The auditions were to be held in a hotel in Cricklewood at 2.30 p.m. and I was meeting Alicia at Willesden Green tube station at midday.
‘We can have lunch first and get our stories straight,’ she’d said cheerily.
‘What shall I wear?’ I’d asked.
‘Oh, anything,’ she said airily. ‘Something bright’s best – so you stand out.’
After another hour spent staring hopelessly at a wardrobe of unrelenting grey, brown and black, I‘d decided on a pair of jeans with butterflies embroidered on them, and a bright pink T-shirt I’d found in TK Maxx which would have apparently cost such a fortune before it was marked down to £9.99 that I couldn’t not buy it even if it was a size too small.
I wore it over the top of a longer vest top so there was no danger of any stomach hoving into view and a pair of very high pink heels – another knock-down bargain — hoping for an illusion of slimness and elegance.
Since the shopping trip had put me even further behind on my latest exciting project from Mike – a 24-page brochure on a unique water-cooling system for home and office – I spent the train journey staring at his almost incomprehensible notes on the subject and trying to work out which way up the diagrams of the filter system went. By the time I was on the tube I felt ready for a lie-down.
I also felt quite nervous. As I tottered out of the station, trying not to break an ankle, I almost hoped Alicia wouldn’t be there and I could turn round and go home again. But she was waiting right next to the entrance.
She looked different, younger somehow, from the last time I’d seen her. Her hair was in a thick plait down her back this time and she had almost no make-up on. She was wearing a short, flowery dress over jeans and green mules with glittery bits on them. She gave me a hug and then looked me up and down and grinned. ‘OK, Mum?’
‘I thought I’d be 19 and you could be 35,’ she said, as I followed her along the road. ‘That’s about what you are anyway, isn’t it?’ she asked innocently. ‘Or are you a lot younger?’
I laughed. ‘Come off it! I’m over 40. Why don’t I say 40 and you say 20 – otherwise I’d have been very young to have a baby.’
‘Say you’re 39 – sounds better.’
It did indeed. ‘Am I still with your father?’ I enquired, once we were sitting on the pavement outside a little Italian café and had ordered paninis and mineral water. (‘Better not have wine till afterwards,’ Alicia had instructed. ‘If they smell it on you, they might think you’re a lush.’)
Alicia considered my question. ‘Nah – he left us both when I was three months old. That’s why we’ve got this extraordinary closeness. And I was thinking – this will give it a nice twist – I’m the one who can cook and you’ve never really got to grips with it. You’ve been working too hard holding down three jobs to support us both, so now I look after you.’ She beamed.
‘I’ve already put down that I make a mean lasagne,’ I told her.
‘Well, say that’s all you can do. Tell them I do everything else – all the creative stuff.’
‘Can you cook really?’
Alicia shrugged. ‘Yeah, sort of. It’s not that difficult, is it? And they’re hardly going to check.’
‘They might as it’s a cookery programme,’ I said, marvelling at her nerve.
Alicia gave a dismissive snort. ‘I’ll learn a couple of recipes. My mate, Shirley, carried on for about 20 minutes on how to knock up the perfect paella and she’s never so much as made a bacon sandwich.’
‘So what happens when we get there?’ I asked, sipping my water.
‘Shirl said there’s a load more forms, then they’ll film us talking about ourselves and then film us pretending to be playing the game and talking about our ingredients – what were your favourites?’
I shook my head in alarm. ‘Oh God, I can’t remember!’
Alicia shrugged again. ‘Doesn’t matter – just make it up. Everyone always brings chicken breasts. I put down pig’s trotters just to be different.’
‘Ugh! Yuck!’ I said as the waiter put a mozzarella and basil panini in front of me. He picked it up again, looking affronted.
‘Sorry,’ I said, flustered. ‘I was talking about something else.’
Alicia laughed, pulled the top from her lunch and gave the contents – some sort of ham – a prod. ‘In Portugal,’ she said gleefully, ‘I went to a restaurant where they had pig’s face.’
I began to feel even more nervous as, an hour later, we approached the Majestic Hotel.
‘How many people do we have to speak in front of?’ I asked as I hobbled through the big glass doors. The balls of my feet were already burning.
‘Not many,’ said Alicia brightly. ‘Now don’t forget to call me darling.’ She tucked her arm through mine. ‘OK, Mum?’
We followed the signs in reception and went up to the fourth floor where we were directed to a huge room filled with people sitting about on chairs. There was a table at the back with pots of coffee and tea and orange juice. I went and got some water, trying to stop my stomach doing that jumping thing.
The usual young-man-in-black-T-shirt brought us some forms to fill in and said he’d be back to see us in a while. Alicia and I sat at a small table in the corner with the orange Cook Around the Clock pens we’d been given and perused the questions.
Have you ever been on television before?
Yes! I ticked proudly.
If yes, give names of programmes with dates.
Easy enough so far.
