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www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2017

Copyright © Jules Wake 2017

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com | Cover design by Books Covered

Jules Wake asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008221973

Ebook Edition © October 2017 ISBN: 9780008221966

Version: 2018-02-16

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading…

About the Author

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

For my Mum, Di, the real make-up artist and my children, Ellie & Matt, whose love of theatre has been infectious.

Chapter 1

To: Felix@nutsmarketing.co.uk

From: Matilde@lmoc.co.uk

URGENT – Possible loo roll crisis

Working late tonight, pls record the Arsenal game and don’t forget loo rolls!!! Can you get some when you go shopping tonight – and remember no gummy bears or chocolate peanuts, we need food we can actually cook with!

And have you seen my book, The Rosie Project, I’ve got a horrible feeling I might have left it on the train.

Tilly x

No! No! Stop! Despite knowing it was probably completely hopeless, I stabbed at the keys on the keyboard, bracelets clinking like maracas as I watched the computer screen. It was the Sorcerer’s Apprentice all over again. With horrifying speed, the number of emails leaving the outbox increased.

Five!

Then ten!

Twelve, eighteen, twenty-one, thirty-three.

‘Oh hell.’ This couldn’t be happening. Emails with the title Urgent – Possible loo roll crisis which should have gone to Felix were busy whizzing off to goodness only knows where.

Jeanie, my boss, glanced up from the wig she was working on.

‘What have you done now?’ she asked, rolling her heavily kohl-lined eyes as she came over to stand behind me. ‘Don’t tell me, you’ve sent another email to Alison instead of Felix? Attached a picture of Dr Who instead of our leading man and sent it to the head of costume at La Scala?’

Give me a make-up palette, a couple of pencils and the right hair-piece, and with a deft touch of shading and brushing, I can transform a sixty-year-old granddad into an irresistible Lothario. Give me a computer and there’s more chance of me splitting the atom in my own kitchen with an egg whisk.

I blame my biospheres; apparently, I have dodgy ones. Mobile phones give up the ghost on a regular basis and I can’t wear a watch without it losing time. Me and technology are a disaster. I just don’t have the patience. Even so, I thought I’d cracked email.

Unfortunately, once you’ve clicked that mouse, there’s no going back. It’s Pandora’s Box all over again. And just like Pandora, how could I resist. After all, what’s a girl, on the wrong side of twenty-nine, to do, when it’s coming up to Christmas and her fiancé seems to be spending more time potting snooker balls than checking out her erogenous zones, and some random person sends her an attachment called ‘Santa Baby’.

It sounded cute and harmless. When I opened the attachment up, it was even cuter still – a very handsome Santa danced across my screen to the tune of jingle bells before dropping his trousers to reveal a full moon of pert buns, flashing a very naughty grin over his shoulders. The moment I moved the cursor to try and close the picture, Santa started zinging about, bashing the edges of the screen with the speed of a demented bluebottle.

Although amusing at first, after the initial dancing, his frozen image didn’t do much but ricochet off the sides of the screen as erratically as a pinball on speed. It was only when I tried to close the thing down that everything went haywire.

Now, as I watched the identical subject lines of the emails racing, like armed and dangerous carrier pigeons from the inbox, regarding the imminent loo roll crisis at home, I guessed something more sinister had been going on.

Flipping dip, the numbers in the outbox were still going up.

Fifty-six, sixty-nine …

Did I even know that many people?

The whirring from the hard-drive under the desk was getting louder and faster, with the intensity of a plane revving up. I didn’t think kicking it was going to help. Any moment now it might take off.

Jeanie pointed one of her neat, shortly trimmed nails at the screen. ‘It’s six weeks until Christmas. What’s that?’

‘Santa baby apparently, except I can’t get him to go away.’

She shook her head. ‘You didn’t open an attaché, did you?’

Now was not the time to correct her casual misuse of the English language.

‘Who? Me?’ I gave her a big smile and a shrug of my shoulders. ‘Might have done. Oops.’

‘What are you like, Tilly?’

The two of us stood there staring at the computer and I vaguely registered the squeak of the studio door.

