Star Struck

by Anne-marie O'connor

  ‘Hello?’ she said in a voice that suggested she didn’t know who was calling. Why do that, she wondered? She’d taken his number, she knew it was him, but here she was acting all casual as if there were so many Andys in her phone book she didn’t know which one was ringing at any given time.

  ‘Catherine? It’s Andy.’

  ‘Oh, hi Andy.’ You know it’s him!

  ‘I didn’t know if my number came up, it sometimes comes up as private number …’

  Now poor Andy was having to enter into her pretence with her. Catherine wanted to kick herself. She really needed Jo to script her when it came to talking to men; she seemed incapable of doing it properly on her own.

  ‘No, er, yes it didn’t … I mean, no. Er …’ Catherine laughed nervously, what was she on about?

  Thankfully, Andy laughed too. ‘Shall we start again?’ he asked kindly.

  ‘Go on then,’ Catherine said gratefully.

  ‘Hi, Catherine, it’s Andy.’

  ‘Hi, Andy.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Good. And you?’

  ‘Great. I’m just ringing about that drink.’ Andy sounded as nervous as Catherine felt.

  ‘Oh right, yes the drink. Well, it’ll have to be after I get back from London now,’ she said and then corrected herself. ‘Sorry, what I meant is, I’d love to, but obviously I’ve got to go to London.’

  ‘It might not have to wait until you get back from there … because I’m coming too!’

  ‘No way!’ Catherine shrieked and then realised that her enthusiasm might scare Andy off. ‘I mean,’ she coughed, mocking herself, speaking again but this time in a low calm voice, ‘No way.’

  ‘Yep. They’ve drafted me in. Jason P. Longford likes me, apparently. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?’

  Catherine laughed. ‘A bit of both, I think.’

  ‘So, I get to see you go through to the finals and then obviously win the whole show.’

  Catherine smiled. ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I think Star is the natural-born winner of Star Maker this year, unless there’s some American talent that’s better at singing and even more assured of their own greatness.’

  ‘Whatever. But we can go along for the ride though, can’t we?’

  Catherine felt giddy, as if he was inviting her to be part of his exclusive gang, her and him against the world. ‘Yes,’ she laughed, ‘we can.’

  Chapter 9

  CATHERINE HAD NEVER been to London. She knew that that probably made her sound like a hick, but she hadn’t. There hadn’t ever really been a time when the opportunity had arisen. Once her dad had decided that he had to go to see an exhibition by the artist Velázquez, but a week before they were due to go Mick had read an article about the artist in the Mail on Sunday and told Catherine that they weren’t ‘going all the way to London to see some doodles by a piss-taking Spaniard.’ And that had been the end of that.

  Catherine hadn’t known what to expect on her first visit to the capital, but she knew that this trip, courtesy of Star Maker, would be far more exciting than it would have been had she accompanied her father. She and Kim, who had travelled on the train together, were met at the station by a chauffeur-driven car and were whisked through the streets of London. Catherine and Kim excitedly chattered as they looked out of the window at Green Park. ‘Look, the Ritz!’ Kim shouted as the car slowed. ‘Are we staying here?’ she asked.

  ‘No, where you’re staying is far better that that,’ the chauffeur said with a smile. A few minutes later he pulled the car around the corner and came to a stop at some electronic gates.

  ‘Oh my God, you can not be serious!’ Kim squealed. Ahead of them was a huge white Edwardian villa.

  ‘It’s like a palace,’ Catherine whispered, totally overawed. ‘Is this where we’re staying?’ She really couldn’t believe it. The Cotswolds place had been nice but in London, for some reason, she thought they might get put up in a Travel Lodge somewhere on the outskirts and be shipped in to the centre for filming.

  ‘Here you are, girls,’ the chauffeur turned round and announced with a smile, ‘Chez Forster.’

  ‘This is amazing!’ Catherine looked out at the manicured front lawn and the ivy that was creeping around the huge front door.

  ‘Fifteen bedrooms in there. Looks smaller from here, doesn’t it?’ the chauffeur commented.

  ‘No, it looks massive!’ Kim squealed.

