I'll Be Home For Christmas Read online

  When Vogue (known as Paulette to her friends – which includes me, but I must admit I struggle with calling her that) – and I stitched up Jack Duncan, we used our position as leverage to get away from the clutches of his record label, Starmaker.

  It was still relatively early days, but it was going even better than we could possibly have imagined. Vogue had been wonderful enough – and generous enough – to let me feature on her last single with Starmaker, ‘Midnight’, and that had gone to the top of the charts and was still being played on radio stations around the world.

  In addition, my first single since our takeover, which had been written for me by Daniel, was a great success, which was a pretty brilliant way to launch the new label. Vogue, I knew, would also be recording some new material at some point, but, for the time being, she was concentrating on getting everything set up, and on the refurbishment of our new headquarters.

  For reasons best known to herself, she’d fallen in love with a former lap-dancing bar in Soho, and that was where I was working today.

  When you first walk into the building, it still feels a bit dark and desperate, but there is a real charm to it, I have to say. It’s mid-way through its refit, and the first area to get the star treatment was the main room in the building, which is now our reception. There is still a stage kitted out with a pole in the middle of it and I have a sneaking suspicion that late at night, when she’s on her own, Vogue lets out a few frustrations by swinging around on it. There’s a lot of dark red velvet and gold paint, and the whole place is always filled with artistically arranged floral bouquets. Lilies, roses, everything incredibly fresh and fragrant – even when it’s just us, we have the flowers. The building is a little weird, and a little edgy, but it works.

  So far, as well as the reception area, we have two recording booths, with plans for two more. The basement isn’t done yet, but, when it is, there’ll be a full dance studio and rehearsal space. Neale has his own empire down there, stocked with cosmetics and beauty equipment and wardrobe, and he’s like a kid in a toy shop with it all. I have occasionally caught him down there, sitting cross-legged on the floor, just looking around in awe, practically clapping his hands in glee.

  The former dressing rooms have been partially converted into offices, for admin, for Patty, and for the extra staff we will eventually be taking on. I say ‘we’, but I actually mean Vogue. She does consult me when she’s in two minds about somebody, but, on the whole, that’s her realm, and I’m happy with that. I’m still taking baby steps in this industry, and concentrating on the music side of things is enough for me at the moment.

  I arrived a little later than usual, as I’d made the journey in from Daniel’s place in Sussex that morning, and made my way into reception. There wasn’t any natural daylight in this area of the building when we first started – which is usual enough for a lap-dancing bar, I suppose – but, since then, the room has been opened up, spring sunlight pouring in and striping the red velvet booths and the exotic blooms.

  Our receptionist, Yvonne, was already at her post, wearing one of those phone headsets that made her look like she was directing a troupe of dancers at a Madonna gig. Yvonne is only young, twenty-one in fact, but already has that ‘Don’t Mess With Me’ face that I associate with my mother. She’s half Chinese, and looks like she could be Lucy Liu’s daughter – utterly gorgeous, in other words.

  She gave me a nod and a wave as I walked in and scribbled my name on the book we use to make sure nobody ever gets left behind in a fire, and I grinned back. The place is always at least partly full of builders at the moment, wearing their steel-toed boots and crack-revealing jeans, the smell of sawdust and work competing with the fragrance of the flowers.

  I gave them a little wave as I passed – they were on a tea break, for a change – and headed back towards the offices.

  Pausing outside the door, I took a deep breath. I knew, from the clattering sound of talons hitting a keyboard and the echoes of Swedish death metal music, that Patty, our head of marketing, who we also stole from Jack’s empire, was already there.

  Weird thing about Patty – I’m still scared of her. She’s no longer my boss in any way, shape or form, but I spent so long being terrorized by her that I still have a Pavlovian response to her presence. She’s scrawny, rude and opinionated, but she’s also brilliant at her job, which is why we brought her with us. She’s amazing at handling the press in its many forms, a strategic mastermind at social media, and a genius at marketing the bejeezus out of anything she’s asked to sell.

