After the Break

PENNY SMITH

To my brothers and sister

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Also by Penny Smith

Copyright

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

It is a well-known fact that celebrity game shows are only for those who crave fame, more fame or fortune. The producers of Celebrity X-Treme had trawled the usual suspects for their new show, set in Norway. They were trying to get the last two people to sign up, but had already decided on a number of possible storylines. They wouldn’t be so much manipulating (an accusation they vehemently denied) as helping things along.

A meeting of executive producers, producers and directors had been convened at the headquarters of the production company before many of them flew out. Siobhan Stamp, the striking woman who would oversee the entire thing, stood at the front of the room. She was slim, with translucent skin and deep-set blue eyes, which were always lined with kohl pencil. Today her strawberry blonde hair was tied back loosely, and a few tendrils had been teased in front of her ears. I know we’ve been through the list over and over again, whittling it down and discussing it ad infinitum, but I thought I’d just make sure we’re all singing from the same hymn sheet. So, let’s go…Denise Trench.’

A picture of her appeared on the screen behind.

‘Lead singer in Label. Two hits. Won the Eurovision Song Contest. Twice in rehab–alcohol and drugs. Single. Ageing woman-about-town.’

The picture changed to that of a page-three model who had been allegedly ‘comforting’ a Premier League footballer after his marriage split. ‘Crystal Blake,’ said Siobhan. ‘Tony Belt, of Arsenal, says he’s categorically not dating her, and never has. Which seems likely, considering she’s willing to do Celebrity X-Treme. Young, but not as dim as you might think.’

She turned to look at the next photo, of a woman who bore a striking similarity to Naomi Campbell. ‘Tanya Wilton. Has had a two-year relationship with Howard Elph, the shadow environment minister, who has since ended his marriage. But they are no longer an item. Seems to have no visible means of support.’

One of the male producers sniggered. Tanya Wilton was a natural G cup.

Siobhan smiled at him. Little did he know it, but she had plans for him. She paused. Looked back to the screen. ‘Flynn O’Mara. Astrologer to the stars. Married to her manager. Two children. Columns in the Mail and various glossy magazines.’

The handsome face of a soap star filled the screen. ‘Peter Philbin. His contract hasn’t been renewed. He says it’s his choice. He wants to go travelling, possibly trace his real parents in Jamaica and Ireland.’ She had imbued that sentence with a degree of cynicism.

‘Dave Beal,’ she went on. ‘Comedian of the old school. Fifty.’

There was a sharp intake of breath–he looked at least fifteen years older.

‘Hasn’t worked on television for years. Mostly lives abroad. Did very well out of the property boom. Unlike Steve Flyte…’ The face of the man who had been in all the papers talking about his divorce from a renowned cocaine-snorting actress appeared behind her. ‘DJ. Confirmed heterosexual’ She left it there. Everyone knew that he batted for both sides. ‘Helping out when they’re busy’, as one member of staff had put it.

‘Paul Martin. Columnist/rent-a-quote, getting a higher profile by the week. Says he’s doing this to have an insight into the world of the celebrity. Often to be seen at premières, parties, nightclubs, et cetera. And…’

She turned to check.

‘Alex Neil. Clothes designer. Gay. Single. No long relationships. Finally, Katie Fisher,’ she said, trying not to sound venomous. ‘Katie used to be one of the main anchors on Hello Britain!. She got sacked. Did a late-night series called Start the Weekend. Currently dating Adam Williams, one of the owners of Wolf Days Productions.’

She looked down at her notes. ‘Now, as you know, Katie Fisher and Flynn O’Mara are not confirmed as yet, and a couple of others are waiting in the wings. In terms of stories coming out of the show, we do anticipate at least one relationship. And when I say relationship, I don’t necessarily mean one resulting in marriage. But if we can all keep our eyes peeled–you know the sort of thing we want. I don’t need to tell you that the success of this will rest on what keeps viewers on the edge of their seats. Will he, won’t he? Will she, won’t she? They’ve all got massive egos. That’s why they’re in this show. We want flirting, we want fights. We want confrontations, conflagrations. We want a soap opera. Let’s give the audience the best reality TV show they’ve seen in the last decade.’