‘Only one thing for it.’ I dived down onto my knees, bum high in the air and took the most obvious course of action.

I pulled the plug.

I heard a gasp from Jeanie.

‘What?’ I wiggled out, feeling my skirt riding up. ‘It can’t do it any harm, can it?’

There was silence and somehow, I just knew someone else was there. Someone else getting a bird’s eye view of my favourite lilac silk and lace cami-knickers which were more lace than anything else, if you get my drift.

Still on all fours, I managed to manoeuvre around to find Mr drop-dead-gorgeous glaring down at me, although the expression on his face was decidedly Sir-seriously-pissed-off.

‘Hi,’ I squeaked like an over-sized guinea pig. My heart stuttered as I stared at him. Someone had been more than generous when handing out the good-looking genes.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

How bloody unfair. Even his voice – melted sodding chocolate with a very faint trace of an accent. Talk about being front of the queue for sex appeal. He must have snagged an entire birth year’s quota.

Cool eyes studied me intently.

Oh God, he seriously expected an answer? Any moment now I’d start drooling. What the hell was wrong with me? I was a happily engaged woman for heaven’s sake.

The thing was those green eyes, high cheekbones and the short dark hair sparked a dart of instant sexual attraction, sending my heart rate into intensive care levels. Lust at first sight. Nothing more. My libido sitting up and taking notice. After all, it wasn’t as if my lady parts were getting an awful lot of attention at home at the moment. Yes, just lust.

I realised he was still waiting for an answer.

‘I just thought it needed rebooting.’ I plucked the phrase out of the air, knowing I’d heard Felix use it once or twice.

His eyes narrowed, his mouth tightened. I swallowed. Even scary, he looked damn attractive.

‘Rebooting,’ he spat the word with enough venom to strike down the entire make-up team.

I nodded with a hopeful smile.

He closed his eyes, a look of pain crossing his features. I could see tension in his jawline as if he were clenching his teeth really hard.

When he opened them, I leaned over and patted his arm. Getting stressed like that wasn’t good for you. ‘Hey, it’s only a computer. It’ll be fine. We don’t use it that much anyway.’

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Jeanie shaking her head ever so slightly.

‘Give me pen and paper any day.’ I smiled encouragingly at him.

Jeanie looked horrified.

Green-eyes took in a strangled sort of breath but couldn’t hide the slight twitch of his mouth as if he wanted to smile.

‘Do you know who I am?’

I didn’t but he seemed to expect I did. In that suit, which added to the overall heart-socking attractive package, (and I don’t normally do corporate types), he didn’t look as if he worked here. The fine wool jacket emphasised broad shoulders and the sharply creased trousers hinted at long lean legs. Visiting sponsor? Interview candidate? Contractor?

Then I spotted the staff badge tucked under his suit jacket. He must be new … oh minims and crotchets. Sweet hallelujahs. The new guy. There’d been a department note circulated last week about the spanky new appointment to whizz up our computer systems. I’d filed it under irrelevant, i.e. straight in the bin. My heart plummeted stone-like and I stepped in front of the computer as if I could hide my recent misdemeanours.

‘Mr Memo, I mean erm … Mr er… er.’ Could this get any worse?

‘Walker. Director of IT.’ The way he said it, he might as well have said ‘defender of the faith’ or something else weighty.

‘Right.’

‘So, Miss, Mrs …?’

Jeanie jumped in, ‘This is Matilde Hunter. She’s one of our team.’ She’d pronounced it in the French way, which I thought might be deliberate as if to suggest that English wasn’t my first language, so how on earth could I possibly be trusted with a computer.

‘And this is exactly what I was talking about in the management meeting,’ he glared at Jeanie.

She nodded. ‘And as I explained at the meeting, we don’t have much call for computers up here. We’re more hands on, if you know what I mean.’

‘Rubbish. It’s the twenty-first century. How do you manage your inventory?’ He glanced around at the untidy room, over to the shelf with rows of head blocks, some with complete wigs, others pinned in grid patterns ready to start making a new one and others partially made. Like a rather odd rainbow, hair in every shade spilled from the shelf. From the white of yaks’ hair used for seventeenth century Rococo wigs and the golden blonde of Brunhilde’s tresses through to an intricate plaited Titian hairpiece and a dark black coronet of ringlets.

