Laid in Chelsea Read online

  Telling someone you love them can be incredibly dangerous and potentially hurtful, simply because you don’t know if they’re going to say it back and you might end up looking like a knob. If they do, that’s wonderful. If they don’t, they are clearly very far away from being ready to say those three all-important words, but you can’t see it. You have to be pretty certain someone is going to say it back before you dive in head first.

  No matter how smitten you are, never say the ‘L’ word before you’ve been going out for at least three months. You’re in a delusional honeymoon period and you’re not thinking straight. I was once so in love with London Girl that I wrote her the craziest email, of which I still have a copy today. It read: ‘This feeling of positioned dedication and understanding … How can any feeling relate to a certain grasp of emotion. Love is a power. Love is a grasp. A fist clenched tight to ensure nothing comes loose. Not only in the heart, but in every vein and every bone and every sense of the body. Until broken the heart only acts as a mechanism, pushing it harder, deeper, into undiscovered places. Although uncertain of the future, it only matters what happens in the present. Taking every day as its last, as if every kiss was a silent theme tune, every close moment is followed by a sepia video, and every word is recorded and kept in a montage of distant memories, only remembered by a song, a ballet, a street artist, or that unsure relation to a timeless connection.’

  I read that back now and I think, ‘What the fuck was I writing?’ But at the time I was in some kind of love trance. When you’re first falling for someone you feel such deep, empowering love you don’t know what you’re doing. I would never write something like that now and I can laugh at it, but that’s the effect that love had on me.

  Before you can really say ‘I love you’ and mean it 100 per cent you must be certain that what you feel is real. Therefore I recommend that you follow these three steps to building up to those three little words.

  1. Start by saying ‘love ya’, which can be said flippantly over the phone or in a text and suggests that things are still much more on a good friendship level.

  2. Next move to ‘love you’, which gently eases you into the big reveal.

  3. You add in the big ‘I’. In some ways, this little vowel is the most important, and until you can say those three words together, you’re not at that stage where you can totally commit to someone.

  There is nothing worse than saying ‘I love you’ by mistake. When you’re cuddling up on the sofa with someone and they say something funny and without realising it you’ve laughed and said, ‘Ahhh, I love you!’ Once it’s out there you can’t take it back. It’s like the humiliation and awkwardness of calling your teacher ‘mum’ when you’re at school, but amplified by a million.

  If you then turn around and say you didn’t mean it and you don’t love them, it only makes things worse and sets the relationship back months.

  I went out with one girl in my mid-20s and we told each other we loved each other within a month. Looking back I can see that there’s a very thin line between infatuation and love. There are times when you want to be with someone 24 hours a day because you’re almost addicted to them. But you can’t sustain that initial intensity and the relationship will ultimately fail. I realised after a couple of months that actually, I didn’t love her, so those precious words felt false.

  When it comes to saying ‘I love you’, I don’t believe you should ever play games. There are people who won’t say it back to someone just so they have the upper hand. If you love somebody, let them know. Just choose your time wisely and make sure you really, really mean it.

  I came up with an equation while writing this book that I like to call ‘The Ollie Locke theory of relationship success’.

  With love, the only time you are really 100 per cent happy is at the moment you kiss on your wedding day. After that, it’s a free-for-all, open to all the elements of life. You need your happiness percentage to rise and fall to keep a relationship happy and healthy, and if both parties follow these rules carefully, you should be in a good position to have a happy relationship. It’s very simple.

  So, you are both feeling amazing and life is going well, you got married three months ago and you recently returned from your honeymoon. You get promoted at work and you’re cruising along at 74 per cent happy. Your partner is at a stable 60 per cent; they aren’t as happy because work is going badly. They then get a phone call to say their family dog died, which puts them at 42 per cent happy. When they subsequently lose their job, their happiness level dramatically falls to 19 per cent. Your happiness then falls to 45 per cent as you begin to worry about bills and how you’re going to support everything on your own. It is at this point you should recognise your partner’s need for love and attention and do something lovely for them to boost their happiness level. A surprise dinner at their favourite restaurant followed by a candlelit bath boosts their love for you and their level rises to a healthier 32 per cent. In the meantime, you have been treated to an evening of sex so your level rises to 51 per cent. Then a week later your partner gets offered their dream job in television and their happiness level rises to 60 per cent while you, no longer worried about finances, go back up to 68 per cent. Even the smallest of elements could change your percentage on a minute-by-minute basis, from being stuck in a traffic jam to the photocopier at work breaking down, to being starving and finding the shop has sold out of your favourite bagel. The simplest of things will make a change, and your percentage is constantly on the move.

  But the main point of this is for you to recognise how your other half is feeling and what they are currently going though in their life, putting yours on the back burner. Sometimes all you need is a small gesture like a bunch of flowers to show your love and support.

  Both of you are always working towards 100, but you never actually want to get there, because after too long at 100 per cent things will start to get boring. It’s too safe, it’s too smooth. Love feeds on the fight between people, the differences you share and your ability to work together as a union. Only then can you be truly happy in a relationship.

