Page 17 of Last Christmas in London

‘You were great,’ I told Pim, offering her a water bottle and removing her printed talking points before she simply dropped them.

‘What are they saying online?’ she asked, her voice deepening back into her normal voice rather than the one she used for radio. I opened my phone and searched the relevant platforms.

‘All good things,’ I said cheerfully, scrolling through the comments that had come in so far.

‘Read me some.’

I opened my phone as we entered a lift. ‘Okay, one says I have tickets to the show and I couldn’t wait, now hearing Pim on Five Live I’m dying to hear her talk in person. Hurry up, Christmas!’

‘Not bad.’ Pim nodded, clearly not yet sated with praise.

‘Then someone called Sophia said My heart can’t take it! Pim Hardcastle gives me all the Miriam Margolyes vibes without the vulgarity. I just want to hug her.’

‘That’s unfair on Miriam. She’s hilarious.’ Pim chuckled darkly. ‘But I’ll take the compliment.’

‘I mean all of them are like that, everyone loves you, they can’t wait for the show and there’s been a lot of great feedback since the news of Emily chairing dropped.’

‘She’s a bit of a prat though,’ Pim said, and I quickly cleared my throat as the assistant was still in earshot. We reached the doors to the reception, next to a Tardis just casually located beside the security doors, and I stepped in front of her.

‘I think we can take it from here, thank you so much!’ The assistant nodded without much interest, walking off with the kind of detached professionalism I recognised from years of managing celebrities – or, simply, Pim.

‘Where to next?’ Pim slammed her water bottle into my chest as I handed our security passes back to the team of threatening-looking door staff.

The car was waiting, just as planned. Pim slid into the back seat without hesitation, leaving me to dash around to the other side – it was one way to ensure I got my steps in.

‘Next up is dinner,’ I said simply, barely getting the door shut before the driver was already pulling away. There were times I wondered if I had developed the power of invisibility.

Pim glanced up from her phone. ‘That little Thai spot behind King’s Cross?’

‘No, the Italian place in Chinatown.’

She went quiet, her gaze dropping back to her screen. She didn’t have active social media accounts but, despite being a self-declared sceptic, she did love to know what I was posting on my TikTok and occasionally logged into Facebook just to play Candy Crush.

With a little trepidation I set my bag between my legs and reached inside.

‘If you want,’ I began, ‘we can start to look through some of the CVs from the job ad. The agency has sent more, and some of them look promising.’

Pim didn’t even glance up. ‘Why would you open an Italian restaurant in Chinatown?’

I pressed on, undeterred by her avoidance of my question. ‘There are four candidates I would like to invite for interview.’ I swiped on the iPad to try and show her the details. ‘Perhaps next week we could…’

‘Italian food is so heavy on the stomach. Don’t you realise I’m going to be on stage in front of thousands in a few weeks.’ Her tone never wavered, making her sound surprisingly menacing.

‘One serving of gnocchi – your favourite – is not going to hurt,’ I said, waiting for the inevitable if-I-must eye roll. It didn’t come. She didn’t even look at me. Her thumb kept tapping the screen of her phone, eyes locked on whatever was flashing in front of her.

Defeated, I put the cover on my iPad and put it back in my bag, the rustling of my over-filled bag pockets filling the silence between us.

Almost as soon as I pulled the zipper on my bag closed, Pim dropped her phone in her lap.

‘I suppose one always puts weight on at Christmas time,’ she remarked, staring out of the window as we stopped in the inevitable traffic of Regent’s Street. It would be quicker to walk, but God forbid I ever mention walking to Pim. Public streets are for the public, not for household names. I wondered if she knew that she was only a household name because Pimm’s was such a popular beverage in summer, or if she truly thought her acting career rivalled that of Judi Dench?

‘I certainly plan to,’ I said, letting the words settle between us. Food, I realised, had always been the one constant of Christmas I could rely on no matter where I ended up with Pim.

In Malta, I had devoured entire Maltese chocolate logs, my teeth sinking into cherries as I lounged about in bed, rewatching The Grinch for the hundredth time. In Australia, we feasted on so many seafood barbecues on the beach that I had half expected to grow gills. In Dubai, I had practically lived at the all-you-can-eat hotel buffet, drowning in turkey, mince pies, and every festive beverage under the sun. And in New York, I’d learned that the city truly never sleeps… and neither did the chefs.

‘Christmas Day,’ she began, still not looking at me. ‘I’m thinking lunch at the Savoy and then dinner with the Redgraves?’

‘They’re away in Majorca.’ My head ached from remembering the schedules of all Britain’s most prominent acting families. ‘The Foxes have extended an invite.’