Escape for the Summer (7 page)

“Talk about parents fucking you up,” muttered Angel to herself. Honestly, Freud would have had a field day with the Evans clan. They had more Big Issues than their local high street. No wonder Andi had been drawn to Tom. It was that old familiar striving to please a man thing, wasn’t it? An impossible task, since nobody had ever managed to please Alex Evans – not even their beautiful mother.

Well, bugger that. She, Angel Evans, was only going to please herself!

Angel sighed. Tucking the phone away, she decided to take a detour out towards Balham – sorry, Clapham – and see if Andi was working from home. She sometimes did and Angel, whose rumbling stomach was loudly protesting against her size-six master plan, figured that she might as well grab a bite to eat from her sister’s fridge. Anyway, didn’t Gemma say that diets always started tomorrow?

As the train drew into the next station, Angel tidied her hair in the blurry glass, craning her neck to avoid the reflections of adverts for Match.com and tooth-whitening products getting in the way of her own image. She hoped her sister was in. They could watch afternoon telly and drink tea. That had to be better than going back to the flat.

Angel grimaced at the thought of the flat she shared with Gemma. It was a pigsty right now and in serious need of mucking out. When she’d left that morning the place had been strewn with Gemma’s underwear, a downpour of pants, thongs and Spanx as her flatmate had frantically hunted for an outfit that would fit. The detritus of a late-night Chinese had sat congealing on the coffee table, gloopy MSG doing awful things to the French polish and probably sounding the death knell for any hope they’d had of seeing their deposit again. The floor had remained littered with crumbs and dust bunnies since their last vacuum cleaner had choked out its death throes. Neither Gemma nor Angel had the cash or the inclination to buy another one, so instead the flat was sliding gradually into Dickensian squalor. Angel would hardly have been surprised to come home one evening and find Miss Havisham ensconced on the sofa, while the dust fell softly through the air and the London grime continued to block the daylight out.

Outside the station the glare was dazzling; above the crawling traffic and leaden rooftops a fried-egg sun blasted down onto the pavements and turned the windows of shops into liquid gold. Fishing out her oversized Gucci shades, Angel turned her attention to scrolling through her missed calls and text messages, feeling slightly alarmed when she saw that there were three from Gemma. Oh God, she hadn’t left her straighteners on again, had she? Last time the firemen had been really sweet about it, and one of them had even slipped her his phone number, but Angel wasn’t sure they’d be quite so amused a second time. Or would this be the third? She’d better call her flatmate.

Crossing the street and leaving Clapham South Tube station behind her, Angel meandered towards the common, pretending that she hadn’t noticed the attention that her long Fake Baked legs in their miniscule denim cut-offs were attracting. God, she loved the summer! Wearing skimpy vests rather than sweaters and drinking wine instead of tea. It was heaven! If only she could spend the summer somewhere
slightly
more glam than South London, though, like St Tropez or Marbella for instance. Clapham Common was all very well, and there was no shortage of fit young guys out running or flexing their muscles as they fooled around with Frisbees, but there was a distinct lack of superyachts and eligible millionaires. A cute guy with shaggy blond hair and a six-pack you could bounce rocks off threw a grin her way but Angel chose not to notice. She was twenty-seven now, and the dreaded thirty was only three years away, so there was no time to fritter on guys who were wasting weekdays in the park! Millionaires were too busy making serious cash to have fun in the sun, after all.

Flipping her long blonde hair over one shoulder and pretending to be absorbed in her phone, Angel wove her way through the picnickers scattered over the grass and found herself a shady spot under a horse-chestnut tree, all green leaves and white candles. The sun played havoc with skin, everyone knew that, and right now she was too poor to start a Botox habit. Angel leant back into the grass and stared up at the blue flecks of sky peeking through the shady canopy. Stretched out like this, her stomach looked pancake flat. Maybe once she got to Andi’s she could indulge just a little? In the meantime she’d text Gemma back and find out what the latest trauma was. Taking a deep breath, and praying that her friend wasn’t knee-deep in firemen, Angel began to dial.

