by Clare Ashton
The music approached its climax. By instinct, Pia grabbed another camera with a wide-angle lens and shot almost without looking, clicking away on both cameras.
The models lined the edge of the runway and, defiant, faced the crowd as the drums, brass and choir all peaked in one lasting, mighty note that blew the audience away. The orchestra and lights plunged into dark silence and the audience erupted into applause.
Chapter 12.
Still grinning from ear to ear, Pia rushed backstage to photograph the manic scenes. The costume changes, from hanger to model, were almost instant. The whirlwind of models and stylists swept through to the next collection. Pia stumbled back and slumped onto a pile of clothes. For a few moments she sat with her chest heaving trying to catch her breath.
Also slumped behind a rack was a model. Her eyes had the smudged look of the previous set and Pia gave her a polite smile. When she heard a sniff, she realised the woman was crying and that’s what the panda eyes were a result of.
‘I’m sorry.’ Pia scuttled beside her. ‘I thought it was just the makeup. I didn’t realise you were crying.’
‘S’ok.’ The woman swayed a little.
‘Are you OK? I mean I know you’re not OK and you’re crying. But are you feeling OK?’
The model inhaled, shuddering with tears, and slurred, ‘Shitfaced.’
‘Oh. Oh dear,’ Pia said. ‘Erm. Don’t you need to be modelling clothes or something? How much have you had to drink?
The model held up a Champagne glass.
‘One glass of Champagne?’ Pia said, incredulous.
‘Wrecked. Kicked me off the show.’
‘What’s happened? Why did you drink, erm, so much?’
‘My boyfriend’s left me.’ Her mouth pulled down at the corners in a cartoon extreme and dribble stretched out of her mouth. ‘And he’s taken Archie.’
‘Oh God. How horrible.’ Pia assumed Archie was her son and, being delicate, didn’t seek confirmation.
The model stalled into a stuttering cry, her arms flapping by her sides. ‘I...miss...him.’
‘Of course you do.’ Pia reached out to comfort her and pulled her close.
‘I really, really miss him.’ The model sniffled on her shoulder. ‘I miss his little furry face.’
‘Of course you…. Sorry. What did you say?’
‘His furry face and his cute little whiskers.’
Pia squinted skywards while still hugging the model. ‘Who is Archie by the way?’
The model opened her mouth as another wail convulsed through her. ‘My raaaaaaaat.’
Pia gave the model a good squeeze. ‘I’m sure it’ll be OK. I’m sure he’ll bring him back.’
The model sniffed beside her ear. ‘He’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever seen. Siamese little fella with brown paws and a cream body.’
‘He sounds...special.’ Pia tried to be understanding.
As the model dribbled and sobbed on her shoulder, Pia came to the realisation that this was the kind of opportunity she was meant to be taking advantage of: a vivid example of the insanity backstage that would impress Ed. Pia’s heart sank with the prospect of ridiculing the fragile model in a gossip magazine. She thought about reaching for the camera, but her fingers were numb and wouldn’t move. Her lips curled as if to a nasty taste in her mouth.
She sat the model up and checked towards the opening of the stage. It flashed with cameras out in the arena. If Pia didn’t take advantage of this woman, there’d be others who would.
‘What’s your name?’ Pia asked.
‘Elana,’ the woman had difficulty saying.
‘Well, I think we should take you home Elana,’ Pia said, and a ripple of familiarity stirred in her consciousness.
‘Go and tell,’ Pia thought she heard the model say.
‘Go and tell?’
The model slurred with some urgency. ‘Go and tell!’
‘Go and tell who?’
The model shook her head and slumped forward over Pia’s lap. She’d said ‘Going to hurl’, but Pia only heard that in retrospect.
Tepid liquid seeped through her T-shirt onto her belly. The same moist feeling seeped through her trousers and onto her thighs. For a woman who’d only had a glass of Champagne, the amount of liquid and coverage was impressive.
‘Oh,’ Pia exclaimed. ‘God.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ The woman wiped her mouth and a small trail of sick into her hair.
