Wilde Women

by Louise Pentland

  ‘I thought you were a modern woman, Kath!’ I laugh, reaching for my phone so I can send a check-in text to Lacey.

  ‘I am! You know I’m very liberal, I just wasn’t prepared for this. I’d love to be young and single in this day and age. I’d have an absolute ball on those dating agency sites you used to use!’ she says, still glued to the TV.

  ‘Apps, Kath, dating apps. And yes, I think you’d be brilliant on a show like this. Perhaps they could have you and Colin on!’ I chuckle.

  ‘Well, we’d certainly show them a thing or two,’ she laughs with raised eyebrows.

  ‘Eww, too far! No, you wouldn’t. Time to turn this off – it’s past your bedtime!’

  And I have to confess, it’s felt like the most special treat to have had my Auntie Kath all to myself tonight.

  TWELVE

  JUNE

  A FEW WEEKS LATER, I’M driving into work after a little stop at Starbucks, and my mind is a whirl of anxiety. I went round to Lacey’s yesterday and the house still looks weirdly immaculate. Every time I see Willow, I’m amazed at how much she’s changed. I tried to have a proper chat with Lacey, but she seemed a bit out of it. I know all new parents are tired, and she said she was feeling much better, but I don’t think I believe her. I asked her about going to see the doctor, and she said she hadn’t had a chance to yet but promised me she would sort it soon … I must remember to check in and see how it goes. I know she needs real help, but you can’t make someone do it if they really don’t want to, can you? Lead a horse to water, and all that jazz.

  I haven’t seen Kath for a few weeks. When I last did it was lovely, but I still wish we saw more of her. I can tell she’s really happy with Colin, and I’m glad there are no issues between us, but I can’t help thinking there’s still something lingering. I mentioned it to Lacey and she said she’d sensed something too. We think maybe it’s a menopause thing and she’ll get back to herself again eventually, but have both vowed to keep an eye on her.

  Last night, Edward came home to a clean house and a beautifully cooked Chicken Cacciatore courtesy of his very loving girlfriend and Lyla only growled at him once, so I think that’s a solid result. I’m trying not to fret over the whole boyfriend/daughter situation, but I know there’s still a bit of resistance I need to work out. Maybe some more mummy time is needed, or maybe I could arrange this dreaded sleepover with Corinthia so she has a bit of distraction. Since having Kath round ‘like old times’, I’ve realised how much I really, really miss her and worry that Lyla’s feeling the same. I don’t want my little girl to be missing her auntie, to not like the man living in her house and to feel her mummy doesn’t care. We didn’t do our Sunday-night production line in the end because Colin wanted to go out for dinner. We’ve said we’ll make it happen some time soon, but I’ll admit I felt a little bit disappointed and weirdly guilty even though it wasn’t my fault. It’ll be OK, though, I tell myself. If there’s one thing climbing out of the black hole of The Emptiness has taught me, I remind myself, almost as though it’s my bloody life mantra, it’s to have a little faith, a little patience and a little trust, and that you can get through almost anything. I’ll add them to my life admin To Do list: sleepovers and Kath time for Lyla.

  I mentally scan the rest of my To Do list. I still need to work out what’s bothering Kath. And help Lacey admit that she needs help. And be a great girlfriend to Edward. And a loving, present mother to Lyla. First, though, I need to get out of the car and go into the office. Today is the day of my meeting with Natalie. She suggested we have a ‘proper chat’. When does that ever bode well? I’ve been low-level dreading it since she emailed.

  ‘MORNING!’ I SAY FAKE breezily as I push open the door into the boiling hot office. It’s June, and while most people are rejoicing for the soaring temperatures, waving their barbecue tongs about with glee and skipping around in light cotton playsuits, I’m just sticky. It’s 9.20 a.m., and the sticky has already begun.

  Naturally Alice and Stuart, our admin and booking support, look perfect and shine-free with their desk fans blowing, and Skye has managed to squeeze her perfectly tanned body into an even-more-cropped-than-usual crop top and what I think she’d call a skirt but what I’d call a strip of jersey wrapped round her bottom. To top the look off she has the Baby Spice trainers I pined for as an eleven-year-old. If I wore this ensemble I’d be sectioned. When Skye wears it, she looks like she’s Insta-famous.

