The WAG’s Diary

There. That’s good. That should really help Helen.

2 p.m.

‘Oh my god,’ shrieks Helen. ‘You are a complete genius.’

I’ve just handed her the sheet of paper with my advice for Wags in compromising (i.e. posh) social situations on it, and she is delighting in the words as if they were made of diamonds.

‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ she says, while I stand back, a little embarrassed at how loudly she’s speaking, and a little frustrated that there’s no one near enough to hear it all. Half of me wants to say, ‘Oh please, Helen, do be quiet’, while the other half wants to say, ‘Speak up, love, Mindy can’t hear you.’

Dean really didn’t want to come to this party today. ‘They’re always crap and there are three old episodes of Minder on UK Gold this afternoon,’ he said. But I know it’s because he’s embarrassed about yesterday, and doesn’t want to face everyone. I asked him but he said, ‘No, it’s just Minder, sweetheart. I love it. It really cracks me up.’ Admittedly, he does love his Minder, so perhaps it’s a combination of the two things. I managed to get him here by promising that we wouldn’t stay long, but now he’s here he seems to be really enjoying himself. That’s the thing with my Dean—he’s a bit like a seven-year-old. Once you get him away from the television he has a really good time, but while he’s watching the box, peeling him away from it is almost impossible—like peeling the skin from a potato with your teeth.

‘Awright, babes,’ he says, coming up to me. ‘What was that bird saying?’

I tell him about the help I’ve given Helen and how grateful she was and Dean gives me a big hug. ‘You’re a doll,’ he says.

Dean’s looking great today. He’s got his mirror shades on and low-slung jeans with a white T-shirt and loads of bling. He’s got all his rings on together, which I think looks really cool. He’s carrying his jacket over his shoulder. I was trying to show him how to carry it with just one finger, but after the incident when someone pulled the jacket and almost broke his finger he clenches it in the palm of his hand these days.

‘I’m gonna get a lager,’ he says, turning and walking towards the bar in a manner that reminds me of Happy Days and that bloke called The Fonz. It was on the telly when I was really little and they keep re-showing it on UK Gold. I think Dean’s watching too much of that channel. As he gets to the bar, he moves to run both hands through his mousy brown hair, forgetting that he’s got his jacket in one of them. He almost takes out the Luton Town directors as his jacket swings wildly. I can see him apologising, mopping up drinks and throwing his jacket down on a nearby table. Bless him. He’s so cool is my Dean.

He saunters back over and I find myself becoming obsessed with the miracle that his trousers are staying on at all. They are so low-slung that his Ralph Lauren pants are showing (he finds the Calvin Klein ones too loose). How does he do that? They’re barely over his hips yet they manage to stay there.

‘Mich is over there,’ he says, pointing towards the other side of the bar.

We’re in the Luton clubhouse and it stinks of alcohol from last night. I preferred it when people smoked in here, at least it hid the smell of sick and beer. The other side of the bar smells worse than this side, but it’s where most of the single players are, so I can see why Mich would be over there.

On this side it’s all coupley. I wave over at Suze as she waddles in wearing great multicoloured hot-pants and matching high-heeled shoes.

‘Wow!’ I say. ‘Are they Pucci?’

‘Yes,’ she answers, pulling out a cigarette and reaching for her lighter. She’s so heavily pregnant now that her stomach gets in the way when she bends down, so she has to sort of crouch with her legs open, allowing her enormous stomach to drop between her knees. It’s at this point that I’m reminded of an important lesson: never open your legs really wide while wearing hot-pants and being heavily pregnant if you have not had a bikini wax.

‘You shouldn’t be smoking that, should you?’ asks Mindy, striding in behind her. Mindy looks like a goddess. She’s wearing a tight satin basque and…well, that’s all she’s wearing, really. She’s done that thing that Sienna Miller did, and come out in her knickers. Luckily, Mindy—like Sienna—has the body for it.

‘I’ll smoke if I want to. Just because I’m pregnant doesn’t mean you can tell me what to do.’

‘No—I don’t mean because you’re up the duff, I mean because of the no-smoking laws. I know it’s fine to smoke when you’re pregnant. Christ—I’d take it up if I got pregnant, even though I don’t normally touch cigarettes—it keeps the baby small.’

