by Lotte Daley
‘I love Bailey!’ I screamed. Suddenly the clouds lifted, birds sang songs, ‘Let’s Hear It for the Boy’ played loudly in my head, the room was sunny and Richard was a fucking love guru.
‘Mwah!’ I kissed him square on the mouth before bounding off the sofa and into the kitchen.
‘What are you doing, you mad woman?’ he laughed.
‘I’m going to get my man!’ I hollered back. ‘Wahoooooo!’
Chapter 16
Wearing a silk, slashed-to-the-navel wrap dress, thick black tights and Mary Jane shoes, I spritzed myself with Marc Jacobs and touched up the puffy bags under my eyes with some Touche Éclat. I completed the look with a white cashmere bolero.
‘Gorgeous,’ Richard said, still sitting in my living room. ‘Do you want your phone back before I drive you to Bailey’s?’ he enquired.
‘Nah … I’ll just call Danielle later, when I know where I stand with Bailey. Hopefully we won’t be interrupting him having an orgy, or having it off with Hanna or someone …’
‘Hanna?’ Richard’s head spun round.
‘Yes, Hanna. You know the one, horse-faced, grumpy, acid-tongued … calls me fat alllllll the time.’
‘Yes, darling, of course I know who you mean, but what I am confused greatly about is how you could possibly think that Bailey would be anywhere in the vicinity of Hanna, in a romantic slash sexual way.’ Richard looked aghast.
‘I’m confused … I mean, I know Hanna doesn’t like him because of …’
TRIIIIIIIIIIIING
The doorbell screamed down the hallway, making me, Richard and the cat, who was rubbing against Richard’s trouser leg, jump.
‘Who could that be?’ I said, pulling an ‘I don’t know’ face.
‘Well …’ Richard said, rubbing his chin. ‘It could be the press … after all, Jack’s Oh Yay! magazine interview is out, as is your glorious Sizzle Stars interview.’
‘Well,’ I sighed inwardly, ‘at least I’m wearing Donna Karan and have fabulous Ziggy Wang blonde hair …’
‘Hmmm,’ Richard agreed. ‘Pale sand and biscuit by the look of it,’ he winked. ‘Good choice.’
I gasped! Before I could say what that meant to me, the doorbell gave another urgent ring, so I quickly made my way to the door, stopping to check for lipstick on my teeth in the hallway mirror.
‘Um …’ I said, as I opened the front door. A mass of blonde frizz stood in front of me. Drizzle was seeping from the heavy clouds above us. The wind picked up, as Pippa Strong from London Lowdown held an umbrella which was clearly losing the fight between staying open and upright and being a crumpled, useless contraption. She also clutched a large Manila envelope.
‘Katie Lewis,’ she said gently. Softly spoken and very dishevelled, Pippa Strong smelled strongly of incense cones and turnips. I sensed she lived on a farm somewhere, which was unusual for a gossip journalist. They were normally single women who lived in the cool parts of London. She looked like a downtrodden mother.
‘I need to talk to you urgently,’ she said, trying her best to be strong, like Hanna et al. Her voice shook slightly.
‘It’s not a good time. I need to be going somewhere …’
‘To see your long-term lover Fabio Matravers?’ she said suddenly.
‘Excuse me?’ I said, eyebrows furrowed.
‘Jack Hunter’s interview, as I’m sure you’ve seen, includes accusations that you have been cheating on him for a very, very long time with one Fabio Matravers.’
‘Whahaha!’ I guffawed. ‘That’s the biggest heap of shite I’ve ever heard!’
Richard appeared behind me.
‘Unless you want an audience, may I suggest you invite her in,’ he hissed in my ear.
‘But what about Hanna?’
‘What about her?’
‘I’m not to do anything without her say-so, remember?’
‘Without Poets Field PR say-so, and I am a senior PR account manager.’
‘Of stuff that isn’t celebrity related!’ I hissed back.
‘Methods of execution are still the same.’
Pippa Strong stood in my doorway, teeth chattering, wind whipping up her dress to reveal her woolly purple thick tights.
‘You’d better come in,’ I sighed. By the time we had got through this, my post-hangover confidence would have worn off and the moment to profess my new and what I was sure would become undying love to Sam Bailey would be well and truly lost. Never mind … I suppose, what’s meant to be will be, right?
‘Tea? Coffee? Biscuits?’ I queried.
