Smiling, I called Jacqueline.

  ‘Ricky, darling, I just heard the news.’

  ‘A made-up story from some crazy American woman.’

  ‘Get used to it, my darling, it gets worse, trust me.’

  ‘Call this number, The Sun newspaper, Johnny Wiseman, give a statement about how mad you are and how people treated you like this in the past, the paper is going to fight for me.’ I detailed the number.

  ‘I’ll call now, I’m sat in the room.’

  Back in with my parents, I told them. ‘The Sun newspaper will fight for me, and criticize that woman in America. They’re going to still sell my posters.’

  Bonza called, concerned, and … what was I doing in America at thirteen years old without taking him along?

  The twins called at 11pm, as I was going to bed. ‘Swedish TV runs this story and says how stupid the American police is.’

  ‘Don’t let it worry you, but if anyone asks … you cried. That will help the bullshit in the British press.’

  ‘We did cry, we think it’s all over, then the Swedish news supports you. Olesya was very sad.’

  ‘The British newspaper will rush out the posters for me, they support me, and the British Prime Minister spoke up for me. Is Olesya there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They put her on, and I reassured her at length, and told her “you can’t trick an octopus”, making her laugh.

  Rolf came on finally. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked me.

  ‘Fine, and I don’t care that much – just worried about being falsely extradited. If the modelling work ended I would still visit you now and then ... maybe study or go to university. But can you deal with this boy making claims about the girls?’

  ‘His father was handed a legal summons, and he knows that it will cost him a great deal of money just to defend it. My friend is a lawyer, he helps me for free, so this boy gets a big shock.’

  The morning brought a nasty snow shower, and I bought a copy of The Sun as I headed into work.

  ‘I left the damn phone off the hook,’ Julie complained.

  ‘Just tell them to fuck off.’

  ‘I did, fifty times, then left the damn phone off the hook!’

  Cup of tea made for me, after I handed her fifty quid, I sat and read the story in The Sun, who ridiculed Interpol and the American police.

  My uncle got in late. He told me, ‘We’ll swap the company phone number and not list it, just for clients.’

  I heaved a sigh, a look exchanged with Julie. ‘Then for your best interests … I’ll quit being here.’ I stood.

  ‘No, don’t do that, and don’t worry about me, we’ll swap the damn numbers and cope.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Fuck the Press, so yes. We’ll cope. Are your parents coping?’

  ‘So so, you know mum.’

  ‘No mother wants her son to be accused of rape, and not at thirteen years old.’

  I called the Essex gang, they wanted at my accuser, then I called the Watford gang, and they wanted at my accuser as well. And I worked down the list, reassuring people as they assured me that they were behind me.

  At 9pm, at home, the British news was showing the American TV news reaction, and the woman accuser, who had dropped her claim and now said that she made a mistake – it was another man.

  My father swore at the TV, the first time I recalled him doing that.

  Trish called after the news. ‘Mercedes were on, and the German TV news has been going nuts and attacking the American police, liberty and justice and all that, and questioning how American Immigration never showed your visit – at thirteen years old.’

  ‘Mercedes are OK with us?’

  ‘If they dropped the ads the German public would go nuts with them, they know that.’

  ‘That’s … an odd way to do things, but good for us anyhow.’

  I called Rolf afterwards. ‘Do we go to Mexico … with all this media shit?’

  ‘Maybe a delay, he said it was not so urgent.’

  ‘Mercedes have been on, they’re OK and not dropping us.’

  ‘They’re German, and the German TV news has attacked the Americans. You are the favourite son of Germany.’

  ‘And in Sweden?’

  ‘You are even more the favourite son. And also in Denmark.’

  ‘And the Faroe Islands?’

  ‘All twenty-six residents support you, yes.’

  I called Pete Granton next.

  ‘Jesus, Ricky, you’re coast to coast. They loved the Mercedes adverts here, now all this shit. But that woman is being hounded by the media, and she’s changed her story.’

  ‘Will she face charges?’

