Star Struck (38 page)

‘Mandy?’

‘Yep. Mandy.’

‘I’m surprised that hasn’t come out in the papers.’

‘Me too, no doubt I’m next and the fact that I’ve said my parents are dead, well, that’ll go down a treat won’t it?’

‘Your mum didn’t mind that you said she was dead?’

‘No, it was her idea, that was the truth.’

Catherine walked over to Star’s bed and sat down next to her. ‘It’d mean the world to you to win this competition, wouldn’t it?’

Star nodded. ‘But I can’t go on like this. I’d rather leave than let that disgusting old ming-head near me again.’

Catherine hoped that there was a way to sort this out without Star having to leave.

Chapter 22

IT WAS THE
day of the live show and Catherine was preparing to sing that evening. It had been difficult. The past few days had been fraught with people trying to get to Catherine to ask her opinion on what her father had done. Catherine had managed to keep a dignified silence. Her anger had been quickly transferred from her father to Richard Forster when Andy had told her that it was Richard who had gone to the press. She needed to bide her time if she was to have any comeback against Richard, it wasn’t something she could take him into a quiet room and talk to him about – she knew he would have her thrown off the show. Her song this evening was ‘Angels’ by Robbie Williams. She didn’t like the song and was dreading singing it.

Catherine came off the stage fiddling with her microphone pack, Andy walked over to her. ‘Are you all set for tonight?’

‘Yep.’

‘You sure?’ he studied her face.

‘Never been surer. Are you?’

‘I think I’ve got it covered.’ He leaned forward and kissed her.

Catherine was very nervous about tonight but she knew she had to go through with it. She looked down at her phone, there was a text from Jo. ‘We’re here – with the most hated man on the planet.’

Mick had had a terrible time since the news broke that he had been lying. Jo said he’d even made the national news in the ‘And Finally …’ section where they usually talk about pandas that have learned to rollerskate. Mick was being held up as an example of everything that was wrong with society today. Her poor dad had fallen on his sword and told the media back home that Catherine had known nothing of this. That she genuinely thought he had cancer. He had also added that so did he, but nobody bothered to report that.

‘Oh my God, that was the worst journey ever!’ Jo said marching towards Catherine, wearing a
Star Maker
security badge. Now that they were very much part of the
Star Maker
story they had been collected in a car from the airport. Catherine looked behind Jo to see Maria, Claire and her father looking incredibly sheepish. She ran forward to hug her sisters in turn, leaving her father for a moment. There was no sign of her mother.

‘It’s nice to be back in the Big Apple, courtesy of Dad’s blood money,’ Jo smiled.

Catherine looked at her dad, who was trying to shrink away with mortification. ‘So, Dad …’

Mick shuffled towards his daughter. ‘Can we have a few minutes?’ he asked the others. Catherine took her dad into the seats and sat next to him.

‘I’m so sorry, Catherine,’ he said, unable to meet her eye. ‘I got carried away.’

‘Carried away?’

‘I know it sounds terrible, but that’s what happened,’ he looked at his hands, ashamed. ‘And then, once I’d said it I felt like I couldn’t go back. And as daft as it sounds
now
I thought that maybe your mum might come back if there was something real to come back for.’

Catherine took a deep breath, she was getting increasingly angry. ‘There was always something to come back for, Dad, she just didn’t want it.’

Mick hung his head. ‘You’re right, love, you’re right.’

Catherine wanted to be kind to her dad, she always gave him the benefit of the doubt but she was boiling with rage towards him, for what he’d done, for his stupidity, for his selfishness. ‘I might be right, but I’m still sitting here feeling sorry for you, aren’t I? Being expected to weather whatever you throw at me because you’re allowed to do what you want, Dad, and sod the consequences.’

Mick looked stunned. ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means you treat the house like a dumping ground, conning yourself that you’re going to make loads of money on eBay. You pretend that one day you might go back to work but we all know you have no intention of it. You treat me like your wife when I’m your daughter and I shouldn’t even still be living at home – I should be having a life …’ Catherine had never felt so angry, but she was trying her best to keep her voice down, ‘And then when I do actually achieve something that means that I do something that I want to do, you sabotage it for me and not with just any old thing, no, you’ve got to tell the world about your pretend cancer. Well, well done, Dad, because if you wanted to mess things up for me you’ve done a pretty good job of it. I can’t step out of the door without getting a camera in my face and being accused of engineering the whole thing.’

