The WAG’s Diary

I knock back my drink and try to think happy thoughts about my lovely daughter, Paskia Rose, and the great relationship I have with Nell. I try to think of Dean himself and how much I love him, but that makes it worse and it becomes a fight to stop the tears that threaten to spring forth and wreck my carefully and heavily applied eye make-up. The thought of my false eyelashes coming off in a torrent of tears makes me feel even more like crying. While I sit there, having a battle of wills with my tear ducts (do tear ducts have wills? Probably), the girls have moved on to talk about their holiday destinations. Mich went to the Seychelles with a guy she was seeing for a while. ‘He had a yacht,’ she announces, but she doesn’t dwell on the subject because he wasn’t a footballer so she really doesn’t want people asking too many questions.

‘We went to Spain,’ announces Mindy, with a predictable,‘Olé!’ Then she climbs onto the table, much to the delight of the waiters who gather round to watch this drunk woman in a very short pink skirt negotiating the climb. ‘Viva L’Espana,’ she shouts, while clicking her invisible castanets. She begins to undo the few buttons that are not already open and throws back her pink Pucci blouse to reveal a bikini full to the brim with fake breast.

‘Good lord,’ says Suzzi, as the Slag Wags cheer. They’re all used to this behaviour on the youthful side of the table, except for Helen—the new girl in the group. To her credit, she is open-mouthed and looking very uncomfortable with the way the lunch party is developing. Mindy is simply unable to whisper discreetly, ‘I’ve had my breasts done.’ She has to put on a strip show at the ladies’ lunch.

‘Anyone for melon?’ asks Mich.

‘No, you mean anyone for football?’ asks Suzzi, and they fall about laughing. Suze is so funny. Actually, though, in all honesty, each of Mindy’s new breasts is roughly the size of a heavily inflated football.

My caesar salad comes, without croutons, cheese, anchovies or dressing, and I move the lettuce around the plate. Pudding arrives. I didn’t order it. I haven’t eaten pudding for years, certainly not since I started wearing a bra. The pudding is clearly part of the sabotage techniques of the Slag Wags, designed to test my willpower. I delicately smash up the creamy-white mound sitting in the centre of an icing-dusted plate and move it around without tasting it. I don’t even know what it is, I just know that it’s full of calories that I cannot possibly consume. I wonder whether Mindy has realised that I changed her order so she’s drinking sweet white wine and normal lemonade! She doesn’t seem to have noticed that it’s not diet, not the way she’s throwing it down her throat.

Julie’s noticed, though. She’s making funny faces as she drinks her cocktail. I guess it wasn’t subtle to request it loaded with double cream. The sad thing is, though, that a few extra calories isn’t going to make a difference to those girls—they’re young, skinny and pretty…unlike me. I suddenly feel so obsessed by the thought of the passing years and the desperate, wrinkle-filled, grey-haired world towards which I’m clearly on a fast train, that I can’t think properly, or take any joy from their sabotaged drinks.

In the end, I resort to testing myself by guessing the number of calories in every item on the menu. I work out all the various combinations. Christ, I can do calorie calculations in my sleep. I often think to myself that if they’d done sums at school in calories, I might be lecturing at Harvard now, instead of devoting my days to ensuring I look ten years younger than I am.

I’m so absorbed in the calorie-counting business that I don’t see a burly man in a fluorescent jacket enter the restaurant and indulge in a heated exchange with one of the restaurant’s waiting staff. The waiter walks over to the table, but I’m too busy wondering how much vanilla and caramel custard you’re likely to get with the cinnamon whirl, and thus how many calories it’s likely to be, to hear him ask,

‘Does anyone have a four-by-four?’

Everyone at the table simultaneously says, ‘Yes.’

‘Is anyone’s car parked illegally?’ asks the waiter.

‘Yes,’ chorus the women.

He walks away, shaking his head, and tells the man in the fluorescent jacket that it’s impossible to identify the driver.

‘You’re quiet,’ Suzzi says to me, her voice full of concern. I’m normally the life and soul of these things.

‘Sorry, just a bit tired,’ I reply. ‘Looking forward to the season, though.’ I try, valiantly, to pull myself out of my morbid daydreams where the wrinkles and creases on my forehead are coming alive and starting to eat me up. ‘I’ve got some fabulous new clothes. I went up to Liverpool for the weekend.’

