Mel C: There's No Rush to Marry ... I've Got 20 Years

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.