A WAG Abroad

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names,

characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of

the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons,

living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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A Paperback Original 2008

Copyright © Alison Kervin 2008

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Source ISBN: 9781847560551

Ebook edition © August 2008 ISBN: 9780007281152

Version: 2018-05-23

For Gorgeous George – the little boy who finds

it sooo embarrassing when I dedicate books to him.

Also for my brother, Gareth, whose knowledge of hair

extensions and spray tanning were a real help to me in

the writing, and to my sister Susan for her indepth

knowledge of football.

First of all a big thank you to the fabulous MaxineHitchcock,editor par excellence, for her advice, suggestionsand patience as we took Tracie on an action-packedadventure to LA. Also to Keshini Naidoo and SammiaRafique at Avon for being such stars and so supportive.Indeed many thanks to everyone at Avon for theirunfailing help, you’ve been a joy to work with on twobooks now – that’s more than any writer can hope for!An enormous thank you to Sheila Crowley, super agentand super friend, for all her support and encouragement.Thanks to Mum and Dad, as ever, though dad doesn’thave time to read my books now, since he became a starof the letters page of The Times. Finally a special mentionfor Charlie Bronks and everyone on the Linda UttleyCommittee who put on a magnificent display of whatreal friendship is all about when faced with illness to oneof their number. You should be desperately proud ofyourselves for all you did for Linda. I’m honoured to callyou friends …

Featured in today’s Daily Mail – the LAST column by Tracie Martin, Luton Town Super Wag, and our most popular columnist, as she prepares for her new life as a Wag Abroad…

HOW SHOULD A WAG PACK FOR A LONG

JOURNEY TO LA?

It’s a question to trouble even the most confident and committed of Wags. How much stuff should you take on a trip to LA? The right answer is… take it ALL!! Pack the bloody lot – from your light-bulb-covered dressing-table mirror to the glittery, tassely, shimmering, skimpy dresses that would make you look overdressed at the Oscars, let alone on the terraces. Take the shiny long pink PVC lace-up boots and the barely-there, marabou-fringed knickers. Obviously take the home spray tan kit complete with portable tanning studio. (This should be in your hand luggage just in case your tan starts fading to yellow during the flight. Always remember – a Wag should be far more chicken tikka masala than chicken korma.)

Take the machine that glues in hair extensions that you bought but can’t use because every time you try to glue the extensions back in yourself you manage to get glue in your hair, on your clothes and all over the furniture, you burn your thumbs and stick your fingers together.

Take the collection of twenty-nine skin-tight white lycra dresses that show every cellulite-free inch of your orange thighs. Take the leather dresses, the ridiculous jackets, the huge handbags that cost more than most people’s cars, and the tiny handbags that cost more than most people’s houses.

What about the huge leopardskin-patterned fake fur coat and the impractical cream-coloured Ugg boots? Yes, yes and thrice yes! But what about the fact that you’re going to a boiling hot country and there’s no way on God’s Earth that you could possibly wear them? Take them anyway. Just in case it cools down – who knows? What with global warming and all that stuff, perhaps the warm countries will experience global cooling. Maybe the smoking ban in Europe will hasten the melting of the ice caps which will cause polar bears to develop webbed feet and gills and swim to LA to live. All I’m saying is – it’s possible. So take everything with you.

Take the earrings that are so heavy you can barely lift your head and the gold necklaces that are so chunky they give you whiplash every time you turn round. Take it all, then buy loads more at the airport while you’re waiting for the flight that you will inevitably miss because you’re too caught up in a shopping frenzy to even think about silly things like gate numbers or departure times.

