by Unknown
‘Oh wow!’ I pounce on the boxes, flinging the lids aside like toffee wrappers, diving on the shoes, all carefully cosseted in tissue. Christian Louboutin, Kurt Geiger and Jimmy Choo heels, Escada pumps and Pied A Terre boots. Opium for shoe-holics.
I check the sizes. Everything is my size; top, bottoms, even shoes. I pounce on the frilly underwear; even the bra size is spot on.
‘How did you know my sizes?’ I gasp, amazed at the plethora of goodies at my feet.
‘Saadi knows how to find out about that sort of stuff. She probably asked your friends.’
‘Did she pick these out for me? She has exquisite taste.’ I hold up a jade wrap dress and look at myself in the mirror. Just my colour.
‘No. More likely one of Saadi’s assistants or someone at the store.’
‘How many assistants does Saadi have?’
‘Not certain. Two at least, maybe three.’
My fiancé’s assistant has assistants – two or three of them. This is off the scale. I can barely comprehend. I pull from the rail a pair of Diesel jeans and a pristine Agnès B T-shirt; mentally I toss away my high-street-purchased wardrobe at home. Once loved, all now seem slightly greying and fraying.
‘I’ll want to collect my photo albums and books from the flat though. And my pink Roberts radio. I love it. Mum and Dad bought me it last Christmas.’
‘Yeah, I like those too. I think I have one or two.’
‘In pink?’
‘No. I have a cream one, a powder blue one and Paul Smith did me a customized stripy one. But we can get you a pink one, no problem.’
‘Like I said, I have one. I just need to pick it up.’
He looks at me quizzically. Obviously in Scott’s world it’s easier to buy new rather than go to the effort of retrieving an old anything. ‘Fair enough. We do need to go back to your flat for your passport so we could pick up your other stuff then.’
‘Passport?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, I was originally planning on flying out today but I guess we need to hold off a few days. I want to meet your ma and pa. And I want you to meet my mum but we have to be in LA by Friday latest. I’ve got to be in the studio by then.’
‘LA?’
‘That’s where I live.’
Oh, yes. He does, doesn’t he. I’d forgotten that. I remember reading about it in one of my gossipy mags some months back. Scottie found the press intrusion into his life unbearable here in the UK and so he took flight. Most enormous British A-listers end up living in LA because the Americans like success, whereas we British hate it or at least are so cripplingly jealous of it we feel an animalistic desire to destroy anyone who has achieved it.
I’ve never been to LA. To be frank, I haven’t been anywhere much. A few clubbing holidays to Ibiza and Greece when I was in my late teens and early twenties. Adam and I went to Edinburgh for a long weekend last year. I went with him to a gig in Hamburg once but it wasn’t what you’d call a holiday; he was working and I almost drowned in the constant sheets of rain. Plus I developed a visual intolerance (bordering on repugnance) to frankfurters; seriously, I threatened that if I saw just one more I’d use it to batter Adam to death.
We kept talking about going to Paris but we never did.
LA is year-round sunshine, mountains and beaches, white teeth, tanned bodies and a load of shops. What’s not to love? OK, so there’s more than a bit of Botox; still, I can see myself living there. Yes. Why not? I take a deep breath.
‘Can you send someone to pick up my passport and things, if I make a list? I don’t want to go back into London.’
Scott grins at me. ‘You’re getting the hang of this rich and shameless thing, aren’t you? Sure we can send someone to pick up your stuff, but as for your ma and pa, that we are going to have to do in person.’
33. Fern
Yes, my ma and pa, as he calls them.
On the one hand I’d like to believe that my mum and dad are going to be thrilled at my enormous good fortune, and yet I can’t help but feel nervous they might not be quite as ecstatic as I’d like them to be; after all, Jess and Lisa haven’t exactly bowled me over with their enthusiasm for my whirlwind romance. I tried to call both of them this morning but Lisa’s phone went straight to voicemail (suggesting she was on the nursery school run and couldn’t pick up) and Jess had her phone switched off. Ben’s been the most supportive, even though he was with the cranial osteopath and couldn’t talk for long. He isn’t ill or injured, he just fancies the practitioner and makes up aches and pains every month. He had time to tease me about not working out my notice and told me to enjoy the ride; he then laughed in an especially mucky way which left little to the imagination in terms of which ride he was referring to.
