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9 a.m.
When is it okay to wake him up? I’ve been coughing loudly and nudging him gently since 8 a.m. (practically the middle of the night for a Wag—before Paskia Rose was born, I would have just been leaving Chinawhite at this time of morning) in the hope that he’ll open his eyes, realise what day it is, and leap like a gazelle from beneath the covers to retrieve the gift he’s bought for me. I know what the present is, of course—mainly because I have spent most of the past year telling him about the adorable gold bangle I’d seen. When I didn’t get the response I wanted, I told him about the gold bangle I’d seen that was sooooo beautiful and I would luuuuurvve more than anything in the world. Finally, finally, he came home last month with a bulge in his trouser pocket and I realised he’d bought it for me (I knew the bulge wouldn’t be anything else—he gets so tired once pre-season training starts). Then he went through a ridiculously unsubtle performance of trying to hide the gift.
‘Give me a minute,’ he hollered through the house.
‘Just busy doing something. Be out in a minute. Won’t be long. Don’t come in.’
Then he hid the present in such an utterly crap place that it took me approximately five seconds to find it. Why are men so hopeless at hiding things? Perhaps it’s because to them everything is hidden to start with. ‘I can’t find my socks.’ ‘Anyone seen my shoes?’ ‘My grey trousers aren’t here.’ They always are, of course. Usually right in front of his eyes.
‘Deeeaan,’ I whisper gently, nudging him again. Maybe if I push him harder. ‘Dean. Wake up.’
I’m really shaking him now, and there’s no sign of life. How can anyone sleep this deeply? Perhaps he’s dead. Could I still be a Wag if I were a widow? Hmmm…
I give him one almighty push and he rolls off the bed, smashing into the leopard-print bedside lamp on the way and landing with an almighty crash on the floor.
‘Ow,’ he says, rising to his feet, his hands clutching his head. ‘Ow, ow, ow. What happened then?’
‘You fell,’ I say, in mock concern. ‘Are you okay? Here, let me see.’ But even as I rub his head gently, all I can think is, Where’s my bangle? Where’s my bangle? Go get my bangle!
It’s strange that I should be tending to an injury to Dean on our anniversary because that’s how we first met. He was a twenty-year-old Arsenal player, knocking on a first-team place, when our paths crossed. I was an eighteen-year-old trainee hairdresser, living in a small flat above the salon, just down the road from where Dean’s nan lived, hoping to become a model, and he was a local celebrity. He walked with a strut and wore oversized trousers with huge trainers that were always undone. When he shuffled into the hairdresser’s where I was washing hair, I don’t think I’d ever seen a more beautiful human being. I made to leave elderly Mrs Cooper at the sink, with shampoo dripping into her rheumy bloodshot eyes, and then I dropped the shower attachment, letting it bounce onto its back and hurl a heavy spray of water up into the air and all over the clients.
‘Hi,’ I said eagerly, ignoring the shrieks from the women at the basins, the agonised cries from Mrs Cooper and the angry shouts from Romeo, the salon owner. ‘How can I help you?’
‘I’d like my ears pierced, babe,’ he said, winking at me.
‘Certainly. Come in.’
While Mrs Cooper was being comforted in the corner with eye drops and a small glass of sweet sherry, I led Dean over to Sally, the only one of us qualified to pierce ears. Actually, when I say qualified, I mean brave. She was the only one brave enough to pierce ears. She was no more qualified than the rest of us, but she’d practised extensively with a hole punch and wasn’t afraid of blood, so the task fell to her.
‘Just sit down,’ she said to Dean. ‘I’ll fetch some ice.’
Unfortunately, all the ice had gone into the gin and tonics that Romeo had been forced to provide for the soaking-wet clients at the basins, so Sally came back and told Dean it would be fine without ice. He just had to keep still.
There was a slight panic when she couldn’t find the antiseptic wipes and we discovered the piercing gun hadn’t been cleaned from the last time it was used, but in the end we carried on regardless. Sally pulled the trigger (making like she was John Wayne in the process, which further alarmed Dean). ‘Click’ went the machine. ‘Bang’ shouted Sally, as we both collapsed into fits of giggles. Then…‘Oh shit,’ she said. The gun had clamped shut on Dean’s ear and couldn’t be removed.
Sally pushed, pulled, struggled and swore. She looked at me. I smiled at Dean, who was now exactly the same colour as the chipped magnolia paint on the walls. I pulled the gun too. No good.
‘Oops,’ Sally said, doing her best to dampen down the fear emanating from one of Arsenal’s most promising footballers. ‘Little problem, I’m afraid.’
Sally and I jiggled around with the gun, pulling and pushing it, trying to work it free from Dean’s ear. Our every effort was accompanied by loud groans, cries and a considerable number of swear words from Dean. Then, he sighed loudly, made a grab for the arm of the chair and collapsed in a heap.
