Confessions Of A Karaoke Queen (3 page)

‘Come on, it’s a cool place!’ Lou grins, as ever leaping to their defence. Her own mum and dad are separated and she had quite a tough childhood, so she’s close to my parents like that.

‘You only say so because you fancy Simon,’ I tell her, referring to the cute barman – Lou’s had a crush on him for, like, ever.

‘I do not!’ she huffs, glowing pink.

With a grimace I remember the stack of emails awaiting both of us. ‘Come on, we’ve got to do
some
work this afternoon.’

‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ she asks, and I can tell she’s glad to change the subject.

‘I will be.’ I smile weakly. ‘There’s life after Lawrence. Thanks, Lou.’

‘Indeed there is.’ Lou nods decisively, taking my arm. Then she says more quietly, ‘It’s not as if you told him your real name or anything.’

I cringe.

‘Maddie, you didn’t!’

‘It just slipped out!’

‘Something like that doesn’t just
slip out
!’ She steers me full circle and back into the kitchen, her this-is-a-code-red-crisis face on.

‘Well this did.’

She shakes her head. ‘You’re done for, Maddie. If that ever,
ever
gets out …’

Great, now I’m crying again.

Back at my desk I’ve got an email from Big Ideas, the celebrity management consultancy I applied for a placement with last month.

Maybe my luck’s about to turn around, I think excitedly as I slip into my chair. Maybe the three years I’ve spent faffing around since uni are about to move up a gear. I might actually be about to
do
something with my degree. Maybe the breakup with Lawrence has come at just the right time, because I’m actually on the cusp of becoming a shit-hot celebrity manager and then he’ll realise what a terrible mistake he’s made and beg me for a second chance.

Eagerly I click on it.

Dear Ms Mulhern,

Thank you for your recent application to work with us as a graduate trainee manager. Competition was fierce, and I regret to inform you that the position has gone to another candidate …

Fuck!

I can’t be bothered to read the rest. Crossly, I hit Delete and sink my head into my hands. Could this day
get
any more shit?

As if on cue, my mobile rings. It’s Mum.

I resist the urge to ram my head repeatedly against the wooden desk until I pass out. Instead I force myself to pick up.

As soon as I hear her voice, I know something is wrong.

‘Poppet,’ she says, breathless. ‘Thank god I made it through. This is urgent. I need you at home
right now
. Something’s happened.’

The journey to my parents’ flat seems to take forever. In reality it’s only ten minutes from the Simply Voices offices, but that’s when you’re travelling on something that’s actually moving. My bus sits in traffic outside M&S for a small eternity, so, quitting that, I attempt to hail a rickshaw. I swear these hard-pedalling guys actively swerve around me, a stricken-looking girl wearing a short damp dress and massive breeze-block trainers, shouting, ‘I’m light! I’m light!’ They probably think I’m some sort of religious fanatic.

Now, I’m running – and, like a bird of prey with wings unclipped, these trainers are finally soaring. This has got to be
a revolutionary feat (feet?) of engineering: it’s like I’m
flying
. But flying or not, I think as I catch my swooping reflection in the window of John Lewis, little takes away from the reality of looking like a complete berk.

Still, I might even be enjoying myself if it weren’t for this hollow dread I’ve had in the pit of my stomach since Mum’s phone call. What’s happened? Is Dad ill? Is there something wrong with Mum? Is somebody dying? Fuck, somebody’s dying. Somebody’s dead. Is it my grandma? My aunt Sylvie? Sylvie’s cat, which has bad breath but I love? Is it my great-cousin Jim who lives in New Zealand and we only see once every five years? (I hope it’s him. No, shit, that sounds horrible. It’s only if there
has
to be a death, obviously.)

I force myself to take deep breaths. It’ll be something anodyne, like Dad’s livid-purple Bentley got a puncture or Mum’s eye make-up’s melted because she left it on the windowsill in the sun again. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d had a huge drama over something totally inconsequential.

Lifted by this, I practically bridge an entire pedestrian crossing with one boingy step. Moments later I enter the maze of Soho streets, past the John Smith pub, past the curry house with the best naan bread in London, past the hairdresser who once gave me a ‘step’ and I couldn’t sleep for a month (on top of the nightmares, the back of my head was about a foot off the pillow). And, finally, I’m at Mum and Dad’s.

The first thing I notice is that the car is out on the street. You can’t miss it – it’s the colour of black grape juice, with a big bright silver grille and broccoli-green interior. The second thing is that the car is overflowing with boxes. OK, now I’m properly worried. What the hell is going on?

I push my way into the building. The karaoke bar is in the basement but even so I get a chill as I clock the chipped
SING IT BA K
sign with the C that’s been missing for ever. It’s the same bright pink type as on the poster for Tom Cruise’s
Cocktail
, and when it lights up at night it flickers sickly in the dark. Just around the corner are two more karaoke places – Mum and Dad maintain they had the first in this block, but I don’t know – but the word ‘rival’ doesn’t apply any more. To be a rival you’ve got to at least be competing, and Sing It Back hasn’t competed in years. I know that in a few hours’ time it’ll limp into life for yet another Friday evening, and the knowledge gives me a sudden and unexpected pang of sadness.

