Jenny Q, Unravelled!

by Pauline McLynn

  As we’re on our way back to the dressing room a passing woman stops and gives me a long look. I recognize her from the tryouts and I am TERRIFIED she’ll recognize me, so I keep my head down and try to hide behind Dermot. My legs are like concrete and my lungs seem paralysed = FEAR CENTRAL. The air in the building seems too thin now and I have to pant a bit to stay alive. The woman looks like her brain is throwing some sort of memory up to her to figure out, but (after what feels like several centuries) she eventually shakes her head and goes about her business. I am surprised I didn’t just fall down with the terror of it. If I was sweaty from the heat in the studio, I am now drenched from horror and fright too.

  ‘You’re humming,’* Dermot says.

  ‘All the music in the air,’ I gasp.

  He gives me the eyebrows-raised look that says he doesn’t really believe me – he’s my bro, so he knows what the humming means. He chooses not to ‘go there’, though, which is a v welcome megaphew for this small Jenny Q.

  When faced with peril all beasts have two choices = fight or flight. I decide on the latter – well, flight into a quiet place out of that busy, dangerous corridor, so I will hide for the rest of the day in the dressing room at a table and chair I fix up as a desk. Food and liquid are provided, so I have all of my basic needs (plus a great vantage point for more SLB watching).

  I begin to sort out my pens and stationery and this calms me.

  The lads strum together to keep supple and up to speed, after they’ve vacuumed up the rest of the breakfast buffet, that is.† Things are not as bad as they might be, so this will do for now.

  Then a small crew of people comes through the door. They are making the behind-the-scenes videos that will be shown throughout the show. EEP! I sneak a quick look in my mirror to make sure I am not too shiny after the heat of the stage lights and the fright in the corridor. I look plausibly human, just about. The lads start goofing about for the camera.

  Mel arrives with two bags of correspondence and a batch of photos of the band that were taken at their auditions. ‘You can send these to the fans. And if you leave the reply letters with me, I’ll pop them into the company postbox.’ She doesn’t even acknowledge the crew as they film her delivery: too used to them by now, I’d say.

  She sees the empty food table. ‘Better get more supplies in for the troops.’

  This band marches on its stomach all right, and she knows it. Food and plenty of it is also the way to the guys’ hearts: they will be so in love with her by the end of the day.

  I look at the bags and realize I came v underprepared. I have lots of pens‡ but just two pads for the replies. I’ll be all day getting through this lot and I will certainly need everything Mel has provided.

  ‘Guys,’ I say, as loudly as I can. I’m still not heard over the din in the room. I clap my hands, then bang on my table. I finally get some attention. ‘Could you all take a pen and sign the band photos, so I can get them out to your adoring public.’

  There are whoops and laughs and everyone gets down to business.

  It’s only then I notice the camera pointing at me! I am going to be on TV and I hope I won’t mind this appearance on the show as much as my last one, when I so didn’t want to be seen. I duck under the table all the same, rummaging in my bag, because I can do without any lingering shot of me being available for broadcast. I prefer a bit of anonymity just now.

  Fever

  Within an hour, my head is swimming with the amount of ‘I love you’s I am having to read. Sometimes it’s someone loving all ten guys, sometimes just ‘lurvin’ one. And it is v uncomfortable to see your own brother described as a sex god by a stranger, or the Dork being told he’s a hottie by some crazy delusional.* Some have sent a photograph and mobile-phone number, begging for a meeting, always stressing that they are ‘not mad’ and have ‘never felt like this about anyone ever before’. It’s like there’s a generation out there gripped by a fever: Ten Guitars fever. I simply put a signed photo of the band into an envelope addressed to the devotee and seal it, ready for posting.†

  Since I started, the lads have demolished the mid-morning snacks, crisps of all flavours, topped off with burgers and chips for lunch. The room is stuffy and smells of onions, cheese and wet socks. I finally realize what is odd about the place: there are no windows. It could be any time outside, though it’s probably 2:30, like it says on the clock. I need to breathe fresher air, stretch my legs and ‘powder my nose’, so I slowly edge out of the door, scanning the corridor for the roving camera crew or, more importantly, anyone who might put two and two together re my disazzo try-out for the show and identify me.

  All clear.

  I scoot towards the ladies’ loo and then THAT woman from earlier (in my life as well as the day) rounds the corner. Maybe even thinking of her has caused her to appear? She’s reading something on her mobile, so I have JUST enough time to duck through the nearest door before she catches sight of me. I stand, heaving with horror and lack of oxygen. Then a small voice says, ‘Hi, are you with the show?’

  I give an ‘EEP!’ and a bit of a jump as I turn around. It hadn’t occurred to me that there’d be someone in here. Then again, I could be standing in a broom cupboard and it wouldn’t surprise me – I just picked the nearest available escape without scoping it beforehand.

  The voice belongs to a diminutive‡ fairy of a girl. She has blonde curls, huge blue eyes and a wide smile. I recognize her from the early rounds. She’s from Cork and has a sing-song accent when she talks as well as when she sings.

  ‘Er, kind of with the show,’ I explain. ‘I’m actually with Ten Guitars.’