‘Ooooooooo,’ they all coo, because they know what ‘going up to Liverpool’ means. All except Helen, our token newcomer—poor girl. She’s sitting over with the Slag Wags, but she’d be better off over here with me so I could have a word with her about her clothing (her skirt’s so long it’s covering her knickers!!).

‘What’s in Liverpool?’ she asks, her big blue line-free nineteen-year-old eyes twinkling like crazy.

‘Cricket,’ says Mich, leaning in to join the conversation.

She’s two years younger than I am, but everyone thinks she’s four years older because she’s been honest about her age. It’s a shame because she could get away with saying she was much younger. She’s got these incredible pale green cat-like eyes. She’s not as skinny as the rest of us (she’s a size 8-10), but still manages to look great because she’s very curvy and has these full, sensual lips that men seem to adore.

Helen is looking at Mich with such confusion on her face, you’d think Mich had just announced that she was planning a sex change.

‘What—like bowling and batting and that?’

‘Cricket’s the ultimate Wag’s shop,’ Mich explains, delighting in the ignorance of a Slag Wag. It’s clear that Helen is providing us with an open goal, and I can see Mich preparing for the kick. ‘Fab clothes there. Have you really never heard of it?’

‘No,’ says Helen. ‘To be honest, I really don’t know anything much about this whole Wag thing.’

Not only does that make it 2-2, but the happy turn in the subject of the conversation means that I find myself on comfortable ground now and so I feel myself relax. There is nothing—NOTHING—that I don’t know about being a Wag. It’s my thing. I threw myself into the world as soon as I met Dean. When he played for Arsenal there was no one watching who was more tanned or more blonde.

‘Yes, I got loads of new clothes at Cricket.’ I’m peacocking now. ‘I even got the Roland Mouret Moon Dress—you know, the limited-edition one that Posh wore when she and David arrived in Los Angeles.’

‘No way,’ says Julie, clearly impressed. Julie is wearing a tight leather corset dress in caramel, which is completely wrong for the time of year. As Suzzi said: ‘She must be sweating like a pig.’ She’s wearing quite funky calf-length, shaggy-haired boots with it, and has a tan so orange it would put David Dickinson to shame, so she’s redeemed herself in that department, but the dress itself is not at all Wagalicious. It certainly didn’t come from Cricket, let’s put it like that.

‘If you’ve got a Moon Dress, why aren’t you wearing it?’ asks Mindy.

‘It’s being delivered,’ I explain.

‘Oh,’ says Mindy,‘so you haven’t actually got a Moon Dress then, you’ve just got one on order like everyone else.’

Bitch.

‘And guess what?’ I say quickly, pretending not to notice Mindy’s spiteful comment. ‘I had a red-carpet facial—you know, the one with the six-month waiting list and the oxygen injections.’

Helen’s mouth has dropped wide open so I can see that she has absolutely no fillings—just beautiful neat pearly-white teeth. She has perfect alabaster skin and a little upturned nose. She looks like a young model, just about to take the world by storm. No surprise there, really, because a young model with the world at her feet is exactly what she is. I don’t think I’ve ever hated anyone quite as much as I hate her right now.

‘I’ve never heard of a red-carpet facial,’ she says. ‘Don’t the injections hurt?’

Oh dear, I think. You have so much to learn, girl-friend. I want to say, ‘Yes, they hurt. Of course they hurt, but it’s my anniversary tomorrow and I HAVE to be line-free for it. Anyway, the injections don’t hurt half as much as Botox, skin peels, breast lifts, liposuction, eyelid surgery, lip-plumping injections or collagen injections.’ Of course, I don’t say that. She’s such an innocent and I don’t want to scare her. ‘They don’t hurt too much,’ I say. ‘Anyway, the pain’s worth it.’ I think back to the time when I had fat removed from my bottom and injected into my lips. I’d thought it looked great until Dean said, ‘Now you are, quite literally, talking out of your arse.’

Everyone’s smiling in a half-drunk sort of way, and I can see they’re pleased to have me back—their leader, the Queen Wag, the one who knows more about being a Wag than anyone. Even the Slag Wags look relieved. If there’s one thing Wags don’t like, it’s change. Unless it’s a change of clothes.

‘Could you take me to Cricket one day?’ Helen asks.

‘One day,’ I say, thinking how much fun it would be to help this poor girl—to take her under my wing and let all her Waggish beauty shine. I think of how lovely she will look once I’ve trowelled on her makeup, shortened her skirts, organised a boob job for her and covered her in jewellery. I order two bottles of champagne from the waiter. I’m in my element now—all thoughts of wrinkles and grey hair banished forever.

