Authors: Amanda Brunker
With that the four of us sat kneeling up on the leather seats shaking our champagne bottles in the air and head-banging to Kellis’s ‘Milkshake’.
Although I was still at a pushing myself to feel happy stage, it felt good to be back to normal. Well, my kind of normality.
I might only have €100, and £28.50 which I found in an old jar in my purse in case of emergencies, but I somehow always managed to surround myself with expensive pleasures.
I was an unemployed celebrity journo; sorry, I was apparently an unemployable celebrity journalist. Yet I was surrounded by champagne, while being driven in a stretch limo to take a private jet to London, to party with some famous celebrities. On the up-side, life wasn’t too bad –
yet
!
Born lucky instead of rich, the good life found me, and it scared me to think I could be ousted from my comfort zone.
So I chose not to be.
It was easier to sing, dance, laugh and forget about the real world. Other people lived there.
And just as the energy in the Hummer had started to lull, Britney Spears came on the TV. With her first words ‘Baby One More Time’ we all jumped to our knees again, shrieking with excitement, singing along. Like sycophants we eyeballed each other as we
religiously
and meticulously sang her song, taking a line each at a time – until the driver hit the brakes abruptly and the four of us tumbled to the back and then the front of the Hummer like rag dolls.
As our shoes and our drinks flew around, we fell in a heap, screaming with laughter.
It turned out the driver had pulled off the motorway into a petrol station at the last minute to buy cigarettes. Happy to go with the flow, we girls made a run for the smelly toilet around the side of the garage, while Parker rang his date about the exact location of the private airport.
Fifteen minutes later, we were all back safely in the limo, readying ourselves for meeting Parker’s rich builder boy.
After hair and make-up had been fixed we managed to gather our belongings and the spare snipes of champagne as we pulled up at Weston Airport.
Like an excitable teenager, Parker was almost pinging off the walls, but like a true pro he reeled it back in as he stepped out of the limo to meet his hairy-handed man.
As butch as you like, he marched over to his new boyfriend, patted him on the back and said, ‘Howsigoin’, Jeff? Not a bad day for flying, eh?’
Trying desperately hard not to crack up laughing, we lined up like the hired help to greet our new host. In a complete Walter Mitty moment Parker delved for the deepest voice he could find and said, ‘Jeff, these are the ladies I was telling you about. Aren’t they gorgeous?’
Our new friend Jeff played the charmer, and even gave Maddie a playful wink. Happy to go along with the game, we gushed and cooed as Jeff flirted with each of us individually.
He was a man with manners. And for us to even hint that he wasn’t batting for our team would have been improper protocol.
What a waste for us girls, though. Like Parker he was tall, about six foot two, and quite broad. He looked extremely sporty. You could tell he was the kinda guy who would go skiing in the winter and surfing in the summer, and had a subtle mahogany tan as a result. Hairy hands aside, he was a buff puff, who came with a serious reservoir of cash and assets to impress us with.
Laughing, Jeff teased us as he gave us the tour of the airport, joking, ‘I hope none of you girls are afraid of flying?’
All pulling startled faces, Maddie shot back, ‘No, but we’re all afraid of crashing!’
She may have been joking, but it was true. This might have been executive travel, but all of the aircraft looked extremely flimsy.
‘Where are you hiding the Boeing?’ I asked. ‘Or are we flying by Lear Jet today?’
Jeff had clearly heard it all before. ‘Oh, it’s good to see everyone is in high spirits. Now let’s see how you all get on with the weigh-in,’ he said with great amusement.
Automatically the four of us looked at each other,
clutched
our chests and cried in camp horror, ‘Weighin?’
‘I thought that might wipe the smiles off your faces. I can’t let anyone on the plane without weighing you first. I couldn’t take the chance that any of you ladies might shave off a few pounds here and there.’
While Maddie, Anna and myself all hated the scales as much as Marmite, Parker looked the most worried of the lot of us. ‘Emm, what’s the relevance of knowing our exact weight?’ he asked. He looked almost pale with the news.
‘It’s just a formality, really.’ Jeff chuckled. ‘We just need to know where to put the heavy people.’
As if claiming a mini-victory Maddie piped up, ‘Is there a skinny model VIP section to this plane?’ Jeff thought for a moment, then said, ‘Yes, skinny models to the back of the plane, fabulously healthy people front and middle.’
Relishing her status Maddie asked in her best precocious voice, ‘So, why is it the fat people have to sit up the front?’ doing her best to wind up Parker and Anna.