  ‘You’re a bit more impressed than the last girl I dropped off. She just stuck her nose in the air and said it was like her mum’s gaff.’

  Catherine and Kim looked at one another. ‘Star,’ they said simultaneously.

  They were taken through into the first reception room of the house and were allocated their room on the third floor. It was all very glamorous to begin with, as they inspected the huge bathroom and jumped around on their beds with their Egyptian cotton sheets. But as they were taken through into their audition groups and put through their paces it became apparent that they weren’t going to have any time to enjoy their luxury surroundings.

  Catherine, Kim and Star were kept in one room all day. They were informed that the six girls from America that they would be competing against were here, but that they wouldn’t meet them until the following day because it was felt that they might be a distraction. They were then each given a song to sing, with no opportunity to change if they didn’t think it suited their voice. Catherine had been allocated ‘Sitting on the Dock of the Bay’ by Otis Redding. At first she had panicked, but as she practised it over and over she realised that it really suited her voice. She wanted to sing her own songs but knew that for the moment she should just sing what she was asked to sing.

  Star had complained about her song choice, only to be told by the vocal coach that she had better get used to being allocated songs if she was to get through to the finals, as all of the songs had already been chosen. During Boot Camp they had been allowed to choose their own songs, but now – as the competition hotted up – the contestants’ performances were dictated by the judges. Catherine had thought this was odd – how could they know what would suit different singers’ voices? But she was so busy that the thought soon left her head and she resumed singing.

  As they fell into bed at the end of a long day, Kim looked over at Catherine and said, ‘Looks a lot more glamorous on the telly, doesn’t it?’

  Catherine didn’t want to badmouth the show. She’d had a great day and it was glamorous to her, but she hated to disagree with people. ‘I suppose it can’t be glamour twenty-four seven, can it? Anyway, we’re not here to have a glamorous time, we’re here so that they can make the show and make it look like we’re having a glamorous time.’

  ‘True,’ Kim lapsed into thought.

  ‘And we get to climb into the best bed ever at night and open the curtains and look out at a Mayfair garden in the morning.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Kim said. ‘But Star Maker is just a machine at the end of the day.’

  ‘Oh God, you sound like my dad.’

  ‘Is that a bad thing, then?’

  ‘He’s just partial to a conspiracy theory or two, likes to think that this is a machine that’s sole purpose is to chew up people with a dream to sing and spit them out the other end.’

  ‘Cheery then, your dad?’

  Catherine caught the lump in her throat. ‘He’s just a bit gloomy. The glass isn’t even half empty. It’s just empty.’

  There was silence in the room as Catherine tried not to get upset about her dad, but soon tears began to roll down her cheeks.

  ‘Are you OK? You sound like you’re crying,’ Kim said gently.

  Catherine propped herself up in the bed and wondered momentarily if she should keep what was happening at home to herself. Then she saw Kim looking kindly at her and knew that she could trust her new friend with anything. The two girls sat talking until the early hours of the morning and Catherine told her everything about her dad, about her family, about her concerns ab
out being in this competition. Kim listened and reassured Catherine that what she was doing was absolutely the right thing. And as Catherine drifted off to sleep she was struck by the thought that being behind the scenes of Star Maker might not being as glitzy as she may have imagined, but she was sure that she’d made a great friend in Kim.

  Andy had been at the London studios of Star Maker for two days, working alongside Jason P. Longford as he went through his scripts and barked orders. Jesse had been flown to the US to work alongside Carrie Ward and had been frantically texting Andy to try to make him jealous. Andy didn’t give two hoots, he loved London and he loved his job. He was finding the texts amusing though, as Jesse was adamant that Carrie Ward was falling for his charms and was bound to leave her rich, handsome husband for him.

  Jason had taken a back seat at Boot Camp but he was now in full, egomaniacal flow. He didn’t want to spend too much time hanging around London with the under-twenty-fives he said, he wanted to get to St. Tropez where Lionel was entertaining the over-twenty-five women, or Long Island where Carrie Ward was mentoring the under-twenty-five boys, or better still The Beverley Hills Hotel, where Cherie Forster was looking after the over-twenty-five men. Andy hadn’t had the heart to point out that he was fairly sure that Jason had to stay in Europe for the time being, recording in the UK and France until the live finals.