The sound of sobbing is coming from Suzzi’s direction. She’s been so emotional since she got pregnant.

‘What’s the matter?’ I ask.

‘I still can’t believe Victoria’s gone to LA,’ she says. ‘I’m going to miss her so much.’

‘I know, I know,’ I say, trying to comfort my dear friend. ‘We’ll all miss her, but we’ll still have her in Heat and Hello!.’

Suzzi calms down a bit, then Tammie, one of the Slag Wags, starts to cry. Oh god, what now?

‘Her hair. I still can’t bear it,’ says Tammie.

We were all upset when Victoria went for a short hairstyle, no one more than I, but you have to move on from these things. You have to let the pain go.

‘Don’t cry,’ I say patiently. ‘She didn’t have all her hair cut off; she just had the extensions taken out. She can easily have them put in again.’

There’s an audible sigh of relief from everyone present, and, not for the first time, I wonder whether I’m the only one who thinks these things through logically.

‘You’re amazing,’ says Helen encouragingly. She wants to be my friend. I see Mindy sit back in her chair in disgust and I realise that young Helen has scored an own goal. 3-2 to us.

‘Wags should have long hair and be done with it. ’Til death us do part. A Wag should be buried with her extensions attached. That’s the way it should be—long nails, long hair, long legs…’

‘And tans,’ adds Julie.

‘Of course,’ I say dismissively. ‘Of course, tans, and big handbags, and large accessories, and…’ I could keep going for the rest of my life and they all know it. There’s no one who understands Wags like me.

‘You should write a book,’ says Helen suddenly.

‘A book?’

‘Just for Wags. Telling people how they should dress and behave at matches…you know, a kind of Wags’ Handbook.’

‘Ooooo,’ says Mindy sarcastically. ‘That would be great. Really helpful.’

But so enthused are the others by the suggestion that Mindy’s sarcastic tone is missed altogether, and they assume she’s encouraging me. If I’m not mistaken that’s the no-way-back victory goal to us.

I say nothing. They’re all looking at me but I can’t focus on any of them. In that minute, that second, I feel my life changing forever. I can sense my calling as I can sense a new trend in knitwear. This must be how Shakespeare felt when someone said to him, ‘You should write a play, mate.’ Perhaps it’s how Churchill felt when someone said, ‘You should be in charge of the country.’ They would have known immediately, as I do now, that that was what they were born to do.

You see, I know the rules of Waggishness inside out and back to front. This is what I should do—use my age and experience to advantage instead of forever wishing I were younger and more innocent. It’s my destiny.

I picture myself standing high on a mountain, addressing thousands of future Wags. I look down at my audience and am greeted by the sight of yellow hair extensions and black roots as far as the eye can see. It fills me with pride. Great pride. I raise my arm and the cheers ring out around the world. ‘I have a dream…’ I say, and the women fall silent, listening intently. ‘I have a dream that one day all Wags will rise up and live out the true meaning of their creed.

‘I have a dream that the tanning studios, hair-extension salons, beauty parlours and wine bars of Luton will be filled with desperately undernourished blonde women with large handbags, small poodles and long nails. I have a dream that Victoria Beckham will be put in charge of the world, with me and Coleen covered in expensive jewellery and working as her special envoys.

‘I dream of colleges for Wags so they may learn about this art, and courses in spray-tanning and drinking obscene amounts of alcohol. I dream of every little girl being given my book for her birthday. I dream of a world in which sunglasses are compulsory, Cristal comes out of the taps and all shoes have colossal heels on them. I dream of orange legs, yellow hair, white teeth and heavy make-up. I dream of cat-fights, small rose tattoos and large lips. That, ladies, is my dream…’

‘Yes,’ I say, but my voice is barely a whisper as my mind is preoccupied by my daydream, in which my followers chant my name on the mountainside, and cast off their flat shoes and smart trousers for platform wedges and micro-shorts. I’m so lost in thought that I don’t see my car disappearing past the window on the back of a clamping truck.

‘I will do it,’ I say. ‘Yes, I will do it.’

Thursday, 2 August—our twelfth (ssshhh) wedding anniversary

9 a.m.

