Miss Wrong and Mr Right

‘When do you have to go into hospital?’ I asked.

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ I repeated.

  ‘Yes, the doctors want to operate before it grows any bigger,’ she said. I studied her face, trying to find the words…

  ‘Is it…?’ I asked. Gran nodded.

  ‘Oh no!’ I cried, putting my hand to my mouth.

  ‘My darlink, the doctor is confident it can be treated…’

  ‘Oh Gran!’

  ‘I hev put it off for years, but I must hev a bunionectomy,’ she said. I went and grabbed a tissue from the box by the telly and stopped.

  ‘Hang on, a bunionectomy? An operation on your bunion? On your foot?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘I thought you meant you had something serious!’

  ‘It is serious, Natalie. Vat if it goes wrong? I might never vear high heels again! Imagine, the rest of my life in flat shoes! And there is a long recuperation, six weeks at least.’

  ‘So, if you’re going in tomorrow, where will you recuperate?’ I asked.

  ‘Vith you, my darlink…’ she said.

  ‘What about Spain?’

  ‘There is no Spain for me anymore, Natalie. No home. I am bankrupt. I came here because I hev nowhere else to go…’

  I looked at her suitcases piled up behind the telly.

  ‘How?’ I asked.

  ‘Stefan. He financed his films in my name. Last May he said he vas going to Cannes, and he never came back. I couldn’t keep up the repayments. ‘

  I just stared at her.

  ‘So, I go in tomorrow morning for bunionectomy. I am vat is called a health tourist.’

  I spied a letter on the coffee table. It was addressed to me, but had been opened. I picked it up and scanned the contents. It was from Rossi’s organic store on Raven Street.

  ‘You’ve no money, yet you open an account in my name with Rossi’s and I get a bill for three hundred pounds!’ I said.

  ‘I vill pay you when I hev more money! I told you I vanted to treat you.’

  ‘Three hundred pounds! You just gave Xander fifty quid. Have you got money, or not?’

  ‘Natalie, vat is this hostile tone?’

  ‘Hostile tone? There’s a bloody Tesco Metro up the road.’

  ‘A vat?’

  ‘A supermarket. Do you know these words, supermarket? Bills? Or do you live in a world where you think you’re a fading princess from the Ottoman Empire?’

  ‘Natalie, of all the people in my life, you are the one I thought I could turn to. You just said vat ever I need, you could stand by me!’

  ‘That was when I thought you had a terminal disease, not bloody bunion troubles!’

  ‘I know my timing is bad…’

  ‘Oh, you think?’

  ‘I vas going to tell you when I arrived, and then you had the problem with the pigeons… and the Benjamin… And then I had the idea for you to bring Ryan to the christening. I thought if I could find you a handsome man, everything could be okay…’

  ‘So you think it will all be solved by a man? Well, I’ve got news for you Gran, some of us make our own way in life!’

  I slammed down the glass of brandy, grabbed my bag, and left the flat.

  I walked and tried to clear things up in my head. I went down to the Thames Embankment and leant on the rail beside the river. There was a light breeze, and I watched the clipper boats, low in the water, swishing past packed with tourists. A tugboat chugged along in the middle, belching out smoke and pulling a huge flat rusting barge. My phone rang, and I pulled it from my bag. It was my mother.

  ‘Dad has looked through the CCTV pictures from the camera on the back field. There was a fat little man with a baseball cap and a camera, lurking about all yesterday afternoon,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, that sounds like the guy,’ I said. I then told her about Gran.

  ‘I knew something was going on,’ said Mum. ‘A few weeks ago her Spanish mobile was cut off. She told me she’d dropped it in a vat of paella at the Mardi Gras… How much does she owe?’

  ‘I didn’t get that far. I shouted at her, and left the flat.’

  ‘Now, Natalie. This might surprise you to hear it, but your Gran, under all those inappropriate clothes, and dubious morals is an ally,’ said Mum.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She would never turn her back on you. Don’t turn your back on her.’

  ‘If she is such an ally, couldn’t she phone and say she was coming to live with me for three months? She just landed at Heathrow and reversed the charges!’

