‘Why don’t you watch something that isn’t the news? It will take your mind off things,’ Poppet said soothingly. ‘I’ll call you at lunch.’
Lizzy rang off and switched on
This Morning
. Phillip and Holly had their serious faces on. A violet-haired woman was sitting on the sofa opposite them. The caption on the screen read ‘Mary DuVille, author of
Single Women Need Self Love First
’.
‘Lizzy Spellman will be in a very dark place right now,’ Mary DuVille intoned. ‘Being rejected by the man you thought you were going to marry affects the psyche at a primeval level.’
‘How can Justin have done that to her in front of a room full of people?’ asked an outraged Holly. ‘It’s totally out of order!’
Mary DuVille looked grave. ‘From what I can see, Lizzy displays all the symptoms of a classic fantasist. It’s a common problem for women who are on the threshold of their thirties and are panicking about being left on the shelf.’
Phillip Schofield gazed solemnly into the camera. ‘Are you like Lizzy Spellman and have been told that you’re not “The One”? If so, please get in touch and call the number on the screen now. Next up – how to wow dinner guests with the perfect rum baba!’
Lizzy woke from a new nightmare slumber where she was trapped inside a bridal shop and there were dozens of faces pressed against the window laughing at her. Someone was banging on the front door. ‘Go away!’ she shouted hysterically. ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you!’
Her mother’s voice sliced down the corridor like a scythe. ‘Elizabeth! Open up. We’ve only got fifteen minutes’ parking on the car.’
‘Leave me alone!’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous. Are you going to open up or am I going to have to ask your father to force the door and put his shoulder out?’
Muttering obscenities, Lizzy hauled herself out of bed and trudged down the hallway. She opened the front door and saw her parents framed on the doorstep in a blinding display of camera-bulbs. They threw themselves in and shut the door behind them.
‘I hope they don’t use those pictures, I didn’t have time to do the back of my hair.’ Lizzy’s mum pulled off her sunglasses. ‘Oh, darling, you look
dreadful.
’
‘I feel dreadful,’ Lizzy said, and burst into tears.
That was the thing about parents. They had been the last people Lizzy had wanted to see – her mum anyway – but they had come in and immediately made everything better.
By the time Lizzy had got out of the shower her dad had done the washing up and her mum had tidied away all the old Sunday papers in the living room, stripped Lizzy’s bed and laid out an outfit for her to wear.
‘We’re taking you out for lunch,’ her mum informed her.
Luckily her dad had had the foresight to bring his golfing umbrella in, which he opened up in the reporters’ faces as they charged out to the car. The three of them were now ensconced in a nearby Pizza Express. Lizzy was wearing a Topshop scarf round her head and had insisted on sitting away from the window so no one could recognize her.
‘Don’t be silly. It’s not like you’re Princess Diana back from the dead.’ Her mum looked at the menu. ‘Are we having garlic doughballs?’
‘I thought you were on the 5:2 diet,’ Lizzy said.
‘It’s one of my “off” days. Oh come on, darling, don’t start crying again.’
‘Poor old Lizard’s had a horrid time,’ her dad said gently.
‘I know that, Michael!’ Mrs Spellman softened her tone. ‘I’m just
saying
there’s no point her lying round feeling sorry for herself.’
‘This is a c-c-catastrophe,’ Lizzy gulped. ‘How can I ever face anyone again?’
‘This is not a catastrophe,’ her mother told her. ‘Orphans starving in Africa is a catastrophe. Thousands of people losing their homes in flash floods is a catastrophe. That awful Gordon Halliday getting elected as councillor for Bromley West
is
a major catastrophe. I know it feels like your world has ended.’ She handed Lizzy a Kleenex from her handbag. ‘But you have to get some perspective.’
The annoying thing was that her mum was right. Lizzy just wasn’t in any fit state to accept it yet. She blew her nose loudly, making an elderly couple on the next table jump. ‘How did you find out?’
‘Lauren called us,’ her dad said.
‘
Lauren’s
seen it?’ Lauren was Lizzy’s sister who lived in New York.
‘And we went over to David and Jacqui’s last night and it was all they could talk about. David kept on replaying it on YouLube.’ Her mum gave Lizzy a reproachful look. ‘I’m not very impressed with my daughter being involved in a public brawl. I know you were upset, but there was no need to resort to physical violence.’
‘What about the time you kicked Dad on the shin with your stiletto when we were younger and he had to go to A & E because the wound went septic?’ Lizzy sniffed.
