Nothing But Trouble

by Matt Cain

  He could almost feel the sense of victory vibrating off her. But as she ranted at him her words began to distort, overpowered by the thud of the loud music and the pounding of the blood rushing to his head.

  Is this it? Is she ending everything in the same place where it all started?

  ‘Lola, are you really sure about this? Are you sure it’s not just the coke talking?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure, Harvey! And that’s exactly the kind of thing I don’t want to hear anymore. Just because I’ve snorted a few lines of coke doesn’t mean I’ve turned into some madwoman who can’t think straight.’

  Well you could have fooled me.

  ‘As it happens I’ve been thinking about this for a while. And I’m sorry but I’ve made my decision. I don’t want to discuss it.’

  ‘Right. OK. I’ll get going then.’

  ‘Blatantly. I’m off to mess it up. And I haven’t finished yet.’

  No, there’s clearly a whole lot more to come.

  But as of tonight he wouldn’t be around to clear it up.

  11

  Gloria hit Play and rewatched the footage on her phone. Perfectly lit and in sharp focus, Belle, Scarlett and Trixie burst into view cramming as much coke as they could up their noses. And then came Gloria’s favourite bit. Lola leant forward and casually snorted an entire line in one stroke – with all the insouciance of a practised addict. It was better than Gloria remembered. Even if she had now watched it close to fifty times.

  She put her phone down on the kitchen table and took a sip of her rather bitter-tasting instant coffee. It was early in the morning and she was waiting for Chanelle to wake up so she could drop her off at school before making her way over to rehearsal. Although there was no rush to get there. She had no doubt everyone else involved with the tour would be nursing killer hangovers this morning – including Lola. But not Gloria. She’d left the party shortly after her little shoot with much more important things on her mind than Lola’s stupid mantra about ‘messing it up’. And for once she’d bolted out of bed this morning way before her daughter, excited to revisit last night’s stroke of luck. It was about time she had some good luck after all the shit she’d been through.

  She’d hardly slept all night as a plan had formulated in her mind. For maximum impact she wasn’t going to release the footage to the press till the opening night of Lola’s tour. And she couldn’t risk contacting too many journalists in case one of them got in touch with Lola’s dyke publicist. So she’d decided to offer the footage exclusively to Freddy Jones at Channel 3 News – Britain’s highest-rated news programme. Of course, contacting Freddy was a high-risk strategy seeing as Lola had been on a date with him and it had been splashed all over the papers. But Lola had told her what had happened, and the way Gloria saw it, Freddy couldn’t be happy about being prick-teased in public then dumped in a national newspaper. No, she had a hunch that like her he’d be hungry for revenge. Although perhaps not quite as hungry as she was.

  She took another sip of her coffee and stood up to pace the room. She wondered how much money she should ask for. How much would it cost to put down a deposit on a house? Nothing too fancy, just somewhere nice and cosy for me and Chanelle – in a nicer area than this shithole. She looked out of the window at the scrap of scrubland that was supposed to be a park but saw much more use as a dog toilet. A muscled white boy in a tight vest and chunky silver jewellery trotted past with an unleashed pit bull terrier which stopped to squat next to a drunken wino crashed out on a bench. She looked away in disgust. Never mind, we won’t be here much longer.

  Then again, if she sold the footage of Lola would that make her guilty of blackmail? Or extortion? What did any of those charges actually mean? She had no idea and didn’t dare ask anyone as she didn’t want her story to leak out before the big night. Oh maybe it would be safer not to ask for any money. She couldn’t risk breaking the law and then losing custody of Chanelle. Maybe it would be better to go for maximum destruction and then sell her story afterwards – especially if she portrayed herself as the wronged woman who’d exposed Lola’s hypocrisy to the world. Surely that would fetch a good price? You never know, I might even get a record deal out of it.

