Living it Arg

by James Argent

  Lydia told me on the phone that she’d been going to a local nightclub called Bubaloo, or something similar. I was pleased that she was starting to have a good time, but it also made me worry all the more about those imaginary Italian hunks. Her sister Georgia went to stay with her, and I knew Georgia could be a bit of a party animal. In the end, I needn’t have worried, because Lydia came back in one piece. On the day Lydia flew back to the UK, Debbie agreed to drive me up to Stansted Airport. I had to beg to get the day off from the jeweller’s but eventually they agreed to let me go. Lydia had no idea that I was going to be there and, as I saw her emerge from Customs, my heart raced. She had bright-red cheeks due to all the sun she’d been exposed to and her hair had gone slightly curly. I threw my arms around her and we kissed. That night we made love, and it was as if she had never been away.

  Lydia decided to take a gap year rather than go into teacher training, and she found a job as a receptionist, first with a company near Heathrow and then at a firm in Camden. It meant a lot of travelling and, although Camden was a great area for nightlife, it wasn’t the best destination to commute to from Essex. At this point in our relationship we hardly ever argued – although we did have the odd spectacular tiff. On one crazy occasion she got so angry that she threw me out of the house.

  It all started when we were innocently teasingly each other. Lydia used to take the piss out of me for my not being able to drive, while she had a full licence. Dave had brought her a brand-new Fiat 500, which was her pride and joy. I’d try to respond to her banter by making a witty remark, and one of the things I would tease her about was her forehead. If you look at photos of Lydia very closely you will see that her hairline is a bit higher than you might expect. Debbie shares that characteristic. It’s nothing too out of the ordinary, but for some reason it made Lydia very conscious about the shape of her forehead. If I mentioned it she would become very touchy and take it to heart. It was the one thing that was guaranteed to drive her mad. So, whenever she did something to piss me off, I would tease her by calling her ‘Forehead’. One day, while we were having a minor argument in her bedroom, I pushed things too far.

  ‘Forehead! Forehead!’ I teased.

  I could see the red mist starting to rise, but I carried on. With that, I think she whacked me a couple of times. It was all very childish but, before I knew it, Lydia was in a fury. Georgia came into the room to see what all the fuss was about.

  ‘Get out of the house!’ they screamed at me.

  I made a hasty retreat downstairs and went outside, assuming that Lydia would let me back in when she’d had time to cool off. But after five minutes she appeared at the window.

  ‘How do you feel now, James?’ she gloated.

  I begged to be let back in but, to my amazement, Lydia responded by trying to throw a glass of water over me through the window. As I wondered what to do next, my eyes came to rest on her gleaming new Fiat 500.

  ‘If you don’t let me in I’m going to let down your tyres,’ I shouted back. I had no intention of doing any such thing, but Lydia didn’t know that.

  ‘Don’t you dare touch my car,’ she screamed.

  I bent down and unscrewed a dust cap on one of the tyres.

  ‘Piss off! Don’t touch my car! Don’t touch my car!’ she yelled.

  I picked up a small stone and used it to let out a tiny hiss of air from the valve. It was such a small amount that it wouldn’t have made any difference, but it sent Lydia into a wild fury. I was feeling quite clever with myself, but then I saw something that made me freeze. Lydia and Georgia had their mobile phones and were using them to film me.

  ‘I’m telling my dad!’ Lydia screamed, before closing the window.

  A few moments later my phone rang. It was Dave, who was out with Debbie and the kids.

  ‘You’ve let her tyres down, you prick!’ he said (in fact he may have been less polite than that). ‘You better make sure that by the time I get home the air’s back those tyres.’

  I made myself scarce for a couple of days – before buying Dave yet another curry to make amends!

  Despite the odd fiery bust-up, Lydia and I were blissfully happy together. We were always having fun, and one of the things we used to do for a laugh was practise WWF wrestling moves together. Lydia used to make me laugh because there was a famous move called a Frog Splash – but she used to call it a Frog Spawn!

