Love Song

by Sophia Bennett

  They paused and looked at me thoughtfully.

  ‘Good point,’ Cath said. ‘Not that I’ve heard.’

  ‘If he’s done something, he’s not saying,’ Oliver agreed. ‘The Point haven’t recorded anything for a while.’

  ‘Jamie’s too busy meditating with her in that peace tent,’ Jess muttered and Oliver laughed.

  Cath, meanwhile, cocked her head and looked at me. ‘So you’re the new Pamela.’

  I grinned. ‘I guess.’

  ‘You know what happened to the old Pamela, I suppose?’

  I shook my head. Sigrid had called her a ‘disah-ster’ just now. I’d been wondering about her for a while, but hadn’t dared ask.

  Cath nodded in the direction of Connor’s alien blond crop, as he moved towards the dance floor, a girl in each hand. ‘They got together. Sigrid found out about it. You know what he’s like. Be careful, OK?’

  I laughed. If I’d been in any doubt before tonight about my irresistible allure – which I wasn’t – Sigrid had confirmed it. It was kind advice, but Cath might as well have told me not to ski down a mountain naked. Never gonna happen anyway.

  The evening had ended well eventually, thanks to Oliver, but the sound of Sigrid’s voice pretending to be mine still echoed around my head. Every time I thought about it, my body started shaking. Back in my room, I turned on my laptop and googled: ‘Kate’ ‘Croydon’.

  All the results came up with Kate Moss.

  Of course: Kate Moss and car parks – the two things Croydon is most famous for. And Kate certainly ‘rocked her bone structure’, and had married a rock guitarist called Jamie. But what did that have to do with Sigrid Santorini?

  I added the word ‘movie’ to my search.

  Hollywood studio set to make new biopic about Kate Moss, the stellar supermodel from Croydon, South London, who has dominated the fashion scene since the 1980s. Rumour has it that practically every major actress from Kate Winslet to Kate Hudson is up for this role. But can an actress who doesn’t share the model’s first name crack this gem of a part? We list our top 10 favourites …

  I clicked on the link. Sigrid wasn’t in the top 10 list. But she obviously wanted to be.

  ‘I need to swing this with the voice.’

  From now on, I’d worry less about showing initiative, or getting every line on the spreadsheet right. To do my job perfectly, all I had to do was open my mouth.

  In the days that followed, I added Zurich to the list of cities I didn’t really see because the band was too busy, or hounded by crowds of chasing paparazzi, or because Sigrid needed me to do something critical, like chase down a rare vintage Rolex watch for Jamie, or wash her most delicate underwear by hand.

  You know. The simple life.

  I took my mind off it by focusing on my photography whenever I could. I took shots of sunsets out of plane and hotel windows for Sigrid’s Instagram account. And, for myself, the havoc of a hotel suite after a pair of drones had raced around it, or a portable speaker after Jamie had taken a golf club to it because he didn’t like the music that Angus was pumping through the Hotel California that day, or a pair of disappearing mega-famous haircuts, running down a service corridor towards a car. Everybody else showed the band sleek, styled and smiling. I was more interested in the chaos they left behind.

  *

  The flight to New York took private-jet flying to a whole new level. Up to now, we’d been on small planes, which to be perfectly honest, felt like travelling in a luxury car, but ten thousand feet in the sky. This one was the size of a passenger jet, with a curtained-off area for the band and other VIPs to relax at the front, and normal seating for several members of the crew at the back.

  Soon, it sounded as though there was a party going on there. George went off to join it. I’d been looking forward to catching up with some of my new friends there as well, but my boss kept me busy up at the front.

  By now, Sigrid had stopped trying to keep her new accent a secret from me. She opened her tote bag and took out the script they’d sent her for the biopic. ‘You be Jamie,’ she giggled, with a glance at her fiancé, ‘and I’ll be Kate.’

  I didn’t want to ‘be Jamie’. Really not. But I had no choice. I looked over at the real Jamie. Luckily, he was busy talking to some senior record execs in suits, who were hitching a lift to the gig. Rory Windermere, the manager, was there too, in a panama hat, with a sky-blue scarf flung theatrically around his shoulders. They all seemed deep in conversation and Jamie didn’t look happy. I heard the words ‘new album’ and ‘next hit’ a few times. At the hopeful mention of Digger V, he looked ready to hit the roof. But at least it kept his attention away from his fiancée and her script-reading companion, which was good for me, as Sigrid had chosen a love scene to rehearse, and it was excruciating.

