Going La La Page 2

  The noise inside the cabin suddenly rose to a high-pitched whine as she felt the Jumbo begin its slow journey down the runway. Craning her neck, she stared out of the small porthole window, watching as Heathrow Airport began to whiz past, blending into a blur of grey concrete. Suddenly there was a surge as the engines roared beneath her and she felt the thrust of the g-force as the plane tilted sharply upwards, the wheels leaving the ground.

  Taking a deep breath, she slunk down in her seat. Well, this was it. It was finally happening. She was waving goodbye to London and her life as she knew it. A mixture of relief, panic and second thoughts washed over her. Was she doing the right thing? Frankie didn’t know. All she knew was that yesterday she’d been depressed, dumped and on the dole and today she was on a 747 bound for LA and the bright lights of Hollywood. It was too late to change her mind, but as daunting as it was, she knew she couldn’t have stayed. It would have been just too painful. Closing her eyes, she wiped away the tear that had trickled down the side of her nose and for the first time in ages started to smile. Yep, the decision was made and, whether she liked it or not, there was to be no turning back. Frankie was going to Hollywood . . .

  2

  It had all started less than a week ago when she’d discovered the receipt from Tiffany’s the jeweller’s. Not that Frankie had been meaning to go through her boyfriend’s pockets, but it was a Monday morning, she was late and she’d been looking for change for the tube. After taking apart the sofa – cushion by cushion – scouring the edges of the carpet along the skirting boards and emptying all those little candle-holders and ethnic bowls along the mantelpiece, she’d almost given up. Until in desperation she pulled out Hugh’s grey woollen overcoat from the cupboard in the hallway.

  Breast pocket – nothing; inside pocket – an empty Snickers wrapper and a lottery ticket; side pocket – a pound coin and a scrunched-up receipt. She was about to throw it away when something stopped her. A gut reaction, sixth sense, woman’s intuition: whatever it was, something caused her to carefully unfurl the piece of paper, lay it on the kitchen work-surface and smooth out the creases with the palm of her hand. That’s when she saw it came from Tiffany’s and the words ‘item of jewellery’ printed underneath. Feeling a jolt of excitement, she tried to see the amount, but the ink had gone all blurry. Undeterred, she held it up to the sash window and squinted – it looked like a 2 and a few noughts. Her mind raced from nought to 2,000 in less than a second. Two thousand pounds!

  Her heart accelerated into fifth gear to keep pace with her imagination. Hugh had bought jewellery at Tiffany’s for two thousand pounds. Nothing cost that much, unless of course . . . She couldn’t bring herself to even think the words, let alone say them. But it was her birthday in a couple of days and he had been acting very oddly recently. Still, surely he wouldn’t have, he couldn’t have . . . could he? She looked at the receipt. He had! He’d bought an engagement ring. There, she’d said it. He’d bought a Tiffany’s engagement ring and was going to propose – and on her birthday!

  Feeling her legs tremble as if they were going to buckle and give way beneath her, she plonked herself down on top of the stainless-steel pedal bin, still clutching the receipt. Her stomach was doing gymnastics and she felt as if she was going to laugh and cry at the same time. It was such a surprise. Such a fantastic surprise. Looking down at her left hand, she wiggled her ring finger in anticipation. Mrs Hamilton, Mrs Hugh Hamilton. Grinning ecstatically, she thought about Hugh. She’d had other boyfriends, but she’d never felt like this before. Never had a man made her regress from being a twenty-eight-year-old career girl with a private pension, gym membership and a Boots club card, to a dippy, daft, dumb-struck teenager every time he even looked at her. Never before had she spent her precious weekends getting grass stains out of golf trousers or shivering under an umbrella in the pouring rain, watching him playing rugby, when she could be snugly tucked up on the sofa with a cup of tea and an old black and white movie. But now she did. And she enjoyed it. Frankie was in love.

