The WAG’s Diary
ALISON KERVIN

For Mum and Dad and for George Kervin-Evans, the beautiful little boy with the mischievous smile.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

Wednesday, 1 August

Thursday, 2 August—our twelfth (ssshhh) wedding anniversary

Friday, 3 August

Saturday, 4 August—first day of OBUD

IT HAS ARRIVED...

Sunday, 12 August

Sunday, 19 August

Saturday, 25 August

Tuesday, 28 August

Wednesday, 29 August

Thursday, 30 August

Saturday, 1 September—match day and the day that Hello! Luton magazine comes out

Sunday, 2 September

Monday, 3 September

Saturday, 8 September

Sunday, 9 September

Monday, 10 September

Tuesday, 11 September

Friday, 14 September

Tuesday, 2 October

Wednesday, 3 October

Friday, 5 October

Saturday, 13 October

Monday, 15 October

Wednesday, 24 October

Monday, 29 October

Wednesday, 31 October

Tuesday, 6 November

Wednesday, 7 November

Friday, 9 November

Sunday, 11 November

Monday, 12 November

Tuesday, 13 November

Wednesday, 14 November

Day after that—Saturday, 17 November

Sunday, 18 November

Monday, 19 November

Tuesday, 20 November

Sunday, 25 November

Saturday, 1 December

Friday, 14 December

Saturday, 15 December

Sunday, 16 December

Monday, 17 December

Thursday, 20 December

Friday, 4 January

Monday, 7 January

Tuesday, 15 January

Monday, 4 February

Tuesday, 5 February

Friday, 8 February

Saturday, 9 February

Sunday, 10 February

Monday, 11 February

Saturday, 16 February

Sunday, 24 February

Monday, 25 February

Tuesday, 26 February

Wednesday, 5 March

20 March—my birthday (sshhhhhhhhh...)

Monday, 14 April

Tuesday, 15 April

Wednesday, 16 April

Saturday, 24 May

Acknowledgements

Inside the mind of Tracie Martin

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Wednesday, 1 August

1.15 p.m.

It’s quarter past one on a pleasant midsummer’s day and I’m about to have a fight with a spotty teenager in a bashed-up Ford Fiesta. Quite how I get myself into these positions so frequently is an entire mystery to me.

I’m sitting in my gleaming, mud-free, furiously expensive Land Rover (exactly the same model as Victoria Beckham’s…yeeeessss…took me ages to find it and it cost me more than a row of houses in most towns would, but it was worth every second and every penny). The Pussycat Dolls are blaring out, and the sun is shining down, bouncing off the windscreen and causing the sort of glare that makes every manoeuvre exciting for me and utterly hazardous for everyone else on the road. In short—I can’t see a bloody thing! My leopard-skin headrests already prevent any use of the rear window, and now there’s little point in looking through the front one either.

‘Doncha!’ I shout, clicking my fingers and tapping my feet. ‘Whoops!’ The pedals! The car lurches forward until it stalls terrifyingly close to an expensive-looking black and orange motorbike. The huge silver bumper on the side of my car is about an inch from its flame-painted engine.

It is at this point that I notice the ancient Fiesta directly in front of me, belching smoke and revving noisily. There’s a spotty teenager driving it and he clearly wants me to reverse out of his way. Reverse? Me? That’s so not going to happen!

‘It’s a one-way street,’ shouts the boy, like I don’t realise, and just for absolute clarity: ‘You’re going the wrong way down it.’

I smile alluringly, shrug innocently and pout seductively, but I don’t move. I can’t move. I can barely drive this thing forwards without crashing, let alone try to manoeuvre it backwards. Well, not without taking out all the bikes parked down the side of the road in the process, and if I did that I’d be even later for lunch than I’d planned to be.

We’re staring at each other over our respective steering wheels (mine has a fleecy candyfloss-pink cover on it). I remove my sunglasses and smile at him, batting my luxuriously curled eyelashes; hoping to appear tempting yet vulnerable, and thus prompt him into action of a chivalrous nature. He’s clearly not impressed. In fact, he’s sneering and snarling like an angry bull-mastiff as he growls and grimaces. He’s not dribbling—yet—but a chin full of spittle is all that’s separating him from the animal kingdom. I put my sunglasses back on. I’m sure they cost more than his car. I don’t mean that in a bitchy way—I mean I genuinely think my glasses cost more than his car. They’re VBD—from Posh’s new range—and quality does not come cheap.

‘Move your fucking car,’ he mouths, his eyes narrowing and fists clenching in an alarmingly aggressive and not entirely gentlemanly fashion. I’d make a fist back, but my nail extensions don’t allow for much movement at all in the finger department, so I just stare and smile, and leave the barbaric gestures to him. Neither of us is going to move. We might be here for the rest of our lives.

I would be more bothered by his aggression and male posturing if I weren’t completely distracted by the sign at the end of the road, saying ‘Capaliginni Piazza’, venue for today’s pre-season lunch—THE pre-season lunch, where you get to meet all the new girlfriends, see who’s been dumped, put on weight, or had a nip ‘n’ tuck.

It’s all women at today’s lunch. ALL WOMEN. If you don’t realise the implications of this then I should explain. An all-female lunch means but one thing to me and my fellow Wags—clothes! Not clothes to look pretty in, but clothes to compete in. There will be women at today’s lunch who will be more dressed up than they were on their wedding day. Those who aren’t will be outcasts—not spoken to and not invited anywhere for the rest of the season. If this sounds cruel then I’m sorry, but it’s how things work in my world. One of the fundamental rules of being a Wag is the realisation that you’re not dressing up for men—you’re dressing up for other women. If this were all about looking good for a man would we need to have the very latest handbag? Or the precise shade of nail varnish that has sold out everywhere? Be honest, the average footballer wouldn’t notice if you had fingernails at all, let alone whether they were coated in rouge noir or salmon pink. No, this is about becoming the Alpha Female—it’s a very knowing attempt at one-upwagship, and it kicks off today at the pre-season lunch.

I’m all dressed up for the occasion, naturally, wearing a pink furry jacket with a sweet little hood and featuring pink and white pom-poms, like large marshmallows, that dangle prettily over my recently inflated breasts. It’s cropped, so you can see my new tummy ring—it’s in the shape of a ‘D’ with two little diamonds on it. My husband Dean bought it for me. Ahhh…

I’m wearing about £6,000 worth of clothes today, which may sound like a lot, but it is really expensive trying to look this cheap. So, while the jacket may appear as if I found it in Primark for a tenner, it actually cost £700—that’s how good it looks! In case there’s any doubt—an item of clothing’s merits should always be judged on price above all else. If you try on a £50 top and it looks great, then you see a £500 top that looks terrible, go for the £500 one every time. Remember—the designers know best. Who are you to argue with Donatella Versace if she’s deemed that her top is worth ten times the price of another? You’re not the international designer, she is, so trust her judgement. After all, she always looks fantastic, so she must be right.

So, back to me—I’m wearing a tight white Lycra miniskirt over my beautiful tanned thighs (£450! So when Mum said it made me look cheap she was sooo wrong), with a couple of heavy gold belts, hoop earrings and Chanel necklaces. Total jewellery cost: £2,500—so there’s no question about whether the jewellery looks good. I think, though, that it’s the matching handbag and boots by Celine that set the whole thing off—well worth paying for quality, even if they cost a grand each, more than the cost of replacing all Dean’s nan’s windows last year.

Suddenly there’s a clank of metal, the roaring sound of an engine that has not troubled a mechanic for years, and my would-be sparring partner is off backwards down the road—squealing tyres and rude words leaking through a cloud of charcoal-coloured smoke as he goes. The terrible language reminds me instantly of the words the fans were shouting at Dean when he got sent off at the end of last season. Mr Fiesta weaves frighteningly close to the pavement, much to the alarm of passing shoppers, because he’s still staring at me—thin lips clamped into a snarl. I wave and smile, delighted by this unlikely turn of events, then I start up the engine, forgetting the car’s in gear. The Land Rover pitches forward and smacks into the black and orange motorbike, forcing it backwards into the bike behind. Like dominoes they fall—four of them, one after the other—bang, thud, smack, crash.

Oh god, not again. I think there’s something wrong with this car—it’s always doing things like that.

1.35 p.m.

The restaurant is tantalisingly close, but the parking space is terrifyingly small. Indeed, it may well be that this parking spot is smaller than my car. I make a rather feeble attempt at getting into the space then think, sod it, I’m not going to try. I’m just wasting my time and I really don’t need any more crashes today. As Dean is always saying to me: ‘Tracie—one car accident a day is enough for anyone—even you.’ So, with those words in mind, and with my car’s substantial rear end poking out into the road, I climb out. I won’t be long at the lunch, and I’m not going to drink so I’ll be able to drive it home in a couple of hours’ time. It’ll be fine.

I clamber out to see everyone staring me. Ooooo…how lovely. I wonder if they know who I am? They’re probably fans of my husband. Should I offer an autograph? Then a man starts singing, ‘Ing-er-land, Ing-er-land, Ing-er-land’, and I realise exactly what they’re staring at. I always forget just how tiny this micro-skirt is. Now, everyone on Luton High Street has just had a clear view of the Cross of St George sitting proudly across the front of my knickers. Hmmph…

I stomp away on my white ten-inch platform boots, and swing open the door to the restaurant.

‘Darlings,’ I shriek. ‘Let the party start. Tracie’s here.’

I’m a good party animal because I like people—I like seeing other people and being seen by other people. I like football parties best of all because I LOVE being in the football world. Although I’d prefer to be in the England team’s football world—with Victoria, Coleen, and the one who always wears crop tops—but until Dean gets his act together that’s not going to happen.

I squeeze into a chair next to Michaela and Suzzi—the loveliest people in the world. I’ve known them for ages and they both always look great, with shiny white teeth and permanent tans. I always say you can tell things about someone’s soul by how shiny and white their teeth are.

The waiter puts the menus down before us, and in one great synchronised move we all push them away quickly. The last thing you want to do is look at the menus, in case you see something really yummy on there.

There are twelve of us round the table—one girl has dark hair, all the others are blonde. The dark-haired girl is Michaela and she is not, strictly speaking, a Wag. All the blonde girls are. I’m not saying that for any other reason than to state the facts as they stand, but it does rather confirm my long-held belief that the real key to a footballer’s heart is a head full of bleached hair. Mich has luxurious long dark hair that tumbles over her shoulders. It’s glossy and healthy-looking and people stop her in the street to compliment her on it. Trouble is—it’s not blonde. I’ve told her a million times to stop worrying about whether it will suit her or whether it will wreck her hair and just dye it—only then can she be sure of attracting a football-playing man.

While Mich has devoted her life—rather unsuccessfully, it has to be said—to attracting a footballer, and has gone through players from most clubs in the London region in the process, Suzzi is very much a one-man woman. She married her childhood sweetheart—Anton Chritchley. They’ve got three kids so far—Bobby and Jack (named after the Charleston brothers, who I assumed were a comedy duo but it turns out they were footballers) and Wayne. No need to tell you who the last one is named after!

Sometimes I’m envious of Suze. I’ve just got one daughter and I think I’d like to have had more. Then I go round to her house and see these boys crashing round the place and making a real mess and I think ‘Wooooaahhhh…Trace—you got off lightly there.’ I’m from a one-child family and so is Dean, and though I’d have loved to have brothers and sisters when I was growing up (and a father!), I’ve found myself repeating the pattern and only having one child myself. Odd, isn’t it?

Still, I’ve got an extended family here at Luton Town, so I never feel lonely, and my daughter, Paskia Rose, loves watching the football (she does—seriously—she actually loves watching the football, whereas I only go to watch the other women and see what they’re wearing, who they’re talking to and what they’re saying).

Some of the girls have gone to town today and, as predicted, they’re really dressed up. I think the total cost of clothing around the table would pay off the debts of most third-world countries. Twenty-four eyes flicker around the room, taking in the assortment of clothing on display. The predominant colour is baby pink, of course, with white in second place. No change there then. We have a peculiar relationship with fashion, I guess, in that we have to be bang up-to-date on all the latest styles, but we still like to have them in the same shades of soft, girlish colours. So, in that latter respect, you could say we have our own distinctive take on fashion.

I recognise most of the outfits around the table.

‘Mindy, you went for the Pucci swirls,’ Suzzi says sarcastically. ‘How brave of you. I saw that blouse but thought it looked just a little bit too much like Mum’s shower curtain so decided against it.’

Ooooo…nice one, Suzzi. An early goal to us: 1-0.

Suzzi’s pregnant at the moment but she manages to look great all the same, in a white Lycra sheath dress. The lovely thing about it is that it’s so tight you can see her belly button through it where the Lycra’s stretched over her bump at the front. Ahhhh…sweet! I’m so proud of her for continuing to look so great. You can tell just by looking at Suzzi that she’s a Wag, and that’s more than can be said for some of the girls I see on the terraces. Some would-be Wags last season didn’t have a hope of bagging a footballer. One of them had trousers on with flat shoes. FLAT SHOES!!! At a football match!! I thought I’d die laughing when I saw her. Someone needs to do something to help these poor lost souls.

‘Tracie, you’ve gone for pom-poms,’ says Mindy. ‘How last year!’

I smile, and they smile, and we all drink. 1-1. Shit.

Our group divides into the newer Wags (we call them the Slag Wags), and the more experienced Wags. Mindy is the leader of the Slag Wags in the same way as I would be considered leader of the Old Nag Wags—that is,the Wags over twenty-five. We’re a bit outnumbered these days, to be honest. Most Wags are just out of their teens. It’s only me, Mich, Suzzi and Loulou who are over twenty-five, and Loulou’s husband is injured so she’s off the scene at the moment.

There’s a certain amount of bonding between all the Wags and a great deal of competing. I guess it’s like the players themselves. During a game we’re a close-knit group, but away from matches we’re all jostling for position. We all want to be the number one in the team. The situation at Luton Town, though, is that I am the number one. My husband, Dean, is the captain. He’s a former international player and the most experienced player in the side. That makes me the most experienced Wag, and I don’t think there’s a person round this table who would dispute that while I may not know much about Middle East politics or quantum physics, when it comes to matters of a Waggish nature I know all there is to know.

I’m pleased to see that no one round the table today is the colour of normal human skin. We’re all shades of shoe polish—mainly orange tan, but with a few cherry browns from the girls who don’t know when enough’s enough at the spray tanner’s.

‘How’s Nell?’ asks Mich. ‘Still crazy?’

Nell is Dean’s nan and Mich thinks the world of her. I do, too—she’s one of my favourite people in the world. I’ve no idea whether she was always so mad, or whether the ravaging effects of age actually cause more damage than wrinkles. Perhaps she was perfectly normal forty years ago? It’s hard to believe.

