Amelia’s workwear:
Silky grey dress (Bella Freud)
Pale blue strappy heels (Dune)
Multi-coloured beads (Accessorize)
Total est. cost: £385
‘Annie Valentine?’
Annie stared at the page in her A–Z map of London, then looked around for a street sign.
Perry Street! There it was! That’s where she was headed. Soho was a blooming labyrinth. Even with a map, she’d been looking for this street for ten minutes now, but a quick glance at her watch told her that it was OK, she was still going to make it for her 10.30 a.m. appointment with Tamsin Hinkley.
She strode briskly along the pavement, paying close attention to the door numbers so that she wouldn’t miss 117. The street was one of the narrow ones that lead down towards the grand, open space of Soho Square. On Perry Street the buildings were narrow and old, but smartly renovated, converted into computer, graphics and special FX offices, teeny cafés and boutique hairdressers.
This was a busy, bustling slice of London, every square foot of space pressed into action. Every one of the two or three floors of each building was an expensive office or luxury flat.
Eighty-nine…93… The closer she got, the more Annie’s heart began to thud with fear. She still hadn’t spoken to Tamsin in person. When she’d finally found the courage to make the call on Monday morning, a chirpy secretary had informed her that Tamsin was ‘interested in meeting’ and would 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday in five weeks’ time be convenient?
Bob had told her that Tamsin was responsible for two cookery series on Channel 4 and Connor had promised to do some research, but possibly due to relaunching himself on the London social scene, he hadn’t come back with anything in the whole five weeks, which had passed interminably slowly as all Annie could think about was meeting Tamsin and working for Tamsin.
Number 113… Annie’s phone began to ring.
She fished it from her pocket and saw it was Dinah.
‘Hi – are you OK?’ Annie asked.
‘I’m fine. Are you there yet?’
‘Nearly,’ Annie said and paused for a minute so she could take the call.
‘I just wanted to wish you luck,’ Dinah told her, ‘knock ’em dead and all that, but be cool. If it’s not for you, tell ’em to swivel.’
‘Swivel?’ Annie had to ask. ‘Have you been watching too many gangster films? Are you OK?’ she asked again.
‘Ten-week scan today, I’m so nervous I have actually been sick.’
‘Maybe it’s the other kind of sick. Maybe it’s a very good sign.’
‘Maybe…’ Dinah agreed doubtfully. ‘What are you wearing?’ she asked, wanting to change the subject.
Annie was desperate to tell her, because it was a very, very good outfit. It had taken hours to assemble but it definitely did not look as if it was trying too hard. Getting perfectly dressed was, in a way, all the interview preparation Annie had done. Well, OK, Connor had sat her down for a ‘how to talk TV corporate bollocks’ chat. That’s what he’d called it anyway.
‘Talk about building yourself as a brand, they love all that…’ She couldn’t remember much more of his advice.
‘It’s a great outfit,’ she told Dinah, ‘coat, dress, great boots, great bag, scarf. I am rocking. But I have to go now.’
‘Loads of luck.’
‘You too.’
Just as Annie folded away her phone, a woman stepped from a door several feet ahead of her. Annie only caught a glimpse of her profile before she turned and began to walk briskly in the other direction. But the hair, the high-heeled boots and the tight trousers – it was absolutely, without doubt, Miss Marlise!
Annie began to walk forward again. For several seconds she tried to tell herself that this was just a coincidence, but then she was there. At the door from which Miss Marlise had just emerged. It was number 117.
So, this was how Bob had found out about Tamsin Hinkley’s interest in a makeover show… good grief!
Annie extended a finger with a manicured, palest pink nail and pressed the buzzer to number 117.
She let her breath out slowly and set a pleasant, welcoming smile on her face, but her stomach was churning with nerves. Miss Marlise! Bloody Miss Bloody Marlise! She would get the job. She was the famous one. She was the name!
Annie wanted to turn and run away down the street. But she thought of Dinah, and Ed, and Connor. What would they want her to do? If Lauren was standing here right now ringing the doorbell, wouldn’t Annie tell her to hold her head high and do her best?
What was the worst that could happen here? Nothing. So, she wouldn’t be any worse off than she was before she rang the doorbell. The best that could happen was that Tamsin would love her and would make her the star of her very own series… and even if it was on Channel 1026, it was a start. Another start…
Annie widened her smile as a voice crackled over the intercom: ‘Can I help you?’
‘It’s Annie Valentine,’ she said. The buzzer sounded and the door lock was released.
She followed the sign pointing up a flight of narrow, rickety stairs and found herself in a small, bright-white office where a girl with a short, funky blonde haircut was seated on a high stool with castors, at a desk which tilted upwards like an artist’s drawing board. A set of white earphones were attached to her head.
