‘I’m joking. Don’t worry about the fancy meal. I’m going to be working late. I wouldn’t have time to do it justice. There’s a good gastropub round the corner from my office. Why don’t we go there? Save me the schlep into town.’
‘No problem,’ said Thea, a thought formulating in her mind that she could treat someone else – say her mother if she could persuade her to come up to town – to a meal at Gordon Ramsay and then expense it as wooing Guatemala Children. Everybody did it.
At half past eight, Thea pushed open the door of the Sceptre and Pony in Camden Town. She’d been a bit miffed at how easily Luke had responded to her cancelling their dinner, with a brief, emailed: ‘No worries, another time’. But it was for the best, she reprimanded herself. She was not to go running after Luke again just because she’d had a bad day at work. He was as over as cheques, as telephone boxes, as puffball skirts – oh, not puffball skirts, they’d made a comeback recently. Well, anyway, he was over.
Jake was sitting at a corner table, a pint of Guinness in front of him, poring over an orange file. As he saw her approach, he stood up. She’d forgotten how short he was.
‘Hey!’ he said. There was an awkward moment when they both wondered if they should kiss, then both decided they shouldn’t. ‘How are you? Can I get you a drink?’
‘I’ll get them,’ she said and was vaguely annoyed when he said, ‘Oh, OK, thanks.’ Weren’t men supposed to say, ‘No, no, let me.’ But this wasn’t a date, she reminded herself. She was here to woo him and, infuriating as it was, he held all the cards.
‘Thanks,’ he said again when she returned from the bar with a large glass of Barolo for her and another Guinness for him. ‘It’s been a bit of a day as you can imagine. One tiny item about Minnie going to Guatemala and it all goes beserk. The phones have rung more in one afternoon than they have in the past year.’
‘So is she going?’ Thea asked, trying and totally failing to make it sound like a casual comment about the weather.
Jake smiled. ‘I couldn’t possibly comment.’
‘You mean she is?’ Thea leant forward.
‘Maybe,’ Jake said. They both eyed each other, working out who was going to crack first and fill the silence. Time for another tactic.
‘How’s your mum?’
Jake grimaced. ‘Not making a miracle recovery, shall we say. How about your gran?’
‘The same.’
‘It’s crap, isn’t it?’
‘To echo your eloquence: it’s a sack of shit.’
They grinned at each other.
Jake gestured at the blackboard.
‘Maybe we should order some food?’
It took half a bottle of red wine and most of two rare ribeye steaks and chips before Thea could bring herself to acknowledge that Jake might be young and small, but he was still quite good value.
‘I checked your website,’ she said. ‘It said you’re an artist liaison officer, whatever the hell that means.’
He dipped one of his chips in a pool of ketchup. ‘Every charity worth its salt these days has a celebrity division. I’m head of ours. It’s our job to massage the egos of stars who want to do a little charidee work.’
‘To enhance their profiles?’
‘How cynical!’ Jake waggled a Roger-Moore-type eyebrow at her. ‘Maybe they’re genuinely motivated by a desire to help the poor and needy.’
‘Yes, I’m sure.’
‘You journalists. Why can’t you ever believe anything good about anyone?’ He grinned as he popped a cherry tomato in his mouth. ‘It’s a tricky one. They need us to boost their images; we need them even more, but so often it backfires. When I worked for World Hunger we took a film star out to Malawi who insisted on staying in a five-star hotel and flying first class. She drank the mini bar dry, then freaked out at all the flies and squalor and refused to do a photoshoot with a starving child in case she caught something. It cost us thousands of pounds and we got bugger-all back in return.’
‘Who was that?’
He shrugged and made a zipping motion over his mouth. Fair enough. Anyway, Thea knew it was Justina Maguire: everyone had had a laugh about it at the time. PRs were so naive, thinking they could keep a lid on gossip like that. ‘What were you doing before all the charity stuff?’ she asked.
‘I started off at ParaShoot,’ he said, naming one of the biggest celebrity PRs in town. ‘But the work was so vacuous I moved to World Hunger and then to Guatemala Children.’
