The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride

Chapter Twenty Two

‘They want to do a “Meet the Real Steffi McBride” programme,’ Dora announced. ‘You know the sort of thing; you on the stage, the audience packed with celebrities, planted questions and you singing some songs. Prime time Saturday night spot.’

     ‘I thought they just did that sort of thing with really big stars,’ I said, puzzled.

     ‘You’re about as big as they get at the moment, Darling,’ she drawled.

     I wished I hadn’t said that because now it sounded like I was fishing for compliments and I didn’t know how to react.

     ‘Do you think I should do it?’ I asked eventually.

     ‘Might be fun. They would let you sing whatever you wanted, and they would pay a lot.’

     ‘Okay, whatever you think.’

      ‘Are you all right, Darling? Having man trouble?’ Dora had an uncanny knack of reading my moods just from the tone of my voice.

      ‘Yeah, a bit.’

      The visit home had left me so confused. It was really nice that Gerry wanted me to marry him so much, even if it was a bit of an underhand way of going about it. It was also nice that I was back in touch with Dad, sort of. But it was so much pressure. Gerry had been totally taken aback when I laid into him about the whole thing when I saw him the next day.

     ‘I thought you would be happy to be reunited with your Dad,’ he protested.

     ‘I am, but you could at least have discussed what you were planning with me. It would have been nice to have been a bit prepared.’

     ‘There was no plan,’ he said, ‘I was just going with the flow. You really have got to stop thinking the worst of everyone. I just love you, that’s all.’

     So then I felt like a complete dog turd on his shoe, but I still couldn’t raise my spirits enough to even act gracious. The moodier I became the more reasonable, open and sunny he was. There just didn’t seem to be a single fault with the bloody man.

     Dad had rung me several times since that evening, usually after he’d got back from the pub, telling me what a great chap Gerry was and saying he wanted to put the past behind him, make a new start. Having been desperate to be back in touch with him, I now dreaded the long, rambling phone calls. Drink now seemed to make him f***ing miserable and sorry for himself, but at least that was an improvement on violent. He kept talking about ‘getting things off his chest once and for all’, but when I asked him what he was talking about he would go all mysterious and evasive and I couldn’t be bothered to ask any more.

     I’m sure they all meant well. I’m sure Dad genuinely liked Gerry and thought he would be a good husband; and of course he was right. Gerry was an incredibly nice guy and he would always treat me well. But at the same time …

     I didn’t stop seeing Gerry, but I often told him I was busy in the evenings without telling him who I was busy with. Sometimes it was celebrity functions, which the publicity people liked me to turn up to in order to keep Nikki in the magazines. I had perfected a technique for those sorts of dos. If I accepted an invitation to an opening of a club or a film premiere, I would get the girls at the studio to make me up after work, borrow a frock from Wardrobe, take the limo to the red carpet, have my picture taken for the magazines, go inside and walk straight out the back, where the limo would be waiting to take me home. Sometimes I would take one of the younger blokes from The   Towers, just to keep the reporters guessing, but the boys always wanted to hang around in the hope that they would pull some dozy page three girl. I think I might have hoped that it would piss Gerry off as well if I was photographed with other men, but he never seemed bothered. He hated those sorts of media events as much as I did and he obviously wasn’t fooled for a second into thinking that I was having a fling with anyone else from the cast. Sometimes his self-confidence and philosophical outlook on life could be quite annoying; occasionally I would just have liked him to get unreasonably pissed off with me when I behaved badly, rather than being all understanding and indulging me the whole time. It’s no wonder the poor sodding men say they don’t understand what it is that women want from them when we don’t know ourselves, is it?