And then I heard her scream.
It was a long, high pitched scream, so high that it took me a moment to realize that it was Momoko’s voice and not the screeching brakes of a train or something. I jumped out of bed, pulled up me underpants and rushed down to the kitchen. There she was, stark naked, with her back facing the open fridge door, still screaming and staring at the man who was standing in the door from the garden. It was me dad who had come early because—as it turned out—he had just been fired from his job.
I grabbed Momoko by the shoulders and shook her because she was still screaming at the top of her lungs.
“Shut up!” I said. “Calm down. It’s just me dad!”
She finally stopped screaming.
“Oh,” she said and looked at me dad and then back at me. “Yes, I see resemblance now. But I so scared when he suddenly walk in the door.”
I hugged her and put me hand on her head. “Shhh, baby, it’s okay now.”
As I was holding Momoko, I looked at me dad. He was still standing in the open door, staring in disbelief at his son wearing nothing but undies and a clearly visible erection, holding on to a naked Asian woman in his kitchen. He stood there staring at us for what seemed like an eternity, and then he finally dropped his briefcase to the floor and sank down to his knees. He lifted his hands up to his chest, and his face turned into a grimace of pain and fear. I let go of Momoko and rushed towards him.
“Dad! Are you okay?”
I held him and I looked into his face that had turned red, almost purple. He was trying to speak but all he could produce was a sort of mumbling sound, and he was drooling.
“I think he’s having a heart attack! Momoko, get him a glass of water!”
I rushed to the living room where the phone was and I called an ambulance. When I got back to the kitchen, I found Momoko sitting on the floor, with me dad’s head cradled in her lap. He was still wailing and drooling, and Momoko was dabbing his face with a wet cloth.
“Ambulance will be here in a minute,” I said, and that’s when I heard a noise from the front door. I turned around and saw me mum and me sister walk straight towards me. Mum ignored me as usual, and then she saw Dad lying on the kitchen floor, his head resting in the lap of a naked Asian lady.
“What the fuck is going on here?” she shouted. “Is that the little bitch you’ve been screwing behind my back, Harold?!”
Me sister and I just looked at each other. We had never heard mum use the f-word before. It was scary. But what was even scarier was that Mum was now hitting Momoko and me dad with her handbag, shouting more abuse at them.
“Mum, no!”
Me sis and I leapt forward and held me mum back. She was kicking and screaming.
Momoko slowly got up and said, “I better get dress.”
“Good idea,” I said, trying to contain me mum. “Mum, stop it! Calm down. It’s not what you think. Dad didn’t do anything. He’s having a heart attack.”
Me mum finally calmed down.
“What?” She looked at me, then at me dad, then back at me. “Then who is that woman?”
“Well, uh...”
And then me sis looked at me, and suddenly her shocked face gave way to a big fat grin.
“Nice going, Tummy,” she said and high-fived me.
Rock’n’roll!
* * *
When the paramedics arrived, it turned out that me dad didn’t have a heart attack. It was just a nervous breakdown. For everybody’s safety they decided to take him to hospital. Me mum went with him. Momoko went home. I was alone with me sister and we talked. It was the first time in me life that I had a good and decent talk with Chloe. It was the first time that she treated me like an adult and not like the stupid and obnoxious little boy brother that I had probably been all those years.
“Well, look at you,” she said.
“Yeah.” I couldn’t help but grin.
“So how did
that
happen?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Momoko is Japanese. She has a thing for sumo wrestler types, I guess.”
Chloe laughed. “I’m really happy for you, Tummy.”
“Are you?”
“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know. You never seemed to be that supportive, really.”
“Oh don’t be silly, Tummy.” She nudged me with her elbow. “You’re my little brother. My main responsibility as your sister is to make sure you keep your feet on the ground rather than letting you get too coltish and boisterous.”
“What, by mocking and teasing me all the time?”
She shrugged. “How else? Better than beating you up.”
“I suppose.”
“Anyway,” Chloe said, her expression turning more serious, “just a word of warning. As soon as Dad is all right again, they will not let this issue rest. Mum and Dad, I mean. Momoko is 22. You are 17. Technically, she is a child molester.”
“But I’m the one who’s been molesting her, really.”
Chloe laughed. “I believe you. But you’ll have a hard time convincing Mum and Dad. Better be prepared that they will report Momoko to the police.”
“What am I supposed to do, Chloe?”
“I don’t know. You’re rich now. Get a lawyer, the best you can find.”
“Right,” I said.
“Come here, you!” Chloe said and gave me a great big hug. “Good luck,” she said, and it sounded like she really meant it. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
I spent the rest of the afternoon in me room, packing me things in a bag. I had made a decision. It was time for me to leave. There was no way I was going to stay under the same roof with me mum anymore. I had to go somewhere else, at least for a little while.
In the early evening, Mum returned from the hospital. I waited for about half an hour before I made me way down to the kitchen. Me mum was sitting at the table with a half empty bottle of red wine in front of her. I stood in the door to the kitchen a whole minute before she finally noticed me.
“What do you want?” she mumbled.
“I’m leaving.”
Mum looked at me and saw the big sports bag I was carrying.
“Are you going to stay with that floozy?”
“Her name is Momoko,” I said. “And she’s not a floozy. I love her.”
“Love her!” Mum laughed a shrill and crazy laugh. “You silly little boy, what do you think you know about love?”
“Certainly nothing I learned from you,” I said, and I felt blood rushing to my head. I wasn’t used to talking back to me mum like that, but I finally had the courage to do it.
She stared at me. Speechless. Hurt.
