Younger Thinner Blonder

by Sue Watson

  I needed to get the smelly, sticky clothes off me pronto and I didn’t want another stream episode live on air, so I bid farewell to Carol-Ann while she wrapped up the show and hurried off-camera to find a bucket of water.

  “That was marvellous dear!” said Marcus, going to give me a hug then thinking better of it. “How on Earth did you know the flag question?”

  “Just something I picked up,” I said airily. What I didn’t tell him was that Ardash had the flag of Nepal embroidered on his jeans. On his back pocket, to be precise. Some things were better left unsaid.

  Tiffany let me strip off in one of the production tents (she was feeling guilty about the ice cream) and I doused myself in a bucket of freezing water. Then with a towel wrapped around me like a sarong, I made my way back to camp.

  “Does anyone fancy three lovely meals tomorrow?” I called as I wandered into the clearing, where the others were still up, waiting to hear what happened.

  “Yeah, but till someone does a trial it ain’t gonna happen,” drawled Rex. I ignored him.

  “I believe the chef here is excellent,” I said.

  “You did it?” Cindi screeched.

  I nodded.

  “Shut the front door, Tanya!” she did a little dance and everyone else gave me a hug or a thumbs-up.

  “That’s amazin’ Tanya, thanks” said Paul with a smile.

  I smiled back and the hell of the cheese and my desperate desire to get some Sanihand on was momentarily forgotten. It was so nice to be in favour with everyone – I just hoped it would last.

  TWEET: @AgentDonna Tanya Travis NOT engaged 2 Marcus. NO plans 2 make sex tape in bath of cheese with yak! #Don’t BelieveWhatURead #PressBS

  21

  Tabloid Trauma in the Cave from Hell

  The next day I woke feeling happy. I had finally passed a challenge – albeit thanks to Marcus – and we were roused from sleep by the smell of bacon frying.

  “Mmm, Tan, this is amazing, thanks!” said Cindi with a smile, as she took a big bite of her bacon sandwich and glugged her orange juice.

  “Yeah, nice one, old lady” said Paul with a cheeky wink. Even Rex gave me a half-smile and I was pleased to have their approval for the first time since I had arrived. Apart from the odd comment or smile I had avoided Paul since ‘vomit-gate.’ I knew he was matey with Rex and not only had I behaved abominably but my refusal to do the challenges had put me on a sticky wicket with everyone, so I hadn’t felt able to face him properly. The mood in the camp was cheerful, so I felt the time had come to address this.

  “I’m sorry Paul, about us getting off on the wrong foot...my misunderstanding…” I said, “…thinking you were a runner.”

  “Ah... It’s cool, Tanya. I’d heard you were a bit of a diva,” he smiled. “From the stuff I’d read about you in the papers, it was no surprise to be hauling your luggage and washing your stuff...”

  “Paul,” he announced in a posh ‘Tanya’ voice; “please can you tell me when we’re filming? Paul, please would you do your job? Paul, please wipe my arse...”

  “I liked it when she said ‘Paul. you. can. be. the. best. you. that. you. can. be.’” said Rex slowly, hamming it up, on the edge of fake tears with a fake New York accent.

  I’d thought I was being Oprah, but Rex’s portrayal made me sound more like something from The Sopranos. I sensed he was enjoying my humiliation a little too much but I smiled and resisted saying anything. I wasn’t going to start a row with the lion just as I’d been accepted into the celebrity jungle.

  Paul was still giggling about my unreasonable but admittedly hilarious demands: “I didn’t mind carrying your rucksack. But the sick? And what is it with you and the hand gel, girl?” I laughed lightly and steered the conversation in another direction.

  “Thank God Cindi told me who you were when she did, I could have become even worse.”

  “Jeez, how much worse could it get? You made him clean up your spew,” added Rex.

  “OK, so he’s a hotel-room-trashing, millionaire rock-star, but you’re never too famous to wipe up celebrity sick,” I joked. Everyone laughed.

  “Hell, who do you think you are, Tanya bloody Travis?” More laughter as the international rock-star clinked his cup of tea with mine.

  However, the happiness was short lived. Tiffany was soon approaching me and told me to go into the Diary Cave, at producer Flinty’s insistence. I reluctantly left the group and headed for the cave, once there I sat myself down, and waited for the disembodied voice.