Katie Fisher had not set out to be a television presenter. She had wanted to be a journalist ever since she could remember, and had been ecstatic when she had got a job as a cub reporter on a local newspaper. She had worked her way up from there to the job she had loved as co-host on the number-one breakfast show.

When she looked in the mirror, she saw a woman in her forties with clear skin, wavy auburn hair and green eyes. On a good day, she felt passable. On a bad day, she felt almost too dreadful to approach the front door, let alone walk through it.

What the men who fell in love with her saw was a woman in her prime with sparkling eyes and a body made for the bedroom.

Katie had made enough money during her years on the prestigious sofa at Hello Britain! to have a flat in Chelsea overlooking the river, and a pretty cottage in Dorset, which she had bought after she’d done a chat show in a nearby village. It had seen a lot of use during her relationship, now ended, with landscape gardener Bob Hewlett. He lived in a beautiful house near her parents and was one of her brother’s best friends. He looked like a blue-eyed Richard Gere, had the most attractive forearms and a cat called Caligula.

Months of bliss had been brought to an abrupt halt by a stray remark from a friend, who revealed that Bob’s protestations of faithfulness during a temporary split had been overstated. He had apparently indulged in a fling with a marine biologist called Clare McMurray, who continued to keep in touch.

Katie discovered her jealous gene, which she had previously thought missing.

One of her great friends, Dee–the weather presenter at Hello Britain!–wasn’t convinced that this was the end of Katie and Bob. She had never seen Katie as happy, funny, silly and full of the joys of life as she had been with Mr Hewlett.

Katie and she met up at the gym they had joined in a drunken pact at New Year. They were now familiar with the café’s offerings, rather less so with the inside of the adjoining gym. They sat drinking herbal tea in their tracksuits, having done no more than change into them. Dee had (as usual) claimed fatigue from the early mornings. Katie had (as usual) pleaded idleness. The window was open, allowing an occasional waft of vaguely fresh air to blow through.

‘Yes, I know I did the dirty on Bob first,’ said Katie, taking an accidentally noisy slurp of her tea. ‘He lied to me, though, for months. And that is unforgivable.’

‘To be fair,’ said Dee, ‘you probably wouldn’t have told him about that bloke, Krishnan Casey, if it hadn’t been in the papers.’

‘How on earth can you remember his name?’ asked Katie, impressed.

‘He was very good-looking and I always remember very good-looking men.’

‘Well. Anyway,’ said Katie, ‘the point is, I only kissed him. And kissing someone is not the same as going to bed with them. Not in my book.’

‘But you’d split up. Bob was a single man to all intents and purposes. He thought he could go at it with impunity.’

‘Her name was Clare.’

‘Sorry?’

‘You said he was at it with Impunity’

‘If you don’t want to discuss it, then tell me to shut up. I don’t feel like dealing with your crap punning today.’

‘Oooh,’ sang Katie, lips pursed.

‘No. Really. I’m knackered. Simon’s being a total tit and keeps hunting me down in corridors to tell me I’m shit and that he doesn’t know why I bother. Why can’t they get a different editor? I don’t believe the entire success of Hello Britain! rests on his skinny arse.’

Simon had been one of those responsible for Katie leaving the show. He was a vindictive man with sparse hair and a penchant for weak tea with sugar.

‘Try not to worry too much,’ said Katie, immediately solicitous. ‘He can’t get rid of you, you’re too popular.’

‘You know that’s only as true as my last press cutting,’ Dee responded. ‘The only reason he wouldn’t sack me is because he sacked you. If he got rid of another presenter, it would look bad.’

‘To lose one presenter is unfortunate. To lose two is careless.’

