'I could come in on Friday,' Poppy gasped, desperately trying to keep Barbara's attention like a bad comedian with a drunken audience. She wanted to say 'today' but she knew it would sound too eager.

'Friday? Well, I suppose so,' Barbara said reluctantly.

'About eleven?'

'All right, then. Oh, sorry, gotta go. See you Thursday.'

'Friday!' Poppy shouted at the handset. She remembered how Barbara had once chased her round the swimwear section at Harvey Nicks desperate to get her signature on the contract. Now she was lower on her priority list than a packet of j.a.panese rice crackers. But she wasn't going to dwell on such thoughts. Poppy wasn't going to be a leech and a parasite. She would go and wow Barbara on Friday and she would make Luke proud.

17.

Thea had spent that Monday in a hospital in North London putting together a story about a doctor who'd given a child a near fatal dose of medicine. Now, at five, two hours before the show began, she was in one of the editing suites checking the astons the names that appeared under each talking head. Astons were very important: the times when Hillary Clinton had been billed as the Duke of Westminster or Nelson Mandela as Johnny Rotten were legion. But it had never happened on Thea's beat. And it never would.

Satisfied that all was in order, she opened the sound-proofed door and was back in the buzz of the newsroom. As the deadline approached you could almost touch the adrenalin. Reporters gesticulated as they gabbled into their phones. Producers barked as they tried to lure interviewees on to the show. Monica Thomson, that day's programme editor, was trying to persuade Emma Waters to go to Heathrow where a man had breached the perimeter fence and run naked across the runway.

'Don't be ridiculous, Monica. I'm not going to Heathrow! It's b.l.o.o.d.y raining out there.'

'Please,' Monica tried timidly. She was newly promoted to the job and, like dogs, the reporters could smell her fear.

'No.' Emma gestured at Bryn Darwin, one of the oldest and laziest reporters, who was bent over his sudoku. 'Send Bryn. Go on.'

'Oh, OK,' Monica said and scuttled off nervously to try him.

Dean strode through the room like Napoleon overseeing his troops.

'Have we got a fat teenager yet?' he shouted at the room in general. 'Well, why the f.u.c.k not? I want a roly-poly. Hoisted into the studio with a crane preferably. Come on, everyone. Find me a lardb.u.t.t. Fifty quid for the winner.'

'Got one!' shouted creepy Rhys, one of the GAs general a.s.sistants much mocked for his over-eager manner. 'Sixteen. Twenty-three stone. Lives on c.o.ke, crisps and KFC. Claims she's got a hormonal problem.'

'Bingo, my boy. Well done! Details to Amanda.' Dean nodded at the guest booker, who was responsible for interviewees arriving at the studio.

'She says she'll need a people carrier,' Rhys told Amanda, 'and even then they may have to move the seats to fit her in.'

Thea grinned. She loved the way that at work there was scarcely time to breathe, let alone think. Thinking too much wasn't healthy; she'd had a near sleepless night brooding about whether her friendship with Rachel could ever be the same.

'How's your day been?' asked Alexa Marples, who was sitting at the desk behind her. Smart and ambitious, Alexa reminded Thea a lot of herself ten years ago, except Thea would never have had the confidence to wear such low-slung jeans. Before Thea could answer, she continued. 'G.o.d, I'll be glad when today's over. Woke up with a mouth like a dog's b.u.m. Too many Bacardi Breezers last night.'

Thea smiled. 'I know that feeling.'

'Do you?' Alexa looked as if the Queen had just told her she was feeling a bit bunged up but hoped a vindaloo would clear it. Since she'd got back, Thea had had a few exchanges like this. She'd only been gone two years but in that time the office appeared to have been repopulated by babies who spent all day updating their profiles online and rushing off as soon as work was over to get bladdered in Sh.o.r.editch. Thea was no longer part of that gang, but on the other hand she wasn't part of the late-thirties office crowd who rushed home immediately after the debrief to read their kids a bedtime story. Just as she had at Rachel's, Thea felt a flicker of unease, a sense of not belonging anywhere.

At the newsdesk, Luke was practising tonight's headlines. 'Six out of ten teenagers are obese,' he intoned in his crisp, clear voice as Dean and Georgina, the lawyer, listened intently. 'The Mexican earthquake: two hundred feared dead. The doctor who accidentally poisoned a toddler-'

'You know you can't say that, Luke,' Georgina interrupted. 'It hasn't been proven yet. The doctor will sue.'