  “So, well done for your trial yesterday Tanya. How are you feeling about it today?” Flinty’s badly disguised voice filled the room.

  “Good” I said with a smile. “I was pleased I could win everyone some nice food.”

  “That’s great. Now, it’s fair to say that you suffered at the hands of the press before you came to Nepal, Tanya. Would you like to know what they’ve been saying about you since you have been here?”

  My stomach lurched. “I... I don’t know,” suddenly the calm, self-assured persona began to crumble slightly.

  “Look to your left, Tanya and you will see a pile of newspapers. You have 60 seconds to look at them... If you want to.”

  Oh God. Oh God – the temptation. I wanted to grab and devour every page, every headline, I was hungry for news of Nathan, Georgina’s success and even lies about me. I sat there for eight seconds, nine, ten...and at 14 seconds like a drug addict, I couldn’t resist and grabbed the first paper, desperately scanning it for my name. Of course they’d made it easy for me and provided every headline about Tanya Travis that had appeared in the press since I’d gone into Spa Trek, three days before. There would be no frantic searching for stuff about me and my life, it was all there under the headlines: I could inject straight into the vein.

  ‘Bossy Tanya Makes Rock-Star Rub her Breasts’ was the first one, with an accompanying photo of me washing myself in a very unflattering light as Paul from The Hissy Fits looked on in horror. ‘Tanya Travis in Mountain Meltdown’, another timely piece about my apparent ‘mental health issues.’ I picked up another to read in big, bold letters about my ‘vitriolic outburst against Georgina,’ my ‘hate, lust, anorexia, menopause madness, weight gain, weight loss, break-down’ and that old favourite ‘Tanya’s Addiction to Plastic Surgery.’ This segued into a gossip mag mud-fight with; ‘Georgina Ronson Hits out at Tanya Travis’, ‘Tanya’s Travis Hits out at Georgina Ronson’; ‘Tanya Brands Georgina a Talentless Tart!’ and ‘Georgina Brands Tanya ‘an Ageing Diva!’ I hadn’t said a word to or about her nor her to me since I left that day, yet ‘Tanya and Georgina’s Bitter Feud’ seemed to be everywhere.

  Then it came, thick and fast: a photo of Nathan falling out of a club, a new blonde clinging to his arm; ‘Nine-Times-a-Night Nathan Tries for a Ten’, another pap shot of him leaving a strange house apparently at dawn: ‘Tanya’s Toyboy Flees Britain’, ‘Nathan Wells and New All Night Love’:

  ‘Shamed talk-show host Tanya Travis’s toy-boy lover has hit out at claims he bedded a pole dancer at the couple’s £2m Cheshire home. Tanya, 46, is currently in Nepal...Love Rat Nathan, who recently claimed to have slept with 100 women in two weeks said...insatiable...’

  ‘...was caught in clinch with willing blonde... nameless blonde... Blonde Candy 22, said Nathan ‘is the best lover I’ve ever had.’

  And so it went on...

  In the short time I had, I skimmed the lines, touching on the words over and over again. How he’d held her hand, ‘bedded’ another, told yet another he ‘wanted to make love to her in Tanya’s bed.’ Perhaps in my panic and hurt and stress I thought that reading it again and again would desensitise me in the way kids are supposed to be desensitised by violent computer games. But each word – each phrase – each quote – was agony every time and rereading revealed a previously overlooked nugget of fresh, searing pain.

  I wanted to scream but if I gave in to the slightest emotion it would be a matter of time before I was thrashing around the Diary
Cave in grief and stress and... Well, God only knows what the press would have headlined that shot.

  “So, have you enjoyed seeing news from home?”

  No, you sick, twisted bitch was on the tip of my tongue, but I resisted. “Yes thank you,” I smiled, my chin now trembling, my eyes brimming with tears. I wiped at my face, pretending it had dust or a fly in it. The voice waited, clearly hoping for me to break down. I bit my lip, stared at the ceiling and counted to ten.

  “Now Tanya,” came the voice, finally. “All the other celebrities will have to wait till tonight for their video postcards from home but we want you to be the first to have yours.”

  I’d have given anything to hear from Nathan, a video of him saying ‘don’t believe anything you read, Tanya.’ Or even better ‘Tanya I love you – that girl was my sister’s friend...’ like he always did when horrible lies like this turned up in the press. Anything to suggest he’d been thinking about me would be a cooling poultice on my raw, wounded heart.

