The Bare Necessities (Non-Profane Edition) (24 page)

“I don't want him
to be angry with me,” she said eventually, and her mother squeezed
her again.

“I think you are
doing so well. And did you hear that bloody guy on the radio.”

“Yeah,” Paige
muttered. “I am going to deal with him, later.” Paige sat down and
had lunch with her mother, brother and sister, before getting her
coat. “I'll be two hours, or thereabouts,” she said. “Just got
someone to see. On the radio.”

“Paige,” her
mother warned. “Don't do anything stupid.”

“I won't,” Paige
promised. “But listen to Peter Moran's show. It might get
interesting.”

“I doubt it,” her
mother replied and shook her head. “It never does.”

“Well this time,
it might,” Paige suggested. “Maybe. Maybe they might have an
interesting guest.”

Her mother's eyes
narrowed as her daughter rose from the dining table. “I want to
come,” Hazel asked, and she picked her coat from the rack. “I want
to.”

Paige objected –
she was certain she would be arrested – but Hazel was determined
and the two of them walked down the road to the little station for
trains to London.

Paige settled on
the seat of the empty train and looked around her. “Used to being
recognised?” Hazel asked. “Autograph-hunters?”

“I have not given
a single autograph for days,” Paige told her. “Not a single one.
Don't know what to read into that!” Hazel smiled. “I also don't
know what to make of the way you are so happy after I left to go
around the country?”

Hazel shrugged. “I
dunno.” She pursed her lips together. “All my friends are like,
wow, your sister's a big star. And I …”

“And you
what?”

“I keep on being
asked about you. 'Bout you doing all this. Well it's good 'cause
you are being yourself and enjoying yourself and not doing what
other people want. Proper Girl Power not just silly magazine
hype.”

“Yeah, I know,”
Paige replied. “I've never done what other people have told me
to.”

“No. You have
never have! And you don't seem to get pressure like me. I seem to
get so much crap off people. And I just couldn't deal with me.”

Paige sucked in
air through her teeth and sniffed. “You've never told me why you
did, what you did.”

Hazel swept her
hair behind her ears and rubbed her nose. “I don't know. I just
felt so alone, so trapped, so on my own. And it was a way out. I
didn't want to do what people tried to force me to do. It was …
well you don't care what people think of you, do you?”

“Hell no,” Paige
replied with a smile. “And I keep trying to get you to do the
same.”

Hazel snorted and
the two sisters got to talk as their train speared its way through
South London before the two sisters got off at the main station.
“You don't have to come,” Paige told her, but Hazel just
giggled.

“I wanna see this.
I think I know what you are going to do.”

Paige strode into
the big atrium of the radio station and walked past the
receptionist. “Excuse me!” The young lady called, but Paige ignored
her and caught the door to the stairs as someone walked out of it.
She looked behind her to see the smiling face of Hazel running to
keep up. The two sisters walked up three storeys and pushed open a
door entitled “Radio London Studio 4.”

A couple of people
sat with headphones on their ears, and Paige looked through a glass
window at the balding figure of Peter Moran. “Wait here,” Paige
told her sister firmly.

“What's this?” The
two people cried. “Who are you? You can't go in there.”

Paige heard a
noise behind her, but ignored it and pushed open the door where the
talk show host was talking and sat down next to him. He froze. “…
and I'm sorry listeners, but we have quite a bit of a shock here.
We have some intruders and …”

Paige raised her
eyebrows and picked up headphones abandoned on the console in front
of her. “You've been speaking about me, I think it's only fair I'm
given a chance to defend myself.” She couldn't hear her voice come
through the headphones as the microphone next to her was not live.
“Turn my mike on.” He hesitated, and she repeated her demands. “Or
are you too scared of talking to me.”

“No,” he muttered
and waved at two people in the booth through the window and a
jingle appeared through her headphones. “Get out. This is an
outrage.”

“No,” Paige
shouted and he gestured towards the people in the booth. “I want to
answer some of your criticisms. This show is sold all over the
country.” He clicked his fingers and pointed at Paige as the jingle
came to an end.

