Famous (15 page)

At seven o’clock I plucked up the courage to venture home, where Mands and Lizzie were meeting me for a session of crisis management. As I drove out of the underground car park there were four paparazzi waiting at the entrance for me, the same four who had chased me this morning.

Don’t tell me they’ve been waiting there all day? I thought to myself. Eleven hours? Standing outside a car park? Lizzie was right, they definitely had staying power. Even the city’s beggars gave up after half a day.

‘Samantha!’ they called out as I sped past and flashes bounced off the car windows.

I was unable to cover my face, due to the fact my hands were required on the steering wheel. However, I was confident I would have been nothing more than a human blur.

Within seconds they were on their motorbikes and chasing me.

Oh for fucksake! I thought to myself, looking in the rearview mirror. Go home and have dinner or something! Didn’t any of them have wives or girlfriends? Probably not, I decided. Who in their right mind would go out with someone who stood outside a car-park building for eleven hours?

I sped home through the city streets with the motorbikes hot on my heels. They were, once again, completely unshakable. As I approached my apartment building I could see a pack of another ten or so waiting outside the front gate for me.

How did they know I’d come back? I wondered. Who’s to say I hadn’t suddenly jumped on a plane and hightailed it to Budapest? Presumptuous bastards! Surely there were more newsworthy stories for them to be chasing? Informative stories that people actually wanted to read about? How could this one tiny indiscretion possibly make the grade?

I opened the security gates from my car device, as they shouted, tapped the glass and flashed their bulbs at me. There was no way I was parking out on the street again and having to walk past them in the morning.

I sat with my sunglasses on, staring straight ahead and attempting to ignore the chaos around me, willing the gates to get a fucking move on and open. As soon as there was a Mini-sized gap I sped through.

They didn’t dare follow me, although I really wished they would, so I could ring the police and have them arrested for trespassing.

Within half an hour Mands was on my doorstep.

‘Jesus Christ, open the bloody door!’ she hollered. ‘They’re going to eat me alive!’

I opened the door and Mands fell inside, a sea of flashing light in her wake.

‘Mother of God!’ she exclaimed, leaning her back against the door. ‘They’re unbelievable!’

‘Tell me about it,’ I agreed, as she embraced me in a big hug.

‘Right, first things first,’ she said, as she bustled into the kitchen and plonked a bottle of wine down on the bench, opening it straightaway.

As she was pouring us each a glass there was more furtive knocking on the front door.

‘Who is it?’ I asked, wary of the possibilities.

‘It’s Lizzie! For godsake open the bloody door! They’re blinding me!’

I swung open the door, careful to hide behind it as Lizzie collapsed inside.

‘Bastards!’ she hissed, clearly a bit riled. ‘If they lay a finger on any of us I’m gonna sue their arses!’

‘What am I going to do?’ I wailed, as the three of us sat in my living room, wine in hand.

‘I don’t know, dolls,’ said Mands. ‘I don’t think there’s anything you can do. You can either stay holed up in your apartment twenty-four-seven. Or you can go to work, carry on as normal, and wait for them to get sick of you.’

‘How long’s that going to take?’ I asked, suddenly feeling very depressed at my limited options.

‘I don’t know,’ said Mands. ‘Probably just until they find someone or something else to latch onto.’

‘Or you can jump on a plane,’ suggested Lizzie. ‘And flee overseas somewhere, only…’

‘Only what?’ This sounded like a great idea, the best so far.

‘Only then it’ll look like you’ve done something wrong. Like you’re running away.’

‘But I haven’t done anything wrong,’ I protested, sinking my head into my hands. ‘I didn’t know he was married.’

‘We know you haven’t, dolls,’ said Mands, putting her arm around my shoulder. ‘But that’s what it would look like. It’d look like you were ashamed of something.’

I didn’t want to look like I had something to be ashamed of, when I really didn’t. It was just a case of mistaken identity, mixed in with a bit of mistaken availability.

