Friday 27 April 2007

JUICY LUCY


Millie bent down and absentmindedly picked up one of the red-topped gossip papers. The front cover featured a picture of American Socialite ‘Lucy Bessington’ captured in a rather unflattering pose. She was getting out of the back of a car, a carefully positioned black star over her crotch showed her to be ‘commando’, her pupils were dilated and she seemed to have a copious amount of white powder around her nose.

“Juicy Lucy the Junkie”. Oh Lucy what would your Daddy say?

Hating the part of herself that loved this scandalous dirt, she thanked God that she wasn’t Lucy Bessington this morning yet found herself unable to stop the side of her that loved this salacious crap and folded the magazine under her arm to enjoy later.

She shopped for bread, sausages, bacon, eggs and tomatoes, also grabbing some black pudding…. she was a Northerner after all!

Once she had another carton of milk and a carton of fresh orange juice, with bits, she was ready to rock and roll. Laden down with cheap carrier bags Millie made her way out of the store as she began to cross the road. As she reached the middle of the street the car that had been idling across the road roared into life and sped towards her.

Momentarily Millie stood transfixed, like a rabbit in the spotlight, as the car shot towards her. Strangely, she focused on the driver, female, dressed in a black suit, the face obscured by shadow.

“Thump.” Millie was hit at full force, her hands opened, the bags holding her groceries tearing open, their contents spilling and exploding. Millie lay there at the side of the road, bruised, battered but alive. Mr Aziz lay beside her.

“You saved my life”. Millie grabbed Mr Aziz, tears in her eyes. “Thank you, thank you”.

Mr Aziz smiled. “Are you ok? Thank God I was outside putting out the papers. I saw the car coming, there was only one thing I could do.”

Mr Aziz had leapt into the road, pushing Millie out of harms way, avoiding being hit by the car himself by a hairs breadth. “Mr Aziz you saved my life……thankyou.” Mille and her saviour got to their feet and stood as a small crowd of passers by assembled to see if they were ok.

Thursday 19 April 2007

WHAT A WONDERFUL MORNING

Millie awoke and uncurled herself from Marcus’ warm embrace.

She felt great. Marcus was here, they’d enjoyed a night of unbridled passion together and it was a beautiful sunny day outside. She slipped on her silk negligee and left Marcus sleeping soundly whilst she made her way to the kitchen.

She felt like Doris Day in one of those Technicolor movies from the Sixties, the world seemed animated and full of colour. She was going to look after her man and the best way to do this, as her mother had continually told her, was by feeding him well.

Millie held the thought for a while and smiled, the fact that her father had died from a body thumping heart attack in his late fifties “overweight and living on a diet of fatty food and alcohol” crossing her mind and temporarily dampening her mood.

She soon picked herself up again, however, by forcing thoughts of her beloved Dad from her mind and replacing them with the Doris Day classic “our lips shouldn’t touch, move over darling…”

She busied herself around the kitchen, setting the coffee machine and making herself a quick cup of tea. “Bacon, eggs, fried tomatoes…”. Millie planned it all out as she worked away. Her plans came tumbling down somewhat when she opened the fridge door…..instead of revealing the contents of her Mother’s well stocked chiller it showed the sparse requirements of a batchelor girl.

A softening, half-cut cucumber sat, its only intended use being to remove the puffiness around the eyes after a late night. An opened bottle of champagne with kitchen paper rammed in the top to stop whatever remnants of CO² that were left from escaping. Various face creams and beauty products which survived better in the cool environment. A few chilled, prepared foods. A pack of out of date chicken breasts and four bottles of Sauvignon blanc. Apart from a half empty carton of milk that she needed for the tea and coffee there was nothing here to feed her man with.

“Damn!”

Thank God for convenience stores, Millie thought to herself. The little one across the road was always open and they sold all the essentials.

Millie covered her head with a scarf, put her long Mac over her nightie and slipped on a pair of crocs. Ok, so she looked like a new recruit – to bagladies r us, but who was going to see her?

She whipped out of her flat and hastily crossed the road to the store. She didn’t notice the black car parked against the kerb, its engine gently purring.

Millie was totally unaware of the danger behind the wheel.

ON THE STREET OUTSIDE

I woke early and rolled over to wrap my arms around Nico. He responded by nuzzling up to me but his slow, rhythmic breathing indicated that he was still fast asleep.

We had left my apartment in the early hours and checked into the chic Soho House Hotel. The thought of all those bizarre, silent creatures appearing from nowhere was too much for me to stomach, I just had to get out.

Dressed only in a couple of silk robes, Nico and I must have appeared a little unusual as we hailed down our taxi.

