Prime Time

by Jane Wenham-Jones

  ‘Why’ve you got that funny look on your face?’ Stanley appeared in the doorway in his socks. ‘What’s for dinner?’

  I thought about the half a cucumber and packet of cheddar in the otherwise empty fridge. ‘I haven’t been shopping yet, I said brightly. Shall we go now and choose something?’

  Stanley sighed. ‘OK.’

  ‘Are you all right, Stanley? I enquired, as we drove in the direction of the supermarket. ‘What sort of a day have you had?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘How’s Connor these days?

  ‘OK’

  ‘Does he want to come round to eat some time? Have a sleepover?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Well why don’t you ask him?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Go on, he used to come round all the time when you were at St Katherine’s. Shall I ask his mum?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Stanley, is everything really OK, darling?’

  Stanley sighed again. ‘I just don’t like school,’ he said eventually.

  ‘What don’t you like about it?’

  ‘It’s horrible.’

  ‘Does Connor like it?’

  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘Say “don’t know”,’ I said, at a loss as to what else to say. ‘Look, we’re here. Let’s have a talk about this later.’

  ‘OK.’

  I parked the car and Stanley jumped out and headed for the trolleys. ‘I’ll push it,’ he called over his shoulder.

  ‘As long as you do push it and don’t ride it down the aisles the moment I’m not looking,’ I lectured, when I’d caught up with him. ‘Remember what happened with the eggs.’

  ‘I was five then.’ He kicked off with one foot and swung himself up onto the side of the trolley and careered off ahead of me with a grin.

  I walked slowly behind him, picking up vegetables. He seemed cheery enough now. Perhaps he just didn’t like being asked questions. I decided I would phone Michelle, Connor’s mother, anyway, to see if Connor wanted to visit and whether he too had become monosyllabic since beginning at Highcourt. Maybe a few hours with Connor in front of a DVD, stuffing pizzas, would help Stanley unwind a bit. Deep in thought, I turned into the next aisle.

  ‘Careful!’ I almost crashed into Stanley as he came to an abrupt halt in front of me and started to turn the trolley round.

  ‘Oh great,’ he muttered.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I looked at my son, who was now intently examining his trainers.

  Then I looked up and felt myself blush.

  Stanley’s form teacher, Andrew Lazlett, was standing in front of us. He looked a lot less tired than he had at the parents’ evening and taller again now he was standing up. If he was remembering that the last time he saw me I was snivelling into a handkerchief, he kept it hidden and greeted us both warmly. ‘How are you?’ he asked me. ‘Hello again, Stanley.’

  ‘Hello, sir,’ Stanley mumbled.

  He smiled from one to the other of us. ‘Don’t suppose you can help me, can you? I’ve been wandering up and down here for ages,’ he said, ‘hoping to be rescued. My wife’s told me to get –’ He consulted his list. ‘Low-fat halloumi. I don’t even know what it is.’

  ‘It’s a cheese,’ I told him helpfully. ‘I didn’t know they did a low-fat version though. Very nice grilled with pitta bread.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m allowed bread,’ he said, looking mournful. ‘I’m on a diet. I’ve put on a stone since I stopped smoking.’

  I looked him up and down. He didn’t look fat – just chunky. Which is always preferable – on a man – to being too skinny.

  I nearly said this aloud and then thought better of it. ‘You can lose it again though, eh? More important not to smoke.’

  ‘Trouble is –’ He glanced toward Stanley, who had moved some feet away from us and was deep in concentration over the fromage frais and lowered his voice. ‘I’m still doing that too. Don’t tell anyone. I only have the occasional one – when there’s nobody looking. It’s very difficult not eating and not smoking. I’m starving,’ he finished plaintively.

  ‘I know the feeling,’ I said. ‘I’m supposed to be on a diet too. Are you on the Atkins?’

  He looked gloomy. ‘I think so. Thing is I love sandwiches.’

  ‘So do I,’ I said. ‘I gave up bread for a week and started dreaming about it. Egg and cress on granary…’

  ‘Chicken and bacon,’ said Andrew Lazlett with feeling.

  ‘Tuna mayo,’ I cried.

  Stanley gave a shudder, muttered something about getting more cereal, and headed rapidly for the next aisle. When he’d disappeared, Andrew Lazlett lowered his voice again. ‘How’s he getting on now?’

