Valentine (16 page)

For the two weeks before Jack left for Manchester
Valentine tried not to think too much about anything –
not her father, not Finn, not Tamara, not the fact that
she didn't have any work lined up – she just wanted to
enjoy the time with Jack. And they made the most of
it, spending every minute together, mostly in bed, as if
they could store up the memories for the time they were
apart.

'You know I would never be unfaithful to you,' he told
her as she sat cross-legged on his lovely bed watching him
pack his clothes. 'You can trust me. I'm not attracted to
Tamara Moore one little bit; you've got nothing to worry
about on that score, I swear.'

Valentine was relieved. She hadn't wanted to bring up
the subject, as she didn't want to sound paranoid and
jealous, but it had of course been preying on her mind.

'So can I trust you here in London? Finn still seems
very interested.'

Valentine hadn't replied to his text, but she hadn't
deleted it, and there had been several times when she
had sneaked a look at it – even imagining a scenario
where she met Finn. In her fantasy her plan was to
humiliate him in a restaurant as he had her. She would
be looking particularly sexy in a green silk dress and
black sky-high Christian Dior heels, as worn by Carrie
Bradshaw in the
Sex and the City
movie – all right she
didn't have any, she was never likely to have any, and
even if she did she would never to able to walk in them,
but this was her fantasy; she was allowed them. He
would say something like, 'God, I want you so much V,
I love you,' and she would pause for a beat, letting him
have one last look at her before she replied, 'But I don't
love you anymore.' It was so tempting – she could even
hear her heels clicking emphatically on the pavement
as she walked away from him, while he called her name
in vain.

'You can trust me,' Valentine replied, silencing any
further questions with a kiss and pulling him back down
on the bed with her.

When Jack left for Manchester she was determined not
to go on the downward spiral. She would give herself
three weeks off before she resorted to temping. Her plan
was simple – she would keep busy. She would exercise
every morning, then she would read a play for the rest
of the day and write to directors she wanted to work with
– not that this tactic had ever yielded any results in the
past, but you never knew. It was vital to be optimistic.
She would also write to Piers again. There was going to
be no lying in bed, obsessing about being a failure and
stuffing her face with peanut butter, no incidents of self-loathing,
no drinking too much. She had one day following
this pattern, which nearly finished her off, and then she
got an urgent call from one of her friends who had
sprained her ankle and begged Valentine to take her place
at the yummy-mummy toddler music group she worked
for in Hampstead.

It was a week of pure, undiluted hell. The group was
run by Maria, a scary ballet-teacher type who was in fear
of the yummies defecting to another music group. 'It's
dog eat dog in the world of children's music groups, take
it from me.' She told Valentine, 'If we don't put on a
show, they'll go elsewhere. Tiny Tigers round the corner
is proving very popular, as they perform songs in Chinese
to reflect the growing Asian economy. Do you speak
Chinese, by the way? Maybe we could do a quick Chinese
number to show that we're on the case? I expect you to
give your
all
!

Maria's fervour came as a bit of a shock. Valentine
had imagined singing a couple of verses of 'Old
Macdonald', 'The Wheels on the Bus' and 'Row Row
Row your Boat' and if things got really wild shaking some
maracas. The reality was four forty-five-minute carefully
choreographed shows a day, complete with costume
changes, where Valentine was indeed expected to give her
all. After each performance Maria actually gave her notes.
She told Valentine that her Queen of Hearts lacked
conviction and accused her of relishing her bottle of rum
too much in the pirate song. When Valentine retorted
that she was simply getting into the role of the pirate à
la Stanislavsy method, Maria replied, 'We don't want to
give out the message that alcohol dependency is a good
thing.' Alcohol was just about the only thing that got
Valentine through the week. She got her revenge by
playing 'Old Macdonald' as an Old Queen, giving him
a faraway wistful look in his eye, as if secretly he longed
to be vegetarian and wear a dress; by giving the yummies
full-fat milk in their coffees and by eating Maria's entire
supply of chocolate digestives.

