by Chloe Rayban
We all sat down in fact. The waiters must’ve worked flat out. There was a new clean tablecloth on the table and the buffet had been rearranged. Everything seemed totally back in order.
Shug gave up making rude gestures at the press and joined us. Even he seemed subdued by the display of cool-headedness on the part of Mum. He actually started to use his knife and fork.
With threatening composure, Oliver refilled Mum’s water glass. Like a perfect English gentleman, he behaved with silent dignity as if nothing had happened. An impression that was somewhat marred by the king prawn hanging from his breast pocket, but still.
As the boat headed back at a speed fast enough to produce a wake, we finished our lunch in silence.
The only good thing that occurred to me on the way back was that I now wouldn’t need to sneak a photo of Shug for Becky. Pictures of the lot of us would be bound to be all over the papers by tomorrow morning.
Monday 27th January, 9.00 a.m.
Suite 6002, The Royal Trocadero Hotel, London
On waking the following morning back in my suite, I compose a suitable text message for Becky.
Re: dream date quiz
tick one of the foll:
O.B. and K. are currently
a) engaged
b) married
c) history!!!!!
Then I ring down and ask for the day’s papers to be brought up with my breakfast. I might as well know the worst.
I know the worst.
It is a picture of Mum snarling at the camera with the headline: SWEET AS KANDHI!
Then another entitled: IN SEINE SCENE with Shug making rude gestures.
BATEAU BATTLE with me with my hair in my eyes – all of us looking like the family from hell.
THE ICE MAN COMETH? featuring an ace shot of Oliver dripping with ice and seafood.
And finally THAT’S ALL FOLKS with a shot of Mum and Oliver bawling at each other. Underneath this came six paragraphs on the ins and outs of the on-off affair between Mum and Oliver – ending with the statement that it was now well and truly OFF.
I folded the papers, thinking, well, at least one good thing has come out of it. That’s the last we’ll see of Shug and Oliver.
As you can imagine, the next most urgent thing on my agenda was the retrieval of Thumper. I rang through to Vix, who must still have been recovering from her Saturday night in Paris, and left a message on her voicemail to the effect that I was taking Sid and Abdul and the limo on a very important mission. We’d ring in at intervals and keep her updated.
Then I got on to the RSPCA and established Thumper’s whereabouts. Due to the generous cheque Mum had signed for them, he had become a V.I.B. (Very Important Bunny). The nice kind lady who answered the phone said that he was going to have front-page coverage on the RSPCA newsletter. So you see, once you’re with Kandhi, even being a rabbit won’t save you from the press.
10.30 a.m., The Hatton Cross branch of the RSPCA
So Sid and Abdul and I took the limo out to Hatton Cross, where Thumper had spent the weekend. I wondered on the way if he’d recognise me, but thought it unlikely as my How to House Train Your Rabbit book had warned me that rabbits have very short memories.
He didn’t. In fact, when he saw me, he burrowed further into the wood shavings at the back of his cage. I’d been right about his neighbours. On one side he had a feral-looking cat who hissed at me when I approached and on the other a black-and-white mongrel with yellow teeth and a deafening bark.
Anyway, once I’d scooped him out and zipped him back in his holdall, he went quiet. I held him on my lap all the way back in the limo and I could tell he’d gone to sleep because he felt like a little warm bundle inside.
11.00 a.m., The Royal Trocadero lobby
So all I had to do now was slip through Reception, and zoom up in the elevator to my suite. But, as luck would have it, who should I bump into as I passed through the lobby but THE MANAGER.
‘Oh, Miss Winterman,’ he said, doing his almost-curtsy-bow thing. ‘We are so glad to have you back.’
‘Thank you very much,’ I said, clutching the holdall. ‘I’m glad to be back too. I’m just in a bit of a hurry to –’
‘It won’t take a moment,’ he said. ‘Just a formality. Your school trunk has arrived by Red Star. We need you to identify it before it can be sent up. Security, you know. You can never be too careful …’
‘Oh, right. OK. Errm. Where is it?’
The manager led me to a side room where my trunk stood covered in its familiar stickers and scuff marks.