Sunday, 19 August

Midday

‘Darling, darling, darling. It’s Angie here,’ says Mum. She’s talking into the answer-phone because I can’t face picking up. ‘I’ve heard the news…I’ve been trying to call all morning. I was going to pop round, but I’ve been in your house every day this week and I simply couldn’t bear to come round again. How’s Dean? Tell him to call me if he needs anything. Maybe I should bring him some of my tea made from mud taken from the claws of African spider monkeys. Or there are some tablets containing the resin from the Umbaka tree. It’s collected by tribesmen who keep it in their nose for ten days before it’s dried in the sun.’

Luton Town lost again. Dean was subbed off again. Two weeks, two defeats. No own goals for Dean yesterday, which obviously made a pleasant change, but he was, in the words of the fans that I followed out of the stadium, ‘fucking crap’.

I reach for the handset.‘I’m here, Mum,’I say, adding, ‘Dean will be fine’ with more conviction than I feel.

‘How many times do I have to say don’t call me “Mum”,’ she huffs. ‘Call me Angie.’

Dean is sure that she wants me to call her Angie instead of Mum because she is labouring under the misapprehension that if I do, no one will realise how old she is. I spent years thinking she didn’t want me to call her Mum because she didn’t like me very much and didn’t want to be associated with me. I suspect that the real reason is an unflattering mixture of the two.

‘That’s three matches in a row that he’s been subbed off. Darling, you have to do something,’ Mum implores. ‘You could try giving him vienow juice.’

‘What’s that?’ I ask, but I’m not sure I really want to know.

‘It comes from the berries of the vienow tree…’

‘Oh.’ How nice. A simple, straightforward answer.

‘…and they collect it by sucking the juice through large vine leaves that have been soaked in the Nile.’

‘Of course they do.’

‘Three matches. It’s looking like the end, darling.’

‘Well, it’s two actually, and what can I do? Run on there and kick the ball for him? Take out the goalkeeper when he’s about to score?’

‘Humour is entirely overrated as a communication tool,’ she says sniffily. ‘And I don’t think it should be used at all when you’re talking about something as serious as your husband’s career…your entire lifestyle depends on him playing kick-ball well. It’s really not a laughing matter. Now—is he eating properly? Does he take enough supplements? Wild yam cream? Maybe he should be taking human growth hormones. A lot of these athletes do.’

‘Yes, and then they are banned for life,’ I say.

‘Such negativity,’ she replies, spitting out the word ‘negativity’ at me. I know she’s rubbing her temples as she says it, and lifting her chin to the skies. ‘Breathe deeply, through the nostrils,’ she is saying. ‘Take three drops of mimosa flower extract every hour. Think happy thoughts…always.’

The trouble with Mum is that she lived in Los Angeles for ten years. Once I was old enough to look after myself, she headed for the bright lights, convinced that she could make it as a film star. The major movie career never materialised, but she returned with the face of a thirty-year-old, the breasts of a sixteen-year-old and a nauseatingly positive attitude. Now it’s the gym every morning, pilates every afternoon, and 257 different supplements in between. She’s painfully thin and looks permanently surprised. Her hair is the colour of corn and her eyes have gone from hazel to sapphire. She took some getting used to—especially the body shape, with the tiny, tiny waist and the enormous breasts. I kept thinking she was going to fall over. I’ve had my breasts done recently, but they’re nothing like as large, full or youthful as my fifty-three-year-old mother’s are.

‘Darling, I need to know the gossip while I’m on the phone—is that delectable Andre Howchenski going out with that dope Michaela? Did I hear that correctly?’

‘Well, I’m hoping so. She met him after the game yesterday and really likes him. I think they’d make a lovely couple.’

‘He’s too good for her,’ she says. ‘It won’t last.’

I don’t want to debate this with my mother because I want so much for it to work out for my lovely friend that I can’t bear to consider that it might not. I can hear bells ringing in the background on the phone. ‘Where are you, Mum?’

‘At church,’she replies in her singsong voice.‘Praying for Dean. Praying for both of you. Praying that this phase will pass and that I won’t be the mother of a woman who’s married to the bad player from Luton. I’m praying for you, too. Marrying a footballer’s the only decent thing you’ve ever done. Let’s hope it doesn’t end. You do understand how bad this is, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I reply, because I do know how bad it is. I’m no Bobby Charleston but I know that the captain’s supposed to stay on the pitch and, ideally, contribute to the match in some way other than scoring own goals.

