Extract from 'Bernie Takes Mushrooms,'

Or a small taster of what I'm working on right now

Just for fun here is a tiny extract from my new fiction book which I’m provisionally calling - ‘Bernie Takes Mushrooms’. It’s loosely about a woman who is 50, working in a start up and runs away to a menopause retreat but something goes very wrong (more to be revealed). I won’t be sharing extracts every week but as it’s Saturday and there isn’t a whole lot going on, I thought why not?

This extract is from a photo shoot that Bernie is supposed to be leading for a menopausal supplement brand called ‘Fausta’. It is purely fiction and whilst characters might resemble a couple of people in real life they are not real. I promise.

Chapter Three

‘Now we need to get these women to loosen up a bit!’ Elizabeth whispered.

The studio was a large, airy space on the second floor of an old school. The photographer had set up in one half of the room and there was a kitchen table where our models were sitting, a couple reading books, another getting her make up done behind a makeshift curtain.

‘I’m sure once they get in front of the camera, they’ll get more enthusiastic,’ I said, feeling scared already.

I’d already been to the toilet several times.

The shoot had been Elizabeth’s idea. She wanted to showcase menopausal women looking full of joy and life because of their consumption of copious amount of the Fausta supplement. Two of the models were friends of mine that I’d offered a couple of hundred quid to and a lifetime supply of Fausta. The other two women were professional models. All were picked because they were over 50, and because they represented a diverse range of skin colours and body types. This was becoming somewhat of a cliche for health and wellness brands but never mind. The original idea for the shoot, the creative concept had been Elizabeth’s, but then she’d asked me to refine it and make it more ‘age appropriate’. What she meant by this was to make it ‘menopause-y’ if there was such a thing.

‘You women don’t give a shit about what others think!’ She exclaimed in the We Work space where we had a tiny, cramped office on the second floor, ‘You say Fuck you to the world! And that’s what I want for this shoot. Fuck YOU world!’

I nodded furiously and tried to type her comments into the Google document on my phone but in essence I was typing it into notes. One of trickiest things I’d found so far was adjusting to the technology in the start up world. They used this platform called ‘Spiro’ which meant you could share post it notes across the team. So far whenever I tried to access it my cursor just span around like it was having a fit, and the post it notes were so so small that all text was illegible. I didn’t tell anyone this and when Elizabeth or Paula asked if I’d seen the inspiration for the ‘creative idea’ I just nodded my head furiously. Besides Elizabeth was easy to read. She liked the idea that there was this one type of woman that consumed her brand. She had grey hair and didn’t give a damn. She wore brightly coloured glasses and a matching scarf. To be fair there were many women who adopted this look as they got older, but the attitude of ‘fuck everything’ was not one I’d seen amongst friends yet. Many were in the ‘cowering in the corner feeling sorry for myself’ stage.

Each woman wore pants and a bra with a loose white shirt on top. Molly the first model was a yoga teacher and she did a great job in front of the camera, lifting one leg high in the air and then sitting astride a chair.

‘She definitely gives zero fucks,’ I said to Elizabeth.

She cast me a look back of strong disapproval. This was what was so disorientating -she used the f-word but when you parroted it back she looked disgusted like you’d crossed some kind of boundary. She told you she wanted the models to have a laissez faire attitude but now she was making her way across the studio towards Molly with an angry expression.

‘This isn’t working,’ I heard her say, ‘Bernie has obviously briefed you badly but I want you to look really empowered. None of this one leg in the air kind of thing. You’re a badass. You have the menopause but it’s not stopping you. It’s not stopping you because you have Fausta and Fausta is a supplement that contains tumeric, lion’s mane, wheatgrass and other naturally occurring biomes which your body produces less of as you age.’

I knew this tune off by heart. We had all been asked to memorise the key ingredients inside the supplement. Periodically Elizabeth would test us by coming into the office, holding her finger to her lips and then pointing at one of us. We were then expected to say the ingredients without looking at the white board that was on the wall (which logged these details and also how many sales we’d made each week).

‘Sorry I thought it would look good if I stretched and showed how flexible menopausal women can be.’

‘It’s a bit patronising,’ I said, ‘I mean we can do more than stretch. We are only 50 right!’

