‘Rhea Haverstock-Harley,’ Cass spits, gazing at the Victoria’s Secret model with loathing. ‘You know she won Hottest Woman in the Stratosphere again in Made Man magazine’s Hundred Hottest list this year?’
Oh, well, now Cass has reminded me of the name, I do, vaguely, know this. And I also recall that, in a (deliberate? publicity-seeking?) echo of the whole Naomi-Campbell-throwing episode, this double-barrelled Rhea girl got in pretty big trouble a few years ago for hitting her hairdresser with her phone. Which, now that I’ve remembered it, has sort of put me off Dillon O’Hara a bit, even though I don’t think he was going out with her at the time.
‘Oh, Made Man,’ I scoff, with a practised air. (Cass didn’t make the top 100 in the most recent poll. I’ve not quite recovered, yet, from the sobbing 3 a.m. phone calls I received from her last week, four nights in a row.) ‘What do they know? And anyway, there’s more to life than just being leered at in your bra by a bunch of drooling pervs, you know.’
‘You’re so right, Lib. I’m going to show them all tomorrow night, by the way.’
(Tomorrow night is the Made Man party celebrating their pathetic poll, and Cass is attending. She may not be Top 100 material, but she’s pert and blonde and on TV, which is evidently quite enough for an invite.)
‘That’s the spirit, Cass!’ I undo one of my Warty Alien gloves, reach across the table and pat her on the hand. ‘You show them all!’
‘That’s why I bought the dress I’m going to wear. It’s got a massively plunging neckline, and it’s totally sheer down the back, so you can sort of see my bum – but through the lace, so it’s really classy.’
‘Cass, no, that isn’t what I meant by show them all …’
‘And I’ll need you to alter that ruby pendant thingy. It’ll look amazing with the dress, but remember I said I’d prefer it longer, so the ruby bit dangles right down into the top of my cleavage.’
That ruby pendant thingy is actually a garnet necklace I made for Cass’s twenty-fifth birthday; painstakingly crafted, to be more accurate, from a gorgeous garnet cabochon (garnet being her birthstone) and a vintage Swarovski-crystal teardrop charm, both hanging from a gold-plated chain that I customized with teeny-tiny garnet-coloured crystals at intervals along the length. Pendant-making may only be a hobby, but I did put a fair amount of work into this particular one, and the chain was so expensive that I could only afford to make it an eighteen-inch pendant (sitting elegantly against Cass’s collarbones) rather than a twenty-four-inch one (nestling brassily between her breasts).
‘I can’t make it any longer,’ I tell her. ‘I don’t have a replacement chain.’
‘Well, bung the ruby bit on the end of a bit of ribbon, or something,’ Cass says, airily unconcerned about compromising the artistic integrity of my creation. ‘I just need it to draw maximum attention to my boobs.’
‘I don’t think you’ll need a necklace to do that.’
‘No, Libby.’ She looks very serious. ‘I really have to pull out all the stops if I’m going to stand a chance up against Rhea Haverstock-Harley.’
‘Surely,’ I say, feeling a bit like whatshisname standing in the sea, telling the tide to go back, ‘you shouldn’t really be in hot pursuit of Dillon O’Hara anyway, Cass. If he has a girlfriend, that is. Not to mention the fact that you have a boyfriend of your own.’
His name is David, apparently. I say ‘apparently’ because Cass hasn’t introduced him to either me or Mum yet. All I know about him is that he’s a ‘talent manager’ for a big showbiz agency, so it’s perfectly possible that he’s covered from head to toe in huge warts, just like my costume, but oozing real pus – and Cass would still be perfectly happy dating him.
‘David isn’t my boyfriend. We’re just seeing each other.’ She emits a sigh of exasperation, as she always does when I don’t just happily spout whatever it is she wants to hear. ‘You’re no use, Cass. I’m going to text a selfie to Mum, see if she thinks I should change into something a bit sexier.’
‘Christ, no, don’t do that!’
I’m not yelping this because I fear that the only thing ‘a bit sexier’ than Cass’s plunging top and micro-shorts is a thong bikini, and I’m trying, as her big sister, to protect her remaining modesty.
