FIONNULA-JAYDE!
Kathleen punched the air. The audience was rapturous at the end. Jocelyn jumped to her feet and started a standing ovation. Kathleen and her were drinking in the applause as if it was for them. And . . . was I imagining it, or was Jocelyn putting on a soft Belfast accent in the bar afterwards? I saw her throwing her head back and doing a lot of screechy laughing. And I also heard her saying, ‘Oh he’s so naughty. His imagination is incredible. Of course I didn’t have a baby!’
Oh Lordy. I had got away with it. I’d nicked the story of my life, of our lives, and made a piece of art out of it, and my friends didn’t care. In fact, they were pleased. They were proud. What amazing friends they were. I dragged them both away from the first-night party and took them upstairs to the theatre again. I opened a bottle of champagne and we drank it on the set. In the make-believe set of the place we’d actually been in all those years ago, toasting ourselves, toasting each other, toasting the play. It felt good. I had them back again, back onside. The future was crammed with possibilities. Anything was possible. The world was my oyster. I felt giddy with anticipation – for what, I wasn’t sure. But thus far it hadn’t turned out too badly. Life was pretty fucking good, OK?
‘This set’s so beautiful,’ said Kathleen. ‘You’d never know the designer was blind.’
‘She’s partially sighted,’ I corrected her. ‘She feels things, she senses things. And she has a very willing assistant who she tells what she wants.’
‘It’s like we’re back there,’ Jocelyn said wistfully. And it felt like again we might ask what really happened that night back in the church. But we didn’t. Because we already knew. It remained, for now, this time, unspoken between us.
‘Anyway,’ she added, ‘we’d better get back to the party. I’m sure that one who played Mark was giving me the eye.’
We all giggled. Imagine if she now got off with Tom Hangs. Talk about life imitating art imitating life.
‘Is that one Suki a lesbian?’ Kathleen asked. ‘She keeps staring at me. It’s embarrassing.’
‘She’s just jealous your nose is smaller than hers.’
And we all giggled again. This champagne was going to my head.
‘Hey. Guess what I did today?’ Jocelyn said, eyes widening, which meant there was MAJOR gossip coming.
‘What?! WHAT?!’
‘I went and did some test shots for a Page Three spread.’
We must have looked horrified. The smile froze on her face.
‘I could make a lot of money from that, kids,’ she said.
But before we could respond, someone else appeared in the theatre. It was Anthea. She was looking sheepish in the doorway leading to the stairs down to the pub. I jumped from my beanbag to my feet.
‘What is it, Anthea? Are the reviews out? WHAT DID THEY SAY?’
‘No. Blimey, the play only finished an hour ago, keep your hair on. No, there’s . . . someone downstairs. Says he knows you. He’s a bit pissed.’
‘Who is it?’
‘He says he’s Kathleen’s dad.’
I looked quickly to Kathleen, who was biting her bottom lip.
‘What’s he doing here?’ I was bewildered.
‘Oh God. I spoke to him this morning. Told him what I was doing tonight. Think I might have mentioned a free bar. He’s drinking heavily at the moment. It’s quite sad.’
‘I didn’t even know you were in touch with him.’
‘Only every now and again. He phoned me at the house. I don’t know how he got the number. I’ll get rid of him. I’m so sorry.’
She hurried to the doorway and disappeared down the stairs. I looked to Jocelyn. She was looking petrified.
‘Are you OK?’
She nodded, but didn’t say anything.
‘Word on the street is the reviewers loved it,’ Anthea said with a smile, then followed Kathleen down.
Something was wrong with Jocelyn, I could just tell. She’d gone from deliriously giggly and excitable to frowny and troubled in the space of seconds. Maybe it was the champagne.
‘Are you feeling pissed?’
She thought about it a second, then looked relieved. ‘Yep. That’s it. Actually, Adam, I’m going to go home. I don’t feel too good. But, you know, congratulations on the play.’
‘You’re not going to stay for the party?’
She shook her head.
‘You were fine a few minutes ago.’
‘I’ve had too much to drink.’
