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She stood at the door as they scrambled for clothes. She was tired. She couldn’t think of any articulate words that would adequately convey her feelings. ‘Fuck off,’ she said, as her now ex-boyfriend tried to explain.

With tears coursing down her cheeks, she left. No more hairdresser. No more boyfriend. And an awful worry that maybe she should visit the STD clinic to check whether he had left her with any little presents. It would not be her first attendance. Her ex-husband had donated a number of lifetime gifts after playing the field during the last months of their marriage. ‘Well,’ he had said, as if right was entirely on his side, ‘you were never around when I needed you. What was I supposed to do?’

‘Abstain. Like me,’ she had suggested, blowing her nose on a wet tissue as she had packed the few possessions she cared about.

But to discover that the moron she had been dating since her divorce was not only playing the field but playing over a couple of other acres was too much.

What a fool. Would she ever learn? Why was she the one it always happened to? How come none of her mates had noticed he was gay? How come the queen of gaydar, Katie, hadn’t spotted it?

She lay on the pink sofa in her flat, unable to cry any more.

She had a headache from crying. Her nose ached from crying. Even her toes seemed waterlogged.

She couldn’t think of a single thing that might have alerted her to the dreadful fact that she had been competing with the whole of the human race for the affections of a man who was probably, right now, coming out of the back of her hairdresser.

She watched the television through tear-soaked eyes and wondered if it hurt to die of painkillers – or if that was an oxymoron. Or just ironic.

CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_c3e76e75-3e0c-5ccd-ae0f-d87c88459a9c)

Keera was beyond excited. She had been asked by GQ to pose naked with a panther for their section on ‘The Ones to Watch’.

It wasn’t a complete surprise – her publicist had been phoning all the magazines every week to get her something.

When Keera had hired him, she had said she wanted publicity at any cost. He had taken her at her word. She had said she did not want ‘the usual stuff’ – soft interviews of her at home – she wanted something that would make people sit up and take notice.

It hadn’t been difficult to sell her the idea of a nude shoot, although he had been nervous initially. ‘After all,’ he had said, ‘you do so much exercise that it’s a shame to waste the result under clothes. And it would be very tasteful. They were desperate to get you. You’d be one of ten people they say are going places.’

‘Excellent,’ responded Keera, a gleam in her eye. Her only anxiety was whether they’d get it past the press office.

‘Well, I was hoping you’d help out on that front,’ said Daniel. And he had left it to her.

God knows how she’d managed it when one of the other presenters had been virtually put on rations for doing a photo shoot in which she had featured wearing nothing but paperclips for a recycling campaign.

Keera’s strategy had been simple. She had gone straight to the top. She had avoided the press office, on the basis that the man in charge didn’t like her very much, and was gay, so her wiles would be wasted. She had knocked on The Boss’s door and sprawled alluringly on his black sofa, allowing him a glimpse of her lace lingerie. She had given him a whisper of more to come. So much more. After ten minutes he had caved in.

It had taken her hours to get the outfit right. Nothing too obviously tarty … don’t want to frighten the pants off him. She giggled at the thought. She did find him strangely attractive – but with no pants on?

She didn’t want anything too girly. She wanted him to know she meant business.

In the end she had chosen a tightly fitting black suit with a low round neck and a thin pink stripe, from a new designer she had spotted at Selfridges. Sounded French, looked French, but actually American and lower cut at the front. Just where it needed it. She had hesitated over the stockings, then decided on hold-ups. If he caught sight of them – if? – it wouldn’t look as if she was trying too hard.

Finally, the high-heeled Charles Jourdan court shoes with an ankle strap. It had taken her almost as much time to put on her makeup. Less is more, she thought, as she expertly applied base and powder. A touch of mascara and pink lip-gloss, and she was ready. Her hair, specially blow-dried for the event, framed her face with its soft, black shininess.

With one last glance in the mirror, Keera set off for the twelve o’clock appointment. Friday was always the best day to see anyone who worked in breakfast TV. No programme on Saturday – people could let their hair down. The Boss was guaranteed sober if caught before lunch. Too late in the day and he’d be under a table, if not under a woman. He’d once been found with a fifty year-old Russian countess in a broom cupboard at the Savoy Hotel after a particularly late lunch. It had been hushed up but, like most things in the media world, the news had leaked out. No journalist could resist a juicy piece of gossip like that.

Laughing coquettishly and doing a Princess Diana-type peep up through her lashes, Keera had asked The Boss if he could limit the number of people he told to the bare essentials. She thought, as he laughed too, that she had made some sort of joke about being naked. She could have hugged herself. ‘I’m on my way. I do know where I’m going,’ she hummed, as she left the building.

To tell Mike – or not to tell Mike? He was a bit of a prude and would probably be mildly – if not hugely – horrified. However, if she didn’t keep him in the loop he was likely to be severely miffed and do that horrible thing he used to do to Katie when he was in one of his pre-menstrual moods: he had turned his back on her when he was interviewing someone on the sofa, not responded to comments and – the only thing Keera was scared of – made witty comments she didn’t entirely understand.

On the other hand, she knew the viewers were on her side. They liked her natural girl-next-door approach. Never mind that someone had described her within earshot as a lobster short of a seafood platter. They’d got rid of Katie because she was too sharp. Unpleasantly so. She tried to think of a simile. As sharp as – a lemon?. No, she was partial to lemons.

As 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.