The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride

by A. J. Crofts

  As they both worked the keyboard and television control, it felt like watching two overgrown schoolboys; Luke even stuck his tongue out in concentration as he worked. It wasn’t long before they had found what they wanted. We were all over the news. The film that my kindly neighbour had been shooting from the window opposite was everywhere. It was grainy and impossible to make out Pete’s face, but you could see the gun and hear the shots. The photographer had also managed to get his pictures distributed and there were some bloody unflattering shots of me lying on the pavement. The stories all ended with more shots of Luke’s Range Rover roaring away and the voice-overs all talked about me ‘going into hiding’. They didn’t seem to have made the connection with Luke yet, but since you could clearly see the car’s number plate, although it had been fogged out for the public, I guessed it wouldn’t be long before he was dragged into it.

  ‘You’ve had a busy evening, you two,’ the old man said with a chuckle.

  ‘Steff ’s the girl I’ve been doing this television singing competition with, Grandpa.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’The old man peered at me more closely. ‘I can see it now. Nice voice you have.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Grandpa’s the only one around here who shows any interest in my career.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ the old man protested. ‘They’re all very proud of you.’

  We sat with Grandpa for an hour or more and it felt like the rest of the world had melted away outside that comfy, chaotic room, even though there were images flickering on the television and computer screens, reminding us of what was going on in the rest of the world. Eventually, Luke decided it was time for us to leave the old boy in peace.

  ‘Tired?’ he asked and I nodded. ‘Come on, I’ll show you my room.’

  Luke’s room was up another staircase and along another corridor and it didn’t look as if anything had been touched in there since he was 14. His duvet even had a picture of Superman on it.

  ‘Jesus,’ I said, ‘this whole place is like some museum.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No, don’t be stupid. It’s really nice. I wish I’d had a room like this.’

  There was a school photo on the wall, all of them in blazers and looking like right little toffs. Luke showed me himself and the other members of the band. Seeing such familiar faces in such unfamiliar surroundings was spooky. There was another picture of them in a football team – sorry, ‘rugby’, like that made any difference.

  ‘Different-shaped ball,’ he laughed, pointing out the ball he was holding in the picture, which looked more like an Easter egg. ‘Very different game.’

  Whatever.

  That night he held me tightly in his little single bed, cuddled up under Superman, and I felt safer than I’d ever felt before.

  By the next morning the family had obviously got some idea from Grandpa of what was going on. They now knew I was an actress and that I was having some trouble with the media but his mum seemed to be more interested in how many pancakes we wanted for breakfast.

  Dora rang just as I was tucking into my fourth and Luke’s mum was dishing his fifth up on to his plate from the Aga (see how quickly I was catching on to the lingo?).

  ‘You all right, darling?’ Dora asked, not pausing for an answer. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In the country,’ I replied, not having any more detailed information than that.

  ‘Really?’ The concept seemed to puzzle her as much as it had me. ‘That’s nice. Have you seen the news today?’

  ‘Nothing since last night.’

  ‘Well, the police have tracked your Pete down to his lair and he’s done a runner. The squat is empty, if you don’t count the fifty or so photographers crawling around it, photographing every sordid detail.’

  ‘Is Pete all right?’

  ‘I have no idea, and less interest. I hope they find him and lock him up.’

  ‘Oh, don’t say that.’ I felt an actual stab of pain at the thought of poor old Pete being locked up just for letting off a few shots in the street. I felt so bad about his mum. She’d worked so hard to make her family respectable and to give Pete a good start in life. This publicity would finish her and it felt like it was all my fault.

  ‘Well, you know my views on that young man. Anyway, don’t forget you have filming for the finals of Singing this week. Do you want me to arrange a car to pick you up from wherever you’re hiding out?’

  I’ll talk to Luke.’

  ‘OK, let me know if you need anything.’

  I was shocked when I saw the pictures of Pete’s squat in the papers. I suppose I’d never really seen it in full daylight because we always had the windows boarded up and covered with old sheets or paintings we’d done ourselves. When we did have the lights on we usually had coloured bulbs, or put scarves over them to dull them down and make them more psychedelic. I’d brought in a set of fairy lights as well, which made the place look quite romantic, but there was no sign of them in the pictures. Mainly it was the people who had made it feel friendly and cheerful, and they had long gone by the time the photographers arrived, along with anything homely like sleeping bags or posters. I suspect the photographers might have adjusted the scene a bit themselves to make it look even bleaker and more disgusting – ‘every parent’s worst nightmare’ and all that. It looked like we’d been living in some graffiti-strewn underpass. They didn’t go quite as far as showing discarded syringes on the floor, but they might as well have because that’s what the whole thing looked like.

