Chapter 2
‘You’ll be fine,’ Liam says as we screech to a halt at Newcastle Airport drop-off at four thirty the next morning.
He shoves me towards the terminal with my carry-on case as though he’s terrified I might change my mind.
I may have kept them both awake with my loud and frequent panicking.
The Dollz are standing at the entrance looking as though they’ve come straight from a burlesque nightclub in Paris.
Liam flicks a worried glance at my Converse, my boring denim shorts and T-shirt, my long hair hanging in no particular style and my make-up-free face.
‘Don’t worry. A nice smile can go a long way,’ he says, patting me on the arm. ‘Just remember to give the audience what they want, not what you want them to want, and try to put on a bit of a show.’
‘I’ll try my best.’ I hug him tightly. ‘I wish you were coming with me.’
His eyes fill as he peels me off him. ‘Just go and have a great time. That’s all we want for you.’ I watch him race off before our emotions get the better of us, tyres squealing. All I can do is hope for the best as I walk hesitantly towards my new support band. My heart is thumping triple time.
‘Hi, I’m Connie,’ I say cheerily to hide my nerves. All five Dollz swivel round. ‘Connie Cooper. I’m the new Jezebel Music headline act for next week.’
I am met with blank stares until a woman with fabulous over-here-look-at-me, pillar-box-red hair gasps.
‘Headline? You’re the new headline act? You mean you’re going to replace Ted Sheeran? On The Strip?’
I nod. They all stare back, aghast.
‘Poor you. No one’s as good as him.’
‘Not even the real Ed Sheeran.’
‘Christ, his regulars will be so disappointed, won’t they, Tash?’
Tash, the Dollz’ lead singer, nods gravely. ‘Yes, they’ll be fucking furious. And they’ll hate it if you don’t do all of his hits.’
Shitting hell.
While we make our way up the escalator to departures, the girls bicker over whose idea it was to save money by only bringing carry-on luggage. Apparently, it was Cherry’s idea, so she is keen to divert attention.
She flicks her bright red hair over her shoulder and links her arm through mine. ‘Connie, so this your first time away on tour, yeah? Who do you do?’ she says, trying to place who I look like for my tribute act.
I sweep my eyes around the group. ‘It’s hard to describe. I kind of take the audience on an emotional journey. I start off a cappella, all melancholic and ethereal, and then segue into more dramatic, contemporary ballads, you know?’
I hesitate at the lack of reaction. I should refrain from talking, but nerves have got the better of me.
‘I thought I’d mix a few classical numbers with Latino seeing as we’re in Spain.
I could do Phantom in French and “Nessun Dorma” in Italian, bel canto obviously.
’ I emit a nervous, nasally yipping sound, quite the opposite of endearing.
‘Oh, and I did once sing a Gregorian plainchant in the original Greek, but I’m not sure how that would go down in Benidorm. ’
For the love of God, abort. Abort.
They frown at one another, confused.
‘Yeah, they’ll hate all of that,’ Tash says quickly, rolling her eyes at the girls. ‘Just stick to pop tunes or maybe songs from The Greatest Showman if you must show off, but don’t cover anything that we’re doing.’
‘Okay,’ I say, dread swirling up from my stomach. ‘At least I don’t know any Pussycat Dolls hits, so there’ll be no chance of that.’
‘Neither do we,’ says Tash, flicking her mane of jet-black hair extensions over her shoulder. ‘We channel their vibe, but we do Beyoncé, Taytay, RiRi and a bit of Little Mix. Which is why they love us over there.’
Tash and her band are quick to reveal they have wiped everything I’ve just said about my stuck-up, horrific-sounding singing completely from their minds and proceed to tell me how Benidorm has got everything you can possibly need for a girls’ trip abroad.
‘Don’t worry. There’s plenty of English-speaking natives, so you don’t even have to speak Spanish at all. Not. One. Word!’ Tash reassures me.
‘I have an A level in Spanish, actually,’ I say, keen to make amends. ‘So that might come in handy.’
They do not look the slightest bit impressed and carry on as though I’d not even mentioned it.
‘Don’t worry about having to eat any Spanish food either,’ says one of them, wrinkling her nose at me. ‘You can get all sorts of English food over there. You know, like pizza, kebabs, McDonald’s.’
‘Big Mand is right. And absolutely everything’s dripping in garlic sauce,’ Cherry tells me enthusiastically.
