Lizzy Harrison Loses Control (3 page)

‘Is there anything I can do, Camilla?’ I ask, hovering in the doorway of her office. ‘Break Randy Jones’s legs? Have him sectioned? Buy biscuits?’

Camilla smiles weakly, sighs and pushes her chair away from the desk. She rubs her temples with the heels of her hands, and then places her palms flat on the desk and takes a deep breath.

‘Lizzy, I simply don’t know what line to take on Randy this time,’ she says, looking at me blankly. ‘He’s used up chance after chance, and I don’t know how many more excuses people are prepared to swallow. I don’t know how many more excuses I can be bloody bothered to make up, to tell you the truth.’

I’ve never seen Camilla like this before – she’s always the one with the plan, with the cheesy lines about ‘challenges’ and ‘opportunities’ where others see doom and disaster.

‘Well,’ I start, trying to think of something. ‘He’s in rehab now, so he can’t do anything dreadful for a while, at least. Don’t you always say that this kind of thing blows over as soon as the next big story hits? Can we announce Isobel’s triplets yet?’

Celebrities would be appalled if they knew how we trade them in for favours like a complicated game of Famous People Top Trumps – I’ll trade you one exclusive interview with X for a first photo shoot with Y’s baby, plus a set of staged paparazzi shots with Z and his new girlfriend. But Isobel’s triplets story is good news, and the unspoken rule is that one bit of bad news is worth several good – even three babies can’t be more interesting than Randy’s latest fall from grace.

‘We’ve already tried it, Lizzy. We’ve been through every single client, and no one has anything that’s going to knock Randy out of the headlines. All we can hope for on that score is for some other celebrity disaster over the next week or so. Come on, Katie Price.’ Camilla laughs without cracking a smile.

‘What does Bryan think we should do?’ I know Randy’s manager, a no-nonsense northerner, will have very definite opinions on how this should be handled, even if he leaves the actual handling to Camilla. He can’t stand the press since being described by one journalist as an ‘overprotective Svengali in a flat cap’. Once Bryan had looked up the word Svengali in a dictionary he was extremely offended. In fact he is absolutely the right manager for a charmer like Randy. Bryan is completely unimpressed by Randy’s winning ways, and, far from being twisted round Randy’s little finger, he would happily snap it like a twig if he thought it was in Randy’s best interests.

‘Bryan thinks that we have no choice but to hold our hands up and say we lied. We admit it all, and then work on building up a new story for a post-rehab Randy.’ Camilla looks exhausted at the thought of it.

‘Post-post rehab, I guess,’ I say tactlessly.

‘Thanks for reminding me,’ Camilla says. ‘Well, I’d better get started, so can you just close the door for the moment and stick to the “no comment” line until I say so.’

Back at my desk I see the light flashing on my phone – four more messages.

Message one:
What is going on with Randy Jones?

Message two:
Will Camilla call me urgently about Randy Jones?

Message three:
I need to speak to someone about Randy Jones.

Message four:
Darling? Darling! It’s Mum here! Why is your phone always busy, darling? I’ll call you another time. Lots of love.

As much as I love my mother, it’s as if she possesses a maternal sonar that means she always gets in touch at moments of high stress and inconvenience. Even though she’s currently ensconced in a Himalayan ashram on her annual meditation retreat, it seems she has detected my panicky mood from across the snowy mountaintops. It’s a minor blessing that I wasn’t around to take her call, or I’d have been subjected to a half-hour monologue on how deep breaths will change my life.

The phone rings again. A man’s voice speaks.

‘I want to speak to someone about Randy Jones, right now, and I’m not taking any of your no comment bullshit.’

Today is a bad day.

The doors of the office close behind me at seven. I take a few deep breaths and feel my shoulders slowly sinking down from under my ears, where they’ve been hunched for most of the day. Mum would be proud. I’m trying my best to shut the door on my bad day, too, and start the evening afresh.

For once, the British summer is helping. It’s one of those beautiful early summer evenings as I walk to the French bar in Dean Street. Soho feels slowed down by the sunshine – everyone’s got all the time in the world to get to where they’re going. The pavements, usually inhabited only by clusters of disgruntled smokers, are set up with small tables, flickering tea lights, linen napkins. Everyone is captivating on nights like this: the gorgeous boys holding hands on Old Compton Street, the wizened man on a stool outside the Italian wine shop, the woman singing out of a top-floor window to no one in particular.

