Love Is A Thief

grandma’s villa | pepperpots life sanctuary

‘We will do everything possible to make sure you keep your job. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to the ghostwriting team at True Love. Your writing equals a young Barbara Cartland,’ and other such platitudes had spouted from the mouth of Federico as soon as we realised the trouble I was in. Then we’d jumped in my car and driven straight to see Grandma Josephine at Pepperpots Life Sanctuary, the most exclusive old people’s home in Western Europe2. There’d been no mention of Federico’s involvement in my current predicament. No, we’d skipped over that like Dorothy sprint-hurdling down the Yellow Brick Road. But within seconds of actually arriving at Grandma’s villa Team Kate had fractured, with Federico knocking me to the floor as he pelted down the hallway diving head first into Grandma’s impressive walk-in wardrobe. He re-emerged a few seconds later screaming, ‘Where’s the Chanel?’ before dragging most of the contents into the middle of Grandma’s enormous open-plan lounge. He spent the rest of the afternoon trying on an assortment of different furs, spinning backwards and forwards on the spot like one of those figurines in a music box.

‘Well, I told her to start small,’ Federico said, trying on his third fur. ‘Didn’t I, Kat-kins? I said, “Make Chad think it was his idea,” but she went ahead and did it anyway, yes she did, like a boisterous young bullock filled with his first flush of hormones.’ He took a sip from a large Margarita and threw on another fur. And just for the record he’d done no such thing. He’d said, ‘Go big, Kat-kins!’ high-fived me, poured an Appletini down my throat then substituted my diligently ghost-written True Love reader story for a two-page advert inviting the readers to get in touch and share their Love-Stolen Dreams. But apparently the truth held no place in Grandma’s colossal lakeside villa.

‘What we don’t understand,’ Grandma began, her best friend Beatrice nodding along, ‘is why Chad will just assume it was Kate.’ Beatrice and Grandma were dressed head-to-foot in black Lycra Parkour3 outfits and looked like Bond girls for the over-80s. ‘Federico, you must tell this Chad someone else submitted the advert. He’ll listen to you.’

‘I see your point, Josephine, yes, I do,’ Federico said, collapsing into a pile of dark brown furs, looking like the walnut on top of a giant Walnut Whip. ‘But if we are stood in Truth Town, Josephine, and it feels like we are, Chad doesn’t always listen to me in the work environment, no he does not. In fact sometimes that handsome mountain of a man doesn’t listen to me at all. But that is a totally different work drama of mine and today isn’t about me, it’s about Kat-kins, but let’s just say if we are touching on the subject, and it feels like we are, that I need to work on establishing better boundaries; emotionally, professionally and sexually.’ He whispered that last word before sipping on yet another Margarita. I was still dry as a pre-ignited bush fire. ‘And Chad thinks it’s Kat-kins because she presented the idea to him a few months ago.’ He passed Grandma a piece of paper that I recognised as my colourful and mostly felt-tip-based A3 presentation. Grandma unrolled the paper then shielded her eyes.

‘I know,’ Federico said as he scurried to the other side of the room to try on what looked like a man’s dark blue blazer. ‘It’s like she’s taken it to the local preschool and asked a group of mentally challenged under-5s to create her important business proposal for her. Did you do that, Kat-kins, did you?’

‘I thought I’d brought you up better than this, Kate.’ Grandma tutted, holding the presentation in my face. Personally I think it’s hard to quantify whether Grandma brought me up better than a colourful A3 presentation. Certainly she brought me up better than my parents, but they are really odd and thankfully almost constantly away. They call themselves Peaceful Extreme Non-Violent Dangerous Environmental Activists (PENDEAs) but I know that they are not non-violent and last week I saw images of them on Channel 4 News. They were wielding machetes on the deck of a recently impounded aid ship entering the Gaza Strip. Dad had face paint on, Rambo-style. I don’t know you well enough to tell you what my mother was doing, but let’s just say that occasionally she feels exposing her breasts is the best way to evoke peace. So my upbringing was better than hanging about with them, but better than a colourful A3 presentation? I wasn’t 100% sure.

‘Well, Kate, there is only one way you can save your job,’ Grandma said as she threw my presentation in the fireplace and lit a match, the felt-tip-covered page burning with a greeny-orange flame. ‘You must find something impressive to write about so that Chad doesn’t want you to leave.’

‘By tomorrow?’ I guffawed. ‘I’ve got more chance of inventing a time machine and catapulting myself back into the past.’