  But there was only one problem: how did she get hold of Freddy? She didn’t have any numbers for him and couldn’t risk making contact on Twitter. It was way too public and she’d have to ask him to follow her before she could send him a direct message. No, she’d have to set up an anonymous email account and then send a confidential message to the Channel 3 newsdesk and mark it for Freddy’s attention. She’d tell him to give her his phone number if he was interested in a major scandal involving Lola Grant. That was the way to do it. And if she didn’t give anything away in the first email, no one could trace it back to her. She sat down and picked up her phone, running a quick internet search on Channel 3 News.

  Her finger hovered over the Contact icon but a thought entered her head and stopped her from clicking. Wait a minute, can I really trust Freddy? What if he doesn’t realize Lola was two-timing him and he’s still under her spell? She did seem to have a way of duping people, although Gloria had no idea why they all fell for it. But what if Freddy took Lola’s side, got hold of the footage and decided not to run with it – or, even worse, somehow turned it against Gloria? Sure, it wasn’t very likely when this was the kind of scoop that made a journalist’s career. But she couldn’t take any chances. No, what she needed was some kind of back-up plan, a way of releasing the footage to the world at the same time as Channel 3 News. A way of holding some kind of public premiere for her film that would coincide with Lola’s opening night.

  Aha! That’s it!

  She was suddenly hit by an amazing idea. An idea so amazing it made her jump up and knock over her coffee. An idea that would allow her to stay in complete control of the news story – and use it to inflict as much damage as possible on Lola. She gasped out loud at her own brilliance.

  She wouldn’t send that email just yet. Before she did, there was something she needed to investigate.

  *

  Lola yawned as she stared at her coffee machine and it drifted out of focus. She tried to concentrate. Where was she supposed to put the water? And how many spoons of coffee was she supposed to add for one cup? Oh why do they always have to make things so complicated? She’d bought the machine when she’d first moved into the flat but hadn’t ever felt brave enough to use it. She didn’t really know why she was trying now. She stood no chance.

  After just a few hours’ sleep she’d woken up that morning with one of her worst hangovers ever – coupled with what she could only assume was a shocking coke comedown. For the last hour or so she’d flitted around her flat picking things up and putting them down again, starting jobs only to abandon them after a few seconds, and doing everything she could to fight the bone-numbing, breath-quickening, bladder-loosening fear of her whole life coming crashing down around her. But there was no escaping it – however much she told herself that extreme anxiety must be a side effect of a cocaine binge. She wanted to scream out loud but wasn’t sure her own head could cope with the torture. And she couldn’t even make herself a cup of coffee.

  She leaned back against the worktop and let out a long sigh. Everywhere she looked her possessions still sat packed away in boxes. She wished she’d listened to Harvey when he’d wanted to rent her a temporary apartment while this one was done up rather than waiting for the builders to start work when she went on tour. She remembered him saying she’d need some kind of sanctuary when things got tough, which he predicted they were bound to. And she could see now that he’d been right.

  Oh why did I fire him? What the hell was I thinking? Actually she knew exactly what she’d been thinking. And again Harvey had been right when he’d said it was the coke doing the thinking for her. He was always right. She only wished she’d realized that before she’d sacked him. Or maybe she had. Maybe that was one of the reasons why she sacked him.

  Come to think of it,
she wasn’t even sure she could sack him. It wasn’t as if she’d ever been in this position before. Mind you, she didn’t remember them ever signing any kind of formal contract. And you heard about artists firing their managers all the time. Anyway, it was too late to start worrying about it now. She’d been such a bitch she was sure that even if she asked him back he’d only refuse – and with good reason. But what happened now if something awful blew up? If something went wrong with the tour before it opened? She’d made a big deal about being able to look after herself, but now that she was on her own she didn’t mind admitting she’d been talking complete crap. And she was utterly petrified. She tried to tell herself again that it was only a side effect of the coke. But it didn’t make any difference.