  “Is it Nathan?” I asked. “Is it from him... Is it...?”

  “No, it’s from your PA, Astrid Nordlestrom,” Flinty announced and suddenly Astrid’s flushed face appeared on the screen in front of me. Her face was shiny and she had on her best dress, which made her look like something from Little House on the Prairie. She sat up straight, peering into the camera, her hands clasped on her knees, taking this very seriously indeed. I couldn’t help but smile back, through my tears.

  “Dear Tanya,” she started. (Being Astrid, she would take the ‘postcard’ bit literally.)

  “You are the shit. I have been doing laughing and crying as I’m watching you on the ITV – but not on Wednesday because Gok is looking good naked and I NEVER fucking miss him. I laugh to see you asking Paul Johnson from Hissy Fits to clean you up... Piss me, you are so funny. He is so hot! I looking forward to you coming back but have terrible, terrible news that is very urgent and very, very shit...”

  I held my breath...was it the baby? Was it Nathan’s after all? Oh please don’t tell me here, live on air in what is ludicrously referred to as ’The Diary Cave,’ I thought.

  “I heard news yesterday that makes me cry and you will too. Tanya I hate it to say, but there is rumouring that no more Doc Martin programmes. No more lovely comedy drama with cute doc Martin Clunes and taking place in Cornish. I cannot live without that little doctor and his funny, cross face so me and Freda are going to see him in Cornish and beg, beg, beg him to make more of the fucking television series. Bloody hell Tanya, lots of sick people for him to be making better! A doctor scared of blood is so fucking crazy we LOVE him,” at this she chuckled, like she hadn’t laughed about it a million times before. “So I take my box set and he will sign with a pen and Freda says he’s not being so grumpy in real life.

  “And before I will forget it. Embarrassing the Bodies last night... oh my fucking hell Tanya! Dr Christian he was telling man in clinic not to put the foreign objects up in his man parts! You can’t believe what he had in there, so I recorded for you.

  “Anyway I need to go now, Come and Dine with Us is on and it says in Televisions Times’ that it’s a ‘hell of a week with food fight, big pole dancing, black puddings and sex worker from Scarborough’. Yours sincerely Astrid Nordlestrom your best PA.”

  I sat for a few seconds to let it all sink in... Not the Come Dine with Me menu, the end of Doc Martin or Dr Christian’s experimental patient. It was the fact that I hadn’t realised until then how much I missed Astrid. She was such an odd girl with a foul mouth and surreal thoughts but under it all, she was kind and always happy. A visit to the set of Doc Martin to accost ‘that funny little man,’ Martin Clunes, would be the highlight of her adult life and no doubt provide bizarre stories over herring dinners for years to come. Though it did occur to me that should they ever come across him, Martin Clunes might view Astrid and Freda’s affections in a more worrying light. I couldn’t help it: a few more homesick, Nathan-sick tears appeared and I tried to stay calm and collected.

  “Thank you – it was lovely to see Astrid...my PA,” I smiled.

  I left the diary room with the bubble of my new-found happiness well and truly burst. Who was I kidding? I had managed to complete one challenge, with the help of Marcus, and I thought that everything was alright again. Clearly the public still hated me, and the papers had been a horrible reminder that I was still in the public eye for all the wrong reasons. And worse still, if only a few of those stories were true, it seemed that Nathan and I had no hope of reconciliation.

  I went and sat by the fire. Everyone had finished breakfast, and was preparing for the day’s trek. I put my head in my hands and stared glumly at the embers.

  “You OK, Tan?” Cindi plonked herself next to me.

  I didn’t answer her, and we both sat in silence for a few moments.

  “You look sad,” she said, touching my arm.

  “Oh, they showed me some headlines, in the Diary Cave. Stuff about Nathan...” I felt my chin tremble again.

  “Tan, you don’t have to hold onto the pain, to hold on to the memory...”

  I smiled at her. “I didn’t realise you were a philosopher,” I said.

  “Not me Tan... That’s Janet Jackson. I know lots of quotes... you name ‘em; Cameron Diaz, Angelina Jolie, Kerry Katona...”

  “I suppose they’re all philosophers in their way,” I said, mystified.

  “Were you upset about that Georgina taking over your show?” she asked, suddenly.

  I blinked, surprised at the directness of her question.

