Star Struck (27 page)

‘The hospital. Make us a brew Joanna, would you, there’s a love.’

Jo resisted a sarcastic remark. Mick might be ill, but old habits died hard.

‘Why are you wearing a suit?’

‘Thought I’d spruce myself up. Them consultants think they’re above us all you know, but if you go in wearing a suit and with your head screwed on then they have to talk to you on their level, not as if you’re some halfwit who’s just walked in off the street.’

Jo felt a pang of pain for her dad. He just wanted a bit of respect and that was totally fair enough, she thought. It didn’t matter that he got on her nerves and was totally over the top about things most of the time. On this occasion she thought he was absolutely right. He wanted to be treated with dignity and was doing everything he could to make that happen.

‘Why don’t I come with you dad?’

‘I won’t have it, Joanna. I’ll let you know how I get on when I get home.’

‘But what are you even going in for today?’

He hadn’t even told them that, he was being so vague about everything. It was certainly out of character – Mick would usually go to great lengths to describe the most trivial ailment – but maybe this time he just wanted to get on with things and for his daughters to leave him be until he was ready to talk about the cancer.

‘A thingy …’ he pointed at his stomach, ‘a scan thingy.’

‘Haven’t you had a scan already?’

‘They do them a lot. Just to check. You know.’

‘No, I don’t know. Explain it to me.’

‘I don’t want to explain it, Joanna!’ Mick said thumping his fist on the table making Jo jump. ‘I just want to get it over with.’

‘All right, Dad, jeez, I’m sorry,’ Jo said, feeling both foolish for pushing the matter and annoyed at her dad for shouting.

‘Well, don’t be going on about it.’

‘Right. I won’t.’ Jo said, rising from the table and heading to the door. ‘I’ll see you later.’

Jo walked out of the house and into the garage and decided that she’d cycle over to Christie’s and wait for her dad and then figure out what to do from there.

Jo preferred cycling to public transport. It was loads better than sitting on the top deck of the bus with murderous idiots and sweaty smack heads. She had once even been hit, by a girl on a bus who accused Jo of ‘looking at her’ even though Jo had been facing forward and the girl had been sitting behind her. The girl had followed Jo off of the 520 from Flixton and said, ‘What were you looking at?’ When Jo replied, ‘The poster saying “Give up your
seat
for elderly people”,’ the girl had slapped her across the face. A big Sue Ellen out of
Dallas
slap. Jo loved watching reruns of
Dallas
as well as
Dynasty
on UK Gold. She didn’t, however, like being slapped like someone who had crossed JR’s wife.

She dragged her mountain bike out of the garage and set off in the direction of Withington. It was a long cycle, about six miles, but she was determined to find out what was going on with her dad, even if he wasn’t willing to say.

Jo cycled through Trafford Park, past the futuristic War Museum and the Lowry Gallery at Salford Quays, past Old Trafford Football ground and along to the tram station that would take her around the outskirts of Chorlton. When she had set off she had promised herself that there was no way she would go to Chorlton, no way that she would swing past her mum’s to see if she was in. But when she found herself cycling along tree-lined Seymour Grove and faced with a left turn to Withington and the cancer hospital or a right turn to Chorlton and her mum and Jay’s house, Jo pulled the bike to the right. I’ll only be a couple of minutes, she bargained with herself. Dad isn’t at the hospital till eleven.

She cycled through the main row of shops and on towards Beech Road, the gentrified area where Jay had his huge house. She passed the cafés and the art shops – and would have sneered at them had there been anyone there to sneer with – and cycled up towards the house. Just as she was about to turn the corner, bargaining with herself about how long she would stay around to see if there was any sign of her mum, a familiar sight made her
throw
her bike quickly down a small alleyway. The manoeuvre was so sudden that her bike went in one direction and Jo fell in a heap in the other. Her dad was climbing out of a taxi and walking along the street, as if doing this was the most normal thing in the world.

‘I could do without a camera crew jammed up my arse twenty-four seven,’ Star complained, throwing her Louis Vuitton luggage on the bed. This was the first time that Catherine had ever clapped eyes on real Louis Vuitton luggage. Maria had a wardrobe full of the stuff, but as it had been sourced from a man called Fat Kev who worked on freight at the airport, Catherine wasn’t too confident about its authenticity.

