by Jenny Colgan
‘Tashy, we have to—’
‘I know. Don’t worry.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve already spoken to John Clelland. I have never heard a man panic so much in my entire life.’
‘He called you about me?’
‘No, he called Ghostbusters. Yes, of course he called me. Or rather he called my mum and left a very frantic message. He thought he was cracking up.’
‘Wow. He remembered me.’
I think to have met Clelland again and then been wiped from his memory circuits for ever would have been more than I could have borne.
‘After all this time. You know, he hasn’t seen me yet, not till the wedding. And he still recognised me! That’s amazing.’
‘Yes, yes, my wedding, the wedding, blah blah blah. Anyway, he called. Apparently when Justin told him your name he started to gibber. He wondered if you’d died recently. Do you know, I’m getting quite nonchalant at explaining it now.’
‘How did he take it?’
‘He suggested we both required medication. And he wants to see you.’
My heart leaped. ‘I may … Um, maybe I should go see him to explain things.’
There was a pause.
‘To explain things?’ Tashy sounded suspicious. ‘Are you going to wear a Britney Spears top that shows off your perfectly flat tummy?’
‘It depends on whether I feel the situation requires it.’
‘Flora.’
‘Uh-huh?’
‘There is someone you really have to see, and it’s not Clelland.’
I knew that. It was stupid, stupid, stupid. I was in a ridiculous situation, and pining after someone from a long time ago wasn’t going to help anything.
‘I know,’ I said.
‘Call him. Sort it out. Then decide what you’re going to do. Then sort your life out. Then make everything right again. Then make sure everything is good for my wedding. Then you’re allowed to worry about John Clelland.’
The noise of a frying pan hitting the wall came up the stairs.
I tentatively crept downstairs; I needed to use the house phone. I couldn’t afford to keep my mobile in minutes. My parents immediately jumped apart, then arranged their faces into ghastly intimations of being pleased to see me.
‘Aren’t you getting ready, darling?’ said my mother. ‘I thought you’d have been more excited.’
‘Excited about what?’ I said.
‘Oh, you teenagers!’ said my mother, as we all ignored a big dented frying pan in the middle of the kitchen floor. ‘Ha-ha.’
The doorbell rang. My mum answered it, and Constanzia burst in in a whirl of black curls with a tiny shredded fishnet lace top thing on.
‘Did your mother let you out the house like that?’ said my mother.
‘No, Mrs S.’ Stanzi held up a bag. ‘I’ve got a jumper in here. That’s what I was wearing when I left.’
‘Well, you’ll need it. You’ll catch your death.’
Stanzi looked at me in horror. ‘You not ready? You want, what? A white dressing room with lilies, like Jennifer Lopez?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, desperately stalling for time. What on earth was she talking about? I already had too much in my head. God, I had to see Ol. ‘Want to come and help me get ready?’
‘But we’ve got to get there early! To get down the front!’ Stanzi’s face was a picture of frustration.
‘I know. I’ll be quick, I promise.’
‘Mrs S, can you make her hurry up?’
‘I’m afraid I thought the fact that Darvel was waiting for you would be enough.’
‘Darius, Mrs S,’ she tutted. ‘It’s Persian. He’s descended from a long line of kings. And doctors. It’s a very good combination.’
‘We’re going to see Darius?’ I exclaimed, before I could help myself.
‘Well, yeeaahhh,’ said Stanzi. ‘I thought for a moment you’d forgotten.’
I was swept up in Stanzi world and I let myself get carried along. Music was easier, at the moment, than thinking about anything else.
I’d forgotten what gigs were like, I really had. A gig to me is somewhere, probably seated, melodic folk rock. You turn up late, miss the support, get yourself a gin and tonic and settle back for some mellow enjoyment and try not to let your boyfriend tapping out of tune annoy you so much.
That’s not gigging. This was gigging. I larded on Sophie Ellis Bextor-style makeup (‘Wow, you’ve got really good at putting on makeup,’ said Stanzi), and wore a push-up bra (my breasts really were still practically nonexistent) and a little pink tanktop with a slashed V at the top, then a little denim miniskirt. I twirled in the mirror. I looked like my fantasy self, my best-looking self, the one I had to scrunch up my face to see. Why, then, was my diary full of complaints and moans?