  ‘I’m not sure – he won’t really tell me. Some days he says everything’s OK; today he said he still doesn’t like school.’

  ‘Well, sometimes it’s not cool to say anything else. He seems fine to me when he’s there. I had a little word and he didn’t mention any problems. But I’ll keep an eye on him.’

  ‘Thank you very much. I’ll show you the halloumi.’

  I led him along the aisle to the cheeses. ‘Have it with basil leaves and tomato,’ I suggested.

  ‘I’d rather have oven chips.’

  I laughed. ‘So would I. It’s terrible shopping when you’re hungry. I ought to have a salad but I bet we end up with something fattening just as I must lose weight.’

  ‘You look fine to me,’ said Andrew, evidently feeling he should.

  ‘So do you,’ I said, thinking I’d better too.

  Well I’m not – I can’t do my trousers up.’ My eyes involuntarily went to his waistband. He looked down too. ‘I’ve had to buy new ones,’ he explained as I blushed again.

  He gave a wry laugh. ‘I think it would be easier to just light up …’

  As soon as we’d gone our separate ways, Stanley reappeared, clutching a box of Frosties and a packet of chicken burgers. ‘How embarrassing was that!’ he said accusingly.

  ‘Not at all for me,’ I said firmly. ‘He’s a very nice man. You’re lucky to have him as a teacher. He’s very understanding.’

  Stanley shook his head disbelievingly and pulled a face that implied he might shortly be sick. ‘Ugh, Mum – you fancy him,’ he said, voice laced with revulsion. ‘That is so gross …’

  Chapter Seventeen

  I wondered what Stanley would think if he knew who I really had the hots for.

  I sat in the green room at the TV studios in Wandsworth and surveyed the delicious-looking little pastries piled up next to the platter of fresh fruit. I’d already had a mini pain au chocolat, a lovely little apricot tartlet and a few grapes and was trying hard to avert my gaze from the shortbread.

  Cal was leaning in the doorway, loose white shirt over jeans, talking into his mobile. ‘Won’t be long,’ he mouthed at me.

  ‘No problem,’ I mouthed back, looking at his slender hands and long, artistic fingers that gestured as he talked. Mmm.

  I looked up at the monitor on the wall where I could see the first Cook Around the Clock of the day being filmed in front of a studio audience. They were recording three programmes, I’d been told by Tracy, the nice young girl assigned to look after me, and I was on the last one. I could have brought a guest but had ended up coming alone, which at least left lots of uninterrupted time for beautiful-young-man-gazing.

  Charlotte couldn’t get the day off as her boss was away sick and she had to stand in. I’d briefly thought of bringing Stanley and for a moment he’d even looked enthusiastic too, but then his face had dropped again. ‘I’d better not,’ he said.

  ‘Why not?’ I asked. I’ll write a note and explain’

  But Stanley had shaken his head. ‘I’ll miss stuff,’ he said, not looking at me. ‘It’s difficult if you have a day off.’

  ‘Everything’s OK at school now, isn’t it? Nobody’s being horrible?’

  Stanley had shrugged. ‘Not really.’

  I sometimes thought
my mother was right when she periodically reminded me I should have had two children. Stanley wasn’t used to the bickering and everyday abuse you got from having a brother or sister. And while St Katherine’s, his primary school, had been small and delightfully huggy and happy-clappy, it maybe hadn’t equipped him for the rigours of a secondary school with 600 boys and all the jostling and name-calling that was bound to entail.

  But he still hadn’t revealed any more and Andrew Lazlett had said he seemed fine. What else could I do? I could hardly storm up to the school on the vague possibility that someone was being beastly about my son’s name. I had phoned Michelle and now Connor was coming round at the weekend to stay over. Maybe I could find out a bit more about what went on then …

  ‘Laura?’ A girl in her twenties with a brown pony tail and a big smile was in the room. Cal had moved outside into the corridor, still on the phone. ‘Hi, I’m Debby – want to come through to make-up?’

  I followed her through to a mirrored room like a hair salon. The surfaces were covered with tubes and palettes, sprays and hair straighteners.

