by Abbey Clancy
‘I know there’s a man because you’ve checked your phone about three hundred times today. And because there are condoms in your bathroom cabinet, and—’
‘What?’ I spluttered at her, outraged, and obviously not asleep.
‘Of course I looked! Have you ever met me? It’s my sisterly duty to snoop as much as humanly possible. So, tell me all about him.’
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ I said, reaching out and switching the lamp off. ‘It’s nothing special.’
I was so scared that that statement was actually true, I felt tears stinging the back of my eyes, and hoped Becky’s new maternal superpowers didn’t extend as far as having non-goggle night vision. Or the same eyes in the back of her head that Mum always claimed to have.
‘All right, keep your big secret, Little Miss Superstar. But look after yourself, okay? And please tell me it’s not him.’
‘Who?’ I asked, knowing full well who she meant.
‘That Jack Duncan one. He’s the one who brought you down here, and he’s the reason you seem to be living in a shitty flat, working with bitches, and starving yourself. I know you’re doing the other stuff as well—the singing and the dancing and the recording—and that’s all brilliant. But the rest isn’t. And I’m worried about you. So tell me it’s not him.’
‘It’s not him,’ I said quietly, fingers crossed on both hands as the lie slipped out, along with a few random tears that I’d not managed to completely squish away. I felt them trickle away down my cheeks and disappear, along with my self-respect.
I told myself the lie was for her sake. That she was pregnant, and her life was changing fast; that she’d just bought a house and was in the process of moving and that her plate was full. That the last thing she needed was to be worried about me.
I told myself that, but that was a lie, too. Or at least it wasn’t a hundred-per-cent truthful. I was also embarrassed, and ashamed, and miserable. When I was with Jack, it all felt right. But when I was away from him, I started to feel like some dirty little secret, hidden away from the real world he lived in. And now—just when I’d thought it couldn’t get any worse—I’d fibbed to my sister. My pregnant sister—which had to be bad karma.
‘Good,’ she said, firmly, rolling around on the bed, trying to get comfy. ‘Now I’ve got that off my chest, I feel relaxed enough to do this …’
She paused, then let out a giant, rip-roaring fart that seemed to echo around the tiny flat, before it came to settle fragrantly in my nostrils. I tried not to inhale—I’d suffered those sisterly gifts many times over the years and knew they were lethal—but I was laughing so much I couldn’t help it.
‘Jesus, Becky! I think I need a gas mask!’
‘It’s my hormones. I can’t help it.’
‘It’s the kebab, and you are loving it!’ I said, pinching my nose together to try and block out the smell, still laughing.
‘That’s good to hear,’ she said, fidgeting around. I suppose it was hard to settle when you had an alien being growing inside your stomach. ‘You laughing again.’
She finally seemed to find a position that agreed with both her and the baby, and I made out her face in the moonlight seeping through the curtains that never seemed to quite close properly. She was smiling at me, and reached out to hold my hand.
We touched fingers, and I smiled back. Nothing was perfect in my life—but I still had Becky, and the rest of my family. No matter what.
‘You can always come home, you know,’ she said. ‘Nobody would think any the worse of you. Nobody would think you’d failed.’
Nobody apart from me, I thought, but didn’t say it. When I didn’t respond, she carried on.
‘Because home,’ she said, screwing up her eyes in effort, warning me what was coming next, ‘is where the fart is.’
The sound of that one—along with the sound of us both giggling like the little kids we were not so very long ago—was the last thing I remembered before I fell asleep.
Chapter 10
When the text first landed, I thought I’d finally made it into the inner circle. How wrong could I have been?
‘Get to the Panache Club by 8 p.m.—urgent! Make sure you’re clean!’ it read. Typically, Patty hadn’t bothered with any internal debate about whether to add kisses or not, and was presumably labouring under the illusion that Scousers didn’t wash. I had no idea where she got that concept from, but I spent a good twenty minutes standing under the lukewarm jets of the shower before I left for the club. Just in case she checked behind my ears or something.
