His Angel had agreed to be his wife.
They had moved into their first house together in London. His home city.
His grandparents were moving in to an annexe in their garden away from the increasingly dangerous council estate that was making their life hell.
Their single, his song, Beautiful Angel, was number one in ten different countries and their album had been at the top of the charts for ten weeks. The collaboration song they had done with Crazy Horse had been sent back to them and they knew it would be a hit. The amalgamation speaking out to both sets of fans.
Yeah, it was hard to imagine a better life.
Eliza and Jonny’s mother had spent the afternoon with two shortlisted interior designers. Jonny and the architect had awarded the building contract to a local firm, so now it was Eliza’s turn.
Jonny discovered them amongst a mountain of fabric and wallpaper samples in the living room. Mood boards propped up on the mantelpiece and the hearth.
“What do you think of this colour for in here?” Eliza held up a gold and white striped wallpaper, and a swatch of gold chenille fabric.
“Yeah. Fine.” In truth, Jonny didn’t really care. As long as it wasn’t too awful, he was more than happy to let Eliza make the decisions.
“I want to go for a regal look in here. Something that’s in keeping with the age of the house. Everywhere else I’m thinking lots of different textures, but mainly white. What do you think?”
“Yeah sounds good.”
White was fine. They had a cleaner. No need for him to be concerned.
He caught sight of the stack of fabrics and wallpapers his mother had at the side of her. Bright floral designs. Loads of pinks and purples.
Thank fuck Eliza is strong enough to go with her own opinion, he thought. White was good.
“So how’s it going with the builder, Jonny.” His mother asked.
“Dunno. Was just going to see grandad and dad about that. They’ve got the plans from the architect out now.”
He went across to Eliza, putting his hand under her chin to angle it up to him and gave her a kiss. “I love it Angel,” he said reassuringly.
His grandad and dad where in the annexe, hunched over the kitchen table. The drawings set out and blue marker pen squiggled all over them.
“Hi Jonny. We’ve made a start. These are the builder’s drawings the architect has left. They are going to get started on the foundations for the extension and get that up before knocking down the internal walls and fixing up some steel.”
“Okay sounds good. No surprises with the budget then?”
“Nah.” His grandad waved his hand at Jonny. “They’ll come in on budget alright. I’ll see about that.”
Jonny’s dad winked at him. “They’ll be here tomorrow morning digging out and then the concrete will be delivered by the end of the week. Brickies hopefully starting next week. They’re a mardy bunch, brickies. Fickle about jobs.”
“Oh?” Jonny was mildly perturbed. Not sure if he should be truly worried, or not.
“We’ll sort it, don’t you mind. There’ll be a skip on the drive for pretty much the duration and it’ll be a mess inside the house though,” his dad continued.
“Your grandma said it is fine to come here for your meals.”
“Thanks grandad. We’ll be fine. We’re due to go on tour again soon anyway and Eliza is going to Amsterdam next week to see her aunt.”
“You not going with her?”
“No, I’m going to cram in some flying. I want to become certified before the wedding.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah I’ve got something in mind.”
“Gonna let us in on it?”
“Yeah. When I’m certain it will happen.” He laughed. Nervously.
His marriage proposal idea was a little madcap and that had gone okay. He had possibly got a bit too cocky with this next idea and wasn’t sure if he had bit off more than he could chew.
Chapter Twenty
Jonny got involved in the decision on where they should get married, but left everything else to the women in his life. He figured they would do what they wanted to anyway, so no point in stressing over it. He’d done enough of that with the engagement.
Eliza planned to go to Amsterdam to spend a week with her family there. Letting her aunt get involved with some of the arrangements for the wedding and make sure all her friends in Holland were invited.
Before the Amsterdam trip, Eliza and his mother were going to look for wedding dresses in London. A personal shopping experience that all the celebrities seemed to go in for these days.
Jonny dropped them off at the store rear entrance, on his way to the airfield. They were greeted by an exuberant personal shopper. Exuberant by English standards anyway.
She whisked them up in the lift to the top floor with the promise of viewing the finest gowns any illustrator would think fit for a fairytale princess.
The room was large and mainly white. Sofas and chairs dotted around and large gold framed mirrors leant up against the walls. Its position was wasted on the top floor location. Views permanently hidden by white vinyl film stuck to the window panes.
“Can I get you both a drink. Champagne perhaps?”
“Ooh, yes please.” Jonny’s mother straightened her skirt and crossed her legs at the ankles, the way she had read in Jilly Cooper’s book “Class”. Her bible in any “out of her class” situation.
“So, Miss Van der Berg, we’ve picked some of the dresses from the designers you said you were interested in.”
With precision and pre-rehearsed timing, a six foot long rack was wheeled in next to them, holding about twenty dresses.
Eliza gulped. Her wedding dress experience was limited to the shopping expedition she took with Leesa for her nuptials. It wasn’t a private showing, just a whirlwind of bridal and fancy dress shops. Each one punctuated with a visit to a neighbouring bar.
