I Heart Paris (32 page)

‘Oh my God!’ I pushed some loose hair behind my ears and took a step towards her. ‘This was all in the bar, wasn’t it? You didn’t even see him after the gig last night.’

‘He said—’

‘Stop telling me what he said and tell me the truth.’ I took another step as she stumbled backwards. High heels and stage cables do not mix. ‘Did you spend the night with my boyfriend or not?’

‘Maybe not last night, but—’

‘Piss off, Solène,’ I said with as much venom as I could muster given how incredibly relieved I felt. ‘You’re pathetic.’

I hadn’t thought she would break down in floods of tears exactly, maybe more of a defeated skulk back to where she came from, but really, the last thing I’d expected was for her to let out a terrifying battle cry and throw herself at me, pulling at my hair, and generally behaving like a complete psycho. I tried to fend her off, flashing back to my last full-on girl fight, with Janet Martin on the school playing field in year nine. Only this time, there was no Louisa around to kick her in the shins while I ran away.

‘What the—’ I panted, trying to push her away. But compared to her, I was an amateur. I might have got one unexpected slap away on Virginie, but this was not Solène’s first time in full combat. The Alice band had been my first mistake. She ripped it out of my hair and began attacking me with it like a claw. There must have been a full minute of battle before anyone even attempted to break us up, most likely because the first person so spot the fight was Craig, and I saw him actually hold one of the roadies back so he could watch. If I lived through this, he was next on my ass-kicking list.

Before Solène could attempt to pull any more of my hair out at the roots, I felt someone swoop in behind me and pick me up by the waist. Luckily, the elevated height meant that I was able to land a good kick to her jaw as I was snatched away and then dropped unceremoniously on to my backside.

‘Angela, what are you doing?’ Graham hissed, attempting to hold Solène away with one arm. ‘Everyone can see you.’

‘I’m going to kick her arse, Graham, leave it,’ I said, scrambling to my feet and pushing him out of the way. But I shouldn’t have launched myself at such a skinny target with so much vigour. As soon as I hit her, we both barrelled backwards, landing in an undignified heap, only stopping the scrapping just long enough to ascertain that we were right in the middle of the stage.

The crowd whooped and screamed as we appeared on the big screens set up at either side of the stage. I sat up, straddling Solène, and stared out at the sea of people.

‘Oh shit,’ I said, blinded by the flashes coming from the photo pit.

‘Stupid bitch!’ Solène wailed, knocking me off balance and rolling over on top of me. The crowd cheered us on as Solène sent a flurry of tiny fists my way while I wriggled underneath her, slapping away her hands and kicking my legs wildly. It only took someone who would for ever be on my shitlist a couple of seconds to turn on the stage mics so that the crowd could hear the running commentary of bilingual cursing, and, even though it felt as if she’d been clawing at my face for hours, it was probably only seconds before I felt her foot in my stomach as she was pulled up and away.

Opening my eyes, I saw that it wasn’t a roadie or Graham or even Craig removing Solène, but Virginie, who was dragging her backwards across the stage. Even though she was considerably smaller than my nemesis, Virginie had the element of surprise. And a good handful of her hair, right at the roots. Solène’s dress had ridden up around her waist and one of the heels of her thigh-high boots had snapped off. She wasn’t really looking her best for the cameras. The two girls screamed at each other in French, to the delight of the hometown crowd, Solène trying to twist out of Virginie’s vice-like grip and Virginie kicking her feet forwards to the edge of the stage. I propped myself up on my elbows to watch and try to get my breath back. Fighting was the best aerobic exercise I’d ever tried.

Just as Virginie was about to push Solène backstage, she managed to weasel herself free and started attacking my would-be saviour. I jumped up, making sure my own T-shirt covered everything it was supposed to, and leaped back into the fray. I pushed Virginie out of the way, as gently as possible given the heat of the moment, and turned back to give Solène the slap she so sorely deserved. Solène looked surprised to see me back up on my feet, but not surprised enough to forget what we were doing. Before I could even draw back my hand she planted a fist in my cheek, exactly where I’d blacked my own eye.