‘Are you religious?’ Thea was genuinely curious.
When he laughed you could see Jake’s tonsils. ‘No. Do you need to be religious to want to help people?’
‘Not many people do something for nothing.’
‘Cynical, again! I get paid. Just not as much as in my old job. And I’m happier now.’ He looked at Thea. He had nice eyes, humorous ones, but there was a directness to them she found oddly unsettling. ‘Are you happy?’
It was as if he’d asked her if she used vaginal deodorant. Thea felt prickles zigzag along her hairline. ‘What an incredibly personal question.’ She paused for a second, then snapped, ‘Of course I am. As happy as anyone is.’
‘Good,’ Jake said. ‘Just wondering. Do you have a boyfriend?’
An image of Luke flashed up in Thea’s head, like an annoying pop-up on a website. Mentally, she pressed the ‘close’ button. ‘Are boyfriends the key to happiness?’ she asked. ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’
He looked her straight in the eye. ‘No, I’m single. For now.’
‘And so am I,’ she said, irritated by the ‘for now’. Presumptuous little so and so! ‘I’m getting sick of being treated as if I’ve got some terminal disease. I like the way I am. I love my job. I love travelling. I love knowing I can get on a plane in the next hour and wake up the following morning anywhere in the world. If you have a boyfriend you can’t do that kind of thing.’ Unless your boyfriend does it too, she thought, then gulped some more wine.
‘What happens when you get old though?’ Usually people sounded critical of Thea’s footloose approach to life. But Jake’s tone was merely curious.
‘You can’t spend your life worrying about getting old.’ Thea realized she was drunk. God, in the old days half a bottle of red would have just been the warm-up act before getting seriously stuck in. What was happening to her? ‘Sorry, what was I saying? Oh yeah. You can’t worry about getting old. Well, not much anyway. You have to live in the moment.’
‘I agree,’ Jake said.
‘Really?’
‘Yeah.’ He took a gulp of wine. ‘After what happened to Mum, you have to think that way. She was so active, so busy, enjoying life when – wham! – her brain starts to wither and within months she’s the living dead. That’s why I packed in ParaShoot. Life was just too short to waste promoting the winner of I’m a Celebrity’s autobiography. I had to seize the day.’
‘To seizing the day,’ Thea cried, raising her glass.
‘Seizing the day!’ They clinked.
‘Ahem,’ said the waitress, plonking the bill in front of Jake.
Thea looked at her watch. ‘Jesus, it’s nearly midnight.’
Jake laughed. ‘And I’ve got to be at the airport at six.’
‘And you still haven’t told me what’s going on with Minnie,’ Thea slurred.
‘Are you drunk?’
‘Cheeky! I’m… relaxed.’
‘If you say so.’ He smiled. ‘OK, I’ll put you out of your misery. Minnie is going to Guatemala to do some work for us. I think you should send out a team to cover her visit.’
‘Will she give us an interview?’ Thea said.
‘I very much doubt it,’ he said, ‘but you never know. And if you’re not there you won’t get it.’
‘We can’t spend a huge chunk of budget sending a team off to Guatemala on the off-chance Minnie talks to us. I need a guarantee.’ Crossly Thea jabbed her pin number into the waitress’s machine. She felt as if she’d just indulged in a long foreplay sessio
n only to be denied the climax.
‘I can’t give you a guarantee, Thea. I’d be lying.’ Jake held out his hands. ‘Wasn’t that what we were just talking about? Was it Abraham Lincoln who said there are no certainties in life, just death and taxes?’
‘I think it was actually Cliff Richard. No, it was Benjamin Franklin.’
‘Know it all.’ He scratched his head. ‘Look, I can’t say too much at this point but a big news story may come out of this and Minnie may decide to talk to someone. If the Seven Thirty News has a team in place then I will do my best to make sure that someone is you. I can’t say more at this stage, I’m sorry.’
‘All right,’ Thea said sulkily. She stood up. ‘I’m going to get a cab. What about you?’
‘Bus for me. Charity worker, you know.’ Jake pushed open the door, dousing them with a sobering blast of fresh air.
