She’d found an agent – or rather, Bea Benowitz had found her at the graduation show. Bea ran a small agency in an upstairs office on the Holloway Road, but actually that suited Cassie just fine. She preferred a smaller, more homely agency that felt approachable, rather than somewhere very big and high-powered where you were terrified of the receptionist. Bea had been wearing the same Revlon lipstick for thirty-five years and smoked a million cigarettes a day, but Cassie loved her. Whenever she felt low, particularly waking up on a Monday morning, she was reassured by the sound of Bea’s raspy voice down the phone, assuring her that it was ‘All down to timing, darling. Don’t worry, we’ll get you something nice.’ It gave her a sense of security in a world where it was all too easy to feel like you were in freefall. Bea had been as overjoyed as herself when she’d been cast in the panto the following Christmas. She was ‘on her way’, as Bea put it, though she didn’t specify where to. And that’s when she’d met Gavin. That was when her future began.
* * *
‘So, it’s definitely over, then? I thought you two were engaged,’ said Mam sadly as they set the table for Sunday lunch.
‘I never said that.’
‘Well, somebody did. And you were together for a long time .?.?.’
‘But we split up in October. Not exactly my choice.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Eric kindly. Eric was Mam’s new friend.
Mam busied herself shifting dishes around to make room for the carrots and Brussels sprouts, deliberately avoiding eye contact. It was not unknown for her to blur the boundaries between wishful thinking and fact, especially where her younger daughter was concerned.
‘I was telling Eric he was some sort of photographer for a while, wasn’t he?’
‘Food.’ Cassie sighed. ‘He was a food photographer for a year, until he got fed up and went back to being a tour manager.’
‘Just food photography, is that a thing?’
‘Of course, how d’you think they do ads and posters and things?’
Mam was obviously bringing this up to raise the tone of the conversation for Eric’s benefit. He was dressed in the sort of outfit that actors used to wear to read bedtime stories on the BBC – flannel shirt with a cravat tucked in – and was very polite, expressing surprise and admiration as each new dish arrived on the table. Mam was clearly delighted. ‘Friend’ was obviously code for ‘boyfriend’.
‘Of course, food photography is essentially the direct descendant of the still-life painting,’ he said. ‘We’ve always been fascinated by food in all its forms. It’s a very deep instinct.’
‘That’s very insightful, Eric,’ said Mam proudly.
Cassie couldn’t have imagined Mam telling Da he was very insightful, or he’d just have guffawed and done his bestCarry Onimpersonation, cracking himself up in the process. Eric was clearly bringing out another side of Mam. It was funny to think old people could change like that. Cassie had always feared she’d be heartbroken to see a new man in Mam’s life, even though he’d been sensitive enough to choose the seat opposite her and leave Da’s big carver at the head of the table empty. In truth there was nothing the least bit objectionable about Eric; it was just that in her absence he seemed to have become part of the family. She’d come home to a world where everybody seemed to know the new rules except her.
‘So, when’re you planning to head back?’ he asked affably. Suddenly, she felt herself the focus of attention again.
‘I’m not sure.’
‘An open return, that must have cost you,’ observed Mam.
‘I don’t have any particular job coming up right now, so I have some flexibility,’ she replied airily. Which obviously meant ‘out of work’.
‘So, what were you doing up to the time you came back?’ enquired Eric, not unkindly.
‘You were on the BBC!’ Mam broke in.
‘I was in an episode ofCasualtyas a patient. Basically, it works that the more seriously ill you are, the bigger the part. I had an unexplained rash – apparently, the scriptwriters had been planning to make it meningitis but then they decided the character was just allergic to the mould in her council flat. So, that meant I was relegated to the “C” story.’
Eric nodded.
‘But you did have screen time with that lovely doctor with the white hair that’s been in it since the 1980s .?.?.’
‘No, he hasn’t, Mam—’
‘And you were doing some theatre in education work too, weren’t you, love?’
‘Sort of .?.?. I worked at the Tomb Raider Live experience, which was quite fun.’
‘And the big sciencey one.’ Mam seemed to be trying to promote her as the next Carol Vorderman.
‘I was actually subbing for a friend of mine at Slime Planet.’