Who is your chosen partner for Cook Around the Clock?
‘Haven’t we done all this already?’ I asked Alicia, who was chewing her pen and looking bored.
‘Yes,’ she said.
Relationship to you.
I stole a sideways glance at Alicia who was now thoughtfully sucking her ball point. She couldn’t look less like my daughter – she was an olive-skinned, Mediterranean-looking exotic with glossy black hair, huge brown eyes, and a snub nose whereas I was pale and a bit blotchy with the ill-advised plum hair that would otherwise be a sort of mid-brown/blonde (I refused to think of small rodents) and a nose that at best could be described as substantial.
She scrawled something on the bottom of her paper and looked up at me. ‘I’m whizzing out for a cig,’ she said. ‘Have you finished yet?’
‘Nearly,’ I said, glancing back at the two pages of unanswered questions in front of me before watching her stride across the floor dropping her forms into the waiting hands of the young man who’d spoken to us earlier.
‘Are you done?’ He appeared at my elbow moments later.
‘Almost.’
I rushed through the rest, putting the first thing that came to mind while he hovered.
Anything you’d be afraid to cook?
Well, yes, most things really …
By the time Alicia came back, several of the frighteningly young people from the TV company had been examining my form for some time.
As Alicia plonked herself down beside me, a very skinny girl with spiky black hair, black jeans and the regulation tight black top pointed across at us with a long purple nail and went into another huddle with a couple of the guys.
‘What do you think they’re talking about?’ I whispered.
‘Just saying how we’re just what they’re looking for,’ said Alicia confidently. ‘They’ll call us in to do our stuff in a minute.’
‘What did you write for your guilty pleasure?’ I asked her.
Alicia grinned. ‘The same as my obsession …’
‘I put tuna mayo as my favourite sandwich,’ I mused. ‘But really, you know – it’s egg mayo with tomato and raw onion …’
‘They don’t care,’ said Alicia. ‘All they’re interested in is whether –’ She broke off as a beautiful young man with floppy brown hair with a single blond streak across the middle and dark brown eyes, walked over to us.
I saw Alicia look him over appreciatively but he fixed his gaze on me and said pleasantly, ‘You’re not really her mother, are you?’
Alicia sat up straighter. ‘Of course she is!’
I looked up into his eyes – he had incredibly thick, glossy eyelashes – and hesitated.
He gave me a slow smile. ‘Are you?’
‘No.’ I said.
Beside me, Alicia gave an audible hiss of exasperation. ‘But I think of her as my mother,’ she said, ‘because my real mother died when I was a baby and Laura practically brought me up …’
The young man ignored her and held out his hand to me.
‘I’m Cal,’ he said. ‘I’m the assistant director.’ He looked down at the form in his hand. ‘You’ve been on Rise Up with Randolph , I see …’
Alicia rolled her eyes and shook her head in disgust. Cal was still looking at me. ‘I think I saw it,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘You were very good.’
I laughed self-consciously. ‘Not really – I squawked like a fishwife.’
He laughed. ‘PMT, wasn’t it?’
‘I don’t know, really. It shouldn’t have been because it was only Day 10 but, mind you, I do go a bit funny then sometimes – it’s quite odd – though Day 19 is the time when I really – oh, I see,’ I said, flustered, as Cal grinned and Alicia rolled her eyes some more. ‘You mean the subject of the programme? Yes, yes, it was.’
Cal was still smiling as I blushed. ‘I must have another look at it,’ he said. ‘You could be just what we’re looking for – for something else.’
‘What about this one?’ put in Alicia, sounding cross. ‘What about Cook Around the Clock? ’
‘I’m just coming to that,’ said Cal pleasantly. He looked at her. ‘Weren’t you on that programme with Randolph too?’ he asked, one eyebrow raised.
‘Yes,’ said Alicia reluctantly.
‘But not as Laura’s daughter – so we can’t use you for this. I’m afraid you can’t go on television and pretend to be something you’re not.’
Alicia shrugged. ‘This is a different production company,’ she said boldly. ‘Why not?’
‘Because,’ said Cal patiently, ‘it may still be watched by a lot of the same people. Our programme is on at 4.45 p.m., which still counts as daytime TV, so we’ll be getting a lot of the viewers who watched at 10 a.m. on other channels. They tend to be the same group who are at home all day. Housewives and house husbands, of course –’ He suddenly flicked a smile at me and I felt a funny little frisson run down my spine. ‘We can’t risk –’
‘Why can’t we be friends, then?’ interrupted Alicia. ‘We could have made it up on the set afterwards and been inseparable ever since. We could even tell the story on air –’
Cal smiled again. ‘And promote a rival channel? I don’t think so!’
‘OK, well, then we’ll –’
‘I’m sure we can sort something.’ Cal spoke over her, his voice firmer. Then he looked back at me. ‘You have a really interesting face. I’d like to use you …’
Alicia scowled. ‘So we can audition, yes?’