‘Annie Valentine?’ The girl stood up and came forward to shake her hand. ‘Hi. I’m Amelia. Tamsin will be through in just one second… oh, here she is now.’ Annie didn’t even have time to take another breath and let out her rising anxiety.
‘Annie, hi,’ a warm, resonant voice announced from the doorway of the office.
Annie turned to face one of the most striking-looking forty-somethings she’d seen in a long time walking towards her with her hand already extended. Tamsin had very long caramel-coloured hair, straight at the top, but curling into soft ringlets which fell down past her elbows. She was fit and athletic looking, so could easily carry off the pink silk miniskirt and black thigh-high boots she was wearing, especially as she’d toned down the body-con look with a loosely draped violet sweater
On the elegant wrist of the elegant hand being offered to her, Annie saw the pink and purple bangle she’d bought last week from Zara. Suddenly her nerves seemed to lift, her smile broadened and for the first time since she’d seen Miss Marlise, she began to feel hopeful.
‘Hi, Tamsin, lovely to meet you,’ she enthused. ‘I have that bangle!’
‘Do you? Isn’t Zara great? I buy so many things there.’
‘This season’s little skirts are perfect…’ Annie jumped in.
Tamsin nodded: ‘I have two already. OK, follow me,’ she added, ‘we’ll go chat. Amelia, if you could hold my calls, that would be fantastic.’
On the short walk along the corridor Annie glanced at the framed photographs, award certificates and publicity pages and felt in awe once again. There was Tamsin being cuddled, kissed and congratulated by a host of famous TV faces. There was a front-page story about one of Tamsin’s new programmes… oh my goodness! She was the producer of that?
Tamsin cast a glance round at her.
‘Oh, sorry,’ she said, ‘it’s my willy-waving wall, don’t let it put you off. I’m not really like that.’
‘No… erm… it’s impressive,’ Annie managed.
‘Nice boots,’ Tamsin said as she opened her office door and waved Annie in. ‘I don’t think they came from Zara.’
‘No,’ Annie confirmed.
‘Don’t tell me,’ Tamsin instructed her. ‘I’ll just want to go there and splurge.’
Tamsin had a very pretty office with a white-painted wooden floor, dusty pink walls, a white sofa, a white desk and two of those high-end perspex dining chairs. One wall was filled with a white bookcase crammed with DVDs, labelled boxes and white box files. Such a girlie space, Annie couldn’t help thinking. It even smelled perfumed. If Annie had been able to breathe in and out normally, she’d have identified the scent as gardenia and jasmine, but she was feeling another burst of nervousness now.
‘Bob was kind enough to send me a showreel of clips from the series you were doing with Donnie Finnigan,’ Tamsin began once she’d offered Annie one of the ‘ghost’ chairs and settled down in the other one herself. ‘You were good;’ Tamsin went on, ‘very good with the women, making them feel at home on screen. You looked as if you were really enjoying yourself.’
‘Yes,’ Annie agreed.
‘I love the girl with the short hair who comes out to you! Tina? That’s fantastic TV!’ Tamsin said eagerly.
‘Do you? Yes!’ Annie agreed. ‘She sent me a thank you card and said I’d changed her life.’
‘But you’re not working on the series any more?’ Tamsin’s head tilted. She fixed cool grey eyes on Annie and clearly awaited further explanation.
Annie racked her mind for Connor’s advice here. Something about artistic differences, creative strengths, differing ethoses, or should that be ethes? Oh never mind, instead Annie went with:
‘Finn hated that Tina makeover and he pulled it. Plus, he had no money and I was the presenter who didn’t have a proper contract, so that was handy for him.’ From what she’d seen of Tamsin so far, Annie decided she was the kind of person who could stand the truth; who would, in fact, appreciate the truth.
‘How was the show working out?’ Tamsin asked next.
Here was another kicker. If Annie hadn’t known Miss Marlise had been sitting in this very same chair being asked this very same question just ten minutes or so ago, she might have said, diplomatically, ‘I thought the first episode looked pretty good,’ and left it at that.
Instead, she was going to have to say more.
‘I don’t think it was working at all,’ Annie began, ‘the whole idea was just—’ she paused, with remnants of Connor’s lecture in her mind. She was supposed to be positive about everything, at all times.
‘—Stupid?’ Tamsin suggested.
‘Yes,’ Annie agreed with relief, ‘we were supposed to turn these women into completely different people in half an hour. Life isn’t like that. Not even on TV! And when I did completely transform someone, they couldn’t handle it and I’m afraid, Miss Marlise – you know, from The Apprentice – she was always making everyone cry.’
Now that was a bit bitchy and unnecessary, but Annie hadn’t been able to stop herself. She’d suddenly felt a burst of fury at Finn and his ridiculous Wonder Women. She’d quit her very well-paid job of nine years for that show. They’d given her the least money and they’d fired her for no reason. And as for Miss Marlise, she had done everything to undermine Annie at every turn and been delighted to see her go… Well, now it was Annie’s turn to kick her in the pants.
