Star Struck (39 page)

‘You don’t call the shots around here, young lady.’

Catherine looked over at Star, who nodded. ‘Richard, everyone likes you being Mr. Nasty, shall we show them how nasty you can be?’ Catherine asked sweetly, looking back at the screen. Richard glowered at Catherine, he now knew that somehow she was behind the video of him with Star and he couldn’t risk that coming out.

‘I don’t know what you mean, Catherine, I’ve been a pussy cat.’

There were murmurs from the audience. Everyone wanted to know what Catherine meant. He nodded at Tom who stepped in and took Catherine by the hand.

‘Anyway, I think you’ll all agree, that Catherine has been a great contestant and we wish her well. Let’s hear it for Catherine!’

The crowd cheered wildly and Catherine headed offstage. She was escorted straight off the premises by security. She hadn’t thought that she’d be allowed to hang around, but her feet barely touched the floor.

Once unceremoniously dumped outside, Catherine looked around; there was no crowd, no paparazzi, no one had made it to the stage door in time to ask her anything. Across the road was a Mustang, the driver beeped the horn. It was Andy.

‘Thought you might need a lift now you’re a nobody …’

Catherine scurried across the road and jumped in the car. Andy kissed her.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.

‘Exhilarated, crap, nervous, excited … lots of things. You?’

‘Jobless, but hey, there’s always another role as a gofer, especially with the reference that Richard Forster will have to give me …’ he said, holding up a DVD case marked ‘Star’. ‘I think that Star will probably do all right in this competition, don’t you?’ Andy asked with a sly smile.

Catherine grinned back, ‘I hope so.’ She leaned forward and kissed Andy again, this time a longer, lingering kiss. ‘So where to now?’

‘I’ve taken the liberty of booking us into a little place I know, an Irish bar … where no one in the world will recognise you because they’re all stuck in the 1950s.’

‘The Cobbler’s Thumb?’

‘The very same. They’ve got rooms about the bar, classy eh?’

‘Can’t wait,’ Catherine giggled.

‘I’ve booked us under Mr and Mrs Smith,’ Andy grinned. ‘Because you can’t be too careful when you’re famous.’

‘When you’re a has-been, you mean?’

‘I don’t think I’ve heard the last of you,’ Andy said, his eyes twinkling.

‘No?’

‘No, I think you’re going to be around for a very long time.’

Catherine leaned in and kissed Andy again. A few moments later he pulled the car away from the studios and headed towards The Cobbler’s Thumb, gladly leaving the rest of the world to the glitz and glamour of
Star Maker
.

Chapter 23

Six Months Later

JO WALKED INTO
the lounge with a bucket full of burnt popcorn. She was useless at making the stuff but it didn’t stop her trying.

‘Joanna, have you burnt the arse out of the pan again?’ Mick complained. ‘How many times do I have to tell you?’

‘Dad, knock it on the head.’ Jo said, offering the bowl around the room. Funnily enough, Claire, Paul, Rosie, Jake and Maria all refused. ‘I’ve not missed anything have I? She’s not been on yet has she?’

‘It’s ten in the morning, why do you need popcorn?’

‘Because we’re watching Catherine on telly, duh! It’s like being at the cinema, it’s an occasion.’ Sometimes she despaired of her family.

‘No, she’s not been on yet. Anyway, she’s been on loads of stuff, you don’t make popcorn every time.’ Catherine had appeared on everything from
This Morning
to
Friday Night with Jonathan Ross
since she exited the
Star Maker
competition.

‘Yes, but this is special, we get to watch slimy chops have to kiss her bum. It’s going to be class.’

Star and Kim had got down to the final two and Star – Jo had thought rather predictably – had won. But they knew that Richard Forster wasn’t going to let someone
with
so much ammunition against him lose. Since the final Kim had secured a record deal with a big label and Kim and Catherine were still firm friends. The biggest surprise for Jo was that Star and Catherine had remained in contact and that Star hadn’t binned her sister the moment she was pronounced the winner. She was actually all right, for a mental stuck-up southerner who was willing to pretend her parents were dead to get on in a show, Jo thought.

As for Catherine, her song, ‘All I Ever Wanted’ had been released on the internet and had become one of the fastest selling downloads of all time. It was still in the charts – spending longer there than Star’s song, which had recently slipped out. Everyone who interviewed Catherine asked her who the song was about, and a few had questioned whether it was actually about her mother. Recently, the story of how Karen had left Catherine and her sisters to live with Jay, enjoying a lavish lifestyle courtesy of the Arts Council, had made it into the national press. This, coupled with the fact that she had made money from her initial story with Mick and had now been turned on her by the very paper that bought the story, meant that Karen was having a hard time walking down the street without someone offering an opinion as to what a disgrace she was. Jo was pleased to see that Catherine had kept her mum at arm’s length since returning from New York and not taken her up on any of her invitations to get together. Jo was sure that they were just so that Karen could write a new version of events in her head to make herself feel better about how she had behaved and had nothing to do with wanting to build bridges with the members of her family.

Catherine was now working on her album. She was
without
doubt the success story of this year’s
Star Maker
. Not that you’d know it to see her, Jo thought, half proud, half despairing. She had even tried to go back to work in the call centre at first. Jo had told her she was like those embarrassing people who win the lottery and then are back working shifting pallets round a factory the next day, saying, ‘It won’t change me …’ Catherine was now in talks with an influential American indie label about making her album with them, after turning down a number of the bigger labels.

