Death Of A Diva (5 page)

Chapter Ten

              “Lyra,” Foster murmured, “give Jenny a break, please.”

              “Why, Morgan?” Lyra asked, “the girl hates me!”

              “She’s my only child,” he answered, at which point Dominic Mouret entered, a Dictaphone in his hand.

              “Lyra,” Mouret said, “I was wondering if we could...” and that was as far as he got.

              “
Children
,” Lyra snarled, hurling the hairbrush at the opposite wall.

              Dominic stopped dead, his jaw hanging loose. “Lyra?” He asked, ignorant of the cause of the outburst.

              “They’re nothing but blood-sucking wastes of energy. And the sooner you get your idiot daughter to understand, Morgan, that I hold the purse strings, the better!”

              Foster sighed, “She’s a good kid, Lyra and you know she is.”

              “She’s a self-obsessed, vacuous bimbo,” Lyra snapped back. I looked at Dominic, wondering how he’d take this comment on his fiancée. His jaw had closed, his eyes were fixed coldly on Lyra and a nerve throbbed somewhere in his right cheek.

              “Lyra,” Foster persevered, “she’s a kid; she’s getting married. She’s excited. You know, you both used to get along so well.”

              Lyra snorted, “Back when I had to see her for no more than a day or two at a time!” She shook her head. “Bloodsucking little vampires, all of ‘em,” she muttered. Liz Britton crossed the room, picked up the hairbrush and silently replaced it on the dressing table. “You know,” Lyra mused, staring absentmindedly into the mirror, “I think if I’d ever had a kid, I’d have drowned the little fucker at birth.”

              “You don’t mean that, Lyra,” Dominic spoke up.

              “Don’t I? Oh you can switch that thing on and get this down on tape: some people – the dull, stupid, empty ones – and in particular, some
women
– the ones with no ideas, no talent and no
drive
to be anything in life other than a fucking egg factory – live to have babies. It’s,” and here her voice took on a whiney tone “
nature’s way; the best moment in a woman’s life
.” She picked up the hairbrush and jabbed it in the mirror towards Morgan’s reflection. “You can thank your lucky stars that you had the snip after Jenny, Morgan; cos if you’d ever got me up the duff I’d have strangled you first and then scraped the little bleeder out with my bare hands.”

              “She asked for a bloody dress, Lyra.”

              Lyra put the brush down and turned to face her husband. “No, Morgan. She asked
you
for a dress. Like
you
have the decision; like she can pretend
I
don’t even exist, blank
me
, go over my head to
you
and
you
would have the money to pay for a bloody designer wedding dress. Like I said, Morgan, she’s a stupid, ungrateful, spoiled and selfish little bitch and she is
not
treating me like that. Not today of all bloody days.”

              “She’s my daughter, Lyra. My child. Christ, woman, you’ve got forty years on her!” I heard an involuntary gasp escape Liz Britton, felt the temperature drop a good ten degrees and saw the rage flame up anew in Lyra’s eyes. “And she’s excited about the wedding. She was
not
disrespecting you, Lyra, she was just excited and happy and you – with your nasty little games – spoiled that happiness again.”

              “She is
not
forty years younger than me,” Lyra responded in a tone that could have given frostbite to a fish finger.

Morgan was furious. “She’s
a fraction
of your age Lyra. She’s a bloody
child
and if you can’t be grown up enough to see that and deal with it then I’m bloody grateful we never had kids cos, frankly, raising Jenny was one of the best things I ever did but raising two more kids – one of them a spoiled brat like you just fills me with terror.”

There was a moment of silence, then “Get out,” Lyra snapped through clenched teeth. We all seemed unsure whether the order had been given specifically to Morgan or to all of us and then the silence and foreign movie eye rolling ended as the brush was once again hurled across the room and the order was repeated in an ear splitting scream. “All
of you! Get the fuck out of my dressing room
!”

As one, we all sprinted for the door, which swung open. On the other side was a confused Ali.

“Um, this came for you,” she muttered, stepping into the room.

Lyra saw the object in Ali’s arms, frowned, closed her eyes in disbelief and, when she opened them, pursed her lips and raised a surprised and puzzled eyebrow.

