Confessions Of A Karaoke Queen

‘A fizzy, funny, brill girl’s-night-out of a book’
Jenny Colgan
, author of
Meet Me at the Cupcake Café

‘Ella Kinglsey’s riotous novel has all the ingredients
of a great karaoke night with the girls – dubious singing,
laughs galore and a reminder of the fun to be had
when you don’t take things too seriously’
Jane Costello
, author of
Bridesmaids

‘As sparkly and feel-good as a glittery disco ball.
Ella Kingsley is such a fresh and funny new voice.
Pass her the mic, we want more!’
Carmen Reid
, author of
New York Valentine

‘I found myself lying in bed needing to be asleep and
saying “just one more chapter”, then reading one more
chapter and dutifully laying the book down and turning
the light out … but then immediately turning it on
again. I couldn’t put this lovely book down’
Lucy-Anne Holmes
, author of
50 Ways to Find a Lover

Published by Hachette Digital

ISBN: 9780748125463

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public
domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely
coincidental.

Copyright © 2011 Ella Kingsley

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior
permission in writing of the publisher.

Hachette Digital

Little, Brown Book Group

100 Victoria Embankment

London, EC4Y0DY

www.hachette.co.uk

Huge thanks to Caroline Hogg, my brilliant editor – this book belongs to both of us. Thanks to my agent Madeleine Buston and all at the Darley Anderson Agency for their guidance and support.

To Jo Dickinson and Viv Redman for everything they taught me. Also to David Shelley, Manpreet Grewal, Andy Hine, and all the team at Sphere.

Finally, to the original Friday night karaoke queens: Vanessa, Rowan, Sarah, Donna, Katherine, Caroline, Suz and Cat. Nobody does it better.

I can’t sing.

There, I said it. I, Maddie Mulhern, raised by wild-haired parents on the exotic plains of Eighties Synth Pop, where colourful beasts roam the borders of Kaftan and Eyeliner, cannot sing a note. Maybe it’s because I’ve grown up with a one-time-famous mum and dad, whose sole chart-topper gets played at weddings across the land. (You do know it: you’ll say, ‘Oh god, not
that
one?’) Maybe it’s because I’m ‘eclipsed’ and I need to ‘own my own stage’ (this is what my best friend Lou says – and she’s taking a Psychology degree). Or maybe it’s because my private apex of horror is a memory of my eighth birthday party,
where my parents did away with the conventional freak-all-the-children-out clown and instead delivered their own freakish performance piece to Jean Michel Jarre’s ‘Oxygène’. Aside from anything else, that song is forty minutes long.

My mum and dad are … well, they’re characters. Everyone reckons their parents are weird, but mine actually are. I love them, but they embarrass me. Does that sound bad? OK, so picture this: flicking channels on the telly and landing on
Top of the Pops 2
. It’s 1987. George and Andrew (and the two girls, but I can never remember which one’s which – and besides, it’s all about George) are clad in white tracksuits and booties, their hair coiffed like the curls of butter you get in posh restaurants. Yep, Wham!’s all good. And then, just as you’re wondering where it all went wrong – has he really been arrested
again
? – the song ends and another set of familiar chords strike up. Pineapple Mist (you did hear right) have taken to the stage, number three for the fourth week running! Mum’s dancing about like some kind of shoulder-padded maniac, and she’s got on this pair of bloated white leggings that make her look like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man at the end of
Ghostbusters
. Dad’s got dreads.
Dreads
.

Other people have frown lines; I have cringe lines. Honestly.

For a while they tried to get me in on the business – not like super-pushy tennis parents or anything, but because they thought it had to run in the genes. And up to a point, I guess it does: I’ve loved music since I can remember and I’ve always wanted to get into something media-related – but definitely,
definitely
behind the scenes. That’s just as important, isn’t it? Where would Boyzone be without Louis Walsh?
Spice Girls without Simon Fuller? What would Rick Astley be doing now without Pete Waterman? Er, actually, forget that one.

