Half-listening, half-wishing he was here and she could tell him what she thought of him, she sat down to eat her hurriedly assembled meal—a slice of grilled fresh salmon, some salad, some fruit.
She had finished her fish by the time Philip had stopped moaning on about costs. Zoe reached for her glass of orange juice, only to have her hand start shaking and knock it over as Connel's voice came on the machine.
Leaping up, she stood the glass upright again, grabbed a dishcloth and began moping the table, her pulses beating behind her ears, at her neck and wrists. She loved that deep, cool, male voice. The sound of it made her tremble.
'Zoe, I have to go abroad,' he said curtly and impersonally, as if she was one of his office staff. 'No idea when I'll get back.' The answer-machine buzzed and whirred, breaking up into sea noises, out of which his distant voice said, 'See you.' Then the machine clicked off and Zoe sat down before her knees gave way under her.
That wasn't how lovers spoke to each other. There had been nothing personal, nothing passionate, in that tone.
He didn't care two pins about her.
That was obvious. She had suspected it when she'd found he had gone without leaving a note. Now she was sure about it They had slept together, now he was walking out without looking back.
Anger, shame, humiliation washed over her in hot waves. She couldn't sit there. Jumping up, she began clearing the table, tidying the kitchen. Then went up to bed and worked for an hour on tomorrow's scenes before she put out the light.
Amazingly, she slept. Probably because she hadn't slept much last night and was so stressed and exhausted that she couldn't stay awake. She dreamt, though. All night she woke briefly from dreams of running after Connel as he vanished, hurrying through rooms she did not recognise, searching for him, seeing him at a distance, but always going away from her and not looking back. She always went back to sleep without difficulty, back to those dreams, that misery.
She woke in tears, on a damp pillow, and sensed she had cried more than once during the night.
Was this how it felt to have your heart broken? She had never believed in breaking hearts. She had laughed the idea to scorn. Hearts do not break. They are organs of the body; they function like machines; pump, pump, beat, beat, lubbadub, lubbadub, they go, sending the blood through your veins, keeping you alive. They do not break.
But hers had. She was one of the walking dead, a zombie moving automatically without knowing what she was doing. Without a heart, without a brain.
For the rest of that week she buried herself in work. She heard nothing from Connel, but the company lawyers let her know they had made a deal with Connel's lawyer over the use of the rose garden. He had asked only for a returnable deposit to cover possible damage or nuisance. If the film crew behaved impeccably the deposit would be paid back. The lawyers were pleased with their negotiations, and so was Philip Cross, the accountant.
'Just make sure no damage is done and the man can't sue us!' his voice nagged on her answer-machine.
Hal told her C
onnel was in the Argentine on business. 'And probably chatting up dark-eyed senoritas, if I know him!' he grinned.
Zoe grinned back, the skin around her mouth stiff, jealousy burning inside her chest, although Hal couldn't know that, unless Connel had now told him about the night of the party, but she didn't think he had; she didn't read anything in Hal's manner or his eyes.
Later she snapped at him, 'For God's sake, Hal, could you try to talk as if you were a man, not a recorded phone message!'
He glared. Hal was good at glaring. He did it even when he wasn't trying. It was probably his natural expression. She wouldn't be surprised to hear that his face fell into glaring, brooding lines even when he was asleep. His fans loved it, loved the smouldering stares, the locked jawline, the rough masculine voice.
'I'm only saying my lines!'
She sweetened her voice, sarcastically said, 'I don't want you to only say them. I want you to act, Hal. I know it's hard—but could you try? I know you went to drama school. They must have taught you something.'
There were indrawn breaths all round them. Eyes widened, people looked at each other, open-mouthed.
How could she say such a thing to Hal? Of all people! One of the best-loved actors on TV? Hal's mouth had dropped open; he couldn't believe it, either.
'We'll go again,' she said. 'Marks, everybody. Okay, Will? Okay, sound? Everybody ready? Hal, stop sulking.'
'Stop nagging,' he muttered, so low she barely heard him.
'What did you say?'
'Nothing,' he said, acting—brilliantly, for once—the part of an innocent man wrongly accused. 'Just rehearsing my lines.'
She knew she was behaving like a bear with a sore head. She couldn't help it Being in love, she discovered, is like toothache—once you've got it you can't forget it. It nags on and on in the back of your mind, whatever you're doing, hurting intolerably.
It had never happened to Zoe before, and she didn't know how to cope. How did you disguise constant pain? How did you keep smiling when you wanted to cry? How did you stop yelling at people, complaining, losing your temper over nothing? Why had she never realised love could destroy you like this?
That Saturday she had lunch with Sancha and Mark. Sancha had tried out recipes from a book of Spanish cooking Made had bought her, beginning with a large dish of tapas, tiny saucers each containing a different food Artichokes dressed with vinaigrette, tiny fried whitebait fish, boiled eggs stuffed with anchovies or tuna in tomato sauce, prawns. The main course was a casserole Sancha called Chicken Andaluz. Breast of chicken had been cooked for a couple of hours slowly, with bacon pieces, tomato, red peppers and slices of hot spicy red sausage.