All That Glitters (22 page)

Monkeys are one of the sweetest, most curious and most fascinating species on the planet, and they’re third on my list of all-time favourites (under 1. elephant and 2. panda).

But I
don’t
love seeing them with a chain round their neck. I
don’t
love seeing them dragged across the ground of a paved market square.

And I definitely do
not
love having one shoved into my arms while the chain is secured tightly round my wrist and a little man with a beard is yelling:
“Go on then,
Manners! DO something!
”

Richard wraps his little furry arms round my neck and stares into my face with huge, sad eyes and a little leathery nose.

And I suddenly want to cry.

“This is a macaque,” I say, disentangling his tiny hands gently. “A Barbary macaque.”

“Stop shooting!” Kevin shouts as Richard starts curiously picking at a bit of shiny plastic on my dress. “No, it’s not. It’s a monkey.”

“You don’t understand.” My throat is starting to tighten. “A Barbary macaque
is
a monkey. It’s the only macaque not found in Asia, and it’s an endangered species
.
There are fewer than six thousand of these left in the wild.”

Kevin frowns. “Well it’s not in the wild now so what are you complaining about?
Action.
”

I make the chain looser, and Richard – monkey, not father – clambers up on to my shoulder, then sits firmly on top of my head.

“You’re upsetting him,” I say fiercely as I feel his little furry tail curl down the back of my neck. “He shouldn’t be here. He should be out in the mountains with his mum and dad. Or his girlfriend.”

“CUT,” Kevin yells. “I thought you were used to working with animals? What about all that time at the circus?” He clacks his board again. “I’m not paying you to whine.
Action
.”

The crowd is starting to murmur unhappily.

“I don’t think he’s famous
at all
,” somebody whispers.

“And I’m not sure she is either. She’s
definitely
not pretty enough to be in
Twilight.
Or Indiana Jones, for that matter.”

Richard clambers back down into my arms and stares at me again, hand carefully placed on my chin, and I look up in a panic to where Annabel is standing at the front of the crowd in a sharp white shirt and grey trousers, arms folded.

She looks exactly as furious as I feel and is clearly just waiting for some kind of sign from me to leap into action.

Help
, I communicate silently, and with a quick motion my stepmother stands directly in front of the camera so that it’s totally blocked.

“Stop filming,” she says coldly. “I’m a lawyer, and if this shot isn’t cut immediately, animal rights organisations will be contacted. Your client does not need that kind of publicity. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

Kevin glares at her like an irritated seven-year-old.

Any second now, he’s going to stamp his feet, tell her he hates her and wishes he’d never been born before stomping to his bedroom. I can’t believe I ever thought Yuka Ito was insensitive. By comparison, she was an angora rabbit.

“
Fine
,” Kevin finally sighs angrily, flinging his scarf on to the ground. “Take the flaming monkey away. He was rubbish on camera anyway.”

A man comes and grabs Richard from me. He clings for a few seconds, little chocolate-coloured eyes still fixed on mine, then lets go.

I watch him leave with a lump in my throat.

Then I give myself a little shake and try to snap back into a slightly less antagonistic, fierce kind of mood. I’m here to do a job, after all. “I’m really sorry if I ruined your advert, Kevin. Would you like me to … umm.” What can I offer him instead? “Handstand? Cartwheel? Make a long string of origami cranes?”

I can only do one of those things, so I may have to learn the others pretty quickly.

“No, thank you. I’ve got a
much
better idea.”

Kevin looks around at the still mesmerised crowd and gives the first broad smile I’ve seen since I met him.

“Ladies and gentlemen, bring out the snakes.”

m not a
lot
happier, draped in four poor snakes.

But I’m supposed to be a professional, so I try my absolute hardest to look like I might be.

With the cameras rolling, I start swaying as gracefully as I can – waving my arms assertively – so that the film crew can capture me “at one with nature”. Despite the fact that nature doesn’t look like it really wants to be at one with me.

The large green one keeps trying to tie itself round my neck, and I’m not entirely sure I blame it.

“Kiss it,” Kevin hisses as the smaller brown one slides over my shoulder and peers with a tickling tongue into my ear.

“Excuse me?”

“Kiss the snake. Just a quick peck. And make sure the watch is on show the whole time.”

I glance at the gold still weighing down my wrist. I don’t think there’s an alternative, frankly: you could see this thing through a dark pair of curtains.

Then I look at the snake doubtfully.

There are 3,000 species of snake in the world, and 600 of them are venomous. If I had any poison, a random redhead trying to kiss me would be my very first target.

