Happy New Year everyone. I hope that it isn't as bad as a lot of people think it will be, as I have plenty to post this 2025.
Marianne

Chapter 1

Have you ever had that feeling that you were being watched? I was out of the office getting lunch at my favourite kebab outlet when I had that feeling, like someone had walked over my grave.

I looked around, furtively, and didn’t see anyone obviously looking my way, so finished my lunch and walked back to the office. I work in political research, with an independent company that would find out about anything, for anyone. We were generally helpful but would never back anyone who used our findings the wrong way.

My work included a lot of searching websites and social media platforms for the dirt that even sensible people had added to the medium. It’s amazing what teens will put up for fun, then try to deny when they want to look ‘responsible’. There was the growing animosity between political parties all over the world, and we were in high demand. The work didn’t pay as much as financial companies, but we weren’t paid badly.

A week later, I was looking in a shop window at suits, wondering if I needed another one, when I had the shiver up my back. I used the reflection to see if I could see someone that I recognised. I did, but it wasn’t somebody I had ever met. I saw him walk towards me.

“Excuse me. Lauren? Lauren Havers?”

“Sorry, no. I’m Garth, her younger brother.”

“I’m very sorry, with the hair and the stance, you looked so much like Lauren in her successful times, before she gave it all away. Are you in touch with her?”

“I am, actually. I saw her a couple of months ago on the occasion of the christening of her second child, another daughter.”

“Is she well?”

“As well as she can be, considering the abuse she suffered at the hands of that bastard agency owner. Your boss, too, if I’m not mistaken. I hope he rots in that prison they sent him to.”

“I was just a lowly studio assistant at that time. I had seen him in action, but he had built a wall around him with payoffs and threats. It wasn’t just the girls that he abused, he was a true non-discriminatory predator.”

I could see that he looked uncomfortable when he said that, and I felt sorry for him. I held my hand out to shake.

“My sister told me a lot about her life, and she has shown me lots of photos. I believe that I saw your face on the Morocco shoot.”

“You have a great memory. I was there and as excited to be working alongside the fabulous Lauren Havers as every other teenager would be. She was very kind to me, and always ready to help out with the setting up of a shoot. I suppose that she had done the same, hundreds of times, and I learned a lot, which held me in good stead when the brown stuff hit the fan. Who would have thought that a bunch of girls saying, “Me too” would bring such a big name to his knees.”

“It put a lot of you out of work, though, so it wasn’t all good.”

“I had been talking to another company, so I was ready for the crunch. Others weren’t so lucky.”

He gave me his card, and I read that he, Hugh Withers, was now a talent scout. I laughed.

“If you thought that you could sign my sister up to rejoin that madhouse, you would have been very disappointed. She’s living in Canada, with her media owning husband and her two daughters and three large dogs. She would never come back, even if she wasn’t ten years older than she was then.”

“Look. It’s been good talking to you. I’m sorry for the mistaken identity, but, from the back, you looked so much like her when I saw her last.”

For some reason, I gave him my card. Who knows, his company may want the dirt on a competitor one day. I went back to work and forgot about it. About six months later, I had a call put through to me in my office.

“Good afternoon, Garth Havers. Can I help you?”

“Garth, it’s Hugh Withers. We spoke some time ago when I mistook you for your sister. I wonder if we could meet, as there is something I would like to discuss with you. If you could make it, I have a table booked at the Ritz, tomorrow evening, at seven. I think that you may find it an interesting conversation.”

“I’m up for a free meal at the Ritz any day. You have me intrigued.”

“Just ask for the Withers table when you arrive. I’ll be there about six-thirty. Thank you for agreeing to come along.”

Not one to walk into something blind, I pulled his card from my desk drawer and did what I usually do if I wanted to know more about something. I found that Hugh came from a good family, with a good degree in Media Studies, and looked to be living a totally law-abiding life after the agency business. He was now working for an agency that found talent for TV programs, especially reality shows. I knew that I wasn’t being spoken to about any of those, as I could only cook the easy stuff, wasn’t an outdoors person, or a petrol head.

I went to the dinner with a good suit on, well, that’s what you do for the Ritz. When I was shown to the table, Hugh and two other men stood to shake hands. One was a person who had used my company to find all the rules concerning filming in the Pyrenees for a reality show. There was a lot of grey areas between what the French allowed, and the Spanish didn’t.

