Yours Remotely

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 19

Rock stars aren’t only great lovers but also reasonably good cooks. After a moment’s rest, Gary had got up and walked straight over to the kitchenette opposite the bed. He told me to stay put until breakfast – although it was lunchtime – was ready. After a few minutes, the cabin was filled with a lovely smell of bacon and eggs.

“You’re quite the Jamie Oliver,” I said to Gary’s back.

He glanced at me over his shoulder. “You don’t know that yet.”

“I mean your clothes. The almost naked chef.” Gary was dressed in his underwear and an unbuttoned shirt. He chuckled from across the room.

A few seconds passed, and then he turned to look at me in confusion. “How would Jamie Oliver make toast without a toaster?”

It was an unexpected question. I had always thought that Scots ate as much toast as the English, and I was appalled that there was no toaster.

“In the oven,” I suggested. “Under the grill.” I had no idea if that was what Jamie Oliver would have done, but it seemed the obvious solution. Gary looked happy with that and went ahead with it.

A few minutes later, breakfast was set and Gary asked me to come and sit down. He seemed to have done well – there were fried eggs, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes and toast. There was a large pot of hot tea in the middle of the table, and he poured both of us a glass of juice.

“I bet you thought I couldn’t manage breakfast on my own,” he said when he sat down across from me.

I pouted. I had to admit that I did think Gary had left his mother’s cooking for a life on the road, where everything was ready.

“I picked up a few things before the band.”

“What do you have planned for the afternoon?” I asked, stirring a spoonful of sugar into my tea.

“Do we have to do something?” Gary looked up from the soft yolk of his egg.

“You don’t really think we’re going to sit here all weekend?”

He shrugged.

“Could we not go for a drive?”

“Didn’t you just say that I was in no condition to drive?”

“I could drive,” I said without thinking.

“Oh no, you won’t. If you really want, I can take you somewhere. Where do you want to go?”

* * *

After our late breakfast, we got into the car and started driving around the Highlands. Gary didn’t get out of the car once even though I tried to pull him out by pure force a few times. I hopped out every few minutes when I spotted an interesting ruin, a beautiful loch or a stunning view. Although Gary usually agreed about the scenery, he stayed behind the wheel and wouldn’t come out even when there was nobody in sight.

While driving through a small village, I mentioned how beautiful Scottish country houses were. Many of them were traditional two-storey houses built of beautiful stone.

“Do you want to live out in the country?” Gary sounded amused.

“I’ve always wanted to live out in the country. I don’t suppose I ever will though.”

“Why not?” Gary slowed down to let an old sheepdog cross the road.

“I have to work. I can’t just live out in the country. Plus, my family lives in town. They’d hardly want me to move all the way out to Scotland.”

“Sometimes, if you want something bad enough, you have to give up something else,” Gary said thoughtfully.

“And if you’re not ready to give anything up?”

“Then you can’t have either.” His tone had gone serious. He spoke his next words so quietly that I didn’t think they were intended for me. “I should know.”

A quick glance in his direction told me that he didn’t feel like talking, so we headed back towards the cottage in silence. I wondered how frustrating Gary’s life had to be sometimes. He wanted to enjoy the weekend like I did, but he didn’t want to fall victim to the gossip columns. I thought it unlikely there were paparazzi hiding in the bushes up in the Highlands, but Gary was not convinced. He seemed to struggle to find a balance between the fame the band had brought him and ordinary life. A weekend in Scotland was an ideal way for me to relax, but not so much for him. Because he wanted no one to see him, he hid from people even more than he did back in London. I could do nothing but watch helplessly.

* * *

Back at the cottage, I realised I was hungry again. I fished out the olives from the fridge along with the remaining mushrooms and tomatoes. I set the pasta to boil and threw the remaining ingredients into the pan along with a ready-made sauce. I wasn’t the best chef in the world, but the results had always been edible.

Gary was still quiet when we sat down to eat. There was something on his mind, but he didn’t want to talk about it and I didn’t want to pry. When I made coffee after dinner, he perked up and asked me how I was. I finally had the opportunity to tell him about my promotion. I was proud of my new position, but Gary didn’t seem that excited. He had never been promoted. Fame certainly had its good sides; he made a lot more money than I did and it gave him a lot more attention and feedback, even if it was sometimes negative.

I also told him about Ben and Helen, Suse and Jonah and Miranda.

Gary shook his head. “You’ve got lots of friends, but haven’t you got any other news?”

I was a little insulted, but of course I had no other news. How dull he must have thought me.

“And how about you? How are things with you?”

He gave me a lengthy account of the Remotes’ latest video, which had been easier to make than the previous ones, mostly because the band wasn’t in the video that much. He told me that the single would be out in three weeks and, after that, they were going on tour in Europe and then on to play some festivals, and finally, at the end of the summer and early autumn, they had a UK tour scheduled.

