Page 6 of Who’s That Girl?

Chapter Three

By the time I arrive at the office I’ve taken nine calls, replied to two emails (surreptitiously while stuck in yet more traffic) and put in a rush order at Interflora. Unfortunately they didn’t do navy blue flowers – in fact the woman sounded quite puzzled when I asked – but they had purple, which is practically the same as navy blue.

Sort of.

As I charge through the door, my assistant, Beatrice, is waiting for me with a cup in her outstretched hand. This is how she greets me every morning: double espresso with a splash of soya milk. I’m on the phone with a journalist and I throw her a grateful smile and sweep it up like a relay runner. After two years we’ve perfected the pass. We don’t spill a drop.

I continue across the office, my stiletto heels clicking on the floor. (Polished cement, very de rigueur. In fact the whole office is totally cutting-edge; in the PR world appearances are everything.) ‘So I’ll send over the new product for you to try. I’m sure you’ll want to feature it in the magazine … Oh, right, you want the whole range?’ Gosh, journalists can be so greedy. ‘Absolutely. I’ll get it biked over straight away!’ I say cheerfully.

Reaching my desk, I end the call, sink down into my chair and drain my double espresso in one desperate gulp. I’m so fuzzy-headed before my morning coffee I can’t think straight, let alone see straight. Which of course totally explains that weird incident at the lights.

‘Morning,’ chirps Beatrice, hugging a file to her chest and beaming.

Beatrice is always to be found hugging files to her chest. Not because she’s actually working on anything in the files, but because it’s an attempt to hide her large chest (or ‘bosoms’, as she likes to call them), which she’s self-conscious about, and which she inherited from her grandmother, the Duchess of something or other. Along with a double string of pearls, a substantial trust fund and a little ‘bolt-hole’ in town. The little bolt-hole being a ginormous penthouse flat in W1.

Honestly, Bea is so jammy I should hate her, but she makes it impossible by being one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.

‘Hi, Bea. Thanks for the coffee.’ I smile gratefully.

‘Good weekend?’ she says brightly, striding over to me and unlooping my bags, which I’d forgotten were still hanging from my shoulders. Deftly, she puts each in their place.

‘It was OK. I had quite a lot of work to catch up on.’ I shrug, thinking back to yesterday. I spent it at the dining-room table surrounded by paperwork while Miles played squash, which seems to be pretty much how I spend my weekends these days.

Plonking my elbows on a pile of papers, I rub my forehead. I can already feel the beginnings of a tension headache. ‘Any messages?’

‘Larry Thompson’s assistant called to confirm your lunch tomorrow in Notting Hill.’ She begins peeling off Post-it notes. ‘Sally Pitt, the editor of the lifestyle section of the Daily Standard, called. They want to interview you for an article they’re doing on women who have it all.’ She throws me an excited look. ‘Oh, and Melody called. Several times, in fact.’ Melody is a famous TV presenter who recently had a baby, lost a lot of weight and is now making a fortune sharing her ‘secret’ through her books, TV series and her new range of pre-packaged healthy meals, Easy Without the E-Numbers, for which we do the PR.

‘She’s a little upset about the Sunday papers.’ Beatrice produces a copy of one of the tabloids. On the front page is a photograph of Melody tucking into a large Big Mac and fries. The headline ‘SECRETS AND FRIES’ screams across the front.

‘Ah, yes.’ I pull a face. ‘I saw them.’

‘Actually, I think her exact words were –’ Beatrice peels off a Post-it note and begins reading earnestly – “‘Fucking furious. I want to fucking kill the fucking News of the Screws.”’

Despite my anxiety, I can’t help smiling. With Bea’s cut-glass accent, it’s like hearing the Queen blaspheming. Honestly, posh people shouldn’t swear. It just doesn’t sound right.

‘I can imagine.’ I nod, spreading the paper across my desk and feeling the knot in my stomach tightening.

Melody might be the nation’s darling – all sweetness and light and toothpaste-ad smiles – but away from the cameras she’s got a worse temper than … well, I don’t want to mention any names as I don’t want to get sued, but think of someone with a terrible temper and it’s worse. Much, much worse.

‘Do you think she asked for extra fries?’ says Beatrice, peering over my shoulder at the photograph. ‘There seems rather a lot.’

‘Does it matter?’ I shrug, rubbing my temples. My head is really starting to throb. ‘Extra fries or not, she’s launching her latest diet book, Just Say No to Junk, next month,’ I remind her. ‘And we’re currently doing the promotion on her new range of Easy Without the E-Numbers soups.’

Beatrice frowns. ‘Hmm, yes, that is slightly unfortunate.’

Beatrice has a knack for understatement. Being a small boutique agency, we only have a few accounts – I take care of the large ones, while Beatrice deals with the smaller ones – and Melody’s range of products is one of our biggest and most profitable. The last thing I need is for a paparazzi photograph to jeopardise that by discrediting her as a health and fitness guru.

‘It’s potentially a disaster,’ I murmur, shaking out two paracetamol from the family-sized bottle I keep on my desk and flicking on my computer. The screen comes awake and I quickly search it up.

Beatrice tightens her grip on her pearls. ‘Golly,’ she says in a hushed voice. ‘A disaster?’

A bunch of articles pop up on my screen and I click one of them. ‘Potentially,’ I correct her, quickly scanning through the article. After a moment’s pause I look up at Bea. ‘Call her agent and tell him we’re going to put together a press release saying she’s hypoglycaemic.’

Beatrice throws me a puzzled look.

‘In other words she has low blood sugar.’

Her face floods with recognition. ‘Oh, what a coincidence!’ she whoops, galvanised by this piece of information. ‘So does Mummy! She can’t go anywhere without her Ritz crackers! Once she forgot them and her level dropped and she fainted. Right at the feet of Prince Philip.’ She pauses as she sees my expression. ‘We were in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot at the time,’ she explains.