Things have a tendency to go wrong around Nell. You know how some people are like that—they’re always just three minutes away from the next crisis? (Luckily I’m not like that.) Nell went to have a gentle wave put in her hair a couple of weeks ago—she was after the sort of body that Elle Macpherson has but in her hair (like that was ever going to happen), but the hairdresser insisted on giving it a perm and now she looks more like Tammy Wynette.

‘Nell’s great,’ I say. ‘Mad as usual.’ Then I tell them all about the hair. Mich and Suzzi are really upset about the perm until I explain that Nell’s not bothered at all. The thing with Nell is that nothing really bothers her. She shrugged off World Wars and not seeing her husband for four years while he was away fighting the Germans, so I suppose a bad haircut’s not going to affect her in the same way as it would cripple me. If I ever had a bad haircut it would be a drama of epic proportions, probably resulting in a suicide attempt and certainly ending in a flurry of threatening legal letters. Nell just pulls out the afro comb and gets on with life.

I can see some of the girls on the far side of the table making mock yawning signs. I ignore them. This is Nell we’re talking about, she’s not like other old ladies—she has the heart, if not the wardrobe, of a Wag. She’s the life and soul of the nursing home she lives in. She used to be the social coordinator of the place until she invited a Barry Manilow look-alike to play there, and her best mate Gladys tried to get off with him. Barry’s agent complained and Nell got an official warning. Then there was the time she was told off for chasing some old man down the corridor. ‘Only having fun,’ she said. But she nearly gave the poor guy a heart attack. She has a cat living in her flat, too, which is strictly against the regulations. Coleen (I named her) lives under the sink where no one can see her.

‘I couldn’t bear to spend so much time with an old lady, but I guess you’re that much older than me,’ Mindy says. ‘And me,’ say Debbie and Julie in harmony, before collapsing into fits of giggles.

‘Not that much older,’ I counter, smiling through the pain.

‘Aw, come on,’ says Mindy. ‘How many of these lunches have you been to?’

A grin has spread across her pinched and painfully thin face. The others stare with open mouths. They’re all rude, these Slag Wags, but even they can’t believe the viciousness contained in the question I’ve just been asked. Their faces are registering utter disbelief. I can see they’re dying to hear what I will say, and who can blame them—I’m dying to hear what I’ll say, too. Right now, I have no idea. How can I answer a question like that—more loaded than the mini pizza starters we’ve just ordered but that no one will touch?

This is the Wag version of starting a brawl. It’s like a footballer turning to a fellow player and asking him if he wants to go outside for a fight. No, it’s worse than that—it’s like one of the footballers punching another player in the ribs when he’s not looking. I just stare back at Mindy. She knows what she’s done and so do the others. Even though we are rival groups of Wags around this table, there is still a Wag bond, and she has just broken it. Certain topics are strictly off-limits. It’s like the rule about not mentioning politics or religion at dinner parties. In Wag Land it’s weight and age.

The thing is, we all lie about our ages all the time, so in order to answer questions likely to reveal your age, you first have to remember how old you said you were, and thus, with that age in mind, what the answer to the question might be. So, a simple ‘How long have you been watching football?’ demands the mathematical brain of a genius to work out the answer. I can’t tell Mindy that I’ve been a Wag for exactly twelve years (it’s my anniversary tomorrow!!!!), and that this is my eighth time at a Luton Town’s pre-season ladies’ lunch. I simply can’t say that, because it’s the truth, and the truth is outlawed. My world is a complex one…let me explain why:

Assuming Mindy can add up, which isn’t guaranteed, me telling her that I’ve been married for twelve years will make it extremely unlikely that I am the twenty-six that I claim to be, unless it turns out that Dean’s a bloody paedophile, or a podiatrist as Suzzi once said (as in: ‘There’s this child abuser in Luton advertising that he can get rid of veruccas!’).

Still, she’s asked the question, and I need to answer it. She fired a penalty at me when I was tying my shoelaces, and I have to work out whether I should leap up and defend it, or just let it go into the net and accept that we’re 2-1 down against the Slags before the starters have even arrived.

Everyone’s looking at me. There are glances and giggles, but I ignore them. I just offer a strained and unconvincing smile and down my Bacardi and Cherry Coke without answering. I’ve let the opposition score. Mindy had an open goal, and even if she did use dubious genital-grabbing tactics the fact remains that she scored. 2-1.

I call the waiter over and order myself a glass of champagne. I thought I could do this sober but, as ever, I can’t. I also order a selection of fattening nibbles for the girls on the other side of the table. ‘Deep-fried brie and tempura. Oh, and potato skins,’ I say. ‘Do they come with cheese and bacon? Do you have any deep-fried avocado?’ I shove a twenty-pound note into his hand and whisper to him: ‘If they don’t eat the fried food, put dressings on their salads and sugar in their coffee.’

This is not an unusual state of affairs. This is what we do.

‘You all right?’ asks Suzzi.

I nod, but I’m not.

I’m the oldest person here and I don’t want to be. I want to be like Mindy—a gorgeous twenty-two-year-old with the world of Wagdom at her pedicured feet and a beautiful striker from the Ivory Coast in her bed. I don’t feel pretty and indestructible any more—I feel old. In a minute, and with one barbed comment, my world has come crashing down. This happens to me far too frequently these days—my grip on positivity becoming more tenuous as time passes and the wrinkles spread. I’ve gone from thinking my glass is half-full to being able to see, quite clearly, that it’s almost empty.

I knock back my drink and try to think happy thoughts about my lovely daughter, Paskia Rose, and the great relationship I have with Nell. I try to think of Dean himself and how much I love him, but that makes it worse and it becomes a fight to stop the tears that threaten to spring forth and wreck my carefully and heavily applied eye make-up. The thought of my false eyelashes coming off in a torrent of tears makes me feel even more like crying. While I sit there, having a battle of wills with my tear ducts (do tear ducts have wills? Probably), the girls have moved on to talk about their holiday destinations. Mich went to the Seychelles with a guy she was seeing for a while. ‘He had a yacht,’ she announces, but she doesn’t dwell on the subject because he wasn’t a footballer so she really doesn’t want people asking too many questions.

‘We went to Spain,’ announces Mindy, with a predictable,‘Olé!’ Then she climbs onto the table, much to the delight of the waiters who gather round to watch this drunk woman in a very short pink skirt negotiating the climb. ‘Viva L’Espana,’ she shouts, while clicking her invisible castanets. She begins to undo the few buttons that are not already open and throws back her pink Pucci blouse to reveal a bikini full to the brim with fake breast.

‘Good lord,’ says Suzzi, as the Slag Wags cheer. They’re all used to this behaviour on the youthful side of the table, except for Helen—the new girl in the group. To her credit, she is open-mouthed and looking very uncomfortable with the way the lunch party is developing. Mindy is simply unable to whisper discreetly, ‘I’ve had my breasts done.’ She has to put on a strip show at the ladies’ lunch.

‘Anyone for melon?’ asks Mich.

‘No, you mean anyone for football?’ asks Suzzi, and they fall about laughing. Suze is so funny. Actually, though, in all honesty, each of Mindy’s new breasts is roughly the size of a heavily inflated football.

My caesar salad comes, without croutons, cheese, anchovies or dressing, and I move the lettuce around the plate. Pudding arrives. I didn’t order it. I haven’t eaten pudding for years, certainly not since I started wearing a bra. The pudding is clearly part of the sabotage techniques of the Slag Wags, designed to test my willpower. I delicately smash up the creamy-white mound sitting in the centre of an icing-dusted plate and move it around without tasting it. I don’t even know what it is, I just know that it’s full of calories that I cannot possibly consume. I wonder whether Mindy has realised that I changed her order so she’s drinking sweet white wine and normal lemonade! She doesn’t seem to have noticed that it’s not diet, not the way she’s throwing it down her throat.

Julie’s noticed, though. She’s making funny faces as she drinks her cocktail. I guess it wasn’t subtle to request it loaded with double cream. The sad thing is, though, that a few extra calories isn’t going to make a difference to those girls—they’re young, skinny and pretty…unlike me. I suddenly feel so obsessed by the thought of the passing years and the desperate, wrinkle-filled, grey-haired world towards which I’m clearly on a fast train, that I can’t think properly, or take any joy from their sabotaged drinks.

In the end, I resort to testing myself by guessing the number of calories in every item on the menu. I work out all the various combinations. Christ, I can do calorie calculations in my sleep. I often think to myself that if they’d done sums at school in calories, I might be lecturing at Harvard now, instead of devoting my days to ensuring I look ten years younger than I am.

I’m so absorbed in the calorie-counting business that I don’t see a burly man in a fluorescent jacket enter the restaurant and indulge in a heated exchange with one of the restaurant’s waiting staff. The waiter walks over to the table, but I’m too busy wondering how much vanilla and caramel custard you’re likely to get with the cinnamon whirl, and thus how many calories it’s likely to be, to hear him ask,

‘Does anyone have a four-by-four?’

Everyone at the table simultaneously says, ‘Yes.’

‘Is anyone’s car parked illegally?’ asks the waiter.

‘Yes,’ chorus the women.

He walks away, shaking his head, and tells the man in the fluorescent jacket that it’s impossible to identify the driver.

‘You’re quiet,’ Suzzi says to me, her voice full of concern. I’m normally the life and soul of these things.

‘Sorry, just a bit tired,’ I reply. ‘Looking forward to the season, though.’ I try, valiantly, to pull myself out of my morbid daydreams where the wrinkles and creases on my forehead are coming alive and starting to eat me up. ‘I’ve got some fabulous new clothes. I went up to Liverpool for the weekend.’

‘Ooooooooo,’ they all coo, because they know what ‘going up to Liverpool’ means. All except Helen, our token newcomer—poor girl. She’s sitting over with the Slag Wags, but she’d be better off over here with me so I could have a word with her about her clothing (her skirt’s so long it’s covering her knickers!!).

‘What’s in Liverpool?’ she asks, her big blue line-free nineteen-year-old eyes twinkling like crazy.

‘Cricket,’ says Mich, leaning in to join the conversation.

She’s two years younger than I am, but everyone thinks she’s four years older because she’s been honest about her age. It’s a shame because she could get away with saying she was much younger. She’s got these incredible pale green cat-like eyes. She’s not as skinny as the rest of us (she’s a size 8-10), but still manages to look great because she’s very curvy and has these full, sensual lips that men seem to adore.

Helen is looking at Mich with such confusion on her face, you’d think Mich had just announced that she was planning a sex change.

‘What—like bowling and batting and that?’

‘Cricket’s the ultimate Wag’s shop,’ Mich explains, delighting in the ignorance of a Slag Wag. It’s clear that Helen is providing us with an open goal, and I can see Mich preparing for the kick. ‘Fab clothes there. Have you really never heard of it?’

‘No,’ says Helen. ‘To be honest, I really don’t know anything much about this whole Wag thing.’

Not only does that make it 2-2, but the happy turn in the subject of the conversation means that I find myself on comfortable ground now and so I feel myself relax. There is nothing—NOTHING—that I don’t know about being a Wag. It’s my thing. I threw myself into the world as soon as I met Dean. When he played for Arsenal there was no one watching who was more tanned or more blonde.

‘Yes, I got loads of new clothes at Cricket.’ I’m peacocking now. ‘I even got the Roland Mouret Moon Dress—you know, the limited-edition one that Posh wore when she and David arrived in Los Angeles.’

‘No way,’ says Julie, clearly impressed. Julie is wearing a tight leather corset dress in caramel, which is completely wrong for the time of year. As Suzzi said: ‘She must be sweating like a pig.’ She’s wearing quite funky calf-length, shaggy-haired boots with it, and has a tan so orange it would put David Dickinson to shame, so she’s redeemed herself in that department, but the dress itself is not at all Wagalicious. It certainly didn’t come from Cricket, let’s put it like that.

‘If you’ve got a Moon Dress, why aren’t you wearing it?’ asks Mindy.

‘It’s being delivered,’ I explain.

‘Oh,’ says Mindy,‘so you haven’t actually got a Moon Dress then, you’ve just got one on order like everyone else.’

Bitch.

‘And guess what?’ I say quickly, pretending not to notice Mindy’s spiteful comment. ‘I had a red-carpet facial—you know, the one with the six-month waiting list and the oxygen injections.’

Helen’s mouth has dropped wide open so I can see that she has absolutely no fillings—just beautiful neat pearly-white teeth. She has perfect alabaster skin and a little upturned nose. She looks like a young model, just about to take the world by storm. No surprise there, really, because a young model with the world at her feet is exactly what she is. I don’t think I’ve ever hated anyone quite as much as I hate her right now.

‘I’ve never heard of a red-carpet facial,’ she says. ‘Don’t the injections hurt?’

Oh dear, I think. You have so much to learn, girl-friend. I want to say, ‘Yes, they hurt. Of course they hurt, but it’s my anniversary tomorrow and I HAVE to be line-free for it. Anyway, the injections don’t hurt half as much as Botox, skin peels, breast lifts, liposuction, eyelid surgery, lip-plumping injections or collagen injections.’ Of course, I don’t say that. She’s such an innocent and I don’t want to scare her. ‘They don’t hurt too much,’ I say. ‘Anyway, the pain’s worth it.’ I think back to the time when I had fat removed from my bottom and injected into my lips. I’d thought it looked great until Dean said, ‘Now you are, quite literally, talking out of your arse.’

Everyone’s smiling in a half-drunk sort of way, and I can see they’re pleased to have me back—their leader, the Queen Wag, the one who knows more about being a Wag than anyone. Even the Slag Wags look relieved. If there’s one thing Wags don’t like, it’s change. Unless it’s a change of clothes.

‘Could you take me to Cricket one day?’ Helen asks.

‘One day,’ I say, thinking how much fun it would be to help this poor girl—to take her under my wing and let all her Waggish beauty shine. I think of how lovely she will look once I’ve trowelled on her makeup, shortened her skirts, organised a boob job for her and covered her in jewellery. I order two bottles of champagne from the waiter. I’m in my element now—all thoughts of wrinkles and grey hair banished forever.

The sound of sobbing is coming from Suzzi’s direction. She’s been so emotional since she got pregnant.

‘What’s the matter?’ I ask.

‘I still can’t believe Victoria’s gone to LA,’ she says. ‘I’m going to miss her so much.’

‘I know, I know,’ I say, trying to comfort my dear friend. ‘We’ll all miss her, but we’ll still have her in Heat and Hello!.’