‘That was different. I was under extreme provocation. Your father and Uncle Alan had been on the whisky and they were being extremely silly.’ Mrs Spellman jangled the bracelet of her wristwatch. ‘How was I to know the steel tip would go through a pair of trousers
and
his merino wool sock?’
‘Justin’s lucky I wasn’t there or I would have bopped him on the nose myself,’ Mr Spellman said. ‘He’s an idiot for not wanting to marry you.’
‘I didn’t think he was going to bloody propose!’ Lizzy shouted.
Her parents looked at her as if she was mad.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘I’m just feeling a bit sensitive about it at the moment.’
Her mother was trying to catch the waiter’s eye. ‘Well,
I
never wanted him in the family anyway.’
Lizzy stared at her. ‘Mum, you’re the one who said he was going to ask me to marry him in the first place!’
‘Did I? I don’t think so.’
‘You’ve been saying it all week!’
Mrs Spellman shook her head dismissively. ‘You must have got muddled up. I always thought Justin had a suspicious mouth.’
‘What on earth does that mean?’ Lizzy’s dad asked.
‘It was always a bit tight and anxious-looking. Like he’d done something wrong and knew he was about to be found out at any moment. You know.’ She screwed her lips up. ‘
Suspicious!
’
Mr Spellman rolled his eyes. ‘What I will say,’ he told Lizzy, ‘is marriage proposal or no marriage proposal, no decent man would do that to his girlfriend in public. Especially not to my Lizard.’
‘Thanks, Dad,’ Lizzy said gratefully. Her parents might be bonkers but they always made her feel better.
‘Onwards and upwards, darling,’ her mother declared. ‘You’ll go back to work tomorrow and we’ll have no more of this silliness. What do the Spellmans always say?’
‘A smile a day keeps the naysayers away,’ Lizzy and her dad chanted dutifully.
‘That’s more like it.’ Mrs Spellman waved her menu in the air. ‘There he goes, blatantly ignoring me again! That’s London for you.’
On the way home her mother made them pull over at a Tesco Metro to buy Lizzy some groceries.
‘Your father and I were very alarmed at all the empty wine bottles in the flat,’ she told Lizzy as they went down the fruit and veg aisle.
‘I had a party last weekend,’ Lizzy lied.
‘I don’t remember you saying … How about a nice pineapple? Did I tell you Jacqui’s started juicing? She’s been doing that Jason Vale book, you know that diet guru all the celebrities go to.’
‘I haven’t got anywhere to put a juicer in the kitchen, Mum.’
Mrs Spellman gave her A Look. ‘You seem to find somewhere for all those wine bottles.’
The girl at the checkout gave Lizzy a sympathetic smile and produced a rather battered box of Celebrations from under the till. ‘These are on us. Same thing happened to my mate. She thought her boyfriend was going to propose on Christmas Day and all she got was one of those crappy foot spas. Sometimes you’ve just got to eat through the heartbreak.’
‘That’s very kind of you, but she’ll never get another boyfriend if she’s fat and covered in spots,’ Mrs Spellman told her. ‘Oh look, Lizzy, your father’s waving. He must be getting antsy about being parked in the bus lane.’
As they drove up to the flat the gang of reporters had doubled in size. They surged forward as they spotted the Spellmans’ Volvo Estate. Another round of flashbulbs went off.
‘This is unacceptable.’ Lizzy’s dad started to unbuckle his seatbelt, but her mum stopped him.
‘I’ll take care of this, Michael.’
Her mum climbed out of the car. A microphone was shoved in her face. ‘Mrs Spellman, as Lizzy’s mother, you must know the trauma your daughter is going through. How is she coping?’
‘She is coping perfectly fine, thank you. And for the record, she didn’t want to marry him anyway!’
‘I thought he was going to ask me to move in!’ Lizzy wailed from the back seat.
‘I’m the first to admit Lizzy has her faults,’ Mrs Spellman told the assembled pack of reporters. ‘But she didn’t deserve any of this. Lizzy is a kind, loving, wonderful daughter. A little messy, yes, and she drinks far too much, but that’s what these ladettes do these days, isn’t it?’ She rolled her eyes, playing up to her audience. ‘And don’t get me started on her finances!’
Lizzy whimpered gently and started to slide down the seat. It seemed her mother wasn’t done yet. Grabbing the microphone, Mrs Spellman beamed at the bank of reporters.
‘If anyone knows any nice single men, do send them her way!
Somebody
out there must want her!’
