by Jill Mansell
‘Of course you aren’t. You’re lucky,’ Izzy retaliated. Then, out of sheer pride, she added, ‘And that isn’t my career, anyway. I’m a singer.’
‘I know you’re a singer. Everybody knows you’re a singer,’ blurted out Gina, without even thinking this time. ‘You tell the whole bloody world about it and if you really want to know, that’s what makes it all so laughable . . . As far as I can gather you’ve spent your entire life thinking that one day you’ll be discovered and turned into some kind of star and you don’t even realise that there are hundreds of thousands of other people out there who can sing just as well as you. Being able to sing is . . . nothing!’
All her frustration was spilling out now. The frustration of being unloved and always alone while the rest of the world had fun. The frustration of finally falling asleep at one o’clock in the morning, only to be woken again at two by Izzy’s key in the front door and the sound of her footsteps on the stairs. The frustration of answering the phone for the past two and a half months and endlessly having to say, ‘It’s for you . . .’
‘Well, thanks,’ said Izzy finally. ‘So, tell me, how does it feel to be perfect?’
Wearing her stencilled stockings with defiance, Izzy sang her heart out during her hour-long set at the Davenham Ball, although whether anyone truly appreciated it was another matter. Spirits were sky high and the general noise level incredible. She could have sung hymns and they would have carried on shrieking and dancing regardless.
It was also blisteringly hot and, by the time she left the stage to patchy applause, both her stockings and her pinned-up hair were beginning to droop.
But it wasn’t until she saw Sam, waiting for her at the side of the stage, that she realised how thoroughly miserable she really was.
‘Oh, hell, I never cry,’ she mumbled against his chest, reluctant to move away because then he would see the mascara stains on his clean white shirt. ‘I can’t think what you’re doing here, but I’m awfully glad to see you . . . it’s been the most horrible night . . .’
Bread rolls, as is apparently their wont at such functions, were hurtling through the air. Sliding his arm around her waist, Sam guided Izzy through the maze of bottle-strewn tables and gyrating dancers and led her outside.
‘I truly never cry,’ she repeated in a subdued voice when they at last sat down on a stone bench. Blowing her nose in the handkerchief he’d passed to her, she shook her head and shivered. ‘But honestly you wouldn’t believe the go Gina had at me this evening . . . and now we’ll have to move out and it’s such rotten timing, what with Kat’s A levels coming up . . .’
‘Gina rang me. She told me what happened and asked me to come and find you.’
‘What for?’ Izzy sniffed. ‘Did she think up another dozen or so reasons why I should be ashamed of myself?’
‘She’s sorry,’ he told her firmly. ‘She wants you to know that she didn’t mean any of it, but she was afraid that if she came here herself you’d refuse to listen to her.’
‘She was right.’
‘And she was also afraid,’ he went on, ‘that you wouldn’t go back to the house tonight.’
‘You mean she was worried in case I crept in, packed my things and made off with her precious Royal Doulton dinner service,’ Izzy retaliated, lifting her chin in defiance. ‘According to Gina, I’m the laughing stock of London and the Home Counties, and about as socially acceptable as a bed bug.’
‘Look, she really is sorry,’ said Sam, relieved to see that the tears had stopped. ‘And if you were to give her a hard time, nobody would blame you. But it isn’t you she’s really getting at . . . it’s herself.’
‘Really?’ It was gratifying to know that Gina was consumed with guilt, but Izzy wasn’t going to give up that easily. ‘She certainly had me fooled.’
‘And you aren’t the kind of person to hold a grudge,’ Sam continued, his voice low and encouraging. ‘It isn’t your style.’
‘Nobody’s ever spoken to me like that before,’ she countered, ‘so how would anyone know what my style is? She hurt me, Sam.’
‘I know, I know, but she envies you.’
Izzy pulled a face. ‘And there I was, just beginning to believe you. Now you’ve really blown it.’
‘You’re happy, she’s not,’ he said simply.
‘I’m not happy. I’m a barmaid.’
He gave her a hug. ‘You’re a singer.’
‘But an unsuccessful one, without any future.’ Drawing away from him, she shook her head and looked miserable. ‘That was what really hurt, Sam. Gina was right about that.’
For the first time, Katerina was seriously tempted to tell her mother about Andrew. The way everyone took care of Gina, sheltering her from real life and making endless allowances for her, made her sick. Sharing her wonderful secret with Izzy would make it all that much more bearable.
And although she hadn’t planned on falling in love with Andrew Lawrence, in a peculiarly satisfying way it evened the score, which would surely cheer Izzy up . . .
Some sixth sense, however, prevented her from saying the words. Perching on the edge of Izzy’s bed, Katerina handed her a mug of coffee instead and said, ‘Look, you mustn’t even think about my exams. She’s a complete bitch and I don’t care where we live or how soon we move.’
Considering that it was eight-thirty in the morning, Izzy was astonishingly alert. Rumpling her daughter’s glossy hair, she grinned. ‘We aren’t going to move. Gina’s apologised and it’s all behind us now.’
