by Will Davis
I quickly slip what’s left of my stash back into my boot and pull out my phone from the other one. There’s just time to send a lightning-fast text to Eddy, telling her how much I miss her. Wonder if she watched me tonight. I’ve lost count of the number of texts I’ve sent her, and seeing as the phone won’t take incoming messages or calls I don’t know if she’s tried to reply. I did call her on it the other day when there was no one around, but she didn’t answer, which was just as well cos I turned round to find one of the camera dudes had snuck up behind and had his camera trained on me. They’re cunning fuckers, those dudes, always trying to get the drop on you. I flip open the lid of the mobile but before I can key in a single word there’s some kind of commotion outside.
Oh my God! screeches Valerie. Oh my God! What is she doing?
I slot the phone back in my boot and unlock the door. On the telly Ella is gaping at Joni with this totally helpless look. Her chin trembles and her eyes glisten with tears. She’s obviously forgotten the words, but she’s not even bothering to mimic Joni or pretend. All you can do is cringe as Joni stumbles on through the rest of the duet alone, her voice wavering all over the place under the pressure of trying to carry the tune on her own. When she finishes there’s applause, but it’s a weird kind of applause, polite and kind of muted, like someone’s turned the volume down. I hope no one ever applauds like that for me – I’d rather be booed off. It’s a car crash. A total fucking pile-up.
Tears are dripping down Ella’s cheeks and you can actually see her shaking. It’s heartbreaking to watch. Arse red from all the effort, Joni grabs Ella’s hand and bows, pulling her down too as Stina Ellis prances onstage and starts asking what went wrong. Goodbye, Ella, I think sadly.
Girls, two minutes, says Michelle from the door, tapping her clipboard and staring at us as if she can’t understand why we aren’t all standing to attention.
There’s no costume change this week, just straight out back onstage to get the judges’ decision. Everyone turns away from the telly, which now shows this big unflattering close-up of Tess, who simply rolls her eyes and averts her face, saying, I don’t know where to begin so I won’t even bother. As the audience starts to boo we all rush over to the mirror at the same time and start frantically checking our make-up.
I put on my best endearing woman-to-woman smile as we take our places in a line before the panel, so’s they don’t think I’m complacent about tonight. Next to me Valerie totters on the ridiculous tall spikes she’s wearing, that make her even taller than me. The judges all look like they’re at a funeral. It’s standard for Tess, of course, but Emma and Joe are normally a bit more relaxed. Oh well. Who gives a shit? I’m feeling great, untouchable, like I’m protected from anything they can do to me by some kind of magic shield. I feel strong and alive – so good I could quite happily do our song all over again if they asked.
Okay girls, roars Stina. Funny how she still doesn’t seem to have figured out having a mic means you don’t have to shout. Are you ready for the judges’ decisions because here we go! One of you will be leaving the programme tonight!
At the centre of the line-up stand Joni and Ella, cacking themselves. It’s almost as if their fuck-up has gone and produced all this extra heat up onstage, cos even I’m sweating and I’ve just put on a coat of Sure.
Riana, says Emma, please step forward.
I step forward, smiling.
Riana, says Emma, you are a strong and confident performer. But Joe, Tess and I all agree that you sometimes give it too much. Sometimes watching you we feel like we’re watching someone doing a send-up.
Suddenly I get a quivering feeling in the legs and I have this realisation that maybe I’m not so safe after all. That nobody is in this game. Eddy was right – the competition is about nothing but raping the egos of young women, getting them to prance around half naked in a spotlight in front of millions of people, all for the faint chance of maybe getting to keep on doing it indefinitely. Why don’t I ever listen to her? Why did I never go along to one of her SCUM meetings? Why did I tell myself that they were just her thing and nothing to do with me? Maybe if I’d gone along to one I wouldn’t be in this fucking position, waiting to get judged by three twats who think the sun shines out of their A-holes.
Riana, Purrfect are a band of professionals, says the troll beside Emma. They are not village idiots. They make stars of themselves on stage, not fools. That’s why they are as big as they are.
