Star Struck

by Anne-marie O'connor

  Catherine was lying in bed, looking at her ceiling. The excitement of the afternoon had all but faded. She couldn’t believe that Jo had told Maria and Claire about dad. She had been so angry with Jo on the way home, but it was hard to keep up that level of anger when everyone around her was a) concerned for their father and b) about to burst with excitement because their sister was going to spend the weekend with Richard Forster.

  When she had arrived home Mick had come to the door. Catherine didn’t know if she could tell him. Being excited about being through to the next stage of the competition felt totally inappropriate.

  ‘She’s through!’ Claire had said excitedly, doing her best impression of someone who didn’t know her dad had cancer.

  ‘Good lass,’ Mick said and nodded sadly as if he’d already lost Catherine.

  Later, when she managed to get him on his own, she said, ‘I don’t have to go, Dad.’

  ‘I can’t hold you back,’ Mick had said ambiguously. She didn’t know if he meant he didn’t want to hold her back or he had no choice, she would go anyway.

  Claire and Maria had behaved so oddly – Claire made her dad some toast and Maria changed the channel for him – that Catherine had to ask Claire to go home and Maria to go out before Mick cottoned on to the fact that they all knew.

  Catherine looked up at the ceiling and at the comforting little cobweb that had hung in the corner since she was a little girl, since before their mum had left home. Catherine never removed it because she liked it being there. It made her feel safe – stupid really – that her one constant in life was a cobweb in the corner of her room. She had stared at that cobweb on Christmas eves as a child, waiting excitedly for the hours to tick by and to be allowed downstairs to see if Santa had been. She had stared at it the night before her GCSE exams, going over everything she could remember about Twelfth Night and Boyle’s Law and The Potsdam Conference. She had stared at it the night that she had been unceremoniously chucked by Darren Gleeson. And she had stared at it the night that her mum left home to live with Jay in Chorlton, listening to her dad crying downstairs as he sank a bottle of whisky and listened to ‘You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille’ over and over. Now she was lying staring at the cobweb and thinking that if she went ahead with taking her place in the Star Maker competition and her father became seriously ill, she would never forgive herself. It was her that he depended on, not the others. He trusted her. She knew where everything was that he needed. Jo would forget to give him his tablets and Maria would lose her patience with him and Claire would go home when he got too cantankerous for her, which was a given as he couldn’t go ten minutes without a bout of cantankerousness. She really didn’t know what to do.

  ‘Hello.’ Jo pushed the door open.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Would you like me to feed you some grapes? Or get you a big feather fan?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Come on … you’re nearly famous. You need to start with some diva demands or you’ll never get into Boujis.’

  ‘What’s Boujis?’

  ‘A nightclub that Prince Harry’s always falling out of in London – you probably get dragged there with Richard. Note I’m calling him “Richard” now, because he’s my mate.’ Jo looked around the room as if she was searching for something to comment on. ‘Right,’ she said finally, ‘I’m a nob, I know that, but I think that this isn’t something that can be kept secret.’

  Catherine wanted to be angry with Jo, to tell her that she had no right telling their sisters without consulting her first, but Jo was right. It wasn’t something that should be kept secret. At least not between them. Whether they told their dad today that they all knew was an entirely different matter. Catherine didn’t think it would do him any good to know that everyone knew. But she had a feeling that things were now out of her hands.

  ‘I know.’ Catherine nodded.

  ‘You can’t wrap him in cotton wool. You know what he’s like, he’d be making you feel bad about something anyway. At least he’s got something proper.’

  ‘Jo!’ Catherine said, sitting up angrily, ‘What a thing to say.’

  ‘Look, I’m not being tight, I’m just saying that sometimes people come through in the face of absurdity.’

  ‘Adversity.’

  ‘What did I say?’

  ‘Absur— it doesn’t matter, go on.’

  ‘You know, you hear these stories of people who are just normal and then all of a sudden they find this hidden strength, you know, picking cars off kids that have been crushed, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Yeah, but Dad’s not normal. He’s not been well for years.’

  ‘No, he’s not been well according to him. It’s all in his head. Now with the …’ Jo swallowed hard, ‘… cancer, he has something real to fight.’

  ‘I don’t know, Jo. I just think he’s going to pieces.’

  ‘Well, all the more reason to confront him about it. Tell him we’ll help him.’

  ‘He wants me, though.’

  ‘What for? Balloon rides over the Serengeti?’

  ‘He said something about going on the big wheel in town.’

  ‘That’s what I like about Dad, sets his sights high.’

  ‘If something happens to him I’ll never forgive myself.’

  Jo stood up and took Catherine’s Calvin Klein perfume and sprayed it up her jumper. ‘What does that mean? You are going to London next week if I have to take you myself.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I do. This bullshit stops now.’

  ‘Why? What are you doing?’

  Jo walked towards the door. ‘Never mind what I’m doing. Get your beauty sleep. You’re going to be on the telly.’

  ‘Jo?’ Jo turned around and looked at Catherine. ‘Put the perfume back, it cost me twenty quid.’

  Jo was always rooting around, seeing if there was anything worth pinching.

