Famous (28 page)

The last emergency in this town must have been around 1952 by the look of the phone.

‘I met you somewhere before, love?’ asked the man.

‘No. I don’t think so,’ I replied. ‘I’m not from here.’

‘Must look like someone then. Someone very pretty.’

‘Thank you,’ I replied, grabbing the phone and lurching out of the shop.

It was completely unnerving being talked to by shop assistants. And that was the second one in the space of five minutes. I was used to being tactfully and rudely ignored.

I hurried home and turned the phone on, but of course there was no connection.

Bugger it! I despaired. What was I going to do?

In a state of desperation I located a ladder in the tool shed and leant it up against the side of the cabin, gingerly clambering up onto the tin roof. I couldn’t remember the last time my legs had found themselves attached to a ladder, if indeed they ever had. I scrambled up to the peak of the roof and turned on my mobile to call the telcon company. Thankfully the crackling was minimal and, after twenty minutes of Mariah-Carey-inflicted torture, I was informed the phone wouldn’t be connected until the end of the week, being a rural connection.

‘Can’t you do it any sooner?’ I desperately pleaded. ‘I’m in isolation here.’

‘Fraid not,’ said the young man. ‘Guess you’ll have to sing to yourself or something.’

And that was just the problem with service in this country these days, I thought to myself as I hung up. There wasn’t any.

Hell! I suddenly realised. That also meant I was also going to be without internet access until the end of the week.

No internet! What was I going to do? I wouldn’t be able to work. I wouldn’t be able to email friends. This was a disaster! It appeared I had been unwittingly marooned on an island of prehistoric communication. I was going to have to learn Morse code next. I decided that since I was still crouched on the rooftop I might as well ring Mands and Lizzie.

‘Dear God! You’re alive!’ exclaimed Mands. ‘Thought I’d lost you to a bear or something.’

‘No bloody reception,’ I replied. ‘And no internet either!’

‘Oh you poor baby! So, how is it?’ she asked.

‘You mean the bug-infested, dust-coated shed? It’s just fine thanks.’

‘Oh dear. Guess it hasn’t been used in a while then?’

‘Not in the past hundred years anyway.’

‘What’s the town like?’

‘I don’t think town is the right word. More like campground.’

‘Small then?’

‘Let’s just say that if you happened to buy a new coat, if you could find somewhere to buy one that is, then there’s every chance that within the space of five minutes everyone here would know not only how much you paid for it, but also whether the colour suited you or not.’

‘I see,’ replied Mands.

I started to get cramp in my thighs from squatting on the roof, so I said my goodbyes and asked Mands to phone Lizzie for me.

Later that evening, in a desperate state of coldness, I came to the conclusion that I was going to have to light a fire, or at least attempt to light a fire. I found a huge stack of dry wood outside the cabin, an old yellow newspaper (dated November 1971) and a packet of matches, which really should have been sitting in a museum display cabinet somewhere.

Well here goes, I thought to myself, once I had piled the scrunched-up paper and wood into the bottom of the fireplace and opened the box of matches.

A short while later I found myself lying on my stomach on the old wooden floor blowing furiously into the fireplace, as the last flicker of flame died before my smoke-filled eyes. Then I stopped blowing and started crying instead. How was I going to stay warm, I sobbed, if I couldn’t even light a fucking fire?

Deflated, I put on another jersey and climbed back under the duvet.

The next three days were without a doubt the longest of my entire life. They stretched out before me like an endless piece of frayed brown string. How long is a piece of string? You may ask. Well, I can tell you it is nowhere near as long as living in a cabin in the bush, in the middle of nowhere, with no mobile reception (aside from the peak of the tin roof), no landline, no internet, no television and no other humans. My only entertainment was a portable CD player which the girls had kindly packed for me. The only problem was they’d only packed five CDs. There was only so many times I could sing along to Norah Jones without wanting to top myself. And her.

I’d read all of the magazines they’d bought me from cover to cover on the first day. And then I’d re- read them each five times. I’d stood on the rooftop and talked until both my phone battery and my legs had died. Then I’d re-charged my battery and headed for the rooftop again, only to be rained on, hard. I’d found an old yellow raincoat and headed up again, but then I’d come to my senses and realised the peak of a slippery, wet, sloping tin roof possibly wasn’t the best place to be standing, especially with one hand locked to my mobile. My only social contact was my morning outing to the café in town and a chat with Elsie. I had swiftly decided to substitute my morning coffee with a pot of tea, in light of the hideous experience on my first day. Elsie was pleased with my switch to Earl Grey.

‘A change is as good as a holiday love,’ she said. I think she was just glad she no longer had to try and work the filter-coffee machine.

I hated tea. It reminded me of musty woolen jerseys, old people and the war. No, I wasn’t in the war, but whenever I was forced to drink tea I felt like I might as well have been.

Barely a week ago my morning tea had consisted of a trim latte and a low-fat blueberry-and-cream cheese muffin. Now it was a pot of tea and a date scone. A pensioner’s morning tea.

When I complimented Elsie on her date scones she replied, ‘Thanks love, but chickens don’t praise their own soup.’ I think she was trying to be modest.

After my third night of adding boiling water to a pasta packet for one, I decided I had no other choice. I was simply going to have to learn to cook for myself, which meant I was going to have to go and buy some fresh food. I also needed tampons, of all things. With FreeAsTheWind being one of my clients I hadn’t bought a tampon in about five years. I had enough to sink a small ship back at my apartment.

