Simon runs his fingers through obedient hair and lifts his bag up and across his body. Commuters stand, eager to get off, all noticing that it is lighter than it has been when they’ve got off this same train recently. A little fog of optimism wafts through the carriage. Catherine presses her pelvis into Simon’s bottom as she stands in the line behind him. The urgency of commuters, the urgency of lovers. Simon moves forward, away from her, in case he reveals himself. The fingertips of her right hand tickle the fingertips of his right hand, hidden low in the melee. They can’t get off the train together since Simon spotted his triathlon clubmate on it a few weeks ago, whose wife is a great friend of Laura’s. If they were to talk in front of anyone else they would give themselves away immediately. Too silent and it’s obvious they are comfortable and intimate; polite chat would feel strange to two people in love.
Catherine texted Simon halfway through the journey, suggesting he gets off the train and goes to her house. Hope no one sees. Find an excuse to stay the night. Finally sleep together, in a home. Her home.
Too risky he thought. And didn’t reply.
Doors ding, buttons are pressed, and a sea of commuters step out of the fug and into the brighter evening, keen to get home to wives, husbands, children, Champions League. Catherine knows they won’t have time alone in the alleyway tonight, having got off such a packed train.
Too risky.
She feels spurned.
She wants two minutes alone with Simon, to look him in the eye, press into him and tell him she will make it so worth his while if he goes to her house and not back to Laura, his dowdy wife, and their three children. Catherine can offer him a warm bed, peace, love all night, and if he’s really good she will fix them a cooked breakfast before they both head off to the station together in the morning, just so he knows how much greener the grass is.
‘Please,’ she says to him quietly in the alleyway, through gritted teeth.
‘I so want to but people have seen me now. Lee from Kettlebells was at the station. If I say I’m stuck in Cambridge, I can’t see anyone who knows me here. Tomorrow. Let’s do it tomorrow. I’ll find a way.’
Catherine ups her pace and peels away without saying another word. She is not used to feeling second best. All her life she has been treated like a queen, her preferences came first, she got her way, and even though she knows Simon is married and has a depth and connection with Laura and their children that she cannot yet understand, so sure is she of her power in this relationship she knows she can make Simon take bigger risks.
He watches her from behind. A black blazer over a pencil skirt. Her frame, her walk, her beautiful neck, and as the gap between them in the alleyway widens, he knows that he can’t go on not waking up next to her.
*
Nena is in a small studio with a camera pointing towards her face as she reads birthday cards for broadcast tomorrow, which feels strange given it’s her own birthday today. Yesterday she started filming her own-fronted Nena’s Tiny Dancers show that will go on air in autumn, and she is glowing under the studio lights.
‘Louis is three today, happy birthday from Mummy, Daddy, Alfie and your pet rabbit Tweak… Bea it’s your birthday! You’re two today, and here’s a picture of you with your brother Elijah at the zoo. We hope you and your animal friends have a wonderful day, all our love Mummy, Daddy and Jah-Jah…’
Tom is watching from the gallery. He studies Nena’s face up close. Anticipation makes his safe hands sweat. He waits for the next card. Nena opens it.
‘Nena, you’re twenty-eight today…’
She reads the rest of the card in silence, and looks up at the gallery with tears in her eyes.
‘Yes, yes I will!’ she cries softly into her mic while a giant inflatable robot reads over her shoulder. Nena brings two palms to her glistening face. ‘Sorry everyone, we’ll have to reshoot the birthday cards.’
Cameramen clap. The floor manager cheers so vigorously her head set slips off her ears and down her back. Tom runs down the stairs from the gallery and takes Nena in his arms. Nena Oliveira, who couldn’t commit to one man just three months ago, is committing to Tom Vernon for the rest of her life.
‘Will Arlo be OK with this?’ she whispers.
‘Oh yeah. He almost asked you himself this morning.’
