by Jean Ure
“Do you think I’m being stupid?” I said.
Saffy said that it was never stupid to be ambitious and want to get on in life.
“Yes, but do you think I stand any chance?” I said.
Bracingly Saffy said that everybody stood a chance.
“It depends how determined you are.”
“I’m very determined,” I said. I was. I really was! I could see a whole glorious future unfolding before me.
“Well, this is what’s important,” said Saffy. “Knowing what you want and going for it.”
“Even though I don’t have much confidence?” I said.
Saffy told me that I had got to get confidence. She said there was no reason why I shouldn’t have it.
“You know you can speak OK, Mrs A’s always holding you up as an example. And you do have confidence when you get up and act.”
I said, “It’s different when you’re acting. You’re being someone else.”
“But what about when you have to go for auditions?” said Saffy.
We’d been learning about auditions just recently from Mrs Ambrose. How to prepare ourselves, and what to wear, and stuff like that.
“You’ve got to have confidence being you,” said Saffy. “I can’t think why you don’t! I would if I were you.”
“It’s all right for you,” I said. “You’re thin!”
“Yes,” said Saffy, “but you’re pretty.”
I felt my face turn bright pink. It was the nicest thing she’d ever said to me! I felt quite touched and immediately began trying to think of something I could say to her in return.
“I’d rather be skinny like you,” I said.
“Then you wouldn’t have boobs,” said Saffy. “You have to have boobs to be a movie star.” She sighed. “I don’t suppose I’ll ever have any.”
It’s true that her mum hasn’t; not to speak of. But Petal has, and she is skinny! I said this to Saffy, but she said that Petal was slim, not skinny. She said the two were not the same.
“Skinny is thin and scrawny; slim is when you’ve got some shape.”
“Like Twinkle,” I said. I think you have to be honest about these things. I didn’t like her very much, but she did have a figure to die for.
“Yes,” said Saffy, “but that’s all she’s got. She can’t act to save her life!”
“She’s been in a commercial,” I said.
“Well, you know why,” said Saffy. “It’s ‘cos she’s pushy! Her and Zoë. They’re both the same. It doesn’t mean they can act.”
Now that she mentioned it, I knew that she was right. About them being pushy, I mean. They were always elbowing and shoving, to get themselves up front.
Saffy said, “You gotta face it, babe! It’s the way it’s done.”
I looked at her, doubtfully. I’m not a very shoving sort of person. I wanted to be discovered – but not by pushing myself forward! I wanted someone to come along and simply stare right through the likes of Zoë and Twink.
“Who is that girl at the back?” they would say. “The one with those startling blue eyes?”
Everyone would turn and stare. Mrs Ambrose would say, “That’s Jenny… one of our little stars.”
And I would be told to come out to the front and I would be signed up right there and then for this big part on telly, and Zoë and Twink would gnash their teeth and feel utterly humiliated. Ho ho!
“Babe, you gotta get real,” said Saffy, in this accent she fondly believes is American. “It’s no use hiding your light under a flowerpot, or whatever it is. You gotta, like, go up to people and say, I’m Jenny Penny! Take notice of me!”
“Just like that?” I said, alarmed.
“Well, not in so many words,” said Saffy. “But you can’t let people like that stupid Twinkle elbow you out the way! Just remember, you’re as good as she is any day.”
I thought to myself that Saffy can sometimes be so wise, and so clever. I was as good as Twinkle! Twinkle couldn’t act to save her life. The only way she’d got to be a member of the all-girl band in Sob Story was by pushing and shoving. She couldn’t sing, she couldn’t dance, she couldn’t even speak properly. She had this silly little girly voice, all high-pitched and tinny.