‘But I’ve told them you didn’t know anything.’

‘That doesn’t stop them asking!’

Mick put his head in his hands. Catherine had promised herself that she wouldn’t get angry with her father that she would try to be calm with him, but she couldn’t help herself.

‘I am so sorry, Catherine,’ he looked at her, his sad eyes heavy with tears. He looked genuinely crushed. ‘I never meant to cause you any upset.’

‘But you have,’ she said quietly.

They both sat in painful silence for a few moments. Then Mick tentatively put his arm around Catherine. ‘I’m sorry, love. You mean the world to me. And I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done for me, honestly I am. And I don’t blame you if you never believe a word that comes out of my gob again but I promise I’ll never lie to you – to any of you – again.’

Catherine felt tears sting her eyes – her dad
never
apologised; she tipped her head back to prevent herself from crying.

She turned to her dad, her anger disappearing, and felt so sorry for him that she hugged him. ‘Has it been hard?’ she asked finally. ‘Are you being pestered by the press?’

‘Pestered? They were hiding in the wheelie bin yesterday!’ Mick sighed. ‘But as they say, today’s news is tomorrow’s fish paper.’

‘I think it’s chip paper.’

‘Right-o, well, whatever; that’s me: chip paper. Hopefully.’

Catherine knew that as long as she was in the competition then her family would be under the intrusive spotlight of the press. And there was no one she could
blame
but herself. ‘I think you’re right, Dad, it’ll all blow over.’

‘Thanks, love.’ Mick said, touching his daughter’s hand. The intimacy of the gesture shocked her.

‘What for?’

‘For everything, love. For everything.’

‘We’re live from New York and you’re watching
Star Maker!
’ Tom Soronsen said to the camera; the crowd went wild. Catherine peeped out from a gap in the wings to see her family all cheering, even her dad. Claire was waving a banner with Catherine’s head on it and hitting people in the face with it in her excitement.

Andy came up behind Catherine and wound his arm around her waist. ‘Good luck.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Are you sure about this?’

‘Yes, are you?’

‘Absolutely.’

Catherine’s name was called and there was a huge cheer from the crowd. She walked onto the stage and waved. Kim followed her as they took their seats. Kim leaned towards Catherine. ‘Is everything OK?’

‘Yes, fine.’ She said, she hadn’t told Kim of her plans as she didn’t want to put any unnecessary pressure on her.

Once all of the finalists had taken their seats Tom turned to Richard. ‘So, it’s been a busy week?’

‘It certainly has. I think it’s fair to say that there’s been as much interest in what goes on off screen as the show itself.’ He spun around and looked at the Reillys. ‘But you know, we have to ride these things out.’

Catherine was fuming, he had been the one who had informed the press and now he was acting as if he was just running some humble singing competition.

‘So what have you got for us tonight?’

‘First up is Star and I think you’ll see a distinct improvement,’ Richard grinned. He looked up at the screen where each contestant would talk about themselves and their week for twenty seconds before they performed. Instead of Star waxing lyrical, the video that began to play was of Richard sitting in his room and Star entering. Catherine looked at Richard’s face, which had drained of colour, Cherie put both hands on the desk and looked at her husband. Then as quickly as the image was flashed up it was replaced with the original footage as she, Andy and Star had agreed. Catherine felt giddy with excitement. Richard Forster looked as if he was about to explode. Kim was elbowing Catherine in the ribs, evidently wondering what was going on.

Andy and Catherine had decided to play Richard at his own game. They had activated the camera in his room and when Star had gone to see him as instructed they had taped it. She had feigned illness and not slept with him but the full tape was damning enough to ruin Richard Forster’s reputation for good and he knew it. They had decided to only play a taster of it, so that he knew that someone somewhere had it.

Everyone praised Star for her performance and Richard was more full of praise than he had ever been, making light of the technical problems that he blamed for the video confusion. Star returned to her seat and smiled at Catherine.

