by Shari Low
In the most touching act of love since Red got three speeding tickets trying to make it to the hospital for the results of my lymph node biopsy, my sister-in-law, the diehard boozer, hadn’t touched a drink since the day we checked out of the hotel.
It had taken us a while to notice because to be honest, as witnessed by the obnoxious superstar diva, she was just as outrageous when she was sober as she was when she was pissed. Also, she didn’t make a big deal out of it. She just quietly came to terms with the fact that if she carried on drinking the way that she always had, then Cassie could be faced with the possibility of losing two people that she loved far sooner than she should. She’d locked up the metaphorical drinks cabinet and thrown away the key. In news that wasn’t of course in any way connected to the fact that they didn’t have to give her free drinks any more, the Carriage Club had just reported record profits over the last twelve-month period.
Miraculously, abstinence had also brought out her long lost maternal side. Yes, she now had a miniature shih-tzu that went everywhere with her in a Louis Vuitton case.
Suddenly, Josie rushed into the room in a fairly accurate reconstruction of my entrance. There was no getting around genetics.
‘Have I missed anything? Has it . . . for Christ’s sake, Ginger, I can almost see your kidneys!’
Ginger wriggled her pelmet-length skirt down a couple of centimetres. On any other forty-year-old woman, I’d have said it was indecent. On Ginger it looked spectacular. Although, there was no doubt now that Josie would walk directly behind her to prevent passers-by getting a flash of her buttocks.
‘Is it always like this?’ the dark-haired guy sitting next to Lizzy asked with just an edge of fear in his voice. Yes, Lizzy had a man. And not just any man. No, it wasn’t Doctor Callaghan – much to my disgust, he claimed it breached medical ethics to allow me to set him up on a date with my pal.
Nor was it the very funny warehouse manager that I’d taken home to meet her after he’d walked into the salon for a cut and blow-dry. Or the cute joiner that had come to fix my warped back door and been sent straight round to Lizzy’s, with express authorisation to ask her out if he fancied her, in the hope that she’d say yes, they’d fall madly in love and live happily ever after in a home with superior woodwork. He did. She didn’t. They never would.
Over on the black leather sofa, Lizzy turned to her recently acquired boyfriend and grinned. ‘Your brother is married to my ex-husband and you’re now seeing the woman who had a baby for them and you think this lot are a bit unusual?’
Yes, Lizzy’s boyfriend was Alex’s brother John, recently returned to this country after being posted abroad with the navy for the last ten years. They’d met at Alex’s birthday party last month and hit it off immediately. She claimed she’d not yet asked him to wear his white uniform and sweep her off her feet but given the way she was looking at him, I wasn’t so sure.
Life was good. Life was so, so good and sitting in the green room of a Glasgow television studio I felt an overwhelming surge of happiness. Elation. Gratitude. Right now, there was nothing that could make a dent in this joyous state of unadulterated bliss.
‘Miss Jones?’ I automatically looked up, before realising that the young girl with the clipboard and earpiece standing at the door was talking to Ginger. In typical Ginger style, she hadn’t changed her name when she married Ike, so we both had the same surname.
‘We’re just about ready to go, so if you could follow me please.’
Ginger pulled herself out of her chair and stood up, ignoring Josie, who was holding her cardigan up so that it covered Miss Jones’ crotch area.
If any of the television producers in this building were looking for inspiration for their next sitcom, this sixty-something, caramel-log-loving ninja would be a great place to start.
‘Your friends can either wait here and watch the show on that monitor, or there’s room for one or two of them at the side of the stage.’
I was on my feet beside her before you could say ‘pushy pal’. What was the point of having a best friend who was an international celebrity if you didn’t get to witness the glamorous, exciting stuff first hand?
‘Is it safe to leave you here with this lot for half an hour?’ Lizzy asked John with a teasing smile.
He put on an admirable show of bravado. ‘Lizzy, I’ve taken on the Taliban. I think I might just make it through this.’
We decided not to point out that he’d just broken into a sweat.
