The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride (9 page)

I
have absolutely no idea which direction we travelled in, or how long we drove for. It started with the suburbs turning into motorways and that was when I nodded off. I remember us stopping at some service station for petrol and a pee. I tried to rush in and out quickly, so as not to be recognised, but actually there was hardly anyone there and none of them was bothering to look at anyone else, everyone concentrating on their own business in the middle of the night, all of them probably wishing they were safe in bed at home.

The next time I woke up we weren’t on floodlit motorways any more and everything was dark apart from the slice of light created by our headlights, which just showed hedges and trees and the odd fox shooting across in front of us. I felt secure in the warm, leathery interior of the car and didn’t want the journey to end, didn’t want to have to face anyone or anything new.

When Luke put the car radio on they were playing our version of ‘Summer Wine’, which made us both laugh. It seemed like our voices were singing to us from another world.

I was awake when we turned into the gates of Luke’s house, although I didn’t realise that was what they were. They
looked big enough to be an entrance to a park or something. It was only as we crunched to a stop on the gravel outside the house that I realised we had arrived. All I can say is: ‘Fucking hell’. The house looked more like a hotel or maybe a local town hall. I felt like we were walking through the doors of Beckingham Palace as we came into the front hall, although I doubt if Posh lets the cobwebs build up around the chandeliers quite like they had here. There were lights blazing everywhere and the place was really warm. A giant Christmas tree was standing in the hallway, waiting to be decorated. It was the sort of size you usually only see in shopping malls. I could hear voices in the distance and laughter.

‘Come on,’ Luke said, taking my hand, ‘let’s see if we can find something to eat.’

We went past loads of doors, down a corridor that smelled a bit musty and then into a kitchen that was like some baronial hall. I half expected to see Henry VIII sitting at the end of the table, chucking chicken bones over his shoulder. There were people all round the table, which was strewn with the remains of a meal and half-empty glasses of wine. A pack of muddy-looking dogs emerged from baskets around the room, and under the table, their tails wagging as they clattered across the old tiled floor to greet Luke and sniff me out.

‘Hello, darling,’ a woman with grey hair and a posh accent boomed over everyone, ‘what a lovely surprise.’

‘Hello, Mums,’ Luke said, pecking her on the cheek and waving at everyone else, ‘thought we’d pop down to see you.’

‘Lovely. Have you eaten? There’s some lasagne on top of the oven and plenty of salad stuff in the fridge.’

‘Thanks. This is Steffi, by the way.’

They all shouted out some sort of greeting. It was very friendly and it took me a few seconds to realise why it was strange. It was obvious none of them had the slightest idea who I was. That sounds really up myself, I know, but by then I had grown so used to walking into a room and knowing that everyone in there knew who I was, even though I didn’t know anything about them, that I suddenly felt I’d been robbed of my identity. All this family saw was their son bringing home a new girlfriend. It was a weird feeling, a bit liberating in a way, but unnerving. I was going to have to make conversation with strangers in a way I hadn’t had to for months.

The other funny thing was there was no telly on. There was a pile of Sunday papers on the side, which had obviously been well read, but none of them was the sort of paper that I was used to reading or appearing in. It was like I’d walked through another looking glass into another new world where nothing was the same as either of the worlds I was used to. In our house there was always a telly on in the background, and there were always a load of tabloid papers and magazines lying about the place. If an actress from any of the soap operas had walked through the door unexpectedly, it would have been like a Martian had landed, or a member of the Royal Family.

Luke sat me down while he loaded me up a plate of food from the top of their cooker, which was one of those giant old things that stay hot all the time, with loads of doors and big silver lids to be lifted off the top to get at the hot plates. Everyone was talking at once, making sure I had a glass of wine and a napkin and cutlery, while continuing the conversations
they must have been having when we walked in. I stayed quiet and ate, suddenly realising how hungry I was. Luke sat next to me, protecting me from having to make conversation for a while as I tried to work out who everyone was.

