Abbey Clancy - Remember My Name - A glamorous story about chasing your dreams

The grown-ups were all sitting around at white-clothed tables, sipping expensive-looking wine, and wrapped up in Barbour jackets and posh pashminas. The women were perfectly made up and a bit Botox-y, and the men were tanned and fit and looked like they went skiing every winter.

It was very different from the world I usually lived in—a tiny two-bedroomed flat ‘near the city centre’ (that was what the letting agent said—in reality it was Dingle) that I shared with Ruby. Ruby and, more and more often, her boyfriend Keith. Keith was fifteen years older than Ruby, carried a selfie stick around wherever he went, and, in my opinion, was a huge sleazebag—but that was one of those opinions you have to keep to yourself. Until she dumped him, and then I could really let rip.

Still, at least our flat wasn’t inhabited by Jocelyn, who was staring at me with really evil eyes as I made my way—heels sinking into the mud—towards the central area we’d designated as our performance spot.

I tried to ignore her as I smiled and took my position, feeling the first drops of rain land on my face as I did. She made it pretty hard, though, by pointing at me and yelling: ‘That’s not the real Elsa! That’s just the silly woman who gave out the jelly!’

Big laughs from the mums and dads at that one. Screeches from the other kids. And torrential rain now pouring down on my head as if God was emptying a bucket all over me.

It was all right for them. They were all sheltered beneath a huge gazebo, and even though it was billowing in the wind, it was keeping them dry, the rain draining off in rivulets down the side and onto the soggy grass.

Ruby was under there as well, and I felt a moment of pure hatred for her as she gave me a thumbs up, and a huge fake grin. At least I thought it was fake—maybe she was just really happy to see me out there on my own, soaking wet, blue polyester frock clinging to my skin, being heckled by a group of five-year-old sadists as my Elsa braid repeatedly thumped me across the forehead.

I switched on the handheld microphone and waited until Ruby flicked on the backing track. She’d pulled the equipment under the gazebo with her as well, which was a pretty sensible idea. Otherwise she might get electrocuted. This way, I thought, looking at the snow machine and the wires stretching out to an extension plug, at least only one of us would get electrocuted. Me.

I glanced up at the heavens as the now intensely familiar opening chords of ‘Let It Go’ kicked in. The sky was completely black now, almost as though there’d been a total eclipse of the sun. I said a quick prayer to the Patron Saint of Children’s Party Entertainers—and if there isn’t one, there really should be—and asked very nicely if any lightning that was planned could hold off for the next ten minutes at least. I wasn’t at all keen on that electrocution thing.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and … let it go. However wet I was, however tired I was, however itchy that dress was, I loved to sing. Even this, which I’d done over and over and over again for so long, still had the power to lift my spirits.

It was a beautiful song, and an absolute dream to perform. I tried to avoid Jocelyn’s gaze—I suspected her eyes were glowing red like an evil child from a horror film by now—and threw myself into it heart and soul. That’s what I was paid to do, and, more importantly, that’s what I loved doing.

Things might not have worked out quite the way I’d hoped when I was eighteen, but at least I had managed to make a living from singing—assuming by ‘living’, you meant a steady diet of Ramen noodles, no landline, and sneaking vodka into pubs in my handbag to add to my coke on nights out.

Still, I was doing what I loved. What I still thought I was born to do—and at the ripe old age of twenty-two, I wasn’t quite ready to give up on my dreams just yet.

Plus, if I kept my eyes screwed closed, and ignored the rain, and blocked out the sounds of the kids screaming at each other, I could still lose myself in the music; lose myself in the joy of the song … and imagine everything was very different. That I wasn’t standing here being mocked by a group of minipsychos and their boozed-up parents. That I was on my own stage, doing my own concert, for my own adoring audience …

As I sang out the last few lines, my fantasy was rudely interrupted by what felt like a giant blast of washing-up liquid to the face. It sloshed up my nose, choked my mouth, and stung my eyeballs. I yelled and tried to back away from the liquid punch in the gob; sadly, my heels were still firmly embedded in the muddy ground and, although the rest of me backed away, my feet didn’t.

As a result, I landed on my blue-polyester-clad backside, squelching around in an ever-expanding puddle of dirt, grass, and rainwater. I’d dropped the mike, and was now screaming as the snow machine continued to spew at me.

It was supposed to create a beautiful fairy-tale effect as I finished the song—one that the children usually loved. We filled the special tank with what was mysteriously called Snow Fluid, and when Ruby pressed the button, it gently showered me with foamy snowflakes. It got oohs and aahs every time we used it.

This time, though, something had gone badly wrong. I don’t know whether it had malfunctioned, or Ruby had pressed some magical and previously unused setting, but the stuff had blasted me full in the face like one of those water cannons police use in riots.

As I lay there, drenched to the skin, unable to get up again because the mud was now of a level that hippos would enjoy wallowing in, I finally heard it. The sound that usually made me happy.

Bloody applause.

I craned my neck up at such a weird angle I knew I’d have a crick in it later. Yep, I was getting a standing ovation—not for my majestic performance of ‘Let It Go’, but for falling on my arse in a load of mud. What a knob!

I could hear the kids screeching and cackling and whooping, and the deeper tones of the parents joining in. So much for being the grown-ups. I peeked up again, and saw that even Ruby had tears of laughter rolling down her cheeks. Her slightly too chubby cheeks, I thought, with a spike in my usually low bitchiness levels. Being stuck in a trough of dirt in a fake Disney Princess costume will do that to a girl.

Everyone was so busy laughing it up at my expense that nobody bothered to come and help me. Ruby hadn’t even turned the snow machine off, so the foamy water was still shooting out of it, making my predicament even harder to escape from.

I was pondering whether to just give up—maybe turn face down in the mud and drown myself—when someone reached down and grabbed hold of my flailing hands. I gripped on, not caring who it was, and I was pulled up so hard I slammed right into the body of my rescuer.

A body that was tall and strong and very, very male. I gazed up, and looked into a pair of deep, dark, chocolate-drop eyes. Okay, they were a bit crinkled up from laughing, but at least he’d bothered to help.

The eyes were gorgeous—and the rest of the package wasn’t to be sniffed at either. Even if he did smell so nice I was quite tempted. He was about six foot, broad-shouldered but lean, and had dark hair that was done in one of those really super-expensive cuts that looks super-casual, a bit of fringe flopping over his forehead in the wind and the rain.

He was getting drenched by the snow machine and, I realised, covered in mud from me—the Disney Princess who’d spent the last thirty seconds resting in his arms and looking at him like he was a hot chocolate fudge cake. With squirty cream.

‘Oh God!’ I said, jumping away from him and almost falling over again. ‘I’ve got you all dirty!’