‘Oh, you bitch,’ I squealed, doubling over and pressing a hand to my face. Solène gave me a triumphant smirk, shuffled her dress back into place and flicked her hair back over her shoulder. Before I could even think to react, I heard a loud wail behind me and saw a flash of brunette hair barrel by. I staggered out of the way, falling back down on my arse just in time to see Virginie smack Solène full in the face. She wavered for a moment, teetering backwards and forwards on one flat foot and one four-inch heel, and then took a step backwards on to the stage to steady herself. Unfortunately, there was no more stage. I held my breath, waiting for her comedy windmilling arms to propel her forward, but nope. She dropped off the front of the stage like a brick, right into a huddle of photographers, all trying to get a good shot of the bitchfest. I waited to hear her start screaming before I breathed out and she didn’t make me wait long.

Virginie and I crawled to the edge of the stage and peered over to see Solène slapping away the helping hands that tried to pull her upright. I waved down at her with a cheesy smile, able to laugh now I knew she hadn’t accidentally broken her neck. Which probably would have been a bit harsh. She pushed through the popping flashbulbs and out of the photo pit, vanishing into the crowd, who cheered as she went by.

I shook my head, gingerly rubbing my cheek. I couldn’t believe she’d actually gone for an all-out punch. And I couldn’t believe that Virginie had KO’d her off the stage.

‘Thanks for that,’ I said, pushing my cheekbone in as I spoke.

‘I am not normally violent,’ Virginie blushed, ‘but I feel better.’

‘You don’t need to explain to me. I completely understand that sometimes, you just need to slap someone. Or hit them with a shoe. Sorry about that again, by the way.’

‘You did not hit me with a shoe?’ she said, confused.

I turned to look at the side of the stage where Graham was still standing, openmouthed and staring at the chaos. Craig was beside him, but looking far less concerned, in that he was making rock signs at me while drinking a beer.

‘No Alex?’ I mouthed, not knowing whether or not the mics were still turned on. Graham shook his head and shrugged, pointing at his watch. The band should have gone onstage five minutes ago.

Without the impromptu entertainment to keep then occupied, the crowd began to get restless. A small section at the front began chanting for Stills, and the cry soon rippled all the way to the back of the square. Graham threw his hands up in the air and turned away, holding his phone to his ear.

‘Erm, is this still on?’ I asked no one in particular, picking up a stray microphone from the floor. A high-pitched squeal from the monitor in front of me confirmed that yes, it was. And without knowing what I was going to say, I suddenly had the crowd’s attention, whether I wanted it or not.

‘Hi,’ I said slowly. ‘I’m Angela. Sorry about the whole fighting thing.’

The crowd was suddenly silent. And all looking at me.

A lone voice in the photographers’ pit coughed and shouted up to the stage. ‘
En Français
?’

‘
Je suis desolée, je ne parlez vous la Français
?’ I stuttered my stock phrase into the microphone against a wave of boos. ‘But I’m sure Stills will be on in just a minute.’

The boos faded out to some confused mass chatter.

‘Ah,
Stills seront sur la scène dans un moment
,’ Virginie grabbed the mic out of my hand, and the crowd responded with a cheer. ‘Say something,’ Virginie urged, her hand over the microphone. ‘I will translate.’

I took the mic back and stared out. Really, that was a lot of people.

‘So, my name is Angela and I’m a huge Stills fan,’ I put the microphone back in its stand.

There was a brief delay while Virginie translated, followed by a huge roar.

‘Angela, what are you doing?’ Graham yelled offstage. Craig was too busy shouting along with the crowd. It seemed he was a huge fan of his own band.

‘I don’t really know,’ I shouted back. ‘I want to say I’m buying you some time, but I might mean making myself look like a complete dick.’

‘Yeah, the second one sounds right,’ he shouted back.

‘The band are having some technical issues,’ I said back into the mic. ‘So they’ll be on in a minute.’

A murmur travelled across the square. The cameraman at my feet called something out to Virginie, bypassing me altogether. And she replied into the microphone, eliciting a loud whoop, followed by a mass giggling from the female festival goers.

‘What did you just say?’ I hissed across the stage, blinded by a sudden outbreak of flashes at my feet.

‘He asked who you were,’ Virginie said, backing away from the cameras slightly. ‘I told him you were the girlfriend.’

‘You didn’t?’

This was not good. I was not in a state to be photographed as ‘girlfriend of the lead singer’. I could possibly pass as ‘drug dealer of the lead singer’, but that was about it. A fact not lost on the girls in the audience, who did not seem too keen on Virginie’s revelation. I was seeing a lot of arms folding in front of me and even hearing a few boos. Harsh, ladies.

