46.

The day was as perfect as a day could be. Certainly more perfect than any day in the life of Biddy Weir had been since the Saturday all those years ago when Miss Jordan had taken her to the department store in the city to buy a bra, and then on to a café for brunch. The consequences of that day had been disastrous, but so long as Biddy made sure that Bertie was fed and that nothing untoward happened to the cottage, nothing was going to spoil the magic this time. She was so excited by her present from Terri that she immediately dragged the easel out onto the patio and began to paint the view across the bay. The morning sunlight tickled the waves, and as she painted, the gulls glided to and fro across the horizon, as though they were performing a private ballet just for her. She was so enthralled that she forgot all about Richard and Judy. She didn’t even stop for lunch, which she always took at 12.30 p.m., as that was the time her father had always wanted to eat. It wasn’t until Bertie emerged from a long, peaceful nap and demanded his own lunch that Biddy set down her brushes and looked at her watch. It was almost two o’clock. As she slid down from the stool, it occurred to her how wonderfully thoughtful Terri had been, as her leg wouldn’t have endured standing for that long. She stood back and studied her work, happy with her creation. It was almost perfect, just a bit more to do. She would give it to Terri, and tomorrow she would bring the easel down onto the beach and paint a replica of the painting at home, the one which had been responsible for her bringing her here, for her friendship with Terri, and she would give that one to her too.

Bertie meowed loudly, interrupting her thoughts.

‘OK, Bertie, come on. Let’s get you fed.’

After they had eaten, Bertie took himself out through the cat flap and settled down for another nap on the big wicker patio chair which was bathed in the warm afternoon sun. Biddy brought her suitcase down to the guest bedroom and unpacked her things. She wished she’d brought more with her, not because she actually needed anything else, but because the little white wooden wardrobe and the matching drawers and bedside table were so pretty that she wanted to fill them up with all the belongings she had in the world. She had never imagined that furniture could be so beautiful. The room was painted white, with a pale blue gloss on the woodwork. The blue and white gingham bedspread matched the curtains and the little lampshade on the bedside table. On top of the drawers Terri had left another bunch of daisies from her garden, this time in a glass tumbler. On the bed sat two huge white fluffy towels, and a towelling dressing gown. Biddy sat down and buried her face in the towels, inhaling their scent. They smelt of outside in summertime. They were the softest towels she had ever felt. She stroked the dressing gown. How different it felt to the old blue nylon one she’d had for years, too many years to count. She would definitely be taking a bath tonight, she decided. As she sat on the bed holding the towels, gazing through the window at the view of the bay, a seagull swooped down and stood on the windowsill. It looked in through the glass and held her gaze for a second then flew away. ‘I think this must be what paradise is,’ she whispered into the towels.

She spent the afternoon pottering about the cottage, wandering from room to room, taking in the colours, the furniture, the fabrics. By four o’clock she was unusually peckish again, and took a cup of tea and three of Terri’s oatmeal cookies to the patio. Collapsing into the wicker chair, she shared her cookies with the gulls, and let the afternoon sun drench her face. Yes, she decided, this was definitely paradise. She sat back in the chair and closed her eyes, semi-dozing and thinking of nothing, until a sudden breeze made her shiver. She looked at her watch. It was a quarter to five. Almost time for Honey’s Pot, and she hadn’t even figured out how to work the TV yet. Throwing the remnants of her biscuit crumbs to the gulls, she picked up her cup and went back inside the house.

Settling down in Terri’s red velvet chair, Biddy switched on the television, which was enormous: more than twice the size of her own portable one, at least. Working the controls was easier than she had anticipated, and she flicked from channel to channel, enjoying the luxury of not having to get up and go over to the TV to change the programme. She found the station she was looking for, just in time to hear the female announcer say, ‘And now it’s time for Honey’s Pot with Honey Sinclair,’ and the familiar theme tune began to play. And then there she was: all white teeth and sparkling smile, and twinkling eyes, and glowing skin and golden hair. She looked so real on this huge screen that Biddy was momentarily startled. She sometimes thought that Honey couldn’t be real, not really real, that perhaps she had invented her, that she was actually a figment of her own imagination. But as her face filled the screen, Biddy had to face it. She was real, all right. Honey Sinclair, chat show hostess, TV presenter, girl-about-town, media darling. It was definitely her. Biddy shivered. For a moment or two, she willed herself, as she always did, to turn the TV off. But the moment passed and, as she always did, she began to watch the show, hypnotised, along with half of the nation, by the myth of Honey Sinclair.