‘You think you are very beautiful, huh?’ said Stanzi.
‘Yup,’ I said.
‘You going to get off with Darius?’
‘I’m going to turn him down.’
We both giggled.
‘Are you lovely ladies finished in there?’ came my dad’s voice. ‘Because there’s a pop star who won’t stop calling the house and begging you two to come to his concert.’
‘It’s not a concert, Mr S,’ said Stanzi, opening the door. ‘It’s a gig.’
My dad laughed.
‘He’ll only be bloody miming, won’t he? It’s not even a show. Maybe you should just stay home and watch the video.’
Stanzi’s face was suddenly aflame.
‘That is NOT TRUE. Darius sings and writes all his own songs. And we’re going to be his fans for ever.’
‘He’s only teasing you,’ I said, hitting her lightly on the shoulder. ‘And it doesn’t really matter. As long as we like him, that’s all that counts.’
‘Good God, Joyce, our Flora just said something sensible.’ He looked at my mother with a ‘can-we-make-up?’ expression, comically scratching his head. My mother looked through him as if he hadn’t said anything. I wanted to shout at her: ‘MUM! You don’t know what he’s going to do.’
‘Please, Joyce’ he said. ‘Could you cut it? Just for tonight? It’s the girls’ big night.’
Stanzi and I looked at each other and shuffled our feet.
‘Yeah, stop it, you two,’ I said.
‘OK, OK,’ said my mum. ‘Have fun, everyone.’
‘Stop it, everyone!’ commanded Stanzi. ‘If we don’t go now I’m going to DIE.’
Any thoughts I might have had about being a tad underdressed were dispelled when we got to Earls Court. There had to be five thousand teenage minxes there, milling about inside. In fact, we were verging on the oldest. Lots were there with their parents, dragging baby sisters in tow, giving the thing the weird aura of a monster creche. Pink fuzzy Deely-boppers appeared to be back, I noticed.
We, however, quickly dumped my dad at the front gate so he didn’t have to come in with us and we could make it look as if we’d travelled over on our own. ‘I’ll just wait for you,’ said my dad, taking out his Evening Standard.
‘Dad, it’ll be hours. Why don’t you go home … surprise Mum and take her a fish supper or something?’
He looked at me. ‘Your mother never eats chips.’
‘She loves chips, though. She’d really like it. Please, Dad. Go on.’
He thought it over for a minute. ‘She always did love chips, your mum.’
‘Go on. It’ll be good.’
He sighed. ‘All right, then. But if she gets annoyed at me, I’m blaming you.’
‘She won’t,’ I said, fervently hoping this was true.
‘OK. I’m picking you up here. And here …’ He held out his hand. In it was a tenner and – bliss – a top-up card for my phone.
‘I’ll be outside,’ he said gruffly. ‘Be careful. Don’t take any drugs.’
‘Darius says no to drugs,’ said Stanzi.
‘Good for him. And I’ll see you right here at ten thirty.’
I sneaked a look at my S
watch. It was six p.m. The support acts, of whom there appeared to be about nine hundred, started at seven thirty. The man himself didn’t appear to be turning up for about three hours. Christ, half of this lot would be asleep by then.
‘This is great,’ said Stanzi.
‘I can’t believe people are queuing three hours early.’
‘You’re joking, aren’t you? I wanted to come down at four, but Mama wouldn’t let me. Cow.’
We passed one of the many stands dedicated to branding all things. Stanzi was in bliss.
‘Look at this!’
‘Who would pay twenty-five pounds for a T-shirt?’ I asked, being a sixteen-year-old version of my mother, without thinking. ‘Oh. You.’
‘I work hard Saturdays,’ said Stanzi. Then she picked up the baggy, cheaply made shirt. ‘Mind you – I don’t know. Do you think he’s really going to like me better in a big T-shirt than in my Zara fishnet lace tops?’