  When Jamie finished talking to the suits, he went over to a seat by himself, scribbled some words on a paper napkin, then picked up his guitar and started strumming fragments of a tune. It was a little bit sad and wistful, but he kept stopping it halfway through, as if he didn’t know where it went from here. I knew the feeling. It reminded me of my life.

  ‘You’re so boring, baby!’ Sigrid said with a forced laugh. ‘I wish you’d read with me. Nina’s trying, but she sucks at being a love interest.’

  Jamie merely flicked his eyes up at us for a moment, then went back to his music.

  ‘This part is so tricky,’ Sigrid laughed, loudly. ‘But I’ve got to get it right. Did I tell you I was auditioning with Leo, Nina? Leo DiCaprio? Such a darling friend.’

  Each time she spoke, she glanced across at Angus, who was hunched in his seat, playing a game and radiating hostility. I sensed she was trying to impress him, and the harder she tried, the less impressed he seemed to be. I wondered if Angus knew she was known as the ‘yoko’. I suspected he probably did.

  After a couple of hours, George staggered through the curtains from the back of the plane.

  ‘Best. Flight. Ever,’ he managed, before heading quickly for the toilets at the front and staying there for a very long time.

  Later, they turned the lights down and showed a rough cut of a new film that was being made about The Point. It was all about their charity work and the ‘one in a million’ friendship that bound the boys together.

  Ariel would love it. As a total work of fiction, I admired it. George looked fresh as a daisy in every shot. Connor looked single. In their interviews, Angus and Jamie deserved an Oscar apiece for pretending their friendship still existed.

  Sigrid sighed loudly throughout it.

  ‘Of course, they filmed all this before I joined the band,’ she whispered to me. As if she was the fifth member, not one of the reasons it was falling apart.

  There is a booth at the London Aquarium where you can pay to stand inside and feel what it’s like to be caught up in a tornado. Josh loves it: the sudden rush of air, the shock of the noise, the fear of being inside a force of nature that’s out of control.

  He would have loved to land in New York with The Point.

  By now, I was beginning to know what to expect. There was a quiet moment before the plane door opened. They caught each other’s eye and took a deep breath. Jamie put his head down. Connor put on his dark glasses. Angus put his arm around George’s shoulder to steady him on the steps. And then … wham. The lights. The camera flashes. The screaming. It was as if the whole city had arrived at the airport and was ready to swallow them up.

  Outside, the crowds of Pointer Sisters were denser and louder than ever. Even though we left the airport through a side entrance, the road was half blocked by a sea of waving hands. The cars had to slow down in the crush and a few girls managed to rush forward, pressing their phones against the windows, and bashing the roof with their hands. Individually they were lovely, like my sister. Together, they seemed like an untamed monster. Tonight, it was scarier than ever. Like everyone except Connor, I hated this part.

  Because of this, travelling with The Point meant running an
d hiding. Down underground corridors. Into basic service lifts. Waiting to emerge until Ian said the coast was clear. Then the safety of the Hotel California. Once we were there, we could breathe at last. This time the suite had floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows and views across Manhattan. White orchids in bowls and scented candles in Sigrid’s favourite fragrance. Beautiful blow-up photographs of headless, sculptural bodies adorned the walls.

  Rory Windermere took the band and Sigrid out to dinner with some eager New York celebrities. Meanwhile, I ordered a club sandwich from room service and ate it while I supervised the building of the peace tent in a corner of the living room, close to the view. Then there was laundry and dry cleaning to arrange – with forms to fill out and a special plea to the hotel to do it fast, because we’d be out of here by tomorrow night. Constant travel meant constantly trying to fit in the boring practicalities of life, like getting clothes clean. I never ever thought I’d miss throwing things into the washing machine, but I was starting to.

  It was late by the time I finished my chores and rang down to ask where my room was. A bellboy was quickly dispatched to show me.

