Clancy - Ill Be Home For Christmas

Born in Liverpool, ABBEY CLANCY balances her home life with her career as a model and TV presenter. She is an ambassador for many of the UKs top brands and has designed her own clothing and jewellery lines as well as launching a range of baby products. Abbey is married to Premiership footballer Peter Crouch and has three small children. Ill Be Home for Christmas is her second novel.

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First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright Abbey Clancy 2018

Abbey Clancy asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Ebook Edition November 2018 ISBN: 9781474050753

Contents

For you, Mum.

Love you loads. Dont know what

I would do without you.

T here are many aspects to the world of social media that I find confusing. Embarrassing. Overwhelming, even.

Like when someone snaps a picture of me the morning after the night before, and sticks it up on Instagram without even a measly Willow filter. I mean, weve all been there, right? Your mouth feels like its been vacuum packed with a decomposing ferret, and your hair has gone full-on Walking Dead, and you know youre just going to die unless you get immediate access to a paper bag full of McDonalds hash browns?

Yeah. Well, imagine in that precise moment, someone incredibly chipper bounces over, grinning from ear to ear at the sight of you, and wants nothing more than to snap a picture of you together, no matter how grey your skin is or how far down your face your mascaras slipped. Not good.

But and I get this, I really do its all part of my job. My job isnt an ordinary job. Its being a pop star Jessika to the world at large. Not very long ago at all I was the person who would have been bouncing over and asking for the pic, so I cant complain. Not very long ago, I was scraping a living singing Disney covers at kids birthday parties, working as an intern at a record label, and filling in my lonely nights waitressing at glamorous showbiz events I wasnt good enough to actually get invited to.

So I get it. I understand that its all part of my brave, weird new world and that I have a responsibility to suck it up, smile for the camera, even if I really, really dont want to.

I also understand that people will comment about me, and to me posting everything from sweet compliments on my music through to borderline-stalker psycho abuse. I know everything I say and do will be analysed, twisted, churned up, chewed up, and spat back out by the media. I have help with that, in the form of my scary PR manager Patty, and Im sensible enough not to take the nasty stuff seriously. Ive worked hard on developing a thick skin, and coping with the demands of being famous.

One thing, though, I dont think I will ever get used to is this: my mother is currently trending on Twitter.

To put this in context, my mother is a tiny Scouse powerhouse in her fifties, with dyed black hair, strong opinions and endless energy. Id say she has zero per cent body fat, 200 per cent work ethic, and loves nothing more than her family, which includes my nan, who is officially ancient, my dad Phil, my older sister Becky, me and my little brother Luke (or The Knobhead, as hes known to everyone whos ever met him).

She is also totally in love with her first ever grandchild Beckys baby Ollie, who is now four months old and rules the world from his bouncy chair like a benign Jabba the Hutt. Hes one of those fat babies with rolls of flesh everywhere, and his eyes completely disappear every time he laughs. Which is a lot.

So, Mum is a family woman. Her life isnt glamorous, or that interesting. She spends every spare minute looking after us lot, and still works on the tills at the local Tesco, even though she doesnt really need to any more. Shes extraordinary, but ordinary, if you know what I mean one of those salt-of-the-earth-women you could build an empire on the back of.

All of which begs the question: why is she trending on Twitter? When did she even join Twitter? Why did she join Twitter?

I scroll down the pages literally endless pages and see that every pic on there has the hashtag #jessikasmum. It looks like the whole of Liverpool has popped into the supermarket to pick up a packet of crumpets, a bottle of Prosecco, and a selfie with my mother. There are hundreds of them all featuring complete strangers, gurning like idiots, and my mum, happily posing alongside them.

My mum has described herself as daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, and lover of all things Michael Bubl. I suppose I should be grateful that the great crooner himself hasnt also called in with a selfie stick in his hand.

Fab time at Tesco with mummy diva, says one tweet. Jessikas mum is awesome, says another. Forget Jessika her mum needs her own reality show! on one more. Whys she still working? asks a random girl who, according to her profile, loves knitting, cats and visiting S&M clubs. Hopefully not all at the same time.

Mums still working, of course, because she wants to. Not because shes skint, or because I havent offered to give her anything she needs but because she is who she is. Shes my mum, and shell probably be going into Tesco when shes eighty, popping her false teeth back in for photo calls.

I close down the screen, and take a breath. Tell myself theres no harm done. That it could be worse my dad could be on Twitter, and then the world as we know it would collapse in on itself.

My life is insane. Nobody warned me being a pop star would be quite this crazy.

#passmetheproseccoplease

*

I used to think my life was complicated when I was younger. I was sharing a scummy flat with my old school friend, Ruby, running our marginally successful Disney princess party business, feeding my body with a steady diet of cheap packet noodles and feeding my soul with a vision of becoming a singer.

I suppose I was a typically star-struck girl from Liverpool who was a chasing a dream a dream of becoming a pop star, of making it big, of hanging framed platinum discs on my toilet wall and playing to sell-out crowds in stadiums across the globe.

In some ways, all of that has come true. Sort of by accident, if Im honest. I was singing at a birthday party in Cheshire, soaked to the skin and Letting It Go, when I was spotted by a music mogul called Jack Duncan.

When you read that in newspapers and magazines spotted it always sounds like stardom happened magically overnight. Like the tall skinny geeky girl was shopping for a new pencil case in Paperchase one minute, and strutting her stuff on the Paris catwalks the next. And maybe, in some cases, thats what happens, I dont know.