You Don't Know Me (8 page)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Through The Camera's Eye

T
he Manic Pixie Dream Girls have been chosen to perform in the first of the three live finals. Then we'll stay to watch the other shows, with all the other finalists. This time, our mums travel with us. Mum shuts the café so she can be there. With the agreement of Mrs Richards, the Head, we skip the last two days of term to rehearse in a cold, empty studio in South London with the other eight acts. At night, we stay in a hotel overlooking a massive rubbish tip by the river.

As Jodie puts it, staring out at the piles of moonlit steaming rubbish: welcome to the world of Killer Act Live.

It's great to hang out with the other acts, though. We're all equally nervous, all equally obsessed with music, and we quickly form a bond – a bit like soldiers going into battle, some people say. The shared experience seems to pull us all together. It's helpful for us as a group because in rehearsal, our voices still sound thin and reedy. When Jodie pumps up the volume to make up for it, she goes all American again. Nell's practically a whisper. I'm flat every other note. People say it's the cold, and we'll be better on the night. I'm not so sure.

We'll look good, though. At least there's that. The show has a professional stylist, who's brought a whole warehouse full of clothes for us to look through. If it was all of us together, we'd be having the time of our lives.

With the stylist's help, Nell chooses a taffeta party dress with a corset top and tiny skirt; Jodie picks denim shorts and a T-shirt with a diamante skull on it; and I'm in a waistcoat made out of a Union Jack, a bright red mini-kilt and long red socks. We've each been given a pair of vintage high-heeled boots. Mine look Victorian. They have a row of tiny buttons up the front, which a wardrobe girl kneels in front of me to do up, carefully, one by one.

I wonder if Rose will be watching tomorrow. I bet she will, although she'll never admit it. If she doesn't watch us on TV with her gran, she can always do it on her phone. If she knows how. Actually, it would have been funny if we'd won the whole thing together and she'd ended up advertising Interface. She's the only person our age I know who hardly uses it.

The judges aren't there on the first day, but they arrive for the dress rehearsal on the morning of our show. We're
waiting in a queue for lunch when I see Roxanne Wills dash past us. She's surrounded by security, but through the burly guards I spot her five-inch heels, a tiny skirt to show off her perfectly toned legs, and miles of spiky jewellery. I rush to catch her up before she disappears into the corridor where the judges' dressing rooms are.

‘Roxanne! Roxanne!'

She looks round, confused.

‘Oh, hi. Did you want something . . . ?'

Roxanne has been one of my idols for such a long time. Right now, she's the only person I can trust.

‘I wondered what you thought about—'

‘Hey!' calls a security guard. ‘The lady's in a hurry. Step back, please.'

‘No, wait, it's fine,' she says to him. She gives me a flash of her starry smile. ‘I've got a couple of seconds. What did you want?'

‘I wondered what . . . I wondered why you and Linus thought we should be a trio,' I stutter. ‘When our friend had the best voice and everything. I mean, you've had such a successful career. What made you think we'd be better without her?'

‘Oh, I see,' she says, thinking back. ‘Hmm. You were the foursome, weren't you? Well, the thing is, Sandra—'

‘Sasha.'

‘Sasha. The thing is, Sasha, realistically, I don't think you had a choice. I mean, this is a tough, tough business. We've got to be real here. You know what I'm saying? And it's not all just about the voice. It's about the presentation and the whole package and—'

‘But I thought you said it
was
about the voice. Or Linus did, anyway. He said Rose's voice didn't fit.'

Roxanne shakes her head. ‘He was being kind, sweetie. Just face facts. Larger girls don't work in girl bands. You know that. And that girl—'

‘Rose.'

‘Rose. She wasn't just large. She was
large
. She has a great voice, actually. But it would have been horrible for her, and I think she knew that. Linus saw it first, but once it was out there, I had to agree. You were doing her a kindness to let her go, trust me.'

The security guard steps forward and reaches out a hand to Roxanne's elbow. She shrugs to me apologetically and obediently trots along beside him on her five-inch heels, aware that she's late.

