Undeniable (18 page)

I need to turn off my brain and enjoy the treat. Spencer booked us tickets on the waterbus from Little Venice to Camden and it’s lovely floating past all the trees and under the little
bridges. Or it would be, if I could chill the hell out. I don’t even look at London Zoo properly when we go past that. Mia would be ashamed.

When we get into Camden, Spencer wants to go to a pub. I’m about to tell him he’ll need to sneak me in, but then I think I don’t want to remind him of my age. I try to go in
subtly instead but Spencer asks me why I’m creeping like a cartoon burglar. I just tell him I have cramp.

We sit on a sofa, hidden away in the corner of the pub, and Spencer puts his arm round me, pulling me towards him. We kiss and his hands are on my waist. He moves his thumb back and forth over
my hip and the waistband of my jeans. Despite the thoughts buzzing round my brain, I get a surge so strong it almost makes me shiver and I press myself closer to him. He draws his head back so our
foreheads are touching and says, ‘Are you coming back to mine?’

Getting back from Spencer’s takes extra long because the trains are delayed. I told myself it would be fine to go back with him as long as I wasn’t late home. But
we got carried away. And I couldn’t text Granny because my phone died on the boat trip. I’m hoping she won’t have noticed. She’s been a bit mad lately and will probably be
off doing windsurfing or mud-wrestling or something like that.

I’m distracted by that thought as I walk into the house and so at first I don’t notice that Granny is sitting on a chair directly facing the door and watching me. With a drop-dead
gorgeous Spanish man.

‘Where the HELL have you been?’ she rages.

‘Just out with Spencer!’

She is looking like she would run over and throttle me if the man wasn’t there. He looks very awkward and then edges over and offers me his hand.

‘Hello,’ he says in a lovely husky accent. ‘I am Alejandro. Please to meet you, Gabi.’

‘Are you my new grandpa?’ I say, half in fear and half in a swoon because I am holding his hand.

‘Ah, no – I am a gay.’

‘Alejandro has one of those gay marriages,’ says Granny, as if that’s something fancy. And then she remembers that she is meant to be angry with me and starts shouting again.
She said she called Alejandro round because she had no idea where I was and my phone was off and she was worried sick.

Alejandro backs away towards the kitchen and starts rummaging in cupboards. My fingers are crossed that he’s making some food. I turn to Granny.

‘I thought you were cool with me doing whatever. You haven’t seemed to be taking much notice.’

‘I may . . .’ She stops. There are tears in her eyes. ‘I may have been a bit manic lately, but I’ve certainly been keeping an eye on you.’ She looks at me, her eyes
shining. ‘Everything else is just distraction. He’s left a bloody hole in my life, that man. I need to keep busy, or . . .’ She swallows.

I throw my arms around her, feeling hot tears seeping onto my cheeks. She strokes my hair.

‘You make sure you take care of yourself – promise me?’ she says.

As Mum steered me outside, I heard Granny saying, ‘Oh, love, it’s fine. It’s been tough on her.’ I looked back at her and she gave me a big smile.
Then the whole room lurched and I tripped. I heard my Aunt Kath tut.

I couldn’t even remember all the other speeches people made when we got back to Granny’s after Grandpa’s funeral. And the bit in the crematorium was really short anyway. But
the image of the crappy cardboard coffin sitting on the conveyor belt won’t go away. It suddenly stopped when the coffin was halfway through the hole at the back and a man had to come and
fiddle with it to get it going again.

Granny said, ‘He always was a stubborn bastard.’ But her voice cracked in the middle. I put my hand on hers and Max put his on mine.

As soon as we got to her place, I started helping myself to the drinks, rolling my eyes at Mum when she told me to slow down.

Granny wanted readings and speeches at the wake. So we could share all our memories of Grandpa in the house he loved. With everyone around eating and drinking it could almost have been a
family Christmas.

When it was my turn to read I looked down and the words on the paper swirled around and made no sense. Max was behind me and he leant over and read the first line.

‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.’

After that I could read it. I’d learnt it off by heart the night before and all the words came back.

I was sitting on the step afterwards to get some air. Then someone sat down beside me. Max.

I felt hollow and I wanted him to leave.

