Cindy, Shaiana’s new friend, was filmed massaging her feet as if having danced herself to exhaustion. Iona was filmed on her mobile phone, supposedly speaking to her ex-bandmates.
‘Yeah, I’m at Pop School,’ she said, as instructed. ‘I’m going back to basics, relearning my craft. Sure it’s hard but if I’m serious about a solo career it’s what I have to do.’
‘Tell them you miss them,’ Chelsie prompted.
‘Oh, I miss you guys so much,’ Iona dutifully parroted. ‘Have a wee dram of whisky for me.’
‘Brilliant,’ said Chelsie, well satisfied.
‘I’m a little worried that we could see that the phone wasn’t on,’ the cameraman interjected. ‘Iona had the display turned towards us.’
‘Nah. It’ll never read,’ Chelsie replied, anxious to get on with the day. ‘All right,’ she called out, ‘I need Troy.’
Troy was given a copy of
Harry Potter.
‘I can’t read it,’ he replied. ‘Not all the words anyway.’
‘We know,’ said Chelsie. ‘What I want you to do is find a word you don’t know and go and ask that posh bloke if he can tell you what it means.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m asking you to, Troy, that’s why, and because Calvin asked me to ask you. Don’t you want to make Calvin happy?’
The boy most certainly did want to make Calvin happy; that was the sole ambition of pretty much everybody in the room. Troy therefore dutifully walked over to the posh bloke.
‘Excuse me,’ he said.
‘
Hello
, young man,’ the Prince of Wales replied. ‘How
are
you? Are you well? What have you got there?
Harry Potter
? How marvellous. I
do
think they’re good, don’t you?’
‘Can you tell me what this word means?’
The Prince took out his reading glasses and studied the book.
‘Hmm. Ahh. Well, do you know I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘
Quidditch.
Hmm, actually I rather think that might be a
made-up
word. It’s a game in the stories, isn’t it? It sounds rather like Latin but I don’t think it
is.’
The youth shrugged and, having nothing more to say, wandered off.
‘Cut,’ said Chelsie. ‘Lovely.’
‘Eh? What?’ said the Prince.
‘That’s fine, sir,’ Chelsie shouted. ‘Everything’s fine.’
And the Prince returned to his study of the latest estimate of declining fish stocks in the North Sea.
Towards the end of the second day, Calvin finally put in an appearance but only to film a little special of his own.
‘OK, people,’ he shouted to the assembled contestants, who had been draped artfully about the school gym as if interrupted amid strenuous rehearsals. Some sat on the floor in tracky pants and vests, towels draped round their shoulders, some stood round the piano, others clung to the climbing bars attached to the wall and performed what they imagined to be stretching exercises. ‘You’ve all worked damned hard,’ Calvin continued, ‘and tomorrow we find out what you’ve learned and whether you can cut it in a live rock ’n’ roll gig. The drinks are on me!’
Everybody cheered and cheered.
When it was over the cameraman confessed that he was not happy. He had intended to sweep across the delighted, grateful faces before spinning round to take in Calvin’s indulgent fatherly grin, but he had tripped on a cable and there had been a nasty bump in the shot.
‘Can we do it again?’
‘I suppose we’ll have to,’ Calvin said with impatient ill grace. And they did.
‘The drinks are on me!’ Calvin shouted for a second time.
And once more they cheered and cheered.
Pop School: Cindy and Shaiana
Rodney and Beryl arrived the following morning. Beryl, grumpy and hungover, had been awarded yet another Mum of the Year title, this time at the UK Retail Traders’ Federation ‘Inspiration’ Awards Gala. Rodney, on the other hand, was fresh and rested after a week at a celebrity golf tournament in County Sligo as the special guest of the Western Irish Plumbers’ Guild.
When Calvin joined them, all three judges swept into the school theatre and the Pop School stage of the audition process began.
