I Think I Love You (16 page)

No one would dare call Gillian Edwards a flat-chested cow, which is what Ian Roberts shouted after me last winter as I ran out late onto the hockey field. A remark that stung, stung worse even than that spiteful hockey wind that flays your cheeks and your knees. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t forget it, because every time I forced the remark to the back of my mind, it would spring up again like a leery jack-in-the-box. Flat-chested cow. A remark that made me realize how lonely I was, back in the days before Sharon, because there wasn’t a single girl I dared share it with. Not one friend who would help laugh away the unkindness and join me in speculating on the tragic proportions of Ian Roberts’s itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny peeny.

It’s easier being beautiful. Not deeper, not better, just easier. I figured that out over those months in 1974, when I got to study Gillian Edwards up close. Beauty made her lazy, though, like a pampered pug on a sofa that’s been fed only the choicest morsels. People came to lay
tributes to her loveliness and she took them as her due. Boys made complete prats of themselves in front of her. Tranquilly, she would watch them out of her fine blue eyes.

When a girl isn’t beautiful, people say, Oh, you’ve got beautiful hair, you’ve got lovely eyes, you’ve got great legs. Every female wants a little piece of beauty to call her own, a slender ankle she can admire while trying on new shoes, or peachy skin that friends remark on, but Gillian’s beauty was whole, it had an absolute rightness and completeness to it: it all fitted together. She didn’t have beautiful eyes, beautiful legs, beautiful hair; she was beautiful.

When it came to personality, I could see Gillian would not get top marks, not even close. But, as a keen student of multiple-choice quizzes, I knew full well that the personality category was a consolation prize, something left over for the girls no one wanted to snog. Sitting in that bedroom, listening to Gillian flirting on the phone with Stuart, and feeling like such a lemon, such a
baby
without a boy of my own, I knew that I badly wanted to be kissed. I didn’t want to be in the audience. I wanted to see that look on Captain Von Trapp’s face when he takes Julie Andrews out on the terrace during the ball and he knows, he just
knows
, and she’s gabbling away nervous as anything, because she knows it, too, and she thinks, If I just keep moving my mouth, he won’t be able to kiss it.

And he starts to sing to her, saying that he must have done something good in his life, because Julie Andrews, who can clothe all of his seven children from a single pair of bedroom curtains, adores him.

Proud, arrogant men humbled by love, who buckle under its intoxicating influence; oh yes, I would always be a sucker for those. I hoped there might still be a chance with David; I would be seeing him for the first time in person in just four days at White City. I was sure I would always love him, but I didn’t want to kiss Sharon’s Cassidy shrine anymore. The paper was gluey and cold. I wanted a real boy to pull me toward him and say, “Come here,
you
.”

“What d’you think of these?” Gillian had finally put down the phone to her reinstated boyfriend and was rummaging in the white fitted wardrobe that ran the entire length of the wall opposite the window. She came out smiling. Gillian’s smile only made rare appearances
and I was struck by how tiny and white her teeth were, like a baby’s teeth.

“Here we are,” she said. “Try these on, Petra—you’re size four, same as me, aren’t you?”

These turned out to be a pair of platform shoes, in a shade of gorgeous burgundy brown, the very same shoes that I had worshipped for at least two months in the window of Freeman Hardy Willis. Frankly, there was more chance of becoming Mrs. David Cassidy than of my mother buying me such trendy, towering footwear. (Although she always wore heels herself, my mum preferred to keep me in the kind of sensible, round-toed flats that looked like Cornish pasties and were worn only by old women with walking frames.)

“You can keep them,” Gillian said, just like that, as though a pair of shoes that cost £9.99 were just loose change. She flung open another door and started pulling out tops and skirts. I was startled to spot a poster of an alien tartan life-form hanging on the inside of the wardrobe.

“Didn’t know you liked the Bay City Rollers,” I said, unable to conceal my astonishment.

Gillian gave a yelp of laughter. “Best to be prepared. Keep your options open where lover boys are concerned,” she said. “David’s on the way out, isn’t he? He’ll be chip paper by Christmas. The rest of the Rollers are scrotty, but Les McKeown, the lead singer, he’s a bit of all right, isn’t he? Anyway,” she said, “I like ‘Shang-A-Lang.’ ”

“ ‘Shang-A-Lang?’ ” The song was a shocker. A rinky-dink excuse for rock ’n’ roll. Was this the same Gillian who once refused to stay over at Karen Jones’s house on principle because Karen had a poster of Donny Osmond on her bedroom ceiling and she thought it was disloyal to fall asleep looking at another pop star’s face?

