by Tracy Bloom
‘Oh my God, yes!’ Gina clutched both of Michelle’s arms. ‘They’re with him now.’
‘With who?’
‘George Clooney, of course,’ said Gina, getting her phone out. ‘I told you that they were going to the premiere, didn’t I? Well, Lisa, that’s Cousin Jack’s colleague’s neighbour’s son’s girlfriend, sent me this at six o’clock, as they were on the red carpet.’ She tapped her phone and a grainy George Clooney appeared in the distance as a jumble of voices shouted out from the phone.
‘Look, he’s there!’ shrieked Gina, pointing excitedly at the screen. ‘It’s so exciting!’
Michelle peered more closely. Indeed, he was there, behind the other people milling around in DJs and evening dresses. Flashes of light intermittently filled the screen, presumably from paparazzi cameras. Michelle could vaguely hear what must be Lisa’s voice in the background, off camera, talking to her boyfriend, the son of Cousin Jack’s colleague’s neighbour.
‘Did they get any closer?’ she asked. ‘Did they get to speak to him?’
‘Lisa said in her text it was mayhem outside the cinema and that was the closest they got. But she has your invite for the event tomorrow night and has promised to give it to the girl she knows in his PR team. She’ll text me as soon as she’s handed it over.’
‘Good, good, that’s great. You will tell me, won’t you?’ Michelle was aware that her voice was getting higher and more desperate. All this effort with Chickens For Charity had to be worth it. All the hassle and the pain and sleepless nights had to come to something. It would be so amazing if somehow George did turn up tomorrow.
‘Of course I will,’ said Gina, putting her arm around her. ‘There’s nothing more we can do. If he comes, he comes.’
Michelle sat down on a pile of compost bags that Gina had secured from a garden centre.
‘What if he doesn’t come?’ she said, looking up at Gina. ‘What if it’s all been for nothing?’
‘All this, nothing?’ said Little Slaw, appearing out of nowhere like the shopkeeper in Mr Benn. Little Slaw’s ability to impersonate famous characters from TV and film seemed to be getting better and better. ‘You call this nothing?’ he repeated, gesturing at Gina’s random raffle, Kathleen’s elaborate trestle tables and Daz’s entertainment centre, which was currently being constructed on the back of a low trailer in the middle of the warehouse.
Kathleen approached with a basket filled with every cleaning liquid known to man tucked firmly under her arm, clearly having decided that, for tonight, her work was done.
‘I am very proud,’ said Little Slaw just as Kathleen came into earshot. ‘Very proud to know you and count you as a friend. This is not nothing. This is huge achievement already.’
‘Well, we’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?’ offered Kathleen as she stripped off her rubber gloves and placed them on the top of her basket. ‘I only hope that all this doesn’t go to waste when nobody turns up to eat our Supreme of Chicken. Your father isn’t going to thank you if he ends up eating chicken every day until Christmas.’
Michelle did what she seemed to be doing a lot lately, when all around her appeared to be falling apart, and her confidence plunged its way back down to the bottom of the barrel. She got up and went to find Daz.
Daz had a bucket full of cable ties and was busy attaching strings of disco lights along the side of the trailer holding up his disco kit. The trailer was parked opposite the entrance and, given his elevated status, it was likely that Daz’s Disco would be the first thing people would encounter as they arrived to experience Chickens For Charity.
‘It’s not going to work, is it?’ said Michelle to his back.
‘Are you kidding me?’ he said, not turning round. ‘Do you have no faith in Uncle Dazza? You just stay there, young lady, and I’ll show you exactly how it’s going to work.’ He snipped off the end of the cable tie and hoisted himself up onto the back of the trailer before disappearing behind a bank of speakers. Next minute, Michelle was all but blinded as all the disco lights were switched on and the entire warehouse was lit up in sparkling shades of silver, blue, pink and gold.
