Spin Cycle (19 page)

Rachel and Shelley trudged past the Marxes without saying another word. Otto stepped out through the wardrobe after them and began gathering up coats.

* * * * *

As she drove Rachel home, Shelley did nothing but apologize.

“Come on, Shelley,” Rachel said eventually. “Enough’s enough. It wasn’t all your fault. It was partly mine. I was the one who said you could look round the house. I should have asked Xantia first.”

“Wouldn’t have made much difference. I’d still have found the secret room.”

“You do realize,” Rachel said, “there’s no way it was commissioned by the Tate Modern.”

“Yeah, the thought had occurred to me. If it really were for the Tate, there’d be a Damien Hirst–type pickled sheep’s head on the coffee table. Something gross, to shock people. And if it was simply some kind of art installation, why were they so embarrassed?”

“You know,” Rachel said reflectively, “I remember reading an article a few years back about Otto and Xantia being brought up in Gants Hill.”

“Get away,” Shelley giggled. “What, they’re from Essex? Don’t be daft.”

“No, it’s true. If I remember rightly they were both brought up in thirties terraced houses off Woodford Avenue. . . .”

“All right . . . but so what? They went to St. Martin’s and became design icons. The rest is history.”

“Maybe not,” Rachel said thoughtfully. “Just suppose that room isn’t a piece of art, but a refuge, a sort of retreat into a past life. Somewhere they feel really at ease and comfortable.”

Shelley burst out laughing. “That’s an absurd idea,” she said. “They love that house. It’s breathtaking.”

“So’s the Taj Mahal. It doesn’t mean I’d want to live there. Think about it. There isn’t one comfortable chair or sofa in the place.”

Shelley considered for a moment. “So they just pretend to adore it? Really the secret room is the place they love?”

“Yeah,” Rachel said eagerly. “And that would explain why Otto was so desperate for us not to go to the papers. Can you imagine what would happen if Nettle di Lucca wrote about them having a secret lounge with velvet furniture and Canaletto prints on the walls?”

“But they’d just tell the press what they told us—that it was a whimsical art installation—and the whole thing would end up a triumph.”

“Probably. But you have to look at it from their point of view. The way they see it, once their Essex connection is added to the equation, people in that elitist, rarefied world of theirs might think twice before they believed them. Otto and Xantia are worried that they could be denounced as phonies and end up a laughingstock—not to mention totally ruined.”

“God,” Shelley said, her eyes widening, “you could make a fortune if you went to the papers. Aren’t you even a bit tempted?”

“Nah,” Rachel said. “The Marxes may be the worst kind of pretentious snobs, but I couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for Xantia this afternoon. She seemed so . . . I dunno . . . vulnerable, almost. No, I could never do the dirty on them.”

CHAPTER 19

“OK,” Rachel continued, as she lay in the bath making shampoo horns with her hair. “Have you ever thought how different things would have been if the Twelve Apostles had been gay?” She paused and counted three beats for a ripple of laughter. “The Last Supper would have been brunch. The water at the wedding feast of Canaan wouldn’t have been turned into wine, but Bombay Sapphire martinis with a touch of curaçao for color. And the Sermon on the Mount would have been a musical.

“Yesss . . . finally,” she said out loud.

Until now her delivery had been just a tad too fast, but suddenly, despite her nerves and the Joke for Europe contest being less than three hours away, she felt she’d got it just about right.

Every so often over the last couple of days, particularly when she was worrying about the speed of her delivery, her confidence had started to flag, but each time—as if by some miracle—Lenny or Matt would phone to give her pep talks and remind her what an excellent chance she stood of winning the contest. Even Adam had made encouraging noises on the phone from Durban.

Occasionally, like now, she allowed herself to imagine what that would mean. Not only would she get to take part in the Eurovision Comedy Contest finals in Helsinki, but—far more important—she would be given her own comedy show on Channel 6. The enormity of this was almost too much for her to take in. She wondered how it would feel to wake up one morning to discover she was famous. Most mornings the only thing she discovered when she woke up was that she was half an hour late.

She’d have agents, writers, producers, stylists, lawyers. People. People who would speak to other people’s people. She giggled.

She’d be recognized in the street. And she’d have money. Real money. Several times she’d fantasized about swanning into the bank and parading her TV contract in front of Mr. Lickdish.

She swished the foamy water round her and just for a second tried to imagine what it would be like to have all that and Matt too.

It wasn’t simply pep talks from Lenny and Matt, however, that had boosted her confidence.

Two nights ago, after she’d finished her set at the Flicker and Firkin in Chiswick, where her material, albeit old stuff, had gone down a storm, a painfully trendy middle-aged chap wearing strange wiry German glasses and a black suit with a mandarin collar had come up to her in the bar and introduced himself as Robin Metcalf, the program controller of Channel 6. He must have spent a full five minutes telling her how talented he thought she was and how much the Channel 6 producers who saw her audition had been raving about her.

“You know,” he said as he turned to go, “we all have high hopes for you on Sunday. Incredibly high hopes.”

