Crystal's Chandeliers

Well, they fit fine, and so did Janice's boots, but the weight of the heavy leather jacket took me by surprise. Once I had Janice's helmet on, I don't think anyone would ever know that it was me on that bike behind Prof.

Prof took me down the bypass and then out into the country a ways. On a particularly quiet section of the bypass, Prof opened the bike right up. He told me on the radio that we were doing over "a ton" for a little while, but then the traffic started to thicken up so he slowed down to what seemed to be a very slow speed. Although later Prof told me that we were still doing sixty to seventy miles an hour.

Rocky was standing outside the Smithy as we came into sight of it, but he'd returned inside by the time we got there. It was years later that I realised that he was concerned for my safety that day, although I think he trusted Prof on the motorbike as much as he trusted anyone. It really didn't cross my mind that Rocky was concerned for my well being.

That was to be my first and last ride on a motorcycle for a good many years. All mention of me getting on a motorcycle after that were met with sideways glances in Rocky's general direction, before they were politely refused. It could be that I can be very dense sometimes, but I didn't pick up on what those glances actually meant or were intended to tell me.

Time went on, and I discovered much to my amazement that Rocky was only three years older than I was. He must have only been twenty when he'd inherited Forge house. For some reason I'd always thought he was much older, about twenty-eight or nine.

I'd spent so much time in the Smithy by then that I was selling things for Rocky when he was busy, normally with other customers. Actually he had started paying me commission as soon as I made my first sale. Not much, only 5%, but at Rocky's prices that wasn't to be sneezed at.

One Sunday I think it was, I'd been outside with a time waster, a guy who wanted to know the in and outs of just about everything on display and the prices, but never bought anything. When I went back inside the Smithy, Rocky was sitting in my chair. Well, it was his chair really but I normally sat there. Oh, you know what I mean.

Anyway Rocky was reading my notebook. I think I was embarrassed; I don't normally like people to see what I write. Obviously aware of my presence and, I think, of my discomfort at him reading my story, Rocky ignored me for some time until he'd finished it.

"Bloody hell, girl," he said to me as he started to quickly flick through the other pages glancing at some of my other stuff. "What are you wasting your time in that office for? This is one hell of a good children's story. Are they all like this?"

"Well, they are all aimed at children. But I'm not so sure if they are any good though," I replied to him, feeling really embarrassed.

"Now you listen to Rocky, girl. This is good stuff; you should send it to an agent pronto."

"Don't be silly, Rocky. I'm not an author."

"Lord give me strength," Rocky muttered looking up at the ceiling. Then he said, still flicking through some of the other stories I'd written, "Listen to uncle Rocky. Penny, this is good stuff. Just as good, if not better, than most of the stories I used to read as a kid. You get these typed up and sent to an agent; I think you'd be pleasantly surprised."

I um'd and ah'd for a while, but then Prof came into the Smithy and Rocky immediately shoved the notebook under his nose. Much to my surprise, Prof was even more enthusiastic about my stories than Rocky had been. Between them they began to make me think I could be a reasonable children's author.

The next evening when I got to the Smithy I discovered that my chair had been moved, to make way for a table with a computer sitting on it.

"Well, don't just stand there, Penny," Rocky said as I stared at the set-up in amazement. There was no way I could have afforded to buy a machine like that. "Get typing, girl!" Rocky knew I used a computer at work and that I'd be able to find my way around it.

Well, over the next couple of weeks, I typed some of my stories and poems into the computer and printed them out. Prof came up with a long list of agents and publishers for me to send them to. Actually, Prof spent a lot of time proofreading for me and correcting my mistakes.

He also took some of my stories away with him and tried them out on the pupils at his school. Yes, to my complete amazement, Prof turned out to be a schoolteacher. Some motorbike gang my dad had been so afraid of. School teachers, policemen: it just goes to show that you can't tell a book by its cover. Or the guy by the clothes he wears either.