  She turned back to the coffee machine and managed to insert what she could only hope would be the right amount of coffee and water. But if she wanted a latte did she add the milk now or once the coffee had brewed? She grabbed a carton of semi-skimmed from inside the fridge but could barely think straight and put it down on the worktop. She leant forward onto the edge, let her head flop down and closed her eyes. She couldn’t believe she was actually on a coke comedown. How different was this to the kind of comedown she’d witnessed her mum going through day after day, year after year? She felt another stab of fear.

  As she stood bent over the worktop she wondered how her mum had felt the first time she’d taken crack. Or had she started on normal coke and graduated to crack once she was hooked? Like mother, like daughter, tormented a voice in her head. Like mother, like daughter.

  She lifted up her head and had another look at the coffee machine. Oh forget the milk, I’ll just have it black. But which button was she supposed to press? There were loads of them flashing in her face, each of them a different colour. It was all too much. The slightest thing made her feel like her whole life was hurtling out of control.

  How could I have been so stupid? And what if somebody saw me? Now that her fear had found something to latch onto, it rocketed out of control, crushing her in its grip until she felt like she was going to explode. She tried to calm down and regulate her breathing. Come on, Lola, nobody saw you. Now pull yourself together and snap out of it!

  She gave up on the coffee machine and switched it off at the mains. One thing was for sure – there was no way she could go to rehearsals feeling like this. Not that they’d accomplish anything seeing as everyone had been shit-faced at the party. No, she didn’t think anyone would complain if she rang in sick and gave them all the morning off. And besides, there was something much more important she needed to do. Something she realized she’d been putting off for months now. And something she couldn’t avoid any longer.

  She reached for her favourite sunglasses and wrapped them around her face. She remembered how she’d given them to Freddy at her album launch and he’d returned them when she was on the set of Lucky Star. She wondered what he’d think if he knew what she’d got up to last night. Then again, he’d probably stopped caring about her ages ago, right after she blew him out in a national newspaper. Nice work, Lola, that was another smart move.

  Anyway, she’d have to think about Freddy another time. Right now it was time she visited her mum. She could pick up a coffee on the way.

  *

  Karen opened the door and was met by the sight of a huge black umbrella filling the frame. As it turned around she was stunned to find that standing underneath was Lola.

  ‘Hiya, Mum.’

  She was wearing an old black tracksuit and trainers with a pair of huge wraparound sunglasses despite the fact it was throwing it down. The rain bounced off the windscreen of a dark car that sat purring on the other side of the street.

  ‘Lola! What are you doing here?’

  ‘Oh thanks, Mum. I thought you’d be pleased to see me.’

  ‘I am, no I am. Sorry, it’s just a surprise, that’s all.’

  ‘No, well, I guess it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. Anyway, aren’t you going to invite me in? It’s blatantly pissing it down.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, course. Come in.’

  Karen stood to the side and Lola slid past her and into the flat. She wished she’d known her daughter would be coming. She was wearing old jeans and a faded T-shirt, hadn’t touched her hair since she’d got out of bed and wasn’t due at the dentist’s to sort out her teeth until next week. But she wondered whether that was the point – whether Lola had wanted to turn up unannounced to see how she was getting on with her life. If it was, she told herself that it didn’t matter. The important thing is she’s here. She took Lola’s umbrella and shook it outside then closed the door.

  ‘Well, this is very nice,’ Lola said, looking around the living room.

  ‘Oh I know!’ she burst out. ‘I’m so happy here, Lola. I mean, I still need to add the odd personal touch and stuff but I already feel really settled. Harvey helped me with it all – he said I’d need a sanctuary when I got out of rehab. And he was spot-on.’

  Lola was still wearing her sunglasses but Karen was sure she detected a slight flinch at the mention of Harvey’s name. It was obvious they still hadn’t patched up their differences, whatever they were. She’d have to find out what had gone on at some point soon. Although she wouldn’t push it just yet – it had been months since she’d seen Lola and the atmosphere between them was still a bit edgy. She reminded herself to tread carefully.

  ‘Let me show you around,’ she suggested brightly.

