer story – the truth of what
happened after Hawaii. I get out my email again and go back to the drafts folder where it’s waiting, ready to be sent to Brian and Olivia. I start typing a covering email. ‘I’ve just found this out . . .’ – it’s a lie, but anyway – ‘Luther is sensitive about it but I know that I can get him to put it in. It’s such a major trauma that we’ll have to change the second half significantly, and keep
referring back
to it, and then give more of an impression that L has “recovered”. There are legal issues but they should be resolvable, particularly since the producer is dead.’

I stop, and read back over what I’ve written. Did I really write that? It’s all so seedy and depressing. It will overwhelm the book; it will be all that anyone talks about. And, for the rest of his career, it will be
the one fact that people remember about Luther, too. ‘Oh, yeah, he’s the casting-couch guy.’ Is that what we want?

Why did Luther tell me about it? Maybe he just wanted to tell someone, but that’s not the same thing as telling the world. Personally I think he was crazy to tell me. But he trusts me, and he would put it in, if I persuaded him. Oh, God. This is not why I wanted to work in publishing.
I wanted to work with authors and help them tell great stories. I didn’t want to exploit people and harm their careers. I was proud of this book before. I won’t be any more, if I do this. Suddenly a really horrible thought comes to me. If I do this, am I really any different from the people who did this to him in the first place?

I can’t do it. I’m not going to put it in the book, and I won’t
tell Olivia what happened. It’s not my secret to tell. If Olivia ever finds out that Luther told me about it, and that I kept it from her, then I’ll definitely be out on my ear, but I just can’t do it. I delete the email. Then I search for the file of our last interview, which I typed up and gave to Luther. Finding it, I press delete, and then I empty the trash folder. It’s gone. And I feel as if
a massive weight has been lifted off my shoulders.