The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride

Chapter Nineteen

                

Dora agreed with Gerry about the house. ‘I’d been thinking the same thing myself,’ she said when I mentioned it. ‘You need somewhere more secure. You probably need to be in the country.’

     ‘I’m not really a country person,’ I said doubtfully.

     My only experience so far had been with Luke’s family, but I couldn’t actually imagine living like that on my own. Even though they had been in the country they had been like a little community themselves, not stuck out all alone in the middle of nowhere.

     ‘Well, maybe not the real country,’ she said. ‘A nice suburban house in its own grounds would be good. I’ll work out what you can afford and come up with a few places for you to see. There are people who specialise in finding houses for celebrities. They know all about security.’

     ‘Jesus, Dora, are you sure I need all that?’

     ‘You saw what happened at the Baftas,’ she said. ‘Things get out of control very easily. And last time it was just Pete waving a gun about. Next time it might be a real nutter.’

     ‘Are you deliberately trying to freak me out?’

     ‘No,’ she laughed. ‘Of course not. But you’ve got to start thinking about these things. And anyway, you want to be able to keep the photographers out a bit.’

     Dad’s words, ‘you’ve got the fancy life you wanted now’ kept echoing around in my head. I didn’t want people thinking I was putting on airs and graces, pretending I was some sort of Lady of the Manor or something. All that had happened was I’d got a job in a soap opera and released a gimmicky pop record, I hadn’t married the Prince of f***ing Wales.

     Dora wasn’t letting the grass grow on this one and the next weekend she arranged for this poncey estate agent to pick Gerry and me up in his shiny BMW and cart us off around a few properties in Surrey. I have to say it did not feel right. I was a bit nervous about Gerry at this stage; it was nice to have him there for company, but I didn’t want him getting the idea that we were settling down as a couple because I was pretty sure he was not the man I was going to be spending the rest of my life with. The fact that pictures of Luke would come into my mind whenever Gerry and I had sex was a pretty good clue in that department. Not that there weren’t moments when the thought of settling down comfortably with a man who was easily my best friend didn’t hold a lot of appeal. Should I, I would wonder in moments of self-doubt, be grateful for what I was being offered and stop wishing for the impossible? How does that song go: ‘if you can’t be with the one you love; love the one you’re with’? Was I in danger of ending up sad and alone like Maggie?

     I was a bit shocked when Dora told me I had a million and a half to spend. ‘A million and a half?’ I shouted. ‘That’s a f***ing fortune.’

     ‘I got you a good deal on “Summer Wine”,’ she said modestly. ‘And the advertising deals have been mounting up. On the strength of your Bafta night triumph I can rope OK! In for at least another quarter of a million if they get first photographic rights, maybe even double that. And you can get a good mortgage against your salary now. It would be better to have the money in bricks and mortar. If we invest it in anything else you end up paying tax on the interest…’

     ‘Stop!’ I held up my hand. ‘You’re doing my head in. Just tell me what to do.’

     ‘Go buy a house.’

     I was even more shocked, however, when the estate agent, who was called Nigel or something, told me that ‘a million and a half doesn’t buy you much in this area’.