Cold Comfort (13 page)

“Well, he was pissed for a while, but these
guys have been mates since school. Henry’s view was that in the long run Cat
had done him a favour.”

“Cars are here,” Henry called from the hall
landing upstairs. Everyone stood at once. The girls started moaning about not
being offered a lift, only pacified somewhat when Cat said he’d see them later.
The roll of Matt’s eyes at his words told me that was highly unlikely.

We were herded out the house and into some
waiting SUVs with tinted windows. I kept close to Eddy and tried to ignore the
hulking presence of Cat just behind me. I hesitated, not knowing which car we
were meant to head for. “This one, sweetheart,” Cat whispered. I looked to see
he was pointing towards the first car. Very deliberately I steered Eddy towards
a different vehicle.

“Nicely done, Delilah,” Eddy whispered when
we were finally seated in a car with Matt and Dougie. “I heard what he said. Just
because my eyes are rubbish doesn’t mean I can’t hear. Seriously, that guy is
relentless. Well manoeuvred.” He laughed.

“Yeah, well you just made it one hundred
percent sweeter for him,” Matt said, looking at me with something that
resembled sympathy. “The guy loves the chase almost as much as he loves getting
into pussy. Why do you think he’s got such a thing for girls with boyfriends?
He wants the unattainable. You better hang on to your panties, girl,” he said
with a laugh. I determined to avoid Cat completely from now on.

The band were amazing. They’d been great
when we’d watched them doing the sound check, but when they went on for the
performance it was a whole other level. I could see exactly why they’d had the
success they had. We’d been offered tickets in the VIP section, so I could gaze
up at them as they strutted on the stage; the throbbing drums combined with
their skilful guitar and the sexy rasp of Cat’s voice, producing a heady mix
that evoked a physical response from me I hadn’t expected. For all their male
posturing, the boys were really talented. Musically their songs were complex –
no cheesy rock songs in sight – and they executed them with perfect timing
that spoke of years of practice. When they played ‘Enemy’, and I heard the key
change I loved live, even I screamed with pleasure. For a couple of hours I
forgot their obnoxious personalities and savoured the brilliance of their
playing and the meaning of their words. Eddy just enjoyed seeing me enjoy
myself.

Their audience was completely crazy. The
majority of the women screamed any time one of the band members tried to speak.
I saw bras and knickers fly past me towards the stage, and some of the yelled
descriptions of what the women wanted to do to the guys made me blush. If this
was what they were offered on a daily basis, it was no wonder the guys made the
most of it. The women were most definitely willing.

The after-show party to celebrate the
completion of their sixteen-week European tour was at a nearby club. The
American tour was due to start in October. I hadn’t wanted to go to the party, but
Eddy had insisted we at least have a couple of drinks, just so I could
experience it. So far all I’d experienced was sitting in a corner of the VIP
section and wishing I could go home. The women were six deep around all the
guys. Each of them had women hanging off both arms – even some of the
roadies were benefiting from the overspill. The women themselves left nothing
to the imagination, their willingness to do
anything
to spend some time
with a member of Cold Comfort apparent in their overtly sexual behaviour. When
I saw a girl slide under the table between Henry’s thighs, I wished I could
summon some surprise, but frankly I was only surprised it hadn’t happened
sooner.

“It’s a bit much, isn’t it,” Eddy said as
he slid onto a chair beside me. I nodded. “I’ll take you home if you like?”

“Please,” I said gratefully, grabbing my
jacket. We stood up and slowly weaved our way past all the ‘Clingons’.

“Watch it,” a polished and painted blonde
said bitchily to Eddy when he bumped into her, spilling her drink slightly onto
her hand. She sneered as she looked at him. “Mind where you’re going, Mr
Magoo.” She shoved him, and I watched as he stumbled into a table, knocking
over all the drinks. He was mortified, and I was just plain angry. I marched up
to the woman.

“Apologise,” I demanded.

“Fuck off,” she said with a flick of long
artificially blonde hair.

“I said, apologise. He bumped into you by
accident. You deliberately pushed him into that table.”

“Delilah, it’s fine, really,” Eddy said
from behind me.

“No, Eddy, it’s not fine. This ‘lady’,” I
said, making it clear that a lady was the last thing I thought she was, “needs
to learn how to conduct herself in public.”

“Or what?” she challenged me.

