Honey Water, 16-year-old Malt Whisky, Ginger Liqueur, Lemon Juice
The theatre was quite crowded when we got there the following morning; obviously a lot of people were keen to take advantage of the opportunity to share in Marnie’s fantasy. We found seats at one of the less popular tables to one side of the stage. I had an obstructed view but I didn’t actually mind. It was almost a comfort to have a pillar I could hide behind if the need arose. After our chat yesterday I wouldn’t have minded no eye contact at all. But India had pointed out that there was no use hiding in the cabin and I needed to get out there sometime. Even so I could see her waiting in the wings with her perpetually dejected assistant standing holding the bags and clipboards.
Bang on the dot of eleven o’clock Marnie tossed her hair back, put on what I realised now was her professional smile and came out from the wings to a thunderous round of applause. She looked marvellous in a chic sea-green dress that subtly accentuated her curves and contrasted with her shining red hair. Her glorious legs were on display in sheer tights and spiky nude stilettos.
‘Oh my, isn’t she just adorable?’ someone said nearby as the applause died down. ‘I’d give ten years of my life to look like that. She’s got everything, hasn’t she?’
‘Brains, beauty, talent,’ an elderly woman agreed with a sigh, ‘and a gorgeous husband. How is one woman so lucky?’
‘I was talking to someone who says she gets you to throw out all your old clothes and then arrange what’s left alphabetically or something,’ said another.
‘I bet she works like a dog,’ someone chipped in.
I was getting a bit weary of all this Marnie Miller adulation if I was honest. After all she was only a phenomenally successful and beautiful woman with a considerable personal fortune and probably better contacts than I could even imagine.
Okay, she had a glorious Cotswold manor house and a penthouse flat overlooking the Thames. So what?
Her husband, Leo, was a man blessed with good looks and a successful career and a substantial bank account of his own. What was all the fuss about? She’d seemed so different the few times we’d been alone together, but then again she had given India those bracelet things and that had been kind. And warning me off Gabriel … well, I didn’t really appreciate it at all. It was only supposed to be a fling on my side too. But I suppose that might also have been a generous gesture on her part …
God, was I just a horribly jealous and unattractively mean-spirited person? Perhaps I should rethink things as part of my personal spring-cleaning? I’d read somewhere once that you should try not to say anything unkind, untrue or unpleasant. Perhaps I should think about that a bit more?
Marnie held her hands up to encourage us all to silence and things gradually settled down.
‘Spring-Clean Your Life,’ she said. ‘Now how do we do that? Why do we need to do that?’
Next to me India was already scribbling in her notebook. Right, so this was the time when I would concentrate on gleaning pearls of wisdom from Marnie, not just sit with my mouth open wondering how much her shoes cost. Although they did look suspiciously like Jimmy Choos. I’d have to google them when I got the chance. And that dress was absolutely gorgeous. I bet she didn’t go to high street stores and riffle through the sale rails like I did. I thought I looked okay, in new jeans and a T-shirt (two for twenty quid, which for me is pushing the boat out a bit), although the jeans seemed to have shrunk since I bought them, which was very annoying. Maybe it was that sea air Marty had mentioned … or the seven courses from last night?
I shook my head and wrote the date at the top of a fresh page and looked up at her, switching into student mode.
‘We need to engage in our own lives, don’t we?’ Marnie continued, striding across the stage. ‘Too often we are preoccupied with other people. Our children perhaps or our spouse. Or our grandchildren. Our bosses if we have them. Their needs come before ours. We want to please them, don’t we? But what about you?’
She pointed out into the audience and you could have heard a pin drop.
‘What about you? Your dreams, your strength? Isn’t that important too? More important perhaps than the best way to handle a difficult aunt or the man at work who never makes coffee.’
I glanced over at India as I finished writing down ‘What about your dreams?’ Hadn’t that been something Gabriel had asked me? Did I have any? India was writing so fast that I wouldn’t have been surprised to see smoke coming off the paper. So I turned back to the stage and waited for Marnie to continue, trying to empty my mind of Gabriel. I needed to think of my dreams …
‘Everyone has dead weight in their lives,’ Marnie was saying, looking intently out at the audience and fixing some of them in the front row with a stare. ‘Things that drag them down. Think about how you feel on a Monday morning when you’re battling on to the bus to go to work. I know how that feels, because that was me once. Are you positive and upbeat, ready to give one hundred per cent to the day? Or are you still going over an argument you had on Saturday with the woman who stole your parking space?’
I stopped writing and looked up sharply. God, I did that: every snippy comment from India, every time she didn’t finish up her work and I had to finish it for her. I carried that resentment around for days. Why did I do that?
‘You must learn to use your energy positively for your own good. Be optimistic, think about the way you can make every day the best it can be. Rethink your career goals.’
Career goals. Did I have those? I’d told Gabriel I wanted to expand the business but I hadn’t given it any thought in months. I certainly hadn’t done anything about it. The only things I’d concentrated on were getting to the end of each month ahead of my targets and being annoyed with India when she didn’t. Now I knew where her mind had been focused I felt terrible. I had always just assumed, after all of my hard work over the years, that I’d take over the family estate agency, but did I really want that? And could I spend the rest of my life just trying to beat my own targets? Would I turn into a boss who was crabby and frustrated with what I’d failed to achieve?
