Effanbee
The Fly
Dedicated to BDO, who called me a Goddess even though I'm just an old witch!
Learning to Fly
Part 6
A different day, wakened by the wind sending something bowling across the yard, crashing against the deck. Cats strategically placed around the bed so that I had to fit my limbs around them. Warm little islands in the cool sea of the duvet.
I needed to do some work today, earn some dollars to feed my horses and ever-thirsty biplane. Go fire up the Mac, I thought, get those keys walking and talking. Looking out at the wild day from the calm of my kitchen, I thought there would be no visitors today, not if they had any sense.
I hit the keyboard hard all morning, pausing only for a quick lunch. Effanbee insisted my lap was the only place she could sleep, which hindered the work a bit. She laid a heavy paw across my arm, her luminous eyes clearly telling me it was time to stop work and pay attention to cats.
I was patiently explaining to Effy that no work = no catfood when a knock at the door made me jump. Edge stood in the doorway, an easy smile told me he had heard me talking to my cat.
‘Uh, hi Roo,’ he said. ‘D’y mind just coming and saving my mate from your man-eating geese?’
‘Oh, crap, not again!’ I laughed, handing Effy to Edge. The Stormtroopers had become quite friendly to everyone except Bono who for some reason always got their attention in the worst way.
I ran the rescue mission and shut the door on raging wind and geese.
‘Bit of a dirty day out there.’ observed Bono, stating the obvious. ‘Got the kettle on?’
‘Good call,’ I said. ‘Cup of tea would go down a treat - let me know when you’ve made it. I’ve got to save my work.’
‘You’re working? Will we be in the way? We’ll bugger off if you want …’
‘Yes, no and no,’ I answered him. ‘I was finishing up anyway.’ A small lie but what the hell.
I went back to the office where Edge was trawling my bookcases with Effy draped on his shoulder. I saved my work and shut down the Mac, interested to see what Edge would make of my rather diverse book collection. Ancient paperbacks of Thomas Hardy, yellowing John Wyndhams alongside huge, shiny hardcovers by Stephen King. Occasional treasures, like Richard Bachs’ glorious tale of barnstorming, Nothing by Chance. Robert Harris and Dan Brown, Doris Lessing and Daphne du Maurier.
Edge selected a slim paperback, Oliver Sachs’ collection of case studies of neurological patients, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. And William Gibson’s Neuromancer. He settled comfortably on the sofa in the living room, Effy curled on his chest, purring her approval. Edge propped Gibson against her back.
‘That’s Edge sorted for the day,’ said Bono, placing a cup of tea at the man’s right hand.
I flopped into a chair and took a sip of tea. ‘Ah, that’s good.’ I leaned back and shut my eyes, all that word-spinning made them ache.
Bono leaned over the back of my chair. Looking up at him, I could see he was not quite his usual bright self.
‘Hey, what’s up?’ I asked him gently.
Bono paced off across the room and back, running a hand through his hair.
‘Don’t really know,’ he said. ‘Just a bit restless, I guess.’ He sat on the arm of my chair. ‘The wind is driving me crazy.’
Now, what do I do about restless? I asked myself. The first thing that came to mind was, sadly, off the menu. When the horses are restless, I work them in small circles - that’s no help - or take them for a gallop along the beach.
‘When the north-westers blow through here the sensible thing to do is to shut the door and curl up with a book and a cat, like Edge,’ I said. ‘Seeing as we’re not sensible, want to come and see where the wind takes us?’
Bono gave me an ‘Are you mad?’ look. I raised an eyebrow and shrugged.
A slow smile from Bono as the idea took hold.
‘Edge, we’re going to go get our heads blown off, see ya later.’
‘Yeah, later, take care,’ from Edge.
Bono and I stepped outside into a world of chaotic movement. Everything bendable was bending, everything not nailed down was airborne. The horses paced us up the fenceline, wheeled round and stood, heads raised, nostrils like wind-tunnels. They whirled away, tails like flags, disappearing over the hill.
‘See, this is great!’ I walked with my back into the wind, facing Bono, who turned his face up to the sky, feeling the force of the warm, rushing air.