Pia stood up and pinched her clothes away from her skin. The smell was overpowering and Pia feared breathing. She shuddered and peeled away her jeans from her sticky legs and wriggled out of her T-shirt. Her clothes landed with a wet slap on the floor.
Standing in her underwired bra and tight white boxers, she flicked through the garments on the rails. She found a dress, she assumed, made of matchsticks but couldn’t fathom which limb went through what hole. She found a sensible black gown, but the inbuilt feather balaclava was perhaps too conspicuous for smuggling out a model. Besides, full-length garments made for models were impractical for a petite Pia owing to the two feet of spare material that gathered at her feet. The next item was a short dress that appeared to be made of plastic beer-can rings.
Pia muttered, ‘You’d think there would be something to wear at a clothes show.’
The beer-can rings might have been impressive on a model, but Pia brought a new level to them, one closer to a bag lady’s.
She snatched up a silver wig for herself and a blue version to drape over Elana’s hair and face.
‘It’s going to have to do.’ Pia tutted.
She picked up her bag and supported a wobbling and babbling model on her shoulder. ‘Let’s get out of here, while everyone’s still in the show.’
Pia stared at the floor as she limped along under the weight of her bag and the model. They’d taken a couple of short paces when two slim legs with elegant shoes appeared before her.
Pia peeped up. She recognised the pale dress above the knees. She recognised the long fingers placed over the hips. And that chest she would never forget.
Cate’s lips were tight in a horizontal line and she frowned at Pia.
‘What’s going on?’ Her tone was softer than Pia anticipated.
Firstly, she was disappointed that Cate recognised her, and secondly she was also very aware of how ludicrous she looked. She imagined that she resembled an extra from a bad science-fiction film with an incoherent alien for company.
‘Do you know who this is?’ Cate said.
‘Elana,’ Pia said, missing the all-important emphasis in Cate’s sentence. ‘I don’t know her surname.’
‘It’s Devanka. This is Elana Devanka.’
Now that she heard Cate say the name without the drawn slur, that nagging feeling of recognition from earlier became crystal clear. The dribbling woman on her shoulder was a supermodel, a regular in the daily newspapers.
Without a flicker in her expression, Cate continued. ‘So why are you kidnapping the world’s most highly paid supermodel, and stealing several thousand pounds worth of designer clothes?’
Pia hadn’t thought of it like that and, not for the first time that day, and it would never be the last, she felt rather stupid.
‘She’s been sick,’ Pia said.
‘Yes, I can see that.’ Cate frowned and came forward. She crouched down and peered at the model who’d closed her eyes and was swaying. ‘What’s she taken?’
‘She said she only drank this.’ Pia nodded to the empty glass on the floor.
Cate considered for a moment. ‘Possible I suppose. Look at her, she’s so skinny a small glass of Champagne is a leg full.’
It took a moment for Pia to realise that Cate was joking.
‘So what are your plans?’ Cate raised an eyebrow.
‘I was going to take her home,’ Pia said, embarrassed to be smuggling out their biggest story of the day.
‘Yours or hers?’
‘Hers.’ Pia was serious, still a beat behind
Cate’s humour.
‘Right,’ Cate said. Pia slumped, expecting to be ordered to take photos for the magazine or kiss her job good bye.
Cate ducked under the model’s other arm. ‘We’d better not get caught Benitez-Smith.’ And they both dragged the multi-millionaire model from the scene.
Pia and Elana emerged from the black box of the arena and glittered in the sunshine. Panic gripped Pia’s belly. They looked ridiculous. They may as well have had a neon arrow pointing at them. Around the entrance hung suspicious stylists sneaking a quick fag. Tourists stopped and stared.
Cate glanced at them with an anxious expression. ‘I’ll flag down a taxi. Hurry up.’ And she skipped ahead across the court.
‘Here.’ Pia heard someone say. ‘Isn’t that what’s her name?’ People were starting to point as Pia and Elana stumbled towards the archway.
‘It is innit,’ someone else replied.
