Julia Gets a Life (24 page)

            Fearless Potter (a young looking 38) found herself slap bang in the middle of a blazing row between Kayleigh Wilson, longtime girlfriend of the band’s charismatic guitarist, Jonathan Sky, and the delectable teen pin-up, Heidi Harris, who’s name has been linked with Sky’s recently and who, it is rumoured, has romantic designs on the musician.

            Wilson (21) said, ‘the woman’s a vampire. She should crawl straight back into the hole she came out of. If she thinks she can get her fangs into Jonathan, she’s got another think coming.’

            Potter recalls that the fists were certainly flying. ‘I stepped in to try and separate them,’ she told us, ‘but they seemed intent on hurting one another. So I got myself between them, and just at that point Heidi lashed out. The punch knocked me senselss.’

            Her only regret? That, actually being in the picture, she wasn’t able to capture the moment herself. ‘The last thing I remember was hearing a snap. And then I passed out,’ she said, ruefully. It wasn’t her nose, fortunately, only her camera - but this is one snap she wont forget for a while!

            And what of Harris? Word is she’s, ahem...gone to ground.

           
Okay, so it’s a touch tarted up, but what’s the point in having friends in high places if you can’t make the most of your connections once in a while?

            I didn’t really pass out when she punched me, of course. Just fell in a heap while they carried on fighting. Jacinta, a roadie and Craig James broke them up.

            ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Craig said, mainly to Heidi. Kayleigh, by now, was down on the floor with me, sobbing and clutching the side of her face. I suppose a left hook to rival Prince Naseem is a mandatory requirement for Children’s television presenters these days.

            ‘How the fuck should I know?’ spat the unrepentant celebrity. Though in not quite the same chirpy tone that reverberates around our kitchen on a Saturday morning, it had to be said. ‘This bloody mad cow just started on me...’

            ‘And I’ll bloody well start on you again if you so much as
expel air
in his direction, d’you hear me?’ Kayleigh was back on her feet and about to launch another offensive when the him in question came jogging across.

            ‘God, can’t you just
chill
?’ he said (rather unhelpfully, I thought, under the circumstances), then he bundled the scowling Kayleigh away. I was just staggering to my feet, in an effort to be noticed at all, when Craig James said,

            ‘Christ, look at her! She’s bleeding! God! You all right, Judith?’

            ‘It’s Julia....’

            ‘Christ, give her some room, will you? Fucking bloody parties. Christ. Come on! Clear a space, for God’s sake!’

            ‘Uurgh...’ I began, seeing blood on my camera, and all down my vest and in drips on the floor. ‘Uurgh...’ I went on. And then Jax took the picture.

            ‘Uurgh,’ agreed Craig.

            And
then
I passed out.

*

            Guess where I am now?

            I came to a few moments later to find I’d been transferred to a sofa, where I lay in a light mist of dizzy exhaustion, while someone well meaning tipped mineral water over my face. Then someone else trundled up with a wheelchair - they have just
everything
in these five star hotels, don’t they? - and I was dispatched( the lead singer of
Kite
, no less, pushing) to a suite of rooms up on the hotel’s top floor. Then a doctor appeared (do they keep him in the same cupboard, I wonder?) and pronounced the only fracture to be that of a camera lens cover. No trip to casualty. No ambulance home.

            So they gave me an aspirin and left me to sleep. Which I did, for a while - being bashed up is
knackering
- and woke up an hour later to find Craig James in the room.

            Now you can say what you like about money and privilege being unimportant, but there is simply nothing like waking up in a very big bed, with very crisp sheets, in a very grand room, with a very wide view, on the very top floor of a very posh hotel to make you rather covet some. But it a
tad
unsettling to then realise that it is the middle of the night, that you are barely dressed (Jacinta had taken off most of my clothing - I am in my own pants but an unfamiliar man’s vest), and that you are alone in a room with a (male) virtual stranger. Who is probably at the apex of his virility curve and who is also, I notice, only in pants
again
. And, moreover, someone who is young enough not to have close acquaintance with stretch marks, cellulite, and stomachs that move like undercooked omelettes, and who would probably vomit if offered the chance.

            I know this, incidentally, because just before I met Richard I had an aborted flingette with a lecturer from a neighbouring college. He was forty two, but he may as well have been ninety once he removed his Aran sweater. Shockingly hairy, and his skin didn’t fit. Does the same apply the other way around? Will Craig James - who can obviously get his leg over at the drop of a eyelid - try to take advantage of me? Will he part-ravish me then get a dekko at my lower abdomen, and go
Yeuch
? And be sick? And which would be worse? The assault on my person, or the humiliation of proving too grotesque to be worth it?

            I watch Craig James while I get my bearings. He is draped over an armchair, his long legs flopped over one arm, in front of the biggest TV screen I have seen outside of an American diner themed restaurant, on which there is some sort of ball game in progress. He is wearing headphones, and has a half empty beer bottle plugged by a finger and dangling over the other side of the chair. He looks so young, yet completely at home in his palatial surroundings; like the child of a diplomat, perhaps. I recall that I read that
Kite
is comprised of four working class lads born in working class London. Yet the young guy here with me looks like he knows he belongs.