  For months at Starmaker, she treated me like crap – but, as ever with these things, I definitely emerged from the experience feeling a lot stronger. She also used to mock me for my Liverpool accent, claiming she could never understand a word I said, which turned out to be ironic as she was a born-and-bred Geordie who’d simply learned how to speak posh.

  When we offered her the position as head of marketing, we told her she had to start speaking like Cheryl Cole, but so far she’d refused. We also told her she had to start being more herself, rather than the shrill, cold battleaxe she’d turned herself into at Starmaker.

  The only changes I’d noticed were her clothes, and her listening tastes. She’d abandoned the streamlined suits, designer frocks and skyscraper shoes in favour of skinny jeans and Doc Marten boots, and left to her own devices played very loud music made by bands with names like Bloodbath and Necrophobic. Neither of which made her any less scary.

  I raised my hand to knock, but realized that a) she wouldn’t hear me, and b) I didn’t need to knock. This was my office too.

  I walked in, a smile plastered over my face, and sat at my desk. It’s weird, having a desk. At the end of the day I’m just a singer, but Vogue insisted I have my own space – or a bit of Patty’s space, anyway. At least for the time being, until the other offices are finished.

  The desk is decorated with framed pictures of my family and Daniel, and there’s an Elsa from Frozen bobblehead that Ruby sent me for old times’ sake.

  Patty ignored me completely, but did at least turn the volume down on a charming song where someone was screaming lyrics about sacrificing a baby to the dark lord of the underworld. This, in Patty Land, is a major concession to societal norms.

  ‘Your mother,’ she said, finally acknowledging my existence, pointing a pen at me like it was a fully-charged lightsaber, ‘is getting more coverage than you at the moment.’

  ‘Um . . . yeah. I saw that. There’s no harm, is there?’

  I hated myself for it, but there was a slightly pleading note in my voice. I really didn’t want to have to call my mum and tell her to close down her Twitter account. I’d be in her bad books for weeks, and I’d only just got back in her good ones.

  ‘Not so far. But I’ll be monitoring it closely. What are you doing here anyway? Shouldn’t you be getting a spray tan or gorging on a celery stick?’

  I clamped my lips shut, and started the now-familiar ‘Count to Ten’ routine I’ve had to adopt when dealing with Patty. She’s skinnier than Olive Oyl and has no right to comment on my appearance, but that’s never stopped her.

  I ignored her and booted up my laptop. I noticed an email from Daniel, and couldn’t help grinning when I opened it to see a whole message filled with love heart emojis. That boy!

  I closed it down, and opened up the other email. The bizarrely scary email. The one from Cooper Black, that’s been sitting in my inbox for almost a week.

  He’d also left his phone number at the bottom, and signed off with several kisses. Not quite Daniel heart emoji level, but enough to make me think. I mean, Cooper Black is not only a megastar, he’s an absolute babe. Floppy blond hair, film-star handsome face, a stomach so tight you could bounce coins off it. And I may be happily loved-up, but I’m not dead yet – no straight woman alive could fail to be impressed by him.

  ‘What’s the buzz on Cooper Black?’ I said to Patty, suddenly curious. I knew he was making his solo debut, that he’d been working
on his own material with some incredibly cool songwriters and producers, and that everyone was expecting him to completely break out of his slightly old-school boyband vibe into something more mature and hip.

  ‘World domination,’ snapped Patty, glaring at me. ‘And also, no selfies of his mother selling condoms to the unwashed masses of Liverpool.’

  ‘There was never a selfie of her selling condoms! And people in Liverpool are not unwashed, you Geordie cow!’ I snapped back. I regretted it almost as soon as I saw the smug look on her face – she knows exactly which buttons to press with me, and enjoys few things in life more than a spot of Jessika-baiting.

  She made a mooing noise in response, and turned the volume on her music right back up to ear-splitting levels.