Simply delightful. Cannot wait. Wonder why this was not given top billing on Tripadvisor.
‘And it’s swarming with English men,’ Tash explains gleefully. ‘Absolutely heaving. All totally, totally pissed.’
Lovely. Also wonder why Expedia not leading with this.
‘I like my men how I like my fruit,’ a girl called Liberty boasts, twirling a long strand of hair.
Ripe?
My eyes balloon as the Dollz automatically chorus, ‘FIVE A DAY!’
I blink, unsure of how seriously to take this startling revelation.
As we make our way through the airport, they also tell me that it is simply impossible to get any of these things, decent men and suchlike, in England, and it is much better to go abroad for them.
It is especially easy to ensnare the good-looking ones at festivals, I’m told.
‘They’re all on so many drugs, and they have no idea what they’re doing! They can barely speak! Last year I handcuffed a guy to myself for two days,’ says Liberty, giggling. A prickle of alarm creeps through me as I imagine getting arrested for something they’ve done.
I’ve got a whole week of this.
Seven days.
Seven days of witnessing men being kidnapped and falsely imprisoned. I told Ged that forcing me out of my comfort zone before I’m good and ready would be a mistake, but would he listen?
No, he would not.
As we stand in the queue to go through security, I’m told all five of the girls’ names, what they do for a living when not on tour singing or breaking several laws and what their views are on pubic hair. It’s all very mixed.
‘Nancy must think very highly of you if she’s put you as our headline act,’ Big Sue, the tallest woman I’ve ever seen, says. ‘You must have a similar style to us. Raunchy, is it?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Unfortunately not, no. I’m not the, erm, sexy type.’
‘Don’t worry, hun. We’ll soon have you looking and acting like one of us,’ Tash says confidently, eyeing me up and down. ‘If you want to fit in over there in Benidorm just copy everything we do.’
‘Yes. Being sexy is all about spontaneity,’ Cherry says, flinging her leg over Liberty’s shoulder and dipping into a backwards crab shape as though to demonstrate.
‘And the way you look,’ adds Liberty, pouting at me.
‘And being completely in sync with one another,’ adds Big Mand, posing alongside them.
I scan the group and quickly run through a mental list: Tash is the lead singer and is very single at the moment, Cherry with the flaming-red hair is in charge of choreography and is very scary, Liberty with the inflatable lips is the very image of a Kardashian and is inexplicably drawn to married men, Big Sue is a sensible giantess, and Mandeep, or Big Mand as she has introduced herself, seems to adore Big Sue because she keeps looking up at her with obvious cow eyes.
I’m just thinking what a cute couple they make when Cherry suddenly roars, ‘SLUT DROP!’
Oh Christ.
The Dollz draw the eye of everyone in the near vicinity, especially the already irritated security control officers whose heads whip around to witness the Beyoncé-style move with distaste.
The armed police guards instinctively reach for their guns.
Tash, looking thrilled, flicks her hair in their direction and switches her lashes to bat on their most powerful setting.
As an outraged security control officer marches towards us in the queue, I am equally unnerved to feel several pairs of hands pushing me forward with whispers of, ‘Go on, Connie, you’re the headline act. You deal with them.’
I’m appalled, but I suppose technically, according to Nancy, I am in charge.
The officer rapidly asks me several questions to which he greets each answer with a disdainful tut.
I tell him yes, I appear to be suddenly in charge of the group, while thinking to myself I am certainly not in charge of the group for any longer than the length of this conversation, and no , of course we should not be dancing like prats while we go through the baggage check area, and yes , their outfits are little more than denim G-strings and bra tops and finally, that yes , I will absolutely do my best to persuade them to cover up around families with children.
Next, under the watchful glare of several officers, we are instructed to get our toiletries out of our cases. This proves to be very unpopular and causes a ripple of lady-panic.
‘Should super-quick spray tan foam be classed as a liquid though? Because it definitely isn’t,’ Tash says sharply with some authority.
‘Liquid!’ snaps the officer, snatching the can from her and throwing it in the bin. There’s an almighty gasp from the girls as though he’s just thrown away a newborn kitten.
‘Is hairspray allowed?’ Tash asks.
The officer points to a massive sign that says: No aerosols. No liquids. No gels over 100ml .
‘Is hair mousse allowed, though?’
The officer sighs, pointing to the 100ml bit of the sign.
