From Dirt to Diamonds

Out too, all the drifting and aimlessness of her existence. From now on, everything had a focus, an end point, a reason. Everything was a step on her journey out of the life she had into the life she wanted. The life she was going to get for herself.

But how was she going to get that life? She was going to work—work her backside off—but doing what? She’d left school with the minimum qualifications, had hated school-work anyway, so what could she do?

It was Katya who showed her. Katya, whom she’d met at the hostel for the homeless she’d got a room in, who was Polish, blonde and busty. She palled up with Kat, claiming they had the same name, the same hair colour, the same age—and the same determination to make good. Katya’s father was a miner, crippled in an explosion. Her mother had TB. She had eight younger brothers and sisters.

‘I look after them,’ said Katya simply. She knew exactly how she was going to do so. ‘Glamour modelling,’ she told Kat openly. ‘It makes good money, and at home no one will see those magazines, so I don’t care.’

Kat tried to talk her out of it. Her every instinct revolted against going anywhere along that path.

‘No. I do it,’ said Katya resolutely. She eyed Kat. ‘You, with your looks, can model without the glamour,’ she said. ‘Real modelling.’

Kat had laughed dismissively. ‘Thousands of girls want to become models.’

Katya only shrugged. ‘So? Some of them make it. Why not you?

Her words echoed in Kat’s mind. Resonating like wind chimes, playing seductively in her consciousness.

Why not her?

She took to staring at herself in the mirror. She was thin, like a model was. Especially since she didn’t spend much on food—not having much to spend. And she was tall. Long bones. She studied her face. Her eyes were wide. Greyish. Oval face. Cheekbones high. Straight nose. Bare mouth. Teeth OK. No lipstick, no eyeshadow. She never wore make-up. What for, when she avoided sex—and therefore men—like the plague?

She gave a shrug. Either her face would suit, or it wouldn’t. But she might as well try.

‘You need a portfolio,’ Katya told her. ‘You know—photos to show how good you can look. But they cost a lot.’

Kat took a job—two jobs. In the day, six days a week, she worked in a shoe shop, and in the evening, seven days a week, she worked as a waitress. She was on time every day. She took all the instructions she was given without argument, resistance or attitude. She was polite to customers, even when they were rude to her. She gritted her teeth, steeled her spine, and did the work—earned the wages. Saved every penny she could.

It was slow, and it was hard, and it took her six months to put aside enough. But pound by pound, doggedly hoarded, she put the money together to pay for a professional portfolio.

Then she just had to find a photographer. Katya recommended one. Kat was sceptical, given the Polish girl’s line of work, but Katya went on at her, and eventually Kat said OK. She didn’t like Mike, straight off, but Katya was with her, so she didn’t walk out. She liked him even less when he wanted her to strip off—just to see her underlying figure, he claimed—nor did she like the fact he didn’t like it when she said no. The session took for ever, with Katya redoing her hair and make-up, changing her clothes all the time. She didn’t like Mike physically changing her pose, moving her around like a doll. But she knew that was all a model was—a clothes horse. Not a person. She had better get used to it. Train herself to be docile. Even though it went against the grain.

Finally he finished, and when the photos were ready Kat was so stunned she could only stare. The face which all her life hadn’t seemed to be anything much, was suddenly, out of nowhere, amazing! Her eyes were huge, her cheekbones like knives, and her mouth—

‘I look fantastic,’ she said faintly. It was like looking at a stranger—a face that wasn’t hers, but was. She gave Katya a hug. ‘Thanks!’ she choked.

She didn’t see the strange expression fleetingly in the other girl’s eyes.

She took the next morning off work and, nerves shredded like paper, heart thumping, headed for the modelling agency she’d selected as her first try with her new portfolio.

They had, to her exultation, taken her on.

But even after being signed it was a long, slow haul. Assignments were thin on the ground, and competition for them fierce.

Especially the best ones.

Like the one she was racing for now. For a start, the casting was at a seriously flash Park Lane hotel, and the shoot itself was going to be in Monte Carlo—posing on yachts in a marina. She felt a thrill of excitement as she raced out of the tube station. She’d never been abroad in her life, let alone anywhere that fantastically swanky.

As she dashed up to the hotel, heart-rate zapping in her chest, she was intent only on getting to the entrance as fast as possible. She completely ignored the sleek limo pulled up at the kerb, and the frock-coated doorman stepping back from opening the rear door. Nor did she pay the slightest attention to whoever it was getting out. Except that as she raced up to the hotel’s revolving door he was in her way.