‘Surely you need to keep track of how many wigs you’ve got and the materials you use.’

Jeanie and I both glanced over at the antiquated filing cabinet hiding the tattered card index system we used.

‘Not only,’ his eyes bored into mine, ‘does this place need a thorough overhaul but you …’

For the briefest of seconds something flashed in his eyes.

‘… need to learn how to deal with a computer properly. You do not yank out the plug … ever. You shut it down. You don’t …’ There it was again, that little twitch of his mouth. ‘Reboot it.’ His face softened but we’re talking degrees here. He still seemed pretty fearsome. ‘Leave that to the experts please.’

‘Okey-doke,’ I said with a cheery smile. Thank goodness he hadn’t walked in two minutes earlier, when all those emails were flying the nest. At least I’d got away with that much.

To: All Departments

Please join me in welcoming our first Director of IT, Mr M Walker, who joins us from a significant financial institution in the City.

This is a new appointment for the London Metropolitan Opera Company. I therefore hope you will make him feel welcome and offer your co-operation as he gets to grips with our wonderful work here.

Julian Spencer

Chief Executive

London Metropolitan Opera Company

Chapter 2

After the cluttered mayhem of the wig room, the calm, clinical atmosphere of the make-up department was like stepping into an operating theatre.

Harsh white light from a bank of bulb-lit mirrors filled the room. Underneath them, a spotless white counter ran the full length of one wall, in front of which sat a row of cream leather swivel chairs as impressive as thrones awaiting royalty.

‘Hey Pietro.’ The imposing figure filling the plush chair with his broad shoulders and wide chest was waiting for me.

‘Tilly, darling.’ Under the dark bushy brows which contrasted sharply with his silver hair, his eyes glinted with merriment. On either side of him, the other opera singers chattered away together as they waited for their respective make-up artists to arrive.

‘How are you today?’ I fished out a black cape and draped it across the rich fabric of his heavily embellished costume. ‘Did your granddaughter like the zoo?’

‘She loved it darling.’

The words came out as ‘lorved eet’. Despite all his years in England, he’d never lost his Italian accent and the exaggerated vowels always made me smile.

‘Especially the snakes.’ He shuddered dramatically and winked at me in the mirror. ‘Revolting child. Next time we’re going to Selfridges. To see Santa, that will be far more civilised.’

He didn’t mean it, he positively doted on twelve-year-old Lottie and had even been into her school in Notting Hill to talk in assembly. Not something that many international superstars did in my experience.

Laying out my kit, I checked I had everything, not once but twice. It made me antsy if I had to break off half way through to go searching for a brown pencil or the right brush.

Yup, everything was where I wanted it to be. I looked at Pietro in the mirror. In front of him, on a wooden block, sat the long flowing wig which made the final transformation from favourite grandpa to Don Giovanni.

‘How was your morning?’

‘I had a run in with a virus, blinking thing,’ I said shaking my head. ‘Think I’ve spread it everywhere.’

‘What?’ Pietro’s face filled with concern and his hand strayed to his throat in self-concern. His precious vocal chords could be rendered useless if he caught a nasty cold.

‘No. No,’ I laughed. ‘Not a real one. A silly computer one.’ I patted his arm quickly. Infecting anyone in a principal role, especially the world’s most renowned baritone, was Make-Up Artist’s Cardinal Sin Number Three. ‘I’m germ free.’ I waved my hands to reinforce my point.

As I carried on pencilling and shadowing his face, our conversation moved on with its usual easy flow as he related scurrilous tales about his arch-rival, an up and coming American singer, naughty, libellous gossip about one of his co-stars in a previous production and the difficulties of learning an aria for his next part.

Half an hour later, I put down my pencils and make-up palette.

‘Thanks, wonderful girl.’ Pietro stood and with a wicked grin admired himself in the brightly-lit mirror. ‘God, I’m lovely.’ He patted the outsize codpiece stuffed down his buckskin trousers. ‘All ready to seduce my daily quota of virgins.’

