‘My white Florent lace-ups.’
‘Your white what?’
‘Trainers, Anna, Florents are trainers. Surely even you have heard of Jimmy Choo?’
She looks at me blankly. I might as well be talking fashion with a bag of rocks.
‘I’m sure I left them in a box in here, but I can’t find them anywhere.’
I wonder if Frankie has hidden them in retaliation for me tossing her Crocs in the recycling bin all those months ago? Much to my annoyance, she found them before it was emptied.
‘Where have you been hiding yourself the last few days?’ Anna asks.
‘Oh, just a little life admin,’ I say.
There’s a lot I can’t tell her, as I’m not in the mood for a lecture. I also can’t mention how many hours I’ve spent trawling through the website OnlyFans, searching for an account that apparently belongs to Liv.
Tonya, theKnightsbridge Knightsstar I met on the set ofHelp!, revealed an ex-flatmate of Liv’s told her Liv has funded her lifestyle and business through money made in the online sex industry. Well, telling me that was like throwing a seal at a shark and expecting the shark to refrain from taking a bite. Of course I was going to search for it. However, with two-million-plus content providers, it’s been impossible to find. She might even have taken her page down, now that she thinks she’s Gwyneth Paltrow in full lifestyle provocateur mode.
Anna glances at two stacks of brown padded envelopes behind me that I’ve taken out of the cupboard. She spots one with a box poking out from the top, containing two tiny plastic feet.
‘Oh wow,’ she says, pulling it out. ‘Is this one of the Party Hard Posse dolls?’
‘Yes, but that one’s been a little modified,’ I reply as she removes the rest of it.
‘Oh,’ she says suddenly. ‘Where’s the head gone?’
‘My stalker has kept it as a souvenir.’
‘Your what?’
‘My stalker. You know you’ve really made it when you have an obsessive.’ I direct her attention to the rest of the envelopes. I try and play it cool and make out that it doesn’t bother me, but of course it does. ‘Have a look at the other little treats he’s sent me. There’s another decapitated one, but most times, I’m allowed to keep my head.’
I give up searching for my elusive footwear and watch her reaction as she reopens random envelopes. Her face creases: they’re disturbing her as much as they do me. In one, she finds the remains of a Margot mug, in another there’s a T-shirt with red paint covering my face and my eyes have been cut out. A third has a watch with a broken face, and yet another includes a smashed-up signed CD.
‘How long have you been getting them?’ she asks.
‘Eighteen months or so, I think.’
‘And what do the police say?’
‘I don’t bother reporting them anymore. I did when they first started arriving and they took them away and fingerprinted them. But everything had been wiped clean. And the products were so mass-manufactured that there’s nothing the police can do. They suggested I keep hold of them, so I store them in here. Like a macabre retrospective of my life.’
‘You should post something about this online.’
‘And give the creep the attention he’s looking for? No. It’d probably encourage a bunch of brand-new fuckwits to come out of the woodwork and join him.’
Anna appears genuinely concerned for me. And if I’m not mistaken, there are tears forming.
‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I just think after all you’ve been through, it’s unfair.’
I’m uncertain how to respond as she dabs her eyes while watching me. Normally when people stare at me this long, they’re makingnotes. But not her. I’m unused to this depth of connection. Yet I’m more surprised by how much I appreciate it.
A short time later, we’re at Liv’s house and Brandon ushers us towards the patio chairs. It’s a gorgeous day, and I struggle to tear my line of vision away from his sports shorts and black vest. Those thighs could crack billiard balls. Both Liv and I are fortunate to have husbands who look after themselves because their bodies are their careers. No one pays to see a fat dancer in tight clothing prancing around a ballroom and firing sequins through the air like bullets, or a personal trainer stuffed into Lycra like too much pork in a sausage skin.
I’m suddenly aware of Anna’s glare. She’s caught me staring at Brandon.
‘What?’ I mouth.
