Read an Excerpt
Shout at the Moon
By Russ Kane, Sally Kane John Blake Publishing Ltd
Copyright © 2002 Russ and Sally Kane
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-904034-16-2
CHAPTER 1
A DATE WITH DESTINY
October 1994
Sally writes:
One cold October dawn, I found myself driving across London and heading north towards Elstree Aerodrome in Hertfordshire. On the passenger seat were the directions that had been provided by Capital Radio, who had arranged my visit. This location hangared the famous 'little blue plane' that was used in their 'Flying Eye' traffic reports on The Breakfast Show. I wasn't a Capital listener, but I was vaguely aware that Chris Tarrant fronted the show and exchanged amusing daily banter with Russ Kane, who provided the reports from the skies over London and south-east England. The show was apparently a bit of an institution throughout south-east England. My car radio stayed firmly tuned to LBC, not only because I had become loyal to that particular station, but also because I wanted a familiar accompaniment as I drove towards this unknown neck of the woods.
The air was chilly and I found the aerodrome immersed in an early morning mist. I entered a group of single-storey buildings and found the Cabair desk where I announced myself. After answering a safety questionnaire, I was asked to wait on some cubed seating, arranged in an L shape to look out of an opposing wall of windows. This would have afforded a clear view of the runway had the weather not been so gloomy. As I spent most of my working life passing through airports and waiting in departure lounges, I found the scenery pretty uninspiring. I was also no stranger to early starts, being a regular commuter on the first Edinburgh shuttle of the day. I stifled a yawn and checked the wall clock. Not yet 7.00am. I was, as usual, punctual. This had all the makings of a busman's holiday, and I started to wonder what the hell I was doing here on my day off.
The answer was not that simple. I still couldn't fathom why I had raised my hand at a charity auction 18 months earlier, and made the winning bid for this morning's trip in 'The Flying Eye'. My bank manager would probably also like to know why I donated the princely sum of £900 to the National Playing Fields Association.
I had worked in the fashion industry for many years, designing product ranges for different brands and helping to co-ordinate their marketing and advertising. My design background was fast giving way to a more managerial role, aided by the completion of an MBA course. A girlfriend of mine who worked in public relations was involved with the organising committee behind the fund-raising event and asked me to join her. Much as I would have liked to help, I had to decline her offer because of a work schedule that involved extensive travel. Instead I lent my support by purchasing a ticket and attending the function. It was never my intention to buy one of the auction lots.
The National Playing Fields Association is a worthy cause that exists to provide places for inner-city children to play. They had decided to go for something a bit different for this latest fund-raiser, and had opted for an American style 'Bid For A Bachelor' auction. They managed to persuade a dozen eligible celebrity bachelors to offer themselves for sale, in return for an innocent, but nonetheless interesting, date.
One hot and sticky June evening, I made my way to the Kensington Roof Gardens. There was a lavish barbecue under way outside in the actual rooftop gardens rather than the indoor nightclub. I found my friend, Jenny, eating a hamburger beneath an arch of fragrant roses. I nodded in greeting to the designer David Emanuel whom I had spotted over her shoulder. Jenny whispered to me that David was one of the 'Bachelors'.
Dinner over, we moved indoors to watch the highlight of the evening. I sat next to Jenny, and opposite the actress Fiona Fullerton, as I perused the auction catalogue. Ken Livingstone looked interesting, with his guided tour of the House of Commons. I also noticed Russ Kane, who was offering a trip in 'The Flying Eye' followed by lunch. I thought to myself that if I could afford to bid, then these two dates were the most interesting. As I suspected, the bidding soon spiralled way out of my league, and I watched the date with 'Red Ken' go for a four-figure sum.
Nick Bonham from Sotheby's had been conducting the auction up until this point and I was suddenly aware of a different voice that caught my interest. It appeared that Russ Kane was auctioning himself. I was positioned behind a pillar, and couldn't see the owner of the voice. Jenny hissed at me, 'What are you doing?' My right arm had involuntarily risen into the air and I had just made a competing bid. I had heard of people scratching their noses and suddenly finding that they had accidentally bought a masterpiece. This was completely different. To this day I honestly don't know what came over me. Perhaps it was a touch of midsummer madness. To my right, Hazel Collins, whom I remembered from when she modelled in my final-year degree show at St Martin's School of Art, was heckling Russ and jokily joining in the bidding. She was obviously a friend of his. I became seized with a surprising determination, and put my hand up again. I had absolutely no idea what figures were involved, but I remember that I had to bid twice to shake off Hazel. Jenny had given up trying to restrain me and save me from myself.
