Billy and Me

‘Shut up!’ I say, whacking his arm gently.

  ‘I’m serious! I’m sure you could get into it all if you wanted.’

  ‘No chance. What else did he say?’ I ask, feeling embarrassed.

  ‘The producer for that rock film The Walking Beat has been on the phone to him, too. They want to announce me as their lead as soon as possible and get the ball rolling while there’s such hype about the win.’

  ‘Do you still want to do it?’

  ‘Definitely. Although I think it’s going to be a crazy experience.’

  ‘Great, I’ll have the flat back to myself then!’ I joke.

  ‘No, you won’t. You’ll be coming with me.’

  ‘What? To the set?’

  ‘Yeah, of course I want you there. We’re a team, remember? Besides, I want you to see how boring it all actually is. I’m telling you, you’ll feel so sorry for me once you experience the early morning starts, the never-ending days and see the way I’m bossed around like a moving prop.’

  ‘You poor, poor thing!’

  ‘I know … it’s so tough.’

  We sit silently for a few moments, letting the quiet sink in after our manic day.

  ‘Ahhhhh!’ squeals Billy, clenching his fists with excitement. ‘I still can’t believe I won! It’s crazy. I always dreamed I’d get a pat on the back for my work one day – but this is bonkers.’

  ‘You deserve it.’

  Billy flashes me a cheeky smile. ‘It’s made me realize how much I love it. Wait, does that make me sound egotistical?’ he asks with a grimace. ‘Moaning about acting when we first met and now that I’ve won an award I love it?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘It’s like it’s awoken a fire in me. Paul is so geared up. He has such massive plans. There’s all sorts of meetings being set up, over here, in LA and New York … who knows where we’ll be in a few years’ time. I feel like our future has just been thrown wide open. It’s so unbelievable.’

  I’m thrilled for Billy because he really does deserve the praise that is being sent his way, but this talk of the future scares me. Not because I’m not being included – I am. Billy is always careful to say ‘we’ and ‘us’, but because our world is about to be dictated by Billy’s career. Putting Paul in the driver’s seat. I’m not sure how I’d be able to cope having Paul’s input into every decision we make.

  I can’t sleep. A mixture of excitement and nerves swirls through me, keeping my mind active and alert. It’s been an amazing night for Billy and I’m delighted that I was able to be there to watch and support him. It was such a rush to be by his side – I actually thought I’d be left on my own again, looking like a lemon as I was on the Press Night, to be honest, but Billy kept me close to him as promised.

  Even though I’m largely ecstatic about how the evening went (that I didn’t fall over in my heels or make a fool of myself in front of Jude), I can’t seem to shake off Russell Mode’s comments or the feeling that things are about to snowball so fast that I won’t be able to keep up.

  When it comes to women, I trust Billy. I honestly do. It’s hard not to trust someone who has never really given me any reason not to. Yes, I know he is popular with the ladies and I know he likes to be affectionate with Ruth, but that’s just his way. Right? And yes, the whole inappropriate thing with the play was a problem, too, but that was just his naivety about how to handle the situation. Having spoken about it I’m sure that scenario will be handled differently next time around. Although will I ever get over the distress of watching Billy fool around with someone else – even if it is in the name of work? I know I’ll deal with that when I have to, but thanks to this new film that time might come sooner than I’d have liked. Rock stars are, after all, notorious for their bad-boy behaviour. I’d be foolish to think there’d be nothing risqué in it.

  If Russell is right and it’s only a matter of time before he runs off with a co-star or some glamorous model he meets on a night out, then what am I doing here? Why am I actually sitting around waiting for him to crush and humiliate me? Because I love him, I guess, is the obvious answer. From day one I’ve always said that I can’t compete with those types of women, powerful and glamorous, but I believed him when he comforted me by saying he wasn’t interested in the changeability of girls who would be all over you one minute for the cameras and then drop you the next. He wanted something more meaningful. I do believe that in me Billy has found someone he can have a normal life with – as normal as he can have, being an actor and having parts of his life on display for all to judge. I know I give him stability in an otherwise unpredictable lifestyle – but am I just a phase in his life? Billy’s way of trying to fight the urge to become a part of the actor’s world that he’ll inevitably succumb to eventually anyway?