‘Well, I’ll walk you down. I’ll walk you to the tube.’
‘No, you go and have fun. I’ll wait here for a bit till I feel better.’
‘I don’t want to leave you, if you’re not feeling well.’
‘I’ll be fine, Adam. Please.’
She sounded forceful. I knew better than to argue with her.
‘But Tom Hangs was giving you the eye. You said.’
She shook her head. So I left her and went down to the party. I couldn’t see Kathleen or her dad anywhere. The place was still packed. I got lots of congratulatory slaps on the back and hugs from people I didn’t know. Harriet introduced me to her agent and for twenty minutes I went onto autopilot, showering in the praise, letting it wash over me; but all the time I kept thinking about Jocelyn’s abrupt volte-face. Then I saw her peering out from the doorway that led to the theatre, looking about. I watched her hurry through the crowd to the exit, head down, ignoring everyone. At the door she snatched a full bottle of beer from a table, and then disappeared into the night.
If she was so poorly, why did she need a lager for the journey home?
I tried to ignore all this, forget it, and enjoy the night. I turned to the people I didn’t know who were telling me how much they loved the play, and how fascinating it was that I’d never even been to Northern Ireland.
‘It’s like Whistle Down the Wind in an uplift bra,’ this woman was saying. And I nodded, even though I thought it was a bit reductive.
Jocelyn had gone, and I didn’t know where Kathleen was. I was the toast of the room, but I suddenly felt incredibly alone.
Maybe I’d go home and phone my chatline.
BILLY
London, 2015
Dear God,
Someone has set up a Twitter account pretending to be Mum’s ghost. She rants on in the style that whoever is writing it thinks that Mum would use, if she was still alive. It’s actually pretty accurate but it upsets me when I look at it. And I can’t stop looking at it. But then other times it brings me comfort. Like she hasn’t gone at all, like she’s there somewhere, taking everything in and earning a buck being horrendous about it all.
It’s also nice, but weird, to think that someone else is thinking about her so much. Who is it? Sitting in their living room, typing away, thinking what would Mum say?
Mum would want a cut of the royalties. Not that you get royalties on Twitter. But she’d want something. Or she’d sue, if only for the publicity.
Why are you pretending to be me, cretin? You’re not as beautiful or as perfect as me.
I miss her.
Amen.
JOCELYN
London, 2015
I always get a buzz doing live TV. Even when, like right now, the audience boos like a herd of irritated cows when I come on. I secretly like Joanne and Joolz, the two madcap presenters of Lunchbreak. Though I’m usually averse to anything one could describe as madcap. I could almost hate them for making me conjure up that word.
They originally appeared on Britain’s Got Talent as a pretty abysmal singing duo before moving into kids’ TV and now this, their own lunchtime show for grown-ups, shop-fronting Z-list guests like me. I am weaved, plucked, primped and preened to within an inch of my life. I am wearing a stiff figure-hugging silver sequinned number that will be returned to the designer as soon as I get home. I have more make-up on than a drag queen on the back of a float at Mardi Gras, and as for the heels . . . let’s just say if I ever need to retrain as a circus performer, I’ll have
no trouble mastering the stilts.
‘Stop booing her, guys!’ Joanne (or is it Joolz?) is braying at the audience. ‘She’s here to give her side of the story!’
‘She’s a human being too!’ chirrups Joolz (or is it Joanne?), but she does a sarcastic shrug as if to add ‘Or is she?’ so I laugh it off as I join them at their dinner table and insist, ‘Oh, I’m used to it, don’t worry about me. I’m a tough old broad.’
‘YOUR ARSE IS BROAD!’ someone calls from the audience, and I give a repulsed look. After all. That is a downright LIE.
‘You’ll be hearing from my lawyers!’ I call back, which gets a laugh.
The idea about Lunchbreak is that the whole thing takes place over everyone’s lunchbreak. I’m meant to be eating the plate of sushi before me, though I don’t, and the audience all sit with packed lunches on their knees, tucking in. It’s a ridiculous sight and puts me in mind of feeding time at the zoo.
