Fiona Collins - The Sister Swap - the laugh-out-loud romantic comedy of the year!

Meg was speed-reading emails as she clicked across the black, polished floor. She was ignoring her banging head, her slight nausea and the fluttering heart palpitations she blamed on the third latte of the morning. She was glad of her crisp, white cotton wrap dress, keeping her cool, as it was unusually hot in here. And her sunglasses, which she would keep on until at least ten o’clock, were successfully hiding all traces of bloodshot eyes.

She wouldn’t admit it to many, but her eyes had actually been red and wild-looking long before her caning it on gin last night; she’d spent most of the last crazy two weeks surviving on Starbucks and energy drinks, the odd canapé (literally) thrown in. Not out on the lash, she would hasten to tell you – yesterday’s drunken excursion was a now-regretted, temporary release, as was the man whose name she’d now completely forgotten – but working late, in the office. Tempest Models was her company; she had to. If she didn’t then she feared things Wouldn’t Get Done. They had a lot of big contracts on for their models at the moment: Meg had averaged five and a half hours’ sleep a night for the last fortnight.

She’d burnt the candle at both ends and halfway down the middle, before chucking it churlishly in the bin. She’d run, walked, negotiated, everything , on empty.

Waiting for her at the end of the huge open-plan office, under Tempest ’s huge wall of models’ photo, or ‘comp’, cards, was her desk, a super-neat, gleaming specimen of white and chrome, and three days’ work, once again, to be done in one day.

‘Morning, Meg.’

‘Morning, Lilith.’

Lilith, Meg’s assistant – pinafore, ankle boots, gamine Mia Farrow haircut – was standing in the doorway of the small corner office behind. It was supposed to be Meg’s, but she preferred to be out on the floor, where she could see everyone, so they had swapped.

‘Another busy one today?’ Lilith enquired. ‘I’m ready for whatever you have to throw at me.’

‘Oh, there’ll be plenty,’ replied Meg, with a bright smile. ‘Thanks, Lilith. It’s going to be super busy.’

She placed her coffee on the desk and her bag under it. Without sitting down she leant over and tapped her computer into life. As owner and Head Booker, her inbox was full – both email and the physical one on her desk – she had a list of phone calls to make as long as your arm, five meetings, and after work she was going to Westfield shopping centre for drinks with a client and a little recreational scouting. There was no time for that in office hours: she did her spotting of upcoming talent after hours and she was very, very good at it. Britain’s top three models in the last ten years – including Clarissa Fenton-Blue, the darling of both Gucci and Calvin Klein – had all been discovered by Meg.

‘Twit!’ she scolded herself. She realized she’d actually placed her bag on the desk and her coffee on the floor. ‘Silly cow.’

She bent to retrieve the cup, put it next to her bag, and then, to her complete surprise, everything went kind of ‘whoosh’ and ‘fade to black’ and Meg, quite theatrically and almost gracefully, if she could have seen it to have appreciated it, collapsed like a folded envelope onto the polished black surface of her office floor.

*

She awoke, sometime – a long time? – later, blinking, with a white ceiling above her, the faint smell of disinfectant in her nostril and a feeling of overwhelming, bone-shattering tiredness. Where the bloody hell was she? Was she in a bed ? She used her fingertips to feel the material under her hands, which were at her sides. Some kind of cotton, with a scratchy, crackly something underneath. She wriggled her toes. They were under constraint, held by a starchy, apple pie tucking in. Holy hell – was she in hospital ?

A face – soft cloudy hair, rectangular glasses with navy frames – loomed into shot.

‘Hello … ?’ muttered Meg hoarsely. She tried to sit up but realized she didn’t have the energy. The pillow hurt under her head – everything hurt.

‘Good morning, Miss Oxbury,’ said a cool voice, above a white coat and a stethoscope. ‘I’m Doctor Field. You’re in University College Hospital. You collapsed at work. Fainted. Do you want some water?’

Meg nodded and the doctor handed her a blue plastic lidded cup with a straw sticking out of the top from which Meg took a couple of grateful sips.

‘I’m so sorry. I had too much to drink last night,’ whispered Meg, her throat sore and her mind racing. She’d collapsed ? ‘And I haven’t really been eating that well recently—’

‘Neither would have helped,’ interrupted Dr Field, ‘but they’re not the reason you fainted. You’re suffering from hypertension.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Meg. She’d heard of it, vaguely. Probably via Holby City . She felt sleepy and wanted to close her eyes.

‘High blood pressure.’

‘Oh.’ Hell! High blood pressure! That wasn’t good.

‘Dangerously high. So much so, I’m afraid I’m signing you off.’

What? Meg’s weary and befuddled brain tried to compute the doctor’s words. Signing her off ? Was that the same as writing her off? Was she going to die ?

‘What do you mean?’ a stricken Meg asked.

‘I’m signing you off work. For eight weeks.’

Meg would have burst out laughing, if she’d been physically capable of it. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ she croaked. ‘That’s two months! I can’t be signed off work for two months ! – I’ve got far too much to do!’

‘Which is precisely why I’m signing you off,’ said the doctor, in clipped tones. ‘You’re highly stressed and you have hypertension. You’re not going to be working for the next eight weeks and, ideally, I want you out of London.’

Meg started to panic. She wished she could heave herself up to a sitting position; she needed to prove she was perfectly OK. ‘But it’s my company!’ she protested. ‘I can’t just bugger off and leave everyone to get on with it! And what do you mean, out of London? Where on earth would I go ?’

London was her life. She loved London. She loved Tempest Models. She didn’t want to leave either . This was ludicrous!

‘To the country, to the coast, to a nice quiet field somewhere … take up knitting, fall in love, whatever. I’m insisting on it, for the good of your health. You need to get away and it has to be right now. This weekend.’

‘I don’t believe in love,’ muttered Meg. ‘And I don’t want to get away.’ This was a disaster . An absolute disaster.

‘You have to,’ said the doctor firmly. ‘Don’t you have anyone you can call? Parents, siblings, friends in the country, or somewhere, who can put you up?’

‘No, there’s no one,’ replied Meg, shaking her head. ‘Everyone I have is in London.’

‘Go and stay in a hotel then, or a B&B,’ said Dr Field distractedly. Something was buzzing in her pocket. ‘Right! I’m putting you on a course of tablets and by Monday I expect you to be on a beach in the Bahamas, or, at the very least, in the New Forest.’ The doctor was halfway out the door.

‘I can’t afford either,’ muttered Meg. Despite business being good, all money being ploughed back into the company meant she could barely manage the rent on her ridiculously expensive, just-off-Tottenham-Court-Road flat, let alone pay out for an additional place to live for the next two months.

‘Goodbye, Miss Oxbury.’

‘Goodbye,’ Meg mumbled weakly, but the doctor was already gone. She slumped back on the pillow. Eight weeks off work and enforced exile from London. This was a complete nightmare and actually completely impossible.