Almost two years had come and gone since they had last met; she had watched his court case that had collapsed with his reputation in tatters. Paige had privately funded the civil action against him, brought by his ex-neighbour's daughter for historical sexual offences, and the negative publicity had destroyed his career.
The lady had alleged he manipulated her into sex when she was under the age of consent. He denied it, claiming that it wasn’t until she was sixteen that anything happened. The judge said the evidence wasn't strong enough to convict, but the reaction to the public reporting of his marital affair, with a girl nearly thirty-five years younger than him, was one of repulsion and anger.
It had taken three long years to reach the point where he was invited back onto the comedy news quiz again. Three long years before he could be on prime-time television and he had taken every job he could along the way.
Not that Paige accepted he was innocent. She taunted him once with the lyrics in her song; not naming him by name, but the inference was clear enough. He knew. She knew. Everybody knew.
Paige was the first to arrive on the set; she ambled amongst the audience settling on their chairs, and stole the microphone from the warm-up comedian, to have a very public conversation with people who had travelled through the evening rush-hour to watch the recording.
It was good-natured teasing and joking. The producers looked on as Paige bantered and joked with the thousand-strong gathering, signed autographs and ignored the wishes of the television company's staff. “At least she's not encouraging anyone to wander 'round without any keks on,” the eldest producer mused. “I'm not quite sure if we are allowed streakers at this recording or not!”
“Ummm … good point actually. What do we do if she runs across the stage with nothing on? Or if she encourages anyone else to?”
“We'd … I'll ask.”
The bottom-free girl took her seat to the left of the host's chair; she laughed with the veteran comedian – also from South London – and they made a point of highlighting that the “other team” were privately educated. “Ain't got 'em nowhere,” Paige remarked. “Still scraping a living on crappy TV quiz shows like us!”
Peter said nothing to Paige as the credits rolled and the five panellists were cheered as he shuffled the cards.
“Good evening. I'm Peter Moran and I'd like to congratulate one of my guests for keeping their clothes on for more than ten minutes.” He turned to the shamed MP and nodded. “Well done!”
“Yeah, sorry 'bout this,” Paige broadcast, and the young lady put her hands at the hem of the T-Shirt and wrapped the garment over her head.
“Don't tell me, you can't make smarmy comments without wearing clothes either?” The comedian asked.
“You know what,” she joked. “I've never tried. And I ain't starting for you now!”
“I do love the headline when you first got a number one,” the MP laughed, almost glad not to be the only victim of the jokes and witticisms. “Show us your hits.”
Paige sighed. “I know. When I made a mistake, it's ‘gone tits up’. And then when we took a break it's SKINISHED and it just shows that newspaper editors are a bunch of sex-obsessed judgemental cunts.”
“You can't say that!”
“Sorry, before the watershed isn't it? Bunch of sex-obsessed judgemental wankers.” She looked at the ex-newspaper editor and smiled. “Wouldn't you agree Peter. All newspaper editors are sex-obsessed. Especially with young ladies, like myself.” There was a shocked silence; a couple of gasps as the pointed comment which Paige had made sunk in. “Or even younger. Considerably younger. As in, still in school uniform younger.”
She watched Peter turn a shade of red as he shook his head, looking away from his nemesis.
Paige continued to needle him; comments about his failure as an editor, his medieval views of naturism and his opposition to her band and lifestyle. She received little teasing in response until they got to a handful of newspaper headlines.
“What fight in a Surrey town centre over what?” Paige blushed.
“This is Paige,” the disgraced MP replied, gesturing towards the militant naturist. “It's Jack, I think, your partner? He wanted to join my party, which is a perfectly sound choice. And he was in a town centre handing out leaflets when you attacked him with water cannons.”
The story and video had gone viral.
“That's not quite true,” she blurted. “I didn’t have access to a water cannon. The naturist militia has this on their Amazon wishlist but no-one’s bought it for us. And he was being a bit of a cunt…”
“Language!”
