Lizzy Harrison Loses Control

by Pippa Wright

  ‘You’ve got the planning meeting in five minutes, just moved to Jemima’s office. Should be out by eleven. No lunch today because I’ve booked you in at the dentist for twelve-fifteen. Book signing for Eliza Evans at Selfridges at four – taxi will pick you up from here at three-thirty so you can see her before she goes on. Taxi will collect you at five to take you for drinks with Tom Porter—’

  ‘Tom . . . ?’ Camilla looks blank.

  ‘Porter. Isobel Valentine’s new agent? To discuss how to spin her pregnancy? You remember – it’s triplets, but she doesn’t want to admit it’s IVF and wants a “my miracle babies” story?’

  ‘Of course, of course – right. Tom Porter,’ says Camilla, still looking a bit confused. I’ve got to allow her this one as Isobel Valentine gets through agents like other people get through packets of chewing gum.

  ‘But before you get on to any of that, you’re probably going to want to see this.’ I hand her the copy of Hot Slebs, open at page twelve.

  ‘Brill-o-pads, Lizzy, what would I do without you?’ says Camilla, racing out of the door with the magazine in her hand. Almost immediately I see her stop in the corridor.

  ‘Bloody buggering bollocks.’

  As Camilla stomps down the corridor, frowning at Hot Slebs, I notice Jemima’s PA nudging her friend to point out the stain that Camilla hasn’t quite managed to remove from her skirt. I distinctly see her mouth the word ‘Sperminator’.

  You wouldn’t think it to look at her this morning, but there was a time when Camilla Carter was the most formidable PR woman in the business. Her stable of celebrity clients could be relied upon to be in the papers for all the right reasons – My Fabulous Wedding, My Baby Joy, My Oscar-Winning Role, My Selfless Charity Work. She seemed like a cheery Malory Towers captain of games, all heartiness and hockey sticks, but when crossed she was a one hundred per cent scary head girl. Features editors quaked at her call. If you pissed off one of Camilla’s clients, she’d withhold access to all the others until you promised her the sun, moon and stars. She’d insist on copy approval for interviews, make-up artists who charged a thousand pounds an hour, helicopter rides to and from photo shoots. It was easier to pull the offending story before it ran and save yourself the grief.

  And it wasn’t just the press who obeyed her every order. Spoiled celebrities who strayed from the pre-approved Carter Morgan publicity path were read the riot act. They stubbed out their cigarettes, looked shamefacedly down at their shoes and called her ‘Miss’ as if they were back at school because they knew they owed Camilla Carter everything.

  It was thanks to her that coverage of Isobel Valentine’s Fabulous Wedding hadn’t included a single mention of the best man’s spectacularly drunken speech (culminating in a toast so obscene that the groom had punched him backwards into the wedding cake).

  It was thanks to her that Damien Elliott’s Baby Joy was unmarred by the revelation that Damien had demanded a paternity test after his wife had admitted shagging not only her personal trainer but also the gardener, driver and pool boy. (Really, who even has a pool boy when they live in Cheshire?)

  It was thanks to her that the press faithfully reported the racy ladies’-man exploits of cinematic action star David Mortensen, when most evenings found him happily at home in the company of his long-term male lover and their two toy poodles.

  But these days it was thanks to me that anything got done at all.

  Camilla has always been one of those women whose seemingly chaotic exterior belies astonishing organization and an ability to leap from one idea to the next in a way that leaves lesser mortals agape. But a ludicrously early return from maternity leave has meant that, lately, her chaotic front isn’t covering a cunning strategy or a trademark Carter master plan. It’s only covering more chaos. She’s slipping, and we all know it.

  And no one more so than Jemima. In the three short months Camilla was away on maternity leave, Jemima hovered around her clients like an Armani-clad vulture. If Camilla is the talent of the operation, Jemima is the naked greed and ambition: Carter Morgan is merely a stepping stone to establishing the world-dominating conglomerate that will be Jemima Morgan PR. She’d think nothing of finding an excuse to force Camilla out and get her manicured talons on her glittering client list.

  So far Jemima has persuaded three of Camilla’s clients to be looked after by her ‘temporarily’.