  So the future was looking bright. I returned from Cowes to Southampton, excitedly packed a suitcase and moved to Beaconsfield, where Richard was based. I stayed with his parents and planned to move to London as soon as possible and commute down to work on the magazine.

  I had a wonderful time living with Richard’s family. Their house is beautiful, and Richard and I used to drink brandy and sing Phantom of the Opera at the top of our voices. We’d make up songs together and Richard would play the piano while I sang along. We were like an old gay married couple living in the 1920s – with no sex, obviously. I loved working for his magazine – I was writing and that’s what I wanted to do. It wasn’t a paid job, so it wasn’t a long-term prospect, but I got to go to photo shoots and to interview designers and I loved it. After a couple of months, it was time for me to move on and earn some money and get my own place. I promised myself that I would go back to writing one day, but I put down the laptop and started a new chapter in my life. A friend from my Cambridge drama course, Gabby, phoned to say she knew of a place in Swiss Cottage, North London, where we could stay for free. The only condition was that we had to be in by 8pm every evening. We were basically house-sitting to prevent squatters living there, so someone had to be in the flat every night to make sure no unsavoury types tried to break in.

  It sounded perfect. I packed my things and headed for London – my dream to move to the Big Smoke was a reality at last.

  There was just one problem – Gabby had neglected to tell me that there was no furniture whatsoever in the house. There wasn’t even a knife and fork. I had to sleep on a World War II stretcher that I found in the shed, which was covered in blood stains – I struggle to think how I could have been any more uncomfortable or unhygienic.

  Gabby had a very unusual occupation: she was a working clown. I used to get woken up by her giant squeaking shoes every morning after about two hour
s of sleep, so it didn’t quite turn out to be the paradise I was dreaming of. London Girl couldn’t even come and stay because there was nowhere for her to sleep, and unsurprisingly the blood-stained stretcher didn’t appeal.

  Before long I had no money and I began to wonder if moving to London had been the right thing to do after all. Then Gabby came home and announced, while still wearing her clown outfit, that we were moving to Belgrave Square to house-sit another vacant property.

  Belgrave Square is one of the most exclusive addresses in London, and for the very first time I was going to be living in Chelsea.

  I threw myself into Chelsea life, and Richard and I started going to a club called 151 on the King’s Road practically every night. It’s known as ‘The Dive’ because it is one, but fabulous people go there because no one expects them to, so there are never any paps outside. It is by far my favourite club in London.

  Over the years I went there, celebrities would come in and out and you would see wealthy middle-aged bankers buying drinks for hot Sloaney 21-year-olds, the outline of their wedding rings still visible through their shirt top pockets. The club housed some of the most beautiful women in London, because they all wanted somewhere they could go to dance to cheesy music. There was a big group of us who became regulars, and we got on well with the staff and particularly Rollo, the bar manager. It was like having a second home because I could walk in at any time and I’d know everyone there (even now, I walk in, go behind the bar and pour myself a drink). After not fitting in to university life in Cirencester, it was a welcome relief. I was 20 years old, with no responsibilities, and I was making the most of it.

  Seeing as I was spending so much time there, it made sense for me to start working at 151 in the evenings to earn some extra money, basically doing whatever they needed me to. I even DJ’d one night when the regular guy didn’t turn up. I had no idea what I was doing as I tried to mix these CDs together. It was ridiculous.

  My new job at 151 wound London Girl up a lot because I was spending more and more time in London, and less time with her. Not to mention the fact that I had hot blondes all around me. I was hanging out with Richard all the time, as well as new friends Freddie Van Zevenbergen and George Askew. George had been the first ever public schoolboy to go into Big Brother a couple of months earlier. He promptly walked out after just 13 days and had become notorious as a result.

  One evening, Freddie suggested that we all go to a cool place called the Cuckoo Club. The club was having an anniversary and Halloween party, and it sounded like it was going to be an amazing night.

  We all met outside and Freddie turned up with a Moët cool bag. He unzipped it to reveal a live lobster inside. I asked him why the hell he had it and he replied, ‘Well, the theme is a touch of purple, so I brought Monty along.’ It sounds weird because everyone knows that lobsters are orange, but they have a purple hue before they’re cooked. He even had a little diamanté lead for the lobster, which until that night had been living in a tank at his house.

  About halfway through the evening Freddie said he was getting a bit tired of holding Monty, and that he was going to drop him off. We presumed he was putting him back in the cool bag, but about 20 minutes later a waiter rolled up with Monty on a plate, cooked. Neither of us could believe it but we were also very hungry. Yes, I’m ashamed to say, we all sat there and ate Monty. It was so dark, but delicious.

  People always ask me why I have such an obsession with the Union Jack and why I’m so patriotic. My answer is always the same – that it began one night back in 2007.

