Star Struck (7 page)

‘My dad. How he’ll cope while I’m away.’

‘Your father will be fine. Always has been, always will be.’

‘But he’s poorly,’ Catherine said and then immediately felt guilty. Should she even be saying this? After all, her father had sworn her to secrecy. But she had kept the secret for long enough and it was beginning to feel like carrying a ton weight around.

‘He’s always poorly, isn’t he? He’s had everything under the sun for as long as I’ve known him.’ Mick had lived in Father McGary’s parish since he was a boy and he was something of a notorious character around the area. Her father only attended church for ‘hatches, matches and dispatches’ as he liked to call christenings, weddings and funerals, but Father McGary knew all about Mick; everyone, it seemed, knew all about Mick.

‘He’s got cancer,’ Catherine said, her voice barely audible.

Father McGary blessed himself. ‘Oh Catherine, I’m so sorry. When did you find this out?’

‘He told me months ago.’

‘Well, I see lots of people who have cancer and pull through.’

Catherine leant forward and began to cry. She didn’t
want
the priest to see her like this; she didn’t want anyone to see her like this.

‘What type of cancer is it?’ Father McGary asked gently.

Catherine lifted her head up and looked at him. She knew that this was going to sound like a ridiculous answer but it was the truth. ‘I really don’t know.’

‘He never said when he came home from the hospital?’

‘No, he just told me that he has cancer and that he can feel it inside of him all of the time and whenever he goes to the hospital he comes home and it’s bad news. They don’t seem to be able to treat it, whatever it is.’

‘And has there been any word from your mother about this?’ the priest probed gently.

‘No. I doubt Dad would want her to know.’

Father McGary looked as if he was about to say something but then thought better of it. ‘What have your sisters said?’ he asked instead.

Catherine knew again that this was going to sound ridiculous once she said it out loud. ‘Dad’s asked me not to tell them.’

Father McGary took this in and nodded his head even though his body language made him look as if he should be shaking it in disgust. ‘And has he given any reason for this?’

‘Not really. We don’t really talk about stuff. He just trusts me …’ Catherine trailed off, thinking that she was sounding a lot like a wet lettuce.

‘That may be the case, but he can’t burden you with something like this. What has he said about your success today? I’m assuming you’ll have to leave him to go off to the competition, what has he said about that?’

‘Oh, he’s been fine really. He’s quite encouraging actually,’ Catherine said, without being able to meet Father McGary’s gaze. She was like some poor battered wife who when confronted about her latest black eye, claimed to have walked into a door.

‘That’s good to hear.’

Catherine nodded and stood up. She was sure that Father McGary didn’t believe her, but she didn’t want to tell him how her father had really reacted to the news that she was through to the next stage of the nation’s most watched competition – like a five-year-old in a sulk. ‘Thanks, Father, I just wanted to tell you how I’d got on, you know, with you letting me sing here and everything.’

‘Don’t be daft. You’d better come back and sing here when you’re rich and famous.’

‘I will,’ she nodded.

Catherine left the church and walked along the road in the direction of her house. She felt a warm glow from the priest’s reaction. It had been nice to tell someone who knew how much this meant to her. Catherine loved music and singing and Father McGary seemed to understand this. Over the time that she had been using the church to practise she had discussed her musical tastes with the priest on numerous occasions. Telling him how she had first become interested in pop music when she was five or six when Claire used to listen to Madonna and New Kids on the Block. As she got older Claire graduated onto bands like REM and Nirvana and Catherine used to listen to her CDs when her sister was out working at her Saturday job at Tesco. As Catherine grew up and her musical taste developed she found herself
becoming
fascinated by the lyrics as much as by the music. Bands like Radiohead, Doves and Elbow sat alongside singers like Beth Orton, PJ Harvey and Tori Amos in her CD collection. While everyone else at school was listening to the Spice Girls and Take That, Catherine was listening to songs of heartbreak, loss and longing. These songs spoke to her even though she hadn’t experienced anything like this at the time, but somehow she knew how it felt.

