there was a knock on the door. Calvin called Gena in and then looked across at Dora.
‘I’ve got you a ticket for the recording. You’ll get a chance to judge for yourself first hand. You’re a real stunner.’
Dora raised her eyebrows. ‘I can hardly wait,’ she said, as Gena stood the tray on Calvin’s desk.
Steam rose from a stack of sad-looking profiteroles. Gena blushed.
‘The defrost on the machine down there doesn’t seem to work, so I’ve given them a couple of minutes on full,’ she explained, hovering nervously.
Dora took a side plate from the tray and prised a dripping cake from the heap with a teaspoon – the chocolate bubbled ominously.
‘I’m sure they’ll be just fine,’ she said, ignoring the hiss as the cake landed on the plate.
Parking in Norwich was a complete bitch. Dora arrived late, feeling ruffled after the drive, and slid into a seat at the end of the aisle beside a large woman wearing a duffel coat. The lights in the television studio were already dimming. On the stage below the tiered seating, a small oily-looking man in a checked suit was running through a selection of extremely old jokes. He waved his arms towards the studio audience with gusto, as if he might be able to incite laughter by friction.
The woman in the duffel coat sniffed disapprovingly and began to rummage through her handbag. Further along the row a group of students sniggered, while on the studio floor, the camera crew stalked backwards and forwards around the set, hooked up to their cables and moving like bored fish. The warm-up man faded rather than finished and a polite flurry of sympathetic applause broke out amongst the audience.
A man with a clipboard, finger in his ear, stepped into a spotlight, his face fixed in a rictal grin.
‘Well, good evening, ladies and gentlemen,’ he smirked with genuine plastic warmth. ‘It’s a real pleasure to welcome you to …’ he glanced fleetingly at his clipboard ‘… tonight’s recording of “Steve Morley Moments”. Now, when Mr Morley comes on I’d like you to give him a really rousing welcome. The cameras will pan around the audience as the music comes on, so we want lots of smiles.’ He pulled his face into an even more exaggerated grimace. ‘Let the people at home know you’re really happy to be here.’
The woman next to Dora sniffed again and then unexpectedly offered her a mint humbug. Dora sucked her way through Steve Morley interviewing a poet with a lisp, a drum majorette troop, a mime artist …
She stifled a yawn. It was the first time she had been to see a television recording and she decided it would probably be the last. The mime artist left to a crackle of applause and a few bars of ‘The Entertainer’ played over the PA.
‘And finally, ladies and gentlemen …’ the unctuous tones of Steve Morley oozed through the loudspeakers from his mock, mock Tudor living room. He stepped forwards, lifting his arms as if he were bestowing a benediction on the audience.
‘… I’d like you to give a really warm Steve Morley welcome to Catiana Moran, the babe of the bed chamber, the first lady of lust …’ Over the PA came the antiquated bumps and grinds of ‘The Stripper’.
Dora leant forwards and let out a little hiss of admiration as Catiana Moran chasséd gracefully across the small stage. There was a flurry of applause that grew into a roar of approval as Catiana stepped into the spotlight.
The woman oozed sexual possibilities. Calvin had been spot-on with his description: she was statuesque with a great mane of tussled strawberry-blonde hair. Her little black dress, barely reaching mid-thigh, glistened over every curve, as if it had been sprayed on. Dora held her breath, while below her Catiana Moran curled herself provocatively onto Steve Morley’s leather sofa and crossed her impossibly long legs.
‘Good evening, Steve,’ she purred, in a voice that seemed to trickle, rich as pure caramel, from somewhere just below her navel.
Steve Morley flushed crimson and began to stutter.
‘Cut, cut,’ snapped the little man with the clipboard. ‘If we can take it from you saying, “Good evening, Steve”?’
Around Dora, the audience seemed to have woken up – all eyes firmly fixed on the reclining form of Catiana Moran.
‘Why not?’ the blonde whispered and repeated her opening line with – if anything – more sexual emphasis.
Steve Morley adjusted his tie and leant forwards, extending his hand. ‘Very nice to have you with us, Catiana. My first question is, can you tell us how you got started writing the books you’re so famous for?’
Catiana shifted position, rolling over on the sofa so that her chin was resting on her hands – the effect was devastating.
‘Oh, Steve, darling, everyone always wants to know that. Haven’t you got anything more interesting written down on your little clipboard?’
Dora mouthed the answers she had written, while the stunning strawberry blonde on the stage recited them. Catiana added extra emphasis to the word ‘clipboard’, imbuing it with a heady erotic frisson.
Steve Morley shuddered nervously and loosened his tie. ‘What about this latest book? Am I right in thinking that you’ve finally decided to go public and promote what the papers are calling “the hottest hot novel since time began”?’
Catiana ran her tongue around her scarlet lips. ‘Oh, yes,’ she whispered huskily. ‘Oh, yes …’
The audience, to a man, craned forwards to see how Steve Morley would cope with this siren.
Dora smiled and picked up her handbag before slipping silently into the aisle. She had to ring Calvin to tell him – for once – he’d got everything just about right. As she got to the exit she glanced back at the stage. Catiana Moran had slipped off her high heels and was stroking one foot over her long, long leg. Every eye in the house was on her. Steve Morley was practically drooling.
‘You said you didn’t even read her books.’ Sheila bustled along the shopping precinct in Fairbeach, clutching her brolly like a quarterstaff.
Close behind, head bowed against the scathing wind, Dora pulled her raincoat tighter.
‘Just call it curiosity,’ she said between gritted teeth, wondering what on earth had possessed her to ask Sheila to go with her to Smith’s.
Sheila snorted. ‘You’re not going to buy anything, are you?’
Dora pushed open the shop door and was struck by the heady aroma of new paper and warm damp bodies.
‘I might do. It depends,’ she said, over her shoulder.
She looked around, expecting to see Calvin Roberts lurking somewhere. Instead Catiana Moran was sitting alone at a trestle table near the book section, cradling a gold pen. Her nail varnish and the swathes of silk ribbon pinned around the table matched exactly.
In daylight, Catiana Moran was paler, slimmer – if anything more stunning – dressed in an impossibly tight copper dress that emphasised every electric curve. Against the backdrop of browsers and shoppers, wrapped up in their macs and sensible shoes, she looked like an exotic refugee from a night club, caught travelling home in her party clothes.
Several