  They’d met nearly two years ago. It had been the week before Christmas and she and her flatmate Rita had just been bluntly informed by their scrooge of a landlord, Mr Figgins, that the lease was up on their cramped flat above Toni’s Tanning Salon on Westbourne Grove and he wanted them out before the new year. His timing was lousy. Rita – receptionist/shop assistant/part-time hairdressers’ model and now budding actress – was in panto in Southend-on-Sea (‘You may laugh, but playing the back end of Daisy the Cow is just the beginning,’ she’d sulked at Frankie, who, on hearing the news, had collapsed in a fit of hysterics and nearly choked on a veggie sausage. ‘Every actress has to start somewhere. Just look at Anna Friel – she was a lesbian!’) and it was therefore left up to Frankie to sort out their housing crisis.

  Which is why she’d sneaked out of the office at four thirty one afternoon and fought her way through hordes of half-crazed Christmas shoppers spewing out of the tube station hungry for tinsel, Christmas compilation CDs and glittery boob tubes for the office party. With only six shopping days to go, Kensington High Street had become a no-go area – one false move and you could be poked in the eye with ‘three for the price of two’ rolls of metallic wrapping paper – and shops that were normally perfectly safe were now potentially hazardous. In Marks & Spencer, empty shelves in the food hall were causing a threatening furore among present-buyers desperate to snap up boxes of chocolate truffles and gift-wrapped wooden cases of vintage port and matured Stilton, while in WH Smith an ugly fight had broken out over the last pack of charity Christmas cards.

  Making little progress with polite ‘excuse me’s, Frankie had adopted a rugby stance – head tucked in, elbows out – and, breaking out of the scrum, headed blindly for the blue and white striped awning of Binkworths Estate Agents. On making it, she’d wearily pushed open the heavy glass door and had been hit by the warmth of central heating. Loosening her fluffy mohair scarf, she’d stumbled gratefully inside and, with flushed cheeks and watering eyes, slumped herself and her quilted puffa jacket into one of the shiny leatherette chairs in the sales and lettings department.

  ‘Do you need any help?’

  Frankie looked up from the glossy property magazine she was idly flicking through and into the velvety green eyes of a very good-looking man who’d sat down behind the desk opposite. Raising his eyebrows, he smiled at her as he leaned back against his chair and ran his fingers briskly through his blond hair. Frankie was slightly taken aback. She’d been expecting to meet one of the usual run-of-the-mill estate agents: early thirties ex-public schoolboy, pigeon-toed and portly, wearing a nasty pinstriped suit and pinky ring, with a permanently red face from a shirt collar that was too tight and dug into his burgeoning double chin. But the man behind the desk was none of the above. Slim, self-confident and sexy, this particular estate agent was a very handsome member of the male species.

  Feeling suddenly self-conscious, she promptly removed her mangy old sheepskin hat. It was one of those that had flaps you could pull down over your ears – the type that always makes models in Vogue look seductive in a lip-glossed Russian-spy kind of way but makes anybody without Kate Moss cheekbones look like a chubby five-year-old in a furry bonnet. Frankie fell into the second category.

  ‘Er, yes, I’m looking to rent a two-bedroomed flat,’ she answered, fiddling with her hair, which had been squashed against her forehead in a highly unattractive side parting.

  Mr Good-looking straightened up in his chair, nonchalantly loosened his tie and undid the top button on his collar. ‘So is there anything you’re particularly interested in?’

  Yes, you, thought Frankie, watching his Adam’s apple bobbing seductively up and down against the pale clean-shaven skin of his throat and wishing she was one of those confident, mouthy types like Rita who wouldn’t think twice about chatting a guy up. ‘Erm, not really,’ she mumbled awkwardly. Stick her with a bunch of girlie mates and she could talk the hind leg off a donkey – hell, she’d even been a m
ember of the debating society at university (albeit she’d only gone once after discovering it consisted of blokes in corduroy jackets with elbow patches spouting a load of old twaddle) – but unexpectedly coming face to face with the best-looking bloke she’d seen all year had turned her into someone with the vocabulary of David Beckham.

  Mr Good-looking continued staring at her, waiting expectantly.

  She tried again. ‘But I’m willing to consider anything. You see, I’ve got less than two weeks to find a new flat.’

  ‘Why, what happens in two weeks?’ His brow furrowed with concern. It made him look even more handsome.

  Frankie bit her lip. It was becoming increasingly difficult to concentrate on her housing problem and not on the estate agent. ‘Our landlord kicks us out.’

  ‘Us?’ He picked up a Mont Blanc pen from his desk and began twirling it between his fingers like a propeller.