*
Five bikini-clad models line up in front of James on the white sand of a beach 6,000 miles from Maya. Twelve Apostles watch him work, but even the spectacular sight of lush green mountains jutting out of the ground like a windbreak can’t make this an easy day at the office. Everyone on the trip is going to James with their gripes, their complaints and their demands. And today, even patient James has had enough of it. Melody fell out with Tara because they both wanted to wear the coral bikini; India refused to wear anything other than the halter-neck because halter-necks make her boobs look ‘real perky’; and Kim has been sniping at Anja because, last night, Anja slept with Pez the photographer and Kim said it was unprofessional and gives models a bad name. James is just shocked that Anja would want to sleep with Pez.
Pez is a stringy Mancunian with a beard as long as his straggly brown hair and he has been the biggest diva of the trip. At first his hotel room wasn’t tall enough, so James arranged for him to be moved to a different hotel with rooms with higher ceilings, further down the strip. Then Pez was overheard telling his assistant Joe that he thought Tara was ‘a bit fat’, and when Tara was told this (helpfully by Melody), she came running to James in tears and said she wouldn’t take her robe off unless Pez said sorry. Pez refused, but said Joe would say sorry for him – and did that count? Tara accepted. Pez and Dominic almost came to blows when Pez told Dominic to get out of shot and called Dominic ‘a hairy fucking meatball’. James was almost punched in the face by his best friend as he jumped between Dominic and Pez to break up the fight. Fortunately, Pez’s assistant, Joe, seems to be the thickest-skinned assistant on the planet and Lisa and Yoshie, the brilliant hair and make-up girls, said even Terry Richardson was less of a diva.
But given that Sebastian and Duncan from Fisher + Whyman have liked Pez’s work and put his lack of charm down to him being a creative genius, Dominic and James are having to smile politely and give Pez what he wants, which right now is a tequila sunrise.
‘What a cunt, I can’t wait for this to wrap,’ says Dominic, who can’t bring himself to look at Pez since meatball-gate. ‘We’re not taking him to Jamaica.’
‘We have to, he’s signed,’ says James, who after five days of art-directing the How Femme Are You? shoot is completely drained. ‘Plus the kill fee is almost as much as his fee. I’m afraid we have to go through all this again in September.’
Dominic looks like an exhausted child, brown eyes melting down his face like chocolate buttons.
‘At least they’re happy.’ James nods towards Sebastian and Duncan, as smartly dressed as they can be at the beach in 30-degree sunshine, wearing tailored shorts and polo shirts, beers awkwardly in hand, smitten by long legs, Amazonian shoulders and perky boobs. Everyone else looks altogether more casual.
‘Guys, guys, what a job! This is going to look awesome!’ Toothy English tumbles from Sebastian’s mouth.
‘We think so,’ says James in his denim Bermudas and Breton striped tee, forcing his 4,000th smile of the trip. James wasn’t feeling the Femme campaign before they all boarded a plane from Heathrow to Cape Town to shoot it, but given how stressful the trip has been, and how Dominic is quicker to fly off the handle than he is, going into firefighting mode has made James forget how bored he is by the entire advertising world he inhabits.
‘What time’s Joze arriving?’ asks Sebastian, intoxicated by hops and beauty and now overly familiar.
‘Joze?’ snarls Dominic, forgetting Sebastian isn’t Pez.
James speaks for his friend, extinguishing another fire. ‘Josie. She’ll be here at five. Dominic, why don’t you head out to the airport now and meet her, I can finish up here.’ James gives Dominic a knowing nod. Olive skin a little darker than a week ago, a freckle or two might even have come out on his nose.
The light is about to hit the golden hour, just before the sun goes down. Pez takes a sip from his tequila sunrise, hands it to Joe, and finally stops whining so he can make the most of the light. The last chance to get The Shot before the trip is over, before the bikinis and beauty products are packed into silver flight cases, before everyone will go back to their hotel for one last chance to let loose before the obligatory post-party fallout.
James and Sebastian stand on the sand, beer in hand, and look at the models working the camera while Pez shoots. James feels a first hint of calm as his mind flits to a more relaxing week ahead. He, Dominic and Josie will take a road trip along the coast, they’ll visit sun-drenched vineyards and will eat the best seafood they’ve ever had. Josie will ask James why Kitty didn’t want to come out too and tag a holiday onto the boys’ work trip as they have done before, and James will answer, ‘I don’t know.’