‘Hello, everybody, and welcome to the one and only, first ever Chickens For Charity event,’ Daz boomed out. ‘Tonight you will experience chicken as you never have before, as you sample the best in culinary expertise from our fair town – all wanting to entice you with the ultimate chicken dish. Take your taste buds on a trip of a lifetime, but don’t forget to vote for your favourite, because come nine this evening we will be crowning the Chickens For Charity Champion Chefs. Now, to open proceedings I’d like to invite the awesome, the wonderful, the amazing, the stupendous creator of this event, who’s done this all in the name of a fantastic charity whose name escapes me just at this moment. So come on up, Michelle Hidderley, and let’s have a few words from you.’
Michelle stood rooted to the spot, the enormity of what could be a massive flop hitting home.
‘Come on, mate,’ Daz urged her. ‘Don’t be shy. We need to get you used to this microphone before tomorrow.’
The last thing Michelle wanted to do was practise talking on a microphone in front of what could possibly be a bigger crowd than would be there the following night. Reluctantly, she hauled herself up onto the trailer to go and get Daz to shut up.
‘So, Michelle, tell us about the charity we’re raising money for here tonight,’ said Daz into the microphone before he thrust it under her nose.
‘Can you just shut the fuck up, Daz?’ she said over the loudspeaker system.
‘Interesting choice. Can you tell us why you chose the Can you just shut the fuck up Daz charity out of all the worthy causes out there?’
‘Here’s a tenner,’ came a voice out of the darkness somewhere behind the trailer. ‘Anything for Daz to put a sock in it once and for all.’
‘Charming,’ announced Daz before switching off the microphone, having caught sight of Michelle’s stricken face.
‘It’s not going to work,’ she repeated. ‘No-one’s going to come, and certainly not George Clooney. This is all a massive waste of time.’
‘What do you mean, no-one’s going to come?’ asked Daz. ‘I have been on Malton Radio three times this week. I swear they’re screening my calls now, because I call up for every phone-in, no matter what the subject, and talk about Chickens for Charity. We’ve been in the Echo two weeks running. All the people who are cooking will bring along their friends and family so they can rig the vote. Little Slaw has charmed the entire Polish community of the Midlands into coming. What are you talking about, no-one’s coming?’
She stared at him, too tired to think straight.
‘Mum says no-one’s coming.’
‘Mrs H is a bloody nightmare at times. Wait till I see her.’
‘I can’t pull this off.’ Michelle felt all her energy drain from her body. ‘I’ve nearly killed myself trying to make this happen, and what for? I’ve never made a success of anything, so why on earth should I think this is going to work? Jane was the successful one, not me. I wish she were here. She’d fix it.’
‘Bollocks, Michelle. Jane would never have got anywhere close to something like this. She was a boring frosty knickers without a creative bone in her body.’ Michelle gasped.
‘You can’t say that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because she’s dead.’
‘Yes, she is, and being dead doesn’t transform her from being an accountant and fan of Michael Bolton to someone special like you, who appreciates the merits of One Direction.’
‘Well, that just sums it up, doesn’t it?’ sighed Michelle. ‘The best thing you can say about me is that I can appreciate a decent boy band when I see one. How very impressive my life is. Jane was already a success before she died and I’m just a joke who hasn’t achieved anything, and after tomorrow I’ll be a laughing stock.’
‘Not achieved anything!’ Daz exclaimed. ‘You have single-handedly brought up a daughter.’
‘Don’t get me started on Josie – the daughter who I’ve brought up so well she’s about to throw her life away over a boy at the age of fifteen. She’s a disaster.’
‘She’s fifteen. We were all disasters at fifteen. It’s just a phase. She’ll get past Sean, you mark my words. We’re all obsessed at that age.’
Michelle thought back to when she was fifteen. Daz was right. She had been obsessed at that age. She’d been lusting over the impossible dream of Charlie, who was eighteen and had left school to go to university, and she’d spent all of her holidays traipsing up and down his road in the hope he was back from college and she might catch a glimpse of him.
‘You’re right about that.’ She sighed. ‘Thing is, I’m not sure I ever really got over my obsession.’ Occasionally she saw Charlie around town with his wife and young children, and she still couldn’t stop her heart racing and a blush forming on her cheeks if he was within a hundred yards of her.
‘I know I never got over mine,’ said Daz.