The thing is, says Joe, you have to tone it down. Your challenge is to find the balance and control it takes to be a true Purrfect girl. However, we agree that you also show a lot of potential. And that is why tonight you will not be leaving the programme.
Cheers as a thousand hands come together. Feeling like a total dick for getting scared, I step backwards as the spotlight on me goes down. Suddenly I am able to see all the faces in the audience, each one all tense and tight as Tess tells Louise to step forward. I’m almost directly behind her and from this viewpoint she looks so small and defenceless. It’s hard to believe she was able to make me so frustrated this last week.
Louise, goes Joe, last week was catastrophic and had you not been saved by the audience vote, you would have left the programme. This week you had a lot to prove. We all know it was a hard week for you, because of your grandfather, and we want to offer our condolences and congratulate you for holding it together.
Louise lifts her head. Unexpectedly I get this ripple of affection for her. There’s something a bit sweet about this spoilt, determined little girl with her head held all high and proud like Cleopatra about to shove an asp on her tit. Bless, I find myself thinking.
This week you showed everyone what you can really do, says Emma. You showed that you have amazing vocal range and extraordinary control. However, the Purrfect girls are more than just machines. They are, above all else, artists.
I almost burst out laughing at that. I wait with everyone else while Tess shuffles her fat arse forward in her seat as she gets ready to give her own verdict. Don’t let her be going home, I think, totally surprising myself. I look past Louise’s scrawny figure at the mass of faces and as I do I catch this glimpse of a pair of eyes I know and love. At first I think it’s just a hallucination, and I almost lose my cool, wondering if that blow was cut with something else and I’ve gone and rocketed off the deep end. But when I blink she’s still there, watching with her chin set forward in that adorably stubborn way when she’s seeing something she doesn’t approve of.
Louise, says Tess, this week you showed us that you do actually have an identity and you realised that you don’t have to sing a song exactly as it’s already been done for it to be good. And that’s why tonight you will not be leaving the programme.
Eddy’s face gets lost as the crowd start clapping and cheering. Desperately I look again, but I can’t find her. It’s like she’s been sucked up into all the other faces out there. Wasn’t a mirage though. I know it was her. Question is, how the fuck did she manage to get in?
I go into this daze as Joe tells Valerie to step forward. I think about all the times I’ve taken the piss out of Eddy for being so serious and angry. Like when she tries to tell me about her SCUM meetings and I just yawn really loudly and point between my legs. Or when I come in late from a shift at the club and she’s watching a rerun of Newsnight or Question Time, which if you ask me are the most boring programmes on earth, with lots of people spouting opinions and you never knowing which one to believe because they’re all just as crooked as each other – but Eddy’s face will be all scrunched up with concentration and she’ll be really following it, nodding along or else shaking her head and muttering under her breath at some official defending some new scheme or policy. And I’ll put my hands over her eyes and say Guess who? and she’ll say, Not now cos I’m watching, but I’ll just pester her till finally she gives up and pays me attention, like I’m far more important than anything else that goes on in her life. I’m such a selfish shit, and the fact that Eddy’
s crossed London and found a way to sit in the audience for a telly programme she’s religiously fucking opposed to shows that as per usual I’m making her do what I want her to do without even trying, pulling her strings just like I’m having my strings pulled by this show. Guess it’s just another vicious kind of circle.
Valerie, you are not leaving us tonight.
As she gets the all-clear the light fades on Valerie and Rebecca gets told to step forward. Emma starts to list the good things and bad things about her performance. Meanwhile Joni and Ella have taken each other’s hands, I notice, and are holding on so tight Ella’s shaking is passed on to Joni, a bit like one of those physics experiments you see on the Geography Channel that shows how the vibrations of one building as it falls down can bring down another.
