Remember My Name (18 page)

We stared at each other for a few more seconds, the music and the chatter and the haze of the party seeming to retreat into somebody else’s reality as we did. Had I imagined it, or had we just had a ‘moment’?

Before I could wonder any further, he mumbled, ‘Take care of yourself, Jess,’ turned around, and left—heading right back towards my parents.

I stood there for a bit, arms dangling by my sides, probably looking as vacant as your average shop window mannequin, before shrugging and walking away. Men. They were a complete mystery to me, and I was never very good at puzzles.

I scanned the crowd and spotted Jack, deep in conversation with Vogue next to the bar. I’d had this crazy idea that I’d find him, persuade him to take me away from all this, and go back
to his flat for a takeaway and sex. That would have been the perfect distraction from my familial woes, and the perfect antidote to what had just almost happened with Daniel—that thing that might have almost happened with Daniel, but I might also have just completely imagined. I wasn’t exactly stable just then.

The problem was, I couldn’t think of a way to make my intentions known to Jack without revealing our super-secret relationship to Vogue. They showed no signs of slowing up or walking away from each other, and I couldn’t hang around there all night.

My phone was with the rest of my stuff back in the dressing room, so I headed in that direction. I decided I could get my bag, indulge in a bit of textual intercourse with Jack, and if I was lucky scrounge up a few snacks from the backstage staff while I was at it. Win win.

I made my way through the crowd, stopping to chat, smile, and pose for photos—eyes and teeth darling, eyes and teeth—all the way. Eventually, I burst through the door into the dressing room, and lay down on the floor.

The venue itself was very posh, very glam, and very perfect for a single launch. The floor of the dressing room, though, I have to say, was not very posh or very glam or very perfect for anything at all—unless your thing was snorting dirty carpet fibres through one nostril.

Still, it was flat, and it allowed the whole of my body to stretch out, without having to fight gravity and my own physical exhaustion in a losing battle to stay standing. I reached up with one boot and managed to nudge my bag off the chair,
happy to see it crash land right by my hand. I’d have been gutted if I’d had to move and crawl across the minging carpet to get at it.

I scooped out my phone, and a two-bar KitKat I’d stashed in there earlier for emergencies. I decided this qualified as an emergency, and slit open the foil wrapper, biting a big chunk off both fingers at once. The chocolate hit my tastebuds so hard I thought my mouth was going to explode, and I rolled around on the floor for a moment, moaning in ecstasy as I chewed. Good, that was good.

Once I’d climaxed and all the KitKat was gone, I messaged Jack: ‘Back to yours for a curry and a shag?’ it said. I’ll admit it wasn’t subtle, but as chat up lines went, it had worked for me before. I stayed there on the ground, holding my phone up above my head as though I was taking the world’s grungiest selfie—lying on a grotty rug covered in KitKat smears.

I heard the door slam open again, and Neale walked through it, stopping dead in his tracks when he saw me, and looking on in horror.

‘Don’t do it!’ he shouted. ‘Don’t take a picture—one of your boobs has made a break for freedom!’

I glanced down and, sure enough, all that chocolate-based orgasming and rolling round on the floor had dismantled one half of Neale’s tit-tape masterpiece. I held the phone in one hand, and shoved the booby back in with the other. At least it hadn’t happened while I’d been talking with Daniel—that whole scene had been confusing enough as it was without accidentally flashing him.

‘I wasn’t going to take a picture,’ I said, dragging myself
into a seating position. I was aiming for standing, but stalled halfway. ‘I’m waiting for a text … but it doesn’t look like it’s coming. Are you still going out tonight?’

‘Yes! Me and some of the dancers and a few of my friends from beauty school. Do you want to come? Have you found your second wind? Do you want me to wrangle your bosoms again?’

I thought through all his questions, and wondered what I did want to do. Not that long ago, I’d wanted to go home, alone, and drink hot chocolate. Then I’d almost snorted drugs with a journalist in a nightclub toilet. Then I’d fallen out with my parents, and come very close to shagging my oldest childhood friend. Jack wasn’t replying to my message, and a gang of attractive gay male dancers wanted to go clubbing with me. My life had become a very strange place.