More than anything, Annie suspected it would be fantastic to work with Tamsin and she was damned if she was going to let the conniving Miss Marlise get in there first.
Tamsin looked at her in surprise.
Oh no. She’d blown it. This obviously wasn’t what you were supposed to do in TV land. You were supposed to say that everyone was ‘wonderful’, ‘a joy to work with’ and insist that you were best friends forever and couldn’t wait to work with them again.
‘Miss Marlise?’ Tamsin repeated.
‘Sorry, that was a bit unprofessional of me,’ Annie apologised.
‘She seems very ambitious, Miss Marlise,’ Tamsin said.
‘Yes. To put it mildly,’ Annie managed.
‘Right, well, let me tell you what I’m looking for and what I liked about your showreel.’
So, Tamsin began her pitch.
She had been offered a half-hour show on Channel 4. Channel 4! Annie told herself. Bob had been right. It really was proper TV this time! Tamsin wanted a pithy, speedy, buzzy half-hour.
‘A woman’s magazine show,’ she explained, waving her hands animatedly, ‘full of tips, but fun! Not that sort of po-faced, we can improve you kind of crap. This is cheeky, where to get the amazing Zara bangle and party dress, which face creams are as good at a tenner as the ones at a hundred pounds, what to buy at—’
‘—The Pound Stores,’ Annie cut in, ‘and what to steer well clear of.’
‘Exactly! Which supermarket shoes—’
‘—Are decent and which ones are totally hopeless,’ Annie broke in again. Because she understood, she understood perfectly.
‘Exactly! There’s nothing quite like that on TV right now. And yes, there will be a makeover element, you’ll pick someone from the street, take them to a shop and help them create a great new outfit, but not for a date.’ Tamsin pulled a face: ‘How sexist and patronising is that? If anyone needs to learn about what to wear on a date—’
‘—It’s the bloody man,’ Annie finished her sentence.
‘Exactly.’
‘This sounds perfect!’ Annie was smiling. ‘So, it’s what to wear for your job interview, for meeting your mother-in-law —’
‘—Yes!’ Tamsin broke in, ‘dressing to meet your cancer surgeon, what to wear— ’
‘—In labour?’ Annie suggested.
‘Brilliant! When I had Myrtel, all I wore for six hours was tiny knickers and a TENS machine, I looked like something from backstage at MTV.’ Tamsin spun the small, framed photo on her desk in Annie’s direction. It was a recent snap, picturing Tamsin with three children as strikingly attractive as her. A teenage daughter with the same long hair, a boy of Owen’s age and on her lap a golden-haired baby of about eight months old.
‘You’ve got a baby?’ Annie asked in surprise.
‘Yeah. I got broody at forty-two… and lucky,’ she added, ‘it’s great this time round. Mind you, I’m a third-time mum. I wouldn’t be a new mum again for all the Baftas in Britain! Was that not worse than being a— ’
‘—Teenager?’ Annie offered.
‘Exactly, thank god for getting older. How old are your children?’
‘Sixteen and eleven,’ Annie told her.
‘Going to have another? It’s OK, you can tell me,’ Tamsin added, ‘pregnant presenters do not fill me with the Fear, unlike some male producers I could mention. In fact, Botoxed, permanently youthful presenters fill me with the Fear.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Annie said in answer to the baby question, but then felt compelled to confide, ‘My partner’s desperate, though. But I don’t think I can go through it all again.’
‘Which bit? Pregnancy? Birth? Babyhood? Sleeplessness? It’s all awful, but worth it.’
Annie thought for a moment. It wasn’t any of those things. It was… it was hard to understand what her reluctance was… even harder to express.
‘I’ve never felt so frightened,’ Annie began, thoughtful now, ‘as in the weeks after Lauren and then Owen were born. They were so tiny, I was so responsible and it wasn’t just that… going to the registry office and putting their births down on paper, in that official red book. I felt as if I’d set something in motion that I didn’t even understand.’ She swallowed, but Tamsin gave a tiny nod to indicate that she should carry on. ‘Once their births were recorded, with the time and the dates and the details, all I could think about was how one day they’d be in the black book the registrar keeps on her desk too.’ Annie’s memories of going to register her husband’s death briefly swam before her eyes.
‘You’re so vulnerable when you’ve just had a baby,’ Tamsin agreed, ‘I did some crazy things that I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing if I wasn’t in the post-birth state. It’s as if you’ve been peeled, you’re exposed to the world in a way you weren’t before.’