‘Tea, one sugar, milk and what biscuits have you got?’ Pippa’s eyes lit up as she gently lowered herself on to my couch. Oooh goodie, she wasn’t a carb-dodger, good stuff, I was in good company. I certainly liked her miles more than Hanna Frost, and she’d only been here five minutes. Pippa Strong just didn’t seem like a hack. She really truly didn’t. She was just like someone you’d meet at Weight Watchers or aqua aerobics, you know, normal. Just a regular kinda girl I’d happily have a cuppa tea with and tell my problems to. She had matronly, married and mortgaged written all over her. Quite a stark contrast to the women in my life, such as Danielle, who was fiery, passionate and as clever as they come, and Hanna Frost, ballsy, sophisticated, clever and hard-faced. Even Frenella was tip-top of her game and knew her Jimmy’s from her Luella’s.
‘This chat, Katie,’ Pippa began, ‘is strictly off the record, woman to woman.’ She looked directly into my eyes. My bottom squirmed slightly on the sofa. I didn’t really like folk who eyeballed me like that.
‘First, I wanted to show you this week’s edition of Oh Yay! magazine as I’m sure if Jack sees any paparazzi shots of you buying it he’ll know you still care, and you could possibly look desperate and also –’
‘Jammie Dodgers or Digestives?’ Richard cut in quickly.
‘Digestive please,’ Pippa delved into the biscuit tin. She ended up with one of each in her hand. ‘Oops!’ she said.
‘Never mind, plenty to go around, do help yourself!’
‘Thank you,’ she said, crunching into the Dodger. Richard placed cups of steaming hot tea on the coffee table and took a seat in the armchair. He never took his eyes off her once.
EXCLUSIVE – JACK HUNTER TALKS CANDIDLY ABOUT KATIE LEWIS INFIDELITY, BREAK-UPS AND HIS NEW-FOUND FAME
‘Oh my God!’ I gasped as I read through the interview, spotting another headline.
KATIE WAS AN ANGEL WITH A DIRTY FACE
‘It was clear that all along she had been having it off with Fabio …’ said Jack, wearing all white, actually, similar to my attire in Sizzle Stars. He looked clean, smooth and a little bit heartbroken. My heart jumped for joy at the thought that Jack could be in a little bit of emotional turmoil regarding me, his ex-girlfriend. The more I read about him, though, the less I felt good.
‘Jessica knew it, too,’ he stared right up at me from a white fluffy bed that had feathers floating down all around him, white of course. He looked like he was in heaven.
‘We confided and clung to one another as our hearts broke in tandem, but then healed as one.’
‘Oh, I’m going to be sick!’ I whispered. He totally didn’t say that.
‘Right …’ Pippa said, sipping her tea. She surreptitiously moved her hand towards the biscuit tin, which was just a little bit out of her reach.
Richard nudged it towards her.
‘Jack wouldn’t know the word tandem if it came up and hit him on the forehead,’ I stated. Still, I continued to read.
The interview was seven pages long. Half of it was him gushing about his ‘Haribo Princess’ and the day he proposed, that his life had moved on ‘tremendously’ since his relationship with me, how happy he was, how much he loved plastic-tits Jessica Hilson … their wedding plans … and then back to his ‘utter hurt and betrayal’ by me, and my affair with Fabio Matravers, a man I have only met three times, and one of those through a rolled-down, blacked-out window in a futuristic beeping car round the ba
ck of Sunshine Media’s offices!
‘I’ve only met Fabio Matravers three times!’ I said defiantly.
‘Is that so?’ Pippa shuffled uncomfortably, before adjusting her shirt buttons.
‘Yes, it is. This entire interview is fabricated!’ I said. ‘Well, the bits about me having it off with Fabio behind Jessica and Jack’s backs! Let me get this straight, Pippa, I had no idea that Jack was going to leave me, least of all for a movie star.’
‘She’s right,’ Richard interjected. ‘What she says is the truth. None of us knew what was going on and I can assure you, Jack is lying about this whole affair thing.’
‘Yeah, the only affair anyone had was the two of them!’ I shouted. ‘This is ridiculous!’ I exclaimed to Pippa, who didn’t look as though she believed a word I said.
‘I believe you,’ she said earnestly.
‘You do?’ I said, surprised. No, she still didn’t look like it. She looked odd.
‘Then, what’s with the “I totally don’t believe you” face that you have going on here,’ I said, drawing an ‘I don’t think so’ diagram over my own face, like I’d seen on Jerry Springer.
