Book 2, Chapter 15

At first, Friday night in the students union felt like old times. Martina, Gwen and George were away at University and Gareth had sent a card from Australia but Kelly and Penny had joined us and Andy seemed more himself. Of course we were no longer students here but Evan had an 'in' with the band playing and that had drawn us back.

"What's with the new look you two? This is Cardiff not London you know."

I hadn't had a chance to tell Serena about the modelling course and I think she was a bit annoyed to be 'out of the loop'. "It's Litara and that cameraman Jean Luc that we met in London See. They wanted some footage of a local modelling school so roped in Jenny and I as extras." I looked at Jenny and she looked the epitome of style somehow making a massive faux fur coat look casual. "Anyway you lot should talk! All of a sudden you and Penny are working for Alistair Dougan while I don't have a clue what is going on, and if I'm not mistaken Kelly, you've had a hand in Serena and Penny's makeup which by the way I love and it's very ‘New York.’"

For a moment there our friendship was rocking and strictly speaking I was, through Arianrhod Development, a client or their boss or something. Thankfully we were also and more importantly of an age and disposition that united us still against the dull adult world so the 'digs' were forgotten and the evening took off.

Evan loved to dance despite his rugby playing proclivities and Penny took Andy in hand with a 'dance or die' look while Serena, Kelly and Jenny did what comes naturally to them in attracting an entourage of male admirers ready to buy them drinks. That Friday it turned out was the first where a new dynamic for the group coalesced. Where once we'd all been students the academic ones had gone their own way leaving us a bit adrift until the addition of Kelly and Penny made us more work-centred in our views but even more ready for fun!

If I think too much about it my life should be chaotic but it isn't. What I have is a very full calendar which gives me very little opportunity to deviate let alone to get into trouble. Rather like that train I'd been thinking about. Ian and Dad did help with things like giving me time off for my last London doctors' visit when I'd been given the all clear for scuba diving, which was on Sunday mornings, and self-defense on Monday evenings but not yet for kick boxing. I even have Saturdays off as neither visiting John in hospital on the first week or hanging out at the mall thereafter was entered onto my calendar. The position of NED of Arianrhod Development turned out to be not much of an imposition at all as the only time I was called on was to see Mrs Clark. When she heard my plan for rebuilding her house she was over-the-moon as it seems part of the problem of selling it for her was an emotional attachment and part in practical terms she didn't want a big capital gains tax bill. She was clearly no fool in knowing more than me about property so I dialled Alistair and passed her the phone to do a deal. I'm not sure how legal it was but she had first choice of flats in the new development when it was finished and Arianrhod were, as part of the deal, providing her with accommodation nearby for the duration of the work.

By the time another week had passed John was out of hospital and Jean Luc had filmed the the second instalment for Litara's friend which confirmed my suspicion that the deal with the modelling school had included letting him concentrate on me being put in difficult situations. It wasn't just me filmed as Jenny and others got a fair bit of attention but when it was my turn…? Have you ever worn a seriously backless dress and wondered what would happen in a following breeze? It's like a hot air balloon filling and taking off and the teacher had sited a fan by our makeshift runway to demonstrate how easily it could happen! Fortunately my sailing and dancing experience paid off as I pirouetted toward the fan to take the wind out of the sail of my dress before I was totally revealed and the only shot Jean Luc got was of my tongue which I stuck out at him!

There was talk during that lesson of plans for Selfridges to open in Cardiff and the modelling school, with some local designers and the college, were planning to raise Cardiff's profile in fashion with a show to coincide with our final class on the 9th of March.

I felt that Jenny was a sure thing but not everyone was going to get on the catwalk for that show and I wanted to be picked so I asked her to help me.

"I don't know what I can do that the class isn't," she replied "but the teacher keeps pushing for complete immersion so for the next 2 weeks I want you to imagine you are Naomi Campbell with everyone around you either a potential client or a media shark ready to photograph or report your slightest slip and for the next two weeks I will be the biggest shark in your ocean!"

I'm not entirely stupid about accepting other people's plans for me and I'd seen on the news the way celebrities can end up behaving so I offered Jenny a compromise that I would be allowed to tell my family, our other friends and Ian that I had been given a method acting assignment which in a way was true as they didn't have to know that Jenny was the one who'd given the assignment to me just because I wanted to 'rub Jean Luc's nose in it' for laughing at me!

My sincerest thanks are owed to everyone for putting up with me over the next two weeks, especially Ian, who knew and daily witnessed me prancing about the workshop like a prima donna, and the other girls on the modelling course who were not 'in the know' especially if they came to hate my insistence on repeating every thing unti I had it just right.

I only had one bad slip that I was aware of. That was with Judy during a class when she was dancing with me to John's instructions given from his position as an invalid on the sidelines. Simply put I fell flat on my butt and burst into tears and I felt I had to explain my insane obsession with perfection.

During the modelling lessons we had local designers come in several times and two fastened onto me as a model but luckily the teacher vetoed the one with the clear cellophane creation masked only by the slightest of hand prints but the one who it was agreed would fit me was, in my mind at least, only sightly less outrageous.

The final week my brain became like candy-floss. Litara and I arrived in London on Monday at 8 am to see the doctors who, 8 weeks to the day after surgery, gave me the go ahead for kick boxing about which by then I was having second thoughts. There was still one limitation however for in the words of Frank, "Please not sex until period." I think he's Japanese, very serious and short so maybe I shouldn't have kissed him on the top of his head as I promised to return in a month. He got his revenge however by announcing that I was healed enough that the bridge could stand some dilation. From reading I'd expected that from the begiining but Dr Pitt explained the union had been too fragile and it was only Frank's thorough but careful examinations that had kept things open. Now especially with the delay it was likely to be painful but it was important and he showed me exactly the depth that was wanted - no more no less.

By 6pm I was back in Cardiff and by 8 after the earlier self-defence class preparation, involving being manhandled without actually being allowed to hit back properly, I learnt that kicking a bag did release tension rather well. Tuesday morning just about everyone in-the-know turned up to see the delivery of the new boat on a low-loader, resplendent in her new paint job of orange topsides and white coachroof (I admit not everybody liked it but Bill and Dad would have chosen plain white and you can only move a man so far). There was a lot of work still to be done on the boat but at least we were on our way.

The excited but good humoured mood of Tuesday in the boatyard did not survive through the evening modelling class as we found out that the final catwalk choice would be made on Thursday. Then on Wednesday was the dance lesson during which I fell following John's instruction. I'd leant right back with arched spine and Judy simply wasn't strong enough to hold me at the end of the samba.

Thursday evening I could hardly stand the tension being only able to let let out the tiniest of peeps when it was announced that against the odds I would be on the catwalk.

Six months before I had been living the life of a confused directionless boy and here I was, in the main hall of the college with all my family, all my friends and even Judy, John and Ian out in the audience and I desperately cared about everything and everyone about me wanting it to be perfect as I stepped onto the catwalk in a wedding dress!