  ‘No, they don’t bother with nutcases like her.’

  ‘So she can accuse me and get away with it?’ I angrily asked.

  ‘Yep, best get used to it, buddy.’

  I sighed out. ‘Remind me not to visit.’

  ‘It’s a rough business, show business. Wait till they start shooting at you.’

  ‘Your clients affected?’

  ‘Fuck no, they’re not dropping you.’

  ‘Do me a favour, and say that I cancelled a trip to see you, terrified to visit America now. Leak it.’

  ‘That would get the fat housewives on your side even more.’

  The next morning I spoke to my uncle, then went home and packed a bag, some visiting to do. My father drove me to East Midlands Airport, a cheap flight to Berlin bought, people glancing at me sideways at check-in. I was stood feeling like the guy who had farted in polite company.

  On the plane I was sat next to unabashed Germans, who loudly chatted about the case. In Berlin, a friend of Rolf’s picked me up, soon to the TV news studios, the make-up lady told politely to get lost. This would be a taped interview because it would be conducted in English, German subtitles to be added.

  ‘3 … 2 … 1’

  ‘Ricky Roskov, welcome to TV One, and welcome again to Berlin. You were here recently for the Climate Change Gala…’

  ‘Yes, something we believe in supporting, and Rolf – the twins’ father, he worked in the EU for many years.’

  ‘How has this American woman’s claims affected you?’

  ‘My parents were badly affected by it, no mother wants her son accused of rape, and not on national TV, and the twins cried – they worried that the modelling work would finish.

  ‘I was resigned to the fact that it might finish, so I might go to university as planned and study politics and history. But Mercedes have called my agent, and they’re not dropping us, so that’s good, and my American agent is not dropping us.’

  ‘And Olesya?’

  ‘She was upset, yes, she has a delicate mind, she’s not very tough for facing the world of the Press. I spoke to her and reassured her.’

  ‘And can you take legal action?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know where to start, and the woman in America – they say she has no money, so I would just waste money. She’s now changed her story to say that it was another man.’

  ‘I have been to America, and you fill in an immigration card, and they check it careful in the computer, so how come these idiot police did not check for your name?’

  ‘I’ve never been to America, but I would have thought that they check their own computer system, yes. Not very impressive for stopping terrorists it seems, this clever computer system.’

  ‘So will life go on for you as normal?’

  ‘I hope so, for the sake of the girls, and a few weeks ago we produced posters of myself and the girls, and we’ll sell them around Europe, now deals with a British newspaper and a German newspaper, so maybe we can make some money and hide away for a while.’

  ‘Please … don’t hide away, hold your head up high.’

  ‘I can do other things, but the girls, and my parents, will be hurt by this for years to come. It’s them I worry about; I can get a job in a factory.’

  ‘You can come work for us.’

  In German, I began, ‘My German is OK, but I need to practise each day and get better.’ In English I added, ‘I have been told off by the twins’ father about Octopus jokes, so please … people of Germany, no mention of the octopus joke when he visits.’

  The presented tried not to grin too widely. ‘We shall ask our good citizens not to mention it when the father is around. And it’s hard to think of them as just seventeen.’

  ‘You’re supposed to say: only seventeen, young and sweet, you are the dancing queen…’

  He gave a pumped-fist sign. ‘Abba rocks! The second best export from Sweden.’

  ‘What was the first?’ I puzzled.

  ‘Beautiful blondes!’

  We were done, I was thanked, and I met Rolf’s friend for a ride back to the airport, tickets waiting for me, my first trip to Stockholm, and in the snow.

  It was a short flight, and I peered down at cold black water, then a snow-covered Stockholm. At Security they smiled and welcomed me, which was nice, the twins and Olesya stood waiting with Rolf - a sign that said “Roskom” just to take the piss, my suitcase grabbed as they fired questions at me.

  But seeing the girls lifted my spirits, and when I was without them I forgot how beautiful they were, how radiant and full of life.

