Chapter 30
By the time I hit the red carpet, I’ve warmed to the dress. Admittedly, the small glass of champagne I had with Andrea before we left our hotel may have something to do with that. But I’m also partly reassured by the support of a ‘plunging backless multiway bra’ which I ordered using next-day delivery, having firmly decided against the stick-on nipple covers. It’s a bit like a belt with boobs and can be used in a variety of permutations – halter neck, cross back, low back. All options involve contorting into some very complicated positions simply to put it on. Imagine playing Twister with your underwear and you’ve got the idea.
Tonight’s venue is one of those grand Park Lane hotels, all chandeliers and martini glasses, the sort of place that’s been here for centuries, welcoming film stars and presidents. We arrive amidst a frenzy of flashbulbs, security guards and autograph hunters, the air filled with a collective waft of expensive perfume. Everywhere you look there is a gleaming, immaculately groomed woman, often with someone equally glamorous on her arm.
As Andrea and I head through security, I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn to see Jamila Abbew, a dynamic young producer from east London who I’ve been working with for the last two years. She looks stunning in an aqua tulle gown that compliments her dark skin – and so excited she can barely contain herself.
‘This is absolutely bonkers , Lisa,’ she grins.
‘Make sure you enjoy every minute of it. I bet you never imagined all this on that first day you stepped into our office with your big idea, did you?’
‘Are you joking? I’ve been imagining this ever since I was about five years old.’
Jamila and her colleagues are nominated for Best Entertainment Production Team, an astonishing feat given how hard I had to fight to even commission their programme. But I always loved the concept of The Greatest Show : 12 ordinary people, each paired with a professional circus performer, to learn and be judged on a new skill per week. They tackle everything from juggling to trapeze artistry and the result is one of the most awe-inspiring, visually stunning yet simultaneously nostalgic forms of family entertainment there is.
Before the show aired, sceptics – and there were more than a few inside MotionMax+ – were worried that it would fall flat, that the skills (and therefore insurance premiums) would be too much for an Average Joe. I knew all this was a possibility but instantly recognised Jamila as a woman with an eye for detail. She was capable, passionate, energetic – and she’d thought of everything .
It was initially a slow burn when it finally streamed, but by the fourth week of broadcast, it had become a water-cooler hit. Audiences liked that contestants were chosen from all walks of life and had all manner of backgrounds – the woman who won had given up gymnastics when she was thirteen and had been working in a chemist’s shop for the last twenty years.
We head inside amidst a melee of air-kissing and shrieks of delighted recognition, before we are invited to take our seats. I am walking into the dining room, part of a crowd of black ties and ballgowns, when I feel the warm pressure of a hand on my lower back.
I can smell him before I see him.
When I look up and make eye contact with Zach, my entire body seems to react, with a melting warmth that reaches the dip behind my ears.
He leans in to whisper to me. ‘You look the part.’
I raise an eyebrow as we drift forwards. ‘ The part? ’
He replies with a ‘hmm,’ more murmur than word, before we are swept apart again.
MotionMax+ has taken two tables and Andrea – fragrant in flowing cerise chiffon – is seated between Zach and Krishna, opposite me. She is in her element at this kind of event and likes to, in her words, ‘work the room’. This networking is all for professional reasons, of course, though she does seem mysteriously drawn to handsome, recently retired television doctors and Nigel Farage-lookalikes and once put on an unedifying display at a broadcasting dinner when she was seated next to the Culture Secretary.
She certainly enjoys sitting between Zach and Krishna, judging by the way she keeps playfully slapping the latter’s arm and saying, ‘Ooh you are terrible,’ even though he looks completely bewildered as to what he’s supposed to have said.
The awards are handed out after the meal, with a glamorous actor called Joanna Collins as host. A former model and a household name in the 1970s, she disappeared from the spotlight entirely until she was recently cast in the lead role in a gritty – and highly successful – cop show.
There are one or two surprises: Best Cinematography for a drama that many critics snootily said looked as if it was filmed on an iPhone, and Best Make Up & Hair Design for a woman that both Andrea and I had been convinced had retired to Goa to run a yoga retreat.
Before we know it, it’s our category. I can feel tension radiating from Jamila next to me and when I glance at her, there are pricks of sweat on her brow. Instinctively, I slide my hand onto hers on the table and give it a fortifying squeeze, which she reciprocates automatically.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, now we come to a much-anticipated part of the show,’ says Joanna Collins ‘. . . for Best Entertainment Production Team.’
They’re up against some of the big guns – The Apprentice , The Masked Singer , Cake Ninjas – so are very much the outsider. But still, I have a good feeling. Everyone loves an underdog, after all.
The nominees are read out one by one, each followed by a five-second trailer. I am vaguely aware of Andrea opposite, crossing both fingers demonstratively as Krishna gives a statesmanlike nod of support. Zach, meanwhile . . . well, I can barely look at Zach, even if I know his gaze is fixed on me.
‘And the winner is . . .’
The eternal silence is filled by a drum roll tumbling through my head.
‘ Cake Ninjas !’
I feel Jamila deflate before I even get a chance to look at her and see the tremble she’s fighting on her lip.
She dips her head to mine. ‘I don’t think I’ve mastered the “brave loser” face yet,’ she confesses.
‘Good,’ I say firmly. ‘Because this is the last time you’ll ever have to use it. Leave a space on your mantelpiece for next year. Just you wait.’ A wave of gratitude brightens her sad face.
‘Thanks, Lisa,’ she says. It’s only when she squeezes my hand that I realise I hadn’t let go. ‘For everything .’