Pia tried to pull Elana’s wig further over her face, but they weren’t going to escape attention. Two eager young women ran towards them. They giggled and fumbled with their phones.
‘Oh bloody hell.’ Pia was desperate. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘Get a drink? I’d love another glass of bubbly,’ Elana slurred.
Pia tried to drag the unhelpful Elana at a greater pace but they weren’t going to outrun two young fashionistas.
‘Stay back!’ Pia said. She took a moment or two to think about her next step. ‘Erm. Can’t you see how ill she is?’
The joy dropped from the faces of the two women. They stared at Elana’s pale complexion and dark eyes.
‘It’s… she’s got…’ Pia was about to warn them that Elana had contagious winter vomiting virus, but that was particularly unseasonal. Bird flu also suffered from the same lack of veracity. So she started to panic. The two women were regaining their composure and interest. Then she said, very earnestly, with great authority. ‘Plague. Can’t you see? It’s the plague.’
The two women glanced at each other. Pia expected them to burst out laughing and brush her aside to take photos. But they backed away. They looked terrified. With horror stretched on their faces they babbled to each other in Polish and, when a few feet away, they twirled and fled from the courtyard.
‘Oh.’ Pia was quite shocked by the efficacy of her diversion. ‘I wonder what they thought I meant.’
For a moment, the hysterical tourists distracted other onlookers. Pia put her head down and made a last big push for the street. Cate sat waiting in the back of a black cab and dragged Elana in. Pia leapt after, her silver locks flying in the breeze, and the clunk of the door sealed them inside.
‘Drive,’ Cate shouted. And, after a few more stern words to the cab driver, where Cate threatened removal of various organs that hung external to the body, they made lightening progress through the afternoon traffic.
-
They soon arrived in an exclusive Chelsea street. Elana yelped when she peeped out of the window. Outside her immaculate multi-million pound house sat a returned and relieved boyfriend and an overjoyed rat. The boyfriend was met with tears of joy, the rat was given an unrestrained kiss and smooch and Pia was showered with profuse words of gratitude.
Pia had to pull herself away from the grateful trio. When she turned back to the taxi, Cate was smiling at the reunited family. Her expression faltered when she saw Pia watching, and she withdrew as Pia settled back in her seat.
‘Brixton please,’ Cate ordered in a neutral voice.
They both sat in silence staring at the perspiring neck of the cabbie as he drove south of the river. Pia shuffled her feet and crossed her legs draped in plastic threads.
‘Well,’ Cate sighed. ‘So much for intrepid gossip reporters.’
Pia blushed and folded her arms. Cate’s eyes flicked down to Pia’s chest, and then she averted her gaze. Pia hadn’t appreciated that her arms would push her breasts out of her bra and squeeze them through the plastic rings like bizarre and huge bubble wrap. She dropped her arms in disgust. When would the humiliation end?
‘I did include me in that statement by the way,’ Cate said.
Annoyed with herself, Pia regarded Cate. She was still that beautiful woman she’d first met, but the more she found out about her the less she seemed to know.
‘I don’t understand you,’ Pia whispered.
Cate watched her, but didn’t say anything.
‘You worked for the Guardian and Times. You covered social affairs and exposed scams in government and industry. You were tipped to move to the New York Times as a section editor.’ Pia blushed as she realised she was betraying her internet research of Cate’s background. ‘You reminisce about studying English, and the beauty of Cambridge. Then you marry some rich capitalist and drop everything to work on a gossip magazine.’
Cate twitched at the last accusation.
‘Everyone needs money Pia.’
‘Some more than others,’ Pia muttered.
Cate breathed in. ‘It’s fine to live like that when you’re young. To have ideals like that.’
‘But you’re not much older than me.’
‘But I’m in my thirties. Time’s ticking by. I’d had my chance. I needed to be responsible. There were more people to consider than only me.’
Pia rankled, irritated at being patronised. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever want money that much. Not even when I’m in my forties.’