‘They’re a bit full on,’ Catherine agreed.

They had had a quick pep talk on arrival from Richard and then they had been assigned rooms and roommates. Catherine, Kim and Star were to be roommates again, which was no surprise but it still made Catherine’s heart sink a little, realising that she would have to wake up every morning to Star until one of them was ejected from the competition.

Catherine walked over to the window and looked out across Central Park. ‘Oh my God, this place is amazing.’

The park stretched out in front of her for miles. People were walking their dogs, jogging, sitting on the bench by the John Lennon memorial, watching the world go by. ‘I can’t believe it’s in the middle of the city.’

‘A park’s a park,’ Star said, like she knew everything.

Catherine stopped for a moment and was about to point out that wasn’t actually the case, that this was Central
Park,
the most famous park in the world, in New flipping York, but she knew that it would fall on deaf ears. ‘Yeah, you’re right. It’s pretty much the same as Dog Poo park.’

Kim, who had just entered the room, laughed.

‘Where the hell is Dog Poo park?’ Star asked.

‘End of our road in Manchester.’

‘Why’s it called Dog Poo park?’ Catherine looked at Star, was she serious? ‘Because there’s dog poo everywhere?’ Star answered her own question, her face contorting as if this was the most fascinating and disgusting thing she had ever heard.

‘Got it in one.’

‘Jesus, where do you live?’

‘Don’t you have dog poo in London?’

‘We clean it up.’ Star said, pulling her clothes out of her bag and smoothing each garment before hanging it in the giant oak wardrobe.

‘We could learn a lot from you, Star,’ Kim said, throwing her case on the floor and unzipping it.

Star didn’t bother to retort. The dressing down she had received on the way from the airport had obviously done the trick.

There was a knock on the door. ‘Hi girls, the dentist is here,’ Jesse informed them. Jesse had been to see the girls on their arrival to say hello, but there had been no sign of Andy as yet.

Kim, Star and Catherine looked at one another. ‘My teeth are perfect,’ Star complained.

‘What dentist?’ Kim asked.

Catherine had completely forgotten to mention the conversation she’d had with Antonia on the last night in
London;
she’d been too wrapped up in what was happening with Andy.

‘It’s in our contract,’ Catherine said, feeling like a
Star Maker
drone. ‘We have to have our teeth done. Straightened, whitened whatever it takes to make us look good for the camera.’

‘Get lost!’ Kim couldn’t believe it.

‘It’s true.’ It was true, but Catherine knew it didn’t make it any less ridiculous.

Catherine, Kim and Star were back in their room, holding their faces, in varying degrees of agony. Catherine had been informed that her teeth were ‘in great shape’ but that they needed whitening; a process which involved a large metal clamp, some gum shields, a very bright light and searing pain. Catherine hadn’t realised her teeth were so sensitive. Kim had had a similar procedure, whereas Star, with her ‘perfect teeth’ was now sporting a set of the dreaded Da Vinci veneers. She looked like she had a mouthful of white piano keys.

‘Nggnngnnna,’ Star moaned.

‘What did she say?’ Kim asked Catherine.

‘I think she said “sadistic bastards”,’ Catherine giggled and then held her own face in pain. There was a knock at the door and Shoneeka, Meagan and Freya walked in, wearing trainers and gym clothing.

‘Hi guys. Oh God, what happened here?’ Freya asked.

‘Ha, you’ve been toothed. They got us last week.’ Shoneeka said, sitting on the bed. ‘So you ready for training?’

‘What training?’ Catherine asked. Antonia had said she wouldn’t have to do any just after her dentist work.

‘Core training for you guys, I think, and a run for us. Come on, it’ll be fun!’ Freya said, and clapped her hands in an insanely happy way.

‘No it won’t, it’ll be a pain in the ass, but I’m not going on TV looking fat, so I’m in.’ Shoneeka was evidently resigned to her fate.

‘We’re lucky,’ Meagan informed them. ‘The over-twenty-fives have been here for five days and two of them have had a face lift and a tummy tuck. Not good.’

‘This isn’t right, is it?’ Catherine blurted out. Everyone turned and looked at her, surprised by her outburst. ‘Sorry, but I just didn’t think it would be like this. It’s a singing competition, not a model competition.’

‘It’s showbiz, baby,’ Shoneeka said, jumping up and down on the spot ready for her run, ‘and you’d better get used to it,’ she added, as if she’d been doing this for years.

