Love Lies

snowstorm – it’s sunny but you get my point), and the actress providing the love interest, Amanda Amberd, is a delicate and fragile British beauty, currently linked with no fewer than three Hollywood heart-throbs – all of whom are married. The press are desperate to inspect this precocious seducer, the fashionable need to know which designer she’s wearing, and the wives of her (alleged) lovers want to know if her boobs are fake.

Scott and I don’t talk in the car; he hums a tune (one of his own) and drums his fingers on the creamy leather. I pray I won’t sweat, or step on the hem of my dress or flash an inelegant amount of leg as I get out of the car (by which I mean show my Spanx bodyshaper). Saadi’s first assistant has drilled me on exactly how to glide gracefully in and out of a car. She repeatedly reinforced the fact that if I forget her instructions it is the end of the world as we know it; instant social death, as my knickers are not Agent Provocateur, La Perla or similar. If they were then it wouldn’t matter if a speedy photographer got a flash of my gusset.

Saadi breaks the silence in the car when she says to any comment about Amanda Amberd.’

I stare at Saadi, puzzled. ‘What sort of comment could I make? Who would want to know what I think of her frock?’

‘You don’t know?’ Saadi looks both dispirited and resigned. ‘I thought you were up on celeb goss, at least.’ It’s become transparent that I fail to fulfil many of Saadi’s expectations as to how a future Mrs Taylor should manage herself. I can’t get the hang of the remote controls for the TVs, stereos, walls, or cinema, I am forever forgetting to re-apply lipstick before I nip out of the house and I thank shop assistants – profusely. She glowers at me, silently communicating her irritation at this new disappointment.

I do read many of the gossipy glossies but not as regularly as I’d like (I’ve heard other women say the same thing about the FT but I don’t believe them, no one can regret the lack of broadsheet gloomy statistics in their life). I usually only get the chance to fully devour these orgies of guesswork and hearsay when the shop is quiet and Ben and I need something new to bitch about; during busy periods I can go for weeks completely oblivious about which star is avoiding which food group.

‘Why? What’s the story with Amanda Amberd?’ I ask.

‘Last February… a few months after Scott arrived in LA, he went to one of Amanda’s premieres…’ Saadi trails off and looks at Scott. He stares out of the window, watching the crowds that line the street. The crowds can’t see him. The windows of the limo are blacked out and

‘February is Valentine’s. It’s hectic in the shop. I don’t get a chance to read magazines.’ I start to justify and excuse my ignorance and then something flickers in the back of my head as though a light has been switched on in a room down a very, very far-off corridor. Amanda Amberd was linked to Scott. Romantically.

‘Just a fling,’ mutters Scott. He snatches up my hand and holds it to his lips, staring very keenly into my eyes. ‘Nothing, nothing like this. Like us,’ he says intently.

I believe him. It’s true. I know it. It feels as though I’ve dived right into his two huge green lakes and am swimming around his brain. I might float away on this amazing, certain, flattering, overpowering exquisiteness. We kiss. The intensity lights up my entire body. Whoosh, I’m scalding, burning, blazing with desire. I feel it in my toenails and in the tips of my ears, all my extremities are buzzing with lust. I’m wet with longing.

‘Whatever,’ sighs Saadi. Coughing, no doubt slightly embarrassed by our palpable passion. You can taste sex in the air or at least, I can. ‘Just don’t be drawn. Amanda had to go into rehab after Scott dumped her, the scheduling of the film slipped, it cost the studio loads of money. Questions will be asked.’

I pull out of the kiss. ‘She had to go into rehab after a fling?’ I’m confused; I thought these starlets knew the

‘Broke the cardinal rule,’ says Scott with a regretful sigh. ‘Poor girl. I had no idea.’

‘She fell in love with him for real,’ says Saadi with a shrug. ‘Very inconvenient. Tricky to handle. She’s popular. Scott was in danger of looking like a total louse.’

‘I really had no idea,’ repeats Scott. He looks genuinely aghast. I pity him. With so much fabulousness comes great power. He doesn’t get it.

