by Judy May
By now all anger over Nick has morphed into complete humiliation and I am hoping that by tomorrow it will have faded to a slight shame. And that I can live with because I know it so well. I’d love a life free of feeling like the freak of the universe.
Ro wanted to do the manifesting circle thing again tonight to imagine being a film star and famous artist, but I didn’t have the heart for it. What’s the point of being a film star if the guy you fancy is going out with Donna Henderson?
She also said that flu would be better than mumps so I can recover in time to be back in town looking stunning the day after. Of course she is right.
DAY TEN
In the end I gave myself a better offer instead of an infectious disease and contacted Nick with the news that I’d been invited to dinner with an important family friend and wouldn’t be able to go to the dance.
Mum needed help with tidying away all the things we took out of storage for the party so that has taken up most of today. It’s now early in the evening so I think I might try that visualising and speaking the word about being an actress, just because it hurts too much to think about Nick and he keeps creeping back into my head. At least this way if he does sneak back in he’ll have competition from hunky leading men.
I have written it out on a piece of paper, everything that I intend to have happen, and Ro has done the same over at her place and we’re going to hang onto them until we can organise to float them out to sea or burn them in a ceremonial … er … ceremony I guess.
Mine is written in the dark purple ink I use for journalling, and it fills a page that I ripped from the back of this. It says:
WHEN THESE THINGS HAPPEN MY LIFE IS PERFECT
I am a proper film star.
I am Nick Collins’ official girlfriend.
Mum has stopped asking me would I not like to do something with my hair.
Dad has let me take up the saxophone and has agreed that Chinchillas are the easiest pets to keep.
Boring Brown Stephen stays as far away as possible and stops kidding himself that we are friends.
LATER
I was doing all this meditating, laundry, reading difficult books and clearing out of cupboards, checking out stuff on the computer in the sitting room (one computer and fifty million books – what a house!) and just about anything to get my mind off the fact that I was NOT snogging Nick behind the stage at the junior M&D dance, when the freakiest thing happened! This could make the summer interesting after all and not the marshland of self-pity it was panning out to be. This very minute I’ve just returned from meeting with the girls and it’s still sinking in. You’d think I’d be used to surprises by now, taking into account all the practice I’ve been given this week.
HERE IT IS!
Boring Brown Stephen phoned (must start calling him Stephen in case that slips out some time) and Mum refused to pretend I wasn’t in like I asked her to. I was praying he wasn’t going to ask me on a date or anything, but in fact his dad made him phone me, a point which was made very clear in the first minute of the conversation. He explained that Alex’s dad, the film producer, has arranged to shoot part of his movie at The Grange, because it’s a historical drama and they need a huge old house with grounds. AND film-producer-dad wanted Alex and Stephen to find teenagers to audition for sixteen teen extra parts in the film, eight guys and eight girls. At first I thought he wanted me to introduce him to some teenagers who might be good, but in fact he wants ME to audition too! I so heavily hinted about how perfect Ro and the others would be that by the end of the conversation he asked would I mind choosing loads of other girls to audition because he doesn’t know any in town anymore apart from me. The job of an extra is pretty easy from what Alex told us the other night, you’re just in a costume in the background pretending to speak and eat or whatever is going on in the scene.
Stephen said to gather up as many girls as possible and be in his house tomorrow after lunch to meet the assistant director who will make the final decision. I then passed him over to Paul who he asked to audition too and bring loads of guys (Alex and Stephen have already been cast as extras, nepotism rules!).
I chose Ro, Lorna and Alice, Hanna, Dairne, Amber and Bonnie. My thinking was that if there are only just enough of us, then we’ll all get chosen. Mum made me invite my cousin Sophie even though she is only twelve and we have enough girls already. I’m now scared that they won’t choose me because there will be one too many and I’m too tall. If that happens I will never forgive Mum, but she’s talking about it like it’s a kid’s birthday party and everyone’s invited. I keep going from thrilled to annoyed and back again in the space of two seconds.
Even though it was late, within an hour all us girls met in Hanna’s den, which is cool, with computers and music systems and speakers all over the place, and three huge couches that she and her brothers liberated from skips in the middle of the night.
We have decided that when we go there we’re not going to dress up too much, we’re just going to wear what we would normally wear on a Saturday in town, jeans and that, and to take it easy on the make-up. We’ll meet back at Hanna’s for a pasta lunch tomorrow and then all go straight to Professor Brown’s house from there.
DAY ELEVEN
It was hilarious. We all showed up in our best party outfits and wearing way more make-up than usual and enough accessories to stock a medium-sized department store.
It didn’t matter anyway because when we got there and our pictures were taken they were barely glanced at by the Assistant Director, Lizzy (she’s called the Third AD as apparently there are two others more senior to her). She told us that we were all hired! Alex later explained that casting extras on a movie isn’t a big deal and as long as you don’t have a third arm or a terribly obvious hump then you’re in. It still felt great to be chosen though.