  In reality, it’s not Billy that I’m worried about, I don’t believe he would purposely go out to cheat or find someone new. I honestly don’t think it’s in his character. What unnerves me is the scores of women who will now be on his case, trying to tempt him. Doing all they can to win his trust and lure him in their direction, not caring that he has a girlfriend. In fact, in some twisted way, I predict my presence in his life will make him even more of a challenge for them, making him even more desirable. I can’t sleep as the image of these seductive lionesses walking around their prey fills my mind.

  I suppose only time will tell if he’d be stupid enough to fall into their traps, but for now I have to keep faith in Billy and stand by him, until he gives me cause to do otherwise.

  As for Billy’s future glittering life and my presence in it? Who knows. I just wish I could get rid of this feeling of grief that has clamped hold of my heart.

  Part Three

  17

  The flashing of my phone causes me to stir. I always sleep with it on silent when I’ve decided to have a lie-in the next day, knowing that Molly or Mum will call me at the crack of dawn otherwise, forcing me to wake up earlier than planned.

  It’s a couple of weeks since the BAFTA awards. Billy has finished working on Dunked and is waiting for filming to commence on The Walking Beat, so we are making the most of having nothing planned and have been enjoying waking up when we want to, napping if we fancy it and being spontaneous with our days without the need to rush back home for anything. It’s been glorious just being a couple again with no outside interference.

  The screen of my phone is so bright I can’t open my eyes properly to see who is trying to get hold of me, so I miss the call. I close my eyes again, turn over and extend my arms above my head whilst flexing my feet, revelling in the sensation of my muscles stretching after being curled up in a ball all night. I cuddle into Billy, enjoying the warmth of his body underneath the fluffy duvet, and continue to doze.

  A little while later I force myself to wake up and get out of bed, even though Billy is still sound asleep. I grab my phone and walk into the kitchen, fill up the kettle and flick it on. As it starts to grumble, letting me know that a well-needed coffee is on its way, I have a look at my phone. Sixty-seven missed calls and ten voicemails. Panic grabs me, instantly knowing that something has to have happened for people to be trying to get hold of me so urgently before ten o’clock in the morning. I go straight to the voicemails.

  ‘Oh Sophie, I’m so sorry!’ cries Molly’s voice, causing a lump to form in my throat. I’ve never heard Molly cry as hard as this before. She sounds heartbroken. ‘I didn’t know, I honestly didn’t. I wouldn’t have told her anything if I had. But she kept asking me questions about you. I thought she just admired you, or realized how much I was missing you … I –’ she tries, before breaking down in sobs. ‘I didn’t mean to tell her about you. I didn’t know she was a journalist, Sophie.’ My chest tightens as I make out her words through the sobs of regret. Eventually, she has to put the phone down because she can no longer speak.

  There are seven more voicemails from her, each of them offering more of an explanation as to what’s happened, which I start to piece together. It turns out Sally, th
e girl Molly decided to employ as my replacement, without even seeing her CV, is a freelance reporter. She hadn’t just randomly turned up in Rosefont Hill to see her aunt, she was there to see if she could persuade me, face to face, to do an exclusive interview with her about my relationship with Billy. Instead she managed to get a job in the shop and worm my life story out of the clueless customers, fitting little pieces of information together until she had a story she could sell.

  Once I’ve heard enough from Molly, I pull the phone away from my ear and discard it. Taking deep breaths, I steady myself on the kitchen worktop, wondering what to do. My mind feels empty, offering me no answers. Eventually, I walk into the hallway, grab my coat and walk to the corner shop, not caring that I’m obviously still in my pyjamas.