There. I hope that advice is clear and concise enough. That’s certainly what I intend to do. This is Tracie Martin bidding au revoir to Luton Town as I head off to my new life in LA. Welcome to my world …

Contents

Title Page Copyright Dedication Sunday 25 May 3 p.m. - I think. Los Angeles Sunday 25 May 10.30 a.m. (LA time) Monday 26 May 9 a.m. Tuesday 27 May 10 a.m. New car just arrived. Wednesday 28 May 8 a.m. Thursday 29 May Friday 30 May (22 days until LA Galaxy game) 6 a.m. Saturday 31 May (21 days to go) 6 p.m. Sunday 1 June (20 days to go) Monday 2 June (19 days to go) Tuesday 3 June Wednesday 4 June (17 days to go) 11 a.m. Thursday 5 June (16 days to go) Friday 6 June (15 days to go) Saturday 7 June (Two weeks to go!) 10 a.m. Sunday 8 June Monday 9 June (12 days to go) 8 a.m. Wednesday 11 June Thursday 12 June (9 days to go!!!) Friday 13 June (8 days to go) Saturday 14 June (One week to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Sunday 15 June Monday 16 June 8 a.m. Tuesday 17 June Wednesday 18 June Thursday 19 June 8.30 a.m. Friday 20 June 8 a.m. Saturday 21 June 9 a.m. Sunday 22 June 8 a.m. Monday 23 June Tuesday 24 June Wednesday 25 June Sunday 29 June Tuesday 1 July Friday 4 July Sunday 6 July Monday 7 July Tuesday 8 July Thursday 10 July Sunday 13 July Monday 14 July Thursday 17 July 6 p.m. Friday 18 July Saturday 19 July Sunday 20 July 9 a.m. Monday 21 July Tuesday 22 July Wednesday 23 July Thursday 24 July Sunday 27 July Wednesday 30 July Saturday 2 August (my wedding anniversary) Wednesday 6 August Thursday 7 August Friday 8 August Saturday 9 August. LA City Raiders against LA Galaxy!! LAX Airport TRACIE MARTIN’S GUIDE TO LA - what to see, eat, and visit in the city of Angels . . . About the Author About the Publisher

Sunday 25 May 3 p.m. – I think. Los Angeles

Good heavens, doesn’t it take a long time to get from Luton to Los Angeles? I mean, a really long time. I left on Thursday, for God’s sake. Thursday! Can you believe that?

One of the cleverer footballers at the club told me that it would be a twelve-hour journey, but he was clearly lying through his pearly white, dentally reconstructed, gold-capped teeth. The flight may have been twelve hours, but the journey sure as hell wasn’t, it took days!

Now I’m finally here – lying on a plump white leather sofa in my gorgeous new, bright and airy Hollywood home, surrounded by my family and a large collection of brightly coloured airport shopping bags.

Right now it’s midnight in Luton and I know that all my mates will be enjoying the last few drops of their Bacardi Breezers in Spangles wine bar, singing footie songs and snogging the face off the nearest bloke. Hovering over them will be a tired barman and an angry landlord ready to wrestle them out of the door and onto the cold, hard, vomit-coated pavement of Luton High Street. Ahhhh … what fun. It’s strange to be so far away from it all, lying here without a care in the world, with the blistering LA sun streaming through the windows and warming me from head to toe. What a journey I’ve just been through. Honestly – it’s been such a traumatic few days. As I lie back, relaxed for the first time in ages, I feel myself drifting slowly off to sleep … What a journey, what a journey, what a journey …

The day before

Heathrow Terminal Four

I confess that I’m not much of a traveller. You’d look at me with my fabulous clothes and my sophisticated air and think, ‘Gosh, she’s cosmopolitan!’ but the truth is that I start to get the shakes whenever I leave the Luton postcode area. As far as I’m concerned, travel is all about getting on the train to Liverpool, going into Cricket and buying a vast amount of tight pink clothing, glittery accessories and must-have handbags, then getting back on a Luton-bound train as quickly as possible.

So I’m not all that used to airports, and I certainly had no idea how many things there are to do there, like rushing into Boots and buying more miniature toiletry items than you can reasonably get through in a decade, as well as stocking up on medical supplies for the flight in such quantities that you could open a small on-board hospital.

Then there’s queueing. Oh, yes, you wait in queues for all sorts of things at airports – for people to check your ticket, your passport, your bags, coats, pockets and even your shoes.