Thank God for Soho, I knew no one would bat an eye there, no matter what we were wearing. We would fit right in with the butch leather queens, the transsexual prostitutes, the high-heeled divas and the tourists. A colourful, vibrant village within the centre of a huge cosmopolitan city, it welcomed all who flocked into it with open arms and a smile on its face….. I love it.

I lay there wide awake before untangling myself from Nico and wandering over to the window.

A bright Spring morning was already up and about outside and I smiled down at the street below. The last few party revellers were making their way home, still giddy from alcohol… or whatever their drug of choice was. Women with men, men with men….women with women.

As they exited stage right the players of the next scene arrived on stage. Young barristers, head to toe in black, drawing on European cigarettes and chatting away on cellphones.

Long haired and uniformed street cleaners ambling along, working at their own pace. Skinny young businesswomen striding along in their trainers, their Jimmy Choos carefully packed away in their shoulder bags.

As I had seen so many times before, life goes on, no matter how weird my own had become. When Emmanuel died and I was hounded by the Press, when my stepson-in-law tried to have me committed and of course now…..the world kept turning and the “poor players just keep on strutting and fretting” centre stage.

I was just about to turn away and curl up next to Nico when I had the feeling I was being watched. I looked down and my eye caught the gaze of a woman standing there. Small, elderly and Chinese, I didn’t recall where she had come from, yet I had just been looking at that self same spot.

She looked up at me and smiled before crossing the road and making her way into the hotel.

NIGHT FLIERS

I made my way to the kitchen in the semi-light that is about as dark as London ever gets I felt a vague sense of unease. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled into life. I could sense movement, but not that of a human. My eyes focused – was there something flying about in here? An object brushed past my cheek and then another ….. what was going on?

I leaned over and turned on a table lamp, its dull but improving yellow light a symptom of its energy efficient design. My jaw dropped and my eyes widened in horror, the air was filled with the beating of tiny wings making their way to this new source of light….they were everywhere…..the delicate dark bodies covering the walls, the curtains, the roof. There were hundreds, probably thousands of them. The room was a livid kaleidoscope of small, brown moths.

Wednesday 18 April 2007

A GREEK HERO

I flung the door open and fell into his arms, kissing him all over, caressing him, holding him.

“A drunk blonde wearing nothing but her sexy underwear…..this is some welcome home!”

Nico lifted me up as I wrapped my legs around his waist and he carried me inside. Within minutes his clothes were a shredded mess on the floor and my knickers and bra were torn to bits next to them.

We made love against the wall, fast, furious and hot as hell. I ran my hands over his shaved head, a memory of Samson and Delilah and bad times held at bay by the sheer force of passion.

He carried me to the bedroom for round two, every bit as passionate, but slower, more gentle, more sensual. I gave myself to him completely. I needed this, needed to just feed my physical needs and leave my problems behind…. for a few hours at least.

I awoke in the early hours, my throat was dry from all the wine I had consumed earlier but, although fatigued, my body felt good after its sexual workout.

I got up and made my way into the kitchen to get a glass of water, turning to glance back at Nico’s naked body lying face down on my bed, his rhythmic breathing washing over me, making me calm.

Nico’s presence had calmed me, brought me to my senses.

Thank you Nico.

Monday 16 April 2007

THE BUZZER ROUND

“BZZZZZZZ”. It was someone at the door. I grabbed the rape alarm and made my way to the apartment entrance. I had a peephole, I could see who was there, I didn’t need to let them in.

“BZZZZZZZ”. The doorbell rang again, this time accompanied by a series of loud raps.

Images of madmen who peeled skin from people’s faces with the same gay abandon as I would the skin from an apple whizzed through my mind. I could feel my mouth dry out and my heart start to bang against my ribcage like Black Rod on the door to the House of Commons. I was about to lose my nerve, to run for the phone and dial 999, screaming down the receiver for help….

“BZZZZZZZ”. The buzzer rang again. “Amanda, Amanda…..are you there……?”

The deep voice, the lilt of his Greek accent.

It was Nico!

My God it was my fella, my big strong fella … it was my Nico!

Monday 2 April 2007

MAKE MY DAY … PSYCHO

With my mobile phone shattered into a million pieces on the floor in front of me I descended into alcohol. I was nearly through my second bottle of wine before I started to feel good again, to regain the strength I had felt earlier after crying on Tomas’ shoulder.
‘For God’s sake Amanda, pull yourself together’, I slurred to myself.

So finally, after two good bottles of Pinot Grigio I had filled myself with Dutch courage and was spoiling for a fight. Bring it on old lady, I’m ready for you!

I knew that I could have called Millie or Cassie or Helen or, for that matter, all of them and they would have been over faster than a soap star accepting an invite to a Leicester Square Premiere, but I wanted to handle this on my own.

