Star Struck (2 page)

‘Just nerves I think.’ Catherine smiled shyly.

‘Tell me about it. I’m bricking it. Everyone here has made such an effort. I look like I’ve popped to the shops,’ the girl said.

Catherine laughed. ‘I wish I’d just worn what I usually wear.’ Catherine said pulling awkwardly at the maxi dress. ‘Believe me, I don’t usually dress like this. I’ve borrowed my sister’s gear and now I’m regretting it.’

‘You look nice,’ The girl said nodding her approval. ‘I’m Kim, by the way.’

Catherine shook the girl’s hand. ‘I’m Catherine, pleased to meet you.’

‘You too.’

Just as Catherine was about to ask Kim what she going to sing for her audition, the asymmetrical-haired youth began to sing an impromptu ‘You Raise me Up’ by Westlife.

Catherine looked at Kim, who was in turn staring agog, then another fancy-haired young man stepped in and began to harmonise – terribly – with fancy-haired boy number one, who looked put out that his finest moment was being interrupted. Fancy-haired boy number two had his eyes shut, oblivious, as he rattled through a dozen or so key changes until he sounded like Barry Gibb. Catherine was just about to pull Kim to one side and shuffle away from the serenade when Kim’s number was called and she was pulled away by a
Star Maker
employee. Catherine was on her own. She looked desperately around for the toilet in order to make a break for it when a camera crew – on the look out for TV gold – quickly swung into action and before she knew it she was being interviewed by Jason P. Longford, TV’s favourite presenter. Catherine, who was still light-headed, felt as if she was watching all of this from afar. But then a jolt of adrenalin shot through her as she realised that she was definitely being filmed.

‘Well, they’re certainly raising everyone up around here,’ Jason P. Longford said with a fake chortle before thrusting the microphone into Catherine’s face. ‘You with these boys?’

‘No, I just fainted and they decided to sing to me,’ Catherine said truthfully.

‘She doesn’t look too impressed, does she, viewers?’ Jason said, flashing his bright white veneers and giving a nasty glint to the camera. Catherine was stunned. It wasn’t that she wasn’t grateful, she just didn’t think that the two guys were singing to her for any other reason than they wanted to get themselves noticed. She didn’t manage to say this though; Jason wasn’t letting her get a word in edgeways. ‘And what are you going to sing for the judges?’

Catherine felt faint again. She shouldn’t have come today. Who did she think she was? She wasn’t lithe like the girl with the leggings or funky like the Westlife wannabes. The only person she’d met so far that was anything like her was Kim and she’d been whisked away from her before they’d had a chance to ponder what they were doing there. Catherine was just a girl who worked in a call centre who was so nervous she could barely stand up straight.

An old man hove into view, sidling up to Jason P. Longford, singing ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’ with his dentures on the end of his fingers like a ventriloquist. Catherine’s mind went blank.

‘Not answering questions now, have we a prima donna on our hands?’ Jason asked jovially but with an undercurrent of nastiness.

Catherine’s brain was just catching up with what he was saying to her, she was so mesmerised by the old man. ‘Sorry, no, not at all. I’m singing “Martha’s Harbour”.’ She said quietly.

‘What’s that?’ Jason asked, looking at one of his researchers in such a way that Catherine feared the poor guy would be sacked if he didn’t know the answer.

‘It’s an acoustic song by a band called All About Eve,’ the researcher said, pulling his clipboard to his chest as if it would cover the obvious irritation he felt with the TV star.

Catherine caught his eye briefly – grateful that at least someone around here didn’t appear certifiable. He’s cute, Catherine thought, and then immediately felt bashful and looked at the floor.

For a split second Jason looked like he’d lost all interest but then he quickly rearranged his features back into his for-the-camera face. ‘Fair enough, but can you do this?’ he said spinning around and pointing at the octogenarian who was now tap dancing and singing ‘Would You Like to Swing on a Star?’ as well as playing puppets with his false teeth.

Catherine looked at him and smiled tightly. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so,’ she said.

Jo breathed in sharply as if pulling in her stomach might save her and her family from a ten-car pile up. She’d broken one of her own sacred rules: Never Get in a Car with Claire Ever Again Ever. Not After the Last Time. The last time had been when Jo had asked for a lift to the Trafford Centre and they’d found themselves facing the wrong way on the inside lane of the M60 motorway. After that Jo decided she’d rather take the bus. Knife crime and gun crime were on the up in Manchester – if the news was to be believed – but Jo would rather take her chances with a gang of hoodies on the top-deck of the 845 than step foot into any vehicle Claire was driving. However, here she was, hurtling across Manchester at break-neck speed and it was all Catherine’s doing.

