Kylie is the only woman I’ve ever had pinned to my bedroom wall.
What I mean is, that whilst my best friend Alex spent a large part of his youth redecorating his bedroom with the pages of “Smash Hits” magazine, for a teenage boy my bedroom was mysteriously bereft of pop icon pin-ups, or any other poster material for that matter. With one notable exception. Kylie Minogue.
I was almost out of my teens when I pinned the Kylie centre spread to the wall next to my bed. Back then of course she was barely out of neighbours, was still using her surname and had yet to become the sex goddess she is today. But even then, even with half a dozen absolutely atrocious records to her name (I’d rather drill holes in my ear drums than listen to her version of “The Locomotion”) she was fast becoming my ideal woman.
Today of course she’s every man’s “ideal woman”. It’s surprising how a pair of small gold hotpants will do that for a girl. But for me the sex siren side of Kylie merely completed her transformation to perfection, not defined it.
You see on the one hand she's a sizzling temptress, a total babe, the fabulously gorgeous, jaw dropping personification of a male fantasy, or a “trollop” as my mother would say, prancing around in a pair of gold hot pants that are way too short whilst singing catchy pop-songs with thinly disguised raunchy lyrics.. but, scratch the surface a little and actually the “trollop” thing is just part of the pop persona and she’s actually a “nice girl” who settles down in front of "Frasier" on a Friday night with a glass of chardonnay, and listens to radio 2 in the car! In other words she’s the kind of woman who probably would be everything you ever dreamed of in the bedroom and shag you to within an inch of your life, but she’d still suggest renting a video on a Saturday night in preference to some awful awful night club, where let’s face it, you’d stand around feeling out of place, whilst every Gary and his mate circled your woman like a pack of hungry wolves.
I’m not a bad looking bloke. Probably a seven. Ok, a six. Out of ten that is. I’m no Brad Pitt, I grant you. Kylie isn’t going to come waltzing into my life just because she happens to glance in my direction, but neither is she going to run a mile either. Armed with a bottle of Chardonnay and the best TV can offer in the way of American situation comedies I probably stand as much chance as the next man. Plus we were both born on the twenty eighth of May 1968 – we’re exactly the same age which I’m thinking has to be an advantage! You see? A match made in heaven.
Of course some people might point out that the chance of me meeting Kylie, let alone getting her into my life are scant to non-existent. But these people are just pessimists. In my head I have it all worked out; I’d be at home one Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Quite by chance I’d be dressed in my most casual-but-cool clobber, and I wouldn’t be surfing the internet for porn or doing any other activity that might lead to embarrassment should, say, the doorbell ring and a distressed Kylie be standing there.
“I’m terribly sorry,” she’d say, “but I’ve just broken down outside and would you believe it, this piece of junk,” (holding the latest Eriksson handset up for me to see), “has chosen this precise moment to run out of juice. I couldn’t use your phone for a moment, could I?”
Of course, being the perfect gentleman I’d wave her in with a heady mixture of sympathy about her car, charming rapport about shoddy mobile phone batteries, and absolutely no hint that I recognize her at all.
Five minutes later, while she sat on my couch recovering from the shock of being told by whatever car recovery company rock stars use these days, that they “couldn’t possibly get anyone to her in under three hours, and yes they are aware of who she is”, I’d breeze back from the kitchen with a chamomile tea or some other slightly quirky beverage and she’d start telling me how the whole celeb thing has just become too much for her, that she’s Kylie Minogue in case I hadn’t noticed, that this is a really great flat, and it’s really nice to meet someone else who likes chamomile, and please, call her “Minni” ..oh, and could I just hold her for a while because she feels in need of a cuddle right now.
Now, don’t tell me that sounds far fetched! You have to admit, it could happen!
So then, you can imagine my distress when, in the middle of a Sunday lunch with my family, my Grandmother suddenly declares, with no warning or apparent reason, that she’s “never been particularly fond of that Kylie Minogue”. Mealtime revelations such as these aren’t unusual in our family. In fact the dinner table has always been the place where important issues such as politics, religion, last night’s telly, what the neighbours are up to, and whether Kylie should be considered in my Grandmother’s new year’s honours list, are brought up and hotly debated.