  ‘Who wants to be in scabby London?’ Jason had asked disparagingly.

  Me for one, Andy thought. He had only been to London a handful of times and was in awe of the place. He loved wandering along the small streets near the City with names like Pudding Lane and Bowler Street. Just walking along the banks of the Thames made him feel that – despite tabloid claims that it was going to the dogs – this was a great country. He wasn’t totally daft, he knew that London had a seedy underbelly like every other major city in the world. But it also had Tower Bridge, Beefeaters and the Houses of Parliament.

  ‘I like London. And the house where the contestants are staying is meant to be really amazing,’ Andy said, thinking that he should at least offer some defence.

  ‘Yeah, if you’re some gauche Russian billionaire, maybe,’ Jason said queenily.

  Andy hadn’t spent a huge amount of time in Jason’s company but he thought that the taste of a gauche Russian billionaire would have been right up his street. Jason struck Andy as the sort of man who’d have his teeth replaced with gold dentures if he had the money.

  Andy wanted to get over to Forsters’ house so that he could say hello to Catherine. Acting all casual of course, as if he was just popping in to say hi because he was that at-ease kind of guy. Then he would suggest a drink in London before they both headed back. He had already asked Will if he would sign him into Soho House and he’d agreed. He wasn’t sure if Soho House was any good. It sounded like a block of council flats, but Will seemed to think it was the place to take someone to impress them and he was happy to take his advice.

  ‘Let’s get over there now and then I can get on my way to somewhere half decent. What’s my schedule?’ Jason asked, clicking his fingers. Andy raised an eyebrow but Jason didn’t notice.

  ‘You’re here until one, then you fly to St Tropez this afternoon and then …’ Andy flicked through the schedule. That was it, it was blank. ‘I think that’s it.’

  ‘What about America?’ Jason threw his arms in the air. Richard Forster had walked into the room; Jason was too busy having a hissy fit to notice him.

  ‘Tom Sorenson is doing the US end of things, of course,’ Richard informed Jason.

  Andy took a deep breath. If there was one thing worse, he was learning, than being in the presence of Richard Forster as he bollocked Jason, it was watching Jason squirm from the bollocking he was receiving.

  ‘Oh, of course, yes,’ Jason said. ‘Tom. He really is a brilliant presenter. The camera goes on and he lights up the room. Really. You should see him in action.’ Jason said over-enthusiastically to Andy. Andy could tell Jason hated his American counterpart.

  ‘Time’s tight, Jason. I thought your agent would have been through all this with you. You stay here and Tom stays in the US.’

  ‘But what about the live finals?’ Jason asked with ill-disguised career panic.

  ‘You’ll be there,’ Richard said reassuringly. ‘Bloody hell, doesn’t he listen to anything?’ Richard asked Andy.

  Andy felt like a gooseberry in between the two. He wished that Jason would pay some attention to his schedule and that Richard wouldn’t be so searingly frank. Although he had to concur with Richard’s frustration: how Jason had a successful career he didn’t know; he wouldn’t have been able to find his way out of a paper bag without the help of an assistant.

  ‘Anyway, it’s Andy I was looking for.’ Richard said, thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets and rocking on his heels, something that anyone wishing to imitate Richard always did. Andy couldn’t quite believe how much he did this in real life.

  ‘Er, yes,’ Andy said, putting the schedule down nervously and following Richard out of the room, leaving Jason standing alone.

  ‘Right,’ Richard said, in his brusque time-is-money way. ‘Catherine. There’s been no mention of the dad’s cancer, so I’m going to say something to her today.’

  Andy turned pale. ‘I don’t think she’d appreciate it.’

  ‘Look, I’m not some Machiavellian arsehole, but I’ve got a show to run and I think that she would benefit from having this out in the open. These things get out, it’s better if we help her manage it. Anyway, it makes her far more appealing,’ Richard said with a shrug. ‘A sad but true fact.’ He reacted to the drawn look on Andy’s face. ‘Don’t blame me, blame the British public.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s a great idea,’ Andy pushed.

