Page 5 of The Gin Sisters' Promise

What if she had married Oliver Hughes? She’d be aFabulous London Housewifenow, with a show streaming to millions of viewers around the world like bloody Carly Miller with her fake boobs and her terracotta tan. Except he had dumped Nola along with everyone else when her career had hit rock bottom. Mind you, she knew now, looking back, that she hadn’t loved Oliver Hughes, and she couldn’t imagine having to put up with him for the rest of her days. No. That thought actually cheered her. Even here, with the constantly dripping bathroom tap and draughts that felt as if they were sneaking in directly from Siberia, Nola knew she was better off. She might spend the rest of her days having ‘tea for me’ called after her in the street, thanks to that rotten advertising job, but it was better than tying herself up to the dry vacancy of a man she didn’t love just for a shot at C-list television ‘stardom’.

It took almost a week to push back the advancing bleakness that seemed to constantly shadow her these days. It was as if it was waiting for a moment of careless vulnerability to strike, engulfing her in a depression she wasn’t sure she had the ammunition to defeat. Oddly, at times like this over the last couple of years, work felt almost like a respite.

Then, one morning shone sunny and dry through the gauzy curtains of Nola’s bedroom window. At around ten o’clock that Tuesday, something seemed to click and she felt a little better, as if she was ready to take life on again in some small way, rather than just lie there and take its punches. Maybe it was just fleeting optimism, but, in that moment, she settled on a course of action. She would go and have things out with Maggie. Obviously, they just needed to reset her portfolio, pitch her towards older parts. She’d march into Maggie’s office and tell her it was time to get serious. Or perhaps it was time to get a new agent.

Nola plucked her green velvet cape from the hook on her bathroom door, which doubled up as most of her wardrobe space. She dithered over wearing the bright green beret to match, knowing it brought up her eyes, but the last thing she wanted was to look as if she’d made too much of an effort. She decided that her best approach was to be as nice as she could, while still driving home her point. As she sipped her morning tea, she wished she had a little of her sister Georgie’s fire in her belly.

Funny, but for a moment, it almost felt as if Georgie were standing next to her, cheering her on as she would have when they were kids. That thought alone brought an overwhelming sadness over Nola and she felt as if she might cry, but she fought hard to keep it at bay – the last thing she needed today was an attack of the waterworks. It would get her precisely nowhere with Maggie. Instead, she bit her bottom lip and squeezed her eyes shut, determined that her estrangement from her family, the intense dislike that had festered between them over the years, would actually propel her to tackle Maggie with even greater strength, not hold her back.

Her sisters only lived a few miles apart from each other as the crow flies. Of course, in reality they lived in completely different worlds. She, here in her dingy little bedsit with her low-paid job might as well have been living on a different planet to Georgie,who had a sky-high apartment in one of the city’s fanciest blocks, or Iris, who was settled into domestic bliss with Myles in a cosy suburb, whose address she’d tried hard to forget over the years.

She wasn’t jealous as such, but it was hard not compare the lives they’d all made for themselves. There was no getting away from the fact that of the three of them, she was the big failure – Iris and Georgie had managed to get everything they’d set their hearts on. But it wasn’t her petty envy that had meant they hadn’t spoken in years. No, that was their fault entirely.

Damn it. She’d upset herself now. There was nothing for it but to wipe her eyes, and tug the beret on. Drawing her hair about her face, she pushed up the corners of her mouth into a smile and hoped by the time she got to Waterloo, her expression might actually look as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

*

Shining Light Theatrical Agency was a one-woman show. Maggie had set up her office in the back recess of a former hotel where the rent was cheap and the natural daylight scarce. The office always looked as if it was in a state of turmoil. Maggie’s desk, a too-small Victorian writing table, was bordered on both sides by long orange Formica-topped catering tables. Every space, except – Nola presumed – Maggie’s chair, was covered with old newspapers and manila file folders that looked as out of date as the flocked wallpaper that covered two and a half walls.

The lady herself sat primly behind her desk and today, assessing her in a strangely remote way, Nola thought she could have played a good queen, if only circumstances were different. She had the poise for it, even if her cheap peroxide hair and everywoman features fell short. That was the thing about Maggie Strip: what defined her was all of this. She loved being a theatre agent because, essentially, it was the only thing that made her stand out from a million other women who lacked any sort of talent or charm to mark them out as special.

‘I don’t have you in the diary.’ She glanced at a suspiciously empty page before her when Nola sat on the seat opposite, having removed a stack of papers first.

‘No, I was just passing.’ Nola smiled what she hoped was sweetly. ‘It seemed a shame to just walk by when I haven’t seen you for so long.’

‘Humph.’ Maggie took the coffee that Nola had purchased for her from the vendor on the street and stirred it deliberately before sipping it.

‘Anyway, now that I’m here, I wondered if we might have a rethink about how we’re going to pitch me for the coming season.’

‘Look, Nola, there’s no easy way to say this, but—’

‘Don’t say a word; just let me do the talking for once.’ Nola smiled with a degree of calm she certainly didn’t feel. ‘I’ve been thinking about roles that have come up over the last year and I think I know the problem. It’s my Irish accent, isn’t it? I can’t do the British twang, not well enough to fool the English, but I could do the French accent –mais oui?We could change my name, get new head shots done, I could reinvent myself: Sophie Du Paris or Isabella D’Ville or…’

‘It’s…’ For the first time ever Maggie actually looked startled.

‘It’s bloody genius, I know, isn’t it?’

‘That’s not what I was going to say.’

‘Oh?’ Nola felt that delicate ball of hope inside her begin to crumble, softly, achingly.

‘What is it they say? It’s not you, it’s me.’ Maggie laughed, that gravelly sound that gave away her habit of smoking forty a day for more years than she’d care to admit.

‘Oh, God.’ All Nola could think was,She’s dropping me. I’m finished. Please don’t do this.

‘I’m going to retire. Maybe not this very minute, but certainly this year. It’s time. I’ve met a nice man and we have plans.’ She smiled now and it did something odd to her face. It transformed her. ‘He has a bar. In Spain.’ She threw her hands up in the air as if it was all still a revelation to her. ‘And I’m going to move there in a few weeks, so…’

‘But you can’t. You’re my agent, my only hope…’ The words were out before she had a chance to stop them and then she began to cry, huge big ugly sobs that no Frenchwoman would ever turn out.

‘I’m afraid I can, and I am.’ Maggie sat back and waited for the crying to stop, which eventually it did.

‘I…’ Nola was working hard to pull herself together. ‘I’m happy for you. Congratulations.’ And maybe in a way she was, because the old girl deserved her shot at contentment too. ‘How exciting for you,’ she managed finally, because of course, she could see now, the change in Maggie was more than just a new pair of earrings or some piece of gossip she was dying to share. This was what happiness looked like in someone who’d given up on it.

‘Thank you.’ She smiled and leaned forward. ‘I’m actually trying to make my way through my client list to tell everyone and some of them have been not so nice.’

‘Do you have a plan for the… er business?’ Nola asked, because if Maggie’s clients worked as infrequently as Nola did, there wouldn’t be much of a business to leave behind.

‘Not really. I don’t own anything – this place belonged to an aunt of mine, but it’s just one room and her son is going to let it out, I think. He’ll be delighted if he can make some money on the place for a change.’

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