‘Sometimes,’ said Maria.
‘My father and I, we’d play such lovely games,’ he said. ‘Blind man’s buff at Beachy Head; hide-and-seek, where he’d hide, and I’d go seek, in Glasgow, Cardiff, and Middlesbrough.’ He made a face: a concertina of his forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, chin and neck. Again, laughter. Maria giggled and placed her head on Mr Dawson’s shoulder. ‘You’ll go far, my dear,’ he said in a quite different voice. ‘You’ll go far.’
Later on she sat on a plastic chair for the dress rehearsals, its legs propped among the cables, and from there she could see the bare unpainted wood at the back of the set, and the ragged wooden struts that held the whole thing in place. ‘It’s just a big lump of tat isn’t it, sweetheart?’ said one of the electricians.
‘What’s tat?’
‘Rubbish, sweetheart. It’s just a load of old rubbish from over here.’
‘It’s not very nice,’ she said, ‘but from the other side you think wow.’
‘That’s right. It’s all twinkles for the cameras, sweetheart, and behind it’s like Spaghetti Junction. Tell you something, babe. All things being right a cracker the likes of you should come straight down through the ceiling and onto that stage. That’s the way they should have it. No messing about in all this rubbish. Just right down the middle there like an angel.’
Maria giggled. ‘You’re daft,’ she said, but she imagined it and giggled even more.
‘I’m telling ya,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t have the star of the show hanging about in all this rubbish. No way. Straight from above. I’ll tell you what, sweetheart, I’m speaking to that Sidney upstairs about it.’
‘Daft,’ said Maria. When the nice electrician walked off she remembered how, just watching the TV at home, she thought Opportunity Knocks was filmed in a place that was sparkly and lit up, a place that people lived in or walked around in, a place of real colours. The orchestra was tuning up and she tapped her foot on the metal edge of a generator; the gold shoes she was wearing reminded her of ones her mother had back in Rothesay. She remembered tottering up the back stairs in them although her feet were too small. Over on the stage, the floor manager held onto his earphones and waved a clipboard. He asked for quiet. ‘Going for a rehearsal,’ he shouted. Then he read some words from the clipboard: Maria could tell they were Mr Green’s words, but Mr Green had rehearsed with the cameras earlier in the day, and this was just for the performers. The floor manager read the words quickly as if they were dead, though they were in fact quite lively words, describing the next act, Arthur Field the Musical Muscle Man, who now stood on the stage between two Greek columns, wearing a tiny pair of trunks.
The orchestra played a jerky tune and Arthur Field lifted his arms. Keeping a composed expression on his face, he began to move his muscles, one set at a time, making them dance to the music. First one arm up then the other, the jiggling, oiled flesh seeming to move separately from the rest of him, then his back muscles, then the mounds of flesh on his bottom, they moved too in time to the music. His body parts seemed to have lives of their own, obeying their own rhythm, and then he would strike a pose, curving his arms and clenching his fists. His ribs would show, then he would strike another pose, just as the beat of the music changed, and his stomach would be sucked in to show the shape of his insides.
Maria watched all this from the chair. She had never seen a man with skin so shiny before and she had never seen a man without his clothes. Arthur Field looked down at his stomach as if it were a pet, as if the moving flesh didn’t belong to him. She noticed the way his chest moved to the music: it was as if the nipples were eyes inspecting the studio. It was horrible the way the muscles in his thick legs moved too and his privates in his trunks. His body was alive like nothing she’d ever seen, not like a woman’s body or the body she had – the colour of the flesh and the shape of it and its movements were strange, and she wondered if all men looked like that under their clothes. She looked at his concave stomach. She looked at his darting eyes and his nipples and his penis and she began to smile behind her hand as if she were watching a cartoon.
Walking along one of the back corridors of the studios, Maria would smile professionally to strangers. Whenever she was out of her Primrose Hill bedroom she assumed people were looking at her, and even in her room alone she looked at herself, and in her bed at night she felt watched from above. The corridor’s strip-lights made the tan on her arms look orange, and as she walked, the skin round her mouth felt tight from lipstick, foundation and powder, and her eyes felt glued open. Barbara in the tea-bar gave her a plastic cup of orange squash. ‘You look lovely, darling,’ she said as she passed it over.