Yes … your shoes!

I kid you not. And they don’t just check to see whether the shoes are genuine Louboutin or this year’s Gucci. No, get this – these people are looking for an altogether more crazy concept in shoe wear … they are checking to see whether anyone’s shoes have bombs in them.

‘Can you get shoes with bombs in?’ I ask, all excited. I mean, if anyone knows shoes, I do. I’ve seen shoes with buckles, bows, glitter and sequins … but never bombs. Imagine that! I’ve always fancied myself as a blonde bombshell and now I could do the look head to toe.

‘Have you ever found any shoe-bombs?’ I ask, but the uniformed lady just shakes her head mournfully, and I’m overcome with a feeling of total admiration for the way she fearlessly continues to search for the perfect pair of shoes – making everyone in the airport remove theirs and causing utter turmoil in the process.

‘Good luck!’ I say, blowing a kiss as she pushes my shoes through the machine. ‘Really hope you find some.’

Her brave battle reminds me of my own search for Marc Jacobs pink-and-white diamond-encrusted wedges a few years ago. I found them eventually, after hiring a team of crack shoppers and personal stylists. I turn to tell the shoe-bomb lady about this, in the hope that it will encourage her, but as I do she emits a loud scream, four people dive to the floor and someone falls to his knees and starts reciting the Lord’s Prayer.

‘Seize that woman,’ says a small burly man in an ill-fitting jumper, rushing to the lady’s side and pointing right at me. He hits a big red button on the machine and screams for assistance.

‘Help! Help!’ he cries, in a not altogether masculine fashion. It reminds me of my husband Dean when I last took him to the dentist.

Shoe-bomb woman howls as a major alarm wails through the airport, and people in uniform come tearing across from all directions, many of them armed.

‘Oooo … how exciting,’ I say, looking up at Dean and giving my daughter Paskia-Rose an entirely unwelcome hug. Three policemen with vicious-looking dogs are sprinting towards me. I feel like I’m on a movie set or something. Dean’s not quite as impressed.

‘What the fuck have you got in your bag?’ he asks, as the alarms grow louder and the panic in the airport rises to fever pitch.

But I can’t answer above the sound of screaming and shrieking. Those who are still standing hurl themselves onto the floor. Suddenly I’m being thrown down next to them in the most undignified and unladylike fashion.

‘I’m wearing next season’s Chloe,’ I scream, trying to pull my teeny-weeny, pink mini-skirt across my lady place as I fly backwards through the dirt and dust.

There’s not a flicker of compassion or concern on the man’s face. Does he have no idea how hard it is to get hold of Chloe four months before it hits the catwalk?

‘Get up!’ he growls. ‘Follow me!’ He speaks in a real Arnold Swarzenegger-type voice that, despite everything, makes me want to giggle.

I turn to Dean and say, ‘I’ll be back,’ in a similarly stern fashion, but realize immediately that this is a big mistake.

‘Ah, funny girl,’ he says, leading me towards a severe-looking woman with tightly cropped brown hair who is snapping on latex gloves. ‘Let’s see just how funny you’re feeling after this.’

An hour later

Not funny at all, actually. Not in the least. My sense of humour deserted me entirely as I was forced to endure the horror of a strip search conducted by a woman with no highlights and bad taste in knitwear.

‘What is the problem?’ I asked, as she ordered me to remove my clothing.

‘I think you know what the problem is,’ she said before searching everywhere you can imagine. Finally, when she was happy that I wasn’t concealing anything that might constitute a threat to national security she told me to get dressed, and sat down in the chair opposite me.

‘You look tired,’ I said because she did, poor love. ‘Have you been working too hard?’

‘Something like that,’ she said, as I slipped on my skirt. Then she sat upright. ‘Can I ask you something personal?’

‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘Would you mind telling me where you get your bikini line done? I think the stars and stripes flag looks great.’