‘Oooh, Pietro, you are wicked,’ sang Vince as he applied the finishing touches to the doe-eyes of one of said hapless virgins. A chorus of giggles erupted as Pietro strutted around the room thrusting out his pelvis. Even Jeanie, who liked the team to maintain an air of calm before a performance, managed a smile.

‘Come here you.’ Crooking a finger at him, I beckoned him back to his chair. ‘There’s no seducing anyone until I’ve checked your wig again.’ Running my fingers around his hairline, I gave the hairpiece a testing tug, this way and that. All snug. Perfect. Cardinal Sin Number Two was something coming adrift mid-performance. Jeanie’s mantra had been drummed into all of us – you can draw blood as long as the wig stays in place.

‘How does it feel?’ I stood back, studying the fit. It looked fabulous on him. All the wigs were hand-made. Most were sent out to trusted pieceworkers but the principals’ wigs were made in-house. I didn’t want to think how many finger twitching hours this particular one had taken.

Pietro tossed the long hair back over his shoulder with a leonine-shake.

‘It suits me I think. Perhaps I should keep it on when I go home.’ He winked lasciviously. ‘My wife would love it.’

‘Beginners stage left please.’ The tannoy burst into life, punching the muted quiet of the room with a spike of electricity. A sudden hush fell as everyone sobered, ready for that first step on stage. Now on count-down to curtain up, with the precision of a well-drilled army, the make-up team straightened, smoothed and stroked, giving each of their charges a final check to ready them for the vast audience out front, while the wardrobe team, like bridesmaids at a wedding, assessed, tugged and tucked.

Several floors down, two thousand people were taking their expensive red velvet seats in eager anticipation of the evening’s performance. The picture was so clear in my head; the excited hum of chattering voices, the Mexican Wave of up and down bobs as the audience squeezed past each other’s knees and people peering down through their opera glasses at the orchestra in the pit, already seated and tuning up.

As we were about to leave the make-up room, crowding into the corridor to make the journey backstage, Pietro’s hand suddenly shot to his chest. For a horrible moment, I thought he was having a heart attack, until he gave me a sheepish glance and fished out his mobile phone.

‘Pietro!’ I gasped. Mobiles were strictly forbidden backstage as they could interfere with some of the tech stuff. I’d never even seen him with one before.

His face darkened, lines of temper marking his mouth as he homed in on the caller ID.

‘I have to take this,’ he snapped and wheeled back into the empty make-up room, slamming the door.

‘Shit! What do I do?’ I hopped from one foot to the other, glancing from the closed door and back at Jeanie. This was uncharted territory. You don’t argue with a star as big as Pietro but I had to make sure he was in the wings for curtain up. No excuses. No reprieves.

‘Fuck,’ said Jeanie looking at her watch. ‘Go get him,’ whispered Jeanie, shoving me toward the door, looking anxiously at the rest of the actors hovering in the corridor. ‘Be firm. We’ll go on down but make sure you’re right behind us.’

I could clearly hear a tinny voice talking excitedly down the line but not the words. Not that I needed to. Pietro’s face said it all.

‘Porca Miseria!’ The vehement words rattled around the room as he started to pace the floor, Italian expletives exploding from his mouth periodically.

Keeping a panicked eye on my watch, I deliberately walked into his path.

‘Er Pi…’ His eyes flashed furiously at me and he shook his head, putting me in mind of an angry lion – one that would be quite happy to rip my head off there and then.

‘They’d better not print a word! Not one single word you hear me,’ he bellowed. Gone was avuncular grandpa. His anger permeated the room in shock waves. Standing so close, it felt as if I was holding a punch bag while Muhammad Ali practised his right hook.

I could feel sweat beading on my forehead. This was awful. I had to get him down to the wings.

The tinny voice started jabbering again like a rabid Dalek.

‘I don’t care about that!’ Pietro took another turn at the end of the room and stopped – an angry bull about to charge. ‘You stop it. Take out an injunction.’ Menace hissed in his voice.

His gaze came to rest on me, the steel grey eyes glinting and my heart stalled for a minute. Hell, it was The Godfather all over again.

‘You stop it! You’re my agent Max. I don’t want the story getting out.’