  ‘Natalie. She’s old and proud, and she’s never got over your Granddad dying. I think this crazy life she leads is driven by grief, and the hope that round the corner she’ll find happiness again.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ I said.

  ‘Well, you do now. And if she loses you, well I don’t know what she’d do. Don’t forget Natalie, she was the one who took you to London. I know I made a fuss at the time, but it was the best thing she could have done for you after that wedding malarkey.’

  ‘I didn’t know you cared so much about her,’ I said.

  ‘Of course I care about my own mother! Just don’t you dare tell her that,’ said Mum.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Promise me you will go home now and tell her she is welcome to stay. We can sort out the rest. I can come up to London and help out, and if money is tight, well, we can help with that too.’

  ‘Thanks Mum,’ I said.

  ‘And I’m sorry about this Ryan. You looked like you were fond of him.’

  ‘I don’t know. He’s a famous actor with issues. I should have known better.’

  ‘You know, we’re very proud of you Natalie. You went to London with nothing and now you’re your own boss.’

  ‘I don’t know how much longer I will be, after this,’ I said.

  ‘Well, fight Natalie. You fight for what’s yours and don’t let anyone get the better of you.’ There was a ping in the background. ‘That’s my sponge cake in the oven…’

  ‘You go, Mum, thank you.’

  ‘Chin up love,’ she said, and she was gone.

  I hung by the Thames for a while. I wondered how many people over the hundreds of years must have stood on its banks, with problems, big or small, or seemingly insurmountable? At the time they must have felt huge. And now they were dust. Their problems came and went and still the river flows. It’s all just memories.

  A group of guys dressed in hot pants and angel wings walked past laughing, on their way back from the Gay Pride parade. I took a deep breath, and went home.

  When I got back, Gran was lugging a suitcase to join a pile in the hall. She was red in the face and her foot was obviously giving her pain.

  ‘I vill be out of your hairdo soon,’ said Gran.

  ‘Where are you going to go?’

  She blew her cheeks out, trying to come up with an answer. I put my hand on hers.

  ‘Stay. I’m sorry. It’s been an emotional day, and I overreacted,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t vant an old vooman on your sofa for three months,’ she said.

  ‘But you’re not just any old vooman. You’re my Gran. And I think three months with you on my sofa could be fun…’

  ‘Vat about gentleman callers?’ she asked.

  ‘You can use my bed, no problem,’ I said.

  ‘Not me! YOU,’ she laughed.

  ‘I think I’m going to abstain from gentlemen callers. The ones who knock at my door always seem to be trouble. Please. Stay.’

  Gran stopped fiddling with her cases.

  ‘What made you change your mind?’

  ‘I went for a walk down to the Thames,’ I said.

  ‘Did you drink the vater?’ she said eyeing me suspiciously.

  ‘No, I didn’t drink the water. I realised I was wrong. You looked after me when I needed help. Now I’m doing the same for you.’

  ‘Vat if I die?’ she asked.

  ‘Then I hope
I get first dibs on your jewellery box,’ I said. Gran stayed serious. ‘I’m being crass, sorry. You are not going to die,’ I added. I grabbed her in a hug and kissed the top of her head.

  ‘I have to be at the hospital at six tomorrow,’ she said.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘And if I do die, you are responsible for dressing my corpse. If your mother is in charge she vill make me look like Dot Cotton, on her vey to buy a tomato juice at the Queen Vic!’

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Now let’s move your cases back and have a drink.’

  Postal code

  That night I had a vivid dream.

  I was sitting with Ryan in the back of a huge stretch limousine. He was wearing a tuxedo. My mother was there also, sitting down the front next to the driver’s partition. She was boiling a kettle to make us tea.

  ‘It won’t be a moment!’ said my Mum, surrounded by steam. ‘This water needs a good boil. I don’t trust water from abroad.’

  ‘This is Los Angeles, Mrs Love,’ said Ryan. I opened my powder compact and saw in the mirror that my hair was a huge frizzy wig.

  ‘Do you take milk and sugar, Ryan?’ asked Mum.

  ‘Do I take milk and sugar, Natalie?’ asked Ryan.