Other people’s heroes are always mysterious. But to swap David for a group of pasty-skinned boys with tartan trousers worn so short they revealed a few inches of hairy white leg? Impossible. While I was still trying to absorb her treachery, Gillian threw a bundle of clothes at me. There were sky-blue hot pants with a red anchor design on the bib, two psychedelic dresses with swirly patterns, one in orange, the other in hot pink; there was a chain belt made up of gold links and fake precious
stones, a silky pink bomber jacket and a purple choker with a cameo brooch. It was the kind of gear girls wore on the cover of
Jackie
. It was the kind of clothes you could call gear.

“Put something on, quick,” she instructed. “Stuart’s coming by with some of the boys. Taking us down to the beach. Car’ll be here in five minutes.”

It was a school night and we hadn’t eaten anything, not since lunchtime, when I’d just had a Twix because I was saving my dinner money for White City. I felt faint with hunger. The sensible thing to do would be to say I had to get home, but apparently under some kind of spell, I pulled on the pink swirly mini-dress and the pink bomber jacket and added the choker as an afterthought, to add length to my short neck. In the largest of Gillian’s three mirrors, I caught sight of an unfamiliar figure. A groovy chick with long, pipe-cleaner legs that ended in a pair of gorgeous burgundy-brown platforms. I barely knew her.

Gillian had gotten her jacket on and switched off her bedside lamp, so the room was dark, apart from a beam of light from the landing, when she said, “Pet, I was thinking we could go in for the David Cassidy quiz.”

“How d’you mean?”

“Well, we’re cleverer than the others by miles, and I think we’d be a great team. It’d be such a laugh if we won. Get our picture in the paper an’ everything. What d’you reckon?”

The sensation of being wanted by Gillian was so new and delightful that I hadn’t examined it too closely. Now, the nature of the bargain came home with such speed that I felt physically winded, like that day I got thumped in the chest by a monster wave down at Three Cliffs Bay. My mind was whirring. It was trying to work out how many moves back she’d planned this. I felt the sudden despair of coming up against a superior opponent.

But there was still time. There in front of me, within easy reach, was a branch with various good and decent replies dangling from it. The replies said things like “No,” “I can’t,” “I’m afraid that’s impossible” and “Sorry, but Sharon and I are entering the quiz, we’re a team.”

Later, I told myself that I had tried to reach the branch. The truth was, the ambush had been so swift and skillful that resistance felt
almost rude. Even that’s not the whole truth. When it came to it, I was more scared of saying no than I was of saying yes. I had wanted to be in Gillian’s shoes for so long. Now I
was
in her shoes, stuck in a pair of burgundy-brown platforms and condemned to dance to her tune.

“I’m not sure,” I said, my tone of voice already admitting defeat. That was all I could manage in defense of the hundreds of hours that Sharon and I had spent building our precious archive and trying to solve the Ultimate David Cassidy Quiz.

How much did you betray your sweet, kind friend for, Petra?

Nine pounds and ninety-nine pence. To a girl who reckoned that, come Christmas, David Cassidy would be finished.

R
emind me,” said Bill. He stared into his coffee cup. Something was hiding in the dregs.

“Of what, dear?” asked Zelda.

“Oh, sorry. Remind me never to go near the Skyway Hotel again, in my entire life. I mean, I’ll be going there anyway, after I’m dead, like everyone does, and spending ten million years there, being purged.” He sipped at the coffee, hoping not to swallow whatever lurked. “All the more reason not to go while I’m still alive.”

“Well, you didn’t have to stay there, did you? It was only a press conference. How long did it last?”

“Under an hour.”

“Well, there you are, then.” Zelda clapped her hands lightly, as she tended to do when a point had been settled—not scored, for that was not her game, but laid politely to rest.

Bill stood in her office behind the spider plants, from where she had spied him as he crept in, and to which she had summoned him, as she would an errant child. Word had it that Zelda had been a primary-school
teacher in her younger days, but word was wrong. She had wanted to be a nurse.

“No,” said Bill.

“I beg your pardon?”

