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