We were shown to our places, where we watched the little girl from Weirbank with the massive shrub of bright red hair, spend half an hour being so indiscreet, funny and completely irreverent that the audience were in stitches from beginning to end.
Just when Jack Jardine, the presenter, was winding up, Lizzy slipped her arm around my waist and gave me a squeeze.
‘This is so brilliant,’ she said with a moist glint in her eye. ‘I’m happy, Ginger’s doing great, and you’re . . . you’re . . .’ I felt her hand curl around my hip and pause when it came into contact with my stomach. Then move up. Then down. Then across one way. Then back. Then . . . ‘. . . pregnant! You’ve either swallowed a very large pie or you’re up the duff again.’
I thought I’d disguised it with my flowing tunic and waterfall-style cardi, but I hadn’t reckoned on my inappropriately tactile pal.
‘Pregnant,’ I whispered, gleefully. ‘But don’t say anything because this is Ginger’s night and we’re going to announce it at the weekend after our next scan. The docs say everything looks fine though, and there’s absolutely no reason for us not to have ten more. Apart from the fact that Red would leave me for a supermodel because I’d be surgically attached to the washing machine.’
‘Oh, Lou.’ Lizzy hugged me. ‘That’s the most amazing news ever. I’m so happy for you.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen, a huge round of applause for the absolutely bloody marvellous Ginger Jones.’ Jack Jardine got to his feet and kissed Ginger on the cheek before waving her off stage. We reached out to envelop her in our cosy little hug-in but she reacted like we’d just told her we had fleas. Public displays of affection would never be her thing.
‘And now ladies and gentlemen, another star of the music industry who hails from this part of the world.’ Jardine was lining up the next guest.
‘Shall we go or stay and watch?’ Lizzy asked and was met with simultaneous shrugs.
‘I don’t mind,’ I said. ‘Do we have any idea who it is?’
Jack Jardine was cranking up the hype. ‘He’d loud, he’s proud, back in the nineties he had hit records all over the world and had ten – count them, ten – number one singles,’ he continued. ‘And now he’s still racking up the hits as one of the most successful producers in the charts today . . .’
Oh no,’ Ginger murmured, before spinning around, grabbing Lizzy’s arm and mine, and taking a step towards the exit.
I stood my ground and refused to be moved. ‘What is it? What’s the problem? Who is . . . ?’
‘Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s Glasgow’s very own indie hero, Mr. Gary. Collins!’
‘Fuck. Fuckety fuck,’ I mumbled.
Right on cue, with the young girl with the clipboard and what looked like an agent of some kind leading the way, Gary Collins, wearing a suave black suit over a charcoal shirt, materialised through the door directly in front of us and strutted in our direction.
‘Against the wall! Against the wall!’ Ginger hissed, trying to move us out of his direct path. ‘The injunction is off my record now and I don’t want another one.’
All those years ago, after she tipped a bucket on his head in front of a live audience at an awards show, his lawyers had shot off a warning that if she came within a hundred feet of him she’d be shot. Or something like that.
Now, faced with the man who publicly humiliated me more than two decades before, I just wanted to disappear, to be anywhere but here. I’d lost my virginity to him and he’d repaid me with a large dose of melodic p
ublic humiliation. I began to feel an ache in the scars left by those teenage wounds.
I allowed Lizzy to pull me into the wings, into a dark enough shadow that, in the flurry of activity going on around him, he’d never notice we were there. He’d just walk right on by. Right. On. By.
‘Gary Collins?’
Who was that? Who was speaking to him?
Noooooooooooo. It was me.
‘Oh fuck,’ Ginger muttered as she realised it was too late to reign me back in.
Clipboard girl looked terrified, while the agent went on the offensive and moved forward to push me out of the way.
‘Don’t. You. Dare.’ Crap, why was I using the tone that I usually only reserved for school bullies and the bloke down the road that kept nicking my wheelie bin?
Gary Collins, the former love of my life, stepped into the full light and squinted a little as he stared at me, clearly trying to work out how he knew me.
