by Jean Ure
“I’m s–sorry,” stammered Jazz. Now she’d blown it. She’d be put on report for sure. Laurel had said she would start yelling, but not even Laurel had thought she’d go that far. Accusing a teacher of racism!
Jazz swallowed. “I d–didn’t mean—”
Mr Gallimore brought his chair back to earth with a bang.
“Don’t apologise! You spoke your mind, you said what you thought. It happens to be wrong, but … it’s a valid point. Sometimes we do have expectations that are too low. I’ll look again at Rose’s essay; we’ll have a chat about it. I may have misjudged her.”
I can’t believe I’m hearing this, thought Jazz.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“No, thank you for bringing it to my attention.” said Mr Gallimore.
Jazz went reeling out into the yard. Carmel ran up to her.
“What happened? What were you talking about?”
“Oh—” Jazz waved a hand. “This and that.”
“You mean, you’re not going to tell me?”
“I can’t,” said Jazz. “It was about Rose. But he’s all right, Mr Gallimore!”
“Could have told you that,” said Carmel.
Little Women had finished. It was now going off on a three-month tour, all up and down the country, but Mum was not going with it.
“My touring days are over,” she said. “Too much like hard work!”
“But it would be money,” said Rose.
“Yes, and you wouldn’t see anything of me! Is that what you want?”
“No!” Daisy hurled herself at Mum, clutching her tight with both hands, as if Mum might be going to set off right that very moment for the Outer Hebrides.
“We all have to make sacrifices,” said Rose.
“Mum, no!” Daisy tightened her grip. “Please, Mum!”
“It’s all right, sweety pie!” Mum pulled Daisy on to her lap. Most people, at twelve, were too old for cuddles, but not Daisy. “I’ve already told them I’m not going. I’m staying here, to be with you.”
“But the bills!” wailed Rose. Two had come plopping through the letter box only that morning. Nasty ones. Red ones. “How are we going to pay the bills?”
“We’ll find a way,” said Mum. “Something will turn up!”
Mum and Dad had been saying that for as long as Jazz could remember. It was all part and parcel of being an actor. You never knew where your next job was going to come from – but something would turn up.
“Would you have gone on tour if Dad had been here?” she said.
Mum scrunched her lips, the way she always did when anyone mentioned Dad.
“That’s irrelevant!” she snapped. “He isn’t here, so the question doesn’t arise.”
You couldn’t ever talk to Mum about Dad. Jazz couldn’t decide whether it was because she was still too cross or whether it was because it upset her. She never wanted to speak to him when he rang; she never asked how he was or what he was up to. But Jazz had noticed that she always hung about and listened when the rest of them were swopping information. She always pretended that she wasn’t, like she would suddenly become very busy plumping up the sofa cushions or searching for something in a kitchen drawer; but Jazz could tell that she was taking it all in.
“It’s so nice having Mum at home,” sighed Daisy. “I wish she could be at home all the time!”
“You mean, never do any more acting?” said Jazz, shocked.
“Just be an ordinary mum,” pleaded Daisy.
“Bor-ring!” Jazz and Laurel chanted it together, but Daisy shook her head. She could be quite stubborn, in her own quiet way.
“I think it would be lovely.”
“Yes, until the bills came in,” said Rose. “Then we wouldn’t be able to pay anything and we’d all end up in a bed-and-breakfast.”
Rose, just recently, had become obsessed by bills. Every time a new one dropped on to the mat she’d carry it through to the kitchen and in the voice of doom announce, “Another one.”
To begin with, Mum tried making a joke of it. She stuck all the bills round the large mirror in the sitting room, as if they were telegrams.
“Look, there’s a red one! Isn’t it pretty?”
But after a while, even Mum started worrying. Jazz knew things must be bad when one afternoon, at tea time, she said that if nothing turned up she might seriously have to consider looking for a proper job.
There was a startled silence.
“But what could you do?” faltered Laurel. “There isn’t anything you could do!”
“I’m not that useless,” said Mum. “There must be something I could do?”
“Like what?”
“Well, I could – I could work in a shop! I could work in an office.”
“No, you couldn’t,” said Rose. “You don’t know how to use a computer.”
“I could learn! Maybe I ought to enrol for evening classes. I could be someone’s secretary!” Mum put on her reading glasses and sat up straight on her chair, wearing a suitable secretary expression, demure and rather prim. She smiled round the table. “How’s that?”
“It’s not you!” Jazz said it earnestly. She couldn’t imagine Mum in an office. Mum was a free spirit! She was an actress. She couldn’t be chained to a desk and a computer!
“Well, I’ve got to do something,” said Mum. “We can’t go on like this!”
“I feel so guilty,” confessed Laurel later that day to Jazz. “It doesn’t seem right I should be so happy when Mum’s so worried!”
Laurel was over the moon because she had been chosen to model clothes in a fashion show. The show was being run by a local store, with all the proceeds to go to charity. Parents had been invited to submit photographs of their children, so Laurel had submitted one of herself, without telling Mum, and that very morning she had received a letter inviting her to take part.