All too many times my stories came back rejected and I was beginning to loose heart. But the boys, all of them and their girlfriends, were reading my children's stories by then, kept my spirits up. Eventually a magazine publisher took two of my stories and I got my first royalty cheque.

A month or so after that an agent turned up at my house one day whilst I was at work and spoke to Mother. Mother was taken completely by surprise when Sally Parks knocked on the door, because I hadn't told anyone at home that I was trying to get published. My sister had always made fun of my writing; I think that's why I'd become shy of letting people read them in the first place. I'd had no intention of letting anybody at home know that I was trying to get published, just in case I failed. My sister would have loved that.

The agent came back that same evening after I'd got home from work. She wanted me to sign a contract with her as my sole literary representative. My Mum and Dad - after getting over their surprise that anyone thought their youngest daughter could produce anything of literary merit - were encouraging me to sign the contract straight away, but I wanted Rocky's opinion. My dad got really annoyed with me when I ran over to show the contract to Rocky.

You might think it strange that I'd value Rocky's input more than my parents', but it was Rocky who'd encouraged me and set me on the path that I was now intending to take. No one in my family had ever taken very much interest in my writing in the past. My sister had always been the golden girl in our house. Plus, Rocky had advised me to let his friend Brief, have a look-over any contract before I committed myself to signing anything.

Rocky quickly called Brief on the telephone and he came over to my parents' house straight away. Mum, Dad and Sally Parks the agent were completely taken aback, when a very smart and efficient looking Martin Pringle entered the house and announced himself, as my legal representative.

After a lot of negotiating over the next couple of days, Brief got Sally Parks to make some significant changes to the contract. A whole lot of which, I didn't understand at all. But Brief told me the changes gave me an out of the contract if I wanted it in the future, and laid down exactly how big (or little) a percentage of my (hopefully massive) literary earnings that Sally Parks could get her hands on. I know I was pleased that I'd taken Rocky's advice and got Brief in on those negotiations.

Dad was worried about how much Brief was going to charge for his work. But Brief looked at me and pointing to his cheek said, "For Rocky's girl, a kiss right here will suffice for now. But I do expect you to retain me as your permanent legal representative when you're rich and famous."

He got two kisses and a promise that he'd be the only solicitor I ever hire in the future. Martin Pringle and Partners are still my legal representatives to this day. Unfortunately I had been too excited about the contract that day to have taken enough notice of the exact words that Brief had used.

Sally after reading through a lot of my stories wanted me to turn one of the longer ones into a children's novel. She was making hints that I could be the next JK Rowlin. I had no illusions on that score but I thought Sally must know what she was talking about, so I agreed to do so.

Actually doing that would take a lot of time and here Rocky came to my aid yet again. He offered me a part time job doing - or rather making sense of - his paperwork. Rocky was one for just stuffing everything into a draw and letting Taxman (another of his friends) sort it all out at the end of the financial year.

I jumped at his offer and quit my job at the factory immediately. So after that, in the mornings or for as long as it took, I did Rocky's paperwork and in the afternoons I wrote. And I sold some of Rocky's work when required; I was still using his computer to write my stories.

It took me three months before I was happy with my book. I sent the final version to Sally; a little over a week later she called and told me it had been accepted by a publisher. I think she must have been showing them the proofs. Then there was a four-month wait until it was published. I have no idea whether that was a long or short time to wait before the book hit the shops, but it seemed like an absolute age to me.

Sally called me and said the first couple of days' sales were quite good and then I heard nothing from her for a week or so. Then one Sunday afternoon Sally called me to tell me I was going to be on breakfast television the following morning. My book was almost sold out and they were rushing through a second print run and talking about a third.

At five on the Monday morning a chauffeur driven car pulled up outside my parents' house with Sally and a woman called Wonder inside. Sally told me Wonder was my publicity manager, and it was her job to get me into the public eye and keep me there. Sally also told me that my publisher wanted another three books in the same series and in the mean time were intending to publish a compilation of my short stories and possibly a book of my poetry.

"Look out JK" Sally said, "Here comes Penny Crystal!"