When is it okay to wake him up? I’ve been coughing loudly and nudging him gently since 8 a.m. (practically the middle of the night for a Wag—before Paskia Rose was born, I would have just been leaving Chinawhite at this time of morning) in the hope that he’ll open his eyes, realise what day it is, and leap like a gazelle from beneath the covers to retrieve the gift he’s bought for me. I know what the present is, of course—mainly because I have spent most of the past year telling him about the adorable gold bangle I’d seen. When I didn’t get the response I wanted, I told him about the gold bangle I’d seen that was sooooo beautiful and I would luuuuurvve more than anything in the world. Finally, finally, he came home last month with a bulge in his trouser pocket and I realised he’d bought it for me (I knew the bulge wouldn’t be anything else—he gets so tired once pre-season training starts). Then he went through a ridiculously unsubtle performance of trying to hide the gift.

‘Give me a minute,’ he hollered through the house.

‘Just busy doing something. Be out in a minute. Won’t be long. Don’t come in.’

Then he hid the present in such an utterly crap place that it took me approximately five seconds to find it. Why are men so hopeless at hiding things? Perhaps it’s because to them everything is hidden to start with. ‘I can’t find my socks.’ ‘Anyone seen my shoes?’ ‘My grey trousers aren’t here.’ They always are, of course. Usually right in front of his eyes.

‘Deeeaan,’ I whisper gently, nudging him again. Maybe if I push him harder. ‘Dean. Wake up.’

I’m really shaking him now, and there’s no sign of life. How can anyone sleep this deeply? Perhaps he’s dead. Could I still be a Wag if I were a widow? Hmmm…

I give him one almighty push and he rolls off the bed, smashing into the leopard-print bedside lamp on the way and landing with an almighty crash on the floor.

‘Ow,’ he says, rising to his feet, his hands clutching his head. ‘Ow, ow, ow. What happened then?’

‘You fell,’ I say, in mock concern. ‘Are you okay? Here, let me see.’ But even as I rub his head gently, all I can think is, Where’s my bangle? Where’s my bangle? Go get my bangle!

It’s strange that I should be tending to an injury to Dean on our anniversary because that’s how we first met. He was a twenty-year-old Arsenal player, knocking on a first-team place, when our paths crossed. I was an eighteen-year-old trainee hairdresser, living in a small flat above the salon, just down the road from where Dean’s nan lived, hoping to become a model, and he was a local celebrity. He walked with a strut and wore oversized trousers with huge trainers that were always undone. When he shuffled into the hairdresser’s where I was washing hair, I don’t think I’d ever seen a more beautiful human being. I made to leave elderly Mrs Cooper at the sink, with shampoo dripping into her rheumy bloodshot eyes, and then I dropped the shower attachment, letting it bounce onto its back and hurl a heavy spray of water up into the air and all over the clients.

‘Hi,’ I said eagerly, ignoring the shrieks from the women at the basins, the agonised cries from Mrs Cooper and the angry shouts from Romeo, the salon owner. ‘How can I help you?’

‘I’d like my ears pierced, babe,’ he said, winking at me.

‘Certainly. Come in.’

While Mrs Cooper was being comforted in the corner with eye drops and a small glass of sweet sherry, I led Dean over to Sally, the only one of us qualified to pierce ears. Actually, when I say qualified, I mean brave. She was the only one brave enough to pierce ears. She was no more qualified than the rest of us, but she’d practised extensively with a hole punch and wasn’t afraid of blood, so the task fell to her.

‘Just sit down,’ she said to Dean. ‘I’ll fetch some ice.’

Unfortunately, all the ice had gone into the gin and tonics that Romeo had been forced to provide for the soaking-wet clients at the basins, so Sally came back and told Dean it would be fine without ice. He just had to keep still.

There was a slight panic when she couldn’t find the antiseptic wipes and we discovered the piercing gun hadn’t been cleaned from the last time it was used, but in the end we carried on regardless. Sally pulled the trigger (making like she was John Wayne in the process, which further alarmed Dean). ‘Click’ went the machine. ‘Bang’ shouted Sally, as we both collapsed into fits of giggles. Then…‘Oh shit,’ she said. The gun had clamped shut on Dean’s ear and couldn’t be removed.

Sally pushed, pulled, struggled and swore. She looked at me. I smiled at Dean, who was now exactly the same colour as the chipped magnolia paint on the walls. I pulled the gun too. No good.

‘Oops,’ Sally said, doing her best to dampen down the fear emanating from one of Arsenal’s most promising footballers. ‘Little problem, I’m afraid.’

