by Joanna Nadin
The Lab dances inside me. Turning my stomach, making my foot tap and my hand shake, alive with nerves. And I wish Stella were here.
“You won’t need me,” she’d said, pushing me at the mirror again. “Look. I’m with you. I’m in you.”
But I want her next to me. Telling me it’s all right. That I can do it. That I’m special.
“Can’t afford it,” she said.
“I’ll lend it to you, then.”
But she shook her head. “You’ll be fine.”
I say it to myself. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. If I say it enough, maybe it will come true.
I take the sandwich out of my bag and drop it in the plastic bin between the seats. One of the men looks up. Because of the smell, perhaps. A meaty, breakfast smell. He catches my eye and looks away again. Back to the Telegraph. Some story about National Health Service budgets. Probably does this journey every day. Sits in the same seat. Has the same cup of coffee and the same apple. The same conversation with the conductor. I close my eyes and lean my head against the windowpane. Feeling the rocking of the train. I am never going to be stuck, I think. I want every day to be different. To surprise me.
Today it does.
“There you are.”
I jolt up.
She crashes down opposite me, spreading herself over two seats.
“Stella?” Relief washes over me.
“No, the Queen of Sheba,” she retorts.
“But . . . what are you doing?”
“Coming with you, duh.” She pulls out her makeup bag and spills the contents across the Formica tabletop.
“I thought you didn’t have the money.”
“Don’t. I’ll hide in the loo when the conductor comes.” She flicks open a gold compact and studies herself. “Urgh. I look like death. This is entirely too early.”
She clicks it shut.
I glance across at Telegraph Man, to see if he is watching her circus. But she is invisible. We both are.
“So, Tom dropped you off. Did he wish you bad luck?”
“Yeah — no, I mean . . . I didn’t see you at the station.”
“Toilets. Desperate for a pee. Too much coffee. God, Jude. You’re worse than Mrs. Hickman with the twenty questions. I wouldn’t have bothered if I’d known I was going to get the Spanish Inquisition.”
“Sorry. It’s just that . . . I thought I was on my own.”
“That can be arranged. I’ll get off at Hicksville or wherever the next station is.”
“No, don’t,” I blurt out, not caring about the desperation that I know she can hear in every syllable. “I want you here.”
“Good. I’m gasping for a ciggy.” Stella shakes her bag on the table. Three packets of cigarettes fall out. She does her trick, flicking the packet and pulling one out with her lips. Telegraph Man coughs and points at the NO SMOKING stickers plastered over every window.
Stella takes the cigarette out of her mouth. “Christ. Keep your hair on.” She tucks the packet under her bra strap. “I’ll go to the toilets, then, or hang out the window or something.” She stands up and looks at me. “Coming?”
I shake my head. It’s too early for me, still.
“Suit yourself. Want anything from the dining car?”
“Coke. Full fat. I need the energy.”
“Got any cash?”
“Oh. Yeah.” I find my purse. Hand her Dad’s tenner.
“Thanks. I’ll keep the change.”
I watch as she walks up the carriage, the suits turning to look at her, like she knew they would. She is incredible, I think. I open her compact and look at myself. And I smile. Because, for once, I feel a bit incredible too.
The train stops at Plymouth. Telegraph Man gets off, along with two of the others. The station is packed with daytrippers. Going to London to see the sights. The British Museum. Buckingham Palace. Madame Tussauds. Stuff I saw when I was a kid. Mum would take me, and I’d come home with plastic Beefeaters, police helmets, snow globes with a red London bus and the Houses of Parliament inside.
Stella is still not back.
“Are these seats taken?”
I look up. A woman with a boy, smaller than Alfie. Too young for school. The woman is nodding at Stella’s seat. Seats.
“Yes.”
She glares at me. Like I’m lying.
“She went to the dining car,” I say, like it’s obvious.
The woman grabs the boy’s hand and pulls him to the cramped airline seats behind us. And I go back to staring out the window.
The conductor comes around to check tickets.
“Someone sitting here?” He is looking at Stella’s seat. At her makeup strewn across the table.