Suzzi calms down a bit, then Tammie, one of the Slag Wags, starts to cry. Oh god, what now?

‘Her hair. I still can’t bear it,’ says Tammie.

We were all upset when Victoria went for a short hairstyle, no one more than I, but you have to move on from these things. You have to let the pain go.

‘Don’t cry,’ I say patiently. ‘She didn’t have all her hair cut off; she just had the extensions taken out. She can easily have them put in again.’

There’s an audible sigh of relief from everyone present, and, not for the first time, I wonder whether I’m the only one who thinks these things through logically.

‘You’re amazing,’ says Helen encouragingly. She wants to be my friend. I see Mindy sit back in her chair in disgust and I realise that young Helen has scored an own goal. 3-2 to us.

‘Wags should have long hair and be done with it. ’Til death us do part. A Wag should be buried with her extensions attached. That’s the way it should be—long nails, long hair, long legs…’

‘And tans,’ adds Julie.

‘Of course,’ I say dismissively. ‘Of course, tans, and big handbags, and large accessories, and…’ I could keep going for the rest of my life and they all know it. There’s no one who understands Wags like me.

‘You should write a book,’ says Helen suddenly.

‘A book?’

‘Just for Wags. Telling people how they should dress and behave at matches…you know, a kind of Wags’ Handbook.’

‘Ooooo,’ says Mindy sarcastically. ‘That would be great. Really helpful.’

But so enthused are the others by the suggestion that Mindy’s sarcastic tone is missed altogether, and they assume she’s encouraging me. If I’m not mistaken that’s the no-way-back victory goal to us.

I say nothing. They’re all looking at me but I can’t focus on any of them. In that minute, that second, I feel my life changing forever. I can sense my calling as I can sense a new trend in knitwear. This must be how Shakespeare felt when someone said to him, ‘You should write a play, mate.’ Perhaps it’s how Churchill felt when someone said, ‘You should be in charge of the country.’ They would have known immediately, as I do now, that that was what they were born to do.

You see, I know the rules of Waggishness inside out and back to front. This is what I should do—use my age and experience to advantage instead of forever wishing I were younger and more innocent. It’s my destiny.

I picture myself standing high on a mountain, addressing thousands of future Wags. I look down at my audience and am greeted by the sight of yellow hair extensions and black roots as far as the eye can see. It fills me with pride. Great pride. I raise my arm and the cheers ring out around the world. ‘I have a dream…’ I say, and the women fall silent, listening intently. ‘I have a dream that one day all Wags will rise up and live out the true meaning of their creed.

‘I have a dream that the tanning studios, hair-extension salons, beauty parlours and wine bars of Luton will be filled with desperately undernourished blonde women with large handbags, small poodles and long nails. I have a dream that Victoria Beckham will be put in charge of the world, with me and Coleen covered in expensive jewellery and working as her special envoys.

‘I dream of colleges for Wags so they may learn about this art, and courses in spray-tanning and drinking obscene amounts of alcohol. I dream of every little girl being given my book for her birthday. I dream of a world in which sunglasses are compulsory, Cristal comes out of the taps and all shoes have colossal heels on them. I dream of orange legs, yellow hair, white teeth and heavy make-up. I dream of cat-fights, small rose tattoos and large lips. That, ladies, is my dream…’

‘Yes,’ I say, but my voice is barely a whisper as my mind is preoccupied by my daydream, in which my followers chant my name on the mountainside, and cast off their flat shoes and smart trousers for platform wedges and micro-shorts. I’m so lost in thought that I don’t see my car disappearing past the window on the back of a clamping truck.

‘I will do it,’ I say. ‘Yes, I will do it.’

Thursday, 2 August—our twelfth (ssshhh) wedding anniversary

9 a.m.

When is it okay to wake him up? I’ve been coughing loudly and nudging him gently since 8 a.m. (practically the middle of the night for a Wag—before Paskia Rose was born, I would have just been leaving Chinawhite at this time of morning) in the hope that he’ll open his eyes, realise what day it is, and leap like a gazelle from beneath the covers to retrieve the gift he’s bought for me. I know what the present is, of course—mainly because I have spent most of the past year telling him about the adorable gold bangle I’d seen. When I didn’t get the response I wanted, I told him about the gold bangle I’d seen that was sooooo beautiful and I would luuuuurvve more than anything in the world. Finally, finally, he came home last month with a bulge in his trouser pocket and I realised he’d bought it for me (I knew the bulge wouldn’t be anything else—he gets so tired once pre-season training starts). Then he went through a ridiculously unsubtle performance of trying to hide the gift.

‘Give me a minute,’ he hollered through the house.

‘Just busy doing something. Be out in a minute. Won’t be long. Don’t come in.’

Then he hid the present in such an utterly crap place that it took me approximately five seconds to find it. Why are men so hopeless at hiding things? Perhaps it’s because to them everything is hidden to start with. ‘I can’t find my socks.’ ‘Anyone seen my shoes?’ ‘My grey trousers aren’t here.’ They always are, of course. Usually right in front of his eyes.

‘Deeeaan,’ I whisper gently, nudging him again. Maybe if I push him harder. ‘Dean. Wake up.’

I’m really shaking him now, and there’s no sign of life. How can anyone sleep this deeply? Perhaps he’s dead. Could I still be a Wag if I were a widow? Hmmm…

I give him one almighty push and he rolls off the bed, smashing into the leopard-print bedside lamp on the way and landing with an almighty crash on the floor.

‘Ow,’ he says, rising to his feet, his hands clutching his head. ‘Ow, ow, ow. What happened then?’

‘You fell,’ I say, in mock concern. ‘Are you okay? Here, let me see.’ But even as I rub his head gently, all I can think is, Where’s my bangle? Where’s my bangle? Go get my bangle!

It’s strange that I should be tending to an injury to Dean on our anniversary because that’s how we first met. He was a twenty-year-old Arsenal player, knocking on a first-team place, when our paths crossed. I was an eighteen-year-old trainee hairdresser, living in a small flat above the salon, just down the road from where Dean’s nan lived, hoping to become a model, and he was a local celebrity. He walked with a strut and wore oversized trousers with huge trainers that were always undone. When he shuffled into the hairdresser’s where I was washing hair, I don’t think I’d ever seen a more beautiful human being. I made to leave elderly Mrs Cooper at the sink, with shampoo dripping into her rheumy bloodshot eyes, and then I dropped the shower attachment, letting it bounce onto its back and hurl a heavy spray of water up into the air and all over the clients.

‘Hi,’ I said eagerly, ignoring the shrieks from the women at the basins, the agonised cries from Mrs Cooper and the angry shouts from Romeo, the salon owner. ‘How can I help you?’

‘I’d like my ears pierced, babe,’ he said, winking at me.

‘Certainly. Come in.’

While Mrs Cooper was being comforted in the corner with eye drops and a small glass of sweet sherry, I led Dean over to Sally, the only one of us qualified to pierce ears. Actually, when I say qualified, I mean brave. She was the only one brave enough to pierce ears. She was no more qualified than the rest of us, but she’d practised extensively with a hole punch and wasn’t afraid of blood, so the task fell to her.

‘Just sit down,’ she said to Dean. ‘I’ll fetch some ice.’

Unfortunately, all the ice had gone into the gin and tonics that Romeo had been forced to provide for the soaking-wet clients at the basins, so Sally came back and told Dean it would be fine without ice. He just had to keep still.

There was a slight panic when she couldn’t find the antiseptic wipes and we discovered the piercing gun hadn’t been cleaned from the last time it was used, but in the end we carried on regardless. Sally pulled the trigger (making like she was John Wayne in the process, which further alarmed Dean). ‘Click’ went the machine. ‘Bang’ shouted Sally, as we both collapsed into fits of giggles. Then…‘Oh shit,’ she said. The gun had clamped shut on Dean’s ear and couldn’t be removed.

Sally pushed, pulled, struggled and swore. She looked at me. I smiled at Dean, who was now exactly the same colour as the chipped magnolia paint on the walls. I pulled the gun too. No good.

‘Oops,’ Sally said, doing her best to dampen down the fear emanating from one of Arsenal’s most promising footballers. ‘Little problem, I’m afraid.’

Sally and I jiggled around with the gun, pulling and pushing it, trying to work it free from Dean’s ear. Our every effort was accompanied by loud groans, cries and a considerable number of swear words from Dean. Then, he sighed loudly, made a grab for the arm of the chair and collapsed in a heap.

‘Shit!’ I said, jumping back. ‘We’ve killed him!’

‘No we haven’t,’ said Sally, showing herself to be infinitely more capable in a crisis. ‘We just need to get the gun off his ear.’

Around us stood all the clients in the salon, sipping their complimentary beverages and watching closely. Even Mrs Cooper had joined them, but she stood watching with one eye—the other covered by a makeshift patch, constructed from a wad of cotton wool and a vast amount of masking tape.

Eventually, the gun came off and Sally and I both collapsed in a heap from the effort. Dean was still slumped exactly as he was before, but with a large hole in his earlobe where the gun had, until recently, resided.

I lost my job that day, but I gained a boyfriend and then, two years later, a husband. It was the happiest day of my life when Dean proposed to me, just eight months after we met. I’ll never forget calling Mum and telling her:

‘I’ve met someone and he wants to marry me.’

‘Oh,’ she said, with very little interest, more than a little resentment, and some comment about how old this was all going to make her look.

‘His name’s Dean Martin,’ I said, and there was a silence on the end of the phone. Then:

‘Dean…Martin? The Dean Martin?’

I was thrilled that Mum had heard about Arsenal’s new sensation from all the way over there in Los Angeles.

‘Yep, the Dean Martin,’ I said, feeling very proud. ‘The Dean Martin is now my Dean Martin.’

‘Where did you meet the great legend?’

‘He came into the salon to get a piercing.’

‘What? Was he with the other members of the Rat Pack?’

‘No—he was on his own. The others had gone to get chips.’

‘Chips? Two of the greatest swing singers in the history of Big Band music—gone to get chips?’

‘No, Dean’s mates…from Arsenal.’

‘Hang on. So, who is this Dean Martin you’re going to marry?’

‘He plays for Arsenal.’

The line went dead. I asked a few people afterwards and they said that there was another Dean Martin in America who was seventy-odd at the time, and sang rubbish songs, so he must be the guy that Mum thought I was talking about. It turned out that the American Dean Martin died later that year…probably from a broken heart at being the wrong Dean Martin.

Meanwhile, back in London, the hole in my Dean’s ear never properly healed (he wears three earrings in it now), but he says he forgives me. Sally left the salon at the same time as me. Last I heard, she’d retrained as a butcher, which seemed strangely appropriate.

Mum ended up coming round to the idea of the wedding when she realised how much money footballers earn. In fact, she came straight back over to live in England, giving up her sun-soaked LA life and throwing herself into the coordination of my wedding. It was great to have Mum back, although quite alarming to see how young she’d become in her time away. It turns out that three facelifts and buckets full of Botox and collagen fillers had done the trick, but heavens, she looked good. She looked exactly like Barbie. Only slightly less natural-looking.

Mum just adored Dean from the moment she met him. He really took a shine to her, too, giving her the money to buy a house and a car and some staff. She’d come round in tiny little shorts, poking her 32DD bra-less breasts at Dean, and he’d be like putty in her hands. Nothing’s changed there, really.

‘How’s it feeling now?’ I ask.

‘Fine,’ he says, still holding his head. ‘Hey, I’ve got something for you.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. I’ve just got to remember where I hid it.’

Sock drawer, I think. Look in the sock drawer.

‘Gosh, I can’t remember.’

‘Well, put some socks on first, then try to remember,’ I say.

‘Don’t be silly. I want to find your present for you, not put socks on. Now let me think.’

‘I really think you’d be more comfortable with socks on,’ I insist.

‘No, I need to…’

‘Put socks on.’

‘But I…’

‘SOCKS!!’

So off he goes, confused and agitated, still clinging on to his head. Off to put socks on because it’s easier to do that than to keep opposing my absurd but heartfelt request. Bless him.

‘Ah…’ he says all of a sudden, the joy in his voice discernible through the wall of the dressing room. ‘You won’t believe what I just found in the sock drawer…’

Friday, 3 August

7.30 p.m.

‘Deeeeeaaan…’ I lean into my man, fluttering my eyelashes at him adoringly and thrusting my breasts at him provocatively as I attempt to wrestle the remote control from his grip. He’s having none of it.

‘What is it, doll?’ he asks, expertly performing a quick manoeuvre to keep the remote firmly within his grasp. If only he were as adept at keeping the ball at his feet, he might have had a half-decent international career. As it is, he has a less than half-decent club career. If it weren’t for me constantly pestering him to go training, get fit, eat healthily and wear bigger, golder jewellery, he’d barely be a footballer at all.

‘I was just wondering,’ I say, pouting my new, and let’s be honest, terrifyingly plump lips at him to such an extent that he actually flinches in his seat and murmurs something about pink slugs. ‘Why don’t you contact David Beckham or Wayne Rooney or something? You know, make friends with them.’

‘Eh?’ he says, his eyes not leaving the television for the merest second, and his left hand not moving from between his legs, where he is attempting, by assuming some sort of absurd yoga pose, to adjust the crotch of his tight, shiny grey trousers that I bought him from Dolce & Gabbana. He lifts his pelvis right up into the air in an effort to disentangle himself further, and I notice how narrow his hips look in their BacoFoil-type coating. If I wore trousers like that I’d look the size of the QE2, whereas he looks as narrow as the ridiculous silver tiepin he was presented with by the club last year. Is that why he’s not been selected for England for eight bloody years? Maybe if he were built like Frank Lampard instead of Frank Skinner he’d have had the call. Mmmm…Maybe I should do something to fatten him up. I’ll buy loads of steak tomorrow, and chips and cakes and lard and stuff. I’ll feed him till he explodes. It can be my new mission: OBUD—Operation Build Up Dean.

‘You know—why don’t you at least try to make friends with some England footballers? Some of them don’t look too bright—I’m sure you could become their new best friend without them even noticing. Then once the coaches see you out on the town with them, you might get selected to play for England again.’

‘It doesn’t work like that,’ he says. ‘It’s not like school. They don’t pick you because you’re friends with the other players.’

‘It can’t hurt,’ I try. I’d love him to play for England again. I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder than I was when he won his cap for his country. It was against Cameroon. They’re a really good side…I don’t think they’ve won the World Cup, but they probably came second or something. Dean was outstanding in the match. It wasn’t his fault that he only had four minutes to show how good he was. He got sent off, you see, then he was never picked again. No one knows why. I mean—it was only a little kick, and that guy deserved it. Ridiculous.