  ‘So, what are you cooking?’ Debby asked cheerily, as she put a gown around my shoulders and surveyed a huge box of eye shadows. There was a monitor in here too – I could see the chefs – who disappointingly did not include Marco or Gordon or anyone I’d ever heard of – chopping away, helped by two identical grinning blokes who were obviously twins.

  ‘I’m doing Beat the Chef ,’ I said. ‘A pudding with meringues and raspberries and a Snickers bar. It’s my son’s favourite,’ I added, not wishing her to think I was an unsophisticated glutton myself.

  ‘Bless him,’ said Debby. She put a hand under my chin and tipped my face toward her. ‘Do you usually wear a lot of make-up? What sort of colours do you go for on your eyes?’

  She chatted away gaily while she blended and brushed and patted. I was turned away from the mirror so couldn’t see what she was doing but it felt fairly industrial. I just hoped I wasn’t going to come out all orange like Randolph Kendall. She seemed to be putting layers and layers of foundation and blusher on and my eyes took ages too. ‘Look down. Look up. Lovely!’ she said as she piled on several coats of mascara and drew round my rims. ‘Open your mouth a little?’

  I imagined I must now look like one of those crones on the make-up counters in old-fashioned department stores, whose every wrinkle was filled to capacity with powder and whose lips were drawn in where their own had long disappeared.

  ‘I’m trying to keep you quite natural,’ said Debby, as she got out the eyelash curlers.

  Another older woman with a deep tan and dark hair tied back in a red scarf came in and gave me the once over. ‘Looking good,’ she said to Debby.

  She smiled at me. ‘I’m Marie – I’m wardrobe. We’ll have a chat after you’re done here.’

  Behind her, Cal put his head round the door. ‘You OK, Laura? Wow,’ he added, coming right up to me. ‘You look great.’

  Obviously he was being kind. A man like him would have a gorgeous girlfriend of 25 – or younger – or a whole string of them. He would not be really thinking a 42-year-old with three inches of slap all over her crow’s feet was anything worth shouting about.

  ‘Thanks,’ I mumbled, embarrassed.

  Debbie swung my chair back to face the mirror. I stared. For all the masses of gunk she’d put on me, I did look surprisingly natural, but in a whole new, glowing, smoky-eyed way. I had cheekbones I’d never seen before and full, glossy, pouting lips. My skin looked flawless. The bags under my eyes had mysteriously disappeared.

  ‘Gosh,’ I said to Debby. ‘Can you come and live with me?’

  From behind me Cal laughed. ‘Can I?’ He laughed again to show he was joking. My heart gave a little jolt. Get real, I told myself. You’re old enough to be his mother. Well, almost. I didn’t actually know how old he was at all but I was guessing at mid-20s. Much too young for me, anyway.

  ‘What do you usually do with this?’ asked Debby, indicating my hair.

  ‘Er well, that’s it really.’ I’d washed it and dragged a comb through it and tried to fluff it up a bit but there wasn’t a lot you could do with it. ‘I’ve never been very creative with the blow dryer.’

  Debby was plugging in some heated rollers. ‘We’ll give it a bit more body,’ she said kindly. ‘Would you mind if I just tidied up your eyebrows?’ As she plucked out a few rogue hairs and I tried not to wince too much, I wondered what Marie would have to say about my choice of clothes.

  I’d been emailed an even longer list of sartorial dos and don’ts than there’d been last time and instructed to bring at least two outfits while travelling in something else. Currently I was still wearing the latter – one of my floppier pairs of jeans and a T-shirt. The gear I’d brought – the few dispiriting garments I could find that fitted the criteria – had been whisked away from me on arrival.

  When Debby had finished and my hair was in pleasing waves, I followed Marie along the corridor to a room with an ironing board and clothes rails. My clothes were hanging up on hooks on one of the walls.

  There were the usual black trousers and the grey flouncy skirt as well as a red dress which I’d found lurking in the cupboard in the spare room and which I now hoped they wouldn’t like because I wasn’t at all sure it would still do up.

  Marie looked at them all critically. ‘This is OK,’ she said, fingering a long-sleeved, stretchy blue top I’d borrowed from Charlotte, ‘but I’m just wondering …’ She rummaged along one of the rails and held up an emerald green embroidered smock top. ‘This would really bring out your eyes – try it with the trousers.’