Or what indeed
, I wondered now she’d called my bluff. My first instinct was to
punch her on the nose, removing her smug expression and spreading her pert
little nose all over her face. I clenched my fist, preparing, when I felt a
hand clasp mine, holding me back.

“Get out,” a voice growled behind me. At
first I thought he was talking to me, but then I saw the bitch blanch.

“Cat, baby,” she purred, trying to turn on
the charm.

“I said get out, Veronica.”

“Why are you defending them? He spilt a
drink all over my pretty dress,” she said, pushing her tits out. There was nothing
to see but her breasts.

“I watched you push him into the table. He’s
family. I want you to leave. Now.” The coldness in his voice made me shiver,
glad I wasn’t the target. A member of the club’s security arrived, drawn to the
crowd that was forming around us. After a quick word with Cat, the bodyguard
whisked Veronica away. She was shooting me poisonous stares all the while, and
at that point I realised Cat still had hold of my hand.

I pulled it sharply away, turning to look
at him. He ignored me. “You alright, man?” he asked Eddy.

“Yes, fine. Par for the course. Thanks,
Cat.”

“Don’t thank me. Stupid bitch deserved much
worse. Still, I thought it was better to stop Cassius Clay here popping her on
the nose. Nice to know you’ve got people looking out for you, though, kid.”

Eddy peered at me. “Were you going to punch
her, Delilah?”

“Maybe,” I admitted. He hugged me.

“Let’s go back to the house,” he suggested,
and I nodded, relieved.

“You’re going?” Cat asked. He seemed
disappointed.

“Yeah,” Eddy said. “I think we need to pace
Delilah if she’s going to cope being around you guys all summer.” He laughed, but
Cat just frowned.

“How are you getting home?”

“Um, taxi,” he replied. “Is that a trick
question?”

Cat frowned again. “Is that safe?”

“Cat, we’re just normal people. You’ll find
normal people do things like walk around without security and get taxis all the
time. Really, we’ll be perfectly fine. Anyway, I’ve got Delilah to punch anyone
that bothers me,” he said with a grin. Cat didn’t seem to know whether to grin back
or frown.

“Thanks for your help,” I mumbled to Cat. “See
you soon.” Then I grabbed Eddy’s hand and pulled him behind me, praying he didn’t
trip over anything. The evening was just getting a bit too weird now.

*

After a leisurely breakfast the next
morning Eddy decided we should do the tourist thing since I’d never really been
to London before, so he bought us both tickets for the Big Red Bus Tour. It
wound its way past all the major sights, and we hopped on and off, enjoying the
chance to see Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. By the time we finally rolled back
into the house it was nearly seven in the evening. We’d stopped to buy pizza on
our way home, making sure we had enough for any extras who might be at the house.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Matt barked
as soon as we stepped through the door.

“Sorry?” Eddy said.

“Where the fuck have you been?” he said
again.

“Sightseeing. Why? What’s the problem?”

“You don’t think you should have let
someone know? You’re off God knows where with God knows who, and you don’t
think to even give us a call?”

“Sorry, Dad,” Eddy said, frowning now. “I
didn’t know I was expected to check in with you. I kind of thought you’d have
more important things to worry about than what your adult brother was doing on
a visit to London.”

“My visually impaired adult brother.”

I tensed, knowing how much Eddy hated it
when people made his sight a reason to not live his life the way he wanted to.
“Fuck you, Matt,” he said, striding away up the stairs. I just stood there,
holding four pizza boxes and wondering what I was meant to do now.

Matt sighed. “I’m sorry you got caught up
in that,” he finally said.

I considered what to say, wondering whether
I should bite my tongue or let him have it. My mouth, as ever, ran away with
me. “I’m not the one you should say sorry to.”

“You don’t think I should worry about my
brother?”

“Sure you should. That’s part of what comes
when you love someone. But don’t let his sight be the reason you worry. He’s
amazing, working hard every day to make sure his sight is not a reason for him
not to live his life to the fullest possible. You’re meant to be there
supporting him, cheering him on, not becoming part of the problems he has to
overcome.”

He looked dumbstruck, like he didn’t know
what to say for a moment as he thought about what I’d said. Then he nodded at
me decisively. “Back in a second,” he said, taking the stairs two at a time. I stood
there in the hallway with my boxes of pizza hugged against my chest as I wondered
what to do. In the end my hunger was too great, so I made my way down to the
kitchen and helped myself to some of the still warm slices.

