Guilty Pleasures

by Tasmina Perry

  ‘Stella! You’re being an idiot. We were just playing pool.’

  ‘Playing away, more like!’ screamed Stella, hot, furious tears flowing down her cheeks.

  ‘Stella, if you don’t open the door, I’m going to break it down.’

  He banged on it insistently, the door rattling alarmingly in the frame.

  ‘Stella! I mean it! Open it now!’

  Reluctantly, she unlocked the door. Johnny ran in and tried to hold her, but she fought him off.

  ‘Get away from me!’ she shouted, slapping him across the face.

  He pulled back and rubbed his cheek.

  ‘I deserved that,’ he said quietly. ‘But she threw herself at me. I get that Stella, you know I do. But nothing happened.’

  ‘Oh yes, it’s so fucking tough, being Johnny Brinton, isn’t it?’ she spat.

  He grabbed her shoulders and held her tight.

  ‘I love you, Stella. Honestly, nothing happened.’

  She wanted to believe him. They hadn’t been actually kissing, or even touching. But it was enough. The tears started rolling down again.

  ‘Do you know what people have been saying behind my back?’ she sobbed, collapsing on the bed. ‘Poor Stella. Johnny Brinton can’t keep his dick in his pants.’

  ‘This isn’t those Lisa Ladro rumours again, is it?’ he sniffed. ‘For God’s sake Stella, if you’re going to be in the public eye, you’re going to have to get used to people making up this shit.’

  ‘And you expect me to trust you when you behave like that?’

  They looked at each other in silence.

  ‘I want you to trust me,’ said Johnny. ‘I want you to know you’re the only girl in my life.’

  ‘You don’t want a girlfriend,’ snapped Stella. ‘You want a fan club.’

  ‘Marry me,’ he said quietly.

  For a minute she wasn’t sure what he had said but his eyes had a profound look.

  ‘What did you say?’ she said, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand.

  He took her hand, gave her a long smouldering look, the sort of look that had made him a star. Then he got down on one knee.

  ‘Stella Chase,’ he asked, ‘will you marry me?’

  42

  By helicopter the journey down to Devon’s Camel Estuary took just under an hour. Rob was flying the helicopter while Emma sat in the seat next to him, watching the English countryside slip by, through a glass panel beneath her feet. She couldn’t believe how, only twelve hours early, she had felt so panicked and dizzy when she had been forced to leave the Feathers. Now she felt happy and carefree and was looking forward to the day with a sense of excitement. Finally they flew over Camel Studios, circling the area. The building was a converted stone watermill perched on the edge of a wide tidal creek fringed with golden beech forest. It was set in large grounds: as they landed, Emma could see goal-posts for a five-a-side football pitch and a jetty complete with small boat which took musicians and crew across the creek to the nearest road. Rob had requested an isolated studio for Kowalski’s recording session: he felt it was the best way to protect his investment, not to mention the safety of the band members. After a disastrous holiday in the Greek Islands, Ste Donahue and his girlfriend Clover had almost hospitalized themselves with a reckless drink and drugs binge. Ste had spent six weeks in the notorious Second Chances rehabilitation facility drying out and although Sid McKenzie, Kowalski’s manager, swore that Ste was off the drugs, Rob wanted to do whatever he could to keep him out of trouble. An inaccessible studio wouldn’t prevent Kowalski bringing drugs in of course; over the years Rob had witnessed all manner of craziness during recording sessions, but at least it might keep any troublesome hangers-on away. That was his hope, anyway.

  It was a glorious late morning as they ducked under the blades of the helicopter and walked towards the studio. The creek shimmered silver and bronze and although there were clouds on the horizon, for now they had been blessed with a window of warm sunshine. Rob led Emma through the building, past walls hung with dozens of gold and platinum albums, and straight into the control room, the studio’s nerve centre. It was a surprisingly cramped space dominated by a huge mixing desk which featured rows and rows of tiny knobs and sliding faders, over which was a large glass window looking into the ‘live room’ where Kowalski were playing. Rob and Emma stood by the door and watched as two sound engineers and an intense-looking man Rob introduced as ‘Chris the producer’ worked busily at two computer monitors and a huge rack of electronic gizmos, all of which were connected by a tangle of coloured cables. As Rob spoke to Chris, Emma took a seat and absorbed the sights and sounds around her. Even for a relative pop music Luddite, Emma could feel the magic in the air and she had to stop herself from grinning. Rob certainly looked happy too. Every now and then he would comment on a certain phrase or riff and tell Chris how fantastic it was sounding; she could see passion pulsing in his veins and his face was creased in seriousness as he listened to the tracks play back.

