Part 25 (2/2)

The mini-drama that ensued after Belinda walked out was the talk of the town for several days and the talk of the circuit for... well, longer than I was prepared to keep track of. Belinda doesn't know, she's never asked, but I did not win the King of Kings t.i.tle that night in Blackpool. I did not even compete.

We weren't having a good night, or a good year, come to that. I'm not a b.l.o.o.d.y fool, I knew that much. We were forever rowing about our secret marriage, our lack of cash and where and how we should best earn our livings. Even so, nothing could have prepared me for what she did that night.

I will never forget the humiliation as I sat at the table, nursing a warm pint and a gla.s.s of c.r.a.p white wine, waiting for her to return from the loo. After twenty minutes I sent someone to look for her, I was concerned, not worried. I thought she must have an upset stomach or something. I became more than concerned, more than frenzied with anxiety in fact, when she wasn't in the Ladies, or anywhere else in the hotel.

Neil kept insisting that there was nothing to worry about and that the show must go on but I couldn't do it. It was obviously serious. Your wife doesn't go to the Ladies and then just forget to come back.

How could she have left me on the most important night of my career to date? How could she think that was an acceptable way to end a relations.h.i.+p? A marriage. There wasn't even a note. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Diddly-squat. f.u.c.k all.

I have never felt lonelier than I felt that night; the night I slept alone in the grotty B&B, on a hard narrow bed. Blackpool is my hometown and while my mum was still living up in Kirkspey at that time, I had other relatives aunties, uncles, cousins who I could have called on. Any one of them would have happily loaned me a bed and even made me a fry-up the next day, but I stayed put. I slept in scratchy sheets, in a room with malfunctioning central heating because I thought I hoped that she might come back to me. Her clothes were gone but it didn't have to mean she had indisputably, literally quit. I told myself that maybe she'd get as far as the coach station and then she'd find out there wasn't a bus to Edinburgh until the next day so she'd come back to the B&B. We'd talk about what was wrong and we'd put it right. It might be OK. It didn't have to be a big deal.

She didn't come back to the B&B nor was she waiting for me in our flat when I returned to Edinburgh. I will never forget and G.o.d knows I've tried to the wave of fear, panic and then unadulterated terror that swept over me when I opened the door to our flat and there it was nothing. Total and complete nothingness. No letter. No missing possessions, no trace, no clues, no reasons, no explanations.

I contacted the police. I told them it was possible my wife had been abducted; neither they nor I believed that to be the case. They added her name to a long list of people who had done a 'Reginald Perrin' as they called it and said they'd check the hospitals. But as she was an adult and there were no signs of foul play there was little they could seriously be expected to do.

No signs of foul play? Even if Belinda had left of her own free will and no crime had been committed, the foul play quota was still off the scale. What she had done to me was so intensely cruel and profoundly wicked that it was categorically unforgivable. That's what I told myself, unforgivable. Then I spent weeks, months, and eventually years thinking of ways to forgive her.

Nothing comforted or helped me. Belinda would probably laugh if I ever tried to explain to her that even Elvis Presley's music failed to console me in those bleakest months. I didn't think he'd suffered as much as I had. I didn't think he'd ever been so totally humiliated.

For ages Belinda had been trying to get me to give up Elvis. It was ironic that her departure achieved what she had longed for, and yet she never knew it. My greatest love had stolen the joy I had in my other great love. It appeared that one could not exist without the other. Not for me. For several years I couldn't even listen to an Elvis song. I hated the man, or at least the music. If ever I was in a shop and an Elvis track drifted through the sound system, I would leave the shop. I've walked out of quite a number of karaoke bars and wedding receptions in my time. I thought it was meaningless pap and even 'Heartbreak Hotel' and 'My Baby Left Me' did not scratch the surface of agony at being so unceremoniously binned.

After about four weeks, she sent me a postcard so that I knew she was alive and that she didn't feel alive near me.

For some time I thought I was rubbish, c.r.a.p, leftovers. I endlessly mulled over the self-indulgent, self-destructive questions that all dumpees ponder, regardless of gender. I found the answers a year and a half later, after I'd been travelling abroad for some time. What did I do to deserve this? Nothing. What is wrong with me? Nothing. Why would she treat me like this? Madness.

Look, it's all water under the bridge now. But, I'm just saying at the time it was hard. Granite.

When I came back to the UK I decided to study for a PGCE so I could teach music. It took a further two years before I could let Elvis back into my life.