I keep scanning the crowd for Eddy, but now I can’t even remember where I saw her. All the faces just look the same, like everyone out there has got the exact same dumb, freaky expression, desperate to know who’s going tonight, as if it’ll make a shred of difference to their own lives. It’s enough to make you fucking despair, and that fantastic feeling I had before when the applause rained down on us is gone completely. Now all that’s left is this feeling of sadness at the way human beings have evolved. The one saving grace about it all though is that somewhere in that sea of puppets is Eddy – and she’s here cos she loves me.
Rebecca, you will not be leaving tonight.
The light goes down on Rebecca and Joni and Ella are told to step forward. Stina roars into her mic that this is the final pair and one of them will be leaving tonight, and there’s a burst of the fast chorus to Purrfect’s single ‘Or Die Trying’. From the wings miserable old Michelle is making signals for the rest of us to leave the stage so we all troop towards her while behind us Tess tells Joni and Ella what she thought of their song.
It made me want to cover my eyes and ears and curl up into a little ball, she says. Nobody points out that with all that bulk she carries round curling up into a little ball’s not exactly an option. I honestly can’t recall the last time I watched something so devastating. A total and complete mess.
There’s booing from the crowd, but it sounds muted again, a bit like everyone secretly agrees. I agree. Even so I can’t help feeling sorry for them, for having to stand there and take it from that troll. And for letting themselves be humiliated in front of these people.
Cos I’ve got my head craned round so I can watch Joni and Ella as they quiver away like two frightened poppets while the panel tears them to pieces, I don’t see how it happens. I hear this muffled cry and turn my head back just in time to see Valerie as she goes over headfirst, like she’s doing a penguin dive. She twists in the air, the heel of one of her spikes getting caught in the long swirly skirt of the dress she’s wearing. There’s this sick crunching sound as she lands and then a shriek like you’ve never heard before. She lies there in a heap for a second with everyone just staring at her like we’ve all been struck dumb. Then she starts to groan and sob, and we all rush down the steps and crowd round her, asking if she’s okay. She’s not. Her face is this unnatural ghostly white and her eyes are open wide but not seeing, like a veteran soldier in one of those films that’s been traumatised from all the war he’s seen. Get back, everybody! snaps Michelle, kneeling beside her and having a feel of her back. She lowers her voice and says something very fast into her headset about calling for an ambulance. Behind us one of the security guards appears and motions for us all to get back while Michelle lifts Valerie’s skirt up.
Joni, you sang this song without the slightest shred of feeling, Emma is telling the girls onstage. It felt as though you were just trying to get through it, like that was all you were concerned about . . .
Oh my God . . . breathes Michelle. Rebecca makes a gagging sound and turns away.
Valerie’s ankle is bent at what looks like a ninety-degree angle. There’s something red and white protruding from it which at first I think must be the strap of her spike, but then I realise it’s a bit of bone. It’s one of the grossest things I ever saw. Next to me Louise gives this shudder of horror.
Michelle steps back and the security guard squats down in her place and starts to talk in this gentle voice to Valerie, who’s still sobbing and looking wildly around like she can’t focus on anything. Now missus, says the security guard, I need you to help me by staying focused and talking to me, okay? You’re gonna be right as rain, but you’ve had a very nasty fall. So why don’t you tell me about yourself?
Valerie moans and turns her unseeing eyes in his direction. Her mouth is all slack but the lips are forming shapes. It’s like she’s been robbed of her voice.
I need control, says Michelle into her headset. Get Stina to stop the panel. There’s been an accident in the wings and we’re going to have to get an ambulance in. Yes, that means clearing the stage . . . well, they’ll just have to go to ads while we sort this out.
A stab of pain jerks through my head. The blow’s wearing off. I look back behind me over towards the other side of the stage, where I can see Stina talking into the little radio thing that wires into her ear. Her pointy orange face is frowning. She peers across the stage in my direction and for a nanosecond our eyes meet. Then she looks away, nods and says something to the radio. I watch as she gathers up her mic and puts on a big bright smile.
