Mira looked confused. ‘What? Why do you say that?'
‘I'm very clever.'
‘Well you're not, because you're wrong.'
‘OK then,' said Lily. ‘Because Eddie wrote a message for me on one of the pages. It said: "Don't talk to Mira about this, by the way, before I get back. She's bursting to know what it's about but I refused to let her read it. I wanted you to be the first." Sorry.' Lily grinned at the look of indignation on Mira's face.
‘Honestly. What a sneaky bastard.'
‘Quite funny, though.' Lily was consoling. ‘He knows you so well.'
‘That man drives me nuts. Seriously, he's the most annoying person in the world. OK, can you give me any clues? I just want to know what it's like!'
‘Can't tell you. He wants to discuss it with me when he gets back.'
Mira gave her a piteous look. ‘Oh please. Just the teeny-tiniest hint.'
‘Still no.'
‘Is it good, though?'
Lily paused, then nodded. ‘Yes, it's good. And that's all you're getting. We're changing the subject now.'
‘Fine, fine.' Reaching into her emerald-green leather shoulder bag, Mira whipped out a notepad and two ballpoint pens. ‘In that case, please can we play Squares?'
Chapter 51
‘Well?' said Eddie.
The driver had picked Lily up from St Carys at five o'clock and brought her back to the airfield just as he and Dan were coming in to land. During the forty-minute journey, she'd leafed through the screenplay again and thought about what he'd written.
Now they were sitting facing each other, drinking hideous cups of tea from the vending machine. The screenplay lay closed on the red Formica table between them.
‘You sound like Mira,' said Lily.
‘Ha. Did she try to trick you?'
‘Of course she tried to trick me.'
‘And did you tell her anything?'
‘I did not. But you'll have to when you get back to that hotel or she really will burst. Like an egg in a microwave.'
‘And now you're doing exactly the same thing to me,' said Eddie.
‘What would you do if I said I hated it?'
‘I'd destroy it,' he replied without hesitation. ‘Delete everything from the computer. No one else has seen a single word of it. If you aren't completely happy with what I've written, no one else ever will.'
Luckily she didn't need to make him do that.
‘I think it's amazing,' she said, and saw the relief on his face, the relaxation of tension in his jaw.
‘Really?'
‘God, yes. I mean, I'm no expert, but the way you've done it … everything about it … well, do you think it's good?'
A faint smile lifted the corners of Eddie's mouth. ‘Modesty aside, I'm pretty sure it's the best thing I've ever written.'
‘Wow. And how does that feel?'
‘A damn sight better now I know I don't have to delete it.' He sat back on his grey moulded plastic chair and exhaled with relief. ‘So you're fine for me to show it to a few people, then?'
Lily nodded. ‘I think you should.'
‘There's still no guarantee it'll get made, of course.' Having forgotten how awful it was, Eddie took a sip of the vending machine tea and grimaced. ‘Other people have to like it too.'
‘I know. But I bet they will.'
‘God, this is disgusting.' He gave up and pushed the plastic cup to one side. ‘Anyway. Are you OK with the way it ends?'
Lily's stomach contracted, because she'd been waiting for him to get to this bit. ‘Yes, why not? It's fictionalised, isn't it? You've based the story on what happened to us, but you have to give it a proper conclusion. That's what people want when they go to see a film. You can't just leave them wondering what happens to everyone.'
Eddie said, ‘I used poetic licence.'
‘Exactly.' Lily nodded vigorously in agreement. ‘You couldn't have a boring old real-life ending, could you? That'd be a complete let-down. And Dan won't mind either, he'll think it's hilarious.'
Silence. Eddie was watching her. ‘How about if it isn't poetic licence?' he said finally.
Lily's heart began to race. ‘But it isn't real, is it? Because it hasn't happened. You just wrote it that way.' In the screenplay, Eddie's character made his peace with the idea of fame and returned to work with fond memories of the girl who had helped him during his five days away. And Lily's character ended up getting a romantic happy ending with the long-term friend whose bad-boy lady-killing ways had only ever been a cover, a way of concealing his true feelings for her.