‘I brought you some water,’ he said.

‘I’m fine.’

‘You should drink it.’

‘Max, can you just go?’

He put the glass down. ‘No.’

The sound of the glass on the patio seemed to strike through all the cloudiness. And thoughts I’d been trying not to think were suddenly clear and sharp and unavoidable. Everyone
thought it was stupid that we were getting married. But they’d stopped saying it. Because Grandpa dying and the stuff with Dad was so horrible and real. They were hoping my silly, pretend
engagement would keep me happy. So now they were acting like it was great.

‘Everyone’s laughing at us behind our backs,’ I said slowly. ‘We're a joke.’

‘But we’re not a joke. We know that. That’s what matters.’

‘Then they’re laughing at me, Max. They think everything I do is ridiculous and they go along with it because they feel sorry for me.’

‘I’m not laughing at you, Gabi. I know you.’

I finally looked at him. ‘I hate that you know me so well.’ Then I shoved him and he nearly fell off the step. ‘What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you leave?
I’m clearly mental.’

He looked up at the window of the house. I must have been shouting. Then he looked back at me. And I saw it in his eyes. Sympathy. He feels sorry for me too. That was when the cold, numb
feeling started.

I shoved him in the chest again. ‘Why do you put up with this?’

He breathed out slowly and put his chin on his hands. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

I can’t believe it’s my last day. The last couple of weeks have flown by. It’s probably because work has been non-stop. They’ve been filming five or six
scenes a day so there is always a prop to find or mess to clear up. I’ve become well known by some of the local taxi drivers because of the lifts I’ve arranged to shuttle actors between
the studios and the university. And once because a couple of them wandered off and got lost.

Every spare moment I’ve spent with Spencer. It’s helping me to not think about the fact that I haven’t spoken to Rosie or Nish since I snapped at Rosie. Mia asked me what was
going on but I ignored that part of her message.

Spencer’s been taking me on more treats. The other night we went for a walk in Regent’s Park in the evening. And the one before that we went back to the Moroccan place in Camden. His
Behind the Scenes YouTube videos have been getting loads of hits, so I know he’s really happy, even though he likes to pretend he thinks it’s all ridiculous.

Every time I’m with him I feel excited, like I don’t know where the night is going to go. And when I look over at him at work, I love that we are sharing a secret sort of life. We
can’t tell anyone at work, because Sexy Spence is supposed to be young, free and single. Well, we aren’t supposed to tell anyone – I may have told my friend Dave the cleaner.

We haven’t talked about what happens when I go back to college. But then we haven’t said we are going to end things either. Spencer’s booked this posh hotel tomorrow for my
last night in London. I guess we’ll talk about it then.

It is a bit like the show knew I’d be leaving today as well, because they are filming two scenes from the last episode – the finale scenes for Tom and Priya, and for Harry and Jas.
From bits and pieces I’ve heard around the set, I’ve mostly been able to piece together what happens. Jude – the girl Tom got pregnant – has been making Priya think that
they are a couple. Priya finally accepted that she and Tom were over and went to buy a babygro that says,
My Daddy is Awesome
. In the finale,Tom is waiting on a bench, thinking he is meeting
Jude to talk about antenatal classes, but Jude has been to see Priya to tell her the truth – Tom still loves Priya. So it is Priya who arrives to meet Tom on the bench. She gives him the
babygro and then they kiss. Or least I hope they do.

Harry and Jas’s storyline has gone that Jas ended up getting kidnapped by some drug-dealers who were after Hugh, and Harry rescued her. Walking back across the campus they hold hands
(which is
huge
, because the whole way through Harry has always refused to do anything that makes him look like a boyfriend). Back in their room, Jas goes to have a shower and Harry gets
something out of his pockets and looks at it – a small box, just the right size for an engagement ring. But then he sees Jen, his ex, standing there.

I don’t know if I can actually deal with this much excitement. But I manage to hold it together, only letting out the odd squeak, and getting everyone their coffees as usual.

The last scene I watch is actually one of Spencer smoking a cigarette under a tree, then dropping it, putting it out with his foot and staring moodily into the distance. When Mark yells,
‘Cut!’ I applaud. Then I remember that for everyone else filming is not over.