‘Well, she could write about that lovely Delaware,’ Beatrice suggested. ‘People always like to hear news about her.’

‘Delaware!’ Grandma nodded before punching the air victoriously. ‘You must speak to Delaware O’Hunt!’

‘Why would Kate be able to interview Delaware O’Hunt?’ Federico said, grabbing hold of Beatrice’s shoulders. ‘Why, I ask you? Why?’ He was trying to stay calm but he was shaking her quite violently.

‘Because she lives next door,’ Grandma said, walking out to her terrace and peering over the fence, ‘and normally she pops in for vino before her jazz fusion rock dance class.’

‘How did we not know about this, Kat-kins?’ Federico shout-whispered. ‘The most media-shy actress from the golden age of film living here, next door to Grandma, and you let me come here, drink Margaritas, eat lovely sushi wraps, of which there doesn’t appear to be any today,’ he said, looking about the place, ‘and we never knew about Delaware? This is slapdash, Kat-kins! Totally slapdash!’ He placed his forehead against the window overlooking the next-door villa. ‘I love her,’ he quietly wailed to himself as his breath created misty patches on the glass. ‘I completely love her.’

You see, Delaware O’Hunt wasn’t just an actress. She’s a screen idol of the 1950s. She made more movies than any other actress, starred with all the greats, made plays, musicals, films, won an Oscar, got married, then divorced. She had a tumultuous love life and wore the most incredible clothes. In fact there is nothing in Delaware O’Hunt’s current wardrobe that I wouldn’t run over hot coals to wear even now she is a proper pensioner. But I can’t for a second imagine how love negatively affected the gorgeous Delaware. Love was all around her; love chased her down the street; love made posters of her; documentaries about her; sang about her. She was a world-famous actress, one of the greatest of the greats. It didn’t look as if love stole anything at all.

‘Darling, she doesn’t seem to be in so why don’t you pop back at the weekend and I’ll arrange for you to have a chat? Federico, if you come early we can go rock climbing together.’

‘Thank you, Josephine, thank you.’ He was speaking like a 1940s actor. ‘I’ll be back at the weekend, first thing, first thing I tell you.’ He punched the air with Delaware-inspired enthusiasm. ‘Oh, and Josephine,’ he said, extracting himself from the dark blue blazer that looked in my opinion to be from Hugo Boss Menswear, ‘I L.O.V.E. the jacket. It’s so on point. Try it, Kat-kins, try it,’ he said, passing it to me. ‘Girl in Boy is black to last season’s pattern on print.’

‘Oh, that’s not Josephine’s jacket,’ giggled Beatrice. ‘He thinks it’s your jacket! No, that’s Peter’s jacket, isn’t it? He left it here when he came for lunch. I remember because I thought it brought out the colour of his eyes. Well, it did, didn’t it?’ she said to Grandma, who looked uncharacteristically startled.

‘Peter who?’ I asked Grandma. Beatrice seldom feels the need to contextualise.

‘Peter Parker is his full name,’ Beatrice continued. ‘Isn’t that right, Josephine? I’m sure it was Peter Parker because I very much enjoyed the alliteration.’

‘Peter Parker as in Spiderman?’ Federico asked with reignited interest in the jacket I now held.

‘No, silly,’ Beatrice chortled, ‘although he was terribly serious. No, Peter Parker is Kate’s childhood friend.’

‘Peter Parker!’ I turned to Grandma. ‘Peter Parker!!!’ I was getting a bit shouty. ‘You had lunch with my Peter Parker? How? When? How?’

‘It was a lunch, darling. Can’t I have a lunch? Everyone has to eat.’

‘Grandma!’

‘He got back in touch recently, darling, which has been very nice, if I’m honest. Well, aren’t people allowed to contact me any more? And he’s been very supportive of me regarding my move to Pepperpots. It was a huge decision to give up the family home, such an upheaval. And I hope I have been equally supportive of Peter regarding his divorce. It’s so hard to maintain a long-term relationship in this current socio-economic climate. I said to him, I said, “Peter, if you are looking for stability in the post-post-modern modernist age you’ll struggle.”’

‘Peter Parker got married? My Peter Parker got married? I mean, divorced, I mean, Peter Parker is single?’ I really didn’t know what I meant.

‘I suppose technically I’m all three,’ said Peter Parker from behind me.

It was the first time I had heard his voice in over 15 long years.

2You can’t really call Pepperpots an old people’s home. It’s more like a luxury retirement theme park set over 570 acres with its own spa, floating restaurant, dance studio and rock-climbing centre—the final stop-off for the brightest, wisest and most physically capable minds of yesteryear.