            Wide awake now, I rustle the covers a little. He catches the movement, and turns around. Pop! goes the bottle, as he pulls out his finger. He yanks off the earphones and grunts an acknowledgement.

            ‘Party over?’ I say.

            He picks up a small games console – like Max’s but different - from the reproduction desk, and switches it on, absently, as he talks. (Good God, these things must be
breeding
.)

            ‘Christ, no,’ he says. ‘It’s only just started. They’ll be at it till dawn.’ He scratches his chest. It is now half past three.

            ‘Oh. Don’t you want to...’

            ‘No, I fucking don’t. I can’t stand aftershows. Can’t stand fucking parties at all.’

            ‘Really?’

            ‘Fucking hate them. It’s all bloody liggers and sycophants. And arseholes who just happen to know your auntie’s next door neighbour, and slappers who want to shove their tits in your face. Wanna beer?’ He stands up and stretches muscular arms. Guitar player’s arms, I suppose.

            Rock stars want to have sex with anything going, don’t they? Or maybe he’s gay. Which would be a waste. If I was a young slapper I think I’d probably feel the same.

            ‘Oh. Yes, please, and could I use your er....’

            ‘Help yourself. It’s just through there.’ He reaches into a very maxi mini-bar.

            ‘I’ve..er..got nothing on. Do you have something I could borrow, maybe?’

            I feel like I’m asking for a napkin at a tea party. But he shrugs and says,

            ‘So? I’m not looking,’ and turns ostentatiously back towards the TV.

            He does look, of course. I catch sight of him in the bathroom mirror as I pull the light cord. He waves as I shut the door. A ‘how about it?’ wave or an ironic wave? A wave that says ‘so what’, perhaps?

            So what, for definite. I look the pits. And so
old.
I would be relieved if it wasn’t so depressing. Even Colin wouldn’t fancy me looking like this. Even an octogenarian with inoperable cataracts and a stick would make a run for it.

            My hair is not so much spiky as just a wodge of felt, and my face looks just like it should do. Dirty, pasty, puffed up and slightly bloody still around the nose, and with the beginnings of a monster black eye. I pinch one of the selection of toothbrushes on offer - for guests of the guests? - and give my mouth a good going over, then decide that I’m filthy and strip off my top for a wash. Under the downlighters, my boobs look like two peeled bananas. I put the vest back on and shuffle out again then I sit back down on the end of the bed. It doesn’t cover my bottom, but the cellulite problem seems largely academic. He is, in any case, involved in some sort of complex on-screen manoeuvre. He hands me a beer, then sits back in his chair.

            ‘Your face,’ he says, snorting . ‘Do you get stuck in like that a lot, then? I suppose you have to be a bit handy in your line of work.’

            ‘Erm..yes,’ I agree, thinking of the fist fights I frequently referee over Jake and Fizz.

            ‘But she’s a slag, that one.’

            ‘I’m sorry?’

            ‘A slag. That Harris bird. Jon’s a prat.’ He shakes his head then tips it back and takes a swig of his beer.

            ‘It’s true, then.’

            ‘Course. He’s always putting it about. Don’t know why Kay sticks by him...’    Which shows his age. And his innocence. Which is nice, I suppose. But the reality is that having a rich rock star fiancé probably isn’t too tough an existence, particularly if you’re feisty enough to repel all boarders. But perhaps she’s met her match in the Valkrie-like Heidi. I go along though.

            ‘Perhaps she loves him.’

            ‘Bollocks. It’s dosh.’

            Oh, all right then. Bollocks it is. I drink some beer, which tastes like nectar. I realise I haven’t drunk anything in ages. Or eaten. The alcohol is giving me a buzz.

            ‘I guess I should think about getting home.’

            ‘Oh, aren’t you staying?’

            ‘Um, I don’t think that would be...’

            He snorts again. He’s a laugh a minute, this one. ‘In the ho
tel
.’

            Cringe on cringe. ‘Oh, I see. Yes, of course. No, I’m not. I’m local. I only live... oh! And I’ve got Jacinta Cave staying with me. I wonder what’s happened to her? I should find her, shouldn’t I? She’ll be wondering...’

            Craig James puts a hand up and shakes his head. Then he leans forward in his chair, legs apart, elbows on knees, hands on the bottle between his legs, expression suddenly engaging. He looks just like he does in one of the pictures on the album, and I wish my camera was handy so I could capture it myself, for Emma.

            ‘Jax,’ he says, ‘will be wondering nothing. Except for perhaps where the KY is.’

            ‘I’m sorry?’

            ‘She’ll be shagging old Nige about now.’

            ‘Oh.’ The manager.

            ‘They’re mates.’

            ‘Mates?’

            ‘Yeah. Like, good friends.’

            ‘Oh.’

            ‘And they usually meet up if we’re touring.’