Pop Tarts: Omnibus Edition (3 page)

Cherry is of
course Cherry, when she’s not Chesney, of course.

But Rhino was
an enigma. Felix never knew him. Holly never knew him. And Cherry
never knew him either. They were put together as a foursome by a
music producer out to make a quick buck. And Rhino just went along
for the ride.

So it seemed
somewhat peculiar that he was the easiest of them all to locate.
Felix had expected him to be living as a hermit in an old
farmhouse, somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the south of
France.

He surmised he
might even be forced to use a cardboard cut-out on stage as a
replacement for Rhino, and doubted anyone would even notice the
difference.

But Google
listed his address as 110 Teacup Lane in London and Felix thought
he may as well give it a shot. What did he have to lose?

As the taxi
dropped him off outside, Felix was a little apprehensive as to what
kind of welcome to expect. It was an old terraced house, built in
about 1920 on a quiet street in the middle of suburbia, not at all
what Felix was expecting.

It looked like
a massive townhouse, at least 3 floors high and probably had a
basement too. Felix wondered what Rhino had been up to the last 20+
years following the bands demise. Probably an accountant, he
thought, when in reality he had absolutely no clue.

He knocked on
the door and waited for an answer. And waited. And waited. He
knocked again. Still no answer. Just as he was about to give up, he
heard footsteps from inside and suddenly had the eerie feeling he
was being watched through the peep hole. He grinned nervously.

“Rhino, is that
you?” he asked. “Rhino, it’s me Felix. Just Felix. Your old band
mate from Tequila Sun.”

There was a
certified silence for about thirty seconds and then the door swung
open.

“Felix, do come
on in!” Rhino gestured, smiling.

It was not at
all what Felix was expecting.

Rhino showed
Felix to his study. A large office-like room, with a desk, high
ceilings, Parisian art and wall to wall shelves crammed with what
looked like antique first edition books.

“It’s so good
to see you, Felix” said Rhino as he sat down at his desk in a comfy
looking brown leather swivel chair.

Felix joined
him on the opposite side and felt like he was at a job interview.
Only the reception he was receiving suggested he had already been
hired. When in fact it was Felix that had the job offer.

“Nice place
you’ve got here,” Felix said. He could see that Rhino had obviously
done well for himself, which only made his own task seemingly more
insurmountable.

“Thank you,”
Rhino said. “You’re looking well.”

Felix wanted to
say the same back, but he couldn’t remember what Rhino looked like
before. He’d dug out an old copy of Look-In magazine from his attic
just before he left, to check out Rhino’s back page fact file, but
had forgotten his face already.

“You too,” he
said anyway.

He remembered
his favourite colour was green and his favourite TV show was The
Professionals, for all the good that was. But beyond that his small
talk would be practically slim to none.

As it was, they
had tea and reminisced about old times. Appearing on the Razzmatazz
TV show and knocking Duran Duran off the no.1 spot in 1986. And it
all seemed altogether unnaturally pleasant.

“So to what do
I owe the pleasure?” Rhino finally asked.

Felix hadn’t
wanted to appear too forward or desperate, even though he was.

“I don’t
suppose you would be interested in reforming the band for a gig or
two?” he asked sheepishly.

“Oh
absolutely!” was Rhino’s most unexpected response.

Felix was a
little gobsmacked.

The one person
he thought he would struggle to get back in the band, the one
person he thought was an unknown commodity was turning out to be
the one person who was full of surprises.

“That’s
fantastic,” said Felix, getting up to leave and shaking his
newfound pal’s hand. “I’ll be in touch with the details.”

Felix figured
even if the girls didn’t come round, he and Rhino could always put
shuttlecocks down their tennis shorts and pretend they were
Wham!

Despite his
elated if somewhat stupefying joy at having managed to reform at
least 50% of the band, it was little more than 24 hours before the
big comeback gig. All further calls to Holly were still going
unanswered, while Cherry/Chesney had quit his/her job at the
contact centre and gone into hiding.