Today, the programme was all about wearing the right bra size.

‘Do you know, lovely people, are you aware, that eighty per cent of the female population in the UK wear the wrong size of bra?’ Honey told Biddy and the rest of her multitude of viewers in her sing-song posh English voice, head tilted ever so slightly to the right. ‘And this,’ she sang on, ‘affects their posture, the appearance of the clothes they wear and even,’ pause, blink, smile, ‘their safety.’

Biddy wondered how on earth wearing the wrong size of bra could be unsafe. She’d probably always worn the wrong size, she thought. She had never had a proper fitting and was still unsure about what her real size actually was, but she was equally sure that this had never put her in any danger. She still had her first bra, the one she’d bought the day Miss Jordan took her to the city. For a long time it had been the only one she owned, and though it was now too worn to wear, and too small into the bargain, it still lived in her underwear drawer, tucked in beside the letter.

The special guests today were Cindy someone or other from a famous lingerie shop called Scarlet (Biddy imagined it must be so much more glamorous than Lorraine’s Lingerie, which had closed down several years back), ‘stylist to the stars’ Connor Craig and a ‘yoga and posture expert’, Alana Lovell. They were all thin and glamorous and terribly serious, as Honey’s guests always were. Alana Lovell had been on the programme before and Connor Craig was a regular. He sat with his legs crossed sideways, and he wore mascara. He was gay and often talked to Honey about his boyfriend, Demetrius. A couple of months ago, there had been a show about a campaign for a change in the law to allow gay people to get married. Connor Craig had announced on the programme that whenever it finally happened, on the very day it was made legal in actual fact, he was going to get married to Demetrius, his boyfriend, and Honey had squealed and hugged and kissed him. Then he asked her right there live on air to be one of their witnesses at the ceremony, even though it mightn’t be for years yet. And she had said yes and then cried. She was crying, she said, because she was so very, very happy. And this, she said, was one of the proudest moments of her life, because she had always campaigned for gay rights and had always, always believed that gay people should be allowed to get married, ever since she had been at school, she said, where some of her very dearest friends had been gay.

Biddy had thought then about Penny Jordan and Samantha, and wondered where in the world they were, and if they would get married if the law changed and what they would make of all this. And she thought about Penny again now, as Cindy started to discuss the bras that the models were parading around the set in, explaining to the audience precisely why each of them was wearing the wrong size.

Biddy learnt about normal people’s lives from Honey’s Pot and Lorraine Kelly on Lorraine Live and This Morning with Richard and Judy. They were like encyclopaedias of life to her. She learnt about the lives of famous people too – pop stars and movie stars; but it was the normal people who really interested her. She was fascinated by the ornamental details of their lives: the kind of clothes they wore, the perfumes they liked, the food they ate, the wine they drank, the places they liked to go on holiday. She had gathered so much information from these programmes about so many things – things she wouldn’t have considered to be of any interest or importance before. She had learnt about sex, and babies, and breastfeeding, and toddler taming, and dealing with difficult teenagers, and women’s problems like PMT and infertility. She realised that she wasn’t the only woman in the world to suffer from painful heavy periods and strange, uneasy feelings in the build up to the bleed. And thanks to nice Dr Chris on This Morning, she now took oil of evening primrose tablets which had made her feel much better. She watched people cooking strange, exotic dishes with ingredients and names she’d never heard of and couldn’t pronounce. She discovered that there were men who liked to dress as women, and women who would happily get pregnant with other women’s babies, and people who believed they could talk to the dead – and that nobody thought any of this was remotely weird at all. Well, at least none of the presenters on the programmes did. Honey Sinclair, in particular, loved everyone who was a guest on her show, and the stranger or more extreme their problem or situation happened to be, the more she seemed to love them. And, of course, the more she loved everyone, the more everyone loved her.