‘Exactly.’ Dee smiled, reaching back to untie her dark hair from the elastic band she had shoved it into for the alleged workout. ‘It’s exhausting. I say something on air, then wait for him to come and tell me how rubbish it was. It’s doing my head in. It’s got to the stage where I start a sentence and then, because I’m worried, I don’t finish it. So it actually is shit. As he says it is.’

They sipped their infusions, contemplating the man they both disliked.

‘Which flavour is this?’ asked Katie.

‘Passionfruit and vanilla, I think. Why?’

‘They all taste the same. Like tangy hot water. They always smell nicer than they are. What’s yours?’

‘Mandarin and grapefruit.’ Dee offered it, and Katie took a sip.

‘Yup. Tastes like mine.’ She put down her own cup, pondering the infidelity question. ‘It’s about honesty. At any stage, Bob could have told me he’d shagged that woman. But he didn’t.’

‘He only lied by omission.’

‘No. He lied. I asked him what he’d got up to while we were in limbo–’

‘Separated,’ corrected Dee.

‘Whatever. And he said he’d missed me–and that’s mostly what he did. Pined. Or some such tosh.’

‘You can miss someone and sleep with someone else, can’t you? To get over it, perhaps?’ asked Dee, raising her eyebrows questioningly.

‘In that case, he should have told me,’ said Katie, emphatically.

‘Maybe he thought you wouldn’t understand. You can be a bit, erm…’

Katie smiled at her friend as she searched for the right word. ‘Yes, I know I can be stroppy. But he should have tried. It was much worse the way he did it. Anyway. It’s all over. For ever,’ she said, standing up and draining her cup.

Dee reached for her bag and sighed. ‘Well, I think it’s a crying shame. You two were brilliant together.’

Katie looked arch. ‘I’ve got a date tonight.’

‘Oh, yes?’ asked Dee, her eyes alight with enquiry.

‘With Matt Damon.’

‘No. Really?’ Dee demanded disbelievingly.

‘No. Not really,’ Katie agreed. ‘The next best thing, though. Adam Williams.’

‘Oh, God, he’s gorgeous,’ said Dee, elongating the word, and trying to zip up her overflowing gym bag.

Adam Williams and Nick Midhurst were co-owners of Wolf Days Productions, the company that had produced Start the Weekend in Dorset.

They were both extraordinarily handsome. If Adam looked like Matt Damon, then Nick bore more than a passing resemblance to Ben Affleck.

‘He’s not only gorgeous, he’s also very nice,’ said Katie, running both hands through her long hair, bringing it forwards over her face and peeping seductively through the strands. ‘And he isn’t a lying toe-rag,’ she added provocatively.

‘Bob isn’t a toe-rag,’ Dee asserted, rising to the bait. And this is all a bit quick, isn’t it? You finish with one, and another pops up before you’ve put the lid on the pen, or whatever the expression is.’

‘Bonnet on the pig?’

‘Whatever. So how did that happen?’

‘He phoned me.’

‘And?’

‘And asked if I was free tonight.’

‘And this was?’

‘This morning.’

‘And you’ve waited until now to tell me?’

‘I was building up to it.’

‘You were toying with me, is what you were.’

‘I admit to a certain amount of toyness,’ said Katie, with a laugh. ‘And now I’m going to spend the rest of the day getting ready. Should I have my legs waxed and my bikini line done?’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Dee, horrified. ‘Go out with your legs like a plucked chicken and walking in a funny way?’

‘I don’t walk in a funny way after my bikini wax.’

‘Well, they aren’t doing it right, then.’

‘How can they do it in the wrong way?’

‘Not taking enough off.’

‘This is not,’ said Katie, ‘a top-trumps to see how much of a trim one gets. I refuse to have it bald, like some pre-pubescent schoolgirl. I’m an adult, with body hair. One doesn’t have to have an entire bush under which to shelter when it’s raining but one does need a little tidy-round from time to time.’