Chapter 7

By the time she arrived home Gemma knew the premise for Callum South’s new show off by heart. As she trudged along Tooting High Street, dodging puddles and narrowly missing having her eye poked out by an old lady’s brolly, she was willing to swap the traffic and leaden skies for golden sand and sharp Cornish air right there and then. She was sick and tired of recession gloom – why else would she have spent the day freezing her butt off in an arctic studio – it was time to try something else, time to be a little bit creative.

Sod it. Things in London weren’t exactly working out the way they were supposed to. A dramatic change was needed, or she’d still be modelling granny pants when she really was a granny.

With Emily’s taunts still ringing in her ears, Gemma stood in the queue for the 219 and scrutinised her reflection in the bus shelter. She’d avoided mirrors for so long that it was something of a shock to see what she really looked like. Lord. She wasn’t that big surely? Her stomach didn’t really stick out that much, did it?

Gemma gulped and looked away. Either she had reverse body-dysmorphic disorder or else the Perspex was distorting her reflection. Yes, that was probably it. And her coat was quite padded; to be fair, it had never really done up properly across her boobs. Sizes just weren’t that accurate, that was the trouble. Weren’t they modelled on women from the 1950s who were still skinny from all that rationing?

Gemma sucked in her cheeks. Phew! Her cheekbones were still there; they’d just got a bit buried, that was all. A few days of calorie counting and they’d be sharp enough to ski off. That 5:2 diet was meant to be brilliant. How hard could it be to fast for a couple of days a week? Not hard at all if you knew you could eat whatever you liked for the remaining five days. Simples!

And her bum wasn’t big: it was just… curvy. Curvy butts were really fashionable; just ask Pippa Middleton! Gemma twisted round to get a really good look and decided that what was good enough for the future queen’s sister was certainly good enough for her. Hey, if her plan came off and she got famous, maybe she’d even get to meet Prince Harry? You never knew…

For a few wonderful minutes Gemma was lost in a daydream where she floated through Westminster Abbey while the nation looked on in admiration at her stunning dress and backside. “Princess Gemma” certainly had a ring to it and was a million times better than being saddled with “Ginormous Gemma”. Yep, thanks for that one, parents.

Gemma was so lost in her daydreams that it was a surprise to find the bus pulling up. Catapulted out of her sumptuous wedding breakfast at Buckingham Palace – there was no way she was calorie counting on her wedding day – and back into rainy Tooting, Gemma clambered on board and squeezed herself into the aisle. London buses in rush hour were always a nightmare. Once she was a TV star she’d be chauffeur driven everywhere and never play sardines on a crowded bus again. Ten years of living in the capital and travelling with your face wedged into a stranger’s armpit was more than enough for anybody. Cornwall was looking like a better option with every second that passed.

It wasn’t that she was greedy, thought Gemma sadly as she clambered on board and the bus splashed its way through the sodden streets: she just had a slower metabolism than lots of other people. It was pure bad luck. Lots of people ate way more than she did and were pencil thin. Take Angel’s sister Andi, for example. She was always eating yet had the kind of figure models envied. Gemma had asked Andi what her secret was and Andi, without missing a beat, had replied “Stress.”

Stress? Gemma wasn’t buying into that. She was very stressed herself, actually. Every time she opened a bank statement she nearly passed out, and her last game of cashpoint Russian roulette was definitely responsible for her first grey hairs. So if Andi’s theory was correct, Gemma should be a size zero.

Maybe she should dig out one of her exercise DVDs? Gemma had an impressive collection ranging from
Essexercise
to Davina’s workouts
.
She’d watched them all, just to get the idea of what was required – after all, these things had to be taken seriously – and she’d thought long and hard about which one to do. It was the thought that counted, after all. But somehow she’d never quite got around to doing any of them.
Davina Fit
currently made a very useful coaster, while
Zumba Challenge
was propping up the wonky coffee table. But not for much longer. The time for change was nigh!

As the bus crawled through the traffic, Gemma took her phone out and looked up
Callum South
again. There it was in all its Googled glory: the outline of his new ITV2 reality show. Gemma read it over and over again, and with every word she felt more excited. Her imagination was full of sunshine and seafood and gorgeous twinkly-eyed Callum. Even though she was soaked through to her size-sixteen knickers and her sodden hair was plastered against her head, Gemma hardly noticed. Neither did she notice the traffic swishing by, headlights turning the puddles into diamonds. Even the soggy pigeons and trundling buses vanished. Instead of Tooting Broadway, Gemma saw the wide estuary of the Camel River, all glittering sapphire water and gleaming powerboats, and her heart skipped a beat.

