Читать книгу How To Lose Weight And Alienate People - Ollie Quain - Страница 14

… normal.

Obviously, now I am. Aren’t I? But I was not a normal child. I had a sort of … dark side. I wasn’t born with it. One day the darkness descended and before I knew it, that’s who I was: someone who preferred to hide away in the shadows. Nowhere was this more noticeable than in the framed photographs that decorated the corridor of my family’s home. On the wall, you could see my football-fanatic brother scoring goals, celebrating with team mates and waving his club scarf at away games. My teen-model sister was pictured (professionally) frolicking in paddling pools or through sprinklers for leading homestore retailers or leaping off a diving board for travel brochures. There is no photographic record of me after I hit double figures. I avoided cameras.

Obviously, my parents were not oblivious to my downward spiral but they dealt with it in different ways. My father said nothing. My mother asked Jesus to help me. (As in the Son of God – our local GP was not an immigrant Mexican.) She encouraged me to pray as well … up at the jagged crack in the ceiling of my bedroom, which according to her had been created by God with a thunder bolt to create a clear pathway of communication to Heaven. Clearly, all the crap that was stored in the loft kept getting in the way of my prayers, because my mood did not improve. So then – on advice from her church group – my mother screwed a full-length mirror to the wall, on the opposite side to the other one that was already there. They thought it may help if I could look at myself from a different perspective. But it only gave me a new angle from which to question myself. … And now I could see exactly why Kate Summers thought she had all the answers.

After the second mirror was installed, no matter where I stood in my bedroom I was reflected, so being horizontal was key. I would get under the duvet on my bed and place my hands straight down my sides, in an attempt to make myself as invisible as possible. I used to lie there for hours and hours and hours; day and night, in exactly the same position. But one day – not long after finishing school for good – I woke up to find my hands placed across my chest, not down by my sides as they usually would be. It was as if I was about to be buried. My bed had become a coffin, my bedroom was a morgue. I could see myself lying there. I still can. I was dead. Yeah, I know, I know … I told you … dark side! Anyway, I left home that day. Ironically, the next time I saw any of my family again was actually at a funeral.

I hear voices coming from the corridor.

‘You know as well as I do we’ve had worse freakin’ bull to deal with than this,’ says Barb. ‘It won’t take too much to get him back on top. Maxy isn’t just a ripped torso with a twinkle in his eye … he’s got talent.’

‘He’s also bloody temperamental and testing my patience.’ A flat male voice that I don’t recognise interjects. ‘Look, Silver, like I’ve always said: I certainly don’t give a singular monkey’s bollock whether Fry is respected. To misquote that bell-end in Jerry Maguire, “Show me the sodding money!” All I am asking you to do is make him popular and bankable again and fast. It’s getting ridiculous. Your face has had more work than Fry has over the last year. I don’t care if they spit his name at the Royal Shakespeare Company as long as every sad female singleton wants to screw him, every moronic alpha male wants to be him and he delivers the wonga. Now, where’s this waitress?’

Barb appears at the kitchen door with a sharply dressed man in a grey suit with a silk striped shirt and matching tie. His thick blond hair is swept back to show off an angular although not entirely unattractive face. He marches over to me.

‘Nicholas Van Smythe,’ he says, flashing a set of brilliant white veneered teeth. ‘Fry’s agent, visionary, evil overlord … depending on which rag you read.’ He kisses me on both cheeks. ‘Pleasure, darling.’

‘Hi,’ I stand up. ‘I’m Viv—’

He interrupts me. ‘Not to worry, darling, there’s only one thing I’m worse at than remembering names and that’s small talk, so I won’t bother with that either. Silver and I have got a proposal for you.’

Barb motions at me to sit back down at the kitchen table. ‘We thought we’d have some fun, kiddo. The Great British Youth Awards, sponsored by News Today, take place at lunchtime on Saturday. Usual drill: a bunch of adolescents who have fought against the odds get to go up on stage in a top London hotel to receive a trophy from a celebrity and the editor of News Today. The ceremony raises money for a children’s charity, is broadcast live and the paper always does a huge pull-out in the Sunday News. It’s a good marketing tool … it makes the celebrities look more sympathetic to their fans and the editor more sympathetic to his readers. Everyone’s a freakin’ winner.’

‘Except the courageous youngsters, of course,’ laughs Nicholas. ‘Who get to experience the charmed life of the rich and famous for just a few precious hours, before being herded on the early-evening train back to their insignificant lives in some depressing backwater of the UK.’

‘Really? There was me thinking everyone stayed in touch after those sort of events,’ I say sarcastically.

Nicholas smirks at me. ‘I think we all know that the whole point of celebrity charity work is to get recognised for it, not to do it on the quiet so you don’t get anything out of it for yourself. There’s a reason why Madonna takes a full sodding camera crew to Malawi; free children and additional downloads. I jest! I love that old crone. She’s an icon.’ He taps the table. ‘Let’s get to the point, Silver.’

