Gerry could see I was in shock and put his arm around me. I didn’t seem to be able to stop myself from shaking, like I was coming down from a bad trip, or staggering out of a car crash. I just couldn’t get things straight in my head.
‘She says it’s true,’ I managed to say eventually.
‘Shit.’ He hung onto me for a minute, then said, ‘we need to get you out of here before the rest of the press arrive.’
‘Where can I go? I could go to a hotel, I suppose.’
‘No,’ he sounded firm, calm, in control. ‘We’ll go to Mum and Dad’s. No one will think of looking for you there.’
‘What about your neighbours?’ I asked, remembering the video camera at the bedroom window outside my house the night Pete came round.
‘I don’t even know who the neighbours are,’ he admitted. ‘Mum and Dad have always pretty much kept themselves to themselves. As long as you aren’t seen going in we’ll be fine. No one would think of connecting you to us.’
The idea of being anonymous again, like Gerry and his family, seemed incredibly attractive. I had always thought that being famous was the passport to everything good in life, not realising it would mean never being able to escape from anyone who might be looking for me.
From a quick glance at my reflection in the mirror I could see it was unlikely anyone was going to recognise me from a casual glance just at the moment. To be honest I looked like a complete minger and if anyone did manage to get a picture it would make the front pages just because it showed what a state I’d got myself into. The press were still trying to get through on the phone, but when Gerry peered out there was no sign of any activity yet in the street. I shoved a few essentials into a bag, drew the rest of the curtains so they wouldn’t know whether I was there or not, and we scurried down the road to Gerry’s battered old Saab. I glanced up at the bedroom opposite but there was no one there. He’d be kicking himself if he knew what he was missing, the nosey bastard.
When we got there it felt a bit like coming home. Gerry’s mum and dad were so sweet, just acting like it was a normal Sunday and I was just a normal girlfriend that their son was bringing home for a visit. They were Sunday Express readers, not News of the World, so they hadn’t heard anything about this latest twist in my parallel tabloid life. Going there was exactly the right thing to do, to just be having a normal Sunday at home with a normal family. Gerry was so kind to me, not trying to force me to talk if I didn’t want to, just making sure I had food and warmth and an endless river of hot tea.
As the shock of the revelations began to wear off and the shaking died down, I found I could actually read the story and take it in. The woman’s name was Maggie, although she might have been making that up because her whole life seemed to be a bit of a sham. The story was that she had been a bit of a ‘vice girl’ herself in the seventies and eighties, (their words, not mine, and probably not hers either, I guess, knowing how reporters work). She claimed she’d had a one-night stand with Dad when they met in a strip club in Soho when Dad was on a stag night with some mates.
That was a pretty revolting picture to get my head round, but I managed to do it without losing the little bit of lunch that I’d managed to choke down. She then went into a whole load of crap about how she had to give me up because of the stigma of being an unmarried mother in ‘those days’ and the pressures of society – I mean we’re hardly talking about Victorian times here are we? It was the late bloody 1980s for f***’s sake! Seemed more likely it was the pressures of being a career ‘vice girl’ that helped her towards her decision, but I kept telling myself I shouldn’t judge the woman on things I read in the press because it was impossible to know which were her own words and which ones had been put into her mouth by reporters. She did say that giving me up to Mum had been ‘the most painful day of her life’. Well, good!
Mum came across as pretty much a saint in the whole thing – if perhaps a bit of a doormat to dad – and the paper didn’t hesitate to remind its readers of how I had told my acting class about Dad beating her up. I felt really sorry for her, but I was also beginning to feel a bit pissed off with her as well. If even part of this woman’s story was true, how come she had never told me? How had she let me go for so long believing she was my mum? Why wasn’t she ringing me and coming round and helping me to come to terms with things, explaining the story from her side? Unless, of course, Dad wasn’t letting her. That was likely, but why was she letting him do that to both of us? Why didn’t she stand up to him for once? I loved her like mad, but I had to admit she was coming out of this looking like a bit of a serial victim.