It feels like the whole world is young and fascinating and full of possibility. Anything might happen.

But what is actually happening is that I’m meeting my best friend, Lulu, as I do every Wednesday night.

Lulu and I first bonded over twenty years ago at the side of a rainy rugby pitch, forced by our parents to watch our loser brothers throw themselves around the field in the drizzle Sunday after Sunday. After three consecutive weeks of casting covetous glances at Lulu’s ever-changing array of legwarmers (I had only one pair, in muddy brown – thanks for nothing, Dad), I bravely sidled over to her, bridging the formidable two-year age gap between my flat-chested twelve and her vastly sophisticated fourteen. I shyly admired the pink streaks in her hair and a friendship was born. So far it’s survived university (for me), hairdressing college (for her), an ill-advised attempt at flat-sharing in the late Nineties (Lulu’s respect for personal property being of the ‘what’s yours is mine’ school), and countless drunken evenings out with the once legendary Spinsters’ Social Club. Membership of said club has been sadly depleted in recent years by the traitorous departure of four of our number to the Dark Side of loved-up coupledom and, in three cases, the arrival of babies. Not that Lulu and I have anything against babies. Who doesn’t love babies? Especially the babies of one’s dearest friends. But as Lulu says, until the children are ready to take their turn buying rounds, they’re not going to add anything to a girls’ night out.

The crowd at the French bar is spilling out on to the street, resting drinks on the window sills, lighting Gitanes. There is many a battered Camus paperback being enthusiastically brandished in conversation, there is many a Gallic shrugging of shoulders, there is almost certainly not one single actual French person here, but we are all trying to project a little
je ne sais quoi
, and on this beautiful night we might just get away with it.

I can’t see Lulu outside, so I squeeze my way into the tiny bar. Mirrors on every wall make it seem more crowded than it is, but even in all the reflections I can’t see her. Mind you, Lulu is not the easiest person to spot in a crowd. Not only is she only five foot two, but she has a habit of changing her hair at least once a month, so you spend ten minutes looking for a Paris Hilton-style blonde with extensions, only to realize she’s the gamine waif with the jet-black pixie cut. Her excuse is that it’s her profession, but you’ve got to wonder about someone who can’t commit to a hairstyle for longer than four weeks. Finally I spot her in a far corner, reflected in three mirrors, all the better to show off the latest look.

‘Well hi there, Shirley Temple,’ I say as I slide into the booth beside her. ‘Love the new do – you look gorgeous.’

‘The perm. Is back,’ Lulu proclaims, as if announcing the Second Coming, and shakes her new copper curls in the manner of a dressage pony. She and her bouncy locks have managed to get us half a small table (quite an achievement) and a bottle of rosé. I grab a glass gratefully.

‘Cheers! Here’s to the resurrection of the permanent wave. It takes years off you.’ This is not strictly true, Lulu being one of those petite waifs who already looks as if she has a fountain of youth installed in her home, but she’s obsessed with her age and I know it’s what she wants to hear.

‘Seriously, do you think it makes me look younger? How young exactly? Twenty-nine? Twenty-eight from a distance? Maybe if I was in candlelight?’ Lulu glances in each of the mirrors; the nearer she gets to thirty-five (still two months away), the more determined she is to pass for under thirty. In Lulu’s version of the Underground Railroad, being mistaken for someone in her twenties is a passport to the hallowed shores of Youth and all its associated privileges.

‘I’ve never seen you look younger,’ I say. ‘Forget twenty-eight, you’re like a foetus in a wig, Lulu, I swear.’

‘Oh, honestly,’ she scoffs. ‘Twenty-eight, though. Really?’ She looks away from the mirror in time to see me down my glass almost in one.

‘So, crappy day at the office? Let me guess: Randy Jones, your desperate housewife of a boss and some unauthorized photographs.’ She shakes her curls sympathetically.

‘You read
Hot Slebs
this morning, then?’