  They’d also managed to find a picture of Pete from when we were at school. He must have been posing for the camera that day, trying to look hard, because it wasn’t how he normally looked, more like the kind of hard-nosed criminal that the tabloids love to frighten their readers with, just the sort who would take revenge on his girlfriend with a gun. Why would anyone think that I would have fallen for someone who seemed so cold-eyed and vicious? Maybe they liked the idea of me as victim to this satanic figure, maybe that was the fantasy they were playing to. In reality Pete was always so warm and relaxed, always laughing and teasing, when he wasn’t comatose with something, but that wasn’t the image the media needed. They needed a villain for their story, a bad man who had driven their hero and heroine (that’s me and Luke, in case you’re not getting where I’m going with this) into hiding. It was very nice of the media to be so concerned for our safety, but a bit rough to demonise poor harmless old Pete for the sake of a few shock-horror headlines. But that’s the name of the game, I suppose. They like to package everything up as a series of fairy tales, populated by evil villains and innocent heroines. For a few days poor old Pete was up there in their demons’ gallery with folk like Saddam Hussein and the Yorkshire Ripper.

  ‘Jesus,’ Luke said when he saw the pictures. ‘Is that what he looks like?’

  ‘No,’ I tried to reassure him, ‘not at all. They’ve just taken a bad picture of him. He’s really sweet looking.’

  I could tell that this was backfiring on me, making it sound like I still fancied Pete, which was only marginally better than leaving Luke feeling shit-scared that he was going to be gunned down in the street by some Yardie heavy, so I shut up.

  As well as going after Pete, the photographers had also been tailing Dad to and from the pub. Although Pete was top of their list of public enemies now, Dad was still in there as the wife-beater and father from hell, and there were plenty of reporters who wanted to kick him while he was down. I could imagine exactly how they would have been taunting him, trying to provoke him into doing something violent that they could snap, illustrating the role that he had been allotted in this whole scenario. I dare say some of them had been buying him a few vodkas to help fuel the fire. He didn’t disappoint them and the papers were full of pictures of him lurching around, throwing punches and ending up on the floor. This was exactly what he must have been talking about when he said he didn’t want the media ‘sniffing through our bins’. He’d been right and I felt terrible, but
what could I have done different? Should I have stayed in the hotel kitchens, washing up for the rest of my life? That didn’t mean I didn’t feel guilty. I knew I could have handled Pete a bit more diplomatically, and I certainly shouldn’t have done that riff in Dora’s class about Dad and Mum.

  How was I ever going to make it up to him? How was I ever going to be able to make my peace with him without giving up the job that I was enjoying so much? Was that really the only choice I had?

  Chapter Ten

  We were recording for the final of Singing for their Fame (and yes, since you ask, the irony in the title was starting to get on my tits). It was going well and everyone kept telling Luke and me we were going to win with ‘Summer Wine’. We were going to be doing two songs for this show and I had asked to do one that I knew was Mum’s favourite. It’s called ‘A Little Time’ by The Beautiful South and she used to listen to it all the time when she was cooking. I’d come into the kitchen and she’d have it on with tears running down her face.

  It’s like a duet between a man, who’s saying he needs ‘a little time’ and ‘a little space’ – like the bastards always do – and the girl singing back to him, really sharp and witty. In the end he realises he’s made a mistake and wants to come back and by that time she’s realised she’s better off without him. Really good stuff. I love songs that tell stories like that. All the time I was hanging out with Pete listening to trance and rap and God knows what else, I was probably a closet country-and-western fan really. Not that The Beautiful South are country, of course.

  ‘I don’t know …’ Luke was doubtful when I first suggested it. ‘You know the media will think it’s about us, that I’ve been messing you about. If they think that they’ll make me public enemy number one.’

  ‘Don’t you think you’re taking this a bit seriously?’ I laughed. ‘It’s just a fucking song. Frank and Nancy Sinatra sang a love song together and they were father and daughter, for fuck’s sake!’ I was learning fast.

  ‘Yeah, but you are the nation’s sweetheart at the moment and the tabloids can be more protective than any shotgun-toting older brother. You’ve seen that from the way they’ve turned on Pete and your dad.’

  ‘My God, get a grip,’ I said. ‘It’s a funny song. It’ll make them laugh while they’re crying.’

  ‘OK,’ he gave in. ‘You win – as always.’

  I was so happy to be doing it for Mum. I knew she’d be in the audience with the girls and she would be surprised that I had remembered the song. I wanted to do something special for her. I couldn’t get the image of her walking off to the tube station out of my head; she had looked so small and vulnerable. I mean, she’s not small, not by any stretch, but she looked small in the crowd, so alone, while I was driving off in the big warm flash car with the man of my fantasies and she had to stagger home to a bad-tempered drunk and a load of housework.

  The police turned up halfway through recording, which was pretty fucking embarrassing, and I had to go off to a side room with them. They were really keen that I should press charges against Pete, but I was adamant I wasn’t going to. It was bad enough he’d been driven out of his home because of me, I wasn’t going to get him landed in court. I told them I couldn’t be sure it was him, that I hadn’t been able to see his face in the hood. I could tell they didn’t believe me and they actually started to get pretty threatening, which did not bring out my best side. The stroppier I got, the heavier they got and things were about to get very bad indeed when Luke came to the rescue yet again.