  ‘My flatmate Rita and I. Luckily she’s OK for a couple of months because she’s away in a panto.’

  ‘She’s an actress?’

  ‘You could say that . . .’ A smile played on Frankie’s lips as she tried not to laugh at the thought of Rita trotting around on stage in her black and white Friesian costume.

  Sharing her smile, he rested his chin on his elbows and leaned across the desk towards her. ‘You do realise that with it being nearly Christmas, it could take a little longer than two weeks to find you a rental property—’

  Frankie interrupted. ‘It can’t. I’ve got to find somewhere.’ She thought about Figgins the landlord, with his nicotine-stained fingers and revolting habit of wiping his constantly running nose on the back of his cardigan sleeve while he spoke to her chest. She wasn’t going to ask him for any favours.

  ‘There’s nobody who could put you up for a couple of weeks?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘A boyfriend perhaps?’ He lowered his voice against the steady hum of the office.

  ‘Nope.’ She smiled, feeling surprised and slightly embarrassed. Anybody would think he was chatting her up.

  He was. Breaking into a broad grin, he gave the bezel on the face of his very expensive-looking Rolex a satisfied twirl. ‘Well, I’m sure we’ll be able to come up with something . . .’ He nodded, swinging his legs from behind his desk. Easing himself up from his black leather chair, he strode past one of his portly pinstriped colleagues and over to the filing cabinet. ‘But first I’ll need to take a few details.’ Yanking open the top drawer, he grabbed a photocopied piece of paper, slammed the drawer shut, strode back across the room and handed it to her. ‘By the way, I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Hugh. Hugh Hamilton.’ He held out his hand.

  Standing up, Frankie hurriedly pulled off her pink woolly mitten. ‘I’m Frankie. Pleased to meet you.’ She shook his hand, trying not to blush as his fingers wrapped warmly around hers. Was she imagining it or was he holding on to her hand for just a little too long? Nope, this was definitely longer than normal. A gust of excitement fluttered in her stomach, and she couldn’t help hoping there might be more on the market than she’d bargained for after all.

  Over the next week Frankie met Hugh many more times. Unfortunately, it was only on a strictly professional basis, and after looking round a dozen dodgy flats with second bedrooms that could have been mistaken for closets, hideous 1970s avocado bathroom suites with shag-pile toilet seat covers and enough mould in the kitchen cupboards to make a year’s worth of penicillin, any hopes she’d harboured of finding a flat, or getting a date with Hugh, were fading fast.

  Which is why she was taken by surprise in flat number thirteen on the twenty-seventh floor of a council high-rise in Acton. Fully fitted with rising damp and an infestation of cockroaches, she was ready to admit defeat and give up when Hugh cornered her by the fridge freezer and confessed his undying love. Well, not exactly – but he did admit to giving her a guided tour of the worst flats in west London, just so he could carry on seeing her. Flattered – and somewhat relieved that she wasn’t going to have to live in a squat after all – she agreed to a date. Seventy-two hours later and she was celebrating New Year’s Eve drinking champagne and singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ in her lovely new flat with her lovely new boyfriend. Correction: by half past ten she’d finished off the Moët and, unable to remember any of the words to ‘Auld Lang Syne’, was being drunk and disorderly with Hugh under the duvet. It was the perfect ending to 1997.

  Now it was 1999 and they were living together. Not that they’d planned to or anything, but three months before Rita had legged it to Los Angeles, leaving Frankie with the problem of trying to find someone new to share the rent with. It hadn’t been easy, and after meeting several would-be flatmates images from Single White Female began to spring to mind. Just as she’d resigned herself to sharing her Earl Grey teabags with a potential murderer, Hugh had said she could move in to his bachelor pad in Fulham. It was the result she’d been hoping for.

  Not that their cohabiting hadn’t led to a few teething problems. Hugh’s suggestion that she move in hadn’t allowed for the sheer tonnage of Frankie’s belongings. Minimalist Hugh, with his Habitat two-seater and concealed cupboards, was less than impressed with Frankie’s collection of clutter. Never one to travel light, she’d crammed his VW Golf GTI with five binliners of clothes, her cheese plant which she’d had since university and was now a straggling six-footer held together by pieces of Sellotape and string, her collection of old movies, a cardboard box full of hair-straightening products, a roof rack full of her grandad’s old gardening books, and then, of course, Fred and Ginger.

