Chapter Two

Alice is a teacher, which means that, although she doesn’t make mega bucks, she does get the longest holidays in human history. I, meanwhile, work the kind of hours that Siberian salt-mine owners would baulk at meting out. Or at least I do once filming kicks in. Right now we’re in preproduction, which can occasionally be a bit of a doss for me as Zelda’s such a control freak. Not this time. I spend the beginning of the week furiously sketching and poring over books on Victorian costume, trying to work out how I’m going to conjure up anything vaguely presentable. Of all the jobs for Zelda to fall ill on, this has to be the worst. And I can tell that she’s far sicker than she’s letting on by the sheer lack of contact. It’s so hard to stay focused when I’m constantly distracted by my concern for her, but I know that the best thing I can do is cover manfully in her absence. She’s desperate to conceal how little input she’s had into the look of the show, which means I’ve got to try and reach the dizzy heights of a BAFTA-winning designer with the budgetary equivalent of a few rolls of polyester and some sticky-backed plastic.

‘Shall we bother getting cable?’ says Alice, wandering in in her tracksuit bottoms. She’s already been for a run and brought back posh coffees from Upper Street and it’s only nine a.m. ‘I mean, all we ever watch on it is “America’s Next Top Model”.’

‘But we LOVE “America’s Next Top Model”. I reckon it’s worth it.’

‘OK, fair enough. That’s pretty much the last account we need to set up.’

‘Have you done them all?’ I ask her, feeling guilty. ‘I would’ve put some in my name.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about it,’ she says airily. ‘It’s all done and dusted.’

Alice is the most organized person I know. Our dad’s a science professor and I wonder if she’s inherited her meticulousness from him. I start gathering up the piles of sketches that I’ve spread over our dining table and clipping them together.

‘You’ve got your scary meeting today, haven’t you?’

I’m meeting Tarquin Butler at his private members’ club in just over an hour. I’m hoping his own inexperience will mean he won’t detect mine.

‘Yes, followed by a breeches fitting with the leading man at the costumiers. It’s kind of action-packed.’

‘Breeches,’ says Alice dreamily. ‘Try your best to make him look like Colin Firth in “Pride and Prejudice”.’

‘He’s so not in that league. He’s that Charles Adamson guy. Used to be the posh one in “Casualty”.’

‘Do they ever have anyone posh in “Casualty”?’

‘That’s why he only lasted a year!’ I shout over my shoulder, running up the stairs to the bathroom. My room’s still in chaos as I’ve been working too hard to unpack. There’s no time to wash my hair, but all I can find to keep it from getting wet in the shower is an unsightly pair of leopardskin G-string knickers. Steve was always buying me the kind of underwear I’d never have the audacity to wear, hence the fact they’re still pristine. I’m tearing out of the house soon after, a bulging folder of sketches tucked under my arm. As I’m scouring the road for a cab, the sketches start to blow down the street.

‘Bollocks!’ I shout, chasing after them.

‘Pardon your French,’ says an ancient woman in a huge flying saucer of a beret, trapping a couple of sketches under the wheels of her shopping trolley.

‘So sorry. Stressful morning,’ I say, retrieving them from under the wheels.

‘Don’t worry, dear,’ she says. ‘I know how it is for you young women. Never enough time to catch your breath.’

‘I’m Lulu,’ I say, sticking out my free hand. ‘I think we’re your new neighbours.’

‘Miss Lawford,’ she replies. ‘Very pleased to make your acquaintance.’