I’m yelping this because if Cass texts Mum, Mum will call right back. And after lengthy discussion of Cass’s outfit options, she’ll finally ask to speak to me. And then she’ll ask exactly what part I’ve been given and what my costume is like.
You see, my lack of enthusiasm for the Warty Alien costume isn’t down to the fact that I was secretly thinking I might be the one to catch Dillon O’Hara’s eye if he ever makes it to the shoot this morning. I mean, even if I wasn’t perspiring in puke-coloured latex, I don’t think for a minute that he’s going to stop dead in his tracks, grab the nearest passing crew member and whisper, ‘By God, tell me the name of that flat-chested brunette with the pear-shaped bottom, for until I have bedded her I shall go mad with lust! Mad, I tell you.’
The reason, in fact, is my mother.
The thing is that she’s not only my mother, but also my agent, and the one responsible for badgering The Time Guardians’ casting director until the poor woman eventually cracked and agreed to promote me – against my will, I might add – from Extra to Bit-Parter. So it’s not exactly ideal that the first words I get to speak in an acting role in the last five years are going to be from behind a vomit-green, wart-covered alien head, which renders me not only revolting but also – much more importantly, from my mum/agent’s point of view – invisible.
‘Well, you’re not being any help,’ Cass retorts, ignoring my plea and starting to undertake her very favourite activity – posing for selfies with her mobile phone camera – while I decide that the best way to avoid Mum for a bit longer is to leave Cass to it and go and find myself a bacon roll instead.
After all, I tell myself, as I lumber off the catering bus in my Warty Alien feet, it’s not as if I need to worry about tummy bloat while I swelter away inside my layers of concealing latex, is it? And anyway, the bacon rolls are exceptionally delicious, and made to order by lovely Olly Walker, who’s been one of my best friends ever since I met him, donkey’s years ago, at that godawful Sound of Music audition in Wimbledon. He runs the on-location catering van, so I can go and have a chat with him while simultaneously waiting to be called by the assistant director to deliver my line, and – most important of all – avoiding my mother.
*
Olly is not currently at his catering van. He wasn’t there when I fetched my first bacon roll before going to Wardrobe at eight this morning either, so when I reach the head of the queue, I ask his sous chef, Jesse, if he’s all right.
‘Hasn’t he called you?’ Jesse asks, squirting ketchup onto three waiting rolls he’s just finishing off for Liz, the production assistant (pretty, blonde, and Dillon-ready in a crop top and skin-tight jeans, so I can only assume the bacon rolls are actually for some hungry electricians or cameramen, or something, and not for her to snarf down herself).
‘No. Well, he might have done. I’ve left my phone in my bag.’ I don’t add: because, although I’m twenty-nine years old, I’m still avoiding my mother.
‘He’s gone in his van to the studios. Mentioned something about doing a furniture run. First to Woking and then to you and your new flat?’
This, really, should be making me a bit less stressed about the whole Mum-and-my-Big-Break situation: the fact that I don’t have to go back to her house after work this evening and have her harangue me about my career over the kitchen table. Tonight, if she wants to harangue me, she can do it over the phone while I relax at my very own kitchen table in my very own flat!
It’s not much – it’s really, really not much, just a tiny one-bed above a parade of shops on Colliers Wood High Street; I’ve seen hip-hop producers’ downstairs loos, on MTV Cribs, that are at least three times the size – but I’m going to make it cosy, and homely, and lovely.
Of course, a slight barrier to this, up until a couple of days ago, was that I’ve managed to reach my ripe old age without actually acquiring the basics you need to make a flat look cosy and homely.
I don’t mean cashmere throws and Venetian glass lamps and Victorian writing desks. I mean – and this is a bit embarrassing to admit – a sofa, a table, and a double bed.
I was bemoaning this fact to Olly when he came round to Mum’s in his van the night before last to pick up my boxes full of clothes, books and other bits and bobs, and that’s when he told me about the Pinewood props store. Pinewood Studios, which is where the majority of The Time Guardians gets filmed, is home to an enormous treasure trove (well, a giant corrugated-steel warehouse) of old furniture that’s been used, over the years, to dress the sets of countless films and TV shows. Lots of it is pretty ropey, some of it is surprisingly lovely, and none of it is really used any more. Olly knows about this treasure trove because his Uncle Brian – not his actual uncle, just an old friend of his former-actress mother’s – is the security guard there. Oh, and because Olly’s former-actress mother, who now runs an amateur dramatic society in Woking, is always getting him to raid the props storeroom to bring her set dressing for their productions. Anyway, on Olly’s advice I popped round there when we were shooting at Pinewood yesterday, and managed to put aside a handful of surprisingly lovely things to furnish my flat.
