The Vanishing Point Page 5

  Next up was a second division gangsta rapper whose principal claim to fame had been mooning on the MOBO red carpet. A few short months of nauseating lurve were followed by an acrimonious bust-up. Three nightclub fights ended on the front pages of the tabloids and he was history.

  And then along came Joshu. A British Asian DJ, titan of the turntables, a strutting bantam of a boy who thought every word that dripped from his mouth was golden. King of the clubs, or so he thought. He never tired of publicly telling Scarlett she should be grateful to have him because he could have any woman he wanted. It was a claim he regularly put to the test. They rowed about it in nightclubs, in bars and in restaurants. They rowed about it on TV chat shows, in press interviews and in the street. The trouble was, it seemed the silly girl was in love with the idiot boy. She kept on coming back for more. Just reading about it made me want to shake some sense into her.

  Having very public love affairs wasn’t the only thing that Scarlett was good at. A bright TV producer had understood that she had the gift of communicating with a particular demographic. The chattering classes might sneer, all the papers from the Daily Mail upwards might scoff, but when it came to reaching out to empty-headed young women with enough disposable income to be interesting to advertisers, Scarlett had an unerring instinct. It seemed she knew when to be raunchy, when to be vulnerable, when to be sexy and when to be bloody rude. And because she was pictured out on the lash at least twice a week, her audience really got that she was one of them.

  Scarlett was living proof of the dream for those young women. She validated their shallow ambition. They saw her hitting the high life, in spite of her terrible childhood, her poor education, her limited looks, and it helped them believe it could happen to them. And that was what got them through the shitty days.

  So they devoured her late-night satellite-channel show. The programme charted her life. Scarlett provided beauty tips, fashion guidance and a window on a world slathered in product placement. There was talk of a signature fragrance, a line of clothes in a downmarket high street chain, a monthly magazine column. Thank God that didn’t come off. I shuddered at the thought of the poor subeditor charged with rendering Scarlett’s simplistic yet totally fucked-up world view into a form that would please the readers and satisfy the lawyers.

  Still, I had to admit she’d been doing really well for herself, had Scarlett. Well, by her lights, anyway. She was living in a hideous hacienda-style villa on the edge of Epping Forest that had been built originally for some minor East End gangster, according to Yes! magazine. It looked like the house that taste forgot, with its mish-mash of styles and its job-lot furnishings. She’d bought a house for her mum and her sister, but she’d had the good sense to keep them firmly offstage, up north in Leeds. Not much detail had escaped about Scarlett’s family. Which, in my experience, translated as ‘scum’. From my perspective, that was a good thing. It promised piquancy at the very least. Skeletons clattering out of closets like flamenco dancers on speed at best.

  So, there was Scarlett, bumping along nicely, comfortably above the bottom of the barrel of fame. When it came to casting the second season of Goldfish Bowl, the producers hit on the bright idea of bringing back two of the participants from the first series. They dressed it up as giving the contestants more of a chance because they’d have a couple of team members who’d been through the experience before and would know how to milk a cow and skin a rabbit. I figured it was more of an insurance policy. Viewers loved them the first time so they’d be more likely to tune in for a second series.

  And of course, Scarlett was the first port of call. To tell you the truth, I hadn’t been paying much attention at the time – I’d been in the final throes of my top Tory’s tale, trying to apply positive spin to some of his less attractive achievements. And there were plenty of those to work with.

  It had all gone well to begin with, but soon the contestants realised that having previous contenders maybe wasn’t such a brilliant idea. There was discontent in the ranks at what they felt was an unfair advantage. Until they realised that some of the things Scarlett and Darrell thought they knew – such as the locations of food sources – were no longer the case. And then the worms turned, taking the piss out of the so-called Island Experts.

  It didn’t take a psychologist to work out that the one thing Scarlett couldn’t deal with was having the piss taken out of her. She’d learned the hard way that she was generally considered to be ignorant and stupid. Even the ignorant and stupid can read a tabloid headline, after all. But she hated being condescended to, and in her eyes, when anyone mocked her, they were asking for trouble. And she was the one to hand it out.

