Coming Up Next

by Penny Smith

  She was horrified.

  Were those your actual bags under her eyes? Or had two flesh-coloured caterpillars crept in under cover of darkness and slept in the hollows?

  The phone startled her, and she held it gingerly to her ear.

  ‘Yes?’ she asked in a thin voice.

  ‘It’s Dee. Look, I’m so sorry if it was me, but I honestly don’t remember mentioning it to anyone.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I didn’t tell anyone about the TP tent pole thing. There wasn’t anyone I wanted to tell, and I haven’t been anywhere where I would have found anyone who wanted me to tell them and would’ve put it in the paper or phoned someone who was on a paper.’

  Katie sat down. Her head was pulsating like a cartoon heart. ‘Right. Good. Right,’ she said. ‘Can I talk to you later? I think I may be poisoned. And there must be an antidote in the cupboard. If not, I may have to cut somewhere and extract the poison.’

  ‘You poor thing,’ said Dee, sympathetically; ‘Shorrible when you get poisoned. I recommend a banana.’

  ‘I’ll be sick if you talk about food. I’m going now. I need –’

  ‘Of course you do. I’ll phone you later.’

  At least Katie was still talking to her.

  And, now she came to think of it, the photos were all right. And certainly better than the previous ones. And the TP thing hadn’t been rumbled. And Bob looked rather handsome.

  Thinking about which, the handsome Mr Baron wanted another date … when next Wednesday was already in the diary! Most excellent. There was a spring in her step as she went up to the newsroom.

  The morning meeting went on around her, as she pretended to pay attention, her eyes unfocused. Simon had made some sort of snide comment about her performance, but she was in the middle of taking William’s clothes off and laying her face on his chest, so she nodded, said sorry, and returned to her daydream.

  Jim Break had seen the photographs and was not unhappy about their appearance. He had been talking to a couple of mates in the business and had lined up a meeting for Katie with the head of a new production company, which was planning to make a series about the dating game, provisionally called All Mine At Nine, for ITV2 at nine p.m.

  Katie was feeling ill. But less ill. And she decided to make a decision. She stood in the sitting room indecisively. Then did it.

  Yes.

  She was going to grasp the nettle of life and squeeze it tightly. She would put a dock leaf on her hand later.

  She was going to get her house in order.

  Take the bull by the horns.

  Grab the future under its armpits and shake it until its gonads dropped.

  And she was going to start right now.

  She ate what was left in the store cupboard and fridge since the last clearout.

  She put the empty bottles in the recycling. There appeared to be a fair number. She turfed out a whole lot of shoes. Too small. Too weird. Too old-fashioned. Too left feet.

  And as she reached and fumbled, the wretchedness and retchedness receded. She would get slim. Watch how slim I’m going to get. A stone in a week, at least. She cleaned a window. It was exhausting. The others would have to wait until tomorrow. After all, you only looked out of one window at a time.

  As the rush-hour started, she sat down with a cup of strong tea and watched the news on Sky. Followed by the news on Channel 4. Followed by a documentary about bridges on the Discovery Channel. And something about revolting diseases on Channel 5.

  She lay down with a bottle of water to watch the news at ten, and was in bed by eleven p.m., reading a book about how to reduce wrinkles.

  Salmon. That seemed to be it.

  She flicked to the last chapter. Yup. Salmon. Every day. I will have a fishy on a little dishy every dashed day. And maybe sleep on it on Tuesdays.

  I could be pre-pubescent by – she looked at her watch – Sunday.

  Keera was having an early night. She was wearing her brand new turquoise silk nightie and her cleaner had put fresh sheets on the bed. She gazed at herself in the mirror. God, she thought, I really am quite beautiful.

  But to stave off any ravages created by the chocolate she had allowed herself at lunch, she cleansed for the second time and applied a very expensive face pack.

  While the pale cream gradually sank into her translucent skin, she tucked her feet up on the sofa and watched Friends on E4. Followed by Friends on More 4. Followed by a bit of Lost, which she had recorded, then caught five minutes of a show about disgusting diseases on Channel 5.