Zoë couldn’t really sing, either, but she was one of those people, when she was on stage you found yourself having to look at her even if you didn’t specially want to. I certainly didn’t want to! Not after the way she’d been so horrid when I’d accidentally bumped into her. She’d gone on being horrid, for days afterwards. She kept saying things like, “Ever had a ten-ton trailer crash into you?” and “Keep away from me, Elephant!” So you can see that I had absolutely no reason to watch her, yet in spite of that I couldn’t seem to help it. Which meant, I suppose, that she had got “what it takes”.
But so had Mark and Gareth, and they didn’t push and shove! Gareth was quite up-front, but he never bulldozed. And Mark was cool as could be! He had this very quiet sort of confidence, which I really envied. I thought that I would try to have a quiet confidence, too. I thought it might be easier than pushing and shoving. So when we all lined up that evening for our workout, I very firmly – but quietly – positioned myself at the front and waited to see what would happen.
Like normally, not being a show-offy kind of person, as I think I have said before, I would hide away at the back along with Saffy and Ben and a tall gangly girl called Portia, who was really sweet and tried so hard but just could never get anything right. Zoë always referred to her as Stilts, because of her legs being so long. I was Elephant, Portia was Stilts, and Saffy was Beetroot Bonce (on account of her red hair). Me and Saffy had racked our brains trying to think of a rude nickname for Zoë but hadn’t yet come up with anything.
So, anyway, there I was, minding my own business, quietly doing stretchy exercises while waiting for class to begin, and guess what happens? Zoë comes waltzing up and rudely plants herself directly in front of me. Next thing I know, Little Miss Twinkle has joined her. And before I can say anything, such as “Excuse me!” or “Do you mind?” the door has opened and the boys have come in and Gareth and a couple of others have tacked themselves next to Zoë and Twinkle, so that now they’re the front row and I’m pushed into the background. I mean, it wasn’t Gareth’s fault. He didn’t know that Zoë had deliberately usurped me. When Mrs Ambrose arrived she told everyone to “Move back! You’re too far out!” Zoë immediately sprang backwards, managing to tread on my toe as she did so. She said, “Oops! Sorry, Elephant, didn’t know you were there.” That girl! Is it any wonder she got on our nerves?
Saffy, of course, had seen what was happening. Saffy is very sharp. She doesn’t miss much! She rang me later, when Mum had come to collect me and I was back home.
“You see what I mean?” she said. “You see what I mean about pushing and shoving? You gotta get your act together, babe!”
I said that I would try, but that it was very difficult when we were, like, the new girls on the block and Zoë and Twinkle had been there practically for ever.
“You think that would stop them?” said Saffy.
I had to admit that it probably wouldn’t, and I humbly promised Saffy that in future I would stand up for myself. I knew she only had my best interests at heart. All the same, she is the most terrible bully!
ONE FRIDAY. MRS Ambrose told us that an old pupil of the school, Deirdre Dobson, was going to come in the next day and talk to us about acting and maybe even watch a class. I was so excited! A lot of people hadn’t heard of Deirdre Dobson, but I had because I had met her. It was a long time ago, when I was quite young, but I could still remember this lovely lady with the jet black hair and silver rings. She came into my mum’s office when for some reason I was there, and she actually talked to Mum about this house she was thinking of buying. Mum told me afterwards, “That was Deirdre Dobson!” Then when she got home she told Dad about it.
“Guess who came into the office today? Deirdre Dobson!”
Then she rang up bot
h my grans and one of my aunties and told them about it, too, so I knew that Deirdre Dobson had to be somebody famous. Mum was always talking about “the time I sold a house to Deirdre Dobson”, though it was a year or two before I realised that this famous person was an actress on television. She was in a soap called Screamers, which I was too young ever to have watched. It had finished about four years ago, which was why most of the kids had never heard of her. They were well impressed when I said that I had actually met her! Zoë immediately said that she had met Tom Cruise, but we had all heard about Zoë meeting Tom Cruise about a million times, and anyway she hadn’t met him, she’d merely seen him at a distance.
“What’s she like?” said Twinkle.
I said that I remembered her as being very slim and beautiful with dark black hair. Zoë sniffed and said, “She’s probably an old bag by now. I’ve never heard of her.”