“What. The. Fuck. Is.
That
?” She demanded.

Ali stepped into the increasingly crowded room, put the object on the table and stepped back. “It’s sort of like a bouquet, I suppose,” she said, frowning herself.

“A bouquet?” Lyra stood up and stalked slowly to the side table we’d lined up specially to hold the floral tributes we were sure would be coming and stood looking down on the item. “A bouquet?” She repeated, cruelly. “Love, that might pass for
a bouquet
in this godforsaken hole, but that is not – most definitely
not
– a bouquet.”

And for once, I had to admit, she was right.

A puff of iridescent purple cellophane ballooned out around the tribute – if tribute is the right word – that had been sent to Lyra Day – First British Lady of song stylings and Queen of Saturday night TV. Inside, a small metal bucket about six inches deep held what looked like a lavender bush. Lyra reached out and tore at the crackling cellophane. She leaned forward, inhaled, pulled the rest of the cellophane away, discarded it absentmindedly on the floor and fixed, firstly Ali and then me, with an incensed stare.

“Is this,” she demanded, “your idea of a joke?”

Again, I made like a fish, gawping wordlessly, before “No Lyra. I mean Ms Day. I can assure you; this did
not
come from anyone connected to the Marq. It’s from a fan. Obviously.”

“A fan?” She spat the question at me. “A
fan
? A
fan
who just happens to think that what I really need on my first public appearance for over a year is a fucking bald lavender bush?”

“Rosemary,” Liz interrupted, stoking the silvery-green needles on the plant.

“You
know
who sent this?” Lyra turned her rage on Liz.

“No,” Liz pinched the leaves again and held her thumb and finger out to Lyra. “It’s not lavender; it’s rosemary.”

“Jesus! If I was playing a fucking kebab house it would still be a stupid present. What’s next? An ashtray full of half-smoked fag butts.
A fan
? And just how fucking deranged, if you don’t mind telling me, do you think my
fans
are?”

At that moment, there was a tiny cough from the doorway, the words “H
ello Ms Day
”
were spoken in the sort of voice that’s usually reserved for cheap movie psychopaths and when we all turned to the door, a man stood there with a look of almost evangelical joy on his face, what looked like a hundred red roses in one arm and a cheap carrier bag gripped in the other hand.

“Oh Christ,” Morgan muttered.

“Speak of the devil,” Liz, mumbled.

And Lyra transformed instantly. “Leon!” She trumpeted, throwing her arms wide. “Darling! How lovely to see you! For
me
?” She asked, all mock surprise and innocence, as the creature shuffled forward and pushed his tribute into her perfectly manicured claws.

Chapter Eleven

              It was as though someone had flicked a switch. Lyra became, before our very eyes, a fluffy column of coquettishness and started introducing the newcomer as though we were all at a perfectly lovely cocktail party.

              “Morgan, you already know,” she addressed the newly arrived ball of grease in a voice that sounded like Irene Handel doing the Duchess of Devonshire. “Morgan, you remember Mr Baker,” she prompted.

              Baker switched his carrier bag from the right hand to the left, wiped his right on a grimy anorak that looked to house more life threatening bacteria than Porton Down, blinked behind coke-bottle lenses and shoved his hand into Morgan’s. “Mr Foster. Again. An honour, it is. An absolute honour.”

              “This is your fault,” I hissed to Caz, as I spotted Ali sliding out of the room. “
I can get you a living legend
, you said.
A cast-iron draw.
”

              Caz bristled. “She
is
a legend,” she hissed at me.

              “She’s
baby fucking Jane
,” I snapped back. “And she’s going to go
mental
when she finds out her stage set is two poinsettias, a sequinned curtain and a plastic Christmas tree.”

              “That’s not my fault,” my best friend replied, as I realised that she was manoeuvring us towards the door and out of the room. “It’s your lot.”

              “
My lot
?”

