Love Lies

69. Scott

What is it with these people? The more you tell them you are unreliable and unstable the more they cleave to you and then they are disappointed. I told Fern I wasn’t to be trusted. I told her addicts are fucking terrible people to care about and pop stars are worse. I told her I could resist anything other than temptation and now she’s all surprised because I slept with her best friend.

OK, I admit it, not my wisest move ever, nor the kindest. I am genuinely sorry I hurt her but what could I do? Ben made a pretty determined play and yes, I was curious. He’s a bright guy; he’s funny, interesting and, well, he’s hot.

‘You shouldn’t have been doing this abstaining from sex thing,’ grumbles Mark. ‘You were pushing yourself too hard, testing yourself too severely. No drink, no drugs and no sex, it’s not rock and roll. You’re straight back in the clinic, as soon as we get this mess straightened out.’ He scowls. ‘Although how the hell I straighten this one out, I don’t know. There’s a real danger that everything is properly fucked now. If this gets out, you have so lost the American market. Who the hell is going to buy the records of a cad who swaps teams for his fiancé’s best man the night before the wedding?’ Mark looks really stressed. He’s sweating and pacing and swearing by turn. ‘You’re going to have to go on a full charm offensive and

‘I hadn’t forgotten.’

In a way he’s right, it is properly fucked now. I can’t see a happy way out of this. If I don’t marry her, if I tell her how I’m feeling about Ben, then my career is over, but if I do marry her I’m only going to continue hurting her and that’s not right. I don’t want to hurt Fern. We should never have picked an innocent. I am surrounded by women who would rather die than imbibe carbs but would swallow the sperm of an influential stranger faster than you could say ‘coke or poke’. I should have got engaged to someone like that. Someone robust enough for this life. But I liked Fern, still do. Love her, perhaps. What I feel for her is a lot like love. Yes, sometimes I can go as far as to say that. But it’s my experience that loving one person doesn’t stop you loving another and it certainly doesn’t stop you having great sex with someone else. And the sex with Ben was excellent. Mark must catch me smiling to myself, and he probably catches the drift as to why I’m smiling because he hitches his anger up a notch.

‘This isn’t a fucking joke, Scott.’ He’s a total guttersnipe when he’s under pressure. ‘Do you know how much bloody money is riding on this? Besides the cost of the wedding – a limitless, dazzling exhibition, a multi-million-pound trifle – there’s all the money we stand to lose if Wedding Album sinks. How could you have been so fucking stupid?’ Neither of us actually expects me to respond to that, so he just carries on. ‘Well, we’ll get her posh mate in. What’s her name?’

‘Lisa.’

‘Yeah, Lisa, she seems a bright girl, she’ll point out what side Fern’s bread is buttered. She’ll talk Fern into going ahead. She likes nice handbags. And Colleen and Saadi, they can have a word too. Do you think between them they might be able to persuade her to go through with the wedding?’

‘No.’

‘You don’t?’ Mark was grey before; now he’s so pale he’s practically transparent.

‘I think I have to go to her. I have to be honest.’

‘We are dependent on you being honest?’

‘It’s our only hope.’

‘Well, it’s like I said then. We’re fucked.’