After some general talk, we ordered our meals. Then the one I had never seen spoke.

“Garth, I’m Albert Collie, a director of documentaries. We are thinking of putting together a program about the man that Hugh, and your sister, worked for. Hugh told me that he had mistaken you for Lauren Havers. Seeing you tonight has been an eye-opener. You have a lot of her movements. You are now about the age that she was during the trial. I’m asking if you could help us out when we start filming. We need someone who looks like her for long shots when we re-create the scenes. At the moment, it’s only going to be a twenty-minute segment on a behind-the-scenes news show.”

“You don’t expect me to wear a dress, I hope!”

“No, it will be enough to give you a wig and you would be wearing women’s slacks. Maybe just standing still in heels, but not much more than that.”

“What is the purpose of the segment? To whitewash or to tell the truth. If I say I’ll do it, I’ll need to clear it with my sister.”

“It all happened ten years ago, and there are some around who are building similar walls around their evil doings. We want to highlight what to look out for to a new generation. It will be warts and all, with some footage from the time. The problem is the lack of footage from inside the court. Without that, it’s just reporting, and loses sharpness. If you do join us, we’ll send you to see your sister with the shooting details so that she can see for herself before you sign on. What do you think?”

“Look, I would be happy to bring more grief on the predator that gave her a hard time. Pencil me in.”

We had a good meal and an interesting talk. I was given two more business cards to research later, and they promised to be in touch as things progressed. There were several other models from those days that they needed to find stand-ins for.

I had only been a couple of years in primary school when Lauren got into fashion, and just into secondary when the trial was on. All I knew was that it had been stressful to my parents. Lauren was ten years older than me, and twenty-one when the trial started, twenty-two when she retired. She had a short, but fantastic, career and had been featured in every fashion magazine in the world, walking away with her head held high and a million pounds in the bank.

Our family wasn’t envious of her money. My parents had a successful accountancy business and we had all grown up in a large home. I had an older brother, Hugo, who had been born a couple of years after Lauren, and had forged a good career in the army, now an acting colonel in Military Intelligence. There was also another sister, Molina, or Molly to us, who had followed Lauren into fashion, but in the support area of dressing and make-up for big shows. I was the youngest of the family, and a bit of a surprise to my mother, who thought that she was no longer able to bear children. Being a child of the computer age, my leanings were different to my brother, preferring watching a screen, only to find out that this was what he did a lot of, but it was satellite images that he was looking at.

When they did get in touch, I was asked to attend a meeting with the crew and the rest of the cast. It was at the TV station, in the evening, and I was interested to see what they had put together. When I arrived, I was directed to a conference room, where I sat with some very pretty girls and a few older men. The director, Albert Collie, introduced himself, then told us what the current state of play was.

“Right, folks. We now have all those who we need to recreate the trial of a man who is currently behind bars, but still saying that he had done nothing wrong. We have those who will play the legal side, and those who will stand in for the models. We will use a lot of footage from the times, and most of you will just have standing around shots and will be made up to look like the models of the day.”

One girl put up her hand.

“Excuse me, but Lauren Havers had the biggest part of bringing him down. Who will be playing her?”

“We have Garth Havers, her brother, here with us today. I know that he’s no femme fatale, but he has a natural stance that has fooled some of us that are old enough to have seen Lauren at the time. The plan is for you to just re-create the scenes outside the court, as you’re arriving and leaving, as well as general scenes in a set that we’ll build of the court. None of you have speaking parts, as most of the commentary will be just that, commentary from a voice-over specialist. The big news that I have for you, today, is that we will now be expanding the segment to be a full one-hour show, an instalment of a series called ‘Great Crimes Explained’. It gives us a bit more leeway to expand our original ideas. The details are in these documents which each of you will take with you and study. We want our re-creation to look so much like the real thing, it will fool even those who were there.”

The others took their documents and left, but Albert held me back, giving me two copies.

“There’s one for you and one for Lauren to look at. I’ve clipped my card to it so she can contact me about any changes she wants to make. If you can go and see her soon, give us the receipts and we’ll reimburse you.”

The next week, I arranged with my employer to take a four-day weekend and booked a flight to Montreal on the Thursday evening. I would spend the weekend with Lauren and fly back on the Monday afternoon. I rang Lauren to tell her that I was coming over and when I would arrive.