‘No, definitely not,’ I said. ‘And it’s going to make it harder for you to play it cool. You know, with his name and face printed on your front. Almost makes you look a bit easy to get.’
‘By having his picture on my front?’
‘Yes.’
‘My big baggy front.’
‘Yes.’
She thought about this and concurred.
‘Come on,’ I said, as the queue inched forward infinitesimally. ‘I’ll try and scam you a beer.’
‘Beer is horrid.’
I took a mad stab in the dark from remembering my own sweet tastes. ‘A Snowball, then.’
‘Voddy Red Bull more like.’
‘Oh yes. Yum.’
From inside the booming arena came a muffled thudding.
‘Ohmigod! It’s starting!’ wailed Stanzi, grabbing me hard on the arm.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘It’ll just be the PA. They’ll be putting on some music just to cheer everything up.’
‘How do you know, smartie pants?’
She was right, I thought. I might as well just get in the scheme of things.
‘I’m making it up to make myself look clever.’
‘It’s not working!’
I stuck my tongue out at her and marched through the doors.
We passed two girls even smaller than us, wearing Atomic Kitten-style white cheap synthetic tops and matching cowboy hats. They were carrying a big sign that said, ‘Darius – MARRY US!’
‘Sluts,’ said Stanzi.
‘Stanzi!’
‘Well, they look like sluts.’
‘So do we!’
‘We do not. We look like sexy, legal women of the world.’
One of the girls turned round. ‘What did you say?’
‘Nothing,’ I said hastily.
‘God, look at those sluts,’ said the other cowboy-hatted girl.
I grinned and wandered on.
Stanzi was hopping from foot to foot, looking at the line snaking on round corners we couldn’t even see.
‘There’s too many people here! We’ll never get to the front.’
‘We’re bigger than most of them. I’m sure we will. Smack ’em with their own lightsticks.’
‘Yeah!’ said Stanzi, looking as if she was up for it.
The vast cavern of Earls Court looked massive, partly, of course, because everyone was so small. But I hadn’t been to anything on this scale for a very long time.
The air was heavy, weakening, with the smell of hairspray and something I couldn’t quite place. Then … yes, there it was. I didn’t know they hadn’t changed it. If anything could make me feel sixteen again, the smell of Impulse would certainly do it. I inhaled deeply, suddenly thrilled. Impulse, source of exotic dreams from the ages of fourteen to fourteen and a half, when my dad said if I didn’t stop smelling like a seraglio he was going to stop taking me to school.
‘Bunch of BO babies,’ said Stanzi sourly. ‘Look at them all. What did you do, sleep here last night?’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ll get us up the front.’
Stanzi mutely followed me as I did my time-honoured push-to-front-of-bar, head-held-high strut. She looked at me with, I thought, new respect as I pushed my way through layers of disgruntled tweenies without a backward glance.
‘Are you just going to cut up the side?’ she whispered, following my path.
‘Absolutely,’ I said, batting some tinsel off a girl’s head. ‘The trick is to pretend you did it by accident. Oh, sorry …’
‘Ow!’ I heard from some luckless girl who’d just got in Stanzi’s way.
‘There we are!’ Finally we were at the front, just – right up there, but watching from the side. ‘Now, all we have to do is not go to the toilet.’
‘Can we go on the floor?’
‘No, if you really need to go, borrow one of the smaller girls’ plastic handbags.’
She giggled, and I looked around, feeling like David Attenborough, examining the tight flesh and suspicious looks from the girls around us. Even the flabbiest had a tummy-bearing top on, which I rather approved of. Why should fashion belong only to the Britneys of this world, goddamit? It was for all, no matter how many Big Macs you felt like eating.
Nobody looked at us in the least bit strangely – well, why should they? And when the PA started playing ‘Follow the leader, leader, leader’, it suddenly seemed completely normal to hop to the right and hop to the left with sixty thousand similarly overtartrazined girls.
