Book 2, Chapter 41

At the end of our song, as Jean Luc was turning toward the audience, I kissed him on the top of his head then he rose to bow while I curtsied. It didn’t go as I expected for the audience didn’t laugh and I recognised that our voices had harmonised particularly well. By design or by accident we’d presented ourselves as a couple without the slightest hint of irony detected by the audience and they applauded accordingly.

Back in our seats Litara’s only comment was a long, drawn out "Well…" and I couldn’t help but blush, my only other recourse being to pretend it hadn’t happened. I don't think I said much more during the evening but luckily(?), although Simon did stop the night on a spare bed, Jean Luc like a gentleman left at closing time to return to his man-cave wherever that was.

By next morning I had almost persuaded myself that last night definitely hadn’t happened. Litara explained that it didn't matter what I wore to work as I would be spending the day in a recording studio from where we would drive straight home to Cardiff.

The work was something completely different to my previous experience - voiceover links. I hadn't given a lot of thought to what it meant to be a documentary presenter. My mind had vaguely pictured something between David Attenborough playing with gorillas and the stiff studio shots of explanations in Tomorrow's World.. The reality was something very repetitive, very boring and clearly something for which L had no natural talent.

This was ‘acting’, acting and required a level of mental gymnastics much more sophisticated than I’d used for my dancing or modelling. The plus side was that Jean Luc wasn’t there to compound my embarrassment but the downside was that I frustrated the hell out of the director who up until then had thought I was a ‘one take wonder’. To cap it off, at the end of the day I had to listen to the director blow up at Litara for hiring a presenter who couldn’t act.

Driving west down the motorway towards Wales Litara was silent and I was fit to burst until…

"Susan Cartright! That's who we need." Glancing sideways at me Litara must have caught my expression because she then added, "I’m sorry but I've been trying to think who could help you with the voiceovers."

"According to the director I don't need help; you need a different presenter."

"Rubbish, she wouldn’t be happy if she had Meryl Streep. You don't need to become an actress but you do need to learn how to be the same you in the recording studio that you are on location.”

From that moment the mood relaxed as we chatted about our quite different weeks. While we were both making the same programme we had in fact seen very little of each other as Litara’s input was very far offscreen arranging finance, locations and any number of details like insurance and backups. Trying to understand what Litara does as a producer meant trying to understand what the CEO of a company does then multiplying that by the number of productions she has online or in development. I have one very smart Big Sister.

Of course once the details of film chat were out of the way Litara wanted to know if my intentions toward Jean Luc were honourable and I had to remind her that, as a still non-menstruating girl, having sex would likely damage me. On the other hand I did admit that my thoughts and dreams did increasingly wander off into the romantic or even erotic. Luckily by the time I had got to that point of confession we were pulling up outside our house and our minds turned to what to have for supper.

My big sister doesn’t hang about. On Saturday morning I was over the road, chatting and planning with Serena when my mobile rang and Litara informed me of an address in Bristol to which I was to present myself at noon tomorrow. It was the home of Susan Cartright who was an voice coach and I needed to take with me DVDs containing all the video footage of me taken over the last few months. Serena wanted to go with me but I said if Friday was anything to go by it would be boring to watch and embarrassing for me to be watched. Instead our fun for the weekend was clubbing tonight to which I readily agreed.

Lunch was eaten in the lounge watching television. That would normally have been a no-no under the rules of the ‘management of Mum’ but during the morning Litara had burnt a DVD that included as well as the television footage, also that of all of the video taken of me while sailing. Some of it, taken by Alistair during the Blue Horizon trip to Bilbao plus Dad and Bill's in The Dominican Republic, we had seen but newly arrived from WorthIt II in the Bahamas was Bruce's video with scenes I wasn't comfortable to share with Mum!

“So you were well behaved and didn’t take risks on that trip?” Mum pressed me accusingly.

Which was worse? Was it me up the mast, which I was expecting, or me precariously walking out aloft on a spinnaker pole in mid-Atlantic, which I wasn’t? Was it me dancing provocatively on various islands, me doing CPR in St Thomas, or me almost getting crushed between WorthIt and the sinking French yacht when I went in to rescue baby Emily?

“At the photo printers in town they are always getting people's holiday snaps mixed up; I expect it’s the same with video,” I offered unconvincingly.

“Joy. No complaints. Our daughters will face lots of risks in their live and we can be thankful to have witnessed how well they cope. Now let's get ready and go dancing!”

Dancing there was aplenty that weekend. First there was practice time before Jon and Judy's main class in the hall and more embarrassment when they wanted me to try something in preparation for what the main class would be doing. With all the help they had given me I could hardly object and could see the benefit for the main class of modern interpretive dance.

Maybe it was that experience or maybe the devil in me but in the club that night when I was castigated for not turning up for Thursday's exercise session I said "Fine, I'll do it now!"

I hoped it was meant kindly when my friends made a ring round me shouting "Give it some wellie Venus!" and my uncertainty calmed when Serena, Jenny, Kelly and Penny joined in with the boys clapping in encouragement.