  We loved going to a curry house in Wanstead called 62 Spice, or to Prezzo in South Woodford. Lydia also had an appetite for chewy sweets, which I would buy for her. Whenever she had a drink, she was also partial to a chicken and mushroom Pukka Pie with chips, and she would refuse to go home without it!

  We’d also spend time visiting her grandmother, Maureen, who we are both very close to, and we’d make a regular thing of going to the cinema on a Wednesday night when there was a special promotion for tickets. We’d always go to the same cinema that we went to on our first date.

  It was a fun time, but the only cloud was that we were both in dead-end jobs. It seemed as if Lydia were working miles and miles away, and all the commuting was starting to get her down because it took her ages to get home. Meanwhile, I knew that working at the jeweller’s wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Lydia wanted me to try to better myself – or at least find something that I enjoyed. At this point, trying to sing professionally still didn’t figure in my mind. A lot of our friends in Essex had gone to work in the City as stockbrokers and bankers. When Lydia suggested that I should do the same, it got me thinking. I was very good at talking and socialising, so surely I’d also be good at selling stocks and shares.

  ‘You know what? You’re right, Lydia. I’m going to get a job in the City,’ I vowed.

  I asked around and heard that a broker I knew had a job going as a land broker near Liverpool Street. I applied and I was delighted when he gave me the job. Lydia said she was really proud of me – it seemed as if we were finally going places. I gave in my notice at the jeweller’s and I thanked the Kane family for all they had done for me. Next, I needed to give my wardrobe a boost. The fashion in the City at the time was for dark suits with a nice crisp white shirt and a bright tie, usually red. The established brokers wore matching ties and belts from Hermès, but I suspected it would be a while before I could afford those. I was very excited as I rode the Central Line up to Liverpool Street. I began full of enthusiasm but I am afraid to say that I turned out to be a right flop!

  I loved the social side of working in the City, because there was a big drinking culture. I was great company in the bars and restaurants, but unfortunately I didn’t manage to close a single deal. Within a couple of months my new employers called me in for a chat.

  ‘Thanks for being here, Arg – but it’s not working out.’

  What a disaster! They were letting me go. The first thing I thought was, Shit! How am I going to tell Lydia?

  I was so embarrassed: sacked after such a short space of time! On the Tube home that night I was full of fear and anxiety. I was so scared that Lydia would think badly of me. Surely she would think that I was a loser who wasn’t going anywhere in life.

  Then I had this crazy idea.

  I’ll keep it a secret while I look for another job, I thought. And then everything will be fine.

  It was a stupid plan but at the time it made perfect sense. So the next morning I put on my suit and tie at 8 a.m. and left my house as normal so that nobody would suspect anything. I knew that it was wrong: Lydia was my best friend and I hated lying to her in this way. But that was exactly what I did. I’d go out in the mornings and come back in the evenings and pretend that I had done a day’s work in between. What I actually did was go round to a mate’s house and spend the day there. The trouble was that, once I had started to lie, it became impossible to stop. I was frightened of how Lydia would react, so I spent two long months in limbo, getting up every day and faking going to work. In the end it all became too much and I confessed to Lydia and Debbie that I’d lost
my job, although I made out that it had only just happened. To this day they probably won’t know about my period of faking it until they read this. It’s not something that I am proud of, and I hope they’ll forgive me.

  Debbie has a saying about life that goes along the lines of, ‘What’s meant to be will be.’ I think that’s what happened with my being such a flop in the City: it just wasn’t meant to be. I had finally used up all my options and it was now that my mind turned back to singing. My mum and dad had always encouraged me to think about performing, but sometimes I think you need to hear things from somebody outside your immediate family. When I told Debbie that it hadn’t worked out in the City she sat me down for a chat.

  ‘Your passion in life’s always been theatre and singing to audiences,’ she said. ‘You love getting up in front of everyone. It seems like something you want to do. Why don’t you sing for a living?’

