Page 6

6

Despite the pain, Cassie is still riding high when she wakes up the following morning, her dreams having been interspersed with the reality of how close she came to her idol.

As if reading her thoughts, Ben smiles down at her from the ceiling directly above her bed, the poster’s staple holes peppering his square jawline. She’d had to buy six of the same magazine in order to find one with the foldout of him. Each of the three band members had been photographed individually and Smash Hits had wrapped the inserts up like a Willy Wonka chocolate bar, so you didn’t know who you were getting until you ripped open the silver foil.

Cassie’s heart lurches as she looks at him, the secret they now share bringing them closer together. But the split-second euphoria is superseded by the maudlin compression of the oxygen cylinder in the next room as it pumps life-saving air into her mother’s lungs.

Snatching up the Sony Walkman from under her pillow, Cassie slides the headphones onto her ears and turns the volume up to maximum. As well as drowning out the noise, the beat of Secret Oktober’s last single also has the ability to transport her to another time—back to when she was just a normal girl, whose mother would meet her with a hug and hot buttered toast when she got home from school. Back to BC— Before Cancer —when they were all living a life that had felt impervious. How quickly the carpet can be pulled from beneath your feet, upending everything you know.

The music stops and the play button pops back up when the cassette reaches the end of the reel. Cassie hits rewind and listens to the reassuring shrill of the tape as it backtracks to the beginning of her favorite song. She’s done it so many times now that she can stop it almost to the second.

The line “ Just give me one more night, to hold you how you need to be held ” keeps coming back to haunt her, the words of a number-one pop song taking on a whole new meaning now that her mother’s future seems to be hanging in the balance.

Gigi had only been ill for eight weeks; or at least, that’s when the cancer decided to rear its ugly face publicly. Before that, it had been silently ravaging her body, its deadly cells wrapping themselves around her organs, strangling them with their far-reaching tentacles as she slept, utterly oblivious to the fact her body was turning on itself. She’d since said that it felt like the ultimate betrayal; Gigi looked after herself as well as she looked after her girls, ensuring they ate well, exercised regularly, and stayed hydrated. It was a lifestyle that she was likely predisposed to as a dancer, and one that Cassie had often pushed back against. But she’s now of an age when she’s beginning to appreciate that if she’d been allowed to frequent the McDonald’s in town as much as she’d wanted to, she’d most likely not be the healthy teenager she is today. Though that theory rather lost its value in the face of her mother’s diagnosis.

“We need to talk to you,” her father John had said when she’d returned from school on that Wednesday afternoon two months ago.

Cassie had immediately known that something was wrong— she’d never seen her father cry before and she assumed something had happened to one of her grandparents. She was mentally prepared for that—after all, it was the natural order of life. But then, as he struggled to find the right words, she had the absurd thought that perhaps something was wrong with him . He didn’t share Gigi’s conviction that “an apple a day kept the doctor away,” favoring a diet more weighted with fatty foods and alcohol, so it was possible, but still so far of left field that it was almost inconceivable. Though what was entirely unimaginable was that it had anything to do with her mother. Not only because Gigi was seemingly utterly invincible, but she had sat there, staring straight ahead, with a fixed expression of utter defiance.

It’s still there today, though you have to look past the pain that’s etched in the deeply furrowed grooves in her brow to see it.

“How are you feeling?” Cassie asks now, as she peers around her parents’ bedroom door, pleased to see her mother awake.

“Good,” says Gigi, attempting to pull herself up against the pillows.

Cassie knows the lie is for her benefit. “Here, let me get you comfortable,” she says, unable to comprehend how her mother’s arms have become so bony that they can no longer support her frail body.

Eight weeks . How had it caused so much damage and devastation in such a short space of time? And how had Cassie not noticed its evil path before it had done its worst?

She’d spent every night since lying in bed, willing with all her might to be transported back to a time before her mother’s body had stopped being like everybody else’s. If Cassie had her time again, would she be able to pinpoint the exact moment that had happened?

It wasn’t before their day out in town at the beginning of the year—she was sure of that. She would have seen it in the photos of her mother moonwalking across the zebra crossing outside the famous Abbey Road studios. She would have noticed it as Gigi led the five-hundred-strong fan chorus of Secret Oktober’s new single as they stood in line for six hours outside Wembley Arena waiting for their concert tickets to go on sale.

No, there was nothing to suggest that anything was wrong as they’d sung, danced, and laughed their way around the capital on what Gigi had called a pilgrimage—a homage to their idols. But maybe her mother had known something she didn’t. Maybe she already knew what was going on, hence insisting on the mother–daughter bonding trip.

