‘The people that really matter, though, are the fans. I hope that all my lovely Devine Believers…’ Yes, she had a fan club, and yes, that’s what they called themselves. People really had to get out more. ‘…will look back on these years with love and keep me in their hearts, even when I’m no longer on their screens.’
Cheesy nonsense. Her toes were curling inside her Louboutin stilettos (her own – wardrobe was too cheap to go designer and Agnes McGlinchy rarely wore anything other than slippers these days). But Calvin’s subtle smile and nod told her that was the right answer.
Elliot wasn’t done. ‘And how will you spend your days now, Odette? Do you have plans for your retirement?’
Good question. And one that made her stomach flip.
For the last forty-odd years, her days had been structured, giving her whole bloody life to this show. Five, sometimes six days a week, she’d grafted long hours, leaving her too exhausted to do anything more in her time off than marry losers, sleep and binge-watch the other soaps.EastEnders. Coronation Street. River City. Emmerdale. Throw in the odd true crime show, and sleepless nights spent glued to the overnight TV shopping channels, and before she knew it, it was Monday morning and time to do it all over again.
If she didn’t have her work, then what did she have?
Sure, she had friends. Kind of. Perhaps they were more acquaintances. Colleagues. Fans. Although, she would bet her last pound that they would scatter when she was no longer the celebrated actress and star of the small screen. Dame Judi Dench and Dame Maggie Smith might still be landing roles in their eighties, but Odette was irrevocably typecast. To the TV-viewing world, she was Agnes McGlinchy. And Agnes wasn’t about to give up her role as the serial busybody onThe Clydesideand start doling out missions to James Bond, or swap her Glasgow brogue for a cut-glass accent and spend her twilight years firing off words of sarcastic disapproval in an aristocratic country estate in 1921. Nope, she was doomed. Over. Finished. Maybe only a life insurance or a stairlift advert between her and the crematorium. In fact, that might be another opportunity. Acrematorium advert in return for a free funeral. That was the level of her career expectations right now.
‘There are so many things I plan to do now. Of course, the most important is to spend time with the people I love.’ Odette didn’t mention that they were in short supply. Her most consistent relationship was with the delivery guy who brought the packages she’d ordered from her late-night TV shopping habit. ‘And then I want to travel, perhaps to Asia, to America. I’ve been thinking of renting a convertible and driving across Route 66. Maybe spend some time in Los Angeles. I’ve had some very interesting calls from that side of the pond, and I might just dive into some other opportunities.’
The imaginary lie detector just started beeping like a reversing bin truck. Hollywood wouldn’t know her number if someone spray-painted it on the Walk Of Fame. And if she was going to go travelling, she’d need to use her Government-issued, over 60s, free bus pass because she was broke. Skint. Cleaned out. Her last husband, Mitchum Royce, had been a former Edinburgh banker (with a ‘w’), who had schmoozed her until she’d married him on holiday in Vegas in 2015. The reality of who he was couldn’t have been clearer if it had been plastered on a flashing billboard on The Strip, playing ‘Viva Las Vegas’ on a repetitive loop, but she’d been too blinded by love or lust or loneliness to see it.
Gambling addict. Compulsive liar. Not a faithful bone in his body. She found out later that just days before their wedding he’d agreed to quietly resign from the bank after they found out he’d been misappropriating client funds (a move kept confidential to save the bank’s image). Their marriage had lasted two years, before he’d taken off with a cocktail waitress half his age that he’d met on yet another trip with his cronies to Sin City. Only afterwards did Odette discover that before he’d left, he’d systematically drained her bank accounts of over two hundredgrand, every penny she’d saved since her previous divorce, while racking up tens of thousands of pounds of debt in her name. She’d been paying it off ever since, keeping it secret from the world, because she hadn’t wanted to look like the sad fool she’d become.
Now all she had was her re-mortgaged home, her shoes and her name, because, thankfully, she’d been smart enough to keep it through four marriages, realising that when it came right down to it, it was all she had. And it wasn’t even real. She’d become Odette Devine when she’d landed her big break, saying goodbye to Olive Docherty, her moniker for the first twenty-nine years of her life. Another secret. And yet another one that she wasn’t giving away to anyone, including the documentary director who was like a wasp buzzing beside her ear. One she wanted to swat.
Elliot was still standing to the side of the camera and nodding thoughtfully now. ‘And I have to ask… do you have any regrets?’
On any other day, she might have been able to brush seamlessly over that sucker punch to the gut, but as she opened her mouth to speak, her vocal cords seemed to have gone in to some kind of state of paralysis. Did she have regrets? In the words of Frank Sinatra, probably too few to mention.
In fact, only one.
One forty-year-old regret.
Back when she was just plain Olive Docherty, working as a school dinner lady, barely covering her rent with her paltry wages, there had been a split-second, sliding-doors moment. She’d manipulated a situation, told a lie, stolen something from a friend. That one act of duplicity had transformed her life, delivered her dreams, and given her the career and the stardom that she had craved. But at what cost?
Her life was now a wreck. Other than Calvin, she had no one in it that she cared about. She was deeply lonely. Damaged.Destroyed. Washed up. Devoid of joy. Staring down a barrel of nothingness until she keeled over, and then she’d have a funeral attended by no more than a handful of Devine Believers and a few hawkers who would probably come for a nosy and some free sausage rolls at the wake.
Karma had caught up with her. This empty life was her punishment for taking what should never have been hers in the first place. Justice. Fair play.
Sometimes she wondered if there was any way to go back and fix it, but it was impossible to give back what she’d taken. She had snatched a friend’s opportunity right from her hands, been too damn selfish to do the right thing. Instead, she’d just kept on moving, left her old life, and her friend behind, and she’d never looked in her rear-view mirror. Until now. And that was only because the road in front of her was cutting right through a barren wasteland and there wasn’t much tarmac left before she would fall off a cliff.
Elliot was still gazing at her expectantly, waiting for an answer.
‘Regrets?’ she mused. For a split second, she was tempted to lay it all out. To get real and honest and truthful. To let the world see what a horrible bitch she really was and to make some attempt to fix what she’d broken.
But the moment passed, and before she could come up with some fluffy, bullshit answer about doing nothing differently and loving her life, there was a knock at the door and another production assistant who looked about twelve popped her head in.
‘Ms Devine. They’re calling you to the set. Are you ready?’
‘I’m ready.’
No time to answer the question. Odette pushed herself up from her make-up chair. For the last time. Checked her expertly applied visage. For the last time. Pulled back her shoulders andslipped into character. For the last time. And then, followed by Calvin, Elliot and his cameraman, who was catching everything on film, she made her way out of her dressing room and ontoThe Clydesideset. For the last time.
Tomorrow she would go back to being plain old Olive Docherty.
Today was the last day that she would be Odette Devine. And she was going to put on a show to remember.
2
TRESS WALKER
Buddy timed his assault perfectly. The minute the doorbell rang, he took advantage of Tress’s distraction. As soon as she raised her eyes to gaze at the kitchen clock and murmured, ‘That’ll be Val and Nancy – they’ll let themselves in,’ her one-year-old son flicked a spoonful of Weetabix directly at her, then giggled as it landed with a splodge on the sleeve of her freshly ironed, crisp white shirt. At the other end of the reclaimed wood planks of the kitchen table, her friend, Noah, took a bite out of his toast and Tress knew it was to camouflage his amusement.
