Limelight by Daisy Buchanan

Author:Daisy Buchanan [Buchanan, Daisy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781408725580
Published: 2023-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

Exposed

The horror keeps hitting me afresh, nanosecond by nanosecond. I get out of bed, determined to go and buy some papers. Maybe it’s a silly internet thing. Once I’ve figured out the full extent of the situation, I can try to do some damage limitation.

I’ve got one foot through my leggings when I think about Alison. My mother. My poor mother, reading those things about me. Cursed with one dying daughter and one pornstar daughter.

Maybe she won’t hate this. She might surprise me! She’s always telling me to ‘put myself out there’. She’s read plenty of Jackie Collins novels. We watched that Blondie documentary together, and she seemed surprisingly cool about Debbie Harry’s pre-band Playboy Bunny career.

Or she will disown me.

Maybe if I call her before she sees it, I can prepare her for the worst. I pick up my phone. I feel sick, drop the phone and wonder if I’ll be able to get to the bathroom in time. I leap over to the window. Scraping my fingertips on the screw, I force it loose and struggle with the stiff latch, swallowing down bile as my oesophagus seems to twist into a figure of eight. That’s ridiculous, I think, watching my puke slide down the brickwork. I don’t know how the oesophagus works at all. I’m a dummy. A big, slutty, fucking dummy.

The cold air is helping, and I pick up my phone again. I need to do this.

One and a half rings, and I hear the familiar trill. ‘You’re through to Alison Howard!’

‘Mum! Mum! Oh, thank goodness, look, I don’t know if you’ve seen the papers, but I have to tell you—’

‘Please leave a message and I will endeavour to return your call as quickly as possible.’

‘Mum, it’s me. Please call. I really need to talk to you.’ I rack my brains, trying to remember whether I have ever left a message for Alison before. She takes my calls in the bath. She’s picked up, whispering loudly, ‘Oh, hello, darling. I’m in the cinema.’

How can I control this? How did this happen?

Rupert.

This must be his fault. No one else knew.

I don’t know what I’m going to say to him, but I need to speak to someone. I need to scream at someone. I’m searching, scrolling for his number. I’ve blocked him, and deleted all his messages, so I have to go through my call history using guesswork. And I’m going to do it now, while I’m motivated by white-hot fury.

‘Frankie! How are you doing? Great to hear from you! I’m just going into the office. Can I call you back?’ Rupert’s drawl is warm and familiar and it’s so novel to hear a friendly voice that I’m seconds away from saying, ‘Of course, no worries!’

No. Lots of worries.

‘You cunt! You utter fucking shitweasel of cuntery, you all-time arse! How dare you? How fucking dare you?’ My heart is pumping, and I’m breathing through my mouth and sweating slightly. Did I just invent swearobics? Frankie, focus.

‘Frankie? It’s me, Rupert.

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