Chapter One
Miranda
Miranda is not exactly in a holiday mood as she throws clothes and toiletries into a suitcase with the surliness of a woman defeated. Disgraced Miranda Faces the Axe ,
the tabloids crowed last week when the news broke that she would be stepping back temporarily from the show. Since then, every time she looks in the mirror it’s as if she can see that axe hanging over her head, poised on a hair-trigger to fall at any moment. Meanwhile, her inner monologue insists on chanting the sinister end of an old nursery rhyme, just to heighten the sense of doom:
Here is a candle to light you to bed
And here is a chopper to CHOP! OFF! YOUR! HEAD!
‘The directors feel very strongly that it would be wise for you to take a complete break,’ Helen, her agent, had said. ‘Get away from everything, remove yourself from the public eye until the fuss dies down.’ In the meantime, Miranda has been written out of the next few episodes of Amberley Emergency – and potentially, warns Helen, the rest of the season if she doesn’t get her act together.
‘Fancy being told to go on holiday !’ her grandad had marvelled on the phone when Miranda glumly told him the latest. ‘Iwish someone would tell me to pack a suitcase and head off on a jolly, Ireally do. Soon as Iget my car back from the garage, I’m out of here.’
‘Gramps. . .’ Miranda never has the heart to remind him that he no longer has a car, nor a driving licence for that matter, since the dementia diagnosis. ‘The thing is, Ijust want to do my job, and get on with my life again. But instead it’s like everyone hates me.’
‘Well, I don’t,’ he’d said, loyal as ever. ‘Icouldn’t!’
‘Everyone apart from you, then. Imogen still won’t speak to me. Everyone’s slagging me off online too, saying awful things. Iwas walking down the street today and a woman actually ran out of Greggs specifically to yell at me that Ishould be ashamed of myself.’
‘She never did! Crikey, love, Ihope you told her to shove her sausage roll where the sun doesn’t shine.’
Despite everything, the idea had made Miranda snort. ‘Ididn’t,’ she replied. ‘Because my agent will kill me if Iget in any more trouble. I’m supposed to be keeping my head down, remember?’ She’s been on the receiving end of quite enough bollockings lately.
‘Miranda. Idon’t know how much more plainly Ican say this,’ Helen’s parting words had been. ‘You’re no good to me– or anyone– when you’re in this state. Take a break somewhere restful. Have a long hard think about whether you want to stay in the industry– and if you do, try to figure out how you can turn this around. Because you’re starting to get a bad name for yourself, darling, do you hear me? We’re not quite in Last Chance Saloon yet, but we’re walking up to the door. Am Imaking myself clear?’
Yes, was the short and bad-tempered answer. Since then, Miranda has heard nothing from her agent, who seems to be devoting all her time to a new client, the sick-makingly handsome and posh Giles Shelby. He’s currently starring in a Sunday evening BBC World War Two drama, and if Miranda has to see one more rave review for his performance, one more picture of his smug face, she might actually self-combust with envy. Maybe it’s as well she’s leaving the country.
It has been a trying time, in short. Imogen, her sister, never wants to see her again. Her co-stars have mostly gone quiet on her, presumably thinking the worst. Helen is always too busy to take her calls, palming her off on Greta, the pink-haired assistant, who makes spelling mistakes in emails and says ‘expresso’ rather than ‘espresso’. Then there was the moment last week when Miranda stumbled out of a Kensington wine bar the worse for wear, only to have some obnoxious girls sniggering and filming her– ‘Oi, Miranda! Don’t slap us!’ In hindsight, she probably shouldn’t have responded by snarling expletives and giving them the finger, but there you go. You can only push a woman so far before she loses her shit. The footage swept through social media, getting such widespread traction that even her own mother came across it on Facebook. (‘Honestly, Miranda, Ithought I’d brought you up better than that,’ she’d tutted on the phone. Clearly not.)
Now Miranda’s packing for her exile: bikinis, sun cream, flip-flops. She’s booked in at a hotel called The Ionian Escape on Kefalonia, plucked drunkenly from the internet after watching Mamma Mia! with a bottle of Pinot Grigio, mostly because the website pictures reminded her of Meryl Streep’s house, with those blue shutters and all that frothing pink bougainvillea. It’s probably not advisable to make expensive decisions based on this sort of a whim but whatever, she’s done worse, as the whole country now knows.
Still, the pool looks all right in the photos, the reviews are glowing (‘Heaven!’ they say. ‘Bliss!’ ‘Paradise!’), and she got a reduction for booking last minute, too. She’ll disguise herself with massive sunglasses and a face-shading sunhat to avoid the stares, and she’ll keep her head down, see out the fortnight in dignified silence. Maybe, just maybe, she’ll even come up with a way to put everything right with Imogen.
The thought of her sister’s white, distraught face is enough to give her pause, though, and she sinks onto the bed, with a fresh wave of despair. Oh God. Everything has gone so catastrophically wrong. Will she ever be able to wake up in the morning without feeling like the worst person in the world? Without glancing around for the axe that is surely waiting to CHOP! OFF! HER! HEAD?