Shimmer

‘Not bad, it’s incredible!’ I replied, relieved to finally find someone I could express a smidgen of my excitement to. Matt grinned.

‘Yup, it’s pretty special. For what it is.’

Chloe was frowning down at her BlackBerry. She seemed to have forgotten we were there.

‘I can’t believe I’m actually here,’ I continued. ‘It seems so much smaller than on TV. But still so … magical.’

‘But have you seen the—?’ he stopped mid-sentence. ‘Hold on. Just wait there.’ Matt darted off between a row of gold audience chairs and disappeared behind the wooden walls of the set. I looked around awkwardly as Chloe tapped away at her BlackBerry.

‘LOOK UP!’ Matt’s voice boomed out from behind the walls. I did as I was told. Three huge disco balls were suspended from the ceiling, dwarfing the hundreds of TV lights that were also dangling from the metallic ropes above. Then, slowly, they began to turn. At first it was a little unnerving. The momentum that their slow turning generated made it seem as if it were the rest of the set that was moving, not them. The effect was magical. They were properly spinning now, casting their sparkly chinks of light across everything beneath them. Their movement made me imagine I was dancing myself, as I remembered all the nights I had got myself to sleep by pretending I was waltzing across a gleaming ballroom floor.

Then, just as suddenly, they stopped. I caught sight of Matt waving through a glass pane high above the stage, above the area I’d be standing in during the performances. He seemed to have gone up to the lighting gallery especially to put on this little show for me. With a quick smile he disappeared from view, then reappeared on the ballroom floor a minute later.

‘Just a little something I like to do for the newcomers.’ His twinkly eyes were even twinklier with mischief, and he gave me a little bow.

‘Wow, thank you. Seeing that was pretty much the only reason I wanted to work here. I think I’ve peaked. I should probably just leave now.’

I’m not quite sure where the courage for such banter had come from. I seemed to have forgotten all about Chloe, who had by now taken a seat in the front row and was focussed entirely on her emails. She looked up sharply.

‘I don’t think so,’ she said, staring suspiciously at the two of us. ‘Come along, Amanda. We’ve got paperwork to do. Matt – we’ll meet you at reception in fifteen. We have to collect Amanda’s pass anyway.’

She continued her brusque walk across the set, pointing out cables of different lengths on the floor behind the audience chairs, careful to make sure that I stepped, rather than tripped, over them. I just about had time to look over my shoulder and wave a quick goodbye to Matt as I trotted off behind her. I was thrilled that I had found someone who seemed as enthusiastic about the job as I was, despite Chloe’s apparent attempts to make everything seem as tedious as possible. I followed her along seemingly endless corridors barely absorbing any of what she was saying, as she talked me through the basics of my new job. Deep down I was really only thinking one thing: I’m here. I’m at Strictly Come Dancing. I’ve made it.

My heart was still racing by the time we got back to BBC TV Centre’s imposing reception area. I had always dreamt of working in live TV but this was the first time I had really grasped how much responsibility it entailed. It had all seemed rather abstract before, when I was just the work experience girl. There was so much to remember. And that wasn’t including the names, the labyrinthine corridors of BBC TV centre and the strange unspoken hierarchy that seemed to exist among senior and junior members of the team. Matt had seemed so friendly and approachable, but Chloe was significantly more frosty, despite her relaxed-looking fashion choices.

I glanced up at the huge news ticker running across the glass doorways. There were people milling around reception, generally looking busy, clutching cups of coffee and scanning the faces of those who were seated, trying to work out who their next meeting was with. A small queue had formed at the security desk and it seemed like most people were waiting for their visitor passes to be put together. I spotted Matt at the front of the queue talking to one of the security team. He turned around and smiled at us, holding out a BBC pass with a name and face on it. Mine. ‘Welcome to Strictly,’ he said. ‘You’re one of the family now.’ One of the family …

I smiled back and put the pass around my neck. I felt like a Jim’ll Fix It guest, glowing with excitement at having been granted my special wish. Except instead of a Jim’ll Fix It badge, I had a BBC pass. Same difference, as far as I was concerned. Mindful that I should perhaps seem like a glacial model of broadcasting efficiency, I maintained a dignified expression. It lasted approximately three seconds, before I yelped ‘Yeay!!!’ Matt winked at me. Chloe looked as if she were doing her best not to roll her eyes.

