Sunrise Over Pebble Bay Read online

  As the train sped through patches of countryside interspersed with the long back gardens of houses, glimpses into other people’s lives, Olivia fantasised about getting the part. She would be playing Alison Brown, a consultant with issues, a formidable strong, stroppy woman with a secret daughter she hid from the world and a dysfunctional family. A consultant with secrets that would emerge one by one as the character developed.

  It was the usual high-octane kind of stuff that went on in hospital dramas and Olivia was really excited about it. Much of her acting career had involved non-speaking or very small speaking parts on television. In the early days, she’d done shedloads of work as an extra. But since she’d got her agent, Clarice Munroe, who was herself a formidable strong, stroppy woman, her profile had gone up considerably. She’d had several minor speaking parts in soaps and a couple of call backs for bigger roles, but she still hadn’t had her big break.

  Clarice had run her own agency for forty years and had a reputation for being tough and uncompromising. There was a standing joke in the business,

  Question: What’s the difference between a rottweiler and Clarice Munroe?

  Answer: A rottweiler knows when it’s beaten and lets go.

  Olivia had been a little nervous the first time they’d met, but she’d found Clarice to be fair as well as brusque.

  ‘My job is to find you the opportunities. Your job is to turn up on time and impress them. It couldn’t be simpler.’

  Now she was finally on the train, Olivia allowed herself to think about Clarice’s reaction if she had cancelled today. She’d probably have been dropped like a hot cake tin.

  Thank God for Aunt Dawn and Phil.

  She was on her second tightly lidded coffee when a WhatsApp message came through from Aunt Dawn.

  Cake safely delivered and finished. The Greys are thrilled. They gave me a nice tip for you.

  There was a picture of the cake in situ. Olivia blew it up to have a good look. It was perfect. Just like the original. Her heart swelled with relief and gratitude.

  She texted back.

  The tip’s yours. You’ve definitely earned it. Thank you so much for last night. You saved my life. Were you very late?

  She got a smiley face emoji back and no answer to her question. If she’d had a better signal, she’d have phoned, but they were clearly in a bad area. Her mobile hovered between one bar and none.

  The next time she had a signal, she texted Phil too and thanked him profusely. His reply came back almost immediately.

  Break a leg, my lovely. Call me when you’re done.

  The signal disappeared completely. She would thank them both properly later. She owed them big time.

  Now she knew her customer was happy, she began to relax.

  To her relief, the train was on time too and the venue was easy to find. Everyone knew where the London audition studio was. When she arrived, fifteen minutes early, she discovered there were several other people waiting. They must be casting more than one role today, which was maybe why they were auditioning in London, not Cardiff, where Casualty was filmed.

  Some of the auditionees looked calm, some were chatting to each other. Olivia didn’t know anyone, although she could guess who her competitor was. There was only one other woman who was anywhere near old enough for the role of Alison Brown and that was debatable – she was at least ten years younger than Olivia. She was wearing a suit and carrying a Mulberry bag, which could have been a fake. Olivia watched her surreptitiously, which wasn’t that difficult as she was sitting opposite and didn’t look at anyone, just tapped incessantly into her phone.

  She allowed herself a brief fantasy in which she was so famous that she no longer had to go through the ordeal of attending auditions. Not that she really minded the auditions, it was the nerves and anxiety before and the waiting to hear afterwards that she hated.

  In her fantasy, her agent just sent through texts that said things like: Channel Four have asked if you’ll consider doing…

  She didn’t know anyone who got texts like that, although she had once known an actor who was famous for getting the lead in police dramas. The first time he hadn’t been called to go to an audition he’d been worried, but then his agent had phoned and said, ‘They didn’t ask you to audition, darling, they assumed you’d know you’d got it.’

  OK, so she didn’t know whether this was actually true. It could have been an industry myth. But she was so immersed in her fantasy that her name was called twice before she heard it.

  ‘Olivia Lambert, please.’