A respite as we entered the bush, the wind caught in the high branches whiplashing above us. Bono was quiet as we picked our way along the trail, following the usually gentle stream which was now churning and tumbling over the worn rocks. I felt comfortable with Bono’s silence, let him think his thoughts.
The bush trail emerged at the top of a steep path leading down to the sand dunes. A haze of spray and sand blurred the view of the sea. The wind hit us full-force again, knocking me off-balance on the steep track. Bono caught my arm and we staggered onto the beach like drunks.
The sea raged and foamed, breakers rolling in line upon line, spray whipping off their tops and coating us with salt. Bono was braced against the wind, hair blown back in streamers, eyes narrowed against the spray. Looking at him, I felt my stomach do the now familiar flip-flop. Eyes front again, hands shoved in pockets, I stared out to sea, counting waves, waiting for solid ground. Turned away and walked towards the southern end of the bay, where there was some shelter in the lee of a cliff. Give him some space, I thought, some time to think.
The ebbing tide had left pools among the rocks beneath the cliff, I climbed carefully to a long, flat rock with a large pool in the middle, sat down to see what was in there. A lot going on - sea anemones, a few tiny crabs and silver fish, lots of shells.
One of the shells moved, grew legs, scuttled off beneath a rock. Hermit crabs, busily going about their real-estate business, upgrading to bigger homes, on the lookout for bargains. I stretched out on my front to watch them more closely.
Bono arrived at the pool, sat down to see what I was looking at. ‘Hey’, he said.
‘Hey. Look at these little dudes. It’s better than a soap opera, watching them.’
Bono lay down beside me. It’s hard to see the hermits at first, Bono reached into the pool to pick up a pretty spiral shell, held it out to me in the palm of his hand. Dropped the shell, startled, as it sprouted legs and scrambled towards his arm.
‘Shit!’ he said.
I giggled as the shell skittered to the pool, plopped in. We watched Crabtown come to life again. Bono propped himself up on one elbow to look at me.
‘I don’t know what to make of you,’ he said.
‘There’s not a lot about me, Bono,’ I said. ‘I’m a simple person - what you see is pretty much what you get.’
‘I don’t know,’ he said again. ‘You surprise me, often.’
‘You surprise me too,’ I said to him with a smile. ‘Like, you’re here, lying on a wet rock in a gale with this madwoman instead of, I dunno, getting blasted or being waited on hand and foot like any normal rock star. What is it that makes you want to spend your precious time with me?’
Bono rolled onto his back. ‘You were our pilot, first,’ he said. ‘Looking after us in the air, giving us a special experience. You’ve opened your home to us, made us feel welcome, fed us, put up with us interrupting your work. Shared your horses, your books. And you don’t ask anything from me. Not even …’
‘I’m too old to be anyone’s bit on the side, Bono,’ I said, perhaps a bit more harshly than I meant. ‘If you were a free agent, it might have been a different story,’ I added more softly.
‘How old are you?’ he asked.
The man’s got a lot of cheek, I thought. ‘Older than you,’ I told him. ‘I don’t understand why you should want to be with me when there are thousands of beautiful young girls you could be with,’ I teased him.
‘Sometimes I want someone real,’ he replied quietly. ‘A life more ordinary, you could say.’
Oh, you have such a way of unravelling me, I thought.
‘You might like an ordinary life for a while, but I think you would quite soon get very bored with it,’ I said gently. ‘You’re a traveller, a man with lots of missions - I can see you still bugging heads of state when you’re 80.’
‘Don’t,’ he groaned. ‘Today I feel like I’m 80 already.’
I turned on my back, took his hand. ‘Is that what it’s been about today? The real world closing in again?’
‘Yeah, that’s about it. No escape, y’know.’
Quiet for a moment.
‘While you’re here, at Sweetwaters, no real world allowed, OK? You can chill out, take the phone off the hook, disappear for a while. I don’t think you’ll ever be Mr Ordinary, but you can be who you are.’
Bono turned on his side, lifted my hand to kiss it. Smiled his thanks. ‘You’re sure you don’t mind a mob of noisy Irishmen trampling in and out all the time?’
