Mad About You (10 page)

‘Chop-chop, Emma. I need to start filming in ten minutes.’ Babs clapped her hands.

I finished doing her makeup and she examined herself in the mirror. ‘Much as I hate to admit it, you’re very good at your job. I look amazing.’

‘Gee, thanks.’ I added some lip-gloss. ‘I’m serious, Babs. Stay away from Gary. Married men are trouble. A man who cheats on his wife is a scumbag.’ I left the other bit unsaid – that a woman who knowingly carries on with a married man is a bitch.

‘You don’t even know him so stop going on about it.’

I sighed. Would my sister ever grow up? I followed her out to the set.

While they set up for filming the opening segment, I snuck into the Ladies to call Claire.

‘They’re fine, Emma. They had a good morning,’ she said.

‘OK. Put them on to me for a minute,’ I asked, desperate to hear in their voices that they were not traumatized by their first day.

‘Hi, Mummy,’ Lara said, sounding so young and sweet.
‘School was good. I did colouring and I have a new friend called Bella who has sparkly Peppa Pig shoes.’

‘I’m so happy to hear that. You’re such a good girl. Will you give the phone to Yuri now? … Hi, Yuri, how was school?’ I asked.

I could hear him breathing heavily down the phone. ‘Well, it was OK, but I don’t have any friends. I wish Connor was in this school. I wish we could go back home, Mummy. I don’t like London.’ Yuri’s voice broke and I tried not to cry for him.

‘I know it’s hard, sweetheart, but you’ll make new friends soon, I promise. I’ll tell you what, will Mummy bring you home a treat to cheer you up? How about a packet of chocolate buttons?’

‘White ones?’

‘Yes.’

‘A big packet?’

‘The biggest one they have.’

‘OK.’

‘Good boy.’

‘Mummy?’

‘Yes, Yuri.’

‘Are you coming home soon?’

‘In a little bit. I have to work for a while longer, but then I’ll come straight home. Put me on to Claire.’

‘Emma?’

‘Hi, is Yuri really all right? He sounds upset. Was he crying when you picked him up? What did the teacher say?’

‘Honestly, Emma, he’s fine. Both of their teachers said they had a good first day. Yuri wasn’t crying. He was a bit quiet, that’s all.’

‘Well, give them a big hug for me.’

‘I will, and I promised to make brownies with them, if that’s all right?’

‘That’s great. Thanks.’

‘No problem. Please don’t worry about anything.’

I hung up feeling better. They were in excellent hands. Thank God I’d found a nice nanny. I’d known it was going to be hard not picking them up from school, but I hadn’t banked on it being this hard. I was worried about them settling in and it was taking a lot of willpower not to dash out of the studio and hop into a taxi. I struggled to compose myself and get my emotions under control. It will all work out OK, I repeated, like a mantra.

‘Emma, can we have you back on set, please?’ Karen called.

I stuffed my phone into my pocket and pushed back my shoulders. I had to stay focused. Back to work …

I powdered Babs’s forehead, removing the shine, then stood back to watch her work. She sat on the couch and spoke to camera.

‘On today’s show we’re going to meet Mary and Glenda from Devon. Mary is fifty-six, married to a farmer, and spends most of her days in wellies and woolly jumpers. She’s badly in need of a fashion make-over. Glenda is Mary’s best friend. She’s fifty-two and recently her husband left her for – you won’t believe this – another man! Glenda’s husband didn’t run off with the local barmaid, he ran off with the local butcher. As you can imagine, Glenda’s confidence is at rock bottom, so I’m going to help her find herself again and, hopefully, next time, she’ll meet a man who prefers women.’

Karen brought in Mary and Glenda. They looked nervous and excited. Babs went over to greet them. Mary was small and round, with short black hair and a friendly smile. Glenda was tall and broad, with shoulder-length brown hair.

Karen asked them to sit on the couch and told them that Babs was going to talk to them on camera.

‘But we’ve no makeup on,’ Glenda said, sounding worried.