‘All right,’ said Dee. ‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist. Talking of which, do you have to wear awfully big pants to cover up the, er, hedgerow?’

Katie smiled. ‘Enough already. If I can’t wax, I’ll have to go out as a scary hairy Mary. Which means trousers or a skirt and boots.’

‘Well, while you spend many happy hours pondering your outfit, I’m going home to kip. Oliver and I are off to the cinema tonight.’

Oliver was a proctologist, and a great friend of Katie’s doctor brother Ben, who was now a consultant anaesthetist at a large London hospital.

‘Well, wish me luck, then,’ said Katie, putting on her coat and pushing the chair in towards the table.

‘Good luck–as if you need it.’

Katie was glowing. Her hair was shining, her green eyes glittering with anticipation.

‘How the bloody hell do you look so good, considering your vast age?’ asked Dee.

‘Oi. I’ll have you know that early forties is the new early thirties. And, in all seriousness, not getting up at sparrow’s fart every morning is one of the greatest aids to youth. I’m finally getting my beauty sleep. In fact, the only fly in my ointment is the lack of a job, and therefore a certain restriction on my spending.’

‘Oh, OK,’ said Dee, with exaggeratedly weary acceptance. ‘I’ll stump up for the tea.’ She made a slow move towards the till, shoulders slumped.

‘Cheers,’ said Katie, picking up her sports bag. She caught up with Dee, gave her a kiss on the cheek and left her. As she got to the door, she turned. ‘Give my love to Oliver,’ she called. ‘I’ll ring you tomorrow and give you a blow-by-blow account.’ She made a suggestive face.

‘You are disgusting,’ said Dee, without looking up from her purse.

Katie’s evening was everything she had hoped it would be–and more.

Adam was charming, witty, and very, very flirty. He and Nick had both fallen for the presenter of their show the first time they had seen her. But Nick was away supervising filming in France, and Adam had stolen a march on his rival. He had absolutely no intention of letting his business partner know that he was seeing Katie for dinner–or that she was single.

As soon as he had heard on the grapevine that Katie and Bob had split up, he had begun his campaign. He was enough of a hunter to let her think he knew nothing of the separation and was merely after a discussion of future projects in a ‘more comfortable environment than the glass box that is my office’.

It had been an unnecessary subterfuge.

Katie considered dinner with any man to be a prelude to intimacy. ‘They may say it’s about work,’ she bragged to her friend Kirsty, whom she’d phoned from the back of a cab on the way home from the gym, ‘but if it was, they’d do it where I couldn’t pounce on them.’

‘Aren’t you going to let him do the pouncing?’ asked Kirsty, who was pregnant with her second child and couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to pounce anywhere.

‘We may do a double pounce,’ Katie pronounced.

‘With a triple salchow?’

‘Absolutely. Followed by a…erm…’

‘Ha. Stumped, my little fat friend,’ said Kirsty, triumphantly.

‘I think you’ll find that you are going to be my little fat friend before too long,’ said Katie, sliding to the other side of the cab as the driver swung round a bend too fast. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Vomiting a lot, which isn’t great. Actually, I wouldn’t mind so much if I thought I could eat more without putting on too much weight. But I’m eating dry biscuits to keep it down, and I’m going through two packets a day. And then I’ve got this awful craving for pickled beetroot. I get up, throw up, eat biscuits, throw up, eat pickled beetroot, get heartburn, go to bed and start the cycle all over again. And I have the midwife saying I’ve got to hold off on the biscuits and not eat so much beetroot. At the moment I’ve got spots round my mouth from being sick, got red pee, red poo and Fred has left a deposit of something on one shoulder.’

‘You poor thing,’ said Katie, solicitously. ‘Nothing I can do, I assume?’

‘Take Fred off my hands occasionally?’

