‘Bad publicity? Is that all you care about?’
‘Of course not,’ she said, taking a step towards him. ‘I’m so sorry, Alex.’
‘But why?’ he whispered. ‘Why?’
‘He’s good for me,’ she said.
‘Good for your career, you mean. Good for getting you a bloody Oscar.’
‘It’s not like that, Alex,’ she said defiantly. ‘Christopher and I are equals.’
Alex knew what she meant by that. Hayes would give Melissa the sheen of respectability she craved. He could take her where she wanted to go – acceptance as a serious actress, not just a pretty face. She had her own money. Fame. Alex could offer her nothing but himself – and that wasn’t good enough.
‘What about us?’
‘There is no us!’ shouted Melissa. ‘Can’t you get that through your head? It’s over, Alex! Chris is going to end it with Jennifer. It’s serious between us. Especially now.’
‘Serious?’ he yelled, pulling the ring out and thrusting it in her face.‘This is an eternity ring, Melissa. That’s how serious I am about you. I wanted to grow old with you, I wanted us to be together for ever!’
He strode to the edge of the terrace and, pulling his arm back, flung the ring out towards the lights of Hollywood. It twinkled briefly, then it was gone.
55
As the low outline of the Pennines came into view, Alex leant over and switched off the radio. He didn’t want any distractions as he drove into Macclesfield. It had been eight years since he had last visited his home town and he wanted to absorb everything. Peering through the drizzle spotting the windscreen, he took in the cramped grey terraces with their narrow ginnels, the tiny shops selling lacy ladies’ things and unfashionable lamps, the chippy, the church, the endless pubs with their welcoming orange glow. Suddenly all these things he had once loathed and rejected seemed more solid and important than anywhere else. This was where his roots were and, like it or not, where his heart was.
He drew the black Mercedes into the kerb, noting that a caravan was still parked outside number thirty opposite as it always had been, except this model looked whiter and shinier. Alex had not seen his mum in over three months, when he had flown her out to Athens for one of his live shows. She had always wanted to see the Parthenon and was giddy with excitement as they walked around it. Since he’d come into money, Alex liked giving gifts – over the years he’d spent a fortune on art, jewellery and clothes for Melissa and bought two sports cars for Ted – but the look on his mum’s face that afternoon had been worth every last bit of the struggle it had taken to get there.
‘Alex, love!’ Maureen Doyle’s face lit up as she saw her son.
‘All right, Mum.’ He gave his mother a hug, shocked how much older, thinner, smaller she’d become, even in that short period of time. He’d made countless offers over the years to relocate her to LA, but she had insisted she was happier in Macclesfield, in her home, surrounded by people she had known for decades.
‘Not brought the reporters with you, then?’ she said, peering around the front door.
‘I’m not sure anyone at the Macc Express knows who I am, Mum.’
‘And where’s Melissa?’
‘Oh, filming,’ he said vaguely.
It had only been three days since she had told him about the baby. Melissa had not offered to move out – Christopher had yet to tell his wife that their relationship was over and Melissa didn’t want to ‘rock the boat’ until that point. Unable to stay under the same roof as her, Alex had gone to stay with Ted for a couple of nights. It was Ted and his wife who had finally persuaded him to get as far away from LA as he could. Alex had decided not to tell his mum anything about their split. He told himself it was because he didn’t want to burden her, but in reality he was hoping Melissa would change her mind.
‘Well it’s lovely to see you anyway,’ said Maureen. ‘I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?’
‘Cool. I’ll just go and put my bag upstairs.’
She popped her head around the kitchen door. ‘You’re staying here tonight?’ she said, surprised.
‘Not many five-star hotels in Macc, are there?’ He smiled.
He walked up the narrow stairwell past the bathroom. The avocado suite had gone and had been replaced by something white and slightly more modern-looking, apparently installed by nice Mr Singh from down the road. His bedroom hadn’t changed at all except for one platinum record that hung on the far wall. Maureen was much too discreet to have it on show anywhere else, but it looked just right there next to the shelf full of music trophies from Danehurst, the dusty stack of Melody Makers and the little ceramic pot full of plectrums.
Dropping his bag on the bed, he walked to the window. Outside, he could see a man strapping his kids into the back of a slightly battered Fiat Punto. With a lurch, he realised it was ‘Mad’ Dave Kinsella, a lad he had gone to school with. They’d played in the school football team together and Dave had earned his nickname for creeping into the girls’ showers for a dare. For a moment, Alex thought about going down there, saying hello – but then what would he say? ‘All right, Dave, how are the kids getting on? Going swimming are you? To the park?’
Here he was, one of the biggest rock stars in the world, a platinum disc on the wall of his bedroom, and yet ‘nice Mr Singh’ was the one looking out for his mum and Mad Dave was the one with the happy family life and a shiny new caravan. Here in the real world, your dreams might be smaller, but they were still dreams and they could still come true. With a wrenching gut, Alex realised that the part of his life he’d treated as an afterthought – marriage, children, stability – was the thing he had always wanted the most.
Turning away from the window, he spotted something he hadn’t seen in years – cassette tapes, neatly lined up along the top of his chest of drawers.
‘Wow,’ he said, rifling through the carefully hand-written labels. The Pixies, the Breeders, Nick Drake. ‘Damn, I had good taste back then,’ he muttered. He opened a drawer and found other things, things that suddenly seemed important to him. A handful of scout badges, a paperback book that Grace Ashford had given him on that trip to Bristol, a harmonica that had belonged to his dad, a ticket stub for that fateful Verve concert where he had met Jez, Gav and Pete.