But my parents?
Scott is keen for us to visit each other’s parents as soon as. I say I’d rather put in a call and visit in a few weeks. After all, we haven’t had that much time to ourselves yet (three and a half days and counting). Mark says meeting the parents is a PR opportunity and has to be managed with great care; we shouldn’t rush things, and while I don’t see meeting my future mum-in-law as a ‘PR opportunity’ I am grateful for the delay, which feels horribly like a stay of execution. Scott and his mum are reportedly very close. What will she make of his impulsive proposal?
‘OK, my fabulous Fern, if that’s what you want, I can roll with that but you ought to call your folks before the papers do.’ Scott tosses my mobile at me. Although he’s only a couple of feet away, I don’t manage to catch it coolly with one hand, instead I drop it and have to scrabble on the floor to pick it up. He grins indulgently, delighted even with my gaucheness. ‘I’ll give you some space.’
I don’t want space, I want sex. I can’t take my eyes off his butt as he leaves the room. I’m consumed with the thought of it naked and honest, framed between my clinging thighs. Oh. My. God. He’s lust on legs. It’s horribly frustrating that Scott and I have yet to make love; I’d much rather do that than call my parents. If only we could get a moment alone; it never seems to happen. Still, I guess Scott’s right, I can’t let a tabloid journo break this news to my relatives. The thought of my parents dampens the lusty fire in my mind; suddenly I’m consumed with quite a different sort of giddiness.
Why am I so nervous about calling them? They’ll be thrilled, won’t they? Of course they will.
The phone rings about eight times before anyone picks up. I’d told myself I’d allow it to ring ten times before I gave up. In fact, I know that my parents are always losing the handset and when the phone rings, general panic ensues in their home as they turn the place upside down in a desperate bid at rediscovery.
‘Hello.’ My father sounds breathless. Why, I’m unsure. They’ve lived in the same small three-bedroom house for forty years, how can searching a tiny, familiar place result in breathlessness?
‘Hi Dad, it’s me.’
‘I’ll get your mother.’ So far so good. Situation normal.
‘Hello love,’ says my mum. ‘Did you have a nice birthday? I’ve been meaning to ring you to ask if you got our card, there was a tenner in it. Did you get it? You can’t be too sure when you send money through the post, can you? I was reading something in the Daily Mail the other week and it said that certain disreputable postmen target birthday cards and steal them because they often have money in them. That’s why I wrapped your tenner in a piece of paper and then put your card in a brown envelope. No postman is going to spot that. Anyway I was intending to call but Mrs Cooper –’ She pauses for a nanosecond to see whether I interject with the token grunt that will suggest I have a clue who Mrs Cooper is. I don’t grunt in time so she launches on. ‘You remember. Her from up the road who was married to the smiley bald man with glasses but he had a heart attack last Hallowe’en. Tragic. Well, she invited me over to look at her holiday photos. She’s been on a world cruise. Can you imagine? A singles holiday at her age! Mind, I’m not knocking it, she looks marvellous. But she had album after album to get through and she’s
such a chatty sort I couldn’t get a word in edgeways. So I’m glad you called. But I would have got round to it as soon as I’d finished with the ironing and wormed the dog –’
‘Mum, I’m engaged.’
‘Well, I’m speechless!’
This is a lie. Because no sooner does she mutter that sentiment than she starts to yell to my dad. ‘Ray, Ray, our Fern and Adam are getting married. He’s popped the question. At last.’
‘No, er, Mum, that’s not right actually. Adam didn’t pop the question,’ I interject desperately.
‘Oh my God, Ray. She’s gone all modern on us. Our Fern asked Adam and it’s not even a leap year.’
‘No, Mum. That’s not what I’m saying.’ I’m almost yelling in my effort to be heard above her excitement.
‘But you are engaged?’ she asks suspiciously.
‘Yes. But not to Adam,’ I say at last.
Now she is speechless.
Eventually she mutters, ‘Then who?’
‘Scottie Taylor.’
