Players' Restaurant

By Mark Butcher

A revolutionary dieting craze promises women astonishing weight loss. In a matter of months, Size 16s become svelte size 6s as the new slimming commodity is deemed more valuable than gold or cocaine. Its formula is a mystery, but after women worldwide gleefully overhaul their wardrobes and play hide and seek behind lampposts...the deadly side effects become apparent.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark Butcher
• Release date: Apr 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9780957577411

Book preview

Players’ Restaurant

By Mark G. Butcher

Copyright 2013 Mark G. Butcher

Smashwords edition

This electronic edition was first published in 2013 by WordCheetah.

WordCheetah,

131 Great Titchfield Street,

London,

W1W 5BB.

http://www.wordcheetah.com

ISBN 978-0-9575774-1-1

Cover by Richard Wilkinson

All rights reserved. The right of Mark G. Butcher to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You may not copy, store or distribute, transmit, reproduce this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

For Jake,

My story has become your story.

‘Some suffer too much, others too little.’ – Buddha.

‘Don’t tell me that Lucifer and God don’t car pool.’ – Aesop Rock.

Table of contents

1 - How to (almost) disappear completely

2 - Players

3 - Better times

4 - The occupier

5 - Deadfellas

6 - Dukeout at the Devil’s Punchbowl

7 - The first four

8 - Greens

9 - Letter to The Herald

10 -The man with the blacked out face

11 - Ad break

12 - Children in Weed

13 - Fright/flight

14 - On the road

15 - Jack and Viktoria

16 - Head

17 - Dean and Kaitlin

18 - Media shitstorm

19 - Göteborg

20 - Right turn

21 - Drinks with Carla

22 - Hunger

23 - Pyjama party

24 - Inconvenience

25 - Ghosts

26 - Sankofa

27 - Shoush

28 - Kate Miller

29 - Old friends

Epilogue

1 - How to (almost) disappear completely

She dazzles in child Gucci. Emma Nova read the line once more with wry satisfaction and lit another Marlboro Light. Old habits die hard. She didn’t need the fags to suppress her appetite these days, but still she kept smoking, drawing the wisps of nicotine in to her throat wearily, like a familiar lover’s kiss. The fear was still there, even if the fat was not.

Emma wasn’t slim, she was fashionably skinny. She slid into couture clothes with effortless ease; in a light breeze a Size 8 fluttered like a windsock on her bony frame. The editor of Celeb Hot Body magazine had the luxury of cherry-picking her wardrobe from the cream of the catwalk as fashion PRs tossed designer clothing her way like handfuls of confetti over a skeletal bride.

Her ‘stunning’, sub-waif look was regularly celebrated and debated throughout the mainstream media. One fashion scribe quipped how she had transformed herself from ‘ice cream to waifer’. Emma’s stock had skyrocketed from mid-profile editor to celebrity in her own right due to a phenomenal drop in dress sizes, six in as many months. She had arguably become the world’s most noted slimmer. Thank God, Karen Carpenter did not live to see this, observed another wag darkly.

The increased notoriety and new-found skinny worship was an absolute thrill to Emma; she hired a ballsy, no nonsense agent and flimflamming publicist to cope with the endless demand for interviews and slimming endorsements. The editor was now a bigger deal than her magazine, but that was the only respect where she was larger.

Emma’s life had been radically transformed through a simple smoothie. This foul tasting product had broken the slimming mould. It was the diet craze that actually worked, more in demand and valuable per pound than gold or cocaine. The curious concoction sustained Emma like a camel’s hump in the desert, to the extent that she could miss meals without effort. Her constant cravings for food had disappeared. She still dined at fashionable restaurants, for appearances sake; it was crucial to be seen eating so her transformation was deemed truly effortless through the blinking lenses of the paparazzi. And if, as was often the case, Emma didn’t feel hungry, she could nurse a starter without consuming more than a few forkfuls. Naturally, she always skipped dessert.

Insecurity about her weight and physical appearance had tormented Emma since her youth. Her two sisters had been historically thinner and over the years revelled in taunting their podgy sibling, but they were barely on speaking terms since Emma’s dramatic weight loss; the family dynamic had been flipped on its head. They were unable to get their hands on the exclusive smoothie whereas Emma, the product’s great PR vehicle, received an unlimited free supply and, according to her sneering sisters, an ‘unfair advantage’.

