A Step In Time Read online




  The time of her life!

  Following a (totally justified) ugly, public brawl with her love-rat boyfriend, soap star and paparazzi darling Amy Lavender’s TV career is over.

  Her agent assures her that winning a glitzy TV dancing competition will put Amy back on top. But Amy has two left feet, and her hot dance partner, Patrick, seems to think that she’s behaving like a superficial spoiled brat (also totally justified).

  At rock bottom, Amy is now living in a rented room when she encounters her upstairs neighbour, an elegant older lady with a mysterious, tragic air who knows more than a thing or two about the foxtrot.

  But it’ll take more than a couple of dance lessons to get Amy back on the leaderboard and ready to cha cha cha her way to glitterball glory!

  Praise for KERRY BARRETT

  ‘It was just lovely! I loved the plot, I loved the spells and the magic, I loved the characters and I loved the writing. Kerry Barrett is a talented writer’ – Girls Love to Read on Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

  **

  ‘Thoroughly enjoyed Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered … couldn’t put it down’ – A M Poynter*

  **

  ‘I was absorbed from the first page’ – Pass the Gin on Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

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  ‘This was a joy to read, clever, witty and fun. I would thoroughly recommend it and am looking forward to seeing what happens next??!!’ – Mrs Ami Norman on Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered*

  **

  ‘For lovers of witches, strong female characters who you really root for, good writing and great storytelling this is a must’ – Caz on I Put a Spell on You*

  **

  ‘A little romance, a little danger and a whole lot of fun make this an unparalleled reading experience’ – cayocosta72 on I Put a Spell on You*

  **

  ‘I recommend this to anyone wanting to escape to a wintery witchy romance’ – Splashes into Books on Baby It’s Cold Outside*

  **

  *Amazon reader reviews

  Also available by Kerry Barrett

  Could It Be Magic series:

  Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

  I Put a Spell on You

  Baby It’s Cold Outside

  I’ll Be There for You

  A Spoonful of Sugar

  A Step in Time

  Kerry Barrett

  www.CarinaUK.com

  KERRY BARRETT

  was a bookworm from a very early age, devouring Enid Blyton and Noel Streatfeild, before moving on to Sweet Valley High and 1980s bonkbusters. She did a degree in English Literature, then trained as a journalist, writing about everything from pub grub to EastEnders. Her first novel, Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, took six years to finish and was mostly written in longhand on her commute to work, giving her a very good reason to buy beautiful notebooks. Kerry lives in London with her husband and two sons, and Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes is still her favourite novel.

  Lots of people have given their time to help me with this book and I am immensely grateful to them all. Firstly, thanks to Victoria and the team at Carina for their words of wisdom regarding Cora and Amy. Thanks also to my fellow Carina authors, who have all been a great support, providing laughs, advice, ideas and pictures of buff men whenever needed. My lovely friend Aimee has been a sounding board, reader, editor and cheerleader, and I am very grateful for her unwavering support.

  I also need to thank Jo Willacy and Laura Marcus for their brilliant insights into learning how to dance, Carena Crawford for sharing some of her own research with me, and Eileen Brockwell and Jack Bridges for the tiny yet vitally important details about the Second World War that made Cora’s story come alive.

  And finally, to my grandma, Jess Rogan, who I thought of a lot throughout the writing of this book, who loved to dance, and who will be much missed.

  This book is dedicated to the people who choose who gets to be on Strictly Come Dancing. Pick me! Pick me!

  Contents

  Cover

  Blurb

  Praise

  Book List

  Title Page

  Author Bio

  Acknowledgement

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Epilogue

  Excerpt

  Endpages

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Afterwards I realised I was far, far drunker than I thought I was and that’s probably why it all went so badly wrong. But at the time, I thought it was a great idea. Matty, my boyfriend, was out at the opening of a new club and I wanted to see him. So I left the hotel where I was oohing and ahhhing over a fancy brand of hairbrush, jumped in a cab and headed to the West End to catch up with my man.

  I posed for the photographers outside the club, giving them a beaming smile and a cheeky look over my shoulder so they captured the back of my mini dress, and then I trip-trapped down the stairs in my super-high heels to find Matty.

  At first, I couldn’t see him. It was dark in the club and the flashing lights on the dance floor meant I took a while to get my bearings. But then I spotted his best mate, TJ, chatting to a girl I didn’t recognise, and Matty’s broad back in a tight white T-shirt, his head turned away from me, his tongue firmly stuck down another woman’s throat and his hands all over her bum.

  People talk about a red mist descending, don’t they? I never knew what they meant until that moment. All I could think about was that some two-bit reality TV starlet was snogging my boyfriend. The man I loved. The man I intended to marry – just as soon as we agreed terms with Yay! magazine for the engagement photo shoot that would cover the cost of the huge rock I had my eye on.

