by Chloe Rayban
The elevator, the Royal Trocadero
I can hardly get into the elevator. The whole area is taken up by a huge basket of fat peach roses trimmed with glossy ribbons. It is actually taller than the bellboy who’s accompanying it. He gets out at Mum’s floor and I follow the basket down to her door.
‘Another delivery for Miss Kandhi,’ announces the bellboy through the intercom.
‘Oh, not more,’ says Vix as she opens the door.
I follow the basket in. Mum’s suite looks like the interior of one of those totally over-the-top Hollywood funeral parlours. There are flowers everywhere. The air is heady with their scent. The ceiling is practically obscured by pink and silver heart-shaped balloons.
Mum wanders out of her bathroom in her robe.
‘Hollywood Bliss, Happy Valentine’s Day, baby. Come and give your mama a kiss.’
It’s Valentine’s Day! Oh God. Great.
There is one huge bouquet of pink roses that has been given the place of honour as the centrepiece of Mum’s table. It has a little card with the letter ‘O’ and a heart on it.
‘“O”? … Oh!’
‘Mum, who are these from?’
‘Just people. Aren’t they sweet?’ She takes the card from the centre of the pink bouquet and a little secret smile plays across her lips. Where have I seen that smile before …?
‘Mum, tell the truth. Are these from Oliver?’
‘Oliver? How ridiculous. Whatever makes you think that?’
‘How many people have names beginning with “O”?’
The door buzzer buzzes again and an armful of red roses is passed in. Mum glances briefly at the card and hands them to Vix, then she says to me, ‘Do you want some balloons? You can take them down to your room. And flowers if you like. I’ve got so many.’
‘No thanks. It’s OK.’
I do not want balloons. I am not some kid. And I do not want second-hand Valentine gifts, thank you very much.
Mum reads my expression.
‘Oh, your turn will come, baby.’
‘Sure.’
‘So what are you doing today?’
‘The usual – lessons.’
‘Wonderful, because I’m going to be busy practically all day. You know it’s the Brits tomorrow and I’ve got to really concentrate on my acceptance speech. It’s important how I come over.’
(I just hope she isn’t being over-confident.)
‘You don’t feel left out, do you, babes?’
‘No, of course not.’
I go to my dance class. Stella is looking all kind of pink and fluffy and she asks me how many Valentines I got this morning.
(As you know – for I would most definitely have mentioned it – I did not get any Valentines. I didn’t even get the token joke Valentine card Dad usually sends to the school – I guess it’s still in the post.)
I counter by saying, ‘How many did you?’
‘Five,’ she says.
‘Hey, cool. Do you know who they’re from?’
We spend the next ten minutes in a long gossip-session going through all Stella’s admirers. Happily she seems to have forgotten her original question.
Jasper seems blissfully ignorant of the fact it’s Valentine’s Day and we get through my singing class without a humiliating mention of it.
Still Friday 14th February (unfortunately), 2.30 p.m., Suite 6003
But!
Now I am totally floating. I am practically stuck to the ceiling like one of Mum’s pink and silver balloons.
Because, when I arrived at RUPERT’S class, waiting for me, on top of my maths exercise book which RUPERT had taken home for marking, there is this little chocolate heart wrapped in pink foil.
I think it’s the kind of chocolate that has pink strawberry cream stuff inside. But this fact will never be verified. For this one will stay wrapped in its pink foil in its central place of honour in My Personal Private Collection of Very Precious Objects until the cream has turned to rock. This one may even be found in some old trunk in the attic, like the photos in The Bridges of Madison County, by my children and wondered about.
RUPERT has come back into the room.
‘Just checking my bike lock, it’s been playing up.’
‘Thanks Rupert … for the … errm … chocolate.’
‘Aren’t you going to eat it?’
‘Oh, no. Not right now.’
‘It might melt.’
‘No, no. I’ll keep it till later. Don’t want to spoil my appetite for … you know, dinner.’
‘But dinner’s hours away.’
‘Sure, but you know, eating between meals?’
