by Louise Voss
David said, “Well, it’s our first number one in England, but the third in America. Our first number one at home, ‘This Is Your Blue Idea,’ only got to number twenty here. You’d better ask Helena about the charity thing. I’m not really sure of the details.”
“Yes, yes, of course, third U.S. number one, yes, I did know that. I meant in the U.K.” Toby looked flustered, as if he was afraid we’d despise him for a potential error in research.
“So, Helena, can you tell me the story behind this song? It’s about a friend of yours, isn’t it? Is that why you sing it instead of Justin?”
“Yes. It’s about my best friend, Sam. I wrote it when she was really sick with leukemia, and at first, whenever Justin used to sing it, it made me cry. So we thought if I sang it instead it would give me something to concentrate on, and I wouldn’t start crying. And it did work, sort of.”
“So, Sam, did she … er … I mean, is she …?” Toby looked sympathetic and embarrassed at the same time.
“The leukemia’s in remission, thanks, but she still hasn’t properly recovered. She got a bone marrow transplant from her brother about a year ago, although since then she’s had all sorts of problems as a result. Anyway, I’d offered to donate the song to the Leukemia Trust, and a couple of months back they called and suggested that we release it ourselves and give them the proceeds. I don’t think they thought we’d agree to it, but we talked about it for a long time with our manager and Ringside, and decided that it was the least we could do. I’m just real happy that she survived it.”
Toby smiled at me again, as if he was really happy she had, too. I had the sudden thought that Sam would approve of him.
“It turned out pretty well all round, then, didn’t it! Well, I think that’s about everything I wanted to know. Thanks, all of you, you’ve been great. Congratulations on the number one, and best of luck with the new album. It’s absolutely brilliant. It hasn’t been off the office turntable since we got it. When will you next be in the U.K.?”
We all concluded that we didn’t know, but hoped it would be soon, depending on how the record went, and then after we’d all shaken hands with him again, Holly ushered Toby out into the corridor. As she opened the door, a pretty but ditzy-looking red-haired girl grabbed Toby’s elbow and whispered something in his ear. He turned reluctantly back into the room, the girl still hanging on to his arm.
“Er, this is Lorraine, my girlfriend. She was really hoping to get to meet you all.”
Lorraine, however, had eyes only for Justin. She rushed up to him, practically elbowing me out of the way, and started gushing about how wonderful he was, and how she was actually a singer, too, and that she had several songs down on four-track, etc., etc. Justin recovered his lost good humor and, steering her over to the empty side of the room, gave her a beer and settled down to enjoy a good, wholesome ego-bolstering.
Suddenly I felt deflated. For some reason, the words “Lorraine, my girlfriend” had put a damper on the whole evening. Awkwardly, I turned round to Toby. “Well, I think I’ll go back to the hotel now. I’m kind of tired. It was very nice meeting you. Please come and say hello next time we play in London.”
He looked at me with what I interpreted as the ghost of a resigned expression, his eyebrows raised in an almost apologetic way, and then there was that smile again.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m sure we will definitely meet again.”
A couple of weeks later when the tour had finished and I was temporarily imprisoned chez parents back in Freehold, Holly sent me a package via the U.S. press officer, with the Melody Maker interview clipped on to the top of a pile of press cuttings and reviews. The headline for the feature was BLUE IDEA … AND THEIR GREEN-EYED DEAR, and the whole article glowed with praise for my talent, humility, and striking beauty (all Toby’s words, not mine!). Holly’s sardonic note read, “Hmm, he didn’t fancy you much or anything, did he!”
I hadn’t had a chance to tell Sam about the interview yet, so I mailed her a copy of the clipping and the note. She phoned me when she got it, laughing. “Well? Was he as nice looking as the divine Patrick, then?”
“What do you mean? I just wanted you to see your name in print, that’s all.… ”
“Oh, yeah, pull the other one! Come on. Like the woman said, he wasn’t interested in you just because you’ve got a record out!”
“Yes he was, actually. Interested in the record and nice looking, in a very cute sort of way. But he has a girlfriend, and I have a boyfriend.”
