Page 4

4

LONDON, 1986

The heat is oppressive, as it always is on those five days a year that London registers over seventy degrees Fahrenheit. Sweat drips down Cassie’s back as bodies press tightly together like sardines in a can, waiting for someone to set them free. If she’d known it was going to be this hot, she wouldn’t have worn her denim jacket, but she’d not trusted the weather girl on the TV this morning, even though she’d warned the elderly to stay inside and reminded animal lovers to keep their pets hydrated. In fact, Cassie had laughed in the face of it even further by wearing lace gloves and weighing herself down with layer after layer of plastic jewelry that sits heavily on her chest and around her wrists, making her skin itch, but impossible to scratch.

If she stands on tiptoes, held up by the pressing crowd around her, Cassie’s just tall enough to see that she’s on the wrong side of Oxford Street. If she were closer to the HMV record store, she’d be able to shelter in its shadow, but the sun is high, beating down on top of her head, making her feel like she’s cooking from the inside.

“Get back!” yells a power-hungry policeman. He raises his truncheon and needlessly jostles the edge of the ever-growing, excitable crowd.

Although the threat of authority looms menacingly, Cassie can’t help but feel empowered at the thought of revolting against it. She imagines being embroiled in the riots of a few years earlier or standing on the picket line of the long-standing miners’ strike, demanding to be heard, and although this isn’t quite the same, she doesn’t doubt that the police wouldn’t hesitate to use the same brute force if they felt their superiority slipping from their grasp.

As if the swaying teenage throng needed any further encouragement to unleash their hormonal frustrations, a girl wedged in three people across from Cassie starts to shout up out of the mêlée.

“Who do we want?” she yells, her turned-up mouth and mischievous glint displaying complete and utter defiance.

Cassie smiles, already a fan of her chutzpah. “Secret Oktober!”

The girl turns and winks at her, buoyed by her comradeship. “When do we want ’em?”

“Now!” roars Cassie.

The chant initially falls on deaf ears, but after a few more goes, the crowd begin to warm to the theme.

“Who do we want?”

“Secret Oktober!” comes the rousing response.

“When do we want ’em?”

“Now!”

Stoking impatient anticipation, the mob moves backward and forward, and Cassie is caught up in the ebb and flow of a wave that she can’t duck out of. Screams rise as young girls get caught up in the electrifying expectations of pubescent dreams, and car horns sound from the boy racers who have brought their Fiesta XR2s up to London’s busiest street to show off, only to be thwarted by a thousand scantily clad girls.

A single synthesizer note echoes from above and hysteria reverberates around the buildings, bouncing off the walls.

“Good afternoon, London!”

The microphone screeches and you can’t even see the person speaking, but the crowd knows exactly who it is. At least, those who saw the full-page advert in last night’s Evening Standard do. The other bystanders, bemused office workers on their lunch breaks and frustrated cabbies, are there against their wishes, hemmed in by a mass of overactive hormones.

“Whose bright idea was this?” yells a commuter into the side of a policeman’s helmet.

The policeman grimaces. “We’re trying to shut it down, sir, but it’s going to take a while to disperse.”

Cassie isn’t going anywhere—not until she’s seen and heard all that her idols have come here to deliver.

“Thanks so much for coming out today,” says Ben Edwards, the static on the microphone gradually easing through the speakers. “I must say, you’re all looking particularly… hot .”

Cassie’s sure that from up there on the rooftop he can’t even see the hordes of girls hanging on to his every word; she certainly can’t see him from down here, but still the teasing words garner the desired effect, and girls scream as they no doubt fantasize that the lead singer of the country’s biggest band is referring to them alone.

The opening bars of their latest hit single start up and the crowd surges forward, toward the store, as if expecting to be let inside and up the four floors of stairs to where the band are performing. But a ten-strong armed barricade of policemen block the way, holding the baying mob back.

“Sod this!” says the chanting girl, who’s now next to Cassie. “We’re not going to see anything from here. You wanna try and get a closer look?”

Cassie nods, not knowing if this cool chick with her bleached-blond hair, cut asymmetrically across one eye, is talking to her or someone else.

“Come on then,” she says, grabbing Cassie’s hand then ducking down and slipping out of sight into the sea of bodies.

Getting out is even harder than being in the middle of the fracas—Cassie feels like she’s being churned around in someone’s gut, before being regurgitated and spat out onto the softening tarmac of the gridlocked road. But once she is, the relief is instant, her sweat immediately evaporating as much-needed air buffets her overheated body.

“Come on!” says the girl, pulling her by the hand through the double doors of the department store across the street.

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere we can actually see their faces,” says the girl, taking the escalator steps two at a time.

