Altar Ego (27 page)

Which brings me to the next point. Malnourishment and a nocturnal social life produces a state of chronic fatigue.

‘Ironic, isn’t it?’ I yawned, when Kate prodded me
awake
at work one day. ‘
You
have no life. And I have too much … I’m so exhausted, I sleep when I’m awake so I won’t be so exhausted when I get back into bed.’

As if it weren’t arduous enough ricocheting back and forth from London to rendezvous with Zack on the road, I had to be a Love Goddess when I reached him. My sex drive had worn out its gearbox. Perhaps it was the constant migraines from inflating my plastic sexual pleasure enhancers? Perhaps it was the persistent pneumonia from dressing provocatively (as a lead singer’s girlfriend, you’re constantly having to slip into something less comfortable). Perhaps it was the third-degree carpet burns on bits of my anatomy that I couldn’t explain away as a housework-related incident? Or the rope burns that came under the category of The Most Humiliating Chafe Mark in The History of The Universe? Fishnet friction can inflict a nasty wound on your groin area, you know. And believe me, a shaved pudenda may sound erotic, but when it’s growing back it looks like a shag pile that has been terrorized.

I found myself getting desperate desires to do it in the missionary position. Preferably inside. Frostbite of the breasts, leeches on the labia, neck cramp from trying to keep one eye peeled for wandering psychopaths does not get a girl as aroused as her partner might think.

Nor does making love in daylight. If the Nobel Prize was awarded by a woman, it would go to the inventor
of
the dimmer switch. This is the greatest sex aid known to women-kind. Well, to women over a certain age, say
sixteen
.

‘This is getting ridiculous,’ Kate said as I pored over photos of supermodels to compare their primary and secondary sex organs with my own. We were sprawled around Anouska’s living room prodding half-heartedly at a lukewarm takeaway.

‘You don’t know what the competition’s like.’ I curled up into a little ball on the couch. ‘When Zack and I go out, women 4,000 years younger than me shove their phone numbers into his trouser pockets. Even when he introduces me as his girlfriend, their eyes don’t flicker. “Well, let’s meet up when she’s not around,” they say, “Well let’s just go outside then, right now.” Everywhere I go, I see older men with younger women. Nobody cares. It’s okay for
them
… But the glares I get strolling down the street with Zachary on my arm! The whisperings in restaurants! The pressure on me to be equally as glamorous. I mustn’t get fat. Mustn’t slob around in old clothes. Mustn’t forget to trim my split ends or push back my cuticles or …’

‘Get a grip, doll,’ counselled Anouska, between mouthfuls of chicken tikka. ‘There are lots of older women who are still attractive. There’s Goldie Hawn and that woman who was in the
First Wives Club
, what’s her name? Oh, hold on. That
was
Goldie Hawn … and then there was, um …’

‘Goldie Hawn,’ I moaned bleakly, nibbling guiltily on naan bread. ‘I’ve started doing sums in my head. When
I
was having my first sexual encounter,
he
was teething. When
he’s
ready for kids, will
I
still have a workable womb? … I mean, what if Julian’s right?’ I started chewing holes in the upholstery. ‘What if I am too old for all this? … I’ll be senile, cavorting naked with my toyboy … but not able to remember
why
… Is it love? Or am I just flattered that somebody wants me … And terrified that nobody else will? You don’t think Julian’s having an affair, do you?’ I asked Kate suddenly.

‘What? So soon?’ She didn’t take her eyes off
News at Ten
. ‘Not even amoebic disorders move that fast.’ She sniffed suspiciously at an onion bhaji.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I’m sure. I can read that man like a book. Julian couldn’t pick up anyone. Not without crib notes. Do you think we could have a conversation about something else once in a while?’ There was a sharp, querulous edge to her voice. ‘There is a big, wide world out there, you know.’ Zapping off the television with the remote, she got up to go home. She’d been walking out on me a lot lately. I jumped as the door slammed. I felt as crushed as the poppadom in my hands.

‘But, Annie, I definitely can’t rage and relate for seven nights running and live to tell the tale. I mean, look at me. I’m a basket case. I also have grave
misgivings
about the joys of rap dancing. I like to drink coke, not do it. I no longer consider hitch-hiking a means of transport. Making love in the back of a car has lost its appeal. I don’t want to use aphrodisiacal oils every night, either. They stain the sheets. And sometimes, just sometimes, I’d rather sleep. I’m convinced astrology and numerology are bullshit. That
must
make me old, goddamn it! At Zachary’s concerts I even find it reassuring to see cops around!’ Where had I heard
that
before?

