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He sat down opposite his agent.
‘I guess you want something alcoholic?’ she sighed.
‘Well, a cocktail would be nice.’ He gave her his most winning smile. ‘What’re you drinking?’
‘Iced green tea with ginseng. You should try it sometime.’ He did his little-boy-lost look and she laughed. Belinda was just as susceptible to his charms as every other female on the planet.
‘Hey, I’ll let you off this time.’ She put a hand weighed down with cocktail rings on his arm. ‘And I’ll have whatever you’re having. We may have something to celebrate.’
‘What?’ Ben felt an enormous jolt of excitement. ‘Why, what’s happened?’
‘Don’t get your hopes up too quickly, handsome boy,’ said Belinda, loving the power she had over him. ‘Let’s wait for the drinks.’
It was agonizing waiting until the waiter (a ‘resting actor’, good looking but not nearly as fit as Ben – which was presumably why he was resting) came back with their Margaritas. But Ben feigned nonchalance, complimenting Belinda on her body and business acumen.
‘Well,’ she eventually drawled. ‘Paramount are casting a new movie. It’s gonna be huge, they say, but they always say that …’
‘What’s it about?’
‘The South of France in the 1950s. Saint-Tropez, Bardot, you know.’
‘Oh, cool. And I love that part of the world. I went backpacking along the Riviera with all my drama-school mates in the college holidays ten years ago.’ It was more like fifteen, but Belinda didn’t need to know that. ‘Nice, Antibes, Juan Les Pins, just so we could get a glimpse of the stars at Cannes.’ He remembered them all smoking dope and drinking cheap wine out of their rucksacks on the beach, assuring one another that they’d be up there one day. If they could see me now, that little gang of mine …
‘You European kids,’ said Belinda, slightly wistfully. ‘So much culture at your fingertips. Anyway, Cannes is the cynical premise behind this venture. The producers think that a movie based on its doorstep might get those uptight bastards to sit up and take some notice of something produced by a MAJOR studio, for once, instead of one of those fall-asleep-in-your-popcorn subtitled crapolas where everybody, like, dies.’ She made a gesture that combined an extravagant yawn with slitting her throat.
Ben laughed easily. He was amazed by his own patience.
‘And? Do they want to see me, or what?’
‘Oh, honey, of course they want to see you. I wouldn’t be telling you all this now would I, if they didn’t? What kind of a woman do you think I am?’
She pouted and Ben refrained from telling her.
‘It’s a period romcom, along the lines of To Catch A Thief.’
Ben wasn’t sure how Hitchcock would have reacted to one of his classics being referred to as a period romcom, but he let it pass.
‘So you mean, I’m up for the Cary Grant character?’ It was difficult to keep the excitement out of his voice.
‘Get real, handsome. They’ll only go with a proper, American star for the good guy.’ Wasn’t Belinda aware that Cary Grant was originally from Bristol? ‘No, you’re the bastard Brit who messes with our heroine’s heart.’
‘Silly me.’ Ben laughed again. ‘We Englishmen are always the villains. But, bloody hell, Belinda, that is amazing! When do they want me to read for it? And who are they thinking of for the lead roles?’
‘They haven’t decided yet for the lead, but maybe Scarlett Johansson or Amanda Seyfried for the girl. Somebody suggested Gwynnie, but she’s way too old of course.’
As Gwyneth Paltrow was about the same age as him, Ben nodded solemnly.
‘And they want to see you in two days’ time, so brush up on your French.’
‘Mate, that’s amazing news,’ said Tom, one of Ben’s new ex-pat buddies, a trust-fund twat who had moved to LA to write a screenplay, thinking that anyone could do it. As he could neither spell nor string two sentences together, Ben thought it unlikely Tom’s masterpiece would ever see the light of day. But he did mean well.
They were at Soho House LA, with all the other Brits who liked to stick together.
‘But promise us you won’t turn native!’ bellowed Julia, an actress who’d been very successful in London three years ago but had yet to hit the big time Stateside. Possibly on account of a weak chin and a slightly-too-large nose that she’d refused to get fixed, vainly (and stupidly) thinking her work as a ‘serious actress’ rendered such measures unnecessary. ‘We don’t want you to start saying “Lie-sesster Square”!’