  I’ve also tried to get on-trend with the 1990s vibe, despite feeling utterly triggered because I looked as crap in it the first time round as I do now. But I have tried to make it work for me. I’ve gone for a knee-length ditsy-print button-down dress, a tan cross-body bag and white Converse.

  ‘You look nice, Skye. Very glam,’ I say, trying to start the week on a good footing and with positive vibes, even though I am really not in the mood.

  ‘Thanks. You … I like your bag. Also, you know they can make vegan leather from mushrooms, right? That way we don’t have to slaughter animals and ruin the biosphere for you to feel good,’ she adds, in front of Stuart and Alice, who, as usual, are pretending not to listen but are acutely aware that there could be a showdown any moment.

  ‘I know, Skye. I did it on purpose. I deliberately want to spoil the planet,’ I retort, mentally kicking myself for not saying something more cutting. I may as well just have said, ‘I know you are, but what am I?’

  ‘Wow,’ Skye said as she carried on walking towards Natalie’s office.

  To save face in front of Alice and Stuart I do a laugh and an eye-roll that convinces literally nobody of anything, and then saunter to our office with my head held high.

  Wow indeed. I shut the office door behind me – I’m not in the mood to share space right now – walk the five steps over to my window (which offers a stunning view of the car park and bins) and open it as wide as I can, robbers and intruders be damned. I’m het up over Skye’s nitpicking, annoyed at myself for not being sustainable (I do care, really) and I’m starting to have a tight feeling in my tummy over this morning’s meeting with Natalie.

  I hope it will be fine. I’ve hit all my targets, I’ve worked hard on our expansion projects, there haven’t been any complaints and I’ve not had to take any time off for Lyla being sick or me not being well. It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine. I keep telling myself this until, once again, ‘fine’ means nothing.

  After a brief play around my laptop – pretending I’m busy but really looking at memes and having a quick scroll through the boohoo clothing sale to see if I can find anything that looks trendy and covers all my fleshy bits – I pick up my pad, pen and phone and head across the corridor (gratefully noting that Skye is working/sulking in the kitchen space), to the meeting room where Natalie is hot-desking.

  Two steps from the door, and my phone buzzes. I could do without this right now, but it’s Edward and I have the tingle of joy you only get with a new boyfriend, so I quickly answer.

  ‘Hello, Robin Wilde, Professional Lady About to Go Into a Meeting, how can I help you?’ I say in my best phone voice.

  ‘Oh, hello, Robin Wilde, Professional Lady, this is Edward Frey, about to ask you if you’d like to go out for dinner tonight,’ he says, playing along with my game, which I love him for.

  ‘Mr Frey, I would love to have dinner with you, but I have a child I need to feed, bathe and generally nurture,’ I quip back.

  ‘Ms Wilde, I have spoken to the delight that is Auntie Kath and that’s all taken care of,’ he says assertively. God, I love his voice. It melts me. I don’t feel like I’m standing in the corridor about to have a meeting with Natalie, I feel like I’m floating in a calm void where everything is, indeed, taken care of. Maybe I need to book in for one of those saline-water-immersion-tank jobbies.

  ‘Ah, that’s nice then. Are we celebrating something?’ I ask, feeling so happy to have a boyfriend who organises little things like this for us.

  ‘Well, I want to spend time with you, and also …’ his voice c
hanges, only a tiny bit but noticeably to me, ‘I’d like to speak to you about something. It’s not really an over-the-phone thing, and I don’t want us to be distracted.’

  My heart tightens. The last time I did this I was trying to tell him that I’d lost the baby neither of us had planned but had started to love. And the last time he said this, he asked me if he could move in. So either this is very, very good or very, very bad.

  ‘Oh.’ I don’t really know what to say.

  ‘Robin, are you coming in?’ Natalie pops her head out of the door with a smile on her face but an impatient voice. That blissful, calm feeling has evaporated entirely.

  ‘Robin, are you there?’ Edward prompts. I want to run away from work and find out what he wants right now. Is he sick of family life already? Have I pushed him too far with having to always consider Lyla? Is he bored with things? Maybe he’s not moving back to the UK after all. Maybe he wants to end things. My mind whirs faster than I can keep up, and I have to reach out to hold the wall as my legs feel like jelly. Deep breath in, fake it till you make it, I tell myself.