“I am sorry to
report listeners that we still have an intruder in the studio who
is refusing to leave and has been threatening me.”

“I have not,”
shouted Paige into Peter's microphone. “I want to know …”

“I apologise for
this interruption, and we will try and restore some calmness to the
studio as soon as possible.” Paige leant over and spoke into
Peter's microphone.

“This is Paige
Simmons, from The Bare Necessities, and I am here to answer some of
the lies that this man has been saying about us and is too afraid
of debate, he won't turn my microphone on.”

“That's not true,”
Peter moaned. “It's …”

“Well turn it on,”
Paige demanded and crossed her arms. “I am not abusive, or
threatening. Just want to reply to some of the silliness, that's
all.” Paige looked across and saw a man burst into the studio and
grab hold of Hazel. “And can you please tell your oversized brutes
to stop hitting my sixteen year-old sister? Leave her alone, this
is assault, this is a disgrace. We came here to talk to you about
the lies you keep spouting.”

There was a
moment's hesitation as Peter gestured to his helpers on the other
side of the glass and Hazel was freed from the man's clutches.

“Good,” Paige
snapped. “Before you start, I would like to say, that I think
calling an ex-anorexic girl who is perfectly averagely sized, she's
a size eight by the way … calling her fat, is heartless and cruel.
There is nothing wrong with Claire or Claire's figure, and your
comments on it were hurtful and unfair,” Paige told him, reciting
the line she had been working on all morning. “It's bang out of
order.”

“She is not a size
eight, love,” Peter Moran joked, but Paige stuck to her guns.

“She is. But what
if she wasn't?” Paige asked. “Are you really so shallow that you
would base your opinions on someone for being overweight? I mean,
you are hardly tidy yourself.”

“I base my
opinions on you because of what you do. You flaunt yourselves.”

“We are naturists,
have you tried naturism?”

He snorted. “It's
immoral to go flaunting yourself like that. And people don't want
to see it.”

“Have you tried
naturism?” Paige asked aggressively. Peter Moran floundered and
Paige asked again.

“No,” he admitted.
“But …”

“If you had, you
would know how good naturism is. We are one of the most popular
topics on the 'net. Some people do want to see us, and those that
don't, shouldn't go looking.” The host snorted. “And anyway. I
think there is a greater immorality in blackmailing a child to gain
a minor story on a minor celebrity. Which is why you were fired
from your job as editor.”

Peter Moran's eyes
narrowed. “This is not about me,” he hissed. “And we were doing
some investigative journalism. I was cleared of any
wrongdoing.”

“Yeah … right!”
Paige smiled and rubbed her hands, openly goading the host to open
the telephone lines for callers.

She got a number
of questions from listeners asking why she sang naked, or why she
couldn't wear clothes, as well as asking what happened when she was
arrested. “What do your families say?” A caller asked. “I would be
so embarrassed if it was my children.”

“Well, my Dad's not angry, but he's less than
delighted, but has accepted it as my choice. Claire's parents are
fine,” Paige replied. “And Jack's family hasn't accepted it at all.
But we expected that, and we are being successful, and we aren't
getting drunk every night, or doing drugs, or committing crimes. We
are performing without any clothes on. And I am not going to name
any names, but there is at least one virgin in the group, so we are
not even at 'it' either. We are just having a bit of fun, being
normal teenagers, making music. I really don't see why all the
complaints.”

“Because you are
offending a lot of very good people,” Peter Moran added. “We had
the head of Christian Outrage where you are sat, and she was beside
herself with fury. And your MP, Percy Kirkpatrick has said how
disappointed he is that the people most associated with his
constituency are immoral exhibitionists.”

Paige gulped. “I
can't make them see reason. But there are far worse people out
there, and to be offended by the human body, well, it's a disgrace
frankly,” she muttered.

She looked Peter
Moran in the eye who picked up a tabloid newspaper. “And what about
these stories?” He asked and smirked. “Just today two talent agents
have come forward to complain about your behaviour as they tried to
sign you. How you got angry and threw this guy's brand new mobile
phone out of the window and how you assaulted another one.”