When her mother left home these songs meant more to her than ever. She didn’t need a boyfriend to break her heart, she had a mother who’d done that for her. Not that Catherine ever said anything to anyone, she was too much of a peacemaker for that; add to this the fact that she felt she had to keep things on an even keel at home for poor Jo who had only been twelve at the time of their mother’s departure. So her own feelings towards her mum were channelled into the songs she wrote herself, she was just too lacking in confidence to ever sing them to anyone. Catherine hoped that this competition might give her the confidence she needed to push herself forward.

As Catherine neared the end of the street she turned around. She was a couple of hundred yards away from the church now but she could still see the silhouette of Father McGary standing waiting; checking to see that she was OK.

‘Here she is, Mariah Carey,’ Mick said, as Catherine came through the door. ‘I got me own tea, thanks.’ Mick was sitting in front of the TV with a plate of beans on toast on his lap.

‘How’s me putting the toast in the toaster, popping it,
spreading
butter on it, warming the beans, putting them on the toast and then putting the plate on your knee, you getting your own tea?’ Jo asked, pulling her hair into a ponytail and smearing lip balm on her lips. ‘I don’t know how you put up with him, it’s like living with Dot Cotton.’

‘You have to listen to him too,’ Catherine reminded her.

‘Not really. I’m usually out, which is where I’m going now.’

‘Out where?’ Mick asked.

‘Out out.’

‘You’re not going anywhere until I know where you’re going.’

‘OK.’ Jo grabbed a pen. She scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to her father. ‘Here’s the address.’

Mick looked at it satisfied for a moment until he realised it was a joke address. ‘999 Letsbe Avenue. Very funny, Joanna. Very smart.’

Jo smiled sweetly. ‘I’m off to tell everyone my sister’s going to be famous. Bye!’

‘Where are you going?’ Mick asked, and then demanded, exasperatedly, from Catherine, ‘Where’s she going?’

‘Jo, we’re not meant to say anything in case it gets in the papers …’ Catherine said weakly, before letting her sister go. She knew no one would be interested in her – what sort of story did she have that the
News of the World
would want to splash across the front page:
B
OOT
C
AMP
G
IRL
L
ETS
D
AD
S
ORT
H
IS
O
WN
T
EA
O
UT
S
HOCKER?
She didn’t think so.

Catherine sat down in the chair opposite her dad. After her conversation with Father McGary she wanted
to
ask Mick what cancer he had and why he didn’t want her to mention it to anyone. But sitting here now, actually face to face with him, she knew she couldn’t. They didn’t have huge heartfelt conversations like some family from
Home and Away
. She just needed to make sure that he understood that she was going to be away for a few days at Boot Camp and in that time she wouldn’t be able to help him.

‘Dad, you know I’m going away.’

‘Don’t worry about me …’

‘Well I do, so I’m just saying.’

‘Pass me my pills, will you?’

Catherine went to the drawer where her dad secreted his stash of pills. He took five pills three times a day, each one looked big enough to tranquilise a horse. Catherine sat and watched as Mick tipped each one dramatically back into his mouth.

‘So, I’m just wondering … who’s going to look after you?’ Catherine asked.

The question hung in the air as Mick motored his way through his tablets. When he had finished throwing down the last one he began to cough – a daily pill-taking routine – like a cat with fur balls. Catherine waited for him to finish. He looked at her.

‘What?’

‘I was saying, who is going to look after you?’

‘I can look after myself,’ Mick said, turning his attention back to the TV.

Catherine took a deep breath. ‘But you ring me at least fifteen times a day. How will you be able to look after yourself?’

‘Who rings you fifteen times a day?’

‘You do, Dad!’ Catherine said, frustrated. It was true. As soon as she left the house Mick would make his first call of the day to ask her where something was or to tell her something he’d discovered.

Maria came into the living room in a cloud of perfume, wearing a silver backless dress and six-inch high heels. Her chestnut hair was scraped back and her make-up was perfectly in place, if a little bit caked on. She was pretty but she just couldn’t leave the house without a face full of MAC. Maria would look much better, Catherine often thought, if she just applied less slap.

‘Maria, when I’m at Boot Camp, will you be able to take care of Dad?’

