As she beat the cake mixture by hand – this was Gemma’s secret to creating a fluffy melt-in-the-mouth sponge – she listened to the cheery strains of Pirate FM and the rich-as-clotted-cream Cornish accents of customers in the small shop, and her heart felt lighter than it had done for ages. She still wanted to act – that wasn’t going to change – but stepping away from the pressure of having to look and behave a particular way was actually very liberating. Dee, who still slipped into Life Coach mode every now and then, was adamant that if Gemma wanted to act then she would find a way to do it. Acting didn’t have to be about fame and fortune, she’d pointed out: it could also be for fulfilment and fun. Gemma thought it was very refreshing to look at it this way. For so long she’d been so busy pushing herself to win the roles that brought maximum exposure and money, that she’d totally forgotten just how much she loved the alchemy of slipping into a new character and exploring that person’s hopes and fears. Whether she was playing Desdemona or Blanche DuBois in a big production, or just speaking two lines in a soap, the magic was still there. When had the fun gone out of it? Gemma wiped her hands on a tea towel and shook her head. The answer was obvious: the fun had vanished at exactly the same time the diets and control pants had appeared.
While she greased some cake tins, Gemma realised it was also strange but true that now she was in a cake shop and surrounded by all the mouth-watering, calorie-laden goodies her hungry little heart could desire, she no longer felt the need to guzzle them. In fact, being surrounded by cakes and pastries was having the opposite effect; she no longer fantasised about them twenty-four seven. It was all very odd. Gemma wasn’t sure whether it was her imagination, but even her waistbands felt a bit looser...
Maybe this was what they meant by aversion therapy? If you looked at something all day then you no longer wanted it anymore? Gemma smiled to herself as she poured the cake mixture into a greased tin: in that case, she really wanted to cure her Johnny Depp addiction!
She was also trying very hard to say nice things to her reflection too, which was easier said than done when her naked body looked like cookie dough. This morning she had peered into the cracked glass and told herself that her clear, tanned skin was gorgeous. For a fat girl.
OK, so maybe she needed to work on this affirmation lark?
“Morning Gemma,” carolled Dee, breezing into the kitchen. Pausing by the oven, she inhaled deeply. “Mmm! That smells wonderful. What’s cooking?”
“Gingerbread for that replica of Lanhydrock the National Trust want.” Gemma had been struggling for days with how to recreate a stately home out of gingerbread, but she thought she just might have a plan. “I was going to have a trial run this afternoon.”
Dee nodded approvingly. “That all sounds very positive. But Gemma, it’s your afternoon off. Shouldn’t you be on the beach or with your friends?”
Gemma had as much desire to wander across Daymer Bay with her wobbly bits on display as a pig would wish to take a tour of the Wall’s sausage factory. Besides, Andi was working and Angel had swanned off to Truro with her mystery man. Gemma was quite looking forward to a peaceful afternoon figuring out how to fix a bad case of gingerbread subsidence.
“I’m happy to do this,” she said firmly. Then, a thought occurred and she blushed. “I wasn’t hinting. You don’t have to pay me extra or anything.”
Dee fixed her with a hard stare. “Your time is valuable because you are valuable, remember? Of course I’ll pay you. Besides, there’s no way I want to try and make that bloody thing. Show me again what you had in mind.”
While Gemma fetched her sketches of what the finished product ought to look like, Dee brewed coffee, which they carried out into the small sunny courtyard. The sky above was Ikea blue and seagulls cried and wheeled above the rooftops.
“By the way, I picked this up for you on my way through town.” Reaching into her spotty Seasalt bag, Dee pulled out a tattered leaflet, which she passed to Gemma.
“Rock Players – looking to cast for their end-of-summer production of Twelfth Night,” Gemma read aloud. Turning to Dee she said, “I really don’t think so.”
“Why ever not? You said yourself you love Shakespeare, so this would be right up your street. Besides, what better way to get you back into acting without the pressure?”