‘Bono, I’ve had a whole heap of fun with you lot, I haven’t laughed so much in years. I’d mind a lot more if you stayed away.’
‘Beautiful woman,’ he laughed.
‘Yeah, right,’ I said. ‘Covered in sea spray, hair like a dead hedgehog …’
Bono leaned over and silenced me with a kiss, a real kiss, taste of salt, scent of the northwest wind caught in his hair. Feeling so right, so perfect in the moment.
‘No real world allowed, right?’ Eyes deep as the rock-pool, sparkle of mischief back.
He had rendered me dumb, all I could do was nod in agreement.
*****
By the time we got back to the house the afternoon had worn away. I shut the door on the wild northwester. There was no sound in the house, when we went into the living room Edge was asleep, Effy in exactly the same position as when we left. Bono shook his head, sat down in the big armchair. Prodded Edge’s shoulder. ‘Wake up, you idle sod.’
Edge opened one eye. ‘This cat has paralysed me. It’s like a great, furry stone.’
Effy rolled and stretched lazily, yawned hugely, jumped down , sauntered off to the kitchen. Edge sat up, rubbed a hand over his face. ‘You been swimming?’ he asked, eyeing Bono’s hair and clothes.
‘Visiting the Hermit family,’ answered Bono. ‘Their home is a little damp.’
*****
A Saturday morning, clear light filling the house, deep blue dome of sky promising a powerfully hot day. Phone ringing, Siobhan’s softly-accented voice inviting me to lunch at the ranch, dubbed the Hole in the Wall by Adam.
‘It’ll make a change from you feeding this hungry mob,’ she said apologetically.
I drove over in my elderly Landrover, feeling a bit more at ease about visiting the Hole than the first time I was there. A goodly number of people in the house, in the back garden, lots of coming and going and people talking on mobiles.
I picked up a glass of wine and headed for the garden, raising a hand to Edge, deep in conversation on the phone, and Adam, surrounded by women as usual. There was a lovely old wooden seat in the shade of a bottlebrush tree, I sat down and watched the people orbiting the garden, their eyes constantly on the lookout for the stars.
Bono was nowhere to be seen, probably off on some mission. Larry was talking to some corporate-looking types, his face typically dour. A shadow fell across me. Adam had managed to lose his entourage, at least for the moment. He sat down beside me and took a long drink of what looked like mineral water.
‘All go today, Adam,’ I said to him. ‘Or is this normal?’
‘It’s a bit frenetic, Roo,’ he said. ‘What with the awards tonight and all.’
‘Awards?’
‘Oh, I thought you knew. It’s the music management awards, our manager is up for one. we’re off to the city later to link up with him in London,’ Adam explained, sounding a bit bored with the whole affair. ‘The time difference is a bit of a pain. It’ll be late here, so we have to while away a few hours somewhere, but we’re trying to keep a low profile. It’s a bit tricky,’ he said, with understatement.
‘I don’t know how you’ve managed to keep this place secret,’ I said. ‘Especially as you’ve had locals like me and Duncan visiting.’
Adam turned to me with a wry smile. ‘Well, you haven’t told anyone, have you?’ he said.
‘You mean you just trust people not to shout it all over New Zealand?’
Adam grinned. ‘We have to be careful, but basically, yes.’
I shook my head in amazement.
‘Anyway,’ said Adam, ‘It’ll be a laugh tonight, don’t you think?’
‘Um,’ I said, thinking it would be my idea of hell.
‘Be interesting, seeing you dressed up and not covered in horse-hair or airplane oil,’ Adam said teasingly.
‘What?’ I gulped. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, hell,’ sighed Adam. ‘Bono didn’t tell you about this?’
‘No, he never mentioned it … I’m supposed to be coming with you?’ I was beginning to panic slightly.
‘Well, Bono is definitely expecting you to be there. What a prat, he must have forgotten to let you know.’
‘Jesus Adam, I don’t do cities. What am I supposed to wear? I won’t know what to do, what to say …’ Definite panic now.
Adam eyed a trio of women moving in our direction. He laid a hand on my knee and grinned. ‘Just be yourself,’ he said with a wink, and sauntered off to be enveloped once more in feminine beauty.