“Did you see them?” Gigi croaks, grimacing as she falls back onto the pillows Cassie has fluffed up.

“Mum, you’re not going to believe it,” she says, sitting down on the edge of the bed, careful not to disturb any tubes.

Gigi smiles as Cassie recounts what happened, her sharp cheekbones rising up to meet her hooded eyes.

“You’re clearly a far better groupie than I ever was,” she says, wheezing as she laughs.

Cassie giggles, remembering how her mum had spent the night at the airport to welcome the Beatles home from America. She’d stolen money from her grandmother’s purse and bunked off school, only to see the very top of Paul McCartney’s head among a sea of policemen’s helmets. Well, at least she thought it was Paul, but it was difficult to be sure from her position behind a wire fence at the far end of the runway.

When Gigi’s father had found out, he’d given her three lashings with a wooden ruler. It’s not lost on Cassie that her own father would probably do the same to her if he knew where she’d been yesterday. But the high she’d felt when Ben had looked at her was worth the risk.

“They’re on Saturday Superstore this morning,” says Gigi, wincing as she attempts to reach for a glass of water on her bedside table.

Cassie hurriedly picks it up and holds it to her mother’s dry and cracked lips. “Oh, are they?” she says, in faux surprise. “I’d better stick a tape in and record it then.”

“Oh, have you got to go to work?”

Cassie hesitates, wondering what the harm would be in telling her mum the truth—she’s sure she wouldn’t disapprove. In fact, she’d positively encourage her rebelliousness—and remind her that you only live once. But to save her mother from having to cover for her with her father, she lies. “Yeah, I start in an hour,” she says. But Gigi is already asleep, her body drained from the energy it had taken to smile.

Cassie bends down to kiss her. She hates saying goodbye, especially when her mum’s eyes are closed, and she can’t help but turn an ear to her mouth, willing herself to hear the breath that, up until now, she’d taken for granted.

A hundred or so girls are already congregating outside the entrance of the BBC Television Center on Wood Lane, and Cassie can’t help but feel perturbed that Amelia’s not the only one who has inside information.

“Hey, over here!” her new friend calls out. Dressed in a frilly pirate shirt and red leather trousers tied around the waist with a long white sash, she seemingly worships at the altar of the New Romantic revolution that Secret Oktober spearheaded two years ago. But whereas they, and everyone else, have moved on to shoulder-padded linen suits, she is still happily ensconced in dandy heaven. “You’ve just missed them,” she says.

“Shit!”

Cassie hasn’t come all this way, risking her part-time job and the wrath of her father, for nothing.

“It’s OK,” says Amelia, as if reading her mind. “If you don’t get to see them on their way out, we’ll definitely catch them at the airport.”

“Airport?” questions Cassie.

Amelia nods. “Yeah, they’re flying to Paris this afternoon, so we’ll head to Heathrow after here.”

“How do you know all this stuff?” asks Cassie, wishing she had the inside track on their movements. “And how does Ben know your name?”

Amelia shrugs, though her apparent nonchalance is laced with a smug superiority. Cassie doesn’t blame her; it’s clearly a powerful position she holds, both in the band’s inner sanctum and that of the fans’ world, though there’s no doubt she picks and chooses who to share her valuable knowledge with. While other girls look at her with unbridled hope, praying that she sprinkles some of her stardust on them, it seems it’s Cassie who is once again elected as today’s lucky recipient.

“Come on,” says Amelia, reaching for her hand and pulling her further along Wood Lane, away from the prying eyes of the ever-alert security presence.

“Where are we going?” giggles Cassie, already loving the adventure she knows she’s about to embark on.

“We’re going in,” says Amelia as she gets a footing on the six-foot fence that runs around the entire perimeter of the TV studios.

Cassie looks up at the world-famous circular building, its curved walls stretching up seven or eight floors. “Are you completely mad?” she asks. “It’ll be like a maze in there, and the security guards will be hunting us down like we’re the IRA.”

“I know what studio they’re in,” says Amelia, her eyes dancing at the idea of being rebellious. But then, Cassie imagines she spends her whole life refusing to live by the rules.

“This is such a bad idea,” says Cassie as Amelia falls onto the grass on the other side in an ungainly heap.

“I bet you won’t be saying that when you’re face to face with Ben Edwards in ten minutes,” says Amelia with a grin.