‘If you’re desperate enough to ask me to take him, you must be in a bad way. Of course I will. But you know I’m not that good when they’re little. In a couple of years’ time I’ll be taking him out and about all over the shop. Tea at the Ritz. A tour of the National Gallery. Whatever.’

‘He’ll be three in a couple of years’ time.’

‘Well, the Science Museum, then.’

‘He’ll be three.’

‘You see? I’m hopeless when they’re like overgrown foetuses. I mean, honestly, what do you do with a one-year-old?’

‘Play with him?’

‘He’d get bored.’

‘You mean you’d get bored. Enjoy your dinner. The idea of flirting with anyone in my current state makes me feel sick. You know, I always wondered why they called it morning sickness when it can strike at any time of the day or night. I’ve taken to chewing a nub of toothpaste to take away the taste.’

‘Do you spit or swallow?’ asked Katie with interest. As you know, one swallow doesn’t make a girlfriend.’

‘You are rude, crude and disgusting. I am now putting the phone down.’

‘Enjoy your beetroot,’ said Katie, pressing end call and putting the phone into her bag.

Back home, she had a shower and washed her hair, making sure that the conditioner was the nicest-smelling one she had. She let it dry naturally as she padded round the flat, slowly getting ready. With the towel wrapped round her waist, she opened her wardrobe doors and surveyed the contents. First things first, she thought, and took out her brand new, vertiginous, purple Gina shoes. They were not exactly practical. She could barely walk the length of the sitting room before she needed a rest–but they were beautiful. It wasn’t often you got such a jewel-like colour. As soon as she had slipped them on in the shop, her head had buzzed with the busy refrain, ‘Neeew shoooes.’

She put them on now and stood in front of the mirror, admiring the way they made her feet look so small and elegant. She dropped the towel. Hmm. Probably better with clothes.

She took out a little black dress with discreet fringing, which she had been thinking would be perfect. Had it always been so snug a fit, she wondered, as she tugged at the zip? She flicked back her hair from her now slightly sweaty face and stood up straight. Omigod, she thought. I look like a singed woodlouse.

Over the next hour, she became more frantic as she realized that virtually everything was too damned tight. Hot and bothered, she eventually chose a stretchy silk shirt, stretchy black skirt and large stretchy belt, all bought when she was going through a fat phase. Or, at least, she’d thought it was a fat phase. It was bloody annoying how, as you got older, the phases became more frequent and longer-lasting. And how you could put on three pounds in a day, but a month later, you were still struggling to take it off.

Life, she thought. A constant battle to keep everything in place. If only steamed vegetables and pineapple were enough to keep the soul alive. She applied the bare minimum of makeup and, having checked that she looked as good as she could under the circumstances, she left the flat.

She usually tried to be a smidge late for dinner, but a taxi pulled up immediately, so she was–as usual–bang on time.

Adam, who was used to his ex-girlfriend sometimes forgetting to turn up at all, was pleasantly surprised to find Katie sitting at the table when he arrived. She was drinking a glass of tap water. ‘I know. Not exactly racy, is it?’ she said, after kissing his cheek, rather self-consciously.

To kiss or not to kiss? Too late now, she thought, gulping water to cover her confusion. First dates–if this was a first date–were always a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Not unlike opening a packet of fig rolls…

The restaurant was expensive, with heavy white damask tablecloths and elegant wine glasses. She assumed it had been chosen because it shrieked neither seduction nor business deal, but rather the quiet confidence of a platinum card.

Adam had also chosen his outfit carefully. He had started with his tan Longines watch and worked outwards. He was wearing a navy Paul Smith suit with a lilac shirt. Katie could barely look at him, he was so handsome.

After an initially shaky start, when he had talked vaguely about some of the projects he was working on, there had been an unspoken agreement that they were not there to discuss what he could offer in the way of programmes, but more about what he could offer in the realm of a merger.