  Then she phoned work to find out what interviews she was doing the next morning, carefully wiped off the face pack and slipped between the sheets. Not long now until her magazine article came out. She smiled secretively as she sniffed the sheets. When she was rich, she’d have clean sheets and a massage every day. And a facial every week.

  She wanted a million in the bank by next year.

  The salary from Hello Britain! was good – but not that good. That was why she had to supplement her income by selling stories to a couple of newspapers. She knew that with a newspaper column you could rake in a fortune. If she showed her commitment to one paper, she’d have a foot on the ladder.

  Then there were the photo shoots, which she’d already started to charge for. She wasn’t picky. Any magazine that wanted her could stump up the readies for the privilege.

  And her agent had found her a number of jobs hosting corporate events, which were very lucrative. There had been a hiccup recently when she’d slagged off a caravanning conference she had hosted, only to discover that the person who had organized it was there. Whoops. But what did she care? She was the beautiful Keera Keethley, licensed to thrill. They couldn’t get enough of her well-toned body. She’d get as much as she could for free, and she wasn’t afraid of hard work. Or of working hard to get her way. And if there were people in the way of her getting her way … well, it was the law of the jungle. Mmmmm. The jungle. That would be a good photograph. Me in a bikini. A thin film of sweat. Who could she flog that to?

  Actually, she thought, hanging her feet off the edge of the bed to let them breathe, there’s one outstanding part of the plan which is, as yet, unfilled.

  The post of consort. Or was it cohort? What was the difference? Did she care enough to find out?

  She examined her nails. Must get a French manicure.

  No, I definitely, definitely don’t care.

  She slid her hands under the cool pillows to find her Jackie Collins book.

  Mike was having a fairly late night. He had found a promising new furrow to plough – an area that appeared to be awash with possibilities.

  If he had been a superstitious man – and he wasn’t – he would have put it down to Buster’s neckerchief … the very one he’d been wearing on the first ever escapade some years ago. He had driven north for about half an hour. It didn’t even feel like London. He had taken another half an hour to make his choice, and the whole episode had been swift and very satisfactory. All his new toys had performed well.

  He hummed and sang along with the songs on Melody FM on his way home. He could have shouted, he felt so alive.

  He locked the car, checked that everything was where it should be in case Sandra was up, and let himself in through the front door. He could hear the television blaring from her room. Then the noise dropped dramatically.

  Sandra had watched Richard and Judy. The Six Show. Three episodes of CSI. And a show about foul illnesses on Channel 5. Then she had started to paint her toenails, and was midway through watching Must Like Dogs when she heard the door click.

  She turned down the television, switched off the light, and snuggled down in the bed, leaving her feet hanging out of the end of the duvet to stop the polish smudging. She breathed quietly. Not that she was too worried about him coming in and bothering her but it was as well to take precautions. There had been nights recently when he had looked at her in what she thought was a calculating way, and she didn’t want him ge
tting the wrong idea by drawing attention to the fact that she was still up.

  Sandra liked the lifestyle she had with Mike, but she saw no reason to indulge in the sort of activities that involved sticky seepage. She found the idea of sex only slightly less repulsive than some of the diseases she had seen on television tonight. If she had been approached by a man with a clipboard demanding that she put her X next to a choice between horizontal jogging with Mike or having her leg hairs plucked out by a man with snaggle teeth, she would have gone for the full, painful deforestation. At least he wouldn’t sweat on her and make that horrid grunting noise at the end.

  If she thought of Mike at all – and it was difficult to find any time to think about him, with her strenuous exercise and beauty routine – it was an affliction that had to be borne.

  Like her bunions.

  Bob had spent the night at the pub. He had had a fruitful day. Having been left the house and a fair sum of money by his father, he had dumped his job in the City and taken up his first love, gardening. That day he had been to see a charity that wanted him to landscape a plot of land behind a children’s hospice. He would be paid a nominal fee – barely enough to cover his expenses – but he had virtually a free hand and was already planning his own vision … his own version of the Secret Garden.