‘That’s the point. We want you to look as bad as possible so the make-over is more spectacular,’ Babs explained. ‘Just act natural and answer my questions. Don’t worry, I’m brilliant at this. Just follow my lead.’

The camera rolled, and Babs began to give her initial assessment. ‘Well, Mary, how long is it since you went to a hairdresser?’

Mary put her hand up to her hair. ‘About a year. I’ve been cutting it myself.’

‘I gathered that, and are you cutting it with sheep shears? It’s an absolute disgrace. No self-respecting woman would go out like that. We’ve a lot of work to do on you. Now, is this what you normally wear? Jumpers and saggy, shapeless jeans?’

‘Well, you see, I spend most of my days helping my husband on the farm, so I go for practical, warm clothes.’

Babs raised an eyebrow. ‘Listen, Mary, if you don’t want to find your husband shagging sheep, you need to smarten up. Those baggy jeans are going straight to the bin, along with that awful green knitted jumper.’

Mary looked a bit taken aback. ‘Is she always this rude?’ she asked Karen.

‘She’s usually worse. Don’t worry, the viewers love it,’ Karen assured her. Turning to Babs she said, ‘You can’t say “shagging sheep” on daytime TV.’

Babs rolled her eyes. ‘Listen, Mary, if you don’t want your husband to dump you, like Glenda’s did, you need to smarten up.’ She looked at Karen. ‘Was that tame enough for you?’

Karen nodded. ‘Perfect. Carry on.’

Babs turned her attention to Glenda. ‘Now, Glenda, I know your husband turned out to be a bender, but I have to say, you really aren’t going to keep any man, straight or gay, looking like that. There’s no excuse in this day and age for a woman to have a moustache. You look like you have a furry animal on your face.’

Glenda’s hand flew to her upper lip. ‘I – I usually wax it, but I’ve been very upset lately.’

Babs wagged a finger at her. ‘Glenda, we all have problems, and it’s still not OK to let yourself go. No woman should go around town with a crumb-catcher like that on her
face. We’re going to get rid of it. Now, what do you do? Do you work? Are you at home? Do you have kids?’

Glenda, with her hand still covering her upper lip, answered, ‘I’m a postmistress and I don’t have any children.’

‘Well, no surprise there! I doubt there was much going on in your bedroom. Did you never suspect your husband was gay?’

Glenda shook her head. ‘We got married late in life, I was forty-two and I just thought he wasn’t interested in sex.’

Babs leant in. ‘Glenda,
all
heterosexual men are into sex. Anytime, anywhere, anyhow, even when they’re ninety.’

She had a point there. James was never not in the mood, even when he was exhausted. The only time he wouldn’t have sex was when England was playing rugby. Then he had eyes only for the TV.

Glenda sighed and looked downcast. Babs took her hand. ‘But the good news is, I’m going to make you look so hot that you’ll be having sex for years to come. Now, we have a lot of work to do. Your arse and boobs are dragging all over the floor. We need to get you into some iron underwear, then find you some decent clothes and a proper hairstyle. Don’t worry, Glenda, when I’ve finished with you, even Mary’s husband will be begging you for sex.’

Mary’s head nearly spun off. ‘What?’

Ignoring her, Babs looked at the camera. ‘Now we’re going to get these ladies to strip down to their undies so we can get a good look at where their flabby parts are and figure out how to hide them. It won’t be easy, but I’m kind of awesome at this so watch this space.’

The two ladies were asked to take their clothes off behind a curtain and then to stand in the 360-degree mirror, with all their bits on view. I would have run from the building screaming if
anyone suggested I had to strip down and look at all my flabby bits in that torture chamber. Babs came over to stand by me while the cameramen were shooting.

‘Jesus, they’re a pair of ugly heifers. I know I’m good, but I need something to work with. Mary’s nearly as short as Yuri and Glenda has shoulders like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s. How the hell am I supposed to make them look good?’

I watched the two women take turns to be filmed in their underwear and wondered what on earth would possess any woman to expose herself on a show like this. Unhappiness and desperation made people do crazy things. I was determined to make them up so they looked lovely. I studied their faces and worked out what makeup would suit their colouring. ‘Have a heart, Babs. Poor Glenda needs kindness, not criticism.’