They both got that drunk they ended up with a bright red one that stopped above the knee. Quite fetching really and set off Leesa’s tattoo’s dramatically, but not really the traditional white everyone at the ceremony was expecting. That wasn’t the reason she had excluded Leesa, but it was a sub-conscious factor.
She’d hoped the catalogue the store had sent with this year’s designs would help. Flicking through it at home she quickly became bored and picked three designers at random, just so she had something to go back to the store with.
The assistant held up a dress, showing them the front and the back before hanging it off a fixed hook on the wall.
“This first one has a gold embroidered bodice, which is all the rage this year. It’s made from pure Chinese silk and has a two layer taffeta underskirt.”
“Yes. I really like that one.” Eliza got up to touch the fabric and look under the skirt at the sewn in undergarment. “Can you keep that one there, so I can compare the rest against it.”
The assistant obliged and continued to show Eliza the rest of the dresses, but each time she shook her head.
“No. The first one is still the best.”
After about a dozen she wasn’t really looking anymore. Her mind made up.
Jonny’s mum looked across at Eliza and then at the bottle of champagne which was still three quarters full. She reached for it and topped their glasses up.
“No point in it going to waste.”
Eliza laughed.
“Don’t worry. We’ve still got your outfit to choose.”
“What from here?” Shirley halting the filling of her glass, “I can’t afford to shop here.”
“Of course you can. We’re paying. Jonny and I insist.”
She nodded at the assistant who replaced the rack full of white wedding gowns with two more racks full of brightly coloured dresses.
“Oh my!” Jonny’s mum put her hands up to her face before jumping up and starting to sift through the garments like she was fervently trying to beat other shoppers to the bargain of the year.
�
�Would you like me to get each one out, so you can see it properly? You can enjoy your champagne whilst you consider them that way.” The assistant offered.
“Oh yes. I’m forgetting where I was. Got all carried away with myself then. Please, go ahead.”
She sat back down on the edge of her seat with a massive grin on her face.
“Here.” Eliza passed her back the glass, which she proceeded to drain and then offer back to Eliza for a refill.
Eliza laughed. She loved this part of being rich. Spoiling others, especially family. They all so deserved it.
Dress after dress came out. Jonny’s mother loving each and every one of them.
“Oh I don’t know. They’re all just lovely. What do you think Eliza?”
“I’ll help you shortlist, but then you’ll have to try them on and choose which two prefer. You’ll need one for the actual wedding and another for the party. And then there’s the handbags, shoes and hat to go with them.”
Jonny’s mother clapped her hands together. “Oh Eliza this is the best day of my life.” She reached across and kissed her cheek.
Eliza picked out six dresses. “Here try them on Shirley.” Passing them to the assistant, who took them into a curtained off changing area. “Don’t forget to come out and let me see you in each one.”
“Shall we do the fitting for your dress whilst Mrs Harrison is in there?”
“Yes.” Eliza nodded nervously.
Seeing herself in a wedding dress was never something she expected to do. Her stomach churning at the prospect.
She slipped out of her jeans and top. Thankful she had remembered to put matching underwear on this morning. She held up her arms as the seamstress and the personal shopping assistant lifted the dress over her head. Shimmying it down her body, and then pulling the bodice back up to lift her cleavage. She pulled her arms through the bra straps so she could get the full effect.
Eliza held her hair up off her neck, whilst the seamstress threaded the loose ribbon that had worked its way free at the back of the bodice and pulled it tight and into a bow. The assistant fluffed up the skirt and held out the train at the back.
They both stepped back.
Eliza tentatively lifted her eyes up to one of the full length mirrors on the far wall.
Her heart fluttered.
Eyes widened.
She felt like a princess.
Shirley came bustling out of the dressing room with her hand up the back of her dress.
“I don’t know what on earth is going on with the slip inside this dress…”
She suddenly stopped rambling when she caught sight of Eliza.
“Oh, my!” Tears welling up in her eyes. “You look beautiful. So, so beautiful.” She planted her arms around Eliza and squeezed the remaining breath from her bodice constricted chest. “I can’t wait until Jonny sees you in this.” She put a hand to her heart, the other fanning her tear streaked face.
The seamstress moved forward with a small footstool, offering out her hand for Eliza to step onto it.
“Have you chosen the shoes you will be wearing with it yet?”
“No I don’t need to. I won’t be wearing shoes.”
“Okay, in that case I’ll just pin it up at the front. Apart from that I don’t think it needs any further adjustments.”
“Yes. It’s perfect the way it is.” Eliza agreed before turning to Jonny’s mother.
“I love that dress Shirley, the colours really suit you.”
“Oh thank you honey. And I like this one too.” Holding up a similar dress but in a different colour way.
Eliza nodded.
“I’ll get some coordinating accessories sent up from the shop floor.” The shopping assistant offered. “I’ll take the dresses down so they can match them up. I won’t be long.”
“What are you wearing with the dress Eliza?”
Eliza looked at her reflection again. “Nothing fancy. Maybe some sort of hair accessory? Flowers maybe? I’m thinking about leaving it until we get there to sort something out.”
Shirley nodded and bit her proverbial lip.
