Personally, I Blame my Fairy Godmother. Claudia Carroll

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ obvious he was slowly morphing from fantasy fling to proper boyfriend, I worried so much about what he’d see in someone like me. Turned out the answer was the very thing that I thought would turn him off me; the fact that I’d never had any of the luxuries he took for granted and was now acting like a kid in a sweetshop, loving every second of the high life he introduced me to. Until he met me, he’d often say, he was becoming jaded with his fabulous lifestyle, but seeing it all fresh through my excited eyes somehow kept it all real for him. Every time he’d see me bouncing up and down on the bed in some posh hotel or gasping in awe at some view he’d long since tired of, like the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building, he said it made him fall in love with life all over again.

      And in love with me too, I’d silently hope.

      ‘Jessie?’

      Oh shit. The interview. I almost forgot.

      ‘You’d drifted off there for a moment,’ Katie sing-songs. ‘We were asking you about how you first met Sam?’

      I go with the standard interview answer. Of course. ‘Through work, Katie. You might say Channel Six brought us together. Ha, ha, HA.’

      ‘And, tell us the truth now, any wedding plans?’

      Real answer: Ehhh…no. Mainly because he hasn’t asked. At least, not yet, he hasn’t. But then, with Sam you never know what’s around the corner, so I live in hope. I mean, this is a guy who’s big on spontaneity and we have been together for just over two years now, my longest relationship by a mile.

      ‘Jessie?’

      Yet again, out comes the interview answer: ‘Well, you know how it is, we’re both so busy at the moment; honestly, it’s just something that’s never come up. But if it does, you’ll be the first to know. Ha, ha, HA!’

      ‘Oooh, but, look what I found here; what are you hiding from us?’ says Katie, waving at the camera to pan right to the very back of the piano.

      My heart skips a beat; something embarrassing I forgot to clean up? A pair of knickers from the last party I had? An empty tin of beer stuffed with cigarette butts? A final notice bill from the gas board? It’s OK, I think, breathing normally again. Nothing too offensive, thank Christ; just an old photo of me when I first started out as a weather girl, with a horrible mousey brown bob, which kind of gave me a look of Julie Andrews from certain angles. Then another one of me in studio with Emma, my hair as spiky as a toilet brush and far, far blonder, taken when we first started working together, all of five years ago. Emma looks neat, be-suited and pristine, with her chestnut hair elegantly groomed as always, like she’s ready to start reading the nine o’clock news at the drop of a hat.

      Actually, at the time that photo was taken, I only had a tiny little five-minute feature-ette on what was then Emma’s chat show; the wacky sidekick to her more sober, grounded TV persona. The balance of personalities seemed to work though; me wild and scatty, her cool and ordered. Then by some miracle (and a lot of encouragement from the mobile phone companies, who made a fortune out of all the texts people bombarded us with) my mad dare piece took off, and got so big that now the whole show is about me making an eejit of myself out on location, while Emma acts as anchor back in studio. Lesser women than Emma may have been slightly peeved at me stealing her thunder, but like I say, the girl is a walking saint and has never been anything but super-cool and encouraging about the whole thing. If there are angels masquerading as people wandering round this earth then Emma Sheridan most definitely is one.

      Back to the interview and by now the camera is panning in on a photo of me with a broken leg, which I got after a bungee jump dare. But no, it was nothing as dramatic as whacking it off a bridge while suspended upside down by knicker elastic or anything; just a piece of camera equipment fell on me as I was clambering back into the van on our way back to base. My hair is longer in that shot and still blonder again; in fact, it flashes through my mind that the more successful I got on TV, the brighter the highlights got, right now the hair is almost platinum, the exact colour of Cillit Bang.

      Then, out of nowhere, eagle-eyes Katie grabs up a photo which I’d forgotten all about. ‘And here you are as a teenager. So pretty, even then! Tell us, Jessie, who are your two friends in the photo with you?’

      Oh God, I’d completely forgotten. That’s the trouble with airbrushing your past; the people you knew back then can sometimes seem like ghosts from a bygone age. OK, so the real answer to her question is that yes, that’s me, aged about fourteen, with my then best friend Hannah and her older brother Steve, who lived across the road from us and who were amazingly kind to me during a very rough time in my life. We were thick as thieves, Hannah and I; after we left school, we even shared a flat for a few years, which suited both of us down to the ground. We were both eighteen and she wanted her independence, while I had just lost my darling dad and had to get the hell out of our house for…well, let’s just say for personal reasons. Anyway, Hannah and I had a ball together. My life was slowly starting to turn a corner; I was working as a lounge girl in a bar at night so I could put myself through a media training course during the day, right up until I landed my first gig as a runner at Channel Six. Meanwhile Hannah was doing an apprenticeship in hairdressing and it seems like we just spent the whole time laughing and messing and getting on with our young lives. Steve worked as a handyman doing odd jobs wherever he could, but was always hanging out with us too, and it was just such a happy, joyful time all round. But then Hannah got married, I moved from behind the camera to in front of it and the last I heard of him, Steve had upped sticks and moved to the States. And so the three amigos drifted apart a bit. The way you do.

      It’s no one’s fault or anything, these things just happen. You know how it is; you try meeting up whenever you can, but then realise that actually you don’t have all that much in common any more. And in an alarmingly short time, old pals become shadowy people who you exchange Christmas cards with and scrawl across them, ‘We must meet up sometime, it’s been too long!!’ But you never do.

      God, I wonder what Hannah would say if she could see me now, given that this is exactly the type of show that we used to crack ourselves up laughing at, slagging off the D-list celebs desperate enough to go on them. ‘For feck’s sake, Jessie, what are you doing, dressed up like a dog’s dinner and throwing your home open to these eejits?’ most likely. ‘You look like a right gobshite.’ Hannah was never one to pull her punches.

      I don’t get a chance to go with the interview answer though. Because by then Katie has snatched on another, even older photo that brings a whole new set of memories flooding back.

      This time it’s an ancient, grainy shot of me aged about four, up a tree in our back garden at home, with my dad standing proudly at the bottom, arm rested against the tree-trunk, like he’s just planted it all by himself. I’m in a pair of shorts, with a dirty face, scraped knees and a plaster on my arm.

      ‘Oooh, look at little Jessie…such a cute little tomboy!! I think you must have been a daredevil even from a young age!’

      Real answer: Funny thing is I can remember that photo being taken so clearly. It wasn’t long after my mum died and I remember spending all day every day up that tree. Coaxing me down was a daily ritual for my poor dad. He used to call me his little firecracker and would proudly tell neighbours and aunties that I was afraid of nothing. But then, losing your mum young makes you fearless. Because the worst thing that can possibly happen has already happened, so what’s there left to be afraid of? I can’t say that though, because, even after all these years, there’s a good chance I might start sniffling.

      Interview answer: ‘Yes, Katie, that’s me with my darling dad, who passed away almost twelve years ago now.’

      A pause, while Katie fingers the old СКАЧАТЬ