The seismic shift in their relationship delighted Emma and, slowly, she exacted childhood revenge through her media; frequently referencing her sisters in interviews as ‘plus size’ or ‘plump’ with a weary, almost compassionate, sigh. They were a UK Size 6 and 8 respectively. These cutting remarks were heavy payback for years of sustained abuse and crippling eating disorders; for being made to feel less of a woman by weighing more.

The three sisters rarely talked on the phone (Emma could barely speak to either for more than two minutes without hanging up in a blind rage) so to stay in touch they would arrange irregular dinner dates via text. These were often disastrous affairs that left Emma weeping in the toilets. During the meal, her siblings provided regular updates of how full they were; every mouthful of food would be accompanied by a running commentary as Emma contemplated hurling her fork across the table like a vengeful Poseidon.

They thrived on making their elder sister feel enormous and, of course, there was the ongoing competition to see who could leave the most food on their plate. Her sisters would generally push away at least a third of their main course and remark how stuffed they were, how bloated, how their tiny stomachs were unable to take any more of this hideous punishment. Should they make it unscathed through the main course, a single dessert was ordered and shared between them and the perverse sight of three grown women frantically digging their spoons into the same tiny ice cream was not uncommon in London eateries.

The attending waiter was always far too professional to comment on this unorthodox method of dessert consumption. Skinny women and their tag-alongs were capable of almost any food-related madness in their experience. How Emma dreaded those sibling meals. Laura was a ‘rising fashion designer’ (her own words) while Lily worked in PR (exact role unspecified) and their gigantic egos were frequently massaged by a shower of male compliments. Her sisters’ faith in their own appearance was rock-like. They did not cry, they did not vent, they were always having a fabulous time, always having incredible nights out, always gaining promotions and recognition, always enjoying the attentions of rich and gorgeous men. Everyone noticed them, it was as if they owned the world and it revolved around them wearing a big goofy smile upon its face.

As with most anecdotes, there was a fair degree of exaggeration. The sisters were not having quite the marvellous time they suggested, but the downtrodden Emma believed every boastful word and she could see with her own eyes that their claims of weight loss, at least, were genuine. How did they always manage to stay so skinny while she toiled on the scales without progress?

Each sister employed a different slimming modus operandi. Laura enlisted a £250-a-week personal trainer and worked feverishly to maintain her well-toned Size 6. She ran three times a week with her ex-army fitness coach who had developed a successful weights regimen that kept her arms ripped like an athlete’s while she performed Pilates at an advanced level three other days at the local sports centre. Laura had recently started cycling to work through rush hour prompting numerous ‘cors’ and ‘look at thats’ from lazy-eyed white van men as they fixated on her pert behind to the detriment of other motorists and absent-minded pedestrians.

Any compliment, however ribald, was gratuitously related back to Emma with a naughty giggle. Laura painstakingly dieted every day, bar Saturday, where her man of the moment would be allowed to treat her to a luxurious meal at a high end restaurant. She never digested carbohydrates at any other meal time, other than breakfast. Porridge oats, chicken salad (no dressing obviously), salmon fillet and a sparse arrangement of green vegetables was a typical breakdown of her daily calorie intake. In tandem with such an intensive exercise regime, the extra pounds never got a look in.

Lily, meanwhile, was a naturally bony type, borderline androgynous, and therefore more attractive in the way she appeared to weight conscious women than men who preferred their eyes to linger on more feminine forms. She compensated by being an outrageous flirt – no man below 40 was safe from her advances, regardless of marital status and availability, even so-called friend’s boyfriends, past and present, were open season on a horny whim. And every one of these dalliances was regaled to Emma with lurid colour while Laura listened conspiratorially with almost ghoulish delight.

Few of Lily’s beaus lasted long, they tended to be short-term engagements as she was incapable of forging a non-physical connection, and this was Emma’s first form of attack if her own weight issues were highlighted too aggressively. Once, the two had to be physically pulled apart by their sibling as a catfight ensued. It’s not a fair fight, sneered Laura as she stood growling between them at Mezo, You’re not even in the same weight class. The fat sister clenched her teeth to prevent tears flooding down her swollen cheeks.

In her misery, Emma’s weight swelled to over 14 stone after she ‘ballooned’ on endless boxes of junk food and orange cuisine. Late night kebabs, KFC, McDonalds, fish and chips, she gobbled them all with gusto, often busting past the 3,500 calorie-a-day mark, according to her ill-fated calorie counting campaign. Using Weight Watchers, Emma regularly bypassed the 40 point limit; her three weekly visits to the gym were, therefore, simply pissing in the wind. The weight hung around like an obsessed stalker.

