Sin Tropez

by Aita Ighodaro

  ‘Each programme is individually tailored according to the patient’s needs,’ Dr Tomlinson explained as she showed them round. ‘The process towards recovery normally takes eight to twelve weeks, but we provide a further extended care period if that’s needed. Once Tara returns home, we’ll allocate a recovery partner from the clinic who’ll continue to communicate with her for a year after that. We do things properly here,’ she summarized with pride.

  The doctor led the guests through to the spa pools in the modern annex at the rear of the building, and elaborated on the centre’s facilities. ‘Treatment in the Narcotics Unit involves a varied programme of counselling and recreation, including sessions with an art therapist and a music therapist, as well as the choice of tennis, swimming or riding. This will begin tomorrow,’ she said, turning to Tara and putting a hand on her shoulder, ‘so you’ll need to make sure you eat well tonight to keep your strength up.’

  Tara wasn’t really listening and felt a fleeting surge of pain at the thought that she wouldn’t have a chance to see heavenly Alex for at least eight weeks.

  Moving on to the tennis courts and then the stables, Dr Tomlinson continued, ‘As you can see it’s not all serious here. Patients get to enjoy outings to places of interest, and we actively encourage them to socialize with and strengthen each other through regular group interaction and a three-course dinner every evening, cooked by a wonderful chef who used to work for the royal family.’ She glanced at Tara as though she hoped that might impress her. Passing through the dining hall, Tara thought idly that it looked like the inside of Cipriani in New York – the grand uptown one, not the cooler downtown restaurant. Hugo reflected morosely that if someone would pay for him to go here then it would be a bloody good incentive to tear himself away from the bottle.

  At length it was time for the group to leave Tara in the capable hands of Dr Tomlinson. Hugo broke down in uncharacteristically loud sobs as he put his arms round his daughter. ‘I’m sorry,’ he stuttered, his deep voice breaking in a futile attempt to pull himself together, which only made him cry harder. Tara herself felt numb. She couldn’t cry, only stand listlessly, while her father, who had always been so strong, leaned the entire weight of his shaking body on her thin shoulders. His breath smelt of alcohol and it seemed absurd to Tara that she and not he was the one being made to seek help. ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated. Tara could see in his eyes he had given up. The youthful hope that had filled Tara’s throbbing chest in the car journey to Kent was something that Hugo didn’t understand.

  Only then did Tara’s eyes begin to water, and after that everybody followed suit. Dr Tomlinson took a few steps back to give the party some privacy. As the Audi eventually rolled off she put an arm around Tara’s shoulder and led her slowly back into the clinic.

  Chapter 25

  Arriving back at Claude’s Mayfair house, Natalya jumped as she heard her phone ring. Her heart stopped beating momentarily and she braced herself for the worst. Seeing that it was just her booker calling she let out an audible sigh of relief.

  ‘Hello, Gaby.’ She wondered what her booker wanted from her; she hadn’t called for a while.

  ‘Hi, Natalya. How are you today?’

  ‘Fine.’ Natalya wished she’d get to the point. Some bookers might pretend to be your friend, but Natalya knew that the motive was and would always be money. So why the small talk?

  ‘Well, I’ve got some very exciting news for you, Natalya.’

  Natalya inspected her manicure in the moody light of her bedroom.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You got the job!’ There was an expectant pause.

  ‘What job?’

  ‘The Mirror Mirror campaign, Natalya. You know, the big, prestigious Blue Whisper job that all the top girls were considered for? And you got it, over everybody else! They need you for two days. You’ll earn £70,000 for two days’ work.’ Gaby enunciated her words slowly, as though she were speaking to somebody with learning difficulties.

  ‘Oh yes, I remember.’ Natalya thought back to the unattractive, po-faced woman at the casting who she had shocked with her nonchalance. She hadn’t had a big job in years. How ironic that one should come along now when she was hardly in need of the cash. But she’d do it anyway. It was always a nice thing for a man to be able to say that his girlfriend, or, hopefully soon, fiancée is a model. Of course she’d be expected to give up work once married but she would take this job.

  ‘When is the shoot?’