Anouska promised me that I wasn’t prehistoric, but a few days later when I forgot to attend the premiere of a live art event at the ICA (although, to me, sitting naked in a bowl of your own body fluids is not an expression of artistic integrity, it’s a cry for help, goddamn it) I was convinced that I was hovering between menopause and senility.

‘God. I’m losing my memory,’ I grovelled, rushing in with Anouska as the last guests left. ‘I’ve got all the first signs of … of … what’s the name of that disease again?’

‘Alzheimer’s,’ said Kate, coldly. She was often cold lately.

‘See? … I couldn’t even remember that? Apparently, after thirty, you lose up to 100,000 brain cells a day.’

‘Riveting,’ Kate drawled half-heartedly, mop in hand.

‘It’s all right for you,’ I darted about the gallery, trying to help clean up but just getting underfoot. ‘
You’ve
graduated
from university. You’ve got plenty to spare.
I
dropped out. I need all the brain cells I can get.’

‘Why? The biggest bloody decision
you
ever have to make is whether to do it standing up or backwards.’

‘Well, why the hell not? Another year and nobody will want my body. Not even medical science. My confidence is so low, Kate. I’ll only be seen after dark. I won’t even stand beside someone with a bright personality.’

‘Which is why you’re spending so much time with Anouska,’ Kate said bluntly.

Anouska drunkenly swapped her mobile phone from one ear to the other and announced funereally, ‘I’m getting a list from the Foreign Office of dangerous holiday places, where Darius and Norbett can die a hideous death and end up in an unmarked pauper’s grave. In Bogota one person gets murdered every hour!’

‘Why not just let him commit suicide by inhaling next to Zack’s drummer after a gig?’ I joked, trying to win back Kate’s affections.

‘How would you know, doll? It’s not as though you’ve been to any gigs lately.’

Zachary agreed. ‘You still doin’ up that dive?’ he grumbled on the phone from Edinburgh later that night.

‘Yes. I’m afraid Michelangelo and Co. haven’t finished painting the walls, yet.’

‘Who?’

‘Michelangelo and … I mean, they’re taking so long
they
may as well be painting the Sistine Chapel …’ It was a crack Julian would have enjoyed. ‘Oh, forget it.’

I’d expected to miss my old life – the house, the herb garden – but I hadn’t expected to miss Julian quite so much. Little things. The verbal shorthand, the ‘in’ jokes, the pet names. An icy premonition shuddered through my body.

‘Do yer reckon they might finish, like, this side of Armageddon …?’ Zack’s voice crackled down the line. ‘Ain’t …
haven’t
seen you for that long I’m about to put your picture on a goddamn milk carton.’

I laughed. What was I doing? I had a funny, sexy, famous Love God panting for me and I was whingeing and whining around the place feeling sorry for myself. It was birthday blues, that was all. There was one thing for sure, nothing ages you so much as a birthday. I was about to celebrate the third anniversary of my thirtieth.

Hanging up, I determined Zack and I would not lose our footing on Cloud Ten. Hell, we’d have to look
down
to see Cloud Ten. With renewed verve, I vowed to prove them all wrong. I glanced down at the flesh rising over my lacy stocking tops like cheese soufflés. Okay, I may have to spend all my waking hours reversing out of rooms so that he couldn’t see the backs of my thighs and compare them to the last supermodel he’d dated, but Christ, it was worth it. I’d run away from my marriage to live on the edge, not at the gym. I was going to be an adventuress, with a
daring
capacity for lavish gratification. I would be a slave to my passion. I would be coquettish, charming, extravagant. I would be a vamp and a tramp. Nothing, but nothing, would stand between me and my pleasure. I’d left Julian to be a Steaming Jezebel and I was going to steam, goddamn it.

29
I’m Not Pleased To See You – It’s A Gun In My Pocket

DESPITE THE FACT
that it was my birthday, the only party on offer was a coming-out party for a ghost.

When Zack’s drummer, Skunk, was found dead in the toilet of his Dublin hotel room, I didn’t immediately suspect Rotterman. Not even when Zack told me that Skunk had been insured by Rottweiler Records for £500,000 and that a replacement drummer had been hired before his death. But at the Brompton Cemetery, a long overdue alarm bell went off in my self-centred cranium.

As the paparazzi swarmed like ferrets in a septic tank to get the best positions graveside, Rotterman couldn’t disguise his thrill. ‘What a publicity stunt!’