I wrote down smallholdings, and then added a very curly question mark.
‘Eliminate toxic friends. Don’t waste time with people who bring you down. Who pretend to be on your side when, deep down, you know they’re not. Surround yourself with positive influences. Be a positive influence on others. And ladies, that includes men!’
There was a general chuckle from the audience at this point. I looked around sharply, trying hard not to think about Gabriel.
You know I want you. Don’t you?
His deep voice flooded my mind and I cringed. I’d put up no more resistance to him than a kitten to a tidal wave. Other girls and women didn’t seem to get into these situations. Why was it always me? I looked over at India. She’d always had men chasing after her, never giving them the time of day until Jerry. In her teens she had played one boyfriend off against another. And now look at her. Engaged, about to marry someone she was obviously head over heels for. Someone who loved her back in the same way. Who was the fool here?
And what had I done? I’d been attracted to a man, had sex, which was supposed to be no-strings-attached, and then fallen for him, when I absolutely shouldn’t have. And now, here I was remembering how it had felt to be undressed by him, how he had touched me.
Alexa. My God, Alexa.
He must be a bloody great actor to fake all that stuff. And it really hadn’t felt like he was pretending. He’d seemed genuinely keen. He’d seemed to need me. Or I thought he had. Could a man kiss me like that and do those things and not actually mean them?
He made you think you were different, didn’t he? Didn’t he?
Marnie’s voice echoed in my mind and I felt sick. She was right … he had made me feel different, but so had Ryan and Tom and, oh, that ghastly boy whose parents owned the petrol station who had kissed me behind the youth club, promised me he wouldn’t tell anyone, and then by lunchtime the following day everyone in school knew.
I told myself to snap out of it. I was giving up the chance to learn how to change. I needed to listen. I scrubbed my eyes as subtly as possible, so India wouldn’t notice. Marnie was still talking, so I clicked my pen again and prepared to write.
‘There is nothing wrong with investing time and money in yourself; it’s worth your while. There is nothing more important in your life than your wellbeing. Your health, your peace of mind.’
I liked that idea. I could do more of that, definitely. Keep up the two separate eyebrows thing for starters. And get my nails done occasionally.
Marnie took a sip of her water, allowing her point to sink in before fixing the audience once more in her stare. ‘Now let’s use an example here, for any of you struggling to relate to what I’m talking about. For example, let’s think about someone who doesn’t look after themselves, who doesn’t listen to advice, someone who doesn’t Spring-Clean Her Life. She never learns, this girl! Perhaps her new boss is a racist or a man she fancies is commitment phobic. She does nothing, just allows herself to be pulled down by their negativity. Everyone knows the man is bad news – perhaps a friend tells her – but this girl refuses to listen to advice.’
Hang on a minute.
I looked over at India who was still scribbling.
Could she be talking about me? Using me as an example in her lecture? Surely not!
Marnie continued, ‘We all know someone like her. We might be her ourselves, even if we don’t want to admit it. I want to tell you, her, anyone who is feeling like this might apply to them, you are only steps away from finding the way forward. All you need to do is Spring-Clean Your Life.’ She paused before smiling broadly at the audience, her arms wide. ‘You need to believe that you are better, greater, stronger and amazing. You are worth someone’s time and you shouldn’t accept anything less than commitment. I’ll repeat that because I think it bears repeating. You are all amazing. I’m not just talking about romantic relationships here, but honestly, if a man doesn’t go out of his way to make room in his life for you, if he’s reticent and wants to keep the relationship a secret, what are you doing? Would you let another friend say yes to being treated this way?’ She glared at us and I could feel my heart pounding. ‘No!’ she shouted out and I gasped.
Marnie was right. Oh my God, she was so right. I mean what did I know about Gabriel? Barely anything if I was honest. And he’d wanted to keep our fling/relationship/whatever you call it a secret from Marnie. And I’d let him. I held my breath for a second, letting this sink in. I’d done this with Ryan, letting him talk his way out of cheating on me for months, and Tom, who just took everything from me … No! No! I wasn’t going to do that again.
I looked up at Marnie, feeling determined to listen up now. I needed to Spring-Clean My Life and I really was going to do it this time!
Marnie was strolling now. I must have missed a bit. Her arms were folded, the headset microphone nestling against her cheek like a stray Rice Krispie. When she reached the end she turned neatly on one heel and strolled back. This time her hands were splayed out in front of her as she continued.
For the rest of her talk she covered everything from wardrobes, to friendships, houses and handbags – she had a view on all of them. Get rid of this, have more of that. Kick out anything that wasn’t either beautiful or useful. (Wasn’t that the mantra of the Arts and Crafts movement?) Give stuff away, especially anything you hadn’t worn for a month. Considering I usually lived in jeans and a selection of old T-shirts that would mean slinging out everything else. Even the nuclear power worker outfit. For some reason that was still rolled up at the bottom of a chest of drawers in my bedroom. Hmm. Why on earth had I kept that? That would be the first thing I’d chuck out.
