She was greeted by flashes and cheers and lights and applause, the usual. She shook the guy’s hand and was unexpectedly required to kiss him on the cheek. He beckoned her to the sofa.
‘Just listen to that reaction!’ he shouted over the noise.
‘Aw well thank you so much that’s really sweet it’s an honour to be here I love London.’ She tightened her lips.
‘Wow. Lola Lily everyone!’ It started again.
‘Thank you so much that’s so sweet.’
‘Alright, alright, settle down everyone.’ He laughed. ‘So, Lola. First things first, how are you finding our capital?’
She clapped her hands together. ‘I love it, yeah. It’s so beautiful and exciting.’ Time’s Square reappeared in her head. Burning, desolate. An explosion? ‘And everybody’s so, like, sweet. Yeah.’
‘Really? I don’t find Londoners particularly sweet!’
Laughter. An explosion in New York? In New York City?
‘Well, they’re sweet to me.’ She smiled and blinked twice.
‘So, the reason you’re here- your new album’s out next week, your third album in three years, and that’s called...’
There was an awkward pause before she registered that she was expected to finish his sentence for him. ‘Erm, The Other Half.’
Cheering.
Pre-release reviews had been published yesterday. Lola’s ‘Other Half’ is a side of her we’d never like to see again: passionless, predictable and produced to high heaven. I fear this might be all there is to the shallow pop princess.
‘Great, yeah, great stuff. So, tell us about that name, The Other Half. What does that mean to you?’
‘Um, I guess it just, you know, shows that there’re two sides to every story, and to every person. And it’s about expressing parts of me that people may not have necessarily seen, you know. So yeah, it’s kind of about that.’
‘Ah, great stuff.’ He licked his lips and leaned forwards. ‘Because, I thought it might be an actual other half, as in a possible man-friend on the scene.’
Lola smiled and blinked again. ‘Um.’ She laughed a little and played with her fingers. ‘No, no, nothing like that at all. It’s just about me. It’s a very personal album, you know.’
‘Great, so we can go on a date then, yeah, since you’re in town?’
The audience roared with laughter. He raised his eyebrows. She smiled. ‘I’m hard to get, I’m afraid.’
More laughs. Her Mom had probably tried to ring about the explosion. She’d think Lola didn’t care.
They went to a break, even though it wasn’t even live. She was tempted to run back and grab her phone (Martin had been so shifty) but she was pinned down by make-up vultures armed with brushes. Afterwards, talk turned to Lola’s single.
‘Yeah, Daydream. It’s just about, when you just really want that certain someone with you even though, you know, they’re far away.’ Her mother’s arms embraced her in the square, whispering in her ear; thank goodness, thank goodness, thank goodness. ‘Erm, so it’s kind of a love song, but it’s really dance-y and fun too.’
‘And sexy!’
She laughed. ‘Well, thank you very much.’
‘And this sexiness raises a lot of eyebrows...’
It was funny, in a way. A whole universe of stars and planets and galaxies and stuff. The Earth was only miniscule. And then a whole bunch of different lands and countries and continents full of billions and millions of different groups of people. And then England was just one of these places, and London was such a tiny, tiny part of England, tucked away at the bottom. And then there were thousands of people in London, all living their own lives and doing their own thing, and she was just one of these people, one tiny little insignificant speck out of thousands of other specks in a tiny little city on an island made up of hundreds of tiny cities which was just one tiny island out of all the other islands on the planet which was just one tiny planet in a whole system of planets which was just one little galaxy in an infinite abyss of galaxies.
And everybody wanted to know about Lola Lily.
‘And you’re filming the music video to Daydream right here in our very own merrie ol’ England, aren’t you?’
The audience cheered.
‘Yes, yes I am. You know, seeing as summer’s coming to an end I wanted a video which was very cool and, like, atmospheric and crisp. And England seemed perfect.’
The audience laughed for some reason.
‘It’s certainly crisp,’ said the guy.
She checked her nails, ran her hands through her hair, counted the ceiling tiles and attempted to work out the ratio of males and females in the audience. Her heart beat faster and faster in its cage with each droning word of the poorly dressed man. Snippets of his questions penetrated her conscious as she tried to fight away the image of her mother’s face.
Her mother, bathing her in front of the fire.
‘...back to this whole sexy image thing...’
Her mother, clutching her hand as they walked in the woods.
‘...any big names or collaborations on the record...’
Her mother, hugging her after her first television performance.
‘...yourself in ten years time...’
Her mother, burning to death.
‘...if you know what I mean, eh?’ He winked.
She smiled and readjusted her dress. She nodded repeatedly in agreement - he had now taken on a more serious tone, possibly discussing a rumour about her, maybe, she wasn’t sure. She placed her hands beneath her thighs and tugged down the back of her dress, re-crossing her legs and making the fabric rustle.
Her mother’s face remained imprinted in her mind, first smiling, laughing, pouting and leaning in for a kiss. Then snarling, shouting, her eyes wide with fury, why Lola why didn’t you call? Tears fell from her eyes like waterfalls and the anger turned to sorrow and then, in a flash of white, fear. Screams, help me.
HELP ME, LOLA.
Lola shook away the image. She would ring her after this. Straight after; no more taking shitty excuses from Martin. How would he like it? She tried to imagine Martin calling his mother, or a wife. The image wouldn’t stay still in her head, it didn’t make sense. His voice sounded too harsh, too direct. A man’s voice turned soft when talking to their main woman. She pictured her father when he would ring her mother, his voice changing instantaneously from speaking to Lola to speaking to her. A change of pitch. A key change, like two thirds of the way through any standard ballad.
Dolores, child, I am sick to my stomach of dis craziness, I swear to - Hi! Hi Sweetness how are you?
‘...obviously, something like that is just tragic, innit?’ She snapped back into focus. The guy had a really solemn face on now. ‘And, as someone who is obviously very emotionally attached to it, it must be really hard for you to hear something like that. I mean, am I telling the truth, is it extremely upsetting for you right now?’
She sighed. What the frickideedoodah was he talking about? She leaned forwards. ‘I mean, yeah definitely. It’s really sad. It’s a really sad thing to hear, definitely.’
‘Exactly, it’s awful. It must be like someone just taking away something you hold so dear- ’
Oh here we go. Jesus. It was the old Lola-Lily-Pays-Someone-Else-To-Sing-Her-Songs rumour. Hardly tragic.
‘I suppose, but, you know, I think when it comes down to it, it’s just a case of moving on and not letting it get to you.’ The guy shuffled, spluttered slightly, but she was in her stride. ‘People will do really crazy things to get people down so you’ve gotta, you know, not let them do that. So, I mean it is sad but, I don’t think people should dwell on it at all. I’m certainly not. I’m already way passed it so I think everyone else should just, you know, follow my lead and,’ she shrugged cutely, ‘get over it!’
The entire building was silent. The audience loomed before her like a wall of statues. Blank, wide eyed faces. The guy behind the desk was staring at her open-mouthed.
Oh. Sweet. Jesus.
The guy snapped out of his stupor slightly, his eyes darting to the burly men behind the camera. ‘Okay, interesting. Thank you. Erm, Lola Lily everybody.’
The only sound as she left the room was the clacking of stilettos on tiles.
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