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Chapter 38

Margot

They loved it. It doesn’t make sense. But what makes even less sense is that they loved it because they loved me .

My excited manager Geri FaceTimed me with the news that the producers of the godawful reality show pilot I was forced to make just three weeks ago, Help! I’m In The House From Hell! , had been in touch. It was supposed to be for E4, the digital channel no one over the age of twenty-one watches. Well, because another reality show was scrapped at the last minute on its parent station Channel 4, they needed something fast to fill a gap in the schedule. Bosses saw a rough cut and guess what they chose?

That’s not the worst of it. Those bright sparks want me to return as a series regular. Frankie’s disastrous gender reveal party has apparently renewed the public’s interest in me and they want to capitalise on it. So instead of humiliating and degrading myself in just one episode, they’ve asked me to do it another five times.

‘Not a chance,’ I told Geri in no uncertain terms. ‘All they want is a pantomime villain to get their show trending on social media. I was cancelled once, and I won’t be cancelled again. It’s too humiliating.’

‘But they’re offering you ￡20,000 an episode,’ she countered.

I thought about it for all of two seconds.

‘When do we start filming?’

I texted Nicu with the expectation he’d be proud of me, but his response was a simple Great . Not even an ‘x’ after it. Well to hell with him , I thought. I’ve had enough of trying to keep his interest and make him proud of me.

Now here I am, sitting in a trailer, waiting to get my hair and make-up done by a girl who resembles the ghost of Amy Winehouse, complete with battered ballet pumps and bird’s nest beehive. God knows what’s living inside it. Next to me is one of the stars of Knightsbridge Knights , a scripted reality show, a little like Made in Chelsea but with a cast with bigger bank balances. Myself and Tonya triple-barrelled-something-or-other are waiting to be called on set and be locked in a pretend house to face our fears.

Of the other ‘luminaries’ I’ve met in the last two days of filming, Tonya is by far the best. She likes to gossip, for one thing. I particularly liked one salacious story about her castmate, a private members’ club and a lazy Susan.

‘I’ve also heard some stories about her,’ I offer. ‘Apparently she’s a little light-fingered, but no shop ever presses charges because her father always steps in to settle the bills.’

‘OMG yes!’ Tonya chirps. ‘Who told you that?’

‘One of my neighbours. She was a Chelsea girl before she moved to Northampton.’

‘Do I know her?’

‘Liv Barton-Aldridge.’

‘Liv! Oh yes, we all know Live Wire Liv.’

I’m unsure how to interpret the wink that accompanies this remark.

‘What’s she doing these days?’ asks Tonya.

‘She’s opened her own wellness studio. So she must have had a successful banking career to fund that.’

She cocks her head. ‘Is that what she told you? She worked at a bank, but she wasn’t actually in banking.’

‘Oh really?’

‘She was a secretary, maybe even a PA, I can’t quite remember. But what I do recall is that it wasn’t her day job that paid the bills.’

‘So what did?’

I wait as Tanya taps her finger with her chin as if she’s wrestling with whether to tell me something. She’s play-acting. Of course she’s going to tell me.

‘Well,’ I say afterwards and with a theatrical brow wipe and broad smile, ‘I was not expecting that.’