But when he returned, he returned with a vengeance. My music had matured. I thought as much and others confirmed it to be the case. I had more to put into the lyrics because loss has a whimsical way of making some people bigger. Having loved and lost was good for my art much better than good old-fas.h.i.+oned happiness or contentment. Although, to this day, I'd have preferred to be a 'not bad' tribute act with a wife and kids at home, rather than a 'sensational' one with a different cutie from the crowd in my bed each night. I guess I'm just an old-fas.h.i.+oned guy at heart.

The thing is, I hankered after winning the heats and the trip away to Vegas but I covet and crave winning the final compet.i.tion, with an undignified longing that borders on an obsessive need.

Of course, I don't believe I can turn the clock back. It will never be January 1996 in Blackpool again. I will never have the opportunity to say to Belinda, 'Don't go to the loo. Talk to me, tell me what's wrong.' I cannot change the sequence of events that followed that fateful trip to the Ladies. Events that cascaded into the casual heap that for want of a better term I call my life. However, if I compete and win this time, I might just be able to jump-start my life again and put myself back on track. I might regain some dignity.

I threw the compet.i.tion for her once. And I threw my life away too. But I won't do it again.

I am going to go to the rehearsal and I am going to be good. Seriously, intensely good. I am going to be the King of Kings European Tribute Artist Act 2004. Belinda McDonnel and Bella Edwards will have to find a way to live with it.

I sneak into my hotel room and pick up my costume and leave again without being spotted by Laura. I leave her tickets for tonight's dress rehearsal show and a note telling her I'm missing her. Which is only part of the story.

I catch the monorail and as I hop on board it crosses my mind, what am I thinking of? Do I really believe that winning the compet.i.tion would win me back some dignity when I consider that I have wrapped my arms around two women in twenty-four hours? While I am determined to attend the rehearsals and enter the compet.i.tion I know that to sing or not to sing is not the difficult question. And probably, for that reason alone, it's the question I decide to focus on.

39. Stuck On You.

Laura.

'Can I get you another drink, Laura?'

'No, I'm all right, ta, Phil. I don't want to start on the turps just yet.'

'So what was that vodka and tomato juice?' He points to the empty gla.s.s on the table next to me.

'Hair of the dog.'

'Fair enough.' He lies back on his sun lounger, clearly unprepared to drink alone but I can't keep him company today, even to be polite.

'Just how much did I drink last night?' I ask Philip, as I reach for my sun lotion and slap a dollop of factor fifteen on to my thighs. It's the third time I've reapplied cream in about half an hour. I'm not thinking clearly.

'About as much as me.' He grimaces.

'So, too much is the easy answer then.'

Normally I can hold my own against Phil and I never have to drive the porcelain bus. But Lord knows, I'm thirty-two not twenty-two and I really think I'm getting a tiny bit long in the tooth for experimenting with c.o.c.ktails that are the same colour as my mouthwash.

Philip and I pa.s.s a comfortable couple of hours lolling next to the pool, having a bit of a yarn about various hangover cures. He favours a large breakfast, I prefer popping a couple of painkillers. We give both methods a go as desperate times call for desperate measures. We also try hair of the dog, sleep and lots of good old-fas.h.i.+oned glugging of mineral water. By three o'clock I can give a reasonable impression of a fully functioning human being. I put down my novel and announce as much to Philip.

'I'm feeling better too,' he confirms. 'Which is bad news, really, because by tonight I'll have forgotten how awful I felt this morning and I'll do the whole thing all over again.'

'Not me. I'm taking it easy tonight. I want to feel tip-top tomorrow for Stevie.' I beam at Philip. I love the role of supporting girlfriend; it's a novelty.

'Do you think he has a good chance of winning the t.i.tle?'

'Of course,' I say instantly and loyally. Then I pause to consider a more reasoned response. 'Well, I haven't seen any of the other compet.i.tors perform, but he's brilliant you've seen him.'

'I was very impressed,' smiles Phil. 'But they all must be good for them to have got this far,' he adds cautiously. I know he's trying to temper my expectations.

'I know the standard of entertainment must be high. They are charging thirty bucks entry just for the dress rehearsal tonight.'

'What's the difference between tonight's show and the final tomorrow?'

'None as far as the contestants are concerned. They have to sing the same two songs at both shows. But tomorrow there will be warm-up acts, showgirls and judges.'

Phil is squinting against the sun. 'Being part of something so big is impressive, isn't it?'

'What is?' asks Bella, interrupting our conversation. She's suddenly hovering in front of our loungers, blocking my sun.

'Hi,' Phil and I chorus. 'We were talking about Stevie and the compet.i.tion.'

Bella scowls. She is so not impressed with Elvis tribute acts and nothing anyone can say will change her mind.

'Where have you been all day?' I ask, changing the subject. I really haven't the energy to hear her bad-mouth tribute acts, indirectly pouring scorn on Stevie.

'Shopping.'

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