  ‘Just while poor Cam gets back on her feet – it would help her out so much if you’d agree, sweetie. You know she’d never say so to you, but all those children of hers are so demanding, and I know you wouldn’t want to add to her worries.’

  And now she’s got her fangs into Camilla’s clients, there’s no way she’ll let go without a fight.

  In the four years I’ve been Camilla’s PA, she’s worked me like a dog, but taught me everything she knows. To Jemima’s horror, Camilla chose to employ me – the disillusioned pushing-thirty journalist from the Croydon Examiner – over the hordes of ferociously confident twenty-two-year-old graduates who battered on the doors of Carter Morgan each summer. Camilla always claimed she was after maturity and experience over rapacious ambition, but I think she took pity on me when I admitted that my journalism-school dreams of a career on a glossy magazine had come to a shuddering halt in a cul-de-sac of regional flower shows and church fêtes. She parachuted me straight into glamorous parties, introducing me as a rising star; she passed on presents from grateful clients and insisted I took the credit for anything we’d worked on together. When my boyfriend Joe left me two years ago, she arrived at my flat with ice cream, a DVD of Miss Congeniality (in a box set with Miss Congeniality 2, but I wasn’t feeling that bad) and an insistence that I take the week off. In short, she inspired something Jemima wouldn’t ever understand: loyalty.

  I’ll do whatever it takes to help Camilla because I know that, underneath that light crusting of baby sick, she’s still every bit the tough and brilliant PR of legend. But she isn’t exactly helping herself. At the moment she’s less I Don’t Know How She Does It than What In The Name of Arse Is She Doing? I don’t think she had a clue the Randy Jones rehab story was out until I waved it under her nose. I hope she realizes it isn’t just his career that’s in the balance here. It’s hers too.

  By the time she returns from her meeting, it’s clear that it’s going to be a fairly hideous day. I’ve already fielded fourteen phone calls from irate journalists who had faithfully reported Camilla’s ‘exhaustion’ line, only to be proven spectacularly wrong by the Hot Slebs photographs.

  ‘I’m going to make you a cup of tea, Cam, to give you strength,’ I say. ‘You’re going to need it when you see how many messages I’ve got for you about Randy Jones. Just let me know when you want me to hit you with them.’

  ‘Urgh. Thanks, Lizzy,’ she says with a grimace. ‘I’ll take the tea, but hold the messages for now. I’m going to be working on a new press release for Randy, so I’m not taking any calls this morning. Just answer “no comment” for now, and I’ll get back to people with our official statement later.’

  She seems calm, but when I take in the tea a short while later, I can’t help but notice that she’s slumped in her chair looking grey with tiredness.

  ‘Is there anything I can do, Camilla?’ I ask, hovering in the doorway of her office. ‘Break Randy Jones’s legs? Have him sectioned? Buy biscuits?’

  Camilla smiles weakly, sighs and pushes her chair away from the desk. She rubs her temples with the heels of her hands, and then places her palms flat on the desk and takes a deep breath.

  ‘Lizzy, I simply don’t know what line to take on Randy this time,’ she says, looking at me blankly. ‘He’s used up chance after chance, and I don’t know how many more excuses people are prepared to swallow. I don’t know how many more excuses I can be bloody bothered to make up, to tell you the truth.’

  I’ve never seen Camilla like this before – she’s always the one with the plan, with the cheesy lines about ‘challenges’ and ‘opportunities
’ where others see doom and disaster.

  ‘Well,’ I start, trying to think of something. ‘He’s in rehab now, so he can’t do anything dreadful for a while, at least. Don’t you always say that this kind of thing blows over as soon as the next big story hits? Can we announce Isobel’s triplets yet?’

  Celebrities would be appalled if they knew how we trade them in for favours like a complicated game of Famous People Top Trumps – I’ll trade you one exclusive interview with X for a first photo shoot with Y’s baby, plus a set of staged paparazzi shots with Z and his new girlfriend. But Isobel’s triplets story is good news, and the unspoken rule is that one bit of bad news is worth several good – even three babies can’t be more interesting than Randy’s latest fall from grace.

  ‘We’ve already tried it, Lizzy. We’ve been through every single client, and no one has anything that’s going to knock Randy out of the headlines. All we can hope for on that score is for some other celebrity disaster over the next week or so. Come on, Katie Price.’ Camilla laughs without cracking a smile.

