by Jane Green
In fact she’s even had to intercept the monthly bills from Amberley Jacks and pay them herself from her own bank account. Richard was furious when he got their first bill. ‘Amber!’ he had roared from his office as he was sorting out the bills. ‘Look at this!’ He’d pushed the piece of paper at her and glared at her in an angry-father sort of way. ‘I thought they weren’t going to be expensive,’ he’d said finally.
‘Ah yes,’ Amber had said, because not only had the furniture they’d found cost far more than Amber had anticipated (everything had turned out to be ‘a piece’, all of it genuine, all of it old, and all of it horrendously expensive), but they claimed to have put in thirty hours during the month of April, which came to $6,000.
‘How can they possibly have spent thirty hours?’ Richard had said. ‘I thought they only came to the house twice.’
‘They did.’ Amber had immediately jumped on the defensive. ‘But they were out buying for us.’
‘Thirty hours’ worth of buying? How can that be? They only bought the coffee table, a couple of side tables and a few lamps. How is that thirty hours?’
Amber had shaken her head. ‘I’m sorry, darling, I don’t know, but if that’s what they say it is, then that’s what it is.’
‘I’m going to phone them and ask them,’ Richard had said, reaching for the phone.
‘No!’ Amber had gasped, already humiliated at the thought. ‘Don’t do that. I’ll speak to them. I’m the one with the relationship with them, so I ought to speak to them, don’t you think?’
‘Well, okay, but make sure you get them to detail the hours. I want to see a list of exactly where these thirty hours went, and Amber, this is it. We can’t afford this sort of money on decorating. Now the formal living room is done that’s it. Okay?’
‘Okay, okay. I’ll speak to them tomorrow.’ Amber had blown him a kiss, knowing that he would have forgotten about it by the next morning, and he was at work all day, he wouldn’t even know if they carried on. She could always tell him she did it herself.
And although the lavender and plum living room isn’t what Amber would ever have done herself, isn’t even what she might have picked if she’d seen a picture in a magazine, it is pure Amberley Jacks, and she can’t wait for the committee, especially for Suzy, to see her new room.
‘Oh it’s lovely,’ Nadine says, walking in and sitting on the sofa next to Suzy, admiring the coffee table and antique brass lamps. ‘Didn’t they do a wonderful job?’
‘I know,’ Amber says proudly. ‘They really are worth every penny. Help yourself to some pastries. I’m just going to get some fresh coffee. Can I bring you anything?’
‘No thanks,’ the two girls smile sweetly and shake their heads. ‘We’re good.’
‘Oh. My. God.’ Suzy turns to Nadine and mouths the words, her mouth hanging open, as Nadine starts to giggle.
‘Oh stop it,’ she shoves Suzy playfully as they both look around the room. ‘What is this colour? What does it remind me of? Oh I know!’ She turns back to Suzy. ‘It’s puke.’
Suzy splutters with laughter. ‘I thought Amberley Jacks were supposed to be talented. This is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. Look at this coffee table! How ugly is that?’
‘And what about those curtains? Could they be any more revolting?’ The two girls turn and giggle at the curtains, then stop abruptly as Deborah walks in.
‘Hi!’ She walks over and they all hug before Deborah turns to admire the room. ‘Well this colour is definitely unusual,’ she says, sitting down.
‘Nadine thinks it looks like puke,’ Suzy whispers with an evil grin. ‘Oh my gosh, will you listen to me? I’m being so mean. Don’t tell Amber, I think she loves it.’
‘Do you hate it?’ Deborah returns the smile.
‘We hate it,’ Suzy whispers.
‘So I take it you won’t be using Amberley Jacks, then?’ Deborah’s voice is all innocence.
‘Well they are supposed to be the best. Maybe they just screwed up here. For all we know Amber forced them to use the barf colour.’
‘So you will use them, then? Even though you hate this room?’
‘Um. Well. I don’t know.’ Suzy is aware she has been trapped. ‘I haven’t decided.’
‘I’m going to the kitchen.’ Deborah stands up and walks out of the room, shaking her head in disgust as she goes. ‘Bitches,’ she says under her breath, and walks straight into Amber.
