Chapter 2: A Twist of Fate

“Do you remember the last time we all went to London?” Vanessa asked.

“Almost exactly a year ago, wasn’t it?” Imogen said.

It was Tuesday morning, and I was sitting next to Vanessa and opposite Mark and Imogen at one of the four-person table seats on the nine-thirty-nine train from Westmouth to St Pancras, London. That was the earliest train we could get after the peak time had passed, saving us—well, me—some money.

“Yeah, about a year, give or take a few weeks,” said Mark. “It was after the exams, wasn’t it?”

Vanessa nodded. “Yeah. It was the day after...”

She left the thought unsaid. We all knew what she meant. It was the day after we’d found out that one of our hall-mates had been blackmailing Vanessa into having sex with him, and as if that wasn’t enough, we’d run into Del Stevens later in the day, and I’d tried to attack him. It hadn’t been a good day.

But the day trip to London had been.

“It seems like such a long time ago,” Imogen said. “So much has changed since then.”

There were eight of us on the trip—four boys and four girls, two ‘real’ couples and two ‘fake’ couples. Across the aisle from us, Emily sat next to Lisa, facing the direction of travel, opposite Phil and Jem.

I’d been ‘technically’ correct when I’d told Mark that this trip had more to do with the girls’ group chat than with me. I’m sure Chloë would have been happy for as many of us to turn up as we’d have liked, but it was a formal event and needed formal invitations. Those invitations had been to the four girls, each with a ‘plus one.’

Obviously, Emily and Imogen already had a ‘plus one’ in Phil and Mark, and between them, the girls had decided that I would be Vanessa’s and Jem would be Lisa’s. Ultimately, I don’t suppose it mattered to us, but I guess it mattered to the organisers for a high-profile event like this. They would have had security on their minds and needed to know who would be there and who, exactly, they were.

This arrangement kind of gave Emily a ‘get out of jail free card’ for a little dilemma she had over the trip.

Emily had, quite understandably, told Phil about the group chat and occasional lunch or afternoon tea with the movie star—he was her boyfriend after all. And Phil and Jem were so close that she’d told him too—which was why he was on this trip rather than Vanessa’s boyfriend, who didn’t know about the group chat with Chloë.

But Amanda still had no idea that Emily and Chloë were ... What were they? Correspondents? Acquaintances? Friends? I mean, from what I saw when I invited them to my ‘Relationships Gurus’ chat, they certainly ‘spoke’ to each other like friends. And I know they were going out for a meal or a coffee as often as Chloë’s schedule allowed. Did that make them friends?

It doesn’t really matter. The point is, it didn’t matter what you called their relationship, Amanda wasn’t even aware that it existed. Emily could easily take Phil to the event as her guest, but she couldn’t exactly invite Amanda as Lisa’s—I mean, how would she explain the invitation? I suppose she could say she won tickets in some competition or something, but that wouldn’t explain us going to the after-party as well, would it? And it certainly wouldn’t explain how friendly Emily and Chloë would be at the party because I couldn’t see them pretending not to know each other.

Ultimately, Amanda didn’t get an invitation. Personally, I thought this was asking for trouble. Amanda was bound to find out she’d been excluded at some point and ... Well, Amanda doesn’t take kindly to being left out.

I think Amanda’s exclusion was down to Chloë more than Emily, though. She once told me that she saw Amanda as the ‘antagonist’ to the ‘second act’ of my ‘story’, and as such didn’t want to have anything to do with her.

I didn’t see Amanda as an antagonist. If anything, without her acting as a catalyst to the events of almost exactly a year ago, I doubt I’d have ever moved on from the situation I was in back then.

Imogen was right. So much had changed.

We’d all taken overnight bags with us but had to leave them at the left luggage at St Pancras Station because we couldn’t check into our hotel until after three. That wasn’t cheap either. Having stayed with Vicky over Christmas and New Year, I’d had almost two weeks spending a fraction of what I usually did. Now it felt as if I’d be spending all the money that I’d saved then during this two-day trip instead.

Not that it really mattered. It’s not like I couldn’t afford it.