  ‘What does Bryan think we should do?’ I know Randy’s manager, a no-nonsense northerner, will have very definite opinions on how this should be handled, even if he leaves the actual handling to Camilla. He can’t stand the press since being described by one journalist as an ‘overprotective Svengali in a flat cap’. Once Bryan had looked up the word Svengali in a dictionary he was extremely offended. In fact he is absolutely the right manager for a charmer like Randy. Bryan is completely unimpressed by Randy’s winning ways, and, far from being twisted round Randy’s little finger, he would happily snap it like a twig if he thought it was in Randy’s best interests.

  ‘Bryan thinks that we have no choice but to hold our hands up and say we lied. We admit it all, and then work on building up a new story for a post-rehab Randy.’ Camilla looks exhausted at the thought of it.

  ‘Post-post rehab, I guess,’ I say tactlessly.

  ‘Thanks for reminding me,’ Camilla says. ‘Well, I’d better get started, so can you just close the door for the moment and stick to the “no comment” line until I say so.’

  Back at my desk I see the light flashing on my phone – four more messages.

  Message one: What is going on with Randy Jones?

  Message two: Will Camilla call me urgently about Randy Jones?

  Message three: I need to speak to someone about Randy Jones.

  Message four: Darling? Darling! It’s Mum here! Why is your phone always busy, darling? I’ll call you another time. Lots of love.

  As much as I love my mother, it’s as if she possesses a maternal sonar that means she always gets in touch at moments of high stress and inconvenience. Even though she’s currently ensconced in a Himalayan ashram on her annual meditation retreat, it seems she has detected my panicky mood from across the snowy mountaintops. It’s a minor blessing that I wasn’t around to take her call, or I’d have been subjected to a half-hour monologue on how deep breaths will change my life.

  The phone rings again. A man’s voice speaks.

  ‘I want to speak to someone about Randy Jones, right now, and I’m not taking any of your no comment bullshit.’

  Today is a bad day.

  3

  The doors of the office close behind me at seven. I take a few deep breaths and feel my shoulders slowly sinking down from under my ears, where they’ve been hunched for most of the day. Mum would be proud. I’m trying my best to shut the door on my bad day, too, and start the evening afresh.

  For once, the British summer is helping. It’s one of those beautiful early summer evenings as I walk to the French bar in Dean Street. Soho feels slowed down by the sunshine – everyone’s got all the time in the world to get to where they’re going. The pavements, usually inhabited only by clusters of disgruntled smokers, are set up with small tables, flickering tea lights, linen napkins. Everyone is captivating on nights like this: the gorgeous boys holding hands on Old Compton Street, the wizened man on a stool outside the Italian wine shop, the woman singing out of a top-floor window to no one in particular.

  It feels like the whole world is young and fascinating and full of possibility. Anything might happen.

  But what is actually happening is that I’m meeting my best friend, Lulu, as I do every Wednesday night.

  Lulu and I first bonded over twenty years ago at the side of a rainy rugby pitch, forced by our parents to watch our loser brothers throw themselves around the field in the drizzle Sunday after Sunday. After three consecutive weeks of casting covetous glances at Lulu’s ever-changing array of legwarmers (I had only one pair, in muddy brown – thanks for nothing, Dad), I bravely sidled over to her, bridging the formidable two-year age gap between my flat-chested twelve and her vastly sophisticated fourteen. I shyly admired the pink streaks in her hair and a friendship was born. So far it’s survived university (for me), hairdressing college (for her), an ill-advised attempt at flat-sharing in the late Nineties (Lulu’s respect for personal property being of the ‘what’s yours is mine’ school), and countless drunken evenings out with the once legendary Spinsters’ Social Club. Membership of said club has been sadly depleted in recent years by the traitorous departure of four of our number to the Dark Side of loved-up coupledom and, in three cases, the arrival of babies. Not that Lulu and I have anything against babies. Who doesn’t love babies? Especially the babies of one’s dearest friends. But as Lulu says, until the children are ready to take their turn buying rounds, they’re not going to add anything to a girls’ night out.

