Page 36 of An Island in the Sun

‘That’s how you ended up doing all that? Because you stopped writing?’

‘You broke my heart that night and Ibelievedyou’d purposely destroyed our friendship. Why else would you have done something like that and kept me in the dark over it? The fact that you didn’t understand the hurt you caused has made me so sad. But you know what, regardless of all that, you’re right. I should have talked to you and told you how upset I was, because I’ve behaved the same by not being open and honest about my feelings. It’s eaten away at me for years.’ She unclenched her fists and sat back in her chair. ‘It was our dream, Ollie. The dream team, remember? You the singer, me the songwriter.’

‘I know, we were a great team… And I know it was your song. I gave you ideas, but you wrote it.’ There was a sense of nostalgia in his voice as his eyes traced her face.

‘You know what saddens me the most? It’s not that I should have had a share of those royalties or that my name should have been mentioned on one of the biggest TV shows in the world, but that I lost your friendship.’

‘You never lost it, Tabs. I’ll always be your friend.’ He reached for her hand and took it, smooth and warm in hers. ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t talk to you first and that I gave in to the pressure. And I’m so sorry about what I did. I know it was wrong. I can never apologise enough or repay you.’

‘You can. You can make things right.’ She wasn’t going to spell it out and she certainly wasn’t going to ask anything of him. He needed to work that out for himself, prove to her how good a friend he really was. Everything she’d been doing over the last seven years was in an attempt to move on. She wasn’t going to look back with regret or waste any more time feeling bitter.

Sharing a drink and chatting, it almost felt as if the last few years had been erased and they were back to simpler times when they’d shared similar hopes and dreams about their future, about breaking into the music industry with a bang: Ollie singing, Tabitha writing. But they couldn’t claw back that lost time. Their lives had diverged and she was a different person to the one who had cheered him on that night from her parents’ living room. She was certain he was different too – fame, money, the experiences he’d had, the new friendships, relationships and life he’d led would undoubtedly change someone.

‘This can be a new start for us, eh?’ He squeezed her hand and leaned closer, trying to catch her eye beneath her curls.

Tabitha realised she’d been totally lost in her own thoughts, staring at his fingers entwined in hers. A tattoo of a dragon edged beneath his watch strap. One she didn’t recognise. All the ones decorating his arm were new. She looked up and met his piercing blue eyes and suddenly felt self-conscious sitting and talking so intimately with him, no longer the best friend she’d known so well but a relative stranger, and a famous one at that.

She slipped her hand from his, picked up her wine and took a large swig, the chatter from the surrounding tables screaming back into earshot.

‘Did your girlfriend mind you meeting me?’ she asked, aware of how packed the rooftop bar was.

Ollie sank back into his chair. ‘We’re not really together any more.’

Tabitha raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh?’

‘It’s a bit complicated.’ Ollie glanced away, obviously uncomfortable talking about it. ‘And it’s not public knowledge, which I kinda want to keep that way. We need the right time to, er, you know, go public.’

Tabitha didn’t know because she didn’t live her life in the public eye with everyone knowing her business like Ollie did. It was only what she chose to put on Instagram or TikTok that gave anyone a clue into her private life. And her private life was exactly that. Social media was focused on her songwriting, her collaborations and, more recently, her travels.

A clatter of heels and animated chatter caught their attention. Three women, with their arms hooked in each other’s, were making a beeline for them.No, not for them, Tabitha thought,for Ollie. With their eyes fixed on him, they were all lip-glossed smiles, sparkly tops and short skirts.

‘Oh my God! You’re Ollie Pereira!’ the woman in the middle with a northern accent said as they reached what had been their quiet corner of the bar.

Ollie flashed them a dimpled smile. ‘The very one.’

Tabitha sat back in her seat as the three girls crowded around him. It wasn’t that she envied him the attention, it was just she couldn’t help thinking that a portion of his stratospheric success should have been hers. Could have been. She knew fame and fortune or Ollie’s world-renowned success could never be guaranteed, but he had effectively stolen her song and taken a real shot at fame away from her, without having the guts to face up to her and be truthful. That was what she minded. She’d said as much, but she wasn’t certain he truly understood. How could he? He’d had no time to, swept up in a shiny new life filled with new people. His ex-girlfriends had been students or barmaids, worked in River Island or in human resources; now they were models or actresses, in the public eye as much as he was.

The women encircled their table, all of them not much older than their late teens, their attention firmly fixed on Ollie. He stood and hugged each of them. Their excited squeals flew into the air, as they said how much they loved him, asked him when he was going on tour again in the UK and mentioned how cool it would be to get a selfie of them all together.

‘Hey, this is my friend Tabitha,’ Ollie said. He gestured towards her, forcing the girls to part enough to include her. ‘She’s an epic songwriter who’s written for people like One Love and Deedee.’

‘OMG! I love Deedee!’ the girl standing with her arm wrapped round Ollie’s waist exclaimed. ‘But not as much as I love you!’

‘I should think not!’ Ollie laughed. ‘Tabitha, do you mind taking a picture of us.’

It wasn’t a question and she shouldn’t mind, yet she did. It was just something about the way Ollie said it and his expectation of her that grated on her nerves.

One of the girls handed Tabitha their phone and she stepped behind her chair to get them all in. They filled the frame; Ollie beaming in the middle, all tanned skin, dimples and tousled hair, with three equally tanned young women hanging off him, all pouty lips, beach hair and plunging necklines.

‘Sorry about that,’ Ollie said as the girls eventually left, clutching their phones, no doubt ready to post the photo on Instagram.

‘I guess you’re used to it, all this attention.’ There was no bitterness; that was the last thing she envied any longer. What she was sad about was how different he seemed. Despite his familiarity, the memories they shared and how easily they’d chatted together, there was a distance that she wasn’t certain they could ever bridge.

Tabitha sipped her wine and listened to Ollie talk about the madness of his jet-set life and how he and his newly ex-girlfriend were trying to work things out but wanted to keep the difficulties of their relationship private. Tabitha wasn’t sure that Ollie meeting her in a public place for a drink was the wisest idea, not that it bothered her, but she did wonder how it would look to other people. He asked if she was seeing anyone and she said a truthful no, but decided she didn’t want to talk about Lewis, despite the many times during their break-up when she’d thought it would have been good to have Ollie’s shoulder to cry on.

Tabitha was oddly relieved when the evening naturally came to a close. Ollie had an early phone call on the Radio 1 breakfast show and Tabitha had a good forty-five-minute journey back to the villa.

‘Hey, I’m having a party next Wednesday for my birthday,’ Ollie said as they walked across the bar together. ‘I’d love you to come if you’ll still be on Madeira?’

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