I'm not quite sure why or how, I'd come up with and used the pseudonym Penny Crystal. No disrespect to my father's family name, but there was no way that I was going to be published under the by-line Crystal Wonnacott. Can you imagine what folks would make of C Wonnacott. Well, I'd been teased by being called "See What She's Got" all my life, by the boys at school; I didn't want that getting into the public eye.

It was almost a week before I got home again. I'd had to stay in a London hotel because I was being interviewed by newspaper and magazine reporters almost every day. As well as appearing on what seemed to me to be a never-ending succession of different TV shows. Of course, I had to buy lots of clothes and I was at the hairdressers almost everyday. Wonder said it was a great help to her that I was good looking.

Well, actually Wonder had said "beautiful," but I'm not vain enough to call myself that. You know I'd never thought of myself as being that attractive. But the captions on my photographs appearing in the newspapers were always referring to me as "the brilliant and beautiful young author, Penny Crystal."

After that first week, I went back home. But I had to attend book signings, receptions and parties of one kind or another three or four days every week. Of course the local newspapers soon tracked me down as well, so I became a local celebrity as well as a national one. I couldn't go anywhere without some child or their parents asking me for my autograph.

Most weekends and some weeknights, I was invited to cocktail parties or to appear on TV chat shows in London and other big cities. I asked Rocky if he'd go with me to the reception parties and he - I think now somewhat reluctantly - agreed to come, when he could. They were all pretty grand affairs. Most of the time, there were film and TV stars there. And lots of other so-called celebrities. Of course the press were always around in force, taking pictures.

I'll never be able to understand how I could have one dance and a short conversation with a fairly famous football player at a party and the next day it was plastered all over the front page of one of the Sunday papers that I was the guy's new girlfriend. When you consider that I went to the party escorted by Rocky and left it with him as well, that article was stretching things to the point of incredulity. But the newspaper got around that by describing Rocky as my minder.

I believe that Rocky was almost as upset about that article as the footballer's wife was, although I think she was separated from the sports star at the time. I've never run into the guy again anyway. I asked Wonder to demand a retraction from the newspaper's publisher, but she and Sally said that any publicity was good publicity and that we shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Looking back I have to wonder if one of them was the source for that first story or some of the later silly ones that got printed about me.

To be honest, the whole celebrity thing went to my head a bit. Look, you can't go from being a nobody one day to someone that the rich and famous want to rub shoulders with almost overnight and not be affected by it in someway. Well, I couldn't anyway; I just relied on Sally and Wonder to guide me. It could be that that wasn't the best choice I've ever made in my life, but I didn't know it at the time.

Before I knew what was happening, my book was released to the rest of the world, where it went down like a storm. Sally started talking of book signing tours in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. I was rushing to try and get the next book finished, and at the same time prepare the compilation of my short stories and poems. But working and writing in the Smithy quickly became virtually impossible. Too many sightseers kept stopping by and asking for autographs; I just couldn't get anything done.

Regretfully I had to tell Rocky I was going to have to work at home in the future. The next morning when I got up, I found that Rocky had delivered the computer to my house very early and he and mother had set the dining room up so that I could work in there.

I was worried that it was Rocky's computer, but my mother told me Rocky had said he was giving it to his favourite author. Later that day I popped over to the Smithy to thank him and ask him what he intended to do about his paperwork. I was somewhat surprised to find that Rocky wasn't there, but Janice was. There was another computer sitting on the table where mine had so recently stood and Janice told me that Rocky had realised that it was impossible for me to successfully follow my career and work for him at the same time. So for sometime they'd been planning for Janice to take over from me.

I think that I was a bit hurt that Rocky hadn't told me of these plans. But Janice explained that they hadn't told me because they did not want me to worry that I was neglecting things at the Smithy. She said that they thought I had too much on my mind as it was.

The next thing that I discovered was that there was a bidding war going on for the film rights to my book and its planned sequels. When Sally informed me about it, I called Martin in on that at once. I'd had to stop calling him Brief unless we were in private. He and Sally worked out what I believe was a very good deal on my behalf.

