by James Argent
My mates were starting to ask questions about whether we’d done it and I’d shrug them off, although I confided to a few close friends that I was very nervous about it.
‘Arg, you still haven’t done it with her yet. She’s probably thinking, What’s wrong with you?’ one of them said to me.
Looking back, there was no real reason to worry other than the fact that it had been built up to such a big thing in my mind.
Am I going to be terrible in bed? I’d ask myself. Do I even know what I’m doing? Is she going to hate it and will it put her off me?
I was aware that I would be twenty-one soon and I seemed to be leaving it later and later. I had visions of my twenty-first birthday arriving and still being a virgin. By now Lydia and I were often kissing passionately on the bed and our hands would be all over each other. I could tell that she wanted to take things further, and so did I, but I just didn’t know how. We would be in full flow and then I’d suddenly have to stop because I would be literally shaking with nerves. After a while, Lydia worked out what the problem was.
‘James, I know,’ she said, obviously referring to the fact that I was a virgin.
‘What do you mean, you know? I’m not a virgin,’ I fibbed.
‘It doesn’t matter. I know. It’s fine.’ Lydia was really kind and understanding. ‘Let’s just take our time. We can do things slowly,’ she said.
I was really grateful to her for taking the pressure off me like that and I respected her for being so nice about it. A few weeks later it finally happened. I’m not going to go into too much detail about it out of respect to Lydia, but let’s just say that I got drunk and Lydia made a man of me. We’d had a drunken night in Faces and we went back to Lydia’s house, where we kissed passionately. Then we finally made love. It didn’t last very long, but, to be honest, I felt as if a giant weight had been lifted from around my neck. I was relieved that all the worrying would now be over and we could get on with our lives. It may seem silly that it had been built up into such a big thing for me, but that was the way it was.
The next day I felt as if I were walking on air and I asked her if it had been good for her. She replied in her usual warm but very frank way.
‘To be honest with you, it was terrible, but I’m sure it’ll get better,’ she laughed.
Lydia always hit the nail on the head and, even though I was a bit embarrassed by her response, it showed how close we were that she could be that honest. I just laughed it off – I knew now that everything would be fine. I confided to some of my friends, who were delighted for me and offered to go for a celebration drink. I don’t think Lydia minded my telling them. After all, we were adults and we were in a relationship. After that, we had a very normal and healthy sex life. In fact, Lydia even used to have a little nickname for my intimate part. For some reason she used to call it ‘Marmen’, although to this day I don’t know why. I assumed it must have been some sort of private joke with her mates. Girls in Essex always chat with their friends about sex, and I assume Lydia was no different. She was a very affectionate person.
Lydia had a fantastic way of turning me on, whereby she would do a sexy dance routine at the end of the bed, bumping and grinding the way she used to dance in Faces, but more intimately. It would always have the desired effect on Marmen!
Lydia had nothing but good qualities as far as I was concerned. She did a lot for me: she would drive me around and would treat me to nice little gifts; she knew I was a fan of Will Young and when his new album came out she bought me a copy and wrapped it up. It was the first present she ever bought me. One little secret that she kept from me early in our relationship, however, was that she had a part-time job in Woolworth’s, which she kept quiet about while she was studying for her A-levels. I think she was embarrassed about my seeing her on the checkout in her uniform, but I soon found out about it. I went down there to see her one day with Josh and she went bright red when we saw her, but she didn’t mind too much.
Our first Christmas together was very special. Lydia and I had taken to performing little songs together to entertain her family. We’d do numbers from West Side Story together while Debbie and the kids all sat on the sofa and watched. When Christmas came we spent the whole day at Debbie and Dave’s house and I sang lots of numbers by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. Then Lydia and I went round to see my parents for a while before returning to her home. This was the one time of year when Dave relaxed his rule about no sleepovers. Dave said I could stay the night because it was Christmas. Secretly, I had already slept over a few times before, creeping out of the house in the morning. Lydia was very much the goody-two-shoes little princess of the family but she also had a wonderful sense of mischief and would encourage me to stay overnight. I was too scared at first but we’d tiptoe up the stairs together and I would creep in for the night. On one occasion, I’d made the mistake of leaving my shoes downstairs and, when I woke up the next morning, I could hear shouting in the house. I crept downstairs to find that my shoes had been moved. One was on its side in the corner and the other was dumped on the other side of the room. Apparently, Dave had been so angry at learning that I’d broken the no-sleepover rule that he’d kicked them in a fury.