I’m an organiser, a planner and, I hope, a support. But no, I most certainly
don’t
sing.

And that might go some of the way to explaining why I’m standing in the grey rain at Baker Street tube, listening to my boyfriend dump me.

‘We’re just … different, Mads,’ Lawrence says, leaning against an advertisement for cruise travel. He’s got a pastel-pink jersey knotted loosely round his neck, the sort orange-skinned men wear while smoking cigars on Capri. ‘I think I need someone more … out there.’

‘Out where?’

‘You know.
There
.’

I fold my arms, feeling sick and trying to put this down to having just dropped sixty quid in the bar and brasserie Lawrence wanted to go to for lunch (when the bill came he realised his debit card expired last month), rather than the fact I know what’s coming.

‘Are you breaking up with me?’ I ask, part of me wanting to stall the whole disastrous conversation and another conceding it better to just get to the point, like ripping off a plaster. There’s a hurting blob in my chest that feels dangerously like tears.

He makes a sad face, as if he’s about to explain something basic but inevitable, like the death of a hamster, to a child.

‘I’m a performer, Mads,’ he says, pushing a flop of dark fringe from his eyes. ‘I need to be out on stage, doing my thing. That’s the way it is for people like me.’ The rain is
coming down in earnest now and he lifts his coat above his head like the wings of a great bird. I notice he doesn’t offer me shelter, but I suppose that could be mixing messages.

I wait for him to elaborate but he doesn’t, assuming this explains everything. Yes, Lawrence is an actor – a good one, in my view – but somehow this single fact seems to have permitted him a long line of concessions. I think back over the past ten months: the melodrama, the lack of money, the selfish behaviour. Suddenly I’m angry.

‘I know,’ I say tightly. ‘And I’ve done nothing but help you out. You can’t pretend that’s not true.’

Now would be a good time to appear beautiful and windswept, like Kate Winslet in
Titanic
; instead I’m more drowned rat in a pair of Accessorize flip-flops. My suspicions are confirmed in the windows of a passing bus. I’m wearing this cross-strapped floral dress I picked up in the sale at Warehouse, which is flapping wetly against my skin like a piece of boat tarpaulin. My hair’s stuck to the sides of my head
à la
the ears of a King Charles Spaniel. I curse my decision not to bring my little red anorak, even if it does make me feel like the dwarf at the end of
Don’t Look Now
.

Lawrence does a sort of snort, and for a moment I’m convinced he’s made the same observations. Then he says quietly, bitterly, ‘You think I
enjoy
doing that sort of thing?’

He’s referring to a gig I got him through the voiceover agency where I temp a few days a week. Admittedly it was a dubbing job where he had to talk over a wincing German in an ad for haemorrhoid cream, but beggars can’t be choosers. Lawrence hadn’t had a decent wage in months.

‘Hang on a minute,’ I say. ‘It’s not like you were turning
down the new Scorsese. What would you have done if I hadn’t sorted that?’

He yanks the coat tighter. ‘Oh, I don’t know, Maddie,
not pretending to be crapping myself
?’

I should probably point out what I’ve been doing with this man for the best part of a year, since I’m aware I’m not painting him in a particularly favourable light. Lawrence and I met through mutual friends at a party last June – his best mate was someone I shared a Media Studies seminar with at uni – and at first he was sparkly, fun company. He was also an extrovert raconteur, in turn allowing me to assume a comfortable role in the background. He also told me I looked like Rachel McAdams ‘in that dress’ (this continued to bug me: just in the dress? What about out of the dress? What about out of
any
dress?) but I didn’t know who she was at the time so I went and rented
The Notebook
and spent most of it wondering if I could convince my maybe-new-boyfriend to grow a beard like Ryan Gosling. (Although Lou says it makes Ryan’s eyes look tiny, like currants in an Eccles cake.)