[Escape 01.0] Escape for the Summer

by Ruth Saberton

  Chloe was mortified. “Of course I did. I just haven’t seen Gemma for a few months. Work’s been quiet for her. Let me assure you that the last time I saw my client she really was a size fourteen. Weren’t you, Gemma?”

  Gemma nodded miserably. As if it wasn’t humiliating enough to be stripped down to her knickers in a room so cold that her goosebumps had goosebumps, now she had to have all her squishy bits poked and prodded in full view of all the other stick-insect models. Even though she’d fixed her gaze firmly on the studio floor, Gemma could tell that the other, slimmer girls were sniggering and enjoying every minute of her humiliation. Oh God, she knew she should have turned this job down but her agent had insisted that it would be, in her words, “a nice little earner”. So, being perpetually broke, usually because her flatmate Angel had failed to make the rent, Gemma had taken the job, albeit against her better judgement. Acting work had been thin on the ground lately and so she’d taken her eye off the ball a bit with her weight, choosing to treat herself to a Snickers when she didn’t get a call back or grabbing a quick Maccy D’s on the way home from yet another fruitless casting. Somewhere in her wardrobe, stuffed full of clothes that ranged from twelves up to voluminous size eighteens, there were garments she could squeeze into which bore the legend 14, so technically when Chloe had asked her what she size she was she hadn’t really been lying.

  I’m an actress anyway, not a bloody model, thought Gemma resentfully while her agent and the creative director continued to bicker and prod her flabby bits. In the cold studio lighting her cellulitey legs were the same colour and texture as the porridge she’d shovelled down before she’d left the house that morning. Well, porridge was good for you, wasn’t it? Everybody knew that. But maybe without the huge dollop of condensed milk and the three big spoonfuls of sugar? whispered the Diet Angel, who often liked to perch on Gemma’s shoulder. Fat lot of use she was; Gemma hadn’t heard from the Diet Angel for weeks. She thought it must have been squashed flat by the Diet Devil, who seemed to be in permanent residence, urging her that one more slice of pizza wouldn’t hurt and murmuring Go on, you’ve eaten one biscuit; you might as well just finish the packet. However, the Diet Devil didn’t have to parade around in her knickers in front of a group of girls who made Bambi look chunky.

  Gemma sighed. Maybe on the way home she’d pop into her local Greggs? They always saved her a cheese swirl or two. That would cheer her up.

  “I don’t know why you’re sighing,” hissed Chloe as, with her bony fingers biting into Gemma’s fleshy shoulder, she propelled her client across the studio. “You’re not the one who’s just been made to look like a total and utter dick. In fact, worse than that! An unprofessional total and utter dick! You told me that you were a size fourteen!”

  “I am a size fourteen. I think these pants are probably cut on a bit on the small side,” protested Gemma, trying to conceal her billowing body with a wrap.

  Chloe, in her early forties and funky and slim, shot Gemma a withering look. Dragging her client to a full-length mirror and whipping away the wrap, she said sharply, “Look in that mirror and tell me what you see! Is that a size fourteen? Seriously?”

  Gemma gulped. There was a lump in her throat the size and consistency of one of the rock cakes she’d baked the day before. They’d been lovely too, just the right mixture of crusty on the outside but soft and fluffy and curranty on the inside. Gemma loved to bake, especially when she was feeling low – which seemed to be most of the time just lately. The problem was that she also liked to eat what she’d baked. She was already looking forward to going home and polishing off the rest of the batch. Preferably all alone in her bedroom, where nobody could have a go at her.

  “Don’t, Chloe!” she begged, when her nose was practically rammed into the glass. God, but Gemma hated mirrors. Really hated them. In fact Dracula was probably happier to tuck into a clove of garlic than Gemma was to look at her reflection. She managed to avoid mirrors most of the time, or full-length ones in any case, which was some feat for somebody who shared a house with Angel, the girl who’d have trampled Narcissus on her way to a spot of pool-gazing.

  “Don’t you dare look away!” warned Chloe when Gemma tried to avert her eyes. “This is called tough love, Gemma! No matter what Christina Hendricks might say, nobody wants to hire a fat actress. Now look in the mirror!”