‘Yes to all of it,’ I said, hauling myself up. ‘But only if you promise me one thing.’

‘What’s that, my treasure?’ Neale said, immediately going to work with the magic tape.

‘We get to call at a McDonald’s on the way. There are some problems that only a Big Mac meal will cure. ‘

T
he next morning, I felt so ill I suspected the only thing that would cure me would be decapitation. I’d drunk so much I couldn’t even remember getting home, but as I was in my own bed, I clearly had done. Neale and the boys could really put it away and, for some reason, once we’d arrived at the club, I’d decided that tequila slammers were my friend.

I was wrong, I realised, rolling around under the duvet, holding my head in my hands and wondering if I could physically tear it off. Tequila was nobody’s friend. Tequila had persuaded me it would be a great idea to go stage-diving into the waiting arms of a few hundred of my closest strangers; tequila had convinced me that recreating the bar-dancing scenes from
Coyote Ugly
was an even better idea; and tequila had somehow fooled me into thinking that snogging the one non-gay man I could find working behind that bar was equally desirable.

After that, it was all a blank. Like all those bitchy non-friends we’ve all had, tequila had abandoned me and left me to get home on my own, not caring if I fell down a manhole or got abducted by aliens on the way. Tequila was rubbish at
sticking to the Girls Look After Each Other When They’re Drunk Code.

At least, though, I was on my own, I thought, kicking my toes around the bed a bit just to make sure there wasn’t someone really small in there with me. I’d been so bladdered, anything could have happened—which was stupid for any woman at the best of times, but especially stupid for someone in my position.

Neale had assured me that the club was ‘safe’—that celebs went there all the time, even some of the closeted ones, and nobody ever posted pics of them on Instagram or tweeted about seeing them. ‘You’re free to make as much of a twat of yourself as you like, my little petal,’ he’d said, kissing me on the cheek before he dragged me off into a thronging mass of disco-buff bodies.

By that time I’d snaffled my Big Mac, put the blow-up with my dad to the back of my mind, and decided I was more than capable of forgetting about both Daniel and Jack for at least one evening. What better way to forget about one group of men than by spending the night with a completely different group of men? I think there may also have been a sneaky extra McDonald’s afterwards as well. I was living the dolce vita and no mistake.

I eventually persuaded my body to co-operate, climbed out of bed, feeling nauseous, tired, and very, very bruised. I paused in front of the mirror, and saw big, dark blue marks forming on my left hip. Ah. Mystery Night Out Injuries. They weren’t the first I’d ever had, and they probably wouldn’t be the last.

I tried to avoid looking at my face, but caught a glimpse
of it by mistake. It was a disaster zone, and I ran straight for the shower to try and scrub it off. First the old make-up, but then the whole face, if necessary.

Just as I’d managed to strip naked, so hungover I got tangled up in my own legs twice as I tried to climb out of my knickers, I heard the doorbell ringing. I ignored it to start with—the building had a doorman who never let anybody up without permission, and I hoped that if I left it long enough, they’d stop pressing the buzzer. It might just be the postman or a delivery person or a bottle of tequila with arms and legs, popping round to see if I fancied some hair of the dog.

Typically enough—because these things never worked out simply—it didn’t stop, and I was forced to throw on a robe, and go to the intercom panel by the door. I hit the screen button, and saw grainy black-and-white pictures of my entire family standing in the lobby of my building, accompanied by my assistant Tilly. She was the one pressing the buzzer, and looking pretty scared about it too.

I may, at that point, have said something very rude indeed, just to myself, before I buzzed them up. I had about two minutes while they were in the lift, and I used it to swill my face at the kitchen sink, and put some clean pants on. I did a quick scan of the flat for anything incriminating—used condoms, talcum powder that could be mistaken for something more sinister, drunken drag queens stashed in the wardrobe—and trained my face to smile before I opened the door.

Hungover as I was, I still remembered what Daniel had said the night before—about needing to forgive them for being clingy, and being lucky to have people in my life who cared
about me, and not about my earning potential. He was right, and I needed to try and make things right with them. They were due to leave that afternoon, and whatever else I had on, I’d make sure I went with them to the station and waved them goodbye.

