Greatest Love Story of All Time (26 page)

‘So what does a normal day entail?’ I asked.

He giggled. ‘Well, I work on
Coffee Break
, so all of the celebs you see on Matthew’s sofa were booked in by me. I basically spend all day chatting to agents on the phone!’

I already loved Toni. He was my kind of gay and he was already making me smile in a way I hadn’t since Michael had dumped me. He was wearing tight jeans with a torn vest and cardigan. ‘Wow,’ I replied. ‘That sounds totally awesome! Do you know Katie Price?’

Toni smiled fondly. ‘Oh, yeah, Kate and I have been working together for years. She’s such a doll, never causes trouble. Whereas …’ He rolled his eyes and whispered the name of probably the most popular woman in the UK.

‘
Really?
Oh, my God, tell me more!’

Two hours, two milkshakes and two mojitos later, Toni and I left, giggling like children. Toni was in the middle of some catfight on Facebook via his iPhone and was punctuating our ‘date’ with outraged screams every time a bitchy update came through. I loved him.

By now it was half past nine and there was a queue outside the Old Queen’s Head. Friday-night drinkers in fashionable outfits huddled over Magners at heater-warmed tables on the pavement, and a woman who looked like Meatloaf sat on a high stool divesting people of their cash and stamping their wrists. A sign outside announced that we could expect ‘Broken
Beatz n breaks + vigorous nostalgia’ upstairs tonight. My heart sank a little.

We got into the queue but, like me, I could sense that Toni was feeling a little reluctant. He was chattering away about his Facebook catfight but kept breaking off to stare with dismay at girls who were wearing Ray-Bans even though it was dark. Tentatively, I said, ‘I hope they mash up their beatz with some Abba,’ and before I knew it, Toni had bundled me into a taxi, yelling, ‘Let’s just go to fucking Popstarz!!!’

Thirty minutes later we were dancing to ‘Billie Jean’ in a sweaty gay club that smelt of poppers and fart. I felt a fleeting stab of sadness that I couldn’t text Leonie, with whom I had a long and glorious history of dancing in farty gay clubs to ‘Billie Jean’, but pushed it away. I still hadn’t decided what to do about Leonie.

Toni was the best dancer in the world, of course, and he was an immediate hit with the boys. To his left there was a child who looked like Brad Pitt aged twelve, to his right an enormous bald chap who looked like he lived in a gym, and behind him two lovely-looking boys with complicated hairstyles who couldn’t decide if they wanted to kiss each other or kiss Toni. I giggled to myself. This was easily the best date of my life.

An exquisite specimen of a man wearing jeans and a waistcoat was dancing next to me, smiling. As the final rhythm section of ‘Billie Jean’ began to fade out and the opening bars of ‘Holiday’ tinkled in, he
shouted, ‘I can’t believe Michael Jackson is DEAD! I had to take a fortnight off work when it happened! Would you like a pill, darling?’

I smiled and shook my head. Lovely Waistcoat Man laughed and grabbed me round the waist, guiding me through a dance routine that looked like something from an S Club 7 video. ‘This is like an S Club video!’ I screamed into his ear.

‘Yeah, I did their choreography, love,’ he replied.

Amazing.

I glanced about for Toni just as his back disappeared into the crowd surrounding the bar. In a normal club I’d have panicked, but here, in the farty environs of Popstarz, I felt totally content. I tried an experimental spin and crashed into a bony shoulder, which I grabbed and stroked apologetically, following the arm up to a man’s face, which was staring at mine in utter amazement.

It was Alex.

No. I looked away again. This was not possible. Alex in Popstarz? And, in the crook of his arm, wearing an elasticated bandeau dress from the eighties, was Leonie. She was staring at me with abject fear, her arm dangling awkwardly at her side. It had clearly just been round Alex.

I stared at them both, at this utterly improbable spectacle in the middle of the dance floor at Popstarz, and tried to work out how to react. Alex might not have outed Mum but he’d handed my Chelsea
tape to Hugh in an attempt to have me sacked. He was a weasel who had told Michael my news desk was for thick people and then gone on to steal my best friend. So, as far as I was concerned, the declaration of
jihad
that I’d left on his voicemail last week was still good.

But there, standing in his arms, looking at me beseechingly, was Leonie, my very best friend, the girl I’d been to playschool, primary, secondary and university with, the girl who had taught me how to kiss boys and forced me to eat when Michael dumped me. I missed her. Horribly.

Surely I wasn’t going to have to deal with this at 1.36 a.m. in Popstarz?