‘Yep, it’s mine all right.’
‘Fine. As long as you’re sure. Now if you could just sign here …’
The manager was holding out a clipboard and pen.
Signing a clipboard is a two-handed affair.
‘Oh, let me take that for you,’ he said, indicating the holdall.
‘No, I’m fine. Just give me the pen.’
But, in the end, I was forced to put the holdall down. Whereupon Thumper, feeling solid ground beneath him, must’ve woken up.
OK, so you get the picture. Holdall is doing self-propelled skippity-jumpy things across the floor. Manager’s face is registering amazement. Manager is asking would I mind opening said holdall … Shock, horror, disbelief on both Thumper and the manager’s faces.
It’s so unfair. ’Cos in spite of the fact that he’s a very small rabbit and practically house-trained and even taking into account the fact that we are V.I.P.s and he’s a V.I.B., the manager is still enforcing the Royal Trocadero’s ‘no pets’ rule (except for guide dogs).
Sid and Abdul were watching all this from a safe distance by the entrance, not wanting to get involved. The limo was still standing outside. So I zipped up the holdall and sadly made my way back to it, wondering if I could bribe the lady at the RSPCA to put Thumper’s cage between two less frightening neighbours. Oh, this was so unfair. He was my very first and only pet and I wasn’t allowed to keep him.
But then, all of a sudden, I had a brilliant idea – Gi-Gi!
Gi-Gi’s such a softy I knew I could persuade her to look after Thumper until I found a better solution. So Sid and Abdul and Thumper and I got back into the limo and headed towards Maida Vale.
12.30 p.m., Flat 209, Hillview Mansions, Maida Vale
Soon as I ring on the doorbell I can hear Gi-Gi’s slippers scuffing across the hallway. I breathe in the heady perfume of sauerkraut, lemon air freshener and cinnamon sugar, not forgetting those low notes of communal rubbish shaft that I always associate with Gi-Gi’s apartment.
I can tell she’s peeping through the eye-hole and then she throws open the door.
‘Holly! My leetle pet one. What a surprise!’ I am engulfed in folds of cuddly warm Gi-Gi. ‘Come inside. I am making stroganoff and sesame dumpling for Karl. You will have some … and pie?’
‘Umm, that would be nice.’
‘The boys, they want to come in? I have plenty.’
‘No, Gi-Gi. Sid and Abdul can go grab a burger. You can’t keep feeding everyone.’
‘Not proper food. No good to them.’
‘Well, whatever. They could probably do with a break.’
‘If you say so. But Karl. You should see him. Now he eats good. He’s so strong. Look.’
I look. Karl, who is Gi-Gi’s bodyguard (provided and paid for by Mum) is stretched out on Gi-Gi’s couch with a can of lager in one hand and a pack of chilli Doritos in the other, watching Eurosport on Gi-Gi’s vast TV (also provided by Mum so that Gi-Gi can watch Mum widescreen on MTV).
Gi-Gi holds a finger to her lips so as not to disturb him. ‘We eat in the kitchen, OK? Is Munich playing. He no like when people talk through match.’
I consider trying to tell Gi-Gi for the umpteenth time that Karl is working for her and should be standing outside the main entrance of the block checking who goes in and out, not lying full out on her sofa stuffing his face. But I know it’s no use. Ever since that first night she had him, when it rained and
she allowed him inside, she’s been spoiling him rotten. The fact that she’s rapidly turning him into a pale, bloated version of his fit, trim athletic self with virtually nil life expectancy seems to have totally passed her by.
I place the holdall gingerly on her kitchen table.
‘What’s that you’ve got there?’
‘Look, Gi-Gi,’ I say and gently unzip it.
Gi-Gi peers inside. ‘Hmm,’ she says. ‘A rabbit. There’s not much on it. But I suppose I could fatten it up.’
I stare at her in horror. And then I remember Gi-Gi’s epic stories of her great walk through the frozen wastes of Siberia – or was it Poland? Anyway, hundreds of them had to walk miles and miles through the icy cold with nothing to eat for days and days on the way to get to the refugee camp. I mean, rabbit to her must still mean ‘stew’, or even ‘furry hat’ – although rather a small one in Thumper’s case.