He listened and then turned puce. ‘You wouldn’t want your grandchildren to see pictures like that in the paper. Stop it. That’s your job! Do it!’ Pietro snapped the phone shut with a vicious clench of his hand.

‘Merda’, he spat, throwing the phone with such force onto the table that it flew across to the back wall and bounced onto the floor.

The sudden action stirred me. ‘Pietro, I’m sorry but we have to go down. Now.’ I was quite impressed with how calm I managed to sound. Inside, it felt as if there was a bat trying to beat its way out of my chest. I had to get him backstage.

‘Now. You expect me to go on stage now?’ His hand touched his throat and he stood there with his head thrown back.

‘Yes,’ I said, feeling as if I’d stepped off a cliff and desperately hoping I sounded firm. Oh crap, he couldn’t not. Jeanie would kill me. She trusted me to get him there.

‘My vocal chords are far too tense. I’m too upset.’ He started towards one of the chairs, every inch the prima donna.

I tentatively touched his arm. ‘Not as upset as the audience, Pietro. Some of them may have waited years to see you. You can’t disappoint them.’

He straightened. Narrowing his eyes, he nodded.

‘Do it for them. Don’t let,’ I nodded to the phone discarded on the floor, ‘them win.’ I held open the door, standing back to let him through before following in his wake. He strode down the corridor, leaving me almost running to keep up. When he stopped suddenly, I cannoned into him. Whirling round, he grabbed my forearms in a tight grip and stared intently.

What now? With my arm clamped in his, I risked an agonised glance at my watch. Four minutes to curtain up.

‘You love your job,’ he fired at me. ‘It’s all you ever wanted to do?’

I nodded, thinking it could all be over if I didn’t take charge of him. He knew how much I loved my job.

Pietro’s hands gentled suddenly, his eyes filled with regret and something else.

‘Like you, this is all I ever wanted to do. My father, a poor man, worked the fields. A farmer. His voice. Bellissimo. He would have been greater than me but he never had the lessons. I needed lessons. The money to pay for the best lessons.’

I nodded, trying to be patient and not let my agitation show – he’d told me this many times before.

His usually flawless English deserted him. ‘Now… in…when a youth, I …’ he stopped and then whispered the rest.

I couldn’t help the gasp of surprise that whistled out next. Bloody hell!

The curtain went up two minutes late. The audience probably didn’t notice but the production crew knew. Backstage there was a noticeably tense atmosphere. Jeanie nodded and mouthed. ‘You OK?’

I held up crossed fingers and shook my head. Vince sidled over and gave me a quick hug.

‘God that was awful,’ I muttered into his ear. ‘Really thought he was going to refuse to go on. He’s really shaken up.’

Vince pulled a sympathetic face.

Thanks to the quick scales practice in the lift that I’d manage to coerce Pietro into doing, his voice settled quickly and soared in the theatre within the second bar. Hopefully the audience would forgive his quavery first few notes.

‘What the fuck do you think you are playing at?’ hissed a furious voice, pressing right up to me in the wings. Alison Kreufeld, Artistic Director and head honcho virtually had steam coming out of her ears.

‘I … I …’

‘That is fucking unforgivable. See me tomorrow. My office.’ With that she turned her back and disappeared through the stage door. When I looked around all the crew were absorbed in looking down at the floor.

Nursing a large G and T, I sat at the kitchen table resting my forehead on the wooden top. What a day. I wanted to cry. Why did scary, super superior Artistic Director, Alison Kreufeld, always manage to catch me doing something stupid or getting something stratospherically wrong? Like the time, in a fit of enthusiasm, I thought I’d impress her by doing a series of hair designs for the corps de ballet in Swan Lake. Only I hadn’t read her briefing notes properly. It was the Matthew Bourne all male production. She dined out on my stupidity for weeks.

And after a day like that I should have known better than to answer the phone. We still had a landline. Only three people used it. Felix’s mum, my mum and my sister.

‘Hello Tilly. It’s Christelle.’ I winced guiltily as I heard the carefully enunciated words, spoken as usual in her precise fussy way.

‘Hi, Christelle,’ I did my best to inject some enthusiasm into my tone. ‘How are you? Has your cold gone?’

