Say it with Sequins. Georgia Hill

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СКАЧАТЬ But she really was exhausted. They’d been practising since eight that morning.

      “One, two, three, one. two, three,” Jan inevitably corrected her in his harsh way and they stumbled round the room one more time.

      Julia gritted her teeth and did her best to stand straight, hold her head at the right angle, keep her elbows up and remember her steps. Who would have thought learning how to waltz could be so hard!

      ***

      The launch party was in full swing by the time Harri got there. Filming had overrun and he was late as usual. And, as usual, he hated it. He was a man who’d been brought up to be on time. Nowadays he seemed to be constantly chasing his rear and life was never less than hectic.

      He loved fronting the children’s TV show most of the time though. In the three years he’d presented it, he’d been all around the world, had done the most incredible death defying stunts, had met and interviewed some of the most famous people in the world. He was one lucky bloke. Fizz TV had set up Red Pepper as a direct rival to Blue Peter and it was gradually getting more and more popular. Harri had thought at one time he might have a go at getting the big job – Blue Peter itself - but peculiar though it seemed to him, at thirty-one he was getting too old for the plum role. But still here he was, an ordinary guy, Harri Morgan from Swansea, who had struck lucky. He knew his looks had helped but he hoped it was more than that, he hoped he was thought of as someone with genuine talent. He’d certainly worked his way up the hard way, spending six years in the niche world of Welsh television learning his craft.

      So why, if he was happy with his career, had he agreed to this? To Fizz TV’s dance show? When the suggestion had come from his agent, he’d been mildly interested, had never watched the programme but he knew of it and knew it raised millions for charity. When he’d signed up, he thought he’d treat it as another physical challenge, just like learning to fly a jet, or bungee jumping off the San Francisco Bridge. He liked learning new physical skills and it would show his mates back home in Swansea that he could dance after all.

      In his heart though, he knew he’d taken this on for another reason. His life expectancy as a children’s TV presenter was running out and it was notoriously difficult to make the transition to adult TV. Producers seemed to think that if you worked with, and for, young children you had the intellect to match. Harri knew he had a lot more to offer, it was just that he didn’t know what it was or how to achieve it. The invitation to do Who Dares Dances seemed to be the answer. He could have a go at a new challenge, and get himself noticed by a completely different audience.

      So far it had been, well, interesting. He’d spent four weeks in training with Eva, his Swedish professional dance partner, and it was a lot tougher than he expected. He wasn’t sure why. He could pick up the steps pretty easily, his rugby and fencing training helped with the footwork, but he just couldn’t get into it somehow. Since the cocaine fiasco on another well known children’s TV show a few years ago, the producers of Red Pepper had upped the censor code on the programme and on its presenters. They had even gone as far as forcing him to sign a ‘no personal relationships’ clause with any of the other dancers in Who Dares Dances. He’d always had to conduct any relationship with complete discretion beforehand and now he was in an even worse situation. Any whiff of scandal or smut, and he’d be summarily dismissed. He knew it had taken that infamous children’s presenter years to get his career back on track and Harri didn’t want to risk the same. So he felt uncomfortable mixing his kid’s TV persona with the blatantly erotic things Eva expected him to do.

      He grabbed a drink from a passing tray and sipped the warm white wine thoughtfully. He grimaced, it didn’t do the job like a pint of Brains bitter but it would help him unwind. He didn’t seem to have the time to catch his breath nowadays. Was he getting old? Was he losing the hunger for all of this? He hoped not. He didn’t know what else he could do.

      ***

      Julia spotted Harri come in from the corner of her eye. Half listening to what a fellow competitor was saying, she saw him making his way around the edge of the party. She liked the way his nose crinkled up as he tasted the wine – it was vile – and then she watched as he got into an animated conversation with Callum, the enormous Scottish prop forward. Talking about rugby no doubt – or trashing England. Funny how the Welsh and the Scots had those two things in common.

      She giggled. The wine may taste foul but she’d hardly eaten anything all day and it was going to her head. She put her half-empty glass down on the table behind her.

      “Revolting isn’t it?” Fellow actress, Lavinia Smart, sidled up to her and did the same. “You can tell it’s not the beeb, can’t you? These new TV channels just don’t seem to get things quite right. I can’t wait to see what excuse they’ll serve as food! But darling, tell me, how’s your gorgeous man of a partner?”

      Julia thought about Jan the professional dance partner she’d been assigned. If only she had had a choice! He was tall, impossibly fit, blonde and beautiful, she admitted that much. He was also a terrible bully. “He’s lovely,” she said finally, “but I’ve never worked so hard in my life. I ache in places I never knew existed!”

      “Oh darling, I’m the same. Warren is a darling, an absolute hoot but can you imagine, at my age? Any minute during training, I swear it’s all going to drop off – or out.”

      Julia laughed. Lavinia was the oldest in the group of competitors by far. She claimed to be thirty-nine but was probably closer to sixty. Julia had seen her in films dating from way back. She’d assumed the role of mother hen over them all and did things strictly her way – didn’t rehearse before eleven, broke for a two-hour lunch at one and finished on the dot of four. Her dancing partner Warren, a little man from Stoke-on-Trent and as ordinary as Lavinia was exotic, despaired. He’d won the competition last year and had been hoping to do what had never been achieved before – two successive wins. Julia thought his chances this year with Lavinia were remote to say the least.

      She turned to the older woman: “The competition is pretty fierce this year isn’t it?”

      In an automatic gesture, Lavinia captured another glass of wine off a waiter, took a sip and called him back.

      He came immediately, people tended to do as Lavinia said, Julia noticed. She had that bitchy, middle class, actressy quality that was thankfully rare in the profession nowadays.

      “Another one for my friend if I may,” Lavinia ordered. She passed the glass to Julia. “There darling, this one must be a new bottle, same wine but at least it’s so cold you can’t taste it! What were you saying?”

      “That the competition is tough. Who do you think is going to win?”

      “Well my angel, I know who desperately wants to win.” Lavinia smirked and nodded to where eighteen year old model and aspiring actress, Casey, was batting her enormous false eyelashes at Harri. Someone had tacked up a bedraggled sprig of mistletoe as an early nod to Christmas and Casey had half an eye on it.

      The poor man was trapped. He was visibly backing off from the torrent of giggles and nonsense that passed as conversation from the girl.

      “Met her type before,” Lavinia sniffed. “God, I think I was her once a long time ago. All hair and short skirts and dangerous ambition. When you’re older you learn how to hide it better.”

      “What, stupidity?” Julia said, without thinking.

      Lavinia snorted. “She’s not stupid, she’ll go far. No, you learn how to play the game with a little more finesse, a little СКАЧАТЬ