“No way.” He fished into his coffee. “Zelda, I’m very grateful for this job, and I do understand that it’s good experience and all that, but, really, I cannot be expected to drink drawing pins.” He held up the dripping pin.

“Crumbs.”

“Well, that’s what I thought it was. A bit of ginger nut. Even a pencil shaving wouldn’t have been too bad. I mean, it’s all carbon. But that thing could have killed me. Lucky I’m not a Yank, or I’d have sued you.”

“Crikey, yes.” What would it take to make this woman swear—swear properly, that is, like every other journalist on earth? Was it worth dropping a filing cabinet on her big toe, just to see? Bill toyed with the idea of leaving the drawing pin on her chair, as he left, then listening out for what followed. But she would probably just jump up and squeal “Lawks-a-mercy,” like someone out of Dickens, and save the offending pin for future use.

“Have a biscuit, William. I have Playbox or custard cream. Over there, in front of the felt tips. No? So, then. Mr. Cassidy. Was he forthcoming? Anything you can use?”

Bill sat down, without being asked. “I think he’s had enough.”

“Come again?”

“Well, you know he’s said this is his last tour. You know he’s giving up touring.”

“So he says.”

“He does say. And I believe him.”

“Well, let’s not get carried away. It’s only one side of his appeal, the live performance.” Zelda shifted in her chair. This kind of talk made her uneasy. If David Cassidy’s appeal waned, so would
The Essential David Cassidy Magazine
, and with it all their jobs—Bill’s and Chas’s and Pete’s and everyone’s, all the service industry that clustered round the glowing star. And where would she go then?
Mott the Hoople Monthly
?
The Wizzard Fanzine
? Imagine working to promote a band that wasn’t even spelled correctly.

“I’m glad it’s over.”

“Excuse me, it is most certainly not over. And for you to say so, William, is frank—”

“No,
I’m
not saying it’s over. He said that, Cassidy said it.” Bill dug into the pocket of his jacket and took out a pad. Ruth had bought him a bulk order of six from WH Smith. They had the words
Reporter’s Notebook
on the front, in slightly larger letters than Bill would have liked, and he had been in two minds about taking the pad out at the press conference, in front of real reporters. Then he had seen the real reporters.

“ ‘I’m glad it’s over, I’m glad I’ve almost finished doing that.’ Then someone asked him for the reason he’s not doing stage shows anymore, and he said, hang on, got it somewhere here …” Bill flipped pages. Zelda smiled and glanced at the custard creams.

“Here we are. ‘The only way that I can really grow’—this is still him—‘The only way that I can really grow, and devote enough time to making a good album, is not to be touring six months a year, being …’ Sorry, just trying to read my own writing here. Looks like ‘blow something.’ ” Zelda’s smile held steady.

“Oh yes, ‘being blown out, tired and wasted.’ Unquote. See what I mean about him having had enough? I mean, I can’t just bung that in next month’s letter to the fans, can I? ‘Hello, lovely girls, let me tell you, I am just so blown out and wasted right now, it’s a killer. Wanna come and help me blow those cares away?’ ” Bill had adopted his best American accent, which was widely held to be the worst in the office.

“No, I see your point.” Zelda tapped her nails on her desk blotter. “But that bit about growing, you could do something with that, surely? I’m sure our girls would love that.” She sounded like a headmistress, talking about a new drinking fountain in the corridor. “It’s so …” Zelda tipped her head on one side, searching for the most extravagant adjective. “So Californian.”

“Oh, of course,” Bill replied, only half conscious of the complete absurdity of two British adults calmly discussing a state—a nation, in fact—that neither of them had ever visited. They might as well talk about the moon.

“Anyway, what was he like? Do tell.” Zelda was brighter now, back on safe ground.

“Hard to say. Nice enough bloke. Couldn’t always tell what he made of the whole thing, cos whenever the photographers started flashing away, which was basically every time he looked up, he would blink a bit and then put on a pair of these mirrored shades.”

“Mr. Cool!” said Zelda, who liked to think she was tuned in to her readers’ minds.

“Mmm. Yup. Anyway. So what he said was, he talked about all these, what was it, yes, ‘these little things, things about our personalities, that we hide and keep inside ourselves.’ ”

“Perfect!” Zelda held her hands together, as if preparing to pray. “And what were they? The little things?”