Anyway, I’m still proud of him. I display his cap in a large gold-rimmed frame. It’s back-lit, like all that naff old stuff in museums is, and it looks fantastic. I’ve got the match programme framed too, and my ticket for the game. Oh, and all the cuttings about the game from every newspaper that covered it around the world (except for the one where they described Dean as a ‘thug’—I threw that away). I’ve also got the precious squad list that the Football Association sent out with his name on it to confirm he was in the England squad. The annoying thing is that they’ve spelt his name wrong. Isn’t that ridiculous? To spell your star player’s name wrong! I rang them up at the time and screamed ‘It’s Dean Martin, not Martins’, but the woman on reception just kept asking me what department I wanted, then threatened to hang up when I called her a crazy old bat. Still, I had the last laugh because the squad list is now hanging on a red velvet background in a magnificent golden frame.

The mementoes from Dean’s international career cover an entire wall in the entrance hall. They’re perfect, especially next to the large statue of Dean in his football kit. It’s life-size. Actually, to be fair, parts of it are bigger than life-size. I don’t know what Dean had down his shorts when the sculptor was assessing all the dimensions, but the statue is very impressive indeed. It looks wonderful, especially now we’ve put the spotlights directly above it. People said we didn’t need spotlights, what with the three chandeliers lighting up the entrance hall, but I think it looks great.

I’d love Dean to have another chance to relive those four golden minutes and play for England once again. Above all, I’d like to be friends with Victoria, and go shopping and hang out with her and her Hollywood friends—and have a word with her about cutting her hair short.

Dean’s gone back to watching television again, and fiddling with the crotch of his trousers. He can’t hear a word I’m saying with the TV blaring out. I don’t understand why he has to have it on so loud—he seems to nudge the volume up until everyone’s shouting out at us from the large plasma screen on the far wall.

To be frank, I don’t need this right now. I’ve had one hell of a day. A dismal, horrific day in which I made a complete fool of myself at the beautician’s. Mallory normally tends to all my beauty needs—she’s practically full-time, hovering over me with tweezers and emery board day and night. But, for reasons that with hindsight I can’t begin to fathom, today I decided to pay a visit to the new salon in town for one of their oxygen facials. The beautician assigned to me was South African, which worried me from the start. I’ve only ever been to South Africa once and that was completely by accident. It was for our honeymoon and we ended up there after I told Dean that I really wanted to go to this fabulous club called En Safari in Ibiza. It never occurred to me that we’d go anywhere other than Ibiza for our honeymoon. I’m not sure I knew there were any other countries—just LA, where Mum had lived, England, where we lived, and Ibiza, where we went on holiday. Trouble was, Dean thought I’d said that I wanted to go ‘on safari’ so we ended up spending our entire honeymoon sleeping in a tent, covered in mosquitoes and watching a whole load of bloody animals. It was awful. I turned up on the first day wearing my specially chosen honeymoon outfit of little white hot-pants and fabulously high gold sandals with a gold halter-neck bikini top and a low-slung gold chain belt, and everyone was staring at me. They were all wearing plain, dull clothes. I had my gold-rimmed shades on and piles of bling that sparkled in the sunshine. I looked great and I knew it.

‘Hey, man. You’re gonna scare the animals,’ said this man with a rifle. He was all dressed in khaki. ‘And you need boots on your feet.’

I said the only boots I had were made of pink plastic and came up to the middle of my thigh, so he made me wear flat shoes belonging to some plain woman in our group. FLAT SHOES!—and they didn’t match my outfit.

It was the honeymoon from hell. No shops, no nice wine bars, no fancy cocktails, just a whole bunch of rhinoceroses and lions and stuff, and all these people going, ‘Aw, look—it’s a baby elephant…’ Don’t they have televisions? There are bloody nature programmes on all the time. I can’t get away from baby elephants when I’m flicking through to watch Britain’s Next Top Model, and I have to say that I’d be perfectly happy if I never saw a jungle animal again—baby or otherwise.

We left the safari in the end. Or, more accurately, they asked us to leave. We went to some place called Cape Town for a couple of days. That was strange, too. I had this horrible moment when trying to find the shops. You see, they call their traffic lights ‘robots’ out there. I asked how to get to the shops and was told ‘Turn left at the robots.’

‘What?’ I said. ‘The robots? I want to go to the shops, not into the future.’

Anyway, that’s why I was alarmed to have a South African beautician. Her name was Mandie.

‘Lie on the bed and take off your knickers,’ she said.

‘Pardon?’

‘I’ll need you to lie on there without your knickers on.’

It seemed an odd request since I was only having my face massaged and plumped up with some oxygen-containing creams, but I did as I was told, lying on the bed entirely naked below the waist.

The beautician turned round from where she’d been mixing lotions and potions and jumped back when she saw me lying there smiling at her, completely knickerless. She looked at me in the same way you might regard a lunatic running down the street, clutching a large knife—backing away from me, eyes wide and looking more than a little fearful.

‘What are you doing?’ she eventually asked.

‘I’ve taken off my knickers,’ I said.

‘No,’ said Mandie, pointing to my neck. ‘I said “Lie on the bed and take off your necklace.”’

Fuck! I scrabbled back into my Luton Town thong and slipped off my choker. I’m sure she was laughing at me. The facial wasn’t even that good anyway.

I rushed home afterwards to find Mum in the house—nothing odd about that,of course, she’s always there, snooping around to see what I’ve bought and to try on all my new clothes. Today, though, I just couldn’t handle talking to her and listening to all her criticisms of me.

‘These shoes are horrible,’ she said as soon as I walked in.

‘Not now, Mum,’ I said, walking right past her and going to look for Dean, hoping to have some sort of conversation with him. Now I’ve found him, though, he’s just locked in his own little TV world. He’s like a child when it comes to the goggle-box. He’s kicked the zebra rug out of the way and shifted the sofa forwards, so he’s practically nose-to-nose with the presenter. The only person I know who has the television on louder is Nell. She has it blaring out so much, you have to hold on to your ears in case your eardrums blow apart.

I once took Nell to the cinema and she complained all the way through the film about how loud it was. Eh? How does that work? I’ll tell you what also confuses me about Nell is that she has the fire on, the central heating on and wears a coat, hat and gloves in August, then complains frequently of hot flushes. God help me if Dean ends up like her when he’s older—I don’t think I could cope.

‘Can you turn it down, love,’ I say for the third time, as if I’m asking him to make the ultimate sacrifice.

‘It’s celebrity darts,’ he says, turning to face me. A wounded look had crept across his features. ‘It’s Syd Little against Ulrika Jonsson’s sister’s ex-boyfriend’s uncle.’

‘This is important,’ I persist. ‘Really important.’

Syd Little misses the dartboard completely and Dean spins round. ‘And you think this isn’t?’

‘Paskia Rose’s school report’s here,’ I say. ‘I found it screwed up in her underwear drawer. It turns out she’s really not doing very well at all.’

Dean shrugs and I feel like crying. For some reason I’m considerably more dismayed than I ever imagined I’d be at the sight of a bad school report—after all, it’s not as if it’s the first bad report I’ve ever seen. When I was at school I used to…never mind, that’s not important now. The fact is that my baby has not excelled at her beautiful prep school. I feel as let down as I did when she refused to wear the ribbon-bedecked school boater.

Dean, though, looks entirely unmoved. He mutters to himself in a manner that suggests he’s thinking, What the hell do you expect, you daft mare? We have neither a brain cell nor a qualification between us.

‘Despite possessing a considerable intellect, quite precocious debating skills and having a remarkable grasp and understanding of women’s liberation issues, Paskia Rose continues to let herself down in the core subjects,’ reads Dean. ‘Blimey, Trace. That’s a brilliant report.’

‘Women’s liberation issues!’ I say. ‘By that they mean she knows all about the lezzers that chain themselves to gates and burn their bras.’

‘Lezzers chaining each other to gates? What—you mean like in the videos they play on the team bus?’

‘No, Dean. They mean different women. Ugly women.’

‘Ah, that’s a shame. I like them videos. But it says she’s intelligent, love, and listen to this music report…’ He coughs gently and prepares to read: ‘Paskia Rose has managed to play her trumpet in time with the rest of the class on a couple of occasions this year. This is a great achievement for her, and a considerable relief for the rest of us.’

‘Ah, that’s nice,’ I say.

‘And there’s more,’ adds Dean. ‘Paskia’s footballing ability is staggering.’ He tails off, smiling to himself. ‘When it comes to football, she is the most talented pupil, of either sex, that I have ever had the pleasure of teaching.’

Dean screams with delight and tosses the report into the air in sheer joy. He’s running around the room now, with his shirt over his head. ‘Yeeeeesssss…’ he is shouting. I, conversely, feel like crying. I’m not exaggerating. If you asked me to list the dreams, hopes and ambitions that I have for my only daughter, playing football would be right at the bottom; below drug-pushing and just above prostitution. However, Dean is now doing a highly embarrassing Peter Crouch-style robotic dance to mark his joy and delight at his daughter’s prowess. ‘Oh yes,’ he is muttering. ‘Oh yes.’

It’s probably a combination of all the champagne at our anniversary dinner last night, the fact that I’m officially the oldest Wag who ever lived (well, not officially—but married for twelve years? I mean, that’s like—old—whichever way you look at it), and discovering my daughter is set to turn into a football-playing lesbian with really short hair and earrings all up her earlobe, but I feel like weeping like a baby.

‘Perhaps she’ll be good at darts too,’ Dean says opti-mistically, turning back to the television, adding a quick ‘ooo’ as Paul Gascoigne’s hairdresser prepares to take on a guy who nearly made it onto Big Brother. ‘The grand finale,’ he says breathlessly.

We watch the finale, in which neither participant appears to get their darts even remotely close to the dartboard, me thinking constantly about Paskia Rose’s problems. She’s just finished the prep school and next term will start at Lady Arabella Georgia School for Girls, THE poshest school in Luton. What if she can’t cope academically? Does it matter? I mean—does school have any bearing at all if you’re going to become a Wag one day, which, obviously, I hope with all my heart that Pask will. In fact, isn’t an education a disadvantage? Yeeesss! Now I feel like running around the room and doing strange mechanical dances myself. All that is happening here is that Paskia Rose is turning into a Wag! Perhaps when I write my Wags’ Handbook (which I will definitely start tomorrow—it’s been a busy day), I should have a section for young girls who hope someday to become Wags? Like career advice.

‘Deeeaaan,’ I say, and he does that thing where he drops his head forward and closes his eyes, as if to say, ‘Not now, woman.’ Obviously, I completely ignore him. ‘I’m going to write a handbook to help young Wags and make sure they know how to behave. What do you think?’

I’m asking him rhetorically—his views on this, as on most other things, are of no fundamental consequence. Even as I talk about it, I feel the pride bursting through my voice like a brilliant ray of sunshine.

He’s looking at me as if I’m insane but doesn’t answer the question in any way that could be described as helpful. ‘My fucking balls are going to explode in these,’ he says, standing up and walking towards the bedroom with the remote control still in his right hand and his left hand cupping himself in a rather obscene manner. ‘I’m gonna stick some old trackies on.’

‘Do you have to?’ I am absolutely sure that Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard never wander around the house in ‘old trackies’. ‘Why don’t we go out somewhere special?’

‘Nah,’ he says.

‘How about doing some training or something, then? Why don’t I give you a lift to the gym?’

‘’S all right,’ says Dean, quickly disappearing into the bedroom with a look that screams, no way am I going to the gym and no way are you driving me.

Good job really, because Doug, our driver, has gone home, and I’ve no idea where my car is. It had clean disappeared by the time I came out of the restaurant on Wednesday and I haven’t had the time to look for it, contact the police, or do whatever else you’re supposed to do when your car vanishes into thin air. God, life is so stressful sometimes. I bet Posh never has these sorts of problems.

Saturday, 4 August—first day of OBUD

2 p.m.

Bollocks. Where do they keep the cakes in these places? I’m pushing a shopping trolley with the sort of precision that I normally reserve for driving, crashing into the fruit section, then into the cans of soup, and then thundering into the bread products. Bread? Bread’s fattening. I reach out for a couple of white loaves that look fat- and calorie-laden and hurl them into the trolley with unnecessary force. They land with a satisfying doughy thump at the bottom and sit there, looking up at me all misshapen and sad-looking. Then I spot something…something that looks all chocolatey and delicious…perfect for OBUD. Swiss roll. Outstanding! What a find! This shopping lark’s not so difficult after all. Perhaps I should do it more often. I always do my shopping on the net. Or, rather, Alba, the Spanish au pair, does. She orders the same things every week—they’re the only items that Magda—the housekeeper—can cook. I tried to get Magda to do the ordering herself, but she did something wrong, and that intimidating timebomb thing appeared on the screen. Then Alba threw herself on the floor, mumbling something about ETA, whatever that is, and sobbing all over the tiles. She refused to get up until Magda promised never to go near ‘the violent machine’ again.

It all got me so cross, especially since the only reason we employed Alba in the first place was because I wanted a Spanish member of staff. I kept thinking that Dean might be transferred to Real Madrid or something. You know—like Becks was.

For OBUD, though, I need to take full responsibility myself—no delegating the details to Barcelona’s finest. So that’s why I’m stumbling round Marks and Spencer’s food section on a Saturday afternoon, instead of going to pilates with Gisella and Sophie—mums from Pask’s school. Not that I’m bothered—bloody pilates bores me to tears—all that business with the stretching and breathing properly. I feel like shouting, ‘I’m here because I want to be as thin as Posh, not to prepare for childbirth.’ I read that Coleen does it—that’s why I registered for the twelve-week course. This is week ten. I’ve only been once.

Oil. Perfect. I’m not sure quite how I’m going to get him to drink it, but I stick four large bottles into the supermarket trolley. Lard!!! Eight blocks of it. Fairy cakes, chips, meat pies, jam, ice cream, chocolate, cream horns, rump steaks, filled potato skins, ready-made curries, pizzas, salami, cheese (six large blocks), twenty-four cans of beer…Out they all come onto the conveyor belt towards the cashier. I throw in handfuls of chocolate bars from the till point as I watch fruit-cake, a block of marzipan, nuts, syrup, spotted dick, bread and butter pudding, pasties and sausage rolls trundling along…

‘Tracie, Tracie? I thought it was you.’

Before me stands Mindy, clutching a wisp of silk in her dainty fingers as she watches the conveyor belt with undisguised horror. ‘I’m just underwear shopping,’ she says slowly, still observing the copious amounts of food being shoved into carrier bags.

‘Do you want all this oil and lard together?’ asks the assistant, holding up blocks of the stuff. ‘There’s a lot of it. Might break the bag.’