Babs ate a piece of chocolate. ‘I’m presenting a make-over show. It’s not
Dr
bloody
Phil
. I’m sorry her husband turned out to be a sausage jockey, but my only job is to make her look better – and it’s a big ask. Still, by the time I’ve finished with her, she’ll feel a million times better and she won’t look like Whatshisface.’

‘Tom Selleck?’ We giggled.

‘Yes. I’m going to wax her to within an inch of her life. There’s no excuse for a woman to have hairy anything. It’s disgusting.’

Speaking of waxing, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had my bikini line done. I’d have to sort it out. I wasn’t very hairy, but it definitely needed pruning. Babs had a point.

‘No man wants to have sex with a gorilla. Hollywood wax all the way.’

‘Is the Hollywood the one where you get it all waxed off?’ I asked.

Babs spun around. ‘Are you telling me you have hair down there?’

‘Yes, of course. It’s natural.’

‘It’s gross.’

‘No, it isn’t.’

‘No woman should have hair anywhere down there.’

‘I think it’s weird to have none. It looks freaky.’

‘Well, I haven’t had any complaints.’

‘Don’t give Mary and Glenda Hollywoods – they’ll have heart-attacks.’ I was genuinely worried about the two women being plucked alive.

‘We don’t do bikini waxes. The budget only allows for upper lip and legs.’

Karen joined us. ‘Right, Babs, we need some commentary about their shapes – go easy on them, stick to pears and apples, all right?’

Babs put her hands on her hips. ‘You hired me because I’m honest. Neither of them looks like a pear or an apple. They look like big fat sausage rolls.’

I touched up Babs’s makeup and watched my sister stride over to the women.

Gary walked over to me. His jeans were too tight and he was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Bob Marley smoking weed on it. It looked ridiculous. He was clearly having a mid-life crisis, which I was pretty sure included shagging my sister. I tried not to be repulsed by him. After all, he was my boss too.

‘Was she like this as a kid?’ he drawled, pointing to Babs.

Was he serious? Did he really want to shoot the breeze with me about my sister? Did he not realize I could see through him? He was pathetic. Maybe the tightness of his jeans was making his brain function slower. I tried to be polite. ‘Oh, yes. In fact, she’s mellowed a bit since then.’

He chuckled. ‘I’ve only been working on the show three
months, but I’ve been in TV for fifteen years and I’ve never met anyone like her. She’s a total fireball.’

If he hadn’t been my boss and it hadn’t been my first day, I would have told him to stay away from my sister and go home to his wife. But I didn’t want to get fired yet, and I needed to find out from Babs what exactly was going on between them. I prayed it was just a harmless flirtation, but I could tell from the way they looked at each other that there was a whole lot of sex going on. I’d have to try and talk sense into Babs.

‘Are you married, Gary?’ I asked, hoping a conversation about his wife would distract him, or at least shame him into taking his eyes off Babs for a second.

Gary nodded, still staring at her. ‘Yes, and I have twins, a boy and a girl, so we were done in one go,’ he said, with a laugh.

‘I have two kids too. I think it’s plenty,’ I agreed. ‘I’m in awe of people who have more.’

‘Nutters, if you ask me. Two are a right handful.’

‘Does your wife work?’ I was determined to say ‘wife’ as often as possible.

Gary snorted. ‘You must be joking. All Val does is spend my hard-earned money.’

‘It’s not easy being at home all day,’ I noted, defending his wife.

‘Does any woman really need ten pairs of black boots?’

‘Sometimes women shop because they’re lonely.’

Gary looked at me. ‘Lonely? Her sister lives across the road and her mother’s around the corner.’

‘Well, being at home with small kids is never easy.’

‘Believe me, she tells me how hard it is every day.’ He sighed.

