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‘Supper at Selfridges?’ I suggest.
‘Lunch at Liberty’s?’
‘Tea at Tesco’s?’
‘Now, there’s a movie I’d definitely go and see,’ he says, with a bark of delighted laughter.
As we start down the half-billion stairs, I zip up my grey hooded top as far as it will go. This is partly to hide my own delighted smile – because I’m not sure I’ve ever made a boy laugh like that before – and partly because I don’t want anyone in the café to choke on their smoothie when a thirteen-year-old girl wanders in wearing an egg-yolk-yellow dirndl.
(#u3caa25fd-b5df-5df3-8efe-8a1283928b51)
Everyone on set is looking suspiciously gorgeous this morning.
The catering bus is filling up quickly on our location shoot near King’s Cross this morning, with crew members already on their second (or third) bacon roll of the morning, and actors and actresses sipping, piously, at large mugs of tea and honey. All over the bus, people are looking as if they’re off for a Big Night Out. There are freshly blow-dried hairdos, newly fake-tanned legs, and more layers of mascara than you can shake a stick at. Everybody looks stunning.
And then there’s me.
Today is myfirst day in my brand-new speaking role, after months of being a random, silent extra.
Unfortunately, the role I’m playing is Warty Alien. So this morning I’m wearing the most grotesque costume you’ve ever seen in all your life.
I give it one last go with Frankie the Wardrobe assistant as she passes by my table now, just to see if there might have been some sort of mistake.
‘You’re absolutely sure,’ I say, ‘that I’m down on your list as Warty Alien? I mean, there couldn’t have been a spelling mistake? And it isn’t meant to be … I don’t know … Party Alien?’
See, that couldn’t be too bad. Especially if I could wear one of the alien costumes like my sister Cass wears, in her starring role as one of the Cat People. They’re actually quite sexy – skintight silvery bodysuit, mysterious eye mask, high-heeled knee boots – and even if I had to accessorize it, as Party Alien, with, say, a silly paper hat and a hula skirt, I’d still look halfway decent. Especially if I had to wear a hula skirt, in fact, because it would hide whatever horrors the silvery bodysuit would reveal in the bum region. Two birds, one stone!
‘Sorry, Libby. There’s no spelling mistake. Anyway, the part’s not actually called Warty Alien, you know. You’re down on my list as—’ Frankie glances down at the notepad she never lets more than two inches from her sight – ‘Extra-Terrestrial Spaceship Technician.’
(This basically means that I’m playing an alien version of a Kwik Fit mechanic, and explains why my one and only line – my Big Break! On National Television! – is: ‘But fixing the docking module could take days, Captain, maybe even weeks.’Look, I never said it was a good line.)
‘OK, then,’ I say, desperately, ‘are you sure this is definitely the costume the Extra-Terrestrial Spaceship Technician is supposed to wear?’
‘Well, you’re more than welcome to query that with the Obergruppenführer. Because if there had been any kind of an error, it would be her mistake.’
The Obergruppenführer, otherwise (just not very often) known as Vanessa, is the production manager. It’s probably obvious, from her nickname, that she’s not the sort of person you want to accuse of making mistakes. Particularly not when you’re a lowly extra on a surprise hit TV show, with literally thousands of out-of-work actors ready to kill their own grandmothers to take your job instead.
‘Anyway, I don’t know why you’re complaining,’ Frankie adds, over her shoulder, as she sashays in impractical four-inch heels to the bus’s exit. ‘In technical terms, that costume is a work of art, you know.’
I stare down at the vomit-green latex suit I’ve been sweating into since seven o’clock this morning and pick up the separate alien head that’s sitting on the chair beside me. The head features one particularly giant pustule, right in between the eyes. It doesn’t look like a work of art.
‘God, Libby, is that your costume?’
It’s Cass, squeezing into the seat opposite me.