Felix resigns
himself to abject failure and is drowning his sorrows in the middle
of the afternoon in a quiet, traditional pub.

The only other
clientele is an elderly woman practically in a trance, sat knitting
cardigans for Kosovan orphans; and an old man who looks like he
died several years ago, rigor mortis setting in; covered in dust
and cobwebs.

Felix finishes
his pint and goes to the bar, beckoning the half asleep barmaid
over so he can order another. Whilst she is coming to give him a
good creamy head, if not the kind he was accustomed to in his
heyday, he starts to daydream…

Suddenly he is
on stage - dressed like a complete megastar - right there in the
very pub. His hair is big and wild, spiked inches on end and dyed
firecracker red.

He has silver
and black lightning strikes painted on either side of his eyes and
the rest of his outfit completes the look of a true style god: he’s
wearing nipple tassels, his bare chest covered in glitter, and with
denim jeans so tight they look like they were painted on, then
slashed to ribbons by a werewolf.

He is singing
his greatest hit like he has never sung it before – as they would
say on X Factor, he totally nails it - but no-one even takes an
iota of notice.

The elderly
woman is still zombified, in a world of her own and the barmaid is
still giving good head, this time quite literally to the dead
man.

Felix simply
cannot take anymore and storms or rather stumbles out of the pub in
a raged drunken stupor.

He wanders down
the street in a desperate state and passes several strangers, none
of whom recognise him or ask for his autograph, mores the pity.

Then he comes
to what looks like an old waxwork museum - a bit like a poor man’s
Master Tussauds – he assumes where unwanted former celebrity
dummies go to die, other than on reality TV.

Paying the £5
entry fee he goes in and encounters the likes of Shakin’ Stevens,
Arnold from Diff’rent Strokes and Roland Rat… then he nearly does a
double take when he sees our very own sex pot Ms Holly Wood from
Tequila Sun!

He drunkenly
mumbles, thinking it’s to himself but blurting out loud: “Well
that’s just shocking. Where am I?”

He simply can’t
take the rejection.

“They’ve
probably melted me down into pillar candles. I’m a has been and
they probably should have fed me to the lions,” he says feeling
sorry for himself.

Has his life
really come to this?

He gazes at the
Holly waxwork dummy. The resemblance is simply astonishing.

And he rambles
on: “Oh but my dear, lovely Holly. The one girl who gets more
beautiful with every breath she takes...”

Felix is now on
the ground seemingly worshipping at her very feet.

An unimpressed
couple bypass him in his drunken stupor and head straight to Des
and Daphne from Neighbours.

“The one girl I
never truly got over,” Felix continues, fawning all over her. “The
only one I ever really loved.”

He stands up
again and makes a special announcement.

“I wrote a song
about you,” he says and then starts to serenade Holly’s waxwork
with the new song he has just written about her:

“When I first
saw you, my heart skipped a beat,

I grew seven
inches…”

He stops,
pauses for thought, looks down and changes the lyric to five and a
half.

“…I dropped my
shredded wheat.

Her hair was
golden (it is, dyed.)

Her eyes
emerald green (they are, probably contact lens.)

To avoid her
beauty you would need a vaccine…”

His voice
trails off as he exits the museum in a bitter fashion, pushing over
a waxwork dummy that vaguely resembles Margaret Thatcher in the
process.

At that very
moment a man in an old fashioned suit enters from the rear, of the
building that is. He passes Felix and walks through the waxwork
museum backwards, well not quite literally.

It is of course
the owner Wesley Tussauds. His real name was Wesley Bates but when
he set the business up, it didn’t have quite the same ring.

He shakes his
head when he finds Maggie on the floor, picks her up and
unintentionally positions her in a somewhat heated embrace with
Leroy from the Kids from Fame.

Then he passes
a few other legends in the 80s section, until he comes across Holly
Wood, who looks like she actually has a tear in her eye.

And then she
blinks.

“Holly it’s
time for your break,” says Wesley, tapping her on the shoulder.