  To Rolf I said, ‘I asked all of the citizens of Germany not to mention the octopus joke when you visit.’

  The girls laughed loudly as Rolf scowled at me. ‘Already I have calls from friends in Germany about it.’

  ‘You’ll soon be famous, more work for you. And I plugged the poster sales.’

  ‘That German publisher we met will sell them very soon.’

  ‘The British newspaper starts today. Oh, and later we can talk about the EU project.’

  In Rolf’s silver Volvo we set off in the dark despite the fact that it was only 5pm, a twenty minute drive to the lake and the house. We followed a tree-lined road, those cold trees being evergreens in places, other trees now stood leafless and frozen.

  Pulling into a driveway and crunching snow, I saw for the first time the big house, but it was a modern wooden house, a custom design. Behind it, the lake was not frozen.

  ‘Not frozen, the lake?’

  ‘It is partly saline,’ Rolf told me.

  Luggage inside, and Ingrid was cooking in an annex off the huge high lounge, a balcony above me with doors for bedrooms.

  I gave her a big hug. ‘Something smells good, but please – no Herring.’

  ‘We know you don’t like fish, we have beef for tonight.’

  ‘Excellent, cooking wench.’ I slapped her arse.

  The twins, dressed in thick jumpers, showed me around the large house, two guest bedrooms, one being used by Oleysa a few nights a week. Rolf had a very nice office and study, there was a TV room, a laundry room, an empty room, a downstairs shower as well as the en suite bedrooms upstairs.

  ‘The wood is warm?’ I asked.

  ‘Outside is specially treated wood,’ Rolf explained. ‘Then two layers of insulation, then the inner layer is thick but decorative, treated with a chemical so that it doesn’t burn. It was designed by a friend of mine, all natural materials and eco friendly.’

  ‘How much of the land is yours?’

  ‘About fifty metre both ways, and down to the lake edge.’

  ‘So when I marry the twins and we have six kids you can build a house next door.’

  ‘Well, maybe a bit further away,’ he quipped. ‘A few kilometres.’

  Sat at a huge wooden table, space for twelve guests perhaps, Ingrid and the girls served starters, local soup and bread.

  ‘What will you do with the empty room?’ I asked.

  ‘It was storage,’ Rolf began. ‘Soon to be an office for the Roskov-Rasmussen Agency.’

  ‘You can get desks from IKEA.’

  They laughed.

  I faced Ingrid as she joined us. ‘With Rolf working, and the twins away in university or working, it would have been just you.’

  She exchanged a look with Rolf. ‘Not something I was looking forwards to, maybe to go back to working part time. Now we change that because of you.’

  ‘Me, what did I do?’ I feigned.

  Rolf noted, ‘You gave us the excuse to be a family.’

  ‘And Olesya, does she pay her way for meals here?’ I quipped, getting a look from Olesya.

  ‘We have adopted her,’ Ingrid told me. ‘She offers money but we don’t take it. Not yet. When she is a rich super model she can look after us.’

  ‘So next year then,’ I noted.

  ‘Not so much the joke,’ Rolf noted. ‘She just completed jewellery adverts here, six thousand Euro one day.’

  I faced Olesya. ‘I found you waiting tables in a pub in England, so when I’m old and grey you have to look after me.’

  ‘I look after you,’ she said with a cute smile.

  I faced the twins. ‘The English newspaper will pay us one pound seventy-five a poster, two Euro -’

  Rolf cut in, ‘That Athena poster has no copyright listed, but it is implied perhaps. Many have copied it, none have been taken to court.’

  ‘I asked Trish to find the original model, who apparently never made a penny from it.’

  ‘No money?’ the twins queried.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘So maybe we give her some,’ they suggested.

  ‘That was my plan, a publicity stunt.’

  The beef was served, everyone tucking in, potatoes, carrots and greens, not so different to my mother’s cooking. And this was a lot like my childhood Christmas get-togethers.

  After the meal, the girls all helping Ingrid, I sat with Rolf, beer bottles in hand, the fire roaring and giving off plenty of heat.