Dean realises it too. ‘They’ll probably sell me,’ he said last night, as if he were an old car or an unwanted sofa. ‘Free transfer to some god-forsaken place.’ It had made me shudder. What if the new place was somewhere dreadful like Sunderland?

‘I don’t think prayers are what he needs right now,’ I say, slightly unkindly, but I hate the way she insists on making a huge drama out of everything. ‘Anyway, I didn’t know you were religious.’

‘I’m not, silly. I’m not here to pray, though I did light a candle for poor, poor Dean. No, I’m here because there’s a woman who comes to church who I want to befriend because she runs the best pilates classes in the area and is booked up for twelve months. I thought I would bump into her and become her best friend.’

‘What? You went to church to befriend some woman?’

‘Not some woman—the pilates teacher to end all pilates teachers. If you want to befriend someone, you just follow him or her and start talking to them. I learned that in LA. She went to church, and so did I.’

If you want to befriend someone, you just follow him or her…I find myself thinking. Just follow them.

‘Oh,’ I say, my mind ticking over with thoughts, plans, an idea of how I might be able to help my husband. ‘And did you make friends with her?’

‘Of course,’ says Mum breezily.‘We’re off for organic grass and dandelion-stalk tea now. It’s easy. Honestly, you Brits are so funny—everyone else has put their names down on Leaf’s pilates list and they are all just waiting patiently for a gap to open up. They don’t stand a chance. If you want to be friends with someone just go and “bump” into them. It’s not rocket science. Right, must go—need to balance my chakras and chant my Buddhabhivadana.’

‘Chant your what?’

‘Salutation to the Buddha, silly girl. Don’t you know anything?’

Saturday, 25 August

10 a.m.

Oh dear. Very difficult situation. Very, very difficult situation. It’s 8 a.m. on Saturday morning and I’m pacing around the bedroom in a state of considerable distress. Today it’s not even the prospect of Dean scoring eighteen own goals and getting booed off the pitch that’s distressing me…though I have to say life would be altogether more pleasant if he just went out there and kicked it into the right net like the others manage to do. No, the real problem today is that I think I might have to sack Mallory. Can you imagine it? The thing is—I can’t see any way round it. She’s committed a cardinal sin and it would be unforgivable of me not to punish her in some way. I feel like Sir Alan Sugar as I spin on my heels and point at the mirror. ‘You’re fired,’ I growl, with all the seriousness that a woman with her hair in Carmen rollers can muster. ‘You, Mallory. You’re fired.’

Okay, let me think about how I can word this as I explain to you what happened. Mallory came round at 6 a.m., as she usually does on match days, but she forgot to bring her fake-tan spray with her!! Can you imagine? A beautician, going to see a Wag before a match and forgetting the fake tan! It would have been less disastrous to me if she’d forgotten to bring her head.

This is how the whole sorry scene played itself out. Sensitive readers may choose to look away at this point.

‘Mallory, darling, how lovely to see you,’ I said in my best, most welcoming voice. ‘In you come. Have you got everything there?’

Note, please, how I managed to spot immediately that she was less encumbered than usual. Note, please, also, that she did not notice at all that she was carrying significantly less gear than is usual or, as it turns out, desirable.

‘Yes, everything I need is here,’ said Mallory. Or, should I say, ‘lied Mallory’, because that’s what it was—a damned lie.

‘Can I do the fake tan first?’ I asked, peeling off my top and kicking my Jimmy Choos to one side.

‘Sure,’ said Mallory (lying). Then began the fumble through all her bags as she searched in vain for her fake-tanning stuff.

‘I’m sure it’s here somewhere,’ she muttered, throwing things out of her enormous shopper as she did. ‘Mmmmmm…that’s strange.’

More instruments of the beautification process were hurled outwards and upwards as Mallory scoured her bag. A small pot of wax rolled across the carpet. Tea-tree oil, tweezers and nail files tumbled out. Facepacks, toner, moisturiser, creme bleach, a pumice stone, hot stones for massage…no fake-tan sprayer though. No sign of a spray-tan machine anywhere.

