The Truth About Gemma Grey: A feel-good, romantic comedy you won't be able to put down

by Sophie Ranald

  We couldn’t talk much – he was too busy and it was too noisy. Someone had turned the music up and the lights down, so I could barely see the costumed figures moving through the gloom. Only the occasional camera flash illuminated the room, revealing the growing crowd. I strained to see, but I couldn’t spot Gus and Charlie’s identical blond heads anywhere. Perhaps they were in fancy dress so elaborate it had made them unrecognisable. Perhaps they weren’t coming, in which case I would absolutely, definitely, have to call Charlie tomorrow.

  “There you are, Gemma!” The voice made me jump, but it was only Sloane, in a sexy Day of the Dead outfit. Her hair was styled in snaky ringlets, she was wearing loads of red lipstick and a black lace mantilla, and bursting out of her corset top.

  “Look at you – Wednesday Addams, right? So cute. You put all the rest of us to shame,” she said kindly, making me conscious all over again of my amateurish outfit. “I’ve been hunting everywhere for you.”

  She leaned in close to me and whispered – although there was no need to whisper really, the room was so noisy she could just have shouted and I would have struggled to hear her, never mind anyone else, “I’m so sorry, Gemma, but Glen Renton is over there in the corner on his own. Would you mind terribly going over and having a chat? I’ve spent the past hour with him and I really do need to mingle.”

  I strained to see in the dim light, and eventually spotted Ripple Effect’s most successful client, leaning against a black-shrouded pillar in the far corner of the room. Sloane was right – although everyone else in the room was chatting, laughing, gossiping, filming and snapping endless selfies, Glen was on his own. He wasn’t dressed as a warlock or a werewolf or anything else – he was wearing jeans and a tweed suit jacket. I remembered Charlie and Gus telling me, the first night I met them, that everyone hated Glen, but I’d been too swept up in the confusion and excitement of meeting them to ask why, and I still didn’t know. Professional jealousy, I’d have guessed, if I’d given it any thought.

  But I hadn’t. And now, looking at him all alone in the crowd, I realised I felt a bit sorry for him.

  I made my way over. Glen was looking intently at something in his hands, which I could see glinting in the dim light. His phone? But as I got closer, I realised it was a gold money clip in the shape of a dollar sign, holding a massive wad of fifty pound notes, and Glen was counting them.

  “Hello,” I said. “We haven’t met. I’m Gemma Grey.”

  “Gemma Grey.” He tucked his stack of cash in his jeans pocket and looked up at me. “Quite the hot property, aren’t you?”

  “Not really,” I said. “This is all still really new for me – even though I’ve been vlogging for years, I never took it seriously until quite recently. I’ve got nowhere near as many followers as you, or even Charlie and Gus.”

  “You’re still fucking Charlie Berry, then?” Glen asked.

  I realised I didn’t feel sorry for him any more. “Charlie and I are going out, yes.”

  “Smooth move,” he said. “Shagging a Berry boy. Career-enhancing. Not that it’s worked out that well for the others.”

  If it had been anyone else, I’d have asked what they meant – as far as I knew, apart from Gus’s brief fling with Maddie, both boys had been single for ages. But I could tell that Glen liked putting me at a disadvantage, and there was no way I was going to give him the satisfaction.

  “Have you come from far?” I asked.

  “Brighton.” Glen took the roll of cash out of his pocket, looked at it and put it back again.

  “Oh, how lovely,” I said. “How fab to live by the sea. Did you get the train up?”

  “I drove,” he said. “In my Maserati.”

  “How lovely,” I said again, but this time I could hear that the tone of bright enthusiasm in my voice was significantly less bright.

  “Do they do the Halloween thing every year, then?” I asked. “It’s a great party, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a waste of time,” Glen said. “I only showed up because I had a meeting with some journalist. That was a waste of time, too. I don’t normally do interviews unless I get a fee.”

  I felt a bit sorry for the poor journalist, and thought I was beginning to understand why Glen found himself alone at parties.

