‘Darling, I hate to be blunt,’ Fleur had started, which didn’t bode well.
The bottom line was: Rhys was going nowhere. The only auditions in the offing were for panto; Rhys’s only income that year was from adverts. If they didn’t do something drastic, his career was over. But Fleur had an idea . . .
They had spent weeks looking over presentations from PR firms, committing to an innovative campaign the branding agency called #LoveLloyd. For the price of a stamped addressed envelope, fans receive an autographed photograph of Rhys, which they’re encouraged to share on social media for the opportunity to win prizes. The national press covered the launch; regional papers up and down the country feature each excited winner. The campaign has plastered Rhys’s face all over the internet and already boosted sales of his last album. Rhys Lloyd was about to be reborn.
‘They’re absolutely swarming in, darling. I’ve put another batch in the post to you today.’
‘I’m supposed to be on holiday, not stuffing envelopes.’
‘Hire a PA.’
‘I can’t afford a PA,’ Rhys says, through gritted teeth. ‘Maybe if you got me a decent audition—’
‘Must dash, darling. Lovely to chat!’
The line goes dead. Rhys stands on the balcony for a while, fighting the cold dread inside him. He starts the breathing exercises he always does before singing, and slowly his heart rate returns to normal. There’s only one way out of this: he’ll have to use Jonty’s money to pay the branding agency. The campaign will be a success, which means Fleur will find him a decent job, and he’ll negotiate a good up-front fee so he can pay Huw Ellis’s bill. Everything’s going to be okay.
Rhys gazes up the lake, towards Pen y Ddraig mountain. Bobby disappeared into a cove a few hundred metres up the lake and hasn’t reappeared. Has the jet-ski broken down? Steffan’s place is on its knees – it wouldn’t surprise Rhys if he was cutting corners.
‘Give us a song!’ Jonty shouts from his deck, a beer bottle in his hand.
‘Oh, yes, do!’ Clemmie looks up from her book.
Buoyed up by possibilities, Rhys launches into a single verse of ‘One Day More’ from Les Misérables. His voice is rich and warm, and he imagines it travelling through the still air, across the water, across the village he couldn’t wait to leave. He imagines singing this same song, night after night in the Sondheim theatre, amid rapturous applause. A standing ovation. He closes his eyes, letting the final note die before giving the tiniest nod of acknowledgement.
The doorbell goes as Rhys is making his way downstairs.
‘Post for you.’ Ceri hands him a fat Jiffy bag with his agency name on the return label. She doesn’t quite look at him, her eyes sliding away back to her van. She always was weird, even as a kid. ‘More autographs, is it?’
‘The price of fame,’ Rhys says, adding a self-deprecating laugh.
As Rhys on the Charltons’ deck, there’s a smattering of applause.
‘What a voice!’ Blythe says.
‘Anhygoel, Rhys!’ Clemmie stands, a solitary ovation which plays painfully into Rhys’s insecurities.
Dee raises her glass towards Rhys with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. ‘Not bad, Mr Lloyd.’
Bobby’s jet-ski is nowhere to be seen, but coming across the lake is Steffan’s motorboat, a small rowing boat bobbing on its tow line. Steffan raises an arm in a wave.
The twins have assumed their usual positions – arms and legs trailing artfully in the water – and are chatting idly with Caleb and a girl from the village. Rhys has seen her tagging after Caleb for the last couple of weeks. With any luck, Caleb will go after her now, instead of panting after the twins. Unlike Tabby and Felicia, who change bikinis as though they’re on the catwalk, the local girl’s in the same shorts and T-shirt she always wears. No jewellery, no make-up. You’d mistake her for a boy, were it not for the mass of red hair, the colour of autumn leaves.
‘Peas in a pod,’ Dee says, coming up behind Rhys and making him jump. ‘Don’t you think?’
Rhys looks at Felicia and Tabby, technically identical, yet so different, in Rhys’s eyes. ‘If you say so,’ he says, churlishly.
Clemmie chimes in. ‘And both beautiful.’
‘You’re a lucky man,’ Dee says, and Rhys wonders how it is that only he can hear the hard edge to her voice. He walks back to his own deck on the pretext of helping Steffan, who has killed the engine of his boat, letting the vessel’s momentum push him towards the pontoon.