Oh, so she’s human after all. I gave her the name of the beautician whose handiwork with sequins, glitter and jewels she was admiring, and continued to dress.

‘Does it hurt?’ she asked.

‘It doesn’t hurt a bit,’ I reassured her. ‘It itches though, and you find jewels in the strangest of places, but it’s worth it. Is it for a special occasion?’

The woman smiled and took off the gloves, flicking the glitter off them as she did so and removing an electric blue star from one of the fingers. ‘A date. Tomorrow night,’ she confided as she led me through the door.

‘Wow. Have fun,’ I said. ‘Make sure you ask for Mallory when you call that number. She’s the best.’

‘Thanks,’ she replied warmly, then she switched on her more formal self. ‘I’ll leave you with Mr Matthews.’

‘Tracie Martin?’ asked a tall, cross-looking man who wouldn’t know a fashionable bikini line if it jumped up and bit him.

‘Yes.’

‘Take a seat, please.’

On the table in front of us were a small replica gun, dagger and hand grenade.

‘Do these belong to you?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘I’m going to Los Angeles. It’s quite a dangerous place. Have you not seen all the films? Everyone carries a gun out there.’

‘Not everyone,’ he said. ‘And certainly not anyone who doesn’t have a licence for one. Even if you have a licence, you can’t take them on a flight.’

‘But they’re only pretend ones. They’re only to scare people away if they try to attack me. What if a baddie is on the flight and tries to take control of the plane and crash it into Disneyland or something? If none of us has any weapons, what are we supposed to do? Let him fly us to certain death? I don’t know about you but I don’t want to die in a head-on collision with Minnie Mouse or some other fanciful Disney character.’

I was rubbing the tips of my fingers together as I spoke. I do that when I’m nervous. It helps to calm me down. I thought Mr Matthews could do with trying it, the poor bloke looked as if he was going to explode.

‘I can’t let you take these on the flight,’ he said.

‘Just the one?’ I suggested.

‘No.’

‘OK, I’ll leave them here then,’ I said, but I have to say I was mightily disappointed. The gun was a beautiful accessory. It had an exquisitely carved wooden handle.

‘You’re free to go, Mrs Martin. Enjoy your flight.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, and I walked back out to Dean feeling wholly deflated by the experience. What a bloody fuss! If I was going to start bringing down aeroplanes, would I have put the weapons in my hand luggage? No, I’d have put them somewhere altogether more discreet.

‘You awright love?’ said Dean, rushing over to hug me.

‘I’m fine,’ I replied. ‘They just fussed a bit about my weapons, but it’s OK now.’ I looked over at Paskia-Rose who had gone all pale. ‘I thought they were going to throw you into jail,’ she whimpered. ‘We’ve been really worried.’

‘There’s nothing to be concerned about,’ I said. ‘I’m back, and we’re all off to LA.’

‘If we haven’t missed the flight,’ said Dean. ‘Come on, we’re gonna have to run like the clappers to get there in time.’

Dean and Pask went tearing through to the departure gate in their comfy flat shoes and matching Luton tracksuits. I did more sliding than dashing as I teeter, teeter, clatter, clattered across the shiny slippy floor in my 10-inch high heels.

I was tripping along like a baby giraffe when I caught sight of the others ahead, standing still next to a TV.

‘We’ve missed the flight,’ said Dean, pointing to the display screen. ‘Look, it’s gone.’

‘Oh, no,’ I sighed, dropping my head. I really wanted to get going. I didn’t want to have to hang around the airport for bloody hours waiting for the next one. I looked up at the screen again to see whether there was a later flight listed, but as I was scrutinizing the board, my eye was caught by something altogether more entrancing – twinkling next to me, pulling me towards it in a sweet, magnetic way … a shop! Glittering. I looked up. There were more! There were loads of them, everywhere! I was not sure whether I took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in heaven, but this place was toooo wonderful for words. Have you seen what it’s like in the departure lounge? Every type of shop you can imagine is there. It’s my personal paradise.

I knew right there and then that I had to shop.

