A Step In Time

About the Author

KERRY BARRETT was a bookworm from a very early age and did a degree in English Literature, then trained as a journalist, writing about everything from pub grub to EastEnders. Her first novel, Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, took six years to finish and was mostly written in longhand on her commute to work, giving her a very good reason to buy beautiful notebooks. Kerry lives in London with her husband and two sons, and Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes is still her favourite novel.

Readers Love Kerry Barrett

‘A thoroughly enjoyable read!’

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Also by Kerry Barrett

The Could It Be Magic? Series

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

I Put a Spell on You

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

I’ll Be There for You

A Spoonful of Sugar: A Novella

The Forgotten Girl

The Girl in the Picture

The Hidden Women

The Secret Letter

A Step In Time
KERRY BARRETT

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020

Copyright © Kerry Barrett

Kerry Barrett asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © May 2020 ISBN: 9781474044998

Version: 2020-03-20

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Readers Love Kerry Barrett

Also by Kerry Barrett

Title Page

Copyright

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6: Cora

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9: Cora

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12: Cora

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16: Cora

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23: Cora

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29: Cora

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39: Cora

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47: Cora

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Epilogue

Extract

Keep Reading …

About the Publisher

Prologue

Afterwards I realized I was far, far drunker than I thought I was and that’s probably why it all went so badly wrong. But at the time, I thought it was a great idea. Matty, my boyfriend, was out at the opening of a new club and I wanted to see him. So I left the hotel where I was oohing and ahhhing over a fancy brand of hairbrush, jumped in a cab and headed to the West End to catch up with my man.

I posed for the photographers outside the club, giving them a beaming smile and a cheeky look over my shoulder so they captured the back of my mini dress, and then I trip-trapped down the stairs in my super-high heels to find Matty.

At first, I couldn’t see him. It was dark in the club and the flashing lights on the dance floor meant I took a while to get my bearings. But then I spotted his best mate, TJ, chatting to a girl I didn’t recognize, and Matty’s broad back in a tight white T-shirt, his head turned away from me, his tongue firmly stuck down another woman’s throat and his hands all over her bum.

People talk about a red mist descending, don’t they? I never knew what they meant until that moment. All I could think about was that some two-bit reality TV starlet was snogging my boyfriend. The man I loved. The man I intended to marry – just as soon as we agreed terms with Yay! magazine for the engagement photo shoot that would cover the cost of the huge rock I had my eye on.

Shrieking with rage, I launched myself at the girl. I took a fistful of her hair extensions in my hand and pulled her face away from Matty’s.

‘Get your lips off my man!’ I screamed. And then – and believe me, I’m not proud of this – I pulled my arm back and punched her. Right in the nose. I honestly didn’t know there would be so much blood.

Everything stopped. I couldn’t even hear the music any more. It was like the whole room was suddenly in slow motion.

‘AAAAAMMMMMYYY!’ Matty was yelling. ‘Whaaaat have you dooooonnnne?’ He had blood all over his white T-shirt.

The girl he’d been kissing was squealing as TJ shoved napkins at her, and out of the corner of my eye I could see other clubbers filming the whole sorry escapade on their phones.

Sounds bad, doesn’t it? Really bad. But that’s not even all of it.

Realizing I’d gone too far, I turned to leave. But like I said, I’d had quite a lot to drink at that hairbrush launch (honestly, it’s the only way to get through things like that – the free booze) and I was wearing really high heels.

As I spun round, my foot caught on the edge of the dance floor and suddenly I was face down in a puddle of pina colada with my super-short dress up round my hips and my Hello Kitty knickers on display.

Lying there, my cheek stinging from the pineapple juice, I watched two men compare photos on their phones’ screens and high-five each other. And then firm hands lifted me up.

‘Out!’ said one of the two bouncers who were either side of me. They were both twice as tall as me and seemingly three times as wide. They’d lifted me so high that my feet weren’t even touching the floor.

‘Don’t worry, I’m going,’ I muttered to the bouncer on my left. ‘I just feel a bit …’

And then I puked. All over his trousers.

Chapter 1

‘Get your lips off my man.’ My boss, Tim, threw the paper down on his desk and glared at me. ‘Amy’s meltdown. Full story continues on pages three, five, seven and nine.’