But that was back at my apartment. Plus, I was desperate to find a newspaper, in the vain hope the media had finally had enough of me.

I tied my hair back, put my cap on, and once again refrained from applying any make-up. I was Plain Jane. Incognito. I drove into the village, had my cup of tea and date scone, and then walked across the road to the grocery-slash-dry-cleaning-slash-liquor store.

‘Hello love,’ called a woman from the back of the shop. I turned around, slightly startled. I still wasn’t used to being greeted when I walked into a shop. It scared the bejesus out of me.

‘Hi,’ I replied.

‘You’re the girl who’s moved here from the city, aren’t you?’ said the large woman, bustling her way around the overcrowded counter.

‘Well…yes…but I’m just staying here for a little while.’

Good news obviously travelled fast in these here parts.

‘Well I hope you enjoy yourself,’ she said. ‘Not much happenin’ at the moment though, be a bit busier around Christmas time.’

‘So I’ve heard,’ I replied.

Although God himself couldn’t help me if I was still in this hellhole then.

I set about walking around the shelves and fridges, and then walked around them again. I was at a complete loss to think of something I might potentially be able to cook. Or what ingredients I would need to cook that something. In the end I decided to throw a mixture of fresh vegetables and a couple of packets of risotto into the basket, along with some olive oil and dressing. Hopefully they would be happy to mix together and form something edible. I took my full basket to the counter and looked around for a newspaper.

‘What’re you after there, love?’ asked the woman, noting my confusion.

‘A newspaper please,’ I replied.

‘Just over there,’ she said, pointing at the other side of the counter. ‘Help yourself.’

It appeared there was no Daily Telegraph, although this wasn’t such a bad thing. I might still be on the front page, but at least I wouldn’t have to see myself there. The only option was
The Morning Sun
, so I popped one into the basket. There was a small selection of trashy magazines, but thankfully none with either Alistair, myself or Tiny Tits on the cover.

‘Do you get the
Telegraph
?’ I asked the woman.

‘Not usually. Not much interest in it in these parts. More of a city paper isn’t it?’

‘I guess so,’ I replied.

This was good news in the concealed identity stakes, although I’d now have to rely on Mands and Lizzie for
Telegraph
updates. Until I could look at it online of course.

‘The other thing I’m after is a coffee plunger?’ I ventured.

‘A what, love?’

‘A plunger. For coffee,’ I repeated, making the appropriate plunging motions with my arms.

‘Oh…ahh…’

This didn’t sound promising.

‘I know what you mean but no, we don’t have one. You might want to try Bruce at the hardware store next door.’

‘I have coffee though,’ she added, leading me to the back of the shop. ‘Here we go.’

I assessed my limited options and picked the best of a bad bunch, in the vain hope I might eventually be able to find something to plunge it with.

‘I’m Della,’ said the woman as she handed me my change.

‘Nice to meet you.’

‘Jane,’ I replied. ‘And you.’

‘Have a good day, won’t you love.’

‘Thank you,’ I replied. ‘You too.’

I walked next door into the hardware-slash-pharmacy store and asked Bruce, a tall Maori man with an enormous beer belly and a large moustache, for a coffee plunger.

‘A what, love?’

How can the man not know what a plunger is, for God’s sake?

More appropriate arm-plunging motions, then a few more because Bruce wasn’t as good at charades as Della.

‘Oh…no I haven’t. Sorry love.’ He scratched his head.

‘Hmm…’ he said, ‘…can’t think of anywhere here you might find one of those. Might have to go to Misty Creek.’

‘Where?’

It transpired that Misty Creek was the closest town, the one with the supermarket. The one which was fifty kilometres away.

How bloody ridiculous! I thought to myself. Not one goddamn coffee plunger in the entire village! This place was a shopper’s living hell.

I wasn’t that desperate for a coffee, at least not yet. I drove back home, made myself another cup of tea, sat down at the rickety kitchen table and tentatively looked at the newspaper. Thankfully the front page was devoid of my picture; this was good news. Relieved, I turned to page two, only to lock eyes with a very large half-page full-colour photograph of my mother - combat pants on, ferocious glint in her eye and arm outstretched in mid-swing clutching what appeared to be, on closer inspection, a large loaf of organic bread. The large bold heading above read ‘Sam’s Mum Swings Out’.

And the byline below: ‘Samantha Steel’s mother takes a plug after ladies call her daughter a slapper.’

Oh dear God! I thought in horror. What the hell has she done now?

With my head in my hands I read the small clump of text below. It appeared the incident had happened yesterday afternoon, at Countdown, while stunned shoppers looked on. My mother had apparently overheard two middle-aged ladies glancing at a newspaper and gossiping about me. She was then quoted by several witnesses as saying, ‘No twobit jam-making housewife will call my daughter a slapper!’ before taking to both of them with her loaf of sourdough (presumably because she didn’t carry a handbag). And before the police arrived at the scene.

What the hell was she doing in the supermarket? I wondered. That was my father’s job.

There was only one thing worse than sleeping with a famous married man, being portrayed as a home-wrecking floozy, and being forced to flee your great job and fabulous city apartment for a bush shack at the arse-end of nowhere, and that was seeing your mother on page two of
The Morning Sun
swinging her loaf of bread at two middle-aged women in the fruit and veggie aisle of her local supermarket, looking like an extra from Rocky.