Never Too Late (49 page)

praying she could act tough for long enough to do it,

stared her down. With a superior look, she raked her eyes

over the schoolgirl. Not for nothing was she descended

from a long line of aristocrats. The supercilious gaze she’d

inherited from her mother and never before used meant

that the fine bones of her face fixed themselves into an

elegant sneer of sheer disdain. Centuries of de Veres had

used this look to put lesser mortals in their place. Her

mother used it all the time, especially when she thought

the butcher was short changing her with lamb chops. As

looks went, it was devastating.

Cheryl Dennis reddened under Olivia’s gaze.

‘Get up and go to the front of the class,’ she drawled,

deliberately adopting the clipped tones of Sybil de Were

instead of her own soft voice.

The girl moved clumsily and Olivia allowed herself a

smile, knowing that it wasn’t a very teacherly thing to do

but deciding that the end justified the means. The class

members who were sick of Cheryl’s bullying giggled.

Olivia sank gracefully into the vacant seat.

‘Now, Cheryl,’ she said coolly, ‘as you’re so keen to keep

talking while I’m here, you teach the class. Today’s lesson

starts on page 124.’

For once, the class troublemaker was at a loss. ‘Me,

teach?’ she said, laughing nervously, hoping someone

would laugh with her, back her up and make a fool out of

the teacher. That was the way things usually went for

Cheryl: a few smart comments, some sniggering behind her

hands and the ritual humiliation of whichever pathetic

teacher was attempting to tell them what to do. Because nobody told a Dennis what to do. Nobody.

She glared at her comrades, willing them to laugh with

her. But the class, with the new-style Mrs MacKenzie

sitting among them, watching them like a hawk from

behind her icy facade, stayed quiet as mice.

‘Yes, you teach,’ Mrs MacKenzie repeated ominously.

And waited.

Cheryl looked around her in shock, suddenly aware that

she’d lost her acolytes and was alone. It was very lonely at

the front of the class.

‘We’re waiting,’ Mrs MacKenzie said caustically.

Unsure what to do next, the girl turned to page 124 of

the book and found herself facing a page full of long,

complicated words.

‘… Transoleic fat …’ Jesus, she couldn’t read that.

‘Is it too difficult for you?’ the teacher asked.

Cheryl glared at her mutinously.

‘Perhaps if you ever paid the slightest bit of attention in

class, you might be able to understand,’ Olivia said succinctly.

‘But you prefer to play act and ensure that the

pupils who do want to pay attention, can’t hear.’

Cheryl tried to interrupt. ‘But…’

‘Don’t interrupt me.’ snarled Olivia.

Cheryl shrank back before the venom in Mrs MacKenzie’s

voice. ‘If you want to spend the rest of your adult life

shuffling to the dole office or flogging lighters on Henry

Street, then leave my class and don’t come back. And I’ll

explain to your parents exactly why I won’t teach you. I’m

sure they’re tired of kitting you out in a new uniform every

time you have to leave another school.’

Cheryl flushed at the jibe.

‘But if you want to learn, if you want some chance of a

future, then you’d better behave when you’re in my class.

Understand?’

‘Yes,’ mumbled Cheryl, defeated.

‘Yes, what?’ demanded Olivia.

‘Yes, Mrs MacKenzie.’

Olivia rose. ‘Sit down at your desk, Cheryl,’ she ordered.

She took her own place at the top of the class and

looked at all the nervous, silent faces staring back at her. It was a pity she’d had to be so mean to the girl in order to

regain the respect of the class, but it had had to be done.

Cheryl gave her an angry, vengeful stare.

‘I meant every word I said, Cheryl,’ Olivia said, ice in

every syllable. ‘Don’t forget it.’

Gazing at her round-eyed pupils, she felt that adrenaline

rush she’d felt when she’d completed her television audition.

Thanks, Max, she breathed silently.

