Star Struck

by Anne-marie O'connor

  ‘That’s good to hear,’ Jo said, relieved that her dad was pleased for Catherine.

  ‘Catherine!’ Jo jumped up and down in her seat, seeing her sister walk onto the stage.

  Catherine waved and began to run over, but realising she couldn’t run in her shoes, took them off and continued barefoot.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re here!’ Catherine was evidently delighted.

  Jo couldn’t believe she’d managed to keep it quiet, as soon as they found out they were coming she had wanted to blurt it out.

  Catherine hugged Maria and then gave her dad a quick hug and her mum a polite kiss on the cheek. ‘So, how did you like tonight?’ Catherine asked.

  Jo noticed that her sister didn’t seem to be able to look her parents in the eye.

  ‘It was ace. And Richard Forster is about sixty and has had loads of surgery, which I would have put money on, but they put loads of make-up on him and he pretends to be in his early fifties in interviews, the saddo.’

  ‘You’ve seen him before.’

  ‘Not from two feet away … So, how are you?’

  Catherine took a deep breath and looked at her mum and dad. ‘I was all right … until someone told me about what you two have done.’

  Jo glanced at Maria, she didn’t seem to know what was going on either.

  Jo was sitting on the flight back to the UK still ignoring her parents. She couldn’t believe that they had stooped so low. Karen had refused to talk to her daughters about her reasons for agreeing to participate in the story, but Jo knew already knew what it was: money. She had still yet to see a copy of the offending article; she wasn’t sure she even wanted to.

  Maria was peering over the top of the seats, looking as if she was trying to work out if she recognised someone. ‘Jenny?’ she asked quietly. When she didn’t get any response from the air stewardess behind them she tried again a little louder. ‘Jenny?’

  The woman looked up and nearly dropped her coffee. ‘Oh my God, Maria. It’s you! We were just talking about you.’

  She looked at Karen and Mick and then started acting in the same way Maria had acted when she met Richard Forster for the first time, as if they were famous. ‘Oh hi! Great to meet you both. Mr Reilly, we’re all really sorry about your …’ she searched for the word, finally settling on, ‘trouble.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Mick said with a wave. ‘Nothing a good strong whisky wouldn’t help with.’ Mick laughed.

  ‘Oh, of course, of course.’ Jenny forgot about the woman she was serving and poured Mick a large whisky.

  ‘Lovely,’ he said. ‘Have you any more of them snack things love, I’m half starved.’

  ‘Oh, of course,’ Jenny said, firing packet after packet of crispy snacks at Mick. Jo looked at Maria, who was evidently as bemused as she was. ‘And Mrs Reilly?’

  ‘It’s Ms White,’ Karen said. ‘I’ll have a Bloody Mary, thanks.’

  Maria leant forward and put her hand on Jenny’s arm. ‘Have you read the paper? Is that what all this is about?’

  ‘Yes. We’ve all read it. I’ve got it at the middle station, shall I get it?’

  Jo swallowed hard, did she want to see it?

  ‘Please,’ Maria said nervously. ‘We couldn’t get it in New York.’

  They all sat in silence as Jenny went off to fetch the paper. Jo didn’t want to speak. She just wanted to kill both her parents.

  Jenny handed the paper to Maria. ‘You’re so brave,’ she said to Mick, a lump in her throat.

  Mick nodded without meeting her eye and tried to grab the paper from Maria.

  ‘Star Maker Finalist’s Brave Dad,’ Maria began to read. There was a picture of Mick, sitting in a chair, looking like he had just been instructed to look as miserable as possible, with Karen standing behind him with one hand on his shoulder. ‘The tears behind the laughter …’ Maria continued.

  Jo looked at her parents, they were truly unbelievable, ‘The tears behind the laughter?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’ Mick asked.

  ‘And look at this,’ Jo pointed at the picture. ‘This makes out like she’s your rock!’ Jo jabbed the paper in the direction of her dad.

  Karen leaned forward in her seat. ‘Right, listen to me. Now that this is in the paper, the whole bloody country will vote for our Cath and me and your dad have made a bit of money and might I remind you that your father is poorly,’ Karen said snottily.