  ‘Oh my TFX! I LOVE them!’

  ‘Well, I’m not in the group, cos I’m a girl and all that. And I can’t play the guitar, so … But my brother is sort of one of the leaders. His name is Dermot. I’m Jenny.’

  ‘Great. I’m Jess. I’m one of the contestants.’

  ‘And you do play guitar. I remember you from the tryouts.’

  She laughs. ‘Yeah. Just the one guitar, though.’

  It suddenly dawns on me that Ten Guitars have an unfair advantage because there are, well, TEN of them, so they have lots of people voting for them. There’s only one of Jess.

  ‘I’ll make sure to vote for you,’ I tell her.

  ‘Only if I’m good.’

  ‘You so will be!’

  Jess was fabtastico in her audition round. She sang a song she wrote herself about her first day at school. It was hilarious. And it made me glad that I hadn’t got through – well, I hardly got through the blinkin’ DOOR before I keeled over!

  There is a knock on the door and I scurry behind it as it opens. I’m doing the ‘I’m not here’ signs to Jess and she grins. Then Mel hooks her face round the door.

  ‘What are you up to?’ she asks, laughing.

  I shrug, oh so innocently. ‘Just getting around, making friends, you know.’ I even try a winning smile.

  ‘I do,’ she assures me, nodding. ‘I do. Right, young Jess, time for your rehearsal.’ She turns and gives me a quick, appraising look and says, ‘I’ll see you later.’

  She knows I’m ducking and diving. I am useless at guile. Or even downright lying.

  Everybody Needs Good Neighbours

  I’m making my way back to Ten Guitars when I see a name I recognize on a door, and I decide to visit. Delia Thomas is sitting, chewing her nails, on a divan in her personal dressing room.

  ‘Yo, Jen,’ she says. ‘Wotchoodoin’ here?’

  ‘Ten Guitars’ stuff,’ I say, like that’s a given, or natural, or not unusual at least.

  ‘If they don’t get to me soon I’ll
have gnawed my hand off,’ she tells me. ‘My nerves are in BITS!’

  ‘You have no need to worry,’ I say. ‘You’re just great and SO funny.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Jen, have you seen the line-up? The other acts are fantastic … well, maybe not the guy on banjo with the dancing cousins …’

  ‘Or the contortionist who can’t really bend all that far back?’

  ‘OR the juggler … But apart from those, this competition is HOT.’

  ‘And so are you.’

  Janey Mac, though, I’m like Therapist to the Stars today – pep-talking everyone, fluffing them up to go out there and do their level best or, preferably, even better than that. Exhausting … but so flippin’ exciting!*

  I wonder if my role in life is as a wing-person type, or an agent, or manager, or general positivity sayer? A life coach, peut-être? Which would be great if I knew anything at all about life, other than that if shizz can happen, it will.†

  Delia pops her hand back into her mouth and gnaws again, wincing with how close she is getting to the quick of her nails. I can nearly feel the hurt of it myself. She’ll start on the skin around her nails soon and then have very sore, stumpy fingers for weeks.

  ‘Do you wanna come hang with the lads?’ I ask.

  ‘Nah, I’m next up. Last up, actually. They’re keeping the “funny” till last. Thanks for the offer, though.’

  ‘Well, when you’re done, we’re number eleven down the corridor. It’s v v smelly and full of boys and now devoid of food, but you’re welcome.’

  ‘Yeah, I might. I’m crappy company at the moment, though, so they may not be that thrilled to see me. And I’m so not feeling the funny today, either, which is dire.’

  ‘Do what you normally do and you’ll have them rolling in the aisles.’

  ‘You’re looking very …’

  ‘… prim?’ I say.

  ‘No, reliable. Trustworthy.’

  I guess that’s good?

  I hurry along to the band’s room thinking how glad I am that I didn’t make it on to the show. I don’t think I could handle the stress. The worry of being identified as the (Capital Failure) fainter is bad enough, so I’d probably fall apart completely if I actually had to perform too. But at least I get to be a (helpful) part of the process. I’m doing my bit!

  Back in the dressing room, the lads are reading sections of some of their fan letters aloud and squawking over some of the declarations of lurve. It’s all very boisterous and I think they may be getting a bit bored and unruly.

  A costume-department lady arrives to ask what they’re wearing for the show. They’ve decided on white T-shirts but some will wear jeans, black or navy or blue, some cargo trousers, and so on. And the Dork wants to wear his woolly hat, which I think is a mistake.‡

  I’ve got their Ten Guitars friendship bands too, and that’ll be another matching thing they’ll have. It’s time to broach a potentially touchy subjectб… I clear my throat and go for it.§

  ‘As you all know, my friends and I make things to sell at school and we were wondering if we could do these as merchandising?’ I hold up the bands. ‘If that’s OK with you all? It gives fans a chance to show their support … and so on …’

  ‘Scratchin’ a buck,’ the Dork says, nodding. ‘Very enterprising. Fine by me.’

  ‘Well, Jen isn’t getting paid for the fan-club stuff, so I guess the bands are allowable,’ Dermot says.

  There is general agreement on this point, so I get to text Uggs and Dixie to say: friendship bands are a go. All will wear them tonite on live TV!