  ‘We’ll just have to ask her, won’t we?’ Richard locked eyes with Andy.

  Andy knew that if he wanted to keep his job he had better stop talking right now.

  When she’d seen Star Maker in the past Catherine had always thought that when the competition got to this stage wherever they were filming was self-contained. Last year, the contestants had been whisked off to Richard’s place in the Caribbean and had been shown singing around the piano inside and then performing on his sea-front terrace outside. Well, there was certainly no Caribbean for the under-twenty-five girls this year, but the filming was to be split between two places. They were filmed inside the house practising and then they were whisked off to the TV studios in West London where a mock up of a huge ballroom had been constructed for the auditions. Catherine couldn’t understand at first why they didn’t just use of one the many huge rooms in the house, but apparently the acoustics were wrong and it didn’t look right on the TV.

  This was the reason that Catherine and the other contestants found themselves rattling around the back of a minibus on their way to film the ‘rehearsals’. Sierra, Therese and Carly were sitting on the front row of seats and Catherine, Star and Kim were sitting together on the back. As much as Star irritated the hell out of both Catherine and Kim, it seemed they were lumped with her. Having shared a room with her at Boot Camp it seemed to be a case of ‘she’s an idiot but she’s our idiot’. The girls had all been rehearsing for hours but were now going to run through a scripted rehearsal. Everyone agreed it seemed like a total waste of time, but recognised that they didn’t know much about how TV shows worked, so they just had to accept that there was a sensible reason for doing things this way.

  ‘I’m nervous about meeting the Americans,’ Kim admitted.

  ‘What’s to be nervous about? They’re just human like us,’ Star stated.

  Catherine and Kim shared a look. Catherine had to stare out of the window and concentrate on the passing scenery so as not to laugh at Star’s assertion that she was human.

  ‘They’ll be good though, won’t they? American singers are always better than British singers,’ Kim said.

  ‘No, actually, not true,’ Star said, as if this was her chosen specialist subject.
‘America is far bigger than the UK, so they have a far bigger pool of talent to pull from, but you only have to look at people like Adele, Amy Winehouse and Duffy to see that we are more than capable of producing world-class home-grown talent.’

  Kim looked at Catherine with a smirk. ‘Here endeth the lesson.’

  For once Catherine agreed with Star. ‘Actually, I think she’s right. I think that we do have great singers and I don’t necessarily think that American singers are better.’

  ‘Oooh, best mates,’ Kim said mockingly.

  Catherine felt awkward. She wasn’t being anyone’s best mate; she just thought that Star had a point.

  ‘I didn’t mean anything, I just think that she has a point …’ Catherine said quietly.

  ‘And I do have a point,’ Star said firmly.

  Kim slapped Catherine on the leg. ‘Bloody hell. Only joking,’ she said, but Catherine wasn’t so sure. Kim was great, but she could be matter-of-fact to the point of cutting sometimes.

  A few moments later the awkward silence was interrupted by the driver. ‘Here we are, girls.’

  The barrier lifted at the gateway to the studios and the driver parked the minibus outside the back entrance. A moment later Will was at the side of the bus, ushering the girls into the building. ‘This is glamorous,’ Sierra complained.

  ‘We’ve got other girls going in the front as decoys. Now stop moaning and go through, you’ll be singing in a minute,’ Will said, shaking his head.

  ‘Decoys?’ Catherine asked.

  ‘We have to use decoys so that the press don’t find out who’s down to the last six, or last twelve if you include the Americans. We hire twenty-four girls from a model agency, twelve for here, twelve for the US, and everywhere you go, they go. It’s a pain in the arse but it throws the papers off the scent.’

  Catherine and the others followed Will, trying to keep up as he powered into the building and along a corridor. ‘You have to do that for each category?’ Kim asked, trying to take in her surroundings as well as concentrate on Will’s reply. On the walls were pictures of famous people who had appeared at the studio over the years.