Katerina pulled a face. ‘I can’t imagine Gina apologising for anything. What was it like?’
‘Oh, very Little Women. She cried a bit, grovelled a bit, lied a bit . . . and I was terribly understanding; wounded and subdued, but prepared to forgive her because I’m such a wonderful human being.’
‘Yuk. Sounds horrible.’
‘It wasn’t horrible.’ Izzy assumed a saintly expression. ‘It was quite spiritually uplifting, as a matter of fact. From now on, I’m sure we’re all going to get along wonderfully.’
‘Why?’ Katerina shot her a suspicious look.
‘Because forgiveness is a virtue, my darling.’ Then Izzy winked and drained her coffee cup with a flourish. ‘And because to make up for being such an old bitch, the old bitch has waived this month’s rent!’
Chapter 18
Doug Steadman was on the phone when Izzy pushed open the door and waded through the piles of junk in his office. Other theatrical agents, she reminded herself with amusement, had plush suites, glittering windows and rows of filing cabinets lined up, military style, against the walls. They had computers, air-conditioning and alarmingly efficient staff capable of working both.
Only Doug, however, could operate out of such Dickensian chaos and manage - somehow - to make a living out of it.
He gave her an abstracted wave, straining the seams of his shirt as he did so, and said, ‘Yeah, fine, I’ll tell him when he next calls.’ The moment he replaced the receiver, it rang again. Izzy, who was familiar with this pattern of events, removed a couple of bulging box files from the only other chair in the office and sat down.
Ten minutes later, Doug finally left the receiver off the hook, took a noisy slurp of Diet Coke from the can teetering on the edge of his desk and mopped his face with a massive handkerchief. Then he grinned and said, ‘Hi.’
‘I should have worn my dark glasses,’ Izzy chided. ‘Then you’d have thought I was Cher and unplugged the phone straight away.’
‘I would have told you to come back this afternoon.’ He roared with laughter at the idea. ‘Her appointment isn’t until three-thirty.’
‘Dream on, Doug.’
He shrugged, still enjoying his own joke. ‘We all have our little fantasies . . . anyway, how did it go last night? Some twenty-first birthday bash in Wimbledon, wasn’t it?’
His memory was about as efficient as his filing system. Much as she adored her agent, Izzy often wondered whether her once-in-a-lifetime big break might
not have come and gone without her even hearing about it because Doug, overworked and under pressure, had allowed it to slip his mind.
‘Davenham Hall,’ she reminded him, slipping out of her jacket and pushing up the sleeves of her white shirt. The sun was beating through the dusty windows but if she risked opening them a single draught of air might send five million pieces of paper swirling and Doug’s fragile filing system would be destroyed for ever. ‘In Henley,’ she added as she settled back into her chair. A germ of an idea had begun to unfold and in order to press her point further she gave him a look of gentle reproach.
‘Whatever,’ said Doug with an airy, unrepentant gesture. Then, glancing sideways at the disconnected phone, he remembered that time was money. Mopping his face once more, he said, ‘So, what brings you here, my darling? Not that it isn’t always a treat to see you, but . . .’
‘A year or so ago you got me a fortnight at an hotel in Berkshire,’ said Izzy, leaning forward and propping her elbows on his desk. ‘Allerton Towers, I think it was called. And I shared the bill with another client of yours, a blond chap in his twenties who sang and played a guitar. He isn’t with you now - he told me he was going back to teaching. Doug, can you remember his name?’
He frowned, thought hard for several seconds, then shook his head. ‘Can’t say I do, sweetie. Can you give me any more clues?’
Izzy hadn’t seriously expected him to remember. Doug’s memory banks were notoriously selective; when he no longer needed to remember something, he didn’t. But by trekking into his Soho office she had hoped to bully him into ploughing through a few box files in search of an answer.
‘No,’ she said helplessly, ‘but I really need to contact him. His name’s Billy or Bobby . . . something like that . . . and he was living in Willesden at the time. You must have some kind of Cardex,’ she went on. ‘If you could give me a list of all your ex-clients I’m sure I’d recognise his name as soon as I saw it.’
She needed to find that name - it was why she had come here, after all - but the fact that Doug was shifting uncomfortably in his seat - if he possessed such a list he clearly had no idea where to lay his hands on it - seemed at this moment to be almost propitious.
‘You don’t have a list,’ she declared flatly.
‘I do, I do,’ Doug protested. ‘Somewhere . . .’
‘You need a personal organiser.’
He frowned. ‘You mean a Filofax? Izzy, spare me that!’
‘I mean the walking-talking-filing-hardworking-organising kind of personal organiser,’ announced Izzy triumphantly. ‘And I know just the person for the job.’
By this time Doug was looking plainly horrified. ‘You?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ she replied with tolerant amusement. ‘I said organised, didn’t I?’