We decided to stay in the area around St Pancras for the morning rather than going further away and wasting time going back to get the bags later. So we hopped onto The Tube and went half a dozen stops on the Circle Line to Baker Street—yes, that Baker Street, home of one Sherlock Holmes. There’s actually a Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221b Baker Street, but our destination was Madame Tussaud’s. We had fun taking photos of ourselves and each other with politicians, royalty and celebrities. I had Mark take a photo of me wagging my finger and ‘ranting’ at the Prime Minister, for example. And Imogen, Emily, Lisa, Vanessa and I had a group photo taken with the wax model of Chloë. Imogen posted it in the girls’ group chat, to which Chloë replied that we’d have to recreate it for real at the after-party the next evening.

By the time we left Tussaud’s, it was lunchtime, so we had a long lunch in a nearby restaurant and then wandered around Regent’s Park for an hour before getting the Tube back to St Pancras to collect our bags before checking into our hotel.

After check-in, we went to Covent Garden so the girls could browse the designer fashion stores and jewellery shops—just browse, mind you. Even though I offered to buy them all something more than once, they all said I was spending more than enough on this trip already.

We stayed in the upmarket area for an evening meal. And after that I’d booked tickets to see a West End show.

All in all, it was a good day.

We had breakfast in the hotel on Wednesday then spent the rest of the day doing more tourist traps in the centre of the city, including St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square and the shops on Oxford Street and Regent Street.

It was another good day, but we went back to the hotel at five so we could get ready for the big event. Our invitations said to arrive between six and half-past, well before most of the celebrities would arrive. No one in the crowd was interested in seeing eight random people they didn’t recognise, so we breezed straight into the theatre without anyone asking us for selfies or autographs or getting snapped by any paparazzi.

Once inside an usher showed us into a bar and offered us pre-show drinks. It was quite surreal to be sitting around with my friends like it was any other night in The Cap but watching celebrities of ever-increasing levels of fame come in after us.

At five to seven another member of staff directed everyone into the auditorium for the screening of a movie that already had pundits widely tipping for a bundle of award nominations. The main screen at the Odeon is quite luxurious—I mean, it would be, wouldn’t it, given it’s the one always used for the vast majority of Premières in Britain—but our allocated seats weren’t the best. We were ‘up in the gods,’ as they say, and off to the left. But, really, there isn’t a bad seat in the whole auditorium.

I was sandwiched between Lisa and Vanessa, but it didn’t feel ‘right.’ It’s weird because I’d been to the cinema with Lisa loads of times growing up and loads of times with Vanessa when we were going out. But now it felt ... I don’t know ... Wrong ... to be sitting next to them both.

Vanessa picked up on my mood, even though I didn’t think I was giving off any kind of vibes. She nudged my arm as the studio’s flashy logo played out on the huge screen. I turned my head to look at her and she quietly said, “You okay?”

I nodded.

“You sure?”

I nodded again and whispered, “I’m fine. Really. I’m fine.”

She nodded then turned to face the screen.

The truth was, for the past couple of months, the only person I’d been to the cinema with was Hannah. And we’d hold hands, or she’d rest her head on my shoulder as I put my arm around her. We acted exactly like you’d expect a boyfriend and girlfriend to act in a darkened cinema.

And now here I was, at the best cinema in the whole country, watching a movie no one else in the world had yet seen, and Hannah wasn’t with me, wasn’t holding my hand, wasn’t resting her head on my shoulder.

And she probably never would again.

My melancholy lasted until a few minutes into the movie. Good movies have a habit of pulling you in. They have a habit of distracting you and you get completely lost in the very best ones.

And this was a good movie. Hell, it was a great movie.

After a slow opening, things really kicked off when a bomb went off in No. 10 Downing Street, killing the Prime Minister and most of his staff. Two of the survivors were Chloë’s character, Jane Brown, and her Metropolitan Police SO1 partner, played by British action hero John Latham. The pair were part of the Prime Minister’s security team. After the bomb, both characters were involved in an inventive foot chase through Central London in pursuit of the terrorist.

Latham and Chloë both featured quite prominently in the film’s marketing, particularly the posters plastered on billboards and buses all over the country, and in the television and social media adverts. So it was a real surprise when, at the end of that opening chase, the screen faded to black on an image of Chloë sitting on the floor holding her partner as he bled out after he took a bullet to the gut to protect his partner.