  The sight of the front pages grips me by the throat, restricting my breathing. Each contains two pictures, one of me and Billy at the awards and one of me when I was younger, with my arms flung around my dad, kissing him on the cheek as he laughs at the camera. I know the picture well – after all, I’ve gazed at it longingly for years. It’s also the one they used back then when it all happened.

  I clench my jaw and push away the tears that threaten to spill out of me. Quickly, I grab one of the papers and pay for it at the counter, ignoring the idle chat coming from the young shopkeeper serving me, wanting to be back home as soon as possible.

  Back at the kitchen table I put the paper in front of me and stare at my dad’s beaming face. I sit down and slowly absorb the details of my life that someone I have never met has decided it’s fair to share with the world, without my knowledge or consent, or giving me any warning.

  SECRET HEARTACHE FOR BUSKIN’S GIRL

  She’s won over the heart of former lothario Billy Buskin, as he displayed in his acceptance speech at last month’s BAFTAs, but behind Sophie May’s dazzling smile hides a bitter heartache, which led her to shut herself away from those around her throughout her teenage years.

  Speaking to friends close to Sophie it has been revealed that the tragic death of her dad, when she was just eleven years old, has understandably had a huge impact on Sophie’s life.

  Carla Daily, who grew up with Sophie, said, ‘At primary school she was friends with everyone. She was always dancing or prancing around and found everything funny. She was such a lovely girl, always bubbly and kind. Everybody wanted to be her friend. She was the popular one who all of us flocked to.’

  However, Sophie changed dramatically when her father, Dean May, was killed instantly in a hit-and-run accident, just minutes away from their family home in Rosefont Hill.

  Carla continued, ‘Obviously, there were rumours about what had happened flying around the playground, and I can still remember the school assembly when the headmaster called us all in to tell us about what had happened to Sophie’s dad. At that age none of us had had to deal with news like that before, we didn’t really understand death. We all just sat there looking confused, knowing that it was a terrible thing that had happened, but not quite sure what we were meant to feel or how to react. A lot of us cried, imagining how we’d have felt if it was our own dads and feeling bad for our friend’s loss.

  ‘It was so sad, but what shocked us the most was the state of Sophie when she finally came back into school. She looked ill. Her rosy cheeks had disappeared along with her smile. Her hair, which was always long and free-flowing, was now pulled back in a painfully tight bun. She looked awful.

  ‘She no longer wanted to talk to anyone either, no matter how much anybody tried to comfort her. Whenever you tried to talk to her you’d see her shaking, as if she was scared of us. It was terrifying. She’d become a closed book; literally an empty shell of the girl that she once was. I tried on many occasions to talk to her about it, but seeing her wither away like that made me frightened to go near her, I didn’t want to upset her further. So I gave up eventually, we all did.’

  According to the source, Sophie’s mum Jane May suffered from severe depression following her husband’s sudden death, leaving Sophie to care for them both.

  ‘I think a large part of that was having to look after her mum, who I heard had a breakdown as a result of the accident. It must’ve been a lot for Sophie to cope with, especially at such a young age. Very stressful, I imagine.

  ‘We all moved to secondary school a few months after the accident. My mum thought the new environment would make Sophie better, give her a fresh start away from everyone who knew about her dad, but it made her worse. Somehow she managed to isolate herself even further. They didn’t know what she had been like before, so they just accepted her as this quiet girl, meaning no one bothered with her.’

  When at eighteen Sophie’s peers were making plans for their futures, she shrugged off the idea of going to university or travelling, preferring to stay at home.

  ‘It was pretty obvious that Sophie wouldn’t leave her mum,’ the friend continued. ‘It’s like the guilt of escaping their despair ate her up. To be honest, I never spoke to her about it, but from the moment her dad died, the Sophie we knew disappeared.’

  Sophie never reformed the bonds with her former friends. Instead, it was working in her local teashop, at the end of sixth form, which brought her back into the community, thanks to her friend and former employer, Molly Cooper.