“He's being a lot of a twat then … and we do benefit concerts for people targeted and vilified by your Government and we support the people not the bankers and then he runs off to join the Really Nasty Party. And so my friends and me stopped off and did a demo and it got slightly out of hand!”
“Could you do protesting with your clothes on?” The comedian asked.
“I did that! But I nearly got arrested for it and we had a row. And I've been banned from all party functions. They sent me a letter in the post which was quite funny because I’d never planned to go to any anyway!”
“Did the letter go in the bin then?”
“Piss off! Recycling. All paper gets recycled in our house. We only have one natural world you know.”
“All my newspapers were made from recycled paper,” Peter added.
“Yes, like Court Summons, and Court Papers and … like that?” Paige asked, but her and Peter were the only people not laughing. The court case was still incredibly raw for both of them.
“You going to drop that?” Peter asked her.
“Only when you’re rotting in prison like the disgusting piece of shit that you are.”
Chapter XXV
Paige
It was stupid. A waste of time.
Paige repeated that those words to herself as she clandestinely pulled her sweatshirt over her head, walking down the aisle in the supermarket pharmacy.
She didn't want to get spotted.
She didn't want to get secretly photographed; the photographs would be plastered over the Internet or appear in some newspaper's gossip column.
She had to be careful, and secretive, treating her afternoon trip to the superstore with surreptitious endeavour. She waited until the aisle emptied. Middle-aged women stocking up on paracetamol, be damned; Paige swore under her breath as two mothers chatted like friends as they debated the merits of two brands of medicine for their children. They were opposite where she wanted to be.
But once they were gone, the anonymous figure stormed towards the boxes on the lower shelf, putting her basket on the floor and eyeing the handful of competing makes.
They all promised accuracy, speed and ease of use. Paige, nervously glancing down the aisle, looked at the high-value items and put her arms around the shelf, knocking three dozen pregnancy tests into her basket.
She hurried to the self-serve till, hastily scanning each box and paying, snatching her bag of goods and sprinting towards the exit.
The security guard stopped her. Paige attempted to break free of him, and his arm came across her body. The tight grip prevented her from leaving and for a brief moment, every pair of eyes turned to watch the hooded lady screaming at the security guard.
They struggled, fighting in the store. Her attempts at anonymity abandoned as she was forced into a side room.
“Well Missy,” the exhausted security guard shouted, as he was joined by his partner. “What have we here?”
“Fuck off! You've just assaulted me for doing nothing wrong.” Paige's eyes glared menacingly as her hood was pulled down and her red hair tumbled into sight.
“Hey! Aren't you that naked singer?” The security guard asked, still wheezing from the struggle. Paige nodded.
“Yeah, and I just came in here and didn't want to be recognised.”
“We saw you on the monitors, sheepishly hovering at the end of the aisle, hidin
g your face from the cameras, big and bulky sweatshirt, and then sprinting from the checkouts.”
“I paid. How could I steal anything I was payin'?” Paige squealed indignantly. Her anger was interrupted by a knock on the door and a young WPC entered the room.
“Control said something about a young shoplifter.” Her eyes met Paige and she giggled. “I know you. You were one of my first arrests. Paige Simmons?”
“Yes,” the singer replied. “And I'm innocent.”
“You always were, if I remember!”
Paige growled angrily. The Security Guard's friend left, and then at Paige's insistence the Security Guard did too. She passed the young policewoman her shopping and the receipt. “See, I paid.”
“He said he didn't see you pay but thought you may have scanned everything and then done a runner.”
“Well I bloody didn't.”
“Why do you need so many tests?” The policewoman asked. She patted the clothes of the multi-millionaire, ensuring that she had no stolen items on her person.
“That's personal,” Paige snapped and apologised. “I might be pregnant. I don't know.”
“But there's dozens here. This isn't some sort of celebrity drug craze.”
