I can’t keep hearing the same thing over and over again. I’m so tired. I need sleep. I can’t remember what day it is. I can’t remember when I’m next back at work. I can’t even remember my own name.
Why am I fighting Romy about Aury? What are Aury and I to each other? We go from best friends to absolutely nothing. We go back and forth and, as the years go by, I wonder if I should just give up holding out hope. I can’t have Aury anyway. I’m not allowed. It’s so pointless hankering after someone I can’t have. It doesn’t stop me doing it, though – afact Romy clearly spotted, through ‘photographic evidence’ that simply shows two people blinking at the same time. If it wasn’t for that, it would still be well hidden.
‘You’re in love with her,’ she says simply when she’s finished telling me everything that’s wrong with me.
And round and round we go, deeper and deeper into an argument that I’m not going to win – an argument I have no right to win. I’m so worn down and the moment I say this, it’s all over. I deserve to lose Romy. She’s too good for me. She deserves someone better. And as she keeps talking, keeps telling me that I’m not present enough in our relationship, I look into her eyes and say what she wants to hear so badly, but doesn’t want to hear. ‘Yes. All right. I’m in love with Aury.’
Romy looks so triumphant that she’s got me to admit it, it’s like the reality of what I’ve said hasn’t sunk in for a few moments. When it does, she bursts into tears.
I’m a shit. I’m an absolute shit. I was a shit boyfriend to Liv and I was a shit boyfriend to Romy, and I’m destined to be a shit boyfriend to anyone else who has the misfortune to stumble into my path. Perhaps it’s good that Aury and I will never happen. I need to stay away from women. I only hurt them.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Aurora
I’m on a job in Antigua. I hate the time-difference between everyone I love and me. I hate the jet lag that always comes for me as I return home, and how achy I get after a long flight. I’ve taken up Pilates, so I can stretch my muscles, my limbs, my spine. I’m a pro at finding a tiny corner of a hotel gym, rolling out a mat and easing the tension from my body. I have one of the world’s best jobs, but I’ve been doing it for a few years now and it’s always the same, every single time. I’ve been around the world on so many different shoots with so many different people and I make the most of every part of it. It brings travel that I could never have afforded in a normal job. And more wealth than I’d ever have thought possible. But it also brings isolation and loneliness.
As I roll out my mat in the hotel gym I wonder, not for the first time, if Ollie was right all those years ago. If I should have had a back-up plan up my sleeve. If I should have had something else to fall back on. What would I do if I didn’t model? Not acting. I had a little taster in the casino commercial and it’s not my thing. I had a tiny taste of fame as SamCharlton’s sort of girlfriend and I didn’t like it. At least as a model I’m nameless, mostly. Just a face to anyone who sees me on a billboard, or on an advertisement on the Underground, or down the sidebar of an online newspaper.
I wonder if everyone feels like this. I wouldn’t say I’m at the top of the modelling game. I’m hardly Kate Moss or one of the original supers. I’m not far enough up that I can’t still see the ground. But the heady heights are within climbing distance. Only I’m not sure I want to climb any more. I think I might be over it. Does anyone stay in the same job their entire adult life? I don’t think I want to. It might be time for something more wholesome.
I tell Toby this over drinks later, as we’ve been reunited for this shoot. Unlike me, he can’t get enough of the travel. We’ve seen each other off and on for dinners here and there, but we haven’t worked together since that time in Scotland.
‘So what will you do? Are your diamond shoes too tight?’ he asks, laughing at his own put-down as we sink our second spicy Margaritas on the beach-front terrace of our hotel. We were shooting in another hotel on the island, but the one they’ve put us in to sleep is slightly less nice than that – the beach a bit more rocky than the white sand I’ve been draped across all day. Good drinks, though, and a lovely vibe. Reggae music plays softly and the trade winds blow through the palm trees. I wish I could say I could get used to this, but I’vebeenused to it.
‘I think my diamond shoes might be too tight actually.’
‘Do you know how many women would kill to be in yourposition?’ Toby asks. ‘Think carefully before throwing it all away.’
‘I won’t throw it all away. I’ve got a huge mortgage to pay now, remember. You’ve seen my flat.’
‘I have. It’s a beauty.’
‘I just need to do something else alongside modelling, I think. Something that excites me, that spurs me on every day.’
‘Such as?’
I shrug and stare out to sea. ‘I’ve signed up for a course to become a Pilates instructor.’
‘You’ve donewhat?’
‘A while ago Liv predicted that I might fade into obscurity. And before that, Ollie said I needed a Plan B. This is my Plan B.’
‘A Pilates instructor? That’s quite … pedestrian.’
‘No, it’s not!’ I protest.
‘Compared to modelling, it is,’ Toby says.
‘Well, so what? I need pedestrian. I can hardly go and become – I don’t know – an airline pilot. I’m not qualified to do any kind of job at all, so I may as well start from scratch with something I enjoy. And I love Pilates. I roll out my mat every day. I’m not saying I’m going to give up modelling right now. But I am going to give something else a shot alongside it. And maybe I’ll make a success of that too.’
‘Darling, I hate to break it to you, but lightning doesn’t strike twice.’
‘Maybe,’ I reply, although I don’t want to think that, soI jog the conversation along. ‘Tell me what’s been happening with you since we caught up for dinner at Nobu a few weeks ago.’
‘We had dinner at Nobu four months ago, darling. Not a few weeks ago.’
‘This year is whizzing by,’ I moan.