‘What did you say?’
‘Oh nothing.’ Deborah apologizes. ‘Just Suzy and Nadine being as pleasant as always.’
‘They weren’t being mean about me, were they?’ The colour drains from Amber’s face.
‘No. I think they’re just jealous that you were the first to use Amberley Jacks. In fact, Suzy’s so jealous she’s practically turning green. I can’t even stand to be around the pair of them. Let’s go wait in the kitchen, and anyway, I could do with some of that incredible-looking cake.’
Amber is as gracious a hostess as always, a skill she studied for years from her mother-in-law. When Amber met Richard her insecurity and lack of self-worth would come across to others as arrogance, or snobbishness. They didn’t realize that the reason she was cool was because she felt so inadequate. Icy Winslow taught her the value of graciousness. Icy Winslow, despite her glacial looks and frosty nickname, is warm and inclusive to everyone she meets, almost to the point of gushing, and everyone loves her in return.
Icy Winslow doesn’t have to be frosty, or supercilious, or pretend to be better than anyone because she knows exactly who she is, and has never had anything to prove. Amber still feels that she has lots to prove, that she is definitely less than the women sitting around her living room, and yet she has learnt that she needn’t let that show, that to be warm and friendly costs so much less than being rude.
When people talk about Icy Winslow they say she still has the unique gift that several great women have when they’re talking to you, of making you feel that they would not be anywhere else at this current moment than standing right here, talking to you.
‘Think Icy,’ Amber always says to herself when she feels insecurity strike. ‘What would Icy do?’ and she flashes a wide Icy-style smile, makes sure she touches the people to whom she’s talking a lot, and asks lots of questions. She may not feel like Icy, but has learnt that acting as if she does can take her a hell of a long way.
And so now, during this committee meeting, Amber channels her mother-in-law. She hugs everyone who comes in, even the women she doesn’t like. She makes sure the plates of goodies are passed, that people’s coffee cups are refilled, that no one is left out in the cold.
So while Suzy and Nadine can say whatever they like about the Amberley Jacks living room, there is very little with which to find fault in Amber. Who could possibly not like Amber? Who could possibly not be taken in by her charm?
Chapter Twelve
Vicky arrives at the Wolseley fifteen minutes later than planned. She’d waited ages for a cab, and then got stuck in traffic, so she’s slightly more flustered than she had planned as well.
The waitress leads her through the beautiful people, through the famous and wannabe famous, to a table where a thin, bespectacled man with a large smile immediately jumps up and extends his hand.
‘You must be Vicky,’ he says. ‘I’m Hugh. We spoke on the phone.’
‘Nice to meet you.’ She shakes hands then turns to his colleague, a small, pretty girl with blonde hair and freckles who looks about twelve.
‘Hi,’ she smiles as well. ‘I’m Elsa. I’m the director. It’s so nice to meet you. I’ve been reading your magazine for years.’
‘Great,’ says Vicky, wondering how this child could possibly have been reading Poise! for years when she looks like she graduated from kindergarten a few weeks ago. ‘Our editor, Janelle Salinger, will be joining us as soon as she gets out of a meeting. I hope that’s okay.’
Hugh pulls out a chair for Vicky telling her it’s fine, that Vicky is the
one they’re most interested in, and as he steps away from her chair he raises an encouraged and pleased eyebrow at Elsa. Vicky’s perfect. Already, after two minutes, he can tell the camera’s going to love her.
‘Here,’ he says, sliding his card over the table. ‘Let’s start with giving you my business card so you can get hold of me any time you want.’
Vicky takes the card, studies it briefly then looks up at Hugh in disbelief, a smile twitching around her lips.
‘Hugh Janus?’ she says finally, a giggle breaking out. ‘Is that really your name? Huge Anus?’
Hugh sighs his exasperated sigh because this happens every time. ‘No,’ he says slowly, ‘it’s Janus. Pronounced Jan-us. Not Jayn-us. It’s Hugh Jan-us.’
