Valentine Read online

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1 Valentine's Day Mascara

  Chapter 2 Thong and Dance

  Chapter 3 Can't Get You Out of My Head

  Chapter 4 Fairy Queen

  Chapter 5 Much Ado About Something

  Chapter 6 Family Values

  Chapter 7 Primrose Hill Poison

  Chapter 8 The Ex Factor

  Chapter 9 Last Night

  Chapter 10 First Contact

  Chapter 11 A Kiss is Just a Kiss

  Chapter 12 Lord, What Fools These Mortals Be . . .

  Chapter 13 If Only . . .

  Chapter 14 Hampstead Hell

  Chapter 15 Brief Encounter

  Chapter 16 A Break

  Chapter 17 Of All the TV Dramas in All the World

  Chapter 18 Lily's Divers

  Chapter 19 The Final Curtain

  Chapter 20 A Leap of Faith

  From Random House

  Valentine

  Rebecca Farnworth has worked as a celebrity ghostwriter. She lives in Brighton with her husband and three children. This is her first novel.

  Valentine

  Rebecca

  Farnworth

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  ISBN 9781409062226

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published in the United Kingdom by Arrow Books in 2009

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © Rebecca Farnworth, 2009

  Rebecca Farnworth has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  to be identified as the author of this work.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the

  author's imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is

  entirely coincidental

  This electronic book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  First published in Great Britain in 2009 by

  Arrow Books

  Arrow Books

  Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,

  London SW1V 2SA

  www.rbooks.co.uk

  Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at:

  www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

  The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 9781409062226

  Version 1.0

  To my fantastic four:

  Julian, Joe Amelie and Lola

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you Maggie Hanbury, my fantastically wise agent, I really appreciate everything you do for me.

  Thank you to everyone at Random House especially Mark Booth and Charlotte Haycock.

  Thank you Anna for your insights into the acting world. Dahling you were marvellous!

  Thank you Alison for being the voice of reason and calm in a sea of wittering.

  Thank you Claire Jones for always believing I could do it. You are a star shining brightly in the darkness of self doubt!

  Thank you Ali for all those emails to cheer me through when it was most needed.

  And thank you Isobel Williams who got me going on the right track in the first place.

  1

  Valentine's Day Mascara

  Valentine Fleming took a long hard look at herself and despaired. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who has the fattest bum of all? Is it me in these trousers? Should I even be wearing trousers to the audition? Jesus Christ my arse looks VAST! What was I thinking of, wearing black Capri pants with my backside? I should be in a reality freak show for people with massive arses; they could call it Arse Swap.

  She was just hours away from auditioning for the part of Titania, the fairy queen, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, but instead of channelling her character's magical and powerful qualities she was gripped with self-doubt and blind panic. To make matters worse the audition was on her least favourite day of the year – Valentine's Day – which also happened to be her birthday. Up until a year ago Valentine had loved having a birthday on the fourteenth of February. How she used to enjoy strolling down the road, flipping through her impressively large bundle of mail, noting the looks of envy coming at her from the women she passed, who weren't to know that they were seeing birthday cards. And yes, it was shallow, but did that make her a bad person? Did that mean that she had deserved what had happened on this day a year ago?

  It was imperative not to think about that now. She had to focus on the audition. But it was no good. Suddenly, as if she'd been wearing Dorothy's ruby slippers, she was transported back to the scene in Café Pasta, Covent Garden. She was sitting opposite Finn Steele, the love, she was sure, of her life. She was blissfully happy and felt ever so slightly smug that she had a date on this night of all nights. She neglected to reflect that Finn wasn't in fact her boyfriend; he was someone else's. After six months of their affair Finn had just revealed that he was finally going to leave Eva, his girlfriend – something he'd been promising to do from the moment he and Valentine got together. It was a perfect moment. Too perfect to be true, apparently, as into the lovers' idyll stormed an angry-looking blonde who would have been pretty were her face not puce with rage. The girlfriend. For a second Valentine remembered thinking it was remarkable that her face was very nearly the same colour as the deep red roses she was carrying, and wasn't that taking accessorising a little far? Then the red-faced blonde violently hurled the bouquet at Finn, causing his carbonara sauce to splatter into his eyes. While he shouted that she had blinded him, she screeched that he was a two-timing bastard. Then she left and Finn ran after her, begging her to forgive him, declaring that he loved her and only her. In the aftermath of their affair ending so publicly and so painfully Valentine had developed an almost pathological hatred of red roses and Italian food, which was a shame as she'd always loved Penne alla Vongole.

  She should have hated Finn after that. God knew she had cause. Instead she still loved him, still hoped that one day they could get back together. Now she picked up her phone, hoping he'd texted (the fifth time she'd checked in an hour) and even as she did it she despised herself for being such a cliché. What becomes of the broken hearted? They compulsively check their phones and stalk their exes on Facebook. Technology had a lot to answer for. There was no text and she was torturing herself by even looking, but she just couldn't help it. Finn was the itch under her skin, always there. It hadn't helped that they'd met up since the break-up – always on his terms, always for sex. Ten times to be precise. Valentine remembered every single detail of every single encounter. Every time had been intoxicating, intense but ultimately disastrous for an addict like Valentine. It had stopped her moving on and getting over him, left her in a permanent limbo.