Damn. Clearly everything was not good at home, which
meant that Gary probably was having an affair with Babs. I had to get Babs to stop this. Media people were well-known gossips: one affair with a married producer could be described as a mistake, but two, Babs would be labelled a tramp. I needed to save my sister from herself.

Over at the mirror Babs was standing in front of the two women who were now in bathrobes. ‘Mary, you’re an apple shape. Short and stumpy, with a huge middle-age spread. You need to do more digging and less eating. Glenda, you’re built like a rugby player. You’re so wide and chunky you have a man’s body, which is probably why your husband married you. Now I’m going to show you both some styles that will hide all your flaws and camouflage your flabby bits. Then we’ll do hair and makeup, and by the time we’ve finished with you, you’ll be unrecognizable. Let’s be honest here, you’re not supermodels, but I can improve you one hundred per cent.’

The afternoon flew by. First, wigs were chosen – the budget didn’t stretch to taking the participants to get their hair coloured and cut. Next, Babs squeezed the women into super-strength slimming underwear.

When Mary complained that she couldn’t breathe and thought she might pass out, Babs glared at her. ‘I have a reputation to maintain, and that corset is the only way you’re going to fit into the clothes I’ve chosen for you. You can’t go around town with your belly hanging out. So just suck it up.’

Babs dressed Mary in straight-leg dark denim jeans, with very high boots and a vertical striped shirt that she belted at the waist.

‘I can’t walk in these boots,’ Mary grumbled.

Babs bent down and yanked up the zips. ‘Stop moaning. You look better than you’ve ever looked in your life. You have to suffer to be fashionable.’

While Babs dressed Glenda, I worked on Mary’s makeup. I warmed up her skin tone with some light liquid foundation and a soft blusher. I highlighted her blue eyes with grey shadow, then made them pop with a very subtle line of liquid eyeliner on the upper lid. Finally, I layered on black mascara and finished off with some neutral lip-gloss. Although I had no experience with wigs, I had to help her put hers on. It was a short black style, not dissimilar to her own hair, but the cut was much choppier and funkier and a side fringe swept across her face. Mary wasn’t allowed to see herself in any mirrors, and she was brought to the other side of the studio so Glenda wouldn’t see her. Then she had to sit on her own, no doubt wondering what on earth Babs had done to her.

Babs dressed Glenda in beautifully tailored cream trousers, navy and cream shoes with kitten heels and a navy halter neck top with a deep V that made her shoulders look less wide. She added a long necklace, which drew the eye down.

Glenda then came to me for makeup. She had brown eyes, so I decided to give her a smoky look. The poor woman needed to be vamped up. She needed to feel sexy and feminine and attractive again. Losing your husband to a man is about as crushing a blow as you can sustain.

Glenda was very quiet in the chair. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked. ‘It sounds as if you’ve had a very difficult time.’

She smiled at me. ‘I’m fine, thank you. This was Mary’s idea. She thought it would be a good distraction for me.’

‘Is it?’

‘It’s certainly different. I’ve never met anyone like that Barbara before. Have you known her long?’

I decided to be vague. ‘A while.’

‘She’s so confident – I envy her that – so sure of herself.
She’ll go far in life. I wish I’d been more like that when I was younger.’

No, you don’t, I thought. Babs had no friends because she had alienated everyone at school and in all of her various jobs since then. In truth, she hadn’t made one true friend in life, no one she could rely on. She had lots of acquaintances and people to party with, but no one she could call in the middle of the night and cry to. Then again, Babs almost never cried because she never felt deeply enough about anything to get really upset. The only time in the last ten years that I could remember my sister crying was when Lara was born. Babs had come in to see her. Lara was in the incubator and they weren’t sure if she was going to make it. None of us could believe it when Babs shed a tear. We were all in complete shock. My mother had referred to it ever since as ‘the time Barbara cried’, which always made me smile.

I blended Glenda’s makeup. ‘How are you managing? Are you feeling very low?’

‘I was initially, but I’ve got really good, loyal friends. They’ve all been round with dinners and bottles of wine and kind words. They even dragged me to a Zumba class last week and I enjoyed myself for the first time in ages.’