  Tatler magazine had interviewed Richard about being a young entrepreneur. We were all invited to Tatler’s Little Black Book party, which was basically a list of 100 of London society’s most eligible bachelors and bacheloresses. George’s mum Rosemary – who was private secretary to Prince Charles for many years – offered us a lift. We all got dressed up and climbed into her vintage open-topped Aston Martin. She put on the James Bond theme and we drove down The Mall with hundreds of Union Jacks lining the streets. It’s still one of my favourite moments of living in London and sometimes even now I take a detour to drive my own Union Jack Jaguar down The Mall, just to feel really British.

  When we arrived the paps went a bit crazy for George but no one knew who I was: I was a nobody. A photographer asked me, George and Richard if he could take a photo, but then pushed me out of the way and said, ‘No, not you.’ I have never felt so small. But that dick photographer didn’t dampen my love of the London party scene – nor was it the last time I saw him.

  Around this time, Rachel Stevens crossed my path again. Yes, if I hadn’t made a total idiot of myself during our first encounter, I definitely did the second time we met.

  It was at an after-party at The Old Vic theatre. I’d been to watch a 24-hour play, where loads of amazing actors have 24 hours to improvise a play. It was absolutely incredible. Across the crowded room, I spotted Rachel Stevens, who was looking as beautiful as ever. I was so sure she would remember me – it had only been a few years since we’d spent that special time together, so how could she not? Shyness masked by the couple of glasses of champagne I had drunk, I marched right over to her, exclaiming, ‘You’ll never believe what happened, Tululla got expelled!’ She looked at me with a massive ‘who the fuck are you?’ look on her face. Undeterred, I carried on rambling, even introducing her to my sister. I have to give Rachel credit, she was absolutely delightful and acted as if she knew exactly who I was, which was so sweet of her. You’d think I would have learned from my experience with Hattie Clark! I just hope that if I do ever meet Rachel again, it’ll be third time lucky.

  My fabulous life in London continued to cause not so fabulous problems between London Girl and me. While I was totally faithful, my world had completely changed, and our lives were going in different directions.

  I loved living in London and I loved my job at 151, even if it did involve clearing up sick or carrying people out to chauffeur-driven cars. As harsh as it sounds, there simply wasn’t as much room as there should have been for London Girl.

  Something had shifted between us and I didn’t feel like I used to. I still loved her enormously, but I knew I couldn’t be with her any more.

  Not long before we went our separate ways, we went on holiday with Jesters Girl and her family to Portugal. I’ve got a photo that was taken of us on the beach that week. Looking back at it now I realise that it was at that exact moment I knew 100 per cent that we had to split up. I have no idea why, something just clicked inside of me and that was it.

  She looks amazing in the picture. Everything I loved her for is shining through, whereas I’m looking uncomfortable and emotionless because I knew, whether I wanted it or not, it was the end for us.

  London Girl and I had become so comfortable with each other and we relied on each other so much that the thought of breaking up made me incredibly sad. But I knew it was for the best, although neither of us wanted to admit it to ourselves, or each other.

  We managed to make it through the rest of the holiday, trying to enjoy it as much as we could. London Girl knew something was wrong so she kept making even more of an effort, which just made things worse.

  We flew back home and headed to her mum’s house in London. We went to bed and just as I was about to fall asleep, I heard her say, ‘I know you’ve got something to tell me.’ I knew my reply immediately but I froze and thought about the last three years and how I was about to lose everything. ‘Yes, I want us to break up,’ I replied. She burst into tears – although about five minutes later the tables flipped as I turned into a blabbering child and she had to spend the next three hours comforting me.

  As selfish as it sounds and as much as I did love London Girl, I knew I needed to be on my own, living my new life in London. I had something to get out of my system, and three years is a hell of a long time to be in a relationship at that age. At the time it seemed silly not to give myself a chance to really enjoy myself while I had so much opportunity to d
o so. It was a decision that I would regret later on down the line.

  The next day I left London Girl’s house feeling something I’d never felt before – completely and utterly empty.

  We gave each other as much space as we could for the next couple of weeks. I would hear through her friends about how she was doing, and I had to resist the temptation to jump on the bus to Oxford whenever I saw one drive down the streets around Victoria Station.

  A month had passed when on one Sunday afternoon London Girl arrived on my doorstep. We both broke down in tears and held each other tightly. I was scared that if I let go I’d never see her again, but after sitting and talking for hours, I knew I had to let her go for good.

  I’ll never forget her leaving that final time. I hailed her a black cab, and as it drove off I chased the taxi down the road, knowing it might be the last I ever saw of her. It was completely and utterly heartbreaking. This may sound like a scene from a cheesy rom-com but that’s the way it happened, and as I stood there in the middle of the road with tears streaming down my face, I wished I could rewind to the amazing times we had when we first got together.

  I spent the next day sitting on the wall outside the Royal Court Theatre. I watched the world turn around me because it was all I could do; I was numb. The person I loved more than anyone else in the world was no longer in my life. I didn’t know what to think or feel. She was gone and that chapter was over.

  Is there ever a good way to break up with someone? In short, no, but there are some good ways to make the break-up better for everyone involved:

  1. Do it on neutral ground but not in public and not somewhere the person you’re splitting up with is going to have to go regularly.