‘Where does Milo Jax live?’ was the first thing that Google suggested after she’d typed out the first two letters of his name. The first result was on TMZ: ‘Milo Jax home: The £9.3 million estate purchased by the music sensation’. There was a photograph of a vast townhouse overlooking Regent’s Park that Milo was said to have bought earlier that year. It must have had seven floors. The pictures from the inside made it look like a forgotten palace, all Renaissance artwork and patterned furniture. It was lavish in a strangely old-fashioned way that is rarely associated with mega-famous pop stars in their thirties. But perhaps Milo was a strangely old-fashioned man. The article noted how this was his second UK home; his first was a modest four-bedroom home in Suffolk near the village where he’d grown up. According to the article, Milo also had homes in LA, New York and the south of France.
Next, she searched his name on YouTube. The first result was a video of him performing at the Grammys last year in a white three-piece suit with garish pink lapels. The second was from when he was fifteen – MILO JAX FIRST EVER YOUTUBE VIDEO (FULL VERSION) – the clip that had made him famous. Rose watched as an even more cherubic Milo played the guitar, wide earnest eyes looking longingly into the camera as he sang ‘Wonderwall’ by Oasis. It was from there, Rose had now learned, that Milo had been contacted by an executive at Sony, who encouraged him to go to a prestigious performing arts school when he turned sixteen. By seventeen, he was signed. By eighteen, he had the number one single in the country.
Rose opened Spotify next. He had 60,400,232 million monthly listeners and the top track was that first number one single. ‘The Way You Are’ was a paean to one woman (‘I love nothing more than when your make-up is on the floor’) and had been streamed more than one billion times. Like anyone with taste, Rose did not like this song; it was too jangly and irritating because it had been played everywhere when it first came out in 2012. Also, the lyrics were, quite clearly, dreadful and barely sensical. She had never really listened to Milo’s discography beyond that because of this. Listening now, some of his recent stuff was more tolerable. There was one song called ‘Brush It Off’ that had more of a rock influence behind it, harsher drums and a steady beat; Rose added it to her running playlist. Milo was currently on tour promoting his fourth album, Ministry of Hearts, which sounded almost identical to the first, possibly in a bid to create similar sales figures. She concluded that they were the kind of songs you could enjoy listening to, possibly in a stranger’s living room after a night out, when they could fade into the background in between bursts of ABBA and Fleetwood Mac, but wouldn’t voluntarily listen to.
Rose turned her phone on and immediately opened Instagram. It was now 6.45 p.m.
Hey, so sorry, began the reply from Milo. I fell asleep. Long day. Come to the Brampton Gate Mews near Camden. It’s number 5.
That’s okay. I can be there around 8.30pm ish?
Perfect. Have you eaten?
Did Milo Jax want to cook for her? Perhaps he had a private chef who was in the process of making his dinner and needed advance notice if they were going to cook for a second person. Maybe there were already other women at his house, and Rose was being called up for the next shift. Did this mean she was going on a date? And if there was no chef and Milo couldn’t cook, would they order a takeaway? How would that even work? She took a deep breath.
I always have inordinate amounts of pasta on the go at home and was about to tuck in. I can bring some if you like?
A chef among us! Don’t worry about me. See you soon.
There was definitely a private chef.
Rose had shaved everything from the eyebrows down. As she walked up the escalator at Camden Town station, she felt an urge to scratch herself, which meant she had probably missed a patch, or had already started to get an ingrown hair on the journey.
She folded her arms, tucking her phone in her left pocket as she felt the rush of Underground wind swoop up her sleeves. After walking a suitable distance away from the station and its crowds, Rose opened Citymapper, which told her that Brampton Gate Mews was another six minutes away by foot. On the way, she looked around for signs of celebrity life. A cafe that only sold matcha lattes, perhaps, or an Italian deli that sold jars of pesto for £7. All she saw, though, was a pub, an off-licence and a post office.
She was wearing her favourite pair of velvet flared trousers. They had a zip down one side and two pockets on the front that made her hips and waist look smaller. On top, she’d chosen one of Luce’s designer slogan T-shirts that she’d borrowed for a party months ago and forgotten to return. Luckily, Luce also seemed to have forgotten about it. It was white, oversized and read: ‘Women are Wonders’ in cartoonish red writing. She’d tucked it into her flares.
On her feet, Rose wore her white boots with the square toe because they made her 5'6'' legs look like 5'7'' legs. Finally, she wore an oversized vintage denim jacket Lola had given her three years ago when she was clearing out her cupboards. It had gold zips and large pockets in unexpected places. She was also wearing the only proper bra she owned – her breasts were too small to require underwire – and a matching lacey black thong. Just in case.