  ‘Sorry.’ She got up and fell over her feet. Good start! Then, with her heart beating on triple time and her face hot with embarrassment, she followed the woman with the clipboard into an adjoining studio.

  5

  As Olivia walked up to the microphone, Clarice Munroe’s voice echoed in her mind. Focus totally. Be the best you can be.

  She gave it her all. The adrenaline of the last twenty-four hours was coursing through her and it was a relief to have an outlet. Days of preparation and a few moments in the spotlight. At least that’s what it always felt like and today was no different. It was over so quickly that she couldn’t remember much about it.

  It was impossible to know how her portrayal had gone down. There were three people in the room and their faces were pretty much impassive, although one of the women did smile and give her the thumbs up at the end.

  ‘Thank you so much for coming, Olivia. We’ll be in touch.’

  As always, time had disappeared during the audition and she was amazed to find that almost an hour had passed, by the time she emerged back onto the busy London street. She was hit by a cacophony of noise, blaring horns, diesel engines, voices and a crush of people plugged into smartphones and indifferent to everyone else.

  Sidestepping Boris bikes, she crossed the road. She found London vaguely threatening – the lights, the city smells, the huge volume of traffic, the crowds of people rushing about, most of them in a huge hurry, unsmiling and all totally focused on where they were going.

  Yet she felt strangely calm now it was all over. This could be the role that properly launched her career. Or she could fade back into obscurity until the next opportunity. All or nothing. It was the thing she both loved and hated about the business.

  She got the tube back towards Waterloo and for the first time she wished she wasn’t alone. Phil had offered to come with her, but she’d stopped him. Train tickets that got you to London early cost a fortune and it would have meant him taking a day off work. There was no sense in two of them running up a big bill.

  ‘If I get it, you can take a day off then and we can properly celebrate,’ she’d suggested and he’d agreed, but right now she really wished he was here.

  When she got off the tube, she bought an extortionately priced sandwich from a trendy open-air café and sat on a bench by the Thames to eat it. She wasn’t that familiar with London. She wouldn’t have wanted to live there full time. Fortunately, with Casualty filmed in Cardiff, she wouldn’t need to. She allowed herself a brief fantasy about getting the role and what would happen next, which she and Phil had already discussed, although not in too much detail because they were both too superstitious about jinxing it. She wouldn’t need to move to Cardiff, but she wouldn’t be able to make so many cakes. ‘I could still do part-time cake baking. I’d just need to be careful what I took on. Downsize the business. One of the perks of being self-employed.’ She still couldn’t quite believe she’d got this far; that she was on the brink of making that decision.

  Her phone pinged with a text and she jumped out of her skin.

  That could be Clarice now. She hardly dared look.

  It was not Clarice. It was Juliet Grey, thanking her for the wonderful cake and hoping that the family emergency had been resolved and promising to recommend her to everyone she knew.

  There were also messages from Ruby and her parents wishing her luck for today.

  Olivia texted a thank you to everyone,
finished her sandwich and got back to her fantasy. What would be the outcome of today? She really had no clue. She swung between elation and despair.

  Her dreams of making a real name for herself as a serious actress, like her dreams of becoming a mother, seemed to get a little more elusive as each year passed. She would be forty in November and while she knew that you didn’t have to be young to do either of those things these days, it sure as hell helped.

  Knowing that the rest of her family – this included her younger sister Ruby and their parents, James and Marie – were all happily and successfully established doing what they’d spent their entire lives wanting to do didn’t ease the pressure.

  Ruby, at thirty-four, was an art dealer – a hugely successful one who’d made it big two years ago after being engaged by a handful of London celebrities for whose art collections she now had total responsibility. She had started in London but now worked from her beautiful home on the outskirts of Weymouth, with regular trips back to the capital. Ruby earned more in a month than Olivia earned in a year. She was organised, single-minded and sensible. Olivia loved her to bits, but they didn’t have much in common and didn’t see that much of each other despite being so close geographically.

