Love Lies

26. Fern

I don’t use the ticket Adam gave me; I left all three stuck to the fridge. It seemed a bit immoral using Adam’s perk to see Scott. I knew Scott would see to it that I had a seat and he has; someone else must have been evicted. I vaguely wonder who; a record producer? A journo? I clean forget all about calling my mates to ask if anyone wants to use the tickets for the gig tonight and so it’s a pleasant surprise when I see Ben, Jess and my baby brother, Rick, filing through the throng of people and heading towards me.

I leap up and hug them all. I’m so excited by life and brimming with happiness that I hardly notice that my brother is mortified by this public display of affection; he practically bats me away.

Ben jokes, ‘You only saw me yesterday, not a month ago – don’t be sloppy, darling.’ As he gently pushes me away he whispers, ‘Did you like the flowers?’

‘Oh Ben, the shop has never looked so beautiful. Thank you.’

‘He’s impossible to resist, your new man,’ he says with a wink.

Jess allows me to wrap her in a big hug but she doesn’t look happy, she’s tight-lipped and grey. I can’t decide if she’s concerned or jealous. If she’s concerned then I’ll reassure her, if she’s jealous she needs to get over it and

‘I didn’t use my initiative. Adam asked me to come along,’ says Jess.

‘He called me too,’ adds Rick.

‘And me,’ confirms Ben.

I’m suspicious. Is Adam planning on staging some sort of American-style ‘intervention’? I didn’t even know what an intervention was until I started watching Desperate Housewives. For the benefit of the uninitiated, allow me to explain. An intervention is where ‘concerned’ friends and family gang together to tell their loved one something their loved one doesn’t want to hear; ostensibly for their own good. I watched the episode in an early series where everyone tried to tell Bree her drinking was spiralling out of control. Like she wants to hear that after discovering her current fiancé murdered her first husband, her son’s gay and there’s dust on her pelmets. You can imagine; it went down like a bucket of steaming vomit. Why wouldn’t it? Who wants to be subjected to mass bullying by their nearest and dearest; it’s bad enough being on the receiving end of unasked for advice on an individual basis.

Is Adam hoping to surround me with friends and family and convince me that Scott is a dastardly villain and I ought to cease contact immediately? Perhaps even go back to him? Idiot. For one thing, Jess has already tried and failed to do as much and for another, I can’t imagine either Ben or Rick intervening to try to put me off Scott. Ben never judges and will be wild about even the remotest

I don’t know how Scott does it. For this is the third and final gig yet he somehow manages to scour up enough energy not only to pull off a show on a par with the previous two but somehow a show that is yet more glittering. A lesser mortal would be knackered by now and crying out for Lucozade. But Scott manages to take us all the extra mile, a mile I would have believed it impossible to travel. He has even more power than the previous two nights. He sings with a smidgen more depth and meaning. He dances with an iota more energy, he chats to the audience with a manner that’s fractionally more relaxed. He’s sensational.

‘I don’t get what you see in him,’ says Rick with a shrug and an ironic grin. I smile back. I can tell Rick’s impressed, he’s aglow. The tens of thousands of fans jump, holler, cry, scream, clap, stamp and cheer throughout the two-hour gig. It’s a storming concert and Scott is riding high in the sky. He struts around the stage, performing that magical mix of the sexual and personal that makes each girl think he’s performing just for her. He invites the entire crowd to be his friend. They scream like frenzied

Scott eventually comes on stage to sing his final song and then the encore. He repeatedly punches the air; over and over again. With every punch the crowds indulge in yet more hysterical and harried antics; women swoon, men swear, kids promise themselves they’ll grow up to be rock stars.

Scott takes in the view and treats us to a wide, unrepentant smile. After some time he holds up his hands in an effort to lull the audience into quietness. They take his gesture as a sign that he’s requesting more adoration and a fresh surge of madness is pushed into the night. It takes a drum roll and his repeated requests before the crowd finally hushes up and listens to what else he has to say or sing. I now know the run of the show, almost like the back of my hand. He’s already sung ‘Fall Apart’, ‘Come Back to Me’ and ‘Bit of Rough’, ‘Hate to Love’, ‘Demons’, ‘Dead Love’ and ‘Tell Me Something’. I search my mind for an outstanding song that he’s contractually obliged to deliver, I can’t think of one. It was at this point on Friday Scott sang ‘Happy Birthday’ and at this point on Saturday that he sang ‘Perfect Day’. I wonder if he’s going to sing to me again. Oh God, I hope so. But what will he sing?

Scott’s looking around the stadium; his eyes are glittering.

‘Ladies and ladies and ladies and gents,’ he says, acknowledging that the vast majority of the crowd are women. ‘Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for

The response probably registered on the Richter scale.

‘I’m glad. I want you to be happy. Do you want me to be happy?’

Again they surge forward. Women fling their bras in the air in an effort to demonstrate just how happy they want to make him.

‘Boys and girls and girls and girls, you amazing people, guess what?’ He pauses and the crowd calms, hanging on his every word. ‘I think I’ve found a way I can be happy.’

After his well-reported fights with addiction to drugs and booze the crowds are ecstatic to hear this. They roar their support. I wonder what he’s going to say. Is he building up to a joke? Is he going to tell them whist is his new passion? God, I hope he doesn’t tell them about strip poker; my younger brother’s here, he might be twenty-eight but in my eyes he’s eternally a little kid.

‘I think I’ve found someone who makes me happy. Someone who is a bit different from anyone before.’

For the first time the crowd does not respond with a cheer. They look confused and uncertain. They turn to one another for reassurance. Girls and women who have been diehard fans for years somehow immediately sense that this is the end of life as they know it. I don’t sense it quite as quickly, I have no idea where Scott is going with this.

‘I’m in love.’ He yells. ‘Fuck me, I am.’ He is? There’s

‘Aww, don’t be like that,’ he tells his fans. ‘Celebrate with me. Don’t be angry with me.’ He pulls his face into the lost puppy look, which I’ve seen before on and off stage, and people around me immediately begin to offer up a reluctant smile. He’s compelling. ‘You love me, right? You want me to be happy? You said so.’ The crowd are disinclined to agree but have to. They did scream that – just minutes ago. ‘Well, I’ve found someone who makes me happy. So bloody happy.’ Half the stadium starts to cheer, offering support. ‘Come on Wembley, you can do better than that. It’s Scott here. Your boy. Wish me luck.’

He offers up his most beautiful smile. All teeth and eyes. He’s gleaming. He’s overwhelming. He’s irresistible. The crowd meet him. They cheer for him. This time they are loud and committed. He’s turned them around, a full one hundred and eighty degrees, in just moments. Everyone is putty in his hands. He’s happy. They want him to be happy; never before have they longed for someone’s happiness with quite so much fervour. Ideally happy.

I watch as he turns the tide and for a moment it’s all too enormous for me. All I can think is this man is bigger than King Canute. He can turn tides.

Scott roars above the cheering crowd. ‘I’ll write even better songs because of her. I promise you. I’ll be a better man because of her. I promise you. God, I hope she’ll have me.’ They writhe upon one another, spewing out the most tremendous roar of the three days. ‘I’m going to ask her to marry me.’

I don’t remember anything after that, because I faint.