  Looking back at the day Sophie first walked into the shop, she said, ‘I knew who she was as soon as she walked through the door. All of us in the village had heard about what had happened to her dad, of course we had, but I didn’t expect to see her looking so fragile so long afterwards. I wanted to do all I could to help her move forward, but obviously the death of someone so close, when they’re just suddenly snatched away from you like that, is heartbreaking. I don’t think anyone fully recovers from it. Ever.

  ‘She still has the odd shaky day, you know, when things get brought to the surface. But her main concern is, and has always been, her mum.’

  Speaking of the night the accident occurred, Molly said, ‘Something like that, a death, in a village as small as this, hits the whole community hard. For days, it felt wrong to laugh or feel any joy. A black cloud had washed over us, so I can only imagine how that must have felt for poor Sophie and her mum. Dean had only popped out to grab something quickly from the shops. He was literally a few hundred yards from home when he got knocked over. He died instantly.

  ‘It wasn’t just the death that Sophie had to deal with of course, it was the knowledge that people were whispering about her behind her back. That’s what she really struggled with, and that’s why she became a closed book, I think. No one was doing it to be mean, we were all just concerned, but as a child she viewed that differently. She just wanted to disappear. I think working here [in Tea-on-the-Hill] helped her see that, sometimes, calling on those around you is a good thing. Sometimes life is too tough to face alone, no matter how much you want to shut everybody out.’

  It appears that, with the help of Molly and the customers in the shop, Sophie started to come out of her shell, after years of hiding away.

  It was in this comfortable environment that she met Billy for the first time.

  ‘I knew straight away that she’d caught Billy’s eye,’ continued Molly. ‘Sophie’s always shied away from any kind of attention, so she was completely oblivious to his affection for her. But I could see him watching her, being amused by her little ways. I knew he’d taken a shine to her.

  ‘They have a connection which makes her feel safe in a world that has been full of so much uncertainty, whilst giving him the normal relationship he craves.’

  Billy stated in his BAFTA acceptance speech that Sophie has completed his life, saying, ‘There is one person here who I would like to thank … the better half of me, that is, Miss Sophie May. I feel like I’ve already won the biggest prize of all having her beside me. It’s thanks to her that my life is now complete.’

  Well, it seems, in some way, that Billy has completed hers, too, by filling the void left by the sad death of her beloved f
ather.

  ‘What’s that?’ I hear Billy ask from behind me, causing me to jump in fright. I’d been so consumed by the article I hadn’t heard him come in. ‘What’s wrong?’

  I stay silent, aware of the tears and snot running down my face. Not sure what to say, I close the paper and slide it across the table in his direction, by way of an explanation. I hide my face, unable to look at him as he reads the front page, cringing as he turns the pages over and reads more. I sit motionless and wait.

  ‘Where has this come from?’ he says softly. ‘Who did they tell all this to? Molly wouldn’t talk to a journalist.’

  ‘Sally …’ I squeak.

  I feel his hand on my back, moving in a gentle, rubbing motion. He leans into me and kisses the top of my head, staying close. I hear him make a few sounds with his mouth, taking breaths as if about to say something, but, like me, I guess he doesn’t know where to start.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asks, sadly.

  ‘There was never a good time,’ I answer truthfully.

  ‘I knew something was wrong. Whenever you’ve talked about your childhood it’s always been the memories that include your dad – but, obviously, I knew he wasn’t around. I just didn’t want to ask.’

  ‘No, I know I should’ve told you. I almost did a couple of times,’ I say, sighing. ‘Losing Dad was the hardest time of my life. I’ve always felt that by telling you I’d be lifting the lid and making it all real again, having to relive it. It’s taken me so long to want to move on with my life. I wanted to keep it in the past. I didn’t want to taint what we have. I didn’t want you to feel sorry for me. I don’t want to see the pity in your eyes, too.’

  ‘I can understand that, baby, but it’s a huge part of who you are. OK, I promise to give you no pitiful looks,’ he says, squeezing me into him once more before sitting beside me. ‘It’s out there now, though, so take your time and tell me about it. Tell me what happened,’ he pleads. ‘Tell me your version of what happened.’