Emma was grimly aware that the weight of Celeb Hot Body magazine’s editor was under continual scrutiny and she could ill afford to lose herself in dietary freefall. No-one demanded her to be a Size 0, it was (for obvious reasons) not in her contract, but over Christmas drinks the CEO verbally insisted she not resemble an elephant in a peanut butter factory. Thinner, more glamorous women were always waiting in the wings to replace an errant editorial blimp.

A ‘chance’ meeting during Milan fashion week arrested the slide. She had little desire to attend the Prada Show while resembling a woman in the early stages of gigantism, but her presence was mandatory. Emma felt like an oak trunk in a forest of twiglets. She was the only Size 16 in the room. Even the wizened, hawk-like Italian fashionistas with their pinched, nipped and tucked faces had somehow managed to retain their slender forms, if not the flower of youth, into near senility.

Emma had been uncomfortably taking notes, trying to inconspicuously brush away the sweat beads forming on her temples under the callous glare of the lights, and not shoot envious glances at the elfin Victoria Beckham and annoyingly cute Sienna Miller, stoically casting their eyes across the latest fashions, when she was approached by a slender Hepburn clone in a painted-on black dress who stepped out from behind a couple of Size 10s grazing on complimentary bruschetta.

As Emma waited grimly for a catty remark or thinly-veiled putdown, she was greeted with a disarming smile and an intriguing proposition. Despite her lack of pounds, the tiny, dark-haired girl made no allusions to the editor’s rapid weight gain. Instead, she gushed about Emma’s achievements in the media, including her notable invention of the term ‘anorexchic’, and how she, and the company she represented, would love to have the esteemed editor of Celeb Hot Body magazine on board to endorse a new ‘can’t miss’ dieting product. Emma, who had tried and failed every imaginable weight loss fad over the years, required little persuasion. She was desperate to shed the small rolls of fat she had collected after her long-term relationship with an Italian boyfriend had turned sour, abusive and ended abruptly with her being ditched at Sharm El Sheikh airport, sunburned and crying without her suitcase after the holiday from hell.

With Emma’s spirits at an all-time low, and her career at stake, she willingly grasped the lifeline extended to her by a shadowy unknown, not caring to see where it led, looking enviously at this stick thin girl who might blow away in a strong gust of wind and wanting what she had, whatever the moral cost.

Emma remembered the first time she held the precious smoothie in her hands. It didn’t smell great, like a liquidized, day old Bolognese, but she closed her nostrils and pictured the end result, her being skinny and marvellous and the absolute envy of her sisters. She made a silent wish over the 20ml dosing cup, like a birthday cake, having no idea of the repercussions to come. And yet the transformation that followed was so sudden, so remarkable, that she reeled in shock the next morning when she placed her naked feet upon her digital scales.

The excess weight fell off effortlessly, pangs of hunger subsided, tight fitting clothes became roomy, tent-like. Embarrassingly, her work trousers fell down when she stood to address an editorial meeting and Emma was forced to commandeer a nearby bulldog clip to keep herself decent for the rest of the day. She arrived home in a giddy, almost feverish joy and ferreted through the right side of her wardrobe where all the smaller clothes had been shoved to one side. In a frenzy, she tossed her work attire on the wooden floors and, in a quiver of expectation, tried on clothes from three months and a size ago. They fitted like a dream. She could breathe without her waist feeling under attack by abdominal strangulation. Emma Nova felt invincible, reborn in miniature.

She now Googled herself every morning without fail; it was the new self-love for egocentrics. Emma Nova’s name was featured on every dieting messageboard, female-oriented website, celebrity or media column without exception; pictures of her smiling cheesily on the arm of influential TV producers, banking millionaires and bachelor oligarchs sprung up like proud new saplings across the internet. In an anti-skinny rage, a pro-chubby website photo-shopped her emaciated face on to a blade of grass and this ludicrous image became a cult t-shirt phenomenon for sarcastic anorexchics and camp Nova idolators alike.

Emma noticed that a new story had popped up on the search engine in the 12 minutes since her last online investigation. The Guardian was referencing her radical weight loss, but chiefly highlighting fresh concerns surrounding the ethics and ingredients of the smoothie. She took a deep breath as the story loaded and crossed her fingers for gushing praise and more jealous references to her rake-like form.

