Pop Tarts: Omnibus Edition Read online

  Supermarket Checkout Operator…

  A big censored sign suddenly appears on the screen, the record scratches and Felix’s fantasy is cut short when Holly speaks:

  “OH. MY. GOD.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Felix replies, coming back down to earth with a thud. “Holly is that really you? How long has it been? 24 years and you haven’t aged a single day!”

  Holly can’t help but smile. “Still the same old charming, lying Felix. I must look like my own mother.”

  “What are you doing here?” Felix asks, unable to stop the words from coming out of his mouth.

  “Uhm, what does it look like?” Holly replies solemnly and changes the subject. “I saw you on TV.”

  Felix is embarrassed but just a little bit ego-inflated and tries to act cool.

  “You saw that shit?” he says, failing miserably.

  “I was pleased you didn’t get decapitated by the Zulu warrior in episode 3,” Holly says.

  “Owen Paul was unlucky,” Felix replies. “It was pretty close.”

  “Felix, I can’t believe it’s really you,” Holly says wistfully, a glint in her eye.

  There is a glint in Felix’s eye as well, as Cupid appears and aims his arrow at both supermarket occupants.

  “I have a proposition for you actually,” Felix states.

  Cupid hits him, but Holly flashes a modest diamond ring from Argos, indicating she is already taken, and Cupid misses her by a mile.

  Felix is secretly gutted but picks up his resolve.

  “No, I mean I’d like to take you away from here.”

  He realises he has taken his left foot out of his mouth, only to replace it with his right. He tries again.

  “We could reform the band. Apparently it’s all the rage…

  You. (She smiles.)

  Me. (She smiles.)

  Oh and Cherry of course.”

  Holly’s romanticised memories of the past come crashing down around her with the mere mention of that… creature!

  “I don’t think so, Felix,” she spits with venom.

  “Can’t we just let old demons die?” Felix pleads as he finishes packing his shopping.

  “That’ll be £17.53,” she says, taking payment and starting to serve the next customer.

  Felix leaves dejected, with his tail between his legs - all seven inches - and his shredded wheat, which he still keeps on dropping. His mobile phone rings again and this time it’s the private detective he hired, who funnily enough just happens to be appropriately named.

  “Felix this is Dick. I think I have a lead on Cherry Fontaine.”

  Chapter 4. (Cherry Bomb)

  Felix is sitting alone at a table in a cosy French café called Je T’aime. It’s Thursday afternoon and fairly quiet.

  He’s sat at a table in the far corner where people normally go to gaze at their lovers. Luckily there’s a small heart shaped mirror there so Felix can see his. Oh and he’s on his phone.

  “So she eats here every day around this time?” Felix asks.

  “Yeah,” Dick replies. The private one. Remember?

  Felix looks around but doesn’t see anyone of any particular importance or relevance.

  “Cherry sold her soul to a contact centre,” Dick reveals. “And now the devil wants it back. She works 5 minutes away and goes there for lunch every day without fail. Sits at the same table. Orders the same sandwich and cappuccino. I figure she likes routine.”

  “I have a lot riding on this, Dick,” Felix states, pleased he got his comma in the correct place.

  “Yeah, well be prepared for a little bit of a surprise,” Dick adds. “I don’t think she will be quite what you are expecting.”

  Twenty or thirty minutes pass and Felix is getting bored, passing the time refreshing his Facebook live feed and seeing what everyone had for dinner / what their child / cat looks like today (same as yesterday) and Brian Lovestar trolling his latest book.

  But still no sign of Cherry.

  He looks at his watch, finishes his third cup of tea and gets up to leave, but as he is making his exit, he bumps into a strange looking man on his way in and gets quite the surprise indeed.

  “Cherry?” he says, somewhat flabbergasted.

  Cherry is pushing fifty, dressed as a bloke and now going by the name of Chesney Foster, her original name and her original persona. She pretends not to hear, nor recognise him:

  “I’m sorry. Can I help you?”