  ‘Nice one, Ste, let’s take some time out,’ said Chris into a microphone after the singer had done his vocals. They all went through into a room that adjoined the control room, a chill-out area that contained a table football game and some sofas. They said hello to the band, but Emma felt a little awkward until Ste walked over to her and smiled.

  ‘Hi there, you wanna play?’ he asked, the words muffled by the cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

  At first Emma was alarmed, assuming he was referring to the guitars lying about the room until she saw he was pointing towards the table football.

  ‘Sure,’ she said cautiously.

  Ste walked around the other side of the table and expertly flipped a ball onto the table.

  ‘So you’re the bag lady that Clover did some stuff for, right?’ he said, spinning a handle so a line of plastic footballers whacked the ball down the pitch.

  ‘Bag lady!’ laughed Emma. ‘Well, that’s one way of describing me. How is Clover?’

  ‘In New York working. Probably better that way for a while, seeing as we’re both trying to keep clean.’

  He looked up and motioned at Rob who was talking intently to Chris.

  ‘So you with the boss now?’ he asked with a cheeky smile.

  Emma flushed. She felt a little exposed without Rob’s protective presence.

  ‘He’s just a friend,’ she said quickly, spinning a handle and ramming the ball into the back of the net.

  ‘Does Rob have female friends? I’ve never known it,’ smiled Ste.

  ‘Ah, I see you know him then.’

  Despite herself, she found herself warming to Ste. He was not the sinister strung-out poet the newspapers depicted him as.

  ‘Yeah, well Rob is my fucking idol,’ smiled Ste, knocking the ball down to Emma’s end of the table again. ‘We’d still be playing in tiny pubs if it wasn’t for him.’

  ‘Did he discover you?’

  He nodded and took a swig of black coffee from a polystyrene cup.

  ‘Two years ago we were some no-mark band on the road in a shitty tour bus that used to be my dad’s old window-cleaning van. We were going nowhere and my dad wanted his van back.’

  ‘The end of the dream,’ giggled Emma.

  ‘Yeah,’ he laughed. ‘So we cobbled together some cash to do a demo. Six or seven tracks which we’d put on a CD and sent to anyone we could think of: journos at the NME, DJs, record companies, you know. We put it on MySpace and sold shit-loads of the CD, but still, it’s hardly playing Wembley Stadium, is it?’

  Emma had stopped playing to listen to his story.

  ‘Then some geezer made contact saying he loved our stuff and wanted to meet up. Said he was from a record company. We were like, “Yeah, right!”, thinking it was a mate taking the piss. But it was Rob. He was working in America then, Vice President or something and he rolled up to see us in this pub in Manchester. He’d come all the way from fucking New York, can you believe it?’

  ‘He must have liked you.
’

  ‘You don’t get a fucking bog standard record company scout coming north of Highgate, let alone the VP of one of the biggest record companies in the world. Turns out Rob trawls MySpace, pubs and clubs all the time looking for new talent. It’s not his job but he does it because he loves it. He believes, man.’

  ‘Well, he certainly did you proud,’ said Emma, knowing that Kowalski had just had a US Billboard top ten hit, a rarity for a British band. Ste looked over his shoulder before blowing a smoke ring.

  ‘Our manager wanted us to move labels,’ he said in a low voice, ‘but I was having none of it. Rob cares about the talent and you’d be amazed how rare that is in this business.’

