The Modeliser (17 page)

“Vassily,” she murmured quietly in greeting and then turned
as her own name was called out.

“Tam..” Katie said, engulfing her in a hug.

“Darling, everything looks wonderful,” Tamara replied
returning her friends hug. She could still feel Vassily’s eyes on them and in
her head Tamara was elated, Vassily was going to have to work.

All
night she had felt his eyes on her. Katie had pulled out all the stops for her
18 guests. The food was by Graham Northcote, Michelin Starred chef from The
Savoir Hotel and servers had outnumbered the guests by 2 to 1. The desserts,
exquisite concoctions of Macaroons, Coupe Isfahan and Chocolate Zabaglione
mousse had been flown in especially from Paris. Tamara had tucked into the foie
gras starter and followed it with the main – a divine ravioli of lobster,
langoustine and salmon. She had watched the looks of horror and envy on the
faces of the other women as they’d watch her eat. Tamara had also noticed the
glances of frank admiration and desire on the faces of some of the men. In this
world, a woman who enjoyed her food was almost unheard of and men had started
to equate a woman who ate with some kind of incredible sexual appetite.

“You are so lucky to be able to eat and keep that figure,”
the timid third wife of some important Hedge Fund Manager had whispered to her
and Tamara had smiled with false self-deprecation. She had no intention of
telling anyone that for the last 5 days she had lived on egg white omelettes,
carrot batons and daily vitamin supplements. Katie’s table arrangement was, as
always, masterful and Vassily was seated across from her, one place to her
right. She was always in his line of vision and throughout the night Tamara had
felt his gaze on her, even as she had made a great show of maintaining
conversations with those around her – the CEO of a sports Network and an
Italian correspondent on a popular sports show. Finally as she laid down her
dessert fork, sipping from the glass of chilled Fiji water, Tamara allowed her
eyes to meet Vassily’s.

“You surprise me,” he stated without preamble and Tamara
liked him even more. She liked his directness.

“I do eat, yes,” she replied smartly and then turned her
attention back to the Italian.

As the night wore on, she could see that Vassily struggled to
contain his confusion at her attitude. Perhaps he had assumed she would throw
herself at him again, he’d been primed and ready for a full frontal assault and
she could see that her casual amusement with him was starting to rankle. Men,
she thought. Vassily was renowned as a ruthless business operator and yet, he
was standing baffled in the face of female games. She rose from the table and
made her escape to the Ladies room. Here too Katie had ensured that there were
attendants on hand. As she dried hands and slathered on liberal amounts of
Crème De La Mer hand cream, she heard someone sneak into the bathroom after
her.

“You haven’t said a word to Vassily all night.” Katie hissed.
Tamara smiled as she turned to her friend.

“I’m playing the game,” she replied confidently even as Katie
shook her head at her.

“You don’t play games, not with a man like Vassily,” Katie
stated.

“Katie, trust me.”

Kate
sighed. “Well I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said. And together they
exited the bathroom.

After
dinner, they moved into Katie and Ian’s sitting room and Tamara could see why
they were so proud of this room. The interior of the house had been designed by
Louise Standish, interior designer to the stars and the guests lounged in
exclusive, one of a kind furniture that had been sourced from all over Europe.
Here too Katie and Ian’s impressive art collection was in evidence and Tamara
stood before a small and yet beautiful Modigliani painting. She sensed Vassily
by her side but continued to stare at the painting.

“Are you going to ignore me all night?” He finally asked.
Tamara smiled and turned to face him for a moment. Her eyes searched his face,
his blue eyes, the beginnings of stubble on his strong jaw and his cropped
blonde hair. Vassily was perfection.

“No,” she replied and then turned back to continue to gaze at
the painting. He was quiet for a moment.

“Do you like this?” He asked gesturing at the Modigliani.

“It’s beautiful,” she answered honestly.