  So Gemma looked, and a plump blonde, all natural honey curls and eyes the same bright blue as hyacinths, peered back at her. Those were the good bits, but the face, blurred by weight and with the suggestion of a double chin, wasn’t quite so great. The pink control underwear sliced into her flesh like cheese wire, sucking lumps and bumps in for sure but not quite able to contain them when they made a break for freedom. Completing the picture were dimpled arms bristling with goosebumps, a tummy like a Michelin tyre and patchy fake-tanned legs that chaffed at the top.

  Oh God. She looked like one of those “before” shots that they took of fat celebrities to sell their fitness DVDs! If only she could now magic herself an “after” shot. How on earth had this happened? Tears blurred the hideous image.

  “Gemma,” said Chloe, meeting her eyes in the glass, “I’ve been your agent for six years and I have to be honest. Unless you make some pretty major changes you won’t be getting any work at all. Don’t you want to act?”

  Gemma nodded. Her throat was too tight with tears to speak. Of course she wanted to act! It was the only thing she’d ever wanted to do – apart from to be with Nick, of course. Six weeks ago he’d dumped her again; the last time she’d seen him had been at their local, where he was wearing some skinny brunette like a chest bandage and giving a good impression that they were Siamese twins joined at the tongue. Gemma had turned around and gone home via Waitrose. That night she’d enjoyed a threesome with Ben and Jerry, the only men she’d rely on in the future.

  Chloe sighed. Gemma was a lovely girl and, when she had been successful in auditions, she’d always managed to impress the people she worked with. With her curves and blonde curls and mouth like an unpopped fuchsia bud, she was a dead ringer for a Botticelli angel who’d gobbled just a little too much ambrosia. It was pure bad luck she’d been born a few centuries too late. Even icons like Marilyn Monroe would struggle to find work in the body-obsessed twenty-teens. There was only one way Gemma could possibly pick up roles now, and that was to lose some weight – and pronto. Chloe, who existed on a diet of Marlboros and fresh air, found it hard to be sympathetic, especially now that today’s commission was in serious danger of going down the drain. You had to suffer to be beautiful, right? And Gemma clearly hadn’t been suffering. At all.

  “I have had work,” Gemma protested, through the rock-cake lump. Her voice sounded odd, glass fragile and as though it might shatter at any moment. A bit like her self-confidence, in fact. “I was in EastEnders and I—”

  “And you asked Phil Mitchell if he had a light,” interrupted Chloe, rolling her eyes so much that Gemma almost expected them to roll right out of her head, across the studio and down the street. “That was two years ago! It’s been two years since you had a proper television role. Since then you’ve only had a couple of voice-overs, that Shakespeare play for schools – where you were fantastic as Ophelia, I know – and a few adverts. Unless you up your game you’ll be left behind. Babe, I can’t afford to carry any dead wood!”

  Gemma stared at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Her agent exhaled slowly. “That I’m going to have to let you go unless you sort yourself out, lose the weight and find a way to get yourself out there. Flick through Closer or Heat – they’re full of TOWIE people and soap stars; you should be right up there with them. You can act, Gemma, but unless you start marketing yourself slightly more seriously I’m going to have to remove you from my books.”

  “You’ll drop me?” Gemma couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “After all these years? Because some stupid lingerie people thought I was fat?”

  Chloe shrugged. “Let’
s face it: you’re not exactly earning me any money. I do have kids to feed, you know.”

  She shouldered her Mulberry bag and considered Gemma thoughtfully. The girl had potential, she really did. She’d graduated from the BRIT School as one of the most promising students in her year, but somehow she’d just never managed to fulfil that promise. Maybe she was just too kind? Too easy-going? Too undisciplined? All qualities that the world of the media hardly valued, preferring to grind people like this into the dirt. Maybe Gemma Pengelley would have been better off staying in the West Country, filling her face with pasties and scones? Either way, a kick up the ample backside was most definitely what she needed.

  “Please don’t take me off your books,” Gemma whispered. “I’ll lose weight. I’ll get myself in the papers. I’ll do whatever it takes, but please, please, don’t stop representing me.”