I thought I was going to head back there tonight, with Olly in his van, and pick up the stuff before heading all the way back to Colliers Wood to collect my keys, but obviously it must fit Olly’s schedule better to go to Pinewood himself this morning.
‘Thanks, Jesse. Oh, and I’ll have one just like those, please,’ I add, pointing at the row of bacon rolls he’s wrapping in greaseproof paper to hand over to Liz.
‘You’re kidding,’ Liz says. ‘You can’t seriously be planning on eating a greasy bacon roll.’
Which is a bit personal, isn’t it? I mean, Liz and I have chatted in the ladies’ loos at the studios before, but that’s about it. I wouldn’t have thought we were anywhere near friendly enough for her to—
‘Vanessa,’ she says, in a hushed, reverential (OK, terrified) tone, ‘will literally kill you if she sees you eating so much as a Polo mint while you’re wearing that costume.’
‘This costume?’ I ask, glancing down at my alien head, because I can’t believe a bit of dripped ketchup is going to make the thing look that much worse.
‘It’s one of the most expensive costumes we rent,’ she says, rather piously, as if the money is coming out of her personal bank account and leaving her unable to pay her gas bill. ‘If Vanessa finds out there’s so much as a single, solitary stain on that latex …’
‘OK, forget the bacon roll,’ I tell Jesse. ‘I’ll just have a coffee and a muffin.’
‘A blueberry muffin?’ gasps Liz. ‘Filled with sticky, purple-staining berries?’
‘Fine! Just the coffee, then.’
Which is not going to hit the spot in any way. I mean, I was up at 5 a.m. this morning, in Wardrobe at 7, and I’ve been sweating out vital calories inside this horrible costume ever since.
I think I’ve got a half-eaten packet of peanut M&Ms in my bag, though. I can go and retrieve it from where I think I left it, back on the catering bus, and see if there’s a message on my phone from Olly at the same time.
The bloody costume slows me right down, though. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried walking anywhere while wearing half a stone’s worth of baggy latex, but it’s not the most enjoyable way to get about.
Honestly, on days like today, I seriously wonder what the hell I’m doing pursuing a career in acting. Though, to be entirely fair to the Warty Alien costume, there’s scarcely a day goes by when that thought doesn’t occur. I’m only stuck in the bloody job because of a childhood spent following Cass from audition to audition, during which time I utterly failed to gain any decent qualifications – or other career ideas – of my own.
Well, that and the fact that I’ve always had a bit of a fixation with the movies, and I’ve spent far too long kidding myself that grunting about as a non-speaking extra on iffy British TV shows is halfway to the Old Hollywood magic I’ve long been seduced by.
Far too long, because I don’t think any of my Hollywood heroines ever had to schlump around the arse-end of King’s Cross in latex warts on a boiling June morning …
‘Cheer up,’ a fellow alien says, passing me by on its way out of the Wardrobe trailer nearby. ‘It might never happen.’
‘Easy for you to say. You’ve lucked out.’ I mean this because it – he, I guess, from the voice inside his alien head – is nowhere near as grotesquely attired as I am. His is more like a spacesuit: Guantanamo-orange canvas with a matching orange plastic bubble helmet. No latex, no warts, no problem. ‘But thanks for the moral support. It’s nice when us extras stick together for a change.’
‘You’re welcome. I mean we have to, don’t we, with these arsehole lead actors swanning around the place?’
I snort. ‘When they can even be bothered to turn up, of course.’
‘Oh?’
‘We’re all waiting for his Lord Chief Arsehole to decide whether we’re worthy of his time or not. Dillon O’Hara, I mean,’ I add, for clarification of the ‘Lord Chief Arsehole’ bit.
‘Really? Because I heard he was only called for eleven a.m. So in fact, if he turns up in the next half-hour or so, he’ll actually be early.’