“Yeah, I've got Adele and Charlotte Church coming 'round and we're going to get high on ClearBlue! Everyone's doing it!” Her bottom lip wobbled as she took a deep breath. “Really, I think I might be pregnant and just wanted to get a test to try. But it's so confusing, so I just panicked and bought as many as I could find.”
The young policewoman picked out a test in a blue packaging. “Here,” she cried. “Use this one. My friend used it when she had her first. We were in college toilets trying to wee on the stick. They say it's the most accurate one on the market.”
“Can I go now?”
“No crime's been committed. You just looked suspicious.”
“Ummm …”
“More suspicious! You can't blame them for keeping an eye on you.”
Paige didn't answer but ordered a taxi to take her home and she ran into their en-suite bathroom. The instructions were only briefly surveyed and she urinated on the wide pad.
The waiting was agonising; the packaging said three minutes and she turned the stick over in her hands as she waited.
The vomiting and sickness had persisted, and initially she had considered it to be stress or a tummy bug but as the illness continued, she had to discount pregnancy.
Alas, the stick showed the exact opposite.
Paige was pregnant.
Chapter XXVI
Jack
He took his place on the stage; the youngest of the three candidates by a considerable margin. He shook the hands of his rivals; Lucy, the young solicitor, beamed as he nervously waited for the result. Perhaps she already knew; she didn’t have the demeanour of a beaten candidate.
The local party had 150 papers to count, and the three party members vying for the nomination waited impatiently.
“I think this has been a very colourful and fantastic contest,” the mayor announced, reading from his card. “And on another day any of these three could have won our selection to compete in the ward, but we can only have one successful candidate. This shows the strength of our party. I hope the two candidates that we don’t select continue to work for the good of the party and find another local ward, as they’d all make stonkingly splendid councillors. In third place, with 22 votes is Mr Ian Westley.” There was muted applause.
Jack leant over to him to shake his hand. “Unlucky.”
“With second place and 61 votes is Mr Jack Rees-Montague, which means with 62 votes, the winner is Mrs Lucy Reynolds.”
Jack's smile vanished. He stood motionless for a moment as he digested the news, replaying the words through his brain.
One vote.
He'd lost by a single, solitary vote. One person, changing their nomination from Jack to Lucy had altered the contest. One person seeing his girlfriend attack the activists in Redhill was enough to give Lucy the victory and deny him a shot at the local council.
Subconsciously he clapped. He shook Lucy's hand and promised he would help campaign for her during the election. Empty promises after her conduct at the hustings. Five minutes later, he was speeding through the streets of South London in the rain.
His car skidded in the drive. His keys roughly slammed into the front door as he stormed into the house, discarding his coat and entering their spacious lounge.
Paige was sat on the couch, curled up. The television was off, she had no books, no mobile phone, just alone with her thoughts. Jack didn't notice the sight before him.
“You got your own way. I didn't win the candidature.”
Paige didn't understand, lost in her own thoughts. “What?”
“I didn't win the candidature.”
“What candidature?” She asked and then realised. “Oh, sorry.”
“Yeah, one vote.” He spoke sharply, with little love or emotion in his voice. “I lost by one vote. So your little stunt in Redhill has cost me this chance at political office.”
“Sorry,” she muttered.
“Are you even listening?” He snapped.
“We need to talk.”
“Yeah, damn right we do. How everything seems to revolve around Paige Simmons. One thing, I wanted to do by myself and because you didn't agree with it, you had to try and ruin it for me. You had to spoil it.”
“Jack,” Paige said, trying to get his attention. He ignored her.
“So what, there’s a political party you don't see eye-to-eye with. But no, you have to get yourself on the front pages and humiliate me. Well no more. I need my own life too.”
“Jack,” Paige cried louder.
“After everything we've been through and you had to mess it up.”
“OK. I'm sorry. Can we talk about something else?”
“No!” Jack yelled. “There's nothing else I want to talk about.” He cleared his throat. “I'm going to the spare bedroom.”
