‘You should have got more when you divorced Charles.’
‘I didn’t want his money. I just wanted to move on, not get caught in some lengthy battle between lawyers.’
Nicholas sighed. ‘He was the guilty party, so it wouldn’t have been a long battle. He didn’t deserve you. Many women in your situation would have taken him for everything he had.’
‘Not my style – anyway, let’s not talk about him.’.
Nicholas reached out and put his hand over mine. ‘Something will turn up. Careers have ups and downs; you’ve had to change direction before and you can do it again. Wait and see.’
Chapter Three
I did wait and see if Nicholas’s ‘something’ turned up. It didn’t. It was odd not having to get up, rush out, work long days.
I spent the first weeks hiding away, watching TV and reruns of Frasier and my all-time favourite, The Bonnets of Bath, a series about a group of feisty and funny friends in their sixties.
In the mornings, I had a few cursory glances over job opportunities advertised on the industry websites. Waste of time. Nothing for me. It was a younger person’s market, the openings were for people starting out, willing to do anything, go anywhere to get their foot in the door. I was over-qualified and too well known for anyone to hire me for what would appear to be a backwards step on the career path.
Nicholas called from time to time, sounding cheerful. ‘Nil desperandum. Chins up. I have a few meetings. I’ll let you know if anything comes of them; it’s got to be the right thing.’ He and James were great, supportive, cooking supper frequently and pouring the wine, but then they went off to the south of France for a week in early September and the phone went quiet.
Network, I thought, that’s what I must do. And I did.
Launches, lunches, I was willing to go to everything and not to hide away. My motto is to say yes to all invites, I told myself in an attempt to be positive. I went through my book of contacts, renewing acquaintances, people I’d worked with, people I swore I’d never work with again. It was obvious that many of them had heard that I was no longer with Calcot TV and no one had any openings.
A book launch party at The Ivy in Covent Garden was the last straw. With its dark wood interior and beautiful stained-glass windows, it was usually one of my favourite venues, but I could see people looking at me then turning away, whispering to friends who’d then look over. It wasn’t me being paranoid. That’s it, I decided. No more. I felt my inner Greta Garbo coming on and wanted to be alone.
I left early and hopped on the tube to get home. An elderly man kept staring at me. When he stood up to get off, he leant over. ‘Didn’t you used to be Sara Meyers?’ he asked.
‘I did,’ I replied.
*
At home, I went into my sitting room, lit a candle and flicked through my contact list to see if there was anyone I had missed. I knew I was lucky that I had such a place to come back to. Normally I am a positive person who likes a challenge but there was no doubt that my confidence had taken a knock and I was glad to have somewhere as lovely to retreat to. My shelter from the storm was a three-bedroom two-storey house with bi-folding doors at the back of the kitchen that opened out onto a small courtyard garden, presently alive with night-scented jasmine. Best of all, it was within walking distance of the cafés and shops in Notting Hill, so I never felt isolated. James had found it for me after Charles and I had split up and we’d sold our family home in Richmond. James’s mastermind subject is Rightmove, and both he and Nicholas advised that I go for the house, not only to live in, but as an investment. I’d decorated it in neutral colours and added texture in shades of pale lilac with linen and velvet cushions and soft wool throws. James, who worked as an art dealer (when he wasn’t looking at property porn), helped me choose rugs, artifacts and antiques to complement the look and stop it looking bland. It was a light and lovely space, but the truth was that I’d spent little time there over the last years. I was always either working or out most evenings. The house was comfy, uncluttered and tasteful but something was missing. I needed people on those stylish sofas, round the elegant dining table – friends, those dear ones you could turn to when the chips were down. The ones who had been with me through thick and thin, who knew me before I was Sara Meyers, celebrity. Where were they? And why weren’t they calling to commiserate?
In the many years my career had been booming, I’d lost touch with some of the good old folk I’d known for ever, so maybe they didn’t even know what had happened. As is the way for so many in the industry, I’d hung out with the people I worked with. I have 400K followers on Twitter, more on Instagram and my public Facebook page has thousands of likes. Supportive messages had been pouring in since the news of my leaving Carlton had hit some of the papers. Not that the press knew what had really happened. Sara Meyers is moving on, the journalists had said, and I’d played along with that with lots of jolly posts on social media about new opportunities beckoning. But were these cyber-followers my real friends? People I could confide my anxieties to? Never. Not in a million years.
Nicholas and James: there was no doubt they were great and kind friends. I spent Christmases with them, they made a fuss on my birthday, they took me with them sometimes when they holidayed in France, but I was