Cate looked at her, an expression of regret in her face. ‘Pia, you walk around in a bubble. It’s a lovely bubble, but it’s not reality. Yes, you showed me a perfect night but it still cost money and when it came to your own wish-fulfillment a night at the Savoy doesn’t come cheap.’
Pia winced at the unguarded reference to their evening.
‘Sorry.’ Cate pulled back, ‘I didn’t mean that to come out quite so harshly. I’m sorry.’
Pia flushed in anger and embarrassment. Is that why you married him? Money? Pia wanted to say. But she had already overstepped the mark. It was none of her business asking this woman, who was so far beyond her, anything more personal.
Pia stared out at the beginnings of Brixton and the familiar streets. She noticed how dirty they seemed today, despite the renovations from creeping gentrification. Rubbish, old vegetables, fast-food wrappers, all lined the streets from the day’s market trade. When they drew into Pia’s street, the boarded-up houses stood out. The covered car in her neighbours’ front garden, which over the years had lost its wheels and any other parts of value, jarred as she surveyed the street through Cate’s eyes.
She turned to her own house and caught sight of Spencer practising his violin next door. It made her smile and her heart swelled with pride for her neighbourhood. The taxi pulled up outside her front door and she snatched up her camera bag.
‘Good bye,’ Pia said, and she stropped away from the car without glancing back. It might not be the most expensive borough, but she loved it and no amount of money would entice her to move. She wasn’t going to feel ashamed of it because of Cate.
A few moments later, she returned more meekly to the taxi.
‘Um.’ Pia couldn’t look Cate in the eye. ‘I don’t have any cash. Would you mind paying the taxi driver?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’ll pay you back,’ Pia mumbled. She sloped around and entered the house with rather less indignation and even less dignity. She shut the front door behind her and leaned back. ‘Bollocks.’
Her mother was in the sitting room and peeked over a copy of El Pais. She surveyed Pia from head to toe and back again, taking in the plastic-ring and silver-foil look.
‘Don’t ask,’ Pia shook her head. ‘Just don’t ask.’ She ran up the stairs, threw herself on the bed and buried her face in the pillow.
Chapter 13.
Fleet Street was baking in the sun, even at eight in the morning when Pia chained her scooter to a bike rack. Her hair was slick with sweat as she slipped off her helmet. She wasn’t the only one suffering from the heat wav
e, also known simply as summer in other countries. Financiers with their obligatory uniform of suit, striped shirt and red tie, drooped along the street with dark patches of sweat beneath their armpits. Red-faced barristers under black gowns and woollen wigs verged on the edge of explosion or expiry. If there was one thing the British did well, it wasn’t any weather that deviated from moderate, not even Brits with Latin blood like Pia.
The offices of Bennet on the top floor were stifling. The windows were open but the air was stagnant. Denise on reception held the collar of her top with both hands and wafted it back and forth. Her breasts jiggled so that they reminded Pia of blancmange, sweaty blancmange.
‘Wish they’d put bloody air-conditioning in,’ Denise said. ‘Did you know that it’s illegal to work below sixteen degrees? But no bugger thought England would ever get too hot. Stupid bastards.’
Pia wiped her brow. It didn’t auger well that even Denise was tetchy this morning. Pia wandered up the corridor to a hot-desk office. Rafe’s door was open, his key still in the lock. It was his open-door policy to welcome anyone at any time. But his raised voice from inside wasn’t welcoming today.
‘Well, where was she last night?’ Pia heard him shout.
‘Keep a lid on it Rafe,’ a confident female voice ordered. ‘You’re overreacting.’
The heated exchange stopped Pia in her tracks as she passed his doorway. She twitched towards the raised voices. A woman, perhaps in her thirties, held her hand around Rafe’s arm. They stood with their backs to Pia, but she could see the woman’s face in profile. The familial likeness was obvious, Rafe’s handsome looks softened to a female version.
Rafe ran his hand through his hair with agitated fingers. ‘She’s acting more distant. There’s something up.’
‘She seemed fine to me,’ the woman replied. ‘She was running a bit late. She admitted she’d had a crappy day at work, but then we had dinner and I didn’t think anything of it.’