The zoo for ugly people, that is.
After a bit of preamble from the two Js about my dress, my nails and isn’t it a gorgeous day? (I imagine that’s so they can convince the audience at home that this is actually live telly) I hear one of the two presenters saying . . .
‘Soooo . . . How do you feel about being called the black Katie Hopkins?’
I do my customary eye roll. ‘Oh, please. I’m nothing like her.’
‘You’re outspoken, brutal . . .’
‘RENTAGOB!’ someone shouts from the audience, which garners a round of applause.
‘Yes, but I have this,’ I interrupt, and point to my face, as if that explains everything.
‘Well, yes, you’re very beautiful.’
I do a sideways tilt of the head, body language for ‘that much is true’.
‘SHE’S UGLY!’ someone shouts from the audience. To which I quickly rejoinder, ‘Er – eye test?!’
‘INSIDE AND OUT!’
And then the two Js continue rabbiting on about my latest misdemeanour. All I said in my column this week was that there were too many ugly women on telly, and something needed to give.
‘Would you say you were vain, Jocelyn?’ one of them asks.
I shake my head. ‘Just honest. I tell it how it is. And this . . .’ I point to my face and look to the audience. ‘Is pretty fucking special.’
I then pick up my chopsticks and grab a piece of sushi, as if I’ve done nothing out of the ordinary.
It works. They go into overdrive, apologizing into camera as the audience boos, guffaws and gasps, almost in tears over my use of bad language before the watershed. Packed lunch boxes tumble to the floor as agitated ugly people jump up to wave their fists at me. Perfect. I look unrepentant. I am unrepentant. I know I have secured my YouTube moment. I look into the audience and see Ross skulking at the back. He winks. Job done.
You see, this is why they hire me, these two-bit chat shows. This is why they pay me between five grand and ten grand a pop for turning up. They want controversy. They want people at water coolers up and down the country to be talking about their crappy little shows and saying, ‘Oh, what? You didn’t see her? That vile bitch Jocelyn was on and she swore. Oh, it was so funny. You should’ve seen Joanne and Joolz’s faces. They were a picture. Have a look on YouTube. I think Lunchbreak might’ve tweeted the clip actually.’ And then they get more traffic to their website, and somewhere in their tiny minds they hope that more people will tune in next time just in case it happens again. They claim not to like me, these television producers, but the truth is, they need me. Sometimes I am their only hope to get a mention in Heat magazine. I know my value in the world, and it’s four simple words:
I give good headline.
The interview continues for another five minutes, but I don’t bother saying anything controversial again – that ship has passed. I babble on, reasonably intelligently, about how television is a visual medium and that is why we want to be visually appeased, and not see a load of fat boilers with faces like bags of spanners talking to us from the corner of our living rooms. We get enough of that in real life, thank you very much. It’s the same reason we want to see clothes looking good in the fashion world by hanging them on walking pencils. We see enough normal-sized women squeezed like toothpaste tubes into narrow garments in the real world. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But television isn’t the real world.
Joanne and Joolz start doing this sort of homeboy thing with their hands and going on about keeping it real and soon it’s time to go to a commercial break. They know I’ve given good value and shake my hand effusively before a runner whisks me off set as the audience – gosh, it’s getting tedious now – boos me. I slip them the finger and then head off set.
The runner hurries me back down a brightly lit corridor to the green room, where the other guests are waiting to go on – someone from Doctors and a ‘zany’ chef – neither of them can look me in the eye. I grab my coat and turn to go without acknowledging them. What is their problem? Do they hate me? Or is the real reason they can’t lower themselves to smile that they realize I have stolen their thunder? No-one will be talking about their appearances on this tawdry little show, only mine. As I head into the corridor, I hear a runner screaming at them, ‘WHICH ONE OF YOU WANTED COUSCOUS?!’
I’m pleased to see Ross is here, and he takes me by the arm.
‘I’ll take over from here,’ he snaps at a woman with a clipboard and walkie-talkie, and we head to the exit.