‘Poor girl,’ I mutter.

‘Worked out OK in the end,’ says Saadi confidently. ‘She lost eighteen pounds thanks to stress. The movie got tonnes of pre-release PR. No harm done.’

‘Maybe we shouldn’t be here tonight,’ I suggest, carefully. It seems really insensitive. Cruel almost. It is Amanda Amberd’s big night and I just can’t accept any woman, even an actress, would believe that losing eighteen pounds compensated for the loss of Scott. She must still be gutted. The last thing she needs tonight, or probably ever, is to see Scott again – especially with his new fiancee. Me. We can’t rub her nose in it. ‘We should turn round, go home,’ I say.

‘But you wanted to show off your new dress,’ says Scott.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘I’ve worked all afternoon talking to the studio to get this cleared,’ says Saadi irritably. ‘Amanda is expecting Scott now, the press are expecting Scott now; we can’t go home. That would be a bigger snub and scandal.’

I’m doubtful, but this isn’t my world. Or rather it is, but it hasn’t been for long. It’s much more Saadi’s world. She knows what she’s doing, I have to trust her. Scott squeezes my hand. ‘She’s linked to other names now,’ he reminds me.

Yes. Three of them. All married men. If that isn’t the sign of a lost, confidence-sapped individual I don’t know what is. Why would a woman as talented, beautiful and desired as Amanda Amberd dally with married men unless her self-esteem was in ribbons?

Then I think of the poor wives of Amanda’s lovers and all my sympathy is brushed away. Amanda Amberd should not be spreading the hurt. Single people date and then split up, that’s normal. Sad but true. She must be a selfish, uppity little madam to choose the route of dating married men. She doesn’t have to, she must have potential suitors tripping over themselves to impress her; it’s spiteful and irresponsible. Sod her, she doesn’t deserve my sympathy, pity or consideration; she’s not showing any to those wives.

‘I don’t care either way,’ says Scott with a filthy, distracting, utterly fabulous smile. ‘I’m just going to look at you all night anyhow. It doesn’t matter to me whether we do that in Grauman’s or at home.’

More kissing. ‘Let’s go,’ I say.

Saadi looks relieved.

Apparently there is etiquette or at least an unwritten rule about the correct time to arrive at functions such as these. Of course there is. There’s an unwritten rule about everything. I wish someone would just write down all the blinking rules and I could learn them off by heart and not have to be subjected to the continuous eye- rolling

Saadi is given a signal and our moment has arrived. I step out and am hit by a blast of warm air and manic noise from screaming crowds. The intensity nearly knocks me over; I thought I had a clear concept of just how loud human beings could get (after all, I do faithfully attend my nieces’ and nephews’ birthday parties; I’ve been in a room with twenty little four-year-olds jacked up on Smarties), but still I’m astonished.

I (elegantly and successfully – hurrah) emerge, Scott glued to me. The warmth of him incites the giddiest feelings of pure, undiluted bliss and suddenly I’m not nervous, or tense or panicky; I am amazing.

A lot of the press are European. Because Amanda Amberd and James McAvoy are British there’s a lot of interest in this film back home. This works well for Scott, as the British press love him. Or hate him. Or whatever. It’s fair to say they want to photograph him and talk to him. I know Scott moved to the States to get away from the constant press intrusion and carve out some sort of private life, but it would be awful to turn up to a public event like this and not be recognized. The calls come thick and fast. I hardly know which way to turn.

‘Over here, love!’

‘Look this way!’

‘Fern, are you excited? Is this your first premiere?’

‘Give me a beam, darlin’!’

The Americans are impossibly positive and vibrant; even though I get the sense that they don’t recognize Scott immediately they take their lead from the UK press and tourists and they give out wild, relentless cheers. I’ve seen for myself, when watching similar events at Leicester Square on the local news at home in London, that generally rock stars don’t smile for their fans or the press. They are pretty much duty-bound to be eternally grumpy and dour. Indeed, I’ve seen photos of Scott papped with a face like thunder, but not tonight. Tonight, Scott is