This new get-fit reality show had her name written all over it! Hadn’t Chloe just told her to lose weight and get herself onto the telly? If she could only win a role on this show she could kill two birds with one stone. She’d soon be a size ten and she’d be on the television too. It was perfect!

Finally the bus drew up at Gemma’s stop just off Fulham Broadway. With relief she gathered up her things and soon was splashing through the puddles.

Catching sight of her reflection in the bakery window made Gemma sigh even harder. It was another unwritten universal rule that depressed fat girls should never look in bakery windows. Such an activity never ended well…

See, here she was already pushing open the door and walking into the pastry-scented fug as though tugged in by an invisible Star Trek style tractor beam. There was no hope for her diet now. Those cheese straws were already making her mouth water. And the iced buns looked delicious. Just one wouldn’t hurt, would it? And there were strawberries on the meringues, which surely counted towards one of her five a day?

“Hello, Gemma love! We wondered where you were. Have you been working today?”

OK, thought Gemma resignedly, when you were on first-name terms with the bakery staff it was a sure sign there was a problem. As was the fact that they had already put aside two sausage-and-bean melts for her. She’d have to buy them now. It would be ungrateful not to. Anyway, if
Heading South
was based on transforming blobs into stunning babes, then surely the blobbier she was the better? When Angel had called her back just now, she’d thought the idea was blinding and was all for throwing her lot in with Gemma.

“It’s like a sign from God!” she’d squealed when Gemma had tentatively sounded out her plan. “I’ve been sacked, so there’s nothing for me to stay here for. Why don’t we go together?”

Once Gemma had commiserated and they’d enjoyed a mutual bitching session about Mrs Yuri, they got down to the practicalities. The lease on their basement flat was up at the end of the month, so it was the perfect time to move on. Gemma knew a family friend with a caravan just outside Rock; although it didn’t have the glamour of one of the sugar-almond-hued cottages in the town, it would at least be within their budget. Surely the two of them together would be able to pick up some seasonal work, split the rent and have an awful lot of fun! At this thought Gemma’s heart rose like the loaves in the bakery oven.

“I used to love Rock when I was a kid. It would be a blast to go back,” Angel had carried on, sounding more and more excited with every word. “Mum and Dad…” She’d paused and Gemma had just let the silence remain because Angel rarely mentioned her family. Then her friend had shrugged and continued.

“Anyway, before Mummy was ill they always rented this gorgeous house overlooking the river. We used to spend every summer there and we absolutely loved it. We’d play on the beach all day and we spent hours catching crabs off the pontoon. Andi used to like the boats best and she’d spend hours just watching them out at sea. In the evening we’d have chips right out of the paper. Nothing ever tasted so good.”

Gemma had nodded, her mouth watering at the thought of chips. She too had spent many sunburned days on the beach at Rock and gone home salty, sleepy and full of food. The place had changed a bit since then though: the chips would be hand cut these days, organic and served with slithers of expensive fish. Jamie, Rick and Hugh had certainly put their stamp on the South West.

“It’s changed though,” she’d said. “The place is really upmarket now.”

“Good, that’s
exactly
what we want,” Angel had replied decisively. “Project Rich Guy isn’t going to happen in Tooting bloody Bec, that’s for sure. If Rock is where the rich and famous hang out for the summer then it’s time we got ourselves down there too. You can get yourself a role on Callum’s show and I’ll find myself a prince or something. Simples!”

Was it really that easy? Gemma wasn’t so sure. She hated to be the one to rain all over her friend’s parade, but experience had taught her that life was often a bit more complicated.

“Rock’s expensive,” she’d warned. “We’ll have to really be careful with our money. I only have a few hundred quid left in savings.”

“That’s a few hundred more than me,” Angel had said cheerfully. “I’ll borrow some off Andi. That’ll tide us over for a bit. In the meantime there’s bound to be oodles of work. Just think of all those rich women who want facials! Summer in Cornwall! I can’t wait!”