Lizzy Harrison Loses Control (10 page)

‘Is sir absolutely certain?’ asks the mâitre d’ in confusion. ‘That table is somewhat . . . exposed. Sir might find more privacy within the upstairs dining room.’

‘Oh, we don’t mind being exposed, do we, babe?’ says Randy with a leer, slipping an arm round my waist and pulling me towards him. Now, at last, the mâitre d’ actually sees me instead of being blinded by the glowing light of Randy’s celebrity, and I hear a tiny, stifled gasp as he clocks my clothes.

‘Would you mind very much showing me where I can get changed into something more suitable for dinner?’ I ask in my poshest voice, trying to sound super-confident, as if absolutely everyone who is anyone these days effects a Wonder Woman-style transformation in the lavatories of expensive restaurants.

‘Certainly, madam,’ he says, regaining his composure with aplomb (and with relief, I expect, that I’m not going to sit in the window of his establishment splattered in mud).

There is only so much of a transformation one can affect in a cramped cubicle, even if it is lavishly appointed with Molton Brown toiletries. I struggle back into my cropped jeans and replace my trainers with strappy sandals, but no amount of rubbing will get rid of the sock marks round my ankles. The Seize the Day T-shirt is consigned to the bottom of my bag (where I will forget about it until I see the ‘Seize THESE, Randy!’ headline on the
Hot Slebs
website the next day). I replace it with a fitted checked shirt and reattach my gold hoop earrings. There’s no rescuing my hair after the mud and drizzle, so I smooth it all back into a ponytail and convince myself, after a quick application of blusher, mascara and lip gloss, that I look just fine.

Now, I don’t want you to think that this is some sort of
Pretty Woman
moment, and that I’ve never been taken out to a posh restaurant before. Though I admit that I book more fancy meals for Camilla than I go for myself, I’ve done my fair share of wining and dining with clients. So don’t worry, I’m not going to be picking up the wrong knife or drinking the water from the fingerbowl or flinging an oyster across the room in an adorably klutzy move. I speak fluent menu in all European languages: I can avoid tripe in Spanish restaurants, order cavolo nero with confidence and am not thrown into confusion by a quenelle. And if I’d known I was coming here I’d have made the effort to dress accordingly. Still, I reassure myself as I leave the loo, I might be the only woman in here wearing jeans, but Randy is surely the only man in London wearing gold leather on this warm June evening. Like he said, no one’s going to be looking at me.

Randy is already tucking into a bread roll as I reappear at the table. With his mouth full he gestures for me to sit down as a waiter shimmers over to pull out my chair.

Randy swallows his huge mouthful. ‘Okay, babe, I’ve taken the liberty of ordering a bottle of some pretty crazy sparkling mineral water, and I’m just warning you that I might be moving on to a cranberry juice with the main course – do you reckon you can keep up with me tonight?’

‘Well, I’ll do my best, Randy, but that cranberry juice is pretty strong stuff,’ I say, allowing the waiter to drape a napkin across my lap. ‘Maybe you should dilute it first?’

‘Yup, yup, you’re probably right. Thank God you’ve been appointed to look after me, otherwise who knows what kind of fruit-based trouble I’d be getting myself into?’ Randy laughs. ‘But go on, don’t let me stop you from having a real drink if you want one.’

‘Right, well, if you really don’t mind, I might just do that.’ The waiter appears magically over my shoulder, offering a wine list before I even have a chance to ask for it.

Randy grabs it out of my hand and starts flicking through the pages with the same barely contained excitement and anticipation with which I used to power through
Smash Hits
circa 1986. ‘Glass of champagne to start? Hmm? Then follow up with a nice light white for your starter? Then how about a rich, full-bodied, spicy red for the main course?’

‘Er, I was thinking I’d probably just have a glass of rosé, to be honest,’ I say, and Randy looks crestfallen. Clearly he was planning an evening of drinking by proxy.

‘Not even one glass of champagne to toast our new relationship, babe?’ he asks, making puppy-dog eyes. ‘Are you saying you don’t feel like celebrating our beautiful love?’