‘Oh come on.’ In her nerves Vicky feels on the brink of hysteria. ‘Seriously. That can’t be your name.’
‘I know. It’s horrific,’ he shrugs, with an apologetic grin. ‘But at least I’m not fourteen any more.’
‘School must have been horrendous.’ Vicky is fascinated.
‘Yup. You can’t even imagine.’
‘Yes I can.’ Vicky grins. ‘Did they ask if you had a brother called Lar?’
‘Large anus!’ Elsa starts cracking up with laughter, and Vicky joins in, even though Hugh doesn’t seem to find it particularly funny.
‘And what about your cousin Sor?’ Elsa says eventually, wiping the tears from her eyes.
There’s a long silence as Vicky and Hugh look at a delighted Elsa. ‘Oddly enough,’ Hugh says in disbelief, shaking his head at Elsa’s delighted smile, ‘no. No one ever asked if my cousin was called Sor Jaynus.’
‘Oh God,’ Elsa flushes. ‘How stupid am I?’ And it sets off another round of laughter.
‘Well this is very professional,’ Hugh says finally, when order is returned. ‘So much for a business lunch.’
‘How in the hell does anyone keep a straight face with your name?’ Vicky asks. ‘Seriously, what were your parents thinking?’
‘They didn’t think, basically. My actual name is Hugo, which is fine. Hugo Janus doesn’t elicit any kind of response whatsoever, other than people assuming I’m an upper-class twit…’
‘Are you?’ Vicky grins.
‘Do I seem like it? Don’t answer that!’ he says. ‘But no, I’m neither upper class nor a twit, but once I got to secondary school everyone, not surprisingly, started calling me Hugh, and unfortunately it stuck, which caused endless mirth amongst the stars of the last reality show I did.’
‘Hang on,’ Vicky says, as the wheels of her memory start churning. ‘You’re not the guy who did The Robinsons, are you?’
Hugh nods. ‘Yup. That’s me.’
‘I loved that show!’
‘I was the director on that too,’ Elsa interjects. ‘That’s how we started working together.’
‘Didn’t you win a Bafta for that?’
‘It currently has pride of place in my loo. Every time the cleaner comes she moves it to the mantelpiece, and every time she leaves I put it back in the loo.’
‘But why? You ought to be proud of it.’
‘I am, just embarrassed for it to be out. It’s the first thing everyone comments on when they come over, and it means a half-hour chat about whether the Robinsons were really as awful as they appeared.’
‘Were they?’
‘Worse,’ he says with a smile, as the waitress comes over to see if they are ready to order.
Vicky hasn’t done her research. Normally before a meeting such as this she would have, at the very least, googled the person in question to find out who they are and what they have done. Had she not been so busy sorting through the responses to Life Swap, had she in fact found the time to google Hugh Janus, here’s what she would have found:
Hugh Janus is thirty-nine years old, a graduate of Bristol University where he studied English and Drama, before going straight into the London Daytime Television graduate training programme.
After joining Channel 4 he became one of the leading lights in the new phenomenon of reality television. Initially copying successful American shows like The Bachelor and Survivor, Hugh Janus went on to make the biggest breakaway hit of last year, The Robinsons.
The Robinsons are a family who live on a council estate in Peckham, south London. The mother is a drug dealer, as is Wayne, the oldest son. Darren, the middle son, is in prison for GBH. Warren, the youngest son, is in training to go into the family business, and Kylie, the fourteen-year-old, is trying to give up smoking and find a job as she looks after her baby daughter, Paris.
Hugh found the Robinsons after reading a newspaper article about them. They were dubbed the Family from Hell after all the neighbours had requested the council move them because of the constant noise, aggression, and threatening behaviour from the Robinson family, and their six pit bull terriers.
The Daily Mail had run a double-page spread on the family entitled ‘Neighbours from hell!’, accompanied by a large colour photo of the family staring belligerently into the camera, with other, smaller photos of frightened-looking neighbours alongside.
It had been Hugh’s idea to follow the family for a year. ‘You don’t get better television than this,’ he said. ‘We wouldn’t have to do anything. Just plant the cameras and we’ve got gold.’ He got their phone number, but every time he phoned they told him to fuck off, and slammed the phone down.