3Parkour - or ‘free running’ - is a sport in which participants run along a route, attempting to negotiate obstacles using only their bodies. Skills such as jumping, climbing, vaulting, rolling, swinging and wall scaling are employed. Parkour is most commonly practised in urban areas. It is not commonly practised by pensioners.

—AN ADVERTISEMENT FROM TRUE LOVE MAGAZINE—

WHAT DID YOU MISS OUT ON BECAUSE YOU FELL IN LOVE?

Dear True Love Readers,

This year, as the clock struck 30 years old, I found myself jobless, homeless and abandoned in France by my French fiancé. I had given up everything in a fight for love, and I’d lost, knocked out in the 7th round, sucker-punched.

With absolutely nothing to my name, no home, no money and no job, I had well and truly missed my own love boat. If I had been younger I would have soothed my broken heart through the tried and tested method of boyfriend replacement and/or alcohol consumption. But this time I couldn’t. This time the pain in my heart was too great, the love lost was too huge. For many dark months all I could manage, in between fits of sobbing, was to ponder upon the following:

What on earth do I do next?

Because my One True Love had already been and gone; as had all our future plans, our dreams, our as yet unrealised wedding anniversaries, our as yet unborn children. That part of my life was over before it had even begun. So with no guarantee that love would ever show up again I needed to find out what would make me happy in the absence of love. What could I do with my time until love showed up, if love ever shows up at all. And this is where you come in.

You see, I have started to make a list of all the things I didn’t get to do because I fell in love; a list of all the hobbies, ambitions and secret dreams that were put on the back burner the day I fell in love. And I am going to go out and do all those things. I am going to go out, like a pirate on the giant sea of life, and I am going to take back what love stole. And here at True Love we want to know what you gave up for love. Is there something you always wanted to do but stopped pursuing it when you fell in love? A hobby or dream? What negative effects did falling in love have on your life? What love advice do you have for me? Perhaps some of you are interested in going on your own Love Quests, taking back what love has stolen.

It doesn’t matter if you are in love, out of love, searching for love, avoiding love, married, divorced, gay or straight. True Love wants to hear from you.

Can’t think of anything? Then let’s turn this on its head. Ask yourself the following questions:

‘If you knew you were going to spend the rest of your life alone, you would never fall in love, never settle down, never have children, what would you want to do? What would make you happy? What would fill up your time, your heart, your soul for the rest of your days?’ The answers to these questions are the dreams we need to get back.

I have missed my own love boat. I am loveless and boatless with a whole lifetime to fill. I’m going on a quest, a Love-Stolen Dreams quest, to take back what love stole. So, are you with me? Do you want to join my ship?

Pirate Kate x x

PIRATE KATE

Please send all response letters to: Pirate Kate; PO Box Love-Stolen Dreams, c/o the True Love London Office

NEXT WEEK IN TRUE LOVE: MR PURRR-FECT

—how a feline companion can take the pain out of living alone

BOTOX OR NOTOX

—should you plump and fill for your special day?

AND HOW TO CREATE YOUR PERFECT WEDDING DRESS FOR LESS THAN

£69.98

paper towers of paper souls

big red | true love office | london

Jenny Sullivan doesn’t work in a wee pod. That’s how I knew she was important when I first joined True Love magazine; that and the fact that I’d already seen her on a million different billboards, a thousand different TV adverts, a hundred different talk shows. But in terms of my working day, the reason I knew she was important was because she didn’t work in a pod. You see, the offices of True Love magazine take up the entire top floor of a converted warehouse. They are completely open-plan with one large glass room in the middle, the boardroom, then one corner office for Chad and another for Jenny Sullivan. The rest of the office is dotted with enormous brightly coloured pods each standing eight foot tall with a desk inside and a small arch to get in. They resemble giant dinosaur eggs and make the office look like an incubation chamber in an ethically questionable science laboratory—one growing human clones with above-average writing skills and the ability to sell full-page advertising space. And while there is no scientific evidence that working in giant eggs improves productivity Chad did produce a historical document claiming the Incas had done so. His historical document looked suspiciously like a normal piece of A4 paper stained with tea. And the ‘facts’ were un-referenceable on Google. Nevertheless all the staff at True Love were made to work in Work Evolving Egg Pods, or wee pods; everyone, that is, except Jenny. And I had been hiding inside my wee pod, affectionately named Big Red, since 09:15 this morning listening to them fight in True Love’s boardroom.