Just as I decided that it would probably be best for all parties if I just turned round, resumed dancing with Lovely Waistcoat Man and pretended this wasn’t happening, she detached herself from Alex and threw herself at me. ‘FRANNY,’ she yelled in my ear. ‘I love you so much and I AM SO SORRY. PLEASE CAN WE BE FRIENDS AGAIN?’

After a few stiff, angry seconds, I relaxed. I couldn’t live without Leonie. I smiled into her hair, which smelt of the same Tesco apple shampoo she’d been using since she was eight years old. ‘Yes,’ I shouted into her ear. ‘Your love life is your business. I miss you too, you old slapper.’ She screamed and hugged me even tighter.

A week without Leonie was a bad week.

‘And Alex?’ she shouted, looking at him with an uncharacteristically slushy face.

I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry, Leonie. I can’t.’ Alex was watching us, clearly feeling exceedingly awkward. I wasn’t bloody surprised. The devious, stinking bastard, trying to have me sacked like that. ‘I know it wasn’t Alex who sold Mum to the
Mirror
,’ I said.

Leonie was delighted. ‘NO! OF COURSE IT WASN’T!’

‘And I will talk to him about it on Monday and sort it out. But he tried to have me sacked,’ I shouted. ‘I just can’t go there. What you get up to is your business but I can’t play happy families.’

‘RIGHT!’ she shouted, grabbing my arm and dragging me off towards the stairs. ‘We need to talk.’

Alex watched us go with pure fear in his eyes.

Settled into a velvet booth in the even fartier indie room upstairs, surrounded by thin teenage boys who were dancing to EMO music and studiously ignoring each other, we talked. ‘You’re serious. You actually like him, don’t you?’ I said, starting to laugh.

Leonie reddened but laughed too.

Then Toni appeared, out of nowhere, plonked a vodka and Red Bull in front of me and minced off, winking. Now Leonie looked confused. ‘That,’ I sniggered, ‘is my date. Toni.’

She looked even more confused. ‘The guy from the Internet?’

‘Yes. I’m on a date with a homosexual man, Leonie. Welcome back to my world.’ And with that we lost it.

‘It was Charlie Cunt-face Swift who sold Mum to the press,’ I told her, when we’d recovered.

She nodded slowly. ‘That makes sense. Dave said he’ll nick anything for coke money. But how did he find out? I mean, presumably you didn’t just tell him your life story while he went down on you?’

I explained that Charlie had had unlimited access to family emails for a good thirty minutes on Saturday.

‘Poor you. Poor Eve. That’s fucking awful, Fran. What a bastard.’

‘At least it’s got Mum going to AA. She’s been to the group every day since Thursday. Maybe it needed to happen.’

‘Yeah, Dave told me. I’m so glad, Franny. I’ve been thinking about her a lot. But, God, Charlie. What a total bastard.’ Then she nicked my vodka and Red Bull, drank half of it, and yelled, ‘But I bet he was amazing in the sack, right?’

I couldn’t help but grin. ‘Mind-blowing! He even rogered me in the wet room!’ We both collapsed with laughter again.

‘So, Alex. Fran, we really do have to talk about this. I know about the tape thing at ITN. Alex didn’t give it to Hugh. He would never try to get you sacked. He really isn’t like that, Fran. He didn’t even want to do the Nick Bennett interview yesterday because he knew Hugh blackmailed you to get Nick in.’

‘Of course he bloody well gave Hugh the tape. No one else even knew about it!’

Leonie shook her head. ‘No. I know what happened, Fran. The tape was in the bin – presumably you threw it away – and the work-experience girl … what’s her name?’

‘Jacinta?’

‘Yes, that’s the one. She sounds vile. Far too keen. Anyway, she saw it in the bin and gave it to the tape library because she was told that that’s what you do with lost tapes. No one there knew what the interview was for so it was passed around and eventually ended up on Hugh’s desk. And he already knew you’d been stalking Nellie because he’d had IT do some report on you. He bollocked Alex, too, you know … C’mon, Fran, do you honestly think I’d get involved with the sort of guy who sneaks round trying to get my best friend sacked? As if!’

I looked at her guardedly. I wasn’t sure about this story. Why would the tape have been in the bin? I’d hidden it in the bottom of my drawer.

But she was obviously serious about Alex. And, I realized, with a slightly heavy heart, I was going to have to Be Nice. ‘You mean this, don’t you,’ I said slowly. ‘You actually like him.’

She blushed and nodded shyly. ‘Erm, well, for now, yes. Yes, I do.’