‘Shit!’ I said, jumping back. ‘We’ve killed him!’
‘No we haven’t,’ said Sally, showing herself to be infinitely more capable in a crisis. ‘We just need to get the gun off his ear.’
Around us stood all the clients in the salon, sipping their complimentary beverages and watching closely. Even Mrs Cooper had joined them, but she stood watching with one eye—the other covered by a makeshift patch, constructed from a wad of cotton wool and a vast amount of masking tape.
Eventually, the gun came off and Sally and I both collapsed in a heap from the effort. Dean was still slumped exactly as he was before, but with a large hole in his earlobe where the gun had, until recently, resided.
I lost my job that day, but I gained a boyfriend and then, two years later, a husband. It was the happiest day of my life when Dean proposed to me, just eight months after we met. I’ll never forget calling Mum and telling her:
‘I’ve met someone and he wants to marry me.’
‘Oh,’ she said, with very little interest, more than a little resentment, and some comment about how old this was all going to make her look.
‘His name’s Dean Martin,’ I said, and there was a silence on the end of the phone. Then:
‘Dean…Martin? The Dean Martin?’
I was thrilled that Mum had heard about Arsenal’s new sensation from all the way over there in Los Angeles.
‘Yep, the Dean Martin,’ I said, feeling very proud. ‘The Dean Martin is now my Dean Martin.’
‘Where did you meet the great legend?’
‘He came into the salon to get a piercing.’
‘What? Was he with the other members of the Rat Pack?’
‘No—he was on his own. The others had gone to get chips.’
‘Chips? Two of the greatest swing singers in the history of Big Band music—gone to get chips?’
‘No, Dean’s mates…from Arsenal.’
‘Hang on. So, who is this Dean Martin you’re going to marry?’
‘He plays for Arsenal.’
The line went dead. I asked a few people afterwards and they said that there was another Dean Martin in America who was seventy-odd at the time, and sang rubbish songs, so he must be the guy that Mum thought I was talking about. It turned out that the American Dean Martin died later that year…probably from a broken heart at being the wrong Dean Martin.
Meanwhile, back in London, the hole in my Dean’s ear never properly healed (he wears three earrings in it now), but he says he forgives me. Sally left the salon at the same time as me. Last I heard, she’d retrained as a butcher, which seemed strangely appropriate.
Mum ended up coming round to the idea of the wedding when she realised how much money footballers earn. In fact, she came straight back over to live in England, giving up her sun-soaked LA life and throwing herself into the coordination of my wedding. It was great to have Mum back, although quite alarming to see how young she’d become in her time away. It turns out that three facelifts and buckets full of Botox and collagen fillers had done the trick, but heavens, she looked good. She looked exactly like Barbie. Only slightly less natural-looking.
Mum just adored Dean from the moment she met him. He really took a shine to her, too, giving her the money to buy a house and a car and some staff. She’d come round in tiny little shorts, poking her 32DD bra-less breasts at Dean, and he’d be like putty in her hands. Nothing’s changed there, really.
‘How’s it feeling now?’ I ask.
‘Fine,’ he says, still holding his head. ‘Hey, I’ve got something for you.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. I’ve just got to remember where I hid it.’
Sock drawer, I think. Look in the sock drawer.
‘Gosh, I can’t remember.’
‘Well, put some socks on first, then try to remember,’ I say.
‘Don’t be silly. I want to find your present for you, not put socks on. Now let me think.’
‘I really think you’d be more comfortable with socks on,’ I insist.
‘No, I need to…’
‘Put socks on.’
‘But I…’
‘SOCKS!!’
So off he goes, confused and agitated, still clinging on to his head. Off to put socks on because it’s easier to do that than to keep opposing my absurd but heartfelt request. Bless him.
‘Ah…’ he says all of a sudden, the joy in his voice discernible through the wall of the dressing room. ‘You won’t believe what I just found in the sock drawer…’
Friday, 3 August (#ulink_b7a72526-d703-5bcb-80a6-771287e9b472)
7.30 p.m.
‘Deeeeeaaan…’ I lean into my man, fluttering my eyelashes at him adoringly and thrusting my breasts at him provocatively as I attempt to wrestle the remote control from his grip. He’s having none of it.
‘What is it, doll?’ he asks, expertly performing a quick manoeuvre to keep the remote firmly within his grasp. If only he were as adept at keeping the ball at his feet, he might have had a half-decent international career. As it is, he has a less than half-decent club career. If it weren’t for me constantly pestering him to go training, get fit, eat healthily and wear bigger, golder jewellery, he’d barely be a footballer at all.
‘I was just wondering,’ I say, pouting my new, and let’s be honest, terrifyingly plump lips at him to such an extent that he actually flinches in his seat and murmurs something about pink slugs. ‘Why don’t you contact David Beckham or Wayne Rooney or something? You know, make friends with them.’