  At first I wasn’t convinced. ‘I don’t know, Debbie. I can’t just start singing on stage again now: I haven’t done it properly for years.’

  But she was adamant. ‘I’m going to get you a local singing gig,’ she insisted.

  Debbie used to joke that the only way I could get Lydia into bed was when I sang to her (which was partly true!). Despite Debbie’s initial concerns that Lydia and I were too close, I think she’d now come to regard me as something of a son of her own. She would cook for me almost every day. She could make a wicked portion of poached eggs on crumpets. As viewers of TOWIE would later see, Debbie, Lydia and I would sometimes all relax by sitting up in bed together to share a cup of tea, we were that close. I could talk to Debbie about anything and I was grateful for her advice about my singing. On one occasion, she had even forgiven me after catching me naked while I was with Lydia in the bedroom (Debbie just let out a scream and slammed the door closed after accidentally walking in on us!). Luckily, Dave didn’t get to hear about it.

  Debbie threw herself into helping with my new singing project. She had a good friend called Nicola who ran a restaurant called Rosso in Woodford. Nicola agreed to give me my first gig. I downloaded loads of backing tracks to prepare with, and I would hold a hairbrush as if it were a microphone and practise singing in front of Lydia and Debbie. (I also used to practise on my own in front of the mirror, but we won’t go there.) Rosso was an ideal venue for a first gig because it was small and intimate and I knew that all my family and friends would be in the audience. The Kanes and the Wrights came along to wish me luck and it went really well. I mainly sang numbers by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Bobby Darin – and it went like a dream! The restaurant was packed and everybody gave me a warm reception.

  I must have caused quite a stir, because the next thing that happened was that a friend of mine called Adam Brooks contacted me. Adam was the boss of Nu Bar in Loughton, which is where all the Essex in-crowd flock to be seen. Adam had heard about my packing out Rosso and invited me to come and sing. I was very apprehensive to begin with because this would take things to a whole new level. It was a bar that was frequented by every trendy young person of my age in the area and I was aware that if I messed things up I would have the piss taken out of me big time. Adam persuaded me that it would be fine and he booked me to sing on a Friday night. Nu Bar would always be packed from 10 p.m. until the early hours, but it was relatively quiet during the early evenings. Adam suggested that I sing at around 7 p.m. or 8 p.m., which would bring more people into the bar early on and it would give me a chance to generate some regular income. Debbie agreed to drive me there on the big night, and, as usual, I was a bag of nerves. I spent so long getting ready that we were running late, which Debbie told me off about.

  ‘Hello, Arg. I didn’t think you were going to show up,’ Adam said when I finally arrived.

  When I went behind the microphone the bar was jam-packed; you couldn’t move in there. I think a lot of people who knew me from my work as a nightclub promoter had come along just out of curiosity, not actually believing that I would sing. Mark and Josh were there to wish me luck, as was Jack, who was on a Home Office tag at the time after another tussle with the law. He was allowed to attend because it was during the early evening. As I opened my mouth to sing the crowd gave me such a warm welcome that all the nervousness began to evaporate. Soon the whole bar were joining in by singing and waving their arms in time to the tunes as I performed lots of big-band numbers. It was a great night and I enjoyed every moment of it. Adam was delighted and afterwards he invited me back to perform again in a couple of weeks. After that it became a regular thing and I sang at Nu Bar on a Friday every other week. We would go back to Jack’s house afterwards and we would let rip on the karaoke machine.

  Word about my singing started to spread and I began to look for other gigs in the area: I wanted to be the No. 1 local singer for weddings and parties. Debbie would drive me around in her car and I popped into every restaurant and bar that we could find so that I could leave my singing details and a card. As the summer approached I was starting to get regular work, although it wasn’t quite enough to provide me with a full-time income. I needed something else to supplement it and Mark had an idea. His cousin Elliott (who runs a restaurant called Eduardo’s in Spain, and who is now in TOWIE) had just returned to the UK. He was setting up a waste-disposal business. It was a rubbish job (quite literally). I had to go around collecting refuse from people’s houses and putting it into a skip. It got me some spare cash but I felt like a real pauper. There had to be a better way of boosting my singing career than doing this. I was beginning to wonder just where my life was going. I needed something really gritty to get my teeth into. Maybe I should consider going abroad to work.

