Part One
* * *
1
Six weeks earlier
Poppy
‘Poppy! How are you?’
My heart fills with love and pride as an enormous orange-and-black striped tiger bounds up and flings her arms around me.
‘Jennifer!’ I say, hugging her back. I know that as an agent I shouldn’t have favourite clients but there’s something so warm and endearing about this one that I simply can’t help it.
‘Isn’t this party AMAZING!’ she says, finally letting me go from her Tigger hug and wiping the trickle of sweat running down her face; the only part of her that isn’t camouflaged by costume. Everyone else is in evening dress but Jennifer is a one-off.
She also has a habit of speaking in capital letters to convey her infectious enthusiasm, which I find rather sweet. ‘Talk about a posh hotel!’ she purrs, gazing around, her eyes wide. ‘I’ve never been in a ballroom before! And those prawn canapés are to DIE for.’
This place is pretty swanky with its rose silk curtains, glittering chandeliers and ceiling frescos, even if it is a bit further out from London than the previous parties. Everyone who is anyone is here; either because they are ‘supporting artistes’ (also known as extras) who hope to be noticed or because they’re connected to the industry like me and need to network. Reputation, recognition and reliability are the three big Rs in this business. And I try very hard to tick all the boxes. My job is to supply casting directors with the ordinary man in the newsagent queue in front of the lead actor; the woman who pushes an empty pram down a street just before an explosion; the child who cycles past a robbery on his bike and carries on without mishap. The sort of person you might not even notice when you’re glued to the screen but who makes the action seem normal. It’s quite a challenge. But I love it!
I almost didn’t get here tonight after that disagreement with the girls over their homework. Melissa and Daisy – aged seventeen and fourteen respectively – used to adore each other but they’re currently going through a tricky argumentative stage. Perhaps it’s because they’re so different, inside and out. Melissa has my husband’s glossy raven hair from his father’s side with the lofty height to go with it. Daisy, with her auburn curls, is more like the old me: small and slightly dumpy with a shy smile that hides the feistiness underneath. She still believes in magic. When she wants something, she turns her pillow over three times ‘for luck’.
I try hard to reason with them like you’re meant to, according to my well-thumbed How to Bring Up a Teenager book, but they just don’t seem to listen. At times, it breaks my heart. I’d have given anything to have had a sister for company at their age. As the years go by, I find that longing growing even stronger. It would be so good just to confide in someone …
If it wasn’t for my mother-in-law, helping me to ‘steer the ship’, as she puts it, I don’t know what I’d do. Betty is warm, loving, a brilliant gran and wonderfully eccentric, with her passion for one hobby after another. One moment it’s making jewellery out of tin lids; the next it’s tap dancing. She’s also stylish, with a sweet, heart-shaped face that suits her trademark purple berets, which she often wears inside the house as well as out of it. (I suspect she does so to hide her thinning hair, which, according to family photos, used to be light brown until she dyed it blonde in her twenties. Now it’s silver.) Betty adores the girls and the feeling is mutual. She’s the mother I never had. At least for as long as I care to remember.
It was Betty’s idea that I set up the Poppy Page Extra Agency from home after Melissa was born, using my married surname because the alliteration made it sound memorable. For some time back then, I’d been to countless auditions for all kinds of minor roles but hadn’t been recalled to any. Not even one. I had to face facts. My career as an actress was over before it had even begun.
‘Women like you need something else as well as looking after a family,’ Betty told me. ‘Trust me. I can tell.’
She was right. How lucky I am to have a mother-in-law like her! I sometimes think she’s the glue that holds us all together. Yet on darker days, I fear that without her we might just fall apart.
‘And LOOK!’ continues Jennifer, bouncing up and down next to me. ‘There’s that Doris Day lookalike who was in the shampoo ad. Isn’t she one of your clients too?’
‘Yes,’ I say proudly. ‘She is.’ I wave across the room to a stunning seventy-five-year-old former supermarket cashier who used to be teased mercilessly for looking like the original Doris until she spotted a magazine article about being an extra. Then she made a note of the ‘useful numbers’ at the end and rang me. ‘Do you think I’m too old?’ she’d asked.
‘You’re just beginning,’ I’d told her. Now she’s actually changed her name by deed poll to Doris Days. ‘I know the real one didn’t have an “s”,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t want to mislead people.’
Age is no boundary in this business, as I am always assuring clients. You don’t need an Equity card, even if you have a speaking role. It’s possible to earn a steady income if you get a good name simply by being available at short notice, turning up on time at the right place in the right clothes, not pestering the stars for an autograph or – as one of my clients kept doing until I was forced to take her off my books – constantly walking in front of big-name stars to hog the camera! But it’s not really about the money. It’s the thrill of being onscreen, even if it’s for a blink-and-you-miss-it second.
‘You know,’ says Jennifer chummily, threading a velvet paw through my arm. ‘If it wasn’t for you, none of us would be here.’
I flush with pleasure. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Nor did I inherit my business from Mummy or Daddy, like one or two of the agents here. I’ve had to work long and hard to get where I am but it’s been worth it. My agency is doing pretty well, financially speaking, and we’ve really built a name for ourselves. Recently, one of the industry magazines did a two-page ‘Casting Agency of the Month’ profile on me.
‘Very nice,’ was all Stuart said when I showed him. He’d been engrossed in some dental article about mandibular jaws at the time, so was probably only half listening.
It’s OK. I’m used to it. Stuart lives for his work. Besides, the real reward is helping my clients, many of whom have become good friends, to fulfil their dreams. But every now and then, I can’t help feeling a teeny bit jealous that I never made it as an actress myself. I could have done it. I know I could. If only things had been different.
Meanwhile, my clients’ successes have now made me a ‘name’ in the business. It might not be what I had in mind all those years ago. But it’s a pretty good second-best.
‘I couldn’t do it without you and the others,’ I say, giving Jennifer’s paw a pat.
‘Actually,’ she replies, lowering her voice just a fraction, ‘I’ve been dying to ask if there was any news on you-know-what.’
She is referring to a zoo film that’s about to be made by a certain production company. (They want to use actors in costume rather than special effects or real animals.) I’ve already put Jennifer up for it but am still waiting to hear back.