  “Then sort yourself out,” Chloe said sharply. “I don’t know what’s been going on but you look a state.” Pulling out her BlackBerry, she scrolled through the calendar and punched decisively at the keys. “We’ll meet again at the start of September and regroup. If by then you seem committed and have been proactive, then I’ll continue to represent you and be more than willing to put you forward for any roles that may be suitable. But if not...”

  The words unsaid hung heavy in the air like something out of Harry Potter. Gemma nodded. It was fair enough, she reflected miserably as her agent stalked off, leaving her to continue the shoot in the revolting underwear. She had let herself go, hadn’t she? While she posed as best she could, stomach in and chin out and horribly conscious of the comparison she made to the other skinny models, Gemma thought how unfair it was that she had always struggled with her weight. Even as a child she had only to look at a saffron bun to be pounds heavier. Add to this a mother who was a fantastic cook and who dished out huge stews and buttery mash to her strapping sons and husband when they came home after a hard day’s graft on the family farm, and it was no wonder she’d always piled on the pounds. Gemma loved to cook too and adored the magic of throwing ingredients together that resulted in flavours bursting across her tongue. The only problem was that she didn’t adore the subsequent bursting waistbands quite so much.

  “Turn left, love; cover your belly with your arm,” called the photographer. Woodenly, Gemma obeyed. No more just thinking about it, even if it was the thought that counted: she’d go on a diet when she got home, she really would. Once she’d finished up all the goodies in the fridge first, obviously. There were those rather scrummy rock cakes and last night’s lasagne too. It would be wrong to bin that lot. Mum would have a fit at such waste. Along with the Diet Angel and the Diet Devil, her mother also spent a great deal of time in Gemma’s head.

  Once the shoot was over – it hadn’t escaped Gemma’s notice that she’d spent most of it draped on a chaise longue with her fat bits disguised by gravity and a cunningly draped shawl – she retreated back to the cramped changing room. A gaggle of models hogged the mirror, dabbing at their make-up with cleanser and elbowing each other out of the way as they jostled for pole position. Sinking into a corner and hoping to stay off the radar, Gemma wrestled herself out of the control pants and slumped on a chair while her internal organs rearranged themselves. All this humiliation and pain for a measly few hundred quid? Maybe she should just cut her losses and look for a normal job?

  But what about her ambition to be an actress? All those childhood dreams couldn’t be wasted just because she was a greedy pig. Maybe when she got home she’d borrow Angel’s laptop and check out Weight Watchers? All you had to do was count the points, apparently, so maybe you could have all your points consisting of chocolate and vodka? That was Gemma’s idea of a balanced diet – a Dairy Milk held in each hand. At this thought she instantly felt much more cheerful. That was Project Weight Loss sorted. By September she’d be a size ten if it killed her. All she had to do now was find a way of raising her profile. Short of shagging a Premier League footballer though (which wasn’t likely, as they didn’t tend to hang out in the Dog and Rabbit off Fulham Broadway), she was a bit stumped. Maybe Angel would have an idea? Gemma perked up at this thought. Yes, Angel was always good for an idea. After all, hadn’t she nearly managed to gatecrash Peter Andre’s party?

  Gemma’s plotting was cut short by a flurry of excitement at the far end of the room. Looking up, she noticed that one of the models, a tall brunette with collarbones that could take someone’s eye out, was shrieking excitedly into her iPhone while the other girls twittered and squeaked. At first Gemma ignored them; during the shoot the brunette had made some particularly bitchy comments about Gemma’s weight. But after a moment her curiosity got the better of her, especially when she heard the word Cornwall. Pretending to be engrossed in teasing her hair into an updo, she sidled up to the mirror for a good earwig.

  “Oh my God! You lucky cow, Emily!” one of the girls said enviously. “You seriously get to spend the whole summer in Rock and you get paid for it? I’m well jel!”

  Emily flipped her silky tresses back from her face and pouted at her reflection. “The filming starts next week and you should see the house the production team has hired! It’s lush!”