  A quick browse of the crazy world of the internet showed me that while she was wrong about my mother and the condoms (I did check, just to be sure), she was definitely right about Cooper Black. Literally every social media platform on the planet was talking about him, there were interviews all over the mainstream media websites, and he practically had his own shrines on TMZ and E! Online. World domination indeed – the man who thought we could make beautiful music together was the hottest name in showbiz.

  It was flattering. So incredibly flattering. And exciting – I mean, which singer hasn’t dreamed of conquering America? The stadium tours and the big cities and the millions of new potential fans? I know I have. Cooper Black could be my passport to a whole new level of success, and part of me was desperate to say yes. Or at least hear him out.

  But the rest of me? I was terrified. I didn’t want to leave Daniel. I told myself it would only be for a little while, and that nothing would change, but my heart broke at the thought of being separated from him. I was staying in London that night, and even the idea of one night away from his arms was hard to deal with, never mind weeks or possibly months.

  We’re very much in love, but we’re also very much at the beginning – and things still feel fragile. I’m probably wrong to feel like that, and perhaps it’s the aftershock of Jack’s betrayal that’s left me insecure, but I can’t help it. Daniel’s never given me any reason to be worried about our future together, but I still am. I’m also worried about leaving In Vogue at such a delicate point. How would it look to the world at large if the label’s first and therefore most successful signing suddenly upped sticks and buggered off to the States? Would it make us look weak? Would it make Vogue vulnerable to gossip and speculation about what was going wrong?

  How would Vogue feel about it all, as well as Daniel? She was my mentor. She was my colleague. More than that, she was my friend – she was loyal and strong and honest. All of which were personality traits I really valued, and probably wasn’t displaying myself right now, by hiding the whole Cooper Black thing from her.

  If I did the WWVD test and asked myself What Would Vogue Do, the answer was obvious: she’d talk it through. She’d bring it out in the open. She wouldn’t pretend it had never happened, while secretly really wanting it to.

  Maybe it was time for me to do the same. And also for me to be honest with myself – because while all my concerns about Daniel and my family and Vogue and my life back here were genuine, I also had to admit that if I said no to Cooper Black – to this amazing opportunity – then perhaps I’d find myself silently resenting them for holding me back, even if they had no clue they’d done it. None of that was fair, was it? I had to sort this out.

  I signed out of all my accounts – leaving Patty in a room with access to anything personal was like tying myself to a railway track and waiting for a train – and stood up.

  ‘Where’s Vogue?’ I said.

  She glanced up at me, frowning, and made a confused ‘I can’t hear you’ gesture with her hands.

  ‘I said, where’s Vogue?’ I yelled, as loud as I could. Obviously, she chose that exact moment to turn off the music, and my very un-ladylike screeching filled the office, and possibly the whole of Soho.

  ‘No need to shout!’ she said, giving me her velociraptor smile. ‘You’re not at Anfield now! And I don’t know where Vogue is. I’m not her keeper.’

  She immediately switched the death metal back on, and I grimaced as I left the room. Served me right for engaging with her in the first place. Honestly, she’s a nightmare – at least to me. The transformation when she’s with people who matter – in other words, the media – is incredible. She literally oozes charm, instead of bile.

  I walked back out to reception, determined to at least talk about the whole Cooper Black thing with Vogue. If I kept hiding it, I’d possibly explode, and make a terrible mess all over our shiny new headquarters.

  I approached Yvonne – who always knows where everybody is, at any given moment – and was about to ask her, when I saw that she was talking into her headset, and making apologetic ‘I’m on the phone’ motions with her fingers. It was obviously my day for communicating through the power of mime.

  I waved to show her I understood, and then flicked through the guest book. The one I’d signed myself into only a few minutes earlier. Yvonne was strict about that – so if Vogue was in the building, she’d be signed in, and I’d go up to her office in the attic and track her down. It would also show if she had a visitor, so I’d know not to bother her.

  I traced my finger down the list, amazed at how many people had already signed in. All the builders. Yvonne. Neale. Patty. Vogue.

  And – I saw as I stared at it in horror – one more person. A person whose name I’d never expect to see there in a million years.

  He’d arrived at 10 a.m. The purpose of his visit was ‘meeting’. And his name was Jack Duncan.