I glanced down at the photo on the front of the paper and winced as I saw the now familiar shot of me face down on the dance floor, bum in the air, as a blood-splattered Matty gazed on in horror.

‘Today’s news, tomorrow’s fish and chip paper,’ I said hopefully.

Tim rolled his eyes and turned his computer screen round so I could see it.

‘You are the only person who’s ever made every single thumbnail on the PostOnline’s Sidebar of Shame,’ he said. Sure enough, the column of pics down the side of his screen replayed each moment of that awful night in full technicolour glory. It was like a flipbook animation of the punch, the blood, the fall and the vomit.

‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. ‘I just really loved him, you know?’

Tim’s face softened.

‘I know you did, sweetheart.’

‘So what happens now?’ I asked, scared to hear the answer. Tim was the producer of Turpin Road. It was the biggest soap in Britain and I was arguably its biggest star – at least I liked to think so. I played Betsy, a damaged but sparky barmaid at the Prince Albert pub. I’d been on the show for three years and I absolutely loved it. And Tim loved me. I’d had some brilliant storylines and I was tipped as the next big thing. At least I had been, until I punched a reality TV star called Kayleigh and showed my knickers to the world.

I gave Tim a sheepish grin.

‘Suspension?’ I suggested. ‘I’ll go to my mum’s in Spain for a month, stay out of everyone’s way, and when I get back all this will have blown over and the tabloids will have a new victim. Just write me out for a bit.’

I was wearing a scarf round my neck – I’d hidden my face with it when I’d come into the studios earlier to avoid the paps waiting at the gate. Now I wrapped it round my head like Dolly, the actress who played my on-screen granny, and picked up the phone on Tim’s desk.

‘Oh, hello, Betsy,’ I said, in what I thought was a pretty good impression of Dolly’s shrill cockney voice. ‘Oh, your uncle’s broken his leg, has he? Of course you should stay and look after him. About a month, you say? We’ll miss you.’

I put the phone down again, pulled the scarf off my head and stared at Tim, waiting for the axe to fall.

I knew how these things worked. One of my co-stars had sent a photo of his willy to a fan via Snapchat, she’d screengrabbed it, shared it, and it was all over the internet about thirty seconds later. He’d been suspended for a while but he was back now and it was like nothing had happened. Tim adored me. The Turpin Road viewers adored Betsy. Surely my punishment would be similar?

Tim shook his head and my heart sank.

‘Longer?’ I whispered. ‘Two months?’

‘You assaulted her, Amy,’ Tim said. ‘You broke her nose.’

‘She was kissing Matty,’ I pointed out.

‘You were given a caution. You were lucky not to be charged.’

‘I wasn’t charged because her nose was full of coke and she didn’t want to make a fuss,’ I said.

Tim shrugged.

‘That’s as may be,’ he said. ‘But she doesn’t work for me and you do.’

He paused.

‘At least, you did.’

I went cold. I buried my face in my scarf and looked up at Tim in horror.

‘What are you saying?’

‘Don’t give me those puppy dog eyes Amy,’ Tim said. ‘You know what I’m saying.’

‘I’m out?’

He nodded.

‘My hands are tied, love,’ he said. ‘You punched someone, your pants are all over the PostOnline and there’s bound to be more. They’ll be after anything and everything. Ex-boyfriends, girls you fell out with at school, hairdressers you were rude to – it’s all fair game now.’

I closed my eyes.

‘Build them up, knock them down,’ I said.

‘Exactly,’ Tim said.

‘No,’ I said. ‘No. The viewers love Betsy. They love her and they love me.’

I jumped to my feet.

‘Look,’ I said, pointing to a framed photo of me gripping a gold statue that had pride of place on the office wall. ‘Do you think the show would have won this BAFTA without Betsy’s mental health problems?’

Tim shrugged.

I picked up a pile of magazines that were on his bookshelf and went through them one by one.

‘Amy wins big,’ I read, showing him a photo of me with an armload of statues at last year’s soap awards.

‘Steal Amy’s summer style.’ I opened Hot magazine at a fashion shoot I’d done and waved it at him.