‘Chad, I’m just saying, Chad, this idea, it doesn’t sound very “us”, does it?’ Jenny said, manically twisting her gigantic wedding ring around her finger, ‘because people here are into love, Chad.’ Jenny drew a heart in the air with her index finger. ‘This magazine is into love, Chad.’ She did it again. She could have just pointed at the boardroom table. ‘That’s why we are called True Love magazine, Chad.’

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this yet, but Jenny Sullivan likes to overuse people’s first names. It’s a technique she read about in a book called ‘Own it—Take Life by the Bollocks’. She once said my name so many times I disconnected from it entirely.

‘Chad, I’m just thinking of you, Chad.’ You see. ‘Because we can’t suddenly start writing about how shit love is, become love pirates, steal love ships and go on bloody love missions. What will our poor stupid readers think?’ She looked from Chad to Federico, who was standing like a statue in the corner of the room. Chad, on the other hand, was pacing up and down the boardroom, throwing handfuls of Haribo in his gob. ‘Because I have other things I can do if this magazine folds, Chad. I’d just carry on with my modelling career,’ she said, smoothing out imaginary creases in her clothes. ‘Not a day goes by that I’m not asked to endorse some beauty product or fashion brand. It’s such a bore,’ she said to Federico, as if he’d understand such a burden, even though the only thing Federico’s ever been asked to endorse is mouthwash at Paddington Station, and that was more of a general customer satisfaction survey than a traditional celebrity endorsement. ‘And that’s before we take into account my writing career, Chad. My publisher is constantly on the phone demanding I write another bestseller. Or I could just take some time out, spend more time being a good wife, fuss over my wonderful husband and—’

‘Oh, for twat’s sake, Jenny, would you please just shut the fuck up?’ Chad said, coming to a sudden stop. ‘It would be less twatting offensive if you just put all your awards, and your accolades, and your precious photos of you and your perfect Ken Doll husband, and printed them directly onto your twatting clothes, let the fabric speak for you, then my ears wouldn’t feel like they were haemorrhaging every time you start twatting talking.’

Federico clamped his hand over his own mouth, his bulbous eyes whizzing between the two of them.

‘I get it, Jenny,’ Chad continued. ‘I get it. You are twatting f-ing great.’

Jenny looked for a second as if she was about to cry. Her bottom lip was a tremble away from a tear. Federico turned away and shielded his eyes. He says that seeing an incredibly beautiful person cry is like seeing a big shit in the middle of freshly laundered sheets. It just shouldn’t be allowed.

‘Look at the letters, Jenny,’ Chad said, pointing to the corner of the room. ‘Look at the twatting letters!’

There was a tap on the side of my wee pod. It was Chad’s assistant, Loosie. She climbed in, notebook attached to her hand, blocking my view of the boardroom. She harrumphed before speaking just to let me know how tiresome she found me, and everything to do with everything to do with me.

‘Kate Winters,’ she began, ‘on the assumption that you are responsible for the advert that ran unauthorised in the last edition of True Love, and Lord knows the way you have been pining after your ex-boyfriend we all assume that it’s you, that and the fact that no one else would be stupid enough to a) actually pitch the idea to Chad, be rejected, then pursue it anyway and b) publish what is for all intents and purposes an advert actually encouraging our readers to, Lord forbid, get in touch, you have another 29 postal sacks of letters addressed to Pirate Kate. They were by your wee pod but Chad, and by Chad I mean me, dragged them into the boardroom. You also have a gift box from a motivational speaker called Bob. He wants to take a meeting with you. And by you I of course mean “Pirate Kate”.’ She made inverted commas with her fingers. ‘And you have phone messages: your grandmother called three times wanting to speak to you about someone called Mary, someone called Delaware and someone called Beatrice. She spoke as if I should know who these people are. She also wanted to know why you didn’t start work at 9 a.m. Personally I would like to know the same thing. Your friend Leah called, twice, wanting to talk to you about her love-stolen dreams, and a man called Peter Parker called—’

I knocked over my coffee at the sound of his name. Loosie watched me, as if I were poo on a sheet, as I tried to mop it up.

‘Peter Parker—’ she paused, waiting to see if she could make me spill it again ‘—spelt his name out for me, twice, very slowly. Please tell … Peter Parker … I am not a retard. And does he know he’s got the same name as Spiderman? Don’t answer that. Federico asked to see you when you get in, Jenny Sullivan’s on the warpath for you, and Chad said to say, and I quote, “Don’t even think about starting your twatting day sitting your skinny little arse down or sniffing at a cup of morning twatting coffee before seeing me,” and by me I mean Chad—it was a quote. BTW there is a stain on your top that looks like tomato juice, but it could be ketchup. Either way we both know that it’s not from any kind of vitamin drink. Kate? Kate, where do you think you are going?’

