A WAG Abroad

‘Oh, OK,’ says Dean. ‘So is it all canned food or just particular sorts of food, like fruit or vegetables or meat or something?’

‘Dean, I’ve done them all and I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I’ve had to jump through a few hoops along the way. Luncheon-meat-related issues are particularly tough right now, whereas corned beef is just an exercise in box ticking. Personally I sense that a great future in cans is set to cascade down, then we can all play in the corporate waterfall.’

‘Yeah, cool,’ says Dean.

We arrive back and I’m so busy thinking about waterfalls and cans cascading down that I simply don’t see the boot scraper that the others have stepped so elegantly over, and I clatter into it, completely lose my balance and squeal pathetically for the duration of my fall to the floor.

I’m lying flat on my face, half in and half out of the door. My dress is up by my waist, giving the Raiders Club chairman and LA’s hottest canned foods magnate a bird’s eye view of the ‘Other Way Round’ tattoo on my bottom. Why do things like this always happen?

‘Whoops. Cheeky,’ says Chuck, lifting me up and putting me onto me feet. Dean has his head in his hands and Pask doesn’t know where to look. Honestly, it’s not that bad – it’s only a bottom.

‘Are you trying to embarrass me?’ asks Dean quietly.

‘No,’ I assure him. I’m not trying; I’m managing to do it with no effort whatsoever. If I tried, imagine how embarrassing I could be!

Dean, Paskia and Chuck have gone up the metal spiral staircase leading to the side entrance to the main club room. I follow them, clinging onto the handrails and hoping that no one comes in below me.

‘Here comes the lovely little lady,’ says Chuck when I appear at the top. I have mud on my legs, covering my boots and smeared across my face, but other than that I’ve survived the walk perfectly well.

‘Ah, darling, you’re here!’ trills a voice from a distant room, then in walks an astonishingly thin woman – all bones, huge unblinking eyes and a smile that stretches the width of her face. She has long blonde hair with a thick, almost child-like fringe.

‘Woooah,’ says Chuck, flailing his arms around as the woman gives him a kiss. ‘I’ve never seen you before. Who are you?’

Both Chuck and the woman collapse into hysterical fits of laughter.

‘Isn’t he a card? God, twelve years of marriage and he still makes me howl with laughter every day. I’m Sian.’

Goodness. She’s so thin it’s scary. I never realized before that it was possible to be too thin, but here we are – proof that it is. ‘Nice to meet you,’ I say, putting out my heavily bejewelled hand, but instead of shaking it she clutches me in a massive bear-hug and squeezes me into her skeleton. I’m terrified she’s going to snap in half. Then she pushes herself away and scrutinizes me closely.

‘Wow, but look at you!’ she squeals. ‘Wow, wow, wow. Why do you have such a funny outfit on?’

Funny? Jeeeezz … The lady’s got a nerve. Sian, let me tell you, gentle readers, appears to be wearing no makeup at all! None! I know – it’s offensive. She has great skin but, really, no makeup? I do my makeup before getting in the shower, before I go to bed, washing my hair or putting on a face mask. How could she leave the house without makeup?

‘Let’s get juice,’ she says, still staring me up and down.

‘Pask, are you coming?’ I ask, but when I look round my daughter is staring wistfully out of the window.

‘Come on, Dean,’ says Chuck. ‘Let’s brainstorm the dynamics and interpersonal relationships in this team. We need to look behind the power curve and throw up some thought showers that we can circle back on next week.’

‘Yeah, OK,’ says Dean. ‘But it would be quite handy to have a chat with you about coaching.’

‘Yes,’ says Chuck, patting my husband on the back. ‘That’s what I just said.’

Sian marches me towards a room further away, as fast as my mud-covered platform stiletto boots can take me. I know I’m going to like her, even though she’s thinner than me. I don’t normally take to people who are thinner than I am. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who’s skinnier than me before.

‘I have a couple of questions for you,’ she says. ‘First up, will you let me host a party for you on Wednesday night? Please say I can. There’ll just be a few of us there.’

