The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride

by A. J. Crofts

  If I was shocked by what had happened outside the house, I was even more shocked when my phone started to ring. I didn’t recognise the first number and answered it with a trembling thumb. Didn’t recognise the voice either, a woman’s voice, all cooing and sympathetic, asking if I was OK, did I need help, was I hurt? Question after question.

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked, my voice croaky.

  She was only a bloody reporter, wasn’t she? How the hell had she managed to get to me so quickly? I don’t know if she’d talked to the photographer or the person with the video camera or what, but she seemed to know everything that had happened. I always try to be polite to reporters when they ask their really dumb questions – I mean, they’ve got to earn their livings too, haven’t they? But I just couldn’t muster the strength to do the usual bright, cheeky, cockney sparrow act. Unable to think of anything to say and not wanting her to hear me crying, I hung up. The phone rang again immediately; another number I didn’t recognise. The calls kept coming and I kept cancelling them, checking each number first in case it was Mum or Luke.

  When the doorbell went I nearly leaped out of my skin. I stood up, my legs wobbling under me, and peered through the peephole. I didn’t recognise the face on the other side, so I just leaned back against the wall again and waited. The doorbell kept going because they knew I was in there and the phone kept ringing. So many bells jangling my nerves, making me want to scream. I could hear voices as more of them arrived, then there was some shouting, like someone was getting angry and I recognised Mum’s voice. I put my eye back to the peephole. It was hard to work out what was going on in the darkness. There seemed to be a crowd and then Mum’s face was the one in focus and she was calling out to me.

  ‘Open the door, baby. Open the door, it’s me!’

  The moment I opened it the flashes went off again and they all started shouting their questions as Mum elbowed her way in and slammed it shut behind her.

  ‘What the hell is going on there, girl?’ she asked and I couldn’t hold the tears in any longer, just sobbing and sobbing, clinging on to her as she rocked me back and forth like she used to when I came home from school to tell her I was being bullied or someone had stolen my favourite toy, just holding me tight, swaying and murmuring soothing words.

  After a few minutes her magic worked and I was able to let her go. She held my hand tightly, picking up her frayed, tartan plastic shopping basket with her other hand. ‘Let’s warm this pie up and put the kettle on,’ she said, leading me through to the kitchen.

  I put the phone on silent, but I still couldn’t stop myself glancing at the screen every time it vibrated. By the time Luke’s number popped up I felt steady enough to talk to him.

  ‘Hi,’ his voice sounded agitated. ‘What’s going on? There are press all round the front door and they’re all asking about you and a shooting or something. Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, just managing to stop the tears from erupting again. ‘Mum’s here. Can you come over and get us? We can’t stay here, the place is surrounded.’

  ‘Sure. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll come to the back. Are there any of them there or are they all at the front?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t dared open the curtains because of the cameras.’

  ‘OK, just wait there. I’ll call you when I get there.’

  Half an hour later he rang again. ‘I’m just parking up. The coast seems to be clear round this side. Is the garden gate unlocked?’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ I said and hung up.

  ‘You stay where you are, girl,’ Mum instructed when she saw me heading for the patio door. ‘I’ll let him in.’

  She bustled past me and I listened for the sound of voices or cameras but there was nothing. As Luke came running in with Mum puffing behind he looked so worried and I loved him for that. He gave me a big hug while Mum quickly locked the door behind them.

  ‘What the fuck happened? The press are going mad!’

  ‘Pete, the guy I used to date, he turned up with a gun and started firing it off, and there was a photographer and someone videoing …’

  ‘Jesus. Did you call the police?’

  ‘No, I don’t want the police.’

  ‘But he’s got a gun.’

  ‘Pete’s OK, he just fired it into the air. He’s made his point; he won’t be back. I should have told him weeks ago. It’s my fault. I messed him about. I don’t want to get him in trouble with the police.’

  Luke opened his mouth to argue, then thought better of it. Mum had stood back respectfully to let us talk. I introduced them and Luke shook her hand and I swear to God she almost curtsied. What was that about? Sometimes I wonder about that woman.

  ‘So we need to get you out of here,’ he said, taking charge of the situation like it was some sort of SAS operation. ‘Where can we drop you, Mrs McBride?’

  ‘Joyce, you call me Joyce,’ she giggled. ‘Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine here, you two get going.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Mum, we’re not leaving you here,’ I argued. ‘You’re coming with us.’

  ‘Oh, just take me to a tube station somewhere, that will be fine.’

  It wasn’t worth arguing with her when she was in one of her ‘humble little me’ moods.

  ‘Where are you parked?’ I asked.

  ‘Just outside. We need to go quickly before they work out there’s a back door.’

  Leaving all the lights on, only pausing to lock the patio door as we went, we ran down the garden and out into the deserted street behind. Luke’s Range Rover was waiting, gleaming under a streetlight. As we hurried towards it I heard a camera going off and a few seconds later there were flashes and shouts and the sounds of running feet. We’d been spotted and the hunt was back on.