Yet, if he had taken a moment to pause, he would have seen the red, puffy eyes of his girlfriend peeking out behind the blanket and a dozen pregnancy tests on the table.
Instead, he slammed the bedroom door and went upstairs to sulk.
Chapter XXVII
Peter Moran
He rubbed the bridge of his nose as his agent spoke sharply. “There's just not much out there for …”
“For me,” he finished. The middle-aged woman was apologetic; her sharp business suit and impeccable appearance matching the spartan and spotless office her agency rented in one of the capital's biggest skyscrapers.
“Well, you know …”
“But it's unfair,” he cried. “I was found not guilty. More than that, the judge threw it out and ordered that I be found not guilty. He said I could leave the court room with my head held high and without a stain on my character. Why am I still being punished for a crime that the British court of law has decreed I did not commit?”
“It's an underage sex case, you know the score.” She gestured with her hands. “You said it yourself in your radio show years ago. You know, when Ofcom went after your sorry arse.” She mimicked his accent. “'This can't continue. If we have immigrants accused of sex crimes then we need to chuck 'em out. There's no smoke without fire.' They were your exact words.”
“But …”
“But people think the same. That Peter Moran is this and that and so on. It's why we've been working so hard on your perception. Try and show that you are a victim. Falsely accused by a money-grabbing, fame-hunting, emotionally-unstable girl and so on. And also trying to soften up your image. The charity runs, the good causes and showing that there is a human side to you. The news quiz was that too, the lighter side of Peter Moran.”
“Well that failed.”
“I put in a complaint that you weren't told about Paige, but it has undone all the work we've done for the last twelve months. Public still see that you did sleep with a teenager and you were i
n your fifties and you were married.”
“But she was sixteen not fifteen when we did it.”
“She was still your daughter's best friend. Illegal or not illegal that still turns some stomachs.”
“Is the age difference any worse than Hugh Hefner, or Richard Gere or …”
“Let’s nip this in the bud now. You are not Hugh Hefner. Or Richard Gere. And the lady you slept with was sixteen. There’s a world of difference.” Peter sighed, and put his head in his hands as he thought.
He spoke quietly. “I know this. Not a day goes past when I don't regret what happened. What I did. How I dealt with my sexless marriage. And I got punished for it, I lost my family. I was publicly humiliated. I still don’t see my daughter as she won’t talk to me. I’ve lost everything. But that was eighteen months ago, when does redemption start? When am I going to stop being punished for having two nights of consensual sex?”
The agent tutted. “I don't know Peter. We tried to get you that new series on tabloid journalism but that's gone to Katie Hopkins. And we tried to get you a radio show but that's gone to Piers Morgan. They all said the same thing, you were too controversial. Too much baggage.”
“More than Piers Morgan and Katie Hopkins?” Peter squealed. “How does anyone become more controversial than Katie Hopkins? It’s beyond the laws of physics!”
“There is one thing we're working on. It's a judge for the EuroSong contest. They are doing a public vote to choose a song to send to the EuroSong finals in Sweden in May.”
“But no-one takes that seriously. It's just freaky Europeans and crap singers.”
“Well the BBC are taking it seriously. They want an act to do really well this year.”
“But not win.”
“Well obviously not win. They don't want to end up hosting the damn thing! Apart from Sweden and Ireland who wants to win it.”
“But it seems so … low-rent. Where's the proper stuff? Where's the explosion of cerebral intensity. I want something that evokes thought and deep intrigue. I want political dynamite and heavyweight matter. The special investigations journalistic shows and the programs for smart, talented people. No, I get it, Hopkins gets them. While I get the 'I can't sing please vote for me' dross by a Corporation who would only be interested in signing me up as they think I definitely won't choose a winner. Forget it. Get Horrible Hopkins to do EuroSong.”
Bare Necessities 2 (The Bare Necessities) Page 12