Gemma stared at the leaflet. Although it was a bit dog‐eared, the setting it depicted in the grounds of a local stately home made her heart skip a beat. Momentarily she saw herself acting the part of Viola. Oh God, she loved that role so much! Viola spent most of the play eaten up with her secret love for Orsino and having to hide her true feelings away, and hiding your true feelings was something Gemma knew all about. For a split second she was seriously tempted, before she remembered that Viola also spent most of the play dressed as a boy and wearing the obligatory tights. The very idea of anyone seeing her sausagey legs filled Gemma with horror.
She offered the leaflet back. “No thanks.”
Dee looked disappointed. “Well, keep it anyway and have a think? You don’t have to make any sudden decisions, but I reckon you’d love it.” She paused and then added nonchalantly, “And who knows what it could lead to? Rock’s full of all kinds of media types. You could end up being spotted...”
Gemma laughed. “You should never have given up your life coaching. I promise I’ll think about it, OK?”
Dee raised her hands. “Perfectly OK!”
The rest of the morning passed peacefully. It was just coming up to lunchtime, and Gemma was wiping her hands on her apron before taking a break, when Dee burst into the kitchen. Her eyes were wide and she looked more excitable than Gemma had ever seen her.
“Take those off and get yourself into the shop,” she ordered, whipping off Gemma’s apron and cap, and giving her a shove in the direction of the shop.
Gemma scooped handfuls of curls out of her eyes. “What’s going on?”
“There’s a man here who says he’s come to see you. Apparently he’s taking you out for lunch!” Dee was breathless, but then pushing twelve stone of Gemma through a doorway was easier said than done.
“You’ve got the wrong person,” Gemma protested. “There’s nobody due to take me anywhere. Besides, nobody knows where I’m working.”
“Well, somebody must have done their detective work, because he’s definitely requesting you,” Dee replied. Her voice had her I won’t be argued with tone, so reluctantly Gemma allowed herself to be frogmarched out of the kitchen. It was all a waste of time anyway, because there wasn’t anyone she knew who would want to take her for lunch – and even if there had been, she was hardly dressed for it in her flowery gypsy top, tatty Skechers and saggy leggings with perished elastic. No: the man standing in the doorway, his back to her and little more than a silhouette against the bright sunshine, wasn’t really looking for her. She wasn’t Cinderella, was she? More a case of Pastry Gemma.
Then the man turned round and Gemma’s mouth fell open.
“Hello, Gemma,” said Callum South softly. “Can we start again please?”
Chapter 23
Gemma was all for turning around and marching back into the kitchen. There was absolutely no way she was going to have lunch with Callum South. Firstly because the sight of him made her so angry she couldn’t have eaten a thing and secondly because wasn’t he supposed to be on some calorie-controlled macrobiotic diet? The last thing she needed was his manager and trainer and bloody Emily bawling her out for a second time.
“I don’t think so,” she said so coldly it was a miracle a glacier didn’t slide by.
Cal was pulling off his cap and sunglasses. Behind him the midday sun turned his trademark corkscrew blonde hair into a halo, but Gemma wasn’t fooled: he was no angel.
“Sure, Gemma, I don’t blame you for being angry,” he said apologetically. “What can I say? I behaved like a total prick. I feel terrible about it, so I do.”
Gemma said nothing. He couldn’t feel half as bad as she had, clutching a cake and looking l
ike some kind of deranged stalker. Just the recollection made her skin feel prickly and hot with shame.
Cal twisted his baseball cap in his hands. “All I can say is that I panicked and I behaved appallingly. Please, let me make it up to you? And explain? Lunch as an apology?”
“Why? Because you think I’m a greedy, cake-munching lump that’ll be won over by grub?” she snapped, and heard Dee groan.
Oh dear. So much for all those positive affirmations.
Cal looked horrified. “No! Of course not! I just thought it might be a nice thing to do. I had somewhere in mind: a friend’s place, outside of Rock where I can eat and chat to you without a manager nagging me or some pap trying to get a double-chin shot.”
“Are you trying to make me feel sorry for you? Because it isn’t working.” Her floury hands on her hips, Gemma glowered at him. Typical self-obsessed celeb.