Meanwhile Jack's rehearsal schedule was absolutely
frenetic. She hardly got to speak to him at all – just first
thing in the morning and last thing at night and by then
he sounded knackered and they barely got to speak.
Valentine missed him, and missed his optimism. They
talked about Piers and how Valentine might have to
prepare herself for him never getting in touch – it had
been over two months since she'd written to him. Valentine
was starting to wish that her mum had never told her, as
now she didn't have the distraction of work or of Jack,
Piers's silence cast a shadow over her days. Her own father
was not interested in knowing her. It wasn't the greatest
boast to her self-esteem.

She also couldn't help feeling jealous of Tamara
spending all that time with Jack and much as she tried
to hold on to the thought that Jack had told her that she
could trust him, it was hard. She had trusted Finn and
look at what had happened there. She wanted Jack to
bitch about Tamara and tell Valentine what an atrocious
actress she was, anything to make Valentine feel better.
Instead he told her that he felt sorry for her as she was
so clearly out of her depth and that she was actually quite
sweet. Not words guaranteed to cheer Valentine up. She
could feel herself sliding into the blues.

Then when she was feeling particularly down about
her acting career she bumped into someone she had been
at drama school with. She had been browsing the hair
care products in Boots as part of her ongoing quest to
find something that would tame wild curls. While curly
hair looked great on Sarah Jessica Parker for example,
Valentine always thought that her own hair would look
much better straight. As a child she had been obsessed
with the fairytale of Rapunzel. She spent ages poring over
her Ladybird book with its pictures of the girl with the
beautiful, long, poker-straight, golden hair and kept asking
her mother when her hair was going to look like that.
Valentine knew in her heart that if she'd been Rapunzel
the prince would never have been able to scale the tower
because her curly hair would have bounced him off and
she would have been stuck there for ever – just one more
example of how the odds were stacked against the curly-haired.

She was absorbed in reading the many promises offered
by a new product – perhaps finally this was the one, her
hair's nirvana! – when someone called her name. She
turned round and there was Stella. She had been two
years above Valentine at drama school. She was so
talented, a naturally gifted comic actress and everyone
was convinced she would be a star. Though Stella hadn't
had a big break, Valentine had always assumed that she
was doing all right. 'Hi, Stella!' she exclaimed warmly, 'I
haven't seen you for ages!'

'Valentine, how lovely to see you!' The two women
hugged each other.

'You look so well,' Valentine said, standing back and
looking at her, trying to work out what was different about
her.

'Yes, I've put on a stone and a half since you last saw
me.' Stella had always been incredibly skinny, too skinny
in fact, and was rumoured to have an eating disorder, but
that was no big deal in a profession that was ruthless
about looks and size.

'Really? You look great; so what are you up to?'

Stella sighed. 'I thought you knew. I've given up acting.
I work in PR now. Our main clients are some of the
country's leading cosmetic dentists. Oh, don't look like
that.'

Valentine snapped her mouth shut. 'I'm just a bit
surprised, that's all. You're such a good actress, Stella.
Why?'

At this Stella's pretty face hardened. 'Because I was
sick of it! Sick of always feeling out of control, sick of
never getting auditions, then being treated like dirt by
directors when I did get them. And I was sick of never
being able to eat anything apart from fucking rice cakes!
The constant dieting, the constant feeling bad about
myself.' There was a display of muffins next to the shampoos.
With the speed of a frog flicking out its tongue to
entrap a fly, Stella suddenly reached out, grabbed a
double-chocolate-chip one and swiftly pulled off the
wrapper. 'Now I can eat what I like!' she exclaimed,
shovelling the cake into her mouth and showering crumbs
all over her suit. Stella clearly still had issues.

'I do understand. It is really tough,' Valentine said
sympathetically, anxious to pacify Stella, who really did
seem on the edge.