Lulu rolls her eyes. ‘
Everyone
reads
Hot Slebs
on a Wednesday morning, like I have to tell you that. Darling, I did feel sorry for you when I saw the pics, but it is all quite fascinating, isn’t it? Tell me eeeeeverything.’

I’d like to say Lulu is entirely motivated by concern for my welfare, but it must be acknowledged that her reputation as the most in-the-know salon owner in Chelsea earns her a lot of extra tips. And as long as she spends those on Spinsters’ Social Club wine and snacks, as she usually does, I think it’s a fair exchange.

‘Well, his US tour’s been put on hold – the insurance depended on him being drug tested each week and there’s no point doing that now it’s quite clear he’s not drug-free. His manager’s gone mental, Camilla’s lost the plot, and Jemima’s blatantly hoping the situation will get worse so she’s got an excuse to get rid of Camilla.’

‘But what happened to the underage model? Is he in the Priory? How long’s he staying in?’ Lulu needs the specifics for her tips. She’s not about to waste her time on tedious office politics between Camilla and Jemima.

‘Well, it turns out the model was actually just heavily asleep and slightly dehydrated, no overdose involved, so all’s well on that score – ’scuse the pun. Randy’s in some secret rehab place, but he checked in voluntarily, which means he can leave any time he likes.’

I drain my glass and slam it down on the table. Interesting how alcohol helps you let go even better than deep breaths on the office doorstep, I note. One to discuss with Mum some time.

‘I’ll bet you he checks out within a week,’ I say.

‘And when he does, I’ll be right there waiting for him, if you’d just give me the address.’ Lulu signals to the waiter for another bottle of wine. ‘Putting aside his teeny-weeny substance problems, you have to admit he’s absolutely sex on legs.’

‘Urgh! Honestly, Lulu,’ I shudder, ‘you’d want to give him a good wash. Really, what is sexy about an all-pervading odour of stale fags and BO?’

‘Fwwwaawwr, I bet he’d be filthy – you’re just way too uptight, Harrison.’ Lulu is gazing off into the distance, and I can’t tell if she is contemplating her new curls in another mirror or dreaming of jumping the bones of Randy Jones.

‘Lulu, it’s not uptight to expect a man to take a shower once in a while, especially when that man likes to wear the same skintight jeans, sans underpants, for months at a time.’

I sound prim even to myself, but really, Randy Jones, heartthrob to millions, is pretty unappealing in the flesh. Even more so because he’s entirely convinced of his own gorgeousness. If a dog looked at him in the street, he’d think it fancied him. He likes to stand just a
little
too close to any woman under seventy (he’s not an ageist) so he can hit them with the power of his personality. Unfortunately it’s the power of his armpits I tend to notice first. You’d think that someone as obsessed with his appearance as he is (Randy being no stranger to the make-up counter) would consider washing more often, but he’s like some Elizabethan courtier who covers up his body odour with yet more perfume rather than risk his health by taking a bath. Sometimes I think his insistence on smelling like a builder after a sweaty day on site is an intentional contrast to his campness, as if the manly stench of his pits somehow cancels out his penchant for Cuban heels and eyeliner. Though if there are any doubts about his heterosexuality, the fact he’s never without a glamour model on his arm should be enough to disprove them, one busty blonde at a time.

Lulu sighs wistfully. ‘I’d still do him. Dirty jeans and stinky pits and all.’

‘Yeah, just think of the tips you’d get with
that
piece of first-hand information. Probably enough to cover your treatment at the clap clinic afterwards, eh?’ I snigger into my wine glass.

‘Jeez, Harrison, do you always have to take all the
fun
out of it? Can’t I even have a fantasy shag without you insisting that I get a virtual STD? Don’t go imposing your lifetime sex ban on me.’

Ouch. That one’s a little below the belt. The dark-haired man whose table we’re sharing looks up with raised eyebrows and then, seeing my furious face, straight back down at his paper. (
Le Monde, naturellement
. Fake Frenchman, I bet.)

‘It’s not been a
lifetime
, Lulu,’ I hiss. ‘It’s two years since I split up with Joe – doesn’t your precious breakup equation say that’s acceptable?’