  I was so shocked I simply froze for a moment. I hadn’t even realized I’d done it, until one of the builders shouted out to me: ‘You all right, love? Look like you’ve seen a ghost!’

  One of his mates replied: ‘A ghost wearing nipple tassels, if this place is anything to go by!’ and they all dissolved into howls of laughter.

  I tried to join in, but that part of my brain wasn’t working. I mean, I’d seen Jack since it all kicked off. It was a relatively small world that we all shared, and it was inevitable that I’d bump into him at parties and events. We always politely avoided each other – personally, I’d rather skin myself alive than spend any quality time with the man, and I suspected the feeling was mutual.

  But to see that he was here, in what I regarded as my own safe territory, was messing with my head. A head that had been pretty messed up already, to be honest.

  After the shock wore off, the anger started in. I much preferred that – it gave me the energy I needed to run up the three flights of stairs to Vogue’s office.

  Her space is located in the old eaves of the building, away from the hustle and bustle downstairs, and has a brilliant view of the busy London streets below. She’d not had it completely done yet, but the walls were stripped back to bare brick, and it was huge – three cramped old rooms converted into one big open-plan affair.

  I paused outside her door, slightly out of puff from the speed with which I’d dashed up there, and tried to gather my thoughts. I could be massively overreacting, I told myself. Vogue was not only a singer, she was a businesswoman, trying to make a success of a label in a highly competitive industry. If she was meeting with Jack Duncan, she must be thinking that he could be useful. That she could use him in some way. It didn’t necessarily mean anything at all – music people had meetings all the time; their whole days were filled with pointless cups of coffee and empty schmoozing.

  All of these very reasonable thoughts were chased out of my mind by one sound: the sound of laughter. Vogue and Jack, giggling away with each other behind that frosted-glass door, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

  I knocked once, sharply, and pushed the door open without waiting for a reply. They were sitting together on Vogue’s faux zebra-print couch, and they were sitting way closer than the average business meeting usually required.
r />   Vogue’s eyes opened so wide they were the size of UFOs, and Jack jumped to his feet, spilling coffee on his jeans as he did. It probably scalded his thighs – or at least I hoped so.

  He looked good, I had to admit. Still the same stylish dark brown hair; the same chocolate-drop eyes. The same stylishly casual clothes that screamed money. Still the same gym-buff body, and, most importantly, still the same slightly arrogant expression on his face.

  ‘Jessy!’ he said, at least having the good grace to look a bit flustered.

  ‘That’s Jessika to you,’ I said coldly, standing with my hands on my hips and staring him down. ‘I’m only Jessy to my friends.’

  There was an incredibly awkward pause then, and Jack scurried around gathering up papers and his phone and stuffing them into his leather manbag. Vogue was looking at me with pleading eyes, but stayed silent as he prepared to leave. I stayed stubbornly in the door frame for a moment, half tempted to wrestle him to the floor, until he shimmied past me and escaped.

  ‘Erm . . . nice to see you again. I look forward to working with you,’ he said, as he disappeared off down the staircase.

  Working with me? I thought. What the hell did that mean? The only way I’d want to work with Jack Duncan again was if he had a sudden fall from grace and had a new career as a toilet cleaner. Even then, I’d need to wear rubber gloves every time I flushed the loo.

  I was furious. And confused. And pissed off – I thought that Vogue had always been honest with me. Now I was starting to suspect the exact opposite.

  I closed the door quietly behind him – refusing to give him the satisfaction of hearing an angry slam – and turned to face Vogue.

  Vogue is black, gorgeous and generously proportioned. She’s almost six feet tall and rocking Naomi Campbell meets Marilyn Monroe vibe. Usually, in the office, she’s make-up free and dressed down – and still looks stunning. Today, I noticed, she was in full slap, wearing her green contacts, and dressed to kill in leather trousers and high-heeled boots. I was guessing that she hadn’t chosen that outfit to impress the builders. Frankly, they were impressed by anybody with boobs.