by Louise Voss
“I just operated on Mickey’s instructions,” he’d said. “I paid you what he told me to pay you.”
We had got artist royalty checks quarterly through Mickey, usually for a lot less than we’d expected, but he told us that a lot of the money needed to be funneled back into Ringside’s coffers to front tours, or to pay off producers’ percentages, or for a variety of other plausible-sounding reasons. We saw no reason to doubt him, as heeding his advice from the outset never seemed to have done us any harm before.
There was something I found very suspicious in the accountant’s defensive tone of voice. With the agreement of the boys, I ordered an audit of our accounts by an independent accountancy firm, and it became apparent that both the accountant and Mickey had been stitching us up like kippers for years. We instantly informed the IRS, who contacted the police, and a warrant was issued for their arrests.
They found Mickey in Key West, clad in a pineapple-patterned shirt, sipping lurid cocktails with umbrellas in them and flashing wads of cash around, like the cliché he always had been. He was brought back to New York for trial, and after a long, drawn-out court case, both he and the accountant were put behind bars for two years.
The trial had been a media circus, and during the days I was required to give evidence, I’d been practically blinded by the flashbulbs in my face as soon as I set foot outside the courtroom. The whole experience had been a trauma of epic proportions—daily reports on the local news, gossip plastered in all the worldwide press, masses of really unflattering shots of me trying to put my hands over my face or scowling at reporters. Once it was all over I just wanted to be somewhere safe, completely out of the public eye, where I could lick my wounds in peace. I really started to understand what Princess Diana went through.
I pulled a photograph out of the box of us with Mickey and one of his bimbos, and ripped it up in disgust. Financially I was extremely well-off, because of my publishing royalties, but I felt really sorry for Joe and David, who hardly had any money to show for their hard work and dedication. Justin hadn’t come out of it any better, but he’d gotten a massive advance for his solo album, so he would not struggle to get by. But the worst thing was that we had really trusted Mickey, and the sting of betrayal hurt more than the feeling of being made fools of before the world’s media.
I finished my sorting, having compressed the contents of the three boxes into one half-filled one. My hands were black with dirt, but I felt a cathartic satisfaction from my efforts. I carried the box upstairs to my bedroom, washed my hands and face, and got on the phone to my travel agent. If I booked a flight to England in a week’s time, I could be around for Sam’s operations and convalescence.
Then I took the photo of Sam and me at Wembley, clipped it to a piece of writing paper, wrote, “Dear Sam, I’ll Be Home—next week!!,” put it in an envelope, and sent it to Sam’s address, by courier service.
It didn’t take me long to find a place in London. I had no need of a mortgage, as I was paying outright for it, so it was really just a question of knowing where and what.
“How about Richmond?” said Sam when she’d recovered from the shock of my arrival. “Handy for Salisbury. Close enough to town, really beautiful, and not full of poseurs like Notting Hill. I’m going to move there when I finish my LSF.”
She’d had one eye lasered and was waiting till that healed to get the other one done. She said it hadn’t been painful, more uncomfortable really, and she felt like a prat with an eye patch. It made her look a bit like a cocker spaniel.
“People will think I was faking it when they see me next month with the patch on the opposite eye,” she grumbled.
So the Richmond area it was. I went to an estate agent, told him how much I wanted to pay, and that I wanted somewhere as anonymous as possible, which wasn’t too built up. The agent’s name was Adrian and he looked like a Labrador puppy in a cheap suit, all clumsy and panting and overenthusiastic, chubby and sandy-haired. I hated the way that all his colleagues nudged one another and stopped talking when I walked into the office, but Adrian did sell me the perfect house, albeit reluctantly. I’d spotted it in the property paper and pointed it out to him, but he hadn’t wanted to even show it to me at first.
“You won’t like it, Ms. Nicholls,” he’d said. “I’m sure you need something much more … upmarket. We have some lovely modern houses on Richmond Hill that are in your price bracket.”
“I want to see this one.”
“It’s not in Richmond. More Twickenham way, really.”
