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‘Women’s liberation issues!’ I say. ‘By that they mean she knows all about the lezzers that chain themselves to gates and burn their bras.’
‘Lezzers chaining each other to gates? What—you mean like in the videos they play on the team bus?’
‘No, Dean. They mean different women. Ugly women.’
‘Ah, that’s a shame. I like them videos. But it says she’s intelligent, love, and listen to this music report…’ He coughs gently and prepares to read: ‘Paskia Rose has managed to play her trumpet in time with the rest of the class on a couple of occasions this year. This is a great achievement for her, and a considerable relief for the rest of us.’
‘Ah, that’s nice,’ I say.
‘And there’s more,’ adds Dean. ‘Paskia’s footballing ability is staggering.’ He tails off, smiling to himself. ‘When it comes to football, she is the most talented pupil, of either sex, that I have ever had the pleasure of teaching.’
Dean screams with delight and tosses the report into the air in sheer joy. He’s running around the room now, with his shirt over his head. ‘Yeeeeesssss…’ he is shouting. I, conversely, feel like crying. I’m not exaggerating. If you asked me to list the dreams, hopes and ambitions that I have for my only daughter, playing football would be right at the bottom; below drug-pushing and just above prostitution. However, Dean is now doing a highly embarrassing Peter Crouch-style robotic dance to mark his joy and delight at his daughter’s prowess. ‘Oh yes,’ he is muttering. ‘Oh yes.’
It’s probably a combination of all the champagne at our anniversary dinner last night, the fact that I’m officially the oldest Wag who ever lived (well, not officially—but married for twelve years? I mean, that’s like—old—whichever way you look at it), and discovering my daughter is set to turn into a football-playing lesbian with really short hair and earrings all up her earlobe, but I feel like weeping like a baby.
‘Perhaps she’ll be good at darts too,’ Dean says opti-mistically, turning back to the television, adding a quick ‘ooo’ as Paul Gascoigne’s hairdresser prepares to take on a guy who nearly made it onto Big Brother. ‘The grand finale,’ he says breathlessly.
We watch the finale, in which neither participant appears to get their darts even remotely close to the dartboard, me thinking constantly about Paskia Rose’s problems. She’s just finished the prep school and next term will start at Lady Arabella Georgia School for Girls, THE poshest school in Luton. What if she can’t cope academically? Does it matter? I mean—does school have any bearing at all if you’re going to become a Wag one day, which, obviously, I hope with all my heart that Pask will. In fact, isn’t an education a disadvantage? Yeeesss! Now I feel like running around the room and doing strange mechanical dances myself. All that is happening here is that Paskia Rose is turning into a Wag! Perhaps when I write my Wags’ Handbook (which I will definitely start tomorrow—it’s been a busy day), I should have a section for young girls who hope someday to become Wags? Like career advice.
‘Deeeaaan,’ I say, and he does that thing where he drops his head forward and closes his eyes, as if to say, ‘Not now, woman.’ Obviously, I completely ignore him. ‘I’m going to write a handbook to help young Wags and make sure they know how to behave. What do you think?’
I’m asking him rhetorically—his views on this, as on most other things, are of no fundamental consequence. Even as I talk about it, I feel the pride bursting through my voice like a brilliant ray of sunshine.
He’s looking at me as if I’m insane but doesn’t answer the question in any way that could be described as helpful. ‘My fucking balls are going to explode in these,’ he says, standing up and walking towards the bedroom with the remote control still in his right hand and his left hand cupping himself in a rather obscene manner. ‘I’m gonna stick some old trackies on.’
‘Do you have to?’ I am absolutely sure that Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard never wander around the house in ‘old trackies’. ‘Why don’t we go out somewhere special?’
‘Nah,’ he says.
‘How about doing some training or something, then? Why don’t I give you a lift to the gym?’
‘’S all right,’ says Dean, quickly disappearing into the bedroom with a look that screams, no way am I going to the gym and no way are you driving me.
Good job really, because Doug, our driver, has gone home, and I’ve no idea where my car is. It had clean disappeared by the time I came out of the restaurant on Wednesday and I haven’t had the time to look for it, contact the police, or do whatever else you’re supposed to do when your car vanishes into thin air. God, life is so stressful sometimes. I bet Posh never has these sorts of problems.
Saturday, 4 August—first day of OBUD (#ulink_2f3b1af4-ca0c-537c-a8c3-b0636eff5be0)
2 p.m.