And I mean literally squeezing, because she’s some-how managed to inflate her already fulsome cleavage by another couple of cup sizes, and given herself the biggest blow-dry this side of Texas. She’s not changed into her Cat Person costume yet, so the eye-popping cleavage is (barely) contained by a teeny pink hoodie with the zip pulled scandalously low, and I’m quite sure she’s teamed this, as she always does when she’s all out to impress, with either an equally teeny pair of denim cut-offs, or a sassy towelling micro-skirt.
(We’re half-sisters, by the way. Different dads. Even though the irony is that actually, my dad is the better looking out of the two: her dad, Michael, is a nice-but-nerdy geologist while my dad is as handsome as he is an utter waste of good oxygen. Anyway, Cass is quite definitively the better-looking out of us two: blonde, blue-eyed and curvy while my hair and eyes are from an uninspired palette of browns, my bosom is very nearly non-existent, and the only reason you’d ever call me ‘curvy’ is because I have a sturdy bottom half that’s seemingly impervious to all forms of exercise.)
‘Yes, it’s my costume,’ I tell Cass, with as much dignity as I can scrape together under the circumstances. ‘It’s a technical work of art, as a matter of fact.’
But Cass has already lost interest. ‘So, do I look OK? Do I look better than Melody? Do you think he’s going to notice me?’
Melody is the lead actress on our (sci-fi, if you hadn’t already guessed) TV show, The Time Guardians.
The he that Cass is referring to is Dillon O’Hara, our brand-new star. Whose first day on set it is today and who – in case you were starting to wonder – is the reason that everybody has turned up to work this morning in their Saturday Night Best.
‘I’m sure he’ll notice you, Cass. You look very eye-catching.’
‘You’re sure? Because you do know, don’t you, the kind of girls Dillon normally goes out with?’ To back up her point, Cass rifles in her bag for this week’s copy of Grazia magazine, puts it down on the table next to the script I was given this morning, and jabs a manicured finger at the front cover. ‘That’s the competition.’
It’s a paparazzi shot of a blonde Victoria’s Secret model – I can’t remember her name, but she’s platinum blonde and buxom, with legs roughly a mile high – exiting a nightclub with Mr O’Hara.
I hate myself for thinking it, given that the wretched man is keeping an entire cast and crew waiting for him on location this morning while he decides if he can be bothered to show up or not. But he’s annoyingly gorgeous. If you happen to be a fan, that is, of ripped torsos, muscular shoulders and angelic cheekbones. His hair is sooty black, his eyes almost match, and he’s stocky and well muscled in a way that implies not so much a life spent pumping iron while gazing into a gym mirror, but long teenage summers spent working on building sites. Shirtless, probably. Getting an all-over tan on that ripped torso …
‘Rhea Haverstock-Harley,’ Cass spits, gazing at the Victoria’s Secret model with loathing. ‘You know she won Hottest Woman in the Stratosphere again in Made Man magazine’s Hundred Hottest list this year?’
Oh, well, now Cass has reminded me of the name, I do, vaguely, know this. And I also recall that, in a (deliberate? publicity-seeking?) echo of the whole Naomi-Campbell-throwing episode, this double-barrelled Rhea girl got in pretty big trouble a few years ago for hitting her hairdresser with her phone. Which, now that I’ve remembered it, has sort of put me off Dillon O’Hara a bit, even though I don’t think he was going out with her at the time.
‘Oh, Made Man,’ I scoff, with a practised air. (Cass didn’t make the top 100 in the most recent poll. I’ve not quite recovered, yet, from the sobbing 3 a.m. phone calls I received from her last week, four nights in a row.) ‘What do they know? And anyway, there’s more to life than just being leered at in your bra by a bunch of drooling pervs, you know.’
‘You’re so right, Lib. I’m going to show them all tomorrow night, by the way.’
(Tomorrow night is the Made Man party celebrating their pathetic poll, and Cass is attending. She may not be Top 100 material, but she’s pert and blonde and on TV, which is evidently quite enough for an invite.)
‘That’s the spirit, Cass!’ I undo one of my Warty Alien gloves, reach across the table and pat her on the hand. ‘You show them all!’
