A WAG Abroad

‘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.

To watch Dean coaching those girls was to watch the work of a genius. He had them fitness training every day with the sort of devotion that I reserve for tending to my cuticles. Honestly, their fitness training sessions were like those undertaken by the Royal Marines, and the way he had them marching around during the training drills put me in mind of the SS. My greatest fear was not that the team would lose, but that my husband would be arrested for child cruelty.

I was the only one excluded from the crazy LA offer, and I think Dean was a bit worried about whether I’d want to come because I became something of a minor superstar in England last year. I started writing this blog online which became a newspaper column, giving lifestyle advice to wannabe Wags. It got so popular that I ended up going onto all sorts of TV programmes, and was recognized in the streets and everything.

‘Are you really sure you want to give all that up to come to LA?’ Dean had asked me. ‘You won’t miss being famous?’

‘No, of course not,’ I had said, and I’m sure I won’t, because I plan to be busy partying and drinking till dawn with the crazy LA Wags. I am going to find a shop like Cricket on Rodeo Drive, meet glamorous film stars, get an open-top car and chew gum all the time. I’ll definitely start to talk in a way that is, like, soooo American, and I’ll be getting stuck into some serious cosmetic surgery. ‘I’ll be fine,’ I told him. ‘Abso-bloody-lutely fine!’ and I will be, no question. I’m Tracie Martin and I’m in LA. Bring it on!

Arrivals Hall, LAX Airport, 11 a.m.

I’m still feeling sleepy after the flight as I walk into the terminal after the longest journey in the history of modern aviation. I come staggering out, struggling to put one white patent-leather foot in front of the other, and then I see him – the world’s most beautiful man. Just standing there, brooding, dark and handsome. The male equivalent of Barbie. Perfection.