  Oh God, thinking about him now was not going to help. Would he be thinking about her? Fat chance. He was most likely bringing his girlfriend champagne
and flowers in bed, pulling out a single red rose from the exquisite bouquet and lightly caressing her body with the petals, switching between the flower and his hands and tongue, turning her on and STOP! She put up a mental roadblock sign in her mind. If she carried on like this she would be guaranteed to balls up the audition. She turned her thoughts from Finn to another ruthless scrutiny of her arse – really, Trinny and Susanna had nothing on her. There was no getting away from it: the trousers were a disaster. She looked more Beth Ditto (no offence Beth, lovely girl and all that) than Audrey Hepburn in them. She frantically flicked through the clothes in her wardrobe, growing ever more desperate. When she couldn't find anything she ended up pulling everything out and dumping it on the floor in frustration, creating a hideous jumble of garments and giving her even less chance of finding something suitable.

  'You're going to be late if you don't step on it, V,' her flatmate Lauren advised, standing at her bedroom door, smoking. She'd just got out of bed but still looked stunning in a turquoise silk kimono. She resembled the Hollywood actress Diane Kruger with her sculpted cheekbones, slanting blue eyes, full lips, perfect skin and long, naturally blonde hair. When Valentine had first met her at drama school seven years ago, she had never imagined that they could be friends. Lauren seemed completely out of her league and frankly what kind of masochist wants to be friends with someone who would always outshine them? But they had bonded as witches in a student production of Macbeth, discovering they shared the same wicked sense of humour. In Lauren she found a best friend who kept her going, even through the darkest times. Sometimes she didn't even notice her beauty.

  'Don't smoke near me!' Valentine wailed. 'You know I've given up and this is my weakest hour!'

  Lauren narrowed her eyes. 'I hope you haven't been obsessing about him again. I know what today means to you, but you've got to get a grip.' Lauren loathed Finn so much for his treatment of Valentine that she couldn't even bring herself to say his name. While Valentine told her friend most things, she hadn't let on about the secret meetings. She felt too ashamed and too conflicted to confide. Lauren's best qualities, her unflinching honesty and her straight talking, could also be her worst. 'He's a gutless bastard who nearly destroyed you, remember?' This was the mantra Lauren had tried to drum into her, with limited success it had to be said – hence the ten shags. 'You've got to focus on the audition. You must have a core of steel.' The latter comment being her other mantra.

  'I am! I do!' protested Valentine, whose core felt more like jelly. She avoided looking at Lauren, who could always tell when she was lying.

  'Well, I'll leave you to it then.' Lauren blew a smoke ring at her.

  'No!' Valentine begged. 'This is a 911 situation!' Both she and Lauren were convinced that 911 sounded more twenty-first century than 999, which always strangely reminded them of Michael Buerk and his TV programme with its dramatic reconstructions of people rescued from potholes. 'You've got to help me!' This was the torturous ritual Valentine went through with every single audition. The mad, headless-chicken panicking that she had nothing to wear, the worrying that she wasn't pretty enough / thin enough / blonde enough / straight-haired enough / tall enough / small enough to get the part. Casually Lauren walked towards the heap of clothes, picked out a black wrap dress, a pair of black leggings and black pumps and handed them to Valentine. 'Try these,' she said calmly.

  Quickly Valentine slipped off the rejected outfit and put on Lauren's choice, triggering another frantic self-appraisal in the mirror.

  'You don't think the dress makes me look too—'

  She couldn't get the words out before Lauren cut in, 'No, you look great.'

  'Are you sure I don't look a bit—' Valentine persisted, but Lauren had stuck her fingers in her ears and was singing 'la la la' at the top of her voice. It was fair enough, Valentine reasoned; Lauren had endured this routine many, many, many times.

  'What about the make-up?' Valentine asked. The trick about audition make-up was that you were supposed to look as if you weren't wearing any. God knew the natural look was fiendishly hard to perfect.

  'Maybe a tiny bit more blusher,' Lauren advised, advancing towards her with a brush and adding the merest hint to Valentine's cheeks.

  'Not too much!' Valentine protested. 'You know I always go red under pressure.' She took one last look in the mirror. Would she do? She'd tried to emphasise her large green eyes – her best feature, she always thought – by curling her lashes and with subtle eye make-up. She'd spent ages blending in her foundation, covering up the few freckles on her nose in case the director didn't like them, and she was wearing the most natural-coloured lipstick she had. Even though she was hyper self-critical she knew she wasn't bad looking, could admit on her good days to being pretty. However she also knew that she didn't fall into the beautiful category so effortlessly occupied by Lauren. But then Valentine always underestimated her looks, probably because she'd had so many rejections at auditions and because she lived with Lauren. She didn't realise how attractive and sexy she was, with her sensuous lips and beautiful eyes. And she was constantly obsessing over her weight; being a natural size twelve was no fun when you were always up against size-eight and size-six skinnies. She sighed as she tried to tuck one of her curls back into place and cursed her mother yet again, from whom she had inherited her wild chestnut hair. Why hadn't she been born in an era that appreciated curls? Say the eighteenth century? Then again, there would have been no Pringles, no teeth-whitening toothpaste, in fact no toothpaste and no George Clooney.