It also pissed me off to think that Dad had been lecturing me about the family’s ‘reputation’, when he had pulled a stunt like this. How dare he refuse to talk to me when he’d been lying to me all these years? If I was endangering the family’s good name by being an actress what was he doing that night in Soho?
The more I thought about the whole situation the more my head was spinning. Most of all I felt like I’d been isolated even further from the family. If the story was true my brothers and sisters didn’t even share the same mother as me, I truly was an outsider.
Gerry came to bed with me that night, but he didn’t even attempt sex, just cuddled me until my whirling thoughts finally allowed me to go to sleep. I was grateful for that. My head was still full of Luke and it wouldn’t have felt right to be doing it with someone else, not yet, not even Gerry.
The next morning we set off for the studios together like an old married couple, falling back into our old routine. There were a few press lurking around outside the studio doors but they didn’t even give a second glance to the scruffy young couple in the battered old car. As the day progressed they started to find ways of getting through to me inside the studio, despite security. One got into the canteen at lunchtime, posing as an actor on some other programme, another managed to get me paged on the studio landline by pretending to be calling about my grandmother dying. A third got through to my mobile when someone else answered it for me while I was filming. They were all making the same offers of protection if I sold them my side of the story. I said nothing to any of them, just pretended I couldn’t hear them, as if they didn’t exist. I can understand now how film stars or other people in the media get that glazed look in their eyes when they’re walking through crowds. They have to make the outside world invisible otherwise it would overwhelm them with its attentions. I don’t know why I’m talking about them like they’re another species; I had become one of them and it was a very scary feeling. At least film stars have their millions to protect them, and their studio minders, and the big politicians have policemen at their doors. All I had between me and the pack was Gerry and his mum and dad.
The whole day I had a lot of trouble concentrating on work, which worried me. I had a big scene to do with one other character, just the two of us, spitting and fighting over the same man – Nikki had been up to her tricks with someone else’s husband and the shit was just hitting the fan. We did take after take and in the end I just had to summon every ounce of energy and block everything else out of my mind. I really let rip, which had the desired effect, taking my fellow actress by surprise, which worked for the scene. The crew gave me a round of applause at the end, which made me feel good for about ten seconds before I remembered what I was going to be doing that evening after work.
I was still very unclear what I was in for once I got to Quentin James’s office. Mum had been too choked up to really explain anything over the phone, and then Dad must have come back into the room she was calling from because she suddenly pretended to be talking to someone else and hung up, all breezy and cheerful; I was coming to the conclusion she was a better actress than I had previously given her credit for. A few days earlier I would have assumed that was where I’d inherited my talent from, but now I didn’t know anything any more. That was what was really freaking me out. Who the f*** was I? Was Dad really my dad? Was I adopted? I hadn’t been able to get any questions out during the call and when I tried to ring back again later her phone had been turned off. Chances were he’d guessed who she was talking to and had smashed it to pieces. If he was cross with me before, he must have been a thousand times angrier by then and just thinking about it made me want to cry again.
Gerry was really sweet with me all day, just being there, not asking any questions, just waiting for me to talk to him. At the end of filming he walked out of the studio with me without saying a word. I slid my hand into his and squeezed tightly.
Quentin’s offices in Soho were full of posh girls on phones, but weren’t half as flash as I would have expected. It looked like a place where work actually got done and posing was kept to an absolute minimum. Not that Quentin wasn’t a hell of a poser himself, and I had to allow him a bit of a gloat since he had warned me that there was a big story coming and had offered to help me out, (with a good dollop of self-interest there as well). Quentin’s own office was a complete tip, filled with piles of magazines and newspapers and a giant television screen; the mess made me feel slightly more kindly disposed towards him. As we walked past what looked like a conference room I noticed there was a film camera crew working in there. A year before I would have paid a bit more attention, but I no longer found the presence of cameras remarkable; in fact it sometimes felt quite strange when there weren’t any around.