I shake my head. “Nope.”
He nods and moves on.
I hear the woman behind me snort. But I don’t care what she thinks. I just want Stella to come back.
She does. Eventually. Somewhere between Taunton and Westbury. Smelling of alcohol. Vodka and Coke. It is ten in the morning. Too early to serve. She must have brought it with her. Poured it into the can.
“What happened?” I ask.
Her face shines with a secret. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
“Stella. Come on.”
I know it is going to be a man before she says it.
“Bloke in first class. Asked him for a light outside the toilet. Next thing he’s in there with me, and it’s not a pee he’s after.”
“That is gross.”
She shrugs.
I shake my head. “You are so full of it.”
“Maybe.” She smiles. “Maybe not. Guess you’ll never know. . . . Oh, yeah.” She opens her bag and pulls out a can of Coke. “I forgot. This is for you.”
“Thanks.” It’s warm, but I open it anyway. It hisses, spurting over the side and onto the table.
“Shit.” I mop it away with my hand, steering it toward the floor.
The woman behind me leans around the seat. “Do you mind?”
Stella stares at her. “No. Obviously not.”
The woman darts back. Unsure what to do or say next. So she does nothing. Like I knew she would. You don’t argue with Stella.
Stella picks up a discarded newspaper from across the aisle and presses it down on the Coke.
“Thanks.”
“All rubbish anyway. Best thing for it.” She smiles as she drops it in the bin on top of the sandwich. The smell of cooked meat wafts up again.
The train is hurtling through nameless small towns, station signs illegible, everything blurring into one endless redbrick-and-hanging-basket ribbon.
Stella opens a packet of Jaffa Cakes, the chocolate melting on her fingers. She licks it off, then offers me one. I take it, the artificial orange taste stinging my tongue. Stella smiles. “Who’d you rather . . . ?”
We play for an hour. Then we fall asleep in the dull throbbing heat of the home counties.
I wake up an hour later. Stella is still pressed against the window, sleeping off the vodka.
Outside, the flowers and Railway Children station houses are gone, replaced by apartments and office blocks. Mosques and church spires pierce the hazy blue sky, competing for space with tinted glass skyscrapers. A pink neon clock a meter wide and twenty meters up tells me it is 12:13 and 29°C. I can hear sirens and the sound of horns and shouting. Life.
I stare, like a child seeing the city for the first time. Seeing the brilliance and light and wonder.
“Where are we?” Stella sits up and rubs an eye, pushing mascara across her cheek in a wide arc.
I reach over and wipe it off for her. “London.”
WE ARE sitting on railings outside the Tube station. Two hours to kill before the audition, we’re bathing in the sunshine after the dark heat and sweat of the underground. I light up a cigarette, trying to drug the butterflies, calm them down, and watch the world rush past like sped-up movie film. Skinny girls in heels carrying Urban Outfitters bags. Cabdrivers laughing at some dirty joke. Peo
ple everywhere, the Tube spewing another hundred out every few minutes and swallowing a hundred more. Human traffic.
I try to imagine Dad here. Dad with the smell of cow and hay on him. Dad who still wears his checkered shirts and cable-knit jumpers in the shop. I try to see him in the crowd, one of them. With the same purpose, the same ease. But all I can see is the man who gave up on it. Who went back to the farm. Whose paintings got boxed up and lost in the attic chaos of old toys and unwanted clothes. I remember him that night at the table. Drunk. And I swear I will never be like him. “This is me,” I say to the crowds. To the shops, to the cars bumper to bumper on the melting asphalt. “This is me.”
“What?” Stella flicks ash onto the taxi parked beside us. “I could murder a drink. There must be a pub near here.”
“Stell —”
“Come on.” She drops her cigarette on the pavement. Stubs it out with studied elegance. “Steady the nerves.”
“OK. Fine. But just one, yeah?” Still the old Jude, somewhere in there.
“Whatever.”
“Vodka and Coke. Twice.” Stella pulls out her cigarettes.
“No smoking, love.” The barman. Australian.