“Just shows the depths of your ignorance,” said Saffy; not that Saffy had ever heard of her, either.
I told Mum about it when she came to pick me up after class. Mum said, “Oh! Tell her that your mum once sold her a house. Ask her if she’s still living there… Clonmore Gardens. Mind, it was a few years ago. She probably won’t remember.”
“I met her,” I said, “didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did,” said Mum. “You were sitting on my desk, playing with the paper clips… very unprofessional! Miss Dobson said what lovely blue eyes you had.”
“Did she?” I squirmed with a sort of pleasurable embarrassment. “Was she nice?”
“She was all right,” said Mum. “I always find actors a bit gushy.”
But she had said how lovely my eyes were! I wondered if she would remember, and whether I would be brave enough to remind her. I don’t mean about my eyes, but about my sitting on Mum’s desk playing with the paper clips, and Mum selling her a house. Saturday morning I rang Saffy to ask her advice.
“Do you think I ought to remind her, or would that be too pushy?”
Saffy screamed, “Jennee! It isn’t possible to be too pushy… not if you want to get somewhere. How many times do I have to tell you?”
She said that if I didn’t go and introduce myself to Miss Dobson she would disown me.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll do it!”
“You’d better,” said Saffy. “‘Cos I will disown you… I mean it!”
Miss Dobson was there, talking to Mrs Ambrose, when we arrived for class. I very shyly smiled at her as I came in, but she gave no sign of recognising me. But then of course she must have met thousands of people since seeing me on Mum’s desk, and probably some of them would have had blue eyes like mine. And in any case I had done quite a lot of growing up since then.
Miss Dobson had done some growing up, too. She wasn’t anywhere near as slender as I remembered, but her hair was still jet black, in fact it was even blacker than ever, and she still wore her lovely silver rings on every finger and was still quite glamorous. I was so glad she wasn’t an old bag! If she had been, Zoë would have crowed like crazy.
Mrs Ambrose told us how Miss Dobson had been one of her very first pupils, way back when.
“Many years ago, when I was young. Because even I was young once,” said Mrs Ambrose. We all laughed, politely, but Miss Dobson just gave this rather small tight smile. I thought perhaps she wasn’t too happy at Mrs Ambrose saying how she had been a pupil “many years ago”. Probably she would rather we thought it was just a short while back.
“Now, what I propose,” said Mrs Ambrose, “I propose we show Miss Dobson how we do our warm-up exercises, and after that she’s very kindly agreed to give us a talk, all about her experiences as an actor. So!” She clapped her hands. “Shall we get started?”
We headed off across the studio. I deliberately moved at a tortoise-like pace, thinking to myself that if I got there last, I would in fact be at the front. Only it didn’t work out that way. The minute I stopped, Zoë and Twinkle, in unison, rudely elbowed their way past me and took up their usual prominent positions where they could be sure of being seen. Everyone else then shuffled forward to join them, with the result that I ended up-also as usual – at the back. Saffy poked me in the ribs and hissed, “Push!” But I couldn’t. It was too late, it would have looked too obvious. I didn’t want to be obvious.
It was probably just as well since I was so shaky with nerves I would most likely have done something stupid like turning the wrong way and bumping into Zoë all over again. At least at the back if I turned the wrong way it wouldn’t be so noticeable. Actually, I didn’t, but the point is I could have done. Being me. I thought that when it came to voice exercises I would be all right. Then I would be noticed, even at the back! But we didn’t ever get to voice exercises because Mrs Ambrose said that now Miss Dobson was going to talk to us, and we all had to sit on the floor and listen.
I was disappointed at not being able to show how well I could do hoo hoh haw and sproo spray spree, but I did find the talk interesting. She told us all about being a pupil with Mrs Ambrose and how she had gone on to a full-time drama school when she was seventeen. She told us about “early struggles” and “bad times” when she had had to do all kinds of different jobs, such as for example being a waitress and scrubbing floors, to earn a living. She told us how her big break had come when she was chosen to play a part in Screamers. She had been in it for ten years. Ten years! A sort of gasp went up. Ten years was almost as long as some of us had lived!