The article’s principal angle concerned the mysterious contents of the smoothie rather than hailing its astonishing success. Everyone knew the concoction was meat-based, but what was the origin of the ingredients? The Guardian speculated. "Leading conservationists fear the endangered okapi is the secret ingredient in the Smoochie Smoothie diet craze and have called on women to consider the moral implications. They have also appealed to the diet-obsessed media to stop championing the genocide of a species for superficial reasons.

"Campaigners have demanded answers from the smoothie’s creators SS Dietary Ltd who have, so far, refused to comment while the company’s outsourced PR department Ha Ha PR! refused to allow our phone calls past an incomprehensible work experience receptionist. However, The Guardian was told by one former SS employee, off the record, that the rare okapi was not the main ingredient in the smoothie, but admitted it did originate from an ‘unorthodox’ source.

"No doubt SS Dietary is buoyed by the strong sales of its product; the basic starter pack alone costs an initial £500, but despite this prohibitive cost, during a worldwide recession, these diet aids are flying out of their warehouses in record numbers with supply unable to cope with the unprecedented demand. As such, (possibly counterfeit) starter packs have sprung up on eBay and are selling for over £1,000 in some extreme cases of panic bidding.

Renowned fashion designer Caterina Umbrian recently stated in an interview with this paper’s ‘Style Guide’ that the incredible dieting results of the smoothie may mean ‘the death of Size 12 and above’ and hinted that retailers could stop making larger sizes as women shrink across the globe. A sensational statement from someone so respected in the fashion industry.

Accompanying the article was an inset photo of an unassuming okapi peacefully grazing in the Congo Jungle while the main shot featured a beaming Emma in all her tiny glory, hamming it up for the cameras in a miniscule Stella McCartney white strapless dress. The caption read ‘How to (almost) disappear completely’: Emma Nova, the poster girl of Smoochie Smoothie and queen of the ‘minus size’ look, is the slimming world’s belle du jour having been the first high profile user of the product. She has incredibly dipped from a US Size 10 to a US Size -2 in under six months.’

So what were the mystery ingredients? Emma knew the smoothie involved a meat content; she could taste it, anyone could, but when she grilled SS Dietary’s CEO Mike Williams over a light dinner at Claridges he became evasive. After a few more glasses of Bollinger, he sheepishly confessed it was ‘something exotic’ they had discovered in central Africa and maintained it was not on the endangered list, at least, not yet.

Emma Googled okapi. It resembled an exotic brown deer with a zebra’s bottom, but she discovered, after greater research (two more clicks), that it was, incongruously, part of the giraffe family. She wondered if they might start serving this delicacy at The Ivy. That would be fantastic. Emma made a mental note to request a slice of the hoofed animal the next time she dined there.

An additional benefit of the smoothie was the effect it had on the user’s sex drive. Emma’s libido had shot into orbit since she started using the supplement. She found herself actively seeking sex with random, multiple partners to sustain her rising needs, but she had to be careful, given her profile, not to tarnish her professional reputation. Kate Moss had managed to retain her mystique, and enjoy the benefits of serial dating, but despite her rapid drop in size to model-ready clothes Emma was no Kate. She was painfully thin, not a fashion icon, nor gorgeous, for that matter.

Rather, Emma was a ‘handsome’ 35 with a fashionable black bob and killer heels and it was her air of control, rather than her femininity, that made her attractive to members of the opposite sex with judgment issues. Not everyone was interested. She had been shunned by a low-ranking graphic designer who resisted her advances while they worked late on a deadline. He had backed off in mild horror and uncharitably labelled her ‘a Gucci-sporting cougar’. She might have been a MILF, if she had produced kids and not prioritised her career over family and personal relationships, but she was definitely not a cougar.

She did, however, enjoy similar appetites. Emma had maintained a string of boyfriends since falling under the smoothie’s intoxicating spell, but her suitors’ valiant attempts at pleasuring this insatiable, tiny woman could not sustain her escalating needs. She contemplated joining an x-rated adult dating site to satisfy her considerable desires, but the fear of negative publicity held her back and left her ravenous sexual hunger gnawing away at her soul, miserably unfulfilled.

She felt the itch particularly hard that night, steam almost rose from her hungry crotch, but none of her latest boyfriends returned her repeated text requests for sex. Inexplicably, she fantasized about the young Romanian porter in her apartment building, he was friendly and wholesome and always smiled at her through gapped teeth as she clip-clopped through the lobby, and then she scolded herself. Surely, she was not that desperate? She would just have to relieve herself tonight.

