Love Song

by Sophia Bennett

  ‘You get used to it,’ Jess whispered. ‘They’re just jealous of our jobs. Don’t take it personally.’

  I tried not to.

  Not getting into the nightclub with Jess, because the bouncers wouldn’t let me. Handing the precious bag to this person I’d just met with a plea to pass it to Sigrid as soon as she could, and a vague sense of doom ...

  Taking the car back to the band’s hotel. Luckily the driver knew where to go, because I had no idea.

  Getting close to the hotel was a memory that would stay with me, despite the blur. The streets became more and more crowded and the car had to slow down until it was only just crawling along. There were girls everywhere, holding signs saying ‘KISS ME JAMIE!’ and ‘TE AMO CONNOR’. Girls with blue hair and glittery T-shirts, chanting in the night air. Girls like my sister. The loyal band of Pointer Sisters never changed.

  I checked in at the reception desk and crawled up to the little room they gave me. It was small, dark and poky, and as far from the main areas as it seemed possible to get. The view through the tiny window was of other tiny windows, surrounded by noisy pipes.

  All the time, the image was imprinted in my mind of Angus saying ‘Tow-el’. So far, it was the only word The Point had collectively spoken to me. And even then, the moment had been an epic fail.

  When it came to telling Clementine and the other people in our year about my amazing tour experience, I probably wouldn’t start with tonight.

  The next morning, I met with Oliver in the hotel lobby at seven, as arranged. In the mirrored lift up to the band’s floor, he gave me another pass to wear.

  ‘This is for the Hotel California.’

  ‘Is that where we’re going later?’ I asked. ‘I thought that was the Ritz.’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s what the band call their base wherever they go,’ he said. ‘After the Eagles song. D’you know it? The one about checking out any time you like, but never leaving? Band joke.’ The lift doors opened and we stepped out. ‘Anyway, right now it’s this corridor. Easy to guard. Hard for the paps and the girls to get into – unless invited. Although goodness knows they try.’

  Ahead of us stood two more enormous bodyguards, who looked a bit like Ian and Paul, but marginally less friendly. They smiled when they saw Oliver, though, and stood aside to let us pass.

  ‘Angus is there …’ Oliver indicated, passing one door. ‘That’s George. Wardrobe there. Connor here. And Jamie’s … this one.’ He stopped at the last door and knocked. Oliver seemed to spend a lot of his life knocking. ‘Good luck.’

  His two-way radio crackled into life. He walked off quickly, holding it to his ear with one hand and waving me a brief goodbye with the other.

  Once again, it was Sigrid who opened the door. Today, she was wearing tight white yoga pants and a tiny crop top. It was the kind of look that would only work on a size zero body, and she had one. She didn’t exactly smile at me, but she didn’t frown either.

  ‘Good morning. I hope you slept well,’ I said. Was this the way assistants talked? I had no idea.

  ‘I always do,’ she said airily. ‘I’m so blessed.’

  She stood aside and I walked into one of the most beautiful rooms I’ve seen in my life. Brightly coloured sofas faced each other across a wide expanse of floor. Pale walls were covered in modern art. Beyond it all was a wall of windows opening on to a full-length terrace, bathed in the rays of the morning sun.

  ‘I’m sorry about your bag,’ I said, thinking back to my last hectic hours yesterday.

  ‘Was there a problem? You fixed it, right?’

  There was a beady look in Sigrid’s eye and a sudden edge to her voice. But I spotted the tote bag sitting on a nearby desk.

  ‘Um, yes. I did.’

  Jess must have delivered it, just as I’d asked. Relief flooded through me, making me feel light-headed.

  Sigrid’s Zen serenity returned. She flicked a hand in the direction of a door behind the dining area. ‘Why don’t you make me a green tea while I finish meditating? The kitchen’s over there.’

  Last night, I’d sleepily studied the spreadsheet of duties that Pamela had prepared. It ran to ninety-seven lines, and the correct preparation of green tea was line four. Moroccan mint, brewed for ninety seconds. When I took the cup through to her, she was sitting in the lotus position near the terrace window.

  ‘Mmm. Good,’ she said, tasting it and raising her eyebrows in mild surprise. She didn’t seem to expect me to have mastered the spreadsheet so fast. ‘Better than Pamela’s, actually.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She saw me staring at the strange contraption she was sitting under. It was a rickety-looking structure made of bamboo poles, with a white canopy draped over the top.