‘I guess I’ll just have to stick it out then,’ I sighed. ‘If I don’t get fired first.’

‘Right then,’ said Mands, opening up a shopping bag she’d brought with her. ‘I’ve got something for you.’

I desperately hoped she was going to whip out some valium, uppers, or some other mind-enhancing drug that would make me feel better. Instead she pulled out an enormous pair of dark sunglasses.

‘What are these?’ I asked.

‘These are your new glasses,’ she replied.

‘My new glasses?’

‘Your celebrity glasses.’

Clearly, without either my knowledge or consent, Mands had decided to take on the role of my agent. It looked as though I was going to be her first client. The celebrity guinea pig. There’s no doubting the role of Alistair Ambrose Crisis Management would be a sterling addition to her budding CV.

‘They’re impenetrable,’ she added.

I think she was referring to the gigantic pitch-black lenses.

‘You’re to wear these every time you leave the house, or office for that matter. The maggots might know where you live and work, and recognise your car, but at least they won’t be able to see your expression.’

I tried the glasses on. It appeared they wouldn’t be able to see much at all. The glasses were so enormous they devoured my entire face.

‘Very Liz Hurley,’ observed Lizzie.

‘You only need to wear them in transit,’ comforted Mands.

‘You could always dye your hair blonde too,’ she added.

‘But there’s really no point in doing that unless you shift house.’

‘Shift house?’ I asked.

Why would I want to shift house? I loved my apartment.

‘You know,’ said Mands, as though I did in fact know. ‘If things don’t settle down you might have to change abodes.’

‘But that is the very, very worst-case scenario,’ added Lizzie, noting my distress. ‘And I’m sure it’ll all blow over soon and you won’t have to move anywhere.’

The following morning I climbed out of bed and gently eased up the corner of the blind, cautiously glancing out my bedroom window in the vain hope that yesterday was a one-off hallucinatory nightmare and that today my front gate would be clear of all obtrusive persons. But, as flashing lights immediately began exploding, it was evident it wasn’t. And to make matters worse, they appeared to have multiplied. I had a shower, put on my suit and enormous sunglasses, and prepared myself for the onslaught waiting for me at the gate.

Surely they’ll get sick of taking photos of me driving? I thought to myself, as I waited for the gates to open and sped past the thirty or so bodies clustered in front of them. It wasn’t the most exciting viewing.

Once again they fired flashes at the car, tapped on the windows, and yelled stupid questions at me. I was very close to running one of them over, but unfortunately he dove out of the way in the nick of time. I hurtled down the street with vehicles in hot pursuit - this time three Land Rovers and five motorbikes. It appeared they had upped the ante. I drove even faster than yesterday morning, but they were still unshakable.

I hope the lot of them get speeding tickets, I thought to myself, then realising it would probably be me who got pulled over first, since I was at the front. I slowed down a little.

If I wasn’t going to shake them, there was no point putting my life at risk. There were three more waiting for me at the car-park entrance. More flashing as I sped through. But I was safe, at last. At least for a while.

I bolted for my office and sat down at my desk, petrified to look at the newspaper which lay before me. Since yesterday morning my relationship with the newspaper had shifted dramatically. Once, not so long ago, I had flipped it open eagerly, keen to digest the day’s news and business inside. Now I sat staring at it, afraid of what new personal disasters it may hold. In the end curiosity got the better of fear and I looked at the front page. I really wished I hadn’t. There, beside yet another large picture of Alistair leaving my apartment, and yet another story about our rendezvous, was a large picture of me from yesterday morning, enormous sunglasses on and attempting to smile as I walked out my front gate, but instead looking remarkably as though I had just swallowed a large plate of haggis.

And there, beside my grimacing face, was yet another picture. A picture of Mr and Mrs Alistair Ambrose - together, smiling, and happy.

Obviously not a recent shot, I thought.

I forced myself to take a good look at her; this pretty, blonde, petite, perfectly manicured woman. This woman whose husband I had inadvertently shagged.