  Gaby was becoming angry at Natalya’s impassiveness. ‘They told you at the casting, it’s in a week’s time. On the 15th and 16th of January. There’ll be a couple of other girls there too but you’re the main one.’

  ‘Very well, thenk you, Gaby.’

  Natalya snapped her phone shut and rang Claude in Dubai to check she was allowed to accept the job.

  ****

  At 7.50 p.m. on Tara’s first night at Appletons, a young nurse knocked on the door and then let herself in with her key. She ignored Tara’s sullen look and bustled into the room.

  ‘Hi Tara, I’m Nurse Allison but I prefer to be called by my first name, so call me Nurse Sally. Oh, that’s a nice outfit.’

  Abena had packed only Tara’s most flattering clothes, which forced Tara to look a little better than she intended. She longed just to pull on her cotton tracksuit bottoms and her holey college sweater from Oxford, but instead she wore a pair of once tight and now baggy dark blue Chloé jeans and a tight-fitting bright blue mohair jumper, which brought out the striking blue of her eyes.

  ‘Have you washed your hair like the doctor ordered?’ asked Nurse Sally bossily.

  Tara felt like retorting that no, her hair was just naturally wet, but she refrained and was surprised when Nurse Sally reached for the hairdryer and brush provided by the clinic and proceeded to blow-dry her hair into a voluminous silky golden curtain. Tara would never have styled it like that herself, preferring something flatter and edgier, but she had neither the energy nor the inclination to argue. And after all, she did look prettier than she had in months. She followed Nurse Sally to the dining hall and thought about the other patients she was about to meet. Probably all spoilt brats and self-indulgent mentalists – she’d have been better off in an NHS hospital with people who had real problems to overcome like she did. She was suddenly immobilized with fear and an intense craving for some coke.

  Putting her hand flat against the wall to steady herself, Tara stopped still and breathed heavily in and out. She was hyperventilating. Had she been at home she would have taken something, anything that she could get her hands on, then and there. But there was nobody she could turn to for drugs in this prison. Nurse Sally waited a few metres away, casually examining the clear nail polish on her own neat, short nails, first one hand, then the other. Tara was still gulping down air, panic clutching at her chest. ‘There, there,’ Nurse Sally smiled, but she made no attempt to move closer. Eventually Tara calmed down and turned as if to return to her room.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Nurse Sally asked.

  Sighing, Tara swung back round again and followed Nurse Sally into the dining hall, where she was ushered to a seat near a nondescript brunette in her late thirties, a slight blond man in his forties, a pretty teenager, and an obese man in his twenties. Tara couldn’t help noticing that all were dressed in upmarket, well-cut clothes.

  ‘What are you in for?’ the teenager asked, wide-eyed.

  ‘Cocaine. You?’

  ‘I’ve been clean from heroin for three weeks now.’ The pride in her voice was obvious.

  Tara nodded, wondering what the boring-looking people on either side were being treated for. She turned to glance at the man to her left, who muttered ‘Alcoholic’. The teenager reached across and squeezed his hand and the nondescript brunette gave an encouraging nod. ‘I’m an alcoholic too,’ she said. A sweating, overweight middle-aged man across the table chose that moment to join the conversation.

  ‘Thex and love. I juss c
an’t ssshtop having thex …’ he wheezed. ‘I want it all the time … I want to do it when I’m s-s-sssad, I want to do it when I’m happy. I want to do it when I’m alone and when I’m in public … I want to do it with boys and girls and men and women and …’

  When the rest of the party greeted this disturbing outburst with empathetic nods and smiles, Tara turned away, disgusted.

  And then she noticed him. In her heightened emotional state his presence in the dining hall was like an epiphany. If Alex Spectre had taken her breath away, this man was her reason to breathe again; her reason to live. He sat at the table opposite, apparently conversing amicably with those around him, and yet he seemed somehow distant from them. While they gesticulated and talked frantically, he remained still. He watched them intently and with kind interest, and yet he seemed to be holding something back from the conversation. He was tall and slim and there was a distinguished quality about him and his restraint, but Tara saw at once that it was not arrogance. His dark, wavy hair was longer than was fashionable, falling to just above his shoulders, but it showed off his face perfectly, like a beautiful, unusual frame around an Old Master. His face was long and thin, gaunt even, but his complexion was healthy and naturally tanned and his light-brown eyes were encircled by thick, dark lashes. Tara wondered what his history was. A tortured artist perhaps? Then she took in his outfit: a sumptuous chunky black cashmere cardigan with red corduroy trousers and dapper red loafers. Well, thought Tara, perking up, the only thing better than the romance of a tortured artist, was a super-stylish and evidently well-heeled man with the looks of one.