  ‘This is the peace tent,’ she explained. ‘It keeps me present, you know? Jamie needs it to realign his chakras. He’s so stressed. Oh, hi, baby!’ She switched on her Hollywood smile. ‘Isn’t it a beautiful day?’

  A sleepy-looking Jamie Maldon ambled into the room through the bedroom door, rubbing a hand through his ruffled hair. He was wearing an open hotel bathrobe, boxer shorts and a necklace with a small gold circle on it. His face looked grey and tired.

  Beneath the robe, his body was pale and skinny, but there was a thin layer of muscle on his chest. I wondered for a moment if he worked out, or got all his exercise from running around onstage. Then it hit me: I am staring at the semi-naked body of Jamie Maldon. If my sister were here right now, she would faint.

  He stopped in his tracks and peered at me.

  ‘Who’s this?’ he demanded.

  ‘My assistant, baby,’ Sigrid said, smiling sweetly.

  He stared at me, confused. ‘I thought we got rid of Pamela.’

  ‘This isn’t Pamela, it’s Nina. Remember? The blanket girl.’

  It wasn’t a blanket – I’d used a tablecloth to rescue her – but whatever.

  ‘From the fire in London? You hired her?’

  ‘Of course. We talked about it, remember?’

  ‘I thought you meant you’d get her in LA. Everyone has an assistant in LA …’ He put a hand to his forehead, as if just the thought of me gave him a headache.

  So, this was going well. I smiled politely and said nothing. I got the impression that even a ‘Good morning’ from me would only make things worse. His chakras clearly needed more realigning.

  ‘Hey, baby,’ Sigrid cooed, undoing herself from the lotus position, walking over to him and laughing, ‘I need an assistant everywhere. Just while things are so crazy. Not when it’s just us, when all this is over. Then it’ll just be you and me.’

  She put her arms round his neck and drew his head down to hers so they were almost kissing. Her fingers wove themselves through his hair. I imagined for a moment what that would be like … then I stopped. And wished I could magic myself out of this room. There are some places an assistant shouldn’t be.

  I closed my eyes for a moment. So, grandkids – the first thing I did to Jamie Maldon was give him a headache. Yes, the moment was that awesome.

  Luckily, they were interrupted by another knock at the door, and Jamie was taken off to get ready. The Hotel California had a separate suite reserved for wardrobe, hair and make-up. I thought Sigrid was fancy to have her own assistant, but Jamie basically had a whole team. The boy didn’t even brush his own hair.

  Sigrid went off to the bedroom to get changed, and I focused on making her breakfast, or ‘fixing’ it, in Sigrid-speak. The instructions ran to several lines of Pamela’s spreadsheet and I’d stared at them so often last night, marvelling at their weirdness, that I’d memorized them like a poem.

  Egg white omelette, served on fresh spinach leaves

  (washed in spring water);

  Green juice with goji berries

  (see special juicer);

  eleven almonds on a plate, arranged in a karmic pattern

  (see diagram)

  Feeling like a cross between Mary Berry and Picasso, I ordered the ome
lette and green juice ingredients from room service and tracked down the nuts and berries to some large, unsightly catering bags that Sigrid also travelled with. I was just arranging the almonds in their pattern when there was a loud hammering at the door.

  Instead of the room-service waiter I was expecting, a figure slumped against the doorway, staring at me with bloodshot eyes from under a frizzy mop of dirty hair. His greenish face clashed with his brown-and-yellow Simpsons pyjamas. His feet were bare.

  ‘’S Jamie here?’

  ‘Um, hello, George.’

  The drummer’s breath smelt exactly like the alley behind the Three Crowns pub at home: stale beer and cigarettes, and the heady whiff of rubbish bins. I took a step back and he took this as an invitation to come inside.

  ‘Jamie? Jamie, mate?’ he called plaintively, pushing his way past me and staring around. ‘I need to talk about Kelly. Where are you?’

  ‘Jamie’s not here,’ Sigrid said crossly, emerging from the bedroom. By now she was wearing powder-blue lace-trimmed shorts that skimmed her thighs, with just enough make-up to look as if she wasn’t wearing any. ‘This is my personal energy space. Get out! You’re so gross, you know that?’