By the time they emerge at the fifth-floor restaurant, panting and gasping for breath, Cassie has cottoned on to what the girl is planning and can only imagine that a hundred other fans have also worked it out. But there’s just a gathering of well-heeled individuals, most with perfectly coiffed shampoo and sets, wondering why their lunches have been disrupted by the bedlam on the street below.

“I don’t understand why they’re not at school,” she hears one lady say to her friend, who tuts in agreement. “They’re just running amok, like animals in a zoo. The parents have lost all control!”

Cassie doesn’t disagree, and if her dad knew she was here instead of sitting in her timetabled history class right now, he’d have a fit. Especially if he also found out that her mum had given her permission to play truant. Well, it was more of a wry smile as she wordlessly handed Cassie the national newspaper advert announcing the “secret” gig, but the intimation was there; it was in the special bond they shared, and if that was “losing control,” then Cassie loved her all the more for it.

“Go and grab that corner table over by the window,” says the girl, with an assertive nod. “I’ll get us a can of pop.”

Cassie run-walks to the corner, praying that her new friend’s intuition has paid off. When she gets to the booth overlooking Oxford Street below, any expectations she may have had are blown out of the water.

“Oh my god!” she squeals, causing the purple-rinse brigade to pull their mouths tight in abject horror. But she doesn’t care, because just across the road, one floor down, her favorite band in the whole wide world are performing a concert, seemingly just for her. The sound isn’t exactly clear, muffled by the double glazing, but it doesn’t matter; she’d rather see them than hear them and she can’t get much closer than this. Not today, anyway.

“You’re a fucking genius,” she says, as a bottle of Panda Pop is slammed down on the table in front of her.

“I have my moments,” says the girl, taking out a JPS cigarette from a pack of tens and lighting one up. “I’m Amelia, by the way.”

“Cassie—pleased to meet you. How did you even think of this?”

Amelia shrugs her shoulders. “I can’t take all the credit,” she says, keeping a watchful eye on what’s happening on the rooftop below. “Ben gave me a heads-up.”

Cassie thinks she must have heard her wrong. “Sorry—Ben?” she questions, assuming it must be one other than of the “Edwards” variety.

“Ben!” says Amelia, smiling at the frontman, who, if Cassie didn’t know better, seems to be smiling back.

“You know him?” she asks, her voice high-pitched.

Amelia nods coyly, giving nothing away.

“Like, to actually talk to?” Cassie blurts out, her brain working too fast for her mouth to keep up. “And he knows you ? How ?”

“Well…” Amelia starts, basking in the adulation her admission has afforded her. “We’ve known each other since this crazy ride began two years ago. I was first on the scene, having caught up with them after one of their early gigs in Brighton, and now we’re here, playing on top of the world’s most famous music store.”

She says it as if she’s part of the entourage, but if she were, she’d have an Access All Areas pass hanging from her neck, instead of almost breaking it by racing up five escalators to catch a glimpse of her idols from sixty feet away.

Cassie casts a suspicious glare as Amelia waves at the band, half-prepared to exchange her skepticism for jealousy if Ben Edwards waves back. She doesn’t know whether she’s relieved or disappointed when her new friend’s call for attention goes unanswered. Though it doesn’t seem to bother Amelia, who jumps up onto the banquette and hands her an Instamatic camera.

“Make sure you get them in the background!” she says, posing with her hands on her hips.

As Cassie peers through the viewfinder, she thinks that Amelia would be a lot prettier if she ditched the heavy black kohl and dark burgundy lipstick. It’s too much for her petite features and makes her look unnecessarily aggressive.

“Oi, get down from there!” shouts a voice from across the sedate restaurant.

Amelia smiles and sticks two fingers up, much to onlookers’ disgust.

“You should be ashamed of yourselves,” says a woman near them, her hairdo so stiff that it looks like she’s got a dead ferret on her head. “Do your parents even know you’re here?”

Amelia goes to issue a retort, but something catches her eye. “Oh my god, look,” she says, pointing out of the window.

Cassie is rendered speechless by the appearance of at least twenty policemen making their way slowly across the rooftop toward the band. The bobbies move as if they’re closing in on a hardened criminal, but Ben and the boys are defiantly playing on, only faltering when Michael, the drummer, is manhandled, sending his sticks flying.

Ben brandishes his guitar like a riot shield, while Luke stands his ground behind his keyboard.

“Come on!” says Amelia, as if issuing a call to arms.

By the time they emerge into the blistering heat outside, the crowd are growing increasingly unsettled. The music has stopped and the police have become even more combative.