‘No, Gi-Gi,’ I say firmly. ‘Not to eat. He’s a pet.’
‘Hmm – is pet,’ says Gi-Gi with obvious disapproval.
‘Please, Gi-Gi. You will look after him for me? Otherwise he’s got to go back to the RSPCA where they’ll keep him in a cage and there are loads of horrible vicious-looking animals there.’ I can hear my voice going all husky at the thought of it.
‘What does he eat?’ asks Gi-Gi, clearly softening.
‘Practically nothing. Rabbit mix from a packet.’
‘Tsk, tsk,’ she says, taking him out of the holdall and having a good look at him. ‘He will have nice fresh salad and maybe sweetcorn. Won’t you, my pet?’ Thumper snuggles up to her warm and ample body. ‘Well, maybe I could have him for little while.’
So that’s OK. I just hope she doesn’t start killing him with kindness like she is Karl.
4.00 p.m., Suite 6002, The Royal Trocadero
After a very heavy lunch, I left Gi-Gi studying How to House Train Your Rabbit with Karl and the help of a Russian/English and a German/English dictionary.
Back at the Royal Trocadero I found my trunk had been taken up to my room.
When I opened it, it suddenly brought home to me how much I’d left behind. Here were the remnants of another life lying before me. It was barely a week since I’d left SotR, but already my possessions felt as if they belonged to someone else.
I took them out one by one. My hockey stick – a fat lot of use that would be now. My school books. I opened the top one (maths) to check my latest mark and saw that I’d got a D– in red and a ‘Please see me’ for it. Sigh. They’d packed my textbooks too. I wondered what Mum had done, if anything, about finding me a tutor. Then came my clothes, mainly school uniform which I could now bin. I’d have grown out of it by the time they’d let me back, if ever. But, hang on, here were my favourite flannel Winnie the Pooh pyjamas. I took them out and put them under my Royal Trocadero pillow, where they looked so incredibly shabby that it would be too shameful for them to be seen by the chambermaids so I binned them too.
But what was this? A shoebox with ‘TO HOLLY’ done in bulbous graffiti writing on top. I opened it. Inside were a load of little parcels and envelopes. I opened the first one. It was a home-made friendship bracelet from Jamila with a tag attached saying: ‘I’ll never forget you, Holly.’
I felt a lump come in my throat as I found a little note or present wrapped in tissue from other people at school, not just those in my class but from all over.
There was a card made with pressed flowers from Marie, who hardly ever talks to me. A poem that rhymed but didn’t scan too well from Portia (who wants to be a writer). A bottle of home-made scent made from the school lavender from Candida. And a tape from Becky. There was even a bookmark with a religious painting on it from Sister Marie-Agnes. The last thing I opened was a tiny origami plane from Lim-Ju with little windows drawn on the sides with me looking out and waving.
I decided to re-christen the shoebox and wrote carefully on top in felt tip under ‘To Holly’ – ‘My Personal Private Collection of Very Precious Objects’. Then I packed each item back in its tissue paper and stowed them away in the box.
Everyone at school was clearly wondering what had happened to me. But I suppose Reverend Mother must have felt she had to explain my sudden disappearance. Now I’d left, of course, she could actually tell them who my mum is.
And then I felt really miserable as I had another thought. Which was that maybe people were only being nice to me because now they knew who I was. And I realised that this was one of the most horrible things about fame. It means you can never tell who really likes you or whether they simply want to know you because you’re famous. And it must be like this for Mum all the time.
And then I put Becky’s tape into my Walkman.
‘Hi, Holly …’ came her familiar voice. ‘I realise that by now you must be really missing us all so I thought I’d take you on a prestige audio tour of a day in the life of SotR. Starting of course with …’ There followed the inimitable noise of slamming doors, water rushing, squeals and sleepy grunts … You’ve got it – the washrooms!
