Watch Out For Brambles ( VILLAGE TALES EP. 36 )
 |
A celebrity stays in the village but only so long as she can go for walks without be hounded by the press. |
On my way to the shop late one morning a neighbour told me there was a limousine in the street. I presumed she meant ‘Limousin’ as a local farm had a herd, and it was more likely than a stretched taxi, but I was wrong.
Awards ceremonies and opening nights would have limos queueing up to discharge their celebrities onto the waiting red carpet, but nowadays it would be more likely to be a hen party bent on clubbing. The limo had become commonplace, but not during the day, and certainly not in our village and certainly not parked outside our village shop.
As I walked past this stretched monstrosity, I heard a gentle hiss and the one of several darkened windows slowly lowered revealing, from what I could see beneath large dark glasses, a tanned woman’s face and therefore probably not a local.
‘Hi, can you tell me, is there a pub near here?’
I said there was and pointed to it across the street. She thanked me and was trying to see through the windows on the opposite side as the open window gently hissed its closing, informing the interview was at an end.
In the shop there was only one other customer, a man in his forties and I presumed the driver of the limo. Rather than having the look of a chauffeur he had the air of a bodyguard or a minder, I decided he was probably both.
Having had a brief chat with Paul whilst buying a paper, I left his shop to find the limo was still outside. It’ll come as no surprise that its presence had made me curious and having what I thought was a clue to the occupants whereabouts, I decided a thirst that had suddenly developed, needed quenching.
The man I had seen in the shop was in animated conversation with the woman I had spoken to in the limo, still with her dark glasses on. The bar in the Drum describes a right angle so if someone, or a couple, are on one side, being on the other affords a good view though not near enough to hear if a couple are whispering. Perish the thought that I would ever eves-drop on a private conversation, however ears were never made to be closed, unlike mouths, so it was hardly my fault if I overheard some some disagreement between the the let’s say, minder, who I think was English and the woman who was American.
The man appeared to be concerned that she had ‘gone public’ by which I presumed their presence in the area was supposed to be secret. As the minder headed in the direction of the toilets, the woman turned around and looked in my direction. With such large dark glasses it’s impossible to know where someone is actually looking so I smiled but then got on with pretending to read my paper.
Soon after the minder had returned, they both drank up and left. No sooner had they done so than Dave appeared,
‘You know who that was?’
‘No.’
‘That was . . . .’
And I have reasons why I’m afraid I can’t tell you.
Obviously I had heard of her, you’d have to be living in another galaxy not to. She’d been a music phenomena since her first record and had never been out of the headlines for one reason or another. With some research I found that she was making a film in the UK but the tabloid headlines were all about her marriage problems, there were pages about her current private life and stories from her past just to fill up space. There were plenty of titillating photos alongside those showing her in embarrassing situations and caught off-guard.
The following day Dave called passed with his dog and handed me a scrap of paper and said,
‘Some are born famous, some have fame thrust upon them, and some just go walking with them,’ and with that he left.
A day later I approached the The Colliers, a mock-tudor mansion owned by a film producer who was never there. At the wrought iron gates I requested entry dressed to take a walk as instructed and having been told to tell no one. The housekeeper let me in but soon she’d been dismissed and someone was looking me up and down,
‘Okay, the guy at the pub tells me you know plenty of places where I can go walk, right?’
‘Eh, right, a few.’
‘What do you charge?’
‘For what?’
‘Showing me where I can walk?’
‘Nothing’
’No way, mister. You ain’t gonna tell nobody I can’t afford to pay you?’
’I’m not gonna tell anyone anything, none of their business.’
’Okay, but anyone asks you, I offered, right.’
Why do Americans think it’s all about money?
She, who must be obeyed, began opening a box and revealed a brand new pair of pink Nike trainers.
‘You’re not going to go walking in those are you?’
‘Of course not, they’re my ear muffs. Of course I’m wearing them, you think I should wear these!’
And she held up a pair of stilettos.
‘It’s just that it might be a bit muddy . .’
‘Your point is?’
I shrugged my shoulders and decided the sooner I could get out of this and back to the pub and demand compensation from Dave by way of free drinks for life, so much the better.
The lane passing The Colliers took us to a bridleway linking to a footpath and up to the common. We hardly spoke other than ‘she’ telling me she’e only doing this because the film company couldn’t find a replacement personal trainer that she could work with.
‘I wonder why,’ I thought.
She then told me I could make a few bucks taking people for walks. I think, from what I was wearing, she had judged I was destitute, or at least homeless.
It didn’t surprise me that the usual abundance of wild life was absent, probably sheltering from the visual onslaught. Her purple ‘Glamourflage’ parka, dayglo baseball cap and electric blue pashmina scarf were enough to bring tears to your eyes. Entering the woods her dark glasses meant she kept stumbling over the rough ground. I stopped at a clearing and waited for her to catch up but the pashmina got caught in some overhanging brambles. The more annoyed she got, the more tangled she became, until she stood there fuming and expecting me to help, which I couldn’t due to being helpless myself, with laughing.
I told her that this was not the way to do it and next time we would do it my way or not at all, and I wouldn’t release her until she agreed, which she did when I started walking away. Walking back something had changed, the atmosphere was relaxed, we chatted and it was almost pleasant.
From a distance we saw there were cars parked in the lane and photographers near the gates to The Colliers. I tried to make her look as inconspicuous as possible and lent her my walking jacket and hat.She removed her glasses, and replaced them with my map reading ones. Wearing both coats made her twice the size and that was what worked best because we walked nonchalantly passed the reporters and entered the house through the field at the back. With her suitably attired in an old jacket, flat cap and wellies there were two more walks before the press were everywhere. Eventually she was rumbled and we were followed and the house was then surrounded with no way in or out without running the gauntlet.
A fortnight after she’d moved away I still had several callers a day pretending to be something else other than reporters. They approached me in the pub, followed me to the shop, convinced I was involved in her life somehow. They pestered my neighbours asking if they had heard or seen anything, could they come in and listen.It was two weeks before the circus moved on, I couldn’t have survived two months, let alone a life time.
Celebrity status is a gilded cage, she told me. You crave to be normal like you remember you could be, do normal things, be alone, have your life, but it’s impossible. Also she told me, you can only fail, they build you up and if you aren’t grateful and present yourself as the person they imagine you to be, demand that you are, they’ll damn you.You’re not allowed to change or to grow old, without them disapproving or ridiculing you.
‘That’s the media.’ I said
The media just gives the people what they pay for, those that buy the papers and watch the screens, she told me, what does that tell you about the people? They’re hooked, she said, fed a little truth, and when that runs out anything’ll do until they can’t tell the difference.
‘What about you?’ I asked.
‘Sure,’ she said, ‘I can’t remember what reality is like either. I guess one day I’ll have to go cold turkey, if I last that long.’
‘You will,’ I told her, ‘just watch out for the brambles.’
Listen to Village Tales and other short stories from the HONKEYMOON CAFE
on Spotify, Anchor FM, Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts,
Google Podcasts, Breaker and other platforms.
Written and read by Barkley Johnson.
Comments
Post a Comment