I heard the interesting voice announce that the date had gone to a woman in a red jacket at the back of the room. The rest of the evening was a bit of a blur as I tried to smile off the fact that I had just pledged £900 that I couldn't afford. Elsa Davies, director of the charity and the chief organiser of the evening's events, rushed to thank me for my outstanding generosity, whilst I cringed inwardly.
It was time to leave and as I was saying my goodbyes, Elsa took me across to meet Russ Kane. He was a charming, darkly handsome man, whose looks matched his previously disembodied voice. As he shook my hand, I sensed that incredible confidence that emanates from people who perform for a living. I still wondered what the hell I'd done, a thought that kept me awake for a couple of nights.
The next morning, I tuned in to Capital to see what the fuss was all about, and to see if Russ would mention that some lunatic female had just bid £900 to go on a date with him. I heard the now familiar voice, and he gave the National Playing Fields Association a mention in passing, but no reference to the incident. I went back to LBC.
I had long since stopped fretting about the £900 and thinking what else I could have done with the money. There was, however, an ongoing issue about taking up the trip in the plane. Constant alterations in my busy schedule meant that I had to keep calling the charity and Capital Radio to change the date. I seriously considered forgetting the whole thing. It seemed too much hassle for an arrangement in which I was no longer particularly interested. Several friends did their best to persuade me to go along for the experience, and one tried to put me off by recounting that a contact of hers had been really travel sick in 'The Flying Eye'.
My complete indifference started to fade when Russ Kane walked through the entrance into the lounge. I looked up from my magazine and thought, Wow' I hadn't realised that he was quite so tall. He was wearing some kind of beaten-up leather jacket and jeans, and looked much more attractive than my distant memory of the man in a formal dinner suit. I noticed how his dark wavy hair curled over his collar. Russ extended his hand to shake mine, and again I noted the charismatic confidence.
'The Flying Eye' couldn't take off due to fog, so we had to wait out an unknown delay in the lounge. As I took my seat back on the L-shaped unit, Russ procured us both a coffee and sat opposite me reading a car magazine. Two thoughts were starting to develop in my head and I tried my best to squash them. The first was a nagging conviction that I would be feeling more comfortable had I bothered to apply some make-up at the ungodly hour that I had dressed that morning, and the second was even more alarming. The following words crept into my consciousness, 'I wonder what life would be like with a man like you.'
As I was a seriously married woman, I was hardly ever likely to discover the answer to that question.
We chatted effortlessly about life and trivia and the embarrassing thoughts disappeared, to be replaced by a comfortable liking of the other person. I forgot to keep an eye on the clock, until our pilot announced that we had missed the last take-off slot that could coincide with a live broadcast. The weather had totally scuppered the morning's plans. We had spent the best part of two hours killing time, and yet it had passed by in a flash.
Russ and I fixed our arrangements for meeting for the lunch date, and went our separate ways. I had planned a busy morning doing domestic stuff that included taking my nine-month-old daughter, Pandora, for a swim in the local pool. It was so rare for me to have a day off that I felt obliged to make the most of it.
As I got myself ready for lunch, I found myself taking particular care over my appearance.
'Nonsense,' contradicted a little voice in my head.' 'You wore this outfit to the sales conference in Milan last week. It's just another business meeting.'
I tried to ignore the inescapable frisson of excitement as I climbed out of my cab at the Royal Lancaster Hotel and headed to our rendezvous outside the restaurant on the top floor. It was a bit of a coup having lunch with such an interesting man, and then the ghastly truth hit home. Who was I kidding? Russ Kane was only having lunch with me out of polite duty to the charity. It was not a personal invitation. Memories of the bizarre evening at the Roof Gardens came flooding back. What was going on here? I had made a ridiculous gesture by bidding in the first place, and now I was deluding myself about this completely artificial situation. Somewhere along the line I seemed to have lost my previous total disinterest in claiming my prize.
The fact that he was so nice made it a million times worse. I wanted to run to the loo and hide.
Too late, he was walking towards me, smiling and apologising for being a few minutes late. Actually, I was a bit too early, but I didn't want to contradict him and draw attention to the fact. It might make me seem a little too keen. Heads turned as we entered the restaurant. God, this was embarrassing – I felt a complete fraud.
Somewhere during the hors d'oeuvres, I began to notice that Russ was not acting like a hostage. He actually looked as if he was enjoying himself. I began to relax. It felt the most natural thing in the world to be sitting at the table with him. There were none of the awkward silences that sometimes accompany much more conventional arrangements.
In the end I forgot that I was there under false pretences.
CHAPTER 2
CAPTIVATING CARPACCIO
October 1994
Russ writes:
'Charity, dear Miss Prism, charity. None of us are perfect. I myself am particularly susceptible to draughts.'
