Love Lies Part 14

'Stop being b.l.o.o.d.y soft.' I consider, should I fess up to an affair I haven't had? I'm sensing that my dad would understand that better than a whirlwind romance. 'Have you not heard of the saying "Marry in haste, repent at leisure"?'

'Well, yes, but I love Scott.'

'You don't know know him. You live with Adam. Better the devil you know, I always say.' him. You live with Adam. Better the devil you know, I always say.'

'Dad, I'm thirty. Adam was never going to ask me to marry him.'

'Two wrongs don't make a right.' Dad is fond of quoting idioms. Until now, I've never noticed how fond.

'He's a multi-millionaire.' I'm hoping this will impress my dad or at least rea.s.sure him that I'll be looked after.

'Aye well, a fool and his money are soon parted.' I'm struggling to comprehend the relevancy of this particular idiom; I suspect my dad was just on a roll and it's not, in fact, relevant at all. 'Your mother is hyperventilating. I have to go. We'll talk about this later, Madam.'

I seriously doubt we will. When you have five kids a policy on non-interference has to be followed in order to keep sane. In fact, when we were teenagers, it wasn't unknown for my parents to lock themselves in their bedroom by way of disciplining us.

My father hangs up just as Scottie pops his head around the door.

'How did telling your folks go?' he asks.

'Good,' I smile. 'They're delighted,' I add. Although I have the decency to cross my fingers. There is no point in upsetting him by saying their reaction was one of disbelief and hysteria. 'You?'

'Yeah, great.' He nods and smiles enthusiastically, a little like one of those toy puppies that you see sitting in the back window of a Ford Escort. He's lying too, no doubt. 'I think, on reflection, there's no need for us to dash off to Hull at short notice. Better that we get to LA and then we'll fly the parents out for a longer more relaxed introduction, in a week or two. Like you said.'

'Fine by me,' I smile, happy to put that off for a while. Now, about the s.e.x...

34. Scott

My mother has to be sc.r.a.ped off the ceiling; she maintains that this hasty engagement is the most stupid, stupid stupid thing I have ever done out of the many, many, many stupid things she has to choose from. thing I have ever done out of the many, many, many stupid things she has to choose from.

'Is she pregnant?'

Since I was thirteen my mum has been scared the answer to this question would be yes. Then, once I turned thirty, she hoped it would be.

'No, Ma, she's not.'

'Oh.' I can hear her disappointment. 'Well, what's the b.l.o.o.d.y rush then?'

If Fern had been pregnant my mum would have given her some grudging respect as the mother-to-be of her grandchild; she would have approved of the speedy engagement. My mum is big into lads 'doing the right thing', which in her book is marrying the woman they casually and carelessly s.h.a.gged, as opposed to avoiding a pregnancy in the first place. She accepts that s.e.x is a rush and a fact. An unstoppable force. My mum's philosophy is based on the fact that she was four months gone when she and Dad tied the knot and that didn't turn out too badly, except for the divorce and everything. As Fern is not pregnant, Mum will a.s.sume Fern is a flighty gold-digger and 'no better than she ought to be'. I know, her reasoning is flawed, but hey, she's my mum. Fern is not a gold-digger, I've met enough of those to be able to smell their sweat a mile away.

'Everything resonates between us. We rhyme,' I say. 'Fern's going to be so good for my music. She's inspiring.'

I'm so fired up with ideas for songs that I'm jotting stuff on the back of f.a.g packets and old newspapers that I find lying around; I even scribbled something on the hotel wallpaper this morning. It's great. It's a forlorn s.p.a.ce, the place that's left where ideas used to be made. It's like a bed where love used to be made. Fern can fill that. I'm sure of it.

'Three days, you say. You met her three days ago!' The disbelief is biting at my mum's throat; I hope it doesn't choke her. 'Some would say it was a b.l.o.o.d.y silly thing to do to ask someone to marry you after just three days,' she says huffily.