‘Come on then. We’d better get to the office,’ she said.

The rest of the day was a blur of information, responsibilities and titles that I had no hope of remembering for at least a couple of weeks. I was still buzzing from the set visit, so I pushed any anxieties about my ability to actually do the job to the back of my mind and got on with taking notes on almost everything Chloe said. Matt continued to pop up through the day, asking if he could get us tea or coffee whenever he was off to the kitchen, and chipping in to clarify some of Chloe’s more pedantic explanations. His version always seemed a bit more straightforward. Hours later, Chloe told me that my working day was done, and that she would see me at the same time tomorrow. She had barely finished her sentence before her eyes were back on her BlackBerry screen.

When I eventually left TV Centre and stepped into the London drizzle it was already dusk. I headed for the pedestrian crossing, trying to splash as little as possible of the mulchy grey puddles all over my smart new tights. Natalie, my elder sister, had given them to me for the job interview, and made no secret of telling me that the precious Wolfords had cost her £15 – for tights! The woman was insane, but I did appreciate the gesture. I couldn’t doubt the fact that my big sister had really wanted me to get the job, even if she thought Lycra-clad legs would be the key to my success. Either way, the Wolfords had now become a bit of a good luck talisman and I was determined to keep them safe. I decided to scurry across the road and into Westfield Shopping Centre to take back something for supper to say thank you. The rain was coming down a little harder by the time the traffic stopped at the crossing, so I broke into a run as I reached the pavement on the other side. As I did so, I leapt inelegantly onto an unexpectedly wobbly paving stone, which squelched down into a pool of water, entirely soaking my foot. As I stumbled, I banged into an enormous male chest that I hadn’t noticed approaching.

‘Youch!’ I yelped, and looked up, standing on my remaining dry leg, to see one of the most extraordinary men I had ever clapped eyes on. He had pale hair and lightly tanned skin, but his face was just a blur of attractiveness. Perhaps there was an enormous pair of brown eyes. Most of all, I was left breathless by the Wall-of-ManChest, which remained immobile.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked. I couldn’t quite work out his accent. He sounded foreign, but in a non-specific way that made it hard for me to place him. I continued to shake my soggy foot, and in doing so flicked my patent leather ballet pump off and into the puddle I had just stepped in.

‘Yes. I, er, the puddle,’ was all I could muster.

He looked at my shoe, and slowly bent down to pick it up for me. As he leant forward I copped a quick glimpse of the soft blond hair peeking out above the deep V of his T-shirt. The one leg I was left standing on nearly collapsed. He bent down, picked up my poor bedraggled shoe, shook it off and gave it a quick wipe with a tissue he’d pulled out from the pocket of his enormous hoodie. Then, he handed it back.

‘There you go, Cinderella.’

‘Thank you,’ I gasped. He smiled at me and I managed a goofy half smile back. My tights were suddenly immaterial, as were my shoes: I am quite sure I floated the rest of the way to Westfield.

Chapter 1

By the time I finally arrived back at my sister’s flat I was drenched. The faux-fur collar on my coat was matted like soggy cat fur and drops of rain were dripping off my eyelashes. Any Strictly sparkle I’d had had long since gone, although my memory of the Giant Man Chest certainly lingered.

There was one thought keeping me going, as I finally turned the key in Natalie’s front door: fishcakes. Determined to pull my weight while I was a houseguest, I had shunned any form of supermarket own-brand food and had splashed out on some delicious fishcakes, a bottle of wine that cost well over the five pounds I would usually spend, and some fancy dark chocolate. I would be a dream of a younger sister, oh yes I would.

I had deliberately shaken off my umbrella on the porch of her gorgeous south London flat and entered feeling full of optimism and goodwill. Sadly, my happiness was short-lived as one of the shopping bags split and its soggy contents spilled out over Natalie’s immaculate fawn carpet. Her head poked round the kitchen door just as I was hurriedly trying to scoop the contents off the floor and into the remaining bag.

Natalie smiled tightly. I was on my knees, frantically scooping like a guilty dog owner in the park. I looked up at her.

‘I’ve brought us dinner!’ I said, brushing the carpet breezily with my hand in the hope that the soggy patch I had left would just … go away.

‘I’ll get a cloth,’ she replied and soon re-emerged from the kitchen with a clean, brightly coloured cloth folded into neat quarters.