‘Oh Tracie,’ said Mallory, clutching her hands around her face in horror. ‘Tracie, I’m so sorry.’

I squawked. I know it was a squawk and I know it was extremely loud, because a horrible grimace descended onto Mallory’s face—the same look she’d had when she’d stepped back and put her stiletto heel through my cashmere cushion. For one horrible moment she thought she’d skewered the cat.

‘How could you possibly forget it?’ I asked.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said for the twenty-fifth time. ‘I’m really sorry.’

The trouble is, ‘really sorry’ isn’t going to make me the colour of a rusty nail by 3 p.m., is it?

I got Mallory to do all the other essential treatments. My fingernails were long and blunt at the end and painted with white tips. Nail extensions had been applied to my toenails and not a stray hair remained anywhere. My body was soft, my nails were tough and my hair was long and thick. But my skin? White.

‘I’ll drop you at the tanning shop on Luton High Street if you want,’ says Mallory, and not for the first time I wondered whether she’d forgotten the spray tan on purpose. I know she doesn’t like doing the spray business. She’s been a bit funny with the whole thing since the unfortunate incident with another Wag and a white Chihuahua. No amount of pleading would convince the woman that her dog looked fine the colour of a ginger-nut biscuit.

I think the fundamental problem that Mallory and other women like her face in a spray-tan sense when working with Wags, is that most Wags have entirely white furniture in their homes, which means that there’s every chance of a major disaster happening.

‘I’ll wait outside,’ says Mallory, as I walk into the salon and request a double spray tan. It goes well to start with. Once I’d got over being told to wear paper knickers, which were entirely unflattering in every respect.

‘Okay, turn round,’ says Debbie, the tanning lady. ‘And back again…Great…Nearly done. Just need to spray your face now. Breathe in when I say, then hold your breath until I’ve finished spraying. Okay?’

Breathe in. How hard can that be? Normally breathing comes to me as easily as applying mascara, driving and drinking a cappuccino at the same time, but suddenly I don’t know how to hold my breath. And just as Debbie sprays a fine mist of cocoa-coloured skin dye, I take a massive gulp in.

‘Great—that’ll be my lungs nicely tanned then.’ I’m choking and straining and feeling like I’m about to be sick.

‘I’ll get you a drink of water,’ says Debbie, swinging open the door leading directly to the reception area, and thus to the main door to the salon, where around a dozen people got an eyeful of a choking Luton Town Wag in paper knickers and a fetching shower cap. I was a lovely shade of mahogany though.

Tuesday, 28 August

8 p.m.

My mother and Dean are staring at me, utter confusion registering on their familiar faces. I’m not really listening to them any more. I’m peeling off the small rose tattoos that Mallory fixed onto my fingernails on Saturday morning as an apology for not having her tanning system with her. God, Saturday seems like a long time ago—before I was arrested for causing criminal damage…

‘Are you listening?’ Mum says. ‘I asked you what on earth you thought you were doing?’

Mum had turned up at the house as soon as she heard the news. She was dressed in a cream Lanvin dress that she’d had specially altered for the occasion. It was so short I could see that she’d had her bikini line specially done for the occasion, too. She wore the dress with sky-high Christian Louboutin shoes and looked fantastic, with her make-up professionally applied and her hair styled like Farrah Fawcett Majors’. She’d obviously feared there would be photographers camped out in the driveway. Luckily she was wrong. When I came home in the taxi at lunchtime the place was deserted and I had just Mum and Dean to contend with. Neither can quite believe the turn of events.

‘I mean, what possessed you?’ Mum is asking.

‘I was trying to help,’ I say.

‘Help?’ says Dean. ‘Help? Tell me how causing over two thousand pounds’ worth of damage in Faux Fur in Bishop’s Stortford helped anyone.’

Mum puts her arm round Dean’s shoulder and hugs him into her massive bosoms. ‘What possessed you today?’ she asks, turning to face me aggressively, while stroking his thinning hair affectionately.

‘Nothing possessed me,’ I answer, and I feel like screaming. You see, it was all her fault. It was Mum telling me that you should just go and bump into someone if you want to befriend them that started me off on all this in the first place.