  Their parents were archaeologists. They had met on a dig when they were in their early twenties and had been inseparable ever since. United by their love of the past, fossils and a passion for dinosaurs, they had both been brought up near Bridport, which was close to Dorset’s famous Chesil Beach and not a million miles from Lyme Bay, one of the best places in the country for fossil hunters, and it had been clear from the beginning that they were the perfect match. When they’d met, James had owned a cat called Tyrannosaurus – Rex for short – which had bemused everyone except Marie, who got him and the name, totally. It was a story that got trotted out on every anniversary.

  ‘It was dinosaurs that brought us together,’ Marie was fond of saying. ‘Dinosaurs and a cat.’

  Marie and James were currently on a dig in the Outer Hebrides. They had rented out their house for six months and were having a great time.

  ‘Not that we don’t miss you girls,’ her mother told her every time they spoke. ‘But you’re busy too, aren’t you?’

  Olivia always agreed this was true and she was pleased that her parents were doing what they loved best and weren’t needy and clingy or nagging her about giving them a grandchild, which was the case with one or two of her friends. That hadn’t happened so much lately. She only had one other long-term friend, Hannah, who didn’t have children and that was because she said she preferred puppies to babies. Hannah didn’t even live close by any more. Her mum had moved to Cornwall a couple of years ago and Hannah had moved closer to her soon after. She must remember to message Hannah with an update or maybe call her for a proper catch up when she wasn’t working.

  Olivia called Phil as she’d promised and the sound of his gorgeous deep voice grounded her instantly.

  ‘How did it go? How do you think it went?’ he asked.

  ‘Good, I think. It’s so hard to tell, isn’t it? I guess it depends what they’re looking for.’

  ‘I bet you smashed it. Fingers crossed. Are you coming straight back or are you going off to do something cultural while you’re up there?’

  ‘I might have a bit of a wander around. I’ve got to get on a train before 4.30. Thanks again for last night. Were you very late?’

  ‘It was about two-ish, I think. I didn’t know there was so much involved in icing a cake. Your aunt is amazingly skilled.’

  ‘I know. It was Aunt Dawn who taught me to ice. She’s brilliant. But, oh my goodness she must be tired. And she must have got up early too. I got a text from her saying the cake got there fine.’

  ‘Dawn’s great. I really like her. She’s like an older version of you.’

  ‘Everyone says that. But she’s much more sensible than me. And not as clumsy. I still can’t believe I dropped that cake!’

  ‘Stop beating yourself up. You’ve got two jobs and neither of them are exactly coasting-along kind of jobs, are they? They’re both full on, high-octane gigs. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t make the occasional mistake.’

  ‘You always say exactly the right things.’

  ‘I try.’ She could hear him breathing. He must be out walking. ‘Are you near the Thames?’ he asked.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘So tell me what you can see.’

  This was a game they sometimes played when they were in different places and wanted to connect.

  Olivia looked around. ‘Well,’ she began, ‘I’m sitting on a bench. Wooden with ornate metal armrests. Not far from the river.’

  ‘What colour’s the river?’

  ‘Pink.’

  He laughed. ‘I’m being serious. I thought it was always dirty brown.’

  ‘It is quite brown actually.’ She stood up to get a closer look. ‘Greeny brown. You wouldn’t see much if you were swimming in it.’

  ‘Is anyone swimming in it? Do people go wild swimming in the Thames. I’ve always fancied going wild swimming.’

  ‘Yeah. Me too. But you wouldn’t want to go swimming in this bit. There are a couple of boats. Water taxis, I think.’ She breathed in the fresh air spiced with diesel fumes.

  ‘What else?’

  ‘There’s a pigeon walking on the grass and I can see the London Eye. I don’t think I’d go on that if you paid me. Way too high! I saw the Shard earlier. There were two guys in a crate cleaning the windows.’ She shuddered. ‘I wouldn’t fancy that much either. And it must be a full-time job. You’d get to the bottom and you’d have to start again. How demoralising.’