‘Yes, thank you. It was several weeks ago, you know.’ Had it been that long?

‘Well, sometimes they linger,’ I said, determined to keep the conversation afloat. ‘How’s work? Are you very busy?’

‘Exceptionally. My caseload keeps growing. But I’m getting more and more of the high-profile stuff, which is a good sign.’

Idly, I straightened the photos on the mantelpiece. All of them were of me and Felix in various silly poses, accompanied by assorted friends. It struck me that in all of them, there was always someone else in tow. A day at the beach – Felix and five mates buried up to their necks in sand. Me and Felix and friends at Alton Towers. Felix and I, with three of his mates and their girlfriends, on the day he proposed.

‘It’s been an excellent week in chambers. We won an important case. Got a new clerk. Not terribly bright but I think he’ll get there. You know how it is with these people.’ She spoke, as always, in little staccato sentences.

‘Sure.’ I lied, feeling guilty. I had no more idea about what went on in my sister’s world than she did about mine. She was a legal eagle, a high flyer with straight A’s, a fabulous degree and apparently in the right chambers.

The second hand on my watch ticked its way around the face. Thirty seconds and we’d nearly exhausted our lines. Regret pinched at me. We had so little in common.

‘Maman hasn’t heard from you. It might be a good idea to call her. She won a bridge tournament. And Dad’s put his back out again.’

Resentment replaced regret. I didn’t need her reminding me. Mum was just as capable of calling me. Deliberately being flippant I said, ‘Poor Dad, back to the chiropractor. Must be love, I swear he spends more time with her than with Mum. Not that I…’

‘Tilly!’ Christelle’s voice was sharp with reproof.

‘Only joking,’ I said. My poor sister was a chip off the old block. A sliver of ice.

‘You’d better phone her.’ Christelle’s words were clipped with disapproval. ‘Now, lunch? Can you do Wednesday? One-thirty?’

What would she say if I turned around and said, ‘No, I can’t’? Maybe she’d be secretly relieved. Our lunches were hardly fun, Chardonnay-fuelled, gossip fests.

‘I think so…’ She was so well-organised she probably knew her schedule off by heart, even had appointments entered in her smart phone, whereas I wasn’t even sure where my antiquated brick was now.

‘Let me check. If it isn’t, I’ll let you know.’

‘The usual Café Paul. One-thirty. See you then. Try Tilly, not to be late.’

Familiar Tiggerish thumps made me lift my head as Felix bounded up the stairs to our first-floor flat and then the front door crashed shut as he yelled, ‘Missus, I’m home.’

‘I could murder a beer,’ he said as he burst into the kitchen. Pulling a bottle out of the fridge, he flicked off the top and took a long swallow without breaking a stride. He glanced at my glass. ‘More gin vicar?’ he asked.

‘No, this was a large already,’ I mumbled, toasting him with my half-full tumbler.

He dropped a brief kiss on my head and wriggled out of his favourite RAF style overcoat, tossing it over a chair, heedless when it slipped to the floor. Perching himself on the top of the kitchen counter, his legs swinging and bashing the cupboards, he studied my unhappy face.

I winced. The cupboard was already hanging from its hinges.

‘What’s the matter? You look like you swallowed a pound and shat a penny.’

‘Crap day. Seriously crap. The crappest of the crappiest.’

‘Tell Uncle Felix all about it.’

I shook my head, pulling a face. ‘Urgh, Uncle Felix sounds well creepy. And this is bad.’

‘Do we need Mojitos?’ he asked teasingly.

‘Not this time.’ I sighed and took a slug of gin. ‘I might not be able to afford Mojitos ever again.’

‘That bad.’ He pulled a face of mock horror.

Sometimes Felix just wore you down with his indefatigable refusal to be serious. I gave him a half-hearted smile because I couldn’t not.

‘Been a shocker of a day. Started with a virus. Then I got bollocked by the new IT man and then Pietro missed curtain up. And Alison,’ I twisted my mouth in a bad-medicine taste expression, ‘Kreufeld went ballistic and wants to see me tomorrow.’ I covered my face with my hands, stretching my skin over my cheekbones. ‘I just know she wants to get rid of me. And that freelance woman, Arabella Barnes, is desperate for a job.’