“Oh, well, it’s probably not serious—his girlfriend, I mean. I’m sure you can get rid of her.”
“Sam! The man lives three thousand miles away! Get a grip! She was awful, though. And she fancied Justin, so you never know.… ”
“There you are, then!” Sam said triumphantly, and we both laughed. She sounded as though she was just talking to me from around the corner. “How are things with Patrick, anyway? Have you spoken to him since you got back?”
“He hasn’t returned my last three calls.”
“Oh, no,” said Sam. “Are you upset?”
I considered. “Not really. The sex is nice, but it’s just so hard to maintain a relationship when we’re on the road. He’s filming now, and can’t jump on a plane every time he wants to see me. I did think I’d get to see him when we got back, but there’s no chance now. We’re off to Japan on Monday. It was fun at first, but I can’t see how it’s going to last.”
“Oh, Helena. Poor you. But I hope you’re going to settle down someday. I want to be godmother to your kids, remember.”
“Jeez, give us a chance, Sam! I’m only a year older than you, not ten years older. Twenty-three is far too young to think about babies.”
Sam was silent for a minute. “Not if you can’t have them, it isn’t.”
I could have cut my tongue out. Poor Sam had been told that she wouldn’t be able to conceive, after all her treatments. It was one more cross that she bore without complaint—in fact, so uncomplainingly that I had been selfish enough to temporarily forget the fact.
“I’m so sorry, Sammy. I don’t know what to say.”
She sighed, a long, weary sound that traveled slowly along the wire connecting us. I imagined that sigh, deep down underneath the ocean, and wished I could make it stay there forever, trapped, with all the rest of Sam’s ailments and worries.
That night I lay uncomfortably on a bed that, although it was in my old bedroom in my parents’ house, felt as strange and unwelcoming as a hotel bed. I must buy myself an apartment, I thought. Surely I could afford one by now. Mum and Dad were always pleased to see me—for about fifteen minutes, after which duration they resumed whatever “leisure activity” (golf, canasta, bridge, gardening, etc.) they’d been involved in before I arrived. Apart from the home-cooked meals, I hated going back to Freehold in between tours.
I thought of Sam’s poor shriveled-up ovaries, her indefatigable courage, and her constant small triumphs over adversity. I thought of my own life, how exciting it must seem to everyone else, but how exhausting and pressured it really was. I thought briefly of delicious Patrick, his plucked eyebrows and exfoliated cheeks, manicured nails and color-coded socks, and of how many thousands of women would kill to sit in bed with him and eat a bag of postcoital Cheez Doodles, as I had. But I felt nothing except a desire to sleep.
So I got up, retrieved my Sony Walkman, and slotted in a Cure tape. Climbing back into bed and snuggling up into the pillows, I lay there listening to “Lovesong,” a song I wasn’t remotely sick of, even after hearing it on tour every night.
But I was not thinking about all the arenas and academies, the theaters and ballrooms, the clubs and festivals. As I finally drifted off to sleep, I was dreaming of a journalist named Toby, and the way his eyes had held me, and the nice things he’d written about me.
YOU AIN’T MS. NICHOLLS
I WAS IN A COMPLETE STATE BY THE TIME I FINALLY ARRIVED AT THE private carpark at the back of the building in which Ron’s offi
ce was housed. Hearing “Over This” murdered by some spotty adolescents had upset me, far more than listening to Millie Myers’s listeners diss me. I felt as though I’d been driving drunk, emotions were whirling around inside the car, and I missed Sam so badly that I wanted to slam my head down on the steering wheel.
I pulled up to the automatic barrier and collected myself together enough to talk to Cecil, the large black carpark attendant. If I had been less distraught, I’d have been delighted to see him. We always had a chat whenever I came for a meeting with Ron. He was such a genuine, sweet man, and would always tell me about his kids’ triumphs and his wife’s gallstones.
“Hi, Cecil, long time no see,” I managed through the open window.
Cecil loomed out from the doorway of his dinky little booth. He frowned and scratched his head. “Who you here to see, ma’am?”