  Felix is unable to contain his amazement:

  “Oh my fucking God. Cherry, is that you? Cherry, it’s Felix.”

  Cherry/Chesney is shitting horizontal bricks sideways.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know anyone by that name,” he/she lies before making a swift exit of his/her own.

  Felix follows and chases him/her down the street.

  “We were in a band together in the 80s. Tequila Sun. Remember?”

  Cherry/Chesney returns Felix another faked blank look and continues walking.

  Felix starts singing a couple of lines from one of Tequila Sun’s biggest hits but Cherry/Chesney is unimpressed and tries to pick up pace.

  Felix’s feet in mouth switching genius comes back into play and this time he seems to manage both at the same time:

  “I knew you when you were a woman. I mean, I knew you when you were a man who thought he was a woman…”

  His voice trails off mid-sentence as he realises he’s only making matters worse.

  Tequila Sun were one of the biggest pop bands of the 80s. They had amassed an abundance of top 10 pop hits over a four year period, before a major scandal tore the band apart.

  Felix was romantically involved with Holly. They had just gotten engaged, when he had a drunken one night stand with Cherry.

  To make matters worse, Holly caught Cherry fucking Felix with a strap on microphone, dumped him and sold the story to the News of the World.

  This resulted in Cherry trying to strangle Holly and facing an attempted murder charge, that was later dropped due to lack of evidence.

  Felix hit rock bottom – as well as the bottle - and was later caught having a sordid threesome with a Snow White pantomime extra and a blow up farm yard animal, need I remind you?

  Needless to say the band were never quite the same again after that.

  And it clearly fraught Cherry/Chesney enough to revert back to her former self and go into hiding for the last 20+ years.

  Cherry/Chesney reaches his/her car and gets into the front seat.

  “We have a chance to reform the band, “Felix says, producing a flyer for the gig on Saturday and holding it up for her to see.

  Cherry/Chesney refuses to wind the window down, so he places it behind her windscreen wiper, facing inwards.

  “I have nothing to say to you,” Cherry/Chesney says as he/she puts the key into the ignition.

  “I’ve moved on Felix. You should too,” he/she adds as he/she drives off into the distance.

  Felix stands dejected by the roadside. Some of the GBP pass and don’t even stop to ask for his autograph, which only makes matters worse.

  He starts to accept that his re-found fifteen minutes of fame just may well be over. The clock is ticking down and his only hope now is the illusive Rhino Zagreb, not only someone he hasn’t spoken to in over 20 years, but someone he never spoke to or got on with even when he was in the band. He might as well just give up now.

  Felix wonders whether he’ll need much plastic surgery done to play himself in his own 80s pop tribute act.

  Chapter 5. (Rhino Za Who?)

  Strangely enough it didn’t take much effort on Felix’s part to track down the supposedly illusive Rhino Zagreb. Just a simple keyword search in Google. It’s the name right? I mean, where did he get it? I’m guessing his mother liked going to a zoo in Croatia to see her favourite animal? Maybe she went into labour during a visit and gave birth there, right in the Rhinoceros enclosure?

  Felix didn’t know because he never really knew the man, he just s
tood miming next to him for four years, twenty odd years ago. As you do.

  He was born Felix Smith and being a mid-80s prima Madonna, quickly discarded his frightfully common second name. And never the twain again shall meet. When he had it changed by deed poll he was required by law to put two names down so he’s ‘Just Felix’ now for arguments sake. Well, he thought it was ingenious.

  Holly was always destined to be a star whether she liked it or not. Her mother Cecelia Wood named her quite aptly and had her booked into stage school while she was still a sperm in her Daddy’s dingaling. She has two sisters and they all share the same Christian name. Have you ever heard anything like it? Mrs Wood was clearly trebling her chances of a starlet offspring.

  Cherry is of course Cherry, when she’s not Chesney, of course.

  But Rhino was an enigma. Felix never knew him. Holly never knew him. And Cherry never knew him either. They were put together as a foursome by a music producer out to make a quick buck. And Rhino just went along for the ride.