‘Two bags, please,’ I say, through gritted teeth, my eyes never leaving Mindy’s as she tries to stop herself looking down at the beer, pizza, cakes and steamed puddings passing before her eyes.

‘Well. You’re obviously busy here. I’ll leave you to it. Nice to see you. I’ll see you for the first fat—I mean, first game.’

I smile and she’s gone. She lets the silk underwear flutter onto a nearby clothes rack as she exits onto Luton High Street, and gets straight on her mobile phone, no doubt, to tell the world about my serious eating disorder…

Bugger, bugger, bugger.

5 p.m.

‘Mum!’ cries Paskia Rose in horror and amazement. ‘What the hell are you doing in here?’

‘Don’t use words like “hell”,’ I instruct, as I take the swiss roll out of its packaging and lay it on a plate.

‘But this is ridiculous,’ she continues. ‘You never, ever go in the kitchen. I’ve never seen you even touch food with your bare hands before. Why are you here? What’s going on?’

‘I’ve decided to cook something delicious for your father.’

‘Right,’ she says, picking a chocolate clump out of the top of the swiss roll and eating it. ‘What are you going to cook with swiss roll?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say, and that’s the truth. I just figure that anything I cook with chocolate and fondant icing as its base will probably taste nice, so Dean will eat it, put on weight and be all muscly and manly come the start of the season. He’ll then immediately capture the attention of the England selectors, who will probably make him England captain, and I’ll be on the cover of every magazine and be sent free shoes from every designer in the country. So Paskia Rose can scoff all she likes—there is method in my madness.

‘Why don’t you fetch an apron and help me?’ I suggest. ‘We could cook together—two little women in the kitchen, mother and daughter bonding over the cooker?’

‘Yeah, right,’ she replies. ‘Or I could throw myself under an express train. Man, this is way too weird. Way weird.’

When I was a ten-year-old girl like Pask, I would have loved, adored, just worshipped the idea of cooking with my mum. Just being with Mum was wonderful. I couldn’t get enough of it. Unfortunately, Mum never felt the same. Dad left when I was a few months old and she devoted the rest of her life to finding a replacement. My childhood memories are coloured by the images of men coming and going. Most of them were rich and much older than her. When there was a new man on the scene, she’d dance and sing and sweep me into her arms. I’d love those moments—moments when I’d feel warm and loved. Then she’d be dumped and take it all out on me. How could she ever find a man with a brat like me at home? The sound of her singing was replaced by the sound of her crying. And I knew—throughout my childhood—that I was causing all the pain. It was all my fault.

At the door to the kitchen, Pask, Alba, Marina (the live-in cleaner) and Magda are standing, hands over their mouths, as if they’ve just seen a flock of sheep cooking in the kitchen.

‘And?’ I say. ‘Your problem is?’

‘Oh, Mrs Martin, Mrs Martin. This is a kitchen—a kitchen,’ says Marina, attempting to guide me out of the room with an arm around my shoulders, as if I am a little old lady who has just wandered into a gay bar. ‘You shouldn’t be in here. This place is not for you. Is dangerous. Come, come. Let me help.’

‘No,’ I say bravely, standing up straight and pushing her arm off. ‘This is my kitchen and I will cook in it.’

I walk back to the swiss roll with my head held high, and reach into the cupboard to pull out the lard and the oil. I have no idea what to do with these, but I know they contain the necessary fat to build up Dean. There’s a collective intake of breath from the doorway and the sound of three women and a girl muttering ‘Lard?’

‘I want to be alone,’ I say to my spectators. ‘I need peace and quiet.’

Okay, so it turns out that it’s harder than I thought it would be. The swiss roll covered in lard looked terrible—as though it were preparing for a cross-Channel swim. Maybe I should have made it some teeny-weeny chocolate goggles and thrown it into the sea—it wasn’t good for much else. In the end I decide to roast it in olive oil, so I squash it into a saucepan, pour olive oil over the whole lot and put it into the oven with the heat turned up as far as it will go. I don’t know what temperature is right for pan-roasted swiss roll because there don’t appear to be any recipes for it, but I’m guessing hottest is best—like with curling tongs. You’re wasting your time on the half-heat settings, the curls fall out straightaway.

While my swiss roll is roasting in two bottles of olive oil (is that roasting or deep-fat frying? Must be roasting if it’s in the oven), I decide to make custard to go with it. I have a sachet of powder, so I read down the instructions. Not fattening enough, so instead of using milk I decide to use melted cheese and I shove three blocks of cheese into the microwave.

Next thing to happen is the smell—kind of sickly and pungent, like car tyres, sort of rubbery. In the microwave nothing untoward is happening—just cheese melting everywhere. It strikes me that I probably should have put it on a plate or in a bowl first, but besides that everything is going according to plan. No, the smell is definitely coming from the oven.

I peel open the door and look inside. Shit. The handle of the saucepan has completely melted off and is dripping onto the bottom of the oven. Fuck. I slam the door shut and try to waft away the acrid smells with the skirt of Magda’s apron, which thankfully I put on to protect my skinny jeans. I switch the whole thing off at the mains, indiscriminately pulling out plugs until the lights on the cooker go off.

Right. Breathe. Relax. Take a chill pill, as my mother’s always saying. I take a deep breath and look across the kitchen at the utter devastation I’ve caused. It looks like a war zone—as if the paratroopers have just left. Thank god I’ve got plenty of staff to help me clear up.

‘All right, Mum?’ comes a voice from the doorway.

‘I’m fine, darling,’ I start to say. Then I see melted cheese running out from underneath the door of the microwave. Oh god. Oh no. Why do bad things always happen to me?

Midnight

We had a takeaway for supper in the end. I hate take-aways. I always think that someone will see the pizza man arriving, which would be awful (although after my experiences in M&S today, I think I’ll have to redefine ‘awful’), so I get him to pull up outside the house next door, then I give Magda the money and get her to go out and collect them. ‘Do NOT let anyone see you,’ I instruct.

Comparatively, pizza boxes are just mildly embarrassing. I hate the smell in the house (mind you, one of the happy consequences of the saucepan and the red-hot cooker incident earlier today was that it left a strong smell in the house that has disguised odour d’American Hot, odour de garlic bread and all the nasty side-order odours). I also hate the food itself, because I know that pizza is about 300 calories a mouthful, so I can’t have any of it. Not one slice. Not so much as a sliver of pepperoni has passed my lips tonight.

Now I’m lying in bed feeling deflated and useless. I’m starving, of course, but nothing new there. I also feel like a complete failure. I’ve not been as utterly useless at anything since I took up ballet classes, aged twelve, to please Mum. I hated being in the limelight back then because I disliked the way I looked so much. I was terribly overweight—like a little Buddha with a big round tummy, chubby thighs and a fat face. Everyone took the mickey out of me, especially Mum. I had little round glasses and brown hair that bushed out at the ends. It just never hung properly like other girls’ hair did. It had this awful frizz that lasted until I was around sixteen. I think the main reason I became a hairdresser was because I spent my youth experimenting with different ways to control my unruly hair. These were the days before hair straighteners and hair extensions! Can you imagine? What was the point in living?

The fact that I was so desperately shy and insecure meant that I hated dancing with anyone except my mother. It was lovely to be twirled round the kitchen by her. She smelled of Ma Griffe and was all soft and perfect-looking. Standing in a line at a bar with a dozen other girls, all much skinnier than me, and being made to bend, stretch, bend, stretch for an hour—that was no fun. But, still, I went to the classes to please Mum.

Then there were the performances. My abiding memory was of sitting on the number 11 bus on the way there, whacking my legs with my fist, hoping to break them into pieces so I wouldn’t have to perform. I didn’t manage to injure myself, of course, so I went on stage every time, looking out for Mum. But Mum didn’t even turn up. She never came to watch me in anything.

When Mum went away to LA to live, I started to lose weight. It sounds odd, and no one understood it at the time, but Jean, my psycho woman, says that I was eating to cushion myself from all the abuse my mother was giving me. By the time Mum came back to live in England I was about to get married to Dean and felt settled and happy, so her comments didn’t get to me in quite the same way. In fact, the only time she’s managed to upset me since was in relation to the wedding.

I really wanted a pink coach pulled by Palomino horses with pink manes. I wanted Dean’s nan, Nell, to give me away because she’d welcomed me into Dean’s family like I’d never been welcomed anywhere before. I wanted all my old friends to be there. I wanted a big fairytale, I wanted the whole thing to be perfect.

Mum, however, was really keen for it all to be lowkey. I remember that when I phoned her in Los Angeles to tell her about the wedding and that we were thinking of letting the magazines have pictures and making it a big occasion, she went nuts and got the first plane over here. She never went back. She was so keen to be involved in the wedding—and it was good, just more like Mum’s wedding than mine. It was odd because it was really glitzy and we had loads of fab people there, but Mum made a real fuss about it not being in the paper under any circumstances and even stopped Arsenal from putting out a press release.

‘Let’s just keep this low-key,’ she kept muttering, while flying in designers from Paris to measure her for her dress (which was way more spectacular than mine). Mum’s been like that since she got back here—really keen for me never to be high-profile and always keep myself to myself. I suppose that’s just the way she is. She’s had a hard life, so I can’t be too tough on her. My dad was a real monster—just the most evil person ever. He was horrible and he badly hurt Mum and would have nothing to do with us after I was born. I really, really hate him for the way he treated her. Thank god I found a diamond like Dean. Poor Mum.

IT HAS ARRIVED…

Saturday, 11 August—the season starts

10.30 a.m.

‘Just try to relax,’ says Mallory, examining the gleaming, silver-coloured butterflies glittering magnificently on my vibrant-pink acrylic fingernails and my matching pink toenails. She’s been painting, filing and pushing back wayward cuticles for two hours. Now we’re at the end of our morning of beautification. ‘Just sit still for fifteen minutes while the paint dries. That’s all you’ve got to do.’

I find myself nodding like a small child while Mallory packs away her things into what looks like a toolbox.

‘Can’t you find something prettier than that?’ I ask, indicating the large metal container with a stretch of my new nail.

Mallory catches sight of the butterfly wings as they flit past. She draws a giant breath and clutches her hands to her chest.

‘Be careful, Tracie,’ she says. ‘You don’t want to smudge them.’

‘But that box. It’s not very ladylike, is it? It looks like the sort of thing that you keep nails, screws and chisels in.’

Mallory smiles to herself and continues to pack everything away, managing to stop herself commenting that, increasingly, nails and screws are exactly what are needed to keep Wags like me together. ‘I’ll look for something prettier,’ she says. ‘Same time next week?’

‘Yes. I’ll need some waxing this week, too, but I’ll call you about that—my diary’s hectic. Now, would you be a darling and see yourself out?’ I offer her a heavily made-up cheek for a kiss. ‘I would come with you, but I don’t want to smudge these beautiful nails.’

‘Sure.’ Mallory smiles indulgently and heads for the door, stepping over the fluffy rug in the hallway that she says always reminds her of a dead lamb. ‘Every time I step on it I expect it to start bleating imploringly,’ she told me once, adding that when she wears her long cream coat she fears the rug might run after her, thinking she’s its mother.

I know Mallory thinks the rug’s a death trap on the shiny floor. Magda polishes the wood daily because I do like a tidy house, but I accept that it makes walking a bit tricky. I have lost count of the number of times that Mallory has put a foot on it only for it to fly away from underneath her, tipping her up and backwards and landing her on her back in a most unladylike fashion, with her legs in the air and the tools of her trade scattered liberally around the vast marble-pillared entrance hall.

I listen from the conservatory with my feet up on a cushion, cotton wool threaded through my toes and varnish still wet on my nails. No thud? Well done, Mallory! I feel like applauding. The silly girl has finally worked out that you have to step round the mat and not go galumphing over the top of it!

The door closes behind her and I know it’s time to get going. I have so much to do. My make-up needs topping up, I have to get dressed, and Doug, the driver, is coming for me at midday. I must remember to collect the car from the clamping place next week. I got a letter telling me that it’s at a vehicle recovery centre in Croydon.

It’s the pre-match lunch at 12.30 p.m. and I really can’t be late—not again. I must try to get there before pudding is served at least once this year. I ease myself off the chaise longue and place my feet carefully on the floor—walking like a duck with my toes curled up to stop them catching in the thick pile of the cream carpet.

I waddle towards the bedroom. My dressing table is neatly stacked with all the latest beauty products—lined up in descending order of size thanks to the organisational skills of my various European staff members. I attempt to push them to one side with the back of my hand, ensuring my nails don’t smudge. Christ, being a Wag is so much more difficult than people realise.

Okay, so now I have some space. I just need to sit down in front of the mirror. I place my hands flat on the dressing table and lean my weight onto them, while I hook my foot round the dressing-table stool and push it backwards. Shit! I’ve bumped my big toenail against the carved leg of the stool. Shit, shit, shit. I hop to the bed, howling as if I’ve broken my toe rather than chipped my nail, and try to examine the damage without making things worse. I feel like crying—there’s a mark right in the middle of my big toenail. There’s no way on earth I can go to the first match of the season like this! I’m just not one of those Wags who can appear in public looking like a scruff. No one would ever speak to me again, and I couldn’t bear that.

I reach for my mobile phone and dial Mallory’s number. ‘Turn round,’ I beg, tears now coursing down my face, leaving greasy tracks in my orange foundation. ‘Pleeeeease turn round straightaway. It’s an emergency.’

Outside, Mallory opens the car door and crunches across the gravel towards the house. She hasn’t left. She still has her toolbox in her hand. She confesses later that she always sits in the car for twenty minutes after visiting me before she starts the engine, because every time in the five years she’s been visiting me, I’ve called her back in near hysterics after spotting a smudge on some nail or other. ‘Don’t worry, I’m coming,’ says Mallory, as if she were talking to a four-year-old. ‘Mallory’s coming.’

I collapse onto the bed in pure relief. My shocking-pink fingernails hit the snow-white duvet and stick immediately. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.’

3.10 p.m.—the season has just started

‘Why’s he doing that?’ asks Helen.

I don’t have a clue.

‘Why did the referee blow the whistle?’ asks Helen seconds later.

I don’t have a clue.

‘Who’s winning?’

I don’t have a clue.

‘Who’s playing?’

I don’t have a clue.

‘How long did you say you’d been coming to these matches?’

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a confession to make—I know nothing about football. I’ve been coming to games since I got married a couple of years ago (sshhh) but I still don’t know what they’re all doing out there. I suspect that if I were to spend the rest of my life devoted to watching football I’d still be no more able to identify a goal-scoring opportunity than I could walk past Gucci without going in.