I stand there, feeling sick.

She wasn't just large. She was
large.

I thought they wanted us to drop Rose because she was shy, and because of some weird problem I didn't understand about her voice. It never occurred to me she was just . . .
large.

Nell and Jodie rush up, panting.

‘Was that Roxanne again?'

‘Did you actually speak to her?'

‘What did she say? Did she give you her autograph?'

I ignore their questions.

‘Why do
you
think Linus didn't want Rose in the band?'

They stop dead. Nell gasps slightly and goes pink. Beside her, Jodie bites her lip.

‘Er . . .' Nell says. She clams up. I watch her shift from foot to foot, just like Elliot Harrison the video boy.

‘Was that what you asked Roxanne about?' Jodie asks me.

I nod.

‘And?'

I breathe deeply. I can hardly bring myself to say it.

‘She said Rose was large. She said that was why.'

I scan their eyes for some sort of shock at the suggestion, but it's not there. They don't look even vaguely surprised.

‘We thought you knew,' Jodie says, giving me a crooked smile. ‘I mean, it seemed a bit of a coincidence, Linus saying Rose should go when she was the best singer. Don't you think?'

Well, I do
now
. Of course I do. But I never really thought about Rose's size before. I sit down on the nearest step. I can hardly breathe. Sure, she doesn't have a typical pop-star figure, but I thought that stuff didn't matter to people because we were friends, and we could sing. I was so naïve and stupid and wrong.

And Rose knew instantly.
That's
what her strange behaviour was all about. She knew she didn't fit because she was ‘large' . . . and I agreed. That's how it must have seemed. Her best friend agreed – the one person she thought she could trust. She didn't get then that I was
jealous
of her, she thought I was just like the others. Now, I think, she's starting to understand that it was more complicated than that. She knows me well enough to realise that I am STUPID, but not mean. Not really. But it's too late.

I don't let Nell take my arm. I can't bear to be touched right now. She pulls her hand away, looking offended. This is how Rose was with me, I realise, after the judges' comments. Too angry and upset to be touched. She just needed me to be there for her. And I totally wasn't.

‘I never thought about it . . .'

‘Wow,' Jodie says, realising how I misjudged the whole situation. ‘Awkward.' She bites her lip.

‘Awkward?
Awkward?
If I'd realised I'd never have . . . Oh my God. And I said that we'd take her back after the TV shows were over. I meant to spare her shyness. She must have thought we didn't want her to appear on TV . . .'

‘Don't let it get to you,' Jodie says. ‘I talked to Mum about it and she said Rose was better off out of it. People can be mean, you know?'

‘Yes,' I whisper. Because, like it or not, I am one of them.

Jodie holds out a hand to help me up, but I refuse it. She shrugs and walks off. I walk slowly after her, making sure to keep a good distance between us. Nell trails behind, keeping more distance still.

Four hours later, we're back in costume and ready, waiting backstage while the first act launches Killer Act Live. It's the ukulele players. They sound amazing. Through a tiny crack in the wooden wall at the side of the stage we can just make out the studio audience and the judges, spotlit at their table. Two cameras are trained on them, and two more on the stage. I try not to think of them broadcasting their images to millions of people. They're scary enough as it is.

After the adverts, it's time for the next act: the street dancers. They're aged between eleven and thirteen, and they could frankly be in the Olympics, the way they tumble, balance and leap. They must have been practising every minute since they passed the audition. How did the
three of us ever make it this far?

Janet, the floor manager from the auditions, is in charge of us while we wait. ‘You know what you've got to do?' she checks.

We nod. We've rehearsed this a dozen times. After the next advert break, we will go onstage and chat to Andy for a minute or two, then watch the background video they've done about us. They haven't shown it to us yet, because they always like to film the surprise on the band members' faces when they see it for the first time. After that, we go to our marks on the stage floor, and then we sing. And, in my case, wiggle about in my kilt for three minutes in front of several million people I can't see.