  ‘At least you’d never be out of a job.’

  ‘That’s true and you wouldn’t want to be unemployed in London. Everything costs a fortune. I can hear a busker playing somewhere.’ She was in her stride now. ‘And just outside the station, I passed a couple of living statues. That’s got to be harder work than being a window cleaner. How do they manage not to blink?’

  ‘Aren’t they usually “resting actors”?’ Phil said.

  ‘I think you might be right. I’m glad that isn’t my backup job. Anyway, enough of me. Where are you? You sound like you’re walking.’

  ‘I’m on the beach.’

  ‘Studland?’ she guessed.

  ‘Nope. Swanage pier. A couple of divers are getting kitted up to go in. I was just chatting to them. Apparently, it’s quite interesting diving under the pier. There are lots of fish despite the number of fishermen on the beach.’

  ‘I learned to scuba dive a while back,’ she said wistfully. ‘At a dive club in Weymouth. We did a lot of dives around Dorset. Tom and I also did a fair bit abroad when we were on holiday. I was really keen for a while.’

  ‘Something else we have in common.’ He sounded energised. ‘I got my PADI qualification when I was in Greece. We should go some time? We don’t have to go out on a boat. We could do a shore dive. There must be loads of places locally. Either near you or near me.’

  ‘Let’s chat about it when we meet. When is that by the way?’

  ‘I’m free until four-ish on Sunday. Do you fancy lunch?’

  ‘Definitely. I’m buying. I owe you one for last night.’

  ‘You don’t. It was my pleasure.’

  That was something else she loved about him. He was totally unconditional.

  ‘I’ll come to you if you like,’ she offered. It would give them a bit more time if he was dashing off to work.

  ‘Thanks, I’ll look forward to it. Go and enjoy London.’

  ‘I will. Thanks. Bye, honey. See you Sunday.’

  ‘With a bit of luck, we’ll have something to celebrate.’

  Olivia disconnected. She felt warmed. All her earlier self-doubt swept away by Phil’s enthusiasm. He believed in her, even when she didn’t believe in herself as maybe only another actor could.

  They were lucky. They might not be famous yet, but they did get paid work. And they we
re both good at their day jobs. And they had each other.

  The sun came out as she walked. Even the Thames looked less green, more blue. When she passed the living statue again, she winked at him and he winked back. It felt like a very good omen.

  6

  Another of the things Olivia loved about living in Weymouth was that she could run straight from her front door and be on the beach in minutes. Or, to be more precise, she could be on The Esplanade which fronted Weymouth beach. Running, especially by the sea, was one of her joys. Walking was good too, but you were more accessible when you were walking. People wanted to stop and chat.

  Olivia had nothing against chatting to people, but when she wanted to unwind or to think, solitary running was better. You could lose yourself when you were running. It was just you and your breath and your heartbeat and the pounding of your feet on the tarmac. No one disturbed you. It was one of the few times she felt totally peaceful. Especially first thing in the morning. Especially when she was trying not to think about the previous day’s audition – she still hadn’t heard anything from Clarice.

  Dressed in a lightweight tracksuit and running shoes, Olivia clicked her front door shut behind her and headed off at a steady jog. It was a chilly morning. It wasn’t yet seven, but it was better to be underdressed at the beginning of a run than too warm, so she wore layers.

  She ran along the esplanade past the Rockfish seafood restaurant, past the pizza place and the M&S food hall, with the smell of the sea mixed with the traffic fumes of the cars and buses on the coast road filling her nostrils. The tarmac felt hard beneath the cushioned running shoes. On her right, the blue and white railings separated the prom from the sandy gold beach and the sweeping curve of the coastline. The calls of the seagulls, the barks of excited dogs on the sands and the thrum of traffic were a familiar soundtrack in the background, although Olivia kept one ear out for her phone, just in case Clarice should ring.