Becky was the first through the door, and she immediately gave me a wink and handed me a can of chilled Diet Coke. I mouthed a silent ‘Thank you’ to her, realising the gesture meant she’d figured out I might be a bit the worse for wear this morning. She was always the perceptive one—or possibly I was always the predictable one.

Luke ambled through, paying more attention to his phone than to me, mumbling a quick ‘All right, Sis’ as he entered.

Mum and Dad were the last through the door, and I tried out a smile for size. I had the urge to say I was sorry, but I didn’t know quite what I had to be sorry for. All I’d done was work hard, follow the dream they’d always told me they believed in, and make a success of myself. Somewhere along the line, though, I’d cocked up.

My dad took one look at me and gave me a great big hug. The kind of massive, bear-like hug that only a dad can give.

‘I’m sorry, Jessy,’ he said, whispering it into my ear before he pulled away. I felt my eyes filling up again, and knew not to push it. I immediately felt guilty and wanted ask him exactly what he was sorry for; I was the one who had snapped. But that wouldn’t be worth it—I needed to accept the olive branch, and try and move on.

‘‘S’okay,’ I sniffled. ‘I got you back by wiping snot on your jacket.’

He glanced down at his lapel, and laughed.

‘You’ve done worse to me in the past, love—like that time you did a projectile shit all across the room and it hit my ankles!’ Me, Becky, and Luke all simultaneously made variations on ‘uggh’, ‘yuk’, and ‘eew’ noises, and Mum added, ‘She was only three months old at time, Phil. And you’d better get used to things like that, Becks, because you’ll be the one shovelling it before long.’

‘Nah,’ said Becky, stroking her round belly lovingly, ‘I’ve ordered one that doesn’t poo.’

All at once, all five of us looked up and said at the same time, ‘If you don’t shit, you die! ‘, and burst into laughter.

It was an old saying of my grandad’s, who was obsessed with bowel movements. He used to constantly ask all of us to ‘Pop down the chemist for something to make me go,’ and had a whole cabinet full of various laxatives. As far as anybody could tell, he’d never had any particular problems in that area—but perhaps that was down to his daily breakfast of All Bran and prunes. He’d toddled off to the great chemist in the sky five years ago, but the saying had always stuck. It was kind of our family motto—possibly we should get it made up into some kind of personalised Malone bunch coat of arms.

‘What time’s your train?’ I asked, realising I had absolutely no clue what time it was. ‘I’ll come with you to the station.’

‘Erm …’ said Tilly, who’d snuck in behind my dad’s bulk and was hovering nervously at the rear of the group, ‘in about twenty minutes? We did try calling earlier, Jessika, but there was no answer. So we decided to just pop in on our way to the station. We really need to get going now, if we’re going to make it through the traffic …’

She looked terrified, as though I was likely to give her a mighty back-hander and knock her across the room for daring to suggest such a thing. I had no idea why she was so scared—we weren’t best friends, and I barely knew anything about her, but I’d never approached at Patty-style levels of intern abuse. Maybe she was just always anxious.

‘Oh,’ I said, looking around and wondering where I’d left my coat, or if it had even made it home. ‘Okay. Give me two ticks to get dressed …’

‘No, it’s all right love, we’ll get off,’ said Mum. ‘Tilly’s got the car waiting downstairs, our bags are all in it. We just wanted to call in and say goodbye. And, well, you know you can always come home, don’t you, Jessy? You know you’re always welcome with us, and you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do?’

I cringed guiltily. Admittedly, I looked like death not even warmed up this morning—but it was just a hangover. They’d seen me worse before, and I supposed that was the thing. They were used to
seeing
me worse, used to having me close. Under their protection—and their control. Now I was down here, hundreds of miles away and living in a different world—one that hadn’t impressed them a great deal.

I took a deep breath and tried to keep my smile in place. I didn’t want us to lose the ground we’d just made up, and for it to be constantly one step forward and two steps back between us—but neither could I just pack it all up and go home because my parents were worried about me. I was a grown-up—and I needed to live my own life.

‘I know, Mum. But I want to stay. I know it’s not your world, but it is mine—and I’m happy here.’