Maybe I’ll introduce myself to Tarquin as ‘Miss Godwin’ and demand that everyone on-set addresses me as such. It could be the perfect way to cement my newfound status. Spotting a passing cab, I flag it down, giving my new neighbour an apologetic smile. Miraculously it delivers me to Soho with five minutes to spare. Tarquin’s yet to arrive, so I order myself a double espresso and try to order my thoughts. I’m scrabbling back through my drawings when he suddenly appears at my elbow. He’s short and wiry, like a terrier, with spiky strawberry-blond hair. He looks like he inhaled his scarily on-trend wardrobe before leaving the house this morning. His skinny-fit black cords are set off by a pair of silken trainers, and his crumpled cotton blazer smartens the look to just the right degree. I immediately start to regret pulling on a bog standard pair of jeans: if you’re better dressed than your costume designer, it’s hardly going to inspire confidence. Still, he seems friendly enough, ordering himself an endearingly childish mug of hot chocolate and asking me about my Christmas.

Once our drinks arrive, it’s time to cut to the chase. Struggling to control my nerves, I try to imagine that there’s an enormous hologram of Zelda projected on to the wall in front of us; although after she’s blown a smoke ring into my face and ordered me to sit up straight, I’m forced to vaporize her. I pluck out my rough ideas for Charles Adamson and give forth with my spiel about parsimonious chic.

‘What we need to do is to find a contrast between the way we dress the different social classes, so that there’s an internal logic to it all.’

‘What, so we’re cheap in a consistent way?’ he says, poring over the sketches. I am so not ready for this. I should never have mentioned the paltry budget in my pitch: now he’ll just think I’m a whinger. He suddenly looks up, a grin plastered across his face.

‘You’re brilliant, Lulu, you really are. Well, you and Zelda are. I’ve been freaking out about how I’m going to achieve it all, but you’ve totally got it covered.’

‘Thanks!’ I say, delighted.

‘I felt really lucky to get someone like Zelda, but I’m bloody glad I’m going to be dealing with you while I’m still finding my feet.’

‘What do you mean?’ I ask him, immediately defensive. ‘You know she’ll be back in a couple of weeks?’

‘Sure, I realize that,’ he says with a disarming look. ‘I shouldn’t tell you this,’ he continues sheepishly, ‘but there’s a distinct possibility I’m way out of my depth. I really can’t fuck this up.’

‘Oh God, I’m so with you on being out of my depth,’ I tell him, suddenly feeling much less alone. ‘But they gave you the job for a reason… I’m sure you’ll be brilliant.’

‘Thanks, Lulu. Now I’ve just got to hope you’re the all-seeing eye.’

‘Oh, I am,’ I tell him. ‘No question.’

He starts gathering up his stuff. ‘I’m sorry I can’t come and introduce you to Charles, but my location manager needs me.’

‘It’s fine. What’s he like though? Is he going to be all queenie and leading mannish?’

‘He seems pretty tame,’ Tarquin says, ‘but you know what actors are like.’

‘Yeah, they all show their fangs eventually.’

‘Exactly,’ he agrees with a knowing laugh.

First-day friendship firmly established, we kiss goodbye and I head off for the costumiers. I set off down Old Compton Street in the winter sunshine, revelling in the fact that, for the next fifteen minutes, I’m answerable to no one. It’s times like these when being single starts to feel like an adventure, a chance to blaze a trail across my own personal corner of the universe. At least until I’m confronted by a particularly mentally subnormal glamour model grinning out from the cover of OK!, breasts artfully jiggling at the fiancé she met on a reality show a matter of weeks ago. How unfair is it that she’s luckier in love than me? What’s she got that I haven’t (other than £3,000-worth of silicone welded to her chest)? Transfixed, I have to stop and examine the ghastly pictures inside, earning myself a filthy glare from the newsagent and making myself late. I hare off down the street, taking a short cut down an alley lined with strip joints.

I arrive panicked and flustered, only to discover there’s no sign of Charles. Or at least that’s how it appears, until I realize that the Jon Bon Jovi lookalike who’s deep in conversation on his mobile might just be my man. He’s so engrossed that I’m forced to tap him on the shoulder. He wraps up the call and swings round, long rat’s tails spinning in the breeze. He obviously catches my horrified look.

‘Don’t. I know. I’m a fright. I’ve come straight from the hair and make-up tests. It’ll be all right when they’ve curled it all up, they assure me.’