  He met Tara’s gaze and gave her a welcoming smile. He hadn’t seen her around the clinic before, so he raised his glass of sparkling water in a toast. Tara noticed the beautiful old watch on his slender wrist. Probably a relic from a distinguished ancestor with excellent taste. She lifted her own glass of water and smiled, feeling distant stirrings of something she’d not felt in a long time. Hope.

  That first night at rehab, Tara lay in bed and closed her eyes, but sleep never came. She ached all over and cried softly into her pillow. Every so often an agonizing pain would sear through her entire body and she would shout for a nurse to come and hold her, but that didn’t help. Eventually she stopped even calling for a nurse. She simply clamped her mouth shut and buried her head under her duvet.

  On the second night Tara placed her pillow over her face and pressed down, hard. She felt like her lungs would burst but each time she gasped for air her hands loosened. Finally she threw the pillow on the floor and let tears roll down her face. Later she managed to sleep for around two hours. She slept for between one and two hours every night of the first week yet during the daytime she would sleep for hours at a time and wake up disoriented and severely depressed. She just knew she would be unable to make it.

  ****

  It had been a surreal week for Natalya and her booker Gaby. Once the press release had gone out that the glamorous Latvian with the quirky hairstyle had secured the Mirror Mirror campaign, Natalya’s profile within and without the fashion industry shot up instantly. Gaby fielded countless calls from fashion houses dying to book the hot new model, the overnight sensation. She didn’t bother to point out that Natalya had been struggling from go-see to go-see for years and had in fact already been seen and rejected by a number of the people enquiring about her now. The fashion world was full of sheep. The only problem now was Natalya’s annoying reticence. The imbecile was turning down ridiculous sums of money and had said yes to only one in ten offers. Gaby felt like shaking her at times.

  She needn’t have worried. Playing hard to get never fails. The more offers Natalya turned down, the more in demand she became, and the more she ensured she would not become too quickly overexposed. Natalya knew how to extend her own shelf-life.

  The shoot was to take place in a large, eccentric house beside a sandy beach in Devon. Natalya was amazed to be given her own dressing room and a personal runner who delighted in bringing her anything she wanted to eat or drink. In the outdoor shots, instead of freezing, scantily clad, in between photographic sessions, she was sent to warm up in her own mobile waiting room kitted out with nibbles, champagne and cashmere wraps. She recognized the other models, Irma and Anastasia, from the fashion pages, but although they were also well known and therefore well treated, she was undoubtedly the star. She invited them into her own fancy quarters so that they could while away time chatting about their homeland, Russia, which Natalya had visited a few times and whose language she had taught herself.

  ‘Well ladies, na zdorovie!’ Natalya poured out three glasses of champagne. She was pleased that it was perfectly chilled.

  ‘Mmmn … Just what the doctor ordered,’ purred Irma, rolling each syllable in her deep, seductive, Russian-accented voice. She took a long sip and closed her eyes, savouring the bubbles in her throat before emitting an indulgent moan. Anastasia and Natalya looked at each other and burst into a fit of giggles. Irma was known in the industry for being a notorious man-eater, rumoured to have broken the hearts of several Hollywood actors and a minor royal.

  ‘These poor boys have no chance in the face of that!’ drawled Anastasia.

  ‘Exactly,’ agreed Natalya. ‘No wonder Lord Talveston developed a heart condition after dating you – and the poor guy was only in his thirties. You nearly gave me a cardiac arrest right there.’

  Irma pretended to slap Natalya, then finished the rest of her glass in one long sip.