The Panache Club was in central London, and was currently considered the Cool Place to Be. It was the kind of club where Rihanna would go for a boogie if she was in town; the kind of club where supermodels would ignore canapés and look moody. The kind of club I was never, ever invited to.
I knew there was a big event there—Patty and her pals had been having orgasms about the tabloid opportunities for weeks now—but, as usual, I wasn’t asked along. It was a Saturday, and I was supposed to be in my broom cupboard, polishing my glass slippers and wishing for a Fairy Godmother. Instead, I thought excitedly, I was maybe—just maybe—going to make my first public Starmaker appearance.
Maybe Jack would be there, and we’d snog on the dancefloor. Maybe Rihanna would be there, and we’d down some tequilas together. Maybe the tabloid snappers who turned up would be wowed by my awesome beauty and stunning star quality, and I’d be papped as I arrived.
Maybe, I thought, rubbing myself dry and feeling the chill of a flat that simply never warmed up until the kebab shop did, I would finally be accepted.
I heard the phone beeping again, and dashed over to check it out, hoping it would be from Jack—saying he’d pick me up, or meet me beforehand, or that we’d spend the night together after the party. Also hoping—if I was entirely honest—that he’d magically arranged for a beautiful dress to be delivered, so I could make some grand entrance in modern-day Pretty Woman style. Without the prostitution angle, obviously.
Shivering, I swiped on the phone to check my messages. Huh. No such luck—it was from Patty again.
‘Black skirt and white blouse. No stains.’
As the words and all that they implied slowly sunk in, I fell backwards onto the sofa, deflated and disappointed and damp. Black skirt, white blouse—I knew what that meant. It meant they needed an extra pair of hands for the waiting-on staff, and I was their very first draft pick.
So much for downing tequila with Rihanna—I’d be the one serving it to her. Not that she’d be there, of course—this was my fictional Rihanna.
I did a grumpy face for a few minutes, and considered texting Patty back to say I couldn’t make it—that I had a hot date at a cage fight with Tom Hardy that night, or I was busy strolling down the Ramblas on a city break in Barcelona with Orlando Bloom. It would serve her right for the ‘no stains’ comment—I mean, as if! My mother was the queen of laundry, and some of it had been passed on by genetics.
I toyed with the idea of refusing for a while, and started to mentally compose the message, before I turned off the phone and placed it well out of reach on the mantelpiece. I gave myself a good talking to, recalling all of Jack’s words about playing for the Starmaker team, about learning my craft, about understanding the industry from the inside out. Starting at the bottom, soaring to the top.
I wasn’t entitled to anything—and I needed to keep my feet on the ground, and not give in to the depression.
But truth be told, since Becky had left, I’d been struggling. We’d spent her last morning here wandering around Camden Market, where she’d bought an entire set of baby clothes decorated with tiny skulls, before I saw her off at Euston. As I waved her away with tears in my eyes, part of me just wanted to jump on that train with her. To give up, to abandon it all, and head for home. Liverpool was only two hours away on the train—but a whole world away on the lifestyle scale.
At home, I could sleep in my own bed, get annoyed with my baby brother, a
nd be fed huge plates full of bacon and eggs the next morning. Without any guilt whatsoever. Mum and Dad would welcome me back, and I could pick up right where I left off.
Except … where I left off wasn’t exactly brilliant, was it? I was sharing a flat that was almost as crappy as the one I lived in now, with Ruby and her perverted geriatric boyfriend, singing princess songs to spoiled brats every weekend. I might not have any spare cash now—but I didn’t have any then, either.
I realised, as Becky’s face in the window dwindled to a tiny blob heading into the tunnel, that I didn’t care about the flat, or the money. Or even the bacon and eggs, that much.
What I really missed was the people. The casual conversations that could start any time and any place in Liverpool. The way you could bond with someone at the fish counter in Tesco, or in the queue at the chippie, or at a lock-in at the pub. I missed that—and I missed my family. My family, who thought I was worth something, that I was special. Who loved me and consoled me and made me laugh all the time.