  The other girls twittered excitedly, but only Gemma really knew just quite how lush this house would be. She came from the less glamorous town of Bodmin, famous mainly for its gaol and its beast, but she’d visited the upmarket holiday destination lots of times. Although she’d yet to bump into Wills or Harry, Gemma was always struck speechless by the stunning properties facing the estuary, the superyachts bobbing on the pontoons and the endless four-by-fours driven by women as glossy and highly strung as thoroughbreds. Rock was the playground of the rich and famous, that was for sure. With Rick Stein’s just a boat ride over the Camel Estuary and Jamie Oliver’s a few miles away at Watergate Bay, it was a kind of Chelsea on Sea: the likes of Gemma could just about afford a latte at one of the stylish new coffee bars, and that was only on payday. Still, expense aside, Rock was one of Gemma’s favourite places and her ultimate dream was to be a famous movie star, buy a house there and bake lots of yummy cakes in her luxury kitchen.

  Err, she meant go running and eat salads. Or something like that anyway. Emily, who probably got full just staring at a lettuce leaf, would fit in perfectly.

  “But to film with Callum South,” breathed another model enviously. “You’re so lucky, Em! He’s smoking hot!”

  Emily shrugged her skinny shoulders nonchalantly, enjoying every moment of having a captive audience. Everyone knew that ex-Premier League star Callum, who’d battled against and conquered his booze and junk-food addictions in a blaze of red-top glory, was the hottest thing on reality TV. His last two shows had pulled in over six million viewers and now you could scarcely go a day without seeing his handsome face plastered across a billboard or in a magazine. Gemma had had a secret crush on him for years.

  “So what’s this show about?” asked another model. “I liked the one where he did a boot camp for six weeks. It was hilarious.”

  In spite of herself Gemma nodded. She’d loved that show. Callum South’s ongoing battle of the bulge was well documented in the tabloids and his stint at an army-style fat camp had been compulsive viewing. She’d genuinely felt for him when he’d first arrived and been bullied over the assault course. And when his calorie-counted supper arrived she’d shared his pain so greatly she’d been forced to call for a Domino’s.

  “It’s some get-fit thing again,” Emily said dismissively. “He’s got to spend the summer doing all sorts of water sports, losing weight and competing against members of the public who’ve been picked to take part. He’s a right lard-arse at the moment, so he might as well work it off and make some money. Fat Camp for the Famous is what they should call it!”

  The others tittered sycophantically. Gemma’s hands curled into fists. Still raw from the photo shoot from hell, she couldn’t stand to hear somebody else criticised for his weight. What was it with these bloody diet and exercis
e Nazis?

  “That’s a mean thing to say!” she said hotly.

  Emily’s top lip curled. “Why? Because it’s true?”

  “No! Because it’s a horrible way to speak about someone!”

  Gemma’s heart was pounding but Emily just laughed, with the shrill screech of a hyena about to go in for the kill. Too late, Gemma realised that she’d laid herself wide open. So much for keeping her head down. Maybe next time she’d wear a helmet?

  “Touched a nerve has it?” sneered Emily. “Don’t think we didn’t notice they had to shoot with a wide-angle lens today! Well, I tell you what, if you feel sorry for Cal why don’t you take a leaf out of his book and join him? You could call it Fat Camp for Failures!”

  While the other girls shrieked with mirth, Gemma racked her brains for a witty comeback, but by the time she’d collected her thoughts Emily and her cronies had long since shuffled their UGG boots out of the room. The brunette clearly thought she’d won the day – but if she’d turned around she’d have seen that, rather than tears, an expression of excitement was spreading across Gemma’s face.

  Oh my God! For such a brainless bimbo Emily was a genius. Gemma could have risked being skewered by a hipbone and hugged the girl! That final cutting comment, designed to wound in the worst possible way, had had exactly the opposite effect. It had given Gemma the most fantastic idea and maybe the solution to all her problems!

  Gemma dug her mobile out of her bag and began to text Angel. There was no time like the present…

  Chapter 4

  By the time Andi arrived at the office she was running horribly late and was none the wiser for having spent twenty minutes with the bank manager. All she’d managed to discover was that although all of her available funds had been withdrawn, none of her security had been breached. Whoever had managed to make the transactions had done so by using all her online passwords. This only meant one thing: whoever withdrew the money was either some kind of online evil genius or somebody she trusted. Andi didn’t need her economics degree to figure out who that might be.