Michelle noticed Daz was looking thoughtful, which was unusual. Normally his thoughts didn’t linger in his head, just made straight for the open air.
‘What happens to us, eh?’ she said. ‘One minute you’re fifteen and full of hope that you’re going to have this fantastic life and all your dreams will come true, and the next you’re banging on the door of forty and you’ve let it all slip through your fingers. Why do we do that, Daz? Why do we give up? When do we give up?’
‘I never gave up on my dream,’ he said with a determined shake of his head.
‘True,’ Michelle nodded. ‘Even at school you always wanted to be a DJ. I remember in the sixth-form common room everyone used to get really cross with you because you were forever hogging the stereo, putting your music on.’
‘I’m not talking about being a DJ,’ he said, staring down at his shoes.
‘Oh, right,’ said Michelle. ‘Sorry, I thought that was exactly what you always wanted. I thought that was your real dream.’
He looked up.
‘You must realise what my real dream is?’
‘No. You never told me you wanted something else.’
‘But you must have guessed?’
‘No,’ she repeated.
‘Well,’ he said, blinking rapidly, ‘all I ever wanted was you.’
‘What? ’
‘All I’ve ever dreamed of is you.’
Michelle was stunned into silence.
‘Me?’ she whispered eventually.
‘Yes, you.’
Michelle had no response. Nothing. She felt numb, as though all feeling had been zapped out of her.
‘But I wasn’t your dream ever, was I?’ Daz said. His eyes had turned steely and were piercing into her.
Michelle couldn’t answer. Eventually she couldn’t look at him any longer and dropped her gaze to the floor.
Uncharacteristically, Daz did not fill the silence. It lasted forever.
She looked up finally and mouthed a tearful no.
Daz blew out through his mouth, as if deflating himself. Then he coughed before stepping forward and placing his hands on her shoulders.
‘You, Michelle Hidderley, are the most amazing woman I know and I have loved you since I was fifteen.’ He swallowed and coughed again. ‘And I believe that you can do anything. Look at this,’ he said, waving his arms around. ‘All this, and you made it happen.’
Michelle couldn’t stop the tears falling, she felt so terrible.
‘There’s no need to cry,’ said Daz, taking her in his arms. ‘You know what, you did make a dream come true for me this week,’ he said into her hair. ‘I never wanted to be a poxy disco DJ. I wanted to be on the radio, and this week that’s happened three times. Three times!’ He pulled away and held her by the shoulders in front of him. ‘You made a dream come true this week and you make my dreams come true every week by being my friend. And by the way, tomorrow is going to be a massive success and George Clooney better bloody turn up, because if he doesn’t . . . if he doesn’t then he’s an idiot to let you slip through his fingers.’
Daz paused to wipe what could have been a tear from the corner of his eye.
‘And finally,’ he said sniffing, ‘do you want to know what I’d want to do right now if I was fifteen again?’
‘No,’ she muttered.
‘Dance with you to this song.’ He reached over and tapped a couple of keys on his laptop before closing his eyes to inhale the first few bars of the powerful music coming out of the speakers.
The unmistakable sound of Whitney Houston filled the air as ‘I Will Always Love You’ boomed its way through the warehouse.
‘Please. Dance with me?’ breathed Daz. He jumped off the truck and offered his hand up to her.
She allowed him to guide her onto the concrete. They embraced and shuffled in true last-dance style.
‘You are my dream friend, you know,’ she whispered in his ear.
‘I know,’ he whispered back. ‘I like that.’
They moved together in perfect unison, both lost in their own thoughts, thinking about how to crack the impossible dream of falling in love with the right person, when Gina flung herself on them both.
‘She’s done it!’ she screamed down Michelle’s ear. ‘She’s only gone and done it! Look, look!’ She thrust her phone into Michelle’s face.
Michelle took the phone out of her hands to read the text that Gina was so excited about.
INVITE NOW IN THE HANDS OF GEORGE’S PA WHO HAS PROMISED TO SHOW HIM. FINGERS CROSSED. XX
Michelle squealed. Daz squealed. Gina squealed the loudest.