  Luke opened the doors with a remote key and we dived in, Mum panting for breath as she hauled herself up on to the backseat. Luke already had the engine running and the car was jumping forward before she had even got her door shut and just as two cars came screaming round the corner in pursuit, flanked by what looked like half a dozen motorbikes and scooters, all carrying photographers and film cameras.

  ‘Do your belt up,’ Luke shouted and I felt the sort of fear I imagine you get in aeroplanes when the captain tells you to fasten your seatbelt.

  I was scared shitless, but I have to say it was a bit of a turn-on watching Luke throwing the car round corners at God alone knows what speeds. It was a side of him I’d never seen before, taking command of the situation, and I really liked it. I mean, I’m a pretty stroppy tart most of the time, but sometimes it’s nice to feel that someone else is just taking care of things for you. I can’t believe I’ve just written that, but it’s true.

  Mum was alternating between muttering prayers and shaking her fists at the bikes and scooters whenever they managed to get close to the windows, their passengers firing off pictures. The cars were stuck well behind and Luke was soon able to lose them. I can’t believe that any of the photographers had a clue what the story was they were following up, they must just have been told there had been an incident involving celebrities and guns and that was enough to get them pulling on their crash hats.

  Must be an exciting life being a paparazzo, I suppose, a bit like fox hunting or rat catching or something. They always look like they’re having a pretty good time of it, but then I suppose I don’t see all the hours they put in waiting around in the rain for something to happen. They always look happy when they see me because they know it’s likely to be an earner for them.

  God knows how we didn’t get pulled over by the police, which would have given them another lovely photo-opportunity, because Luke went mad: the wrong way up a one-way street, skidding round corners on what felt like two wheels, the whole Starsky and Hutch thing. It was probably only five minutes before he had managed to shake them all off, but it felt like a fucking lifetime.

  ‘You all right, Mum?’ I asked when he finally slowed down to a normal speed and I was ab
le to let go of the straps and turn round.

  ‘A little shaken up, maybe,’ she grinned cheerfully and I felt so proud of her for her sweet, accepting nature.

  ‘Sorry about that, Joyce,’ Luke said. ‘I think I should take Steff somewhere safe for a bit, while we work out what’s going on. Do you want to come too? There’ll be plenty of room and you’re more than welcome.’

  ‘Noooo,’ she said – sounding a bit regretful, I thought. ‘I need to get back home. He doesn’t like me to not be there when he gets back at night. Just drop me at a tube station.’

  She wouldn’t be talked out of it and I felt horribly sad watching her walking away into the tube, still clutching her shopping bag, giving us a wave as she went. I felt like I was abandoning her in some way – stupid, I know, but that’s what it felt like.

  ‘So, where are we going?’ I asked, with a bit of a forced cheerfulness, as we drove off.

  ‘I thought we should get out of London, hide away in the country for a few days,’ he said. ‘We’ll go to my parents, there’s plenty of room there.’

  His parents? Fuck. I wasn’t ready for that.

  ‘We can’t just turn up,’ I protested.

  ‘No, really, it’ll be fine,’ he assured me, squeezing my hand.

  ‘I haven’t got a sponge bag or anything.’

  ‘They do have shops in the country,’ he laughed.

  I was going to have to take his word for that. I’d never actually been there myself. I’d seen it on telly and there never seemed to be many shops in sight, just moorlands or mountains or whatever, just flocks of sheep and winding little roads without pavements. I wasn’t at all sure this was a good idea. If I hadn’t been so completely in love with Luke by then I don’t know that I would have agreed to being whisked away into the dark like that, not knowing what was waiting at our destination.

  Chapter Nine

  Ihave absolutely no idea which direction we travelled in, or how long we drove for. It started with the suburbs turning into motorways and that was when I nodded off. I remember us stopping at some service station for petrol and a pee. I tried to rush in and out quickly, so as not to be recognised, but actually there was hardly anyone there and none of them was bothering to look at anyone else, everyone concentrating on their own business in the middle of the night, all of them probably wishing they were safe in bed at home.

  The next time I woke up we weren’t on floodlit motorways any more and everything was dark apart from the slice of light created by our headlights, which just showed hedges and trees and the odd fox shooting across in front of us. I felt secure in the warm, leathery interior of the car and didn’t want the journey to end, didn’t want to have to face anyone or anything new.

  When Luke put the car radio on they were playing our version of ‘Summer Wine’, which made us both laugh. It seemed like our voices were singing to us from another world.

  I was awake when we turned into the gates of Luke’s house, although I didn’t realise that was what they were. They looked big enough to be an entrance to a park or something. It was only as we crunched to a stop on the gravel outside the house that I realised we had arrived. All I can say is: ‘Fucking hell’. The house looked more like a hotel or maybe a local town hall. I felt like we were walking through the doors of Beckingham Palace as we came into the front hall, although I doubt if Posh lets the cobwebs build up around the chandeliers quite like they had here. There were lights blazing everywhere and the place was really warm. A giant Christmas tree was standing in the hallway, waiting to be decorated. It was the sort of size you usually only see in shopping malls. I could hear voices in the distance and laughter.