‘Fuck.’ I said to myself weakly. ‘Shit, bugger, damn …'
‘It’s either a Tourette’s Syndrome sufferer or our fearless pilot.’ The sardonic tones of Mr Mullen.
‘Fearless? Larry, I’m in deep shit,’ I said to him. ‘I’ve just found out I’m supposed to be going to this bash tonight and, frankly, it scares my pants off.’
A rare smile from Larry. ‘I hate these bleedin’ things myself,’ he confided. ‘Don’t worry, though. It can often be more fun than you expect. Of course, if you don’t want to come out with us superstars …’ Larry taunted me with an evil twinkle in his eyes.
‘Sod you, Mullen,’ I said. ‘But seriously, I don’t want to make an idiot of myself, let you all down.’
Larry snorted. ‘There’ll be plenty of idiots around tonight playing the fool. Don’t you worry,’ he said again. ‘Here comes Bono - you can kick his ass for not telling you.’
Bono was practically obscured by people all needing his urgent attention. He glanced over at Larry and me, a quick wave and then engulfed again.
‘A drink is what we need,’ decided Larry. ‘And something to eat. Come on, let’s hit the kitchen.’
In the kitchen was Edge, a small area of calm among the chaos. I wasn’t going to lay my troubles at Edge’s feet, but Larry pre-empted me by gleefully telling Edge that Bono had fucked up and I was going to kick his ass. Edge raised an eyebrow at me. I gave him a little shrug and a grin.
‘Larry just wants to see me shout at someone who’s not him, I reckon,’ I said.
‘Too right,’ from Larry.
Edge saw that I was putting a brave face on and approached my dilemma with his usual clear logic. Passing me a large glass of wine, he went in search of Anna, who was in charge of making sure the band looked good in public. It was arranged that Anna would turn the ugly duckling into a swan.
‘Thank you so much,’ I said to Edge, and surprised us both by giving him a hug and a kiss on his cheek. Probably due to the wine, but I wondered if spending time with Bono was affecting me in more ways than one.
Learning to Fly
Part 6
A different day, wakened by the wind sending something bowling across the yard, crashing against the deck. Cats strategically placed around the bed so that I had to fit my limbs around them. Warm little islands in the cool sea of the duvet.
I needed to do some work today, earn some dollars to feed my horses and ever-thirsty biplane. Go fire up the Mac, I thought, get those keys walking and talking. Looking out at the wild day from the calm of my kitchen, I thought there would be no visitors today, not if they had any sense.
I hit the keyboard hard all morning, pausing only for a quick lunch. Effanbee insisted my lap was the only place she could sleep, which hindered the work a bit. She laid a heavy paw across my arm, her luminous eyes clearly telling me it was time to stop work and pay attention to cats.
I was patiently explaining to Effy that no work = no catfood when a knock at the door made me jump. Edge stood in the doorway, an easy smile told me he had heard me talking to my cat.
‘Uh, hi Roo,’ he said. ‘D’y mind just coming and saving my mate from your man-eating geese?’
‘Oh, crap, not again!’ I laughed, handing Effy to Edge. The Stormtroopers had become quite friendly to everyone except Bono who for some reason always got their attention in the worst way.
I ran the rescue mission and shut the door on raging wind and geese.
‘Bit of a dirty day out there.’ observed Bono, stating the obvious. ‘Got the kettle on?’
‘Good call,’ I said. ‘Cup of tea would go down a treat - let me know when you’ve made it. I’ve got to save my work.’
‘You’re working? Will we be in the way? We’ll bugger off if you want …’
‘Yes, no and no,’ I answered him. ‘I was finishing up anyway.’ A small lie but what the hell.
I went back to the office where Edge was trawling my bookcases with Effy draped on his shoulder. I saved my work and shut down the Mac, interested to see what Edge would make of my rather diverse book collection. Ancient paperbacks of Thomas Hardy, yellowing John Wyndhams alongside huge, shiny hardcovers by Stephen King. Occasional treasures, like Richard Bachs’ glorious tale of barnstorming, Nothing by Chance. Robert Harris and Dan Brown, Doris Lessing and Daphne du Maurier.