‘You don’t think it makes me look silly?’
‘Not a bit of it, darling. You look like a right lady tonight.’
‘I can’t win again,’ Maria said.
“Course you can, love.’
‘They need a new person.’
‘Not at all. We’ll all be clapping loudest for you darling. Wouldn’t be the same around here without you now would it?’
Maria smiled her own smile at Barbara and continued down the long corridor. There was a smell of disinfectant coming up from the floor as her gold shoes clacked along the tiles. At the end of the corridor the swing doors were open and Marion was staring at her. ‘Chop chop,’ she said, ‘it’s showtime, Maria. Come now. We’re all waiting for you.’
Maria quickened her pace. She felt as if she had an electric heater inside her stomach. Marion winked and disappeared behind the door but Maria stopped just short of it, feeling warm, distant, the swing door making its rubbery bump and then shushing. The world was quiet under the strip-lights. She put the cup of orange squash to her lips and drew the sweet liquid into her mouth. There was a bin beside the doors. She moved her tongue in the orange squash for a moment then spat what was in her mouth into the bin and threw the cup in after it. She disappeared through the swing doors. In seconds they had swung together and were peaceful, and only the overhead lights, yellow to the core, made a buzzing sound in the empty corridor.
3
Nutrition
Pink coconut snowballs lay on a plate next to the teapot, and on the rest of the tray, around the sugar bowl, heaped between the milk jug and the spoons, was a pile of loose Quality Street, a half-packet of Rich Tea, an Empire biscuit, two fairy cakes with jelly tots in the middle, a Blue Riband, two chocolate Penguins, a Breakaway, a Turkish Delight, a packet of Toffos and a raisin Club.
Blue light from the TV flashed on the edges of the cups. As Giovanni lifted one of the teaspoons it had a reflection of the TV in its cradle, and so did Lucia’s spectacles on the arm of her chair, the contorted image of the screen almost watchable.
‘I’ve sugared and milked them already,’ said Rosa from her place in the corner of the sofa.
‘Magic,’ said Giovanni.
‘It’s bigger than it seems in real life,’ said Alfredo.
‘You said that last week,’ said Mr Samson, the oldest man, who was sitting on one of the dining chairs they’d brought over for him. He didn’t have a television set and Giovanni was now in the habit of bringing him up to the living-room so he could see Maria.
‘And the week before,’ said Lucia.
‘You say it every week,’ said Giovanni.
‘All right,’ said Alfredo, ‘I say it every week and every week it’s true. The telly makes that place look much bigger than it actually is.’
‘Very good, Alfredo,’ said his mother.
‘I’m just saying.’
The logo for London Weekend Television came together on the TV screen to the sound of trumpets.
‘That’s the Post Office Tower. You can see that from the top of the hill where she’s living,’ said Alfredo.
They all laughed. ‘Shush now,’ said Lucia. Then the living-room door opened and Kalpana Jagannadham put her head round. ‘Has it started?’ she asked.
‘No, hen, come on in,’ said Rosa. ‘Sit yourself down, it’s jus
t starting. Sit here.’
‘I’m okay on the floor, Mrs Tambini.’
‘Alfredo, pass the lassie some of that stuff over.’
‘No, Mrs Tambini, honest. I’ve just had my tea. No thanks. I’m fine.’
‘On ye go,’ said Giovanni.
‘Shhhhh,’ said Lucia.
Just to keep the peace Kalpana took a cake from the tray and placed it on the carpet at her side.
The screen suddenly filled with the face of Hughie Green. His grey hair was slicked back and he was smiling with one half of his face. ‘Good evening and welcome ladies and gents and all the viewers at home. What a terrific show we have for you tonight …’
‘He must be some age now,’ said Mr Samson. ‘I can remember him when he was on the radio. He was good on the radio. They say he’s a bit of a ladies’ man.’