Bollocks. Where do they keep the cakes in these places? I’m pushing a shopping trolley with the sort of precision that I normally reserve for driving, crashing into the fruit section, then into the cans of soup, and then thundering into the bread products. Bread? Bread’s fattening. I reach out for a couple of white loaves that look fat- and calorie-laden and hurl them into the trolley with unnecessary force. They land with a satisfying doughy thump at the bottom and sit there, looking up at me all misshapen and sad-looking. Then I spot something…something that looks all chocolatey and delicious…perfect for OBUD. Swiss roll. Outstanding! What a find! This shopping lark’s not so difficult after all. Perhaps I should do it more often. I always do my shopping on the net. Or, rather, Alba, the Spanish au pair, does. She orders the same things every week—they’re the only items that Magda—the housekeeper—can cook. I tried to get Magda to do the ordering herself, but she did something wrong, and that intimidating timebomb thing appeared on the screen. Then Alba threw herself on the floor, mumbling something about ETA, whatever that is, and sobbing all over the tiles. She refused to get up until Magda promised never to go near ‘the violent machine’ again.
It all got me so cross, especially since the only reason we employed Alba in the first place was because I wanted a Spanish member of staff. I kept thinking that Dean might be transferred to Real Madrid or something. You know—like Becks was.
For OBUD, though, I need to take full responsibility myself—no delegating the details to Barcelona’s finest. So that’s why I’m stumbling round Marks and Spencer’s food section on a Saturday afternoon, instead of going to pilates with Gisella and Sophie—mums from Pask’s school. Not that I’m bothered—bloody pilates bores me to tears—all that business with the stretching and breathing properly. I feel like shouting, ‘I’m here because I want to be as thin as Posh, not to prepare for childbirth.’ I read that Coleen does it—that’s why I registered for the twelve-week course. This is week ten. I’ve only been once.
Oil. Perfect. I’m not sure quite how I’m going to get him to drink it, but I stick four large bottles into the supermarket trolley. Lard!!! Eight blocks of it. Fairy cakes, chips, meat pies, jam, ice cream, chocolate, cream horns, rump steaks, filled potato skins, ready-made curries, pizzas, salami, cheese (six large blocks), twenty-four cans of beer…Out they all come onto the conveyor belt towards the cashier. I throw in handfuls of chocolate bars from the till point as I watch fruit-cake, a block of marzipan, nuts, syrup, spotted dick, bread and butter pudding, pasties and sausage rolls trundling along…
‘Tracie, Tracie? I thought it was you.’
Before me stands Mindy, clutching a wisp of silk in her dainty fingers as she watches the conveyor belt with undisguised horror. ‘I’m just underwear shopping,’ she says slowly, still observing the copious amounts of food being shoved into carrier bags.
‘Do you want all this oil and lard together?’ asks the assistant, holding up blocks of the stuff. ‘There’s a lot of it. Might break the bag.’
‘Two bags, please,’ I say, through gritted teeth, my eyes never leaving Mindy’s as she tries to stop herself looking down at the beer, pizza, cakes and steamed puddings passing before her eyes.
‘Well. You’re obviously busy here. I’ll leave you to it. Nice to see you. I’ll see you for the first fat—I mean, first game.’
I smile and she’s gone. She lets the silk underwear flutter onto a nearby clothes rack as she exits onto Luton High Street, and gets straight on her mobile phone, no doubt, to tell the world about my serious eating disorder…
Bugger, bugger, bugger.
5 p.m.
‘Mum!’ cries Paskia Rose in horror and amazement. ‘What the hell are you doing in here?’
‘Don’t use words like “hell”,’ I instruct, as I take the swiss roll out of its packaging and lay it on a plate.
‘But this is ridiculous,’ she continues. ‘You never, ever go in the kitchen. I’ve never seen you even touch food with your bare hands before. Why are you here? What’s going on?’
‘I’ve decided to cook something delicious for your father.’
‘Right,’ she says, picking a chocolate clump out of the top of the swiss roll and eating it. ‘What are you going to cook with swiss roll?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say, and that’s the truth. I just figure that anything I cook with chocolate and fondant icing as its base will probably taste nice, so Dean will eat it, put on weight and be all muscly and manly come the start of the season. He’ll then immediately capture the attention of the England selectors, who will probably make him England captain, and I’ll be on the cover of every magazine and be sent free shoes from every designer in the country. So Paskia Rose can scoff all she likes—there is method in my madness.
‘Why don’t you fetch an apron and help me?’ I suggest. ‘We could cook together—two little women in the kitchen, mother and daughter bonding over the cooker?’
‘Yeah, right,’ she replies. ‘Or I could throw myself under an express train. Man, this is way too weird. Way weird.’
