He squats to grab his glass and phone and the speaker and gets on the bed beside me. He sits down near the edge, like he’s scared to come closer, but he hasn’t taken his eyes off me. I look away, out to the inky blackness that is the sea. The nothingness is punctuated only by the lights of various super-yachts in the distance. It’s cooler down here, as the breeze from the sea dances in. The foreground is better lit, by lights dotted around the low wall of the pool area, and the pool itself is illuminated in breathtaking turquoise.
‘Who’s this singing?’ I break the moment. The voice is incredible: a woman singing in French, with just a piano in accompaniment.
‘It’s Barbara Pravi. She’s pretty big over here.’
‘Her voice gives me goosebumps.’ I settle in a mermaid pose, my legs folded to one side, resting on my arm.
‘She got France second place in the Eurovision this year.’
‘No way. She doesn’t sound very Eurovision-y.’
He laughs. ‘She’s not. But she was mesmerising. Her performance was very Piaf. Look it up on YouTube—the song was calledVoilà.’
‘This song sounds so sad. Yearning.’ The melancholy piano chords, the quiet desperation building in the singer’s voice, somehow reflect how I’m feeling at that precise moment. Like I’m mourning something: I’m not sure what.
‘It is. It’s calledLouis. She’s singing about a former lover, and from the sound of things, she’s definitely not over him.’
‘Oh.’ Hearing the wordloverfrom his lips gives me a small thrill. ‘What’s she saying?’
‘She’s saying,’—he closes his eyes briefly as he listens—‘I’d give my soul for your skin. See, my heart ignites at the heat of your words.’
He opens his eyes again and looks straight at me. Unsmiling.
‘Oh.’ I’ve already said that. ButJesus Christ, could I have asked him to translate a more loaded couple of lines? There’s an instant flush of heat up my neck and on my cheeks. ‘Wow, that’s—the French certainly have a way with words.’
My chat could not be more lame. Seriously, get a grip, Honor. But he’s still looking at me, and I take a hurried, panicky sip of my wine and stare back out at the blackness. The air hums with thousands of cicadas; it’s a solid wall of noise, and it’s wonderful.
We’re silent for a few moments, and then the song finishes and a lighter, more upbeat one comes on, and I realise I’ve been holding my breath. I set down my glass and, reaching behind me, stack a couple of the huge cushions on the bed. Lower my head so I’m in a semi-reclining position and stare at the top of the daybed’s canopy.
‘This spot is positively medicinal.’ I sigh, more deeply than I mean to, and close my eyes.
‘It’s intoxicating, isn’t it?’ I can hear a smile in his voice.
‘Yeah.’
‘Look. Can I ask you something that’s none of my business? You’re free to tell me where to go.’
I have an uncomfortably clear idea of where this is going.
‘Okay…?’
He shifts his weight on the bed next to me. ‘Why thefuckdo you let your husband get away with the stunts he’s pulling at the moment?’
His vehemence takes me by surprise. I turn my head and open my eyes. He’s raking one hand through his hair and staring down at me.
‘You mean why do I not fight his cheating, or why do I not fight the papers for exposing it this time?’
He’s taken aback; the skin between his eyebrows creases into a V.
‘The former, I suppose. I?—’
I make a split-second decision to trust him. To open up; not to patronise him with the practised lines I feed most people.
‘Jackson’s slept around for years. I don’t expect you to understand, but it is what it is. The articles right now are the tip of the iceberg. And that iceberg is kept well out of sight thanks to a load of relationships and bribes and injunctions and deals and fixers that are so tawdry, you really don’t want to know more about them.’
Silence.
‘The difference with the current shit-show is that it’s ‘good’ publicity for his upcoming show. The public loves nothing more than an on-screen-off-screen romance. So Jackson and our publicist have no intention of quashing the speculation. For once, it’s serving him.’
