In last month’s Meet The Family, we met Gorgito, the eponymous hero of my prize-winning debut novel Gorgito’s Ice Rink. Today, I want to introduce you to Emma, the English woman who helps him achieve his goal.
Emma Chambers was born in Devon in 1963, which makes her 32 at the start of the book. She is of average height and just a little on the heavy side. Like most red-heads, her skin is pale, freckled and burns easily in the sun. Her hair is thick, and she keeps it cut short, so it is easy to deal with; she has a tendency, brought about by travelling in countries with poor facilities, to wash it under the tap and leave it to dry naturally.
Her favourite colour is green, which she has never considered as unlucky. She hates black, associating it with funerals. Her tastes are relatively conservative. She loves all ballet music, especially Russian composers. She hates punk, disapproving of the behaviour of the musicians. She reads avidly; mainly romance. Her favourite authors are Maeve Binchy and Rosamund Pilcher.
Emma is of mixed parentage; her mother Anastasia was Russian, while her father, Robert, was English. They were killed in a hotel fire in 1973, leaving Emma and her sister, Stella, to be brought up in Exeter by their Russian grandmother. She is officially Anglican, but with a leaning towards Russian Orthodoxy; she is completely bilingual, which is one of the reasons she gets the project to work with Gorgito.
Emma sees herself as dependable, and others consider her as a hard worker who is always willing to stick at a job to the end. Her priorities tend to be work first, then her significant other, then herself. She is a real sucker for a hard luck story; and as an optimist, prefers to believe the best of someone until proven otherwise. Strangers might consider her as aloof; she is certainly quiet and finds it difficult to mix. But friends know she is loyal and fun-loving.
When Gorgito first raises the topic of the ice rink, she is skeptical and dismisses it as yet another of his wild schemes. But once convinced, she is the ideal person to help him push it to completion.