The Mellow Madam Extract

‘Have you any comment on the story in today’s Sunday People?’

            ‘What?’  Half-awake, Jackie fumbled on the night table for her hearing aid.

            ‘Does your family know about your secret life?  What about Beatrice?’

            She clutched the edge of her mattress as the room wheeled around her.  ‘Who are you?  What do you want?’

            ‘Clayton Davis, night editor at the Daily Mail.  Just a comment for now, love.  And then a story.  I can have Lindy Read, our top Femail features writer, with you in a couple of hours.’

            ‘How did you get this number?’  

            ‘How do you think, love?   You’re not exactly ex-directory.’  Her attempt to put him on the back foot had backfired.  ‘I guarantee she’ll put your side of the story with sensitivity and discretion.’

            ‘There is no story!’  Her mouth was dry and her eyes strayed to the Teasmade, not set to boil for another forty minutes, even as she tried to assimilate the news that threatened to tear her world apart.

‘We’ll make it worth your while.   Way above your usual hourly rate.  Do we pay you or go through Mellow Madams?’

            ‘There is no story.  There never will be a story.’  She struggled to moderate her voice.  ‘I’ll thank you not to contact me again.’

            She cut him off mid-protest.  Shivering and wheezing, stupefied and appalled, she longed to sink back into the oblivion from which she had been wrenched ten minutes before.  The phone rang.  Instinctively, she reached to answer, only to draw back her hand.  She needed time to think.  She’d always known that this day might come.  When she first registered with the agency, she’d feared that every new client would turn out to be a family friend or business associate.  Over the years, not only had that fear proved to be unfounded, but she’d realised that, whatever happened, the client’s wish for discretion would be as strong as hers.  Nevertheless, she’d taken great pains to preserve her anonymity.  But a few weeks earlier, she had let down her guard.  Lewis, one of her regulars, spotted an article about Beatrice that she’d cut out of OK! magazine.  Trusting him (for no better reason she now saw than that his tastes were vanilla), she admitted that Beatrice was her granddaughter.  Her complacency had been her undoing.  He must have sold the story to the press, although she was at a loss to know why.  He was a maritime lawyer, whose own hourly rate wouldn’t have needed supplementing.  Was he an outraged fan of On The Heath?  Or, as her intimate study of the male psyche would suggest, did he want to punish her for having a life beyond his desires?

            The phone rang again but she ignored it.  Was it still the Mail or another paper with a similar request or – she waited for the choking sensation to pass – Naomi, Frank or Sam?  Her children, following their father’s lead, had found fault with her when she was a dutiful housewife.  Their horror at the People’s story was too dreadful to contemplate.  Her first task was to get hold of a copy.  Yet if the tabloids had her number, mightn’t they also have her address?  What if reporters were already camped outside and – what was the word Beatrice had used… something like door-knocking – waiting to pounce?  She needed to get up and look out of the window.  But not yet… not quite yet.  If only she had a friend or neighbour she could send for the paper.  But the only people who wouldn’t be scandalised were the men who paid for her services.  She must go herself but, even if there were no one else there, how would she face Mr Sharma?  What if he’d flicked through the paper in a quiet moment or, worse, her picture were on the front page?  Was Beatrice famous enough for that?

            The thought of Beatrice tore at her heart.  While the rest of the family had opposed her auditioning for On The Heath, she’d encouraged her, earning a sharp rebuke from Frank and Shona, who treated every subsequent setback as her fault.  ‘You’re twenty-three years old.  Of course, you must follow your dreams,’ she’d told her grateful granddaughter. Would she now be the one to shatter them?  

She swung her legs out of bed, to be struck by a wave of nausea.  A glance at the Teasmade showed that there was still half an hour before it bubbled into action, and she had no idea how to reprogramme it.  Besides, what she needed was a nip of brandy.  She stood up, steadied herself and headed into the sitting room, pausing at the door as the telephone rang once again, afraid to hear the message on the machine.