When I was a ten-year-old girl like Pask, I would have loved, adored, just worshipped the idea of cooking with my mum. Just being with Mum was wonderful. I couldn’t get enough of it. Unfortunately, Mum never felt the same. Dad left when I was a few months old and she devoted the rest of her life to finding a replacement. My childhood memories are coloured by the images of men coming and going. Most of them were rich and much older than her. When there was a new man on the scene, she’d dance and sing and sweep me into her arms. I’d love those moments—moments when I’d feel warm and loved. Then she’d be dumped and take it all out on me. How could she ever find a man with a brat like me at home? The sound of her singing was replaced by the sound of her crying. And I knew—throughout my childhood—that I was causing all the pain. It was all my fault.
At the door to the kitchen, Pask, Alba, Marina (the live-in cleaner) and Magda are standing, hands over their mouths, as if they’ve just seen a flock of sheep cooking in the kitchen.
‘And?’ I say. ‘Your problem is?’
‘Oh, Mrs Martin, Mrs Martin. This is a kitchen—a kitchen,’ says Marina, attempting to guide me out of the room with an arm around my shoulders, as if I am a little old lady who has just wandered into a gay bar. ‘You shouldn’t be in here. This place is not for you. Is dangerous. Come, come. Let me help.’
‘No,’ I say bravely, standing up straight and pushing her arm off. ‘This is my kitchen and I will cook in it.’
I walk back to the swiss roll with my head held high, and reach into the cupboard to pull out the lard and the oil. I have no idea what to do with these, but I know they contain the necessary fat to build up Dean. There’s a collective intake of breath from the doorway and the sound of three women and a girl muttering ‘Lard?’
‘I want to be alone,’ I say to my spectators. ‘I need peace and quiet.’
Okay, so it turns out that it’s harder than I thought it would be. The swiss roll covered in lard looked terrible—as though it were preparing for a cross-Channel swim. Maybe I should have made it some teeny-weeny chocolate goggles and thrown it into the sea—it wasn’t good for much else. In the end I decide to roast it in olive oil, so I squash it into a saucepan, pour olive oil over the whole lot and put it into the oven with the heat turned up as far as it will go. I don’t know what temperature is right for pan-roasted swiss roll because there don’t appear to be any recipes for it, but I’m guessing hottest is best—like with curling tongs. You’re wasting your time on the half-heat settings, the curls fall out straightaway.
While my swiss roll is roasting in two bottles of olive oil (is that roasting or deep-fat frying? Must be roasting if it’s in the oven), I decide to make custard to go with it. I have a sachet of powder, so I read down the instructions. Not fattening enough, so instead of using milk I decide to use melted cheese and I shove three blocks of cheese into the microwave.
Next thing to happen is the smell—kind of sickly and pungent, like car tyres, sort of rubbery. In the microwave nothing untoward is happening—just cheese melting everywhere. It strikes me that I probably should have put it on a plate or in a bowl first, but besides that everything is going according to plan. No, the smell is definitely coming from the oven.
I peel open the door and look inside. Shit. The handle of the saucepan has completely melted off and is dripping onto the bottom of the oven. Fuck. I slam the door shut and try to waft away the acrid smells with the skirt of Magda’s apron, which thankfully I put on to protect my skinny jeans. I switch the whole thing off at the mains, indiscriminately pulling out plugs until the lights on the cooker go off.
Right. Breathe. Relax. Take a chill pill, as my mother’s always saying. I take a deep breath and look across the kitchen at the utter devastation I’ve caused. It looks like a war zone—as if the paratroopers have just left. Thank god I’ve got plenty of staff to help me clear up.
‘All right, Mum?’ comes a voice from the doorway.
‘I’m fine, darling,’ I start to say. Then I see melted cheese running out from underneath the door of the microwave. Oh god. Oh no. Why do bad things always happen to me?
Midnight
We had a takeaway for supper in the end. I hate take-aways. I always think that someone will see the pizza man arriving, which would be awful (although after my experiences in M&S today, I think I’ll have to redefine ‘awful’), so I get him to pull up outside the house next door, then I give Magda the money and get her to go out and collect them. ‘Do NOT let anyone see you,’ I instruct.
Comparatively, pizza boxes are just mildly embarrassing. I hate the smell in the house (mind you, one of the happy consequences of the saucepan and the red-hot cooker incident earlier today was that it left a strong smell in the house that has disguised odour d’American Hot, odour de garlic bread and all the nasty side-order odours). I also hate the food itself, because I know that pizza is about 300 calories a mouthful, so I can’t have any of it. Not one slice. Not so much as a sliver of pepperoni has passed my lips tonight.