  She laughed, knowing she’d been caught red-handed. ‘Damn. So near, yet so far.’

  Catherine smiled at her sister. You had to love her for trying. Her phone began to ring. Catherine looked at the number, didn’t recognise it and didn’t know who would want to call her at eleven in the evening anyway. She looked at it for a moment, thinking that she should let it go through to voicemail, but curiosity got the better of her. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Catherine Reilly?’ a woman asked. Catherine didn’t recognise the voice.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How does it feel to be going to London?’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘It must be a thrill to be in Richard Forster’s group.’

  Catherine had been warned by the producers that they would start to receive calls from the press. That they would call anyone who had got through to Boot Camp and pretend that they knew that they were through whether they were or weren’t. They would then cobble together a story based on the disparate facts they were given.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘The other girls in your group are really excited about going.’

  Catherine wanted to put the phone down, but she was too polite. She was like this at work in the call centre, someone could be screaming blue murder at her and she’d still be nice to them. If Jo had taken this call she would pretend to be a phone sex line until the person on the other end got bored or offended or enjoyed it so much they had to go anyway.

  ‘I’m very sorry, but I’m going to put the phone down now. Thank you for calling.’

  Catherine pressed the cancel button on her phone tentatively, as if a bomb would be detonated as soon as she touched it. Once the call was cancelled she put the phone under her pillow. It rang again immediately. Catherine tried to ignore it. It rang again. When the phone rang for the tenth time she switched it off and threw it across the room. She put her head on her pillow, but it would be another three hours before she finally fell asleep.

  Jo was sitting at the breakfast bar in the kitchen flanked by Maria and Claire when Catherine appeared at the do
or.

  ‘What are you lot doing?’ Catherine asked, rubbing her eyes.

  Jo took a deep breath and scrunched her eyes shut and gabbled an explanation. She didn’t want Catherine to be angry with her, but after last night, when her sister seemed to be wavering about whether to go to London, Jo thought that she needed to take drastic action. ‘We need to tell Dad. We’re all agreed. We’re going to confront him.’

  ‘Tell him that we know and that we need a plan of action to help him. There’s no point in us all sneaking around pretending that nothing’s going on and we’re all hunky dory,’ Claire said.

  ‘What do you mean, tell him?’ Catherine looked at her three sisters, sitting in a row as if they were there to interview her.

  ‘Tell him. Just tell him,’ Maria said, as if Catherine was stupid and she was the brains behind all of this.

  ‘Like on Dog the Bounty Hunter,’ Jo said, thinking that this was the most helpful way of explaining things to Catherine. ‘We’re going to do an “intervention”,’ she said, in her best American accent.

  ‘He’s going to flip his lid,’ Catherine said, sitting down with a thump.

  ‘He’s not going to flip anything,’ Claire replied, getting up and pouring water into the teapot. ‘Tea?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘What’s he going to do? Run away and stay somewhere else? He’ll moan at you for telling us, but he’ll moan anyway, won’t he?’

  ‘Telling you what?’ Mick suddenly appeared at the door.

  Jo stared at her dad. This had been her idea, she couldn’t let her bottle desert her now. ‘Dad, can you take a seat?’ she asked politely.

  Too politely, she was never this nice to him. He looked at her and then at his other three daughters. ‘Come on then, Witches of Eastwick, spit it out.’

  ‘You know we worry about you …’ Maria said.

  Mick’s face suggested he didn’t think anything of the sort.

  ‘And we just want to do what’s best for you …’ Claire added.

  Catherine let out a sigh. ‘They know you’ve got cancer. I told Jo because I was worried and I was going away and then she told the others because she didn’t want to be the only one that knew and now they’ve—’ Catherine corrected herself, ‘we’ve decided that we need to speak to you about it.’

  ‘Who the bloody hell do you lot think you are?’ Mick asked, simultaneously scratching his beard and rearranging himself.

  Claire pulled herself up to her full five foot eight. ‘Your daughters!’ she shouted.

  Mick stared at her, taken aback. ‘Now you might not like the fact that we are bothered about what happens to you, but we are. And we are not going to let you do this on your own …’

  ‘I wasn’t doing it on my own. You were helping me.’

  ‘And that’s why we all know now,’ Jo joined in. ‘So that Catherine doesn’t have to deal with it on her own.’

  ‘It’s me with the cancer, not her,’ Mick said, walking over to the cupboard and pulling down a packet of Rice Krispies and thumping them on the work surface.

  ‘Yeah?’ Jo asked angrily. She really couldn’t believe her dad’s attitude sometimes, he loved wallowing in self-pity. Maybe her theory that this might give him an extra boost in life was totally wrong. Maybe all it would do was make him feel even sorrier for himself. ‘Well, it’s her with the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and she’s not cocking it up just because you want her here at your beck and call.’

  ‘Her?’ he said, throwing his hand in Catherine’s direction as if swatting flies. ‘What does she do anyway? Bugger all, from what I can see, except for swanning off to some talent competition and not giving a stuff about me.’

  Jo looked over at Catherine, who was standing openmouthed, her eyes watery.

  ‘She looks after you, you selfish sod. She’s your carer,’ Claire said.