I glared at him. “Ron, of course! Who else do I come and see? He’s expecting me. Do I park in the usual place?”
The barrier remained resolutely down.
“Sign the visitors’ book first, please, ma’am.”
Cecil passed the book through the window, and the proximity of his huge, creased brown hands made me want to grab them, hold on to them for dear life to protect me from feeling this way. He was still looking at me, trying to place me.
Suddenly it clicked. Of course he didn’t recognize me! I whipped off the bandanna and the wig, and shook out my short brown hair.
“Sorry, Cecil, what was I thinking? No wonder you didn’t recognize me. It’s me, Helena Nicholls.”
But Cecil’s frown merely deepened. I scrawled my name with irritation in the book and handed it back to him.
“You ain’t Ms. Nicholls,” he said slowly. The buttons on his uniform blinked suspiciously at me in the sunlight.
I didn’t think the day could get any worse. “Of course I’m Ms. Frigging Nicholls! Look at me! Listen to my voice! If I wasn’t, how would I know that your kids are named Cheryl and Simon, and that you’ve worked here for eighteen years? Don’t you even remember my car, for God’s sake? I had an accident, okay? My face looks different. I broke my nose and my jaw. I’ve lost an eye. I’m scarred. Call Ron, right now, if you don’t believe me.”
I burst into tears.
Cecil looked mortified. He reached his big sausagey fingers through the window and stroked my sleeve tentatively. “Ms. Nicholls, I’m really, really sorry, ma’am. I see it’s you now. You don’t look all that different, honest. It’s my eyes, they ain’t what they used to be, and it’s been a while since you was last in. Please forgive my rudeness. I’m so sorry to hear you had an accident. Ron never told me.”
He retreated into his booth and the barrier shot up at speed. I drove in without another word and had to sit in the car for a full ten minutes until I’d stopped crying again. Whenever I glanced up into the rearview mirror, I could see Cecil staring at me, anguished, from the safety of his Wendy house.
The irony of the situation did not strike me until later. For the past twelve years I’d been trying to make myself inconspicuous, unrecognizable, but now that people really didn’t recognize me, I was devastated. So much for the kindness of strangers, I thought. That only worked if the strangers actually remembered who you were. First they had to recognize you.
“Helena, darling! How are you? Great to see you again! Feeling all right? Bet you were glad to get out of that hospital, weren’t you? What’s it like being home again? Coffee? Cindy, can we have two coffees in here, please?”
Ron, ever the PR man, bombarded me with questions so as to avoid commenting on my appearance, which was by now even less appealing due to all the crying. I’d gone into the ladies’ to try to repair my makeup, but the sight of my reflection threatened to start the tears off again, so I’d left it blotchy.
Still, Ron himself was no oil painting. He used to work as a director of promotions for a major record label, but I had a theory he’d been sacked for wearing golfing sweaters and slacks. He was the only gay guy I’d ever met who had absolutely no fashion sense.
“Yeah, yeah, fine, thanks.” I moved across Ron’s office to the window so I could stand with my back to him. “So what’s new, then? Any suggestions as to what to do for an out-of-work DJ?”
Ron laughed nervously. “You aren’t out of work, darling. Geoff offered you another job, didn’t he?”
I leaned my forehead against the cool glass of the window, only the prospect of more stitches preventing me from head-butting it. I tried to keep my voice measured and calm.
“I don’t consider the graveyard shift a proper job, Ron. It’s humiliating. Plus I won’t be able to do my request show at that time. I just wondered if anything else had come up. Before I … the accident, didn’t you tell me that you had something really hot in the pipeline for me? You were getting more details, you were going to let me know. What about that? Is it still available?”
There was a silence, broken when Cindy, Ron’s PA, brought two mugs of coffee in.
“Well?”
Ron swiveled awkwardly in his chair, making it squeak uncomfortably. “Uh, Helena, well, no, that turned out to be a blind alley.… ”
“What was it, then? An offer from another station? Was it Radio One?”
Another silence. Ron tore a day off his Dilbert desk calendar.