As the dinner progressed, and the wine bottle emptied, they covered the gamut. Katie heard herself telling Adam how to cook aubergines: ‘Slice in half, face down on a non-stick tray, bake for half an hour. Lovely with honey.’

And Adam was surprised to find himself telling Katie how he had always coveted a pair of X-ray spectacles he had seen in the Beano: ‘I wanted them originally to see through this ant-house I had, and then, latterly, women’s clothes.’

‘Of course.’ Katie had nodded understandingly.

At one point, she deliberately brought in Bob’s name, making it clear that she was no longer with him.

‘Oh, I wasn’t aware that was all over,’ he lied. ‘Sad,’ he lied again. ‘Not for me, I hasten to add,’ finally being truthful, ‘but I remember he came down to Dorset on that first evening of the chat show. On his motorbike, wasn’t he?’ he asked, knowing full well he had been. He and Nick had gone to look (and drool) over it. Not only did he know that Bob rode a motorbike, he knew what model and even the state of the tyres. The bastard obviously raced it.

‘Yes. But it’s definitely over,’ said Katie, making sure she hadn’t been misunderstood.

He got it. ‘Well it’s always horrible when it doesn’t work out,’ he said, his fist balled into a valedictory salute under the table.

The restaurant was warm and cosy, the candles were guttering, the glasses empty. It was time to get the bill. Katie was feeling as smooth and melting as the chocolates that had come with her coffee.

Outside, she shivered, despite her coat.

‘Cold?’ Adam asked, wrapped in his cashmere jacket.

‘A bit.’

‘Let’s see what I can do about that,’ he said, and enveloped her in a warm hug that turned into a tentative kiss. Her response was everything he had hoped it would be. She almost fizzed with electricity.

Katie was in heaven. In stumbling words, between kisses, she invited him back to her flat, where cloud nine was superseded by clouds ten and eleven and eventually every silver lining in the sky seemed to be lying in front of her.

A few months’ later when she had introduced him to her parents, they had been cautiously complimentary. They had driven up to Yorkshire in Adam’s Jaguar, a sleek car with a throaty purr that was incredibly sexy. Just the feel of her thighs on the leather seat made Katie feel in the mood. It had been a balmy evening, with the scent of grass cuttings wafting through the open window.

It had all gone well until Adam had left half of his pot au feu of braised pork belly, as though it had been a restaurant.

All attendant members of the Fisher family were horrified. Katie’s father, Jack, was an enthusiastic chef who spent hours poring over recipe books and watching television cookery shows. He didn’t approve of leaving food. You took what you wanted and ate it all. Unless you didn’t like it–in which case, you shouldn’t have taken so much in the first place.

Katie’s mother, Lynda, who was more than happy to let her husband do all the work in the kitchen, had been brought up by parents who had struggled to make ends meet, and she didn’t approve of waste. And Katie was a pig, who couldn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t eat every single mouthful of her father’s delicious food, then go back for more.

By the end of the weekend, Adam had partially overcome their distrust of a man who could leave food on a plate, and had charmed them. His major Brownie points had been accrued when he had praised a painting in the dining room, which he had correctly identified as a posy of peonies. It had been executed by Lynda during her artist phase, and derided by her family as reminiscent of the rear view of a family of baboons with their heads down a well.

‘Mum is what we call, a keen…erm…trier,’ Katie explained, as Adam admired a pottery vase in the kitchen while they were making coffee. ‘That was originally a milk jug but, as you can see, its handle melted in the kiln. If you look closely, you’ll also notice a small hole in the bottom where she failed to supply enough clay. Hence the dried flowers. It’s like living with an overgrown primary-school child.’

‘Oi,’ said her mother, coming up behind them as they considered her creation. ‘I’ll have you know that was modelled on one by a famous arts-and-crafts exponent.’

‘Called Slipshod,’ said Katie.

Her mother smiled. ‘I’ve left it to you in my will,’ she said.