  He had had a long conversation with Katie’s brother, Ben, who had phoned him at home when he was considering having a nice glass of wine to celebrate his commission.

  ‘I’m ringing you because now that you and my sister are, er … erm …’

  ‘Yes?’ said Bob, helpfully.

  ‘Well, I thought it would be better coming from me than anyone else …’

  ‘You’re scaring me. Get on with it.’

  ‘Well, there’s been a piece in the paper. About you and her. And some details that are correct, and some that I’m sure aren’t …’

  ‘You can stop right there. We talked about it yesterday. I was only worried that information on me seems so cheap. If it was worth it, I’d have phoned them myself. But not for fifty quid.’

  Ben laughed. ‘I would have told them that, as a doctor, I’m concerned that at your age and your stage of training you should be riding what we in the profession call “a donorbike”. How’s it going?’

  The rest of the phone call had been about the new Triumph Speed Triple, which Bob was going to take racing. It was black, shiny, fast, and sounded like an Airbus taking off. ‘It’s mental,’ he said. He decided to celebrate his new gardening job with a few pints down at the pub with Harry from the next village north.

  Harry was a watch designer, who lived with his illustrator wife and four-year-old daughter in a beautiful Georgian house that Bob was fond of dropping in on around dinner time. He was Elizabeth’s godfather. He was frequently spotted pedalling her round the lanes, on a bright pink cycle-and-bin contraption. He would be forced – less unwillingly than he made out – to wear an orange fluorescent vest for added safety as Elizabeth sat regally in the ‘bin’ with her bubblegum-coloured helmet on.

  Bob was on his second pint, thinking aimlessly of salted nuts, when Harry arrived, later than scheduled. ‘Sorry. There was this riveting programme about truly unpleasant illnesses that Sophie was watching. All in revolting close-up. You wouldn’t catch me showing my naked hairy arse to the world.’

  ‘I think you’ll find,’ said Bob, ordering two pints of Old Speckled Hen, ‘that your naked hairy arse has been on show many times, not least in the common room at university after your team won the cup. And again, if I’m not much mistaken, after your stag night.’

  ‘Stag weekend,’ corrected Harry. ‘That was such a bloody good weekend. Although I could have done without being tied to that lamp-post without a stitch on in February. If it wasn’t for you, I’d probably have caught pneumonia. Nothing around but sheep. Actually, I’m thinking of going back to Kerry for a weekend of golf and fishing. Fancy it?’

  ‘Not at the moment,’ said Bob. ‘Keeping weekends free just in case …’

  ‘Just in case what?’ asked Harry, looking him squarely in the face with his eyebrows raised.

  ‘In case I need to go to London, or in case this bird I’m seeing decides to come here for a weekend.’ And he filled Harry in with the details. ‘Funnily enough,’ he said, munching a salt-and-vinegar crisp, ‘I’ve always fancied Katie. I do like an older woman. Anyway, probably nothing will come of it, but of course I’m up for a bit of fishing if it doesn’t work out.’

  ‘How much older is she, then?’ asked Harry.

  ‘Only a few years actually. What are these crisps?’ He turned the packet round. ‘My God. I didn’t think they made anything normal any more. I was fully expecting something like chicken winnet and goat beard. How very refreshing.’ And, as he had intended, that got them off the subject of Katie.

  He thought Katie was gorgeous. If he was being honest with himself, she was the first woman since his divorce who had made him think about marriage. He had seen her the morning after the night before and his heart had lurched in a way that it hadn’t for a very long time.

  He liked her sense of humour, the way she threw herself into everything, the sparkle in her eye when she was having a rant – and the vulnerability that occasionally leaked through.

  He was in grave danger of falling in love.

  He had known about some of her relationships – those that had appeared in the papers – and she had brought some of her lovers home to Yorkshire with her over the years. But she had told him there had been few – if any – who had meant anything to her.