‘Oh, he’s booted your shoes,’ Debbie quipped when she saw me looking at them.
Dave would understandably always have a right hump after something like that happened, so I’d have to watch myself for a few days. I’d normally try to buy him a takeaway curry to make amends and he’d soon forgive me. I suspect he used to think that I took the piss a bit too much and that I’d had things very easy in life, but he always treated me very well and I respected him immensely.
Unfortunately, the next time I broke the no-sleepover rule it was to have catastrophic consequences. One night, I had crept upstairs with Lydia and we lay on the bed watching a film. Before I knew it, I was fast asleep. I woke up in the middle of the night and my first thought was, Shit! I’ve got to get out of here.
Lydia was fast asleep and I had trouble waking her, so I decided to creep out without saying goodbye. I walked out of the room and quietly closed the door before tiptoeing slowly down the stairs, being careful not to wake Dave or Debbie. Then I heard a noise that made me freeze and sent shivers down my spine.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
It was the burglar alarm and I realised I must have set it off. I didn’t know whether to run back to Lydia’s room and hide or go and wake up Debbie and Dave and tell them. In the end I panicked and decided to sprint full pelt for the front door. By the time I got to the bottom, the loudest alarm I had ever heard had gone off.
Screech! Screech! Screech!
I reckoned that the whole of Woodford must have been able to hear it. It was so loud that the whole house immediately woke up and I could hear Dave shouting.
‘What’s going on, what’s going on?’ he bellowed.
I didn’t have the guts to go back and apologise. I was far too embarrassed and scared. I sprinted out of the house while this crazy racket was going on and ran all the way home. Because I lived so close to Lydia, I could still hear the alarm faintly from within my house. I decided to keep my head down and hope for the best.
The next day when I went up to Lydia’s house Dave seemed to be a strange mood.
‘Is there anything you want to tell me?’ he asked.
‘What do you mean, Dave?’ I said, trying to bluff it out.
‘Well, is there anything you want to tell me?’ he repeated.
‘Er . . . no,’ I stammered.
‘Well, that’s very interesting because last night the burglar alarm went off and I looked outside my window and all I saw was your fat arse running off down the street.’
I had no answer to that one!
It was while Lydia and I were falling in love that my good friend Jack Tweed learned that his partner Jade Goody had cancer. When the news came it hit everybody like a hammer blow, and Jack understandably took it very badly. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time because
Jack had recently been accused of assaulting a teenager and he was facing a prison sentence. I didn’t condone what he’d done but I also knew Jack had been through a lot after being thrust into the public eye at such a young age, and I was determined to stand by him.
When I first met Jack we used to call him ‘Lamppost’ because he was so skinny. Lydia adored Jack because he always acted like a gentleman around her and could be a real charmer. Jack was normally very placid, despite the fact that people would shout things at him all the time because he was famous for being with Jade. I hated the idea of such a good friend being in prison. Before he went off to jail Jack had asked me if I would do him a favour. He had two beautiful watches, a Cartier and a Rolex, that Jade had bought him.
‘Will you look after my watches for me while I’m gone?’ he asked.
I agreed. I also tried to keep in touch with him the best as I could. I’d ring Jade to see how she was and to ask about Jack. I was always amazed how brave she was. She would answer the phone in a cheery fashion and always took the time to ask after me. I went to visit Jack a couple of times in Pentonville Prison, which was a horrible place. I had to be searched and go through all the elaborate security checks. Jack tried to put on a brave face, but I had never seen him looking so pale and pasty.