‘Welcome to the lion’s den,’ Quentin joked, shaking my hand and entirely ignoring Gerry, which seemed a bit bloody rude but not worth making a point about just yet. I really wanted to find out as much as possible about this woman who claimed to be my mother, and if that meant I had to be polite to Quentin for a bit I was willing to swallow that. Gerry was just going to have to put up with it. He didn’t seem remotely bothered, but then he never seemed remotely bothered about anything really.
‘I’m so glad you’ve come,’ Quentin purred. ‘I think we can help you a lot.’
‘I don’t really understand what’s going on,’ I admitted.
‘Well, luckily for you, I do,’ he beamed smugly, ‘because this is my business. You, my dear, have become part of the great national pantomime; one of the characters that the public want to see up on the media stage every day, and in order to satisfy that need, the media will be looking for any stories they can find about you, and when they can’t find any they will make them up.’
‘I already know that.’
‘I’m sure you do, but this is probably just the beginning. With our help you can take control of which stories get out there, and we can limit the damage of the unauthorised ones that manage to slip through the net. As much of my time is spent keeping stories about my clients out of the papers as getting the stories they want in.’
He appeared to be taking it for granted that I was there to take him on as my own personal publicist, which seemed about as wise a course of action as recruiting a pimp to set me up on a blind date. I decided not to disillusion him until I had got as much information out of him as possible.
‘They’ve decided that you are a “tart with a heart” – a cliché, I know, but the whole pantomime is cast on the basis of cliché; cliché villains, cliché heroes, cliché fallen women, cliché love rats. Once you’ve been allotted your role it’s hard to change it, unless they decide to recast you. That’s when you hear people moaning on about “the media built me up, then they decided to destroy me”. The general public likes a Greek tragedy. We like our gods to be shown to have feet of clay. But that doesn’t mean they don’t still love you.’
He was getting bloody comfortable on his hobby horse and I tuned out, taking a bit more of an interest in what was going on in the conference room, which I could sort of make out through the series of glass partitions that divided the floor up. There was a woman sitting at the conference table, talking to camera, wreathed in cigarette smoke. After a moment or two she stubbed her fag out and the fog cleared slightly.
‘Is that her?’ I asked, my voice croaking like an old frog.
‘Yes,’ Quentin said and for a second he seemed to be lost for words, like he might actually have been caught out on something.
‘I thought smoking in offices was illegal.’
‘Special dispensation on emotional grounds,’ he grinned, as if the two of us were sharing an in-joke. ‘She would really like to meet you, you know.’
‘Who are the camera crew? Gerry asked. Quentin ignored him, as if he hadn’t spoken.
‘Who are the camera crew?’ I repeated.
‘They’re making a documentary about her, a reality make-over thing. It would be great to film you meeting her for the first time. It would be very compelling.’
‘You’re f***ing joking, aren’t you?’ I couldn’t believe his nerve.
‘You feel like that now,’ he went on, smooth as silk, ‘but once the fuss has died down it will be nice to have something to look back on.’
‘This isn’t a family f***ing holiday. I’m not shifting from this office till you get that camera crew out.’
Quentin sat still for a moment, like an old lizard trying to out-stare me. I didn’t flicker and he cracked first. ‘Okay, give me a minute.’
He went through to the boardroom and we could see him talking to the cameraman. Maggie glanced across at me and I didn’t avert my eyes. She looked away nervously and fumbled around to find a fresh cigarette. She’d obviously done herself up for the cameras and looked quite striking, a bit like an old film star, but when I stared I could see things weren’t quite as glamorous as the first impression.
The camera crew all left with their equipment and Quentin came back to get me. I took a grip of Gerry’s hand to make sure he knew I wanted him there for moral support, and walked through with my head held high. It looked for a second as if she was going to get up as we came in, but then she seemed to think better of it and stayed put, making herself look a bit arrogant to be honest. She didn’t put her hand out or anything, maybe afraid I would reject it, and just sat puffing on the fag, which made her look pretty in-your-face and not exactly maternal.