  ‘And how do you like your gravy, Ryan? Natalie, how does Ryan like his gravy? When I got married, that was the first thing my mother-in-law taught me… gravy!’ trilled Mum.

  I looked down and saw I was wearing a wedding dress. The dress we’d burned.

  ‘Are we getting married?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ grinned Ryan. ‘We’ve just got to make a stop on the way,’ he added tipping his head behind us. I looked over the back seat. The limousine had turned into a hearse. Gran lay in a coffin with her eyes closed. She was ghostly pale and holding flowers.

  ‘Gran’s dead?’ I said.

  ‘That bunion got the better of her, she died on the operating table,’ tutted Mum. ‘It was her own fault, she spent her life wearing silly shoes.’

  I climbed over the seat and touched Gran’s face. It was cold.

  The back of the limousine opened and Jamie stood, surrounded by steam. He was dressed in his morning suit, and he held out his hand.

  ‘Natalie, come. They’re waiting for us in church,’ he said.

  ‘I’m getting married,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, you’re getting married to me,’ he said. ‘I’m the one, I’ve always been the one.’

  Gran opened her eyes and sat up slowly in the coffin.

  ‘Natalie, take these flowers,’ she said holding them out to me. ‘Vat do I need them for? I’m dead Natalie. Dead…’

  I woke with a yell and sat up, sweating. My alarm was going off. It was five o’clock. I sat back gulping and trying to catch my breath. I was drenched in sweat. There was a tap at my door and Gran poked her head round,

  ‘Morning, my darlink, are you okay?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I try to make us coffee, but your machine!’

  ‘It’s the capsules, I’ll come and make us a cup,’ I said.

  The roads were quiet as we drove towards Guy’s and St. Thomas’s Hospital. It was a grey day and a light drizzle covered the windscreen. I turned on the wipers and they dragged across the glass with a squeal.

  ‘If I die on the operating table, I vant to be buried in my green dress,’ announced Gran.

  ‘Don’t be daft. You are not going to die,’ I said remembering my dream, her dead face talking to me.

  ‘And I don’t vant a vash and set. Some morticians just know how to do one kind of hairstyle. I don’t vant to be lying there looking like any old biddy…’

  ‘Gran…’

  ‘And you vill do my make-up. Chanel red lipstick, Givenchy powder, and eye make-up like yours.’

  ‘Gran!’

  ‘I’m putting it all here in the glove compartment,’ she said pulling out a little clear make-up bag and popping it in. ‘And if I die before they finish, make sure they sew my foot up. I vant to be buried in heels… you promise.’

  ‘Gran, please,’ I said my eyes beginning to well up.

  ‘Promise me, Natalie!’

  ‘Okay. Yes, I promise. But you are not going to die!’ I insisted.

  I found a parking space and then we made our way into the hospital. When Gran was settled in her cubicle on the ward, a doctor appeared and closed the curtains behind him. He was very handsome with dark eyes.

  ‘My, the NHS has improved since I was here last,’ said Gran sitting up and patting her hair. The doctor took out a felt-tip pen and explained the operation. How he would cut out the piece of protruding bone in her big toe, which was causing the bunion, and then reset the foot.

  ‘It’s a very simple, routine procedure, so nothing to concern you. One of the nurses will phone you after the operation,’ said the doctor. Then he moved onto the next cubicle leaving Gran with a scribble of felt tip pen on her foot.

  ‘Natalie, look at that,’ she whispered.

  ‘At what?’ I asked.

  ‘That big toe he has drawn on my big toe…Is that how my new toe vill look? It’s crap, even I can draw better…’

  ‘He’s not an artist, he’s a surgeon.’

  ‘Thank God he’s not doing my tits! Imagine the kind of tit he’d draw?’

  ‘Gran, it’s fine,’ I said.

  ‘No, I vant to vear all of my nice shoes after this operation. Vat if I end up vith a huge toe like a Cumberland sausage? Go and find him, bring him back…’

  With a red face, I called the doctor back. He was very nice, and explained that the toe he’d drawn was just for guidance, and that as well as being a surgeon he was a keen amateur painter. He summoned a nurse, who removed the felt tip ink from Gran’s foot with an alcohol wipe, and he then redrew a much neater toe.

