Max couldn’t have hoped for a smoother ride with the Sheri story. She was still pinching herself at the result.
She had explained to Sheri that Billy Brown could be caught out with a phone call but she would have to wait a week or two to make the call so that what she told him sounded authentic.
Max wondered if Sheri had left the flat since the last time she saw her. She was dressed in the same pink tracksuit, only it was even baggier on her pathetic frame than before.
‘Nice outfit,’ Sheri said, taking in Max from top to toe. ‘Paul Smith?’
‘You’ve got it.’ Max felt embarrassed. Sheri’s life was consumed by labels and guest lists. Here she was, with no proverbial pot to piss in, eyeing up Max’s cord suit. On the one hand, Max had everything crossed, hoping that her plan worked so Sheri could net a tidy sum for the story. On the other hand, she knew it would only feed the lifestyle that was destroying her, which was a depressing thought.
‘Are you sure he didn’t know who you were?’
‘Positive. I wore one of Envy’s wigs that night – all my extensions are fallin’ out. I looked half bald, so I had to. Anyway, when I saw him come out of Sketch he was all over the place – a right mess. The bouncer had fuckin’ knocked me back cos I wasn’t on the list. Bastard. His mate who’s normally on the door lets me in for a little favour, if you know what I mean.’ Sheri winked at Max, her pallid skin wrinkling beside her eyes. ‘Whatever. Doesn’t matter cos I spotted Billy, right? And I said, “Mate, you want to jump in a cab with me?” And he just followed like a puppy.’
Sheri’s hands were trembling as she reached for a rolled-up £20 note on the coffee table. Chopping a line on the mirror, she looked up as if realizing for the first time what she was doing.
‘Shit, you don’t mind, Max, do ya?’
Max had seen it plenty of times, she just hated the effect it was having on Sheri. ‘No, not at all.’
‘The dealer’s given me an extra week’s credit – I assured him I’ve got a big story in the bag.’
Kneeling on the carpet, Sheri bent over the table, the note in her nose, hoovering up two fat lines. She straightened up, wiping her nose.
‘Right, so we gets back here and he’s babbling like a crazy person. I puts on some porn – hoping that would get him in the mood and it seems to do the trick. We’re kissing and he says he feels sick so I take him through to my bedroom, give him a glass of water. He’s going on about how he’s only ever cheated once before and I have to promise not to tell anyone. Of course, I say, “Sure, honey, my lips are sealed.” He livens up at this and says, “Not too sealed, I hope,” and he pulls me on top of him. He couldn’t get enough of my tits… mind you, compared to that scrawny cow of a wife, Becci, I suppose they are a treat. So I climbs on top… and there’s no need to lie about this one, Max, he really is hung like a donkey –’
The coke seemed to have hit Sheri, who was animated now, her eyes wide and staring at Max.
‘OK,’ Max interrupted, ‘I believe you, Sheri, but in the absence of hard evidence, let’s make the call to him and then, if that works, I’ll get all the details.’
Sheri nodded obediently, sipping from a glass of water.
‘Right, call from my phone,’ Max told her. ‘The number comes up withheld so there’s no way of him tracing it or phoning back.’
Max put an earpiece with a tiny mic inside it into Sheri’s ear and pressed record on her Dictaphone.
‘OK, so you remember what to say?’
‘Yep.’
After a few seconds Sheri waved her hand excitedly in the air, signalling Billy had picked up.
‘Oh Billy, it’s, erm, Sheri ’ere. You might not remember… last week you came back to mine.’
Max had turned the volume on her phone to full so she could hear what Billy was saying.
‘Oh, right. How’d you get my number?’ He sounded guarded.
‘You gave me it,’ Sheri lied, knowing he wouldn’t be able to remember half the night. ‘Anyway, I won’t keep you long, but I have somefing I have to tell you. My period, it was late when I slept with you… and it’s still not here.’
‘What? You said you were on the fucking pill.’
Bingo! An angry Billy Brown hadn’t given a moment’s thought to his reaction, so consumed was he by anger and shock.
‘I am, darlin’,’ Sheri replied, giving Max the thumbs-up. ‘I am, but accidents happen.’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake. Give me your number and I’ll get one of my friends to call you… I’m sure we can arrange something.’ Max detected the guarded tone creeping back into Billy’s voice. ‘Listen, doll, please don’t say a word to anyone, OK?’