Close up she was a lot rougher than she had seemed from the other end of the office. She could have done with a bit more weight, her neck was scraggy and there was a line of make-up along her chin, like she was wearing a kabuki mask. Her skin had been smoked as dry as an old kipper, mapped with tiny lines she’d tried to cover with pancake, particularly around the mouth.
Her eyelids were drooping, which meant that the blue eye shadow she’d caked on them looked a bit grotesque in close up. She looked like one of those women you see selling cosmetics in the department stores; not quite a real person any more. The photographer for the paper must have done a fair bit of touching up to make the pictures look even remotely attractive. She was wearing a lot of perfume too, but it didn’t hide the stink of cigarettes, which clung to her like it clung to Dora.
‘Steffi,’ Quentin said, ‘this is Maggie.’
‘Hi,’ Maggie said.
‘Hi.’
I mean, what else was there to say? I stared hard at her. She did look very familiar. I wondered if she had been watching me over the years, without me knowing, and I had seen her in the distance. Then I realised what it was; she looked like me. Oh my God! Beneath the wrinkles and sagging and brittle looking hair was the face that stared at me from the mirror every day. It was hard to tell if the hair had always been dyed, but I was willing to bet that she had once been the same white blonde that I was.
‘Would you guys like us to leave you alone?’ Quentin asked.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘No!’ I said, much more vehemently. I was nowhere close to being ready to spend one-on-one time with this old harridan. They all froze and the atmosphere became even edgier. I remained standing, looking down at her.
‘What made you decide to speak out now?’ I asked eventually.
‘Quentin thought it would be a good idea,’ she smirked, as if she and Quentin were the grown-ups in this situation, the insiders.
‘What made you decide to come and see him then?’ I persevered, resisting the temptation to punch her.
‘I needed advice on the best way to handle the situation. I wanted to make contact with you.’
I turned on Quentin. ‘That was your advice? A woman comes to you saying she would like to make contact with the baby she gave away at birth and you suggest she does it through the News of the World?’
‘Maggie is my client, I had to advise her what would be in her best interests. The story was worth more if there was a surprise factor. I did contact you, if you remember, but you didn’t want to listen.’
‘You really are gutter slime, aren’t you?’
Now he was smirking too and I realised that he was impossible to insult. The man was so completely certain on his own rightness that nothing I could ever say to him would change his opinion of what he had done. In a way he was right, of course; he was just doing the job for his client.
‘Money’s a bit of a problem,’ Maggie said. ‘I’m getting to an age where I have to think about how I’m going to survive. Show business doesn’t always provide a pension. You’ll need to bear that in mind if you’re going to stay in the business. You can be all high and mighty about it now, but you’ll need the help of experts like Quentin if you don’t want to end up in some home for retired beach donkeys one day.’
For a second I almost laughed at the image, then caught myself. Did this sad old slapper really think she was part of show business? Worse still, did she really think I was part of the same business as her? What about all that Shakespeare with Dave, and improvisation with Dora? What about all the scripts I’d read and the books and the plays I’d sneaked into when I could afford them? Had she done all that? Maybe she had, maybe this really was the way I was going to end up, and that was why Dad was so set against me going into the business. He knew exactly where I was heading because he’d seen it at first hand.
‘I still don’t get it,’ I said.
She shrugged and picked an imaginary fleck of tobacco off her tongue. I’m guessing it was imaginary because the cigarette was filtered. ‘I’m really proud of you,’ she said, avoiding my eyes. ‘I wanted you to know that.’
‘Thanks,’ I said and an awkward silence fell. ‘I’ve got to go, I’ve got a meeting.’
It was obviously a lie, but none of them called me on it. We were all equally keen to escape from the room and breathe some clean air. As we came out the television crew appeared in reception again. The cameraman had switched on and was pointing his lens at me without saying a word.
‘Turn that f***ing camera off or I’ll kick your bollocks up between your ears!’ I snarled as I walked past. Things, it seemed, were starting to really get to me.