The Woman Who Knew What She Wanted (8 page)

‘The kids will,' said McKenny. ‘I don't like sweet stuff any more. As I get older, I like my food sour and bitter and pungent.'

I could not resist myself. ‘But you, however, stay as sweet as you always were.'

He laughed, genuinely laughed, and his son and daughter laughed with him. The girlfriend tapped her fingers on the rim of her side plate. She was still looking out of the window. I could see her reflection in the glass; she was looking at me. Did I detect a hint of a smile?

‘I wish I had more people like you around me,' said McKenny. ‘I could do with a court jester.'

‘Give me a grand a day and I'm all yours.'

‘I just might,' he mused. As I looked at him, I though how ghastly it must be to be a genuine superstar, forever gawked at by strangers and surrounded by sycophants telling you just exactly what it is that they think you want to hear.

‘You couldn't get me a double espresso?' he said.

‘Of course.'

The woman by the window turned to me. It was the first time that she'd looked at me. Thick mascara on the bluest eyes that I had ever seen. I don't think I can recall ever seeing such beauty up close before. Her skin was absolutely flawless. She was only three or four years older than me, but so out of my league that she might have been on another planet. Oddly enough, that was distinctly to my advantage. Normally I am tongue-tied when I am in the presence of great beauty. My thoughts are scrambled and my tongue is rendered into a piece of flopping gristle so that I am not even capable of uttering the few inanities that I do wish to say. But this woman was so unattainable that I wasn't even remotely cowed.

‘Can I have an americano, please?' she said.

I had already placed her accent. She was from Texas.

‘And an americano for the American,' I said.

There was a momentary intake of breath. ‘You're good,' McKenny said.

‘You're not so bad yourself, Ed.'

I went to get the coffees.

It was to be the start of an intense and candid relationship that I was to develop over the Easter weekend with McKenny. It was the first time that I had ever been on quasi-casually intimate speaking terms with a superstar. Who knows what, if anything, McKenny got out of it. Perhaps some wit and spark that was not to be found in the rest of his pampered life.

The next day was Good Friday and I was abruptly made aware of one of the more unpleasant aspects of working at the Knoll House: the early starts. How I hate early starts. I'd been out drinking again with Roland and Oliver, and had rolled into bed at twelve thirty.

I had to be up at six, and be shaven, scrubbed and fed by seven, which was when the dining room opened for breakfast. Oliver was bright eyed, bushy tailed – he had a phenomenal capacity for drink –
but most of the waiters were looking rough at the edges. In all my time at the Knoll House, we never once learned to pace ourselves, but instead, night after night, would be out on the tiles till midnight. That is the true optimism of youth.

McKenny was one of the first people into the room. He was wearing drainpipe jeans and a tight white T-shirt. His hair, as the previous night, was all over the place.

He knew the drill and helped himself to some apple juice. When I went over to his table, he was reading an array of tabloid papers.

‘Morning, Kim,' he said. ‘How we doing?'

‘Good morning, Ed,' I said. ‘I'm fine.'

‘What do you think of my girlfriend, then?'

‘She doesn't say very much.'

He sipped his apple juice. ‘No, Liz doesn't say very much.'

‘Quite pretty though.'

‘Not much fun.'

‘Does Liz make you laugh?'

At this, McKenny really did laugh. It started off softly, just a little chuckle, and then he was laughing so hard that he had to put his juice down.

‘Now that is a good question,' he said. ‘Does Liz make me laugh? I'm not sure.'

‘Oh well,' I said. ‘I'm sure she has other qualities.'

McKenny was still mulling over my question. ‘Has she ever made me laugh?' he said. ‘You know, I don't think she has.'

‘What a sorry state of affairs.'

‘Not once, though, actually, there was the time she tripped over the cat and ended up covered in a jug of Bloody Mary. She was sitting there on the floor, with these bits of celery and lemon in her hair and a load of ice cubes in her lap. She hated it. Now that, that was funny.'

‘Definitely one for the video camera.'

McKenny drummed at his lower lip. ‘But has she ever made me laugh genuinely? Through something she's said?' He looked at me and gave a shake of his head. ‘I don't think so.'

