So, from her early twenties she reinvented herself, developed a plummy accent, and claimed to have been educated not at the local grammar but at an exclusive finishing school in Switzerland. At twenty-three, she disappeared to Paris to study haute couture, returning two years later in a new guise. Katie, the ingénue, had departed and the sensational debutante, Charlotte, had arrived. In a short while, she became grand, orgulous and imperious, hacking her way with ruthless ambition to the top of the fashion ladder, working on the glossies and then the national press. Television was a natural progression and her thrice-weekly fashion spot on a breakfast show continues to secure her a healthy income. But Charlotte has a few dark secrets. She is clinically depressed, hopelessly insecure, lonely and neurotic and in daily decline. Ostensibly a health junkie, she is, in reality, a vodka slugging, pill popping, bulimic who needs extended siestas each day to sleep off her various addictions. Poor Charlotte thinks her secret is safe, but her brooding army of adversaries are watching and waiting for her to crumble and then the media machine will do everything in its power to drive her to the point of destruction and ultimately, extinction.
I met Charlotte some years ago at a magazine launch party at the Savoy. She was wearing a bronze silk evening dress with a sash at the waist and a slit that ran half way up the thigh. Her hair was swept up in a French pleat and fragile crystal baubles hung from her ears and neck. Provocatively and covetously she leant close to a powerful newspaper magnate, giggling and sharing small confidences with him. However, I observed her hand shaking as she raised a glass of champagne to her lips and, in her other, a redundant jade coloured cocktail cigarette burned slowly. An editor friend noticed her too and crassly interrupted her intimate tête-à-tête to introduce me. Her cold eyes met mine for an instant and then, with a look of ennui, she asked condescendingly how I came to be at the party. I told her that I had managed to slip the doorman a fiver to gain entry, hadn't a clue who anyone was, but had brought my disposable camera in case I caught sight of a celebrity. She looked momentarily disconcerted and then suddenly rolled her head back and screeched with laughter. 'Are you always like this?'
'Always,' said our mutual friend and left us to chat.
There was something about Charlotte that intrigued and amused me. She was obnoxious, capricious and downright rude at the party but when a serious player crossed her path she became beguiling, coquettish and animated. Her behaviour was both appalling and fascinating.
After the event, I was about to step into a taxi outside the hotel when I heard quick footsteps behind me, and Charlotte, tearful and distraught, tersely demanded that she share the ride. I agreed to drop her off en route to my flat. Tipsily she fell on to our shared seat and stared morosely out of the window at the falling rain, tears staining her face. Awkwardly, I made a vain attempt to comfort her but she was as brittle as Brighton rock, indignant and vengeful, yet revealing nothing. Two days later she phoned me at the office and invited me to lunch at which she frostily advised me to forget the whole taxi episode. For some inexplicable reason we keep in touch. Like a member of a Greek chorus I observe her charade of a life from the sidelines with pity, powerless to influence, and wretchedly waiting for the whole sad denouement and tragic climax. For her part, she finds me unthreatening and an occasional emotional prop when things aren't going her way. She has been in Mallorca for a fashion shoot and found herself with a few days spare. Much as I created a million ingenious excuses as to why she couldn't stay, she haughtily brushed them all aside and finally and pathetically I caved in.
There's a commotion at the kitchen door. Three workmen are attempting to shift a small digger full of rocks which has broken down. They are here to repair the stone wall which runs the length of the garden and which was partially washed away in the recent storms. The engine suddenly bursts into life and there are cheers. Sluggishly it crawls forward over rubble and, to my relief, away from the patio. Catalina turns to me.
'He is unhappy, si?' she inclines her head in Alan's direction on the far terrace.
'He doesn't like Charlotte very much. He thinks she's flaky.'
She frowns, registering the word flaky and rightly assuming it's not complimentary. 'But you said she's your friend. Why she comes if you don't like her?'
'That's because we're hypocritical cowards. She's not a real friend, just a contact, a leech really. There are lots of them about, but this one is particularly clinging.'
Catalina has already fumbled in her handbag and located leech in her pocket dictionary. 'A blood sucking annelid worm. Hm. It's good thing she stays only a few days.'
I'm on the mobile to Bryan Patterson in London when I hear the sound of feet crunching gravel in the garden. Alan has arrived back from Palma where he had gone to collect Charlotte from her luxury hotel. My stomach sinks like a botched soufflé. I muster up enough enthusiasm to leave the call on a high note, and am just saying goodbye when Bryan cuts in sweetly, 'Tootsie sends you a whiskery kiss.'
I ring off with a shudder. A vision in white floats towards me from the entrada with arms outstretched. I display a well-rehearsed smile of welcome. 'Charlotte! Great to see you.'
'You too, darling. Isn't it simply divine here, although it's much colder than I expected.'
'Did you have a good flight here?'
'No. My penny-pinching paper flew me out on one of those ghastly budget airlines. I'm still recovering.'