  ‘Yes! Sorry! Dinner sounds great! Can’t wait. I’ll meet you at home. Obviously. We both live there, ha,’ I start to babble as I gesture to Natalie that I’ll be just one minute.

  ‘OK. Missing you,’ he finishes.

  ‘Missing you too. Have to go now. Sorry!’ I press end.

  So here goes. Time to stop second-guessing what Natalie wants and face the music.

  THIRTEEN

  ‘SORRY, NATALIE, EDWARD RANG, and I thought it might be important. It wasn’t, though. Well, it was but it wasn’t. It might be, later.’ I gabble again, a bit short of breath.

  ‘Take a moment, sit down and have some water,’ Natalie says in a firm but motherly tone. ‘You’re flustered.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, taking a sip from the glass of water she’s poured for me from the jug on the big black meeting table. ‘Bleurgh, you know what it’s like.’

  ‘I do, I do. The juggle is real!’ she laughs, shuffling all her papers into one pile. She has everything, from printed spreadsheets to magazine clippings of models we’ve worked on to notepads full of ideas and her laptop open on her inbox.

  ‘So, is everything OK?’ I venture, pretending to feel confident.

  ‘Really cutting to the chase there,’ Natalie says, smiling and looking up from her papers. ‘I like it!’

  ‘Ha! Well, I’m eager to get going on whatever it is you wanted to see me about. I’ve made good progress on the tutorials project. I’ve had a bit of an idea for a beautiful space we could use at my friend’s florist’s – remember, where I had my birthday?’ I say, easing into the conversation, my faked confidence starting to turn into actual, real confidence as I think about my ideas.

  ‘I do! And I do want to talk about that and lots of other things – we’re long overdue a proper catch-up – but we need to talk about this first,’ she says, placing a hand on a paper folder.

  ‘OK – what’s that?’

  ‘Remember the movie job in New York?’

  ‘I’ll never forget it! For a hundred different reasons,’ I laugh knowingly.

  ‘Aha, no, I didn’t think you would. Nor will I. I don’t think I’ve had a bug that bad since!’ she says, recalling how she got ill and left me in the driving seat. She laughs and takes a deep breath. ‘I’m worried. We agreed a five-year contract in principle, with them filming over here at Pinewood and on location in the UK last year, this year and over the next two years. Clearly, though, this hasn’t happened. They haven’t gone with anyone else, and they haven’t been shooting in the States.’

  ‘OK …’ I nod, not sure where this is leading.

  ‘After the shake-up with Langston …’ She pauses, looking at me.

  ‘Mmm,’ I say, feeling guilty but proud. Langston was the set director who I’d exposed for sexually and physically abusing a young actress called Marnie. As you can imagine, it was a Big Thing.

  ‘After the shake-up, they decided to restructure the team, and that must have caused delays. Add to that the #MeToo movement, which I’m so proud we were a part of, exposing that vile man, plus a relook at the budget with the new structure, Brexit and European work licences, it’s all gone a bit quiet.’

  ‘Wow. Yes. God.’ I don’t really know what to say to any of this. It sounds too much. ‘So, have we lost it, do you think?’ I ask tentatively.

  ‘I don’t think it’s a lost cause, but I think we need to remind them who we are, what they agreed with us and what we can do.’ She pauses, and for a moment I’m not sure if I want to hear what she’s going to say next. ‘When they offered the contract in principle, I budgeted that money straight into the business. It’s allocated to all kinds of things like kits and equipment and expenses for travel, but also the big things – the tutorials expansion and, most pressingly, people’s salaries.’ Natalie pauses again. ‘We all need this contract to come through,’ she continues, looking directly at me with a hint of fear in her face.

  ‘OK,’ I say, letting the gravity of the situation sink in and feeling a wave of anxiety wash over my whole body, leaving the hairs standing up on my arms. Working at MADE IT is more than a job. The thought of losing staff, the thought of – I can hardly bear to give it headspace – losing my job, makes me feel faint. But then the feeling passes, and is replaced by something like rage, or energy. I won’t let MADE IT suffer – I won’t ever let it go without a fight.