  Emma turned to look at Rob laughing with the sound engineer. She felt so warm inside she felt her heart might melt. In that moment, she realized how much she was attracted to him. He was good-looking. That was obvious; too obvious, but that wasn’t what was making her feel this way now. She liked their banter, their companionship. She enjoyed the way he made her laugh, challenged her and helped her beyond the call of friendship. And yes, she used to think he was frivolous. Yes, he had a worrying track record with women, but today she felt proud to be at his side. Today she respected him, admired him. Today she wanted to kiss him. God, what’s happening to me? she wondered.

  How she wanted to go home! From her relaxed happy mood as they had flown in, Emma now felt on edge, completely self-conscious and embarrassed, convinced that her feelings were transparent. After lunch every hour had seemed to drag by interminably. By 5 p.m., she was jumpy with nerves, anxious about Rob’s plan to have dinner at his secret fabulous restaurant. She knew she should be excited and if she had been more confident with the opposite sex it might have been easier to interpret Rob’s invitation to Devon as sexual interest, especially when she’d found out Jessica was out of the picture. But with a sinking feeling, Emma rationalized that he was simply being nice to her, just as he had been all year. Rob gave Ste a bear hug, the singer so thin and slight he almost disappeared in Rob’s embrace. The goodbyes complete, everyone headed back inside the mill and Rob led Emma back to the helicopter, speaking to someone on his mobile as they went.

  ‘Do you know what, honey?’ he said as he hung up.

  Honey! thought Emma, her heart lurching again.

  ‘… I think we might have to skip dinner.’

  ‘But I thought you said they were the best steaks in the west.’

  ‘They are,’ said Rob with a frown. ‘But there’s bad weather on the way. If we leave now and don’t stop off at Lucknam Park we should just miss it. I have to fly to New York tomorrow afternoon. The last thing I need is to get stuck here.’

  Emma tried to hide her disappointment, hoping that he might even suggest staying at the studio overnight.

  ‘Well, I don’t fancy being up there in a storm,’ she said pointing towards the sky. ‘It is getting dark.’

  ‘You mean am I night-rated?’ he grinned handing her a pair of headphones to block out the noise of the flight.

  ‘Night-rated?’

  ‘Qualified for flying in the dark. Don’t worry, you’re in safe hands.’

  The whoop-whoop of the blades grew into a roar and the helicopter pulled away from the ground, dipping and bobbing until the studio grew smaller and smaller in the growing dark. They flew low and rain began spotting on the window. Rob had a frown of concentration between his eyebrows and she felt a rush of lust.

  It was five-thirty and the ground was almost invisible except for the odd twinkle of a village beneath them. The clouds in the sky looked very big now, like thick puddles of tar. For twenty minutes the journey was fairly smooth. Despite the chugging of the blades overhead, Emma felt remarkably peaceful, as if she were floating in a little bubble. Then she felt a jolt from under her seat, followed by a mechanical clunking sound. She looked at Rob and saw anxiety on his face.

  Emma was not easily scared but her hands gripped the edge of her seat.

  ‘What was that?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing to worry about,’ said Rob’s voice crackling through the headphones, not sounding too convincing. ‘Just turbulence.’

  The wind was now whipping furiously around the helicopter so it was bobbing around like a cork at sea. When it suddenly dropped thirty feet Emma felt her breathing almost stop.

  Rob’s eyes scanned the instrument panel in front of him. ‘I’m going to have to land,’ he said, his voice calm despite the danger. Emma scrunched her eyes tightly and prayed.

  They were now only a hundred feet from the ground and Emma squealed involuntarily as the wheels of the helicopter clipped the top of a tall tree. She saw a dark open field spin below them, the craft swinging violently as the strong winds swirled around it, then the glare of the landing lights on the grass that was blown flat by the helicopter. And then they were down. She exhaled several quick, sharp breaths and Rob reached over and grabbed her hand.

  ‘It’s fine, honey. It’s fine,’ he said, his face pale. ‘We’re on the ground.’

  Rob cut the engines and the blades slowly whirled to a stop. Suddenly they were wrapped in an eerie silence.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘In a field,’ said Rob with the hint of a smile. ‘I’d guess somewhere in west Somerset, we weren’t blown too far off course.’

  He got out of the craft and went round to her side, helping her out onto the damp grass, the rain and wind biting at her legs.

