Part 4 (1/2)

I am in love. The l.u.s.ty type of love, not the real type. Besides, so is every other woman in the room and some of the boys too. Bella makes it back to the table. She looks anxious.

'p.i.s.ser about the crowds,' I comment sympathetically, 'but you can understand it, can't you? He's mesmerizing.'

'I can't stay here,' yells Bella.

'What?' I am not sure I've heard her properly. 'He's b.l.o.o.d.y good, isn't he?' It is a rhetorical question although it would give me untold satisfaction if Bella agreed. My man is s.e.x on legs and talented. Women are clambering on to the stage to have their photos taken with him. When I say stage I mean the slightly raised area, about a metre and a half long by a metre wide and thirty centimetres off the ground. Still, some of the fans stumble, or at least pretend to, requiring Stevie to catch them. I glare my hostility.

'You've got to admit, he's not just a busker. Not when you see him like this. He's special,' I add.

Bella is always going on about making her mark, making a difference. It's one of the reasons she admired Ben so much. He left something behind him. His droll, poignant plays make people think.

Stevie is making a difference; he is making people happy. Even if he isn't performing to thousands at the Royal Albert Hall, even if it is only in a pub in Richmond. Bella can laugh but people are holding up their mobile phones and texting photos of him to their mates.

Stevie begins 'Jailhouse Rock'.

'It's crazy that we all know the words to these songs. We weren't even born when they were released. I never think of myself as an Elvis fan but it's all there.' I tap my skull and turn to Bella, hoping she'll enthuse. She doesn't. She looks as though she's going to puke or faint or spontaneously combust. 'Christ! Bella, are you ill?'

It's as though she hasn't heard me. I put my arm round her shoulders and shake her. She's not normally a big drinker and we've been mixing irresponsibly tonight. She doesn't seem aware of me. The only time I've seen her like this before was when we went to Brighton to see a hypnotic act. She was picked out of the audience and the guy convinced her she was an egg-laying chicken. I so wish I'd had a video camera with me that night. I click my fingers in front of Bella's eyes and shake her again. Slowly she returns to me. Her eyes darken and the pupils shrink.

'I'm going. You should come too,' she snaps.

'No, Bella, don't do this to me. I know you think I should meet a banker or even an estate agent but I like Stevie. Like like. I want to stay.'

'We don't belong here,' she says as though I've just asked her to join a mad religious cult, rather than stay and have a few jars and watch hunk of the month gyrate on a stage. What is her problem?

'These people are not like us. Not our sort.'

'What are you talking about?'

'The smoke's making my eyes sting and I think I might have an asthma attack.'

'You're not asthmatic,' I point out.

'I have to go. Please come.'

'No, Bella.'

I glance around the room to a.s.sess the people Bella has taken a disproportionate and inconvenient dislike to. The room is full of people who eat too much cholesterol, exercise too little, dream more than average. They seem very much my sort. I turn to say as much to Bella but she has gone.

b.u.g.g.e.r, b.u.g.g.e.r, b.u.g.g.e.r her. I reach for my handbag. I'll have to go and find her, as much as I want to kick on and drool over Stevie Jones, Bella is my best friend even if, right now, I could cheerfully throttle her. The moment I start to push through the crowd the music changes from 'Jailhouse Rock' to 'Stuck On You'.

Stevie's voice, deeper than I remembered a touch more gravelly breaks through the noise. 'Ladies and gentlemen, I dedicate this track to Laura Ingalls.'

The crowd throws out a mindless cheer. They have no idea who Laura Ingalls is, other than a freckly, goofy kid with a penchant for big bonnets and bloomers, but they cheer anyway, such is their intense, albeit transient, love for Stevie.

Stevie locks eyes with me and beams. It is the widest, happiest grin I have ever seen on an adult. I'm stunned. Even before Oscar stomped on my self-esteem, I knew my limits. Generally, men look at me and think 'best mate' rather than 'total G.o.ddess'. I'm the type of girl men fall in love with after they have got used to my weird sense of humour and my inability to put the cap back on the toothpaste. If I was ever foolish enough to ask a man why he loved me, he'd invariably reply that he appreciated my extensive film-trivia knowledge. I am not the sort of woman who stops traffic (unless I'm stood at a Zebra crossing), but right now, I know, absolutely know, that the way Stevie Jones is looking at me is important. It means he thinks that I'm important.

And so do many of the other people in the room. The men turn with interest, the women with ill-disguised envy, to see who Stevie Jones is singing to. Suddenly, I'm not so sure of the words to 'Stuck On You'. So I listen carefully. Initially, I try not to read too much into it. I tell myself that it's not as though he is saying that if we were together we couldn't be torn apart.

It's just a song.