Just inside there’s a girl stacking crates of bottled beer and ticking off boxes on a tatty old clipboard. It’s Sing It Back’s only barmaid, part-time actress and one of my closest friends.

‘Hi, Jaz.’ As in Jasmine. Not Jazzy Jeff, as Lou originally thought.

Jaz looks up at me, wide-eyed, from the frame of her wild red hair. She’s got huge blue eyes that appear even bigger because of her tiny size – but what she lacks in stature she makes up for in attitude. Jaz wants to be the Next Big Celebrity and her current obsession is with Lady Gaga: last month I saw her serving drinks in the bar wearing nothing but an outfit made of gaffer tape and a pair of slatted sunglasses you could pull like an IKEA blind. Apparently Simon started calling her Lady Gaffer and she got quite upset. Not as upset as she must have been removing the tape. Ouch ouch
ouch
.

‘Hey, Maddie,’ she says in her soft American lilt. Absorbing my panicky expression, she frowns. ‘Are you OK?’

I catch my breath. ‘Not really,’ I say, slumping back against the wall.

She puts down the clipboard and rubs my arms vigorously, like mums do when their kids have been out in the cold.

‘You’re freezing,’ she says, and a sweet smell wafts off her like cinnamon. Jaz always wears nice perfume – she’s forever telling me off about my clutter of half-used £1.89 cans of Impulse. ‘In fact …’ She looks me up and down. ‘You look
terrible
. What’s happened?’

Jaz says it like it is – you’ll get used to it. She’s a total livewire, but she’s fiercely loyal, too. She came over from the States three years ago after a doomed relationship broke her heart, and she’s been a faithful part of Sing It Back ever since. Even though she can’t be making pots of money, or be finding the bar work particularly stimulating, she just really likes my parents. Mum and Dad have that effect on people – you want to be with them, I guess, because everything feels more exciting when you are.

‘That’s the thing,’ I say, worried. ‘I don’t know. Mum just rang and she was freaking out, saying there was some emergency and I had to come round straight away. Any ideas?’

Jaz shakes her head. ‘Beats me.’

‘And the car’s all packed. Something’s up, I know it.’

We’re interrupted by a scuffle behind one of the crates. Jaz bends down and makes a kissy-kissy sound, clicking her fingers. I try not to appear too disgusted when her pet guinea pig, Andre, scrabbles into view. This is the result of Jaz’s desire to own one of those toy dogs, the sort Paris Hilton carries round in a pink satchel, its worried face peering out from behind a gauzy peephole. On further investigation, however, apparently
‘they smell’, so the guinea pig got the job. Today he’s wearing a tiny French maid’s outfit with a little white cap and frilly sleeves, his itchy-scratchy feet poking out the holes.

‘Come on, Andre,’ she coos, gathering him into her hands. I don’t get the French thing. Maybe he’s having an identity crisis – in a world where giant rodents get their nails painted, anything’s possible.

‘Don’t sweat it, Mads,’ she says easily, getting to her feet and tickling Andre’s head. ‘You know what they’re like, it’s probably nothing.’ She smiles encouragingly and pulls a cigarette out her red mane of hair. God only knows what else she’s got in there. Can of Coke? Volume of Larkin poetry? Foot-high bearded acrobat?

Cigarette in mouth, she steps past me. Andre squints at me with small, accusing eyes. ‘Nice shoes, by the way.’

The door closes behind her and I turn to look up the stairs. Why do I feel like something awful is waiting for me up there?

Something is.

Mum and Dad’s flat is a gaudy nightmare of eighties memorabilia. Photos of Pineapple Mist adorn one wall, along with gold awards for Best Single (‘What You Do (Ooh Ooh)’ – see? I told you) and Best Video (not that one where they’re hanging out in the Laundromat in orange shell suits, surely), and signed bits and bobs from their UK ’88 tour. A favourite picture of the famous duo takes centre stage: Dad’s sporting one of those long thin plaits Jordan Knight used to have and Mum’s got some amazing kingfisher-blue eye shadow on, her hair tied back tight like the women in the
video for ‘Addicted to Love’. On all sides a circus of familiar faces gazes out: Neil Tennant, moody in tin foil; beautiful Boy George wrapped in a Pineapple Mist sandwich (a new level of disturbing); Sting with his arm draped round Mum’s shoulders; Chesney Hawkes in a too-tight T-shirt with worryingly good hair …

The facing wall is covered in purple-tinted mirrors, so the images are reflected all around in a slightly queasy hue. Everything is themed, from the little musical note coat hangers just inside the door, to the armchair in the shape of a great big concave cello.