Then she was on to more: declutter your desk (mine was always pretty tidy, so I felt quite smug about that, but I sent India a meaningful look and she stuck her tongue out at me). Declutter your mind (I bet mine looked like an old attic full of rubbish and broken chairs, metaphorically speaking). Clean your house (I wrote down buy new Hoover bags). Clean your brain. Sleep more, eat more consciously, drink more water. Be productive. Get up, move around; endorphins make you happy. Comfort food never brings much comfort. Sit down, don’t forget to rest. Take the TV out of your bedroom. The list went on.
By this point I’d stopped writing everything down. I didn’t think I needed it. I mean I could remember to do this. Stop doing that. Cut out snacks, don’t eat sweets, stop drinking so much (something I’d think about when I got home), quit smoking (I didn’t smoke but I gave myself a tick for that one anyway). Eat more vegetables, recycle things. Don’t fidget, do your homework, clean your teeth, sit up straight.
Then suddenly I could tell there was a shift in Marnie’s voice. She lost her ordering-around voice and became warm and cuddly. She told us about Camp Spring.
The penny dropped; of course, chucking out old T-shirts wasn’t enough. If you really wanted to change you needed to go to a Marnie Miller-run boot camp somewhere in Illinois where, for a five-hundred-dollar down payment and the rest in monthly instalments for the rest of all time, Marnie’s Spring-Cleaners (she actually did call them that) would thrash you into shape physically and mentally. I bet they used wire brushes and megaphones. Well, I definitely wouldn’t be doing that, but I couldn’t discount everything she’d said … No, I’d had my realisation. I could see it clearly now. I’d been a pushover and I wouldn’t be one any more. I was worth more! I deserved more! I was amazing. Well, sometimes. A bit.
Marnie had started talking about inner beauty and colonic irrigation, which were apparently linked, and India returned to her frenzied scribbling.
Up on the stage Marnie was back in full flow after making her sales pitch.
‘Now you know how to Spring-Clean Your Life I can hear some of you asking yourselves: does everyone need to change? Will nice people succeed? Do all the annoying people need to get what’s coming to them? Of course not, life is rarely that simple, but we all need to think about who we want to be. It’s up to us to change; no one else is going to do it for us.’ She left this thought hanging and took another sip of water.
Then she launched into full flow again, having a go at fast food, plastic bottles, micro beads, the state of the oceans. There was a ripple of laughter through the audience at something she said and Marnie waited for a moment for it to fade. And then, standing on the edge of the stage, she turned and looked me straight in the eye, a small smile on her face. Ah well, that answered the ‘does she know I’m here?’ question. But instead of shrinking back I stayed where I was. I was going to be the new Alexa, not someone who shrivelled away and let other people take over my life, dictating how I felt and letting their issues ruin my day. No, that stopped here!
‘Now we come to the final thing to consider,’ Marnie said, having glanced at her watch and seen that time was passing probably faster than she’d anticipated. ‘The question you must ask yourself a dozen times a day. The thing you want versus the thing you need. You see there is a difference, isn’t there? You may want a bag of doughnuts, but perhaps you need to go to the gym?’
More polite laughter.
‘Perhaps you want that relationship but you need to step back and stop kidding yourself. Maybe you want that man, but you need to run a mile.’
I looked up; Marnie was slowly striding along the stage with her back to me.
In the wings I could see Marnie’s assistant checking her watch. I wondered if she listened to these lectures and dreamt of being someone else, something else. Funny how she must have heard this stuff a lot and yet still looked so downtrodden.
I must have been daydreaming for longer than I thought as Marnie was suddenly saying how much she had enjoyed the trip, how wonderful it had been to meet so many interesting people and that she wished us all the best of luck with our writing. If anyone wanted to buy her books she had a few left to sell and would be happy to autograph them. At this point the glum assistant wheeled on a trolley laden with paperbacks and there was a surge of interest from the audience, sensing a great last-minute gift for someone.
I straightened up, ready to join in the applause before India and I went to find some lunch. I had so much to tell her. And there he was. Gabriel Frost. On the other side of the theatre. He was leaning against the exit door, a muscular figure in a checked shirt and dark jeans. His arms were folded and he was looking over the audience.
For a moment I had the mad thought that he might be looking for me. But no, of course he wasn’t – he was only using me. I knew that. I gave myself a stern talking-to to remind myself of my new determination to change and be strong. But he did look so delicious over there … Stop it.
‘God, wasn’t that brilliant?’ India breathed, and I nodded, maybe not as enthusiastically, back at her.
I had really enjoyed my euphoric moment, but really the rest of it sounded like a mishmash of every other self-help book I’d ever read. India wanted to join the queue so she could buy Marnie’s latest book and get it autographed, so I arranged to meet her in the food court and went out almost at a jog trot to avoid Gabriel. Keeping my head down I scurried past a queue of passengers talking to the reception staff about booking a second voyage and taking advantage of the fifteen per cent discount on offer. I wondered how much this holiday would have cost us if Mum hadn’t won that raffle. A lot I was guessing.