“Scuse me!’ she exclaimed, and made to push past him, to get into the revolving door first.

But the man simply turned his head sharply and stopped, blocking her. Kat glared at him. She took in height, a dark suit, a tanned complexion, strong features which made her pulse give a strange kick, and dark, forbidding eyes clashing with hers.

Her pulse gave that strange kick again. But it was because she was running late, was in a hurry, didn’t have time to waste—and this block of a man was in her way. That was why. No other reason.

‘Look, are you going to shift or not?’ she bit out impatiently, glaring at him belligerently.

Something flashed in the dark eyes. Something that made that kick come again. But it was just because he was still in her way—and because he was looking at her as if she was some inferior being. Her back went up as automatically as the kick that came in her pulse.

‘Would you be so very kind,’ she gritted, in mock-ingratiating accents, ‘as to allow me to get into the damn hotel?’

The dark eyes flashed again. But this time it was different. She didn’t know how different, or why. But it was. This time it didn’t make her pulse kick. It made something arrow in her stomach instead.

Then he stepped back. He said nothing, just indicated with his hand for her to go into the revolving door. It was an offhand gesture—dismissive. She didn’t like it. It made her back go up even more. She stepped into the open angle of the doorway, then turned her head.

‘Thank you so much,’ she said, in sweetly acid, exaggerated tones. ‘How terribly kind of you!’

Something glinted in his eye, which she didn’t like either, and she turned her head sharply and swept inside, pushing the door round, to gain the marbled entrance lobby.

‘Posh idiot!’ she muttered. Then she pulled her mind away from the incident. She had to find where the casting was.

Fifteen minutes later she was sitting on a spindly gilt chair in a huge hotel function room, looking depressed at the usual horde of fantastic-looking hopefuls. There seemed to be a bit of a lull in the proceedings. The suits at the far end, bunched around a table, must be making their minds up. Kat stared round, feeling strangely edgy—more so than she usually felt at a casting. Maybe it was because she didn’t like this room—it made her feel out of place. This was the poshest place she’d ever been in, and all the people who came here were posh. Like the bloke who’d looked down on her for daring to push past him.

Kat’s eyebrows drew together. She felt antagonism flick inside her, then pushed the memory out of her mind. No point thinking about it—it had been brief, annoying, and now it was over. Just one of those things. She wondered how long it would take for the suits to decide whether she was one of the lucky chosen.

She wasn’t a strong candidate, she knew. Not for a swanky shoot like this. Her looks and style were fine for streetwise stuff, smart and sassy or aggro-cool, but if this was all about yachts then they’d want models that looked the part. Those sleek, classy girls who spoke with plums in their mouths, who were called Christabel and Octavia and knew each other from boarding school. Who were only modelling for a hobby or a lark until they married, or got bored with the hard work it really was.

She went on staring, keeping herself to herself, the way she always did at castings, not caring if other girls thought her standoffish. Then, abruptly, the huddle at the table straightened and a chicly dressed middle-aged woman started reading names out.

Kat’s wasn’t one of them.

She gave a mental shrug. What had she expected? Disappointment and frustration went with the territory, and you rolled with the punches because there was no alternative. She, like the rest of the girls in the room apart from the chosen nine, who’d hurried forward to the table, started to pick up their stuff and prepared to leave.

Except that, abruptly, another door at the far end of the room opened, close to the table with the suits, and someone walked in.

Kat recognised him instantly, and it set the seal on the casting. It was the man she’d hustled at the entrance to the hotel. By the way the suits had jumped to their feet—even the two women—the guy was clearly a head honcho type. Kat wasn’t surprised—it was obvious from the handmade suit to the way he’d looked at her with coldly arrogant eyes, as if she was an inferior being.

Well, if he was the head honcho, then it was just as well she hadn’t been picked. She hadn’t exactly impressed the guy, had she, back-talking him like that? She hefted her bag, and stood up.

As she did so, she felt something on her. It was the man—he was sweeping a rapid glance over the girls in the room. Maybe he was just checking that the models on the short list, clustered eagerly by the table, were the best there. Well, it wouldn’t be her, anyway, not once he’d recognised her. She turned away, moving towards the door.

The voice of the middle-aged woman rang out.

‘You—short blonde hair, green shift. Wait.’

Slowly, Kat paused and turned. The woman beckoned to her impatiently.

‘Kat Jones, is it?’