Someone called Trevor once tried to explain the offside rule to me by saying it was like shoe-shopping. Apparently, it’s all got something to do with the fact that you’re at the back of the shop with your husband and the shoes you want to buy are at the till. When you walk up to the counter to pay for them, if you forget to bring your bag, your husband has to bring it to you—he can’t kick it to you or you’d be offside.

‘I’d be offside? If he started kicking my handbag around, he’d be offside, out of the house, divorced, and paying an eye-watering amount of maintenance, thank you very much.’

‘No, I’m just trying to explain,’ Trevor had said. ‘He couldn’t kick your handbag.’

‘No, he bloody couldn’t!’ I was starting to grasp why offside is so important. Kick my handbag? Who would ever do that? I’d rather he kicked me, to be honest.

‘Anyway, Dean never goes shoe-shopping with me, Trev.’

‘No, but if he did—that’s how offside would work.’

‘But Dean wouldn’t come, and he’d never kick my handbag, so offside doesn’t really apply to me.’

‘But, say he did…’

‘He wouldn’t go shoe-shopping with me ever. End of story. End of offside rule.’

Trevor, in common with every other man I’ve met, never tried to explain anything about football to me again.

Helen leans over. ‘I’m confused,’ she says.

‘I’ve been confused for over a decade,’ I reply. Then I realise what I’ve confessed to. ‘Since I was about ten,’ I say quickly. ‘Yes, I’ve been confused since I was at school.’

‘Do you know what the offside rule is?’ she asks, scared now.

‘Yes,’ I whisper. ‘It’s all about getting your boyfriend to go shoe-shopping with you. But I wouldn’t if I were you.’

5.30 p.m.—the season has just got off to the worst start imaginable

‘Three-nil,’ says Suzzi, shaking her head. ‘Three-nil to them. I can’t believe it.’

‘No, it can’t be three-nil to them,’ says Helen, who has been very quiet and wearing a rather bemused expression since the offside conversation. ‘Dean scored twice, so I know we got some goals.’

I just smile and back away so I don’t have to explain. There’s very, very little that I know about football, but I do know that you have to get the ball in the right net.

‘Oh,’ I hear Helen say, when my husband’s double faux pas are explained to her by a gleeful Mindy. ‘Is that why he decided not to come out and play any more after the interval?’

‘No,’ says Mindy, her voice rising so she can be sure that I can hear her. ‘That’s because he was subbed off. You see, he wasn’t very good today. Captains never get subbed off.’

‘Oh,’ I hear Helen say as she looks around for me. She walks over. ‘Are you all right?’ she asks me.

I nod and tell her that I’m fine. Dean had an ‘off match’ but he’ll be fine soon and back on song.

‘Oh good,’ says Helen. ‘Look—I’ve got a massive favour to ask you. When are you going to write your handbook? You know—the one you said you’d write. I’ve been asked to be a promotions girl at a posh race course—you know, with horses and that. I just don’t know how I should behave there as a Wag. I don’t want to get it wrong and let my man down. I’ve also been asked to be a topless waitress at a stag party that’s being held in a private room at the opera. I’ve never been to such posh places before, Tracie. You have to help me.’

‘The first thing is not to worry,’ I tell her. Then I promise to think about this difficult dilemma and let her have my thoughts. ‘One thing I want you to remember, though, is that you can take a Wag out of a football club, but you can’t take the football club out of a Wag. Not a true Wag. You need to be clear about who you are, Helen, even if you’re surrounded by posh people.’

‘That’s great advice, Trace,’ she says. ‘I’ll try to remember that.’

‘Yes, always remember that,’ I declare, and I promise that I’ll have a proper think about her tricky situation. ‘Now, I must find my husband.’

7 p.m.

Dean has never looked sadder or more dejected than he does this evening. We’re sitting in the players’ bar with all the guys and their Wags, but my Deany is too distressed to get involved with anyone. His head has dropped right forward and his chin is resting on his chest, while his big blue eyes are shutting, trying to block out the pain and misery…the sheer horror of what happened today. His hands lay over his heart and I watch his shoulders start to heave forwards gently. He’s silently sobbing inside. I drop to my knees next to him, appalled that this strong man is crumbling before me.

I’m devastated that this should happen to him—my beautiful, talented husband. I see his hands rubbing his chest, as if trying to mend his broken heart. Then his shoulders heave again. He’s obviously going to start crying. I don’t think I can bear it.

He throws his head back and, just as I think he might start wailing in pain and misery, he emits the loudest, most disgusting belch I’ve ever heard.

‘Oooo, that’s better,’ he declares, sitting up properly and smiling at me. ‘Way too much lager.’

Sunday, 12 August

10 a.m.

Helen’s dilemma has been on my mind all night. We have an early-season party at the club this afternoon, and I know Helen will be eager to have answers to her questions. Her turning to me for advice in this way has made me realise more keenly than ever just how valuable, how essential, my Wags’ Handbook will be. I will write out an answer to Helen’s question and it will be the start of my book. This afternoon, when I hand the piece of paper over to Helen, I will tell her that she is making history by being the first person to see a piece of advice that will one day change the Wag world.

‘Paskia,’I shout, walking up to my daughter’s bedroom and knocking on her door. I ease it open and peer in. She lifts her head off the pillow and squints at me. Her short brown hair is all messed up. (I know, I know—it’s such a giveaway. Children should be born with hair the colour that you’ve dyed your own, not the colour your own hair is naturally.) I switch on the light and she throws her head under the pillow rather dramatically.

‘I need you to show me how to use the computer,’ I say, while looking around at the football posters all over the wall. It’s heartbreaking. She should have pictures of pop stars on her wall by now and have a comprehensive plan in place for becoming a groupie. She’s never going to be in a position to sleep with one, sell her story and pose topless for a national newspaper if she doesn’t start to identify some potential targets now. From what I can gather, becoming famous through kissing and telling is a sure-fire route to a night with a footballer. It’s unconventional but it works. It’s all any mother could want for her daughter.

Paskia lifts her head up. She such a big girl, with her large shoulders and chunky thighs, but she’s pretty…in her own way. She has so many freckles on her face that they’re almost touching each other. It’s a shame that they don’t—then she’d look permanently spray-tanned. I’ve thought about sneaking into her room one night while she’s sleeping and joining them all up. Perhaps if she was a nice colour it would distract from the big metal braces running across the front of her teeth.

‘Pask, I need you to show me how to work the computer thing.’

She crawls out of bed, very unwillingly, and shuffles towards the computer. Her Luton Town pyjamas are too tight. She’s obviously putting on weight again. I’m desperately hoping that she won’t develop issues with food like the ones I had when I was younger.

Pask presses a series of buttons and the whole screen lights up. ‘Whoooaahhh…’I say, jumping back from it. ‘What’s it doing?’

‘It’s just coming on, Mum. Relax.’

Finally, the machine is running and Pask ‘opens Word’—whatever that means.

‘There. Just type,’ she says. ‘Next time, use Dad’s laptop instead of waking me up.’

‘I’m not using your father as a lapdog,’ I retort. She’s getting so cheeky.

Right. Here we go.

My advice for Helen, by Tracie Martin.

I can’t work out how to do a little heart above the ‘i’ in Tracie, so I’ll have to write that on by hand afterwards.

Rules for a Wag forced to endure events that are not really very Wag-friendly. Specificalorie—the opera and the horse racing.

Opera can be a trial for any human being to endure, let alone a Wag who will find herself feeling particularly uncomfortable at the sight of very overweight women screaming at each other in Italian. Once the bunch of fat tarts have finished their screeching, with a bit of luck you’ll get a half-tasty bloke on to sing, but nine times out of ten he’ll be fat too, and probably sweat a lot and have a beard. In fact, I think there is really only one male opera singer and he’s called Perverted-hottie, or something like that, and he’s not very good because he just sings the song that he nicked from Italia ‘90 when Gazza cried. It’s called ‘Nests on Dormouse’, which is clearly nonsense.

If you are forced to go to the opera, obviously make sure it’s being performed in a theatre. This may sound like rather an obvious thing to say, but it is important to remember that some people go to watch opera in parks and fields. Fields?! You should avoid fields at the best of times in case you get foot and mouth disease, and I’m sure it goes without saying that you should particularly avoid them when there are fat people singing in them.

Now, as well as opera, another posh social event is horse racing. The nice thing about this is that it does have quite a ‘chavvy’ edge to it—what with the links with gambling and drinking—so it’s not quite as ‘otherworldly’ as opera is, and there’s no reason why a properly dressed Wag should not fit in perfectly. So—how to dress. Obviously, having a ridiculous hat with loads of feathers poking out of it so you look like a bleedin’ budgie is a good start, as is making sure that you’ve got your hemlines exactly right. I think that, because it’s quite a posh occasion, you should have your dress covering your knickers, but only just! A little flash of gusset is always nice (if you’re going to adopt this style of dress, remember not to wear crotchless knickers!).

Obviously, when it comes to choosing colours, baby pink is always nice. Making sure the outfit is expensive is vital, and in manmade fibres where possible. If you can find a top for £500 made entirely of nylon—snap it up. They’re hard to come by. If you don’t fancy pink (and if you don’t, you need to ask yourself why not?) then just go for colours unknown to Nature.

Picking the right size for your outfit is crucial. You know how it is when you see someone in clothes that fit properly—they look so dull and plain. Always dress at least a size too small, making sure as much flesh as possible is on display. This strategy works particularly well with bigger girls.

You need to make sure your skin has been heavily spray-tanned (again—the colour you’re aiming for is one that can safely be described as ‘unknown to Nature’). If you haven’t had a spray tan (and, again, if not WHY NOT), then make sure your skin has been turned bright lobster-pink by the sun. Certainly, you don’t want white flesh on display. That would be like having natural hair or small sunglasses or a small handbag—no, no, no, no. If you have a small dog, take him in a silly little basket and put a ribbon round his neck to match your outfit.

There. That’s good. That should really help Helen.

2 p.m.

‘Oh my god,’ shrieks Helen. ‘You are a complete genius.’

I’ve just handed her the sheet of paper with my advice for Wags in compromising (i.e. posh) social situations on it, and she is delighting in the words as if they were made of diamonds.

‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ she says, while I stand back, a little embarrassed at how loudly she’s speaking, and a little frustrated that there’s no one near enough to hear it all. Half of me wants to say, ‘Oh please, Helen, do be quiet’, while the other half wants to say, ‘Speak up, love, Mindy can’t hear you.’

Dean really didn’t want to come to this party today. ‘They’re always crap and there are three old episodes of Minder on UK Gold this afternoon,’ he said. But I know it’s because he’s embarrassed about yesterday, and doesn’t want to face everyone. I asked him but he said, ‘No, it’s just Minder, sweetheart. I love it. It really cracks me up.’ Admittedly, he does love his Minder, so perhaps it’s a combination of the two things. I managed to get him here by promising that we wouldn’t stay long, but now he’s here he seems to be really enjoying himself. That’s the thing with my Dean—he’s a bit like a seven-year-old. Once you get him away from the television he has a really good time, but while he’s watching the box, peeling him away from it is almost impossible—like peeling the skin from a potato with your teeth.

‘Awright, babes,’ he says, coming up to me. ‘What was that bird saying?’

I tell him about the help I’ve given Helen and how grateful she was and Dean gives me a big hug. ‘You’re a doll,’ he says.

Dean’s looking great today. He’s got his mirror shades on and low-slung jeans with a white T-shirt and loads of bling. He’s got all his rings on together, which I think looks really cool. He’s carrying his jacket over his shoulder. I was trying to show him how to carry it with just one finger, but after the incident when someone pulled the jacket and almost broke his finger he clenches it in the palm of his hand these days.

‘I’m gonna get a lager,’ he says, turning and walking towards the bar in a manner that reminds me of Happy Days and that bloke called The Fonz. It was on the telly when I was really little and they keep re-showing it on UK Gold. I think Dean’s watching too much of that channel. As he gets to the bar, he moves to run both hands through his mousy brown hair, forgetting that he’s got his jacket in one of them. He almost takes out the Luton Town directors as his jacket swings wildly. I can see him apologising, mopping up drinks and throwing his jacket down on a nearby table. Bless him. He’s so cool is my Dean.

He saunters back over and I find myself becoming obsessed with the miracle that his trousers are staying on at all. They are so low-slung that his Ralph Lauren pants are showing (he finds the Calvin Klein ones too loose). How does he do that? They’re barely over his hips yet they manage to stay there.

‘Mich is over there,’ he says, pointing towards the other side of the bar.

We’re in the Luton clubhouse and it stinks of alcohol from last night. I preferred it when people smoked in here, at least it hid the smell of sick and beer. The other side of the bar smells worse than this side, but it’s where most of the single players are, so I can see why Mich would be over there.

On this side it’s all coupley. I wave over at Suze as she waddles in wearing great multicoloured hot-pants and matching high-heeled shoes.

‘Wow!’ I say. ‘Are they Pucci?’

‘Yes,’ she answers, pulling out a cigarette and reaching for her lighter. She’s so heavily pregnant now that her stomach gets in the way when she bends down, so she has to sort of crouch with her legs open, allowing her enormous stomach to drop between her knees. It’s at this point that I’m reminded of an important lesson: never open your legs really wide while wearing hot-pants and being heavily pregnant if you have not had a bikini wax.

‘You shouldn’t be smoking that, should you?’ asks Mindy, striding in behind her. Mindy looks like a goddess. She’s wearing a tight satin basque and…well, that’s all she’s wearing, really. She’s done that thing that Sienna Miller did, and come out in her knickers. Luckily, Mindy—like Sienna—has the body for it.

‘I’ll smoke if I want to. Just because I’m pregnant doesn’t mean you can tell me what to do.’

‘No—I don’t mean because you’re up the duff, I mean because of the no-smoking laws. I know it’s fine to smoke when you’re pregnant. Christ—I’d take it up if I got pregnant, even though I don’t normally touch cigarettes—it keeps the baby small.’

Sunday, 19 August

Midday

‘Darling, darling, darling. It’s Angie here,’ says Mum. She’s talking into the answer-phone because I can’t face picking up. ‘I’ve heard the news…I’ve been trying to call all morning. I was going to pop round, but I’ve been in your house every day this week and I simply couldn’t bear to come round again. How’s Dean? Tell him to call me if he needs anything. Maybe I should bring him some of my tea made from mud taken from the claws of African spider monkeys. Or there are some tablets containing the resin from the Umbaka tree. It’s collected by tribesmen who keep it in their nose for ten days before it’s dried in the sun.’