His mum was the loudest one in the party, very strong and in control of everything. His dad was still picking at bits of the paper at the same time as coming in and out of conversations, his glasses perched on the end of his nose, his grey hair sticking out all over the place from where he kept running his fingers through it, looking puzzled. He had a lot of stains down the front of his jumper and his elbows were poking through holes in the sleeves. There were a couple of young men who looked similar to Luke, and I gradually learned they were his brothers. One of them had a woman sitting beside him who was nursing a small baby as she talked; another young woman was busily making hot drinks for everyone. There was an elderly lady, who seemed to be Luke’s grandmother. I guessed she was his mother’s mother as she had the same sort of loud, commanding voice.

The dogs were milling around underneath me, and one rested its chin on my lap, which looked quite sweet and made me feel very at home, even though it smelled a bit rank and left a patch of dribble behind it.

‘Where’s Grandpa?’ Luke asked.

‘He’s just dashed back upstairs,’ his mother replied. ‘Some programme he had to watch.’

As soon as I’d finished eating, Luke swept me up again.

‘Let’s go and find Grandpa,’ he said, ushering me from the room before I could even say thank you for the food.

‘Your family are awesome,’ I said as he led me by the hand up a small back staircase.

‘Thanks. My grandfather is a bit of a silver surfer, and I thought it might be worth having a look on the Internet to see if there is anything about you. He has satellite TV as well.’

Luke’s grandfather didn’t look much older than his parents, and seemed particularly happy to see his grandson. It looked to me like the two of them had some kind of special bond. His room was part bedroom and part office, with paper everywhere.

‘This is Steffi, Grandpa,’ Luke said.

‘Very pretty too,’ the old man said.

‘Thanks.’ I felt much more comfortable now.

‘Want a drink, either of you?’

‘Cheers, Grandpa.’

Luke went over to a tray of bottles and glasses and poured us each a shot of whisky. ‘Mind if I have a quick look on the Internet, Grandpa?’ he asked, coming back with my glass.

‘Of course – what are you looking for?’

‘Steff had a spot of bother with the media before we left London, just wondered if it was being reported.’

‘Oh, right.’ He didn’t seem remotely surprised by the information. ‘Want me to have a look at the news channels?’

‘That would be great,’ Luke replied, indicating for me to sit down on an old sofa in the corner of the room, where an ancient-looking terrier growled at me ominously without bothering to raise its head.

‘Take no notice,’ the old man said. ‘It’s all bluff; he’s got no teeth.’

As they both worked the keyboard and television control,
it felt like watching two overgrown schoolboys; Luke even stuck his tongue out in concentration as he worked. It wasn’t long before they had found what they wanted. We were all over the news. The film that my kindly neighbour had been shooting from the window opposite was everywhere. It was grainy and impossible to make out Pete’s face, but you could see the gun and hear the shots. The photographer had also managed to get his pictures distributed and there were some bloody unflattering shots of me lying on the pavement. The stories all ended with more shots of Luke’s Range Rover roaring away and the voice-overs all talked about me ‘going into hiding’. They didn’t seem to have made the connection with Luke yet, but since you could clearly see the car’s number plate, although it had been fogged out for the public, I guessed it wouldn’t be long before he was dragged into it.

‘You’ve had a busy evening, you two,’ the old man said with a chuckle.

‘Steff ’s the girl I’ve been doing this television singing competition with, Grandpa.’

‘Ah, yes.’The old man peered at me more closely. ‘I can see it now. Nice voice you have.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Grandpa’s the only one around here who shows any interest in my career.’

‘That’s not true,’ the old man protested. ‘They’re all very proud of you.’

We sat with Grandpa for an hour or more and it felt like the rest of the world had melted away outside that comfy, chaotic room, even though there were images flickering on
the television and computer screens, reminding us of what was going on in the rest of the world. Eventually, Luke decided it was time for us to leave the old boy in peace.

‘Tired?’ he asked and I nodded. ‘Come on, I’ll show you my room.’

Luke’s room was up another staircase and along another corridor and it didn’t look as if anything had been touched in there since he was 14. His duvet even had a picture of Superman on it.

‘Jesus,’ I said, ‘this whole place is like some museum.’