The film’s title sequence followed. Very much in the style of James Bond films over the years, it was an arty sequence, featuring Chloë quite heavily, while a soaring power ballad played over the images. I’d not heard the song before, but there was something familiar about it. Or, at least, something familiar about the singer’s voice. But I couldn’t place it. I knew that the Scottish Pop Princess Tina Thompson, one of Chloë’s best friends, sang most of the theme songs for her films, but this wasn’t Tina’s voice, which was uniquely distinctive with its Scottish twang. No, this was an American voice and it was quite ‘Country,’ if you know what I mean.

I knew I’d heard that voice before. But I just couldn’t place it.

And I didn’t recognise the singer’s name when it popped up on screen towards the end of the title sequence either.

Kayla Valentine.

Oh, well. It wasn’t important.

I put it out of my mind and settled in to watch the rest of the film.

In many ways, it was a ‘traditional’ action movie, with more foot chases, a car chase, and lots of gunplay. But it was a movie that was very self-aware and subverted many of the tropes of action movies, not least of which was that the big action movie ‘star’ spent the majority of the movie in a hospital bed fighting for his life, while it was Chloë’s character, who, you might have noticed, was a woman, who chased the villain, ran from the villain, fought with the villain and eventually won the day.

It was a lot of fun—a thrill ride of a movie which still managed to include some real heart-wrenching dramatic moments in which Chloë showed why she was one of the very best actresses of her generation. Was it going to get her the Best Actress Oscar nomination she hoped for? I have no idea. Action movies didn’t generally win awards, but this was not the typical type of action movie, so who knew? But it was an enjoyable couple of hours no matter what happened.

Even though we were among the last to leave the theatre after the credits rolled, we were among the first to arrive at the after-party, which was in the observation gallery at the top of The Shard—the tallest building in London.

I guess that the crowds outside the cinema when we left held up all the really important people as they signed autographs or posed for selfies or whatever.

“Well ... That’s quite a view,” Mark said as he and I stood by one of the enormous windows looking out over the city from almost eight hundred feet up, both of us with a glass of champagne in hand.

“That it is.”

“Shame Hannah’s not here to see it.” I looked over to him and he shrugged. “She was good for you, mate.”

I nodded. “Yeah. But it is what it is. Water under the bridge. Ships that pass in the night.”

“You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself.”

Now I shrugged. “Probably am. But I need to, don’t I?”

“Someone else will come along soon enough. They always do. I don’t understand it, but seriously hot babes seem to be attracted to you like flies are att—”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” I said, with a grin. Mark grinned back.

We looked out over the London skyline again.

“I’ve been thinking, though,” I said.

“What about?”

I shrugged. “You know ... Life. I just think that, maybe ... You know?”

“You’re gonna have to give me a fucking clue, mate.”

“The past eight, nine months or so—maybe even longer really—I’ve been ... I don’t know ... Just kind of ... Drifting.”

“Aren’t we all?”

I shrugged again. “Hannah wasn’t. She was focused. She knew what she wanted. She had a plan. And, yeah, I was a brief distraction from that plan, but she still had a plan.”

“And you think you don’t? The man setting up a company so he can buy into a law firm and set himself up for life and you think you don’t have a plan?”

I shrugged again. “Yeah, I know, but ... It’s not really a ‘plan,’ is it? Well, it’s not my plan. It’s like, stuff happens, and I react to it. Or I let someone else tell me what to do, or show me what to do or...”

“Five someone elses and their group chat, you mean?”

“Yeah. But not always. I mean, like, Wintersmith ... The only actual decision I’ve made since I first mentioned to Will that I wanted to help in some way is to pick the name of the company.”

“And decided how much to invest in it,” Mark replied. “That’s a pretty important thing too.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I mean, if things go to plan, then I end up investing everything, don’t I? Only ... That’s just it, isn’t it? If things go to plan. But it’s not my plan, do you see? It’s David’s and Bobby’s and Chris’ and Will’s and ... Everyone else but me.”

“Yeah, but ... They’re all just looking out for your best interests, aren’t they?”

“Are they? How do I know that? I mean, David has done my tax returns and Bobby managed my investments and shit, but they didn’t do it for me, did they? They did it because they are getting paid. They did it because there was something in it for them. And has anything really changed there? Will’s different because he and my dad were best friends, but the rest of them?