‘So it’s extensions?’

‘Obviously it’s extensions!’ he says, laughing. ‘Just call me East Finchley’s answer to Victoria Beckham. They were going to take them all out, but it would have taken ages and I didn’t want to be late.’

‘I’m so sorry. You rushed over and I wasn’t even here.’ As I’m saying it, I feel myself reaching up to pull my own hair down in sympathy. Oh God, now I’m holding out my leopardskin pants like a religious offering. He stares at them, lost for words.

‘They’re clean!’ is the first thing that springs out of my mouth. ‘I mean, I was just using them to tie up my hair. I’ve just moved house, and…’

‘Well, you’re obviously the woman to ask about these things,’ he says teasingly. ‘I was wondering about bunches – do you think they’d suit me or are they just too retro Britney?’

‘No, I can see you with bunches,’ I tell him. ‘Or even a top knot. Long hair’s so versatile.’

We continue our ridiculous discussion all the way to his dressing room, where the costumiers have laid out a smorgasbord of outfits for him to try. I wait outside, after instructing him on the exact jodhpurs I want him in first.

‘How did men ever pull women in the nineteenth century?’ he shouts through the door. ‘I can’t tell you how huge my arse looks in these things. And do I really have to put that ridiculous ruffled shirt on?’

He opens the door, crazy hair caught round the back, and suddenly I see him from a whole new angle. It’s not straightforward lust that strikes me, more a feeling of total understanding, like I’ve known him for years. He’s leading-man handsome, no question, but up close and personal he’s far from flawless. His teeth are snaggly, like an ancient fence in need of attention, and his nose looks like it lost a fight with a lamp post. There’s a slightly faded quality to his good looks; the laughter lines around his dark-brown eyes tell me he’s pushing forty. But his crooked smile has a real warmth and kindness about it, a way of telling you that he’d stop his car in a heartbeat if you were stranded on the hard shoulder. Even the ruffled shirt and skin-tight trousers can’t kill his appeal. Best of all, he’s got no wedding ring. Stop it, Lulu. You are not going to have a relationship with your leading man, not under any circumstances. Actors are professional liars who get paid to show off. How’s that ever going to add up to a good prospect?

‘What do you think?’ he asks, yanking me out of my moment of madness.

‘Um, they’re all wrong for you, totally wrong,’ I snap.

‘So I look like a total lard arse?’ he replies, crestfallen.

‘No, not at all. I just want you to look more… more…’ Less like a man I could be insanely infatuated with is what I mean, but of course it’s not what I say. Instead I start randomly throwing alternative outfits at him while treating him to a scintillating analysis of social injustice in Victorian England. We fix on a pair of oatmeal suede breeches for everyday, plus some full-on leather chaps for his horse-riding exploits.

‘I’m starting the riding lessons next week,’ he shouts through the door. ‘Are you the horsey type?’

‘I grew up in Queen’s Park, take a wild guess.’

‘I can only just about drive a car,’ he says, ‘let alone single-handedly control a puffing, stamping beast.’

‘While wearing leathers,’ I add.

‘Quite,’ he says, emerging from the fitting room in his mufti. ‘Now, Lulu, if you can bear the abject humiliation of crossing the road with a man with longer hair than you, I’d very much like to take you for brunch.’

My heart does an involuntary skip at the thought of more time with him. ‘That’d be lovely, but –’

‘No buts. You’ve made me look like slightly less of a fool than I’d feared, and for that you must be justly rewarded. Are you a cheese person?’

‘Oh, I’m all about the cheese.’

‘In that case you’re in for a treat.’

We zigzag through the backstreets of Covent Garden, eventually finding the entrance to a yard, tucked away down a cobbled lane. It contains an amazing deli, entirely lined with random and delicious foodstuffs: salamis give way to lemons, swiftly followed by towers of croissants, while a cold counter is given over to a dairy’s worth of cheese. Charles leads me to the round, wooden table that acts as a centrepiece and pulls out a high stool for me.

