Chapter 18: Celebrity status

The boys were fourteen months old when Kay and I were married in a spring wedding at St Matthew’s Church, which was in her parents’ local parish. Only relatives and close friends were invited into the church and reception but outside of consecrated ground the area was frantic, stuffed with news reporters and well-wishers, even though Andi was screening the whole thing live for a worldwide audience.

I should say at this point, that “Auntie Andi” was so involved in our everyday life now, so much so that she had put her fashion photography career on a sabbatical and had a new full-time job with simply handling the twins’ social media. The earnings coming in from this demand for social media and online website for photo and video downloads was so huge that Butch advised we set it up as a registered children’s charity to save our personal tax liabilities and spread some benefits from all, the interest.

When we officially offered the job of CEO for the new charity to Andi, so she could stop doing it voluntarily and earn a decent salary, she broke down and confessed. She was the person who released the initial report to the press which got us chased out of our flat.

When she has dropped into us unexpectedly late in the pregnancy, Andi was at a low ebb. She had been losing ground in fashion photography shoots to a new breed of young photographers for some time, and as work dried up she had to give up her prized Paris flat. She called round to us in person to speak to me as her best friend about her problems and wanted a shoulder to cry on.

Of course when she arrived we were so busy trying to hide my bump from her that we ended up displaying such a negative response to her that she couldn’t possibly tell me of her problems. Returning to her car and reflecting on our responses to her, she thought something was up. One, Andi became even more jealous of Kay in that instance, and Two, she thought we were hiding something that was happening to me from her.

At first she thought perhaps I had some kind of cancerous growth or gross hernia that I was hiding by the blankets, Three, l was so ungroomed I looked like tramp. She had a drone in her car and sent it up in to spy on us almost immediately, the drone undetected in the dark of evening. She discovered that I was indeed grossly overweight and swollen in an unusual place for a man, while Kay was as slim as the day Andi first met her six months before.

Putting half a dozen of one and six of another together and fuelled by jealousy and embarrassment of her own predicament ... she came up with the incredible scenario that I was the one having the baby, not Kay. By “leaking” the news, without giving Kay any credit she thought we might split up as a couple and she could benefit by possibly filling the gap. When the news exploded like it did, it all got completely out of hand.

But in fact what happened was she fell into voluntarily doing a job of publicising but protecting us that it turned out for Andi that she was so fulfilled in what she was doing she found it was the best job she had ever had.

Kay and I discussed this revelation between us but it was Kay who said that in fact the anonymous announcement had come at the perfect time, and Andi had handled the publicity and release of regular bulletins in carefully measured doses that was also perfect for our protection and raised millions for children’s charities that would never have happened otherwise.

You know, that made me think. When I was pregnant I was one ugly son of a bitch. At times my skin was so sensitive that I couldn’t shave, particularly my throat and neck, so my well-groomed look became a mess. Then because I couldn’t groom as usual my dark beard felt like wire wool and itched and irritated me, so I’d hack it off with scissors and clippers. Some days my skin was less sensitive so on several occasions through the pregnancy I would shave it all off and then put up with it itching even more as it regrew and my skin would get over sensitive again. I was a grumpy so and so during those spells, but Kay was so caring she soothed me through those irritations by persuading me that I wasn’t as red and blotchy as I thought but “glowing”. I don’t care if she lied, I loved her all the more for it.

Now that Kay is carrying our baby, she really is more serenely beautiful than ever before. I tell her she gets more beautiful every day and I’m not lying the slightest bit. She punches me softly and rolls her eyes at every endearment but always with a glowing smile. So when my newest and forever best friend tells me that my oldest best friend is still a good friend to have around and should be given the opportunity to make amends, who am I to not give Kay, and therefore Andi in turn exactly what they want?

So we forgave Andi and gave her hugs first and the job second, that she has earned the rights to.

This meant that Andi was employed as its only paid employee at a set (and generous) salary, with the rest of the income partly invested to provide an income post-public interest and the substantial balance was put into an account from which grants for children’s benefits could be made, with Butch, my parents and a number of responsible people we knew who were keen to be a part of this worthwhile project who were appointed as Trustees. The Trustees would examine and approve applications for grants.

And those applications for worthwhile grants came from everywhere! The Max George Children’s Charity had other income streams donated by sponsored runs and walks, people were so interested and invested so much effort into what to me had been so natural that it all happened without me knowing anything about it.

We were sure that interest in the birth of the twins would fall away but it hasn’t seemed to yet. While we put a lot of stuff out there in social media to satisfy the fascination of so many folk, Kay and I (and everyone connected with us) tried to shield Max and George from the furore. We didn’t want this to become another “Truman Show” with them as the focal point, so we restricted their time onscreen.

So, to satisfy the clamour for fresh bulletins on the twins, I did do a number of talks at medical conventions and made appearances on some daytime television shows to talk about my experiences and try to play down the drama. Even these serious broadcasts had high views.

Although we had requests for Kay to appear on live TV, she wasn’t keen but we did record an hour long special in our own studio that Andi, with the help of a video specialist she trusted and persuaded us to trust. It turned out to be an excellent broadcast which covered in brief the whole experience. Kay did manage to convey her side of our story which really showed how we managed to hold us all together during the pregnancy, the shock of the reveal and the aftermath.