'Oh b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l.' Luke was never patient with lawyer's stipulations. 'The toddler who received a fatal dose? How about that.'

'Is it just me?' Alexa said softly. 'Or is something a bit weird about Luke's face?'

Thea looked. Now Alexa mentioned it, the skin did seem to be stretched even more tightly than ever across his cheekbones and, although his eyes were full of expression, his brow stayed strangely smooth. Thea glanced sideways at Alexa, but her attention was now fixed firmly on the monitors. Thea hated the idea of everyone knowing there had been something between her and Luke.

'He looks the same as ever to me,' she said shortly.

'Don't you think he's been a bit off form recently? Apparently Dean's compiling a dossier of bad performances and Luke's in the lead.'

'Really?' Thea sounded bored. She wanted to kill this conversation dead.

But she knew Alexa was right. Luke's performances had been a bit lackl.u.s.tre recently. He'd omitted a really obvious question when he was talking to the head of the Prison Service on Thursday. Dean hadn't been amused.

'Don't think much of Emma's jacket,' Alexa continued, nodding at the senior reporter who having successfully evaded the journey to Heathrow was dictating her eldest son's history homework to him over the phone. 'No Magna Carta, darling... not C-A-R-T-E-R, C-A-R-T-A.'

'Does nothing for her complexion,' Thea agreed. She clicked on her screen to bring up the 'viewer base', the file of viewers' emails that Dean was insisting everyone studied daily for feedback. 'Yup and the general public agree. There were three emails criticizing it after the lunchtime news. Red does nothing for her.'

They both giggled and suddenly Thea felt a spark of kinship. Even if Alexa was half her age, perhaps they could be friends. Her mobile rang. 'h.e.l.lo?' she said, still smiling.

'Is that Thea?' said a male voice she didn't recognize.

'Yes?' she answered frostily. Nutters rang the newsroom all day long telling her they were Princess Anastasia and for ten thousand pounds they would grant her an exclusive interview. You didn't want to do anything to encourage them.

'This is Jake Kaplan. We met at Greenways.'

Even worse. That charity guy wanting to tell her that newsflash tragically children were living on the streets.

'h.e.l.lo,' she said haughtily.

'Hi. I'm just back from Guatemala and I was wondering if you'd like to meet?'

His directness took her aback. 'Sorry?'

He laughed. 'I didn't phrase that very well. I just got back from Guatemala yesterday and there's a story brewing there I think the Seven Thirty News Seven Thirty News might be very interested in, so I was wondering if you'd like to have a drink and talk about it.' might be very interested in, so I was wondering if you'd like to have a drink and talk about it.'

'I'm pretty busy right now. Can't you just tell me on the phone?'

'No,' he said. 'It's quite an important story. We really need to discuss it face to face.'

Presumptuous sod. Thea was annoyed. 'I'm really sorry, Jake, but I'm totally booked up this week. You could send me an email giving me some idea of the story and then maybe we could pencil something in for next week.' And then I'll cancel you.

'I won't be here. I'll be back in Guatemala. So the sooner we meet the better.'

Thea rolled her eyes. The boy had a nerve. 'Look, I can't promise anything. And I really have to go now, Jake, it's mid programme and-'

He cut her off cheerily. 'OK. It's the Seven Thirty News Seven Thirty News's loss. I'll have to take the story to the BBC. They'll want it for sure.'

Oh no, they won't; you pushy short man. 'Well, I'm afraid I'll just have to live with that,' Thea said and hung up. He wouldn't call back. They never did.

18.

Poppy was in two minds about meeting Barbara. All week she kept remembering more and more things she'd loathed about modelling: the compet.i.tive undereating, the b.i.t.c.hiness, the obligatory f.a.g-haggery involving cooing over pictures of Kylie Minogue, necessary if the guys who did hair and make-up were not to make you look like Bet Lynch on a bad-hair day.

But after three days with Brigita in the house, Poppy knew she would expire from a combination of boredom and sadness if she didn't find some work. Now the novelty of being able to have a bowel movement in private had worn off, she missed Clara's company desperately. Hearing her laughing in another room caused her physical pain. Poppy was forever rushing in to pick her daughter up and smother her in kisses but, whenever she did, Brigita's lips would curl into a sulky snarl.