'Why?'

'She might've said no.'

'But that's unlikely.'

'It's too quick. You don't know her,' she says, stating the obvious. 'She doesn't know you,' she adds with more alarm, voicing that which only she or I might worry about. Some say I'm a moulded pop product. Others say I'm a G.o.d. It's become difficult for us to know for sure.

'No one ever knows anyone anyway. At least this way we'll have plenty to talk about over the next fifty years.' Jokingly, I dismiss my mother's fears.

She'll calm down. My mum likes to pretend she's oblivious to my famous charm but in fact I honed my skills on her. Besides, it's not my mum who tells me what to do any more; it hasn't been since I was about six. Mark is happy with the engagement and my fans are too, now. The hype about the wedding is already growing; it's going to be cataclysmic. Right on plan. It appears I can do anything I want, as long as I don't grow up.

'Mum, somewhere along the line I lost the luxury of just being liked for who I am. And maybe that's no bad thing, because I'm not that likeable and if all I had to offer was me, naked, then who's to say anyone would want to hang out with me?' My mother sighs but doesn't comment. 'I'm impossibly cool and I mean that literally. It's impossible to be as cool as they want me to be and I'm exhausted trying. Then along came Fern. Fern likes me for who I am.'

My mum is not a romantic. She's been in love too often for that to be possible. Grimly she holds on to her anger and disapproval. 'Your problem is you've had such a splendid life that now you've become fascinated with the mundane. That's all that's left.'

I would argue, but she might have a point. What do I know? My mum worries about my success but then, if I was a failure, that would worry her too. She's one of the few who understands that if I'd never made it big it would have been good and bad in equal parts. Bad because I was born to be big. Convinced that I was a huge talent, that needed to find the light, she knows I would have died in the attempt to become great. But then, she knows I might die in the act of being great.

If I'd stayed in Hull I'd have been a cheeky rascal womanizer, with a few women crying after me and maybe an illegitimate kid I'd chosen to stand by. But now. Now, after this enormous and overwhelming unprecedented success, my influence has stretched too far. My opportunity to break hearts is too wide. There isn't a hole out there that isn't prepared to welcome me. Maybe my mum is thinking along the same lines, because she adds grudgingly, 'Well, I hope this Fern is firm with you. You need to hear "no" more often.'

'You'll meet her soon.'

'When?' Her curiosity can't be crushed.

'In LA.'

'LA,' my mum says with a tut.

Many Europeans are f.u.c.king sn.o.bby about LA because there aren't any ancient coliseums or lofty spires. They dismiss it as flimsy, gaudy and tawdry, but still, everyone seems to find the place irresistible. Funny that. I think LA is a little like a big plate of microwave lasagne; empty calories but tasty. The trick is not to gorge yourself, not to eat the whole thing believe the whole thing because you'll be left feeling sick. It's true there's a fair share of neon and plastic and broken dreams I see them from my limo if I look hard enough but there's splendour and excitement and magic there too.

My mum's dismissive tut has nothing to do with lack of spires. She doesn't like LA because it's a long way away plus there are lots of drugs there. Of course there are lots of drugs everywhere and she probably knows that too, but it's a thought that's too big and scary for her heart to deal with.

I think it must be torture being my mum.

I try to rea.s.sure her. 'LA is peaceful. My relatively low profile there means I can actually walk down the street without being mobbed. In the US only the European tourists bother me for autographs.'

When they do, I put on a hilarious (and no doubt inaccurate) accent and I swear I'm not Scottie Taylor but Zoran Obradovic from Serbia. I even offer to sign their autograph books as a lookie-likie but no one is ever interested in that, which is funny when you think at home women ask me to sign their t.i.ts with their lipsticks. In Europe I'm constantly met with hysteria: in Sweden my clothes are ripped from me, shops close for me in Germany, roads close in France. A police escort is essential in all the Latin countries. I'm often trapped inside a hotel room or TV studio. The screaming has become deafening.