Eddie's gaze was unwavering. ‘What if I wrote it that way because it could be true?'
‘It couldn't, though. In a film, maybe. But not in real life.' Her palms were prickling with embarrassment now, because she was practically coming out and admitting it. Oh God.
‘Then again, you never know, do you? Not until you give it a try.' He shrugged. ‘Just putting it out there.'
He knew. She didn't know how he knew, but he did. Abandoning all pretence, she said, ‘When I told you I'd kissed someone else, you never did ask me who it was.'
This time Eddie gave her one of those famous movie-star smiles of his, the kind that had turned a million girls' knees to mush and helped to propel him to stardom. ‘Oh Lily, there wasn't any need to ask. I already knew.'
The drone of the aircraft's engine was comfortingly steady as they flew through the night sky back to Oxfordshire. Cocooned in inky darkness, Lily peered at the silver stars above them, the almost-full moon over to their right and the snaking lines of golden dots from the car headlights, street lamps and illuminated buildings on the ground far below.
At least Dan, piloting the little plane, didn't know what was going on inside her head. Eddie had promised her that much.
‘By the way,' Dan broke the silence between them, ‘when Eddie told you he hadn't said anything to me, he was lying.'
Lily's stomach abruptly plummeted as if they'd hit an air pocket. Unable to look at him, she stared directly ahead. ‘Said anything to you about what?'
‘Everything. All of it.' His voice was steady. ‘The whole lot.'
And he'd chosen this moment to announce it. Terrific. Lily cleared her throat and adjusted her headset. ‘Why are you telling me this now?'
‘Because I have to. And I thought it might be easier up here. Can you do something for me?'
‘Like what?' Jump out of this plane right now, with no parachute? Easily.
‘Close your eyes,' Dan instructed, ‘and listen to me while I tell you a story.'
Was this the voice of doom? Was he about to let her down gently; explain to her that of course he hoped they'd always be friends, good friends, but there couldn't possibly ever be anything more than that?
It was, after all, exactly what she had done to Eddie.
Talk about tit for tat.
‘What kind of story?' said Lily.
‘A true one. Go on, keep your eyes closed. And I know this won't be easy, but if you could also manage to keep quiet and not interrupt, that would be great.'
Lily's nails were digging into her palms. Her mouth was dry and she felt sick.
‘Right. Are you sitting comfortably?' Dan paused. When she'd nodded, he said, ‘Then I'll begin. There was once a boy who liked to torment a girl. When they were young, he did it all the time and it was practically the highlight of his life. Then as the years went by and they got older, he realised he liked her in a whole different way. But the girl didn't feel the same about him, so nothing ever changed. To make himself feel better, the boy did everything he could to find someone else he liked more, but that turned out to be pretty much impossible, because that person simply didn't exist. So he carried on being just good friends with the girl he wished he could be more than just good friends with. And although he always hoped that one day she'd change her mind about him, he'd pretty much given up on it ever actually happening.'
Lily's eyes were still closed. Dan's voice was low and intimate, seeping through her headset and into her brain.
‘So anyway, that's the story part over,' he continued. ‘Now we'll move on to the screenplay thing. Eddie talked to me about it on our way over to Paris. I didn't know you'd told him about that kiss … at the lake. He said when he heard about it, that was when he knew for sure. Then he asked me if he was right. And I said yes. Then he said didn't I think it was about time I did something about it and told you the truth? And he was right, of course. But it turns out I'm a coward when it comes to saying stuff like that, which is why I'm doing it now, up here where you can't run away. I love you, Lily. I always have loved you and I always will. But if you don't want to hear this, all you have to do is ignore me and we'll pretend it never happened. OK, we can't pretend it didn't happen,' Dan amended, ‘but we can never mention it again. If that's what you'd prefer, all you have to do is open your eyes and change the subject … point out of the window and say something like, "Ooh, is that a UFO over there?" And then I'll know.'