I sat back and sipped Toni’s teenage drink while Leonie admitted to having fancied Alex since she’d
first met him. ‘I know he’s a bit ratty in the face,’ she giggled, ‘but there’s something about him … At first I just thought I wanted to scrub that smug smile off his face and, well, you know, ruin him a bit, but then I bumped into him in Borough Market a few days after Michael finished with you –’ I winced ‘– sorry, but it was a complete coincidence – and we went for tea and cake and, I dunno, Franny, he just seemed genuinely concerned about you and really sad about it all … I just realized that he’s actually this really sweet bloke. I think he’s a bit lost. A bit insecure.’ I stared at her in astonishment. She smiled weakly. ‘You don’t agree, do you?’

‘Well, forgive me, Leonie, but it’s not very easy to. He’s always said
vile
things about me to Michael. I don’t understand what his problem is.’

Leonie hung her head.

‘And you’ve always been so vile about him!’ I said, clutching at straws. Then I started to smile. ‘Ah. You’re never vile about men. I should have spotted it. It was cos you liked him, wasn’t it?’

She smiled. ‘S’pose. That first night I met him at Gin Thursday when Michael arrived in London I felt a bit crap, like I was about to lose you. I sort of think he felt the same about Michael because you two were so in love’ – my stomach lurched painfully – ‘and we got chatting. And then after that afternoon tea it was sort of like we were the survivors of this horrid fall-out. We chatted for hours on the phone and went on
a date to Southend. He bought me fish and chips, Fran, and he kissed me and it felt incre– No, too much, sorry. I did try to stop it, Fran, I went on that date in Dalston with the man who had vampire teeth and shaved eyebrows, remember? But it didn’t work. I couldn’t think about anything other than Alex all night. I’m a massive disappointment to you, aren’t I?’

‘Shut it,’ I said, patting her hand. ‘Not at all. I just … It’s so
messy
!’

Leonie looked tormented. ‘I know.’

There was a brief pause while we watched the skinny teenagers shuffling around the farty dance-floor.

‘Have you talked about me? And Michael?’ I asked eventually.

She shook her head vigorously. ‘No. I said to him almost as soon as he kissed me that we could never talk about Michael because it would do my head in knowing anything about him, wondering whether or not I should tell you. So he hasn’t said a
thing.
He actually really understood and then he said, “Well, Fran’s fine, anyway. She’s dating, isn’t she?” and I told him, yes, you were a total hit. He was impressed.’

I pondered this for a bit. ‘Well, I don’t think you could have chosen a worse man to fall for’ – she coloured – ‘but you’re obviously smitten so … well … Just don’t talk about Michael, OK?’

Her face cracked in two and she hugged me fiercely, shouting, ‘I’m damn well going to bring you the man of your dreams with this Eight Date Deal!’

And with that we downed the remaining dregs of dirty Red Bull and went downstairs just as Britney started. Alex was still in the same spot on the dance-floor, looking like a frightened vegetable.

‘I owe you an apology,’ I said politely to him. ‘I’m sorry. The
jihad
is off. I know you weren’t responsible for what happened to Mum.’

‘Absolutely not, Fran. Or the tape at ITN. Nasty business, that. Very unfortunate.’

I looked at him, long and hard, then gave him a watery smile. I didn’t really believe him but I’d been backed into a corner.

‘Well, see you around,’ I said carefully.

He beamed like an eager child. ‘I’d like us to be friends again,’ he said.
Friends?
Since when had we been friends? But, because I was a useless knob, I nodded. And just as he held out his hand to shake mine, I leaned in to give him an insincere hug and thus delivered my right breast into his outstretched hand.

I fled to find Toni.

He was at the bar surrounded by adoring young men. ‘Babe, something
fucked up
is going on, isn’t it?’ he said, handing me another vodka and Red Bull.

I smiled. ‘Yep. That’s my best friend, shacked up with my enemy. I’m quite sure he tried to get me sacked only four days ago. Oh, and he’s also my ex-boyfriend’s best mate! Ideal, no?’

Toni roared with laughter and swept me into his arms. ‘Fuck ’em all! Let’s DANCE, OK?’ he yelled.

We danced for ages, him with style and rhythm, me with neither. Leonie and Alex twirled around us several times and, much to my amazement, I observed that Alex was in fact a remarkably good dancer. I smiled awkwardly at them, wondering how this was ever going to work. The way he was looking at Leonie was scary. His pointy, angular little face was literally aglow.

Somewhere in the region of four a.m., ‘I’ve Had The Time Of My Life’ came on and Toni dragged me on to the stage, yelling that he had Big Plans for us. Essentially we were to do the routine from
Dirty Dancing
where Patrick Swayze runs his hand down Baby’s knockers, she jumps off the stage into his arms and the whole place starts dancing in unison. After a slightly unpromising start we began to make headway – like most other ten-year-olds I’d spent hours working out the dance – and before I knew it, it was time to launch myself off the stage. A gaggle of gays stood by, whooping and clapping as I broke into a run.