Seminal leotards. Totally.

The street dancers finish their act flawlessly. The judges tell them how great they are. Advert break. Nerves. Three. Two. One. Janet sends us out. We walk to our marks next to Andy. We're on.

Bright lights shine in our faces. Andy takes a breath and does his best professional smile.

‘And finally tonight we have three girls from near my home town in Somerset,' Andy says, in his reassuring, familiar West Country burr. ‘These girls entered the competition with their own song, back in October, and became our fastest-rising entry ever! And look at you now! Don't they look
hot
, ladies and gentlemen?'

He gets the audience to whoop and applaud. The judges join in from their spotlit table at the front – Roxanne Wills clapping harder than anyone. We chat for about a minute, as we rehearsed. But all I can think about are the lights shining in our faces. I have no idea what we say. Finally, Andy moves us all a bit further backwards as
the lights go down and the screen at the back of the stage lights up with the words ‘Manic Pixie Dream Girls'.

‘Let's follow their journey from a little bedroom in Castle Bigelow to the heart of London,' Andy says. ‘Don't forget, folks, the voting starts after the final act, in just a few minutes. And meanwhile, you can send us your thoughts by tweeting or Interfacing us using the hashtag
killeract
. I'll share some of our favourite tweets and FaceFeeds at the end of the show.'

In the darkness, my heart rate slowly starts to subside. The tape starts with an extract from our original video of ‘Sunglasses'. Then there are pictures of our voting numbers rising and rising. There's a shot of us arriving at the auditions, and a little clip of us chatting nervously. To my surprise, there are lots of shots of Rose. It's not as if they're trying to pretend she was never there. That's a big relief. What the camera captures, though, is how uncomfortable she looks. I didn't spot it at the time, but she's constantly smoothing the skirt of her dress and looking unhappy if anyone stares at her. People stared at all of us, of course, because of our crazy outfits, but the camera only shows them staring at Rose.

Then we get to the audition. Now, the camera focuses more than ever on Rose. It captures how desperate she was not to lose her guitar, how much she hated ‘jiggling'. It contrasts with how much more confident I am, by comparison, throwing myself into the dance moves. When Rose is shifted to the end of the line, the background music changes tempo, sending a message. The tension builds. Something bad is about to happen.

And that's when I see it for the first time. I should have seen it all along, but I didn't. Nobody will ever believe me,
but you have to remember: I've known Rose a long time. She's my friend. All I ever saw was a girl who was better at music than me.

What I see now, through the camera's eye, and with the music wailing to a climax in the background, is three skinny girls on one side, moving in time to the music, and a big girl on the other side. A girl who feels uncomfortable, hating to dance. And her so-called friends all ignoring her and having fun.

Oh no. This is all wrong. All I want to do is stop the tape, but it rolls on.

Linus leans forward: he wants us to be a trio. Sebastian disagrees, but Roxanne says Linus has a point. Rose can sense what's coming. Linus singles her out. I look shocked on tape, but Rose does not. It's as if she knew she was the big girl in the band – the one who didn't fit.

But this is crazy! What about how good she was?

Now we're inside the room, and Rose is already leaving. Of course – they had to miss out the early part of our conversation because the cameras hadn't arrived yet. So there's nothing about us saying we should stick together. Instead, they show Jodie and Nell looking shocked, and me talking them round, saying it will be OK.

As if I chucked my fat friend so we could go on TV.

As if I would do that.

But as I watch the tape it seems clear: I did.

Outside the room, the camera watches from a distance as I approach Rose and talk to her in a low voice. It follows her dignified walk as she leaves me standing.

It doesn't show me calling after her. Instead, the tape cuts to the rest of us reacting as the judges put us through.
We stand there, as a trio, shocked and hugging each other.

And then it stops. I want to die.

So
that
was our backstory. Nothing to do with writing ‘Sunglasses', or Nell's plans to be a vet. I just betrayed my fat best friend on TV.