‘Course, sweetpea.’ Sheri gave Billy a false number, changing a couple of digits of her own – the last thing she wanted was a footballer with a grudge getting his heavies on her – then she said goodbye.
The moment she hung up Sheri jumped up and leaped on Max, hugging her with everything she had. ‘You little beauty, Max. We did it.’
Indeed they had. Max would have tomorrow’s splash and Sheri would have the thirty grand they’d agreed on to pay off her dealer, stock up on supplies and kit herself out like a WAG once more. Max asked herself if she felt bad about uncovering Billy’s exploits. After all, when the story went to print, he’d have a hell of a time – from his wife, his family and probably his manager, who liked his team to be cleaner than clean. Jeez, Max had cheated in her time so who was she to expose him? But then Max wasn’t earning millions from advertising campaigns, sponsorship deals, TV documentaries and magazines by pretending to be Britain’s Number One family guy.
A politician who banged on about family values deserved to have details of his exploits shagging his secretary or visiting a brothel laid bare. Likewise, Billy would be exposed as a hypocrite. As well the £50,000 a week he pocketed from his club, he’d made millions from his image as a family man. He’d picked up a £5-million pay cheque posing with Becci and their kids for Marks & Spencer, Gap and American Express in the last year alone, going on about how much he loved his wife and children in media campaigns. He’d even had the nerve to share some words of wisdom with the footballers who had been caught cheating, urging them to act as role models and turn their backs on temptation. Now his lies would be exposed.
Max called her boss to give her the news.
Claire wasn’t one for showing much emotion over the phone or face to face, but her voice crackled with excitement and relief.
‘Thank fuck for that. You know that tip I was working on? Well, turns out it’s bollocks. We need a good story like this.’
Max could imagine Claire biting on her well-chewed biro, typing an email to the editor spelling out the bones of the story, the phone cradled between her shoulder and chin. Every now and then she would pull her bleached white hair behind her ear, becoming a little impatient. She would be glad Max called but desperate to get off the phone so she could walk into the editor’s office with the triumphant news. Sure, it wasn’t her story but she would take credit for giving Max plenty of time to work on it, to set it up, to wine and dine her contacts.
Max had learned much from observing Claire at work in the office. Like the phone stunt she used whenever she had to make a call to a PR or agent of a star, but really didn’t want to have the conversation. Claire had taught her there was a way out.
With a really big story, reporters were obliged to run it by someone who represented the star in question the day before publication. This was, of course, fine if you wanted a comment on how the actor’s movie had smashed box-office records or the singer’s single had rocketed to number one. But there were some conversations Max dreaded having, like the one she would be having with Billy Brown’s press spokesman very soon: ‘Hi, it’s Maxine Summers from the Daily News. Having a good day? Good. Listen, just to let you know we’re running an exposé in tomorrow’s paper about how golden boy Billy has been shagging for Britain, outing him as a scumbag cheat and jeopardizing all those lucrative advertisements painting him as a family man. OK?’
The get-out ploy went as follows:
Take two phones, usually your mobile and a landline when in the office. Dial the number on both then, at the same time, press the ‘call’ button on both, thus creating an engaged signal, putting you straight through to the answer phone. Leave a message spelling out what the story is and the evidence you have and… hey presto, deed done.
Of course, the PRs usually rang back. Max always took the calls, though some reporters didn’t, reckoning they’d done their bit.
But at least the PRs had had a little time to digest the facts and there was less chance of them screaming like a banshee down the phone.
Max had transferred the trick into her personal life, cancelling dates or giving the ‘I’m really busy at work and won’t be able to see you for a few weeks’ speech to an answering machine. Cowardly, yes, but preferable to listening to some halfwit drone on about how he really cared for you and hoped you were both on the same fucking page.
Claire told Max she was a superstar. ‘The editor will love it. Well done, Max. I’ll put you through to a copytaker.’
Max was mid ‘Thanks, Claire’ when she heard the click that signalled she was being transferred. Her boss would already be sprinting as fast as her Gucci heels could carry her to the editor’s office.
‘Hi, ready? OK. “EXCLUSIVE by Maxine Summers: BILLY’S IN THE BROWN STUFF. England hero Billy Brown is today exposed as a love cheat. We can reveal the England captain has been playing away with busty glamour girl Sheri Jones. The news will devastate Billy’s pin-up pop star wife, Becci, mother of their two children…” ’
Max dictated the story expertly, breaking halfway to get a few more lurid details from Sheri.