In the small town near Adelaide where she had grown up, there
had been neither the time nor the money and certainly not the inclination to
grow to appreciate art. But when she had first arrived in London, lonely and
alone, she had taken to walking around the National Gallery, the paintings
becoming like long lost friends. Tamara sensed his eyes on her again.

“We got off to a bad start, I think,” he said.

“Oh,” Tamara countered.

“It was rude of me…, to miss our dinner,” Vassily continued.
Tamara turned to face him now.

“Is that an apology?” She asked lightly. From now on she would
make nothing easy for Vassily Romanov.

“Yes, I suppose it is.” He smiled broadly, as though proud of
himself.

“Should I be impressed?” Tamara queried not bothering to hide
the tartness in her tone.

Vassily shrugged. “Impressed? Probably. I never apologise,”
he finished. Tamara gave a small nod.

“Well,” she said, “this was certainly interesting.” As she
walked away towards the throng of identikit wives, Tamara was dancing a jig in
her head. She had hooked him and in her own time, she would reel him in.

Talia
woke to sunshine flooding into the bright airy room where she slept. She
stretched in bed before opening her eyes slowly, listening to the faint chatter
emanating from the radio beside her. The bed in which she slept was the only furniture
in the room. It was two weeks since she had had to leave her rented flat when
Nina had completed the sale on the property and departed for Cuba, leaving her
homeless. Once again Helena had come to her rescue. Alex had all but completed
the clear out of their grandfather’s home and for now the house stood empty.
Talia had gratefully accepted her friend’s offer that she stay in the house,
though she had insisted on paying some rent. She still had some pride but in
this area of town, what she was paying, she realised was little more than a
token amount. Even as she’d moved her bags into the property, Talia had
swallowed a measure of shame. At the grand old age of 29, she should have her
own home, her own independence, she should not still be counting on the
kindness of friends.

Talia thought back to the email that she’d hastily deleted
the night before, another one from her ex Steven, pleading to meet again. Talia
sighed, without her career to focus on, it was hard to ignore the depressing
state of her love life. The TV industry was no place to meet a man, not unless
you had a thing for gay men or fancied an affair with some assistant director
whose wife didn’t understand him. Talia let her thoughts drift back to Steven,
one of a handful of disappointing dates she’d met through an online dating
site. Steven was a frustrated writer who turned his nose up at Encounters but
wasn’t above using her for free script editing on his work in progress. As she
sat up in bed, Talia shook off thoughts about the sad state of her romantic
life, what she needed was to sort herself out a job.

Slowly, Talia climbed out of the bed and opened the curtains
to stare out onto the lush green of Hampstead Heath. In the weeks following her
disastrous meeting at Rough Draft Productions, her emotions had been a
rollercoaster. She had suddenly realised that all around her doors were
closing, jobs that once she would have walked into now seemed closed to her;
all her contacts and leads were amounting to nothing. Talia had reluctantly accepted
a freelance position writing film reviews for an online website. The wage was
little more than minimum pay but at least it was enough to tide her over until…
and here Talia’s thoughts usually stuttered to a halt. For the first time in
her life, she had no contingency, no back up plan. List-maker extraordinaire
that she was and yet even she had had no comeback for the spectacular
derailment of her career. Across on the Heath, she watched a young woman
jogging with a dog scampering excitedly beside her. She turned away from the
window with a sigh. Flicking off the radio, she headed out of the bedroom to
the shower. She had five reviews to write up before lunch.

Talia whistled under the spray of hot water as she tried to
figure out what to do with her day. The reviews would take hardly any time, the
best films were reserved for the staff writers and all of the reviews that were
assigned to her were invariably third rate horror or chick flick movies of the
soulless, predictable variety. She could write the reviews in her sleep and for
the first time in her life, she found herself phoning it in. She felt no sense
of responsibility or ambition, hardly cared what kind of impression she made on
the editor; she truly had lost her mojo. Talia stepped out of the shower
already planning an afternoon run on the Heath, there was no excuse now not to
get fit. Her wet and rapidly shrinking curls she’d pulled up in a band but
water still dripped on to her shoulders. Talia grabbed a towel and roughly
squeezed the droplets out of her hair. She began towelling her body, as she
walked out of the bathroom and then stopped short, her mouth dropping open.
Alex Golden was standing right outside the door and he was staring at her naked
breasts. For a moment they were both frozen. It was Talia who recovered first.