Elizabeth scowled at me again. She looked like a petulant child which she sort of was because she was only 19.

‘Bernie I have the feeling right now like you are flying by the seat of your pants. Can I be candid?’

She always asked if she could and then was candid anyway.

‘I feel like you didn’t read the document on the Google drive and haven’t seen my latest comments. Can you go back to your laptop, absorb those and then come back and start to direct these women properly?’

The make up artist who was lovely and called Honey looked over and smiled at me.

‘Are you okay?’ She mouthed.

I felt a bubble of despair well up inside. This morning I’d tried everything to give myself a pep talk. I’d woken up early, before the girls, and done a 15 minute meditation. Then I’d taken a cold shower followed by a warm one. Followed by 5 minutes of mindful breathing. I had avoided social media and also avoided too much coffee. Now the anxiety was rising. I didn’t have the courage to say to Elizabeth that I couldn’t figure out how to get Wifi here either. I’d asked the studio manager earlier but the password had been so incomprehensible that I’d pretended to listen but had just made a mental note not to access email today. Elizabeth went on her phone and started talking heatedly to someone. It was possibly Paula. Paula would naturally be agreeing with her. Yes middle aged women were annoying. Yes Elizabeth was right to be more pushy and to lay down the law with me. Yes I had promised to direct the shoot and yes they had shown a lot of trust in me. Yes I was letting her down.

‘Sorry Bernie,’ Molly said putting her arm around me.

We’d been friends since school and I already felt bad for bringing her into this mess, and then forcing her to show off her yoga skills only to be taken down by endless critique.

‘I know you told me that she was bad but I honestly don’t know why you tolerate her talking to you in that way. It’s humiliating.’

Pat came up. She was in her 70s and was supposedly representing our older demographic. She had been a model many moons ago, but now worked in a charity shop and had travelled all the way from Leeds to take part in the shoot. Gina would pay for her travel and give her 200 quid. It wasn’t remotely fair as professional models would earn far more. She was doing it because she liked me (I’d approached her online and she already took our supplement regularly) and ‘because it might make me famous finally which is no bad thing.’ My other friend Zoe was sitting having her make up done. I knew that if I went near her I might start crying. Instead I found my laptop, found the studio head, copied down the password on the back of my hand, got Wifi, went into the Google drive and saw all the comments Elizabeth had made on the latest version of the creative shoot document.

‘This isn’t original.’

‘This looks like a Bodyform idea.’

‘Need more innovation here.’

‘What is the idea anyway?’

She hadn’t actually written any suggestions. Just crossed out the things I’d written which were about a group of empowered, feisty menopausal women leaping about (which okay was a pretty crap idea) but I’d tried to tell her that I’d never actually written a creative idea for an advert before. Why hadn’t she believed me?

‘Okay I can see that I’m going to have to take over,’ Elizabeth said, putting her hand on my back, ‘We need to have shots for the website, shots for the packaging, shots for the goodie bag leaflets,  and then I’d like to get some shots of myself because I’m going to be featured in the ’20 under 20 list’ on LinkedIn in a couple of weeks.’

Elizabeth’s cheeks were flushed. She had the most beautiful skin and yet she’d come out in a heat/nerves rash all over her neck. Her clothing was immaculate as usual (all different variations of camel) but she had a slightly acidic smell about her. This was the stress smell and one that everyone in the office feared because it meant that she was about to give someone a verbal thrashing. Zoe appeared at my side. The make up artist had back combed her hair and put too much red lipstick on her. She looked like one of the models from the old Robert Palmer video ‘Addicted to Love’ but as if she’d aged 30 years and had been living in the studio with no access to shampoo, shower or a nice clean flannel.

‘I’ll do my best,’ she said and she went in front of the photographer and proceeded to do her very best, leaping about, looking slightly angry, then very brave, putting all her energy into winning Elizabeth over. Elizabeth looked mildly bemused but I noticed the heat rash wasn’t as severe as it had been a few minutes ago. I turned the music up on the wireless speakers and Duran Duran blared out at full volume.

Aren’t menopausal women great? I thought to myself. They have your back these bitches they really do.

But also it was clear that my days at Fausta were numbered now.