Now I’m lying in bed feeling deflated and useless. I’m starving, of course, but nothing new there. I also feel like a complete failure. I’ve not been as utterly useless at anything since I took up ballet classes, aged twelve, to please Mum. I hated being in the limelight back then because I disliked the way I looked so much. I was terribly overweight—like a little Buddha with a big round tummy, chubby thighs and a fat face. Everyone took the mickey out of me, especially Mum. I had little round glasses and brown hair that bushed out at the ends. It just never hung properly like other girls’ hair did. It had this awful frizz that lasted until I was around sixteen. I think the main reason I became a hairdresser was because I spent my youth experimenting with different ways to control my unruly hair. These were the days before hair straighteners and hair extensions! Can you imagine? What was the point in living?
The fact that I was so desperately shy and insecure meant that I hated dancing with anyone except my mother. It was lovely to be twirled round the kitchen by her. She smelled of Ma Griffe and was all soft and perfect-looking. Standing in a line at a bar with a dozen other girls, all much skinnier than me, and being made to bend, stretch, bend, stretch for an hour—that was no fun. But, still, I went to the classes to please Mum.
Then there were the performances. My abiding memory was of sitting on the number 11 bus on the way there, whacking my legs with my fist, hoping to break them into pieces so I wouldn’t have to perform. I didn’t manage to injure myself, of course, so I went on stage every time, looking out for Mum. But Mum didn’t even turn up. She never came to watch me in anything.
When Mum went away to LA to live, I started to lose weight. It sounds odd, and no one understood it at the time, but Jean, my psycho woman, says that I was eating to cushion myself from all the abuse my mother was giving me. By the time Mum came back to live in England I was about to get married to Dean and felt settled and happy, so her comments didn’t get to me in quite the same way. In fact, the only time she’s managed to upset me since was in relation to the wedding.
I really wanted a pink coach pulled by Palomino horses with pink manes. I wanted Dean’s nan, Nell, to give me away because she’d welcomed me into Dean’s family like I’d never been welcomed anywhere before. I wanted all my old friends to be there. I wanted a big fairytale, I wanted the whole thing to be perfect.
Mum, however, was really keen for it all to be lowkey. I remember that when I phoned her in Los Angeles to tell her about the wedding and that we were thinking of letting the magazines have pictures and making it a big occasion, she went nuts and got the first plane over here. She never went back. She was so keen to be involved in the wedding—and it was good, just more like Mum’s wedding than mine. It was odd because it was really glitzy and we had loads of fab people there, but Mum made a real fuss about it not being in the paper under any circumstances and even stopped Arsenal from putting out a press release.
‘Let’s just keep this low-key,’ she kept muttering, while flying in designers from Paris to measure her for her dress (which was way more spectacular than mine). Mum’s been like that since she got back here—really keen for me never to be high-profile and always keep myself to myself. I suppose that’s just the way she is. She’s had a hard life, so I can’t be too tough on her. My dad was a real monster—just the most evil person ever. He was horrible and he badly hurt Mum and would have nothing to do with us after I was born. I really, really hate him for the way he treated her. Thank god I found a diamond like Dean. Poor Mum.
IT HAS ARRIVED… (#ulink_f4f8d81d-366c-54b9-8f80-62edbbe0427b)
Saturday, 11 August—the season starts
10.30 a.m.
‘Just try to relax,’ says Mallory, examining the gleaming, silver-coloured butterflies glittering magnificently on my vibrant-pink acrylic fingernails and my matching pink toenails. She’s been painting, filing and pushing back wayward cuticles for two hours. Now we’re at the end of our morning of beautification. ‘Just sit still for fifteen minutes while the paint dries. That’s all you’ve got to do.’
I find myself nodding like a small child while Mallory packs away her things into what looks like a toolbox.
‘Can’t you find something prettier than that?’ I ask, indicating the large metal container with a stretch of my new nail.
Mallory catches sight of the butterfly wings as they flit past. She draws a giant breath and clutches her hands to her chest.
‘Be careful, Tracie,’ she says. ‘You don’t want to smudge them.’
‘But that box. It’s not very ladylike, is it? It looks like the sort of thing that you keep nails, screws and chisels in.’
Mallory smiles to herself and continues to pack everything away, managing to stop herself commenting that, increasingly, nails and screws are exactly what are needed to keep Wags like me together. ‘I’ll look for something prettier,’ she says. ‘Same time next week?’
‘Yes. I’ll need some waxing this week, too, but I’ll call you about that—my diary’s hectic. Now, would you be a darling and see yourself out?’ I offer her a heavily made-up cheek for a kiss. ‘I would come with you, but I don’t want to smudge these beautiful nails.’
