Star Struck (36 page)

‘So, Catherine,’ the interviewer thrust her microphone in Catherine’s face, ‘You’re the hot favourite at the moment, how does that feel?’

Catherine shifted awkwardly. ‘I wouldn’t say that. It’s very early days and there are lots of strong singers in the competition, like Kim and Star,’ Catherine said amiably. Star gave her a dirty look and Kim smiled at Catherine but Catherine could sense that all the attention she was getting was irritating her.

‘Well, we here at Rock Music Radio would!’ the woman turned to the camera, beaming. ‘And one thing I’m sure
that
all of the great British and American public out there is wondering … how’s your father?’

‘He’s fine, thank you for asking,’ Catherine said uncomfortably.

Mick was sitting in the back garden scouring the day’s papers. ‘Look at that picture. Do I look like that?’ Mick put the paper to the side of his head and pulled a face. Jo didn’t answer, she was trying to choose her words carefully, because she was so angry she wasn’t sure she would be able to get the words out.

‘Dad, I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to come right out and say it.’ Jo gathered herself. ‘Have you got cancer?’

The colour drained from her father’s face. ‘What sort of bloody question is that?’

‘A straight one.’ Jo held her dad’s gaze. ‘Well?’

‘Why would you ask something like that?’ Mick shifted in his seat.

‘Because you don’t seem to be receiving any treatment, you won’t talk about it and you aren’t registered as having had treatment anywhere in Manchester. So I’ll try again: have you got cancer?’

‘Who told you that I’m not registered?’

‘A nurse.’

‘There’s such a thing as patient confidentiality, you know.’

Jo pressed on. ‘Have you got cancer?’

‘I can’t believe you would even think to ask me such a thing,’ Mick said, unable to maintain eye contact with his daughter.

‘Answer the question, Dad: have you got cancer?’

Mick curled his lip at Jo and shook his head as if bitterly disappointed with her. ‘I thought I had.’

‘What do you mean, “thought”?’

‘I just mean that I “thought” I had. I could feel something inside me.’

‘But you haven’t got it, have you?’

‘The doctor says I haven’t, but they can be wrong, them doctors.’

Jo slumped onto the garden bench next to her father and looked out over the small lawn where they used to play as children. ‘Do you know what it’s been like for us thinking that you have cancer? And all this crap in the papers and all this crap with Mum …’ Jo paused, thinking about her mother’s role in this. ‘She knew, she told me she thought you were lying.’

‘She didn’t!’ Mick sounded panic-stricken. ‘She didn’t, she thinks I’m sick, she doesn’t think I’m a liar.’

Was that it? Was that what all of this boiled down to? That he didn’t want Karen to think badly of him? Never mind the hurt he had caused his daughters, never mind the fact that he’d profited from this and dragged his sorry story through the papers.

Jo turned to face her dad. ‘Is that why you did it? To get Mum’s attention?’ she asked quietly, desperately wanting the answer to be no.

‘She never took me seriously. Not like that idiot she’s shacked up with. Him and his oh-so-important art. I had something oh-so important wrong with me, or so I thought. I could feel it inside me, couldn’t I? So I told her. Thought she might see sense …’ Jo put her head in her hands. ‘… but she didn’t, all she wanted was him.
Even
when she came with us last week it was all about the money so that she could get Jay some spuds for his potato prints or whatever he’s doing next …’

Mick’s attempt at humour didn’t work. Jo just stared at him. ‘Have you any idea what you’ve done?’

‘Oh, leave me alone, Joanna,’ he said belligerently.

‘Leave you alone? I will, but they won’t.’ She pointed at the tabloids. ‘When this gets out, because it will, Dad, these things always do, then all these people who’ve been wishing you well and rooting for you are going to feel like fools and they’ll turn like that.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘And you’re going to wish you’d never opened your mouth,’ Jo got to her feet and walked away from her dad.

‘I thought I had it.’

‘Well, Dad, to use one of your tired old phrases, “You know what thought did, don’t you?”’

‘Well, that was just great,’ Star snapped at Catherine as they made their way through the crowd that had gathered at the entrance to the Empire State Building to see the
Star Maker
finalists. It seemed that every day they became of more interest to the public. Catherine tried to walk through the crowd but people were shouting her name and shoving bits of paper towards her, hoping for an autograph. Just the idea that someone would want her signature seemed bizarre to Catherine. She was hardly Kate Winslet. Catherine turned round to see what Star was referring to but she was busy having her picture taken with some of the fans.