‘Laura and Alicia!’
We were called into a small room where there was a bloke behind a camera, the skinny girl who we’d been introduced to as Tanya, holding a clipboard, and a sound man carrying one of those big microphones covered in black furry stuff.
At the front of the room was a table with various objects arranged on a cloth. Alicia and I were directed to stand behind it.
Cal was at the back of the room. ‘Laura – could you just talk about yourself for a minute or two? Just tell us who you are and what you do.’
I cleared my throat. ‘Er, I’m Laura and I’m a sort of copywriter. Well, I am a copywriter but I have worked from home since I had my son.’ I stopped. Cal nodded encouragingly. ‘Um, my son is called Stanley and my cat is called Boris.’
I stopped again. Tanya was looking at me with undisguised disdain, Alicia was frowning. Cal smiled. ‘That’s great – a bit more? What do you do when you’re not working? Are you married?’
‘I am separated,’ I said. ‘I have an odious ex-husband called Daniel who has shacked up with someone else and when I am not working I make little Plasticine models of them both to stick pins in.’
It was meant to be funny but it came out of my mouth sounding bitter. I saw Tanya’s eyebrows go up, but Cal laughed.
‘Go on,’ he called.
‘I have a good friend called Charlotte,’ I continued desperately, ‘who I also drink too much wine with when I’m not working. She spends most of her time in my kitchen even when she is working and then we eat biscuits …’
Tanya had put her clipboard down and was wandering about the room, looking bored. Alicia had closed her eyes. The cameraman didn’t appear to be filming me but was looking out of the window.
Cal clapped his hands together. ‘Fantastic,’ he called brightly. ‘Now can you pick up some of the objects in front of you as though they were your ingredients and talk us through them?’ I looked at the table. There was a stapler, a couple of marker pens, a notebook, someone’s mobile phone and a roll of Sellotape. I held the latter aloft.
‘Today,’ I said, lamely, ‘I have brought a tin of tuna.’ I grabbed the marker pens too. ‘And some tomatoes …’
Why ever did I let Alicia talk me into this? I thought, as I sank into a chair, hot-faced, while Alicia beamed at the camera and held forth wittily about her dreams of becoming an actress and the time she’d burned a turkey curry so badly that the neighbours called the fire brigade.
All I had managed, when asked for some kitchen anecdotes, was a lot of drivel about the best way to make scrambled eggs, which left everyone looking rather glazed. But Cal was still smiling as he came over.
‘That was terrific, both of you,’ he said easily. ‘We’ll be in touch, see what we can do.’ He had his eyes on me. ‘I think you’d be good. Maybe we can pair you up separately with other people.’ He pushed back the floppy bit of hair over his eyes. ‘Though this won’t be my baby much longer, thankfully.’ He nodded over toward the skinny girl. ‘Tanya and I are leaving to work on something else.’
‘Well, then,’ said Alicia at once. ‘Put us forward as mother and daughter and say you didn’t know anything about the Randolph show.’
Cal shook his head. ‘I have my reputation to think of,’ he said. ‘Some of us have principles and ethics. We don’t knowingly mislead our viewers. Can you hold on a moment?’
Alicia pulled a face at his back as he walked away. ‘Wanker!’
‘He’s got a point,’ I said, thinking how nice it was that he cared so much about the integrity of the programme. ‘If someone saw us who’d watched Rise Up with Randolph they’d know we were pretending and he could get into terrible trouble.’
Alicia’s face was pitying. ‘So?’
‘I’ve just had a word with Tanya,’ Cal told me when he came back. He looked again at the skinny girl, who glowered. ‘And I think we might be able to use you for the next thing we’ve got on.’
I shifted self-consciously under his gaze.
‘You’re smart and funny and sexy,’ he continued. ‘And we’ve got some projects coming up that might really work with you involved …’
I stared back at him in disbelief. ‘Really?’ I felt all fluttery inside. Me? Projects?
‘Look,’ he was saying, ‘do you have a card or something?’
‘I could um …’ I began to scrabble in my handbag, feeling around in the murky depths for something pen-shaped. My fingers closed round a tampon that had come out of its wrapper. ‘I might have some paper. Or the back of an envelope or something … I’ll just … I’ve got rather a lot of things in here.’
I laughed awkwardly as I saw Alicia over his shoulder, shaking her head wonderingly at my ineptitude. I dug about a bit more. He moved a bit closer and appeared to be having a look too.
‘Er no,’ I said brightly, abandoning the search and trying not to feel flustered by his undeniable beauty at such close proximity. ‘I’ve never really needed … I don’t have a card.’
‘Well, here’s mine …’ He pressed a small piece of cardboard into my hand, his skin brushing mine for a tiny moment, and pulled a silver pen from the back pocket of his jeans. ‘I can write your number down for now, but –’ He looked up and gave me a long, slow smile. ‘I think it’s time you got one …’