‘Let us hear him,’ said Giovanni.
Hughie Green made a joke about Concorde and another one about Denis Healey’s eyebrows. ‘He’s good at his job,’ said Giovanni. ‘He knows his stuff.’
‘He uses big words,’ said Alfredo.
‘There’s nothing the matter with big words if you’ve got something to say with them,’ said Lucia.
‘Would yez be quiet?’ said Rosa.
Hughie Green straightened out his smile, winked at the camera and did a tiny shuffle. ‘Over the last six weeks our first contestant has secured a place in the hearts of the entire nation. She came here as a complete unknown, but since then her vivacious, bubbly personality and beautiful singing voice have proved a winner with people of all ages. From the beautiful Scottish island of Bute, this remarkable little girl has proved to be a breath of fresh air with all of you. I mean that most sincerely, folks. The winner of the last six shows, and competing tonight for her seventh, ladies and gents, it’s my great pleasure to introduce the fantastic, the sensational … Maria Tambini.’
Lucia could feel the heat of the bar-fire coming through her slippers. She blinked and caught her breath as Maria lifted her eyes and looked right at the camera. She looked into the heart of the living-room itself; and then Lucia remembered she was looking into millions of rooms, and people in each one were taking the girl to themselves. Maria whispered the first lines of the song. ‘Let me kiss your lips and say I do before you leave my love for the last time,’ she sang. ‘Let me hold you close and promise I will before the light goes out for a lifetime. I won’t cry anymore. I can’t try anymore. Just hold me once before you go and leave me be with a song I know. The world won’t come again that’s going now.’
‘Oh look at her,’ said Lucia, spreading her fingers under her throat. ‘Is she not beautiful?’
On the TV, Maria reached the chorus and her whole face seemed to blur with feeling. Her body shook. She drew her arms across the front of her face with the fingers spread; it looked as if she were tearing the song in two, or ripping open the screen that contained her now, and she dived into the song’s chorus with her head thrown back, holding the notes until the breath left her, then staring at the floor with wide eyes, closing them, beginning the verse with something new in her expression, her arms falling open again as the chorus approached, reaching, climbing, throwing her hands to the audience as if to appeal for understanding. There was a storm of music around her and she wrapped herself up in it and was gone.
She is gone, thought Lucia. Never is she coming back to this place or anywhere like it. I called out your name. Be a good girl now. I looked for you. I did. There’s room for all of us if we hurry. There will be room.
Rosa followed the movement of her daughter’s arms. So beautiful the white gloves along her arms. She didn’t phone today.
‘Go on ya wee cracker,’ said Giovanni. ‘Go on.’
All the way to London I hope she’s got a nice coat down there in London. Mr Samson thought it was all so modern to see the lights behind the wee lassie go from blue to pink and back again as she sang the words. ‘Mrs Bone always used to say she was the loveliest thing in a pram,’ he said out loud.
Lucia flinched in her chair at the mention of Mrs Bone.
‘Oh Maria,’ said Kalpana. ‘You’re so grown up. She looks so grown up.’ Nobody, she thought, nobody here, nobody anywhere, knows how much they hated her at school. Nobody knows it. They’re just jealous, Maria, and you and me, we’ll go up the meadow and play by ourselves because they just hate us because they’re jealous that’s all. We had nice times, Maria. Oh Maria. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said to the others in the living-room. ‘Every week she’s even better.’
Alfredo looked at the television and thought of all the things the camera concealed. He thought of the green room and the car waiting in the studio carpark. He thought of the drive through London at night and the look of the skyline from Primrose Hill. He thought of Sidney the director and the nice dancers and Mr Green coming past and always speaking in headlines. Alfredo stared at the screen and thought of the bus journey to London and the smile on Maria as she held on to his thumbs in the greasy spoon by King’s Cross.
‘They’re doing wonders with her hair,’ he said.
At the end of her song everyone in the living-room clapped and they clapped on the television as the camera panned across the audience.