  One minute they were practically threatening to arrest me and have me banged up and the next they were on their feet pretty much doffing their caps to Luke, just because he’s some old pop star; or maybe because he is really good at doing that patrician thing with his voice, which makes it quite clear that he’s one of them, not one of us. You wouldn’t think the modern police force would still be impressed by all that old crap, would you? But he almost had them apologising for wasting his valuable time. I tell you, I’m going to get Dora to teach me to speak like that. I’ll tell her it’s for a part. She calls it ‘RP’ which apparently stands for ‘received pronunciation’, sort of like the Queen sounds.

  The show went really well. Everyone kept saying we were the favourites to win, which made me jumpy in case people thought they didn’t need to vote for us because we were a sure thing. The producers were doing everything they could to rev up the number of calls being made, building the tension and making us all really nervous and close to tears. The presenter kept asking us to appeal to the voting public and the other competitors all kept giving these really creepy little speeches about how honoured they felt to be there at all and how grateful they were to everyone. I was having real trouble getting my tongue round any of that, so I left it up to Luke and just hung on his arm, hoping I looked like I was keeping my sense of irony but probably just looking a bit arrogant.

  They caught me out when I started to talk about dedicating my song to Mum and wanting to give my money to her children’s home if I won. I started out talking about it quite normally, live on camera, and then my eyes watered up and my voice cracked. The camera swung on to Mum in the audience, just as I had expected, and I could see her eyes wide with surprise. In fact, she looked more shocked than moved, as if it had never occurred to her that any of us had taken any notice of the songs she listened to when she was alone and thoughtful. My tears must have looked really fake to viewers but actually they weren’t, which was a surprise to me. Every time I thought about Mum I was getting a bit tearful and I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like I wasn’t getting to talk to her on the phone whenever I wanted, and I could easily arrange to see her when I needed to. So why did just thinking about her make me so sad?

  ‘Hormones, probably,’ was Luke’s suggestion after my little crack-up in front of the camera, which is the sort of annoying thing men say when they can’t be bothered to give something any thought at all.

  Despite the fact that the whole phone-in thing was really just a giant money-making scam by the production company and everyone else involved, I couldn’t help feeling really moved when it was announced on the final live show that we had won. Even though I knew millions of copies of ‘Summer Wine’ were already in the shops waiting to be released into the Christmas market to mop up every last consumer who needed an emergency stocking filler for someone in their family, by the time the presenters had finished building the suspense I was tense as a whippet and Mum was covering her face with her hands in the audience. Then there was a long silence before the announcement and an explosion of tears as the dam burst. Mum and the girls were jumping up and down like little kids, tears streaming down their faces. Even Luke was crying. God knows how those actresses hold it together at all when they win Oscars with all the build-up that goes into that. If I ever win one of those – and don’t think I haven’t got my acceptance speech already down pat – I’m going to be a complete ‘hormonal’ puddle.

  The nicest bit about the whole thing was seeing how happy Luke was to be back on top. It was only a television show, even if it was being watched by close to 10 million people, but it seemed like the whole world at that moment. I was standing with the man I had been in love with since I was 12, soaking up the adoration of the audience and God knows how many telephone voters. I think it would have been impossible not to be a bit freaked out.

  The whole Pete fuck-up wasn’t going so well. The papers seemed to be building him up into some kind of symbol of everything that was going wrong with the great British ‘underclass’ – which is one of the least charming ways of describing anyone, don’t you think? Everyone who had ever known him was coming out of the closet and telling stories about his drug deals, making out like he was corrupting the entire youth of the world, when all he was was a bit of a dopehead.

  I was trying to ignore the papers as much as possible. A few of them seemed to have been able to track me down to Luke’s family palace, but they were too intimidated to make it past the stately g
ates and demented packs of off-duty gun dogs that seemed to roam around all the time. I was just driven up to the studios each morning, dodging whatever journalists were waiting outside, and then driven back again at night. I heard that there was a permanent contingent of photographers camped outside my house, so there was no way I was going back there yet.

  I was still horribly aware of just how much of a witch hunt was building up and eventually, after a good few glasses of wine, I plucked up the courage to ring Pete’s mum. The moment I heard her tired, sad voice I was fighting back the tears again. She told me none of the family had heard anything from him since the night of the incident and that set me right off. I was sobbing and snuffling away and saying how sorry I was, over and over again.

  ‘You’ve got nothing to be sorry about, lovey,’ she said. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong. I told him over and over that you were the best thing that ever happened to him and that if he didn’t pull himself together he was going to lose you. He’s got no one to blame but himself.’

  That did it. There’s nothing like a bit of kindness to really hit the emotional meltdown button.

  ‘I just feel so bad for him,’ I sobbed, ‘and for the others in the squat, who lost their home.’

  ‘Don’t you go wasting your sympathy on them,’ she scolded. ‘They all needed a kick up the rear to get them going. They couldn’t stay in that terrible place forever.’

  ‘Have you heard from any of them?’

  ‘They’ve been in touch, but you’re not to be taking any notice of anything any of them is saying.’

  That was the first inkling I had that I maybe should be worrying about what was going on with the others from the squat.

  ‘Why, what have they been saying?’

  ‘Oh, you’re not to worry about any of that. We don’t think any of this is your fault.’

  ‘But they do?’

  ‘They’re just jealous of your success. You take no notice, they’ll come round.’