“Jesus.” Stella drops her bag on the zinc surface, the buckle clanking against the shiny metal. “Anyone would think it was bad for you.”
“Did you mean double vodka and double Coke or just double vodka?” The barman is holding a single glass up.
“No, duh. Two vodkas. Two Cokes. Two glasses.”
He shrugs and does as he’s told, squirting premix cola into the alcohol.
“Not even real Coke,” sighs Stella, world-weary at sixteen. “Whatever happened to the good old days?”
But I’m not really listening. I’m thinking of her. Of Mum in the pub, that day, somewhere near here. She said she’d danced on the bar to David Bowie. I look around me. At the Habitat paper lanterns, the polished floor. I feel a loss. An emptiness. Like I need more. I need to see chandeliers, a jukebox, a wooden bar, pitted with stiletto heels. Not this cold metal in front of me. I want to sit on the same cracked leather that she did. I want to pee in the same cramped space. I want to know what it felt like to be her. But instead I just feel like me. Jude. Pretending again.
“Here. Drink up.” Stella pushes one of the vodkas to me.
I take it and gulp it down. It burns my throat and the bubbles sting, making me cough.
“Bloody hell.” Stella is impressed. “Here. You need it more than me.” She pushes the second glass over. I drink. Slower this time. Letting it take over. Seep into me. I know I shouldn’t. Know it’s stupid. But I want to feel something. Anything but the fear and self-loathing I am full of right now.
“Got any money left?” I ask.
Stella stares at me, unsmiling. “No. Not for drink, anyway.”
“It’s mine,” I protest. “Dad gave it to me.”
“Bollocks. You still owe me, remember?” She stands up. “Anyway, party’s over. You need to eat. Curtain’s up in half an hour.”
“When did you get all Mother Superior?” I whine.
“After the third vodka,” she replies. “Come on, Jude. This is your chance to get away. And you’re blowing it.”
“’Kay . . . shit.” I slip off the bar stool and lurch into Stella.
She grabs my arm. “Out. Now.”
I drag my bag off the bar, knocking a glass to the floor. It shatters on the stripped wood and spatters my shoes as I am marched to the door, James Blunt singing, You’re beautiful . . . I laugh at the irony. And stumble out into the sobering sun.
“Are you sure this is right?” I ask, panic marking my voice.
We have been walking for twenty minutes, Stella in charge of the A–Z. The shops have given way to stucco terraces, with window boxes half camouflaging security bars and Porsches parked outside. I am sweating into the dress. Dark patches ring my underarms. Vodka on my breath. I’m a mess.
“’Course it bloody is,” she snaps. “Don’t you trust me?” Stella throws the A–Z at me and it falls to the ground. I stoop to pick it up, but she keeps walking, knowing I will run to catch her. I do. And link my arm into hers. But she shrugs me off.
“Just wait, Stella. Please stop.” I am trying to walk and read the map at the same time.
“Christ, Jude.” Stella is angry. With me. With us. I don’t know.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Please. I just lost it. I’m scared.”
She stops, rolls her eyes. “Here . . .” She holds out her hand for the map. I pass it to her.
“Gloucester Road. See?” She points to a yellow line. One in thousands that mean nothing to me. Bear no resemblance to the street I am standing in. “That’s where we are. The Lab is here.” She points to a thinner white line, just a few millimeters away. She was right all along. She doesn’t need to say it. Just links my arm in hers and pulls me forward. “And don’t beg. Ever. It’s demeaning.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“And stop saying sorry.”
“Sorry.”
The A–Z hits me in the chest and I laugh. Because I know we’re OK. Me and her. And I thank God, or whoever, that she is there. Because with her I stand a chance. With her I can do anything. Be anybody. Be somebody.
“TOTO, I’VE a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
Stella is right. This is as far from backyard, small town, redneck as it gets. The Lab. The lobby is like a scene from Fame. Rows of black-and-white head shots of people I recognize from TV. Catlike girls in leg warmers holding packets of cigarettes, leaning against the walls or stretching on the floor. First or second years. They all know one another, looking up when Stella and I crash through the door. Deciding who I am. What I am. I know what they’re thinking. Not even trailer-trash cool. I’m Anne of Green Gables. Wholesome. Country. I look down at my red shoes. I’m Dorothy.