‘Well,' I tried to sound emollient, ‘a sense of humour is probably over-rated.'

‘But…' He clapped his hand to his forehead. ‘What the hell am I…' He trailed off. ‘What am I doing with this woman?'

I shrugged, aware that it was probably best to keep my mouth shut. ‘Get you some coffee?'

‘Please.'

There was more banter that night. I had a very unusual role for a waiter. When I went to McKenny's table, they seemed to come alive.
I don't know whether the children were cowed or whether Liz was bored by her older lover, but the conversation only ever seemed to spark up when I was lingering there. At the end of the meal, McKenny tried to get me to sit down and join them for a brandy, but I was having none of it. Apart from anything else, I was still waiting at three other tables.

I got drunk that night and I got drunk the next night, same as I did every night at the Knoll House, and now we come to the crux, the moment upon which my whole story turns – and without it, who knows how it would all have turned out.

Easter Day, 1988, is a date I will never forget till the day I die.

Still fighting off my hangover, I was going through the motions in the dining room at breakfast. Once again, McKenny was alone and one of the first into the room. He was clutching onto the day's tabloids. It was his third breakfast in the hotel.

‘Morning, Kim,' he said. ‘You're looking rough. Have a good one last night?'

‘I had an excellent one, thank you,' I said. ‘Coffee?'

‘Please,' he said. ‘So where do you young spunks go drinking?'

‘The local pub, the Bankes Arms.'

‘Do you now?' he said. ‘I might join you there.'

‘It's not classy, you know.'

‘I don't want classy. I've had it with classy. I want gritty. I want real.'

‘What will Liz will make of it?'

‘Yes.' He drummed out a tattoo on the table with his index fingers; it was actually quite impressive. I didn't know he could drum.

‘I'll get that coffee.'

McKenny had two coffees and two slices of toast and though he seemed absorbed by his papers, he was forever breaking off and would stare sightlessly into his empty glass of apple juice. He beckoned me over.

‘Kim,' he said. ‘Me and Liz. What do you think?'

‘You're a very handsome couple.'

‘You ought to be a diplomat.'

‘Probably got more chance of being a rock star.'

‘Any idiot can be a rock star. You just need a large slice of luck.'

‘True.' I picked up his empty plate and his glass. ‘But you did ride your luck.'

‘And look where it's got me.'

‘I can think of worse places to be, and worse people to be with.'

He rolled his eyes. ‘You don't know the half of it.'

McKenny waved as he left the dining room. My colleagues were suitably awed. ‘I wonder what he's like in bed,' Janeen said.

‘Dream on,' Darren said. ‘Have you seen his girlfriend?'

‘She's pretty enough,' Janeen said. ‘But I know how to please a man.'

‘Don't you just.' Darren lightly cupped Janeen's waist.

‘How many lovers has he had?' Tracy asked.

I remembered what Casanova had once replied when asked the same question. ‘Mille Deuce,' I said.

‘What's that then?' said Tracy.

‘Two thousand.'

‘Two
thousand
?' Roland said.

‘He might have doubled up on a few of them.'

‘Lucky bastard,' Roland said.

‘I'd still have him,' Janeen said. She was looking at the French polish on her fingernails. It was at least a week old and was well chipped. ‘I've never had a star.'

‘And when he's done, he could sing you one of his songs,' Darren said.

‘Better than lighting up on a fag and blowing smoke in my face.' She glanced meaningfully at Darren.

I always used to enjoy the morning lull after breakfast. We'd have a coffee and read the papers and idle away our time sitting in the staff section of the dining room. In those first weeks, I was quite content to mooch around the hotel grounds, wander through the woods and revel in my new-found freedom. Of course, I still had to do my duty in the dining room, but outside those hours, I was free to do as I pleased, and not a soul to tell me otherwise.