‘Yeah, but I felt just like that when my husband died… I spent two and a half grand on a black Valentino dress for the funeral,’ Annie heard herself confessing. Until today, there were only two other people in the world who knew about that. ‘I still have no idea what I was thinking,’ she added, ‘I just had this idea that it had to cost more than my wedding dress and I had to look amazing, just for him.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry, yes… I read that bit about you in Screentalk. Roddy Valentine.’ Tamsin looked straight at her and Annie could see the startled sympathy in her eyes. ‘How awful…’ she added.
‘It’s OK,’ Annie said with a smile, ‘life’s moved on. We are all at least quite peaceful about it now.’
‘Obviously from a telly point of view, we insensitively love it,’ Tamsin said softly, ‘Annie Valentine, the Nigella of budgeting.’
Annie smiled and thought of Ed.
‘I can’t tell you how many stupid girls I meet every day who are desperate to be TV presenters,’ Tamsin went on, ‘but meeting someone who wants to really connect with people – connect with the people on the show and with the viewers – that is rare. And it’s a find.’
Annie’s nervousness seemed to have been replaced with a dizzy, breathless giddiness.
Channel 4? Nigella? Women’s magazine show? Fun, funky? Tamsin was saying all the right things and seemed to have in mind exactly what Annie longed to do, just what she’d hoped the Finn show would be all about.
‘How did you and woohoo Finn get together?’ Tamsin wanted to know.
‘Ah well, I did a personal shopping session with his wife at The Store,’ Annie replied.
‘The haircut?’ Tamsin broke in. ‘Were you responsible for the haircut?’
Annie flashed back to the day Kelly-Anne had come into her personal shopping suite with her long black, lacquered locks and Connor had appeared and interfered and got his blazer buttons all tangled up in the hair, and Svetlana had cut those locks right off. Kelly-Anne had just about died of shock.
Annie looked at Tamsin’s mane and wondered if being responsible for a long hair massacre was a good thing. ‘Not exactly,’ she fudged, ‘but I thought it did look good.’
‘It’s fantastic, I’d get one, too, but…’ she flicked her long hair over her shoulder, ‘maybe not just quite yet.’
‘Your hair’s beautiful,’ Annie complimented her, ‘but I think I’m going to go short.’ She tugged at her ponytail.
‘Great!’ Tamsin enthused, ‘but do it on the show, please. We’ll start you off with the ponytail and then third episode in or so, we’ll hand you over to a high-end celebrity stylist for the chop.’
‘Wow!’ Annie could feel her cheeks glowing. Was she going to get this job? Was Tamsin really going to make her dreams come true?
‘OK, running away with myself here,’ Tamsin said. ‘We have to talk about money. Women must talk about money. Even though we’re conditioned not to. Are you the biggest earner in your family?’
Annie nodded. Well, it had been true in the past.
‘Yeah, me too. It’s so common, but bloody men in this industry always assume you’ve got some wealthy husband propping everything up at home and your wages are a lovely “extra” for everybody. Anyway, it’s going to be about £8,000 an episode.’
Before Annie could gasp with astonishment, Tamsin went on: ‘We’ll talk again in detail about the whole idea and make sure we’re both really happy to go forward together. It will be a six-episode contract, then if it does well, we’ll renegotiate and all make more money. If it really takes off, then you’ll be loaded. For as long as it lasts…’ came the warning. ‘Who’s your agent?’
‘Well… I think Ralph Frampton-Dwight, or maybe someone in his office is possibly going to handle the contract side of things for me…’ Annie stumbled. This is what Connor had told her to say, but as she hadn’t spoken to Ralph or any of his underlings, she was hesitant to nominate them.
Tamsin pulled a face. ‘Well, that’s very generous of you. But he didn’t set this deal up. Anyway, I think Ralph’s a twit,’ she said bluntly. ‘So, if you’re not officially signed up with him, will you please phone this woman?’ she opened up the orange Filofax on her desk and extracted a business card. ‘I’m not saying this because I’ll get you cheaper this way. In fact, Jenny will probably cost me extra. But she’s the business. And I’m a big believer in we girls sticking together.’ Tamsin shot her a wink.
‘Now, before I wind this up— ’ she looked up at the clock on the wall behind Annie’s head ‘—Because I have to get to a lunch on the other side of town for more willy-waving,’ she confided, ‘I’m sure a very stylish girl like you will want to know about the presenter’s clothing allowance. Not that we’re frivolous,’ Tamsin winked, ‘not that we let clothes rule our lives or anything. It’s just an interest.’
The presenter’s clothing allowance… Annie’s head was truly spinning. She was going to get this job! She was going to be working with this amazing producer! She was going to make eight. Thousand. Pounds. Per episode!!! And there was a clothing allowance.
She wanted to dance around the room and throw her arms around Tamsin.
Instead, she managed to joke: ‘Yeah… men have football, and we have fashion.’