‘In the car,’ one of the
Star Maker
security guards said, giving Catherine a shove. She landed in the back of the
limo
and looked out to see just how many people had been waiting for them to put in an appearance.

‘There’s hundreds of them,’ Catherine said breathlessly.

‘Because Richard makes sure that people are tipped off as to where we’ll be,’ Star said, climbing in next to Catherine. Kim followed.

‘Really?’ Catherine asked.

That couldn’t be right could it? He spent so much time pretending that he was protecting the contestants from the press that it seemed ridiculous to her that he would be tipping them off.

‘Of course, really,’ Kim said. ‘He runs every aspect of the show, you must know that by now. From the song choices to what we wear to who interviews us. Come on, Catherine, he brought your mum and dad over and got them to sell their stories to the papers.’

‘That was different.’ Catherine didn’t even believe her own words. Why was it different, that was exactly what had happened.

‘And it’s done you no harm,’ Star said bitchily.

Catherine’s nostrils flared angrily and she sat forward in her seat, glaring at Star.

‘How dare you! My dad is sick, I’m not trading on it. I wish it wasn’t happening. As for Richard having anything to do with it, I didn’t ask him to do it and I certainly didn’t ask my parents to get involved.’

‘Well, they did, and now everyone loves you,’ Star said, holding up her mobile phone with a copy of that day’s
Daily Mirror
. There was a picture of Catherine as a child with the caption,
B
ORN TO BE A
S
TAR.
That picture had been in the loft for years. The only way the papers could have printed
it
was if one of her family had taken it to them. Catherine’s mind raced, she was becoming suspicious of everyone – she hated being like this. She had just wanted to sing, now she realised just how naive she had been. How had she ended up as the centre of a media storm? She was sure it would blow over very quickly when some real news came along and people would soon forget about her but while she was at the centre of all this attention, she hated it.

Catherine sighed. She didn’t have anything to come back with so instead looked out of the window at the Manhattan streets and wished that none of this were happening to her. She just wanted her life back and her dad to be well. None of this – money, fame, celebrity – could make that happen.

Catherine’s phone began to ring, she reached into her bag and pulled it out – Jo. ‘Hi, Jo, have you any idea how that picture of me got out of the loft and into the
Daily Mirror
?’

‘Yes, Dad sent it to them, sorry.’ Catherine’s heart sank. She couldn’t believe he’d do such a thing. ‘I forgot he’d even done that until I saw the paper today. Some journo rang up and asked for childhood pictures of you and Dad just handed them over … Listen, Catherine, that’s not why I’m ringing.’

‘Can you put Dad on please …?’

‘No, Catherine, I can’t.’

Catherine was so angry with her father, what did he think he was playing at? It was almost like he was enjoying all of this. ‘Jo, please.’

‘Catherine, I need to tell you something. Are you on your own?’

Catherine looked at Kim and Star, ‘No, I’ll call you back in fifteen minutes.’

Catherine ran into the apartment building, telling Kim and Star that she would see them later. She didn’t know where was the best place to call Jo from, so she ran down the stairs into the basement where the utility rooms were. She waited for one of the washing machines to finish its spin cycle and punched Jo’s number into the phone, wondering what on earth could be wrong.

Jo picked up straight away. ‘Hi.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘This is going to be really hard to take, Catherine, but it’s the truth, just try not to freak.’

Catherine felt all of her muscles clench. ‘What? Just tell me!’ she demanded.

‘Dad hasn’t got cancer.’

‘What?’ Catherine slumped against a tumble dryer.

‘He hasn’t got cancer, Catherine. He’s not listed anywhere in the Manchester area. He has never received treatment. He’s lying.’

‘But there must be some explanation for it.’

‘There isn’t. The only thing I can work out is that he was trying to get Mum’s sympathy.’

‘By saying he had cancer?’ Catherine put her hand to her face, she couldn’t believe this. Her father had had her running around after him for months, she had been worried sick and all for what? For nothing. ‘I’m coming home, I want to see him and I want him to look me in the eye and tell me why he did it.’