‘I, I, I know the name.’ My mum stutters, confused and unsure. ‘Did you go to school with him?’
‘No.’
‘To college?’
‘No.’
‘Well, who the hell is this lad you are engaged to?’ she questions.
‘Scottie Taylor, the pop star.’
‘Stop being a silly sod.’
‘I’m not,’ I insist.
The longest silence in our relationship follows and is brought to a close when Mum finally says, ‘Talk to your father.’
I hear bewildered and angry snarls pass between the two but this isn’t odd. Devoted as they are to one another, they haven’t swapped a pleasant word for over ten years. I don’t need to assume that my parents’ bewilderment or anger is necessarily anything to do with the news I’ve just delivered. It might be that Mum has completed Dad’s crossword – thus cheating him out of the satisfaction of entering the final letters – or it might be that Dad has hung the washing out in a way that does not meet Mum’s exacting standards.
‘What’s all this bloody nonsense about you being engaged to a pop star?’ demands Dad.
Or it might be my news.
I convince Dad that I’m serious. I refer him to his paper (he takes the Mail every day of his life; he swears it’s just for the crossword) and I explain as best I can the circumstances of the proposal.
‘So you’ve been carrying on with this Scottie fella behind Adam’s back for a while now, have you?’ asks Dad, not bothering to hide his disapproval.
‘No!’ I assure him. ‘I only met Scott on Friday.’
‘Last Friday?’
‘Yes.’
‘Stop being bloody soft.’ I consider, should I fess up to an affair I haven’t had? I’m sensing that my dad would understand that better than a whirlwind romance. ‘Have you not heard of the saying “Marry in haste, repent at leisure”?’
‘Well, yes, but I love Scott.’
‘You don’t know him. You live with Adam. Better the devil you know, I always say.’
‘Dad, I’m thirty. Adam was never going to ask me to marry him.’
‘Two wrongs don’t make a right.’ Dad is fond of quoting idioms. Until now, I’ve never noticed how fond.
‘He’s a multi-millionaire.’ I’m hoping this will impress my dad or at least reassure him that I’ll be looked after.
‘Aye well, a fool and his money are soon parted.’ I’m struggling to comprehend the relevancy of this particular idiom; I suspect my dad was just on a roll and it’s not, in fact, relevant at all. ‘Your mother is hyperventilating. I have to go. We’ll talk about this later, Madam.’
I seriously doubt we will. When you have five kids a policy on non-interference has to be followed in order to keep sane. In fact, when we were teenagers, it wasn’t unknown for my parents to lock themselves in their bedroom by way of disciplining us.
My father hangs up just as Scottie pops his head around the door.
‘How did telling your folks go?’ he asks.
‘Good,’ I smile. ‘They’re delighted,’ I add. Although I have the decency to cross my fingers. There is no point in upsetting him by saying their reaction was one of disbelief and hysteria. ‘You?’
‘Yeah, great.’ He nods and smiles enthusiastically, a little like one of those toy puppies that you see sitting in the back window of a Ford Escort. He’s lying too, no doubt. ‘I think, on reflection, there’s no need for us to dash off to Hull at short notice. Better that we get to LA and then we’ll fly the parents out for a longer more relaxed introduction, in a week or two. Like you said.’
‘Fine by me,’ I smile, happy to put that off for a while. Now, about the sex…
34. Scott
My mother has to be scraped off the ceiling; she maintains that this hasty engagement is the most stupid, stupid thing I have ever done out of the many, many, many stupid things she has to choose from.
‘Is she pregnant?’
Since I was thirteen my mum has been scared the answer to this question would be yes. Then, once I turned thirty, she hoped it would be.
‘No, Ma, she’s not.’
‘Oh.’ I can hear her disappointment. ‘Well, what’s the bloody rush then?’