  “So what are you working on at the moment, then?” I asked. My glass was empty – I glanced towards the bar and saw that Raffy wasn’t there any more. He must already have gone on his break – I was meant to be meeting him and instead I was stuck here talking to a man who quite clearly didn’t want to talk to me. I couldn’t even offer to get him a drink, because he was driving. In his Maserati.

  “Merch,” Glen said. “That’s where the money is.”

  I imagined teenage girls saving up their pocket money to buy Glen Renton T-shirts and beanies and mobile phone cases, with no idea that their idol was rude, arrogant and deservedly loathed by all his peers. I wondered what people said about Glen on YouTruth, and whether he knew or even cared.

  I said, “Anyway, it was nice meeting you. I’m desperate for the loo, so excuse me.”

  As I hurried towards the door, I could see Glen pulling his money out of his pocket again.

  The cold night air hit my hot face as I pushed open the door. It had been raining; the stairs leading down to the pavement were slippery, and I almost fell as I ran down them. A group of people I didn’t know were standing around smoking, juggling beer bottles, fags and phones in their hands. I couldn’t see Raffy anywhere. I wished I’d brought my coat, but I’d checked it in when I arrived.

  I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering. I’d had loads to drink, I realised – too much. I needed to sober up and go home. But I also needed to talk to Charlie, if and when he arrived. And even more than that, I needed – I wanted – to talk to Raffy, to find out why he was here, what he’d wanted to say to me, and even more fundamentally, who he even was.

  As I watched, he came round the corner with Maddie.

  “God, it’s Baltic out here,” she said. “Hi again, Gemma, I didn’t know you smoked.”

  “I don’t,” I said. “I just came out to get some air.”

  “Well, I’ve had enough air for now,” Maddie said. “See you later.”

  And she ducked inside, leaving me staring furiously at Raffy. I had no right to be angry, of course – he and I weren’t… weren’t even friends, really. But the idea of him with Maddie – gorgeous, stylish, successful Maddie, who could have anyone in the world she wanted – made me feel suddenly bereft.

  I said, “What the hell…” at exactly the same moment as Raffy said, “I thought you were…”

  “Go on,” I said.

  “I thought you weren’t going to turn up,” Raffy said.

  “I was stuck talking to Glen Renton,” I said. If Raffy could go sneaking around corners with Maddie, I could damn well talk to Glen, I thought.

  Raffy said, “Poor you. I tried talking to him earlier. He’s not exactly a sparkling conversationalist, is he?”

  “No, he’s… hold on. What’s this all about? You talked to Glen, you were having cosy little sessions with Maddie – what’s going on? You’re not just working behind the bar here, are you?”

  “Glad you’ve worked that out,” Raffy said. “Here, you’re freezing – do you want my coat?”

  He took off his leather jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders. The warmth was like an embrace, but I didn’t want to be hugged.

  “I want to know what’s going on,” I said. “You said you wanted to talk to me. I know I didn’t call you, but… And now you’re here. What the hell…?”

  “Not here,” Raffy said. “Come on, let’s walk. I’ve only got five minutes – if I’m late back on my shift, they’ll sack me. Not that it particularly matters.”

  I followed him back around the corner of the building, glad I hadn’t refused his coat. It was starting to drizzle again. We walked past a bookie’s, a launderette and a fried chicken shop, and I began to think that if Raffy and
Maddie’s tryst had been a romantic one, they’d picked a pretty dodgy setting for it.

  He stopped under a bus shelter. I stopped too, glad to be out of the rain.

  “So?” I said.

  “So,” Raffy said. “I’m sorry, Gemma, I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

  “I’d worked that bit out, at least,” I said.

  “I make films,” Raffy said.

  “What?” I said. “Is there a single person in this entire city – on this entire planet – who isn’t a bloody YouTuber?”

  Raffy laughed. “Not those kind of films. Although they go on YouTube, sometimes. I made documentaries. I worked for Vice for a bit, but now I’m freelance. When I was working at Daily Grind, I wasn’t just helping Luke out – although I was doing that, too, he’s my mate and he was short of hands. But mostly I was researching a film.”

  “About coffee?” I said, incredulously.