  It might have been a mistake. I didn’t ask. But this time, he only led me a few metres down the corridor. Tonight, I wasn’t in a cheap room on a distant floor, but had somehow been booked into the Hotel California. My room wasn’t so different from the boys’ suites – just smaller. There were orchids and electric curtains. The bed was big enough for my whole family (and if they’d been here, they’d all have jumped into it – even Mum and Dad – and actually, a part of me wished that would happen right now). From my window, the street below looked like a canyon of lights, twinkling in the darkness.

  My English exam was coming up in a few days and I still had a lot of work to do, but I was too distracted to revise tonight. Instead, I turned on the TV and flicked between endless channels. I took a hundred pictures, and tried to sketch the city canyon. It would have been good to Skype Mum and Dad, but it was early in the morning UK time, and they wouldn’t thank me. So I uploaded lots of photos on to my laptop and started playing around with editing features, making collages of each place we’d stayed.

  Time ticked on, and I heard the boys return from their night out. I knew I should go to bed, but this was New York. Nobody sleeps in New York. I decided to run myself a bubble bath in my marble bathroom, but I was disturbed by the sound of a door slamming in the corridor, and the sound of running feet.

  I opened the door cautiously and looked outside. A girl wrapped in a towel and clutching a jacket was busy shoving her bare feet into a pair of heels. One guard stood over her while another headed for Angus’s room, a few doors further down from mine. The sound of Angus roaring in fury filled the air, followed by a crash and the tinkle of breaking glass.

  Connor poked his head out of a door nearby to see what was happening, just as Steve Grange, the tour manager himself, raced towards the noise.

  ‘Don’t worry!’ he panted, seeing me. ‘We’ll have this under control in a minute.’

  But not before I’d caught sight of Angus’s white face in the shadows of his doorway.

  ‘She could have been anyone!’ he shouted. ‘Does nobody check anything round here? You’re fired! All of you! Get out of here!’

  Steve tried to calm Angus down, pointing out that they couldn’t leave him if he was going to go around breaking hotel furniture. This succeeded in making him angrier still.

  ‘I can break what I like! It’s my money. I pay for everything round here with my music! You’re all parasites, you hear that?’

  Between them, Steve and the hotel staff succeeded in getting Angus back inside the room and closing the door, but you could still hear the shouting. Connor stayed where he was, and Jamie emerged too, in a T-shirt and boxers, looking furious.

  ‘The usual?’ he asked Connor.

  Connor shook his head. ‘Worse. They let a girl in without his permission. They’re all fired. We’re all parasites. Blah de blah de blah.’

  ‘Yeah. Let him shout all night,’ Jamie said, sarcastically. ‘I mean, it’s not as if tomorrow’s an important gig or anything. Nobody needs to sleep.’

  Sigrid appeared beside him. Her face was stretched and shiny. I realized she must be wearing a gel mask of some kind. It made her look more plastic-doll-like than ever.

  ‘Jus’ nake hin shu’ u’!’ she fumed, her lips struggling to move as her facial muscles were held rigidly in place by the mask. ‘Wha’e’er i’ takes! Jus’ do i’!’

  ‘I can go, if you like,’ I offered.

  ‘You?’ Jamie frowned.

  ‘Yes. I’m used to flare-ups. We’ve had a lot of them in my family.’

  He threw me a sceptical glance. ‘Sure. Whatever. Knock yourself out.’ He turned on his heel and Sigrid shut the door.

  I grabbed my room key and headed down to Angus’s room. Inside, Steve and two guys from security were standing in a semicircle with their backs to me. I couldn’t see Angus, but I could sense that they were all facing him. The worst thing you can do to an angry person is crowd his space with other people. I knew that well enough from all Josh’s episodes at home. My instinct was to give him room to breathe.

  ‘Can I do anything?’ I asked.

  They spun around to face me. One of the guards had a cut hand and blood was dripping from it. The carpet was strewn with scattered pictures and broken glass.

  Steve glanced at me sceptically. ‘I don’t think so. Go to bed, love.’

  ‘No. Really. Give me a moment. I know what I’m doing.’

  I stood my ground. Steve looked surprised. Then he surveyed the floor and the dripping blood. I could see him thinking that the situation couldn’t get much worse.

  ‘Two minutes,’ I said. I just needed the men to leave.

