This rockstar life

3.4 Therapy couch? Blanket?

Steve hears the front door slam and Alice comes pelting down the stairs.

"Look look look! We're in 'Hello!'. Brian's party."

"Hmm, is that going in or coming out? Because we look pretty messed up."

"We look like... dissolute artists! I think it's going in? You were up all night trying to write that... thing, remember, and then we couldn't get a cab, and it rained. Karla helped me fix my make-up in the loo. Okay, it's not the best picture ever, but I'm still gonna frame it!"

Still peering intently at the page, she wanders into the kitchen. Ten seconds later, she is back again. "Oh god! This means people are going to know about us!"

"People already know about us?"

"People we know, know, but PEOPLE... in the world."

"Only people who read 'Hello!'."

"Which is EVERYBODY!"

"Well, look, it doesn't say your name, it just says 'and companion'. And you're sort of blurry. You could be anyone. It's fine. No one will care. I don't think I'm the kind of famous where paparazzi hide in my bins."

"Are your fans going to hate me?"

"No! What for?"

"For stealing their man."

"Seriously?"

"I've seen some of your fans, they're terrifying. Their nails alone..."

He pulls her into a hug "Don't be silly. No one's going to hate you. And if anyone says anything, you can just say you're my assistant or something."

"I could be your bodyguard!"

"What are you gonna do, half-pint, bite their ankles?!"

She swats at him, "I'll... stab them with my eyeliner."

"Scary."

—----------------------------------------

Although I was fairly horrified the first few times we were papped, it's actually more surprising to me now that it doesn't happen all that often. I was worried, at the start, that I was signing up for a life of camera flashes and being mobbed by fans and not being able to go to Sainsburys* without ending up in the Daily Mail*. But it turns out that, unless you're Brian May or someone like that, the British media in general isn't so interested in guitarists. The music press is, but they don't have the money to follow you around just on the off chance that you'll do something scandalous. And as for crazed fans, that seems to be a context thing - at an event, especially if the whole band's together, there'll be crowds wanting pictures and autographs - but just Steve hanging out doing ordinary-people things in London rarely gets recognised. He's also got some sort of Clark Kent thing going on where in jeans and trainers and hair in a ponytail he's essentially invisible, but fluff out the hair, put on a leather jacket, boots, and shades, and there's a rockstar! You can literally see him assume the persona, grow a couple of inches taller, and suddenly everyone notices him. And thank gods he is able to turn it on and off like that, because otherwise I think he'd go crazy, he's so shy. And it allows us to have little pockets of normal life away from the Def Leppard circus, without which I think I'd go crazy.

It is in pursuit of one of those pockets of normality that today, when the sun came out and you could almost believe it was summer, I proposed a trip to the park. Steve spends so much time shuttling back and forth to Dublin and Holland, and when he is here he mostly sleeps or lurks down in the music room playing what sounds to me like the same eight bars over and over again, that I feel we've barely seen each other in daylight for weeks. He doesn't, I've checked, actually burst into flames when exposed to sunlight, but you wouldn't know it from the amount of grumbling when I drag him from the stygian gloom of the basement and make him get dressed and brush his hair. The prospect of a picnic perks him up though and, once we've filled a bag with a random assortment of goodies from the fridge (all hail the amazing Debbie who saves us from literally starving to death), he becomes positively cheerful as we cross the bridge to Battersea Park, swinging our clasped hands and swivelling his head to take in the sky, the river, the cars, the people, as if he'd forgotten they existed.