Everything went to plan, and when I cleared immigration at Montreal, she was waiting for me. She gave me a hug, so I dropped my bag and hugged back.

“It’s good to see you, Gee. This is a mysterious visit, out of the blue. Have you come to tell me that you’ve got yourself married?”

“Nothing like that, Lor. It will take a little while to talk about it. We can start as we’re going back to the house. How are my favourite nieces?”

“They’re doing fine. Conrad is looking after them at the moment. Is that the only bag?”

I told her it was, and she led me out to the car park, where she pressed a button and the lights on a Lincoln Town Car flashed. As we left the airport, I started telling her about the documentary, and how I was mistaken for her by Hugh Withers. I told her that I had a copy of the show detail for her in my bag.

At the house, we went inside, and Conrad gave me a man-hug. I liked Conrad. He was a multi-millionaire and just as normal as the guys I worked with. They were a bit OTT as well.

“Welcome back, Garth. I’m told it’s just for a few days. What’s it all about?”

“He’s taking a role in a TV documentary about the trial that I starred in. For some strange reason, they think that he’ll be playing me. I think it will need an awful lot of pancake make-up to be even close.”

“Lauren, I’m only to be in long shots because they think that I stand like you, and they can make my back view look like you in long shots.”

“They’ll have to site the camera across the street, brother, before that happens. I suppose they have current models to play the other ones who blew the whistle?”

“Yes, and look-alikes to play the legal eagles, with a lot of the show being newsreel footage from the time. I have the show detail here. Why don’t you have a read, see what you think, and we can talk about it tomorrow.”

We went to bed, and nothing was said at breakfast, with much of that taken up with getting the girls fed. Conrad took me to his golf club where we played a round to allow Lauren some quiet time to read the documents. We had lunch at the clubhouse and went home to find Lauren sitting in the lounge, with her feet curled under her and the document open.

“Gee, I have to say that they’ve done their homework. I see that they have listed the sort of clothes I had worn to the trial. It was all slacks or long skirts, as we were told to look like upstanding young ladies, rather than models in minis. With a good stylist, I expect that anyone could be a stand in for any one of us. Why you?”

“It’s purely on the fact that I’m the height you were at the time, and my general stance and movement has made those who knew you mistake me for you. It must be something to do with our genes, or something. Look, if you want changes made, or even don’t want it done at all, feel free to give me something to take back with me next week. I wasn’t old enough to appreciate whether this is faithful to the events. All I do know is that your evidence was enough, added to the others, to put him in prison. The producer wants this show to highlight what to look out for with others following that evil path.”

“I’ll endorse the project. I have a few things from those days that may help. You know me, like the rest of the family, I never throw anything away until it’s totally useless. I’ll have a look, this afternoon, and we’ll see if they fit you.”

“Fit me?”

“Of course. There’s nothing that will bring the event to life than the clothes I was wearing at the time. They could fob you off with look-alikes, but nothing can beat the real thing. It’s best that you try them here, in private.”

I played with my two nieces for a while, allowing Conrad some time in his office. When they were both tired, I laid them on a blanket in their playpen. I looked up to see Lauren looking at me.

“You know, Gee. One day you’ll make some lucky man a good wife. And do I have the bridal collection for you. I’ll tell Conrad to listen in on the monitor, then we’ll go and see what kind of actress we can make you.”

“You’re loving this, aren’t you?”

“Oh yes. I have, somewhere in my photo collection, a picture of you being Christened, wearing the same gown that I, and our siblings, were wearing when it was their turn. You’ve worn a dress of mine already, so this shouldn’t be a stretch too far. Come on, time to man up and face your worst fears – learning that we women have the best place in this world.”

I followed her to a spare room, after she had spoken to Conrad. There was a huge wardrobe that was standing open, with some skirts and tops laid on the bed.

“This is my ‘Cabinet of Historical Horrors’. On the dressing table you can see that there’s a scrapbook open to the trial times. What is on the bed is the outfit I wore in the day I gave my evidence. Strip to your undies, and we’ll see if you can get it on. We can worry about undies later on. Anything that gives you a shape will do, and I’m sure that Molly will want to be part of this. I might even fly over to see the shooting.”

When I was down to my undies, we tried the skirt, which fitted perfectly, but hung straight down from my waist. The top was a bit loose on me, but Lauren declared that it could be padded out. From then, we looked at the pages of newspaper clippings, finding almost every outfit she had worn and seeing if it fitted me.