“Oh god, you left her alone with the
pizza?” Eddy berated Matt when they both walked into the room ten minutes
later.

“Funny, Eddy,” I grumbled.

“Did you or did you not get sacked from a pizza
restaurant for eating too many of the pizzas?”

“I may have,” I admitted.

“Well then. What’s the damage?” he asked,
scanning the boxes. There were three intact pizzas and one remaining slice of
the fourth. Matt looked at me, impressed.

“I was hungry!”

“Obviously,” he said, taking a slice from
one of the untouched boxes. His phone rang, and he glanced at the name and
groaned. “Jesus, he won’t leave me alone today.” He answered with a curt, “They’re
fine. They just walked in with pizza.” I wondered who the hell he was talking
to. There was a second or two of silence and then; “Sightseeing, apparently… Look,
whatever. You can stand down, Batman. They’re fine.” I looked at Eddy, who
seemed as confused as I was. “Yeah, okay, I think they’d like that. I’ll bring
them. Laters,” he said and disconnected the call.

“Who was that?” Eddy asked.

“Cat. He’s been blowing up my phone,
worried about you not being home all day for some reason.” His eyes flickered
towards me.

“I’m touched,” Eddy said with a grin. “I
never knew he cared.”

“You may mock, but the guy was talking
about sending people out to look for you. Seriously, he was obsessed. Which
reminds me, I hear Veronica got in your face yesterday at the club.”

“If that was the girl that pushed me, then
yes.”

“I’m sorry about that. She’s one of the
sluts that hangs around the band, or should I say Cat, although Henry’s running
a close second at the moment. I’ll have a word when I next see her.”

“She’ll be back?” I asked, surprised.

“She’ll always be back. They’re like flies
on shit, her sort, always hoping for a hookup with a member of the band. Sadly
most of us have already been there and done that. Sorry, make that all of us.”
He gave an apologetic grin. I just felt sick at the thought for some reason. “So
anyway, Cat thought you might like to come and watch us re-film one of our
videos tomorrow. We did most of it a while ago, but they need to re-shoot a
couple of scenes. It might be fun for you, if you want to?”

“Hell yes,” Eddy said with a grin. “I’d
love to. What about you, Delilah?”

I couldn’t deny the thought of watching
them work on a video sounded fun. “If we won’t get in the way,” I stammered.

“Mostly you’ll be sitting around like the
rest of us watching Cat make love to the camera. It’s usually boring as hell,
but I guess when you haven’t seen it done before it’s a bit of a novelty. Just
to warn you, though, we need to be out of the house by six a.m. Will that be a
problem? I know what you students are like.”

*

Despite my assurances to the contrary, it
was more of a problem than I’d imagined. When Eddy had burst into my room and
told me I had ten minutes to get dressed and be out the house, because I’d
switched off my alarm and gone straight back to sleep, I was not in the best of
moods. The weather was forecast to be hot as hell, which would have been great
if we’d been in Brighton and had the benefit of the coastal breeze. But in
London it meant shoe-meltingly hot. I grabbed a pair of denim shorts and a thin
floaty halterneck top that tied at the back of my neck. Cramming my feet into a
pair of flip-flops I trudged down the stairs, pulling my hair into a ponytail
as I went, and grunted a greeting at Eddy and Matt, who were both waiting by
the front door. Eddy laughed, used to my poor morning communication
capabilities. Matt just swore. I frowned at him, wondering what I’d done wrong
now. “You don’t even know, do you?” he asked, reading the confusion on my face.
I frowned again, wondering what the hell was with him this morning and why he
couldn’t just speak in complete sentences. I chose to ignore him, grabbed the
coffee in a travel cup Eddy was holding out to me and followed the pair of them
to the waiting car, annoyed to see that even the groupies weren’t up and
waiting this early in the morning.

I drifted back to sleep against Eddy as we
weaved our slow path through the London traffic towards our film studio
destination for the day. “You need to keep her away from him if you don’t want
her to get hurt,” I heard Matt saying as I began to stir, wondering if I was
dreaming the conversation or if it was real. It seemed like something my
subconscious might try and tell me.

“She’s done nothing to encourage him,” I
heard Eddy say.

“Doesn’t matter. Looking like she does,
believe me, she doesn’t need to do a thing. But she seems like a nice girl. Nice
girls need to keep well away from him. He’s a mess at the moment.”