Looking back, things were really going to my head about this time. My evenings were one long round of receptions, dinner parties, cocktail parties and the like, where I always seemed to be surrounded by - quite often famous and/or rich - handsome young men who were falling over themselves to get my attention. I was living in a kind of cloudy cuckoo land.

Things were hectic in my parents' house and space began to become a real problem. I'd had to hire someone to help me transcribe all my old hand-written stories and poems into the computers; I'd added a laptop. The only answer was for me to spend some of my newfound wealth on a house of my own, not very far from my parents' house, but far enough that I established my independence from them as well. It was much bigger than my parents' house and had plenty of room for Angie, my new secretary and Wonder - when she was around, she had other clients as well - to do they're own thing whilst leaving me in peace to write.

The next few months passed quickly, as they do when you are busy. The books of compilations of both my short stories and my poems were published. Both apparently flew off the shelves and I was back to TV, radio, newspaper and magazine interviews all the time. And still every week I was being invited to many parties, although I wasn't getting the same kicks out of them by then, but it was nice to be the centre of attention for all those handsome young men though.

I did go out on a few dates with some of the guys I met at the parties, I think mostly at Wonder and Sally's insistence. They normally organised my schedules for the publicity kind of events, because that's what they really were. I found most of the guys to be very shallow. They seemed to be more interested in being seen with me on their arm than actually going out with me. Oh, there were a couple of quite famous guys who thought I was going to jump into bed with them at the drop of a hat. Boy, did they get a surprise.

My sex life at this time was very frustrating. I'm going to tell you now that, technically at least, I was still a virgin at that time. I'd messed around with a couple of boys whilst I was at school but I had never let any of them go all the way. Once I'd met up with Rocky and his friends, I'd found my immediate peers seemed very childish and unsophisticated to me. Rocky and his friends always seemed... oh, I don't know, much more mature, I think. But I hadn't actually gone out with any of them. I'll admit I'd masturbated to thoughts of Rocky on many occasions. But he'd never made that kind of approach to me. Rocky, I thought at that time, was just a very good friend.

I got requests to go on photo shoots for some of the better women's magazines. Wonder said that I could add modelling to my portfolio if I wished. Although I did do a couple of photo-shoots, I didn't enjoy them as much as I would have liked to. Oh, and Wonder told me she turned down some requests for me to pose for photographs by some of what she termed the more questionable men's magazines and newspapers. I was surprised that anyone thought I had that good a figure or that I would do that kind of thing; they did offer big money though. I could just imagine what my father would say if I agreed to display my tits on page three.

With hindsight I can see now that I was getting very self-centred by that time. Well, could you blame me? A few months before, I'd just been another ordinary girl in a small country town. Suddenly I was everybody's favourite person and appearing in newspapers, magazines and on TV almost every day. Wherever I went, there were photographers taking pictures and people asking for my autograph. Surely all that would go to any girl's head.

There were a couple of quite nasty articles in some of the not-so-nice newspapers about me and the so-called Hell's Angels gang. Martin was quick to jump on them and they both printed retractions and settled out of court.

The next year went by in a rush. Filming started on my first book before the sequel was published. I suppose the producers wanted to climb on the Harry Potter bandwagon.

I was missing Rocky and the boys a little. I'd call in the Smithy now and again but never got the opportunity to talk to Rocky alone. I asked him to design and make new railings and automatic gates for the front of my new house, which he did. I had thought I'd get to see him at the house some of the time whilst the work was going on. But that wasn't to happen, Apparently the only time he came to the house, I was away on a book signing gig or something.

The railings and gates were put up by House and some of his workers. It was while House was in the kitchen with me drinking coffee that he said something that I didn't really take notice of at the time. Well, let's say that like many of the conversations I had around that time, I wasn't really listening to what House actually said. I was too busy thinking about my next book or story or maybe where I was going that day. But it must have registered in my brain somewhere, because sometime later it was to jump back into my head.