Paige shook her
head. “That's not true. Well not totally true.” She ran her hands
through her hair as she thought. “The first guy tried to get me to
do a sex tape with Claire to give us some newspaper coverage. And I
refused so he got nasty.” Paige's eyes narrowed. “And despite what
you, and everyone else thinks of me, my sexual affairs are private.
As I keep telling anyone who doesn't know, naturism is not about
sex, or flaunting yourself. It's about a sense of a freedom that no
textile … sorry, non-naturist … will ever be able to
understand.”

Peter listened but
shook his head. “No-one appears to believe you though. It's just a
gimmick.”

“No, that's not
true. Jack reckons some people are too cynical as they believe that
it's just a pre-planned marketing stunt, but it isn't. We are what
you see.”

Peter went to
respond but he glanced up and saw his helpers frantically waving at
him. “Well it's been … interesting … Miss Simmons. But that's all
we got time for, it's three o' clock, time for the news.” He
pressed a button to play the pre-recorded news segment and Paige
got up from the seat.

“I've done what I
wanted to do,” Paige told him, and he gave a weak smile.

“Most people don't
barge into my studios,” he told her. “Most people just book with
the station. It's very unclassy to hijack my show.”

Paige chortled.
“How classy is it to blackmail an eight year old? Or taunt an
anorexic about her weight?” She asked as she opened the door to her
sister. “Call me 'scum' all you like and I'll ignore you. But have
a go at Claire like that again, and I will come after you.” She
threatened him. “And as you can see, I'm not most people. I don't
play by the rules.”

“You don't
frighten me,” Peter laughed and tapped his fingers on the desk.
“You can't threaten me.”

“No?” Paige
asked with raised eyebrows. “Can't I? Then watch me. You really
don't want to make an enemy out of me. I fight dirty.” Paige shut
the door before Peter could respond and she nodded towards Hazel.
“Let's go home.”

1. Chapter
   XVIII
   

Jack approached
his home with trepidation. He knew that his father was still
furious with him but also felt that the house marked a part of his
past he didn't want to reopen. Every time he imagined walking up
the drive, he was reminded of places where he had kissed Ellie or
had tried to live up to his father's expectations of who he should
grow into.

Jack opened the
gate with his keyfob and had to park next to the garage; there was
a removals van in the driveway, and he walked around it. “Hey,” he
called to Aunt Lucinda. Dad moving my stuff out already?”

“No,” Lucinda
cried as she guided the removals men. “I have my own place now.
Divorce settlement came through.” Her face flickered.

“Oh. Excellent, I
guess.”

“Jack,” the
excited voice of his mother cried. “Oh you've come home, I knew you
wouldn't last there. What happened?”

“I'm only home for
a few days,” Jack told her and straightened his T-shirt as his
mother bounded down the stairs to face him.

“Oh my God. Look
at the state of your clothes. They are filthy. And look at you. Oh
my God. When was the last time you had a shower. Or … this is
disgusting!”

“Mum. I'm fine.
I've spent most of the last three weeks camping. You should try it,
it's fun.”

“Anna, calm down.
Camping's nothing to be scared of, it's the thing that poor people
do, when they can't afford a hotel,” Lucinda joked, but Anna shook
her head.

“Come inside,” his
mother demanded and Jack had to avoid a few men, carrying a table,
that Lucinda had employed to help her move. “Paul,” she called out.
“Jack's home.”

The balding figure
of his father appeared from his study, and a smirk flashed across
his face. “Knew it wouldn't be too long.”

“I am not
staying,” Jack told him. “Well, I am going again. We have songs in
the charts and we …”

Paul's face
dropped and he scowled angrily. “For Christ's sake, man. When are
you going to grow up?”

“You mean when am
I going to do what you demand?” Jack shook his head. “I'm not. I
spoke to Paige lots about this, and she thinks I need to break
free, and I think she is right. I am not twelve any more. This is
my choice, and this is me. I love being part of the band, and I
loved playing at the festivals and gigs. It was freedom. I'm not a
businessman, I can't run your factory, and I won't be following in
your footsteps. OK? So I don't want to hear any more about it.”

Paul's eyes fizzed
and sparkled, and he clenched his fists. “You will …”