The first half of the morning was given over to further hoovering up of the In and Outs where once more, as in Birmingham, half the contestants were destined to be rejected while the other half would be thrillingly ‘put through’. These fortunate ones would proceed to the next round, All Back to My Place, before the chosen few went on to the actual finals.
Shaiana and Cindy sat waiting for their turn in yet another holding area, watching as in quick succession one hopeful after another was collected from the little group around them, only to be returned shortly afterwards either tear-stained and distraught or leaping about with hysterical joy.
Keely’s reaction was pretty much the same either way.
‘Babes!’ she said. ‘Babes, babes,
babes.
’
Finally Cindy got her turn.
‘You rock, girlfriend,’ Shaiana said to her as the slight, pretty girl bade her farewell, although clearly Shaiana’s mind was elsewhere.
Cindy approached Keely expecting to be ushered perfunctorily into the auditorium just as the twenty or so previous auditionees had been, but in fact Keely held her back, seeming inclined to chat.
‘You OK, babes?’ Keely said, her voice full of concern. ‘Cos I know you’re like really, really, really delicate and sensitive and you’re
so lovely
.’
‘Uhm, yeah, I’m OK, Keely,’ Cindy replied, slightly taken aback. ‘Bit nervous, of course.’
‘BABES!’ Keely almost wailed. ‘Babes, babes,
babes
! I
know.
Of COURSE you’re nervous. It’s really, really tough. Just you do your best, girl.’
Cindy did not know it but against her name in the day’s production schedule had been written the words ‘Weepy-looking Clinger. Looks delicate. Reject and MTT.’ MTT was
Chart Throb
code for Milk The Tears.
As Cindy disappeared into the wings she could hear Keely addressing the camera behind her.
‘Bless!’ said Keely. ‘Oh
bless
!’
‘Hello, Cindy!’ called Beryl as Cindy walked on to the stage. ‘Welcome to Pop School. This is where it gets tough, you know. Are you ready for that?’
‘Yes. Yes I am, Beryl,’ Cindy assured her in a clear, confident voice.
And indeed she was, she was at least as psychologically and emotionally prepared for pop stardom as most of the other contenders present that day. She wanted it desperately, would do anything for it and, what’s more, she could sing better than most of them too. But that didn’t matter: what mattered was that she
looked
delicate and vulnerable, so that was what she was going to be.
‘You look so
fragile
, darling,’ said Beryl. ‘Are you
sure
you want to do this? It’s a tough, tough game you’re getting into.’
‘Yes, I definitely want to do it, Beryl. I’m tough.’
‘I’m sure you are, dear,’ said Beryl, as if addressing a little girl who had announced that she wanted to be as brave as her daddy, ‘but I’m not sure you’re tough enough.’
‘What are you going to sing for us, Cindy?’ Calvin asked.
Cindy announced that she would like to sing ‘Eternal Flame’ by The Bangles.
‘Good choice,’ Rodney remarked, putting on his intelligent face. ‘That is a great song to choose.’
‘Off you go then,’ said Calvin.
‘And don’t you be nervous or scared,’ Beryl added in her most cloying baby voice.
When Cindy had sung her song, Beryl asked her once more if she thought she was tough enough for the big bad world of pop. Cindy assured her that she was but Beryl replied that as a rock chick from way back and as a mother, she wasn’t at all sure. Calvin and Rodney went further. They conceded that Cindy was pretty and had sung well, but they just did not believe she had the
hunger
, the
guts
, the
toughness
to ‘cut it live’. The fact that ‘cutting it live’ in their world normally consisted of miming to backing tracks while surrounded by trained dancers did not concern them. The fact that they had never met Cindy and couldn’t possibly know anything about her personality did not worry them either. They were adamant in their ‘expert’ opinion that Cindy was not tough enough to cut it live, and every time she assured them that she was, they said that in their opinion she wasn’t, until eventually, after fully six minutes of taunting, Cindy finally burst into tears and Beryl was able to rush over and hug her out of the room.