“Jaysus, no!” He ran a frantic hand through those boingy curls. “I was just trying to explain, but I’m fecking it up. Like I do everything. It’s just lunch. That’s all.”
Gemma tried to avoid those big sad eyes, like the saddest Andrex puppy ever on a particularly sad day. “I’m working, so even if I wanted to come, the answer’s no.”
Dee, whose own eyes had been popping like Ping-Pong balls ever since Cal had taken off his celeb camouflage, took pity on him and gave Gemma a prod.
“You’re not officially working this afternoon,” she pointed out. “You’re free to go.”
Cal looked hopeful but Gemma wasn’t going to be persuaded.
“I’m busy with the gingerbread Lanhydrock, remember?” she told Dee.
“That can wait until tomorrow,” Dee insisted. Turning to Callum, who was still hovering awkwardly by the door, she smiled brightly and added, “Why don’t you wait in the car? She’ll be right with you once she’s freshened up.”
“I don’t want to go for lunch with him,” Gemma hissed as her boss bundled her back into the kitchen. “He’s a tosser and I can’t stand him.”
“Nonsense!” Dee whipped Gemma’s apron off. “He’s Callum South and he might be a few pounds heavier these days but he is still bloody gorgeous.” Reaching into her Seasalt bag, she plucked out a comb, which she tugged through Gemma’s wild hair before fastening the tresses into a loose knot at the nape of her neck with a glittery slide. “Besides, both my sons are huge Dangers supporters and if you could manage to get an autograph, or even better a couple of tickets, they’d be thrilled.”
“You’re pimping me out for tickets to the football?”
“Don’t be so dramatic.” Now Dee was flourishing a mascara wand like Obi-Wan Kenobi’s lightsabre. Gemma dodged; things were bad enough without having an eye poked out – although, thinking about it, this would be a great reason to skip lunch. As if not wanting to spend time with a cowardly, lying and egotistical git wasn’t enough of a reason.
“Anyway,” Dee continued, practically wrestling Gemma into a half nelson and squirting her with No 5, “you said how upset you were with what happened, so now’s your chance to let the guy make up for it.”
Gemma tried to protest but by this point Dee was busy slicking lip gloss on and she couldn’t move her mouth.
“You also keep telling me how much you want to act and to be on the television, so maybe this is a golden opportunity,” Dee continued, stepping backwards and admiring her handiwork. “Remember how we talked about putting it out there for the universe to deliver? Well, here’s your chance to do exactly that.”
Gemma wasn’t convinced. “I don’t think reality TV is really where I want to be anymore.”
“You won’t know until you try.” Dee put her hands on her narrow hips and gave Gemma a searching look. “What have you got to lose? At the very least you’ll have an apology and a nice lunch.”
It was a fair point but Gemma was hardly dressed for lunch with an A-lister, even one that was several stone overweight and in disguise. She was wearing her oldest, tattiest leggings and superannuated Skechers. She had some paisley shorts in her rucksack, which she supposed she could put on, but it had been so long since she’d shaved her legs Gemma could have grated cheese with the stubble. Besides, those shorts made her bum look huge.
Or should that be even huger? Oh God, she really ought to diet...
“I look a state,” she wailed.
“You look lovely. I do wish you’d stop all these negative comments; they’re so self-defeating. Haven’t you been practising the exercises in the mirror?”
“I would but I keep cracking them all,” Gemma quipped, and her boss rolled her eyes.
“I can see we’ve still got a lot of work to do on your esteem,” Dee sighed. “But that can wait. Now go out there and get those tickets – I mean have a lovely lunch!”
Makeover completed, Dee propelled her back into the shop and handed Gemma her rucksack. Feeling mutinous, Gemma ventured out into the street where Cal was waiting in a white Range Rover Sport that dazzled in the sunshine. With its pimped alloys, private number plates and tinted windows, it couldn’t have looked more conspicuous. When he caught sight of her, Cal honked the horn and waved.
“I thought you were supposed to be incognito?” she grumbled as she clambered into the vehicle. “So much for the dark glasses and baseball cap. I don’t know why you don’t just roar up in a red Ferrari.”
Cal sighed. “Because I can’t squeeze into it anymore.”
