In a studio
Did you know three inches of fast running water is enough to take you toppling down? Is enough to drown in?
That’s what I think of when my agent Tom tells me this documentary is my “stepping stone”. I focus on those words. Repeat them in my head. Stepping stone. Stepping stone. Stepping stones take you over cold, rushing water, and — if the water is too high — you’ll fall in.
We’re doing my makeup in a studio the production company has rented, somewhere in Hoxton, on a third floor. An enormous space with high ceilings, white walls, and a wooden floor. A big, white, plush sofa is set against a white backdrop with bright lights directed at it. That’s where I’ll sit.
On the makeup table in front of me sits a stack of magazines. Grazia, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Love, Glamour, Stylist. In my sweaty palms, the Sunday Times Style magazine, the familiar sheen and inky aroma of its pages gleaming under my gel-manicured hands. I read the Editor’s Letter, as always, trying to imagine being the woman in the picture above the words. Arms clad in a quirky print silk shirt, folded across a jaunty, could-be flirty, angled torso below a face with a red-lipped smirk. Not friendly enough to be conspiratorial, but not cold. It’s special to me, this magazine. A kind English teacher, Ms Quinn, who noticed a talent for writing and love of clothes in a quiet girl, brought me the supplement one Monday morning. My parents didn’t read The Times and wouldn’t buy it for me weekly. Their meagre budget didn’t stretch to Sunday papers for precocious children.
I remember when news of Zanna’s murder covered front pages and column inches in magazines such as these. She wanted to be in the public eye, and eventually she really, truly was. Sadly, she didn’t live to see it. I collected each clipping and webpage I saw, as if I could show her later. She’d have laughed, sparkly eyed with gleaming teeth, to see herself the main topic of the news.
Thanks to this documentary, I’m closer than ever to being the woman above the Editor’s Letter, her image printed onto semi-glossy pages. I’d been reluctant of course, as had Shane. Living the life of an influencer, it feels like your whole career can be at stake when posting a selfie, let alone taking part in something like this. But Tom had worked his agent magic.
“If this comes off,” he told me, “The Sunday Times are offering you a column.”
Something I’d dreamed of. My words finally in print, in a magazine, not on a blog or in an Instagram caption.
“This could make you legit. More mainstream in the eyes of the public. From influencer to media personality. We could pitch you to TV.”
The column was something I’d dreamed of, yes, but TV money? Now, that’s something else. Something I need. I almost salivate thinking about it, dangled in front of me, a carrot leading me into this documentary like a starving donkey out of one of those Christmas charity ads.
I ought to be enjoying this moment, having my makeup done, taking the spotlight. Truth is, I’m too anxious to enjoy anything since it arrived. That email, lingering in my inbox, another dirty secret correspondence like those white-enveloped overdue credit card payment notices. But this has far worse ramifications than bankruptcy. I’d been so sure I’d made the right decision, being talked into this documentary by Tom, lured by money, tormented by the minus sign in front of my bank account, certain the past would stay the past, some of its aspects well-hidden and secret.
I accepted a risk. A huge one. But I’d been too confident, cocksure. One email turned this whole documentary into a living nightmare. The eyes of producers and interns alike are on me. Murmuring. Consulting clipboards. I wonder how many of them believe the rumours, rather than the truth.
I shudder as I think of it. Pooh Bear. Reflexively, I reach for my phone, the rectangular device still a little warm from the last time I held it. It comforts me to do these everyday things, these compulsive robotic movements. Sheryl, an employee of the streaming company, flinches a little, her brow cross-stitched before she relaxes and says in a tone tinged by tension, “No pictures!”
I nod. Of course, I know. I signed the NDA like everyone else, after a brief flick-through. All content I post about the documentary must be cleared with the streaming service first. I can’t even really tell anyone about it, in any capacity. I’d needed express permission to tell Sara and Maggie, to invite them to take part.
Now the neurotic Sheryl has been assured I’m not uploading details of the process for my followers, I check the stats on my last post. It’s a series of pictures of me smiling in the kitchen, surrounded by veg with a tool in hand. It’s an ad for said tool, which is used to pulverise hard vegetables like swede. I love to use it as the base for healthy sauces, I promise my followers in the caption. I’ve never done that. It sounds thoroughly disgusting.
This is not the content I usually go for, but offers to collaborate or promote brands — the lifeblood of an influencer’s income — have been coming in less frequently in the past year, as have the likes and follows. They are linked together, of course. My growth has stalled, interest in me evidently waning with my followers. I was set to take home a third less than I normally make in a year, before I signed up to this documentary. And, if I’m honest, I didn’t make what I’d make in a normal year last year, or the year before that. Shane has no idea that many of our expenses have been spread across a few credit cards, but I’ve had to keep up appearances. I can pay those mounting bills back once business gets better. That’s why I agreed to this. Between a rock and a hard place, you could say. This accursed email, however, transformed that hard place into a pointier, sharper place, moving slowly towards me, Indiana Jones booby-trap style.
