I shoot him abehavelook.
‘Yes, okay.’ He accepts it. ‘We all have exes but neither you or I are bonking them up by the Suspension Bridge right at this moment.’
‘I doubt Dan is either,’ I counter.
‘Well, that is where you are wrong. One minute he was just checking me for fit, and the next his phone went and he flew out the door leaving me head to toe in pins, with no bloody way to get this dress off on my own – I literally cannot pull it over my head without help – and no real explanation other than he has to go. Well, that’s it, isn’t it? I have Drag Factor next week and the one person I’m relying on to get me through has flaming well stolen my heart and then upped and disappeared.’
‘I’m sure he’ll be back soon. Can I help with the final song choice? What is it between?’ Normally I would know all of this.
‘How can I concentrate on a song choice when my heart has been broken into two?’ Kevin snaps, clearly cross that I am not grasping the severity of the situation.
I catch sight of my phone on the table. ‘Does this help?’ I ask. ‘Look what Jay has sent me.’ I play the video and Kevin stops sobbing and sits up straight, his attention captured from about halfway in.
‘Go on, play that again,’ he says, tears dry now for a moment. ‘And who are these people?’
‘A choir who do a bit of am-dram that Jay is helping out with’
‘Oh my God! My cutting edge Drag Act makes him think of a practice song by pensioners in a community centre!’ Kevin places his head in his hands.
I give him a minute.
He peers at me through his fingers and we hold eye contact whilst I wait for his thought process to complete. ‘They’ll come and help me sing?’
‘I don’t know for sure but I imagine so, otherwise why would Jay send it?’
‘Right, I don’t have time for your petty protestations,’ he says and I wince, ‘Ring him, ring him now and find out.’
I don’t want to ring him. I’m not ready to speak to him yet. I have apologies to make, but I’m still constantly repeating the night we had as a thread of clips so familiar they autoplay. I shake my head to get rid of the explicit replays spooling around in there now.
‘Don’t shake your head at me. This is desperate!’ Kevin says quick as a whip. ‘What are you waiting for?’
‘Um, what do you want me to say?’ My heart is now about to launch into full-on failure.
‘Tell him that we need those pensioners, especially that one in the feathers. She is camp! And we need them for Drag Factor and I need him here now too. He can help us on our search. In fact, just message him and tell him to meet us at the observatory. Oh and to bring a coat, a long coat. And binoculars. Quick, quick, quick!’
Chapter Thirty-Two
Lily
Somehow I am now lying on the grass by the observatory with Kevin in his so-tight-it squeaks metallic sheath, covered up by Jay’s paint-splodged overalls, with bits of fabric squeezing out all over the place and his wig still very much at an angle. And I am still breathing.
From what I can tell my outside is showing no real evidence of the mayhem that is going on inside. All the feelings that surfaced as I waited for, and then watched, Jay park and walk across the road to meet us.
He was as good as gold when I called, He didn’t make any mention of the fact that I have fallen off the face of the earth since our night together. Merely saying that he had finished helping Cass out for the day with painting so was heading home to have a shower. Neither did he seem at all fazed by Kevin shrieking into the phone that ‘Now is not the time to get washed, for God’s sake, this is a life or death emergency.’
He had duly arrived on The Downs – we weren’t exactly hard to spot – and gave me a big grin in hello, which kind of made me feel reassured, safe and that all was right in the world. It also made me feel guilty that I have beensuchan arse. I should just have talked to him. Been as honest with him as he was with me in that very first text he had sent.
Thank you, I had a really special weekend. Hope you are smiling as much as I am xxx
I can’t forget it. The minute I had seen it I had gone into insane panic but now, with reflection, how is this anything other than perfect? He hadn’t put any pressure on me. He wasn’t asking for anything; he was merely telling me how he felt and hoping I was happy too.
Which I guess I was, in those off-guard moments when I forgot to be petrified about what it all meant.
However, these thoughts were banished, just for a second or two, on his arrival as, not having a coat on him, he stripped out of his overalls and handed them to Kevin to try and get himself into without causing damage to the gown. Remarkably Jay had way more paint on his face than he had on his overalls.
However, it wasn’t his face I was looking at as he was unzipping his overalls, shaking them off his shoulders, down his arms, pulling his hand through and then wriggling his hips, peeling them further down his legs until he stepped out of them and handed them to Kevin.
Kevin is as transfixed as I am and it’s only as Jay laughed at us and quirked his eyebrow that both of us had the grace to turn back to the task in hand. Which at that point was to cross The Downs as discreetly as possible – so easy with Kevin bewigged, with earrings to his knees and in overalls – and take up a watchful position by the observatory. Kevin made us crawl in a line – formation as he called it – from the woods that had provided cover as we snuck up from The Downs and then he made us lie flat behind the tiniest slope whilst shouting, ‘Quick, quick, before we’re spotted!’