‘I’m so sorry – the packaging must have pierced the bag …’

‘It’s fine, it’s fine.’ I wasn’t sure that it was.

‘Honestly, don’t worry about it. But I would really prefer it if you didn’t cook fishcakes in the flat. I can’t stand the smell and in this weather I can’t open the back door to get rid of it. I’ve made some spaghetti bolognese. It’s on the hob.’

‘Okay, sure. At least try the wine though, it’s a nice one.’

‘Thanks. But Lloyd and I don’t really drink during the week. If you just leave it on the side, I’m sure we’ll have it sometime soon.’

I stayed crouching by the soggy carpet a couple of moments longer, as if just being there might somehow help clear up my mess. Terrified of the damage my enormous, still-damp coat could do in the pristine bedroom I was staying in, I took it off and laid it over the edge of the bath. By the time I reached the bedroom I was shuffling, afraid of each and every clean white surface in there, and convinced that any sudden movement would bring the silver-framed photographs crashing down. Having run a hand across the back of my dress to check for hideous black marks, I plonked myself down on the edge of the downy duvet and let out a mighty sigh.

It wasn’t that my fishcakes had been rejected, and anyway I loved Natalie’s bolognese. And it wasn’t that she had been terse with me about sullying her immaculate home – I’d deserved it. It was that I felt I would never be able to repay Natalie and her husband, Lloyd, for their kindness. I was only a couple of years younger than Natalie but it felt as if she had somehow unlocked a Life Code that meant she was several levels ahead of me in the game called Being a Proper Grown-Up. Well, that and the fact that I owed it to her that I had the job at Strictly at all.

Since graduating from university my life had lurched from crisis to sulk and back to crisis while I slowly drove my entire family mad. I’d struggled this first year: many of my friends were still studying and many were working abroad. I’d felt lost without them, not to mention lonely, and the adult world of work had started to feel entirely out of my grasp. Torn between squandering my savings in London trying to get experience working in TV, and staying at home among the hedges of Surrey with my parents – safe in the short term but pointless in the long term – I had failed to make any proper decisions about anything for the upcoming year.

For a week I would be filled with righteous fury that I had to wait on tables at Sergio’s, the local Italian restaurant on the high street. Then I would spend a week agonising over whether to bin the job and take up an offer of some unpaid work experience in a weird, forgotten TV studio in Zone 6. A week later I would fill in a bunch of applications and find myself secretly hoping that I didn’t get any of the jobs. After all, that was the only fail-safe method I could think of to stop me from ever finding out if I was really good enough for the competitive world of live TV. And shortly after that the seemingly inevitable job rejections would start to flow in and I would shift from silent terror to full-blown adolescent sulk.

I spent a summer at Sergio’s trying – and failing – not to splash bolognese on my white waitressing shirt even before the customers had started to arrive. When I could take it no more, I switched to temping in various local businesses. I hadn’t accounted for the fact that temps are the only workplace life form given less respect than waitresses. Plus my enthusiasm for trying to work out how to use a different photocopier every week was also waning. After six months my parents were beginning to drop increasingly obvious hints that I needed to move out, and I knew deep down that if I really wanted to work in TV, I was going to have to swallow my fears and make a decision one way or the other.

As the longest and most dreary summer of my life was drawing to a longed-for close, everything changed. I was lying on the sofa as usual, devoting a little time to my now favourite pastime: convincing myself that the nearest I would ever get to a TV studio would be as a novelty act on Britain’s Got Talent (‘Ladies and Gentlemen! The Incredible Sulk!’). Then I heard the phone ringing in the kitchen. Mum, who was expecting a call from her friend Jen, leapt to pick it up. Moments later I heard her call me.

‘Amanda! Your sister wants a word!’

What fresh hell is this? I thought to myself. Surely she hasn’t found a new way to boss me around already? I only saw her on Sunday …

I took the phone from my mum and held it to my ear.

‘Tata dada, tata daaaaa,’ Natalie was singing down the line.

‘What’s up?’ I replied, wondering why she was so happy. She’s normally a Grade A jobsworth, only interested in her feisty law career and in trying to mould me into someone as ambitious and successful as she is.

‘Strictly! Strictly!’ she shrieked down the phone, giggling. For someone usually so po-faced, she sounded positively delirious.

‘Seriously, what are you talking about?’

‘There’s a job going at Strictly Come Dancing, and Lloyd says he can help you with the application!’