  ‘This is where we get killed by a raging bull,’ said Emma grimly, looking around for signs of life.

  ‘Are you OK?’ asked Rob.

  She nodded and he pulled her close then took her hand and they began walking towards some lights, the mud squelching all over her shoes. After a few minutes they reached a small farmhouse. The door opened immediately and a man of about fifty in a thick coat and Wellington boots stepped out.

  ‘What the bloody hell has happened?’ he blustered.

  ‘I’m sorry, I had to emergency-land my helicopter in your field,’ said Rob politely. ‘My mobile has no reception and I need to call for help.’

  A lady with grey fluffy hair popped her head around the doorframe.

  ‘Come in, it’s filthy out there. This is Alan and I’m Joan. Now what did you say? You’ve crashed your helicopter?’ she asked with wide-open eyes.

  ‘Not crashed exactly,’ said Emma as they stepped inside the warm house. ‘But we won’t be able to take off again in this weather.’

  ‘If we’ve crushed any of your crops I will pay for any damage, of course,’ said Rob.

  ‘… bloody think so too,’ he mumbled after Rob disappeared to make some calls. The woman was much more welcoming however, plying Emma with sweet tea laced with brandy. Rob reappeared.

  ‘Turns out Babington House is about twenty miles away. They said they can arrange for a car to pick us up.’

  ‘What about the helicopter?’ asked Emma.

  ‘I want to get it checked out before I even think about flying it anywhere.’

  He turned to the farmer and his wife.

  ‘I’m going to move it out of your field as soon as I can. As I said I’ll happily paid for any inconvenience.’

  Joan pressed a mug into Rob’s hand.

  ‘Hot cider,’ she smiled. ‘You must need it. Now did I hear you’re thinking of going over to Frome? We won’t hear of it, will we, Alan? Not in this weather. See that barn you walked past on the way in? Well, we use it as a B&B in the summer. It’ll do you just right. No charge, not after what you two have just been through.’

  Emma caught Rob’s eye and managed a smile. ‘I don’t mind if you don’t,’ he shrugged.

  Joan tightened the belt of her dressing-gown further around her ample waist.

  ‘That’s settled then. Let me go and make the bed up.’

  Bed singular. Emma felt another rush of panic – just what she needed.

  The B&B was surprisingly cosy. Just one room with a tiny en suite, containing some simple furniture and an ir
on bed covered in a vast patchwork quilt, but the carpet was thick underfoot and the wooden shutters blocked out the hostile weather. Joan lit the fire and left them with a terracotta pot of hot cider. Emma gratefully took off her wet shoes and sat on the bed, trying to rub the dirt off with some tissues sitting on the bedside table. She dared not look up at Rob in this confined space and emotionally charged atmosphere. Or is it all in my head? she wondered.

  ‘Well, you can’t say I don’t know how to show a girl a good time,’ said Rob. ‘Believe me, I’m usually better than this on a first date.’

  ‘First date?’ replied Emma, feeling a chug of butterflies.

  ‘To think I brought you here to help you de-stress out,’ he said, avoiding her question.

  ‘We’re in one piece,’ smiled Emma. ‘Plus I’ve been to the famous Camel Studios. All in all, a good day.’

  Rob sat on a threadbare chaise longue in the corner, looking drained.

  ‘Ste loves you, you know,’ said Emma, putting down her shoe.

  Rob smiled.

  ‘He’ll be one of the world’s biggest stars within the next three years if the drugs don’t kill him.’

  ‘He seemed OK today.’

  ‘Hmm. For now.’

  ‘Why did you come all the way from New York to meet a band you’d only ever heard on MySpace?’

  ‘Is that what he told you?’ he asked, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘He also told me that he won’t move record labels while you’re still in charge.’

  ‘He told you that?’ said Rob, looking brighter. ‘I wish all my artists would share his point of view.’

  ‘Are you having problems?’ said Emma gently. If she recognized anything, it was the voice of an anxious senior executive. Rob shrugged.

  ‘The industry is really tough at the minute. It’s one of the reasons I’m off to New York tomorrow: a showdown with my dad about the company’s bottom line.’

  ‘Profits are down?’