Lizzy’s boss was already in when she got into the office the next morning. Antonia was at her desk wearing a beaded kaftan and surrounded by ringing phones.
‘A-ha!’ she cried. ‘Our resident celebrity!’
Lizzy cautiously removed her sunglasses and unwound her headscarf. ‘Sorry I’m late. I had a bit of a nightmare getting in.’
That was an understatement. Besieged by the reporters still on her doorstep, Lizzy had been forced to flag down a passing cab to escape. The previous customer had left behind a copy of the
Metro
and in it, there was a full-page interview with Lizzy’s now ex-boyfriend. ‘I had to follow my heart and it wasn’t with Lizzy. I wish her the very best.’ His face still looked rather battered from where Lizzy had delivered the killer blow, but as Poppet had pointed out, how could he complain about a broken nose when he’d broken Lizzy’s heart?
‘With all the coverage you’ve been getting you could have at least got a product placement in,’ Antonia told her. ‘Talk about pissing away a golden opportunity.’
‘Sorry,’ Lizzy mumbled. ‘Next time I get dumped by my boyfriend and it goes global, I’ll make sure I remember.’
‘You may think all this is funny, darling, but your clients are very concerned about how it’s going to affect them. We’re meant to be the ones creating the news, not making it. We can’t have you running off and hogging all the attention.’ Antonia stood up and heaved her Anya Hindmarch tote over her shoulder. ‘I’m off to meet Jocasta for a crisis summit. We’re not to be disturbed under
any circumstances
.’
The phones were still ringing off the hook. ‘Aren’t you going to answer those?’ she asked Lizzy.
The morning was horrific. Lizzy’s clients were convinced she was leaving them to become a TV star. She had to try and placate them, as well as attempting to do her usual workload and fielding constant phone calls from journalists. It was hard not to appreciate the irony. Normally these people wouldn’t give her the time of day. Now they were falling over themselves to get an exclusive interview with her.
By midday the press had cottoned on to where Haven PR was. When Antonia came back to the office she had to drive through a pack of them to get to her parking space.
Lizzy had just got off the phone to a very nice woman from the
Huffington Post
, who wanted to do a sympathetic interview about what had happened. ‘It would be your chance to put your side of the story across,’ she told Lizzy.
‘Tell them we want a big plug for the new herbal constipation product or we’re not playing ball,’ barked Antonia.
Lizzy emailed the
Huffington Post
woman back to politely say that unfortunately she wouldn’t be able to do it.
At 6 p.m. even Antonia could see how frazzled Lizzy was and offered to drive her to the tube station in her Range Rover. By the time Lizzy arrived at San Marco, the Italian restaurant she and her friends had been going to for years, she was in need of a stiff drink. Giuseppe, the rotund owner who bore an uncanny resemblance to the porn star Ron Jeremy, greeted her in a high state of excitement.
‘Lee-zee! We don’t get many famous people in here.’
‘Very funny,’ Lizzy said wearily.
‘It sucks to be jilted, hey?’ Giuseppe nudged her in the ribs. ‘I have nephew from Tuscany who is single. He have bad Internet connection so might not have seen video. You want me to call him?’
‘That’s really sweet, Giuseppe, but I think it’s a bit too soon.’
The restaurant owner nodded solemnly. ‘Heartbroken of course. You need time to grieve. Come! I give you a booth so no one stare.’
Poppet was already waiting with a carafe of wine. ‘It’s on the house. Giuseppe is really worried about you.’
Lizzy necked a glass of Pinot Grigio in one go.
‘Are you going to keep those sunglasses on?’ Poppet asked. ‘Only I think they’re just going to attract more attention.’
Nic arrived ten minutes later on her phone, wheeling her overnight case behind her.
‘Let’s talk to them tomorrow. I’ll send you the budget breakdown. OK, bye.’ She flopped down next to Lizzy. ‘I am gagging for a drink.’
‘How was Berlin?’ Poppet asked.
‘Brussels. Boring. I hate that place.’
Nic was the global sales and marketing manager for a well-known hotel chain. It never ceased to amaze Lizzy that someone she’d once watched projectile-vomit Baileys through both nostrils now had such an important job.
Giuseppe materialized at the table like a jolly genie. ‘What can I get you ladies?’
‘The usual please: two garlic breads with extra cheese and we’ll have some of those amazeballs stuffed olives on the counter,’ Nic instructed. ‘Then Poppet will have the Sicilian – no onions – Lizzy will have the truffle risotto and I’ll have the seafood linguine. No anchovies, remember, G Man. I hate those little bastards.’