  ‘I haven’t got a bloody carer.’

  ‘What is she then, Dad?’ Jo demanded. ‘She does everything for you. What’s that if it’s not a carer?’

  ‘A mug?’ Catherine said quietly.

  Jo, Claire and Maria turned and stared at their sister.

  ‘What?’ Mick asked. Jo couldn’t believe that Catherine had said it; good for her. Though, she thought, her dad really did treat her like one sometimes.

  ‘How can you say that?’ Mick asked, turning around and slamming the cereal packet on the counter.

  ‘How can I not after what you’ve just said?’

  ‘I’ll tell you who’s a mug, shall I? Me, for trusting you,’ Mick spat at Catherine.

  Jo thought that her dad’s anger was far more acute than the situation warranted. ‘All right, you,’ Jo shouted, ‘chill your beans. We all know now so that’s it. You can cry all you want, Dad, but we know. So what now?’

  ‘Nothing now.’

  ‘Wrong answer,’ Claire said, walking over to her father. ‘What sort of cancer is it, Dad? Where is it being treated, what have the doctors told you? And is there anything else we should know?’

  Jo could tell that Claire was trying to be calm and caring with Mick, but he really would try the patience of a saint.

  Mick put his hand to his stomach. ‘It’s stomach cancer.’

  ‘And where are you being treated?’ Claire’s voice softened.

  Mick thought for a moment. ‘Withington.’

  ‘Withington Hospital?’

  ‘No,’ he corrected. ‘Christie’s. Christie’s Cancer Hospital in Withington.’

  ‘And what have the doctors said?’ Maria asked quietly.

  Jo couldn’t remember a time when she had seen her sister look so concerned.

  ‘They talk in riddles that lot. I don’t know if I’m coming or going with them.’

  ‘When’s your next appointment?’

  Mick turned his back on his daughters and buried his head in his hands. ‘Next week. A week on Monday,’ he said.

  Catherine looked at Jo. ‘That’s when I’m away.’

  ‘We know,’ Jo replied, ‘we’ll go with him.’

  ‘You’ll do nothing of the sort,’ Mick said defiantly.

  Maria walked over to her dad and, taking his hand guided him to a seat, placed a cup of tea in front of him and poured milk on his Rice Krispies. ‘Yes, we will, Dad. We’ll all be there for you.’

  Mick gazed around at his daughters, a look of genuine wonderment on his face. ‘But you’ve got work and stuff. You don’t want to be bothering with me.’

  ‘Yes, we do,’ Claire said defiantly.

  ‘Course we do,’ Maria said.

  ‘Despite what you might think, you daft old goat, we do love you,’ Catherine said.

  ‘Yeah, Dad, we’ll come with you,’ Jo offered. ‘I’ll even be nice to you.’

  ‘Good girl,’ Mick said with a wink, suddenly perking up. ‘Pop us some toast in then, will you love and stick the radio on. United have got an early kick off.’

  Jo looked at Catherine and raised an eyebrow. Was he serious? She walked over and grabbed some Milk Roll and shoved it in the toaster, wondering if it was her that was mean-spirited or whether her dad was just a born piss-taker, whatever life threw at him.

  Catherine returned to her room and flopped on her bed. She was so mad with her dad, but so guilty at the same time at having to leave him, that her head felt as if it was filled with static and she couldn’t think straight. Jo was right; he was selfish. He didn’t care about her, all he really cared about was himself, which had been perfectly demonstrated by the way he had reacted when he had been confronted by his daughters – indignation followed by what Catherine could only describe as delight at the fact that his other daughters now seemed willing to pander to his needs. What an awful thing to think about her own father, Catherine thought, as she pulled out her suitcase again and began to pack for London. But it was true. He was sitting downstairs now being treated like the Maharajah because he had cancer and he actually seemed to be revelling in it.

  Catherine tried to put herself in his place
. He was probably frightened and felt all alone and thought no one else would want to know, she reasoned. Now that her sisters knew, he was just glad that it was out in the open. But the way he was behaving downstairs seemed more self-centred than that. He was just pleased to be the centre of attention for a change. Something that he had been striving towards for years, but had never actually achieved.

  Catherine gathered up all of the clothes that Jo had helped her choose, which she had washed and ironed as soon as she returned from Boot Camp, and folded them neatly in her case. She looked at her reflection in the mirror. She had lost weight over the past few weeks, the excitement and the stress of the auditions, then the run up to Boot Camp, had made Catherine lose her appetite, something she never thought could happen to her. She’d always marvelled at those girls who said things like, ‘I forgot to eat lunch.’ How did someone forget to eat lunch? But now she kind of understood. Her stomach didn’t seem to want to ask her brain for food. It seemed to have disconnected itself from its hunger sensors and hooked itself up with the panic and adrenalin sensors. Instead of being hungry it just churned with worry about her dad, about the next stage in the competition, about how she would come across on TV.

  Catherine’s phone began to ring. It was Andy. She had been wondering if he was going to call and had been coming up with excuses over the past twenty-four hours as to why he might not. He was busy, he had other things to do, he’d probably decided against it as soon as he’d left Boot Camp.