  Things got fractious fast. They came to a head one evening on the second week. The islanders had earned a case of wine, thanks in part to Scarlett’s willingness to immerse herself in the freezing Firth of Forth to find crab pots hidden on the sea bed just offshore. They attacked the wine with gusto over dinner, and inhibitions began to vanish. Danny Williams, who called himself a landscape gardener but was actually a labourer for a garden design firm, started holding forth about why Scarlett had got the location of the vegetable beds so wrong. He was smart enough to make his sarcasm cut her, and she wasn’t in the mood to take it.

  ‘Fuck off back to bongo bongo land, you fat black arsebandit,’ she’d screamed at him. Cha-ching. It’s hard to imagine a line that could cause more offence on prime-time TV. The media lit up like the main drag in Vegas. Jackpot time. And of course, somebody’s tame monkey got up in the House of Commons and did the whole ‘a nation is outraged’ number. Scarlett’s goose was well and truly cooked.

  Goldfish Bowl pretended they were just as outraged as the country’s moral guardians and that night Scarlett was summoned to the Aquarium. Big Fish did the whole ‘more in sorrow than in anger’ routine and made her apologise to Danny, the rest of the contestants, the country at large and, really, the entire solar system. He made it sound like she could win a reprieve by grovelling enough, but of course the viewers knew it was nothing but a ritual humiliation. Scarlett was going and everybody knew it except her.

  I can still remember the shocked disbelief on her face when, after she’d shed her tears and abased herself, Big Fish told her to pack her bag and make her way down to the dock. Everything went on hold for a long moment. Then Scarlett jumped to her feet and stabbed her finger at the camera. ‘You bastard,’ she said. ‘You were never going to let me stay, were you? Well, here’s the truth. I’m not fucking sorry. Not one fucking bit. So stick that up your arse and spin on it.’

  I have to admit, right then it was hard not to admire Scarlett.

  3

  As far as the watching world was concerned, that was it. Scarlett was whisked away from Foutra in shame. The press camped outside the hacienda were disappointed that she didn’t turn up there next day. Nobody seemed to know where she’d gone. ‘Where is the bitch?’ the headlines screamed for a couple of days, then the circus moved on.

  But Scarlett wasn’t destined to stay out of the limelight for long. A week after her ignominy, readers of the Sun were greeted with a world exclusive. ‘“I’m pregnant,” Scarlett reveals.’ We were informed that disgraced reality TV star Scarlett Higgins had been so deranged by the hormones of pregnancy that she’d spoken words that never would have passed her lips in normal circumstances.

  To his credit, like any good ghost, the journalist had put some fine sentiments in Scarlett’s mouth. She was apparently devastated at the pain and embarrassment she’d caused Danny; the makers of Goldfish Bowl; her partner Joshu (‘who is a person of colour too’); her unborn child; and every minority citizen of these islands. What she’d said was the opposite of everything she believed. She loved gay people and black people and especially gay black people (not that she could actually name one . . .). Her own baby would be mixed race, she pointed out. And she was so ashamed that one day her child would discover her disgraceful past.

  But the hormones . . . Everybody knew pregn
ancy turned women into mental cases. Poor Scarlett hadn’t realised she was pregnant, so what had happened had been even more bewildering to her. If she’d known she was pregnant, not a drop of alcohol would have passed her lips. Plus, everybody also knew that, when you were pregnant, you got drunk a lot more easily. So it was the wine too, not just the hormones.

  And suddenly, Scarlett was the favourite daughter of a sizeable chunk of the British population again. They loved her for her fallibility. What had happened to her could have happened to any woman. The blokes totally got it, because they’d experienced women going off their chops about all sorts while they were pregnant. The women totally got it, because who hadn’t had a guilt-inducing drink or smoked themselves silly before they knew they were expecting? The tabloids loved it because it gave them an excuse to print endless features about women going off the rails because of their hormones. Lurid tales of the violence, strange cravings and temper tantrums of pregnant women filled pages of magazines and newspapers. It almost began to feel as if pregnancy was synonymous with psychosis.