‘You’ll see.’ Pippa pushed the Manila envelope she’d been nurturing towards me.
‘What’s this?’ I said, my heartbeat quickening, what could it be? What could it be?
‘Open it, but be prepared for something you may not like …’
‘A different story in what way?’ I asked, with the envelope on my lap. I was too afraid to open it until I knew what I would find. This was like a sadistic Christmas present.
‘Open it,’ she gestured.
‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘Not until you tell me what’s inside it.’
‘Open it and see.’ She wasn’t budging.
I looked at Richard. He nodded his head for me to open it. I said ‘no way’ telepathically. Richard sighed, huffed and then guessed.
‘Is this something to do with Samuel Bailey, Hanna Frost’s assistant?’ he asked.
‘Who?’ Pippa queried.
‘Phew,’ I muttered under my breath. No Bailey surprises of the horrible kind.
‘Doesn’t matter. May I ask, then, is this to do with Katie and Jack?’
‘Just open it and Jack Hunter’s little cheating ways will be exposed. It appears that despite being clad head to toe in innocent white, he is anything but.’
‘I could have told you that!’ I said, laughing as I ripped the envelope open with my fingernails.
Before I delved inside, I looked up at Richard. His face was expectant. Pippa had a face on her like she’d turned to stone. No one made a sound.
‘Well, it can’t be that bad, can it …’ I said, as I pulled out some black and white photos, the kind you see in James Bond movies or on those shows where people get followed by private detectives or whatever.
My mouth opened as my eyes focused on the shapes in the shadows.
I made no sound. The world crashed down around me. I held the very worst thing that there could ever be, right there, in my hands.
‘This is what she was trying to tell me,’ I whispered. My body shut down, white noise surrounded me, I could hear Richard talking, Pippa asking questions, my head blocked them out as I focused on one picture of my best friend, Danielle Kingsley, gazing up into Jack Hunter’s eyes, her body tipped towards him, in an embrace, his arms, hands, placed upon hers.
‘No!’ I gasped. ‘No!’ I said, louder this time. ‘This is insane! It cannot be true, you’ve totally doctored these pictures, you can do anything on Photoshop these days, can’t you, Richard! Tell her, Richard, tell her, tell me, it’s not true, it’s not true, it CAN’T BE TRUE!’ I wailed.
Richard came and sat down next to me. He took the pictures from me and looked through them one by one. Clear as the nose on my face, my best friend and my ex-boyfriend were pictured talking, embracing, coming out of her office, another of them on the pavement exchanging knowing glances.
‘Katie, I’m sorry, I knew nothing about this,’ Richard said gravely.
‘Fucking BITCH!’ I swore. ‘She’s been a nightmare lately, cagey, weird, acting out, she was a total cow in the spa, little digs here and there about this whole drama of mine. She bloomin’ well hated Jack with such a passion and and and, and another thing!!’ I was pointing furiously at everyone.
‘When she let herself into my house and she thought I’d been having it off with Jack her face dropped and she went green, she was, like, super not impressed to the point where she looked like she’d seen a ghost at the thought of me and Jack having hooked up again. NOW I know why, she’d clearly been having sexual relations herself with MY EX-BOYFRIEND!’
‘Pippa, is that all?’ Richard said, as I stood up and walked to the kitchen. I took down the emergency vodka and poured myself a stiff drink. And then another. And another. So much for my perfect ‘I love you, Bailey’ day. Fucking ruined now. Shit shit shit!! This cannot be happening to me, God, no one gets this amount of rubbish friends and ex-boyfriend dramas in one month, do they? Surely not? The vodka warmed me up from the inside and numbed the pain that was ricocheting all over my heart and brain and back again.
‘I think I should stay, you know, woman to woman,’ Pippa said, with much sincerity.
‘Perhaps …’ Richard mused. He was clearly torn between staying with me to mop up more tears or, I don’t know, going to have sex with someone to release some of this tension, change his clothes, do some fast manly driving, who knows?
‘I need a breather from this girl stuff, darling, nothing personal,’ he said stiffly. I could see he had moist eyes. I know everyone has moist eyes but his were shimmering. They weren’t quite crying eyes, but I think he actually was close.
‘Must dash, I’ll be back in a couple of hours,’ he said, kissing me quickly on the cheek and making for the door. He stopped suddenly and turned to Pippa.
‘Take care of her, Pippa. If I find out …’ he said warningly.