  Shrieking with rage, I launched myself at the girl. I took a fistful of her hair extensions in my hand and pulled her face away from Matty’s.

  ‘Get your lips off my man!’ I screamed. And then – and believe me, I’m not proud of this – I pulled my arm back and punched her. Right in the nose. I honestly didn’t know there would b
e so much blood.

  Everything stopped. I couldn’t even hear the music any more. It was like the whole room was suddenly in slow motion.

  ‘AAAAAMMMMMYYY!’ Matty was yelling. ‘Whaaaat have you dooooonnnne?’ He had blood all over his white T-shirt.

  The girl he’d been kissing was squealing as TJ shoved napkins at her, and out of the corner of my eye I could see other clubbers filming the whole sorry escapade on their phones.

  Sounds bad, doesn’t it? Really bad. But that’s not even all of it.

  Realising I’d gone too far, I turned to leave. But like I said, I’d had quite a lot to drink at that hairbrush launch (honestly, it’s the only way to get through things like that – the free booze) and I was wearing really high heels.

  As I spun round, my foot caught on the edge of the dance floor and suddenly I was face down in a puddle of pina colada with my super-short dress up round my hips and my Hello Kitty knickers on display.

  Lying there, my cheek stinging from the pineapple juice, I watched two men compare photos on their phones’ screens and high-five each other. And then firm hands lifted me up.

  ‘Out!’ said one of the two bouncers who were either side of me. They were both twice as tall as me and seemingly three times as wide. They’d lifted me so high that my feet weren’t even touching the floor.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m going,’ I muttered to the bouncer on my left. ‘I just feel a bit …’

  And then I puked. All over his trousers.

  Chapter One

  ‘Get your lips off my man.’ My boss, Tim, threw the paper down on his desk and glared at me. ‘Amy’s meltdown. Full story continues on pages three, five, seven and nine.’

  I glanced down at the photo on the front of the paper and winced as I saw the now familiar shot of me face down on the dance floor, bum in the air, as a blood-splattered Matty gazed on in horror.

  ‘Today’s news, tomorrow’s fish and chip paper,’ I said hopefully.

  Tim rolled his eyes and turned his computer screen round so I could see it.

  ‘You are the only person who’s ever made every single thumbnail on the PostOnline’s Sidebar of Shame,’ he said. Sure enough, the column of pics down the side of his screen replayed each moment of that awful night in full technicolour glory. It was like a flipbook animation of the punch, the blood, the fall and the vomit.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. ‘I just really loved him, you know?’

  Tim’s face softened.

  ‘I know you did, sweetheart.’

  ‘So what happens now?’ I asked, scared to hear the answer. Tim was the producer of Turpin Road. It was the biggest soap in Britain and I was arguably its biggest star – at least I liked to think so. I played Betsy, a damaged but sparky barmaid at the Prince Albert pub. I’d been on the show for three years and I absolutely loved it. And Tim loved me. I’d had some brilliant storylines and I was tipped as the next big thing. At least I had been, until I punched a reality TV star called Kayleigh and showed my knickers to the world.

  I gave Tim a sheepish grin.

  ‘Suspension?’ I suggested. ‘I’ll go to my mum’s in Spain for a month, stay out of everyone’s way, and when I get back all this will have blown over and the tabloids will have a new victim. Just write me out for a bit.’

  I was wearing a scarf round my neck – I’d hidden my face with it when I’d come into the studios earlier to avoid the paps waiting at the gate. Now I wrapped it round my head like Dolly, the actress who played my on-screen granny, and picked up the phone on Tim’s desk.

  ‘Oh, hello, Betsy,’ I said, in what I thought was a pretty good impression of Dolly’s shrill cockney voice. ‘Oh, your uncle’s broken his leg, has he? Of course you should stay and look after him. About a month, you say? We’ll miss you.’

  I put the phone down again, pulled the scarf off my head and stared at Tim, waiting for the axe to fall.

  I knew how these things worked. One of my co-stars had sent a photo of his willy to a fan via Snapchat, she’d screengrabbed it, shared it, and it was all over the internet about thirty seconds later. He’d been suspended for a while but he was back now and it was like nothing had happened. Tim adored me. The Turpin Road viewers adored Betsy. Surely my punishment would be similar?

  Tim shook his head and my heart sank.

  ‘Longer?’ I whispered. ‘Two months?’

  ‘You assaulted her, Amy,’ Tim said. ‘You broke her nose.’

  ‘She was kissing Matty,’ I pointed out.

  ‘You were given a caution. You were lucky not to be charged.’

  ‘I wasn’t charged because her nose was full of coke and she didn’t want to make a fuss,’ I said.

  Tim shrugged.

  ‘That’s as may be,’ he said. ‘But she doesn’t work for me and you do.’

  He paused.

  ‘At least, you did.’