‘What’s with the dramatics?’ Claire demanded, pulling her fingers agitatedly through her honey highlighted hair.

It always amused Jo that her older sister insisted on dyeing her hair blond. The Reillys were dark haired. No point denying it. Even so, Jo did what she could to make her darkness less obvious. Jolen cream, for example. Something a really blondie – unlike Claire – wouldn’t need to think about. Jolen – a hair-lightening cream – was a staple in the Reilly girls’ bathroom cabinet and known simply as ‘tashe cream’. On the night of her eighteenth birthday Jo had had a particularly nasty run in with a tub well past its sell-by date that her sister Maria had assured her was fine. She had applied said tashe cream as instructed but when it began to sting and then burn, Jo realised she had a problem: she’d branded a Mexican Desperado moustache shape onto her top lip. Maria had thought this hilarious. This just went to show, in Jo’s opinion, what an out and out cow her sister could be. It could have been Maria with the
My Name is Earl
moustache but she didn’t seem to care.

Maria claimed to know why she and her sisters were all so dark – they were Black Irish, she told Jo – she loved to think that she was something special, descended from some heady Celtic/Spanish mix. Maria liked nothing more than to talk up her own part in things. That was why, Jo thought, when Maria bragged about her job as a trolley dolly on a budget airline you’d think she was responsible for actually flying the plane.

‘You’ve just pulled out without looking and we could have all died!’ Jo shouted at Claire. Her sister’s driving really did scare her witless. They were now careening across
the
Mancunian Way, a busy concrete flyover that straddled the city centre.

‘God, you’re so sensitive,’ Claire said, looking straight at her as if the road and their position on it was inconsequential.

‘Eyes on the road!’ Jo shrieked. ‘Sensitive, eh? So why’s that bloke beeping his horn and giving you a wanker sign?’

‘Joanna!’ Mick piped up. ‘I won’t have any wankers on a Saturday morning.’

Jo swallowed back a giggle and tried to ignore the elbow that Maria had just jabbed into her ribs.

‘Can we just get there in one piece, please? Jesus,’ Maria asked loftily.

‘“Jesus”. “Wankers”. I don’t know where I got such potty-mouthed kids from,’ Mick said, throwing his eyes to the heavens.

Jo was going to point out that her dad could make Gordon Ramsay blush if he put his mind to it but she decided to let it go. She had a hangover and she didn’t want to enter into a pointless argument this early in the day.

The previous evening was a bit of a blur. Jo knew it involved some annoying bloke who wouldn’t leave her alone while she was out trying to have a good time with her mates. He kept bothering her and trying to buy her shots of tequila. Jo hated tequila and she hated men who tried to buy her tequila. In fact she hated men who tried to buy her drinks full stop; it got on her nerves. She was only interested in men if they wanted a good laugh. She didn’t
need
some cheesy slimeball trying to buy her Verve Cliquot and thinking he could parade her round in his sports car. Manchester seemed to be full of these sort of idiots. Jo didn’t know where they got off, but she liked to tell them where she thought they should.

Her hangover meant that she hadn’t been quite as on the ball as she might have been when Catherine came in, asking to ferret through her wardrobe. She should have known something was amiss when her usually dressed-down sister had asked if she could borrow her silver wedges. Where had she thought Catherine was going to wear silver wedges on a Saturday morning – Netto? Jo had pulled the quilt over her head while Catherine helped herself to some of her stuff and then managed to fall back to sleep and a nice dream about living in a bouncy castle when she had been rudely awakened by Claire.

‘What the bloody hell does Maria find to do in there?’ Claire said, plonking four-year-old Rosie on Jo’s bed and nodding in the direction of the bathroom.

‘Pluck her monobrow?’ Jo offered sitting up in bed and looking at her alarm clock. ‘What the hell are you doing in my bedroom, getting on my nerves at eleven o’clock in the morning?’

‘You’re a cheeky sod, do you know that?’ Claire asked, eyeballing Jo. ‘We’re hiding.’

‘From who?’