‘Bollocks,’ I snort. ‘He’s late because celebrities like him love to be late. It’s their favourite way of proving to people what a big shot they are.’
‘Be fair to the poor guy,’ the alien extra says. ‘Maybe he got stuck in traffic.’
‘If there’s anything at all he got stuck in, it’s more likely to be some leggy supermodel.’
And then I stop talking.
Because the alien extra is taking off his helmet, and it turns out that he’s not an extra at all.
It’s Dillon O’Hara.
‘That was fun,’ he says, a wide grin spreading over his face. His accent is Irish now, instead of the English one he – I now realize – has been putting on for the last couple of minutes. ‘I felt a bit like a prince in a fairy tale. You know, the kind who disguises himself as a peasant in order to mingle with the real peasants and find out what they truly think about him.’
I’m mortified.
But at the same time, I have to say, I’m outraged. Because not only has he just quite deliberately set me up, he’s also – I’m fairly sure – just pretty much called me a peasant.
‘I didn’t mean to imply,’ he says, as if he’s read my mind, ‘that I think you’re a peasant.’
‘I should bloody well hope not.’
‘But then, to be fair to me, you did just call me – now, what was it? – Lord Chief Arsehole.’
‘That was different …’
‘That’s true. It was behind my back, for one thing.’
‘It wasn’t behind your back!’
‘Well, it wasn’t to my face.’
‘You set me up! You … entrapped me.’
‘Oh, stop getting your knickers in a twist. If you’re wearing any knickers beneath that thing,’ he adds. ‘I mean, Jesus, these costumes are like a bloody sauna as they are, without adding extra layers beneath them, aren’t they?’
I would say something in reply – I’m not sure what, exactly, because it’s not often that I get asked by strange men if I’m wearing any knickers, let alone strange men like Dillon O’Hara who, now that I come to notice it, is even better looking in real life than he looked on the pages of Cass’s Grazia – but I’m stunned into silence by the fact that he’s starting to take his clothes off.
Seriously: he’s undoing the Velcro down the front of his jumpsuit, peeling the fabric off his shoulders and down to his waist and then – oh, dear God – pulling his T-shirt up and over his head to reveal the most perfect torso I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
&n
bsp; I’m not exaggerating: his shoulders are wide and packed tight with lean muscle, he has a smooth, rock-hard chest, and an actual, proper six-pack where most men – my horrible ex-boyfriend Daniel, for example – sport varying sizes of beer gut.
‘Ahhhhh.’ He lets out a sigh of satisfaction. ‘That’s better. They told me, the nice Wardrobe girls, that I’d be more comfortable if I took my T-shirt off, but I got all shy.’ He grins at me, in an extremely not-shy sort of way. ‘I assumed they were just after my body.’
I can’t tell, dazzled as I still am by the ridiculous perfection of the body in front of me, whether his cheeky arrogance is attractive or annoying.
I think, probably, it’s fifty-fifty.
For now, anyway, I need to concentrate on not staring while Dillon swivels round and takes something out of the back pocket of his jeans.
It’s an open packet of Benson & Hedges, from which he’s pulling a cigarette.
‘No!’ I yelp, and then, because he looks rather startled, I explain: ‘I mean, you can’t. Vanessa will have your guts for garters if you light up in costume.’
‘Vanessa … Vanessa … oh, you mean the scary production lady?
It’s reassuring to realize that Dillon is as scared of Vanessa as the rest of us.
‘Yes.’
‘But I’m the big star, right? I should be allowed to do whatever I want, whenever I want?’
I think he’s joking …
‘Or,’ he adds, with another of those grins, ‘I could just nip round the back of this catering bus and have a sneaky smoke where Vanessa won’t catch me. Might be safest all round, hey?’
‘I think that would probably be best.’
‘Join me?’
‘Huh?’
‘Join me? In a cigarette?’
‘Oh … I don’t smoke.’
The moment the words leave my lips, I regret saying them.
I mean, I don’t have to go all ga-ga over the man to be able to admit Dillon’s attractions. And yet here I’ve just turned down the opportunity to continue this little chat – while he remains, I should point out, completely shirtless – just because I don’t actually smoke cigarettes.
A Night In With Audrey Hepburn Page 3