Edge selected a slim paperback, Oliver Sachs’ collection of case studies of neurological patients, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. And William Gibson’s Neuromancer. He settled comfortably on the sofa in the living room, Effy curled on his chest, purring her approval. Edge propped Gibson against her back.
‘That’s Edge sorted for the day,’ said Bono, placing a cup of tea at the man’s right hand.
I flopped into a chair and took a sip of tea. ‘Ah, that’s good.’ I leaned back and shut my eyes, all that word-spinning made them ache.
Bono leaned over the back of my chair. Looking up at him, I could see he was not quite his usual bright self.
‘Hey, what’s up?’ I asked him gently.
Bono paced off across the room and back, running a hand through his hair.
‘Don’t really know,’ he said. ‘Just a bit restless, I guess.’ He sat on the arm of my chair. ‘The wind is driving me crazy.’
Now, what do I do about restless? I asked myself. The first thing that came to mind was, sadly, off the menu. When the horses are restless, I work them in small circles - that’s no help - or take them for a gallop along the beach.
‘When the north-westers blow through here the sensible thing to do is to shut the door and curl up with a book and a cat, like Edge,’ I said. ‘Seeing as we’re not sensible, want to come and see where the wind takes us?’
Bono gave me an ‘Are you mad?’ look. I raised an eyebrow and shrugged.
A slow smile from Bono as the idea took hold.
‘Edge, we’re going to go get our heads blown off, see ya later.’
‘Yeah, later, take care,’ from Edge.
Bono and I stepped outside into a world of chaotic movement. Everything bendable was bending, everything not nailed down was airborne. The horses paced us up the fenceline, wheeled round and stood, heads raised, nostrils like wind-tunnels. They whirled away, tails like flags, disappearing over the hill.
‘See, this is great!’ I walked with my back into the wind, facing Bono, who turned his face up to the sky, feeling the force of the warm, rushing air.
A respite as we entered the bush, the wind caught in the high branches whiplashing above us. Bono was quiet as we picked our way along the trail, following the usually gentle stream which was now churning and tumbling over the worn rocks. I felt comfortable with Bono’s silence, let him think his thoughts.
The bush trail emerged at the top of a steep path leading down to the sand dunes. A haze of spray and sand blurred the view of the sea. The wind hit us full-force again, knocking me off-balance on the steep track. Bono caught my arm and we staggered onto the beach like drunks.
The sea raged and foamed, breakers rolling in line upon line, spray whipping off their tops and coating us with salt. Bono was braced against the wind, hair blown back in streamers, eyes narrowed against the spray. Looking at him, I felt my stomach do the now familiar flip-flop. Eyes front again, hands shoved in pockets, I stared out to sea, counting waves, waiting for solid ground. Turned away and walked towards the southern end of the bay, where there was some shelter in the lee of a cliff. Give him some space, I thought, some time to think.
The ebbing tide had left pools among the rocks beneath the cliff, I climbed carefully to a long, flat rock with a large pool in the middle, sat down to see what was in there. A lot going on - sea anemones, a few tiny crabs and silver fish, lots of shells.
One of the shells moved, grew legs, scuttled off beneath a rock. Hermit crabs, busily going about their real-estate business, upgrading to bigger homes, on the lookout for bargains. I stretched out on my front to watch them more closely.
Bono arrived at the pool, sat down to see what I was looking at. ‘Hey’, he said.
‘Hey. Look at these little dudes. It’s better than a soap opera, watching them.’
Bono lay down beside me. It’s hard to see the hermits at first, Bono reached into the pool to pick up a pretty spiral shell, held it out to me in the palm of his hand. Dropped the shell, startled, as it sprouted legs and scrambled towards his arm.
‘Shit!’ he said.
I giggled as the shell skittered to the pool, plopped in. We watched Crabtown come to life again. Bono propped himself up on one elbow to look at me.
‘I don’t know what to make of you,’ he said.
‘There’s not a lot about me, Bono,’ I said. ‘I’m a simple person - what you see is pretty much what you get.’