Finally, she told us that the acting profession was the finest profession in the world, but that you had to be tough if you wanted to survive. Mrs Ambrose said, “Hear, hear! I second that,” and Saffy poked me in the ribs, again, and hissed, “See?”
To end up we had a question and answer session when lots of people wanted to know how to get into drama school full time and which drama school to try for, and Zoë told everybody how she’d already been in two commercials and a television show, and Saffy kept poking and poking until I thought I would scream. I hissed, “Stop it!” and she hissed, “Say something!” and I hissed, “Not yet!” I didn’t want to do it in front of everyone. After all, it was personal.
I waited till the session had finished and Mark had said thank you on behalf of all of us and Miss Dobson was putting her coat on. Then I scuttled across the room – propelled by a particularly vicious jab from Saffy-and breathlessly, before I could get cold feet, gabbled, “Miss Dobson, my name’s Jenny Penny and my mum helped you buy your house in Clonmore Gardens!”
There was a pause, then she looked at me, sort of… not in the least bit interested, and said, “Really? That must have been a while ago.”
“I was six,” I said. “I was sitting on my mum’s desk and you said hallo to me.”
“I’m afraid I have no memory of it,” said Miss Dobson. “I’ve lived in so many different places since then.”
“Oh. Mum wanted to know if you were still there,” I said.
“No,” said Miss Dobson. “I’m not!”
I could see that she wanted to leave, but now that I’d started I just didn’t seem able to stop.
“I really enjoyed your talk,” I said.
“Good,” said Miss Dobson. “That’s good.”
“You told us so many interesting things!”
“Well, you know… one doesn’t like to be boring.”
“Oh, you weren’t boring,” I assured her. “It was just, like, incredibly fascinating! To hear all about when you were young, and – and being out of work and everything.”
Miss Dobson gave another of her tight little smiles.
“Honestly,” I said, “I found it truly inspiring!”
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Miss Dobson. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
She opened the door, and I raced round in front of her.
“I know it was a very long time ago and things have changed, like you said how you got a grant to go to drama school and these days you probably couldn’t, but—” I beamed up at her. “It’s what I
want to do! More than anything… I want to be an actress!”
“You do?” said Miss Dobson.
I nodded rapturously. I had done it! I had talked to her! Saffy would be so pleased with me.
“You want to be an actress?” Miss Dobson was eyeing me up and down, as if weighing my chances. “Well, my dear, the best advice I can give you,” she said, “is to shed some of that excess baggage you’re carrying.”
A terrible hush fell over the room. Everyone just, like, froze. Including me. Normally if I am embarrassed I will go all hot and red, but this time I did the exact opposite. I went very cold and could feel my cheeks turn white and fungussy. At the same time I broke out into a sweat. It was like someone had just punched me in the stomach. I couldn’t believe that Miss Dobson would say such a thing!
Mrs Ambrose was the only person who hadn’t heard. She’d gone into the small room next to the studio and now came beaming back, all unaware, carrying this huge bouquet of flowers.
“Jenny!” she said. “Give these to Miss Dobson with one of your very best curtseys!”
If I could have guessed, just ten minutes earlier, that I would be the one chosen out of all the class to present Miss Dobson with her bouquet, I would have been so excited. I would have been so proud! Me, of all people! But I knew that Mrs Ambrose had only picked me because I happened to be standing there, not because I was special. I wobbled down into a curtsey, on legs that had gone all weak and bendy, and thrust the bouquet upwards while keeping my eyes glued to the floor. I then overbalanced and sat down, with a thump, on my bottom.
Nobody laughed. Mrs Ambrose said, “Well! That wasn’t the most gracious of presentations, but never mind. These things happen.”