Georgie shared Ollie’s amusement. ‘I’ll come keep you company until your mum gets here. Happy for an excuse to sit down. I feel like an oil tanker trying to manoeuvre myself around here. I think I’m incubating a hippo.’
Ollie and Calvin followed her, passing Jessie, who was spraying a cloud of hairspray on the white blonde bob that Ollie recognised as belonging to Val Murray, another of his mum’s pals.
‘Morning, ladies,’ Ollie greeted them, kissing each of them on the cheek.
‘It’s afternoon, Ollie,’ Val retorted. ‘Have you not got people who keep you right on this sort of stuff?’
‘Nope, I only have people to shop for me and stroke my ego by telling me how great I am,’ Ollie fired back, enjoying the exchange.
‘I’ll do that for free,’ Val offered. ‘As long as there’s a twice weekly chippy and holiday to Los Angeles involved.’
‘Done,’ Ollie agreed.
‘Oh, and a hairdressing budget. I’m having it done for your big night tonight. Your mum is so looking forward to it. She was just saying that Academy has been the highlight of her career. Well done on making that happen for her. You’re not a bad lad, apart from your apparent lack of awareness of the time of day.’ Teasing was Val’s preferred method of communication.
‘I’m glad you approve,’ Ollie bowed, feigning amusement, even though her comment about his mum was ricocheting around his head. The highlight of her career. And he could be about to make a decision that had the potential to wreck it.
He reached the empty staffroom and plonked down on the couch. Calvin and Georgie sat on the opposite sofa, but Ollie noticed that Calvin was frowning as he read something on his phone.
‘Everything okay?’ Ollie asked.
Calvin’s sigh was instant. ‘Just another email from security. They’ve forwarded on an email from theDaily Mailasking if it’s true you’ve been in a secret relationship since before you married Sienna. They’ve had a tip-off from someone claiming to be your bit on the side.’
Ollie closed his eyes. The last thing he needed was to deal with that stuff right now. Not today. Before he could respond, the staffroom door opened again, and his mum came in clutching a tray with two glass mugs of frothy coffee.
‘Apparently I’m a waitress here now,’ Moira said, her bright blue eyes twinkling as she held the beverages out to Ollie and Calvin, who was already on his feet and doing more of the dramatic double air kiss. These two had been friends for decades and if Calvin hadn’t been happily married to his partner, Piers, and his mum hadn’t been reunited with her first love, Nick, they often said they’d have shacked up together in their old age, drinking cocktails, singing at karaoke bars and watching forties movies until they shuffled off this mortal coil wearing sequins and sparkly shoes.
‘I’m just going to park myself outside and answer these emails,’ Calvin announced. ‘Your son seems to be my full-time job these days. I mean, honestly… just because he invests millions in our Academy, he expects me to devote my day to him.’
Moira shook her head, getting in on the joke. ‘It’s his generation, Calvin. They’re so entitled.’
Ollie was the one rolling his eyes now as he got up to hug his mum, immediately getting hit with the scent of the Chanel No.5 she’d worn since he was a kid. When he was younger, she could only afford to wear it on special occasions. It made him so happy that now she splashed it on every single day. She’d refused to let him buy her a house, or a car, and she only took a modest salary for running the Academy, so the least he could do was buy her enough Chanel perfume to have a bath in.
Georgie took the opportunity to push herself up at that point too. ‘And I need to go pee. If I’m not back in ten minutes, it means I’m wedged in the cubicle. Send attractive firemen with heavy lifting equipment.’
‘Was it something I said?’ Moira asked, as she took Georgie’s place on the sofa opposite Ollie. ‘I’ve already lost your Aunt Jacinta today. She woke up this morning covered in spots the size of peas and had to get the doctor out. She’s been diagnosed with chickenpox and ordered to stay home for a week. She’s devastated that she won’t make it tonight.’
Ollie knew devastated would be an understatement. His Aunt Jacinta wasn’t actually his aunt, she was his mum’s lifelong best pal, a former jobbing actress with a flair for the dramatic. She’d been counting on this show giving her the public adulation she’d believed she deserved since her brief spell on a weekly soap in the nineties.
Before Ollie could say anything about Jacinta, Moira must have picked up on his tension, because she switched straight into ‘concerned mum’ mode. Neither her sixth sense nor her concern for him had ever left her. He was a grown-arse man, with a whole team looking after him, and she still fretted about him every day. ‘So what’s going on, ma darlin’? I’m guessing something is wrong if it can’t wait until I see you at the Academy later. Should I be worried? Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine, Mum. It’s just… I’ve got a bit of a time-crunch on a situation, and I need to run it past you today.’ He didn’t add that he’d been sitting on this since he got the contract a week ago. She’d only give him a stern roll of the eyes for leaving things to the last minute.
‘Okay, shoot,’ she said, but he could sense she was still wary and would be on edge until she knew for sure that he wasn’t in imminent danger. He couldn’t imagine that concept of living every single day with his heart on the outside of his chest, because it belonged to his kids and he could only be okay if they were too. And that was the point. He wanted to know what that felt like. Wanted to have a family. And he wanted to do it with Stevie. But how could he, when she wasn’t interested in committing to a guy who was gone ten months of the year?
He opened with the facts. ‘I have one year left on my current contract withThe Clansman, but I’ve been offered a new deal for five more years after that, and I’ve got until six o’clock today to give them my answer.’
Moira immediately switched her frown upside down and beamed in his direction. ‘That’s wonderful, son. Amazing. I’m so happy for…’
Again, she must have clocked his flat energy, because her words ground to a halt, and she switched tack.
‘Erm, no, I’m not? Not happy for you? This isn’t a good thing?’
‘Maybe not, Maw. What would you say if I told you that I was thinking about calling it a day on the show and making a life here with Stevie instead?’
He watched all the air leave his mum’s body, then partially return after she’d taken a deep breath and recovered from the shock. ‘I’d say that it’s a big decision to give up the incredible life that you’ve worked so hard for. But I’d also say that there’s no one whose judgement I trust more than yours and you’re the only one who knows what feels right for you.’
It was exactly the first answer he’d expected from her. All she’d ever truly cared about, when she was bringing him up as a single mum, encouraging his potential and delivering tough love when needed, was that he was happy.
