Page 12 of The Rest is History
‘Oh, Jesus.’ My sister, Grace, covers her face with her hands. ‘You don’t have to do that, Lid. Seriously. You’ll run yourself into the ground.’
‘No I won’t. And anyway, I’m not doing it for the money. Well, maybe a bit. But I have to say, I’m quite intrigued by it.’
She lifts her face and looks at me. ‘Okay. Let me guess. Lap dancing?’
‘No!’
‘Good, because you’ve got no rhythm. No one would give you any tips. Not unless you got your boobs out, I suppose. Great boobs might matter more than good rhythm to the punters. Maybe. I don’t know.’
‘Shut up. Try again.’
‘Um. Someone who stands upstairs in those open-top double-decker buses and points out the sights of London to tourists?’
‘Nope.’ I hesitate. ‘But you’re getting warmer.’
‘Oh my God. You’re not going to paint yourself silver and stand like a statue in Covent Garden all day, are you?’
‘No! And that’s not a job. This is a proper gig—someone’s paying me.’
‘Okay.’ She prods at the simmering pasta with a spatula. ‘I give up. What’s this new gig?’
‘Hampton Court.’ I grin. ‘I’m playing Anne Boleyn. And get this’—I hold up a hand to stop her from interrupting—‘Charlie is playing Henry VIII. And he’s the one who’s offered me the role.’
She gapes. ‘Charlie? LikeChurlishCharlie from work?’
‘The very same.’
‘Well, that’s unexpected.’ She leans back against the counter and surveys me, crossing her arms. My twin is a little shorter than me, quite a bit fairer, and, in my opinion, far prettier. We don’t really look that alike. There’s a family resemblance, but notmuch more. She’s in her usual at-home uniform of athleisure wear, but it’s H&M rather than Lululemon.
Like me, every spare penny of Grace’s income as a physio is accounted for right now.
‘Yeah. It was pretty uncomfortable when he asked me, let me tell you.’
‘Did he say why? Like, why you, in particular? I didn’t think he liked you very much.’
I shrug. ‘He doesn’t seem to. And he didn’t really give me a big pitch. Just said the woman playing Anne is having an operation and she’ll be out of action for a few weeks, so they need someone to cover. And he knows I’ve specialised in that period in the past, so…’
I trail off. I don’t tell my sister what Zara said to me as soon as she heard the reason for my mysterious chat with Charlie this morning.
I believe her words were:I knew he wanted to rail you.
‘I beg your pardon?’ I asked her, my eyes wide with shock.
‘Oh, please.’ She swatted a hand. ‘I have never seen a man look at a woman like he wants to bang her brains out quite so much as the way Charlie Vaughan looks at you. And it’s not just that he wants to bang you, by the way. He looks at you like he’s fuckingdying, and bending you over his desk and making you his is the only way he’ll survive.’
‘Seriously.’ I clamped my hands over my ears. ‘Stop it. That’s mortifying. He does not. He tolerates me.’
I wanted to stamp my feet like a five-year-old and shout, ‘Take that back!’ Hearing her talk about Charlie like that was making me break out into a sweat all over my body. Sure, he was an intense guy, but she had it totally wrong. And her words were so graphic. I couldn’t imagine what kind of woman he’d go for, but I was willing to bet she’d be a lot more meek and mild than me.
Still, I was only human. A sudden visual of Charlie looming behind me and issuing a steady stream of desperate, dirty words in my ear as he pressed my cheek to his desk and unzipped his trousers seared my mind’s eye.
Jesus Christ. That wasnothelpful. I needed to get. It. Together.
‘And you know he’s obsessed by Anne Boleyn,’ Zara continued this morning. ‘Like, completely infatuated. He has every single edition of every book Eric Ives wrote on her. Can you believe that? Check his bookshelf if you like.’ She patted me on the arm. ‘So, if you want to be naïve and ignore the fact that he’s asking you to be his Anne Boleyn, the woman of his dreams, then knock yourself out, sweetie.’
‘So what will you have to do?’ my sister asks now. She pushes her hair off her face with a gesture that looks really bloody weary from where I’m standing, and the ache in my heart galvanises me.
I wasn’t totally truthful with her just now. Intrigued as I am by this Anne Boleyn opportunity, I don’t know that I’d have the balls to take it if it wasn’t for the chance to earn a few extra quid. Everything I do right now is to show Grace she’s not alone.