‘You are just so disciplined, Holly. I admire that.’
‘Do you?’
Saturday 15th February, 1.00 p.m.
Flat 209, Hillview Mansions, Maida Vale
Tonight is the Brit Awards so Mum’s busy all day. She has a freelance voice coach in. They’re hard at work rehearsing her acceptance speech to ensure it sounds really astonished and off-the-cuff. You’d be amazed at how many different ways there are of saying: ‘And I also want to thank …’
I am not expected to attend the event. I have a sneaking suspicion that this must be because I’m so tall now. At 5′ 6″, she really can’t keep pretending I’m just a baby. But Mum’s excuse is: ‘We just can’t rely on the security.’
So I’m going round to watch it with Karl and Gi-Gi on TV. You can’t get safer than that I guess, unless I fall off the couch.
Karl and Gi-Gi and Thumper are already installed on the couch when I arrive.
There are some boy bands on. Karl has the volume on full blast and is nodding to the beat. He waves a lager by way of greeting.
Gi-Gi and I shelter from the noise preparing supper until the solo artistes come on. We get the cold salmon mayonnaise ready just in time to catch Mum’s song.
It’s called ‘Sex Kitten’. I’ve seen the video so many times I know it backwards. It’s the one in which she appears curled up in a basket dressed in a variety of very skimpy fluffy things with a load of males with well-greased torsos looking on. Which I guess is all very sexy if it’s not your mum doing it. And you don’t know that she’s done umpteen takes and been sitting round and joking with the blokes between them. And that most of them are gay anyway. And that she’s not really singing at all. That’s all been pre-recorded so she can go totally overboard miming to it. I mean, in the video she’s actually chewing gum in one frame. I know ’cos if you put the video on pause you can see a tiny corner of the gum if you look really carefully.
Anyway, for the Brits she has to do all this for real – live. Except for the singing of course – which everyone tries really hard to pretent is not pre-recorded.
Seeing your mum writhing across the screen is kind of embarrassing to watch with your great-grandmother. I glance at Karl but he’s drinking his lager with an unreadable expression on his face. At the end of her song there’s loads of applause and whistling.
Anyway, after Mum Sheherazadha came on with a single she made before she set off on her film career. She and Mum are both up for ‘Best Single Solo Female Artiste’. Sheherazadha’s song was called ‘Oh Boy’ and on stage she out-writhed Mum. I mean, it was verging on disgusting actually.
‘Has the woman no shame?’ tuts Gi-Gi.
‘Not a lot,’ I agree.
‘If your mother doesn’t win she won’t be worth living with,’ says Gi-Gi, taking up the empty plates and scraping off the leftover mayonnaisy salmon bits in a totally matter-of-fact manner.
Sunday 16th February
The Penthouse Suite
It’s OK, she’s won. But Mum is still not liveable with. She’s been holed up in her suite giving telephone interviews all day.
I popped by but she didn’t have time to talk to me. In fact, her ego is so inflated that she can’t talk to anyone unless they’re put through on the phone on speaker, so that no one in the room feels left out.
More flowers have arrived
than even on Valentine’s Day. And some boxes of chocolates which I prudently take down to my room for safe keeping. (Mum would simply chuck them.)
Monday 17th February
The Penthouse Suite
Mum has actually remembered I exist. Vix must’ve reminded her. She’s asked me up to have lunch with her. We’re having it in her suite so it can be ‘just the two of us’. Apparently, she has something important she wants to discuss with me. I’m wondering with a horrible sinking feeling what this could possibly be.
I decide to come in with something to make her feel good about herself before she starts in on me.
‘Hi, Mum. Congratulations. It’s so great about the Brits.’
‘Thank you, babes. Come and give your mama a kiss.’
I lay it on a bit. ‘You must feel very proud of yourself.’
‘Mmmm. But did you see what Sheherazadha was up to?’
‘Well yes, she was pretty obvious –’
‘Obvious! She was completely copying my style.’
Hang on. Who was copying who? This could be looked at more than one way.
I point this out. ‘Maybe she thinks you’re copying her.’