  ‘Perfect, a toe Sophia Loren vould be proud of,’ smiled Gran admiring his handiwork. The doctor grinned and went back to the next cubicle.

  ‘I still vouldn’t buy one of his paintings,’ muttered Gran in a low voice.

  ‘Do you want me to stay with you? I can take the day off work,’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t fuss Natalie,’ said Gran, settling down and opening a copy of Vogue. ‘They knock me out, do the operation and I vake up. Bobby’s your uncle. Now go to vork, I’m fine.’

  I gave her a kiss and then made my way back to the car. I switched on my phone, seeing I had two missed calls from Sharon. Then it began to ring, it was Nicky.

  ‘Morning Nat, where are you?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m at the hospital,’ I said.

  ‘So you’ve already heard?’

  ‘Heard what?’ I asked.

  ‘About Ryan.’

  ‘No, I haven’t heard about Ryan. I’m dropping Gran off.’

  ‘Okay, so Ryan, in his infinite wisdom, went out last night to a Gay Pride after-party at the Shadow Lounge. He got so drunk that an ambulance had to be called.’

  ‘Is he okay?’

  ‘Yes, he’s in a private hospital, which we’re paying for. He has a small amount of alcohol poisoning, but they think he will be fine after a few days on a drip…’

  ‘Great,’ I sighed.

  ‘There’s more. The Gay Pride after-party was hosted by our friends at The Big O. The concierge from Ryan’s hotel said that Brendan O’Connor sent a car round to collect him.’

  ‘That bastard,’ I said.

  ‘And there’s pictures of Ryan drunk and out of it at the party on the Mail, Mirror, Sun and Express online.’

  ‘I’ll be at the office asap,’ I said.

  I drove home as fast as I dared and dropped off the car. I then ran over to the theatre. The doors of The Big O were shut, and our video of Ryan was still playing on the screens. The regular group of Ryan fans were blocking the main entrance. And I had to shove them out of the way to get to the door. One middle-aged woman handed me a pound of grapes and a get well soon card.

  ‘See Ryan gets these,’ she ordered.

  ‘I’m not a delivery service,’ I snapp
ed, thrusting the paper bag of grapes back at the woman. One of our security guys opened the door for me, and I squeezed my way inside.

  The Macbeth cast were all waiting in the bar, but I went straight up to the office. Byron, Craig, Nicky and Xander sat pensively in the open-plan office.

  ‘The cast are downstairs. What’s going on?’ I asked, putting down my bag and pulling out my laptop.

  ‘I’ve had Terri, Ryan’s manager on the phone,’ said Nicky. ‘She wants to get him into rehab, which would be a disaster for us. We can’t spare him for thirty days.’

  ‘Shit!’ I said.

  ‘Terri is coming at it from an American perspective,’ said Craig.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Nicky.

  ‘We have a different view of drinking in the UK. Several of my friends have had alcohol poisoning after a big night out. No one ever told them they should go to rehab,’ explained Craig.

  ‘Ryan is in AA, he’s got a sponsor,’ I said.

  ‘Let’s just hold off until he’s out of hospital. I can rehearse without him for a few days,’ added Craig hopefully.

  ‘Yis, we can go over all the bits Ryan isn’t in,’ agreed Byron.

  ‘What other choice do we have?’ I said. I looked to Nicky and she nodded.

  ‘Keep us posted,’ said Craig.

  ‘Oh, and remind the cast that they signed confidentiality agreements, you know how actors love to gossip,’ I said.

  ‘I will devote today’s housekeeping session to making this viry clear,’ said Byron gravely, and she went off with Craig to get the actors.

  For the rest of the morning we were in damage limitation mode, trying to tempt the press with positive stories about Ryan. We didn’t have many takers.

  One picture in particular had been picked up by all the news agencies. It was taken of Ryan sat in a booth at the Shadow Lounge, slumped back in his seat with his eyes rolling back. He was surrounded by unconcerned people, partying, the table in front of him littered with drinks.

  ‘We should visit him in hospital,’ I said, thinking about the fan outside the theatre with the pound of grapes.