Ella, Tess is going, you are the weakest link in this competition. Not only did you give a feeble performance, but you also committed the cardinal sin of not performing. For this reason you—
She stops as Stina strides out onstage. I look back at Valerie, who’s now gone this nasty yellow colour. Next to me Louise shudders again, and I put my arm around her and pull her close. Again I think about Eddy, somewhere out there in the audience, watching. I badly want to escape from this corner of the theatre and run up the aisle calling her name. I want to feel her arms round me and her lips on mine. I so want to stop all this endless fucking smiling and pretending. But I can’t. Not now I’ve come all this way.
Okay girls, orders Michelle, I need you all to clear the area so back to the changing room, please.
‘Everything’s changed. I can’t explain it exactly, but it’s like the whole world has come crashing down . . . I don’t know what to think. I’m just so confused about everything . . . I don’t know what I’m doing here anymore!’
Last night I dreamed of Jack. It was one of those brilliant, ridiculous dreams, the sort you only get to have about once a year, and that’s if you’re lucky. I was onstage singing a ballad all about how true love has the power to devastate your life, and everyone out in the audience was waving lighters, like they do at discos when the DJ plays Robbie Williams’s ‘Angels’. I was wearing a long Versace silver and white dress, a bit like a wedding dress really, and my hair was falling all the way down to my waist in those huge twisted waves I’ve never been able to get right with Rita’s GHDs. When I came to the end of the song everyone stayed completely silent, not because they were all horrified by how bad it was, but because they were all so moved by its beauty. Then one by one the crowd parted to make this passageway down the centre, and a man appeared at the far end. At first I couldn’t see who it was because of all the spotlights, but I knew because of the way my heart was fluttering as he approached. When he reached the stage two security guards helped him climb up and he stood there in front of me with his beautiful dark violet eyes shining with emotion. I could see that he was even more moved than everyone else. ‘Jack?’ I said, but he didn’t reply. Instead he dropped to one knee and took out a tiny little box, then popped the lid open. Choked up, I nodded to him and he reached out and slipped the ring on my finger. Then everyone in the audience finally started to applaud, but it wasn’t just like any old clapping, it was like there were angels singing all around us. Jack drew me close to him and it was so real I could practically feel his breath. That faintest prickle of stubble he always has. The solid warmth that always emanates from his body. It was him, and he wanted me and lo
ved me and it felt like the truth. That’s how good this dream was. Impossibly good.
Of course I had to wake up, and the trouble with those amazing, fantastic, stupid dreams is that when you wake up everything seems twice as shit as it did before you fell asleep. Now here I am staring back at myself in the bathroom mirror, a blotchy-faced girl with wispy hair she can’t do a thing with, who looks more like a frightened blonde rabbit than ever, feeling like I’ve been through this incredible ordeal and now I have to make a decision that will change the course of my whole life. I don’t know what to do.
‘Oi, Ella?’ shouts Joni, bursting in with just her bra and panties on, holding up one of today’s papers. ‘Have you fucking seen this?!’
All today’s papers had pictures of Valerie singing her duet with Rebecca, apart from the Sun which had a shot of her being stretchered into the ambulance, a close-up of her face with her mouth all twisted from pain. There’ve been a few articles about the death threat to Tess and how we’re all living in a state of fear about being stalked by a crazy girl-band hater, and a lot of the papers had pieces going on about how I didn’t deserve to stay and should have been voted off on Saturday. It was pretty horrible to read, but weirdly it didn’t affect me like I’d have expected it to. I suppose it’s because I know it’s the truth.
I look at the paper Joni is holding, expecting to see another scathing article about me saying how I should have been the one to go if there had been any justice in the world, but there’s no mention of my name. Instead there’s a picture of Joni, a really ugly shot of her in mid-song with her nostrils flared and her mouth open, looking quite a lot like a pig, which isn’t at all how she looks in reality. She taps the photo with her finger and shakes her head murderously. I’m rather surprised since it isn’t like Joni to let a bad photograph upset her, but I suppose it’s just the strain of the competition showing. It’s doing funny things to everyone.