She Just Can't Help Herself. Ollie Quain

or a mime artist. Black is the perfect colour for being present but not drawing attention to yourself. You can be there, but not ‘HERE!’. Unless, that is, you were invited to one of those toe-curling-ly cringe Z-list celebrity weddings on a foreign beach, where all the guests are asked to wear white (and go barefoot).

      I breathe in very slowly. Then exhale. And continue to stare. This is me now. Not the me she knew. I am finished with both of them.

      ‘Hon-eeeeey!’

      The only reason I am here flies through the door and gives me a perfunctory peck on the cheek.

      ‘Noelle! How are you?’

      ‘How am I? Duh! Not exactly happy. That bitch!’

      ‘What bitch?’

      ‘The bitch who interviewed me. Ashley some-one-or-other.’

      I realise Noelle has not recognised her. Not surprising. She was a small kid when everything happened. A concerted effort was made to ‘keep her out of it’.

      ‘Sorry, I got here late. Was at the hospit—’

      ‘You missed the whole thing?’

      ‘Not on purpose. What’s the matter?’

      ‘I got trashed out there,’ continues Noelle. ‘I’ve never been so embarrassed in my, like, life. If Frédéric hadn’t arrived … well, quelle doomage! Anyway, why didn’t you come and find me?’

      ‘I attempted to. But was prevented from doing so by a lady holding a clipboard and wearing an I’m-so-special-I could-eat-myself hat.’

      ‘Oh, you mean Sophs. She was only making sure I saw all the right people first. No, like, offence. There were a lot of serious national journalists out there. Internationally, if you include Internet hits. I mean, the Web has become even more important than print these days, yeah.’ She adds this as if she was revealing a prize nugget of information gleaned from years studying the development of digital media.

      I don’t engage. ‘You’re okay then?’

      ‘I’ll pull through, I think. I have to. I’ve got to hang with Frédéric, sign some like, shit—I mean books—ha! for my fans … then go to another party.’

      ‘I meant, generally, are you okay? I keep getting missed calls from you at weird times of the night.’

      She shrugs. ‘Soz. Only tryin’ to catch up and t’ingz. Time-zone issues. But, yeah, I’m more than okay. Honeeeeey, believe … this bitch is fly.’

      ‘Good, because I was …’ I stop myself. There is no point voicing concern. ‘We can still do a picture?’

      ‘Yeah, I’ll get Sophs to arrange it.’

      ‘What’s there to arrange? All you have to do is stand in front of the display of your books by the podium.’

      Noelle scrunches up her face. The bones underneath don’t so much jut as project.

      ‘Thing is,’ she says, ‘Sophs, is a bit funny about who snaps me these days.’

      ‘Noelle, you snap yourself every day on a Hello Kitty phone. You’re not Nick Knight.’

      ‘Don’t get on my grill. That’s different. Insta, innit! Let me see what I can do. It is, like, you, after all. Wait there. I need a pee.’

      She disappears into the toilet. I see the tips of her shiny patent brogues poking towards the gap beneath the cubicle door. Then she flushes and turns round. Now I can see the backs of her shoes and pompom-socked ankles. I know what she is doing. Sure enough, I hear the sound of a card being tapped quickly and violently on the cistern, followed by a long drawn-out gutteral snort, which she attempts to drown out by flushing the loo again. But frankly, she could have carried out that little routine by the Niagara Falls and still be heard. Also as expected, I gag.

      Even after I had grown up enough to realise that my father had not been joking and that Class A and B drugs did in fact look like many sweets (Sherbet Dip Dab, Toblerone, Love Hearts etc,) but not fruit pastilles, I avoided them. Therapy had given me mental stability. Well, more of a plateau of not feeling anything, which suited me fine. I did not want to see where a pill or powder could ‘take me’. I did not want to go anywhere.

      At college, people would question my lack of adventure and tell me I didn’t know what I was missing out on. But Dr Google gave me a pretty good idea: ‘A brief, intense high and rush of confidence that is immediately followed by depressive thoughts, anxiety, a craving for more of the chemical, heart palpitations, insomnia, hyper-stimulation and paranoia …’ And all that was only in the short term! Oh, and it gave you terrible diarrhoea; I witnessed both verbal and gastric. The latter of which I think Noelle is now experiencing because she is flushing the loo again. Either that or she is doing another line. I gag again.

      ‘Noo-Noo! Noooooooooo-Noooooooooo!’

      A clipboard appears in the doorway, followed by the peak of a tweed cap and the enticingly punchable face of Noelle’s agent.

      ‘She’s in there.’ I point at the correct cubicle. ‘Testing out the efficiency of the plumbing.’

      Sophie walks in and knocks on it. ‘Noo-Noo, we need to do one last circuit and then get you down to drinkalinks at the Serpentine. I want your arrival to be circa the same time as Paltrow or Palermo. And Harry. Styles not Windsor. We’re okay-ish for the moment, Loopy’s just radioed through … but we really should bloody chop chop.’

      ‘I think she’s already done that,’ I mutter.

      Sophie ignores me. Noelle unlocks the cubicle door and beams at us. Her eyes are glassy and wide. Her top lip sweaty. Her smile skewed. As on the last few occasions I have seen her like this, there is part of me that wants to take her aside and tell her exactly what I am seeing. But then the other part of me speaks up to remind me that Noelle isn’t fussed by what I see. Only how she is seen … by people she doesn’t even know.

      She goes to the sink and starts washing her hands. ‘Sophs, I’ve promised this honey …’ She nods at me. ‘… I’ll do a snap, yeah?’

      Sophie crinkles her nose. ‘Eh? We’re not doing any pics today, Noo-Noo. It was part of the deal with Catwalk; they get the exclusive on all the party images to go up online overnight. I know nothing about any other requests.’

      ‘It’s for my own personal website,’ I explain. ‘I have a blog.’

      ‘A fashion blog?’

      ‘More of an on-going study about the relationship between women, image, marketing, reality, art and social media.’

      The look on Sophie’s face tells me I may as well have asked, ‘WOULD YOU LIKE TO ROLL IN SOME FOX FAECES WITH ME?’

      ‘How nice,’ she says. ‘But not today. Maybe another time. Pending on your hit scores, we could tie it in with something for charity. I’m all about getting bad ass on bullies. And STDs, obviously.’ She adds nonsensically and passes Noelle a make-up bag. ‘Noo, blow your nose, get some slap on and meet me back by the bar.’

      As Sophie departs, Noelle grimaces at me. Her pupils are even more dilated and blacker, like the liquorice swirls we used to love. She shakes the water from her hands.

      ‘Don’t get ants in your pants, honeeeeey,’ she shouts. ‘I’m as, like, gutted as you are. I, like, really mean that, yeah? But I guess, if I’ve learned anything from this situ it’s that I’m now at a point in my career where the smaaaaa-llest request has to be, like, put through my agent? Bonkers, I know, but then everyone knows where they stand and I’m not disappointing anyone. Espesh peeps who I like, really care about, yeah? Because you know that’s not who I am. I’m a people-pleaser not a, like, people-letter-downer. I mean, yeah, if the request gets like turned down,