Luton Town lost again. Dean was subbed off again. Two weeks, two defeats. No own goals for Dean yesterday, which obviously made a pleasant change, but he was, in the words of the fans that I followed out of the stadium, ‘fucking crap’.

I reach for the handset.‘I’m here, Mum,’I say, adding, ‘Dean will be fine’ with more conviction than I feel.

‘How many times do I have to say don’t call me “Mum”,’ she huffs. ‘Call me Angie.’

Dean is sure that she wants me to call her Angie instead of Mum because she is labouring under the misapprehension that if I do, no one will realise how old she is. I spent years thinking she didn’t want me to call her Mum because she didn’t like me very much and didn’t want to be associated with me. I suspect that the real reason is an unflattering mixture of the two.

‘That’s three matches in a row that he’s been subbed off. Darling, you have to do something,’ Mum implores. ‘You could try giving him vienow juice.’

‘What’s that?’ I ask, but I’m not sure I really want to know.

‘It comes from the berries of the vienow tree…’

‘Oh.’ How nice. A simple, straightforward answer.

‘…and they collect it by sucking the juice through large vine leaves that have been soaked in the Nile.’

‘Of course they do.’

‘Three matches. It’s looking like the end, darling.’

‘Well, it’s two actually, and what can I do? Run on there and kick the ball for him? Take out the goalkeeper when he’s about to score?’

‘Humour is entirely overrated as a communication tool,’ she says sniffily. ‘And I don’t think it should be used at all when you’re talking about something as serious as your husband’s career…your entire lifestyle depends on him playing kick-ball well. It’s really not a laughing matter. Now—is he eating properly? Does he take enough supplements? Wild yam cream? Maybe he should be taking human growth hormones. A lot of these athletes do.’

‘Yes, and then they are banned for life,’ I say.

‘Such negativity,’ she replies, spitting out the word ‘negativity’ at me. I know she’s rubbing her temples as she says it, and lifting her chin to the skies. ‘Breathe deeply, through the nostrils,’ she is saying. ‘Take three drops of mimosa flower extract every hour. Think happy thoughts…always.’

The trouble with Mum is that she lived in Los Angeles for ten years. Once I was old enough to look after myself, she headed for the bright lights, convinced that she could make it as a film star. The major movie career never materialised, but she returned with the face of a thirty-year-old, the breasts of a sixteen-year-old and a nauseatingly positive attitude. Now it’s the gym every morning, pilates every afternoon, and 257 different supplements in between. She’s painfully thin and looks permanently surprised. Her hair is the colour of corn and her eyes have gone from hazel to sapphire. She took some getting used to—especially the body shape, with the tiny, tiny waist and the enormous breasts. I kept thinking she was going to fall over. I’ve had my breasts done recently, but they’re nothing like as large, full or youthful as my fifty-three-year-old mother’s are.

‘Darling, I need to know the gossip while I’m on the phone—is that delectable Andre Howchenski going out with that dope Michaela? Did I hear that correctly?’

‘Well, I’m hoping so. She met him after the game yesterday and really likes him. I think they’d make a lovely couple.’

‘He’s too good for her,’ she says. ‘It won’t last.’

I don’t want to debate this with my mother because I want so much for it to work out for my lovely friend that I can’t bear to consider that it might not. I can hear bells ringing in the background on the phone. ‘Where are you, Mum?’

‘At church,’she replies in her singsong voice.‘Praying for Dean. Praying for both of you. Praying that this phase will pass and that I won’t be the mother of a woman who’s married to the bad player from Luton. I’m praying for you, too. Marrying a footballer’s the only decent thing you’ve ever done. Let’s hope it doesn’t end. You do understand how bad this is, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I reply, because I do know how bad it is. I’m no Bobby Charleston but I know that the captain’s supposed to stay on the pitch and, ideally, contribute to the match in some way other than scoring own goals.

Dean realises it too. ‘They’ll probably sell me,’ he said last night, as if he were an old car or an unwanted sofa. ‘Free transfer to some god-forsaken place.’ It had made me shudder. What if the new place was somewhere dreadful like Sunderland?

‘I don’t think prayers are what he needs right now,’ I say, slightly unkindly, but I hate the way she insists on making a huge drama out of everything. ‘Anyway, I didn’t know you were religious.’

‘I’m not, silly. I’m not here to pray, though I did light a candle for poor, poor Dean. No, I’m here because there’s a woman who comes to church who I want to befriend because she runs the best pilates classes in the area and is booked up for twelve months. I thought I would bump into her and become her best friend.’

‘What? You went to church to befriend some woman?’

‘Not some woman—the pilates teacher to end all pilates teachers. If you want to befriend someone, you just follow him or her and start talking to them. I learned that in LA. She went to church, and so did I.’

If you want to befriend someone, you just follow him or her…I find myself thinking. Just follow them.

‘Oh,’ I say, my mind ticking over with thoughts, plans, an idea of how I might be able to help my husband. ‘And did you make friends with her?’

‘Of course,’ says Mum breezily.‘We’re off for organic grass and dandelion-stalk tea now. It’s easy. Honestly, you Brits are so funny—everyone else has put their names down on Leaf’s pilates list and they are all just waiting patiently for a gap to open up. They don’t stand a chance. If you want to be friends with someone just go and “bump” into them. It’s not rocket science. Right, must go—need to balance my chakras and chant my Buddhabhivadana.’

‘Chant your what?’

‘Salutation to the Buddha, silly girl. Don’t you know anything?’

Saturday, 25 August

10 a.m.

Oh dear. Very difficult situation. Very, very difficult situation. It’s 8 a.m. on Saturday morning and I’m pacing around the bedroom in a state of considerable distress. Today it’s not even the prospect of Dean scoring eighteen own goals and getting booed off the pitch that’s distressing me…though I have to say life would be altogether more pleasant if he just went out there and kicked it into the right net like the others manage to do. No, the real problem today is that I think I might have to sack Mallory. Can you imagine it? The thing is—I can’t see any way round it. She’s committed a cardinal sin and it would be unforgivable of me not to punish her in some way. I feel like Sir Alan Sugar as I spin on my heels and point at the mirror. ‘You’re fired,’ I growl, with all the seriousness that a woman with her hair in Carmen rollers can muster. ‘You, Mallory. You’re fired.’

Okay, let me think about how I can word this as I explain to you what happened. Mallory came round at 6 a.m., as she usually does on match days, but she forgot to bring her fake-tan spray with her!! Can you imagine? A beautician, going to see a Wag before a match and forgetting the fake tan! It would have been less disastrous to me if she’d forgotten to bring her head.

This is how the whole sorry scene played itself out. Sensitive readers may choose to look away at this point.

‘Mallory, darling, how lovely to see you,’ I said in my best, most welcoming voice. ‘In you come. Have you got everything there?’

Note, please, how I managed to spot immediately that she was less encumbered than usual. Note, please, also, that she did not notice at all that she was carrying significantly less gear than is usual or, as it turns out, desirable.

‘Yes, everything I need is here,’ said Mallory. Or, should I say, ‘lied Mallory’, because that’s what it was—a damned lie.

‘Can I do the fake tan first?’ I asked, peeling off my top and kicking my Jimmy Choos to one side.

‘Sure,’ said Mallory (lying). Then began the fumble through all her bags as she searched in vain for her fake-tanning stuff.

‘I’m sure it’s here somewhere,’ she muttered, throwing things out of her enormous shopper as she did. ‘Mmmmmm…that’s strange.’

More instruments of the beautification process were hurled outwards and upwards as Mallory scoured her bag. A small pot of wax rolled across the carpet. Tea-tree oil, tweezers and nail files tumbled out. Facepacks, toner, moisturiser, creme bleach, a pumice stone, hot stones for massage…no fake-tan sprayer though. No sign of a spray-tan machine anywhere.

‘Oh Tracie,’ said Mallory, clutching her hands around her face in horror. ‘Tracie, I’m so sorry.’

I squawked. I know it was a squawk and I know it was extremely loud, because a horrible grimace descended onto Mallory’s face—the same look she’d had when she’d stepped back and put her stiletto heel through my cashmere cushion. For one horrible moment she thought she’d skewered the cat.

‘How could you possibly forget it?’ I asked.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said for the twenty-fifth time. ‘I’m really sorry.’

The trouble is, ‘really sorry’ isn’t going to make me the colour of a rusty nail by 3 p.m., is it?

I got Mallory to do all the other essential treatments. My fingernails were long and blunt at the end and painted with white tips. Nail extensions had been applied to my toenails and not a stray hair remained anywhere. My body was soft, my nails were tough and my hair was long and thick. But my skin? White.

‘I’ll drop you at the tanning shop on Luton High Street if you want,’ says Mallory, and not for the first time I wondered whether she’d forgotten the spray tan on purpose. I know she doesn’t like doing the spray business. She’s been a bit funny with the whole thing since the unfortunate incident with another Wag and a white Chihuahua. No amount of pleading would convince the woman that her dog looked fine the colour of a ginger-nut biscuit.

I think the fundamental problem that Mallory and other women like her face in a spray-tan sense when working with Wags, is that most Wags have entirely white furniture in their homes, which means that there’s every chance of a major disaster happening.

‘I’ll wait outside,’ says Mallory, as I walk into the salon and request a double spray tan. It goes well to start with. Once I’d got over being told to wear paper knickers, which were entirely unflattering in every respect.

‘Okay, turn round,’ says Debbie, the tanning lady. ‘And back again…Great…Nearly done. Just need to spray your face now. Breathe in when I say, then hold your breath until I’ve finished spraying. Okay?’

Breathe in. How hard can that be? Normally breathing comes to me as easily as applying mascara, driving and drinking a cappuccino at the same time, but suddenly I don’t know how to hold my breath. And just as Debbie sprays a fine mist of cocoa-coloured skin dye, I take a massive gulp in.

‘Great—that’ll be my lungs nicely tanned then.’ I’m choking and straining and feeling like I’m about to be sick.

‘I’ll get you a drink of water,’ says Debbie, swinging open the door leading directly to the reception area, and thus to the main door to the salon, where around a dozen people got an eyeful of a choking Luton Town Wag in paper knickers and a fetching shower cap. I was a lovely shade of mahogany though.

Tuesday, 28 August

8 p.m.

My mother and Dean are staring at me, utter confusion registering on their familiar faces. I’m not really listening to them any more. I’m peeling off the small rose tattoos that Mallory fixed onto my fingernails on Saturday morning as an apology for not having her tanning system with her. God, Saturday seems like a long time ago—before I was arrested for causing criminal damage…

‘Are you listening?’ Mum says. ‘I asked you what on earth you thought you were doing?’

Mum had turned up at the house as soon as she heard the news. She was dressed in a cream Lanvin dress that she’d had specially altered for the occasion. It was so short I could see that she’d had her bikini line specially done for the occasion, too. She wore the dress with sky-high Christian Louboutin shoes and looked fantastic, with her make-up professionally applied and her hair styled like Farrah Fawcett Majors’. She’d obviously feared there would be photographers camped out in the driveway. Luckily she was wrong. When I came home in the taxi at lunchtime the place was deserted and I had just Mum and Dean to contend with. Neither can quite believe the turn of events.

‘I mean, what possessed you?’ Mum is asking.

‘I was trying to help,’ I say.

‘Help?’ says Dean. ‘Help? Tell me how causing over two thousand pounds’ worth of damage in Faux Fur in Bishop’s Stortford helped anyone.’

Mum puts her arm round Dean’s shoulder and hugs him into her massive bosoms. ‘What possessed you today?’ she asks, turning to face me aggressively, while stroking his thinning hair affectionately.

‘Nothing possessed me,’ I answer, and I feel like screaming. You see, it was all her fault. It was Mum telling me that you should just go and bump into someone if you want to befriend them that started me off on all this in the first place.

It was after the call with Mum that I started to think about the ways in which I could help Dean, and I became convinced that if he were to become friends with some of the England players, he’d be more likely to get a good transfer deal. I knew Dean would never go and knock on Beckham’s door so I thought, I know, I’ll befriend Victoria. She’ll understand after all she went through when Becks kicked that bloke in the Argentina game, and the Daily Mirror did a David Beckham dartboard in the paper the next day; she’ll know what it’s like to live life as a piranha, or was that a pariah?

I knew she was in England because I’d seen her in the Daily Mail yesterday, and I knew where she lived because when they had their World Cup party there were pictures of the house (which I cut out and kept in a scrapbook) and it said that the house was in Sawbridgeshire. So I woke up at 7 a.m. this morning, dressed, and left the house to head for Beckingham Palace…

Flashback to 9 a.m.

Shit. The gates are opening. Fuck. What do I do? Perhaps I should have thought this through a bit more carefully first. I’m sitting in a tiny orange car in the middle of Essex, outside an enormous mansion belonging to David and Victoria Beckham, wondering what to do next. I should be at home, looking after my daughter and my husband, and preparing for a morning at the hairdresser’s with Mich. She’s agreed to have just a few blonde highlights weaved in at the front of her hair because we’re now ten days into the season and she still hasn’t bagged a footballer. Andre’s shown some interest but there’s no real sign of commitment. It must be her hair. It’s just so…dark. I feel awful for abandoning her to face the bleach alone, but I think she’ll be able to cope. She knows it’s the right thing to do. She knows that blonde hair is the key to unlocking the heart of a footballer.

I’m paranoid that someone’s going to see me and realise I’m hanging around, so I drop myself down in the driver’s seat and peer up over the windscreen—all that can be seen ofme now is the black headscarf wound tightly around my head and the top halfmoon of my massive sunglasses. To be honest, I’d look far less suspicious if I just sat there, smiling, but I’m so determined not to be seen that I opt for this ridiculous semi-reclining position that just screams ‘Stalker!’. I hear the gates start to close behind me and I ease myself up a little, just as a fabulous car glides out and sweeps majestically onto the road in front of me. There are two women sitting in the back. I am absolutely sure that one of them is Victoria Beckham. My heart starts pounding and my hands are shaking a little, sweating inside the leather driving gloves that I am wearing so as not to leave fingerprints anywhere.

I start up the engine and drive up behind them, still reclining a little but able—just—to see over the steering wheel. I’m in a rented car (I’m having horrific problems getting my car back. I went to the Croydon place on Sunday and was told it was shut. Great! So it’s fine for them to come and steal my car off the road but they can’t be bothered to stay open on Sundays for me to pick it up. It’s almost enough to make me want to park properly in future. I could see the car through the railings on Sunday. It was like I was visiting it in jail. As I walked away I swear I heard it sobbing). Anyway, I went for the plainest rental car I could find—just so I wouldn’t be easily spotted by Vic. This fabulous yellow Lamborghini was screaming at me in the showroom last night, but even I realised some musclehead driver, bouncer or security guard would notice if a banana-coloured sports car tailed him for more than a couple of minutes. I don’t think I realised, at the time, just how orange this car is, though. It looks like a little tangerine rolling down the road after them.