I noticed her lips press closed, really tight, as though she was physically forcing the words to stay inside her mouth. She looked as if she was keeping as much held back as I was—which was undoubtedly a good thing, or this whole doorstep reunion/fond farewell would end up in a massive slanging match that even the doorman twelve floors down would be able to hear. Nobody fights like a Scouse family fights.

Instead, she just nodded, and we all shared in another round of hugs before Tilly herded them out of the door, and back into the lift. I stayed in the doorway, waving at them, until I heard the ping of the lift heading down.

Again, the main feeling running through me was absolute relief. This was getting to be a habit—watching Tilly walk away with my nearest and dearest, and being pretty damn pleased about it. It didn’t feel nice—it felt a bit, I don’t know, it’s hard to describe, but … icky. It felt icky. I was used to my family being my world—and now they didn’t seem to have a place in my world at all, other than as a bit of a head fuck. I knew they loved me, but they didn’t seem to understand me—and didn’t seem to be trying all that hard to understand me, either. It felt horrible.

Still, they were gone, for the time being. I could relax again. I could scrub my face off, catch up with Patty and Jack and Vogue, and check that Neale was still alive and feeling as good as I was. I could risk looking at my Twitter account and my newsfeed, even though Patty did all that for me, and see what the feedback about last night was. I could take a moment to
feel … pleased with myself. Because family dramas aside, I’d done well last night—and my life was starting to resemble the dream I’d always wanted it to be. Even if, I thought, catching another scary glimpse of myself in the mirror, I was looking like more of a nightmare that morning.

I decided on a long, luxurious bath rather than a shower. I’d mastered those Jacuzzi controls now, and the whole bathroom was full of luxurious toiletries I’d been sent for free—everything from high street names through to mega-posh organic essence of everything-berry type stuff. I was going to chuck it all in, create a Smellies Stew, and hope for the best.

I did, though, at least check my phone first. I’d learned from my mistakes before with that one, and needed to be sure that Patty hadn’t arranged for Radio 1 to pop round and do a live broadcast from my balcony or anything.

There were four messages from her, three relating to interview requests from people she thought I should bother with. Two had been sent the night before and one this morning—but all of them, she reckoned, could be done later in the day or even tomorrow. That was good. I knew I had to promote the single for all I was worth, and really make the most of this fame to extend it from its traditional fifteen minutes, but I could also really do with a few hours off. Plus, you know, it was Vogue’s single after all—I was just the afterthought add-on.

The other said something mysterious about a story she’d declined to comment on, and not to worry about it. Under normal circumstances, that would immediately make me worry—but I didn’t have the energy just then.

Jack had called a couple of times, and left a text: ‘Be ready by 3 p.m. I’m coming to take you away from all this.’ Mmmm. That sounded promising, and I decided to call him back after I’d wrinkled up like a prune in the bath.

Neale had sent me a photo of the two of us at the club, with him sitting on my shoulders like he was my Glastonbury girlfriend, waving a glow stick that seemed to be in the shape of a giant penis—one for the family album, for sure. I giggled and saved that one to laugh at again later.

There was also a message from Daniel, and even seeing his name pop up on the screen made something inside me feel a bit … clenched. A bit nervous. A bit weird. And a bit wriggly. These were not sensations I was used to associating with Daniel—he was safe and solid and reassuring. He was friendship and home and history, no matter how much time had passed and how much our lives had changed. If men were drinks, then Jack would be something sleek and expensive and decadent and gorgeous from the top shelf—and Daniel would be a nice mug of tea on a cold day.

Except … I wasn’t totally sure about that any more. I’d always loved Daniel—as a friend. And now he was back in my life, I’d expected that to stay the same. Instead, the new Daniel was way too tall and way too built and way too good-looking for me not to notice. And that moment, last night, in the club, where we’d almost … well, I had no idea what we’d almost done, or what it meant, but I’d wanted to shag him right there and then. Which was just too bloody confusing for a girl with a hangover the size of Peru, whose boyfriend was coming over that afternoon anyway.

I pressed Play, and heard the sounds of traffic and honking horns and sirens. I pictured him outside the club last night, holding the phone up to his mouth, shielding it from the wind.

‘Jessy,’ he said, firmly, as though he was about to issue some important statement or manifesto. There was a pause, the sound of more traffic in the background, and then: ‘See you soon.’