The last thing in the world Gina wanted to do was work for Douglas Steadman, but after the events of the last couple of days she didn’t have the courage to say no. She had behaved abominably and this was her penance, she told herself as she adjusted the shoulders of her neat navy-blue suit and checked the line of the skirt in her wardrobe mirror. Besides, it might not be too awful; all she had to do, according to Izzy, was pull a filing system into some sort of order, answer the telephone and set up appointments. She would be a clerk-cum-receptionist and at least it meant that while she was sitting at her desk she would be meeting new people and taking the first steps towards building a new life for herself . . .
Izzy was lying full-length across the sofa when Gina returned home less than two hours later. Stuffing the envelope upon which she had been scribbling into her shirt pocket, she sat up and said bleakly, ‘You’ve walked out.’
‘That place is a pigsty,’ Gina retaliated, standing her ground and daring her to deny it. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘You wouldn’t have taken the job. And now you’re giving up, simply because it isn’t Homes and Gardens enough for you.’Then, with a trace of irritation, she added, ‘And what on earth are you planning to do with that?’
Having dumped her bag on a chair, Gina was now painstakingly removing the price sticker from a large aerosol spray of anti-perspirant for men.
‘Who says I’m giving up?’ she countered, dropping the aerosol back into her bag and moving towards the door. ‘I came home to change into something more suitable. That place needs a damn good clean.’
‘With deodorant?’ said Izzy faintly, and for the first time in weeks Gina broke into a real smile.
‘That’s for Douglas Steadman,’ she replied, her tone brisk. ‘You told me he was a nice man, and he is. But Izzy, somebody has to do something about him. He smells.’
Doug Steadman might not have known what had hit him - or his poor office - in the days that followed, but for Gina they were some of the most satisfying of her life. Much to her own amazement she was really enjoying herself and the sheer pleasure of transforming unkempt, dusty chaos into pristine order brought a glow to her cheeks that had been absent for months. She was achieving something, doing something worthwhile . . . and the fact that the task was such an enormous one only made tackling it that much more fun.
With the files stacked in tea chests and Doug - together with his precious phone - relegated to the broad corridor outside the office, Gina scrubbed and scraped at every last disgusting corner, threw out the ancient tattered rugs on the floor, polished the floorboards, cleaned the windows until they glittered and washed down the nicotine-stained walls. Then, just as he breathed a sigh of relief - it was over; he could move back in - she reappeared with three enormous cans of vinyl emulsion and proceeded to paint everything white.
Apart from the ceiling, which she had decided should be primrose yellow.
‘My God,’ Izzy gasped, when she saw it for the first time a week later. ‘Where’s the plaque?’
‘What plaque?’ said Gina, looking worried. If she’d thrown away some irreplaceable award . . .
‘The one Princess Anne’s going to unveil!’ Izzy stuck her arm through Doug’s - so much nicer to be near, nowadays - and gazed around the office, whistling approval. Shamed into action by Gina’s untiring efforts, Doug had allowed himself to be trundled down to John Lewis and had miraculously forked out for yellow vertical blinds, brass spotlights and a charcoal-grey desk whose price had left him gasping but which Gina assured him was perfect. Even the theatrical posters were now neatly framed, Izzy noted, instead of being taped up, yellowing and curly-edged, on the walls.
And the office wasn’t the only thing to have changed, she thought, pleased with herself for having engineered the situation so brilliantly. The transformation of Gina, if anything, was even more startling; whoever could have imagined that she would enjoy getting so dirty, and that she could smile like that . . .?
‘It’s nice, isn’t it?’ Gina was saying now, her eyes alight with pride and her hair still paint-streaked. ‘It looks like a real office. Of course the filing system still needs to be organised, but if I start on it right away I should be able to get it sorted out by Friday.’
The files were still dumped in their tea chests, but the cabinets, dust free and gleaming, stood empty and at the ready. Having listened to Doug and got the gist of what would be necessary, she had already decided how the system should be run. And at least they were agreed on one thing: no computer. Indexes and cross-referencing she could handle, but programs and floppy discs were way out of both their leagues.
‘It’s great, really great,’ said Izzy, gazing longingly at the tea chests. ‘And as soon as this lot’s organised you’ll be able to tell me the name of that chap who played the guitar at Allerton Towers.’
Gina looked surprised. ‘Allerton Towers? Andrew and I went there quite regularly last year . . . we had friends in Berkshire.’ She frowned for a moment, concentrating hard, then her face cleared. ‘You aren’t by any chance talking about Benny Dunaway, are you?’
Chapter 19
It was egg-and-chicken time, Izzy decided a couple of days later. Gina was out
at work, Kat was at school and she had the sun-drenched patio all to herself. In three hours’ time she would be seeing Benny - still living in Willesden and now working as a maths teacher at a local comprehensive - and he would be able to tell her which came first, but overcome with shame at her own ignorance she was desperate to have something . . . anything . . . to show him, to prove that she was serious.
And all she had so far, she thought, were untidy, scribbled-on scraps of paper which looked more than anything else like a harassed housewife’s shopping lists.
Gloomily surveying them now, she realised that if he were to mark her out of ten she’d be lucky to get one and a half. These were the motley sum of her ideas so far and they looked - even to her own eyes, let alone those of a mathematician - pathetic.