Sally and I jiggled around with the gun, pulling and pushing it, trying to work it free from Dean’s ear. Our every effort was accompanied by loud groans, cries and a considerable number of swear words from Dean. Then, he sighed loudly, made a grab for the arm of the chair and collapsed in a heap.

‘Shit!’ I said, jumping back. ‘We’ve killed him!’

‘No we haven’t,’ said Sally, showing herself to be infinitely more capable in a crisis. ‘We just need to get the gun off his ear.’

Around us stood all the clients in the salon, sipping their complimentary beverages and watching closely. Even Mrs Cooper had joined them, but she stood watching with one eye—the other covered by a makeshift patch, constructed from a wad of cotton wool and a vast amount of masking tape.

Eventually, the gun came off and Sally and I both collapsed in a heap from the effort. Dean was still slumped exactly as he was before, but with a large hole in his earlobe where the gun had, until recently, resided.

I lost my job that day, but I gained a boyfriend and then, two years later, a husband. It was the happiest day of my life when Dean proposed to me, just eight months after we met. I’ll never forget calling Mum and telling her:

‘I’ve met someone and he wants to marry me.’

‘Oh,’ she said, with very little interest, more than a little resentment, and some comment about how old this was all going to make her look.

‘His name’s Dean Martin,’ I said, and there was a silence on the end of the phone. Then:

‘Dean…Martin? The Dean Martin?’

I was thrilled that Mum had heard about Arsenal’s new sensation from all the way over there in Los Angeles.

‘Yep, the Dean Martin,’ I said, feeling very proud. ‘The Dean Martin is now my Dean Martin.’

‘Where did you meet the great legend?’

‘He came into the salon to get a piercing.’

‘What? Was he with the other members of the Rat Pack?’

‘No—he was on his own. The others had gone to get chips.’

‘Chips? Two of the greatest swing singers in the history of Big Band music—gone to get chips?’

‘No, Dean’s mates…from Arsenal.’

‘Hang on. So, who is this Dean Martin you’re going to marry?’

‘He plays for Arsenal.’

The line went dead. I asked a few people afterwards and they said that there was another Dean Martin in America who was seventy-odd at the time, and sang rubbish songs, so he must be the guy that Mum thought I was talking about. It turned out that the American Dean Martin died later that year…probably from a broken heart at being the wrong Dean Martin.

Meanwhile, back in London, the hole in my Dean’s ear never properly healed (he wears three earrings in it now), but he says he forgives me. Sally left the salon at the same time as me. Last I heard, she’d retrained as a butcher, which seemed strangely appropriate.

Mum ended up coming round to the idea of the wedding when she realised how much money footballers earn. In fact, she came straight back over to live in England, giving up her sun-soaked LA life and throwing herself into the coordination of my wedding. It was great to have Mum back, although quite alarming to see how young she’d become in her time away. It turns out that three facelifts and buckets full of Botox and collagen fillers had done the trick, but heavens, she looked good. She looked exactly like Barbie. Only slightly less natural-looking.

Mum just adored Dean from the moment she met him. He really took a shine to her, too, giving her the money to buy a house and a car and some staff. She’d come round in tiny little shorts, poking her 32DD bra-less breasts at Dean, and he’d be like putty in her hands. Nothing’s changed there, really.

‘How’s it feeling now?’ I ask.

‘Fine,’ he says, still holding his head. ‘Hey, I’ve got something for you.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. I’ve just got to remember where I hid it.’

Sock drawer, I think. Look in the sock drawer.

‘Gosh, I can’t remember.’

‘Well, put some socks on first, then try to remember,’ I say.

‘Don’t be silly. I want to find your present for you, not put socks on. Now let me think.’

‘I really think you’d be more comfortable with socks on,’ I insist.

‘No, I need to…’

‘Put socks on.’

‘But I…’

‘SOCKS!!’

So off he goes, confused and agitated, still clinging on to his head. Off to put socks on because it’s easier to do that than to keep opposing my absurd but heartfelt request. Bless him.

‘Ah…’ he says all of a sudden, the joy in his voice discernible through the wall of the dressing room. ‘You won’t believe what I just found in the sock drawer…’

Friday, 3 August

7.30 p.m.

‘Deeeeeaaan…’ I lean into my man, fluttering my eyelashes at him adoringly and thrusting my breasts at him provocatively as I attempt to wrestle the remote control from his grip. He’s having none of it.