‘Good work, Princess. Good work,’ he hums in my ear, like a mantra, ‘Number one trending topic in the country as of this minute? The General Election? No. Jocelyn fucking Jones. Back o’ the net!’
I say nothing, just smile. As I said. Job done.
The walls are covered with massive, brightly coloured photos of daytime television stars past and present. Every single one of them looks like a parody of themselves.
Oh, how apt!
‘And now,’ coos Ross, ‘curtain up for . . . the second act.’
I nod. I know what’s coming. I feel a mixture of nerves and excitement, but cover them well. A security guard opens a door for us, and as we head into the sunlight a wall of noise hits me. My car is waiting and Ross opens the door for me, but I stop to give a wave to the braying crowd beyond it.
‘EVIL BITCH!’ someone shouts.
‘FUCKING SNOB!’ calls another.
‘CUNT!’
To which I call back, ‘Your mother would be proud!’
And as I do, an egg flies out from the crowd and hits me square in the face. Before I can show any signs of a reaction, Ross shoves me onto the back seat of the car. As the door shuts and the car pulls away, I hear a huge cheer going up. Ross passes me a hand mirror and some wet wipes. I see the driver eyeing me suspiciously through the rear-view mirror.
‘Hazard of the job,’ I smile to him, as if I am always getting egged.
I check my face in the mirror and am furious to see that I have egg yolk in my weave. I do what I can with the wet wipes and see that Ross is punching his fingers on the screen of his phone.
‘What am I saying?’ I ask. Ross writes a lot of my tweets for me. It’s all about protecting the brand.
He clears his throat. ‘First tweet: “Whoever egged me just then. Good aim. #militaryprecision”.’
I nod.
‘Second tweet: “and thank you. Egg is so kind to the skin. #freefacepack”.’
I nod again.
As we sail through central London, I wonder if my family back in Liverpool might have seen the show. I wonder what they’d make of me now. All my mother ever wanted was for me to be a cut above. She sent me to elocution lessons, for God’s sake. Well, there’s not a hint of Scouse in my voice now. I have erased my accent, just as I have erased the past. And it was all so easy to do! I am cool, calm, collected. Public school if ever you saw it. A black woman with privilege? Now that’s what I call reinvention!
The driver has the car radio on. The Lib Dems have been annihilated in the General Election and Labo
ur have more egg on their face than me. Voice after voice fills the car, bleating on about how amazing or catastrophic this landslide is. As we hit the Westway, Mark Reynolds comes on, self-appointed mouthpiece for the Labour Party.
‘The way I see it,’ he says, ‘the Labour party and Ed Miliband in particular need to be taking a long, hard look at themselves in the mirror today.’
In a heartbeat I’m back there. In the organ loft. Lying in Mark’s arms. As emotions I’ve long since buried bubble up inside me, I try to quash them.
‘Excuse me, could we have the radio off please? Thank you.’
The driver dutifully snaps the radio off. Ross looks at me. I look out of the window. Ross returns to jabbing at his phone.
By the time the car arrives at Trellick Tower, a video of me being egged has gone viral and I’ve been retweeted 1,457 times. Ross is already fielding calls for offers to appear on more shows tomorrow. Result.
All in a day’s work. Although I do say to Ross in the lift, ‘Next time, tell Finty not to get it in my weave.’
When we get in I squeeze out of my borrowed dress and hand it to Ross to return to his contact. It’s clear that he wants sex. He’s always like this when I’ve gone viral, but today I send him away with a flea in his boxers as I have a weave to rescue. He leaves cursing Finty’s poor aim, huffing and puffing under his breath about what trouble that girl is in. I enjoy how fickle he can be; he’s been singing her praises most of the way home about what a good little girl she is. And considering I’m convinced he fancies the pants off her, I find it curious that a grown man can describe the object of his lust as a ‘girl’. He says he’s going to the designer’s, but warns me he’ll be back in an hour. With ‘her’. He’s got a pitch for me.
‘It was Finty’s idea, actually. It’s a cracker.’
The History of Us Page 16