Emma gazed longingly at the skinny person in the mirror and wished she could reach out and touch this vision, stroke its perfect cheekbones and run her fingers over that svelte body like a hungry, new lover. The thought made her shudder to near climax.

Returning to her online diversions, Emma clicked to enlarge a photo of her looking exquisite on the red carpet at the premiere of the new Anne Hathaway movie ‘She’s All Fat’. In the background, members of the public were crammed behind security barriers, their arms spread out in desperation, autograph books, glossy pictures, marker pens and fashion magazines clutched tightly in their extended fingers.

They were calling out to her, frantically hoping that she might turn and notice them, acknowledge their humble worship with a smile or a wave.

Emma nimbly moved her fingers southwards as she stared at the beautiful girl in the picture.

2 - Players

On a muggy, late August evening of insufferable heat when the walls of her flat seemed to sweat and her ailing refrigeration unit hummed and groaned in the death throes, Kate Miller tried to commit suicide to join her Smeg fridge in oblivion.

They were destined for different places. The fridge would be hauled off by two burly council workers who grumbled as they slowly edged the expired appliance out of her flat, straining with every step as the unit threatened to topple them over like dominoes onto the oatmeal coloured carpet. It would most likely see out its days in a landfill in southern China and provide sufficient home and comfort to foster several generations of unclassified insects who would never see the light of the day yet become intimately familiar with the inside of a clapped-out Scandinavian refrigeration unit.

For Kate, the sometime hand model and promotions girl, noted for her pervasive nonchalance as much as her effortless beauty, a more complicated route lay ahead. She had been watching a pro-anorexia ‘Karen Carpenter weight loss DVD’, allegedly from the 1980s, while dabbing the corners of cool Doritos in to large globs of sour cream, salsa and guacamole dip in what she viewed as an ‘ironic pig-out’.

The screen was brutally honest. Carpenter’s bony right leg stretched forward, threatening to pop her child-like knee cap out of the 35-inch plasma. On closer examination, her miniscule pink legwarmers resembled the thin, plastic pins of a flexing Barbie doll. Behind this musically gifted, but skeletal woman, a number of bouffanted converts to this doomed-before-it-started fitness fad swayed like wind-blown saplings to a Miami Sound Machine electro track. Gloria Estefan was singing about a beat and the moving of feeeeeet. Catchy in a Hepatitis B sort of way, mused Kate.

Previously unreleased! screamed a green day-glo sticker on the front of the DVD case, a slogan also repeated in Turkish below: ‘Değil evvelce serbest bırakmak!’ The weight loss secrets of one of the world’s foremost anorexics had not lifted Kate’s fragile spirits in the way she had hoped. Grudgingly, she sipped the lukewarm coke she had purchased from a nearby 24-hour convenience store. Inevitably, in the mid-roast of the heat wave, the cold cokes were long since departed and their replacements had only just arrived from a humid storeroom. She had groped the cokes at the back of the fridge, hoping for a renegade, cold drink that may have eluded the reach of previous customers, but without success. Reluctantly, Kate had bought a warm can and now she unhappily drained every unsatisfying drop as if the carbonated caffeine was the very flavour of bitterness itself.

This was a young woman at odds with herself. She had often told temporary confidantes over a glass of Chardonnay that she did not care if she lived or died. They laughed it off as mere attention seeking, despite Kate’s protestations of seriousness. Why would someone like you want to kill themselves? they replied, eyeing the beautiful girl with silky brown hair and big brown eyes with suspicion. Kate was an unusual case in this regard; she did not suffer from textbook depression or endure long dark nights of the soul. It was something different. A sudden feeling of blankness that made her wish she could flick a switch and turn off her life like unnecessary electrics. This curious but beautiful girl was essentially bored by what life had to offer. She had expected more.

Kate was suspicious about the DVD’s authenticity and decided further electronic investigation was necessary. The first dozen or so links on Google reinforced the validity of the Carpenter fitness DVD, but further research revealed that the tragic minstrel died one year before Miami Sound Machine started dropping their funky Cuban beats. It was not Karen, but a doomed Nineties lookalike named Lela Nurowski, hers a tragedy no less important, but without a wonderful, haunting voice to redeem her legacy. Kate turned the DVD off in disgust and searched for her pills. No sense in hanging around for the 10 o’clock news. It was probably bad.