‘Fuck,’ said Calvin as she left the stage, ‘I didn’t think that girl was
ever
going to cry. Maybe we should get the Clinger MTTs to chop a few onions before they come on.’
Beryl handed Cindy over to Keely, who hugged her also, and Shaiana, who was waiting to be summoned next, would have liked to hug Cindy too. She was sorry that Cindy had been rejected – it would have been fun to stay on the journey with her – but there was no time for regrets or sentiment now. No time, indeed, for anything but herself because this was her moment and she
wanted it so much
.
‘This is my one moment in time,’ she told Keely when Cindy had finally been ushered from the scene. ‘
I want this so much
.’
It was now that Shaiana shed the famous once and future tear. The tear which, unlike her actual performance, was destined to be such a special feature of the Pop School edition of the show.
‘You go, girl,’ Keely said and Shaiana went.
‘Hello again, Shaiana,’ yelped Beryl from behind the wall of water bottles that stood on the white-cloth-covered trestle table.
‘Hello, Shaiana,’ said soft-spoken Rodney to her left, staring at her unblinkingly. Rodney believed he had nice eyes. He felt that they projected empathy.
Calvin, on Beryl’s right, said nothing, preferring to stare down at his note pad and play with his pen.
‘Have you been working hard?’ Beryl enquired.
‘Oh Beryl, I have been working
so hard
.’
‘You really want this, don’t you, babes?’
‘Oh Beryl, I want it
so much
.’
‘Then you go, girl,’ said Beryl.
‘I just want to say before I start that I’ve really tried to think about all the things Calvin said because this is my dream and I’m going to rock your arse, Calvin!’
Calvin smiled, a smile which seemed to say that his arse was ready and willing to be rocked but that nonetheless it was not an easy arse to rock. Particularly if the person attempting to rock it was a no-talent saddo.
‘Yay! Big it up, babes!’ Beryl yelped in that curious hybrid dialect which is Californian white brat meets US urban black all wrapped up in a hint of Swindon. ‘You go, girlfriend!’
‘I’m going to, Beryl, because I believe God put everybody on earth for a reason and the reason he put me here was—’
‘Shaiana,’ Calvin interrupted, looking up for the first time since she had entered the room, ‘just sing your song.’
‘I just want you all to know that I’ve worked so—’
‘They’ve all worked hard, Shaiana. Sing your song.’
For a moment it looked as if Shaiana would start to cry again.
The camera operators who stood to her right and left edged a step closer, like fielders at a sticky wicket in anticipation of a slow bowl. Outside in the car park the director and vision mixer, hunched inside their mobile control box, stopped their conversation and the script girl made ready to note down the time code.
Beryl got Shaiana through it.
‘You be strong, girl,’ she said. ‘Just you be strong. And you go.’
Shaiana nodded solemnly and began.
When it was over Shaiana stared briefly at the stage beneath her feet, her chest heaving as if the strong emotions which the song had wrung from her were only now departing her body. Like rings in a disturbed rock pool, they were radiating from her centre and rippling outwards, visible in her clenched fists and quivering lips.
‘That was completely . . .’ Calvin paused lengthily for effect – ‘ordinary.’
Shaiana looked like she had been punched.
Beryl leaped to her defence.
‘Calvin, behave!’ she exclaimed. ‘She’s worked so hard!’
‘Shaiana, you’re what I call an almost act,’ Calvin continued. ‘You’re almost pretty, you can almost move a bit and you can almost sing. You’ve even almost got a personality but I’m afraid rock ’n’ roll’s a tough business and “almost” just doesn’t cut it live. Never did, never will.’
Shaiana’s lip began to quiver. Tears were springing into her eyes.
Beryl put on her mumsiest voice.
‘You really want this, don’t you, babes?’
‘Oh Beryl, I want it so much. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, it’s my dream.’