If Fern had been pregnant my mum would have given her some grudging respect as the mother-to-be of her grandchild; she would have approved of the speedy engagement. My mum is big into lads ‘doing the right thing’, which in her book is marrying the woman they casually and carelessly shagged, as opposed to avoiding a pregnancy in the first place. She accepts that sex is a rush and a fact. An unstoppable force. My mum’s philosophy is based on the fact that she was four months gone when she and Dad tied the knot and that didn’t turn out too badly, except for the divorce and everything. As Fern is not pregnant, Mum will assume Fern is a flighty gold-digger and ‘no better than she ought to be’. I know, her reasoning is flawed, but hey, she’s my mum. Fern is not a gold-digger, I’ve met enough of those to be able to smell their sweat a mile away.
‘Everything resonates between us. We rhyme,’ I say. ‘Fern’s going to be so good for my music. She’s inspiring.’
I’m so fired up with ideas for songs that I’m jotting stuff on the back of fag packets and old newspapers that I find lying around; I even scribbled something on the hotel wallpaper this morning. It’s great. It’s a forlorn space, the place that’s left where ideas used to be made. It’s like a bed where love used to be made. Fern can fill that. I’m sure of it.
‘Three days, you say. You met her three days ago!’ The disbelief is biting at my mum’s throat; I hope it doesn’t choke her. ‘Some would say it was a bloody silly thing to do to ask someone to marry you after just three days,’ she says huffily.
‘Why?’
‘She might’ve said no.’
‘But that’s unlikely.’
‘It’s too quick. You don’t know her,’ she says, stating the obvious. ‘She doesn’t know you,’ she adds with more alarm, voicing that which only she or I might worry about. Some say I’m a moulded pop product. Others say I’m a god. It’s become difficult for us to know for sure.
‘No one ever knows anyone anyway. At least this way we’ll have plenty to talk about over the next fifty years.’ Jokingly, I dismiss my mother’s fears.
She’ll calm down. My mum likes to pretend she’s oblivious to my famous charm but in fact I honed my skills on her. Besides, it’s not my mum who tells me what to do any more; it hasn’t been since I was about six. Mark is happy with the engagement and my fans are too, now. The hype about the wedding is already growing; it’s going to be cataclysmic. Right on plan. It appears I can do anything I want, as long as I don’t grow up.
‘Mum, somewhere along the line I lost the luxury of just being liked for who I am. And maybe that’s no bad thing, because I’m not that likeable and if all I had to offer was me, naked, then who’s to say anyone would want to hang out with me?’ My mother sighs but doesn’t comment. ‘I’m imposs
ibly cool and I mean that literally. It’s impossible to be as cool as they want me to be and I’m exhausted trying. Then along came Fern. Fern likes me for who I am.’
My mum is not a romantic. She’s been in love too often for that to be possible. Grimly she holds on to her anger and disapproval. ‘Your problem is you’ve had such a splendid life that now you’ve become fascinated with the mundane. That’s all that’s left.’
I would argue, but she might have a point. What do I know? My mum worries about my success but then, if I was a failure, that would worry her too. She’s one of the few who understands that if I’d never made it big it would have been good and bad in equal parts. Bad because I was born to be big. Convinced that I was a huge talent, that needed to find the light, she knows I would have died in the attempt to become great. But then, she knows I might die in the act of being great.
If I’d stayed in Hull I’d have been a cheeky rascal womanizer, with a few women crying after me and maybe an illegitimate kid I’d chosen to stand by. But now. Now, after this enormous and overwhelming unprecedented success, my influence has stretched too far. My opportunity to break hearts is too wide. There isn’t a hole out there that isn’t prepared to welcome me. Maybe my mum is thinking along the same lines, because she adds grudgingly, ‘Well, I hope this Fern is firm with you. You need to hear “no” more often.’
‘You’ll meet her soon.’
‘When?’ Her curiosity can’t be crushed.
‘In LA.’
‘LA,’ my mum says with a tut.
Many Europeans are fucking snobby about LA because there aren’t any ancient coliseums or lofty spires. They dismiss it as flimsy, gaudy and tawdry, but still, everyone seems to find the place irresistible. Funny that. I think LA is a little like a big plate of microwave lasagne; empty calories but tasty. The trick is not to gorge yourself, not to eat the whole thing – believe the whole thing – because you’ll be left feeling sick. It’s true there’s a fair share of neon and plastic and broken dreams – I see them from my limo if I look hard enough – but there’s splendour and excitement and magic there too.