  ‘Come on,’ Luke said, taking my hand, ‘let’s see if we can find something to eat.’

  We went past loads of doors, down a corridor that smelled a bit musty and then into a kitchen that was like some baronial hall. I half expected to see Henry VIII sitting at the end of the table, chucking chicken bones over his shoulder. There were people all round the table, which was strewn with the remains of a meal and half-empty glasses of wine. A pack of muddy-looking dogs emerged from baskets around the room, and under the table, their tails wagging as they clattered across the old tiled floor to greet Luke and sniff me out.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ a woman with grey hair and a posh accent boomed over everyone, ‘what a lovely surprise.’

  ‘Hello, Mums,’ Luke said, pecking her on the cheek and waving at everyone else, ‘thought we’d pop down to see you.’

  ‘Lovely. Have you eaten? There’s some lasagne on top of the oven and plenty of salad stuff in the fridge.’

  ‘Thanks. This is Steffi, by the way.’

  They all shouted out some sort of greeting. It was very friendly and it took me a few seconds to realise why it was strange. It was obvious none of them had the slightest idea who I was. That sounds really up myself, I know, but by then I had grown so used to walking into a room and knowing that everyone in there knew who I was, even though I didn’t know anything about them, that I suddenly felt I’d been robbed of my identity. All this family saw was their son bringing home a new girlfriend. It was a weird feeling, a bit liberating in a way, but unnerving. I was going to have to make conversation with strangers in a way I hadn’t had to for months.

  The other funny thing was there was no telly on. There was a pile of Sunday papers on the side, which had obviously been well read, but none of them was the sort of paper that I was used to reading or appearing in. It was like I’d walked through another looking glass into another new world where nothing was the same as either of the worlds I was used to. In our house there was always a telly on in the background, and there were always a load of tabloid papers and magazines lying about the place. If an actress from any of the soap operas had walked through the door unexpectedly, it would have been like a Martian had landed, or a member of the Royal Family.

  Luke sat me down while he loaded me up a plate of food from the top of their cooker, which was one of those giant old things that stay hot all the time, with loads of doors and big silver lids to be lifted off the top to get at the hot plates. Everyone was talking at once, making sure I had a glass of wine and a napkin and cutlery, while continuing the conversations they must have been having when we walked in. I stayed quiet and ate, suddenly realising how hungry I was. Luke sat next to me, protecting me from having to make conversation for a while as I tried to work out who everyone was.

  His mum was the loudest one in the party, very strong and in control of everything. His dad was still picking at bits of the paper at the same time as coming in and out of conversations, his glasses perched on the end of his nose, his grey hair sticking out all over the place from where he kept running his fingers through it, looking puzzled. He had a lot of stains down the front of his jumper and his elbows were poking through holes in the sleeves. There were a couple of young men who looked similar to Luke, and I gradually learned they were his brothers. One of them had a woman sitting beside him who was nursing a small baby as she talked; another young woman was busily making hot drinks for everyone. There was an elderly lady, who seemed to be Luke’s grandmother. I guessed she was his mother’s mother as she had the same sort of loud, commanding voice.

  The dogs were milling around underneath me, and one rested its chin on my lap, which looked quite sweet and made me feel very at home, even though it smelled a bit rank and left a patch of dribble behind it.

  ‘Where’s Grandpa?’ Luke asked.

  ‘He’s just dashed back upstairs,’ his mother replied. ‘Some programme he had to watch.’

  As soon as I’d finished eating, Luke swept me up again.

  ‘Let’s go and find Grandpa,’ he said, ushering me from the room before I could even say thank you for the food.

  ‘Your family are awesome,’ I said as he led me by the hand up a small back staircase.

  ‘Thanks. My grandfather is a bit of a silver surfer, and I thought it might be worth having a look on the Internet to see if there
is anything about you. He has satellite TV as well.’

  Luke’s grandfather didn’t look much older than his parents, and seemed particularly happy to see his grandson. It looked to me like the two of them had some kind of special bond. His room was part bedroom and part office, with paper everywhere.

  ‘This is Steffi, Grandpa,’ Luke said.

  ‘Very pretty too,’ the old man said.

  ‘Thanks.’ I felt much more comfortable now.

  ‘Want a drink, either of you?’

  ‘Cheers, Grandpa.’

  Luke went over to a tray of bottles and glasses and poured us each a shot of whisky. ‘Mind if I have a quick look on the Internet, Grandpa?’ he asked, coming back with my glass.

  ‘Of course – what are you looking for?’

  ‘Steff had a spot of bother with the media before we left London, just wondered if it was being reported.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ He didn’t seem remotely surprised by the information. ‘Want me to have a look at the news channels?’

  ‘That would be great,’ Luke replied, indicating for me to sit down on an old sofa in the corner of the room, where an ancient-looking terrier growled at me ominously without bothering to raise its head.

  ‘Take no notice,’ the old man said. ‘It’s all bluff; he’s got no teeth.’