We'll Always Have Paris

‘It has to be you.’ Faced with his intransigence, she had nothing to lose, Clara decided. She might as well be straight. ‘The budget is based on your participation, and Stella Holt won’t take part unless you do. The whole thing falls apart without you,’ she told him. ‘And so does MediaOchre. There are only three of us as it is. That’s why I’ve been so persistent.’

‘Basing the entire future of a company on one individual is an extremely risky economic strategy,’ said Simon severely.

‘I suppose so, but you have to take a risk every now and then, don’t you?’

She knew immediately she had said the wrong thing. Simon’s expression didn’t change, but she felt him withdraw, like a snail shrinking back into its shell, and his voice was distant. ‘Not in my experience,’ he said.

There was a pause. ‘Well, you can’t say I haven’t tried,’ she said after a moment.

‘No,’ said Simon, ‘I can’t say that.’

A dreary drizzle misted the windscreen, and the streetlamps cast a fuzzy orange glow over the commuters hurrying for the tube, collars turned up against the cold and the damp.

How was she going to break it to Ted and Roland? Clara’s heart sank. She had failed them both. Now she could wave goodbye to her shiny new career and her hopes of becoming a producer. Just when she had filled the aching gap in her life left by Matt and found something she really wanted to do too.

Where was Julie Andrews when she needed her? As so often, Clara opted for frivolity when things looked like getting desperate. It was better than the alternative, which was crying hopelessly and which never really helped anyway. That was a lesson she had learnt the hard way in the weeks and months after Matt had left.

Well, she would just have to cheer herself up. Clara hummed a few bars of My Favourite Things under her breath while Simon negotiated an awkward junction.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Singing to myself.’

‘What on earth for?’

‘To make myself feel better.’ It seemed obvious to Clara.

‘I thought that’s why I was taking you to hospital.’

‘Music is the best medicine,’ she said. ‘Musicals taught me that.’

She might as well have claimed to have learned it from aliens. ‘Musicals?’ asked Simon as if he had never heard the word.

‘Shows where the actors sing and dance around,’ said Clara helpfully. ‘And some of the greatest movies ever made. Take The Sound of Music. You must have seen that?’

‘I’ve heard of it.’ He eased into a gap between a bus and a taxi.

‘I’ll bet you know most of the songs.’ She hummed the tune again. ‘Is it ringing any bells?’

Simon glanced at her, shook his head slightly, and turned his attention back to the traffic. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Clara.’

She gaped at him, astounded by his ignorance. This was probably how he felt about anyone who didn’t know all about quantitative easing and interest rate policies.

‘It’s a classic song,’ she told him. ‘And, what’s more, it really does work. When things go wrong—like you refusing to take part in the programme and ruining my career, for instance—all I have to do is sing a bit and I instantly feel better.’

It had worked when she missed Matt. Most of the time.

‘Who needs a doctor when you’ve got The Sound of Music?’ she said cheerfully, and Simon shook his head in disbelief.

‘I think I’d still take my chances at the hospital if I were you.’

At least three of the nurses in the A and E department recognized Simon, and there was a rather unseemly tussle as to who would help him. Initially triumphant at securing the task of dealing with Clara, the staff nurse was positively sulky when she realised that Simon planned to wait outside, and that the other two were left to fuss around him.

Not that Simon even seemed to realise that he was getting special treatment. ‘I’ll be here when you’re ready,’ he said to Clara. Taking a seat on one of the hard plastic chairs, he unfolded the Financial Times and proceeded to ignore everyone else.

By the time she emerged with a plaster cast up to her elbow and her arm in a sling, Clara was tired and sore and feeling faintly sick. She wanted Matt. Usually she was very good at persuading herself that she was fine, but at times like this, when her defences were down and she just needed him to put his arms round her and tell her that everything would be all right, his absence sharpened from a dull ache to a spearing pain.

Matt wasn’t there for her any more. There was no one there for her.

Except Simon Valentine, who was sitting exactly where she had left him, and the rush of relief she felt at the sight of him made her screw up her face in case she burst into tears or did something equally humiliating.

‘The sister said your wrist is broken,’ he said, folding his newspaper and getting to his feet as she appeared. ‘I’m sorry, it must be very painful.’

Clara put on a bright smile. She wasn’t going to be a cry-baby in front of Simon Valentine.

‘It’s not too bad.’ She moved her arm in its sling gingerly. ‘I have to come back to the fracture clinic in a week, and they’ll put a lightweight cast on it then.’

‘My mother rang while you were being X-rayed,’ he told her. ‘It seems she picked up your bag when you dropped it to go after that mugger.’

Clara clapped her good hand to her head. ‘Thank goodness for that! I forgot all about it in all the kerfuffle.’

‘We’ll go and pick it up, and then I’ll take you home.’

‘Honestly, I’m fine,’ she said quickly. ‘I can get a cab.’

‘You might as well resign yourself,’ he said. ‘My life wouldn’t be worth living if my mother got wind of the fact that I let you go home in a taxi!’

His suit was still immaculate, and she was horribly aware all at once of her scuffed knees and mud-splattered clothes where she had fallen. His hand was strong and steadying through her jacket as he took her good arm and steered her out through the doors to the car park, and she was guiltily grateful to his mother for insisting that he go with her to the hospital.

Being driven was a luxury too, she thought, sinking into the comfortable leather seat. It certainly beat the tube, or squeezing onto a bus with everyone else, coats steaming and breath misting the windows.

‘You don’t strike me as a man who’s scared of his mother,’ she said, turning slightly to look at him as he got in beside her.

‘She has her own ways of getting what she wants,’ said Simon in a dry voice. ‘I’ve learnt it’s easier just to do what she says.’

Throwing his arm over the back of her seat, he reversed out of the narrow parking slot. Clara sat very still, afraid to move her head in case she brushed against him. All at once it felt as if there wasn’t quite enough oxygen in the car.

‘I thought she was charming,’ she said breathlessly.

‘Oh, yes, she’s charming,’ he said with a sigh and, to Clara’s relief, he brought his arm back to put the car into forward gear once more. ‘Great fun, wonderful company and completely irresponsible, but she gets away with it. She can be utterly infuriating, but if you try and reason with her, she just smiles and pats your cheek and, before you know where you are, you’re doing exactly what she wants.’

Now why hadn’t she thought of patting his cheek? Clara wondered. Somehow she felt it wouldn’t have worked for her.

She liked the sound of Frances, though. She seemed a most unlikely mother for Simon.

‘You must take after your father,’ she said.

It was a throwaway comment, but Simon’s face closed and his mouth set in a compressed line.