Love Lies

41. Scott

My pad here in LA is awesome. Chock-full of style and luxury. I like it out here by the pool because nothing says rock and roll as eloquently as a private pool. I have a stunning infinity pool that seemingly flows out to an endless, lush garden which is as big as a public park. The size of the garden is not an indulgence, it’s a necessity. The tabloid scum have long lenses and short consciences. You can sell my discarded chewing-gum on the internet for fifty quid, so you can imagine how much a pic of me shagging a starlet fetches. Around the pool there are a number of heavy, broad wooden sun-loungers. The cream cushions lie as inviting as giant marshmallows. There are green towels, rolled into neat Swiss roll shapes. There’s the occasional marble table to be found snuggled between the beds, a comfy resting place for glasses of champagne and minted water – which all my guests are furnished with within minutes of their arses hitting the seat. I have excellent pool staff. It’s all very tasteful.

I like swimming and fooling about out here, although I don’t like lying around on the loungers the way Gary (the bass) and Mick (drummer) are right now. Their drinks sparkle in the sun, leaving individual footprints – a wet ring of condensation – on the table. I’m unsurprised to note they are drinking Bollinger (mine) even though it’s not midday. I wave to them but don’t bother walking over.

Then I spot Fern. She’s peeking out from behind my huge cacti, which are bedded in large white plant pots the size of cauldrons. My cacti are bigger than anyone else’s in Hollywood, Saadi checked. I also have enormous bushes of bamboo, with stalks as thick as my arms; they stretch upwards to tickle the feet of anyone hanging about in heaven. The sun is almost directly overhead now and pounding down ferociously, throwing short, almost undetectable shadows on the dark marble floors. Fern starts to drag a sun-lounger into the shade, I make a move towards her to help her but one of my muscle-bound pool guys beats me to it. Fern looks faintly embarrassed but a bit chuffed as she watches his gentle exertion on her behalf.

Fern has a great body. Slim and toned without betraying a food phobia or gym obsession. I move towards her and am struck, the way I was the first time I met her, by her top-quality, pert, neat tits. Excellent. And that’s from a man who spends a lot of time being underwhelmed.

I pull up a lounger next to hers and stand over her to let the cold drips of pool water splash on to her stomach. She jumps a foot in the air, squeals and then laughs when she opens her eyes and realizes it’s me.

‘Rat. I thought it was raining,’ she says.

‘Just blue skies for you from now on in, Petal, nothing but blue skies.’ She beams at me. ‘Sleep well?’ I ask.

‘I woke up at two in the morning and stared at the ceiling until eight.’

‘Jetlag?’

‘Excitement. I fell into a deep slumber at the exact moment I stopped debating huge romantic number – wide enough to shelter an entire family – versus simple shift wedding dress, just wide enough to disguise my hips. I couldn’t switch off,’ she says with a grin. ‘Hey, look what Saadi gave me.’ Fern waves about a brand new iPhone.

‘She’s great, Saadi. She thinks of everything.’ I yawn and sit down on the lounger next to Fern’s. Let’s see if I can stay put for twenty minutes. That’s not a ridiculous target. I should be able to do twenty minutes with Fern to keep me company. Or at least fifteen.

‘It’s like something Q gives James Bond just before he goes on assignment. Apparently, besides being a phone, I can use it to do my email, as a sat nav thingy, as an organizer.’

‘If you want to be organized,’ I chip in.

‘I think the implication is that I ought to be. It has access to the internet, you can play games on it, or use it as a multi-media player or even a camera.’

‘Can it tap dance?’

‘Yes, and floss teeth,’ replies Fern with a grin. ‘Thoughtfully, Saadi has already bookmarked a number of websites that she thinks might be useful to me.’

‘Like?’

‘Like places I might want to visit in LA. There are so

‘I dunno, Fern. I’ve been everywhere.’

‘Well, I’ve been nowhere.’

‘OK, so you choose.’

‘Well, the Getty Center, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and Santa Monica pier are on my list.’

‘Actually, I haven’t been to any of those places.’

‘But you’ve lived here for nine months. What have you been doing?’

‘Working and drinking. Not necessarily in that order.’

‘Great, we can do the tourist things together.’

‘Cool.’ We grin at each other. Isn’t it cool, this couple stuff?

‘Saadi has also bookmarked websites about weddings. You know, caterers, reception venues, dress designers, etc. Plus she’s made a list of the names and numbers of other people who I might find useful: a hairstylist, a clothes stylist and a personal trainer. Do you think she’s trying to tell me something?’ Fern looks vaguely concerned. I grin at her, reassuringly. Personally, I like her as she is, but I know that Saadi and her crew are already turning wheels and cogs in order to transform her into something, I don’t know, glossier, I suppose. Mark and Saadi said to me that glossy is what’s required and expected of my wife. I don’t think this is something she needs to hear me say.