‘Well,’ said Jeff, ‘the plane would never get off the ground if we got the weight wrong. And that goes for your baggage too.’
Looking at the size of Maddie’s bulging case I did my best to put a smile back on Parker’s face. ‘Eh, it looks like you’re carrying a few extra pounds yourself there, missus. You might have to leave some of your non-essentials behind.’
‘Non-essentials!’ screamed Maddie. ‘The only thing non-essential about this trip is your bad karma. I wouldn’t be worrying about my baggage, hon, but trying to shed some of your own.’
Without giving me time to answer Jeff had ceremoniously ushered us and our luggage on to scales at a nearby Portakabin, throwing his eyes up to heaven at the sight of our bags.
‘You’re allowed 34 pounds excess weight per person,’ he explained.
Still feeling super-skinny, Maddie joked, ‘So where are we going to squeeze Parker’s ego?’
‘Probably on a roof-rack alongside yours, dear,’ squealed Parker. Realizing he had let his butch image slip, he straightened his shoulders and declared, ‘If any of the girls are over I don’t mind leaving some of my stuff behind. I don’t mind travelling light.’
The luggage safely on board, we girls peeked our heads back out of the Portakabin to see if we could spot a plane that looked safe enough to travel in.
When the other pair joined us they were happily laughing; no doubt Parker had made some crude comment along the lines that the only package Jeff needed to take was the package between his trousers!
Resuming his headmaster role Jeff led us like sheep to the slaughter, steering us in the direction of the small runway and a tiny plane. Indicating the toy-like trinket, he said, ‘OK guys, this is us. Meet Florence.’
In unison we went, ‘Huh?’
‘This is my plane,’ he explained, ‘I call her Florence
after
my grandmother. She was an exceptional woman. And this is just a beautiful plane.’
Parker leaned into me and whispered, ‘You see. I bring out the homo in him.’ But I didn’t see the humour. I was staring at the smallest plane I’d ever seen. And fear had gripped my body.
Wanting to yell out, ‘I want my mammy’, I hesitantly pulled Jeff on the arm and asked, ‘Are you serious?’
‘Of course,’ he replied, oblivious to my anxiety. ‘OK, everyone, all aboard,’ Jeff instructed us. ‘We’ve got a fifteen-minute window. Maddie and Eva in the back, Anna in the middle with Parker.’
With that Maddie rudely blurted out, ‘I can’t get in that. It’s a tin can with propellers.’
‘She’s never failed me before,’ offered Jeff, looking a tad hurt.
‘But … but, didn’t JFK Junior and his missus die in a little plane like this?’
‘Yes, well, kind of. Theirs was a smaller make, though,’ said Jeff. ‘It was only a single propeller plane. If you look at this baby, it’s got twin propellers. Plus I don’t come from a famous cursed family. So we’ll be fine. Now hop in.’
Not wanting to have a fall-out before the weekend even started, Parker took control of the deteriorating situation and with one of his stern looks, motioned to us with his eyes to climb on board.
Unsure if we were more scared of Parker or of the thought of plummeting to our death in an aviation
tragedy,
we stuffed ourselves and our bags inside the plane, in stony silence.
Far from Concorde, Florence was more like an early Elvis number with its baby blue velvet seats, blue carpet and matching side panels. Parker did his best Austin Powers impersonation with a loud, ‘Yeah, baby!’ It failed to lift my mood.
After all, I’d already been slapped in the face at the Four Seasons. Oh, how a plane crash would just finish off my decadent disaster of a day.
Settling into our taxi with wings, wedged in like sardines, some young fella looking no more than eighteen hopped in the front beside Jeff and started flicking switches and muttering ‘Roger to that.’
Seeing my distress Anna and Maddie each grabbed one of my hands but their touch didn’t work. Instead, frustrated by me being difficult, Parker did a Parker and began to sing. I put my fingers in my ears and started to hum. But all I could visualize was this flying coffin, spinning out of control and crash-landing in the sea.
Where were the snooty air hostesses? I wanted lunch with real cutlery. Not a gliding minibus to take me across the Irish Sea. It was a far cry from the John Travolta beast that Parker and I had been expecting. Without letting his disappointment show Parker continued to sing ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’.
‘Shut up, Parker,’ I screamed, letting my nerves get the better of me. ‘John Denver died in one of these planes as well.’