For tonight at least.

I now wish that the I hadn’t smashed the phone, I was now wishing for it to ring again.

“Come on psycho, make my day, I’m ready for you!” I had found the rape alarm that Millie had given me last year and held it in my hand, if she had been able to call again I would have blasted it down the receiver … that would have been enough to blow out the cobwebs from her old, deaf ears, hopefully putting paid to her nuisance calls once and for all.

Armed and fuelled by booze, I sat sipping my wine and waiting .. for what I wasn’t sure … just waiting.


For some reason, the old ladies words rang through my head, echoed in my thoughts … there was something about what she was saying … something that was resonating with my inner being, something that seemed to make sense.

NO ONE DOES VOODOO LIKE YOU DO!

Cassie sat back and grabbed a second bottle of beer as she started to read through the email from her Grandmother.

As usual life was colourful and vibrant on the beautiful Caribbean Island of St. Lucia.

Cassie’s Grandmother was a pillar of the community; respected, loved … and maybe even a little bit feared Mamma Pascal, as she was known, was a force of nature.

Cassie sometimes mused as to why her parents had left the Carribbean, but deep down she always knew the reason. Where her Grandmother was outrageous, larger than life and charismatic, her father was quiet, thoughtful and precise. Although the two loved each other deeply they were like chalk and cheese and she supposed that it was inevitable that one day her Father would have to leave her Grandmother in order to make his own mark … in order to walk this earth on himself.

That was all incidental now, her Dad had died when Cassie was a teenager, a victim of a culture of alcohol and cars, a sad statistic leaving behind a broken and bereaved family.

Cassie read on through anecdotes of her West Indian family to stories of magic and voodoo.

Cassie always loved this bit the most, the fantastical places that her Grandmother’s imagination took her too were like a written treat to be savoured.

However, this time the tone differed from normal.

‘Cassie, my little Princess … as you know I have always been in possession of The Gift, something I was sorry to see I hadn’t passed on to your Father or to your brother Samson. However, you are the next female blood after me and it is time you knew. When you became a journalist with an incredible insight for a story I thought you may have guessed … but what with living in that cold climate and being restrained by European logic I should have known that you may not have been able to see the wood for the trees.

Cassie, my beloved, it is time for you to know … Cassie, my darling … it is time for you to realise your place in this world…..

THE BEAUTY IS A BITCH

Cassie’s head reeled, Justin Gonzalez?
She couldn’t stand the man.
Justin represented all that Cassie hated most in people.
Blessed with money and looks he had used his good fortune in the worst possible way.

Whilst his Father, Emmanuel, Amanda’s dead husband, had been an incredible man, his son could not have been more different.

His parents, Emmanuel Gonzalez and Alice Cadogan where one of the sixties brightest glamour couples. Emmanuel, incredibly handsome and incredibly rich had married Hollywood’s most ethereal beauty and their union had hit the headlines all over the globe.
The reality was somewhat different, Emmanuel did all that he could to look after his wife as her career faltered and she descended into alcoholism and drug abuse.
After three children, Justin and his older twin sisters Pia and Pauline, Emmanuel finally proceeded to divorce after he caught her, yet again, in flagrante with one of the staff.

However, ‘60’s America focused it’s eyes on this swarthy South American and his delicate blonde wife and granted her full custody and financial gain.

Emmanuel was never granted access.

Alice feed her children a diet of hate and bile … a viper’s nest in which the mother and her three foul offspring thrived.

Cassie had seen it all … seen how Justin had done everything to destroy Amanda after the death of his Father. He didn’t want the old man but he did want his money.

Amanda had walked away, head held high, the courts insisting that she take a paltry £20 million of her dead husbands £1.7 billion fortune.

Cassie had also seen Justin’s face when Amanda had been grated the money, she knew from Amanda that Justin had tried to bed her every time her saw her … she knew that at some point Justin would come to get what he thought was rightfully his.

As Cassie mused over this an email appeared in her in-box …. It was from her Grandmother in St. Lucia.

Cassie had always likened herself to this fabulous older woman, a huge character in her carribbean community, a huge character who indulged herself in the powers of magic and good voodoo.

Cassie opened her email, excitement written all over her face ……

WHEN IRISH EYES ARE SMILING

‘Helen? Helen is that you?’
Helen surpressed a giggle as she heard the familiar tones of her aged relative.

‘Talk into the receiver Auntie’, Helen replied, her Irish accent immediately strengthening as it always did when she spoke to family back home.

‘Helen, oh, thanks Goodness, I am so pleased to speak to you.’ The old dear had got the hang of it at last, she’d remembered to speak into the receiver.