I didn’t know, I said to the newsprint face. Honestly I didn’t.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. There was another large photo of me on the front of the sports section, right beside a picture of Alistair jumping about on the football field in his tracksuit, clearly not all that happy with having his photo taken either, under the heading ‘Build-up to the World Cup’.

The World Cup! Even I knew what this was. Oh God, I thought in horror, no wonder the media were having a field day. They were never going to leave me alone now.

Apparently the World Cup was less than two months away and the team had well and truly begun their training. Two months away? Why the hell hadn’t my father told me this? I wondered. And why couldn’t I have shagged him in the off-season? It just wasn’t bloody fair.

Within half an hour my mother was on the phone.

‘Well,’ she said, when I answered. ‘It looks like someone’s been busy.’

I waited for her to finish. I knew only too well there was absolutely no point in stopping her when she was on a roll.

‘I can’t say I’m exactly proud,’ she continued. ‘But at least some good might come from people recognising your face.’

Some good?

‘You’d be a great person to have on protests. Perhaps you could even handcuff yourself to a billboard for our plight?’

At this suggestion I simply had to interrupt.

‘Elizabeth, I will never in my lifetime handcuff myself to a billboard. It is just something I am simply not interested in doing.’

‘That’s a shame,’ she replied. ‘You’d really get people’s attention now.’

I filled her in on the fact I didn’t know who Alistair was, or that he was married.

‘Scumbag!’ she spat. ‘Someone should chop his pecker off!’

She hadn’t finished.

‘These sportsmen think they can go around sleeping with whoever they want and cheating on their wives. And you know what?’

‘What?’ I asked.

‘They always get off scot-free. Always! And it’s the wives and the women they sleep with who are left looking like whores.’

‘Fabulous. Thank you.’

‘Sorry. But that’s the way it is, I’m afraid.’

‘I just wish I’d never met him,’ I sighed.

‘It’s not your fault, Samantha,’ she said. ‘It’s the media’s fault. They’re sexist bigots and they will always, always, take the side of a famous man. It really gets my goat.’

And it was getting her goat too. Strangling it in fact.

‘But it’s nice not to be the only family member in the newspaper,’ she added.

My mother had been photographed leading chanting throngs, attached to billboards, and naked from the waist up more times than it was safe to remember.

Shortly after hanging up the phone from Mum, Susie called.

‘Bloody hell!’ she cried. ‘Well done you!’

It appeared she thought I was to be congratulated for something.

‘For what?’ I asked. ‘Being on the front page of the paper?’

‘No, you ninny! For shagging Alistair Ambrose. What a bloody spunk!’

‘Oh.’

‘I can’t believe it,’ she continued. ‘My sister shagged Alistair Ambrose. Fantastic!’

‘It’s not fantastic,’ I replied. ‘Really it’s not.’

‘Yes it is!’ she cried. ‘Think how many women out there would just love to shag him, myself included, and you’ve done it. Amazing! Really wish it was me though,’ she added.

‘But then you’d be on the front of the paper,’ I pointed out.

‘True,’ she agreed. ‘It isn’t exactly a great picture, is it?’

Susie’s one major flaw was her honesty and inability to lie, even when it really was in her best interest to do so.

‘No,’ I replied, wincing at the picture in front of me. ‘It isn’t.’

‘So?’ she asked.

‘So what?’

‘So, what was he like in the sack?’

I couldn’t lie to Susie, even though I now hated Alistair with a vengeance.

‘Brilliant,’ I replied, remembering the big Night of Adultery.

‘Sexy as all hell.’

‘Are you going to see him again?’ she asked.

‘Are you joking?’

‘Well no…actually I wasn’t.’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘I will not be seeing him again. Ever.’

‘Crying shame,’ said Susie. ‘P’haps you could give me his number then?’

‘I don’t think so,’ I replied. ‘Now bugger off, I’ve got work to do.’