  ‘Ah, it’s so good to finally meet you both,’ Natalya said. ‘I’ve heard a lot of great things about you.’ She looked from Irma’s ice-white hair and translucently pale skin to Anastasia’s olive complexion and short black bob with its heavy asymmetric fringe. Both were even taller and thinner than Natalya, with razor-sharp cheekbones and narrow, Slavic eyes. She adored the extraordinary, almost alien-like beauty of the other girls and revelled in the picture that the three of them together must create. She found herself thinking once more, as she’d noticed with Tara, that it was surprisingly good fun to spend time with like-minded girlfriends.

  ‘Natalya, sweetie, you’re on again. Are you ready or you do you need some more time?’ called Mia, the creative director. Stark-raving mad, and an absolute genius, Mia had worked in the industry for many years and was renowned for her collection of bizarre belts, which were extraordinary even in the world of high fashion. Today she had her live pet python wrapped around her waist, pulling in an otherwise billowing silk dress.

  ‘You look incredible, Natalya honey!’ appraised Anouska, the shoot’s achingly cool stylist. She shook out her own scruffy black hair and re-pinned it in a towering beehive while she admired her styling of Natalya.

  Natalya stepped out of her trailer and on to the beach in a strapless golden taffeta dress rucked up around her calves to reveal a pair of green Hunter wellies in an intentional clash of styles. Everybody stared, dumbstruck. She stood on tiptoes and jokingly sashayed down a mock catwalk, nose high in the ear, haughty hand on hip.

  The rugged photographer and his young assistant began to sing, deep and slow, ‘Sheeee’s a model and she’s looooking good …’

  Natalya collapsed, laughing, and then the photographer pressed PLAY on his retro portable stereo. In their secluded location they didn’t have to worry about the noise.

  ‘Dance for me, baby!’ he cried.

  So Natalya jumped, skipped and leapt around outside, long legs everywhere, arms flailing, unselfconscious and gloriously happy.

  The laughter didn’t stop once the cameras started rolling. Respected and admired for the first time within her profession, Natalya relaxed. She had nothing to prove. Instead, she forgot herself, forgot about Claude, genuinely forgot about her faceless, fearsome father, and she became the mysterious beauty of the campaign. She took on a whole different persona and for a few hours she was transported to the better world she’d always dreamed of.

  ‘OK, Natalya,’ directed the photographer, ‘your man is back home afte
r three months away. You’re newlyweds and you’re totally in love. You see him at the other end of the beach. Show me how much you want him.’ He kept clicking away as Natalya bounded, smiling, across the shore. ‘Oh yeah. Baby, you’re gorgeous!’ he shouted. ‘Oh you’re beautiful, that’s it, give me another turn.’

  Natalya threw herself into character. As she worked her way through the dozens of scenarios the photographer called out, she was struck with little flashes of inspiration. ‘Why don’t I stand this way,’ she suggested, ‘so that the cut of the dress appears even more asymmetric?’ And then later, ‘If I look down this way then you can catch the shimmer of gold on my eyelid, which is the exact same gold of the dress.’

  As the winter sun faded from the sky, the shoot started to get more intense. ‘Now that it’s getting dark,’ said the photographer, ‘I want to really sum up the essence of Blue Whisper. Give me your natural, sensual side. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, Natalya, you’re so fine! That’s it, now look at me, keep moving!’

  Natalya threw herself on the ground, rolling in the sand as she gazed straight up at the camera, an expression of pure bliss on her face. Nobody spoke.

  ‘That’s it,’ said the photographer. ‘That’s the money shot. That’s gonna set a million women’s hearts alight.’

  They didn’t wrap up until 10 p.m., after which everybody enjoyed a light fresh fish and salad dinner, huddled together at their cosy beach-house hotel.

  The next day the gaiety started all over again at 9 a.m. and after two hours of hair and make-up the photographer began, once again, to capture the splendour of the models and their surroundings. It was a shorter day of mainly group shots this time. The three girls pretended they were old friends – who just happened to be exceptionally good-looking – strolling along the golden sandy beach. They laughed and gossiped and fooled around, playing tricks on each other, doing cartwheels and giving each other piggybacks. The scenarios were contrived but the rapport between the girls and the wider team was genuine. As the final stunning shots were achieved, Natalya felt a wave of bittersweet happiness.