‘Well, she can’t do that because you’re ace and Jeanie and Vince would put syrup of figs in this Arabella bird’s coffee. Although personally I don’t get it.’ He shook his head and jumped to his feet. ‘How do you put up with all that gruesome squawking?’ Clutching his chest and holding out one hand, he launched into a horribly shrill falsetto vaguely reminiscent of Bohemian Rhapsody. ‘Kill me now. I beg of you. Spare me from this awful music.’

In spite of myself I burst out laughing. ‘You are awful. You should come, you might even enjoy it.’

He shook his head like a mutinous toddler.

‘How do you know if you’ve never tried it?’

He pulled a face. ‘That’s what mothers say when they want kids to eat green stuff, like broccoli or cabbage or Brussels sprouts. If I ever have children, they can live on jelly and ice-cream if they want.’

‘They’ll get malnutrition,’ I giggled.

‘Yeah but they’ll be the happiest kids on the block.’ He took a long swallow of beer, almost downing the whole bottle in one and then smacked it down on the table.

‘So, what have you done?’

I told him about the Santa baby image because quite frankly that seemed the least of my problems.

‘Oh missus. You big numpty!’ He jumped up, oblivious to the cupboard door which dropped another inch, and then gave me a fleeting hug before whirling over to the fridge to help himself to another beer. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it,’ he grinned.

‘People get those virus things all the time. It’s no big deal. That’s what you have virus protection for. It’ll be fine. I think half the time, the IT bods just use the fear of a possible virus to frighten people, so that you think you need them.’

‘Well we’ve got a new one. An IT Director. He’s a bit of a stiff. He caught me yanking the plug out of the computer.’

‘Director eh? Big title. I’m sure he’s got more important things to do than worry about that. Next.’

I closed my eyes, remembering the flutters of panic when I thought I might not get Pietro to go on stage. ‘Much worse … the absolute worst. Pietro delayed curtain up.’

‘Blimey.’ Even Felix knew how serious that was. He squeezed my arm with an immediate show of understanding. Felix really did get how important my job was to me.

‘It wasn’t even my fault but AK immediately assumed it was. She didn’t even give me a chance to explain that Pietro got a call and the press … He’s being blackmailed.’

‘Ooooo what’s he done? Been caught in a compromising position with a rent boy in the box office?’

‘Felix! Don’t be so horrible.’

‘What’s he done then? Something worse?’ His keen-eyed curiosity had me hesitating for a second, I could almost hear him smacking his lips in anticipation.

I sighed. ‘He was so upset. When he was younger, his family didn’t have the money to pay for singing lessons. He got a part in a porn film to earn the money.’

‘I can’t wait to tell Kevin that one.’

‘Felix! You can’t tell anyone.’

‘Just joking. So, what’s happened?’

‘Pietro’s sleaze-ball of an ex-brother-in-law has threatened to contact the press unless Pietro is nice to him. Shorthand for give him a big hand out.’

‘Can you imagine it? If the press get wind the film will be all over the internet. At the moment if he can keep a lid on it, it’s unlikely anyone will track it down.’

‘Blimey. What a boy.’

I shook my head and sighed. Poor Pietro. ‘He told me a bit about it, sounded quite racy. Very Lady Chatterley. Apparently, he played the young gardener seduced by the Contessa. Pietro said it was called Il Gardiniere.’

‘Doing her lady’s garden for her,’ giggled Felix. ‘Classic. Go Pietro. Someone would pay good money for pictures.’

‘Felix, you shouldn’t say that.’ I shook my head. ‘It’s not funny. I feel so sorry for him. You didn’t see how upset he was. He almost couldn’t go on.’

‘You’re too soft. He’ll get over it,’ dismissed Felix. ‘No such thing as bad publicity.’

To: Wig, Hair, and Make-Up Team

From: Director of IT

All members of staff are reminded that under no circumstances should attachments from unauthorised sources be opened or any unapproved material downloaded.

M Walker

Director of IT

London Metropolitan Opera Company

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