‘Sure.’ Mallory smiles indulgently and heads for the door, stepping over the fluffy rug in the hallway that she says always reminds her of a dead lamb. ‘Every time I step on it I expect it to start bleating imploringly,’ she told me once, adding that when she wears her long cream coat she fears the rug might run after her, thinking she’s its mother.
I know Mallory thinks the rug’s a death trap on the shiny floor. Magda polishes the wood daily because I do like a tidy house, but I accept that it makes walking a bit tricky. I have lost count of the number of times that Mallory has put a foot on it only for it to fly away from underneath her, tipping her up and backwards and landing her on her back in a most unladylike fashion, with her legs in the air and the tools of her trade scattered liberally around the vast marble-pillared entrance hall.
I listen from the conservatory with my feet up on a cushion, cotton wool threaded through my toes and varnish still wet on my nails. No thud? Well done, Mallory! I feel like applauding. The silly girl has finally worked out that you have to step round the mat and not go galumphing over the top of it!
The door closes behind her and I know it’s time to get going. I have so much to do. My make-up needs topping up, I have to get dressed, and Doug, the driver, is coming for me at midday. I must remember to collect the car from the clamping place next week. I got a letter telling me that it’s at a vehicle recovery centre in Croydon.
It’s the pre-match lunch at 12.30 p.m. and I really can’t be late—not again. I must try to get there before pudding is served at least once this year. I ease myself off the chaise longue and place my feet carefully on the floor—walking like a duck with my toes curled up to stop them catching in the thick pile of the cream carpet.
I waddle towards the bedroom. My dressing table is neatly stacked with all the latest beauty products—lined up in descending order of size thanks to the organisational skills of my various European staff members. I attempt to push them to one side with the back of my hand, ensuring my nails don’t smudge. Christ, being a Wag is so much more difficult than people realise.
Okay, so now I have some space. I just need to sit down in front of the mirror. I place my hands flat on the dressing table and lean my weight onto them, while I hook my foot round the dressing-table stool and push it backwards. Shit! I’ve bumped my big toenail against the carved leg of the stool. Shit, shit, shit. I hop to the bed, howling as if I’ve broken my toe rather than chipped my nail, and try to examine the damage without making things worse. I feel like crying—there’s a mark right in the middle of my big toenail. There’s no way on earth I can go to the first match of the season like this! I’m just not one of those Wags who can appear in public looking like a scruff. No one would ever speak to me again, and I couldn’t bear that.
I reach for my mobile phone and dial Mallory’s number. ‘Turn round,’ I beg, tears now coursing down my face, leaving greasy tracks in my orange foundation. ‘Pleeeeease turn round straightaway. It’s an emergency.’
Outside, Mallory opens the car door and crunches across the gravel towards the house. She hasn’t left. She still has her toolbox in her hand. She confesses later that she always sits in the car for twenty minutes after visiting me before she starts the engine, because every time in the five years she’s been visiting me, I’ve called her back in near hysterics after spotting a smudge on some nail or other. ‘Don’t worry, I’m coming,’ says Mallory, as if she were talking to a four-year-old. ‘Mallory’s coming.’
I collapse onto the bed in pure relief. My shocking-pink fingernails hit the snow-white duvet and stick immediately. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.’
3.10 p.m.—the season has just started
‘Why’s he doing that?’ asks Helen.
I don’t have a clue.
‘Why did the referee blow the whistle?’ asks Helen seconds later.
I don’t have a clue.
‘Who’s winning?’
I don’t have a clue.
‘Who’s playing?’
I don’t have a clue.
‘How long did you say you’d been coming to these matches?’
Ladies and gentlemen, I have a confession to make—I know nothing about football. I’ve been coming to games since I got married a couple of years ago (sshhh) but I still don’t know what they’re all doing out there. I suspect that if I were to spend the rest of my life devoted to watching football I’d still be no more able to identify a goal-scoring opportunity than I could walk past Gucci without going in.
Someone called Trevor once tried to explain the offside rule to me by saying it was like shoe-shopping. Apparently, it’s all got something to do with the fact that you’re at the back of the shop with your husband and the shoes you want to buy are at the till. When you walk up to the counter to pay for them, if you forget to bring your bag, your husband has to bring it to you—he can’t kick it to you or you’d be offside.
‘I’d be offside? If he started kicking my handbag around, he’d be offside, out of the house, divorced, and paying an eye-watering amount of maintenance, thank you very much.’
‘No, I’m just trying to explain,’ Trevor had said. ‘He couldn’t kick your handbag.’
‘No, he bloody couldn’t!’ I was starting to grasp why offside is so important. Kick my handbag? Who would ever do that? I’d rather he kicked me, to be honest.