“What the hell?” She gasped out, hurriedly pulling the towel
down from her hair and securing it around her body. She felt mortified heat
spread up her neck and into her cheeks as finally Alex looked up to stare at
her face. He was smiling and this infuriated her. “What the hell are you doing
here?” She snapped, her voice shrill.

“This is my house, you know,” Alex replied, his voice coolly
amused.

“Of course I know that but…” Talia trailed off, something
about Alex’s intent gaze was sending her thoughts haywire. “Didn’t Helena tell
you I was staying here?”

“So?” Alex countered. “It’s a big house, I needed to collect
some stuff, besides, it’s not my fault you were strolling around with your tits
out.”

“Grow up.” Talia snapped back.

“I’m not the one stamping my feet,” Alex replied seeming to
lose patience with her. “I have seen breasts before. If it makes you feel any
better, I’ll have forgotten yours in a minute.”

Talia felt a flare of anger. It was anger she told herself,
she wasn’t disappointed, in fact she didn’t care what Alex Golden thought of
her breasts. Mustering as much dignity as she could, she turned away and
marched into her room, slamming the door shut. As she began to towel herself
fiercely, she was sure that she heard Alex chuckling to himself as the sound of
his footsteps disappeared down the stairs.

For a man deep into his Eighties, his grandfather really had
liked all his mod cons, Alex thought as he poured a cup of coffee from the
expensive looking coffee maker that stood on the black granite marble work
surface in the large kitchen. The clear out had gone surprisingly smoothly and
though he had given several boxes to various charities and theatres, he had
also kept far too much, sending several boxes into storage. As he sipped his
coffee, Alex moved to the dining table, idly opening the Macbook laptop that
lay on the table. He was greeted by an image of a handbag and he smiled at this
small, unexpected concession to frivolity from Talia. Handbags and shoes. Women
were all the same. It was nice to know that Talia wasn’t all that different. He
heard a sound behind him and turned to see that she had thrown on some clothes
and was watching him with a suspicious glare on her face.

“You’re still here,” she asked moving slowly into the room as
though afraid he might bite. Noticing her open laptop, she darted towards him,
shutting the laptop and picking it up. “You can’t just read things on people’s
computers,” she said. Alex smiled noting the way she held the laptop against
her chest, like a piece of armour between them. He wondered if he should tell
her that it would take more than that to remove the image of her wet, naked
breasts, which were seared indelibly on his memory.

“Why are you always so angry?” He asked. He saw her blink at
the question.

“I’m not…” Talia burst out and then stopped. She took a deep
breath and continued in a more measure tone. “I’m not angry,” she finished.

“Ok, not angry,” he agreed. “But defensive then.” She was
silent and Alex let the pause lengthen.

“What do you want Alex?” Talia asked. And for the first time
he noted the signs of weariness, the shadows under her eyes.

“Helena mentioned you’d been having some work trouble.”
Immediately, Alex saw her start to bristle. She really was extremely prickly.
Frankly he could not understand how she and Helena could have been best friends
for so long, being so totally different in temperament.

“She shouldn’t have done that,” Talia bit out. She felt a
flame of embarrassment, the last thing she needed was the pity of someone like
Alex, especially not when his ex-girlfriend, hook up, whatever, had caused her
downfall.

“Yeah well, she did,” Alex said slowly as though talking to a
particularly slow child. “Anyway I have some scripts and general development
stuff and I wondered if you could take a look for me.” As he finished speaking,
Alex noticed that Talia was staring at him as though he had grown an extra
head. What was it with her, he wondered in irritation. Every time he met her,
she seemed angry and prickly and eager to fight with him. Couldn’t she just be
like all the other women and fall into line?