Rachel had thanked him and said something suitably self-deprecating about wishing she shared his confidence, but had secretly felt considerably buoyed up.

She’d also been buoyed up—although nothing like to the same extent she’d been after her meeting with Robin Metcalf—by discovering that the middle classes in northwest London were just as desperate for dailies as they’d always been. She’d only put her postcard in the newsagent’s window yesterday and already had half a dozen interviews lined up.

Since Xantia’s party she’d met Matt once—for lunch. He offered to go round and sabotage Xantia’s Wiener when she told him about getting the sack. Then he’d roared when she told him about the secret room. She’d tried to tell him how she felt about him, but they were in a crowded, noisy pub and it hadn’t seemed the right moment.

During this time, there was one thing she’d tried desperately—but failed—to keep out of her mind: Adam was due home on the day of the contest.

She’d decided she couldn’t tell him their relationship was over on the phone. Even if he were having an affair, she felt she owed it to him to tell him face-to-face. But when? She knew she couldn’t even begin to cope with the emotional trauma of ending it with Adam and going in for the comedy contest on the same day. Her only option was to pretend everything was OK between them until the competition was over.

That meant she was then faced with the problem of how to keep Adam and Matt apart since they would both be there. Short of running between them like some demented character in a bedroom farce, she hadn’t the faintest idea how she was going to prevent them meeting. She’d also been worried about keeping Matt and her parents apart, but that had been resolved by her parents’ decision to have Sam for the night and watch the contest on TV.

Then last night, out of the blue, Adam had rung to say one of the dentists who worked for his uncle Stan had walked out and that Stan needed him to fill in until he found a replacement.

“I’m so, so sorry, Rache,” he’d said. “I know how much me being there meant to you, but I can’t just abandon Stan. He really needs me.”

He’d sounded tentative and nervous. It was obvious to Rachel that he’d been geared up for tears and tantrums. When she didn’t cry or make a fuss and told him quite cheerily that she understood and that he shouldn’t feel guilty, he was clearly extremely confused by how well she was taking it.

Wrapped in a towel, her hair dripping onto her shoulders, she went into the bedroom and paused to look at the vase of sunflowers sitting on her dressing table. Her parents had sent them that morning to wish her good luck. She was suddenly aware of just how much she loved her mum and dad. Swingers they might be, she found herself thinking, but they were still the same caring, adoring parents they’d always been. What was more, they weren’t about to split up. What they did in bed, and with whom, was none of her business. She resolved to bury the memories of what she’d seen the other day—although burying the memory of Ivan Finkel and the ostrich feather was going to take some doing—and try to carry on her relationship with them as if nothing had happened.

Her outfit was lying on the bed. Faye had insisted on paying for it, but having insisted on paying, she’d also hinted heavily at how much pleasure it would give her to come along with Rachel and help her choose it. Rachel had been reluctant to say the least. Their worst fights had happened in Top Shop when she was a teenager, and they’d rarely been shopping together since. She just knew that if Faye came with her, history would be bound to repeat itself. But in the end she decided it would be ungrateful to refuse and they’d met up at Brent Cross on Friday afternoon.

It had occurred to her that Faye might use the occasion as an opportunity to continue fishing for information about the state of her relationship with Adam, but she didn’t. Rachel assumed she’d picked up on how nervous she was about the competition and decided to back off. The nearest she got to bringing up the subject was in Karen Millen when she told Rachel how disappointed she was Adam couldn’t make it to the contest.

“I suppose if he’s busy, he’s busy,” Faye said. Rachel couldn’t be sure if she was imagining it, but she was almost certain she detected a hint of annoyance in her mother’s tone. It was the first time Faye had ever been anything other than gushingly approving of Adam and all things Adamian.

Once again she’d considered telling her mother about Matt, but decided against it. She wasn’t up to stemming the lava flow of maternal shock, tears and cross-questioning that were certain to follow—and little more than twenty-four hours before the most important night of her career, she was especially not up to it. Instead she’d gone on about Adam’s uncle Stan’s angina and how Adam felt he just couldn’t let him down. Then she’d changed the subject. Faye, clearly seeing the conversation was going nowhere, had taken the hint and carried on looking down the racks.

“Oh,” she’d squealed, a few moments later, “just look at this.”

Rachel looked and pulled a face.

“But something sparkly would be just the thing to get you noticed,” Faye enthused, holding the strappy, split-to-the-thigh silver Lurex dress up against Rachel.

She’d been on the point of saying, “Yeah and maybe we could accessorize it with a curb and a police prosecution,” but she’d held back because she thought Faye might take offense. Instead she’d smiled and said it wasn’t quite the look she was going for.

In the end they compromised on black satin capri pants, a shiny fuchsia top with a slash neck and three-quarter sleeves, and a pair of matching pink suede mules with kitten heels.

Rachel spent the next half hour carefully blow-drying her hair, doing her makeup and getting dressed. Her outfit was still a bit tarty, she decided, not so much urban chic as Romford chick.

