Chapter 34
Liv
The caterpillars that for weeks have been circling inside my stomach have been waiting until tonight to hatch from their chrysalises and metamorphose. Only they’re not butterflies, they’re giant bloody pterodactyls. When they aren’t swooping and diving and trying to peck their way out of me, they’re roosting on my bladder, because I’ve just had my third nervous wee in the last half an hour.
Leaving the bathroom, I pace the corridor adjacent to the frameless glass wall of the main studio where my classes will rotate. Ingrid and Rupert are tumbling in and out of the rooms, yelping and screaming as they slide across polished floors in their socks. Next to the bathroom is the studio where I’ll teach my hot yoga classes. I bend over to place my hand on the floor. It’s satisfyingly warm. Which it should be, given how much I’ve spent on it. And finally there are the healing rooms. One for sound therapy and meditation and the other for massages.
A little further along the corridor is the crèche, then a gym where Brandon will restart his personal training, part-time. I spot him when I reach the café. He finishes pouring orange juice andwine into stemmed glasses. I clock this entrance area and truly believe even the harshest of critics would struggle to deny we’ve done a damn good job of building something out of nothing. Plants are growing from gaps in the walls, and between them is a floor-to-ceiling mural of a copper-and-yellow meditating Buddha. I still worry the Buddha screams ‘You’re trying too hard’, but the interior designer was adamant it would turn a dull wall into a focal point. Our tables and chairs in the seating area are made from reclaimed wood, and the counter surface is repurposed plastic. I couldn’t be any greener if I was Robin Hood.
‘You okay?’ Brandon asks as he approaches me, putting an arm around my waist and kissing my cheek.
‘I think so,’ I reply. ‘Are you sure we have enough wine? Do we need to pick up another case from Waitrose? I don’t want us to run dry. And the canapés? Where are they? Have they been delivered?’
‘We have plenty of wine and I was about to take the canapés out of the packaging.’
‘But do they look okay? They don’t look like we’ve just bought them from a cash and carry?’
‘No, of course not. Trust me, everything is going to be just fine. We’ve got this.’
Brandon is right, we have got this. There were times when I wondered if we’d ever get here, and what failure would mean. I know I’ll never be able to return to my job in the city. Banking is a big business but a small world. And once you’re blacklisted, you’ll only ever be a persona non grata. That’s why I need so desperately for this to work. Because I can still smell smoke from the bridges I’ve left burning behind me.
Soon after, the room begins to fill. I think everyone who received an invitation is here, chatting to one another and drinking.
It’s just as I’m feeling my confidence slowly beginning to return that it happens. I seehimat the back of the room. His presence is strong and his glare is piercing. I look to Brandon and then back in his direction, but he’s gone. I close my eyes, take a deep breath through my nose, exhale through my mouth and open them again. It’s my conscience that’s the unwelcome guest, not him.
Chapter 35
Margot
I’m in no mood to celebrate the realisation of anyone’s dream by the time I reach Liv’s studio.
The last three days have been awful. Nicu has made me – although he’d claim he ‘encouraged’ me to – accept a job. I only agreed because I hoped he might see how hard I’m trying to repair our relationship. And as a result, I’ve been locked inside a television studio in Elstree, with a gaggle of fame-hungry nobodies who now believe they’re celebs because a few bored kids have favourited their banal videos on social media.
Each had a virtually identical appearance – the girls with their fake tans, fake lips, fake hair, fake teeth and fake tits, and the boys with their pumped-up pecs, sleeves of tattoos, and bodies so waxed they resembled china dolls from their steroid-plumped necks down. Aside from me, the only person over the age of thirty was an actress I vaguely remember fromCasualty. But she took an instant dislike to me before we’d even been formally introduced.
The title of the pilot show isHelp! I’m In The House From Hell!and it is every bit as much of a rip-off ofI’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Hereas the title suggests. Inside the studio they builta ‘haunted’ home, and producers paired us up and locked us in different-themed rooms, with names like Deadly Dungeon and Fright Night. And once inside we were forced to face our fears, find a key and escape. The girl I was paired with spent so much time screeching, I’ve developed tinnitus.
I deadpanned my way through much of it, so much so that the director had a word with me off-camera and asked if I would play up the drama more.
‘If you wanted an actress, you should have hired Dame Helen Mirren,’ I told him.
‘Our budget was for McDonald’s, not The Ivy,’ he hit back, and was out of earshot by the time I could muster up a catty retort.
Hopefully word will get back to Geri that I’m worth more than this demeaning crap. I need my tank filled with something more in tune with my skillset, because on shows like this, I’m running on the fumes of my talent. One saving grace is that I doubt the programme will ever see the light of day anyway. Pilot episodes rarely amount to anything. And even if it does air, it won’t be on a mainstream channel.
The car park outside Liv’s studio is almost full, so I make use of an empty disabled space. I check the rearview mirror and refresh my lipstick. I’m still wearing the make-up they put me in for filming, so at least I look on point. I wish Nicu was with me, but I’m flying solo, no surprises there. His tour begins this month and he’s rehearsing seven days a week now, so I barely see him.
Inside, I push my way towards a waitress and help myself to two glasses of white wine, pouring one into the other. Then I head for Drew and Anna. Drew and I avoid eye contact.
‘How are you?’ Anna asks. ‘Good day?’
‘Fine, thanks.’ I want to say my body is here but my spirit has departed, however that would only provoke more questions. AndI’m unwilling to admit just how far down the showbiz ladder I’ve fallen.
‘I love how contemporary it is,’ she continues, looking around and easily impressed. ‘Liv’s done a great job, hasn’t she?’
‘Liv or her interior designer?’ I ask.
‘Did I hear someone mentioning my name?’