‘He’s big enough and daft enough to take care of himself, aren’t you?’ Maria said, hunting through the ornamental jars on top of the fireplace. ‘Have you seen my cash card?’

‘No. Listen, he needs help …’

‘I am here, you know,’ Mick pointed out.

‘And I won’t be able to speak to him whenever he wants to call me.’

‘Then he’ll have to talk to one of us, won’t he?’ Maria said, pulling out drawing pins, reels of cotton and a piece of chalk. ‘Why have we got chalk? Who uses chalk? This house is like a jumble sale.’ Maria spied something on the floor near to where Mick was sitting. ‘There it is,’ she said, picking up her cash card. ‘Right, I’m off out. Don’t wait up.’ She ran out, slamming the door hard behind her.

‘See, like she’s bothered if I’m OK or not,’ Mick grumbled.

‘Well, it might help if she knew about … your illness.’
Catherine
couldn’t bring herself to say ‘cancer’. Just the word made it feel more scary and real than it already was.

‘I don’t want them knowing,’ Mick said.

‘But why, Dad? Why only tell me?’

Mick turned and looked at his daughter. ‘Because I suppose I think it’s you and me against the world, Cath.’

Catherine hung her head, she didn’t want her dad to see that she was on the verge of tears. The only person who had ever called her Cath was her mum. But it had been a long time since she’d left and a long time since anyone had referred to her as Cath. ‘It’s not, Dad. The others want to help too.’ Or at least they would if they knew, she thought.

‘I don’t really think so,’ Mick shook his head.

Catherine felt deflated and back to square one. As other candidates were excitedly preparing for the experience of their lives, Catherine was trying to sort out childcare for her own father. There was nothing for it, she was going to have to grab the bull by the horns and make her sisters listen – it was only a few days and she’d be back, it wasn’t as if she stood a chance of making it to the finals. She called Claire. She was sensible; she’d know what to do.

‘Yep,’ Claire said breathlessly when she picked up the phone.

‘It’s about Dad, Claire. I’m going to need some help while I’m away.’

There was an impatient pause. Then Claire said, ‘And?’

‘And I was hoping, you know, because you’re the eldest and everything—’

‘And I’m the one with two kids and a husband …’

‘I know that, Claire, but I just thought that you might be able to sort Dad out.’

‘Well, as Dad would say, you know what thought did.’ Claire snapped.

Catherine could never remember what it was exactly that thought did do. Something to do with muck carts and weddings, but she never really knew what that was meant to mean.

‘All right, don’t snap. Have I caught you at a bad time?’

‘You could say that. Jake’s got nits and they’re hopping off his head and Rosie’s freaking out, so I’m sorry but looking after Dad is not top of my list of priorities.’

‘OK,’ Catherine said quietly. ‘Sorry.’

‘Listen,’ Claire said, her voice softening. ‘I think you need to give yourself a break. Dad runs rings around you because you let him. If you leave him to his own devices then he’ll have no alternative but to sort himself out, will he?’

‘No, you’re right.’ Catherine said, wishing that she could tell her sister the truth about their dad, then maybe she’d understand her concern. ‘Thanks, Claire. And good luck with the nits,’ she added.

Jo was sitting in a dingy pub near Manchester University. She and her friends always came to this area of town – the drinks were cheaper than in the city centre and the men more scared of talking to women, which meant that she and her friends were generally left alone to get on with the important business of having a good time. She was sitting with her best friends Cara and Rachel and she was making them wait for her news.

‘Come on then …’ Cara said.

‘I don’t know if you’re ready for gossip this good,’ Jo said, taking a sip of her pint and shaking her head as if by withholding the information she had she was actually doing her friends a favour.

‘You’ve bigged it up so much that unless you’re going out with Orlando Bloom it’s going to look like poor news,’ Rachel said, but Jo could tell she was dying to know what she had to say.

‘My friends, faith in me you have lost.’

‘Listen Yoda, spill it, or move on.’

A smile played on Jo’s lips. ‘You know our Catherine …’

‘Yes,’ Rachel and Cara said in unison. She knew what they were thinking,
yes, your sister, the boring one …