She could see the entrance to his street now; it was just opposite a Co-op. Given that it had only just turned 8.30 p.m. and she was thirsty, going inside felt like the right thing to do to kill some time. It would be weirdly enthusiastic for her to turn up at the exact time they’d agreed, anyway. There was also the simple fact that arriving at someone’s house empty-handed was rude, even if that someone could probably afford to buy the entire contents of a supermarket three or four times over. So, she bought a bag of pitta chips and a bottle of Merlot; the total was £8.90.
The road Milo lived on was so inconspicuous most people would walk straight past it without the faintest idea. Tucked behind another row of much larger houses overlooking Regent’s Park, it wasn’t even gated. Just a narrow, cobbled street with a few garages and doors. To the right of door number 5, though, was one giveaway: a small camera and a keypad, and, unlike the other houses, no letterbox or doorbell. Rose spent a few seconds thinking about where his post went and then realised if she lingered too long, it might alert some sort of alarm system and then she’d get arrested for stalking. She opened Instagram and sent him a message: Outside.
Seconds later, the door buzzed and opened slightly. The first thing Rose saw when she pushed it open was a garage with two cars parked side by side. She didn’t know enough about cars to name the models – Luce would know – but one was a large SUV, the other a smaller sports car. Both were black and had regular number plates. There was a narrow staircase directly in front of her.
‘Hello!’ came Milo’s voice from somewhere upstairs. She walked up slowly, not allowing the inconspicuous entrance to dampen the expectation that she was stepping into a once-in-a-lifetime property.
Milo emerged, standing at the top of the staircase.
‘Half-expected you to have a butler waiting for me,’ she said.
‘It’s his day off,’ Milo replied, reaching his arms out to her.
His body felt warm and damp, and Rose noticed how much larger he was than her. Almost a foot taller, she suspected, his torso taut against her chest in the way being famous must mandate. Clad in a baggy pair of tracksuit bottoms and a white T-shirt, he looked like he’d just stepped out of the shower. He pulled away from hugging her and Rose noticed that his hair was wet, so perhaps he had. The dress codes they’d each privately established for the evening were wildly out of sync. She looked like she was going on a date and trying very hard not to look like she tried very hard. He looked like he was about to watch a film and masturbate.
‘Come inside then,’ he said, ushering her in.
‘I’m not a vampire,’ she quipped.
‘What?’
‘Never mind. Sorry.’
His home couldn’t have been further from the typical celebrity abode. In Rose’s head, people like Milo lived in museums with bare walls, spiral staircases and coffee machines like the ones you get in coffee shops. Or ostentatious rooms like the ones she’d seen in the article. This was just a few rungs above student digs.
There was a door directly in front of her, presumably for a bathroom, and what looked like a bedroom and kitchen on the right. Milo led her into the room to the left: a small living area populated by nothing but an antique-looking coffee table, a burgundy velvet sofa, and a piano. The walls were bare apart from a giant Pulp Fiction poster. There was a rattan rug on the floor and a Diptyque candle on the coffee table. A box of cereal lay horizontal – and empty – in one corner of the sofa, a pile of papers in the other. Rose looked closer and identified the cereal as Frosties.
Nothing about this room or the flat made sense, except for the dying cheese plant on the windowsill because Milo definitely was not the kind of person that would make time to water his own plants. And it didn’t seem like hired help had anything to do with this place.
‘Is this for me?’ he said, pointing to the bottle of wine tucked under Rose’s arm.
‘No, I just tend to bring my own bottle of wine to people’s houses in case they only have Echo Falls,’ she quipped.
‘Ha, I see. I’ll open it,’ he said, as Rose passed him the bottle. ‘So how are you?’ The question reminded her that she had absolutely nothing to talk about with this man.
‘I’m fine, thank you. How are you?’
‘Did you manage to get into work okay the next day? Not too hungover?’
‘Oh yeah, it was okay. I mean, I felt like crap, obviously. But so did 80 per cent of the office.’
‘Did you have fun, at least?’
‘Those events aren’t really my thing.’
‘No?’
‘I used to love them when I started the job. There was something …’ She stopped herself. ‘It’s going to sound weird saying this to you. But it was like being in those rooms made me feel like I was a part of something. Something very few people get to be a part of. And even though I was just an observer, there was something … I guess … special about that. It made me feel like I mattered in a world that is constantly trying to make people feel the opposite. I’ve never had that feeling before.’