Chapter 12

JO LOCKED HER
bike to a lamp post with her three bike locks (she’d lived in Manchester all her life and knew that a bare minimum of three locks were required). Her mind was racing, what the bloody hell was her dad doing here? He wasn’t meeting their mum on a regular basis and hadn’t bothered to tell them, was he? She wanted to speak to Catherine but she wasn’t about to call her in the States to ask her why their father might be bothering their mother. She took her phone out and began to dial Claire’s number, but then decided against it. That would mean explaining that she had also taken a detour to Chorlton to have a glimpse at her mother and how the other half lived. She didn’t want Claire knowing that there was any chink in her armour where her mother was concerned; she was barely ready to admit that to herself.

Jo crept along the alleyway and looked along the road, peering directly into her mother and Jay’s house. She felt like
Dog the Bounty Hunter
and Sue Ellen spying on
JR
all rolled into one. This was quite exciting, she thought and then remembered that she was just following her poor, sad-case dad and was not about to perform a Dog-style ‘Intervention’. She stood at the corner of the road wondering where her dad had gone, when a familiar voice made her jump a mile.

‘Jo Jo, what brings you Chorlton-bound?’

Jo spun around in shock to be faced by Jay. The one person she could do with never seeing again.

‘Hi! I was just er …’ she grasped for the right words, what was she doing here?

‘Looking for Karen?’ Jay offered.

‘Yeah, sort of,’ Jo nodded. ‘Just kind of wondering if she hears from Dad ever.’

Thinking that maybe she should tread carefully around this subject, in case they had no idea that her dad was wandering around near their house.

‘Your father? He’s in the house having a cup of tea. We find it easier to deal with him that way than to call the police.’

Jo felt sick, the last thing she wanted was to hear smug-arse Jay talking patronisingly about her dad, but what did he mean? How often was he here?

‘That all got a bit tired, belling the station every time he came around and anyway, who wants to get the pigs involved, eh?’ Jay said, punching Jo lightly on the arm.

What?
Jo wanted to scream. What on God’s green earth was Dad doing? Had he no shame? and then realised almost immediately that she knew the answer to that: of course he didn’t.

‘Come in, pull up a pew. I’ll make you a brew,’ Jay laughed his horrible drain-emptying laugh. ‘I’m a poet and I didn’t know it.’

‘You’re a dick and you make me sick,’ Jo whispered under her breath.

‘What?’ Jay asked.

‘Nothing,’ Jo said, following the nob into his evil artistic lair.

* * *

The tableau greeting Jo as she stepped through her mother’s door was verging on the bizarre. Her father was sitting at the marble island in the middle of the designer kitchen sipping tea in his Sunday best, while her mother sat cross-legged on a cushion in the window, chanting.

‘Karen’s meditating,’ Jay said.

‘My mum, you mean?’ Jo asked, shooting a look over to her mother who was pretending to be in a yogic trance.

‘We don’t really go in for paternal and maternal labels over here. They anchor a person to a role to which they might not necessarily want to be attached,’ Jay said, with a sage nod.

‘It’s all right, Jay. We got it loud and clear that she wasn’t arsed being a mother when she pissed off and shacked up with you. Calling her “Mum” or “Karen” isn’t actually going to make that much difference,’ Jo said, smiling sweetly.

After her initial encounter with Jay outside, Jo had armoured herself for anything that her mother or Jay threw at her. Jo had long since learned that it didn’t get her anywhere being nice or appearing needy where her mother was concerned, if anything it sent Karen flying even further in the other direction.

Karen’s eyes flew open. ‘Joanna. Nice to see you, but a bit of warning next time.’

Mick was watching the exchange like a little boy watching his parents argue.

‘I was just wondering what you’re playing at,’ Jo turned to her father.

‘I was just passing …’ Mick began.

‘You were on your way to …’ Jo looked at her dad, she couldn’t say could she? He wouldn’t have told Karen, not
if
he’d sworn his own daughters to secrecy ‘… to the shops the last time I saw you,’ Jo said, thinking on her feet.

‘Well, I like the butcher’s in Chorlton.’

‘Since when? You’ve not been in a shop since they’ve started using grams and kilograms.’

‘Since years gone by,’ Mick said, looking sadly at Karen.