  'Knock em' dead kid and we'll have a birthday drink when you get back, plus I'll give you your present,' Lauren said as Valentine headed out of their top-floor flat. Downstairs in the hallway the post had arrived. Let there be a card from Finn, Valentine prayed as she feverishly went through it. But there were just cards from her mum and brother, and several of her friends, along with three Valentine cards for Lauren. If she hadn't been her best friend Valentine would have had every reason to hate her.

  She walked rather despondently to the bus stop, then tried to pull herself together. She really needed this part. She hadn't had an audition for five long months, which felt like for ever. She often thought that being a struggling actress was like enduring a series of humiliations and living on perpetual tenterhooks. There was the endless waiting for auditions, chipping away at her self-esteem, not helped by other people forever asking her what she was in at the moment, reminding her that she wasn't in anything. When she replied she was between jobs they'd exclaim cheerily, 'So you're resting. All right for some!' Valentine would smile politely and resist the impulse to tell them to fuck off. Then there would be the moment of hope when she actually got an audition, but it was hope mixed in with a large measure of insidious doubt that she wasn't pretty enough / thin enough, etc. etc. to get it. There was the audition itself where nine times out of ten she was treated like total shit by the director and didn't get the part anyway. Then there were those all-too-brief times when she got a part and even if it was tiny and the pay was rubbish (as it invariably was) it somehow made up for everything else and kept her going.

  And when she wasn't acting there were the humiliating jobs she had to do just to survive. Her 'theatre in education' work, for example, which sounded worthwhile but always seemed to involve trying to get testosterone-charged Lynx-wearing teenage boys interested in Macbeth while ignoring their sexually suggestive comments. There was her temping work, which she loathed. To make it more interesting she used to practise her acting skills and go into jobs as different characters, but she'd had to abandon this when she had pretended to be from Bulgaria and her boss had been Bulgarian. What were the chances of that? Having to fess up had been deeply embarrassing.

  And there was her work as a children's party entertainer. She winced in recollection of the most recent booking, for which she had dressed as the sugar plum fairy to entertain twenty precocious six-year-old girls. It had gone wrong even before she arrived at the party, as she'd had to borrow Lauren's pink
leotard, two sizes too small. Consequently she'd ended up showing far more cleavage than was probably acceptable for a children's birthday party and the thong had nearly caused her a serious gynaecological injury. Lauren had taken one look at her and burst out laughing, calling her 'Porno Fairy'. And she'd been right – Valentine had been whistled at all the way to the party by white van drivers who'd called out lewd comments about where they'd like to stick their wands. Valentine had retaliated by giving them the finger and shouting that she knew where she'd like to stick hers, and been witnessed by several mothers with small children – they wouldn't be booking her for a party any time soon. And things had only got worse. At the party the children, who were all spoilt, rich darlings, were already on a wild sugar rush, and had turned their noses up at every single game Valentine had suggested and kept doing whatever minger hand signals at her. Meanwhile the father of the überobnoxious birthday girl, Harrison Foster-Twat Arse or something (a city banker type in chinos, a garment for which Valentine had an irrational hatred) spent the entire time leering at her cleavage or trying to grope her. She winced at the memory. Please let me get this part, God. She didn't believe in God, but maybe if she succeeded in acting she would undergo a rapid conversion.

  She anxiously looked at her watch. Where the hell was the bus? A woman passed by clutching an unfeasibly large bouquet of red roses, a smug I-am-not-a-sad-singleton expression across her face. Valentine felt the familiar wave of nausea at the sight of the red roses and looked the other way. It really was time to stop channelling Marnie from that Hitchcock film. Just at that moment a double-decker bus sailed past her with one of the actresses from her old drama school plastered across it, advertising her latest film, and almost blinding the unsuspecting public with her incredibly white, perfect teeth. It was Tamara Moore or NTM (No Talent Moore) as Valentine and Lauren called her. Valentine liked to think that she would not have begrudged her fellow actor her success if she had been supremely talented, but Tamara had all the acting range of an eleven-year-old girl and that was probably being disrespectful to the eleven-year-old. Her trajectory to almost instant fame was due entirely to who she was, or rather who her parents were. She was the daughter of an extremely successful actress and a rock-star dad. Nepotism was alive and kicking in the acting world. In fact, all the people from Valentine's year who had gone on to do well were the sons or daughters of established actors. While some had talent and deserved it; others like Tamara did not. Valentine's mum was a midwife and her dad, who had died three years ago, had been a psychiatric nurse, both extremely worthwhile professionals, and Valentine was proud of them. However, sometimes, when there had been no auditions for a while Valentine did have the odd dark moment when she thought she might have made it by now had she been better-connected. She had talent – she had won the prestigious Olivier award in her final year – but that apparently wasn't enough. But she didn't just dislike Tamara because of her talent bypass; Tamara had made it her mission to undermine Valentine at all times and had also flirted outrageously with Finn. Valentine had often wondered if there'd been something going on between them.