God, I really need this kitchen tool post to do well. I get a bonus if anyone buys the product through my link or if I bring a certain number of followers for the brand’s own page.
I share the picture to my stories, adding:
“You guys, the algorithm is hating on my posts. Please give this a like and a share to boost my content to your feed.”
I hate to beg, but you have to do what you have to do.
You have to do what you have to do.
I glance over at that couch. Today, I’m going to tell the story of me and Zanna from the beginning and my stomach is already churning. The story is etched onto my heart, but the email has knocked all my confidence.
One of the producers, the aforementioned Sheryl, is a small, pointy young woman, sharp elbows, sharp nose, even sharp ears poking out from the side of her face with a perfectly shiny head of blonde hair pulled back, skull-cap tight, into a bun. I bet she has “Look like a lady, think like a man and work like a boss” framed in her bedroom. Her name doesn’t suit her. She is about my age, thirty, and my job is a little bit of a joke to her, while she works long days for far less money. She talks slowly to me, like the intricacies of television are far above my intellect. I’ve looked at her Instagram; her page is full of snaps of cocktails, homemade bread and marathon training updates.
“It’s a chance to tell your side of the story. Explain what happened. Address anything unfair, any misconceptions you feel the public might still have about you and Zanna,” Sheryl said, during those early meetings about the documentary.
I had questions.
“What is the point, though? What is the documentary looking at?”
“A very good question.” Sheryl smiled at me, patronisingly. “We are looking simply to shine a light on Zanna’s life, her influence, her achievements. And yours. We want to prevent tragedy in the future while honouring her memory.”
“And it’s not going to be cheesy with horrible re-enactments and stuff? Not going to focus too much on . . . what happened to her? The horrible stuff.”
“We feel,” Sheryl answered, seamless and controlled, “re-enactments are a great tool to help an audience understand a story, to feel an emotional connection to those involved — Zanna, and yourself.”
I pressed on. “But it’s going to be positive, about her life, right? Not like a true crime thing about, you know—” A word hard to say out loud. “—the murder.”
Sheryl smiled reassuringly. “Absolutely. This is going to be positive, uplifting, inspiring. All things Zanna.”
So, I agreed.
But that was all before that email. That nasty little email. I have no idea where it came from. No idea how to trace it. It hangs there, making me sweat each time I check my inbox. Of course, anyone else would think, go to the police. But I can’t. There’s too much to lose. The blog. Shane. I’ve run myself ragged thinking about it, bringing on dark circles under my eyes. I’ve had abusive emails before, of course; it’s par for the course. I’ve had many over the years. But this one is very different.
Who would call me Pooh Bear, besides Zanna and my mother, both of whom were quickly struck from the list of potential suspects for obvious reasons? Zanna, dead. And my mother, who — living miles away and being a practical stranger by the time of Zanna’s death — would have no idea about anything. No one, in any of the emails before, has used that most secret of nicknames. Zanna must have told someone. The hair on my neck prickles with shame as I think of her laughing with someone about it. My stomach drops. My best friend.
A wave of nausea washing over me, I check my emails again. The email is still sitting there. My tongue dry and stuck to the roof of my mouth, I open it again and regret it instantaneously.
I know what you did, Pooh Bear.
My hands tremor violently, so I put the phone down on the table, too loudly, slamming it. The makeup artist jumps. Tom and Sheryl look.
“Sorry,” I murmur, afraid to open my lips too wide in case my quivering heart jumps out of it, flopping onto the floor. That would be something for the documentary.
“Don’t be nervous, babes, you’re going to be amazing,” Tom says, giving me the thumbs up.
Sheryl squints at me, raises an eyebrow and makes a note on her clipboard.
I stare at myself in the mirror, my armpits moistening. The white couch beckons. I try to forget the email and unstick my tongue, so I fixate on my nose and breathe in for five and out for ten. I told Zanna I’d like it straightened once, my nose, explaining how it broke after I tripped over my dad’s boots in the hallway. He smacked me on the leg for it. Never treated at hospital, no one took me, I soothed it with ice myself and it remained always a little skew-whiff.
“Don’t you want anything done to the bulbous bit at the end too?” she’d asked, squeezing her own nose, crafted with help of a surgical hammer and a few stitches.
“Yeah, maybe,” I’d said, turning back to my bedroom mirror, unsure.
“Don’t worry, you’re gorge either way. Look, you can contour it.”
She’d sat cross-legged in front of me and dusted on a new nose with dark powder. “Beautiful,” she’d pronounced, touching the makeup brush to the end of my nose like a tickly little kiss. I miss that Zanna so much my heart convulses.
The closer my face comes to complete under the hands of the makeup artists — cheekbones, eye sockets, a jaw filled in with darker powder — the sooner I’ll have to start talking. As much as I want to at this moment, I can’t stop her fingers from finishing their work and, once she’s done, I settle down on the well-lit sofa.
Sheryl sits down in front of me, a list of questions on a clipboard, questions that are going to call on me to speak the truth about my relationship with Zanna.
Hello, Paige. Welcome to the set.