  Found abandoned round the back of Tesco, Fred was a twelve-year-old tabby and Ginger was his much younger red-haired feline friend. Frankie adored them both. Unfortunately Hugh didn’t. Not being an animal lover, cats were only acceptable in an Andrew Lloyd Webber way. Matters weren’t helped by Fred and Ginger immediately sensing Hugh’s dislike and behaving accordingly – sharpening their claws on his brand-new sisal matting and pissing all over his golf clubs. It hadn’t exactly been the kind of house-warming Hugh had had in mind . . .

  Frankie was suddenly brought back to her Monday morning by the sound of the breakfast- TV theme music. Glancing across the open-plan living room, she realised it was the closing titles. Christ, she was late. If she didn’t hurry up and get a move on, she’d have her boss breathing down her neck. Which, considering that the woman had chronic halitosis, was hardly a pleasant thought. Frankie sighed and prised herself off the pedal bin. If she ran to Earls Court tube station, she could probably make the office by ten. Grabbing Hugh’s coat, she took one last lingering look at the receipt, before scrunching it up for authenticity and replacing it in his pocket. Her birthday was on Friday, so all she had to do was sit tight until then. After all, she could hardly spoil his surprise, could she?

  Pulling on her jacket, she glanced at her reflection in the large gilt-edged mirror which hung in the hall. She looked the same as she always did first thing in the morning: no make-up, hair all over the place, another spot on her chin. But today she had something different. There was a warm Ready Brek glow around her, and it had nothing to do with the central heating. It was the thought that in four days she’d be engaged. Engaged! God it sounded so grown up. She felt as if she was that chubby four-year-old again playing at being a bride in her mum’s grubby old veil and winkle-picker shoes. Except she wasn’t. She was nearly twenty-nine and this time it wasn’t a game.

  Closing the front door behind her, she clattered down the steps and turned right into the street. It was a dull, grey wintry morning and she hurried towards the station, weaving her way through the last straggles of commuters. Everybody looked so grumpy, dowdy and fed up, but she couldn’t help the huge grin plastered on her face. She must look deranged, like one of those people you see wearing newspaper shoes and talking to themselves. But she didn’t care. She’d found the fella she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, and he wanted to spend it with her. It was like scooping the lottery jackpot. The od
ds were a million to one, but she had the winning ticket – and it was crumpled up inside the pocket of Hugh’s overcoat.

  3

  ‘And where the bloody hell have you been?’

  With a moustache of cappuccino froth, Audrey, her editor, collared Frankie as soon as the lift doors slid open and she entered the lobby of Lifestyle, a magazine for thirty-something, scented-candle-buying, career-climbing women who wanted to read about how to have the perfect orgasm/dinner party/relationship/thighs – all for just £2.60 a month.

  ‘Sorry. I was running late . . .’ gasped Frankie, out of breath from doing the four-hundred-metre sprint from the tube station. ‘I’m really sorry . . . I had to go to the cashpoint, and then the Central Line was playing up and we got stuck in a tunnel, and then—’

  ‘Stop!’ Audrey held up her huge meaty palm as if she was a lollipop lady. ‘I’m not interested in excuses.’ With an air of managerial superiority, she fixed Frankie with a beady Cyclops eye, magnified several times due to her inch-thick glasses. ‘You’ve been with us for six weeks and I thought you’d have realised by now that at Lifestyle we’re interested in results . . .’ Struggling to fold her arms over her ample bosom, she paused, determined to milk this moment as much as she could for dramatic effect. ‘And members of staff who can manage to get their backsides out of bed and in the office. On time.’

  Frankie nodded dutifully, trying to look repentant. ‘Look, I’m really sorry. It won’t happen again, promise.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Audrey raised her eyebrows disbelievingly. ‘By the way, I need you to write a feature before lunch . . .’

  ‘OK.’ Squeezing herself between the fire extinguisher and Audrey’s fuchsia bottom – despite fashion tips that dark shades and vertical stripes were slimming, Audrey had plumped for an entire wardrobe of primary colours and patterns – Frankie legged it down the corridor and pushed open the fire doors.