The thought makes Cassie’s stomach somersault as she climbs up the railings and carefully lifts herself over the forbidding metal spikes. There’s a snag, a pulling-up, and for a second she can’t work out what’s going on, but as her jeans get tighter and tighter around her bum, she realizes her belt has caught on a railing, giving her the wedgie of all wedgies.

“Oh no, you haven’t?!” shrieks Amelia, her rounded cheeks looking fit to burst.

“I bloody have,” replies Cassie, not knowing whether to laugh or cry as she hangs there helplessly, like a pig in an abattoir.

“Wait, hold on,” chokes Amelia, struggling to contain her hysteria. “I need to…” She rummages in her bag and pulls out her Instamatic camera.

“Don’t you dare,” says Cassie in mock indignation.

“This is too good to miss,” cackles Amelia as she reels the winder. “Say cheese!”

“Help me!” cries Cassie through tears of laughter.

Amelia wraps her arms around Cassie’s knees and attempts to lift her. “Just a bit more,” she says, breathless from giggling. She jerks her upward and suddenly the belt’s released and the two of them are sent crashing to the ground, falling onto one another in a jumble of limbs.

“I like you, but not like that ,” says Amelia, laughing as their faces come uncomfortably close to one another’s.

Cassie abruptly pulls away, the comment taking her back to last year when Suzanna accused her of leering at her when she was getting changed for netball. It had been wholly untrue, but an off-the-cuff remark has a habit of sticking, especially when it comes from the girl who everybody fears the most. So, Cassie had spent the past two terms going out of her way to prove that it was boys she was attracted to. Perhaps that’s why Ben is such a big deal; it gives her a chance to demonstrate what really floats her boat.

“I don’t fancy you, either,” she says, scrabbling to get to her feet.

“You don’t ?” says Amelia, looking put out. “Well, I can’t pretend that I’m not disappointed, because if I did swing that way, I would definitely fancy you !”

Cassie can’t help but smile, buoyed by Amelia’s devil-may-care attitude. She’s everything Cassie wants to be, if only she could shake off the shackles that bind her to a life of conformity.

They cross the lawn as if they’re in an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, heading for a door that’s held ever-so-slightly ajar by a block of wood. As they step into a dark abyss, it reminds Cassie of how she’d imagine backstage to be, with huge lights fixed to the heavily rigged ceiling and sound checks echoing around the underbelly of a seating stand. A frisson of adrenaline sets her nerves alight—the thought of how close the band might be, conflicting with the very real danger of trespassing and a vision of what her father will do if she’s caught.

“Come on—this way,” calls out Amelia, stepping over cables the size of tree trunks, each color-coded to mean something to somebody.

Following the draw of a white light, they push through some double doors, out into a corridor where a man is pushing a trolley piled high with film reels. A woman in red patent high heels sashays past him in the opposite direction.

“Good morning, Miss Francis. How are you today?” the man chirps. He looks disappointed but not surprised when she doesn’t respond, and Cassie can’t help but wonder if the same exchange occurs every day.

“Hi, Fred,” says Amelia, reading his ID badge as she stops beside him. “I need to get this visitor to Studio Seven as quickly as possible.” She nods in Cassie’s direction. “What’s the best way?”

What the hell is she doing? They should be using the shadows to escape detection, not stepping directly into the light. Cassie waits for the man to make a grab for the walkie-talkie attached to his belt, sure that they’ve reached the end of the road, but instead his face lights up.

“Well, if you go down those stairs, turn right and take the second left, you’ll be able to sneak in the fire door.”

“You’re a star,” calls out Amelia.

He smiles, more to himself than to Cassie as she passes by, happy to have proven himself useful to someone.

“Oi, where do you two think you’re going?” comes a gruff voice from behind them.

Cassie’s knees buckle beneath her. She’s never had the law breathing down her neck before and she imagines that if she turns around, she’ll see a burly policeman who’ll handcuff her and march her off to the local nick.

Her heart races as they pick up the pace, their steps quickening as they follow the curve of the building.

“Stop!” comes the voice, as they get ever closer to the illuminated sign of Studio Seven.

Amelia sneaks a look back at Cassie, checking that she’s with her, before swinging the door open. The minute she does, they’re hit by a wall of sound—the drumbeat of Secret Oktober’s latest hit accompanied by the squeals of what sounds like a thousand teenagers.

Cassie can hardly breathe, though whether it’s because they’re so close or about to be hauled out of there she can’t tell. She’s just cleared the back of the seating stand and emerged into the blinding lights of the studio floor when she’s pulled backward off her feet. The last thing she sees as she’s lifted up is the very top of Ben Edwards’s head.

She can’t help but smile. She’s done her mother proud.