'What about the shoot?'
'A disaster.'
Alan raises an eyebrow and stalks off to the kitchen, no doubt to embolden himself with a glass of whisky. I make small talk, and ascertain that Charlotte now only eats white meats, fish, and vegetables (no potatoes or carrots) but she will succumb to a little wild rice and polenta. I decide it's best to humour her.
'No one does caffeine, wheat or dairy now. It's very passé,' she says breezily. 'Oh where's your son? We're yet to meet.'
'Ollie's staying with his friend Angel in the village tonight. You'll meet him tomorrow.'
'Oh good,' she says without enthusiasm.
I settle her downstairs in the guest bedroom and rush off to the kitchen to organise supper. I'm half way through chopping at some beans when I hear a blood-curdling scream from her room. Alan has already bounded down the stairs ahead of me. Charlotte is standing in the bathroom where water gushes vertically from one of the taps whose top has blown off and lies broken in the basin.
'Do something!' she commands with vitriol, 'I'm soaked!'
Alan stems the flow with a hand towel which he winds round the body of the tap.
'Hold this,' he growls at her.
She doesn't move. Instead I grasp the towel, leaving him to sever the water supply to the bathroom. He fiddles under the basin, closes off the gauge and the torrent is halted. He gets up and wipes his face with a towel.
'You wrenched the tap the wrong way and snapped the valve.'
'Well it was awfully stiff.'
Alan stares at her with incredulity, shakes his head and plods back upstairs, muttering about calling Pere, the plumber. I gather up the wet towels, mop down the bathroom and attempt once again to make dinner. An hour later, Charlotte drifts upstairs in a flowing Moroccan style robe and observes me while I cook.
I offer her a drink. She declines, saying that she never touches alcohol now. I wonder why we have to play these games. Opening the fridge door, I charge my glass for a second time.
'It's very rustic here, isn't it?' A sugary smile lingers on her lips.
'Yes, the countryside usually is.'
'It must be simply ghastly here in the winter with no culture and no one stimulating to talk to. Thank God you can escape back to London each month.'
'Oh, it's not so bad. I've got an imaginary friend, actually a rather highbrow American toad, and there are macramé classes in the town during the cold months.'
'Don't jest.'
'Charlotte, we're not on a desert island. Of course there are things I miss, like theatre and oatcakes, but I make up for it w
hen I return.'
She eyes me keenly. 'It's novelty value now, but you'll get bored with island life.'
I can feel my hackles rising, so quickly select a CD and engross myself in cooking.
'Still playing Buddha Bar?' she rolls her eyes.
'When I'm not dancing to Des O'Connor's greatest hits.'
She titters. 'Is that garlic you're using?'
'You don't like it?'
'Indeed, but I usually cut it Zen style, to release the energy flow.'
I ignore her and hurl the chopped pieces into the pan.
'Now listen, I don't want to put you out while I'm here. I'll just do my own thing. However in the mornings I'd appreciate a lift to the sea for an invigorating pre-breakfast swim. You must be up early for work anyway.'
'Charlotte, the water will be freezing. Are you mad?'
She looks fleetingly afraid, as if I've uncovered a hidden truth.
'Of course I'm not mad,' she says heatedly. 'Cold water's good for you.'
Wearily I explain that it will have to coincide with Ollie's morning school run to Palma and that we will have to leave her on the beach for an hour or so before picking her up on the return trip.
'But I can't possibly wait there until you've returned from the school. I just want a quick dip. Oh, I suppose you don't have such things as spas here, do you?'
'Amazingly, we country plods do!'
'Right, well I'd like a massage and a facial if you could arrange it but only with someone good.'
My friend Cristina runs the luxury Aimia Hotel in the port. I shall have to beg her sublime beautician, Anette, to take pity on Charlotte.
'I'll sort everything out for you.'
'Bless you,' she says sweetly.
I hear Alan's heavy tread in the entrada and serve out the food, thankful that we have only two days to endure.
There's an urgent rapping on the bedroom door. I wake up with a start. A voice is calling tremulously in the darkness.
'It's me. Charlotte. You must come. There's a bat in my room.'
Alan is snoring gently, blissfully unaware of the scene unfolding before me. Still capable of exorability, I groan and stagger out of bed and down the stairs with her to the basement. She is wearing a jacinth coloured silk kimono and kitten heeled, mink trimmed slippers which scrape on the marble steps. She appears bony and ornithoid in the half-light, her long chestnut hair scraped back from her face in to a loose plait. Without makeup she seems vulnerable and childlike. I step into her room. A small bat is circling the rafters unable to find an escape route.
'I was doing some Pilates on the floor with the French doors open and it just swooped in,' she sniffs.
I resist the desire to ask why on earth she is doing Pilates at this time of night. Some things are best left unsaid. Alan had told her to keep the shutters closed and the door open. I wonder why he bothered. I turn off the lights to a stifled cry of alarm from Charlotte.