The waiter hovers a few discreet steps from our table, staring stoically into the middle distance, but I can practically see his ears vibrating with interest. I guess I’d better make it worth his while.

‘Oh, darling, what was I thinking? Of course we must celebrate our love – I’ll drink for both of us. But just one glass; I’m not sure any more is safe in, well, in my condition.’ I rub my stomach meaningfully.

Randy nearly chokes on his mineral water, but then reaches across the table to kiss me full on the lips in front of everyone.

‘Champagne!’ he calls out. ‘Champagne for the lady! We’re celebrating!’ I turn to the waiter, half expecting that he will have a glass in his hand already, but his magical anticipatory powers have run out and he is on his way to the kitchen like a mere mortal.

‘Jesus, do you think anyone is actually buying this?’ I whisper as Randy blows me an extravagant kiss across the table.

‘Who doesn’t want to believe in love, babe?’ he says, rubbing his leg along mine.

Who indeed? The irony isn’t lost on me that, at the point when my love life is splashed all over the newspapers, I don’t actually have one. When Randy agreed to our fake relationship, he was surprisingly strict about how it would work, and Camilla told me to go along with it so that Randy felt like it was all his idea. We agreed that we would go out publicly twice a week only, as Randy wasn’t all that keen on a social life now that he was sober, and preferred instead to stay in plotting his comeback. So to keep up appearances I’d stay at Randy’s house at least three times a week where, he assured me, I’d have a private room of my own in exchange for passionate snogging on the doorstep each morning for the benefit of the neighbours.

So while Lulu is wildly congratulating herself on my new out-of-control life, I’m actually going to be more regulated than ever, albeit by someone else’s schedule. I have to confess I’ve been slightly dreading it all, especially handing over all decisions on how I spend my time to a complete fruitcake who’s just out of rehab, but so far Randy has been charm itself and tonight, our first official night out, is proving to be surprisingly good fun. So what if Randy spends as much time checking himself out in the mirror as he does looking in my direction? He’s got standards to maintain, and anyway I’m perfectly happy sipping my champagne and listening to his plans for world domination (primarily addressed to his own reflection). So what if our meal is occasionally interrupted by the flash of a mobile phone camera pressed up against the window? Isn’t that what we’re here for, after all? Rather than resenting any of it, I tell myself what a great job Randy and I are doing rehabilitating his image.

And what a great job we’re doing rehabilitating, in a smaller way, mine. Friends I haven’t seen for years have suddenly got in touch ‘just to catch up’, and my stock has risen higher than ever in the office, much to the annoyance of Jemima’s mini-me assistant, Mel. Everyone’s astonished at my new relationship, and I’m astonished myself at how many people, now that I’m seemingly part of a couple, have chosen to tell me that they are so pleased it’s finally happened for me. That they’d been so worried about me, that they’d all been keeping their fingers crossed for me, that it was good to see me getting out at last. It’s as if I have recovered from some dreadful illness, not emerged from a period of singledom. I smile and blush and murmur thanks and just try to swallow all these well-intentioned congratulations without admitting anything that will get me into trouble when this relationship ends in just a few weeks, as it must.

‘Don’t you think, babe?’ says Randy, waving a hand in front of my face. ‘Are you listening to me?’

‘Course I am, Randy,’ I lie, having tuned out of his future plans at the point at which he was winning his second Oscar; this, crucially, being awarded for a non-comedic role and therefore opening him up to a new market which – didn’t I agree? – was essential for the longevity of his career.

‘Really? So what was I saying?’ Randy demands like a petulant child.

‘You were, er . . .’ I try to mentally rewind the monologue. ‘You were . . . Sorry, Randy, you’re right, I was actually thinking that it’s getting a bit late and perhaps we should be thinking about getting home.’

‘Ah, well, I think I can forgive your mind wandering if you’re just planning how quickly you can get me home.’ Randy’s leg snakes around mine in a practised manoeuvre that pulls my chair closer towards him.

The waiter glides over to clear away our plates and Randy grins up at him conspiratorially. ‘The bill, please, mate, and can you order us a taxi? I have a young lady here who is very anxious to get home, if you know what I mean?’