Everyone cracked up, and Ben pretended to too, but inside he was thinking, If you don’t like it here, then why don’t you fuck off back to London? He was growing a little tired of his fellow ex-pats, with their twee insistence on tea parties, and Sunday roasts, when it was far too hot to eat anything other than the innovatively healthy (and surprisingly delicious) fresh produce on offer locally. These people would have been the first to sneer at Brits in Benidorm demanding the full English breakfast, so why the fuck did they think it was OK in LA?
They were sitting on the roof terrace, underneath a silvery olive tree, drinking vodkatinis. Ben swivelled his head to take in the 360-degree view. LA at night sprawled, glittering and full of promise, beneath and all around him. Somewhere to his right, the gated mansions of Beverly Hills beckoned, in all their opulent splendour. One day …
‘Two nations, divided by a common language!’ Julia guffawed, and tried to sit on his lap, but even though she’d lost the Brit blubber and was now the requisite size two, she represented the weight of his past, and he wanted her off him. He got up, nearly sending her flying, and said, ‘I’ve got to get an early night. Big day the day after tomorrow. ’Bye guys! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!’
Julia looked offended, as well she might. She had been his first contact in LA (they’d been at RADA together), and he’d shagged her to get in with the ex-pat crowd.
As he walked out into the jasmine-scented summer night air, he heard Julia saying, ‘I do hope he’s not going to get too big for his boots now.’
Outside, he lit an illicit fag. He still wasn’t quite sure why fags and booze were so frowned upon in California when dope was legal, but he was willing to toe the line most of the time when so much was at stake. As he put his lighter back in his jeans pocket, he felt a piece of card and took it out.
Jennifer Jackson. Nutritionist and personal trainer.
He recalled the girl with the dreadlocks, smile and fantastic arse. Now, she would be a way forward. He’d had enough of his previous life and the no-hoper Brits weighing him down. He thought for a second, then took out his phone and dialled the number on the card.
‘Who is it?’ A very cross-sounding voice eventually answered.
‘Hi, Jenny, it’s Ben. We met on the beach today—’
‘Oh, for God’s sakes. Don’t you know what time it is? If you want to talk about training, call me in the morning.’
And she put the phone down on him. Ben wasn’t sure that any woman had done that to him in his life before. He rather liked it.
‘Jenny, hi, it’s Ben. We met on the beach yesterday.’ He put on his poshest RADA accent.
‘Oh my. The Brit who woke me up at midnight?’
Ben chuckled in what he hoped was an endearing manner.
‘Mea culpa, I’m afraid.’
‘Well, I hope you’ll make it worth my while.’ She sounded crosser than ever. ‘I only had four hours’ sleep because of you. I was training Tom Hanks at five a.m.’
‘Oh, fuck, I’m so sorry,’ said Ben. ‘Tom Hanks, really?’
‘Of course I wasn’t training Tom Hanks, you British idiot. Do ya think I’d be handing out my card on the beach if I was Tom Hanks’s trainer?’
Ben laughed sheepishly.
‘No, I suppose not.’
‘So, d’ya want me to train you, or are you just gonna annoy me with late-night calls? Your abs could do with some work. But it’ll cost ya. And nobody calls me Jenny. My name is Jennifer.’
Bitch. My abs are fine, thought Ben, stroking his washboard stomach. But he definitely wanted to see her again.
‘I thank you.’
Natalia smiled graciously as she accepted her champagne and caviar from the BA stewardess. She was flying from Heathrow to Kiev on her annual June trip to check up on the two charities to which she had been contributing generously for years. After her mamushka had died, there had been no real reason to go back home, but she had to make sure her money was being put to good use.
At least she had the luxury of being able to choose which time of year to return, she thought, pulling her cashmere blanket a little more tightly around her shoulders to keep out the chill of the air conditioning. Despite its soft warmth, she shivered as the memories of Ukraine in the depths of winter came flooding back …
‘Madam? Can I get you something else?’ asked the stewardess, looking at Natalia oddly.
