Millie

This would be a pretty decent job if I didn’t have Felicity Jameson staring daggers at me from a director’s chair. Oh well, she’s going to have to live with it.

I was a little apprehensive about this, actually, but thus far it’s been alright. It’s a new experience but all smooth going so far. There’s a lot of waiting around but that’s always the case on sets. Most ads I do are only about ninety seconds, but this eventual video will be five or six minutes. So of course there’s more to film which means more set ups. Which means more waiting. It’s a shame that I can’t talk more to Justin, who seems a decent bloke, but I think it’s more than his life’s worth.

Oh well, I have lovely Beth to sit around and chat to. Spending so much time in the chair, make up artists are probably the people I speak to most in my work. She’s a real gem. She’s so funny and forthright and doesn’t give a crap about my double barrelled surname. That’s so refreshing. You’d think after being so summarily disinherited people would stop treating me any differently – that they’d take me off the pedestal. No such luck.  It seems churlish to complain, given how much privilege it affords me, but sometimes it’s alienating.

I only wish I could talk her into launching this skin care range. I don’t think she takes me very seriously when I say it (a lot of people don’t take me very seriously when I say things). She could do so well, and I am dying to branch out. Modelling pays the bills and was one of the few things I was qualified to do with nothing but a name and the right measurements. Even so I don’t find it fulfilling. A lot of people love it and I almost feel bad that I’m taking somebody’s place, somebody who’d enjoy it more, but it doesn’t excite me that much.

It doesn’t help that it has the stink of nepotism. I inherited my name from my father same as I would’ve inherited his money. I loathe that. It makes me feel like I haven’t earned it off my own back. (A lot of my detractors would agree with me on that score).

The one thing I do love about modelling is the make up. Maybe that sounds frivolous but I love the way the right lipstick shade can cheer you up on a bad day. I love the way a good make up artist can transform you. My best mate likes to psychoanalyse me and say it’s because it’s one of the few parts of my image I’ve ever had any control over. Perhaps she’s right, I don’t know. I do know that I’d love to get into business. Make up and skincare would be a logical place to go from modelling.

The other thing I know is that I’m sick and bloody tired of being unable to cut my own effing hair if I bloody well feel like it.

I shouldn’t complain. I was penniless, in serious danger of becoming homeless (it’s amazing how many of your so-called ‘friends’ evaporate when you no longer have a chalet to invite them to) and modelling saved me. I couldn’t afford to get myself back into education. I couldn’t sustain a living on any of the few jobs I was qualified for. My only assets were my body and my name. I hate to sound so up my own backside, but I know I’m good looking. I had some fame in the British press because of my family. I knew that if I walked into any of the agencies I could use that as cache and I was right.

I try not to forget that and to be grateful. There are a lot of young women who get kicked out by their families and don’t have the options I did. There are a lot of young girls in the industry without my name power who are a lot more vulnerable when they start out. I’m a lucky cow, compared to a lot of people.

It just doesn’t always feel like that when you’re standing around on a set and people are gawping at you. Even when I was expected to be Miss Social Butterfly I was only ever good at the pretence of all that chit chat, a bit of a fraud. These days I find I can’t do it at all. That’s unfortunate given how many people I’m surrounded by all the time. And it’s all because of that stare...

People stare at me. A lot. They’re not doing it in a creepy or lascivious way, but I still wind up feeling like a piece of meat. Certainly nobody puts any value on the brains I might have in my head (between my profession and my former life as the entitled aristo-brat they assume I have few).  They’re all staring at my body, my fame and my name. You have the people who get flustered, the people who fawn over you, and then that resentful group muttering to themselves about how you’re not so special anyway. Fortunately on this set that’s a group of one - thank heaven for small mercies and all that.

Dear old Felicity. It’s sad that we wound up like this, but I just find the reason more irritating than anything. It’s that silly old money versus new money rubbish, ancient English aristocracy versus new American industry. The whole thing’s just tiresome if you ask me.

Especially since these days my money’s as new as anybody else’s. And the agency still hasn’t paid me a good half of what I’m due this year, which they get away with because the modelling industry’s about as regulated as a snake pit. Lord, I really do need to convince Beth she wants to go into business with me. I could do with getting out of this.