Chapter Sixteen
It was ten o’clock and Michelle was up to her arms in chicken in the centre of organised chaos in her kitchen. What on earth had possessed her to dream up something that required her to be knee-deep in chicken, in her own home, on a Friday night, she had no idea. But the fifty portions of thighs would not trim themselves, so she was consoling herself with the company of George as her fingers worked their magic. She’d propped the laptop on the kitchen counter and, after a hasty Google, had found footage of the red carpet procession at the premiere already posted on YouTube.
As chicken fat piled up on the side of her chopping board, forming a small mountain, she kept glancing up to catch glimpses of the impeccably dressed George Clooney, charming his way through the crowd. He shook hands, touched shoulders, posed for pictures and smiled that famous smile which could reduce the coldest of hearts to a warm mush. Interrupted occasionally by an over-eager TV presenter, he waxed lyrical about the performances of his fellow actors, the stunning special effects team and the debt he owed to quite the best director he’d ever worked with. At one point, possibly bored with the constant flow of predictable questions, he did stop one interviewer in his tracks to inform him that before he asked, yes, the rumours were true. Prince George actually was named after him.
He appeared to be without one of his usually stunning escorts. Michelle allowed her mind to wander, as she boiled up giblets, as to what type of partner for George she would turn out to be on the red carpet. Solid, she decided. Both in structure and in attitude. Compared to all the waifs currently drifting around on the screen, her padded bone structure would appear like an anchor for George, a solid weight keeping his feet on the ground, whilst her East Midlands unpretentious attitude would be like a breath of fresh air, cutting through all the Hollywood hype. She would have to start having manicures, she decided, as she glanced down at her raw hands, which had been up the backsides of far too many chickens to be fit to shake hands with the red carpet brigade.
She was just allowing her mind to wander to exactly how she would respond to the paparazzi’s enquiries as to how she and George had met, when the back door was thrust open by Josie, who then slammed it behind her.
‘You’ll break the glass doing that,’ chided Michelle.
‘I don’t care,’ retorted Josie, before slumping down in a chair and setting her face in a look o
f anguish and anger, as only a teenager can manage.
‘And what’s eating you?’ asked Michelle.
‘Nothing.’ Josie kicked the table leg.
‘Looks like it,’ said Michelle. ‘Come here and stir this sauce, will you? Whilst I start deseeding chillies. Hot chocolate?’
‘Your special hot chocolate?’ asked Josie, looking up for the first time.
‘Yes, if you come and stir this for me.’
Josie huffed her way out of her jacket before taking up position at the stove with a wooden spoon.
Michelle silently moved around the kitchen, hoping the calming effects of stirring and the anticipation of a chocolate rush might coax Josie into spilling the beans on what had sparked this latest strop.
‘Can I have a fishing rod for Christmas?’ she divulged eventually after the first sip of the soothing liquid.
‘What for?’
‘So I can learn how to fish and go night fishing with Sean.’
‘Do you really want to go out in the cold and the dark and sit by a damp river doing nothing?’
‘That’s what Sean keeps saying.’
‘Finally, the lad talks some sense.’
‘I keep asking him if I can go with him and he won’t let me. He says I’ll get in the way and it’s no place for a girl.’
‘That’s very sexist,’ Michelle couldn’t help but exclaim.
‘I know,’ said Josie. ‘He says he needs his own interests. That we don’t need to do everything together.’
‘Well, he’s right there, isn’t he?’
‘I don’t see why. We love each other. I want to share everything with him.’
This was the longest conversation Michelle had ever had with Josie about relationships and she didn’t want to screw it up by inciting a row.
‘But you could get bored of each other if you spend too much time together,’ she said tentatively.
‘No way,’ replied Josie with all the self-assurance of a young girl who has never had her heart broken. ‘I could never be bored of Sean and he could never be bored of me.’
Michelle wanted to scream at her, tell her that she was setting herself up for a massive disappointment. Given their age, it was ninety-nine percent certain that at some point one of them would ditch the other. She knew her next sentence was crucial, and sure to shatter the first sensible conversation she’d had with her daughter in weeks. Any advice she could offer was bound to be wrong and Josie would cut her down in flames without hesitation.
