Sequel: Upwards

Frontwards

Random acts of violence.

Friday 26th January, 2006

Alice and I were watching Ace Ventura when the guys got back from their interview. Almost immediately upon hearing a key in the door, Alice was up like a shot and bouncing around in the hallway waiting to attack Mikey with affection. I was much less energetic but I gave Frank a kiss as he entered all the same.

“Hang on a second,” I said as I pulled my head away from his. I looked at him closely for a moment. Something was different. His skin was smoother. And brighter. And bronzer. My eyes widened as I looked from Frank to the rest of the guys. “You’re wearing make-up, aren’t you?”

Alice began to chuckle and we all automatically filed towards the living room.

“They’re always in make-up after a photoshoot,” Alice told me, but it didn’t make it any less funny to see Ray in blusher.

“Yeah, get over it, fatty,” Gerard smirked, falling back into the armchair I had previously been occupying. But I was more than happy to sit on the ‘couples couch’ as it had been nicknamed, with Frank and Mikey and Alice. Ray and Bob sat on the floor. Where they belong.

“You look funny,” I thought aloud, absently stroking Ray’s hair like he was my dog. I think he likes it, really. He’s never told me to stop, anyway.

“Yeah well, so’s your face,” Gerard said with finality, like the conversation was decidedly over. I thought I’d just let it slide since I was the only one who seemed to find it amusing in the first place.

“So how did it go?” I asked, as Frank put his arm around my shoulders. I smiled and rested my head on his chest, still petting Ray because it was quite therapeutic in the absence of my cat.

Bob pulled a face. “It was fine,” he shrugged. “We just all talked about how much of a bitch you are. Yoko.”

“Lovely,” I sighed.

Frank laughed and kissed the top of my head. “Don’t listen to the bad man, Daisy. You were hardly even mentioned.”

I wasn’t sure how to take this. Should I be offended that I don’t demand more attention or should I be pleased at managing to maintain my low profile? Maybe a little of both. But I like to think I didn’t display this conflict on my face. I just nodded and reminded myself that I’d be able to see what was really said when the issue came out in a couple of days.

A few moments later, Ray’s stomach growled and we all took this as a sign that we should order some food. I swear nobody ever cooks in this house. It’s a wonder they’re not all obese. The thing is that I’d be more than happy to do some cooking for everybody if I had any idea what I was doing in a kitchen. But as it is I can barely tell a fish slicer from a cake icer. The main perk of living with a chef your whole adult life is that you don’t have to know how to cook. There’s always just stuff there, waiting for you. Delicious stuff. So I never had the need. Since I’ve been here I’ve survived mostly on cereal, sandwiches and take-aways. That’s pretty much it. And I’m pretty sure that’s not the balanced diet that a lady in the family way should be pursuing. So I made a silent promise to myself that tomorrow would be the day I learnt to cook.

But, first things first, I had to get this Chinese food down me so that I could go upstairs with Frank and proceed to burn it all off again. If you know what I mean. Which you probably do because let’s face it, I’m not the most subtle of people.

Saturday 27th January, 2006

I may have started a small kitchen fire as I was frying an egg. I reasoned with myself, quite logically I think, that I would start with the basics. Learn how to make breakfast, I thought. It’ll be easy, I thought.

Turns out that eggs do not want to be fried. They spit hot fat at you and it hurts. And adding more fat to the pan doesn’t help, either. It just increases the chances that a bit of fat will jump out of the frying pan and into the flames and then your stove will be on fire and you’ll have to wet a towel and throw it over and try not to have a panic attack whilst doing so. But at least I know that now. And it can be my little secret. The only real damage caused was to the eggs. Who knew you could burn eggs? Well you can. Or at least I can.

So anyway I persevered. I threw the eggs away and decided that I prefer cereal anyway. So that’s breakfast sorted, I said to myself, and then I started on proper meals.

Lasagne looked nice and easy when I looked up recipes online (for lack of a cookbook in the entire house) so I set about rummaging through the fridge and cupboards in the hope of unearthing some ingredients. Of course this was to no avail. All I found was cans of Diet Coke, tins of tuna, and some rather questionable-looking carrots.

So I made a big decision. A huge decision, in fact.

I decided to go to the shops. Alone.

This probably wouldn’t be a big deal for you. You’ve probably done it countless times in your life. And I have, too. But since the whole people-wanting-to-hunt-me-down-and-kill-me thing, I hadn’t been anywhere on my own. I’d been scared.