  ‘Where is ’e?’ George repeated, ignoring the look of repugnance on Sigrid’s face. ‘I’ve got to show him something.’ He waved his phone around vaguely and looked as if he might fall over.

  ‘He’s in wardrobe,’ Sigrid snapped crossly. ‘Where you were supposed to be twenty minutes ago. Take a shower. Get a shave. We’re due in Paris by noon, and you’re a mess.’

  The theme tune to Backstage with Sigrid sounded in the bedroom, and she headed off to answer her phone.

  ‘Get rid of him, Nina,’ she called out behind her. ‘Give him to security. They know what to do.’

  George stared after her, then down at the screen in his hand. In Ariel’s endless posters of the band, his muscles rippled under the sleeveless vests he wore. On video, he always looked like the one most likely to bite the head off a bat. Right now, he looked as if he might cry.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ I asked, glancing nervously at the bedroom door closing behind Sigrid. I couldn’t throw him out in this state.

  He looked at me dumbly for a moment, then held his phone out towards me.

  ‘Kelly changed her status. To single, man. Last night. And look at the pictures. She’s there with that guy from two days ago. He’s got his hand near her waist, see? I was supposed to call her but things got a little crazy and …’ His voice wavered. Tears risked spilling down his cheeks at any moment. ‘It’s like, everyone’s saying it’s over, and she’s not taking my calls now. What do I do?’

  The drummer of The Point was crying in front of me. This was not how I pictured life with a rock band. I took the phone from him and scrolled through several pictures to see what he was talking about.

  A very attractive red-headed girl was posing in what seemed to be a bar, surrounded by a group of young men in suits, one of whom may or may not have been touching her waist. It was hard to tell if this was a gesture of affection, or lust, or sheer accident. The strange thing was, this kind of impossible analysis of blurry photos was exactly what happened in the sixth-form common room every day. The situation was oddly familiar.

  ‘Who’s saying it’s over?’ I asked.

  ‘Like, a million people on Twitter. And some showbiz blogs. And I just got woken up by this journo who somehow got my number, asking questions.’

  Oh. Not so familiar.

  But I know about break-ups. Hopeless at my own, but good with other people’s. Tammy and I have talked about enough of them over the years.

  ‘Don’t listen to them,’ I said, picturing Tammy at my shoulder, nodding, like she did at school. ‘Talk to Kelly. Don’t assume anything until you know what she’s really thinking.’

  ‘But why did she—?’

  ‘Ask her. And tell her how you feel. Don’t trust the internet, George. What do they know?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he sniffed, taking his phone back. ‘They’re wrong about most of the stuff, most of the time. Thanks … whoever you are.’

  ‘Nina.’

  He nodded, but he wasn’t listening. His attention was already back on the photos. I felt sorry for him. Long-distance relationships don’t work – everybody knows that. I was starting to understand why Sigrid felt it so necessary to stick to Jamie like glue.

  ‘Are you still here?’ she called out crossly, re-emerging from the bedroom, eyes blazing. ‘I thought I told you to go. Leave poor Nina alone. She doesn’t need your dramas.’

  George threw her a filthy look and shambled towards the door. ‘They’re not all my dramas, mate,’ he muttered under his breath.

  I stifled a smile. ‘Good luck,’ I whispered.

  He nodded and disappeared.

  ‘Oh my lord, that boy!’ Sigrid groaned, as soon as the door closed behind him. ‘He’s a walking disaster.’

  ‘I thought they didn’t drink,’ I said, feeling like an idiot. Just because my sister was an expert on the band, it didn’t mean everything she thought she knew was true.

  ‘They don’t,’ she said. ‘Mostly. Angus and Jamie grew up with addiction. They’ve seen where it goes. But George ... since he turned twenty-one, he drinks by the bottle. Whisky, champagne, you name it. It’s so skeezy. Jamie hates it. It’s one of the things we have in common.’ She put her hands into a prayer position. ‘We’re very pure.’

  Pure, maybe, but not very kind. And the kind of ‘pure’ it takes a whole team of people to produce. With perfect timing, a room-service waiter arrived with Sigrid’s egg-white omelette, accompanied by some toast for me. I hoped she expected me to eat too at some stage, though she hadn’t mentioned it. I served her meal with the nuts and juice, and she beamed at me gratefully.