Something about the sound made me turn round, puzzled. I stared at him. “Do that again for a second?”
“What?”
“Tear a page off that thing.”
Ron gaped up at me as if I’d asked him to take his trousers down. “I can’t—I’m up to date now. I can’t tear off today until tomorrow. Or at least not until the end of the day. It’s Tuesday today.”
I couldn’t believe that I entrusted my career to such an idiot. But nonetheless, his voice sounded different, too.
“Please, just tear off another one. You can Sellotape it back on again afterwards.”
Ron was obviously thinking that my concussion was worse than I’d let on. I gave up waiting for him and, reaching over his desk, ripped Tuesday off myself.
The little jagged sound it made was in stereo!
“Oh my God, Ron, my right ear’s just started working again! I can hear properly! I can’t believe it!”
Misery temporarily on hold, I jumped across the room and hugged Ron round his pudgy middle-aged neck. For a second I felt so exhilarated that for the first time I seriously imagined abandoning the Plan.
“This is fantastic! It means I can work again as a DJ! Maybe Radio One would hire me after all—no problem with driving my own desk now, and—”
Ron interrupted me, disengaging himself from my arms. “Er, Helena, I thought your hearing returned ages ago—didn’t you already tell Hadleigh that it had? He wouldn’t have even given you a nighttime slot if it wasn’t back to normal.”
Crushed, I realized this was true. “Oh. Yes. Well, I lied. But now it really is better, so maybe that will help find me something else? You were about to tell me what the other job was.”
Ron looked crossly at his Dilbert calendar. “Look at that—you’ve made it Wednesday now, when it’s still only Tuesday.”
“Ron!”
He sighed and took a slurp of coffee. “Sorry, darling, but it ain’t happening now. You were up for a presenter on a new celebrity chat show Channel Five is scheduling. Lisa I’Anson got the gig.… ”
I sat down opposite Ron and let my head sink onto his desk with despair.
TV! I’d been about to start a career in TV, something every prime-time DJ dreamed of.… And now I was disfigured. As with deaf DJs, you didn’t see too many ugly TV presenters.
“And you don’t have any other other job lined up for me?” I asked in a small muffled voice, my breath dampening the shiny surface of Ron’s mahogany desk.
I didn’t have to look up to know that he was shaking his head.
My emotions couldn’t stand the pace—they’d been up and down all day. It looked as if we were back on course for t
he Plan again. I stood up.
“Ron, listen. I just wanted to say, in case I don’t get the chance again, thanks for everything, you know. You’ve been a really great agent, and—”
Ron leapt up, too, cupping his hands to his chin in a big queeny gesture of horror. “You’re firing me? I don’t believe it! After everything I’ve done—”
“Ron, for God’s sake, I’m not firing you! I’m certainly not looking for another agent, I just … Well, you never know what might happen. It’s always good to tell people how you feel. And I want you to have this as a gesture of my appreciation.”
On the spur of the moment I pulled off the plain silver ring I wore on my forefinger. It had been given to me by a fan in Singapore, and I was very fond of it, but I suddenly thought, What did I need with it now?
Ron looked overcome. “And you’re sure you aren’t firing me?”
He tried to cram the ring onto his little finger, but it only reached as far as the first joint.
“Sure. It’s just a present to say thanks for maintaining my privacy, you know, keeping the press off my back when I was in hospital and stuff.”
“Well, thank you, darling, that’s ever so sweet of you. I don’t know what to say.… I’ll put it on a chain round my neck. Mwah, mwah.”
He kissed me on both cheeks and I tried not to flinch.
“If there’s nothing else on the job front, I’ll get going. Got a busy day ahead of me, you know, doing … stuff. I really just came in to get my post and catch up.”
“Ah yes, your post! I’ll tell Cindy to fetch it.” Ron rushed to the office door.
“Cindy! Could you bring in Helena’s mail, please!”
I waited for Cindy to arrive with a huge sack, like Father Christmas. She was gone long enough—perhaps there was more than I thought, and she’d gone to get a forklift to carry it.
While we were waiting, I remembered what else I’d been intending to ask him.