‘Look, there’s a cab with its light on.’ Thea waved frantically. As it stopped she turned to face him.
‘Well, good to see you,’ she said. ‘I’ll talk to the powers that be about sending a team out, though if you can’t promise me anything, I can’t promise you.’
‘I’m not trying to con you. Minnie is going to go to Guatemala City very soon and you’ll be grateful to me if you have your boys in place.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘And I will too.’
They both looked at each other for a second, then he leant forward and standing slightly on tiptoe kissed her on the cheek.
‘Safe journey,’ she said. ‘I’ve got your numbers; I’ll keep you posted.’
‘Ditto,’ he said, then paused. ‘Maybe I’ll see you when I get back.’
‘Maybe,’ she said, climbing into the taxi. ‘If you get us an interview.’
He laughed and shut the door for her. As the cab pulled away, she turned round to see him waving. Tentatively she waved back. And smiled. Something felt weird. It took her a second or two to realize it was the unfamiliar sensation of having enjoyed herself.
An Open Letter to Carla Bryonne
from Hannah Creighton who
knows just how it feels to have a
straying husband
When hannah creighton read about the marital difficulties of WAG Carla Bryonne this week after her former PA Gloria Wilkins alleged that her husband, England and Arsenal striker Duane Bryonne, had had a string of affairs, she felt a tug of sympathy. Here, as one neglected wife to another, she offers Carla some moral support.
Dear Carla
When I read about the pain Duane has allegedly put you through these past few weeks, I felt touched to the soul. Your travails brought back the agony of my own marriage breakdown.
If what I read is the truth, then your husband is an unpleasant, vain philanderer with utter control over you. You feel weak, ugly: used goods. Duane, I would guess, knows how desperately you want him to stay and I suspect he’s loving this power.
The sordid tales of your former PA Gloria Wilkins must have shattered your confidence. Your husband’s behaviour is said to have left you a physical and emotional ruin. I feel for you because I’ve been there. My husband, Seven Thirty News anchorman Luke Norton, cheated on me God knows how many times during our eighteen-year marriage before eventually leaving me and his three children for his 22-year-old pregnant girlfriend, known to my nearest and dearest as ‘the Bimbo’.
The first time I discovered my husband was playing away, I – like you – had just had my third baby. My self-worth was at an all-time low as I struggled to lose the baby weight and to leave the house without pieces of mashed banana clinging to my hair. No wonder my husband didn’t want me, I thought. My heart palpitated, my breathing was out of control. I felt as if I was losing my mind.
It is the toughest thing imaginable to discover that the man who is supposed to be your lover and protector has betrayed you. It’s even tougher when you think about all those times you confronted him only to be told that you were ridiculous, paranoid, that you’d imagined it all. Did Duane call you neurotic? Did he tell you you were so delusional he was inclined to dump you anyway? In public you’ve continued to assert that you believe in Duane, but in private you must at least suspect he has been unfaithful.
Yet, if you’re anything like me a piece of you will still stubbornly cling to the belief that he is telling the truth. I tackled Luke so many times over his affairs, only to be met with angry denials. Like you, I found myself humiliated into looking for hard evidence just so I could know I wasn’t going mad. Having to sneakily read your husband’s text messages makes you feel like the lowest of the low.
For years I too stood by my husband. Unlike you, I didn’t even have a job. I had given up work to concentrate on raising my family and I didn’t know how I would be able to make a go of things financially without him. But finally the discovery of an email made it impossible to avoid the truth any more. When I learned he’d knocked up the little floozy, I had no choice but to kick him out. And do you know what? I survived – though admittedly at times it was touch and go – by focusing on my own well-being and by starting to work again. Today, I am more confident and happier than I ever have been. I have a great new boyfriend and relations with my ex are cordial, if cool.
Carla, I know what hell you are going through. As one woman to another, I urge you to distance yourself from Duane and find strength from friends and family members. Concentrate on your career as a tracksuit designer. Have some nights out with the girls.