‘Eh?’ he says, his eyes not leaving the television for the merest second, and his left hand not moving from between his legs, where he is attempting, by assuming some sort of absurd yoga pose, to adjust the crotch of his tight, shiny grey trousers that I bought him from Dolce & Gabbana. He lifts his pelvis right up into the air in an effort to disentangle himself further, and I notice how narrow his hips look in their BacoFoil-type coating. If I wore trousers like that I’d look the size of the QE2, whereas he looks as narrow as the ridiculous silver tiepin he was presented with by the club last year. Is that why he’s not been selected for England for eight bloody years? Maybe if he were built like Frank Lampard instead of Frank Skinner he’d have had the call. Mmmm…Maybe I should do something to fatten him up. I’ll buy loads of steak tomorrow, and chips and cakes and lard and stuff. I’ll feed him till he explodes. It can be my new mission: OBUD—Operation Build Up Dean.
‘You know—why don’t you at least try to make friends with some England footballers? Some of them don’t look too bright—I’m sure you could become their new best friend without them even noticing. Then once the coaches see you out on the town with them, you might get selected to play for England again.’
‘It doesn’t work like that,’ he says. ‘It’s not like school. They don’t pick you because you’re friends with the other players.’
‘It can’t hurt,’ I try. I’d love him to play for England again. I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder than I was when he won his cap for his country. It was against Cameroon. They’re a really good side…I don’t think they’ve won the World Cup, but they probably came second or something. Dean was outstanding in the match. It wasn’t his fault that he only had four minutes to show how good he was. He got sent off, you see, then he was never picked again. No one knows why. I mean—it was only a little kick, and that guy deserved it. Ridiculous.
Anyway, I’m still proud of him. I display his cap in a large gold-rimmed frame. It’s back-lit, like all that naff old stuff in museums is, and it looks fantastic. I’ve got the match programme framed too, and my ticket for the game. Oh, and all the cuttings about the game from every newspaper that covered it around the world (except for the one where they described Dean as a ‘thug’—I threw that away). I’ve also got the precious squad list that the Football Association sent out with his name on it to confirm he was in the England squad. The annoying thing is that they’ve spelt his name wrong. Isn’t that ridiculous? To spell your star player’s name wrong! I rang them up at the time and screamed ‘It’s Dean Martin, not Martins’, but the woman on reception just kept asking me what department I wanted, then threatened to hang up when I called her a crazy old bat. Still, I had the last laugh because the squad list is now hanging on a red velvet background in a magnificent golden frame.
The mementoes from Dean’s international career cover an entire wall in the entrance hall. They’re perfect, especially next to the large statue of Dean in his football kit. It’s life-size. Actually, to be fair, parts of it are bigger than life-size. I don’t know what Dean had down his shorts when the sculptor was assessing all the dimensions, but the statue is very impressive indeed. It looks wonderful, especially now we’ve put the spotlights directly above it. People said we didn’t need spotlights, what with the three chandeliers lighting up the entrance hall, but I think it looks great.
I’d love Dean to have another chance to relive those four golden minutes and play for England once again. Above all, I’d like to be friends with Victoria, and go shopping and hang out with her and her Hollywood friends—and have a word with her about cutting her hair short.
Dean’s gone back to watching television again, and fiddling with the crotch of his trousers. He can’t hear a word I’m saying with the TV blaring out. I don’t understand why he has to have it on so loud—he seems to nudge the volume up until everyone’s shouting out at us from the large plasma screen on the far wall.
To be frank, I don’t need this right now. I’ve had one hell of a day. A dismal, horrific day in which I made a complete fool of myself at the beautician’s. Mallory normally tends to all my beauty needs—she’s practically full-time, hovering over me with tweezers and emery board day and night. But, for reasons that with hindsight I can’t begin to fathom, today I decided to pay a visit to the new salon in town for one of their oxygen facials. The beautician assigned to me was South African, which worried me from the start. I’ve only ever been to South Africa once and that was completely by accident. It was for our honeymoon and we ended up there after I told Dean that I really wanted to go to this fabulous club called En Safari in Ibiza. It never occurred to me that we’d go anywhere other than Ibiza for our honeymoon. I’m not sure I knew there were any other countries—just LA, where Mum had lived, England, where we lived, and Ibiza, where we went on holiday. Trouble was, Dean thought I’d said that I wanted to go ‘on safari’ so we ended up spending our entire honeymoon sleeping in a tent, covered in mosquitoes and watching a whole load of bloody animals. It was awful. I turned up on the first day wearing my specially chosen honeymoon outfit of little white hot-pants and fabulously high gold sandals with a gold halter-neck bikini top and a low-slung gold chain belt, and everyone was staring at me. They were all wearing plain, dull clothes. I had my gold-rimmed shades on and piles of bling that sparkled in the sunshine. I looked great and I knew it.
