angrier at her sister than she’d already had been. What had she expected?
Oh, she knew what Gemma’s working day was like, how difficult it was to make or receive personal calls, that she often only got a few seconds to reply to texts late at night. She bragged about it often enough when she made one of her ‘flying visits’ home.
No, that was being unkind.
Gemma didn’t really brag. It was just the way she told her stories about working on film sets, meeting exciting people, visiting exotic locations … Well, it was probably hard not to let it sound as if you were the kind of person who was much more interesting than the average suburban housewife.
The last time she’d seen Gemma had been at the bank holiday barbecue in August. Juliet had finally managed to corner her and ask her to pull her weight this Christmas. Much to her surprise, Gemma had agreed, but now there was total radio silence. Once again, Gemma was AWOL when anything family-related was on the cards.
The whole situation was starting to give Juliet a horrible sinking feeling. With the promise of extra help, she might have gone a bit overboard once the Christmas preparations had got underway. Now it wasn’t just a case of wanting her sister to display some sisterly loyalty; she might actually have to rely on her, and that was a very scary thought.
No need to panic yet, though. It was still only the first Friday in December and Gemma was due back in just over a week. She could manage until then. But maybe she’d send her sister another little reminder, just to make sure she didn’t forget there were things they needed to discuss …
She stared at her phone. What she really wanted to ask was why Gemma did everything she could to stay away from her family, even at Christmas, but she feared that it might only make Gemma run away faster and harder. Juliet exhaled slowly. Now was not the time to confront that issue, so instead she just fired off a jaunty little text – no demands, no pressure – and then she slid her phone back into her bag and started walking in the direction of the post office.
She’d only gone a dozen steps when her phone rang a second time. Now this was probably Gemma. When you wanted her she was nowhere to be found, and when you gave up waiting and carried on without her, suddenly she’d appear and throw all your careful plans into chaos. Typical.
‘Yes?’ she said, perhaps a little too sharply.
‘Mrs Taylor?’
The voice was low and rich, with the timbre of authority to it. Definitely not Gemma.
‘Yes?’ she said again, trying to sound more like an upstanding citizen than a fishwife.
‘This is PC Graham from Tunbridge Wells police station.’
Oh, God! Was everyone all right? The kids! Had there been an accident with the twins? Or had Violet bunked off with some of those new friends she’d started hanging around with? And she couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of scrape too-independent-for-her-own good Polly might have got herself into.
She couldn’t seem to speak. Couldn’t seem to ask the police officer any of that. She just made a tight little croaking noise that he must have taken as an invitation to carry on.
‘It’s regarding Sylvia Wade … She’s your great-aunt, I believe?’
Juliet cleared her throat and forced down her panic. Somebody needed her. This was no time to get all hysterical.
‘Can you tell me what’s happened? Is she hurt?’
‘Don’t worry, she’s … fine.’ She heard the officer take a deep breath. ‘Fighting fit, actually,’ he added with a wry hint to his tone. ‘I just think you need to get down to the Leisure Centre as soon as you can.’
Gemma rapped on the trailer door – loud enough to be heard, but not so firmly it might be interpreted as a demand. As she waited the icy wind cut into her cheeks and her knuckles froze into a fist. Glamorous job? Hah! Don’t make her laugh. She pulled the hood of her waterproof closer round her face and got ready to smile brightly.
He wouldn’t open the door himself, of course. Too used to having a faceless someone to do it for him.
She knocked a second time and her phone buzzed in her pocket. She ignored it. Even if it was the director, ranting and raving about the whereabouts of his A-list actor, answering it would only slow her down.
It seemed an age before she heard a muffled ‘Yeah?’ from the other side of the trailer door. If she’d gone by tone of voice alone, she’d have guessed he was soaking up the sun on a Caribbean beach, not freezing to death on the fringes of Western Ireland in December.
A wall of heat hit her when she stepped inside. No wonder he sounded so relaxed. The temperature in here really was verging on tropical. It was certainly warm enough for the six-foot hunk of blond gorgeousness she’d come looking for to only be dressed in a faded T-shirt and a pair of shorts as he lounged on a sofa further down the trailer. She closed the door behind her and instantly started to sweat in her layers of thermals and assorted woolly things.
‘Hey, Gemma,’ he said, and smiled, revealing his far too white teeth. For some reason she found all that symmetry slightly irritating.
Even more irritating was the state of his undress. He was supposed to be wearing the dark garb the wardrobe department had carefully selected to suggest a tortured hero on the verge of saving the world. However, she let none of her annoyance bleed through to her tone of voice. ‘They’re ready for you on set now, Toby.’ Her face was a mask of calm as she re-jigged times and schedules in the back of her head.
If she could hurry him along, they might not lose any filming time before the light went. She’d had to change the call sheet for the following day three times already. The last batch of A4 sheets sat ready and waiting in her makeshift office and she really didn’t want to dump them and start all over again.
She glanced around. Where was the girl from wardrobe? She’d seen her come in here not half an hour ago, and she could have sworn she hadn’t seen her leave. ‘Has Caitlin gone to fetch something from the truck?’ she asked innocently.
Toby just smirked and his eyes darted towards the back of the trailer where the bedroom was situated. ‘Something like that.’
Gemma’s stomach sank and she visualised dropping her call sheets into the waste-paper basket one by one, calling Tobias Thornton, action star and sex god, every name under the sun as she did so.
As great as her job was, she occasionally wished she didn’t work in the film industry. It spoilt all the fantasy. When this film came out, her friends would make her go and see it with them so she could tell them all the gossip and inside secrets, but while they sat in the dark and sighed at Toby’s drop-dead smile and killer abs, all she’d be thinking about was how many times she’d come close to wiping that smile off his face with her clipboard.
What she wouldn’t give for a real hero, the kind of man these actors pretended to be, but never were. The problem was that she always chose men who seemed dynamic and exciting, but eventually turned out to be a little … well, flaky.
There was a thud from somewhere near the bedroom and the wardrobe assistant emerged, holding a pair of dark trousers. ‘Oh, hi …’ she said airily. Too airily for the blotchy blush creeping up her neck. ‘I was just … you know … doing
