‘It’s difficult,’ he began, and rose from his chair. ‘We have traditions in this family. It’s what makes us strong. To bring a fruit-picker into the fold would risk destroying everything.’
‘I don’t want to marry Jack,’ she said, and turned to face him with both arms spread. ‘It’s just supper.’
Titus drew breath, only to respond with what sounded to Sasha like a long sigh of resignation. Just then, Titus realised that he needed to back off. If he didn’t, he really could risk losing her.
‘I want you back by ten o’clock,’ he told her warily. ‘Keep your mobile with you. If you’re worried at any time then call me, understood?’
‘Understood,’ she said, beaming at her father. ‘But you don’t have to worry. He’s a vegetarian, not a sex offender. There’s a difference.’
Before he could reply, Sasha skipped over, planted a kiss on his cheek, and then left him alone in the study. Titus watched her disappear. He gazed at the open door for a moment.
‘There may well be a difference,’ he muttered to himself, ‘but both are inexcusable.’
8
On an empty stomach, Lulabelle Hart could be somewhat fractious. Given her dietary habits, it was a mood that often lasted for much of the day. That morning, fuelled by a second glass of warm water (and a grape she had plucked from the fruit bowl in a moment of temptation) her performance was professional but underscored by a very short temper indeed.
‘Yes, we can try the lighting in a different way,’ she replied to the shoot’s director, a diplomatic and gifted helmsman who was simply trying to get the best from his cast. ‘Although I had expected to be working with a crew who could get that right first time.’
To be fair to Lulabelle, she could pose as well as she could swagger and strut. She just pushed the boundaries when it came to being civil. Approaching lunchtime, the poor props guy had been forced to empty the air freshener and fill it with a sample from Lulabelle’s perfume atomiser, before she ‘blew chunks into the camera lens’.
‘OK, let’s break for lunch,’ announced the director, sensing that he might need to turn down the emotional temperature. ‘Thirty minutes, everybody!’
While the cast and crew worked on the shoot in the front room, the catering manager had been busy in the kitchen. When everyone filed through, they found a buffet on the table with dishes appealing to every taste. Lulabelle wasn’t the first in line. The transport guys got in before her, but she was close behind. Without word, she began to fill her paper plate until there was no room for anything else. She went for the lime shrimp tacos, the fettuccine with chicken and sun-dried tomatoes, a slice of courgette and goat’s cheese tart, a wedge from the pistachio and pork pie, several scoops of beetroot and couscous salad, two bread rolls, four individually wrapped, reduced-fat butter pats and three super-chocolate cupcakes. Nobody liked to comment, of course. Everyone was hungry after such an early start. Still, it didn’t go unnoticed when Lulabelle took herself to a chair overlooking the garden that her lunch was less of a snack and more of a banquet. It took her the full half-hour to clear the plate. This was partly down to the fact that she spent much of it on a call to her agent.
‘The catwalk work,’ she was heard to say, still chewing on a Thai fried rice ball. ‘It’s why I signed with you… yes, I realise my career has matured, but there has to be more on offer than… well, this.’
As a result of the exchange, most of the crew returned to work fully expecting Lulabelle to be difficult, abrupt and even outright rude. Instead, she performed three further set-ups without complaint. She was also witty and even motivational with the child actress when the afternoon lull set in. On the last take, following a nod from the marketing lady sitting quietly in the corner, the director began a round of applause directed at Lulabelle.
‘You were brilliant,’ he told her. ‘The product will fly.’
With only some close ups of the air freshener left to shoot, Lulabelle asked politely if she could now leave the set. The make-up artist offered to cleanse her face, but by all accounts she was in too much of a hurry. She seemed happy, they said, if a little troubled, like someone who was questioning whether they had left the iron on before setting out for work that day.
Having thanked every crew member, Lulabelle collected her coat and left the front room. She closed the door behind her, but instead of leaving the house she headed straight for the toilet at the far end of the hallway. As she reached for the handle, the sound of the bolt withdrawing on the inside caused her to take a step back. Then the door opened outwards and the lighting man appeared. He seemed surprised to find anyone waiting, and hurried away without making eye contact. Unconcerned, Lulabelle took his place in the toilet, only to come right out again with her face pinched in an expression of utter disgust. Good grief, what had he been eating? There was no way she could bear to go in there for at least ten minutes. The way she felt just then, that was ten minutes too long. Which was what persuaded her to take to the stairs and find another bathroom.
Ivan Savage did not enjoy killing time. He liked to keep busy. That morning, having spent an hour battling zombies in his bedroom, the boy grew tired of videogames and turned his mind to other matters.
He had heard Sasha talking to their father in the study. No doubt his sister was hoping to sweeten him up so she could see her new boyfriend. Ivan knew Jack from school. The guy was good at buttering up girls, but that’s not how he treated boys in the years below him. If you didn’t step out of his way in the corridor, Jack would just barge through like you didn’t exist. It had happened to Ivan on several occasions. If anything, it just reinforced everything his father said about vegetarians. They were just so self-important, strutting around like they had life all worked out. Well, thought Ivan as the day stretched ahead, he would show Jack that sometimes you couldn’t simply have everything on a plate.
Even if Sasha talked her way into an evening out, Ivan decided that she should show up at Jack’s place with a headache. That would take the edge off any special time they had planned. Not only would it teach Sasha a lesson for making cheap jokes at his expense, he would do it in a way that afterwards everyone would look back and laugh.
At the top of the stairs, Lulabelle Hart decided not to disturb the family. She could hear someone at work in the study, clattering away on a keyboard, while all the bedroom doors on this level were closed. Lulabelle really didn’t want to venture up to the next floor and disturb the chatter, gurgling and laughter up there. It sounded like some old guy and a woman playing with a toddler, and left her feeling as if she was trespassing.
So, treading lightly, Lulabelle crossed the landing for the family bathroom. She would be in and out in moments, after all. They would never know.
Lulabelle didn’t recognise that she had a problem with food. She loved to eat, when she allowed herself. It helped her to forget what a slide her career was in. What she loathed was the feeling of guilt that expanded in her stomach soon afterwards. In her business, you just couldn’t afford to lose your self-control as she did, which is why she had developed a strategy for indulging herself without piling on the pounds.
‘Let’s get this done,’ she said to herself, on locking the door behind her.
This wasn’t something Lulabelle enjoyed. There was some satisfaction to be had from the way it preserved her figure, despite the stomach cramps, but the procedure itself she found to be a bore. She knew just how to trigger the required response, which she prepared to do having knelt in front of the toilet bowl and lifted the lid. Inserting two fingers into her mouth, Lulabelle reached back for her tonsils and prepared for the involuntary gag reflex that would follow.