‘Gee, thanks, Mum. Just what I’ve always wanted. Do hope you’ve left Baboon Anuses on a Summer’s Day to me as well. Or does anus become ami in the plural?’

‘You are a rude and ungrateful girl. If I were you, Adam, I’d have nothing more to do with her.’

He nodded. ‘You’re absolutely right. No one could ask for more than a beautiful painting of peonies and an homage vase,’ he said, rhyming homage with fromage.

‘Homage vase!’ puffed Katie. ‘What are you like? It’s a piece of clutter.’

‘My daughter, as I’m sure you’re aware by now, considers everything to be clutter,’ said Lynda. ‘She would probably live in a sterile lab, given the choice. Every home she’s had, you feel like you’re sitting in a show house. Can’t put your tea down without her tidying it away. And never anything in the fridge. Prisoners make their cells more homely.’

‘Hey, Mum,’ said Katie, a bit hurt by her mother’s comments. ‘I’m not that bad. Honestly. Just because I can’t be doing with all the dust. Do you know, we shed an entire outer layer of skin every two days? That’s a whole human. This vase has probably got one of Mum’s legs and Dad’s ears on it.’

Adam smiled. ‘Actually, I’m afraid I have to blot my copybook and confess that I, too, live a slightly minimalist life.’ He made a face of apology.

Lynda harrumphed and put the vase back on the windowsill. ‘Shall we have coffee in the garden since it’s such a nice day?’

They took the tray out to where lack was pinning back some of the trailing roses, which were threatening to swamp, rather than cascade over, a small wall near the greenhouse.

‘It looks lovely out here, Dad,’ said Katie, gazing about her and sniffing appreciatively. She loved coming home to the grey-stone house, even if her mother did sometimes make her feel unwelcome by using her old bedroom as a repository for the detritus from her discarded hobbies. ‘Incidentally, Mum,’ she said, pouring milk into her coffee, ‘I think Hercules may have rolled in some fox poo. He was smelling very ripe when I passed him.’

Hercules was their ageing Labrador.

‘Wretched dog,’ said her mother, without heat. She took her coffee, raised her voice and, without looking round, said, ‘lack. Your dog has been rolling in fox poo.’

He was lost in contemplation of a hollyhock and didn’t respond.

‘lack. Hercules smells,’ she said, louder this time.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I’ll get on to it. Excellent. Coffee. Have you poured me one?’

Katie passed him his cup and he took a big gulp. ‘Your mother’s turning into a right old cantankerous trout,’ he said quietly, but with feeling.

‘Was she ever different?’ asked Katie, who had always had a difficult relationship with her.

He didn’t answer but put his cup back on the table and went off to get some secateurs.

‘Are you going to wash the dog, Jack?’ asked Lynda, annoyed.

‘I’ll do it in a minute,’ he responded curtly.

Later, when Katie phoned to let them know they had got back to London safely, her father told her that he had taken up fishing to get out of the house more. And, in passing, he mentioned that Bob was a frequent companion.

She hadn’t said anything at the time, but that night, lying between crisp sheets and reading Private Eye, Katie acknowledged a twinge as she thought of her father and the handsome landscape gardener casting their lines into the cool waters of the river.

All her friends loved Adam, but Dee had expressed reservations. ‘He seems just a teensy-weensy bit self-obsessed,’ she told Katie, during a drunken night out with the girls.

Now, eight months on, Katie had to confess that she was beginning to feel she came a poor second to his business. He was expanding Wolf Days Productions, and they were taking on new staff. He did invite her to some of the business dinners, but they were dull, involving talk of editing suites and cabling. She had tried to lighten one up by brightly announcing that coconuts killed 150 people a year. Adam had had the temerity to tell her to be quiet. In front of everyone. It had taken her so much by surprise that she had immediately phoned her friends to discuss the state of her relationship.

