Chris Evans - Memoirs of a Fruitcake

Suzi was renowned as one of the best at her job, a fact confirmed by the constant headhunting she faced to go and work on other shows. She had formed excellent social and working relationships with all the necessary music, film and PR companies and, as a result, was able to deliver A-list guests where others only failed.

When I needed a guest booker for my new show Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush I didn’t have to look very far. Suzi was top of my list and as my new production company shared an office with Planet 24, the producers of The Big Breakfast, she was also only a few desks away.

Charlie and Waheed, my former bosses, were reluctant to let her go, but as my new show’s need was greater than theirs plus they had a vested interest as they were my partners, they kindly if reluctantly allowed me to nab her.

Suzi had always been easy on the eye and had enjoyed the attentions of many a male admirer but I have to say thus far I had not included myself in that group and, although we were great mates, never in a million years did I think we would end up as an item.

Perhaps a deeper connection between us began to grow as a result of us working more closely together, and then subconsciously came to a head the night we hooked up.

‘In wine the truth’, as the saying goes, a phrase Suzi used a lot and there was certainly plenty of wine involved on that Friday night back in Greenwich. Having said that, it could easily have ended up as a quick fling until, that is, I opened the Sun newspaper a couple of days later.

Suzi had been in a cafe, on the Sunday after our serendipitous sneaky session back at hers and had been discussing the post-mattress aftermath of what had happened between her and her boss with a close friend. I think one could refer to what was taking place as a bona fide girly chat.

This would have been all well and good had not one Piers Morgan been sitting directly behind them. Piers, another recurring name in my story, who was still working as a gossip columnist at the time, was no more than three feet away, enabling him to hear every single word they were saying. He later told me he couldn’t believe his luck.

What Piers did next is … exactly what Piers was paid to do. He printed the highlights of Suzi and her pal’s conversation almost word for word for the nation to read over their cornflakes in a two-page spread.

When I read his article I was almost speechless, not because I was angry or shocked – far from it – the press were part of my everyday existence, but because of all the lovely, complimentary things Suzi had allegedly been saying about me.

I called her straight away.

‘Oh my God, I’m s-s-s-so sorry, and I’m so embarrassed,’ she stuttered before I could squeeze in a hello.

‘Please d-d-d-don’t think I’m like that, I’m not one of those girls that does this. I don’t know where they got the story from. It’s almost as if he was there. I have to say, I did s-s-s-say those things but only to my friend. I don’t know how they found out – I know for a fact Sam wouldn’t have told them. I trust her with my life. I completely understand if you want me to leave and go and find another job somewhere else.’

She may well have talked for a full five minutes before coming up for air and letting me get a word in.

As she paused for breath I seized my moment and explained to Suzi that Piers had revealed in the piece that it was he himself who was behind her in the cafe, and that far from being annoyed or embarrassed about what he’d written, I was chuffed to bits by what she’d had to say about me.

Once Suzi had calmed down there was only one way to look at it, as far as I was concerned. Piers had done us both a huge favour as I now knew how she felt about me – along with the rest of the country for that matter – and his revealing column inches had vicariously awakened me to how I felt about her. The more I thought about her, the more I realised what a catch she was and what an amazing girlfriend she’d make. I concluded that I needed to do something about this, and fast; I would ask Suzi to move in with me.

This may seem a little drastic, but as you may have deduced by now, I’m an all-or-nothing guy. Admittedly this is not a trait that always led to the smoothest of rides, but that’s just the way I am, I can’t help it. Besides, neither Suzi nor I had time for a relaxed and measured courtship; we were both workaholics and unless we went home to the same bed every night, there was a good chance we might not see each other for weeks.

After a lot of fun and a couple of false starts in my flat in north London, my former guest booker and I made the transition to an official grown-up couple, moving into a rather grand town house in Notting Hill in the process. Suzi and I were now an item and the various boys and girls we had both been dating of late were duly told to back off for the foreseeable future.

The more I came to know my new girlfriend the more I liked her.

Suzi loved food – although you would never know from the size of her. She also loved to smoke, not prolifically but poetically, drawing the maximum available pleasure from every individual drag. Most of all, though, she loved her red wine.

Her penchant for red wine came not so much from its alcoholic content and its effect but rather from its smell, colour and – of course – its taste. She sipped wine from her glass like no one I’ve ever seen before or since, her eyes closed, waiting for what was to come, her lips curling upwards at either end almost in a wry smile at the thought of the ecstasy of a full-on sensory assault.

Her passion for wine, food and fags often took us to France, where they seem to do these three things quite a lot and without worrying about them too much.

Holidays – nice ones – and especially in France, were new to me. Up until this point holidays had been an unwelcome cross I had to bear. I did go away from time to time but I had never really enjoyed myself and I could never wait to get back. I loved working and I hated airports, plus I burn at even the slightest mention of the word ‘sun’, so what was there to like?

Suzi was clever, though. She was having none of that. If I wanted to be with her, not only was I going to have to go on holiday, I was going to have to enjoy it.

She would not be patronised by the presence of a token companion, she wanted to see and feel me having as good a time as she was or there was no deal. How she managed to successfully extract this out of me where everyone else had failed I have no idea, but extract it she did and we always ended up having a blast.

All of our vacation destinations were pretty top notch, to be honest, but it was the Côte d’Azur that we loved to go to most of all. There is no place on earth like the South of France with its picture-perfect coastline all the way from Monaco to the Cap d’Antibes; glorious mountains crashing into the blindingly beautiful Mediterranean Sea below.

Whether you are having lunch at a waterside restaurant in the pretty village of Beaulieu-sur-Mer or looking down over a thousand feet from one of the exclusive restaurants perched on the side of Eze mountain, there is nothing not to like – except perhaps the bill. As well as topping the league in the beauty stakes, the Côte d’Azur is also the most expensive place I have ever been to.

That said, budget and availability permitting, Suzi and I would always try to stay at La Voile d’Or (the Golden Sail), a small but perfectly formed bijou hotel situated right on the rocks just above the sea in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, probably my favourite place on the planet.

Like several of the hotels in the region, La Voile d’Or didn’t take credit cards until very recently. When Suzi and I were going there it was always cash only.