Victoria’s car is moving at a nice gentle pace, so obviously they don’t realise they’re being followed. Great. The fact that the Mercedes is not going very fast means that I can keep up with it in my little Fiat Punto. I’m better at this stalking lark than I thought I’d be.

The car is heading towards Bishop’s Stortford. I know this not because of any prior knowledge of the backstreets of Hertfordshire, but because there are great big road signs everywhere. Eventually, the driver pulls over and out he gets—fucking brilliant!—it’s Victoria, and—double fucking brilliant!—she’s with Geri Halliwell, who is clutching an extraordinary-looking basket containing two tiny poodles. This is sooo much better than I thought it would be.

I dump the car on the side of the road and jump out, crossing over to where V & G are, so that I’m in the slipstream of the two most famous Spice Girls. They stop and peer into a window. I do, too. They continue. I follow. On we go, down the road in procession, until Geri suddenly spins round with a terribly aggressive look on her face.

Is she looking at me? I’m not sure. I immediately dive into the nearest shop, just in case…It’s a butcher’s…fuck, what the hell am I supposed to do in a butcher’s shop? I can hardly browse through the chops.

‘Tracie?’

Oh god, please tell me it’s not Mindy. I couldn’t bear it if she saw me out stalking. Bad enough that she should see me buying baskets full of lard, but this is a whole different level of madness.

‘Tracie Smegglesworth?’ repeats the voice, louder this time.

Shit. Who on earth would know my embarrassing maiden name?

‘It’s me.’

The face is vaguely familiar—a plump blonde girl with messy hair.

‘Sally. Don’t you remember…we worked together at the hairdresser’s on the High Street years ago. You used to live above it.’ She takes off her glasses and I find myself momentarily transported back in time to a simpler world—when brushing hair and sneaking out for a cigarette were the only things that concerned me.

‘You look fantastic,’ says Sally, and I suddenly realise that this chubby, unremarkable woman is how I would look without Dean’s money and the wisdom of Wagdom on my side. She’s roughly the same height as me, but I’m wearing four-inch heels so look considerably taller. She’s a good three stone heavier, her hair’s all over the place and she doesn’t have a scrap of make-up on.

‘Don’t you get cold in that skirt, though?’ She’s pointing at my thighs as she speaks.

‘It’s a tulip skirt,’ I say stupidly.‘Dolce and Gabbana.’

She smiles. ‘Must get cold, though.’

‘Not really.’ I’m wondering what cold’s got to do with anything when you’re wearing £500 of the very latest clothing to come off the catwalks of Milan.

Sally is wearing jeans beneath her blood-splattered white coat and she has on these clumpy trainers that remind me of Cornish pasties. Still, she looks happy.

‘It all turned out all right for you, didn’t it?’ she says, eyes wide. She looks genuinely pleased to see me, which is quite touching. ‘Yes—you landed right on your feet, didn’t you? You know—after that trouble at Romeo’s—marrying Dean Martin. Great! I followed it all in the magazines and papers. It was so grand—the wedding and that. I was so pleased for you, mate. So pleased and proud. I was telling everyone that I knew you.’

I hadn’t invited Sally to the wedding, just as I hadn’t invited any of my old friends. I had brand-new, gleaming, exciting, beautiful friends by then. Mum told me who to invite. She said it had to be a new start for me, and a whole load of wedding designers, lifestyle coaches and style advisers descended on me to make sure everything was done with the necessary Wag-like aplomb. Dean told me to invite my old mates and have some fun, but I was so obsessed with becoming a great Wag that I just did what Mum and the design team advised. I never saw Sally again from the moment I’d walked out of the hairdresser’s that day.

‘What are you doing round here?’ she asks, and I mumble something about seeing friends. I can’t meet her eye because I keep thinking of all the fun we had together and how I just never called her again, never checked she was okay. I’m worried that she thinks I can’t meet her eye because I’m embarrassed about knowing a common butcher, but I don’t know what to say to make it all right. She’s desperate for me to say something friendly and I’m desperate not to say anything offensive.

I keep thinking of all the stupid things we used to get up to, like when we did highlights for the first time—using a plastic cap. We pulled the hair through the tiny holes with those little crochet needles, lathered on the bleach and left the lady for twenty minutes. Trouble is, we forgot all about her. The two of us had gone out to the pub for a lunch of crisps and cider when Romeo’s daft assistant from Czechoslovakia came galloping in.

‘Quick!’ he cried. ‘Mrs Johnstone agony is in.’

‘Who’s Mrs Johnstone?’ we asked.

‘Lady bleach head. Funny hat wear.’

‘Oh shit!’ We raced back over the road to be greeted by the sight of a lady parading round the salon with a scalp the colour of sun-dried tomatoes. Patches of beetroot-coloured skin were appearing on the top of her forehead and the sides of her face where the bleach had leaked through the cap. She was in considerable distress, and it wasn’t hard to see why. Sally pulled off the cap with an almighty tug and half the bleached hair came off with it. We had to tell Mrs Johnstone that she only had three blonde highlights and considerably less hair than when she had come into the salon because she’d made us take the cap off too soon.

‘Can I have some bacon, please, Sally?’ I finally ask.

‘Sure. How much?’

Sally starts slicing and I stop her when there’s a small pile. She wraps it all up, I pay her, tell her how nice it was to see her again and leave. I’m out on the street before I realise that I never once asked her how she was, where she lives or who with. I didn’t make any effort to try to see her again, take her number or leave mine. Shit. Shit. I run back into the butcher’s, throw my carefully crafted card at her and say, ‘Stay in touch, Sal.’

Sally strokes the lipstick-pink embossed writing and looks at me as if I’ve just given her my kidney. ‘I will,’ she whispers.

I run out of the shop and look around. There they are—V & G…wandering down the street arm-in-arm giggling and chatting like teenagers. Right, concentrate—back in pursuit again.

My targets have wandered into a shop calling itself Faux Fur. It looks predominantly like a fur shop, fake of course, but there are bags, shoes, jewellery and all sorts of other stuff in there. It looks gorgeous through the window. I’ll wait until their backs are turned before I go in.

There are gales of laughter as four assistants descend on V & G and I find myself bursting with envy—how can it take four assistants to help them? Three of the assistants appear to be just standing around laughing at their jokes, while the other is pulling clothes off the rails and hanging them up in a small changing room. Once V & G wander into the changing room (together—in the same small changing room—bizarre. I’m making a note of all this über-Wag behaviour. It takes going to the toilets at the same time to a whole new level…),I enter the shop, help myself to a couple of items (note—there are no assistants to help me!) and push my way through the heavy curtain into the changing room next to theirs.

There’s something really strange about coming so close to your role model. I find myself wanting to know all about her: what bag is she carrying (Chloé), what shoes is she wearing (Gucci), what size is she? She looks tiny, but it’s hard to guess whether she’s a size zero, or whether she’s made it down to that all-important double zero. On the floor of her changing room lies a camisole top. If I could just look at the label on it, I’d know what size she is. On hands and knees, I lean under the thick curtain that separates us and stretch out as far as I can. It’s no good, I can’t reach it. What can I use? The only thing I have with me is a large packet of streaky bacon. With the pig produce in my hand I can just about touch it, so I push the bacon out as far as I can, then drag it back along the floor towards me, pulling the camisole top with it. Things are going perfectly—the top is just within grasp, then—quite suddenly—there’s an almighty yapping sound and one of Geri’s dogs leaps from its basket and charges towards me, biting into the meat with his silly little gnashers. I realise, in that moment, how much I dislike Geri Halliwell—I think her solo songs are hopeless and her dress sense ridiculous. Now her dog’s attacking me just when I was about to see what size Posh Spice is. I yank the bacon back before anyone realises what’s going on, but I don’t realise just how attached the dog is and I pull the stupid, curly-haired pooch, too. He comes zooming under the curtain, attached to the bacon, causing me to stagger back, go tumbling out of the changing cubicle and straight into an elaborate display of clothes, shoes and bags. There’s a loud crunching sound beneath me.

‘Vic,’ screeches Geri.‘Look who it is! It’s that woman who was following us earlier. I think she’s killed my dog.’

‘Right,’ says the manageress, locking the door. ‘I’m calling the police.’

Wednesday, 29 August

11 a.m.

Mum and Dean must have such sore necks. They haven’t stopped shaking their heads for almost twenty-four hours now. Mum’s the worst, though. ‘Bacon?’ she says. ‘Why did you even have a packet of bacon on you?’ So I go through the whole sorry tale again.

‘Faux Fur?’ she replies. ‘I don’t understand why you would have been in a shop called Faux Fur.’

So I tell her that bit again too. It’s like being interviewed by Jeremy Paxman. I feel like I’ve run through the whole sorry saga more times than is of any use to anyone. Now we’re awaiting the arrival of Magick PR—specialist celebrity PR agency to the stars—and I know I’ll have to go through the whole thing again…and again…Bringing in a PR firm was Nell’s idea (I ended up calling her last night when I tired of watching the nodding dogs failing to come up with any ideas of remote value or help to anyone).

It was such a relief to talk to Nell because, unlike anyone else I’d spoken to that day, she found the whole thing funny. Funny! Imagine how refreshing that was, after all the ‘Why does everything have to end up in such a total fiasco with you?’ comments. Take this as an example: Mum said, ‘You are shameful. You have embarrassed your man. There are times when I dislike you intensely.’

I know she doesn’t really mean it quite as nastily as it sounds. She’s always saying things like that—like she used to when I was little. All this ‘children should be seen and not heard’ has now become ‘a footballer’s wife should be seen and not heard’.

Nell, though, just collapsed into laughter when I’d finished telling her. ‘I love you, you great banana. That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. Tell me about the bit with the dog and the bacon again.’

I told Nell everything about ten times, and it never once felt like she was judging me.

‘Look, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘Just don’t worry about it. Things like that happen all the time.’

Perhaps they do in Sunnyside Sheltered Accommodation, but they certainly don’t in most people’s worlds.

‘You should have seen us in the war…’ continues Nell. ‘We used to have such a laugh. Did I tell you about the time we bricked up the air-raid shelter and five families nearly died?’

If you have a grandmother like Dean’s, you’ll know that any mention of the war, air-raid shelters or having a laugh is the beginning of a very heavily romanticised trip down Memory Lane that goes on for about three days. It’s a trip that involves Nell laughing in a high-pitched and quite hysterical fashion at some frankly very unamusing things like near-death experiences and the day that old Mr Simpson was bombed as he sat on the loo in the shed at the bottom of the garden on Christmas morning.

‘You know what you should do, don’t you?’ asks Nell, pulling herself back into the same century as the rest of us with unaccustomed speed.’Ring one of those glossy magazines and tell your side of the story to them. Get some good publicity for you and Dean and everything will be fine, don’t you worry.’

So that’s exactly what we did.

There’s the distinctive sound of the bell (it plays the theme tune from Match of the Day) and the equally distinctive sound of footsteps padding down the hall to answer the door. ‘Cccchello,’ says Alba. ‘Ccccchhow can I ’elp you?’

When Alba first came to work with us, with her beautiful Spanish accent, we spent all the time trying to get her to say words beginning with ‘h’ because her pronunciation of them was out of this world. That deep guttural ccccc sound that preceded every ‘h’ was great.

‘Can you do that?’ I’d say, pointing at the hoover.

‘Cccccchoover?’ Alba would reply, and Pask and I would roar with laughter. Mum thought it was all very juvenile, and that I was setting a bad example, but we did it in a nice way, we weren’t being nasty.

While Alba leads the guys from Magick PR into the house, Mum doesn’t move at all—in fact she’s still too busy shaking her head and muttering some sort of Buddhist chant. If she’s not careful there’s every chance that her head will come off altogether.

‘I really don’t think you should be doing this,’ she says, once she’s returned from her brief meditation to rejoin the world the rest of us are living in. ‘You should remain silent and dignified and just keep yourself out of the papers. You certainly should not be doing something that is going to get more publicity than ever—it’s absurd, utterly absurd.’

When the PR people walk into the room, though, Mum is straight to her feet and introducing herself to everyone. She’s air-kissing and explaining that she used to be a public relations executive in Los Angeles. Even Dean manages to look baffled by this sudden announcement. Up until this point he’s been like a little puppy dog next to her, nodding along with her and grinning inanely at her every suggestion. He’s always been like that around Mum. She does seem to have this peculiar hold over him. Indeed, she has a peculiar hold over all men. Dean says he just makes an effort with her because he knows how important she is to me, but it’s more than that, I’m sure of it. Not in a bad way—just that she has this kind of allure, this lustre, that men find irresistible. Perhaps it’s the macrobiotic diet that she’s always bleating on about, or the eighty-six supplements that she seems to take every day, but men are drawn to her like moths to a flame in some subconscious, deeply primitive fashion. They seem to want to be liked by her.

‘Were you really in PR?’ he asks, and Mum smiles in an unnecessarily flirty way and says yes she was, adding that there is much about Mum that Dean does not yet know. To his credit, at this point he does look rather scared.

11.04 a.m.

In they come, and all my worst fears are confirmed in an instant. ‘Dahhhling, how are you?’ they ask in their absurdly plummy voices. I smile and say ‘Hey, these things happen’, as if swinging Geri Halliwell’s dog around attached to a packet of bacon in a fake fur shop is something that happens daily—to everyone.

‘Now,’ says the man in the group, though ‘man’ is a very generous description of him. He weighs about the same as I do and has thinner thighs. Not good. ‘Let me introduce everyone.’ With a dramatic flourish, he says: ‘This is Arabella, this is Philonella and this is Marinella.’ Presumably, Salmonella was off sick. ‘We’re Magick!’ he announces, and the girls all giggle like helpless schoolgirls.

The level of my dislike for them has risen to quite staggering heights, considering that a) I’ve never met them before, and b) they’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. The thing is, they’re young, they’re pretty and they’re sensibly dressed. They all have flat shoes on—in my house! One of them is wearing a string of pearls. Can you imagine? The only pearls I own are attached to a rather sexy little g-string, and there was this one time when Dean licked every pearl before…no, sorry, I shouldn’t really go into that here. Anyway, the girl with the pearl—Arabella or Rubella or something—well, she does not look like the sort of woman who runs about town dressed in a sexy thong, and perhaps that’s why I dislike her. Or it could be the combination of the gratingly upper-class voice and the fact that she’s young. Bitch.

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