‘Gary, we really need to move,’ the agent told him.
Gary swatted the words away. ‘It’s OK, it’s recorded. They can do it again in a minute.’
Wow, Mr. Big Shot. What must it be like to know that you can keep a whole TV show waiting until you decide to honour them with your presence?
‘Lou, I . . .’
Now it was my turn to swat away Lizzy’s interruption.
But it was too late – something in Gary Collin’s memory clearly made a connection.
‘Lou? Lou Cairney? Oh my God, Lou Cairney?’
Hold on, this was unexpected. Yes, he looked incredulous but he also looked strangely pleased to see me. ‘Wow, you still look . . . I mean, you’re still gorgeous!’
Still gorgeous. Right then. So I may well have been gorgeous back then but that didn’t stop him telling the whole world that I had the sexual skills of a concrete slab.
And no, I would not admit that he was still the best-looking guy that I’d ever seen. I wouldn’t. Definitely not.
‘What are you doing here?’
Ginger stepped forward and I gained a slight satisfaction from seeing him register her presence and flinch.
‘I’m here with Ginger. I’m married to her brother, Red. He was in your year at school.’
You see, I’m married, said the voice in my head. A man had sex with me and liked it so much that he actually married me. And he says I’m good at it. And we do it all the time. In fact we do it so often that I’m pregnant right now. Yep, right now. So stick that in your pop star pipe and smoke it, you big prick.
‘Yeah, yeah, I remember him,’ he answered in a voice that made it completely obvious that he didn’t. I felt Ginger tense up beside me as he kept right on talking. ‘So listen, I’m up here for a few nights – do you fancy hanging around and we can go for a drink afterwards? It would be great to catch up again and you know . . .’
You know what? What the fuck was he talking about? Did he not hear me say that I was married? Did he not remember that he made a whole fucking career out of mortifying me? Did he seriously think he could just flash that perfect, chiselled, designed-by-the-angels face and I’d just melt into his arms? Did he? Is that what he thought of me?
‘Or how about we do something a little different?’ I purred, to his clear delight. ‘How about something a little more . . . physical.’
‘Now you’re talking,’ he flirted back.
‘I was thinking I could just . . .’
Fifty-six
The three of us trooped back into the green room in silence, and were met with a solid wall of open-mouthed astonishment. Eventually, it came down to my ever-bold daughter to speak up first.
‘Mum,’ she said, her tone that of someone using extreme caution. ‘Did you just punch Gary Collins in the face?’
‘How did you know?’
Every head in the room swivelled towards the screen, where Jack Jardine was keeping the audience going with babbling chat while they continued to await the arrival of the next big star.
‘There was a camera following him as he approached the stage. It caught everything,’ Red clarified.
Oh crap, he must be furious. He was probably already calculating how much he’d need to pay me in child support if he packed up and took off right now.
‘The conversation too?’ I asked warily.
Everyone nodded. Bloody hell, what kind of woman was I? I’d spent my whole life avoiding being the centre of attention and now here I was, in front of a god-forsaken camera crew, losing the plot and decking one of the biggest celebrities of our generation.
‘Red, I’m so sorry. Really, I didn’t mean to do it, I just . . .’
‘Sorry?’ He got to his feet and walked towards me. ‘Lou Jones, you are the most magnificent woman I have ever known.’
The drum roll started with Josie’s feet and gathered pace around the room. It even almost drowned out John muttering something about being safer with the Taliban.
Red leaned down and kissed me hard and long.
Right on cue, Ginger spoke up. ‘Will you two stop that?’
‘I know, I know – you hate the whole PDA thing,’ Red groaned.
‘No, it’s not that,’ she argued. ‘It’s just that security said if we’re not out of here in ten minutes, they’re calling the police.’
‘Our house? A little celebration?’ I shouted to our extended brood.
‘Celebration of what?’ Cassie asked.
I ruffled her hair. ‘Just everything, love. Let’s just celebrate every single thing.’
THE END