I swallow, take a deep breath and give it a quick peck.

“Yes!” Kevin shouts. “Again!”

I peck it again.

“Again!”

I kiss the snake again. I think in some countries we are now married.

“AND CUT!” Kevin claps his board so sharply somebody in the audience gives a little squeak. “Now, let’s see what else we can do that won’t get us
sued
, shall we?”

I spend the rest of the evening wandering aimlessly through the winding, narrow souks of Marrakech with a film crew trailing four metres behind me.

And every few steps, somebody yells at me.

Occasionally, it’s a stall owner who thinks I have an eye for a bargain. “Hey, lady!” one shouts, trying to grab my hand. “Hey, Rihanna! You want to buy a scarf? Lovely scarf for you and your family! I give you super good price!”

“Hey, Beckham! You like nice carpet?? I have so many nice carpets!”

“You are a pretty lady! Come and have a butcher and a wag of the chin!”

But mostly, I’m just yelled at by Kevin.

Every time I reply to the stall owners, or laugh, or walk the wrong way, or say thank you very much but I already have a carpet at home, my director explodes at me.

“I said
no
, Hannah! No talking! Laughing is not fashion! Do it again! Take a left! A right! No, a
right
! Look at the watch! Faster! Slow down! And make sure you look at the
watch
! This isn’t an advert for orienteering!”

Until I’m starting to feel very confused, very lost and very late for something important: I’m just not entirely sure what, exactly. Like a particularly rubbish version of the rabbit from
Alice in Wonderland.

I’m so disorientated that during an especially enthusiastic head-toss one of my enormous dangly earrings gets caught in a long yellow scarf hanging from a pole and renders me abruptly immobile.

“What are you
doing
?” Kevin yells at me as I lurch backwards with a wince and cover my ear with my hand. “What is
this
?”

“I’m …” I pretend to rub the scarf on my face while I try to surreptitiously unhook myself. “I’m just … Really getting
into
it, you know? Into the
vibe.
Of this … uh, summer accessorising.”

Into it, on to it, attached to it: pretty much the same thing.

Kevin scowls at me as I start pretending to sniff the scarf instead. “Well can you
stop
? It does not look sophisticated and expensive
at all.
”

The cameras keep filming as an outraged stall owner charges forward and unhooks my earring while muttering loudly. In the meantime, all the other stallholders are now filming me on their mobile phones.

“Americans!” one says cheerfully, shaking his head. “Always making my day.”

You know what?

If I can find a hole through to another universe, it might be best for everyone if I just jump straight down it.

Once released I wander a bit more – stumbling into a gutter full of dirty water – and then I accidentally venture into a one-way street at which point I have to confidently put my hand on my hip and pretend it was entirely intentional.

Finally, Kevin decides he’s probably got enough footage for the day.

That or he’s given up on me entirely.

It’s hard to tell.

“Done!” he shouts as his phone starts ringing, grabbing it out of his pocket. “I can just pay somebody to edit all the rubbish out. Get an early night, peeps. It’s a long way to Erg Chebbi, so we’ll precede at four.”

Then he disappears down a dark little path that presumably leads back to the riad, still yelling into his phone.

There’s a short silence.

“It’s
midnight
,” Helena finally sighs
.
“How exactly are we going to get an early night? Time travel?”

“He means four
am
?” Joe the cameraman moans. “In
four hours
?”

“No
wonder
the money for this was so good.”

Annabel and I wait until the entire crew has stumbled off to bed – still grumbling and rubbing their eyes – then we look at each other.

“Are you sure you still want to do this?” she says calmly. “Because this is a man that doesn’t know the difference between
proceed
and
precede,
and our life is in his hands.”

I nod sleepily and grin.

Despite being shouted at so much – and despite getting so much wrong – I’m actually having a surprising amount of fun, living life so far on the edge I’m basically tipping over.

Maybe I’m more like my dad than I hoped I was.

“All right, then,” Annabel says with a swift nod. She gets a guidebook out. “In that case, the good news is that Erg Chebbi consists of fifty-kilometre dunes of sands blown by the wind, and it’s part of the Sahara desert.”

I open my eyes, suddenly very alert.

I’ve had a Sahara desert poster in my bedroom since I was seven, and I may or may not have cut a photo of myself out and stuck it on top to look like I’d already been there.

“And the bad news?”

Annabel puts the guidebook back in her bag and rubs a hand over her eyes. “It’s an eleven-hour drive away and we’re taking a bus.”

leven hours on a bus is a long time.