'Oh Scott, love,' says my mum sadly. I think we both know the truth. The thing is, with each unha.s.sled footstep I take in the US, I remember Paul McCartney telling me that the most important thing to all record producers, and to most artists too, if they are honest with themselves, is to break America. The thing is, without America you're nothing. No one. You're not even a Hasbeen. You're a Neverwas.

And that makes me enjoy the anonymity an awful lot less. I need America. I have to have America. Above everything.

35. Fern

Falling in love with a mammoth superstar is not ordinary. Yet in some ways it is.

Falling in love with Scott Taylor or even Scottie Taylor is exactly like falling in love with anyone else. I want to be with him every moment of the day. Everything he says is wonderfully profound, interesting and clever. I can't eat. Or sleep. I don't even want to. We can't stop touching one another. We both keep giggling. We forget that we're sharing this planet with 6.6 billion other humans.

But in other ways, falling in love with Scott Taylor is unlike anything I was capable of imagining.

Take flying, for example. Pre-Scott my experience in airports was an 'elbows out' affair; endless queues, ground staff who had spectacularly failed to graduate from charm school and barefaced jostling with other pa.s.sengers in order to secure uncomfortable, unyielding seats first in the waiting areas in the terminal and then on board. Every flight I have ever taken has been delayed by a minimum of three hours. Two hours fifty-four minutes of which I spend trying to resist purchasing one of the gigantic slabs of chocolate that are on offer in WH Smith. Chocolate bars the size of a mattress intended for families of four to share over a two-week period. I always fold to temptation in the last six minutes and panic at the till as I hear my flight being called. I gobble the lot greedily as I run for the gate, thus guaranteeing I'm sick on the flight and spotty on holiday.

I had no idea there would ever be a situation where I'd be whisked through check-in and security and a nice lady from British Airways would usher me through the noise and chaos of the terminal, past the fraught and stressed, past the comfy-looking Club Cla.s.s lounge and even past the prestigious First Cla.s.s lounge, to finally lead me into the haven that is the secret waiting-room reserved for royalty (both pop and the more traditional variety). There, among plush suede couches, the aroma of scented candles and the relaxing chill-out tunes, I was offered champagne and elaborate nibbles, most of which I couldn't identify (but they tasted like little mouthfuls of heaven).

Scott, Mark, Saadi and I didn't even have to walk the ten metres from the gate to the aeroplane steps; a limo was waiting for us. At the steps we were met by a softly spoken guy with an Irish accent, gentle grey eyes and a calm smile. He introduced himself as the First Cla.s.s Cabin Service Director and discreetly whispered that he and his staff would serve our every need. As professional as the crew were trying to be, they could not resist craning their necks for an extra peek at Scott. One cheeky, friendly crew member, Gary, informed me they weren't allowed to ask for autographs but he would never wash his hand again as Scott had touched his fingers when he accepted an orange juice. I giggled and promised Gary I'd secure him an autograph before we reached LA. Gary melted in front of me and had to be scooped back into the galley. He showed his grat.i.tude throughout the flight by playing hangman with me when I was too excited to sleep but the others (more accustomed to the splendour) slept the full eleven hours.

I've read my share of Heat Heat and and Grazia Grazia and a whole bunch of other glossy, gossipy magazines and I thought I had developed a reasonably good idea of how the other half lives, but it turns out I had none. I had no comprehension about how it feels to no longer need to carry a bag or a brolly or even money; someone else deals with that stuff. I had no understanding that everyone, and a whole bunch of other glossy, gossipy magazines and I thought I had developed a reasonably good idea of how the other half lives, but it turns out I had none. I had no comprehension about how it feels to no longer need to carry a bag or a brolly or even money; someone else deals with that stuff. I had no understanding that everyone, absolutely absolutely everyone is overwhelmed by Scott's presence and simply cannot act normally in front of him; many are overly solicitous or gus.h.i.+ng, some are brash and hostile. It appears no one can just be normal in the presence of such wealth and success. From the glossy mags I could not grasp how scary it is when crowds of fans clamber on the car bonnet or lunge at Scott with a pair of scissors in an attempt to cut off a piece of his hair or clothes, to keep. everyone is overwhelmed by Scott's presence and simply cannot act normally in front of him; many are overly solicitous or gus.h.i.+ng, some are brash and hostile. It appears no one can just be normal in the presence of such wealth and success. From the glossy mags I could not grasp how scary it is when crowds of fans clamber on the car bonnet or lunge at Scott with a pair of scissors in an attempt to cut off a piece of his hair or clothes, to keep.