Cheryl Dennis had been a walk in the park compared to

this, Olivia thought as she entered the brightly lit makeup

department the following morning to see Nancy Roberts

sitting like the mother alien from Aliens in a makeup

chair, a cover draped over her protectively. Nancy’s eyes

were closed so Olivia slipped into the chair farthest away

from her and prayed that nobody said ‘Hello, Olivia’ and

gave her presence away.

Her striped suit may have been the battledress which

had defeated 3A the previous day, but today, unless it was

armour-plated to deal with Nancy’s daggers, it wasn’t going

to be as effective.

Three more people arrived to be made up and created a

safety buffer between her and Nancy, obliterating any

chance the star would notice her.

Olivia sank into the soft, dentist-style chair, closed her

eyes and prayed she’d be left alone until they were on set

at least. Paul Reddin would be there and, according to

Max, he’d prevent Nancy from being openly vicious.

The gods were smiling on her. Ten minutes later, from

the corner of her eye, she saw Nancy rip off her gown, peer

querulously at her image in the mirror and bark: ‘It’ll do!’

before teetering off on baby peach sandals that would be

out of place anywhere but at a Cannes cocktail party.

Olivia relaxed and tried to breathe deeply, letting the

make-up artist work her magic.

She slipped downstairs and made it to the studio without encountering Nancy. The production team were hovering by the kitchen bar, waiting for her.

‘Olivia,’ said Linda Byrne. ‘You’re still wearing your

suit?’ she asked in surprise.

‘Yes,’ she replied. Was that wrong?’ They’d all appeared

to approve of her businesslike outfit at the production

meeting an hour earlier.

‘Well …’ the producer said hesitantly ‘… it’s not what

I had in mind for the show’s cookery expert. We’d prefer

you to wear something more casual. That’s too …’

‘Harsh.’ said a plummy voice. ‘Office girl trying too

hard, perhaps.’

Nancy, beatific smile on her face, stood behind them.

Clad in a peach suit not unlike Olivia’s in style, she looked

good but not as good. Which was probably why she was so

thrilled to see Olivia being told off for wearing hers.

‘You want to wear something more mumsy, less threatening

for the cookery slot,’ Nancy added, as if cookery was

something only watched by bewildered women in floral

pinnies who took fright at the sight of anyone in a suit.

‘Not mumsy, exactly,’ interjected Linda in a placatory

tone. ‘More viewer friendly.’

Kevin, the production assistant, who now sported a fake

ponytail to go with his platinum crop, grabbed Olivia by

the arm before she could say anything.

‘Of course Olivia’s changing her outfit,’ he said cheerily.

‘We’re just getting it ironed.’ He herded her away from the

group, out of the studio and into the corridor.

‘I haven’t brought anything else to wear,’ she protested,

‘and that Nancy is an evil cow. I thought I was going to hit

her.’

‘So did IV he giggled. ‘Why else do you think I dragged

you out of there? You can’t afford to antagonise the bitch

too much or you’ll be history,’ he advised.

‘But the producer wouldn’t stand for that, surely?’

Olivia asked, thinking of what Max had said about how

Paul Reddin was the one person Nancy couldn’t wrap

around her plump, bejewelled little finger.

Kevin smirked. ‘Listen honey, he might not, but Nancy

has plenty of friends in high places who’d do anything for

her.’

‘You think so?’

‘Let me put it in a more delicate way,’ he said. ‘If this

place went on fire tomorrow and the only thing left of the

head honchos on the top floor was a collection of their

dicks, Nancy would be able to identify precisely who’d

been killed by just those parts.’

‘oh!’

‘Oh is right,’ he said. ‘She’s had more of the men in this

place than I have and the difference between us is that she

goes for the type who have power. Sadly I go for the

muscular but dumb type who can’t further their own

careers, never mind mine.’ He sighed theatrically. ‘Now sit

in your dressing room and study your running order,

sweetie, until I can find a replacement top that isn’t too

“harsh”.’

Good as his word, Kevin returned after ten minutes with

a lilac silk knit top which, worn with her pinstripe

trousers, would look pretty and flattering. ‘There’s a girl in

the library owes me a favour,’ he said. ‘I ripped this off her

back so it’s probably still warm.’