  Rolf began, ‘The fire is a fake, in that it has gas under it, to make it burn well and to get it started quickly. Wood fires are only so good. You English use coal, and that gives more heat and for longer.’

  ‘You have radiators?’

  ‘Under the floor and in the walls, air gaps. It does not heat up quickly so we maintain a steady temperature.’

  ‘My parents’ new house is nice, bigger, I grew up in a small house – with a small bed. At the end it got to be a pain, my legs always curled up. Now I have a king size bed and, most importantly, a good bookshelf.’

  When the ladies joined us we held our first formal company meeting, Rolf and Ingrid with notepads as we sat around a coffee table facing the fire.

  I began, ‘First, the posters. We said that it would be nice to have a small business, regular income, but the fact is we sell posters based on popularity, short to mid-term, and any publicity stunt boosts the sales.

  ‘If we said … we spent a hundred euro on advertising and we make two hundred euro, that model would only work if there’s no publicity … and if young men randomly found the posters month after month.

  ‘That’s not the case, and it may never be the case, so we will always see sales based on publicity events. What we can do … is try and manage it some, and we should add one new poster a month and then look at which posters don’t sell well and drop them. Do we get an analysis?’

  ‘Some,’ Rolf answered. ‘And I can put it in a spreadsheet and see which poster is the lowest income and we rotate them.’

  I nodded. ‘I can ask the British and German newspapers for an analysis a month from now, then we can see, and then we can create a few extra posters. As for long-term steady work, we need to fill in the gaps. When we get publicity we’re busy and we make money, then maybe it goes quiet for a while.

  ‘When it goes quiet the priority should be the kind of work the girls are doing now, local jewellery and clothes, then the same in Europe.

  ‘We don’t know what big projects we’ll get, we can’t plan for them, so we need the small agency - run by Ingrid in her new office on the IKEA furniture, to focus on what we do when it’s quiet, more than when it’s busy. But tell me, this EU money, how do we get paid?’

  ‘We can pay ourselves a reasonable production rate based on market values -’

  ‘Which are?’

  ‘Around six hundred euro a day per person, plus travel plus costs. But that does not include the rate paid to the front man, which would be you, and you can demand five thousand euro a day since you could be doing other things.’

  ‘So when we’re quiet I can spend time shooting documentaries. But I would never ask the EU for that amount of money as a day rate. I want to make a difference, a political difference.’

  ‘Do you know what you want to make?’

  ‘I think I’d concentrate on two groups, young people and retired people, true stories of what they did in moving to Europe and how they like it, before and after.

  ‘I could do a shoot in their home towns, all cold and wet, then in a bar in Spain, then list the benefits of the EU in practical terms. Mostly, I want school leavers in Britain liking the EU.’

  ‘That is a plan then, and we can find young people working in the south of Italy, Spain, France, Malta.’

  ‘They’ll interview for a few beers,’ I joked. ‘They won’t cost us anything.’

  ‘For you they will, yes,’ Rolf agreed.

  ‘I was thinking, for the posters, the twins in the red dresses and then smart evening wear, see how they sell.’

  Rolf made a note. ‘We already have some, I will check the quality.’

  ‘When we go to Mexico we can take a few more photos,’ I told the girls.

  ‘When do we go?’ they asked.

  ‘When … we decide that using my face won’t be an issue.’

  ‘The people back you,’ Rolf noted.

  ‘I still want time to let it settle.’

  He nodded.

  ‘So maybe we use that time to set-up the office and have some lessons. Can you buy some photography lights, indoor, and a screen, then in here the twins can learn to take photographs to a good skill level.’

  He made a note. ‘We have all been learning, yes, and soon no need for professional photographers.’

  I faced the girls. ‘You need to learn how to use special make-up, no shine on your foreheads from the lights. It needs to be the same shade as your skin exactly.’

  ‘We find some,’ they assured me.

  ‘Any outfits you wear, no buttons that can shine, nothing that can shine, shoes that don’t shine.’