  ‘OK, great.’

  She gave Lola a little tour of the flat, proudly showing off her double bed with its headboard padded and pleated in faux leather, a gigantic plasma screen TV which took up almost an entire wall of the lounge, and a cream leatherette sofa with a handle which when pulled made it recline. ‘Get a load of this,’ she beamed as she demonstrated how it worked. ‘Isn’t it fab?’

  ‘Yeah, Mum,’ Lola smiled, her sunglasses still clamped to her face. ‘It’s fierce.’

  Around the time Lola had bought her flat in Shoreditch she’d also invested in this one-bedroom place in Dulwich, not too far away from Karen’s home in Tooting but far enough away to distract her from temptation. Of course it had been bought in Lola’s name, presumably so that Karen couldn’t do anything stupid like sell it to buy drugs, but the understanding was that she could stay here rent-free. And she could see now that it had been a shrewd strategy. Knowing she had a new home to go to when she came out of rehab had made her feel a fresh start might just be possible – and had played no small part in the fact that after three months she was still clean. It was the longest time she’d stayed off drugs in more than twenty years.

  ‘You know I’ve been clean since early July now,’ she shouted from the kitchen as she boiled the kettle. ‘I’m even starting thinking about training to be a drugs counsellor. My therapist at the Abbey thinks I’d be really good.’

  ‘That’s great news, Mum,’ Lola called back. ‘Congratulations!’

  Is it my imagination or is she being a bit warmer with me today? She certainly didn’t seem to be as prickly as she’d been the last time they’d spoken on the phone before that big anti-drugs gig in Hyde Park. But she couldn’t help thinking there was something wrong. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. If she’d bothered to be much of a mother before now she might have developed some kind of intuition. Although there was no point regretting that now. It was much more important to concentrate on rebuilding her life – and rewriting some of her mistakes. She walked back into the lounge with two steaming mugs of tea.

  ‘Here you go, get this down you.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’

  Karen watched as Lola’s sunglasses steamed up and she reluctantly removed them, revealing eyes rimmed with black circles, sallow skin and a haggard-looking face. On top of that, she couldn’t stop sniffing, kept having to wipe the sweat off her forehead and her left cheek gave way to the occasional twitch. So Karen had been right, there was something wrong. In fact, if she wasn’t mistaken her daughter was going
through some kind of comedown. And she might not be much of a mother but that she did know about.

  ‘Lola,’ she said softly, ‘are you all right?’

  ‘Yeah! Why do you say that?’

  ‘You just look a bit worn out, that’s all.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry, I am a bit. It’s been totally full-on rehearsing for the tour.’

  She obviously wasn’t ready to tell the truth and Karen didn’t want to push it. ‘Well, you have to make sure you look after yourself. I know the times I made the biggest mess of things were when I was feeling vulnerable.’

  Lola laughed weakly and nodded. Karen noticed her eyes alight on a picture of the two of them standing on the mantelpiece. It was the first time she’d ever put up anything like a family photo in her home. It had been taken on a holiday to Brighton when Lola was about eight years old during one of Karen’s brief periods off drugs. They’d stayed somewhere her mum and dad had taken her when she was little and had spent a whole week paddling in the sea, singing along to Lola’s favourite Spice Girls songs and racing excitedly around the pier. Karen remembered the two of them riding the roller coaster over and over again and asking a passer-by to take a photo of them when they were flushed with adrenaline; it had captured them screaming with joy as the sea breeze blew their hair high in the air and the sun lit up their faces. Of course as soon as they’d got home Karen had gone all out to sabotage their happiness with her biggest drug binge ever. She looked at Lola now and wondered how much of it all she could remember. Her features had settled into an expression of what looked to her like sorrow. Karen’s chest tightened as she realized just how much she’d put her through. If only I could make it right. If only it’s not too late.

  ‘Is it that Freddy Jones again?’ she ventured. ‘Is it something to do with him?’