Stella took another bite of the muffin and then
continued her tirade. 'If I got a part, it was never a main
one, but it was just big enough to give me a glimmer of
hope that something better was round the corner, so I
never quite gave up. But all the time I was being ground
down. One day I woke up and thought, I'm twenty-fucking-nine
and I've got no security whatsoever. And one
day I would like to have children and I don't want to be
living in a poky little flat above a kebab shop, working in
a bar but saying that I'm an actress just because once in
a blue bollocking moon I get to be in a play that no one
comes to see and for which I get paid a pittance!' Stella
was shouting now and Valentine was aware of the other
customers walking warily around them, trying to avoid
the crazy woman and the shower of crumbs.

'How about a cup of coffee?' Valentine suggested.

Stella shook her head. 'I have to get back to the office;
I've got a really important press release to send out about
the latest teeth-whitening technique. It really works, you
know. It's up to twenty per cent more effective than other
teeth-whitening products currently on the market.' At this
she burst into tears, proper noisy sobs, snot and all.

Valentine took her arm and said gently, 'Let's just pay
for the muffin and have that coffee.'

She spent the next hour trying to calm Stella down
and get her in a fit state to return to work, which involved
three lattes (two for Stella, one for Valentine) a large
chocolate-chip cookie (Stella), a pain au chocolate (Stella),
a slice of cherry cheesecake (Stella) and an almond croissant
(Valentine, who simply couldn't hold out on the carbs
any longer in the face of Stella's misery eating). Then she
slowly walked back home, her spirits now as flat as her
pumps. Stella might have been describing
her
acting career.
How much longer could she hold on to the hope that her
big break was just round the corner? Was she being
completely deluded that her moment would come? She
had been holding on to her dream that something would
happen. But what if it didn't? She didn't want to end up
bitter and frustrated like Stella. And God knew she had
no interest in cosmetic dentistry. What should she do?
Valentine was using up her store of hope. What if nothing
happened? She was almost tempted to turn back and
have another almond croissant. Instead she went back to
the flat and got roaring drunk with Lauren.

She woke up the following morning with a hangover of
evil proportions. The noble, self-disciplined side of her
intoned,
Must get up, go for a run and go swimming
. She didn't
move.
Must lie in bed, eat peanut butter on toast, buy Red Bull
,
countered the undisciplined side of her.

'Are you still in bed?' Jack asked her accusingly when
he called her at half nine, about to go into rehearsal.

'No!' she lied. 'I'm just doing some stretches before I
go for a run.'

'You're such a liar, Fleming,' he replied.

'All right, I'm lying in bed completely naked, waiting
for you and your big—'

'Don't tell me that,' Jack cut across her, groaning, 'I've
been fantasising about you all night as it is. Please tell me
you're coming up this weekend; I want you
bad
.'

She finished the call promising that she was going to
go running and woke up to the sound of the doorbell,
two hours later. Grabbing her lilac and gold vintage
kimono (a present from Lily, who believed that a woman
should always look glamorous in the bedroom and didn't
hold with towelling) she staggered downstairs and opened
the door. A smartly dressed thirty-something woman –
pinstripe trouser suit, killer heels and crisp white shirt,
sleek ponytail, expensive perfume – stood on the doorstep.
She must have the wrong house; Valentine couldn't
imagine Lauren, Lily or Frank would know anyone who
would dress like an executive.

'Are you Valentine Fleming?' the smart woman asked.
She was American, possibly a New Yorker.

'Yes,' Valentine mumbled behind her hand, not wanting
to asphyxiate the woman with her hangover breath.

'I'm Greta Cox, Piers Hunter's personal assistant.'

'Oh my God, is he here?' Valentine asked, anxiously
looking past Greta. This was definitely not how she imagined
meeting her father, dressed in her PJs, accessorised
with breath that could kill a man at ten paces.

Greta shook her head and her ponytail swished. 'No,
no, I need to talk to you before any such meeting. May
I come in?'

Shit, what exactly was the state of the flat? The
fragrant Greta was going to report back to her father
that she was a complete and utter slob. Valentine nodded
and led the way upstairs. She showed Greta into the
living room, which thankfully looked reasonably OK
apart from several mugs, two wine glasses and two empty
bottles of wine.