“They’ll come out round the back,” says Amelia, grabbing Cassie by the hand again and heading in the opposite direction to everyone else. She ducks down a side street and they run with burning lungs around the block, but there’s already a sizeable crowd surrounding the two black limousines that are parked there.

“Link arms and don’t let go,” says Amelia, throwing herself into the outskirts of the throng as if she were diving into a swimming pool.

Cassie follows hesitantly, not wanting to break the connection, but she closes her eyes, relying on Amelia’s lead to take her to where she needs to be.

The horde moves forward, picking Cassie up and taking her with them. The noise rises, the screams of young girls piercing her eardrums.

“Ben! I love you!”

“Michael, over here!”

“Luke, marry me!”

Cassie’s body slams into something hard and unforgiving, her feet leaving the ground as she’s lifted over the back of a car. She calls out—not in pain, but in shock and confusion, her mind unable to work out whether Amelia is pulling her or the crowd are pushing her.

“Ben!” Amelia yells. “What’s going on?”

Cassie jostles for position, trying to follow Amelia’s voice, but the physical contact is lost and she doesn’t even know which way is up, let alone where Amelia is. But suddenly, she sees him, and the cacophony surrounding her is silenced, the hysteria no longer audible. It’s as if she’s been anesthetized, her limbs falling victim to the effect before her mind has a chance to.

Ben Edwards is so close that if she were to reach out, she’d be able to touch him. But her arms are pinned to her sides; it’s only her eyes that can move, tracking his movements as he is pushed and shoved even more than she is.

“Ben!” Amelia calls out again, somehow managing to catch his attention.

He looks up, sees her and offers a solemn smile. “Hey, Mils,” he says, as he’s bundled into the back seat of the limo.

“Get back!” barks an overzealous security guard, before slamming the door and hitting the roof with an open palm. “Go, go, go!”

Despite his urgent calls, the car is only able to jerk forward a few inches at a time, stopped by the crowd, who are banging on the windows and laying themselves across the bonnet.

“Give them some room!” yells Amelia, pushing back, as if she were their bodyguard.

Cassie pushes back too, trying to get herself out of the way, but although her body is clear, as she leans into the crowd for support, she’s not quick enough with her foot, which disappears under a painfully slow-moving back tire.

Her face must say it all, her ability to make a sound lost to the pain that is wracking her body.

“Her foot!” yells Amelia into the tiny gap of the open window. “It’s under the car!”

The wheel rolls forward another half a turn and Cassie feels her exposed toes flattening against the man-made sole of her roman sandal.

“Are you OK?” asks Ben, sticking his head out.

Cassie doesn’t know what’s causing her to be more dumbstruck: the pain or the shock of having her idol talk to her.

She nods numbly as everyone around her screams for him, delighted to be given a clear view of their idol.

“Ben, I love you!” someone screeches in her ear.

“Fuck!” cries Cassie as the window is wound up and the car moves off.

“Oh my god!” shrieks Amelia. “Are you all right? Can you walk?”

Cassie grimaces as she takes a tentative step, the thumping throb reminding her of the Tom and Jerry cartoons she used to watch.

“I… I don’t know,” she groans, as Amelia props her up and forcefully pushes her way through the crowd.

A few minutes later, as Cassie sits on a bench, she already knows that the shock of what happened far outweighs the actual damage. But a part of her feels she needs to keep up the charade, if only for the twenty or so girls who are crowding around her, eulogizing about how they wished it was their foot Ben Edwards’s car had run over.

“Do you think it’s broken?” asks one.

“Does it matter?” quips another.

Cassie looks up with a pained expression.

“Well, you could pretend that it’s broken,” says the second girl breathlessly, warming to the theme. “And that you had to go to hospital.”

“Why would I do that?” asks Cassie, confused.

“Because it would be a surefire way of getting Ben’s attention. A friend of mine told The Sun that one of Madonna’s bodyguards had pushed her into the road and she’d hit her head.”

Cassie leans in, her interest piqued. “ And…? ”

“And two days later, Madonna turned up at her house with a bouquet of flowers and two VIP tickets to her Wembley Stadium show next year.”

“Get out of here!” says Cassie. “You’ve got to be pulling my chain.”

The girl shakes her head. “God’s honest truth.”

Cassie’s stomach flips at the thought of Ben Edwards turning up on her doorstep, but the jittery sensation is short-lived. Because, as much as her mother would welcome him in with open arms, she already knows that her dad would most likely slam the door in his face.

She goes to get up and winces as her swollen toes attempt to take her weight.

“We need to get some ice on those,” says Amelia.

“My sister works just around the corner,” says Cassie. “She’ll have something.”

“OK, lead the way,” says Amelia, before laughing. “Oh, sorry—you can’t…”