When watching her programmes, Biddy often wondered what her own life would have been like if she had been normal: if she’d had a father who carried a briefcase, and had a job he went to every day, and drove a car, and played football or golf on a Saturday afternoon; if she’d had a mother who loved her enough to stay and take care of her, and brush her hair, and tell her about periods so she hadn’t had to find out from Alison Flemming, and show her how to put on make-up, and taught her how to cook and bake and maybe even sew, and take her shopping for nice new clothes – and her very first bra. If she had been born into a normal, regular life, she wondered, would she have done normal, regular things, like gone to the Brownies or had ballet lessons or joined a youth club when she was a child? Or studied Art at university and had a career? Or fallen in love with a man who loved her back? And married that man, and maybe even become a mother herself?

The show was nearly over. Honey blew kisses to her guests the way she always did and thanked them for their ‘wonderful, valuable contributions’. She blew kisses to the studio audience, most of whom blew kisses back to her. Biddy shuddered. Then she turned to face the camera and smiled that trademark sticky-sweet, Honey smile.

‘In tomorrow’s programme, we’ll be examining a particularly sensitive but hugely important issue: bullying.’

Biddy froze.

‘As patron of BUDDI, Bullying’s Un-cool, Don’t Do It, this is an issue which is particularly close to my own heart, and it’s bound to be an emotional, but, I truly hope, inspirational and illuminating show. Special guests will be the gorgeous singer Karinda, who has openly spoken of her own horrific experiences of being bullied at school, and celebrity psychologist and friend of the show, Amanda Llewellan. Until then, goodbye, my friends, and stay sweet.’

Honey blew a single, slow kiss to the camera, the audience clapped and cheered and the credits began to roll.

Biddy shivered. Despite the warm July evening, she suddenly felt very cold, like her blood had been replaced with icy cold water. The lump which hadn’t been bothering her much for a while, rose now in her throat, and the old familiar knot began to tie in her stomach.

‘No,’ she croaked.

Her body began to shake. She closed her eyes and cupped her hands over her mouth breathing slowly and deeply for a few seconds until her racing heart slowed down. The voiceover person on the TV was giving out the number for people to call the next day if they’d had any experience of bullying and wanted to tell Honey their story or put a question to one of her guests. Biddy couldn’t believe this was happening. She couldn’t bear to hear the ‘B’ word anywhere. She flinched whenever Terri mentioned it and if she ever heard it on TV, she would close her eyes and hum loudly. Now and again the subject came up on Lorraine or This Morning, or one of the other programmes she sometimes watched, and she would keep humming until the section was over or, if it was a long slot, she would turn the television off. But she never, ever expected it to come up on Honey’s Pot – so why did it have to happen now, here, when she felt stronger, better, happier than she had ever felt in her life? She felt as though all of the good, positive steps she had taken over the past few months were about to unravel right in front of her, in an untidy mess all over Terri’s living room floor.

Still shaking, she flicked off the TV using the remote and went out to the patio through the conservatory doors. The beach was bathed in a soft amber glow by the early evening sunshine. The sea was calm and still. The only sounds were the hum of a fishing trawler chugging its way towards the harbour and the squawk of the gulls, calling to each other. She stood, leaning on the patio table, and inhaled slowly until the shaking began to subside. Bertie observed her from his spot in the sun, yawned, stretched and sauntered over to where she stood. Purring loudly, he wound his plump soft body around her ankles. The physical contact from the cat, and the melodic sound of his purr seemed to calm her and, still breathing slowly, she sat down on one of the wooden chairs. Bertie jumped up onto her lap. He looked up at her and blinked slowly.

‘You know what? I won’t let it happen, Bertie,’ she said, stroking the cat’s head. ‘I just won’t watch the programme tomorrow. I won’t. I’ll paint instead. All day. And then it’ll be OK. I’ll be OK. If I don’t watch it, I’ll be OK.’