  And now I was being dragged into the final step on the road to Scarlett’s rehabilitation. The perfectly crafted final piece of the jigsaw would be her three-hundred page letter to her unborn child, a sanded-down and varnished version of her autobiography to resonate with her public and make sure the love-fest continued. I had a sneaking suspicion it would be a big ask. But I’ve never shied away from a professional challenge.

  Of course, Maggie knew that.

  *

  The more dubious the grounds for an individual’s celebrity, the more they need to be in control every step of the way. The ones who have genuinely achieved something or overcome true adversity are always happy to go along with my suggestions on how we manage the process. They understand that I’m the expert here, that experience has taught me the best way to do this. But when I’m dealing with the likes of Scarlett, the ones who are famous only for being famous, they’re always full of demands thinly disguised as suggestions.

  The first of what I knew would be many skirmishes came over the venue for the initial meeting where Scarlett would decide whether she liked me as much as her agent and publisher did. She wanted us to take a suite in a Mayfair hotel. I wanted to go to her place. We both had our reasons. She wanted a symbol of how important she was. I wanted the scent and taste of her. And Maggie never wants to spend an unnecessary penny, because everything that gets lavished on the client up front has to be paid for somewhere down the line. There is no such thing as a free publisher’s lunch.

  You don’t get anywhere as a ghost by stamping your feet and insisting on doing things your way. You have to sidle past their defences and make them think it’s all their idea. You know you’ve succeeded when you see them on daytime telly earnestly explaining to the host how they got up every morning two hours before the kids so they could find some peace to do their writing. By that stage, they really believe they did it themselves. That you were only there to put in the commas and check the spelling.

  So Maggie called George, Scarlett’s agent, and they did their ritual dance. Maggie’s argument was that hotels leaked like sieves. That as soon as Scarlett showed her face in a five-star hotel, one of the staff would be on the phone to the press and they’d be full of Scarlett kiss’n’tell spoilers. I sat on the sofa in her office, admiring her greasing her way round Gorgeous George, a notoriously difficult man to flatter or cajole. But as I’d seen before, even he was no match for Maggie. ‘Darling,’ she said. ‘Let’s face it. Once they find out Stephie’s doing the book, she’ll be the focus for every devious hack in town. They’ll be going through her bins, chatting up her cleaner, tapping her phone for all I know. Anything to get the inside track.’

  She stuck her tongue out at me then rolled her eyes and reached for the electronic cigarette she’d adopted since she’d given up smoking ahead of the workplace ban. She dragged on the tube and made a face. ‘New flavour,’ she muttered, hand over the phone mouthpiece. ‘Supposed to be Camels. More like camel dung.’ A quick, artificial smile flashed across her face. ‘Well, of course, Georgie. I’m aware that the press have been staking out Scarlett’s house. But now the Sun’s broken the story, they’ll move on. In a day or two, it’ll be business as usual. And of course, I’ll make sure the car has blacked-out windows so any of the parasites who are still hanging around won’t know it’s Stephie.’ There was more of the same. I tuned it out, confident of the outcome.

  I was right. Two days later, a Mercedes with tinted windows whisked us past a couple of paparazzi. They’d been so bored for so long they barely got their cameras to their faces by the time we passed through the electric gates and up the herring bone brick drive to the hacienda. One of the triple garages was standing open, ready for us to drive in. ‘It was less hassle when I was doing a Spice Girl,’ I said.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ Maggie said briskly as the rolling shutter descended behind us.

  ‘It’s not me I’m worried about.’ It was always like this before the start of a new job. My stomach chewing itself into knots, convinced that this time I would be exposed for the fraud I was.

  Pete had hardly been reassuring the night before. ‘Why are you getting so worked up?’ he’d said. ‘She’s just some scummy bimbo. I’ve had dogs with more about them than her. If somebody like that is capable of putting you on the back foot, maybe you should think about jacking it in.’

  ‘Jacking it in? What would I do then?’