The rest of the tape was a sound recording of a day in school packed with mini-interviews with girls and people like Peggy our cook – even the school cat supplied a grumpy miaow. And then finally there was a bit with Becky playing her violin. It was her exam piece, which had some really tricky slurs which had been bugging her. But this time she played them brilliantly. I don’t really listen to classical stuff much. I guess you wouldn’t expect me to, my mum being who she is. But with all the hassle Becky has had to take from people at school saying classical stuff is totally uncool, I reckoned she deserved some solidarity. And the funny thing was – the more I listened to it, the more this piece of Becky’s really got to me.
At the very end her voice came in again. ‘There. Told you I’d get it right, didn’t I? Oh, and by the way, if you’re wondering, I made the tape on Saturday – the day before Reverend Mother told everyone who your mum was. So they weren’t sucking up – just in case you thought they were. We really do miss you, Holly.’
I put the shoebox back in the trunk after that and sat staring at it, wondering whether I was going to cry or not. And decided I wasn’t. Then I started going through my books and realised with a jolt that they would all be hard at work right now and I was missing all this stuff I’d have to catch up on sometime if I was ever going to pass my GCSEs.
That’s when I rang Vix and asked if I could come up and see Mum because I really had to sort my life out. Vix said, Yes, she thought she could fit me in at ten past three tomorrow afternoon.
‘Tomorrow afternoon! But this is important.’
‘Holly, you’ve got to understand. Your mum is a very busy woman. She’s got a charity show tonight. Tomorrow it’s the Kandhi Store financial review all a.m. That’s followed by a through-lunch press briefing. Then there’s –’
‘OK, OK, I get the picture. I’ll see her at three.’
‘Three-ten. She won’t be back before then.’
Tuesday 28th January, 3.10 p.m.
precisely, The Penthouse Suite (sorting my life out)
I arrive to find Mum’s suite deserted. She’s given me this second pass key to her door so that I can ‘pop up and see her whenever I like’. A fat lot of use that is when she’s never in.
I wait for what feels like for ever, fuming at the unfairness of it all. Just because I’ve got a mum whose mega-famous, I hardly have a mum at all. How many people in the world actually have to make an appointment to see their own mother?
At around four Mum breezes in. She’s wearing a pinstripe suit with a bustier under it. Her hair is scraped back and she has on a pair of Gucci spectacles which I know for a fact have got clear glass in them. Like everything else about Mum, her sight is 20–20 – absolutely perfect.
‘Hollywood, babes! What are you doing here?’
‘I came to see you. Don’t you remember? Vix said we could meet at ten past three.’
‘Well, Hollywood, you can’t expect me to remember every
single teensy detail when I’ve got so much on. Now I’ve got to get changed and out of here in five minutes. What is it you want?’
Mum is walking into her bedroom and opening the closet. I follow her.
‘Five minutes. Is that all you can give me?’
‘Well, maybe ten. Is it important? She is taking out various outfits and holding them up against herself, staring at her reflection with her full mirror face on.
‘Important? You drag me out of school without so much as consulting me. Then you simply forget I exist! All you seem to be interested in is yourself and your life.’
Mums puts down the jacket she’s holding and turns to face me.
There’s no need to use that tone with me, Hollywood. You’ve got my full attention now, haven’t you?’
‘Mum, you’ve got to understand. I’m not some sort of possession you can just pick up and stash away for safe keeping. I’ve got to sort my life out. I’m missing loads at school and you don’t even care. What about this tutor you promised?’
‘Oh, if that’s all. No worries. I’ve put Vix on to it. She’s going to ring some agency that has a load of teachers they hire out by the hour. Now what do you think? The black or the cream?’
‘Mum, will you stop staring at yourself in the mirror and concentrate on me for a moment?’
Mum glances at her watch and starts frantically to dress.
‘I am concentrating on you, babes,’ her voice comes in a muffled sort of way through the dress she is dragging down over her head. Then her head emerges saying, ‘And while you mention it, I think we should get Daffyd to sort your hair out.’
I give up. ‘What, precisely, is wrong with my hair?’
‘Baby, when did you last have it cut?’
‘Errrm …’ Actually Becky had cut it and I didn’t think she’d done a bad job.
‘And he could do something to the colour maybe. Just brighten it up a bit.’