A woman who loved second-hand clothes, Olivia wasn’t

about to complain about wearing something still warm

from the body of its previous wearer. She pulled it on,

dragged a brush through her blonde hair and was ready.

‘What a trooper,’ Kevin said admiringly.

Back on the set, the programme was about to start and

last-minute discussions were frantically going on in every corner of the studio. The floor manager strode around, yelling into his radio mike with every third word an

expletive. The normally unflappable Linda Byrne sprinted

across the floor in the direction of the control room

looking anxious, and even the camera men and women

seemed jolted out of their usual laid-back state in anticipation of the opening credits.

Nancy and her co-presenter, a kind-faced forty

something man named Theo Jones, sat on one of the giant

raspberry sofas, as far apart as they possibly could.

Nancy, resplendent in her peach trouser suit with the

usual six inches of heaving bosom visible down her Vneck,

was facing one direction, sipping coffee and reading the

stapled pages of the running order.

Theo, wearing a yellow handknitted jumper decorated

with lambs, and a pair of fawn cords, was facing the other

way reading his running order. You didn’t need a degree in

either psychology or body language to tell that the famous

onscreen chemistry between the two presenters was as fake

as the cheekbones the make-up department had attempted

to give Nancy by the judicious application of blusher.

Theo looked plain uncomfortable sitting beside Nancy.

But then, Olivia thought, grinning to herself; wouldn’t

anybody?

Nancy caught her grinning and glared back haughtily.

But with the memory of Kevin’s tale about Nancy’s ability

to identify men by their extremities uppermost in her

mind, Olivia met the glare with a giant smile.

‘Thirty seconds,’ yelled a voice.

Everyone held their breath and the first guest, a pretty

girl singer with her second single in the Top Ten,

quivered with nerves on the sidelines and fiddled with

her elaborately messed-up hair do with its collection of

flowery hair clips.

‘Twenty seconds! Ten seconds!’

Then the theme tune was thumping into the studio and

Nancy and Theo, who’d automatically moved closer

together on the sofa, were smiling buoyantly at the cameras.

‘Good morning.’ they said cheerily as one.

‘And have we got a packed show for you this morning,’

Nancy added breathlessly.

‘Sure have, Nancy.’ Theo patted her knees cosily. ‘We’ve

got gorgeous Zelda here to sing her new hit single, “Dance

With You”.’ The pretty girl in the sidelines quivered some

more in her electric blue hotpants.

‘An update on our story on animal cruelty,’ Nancy

added.

‘Author Anna Stavros is here to talk about her latest

blockbuster,’ Theo said, turning to Nancy.

And we’ve got some fabulous cookery hints from our

new expert, Olivia de Were, who’ll be showing you how to

do interesting things with shepherd’s pic,’ Nancy simpered

into the camera.

It was Olivia’s turn to quiver: with rage. She wasn’t

making shepherd’s pie, it was ‘Ten Clever Things To Do

With Pizza’. Nancy knew that! Linda Byrne, who had

appeared from nowhere, put a comforting hand on Olivia’s

arm. ‘We’ll sort that error out,’ she whispered. ‘Must have

been a mistake on Nancy’s running order.’

Mistake my ass! Olivia thought. Nancy had done it on

purpose.

She was speaking again: ‘In a few minutes, we’ll be

covering our saddest story, the tale of one abandoned

family of rabbits discovered in a plastic bag on Henry

Street.’ Nancy gazed mistily at the camera as if the plight

of every injured animal in the world was on her mind

constantly. ‘We want you to phone us with your own

stories - sad tales of poor abandoned animals or,’ Nancy’s

face switched miraculously into a tender expression it

never adopted off camera, ‘funny stories about your own

beloved pets. The number is on your screen now.’

‘She just loves animals, folks.’ Theo put an arm around

Nancy and gave her a brief hug. ‘Most soft-hearted woman

I know,’ he added.

Olivia wondered if she’d imagined the ironic gleam

behind Theo’s benevolent expression. She couldn’t see