She didn’t really understand how Eliza could be so relaxed about such a thing, but respected that she was. Her Jonny was the same. Didn’t seem to get flustered about any of the pre-arrangements. As far as she was aware he hadn’t organized anything to do with the wedding. She’d quizzed him a few times now about his best man, the wedding rings, morning suits. All he had said is, “don’t worry mum, everything’s covered”. Well she was worried and was desperate to just take everything over for them. Her husband, Chris, had warned her off though and, so far, she was heeding his advice.
Chapter Twenty-One
“What’s wrong?”
Jim Bob had called Jonny into his office. Well, it wasn’t really his office. More a desk that he occupied when he was in London in an ex-colleague’s business premises. But at least it wasn’t a hotel room, or a hotel lobby, which was where Jonny and Jim Bob would normally meet. Invariably, Jonny would spend the first half hour signing random paper based objects for opportunistic autograph hunters. Then suppressing his irritation when mid-sentence they would be interrupted again. Jim Bob encouraged it. “Good for business.” He would justify.
Knowing this made Jonny mildly concerned at Jim Bob asking him to come to the dingy office and ever so slightly more concerned at his request to come alone.
He was here now and sat across a table from his manager whose face was ashen.
The wooden chair creaked as Jonny nervously jiggled his leg up and down. Jim Bob hadn’t said a word and that was starting to make Jonny anxious. He never usually shut up; always had something to say. Someone to gossip about. An opinion on a matter that wasn’t really his to judge.
Jonny followed his manager’s eyes down to the newspaper he had spread out in front of him.
“What’s that?”
Jim Bob spun it around and pushed it across the table, so Jonny could read it.
The London Recorder. The paper pretty much all Londoners read. London was the centre of the universe as far as the editor of that paper was concerned and any political, celebrity or sports news outside of the capital was not of any real interest, unless there was a London angle of course. Often a tenuous angle, but an angle none the less to be exploited. London was where it was at and the London Recorder told the readers what was going down.
Jonny fixed his gaze at a photo of himself and Eliza, next to a picture of a young boy.
Head drawn into the photos, he stared hard at the young boy. That wasn’t him as a child, was it?
He then turned his attention to the words. To the headline.
“Jonny’s Secret Love Child.”
“What…?” Jonny shouted. “What the fuck’s all this about?”
Without waiting for a reply, he scanned the story for more details. “For crying out loud.”
He pushed back on his chair, neck arched and face directed up to the ceiling; noisily blowing out both lung fulls of air.
Striking out, he pushed the paper onto the floor in disgust and frustration.
“Jesus Christ. Eliza is gonna…” Raking his hands through his hair.
What was Eliza going to do? Get angry? Upset? Leave him? Christ no, she can’t leave him. Not again.
What about this boy? He leant over to pick the paper off the floor and look again at the story to learn the boy’s name. Isaac. What about him? What if he is Jonny’s? What if he does have a son?
“So…?” Jim Bob finally spoke. Calm and business-like. “What is the actual story here?”
“How the fuck should I know?”
“Look, I need to know. If I have to fend off questions about this; release a press statement; sort this shit out. Then, I need to know what the truth is.”
Jonny’s pulse was racing, the vein at his temple throbbing. “Why didn’t we get a heads up on this? I thought that’s what you was supposed to do? That’s what I pay you for.” His voice rising to a crescendo.
“I’m sorry Jonny, but this isn’t the sort of story the journalists want to sit on. Or negotiate on. It’s sensationalistic. It’s what sells papers.”
Jonny grunted.
“So is it true Jonny?”
Jonny leant in to his manager’s face. He was up for a fight with anyone on this one. “I honestly don’t know. Yes, I was in a relationship with this… this… Helen. And yes she said that she was pregnant. But I didn’t believe her and then she just disappeared. That was years ago.” He flung one arm up in despair.
“So we deny it?” Jim Bob’s stare not faltering.
“No.” Jonny sat back and crossed his arms. The tension between them palpable.
“So it’s true?”
“I don’t know.” Jonny’s frustration turning to outrage. “Look, I just need to get back to Eliza. Talk to her before she finds out from someone else.”
He pushed his chair back forcefully, the anger in him about to boil over.
As he walked out of the office he turned and had one final jibe at Jim Bob. “Anyway, this article is by that reporter. The one you said had been trying to get an exclusive. The one who accosted me in the toilets in Dam. Why didn’t you find out what the fuck he wanted?”
Jim Bob was tongue tied. “I…I…”
“Oh never mind…” Jonny slammed the office door behind him. The glass in the upper panel reverberating long after he had reached the end of the corridor.
Jonny wheel spun his Range Rover out of the car park and raced down the London streets, weaving in and out of law abiding drivers and paying no heed to pedestrians and road signs. He was pissed. Proper pissed.
Turning the corner and on to their lane on Primrose Hill he realised it was too late.
Paparazzi everywhere.
He smacked the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. Pulling his cap down to mask his face. Then thundered passed them and up to the gates.
They had no choice but to jump out of the way. Parting to avoid being run over.
He was in no mood for courtesy.
The gates opened, irritably slow. The little wheels on the bottom track, creaking as they ate through the gravelly dust the builders had left.
Loving his ANGEL Page 13