has exquisite taste.’ I hold up a jade wrap dress and look at myself in the mirror. Just my colour.
‘No. More likely one of Saadi’s assistants or someone at the store.’
‘How many assistants does Saadi have?’
‘Not certain. Two at least, maybe three.’
My fiancé’s assistant has assistants – two or three of them. This is off the scale. I can barely comprehend. I pull from the rail a pair of Diesel jeans and a pristine Agnès B T-shirt; mentally I toss away my high-street-purchased wardrobe at home. Once loved, all now seem slightly greying and fraying.
‘I’ll want to collect my photo albums and books from the flat though. And my pink Roberts radio. I love it. Mum and Dad bought me it last Christmas.’
‘Yeah, I like those too. I think I have one or two.’
‘In pink?’
‘No. I have a cream one, a powder blue one and Paul Smith did me a customized stripy one. But we can get you a pink one, no problem.’
‘Like I said, I have one. I just need to pick it up.’
He looks at me quizzically. Obviously in Scott’s world it’s easier to buy new rather than go to the effort of retrieving an old anything. ‘Fair enough. We do need to go back to your flat for your passport so we could pick up your other stuff then.’
‘Passport?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, I was originally planning on flying out today but I guess we need to hold off a few days. I want to meet your ma and pa. And I want you to meet my mum but we have to be in LA by Friday latest. I’ve got to be in the studio by then.’
‘LA?’
‘That’s where I live.’
Oh, yes. He does, doesn’t he. I’d forgotten that. I remember reading about it in one of my gossipy mags some months back. Scottie found the press intrusion into his life unbearable here in the UK and so he took flight. Most enormous British A-listers end up living in LA because the Americans like success, whereas we British hate it or at least are so cripplingly jealous of it we feel an animalistic desire to destroy anyone who has achieved it.
I’ve never been to LA. To be frank, I haven’t been anywhere much. A few clubbing holidays to Ibiza and Greece when I was in my late teens and early twenties. Adam and I went to Edinburgh for a long weekend last year. I went with him to a gig in Hamburg once but it wasn’t what you’d call a holiday; he was working and I almost drowned in the constant sheets of rain. Plus I developed a visual intolerance (bordering on repugnance) to frankfurters; seriously, I threatened that if I saw just one more I’d use it to batter Adam to death.
We kept talking about going to Paris but we never did.
LA is year-round sunshine, mountains and beaches, white teeth, tanned bodies and a load of shops. What’s not to love? OK, so there’s more than a bit of Botox; still, I can see myself living there. Yes. Why not? I take a deep breath.
‘Can you send someone to pick up my passport and things, if I make a list? I don’t want to go back into London.’
Scott grins at me. ‘You’re getting the hang of this rich and shameless thing, aren’t you? Sure we can send someone to pick up your stuff, but as for your ma and pa, that we are going to have to do in person.’
33. Fern
Yes, my ma and pa, as he calls them.
On the one hand I’d like to believe that my mum and dad are going to be thrilled at my enormous good fortune, and yet I can’t help but feel nervous they might not be quite as ecstatic as I’d like them to be; after all, Jess and Lisa haven’t exactly bowled me over with their enthusiasm for my whirlwind romance. I tried to call both of them this morning but Lisa’s phone went straight to voicemail (suggesting she was on the nursery school run and couldn’t pick up) and Jess had her phone switched off. Ben’s been the most supportive, even though he was with the cranial osteopath and couldn’t talk for long. He isn’t ill or injured, he just fancies the practitioner and makes up aches and pains every month. He had time to tease me about not working out my notice and told me to enjoy the ride; he then laughed in an especially mucky way which left