‘Excuse me?’ Natalia was snapped back into the present, into the softness of her White Company cashmere blanket, so different to the itchy wool she had wrapped herself up in all those years ago. ‘No, no, I thank you, I am fine.’
Once the stewardess had left her alone once more, she stared out of the window for some time, unwelcome tears blurring her view of the pillowy white clouds below.
Chapter 4
Poppy Wallace’s bite of the Big Apple is somewhat larger than she’d initially anticipated.
Bella looked at Poppy’s Facebook update with love and irritation. It wasn’t Poppy per se who bugged the shit out of her, but all her old London media friends who fell on her every word and tried to outdo themselves with how well they knew her and how cool they could prove themselves to everyone else online. Some of the fawning acolytes responded to Poppy’s Facebook update with such stomach-churning stuff as miss u loads, baby girl (from a female journalist – there was loads of faux-dykey bollocks) and hoxton’s not the same without you, sweet poppy lops. remember OBESE-gate?
Bella was tempted to add, remember OVERDOSE-gate? She wasn’t able to be cool on Facebook, as some of her old friends and family members actually used exclamation marks and plenty of xxxxs at the end of their messages. It seemed rude not to respond in kind. Also, as Andy worked late so many evenings, she found herself drinking wine on her own and writing things she thought hilarious at the time, then waking in a cold sweaty panic, wondering what the fuck she had thought essential to share with absolutely everyone who knew her. The computer needed a Breathalyser.
She clicked onto Poppy’s latest photos: rollerblading in Central Park, gorgeous in old-skool grey marl shorts and Yankees T-shirt; drinking at the round table at the Algonquin Hotel in a flapper dress (cue comment from fawning female journo: you are Dorothy Parker, but a million times prettier – nineteen other equally sycophantic comments followed); sunbathing by the pool on Soho House NY’s roof terrace in a green bikini that matched her eyes and showed off her exquisitely lithe body (wowser! looking hot babe, hubba hubba,etc., etc., ad nauseam); sitting on the stoop of some lovely old brownstone house in rolled-up jeans and sneakers, her hair in an insouciant ponytail, reading the Herald Tribune (her comment on her own photo was clever, cool and abstruse).
Bella looked out of the window. At nearly half-past eight the sun hadn’t yet set, but it wouldn’t have made any difference if it had, she thought morosely. The English summer, which, by some freakish Act of God, had been so wonderful last year, had reverted to its usual depressing, drizzly self. She reminded herself to snap out of it. Her day had started with some great sex and she still loved Andy so much she barely even looked at other men any more. Well, she looked, but she wasn’t tempted. She didn’t have to go to vile offices, was paid pretty handsomely for her painting, and her life was, just about, perfect.
Yet … It was just the bloody weather, she told herself, and a niggling loneliness. One of the reasons she loved Andy so much was his innate goodness, which manifested itself in his dedication to his work, but sometimes she wished more of that dedication could be sent her way. Like coming home in time for dinner.
She clicked onto Poppy’s next photo, in which she was giggling with loads of people Bella didn’t know, in a club that was probably the Studio 54 du jour. Damian was conspicuous by his absence. Bella hoped that all was well with them. She opened another bottle of wine and started to think about all the fun she’d had in the past. She used to be that clubbing chick, the one with the cool photos and funny stories.
Then her phone beeped.
Bella my love, I’m outside. So sorry I’ve been neglecting you. Bloody job. I love you! Come down. Anything you want to eat and drink is on me, wherever you want to go. And everything you want me to do to you, I’ll do double. Triple. Xxxxxxx
Bella looked out of the window and saw Andy, arms outstretched, smiling up at her. Her heart soared as she ran down the rickety steps of her flat and realized she wouldn’t trade any of her hedonistic, uncertain past for what she had with him, right now.
‘I mean, I love her, you know I do, but it’s just so fucking annoying!’ Bella looked over her glass of Pouilly-Fumе at Andy. They were in her favourite restaurant, The Wolseley. Enormous iron chandeliers glowed overhead, the excited hum of chatter buzzed around her, she was with her favourite person in the whole world. Yet her second favourite dish in the whole world (moules marini?res; spaghetti vongole was her first, but they didn’t do it here) lay practically untouched in front of her.