‘Amy bares all?’ I fake-gasped, then giggled as I showed Tim the cover of Cosmo featuring a make-up-free me. ‘I was in make-up for an hour before that shoot.’

‘Don’t,’ Tim said. ‘Don’t do this.’

But I was on a roll. I picked up Yay!

‘Amy and Matty: Our plans for the future,’ I read. My voice shook as my bravado deserted me.

‘I’ve lost him, Tim,’ I said, hugging the magazine close. ‘Don’t make me lose this, too.’

‘No one’s bigger than the show,’ Tim said sadly. ‘But you’ll be okay. You’re very talented.’

‘I can come back, right?’ I said, still gripping my magazine. ‘Betsy will come back?’

Tim looked down at his feet.

‘We’re killing you off,’ he said.

I couldn’t speak.

‘It’s going to be huge,’ Tim carried on. ‘The biggest whodunnit since “who shot JR?”. People will be talking about it for years.’

I bit my lip. I didn’t want him to see me cry.

‘We’re rewriting some stuff,’ Tim said. ‘And we’ll film your last scenes this afternoon.’

I felt sick. This afternoon? How could my entire life change so fast? But I pasted on a smile, took a deep breath and stood up, throwing Yay! down on the desk.

‘Okay then,’ I said briskly. ‘Let me have the script A-sap, yes? Thanks for everything.’

I air-kissed him on both cheeks and legged it out of his office, down the corridor and into the safety of my dressing room. And then I started to cry.

Chapter 2

I never let myself cry for too long because I hated when my face got all puffy and my eyes swelled up. So after about ten minutes sobbing into the cushions on my dressing room sofa, I forced myself to get up and face the rest of the day. At Turpin Road we shared our dressing rooms, though I’d heard that on other soaps they got their own. I shared with two other actresses, which I quite liked, actually. They were nice enough and generally I enjoyed having someone to hang out with. Not today, though. Today I was relieved that they weren’t around and I had the place to myself so I could wallow in gloom alone.

I knew that I’d be called on set soon, so I dragged myself into the shower, trying to think about anything and everything apart from the fact that in the space of twenty-four hours I’d gone from being TV’s hottest star to a jobless, homeless, boyfriendless nobody. I stifled another sob as I shampooed my hair. Crying wouldn’t solve anything.

By the time I got out of the shower, I had thirteen missed calls – mostly from my agent, Babs, who’d been phoning me non-stop since the story went viral this morning – and a script pushed under my dressing room door. That was it then, the end of Betsy. I picked up the envelope – it was very thin, so obviously the script wasn’t very long. Poor Betsy. I took a deep breath before I opened the flap and scanned the text.

Interior: The Prince Albert

Betsy is clearing empty glasses after closing time. A noise makes her jump and turn.

BETSY: You! What are you doing here?

A hand reaches out and whacks Betsy on the head. She falls, motionless, to the ground.

Disgusted, I threw the papers to the floor. I’d given this show three years of my life, and this was how they repaid me? I was their biggest asset. In my head I heard Tim’s voice in my head saying: ‘No one is bigger than Turpin Road, Amy.’ I winced. What a way for him to prove his point.

Well, at least I didn’t have any lines to learn really. I could just lie on the sofa and feel sorry for myself until I got called on set.

I slumped down and had had my eyes closed for about thirty seconds when my phone rang. Listlessly I looked at the screen. Babs. Again. I supposed I couldn’t avoid her for ever, so I swiped the screen to answer.

‘Hi Babs.’

‘Bloody bollocking hell, Amy. What the flaming arse have you been doing?’

I held the phone away from my ear as she continued her foul-mouthed tirade. Babs swore like a trooper at the best of times, so when faced with a crisis – like now – she was really filthy. Eventually she calmed down a bit and I cautiously put the phone back to my ear. Her voice softened.

‘How are you?’ she said. ‘Are you holding up?’

I felt close to tears again.

‘Don’t be nice,’ I warned. ‘I am barely holding it together and if you’re nice I’ll crumble.’

‘Chin up,’ Babs said in her no-nonsense Glasgow tone. ‘I’ve got good news and bad news. Which do you want first?’

‘Bad,’ I said, bracing myself.