“It’s by the river, isn’t it? That’s even better.”
“It needs an awful lot of work done on it—there was an old lady living there for forty years. She didn’t have any central heating.”
“That’s okay. I told you I don’t mind spending money on a place, especially one this cheap. Is it big?”
“Oh, indeed it is. Six very spacious bedrooms, an extremely sizable kitchen, three huge reception rooms, big garden, and two bathrooms.”
“Do you know what the neighbors are like?”
“The nearest neighbors are a fairly elderly couple, I believe. There are four other similar houses in the road, but they are all quite far apart. All the others have been extensively renovated—it’s a very affluent and secluded little road, directly opposite the Thames.”
“Perfect. Can we go and see it?”
The mention of the elderly couple next door made me even more convinced, as they were unlikely to phone their friends up and say, “You’ll never guess who just moved in!” Or, as my neighbors in Manhattan had done, invite people round to hang out in the hallways in the hope of catching a glimpse of me coming back from a jog.
So Adrian and I went to see it. We had to drive there in his car, a low-slung Capri-type affair out of which I had to haul myself inelegantly when we arrived. To my complete embarrassment there was a Blue Idea CD case visible on the floor by my feet. I discreetly kicked it out of sight underneath the passenger seat and felt thankful that at least he hadn’t tried to play it in my presence.
Adrian drove down a little gravel road, more a lane really, running alongside the river, before pulling into a driveway. We surveyed the property gloomily. It was a great Victorian pile, with curlicues of paint peeling away from every windowsill, and a scruffy front door with a cracked pane of frosted glass at eye level. Weeds sprouted enthusiastically from the gravel drive, and the house had a blank, unloved look of despair.
Adrian let us into the damp, chilly hall with keys that he fished from the depths of his satchel-type briefcase. He’d changed his tune, and was chatting inanely the whole time about what a great investment a house in that area was. I followed him into a malodorous but enormous living room and gazed around at the swirly walls, blotchy balding carpet, and dead houseplants.
Adrian had slung his satchel over his shoulder, and with every step he took, the strap made a loud and insistent squeaking noise, as though there was a small furry animal held prisoner within. I was beginning to wish I’d listened to him when he had told me I wouldn’t like the place.
Then we walked down the hall to a twenty-five-by-twenty-foot sunny kitchen, and my doubts began to be dispelled. Despite the terrible sagging wallpaper, dripping taps, and dark, cracked linoleum, I could see that the place had immense potential.
All the rooms were indeed huge and high-ceilinged, with original cornices and skirting boards, which I hoped were not rotten. Both bathrooms sported titanic freestanding claw-footed baths, and there was a plethora of wonderful original fireplaces tiled in every kind of rich color with marble surrounds.
We returned to my favorite room, the kitchen.
“It’s worse than I remembered,” Adrian commented sheepishly, looking with disdain at the black-encrusted gas oven in the corner. “Of course, you’d have to get a new kitchen fitted. A new everything fitted, really—although the extremely low asking price does, naturally, reflect that fact.”
“It’s a great space,” I said enthusiasti
cally. “I love all the original features, too. In fact, I think I could really like it.”
Adrian cheered up. I went off and explored all the rooms again, trying hard to look at the space itself and not the damp, musty carpets and dark walls. My biggest concern was that there might be something structurally wrong with the place—my father’s advice on surveys, dodgy roofs, and dry rot was still ringing in my ears. I looked out of the window and was relieved to see that there were no huge trees close enough to cause any obvious subsidence, and decided that pending the results of a full structural survey, I wanted it.
I informed Adrian, and he nodded vigorously in assent, causing the little creature in his bag to agree hysterically.
The survey duly showed up that the property was basically sound, if rather damp, and I was overjoyed. I wrote Adrian a massive check; then engaged builders and decorators to install central heating, do damp courses, fit a new kitchen, lay new carpets, and generally transform the place from attic to cellar. It took four months, during which time I “commuted” between a small hotel in Chiswick, the Grants’ house in Salisbury, and Sam’s hall of residence.