Jack and Jade were married after he was released and both Lydia and I went to the wedding. Even though we all knew that Jade was going to die very soon, we all wanted to give her and Jack a really fun day. Lydia and I had just been away on a holiday together to Gran Canaria, and Lydia had also recently celebrated her eighteenth birthday. The wedding service was very emotional and many of us in the congregation were openly weeping.
In the evening we all went outside for a fantastic firework display. It was a very memorable day but it was bitter-sweet: I knew that the next time we would all be gathered together would be for Jade’s funeral. She died exactly four weeks later on Mother’s Day. It was one of the saddest situations that I have ever encountered and it made me realise how fragile life is.
As I looked at Jade’s coffin at the funeral I remembered her dancing away and smiling just a few weeks before. Jack did his best to hold things together but at the end of the service he collapsed to his knees and started crying. I hated seeing such a close friend going through so much grief. In the weeks that followed I visited Jade’s grave several times with Jack, where he’d say a little prayer. It was a tough time for him and I respected him for the way he handled it.
7
THE SINGING BUG AND AN ITALIAN NIGHTMARE
Singing has always been one of my greatest passions. Give me a microphone and a song sheet and I will happily get up on stage and croon the night away. My friends and family say that I come alive when I am performing on stage. As a young schoolboy I often sang in choirs and during my teens a lot of the amateur-dramatics roles that I had involved singing. It’s something that I enjoy and my family told me that I had a good voice from a young age. But by the time I reached my early twenties I had neglected that side of my life, and for a few years I didn’t perform in public. I guess there were just too many other distractions. After I left school I had to concentrate on trying to find a job, and singing on stage was no longer at the front of my mind. I still sang behind closed doors, particularly when I was at Lydia’s house, where she and I would perform together to the rest of the family and her little brother Freddie would join in. He used to sing ‘You’re Beautiful’ by James Blunt. It was hilarious, he was like an X Factor contestant (but I don’t think he’d have made it to the final!). It was only when all my job options ran out – which was about to happen – that I turned to singing as a possible profession.
I was still working in the jewellery shops by day, while trying to supplement my earnings through nightclub promoting. Lydia was supposed to be concentrating on her A-levels but in reality she was spending her every spare moment with me. Our relationship had continued to blossom and we were very much in love. The holiday we had shared in Gran Canaria had brought us even closer. We had spent the days lazing by the pool and the nights making love. Each evening we had snuggled up in our room to watch a film from the hotel’s DVD collection called Tropic Thunder, a comedy starring Ben Stiller, but we’d never actually finished watching it because we’d either fallen asleep or got distracted by our lovemaking. When we got back to the UK I’d bought our own copy on DVD so we could finally watch it to the end. All the time we spent together came at a price, because Lydia started to fall behind with her A-level coursework. Debbie and Dave were under no illusions about where the blame lay: it was my fault. I felt they were being a bit unfair because in my mind we were both equally to blame.
Lydia had previously been placed in a class for gifted kids at school. She was very much a golden child and had done extremely well at her GCSEs at the age of sixteen, having passed in twelve subjects (including several at A grade). When it came to A-levels, the subjects she opted to study included further maths, for which you need to be a real brain box. She was expected to get three straight As. I was the first to admit that she was far brighter than I was. But, instead of studying at home and revising for exams, as our relationship developed Lydia spent more and more time with me. When she started missing the odd class, Dave and Debbie told me bluntly, ‘You’re going to ruin her A-levels.’
It was around this time that a bit of friction started to develop between Lydia and Mark. He’s a natural wind-up merchant and he would gently rib Lydia about things that we’d got up to on boys’ nights out. Mark is smooth-tongued and has the gift of the gab, which he gets from his dad, Big Mark.
He would tease Lydia by saying things like, ‘Arg gets a lot of attention from the girls while we’re out.’
He didn’t mean any harm by it but I think it began to grate on Lydia’s nerves and she could be quite harsh on Mark as a result. I think part of the reason for the friction between them was that Mark and I were so close as mates. We spent a lot of time just chilling out together and we would do things such as watch films together in his flat. I suspect that Lydia saw Mark as a bit of a negative influence on me and later in our relationship it would become a bit of a problem. It was quite funny to see because whenever I did anything wrong, such as come home late or fail to reply to an important text, Mark would always get the blame. I would use him as an excuse, even when he was entirely innocent.