I tried to buy Smirnoff Ices with my dad’s tenner, but despite my air of studied nonchalance, nobody but nobody was getting served here without some kind of special wristband, which obviously came with a credit card address, so I bought the most colourful, additives-filled soft drinks I could and two enormous hot dogs, which took most of my tenner, and I remembered I only had the one. Stanzi, however, insisted on counting out every penny of exactly half of the cost and I remembered how that worked.
The girls behind us asked us to keep their places while they went to the toilet, and when they’d gone we giggled our heads off about the vileness of them and what happens when you get fifteen Portaloos and seventy thousand girls just starting to conquer the many vagaries of puberty.
The noise was absolutely deafening, and it was pointless to do anything else except jump up and down, especially when the ponderous space music started.
Suddenly the lights went down – way down; we were warned to go out and buy some merchandise or else, there was an enormous drum roll, the lights came up from the front very, very slowly, and suddenly a big, lanky, just about popstar walked to the front of the stage.
I have never heard anything like the screaming that ensued. Well, I must have, but I just don’t remember Howard Jones being this popular. These girls could have solved the world’s energy crisis, if there was only a way to harness sixteen million decibels of pure raw screechpower.
‘Jesus fuck,’ I said.
‘AAAAAAAAAAAH!’ said Stanzi.
It was a great gig. We screamed, we cried, we watched scores and scores of people get hauled off by the St John Ambulance, we divided into two halves of the audience and really tried to get our half to win, we believed him when he told us he loved London audiences second (after Scotland, of course, we understood), we booed the names Gareth and Will loudly and indiscriminately, we yelled, ‘MARRY US, DARIUS!’
Then came the slow number. The lights came way down and he kneeled down and peered around the audience exaggeratedly slowly. A massive ‘ooohhh’ went up, to counterpoint the screaming, which continued.
‘Ah’m just looking for a special lovely lady tonight,’ he said. It was cheese at its pongiest, but we lapped it up. Girls were bursting their arms out of their sockets.
‘MEEEEE! MEEEEEE!’
‘Will it be this side?’ He went stage right, the opposite end from us. ‘The middle?’
‘THE MIDDLE!’ screamed a thousand tiny voices, in justifiable anger, seeing as they were the ones who had queued longest.
‘Or he
re?’ he said. And suddenly he was standing right over us, just a few feet away over the barrier.
I laughed in spontaneous pleasure. ‘Hey!’ I said.
He caught my eye and smiled back.
Then he beckoned me up on stage.
I nearly gagged. Stanzi was clinging on to my arm with a vice-like intensity. Two enormous Rock Steady bouncers were already heading over towards me.
‘Thank you,’ I mouthed, then indicated Stanzi to my right. ‘This one.’
I really think it’s one of the most mature things I’ve ever done in my entire life.
I have to say, seeing Stanzi up on stage being the object of a crooned love song was one of the funniest things I have ever seen, even though despite being someone who enjoyed sneering at the T-shirt prices, I was really beginning to regret not taking the opportunity.
On stage, surrounded by exploding lights and rapturous noise, the tiny fireball I thought I was getting to know had been entirely replaced by a bone-free rag doll, who swayed so alarmingly she practically had to be held up. Fortunately he’s a big bloke, not like most pop stars, so she couldn’t fall over completely. She stared into his eyes like Mowgli being hypnotised by Kaa, and swayed gently to the (very slow) song, mouthing along, slack-jawed, with the words, as the rest of the auditorium pretended to cheer (to show Darius how nice they were) whilst secretly wishing Stanzi killed in a million different ways. Didn’t he know he was meant to pick the fat girl, for goodness’ sake, so they could all feel he was only doing it for pity and would much rather be with them? But it wasn’t, ha-ha-ha, it was my friend and it could have been me! Ha-ha!
I remembered suddenly, as I was waving along (I could somehow remember all the words) how jealous of Courtney Cox I was when she gets pulled out in that Bruce Springsteen video and wondering a little wistfully if I was the only person in this whole auditorium who could remember that. Not even Darius could. But I wasn’t that person any more.
‘She’s rubbish,’ said a girl wearing fairy wings next to me.
‘Yeah, I bet he’s really regretting it,’ said her friend. ‘Oh no! I’ve pulled a minger!’