  ‘That’s not what you said when I met you in Chorlton, is it, Mum?’

  Mick looked out of the window. He didn’t want any confrontation, Jo could tell.

  ‘What did she say?’ Maria asked.

  Jo weighed up whether she should say something or not; she had nothing to lose.

  ‘She said she thought he was faking it.’

  Mick stood up, knocking his drink over. ‘I’m sitting somewhere else. I can’t be doing with you lot,’ he said angrily. As he shuffled his way out of his seat, Jo heard a young boy behind them say, ‘Dad, that’s that man off the telly!’

  Jo put her head back and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see or hear anything more about her father and his new role in the public eye.

  When Catherine had seen her family sitting together in the audience she had been so excited, imagining that they would spend time together that week and hoping that her mum might give some of her time to her daughters. But as soon as she found out about her parents’ new media profile Catherine was happy to discover that they were on the first flight back to the UK the following day. That morning Catherine had checked the internet, something she had been avoiding, but was drawn online by a morbid curiosity. She put Star Maker into the search engine and then typed Mick and article after article came up on the screen about her father and his illness, all taken from the interview that her parents had given. How had Mick gone from not wanting to tell anyone to wanting to tell the world? The only answer that Catherine could come up with was, her mother. One good thing had come out of it though – it let Catherine see that her father was able to surround himself with people to look after him and he really didn’t need her help.

  Catherine decided she needed a walk. Kim had gone for a run and Star was still in bed, so she slid out of the room and walked over to Central Park and sat on the bench by the John Lennon memorial. It was a beautiful warm summer day, the first time Catherine had had some unscheduled time alone in New York.

  ‘You were great!’ a girl said to Catherine as she skated by.

  It took Catherine a moment to realise she was talking to her. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Give your dad my best,’ the girl shouted over her shoulder, ‘he’s a brave guy.’

  God, was it really breaking news here already? Did people really care about her father’s illness? And were they really bothered? Catherine couldn’t be sure, one thing she did know was that it felt very odd that all of this was happening to her.

  Catherine threw her head back and breathed in deeply. It was great to have a day off. Because the Americans were performing later today, the UK finalists had a rare break. There were no runs to be undertaken or scales to be practised. They just had to be styled and made up for this afternoon and then when the show was over they could even go out into New York they had been informed, as long as they went to one of the designated, Star Maker-approved bars or clubs.

  ‘Hi.’ Catherine looked up. Andy was standing in front of her eating an ice cream. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m good,’ she said. She didn’t know how to be with Andy, one minute he seemed to be into her, the next he didn’t. Last night he had seemed almost relieved that she couldn’t go out with him. Then she had seen him chatting to some of the American contestants and one of them hugging him, and he hadn’t seemed too keen to shake her off.

  ‘Is it OK if I sit down?’ Andy asked. Catherine shuffled up to make room for him.

  ‘It’s hard to believe we’re here, isn’t it?’ Andy said, looking at the Imagine memorial; a large round stone engraving on the ground in
front of them.

  ‘I know. I’ve read about this place because my dad used to like the Beatles when we were younger.’ Mick had liked lots of things when Catherine was younger: music, football, enjoying himself. But over the past decade he had seemed to have forgotten about his interests and concentrated on everything that blighted him.

  ‘Why would you shoot someone because you liked them?’ Andy said, referring to John Lennon’s killer.

  ‘Because you wanted to be famous,’ Catherine said and then looked at Andy, who looked slightly worried by her comment. ‘Oh God, don’t think that I think like that about fame. I think the person that shot John Lennon was sick and thought that he could be revered through shooting someone famous. Actually, I think fame is a load of cobblers.’

  Andy laughed. ‘That’s good to hear, but I think you might be on the wrong show, then.’

  ‘I know. I’m the original lady who protests too much. Don’t want to be famous? Then don’t go on Star Maker. I know. Got it in one.’

  They fell into comfortable silence for a few minutes, watching the people entering and leaving the park as they passed by.