  So it seemed somewhat peculiar that he was the easiest of them all to locate. Felix had expected him to be living as a hermit in an old farmhouse, somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the south of France.

  He surmised he might even be forced to use a cardboard cut-out on stage as a replacement for Rhino, and doubted anyone would even notice the difference.

  But Google listed his address as 110 Teacup Lane in London and Felix thought he may as well give it a shot. What did he have to lose?

  As the taxi dropped him off outside, Felix was a little apprehensive as to what kind of welcome to expect. It was an old terraced house, built in about 1920 on a quiet street in the middle of suburbia, not at all what Felix was expecting.

  It looked like a massive townhouse, at least 3 floors high and probably had a basement too. Felix wondered what Rhino had been up to the last 20+ years following the bands demise. Probably an accountant, he thought, when in reality he had absolutely no clue.

  He knocked on the door and waited for an answer. And waited. And waited. He knocked again. Still no answer. Just as he was about to give up, he heard footsteps from inside and suddenly had the eerie feeling he was being watched through the peep hole. He grinned nervously.

  “Rhino, is that you?” he asked. “Rhino, it’s me Felix. Just Felix. Your old band mate from Tequila Sun.”

  There was a certified silence for about thirty seconds and then the door swung open.

  “Felix, do come on in!” Rhino gestured, smiling.

  It was not at all what Felix was expecting.

  Rhino showed Felix to his study. A large office-like room, with a desk, high ceilings, Parisian art and wall to wall shelves crammed with what looked like antique first edition books.

  “It’s so good to see you, Felix” said Rhino as he sat down at his desk in a comfy looking brown leather swivel chair.

  Felix joined him on the opposite side and felt like he was at a job interview. Only the reception he was receiving suggested he had already been hired. When in fact it was Felix that had the job offer.

  “Nice place you’ve got here,” Felix said. He could see that Rhino had obviously done well for himself, which only made his own task seemingly more insurmountable.

  “Thank you,” Rhino said. “You’re looking well.”

  Felix wanted to say the same back, but he couldn’t remember what Rhino looked like before. He’d dug out an old copy of Look-In magazine from his attic just before he left, to check out Rhino’s back page fact file, but had forgotten his face already.

  “You too,” he said anyway.

  He remembered his favourite colour was green and his favourite TV show was The Professionals, for all the good that was. But beyond that his small talk would be practically slim to none.

  As it was, they had tea and reminisced about old times. Appearing on the Razzmatazz TV show and knocking Duran Duran off the no.1 spot in 1986. And it all seemed altogether unnaturally pleasant.

  “So to what do I owe the pleasure?” Rhino finally asked.

  Felix hadn’t wanted to appear too forward or desperate, even though he was.

  “I don’t suppose you would be interested in reforming the band for a gig or two?” he asked sheepishly.

  “Oh absolutely!” was Rhino’s most unexpected response.

  Felix was a little gobsmacked.

  The one person he thought he would struggle to get back in the band, the one person he thought was an unknown commodity was turning out to be the one person who was full of surprises.

  “That’s fantastic,” said Felix, getting up to leave and shaking his newfound pal’s hand. “I’ll be in touch with the details.”

  Felix figured even if the girls didn’t come round, he and Rhino could always put shuttlecocks down their tennis shorts and pretend they were Wham!

  Chapter 6. (Master Tussauds)

  Despite his elated if somewhat stupefying joy at having managed to reform at least 50% of the band, it was little more than 24 hours before the big comeback gig. All further calls to Holly were still going unanswered, while Cherry/Chesney had quit his/her job at the contact centre and gone into hiding.

  Felix resigns himself to abject failure and is drowning his sorrows in the middle of the afternoon in a quiet, traditional pub.

  The only other clientele is an elderly woman practically in a trance, sat knitting cardigans for Kosovan orphans; and an old man who looks like he died several years ago, rigor mortis setting in; covered in dust and cobwebs.