It seems being
a supermarket checkout operator isn’t Holly’s only talent these
days. She’s also working part time as her very own museum waxwork
dummy!

Oh and she just
heard everything a drunken, emotional Felix had to say!

Ouch!

Felix wakes up,
his head pounding, and with no recollection of the night before.
He’s naked in a bed, but has no idea whose, nor does he recognise
the brazen trollop lying next time to him.

Turns out he’s
in a cheap bed and breakfast and the ‘lady friend’ with him is Aunt
Sally from Worzel Gummidge, well her waxwork dummy anyway.

After a spot of
nightclubbing and several shots of Tequila, he went back to Master
Tussauds and broke into the museum to steal Holly’s waxwork, only
to find she’d gone, so this seemed like the next available
choice.

Felix gets out
of bed, pulls on his pants - inside out and back to front - gets
dressed and goes to check out of the hotel.

While he’s in a
taxi on the way home, he gets a text message from Rhino Zagreb,
which reads: “Felix, unable to make the gig tonight. Something has
come up. Sorry.”

Felix is
secretly gutted, but tries not to let onto himself. He also
realises that tonight is the big night and he’s going to have to go
it alone, whether his agent Max Jacks likes it or not. He’s
confident he can win over the crowd. He has to be. And he’s ready
to give it one final shot.

When he gets
home he strips off and looks at himself standing naked in the
mirror. He looks and feels like an abomination. Hair bedraggled,
unshaven, pasty white skin and more than just a little out of
shape.

He’s also a bit
sticky, covered in wax and shudders to think. He’s stressed out to
the max (no pun intended) and just needs to relax. He also has his
beauty regime to adhere to, starting with a hot soak and an
exfoliating mud mask.

While he’s
meditating in the tub with a couple of cucumbers on his eyes, he
ponders how his life is half over and wasted. He’s nearly fifty,
the big half a century. Jack-off jenkies!

It only seems
like yesterday that the world was at his feet.

There he was
winning the Hottest Male Pop Hunk on the Planet Award at the Smash
Hits Poll Winners Party, beating Morten Harket consecutively for
the third year in a row.

Holly Wood, the
girl everyone wanted, was his.

And their new
single was selling out in Woolworths all over the country.

What could
possibly go wrong?

One night of
drunken debauchery later - the first of seemingly many - and his
life before him spiralled completely out of control.

Felix had
always been bi-curious.

Cherry was
depressed and trying to work out her own sexual identity. She’d
been born with both reproductive organs and always felt like she
was a girl. But her parents had decided they wanted a son and chose
to dress her in blue and bring her up as a boy, which just confused
her even more.

When she turned
16 she left home and became her true self, her parents disowning
her in the process for shaming their social stature.

One night Felix
and Holly had an argument. It was the night before the
4
^th
Smash Hits Poll Winners Party and Felix was worried
Marti Pellow was going to pip him to the post in the Hot Hunk
category. Holly thought Felix was just being pedantic.

So he walked
out on her, got crazy drunk and bumped into an equally sozzled
Cherry, fresh from an unsuccessful attempt at a reconciliation with
her mother following her father’s death.

They went back
to Felix’s for a nightcap and the next thing they knew Holly walked
in on them playing Naked Twister.

To make matters
worse Cherry was wearing a microphone strapped to her crotch and
helping Felix find his g spot.

Holly stormed
out, half in repulse, half heartbroken, closely followed by a
sobbing, sobering Felix, but she would not let him make amends, nor
accept his excuse or the concept of ‘accidental cheating’.

His blatant
mistake not only created bad karma for the band but also set Holly
on a mission to self- destruction of her very own.

She sold an
expose of the travesty to the News of the World, outing Cherry as a
hermaphrodite in the process.

This caused
Cherry to completely lose the plot and in a fit of temper she
attacked Holly on an episode of Top of the Pops mid-song,
attempting to strangle her on live TV!

Charges were
dropped due to lack of evidence. I think the only video recording -
on Beta Max - mysteriously disappeared. But the resulting
restraining order made it difficult for the band to continue.