But Alice was right. I couldn’t let these bitches ruin my life. I had to carry on anyways. So I brushed my hair, put on some make-up and some jeans and my nice new winter coat, left a note in the kitchen just in case anybody came upstairs and thought I’d been kidnapped, and braved the world alone.

In reality the supermarket was only about a fifteen minute walk away and I knew the route because I’d been a hundred times with the guys. But it felt much longer this time. It felt like every step was a lifetime. Every person who walked past me was a threat. Every car was waiting to bundle me in and drive away. Which was ridiculous. And I’m aware of that. But in situations like these, awareness doesn’t help much. I was still scared. But I pretended like I wasn’t. Like it was just a normal trip to the store.

When I made it there alive, I felt like I’d achieved something. I did my shopping like a normal person. And why wouldn’t I have? When I thought about it, the chances were that nobody took the slightest bit of interest in me. After all, the guys themselves shopped at this very store and very rarely got approached or noticed, and even when they did it was just harmless star-struck kids wanting a photo or an autograph or even just a hug. Nothing scary. So why should anybody care about little old me, wandering around? I looked just like anybody else in that place. I was just being paranoid.

Or so I thought. Until I had paid for my shopping, thanked the friendly cashier and stepped outside.

The only way I could describe these kids was as a gang. A gang of pale-skinned, black-haired, facial-pierced teenage girls lurking by the exit. There were about 6 of them altogether, I think.

“Hey, you,” the leader sneered at me. I could tell she was the leader because she was standing up and her cronies were slouched on the wall behind her. She folded her arms across her body and stared me out.

Oh, fabulous, I thought. Now they are going to kill me.

And I tried to ignore them. I really did. I tried to carry on walking like none of it was happening. And I tried to concentrate on my breathing but my body was having none of it.

“Hey,” the leader called again, this time from behind me, this time louder. And then her hand was on my arm and I spun around. She looked me dead in the eyes. “I was talking to you.”

Well what was I supposed to do? Stare her out? Shout for help? Spit in her face? None of these options seemed like they would do any good. So I did nothing. I just looked away and made sure that I was breathing in and out.

“I know who you are, you groupie whore,” she said darkly, her grip on my arm tightening until her fingernails dug into my flesh. “I’ve seen you on the internet.”

Ooooooh, the internet, I wanted to sneer, you must be quite the expert on my life. And then I wanted to shake her off me and boot her in the tit. But of course I didn’t do anything of the sort. I couldn’t. It was all too much. I was frozen.

“What’s up?” one of her braver cronies snickered. They had all moved closer to me, encircling me against the wall of the store. “Cat got your tongue?”

Her hold on me was becoming so painful that it was starting to make my eyes water. That’s what I told myself anyway. I wasn’t crying because some kids were being mean to me. It was just from the pain of having my arm held in a death-lock. Yeah, that’s much less embarrassing.

Evidently, though, my tears didn’t go unnoticed. One of the other kids pointed them out with a giggle and then the leader smirked and finally released my arm. But she wasn’t done then. She wasn’t done until she’d pushed me to the ground, sending my shopping and my dignity and my confidence flying in all directions until I was just a shell of a woman, frightened and pregnant and alone on the tarmac of a 7-11 parking lot in the wrong country. And all I could hear was their laughter as they walked away, and my own shaky sobs as I wondered what I’d ever done to deserve any of this.

A moment later, there was a shadow cast over me. My initial thought was that they’d come back with crowbars or something to finish me off. So when I heard a female voice, I flinched. But then I looked up and into the kindly eyes of an employee.

“Are you alright, ma’am?” she was saying. She’d had to repeat it because I hadn’t been listening properly the first time. She extended a hand to me and I gladly took it because I didn’t know what else to do.

I shook my head as she pulled me back onto my feet. She was looking at me with concern. I couldn’t look her in the eyes because I felt pathetic and humiliated. So I looked down towards her nametag. It said ‘Beth’. I liked that name.

And then without another word she was leading me back inside the store, towards the garishly-painted employee lounge, although all I really wanted to do was go home. But still she was kind to me. She made me a cup of coffee which of course I couldn’t drink but I couldn’t say that either because I was still in shock and I could barely breathe, never mind speak. So I just held it in my hands as Beth sat down across the table from me.

“Ma’am?” she said softly. I blinked up towards her. “Are you okay?”

