Page 94 of Cover Story

Connor saw Bel in context for the first time. He’d thought: attractive, go-getter, well-shod background– and bristled the ‘outsider’ temperament was a pseud’s pose.

All of a sudden he understood that adult Bel, because she was accepted, felt like a successful imposter. That’s why she carried off the ‘Bella Niven’ assumed identity with such aplomb: Bel Macauley was one, too. Hadn’t Connor been doing the same in his last career and relationship?

Minutes later, when Connor came back from a trip to the Men’s, he found Amber in his seat, iPad in front of her. He was grateful Bel initiated this in his absence.

‘She could do week starting the fourteenth?’ Bel was saying, reading from her handset. ‘If that’s any good?’

Amber flipped the case open and Connor watched Bel watch her index finger jab rapidly at the keypad.

‘We’ve got someone in on the nineteenth, looks like … Sorry.’

‘Never mind. Another time!’ Bel said, vacating Connor’s place.

Rick deposited a glass in front of Bel and said: ‘Slainte. May you die in Ireland,’ to her.

‘Did you know Rick’s family was Irish?AreIrish?’ Bel said to Connor, over the raucous din of Chappell Roan and many conversations.

‘Can’t say I did. Bella, slow up on the Porn Stars, eh?’ Connor said, cloaking his genuine concern in Persona Concern.

Bel downed the glass’s contents, turned to him and clumsilykissed his cheek, a near enough miss that he smelled passion fruit. ‘Don’t worry about me.’

‘Easier said than done, darling.’

She laughed and hiccupped.

‘Do you have an “unbridled joy” setting? Like, do you ever abandon yourself entirely to the moment?’ Bel was staring intently at his mouth, as if she was thinking hard about Connor for the first time. He had a feeling he knew in what way, too.

‘Yes I do, thanks,’ Connor said, firmly instructing himself not to rise to this. He already knew she thought he had an excess of seriousness, and she’d had an excess of Absolut.

‘Er, your dress needs sorting,’ he said, pointing to a pink animal print bra that was on show to a greater degree than intended.

‘S’from Zara,’ Bel said. ‘My dress.’

‘Very nice,’ he said, then gestured at his neckline and nodded his head. ‘Pull it up?’

Bel didn’t respond and Connor leaned over and proprietorially tugged the fabric back into place. He was extremely glad she’d not done this alone.

‘Jus’ going to the loo,’ Bel said, in a semi-slur.

Ten minutes later, Connor registered: still no Bel/Bella.

‘Gonna see where my girlfriend’s got to …’ he muttered, but no one was listening.

‘Bel?’ he rapped his knuckles on the door of the Ladies.

Nothing. He gingerly pushed the door open and went inside. Both cubicles unoccupied. He looked nervously up at an open window, which even though the dimensions made it borderline feasible, surely to God she’d not pulled herself through?

Had she done a runner? He slipped his phone from his pocket: no messages. If she was with it enough to do a midnight flit, she’d be with it enough to alert him. It was disconcerting. What if she’d been caught red-handed … by who, though? He could see Amber and Rick in the group as he walked back down to the main room.

On an impulse, he peered over the bar as he passed it. Bel was sitting on the floor, head resting against the bottle fridge.

‘Bel– la? What the hell are you down there for?’

She looked up at him. She was hugging her bag on her lap. (Bel had told Connor previously it was a ‘squashy quilted tote that’s roomy but not out of place’– ‘squashy quilted tote’ being as new to his brain as ‘Riley Keough’.)

‘The room was spinning, so I sat down.’

‘Yeah, that’s not the most hygienic place to choose. Nurofen and water time for you, I think.’

---