  I went cold. I buried my face in my scarf and looked up at Tim in horror.

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Don’t give me those puppy dog eyes Amy,’ Tim said. ‘You know what I’m saying.’

  ‘I’m out?’

  He nodded.

  ‘My hands are tied, love,’ he said. ‘You punched someone, your pants are all over the PostOnline and there’s bound to be more. They’ll be after anything and everything. Ex-boyfriends, girls you fell out with at school, hairdressers you were rude to – it’s all fair game now.’

  I closed my eyes.

  ‘Build them up, knock them down,’ I said.

  ‘Exactly,’ Tim said.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No. The viewers love Betsy. They love her and they love me.’

  I jumped to my feet.

  ‘Look,’ I said, pointing to a framed photo of me gripping a gold statue that had pride of place on the office wall. ‘Do you think the show would have won this BAFTA without Betsy’s mental health problems?’

  Tim shrugged.

  I picked up a pile of magazines that were on his bookshelf and went through them one by one.

  ‘Amy wins big,’ I read, showing him a photo of me with an armload of statues at last year’s soap awards.

  ‘Steal Amy’s summer style.’ I opened Hot magazine at a fashion shoot I’d done and waved it at him.

  ‘Amy bares all?’ I fake-gasped, then giggled as I showed Tim the cover of Cosmo featuring a make-up-free me. ‘I was in make-up for an hour before that shoot.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Tim said. ‘Don’t do this.’

  But I was on a roll. I picked up Yay!

  ‘Amy and Matty: Our plans for the future,’ I read. My voice shook as my bravado deserted me.

  ‘I’ve lost him, Tim,’ I said, hugging the magazine close. ‘Don’t make me lose this, too.’

  ‘No one’s bigger than the show,’ Tim said sadly. ‘But you’ll be okay. You’re very talented.’

  ‘I can come back, right?’ I said, still gripping my magazine. ‘Betsy will come back?’

  Tim looked down at his feet.

  ‘We’re killing you off,’ he said.

  I couldn’t speak.

  ‘It’s going to be huge,’ Tim carried on. ‘The biggest whodunnit since “who shot JR?”. People will be talking about it for years.’

  I bit my lip. I didn’t want him to see me cry.

  ‘We’re rewriting some stuff,’ Tim said. ‘And we’ll film your last scenes this afternoon.’

  I felt sick. This afternoon? How could my entire life change so fast? But I pasted on a smile, took a deep breath and stood up, throwing Yay! down on the desk.

  ‘Okay then,’ I said briskly. ‘Let me have the script A-sap, yes? Thanks for everything.’

  I air-kissed him on both cheeks and legged it out of his office, down the corridor and into the safety of my dressing room. And then I started to cry.

  Chapter Two

  I never let myself cry for too long because I hated when my face got all puffy and my eyes swelled up. So after about ten minutes sobbing into the cushions on my dre
ssing room sofa, I forced myself to get up and face the rest of the day. At Turpin Road we shared our dressing rooms, though I’d heard that on other soaps they got their own. I shared with two other actresses, which I quite liked, actually. They were nice enough and generally I enjoyed having someone to hang out with. Not today, though. Today I was relieved that they weren’t around and I had the place to myself so I could wallow in gloom alone.

  I knew that I’d be called on set soon, so I dragged myself into the shower, trying to think about anything and everything apart from the fact that in the space of twenty-four hours I’d gone from being TV’s hottest star to a jobless, homeless, boyfriendless nobody. I stifled another sob as I shampooed my hair. Crying wouldn’t solve anything.

  By the time I got out of the shower, I had thirteen missed calls – mostly from my agent, Babs, who’d been phoning me non-stop since the story went viral this morning – and a script pushed under my dressing room door. That was it then, the end of Betsy. I picked up the envelope – it was very thin, so obviously the script wasn’t very long. Poor Betsy. I took a deep breath before I opened the flap and scanned the text.

  Interior: The Prince Albert

  Betsy is clearing empty glasses after closing time. A noise makes her jump and turn.

  BETSY: You! What are you doing here?

  A hand reaches out and whacks Betsy on the head. She falls, motionless, to the ground.

  Disgusted, I threw the papers to the floor. I’d given this show three years of my life, and this was how they repaid me? I was their biggest asset. In my head I heard Tim’s voice in my head saying: ‘No one is bigger than Turpin Road, Amy.’ I winced. What a way for him to prove his point.

  Well, at least I didn’t have any lines to learn really. I could just lie on the sofa and feel sorry for myself until I got called on set.

  I slumped down and had had my eyes closed for about thirty seconds when my phone rang. Listlessly I looked at the screen. Babs. Again. I supposed I couldn’t avoid her for ever, so I swiped the screen to answer.

  ‘Hi Babs.’

  ‘Bloody bollocking hell, Amy. What the flaming arse have you been doing?’