Arthur gave her a direct look. ‘That’s a very personal question.’
‘Sorry,’ Lizzie shrugged, ‘it’s part of my stock in trade, I suppose, interviewing and presenting. I was interested, that’s all.’
Arthur didn’t reply immediately and she thought he wasn’t going to answer at all but then he did.
‘It felt very glamorous when I started out.’ He spoke slowly, thoughtfully, as though he was thinking back over something he hadn’t talked about in a long time. ‘I was only nineteen – they signed me up for the TV show after I’d just gone to college. Mum was furious when I dropped out; she’d walked away from the whole modelling thing because she said celebrity was corrupt but I just thought she was spoiling my fun.’ He shrugged, a little awkwardly. ‘She said fame bred insecurity and unhappiness. I told her not to be stupid. I’d had my head properly turned.’
‘You wouldn’t be the first,’ Lizzie said. ‘And you were very young.’ She was surprised all the same. Arthur seemed so grounded but perhaps he had learned the hard way what was real and worthwhile and what was not.
‘Yeah, well…’ Arthur shifted a little. ‘It was all new and exciting for me, and after a couple of years I met Jenna, my fiancée, and she was a model and an actress and it was very glamorous… It felt as though we were really living, if you know what I mean.’ He looked at her. ‘It’s as though all the special treatment and first-class travel and people fawning over you validates you in some way, but I guess you’ve experienced that for yourself.’
‘Yeah,’ Lizzie said. ‘It’s easy to believe in your own legend. You need to be very sure of who you are before fame happens if you’re not going to get spoilt.’
A smile touched Arthur’s lips. ‘Who knew you were so wise?’ he said.
‘Bitter experience,’ Lizzie said lightly. ‘I was very young when I started and it did spoil me. I can’t deny that. I do try to be aware of it now but a sense of entitlement can be a hard habit to break.’
Arthur’s smile lingered. ‘You don’t do a bad job,’ he said, and she felt as though he’d given her a present.
Arthur broke the moment. ‘I think I must have been unbearable,’ he said. ‘Jenna and I were so full of ourselves.’ He pulled a face. ‘But underneath it… Jenna was totally messed up. I tried to help but it wasn’t enough.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ Lizzie said. She remembered Kat saying that Jenna had died of anorexia. She wondered whether that was where Arthur’s tendency to try to save people stemmed from. It must have been appalling to lose his fiancée like that and to feel so helpless.
‘Was that why you turned your back on it all?’ she asked. ‘A change of direction?’
‘It wasn’t really that different,’ Arthur said. ‘I’ve always loved the countryside and I was making shows that focussed on animals and nature – you know the sort of thing. Farming is just a different emphasis, really. I went to the US to study agriculture. My mother lives in the States these days and it’s a kind of second home to me. I studied at Cornell and then went to Uppsala in Sweden for my postgraduate degree.’ He didn’t make any reference to how Jenna’s death had made him feel and Lizzie didn’t push. The fact he’d told her it was a very personal question showed how significant it still must be to him.
‘I’m thinking of doing something different,’ Lizzie said. ‘Well, not different exactly, but more writing and composing. I was the songwriter for my band back in the day and I really enjoyed it.’ She caught herself up in time before she told him more. It was easy to talk to Arthur because she felt close to him and difficult to remember that there was more that divided them than brought them together.
‘Anyway, come back through,’ she said awkwardly.
She was very aware of Arthur following her through to the living room. He went over to the seat by the window, sparing one long, appreciative glance for her bookshelves and a second one for the view before turning his attention back to her.
‘I’d forgotten that you lost your mother when you were even younger than Johnny,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘That must have been very painful. No wonder you have such an affinity with him.’