Sam recovered well from both her eyes being zapped, and said she felt a million times better now that she was able to see properly again. She took me to Habitat to pick out my new wallpaper and to look at furniture and curtain fabric, but we soon realized that as I needed everything, from beds to bottle openers, it would probably be best just to stick with one big department store.
So, early one morning about a week before the workmen were finished, I donned dark glasses, opened an account at Selfridges, and Sam and I did a total blitz on the place.
“It’s like those game shows where you win two hours to go round a shop and fill up your trolley with as much as you can,” said Sam, looking overwhelmed at the task ahead of us. “Where do we start?”
“Bathrooms—that’s easiest,” I said firmly. “Let’s break ourselves in gently.”
I had told the store how much I intended to buy, so they gave me carte blanche to go around with a clipboard marking item numbers and prices down for purchases that they would deliver to me later. I had a feeling that they suspected Sam and I of choosing items for a wedding list for our lesbian marriage, and when I told her this, she kissed me extravagantly on the cheek and declaimed, “Please say we can have hers-and-hers bathrobes, oh please!”
After buying a shower rail (circular), a clear shower curtain with gold stars on it, a wrought-iron-effect toilet roll holder and towel rack, four matching sets of honey-colored towels, screw-in iron hooks with dolphin noses, bath mats and toilet-rug things (neither of us knew what the little horseshoe-shaped carpets were called), two toilet brushes, soap dishes and toothbrush holder, we were both exhausted and had to go and have a cup of tea.
Duly revived, we set off again. I felt like an ant in a giant’s doll-house, scurrying around the massively ornate halls and high-ceilinged rooms, and wondering if at any moment the whole shop front would open on its hinges and a gigantic hand would reach in and move the fittings around on a whim.
After choosing four different double beds and a single, five wardrobes, three chests of drawers, bedside tables, curtains, eight rugs, and a magnificent walnut sideboard from Selfridges’s antiques department, our heads were reeling. Sam had to go back to the bedding department and take a small nap on one of the mattresses.
“It’s all right,” she said haughtily to the blue-rinsed sales assistant who kept coming over to check on her, obviously thinking she had been testing the bed for longer than was acceptable, “we’re buying it.” Her head plopped back again onto the crackly plastic-covered pillow, and she closed her eyes.
“Are you okay, Sam?” I asked, beginning to worry that I’d tired her out completely. “Do you want to go home?”
“Home?” She opened one eye and squinted at me. “No way. We still have the kitchen, dining room, and living room to do! Tell you what, though. I can live without the appliance department. Can you buy that stuff over the phone instead?”
So we battled on, amazed at how many things were needed to furnish a home from scratch. For the first time ever I enjoyed the fact that I was able to spend money in this carefree fashion. I had bought presents for my parents and the Grants before, but I had never really needed anything other than the essentials for myself, having been on tour so much. It was fun.
A week later I stood in my brand-newly refurbished house, reveling in its transformation. The smell of fresh paint and new carpets filled my nostrils, a welcome change from the previous musty odor. I walked slowly down the hallway, marveling at the slickness and dazzling white of the freshly glossed skirting boards and door frames, trailing my fingers across the lush yellow wallpaper. I felt very grown up and proud of myself. The air around me was very still and somehow charged, as though a small indoor thunderstorm might blow up at any moment, and it occurred to me that this might just be my own excitement.
The place was still empty, apart from the few possessions I had brought with me from Freehold (two cases of clothes, my bass, some pedals, a practice amp, a few CDs, boom box, and the stuff I’d cleared out of the garage), plus a little television set Mrs. Grant had insisted on giving me. The Selfridges delivery vans were due at any time, but for the moment I was enjoying being completely alone in this wonderful new space.
Carrying my boom box and Little Criminals, I went upstairs to the master bedroom. I put the CD on, programmed track nine, cranked the volume up loud, and lay down, stretching my arms and legs out on the bare chestnut floorboards, a big smile on my face.
