Page 4 of The Painter and His Poet

It’s why I sing in dingy backstreet clubs and bars with people more interested in making out and getting annihilated on alcohol and drugs than listening to me sing. I’m background noise, a brief soundtrack to their evening, forgotten by morning.

That’s exactly the way I like it.

I sing for me. I sing because it makes me happy. It erases the monotony of my everyday life, of only being known as the daughter of one of Hollywood’s elite. Which you’d think would be glamorous, but is as far from glamorous as you can imagine,at least for me. As Harlow I’m the perfect Hollywood offspring, well-educated, polite, and nowhere near as beautiful or as alluring as her famous mother. Just how she likes it.

She’s the star. Not me. Something that she’s reminded me of for the best part of my life. Not that she’d ever admit that to anyone, least of all the press that she flirts with every chance she gets. As far as the general public believe, she’s a Hollywood icon, most famously known for her role in the iconic nineties TV series,Through the Eyes of A Child.

She can do no wrong.

And I’m fine with that.

As far as I’m concerned fame is a curse, and I’ve no intention of ever following in the footsteps of mystillfame-hungry mother. Or at least, not anymore.

At one point, in my early twenties, I had considered trying to get a record deal, but after a year of being groped by various record executives who assumed I was more than willing to give up my self-respect and my body in exchange for the promise of worldwide fame, I decided that it wasn’t worth the humiliation.

Instead, I spend my days as my mother’s personal assistant, following her around the globe and doing her bidding. When I’m not completing an errand on her behalf, or filling her calendar with talk show appearances, magazine interviews, and red carpet events, I’m writing songs in every bit of free time I have. Occasionally, like tonight, I pluck up the courage to sing at some dive bar or club, my identity kept hidden beneath dim lighting, a black wig, clothes I don’t normally wear, and carefully applied makeup.

I actually had no intention of singing tonight, but a friend of a friend offered me the gig, and I accepted, grasping at the opportunity if only to get out of my mother’s presence.

We’re only in New York City for a few days so she can make an appearance on a TV chat show, and tonight is my first nightoff in weeks. Call it serendipity, call it fate, but I couldn’t turn the opportunity down. My mother has no idea, she thinks I’m crawling bars looking for a man to spend the night with, not entertaining my need to sing.

“Go out. Meet a nice man. Have fun,” she’d told me, which is code for ‘I don’t want you around. You’re cramping my style.’ ‘Get a life’. Which is ironic really, given she actively goes out of her way to prevent me from having a life of my own.

For a million different reasons, I’ve had very few relationships in my twenty-eight years of life, and even less one-night stands, something my mother finds incredibly hard to understand given her past marriages and long list of lovers. My father was one of the men she cast aside after a brief affair in her early twenties. He was so insignificant to her that she never bothered to tell him I existed, and when he did the maths many years later and tried to reach out to me, she blocked his attempts. I didn’t try to argue. It’s something I regret immensely, but I haven’t plucked up the courage to reach out to him, too much time has passed, and well, I guess the fact he didn’t try harder to be a part of my life told me all I needed to know.

And so, with a red lip-sticked smile, she’d ushered me out of our hotel suite a few hours ago so she could entertain a man she has purportedly fallen head over heels in love with after being introduced to him at a social event we’d both attended back home in LA a month or so ago. I don’t even recall being introduced to him, partly because I’d got so buzzed on the free alcohol, and partly because I left after two hours knowing if I stayed any longer I’d end up telling my mother to go stick her fake Hollywood smile up her arse.

All I know is that his first name is Robert, he’s English, and a billionaire. To be honest, I lost interest listening to her after she repeatedly mentioned how wealthy he was, how he was flying into see her on his private jetfor just one nightbecause he couldn’t wait a second longer to be with her.

With three divorces under her belt, a bank account filled with millions of pounds worth of alimony, my mother is nothing if not predictable. I wonder how long it will take for her to sink her claws into him. Not long, I suspect.

Shaking my head free of thoughts of my mother, I clear my throat, press my eyes shut, then begin to sing a cover ofYoung and Beautifulby Lana Del Ray. I’m immediately lost to the music, to the way it makes me feel.

Through music I can express who I am. I can sing my emotions, emotions I keep hidden beneath quiet obedience. Unlike some other children of Hollywood celebrities, I never rebelled as a teenager, I conformed. I smiled and was polite. I acted with grace and humility. Hyper aware of being the best daughter my mother could wish for. I never acted up. I hid in the shadow of her fame, content to let her shine so that I could quietly write lyrics and make music.

I know I have a better than average voice, but I don’t sing for compliments, I sing because it’s the only time I ever truly feel like me. There’s a release when I sing, like the lifting of a burdensome mountain from my shoulders. I lose myself to the music, to the endorphins that flood my system and buzz through my veins.

Singing for me is bliss. It’s home. It’s as simple as that.

Halfway through the song, I’m aware of someone staring at me. Behind closed eyelids I feel the penetration of their interest, and I crack my eyes open, searching the darkened club.

The group of the men are still knocking back shots, completely oblivious to me. Opposite, the couple making out are still wrapped up in each other’s arms, and the man who was standing at the bar has sunk onto a stool with his back to me, nursing his drink.

Yet still I feel the intense sensation of someone giving me their undivided attention. It’s not something I’m used to, and it throws me. I stumble on the next line of the verse, the words tripping awkwardly off my tongue as I trace my gaze around the club searching for the source of my discomfort, until eventually my eyes fall on a man standing in the entranceway, his hand gripping the doorframe. He’s cast in shadow, the smoke machine they insist on using, combined with the muted lighting, smothering him in a shroud of grey-hazed darkness.

My skin prickles, an uncomfortable feeling bubbling in my chest as he steps fully into the club, stumbling as he moves. I watch as he grips the backs of the chairs and traverses the empty tables, swaying like a drunken man toward me. All the while staring atme.

Drawing in a breath, I continue to sing despite being intimidated by his undivided attention, stripped bare by his intense scrutiny.

Eventually he falls sideways onto a chair at a table situated directly in front of the stage, his hands shaking, his focus solely on me. I swear he’s not even breathing, or maybe it’s me who’s not breathing, because as he shifts into a circle of light I can see him clearly, and this man…

This man isbeautiful.

Droplets of water fall from his dark brown, slicked back hair, and I watch transfixed as they slide down the sharp cut of his cheekbones, dripping from his stubbled chin onto his rain-soaked shirt. His plump lips are parted, eyes a piercing blue as he quite literally drinks me in.

I’ve never felt this way before. So… so scrutinised.

His attention makes me want to simultaneously curl into myself, and bloom like a flower who hasn’t felt the sun for days. I suddenly feel seen in a way I’ve never felt before. I’m not my famous mother’s daughter. I’m not Harlow Richards, notevenFriday Love. I’m simply the centre of someone’s universe, the pinprick of sunlight on a darkened horizon, the lone star dazzling in a midnight sky.

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