  “Partly,” Raffy said. “Coffee was kind of the jumping-off point. You know how people say they know a place is changing when an artisan coffee place opens? And then the dodgy fruit and veg shop goes organic and starts stocking quinoa and coconut oil, and then the pub gets a refit and puts pulled pork sliders on the menu and does vinyl nights, and then the property developers move in?”

  I remembered a listicle Hermione had written a few days before: ‘12 Signs That You’re A Victim Of Urban Renewal’. “You mean, like, gentrification?”

  “That’s the one,” Raffy said. “And your area – with the plans to knock down the estate – well, it was a classic example. I wanted to talk about how it happens, and why it’s not always a good thing. And then I got involved in the campaign to save the estate, so it ended up being mostly about that. It was shown on Channel Four,” he added proudly.

  “I didn’t see it,” I said. “I never watch telly.”

  “I know,” Raffy said. “You watch YouTube, like everyone our age. Which is why I decided to make a film about that.”

  “A film about YouTube?” I said. Suddenly my lips didn’t feel like they were working right – it might have been the cold or it might have been the booze, but smiling wasn’t working for me. “Isn’t that a bit meta?”

  Raffy laughed, but I didn’t join in. I was thinking about everything I’d told him about myself, and my channel, and why I’d stated making my videos, and Jack and Charlie and everything else. I imagined him watching my videos, not because he liked me, but with the appraising, thoughtful eye of a researcher.

  “I tried to get your agent, Sloane, to talk to me and let me interview some of her clients,” he said. “But she wasn’t interested. So I had to find another way. Hence working at the bar tonight. It’s a weird world you’re in, right?”

  I didn’t say anything. I was trying to organise my thoughts, but I couldn’t seem to get them to fall into shape – I was too shocked, and, if I’m honest, too befuddled by all the cocktails and Prosecco I’d drunk, to get past the idea that Raffy had been using me for material – had almost been spying on me.

  “But it’s kind of taken on a life of its own,” he went on. “I’ve found out stuff. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Your boyf—”

  My thoughts might not be falling into shape, but my feelings were, and I realised I was absolutely furious.

  “You know what, I don’t actually want to know,” I said. “How dare you snoop into my life? Who the hell do you think you are, ‘finding out’ stuff about me – about Charlie? Charlie’s not perfect, right, but he’s a decent guy and he’s not hurting anyone. None of us are. Not even Glen. Okay, he’s a dick, but if you were twenty-six years old and suddenly you’re making loads of money and everyone wants a piece of you and you can’t tell who your real friends are, wouldn’t you get a bit defensive about it too? I told you why I started doing this YouTube thing – I didn’t set out to make money, or be famous. I was just doing something I loved, that I thought I might be good at. I’ve met incredible friends online, I’ve had amazing support from people who don’t even know me, but who care about me anyway. And you do know me – I thought we were mates but you’ve just been… I don’t know, observing me, like a lab rat in a psychology experiment, and not even telling me that that’s what you were doing.”

  Raffy said, “Gemma, I know this must be weird for you. I’m trying to understand, but I…”

  I hadn’t finished. “And you know what? My landlady, who’s a totally lovely, normal person, was in this horrible, abusive relationship and just trying to deal with it, with no one to tell what was happening to her. And I used my channel to try and help other people like her, and I got a massive load of flak for it. But that’s not going to stop me. Okay, I mostly make videos about make-up, it’s not like I’m the United Nations or something, but I can try and make people happier. That’s all I’m doing. And I don’t need you and people who watch Channel bloody Four analysing and judging me and the stuff I create.”

  Raffy looked as shocked by my rant as if I’d hit him. He said, “Gemma, it’s not like that. It really—”

  “I don’t care what it really is! Make your poxy fucking film if you want to, but leave Charlie and me out of it.”

  And I dropped his jacket in a puddle and ran back to the bar, slipping and sliding on the fallen leaves in my high shoes.

  The first person I saw when I got back inside was Charlie. He had his back to me, but I’d have recognised his shoulders in his trademark white T-shirt, his waxed golden hair and the tattoo snaking up his neck anywhere, even though it was dark; even though my eyes were blurred with tears. The way things were with us, I was tempted to duck away into the shadows. But if I went to get a drink, I’d encounter Raffy at the bar, and if I went the other way, I might get stuck in the corner talking to Glen again. Or I could reclaim my coat and go home – but I’d promised myself that I’d talk to Charlie tonight, to find out what was going on with our relationship – if we still even had one – and I was just going to have to pull up my big girl pants and do it.