Rosie jumped down off the bed and began playing with Jo’s jewellery on her dressing table. ‘Go into Aunty Catherine’s room, Rosie, she’s got well better stuff than me.’ Claire threw Jo a look. ‘What?’ Jo asked with mock innocence. Rosie ran into her aunt Catherine’s room.

Even though Claire had left home years ago, as soon as she was back in the house she resumed big sister duties and thought that she could take over the place and order Jo around. Jo didn’t hold it against Claire, she had her own life when their mother had left and she’d always made sure that Jo was looked after, taking her out for the day when she was younger and letting her stop over at her house whenever she wanted. She was married to Paul who wasn’t the brightest tool in the box but he was nice enough if a little dull – his only topics of conversation seemed to be about Manchester United or the traffic on the M60.

Actually, Jo quite liked Claire – it was Maria who got on her nerves – but it made her laugh that her eldest sister thought that as soon as she turned up order was restored. It was obvious to anyone who stepped foot into the Reilly household that the person who had held the family together since their mum had left eight years ago was Catherine.

‘Anyway,’ Claire sighed. ‘It’s Dad. That’s who we’re hiding from.’

‘Why?’

‘Rosie just said, “Eurgh, Grandad – poo!” and then I had to pretend to him that she wanted one, rather than she was indicating that he smelt of it.’

‘Dad? Does he?’

‘Well, he stinks of something. Who’s looking after him?’

‘What do you mean, “Who’s looking after him?” He’s a grown man. I’m fed up with all this pussy-footing-round-poor-Dad routine. He needs to get his bloody act together. I’m telling you, he gets right on my wick.’

‘Catherine’s meant to sort him out, where is she?’ Claire
asked,
as if she hadn’t listened to a word her sister had just said.

‘If she’s got any sense, she’s gone out. Anyway, why’s she meant to look after him? I know she does, but that’s just because she’s a massive mug.’

Jo had run out of patience with her dad’s demands years ago and wished that her older sister would do the same. But for some reason, one that Jo couldn’t fathom, Catherine seemed beholden to her father, especially lately. Only last week Mick had decided on a whim that he wanted to go kite flying on Saddleworth Moor and Catherine had willingly obliged. Jo couldn’t think of anything worse than getting tangled up in the strings of a box kite, with her hair whipped by the wind and sticking to her lipgloss, just because her dad had decided he needed a new hobby.

A sound like someone bouncing on a trampoline was coming from Catherine’s room. Claire jumped up to investigate, throwing Jo a look of annoyance as she went. Jo threw the quilt covers back and slowly followed her sister. She arrived at Catherine’s bedroom door to find Rosie jumping up and down on the bed.

‘This is Aunty Catherine’s room, darling, you wouldn’t like it if she came round and bounced on your bed,’ Claire was saying.

‘Would,’ Rosie said.

Fair enough, thought Jo. She was four, she probably would.

Rosie jumped backwards and landed on the bed with a thump. Jo held her breath, it was hard to tell sometimes if her niece was going to laugh or cry. Whatever she did, Claire would no doubt give her a round of applause and
a
medal. Rosie was spoilt in Jo’s opinion, Claire was way too soft with her. They were in luck this time – Rosie burst into a fit of giggles and Claire clapped approvingly.

‘Come on, petal, let’s have you.’ Claire said, trying to coax Rosie off the bed.

‘Just pick her up.’ Jo said.

‘All right, Super Nanny.’

‘What?’ Jo asked innocently.

‘When I need childcare tips, I won’t be coming to a hungover nineteen-year-old for them.’

‘Oooh!’ Jo said camply. ‘Anyway, I was watching a programme on Sky the other day about kids; this nanny was saying that you’ve got to be cruel to be kind.’

‘Well, when you’ve got your own, Mary sodding Poppins, feel free to be as cruel-to-be-kind as you want.’

‘Are you allowed to say “sodding” in front of Rosie, or will she have to go and see a child psychologist by the end of the week?’ Jo asked, smiling with mock-sweetness.

Claire pulled a face at her younger sister. As they bickered, Rosie picked a piece of paper out from under Catherine’s pillow and began playing with it, scrunching it into a ball.

‘Can Mummy have that?’ Claire asked.

Rosie giggled and screwed it up even more.

Jo shook her head at her sister and said to her niece, ‘That’s mine, thank you,’ and whipped the paper from her hands. Rosie looked crestfallen. ‘It could be important,’ Jo said, sitting on the edge of the bed reading whatever was written on the paper as Rosie jumped down next to her. ‘Oh. My. God.’