Eventually he borrowed a mate’s beaten-up Volvo – his own 1978 Alfa Romeo Spider was not a car he was going to take to this council estate in Peckham, no matter how desperate he was for the work – filled it with beer, cigarettes, and pigs’ ears for the dogs, which Sheila Robinson, the mother, had referred to in the Mail as ‘her babies’, and drove down to Peckham, turning up on their doorstep.
‘Fuck off,’ Sheila said, attempting to slam the front door in his face as a baby wailed in the background.
‘I’ll pay you,’ he shouted as the door slammed. There was a long silence, then just as he was about to turn around and leave, the door opened again and Sheila blew a large cloud of smoke into Hugh’s face.
‘How much?’ she scowled, and after Hugh mentioned the figure he’d agreed with Channel 4 in advance (he knew there would have to be money involved, why else would the Robinsons agree to do it? Kylie was the only one who might enjoy her fifteen minutes of fame, but there was no way the others would agree to something like this without being paid, particularly when the Mail had to fork out several thousand pounds just to get the photograph), Sheila stepped aside and gestured for Hugh to come in.
‘Posh git,’ she called him from the first, but he figured it could have been a lot worse, and he suspected that after a while she actually grew quite fond of him. Hugh and the crew spent a year filming their every move, editing the hours and hours of footage into one-hour weekly slots that held the nation riveted for the best part of six months.
‘Makes Wayne and Waynetta Slob look like Charles and Camilla,’ he later joked to the head honchos at Channel 4. Except he wasn’t joking.
And this is what Vicky would not have found out about Hugh Janus, despite scrolling through the multiple pages:
He is the younger of two boys, was brought up in Gloucestershire, and owns one cat, called, rather unimaginatively, Cat. Cat sleeps on Hugh’s side of the bed every night, curled up on his pillow, purring into his face.
He lives in a basement flat in Notting Hill with his girlfriend – Lara – who he has been with for seven years, and who he is planning on marrying, when he can find the time. Lara is also in television – they met when she was a researcher on one of his shows whilst still at London Daytime Television.
Lara is now head of factual programming at London Daytime Television, and they joke about how powerful she is. Hugh has been approached many times to go corporate, but he loves the day-to-day producing, has no wish to be a suit, to commission others to do the work he so loves.
They have the perfect relationship. Or at least, perfect for them. They understand one
another completely, do not feel the slightest hint of jealousy or insecurity if one or other is spending the evening in the pub with the rest of the gang, and have successfully merged their friends to create a hip media crowd who live mostly in Notting Hill if successful, or in Kilburn and Queens Park if not quite up to the same level.
The only fly in the ointment, if it can be described as such, is that Lara has started talking about having children, and Hugh just isn’t sure that he’s ready. He likes their life. No, loves their life. Is very happy with Lara and Cat, and can’t see how a child would fit into it.
His brother, Will, has three children whom Hugh adores, and every time he and Lara go up to Islington to see Will, Lara delights in seeing how Hugh plays with his niece and nephews: he leads them down to the woods at the bottom of the garden and creates secret clubhouses complete with passwords and magic doorways.
He spends entire afternoons sitting at the kitchen table with them, making pretend passports that will allow them entry into worlds of enchantment and surprise, weaving myths and fairy tales that leave the children breathless with excitement whenever they learn he is coming to see them.
‘How can you not be ready for children?’ Lara always asks when they leave. ‘Look at what an amazing uncle you are! You’re going to be an incredible father, and I don’t believe you’re not ready. It’s just an excuse. And anyway, when is anyone ever ready for children? If we all waited until we were ready there would never be any children born at all. We just need to do it, we’ll worry about whether we were ready afterwards.’
For some time now Lara has thought about just getting pregnant, telling Hugh she didn’t know how it happened. For the longest time they used condoms, and she actually thought about sticking a pin through the packet to try and fall pregnant; the only thing stopping her was the thought of Hugh seeing the hole and realizing what she had done.