‘That’s why I bought the dress I’m going to wear. It’s got a massively plunging neckline, and it’s totally sheer down the back, so you can sort of see my bum – but through the lace, so it’s really classy.’
‘Cass, no, that isn’t what I meant by show them all …’
‘And I’ll need you to alter that ruby pendant thingy. It’ll look amazing with the dress, but remember I said I’d prefer it longer, so the ruby bit dangles right down into the top of my cleavage.’
That ruby pendant thingy is actually a garnet necklace I made for Cass’s twenty-fifth birthday; painstakingly crafted, to be more accurate, from a gorgeous garnet cabochon (garnet being her birthstone) and a vintage Swarovski-crystal teardrop charm, both hanging from a gold-plated chain that I customized with teeny-tiny garnet-coloured crystals at intervals along the length. Pendant-making may only be a hobby, but I did put a fair amount of work into this particular one, and the chain was so expensive that I could only afford to make it an eighteen-inch pendant (sitting elegantly against Cass’s collarbones) rather than a twenty-four-inch one (nestling brassily between her breasts).
‘I can’t make it any longer,’ I tell her. ‘I don’t have a replacement chain.’
‘Well, bung the ruby bit on the end of a bit of ribbon, or something,’ Cass says, airily unconcerned about compromising the artistic integrity of my creation. ‘I just need it to draw maximum attention to my boobs.’
‘I don’t think you’ll need a necklace to do that.’
‘No, Libby.’ She looks very serious. ‘I really have to pull out all the stops if I’m going to stand a chance up against Rhea Haverstock-Harley.’
‘Surely,’ I say, feeling a bit like whatshisname standing in the sea, telling the tide to go back, ‘you shouldn’t really be in hot pursuit of Dillon O’Hara anyway, Cass. If he has a girlfriend, that is. Not to mention the fact that you have a boyfriend of your own.’
His name is David, apparently. I say ‘apparently’ because Cass hasn’t introduced him to either me or Mum yet. All I know about him is that he’s a ‘talent manager’ for a big showbiz agency, so it’s perfectly possible that he’s covered from head to toe in huge warts, just like my costume, but oozing real pus – and Cass would still be perfectly happy dating him.
‘David isn’t my boyfriend. We’re just seeing each other.’ She emits a sigh of exasperation, as she always does when I don’t just happily spout whatever it is she wants to hear. ‘You’re no use, Cass. I’m going to text a selfie to Mum, see if she thinks I should change into something a bit sexier.’
‘Christ, no, don’t do that!’
I’m not yelping this because I fear that the only thing ‘a bit sexier’ than Cass’s plunging top and micro-shorts is a thong bikini, and I’m trying, as her big sister, to protect her remaining modesty.
I’m yelping this because if Cass texts Mum, Mum will call right back. And after lengthy discussion of Cass’s outfit options, she’ll finally ask to speak to me. And then she’ll ask exactly what part I’ve been given and what my costume is like.
You see, my lack of enthusiasm for the Warty Alien costume isn’t down to the fact that I was secretly thinking I might be the one to catch Dillon O’Hara’s eye if he ever makes it to the shoot this morning. I mean, even if I wasn’t perspiring in puke-coloured latex, I don’t think for a minute that he’s going to stop dead in his tracks, grab the nearest passing crew member and whisper, ‘By God, tell me the name of that flat-chested brunette with the pear-shaped bottom, for until I have bedded her I shall go mad with lust! Mad, I tell you.’
The reason, in fact, is my mother.
The thing is that she’s not only my mother, but also my agent, and the one responsible for badgering The Time Guardians’ casting director until the poor woman eventually cracked and agreed to promote me – against my will, I might add – from Extra to Bit-Parter. So it’s not exactly ideal that the first words I get to speak in an acting role in the last five years are going to be from behind a vomit-green, wart-covered alien head, which renders me not only revolting but also – much more importantly, from my mum/agent’s point of view – invisible.
‘Well, you’re not being any help,’ Cass retorts, ignoring my plea and starting to undertake her very favourite activity – posing for selfies with her mobile phone camera – while I decide that the best way to avoid Mum for a bit longer is to leave Cass to it and go and find myself a bacon roll instead.