However hard you may find it, you must find out if Duane has strayed. Call those involved yourself. What you hear may be unbearably painful but it may also set you free, because the ball will be in your court as to whether to continue with your marriage or not.
You have a long life to look forward to overflowing with adventures and promise. You have your beautiful children. But if you carry on behaving like an ostrich, it may mean the end of not only your marriage but also your sanity. And, believe me, no man is worth that.
Thinking of you Hannah Creighton
23
Time was dragging for Poppy. With Brigita coming four days a week, she quite simply had nothing to do. It was a catch-22 situation: until she had childcare she couldn’t work, but until some work materialized she had to pay someone to look after her daughter (well, OK, technically Luke had to pay, but what was his was hers) when she would have preferred to be doing it herself.
She knew Luke had hoped by employing a nanny they’d eventually be earning more money, but in the short term their expenditure went up. To get back in shape for modelling Poppy joined the Harbour Club just up the road where she managed to eke out her days doing slow lengths of the pool, drinking smoothies in the bar and leafing through old copies of OK! magazine. The place, after all, was full of other bored mothers who sat in huddles bitching about their lazy housekeepers and swapping tips on holiday destinations with kids’ clubs. But, as usual, they were all at least ten years older than Poppy and she knew she’d have nothing to say to them, so she watched them timidly out of the corner of her eye, while reading about Lindsay Lohan’s new boyfriend.
She spent a lot of time cooking elaborate meals for Luke, but she always burnt them or put in too much sugar or too little salt. When she apologized, he’d shrug and say it was OK, he wasn’t very hungry anyway and the rest of the meal would be eaten in silence.
Luke grunted. Poppy cleared up the plates in silence, watched a bit of television and went to bed early.
‘Are you all right?’ Poppy asked after a couple of nights of this.
‘I’m fine,’ he replied unconvincingly. ‘Work is stressful. The shareholders are putting on pressure to bump up the viewing figures. Give the channel a more youthful image.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means,’ Luke snapped, ‘that my job is on the line. I’m over fifty and the channel wants viewers who don’t know who Adolf Hitler was. They want to watch baby faces like that hairdresser Marco Jensen.’
‘Oh, yes,�
�� Poppy said unthinkingly. ‘Someone I saw at the school reunion works for Wicked magazine. She was off to interview Marco.’
Even as she finished the sentence, she saw Luke’s face turn purple. ‘See, that is typical of the way things are going at the moment. It’s all about who looks like they belong in a boyband, not about who’s got experience.’
‘Clara sat on the potty today.’ Poppy tried to change the subject. ‘Brigita says she’s doing really well.’
She wanted to make a cake for Clara’s second birthday, but when Brigita caught her digging around for scales and a mixing bowl in the kitchen, she was outraged.
‘That’s my job, Mummy. You sit back. Relax.’
The cake Brigita made in the form of a chocolate hedgehog with flakes for prickles and cherries for eyes was much nicer than anything Poppy could have created.
Brigita invited some of her nanny friends and their charges over for a birthday tea and, as usual, Poppy hovered on the edges of the group not knowing quite who to talk to and feeling vaguely resentful at having to share her daughter’s special day with strangers.
She was so bored she even resorted to looking at the link her mother had sent her for Jean-Claude. She found a video clip of a tall, white-haired, self-consciously groovy man in his late thirties giving a lecture on ‘Roland Barthes: from Phenomenology to Deconstruction’. Poppy wasn’t exactly sure what he’d have in common with a woman whose favourite read of all time was Flowers in the Attic, but Poppy’s was not to reason why.
Louise had called her when she was stuck in traffic on the M27 to tell her the latest news.
‘He didn’t get back to me, so I called him. He was ever so surprised to hear from me, but he said he’d take me out for dinner next time he’s in London.’
‘And when will that be?’ Poppy said teasingly.
‘He didn’t say. But it’s not a problem because I’ve decided to go on a spa weekend to Marseilles at the end of the month and surprise him, so we can have dinner there.’
It was a relief when, on Thursday morning, Michelle née Migsy Remblethorpe rang.
The Model Wife Page 18
