Edie
During the telling of Venus’s story, Joe had remained silent, clinging to Edie’s every word while he clung to the book, much like she had earlier, her mum’s words shielding her heart. Once the sequence of events had been laid out, Joe was able to take up the story and explain why he’d left Venus the note.
‘That’s where I met her, at a charity event at some flash country mansion in Berkshire. When I say I met her, I actually found her lying by the road, spark out. My driver spotted her first and when I ran over, I thought she was… you know. When I realised she wasn’t, when she came round, I remember her opening her eyes – they were icy blue. She was wearing a long silver dress and had lost her shoes. She looked up at me and smiled, like she knew me, so I picked her up and offered to take her back to her hotel.
‘The last thing anyone needs is being photographed in that state and the paps were everywhere that night. She was completely wasted, kept going on about the statue on the front of my Rolls, found it hilarious that it was The Spirit of Ecstasy. When we got to Chelsea I knew there was no way she’d have got to her room in that state, so I took her up.’
At this Edie choked up, knowing he’d been kind, a gentleman but she let him continue.
‘Venus, I love saying her name…’ – again, he looked to be struggling with his emotions before carrying on – ‘was in a bad way – very, very drunk and she told me she’d taken pills but not what they were. I was worried that she’d be sick and choke, as we know it happens.
‘Some notes had been pushed under the door, from her mum… from Bobbie, asking her to ring. I said she should, and Venus more or less told me to mind my own business, threw them in the bin and staggered to the loo. When she came back, she collapsed onto the bed. I took a can from the mini bar and that’s when I saw this book. It was on the dressing table and she told me she’d pinched it.’ He laughed at the memory, so did Ace who was slowly learning all about his stepsister. Lance simply listened.
‘I went to sit by her side and asked her if she wanted to talk and to my surprise she said she did. Not that I understood much of it because she was having trouble staying awake, but I got the gist, that all men were bastards, her mum had told her lies and she didn’t know who her dad was. She was so angry about all sorts; like Ben Affleck being named world’s sexiest man when he was so not. I remember that made me smile. I met him once and wasn’t impressed.’
‘Amen to that.’ This came from Jenny, winking at Edie who embraced the moment of levity in what had been a heavy afternoon. Then the mood dipped again.
‘She was mostly angry about her dad who had hurt her mum. And that it was wrong to keep secrets and asked me if I had any. I said plenty and none of them were for a nice girl’s ears. She thought that was funny. She said what was killing her, was that her real dad didn’t know who she was, what she looked like. He didn’t even know her name. He didn’t know she existed. I think that’s what was bothering her the most.’ At this point Joe put his head in his hands. ‘And all that time, he was sitting right by her side. How fucking tragic is that?’
Jenny reached out and put her hand on Joe’s shoulder. ‘It is, but at least we know the truth now, and we can hear all about her. What happened next?’
‘She was rambling a little, said her fake dad had never really loved her, it was all an act, and she couldn’t even remember him reading her a bedtime story, or singing her a song, so I said I would. She smiled at that, said it would be nice and seemed to settle, unfolded her arms that had been crossed tight over her chest and after I pulled the covers over her, she closed her eyes.
‘I told her that I might be gone when she woke. I had to catch a flight to Japan because we were going on tour, but I promised I’d stay with her till morning. Then I made her promise to try and stay off the booze and pills. She nodded, gave me a slow smile. Then I sang her to sleep, and then read from her book and if she stirred, I stroked her forehead till she drifted back off. I stayed right by her side until it was light, then wrote this note and left it in her book. Before I went, I kissed her on the forehead and whispered that I hoped we’d meet again, and that was it… the last time I ever saw my little girl.’
In an attempt to get a grip, Joe clenched his fists and held them to his mouth, his eyes scrunched shut.
Ace asked a question. ‘Can I see it, the note?’ Jenny slid it across the table, and they all listened while he read it out loud. Edie knew it off by heart and now she knew who had written it, twenty years before.
To the brightest star in all the heavens. Keep shining. Smile more. Go home and see your mum. Be good until we meet again. And remember. Stay away from guys like me. X
Ace passed it back to Jenny who slid it inside the book and asked Edie, ‘What happened next, after Joe left? Please don’t tell us it happened then, in that hotel room.’
Edie felt Ace take her hand as she quickly reassured Jenny that wasn’t the case. ‘No, it was two days later. She’d gone back to her room to pack and was intending to leave the following day, straight after the final shoot like she promised Gran. Marvin confirmed it, that she’d asked him to arrange a taxi to take her home. She ran a bath, got in but somehow slipped and banged her head. She was knocked unconscious and drowned. There was alcohol in her system but not a lot. Marvin said she’d had champagne, one glass before she left the studio but definitely wasn’t drunk and there were no signs she’d taken anything. The coroner put it down to a tragic accident.
‘Gran was devastated, but always says that I gave her the strength to carry on. A reason to live. It was years before she found the courage to pack up Mum’s things and put them in the loft, and when I was nine and asked more about my mum, she told me a gentler version of the truth. That she was working away and had a terrible accident. That she was a model, even showed me her portfolio. And I think knowing she’d made a mistake with Mum, perhaps the apron strings were too tight, she took a different approach with me and let me be free. She still didn’t tell me about you, not until I found Mum’s things and a ranty note in her book, all about how much she hated Martin and he wasn’t her dad, and what the old witch had told her. And the rest you know. How we ended up here around this table.’
Still Joe didn’t speak, and it was Jenny, in her own deep and kind way, who tried to placate him, touching his arm as she spoke. ‘Joe, I know your heart is breaking right now and you are probably wishing you could go back in time to make everything right, especially to that night you spent with Venus but think about this: when she needed him the most, when she was lying in the grass all alone, far away from home, her daddy came along and picked her up; he kept her safe. And after waiting so long, he sang her a lullaby, and read her a story and stayed by her side while she slept. You made Venus smile, showed her kindness and love and what a good guy is.
‘That’s why she kept your note, put it in her special book. You touched her heart like she touched yours and that is a truly beautiful thing. And now you have the chance to start again with Edie. Venus gave you this wonderful young woman, your granddaughter.’
And even though he was crying Joe nodded and through her own tears, Edie remembered something, one of her mum’s handwritten notes that suddenly made sense.
‘Jenny, go to the end of the book, on the inside of the back cover, there’s a poem. Mum wrote it. I think she’s talking about Joe. I presumed it was just her thoughts, but it all adds up now.’
Everyone watched as Jenny picked up the book and went to the last page and on seeing what Edie meant asked if she should read it out. Receiving a nod, she did just that…
