Love Lies

31. Fern

It seems as though my eyes have just closed when they spring open again. Light and about a hundred people flood through my door. I only have eyes for Scott. He is breathtaking. He bounds up the mezzanine stairs and nosedives on to the bed and starts to kiss me, seemingly unaware of the other ninety-nine people in the room. All of whom are carrying fresh flowers and fruit or clean towels and toiletries to replace the untouched ones in the bathroom.

His kisses are gentle and erotic at the same time. Excitement starts to snake in my stomach and I forget to worry about morning breath or what I must look like (a state, I’m in last night’s clothes and makeup, my hair will be frizzy and knotty rather than tousled). Neither of us seems to care.

‘Morning, gorgeous wifie-to-be.’ A cool hand has slipped beneath the sheet and under my top. It’s lying flat on my ribcage, just centimetres from the modest swell of my breast. I’ve never experienced anything so erotic in my life. ‘Sleep well?’

I beam at him like some sort of crazy loon and only just manage to stammer, ‘Great.’

‘Good.’ He kisses the corner of my mouth. It’s a slow sexy kiss, a mooching kiss, a full-of-promise kiss which causes the hairs on every inch of my body to stand erect.

‘Gorgeous rooms, aren’t they?’ I mumble.

He stops kissing, glances around, as if for the first time, and then smiles at me. ‘Yeah, nice. Glad you like them.’ He resumes kissing, this time my earlobe.

The kisses are utterly fabulous but I can’t dissolve into them completely as I’m aware that someone is opening curtains, someone else is carrying in newspapers and two other people are setting up breakfast in the room downstairs. I can’t seduce or be seduced or even discuss the detail of our sleeping arrangements in front of an audience. Scott must sense my inhibition; he pulls away from me and says, ‘I thought we’d eat breakfast together and make some plans.’ He claps his hands together with excitement. ‘Sound good?’

‘Sounds perfect.’

It is official I am the luckiest woman on the earth. If I was in any doubt (which I’m not), it says so in all the newspapers. The tabloids have gone wild. Every one of them headlines with Scottie’s proposal. Most play with the title of one of his songs

SCOTTIE IS FEELING FINE; THAT’S NO LIE

SCOTTIE FINALLY LOVES TO LOVE

SCOTTIE SAYS COME BACK AND MARRY ME

Not that it’s clear where I’m supposed to have been in order to ‘come back’. The accuracy of the headline seems to be irrelevant. Attention-grabbing is all. The tabloids dissect Scott’s past love life, running mug shots of a variety of women (celeb and civilian) who have had the pleasure. I marvel at the array of stunning women he’s dated.

‘I never knew you had a thing with Madonna before she got with Guy Ritchie,’ I gasp.

‘Is that what the papers say?’ asks Scott with a noncommittal shrug.

Even the qualities cover the story. Although they tend to concentrate on Scott’s creative and financial achievements rather than his sexual exploits.

Scottie Taylor (Grammy Award-nominated, 10-time BRIT Award-winning English singer-songwriter), whose career started as a member of the pop band X-treme, stunned his fans last night at his Wembley concert by proposing to a previously unknown girlfriend. Scottie Taylor is the second biggest selling British solo artist in history – Robbie Williams being the first. Taylor’s album sales stand at over 50 million worldwide, and in addition he has also sold an estimated 12 million singles.

I’m struck again – in fact almost paralysed – by how strange this is. Scottie Taylor is sat in the same room as I am, and he’s eating toast.

‘I hate it that they always bring up Robbie. He hasn’t brought out anything new for ages. Why can’t they concentrate on me and the here and now?’ says Scott peevishly. ‘Oh God, look, he’s made a comment in the Observer.’

‘Who has? Robbie Williams?’ I can’t hide my excitement. ‘What does he say?’

‘He says, “Well, at least that’s one thing Scottie beat me to,”’ says Scott. Scott looks momentarily hacked off but then his frown lines dissolve and I almost think I imagined them. ‘Well, he’s right,’ says Scott, smiling. ‘Robbie might sell more records but only just, and I have you, which, you know, is my ace card. You’re worth your weight in platinum albums.’

I bask in the compliment.

We slowly eat breakfast and paw over the papers. Scott jokingly comments which papers carry a photo that makes him look trim and hot. There are photos of the gig but, thankfully, there aren’t any of me. I feared there’d be a shot of me passed out in a cold faint; green face and legs splayed ungainly. Luckily, not one of the hundreds of photographers present managed to get that shot. When Scott was proposing to me no one really knew who he was talking to, and while lots of cameras were pointing in my general direction, they were all directed at a rather busty supermodel who, coincidentally, was sat three rows behind me. She seemed a likely candidate for a Scottie Taylor proposal. I (a flat-chested florist from the wrong streets in Clapham) did not.