‘Poppy’s life is just so bloody exciting, and EVERYONE loves her!’
‘I don’t love her.’ Andy leant across the white linen’d table and held both Bella’s hands in his. ‘In fact, I think she’s a self-centred pain in the arse, but I do love you.’
Bella smiled and kissed both his hands.
‘Thanks and sorry. I love you too.’
‘Not bored with me already, are you?’ He said it lightly, but Bella could tell he meant it.
‘I’ll never be bored with you, my love. I just sometimes get a bit bored with life in grey old London, with its endless depressing news, when everybody else seems to be having so much fun, in such exotic places. Bloody Facebook.’
‘You spend far more time on that site than is healthy, my darling. And let’s look at it mathematically: you have – what? – 350-odd Facebook “friends”?’ Andy did the inverted commas fingers signal and Bella nodded, slightly shamefaced.
‘Most of us go on holiday at least once a year, so let’s divide that by twelve.’
‘Um – nearly thirty people on holiday every month?’
‘Exactly! It may look as if everyone is having the times of their lives on beaches or mountains, while we’re stuck in dreary old London, but it’s a snare and a delusion. We were in Ibiza only a couple of months ago, after all.’
‘Oh, I know, I know, I’m being horribly spoilt.’ Bella sighed and took another swig of her wine. ‘But Poppy IS getting her huge bite of the Big Apple, even during this horrid recession. I don’t know why I can’t be more pleased for her.’ In the old days she’d have been happy, unreservedly, for Poppy, but ever since the Ben thing, something sour had crept in. She had loved helping her plan the wedding, and the nuptials themselves had been wonderful, of course, but this new, extra level of success was a little galling.
Six weeks earlier, three weeks after Poppy and Damian had returned from their honeymoon in Cuba, Stadium had folded, the latest victim of the recession. Simon Snell had immediately found another job on Esquire, but Poppy had put a spanner in Damian’s job-seeking by simultaneously being offered a promotion in New York. And it wasn’t just any old promotion. One of her company’s proper big shots had been visiting from New York, taken one look at Poppy and decided that she was wasted behind the camera. With her gamine beauty, quick-wittedness and sarcastic London cool, the Big Shot was hoping Poppy would be the new Alexa Chung, presenting a quirky magazine/documentary-type show – an English girl’s take on the Big Apple.
Damian, not wanting to be apart from his new wife so early in their marriage (and, Bella thought, probably still not entirely trusting her, left to her own devices in an exciting new city), had bravely decided to take his chances at freelancing in New York. Stadium had left him with plenty of contacts, after all.
‘I hope Damian’s getting on OK,’ said Andy, and Bella grimaced.
‘Not much good for his ego if he’s not.’
‘No,’ said Andy. ‘And we both know what his professional ego can be like when wounded. So enough of the Poppy jealousy, OK? Would you want to be in her shoes, constantly reassuring Damian that he’s cleverer than her, while he mopes about, sulking all day, in what I imagine is their vast warehouse apartment?’
Bella laughed. ‘That’s such a vivid image! S’pose not.’ She was smiling broadly now, as Andy’s foot, which had been rubbing her leg all night, had made its way up to her knickers.
‘Aren’t you going to finish your mussels?’ Andy smiled into her eyes, increasing the pressure of his foot.
‘I’d rather you finished my muscles at home.’
The next morning, Bella woke around nine a.m. and stretched contentedly. She still loved the fact she would never again be rudely awoken by a shrill alarm signalling another dreary day in another dreary office. She felt much happier today. The sun was shining through muslin curtains, Andy was wonderful, her life was wonderful, everything was wonderful. She pottered about at a leisurely pace, putting the radio on and making herself a cup of tea. She filled her pretty eau-de-nil watering can and went out onto her balcony to water her window boxes. This little daily act gave her a disproportionate amount of pleasure. Her mint and chives were coming along a treat. She kissed her fingers and patted the plants.