It's not as though Stevie is planning on catching me. He doesn't even know me. No doubt he does this every night; he picks some woman from the crowd, sings something that seems poignant to her and throws out that smile of his. He makes her feel as though she is the only woman on the planet. I'm probably in the epicentre of a horribly shoddy, humdrum moment. I don't even have long black hair, like the lyrics specify. I remind myself that logically speaking I am not special. This is not a special moment.

Yet... while my brain is telling me that this is a tacky, predictable move, my heart is pounding with such ferocity that I think it is about to break out of my chest and jump up on to the stage to join Stevie and dance a jig. It feels extremely special. And, if I'm not completely deluded or plastered (both are possibilities but not probabilities) Stevie looks as though seeing me is the equivalent to all his Christmases and birthdays coming at once. I don't think that his reaction is entirely because he thinks I'll be an easy lay. I realize that by allowing an absolute stranger to kiss me after exchanging approximately one hundred and fifty words on a train then I have, perhaps, given off 'available' signals (if not 'slapper'). But even so, it is obvious that Stevie is not without options. If an easy lay is what he requires, just about every woman in the room will happily oblige.

I start to sway my hips. And my shoulders. For about six tracks I am the most beautiful and accomplished woman in the universe. I see myself as a sort of Kate Moss/Keira Knightley mix, with a bit of Liz Hurley mystery thrown in for good measure. Throughout '(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear' and 'A Big Hunk o' Love', I believe that I have a higher b.u.t.t than Kylie's. As he sings 'Wooden Heart', I am sure that I can do mental arithmetic faster than Carol Vorderman and I am perhaps more green-fingered than Charlie Dimmock. I could scour an oven, clean behind the back of a settee and descale the taps in my bathroom faster than Kim and Aggie, those cleaning women with their own TV show. I am invincible. Although, the more I stare at s.e.xy Stevie, the more convinced I am that these housewifery skills, which I have long admired, will not be required. I start to focus along the lines of imitating Lucy Liu's gymnastic ability instead.

I have the best night, ever. Stevie dedicates tracks to me, he blows kisses to me, he tells the audience that they ought to cheer the wonderfulness of me. And they do. Complete strangers buy me drinks. They clink gla.s.ses and yell congratulations although it is unclear what they imagine I have achieved. In the fans' eyes winning Stevie's attention deserves extensive praise and I'm inclined to agree with them.

I drink most of the drinks proffered, which certainly helps cement the illusion that I am the most beautiful woman in the universe and stops me considering that I am potentially making a complete a.r.s.e of myself.

I ache for the gig to be over. While I'm enjoying watching Stevie perform, I don't want to have to share him. I hardly give a thought to Bella. And when I do, I rea.s.sure myself that she will have got a taxi and besides, she doesn't like people fussing when she is ill.

11. You Don't Know Me.

Sat.u.r.day 22nd May 2004.

Bella.

Amelie rings me at 8.30 a.m. I wonder what took her so long.

'You'd better have a good reason for running out on Laura,' she says.

'I have.'

'Well?'

I turn to look at Philip sleeping peacefully beside me. He looks almost babyish swaddled in thick white cotton sheets, cus.h.i.+oned by a large amount of pillows. He's exhausted. He spent yesterday in Switzerland, seeing a client. His plane was delayed and the cab from the airport got snarled up in traffic, we arrived home at approximately the same time. Like Amelie, Philip had been surprised that I had cut short my girls' night out and wanted to know why.

I told him that I'd felt overwhelmed by a need to be with him and, more than anything in this world, I wanted to be away from the pub, full of fat, blowzy women, cigarette smoke and the smell of booze. I wanted to be in our clean, stylishly decorated, south-west-facing home. I wanted to drape my arms round his neck and squash myself against his chest. Philip had been delighted with this response and we'd made urgent love on the stairs. For once, our needs overwhelmed our desire for comfort.

'I just wanted to be with Philip,' I tell Amelie truthfully.

There is a pause while she considers this. Unlike Philip, there is no probability that Amelie will be flattered into distraction.

'Why? What's going on?' she asks with more perception than I appreciate.

I s.h.i.+ver even though it's a bright spring day and suns.h.i.+ne is flooding through the bedroom window. I choose not to answer the question and ask, 'What time did Laura get home?' Suddenly I'm panicked. 'She did come home, didn't she?'

'Are you worried that she is lying p.r.o.ne in an alley somewhere?'

'No, I'm worried she slept with Stevie Jones,' I blurt, with more truth than I intended.

'What's going on, Bella? What on earth made you leave her like that?'

I hesitate again. Eleven years of rigorous training battles with fleeting instinct. Can I cast aside the stringent code I've put in place? Can I tell her the truth? I touch Philip's face gently. I trace his eyebrow and cheekbone. I have so much to lose. There's everything to lose.