  Looks like we’re mini captains of industry again.

  I have another thought and text Dixie again: Gaz v 4 it, may have swayed others?

  I get back: C? he good! goodenuf anyhow …

  Then the composure carpet is pulled from under me. Stevie Lee B strolls over, gets his band and says, ‘You better tie this on for me.’

  I cannot look him in the eye. If I do, my hands will shake even more than they are already and I’ll blush very hard or dribble.

  I think I say ‘flerb’ or something equally lame and nonsensical.

  ‘They’re fiddly,’ he says, maybe to calm me? ‘But good. I love the colours.’

  ‘GERG,’ I say, too loudly. Meaning ‘good’, of course, but sounding like I have lost the ability to speak properly, or in a language that other humans understand.

  If he knows that I have a pash for him, I’ll DIE! It would be so uncool for him to know that a twerpy kid like me is mad about him. I’d be MORTO. I decide immediately and fervently that he can NEVER know. And this is a wish that I promise myself I will be true to … TILL I DIE!!!!

  When I have made a ham-fisted knot, I look up at him and he gives me a wink. EEEK! He must know. I scowl at him, without meaning to, and retreat to my writing table. He doesn’t seem to notice, which is probably for the best? This is all a minefield and my poor system** is in TATTS right now. Being in lurve is tough and uncomfortable, and I wonder why people do it and even praise it sometimes.

  I barely have time to dwell on this thought when the Dork arrives at my side saying, ‘You’d best do mine too … can’t manage it.’

  Well, that’s the opposite end of the romantic spectrum for me, so I can relax. I even flash Gary some teeth, which may or may not look like a smile. In a way, he’s kind of saved me from making a further eejit of myself.†† I should actually be grateful to him, but that’s something he’ll never know.

  Think Twice

  I don’t understand time.

  I know, I know: ‘Shock revelation! Hold the front page!’ and all that. But I don’t understand it.

  Like, and par example, time sometimes CRAWLS along – usually when you really need it to pick up some serious pace and get you out of:

  a) whatever mess you’ve got yourself into, or

  b) were helped into by others,* or even

  c) a mess that will happen (caused by you, others, or you and others) if time doesn’t rev up and prevent an opportunity occurring for messing up.

  Other times, when you are having a very nice experience and would dearly like to savour it, it flies, v v fast and fleetingly. Zoom, there it is, GONE!

  Everything gets all sudden and rushed now. The dress rehearsal is called and everyone is dashing about. I decide to sit it out, because I want to see the live show tonight as it’s happening on TV, for the nation – I don’t want to spoil it by watching this run-through. I know what the Guitars are doing, but I want the rest to be new, even if the ‘NEW’ is great and therefore worryingly competitive.

  The guys get into their gear, grab a guitar each† and spill out of the room in a flurry of chat and agitation.

  I am abandoned in a mountainous pile of Ten Guitars’ debris, including a rather fetching shirt ’n’ cardi combo that (the God) Bolton was wearing earlier and which I suspect might be a Crimbo pressie, though happily a less embarrassing rig-out than it might have been. Or maybe he’s just gorge enough to carry it? Or maybe I am horribly biased and see him through rose-tinted specs and all that. Wotevs: he wears it well, or he wore it well, cos right now he’s in a white tee and NO ONE wears one of those better than SLB … le sigh!

  It might be a bit mad to say it, but the room seems to be ringing with the absence of Ten Guitars, like there is an echo of their departure still banging almost silently off the walls. I tidy up a few bits and pieces and nibble on a scone that survived the latest bout of teenage scoffage. In fairness, it is a bit bashed at the edges (probably from the tussle of grabbing at the plate) but it’s good and still has a few raisins, and that’s adding to my five-a-day targ
et, surely.

  Then I sit at my table and, although there are some letters still to answer, I find myself wondering what to do next. The life has gone out of the room.

  I’m on my own. I’m in charge … of me, Jenny Q.

  For me, the trouble with down time is that I have far too much time to THINK about things. This thinking would be fine if it involved practical, active things, like sorting homework or knitting projects in my head, which, of course, leads to list making and I love a good list-making session. But it’s when the thinking gets on to big life stuff (emotions and relationships and so on) that the trouble starts. You see, with me, thinking leads to OVERthinking, and then I get myself into knots and can’t find my way out and I end up with problems I never had before and they never seem to quite go away as ideas, no matter how hard you try to banish them. And every time they return they have somehow multiplied. They’re like the amoebas we learned about in biology that just divide and increase all the time. In other words, thinking is its own problem and that problem leads to more problems.

  Complicated and uncomfortable, if you ask me.

  So, problems so far are … (drum roll, anyone?)

  a) My dad is only employed part-time now, which means we are bankrupt (I guess) or certainly headed that way. He’s not getting any younger,‡ so that makes it even harder for him to fight for a new job.

  b) We have a new baby – not a problem as such, but he needs looking after! He has been brought into the world whether he likes it or not,б so he’s our responsibility. It all means there are more of us to be fed and clothed and housed, although Harry is on mummy-draught-milk at the moment, so feeding him is not one of the economic problems we have just yet.