‘She’s just trying to be helpful. Justifying her obscene salary,’ I say instead.

‘She’s arranged interviews for us to meet her favourite three wedding planners for tomorrow morning – a

‘Money talks.’

‘I suppose, and as you say, she thinks of everything.’ Fern looks anxious, vexed almost. ‘She told me she’s going to pick up a dildo for me from some sex shop on Sunset Boulevard.’

‘Hustler.’

‘Yeah, that’s it. She says you have an account there.’

‘Guilty as charged. It’s a great store, we should go shopping together.’

‘OK.’ Fern doesn’t look too convinced but she’ll look great in one of their baby dolls or maybe titty tassels. Is she vexed because I’ve visited sex shops? I’m a rock star, it’s like a teenage girl visiting the makeup counter at Boots: essential shopping. I didn’t have Fern down as a prude.

‘Saadi said I’m going to need a dildo in light of our chastity vow. I hadn’t realized you’d discussed our plan with her.’

Ah. So that’s the cause of the vexation. I get it. ‘I tell her everything,’ I say smoothly, wide-eyed, innocent. It’s true, I do tell Saadi everything; except all that which I keep secret. ‘You don’t mind, do you? Wasn’t I supposed to?’ I ask, showing concern. ‘She thought it was really romantic,’ I add with a smile.

I sense Fern does mind, because if there’s one thing I know about women, it’s that they are really funny about what you tell other women. I need to rush the conversation on to another subject, because it’s too nice for a row or even a low-grade sulk and while I haven’t seen Fern

I look at her hipbone and feel a twitch in my swim shorts. This no sex thing is a mind-blowing experiment. It was Mark’s idea. Fern was his idea too, as a point of fact. I’ve had lots of sex and I mean lots – an amount that no normal person can even perceive (not even desperate little slappers who live in ugly small towns, who – in order to ease the tedium of their existence – drop their knickers as often as they drop cigarette stubs and usually at the same time). More sex than that. I mean lots, and lots, and lots, and lots of tits and ass and legs and holes, well, the thing about that is it gets boring, doesn’t it? Hand jobs in Jacuzzis, blow jobs in bars, gang bangs in limousines, sex in yachts, sex with geisha girls, sex with starlets, sex with models, sex with aristocrats; it’s all the same in the end.

An endless stream of nightclubs, alcohol, drugs and meaningless sex takes its toll. It’s inevitable. I got fed up with waking up with an intolerable feeling of apprehension and fretfulness. Being on drugs and being intensely and inexplicably anxious come hand in hand after a while. I’m prone to anxiety anyway, and a feeling of uneasiness constantly shrouded me when I was using; especially when I woke up and the foul and sickening delinquency of the night before came crawling back into my mind. It didn’t matter how much money I had in the bank or how many records I sold, I was riddled with the worry that I was just as desperate and pointless as everybody else. Sometimes I’d think I was insane. Other times things were easier – I knew I was.

There comes a point when you realize that no life, not even my life, is wide enough to fit in sex, drugs, rock and roll and responsibility. It doesn’t add up. I shared this observation with Mark, just over three months ago, last time I decided to get clean. Mark was relieved; my record company were starting to get a bit nervy about the number of times I’d missed studio sessions and insulted journos because of the said endless stream of nightclubs, alcohol, drugs and meaningless sex.

I told Mark, ‘Being surrounded by too much T&A is the same as being surrounded by too much luxury. You stop noticing it. It has a numbing effect.’

It’s true you can be totally done-in by the absolute monotony of faultless and never-ending excellence. Who’d have thought? Maybe Mark wanted to make a sarkie comment about his heart bleeding for me but no one close to me is ever sarcastic with me nowadays; they know it hurts me and I’m mean when I’m hurt. Instead, Mark said, ‘So you’ve done all there is to do with abundance, how about practising a bit of partiality now.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you know, once you’ve been to every fancy restaurant there is in town and you’ve eaten your fill of seared carpaccio, pan-seared venison and sweet duck cooked with plums and star anise, it’s nice to stay in and have simple steak and salad. I’m not suggesting a burger. I mean something classy and straightforward.’

‘Like?’

‘Like marriage.’

‘Marriage!?’

‘Yeah, you could do it all properly, meet a girl, like her,

He might have been joking, but I thought about it and he was right. It would be true to say that I’ve never shagged a bride before; least not one married to me. I’m going to enjoy doing things properly with Fern. She’s different. A hotty (although not as hot as many I’ve had). She’s quite normal (but not so normal as to bore me, as many have). I don’t quite understand it yet but she has something really special going on. Or rather, we have something really special going on between us.

Mark has all the best ideas.