“The gays. You know: W
hom the gays would love, they first make mad
. You turned Judy into a pill popping gargoyle. Marlene was a Teutonic Howard Hughes by the end, bleaching everything in sight. Shirley’s a twitching ego maniac. Madonna – a baby snatching pious gym-freak and Cher’s little more than a bag of spares these days. It’s not my fault your lot turned this one mental too. Anyways, you’ve already sold the place out. So shut up and
go hide the knives
.”

              “And Mr Bird, the manager of the venue,” Lyra, without wincing, put her hand on the back of the manky anorak and turned the creature to face me. It was too late, whilst Caz and I had been arguing and trying to exit the scene, we’d strolled straight into an ambush. “Daniel, this is Leon Baker, my–”

              “Number one fan,” Baker interrupted in a nasal whine, blinked, twitched and stuck his hand out to be shaken.

              “I hope you can do Ms Day justice here,” he said, his eyes locking onto mine as the shine on his forehead threatened to blind me for life. “A star of her magnitude deserves a setting as brilliant as her talent. I’ve got to be honest: I was a little concerned when I heard that her return to the spotlight was to be in a venue of this sort, but then I remembered her beginnings and, I think, Ms Day–”

              “Call me Lyra, Leon; we’ve known each other for so long, after all,” Lyra simpered.

              “Lyra,” Baker turned his face to hers with the same dopey expression I’d only ever seen in breast feeding babies when it was dinner time. “But I think Lyra’s had a stroke of genius here.”

              For a moment, I thought he’d said
Lyra’s had a stroke
and the opportunity to call off this circus filled me with short-lived hope. Hope which vanished as he continued speaking.

              “The rebirth of Lyra Day, in the same type of venues she played as an ingénue. A reminder of her honest beginnings.”

              Lyra didn’t like this; I felt her stiffen beside me, though the beatific smile stayed fixed in place.

              “It’s an incredible opportunity for those who truly appreciate her amazing talent…”

              This she liked and the stiff body relaxed slightly.

“To see her up close and intimate. True genius. And only true genius; only
real
talent – would be unafraid of such a small venue.”

“
Bijou
,” Lyra murmured smoothly, placing the hand on his back once again and moving him along the unofficial receiving line. “And this is Mr. Bird’s friend,” she dismissed Caz.

“Lyra,” Foster interjected, “shouldn’t you be preparing yourself.”

Lyra produced something between a giggle and a titter, and actually fluttered her eyelashes at Baker. “Oh Morgan,” she twittered and we were only a wedding cake and a few cobwebs off Miss Havisham, “it’s hours yet to the performance. Now this,” she pushed Baker in front of Dominic Mouret, “is the young man who’s working with me on my autobiography.”

“Lyra. Your voice,” Foster persisted, somewhat desperately. “You need to save it.”

The switch flicked again. Lyra turned her face so that Baker, who stood frozen to stone, couldn’t see it and fixed Foster with a furious glare. “I’m doing introductions, dear,” she said in that spun-sugar tone she’d been using since the fan had first entered the room, “not reciting the Gettysburg
fucking
address.”

Baker – for the first time unprompted by Lyra – addressed the tall attractively dark man before him. “You are?” he asked.

“Dominic Mouret.” Dominic put a hand out, but Baker didn’t offer his own in return.

“No,” he said, “I mean you are
doing
– what – exactly?”

Dominic, flustered, dropped his hand, looked uncertainly at Lyra, and shrugged. “Well, Lyra – Ms Day – has had an incredible life,”

“So far, dear,” she simpered. “It’s not quite over yet,” and she giggled.

“Yes, um, yes,” Mouret stumbled, “and we felt that now – as she embarks on her comeback – might be a good time to reflect on the journey.”

“
Comeback
?” both Lyra and Baker chorused in horror.

“Lyra Day is
not
making a
comeback
,” Baker stated definitively, “because she’s never been away.”

I could have begged to differ; being locked in a mental ward and forced through rehab, screaming at fantasy spiders and picking imaginary woodlice off of one’s skin whilst residing in an isolation ward; these things are usually indicative of someone who’s been
away
. Instead, I stayed silent. It seemed like the best policy.

Baker seemed to be personally offended. Lyra, mollified by his chivalrous defence of her career status, obviously decided not to immediately immolate and/or eat the hapless biographer, and Mouret opened his mouth to continue his job description.