‘The catalogue’s pulled your fashion line,’ she said. I groaned. That was the end of my wardrobe full of free clothes then.

‘And the good news?’

‘Hold on, I’ve not finished the bad news yet,’ Babs said. ‘Your nail varnishes are on hold but it’s not looking good, and I’ve had a call asking you not to come to the premiere tonight.’

‘I’d forgotten all about it,’ I said. ‘And all my clothes are at Matty’s flat anyway.’

‘Where are you staying?’ Babs asked.

‘Phil’s,’ I said, sitting up on the couch and picking up a cushion to hug. ‘He’s looking after me, like always.’

‘Every girl needs a gay best friend, eh?’ said Babs.

I laughed without any real humour.

‘Yeah, well, it’s not quite so fabulous when your gay best friend’s boyfriend hates you,’ I said. ‘I can’t stay there for long.’

‘Where will you go?’

‘Not sure,’ I said. ‘Maybe to my mum’s for a while. Get some sun.’ And a whole lot of grief, though – I was trying not to think about that. Another thought struck me.

‘What’s the good news?’

‘What good news?’

‘You said there was good news’

‘Oh, yes,’ Babs said. ‘I just want you to know that this is not a disaster. I’ve got people out of worse scrapes than a small punch-up in a nightclub.’

I smiled despite myself.

‘It wasn’t really a small punch,’ I said. ‘More of a wallop.’

Babs made a dismissive sound.

‘And my knickers are all over the internet,’ I added, feeling another wave of self-pity.

‘Ach,’ said Babs. ‘It’s fine.’

‘It’s not fine,’ I said. ‘It’s awful. I really just want to go away for a while. Disappear for, like, six months, longer even. I can get off the bloody media roller coaster and lick my wounds, then come back revitalized and ready for a new challenge.’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘Babs, I can’t do this,’ I wailed. ‘There are paps everywhere. And Tim’s right – they’re going to dig up every tiny bit of dirt they can. This story will go on and on and on. Unless I disappear and give them nothing.’

‘Oh, get over yourself,’ Babs said. ‘You’re not bloody Greta Garbo. If you disappear now, everyone will forget you. Your career will be over.’

‘Ouch,’ I said. ‘That’s harsh.’

‘It’s true,’ said Babs unsympathetically. ‘But don’t worry. I’ve got a plan.’

‘You have?’ I said, feeling marginally more cheerful.

‘We need to make the most of this interest in you. Use it to our advantage and take control.’

‘And how do we do that?’

‘Oh, it’s easy. We just need people to know how lovely you are,’ she said blithely. ‘Not Betsy – Amy. Your adoring public need to remember why they adored you in the first place.’

‘Right,’ I said, doubtfully. ‘I’m not sure that’s the most straightforward idea you’ve ever had. How would we do it, anyway?’

‘Reality TV, baby,’ she said.

I took the phone from my ear and scowled at it.

‘No,’ I said. ‘No.’

‘Don’t dismiss it, Amy,’ Babs said. ‘It can work wonders.’

‘And it can destroy careers,’ I said.

There was a pause.

‘From where I’m standing, it looks like you don’t have much of a career left to destroy,’ Babs said. ‘When you’ve hit rock bottom, Amy, the only way left is up.’

‘I’m not doing Big Brother,’ I said.

‘Fine.’

‘And only major channels.’

‘Fine.’

‘And I get to choose which show.’

There was silence.

‘Babs, I get to choose.’

‘Fine,’ she said, grudgingly.

‘And minimal publicity,’ I said. ‘I’ll do what I have to do, but not too much. I’ve got to get away from all this.’

Babs made a huffing sound.

‘You can’t hide away,’ she said.

I wished I could, but I knew she was right really. I bit my lip.

‘I’ve got contacts everywhere – I’m sure we can get you into something,’ Babs went on, oblivious to my misgivings ‘Have a think and let me know what you want me to focus on. But do it soon. We need to strike while the iron’s hot.’

‘Okay,’ I said, suddenly feeling very tired. ‘I’ll have a think.’

‘Amy,’ Babs said. ‘It’s going to be okay, you know.’

I tried to smile but it was more of a grimace.

‘Yeah, we’ll see,’ I said. ‘We’ll see.’