‘I don’t know,’ he said again. ‘You surprise me, often.’
‘You surprise me too,’ I said to him with a smile. ‘Like, you’re here, lying on a wet rock in a gale with this madwoman instead of, I dunno, getting blasted or being waited on hand and foot like any normal rock star. What is it that makes you want to spend your precious time with me?’
Bono rolled onto his back. ‘You were our pilot, first,’ he said. ‘Looking after us in the air, giving us a special experience. You’ve opened your home to us, made us feel welcome, fed us, put up with us interrupting your work. Shared your horses, your books. And you don’t ask anything from me. Not even …’
‘I’m too old to be anyone’s bit on the side, Bono,’ I said, perhaps a bit more harshly than I meant. ‘If you were a free agent, it might have been a different story,’ I added more softly.
‘How old are you?’ he asked.
The man’s got a lot of cheek, I thought. ‘Older than you,’ I told him. ‘I don’t understand why you should want to be with me when there are thousands of beautiful young girls you could be with,’ I teased him.
‘Sometimes I want someone real,’ he replied quietly. ‘A life more ordinary, you could say.’
Oh, you have such a way of unravelling me, I thought.
‘You might like an ordinary life for a while, but I think you would quite soon get very bored with it,’ I said gently. ‘You’re a traveller, a man with lots of missions - I can see you still bugging heads of state when you’re 80.’
‘Don’t,’ he groaned. ‘Today I feel like I’m 80 already.’
I turned on my back, took his hand. ‘Is that what it’s been about today? The real world closing in again?’
‘Yeah, that’s about it. No escape, y’know.’
Quiet for a moment.
‘While you’re here, at Sweetwaters, no real world allowed, OK? You can chill out, take the phone off the hook, disappear for a while. I don’t think you’ll ever be Mr Ordinary, but you can be who you are.’
Bono turned on his side, lifted my hand to kiss it. Smiled his thanks. ‘You’re sure you don’t mind a mob of noisy Irishmen trampling in and out all the time?’
‘Bono, I’ve had a whole heap of fun with you lot, I haven’t laughed so much in years. I’d mind a lot more if you stayed away.’
‘Beautiful woman,’ he laughed.
‘Yeah, right,’ I said. ‘Covered in sea spray, hair like a dead hedgehog …’
Bono leaned over and silenced me with a kiss, a real kiss, taste of salt, scent of the northwest wind caught in his hair. Feeling so right, so perfect in the moment.
‘No real world allowed, right?’ Eyes deep as the rock-pool, sparkle of mischief back.
He had rendered me dumb, all I could do was nod in agreement.
*****
By the time we got back to the house the afternoon had worn away. I shut the door on the wild northwester. There was no sound in the house, when we went into the living room Edge was asleep, Effy in exactly the same position as when we left. Bono shook his head, sat down in the big armchair. Prodded Edge’s shoulder. ‘Wake up, you idle sod.’
Edge opened one eye. ‘This cat has paralysed me. It’s like a great, furry stone.’
Effy rolled and stretched lazily, yawned hugely, jumped down , sauntered off to the kitchen. Edge sat up, rubbed a hand over his face. ‘You been swimming?’ he asked, eyeing Bono’s hair and clothes.
‘Visiting the Hermit family,’ answered Bono. ‘Their home is a little damp.’
*****
A Saturday morning, clear light filling the house, deep blue dome of sky promising a powerfully hot day. Phone ringing, Siobhan’s softly-accented voice inviting me to lunch at the ranch, dubbed the Hole in the Wall by Adam.
‘It’ll make a change from you feeding this hungry mob,’ she said apologetically.
I drove over in my elderly Landrover, feeling a bit more at ease about visiting the Hole than the first time I was there. A goodly number of people in the house, in the back garden, lots of coming and going and people talking on mobiles.
I picked up a glass of wine and headed for the garden, raising a hand to Edge, deep in conversation on the phone, and Adam, surrounded by women as usual. There was a lovely old wooden seat in the shade of a bottlebrush tree, I sat down and watched the people orbiting the garden, their eyes constantly on the lookout for the stars.