She put this to Shelley when she popped in a few minutes later to wish her good luck.

“Don’t be so silly,” Shelley said, her voice oozing calm and reassurance. “You look fantastic. Now, just go out there and knock ’em dead. Me and Matt’ll be there cheering you on.”

“Thanks,” Rachel said warmly, giving her friend a hug, “you know—for always being there. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

* * * * *

Rachel got to the Gas Station just before seven. Parked outside—as there had been yesterday when she and the other contestants arrived for a technical rehearsal—were three enormous outside broadcast vans with dozens of thick electrical cables spilling from their rear doors and snaking over the pavement. Treading carefully, Rachel followed the cables inside. The lobby was packed with puffing, sweating blokes in T-shirts, humping equipment and bumping beer guts. As she stood watching them, the reality of what was about to happen—that she was about to appear live on national TV—suddenly dawned. Feeling desperately alone, she started to shake.

“Oh hi. Can I have your name, please?”

Rachel spun round to see a smiling girl in a black puffa jacket carrying a clipboard. Hanging from a chain round her neck was her Channel 6 pass. Rachel identified herself. The girl scanned her list, ticked Rachel’s name and directed her upstairs to the green room.

It was brimful of smoke and nervous chatter. Most people were lounging around in small groups, either on the floor or on red plastic chairs. Anyone who didn’t have a cigarette in his hand was clutching a bottle of Perrier. Several people were pacing up and down looking pale and alone. Among these was a male ventriloquist carrying a dummy. Both were dressed as Nana Mouskouri.

At one end there was a long buffet table full of sandwiches and soft drinks. Above this were three TV monitors. Thinking a can of Coke might settle her stomach, Rachel headed toward the table, smiling and saying hi to people as she went. She was taking her first sip when she saw Lenny coming toward her.

“Hiya, Rache. How you doing?” He kissed her on the cheek.

“Oh, fine—apart from feeling I’m going to chuck up any minute . . . you?”

“Same,” he said with a feeble smile. He reached for a 7-Up.

Lenny had just suggested they go outside for some fresh air when the clipboard girl came in to collect half a dozen people, including Lenny, and take them off to makeup.

As Lenny disappeared out the door, Pitsy walked in. She saw Rachel immediately and waved. She was wearing a short scarlet satin dress, red ribbons in her pigtails and matching clumpy platforms. Rachel looked to see if she’d shaved off her tarantulas. She had. Clearly somebody at Channel 6 had taken her to one side and had a quiet word.

“God, Rache,” Pitsy said, joining her at the table, “you look a bit green. You’re not nervous, are you?”

“Oh well, you know,” Rachel smiled, taking another sip of her Coke, “maybe just a bit.”

“Really? Of course I’ve never suffered from nerves. That’s because I’m always so confident about my material. I think people only get nervous when they’re not sure their stuff’s up to it.”

She was considering pouring her Coke over the woman’s head when the clipboard girl returned and called Pitsy’s name.

* * * * *

Rachel, along with all the other contestants, had known her position in the competition running order for some days. She was due on last. The advantage of this was that when it came to the voting, she would still be fresh in the judges’ minds. The disadvantage was that she had to wait an hour and a half to go on.

Once the contest had started, she couldn’t bear to stay in the green room watching the other comics on the monitors in case they were absolutely brilliant and undermined her confidence completely.

Instead she paced up and down outside until she got too cold, or sat alone in the bar next to the auditorium, reading through her material and listening to the laughter coming from the audience. It was while she was sitting in the bar, twenty minutes or so before she was due to go on, feeling sicker than ever, that she realized there was no longer any point reading through her material. If she didn’t know it now, she never would. If it was crap, it was too late to change it.

For a few moments, she sat staring into space. Then she started looking for displacement activities. Anything to ease her rising panic. First she began flicking crisp crumbs off the table. When all the crumbs had disappeared onto the floor, she reached into her bag for her makeup mirror. Her face looked fine. Then, as she put the mirror back, she noticed a comedy contest program lying on the chair opposite her. She leaned across the table and picked it up. The center pages contained a list of contestants. Underneath each name was a five- or six-line biography. It was only as she scanned the columns of names that she realized Vanessa Marx wasn’t listed. Rachel thought it distinctly odd, since Xantia had made such a song and dance about her niece appearing in the contest.

She shrugged. She could only assume Vanessa had pulled out or that Xantia had got her wires crossed in some way. Shoving the piece of paper into her bag, she thought no more about it.

By a quarter to ten, she decided to go back up to the green room and watch Pitsy, who was on immediately before her, on the TV monitor. Assuming she didn’t have the nerve to use her stolen Noeleen Piccolo material tonight, she would therefore be back on her usual submediocre form. Rachel couldn’t wait to see her. The woman was clearly about to make a complete fool of herself.

But Rachel never made it to the green room. Instead she was grabbed by the now-frantic clipboard girl who had been looking for her everywhere. She led Rachel through some doors and along a corridor toward the stage.