Page 55 of Never Too Late
‘Any fame is very recent, Mrs Dooley. I’m still getting used to seeing my face in the papers.’
‘And I gather Robert’s taking us all out for dinner tonight. How wonderful!’
It was indeed a wonderful evening. The concert, with a full orchestra, was all Mozart and started with his Violin Concerto No.3. As the conductor led the orchestra into the introduction, Steph was able to concentrate her attention on the soloist. He was dressed in an immaculate dark suit, and he was looking serious as he stood in front of the crowd, violin and bow at the ready, waiting for his cue to begin. She couldn’t help remembering the nervous tension she had felt before the concert in Santa Monica and she wondered whether he was even a fraction as tense as she had been, despite all his experience. Then, for a split second, she felt sure she saw him glance upwards towards the box and there might even have been a hint of a smile on his face. This tiny smile – more imagined than observed – sent a warm glow throughout her whole body that lasted the entire concert. Suddenly she found herself questioning her resolve to stick with Royalty. Maybe her mum was right, and her personal happiness depended more on this man than on any stage performance.
The concert was a great success and finished just after ten. Steph waited with her mum and Mrs Dooley until the crowds had subsided before heading backstage with their special VIP passes. They found Rob already showered and changed and ready to go. Steph waited until he had greeted Mrs Dooley with kisses to her cheeks and her mother had greeted him with kisses to his cheeks, before she held out her arms to him.
‘Ciao, bello. I’ve missed you.’
He caught hold of her hands and pulled her towards him. ‘Ciao, bella.I’ve missed you too.’ And he kissed her. In view of the present company, it wasn’t a long or passionate kiss, but it reached deep inside her all the same.
They took a cab from the concert hall and Steph was surprised to find that he had booked a table at the Ritz. Mrs Dooley and Steph’s mum stepped out and gazed in awe at this world-famous establishment while Rob stayed back so he could take Steph’s hand and whisper in her ear.
‘I thought they might enjoy a little treat. Of course, now you’re a global megastar, places like this must be old hat to you.’
‘Don’t you believe it. The Ritz is still the Ritz. It feels unbelievable that I’m here in a place like this.’ She glanced across to where the two ladies were conversing and lowered her voice. ‘Although room service with you in my hotel room would have been preferable.’
He leant in and kissed her again. ‘How about breakfast in bed?’
‘Sounds perfect.’
Dinner was predictably excellent. They opted not to go for either the five-course or the seven-course Epicurean menus and Steph and Rob opted for halibut with fennel and lemon while her mum and Mrs Dooley chose duck with beetroot and lavender. For dessert they all decided in favour of Seville orange soufflé with Grand Marnier and vanilla, and everything tasted as good as they had been expecting.
The only disappointment was the discovery that Rob would be off very soon on a tour of Japan and the Far East for three whole weeks until the end of November and he would only be back a few days before the big O2 concert. This meant that Steph only had him for tonight and tomorrow and then he was due back in Italy for a performance in Rome before flying east. Almost another month would pass before she could be with him again. It was exasperating.
When she woke up next morning and looked at him sleeping peacefully at her side, her exasperation grew. Was this all they could accept: a few hours snatched together every now and then? How could a relationship survive if they kept missing each other like ships passing in the night? Was it all destined for disaster?
‘You’re looking very serious.’ His voice interrupted her thoughts and she ducked down to kiss him softly on the lips.
‘I’mfeelingvery serious. Do you realise we’ve only got today and then you’re off to Italy, I’m off to some TV studio, and then you’re going away to the Far East? The next time I see you is going to be in a month.’
His expression became equally serious. ‘You don’t need to remind me. If there was any way to change things I would, but as you can imagine, the Far East tour was arranged almost a year ago and there are thousands of tickets sold. There’s no way I can duck out of it now.’
She snuggled up against him and felt his arm encircle her shoulders. ‘I’m in the same boat. As far as I can see, every single day this month and next is already earmarked for something. Between them, your dad and the record company have got Royalty working flat out. Then we’re off on our own Far East tour in January. There’s no way I can wriggle out of any of it.’ She rubbed her cheek against the side of his chest. ‘Star-crossed lovers, that’s what we are. Shakespeare knew a thing or two, didn’t he?’
‘He certainly did, but the irony here is that, unlike Romeo and Juliet, things for us are the way they are because that’s what we’ve chosen, not because some malignant external force is imposing them on us.’ She felt his hand run up her arm to her shoulder and begin to caress her hair. In spite of the seriousness of their conversation she nuzzled even closer against him and purred as he continued. ‘We both love our jobs and that’s that. I could no more ask you to give up your new career in Royalty than you could expect me to put down my violin and take up olive growing.’ She felt his lips against her forehead. ‘Not that the idea hasn’t crossed my mind a few times – you know, outside in the open air with Waldorf to keep me company, the sun shining, the sound of the waves in the background, you at my side. You have to admit it does have its attraction.’
‘And I could help you pick the olives and grapes, and we could make our own wine and olive oil.’ She sighed wistfully. ‘But it’ll never happen; at least not for a long time.’
He leant down and kissed her with real passion before pulling back, his eyes staring into hers. ‘All joking apart, over the past weeks, I’ve seriously considered giving up the violin for you, you know. I’d miss it, but I’d have something far more important. The more I get to know you, the more I realise that you’re the most important thing in the world; more important than my music, more important than my family, more important even than my dog.’ He managed a little smile. ‘The trouble is that it wouldn’t solve anything. You’d still be off around the world and unless I were to tag along like one of the roadies, I’d be all alone without you most of the time.’
‘I’d never want you to give up your violin. That would be lunacy. No, the more sensible solution would be for me to give up Royalty and become a happy olive grower who looks after a big black dog while his master’s away.’
‘I could never ask you to do anything of the kind.’
‘Well, just like you, I’ve been thinking about it a lot.’ She reached up and caught hold of his cheeks in her hands and stared deep inside him. ‘I love you, Robert Bailey, and I know I always will. I don’t want to be separated from you.’
‘And I love you, too, Steph, but we both love our music too.’
Chapter 26
The rest of November was hectic. Steph had been right in thinking that every day would be taken up with a combination of PR appearances, interviews and considerable time spent in the East London studio honing and refining the group’s performance in readiness for the O2 event at the beginning of December. She found herself in demand from all sides and appeared almost on a daily basis on programmes as diverse asBlue PeterandNewsnightand in publications as varied asTimemagazine andVogue.
It didn’t take long for the glamour to wane. Yes, it was exciting to find that she had become a celebrity, but all too soon she realised that she wasn’t cut from celebrity cloth. She had always valued her privacy and now, in one sweep, she had become public property, and it was growing ever more uncomfortable. Rather than gradually getting used to and accepting these constant intrusions into her personal life, as the weeks went by she found them harder and harder to bear.
She had followed Keith and Ben’s advice and had deleted her social media presence, but not before she had started to receive some disturbing, disgusting and downright scary messages from all over the globe. She was now resigned to the appearance of paparazzi at the most inconvenient moments, and even simple things like visiting her mum rapidly assumed the appearance of covert operations. This was, as Keith continued to remind her, a natural consequence of her newfound fame, but she soon began to feel more like a hunted animal.
The complication was that she loved performing. The buzz she had got from her very first concert had been incomparable, and she knew she would be devastated to give that up, but the fact of the matter was that it was only too clear that the thrill of live performance came with undesirable side-effects, and she wasn’t going to be able to have one without the other.