“You actually have a red Ferrari?”
He gave her a quick grin and in spite of the fact that she still smarted from his words of a week ago Gemma found herself smiling back. That crescent-moon dimple made his good humour contagious.
“Sure, of course I have a red Ferrari. And don’t they make you buy one when you sign for a premier team? And a mock-Tudor mansion? And a giant hot tub?”
“And full of babes in bikinis?”
“WAG soup? Practically compulsory.”
At the mention of soup, Gemma’s stomach rumbled. It was feeling empty because Angel, who had rolled in drunk at some ungodly hour last night, had eaten the remaining two slices of bread and polished off what was left of the cereal. Skipping breakfast made Gemma feel virtuous, or at least it did until she tended to crack around half eleven and raid the biscuit tin.
“Hungry?” Cal asked.
Gemma flushed. “I didn’t have any breakfast.”
Cal knocked the gearshift into drive and the car rolled forward, so silently that for a moment Gemma thought he’d forgotten to start it. Wow. This was a bit different to her elderly Beetle, which sounded like a tractor. After the long drive to Rock she’d been contemplating buying earplugs in bulk to hand out to any future passengers.
“I did,” he told her as they drove through the town. “I had two egg whites, a wheatgrass juice and a buckwheat pancake. It all came to under three hundred calories.”
Gemma wasn’t sure what wheatgrass or buckwheat was. They sounded like something her father would feed the cattle. And what was the point of eating eggs without the lovely yellow yolk to dip big fat soldiers in?
“That sounds very healthy,” she said politely.
“It was fecking disgusting,” Cal said, screwing up his face. “I swear to God my stomach was digesting itself by 10 a.m. Then I went for another run and lifted weights for an hour. This is time off for good behaviour and, believe me, I’ve earned it. It’s good to escape the cameras for a bit. And my management,” he added with a grimace.
“So where do they think you are?”
“Truro, seeing my solicitor.”
“So, they’ve no idea you’re with the mad cake girl then? I suppose you’ll pretend this never happened too?”
They were in Wadebridge now. The small town thronged with tourists wobbling on hired bicycles en route to the Camel Trail. Gemma couldn’t help thinking that a bike ride along the river looked like much more fun than lifting weights.
Cal sighed. “I behaved like a total knob, didn’t I?”
Gemma wasn’t about
to deny it. “Yes.”
“Yeah, well, it wouldn’t be the first time. Breaking my leg falling out of a nightclub pissed and ruining my career wasn’t my smartest move either.”
Gemma recalled the press going wild the day Callum South had ended his glittering career so abruptly by literally falling out of a nightclub. One fractured femur and a junior doctor who hadn’t set it quite right later, and the final whistle had blown for Callum South’s footballing career, although the tabloids had written that it was little short of a miracle that this hadn’t been caused by a groin strain, so famous was Cal’s varied love life. He’d gone from being the Irish Beckham to a bloated, boozing has-been in less than six months, and rarely a day had passed without the red tops running a story about his latest drunken escapade or picturing him looking as though he’d swallowed himself. Without a Posh-style WAG on his arm and a bunch of photogenic children to pose prettily with him for OK! magazine, the Callum South brand had been in real jeopardy. Only his reality show had managed to save him from becoming the next George Best.
“But honestly? The knobbiest thing I’ve ever done? That must be turning down your cake. It looked bloody gorgeous. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. How can I eat Ryvita when all I can think about is cake?”
Gemma couldn’t help it. He was making her smile, which was annoying when she was actually very cross indeed.
Sensing that she was starting to defrost, Callum pressed on with his explanation.
“Look, you’ve got to understand – I really need this gig. What else is a washed-up fat footballer going to do? I haven’t got the whole brand Beckham thing going on – I tried to pull a Spice Girl back in the day but even Sporty turned me down – and if I screw up this TV show then that’s it for me, game over. They’ll just wheel out another fat celebrity, won’t they? It’s not like we’re thin on the ground. Jaysus, or thin anywhere, now I come to think of it!”
[Escape 01.0] Escape for the Summer Page 19