And so here I was discovering that should Kylie ever crash land into my life I was going to have a problem “introducing her to my grandmother”. This had to be nipped in the bud. Never mind the fact that there might be an outside chance that Kylie and I may never even meet, let alone “hit it off”, right now, mid-yorkshire pudding, was my one and only opportunity to clear the way for harmonious family relations and ensure that my grandmother didn’t fuck up me and Kylie’s future happiness.
Casually I remarked that "despite her slightly suggestive videos,” (did I get away with that? I think so), from interviews I’d seen I'd always thought she seemed quite a nice girl. It would be sad to think that I couldn't bring her over for tea. Should the need ever arise. In retrospect, I’m not so sure it was completely obvious as to why I would be bringing Kylie round to tea, but my mother didn’t seem to notice.
“Jason,” she said. “You're very welcome to bring anyone you like over for tea.” I breathed a sigh of relief. My future with Kylie was assured.
“You and Liz big friends with Kylie then?” asked Wendy, tearing me from my fantasy world and bringing me crashing back to reality. My elder sister, has a knack of doing this. God forbid that anyone in this world should have any aspirations beyond what my sister has already determined should be their lot in this life.
“I was just talking hypothetically..” I mumbled.
Wendy watched me intently for a moment, as though she was sucking information out of me with her eyes. Then she turned and stirred a plastic bowl of baby food ready to feed to my niece. I looked at Bethany – sitting in her high chair, swinging her little legs in eager anticipation of the goo laden plastic spoon – and I envied her slightly. Hers was the only way to have a safe relationship with my sister. Once she started talking she’d be subject to the same interrogation sessions as the rest of us.
“Where is Liz, anyway?” asked Wendy loading the first spoonful for Bethany. “You casually side stepped that one when I asked you earlier.”
“I didn’t side step anything..”
“You’re doing it again..”
“There isn’t anything wrong between you and Liz is there?” Asked my Mother.
Fuck! How the hell had this happened? What was it with my sister? It was like she had some sort of “bullshit” detector or alarm that was raised whenever I was hiding something. She was like a cross between a police bloodhound and a WWWF wrestler – she could sniff out fear at 100 paces, and in four swift sentences, with the unwitting assistance of my mother, have me pinned against the ropes with my arm yanked firmly up behind my back. Maybe I should surrender now, not that she would give me this option. A swift and painless kill was all I could hope for. Never the less I tried changing the subject.
“Sorry, Gran, could you pass the gravy..”
“In fact we haven’t seen Liz for a couple of weeks,” said my sister in mock thoughtfulness, halfway through a mouthful of dumpling.
“Oh! Is she ill?” Guessed my Mother. “There’s this flu bug going around at the moment..”
“She’s fine Mum honestly..” Oh my God! Just stay out of this Mum! It was hard enough trying to outwit Wendy without having to deal with stupid questions from the sidelines.
“Fine? But she’s not well enough to come over? Really Jason, you shouldn’t have left her on her own when she’s ill..”
“She’s not ill, there’s nothing wrong with her.” Too short – I really shouldn’t have snapped like that.
“You know I think I had a touch of that flu bug last week,” chipped in my Grandmother. “Terrible it was, I could hardly speak..”
“Would you like me to go over during the week? I could take her a frozen dinner.”
“No!” I said, a little too loudly, “No, Mum, no.. it’s fine honestly. She’s not ill. She’s just..” My mind raced, “er.. busy.”
“Oh.” Said my mother quietly. “Busy.” She repeated my words, like they were code for Liz hates you but busy is the best I can come up with, and the room began to fill up with her ‘hurt’.
Wendy watched this pantomime like a hawk whilst simultaneously shoveling food into Bethany. True multi tasking. She was clever like that. Were my sister part-detective she’d probably be pacing the room by now “putting it to me” that I was being “economical with the truth”. But whilst my sister was part blood hound, part wwwf wrestler, and part bird of prey, she wasn’t into all that Agatha Christie style theatrics, instead she chose that moment to deliver her fatal blow.
“She’s dumped you hasn’t she?”
By Peter Jones (c) Copyright 2007Second Draft: Check back for revisions / additions