Page 26 of Not The Man I Thought He Was

‘Read it. Loved it. Showed it to Oliver, who loved it too. The whole “she thought… he thought” thing was brilliant, and it was an inspired idea to book Toby into the ski school for a beginner’s perspective. His photos are stunning too, but that’s no great surprise. Of course, the moment we publish, our competitors will be looking to copy it, but I reckon we’ve stolen a march on them for now. Great stuff, Madison. I’m talking to hotels in Corfu with a view to you travelling in April. Are you and Toby happy to work together again?’

‘Yes, no problem.’ I tell him, trying to hide my relief. ‘Let’s just hope he can fit me in.’

‘I’m sure he’ll find time for my favourite freelancer!’ Mark assures me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. Any reservations I might normally feel about the familiarity of the contact are far outweighed by my relief at being back in favour, and I smile widely at him.

We agree that I’ll book flights on dates that suit both me and Toby, and he’ll send me the list of hotels as soon as he’s firmed it up. We discuss some other possible assignments, and he promises me that he’ll be in touch with other concrete proposals soon.

As the evening wears on, the crowd begins to thin out until there are just a few stragglers left. The London contingent have disappeared, mainly by train, although I did spot one or two black limousines gliding off into the night. The waiters are now rinsing the glasses and loading them into crates, and Toby and Paul are collecting up discarded napkins and other detritus into black sacks. Without thinking, I kick off my heels and grab a broom from the store cupboard.

‘You don’t need to do that!’ Toby calls, when he spots me sweeping up.

‘It’s OK, I don’t mind,’ I tell him.

After another half an hour the final stragglers have left, the waiters have finished packing up, and the studio looks like the party never happened.

‘Did you have a good time?’ I ask Toby.

‘It was productive,’ he replies. ‘I actually find these kinds of things exhausting, but I got a lot of bookings out of it, so the studio is off to a good start. Someone also suggested I should do studio lighting and posing courses, which I hadn’t thought of.’

‘How can you not have thought of it?’ Paul asks, incredulously. ‘You cut your teeth doing stuff like that with me. It’s a money-spinner too. Get eight or ten people in, charge them a hundred, hundred and fifty each, and you’ve got a healthy profit even after you’ve paid the model.’

‘I’ll think about it. I’m not sure that teaching is my thing,’ Toby replies. ‘Maybe I can rent the studio out to someone else, and they can do the teaching.’

‘Not as lucrative though, mate,’ Paul counters. ‘All you’ll get then are the hire fees.’

‘He’s got a point,’ I chip in. ‘And you were a pretty good teacher in Courchevel. My photos are loads better already, and that was after just a few minutes of your time.’

‘I said I’d think about it, OK?’ Toby replies, smiling. ‘Stop ganging up on me!’

‘Talking of Courchevel, I had a chat with Mark earlier,’ I tell him.

‘Oh yes?’

‘He loved the article, the CEO loved it, and they want more. How do you feel about that? He asked whether we could do Corfu in April.’

‘Does that mean I’m definitely going to see the famous Bellavista?’

‘Yup. In all its glory.’

‘Will all the rooms have separate bathrooms? My therapist will want to know,’ he says, and his eyes twinkle with mischief.

‘What’s all this?’ Paul asks.

Toby and I fill him in on our stay at La Residence, and he guffaws. ‘I’d love to have seen that!’

‘What are you, some kind of voyeur?’ I ask.

‘No, it’s just the thought of Toby having to cope with a naked woman without the comfort blanket of his camera to hide behind.’ He turns to Toby, still laughing, and puts his arm round his shoulder. ‘Are you OK? Do you need to talk about it?’

‘Piss off!’ Toby replies, good-naturedly. He gets his phone out of his jacket pocket and we compare diaries. With a bit of humming and hawing, we manage to find a week in April that we can both do.

As I drive home, I reflect on the conversation at the end of the evening. Toby is a very closed book where his private life is concerned, and I’m starting to wonder if he hasn’t openly come out of the closet yet. Paul obviously knows, or has worked it out though, because he found the whole idea of Toby being naked with me hysterically funny. From what I know of Paul, if he thought there was even the faintest possibility of chemistry, he would have taken a very different tack.

15

APRIL

It’s nearly noon when the taxi drops us at the Bellavista. The sun is high in a cloudless sky and the temperature is warm without being stifling. Nevertheless, my heart sinks as we grab our bags from the boot. The reception desk is housed in a stand-alone building next to the drop-off area, and there’s a track leading past to the main hotel car park, with the hotel itself behind that. The surface of the drop-off area and the track to the car park is made up of broken blocks of concrete, giving the impression that the place is unfinished. The smell of raw sewage hanging in the air doesn’t help.

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