'I tell you is best Mummy keeps out of the way. You go enjoy.'

Poppy decided she had nothing to lose by at least dropping in to see Barbara. So having doublechecked she was in the diary for Friday, she spent fifteen times longer than usual getting dressed in jeans that held in her post-Clara m.u.f.fin-top and a turquoise T-shirt the same colour as her eyes. She never normally used her hairdryer because Clara was petrified of the noise, but with Brigita in charge she styled her blonde locks with her round brush, then applied her make-up. When she looked in the mirror she scarcely recognized herself. She hadn't looked so polished since well, probably since her wedding day.

'Poppy!' cried Glenda, sticking her head round the door, Pledge in one hand, duster in the other. 'Good morning to you!'

'Hi, Glenda, how are you? How are the children?'

'They are well. I spoke to them on Sunday after church. Fernando he is playing good football, I am so proud. Maribel is worried because she has a fight with a friend. I miss them.'

'It must break your heart.' As always, Poppy felt overwhelmed at how pathetic her problems were in comparison with Glenda's. But her cleaner just shrugged.

'At least I make a good living. Do my best for them.' She looked at Poppy. 'But you look so pretty today, darling. Where are you going?'

'I've got a sort of job interview.'

'Looking so beautiful, you will get any job you want. Good luck, my sweetheart. Let me know what happens.'

'I will. I'll text you.'

It was one of those dishonest spring days when the sun shone down so boldly people began to think of putting their winter coats away. A day when the evening papers would be full of pictures of two pretty girls sunbathing in Hyde Park next to some early daffodils and everyone would feel guilty about enjoying what was such a sure sign of global warming, only to wake the next day to find the mercury had dropped again and start investigating foreign holidays on the internet. As Poppy headed towards the Tube, she realized men were looking at her in a way they hadn't looked for a long time. It felt surprisingly good.

'You sad woman. You're married,' she chided herself.

At Oxford Circus she emerged into the light and headed off through the maze of sleazy but exciting Soho back streets towards her agency with its tatty black door. The waiting room was just as she remembered it: the walls lined with framed magazine covers featuring the agency's top girls. Once Poppy had been among them, but she'd been quietly removed. A girl who looked about twelve with legs that stretched on forever was lounging on the sofa, reading Harper's Bazaar Harper's Bazaar. She glanced at Poppy pityingly as if she'd wandered in from the Help the Aged offices four doors down. The receptionist, who appeared all of thirteen, cleared her throat.

'Can I help you?'

'I'm here to see Barbara.'

'Do you have an appointment?'

'Yes. I'm Poppy Price.'

'Oh, yeah. Go on through.'

Poppy pushed open the plate-gla.s.s door and walked into the main booking room with its intoxicating aroma of Jo Malone candles. Tiny speakers boomed out cool tunes that competed with the noise of nine skinny women sitting round a huge rectangular table yelling into mouthpieces as if they were trading copper in the City rather than finding the ideal candidate for a new anti-dandruff shampoo. 'Has anyone checked the photographer for Alix?' 'Have you found a hotel for Kate?' No one even looked at Poppy as she headed towards Barbara's office in the back right corner.

She tapped at the gla.s.s door and was motioned to come in. Surprise, surprise, her old mentor was on the phone. 'Yeah, OK, well, maybe she should go to the Priory? Or that other clinic in Jersey? Hi, Poppy, sit down, angel, be with you in a second... Yeah, I know last time the staff sold stories on her, but the woman in question's been sacked... Look, if she wants to do rehab in Arizona that's fine by me whatever. Just get her there soon... because clients are starting to ask questions... They noticed the needle marks between her toes.'

Poppy looked at a huge signed photo of Daisy McNeil on the desk in front of her. 'To Babs, Love, love, love yoooou! D xx'

'Look, I gotta go. An old friend's here.' She smiled at Poppy. 'OK, keep me posted, bye. Poppy!' She got up and kissed her. 'Poppy! Back from the dead! It's a miracle.'

'Well, not dead dead. I just had a baby.'

'I'm sure you used to have a sense of humour,' Barbara said and then, seeing Poppy's hurt expression, 'Joke! Ha! Proving my point rather,' she added under her breath. 'So let's have a look at you.' A long silence followed as she scanned her. 'Yes. Pretty good. Probably could do with shifting another seven pounds, but you're almost there. I'm sure there's some catalogue work I could put you up for. In fact, I think the Mothercare catalogue just called.'