  His eyebrows flickered. I loved his eyebrows; so straight and fine, not thick and coarse like most men’s. I always thought they were surprisingly expressive. Beneath them, his brown eyes looked like they were weighing me up. I felt uncomfortable, as if I were being scrutinised and found wanting. ‘You could be here when I get home,’ he said. It was hard to tell from his voice whether he was serious.

  ‘You want this to be your home?’ We hadn’t actually talked about living together before. Not in so many words.

  ‘I’d like you to be waiting for me when I get back from work,’ he said carefully, his face giving nothing away.

  ‘When you’re in the middle of something, I never see you,’ I said. ‘You work such weird hours, I never know when to call you. If I was supposed to be here when you get back from work, I’d never be able to leave the house, never mind do my job.’ I tried to keep my voice light and teasing but the anxiety was running through me like a wire.

  Pete shrugged. ‘At least then I’d never be wondering where you’ve got to.’ And then he turned and kissed me, which led straight to the sort of distraction that completely removed the conversation from the front of my mind. But now it was back again, feeding the niggle of apprehension about my encounter with Scarlett. Looking back, I realise how undermining Pete could be. Always was, really. But back then, I couldn’t see it. Just felt the effects. So when Maggie and I got out of the car, my confidence wasn’t at its peak.

  We entered the hacienda through the kitchen. I expected brushed steel and granite, in keeping with the age and style of the house, but the first incongruity of the day was the cream and pine of a Cotswold cottage kitchen, complete with the enamelled range cooker. Behind closed doors, there would be a fridge, freezer and microwave. But you’d never guess which ones. Everything was spotless, immaculately arranged like the display in a kitchen showroom. The room smelled of citrus and herbs from one of those sprays that cost a small fortune in South Molton Street. ‘Not a cook, then,’ Maggie said drily.

  A skinny young woman in jeans, high-heeled boots and a skinny-rib sweater clattered in through the door at the far end of the kitchen. ‘Stephanie?’ she said, looking at Maggie.

  ‘I’m Stephanie,’ I said. ‘This is Maggie, my agent.’

  Flustered, she nodded frantically. ‘I’m Carla. I’m with George’s agency.’

  ‘Ah. New girl, eh?’ Maggie smiled. ‘You’ll soon pick it up.’

  Carla gave a frightened rabbit smile. ‘Scarlett and George are waiting for you in the den.’ Sh
e led us down a wide hallway that opened into a white cube with a sunken seating area arranged round a fire pit where gas-fuelled flames flickered. The room fragrance here was more floral but just as fake.

  Scarlett and her agent were lounging on white leather sofas with cow-hide throws. The walls featured decorative displays of longhorn skulls, interspersed with sub-O’Keeffe Western landscapes. A long way sub. It felt much more Essex than Texas. If I’d been Scarlett, I’d have stripped it right out. All it did was draw attention from her, and that’s never what minor celebrities are aiming for.

  But Scarlett was what I was interested in, so I dragged my gaze from the décor to her. Her hair had been expertly coloured, highlights and lowlights coming together to produce a natural-seeming cascade of dark-blonde hair. To my surprise, she wasn’t slathered in make-up – just a slash of dark-red lipstick and a coat of mascara to emphasise the blue of her eyes. The spray tan, which I assumed was top-to-toe, filled in the rest. She was wearing a red muscle T-shirt that showed off full breasts and the rise of her pregnant belly. Her legs were covered in loose grey sweatpants. Her feet were bare, but her toenails were painted the same shade as her lipstick. She didn’t look like a reality TV show slapper. From somewhere, Scarlett had dredged up a whiff of sophistication.

  George struggled to his feet as soon as we walked in, but Scarlett didn’t budge, making us come to her. George ran through the introductions with his usual urbanity. Scarlett slipped warm, dry fingers into my hand and withdrew them almost as quickly. She didn’t say anything, just tipping her head and squeezing out a meaningless smile. I think I’m pretty good at pulling something useful from first impressions, but with Scarlett, I got nothing to add to what I’d already gleaned from my research. I was intrigued, and that was enough to stifle my anxiety. Never mind the cat, curiosity’s always killed my collywobbles.