Chapter26
Jack Murray finished off a Zoom meeting with his colleagues in London, put his feet on the desk and looked out of his huge glass-fronted office at the skyscrapers opposite. He could see many more Jack Murrays, clones in the corporate world. Suits and desk lights on, typing or engrossed on the phone. Making or losing dollars; most of them probably wishing they were somewhere else instead.
Raindrops had started to trickle down his seventeenth-floor window, crossing and dancing with each other as they dripped their way down to the sidewalk below, where sirens blared and pedestrians ran for cover with multicoloured umbrellas or bags or folders over their heads. He fell into a daydream of being back in Hartmouth, sitting in Kara Moon’s apartment, looking out of the balcony doors at the beautiful harbour estuary and writing his script … then was brought back to reality by his secretary putting a call through on his landline.
‘Jack, Riley for you.’
‘Thanks, Chloe.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Hi, Riley. What are you doing, calling me on my office line?’
‘Just checking you’re at work. Joke!’ Jack sighed inwardly as his girlfriend justified herself with: ‘I know you don’t always pick up your mobile, that’s why – and this is important.’
‘Go on.’
‘Brooke has asked if I’d like to go for a long spa weekend in the Hamptons with her sister and one of her girlfriends, so I’m going.’
‘Right. So you’ve phoned to tell me, not ask me. When?’
‘Not this weekend, but the next. Oh, Jacky darling.’ Jack cringed at her nickname for him. ‘You’re always harping on about wanting some time on your own and now you’ve got it.’
‘I didn’t say anything, did I? Of course you must go.’ Then with a flash of Star Bligh’s pretty face entering his mind, without thinking the words flew out of his mouth: ‘I’ve been thinking about visiting my parents before Christmas anyway as we are going to yours this year. This gives me the perfect chance to do that.’
‘Oh.’
‘Riley, don’t start,’ he warned her. ‘You know you can’t bear going there as it’s so quiet where they live.’
‘OK, OK, you go and pay your duty visit. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that jazz. Anyway, gotta go. I’m being called for my audition. It’s only for the goddam chorus, but the show has got an A-list top-dollar lead. See you later, honey.’
‘Break a leg …’ Jack murmured but she’d already gone.