After all, I tell myself, as I lumber off the catering bus in my Warty Alien feet, it’s not as if I need to worry about tummy bloat while I swelter away inside my layers of concealing latex, is it? And anyway, the bacon rolls are exceptionally delicious, and made to order by lovely Olly Walker, who’s been one of my best friends ever since I met him, donkey’s years ago, at that godawful Sound of Music audition in Wimbledon. He runs the on-location catering van, so I can go and have a chat with him while simultaneously waiting to be called by the assistant director to deliver my line, and – most important of all – avoiding my mother.
*
Olly is not currently at his catering van. He wasn’t there when I fetched my first bacon roll before going to Wardrobe at eight this morning either, so when I reach the head of the queue, I ask his sous chef, Jesse, if he’s all right.
‘Hasn’t he called you?’ Jesse asks, squirting ketchup onto three waiting rolls he’s just finishing off for Liz, the production assistant (pretty, blonde, and Dillon-ready in a crop top and skin-tight jeans, so I can only assume the bacon rolls are actually for some hungry electricians or cameramen, or something, and not for her to snarf down herself).
‘No. Well, he might have done. I’ve left my phone in my bag.’ I don’t add: because, although I’m twenty-nine years old, I’m still avoiding my mother.
‘He’s gone in his van to the studios. Mentioned something about doing a furniture run. First to Woking and then to you and your new flat?’
This, really, should be making me a bit less stressed about the whole Mum-and-my-Big-Break situation: the fact that I don’t have to go back to her house after work this evening and have her harangue me about my career over the kitchen table. Tonight, if she wants to harangue me, she can do it over the phone while I relax at my very own kitchen table in my very own flat!
It’s not much – it’s really, really not much, just a tiny one-bed above a parade of shops on Colliers Wood High Street; I’ve seen hip-hop producers’ downstairs loos, on MTV Cribs, that are at least three times the size – but I’m going to make it cosy, and homely, and lovely.
Of course, a slight barrier to this, up until a couple of days ago, was that I’ve managed to reach my ripe old age without actually acquiring the basics you need to make a flat look cosy and homely.
I don’t mean cashmere throws and Venetian glass lamps and Victorian writing desks. I mean – and this is a bit embarrassing to admit – a sofa, a table, and a double bed.
I was bemoaning this fact to Olly when he came round to Mum’s in his van the night before last to pick up my boxes full of clothes, books and other bits and bobs, and that’s when he told me about the Pinewood props store. Pinewood Studios, which is where the majority of The Time Guardians gets filmed, is home to an enormous treasure trove (well, a giant corrugated-steel warehouse) of old furniture that’s been used, over the years, to dress the sets of countless films and TV shows. Lots of it is pretty ropey, some of it is surprisingly lovely, and none of it is really used any more. Olly knows about this treasure trove because his Uncle Brian – not his actual uncle, just an old friend of his former-actress mother’s – is the security guard there. Oh, and because Olly’s former-actress mother, who now runs an amateur dramatic society in Woking, is always getting him to raid the props storeroom to bring her set dressing for their productions. Anyway, on Olly’s advice I popped round there when we were shooting at Pinewood yesterday, and managed to put aside a handful of surprisingly lovely things to furnish my flat.
I thought I was going to head back there tonight, with Olly in his van, and pick up the stuff before heading all the way back to Colliers Wood to collect my keys, but obviously it must fit Olly’s schedule better to go to Pinewood himself this morning.
‘Thanks, Jesse. Oh, and I’ll have one just like those, please,’ I add, pointing at the row of bacon rolls he’s wrapping in greaseproof paper to hand over to Liz.
‘You’re kidding,’ Liz says. ‘You can’t seriously be planning on eating a greasy bacon roll.’
Which is a bit personal, isn’t it? I mean, Liz and I have chatted in the ladies’ loos at the studios before, but that’s about it. I wouldn’t have thought we were anywhere near friendly enough for her to—
‘Vanessa,’ she says, in a hushed, reverential (OK, terrified) tone, ‘will literally kill you if she sees you eating so much as a Polo mint while you’re wearing that costume.’