  ‘Well, aren’t you perfect, Nina? I knew I got the right girl when I hired you. Come talk to me while I eat. Tell me about your family.’

  I brought my toast to the table. As we ate, she quizzed me about everyone and everything back home, from the size of our house to Pip and Lara’s favourite sayings. I had no idea she’d be so interested. Sigrid was one of those people, I was starting to realize, who only had friends and enemies – nobody in between. As I explained about Mum taking in the twins after Cassie died, I was thankful that I counted as a friend, but I shuddered for anyone Sigrid considered as an enemy.

  Ninety minutes later, we were flying to Paris.

  In my head, I was busy telling half the sixth form, I AM ON A PRIVATE JET WITH THE POINT AND THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING. It was a shame about all the confidentiality agreements I’d signed, saying I couldn’t talk about it. Because nobody else here seemed to have noticed how amazing the experience was.

  Nearby me, Angus was recovering from an argument he’d had with Jamie at the airport. I’d been waiting with them in the ultra-VIP lounge while Sigrid redid her barely-there make-up in the ladies’ room.

  ‘Listen, you remember Digger V?’ Angus said to Jamie, innocently enough. ‘That producer I met in Miami? He’s just sent me some of his new stuff. It’ll blow your mind. He’s said we can have a couple of songs if we want them. I said yes.’

  ‘You said what?’ Jamie asked, in a low, dangerous growl.

  ‘I said we’d record them. God knows, we need something new. Windy keeps bugging us about it.’

  ‘You said we’d record them? Just like that? Without asking me?’

  ‘Oh, so I’m supposed to go to you every time I want to do something, am I?’

  ‘That was the general idea,’ Jamie snarled. ‘We always said we were a band, not a photo opportunity. We write our own songs, remember? We do it our way. We don’t just cover other people’s pap.’

  ‘Pap? What d’you know about pap? Have you listened to Digger recently? He’s a genius. But then, how would you even know? You’re so busy snuggling up to Sisi. When did you last write a decent song, anyway?’

  ‘When did you last listen to one? If you want to be a rap st
ar, go ahead. I’m sure Kanye’s quaking in his Yeezys.’

  Jamie’s lips curled with contempt and he’d walked off without another word, leaving Angus pale and shaking. Now, he was hunched in his seat on the jet with a tablet in his hands, moodily playing some shooter game. Jamie was sitting as far away from him as possible, listening to music on his headphones, looking sullen and remote. George had asked me to sit next to him, and been told off by Sigrid for talking to me. After a few sips of something hidden in a paper bag, he was comatose.

  Connor was the only one who seemed truly happy. He spent the flight on his phone, checking out whether the band’s arrival was trending in France yet (it was), and telling everyone else what the fans were saying about it. Oh, private jets have Wi-Fi. That is now something I know.

  Having missed all the excitement earlier, Sigrid might as well have been at a business meeting. She sat opposite me at a polished wooden table, poised and perfect, giving me a list of California-based wedding planners she wanted me to contact.

  ‘Also, there are some designers I want to try out in Paris. Have them send something round. If they ask, say I’ll give them photo credit – that usually works. Oh that reminds me: I’m going to need new pictures for my Instagram. Do some of me – show me them first – but also my lifestyle. You know, like the view through that window. What’s in my closet … or sunsets. Check out what Pamela did. She was good at sunsets. Don’t take pictures of the boys, though. Jamie doesn’t like it.’ She smiled indulgently at her fiancé, alone on the far side of the cabin. ‘He has this privacy thing. He’s so shy, it’s adorable.’

  All the time she talked, Angus glared at us from across the aisle. He’d given up playing his game to listen to our conversation. Jamie seemed to want to ignore my existence, but Angus had definitely noticed me. On the way up the steps, seeing my arms full of Sigrid’s carry-on bags, he’d given me his own to look after. Nice. I couldn’t help noticing him too, though. Today, there was a skull picked out in tiny, glimmering crystals on his black T-shirted chest. His face had its usual sour expression, but my eyes fell on his right arm, with its snake tattoo. It was more muscled than I expected, like his abs last night.