With the last one I was wearing, which happened to be a knee-length dress, she went and got some new tights in a packet, opening it and teaching me how to put them on without putting a finger through them. Then we tried all the shoes, some that I nearly fell over in when I stood up. She left the room and came back with a suitcase. She packed every item I had tried on, including the shoes.

By the time I had redressed in my own clothes, I had become inured to the fear of wearing female outfits and had gained an appreciation of how they felt against my skin. On Sunday, we went through her scrapbook, with me taking pictures of the important clippings. They were transferred to a CD, which went into the case, along with one other item that I had read about in the clipping of the last day that the prosecution offered its case. It was the day that Lor was in the witness box.

On Monday, before I left, she took me shopping in Montreal, buying me all the items that she had used to ensure that she looked gorgeous. Not cosmetics, but moisturising cream, shampoo and conditioners, cuticle tools and a woman’s electric depilator. When I questioned the last item, she told me to start using it after I had shaved to give me the smoothest skin I had ever had.

Back in London, I was asked about having a case full of women’s clothes. Which showed on the X-Ray. I explained that they were for an exhibition which was being proposed on my sister’s career. Out in the concours, Molly, my sister, was waiting for me.

“Gee, Lor called me to tell me what you’ve let yourself in for. I’ll take care of that case, and get the contents cleaned. I know the TV company that is looking at that program, and I’ll see if I can get onto the team as your dresser. Lor sent me a picture of you in one of the outfits, and I really couldn’t see you there at all.”

“Thanks, Sis, that’s all I need. If I look so much like her, why am I still an office geek, and not on the cover of Vogue?”

“Probably because you haven’t tried to be. Who knows what the show might throw in your direction?”

“Other than jeers of derision?”

“Don’t be such a wet blanket. Did you park your car?”

“No, I took an Uber, it works out cheaper if you’re away more than a couple of days.”

“I’ll take you home, then, and you can give me all the gen on this show.”

“If you return it, I’ll lend you the documentation that they gave me. I think that I packed it in the suitcase. Lor said that you would sort out the other things I would need, so I guess that we will be seeing a bit more of each other for a while.”

“One rule before we see each other is for you to look after yourself. Get a good shampoo and conditioner from a good store and wash your hair every other day. Don’t get it cut and I’ll be able to create Lor’s look from that period. You don’t have far to go before it’s long enough, but it’s far too shaggy at the moment.”

“Lor already went down that road. I have the shampoo, conditioner, and moisturiser in my bag.’

She dropped me and my bag off at the apartment block, and I went up to drop the bag, going back out to a local pub where I knew I could get a decent meal. Tomorrow, I will be back at my desk, fielding questions about what I was doing over a long weekend. The perennial one was if I had met a woman. I smiled at the thought of telling them that I had met someone new, and it was another me.

When I was in bed, that night, the thought that I could be playing my glamorous sister kept coming back to haunt me. As far as I was concerned, she had been a legend, rather than just a model. Although I didn’t envy her money, I realised that I had envied her lifestyle. While I’m stuck in an office, searching for things that people had done, her life was being out there, doing those things for real.

The next morning in the office, it was as I had expected. After the tenth question, I relented, and told them that I had been to see my famous sister, to see if she had any old outfits I could borrow as I was going to enter as a contestant in the RuPaul show. That stopped the questions, but it did start the gossip mill with everyone wondering if I had finally developed a sense of humour. At least it allowed me to concentrate on what I was paid to do.

A month later, I had a text message with the shooting dates, so sent it to Molly and then went off to see my manager about some leave without pay. When I asked, he smiled.

“Got the schedule for the drag show, have you?”

I showed him the text message.

“I have, here are the shooting dates.”

“Oh, come on, Garth. I thought that everyone was having a joke.”

“No joke, boss. I will be on set for those three weeks. It’s not RuPaul but is a story about my sister and the agency boss that her evidence put into prison. It’s ten years since the trial.”

“So, why do they need you?”

“Because they think I look like my sister, or enough to fool people from the back. They tell me that I stand like her, but I can’t see it.”

“You wouldn’t, lad. You’re looking the other way! All right, even that one sounds weirder than you on the RuPaul show, but I’ll sign you off on the leave. When it is going to be shown, let me know and I’ll post it up on the board so that everyone can tune in to see your unmissable behind.”

Marianne Gregory © 2024