‘Is conditioner a liquid, cos it’s more of a cream really, isn’t it? And body mist? It’s mostly air. Jesus Christ. Air’s not even on the friggin’ list!’ Tash screeches at him.
She gawps at the rest of us for backup before returning to face the accusing officer, who delights in explaining the basic chemistry behind an aerosol.
The atmosphere is super tense and thick with outrage, as though the security officers have taken everything off the Dollz out of pure spite.
Cherry finds herself once again in the firing line for wanting to save money with carry-on luggage and forgetting to warn the girls about the dire consequences.
‘Connie, follow me. Let’s get those pasty legs sorted,’ she says, grabbing my hand. We all scuttle through to the duty-free where a well-groomed sales assistant makes a timid enquiry to the group to ask if they need any help, only to be met with an unfriendly glare as they swiftly crowd her out.
In less than five minutes, everyone is encrusted in fake tan that costs more than our accommodation and travel put together.
(‘Excuse me, ladies, those brand-new St. Tropez bottles you’re opening and spraying all over your legs are not testers.
They’re thirty-nine pounds each! They’re not faulty, just empty because you’ve used it all! ’)
For the sake of bonding purposes, my legs now have a strange yellow glow, my palms are a solid brown colour, and I have allowed Tash to draw some ludicrous eyebrows on me which extend a fraction above the natural eyebrow line.
‘They need to stand out on stage,’ she is explaining as I take in her own terrifying jet-black eyebrows. ‘You really should have them tattooed on for a much stronger look. Like mine.’
I peer anxiously at my reflection in the mirror. I will now arrive in Spain looking very surprised. As if I had expected to arrive in Finland or Japan or somewhere.
In the middle of the aisle, Cherry bellows, ‘SHOPPING CART!’ which rocks me to my core.
Everyone stops to stare, taking photos of the girls putting imaginary toiletries into their imaginary shopping carts while gyrating their hips.
We all inhale sharply as Tash, in a pair of vertiginous strappy sandals with heels like chopsticks, falls noisily to the ground, taking thousands of pounds’ worth of beauty products with her.
Her shoes might look spectacular but, to be fair, it was only going to be a matter of time before someone twisted an ankle.
There’s much slipping and sliding as bottles and creams are strewn everywhere, with Tash screaming at the top of her lungs about being in ‘complete aggs’.
‘Get help!’ she yells forcefully in my direction.
‘But make sure it’s from a man. A big, strong one. With a neat beard.’
Seven days!
Even though it is now only 5.30a.m., we’re at the departure lounge bar as Tash, in her newly acquired wheelchair and bandaged ankle, is greeted like a returning war hero. She immediately downs a bottle of fizz, saying she’ll be up and twerking in no time.
‘Remember, girls, chicks before dicks! Sisters before misters! Hoes before bros!’
A glass is quickly thrust into my hand for the toast. I stare at the bubbling liquid dubiously, already exhausted from the effort of keeping up with them. Tash spins her wheelchair round with an alarmed expression.
‘Connie! Why aren’t you drinking? You’re not…’ She squints up at me and then down to my drink. ‘You’re not one of them , are you?’
One of them?
‘You know, someone who refuses to enjoy alcohol?’
I take a beat to consider how badly I want to fit in with these girls and, against my better judgement, drain the glass good and proper.
There is a collective sigh of relief, and the glass is immediately topped up.
And to prove a point, though I absolutely should not be trying to prove anything this early in the morning, I order three more bottles from the bar, just as we hear our flight being called.
‘Just ignore it,’ says Liberty, gleefully taking the bottles from me. ‘They always do that.’
‘Yeah,’ says Cherry. ‘Last call never means last call.’
Nancy will be furious if I miss this flight. She’ll never trust me again, and my singing career will definitely be over.
‘We’ve got loads of time,’ agrees Big Mand. ‘Enough to do you a proper nose, lip and cheek contour, babes. Come here.’
‘How can you even leave the house without your face on?’ enquires Big Sue.
They dig into their bags and pull out what look like finger paints and fat crayons and crowd round me.
I am beginning to regret making a vague, Prosecco-based promise earlier to become an honorary Doll for bonding purposes.
Minutes later and they have pulled, rubbed, blended and smudged me into looking ‘like a woman who cares’.
‘Perfect. Now you look just like one of us,’ Tash says, topping up my drink.
BING BONG.
‘Attention, please, boarding for flight 4079 to Alicante is now closed.’
Shite!