After five hundred or so words, Max’s story was complete and she called her boss.
‘Spectacular, Max. I think we’ll splash it and run on to a four/five.’
This was as good as a story got: a dedicated front page and a double-page spread inside.
‘Maybe you’ll need more copy?’
‘Don’t worry. If I need more, I’ll get Simon or Jade to knock something up.’
Max was wary of such a scenario. She was less protective than most over bylines. But experience had taught her the hard way that a reporter might kindly offer to add a few facts to a story while she was out of the office doing another interview then, lo and behold, the next day their byline would appear alongside hers. Simon would never indulge in byline banditry, but Jade Stone, with her small, twitchy grey eyes and tight curly brown hair, was another story. She had famously done the dirty on her own boyfriend, a reporter for a rival daily, to get a scoop. After sifting through his text messages to see if he was cheating, she had stumbled across a story from a tipster telling him where Russell Brand was holding a secret party. Jade had gatecrashed the party the following night and bumped into her boyfriend, who promptly dumped her. Not that Jade cared – she got a great story that one of Russell’s movie star pals had turned down a well-known girl band singer for a threesome with two waitresses.
As if reading her mind in the few seconds of silence, Claire told Max not to worry. ‘I’ll see to it that there’s only your name on it. It’s a brilliant story and you got it – it’s all yours. Now, treat yourself to something cold, fizzy and expensive – on me.’
Maybe she had a heart after all.
‘Max,’ Sheri said the moment she had hung up, ‘any chance of getting some of the money now?’
‘Sure, Sheri. We can stop off at my office – I’ll call the finance department and ask for an advance of, say, £500 in cash?’
Sheri nodded like a child who’s been told she could lick the Angel Delight from the bowl.
‘OK, and the rest will be in your bank within three working days, just like normal.’
‘Sorted. I’m gonna get me hair done right now and go out to celebrate. You wanna come?’
Max considered the prospect of partying with Sheri, watching her gyrate in a bikini top and hot pants beside the VIP section of the latest trendy club, seeing her drag off some footballer, like a python with an oversized kill.
Max decided she’d rather pour lemon juice into a paper cut while listening to a medley of Johnny Cash’s most depressing songs. ‘Thanks, Sheri, but I’ve got plans.’
Max had plenty of options – she could call Lucy and join her for dinner with Amy; she could head to a showbiz party with Simon and get drunk as a skunk. Hell, she could even have meaningless sex with whiffy Phil. Wonder if he’d started wearing deodorant?
She longed to call Suzie, who always had a way of making her laugh, no matter how awful she felt. But she was on holiday in Spain with David and had updated her Facebook status to: ‘Suzie is… pickled on sangria in Barcelona with her fiancé.’
The last thing she needed was Max droning on about her broken heart. At times like this, she missed Suzie desperately.
Max wanted to be alone. Not quite true – she wanted to call Luke and tell him how much she thought about him, that she woke every morning with a dull ache at the memory of him.
She might have deleted his number from her phone but had forgotten they had become Facebook friends: she had received a message from him through the site back when she first started ignoring his calls and texts. She had deleted the message straight away.
Damn Facebook for showing pictures that had been tagged of him by one of his mates. She couldn’t help clicking on one of the images and there he was. So bloody gorgeous, just as she remembered. No, even better. Max felt a stab of pain as she noted the girls in the background at some party. Attractive, blonde. Fuck, what if he’d moved on? She had given him no option but to continue his life without her, but it still hurt to see him laughing, to see him getting on with things. He looked so happy. And so fit. That was the thing about Facebook. It allowed you to spy on snippets of people’s lives – the bits they wanted you to see when they were surrounded by friends, having fun. And sometimes, when you wanted to be part of that person’s life, it hurt like hell that you could only watch on your laptop from afar, your stomach churning each time you saw them. Max considered deleting Luke as a friend but it was her last remaining link to him. She could kick herself for being so weak, but she couldn’t cut the last tie.
She should be out celebrating tomorrow’s splash, but Max the party girl just couldn’t face it and that was most definitely a first. Max Off Booze shocker. This wave of sadness would pass. Luke would be a distant memory soon. He had to be – this feeling of loss was too strong to sustain.