  Felix finishes his pint and goes to the bar, beckoning the half asleep barmaid over so he can order another. Whilst she is coming to give him a good creamy head, if not the kind he was accustomed to in his heyday, he starts to daydream…

  Suddenly he is on stage - dressed like a complete megastar - right there in the very pub. His hair is big and wild, spiked inches on end and dyed firecracker red.

  He has silver and black lightning strikes painted on either side of his eyes and the rest of his outfit completes the look of a true style god: he’s wearing nipple tassels, his bare chest covered in glitter, and with denim jeans so tight they look like they were painted on, then slashed to ribbons by a werewolf.

  He is singing his greatest hit like he has never sung it before – as they would say on X Factor, he totally nails it - but no-one even takes an iota of notice.

  The elderly woman is still zombified, in a world of her own and the barmaid is still giving good head, this time quite literally to the dead man.

  Felix simply cannot take anymore and storms or rather stumbles out of the pub in a raged drunken stupor.

  He wanders down the street in a desperate state and passes several strangers, none of whom recognise him or ask for his autograph, mores the pity.

  Then he comes to what looks like an old waxwork museum - a bit like a poor man’s Master Tussauds – he assumes where unwanted former celebrity dummies go to die, other than on reality TV.

  Paying the £5 entry fee he goes in and encounters the likes of Shakin’ Stevens, Arnold from Diff’rent Strokes and Roland Rat… then he nearly does a double take when he sees our very own sex pot Ms Holly Wood from Tequila Sun!

  He drunkenly mumbles, thinking it’s to himself but blurting out loud: “Well that’s just shocking. Where am I?”

  He simply can’t take the rejection.

  “They’ve probably melted me down into pillar candles. I’m a has been and they probably should have fed me to the lions,” he says feeling sorry for himself.

  Has his life really come to this?

  He gazes at the Holly waxwork dummy. The resemblance is simply astonishing.

  And he rambles on: “Oh but my dear, lovely Holly. The one girl who gets more beautiful with every breath she takes...”

  Felix is now on the ground seemingly worshipping at her very feet.

  An unimpressed couple bypass him in his drunken stupor and head straight to Des and Daphne from Neighbours.

  “The one girl I never truly got over,
” Felix continues, fawning all over her. “The only one I ever really loved.”

  He stands up again and makes a special announcement.

  “I wrote a song about you,” he says and then starts to serenade Holly’s waxwork with the new song he has just written about her:

  “When I first saw you, my heart skipped a beat,

  I grew seven inches…”

  He stops, pauses for thought, looks down and changes the lyric to five and a half.

  “…I dropped my shredded wheat.

  Her hair was golden (it is, dyed.)

  Her eyes emerald green (they are, probably contact lens.)

  To avoid her beauty you would need a vaccine…”

  His voice trails off as he exits the museum in a bitter fashion, pushing over a waxwork dummy that vaguely resembles Margaret Thatcher in the process.

  At that very moment a man in an old fashioned suit enters from the rear, of the building that is. He passes Felix and walks through the waxwork museum backwards, well not quite literally.

  It is of course the owner Wesley Tussauds. His real name was Wesley Bates but when he set the business up, it didn’t have quite the same ring.

  He shakes his head when he finds Maggie on the floor, picks her up and unintentionally positions her in a somewhat heated embrace with Leroy from the Kids from Fame.

  Then he passes a few other legends in the 80s section, until he comes across Holly Wood, who looks like she actually has a tear in her eye.

  And then she blinks.

  “Holly it’s time for your break,” says Wesley, tapping her on the shoulder.

  It seems being a supermarket checkout operator isn’t Holly’s only talent these days. She’s also working part time as her very own museum waxwork dummy!

  Oh and she just heard everything a drunken, emotional Felix had to say!

  Chapter 7. (Flashback)

  Ouch!

  Felix wakes up, his head pounding, and with no recollection of the night before. He’s naked in a bed, but has no idea whose, nor does he recognise the brazen trollop lying next time to him.