Helen and her Aunt exchanged pleasantries … Aunt Maria recounting several tales of Helen’s childhood. ‘You were always a feisty girl, always stood apart from the pack … always a bit different … you showed us all didn’t you girl!’

Aunt Maria chuckled to herself, Helen could clearly picture her sipping away at her Paddy’s whisky and she spoke down the telephone.

‘ … yes, like me in so many ways’, Auntie Maria continued, ‘you weren’t going to settle for one of the local boys and motherhood by your mid-twenties, I always knew that …’

Whilst her Aunt chatted away Helen half listened whilst she finished selecting which picture of Babette she was going to use. Her final choice was a had the beautiful girl staring ahead in a very sensual pose, her lips moist and slightly parted, a cross between virgin and whore … very appropriate.

She picked it up and waved it at Chantelle who collected it and took it off to layout, this picture would now be reproduced over 400,000 times.

‘So, you may be wondering why I called …?’

Helen snapped back to her Aunt, ‘No, it’s lovely to hear from you, I’m so pleased everyone over there is fit and well, I really must come back soon ….’

‘I called Helen because, as you know for the years of ridicule I have endured, I have always been in possession of The Gift.’

‘Here we go’, thought Helen and she sat down, ready to endure the ramblings of an old mind.

‘I know you think I am a mad old bird’, Auntie Maria suddenly sound more rational, more sane than ever, ‘but I have been waiting a long time to tell you this and now the time has come. A great danger awaits you Helen, a great danger awaits not only you but your three closest friends. It is time for you to know the truth….’

Helen, it is time to understand your place in destiny …..!’

NAOMI, KATE … BEBETTE

Helen drew a large black line over several images of supermodel Bebette and pushed them to one side.

It was late, very late and, as usual she was still at work … the only people around being the night security, the cleaning staff and her ever loyal P.A. Chantelle DeBloom.

Once she had decided which of the images she was going to use of Bebette then the next edition of Chic was in the bag and ready to print.

Helen looked down at the image of the sultry brunette and shook her head – the last time she had seen Babette was at a Milan Fashion Show the young Australian beauty wasn’t quite the glamorous icon that would soon be staring down from yet another front cover on thousands of magazine rackes.

Babette’s nose was covered in white powder, her left breast had escaped from her dress and she was desperately attempting to unzip the pants and blow Manuel Perez, the Spanish Formula One tycoon.

It all got rather embarrassing and it took Helen to stand up to the plate and drag the girl kicking, screaming and shouting obscenities out of the party in order to save her from further embarrassment.

To date Helen had received an apology, a thanks … nada, rien, nothing … but then she hadn’t really expected one anyway.

‘Helen’ she looked up, Chantelle was in the doorway. Small, bubbly, vivacious and great fun, Chantelle lightened up any room she came into. Chantelle also got to feast on the hungry male suitors that fell by the wayside when Helen failed to respond to their hot and horny advances.

‘Helen, there’s a lady on the phone … a Mrs O’Donaghue … she says she’s your great Aunt’.

‘Aunty Maria?’ it had been ages since Helen had heard from her bohemian and charismatic relative.

Always considered the black sheep of the family the old spinster kept herself to herself.

Helen, however, had always got on well with the old lady … even if she did profess to have psychic powers and a hotline to the spirits on the other side.

‘Put her through’, said Helen a smile spreading on her face.

RED IS THE COLOUR OF DANGER


Cassie nursed the cold bottle of beer whilst she looked at the computer screen in front of her.

It was pitch black outside already.

‘Typical’, she thought to herself. As usual once she had immersed herself in her work she lost all track of time.

She sipped and her bottle before reading over the information she had compiled from the internet over the past couple of hours.

Trudie Hewitt – background

Media mogul and proprietor of Red Heat Publishing who’s catalogue includes many gossip and top shelf magazine titles.
Major expansion into internet and SMS pornography.
Connections with Amanda.

No apparent connections.
Except – Amanda, Oh! Withdrew advertising features in both Dish it! Magazine and Bikes, Babes and Beer (Both Red heat Titles) after Dish It! Ran libellous articles about Amanda having a nervous breakdown and requiring mental health treatment.

Trudie – Movements over past week.

From both pictures on the internet and media reporting Trudie has only just returned from New York where she has been attending a high powered summit of global media tycoons.
On the day Tomas was stabbed Trudie was giving a talk of profits from porn and viral marketing via the internet.

It was when Cassie sat back and reflected on this she noticed him.

In the picture of Trudie making her way into the auditorium in New York she suddenly spotted HIM standing behind her.

Cassie’s skin bristled into a myriad of goosebumps.

Standing behind Trudie was no other than Amanda’s stepson, the vile, repugnant and totally amoral Justin Gonzalez.