As each contestant got up to perform Catherine studied Richard, he was nervous because the show was live and he knew that at any time the video might be played in full. Catherine knew that there would be a lot of behind the scenes activity now with people running around trying to work out who had planted the footage at the beginning of Star’s tape.

Kim pulled off another stunning performance and the atmosphere in the studio as it got closer to Catherine’s time to perform was electric.

‘Catherine Reilly!’ Tom announced, Catherine walked over to her spot on the stage.

‘Well, Catherine, the last few days have been something haven’t they?’ Catherine smiled weakly. Tom looked down the camera. ‘And do you know now that to be found to be lying about something is now known as “Doing a Mick”?’

The audience cheered, Catherine looked at her dad, who had sunk so low in his seat she could only see the top of his head.

‘Anyway guys, here’s Catherine …’

The VT rolled and Catherine looked at herself talking about how her time in
Star Maker
was shaping up. It was like watching another person, she was so shiny, it wasn’t her. She wasn’t willing to give up everything for her fifteen minutes of fame. She’d had a great time and experienced things and been to places she never thought she would but the past few days had soured everything for Catherine.

Catherine hoped that Andy had managed to perform the music swap as they had planned. It began to play. Great, it isn’t ‘Angels’, she thought. It was the music to
one
of Catherine’s own songs that she had had recorded herself. Richard Forster’s face dropped.
What the bloody hell is this?
Catherine saw him mouth to the other judges.

‘This is a song called “All I Ever Wanted”,’ Catherine said quickly and then began to sing. She had never in her life put such an effort into a performance. She soared to the high notes and gently let her voice fall away to the lower notes, there was so much passion and emotion in the lyrics but only now, standing here on this stage, was she able to do it justice. It was an emotional song and one that she could sing with true conviction. She looked over at her family. She could see in her sisters’ eyes that they knew what this song was really about – Catherine had barely even admitted it to herself – their mother. To anyone else it would have sounded like a broken-hearted love song, but it wasn’t; it was about their loss as a family.

Catherine could see Jo wiping away tears. Mick hung his head. Claire put her hand to her neck as if smoothing away the lump in her throat and Maria was simply sitting with tears streaming down her face. Catherine had never felt so close to her family. And she didn’t miss her mum as she sang. She was sad for everything that had happened, but she didn’t miss her.

The song ended and Catherine looked out at the crowd, people were on their feet cheering. Jo was jumping around hugging Claire and Maria. Mick was on his feet clapping his hands over his head.

Richard Forster looked around scowling. ‘Well …’ he said sharply, ‘everyone seemed to enjoy that, Catherine, whatever the hell it was.’

There were boos from the audience.

‘Listen, we spend all week practising “Angels” and you sing this, whatever it was meant to be.’

‘It was beautiful, don’t listen to him,’ Cherie said.

‘Thank you,’ Catherine smiled appreciatively.

‘There are rules, Cherie, and you don’t just change your song choice at the last minute,’ Richard snapped at his wife.

‘You did last week with Star,’ Catherine said bravely.

‘What I do and what you do are two very different things,’ Richard said, crossing his arms. ‘Where did you get that song from?’

‘I wrote it myself,’ Catherine said, trying to keep her nerves at bay. There were gasps and cheers of appreciation from the audience.

‘Well, you know that that is against the rules.’

Catherine put the microphone in its stand, ‘Yes I do and I know that I’ll have to leave the show now, but I just wanted the chance to sing my own song and I wanted the chance to say as well that my dad isn’t a bad person, he didn’t mean to lie.’ She knew he had but she didn’t have the air space to explain the ins and outs of her dad’s reasons. ‘Things have just been blown out of proportion and I think that if I stay in the competition it will only get worse.’

‘You can’t just leave!’ Richard Forster said, getting to his feet.

‘I can.’

‘You’re under contract!’ he barked.

‘And I’ve just broken it by singing my own song,’ Catherine said. She couldn’t believe how forthright she
was
being, but she felt she had nothing to lose. The audience were watching amazed, their heads going backward and forward as if it were a tennis match.