‘Richard, is it?’
‘Yes.’
She extended her hand for him to shake.
‘Listen, I’m not like the other journalists, I’m a down-to-earth girl, a friend, I just want to help, and I think I can do that, right here, right now, probably better than any man. For one,’ she said, opening her crocheted bag, ‘I have chocolate!’
‘Well, in that case,’ Richard said slowly, ‘chocolate will help right now. I will be back, please stay with her, as you can imagine, she’s, well …’ he shook his head. ‘That will be all,’ he said, before letting her hand go and heading out of the front door. He closed it with a bang. I laid my head in my hands and let out the kind of noise my cat made when I stood on his tail in my stilettos. A guttural, pained sob.
‘Shhh,’ Pippa said, rolling kitchen paper around her hands and passing it towards me to catch the tears that rolled silently down my cheeks and dripped into my vodka.
I gulped back emotion.
‘I’m fine, honestly, nothing surprises me now,’ I said through gritted teeth.
We sat for a good ten minutes, my head resting on the ledge of her gigantic squashy boobs. Reminded me of my mother’s maternal embrace. She stroked my hair gently and made reassuring shushing noises, which made me feel supported and slightly better. I sniffed and sobbed some more.
Triiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing
The doorbell went again.
‘Fucking hell. Not now, not today, cannot deal with this,’ I moaned.
‘It’s OK, I’ll get it,’ Pippa edged towards the hallway before stopping and turning back to me. ‘If you don’t mind?’
‘Go ahead,’ I said, lifting my head. I smoothed my hair back from my wet face. I necked another vodka shot. Need limes, I thought, and got up to go to the fridge, picked some off the shelf, popped them on the chopping board and grabbed a sharp knife.
‘Whoah there, Katie, things aren’t that bad, surely?’ Hanna Frost stood at the breakfast bar.
‘What?’
‘The kn
ife, your face …’
‘Hanna, don’t start, I’ve just had some incredibly, insanely awful news, delivered by Pippa, and I can’t deal with your comments right now,’ I said, waving the knife dismissively. I grabbed hold of a lime and sliced it in half. Hard.
‘Katie, I’m sorry, darling, if I came across as criticizing you, that totally wasn’t my point. God no, honestly, honey, please, what’s wrong?’ Hanna said, rubbing her temples.
‘I got a call from Richard,’ she said, before glancing at Pippa. For someone she had never spoken fondly of, they looked fine in one another’s company. How odd, I thought to myself, but quickly let it pass. Now wasn’t the time to potentially inflame any kind of journo-war.
‘I don’t even know where to begin,’ I sighed. I poured out three neat vodkas and placed a slice of lime in each. ‘I’m having mine neat, but I have some cola or lemonade or whatever.’
‘Do you have tonic water?’ Hanna questioned.
‘No. Do I look like a bloody pub?’ I snapped. Hanna said nothing.
‘I’ll go to the shop for some,’ Pippa said brightly. ‘Maybe, Hanna, you could come with me and I can bring you up to speed away from Katie’s ears, that way she doesn’t need to go through it all again.’
‘Good idea,’ I barked.
The two women shuffled out of the kitchen and down the hallway. Seconds later I head the door close gently.
‘Oh, Danielle!’ I shouted to the empty house. ‘Why did you do this to me? How could you do this to me!’
‘Meow!’ Grum said, nuzzling my hand, which was placed firmly on the bottle of vodka.
Right, I thought, I’ll go delete her from my Facebook. That way she’ll never know what’s going on in my life, what I like, what I don’t, who I’m having it off with, where I’m going, anything! She can be deleted! This was the twenty-first-century way of ending friendships, after all. One click of a mouse, bye bye Danielle. Bitch! I traipsed up the stairs and caught sight of myself in a mirror. Weirdly, despite being emotionally tortured with photographs, my make-up had remained intact. My tears had not ruined my face. I even looked quite edgy. Even though I was wearing the most beautiful salmon-pink, slashed-to-the-navel wrap dress. Yeah, well, I was planning on declaring my love for Bailey and then he was supposed to take in the bella vista which was moi, in silk, by Donna Karan, a J-Lo dress. It was sexy, classy, gorgeous. It was the image I wanted to give him of me. And now I was knocking back vodka in it, alone, with my cat, like a saddo. I sighed heavily. It hurt to breathe. Razorblade breathing. Stomach tight, in knots, I logged into my Gmail.