That morning I'd been walking on the beach. It was blustery, the wind licking at the white caps. Two hardy swimmers had braced the sea, but most of the families were snug in their seaside huts.
I loved those huts, and one in particular. They were much the same size as a large garden shed, though much more substantial, with walls and windows that were built to withstand the worst of the winter storms. The huts reflected the owners' vast array of tastes, some painted grey, and some pillar-box red, with the outside walls sometimes festooned with rocks and shells and flags and seaweed. The interiors were equally quirky. Some had beds, and sofas and tables and some had even converted the roof space into a mezzanine with just enough room for a low-slung bed. There'd also be a small gas cylinder for brewing up tea and toasting muffins. As I wandered along the beach, head down into the gale, hands thrust deep into my pockets, it looked like very heaven to be sitting in a deckchair on the porch of one of these little shanties, with the wind blowing hard, and the kettle bubbling merrily on the hob.

I found a shell. It was two halves of a beautiful scallop shell and the pearly insides gleamed in the grey light of that Easter Day morning. I put it into my pocket as a keepsake. I find the sea is a great leveller. It puts your life into focus, for as you look out at these waves that will roll on for all time and listen to the ever-same sound of the sea, you come to appreciate just how brief is that fleeting snap of time that we have on this earth. You realise that you shouldn't be wasting a moment of it.

I wanted a girlfriend. I wanted kisses and affection and drowsy sex in the afternoon. I wanted to love. I wanted to be held by a beautiful woman who would tell me, over and over again, that she loved me. I wanted little jokes and stupid names; I wanted to wake up with a beauty by my side and to have her look me in the eyes and tell me she loved me; more than anything, I wanted to be walking along that windy beach, holding the hand of my lover as we stared out to the sea and dreamed our impossible dreams.

I was aware that a song was hissing in the background of my brain and when I tuned in, I realised it was Freddie Mercury singing ‘Find Me Someone to Love'. I wondered where I might find my love. Among the staff? The clientele? The local folk of Swanage and Studland with their seaside homes and their prying eyes?

I'd just put on my white tunic for the lunchtime session. The lunches were generally much more relaxed than the dinners, because most of the guests were on half-board and preferred to take a packed lunch and eat
al fresco.

I was walking towards the staff entrance when I saw Liz, McKenny's girlfriend, sitting on a bench outside the hotel. She was wearing a black fur coat and was smoking a cigarette. By her side were two small quilted Chanel bags.

I very nearly continued on my way, but I realised that she was leaving and that I would not be seeing her again, so I went over. The smell of her cigarette smoke was mixed with the scent of her perfume and the salt tang of the sea.

For a while, we sat there. I wasn't looking at her. I was looking up towards the children's playground.

‘I'm sorry you're leaving,' I said.

‘Yes.' She took another drag on her cigarette. She was still wearing her ruby ring. She did not have any make-up on and she looked younger than when I'd seen her in the dining room.

‘Are you going back to Texas?'

‘I don't know,' she said. ‘It won't take long to pack up in London, and then…' She trailed off. ‘I don't know.'

‘Well, I'm sorry,' I said. It all sounded rather lame.

Liz flicked the stub of her cigarette onto the ground and stubbed it out with her stiletto. ‘Ed likes you, doesn't he?' she said.

I shrugged. ‘I slightly amuse him.'

‘It's strange, this whole love thing, isn't it?' she said. Liz stretched out her arms, interlocking her fingers. She held the stretch for a moment and then plunged her arms between her knees. ‘One moment you know everything about each other. You know all the little intimacies. You know about the pets and the neighbours and the friends and the enemies. Then it's over. Suddenly everything stops.'

‘You're much too young and much too pretty to be with a guy like Ed,' I said.

She looked at me and for the first time she smiled. What a gorgeous smile. I wish I'd told her that.

‘I'm dirt poor,' she said. ‘I want money. There's only one way I'm going to get it.'

‘Do you love these guys?'

‘You got a better reason for falling in love, Kim?'

She had a point.

‘No,' I admitted. ‘I don't have a better reason for falling in love. Though if you're looking for money, that's going to put me right out of the picture.'

I had never before tried such an impish line with such a beautiful stranger. I could not recommend it more. For great beauties are used to having men in their thrall. It is almost as if they expect their male acquaintances to be fawning and tongue-tied, so that when they're confronted by a piece of cheekiness, they find it oddly refreshing. Liz looked at me out of the side of her eyes and lit up another cigarette.