But then, I had no idea how much fun it could be to sit with Gary, in First Cla.s.s, playing hangman while drinking champagne at two in the afternoon (or six in the morning if you go by US time). It's all surreal.

Gary has now dropped all pretence of being aloof and professional. Away from the eye of the Cabin Service Director his effervescent personality bubbles uncontrollably.

'You are a lucky, lucky lady,' he says affectionately, not quite hiding his jealousy however much he wants to; it ekes out of the corner of his mouth as he tries to force a smile I've seen that expression a lot recently. I guess being Scott Taylor's fiancee is going to attract envy with the same ease as a magnet attracts filings. I'm prepared to live with it. Gary's form of address might seem a little presumptuous, as we've only known each other for six hours, but I find his camp, hush-hush, off the record, you're my new celebrity best friend att.i.tude refres.h.i.+ng. After days of people staying a respectful distance away from me I welcome the closeness, even if it is somewhat sudden.

'I know!' I admit indiscreetly. 'I never thought I'd be this in love.'

'Or this rich,' adds Gary.

I bristle slightly. I can't, hand on heart, say that I'm oblivious to the joys of Scott's wealth; this morning when I slipped on a pair of Paul Smith trousers, a Matthew Williamson s.h.i.+rt and a pair of Manolo Blahnik strappy green sandals I practically had an o.r.g.a.s.m. But I can, hand on heart, say I'd have taken the man without his millions. I'm sure I would. His mind is like an enormous labyrinth of wonder. I'm continually surprised, delighted and amused by him. Plus he has the body of a Greek G.o.d and can hold a tune. What's not to love?

'What's he like then?' asks Gary, leaning closer, conspiratorially.

'He's really clever. Always thinking about stuff. And he has this lovely way of singing to himself all the time; he doesn't even know he's doing it. It's as natural to him as breathing is to us. Plus he's really firm but fair with everyone he comes into contact with. He makes an effort to learn the names of the guys who bring the room service. He doesn't like tomatoes. He '

'I meant in bed.'

'Oh.' Despite the three or four gla.s.ses of champagne I've knocked back and the dizzying effects of the alt.i.tude I'm shocked at the intimacy of this question and I recoil, ever so slightly, from my new best friend.

'Well, that's erm '

'Private,' says Saadi, suddenly appearing from nowhere.

Gary and I both jump a fraction. He grabs the empty gla.s.ses that surround me and disappears behind the blue curtain back into the galley where the other crew members hang out; Saadi clearly scares him too. I have no idea why I persist in being terrified of her she has never been anything other than professional and polite with me but I am. The problem is I don't know how to peg our relations.h.i.+p; it's quite unlike any other I've had before. She's known Scott far longer than I have. He's told me she's saved his a.s.s on dozens of occasions over the years. They are clearly very close; I suppose I'm a little threatened by that. But then Scott has said to me that you can never be true friends with anyone you employ, and in the final a.n.a.lysis, he pays her a wage. He'd do anything for her but she's not quite a friend. I'm his fiancee. No buts.

I wonder how long she was listening in to my conversation with Gary. I replay it to check I didn't say anything silly or compromising.

Saadi plonks down in the seat next to mine. We've bought all the seats in the First Cla.s.s cabin to guarantee Scott's privacy; she can play musical chairs if she wants to.