‘Hey, man. You’re gonna scare the animals,’ said this man with a rifle. He was all dressed in khaki. ‘And you need boots on your feet.’
I said the only boots I had were made of pink plastic and came up to the middle of my thigh, so he made me wear flat shoes belonging to some plain woman in our group. FLAT SHOES!—and they didn’t match my outfit.
It was the honeymoon from hell. No shops, no nice wine bars, no fancy cocktails, just a whole bunch of rhinoceroses and lions and stuff, and all these people going, ‘Aw, look—it’s a baby elephant…’ Don’t they have televisions? There are bloody nature programmes on all the time. I can’t get away from baby elephants when I’m flicking through to watch Britain’s Next Top Model, and I have to say that I’d be perfectly happy if I never saw a jungle animal again—baby or otherwise.
We left the safari in the end. Or, more accurately, they asked us to leave. We went to some place called Cape Town for a couple of days. That was strange, too. I had this horrible moment when trying to find the shops. You see, they call their traffic lights ‘robots’ out there. I asked how to get to the shops and was told ‘Turn left at the robots.’
‘What?’ I said. ‘The robots? I want to go to the shops, not into the future.’
Anyway, that’s why I was alarmed to have a South African beautician. Her name was Mandie.
‘Lie on the bed and take off your knickers,’ she said.
‘Pardon?’
‘I’ll need you to lie on there without your knickers on.’
It seemed an odd request since I was only having my face massaged and plumped up with some oxygen-containing creams, but I did as I was told, lying on the bed entirely naked below the waist.
The beautician turned round from where she’d been mixing lotions and potions and jumped back when she saw me lying there smiling at her, completely knickerless. She looked at me in the same way you might regard a lunatic running down the street, clutching a large knife—backing away from me, eyes wide and looking more than a little fearful.
‘What are you doing?’ she eventually asked.
‘I’ve taken off my knickers,’ I said.
‘No,’ said Mandie, pointing to my neck. ‘I said “Lie on the bed and take off your necklace.”’
Fuck! I scrabbled back into my Luton Town thong and slipped off my choker. I’m sure she was laughing at me. The facial wasn’t even that good anyway.
I rushed home afterwards to find Mum in the house—nothing odd about that,of course, she’s always there, snooping around to see what I’ve bought and to try on all my new clothes. Today, though, I just couldn’t handle talking to her and listening to all her criticisms of me.
‘These shoes are horrible,’ she said as soon as I walked in.
‘Not now, Mum,’ I said, walking right past her and going to look for Dean, hoping to have some sort of conversation with him. Now I’ve found him, though, he’s just locked in his own little TV world. He’s like a child when it comes to the goggle-box. He’s kicked the zebra rug out of the way and shifted the sofa forwards, so he’s practically nose-to-nose with the presenter. The only person I know who has the television on louder is Nell. She has it blaring out so much, you have to hold on to your ears in case your eardrums blow apart.
I once took Nell to the cinema and she complained all the way through the film about how loud it was. Eh? How does that work? I’ll tell you what also confuses me about Nell is that she has the fire on, the central heating on and wears a coat, hat and gloves in August, then complains frequently of hot flushes. God help me if Dean ends up like her when he’s older—I don’t think I could cope.
‘Can you turn it down, love,’ I say for the third time, as if I’m asking him to make the ultimate sacrifice.
‘It’s celebrity darts,’ he says, turning to face me. A wounded look had crept across his features. ‘It’s Syd Little against Ulrika Jonsson’s sister’s ex-boyfriend’s uncle.’
‘This is important,’ I persist. ‘Really important.’
Syd Little misses the dartboard completely and Dean spins round. ‘And you think this isn’t?’
‘Paskia Rose’s school report’s here,’ I say. ‘I found it screwed up in her underwear drawer. It turns out she’s really not doing very well at all.’
Dean shrugs and I feel like crying. For some reason I’m considerably more dismayed than I ever imagined I’d be at the sight of a bad school report—after all, it’s not as if it’s the first bad report I’ve ever seen. When I was at school I used to…never mind, that’s not important now. The fact is that my baby has not excelled at her beautiful prep school. I feel as let down as I did when she refused to wear the ribbon-bedecked school boater.
Dean, though, looks entirely unmoved. He mutters to himself in a manner that suggests he’s thinking, What the hell do you expect, you daft mare? We have neither a brain cell nor a qualification between us.
‘Despite possessing a considerable intellect, quite precocious debating skills and having a remarkable grasp and understanding of women’s liberation issues, Paskia Rose continues to let herself down in the core subjects,’ reads Dean. ‘Blimey, Trace. That’s a brilliant report.’