Oscar Wilde
Like Oscar Wilde, charity was much on my mind that foggy day in October 1994. Except it wasn't a case of The Importance of Being Ernest, but rather The Importance of Being Polite.
I have nothing but total and unreserved admiration for anyone involved in charity. Unless you have actually been hands-on in the organisation and running of a charity event, it's impossible to overestimate the sheer gargantuan amount of time and effort it takes to put such an event together ... wheedle, beg and cajole the auction prizes out of anyone you've ever stood next to in a bus queue ... and then ensure that the evening not so much 'goes with a swing' as, frankly, just goes.
It's easy to spot the organisers of a charity event when the evening finally comes around. They're the ones who don't eat a single morsel of the food that has taken months to agree upon, who don't touch a drop of the wine for which every favour in the world has been traded in order to purchase at a discount, and who manage to turn elegant ballgowns into animated tents of pure fluster.
Bless 'em.
It's a horrendous job and anyone who takes it on should try something simpler first by way of getting into training – going up the North Face of the Eiger on a pogo stick while juggling live hand grenades would be a good warm-up exercise.
So, I had enormous sympathy for Elsa Davies of the National Playing Fields Association not only on the fateful night of the 'Bid For A Bachelor' auction at the Kensington Roof Gardens, but also over the intervening 18 months until the trip in Capital Radio's 'Flying Eye' was finally taken up.
Every few weeks, poor Elsa would phone me with yet another explanation as to why the auction winner had not yet taken up her prize. Eventually, I reached the stage when I thought that I'd best put Elsa out of her misery.
'Elsa, please don't misinterpret this, but I really don't care. The important thing is that the charity raised an extra £900. I had a wonderful evening. Everyone had fun. That's good enough for me. If this woman turns up one day, fine. If not, well, the charity still keeps her donation so, frankly, it's her loss. There's really no need to keep phoning me with her latest reason for not taking up her prize. Please don't worry another moment about it.'
Elsa seemed relieved by my remarks and for a while all was quiet on the charity front.
To be quite candid, I really couldn't remember much about this reluctant, yet bizarrely generous, auction winner. The evening itself, however, was branded on my mind like cattle on Southfork Ranch.
For whatever reason, I seem to be invited to a myriad of events, some charitable, some plain commercial. At first, it's all very exciting and in your naïveté you accept everything that plops on to your doormat. Soon, reality kicks in and you realise that you are becoming one of those sad people who would turn up for the opening of an envelope. So you learn to be rather more selective in your acceptances.
The National Playing Fields Association seemed like a truly good cause. The notion behind it was simple enough – to provide play areas for inner-city children who would otherwise only ever see concrete. In my view, you can never do enough for children, so the provision of playing fields in bleak concrete jungles seemed a noble idea.
The build-up to the event was orchestrated with military precision, using not just the services of Elsa Davies, a delightful woman who seemed to have wandered off the set of How Green Was My Valley, but also Liz Brewer, a well-known PR lady. Liz walks that fascinating line that so many PR ladies tread in their Manolos – the line between you marvelling at their sheer gall and ability to get things done, and an overwhelming desire to deck them.
The night of 'Bid For A Bachelor' finally rolled around and within moments I knew what it felt like to be dinner for a pack of Great White Sharks. My fellow bachelors felt exactly the same. Gone was the macho bravura of 'This'll be a laugh, eh, guys?' to 'What the bloody hell are we doing here?'
They were a motley crew. Ken Livingstone, now the Mayor of London, David Emanuel, fashion designer (and creator of The Princess of Wales's magnificent wedding dress), a Chippendale (not the cartoon character with buck teeth but one of the blokes that hen night parties cannot survive without), members of the British Olympic Ski Team, various other luminaries and the MC for the night, 'Bungalow' Bill Wiggins, famous for having gone out with Joan Collins. Or maybe famous for having survived going out with Joan Collins. Whatever. In retrospect, had fate played out differently, Sally could now be the Mayoress of London ... or sitting at home waiting to hear how a gang of housewives from Dagenham nearly ripped the loincloth off Mandy's surprise wedding gift.
The joint was jumping, full of hundreds of 'Ladies Who Lunch'. In my experience, these ladies all had a voracious appetite, and we bachelors were clearly on the menu. The weather was warm and the atmosphere decidedly hot. The Kensington Roof Gardens, was packed and the air lay heavy as Estée Lauder, Dior, Faberge and Chloe all vied for nasal supremacy. I spotted several faces that I knew well and started to relax ... fool that I was.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Shout at the Moon by Russ Kane, Sally Kane. Copyright © 2002 Russ and Sally Kane. Excerpted by permission of John Blake Publishing Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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