“I’ll Be Home” flowed over me and through me and around my house, cleansing us, clearing out the old energies like burning sage, creating a fresh start.
I was home. I wanted to fill this huge empty shell with my new life, with what I would soon see as the essence of me. I would make new friends who would come over and say, “Oh, this place is really you,” and I would be relieved and thankful, because from that starting point maybe I would be able to figure out who “I” really was.
I was twenty-seven and, despite all my money, had never owned a car, lived permanently away from my parents (the Manhattan apartment was just a temporary change of scenery), or had any real financial independence. I’d never even had a serious boyfriend.
I felt as if my life was just beginning, and I was convinced that everything would be smooth sailing from then on.
My new brass door-knocker banged resoundingly, and I clattered down the stripped wooden staircase to open the front door. It heralded the start of a long procession of large square yellow boxes and pieces of furniture coming into the house, carried by four bulky and sweat-ringed delivery men. They cursed when trying to get something cumbersome around the corner leading to the second floor, and then they’d remember that they worked for Selfridges and were not allowed to swear on the job, so they would bite their lips and exhale sharply instead. One of the mattress bases and two of the bigger wardrobes proved particularly onerous, but they struggled manfully on. I had not expected there to be quite so many boxes—I wondered how on earth I was going to get rid of them once I’d emptied them. The place would be up to the ceiling in packaging.
I wished Sam were there, not only for a bit of assistance with the unpacking, but so we could have had a reminisce about my last major house-moving experience, with the Shipleys Ships Safely guys. Thirteen years ago. Wow, what a lot could happen in thirteen years, I thought idly, watching two beautiful Chinese vases being carried into the dining room. Those vases alone were probably worth more than the entire houseful of furniture that had been shipped off to Freehold that day, even allowing for inflation.
But Sam had her exams coming up, and pleaded infirmity and overwork.
“I’ll help you with the fun part, spending the money, but count me out of the boring unpacking bit,” she’d said airily when we last met. I couldn’t blame her, but I wished she could have just been there for moral support.
Several hours l
ater the men had eventually cleared the huge Selfridges lorry. They puffed up the garden path for the last time, carrying, respectively, a standard lamp, an ironing board, a very large potted plant, and a boxed microwave oven. I signed the delivery note, and was so excited at the thought of unwrapping all my new possessions that I did not even mind when the youngest of the men asked if I would sign an autograph for his twelve-year-old daughter.
Once they had left, I tied a silk scarf determinedly around my head in the style of a 1940s munitions worker and attacked the boxes frenziedly. Sure enough, within minutes I was wading through a sea of white paper and crinkly cellophane wrapping, big boxes, and the smaller boxes in which the household items were packaged—saucepans, an iron, lightbulbs, some silk flowers, a laundry drying rack, four telephones, and an answering machine. I tried to be more organized about the procedure, breaking each big box down flat after unpacking it, and leaning the sheets of folded cardboard against the kitchen fireplace.
Everything was so … new. I felt as though I was furnishing a model house, and that I would never be able to sully these beautiful shining implements by doing anything so base as actually using them.
I braced my back to lift a very heavy canteen of silver-plated cutlery out of a box. Furniture aside, this had been one of the more expensive purchases. Sam had nearly fainted when she saw the price tag. “Are you planning to have ten people round to dinner?” she’d asked sarcastically.
“I might—you never know,” I had replied. I felt as though anything was possible. I made sure I bought a long enough oak refectory table to seat my eight other—so far imaginary—friends. I really liked the image of me entertaining: cooking in my own kitchen, bunches of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling, a pot of pasta and sauce bubbling fragrantly on the stove, everyone lolling around the table chatting, windows steamed up from the warmth of the room’s mutual companionship.
Yes.
I lifted the wooden lid of the canteen and admired the chunky reflective knives, forks, and spoons within. The box was lined with soft green baize, and each piece of cutlery was neatly trapped between a deep ridge at the bottom and a little green flap at the top.