Katie cuts her hair as catharsis for a problematic period in her life
A bottle of vodka later I have let Laila cut off all my hair. “I’ll film it,” drawls Johnny Gateaux. He pulls himself up from the sofa, leaves the joint he was rolling and slopes towards the bedroom, moving in a glide like he’s riding an escalator. Gateaux is from New York – Brooklyn. That’s not his real surname – it started as some joke about a cake – but now no one knows what it really is.
Laila goes to the kitchen to find the scissors and comes back looking nervous. I’m pleased. If you’re going to let a friend chop your hair off for drunken catharsis then best not choose one with a gung ho attitude.
Snip. A chunky lock falls to the floor. It’s not been a good week. The worst thing about being a journalist is smiling all the time. The guys over on the news desk shuffle about in shabby suits with bristling faces looking angrily into their black coffees. But funnily enough celebrities don’t like that kind of thing.
“Meanwhile my hair’s falling, in silky, wet lengths, to the floor”
To meet celebrities you have to look glossy. You need to be happy, and sweet and smiley and keen. This week I’ve felt none of these things.
I spent all week interviewing and smiling, asking questions and smiling, writing and smiling. My face is aching with all the bloody smiling, while behind the scenes my life is splintering apart.
Smiling and smiling and smiling. And then I got the tube on Friday night and cried all the way home.
Gateaux wanders back into the room without the camera; he’s so stoned he’s forgotten what he was looking for. Meanwhile my hair’s falling, in silky, wet lengths, to the floor.
On Wednesday I interviewed Jack Nicholson at the premiere for his new film, The Bucket List. He talks to me about Heath Ledger’s death; how he knew those sleeping pills were dangerous and how he’d tried to warn the younger star.
“I warned him,” he said. “I told him so. I took Ambien once. I fell asleep and then got a call and almost drove off a cliff 50 yards from my house.”
I’m thinking about Ambien as he talks into my Dictaphone. The film is about death. I stay 20 minutes and, when I can’t stand it any more, I wander off home.
Fergie, the ex-Duchess of York, is at The Dorchester hotel promoting some charity but I have as little idea why she’s there as I suppose she does. We talk organ donation. She’s all for it.
“Yes, I think it’s very important,” she says about the government’s move to presumed consent. “Presumed donation allows people to opt out but it makes them decide either way – they have to choose. It makes them take responsibility for what they want to do and stops them sitting on the fence.
“You’ve got to take responsibility – especially when it comes to your heart,” she adds in a flourish. It occurs to me that this means little or nothing. She’s cleverly conflated two ideas into a nonsensical emotional pulp.
I’m drinking vodka on Laila’s sofa and I don’t have to smile now. I feel happier than I have all week. Next week I will be back at work and my problems will not have vanished, but the more I cry the clearer I start to feel.
It’s getting better. It’s getting worse.
My family is in chaos and I’m hurting. My mother is ill and there’s nothing I can do. I think of Fergie, I think about how much I love being a journalist. And I think of how little control I have over the things that matter.
“Laila, I want you to cut my hair off,” I said. You’ve got to take responsibility. Especially when it comes to your hair.
It’s Budget day so everyone at the paper is really, really busy – except me.