'Erm, thanks. I didn't know how to answer that,' I admit.

'No problem.' She sounds efficient, rather than friendly. But she did get me out of a hole, I'll give her that. 'You need media training. I'll set something up as soon as we touch down. There's a Rottweiler in LA who will be perfect for the job.' Saadi whips out her BlackBerry and makes a note. 'You'd better get used to the prying. You'll be asked that and worse. The press are going to hound you as soon as your name is released.'

'And when will that be?' I ask somewhat nervously.

Saadi checks her watch. 'About two hours ago.'

'Oh.'

'We want the press to be waiting for the plane when we arrive in LAX.'

'We want want them there?' I don't get it. We went to such pains to avoid being spotted getting on the plane at Heathrow. Scott and I travelled to the airport separately. Scott wore a fake beard most of the day. We avoided the public like they had the bubonic plague, just in case one of them papped us on a mobile and wanted to make a tenner by sending the shot to the tabloids. them there?' I don't get it. We went to such pains to avoid being spotted getting on the plane at Heathrow. Scott and I travelled to the airport separately. Scott wore a fake beard most of the day. We avoided the public like they had the bubonic plague, just in case one of them papped us on a mobile and wanted to make a tenner by sending the shot to the tabloids.

'Yes. It will be a scrum,' says Saadi.

'We want want a scrum?' a scrum?'

Saadi sighs as though I'm being slow. 'Obviously. It's his biggest story ever, this engagement. If the US media aren't interested in this, then...'

'Right.' Call me shallow but I'm worrying if I'll look my best emerging from an eleven-hour flight.

As if reading my mind Saadi says, 'We have Scott's beautician, Joy Lewis, and his two ma.s.seuses, Linda Di Marcello and Natalie Pennant, travelling with us. Have you heard of Linda and Natalie? They work as a team. Their hands are wonders; all the stars use them. Those two will freshen you up. What sort of ma.s.sage do you prefer? j.a.panese s.h.i.+atsu beating? Icelandic birch whipping? Swedish pummelling?'

'Erm, not bothered.' Two ma.s.seuses at the same time? Oh. My. G.o.d. What happens, does one do the left side while the other does the right or is it split top and bottom so to speak? This is another world.

'Then Joy will work on your hair and makeup. We want you to look wonderful but at this stage it's best if you keep comments to a minimum. At least until you do the media training. If I'd known you'd be awake on this flight, I'd have arranged for someone to work with you while we were travelling.' She looks frustrated that she's wasted eleven hours. I get the feeling Saadi is not a time-waster. 'So just smile, wave and if pushed say you're happy.'

'Can I say delirious?' I ask with a grin.

She eyes me for a moment with a hint of suspicion, gauging whether I'm taking the mick. I stare back and try not to blink so she can read my sincerity.

'I'd prefer chuffed. It's more street and harkens back to Scott's northern roots. Delirious has some odd connotations. Out of context that won't work. And believe me, they'll take every word you say out of context.'

'How about thrilled?'

'Bit posh. And steer well away from delighted. Just be natural.'

Right, chuffed or happy. But not delirious or delighted. Got it. 'I don't suppose anyone will care about what I have to say about anything anyway,' I mumble.

Saadi shakes her head. 'You'll be hounded like Princess Diana, doll. Get used to the idea.'

I think it's a bit of a sick and unnerving comparison to draw, considering poor Princess Di's ending, but I don't say anything as I'm distracted by Saadi's next question.

'Have you had any thoughts about what sort of ring you want?' She reaches for a slim black leather file and quickly unzips it. She pulls out a number of sketches of engagement rings. 'We've had jewellery designers work up a few ideas.'

The drawings are stunning. The stones are huge and cut in a dozen different ways. Mostly the drawings are of brilliant, dazzling clear diamonds. But one page shows more colourful designs.

'I like that ruby ring,' I comment.