  ‘How’s your dad?’ Andy asked tentatively.

  Catherine sighed. ‘On the one hand he’s all right. This, the show, all seems to have given him some focus. On the other hand I want to strangle him because he and my mum, who I really don’t want to talk about, have sold their half-made-up sob story to the News of the World. So his secret is well and truly out because he not only wants to tell everyone he knows that he has cancer, but the entire country too.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘God knows. Money? Attention? I really have no idea.’

  Andy turned to face Catherine. ‘Right, tonight. Please can we go out together? I think you need cheering up and is it OK if I don’t take no for an answer?’

  Catherine laughed at Andy’s politeness. ‘Yes, it’s OK.’

  ‘Good. Then that’s settled. Straight after the show we’re heading into town.’

  The taxi sped through Central Park and pulled along the Upper East Side turning at the corner of Central Park and delivering Catherine and Andy into the hustle and bustle of Columbus Circle. Where they were staying, on the Upper West Side, New York seemed airy and green, and Columbus Circle was a taste of New York madness, the sort she was used to seeing portrayed on the TV, the New York she had expected to see when her plane touched down.

  As Catherine jumped out of the taxi arguing about paying and eventually insisting that Andy take a ten-dollar bill from her, Catherine looked out over the park and stopped in her tracks. The sky was blood-red as the sun set, and the hustle and bustle made Catherine feel as if she was at the centre of the universe.

  ‘Look at that,’ Catherine said to Andy.

  ‘Apparently it’s a lot more impressive from up there,’ Andy said, throwing his head back and pointing to the top of the towering hotel they were about to enter. ‘I’ve booked us a window table,’ Andy said eagerly.

  Now was not the best time to tell Andy that she was scared of heights, Catherine realised. They walked into the marble atrium and both gazed around. ‘We look like a right pair of hicks,’ Catherine said through her teeth like a ventriloquist.

  ‘Speak for yourself, I think I bring an air of sweaty sophistication to the place,’ Andy said. It was so warm that he had to pull his shirt away from his skin in order to circulate the air. Catherine could feel her heart begin to pound. She knew she was scared of heights, but it wasn’t something that posed much of a problem living in Manchester where until recently – when the Hilton tower opened – the highest building could have been scaled with a step ladder.

  They stepped into the lift and it began to climb at speed. Catherine had never felt anything like it. In the UK lifts didn’t travel very fast, but here, where they had to contend with nearly one hundred floors, they needed to be fast and efficient. Catherine wanted to be sick. People who were scared of heights shouldn’t be sealed in a metal tube and shot into the sky at ninety miles an hour, especially not on a first date when they were meant to be acting all cool, calm and collected.

  The door opened and the poshest bar Catherine had ever seen in her life – and that included in films and magazines – was laid out before her. ‘After you,’ Andy said.

  ‘No, after you,’ Catherine squeaked.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Yes,’ Catherine said. She wasn’t. Her mouth had dried up and she felt as if the ground beneath her had been replaced by marshmallow. Andy stepped out and held the door for Catherine. She realised that she was walking as if there were giant cracks in the floor to be avoided.

  ‘Andy Short,’ Andy told the maître d’, who looked at him as if he belonged somewhere less salubrious than the bar of the Mandarin Oriental.

  ‘It’s a window seat, sir,’ he said, glancing at Catherine.

  A window seat? Catherine thought; she was going to flip out at this rate. She grabbed the bar and walked around it, like a baby cruising along the furniture. Andy walked towards the window and Catherine followed, what she really should have said to Andy was that as she was scared of heights so this wasn’t a very good idea, but she didn’t want to look like she was ungrateful to him for bringing her to this swanky palace, so she persevered. As she approached the floor-to-ceiling window she tried to concentrate on the New York skyline, the amazing view over the park and the setting sun. But she couldn’t stay focused. All that Catherine could think about was looking down. She knew it would be a bad idea, but she just couldn’t help it. So she looked. The ground rushed up to meet her and Catherine fainted for only the second time in her life, both times in front of Andy. The last thing she remembered hearing before she hit the ground was the waiter saying, ‘Aren’t you one of the contestants on Star Maker?’

