MEL C: THERE'S NO RUSH TO MARRY... I'VE GOT 20 YEARS YET

MEL C stretches out on the back seat of her chauffeur-driven car and
declares that gym-loving, high-kicking Sporty Spice is knackered. "I had a
late night," she yawns. "Didn't get back from Top Of The Pops until about
11 o'clock and I'm feeling it. I might have had a kip in the car but...."
She can't.

She has a new single and a live slot on Friday's Children In Need to promote
which means talking to the likes of me instead of catching up on sleep
during the one-hour journey from her hotel to the BBC's Elstree studios,
where the Spice Girls are rehearsing for their Christmas shows.

She soon perks up when her mum Joan calls to ask her if she's heard the news
about Cherie Blair's pregnancy. "It's fabulous isn't it?" she says once her
mum has rung off "A woman of her age, with her career and everything,
deciding to have another kid. Just shows you, doesn't it."

But that's not so much about Girl Power as a verbal two fingers at the
people who've been getting on her back about still being single while her
Spice Girl pals are getting married and having babies.

"See, I've got at least another 20 years before I have to settle down and
start a family," she laughs. "That takes the pressure off a bit doesn't it?"

Sarcasm is in, and in a big way, with Melanie C. Call it natural Scouse wit
if you like, but once she steps out from the shadows of the more loudmouthed
members of the Spice gang she's got a lot to say.

"I think it's so insulting when people go on about me not having a fella,"
she says. "Not insulting to me. It's water off a duck's back to me. But what
about all those single people reading stuff like that and thinking they must
be freaks or something.

"There are loads of people who are happy being single. All my mates I grew
up with in Liverpool are footloose and fancy-free.

None of them feel pressured into getting married and none of them are up the
duff. Why should they be?"

I suggest they might all be lesbians as well, and Melanie latches onto the
joke straightaway. "Don't start me on that one. Are people really that
uneducated they think just because I have my hair cut short and have a few
tattoos it means I'm gay? That's like saying all murderers have beards and
funny teeth." Obviously they are, because Melanie's sexuality had been the
subject of industry whispers even before she ditched the shellsuits and
trainers for the Sid Vicious look .

"I think it's funny," she says. "I'm in the public eye and people will
always have a pop, but I know the truth and so do my mates. And no, when I'm
alone I don't stare in the mirror and cry about it."

If anything the fuss has put Melanie off men altogether for the time being
and she's taking herself off the market.

"You know what, I'm not even looking for a man right now.

"My priorities are my career, mates and my family. But I'm a great believer
in fatalism. If the right man came along and swept me off my feet then who
am I to stand in the way of destiny?"

All joking apart, Melanie doesn't want to appear too defensive. She can
handle relationships and isn't frightened of getting her fingers burnt if
the man turns out to be more interested in her fame than in her. Still, the
big relationship hasn't happened.

"I'm a trusting person and it'll be my downfall. But that won't stop me
trying things. You have to make mistakes to learn don't you?"

Not that she's taken a vow of celibacy. Rumours have linked her to a string
of men from Robbie Williams to Robbie Fowler, Brookside star Paul Byatt and
Red Hot Chilli Pepper Anthony Kiedis.

So far she's only come clean on Williams. "Maybe we had a thing going on,"
she says. "But it ended with Robbie being himself, doing his lad thing - and
the girls give him a really hard time now."

But imagine the publicity if she was to re-ignite the fires of passion with
Robbie. "I know what you're getting at and I'm not saying anything," she
says, easily uncovering the not-too-subtle ploy to swing the conversation
Gingerwards. She seems genuinely nonplussed as to whether Geri and Chris
Evans had a relationship or if, like the rest of us, she believes it was a
big juicy stunt.

"I know I made jokes about it at the time but I hope it wasn't true in a
way, because I'd hate to think Geri was hurting at the moment," is her
surprising reaction, considering the Spice Girls are supposed to hate their
lapsed member.

But it seems rumours of a life-long curse on all things Ginger are also
exaggerated. "Of course I've spoken to Geri since she left," she says,
disproving the common belief that only Posh Spice had done so.

"And I'd really love to catch up properly with her but time doesn't allow
it. Anyway it's not that weird that I'm not in constant touch with someone I
used to work with. If you got a new job you'd probably lose touch with your
old work pals pretty soon."

It's a fair point, but what about Girl Power, that bond that could not be
broken? "Listen. What happened when Geri left stays with us five because it
was about us," says Melanie. "In this business seeing friends is all about
paths crossing and at the moment we don't really cross paths with Geri. When
we do we'll talk properly, simple as that."

And what will she say to her? "I'll ask her for the inside scoop on what
Chris Evans is like as a lover of course!" She smiles with the kind of Mafia
hunch that says "Enough about Geri".

What about tattoos then? At last count she had seven, including last week's
Chinese dragon on her calf. "Oh, here we go," she says. "It's my body you
know. I'll do what I want with it. I love my tattoos and I've no regrets
about any of them."

"I think they're beautiful. It's not excessive, but I have to admit after
each one I say that's it, then get the inspiration for another. And they're
bigger every time."

Even her mum has one and Melanie admits she finds a ready ally in
45-year-old cabaret singer Joan. "We talk all the time on the phone," she
says. "It's at least five times a day. She's always there for me."

Melanie, whose new single Northern Star is out tomorrow, also reveals that
she spends a lot more time in her native Liverpool than many realise. "I go
up there at the weekends and I've got a lovely flat in Albert Dock where
Richard and Judy used to be filmed," she says. "I still hang out with all my
schoolmates and I always will. In a perfect world I'd live in Liverpool all
the time but in the music business you have to be in London.

"I'm counting the days down to Christmas with my family. We've got Spice
Girls' concerts to do in London and Manchester and then we're all going our
separate ways." That leads inevitably to the question of when the Spice
Girls will split for good. They all have successful solo projects off the
ground so wouldn't this be the ideal time to call it quits? Melanie has the
company line to follow, but she does admit the question has been raised
among the girls.

"Of course we've talked about going out while we're still at the top but
that's all it's been - talk," she says. "The Spice Girls will be around for
as long as the fans want us."

Other bands have emerged to challenge the Spice supremacy but they sold out
the upcoming eight dates in record time so Melanie's not too worried. In any
case she doesn't have much time for chart-topping upstarts like Steps.
"There are two kinds of performers in this industry," she says. "There's
proper artists who sing live and then there are Butlins Redcoats like
Steps."

It's a good line of which she's rightly proud and in between self-
congratulatory giggles it's one she refuses to retract. "It's my opinion and
I can say what I like," she says. "Anyway it's what everyone thinks."

With that she's off to re-take her place as the "quiet one" in rehearsals.

But you get the feeling that pretty soon she's going to do a Robbie and
eclipse the lot of them.