Fit For Purpose by Julian Parrott (scary books to read .TXT) 📗

than her marriages. There was at least the big one, but she had convinced herself that that relationship was the ONE true love of her life. It was partly why she had never attempted to build a lasting relationship since. Oh God, she thought, Tom would find it on Google. She was interested in seeing Tom, again but she grimaced and remembered another airport scene over seventeen years past.

Chapter Four

London, 2002

Nia’s career was on a high. A regular role as a femme fatale on a beloved weekly drama series had made her a household name. There were rumours that Hollywood would come knocking. Nia had been thrilled by the role and the accompanying public profile, but the lens of fame quickly lost its glitter. Her anonymity had been replaced with requests for selfies and gossip columnists couldn’t separate her role from her reality. Her first husband, married and divorced in her early twenties, sold salacious stories to the press along with some racy, intimate photos. Paparazzi caught her tired and emotional at parties or after award shows. There was talk of voracious appetites for wine, coke, and men. Little of it was true. She liked a glass or two of wine, she believed she had her cocaine problem under control, and there weren’t men, there was a man.

He was a fellow actor, of course, leading man material, recently discovered by Hollywood. He was a Goldenboy. Nia found him beautiful and tender, clever and witty. He wore a background of Harrow and Cambridge with a faux lightness. He charmed her, as he did everyone, and she found herself in love with him. He loved her, too, but conditionally. He was voraciously ambitious. The press presented them as the golden couple when they were dating. There were wedding photos in Hello but then the failings of their two-year-long marriage was played out in the full glare of the public. There were the rumours of affairs, his; accusations of crockery being thrown, hers. There were private stories leaked by so-called friends, and there were the public fights in restaurants, at parties, and then, finally, Heathrow. Goldenboy left her standing broken and crying on a concourse, while he flew off for a movie shoot. The marriage was over. He never returned to her or to the home they had shared. Goldenboy sent his agent to collect his possessions, all but one.

Nia’s heartbreak, but not her secret, played out in a very public forum. Goldenboy’s charm offensive worked wonders with the British press and the Hollywood glitterati. Her working class, fuck you attitude didn’t sit well with newspaper editors and gossip column hacks and so she was viewed as the villain of the piece. While Goldenboy, all cool and collected, was seen as a potential future James Bond, she was the fiery, mouthy Celt. Nia discovered that most of her friends were actually Goldenboy’s friends. Doors closed. For the first time since she was a young teen, she felt alone and, worse, abandoned. But, not completely alone, there was the little life she carried and her agent, Jane, provided some support and comfort.

Against Jane’s advice, Nia decided to take a break. Discussions with her TV show runner didn’t go well, they wouldn’t give her the time away that she needed. She had tough decisions to make and she made them. Her character was written out of the weekly TV gig. It was a professional and financial blow, but Nia felt it was freeing. She hoped that she would have something good from the whole personal debacle. She travelled alone seeking some anonymity, solace, and healing. Then, her hopes for a new kind of future came to a distressing and bloody end in a small Scottish hospital where Nia lost her baby and was left utterly bereft.

Nia let her life spin out of control. She drank too much, had too many one-night stands, and let herself slip into the arms of a deep depression. She knew that she was punishing herself but felt that she deserved it. It was Jane, her agent, who saved Nia from herself. Jane used job options as a kind of therapy for Nia. There was some regional theatre, TV guest roles, the West End, and then back as TV recurring characters. Nia threw herself into the parts with determination and effort. She was a good actor and parts continued to come. She reforged a professional life while, outside of the public eye, she continued to nurse her personal wounds. Her upbringing had made her resilient but the experience with Goldenboy and her baby hardened her heart. She moved on determined to guard her emotions closely and to never let anyone get close enough to hurt her again.

It didn’t help that her personal reputation remained damaged. With every career success the Goldenboy enjoyed, the press would regurgitate a Nia rumour just on the safe side of slander. The press always seemed to like to juxtapose a photo of Goldenboy, usually staged, all tan and teeth and expensive suit, with a gotcha photo of Nia with no make-up, gym-wet hair, leaving a supermarket clutching a frozen meal and a bag of toilet paper.

***

London and the Marches. Present. November 21st  

Nia and Tom separately made their ways home. Tom walked to the nearby Tube station then on to Euston and then on to points north. Nia headed east across the city. She arrived at her home long before Tom arrived at his. The driver helped her with her bags. She opened her front door and stepped inside, putting her bags down in the hall. A dog came running up to her signalling joy with its wagging tail. Nia squatted down to rub the dog’s head. She stood up and said loudly to the interior of the house, “Darling, it’s me. I’m home.”

***

Chester train station was grey with rain. Tom’s sister, Rachel, was waiting for him inside the station. She caught sight