That had been replaced with Patty, who clearly thought I was worth bugger all, and Jack, who thought … well, who knows what he thought? He certainly wasn’t telling. It felt perfect when I was with him—but shaky as the rope bridge in I’m A Celebrity … when we were separated. I was only a tiny part of his life—but he was fast becoming the most important part of mine. With Yusuf the Kebab Man as a close second, which tells you everything you need to know about my social life.
Still, I knew I had to stick with it for a little while longer—that I wouldn’t forgive myself if I packed it all in too soon, before I’d given it my very best shot. If I wussed out, and spent the rest of my life wondering about what could have been.
So, I’d let that train go, wiped my eyes, and fought my way through the refugee camp that Euston at rush hour always felt like, getting my feet run over by suitcases on wheels and getting jostled as I walked towards the escalator into the Tube. It was literally all downhill from there.
And now, here I was, reaping my reward. Wet. Cold. Alone. And planning an excitingly glamorous night out as hired help who probably wouldn’t even get paid.
But, I told myself as I rooted suitable clothing out of my wardrobe, it was better than what I had had planned for the night—sitting at home watching crap telly, listening to my tummy rumble and wondering what Jack was up to. Anything, in fact, would have been better than that.
I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself—millions of people in London would be working that night. Millions of people would be getting ready for a long shift at a pub or a restaurant or driving a bus or being a cabbie, like my dad. Hard work never killed anyone—and at least I was here pursuing a dream. At least I had hopes. At least there was light at the end of the tunnel.
Admittedly, it felt more like a train about to splatter me into squelchy pieces, but it was something. I could sing. I could dance. I could make it—and I needed to view every event like this as an opportunity, not purgatory. I’d been raised with a work ethic, and now was not the time to give up on it.
I’d wear a black skirt and a white blouse. There would be no stains. I would be clean. I would be cheerful. I would smile like a clown on Ecstasy as I waltzed round the Panache Club serving appetisers. I would be the best waitress ever.
Chapter 11
‘You,’ said Patty, pointing one long shellac-ed nail at me, ‘are the worst waitress ever. You’ve had that tray of smoked salmon twists for the last hour. You must be putting people off somehow—you haven’t been speaking to them, have you?’
I laid the offensively full tray down on the table, and plastered a tolerant smile on my face. What I really wanted to do was slam the whole tray at her head, and watch the cream cheese slither down the front of her D&G frock. But, no, that would be bad. Satisfying, but bad.
‘The problem is, Patty,’ I said, speaking slowly and clearly and in my poshest voice, ‘that this isn’t exactly a crowd that eats a lot. There are actresses and supermodels and singers, and all of them are probably on some kind of weird macrobiotic fasting diet. They just don’t want food—they only want alcohol. If you give me a tray of champagne instead, I’m sure it’ll be gone in a flash.’
She stared at me, the make-up lines where her eyebrows should have been screwed up in a frown, and replied, ‘Oh, it’s no use! I give up—I need a bloody translator! Go and take another break, will you? Get out of my sight for a while!’
She whirled around, and I saw the transformation as she did it—from a pouty-mouthed gargoyle to smiling PR professional as she faced the rest of the crowd. I was obviously so special, she saved her True Form for me and me alone.
I stuck my tongue out at her back as she tottered away on her super stupid high heels, and grabbed a handful of the cheesy salmon twists, shoving them into my mouth in defiance. Hah—take ‘another’ break, she’d said, as though I’d even had one at all.
I’d been working non-stop for the last three hours. I’d been smiling and happy and professional, offering the canapés to everybody in the room, even the ones who looked like they only ate via intravenous drip. The place was packed, but it was so dark it was hard to make out where everybody was—the club was hazy and black, striped across with flashing neon lighting, dance music pumping out so loud that even the smoked salmon probably had a headache.
There were booths all around the dancefloor, black leather seats and gold-topped tables overflowing with expensive booze. Each little booth had a red velvet curtain at the side of it, like in an old-fashioned cinema, tied with thick gold cord. Lilies that had been spray-painted gold and red were arranged on the tables, filling the place with that prickly pollen smell that always made me think something was on fire.