‘No!’ Catherine could hear the concern in her sister’s
voice,
‘You are
not
blowing this because of Dad, I won’t let you. You can sort it out when you come back.’

Catherine thought about it, ‘But that won’t work, Jo, will it? It will end up coming out, everyone will hate Dad and feel sorry for me, or maybe even hate me and think that it was all a set up. Besides, I can’t wait for however long it takes for me to be kicked off the competition before I confront Dad.’

Jo was quiet for a moment, ‘OK then,’ she said finally, ‘I’ll bring him to you.’

‘How?’

‘With the money that he got for his story, that’s how. Now go and do some practising.’

‘OK,’ Catherine said, hanging up, grateful to Jo but feeling utterly let down by her father.

Jo climbed out of the taxi and walked along Beech Road. She turned along the alleyway where she had left her bike weeks ago. Only the handle bars were missing.
Result
, she thought. She wasn’t sure how she would get it home in that state, but that wasn’t her most pressing concern; she needed to speak to her mum. Jo walked purposefully to the door and knocked. She didn’t feel sheepish, or apologetic or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, bolshie as she had in the past, she just felt she had a right to say her piece. Jo waited. A few moments later the door was opened by Karen. She stood back to let Jo into the house. Neither one said hello.

‘Coffee?’ Karen asked.

‘No, thanks, I’m not stopping.’

‘Well, that’s good because I’ve got a lot on …’

Jo would usually make some barbed remark about how busy her mum must be sitting around all day watching daytime TV and doing yoga but she didn’t; she wasn’t angry with Karen anymore, what she felt was more complicated than that. ‘OK, I’ll keep it brief.’

‘I was right about your dad, wasn’t I? He hasn’t got cancer, he’s having himself on.’

Jo knew that entering into a discussion with her mother about anything she cared about was like pouring oil on a fire. ‘I’m not here to discuss that. You and Dad have been in the papers saying he has, so you’ll be the one that has to deal with it.’

‘That’s very caring of you, Joanna,’ Karen arched an eyebrow at her daughter.

Jo desperately tried to stick to her train of thought, not to get emotional with her mum, as hard as it was. ‘I’m not getting into that with you, I’ve just come to say that I think we’re done, Mum.’

‘What do you mean, you “think we’re done”?’

‘We’ve all spent the last eight years wishing you back. And for what? I don’t need a mum, not one like you anyway. You come to New York with us and the only thing you’re there for is to make a fast buck out of Catherine …’

‘That’s not true,’ Karen cut across Jo. ‘I was there to support Catherine and when the opportunity to make some money came up I thought why not? As did your dad, might I add.’

‘And we all know that if you said “jump off a cliff” he would. But you, you know exactly what you’re doing. You never once told Catherine you were proud of her. I watched you. You just smiled at her, like she was in another room
and
you were looking at her through glass or something and then that was it, you were bored, like you always get bored. Well, it’s OK, that’s all I wanted to say. We’ve all got each other, as much as you’re bothered about that. And that suits us fine. So from now on, we’ll leave you alone.’

Jo walked to the door. She could feel her hand shaking so she jammed it in her jeans pocket.

‘What if I want to see you, what about that?’

‘But you won’t, will you, Mum?’ She turned around and looked at her mother, trying to keep the hurt from showing in her eyes. Karen shrugged and looked away, her eyes watery. ‘There’s my answer.’

Jo walked out and pulled the door gently behind her. She had gone to Karen’s promising herself that she wasn’t going to bang and crash and argue and she hadn’t. She should be pleased with herself, but she just felt numb. There was no happy outcome where her mother was concerned; there was just heartache and long gaping periods of wondering in between. Hopefully now, Jo thought, that would at least be something they wouldn’t have to experience and they could all get on with their lives in relative peace.

Chapter 21

ANDY HAD HAD
the best week of his life. He and Catherine had been getting on brilliantly, he was working in New York on the biggest show in town and he had managed to go out in the sun everyday without burning to a crisp. Things couldn’t get any better he thought. Will had asked that he join him, Jason, Cherie and Richard for a meeting at two so he was planning on having some lunch from the deli near the park first. He was standing in the corridor waiting for the lift for what seemed like an age. When the doors finally opened, Star almost fell through them; it was obvious she had been crying.