‘I am going to get fresh coffee,’ I said, clambering out of Big Red.

‘Didn’t you hear me, Kate? You need to go to the boardroom. We are having an Early Morning Focused Focus Meeting. Go! Now!’

the boardroom | true love

As I nervously slipped into the back of the boardroom Chad was a partial blur, silently spinning himself in fast circles on his special velvet heart-shaped chair. Federico was attached to the Nespresso machine and frantically waved as I walked in. Jenny Sullivan was sitting straight-backed and straight-faced at the blood-drawing tip of the glass heart. It looked as if the heart were literally growing out from between her perfect breasts. The rest of the office were skim-reading a Time Magazine article that Loosie was silently handing out but with a noisy sense of self-importance.

The 2009 article claimed there was a link between obesity and love. It stated that within a few years of getting married women were twice as likely to become obese compared to women who were merely dating. The research had monitored over 7,000 women and found that unmarried women living with partners for up to five years had a 63% increased risk of obesity. One of the researchers wrote that, ‘The longer a woman lives with a romantic partner, the more likely she is to keep putting on weight.’ This was by no means the first piece of research to highlight this link, or the more general negative effects relationships can have on women, but it was the only piece of research Chad could get his hands on before our ironically named Early Morning Focused Focus Meeting—a meeting that has never once been focused, never once (before today) been held early in the morning and has occasionally involved several members of staff crying. Afternoon Mothers Meeting would have been a more appropriate name, or Let’s all listen to one of Chad’s never-ending monologues and try to guess how many expletives he will use.

‘I’ve decided I want to take True Love in a new direction,’ Chad said, mid spin, the words flying from his mouth as if from a spinning top; the sounds of the beginning and end of his sentence whizzing off in different directions. ‘Now, I know I didn’t run it past you lot first, but why the fuck would I? So keep up. I’m introducing a new section to the magazine and I’m calling it Love-Stolen Dreams.’ He locked eyes with me for a split second of every spin. ‘LSD for short.’ He grabbed the edge of the glass heart and came to a violent stop. ‘I want True Love to start having a more balanced view of love and I’ve decided to start with the twatting fat people.’ He got up to start pacing around the boardroom, but his legs buckled under him like a puppet with no master—too many spins—so from the boardroom floor he began his focus meeting speech. ‘Now, before any of you get all squeaky and high-pitched I’m not judging the fat, OK, so let’s just get that out there for any of you liberalists who are pro the obese and all that. My mum had a lifelong battle with the bulge so I know first-hand how a larger lady can feel. But our readers fessed up, OK. They put it out there. They wrote in, in twatting sackfuls, to say they blamed men for getting fat. Obviously it’s not true. I have about as much effect on a woman’s weight as a plastic satsuma but we are going to write about it anyway because apparently they give a crap. Marketing guy, put up advertising rates by 15% and call out all the diet-pill companies. In fact call anything weight-loss related: step machines, personal trainers, Paul-twatting-McKenna and his I Can Make You a Skinny Fuck book. We want it all. Yellow WEE Pod, I want a selection of short articles about celebrities whose weight has been affected by love, maybe something about the amount of calories sex burns, but how they got fat afterwards, otherwise we’ll lose the fat readers. Blue, black and silver WEES, I want to know about readers who lost material possessions because of love: houses, iPads, cars and so on. Pink WEE, I want you to write about people who cancelled travel plans for love. And I want something about how love killed someone, preferably through starvation, or through having an actual broken heart. We want the readers to go on a roller coaster of twatting emotions. Jenny, read up on queens or princesses, find one who gave up something for love, the right to the throne or something.’ Jenny rolled her eyes and huffed so heavily she could have blown herself, on her chair, across the room. ‘And, Kate—’ I went cold as he said my name ‘—let’s not forget little Kate Winters.’ I could feel everyone in the room bristling with delight at the prospect of seeing me publicly fired. ‘Kate, you have illegally published something in my magazine. You are therefore responsible for all these twatting letters.’ He pointed to the far corner of the room and I turned to look. ‘It was the ultimate breach of trust, not only that you found a way to access my copy, ergo millions of our readers, but that you then used that open channel to involve them in your own quest. Give me one magnificent twatting reason why I shouldn’t fire you then call the police and have you arrested?’