  Then I had a big idea.

  When the annual boys’ holiday to Marbella came around, it got me thinking: why not spend the rest of the season singing in Spain? I’d flown out there with my mates and I was looking forward to all the usual fun and chaos (although, hopefully, minus any exploding TVs this time around). This year Lydia was in Marbella at the same time with all her girlfriends. We’d timed things like that so the two groups could meet up and party together. During our respective holidays, Lydia and I saw each other every day and she spent most nights at my apartment, often trying to look away while the likes of Josh wandered around naked.

  It was while Lydia and I were chatting by the pool out there that we first discussed the idea of moving to Spain.

  ‘James, I love it out here,’ Lydia told me.

  ‘So do I,’ I replied. ‘In fact, what have we got at home for us? You’re unhappy in a dead-end job. My singing’s doing OK, but I could be doing a lot more. Why don’t we do a summer together out here?’

  It all made perfect sense. Marbella was somewhere we both adored and we felt it would be a joy to live and work there. I knew lots of the bar and restaurant owners, so I was confident that we could both find work, I as a singer and Lydia as a waitress or promotions girl.

  ‘We might as well do it while we’re both young and we don’t have any ties,’ I added.

  Lydia loved the idea and we made up our minds there and then. We planned that we would fly back from holiday with our mates before returning on our own for the rest of the summer.

  It was settled: we would start a new life in sunny Spain.

  8

  A STOLEN KISS AND HEARTBREAK IN MARBELLA

  Lydia and I flew to Spain together convinced that we were about to live the dream. We booked one-way tickets to Málaga and we eagerly packed our bags in the hope that our new life in the Mediterranean would be crammed with fun. After all, we’d both spent many happy holidays in Marbella. We knew the area well and we had lots of friends and contacts who could help us to settle in while we were finding our feet. We were deeply in love and we were starting a new life in the party capital of Europe. What could possibly go wrong?

  Unfortunately, things turned out to be very different from what we expected. It was while we were living in Marbella that the first cracks began to appear in our relationship,
and, amid a backdrop of sun, sand and champagne, it was to have explosive consequences. Little did we know as we arrived in Málaga, but our Spanish jaunt would eventually lead to our temporarily breaking up.

  It all began so well. Debbie had a close family friend called Melissa, who owned a huge villa in the hills above Mijas, near Fuengirola. It was a bit of a drive from Marbella itself, but Melissa agreed that Lydia and I could stay there while we looked for a place of our own. Melissa had been like an aunt to Lydia while she was growing up, so Lydia and I would call her ‘Aunty Melissa’. She lived with her husband Peter and their three kids, and she was a wonderful host and treated us to lots of nice dinners. The villa was beautifully decorated. It had a big swimming pool, a large barbecue area and several bedrooms arranged over three floors. Lydia and I were very comfortable. The only drawback was the distance to Marbella, which was where we needed to be in order to find work. The bus journey took well over an hour and we had to change en route, so we were faced with nearly three hours’ travelling in the boiling heat every day. It was a long, meandering route and there was no air conditioning on board, so it was very hot and stuffy. We would sit there sweating and dehydrated for what seemed like an eternity. Catching a taxi was out of the question because it cost around €100 each way. I had gone to Marbella with a small amount of savings but I didn’t have enough to cover that sort of outlay. So, even though we were extremely comfortable at Aunty Melissa’s villa, our first priority was to find our own place to live near the centre of town, ideally close to the main party strip in Puerto Banús. This turned out to be much harder than we anticipated, because everywhere was so expensive. We found ourselves making the exhausting journey backwards and forwards to Mijas while we searched all the local lettings agencies and estate agents.