Love Lies

‘Yes, I do.’

‘But you don’t want to talk about your party?’

‘No.’

‘Nor about how hot you are?’

‘No!’

‘Well, what then?’

‘About us.’

‘Us? What have we got to do with you turning thirty?’ Adam can no longer resist his pork chow mein with rainbow fried rice; he shovels the forkful of food into his mouth.

‘Why aren’t we married?’

I hadn’t meant to ask this so bluntly, and I immediately regret doing so when Adam’s rice makes its second appearance as he spits and splutters all over me. I pick grains from my hair as he downs his bottle of beer. Both of us are wondering what he’s going to say next.

‘Married? You want to get married,’ he says finally. Sadly, it isn’t a question.

‘Yes. Well, maybe. Eventually.’ I realize that it’s far too late for me to be coy but I back-pedal a little all the same, since his initial response is not what any girl would describe as encouraging. ‘I want us to talk about it, at least. I want to know whether it’s what you want or something you might ever want.’

‘Right,’ says Adam.

We both fall silent for what feels to be about a week until I clarify, ‘I mean I want to talk about it now.’

‘Oh, oh, OK, right,’ he says again. There’s more silence. After seemingly another week or so Adam asks, ‘And you want to get married because you are thirty?’

The silence has wounded me. The alcohol which initially fired me with enough confidence to broach the subject is now hurtling me towards sulky self-pity. I find I can’t explain my thoughts properly. For weeks I’ve been endlessly pondering why exactly I feel a compulsion to marry Adam. I’ve considered the fact that we are no

‘Everyone else is getting married.’

‘Oh, right, so everybody else is doing it. That’s a great reason to make the biggest commitment of our lives,’ says Adam with obvious sarcasm. He shakes his head and asks, ‘Like who?’

‘Like Pete and Tanya, like Eliza and Greg, like Will and Zoe.’ I reel off the list of names of our friends that have got engaged in the last month.

‘Would you jump off a bridge just because Tanya, Eliza or Zoe did?’ he demands, sounding just like a grade three teacher talking to a child. I ignore him.

‘Like, just about every woman who walks into my shop. I could do the flowers for our wedding,’ I wail.

I’m a little bit shamefaced to admit it but I have spent quite a lot of time day-dreaming about our wedding. I have not planned every last detail – not quite – but I’ve certainly drawn the broad brush-strokes. I’ve picked out a dress, a menu, and I know we’ll be having fat pink peonies as the centrepiece flower to all arrangements.

‘Jesus, Fern, we can’t get married just so you can showcase your flower-arranging skills.’

‘You’re being bloody stupid, I didn’t say that. I’m just saying that we could save some money if I did the flowers. Weddings are expensive.’

‘This isn’t about the money,’ yells Adam. He throws

My heart dives to the pit of my belly. I’d rather hoped it was about the money. I was hoping that Adam had secretly given the idea of our nuptials as much thought as I had but just hadn’t got round to popping the question because he was worried that we’d never have enough cash to do the whole wedding thing properly. Apparently not. The problem with it not being about the money is that it means his non-popping of the question must be motivated by something much more sinister and devastating.

Adam doesn’t want to marry me.

Adam doesn’t love me?

Having surmised this much I know I should now just clamp my mouth closed and retreat with the tiny shreds of dignity left available to me, but while my brain is calculating that this is definitely the best course of action, my tongue – the current impetuous ruling power – runs on unchecked.

‘My mum always said no man ever buys the cow if he can drink the milk for free,’ I wail.

‘Oh, lovely,’ says Adam with mocking tones. ‘A gorgeous image, I can’t wait to curl up with that one tonight.’

‘Well, she was right, wasn’t she?’ Of course I want him to say that no, my mother was wrong, and I want him to take me in his arms, stroke my back and tell me everything is going to be OK. He doesn’t, so I trample on. ‘I want commitment, I want a wedding, I want babies. I want something to look forward to. Something to happen.’ With every demand I make I can almost hear our relationship being

With that I finally shut my mouth but it’s too late. Adam looks shocked and fatally wounded. He’s staring at me as though he hardly recognizes me. Right now, I hardly care.

‘Is that really what you think?’

‘Yes. We’re treading water and I don’t have time for this any more, Adam. I’m thirty next week. I have a biological clock to reckon with. I’m telling you it’s up to the next level or get out.’ I hadn’t meant to say as much.

‘You can’t threaten me. You can’t put an ultimatum on a relationship,’ he yells back at me.

‘I can do as I bloody well like, and I’m telling you, Adam, if there’s no big shiny rock presented to me on my birthday then it’s the last birthday we’ll be celebrating together. Marry me or move out.’

The last words spurt into our lives with the devastation of a tsunami. I pant with fury and frustration. I regret the words but believe in them at the same time. It’s complicated. Besides, it hardly matters what I did or did not mean to say. The fact is I’ve just issued my boyfriend with an ultimatum. An ultimatum with a very short deadline and a dire ‘failure to comply’ clause.

I hastily pick up the plates and manically start to tidy up the kitchen. I toss rice and congealed leftovers into

He is truly petrified.

3. Scott

Some people think it might just happen. Fame and that. That you’ll just stumble on it. Or that someone will hand it over, that’s the Simon Cowell effect, that is. But I always knew finding fame took more than that. It needed plans, schemes and determination. It needed energy. When I’m pissed I don’t have much energy and I forget plans. So I had to stop getting pissed. Because to lose it all now, well, it would be a damn shame. It would.

The other thing people don’t realize is that it’s a violent toil making art. It’s far too easy to lose your nerve. People who aren’t good enough rarely realize it. Others who are good enough don’t believe it. You have to believe in everything. In luck, in your fans, but mostly in yourself.

When I was fifteen I got a Saturday job in a butcher shop. I needed extra money for clothes and records and stuff that makes life bearable. Nothing could be as ugly as chopping meat. For twelve months all I smelt was blood. Even when I was nowhere near the fuckin’ shop I smelt of blood. The bloke I worked for was an arse. I had to wear green nylon trousers and a green checked dickie bow. There was no amity or fun. Nan thought being a butcher was a good trade: ‘You never see a skinny butcher.’ (Yeah, but who wants to be fat?) She thought I should suck up to the arse that was my boss so he’d take me on full-time after my GCSEs. Mum didn’t disagree,

But I do believe in myself, except when I don’t. I do when I’m up there on stage and women are flinging their bras and morals at me. Then I know I’m a god. Trick is, not to think too carefully about exactly what sort of god I might be because then you stop believing in yourself and it’s possible you might drown in your own vomit (the default end for a rock star).

When I think back about how I got here, I am not surprised. People say, ‘A lad from Hull, here with all of this! Who’d have thought?’ They say that all the time and they are surprised. But I tell you who’d have thought. I’d have thought. The wall-to-wall open legs, the millions in the bank, the swimming-pool