‘Grow, my babies, grow.’ She was glad nobody could see her and wondered if this might be a sign of broodiness. She certainly didn’t yearn for a baby right now. She was perfectly happy with things just as they were, and although she knew she wanted one eventually, and reckoned Andy would make a great father, she had no intention of rocking the boat.
Though her flat was really much too small for two, and she and Andy had talked about selling it and buying somewhere bigger, she loved it too much to leave quite yet. The crappy property market was as good an excuse as any, and Andy was still paying off the enormous loan he’d taken out to pay for his wedding to Alison last year, which had been called off at the last minute. The fact that Alison had been shagging her boss, so it should have been her financial responsibility, still rankled with Bella, but Andy was a slave to his tiresome principles.
By the time she’d showered, dressed, made the bed (arranging and plumping up all the artfully mismatched cushions exactly to her satisfaction) and read a chapter or two of her book over a boiled egg and thickly buttered toast, it was nearly midday. Guiltily, Bella shut the book. There wouldn’t be time for her run now – she’d booked her jointly rented studio for 12.30. She couldn’t imagine how she’d ever managed to get up in time to arrive, bad-tempered and dishevelled, at whichever horrible office she’d been temping at for a nine-a.m.-prompt start. Actually, the promptness had happened rarely, if ever. She felt another surge of happiness that those days were over.
As she walked towards the door and automatically checked herself out in the mirror next to it, she stopped and shook her head in dissatisfaction. Something was wrong. Bella had longish legs and a larger than average bust for her 5 foot 7, size 10/12 frame (despite slender ankles, wrists and shoulders, she always felt like a bloody carthorse next to Poppy). She’d had vague hopes of channelling Audrey Hepburn today in high ponytail, black Capri pants and a boat-necked, horizontally striped T-shirt. From her shoulders up she looked great, the ponytail and boat neck setting off her collarbones, high cheekbones and big brown eyes a treat. Audrey was not an entirely preposterous idea. Her legs were fine in the Capri pants.
But in between – oh, dear. The horizontal stripes made her bust look vast (and not in a good way – matronly was the word that sprang to mind). And for fuck’s sake, was she starting to develop a paunch? She supposed it was possible, with the ongoing eating and drinking of happy coupledom, and her increasing laziness when it came to exercise. She promised herself that she would hit the procrastinating on the head as she went back into her bedroom to change. Tomorrow she would definitely get up in time for her run.
Bella eventually arrived at Westbourne Studios at 1.30 p.m.
‘Yah, Daddy’s just given me and Jazz a mil each to buy a flat, but you can’t get anything decent round here for that sort of money,’ Sienna was saying into her iPhone as Bella walked into her time-share studio. ‘Oh, hi, Bella.’ She smiled and waved a thin, wafty hand.
Ludicrously overprivileged and good-looking, Sienna Sax-Hoffmann was studying History of Art at London University. She had told Bella that her father wanted her to have a bolthole for her studies, when ‘the Uni library gets too much. Dear Daddy, he can be so overprotective, but it’s rather fun having one’s own studio three mornings a week, don’t you think?’ Sienna only actually managed to get up in time to play on the Internet in her studio once a week, at most, but Bella didn’t hold that against her (well, how could she?). She found Sienna rather sweet. Perhaps it was because she was so pretty. Bella knew that with her artistic eye, she always gave people who were easy on it less of a hard time than those who repulsed her physically – male or female. She wasn’t particularly proud of this.
Sienna was about 5 foot 10, skinny as a catwalk model with an eating disorder, and pale as milk. Her naturally white-blonde hair cascaded in long waves around a coolly patrician face, all angular bones and huge, bruised, dark blue eyes. She played up her delicate appearance with fey, floaty, vintage garments, today looking breathtakingly fragile in a cream lacy maxidress, pearl choker (probably real) and jewelled flip-flops that showed off her narrow pedicured feet. Bella imagined that your average man’s unimaginative, testosterone-driven protective instincts would go into overdrive at the sight of her.
‘Hi, Bella.’ Sienna smiled as she put her phone down. ‘You’re late.’
‘I know. Never been much good at punctuality.’ Bella smiled back as she started setting up her easel.