“And how about you, Gary? That was just the band’s news.”

He chuckled. He stirred his coffee and looked up at me. “Yeah, I guess so. I don’t suppose there’s much more to my life except The Remotes.”

“There is little else in anybody’s life except work.” I grinned back.

He laughed again and stretched, as if to hide his fluster, before changing the topic. “I don’t even like coffee.”

“You said you wanted coffee,” He had definitely not asked for tea.

“I know, but I don’t know why. Do you mind if I pour it down the drain?” He had the grace to look guilty.

I shrugged. It wasn’t my fault he didn’t like coffee.

Gary sat down to watch one of the four channels on TV while I went to have a shower. When I walked out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, he was back at the dining table and talking on the phone.

“Alex, I have to go,” he said when he noticed me. His eyes shamelessly moved up my legs.

“Very important,” he said on the phone and laughed. “Alex, there’s a woman in this cabin wearing nothing but a towel, of course it’s important.” He laughed again at something Alex said and ended the call.

I was looking for clothes in my bag when Gary came over and stood there looking at me, eyes bright with interest. Suddenly, finding clothes didn’t seem that important.

“You’ll remember this,” Gary whispered, grabbing the knot on my towel. The towel fell on the floor, but his eyes didn’t leave my face.

He put his hands on my buttocks and mumbled against my lips, “You couldn’t possibly forget.”

* * *

“Lea, wake up. We have to go.”

I opened my weary eyes. It was still dark in the room, but I could see that Gary was fully dressed.

“Have your breakfast. I’ll pack up.” He sounded tense and nervous.

I glanced at the bedside table that held a cup of tea, two slices of toast and a mandarin.

“Where’s your breakfast?” I asked sleepily.

“I already had a cup of tea outside.”

I was offended that he had ventured outside the cottage without me.

“Why do we have to go? What’s the time?”

“It’s half-past six. They know I’m here.”

Gary grabbed his bag off the floor and started throwing his things into it.

“Who knows?” I sat up and reached for the mug, my hand barely peeking from under the duvet.

“The press. I got a call this morning. It’s in the papers. I don’t want them to see us together.”

He stormed off to the bathroom before I could respond.

I felt like a wanted criminal. So what if the press knew that Gary was in Scotland? No one would follow him here, surely? Plus, he hadn’t mentioned me. Gary had the same right to go on holidays as everyone else.

When he returned to his bag, he told me in no uncertain terms that he would take me to Inverness. “It’s a couple of hours away. We’ll get there while it’s still quiet.”

I swallowed the last piece of my toast. “What am I supposed to do in Inverness?”

“You can catch a train home,” he said, stuffing his phone into his pocket. He was ready to go.

I tried not to show him how much I hurt.

“Would it be so bad if they found you here, even with me?”

The look he gave me told me how highly he thought of my intelligence at that very moment.

“You have no idea how it is.” He put his bag on his shoulder. “Come out to the car when you’re ready.”

He seemed to be in such a hurry that I worried he’d leave without me if I didn’t hurry up. I swallowed the mandarin almost whole before I dressed and brushed my teeth in record time.

He had already started the engine when I got out, and I was barely in the car when it took off. We stopped at reception where I dropped the key in through the post box. A few minutes later, we were on the main road, and a couple of hours after that, Gary stopped his car by a kerb somewhere in the centre of Inverness. I had never been to Inverness before, and I had no idea where the railway station was.

“Have you got money?” Gary asked.

“Of course I have,” I snapped although I hadn’t a penny in cash. I would have to find an ATM too. I had no idea how much a ticket would cost, but I wasn’t going to accept his charity.

I took my stuff and grabbed the door handle to get out. Gary leaned in across the gearstick and put his hand on mine. “Lea, I’m sorry.”

“I know,” I said, pushing the door open. My intent to get out failed when Gary took my hand.

“I’ll get you a ticket to one of our shows soon.”

“As you wish,” I mumbled, freeing myself from his grip and jumping to the footpath.

As the door closed, Gary pulled his car back into the lane. A few seconds later, he had disappeared around the corner and I found myself standing in the middle of a footpath in a town I didn’t know, penniless and lonely.

* * *

I hadn’t taken Gary as seriously as I should have. Although I had avoided that week’s newspapers, a couple of weeks after our weekend in Scotland, a gossip mag mentioned how Gary had been spotted in the Highlands in a sports car and ‘with an unidentified woman’. I didn’t want to be ‘unidentified’. On the other hand, I was surprised to be mentioned; based on what Gary had said, I thought that the press hadn’t known about me. I kept an eye on the story for the next couple of weeks, but it wasn’t mentioned again.