sharp as a shark! she thought triumphantly. If she, Keera, was like a lobster, then Katie was a nasty old shark. A nasty old dead-in-the-water shark. Yes, the lobster was taking over the aquarium. Although, now she came to think of it, sh e wasn’t sure she wanted to be a lobster. But, then, was there anything pretty in the sea?
At that particular moment Mike wouldn’t have cared if Keera had told him she was having sex with a panther for GQ, wearing a strap-on dildo and a pair of reindeer ears. He was having a major worry about his nocturnal visits. He had ‘taken the dog for a walk’ the night before and been spotted by a drunken viewer who had yelled at him in his car. He was seriously concerned that, with papers paying thousands of pounds for news of scandalous activities, the now sober viewer might be doing a deal to feather his no doubt filthy and unkempt nest.
Would it come down to their word against his? He hoped so. He’d always been very careful. But careful wasn’t abstaining. He couldn’t do that. No way. Should he wear a disguise? No, that would be too silly. And even more embarrassing if it ever came out. Maybe he’d have to keep his head down for a bit, though.
He should have been going out with his wife that night to a charity function but had told her he was too tired, and would try to have an early night. He only went to those unspeakably tedious events to up his profile. He really couldn’t be doing with the usual people you had to converse with at them.
He had come into the house as the sun was glinting obliquely through the trees on the drive, and told her he was going to have a literally early bath. His think tank, as he described it. He sat there, long legs splayed out, steaming. It’s an odd phenomenon, he thought, that the more you sit in water, the more wrinkly you get. He rubbed his fingers together, noticing how they were furrowing as the boiling hot water did its work. Eventually he got out, noticing in passing, that he was as red as a skinned tomato.
He wrapped a towel round his waist and went downstairs to pour himself a whisky.
‘Yes, it is two fingers of whisky,’ he said loudly to his wife, who was doing sit-ups while watching Richard and Judy. ‘Do you want anything?’
He knew the answer before she said it. Of course she wouldn’t be having anything. She’d have her bottle of water with her and, later on, she’d guzzle an entire stick of celery. If she was really hungry.
He took the whisky and stood at the door, watching his wife putting herself through her endless routine. She had her feet under the side of the chintz sofa so that she could see the television, and was counting under her breath. She was up to 129 … 130. What an awful lot of effort, he thought, when there are so many fun ways to get a workout.
If the viewers didn’t get in the way, that was.
He wondered how much she had minded being told that tonight was off. He had said she could go on her own if she wanted, but she hadn’t wanted: nobody would take her photograph if she wasn’t with him, so what was the point? She had gone to one ball at which she hadn’t spoken to anyone the entire evening. As they had sat together in the black Mercedes taking them home, she had said that some of the other guests had tried to make conversation, but they were dull. ‘Why do we have to sit with non-celebrities?’ she’d asked. ‘Surely they know we want to talk to other interesting people.’
Secretly Mike agreed with her, but was aware that the driver was overhearing their conversation so he confined himself to a comment about the raffle.
‘How’s it going?’ he asked now, nodding to the leg lifts she was embarking on.
‘Fine.’ She grunted.
He watched her for a while, wondering how she could bear to spend so much of her life lifting separate bits of her body like a daddy-long-legs trying to get through a patch of strawberry jam.
‘Be careful not to overdo it …’ he threw over his shoulder, as he made his way upstairs. As he turned the corner, he finished the sentence ‘. or they’ll turn into antennae.’
He and Sandra had separate bedrooms – a result of ten years doing breakfast television with its unpleasant early-morning regime. Not that Mike could complain. A huge salary and a four-hour day because he was arrogant enough to think he could get away with minimal preparation. He woke up at five-thirty a.m, although in every interview he said it was three.
His bedroom was enormous, the giant bed covered with carefully coiffed cushions. That was Sandra’s touch. She had also forced him to have dark green sheets and duvet cover because he insisted on reading newspapers in bed. ‘I’m not having white sheets with black streaks in my house,’ she had said. And, actually, he wasn’t bothered. She could do what she liked, within reason. As long as she never found the little hiding places.
Katie’s mother had forced her to go shopping. ‘I do love you,’ she said, ‘but since you’ve come to stay, and show no sign yet of going, you may as well make yourself useful. We’re down to dog biscuits and tinned rice pudding unless someone makes the effort to drive into town and get some food.’
There was a pause. And a look.
‘And drink. We’re out of everything apart from sherry.’
It was Katie’s first trip out among the public since she’d been sacked. She was looking forward to it in the same way that she looked forward to having her verrucas frozen by Nigel at the chiropodist’s in Marylebone. No, on second thoughts she didn’t mind that too much because it felt like she was getting tidied up. She was looking forward to it like. She pulled her mouth into a line, pushed it out into a cat’s bottom shape, and decided it was like looking forward to A-level economics. Knowing you were going to hate it, but also that you had to do it unless you could convince everyone you were suffering from something major. Like your arms had dropped off in a freak cactus-juggling incident.
Her parents’ car smelled quite strongly of dog. Dog, food and turpentine. She sniffed appreciatively. For a moment she forgot about her feelings of desperation, degradation and depression. She was safe. Wrapped in family.
It would all be fine. And what was so bad about doing QVC, anyway? As Keera had for her special meeting with The Boss, Katie had dressed carefully. She was wearing her favourite pink cashmere zip-up top, her jeans and her pink R. Soles cowboy boots. She had washed and blow-dried her hair, then applied the minimum of makeup. Unbeknown to her, she was also wearing exactly the same shade of lip-gloss as her nemesis in London.
And so arrayed, she had set forth in the battered old orange Volvo to purchase essentials. ‘Although,’ she said to the windscreen, ‘I do think that drink is the most essential of all the essentials.’
‘Perhaps,’ she posed to the traffic-lights, ‘I should buy my own so that Mum doesn’t need to have a go at me.’
‘And,’ she pondered to the parking spot behind the supermarket, ‘I should get them from a grog shop because they might offer me a discount for a box.’
And also because Mum’s friend didn’t work there.
She trundled up and down the aisles, perusing the offerings. And for the first five minutes, as she fondled the plums and hesitated over the horseradish, nothing hideous happened.
Then a small, round, sweaty man, wearing a windcheater, grey slacks and an excited expression, came up to her and said, ‘You’re that girl off the telly, aren’t you?’
‘I used to be in television, but I’m pursuing other avenues. Thank you for asking,’ said Katie, firmly. She turned back to decide whether her mother had meant washing-up liquid or washing liquid.
‘I don’t like that new girl at all,’ said a woman standing near Sweaty Man.
‘Can I have your autograph?’ asked a girl in a stained white Barbie T-shirt and tight black trousers, egged on by her mother.
‘Yes, of course you can,’ said Katie, smiling tightly and using the proffered sticky pen to write her name on the 15p-off Jaffa Cakes coupon. She then fled round the corner to the soft-drinks section. But there was to be no peace. A middle-aged woman