I’d already seen several famous faces, well-known names from the soaps and music and film. The first time it happened, I even said ‘Hiya’ to an actress from EastEnders, my brain somehow convincing me I knew her on a personal level.
Even if I was only there as a waitress, it had all felt pretty exciting to start off with. I mean, who doesn’t like seeing famous people getting hammered?
The answer to that question, by the time I’d been on my poor feet for a while, was: Me. I’d stopped being interested in their outfits after about an hour, and lost all notion of them being remotely special when a vaguely famous weather presenter belched in my face as he stared at my boobs. Yuck. The rich and famous, I was rapidly deciding, were just as capable of being twats as the rest of the world—maybe even more so, as nobody ever dared pull them up on it.
Jack was there, looking tastier than the party food in his Tom Ford suit and white shirt with the top three buttons undone, but we’d hardly spoken. He hadn’t ignored me—he’d given me a flash of that terrific smile, and waved at me as he chatted up the hot-shot new producer I knew he was keen to woo into the Starmaker stable, but it hadn’t exactly been a date night either.
Only once did our paths properly cross—when he saw me carrying my tray of unwanted food towards a booth that turned out to be empty (you had to be really up close to see that, in my defence), and hurriedly followed me in there, pulling the red velvet curtains firmly closed behind us to create a secret den.
‘You look hot as hell in that get-up,’ he’d said, pushing me backwards into the black leather, leaning in for a kiss and letting his hand drift slowly and deliciously up beneath my pencil skirt.
I’d wrapped my fingers into the dark waves of his hair and smiled into the kiss, knowing exactly how he’d react to the rest of the outfit, and counting down the seconds until he got there.
‘Aaah! Stockings! You’re killing me …’ he said, his fingers exploring the skin he had easy access to, leaving me hot and bothered and with my skirt as ruffled as my pulse.
Almost as soon as he’d started, though, he pulled away, standing up tall and grinning at me as he straightened his hair and adjusted his trousers.
‘You’re a very bad man,’ I said in my best fake-sex-kitten voice. ‘Don’t you know I’m j
ust a humble waitress, trying to get through the night without being molested by passing VIPs?’
‘You loved it, you slut,’ he said, peeking out of the red curtains. ‘And we’ll definitely be following up this naughty-maid theme later, I promise you.’
‘Later?’ I asked, tidying myself up and hating the way I managed to pack a whole world of neediness into just one little word.
‘Later … this week. Not tonight. After Vogue does her spot, I’ll be tied up—all work and no play for me tonight, sweetheart. You understand, don’t you? I’d much rather be seeing what you could serve up in the privacy of my bedroom than schmoozing with this lot, but it’s all part of the job.’
‘Of course I understand,’ I said firmly, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek and picking up my tray again. ‘And now you must excuse me, Mr Duncan, while I take my hot-as-hell outfit back into the club. You’re not the only one with work to do.’
I’d sashayed away, giving my bum a bit of an extra swish as I did, knowing that his eyes would be glued to it. I might feel secretly devastated that we wouldn’t be getting together tonight—but at least I could leave him feeling uncomfortable about it. In a world where I was largely powerless, the ability to provoke a hard-on in the man I suspected I was falling for was something to be celebrated.
Since then, I’d only seen him in passing—he was indeed schmoozing for Britain—and I occasionally stopped to admire his tall, dark and handsome-ness as I paused with my tray. I scanned the crowds to look for him before going on my break, then realised I still had a mouthful of salmon twists and probably shouldn’t be allowed out in public.
I made my way to the side door behind the stage area, which led to the staff break rooms, dressing rooms, and the corridor that connected to the kitchens. It was a lot less glamorous once you passed through the magic door—no red velvet, no golden lilies, no celebs. But, I realised as I kicked off my shoes and carried them towards the staff room, also no noise—which was an absolute blessing. I hadn’t realised how loud it had been until the thumping sounds echoing around my brain stopped. Or at least reduced—now it just sounded like a gentle rhythmic tap instead of someone whacking me across the ear-holes with a sledgehammer.