It was not to be. “And what – if I may ask – qualifies you to write a biography of Ms Day?” Baker asked.

“Co-write,” Lyra interjected.

“Well,” Mouret drew himself up to his full height, flipped his head back and looked down on Leon Baker as though he were something nasty the cat had dragged in, “my own memoir –
Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On –
was: a Times Bestseller; the biggest selling memoir in Barnes & Nobel in the States last year; an
Aftonbladet ‘
Book of the Year’;
a
Die Welt
must-read pick. It has been translated into fifteen different languages; has been optioned for movies; and was described by the Guardian as ‘one of the most poignant rags to riches stories in the genre.’”

So there!
I could almost hear him adding.

I’d read
Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On
. It was the story of a boy whose young mother had been forced by her strict father to give up the baby she’d had out of wedlock. The child had been placed into an orphanage with nothing more than his stuffed monkey, Moppet and, almost as soon as the orphanage doors had closed, the abuse had started.

In the book, the boy had been beaten, starved, raped, tortured and had been told repeatedly that he was a hideous creature that nobody could love.

His mother – once she’d got her life straight – had tried to find him and reclaim him, only to be told by the head of child services – who had subsequently turned out to be the leader of a paedophile ring – that the child had been adopted and was therefore not reclaimable. The poor woman had developed bone cancer and died without ever seeing her son again.

Finally, a wealthy and childless couple had adopted him and Dominic had finally – after much struggle and resistance on the parts of all those involved in the abuse scandal – been rescued from the system.

It wasn’t exactly a light read, but I figured his life – if it was anything like the one he’d portrayed in his memoir – had perfectly prepared the writer for the disaster that was the Lyra Day menagerie.

“I’ve lived through being unwanted,” Mouret spoke, “through being told that I had no talent, no hope, that nobody would ever love me. I’ve seen madness and horror face to face, and I’ve seen wealth and luxury, and I’ve survived both. I think that puts me in a good position to help Lyra tell her story. To help explain to the world how a working class girl who was abandoned by her father and abused by her mother and sister could turn herself into an icon of hope and beauty; how the spark of self-belief, the ball of talent, could win out over a world that sought to grind the child into the dirt.”

Can I get an Amen
, I half expected a minister somewhere to shout out.

“And what,” Baker demanded, without blinking, “was the name of Lyra’s first single? How did she feel when Cilla Black stole
Anyone Who Had a Heart
from her? Why did she reject Engelbert Humperdinck’s advances in a Las Vegas casino?”

Mouret frowned. “This isn’t about
trivia
,” he said.

“
Humperdinck
?” Lyra raised an eyebrow, which, considering the amount of Botox in her forehead was an achievement. “I’ve never even met the man. It was Tom Jones. Dirty old bugger. Wait –
trivia
? It’s not really
trivia
, Dominic dear; it’s the details of my career.”

“
Glittering
career,” Baker clarified.

Mouret shrugged. “That’ll all be covered,” he said, “but the piece is more about the person under the glitter. The little girl inside the crust that is Lyra Day.”

“The
who
in the
what
?” Lyra seemed startled. The eyebrow rose again. Her tame writer, she seemed to be realising, appeared to have ideas of his own. Ideas that might not fit with the self-image that Ms Lyra Day had cultivated. “Well, we’d need to talk about that, Dominic dear; I mean,” she confided to Baker, “it’s early days yet.”

“The contracts are signed,” Foster cut in, a worried frown creasing his brow. “The advance is already in the bank and we’ve got a publisher expecting a draft in the spring.”

“From a man who can’t even name his subject’s first Japanese number one?” Baker curled his lip. “
Really
?”

Mouret bristled then, his eyes passing over Leon to Lyra, he seemed to deflate momentarily, before taking a deep breath, redrawing himself up and fixing Baker with an even more dismissive sneer. “Yes,” he said, “
really
. There’ll be a discography and a list of awards at the end of the book but I happen to think that the story of this woman – this remarkable individual – is more than a bloody
set list
. Excuse me,” and, firmly moving Baker out of his way, he exited the room.