'Oh,' Poppy said. Catalogue work was the Bernard Matthews turkey twizzlers of the modelling world. 'Not editorial?'

'Well, possibly. I think Sharon mentioned a cookery magazine looking for girls. I'll have to have a chat with her. Sweetheart, don't pull that sulky face. The wind might change. We might get you back doing editorial, but like I say, you need to shift the last few pounds. They're on your face you see, sweetie, that's the problem. Also, you're how old now... twenty-six?'

'Twenty-four.'

'So obviously your shelf life is coming to an end. In high fashion at any rate. There's always plenty of work for the mature lady, obviously. Plus, don't take it the wrong way, but while you've been away, fashion's changed completely. The wholesome look's out. Edgy is in again. It'll swing back in a year or so, it always does, but what the magazines are all asking for now is grungy. Which I am very happy to say, you are not.'

'But I could be!' Poppy cried, full of regrets at having washed her hair and scrubbed her nails that morning.

Barbara laughed and shook her head. 'Poppy, you're a California girl who got lost in London by mistake. You should be jogging along the beach in Malibu not trudging round the West End.' She glanced at her Tag Heuer. 'Look, sorry to cut things short but I've got a lunch and I need to speak to Tokyo first. Off you run. But don't worry. I'm sure something will come up. I'll be in touch soon.' She pressed her buzzer. 'Sweetheart, send Jasmine in please and tell her I'm sorry to have kept her waiting.'

And before she knew it, Poppy was back on the street, blinking slightly in the daylight. She couldn't believe how briskly she'd been dealt with. The rest of the day still stretched ahead of her as empty as Westbourne Grove on Christmas morning. She could go to an exhibition, she supposed, but even her normally voracious appet.i.te for art was dulled as if she'd eaten a packet of cotton wool, that popular modelling trick. She'd go for a walk, she decided, clear her head.

She wandered through Soho Square with its tiny patch of gra.s.s that in an hour or so would be obliterated by picnicking office workers, funny, half-timbered gardener's hut in the middle and statue of King Charles II and the bench commemorating Kirsty MacColl. Down the narrow, urine-soaked alleyway that ran behind the Astoria where Poppy had once been with her still-in-the-closet boyfriend Alex to see Geri Halliwell, then across the road past the vast, ugly Centrepoint and down shabby New Oxford Street and into the Georgian streets of Bloomsbury. The dejection she'd felt just a few minutes ago disappeared, replaced by the exhilaration of being out alone, without a buggy to slow her down containing a pa.s.senger demanding juice and rice cakes.

Finding herself outside the British Museum she decided to go in. She'd taken Clara here to see the mummies several times; she'd go back now and enjoy some other pieces. She crossed the great domed lobby where Clara loved to charge about. A woman, coming out of the door that led to Egyptian antiquities, stood back to hold it open for her.

'Thank you,' Poppy said and then as her brain switched into gear, she exclaimed, 'Oh! h.e.l.lo.'

'h.e.l.lo,' said Thea Mackharven.

'What are you you doing here?' Poppy immediately realized this sounded rather rude. 'Sorry. I mean not that there's any reason why you shouldn't be here but...' doing here?' Poppy immediately realized this sounded rather rude. 'Sorry. I mean not that there's any reason why you shouldn't be here but...'

'It's not that far from work. I often come here in my lunch hour.'

'Of course,' Poppy said, then desperate to please, 'Which bit do you like best?'

That scornful look from Dean's dinner party that had scorched itself on Poppy's soul was out again in force. 'I quite like the Sumerians,' Thea said loftily.

'Oh, me too. I find it amazing that Sumeria is now Iraq. I always used to love reading about the hanging gardens of Babylon. It sounded so idyllic and now it's this dusty, messed-up country.' Poppy knew she was gushing but nerves had got the better of her. 'At least, Luke says it's dusty and messed up.'

'Mmm. Luke and I have worked in Iraq a lot.'

The way Thea said it made Poppy's insides shrivel. 'Well, nice b.u.mping into you,' she gabbled, looking at her watch. 'Is that the time? Oh, dearie me! I'd better be off now.'

'Bye,' said Thea, as Poppy hurried out of the museum into the sunlight, wondering why that horrible woman hated her so much.