We missed the next flight.

I had to shop some more.

We missed the one after that, too.

I had to do more shopping.

We missed another, and another, and another … I couldn’t help it! I couldn’t – seriously. I spent a fortune. I don’t remember when I was last that happy.

Eventually Dean decided that enough was enough, so, with me hanging onto the Chanel lipstick display in desperation, as if clinging to a dying lover, two passing airport security guards, a drunk looking for loose change and one businessman shopping for perfume for his wife and inadvertently caught up in the drama dragged me away. ‘Tracie, come on – let go. There’ll be other makeup counters,’ said Dean as I sobbed pitifully.

Through tears I watched the jewel-coloured eye shadows, gorgeous nail varnishes, perfumes and sparkly powders fade into the distance as a security guy gave me a fireman’s lift to the plane, plonking me down in my seat.

‘Right – there won’t be any more trouble now, will there?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said. ‘No more trouble.’

And I honestly don’t believe there would have been. I think the journey would have passed entirely without further drama … if it hadn’t been for the ladies wheeling their alcohol-laden trolleys up and down the aisles and offering booze to everyone.

‘More champagne, madam?’

‘OK then.’

‘Shall I give you two bottles this time, madam? Just to save me coming back every three and a half minutes?’

‘Good idea,’ I said with a happy little smile.

‘Have a few,’ she insisted, passing a handful over to me.

By the time we left mainland Europe my seat looked like a bottle bank. Now I know where the term ‘off your trolley’ comes from.

The only bad thing about the flight was trying to get to the bathroom to redo my makeup while hideously drunk and with the plane bobbing through the air. Have you ever tried that? The combination of alcohol and a moving floor provides an experience not dissimilar to that of walking across a bouncy castle.

Still, it’s by getting out of your seat and staggering around that you get to meet people, and that’s how I came to meet the pilot, after falling into the cockpit clutching my make-up bag and a change of clothing. He let me lie on the floor there for a while, and he even joined in some of the football songs I was singing though he didn’t know the Luton words. Then there was Flavio, an Italian architect who’s moving to LA. I met him when we both found ourselves waiting in line for the bathroom. He invited me to join his club.

‘I’d love to!’ I said, and rushed back to tell Dean, bouncing off every seat and every passenger en route.

‘What club?’ asked my husband, wondering whether this guy was going to the LA City Raiders too.

‘No, his club’s called the Mile High,’ I explained. ‘He wanted to know whether I fancied joining it with him.’

Sunday 25 May 10.30 a.m. (LA time)

‘Ladies and gentlemen, we will shortly be arriving in Los Angeles.’

It’s really weird waking up on a plane with the sun shining brightly through the windows. I haven’t woken anywhere but the bedroom in Luton for so long that I look up expecting to see my lovely murals painted onto the ceiling, like they are at home. Those paintings show Dean striding across a brightly painted football pitch, shooting for goals with a finesse and degree of accuracy that is wholly reserved for the world of art. Dean was a fabulous footballer in his day – he had the hair, the baggy trousers, the heavy jewellery and the attitude – but he was always a hopeless player. While his swagger into a nightclub screamed ‘Drop your knickers, there’s a footballer in the room,’ his staggers across the pitch screamed ‘Drop your hopes of victory, I’m about to score an own goal.’ Yes, the truth is that whenever he got near a ball you’d hear a collective intake of breath ricochet round the stadium followed by complete silence, not because anyone truly believed that something magnificent was about to happen, but because they knew it was all over for Luton.

Happily, over the last year we discovered Dean was a far better coach than he ever was a footballer. No one was more surprised than I to see the astonishing result produced by his fledgling attempts at coaching. He trained my daughter Paskia-Rose’s side (I know, girls playing football – what’s that all about?) until they were so brilliant that they thumped a visiting Los Angeles team, and Dean was offered a job as head coach of the Los Angeles Raiders, with Pask invited to attend St Benedict’s, the school associated with the team, and join the ladies’ side as its premier striker.