“Get out!” she finally hissed at me and took a big gulp of wine from her glass.
Without another word I walked towards the front door. Before I opened it, I turned around and looked back at me mum, still sitting at the kitchen table with her back towards me.
“I love you, Mum,” I said. “Even if you don’t know what that means.”
Then I went outside and pulled the front door shut behind me, and before I reached the street, I heard the sound of a bottle of red wine hitting a wall and breaking into a million pieces.
The Gospel According to Ginger – 13
Julian’s popularity kept rising towards the heavens, with side effects that were not entirely unexpected, but rather difficult to deal with nonetheless. One of those side effects was the money. I know I said I wasn’t in it for the money, and I wasn’t, but now that it was there I came to enjoy it quite a bit, although I didn’t really know what to do with it. I let my inner fangirl off the leash and went on a shopping spree. I bought all the singles and albums of all my favourite bands, their DVDs and other merchandize like photo books, T-shirts, and posters. I also hauled the West End and Camden for new shoes and trousers, dresses and skirts and jumpers and accessories, and when I was done I still had 47,000 of my initial 50,000 pounds left.
The next day, Michael sent me another 50,000.
“It’s insane,” he said when I called him on the phone. “We’re currently making 10,000 quid a day from music downloads. And that doesn’t even include downloads from iTunes or Amazon, it’s just the stuff we sell directly on our website. The
White Smoke
video is rapidly approaching 200 million views on YouTube. Do you even know what that means?”
“200 million?” I said. “That’s not quite the same league as
Gangnam Style
, is it?”
“No. It’s at least one or two leagues higher than that.”
“What?”
“It took
Gangnam Style
five months to get to a billion views. At the current rate we’ll get there in five weeks.”
“Wow.”
“And may I remind you that YouTube pays us on average two pounds per 1000 views? You do the maths.”
“Actually,” I said, “can you do the maths for me? I’m getting dizzy.”
“Two pounds per 1000 views, that’s 2000 pounds per million. At 200 million views that’s 200 times 2000, that’s 400,000 quid we have made on YouTube this month alone.”
“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me,” I moaned.
“Nope.”
“400,000 pounds and you’re fobbing me off with 50,000? Are you running some kind of embezzlement scheme or something?”
Michael laughed. “No. YouTube hasn’t even paid us yet. Neither have Amazon or iTunes. The money we have in our account right now is just from direct sales through our own website. And that’s probably just peanuts compared to all the rest.”
I needed a moment to let it all sink in. “How did we get here, Michael?” I finally asked. “How did it come to this?”
“Hey, don’t blame me. I didn’t do anything, I’m just the bloody accountant. Ask Julian.”
“Speaking of Julian,” I said, “have you heard from him recently?”
Michael snorted. “Who hasn’t? It’s almost impossible not to hear from Julian Monk these days, isn’t it?”
“No, I mean, has he called you? Or sent an email or anything?”
“No.” There was hurt in his voice. “You?”
“We talked on Twitter once or twice,” I said, “but that was almost two weeks ago.”
“I guess he’s being busy getting us all through uni without having to take out a student loan.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I said, and when Michael didn’t reply I added, “I miss him.”
Long pause. “Yeah well, I miss him too, but ...”
“But?”
“I don’t know. I miss Julian, but I’ve come to the point where I think that he made the right decision to stay in America, just like we made the right decision to go back home.”
“Do you really?” I asked.
“Yeah. I mean, look. In the last two weeks I was able to step back and watch the whole Julian Monk phenomenon as an outsider, and I can’t deny that it’s bloody intriguing. He’s doing what he thinks he has to do, and he’s bloody good at it. I feel happy for him, but I certainly don’t miss all the media frenzy he’s going through, and as much as I enjoy watching it, I’m glad I don’t have to deal with any of that.”
“You don’t? I mean, aren’t they harassing you on the phone ten times a day begging you for interviews?”
“No,” Michael said. “Dad and I are big on privacy, remember? Our phone number isn’t listed.”
“Lucky you. You have no idea what you’re not missing. I swear to you, it’s crazy. Our phone never stops ringing. It’s driving my parents insane. Me too, actually.”
“Yeah, I can imagine.”
“What about Tummy?” I asked.
“What about him?”
“I mean, is he getting stalked by fans and the press as well?”
“I don’t know,” Michael said. “Probably not quite as much, now that he moved out.”
“He what?”
“Didn’t you know? He moved out. Apparently his mum went into complete mental meltdown the other day, so Tummy packed his things and left.”
“Wow, good for him.”
“Yeah. He didn’t tell me where he went, but whenever I triangulate the position of his phone signal, he seems to be at Momoko’s place.”
I laughed. “Those two really hit it off together, didn’t they?”
“Yeah. I used to think that Tummy gained his new self-confidence because he was being a rock star, but I guess the real reason is that he’s banging a real hot chick.”
“So you think Momoko’s hot, huh?”
“No!” Michael shot back. “That’s not what I meant. I meant that Tummy obviously thinks she’s hot. I mean, I’m not saying that she isn’t. She’s very attractive and all, she’s just not my type.”
I was tempted to ask Michael what his type was, or if he had a type to begin with other than MINDY. But that was a can of worms I wasn’t ready to open, because I had a feeling that Michael wasn’t ready for it yet, and even if he was, it would have been too awkward a thing to discuss on the phone.
“I still think it’s funny how Tummy keeps pretending there’s nothing going on between him and Momoko,” I said.
“Yeah well, it’s probably the best thing he could do, though.”
“How so? If you had a really hot girlfriend, wouldn’t you want to let the whole world know?”