  And he was very much hoping that he did.

  As he ambled home from the pub, hands in his pockets, smelling more than faintly of fine ale, he was a happy man. The moon was shining, the night sky glittering with stars. He could see the Great Bear, the Plough and Orion’s belt. If he looked really hard, he thought he could see Orion’s underpants too. He let himself into the Old Coach House, poured himself a couple of very fat fingers of whisky and headed for bed. He threw his clothes on to the floor, climbed under the rumpled duvet and fell asleep to the shipping forecast on Radio 4.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Katie’s week had slipped by so sneakily it was as if the days had been dressed in combat fatigues. One morning, she had braved a bit of Hello Britain! Mike, she noticed, was massively snubbing Keera. Good. She’d known she could count on him.

  She watched Keera doing an interview with The Proclaimers. ‘How did you two meet?’ she asked, leaning forward for a maximum-cleavage shot. She heard Mike laugh in the background. Excellent. She could only imagine the hilarity in the control room.

  By Friday, she had had enough of her own company. Her agent, Jim, had organized a meeting for Monday with the TV company doing the dating show, and she had spoken to everyone she could think of who wouldn’t snitch to the newspapers about the fact that she was available.

  She reckoned she had another two weeks before she would have to think seriously about remortgaging. Or even selling up and moving to a smaller flat, or a different area. But articulating that thought aloud made her feel so depressed she could feel her mojo leaking out of her feet.

  The problem was, London was so darned expensive if you didn’t have the readies. Money seeped from the pores of her wallet if she so much as stepped out of the flat, what with one coffee and another.

  So, when Bob phoned to ask her to come and stay for the weekend, she hesitated for less time than it had taken her eyelashes to blow off during a faulty-oven incident ten years previously.

  She managed to find a fairly cheap train ticket on the Internet, stopping at all points north, and pulled out a bag. What to put in it? Pyjamas, obviously. But the white cotton? Pink silk? Playful lemon with pink strawberries?

  This is ridiculous, she thought. I’m a grown woman, worried about pyjamas. And pyjamas aren’t sexy, anyway, are they?

  Or are they?

  Well, I can’t sleep without them, so if he has an issue with that, then. Then wha
t? Then nothing. I can hardly develop the physical ability to generate heat. Become the embodiment of a radiator. Radiate heat. When I’m a heat-sapper. She continued to reason as she tried on ten or eleven pairs of pyjamas. The thing is, pyjamas are comfortable. And they’re useful for going to make tea in cold kitchens. And I’d rather be seen in pyjamas than naked. Cellulite. Bottom. Thighs. She shuddered.

  She put in plain pink cotton pyjamas.

  Was it better to have a baggier pyjama than a close-fitting pyjama when seen from the back?

  This was a nightmare.

  She consulted her watch. She really ought to get a move on.

  She threw in four pairs of pyjamas. Just in case. By the time she had done the pyjamas, there wasn’t much time to choose anything else. For heaven’s sake, it’s only a weekend. She grabbed her favourite comfortable clothes and one nice dress.

  She could barely close the case. She appeared to be carrying more than she would have taken for a fortnight’s potholing in Peru.

  And only made the train by the skin of her teeth.

  When the announcement came through of the stops it would be making, Katie realized that this was going to be one of the longest train journeys ever. And that she’d forgotten her iPod.

  She started off sitting near a man with one that had such inadequate headphones she could hear virtually every word. She was on the verge of asking him whether the racket he was listening to was Daft Punk or Daft Rubbish when he got off.

  A fat woman with two fat children got on. They started eating their way through a mountain of salty snacks. Katie glanced at her watch. A whole day that I’ll never have again before I reach Yorkshire. I knew I should have booked a fast ticket.

  It’s like that bloody day I tried to get home from the Tory Party conference in Blackpool and the Hello Britain! travel department booked me a super-saver ticket, only valid on Sunday.