Catherine and Andy were now very much an item. Jo had never seen her sister be like this about a member of the opposite sex. She could see why she was mad about him though, he was kind and considerate and funny in a geeky kind of way and he thought the world of Catherine. Andy had moved to Manchester after returning from his stint on
Star Maker
. As he was freelance he had had to come down to earth with a bang. One week he was ushering Bette Midler from her helicopter the next he was in Urmston job centre. He hadn’t had to wait too long for work, though. He was now working as a runner on a show at Granada Studios called
So You Think You Can Base Jump?
and it was his job to take C-list celebrities to the top of famous buildings and watch them parachute off. He was still hoping to get work experience as a cameraman but Jo couldn’t understand why. If she could spend her days watching the likes of Dane Bowers take their lives in their own hands she’d love it.

Andy and Catherine had decided that they would see where Catherine’s work took her in deciding where to move next but whatever happened, she knew they’d be
together.
They were just one of those couples – finishing each other’s sentences, having hysterics over something that happened to them when no one else knew what they were talking about. It would have been sickening if Jo hadn’t been so pleased for her sister.

Catherine had moved back home when she returned from New York and was still living there officially, but she had barely spend at night at the Reilly residence. She was either off being interviewed in both the States and London or she was with Andy.

Mick had found himself in the (for him) unfortunate situation of not being able to moan. He was so ashamed of his behaviour and having been outed as someone who would pretend to have cancer, that it seemed to Jo that her father might never whinge again. Old habits died hard of course and she would see him now and again thinking about complaining about something, but a look from one of his daughters was just enough to set him back on the path of non-grumbliness.

This morning Catherine was about to be interviewed by her nemesis, Jason P. Longford, on his new – and surprisingly popular – morning chat show and Jo knew Catherine was really looking forward to it. It was as if she’d come full circle and Jo was looking forward to watching Catherine make Jason squirm.

‘Here she is!’ Jo squealed. Catherine walked onto the stage and waved at the studio audience, they all cheered.

‘Well, Catherine, you’re looking well,’ Jason said with a big beaming disingenuous grin.

‘Thank you,’ Catherine smiled back. Jo cheered, her sister was enjoying herself.

‘So one thing I’m sure everyone must be asking you is, how is your dad?’

‘He’s absolutely fine,’ Catherine said weathering the question well. ‘He hasn’t made an illness up for a few months now.’

Jo held her breath but the audience laughed.

‘I’m a laughing stock,’ Mick grumbled.

‘You certainly are,’ Claire nodded.

The furore surrounding their father had died down surprisingly quickly. People took Catherine at her word that her father hadn’t intended to lie, and the rumours surrounding Richard and Star after the half-shown video meant that Mick was old news. Jo couldn’t help thinking that he was slightly disappointed.

Jo herself had benefited from Catherine’s
Star Maker
experience; she was still in touch with Will who she’d got off with in a drunken haze after Catherine’s last appearance on
Star Maker
. He was trying to persuade her to be a contestant on his next project called
Catwalks and Catfights
. It was going to be like
America’s Next Top Model
but a million times better, he told Jo. She had told him she’d believe that when she saw it. She was still toying with the idea. She could wear her own designs and prance around being obnoxious and getting shouted at by the likes of Janice Dickenson. She hadn’t told any of her family other than Catherine though; she knew that the idea would be pooh-poohed immediately.

‘And you now have a hit record that has outsold the winner’s song on downloads alone.’ Jason beamed at Catherine; Jo knew it was sticking in his throat being nice to her sister.

‘Yes, I can’t believe it’s happened really,’ Catherine said shyly.

‘Aw, she’s gone soft,’ Jo complained. She had hoped Catherine would make him squirm because he’d been so rude to her during the competition.

‘So, have you got any advice for anyone out there wanting to apply for next year’s competition?’ Jason asked, placing his hand on her arm like they were life-long friends.

‘I’d say go for it, don’t listen when anyone tries to put you off. Even if they’re really rude and insistent.’

Jason looked at her wide-eyed; he couldn’t believe she was going to drop him in it.

‘Oh my God, look at his face, he knows Catherine’s going to tell everyone what a horror he was.’

Catherine looked at Jason and held his gaze. ‘But on the whole, people are really supportive and you’ve just got to believe in yourself.’

‘She didn’t pull him up! Aw that’s rubbish,’ Jo complained.

‘No, it’s not. She was dead right,’ Mick said proudly. ‘She didn’t pull him up because she didn’t need to. She doesn’t go in like a bull in a china shop, she picks her battles.’

Jo thought about it for a moment. Her father was right. Catherine didn’t need to have a go at Jason P. Longford live on air, it was enough that she had succeeded. She had always picked her battles, Jo realised, like with their mother, she didn’t go looking for a fight with her because she knew she wouldn’t get anywhere. She just got on with life and helped bring Jo up and looked after her father and then took her opportunity, this one big opportunity when it
arose.
Jo felt a lump rise in her throat; her sister really was a star.

‘Living well is the best form of revenge,’ Mick said wisely, tucking into a half-eaten pork pie that had been sitting on the chair-arm for the past hour.

Jo raised her bowl of popcorn in the air. ‘To Catherine, who in 2009 put the Reillys on the map …’

‘… And then took us back off it again!’ Mick added and everyone cheered again before settling down to watch Catherine perform her very own hit song.

Thank you to Grainne Fox for being generally all round brilliant and for working UK hours from New York – what a woman!

A big thank you to Gillian Green for her eagle editorial eye, great enthusiasm and wonderful ideas; and to everyone at Ebury who has worked on this book.

To Mum and Dad for all their invaluable help while I was writing this.

To Jack for putting up with the traffic on the M62 four times a week and being a star.

And to Steve for his love and support. Oh yes and for having a
brilliant
sense of humour. Do I get my tenner now?

Ebury Press Fiction Footnotes

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