To the Devil - a Diva! by Paul Magrs

asking him.’
    â€˜Not even for me?’
    â€˜He hates her, Raf. Really, the way he looked this morning, when he heard the news … I reckon there’s gonna be trouble. There’s gonna be fireworks.’
    Raf was tutting and ripping the relevant pages out of the Mirror. ‘How could anyone hate Karla? She’s a wonderful, wonderful woman and human being. I just know she is.’

N INE
    Karla was used to the very best in hotels. She knew what service was. She knew what luxury was like. Proper luxury. Not just a free bathrobe and a few tatty flowers on the console table. She’d been to LA and had her eyes opened. That was back when they were grooming her for Hollywood. She’d also been to Cannes in more recent years, when the critics had decided that – twenty-five years after the event – the sleazy films she had starred in were High Art after all, and not just trashy soft porn. So the high life was what she was used to. These days she took a certain level of comfort for granted.
    Well, why shouldn’t I? she thought. I’ve paid my dues. When I was starting out I had to stay in some grotty old dives. God, back when we were actually making those films we were sleeping in campervans in north Wales. Drizzle and asthma and early morning calls to go traipsing around in slate quarries with my bosoms hanging out. That’s what’s earned me luxury today, and it’s a long time coming.
    I deserve a bit of pampering now. Today of all days. I’ve got them a shitload of publicity for their poxy show.
    She was thinking furiously, to block out the shapes and spectres of the Manchester skyline all around her and toabate her nervous fears. Part of her mind was pushing away the memories of her last time here in this city, of all her early years here. She was coming back as an utterly different person. She was protected, she told herself. She was safe because of the invincible person she’d become.
    They say Manchester’s come up. Everything’s world class. Property prices through the roof. The Commonwealth Games, all that. Maybe now it’s big enough for me.
    Karla was keen not to feel that she was slumming it. But she needn’t have worried. When she arrived at the TV station’s hotel, the Prince Albert, she found that even her extravagant expectations were met. She eased herself out of the car, let Rupert the chauffeur take her bags, and composed herself. She put on a gloss of simmering dissatisfaction. It wouldn’t do to look too keen and excited. She mustn’t seem too grateful for this second bite at the cherry. She was a mature and famous lady and, like the city itself, had been redeveloped quite a few times over. She had to be both exquisite and blasé.
    Karla shrugged on this carefully constructed mien and strode like a panther onto the veined marble flooring of the Prince Albert’s foyer. She made sure she drew glances and comments as she went.
    Fame like hers, she’d once told HIYA magazine, was like an old pair of flashy shoes. Your arches and toes could still be deformed by them, and they could make your feet really stink. But once they were broken in, you could fetch them out again and again, and walk comfy. No bother.

T EN
    The porter had seen the Daily Mirror that morning. He said so in the lift. He looked wary of her, hardly daring to breathe. He was wondering whether she’d mind if he talked to her.
    He was dressed up like a little monkey, in an old-fashioned porter’s uniform. Small hat, epaulettes, gold braid. Karla liked that. A bit of tradition. Respect. He was standing by her luggage. She’d brought a minimum of luggage. She wasn’t sure how long she’d be here and, besides, Flissy would get her a great deal. She’d buy all new. First day off, she’d be down Kendals and King Street. All the Manchester stores she could never have afforded to shop in, back in the old days.
    She realised the