  She stood watching me as I took off my T-shirt, glad I was in one of my better bras. I looked in the mirror. The smock was nice – it made me look sort of artistic and bohemian – and Marie was right; somehow my eyes did look greener than usual too.

  ‘Now the bottoms,’ she instructed. Lucky I wasn’t shy, I thought, as I shuffled out of my jeans and Marie openly inspected my thighs. ‘Do you do body brushing?’ she asked approvingly. I shook my head. ‘Well, you’re lucky then – you’ve very little cellulite for a woman of your age. You’re really in pretty good shape.’

  ‘Am I?’ I paused and looked at my legs myself. They didn’t look that clever to me.

  ‘You can always tell the actresses who body brush,’ said Marie. ‘You should try it – makes a huge difference.’

  She pointed in the general direction of my bottom. ‘Would just firm up those bits for you. Know that Angel McMullen?’

  I nodded, even though I didn’t.

  ‘Looks wonderful with her clothes on but you should see her in her knickers – wobbles like a jelly. And she’s only young …’

  She surveyed me again once I was dressed. ‘Hmm, I like it. Now, what shoes have you got?’ She rummaged in the bottom of one of the big sliding cupboards. ‘I think there are some green pumps somewhere …’

  They were a bit big but they were comfortable and at least I wouldn’t have to worry about tottering around in heels. The only time I’d worn the strappy sandals I’d brought along in case they made me try the dress, I’d almost broken both legs. Marie smiled at me as I stood sideways in front of the mirror – the flowing top was really quite slimming. ‘I guess you’ll do,’ she said.

  ‘You look fantastic,’ said Cal, when he came back into the green room where I was nervously picking at the grapes. Tracy had been in to tell me they were halfway through the second programme and to introduce me to Bob and Carol, a husband and wife team who were the contestants just before me.

  He was jovial and kept guffawing and saying, ‘This is the life, eh?’ as he worked his way through the biscuits; she was as white as a sheet and looked as though she might throw up. They’d been taken off to make-up now and I’d been left on my own again, staring at the monitor in increasing trepidation and trying not to chew my lipstick off.

  By the look of the clapping from the studio audience, and general shifting about, the
second programme had come to an end.

  ‘Claire, our floor manager, is going to come and see you in a moment,’ Cal said, ‘and then Lucy, our home economist, will run through the recipe. OK? Smile,’ he added, shining a huge one of his own on me. ‘You’re here to enjoy yourself.’

  It felt more like waiting for the dentist. My stomach churned as I followed Claire, a vivacious black girl with braided hair and a brilliant red boiler suit that I wished I had the body to wear, down another corridor and through some doors onto the set.

  There were tiers of theatre seats, all occupied, and a bright white area down at the front with kitchen units, cameras and lights, and people wandering about with clipboards and saucepans. The chefs were in a little huddle over by the fire escape. I felt the eyes of the studio audience on me as I was shown where I was going to stand.

  ‘OK, so when you get the signal, you come straight down these steps – don’t look around you – keep your eyes to the front, come directly to here and you’ll meet Bruno, the chef,’ instructed Claire. ‘He’ll shake your hand. But then at the end he’ll kiss you on the cheek. OK?’ She laughed. ‘Try not to crash noses! Austin, the presenter, will ask you a few questions and then we’ll start, OK? Now it’s recorded as though it’s live so we don’t stop the camera for anything, all right? Don’t look at the camera, just concentrate on what you’re doing –’

  My head began to whirl – I was never going to remember all this. I glanced sideways at the monitor nearest me. I didn’t look bad – not any fatter than usual, and my hair looked better than it had for years. Claire was still talking but I’d missed the last thing she’d said.

  ‘Hey, Austin,’ she called now. ‘Do you want to come and meet Laura?’ Austin was a tall, attractive guy in his 30s with dark curls and amazing teeth.

  ‘Hi Laura!’ I noticed he’d changed his shirt again. It had been pink when they were recording the first programme, blue for the second. Now it was red. Together we looked like a Christmas tablecloth. ‘Don’t sweat, we’re gonna have a ball,’ he said, fixing me with a brilliant smile. He touched my shoulder. ‘I’ll see you later.’