‘They want to know why the band aren’t onstage,’ Virginie translated the random screaming coming from the front few rows. ‘I think you should tell them, it is a very sweet story.’

‘No it isn’t!’ I replied, trying to think of more diversionary tactics, but all I could come up with was flashing the crowd, and that wasn’t going to win anyone over. Certainly not the girls, who already hated me. This was not one of my best ever days. ‘I’m not telling them why Alex isn’t here.’

‘Then I will tell them.’ Virginie gave me a sly smile. The new Virginie had more in common with Jenny than enough. ‘They also want to know why we were fighting with the girl from Stereo.’

‘Fine.’ I looked out at the thousands of people one last time before someone turned a spotlight on above me and made them all disappear. ‘OK, basically it’s like this.’

Somewhere offstage to my right, I heard Graham cursing. Onstage to my left, I could hear Virginie’s fast translation.

‘So at least when I got to Paris, I was Alex’s girlfriend, Alex from the band,’ I clarified by pointing at the huge, blown-up Stills album cover hanging from the stage rigging behind me. ‘But he didn’t tell me his ex-girlfriend lived here, that was the girl that I was sort of talking to onstage a moment ago.’

‘You want me to say “talking to”?’ Virginie stopped translating mid-sentence and gave me a ‘really?’ look. ‘They are French, not blind.’

‘Just say it.’ I gave her look right back and continued with my story. ‘So yeah, she was hanging around, pretending she wanted to be my friend, inviting me to parties and stuff, but it turned out she just wanted to break us up so she could get Alex back.’

I couldn’t see the crowd, but I could hear them ruminating this twist in the tail. The photographer, acting as their representative, shouted a question up to Virginie.

‘He wants to know why they broke up in the first place,’ she repeated in English.

‘Oh, because she was cheating on him,’ I said, waiting for the appropriate response. And I got it. Ten thousand sharp intakes of breath and unmistakable ‘bitch!’ comments echoed around the square. ‘Yeah, she was really awful. And this was a couple of years ago, before I ever met Alex. She totally broke his heart.’

I realized the murmuring had stopped. There was nothing, but silence while everyone waited for me to go on with the story.

‘So yesterday, Stills played Nouveau Casino in Paris,’ I paused for a couple of ‘I-was-there-whoops’ to die down. ‘And she announces that they’re getting back together. And I didn’t know what to think because I’d seen them in a bar together before the gig and Alex and I had sort of had a misunderstanding about us moving in together—’

‘You’re moving in with him?’ Craig asked from offstage. ‘Dude, that’s sweet!’ Graham punched him in the arm and smiled at me, shaking his head.

‘Well anyway, I was really upset because I didn’t know what was going on and I’d cocked up my job a bit.’ I looked over at Virginie who winced as she translated. ‘But I think that’s all going to be OK, and I was really homesick for my friends back in the UK and so I decided to leave and go back to London. And well, basically, Alex followed me to London except I changed my mind at the last minute and came back to Paris to find him. Which is why he’s not here.’

The crowd let this sink in for a moment before the confused chatter started again.

‘Perhaps it was not that sweet a story,’ Virginie said, stepping back from the stage as the crowd started to get rowdy. ‘Or perhaps we should not have told them that he is in London looking for you.’

Before anything could turn nasty, the photographer yelled something out and the crowd began to laugh, chanting something over and over.

‘Angela?’ Virginie tried and failed to suppress a smile.

‘What?’

‘They want you to sing.’

I stepped out of the spotlight for a moment, trying to get my eyesight back. It didn’t change anything. There were still 10,000 people shouting ‘
chantez
’ at me, over and over and over. And looking over to Graham and Craig, they weren’t helping. In fact, Graham was clapping along with the chant and Craig was running to his drums, shouting something about playing along.

‘No, really. I don’t sing.’ I laughed nervously. ‘Unless you’ve had several drinks and I’m going to do “Hungry Like the Wolf” on karaoke, you don’t want me to sing.’

‘They like “Hungry Like the Wolf”,’ Virginie confirmed as the photographer gave me a thumbs up.

My heart was pounding so hard, I could barely breathe. How was this happening? At what point did I think addressing the crowd at a music festival and joking about singing a Duran Duran song was a good idea?