‘This costume?’ I ask, glancing down at my alien head, because I can’t believe a bit of dripped ketchup is going to make the thing look that much worse.
‘It’s one of the most expensive costumes we rent,’ she says, rather piously, as if the money is coming out of her personal bank account and leaving her unable to pay her gas bill. ‘If Vanessa finds out there’s so much as a single, solitary stain on that latex …’
‘OK, forget the bacon roll,’ I tell Jesse. ‘I’ll just have a coffee and a muffin.’
‘A blueberry muffin?’ gasps Liz. ‘Filled with sticky, purple-staining berries?’
‘Fine! Just the coffee, then.’
Which is not going to hit the spot in any way. I mean, I was up at 5 a.m. this morning, in Wardrobe at 7, and I’ve been sweating out vital calories inside this horrible costume ever since.
I think I’ve got a half-eaten packet of peanut M&Ms in my bag, though. I can go and retrieve it from where I think I left it, back on the catering bus, and see if there’s a message on my phone from Olly at the same time.
The bloody costume slows me right down, though. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried walking anywhere while wearing half a stone’s worth of baggy latex, but it’s not the most enjoyable way to get about.
Honestly, on days like today, I seriously wonder what the hell I’m doing pursuing a career in acting. Though, to be entirely fair to the Warty Alien costume, there’s scarcely a day goes by when that thought doesn’t occur. I’m only stuck in the bloody job because of a childhood spent following Cass from audition to audition, during which time I utterly failed to gain any decent qualifications – or other career ideas – of my own.
Well, that and the fact that I’ve always had a bit of a fixation with the movies, and I’ve spent far too long kidding myself that grunting about as a non-speaking extra on iffy British TV shows is halfway to the Old Hollywood magic I’ve long been seduced by.
Far too long, because I don’t think any of my Hollywood heroines ever had to schlump around the arse-end of King’s Cross in latex warts on a boiling June morning …
‘Cheer up,’ a fellow alien says, passing me by on its way out of the Wardrobe trailer nearby. ‘It might never happen.’
‘Easy for you to say. You’ve lucked out.’ I mean this because it – he, I guess, from the voice inside his alien head – is nowhere near as grotesquely attired as I am. His is more like a spacesuit: Guantanamo-orange canvas with a matching orange plastic bubble helmet. No latex, no warts, no problem. ‘But thanks for the moral support. It’s nice when us extras stick together for a change.’
‘You’re welcome. I mean we have to, don’t we, with these arsehole lead actors swanning around the place?’
I snort. ‘When they can even be bothered to turn up, of course.’
‘Oh?’
‘We’re all waiting for his Lord Chief Arsehole to decide whether we’re worthy of his time or not. Dillon O’Hara, I mean,’ I add, for clarification of the ‘Lord Chief Arsehole’ bit.
‘Really? Because I heard he was only called for eleven a.m. So in fact, if he turns up in the next half-hour or so, he’ll actually be early.’
‘Bollocks,’ I snort. ‘He’s late because celebrities like him love to be late. It’s their favourite way of proving to people what a big shot they are.’
‘Be fair to the poor guy,’ the alien extra says. ‘Maybe he got stuck in traffic.’
‘If there’s anything at all he got stuck in, it’s more likely to be some leggy supermodel.’
And then I stop talking.
Because the alien extra is taking off his helmet, and it turns out that he’s not an extra at all.
It’s Dillon O’Hara.
‘That was fun,’ he says, a wide grin spreading over his face. His accent is Irish now, instead of the English one he – I now realize – has been putting on for the last couple of minutes. ‘I felt a bit like a prince in a fairy tale. You know, the kind who disguises himself as a peasant in order to mingle with the real peasants and find out what they truly think about him.’
I’m mortified.
But at the same time, I have to say, I’m outraged. Because not only has he just quite deliberately set me up, he’s also – I’m fairly sure – just pretty much called me a peasant.