  The crowd at the French bar is spilling out on to the street, resting drinks on the window sills, lighting Gitanes. There is many a battered Camus paperback being enthusiastically brandished in conversation, there is many a Gallic shrugging of shoulders, there is almost certainly not one single actual French person here, but we are all trying to project a little je ne sais quoi, and on this beautiful night we might just get away with it.

  I can’t see Lulu outside, so I squeeze my way into the tiny bar. Mirrors on every wall make it seem more crowded than it is, but even in all the reflections I can’t see her. Mind you, Lulu is not the easiest person to spot in a crowd. Not only is she only five foot two, but she has a habit of changing her hair at least once a month, so you spend ten minutes looking for a Paris Hilton-style blonde with extensions, only to realize she’s the gamine waif with the jet-black pixie cut. Her excuse is that it’s her profession, but you’ve got to wonder about someone who can’t commit to a hairstyle for longer than four weeks. Finally I spot her in a far corner, reflected in three mirrors, all the better to show off the latest look.

  ‘Well hi there, Shirley Temple,’ I say as I slide into the booth beside her. ‘Love the new do – you look gorgeous.’

  ‘The perm. Is back,’ Lulu proclaims, as if announcing the Second Coming, and shakes her new copper curls in the manner of a dressage pony. She and her bouncy locks have managed to get us half a small table (quite an achievement) and a bottle of rosé. I grab a glass gratefully.

  ‘Cheers! Here’s to the resurrection of the permanent wave. It takes years off you.’ This is not strictly true, Lulu being one of those petite waifs who already looks as if she has a fountain of youth installed in her home, but she’s obsessed with her age and I know it’s what she wants to hear.

  ‘Seriously, do you think it makes me look younger? How young exactly? Twenty-nine? Twenty-eight from a distance? Maybe if I was in candlelight?’ Lulu glances in each of the mirrors; the nearer she gets to thirty-five (still two months away), the more determined she is to pass for under thirty. In Lulu’s version of the Underground Railroad, being mistaken for someone in her twenties is a passport to the hallowed shores of Youth and all its associated privileges.

  ‘I’ve never seen you look younger,’ I say. ‘Forget twenty-eight, you’re like a foetus in a wig, Lulu, I swear.’

  ‘Oh, honestly,’ she scoffs. ‘Twenty-eight, though. Really?’ She looks away from the mirror in time to see me down my glass
almost in one.

  ‘So, crappy day at the office? Let me guess: Randy Jones, your desperate housewife of a boss and some unauthorized photographs.’ She shakes her curls sympathetically.

  ‘You read Hot Slebs this morning, then?’

  Lulu rolls her eyes. ‘Everyone reads Hot Slebs on a Wednesday morning, like I have to tell you that. Darling, I did feel sorry for you when I saw the pics, but it is all quite fascinating, isn’t it? Tell me eeeeeverything.’

  I’d like to say Lulu is entirely motivated by concern for my welfare, but it must be acknowledged that her reputation as the most in-the-know salon owner in Chelsea earns her a lot of extra tips. And as long as she spends those on Spinsters’ Social Club wine and snacks, as she usually does, I think it’s a fair exchange.

  ‘Well, his US tour’s been put on hold – the insurance depended on him being drug tested each week and there’s no point doing that now it’s quite clear he’s not drug-free. His manager’s gone mental, Camilla’s lost the plot, and Jemima’s blatantly hoping the situation will get worse so she’s got an excuse to get rid of Camilla.’

  ‘But what happened to the underage model? Is he in the Priory? How long’s he staying in?’ Lulu needs the specifics for her tips. She’s not about to waste her time on tedious office politics between Camilla and Jemima.

  ‘Well, it turns out the model was actually just heavily asleep and slightly dehydrated, no overdose involved, so all’s well on that score – ’scuse the pun. Randy’s in some secret rehab place, but he checked in voluntarily, which means he can leave any time he likes.’

  I drain my glass and slam it down on the table. Interesting how alcohol helps you let go even better than deep breaths on the office doorstep, I note. One to discuss with Mum some time.

  ‘I’ll bet you he checks out within a week,’ I say.

  ‘And when he does, I’ll be right there waiting for him, if you’d just give me the address.’ Lulu signals to the waiter for another bottle of wine. ‘Putting aside his teeny-weeny substance problems, you have to admit he’s absolutely sex on legs.’