It was after the call with Mum that I started to think about the ways in which I could help Dean, and I became convinced that if he were to become friends with some of the England players, he’d be more likely to get a good transfer deal. I knew Dean would never go and knock on Beckham’s door so I thought, I know, I’ll befriend Victoria. She’ll understand after all she went through when Becks kicked that bloke in the Argentina game, and the Daily Mirror did a David Beckham dartboard in the paper the next day; she’ll know what it’s like to live life as a piranha, or was that a pariah?

I knew she was in England because I’d seen her in the Daily Mail yesterday, and I knew where she lived because when they had their World Cup party there were pictures of the house (which I cut out and kept in a scrapbook) and it said that the house was in Sawbridgeshire. So I woke up at 7 a.m. this morning, dressed, and left the house to head for Beckingham Palace…

Flashback to 9 a.m.

Shit. The gates are opening. Fuck. What do I do? Perhaps I should have thought this through a bit more carefully first. I’m sitting in a tiny orange car in the middle of Essex, outside an enormous mansion belonging to David and Victoria Beckham, wondering what to do next. I should be at home, looking after my daughter and my husband, and preparing for a morning at the hairdresser’s with Mich. She’s agreed to have just a few blonde highlights weaved in at the front of her hair because we’re now ten days into the season and she still hasn’t bagged a footballer. Andre’s shown some interest but there’s no real sign of commitment. It must be her hair. It’s just so…dark. I feel awful for abandoning her to face the bleach alone, but I think she’ll be able to cope. She knows it’s the right thing to do. She knows that blonde hair is the key to unlocking the heart of a footballer.

I’m paranoid that someone’s going to see me and realise I’m hanging around, so I drop myself down in the driver’s seat and peer up over the windscreen—all that can be seen ofme now is the black headscarf wound tightly around my head and the top halfmoon of my massive sunglasses. To be honest, I’d look far less suspicious if I just sat there, smiling, but I’m so determined not to be seen that I opt for this ridiculous semi-reclining position that just screams ‘Stalker!’. I hear the gates start to close behind me and I ease myself up a little, just as a fabulous car glides out and sweeps majestically onto the road in front of me. There are two women sitting in the back. I am absolutely sure that one of them is Victoria Beckham. My heart starts pounding and my hands are shaking a little, sweating inside the leather driving gloves that I am wearing so as not to leave fingerprints anywhere.

I start up the engine and drive up behind them, still reclining a little but able—just—to see over the steering wheel. I’m in a rented car (I’m having horrific problems getting my car back. I went to the Croydon place on Sunday and was told it was shut. Great! So it’s fine for them to come and steal my car off the road but they can’t be bothered to stay open on Sundays for me to pick it up. It’s almost enough to make me want to park properly in future. I could see the car through the railings on Sunday. It was like I was visiting it in jail. As I walked away I swear I heard it sobbing). Anyway, I went for the plainest rental car I could find—just so I wouldn’t be easily spotted by Vic. This fabulous yellow Lamborghini was screaming at me in the showroom last night, but even I realised some musclehead driver, bouncer or security guard would notice if a banana-coloured sports car tailed him for more than a couple of minutes. I don’t think I realised, at the time, just how orange this car is, though. It looks like a little tangerine rolling down the road after them.

Victoria’s car is moving at a nice gentle pace, so obviously they don’t realise they’re being followed. Great. The fact that the Mercedes is not going very fast means that I can keep up with it in my little Fiat Punto. I’m better at this stalking lark than I thought I’d be.

The car is heading towards Bishop’s Stortford. I know this not because of any prior knowledge of the backstreets of Hertfordshire, but because there are great big road signs everywhere. Eventually, the driver pulls over and out he gets—fucking brilliant!—it’s Victoria, and—double fucking brilliant!—she’s with Geri Halliwell, who is clutching an extraordinary-looking basket containing two tiny poodles. This is sooo much better than I thought it would be.

I dump the car on the side of the road and jump out, crossing over to where V & G are, so that I’m in the slipstream of the two most famous Spice Girls. They stop and peer into a window. I do, too. They continue. I follow. On we go, down the road in procession, until Geri suddenly spins round with a terribly aggressive look on her face.

Is she looking at me? I’m not sure. I immediately dive into the nearest shop, just in case…It’s a butcher’s…fuck, what the hell am I supposed to do in a butcher’s shop? I can hardly browse through the chops.