‘Oh, thanks, that would be lovely,’ I say, meaning it. I love a good party.

‘Great. You’ll meet Poppy and Macey – two girls from the club. Poppy’s going out with one of the players – Rock Lyon. Do you know him? He was a great player in his day. Macey’s lovely, too. She’s an artist who paints the best watercolours ever. You’ll love them. She’s been doing portraits of the players for an exhibition. She did a portrait of Van Dooley – do you know him? Great American writer.’

‘I know a writer!’ I exclaim, glad to be able to contribute something to the conversation. ‘He’s called Simon. He’s the guy who helped me write my columns in England. He’s coming over on Sunday and staying for a few weeks to do research for a novel he’s writing, set in LA.’

‘Wow, honey, I love English writers,’ she says. ‘Dickens, Austen, Archer. Is he a good guy?’

A good guy? I wonder to myself. I don’t know how to answer that. How do you explain the qualities of someone like Simon – a man who’s become the third most important person in my life in such a short period of time? How do I explain that this is the person who guided me when my mother turned on me and started selling stories to the tabloid papers; the man who sat next to me and listened patiently to my pain and anguish after Dean’s nan passed away? How do I go about explaining that?

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘He’s a good guy. The best. After Dean.’ It almost feels as if any attempt to explain our relationship will somehow diminish it.

‘Well, then, I need to make the most of you before he comes and takes up all your time, don’t I?’ she says. ‘We can do yoga together and go for runs and swim and …’

‘Are you mad?’ I say. ‘What do we want to do all that shit for when we could just be getting pissed?’

‘Oh, Tracie, you don’t drink alcohol, do you? You know it’s terribly bad for you.’

‘Drinking’s just great. I hate being sober, to be honest.’

Sian almost chokes with laughter.

‘You’re so funny. Look, anything you want – you just call me. I want you to feel at home here in our lovely country.’

‘Oooo,’ I say, seizing the moment. ‘One thing I’d really like would be if you could re-employ Jamie at the club. I met him yesterday and he seems such a nice guy. I know he’s worried about where he’s going to work. I’d love it if you could keep him on.’

Sian looks quite taken aback. ‘Well, he just helped out from time to time when we needed a driver but in the end we had to let him go,’ she says.

‘Oh, that’s a shame. Can’t you offer him more work?’

‘No, Tracie, I’m sorry. There are reasons why the club can’t employ him.’

‘Is this about money?’ I say.

‘Absolutely,’ she says, nodding.

So the club has no money. Shit! I thought it was all looking too good to be true. Poor Deany, he’s not going to be given the budget to buy any good players. He’ll be heartbroken. He’s been picking out players he wants since he got the job – a bit like me when the catalogue from Cricket comes through. I think, Oooh, I’d love those patent-leather slingbacks from Dolce & Gabbana, and he thinks, Oooh, I’d love that big, powerful striker from the Ivory Coast. Probably not much difference in the cost, the way the pricing strategy at Cricket works.

I feel as if we were lied to about these money problems. How can there be money problems? I’m a Wag, for heaven’s sake. I don’t do money problems; I do reckless spending and hedonistic nights out. We were told this was a rich club in a posh area, hoping to make it big time. We were told that money wasn’t an issue, that they wanted success and would pay for it.

‘Please don’t say anything to anyone. Not at the moment, anyway,’ says Sian, coyly.

‘No,’ I say. ‘I won’t say anything, but I have to say that I feel totally conned.’

‘Yes,’ she says, nodding. ‘We all were.’

How awful. Sian’s the chairman’s wife and she didn’t know about the financial problems either. Her words have got me desperately worried about our future here. I’ll have to see whether there’s any way I can make some money while I’m out here. I certainly can’t cut back. I don’t do cheap.

‘Hey, come and see this, doll,’ shouts Dean, breaking our moment of female solidarity and beckoning me to follow him into the bowels of the club. ‘Look,’ he says proudly, sweeping his skinny arms before him and indicating the most magnificent spa ever.

‘Bloody hell, is this for the players?’ I ask.