‘Rotterman, a boy’s dead!’ I reminded him in disgust. ‘I doubt it was a career move.’

‘Yeah, but think of the record sales!’ Rotterman was
always
encouraging Zack to get caught in an act of auto-eroticism or survive an assassination attempt from some right-wing extremist. As far as he was concerned, it was a rock star’s duty to expire weirdly. He skulked off behind a headstone to huddle in menacing collusion with ‘an associate’ who’d jetted in that morning from New York. Catching a glimpse of a handgun in the waist band of the associate’s trousers, all the idle threats Zack’s agent had made to me over the months suddenly became more ominous and Julian’s warning less fanciful.

Funerals of rock stars attract celebrities like flies to a dropped chop. As the coffin was lowered into the earth, paunchy, grey-templed record executives in lemon cashmere and aftershave strong enough to, well, wake the dead, cut record deals. High-heeled ‘mourners’, bitching about who got to go to the wake – ‘I knew him better than
she
did’ – made dates with the surviving band members.

After the funeral the simulated grief continued at our house off Abbey Road. Record bigwigs (compensating for physical inadequacies by wearing bulging money belts at groin level – the male version of the Wonderbra), and bohemian band members, sporting the ‘I’m too Creative to Shave’ look (yet, curiously, their stubble stayed at exactly the same length all year round) swapped Skunk anecdotes as tasteless as the finger food – it was death by vol-au-vent.

When I located Zachary in the newly renovated kitchen, the two Armani suits were waving another contract under his nose.

‘Zachary!’ I exclaimed, in a voice to rattle china. ‘Don’t sign that! Not unless you want to find yourself having to flee to some remote Argentinian fishing village at short notice!’

Zachary frogmarched me into a secluded part of the garden. ‘Quit motherin’ me, would ja,’ he ordered, his diction deteriorating.

‘I am not mothering you although, now you mention it – you’re grounded for three weeks,’ I said, feebly.

He smiled tightly. ‘You know I’m splittin’ for Budapest in an hour.’ He tugged me down on to the lawn ‘An’ you should be comin’ with me.’

‘Um … I don’t think so. Knowing Rotterman he’ll have you booked on to the sort of airline where the cargo door has a habit of opening at unexpected times, ensuring that the passengers land slightly ahead of their aircraft.’

‘Yeah? The only time in yer life that yer don’t wanna be informed that a man’s
goin’ down
.’ Although his hand was under my bra, I detected a note of weariness in the innuendo. ‘Yer should come, Beck … I mean, we’re like growin’ apart in little ways, girl.’

‘I know. You sleep when I’m awake. You’re awake when I’m asleep. Your brothel bill …’ He laughed, but half-heartedly, and stopped caressing my breasts. ‘We
don
’t talk any more, either,’ I added, stroking his face. For once, body language would not be eloquent enough.

‘You’re right. I don’t talk to you enough … See you later, babe. Gotta go pack.’

‘Oh. Typical. You can‘t even talk about not talking enough.’

‘Then come on with me! Yer s’posed to be my woman.’

‘If I’m that important to you, then stay. I mean it, Zack. I don’t think you should go. Listen to me. You know the company collects on the insurance money. When we were in Bristol I saw Rotterman giving heroin to Skunk.’

I waited for his nuclear reaction. But Zack merely lit a roll your own and dragged on it indolently.

‘What’s wrong with you? I’m more upset about Rotty giving that poor kid drugs and then him
over-dosing shortly afterwards
than
you
are – and
I
didn’t even know him.’

‘I’m upset, okay.’ His eyes flashed angrily. ‘I just don’t choose to show it.’

‘I’ll never understand men. You won’t ring your mothers, you don’t cry at
Sleepless in Seattle
, you can’t say “I love you” to the woman who bears your children, you can’t cry at a friend’s funeral and yet you weep blood when the Rolling Stones revival tour is rained off.’

‘Look, in the music business it ain’t whether yer a
motherfucker
. It’s whether yer less of a motherfucker than some other motherfucker. The man’s gonna get me heavy coin to pose for a Calvin Klein ad.’

‘God! Do you really want to become a Spice Boy? You really want your success to be gauged by the number of puppy-fat midriffs you autograph? I don’t want to live out our life in the tabloids – “the Zack and Becky Show! Join them on their Journey To The Centre Of Pop”.’ Zack smiled. ‘Don’t smile! I can’t bear you smiling at home. Your smile is now owned by all those other people. It’s copyrighted, for Christ’s sake.’