She had tried to commit suicide before and failed, thanks to confusion over the strength of the pills she had swallowed in one mighty gulp like a whale hoovering plankton. Not all answers can be found on Google, Kate had discovered. Following that botched first attempt, she had woken too weak to fend off the stomach pump that was plunged into her throat and the chugging charcoal kiss that followed as the narrow eyes of nurses, judgmental and jaded, narrowed still further; the annoyance of the on-duty doctor (who, depending on the evening, would rather be tucking in his kids or fondling his mistress under the covers) evident by the dark flame of disgust that roared up in his pupils. Another one. They saved her nonetheless. So Kate was forced to start over. She returned to work a week later as if nothing had happened. It made no difference. It was all empty to her, living the everyday or the final act of surrender itself.

Attempt two was starkly different. Kate didn’t take the breakneck wheelie trolley tour through A&E after being discovered in a pool of vomit by her landlord who every day since had reminded her of that first botched suicide by muttering, Thank god I had a key. No, after swallowing a fist full of stronger pills and knocking them back with half a can of lukewarm coke and a Karen Carpenter CD playing on repeat by her bedside, Kate rose to another day, after what felt like the most perfect sleep of her 25-year-old life. She actually woke up refreshed.

Strangely invigorated, Kate emerged from her sunflower patterned duvet and slid out of her bed towards the full length mirror opposite to scrutinize her post-suicide self more carefully. She had dressed herself in her best lingerie, a royal blue La Senza two-piece. This apparent statement of vanity showing her disregard for herself only went so far. Kate may have craved an exit from this world, but she still wanted to die beautiful and, against the tide of her own self-loathing, she gazed at the alluring reflection in the mirror and had to admit that she looked radiant in the circumstances. Karen was still singing in the background, timeless as ever.

Kate suddenly became aware of two toad-like eyes; the lifeless orbs of her portly landlord whose flabby countenance was peeking through the blinds of her ground floor flat window. This was par for the course. The landlord lingered near his rented property seven days a week; Kate saw more of him than her own family, due to his insistence in carrying out minor repairs to the two flats he owned in the same block, essentially to nose into his tenants’ business and insinuate himself into their lives. In the event of her death, she had a strong feeling her deposit would be slyly pocketed by Terry Montecristo for potential works, but that was a battle for the beneficiaries of her will – The Cheryl Tweedy Foundation - to contest.

The phone rang. Kate answered on impulse, rather than a desire to renew her connection with the outside world and regretted the decision instantly. It was Carla from the agency. There was a job in Kensington in an hour, a meet and greet at a swish members-only restaurant. It paid well, ridiculously well, £250 for one hour’s work and that was after the statutory agency fee had been subtracted. Can I confirm you’ll be there? said Carla on the other end of the line, her fake cheerfulness necessary to conceal the naturally bored tone of her voice.

I’ll be there, said Kate without feeling, already planning to fill her day with useless junk before a hat-trick suicide attempt. Text me the details.

No need! countered Carla, a reasonably young, reasonably attractive girl whose self-value far exceeded her reasonable worth. They’re sending a car to pick you up. This restaurant is a biiiiiiig (dramatic word stretch) deal. This might (dramatic pause) be P.Diddy’s new place.

For the first time, a hint of genuine excitement seemed to enter Carla’s voice and perform breathless cartwheels.

The car will be there at 11am. They know your address. So be ready and be good. This could be a great repeat client.

I’m surprised you put me forward if they are that biiiiiiiig a deal, said Kate acerbically.

We didn’t. But they asked for you specifically. Don’t let the side down, Kate. Ciao.

Ciao. Carla’s only connection with Italy was her love of M&S pasta salads. Ciao, bloody ciao, Carla.

Bemused by her sudden swing from suicide case to dollybird greeter, Kate carefully closed all the blinds in her flat to avoid the prying eyes of her landlord while she changed, going as far as to individually push all the faulty slats shut. But there was one broken slat she could not alter to suit her privacy.

It was not that she considered her landlord to be a pervert, but he was always looking in. Often he was mere feet behind the cloakroom while she sat down in the act of peeing, opening and closing the garage door behind the outside wall for no valid reason. It was as if he felt his property might blow away in the wind if he wasn’t there throughout the working day to acknowledge its existence. Kate had already decided she would not be renewing her lease, one way or the other.

She dressed to impress, self-consciously, one eye fixed on the broken slat in the blinds, pushing herself through the monotonous, morning make-up routine that burdens so many women, plain and beautiful, before squirting herself with enough D&G ‘The One’ perfume to swivel every male head on Kensington High Street. Beauty