  Steve hesitated for another moment. ‘OK. If you say so,’ he agreed cautiously. ‘We’ll be right outside.’ He hurried the other men out of the door and closed it behind them.

  Angus was barefoot, crouched on the arm of a sofa like a brooding bird of prey, with his long arms wrapped around his chest. He looked at me with hooded eyes.

  ‘Get out, Blanket Girl.’

  I didn’t.

  His lip curled. ‘I’m not in the mood for girls right now.’

  ‘I saw that. If you were, I wouldn’t be here.’

  This surprised him. He peered at me suspiciously. ‘So why are you here?’

  To start with, I said nothing. I stepped carefully around the broken glass and went into his bathroom, emerging with a towel that I used to mop up the drops of blood from the carpet.

  ‘That was an accident,’ he muttered.

  ‘I’m sure it was.’

  He watched me, looking slightly sheepish. Even though he threw things at people that broke, he evidently didn’t mean them to get hurt in the process.

  When I’d finished mopping up, I went over to a nearby chair and sat down, tucking my feet under me. Two minutes had gone by, but Steve didn’t return. I sensed him hovering outside, but he didn’t interrupt us.

  I said nothing. Angus threw me a hostile glance.

  He sighed deeply, still angry.

  ‘They come in and they lie and cheat and they think they’re doing me a favour. If I want a girl I’ll ask for one. I don’t. Want. People. Why doesn’t anybody listen to me?’

  There were dark smudges under his eyes. That moody-boy persona wasn’t just an act.

  ‘You look tired,’ I said.

  ‘I am tired.’

  ‘But you can’t sleep.’

  ‘No. Exactly. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell these bozos. I CAN’T SLEEP. I haven’t been able to sleep for months. They keep telling me to take drugs to calm me down. Medications … but I don’t do that stuff.’ He was pale and shaking.

  ‘I know.’ Ariel had mentioned a tough childhood. I wondered now what had happened, how he’d coped.

  ‘Jamie used to talk, but …’ He trailed off sadly. In the silence that followed, he glanced
out of the picture window. ‘I hate this city. John Lennon was shot down the road, did you know that? Outside the Dakota Building, just a few blocks from here …’ He hunched forward, hugging his arms closer around him. ‘That girl could’ve been … Anyone can get a gun. They kill musicians here, you know?’

  This sounded like Angus rock-star psycho logic. That girl was just a poor, hopeful groupie, more scared than he was. But he was right about John Lennon. I knew the story. Thinking of the Beatle’s pointless death at the hands of a man who just wanted to be famous made me shiver, too.

  We sat in silence for a moment.

  ‘Have you heard of Durness beach?’ I asked.

  He looked at me, surprised, and shook his head.

  ‘It’s in the Scottish Highlands. It’s beautiful.’

  ‘And? So?’

  ‘John Lennon used to play there as a child,’ I said. ‘I heard his granny lived there. I don’t know if that’s true, but there’s a memorial garden to him by the sea. It’s very simple. Peaceful, too. You should go there one day.’

  Angus peered at me, hard, as if he was seeing me for the first time.

  ‘How d’you know this stuff?’

  I wrapped my arms around my knees, matching his body language without meaning to. This was not a place in my head that I normally liked to go.

  ‘My aunt went swimming there, on holiday, two years ago. The beach is stunning, but it can be dangerous. There are riptides …’ My voice trailed off. I took another breath. ‘Nobody could reach her in time. Mum went up there later, to see where it happened. She found the memorial garden to John. She said it helped her. Things growing. Nature never giving up. The lyrics to one of his songs are inscribed on stones there.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘In My Life.’

  ‘Yeah. That’s a good one,’ he sighed.

  It was a lovely, haunting song. Mum had played it over and over after Cassie died. I liked it, actually, that Angus focused on the music, not on what happened to Cassie. It showed his rock-star ego was fully intact, but it was easier that way.

  He looked wistful. ‘I wouldn’t mind seeing that place.’ In his mind, he was already there, I could tell. Blue sky mirrored on the rippling sands. Low plants clinging to the windswept shore. Lennon’s soft, nostalgic music hanging in the breeze. He took a long, deep breath and something seemed to lift from his shoulders.