  And then he turned around, and any chance of escape was lost. I saw that, instead of a Halloween costume, he was just wearing a Berry Boys mask: the identical faces that were on the cover of their book, split in two down the middle and joined almost, but not quite, back together, covered his face to just above his lips.

  “Gemma!” he said, more enthusiastically than I’d expected.

  “Hello,” I said. “Where’s Gus?”

  “Gus?” He paused for a second. “Oh, he’s around somewhere. Probably getting a drink. We thought you weren’t coming.”

  I said, “I got here ages ago. I was just outside for a bit.”

  He looked more closely at me and said, “Gemma? Are you okay? You look like you’ve been crying.”

  He put his arms around me and pulled me close, and I could smell the Tom Ford cologne he always wore. I breathed it in, relishing the feel of his arms around me, and started to cry properly. He held me close and waited while I sobbed and sniffed, not asking me what was wrong, which was probably just as well, because I was sure I wouldn’t be able to find the words to tell him. But he just let me carry on until I was done.

  I dug around in my bag for tissues, blew my nose and wiped my eyes.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I don’t know… I was talking to someone I know outside, and we had an argument.”

  He didn’t ask me what about. He just said, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  “Can we?” I said. “The party’s only just getting going. And you’ve just arrived. What will Sloane say?”

  “We can do exactly what the hell we like,” he said, getting out his phone and summoning a taxi. “Three minutes. I know what we can do with three minutes.”

  And he pulled me close again and started to kiss me. For a second I resisted, but then the urgency of his kiss – a hunger, a fierceness that was almost frightening and strangely unfamiliar – swept me up, and I kissed him back, on and on, not caring about my smudged eye make-up.

  “Wow
,” he said at last. “That was a pleasant surprise.”

  Before I could ask him what he meant, he said, “Our driver’s here. Let’s go.”

  And he put his arm around my shoulders and led me out. The car was waiting outside, a silver Mercedes; Charlie and Gus only ever used Uber Exec.

  “Hi, Mostak?” he said. “Great. We’re going to Hackney, yeah?”

  “Hackney?” I said.

  “Of course,” he said. “Back to yours.”

  He opened the door for me, and I slid on to the leather seat. Then, as he bent over to join me and the bright light shone on his face, I realised what was different.

  In the same second, the driver said, “It’s Gus, right?”

  “That’s right, mate,” Gus said, slamming the door behind him. “Manwood Close, E9.”

  “Wait!” I said. “You can’t do this. This is…”

  But the taxi had already pulled off, its tires swishing on the wet road.

  “Don’t worry, Gemma,” Gus said. “I’m not going to take advantage of you, as my nan would say.”

  I didn’t point out that he already had – after all, I hadn’t exactly objected.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “What’s going on? Why did you…”

  “Let you think I was my brother?” Gus said. “You must be pissed, Gemma, falling for the same prank twice. Look,” he pointed to the tattoo on his neck. “We drew it on with a sharpie. Looks rather good, doesn’t it? It was much harder covering Charlie’s up – we had to order some special make-up off Amazon. Apparently it hides even the most unsightly blemishes. Glen Renton should use it on his personality.”

  I said, “What, so you went to the party dressed as…”

  “As each other, yes,” said Gus. “Part hilarious prank, mostly Charles helping me out. And then you helped me out even more. Anyone who saw us together would be sure I was my brother.”

  “Gus, if you think this is a clever way to pull me, it’s not,” I said. “One, I don’t fancy you…”

  “Really?” He raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” I said. “So, you can kiss. Well done. Clever you. I liked kissing you. But that means nothing at all. Just because you’ve got the tongue moves, doesn’t mean I’d want to sleep with you! Jesus! Even if I wasn’t still, kind of, going out with your brother, what you did back there is just weird and manipulative and… Horrible. And even if you hadn’t done it, I wouldn’t want to go to bed with you, because I don’t feel like that about you.”