Nina, the location manager, gives me a card signed by everyone and says that I can go for a pizza with a whole group of the cast and crew. Mostly everyone gets on really well,
no matter what job they do, and there are only some actors who don’t mix with everyone else. I want to go and grab Spencer’s hand and tell everyone about us. He’s busy, though,
filming a Behind the Scenes party video. So I tell Nina I’ll come along and that I’ll be with Spencer and that he’s my sort-of boyfriend.

She looks a bit surprised. ‘I thought he was with . . .’ But then she is interrupted by a phone call. She was clearly going to say Heidi, so I’m glad I put her straight.

I head back to the studio where Spencer is in the middle of filming the blog with Heidi. They are doing a Snog, Marry, Avoid thing with pictures of other members of the cast.

When Heidi says she’d snog Spencer’s character, I crumple the side of my goodbye card, but I don’t react other than that. When Spencer says he’d marry Heidi’s
character and gives her a flirty glance, I shout, ‘WTF!’ (except obviously I don’t say it in letters) and everyone turns round.

There is a moment of complete silence.

‘Er, we’ll probably have to film that bit again,’ says Spencer.

They all go back to what they are doing and forget about me.

When Spencer finishes, he comes over and he looks a little bit annoyed.

‘Well, that was a special moment,’ he says.

‘I’m sorry – it slipped out. I didn’t like seeing her all over you like a . . . slug.’

His frown breaks then and he laughs. ‘It’s just to generate a bit of excitement about our storyline.’ He puts his arms round my shoulders and gives me a squeeze.

‘I’ve been invited out for pizza with everyone,’ I say through a bit of a squashed mouth.

‘Oh right?’ He’s let me go and reaches for the phone I’ve just felt vibrate in his pocket. ‘I’m going to dinner with some of the guys.’

‘Surely that’s the same thing I’m going to?’ I ask.

‘I don’t think so. It’s just a small group of us.’

There’s a pause. And a flicker of
something I can’t read in Spencer’s eyes.

‘You can come along if you want?’

I go for an olive at the same time as someone else and we bash hands. It’s Johnny Green. He’s sitting on the other side of Ben Hart, who is next to me. I’ve
discovered that he uses the fact that he plays a gay character in the show to chat up women. I heard some of the waitresses talking about how sweet he was when I was washing my hands in the toilets
earlier. But from the way he kept miming groping them and then winking at Spencer, I would say he’s definitely more of a sex pest than a sweetheart.

I decide to try talking to Johnny Green again, while we both have our hands in the olives.

‘What did you order, Johnny?’

He frowns at me and looks confused. His eyes are glazed over and he keeps blinking a lot. It turns out he takes a lot of drugs and is usually off his face on something. He doesn’t answer
me because he’s suddenly fascinated by how shiny his fork is.

Well, this is fun.

On the other side of the table, Spencer, Heidi, Heidi’s dad and Spencer’s agent are all deep in conversation. We are clearly going to completely miss drinks with all the others after
their pizza.

I go over and sit at the bar for a while and tell the waitresses what a creep Ben Hart is. They decide they are going to play up to it so they get a big tip out of him. Then Heidi’s dad
walks past me on the phone. He’s speaking in a low voice, but I think I catch something like, ‘They’ll be coming out at eight.’

I get a tap on the shoulder. Spencer. Suddenly my evening is looking up. He beckons me into a corner where we can’t be seen.

About an hour later – half spent in the corner with Spencer and half in the bar, where Ben letches, Johnny Green stares blankly and Heidi keeps touching Spencer’s
leg – everyone is leaving to go on to some exclusive club in the West End, but I have to get home because Granny has me on a strict curfew at the moment. The waitresses see me standing next
to Spencer by the door and one of them really unsubtly mouths, ‘Is that him?’ because during my conversation with them about Ben I might have accidentally let it slip that Spencer is my
secret boyfriend. I give her wide eyes, but I nod. I think Spencer notices, but he doesn’t say anything. I walk alongside him as we go through the gates to where the taxis are. Then I grab
his hand to say goodbye, just as there is a load of shouting and camera flashes going off.