‘Do you mind if I take command of the cheese ordering?’ he asks. ‘I’m a bit of a connoisseur.’

The combination of the commanding and the chair pulling is making my heart melt into a sludgy puddle at the bottom of my shoes. ‘Command away,’ I tell him inanely, doing my absolute best to pull myself together. I’m going to have to spend the next three months with this man. If my unbridled lust isn’t returned, it’s going to be uber-humiliating. Professional must be my brand. The fact that my next question is ‘So why are you so cheesy?’ rather ruins the effect.

‘I used to spend all my summers in Sweden with my dad when I was a kid. It’s pretty much their staple breakfast.’

‘Is that why you’re fair? You’re a secret Swede?’

‘No, my stepmother’s Swedish. My dad moved there to be with her.’

A miasma of sadness crosses his face, like a cloud blowing across the sun, but he forces it away with a determined smile. I find myself wanting to defy all the rules on how you’re meant to behave with a virtual stranger, seized by an illogical desire to know everything about what makes him tick. Of course I don’t start a full-scale emotional interrogation; instead I submit to his polite questioning about me. He asks if I’ve stayed in Queen’s Park, and I tell him about the bizarre characters that Alice and I have washed up alongside in Islington.

‘God, I’d love to have been a twin,’ he says, laughing at my impression of Mr Simkins. ‘I haven’t got any siblings at all. I can’t tell you how boring it is growing up in solitary.’

‘Oh, it’s got its downside,’ I tell him.

‘What?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say uselessly. ‘I just didn’t want you to think I was being smug.’ I ponder for a second, trying to imagine what I would’ve gained from not being intertwined with Alice from the very moment of conception.

‘I know I couldn’t live without her,’ I tell him, loving how intently he’s listening, ‘and sometimes that’s too scary for words.’ Losing our mum like we did has made me painfully aware, right from the get go, that no one’s immortal. If I let myself spiral into imagining an Alice-free universe then panic overwhelms me.

‘But surely it has to be better to have had something precious, and miss it fiercely, than never to have had it?’ he counters.

‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ I reply, thinking that I’ll need to take his observation away and unpack it. God, he thinks as well as twinkles. I mustn’t get carried away. If by some crazy chance I’ve met someone special, it’s vital I don’t seem like a love-sick desperado; particularly considering my opening gambit was handing him my knickers. I try to steer the conversation into more impersonal territory, asking him about the play he’s just finished in the West End and telling him about me and Zelda’s last couple of gigs. Even so, our eyes keep meeting for a little longer than they should and I find myself having to stare unduly hard at the Vacherin in order to avoid conveying the sheer pleasure that being with him is causing. We could be talking in forensic detail about roadworks on the North Circular and I’d still be having a great time. There’s a bizarre sense of connection that glides above and beyond our harmless chit-chat. I’ve got to remove myself before my feelings become too nakedly obvious. If this is going to happen, then I need him to think he has sought it out.

‘I ought to go,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve got to work on cocked hats for the farmhands this afternoon.’

‘I mustn’t keep you from the cocked hats,’ he says with a flirty smile. ‘I should shoot too. I’ve got to pick up my son from school in an hour.’

And with that, my world caves in. His son?

‘I didn’t know you had kids,’ I croak. I plaster an empty grin across my shocked face. ‘Or is it kid in the singular?’

‘God, no. I couldn’t put another generation through the hell of that,’ he says, his expression unreadable. ‘He’s got a little brother.’

‘Great!’ I say brightly, holding on to the vain hope he’s a divorcee. There’s no ring, for Christ’s sake. But I can’t think of a subtle way to ask and, anyway, I’m feeling way too humiliated by how obvious I’ve been. I never, ever feel this instantaneous chemistry – it’s always a gradual process of self-persuasion, an inching forward into an uncertain alliance. How utterly crushing that it’s over before it began.