‘Sorry.’

‘No, don’t be stupid. It’s really nice. I wish I’d had a room like this.’

There was a school photo on the wall, all of them in blazers and looking like right little toffs. Luke showed me himself and the other members of the band. Seeing such familiar faces in such unfamiliar surroundings was spooky. There was another picture of them in a football team – sorry, ‘rugby’, like that made any difference.

‘Different-shaped ball,’ he laughed, pointing out the ball he was holding in the picture, which looked more like an Easter egg. ‘Very different game.’

Whatever.

That night he held me tightly in his little single bed, cuddled up under Superman, and I felt safer than I’d ever felt before.

By the next morning the family had obviously got some idea from Grandpa of what was going on. They now knew I was an actress and that I was having some trouble with the
media but his mum seemed to be more interested in how many pancakes we wanted for breakfast.

Dora rang just as I was tucking into my fourth and Luke’s mum was dishing his fifth up on to his plate from the Aga (see how quickly I was catching on to the lingo?).

‘You all right, darling?’ Dora asked, not pausing for an answer. ‘Where are you?’

‘In the country,’ I replied, not having any more detailed information than that.

‘Really?’ The concept seemed to puzzle her as much as it had me. ‘That’s nice. Have you seen the news today?’

‘Nothing since last night.’

‘Well, the police have tracked your Pete down to his lair and he’s done a runner. The squat is empty, if you don’t count the fifty or so photographers crawling around it, photographing every sordid detail.’

‘Is Pete all right?’

‘I have no idea, and less interest. I hope they find him and lock him up.’

‘Oh, don’t say that.’ I felt an actual stab of pain at the thought of poor old Pete being locked up just for letting off a few shots in the street. I felt so bad about his mum. She’d worked so hard to make her family respectable and to give Pete a good start in life. This publicity would finish her and it felt like it was all my fault.

‘Well, you know my views on that young man. Anyway, don’t forget you have filming for the finals of
Singing
this week. Do you want me to arrange a car to pick you up from wherever you’re hiding out?’

I’ll talk to Luke.’

‘OK, let me know if you need anything.’

I was shocked when I saw the pictures of Pete’s squat in the papers. I suppose I’d never really seen it in full daylight because we always had the windows boarded up and covered with old sheets or paintings we’d done ourselves. When we did have the lights on we usually had coloured bulbs, or put scarves over them to dull them down and make them more psychedelic. I’d brought in a set of fairy lights as well, which made the place look quite romantic, but there was no sign of them in the pictures. Mainly it was the people who had made it feel friendly and cheerful, and they had long gone by the time the photographers arrived, along with anything homely like sleeping bags or posters. I suspect the photographers might have adjusted the scene a bit themselves to make it look even bleaker and more disgusting – ‘every parent’s worst nightmare’ and all that. It looked like we’d been living in some graffiti-strewn underpass. They didn’t go quite as far as showing discarded syringes on the floor, but they might as well have because that’s what the whole thing looked like.

They’d also managed to find a picture of Pete from when we were at school. He must have been posing for the camera that day, trying to look hard, because it wasn’t how he normally looked, more like the kind of hard-nosed criminal that the tabloids love to frighten their readers with, just the sort who would take revenge on his girlfriend with a gun. Why would anyone think that I would have fallen for someone who seemed so cold-eyed and vicious? Maybe they liked the idea of me as victim to this satanic figure, maybe that
was the fantasy they were playing to. In reality Pete was always so warm and relaxed, always laughing and teasing, when he wasn’t comatose with something, but that wasn’t the image the media needed. They needed a villain for their story, a bad man who had driven their hero and heroine (that’s me and Luke, in case you’re not getting where I’m going with this) into hiding. It was very nice of the media to be so concerned for our safety, but a bit rough to demonise poor harmless old Pete for the sake of a few shock-horror headlines. But that’s the name of the game, I suppose. They like to package everything up as a series of fairy tales, populated by evil villains and innocent heroines. For a few days poor old Pete was up there in their demons’ gallery with folk like Saddam Hussein and the Yorkshire Ripper.