pop industry in front of Adam but I’m on fairly solid ground with this one. For one, Adam is not here (which is why I’ve been driven to drink and the imaginary arms of Scottie Taylor), and for two, this opinion is pretty much accepted as fact. You could ask any woman in Britain, aged between fifteen and fifty, and she’d agree.
Scottie is the man every woman wants to fix and fuck. He shot to fame fifteen years ago when he was just seventeen years old. Women my age have grown up with him; he’s an institution. He was recruited by a pop mogul to join a girl band, X-treme, an obvious publicity stunt when X-treme were battling for chart supremacy against the Spice Girls. Despite the gimmick of introducing Scottie to the band, X-treme died a death and no one can even name any of the other band members now. I think one of them (the redhead) is a presenter on a Sky shopping channel, I spotted her when I was mindlessly flicking once; she’s put on a lot of weight. The other three are occasionally papped coming out of the Priory or Primark. But none of them have even dared threaten a comeback tour. It’s generally accepted there wasn’t a platform to come back from. It was different for Scottie. As X-treme became more ex-dream, Scottie became bigger and bigger. After just two pop hits with the band he was approached by a new manager and went solo. As Scottie climbed to number one, you could hear the nails being hammered into X-treme’s coffin.
He’s an incredibly talented songwriter and vocalist but besides that he’s needy, sexy, beautiful and has the most filthy grin in history. Despite sleeping with pretty much every gorgeous woman in the pop world, plus a fair number of models and film stars, he is resolutely single and as such the perfect fantasy man. Just what I need right now to ease the tedium of being ignored by Adam.
I put on his latest CD and turn the volume up high.
The thing is, it can go either way with music. Sometimes it’s life-affirming and uplifting; other times it can plunge you into the deepest, darkest doldrums. By the time I’ve downed two-thirds of the bottle of Chardonnay I’m beginning to feel horny and hurt; a lethal combination. Scottie is crooning some love ballad, or more accurately some hate ballad. Something about knowing when love has made a dash for the door and love not living here any more. I start to swirl the lyric around my mind with the same seriousness I would if I was grappling with the monumental questions like: Why are we here? Why don’t you ever see a baby pigeon? Why are yawns contagious?
The hardest thing to bear about my live-in relationship with Adam is not the mess he makes, or the unsociable hours he works, or his lack of focus on his career. The hardest thing is I love him and I have to wonder, does he still love me? That’s why I’m often grumpy and bored. I don’t feel special. I think there’s a serious danger that our love has made a dash for the door. I sometimes think Adam and I are more used to each other than mad about each other. How depressing. The orange glow of an August sunset fills the room with a pale amber hue and yet I feel distinct shivers scuttle up and down my spine.
2. Fern
I can’t help thinking that if Adam loved me as much as I love him, or as much as he used to, or as much as I want him to, or whatever, then things would be different. Things would feel more exquisitely special, distinctly not ordinary. Plus he’d follow basic instructions. I mean he’d stay in on the one night of the week that I ask him to, wouldn’t he? He’d occasionally squirt a bit of Fairy liquid over the dishes in the sink or put his smelly trainers in the wardrobe, wouldn’t he? He’d ask me to marry him.
Wouldn’t he?
There, I’ve said it. It’s out there. I am that pathetic, that old-fashioned, that un-liberated. I want the man I love, who I’ve been with for four years, to ask me to marry him. Tell me, ladies and gentlemen, am I so unreasonable?
Part of me is ashamed that after everything the bra-burning brigade did on behalf of my sex, I still can’t shift the secret belief that if