  “She didn’t take...” I started

  “Well, I think it’s outrageous, them ousting you and giving your job to someone just ‘cos she’s younger and prettier. She’s a piece of work.” She said, shaking her head.

  “Did you know her?” I asked, surprised.

  “Yeah, you know what telly’s like, everyone knows everyone else. Before she got my job as your assistant, she used to be a secretary in Sport. We’d bump into each other in the coffee shop, she was always so friendly, she’d buy me a latte and always wanted to know stuff about you. Now I know why. Then, when she got my job, I heard she was sleeping with Ray. I wouldn’t sleep with someone just so I could be on telly,” she said, like a six-some sex-tape with a boy band didn’t have ‘Reality Show’ written all over it.

  So, Georgina’s rise was far more strategic than I’d realised. I should have known, she always worked so efficiently, so cleanly – nothing was left to chance. But Ray? That part of the plan must have been the hardest.

  “You know that Hermione is her best friend, right?” said Cindi, looking up at me.

  My mouth went dry. “Really?”

  “Yeah. I wouldn’t be surprised if she got her to wind you up during the show. She didn’t have to work too hard to get what she wanted. When I worked there, Ray was always banging on about needing a ‘new, fresh face for Daytime’ so her turning up at the right time was good for both of them,” she pulled a face.

  “I was so naïve, Cindi.” I said, shocked. “I trusted Georgina and I thought I was different. I believed I had the talent and the viewing figures to overcome the fact I’m not blonde and no longer in my twenties.”

  “Oh don’t get all paranoid, hon’. You’re not past it yet!”

  “Apparently I am,” I suddenly heard my own voice. “And I’m scared. The public clearly hate me.”

  “Don’t be daft, Tan. Yes they do hate you and you’re quite old for a show like this but I’ve told you before, you remind me of my mum...and she can do anything.”

  To my surprise, I found my eyes were wet. The last few days had been such a roller-coaster of emotions and I was beginning to realise that the invincible Tanya Travis, who demanded her own way and got whatever she wanted, wasn’t really me at all. I reached for my anti-bac wipes and started cleaning each finger, one by one.

  “Don’t,” said Cindi softly and gently took the packet away. A tear slid down my face, and I put my head in my hands, and
I sat for a little while just staring into the flames. When I looked up, Cindi was gone and Ardash was sitting in her place.

  “Where’s Cindi?” I asked looking up, my face wet with tears.

  “Tanya, you don’t need to keep cleaning the hands,” he said, taking one of my hands in his and looking at it. It was dry and cracked and disgusting: I felt totally exposed.

  “I... I know, but I just find it helps me to stay calm. I’m very homesick, you see...”

  “Ah, I understand. But wherever you are, home is always here,” he touched his heart. Mine did a little somersault. He was so gentle and seemed to really want to talk, something I found hard to do with Nathan, who never had the time. Being with Ardash made me think even more about Nathan and how much I missed him but also about all of our problems – which made me very confused

  “I’ll be getting off now...” I said, attempting to leave the fireside like a will-o’-the-wisp. But as I got up, I felt a sharp sting in my toe. The pain was horrendous and I made an awful, unattractive, ‘umph’ sound as I landed heavily, face-down.

  “Tanya, what is it?” Ardash said, concerned, leaping to his feet and helping me up. The pain was subsiding but I lifted my foot up and pointed at it.

  He sat me down, pulled off my flip flop and examined my foot more closely. “Ah, maybe a bite... A spider.”

  I was horrified... Jesus, I hadn’t washed my feet for hours!

  “Yes, you’ve been bitten,” he confirmed, his hands gently caressing where the pain was. “You should not wear the flip flops here, Tanya. There are many insects, you must always wear the trekking boots.”

  “I know” I said, feeling foolish. “It’s just my feet were hot and sweaty and I wanted to get some air to them.”

  I could feel his breath on my toes as he scrutinised the wound. A little shiver ran through me and my mouth broke into a smile. It was totally involuntary and I just smiled away to myself, hoping my feet didn’t smell too bad. As a trekking guide, Ardash was medically trained for such emergencies so I was in safe hands – and they were good, firm hands too. As he continued to examine my foot, I half-opened my mouth in near-ecstasy and tried not to gasp. Having not had human contact for some time, the delicious sensation of Ardash’s long, probing fingers squeezing each of my toes was unbelievably fabulous and felt very...intimate.