‘Me? Copying a cheap, trashy act like Sheherazadha’s!’ Mum’s eyes are blazing.
‘No, but it’s just that your acts are a bit, like, similar –’
‘Similar! Mine’s nothing like Sheherazadha’s.’
‘So what are you fussing about, then?’
The logic of this is completely beyond Mum.
‘I’m going to have talk to Mike to see if we can sue.’
‘But Mum.’
‘Yes?’
‘Can’t we have lunch? I’m starving.’
‘Oh, well, yes. I suppose so.’
Mum leads me over to a table that’s been set for us by the window. She’s had a light lunch sent up. And when I say light I mean micro-light. I has been prepared by Thierry – her personal French chef who travels everywhere with her. Because Mum has found to her cost that Thierry is the only person who truly understands how she likes her food prepared. He’s got radish carving down to a fine art. The light lunch consists of raw fish, seaweed, grated carrot, nuts, cocktail tomatoes, slivered celery, shredded lettuce, sculpted radishes and chicory. (You don’t as a rule eat beetroot raw, thank God.) I stare at the table wondering whether I could ask for a bunny bag to be made up for Thumper.
‘Yuum, yumm,’ says Mum as if she’s about to dig into a thick juicy steak. She helps herself to a few strands of watercress.
‘Couldn’t I have just maybe one bread roll with mine, Mum?’
‘Bread is cooked, Hollywood,’ says Mum and she starts on her standard spiel of: ‘The diet according to Saint Kandhi’. I switch off while she trots out the familiar phrases. ‘Now I really believe in this one.’ ‘And I’ve tried everything.’ ‘It’s for your own good.’ ‘You simply don’t know what’s in processed foods.’ ‘All the diseases of modern living.’ ‘Beauty starts from the inside.’ Finishing with: ‘And I’ve really been worrying about your diet, Hollywood.’
‘But I have a brilliant diet now compared with at school,’ I protest. (I haven’t eaten chocolate, chips, muffins, biscuits, marshmallows, ice cream, crisps or one single Monster Munch in a whole week.)
‘Hmm. I do believe I can see just one teensy little pimple …’
OK, yeah, it’s made a comeback. Or maybe this is son-of-pimple. I cover my chin with my napkin. I’ve totally camouflaged it with Coverstick. Mum must have X-ray eyes.
‘Anyway, whatever. I just want to go through these appointments Vix has fixed up for you.’
‘Appointments? For what?’
Mum glances down at one of Vix’s printed schedules. Ominously, it’s got ‘Hollywood’ printed at the top. I crane over but can’t manage to read it upside down.
‘Well, for a start there’s the dentist …’
‘No problem. I’ve just had my check-up with the school’s dentist. A clear round. No fillings.’
‘Hollywood. I’m not talking about fillings. This is Mr Evans. My own personal cosmetic dentist.’
‘Cosmetic dentist? What’s wrong with my teeth?’
‘I’m just worrying that you might have the teensiest bit of an overbite.’
‘Overbite! No way. Not after three years of a fixed brace!’
‘Well, I want to be totally sure that he can’t make an improvement.’
‘I’m not going back into a brace.’ Imagine the humiliation of having a brace in front of Rupert.
‘Then there’s your nutritionist.’
‘My nutritionist? But I’m skinny as anything.’
‘Diet is not about skinny or not skinny. You are what you eat, Hollywood –’
I break in before she gets back into the groove of the Saint Kandhi Sermon.
‘OK, I’ll see a nutritionist, if it’ll make you happy.’ Maybe he or she will allow me some decent cooked food.
‘Then on Friday there’s the dermatologist.’
‘It’s only one very small pimple.’
‘I know that, but there’s your whole beauty routine to set up. You can’t start on skin care too young, you know.’
‘Mu-um.’
As she continues down her list, my heart sinks. It seems that Mum is intent on having every part of my body toned, honed even reboned if necessary. At least she’s stopped at cosmetic surgery. But I have a sneaking suspicion that this is because surgeons won’t do cosmetic surgery on someone who’s only thirteen, so she’s saving that treat up for later.