'Shh! It will go, just give it a minute.'
In a moment it has glided out into the field. I stomp off upstairs and am just extinguishing the hall lights when Charlotte hisses at me from her basement door.
'Please don't turn out the lights.'
'Why ever not?'
'I'm afraid of ghosts.'
I'm hitting the bottle of cava earlier than I should do, but I'm in survival mode now. We've had a fraught day with Charlotte which began at 6 a.m. when she lay in the field on her duvet intoning vowel sounds and doing Buddhist chanting. The noise was so loud that both Alan and I woke up in synchronisation, convinced that a stray bull had entered our land. After driving her to the beach an hour later, we all waited in the car until she'd bathed, then deposited her back at the house, before racing off to Ollie's school. We needed the break. Most of the day she lay slumped on a lounger with a blanket, book and a half written fashion article that she never seemed to have the heart to finish. We fetched her iced water which, in the reflection of the kitchen window, I saw she topped up surreptitiously with a clear liquid from a bottle in her handbag. Her agent rang once or twice about her breakfast time slot on television in which she superciliously lectures the nation on its appalling lack of style and poise. Now and then she pounces on some poor viewer, a gormless housewife or overweight fashion victim and gives them a makeover. Invariably they come off worse, plastered in make-up, and their hair whisked up into the sort of disastrous pile-up you only ever see on motorways. She dresses them in cheap branded clothes, provided free by opportunistic PR people who welcome the publicity on a prime time show, and then parades them in front of the millions of silent viewers who mercifully remain invisible to her wretched guinea pigs. I imagine the majority must sit sniggering by their television sets. After lunch, Charlotte set off for a walk to the town and returned later with four pairs of shoes, a bikini and a bag of nectarines which she devoured in one go. For the last hour or more she has been having a siesta in her room.
Tonight Catalina and Ramon are joining us for dinner and with seared tuna, asparagus and wild rice on the menu, I feel all should go as planned. Ollie opted to eat earlier and after completing his homework went to bed with a good book. A few brief conversations with Charlotte convinced him that it was safer to stay out of her way. At eight o'clock when our guests arrive I'm feeling wonderfully mellow. Two glasses of cava and all is well with the universe. Dinner is on the point of being served but Charlotte fails to appear. Finally Alan knocks on her bedroom door and calls her name gruffly. She emerges, radiant and perfectly groomed in a purple dress suit, more suited to shopping in Bond Street than supper in a mountain finca. Ramon politely steps forward and shakes her hand before taking his seat at the table again. I begin serving the food while Alan lights the candles. Charlotte makes herself comfortable and examines the tuna carefully. 'Oh good, it's rare,' she says almost to herself. Ramon helps himself to a roll from the bread basket. He taps my arm.
'You want to know how your turkey's doing?'
'Ah, tell me. Is it going to be ready for Christmas?'
He shakes his head and titters before he and Catalina start laughing uncontrollably.
'What's so funny?' I seem to have missed the joke.
'The turkey is huge!' exclaims Catalina. 'Ramon is worried you won't fit him in oven.'
'What?' says Alan with alarm. 'How big is it?'
'Oh, thirty kilos, maybe?' says Catalina.
Alan drops his knife. 'Impossible! That's almost double the weight of Ollie!'
Ramon is now hooting. 'No, Catalina! Is only about twenty kilos.'
Alan throws me a look of panic. 'That's about three stone. There's no way that'll go in our oven. What have you been feeding it on, Ramon?'
'Well, he greedy. He eats more grain than others.'
'It must be obese!' yells Alan.
'It's OK,' says Catalina, wiping her eyes. 'We kill him early if he grow too big.'
'But we can't have it too early,' I say with a nervous giggle.
'We feed him less now and maybe he grow more slowly,' Catalina replies weakly.
With only a month or so to go until Christmas, I can't imagine this monster bird shrinking enough to fit in our oven. Charlotte has been sitting quietly until now, listening in confusion and growing horror.
'What are you all talking about?' she demands.
I explain that Ramon has been rearing a Christmas turkey for us.
'It sounds like a freak of nature to me. Besides, I could never eat an animal I've reared, it's too barbaric.'
Ramon gives a grunt. 'But you're happy to eat a turkey from butcher?'
'That's different.'
'How?' says Ramon.
'Because you haven't got to know it.'
Ramon doubles up while Alan tries to control a snort.
'Oh you're priceless, Charlotte,' he says.
She sips at her water and purses her nose. Catalina rushes to the rescue, complimenting Charlotte on her frock.
'You have so many wonderful clothes!' she exclaims.
&n
bsp; Charlotte blushes with pleasure. 'Yes, I have.'
Ramon chews thoughtfully on his tuna. 'I have two shirts, two pairs of trousers, and two pairs of shoes. Why would I need more?'
Charlotte is momentarily unsettled. 'Yes, but Ramon, aren't you a builder? My job is a little different.'
A Lizard In My Luggage Page 15