The lights went down. Maria Tambini could hear Mr Green talking at the other side of the studio. She could feel that her brow was damp and could hear herself breathing. She knew that no one could see her face now. She stood on the platform hearing her own breathing and she liked the sound of the audience and Mr Green. There was nobody up on the platform but her and later in the show she returned to the stage to face the applause of the audience and the clapometer.
In Rothesay, outside the window of her old bedroom, the wind coming off the Firth was rattling the drainpipes down to the street, past the chip shop and its sticks of pink rock. The pavement was wet and seemed in its own way abandoned. There was no one about; they were all at home in the glow of the television that Monday night. Down Victoria Street and past the harbour there was quietness and shadows, and they crowded the seafront, those shadows, flickering around the old palaces of entertainment, the Pavilion, the Winter Gardens, and round the palm trees, over the putting green, to lurk in the bus shelters and the doorways of shops on the road to Craigmore.
Harris’s television shop was especially alive down there: a bank of four rental televisions had been left on for the night to advertise their goodness, and there, behind glass, beaming to the sea, they showed the smiling face of Maria Tambini on her final Opportunity Knocks.
4
The Evolution of Distance
12 Cowal Road,
Craigmore,
Isle of Bute,
PA20 3TF
10 February 1978
Dear Maria,
I’ve been wanting to write to you and tell you all my news but as you know nothing ever happens in Boring Bute. Senorita Doblas has gone back to Spain and we think Miss Marshall is now getting off with Mr Elder the secretarial teacher with the greasy hair (he plays in a band). It’s AMAZINg seeing you on the telly. AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING. Everybody in the school is talking about you even the turds up smokers’ corner and they’re THE END. There was another flood Maria and we got three days off. I’m playing hockey for the school and there’s a match in Ardrossan, we have to go in a bus. There’s nothing to watch on the telly and my dad says I’ve got to do homework OR ELSE. One night I might make a tape of me talking to you instead of a letter. I will write to you anyway every week so please, please write to me, I know you’re busy. Are you going to dressy-up things? Oh my god. WRITE TO ME. Lots of love and kisses, your NOT FAMOUS friend – Kalpana
45 St George’s Terrace,
London
Dear Kalp,
It was grate to hear from you and everything thats going on up there, I have been busy all the time and still have the lucky penny you gave me. Its a big house and they gave me my own room, it’s brilliant. I have my own clock radio and am putting posters up. Mrs Gas
kell is nice and Richard her husband is nice to, in the house they have a piano for me to play sometimes but only for messing about. I go to the phone box at the bottom and tried to ring you but I didn’t get you in. I couldn’t believe when they said I won again and its brilliant after the show they gave me a drink of Babycham as well. It is a lot different here, sometimes people don’t understand a word you say. I will sign off now and hope you write soon.
Lots of love,
Maria Tambini
12 Cowal Road,
Craigmore,
Isle of Bute,
PA20 3TF
25 May 1978 6.56 p.m.
Dear Maria,
It is sunny now and dad said they might open the boating pond early. I missed you on Basil Brush (is it a puppet on somebody’s hand??) but you were on Mike Yarwood and I saw that and thought your dress and hair are great. You were in the Evening Times and I liked the way the photograph was on a pier with the big wheel behind you. Did you get to have a shot on it? The only good thing on this island is a guy called Tony he’s a ‘screw’. I think I’ll sell my body to him and buy a couple of bottles of Martini and a few packets of smokes with the money (ha ha). The rest of the talent here is hopeless all the rest of the boys go fishing all day or spend their time wanking.
I’m really sorry I missed your show because every time you sing now it’s better and better. I’m your number ONE fan. I would love to have heard it on the B.B. show. My dad has banned me from the school disco because a boy Cammie from my class was over in the bus stop the other night (he has spots, I don’t even know him) and he shouted for me up at the window and he was totally sozzled to the EYEBALLS.
My dad is now writing an article every week for the Buteman it is so embarrassing. They put his picture on it. Bye bye for now. Love and kisses –
Personality Page 15