‘So, kiddo,’ she continues, ‘we’ve decided to throw an olive branch to News Today after all the recent hoo-ha in Clint’s Big Column, by getting Maxy to present an award at their ceremony. It’ll be a good coup for them, what with it being Maxy’s first public appearance since rehab, and of course, if you came too we could show everyone that …’

‘… despite what happened,’ I continue for her, ‘Maximilian and I are great mates. Maybe even inspire Clint to write a little piece on what great mates we now are. Do you really think people are that gullible?’

‘The readers of News Today and the Sunday News are,’ confirms Barb, her voice thickening. ‘But, kiddo, this isn’t all about Maxy. It would be a nice little bit of exposure for you and that acting work you were telling me about. I don’t know what kind of performer you are – you could be shit or you could be shit hot, but either way no one is going to find out unless you get some roles. You’re not getting them at the moment because no one has a freakin’ clue who you are. In this day and age there is no such thing as a lucky break, everything is engineered by a relentless PR machine. Hype is everything. Silver’s Golden Rule Number Forty-three: There’s no such thing as a squirrel … he’s just a rat with a better tail and a good publicist.’

‘She’s right,’ adds Nicholas, twisting the gold Rolex on his wrist. ‘No offence, darling, but at your age you need all the help you can get. As far as the industry is concerned, as a woman in her mid-thirties—’

‘I’m only thirty-four.’

He smirks again. ‘As I said, mid-thirties … your career is pretty much finito. This is a good offer. We’re not asking you to snog some reality TV chump at a suburban nightclub, we’re asking you to attend a top-flight awards show at a five-star hotel with the Maximilian Fry …’ Clearly, this is how they all refer to him.

With perfect timing, Maximilian walks into the kitchen pulling a grey hooded sweatshirt over his head. I can tell that the top is fashionably distressed, i.e. it’s brand new but looks as if it has been damaged whilst the owner was engaging in some kind of heavy-going manual labour. (Not like Luke’s one that looks that way because he has been doing precisely that.) Maximilian gets another water bottle out of the fridge and swigs it back without looking directly at me. The expression on his face is exactly as it was when I arrived.

‘Come on, kiddo. It’ll be fun …’ pushes Barb.

‘Not for me,’ I tell her. ‘Rubbing shoulders with celebrities is not everyone’s idea of a perfect day out.’ She looks confused, as I expected. ‘Anyone who works in show business always finds this hard to believe. I mean, most of you assume any normal member of the public would sell a kidney to catch a glimpse of Kristen Stewart buying acne wash in Sephora, but it really isn’t the case. Besides, I see enough famous faces at work so when—’

Nicholas butts in and stands up. ‘Look, I don’t want to hear the labour pains, darling, I just want to see the baby. If you’re not up for it, fine. Obviously, this is the pro-active go-get-’ em attitude that has resulted in you clearing dirty dishes off restaurant tables at thirty-four years old.’

I look across at Maximilian and wonder whether he will apologise on his agent’s behalf, but he is concentrating on peeling off the label from his water bottle. Arsehole. Suddenly, I find myself thinking about the scene at the very end of The Simple Truth where Jack Chase leaves the exquisite Arabian princess (who is also a spy and a professor of metaphysical engineering) he has been shagging. By this point, the two characters have escaped from the desert and are back at the ornate Persian palace owned by the now-dead leader of the rebels who was also the princess’s husband. After a steamy session in her four-poster bed with the silk curtains billowing in the breeze as per movie-set-in-a-dust-bowl standard, Jack Chase waits until the princess is asleep, slips out the window and shins down the side of the building, onto his next adventure. When the princess wakes up at dawn, she touches the pillow next to her, realises Jack has gone for good and then smiles. She smiles. This is a woman who has betrayed her own people, committed adultery, got her husband killed, lost her job – and at one point nearly her right leg – all for some bloke. Who has now deserted her. But is she pissed off? Does she immediately get on the phone to a girlfriend and have a good moan about the chaos-causing non-committal tosspot? No, she walks over to the window and stares into the horizon all gooey-eyed … because he is Jack Chase. Well, I’m not such a sap.

I stand up too. ‘Actually, for your information, I don’t remove any plates. That is the waitress’s job. I’m a hostess, so technically my role is to look after the cust—’

But suddenly, I stop. My hands become clammy and my heart races. This can happen in the aftermath of a minor flashback. What Maximilian said pings back into my head. Until you know your truth … who you really are, you can’t pretend to be someone else. I look up, and consider attempting to continue what I was saying … but I don’t bother. I know when I’ve lost an audience. Even I don’t want to hear what I have to say.