The only bad bit was that it’s a historical costume drama and Hanna would have to get the blue-black dye taken out of her hair and lose the goth make-up (which she’s cool with) and Ro was told that she’d need to un-dread her hair. She said she would never do that and would prefer not to be involved in the film at all. I was totally panicking about her not being in it with me when Lizzy, I think seeing Ro’s eyes well up with tears (as well as Alice’s of course!), said that there was a job going as assistant to the location manager and would Ro like to talk to him about it.
So Ro went off with Lizzy to meet the location manager while the rest of us went home. Dairne can’t do it as she’s going on holiday halfway through, but she doesn’t seem to mind.
I am SO excited! I know it’s about as far from being a film star as a burger-flipper is from being a Michelin-star chef, but at least we’ll be busy for the next month and they’ll be paying us so I won’t need to bug Mum and Dad for money any more.
Lizzy is meeting the guys tomorrow so I’m off to ask Paul who’s auditioning.
LATER
I nearly fell off my feet when Paul told me that he asked Nick to audition. I yelled at him for a good two minutes until I had to breathe and he smartly pointed out that if Nick and I are working on set, and Donna isn’t, then it’s the perfect situation. I had to admit he had a point, and then I had to go and calm myself down with several cups of tea. It’s all very trying this love business. He’ll get chosen for sure as Paul only bothered to ask five guys.
The book The Game Of Life, talks about acting on hunches, and I have a weird feeling that I am supposed to go talk to Lorna and Alice, although I only saw them two hours ago and we’ve said all there is to say and then some.
DAY TWELVE
The hunch about calling around to Lorna’s last night was a good one. I found her stomping around like a woodsman, with Alice crouched in a ball on a chair all pale and puffy-faced from crying even more than usual. Apparently their parents phoned each other and agreed that show business was not an inspirational or nurturing environment for young women, and they are not allowed to even the visit the set, let alone work there! Alice’s father be
lieves that she’ll be running off to Hollywood and destroying her chances of becoming a quantum physicist. He must be the only person on the planet who doesn’t know that when she’s older she wants to make hats.
I managed to calm down the hysterics, and get them in a state where they could start to find solutions. I handled Lorna by telling her that stomping is a sign of weakness, and Alice by giving her my back-up bar of chocolate. Both agreed to persuade their parents to come over to my house this afternoon.
Once I got back I explained the whole scenario to Dad who phoned Professor Brown to come over today to meet Alice and Lorna’s parents. Luckily they all know each other because Alice’s mum lectures in the maths department and Lorna’s parents are both head librarians. I asked Dad would he rather I was hanging out with girls we’ve known since I was born, or unknown new girls who might be into weirdness. I believe he’s now putting on his fix-it cap.
LATER
Even better than I imagined! Not only are they allowed to be in the film, but the whole group of us, well half of us anyway, are going to stay at The Grange during filming. Me, Ro, Paul, Alice (who has decided not to throw herself from the top of the bell tower after all), and Lorna (who is no longer looking at serving life in prison for killing someone with a hard stare). The parental logic (ha!) is that we can get in less trouble if we are all under one roof where Professor Brown can keep an eye on us. I have no clue why they think that might mean less trouble, but I’m certainly not going to argue against it. Also it solves the problem of how to get us all to the set on time every day. The downer is that the teen extras who live on the other side of town (including Nick) won’t be staying at The Grange due to lack of room and the fact that there is a bus that will be picking them up and dropping them back. They all live within a couple of streets of each other so I guess it makes sense.
It feels weird packing a suitcase to go fifteen minutes up the road. At least I can leave all my books behind because the library at The Grange has enough to last even me for a lifetime. I’m sort of glad that so much less happens during the school year, I’d be a wreck if life always barrelled along at this speed.
Right, as soon as Ro gets here we’re off.
DAY THIRTEEN
I’m writing this from my cushioned nook on a wide window-sill in the library room at The Grange. The equipment trucks, actors and crew don’t arrive until the day after tomorrow so we have a little time to settle in. The Professor asked us to come a couple of days early to get accustomed to the place, but I suspect he’s just desperate to provide more company for his awkward son. Also Mum and Dad are preparing for a huge symposium they’ll be off to in a couple of weeks so it suited them to have us out of the way.
This morning I was up first, and was showered, dressed and out walking the grounds before the others were awake. For an hour I simply wandered up and down the paths and around the orchard and the greenhouse, sitting on a bench every now and then to listen to the birds. God, I hope no one finds this, they will think I am soft in the head. Actually, they’ll already think I’m weird if they’ve read this far, the hanging out on a bench like a spare old-person will only confirm it.
Breakfast was in the formal dining room, a buffet of pancakes, toast, cereal, eggs, kippers (really!), juice, tea, muffins, bagels, and fruit salad. It was strange how we all sat up straighter than usual and watched our language even though there was only the eight of us and no adults around. There is a lovely lady called Miss Higgins who waddled and pottered in and out who wouldn’t even let us help clear away the dishes or stack the dishwasher. Could get used to this. Paul already is.
It reminded me of an old-fashioned boarding-school novel when we arrived last night. The four of us girls – me, Ro, Lorna and Alice – are in one of the two large attic rooms with a double bed each, two large old wardrobes, and a small chest of drawers beside each bed. There’s a gorgeous new soft carpet on the floor that smells the way only new carpets can, and fresh nets and cream curtains on the windows.