I let out a big sigh. Scott misinterprets my relief as disappointment.

‘Fern, love, don’t be disappointed. There will be hundreds of photos of you in the papers before you know it. Thousands. You should be grateful for the anonymity while you have it. It won’t last long.’

‘That’s not why I sighed. I’m relieved not to have my

‘That’s what I thought, you need time. I said that to Mark and he worked hard last night to keep your name out of the papers.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘The rat pack know who you are already. I did sing happy birthday Fern. It’s an unusual name so you were easy to track down. I imagine most of your ex’s crew were rushing to spill the beans. No matter, we just struck a few deals to ask them to hold off announcing your name just yet.’

‘Why? How?’

‘Why? Because I thought you needed time to adjust to all of this. And how, we just pointed out that the story runs for longer if the details are revealed in dribs and drabs. They’ll sell more papers. End of.’

‘So they do know my identity?’

‘Yes.’

‘But they are offering a substantial financial reward to any member of the public that can identify me?’

‘Yup. Rule number one. You can’t believe what you read in the papers.’

‘Ever?’

‘No, not ever. Sometimes they print the truth but since

I must look perplexed, because Scott kisses the end of my nose and says, ‘It’s a mad world, I know, but you’ll get used to it soon enough, more’s the pity.’

For a moment he looks genuinely regretful at the thought that I’ll be dragged into the media circus that is his life.

‘You OK with your decision though?’ he asks, tentatively.

‘The one about living the rest of my days in wedded bliss with you?’ I beam at him.

‘Yeah,’ he laughs, but he’s too nervous for the smile to crawl into his eyes.

‘Certainly am.’ I pause and then bravely add, ‘If you are.’

Say you are. Say you are. Say you are. I secretly plead.

He nods slowly, carefully. ‘It struck me when I was hugging that girl from the audience the other night.’

‘Which one, the blonde or the brunette?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t even notice one was blonde and one was brunette.’

‘Friday was blonde, Saturday was brunette.’ I remember with horrifying clarity. On Sunday he missed that part of his act, much to my delight.

‘Yeah, well, whichever. I realized for the first time something that should have been obvious for years now. This is all too much for one guy on his own. I make or break dreams with the same regularity as other people make their beds. I’ve been overwhelmed by those audi

Scott looks perplexed and vaguely alarmed. Somehow he wears even that look in a way which is knicker-ticklingly sexy. Consumed with lust, I am unable to answer. I just nod. It’s true. It does appear that he can snap their dreams just as easily as if they were the matchsticks we used when playing cards the other day. Scott continues.

‘But who is responsible for my dreams and my happiness?’

I almost answer, Saadi, Mark, the enormous entourage that follows him around twenty-four-seven, but I bite my tongue. I don’t think that’s what he means.

‘It’s a big responsibility making all those people happy,’ he adds.

‘Huge,’ I agree.

‘And I thought you might be the best person to, you know, share it with me.’ I offer up an enormous unconditional grin. ‘I’ve known for a long time that the world is a big place, almost too big. I think that’s what the dependency on the drink and the drugs is about. Or at least that’s part of it. But I’ve been thinking it might not be so lonely if you were, you know, hanging around it with me.’

‘Why me?’ I ask. Because I have no idea. Really, absolutely none.

He smiles. ‘I don’t know why exactly but I’m sure it is you.’ We’re sat opposite each other. He rests his bare foot on my chair. I fight the urge to kiss his feet and suck his toes. I shiver with the effort of restraining. Hell, he’s magnificent.

‘I’m not cool,’ I warn.

‘I like that in you. You’re fun, and fun tops cool any day of the week. Besides, it’s not all going to be palatial living and parties for you.’

‘Isn’t it?’ I pretend to sound disappointed.

‘I’m a bad man. Remember. I told you.’

‘Yes, I remember.’

‘Do you think you can make me good?’

‘I don’t even want to.’

Scott laughs so hard that he nearly chokes on his orange juice. He points at the enormous pile of papers now casually discarded and littering the shaggy rug. ‘Do you think you might be able to forget who I am?’

‘Do you want me to?’

‘Yes.’

‘Really?’ I probe.

‘No, not really,’ he laughs again. ‘Cos I’m a god out there.’

We laugh once more. Delighted in each other.