Wednesday 19th February, 9.00 a.m.
Suite 6003
Jasper has brought in the whole score of his musical today. He says he’ll teach me two of the songs he’s written for the principal character, the homeless girl, who’s called Tyger. Naturally, I think it’s a really cool name, and he says it comes from a poem about a tiger in the night with eyes burning bright.
Anyhow, we are well into the first song, the catchy one that Tyger sings at night-time in the station, when Mum bursts in wanting to know how my singing is ‘coming along’.
When she’s completely disrupted the lesson and Jasper has got up and kissed her on both cheeks and they’ve spent half an hour catching up on all the people they know in the music scene in New York, Mum says, ‘Don’t let me disturb you. I’m going to sit here quiet as a little mouse.’
Jasper settles back on the piano stool. I clear my throat. My mouth has gone dry. Can I possibly sing in front of Mum? I start on a false note and Jasper stops me and sends a reassuring smile over to Mum. Then we start again.
Actually, it’s such a great song that I really get into it. Jasper is nodding and smiling and adding bits in the accompaniment that make it sound extra good and then suddenly Mum says, ‘Hold it right there. Listen, Hollywood. It’s not like that. Look, Jasper, can you take it from the top?’
Her ‘little mouse’ act is totally forgotten. Mum’s basically muscled in between us and now she’s leaning over Jasper and tapping her heel to the beat.
‘Now there, you see – if you come in here just a half beat earlier with …’ Mum starts singing. ‘Home is where your heart is … da de da de …’ She’s not getting the words right or anything, but she’s belting it out and suddenly I see the difference between what I call singing and what she does.
Jasper leans across his score with a pencil. ‘You’re right. That gives it a bit of a whahhhr …’
‘Hmmm. Imagine lots of doubling. We should try it in the studio. And maybe echo to zonk it up … I like it, Jasper. I like it a lot. But it needs orchestrating.’
‘Oh, that’s done. The whole score, I’ve got it right here.’
‘The whole score? What’s it from?’
‘Oh, it’s just some musical that –’
I interrupt. ‘It’s not just some musical, Mum. It’s a musical Jasper wrote himself. It’s called Metropolis and it’s brilliant.’
‘You wrote it?’
‘Well, er …’
‘You mean, like you’ve got copyright?’
‘Well, yes, I guess …’
‘And nobody else is using it?’
‘Well, not right now, but …’
‘But there’s load of people after it,’ I butt in.
‘Jasper, I’m getting an idea here …’
‘You are?’
‘Yeah. I’m still not totally convinced by the intro number Mike’s talked me into for the Heatwave.
The Heatwave is this really massive concert tour that Mum’s planning to take round the world. It’s the biggest thing Mum’s done in ages. They’ve booked Wembley for the opening and the Sold Out signs went up on the very first day. And when you consider that some of the tickets are like £150 each, you can see that it’s going to be some event.
‘You’re not?’ This comes out as a kind of wheeze. Jasper looks as if he’s about to explode. If he seems too keen he’s going to blow it. I can see his hands shaking with the suspense.
‘But I thought you said that Sheherazadha was interested …’ I said to Jasper, giving him a meaningful look.
Mum cuts across me, her eyes narrowed. ‘Listen to me, Jasper. I really like this number. Will you promise me one thing. You won’t sign it over to anyone else until you’ve spoken to me?’
‘You want to option it?’
‘I can’t promise anything. I’ve got to talk to Mike. Look, you just continue with Hollywood’s lesson, right. I’ll get back to you.’
With that Mum sweeps out of the room.
Jasper and I stand for a moment staring at each other. And then he gives a whoop of joy and hugs me.
‘Hollywood Bliss. You are one genius!’
‘But she hasn’t promised anything yet.’
‘I’ve worked with your mother. I’m telling you, baby. She is hooked!’
Later that morning
Between my singing and my dance lessons I popped up to Mum’s suite to see how things were progressing.
Mum was on the phone to Mike Dee, her manager.