  ‘There must be something we can do. Are they making another movie?’ I ask, suddenly feeling stupid, because if they were then we’d be recommissioned and paid for our contract.

  ‘Good question.’ Natalie’s such a builder-upper. ‘I have already been in touch, thinking that while they’re not shooting a big project right now, we could go and do a bit of PR, like the old days. Head over there, offer free makeovers for the staff in the office, see if they’re working on any smaller movies or commercial shoots that we could assist on, wine them and dine them a bit, win them over again.’

  ‘Natalie, I want to be you when I grow up. That’s such a fabulous idea. Do you want me to find out what shoots they have coming up?’ I offer, totally geed up and motivated by her idea. Of course Natalie has a plan. It’s going to be fine, I tell myself.

  ‘Thank you, Robin, but it turns out it’s not that simple. They’re working on a national sportswear TV ad that – wait for it – incorporates the hero from the horror film we worked on. They’re shooting in a few weeks. They’d already started talking to other agencies, but when I said that should be our gig, signed and sealed, they blustered. Said something about a Skype meeting to talk about it. But you and I know that if we sit here talking at our laptops while they sit there in New York with local agencies knocking on their door, we’ll lose the work. They said they thought it was too far for us to want to travel for a three-day shoot for an ad. Well, let’s show them the full MADE IT service. I’m not phoning this one in – I’m going to New York, and I want you there with me. We’re going to wow them, and when the week is done, we’ll be the ones in pole position for their next feature films.

  ‘Silver screen, here we come!’ she finishes triumphantly.

  ‘Wow! I mean, I don’t know what I’ll do with Lyla, but yes, I am always here for MADE IT, and yeah. Wow. OK!’ I say, tapping the table and nodding but feeling overwhelmed at the thought. And not just because of Lyla. What about Lacey? Would Gloria mind if I miss a WWW meeting? And will I be good enough to pull off this deal?

  But Natalie carries on. ‘I know it’s a big ask, and yes, it’s a big idea. So, it’s a three-day project, but I figured we could spend an extra few days going on the charm offensive, then update the contract and sign on the dotted line before we go home. Pretty simple, really, aside from flying across the world with all our kit and camping out in the Big Apple!’ she says, putting the lid on her pen as though that’s that.

  I’m still trying to take it all in, but as I hesitate, thinking of the right thing to say, I e
nd up saying nothing at all.

  Sensing my concern, Natalie says, ‘Are you up for it? I considered taking Skye, but you were what sealed the deal last time and you’re the absolute best fit for this.’

  ‘I am up for it, I’m always up for a challenge.’ As I say it, I realise I mean it. A few years ago, I’d have backed out immediately. I used to say no to every opportunity out of fear – then this year I’ve found myself saying yes to everything and taking on too much, but I’m determined to find a middle path. I decide honesty is the best policy. ‘I’m totally on board. I’m just a bit worried about Lyla. It’ll be nearly her summer holidays, and she’s been struggling a bit lately with Edward moving in, so I don’t know, I feel like I need to be with her a lot right now. I’m sorry. I’m not being very helpful, am I?’

  I start to worry I’m not being the employee Natalie wants and needs, and I so badly want to please her. I really want to be the best mum, but I also really want to be the best me. I’ll feel torn and guilty whatever I do.

  ‘Robin, stop always torturing yourself and putting yourself down. You are amazing at what you do, and the fact that you think so much of Lyla and her well-being shows me what a conscientious woman you are. You’re exactly the kind of woman I want on my team. You’ve worked your absolute arse off these last few months – we’ve all noticed. I know last year’s loss must still hurt, and having Edward move in is great, but it’s a monumental new life chapter. Maybe we just need to look at this differently. Why don’t you bring Lyla with you? I was thinking of bringing Martin anyway, and you know we love her. Instead of ludicrously priced hotels we could rent a house and all share. We’d cover Lyla’s flight as your expenses. In fact, could you ask Kath to come too? Didn’t you say she was quite the traveller? If MADE IT’s paying for the house, she’d just need her flights. Then she could take care of Lyla while we’re working,’ Natalie says smoothly and matter-of-factly.