holding up in front of the camera lenses thus far.
‘He is not famous enough,’ Mama said with a dismissive sniff.
‘He was nominated for an Oscar this year, which is more than Jonte ever has been.’ Sylva’s short-lived second marriage, which had recently ended in a quickie divorce, had been to dashing Brit actor and serial co-star shagger Jonte Frost. As well as procuring her younger son, Hain, marriage to Jonte had lent Sylva much-needed credibility and propelled her into an entirely new celebrity super league, one in which she was desperate to stay after years as a disposable WAG. With her parallel careers of glamour modelling, writing, acting and singing; her perfume, cosmetics and underwear lines to promote; her television series and her fitness DVDs, it was essential to keep her brand constantly in the press. Dating one of Jonte’s younger, hunkier screen rivals was a good tactic.
‘He is not famous enough,’ Mama repeated, making her way to the large reproduction Regency bureau, which she unlocked with a small key kept on a chain around her neck. ‘We must find you a better man, ma i ka , a man who will put a ring on your finger again.’
‘We could try a woman this time?’ Sylva suggested. The trend for glamour girls to have a Sapphic phase was admittedly getting rather well-worn and sleazy – fed up with years of men wanting them only for their bodies, blah blah, get together with another woman, blah blah, media-fuelled talk of bisexuality adds to the cool factor, blah: Lindsay Lohan, Megan Fox, Jodie Marsh, Angelina Jolie, blah blah – but Sylva thought it still had mileage if handled delicately. Hadn’t a publicity-hungry supermodel once let loose a rather saucy rumour about a glamorous drag queen that had worked well? Sylva envisaged something on a rather more classy scale: perhaps an androgynous aristo in tailored tweed, or a gorgeous raven-haired rock chick.
But Mama pretended not to hear. She would never entertain the idea of Sylva having a relationship with a woman, however artfully staged. Like Queen Victoria, she refused to believe lesbianism even existed.
In the bureau were her files – tens of neat pink ring binders in which she kept many acres of Sylva’s cuttings (though only the most recent ones: all of the others having been archived into many large boxes in an attic room because they took up so much space). Besidethese recent cuttings, so meticulously filed, was a baby blue ring binder that she now drew out and opened.
Sylva sighed. ‘No, Mama, I don’t think we can make that work. Not yet. It’s too soon after Jonte.’
‘Of course we can make it work.’ Mrs Szubiak placed the file on top of the magazines in front of her daughter, obscuring Nell Cottrell’s beautiful face, although her famous escort still peered out above it, looking very handsome and self-satisfied. ‘It is time for my little girl to star in another fairytale.’
Ironically, as Sylva’s mother opened the file, Dillon Rafferty’s name was at the top of the index list in her neat, curling handwriting, along with a dozen other potential targets, all of which Mrs Szubiak had studied carefully, compiling very detailed biographies full of information and photographs to help her and her daughter in their quest. Among them was at least one dotcom billionaire, two Oscar-winning actors, several rock stars, an oligarch and a red-blooded Royal prince within a couple of croaks of the throne.
On the spine of the blue file, also in Mrs Szubiak’s neat copper-plate capitals, was one word: HUSBANDS.
‘It is time,’ she told her daughter grandly. ‘To select Number Three.’
‘Must we?’
‘Yes,’ she covered Sylva’s delicate hand with her own, gnarled and hardened from a tough life before their escape to England. She would never allow her daughter to know such a life again.
Long ago, Mama had decided that marriage for Sylva was as much a career move as launching a new clothing range or promoting her
‘He is not famous enough,’ Mama said with a dismissive sniff.
‘He was nominated for an Oscar this year, which is more than Jonte ever has been.’ Sylva’s short-lived second marriage, which had recently ended in a quickie divorce, had been to dashing Brit actor and serial co-star shagger Jonte Frost. As well as procuring her younger son, Hain, marriage to Jonte had lent Sylva much-needed credibility and propelled her into an entirely new celebrity super league, one in which she was desperate to stay after years as a disposable WAG. With her parallel careers of glamour modelling, writing, acting and singing; her perfume, cosmetics and underwear lines to promote; her television series and her fitness DVDs, it was essential to keep her brand constantly in the press. Dating one of Jonte’s younger, hunkier screen rivals was a good tactic.
‘He is not famous enough,’ Mama repeated, making her way to the large reproduction Regency bureau, which she unlocked with a small key kept on a chain around her neck. ‘We must find you a better man, ma i ka , a man who will put a ring on your finger again.’
‘We could try a woman this time?’ Sylva suggested. The trend for glamour girls to have a Sapphic phase was admittedly getting rather well-worn and sleazy – fed up with years of men wanting them only for their bodies, blah blah, get together with another woman, blah blah, media-fuelled talk of bisexuality adds to the cool factor, blah: Lindsay Lohan, Megan Fox, Jodie Marsh, Angelina Jolie, blah blah – but Sylva thought it still had mileage if handled delicately. Hadn’t a publicity-hungry supermodel once let loose a rather saucy rumour about a glamorous drag queen that had worked well? Sylva envisaged something on a rather more classy scale: perhaps an androgynous aristo in tailored tweed, or a gorgeous raven-haired rock chick.
But Mama pretended not to hear. She would never entertain the idea of Sylva having a relationship with a woman, however artfully staged. Like Queen Victoria, she refused to believe lesbianism even existed.
In the bureau were her files – tens of neat pink ring binders in which she kept many acres of Sylva’s cuttings (though only the most recent ones: all of the others having been archived into many large boxes in an attic room because they took up so much space). Besidethese recent cuttings, so meticulously filed, was a baby blue ring binder that she now drew out and opened.
Sylva sighed. ‘No, Mama, I don’t think we can make that work. Not yet. It’s too soon after Jonte.’
‘Of course we can make it work.’ Mrs Szubiak placed the file on top of the magazines in front of her daughter, obscuring Nell Cottrell’s beautiful face, although her famous escort still peered out above it, looking very handsome and self-satisfied. ‘It is time for my little girl to star in another fairytale.’
Ironically, as Sylva’s mother opened the file, Dillon Rafferty’s name was at the top of the index list in her neat, curling handwriting, along with a dozen other potential targets, all of which Mrs Szubiak had studied carefully, compiling very detailed biographies full of information and photographs to help her and her daughter in their quest. Among them was at least one dotcom billionaire, two Oscar-winning actors, several rock stars, an oligarch and a red-blooded Royal prince within a couple of croaks of the throne.
On the spine of the blue file, also in Mrs Szubiak’s neat copper-plate capitals, was one word: HUSBANDS.
‘It is time,’ she told her daughter grandly. ‘To select Number Three.’
‘Must we?’
‘Yes,’ she covered Sylva’s delicate hand with her own, gnarled and hardened from a tough life before their escape to England. She would never allow her daughter to know such a life again.
Long ago, Mama had decided that marriage for Sylva was as much a career move as launching a new clothing range or promoting her
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