‘So did Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper,’ laughed Jeff.
‘Oh, don’t forget Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline,’ added Parker. ‘Are we making you
crazzzzy
yet?’
‘SHUT UP!’
Getting into the spirit of things Anna gave me a reassuring nudge before spurting out, ‘Christie Brinkley nearly died in a plane crash. But after six hours of sitting in the snow on the side of a mountain, she was rescued. So that’s something positive.’
Baffled at her reasoning I could only moan, ‘Do you think?’
It was when Maddie offered, ‘And didn’t that young singer Aaliyah go down over the Bahamas?’ that I finally started to laugh. ‘OK, OK, you all win,’ I conceded. ‘If we’re going to hurtle to our death, so be it. Just please try and avoid turbulence. And definitely don’t crash, Jeff. We’re all too good-looking to die.’
‘Will do my best,’ smiled Jeff. ‘And so will I,’ said the very young co-pilot, before he resumed muttering into his headset.
Shortly after our bumpy take-off, Maddie remembered the spare snipes of Moët she had stuffed in her bag, and in true rock ’n’ roll style we necked them back while singing Westlife’s ‘Flying without Wings’, along with various other aviation-themed songs for the duration of the journey.
* * *
By five o’clock we were sitting in London traffic, after our thankfully uneventful flight to Heathrow. What a relief.
The little suited man, complete with chauffeur’s cap, waiting for us with the sign
JEFF’S PARTY PEOPLE,
was hilarious.
Resembling Sid James from the
Carry On
movies, Charlie C spread the cockney charm on thick, with cheesy lines like, ‘Olright my lovelies. Neva before ’ave I seen such beauties’, and, ‘Treacle, are you what they call Oirish royalty?’
Loving the attention being showered on us, we hardly noticed that Parker and Jeff had huddled in the back seat of the people carrier, locked in a private chat. Despite previous hesitations, Parker seemed to be uber-keen on his new suitor. It was good to see him so happy. Come to think of it, all complications aside, I was happy too.
London, lock up your sons, I thought, da diva was comin’ to get ya.
An hour later we were still stuck in traffic, but Jeff’s driver had kindly hopped out of the car and bought us chips, chocolate and Diet Cokes.
‘Sorry about this, Jeff, but we’re starving,’ I said, as I dripped ketchup on my damned shoe and on to the carpet.
‘No worries,’ said Jeff. ‘I’m sure Charlie here is more than happy to have you ladies in the car, even if it does mean it stinks of salt and vinegar.’
‘So what’s the plan tonight then?’ I asked, curious about what to expect.
‘Whatever you ladies desire,’ smiled Jeff. ‘Fancy an early night? Maybe get a take-away and watch a DVD?’
‘As if!’ shrieked Maddie.
‘Fine by me.’ Parker winked, then remembered he was supposed to be playing butch.
A little thrown off track, a nervous Jeff resumed with, ‘Ah, em, well would you like to grab a drink in town before we head out? Or do you just want to go back to Primrose Hill and change first?’
‘Aren’t we staying in Primrose Hill?’ asked an over-excited Anna. ‘Isn’t that where all the celebrities live?’
‘Yeah, there’d be a few heads about all right.’
‘Perfect! Take us to that pub that Sadie Frost is always being photographed outside looking shit,’ demanded Anna, without having the decency to ask the group first.
Throwing Maddie a definite glare, she shot, ‘Trust me, it’s cool. All the Primrose Hill set hang out there. Ewan McGregor, Jude Law and Jonny Lee Miller drink there.’
‘Yeah, maybe when they’re not making movies,’ offered Maddie.
‘Can we go, can we go?’ pleaded Anna as she bounced on her seat like a six-year-old.
The perfect host, Jeff asked Charlie to ‘Drive us to Queens, please mate,’ in an adopted English accent,
as
we all started to rummage in our bags for lippie to reapply.
‘Are you sure you’re not thinking of Billie Piper and Chris Evans looking a little worse for wear sitting outside pubs?’ I asked, convinced she’d got it wrong about Sadie.
‘Oh, probably,’ muttered Anna. ‘But she’s forever being photographed without her make-up on.’
‘OK girls, listen up. I’ll give you the quick guided tour,’ said Jeff, in an attempt to keep us entertained. Coming up here on the left is Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin’s place. Noel Gallagher and Nicole Appleton live just around the corner … down there. And then Jamie Oliver and his missus Jools live just up here, well they used to as far as I can remember.’