‘I’m sorry I never called, but Mark kept me busy all night,’ I would tell Lydia, even when poor old Mark had nothing to do it.
Ironically, Jack was more likely to be the one to lead me astray, but in Lydia’s eye’s he could do no wrong. In the end, Mark became quite conscious of the fact that Lydia gave him a hard time.
‘I’ve tried being friendly and doing my best, but she just doesn’t like me!’ Mark would complain, looking all hurt with innocent eyes.
Meanwhile, Lydia’s studies continued to suffer and, when her results came through, they were nowhere near as good as expected. She still did well enough to win a place to study teacher training, but she didn’t quite get three As. Lydia’s family had previously hoped that she would be able to go to a top university, so overall her grades were a disappointment. Debbie and Dave were very unhappy and they felt I’d had a direct impact on her performance. They insisted that Lydia take some time out to decide what she wanted to do next.
In Debbie’s eyes that meant taking a break from me.
Looking back, I suspect that Debbie thought Lydia and I had fallen head over heels for each other far too quickly. Debbie thought her daughter was still a young girl and she wanted Lydia to see a bit of the world before she got serious with a boyfriend. I don’t think Debbie necessarily wanted to split us up: she just wanted to apply the brakes a little bit so that we could take things at a slower pace. In the end, Debbie came up with a plan that both Lydia and I hated. Debbie had some close family who lived in Italy. It was arranged that Lydia would go and stay with them for a few months while she got her head straight. Lydia made no secret of
the fact that she didn’t want to go and I was against it, too. But Debbie insisted that Lydia go and stay for a couple of months in Porto Recanati in Ancona in central Italy. When the day to say goodbye arrived I went round to Lydia’s house. I had a sick feeling in my stomach because, for the year that we had been together, we had hardly been apart. Now, as I stood outside her house ready to say goodbye, I could feel the emotions beginning to well up within me. What would I do with myself without Lydia? We had a kiss and a cuddle and I told her I was going to miss her.
As I walked down the road I lost control. I broke down and started to cry uncontrollably. Then, at the worst possible moment, Debbie drove by in her car on the way to the airport with Lydia in the back. As they went past I saw Lydia turn her head and our eyes met. She could see I was crying and her face crumpled. Later that night Debbie called me and said that Lydia had cried hysterically at the airport.
I hated being apart from Lydia. For the two months that she was away I tried to put on a brave face in front of the boys, but they could see that I was inconsolable. I had visions of good-looking Italian boys all queuing to try to chat up Lydia. They dress slick and well out there and they have a reputation for being very amorous. Surely, they’d be all over a blonde girl like a rash. I assumed that they’d all have amazing bodies because they look after themselves so well, which made me feel worse. I kept wondering what would happen if an Italian hunk with a well-oiled six pack were to sidle up to Lydia and start to flirt with her. The thought made me feel sick inside.
Lydia and I kept in touch by phone, but it was a very gloomy time for me. On a couple of occasions I was tearful during my lunch breaks at the jeweller’s. I’d walk off down the road alone thinking about her and get all upset. I couldn’t believe that one person could have such a big effect on me. I even considered flying out there to be with her but in the end I decided against it, because I knew I had to respect her family’s wishes. I was so lonely that I would go to Debbie’s house just to hear little bits of gossip about how Lydia was getting on. Debbie was very kind and made me feel welcome when I popped around, but occasionally she’d make a joke about how Lydia was bound to bump into lots of good-looking Italian footballers. There was one boy who lived locally who apparently played for one of their top clubs, which made me feel all the more worried. I don’t think Debbie was trying to be cruel (she doesn’t have it in her to be like that) but she felt that Lydia needed some breathing space and that it would do her some good to spend time in another country. It was something that Debbie herself had done when she was younger.