“It’s like we’ve died and gone to hell. Or Abercrombie and Fitch.” Stella is shaking her head.
I poke her in the ribs.
“What? They’re a bunch of plastics. You’re way better than any of them.”
“Yeah, right.”
“God, Jude. Now is not the time to go all wallflower on me.”
But I feel weird. Maybe it’s just the king-size Snickers and two packets of crisps Stella forced me to eat on the way. I need to pee as well. Three vodka and Cokes and two bottles of Evian are demanding to be let out.
Stella glances at me. “Has to be said, you do look like shit.”
“Thanks.”
“Anytime.” She smiles.
“I need the loo.”
“In a minute. Come on.”
She marches me to the front desk. Stella does the talking.
“Hi. Jude Polmear. Two o’clock.”
The receptionist is all tight bun, tight mouth, and Joan Crawford makeup. A fading fifty-year-old. She’s thinking the same as the others as she types my name into the computer. No chance. I am one of thirty for three places. I want to go home. I tug at Stella’s arm but she pushes me away.
Joan Crawford speaks. “Down the corridor. Wait on the chairs on the left. You’ll be called.”
“Toilets?” I ask.
She points down the same corridor.
“Thanks so much,” says Stella. And then, “Witch!” under her breath, still smiling.
“Come on.” I am desperate now.
“OK.” Stella links arms again as we walk quickly down the corridor. “What’s she on, anyway? Anyone would think someone had appointed her Simon bloody Cowell.”
She kicks the bathroom door open.
The Lab may be all Norman Foster glass and chrome, but the toilets are regulation dive. Smell of bleach drowning out the filth and smoke. Lipstick messages on the walls. Tampons spilling out of the sanitary bins.
I lock myself in a stall and pee for what seems like an eternity, nerves eased by the sweet relief of it.
But as I pull my knickers up, I feel a wave of sickness wash over me and I drop o
nto my knees, staring my pee in the face. I retch but nothing comes up.
Stella bangs on the door.
“Bulimia is so last year.”
“Vodka.” I retch again, trying to heave something up. But it won’t come.
“You only had three,” she says. “You need to work on your alcohol capacity.”
The nausea subsides. I flush the toilet and open the door.
“Maybe it’s nerves.” I turn on a tap and splash lukewarm water on my face. I don’t feel any better.
“Whatever. Get over it.”
“Thanks for the sympathy.”
She smiles. Looks at me staring at myself in the graffitied mirror. “Well, you may not look like a nun, but you’re giving good turmoil. Very Isabella.”
I want to smile, but I can’t. My head is full of the wrong things. I try to pull Isabella’s lines out of the chaos, but they won’t come.
“I can’t do it, Stell.”
“What?”
“The audition. I’m not doing it. I can’t even remember my lines.”
“You can. That had he twenty heads to tender down/On twenty bloody blocks, he’d yield them up.”
I shake my head.
“Come on. This is what you want, Jude. Don’t wimp out on me now. Don’t be him. Don’t be Tom.”
But tears are rolling down my cheeks, taking the mascara with them. Washing away the disguise.
“Right. I’ll do it, then,” she says.
I look up. “What?”
“If you won’t go in, I will.”
I don’t understand. “But you can’t . . . you don’t have an audition.”
“No. But you do.”
And I realize what she’s saying. What she’s going to do. For me. And I love her. For caring. For daring to.
But it’s wrong. It can’t work. I shake my head. “They’ll suss it.”
“How? No one knows what you look like yet.”
“What if I — if you get in? They take photos in there.”
“So? Same hair. Same clothes.” She pulls me to the mirror. “Look. I’m you.” And then she starts to sing. But it’s not her voice; it’s mine. It’s eerie. Like watching a better, more brilliant, version of myself. Like the camera on my life has focused and suddenly I’m clear.