‘Certainly, sir,’ says the waiter with an infinitesimal flicker of his eyelid that might or might not have been a wink.

As I get into the cab, a lone photographer appears, no doubt tipped off by Camilla, and I’m half blinded by the flash as he captures Randy leaping into the back. Randy wastes no time in grappling me into an embrace which is faithfully recorded from several angles before we drive off into the night.

But as soon as we’re out of sight, Randy lets go of me and turns to the taxi driver to begin a conversation about football. Although his arm is draped proprietorially over my leg, and although he absent-mindedly strokes the inside of my thigh with his thumb, it’s as if I’m no longer there. Randy pays the driver with an extravagant tip and leads me up the steps to his house, where he takes my face between his hands and lifts it up towards him. I can hear the taxi engine idling as the driver waits to see us into the house. Randy leans forward and kisses me softly on the lips, then wraps his arm around me as he opens the door. The taxi driver revs his engine and is gone. Randy drops his arm from my shoulders and he and I step into the dark hall of his house, illuminated only by an orange glow from the street lamps outside. We both stand very still for a moment. Then Randy abruptly flicks on a light and, as I stand blinking in the glare, he stomps up the stairs without a backward glance.

I hear a door slam upstairs and wonder what on earth I’ve let myself in for.

The next few Wednesdays pass without any dramatic incident at all, as I’ve persuaded Lulu that signing up to a life-drawing class is well within my remit of trying new things, and anyway, don’t I have a boyfriend now? Lulu agreed with alacrity. I think she imagines I’ll be sketching a hot young stud muffin with whom I can exchange fruity glances over an easel, and then perhaps he and I will (forgetting Randy) retire for a passionate fumble in the art supplies cupboard, so she’d be disappointed to see the rotund pensioner who props himself up in a chair for our artistic inspiration.

Our model may not have washboard abs or pumped-up pectorals, but it turns out to be oddly satisfying attempting to capture the soft lines of his lived-in body for an hour. He stares calmly out of the window as if it is perfectly normal for him to be seated, naked, in front of fifteen strangers, and seems to be lost in thought. The only sounds are the swish of charcoal on paper and a quiet murmur of voices as the teacher moves from student to student. I spend a long time drawing his hands, the veins standing up on the backs of them, the broken nail on his thumb, the way his fingers splay out at the ends. The teacher compliments my careful focus, and I don’t admit to her that it’s because I’m avoiding paying close attention to the drooping geriatric genitals that I have captured instead in a vague impressionistic scribble.

The class finishes and we all sit around drinking tea for a while with the model, George, now attired in a natty little quilted dressing gown like a portly Hugh Hefner.

When the tea is finished and we’ve all admired each other’s sketches (I note I’m not the only one to have avoided precision in the region of George’s groin), I gather my things, say my goodbyes, and head off to spend the night with Randy Jones as I have done for the last three Wednesdays.

Sometimes he picks me up from work and we go back to Belsize Park together on the 68 bus; not quite the mode of transport you’d expect of a sleb, but ‘there’s no audience in a taxi, babe,’ says Randy, basking in the adulation of our fellow commuters. Once we walked all the way home through Regent’s Park holding hands the whole way, and that got us into the ‘Spotted’ section of
New Stars
magazine. But what they don’t spot is how quickly Randy drops my hand as soon as we’re in his vast white stuccoed house. In public I am adored and caressed and kissed and pampered, but once the door is closed and we’re at home (which we usually are), then it’s down to business, and I don’t mean dirty business.

To Randy, I’m the boring babysitter he has to tolerate to get his career back on track, but he’s not about to pay me any attention unless someone else is looking. The truth is, on my nights with Randy I’m more often to be found watching television alone while Randy writes in his study than out on the razzle.

Tonight I let myself in and wander into the kitchen, where Nina, Randy’s formidable Bulgarian housekeeper, is just putting her heavy woollen coat on to leave, even though it’s about thirty degrees outside. She often stays late so she can complain to me about Randy, and today is no exception. Before I’ve put my bag down she’s launched into a furious description of his latest outrage: a puritanical banning of all wheat and sugar from the house as part of his detox.