I exhaled. “I should be fine,” I managed to reply. I attempted a smile but it probably appeared like more of a grimace. She smiled back at me anyway.

“Good,” she said. “My name’s Beth. I’m the manager here.” She paused. “I’m going to need to file an incident report on what just happened, okay? But I didn’t see everything,” she said slowly, as if I were an idiot. Who can blame her? “So do you think you can tell me?”

I nodded slowly and clutched at my coffee cup. It burnt my hands a little but it was okay.

“Good,” she said again. I noticed she had a form in front of her and had filled out the date and time. “First of all I need to take your name, ma’am.”

“Daisy Montague,” I told her, in the smallest of voices.

She nodded and wrote it down. Her handwriting was big and loopy and feminine. “Now Daisy, can you tell me exactly what happened out there? Take as much time as you need, okay.”

I took a deep breath and told her as she scribbled it all down. I started with ‘hey, you’ and ended when could hear them walking away. I tried to remember what each girl looked like, what they were wearing, what piercings they had. But at the end of the day it was just a group of emo kids causing trouble. They all looked so similar. I couldn’t even remember how many of them there were. It was frustrating.

I explained to her who I was and why they wanted to hurt me. I told her I was three months pregnant. She just nodded and wrote it all down. Every last detail.

When I thought I was finished, Beth nodded and signed the bottom of the form before pushing it towards me to sign. My signature has never looked so shaky but there wasn’t much that could be done about that.

“Do you want a ride somewhere, hun?” Beth asked me sweetly.

“Yes please,” I replied with a nod. “That would be nice.”

When we walked back outside to her car, I was very nervous. I noticed that my shopping was still on the ground but I honestly couldn’t have cared less about lasagne at that moment. I’d happily live on sandwiches for the rest of my life. I just wanted to go home and cry.

So that’s what I did. I thanked Beth as I got out of her car and she told me it was no problem and to take care of myself. And then I rushed to unlock the front door as quickly as is humanly possible and I locked all of the locks from the inside and then I went straight downstairs because I wanted a cuddle and a shoulder to cry on.

Once again, everything stopped as soon as I was noticed but I didn’t give a shit. I ran straight over to Frank and threw my arms around him and began to sob even though his guitar was still in the middle of us. Somehow without me noticing he managed to slide it off and hold me properly and my head was buried in his chest so I don’t know what everybody else was thinking but I imagine it to be something like “what the fuck just happened?” which to be honest is what I was thinking, too.

“Baby,” Frank cooed, stroking my hair. “What’s wrong?”

I sniffed and took a deep breath and pulled my face out of his shirt. And then, for the second time, I had to re-live every last detail of the scariest and most bizarre thing that had ever happened to me in my life.

Of course, the guys didn’t take it as calmly and professionally as Beth did, even after my assurance that I wasn’t physically injured in any way. They went apeshit. Even Mikey was bubbling with rage. Well, more simmering actually. But nonetheless.

Obviously Frank was the most upset. Ray placed a comforting arm around me as Frank paced the room in anger, kicking small pieces of equipment and swearing profusely. Gerard reacted similarly. Mikey was simmering away and Bob was shaking his head and muttering. I was still crying but there were no tears. Just those shaky little sobs that grip your heart.

There was a decision that something had to be done. Bob rang Tony and told him. Hearing it from somebody else was even worse than having to say it myself. It made it sound more real. So I just leant on Ray and watched Frank punch walls and I got all the sobs out.

Bob said that Tony promised to make an official statement on the band’s website, and until then he ordered me to go to a doctor and check that the stress hadn’t affected the baby.

The drive to the hospital was spent in silence as I stared out of the window at the city that owed me so much. Of all the bad things that had happened in my life, this was the one that I felt I couldn’t cope with. I was way in over my head here.

After much drama at the ER, and Frank kicking off at the poor receptionist, we were allowed more or less straight through to the consultation room. It was very similar to the one I had been in before. Just a couple of weeks ago. The walls were the same kind of yellow but the ceiling was white and not blue and the doctor wasn’t the scary lady doctor but instead it was a scary man doctor who asked me lots of questions and then told me to hop onto the bed and I had to lay there squirming while he was all up inside my junk in his rubber gloves but Frank was holding my hand so it wasn’t too bad.

And everything was fine, of course. The baby was fine. There was no bleeding. No danger. I was just told to get some rest.

And rest I did.