She met her perennially single friend Kathy at their favourite budget café, its gay plastic tablecloths covered with garish pictures of vegetables. They ordered enormous frothy cappuccinos. Katie took all the foam and chocolate sprinkle off the top of hers and ate it before she addressed the matter in hand. ‘He seems really keen one minute, then cools off the next,’ she said. ‘I know he’s busy businessing at the moment, but it’s making me feel needy. And I hate feeling needy.’

‘Maybe it’s because you don’t have a job,’ said Kathy, who was juggling two, and still not earning enough to make ends meet.

‘Thanks for reminding me.’

‘Well, you are what you do, and you’ve done bugger-all of any consequence for rather a long time.’

Katie had been limping along by writing for newspapers and magazines, hosting awards ceremonies and standing in for people on local radio. ‘There’s not much about,’ she said ruefully. ‘I was offered Celebrity Masterchef, but I hate cooking anything that’s not vegetable soup. And I couldn’t do the meat thing. A mate of mine, who was training to be a chef, gave it all up after he had to debone a whole pig. Apparently shot the shoulder ball, or whatever it was, into an enormous trifle made by the head pastry chef. Nobody saw it happen, but he was convinced that if he confessed the pastry chef would kill him. And that if he didn’t, he’d be up before the beak for killing a trifle-eater with E. coli or whatever you get from uncooked pork.’

‘Tapeworms.’

‘Nope. Don’t think it was a tapeworm. Anyway, he said he felt sick, drove home and never went near the place again. He presents some show on BBC4 now.’

‘Food?’

‘No, thanks. Unless they have one of their special lemon meringue pies. Why? You hungry?’

‘I meant, does he present a programme about food?’

‘Oh. No. I think it’s vaguely intellectual. He was telling me something about Einstein’s brain being bigger in one area than another and scientists trying to work out whether it developed like that or had always been that way. It seemed to me that it was a bit difficult to prove. I mean, it’s not as though you can cut the top off people’s heads to look at their brain–like peering into a boiled egg–to find out whether nature or nurture is responsible for what’s going on in it.’

‘What was his answer?’

‘I don’t recall.’

The inside of the café was steamy. Katie rested her hands on her cup to warm them. ‘Hey, talking telly for a minute, did you see that beast Keera Keethley on Hello Britain! this morning?’ she asked.

‘Why do you watch that programme? It only annoys you,’ said Kathy, who had witnessed the hurt Katie had suffered when Keera had replaced her on the Hello Britain! sofa.

The new presenter was exotically beautiful, with long black hair and blue eyes. She was also hugely ambitious, and employed publicists to make sure she was constantly in the public eye. She rarely drank alcohol, appeared at all the right events and in all the right places, and never left the house without checking in a mirror…unlike Katie, who had appeared in numerous periodicals and publications coming out of the wrong sort of places in the wrong sort of state.

‘So what did she do this morning?’

‘She was interviewing this chap from some massive quango about what they were going to do for consumers. And then–because, as we know, she’s as thick as a Scotch pancake–she asked in that sugary little-girl voice she does, “But do you have any teeth?” And he looked bemused, smiled and said, “Of course I do.” And then she looked confused. And Rod Fallón rescued her with, “Yes, she obviously doesn’t mean it literally. What Keera means is what teeth does your organization have?” And then there was a two shot with Keera looking thunderous. It was hysterical.’

‘You know, Hello Britain! suddenly sounds like it’s worth watching,’ said Kathy, rolling her eyes.

‘Yes. All right. Maybe you had to be there.’

‘Anyway. As for the Adam stuff, I’m sure he’s in love with you, just as they always bloody are.’

‘Being, as I am, the most gorgeous creature alive,’ said Katie, deadpan.

‘Frankly, I don’t know what it is. You’re an ugly muppet with no personality. It must be the smell of your feet,’ said Kathy, glancing at her watch and doing a double-take. ‘Damn. I really have to go. Enjoy your relationship for what it is. That’s what you tell me when I occasionally get lucky. See you.’ She grabbed her things.

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