Bono was nowhere to be seen, probably off on some mission. Larry was talking to some corporate-looking types, his face typically dour. A shadow fell across me. Adam had managed to lose his entourage, at least for the moment. He sat down beside me and took a long drink of what looked like mineral water.
‘All go today, Adam,’ I said to him. ‘Or is this normal?’
‘It’s a bit frenetic, Roo,’ he said. ‘What with the awards tonight and all.’
‘Awards?’
‘Oh, I thought you knew. It’s the music management awards, our manager is up for one. we’re off to the city later to link up with him in London,’ Adam explained, sounding a bit bored with the whole affair. ‘The time difference is a bit of a pain. It’ll be late here, so we have to while away a few hours somewhere, but we’re trying to keep a low profile. It’s a bit tricky,’ he said, with understatement.
‘I don’t know how you’ve managed to keep this place secret,’ I said. ‘Especially as you’ve had locals like me and Duncan visiting.’
Adam turned to me with a wry smile. ‘Well, you haven’t told anyone, have you?’ he said.
‘You mean you just trust people not to shout it all over New Zealand?’
Adam grinned. ‘We have to be careful, but basically, yes.’
I shook my head in amazement.
‘Anyway,’ said Adam, ‘It’ll be a laugh tonight, don’t you think?’
‘Um,’ I said, thinking it would be my idea of hell.
‘Be interesting, seeing you dressed up and not covered in horse-hair or airplane oil,’ Adam said teasingly.
‘What?’ I gulped. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, hell,’ sighed Adam. ‘Bono didn’t tell you about this?’
‘No, he never mentioned it … I’m supposed to be coming with you?’ I was beginning to panic slightly.
‘Well, Bono is definitely expecting you to be there. What a prat, he must have forgotten to let you know.’
‘Jesus Adam, I don’t do cities. What am I supposed to wear? I won’t know what to do, what to say …’ Definite panic now.
Adam eyed a trio of women moving in our direction. He laid a hand on my knee and grinned. ‘Just be yourself,’ he said with a wink, and sauntered off to be enveloped once more in feminine beauty.
‘Fuck.’ I said to myself weakly. ‘Shit, bugger, damn …'
‘It’s either a Tourette’s Syndrome sufferer or our fearless pilot.’ The sardonic tones of Mr Mullen.
‘Fearless? Larry, I’m in deep shit,’ I said to him. ‘I’ve just found out I’m supposed to be going to this bash tonight and, frankly, it scares my pants off.’
A rare smile from Larry. ‘I hate these bleedin’ things myself,’ he confided. ‘Don’t worry, though. It can often be more fun than you expect. Of course, if you don’t want to come out with us superstars …’ Larry taunted me with an evil twinkle in his eyes.
‘Sod you, Mullen,’ I said. ‘But seriously, I don’t want to make an idiot of myself, let you all down.’
Larry snorted. ‘There’ll be plenty of idiots around tonight playing the fool. Don’t you worry,’ he said again. ‘Here comes Bono - you can kick his ass for not telling you.’
Bono was practically obscured by people all needing his urgent attention. He glanced over at Larry and me, a quick wave and then engulfed again.
‘A drink is what we need,’ decided Larry. ‘And something to eat. Come on, let’s hit the kitchen.’
In the kitchen was Edge, a small area of calm among the chaos. I wasn’t going to lay my troubles at Edge’s feet, but Larry pre-empted me by gleefully telling Edge that Bono had fucked up and I was going to kick his ass. Edge raised an eyebrow at me. I gave him a little shrug and a grin.
‘Larry just wants to see me shout at someone who’s not him, I reckon,’ I said.
‘Too right,’ from Larry.
Edge saw that I was putting a brave face on and approached my dilemma with his usual clear logic. Passing me a large glass of wine, he went in search of Anna, who was in charge of making sure the band looked good in public. It was arranged that Anna would turn the ugly duckling into a swan.
‘Thank you so much,’ I said to Edge, and surprised us both by giving him a hug and a kiss on his cheek. Probably due to the wine, but I wondered if spending time with Bono was affecting me in more ways than one.
Edge is such a cat person! 