  Catherine came to a few minutes later. When she looked around there was a crowd staring at her. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

  As she spoke, the crowd cheered.

  ‘We thought you were out for the count!’ The maître d’ said, with over-the-top bonhomie.

  ‘She looks so cute in real life,’ Catherine heard someone else say. ‘Like a little doll,’ she heard another voice agree.’

  ‘I do hope her father is OK, he’s been so brave, I was reading about him on the internet.’

  Catherine struggled to sit upright. She grabbed Andy’s hand. He was kneeling at her side and she whispered in his ear, ‘Please … get me out of here.’

  ‘She’s not very well, let’s just get you back,’ he said to Catherine, pulling her to her feet.

  ‘Let me help …’ A burly man stepped forward to help, ‘I loved you last night, you rocked,’ he told Catherine. Other people in the ever-increasing crowd agreed. Catherine could hear even more murmuring about her father and then she was in the lift.

  ‘Thank you. We’ll be fine from here. I just want to get her back, it’s been a very busy week …’ Andy said as the doors shut. Catherine looked at herself in the lift mirror. She was pasty white, even through her fake tan.

  ‘What the hell just happened?’ Catherine asked in amazement.

  ‘I think you’re famous.’ Andy said, looking at her reflection in the mirror; they both burst into fits of laughter.

  ‘Well, where are we going to go then, so that I don’t get hounded by my adoring public?’ Catherine said, pretending to be a prima donna.

  Andy thought for a moment. ‘I’ve got just the place.’

  The Cobbler’s Thumb was an Irish pub down a back alley, about five minutes walk from Columbus Circle, but once through the door it looked like it was a million cultural miles away from New York. Andy held the door open for Catherine and she stepped through, thinking that this was possibly the first time in her life a man had held a door open for her. When she was with her dad he always marched through first and left the door to swing violently back at her; Catherine had actually become quite good at catching it before she got smacked in the face.


  Once through the door Catherine and Andy were greeted by a cacophony of fiddly-de-dee music the like of which Catherine was sure hadn’t been heard in an actual Irish pub in the last thirty years. Andy looked at Catherine and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, pulling him inside.

  ‘Howaya?’ the American barman asked in a fake Irish accent.

  ‘Good,’ Catherine answered.

  ‘And yer man?’

  Catherine looked at Andy. ‘How’s yer man?’ she asked cheekily mimicking the barman.

  ‘Fine.’ Andy nodded, ‘Grand, even.’

  The barman didn’t realise he was having his leg pulled.

  ‘What’s your poison?’ The barman’s accent was slipping, he was oscillating between Irish, American and pirate.

  ‘He’s going to say “O be sure”, in a minute,’ Catherine whispered to Andy.

  ‘I’ll have a pint of …’ Andy looked at the bar.

  ‘Guinness?’ the barman offered.

  ‘No, just lager, thanks.’

  ‘And what can I get for the colleen?’

  ‘Same please,’ Catherine said, smiling. Colleen? Where was this guy from?

  ‘We don’t serve pints to ladies.’

  Catherine laughed out loud. ‘Really?’

  ‘Sorry, missus, we try to keep some standards.’

  Catherine looked around. The place was a dump, with bikes nailed to the walls, rows of dusty copies of Ulysses perched on bookshelves and a copy of the Proclamation of the Free Irish State peeling off the back of the bar.

  ‘Of course,’ Catherine nodded. ‘I’ll have a lager in a lady’s glass, please.’

  She and Andy stood in giggly silence until the barman had served them and then they retired to a booth. ‘What’s he on?’ Andy asked.

  ‘Oh God, he reminds me of when Dad used to drag us down to Chorlton Irish club when we were kids. My dad’s parents over from Ireland, and every now and then he’d get all misty-eyed for a country he’d never lived in and we’d have to go and listen to some terrible band play “The Fields of Athenry”.’ Catherine laughed remembering.