Stephen has moved out of his usual bedroom and into the other attic room with Alex, Paul and Gussy (just my luck!). Apparently the other ten bedrooms (apart from the Professor’s room) are being used as extras’ dressing rooms, production HQ, wardrobe department storage rooms and a props room. Most of our news is filtering in through Ro who pops into the house every couple of hours with lists and speaking into a walkie talkie. It is so completely Ro to look as if she’s been doing it for years, she’s a natural at organising, and not just dogs and other people’s brothers. Bob, the location manager put her onto the job as soon as they met and she’s an old pro already.
It’s their job to make sure that the location where the filming happens has everything they will need, water, power and all that, that people and trucks can get in and out, and that nothing gets damaged. Only two days in and she’s taking photos of walls and stairs, ordering gardeners to move urns and garden furniture and saying things like, ‘Roger that Bob!’ and, ‘Bob, the access gate is four point eight metres wide, but there is the possibility of removing the gates to gain an extra point five. Let me know.’
I am so proud of my little dungareed friend.
Stephen (who actually dresses pretty normal these days in jeans and t-shirts) gave us a tour of the place. It’s all fairly straightforward (if huge); two kitchens, two pantries, a utility room and storage rooms in the basement, a huge entrance hall on the ground floor with two sitting rooms to either side in the front, and a larger reception room behind with a ballroom on one side and an impossibly large dining room on the other. The library, the billiards room and the Professor’s office are on a kind of return up a short staircase at the back of the house, looking out onto the cobbled courtyard.
Then up the central staircase are ten bedrooms, five to each side along the two corridors and an en-suite bathroom off each room, which were put in a few years ago. The whole house smells of wood, furniture-polish and old books, and makes me feel like I’m back living three centuries ago. I wonder if Stephen knows how lucky he is to be brought up here. He was showing off the portraits of his ancestors to Alice when I slipped away to come here.
The best of all (apart from the library) is our part of the house. You have to go up these long, rickety side stairs and then stoop as you go into the landing where our two attic dorms look out onto the main garden. The grounds extend just as far as you can see, so they are huge, but not like a park or wilderness. Thank God there is a bathroom for each of us across the landing, the thought of sharing a toilet with Gussy would be enough to send me home.
Paul confirmed my prediction that Alex would have more toiletries and products than all the girls put together. Alex is cool, although there’s not much going on in his head except for names of people I’m apparently supposed to know from movies. He definitely has a thing for Lorna, but she’s never in her life had time for his brand of nonsense, so all his singing of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin to her is falling on eaf ears. They look quite alike, loads of teeth, dark hair and dark eyes, not that you should choose each other based on that. Anyway she’d eat him alive, so I guess I admire his courage.
LATER
So much for Professor Brown keeping an eye on us, we’ve just had a rock-out party in one of the kitchens. It’s amazing how much fun you can have with a batch of bruschettas, a case of bottled juices and a bunch of people who can’t sing nearly as well as they think they can. It was the BEST, especially when Ro and Lorna were dancing on a table while Paul and Alex sang some seriously dodgy song that none of us have ever heard, but they insist is a classic.
Stephen doesn’t think much of me either which is a relief as it means I don’t have to push him away or ignore him. There is a civilised stand-off which is perfect. He has gone pretty quiet since we all got here which is perfect too, much better than him being all fake and sucking up to adults. My guess is that he doesn’t have any friends who are girls, because the boarding school abroad that he and Alex go to is for boys only. Gussy couldn’t b
elieve that when he heard it and thought it was in a country where ‘girls are illegal’ – he actually said that. The idea that people might choose to be educated with only their own gender was beyond him. Now every time he asks for something, like a phone or a glass of orange juice we tell him it’s illegal. Gussy is good value, but I still wish Nick were staying here instead.
Ro got all sensible with us about an hour ago and said we had to start to get used to getting up early as we’ll have six am starts in a day or so. Gussy thinks she is joking so we played along and told him that he’d be allowed sleep in until eleven, that the early starts were for the less important people, not for stars like him.
DAY FOURTEEN
I almost wish the film crew wasn’t coming tomorrow, I’m loving being here without them. It’s now early afternoon and we are all (except Ro) sprawled around the huge sitting room, which is like three sitting rooms all under one very moulded ceiling, hiding out from a rain shower. Stephen and Paul are playing chess in one section, the girls and their magazines are with me here on the other side of the room, Alex is lying on the middle sofa telling some hellishly long story to Gussy about a commercial he once appeared in, and Gussy is pretending to follow.
Even in such a short time we have become a little family with Ro like the efficient working mother, Paul like the fun dad always having ideas for games and parties, Stephen like the gangly, distant old uncle, Lorna like the stroppy older daughter, Alice the sweet little girl, Gussy and Alex like the troublesome little boys. I don’t know what that makes me though.
I just ran this notion past Lorna and Alice who both said, ‘The Governess’, at the exact same time. Scary!