“It’s the start of my career!” she said excitedly.
Rose had wanted to know if she was going to be paid.
“Certainly not,” said Laurel, indignant. “It’s for charity.”
“That’s a pity,” said Rose. “It would have come in handy for the gas bill.”
“Oh, Rose, don’t!” begged Mum. “Something will turn up!”
That was before she had decided she would have to go out and get a proper job. But how could she? thought Jazz. What would happen if Mum were working in someone’s office and the telephone suddenly rang and it was her agent asking her to go for an audition? She couldn’t not go! It might be her big chance! If you were an actor you had to be prepared to seize every opportunity. They couldn’t let Mum go out and get a proper job!
She called the others to a conference.
“What are we going to do?”
“Don’t see what we can do,” said Rose.
“Well, we can’t just sit back and twiddle our thumbs!”
“Maybe,” said Laurel, “we could—”
“What?” They turned on her, hopefully.
“Maybe we could … sell something?”
Jazz pulled a face. “Sell what? We haven’t got anything!”
“We must have something.”
“Let’s all go away and make a list,” said Daisy.
Their lists didn’t amount to very much. Jazz, who wasn’t really a jewellery kind of person, had put down the gold Maltese cross that Nan had given her for her twelfth birthday. Laurel, who had also had a Maltese cross, had put down a glass paperweight with a snowstorm inside it, a present from Lady Jayne. She hadn’t mentioned the Maltese cross.
“I’m not selling that!” she said, when Jazz asked why she hadn’t included it. “It’s my only piece of jewellery!”
Rose had put down her Swiss cuckoo clock, which she said was tacky and twee.
“That won’t fetch much,” said Jazz. “The cuckoo’s broken. What about your personal organiser? That might be worth something.”
“But I need it!” Rose’s organiser was the nearest thing she had to a computer
. “What about your copy of that play?”
“Much Ado? I’m not parting with that!” cried Jazz. “It’s signed by Laurence Olivier!”
“So it could be worth money,” said Laurel.
“Well, and so could your Maltese cross! But you won’t put it on the list.”
Daisy was the only one who was prepared to make real sacrifices. She had included three of her most treasured possessions: a music box, with a ballerina who turned in circles as the music played; a Victorian doll that had belonged to Nan’s nan; and a real Spanish fan that Dad had brought back from Spain.
“Daisy!” Jazz looked at her, aghast. “You can’t sell those! You love them!”
Daisy’s lip quivered. “I just thought it might help.”
“Now I suppose you’ll expect me to sell my organiser,” said Rose, crossly.
There was a pause. Jazz thought of her signed copy of Much Ado; Laurel, no doubt, of her Maltese cross.
“Oh, look, this is ridiculous!” cried Rose. “Even if we sold everything we had, it still wouldn’t pay all the bills. And even if it did, what are we supposed to do next time?”
With guilty relief, Jazz mentally put Much Ado back in its special case and turned the key.
“So what’s the solution?” she said.
“There isn’t one. Either Mum gives up acting and gets a proper job or something turns up or we go bankrupt and have to live on the streets. I can’t worry about it any more,” declared Rose.
The very next day, something wonderful happened. Something turned up – but for Jazz, not for Mum. Jazz couldn’t believe it when Theo rang to tell her the news.
“Dad wants to use you in his next telly production.”
“Me?” gasped Jazz. “He wants to use me?”
“It’s only a couple of lines,” warned Theo. “Nothing to get excited about.”
But Jazz would have got excited if it hadn’t been any lines at all! Just the chance to be on television …
“I told him I wouldn’t be in it unless he used you,” said Theo. “I told him I’m sick of being an actor but that it’s what you want to do more than anything in the world, so he said OK, he said it would be good to have someone from an ethnic minority.”
Is that what I am? wondered Jazz. Someone from an ethnic minority? But she was too thrilled to niggle about it.
“You’ll get paid, of course,” said Theo.
Paid??? She would have done it for nothing!
“It’s three days’ work ’cos we’re in other scenes where we don’t have to say anything, so it’ll probably be about … couple of hundred.”
“Pounds?” gasped Jazz.
“Well, or two-fifty. Maybe three. I know it’s not very much, but I hope you’ll do it. For my sake,” urged Theo. “You’ve got to!”
“I will,” Jazz assured him. Let them try to stop her!
“Dad says does your mum want him to go through her agent, and to tell her it’s in the Easter holidays so you won’t have to miss any school?”
“I’ll tell her!”
Jazz went racing off there and then to deliver the news.
“Mum, Mum, I’m going to be on telly!”
A babble of questions broke out.
“When?”
“Who for?”
“What in?”
“Easter holidays, for Theo’s dad! I don’t know what in … I forgot to ask!”
“Will you be paid?” said Rose.
Jazz nodded, ecstatically. “£200! Maybe more.”
Two hundred pounds would bring her drama school fund to a quite dizzying amount. Maybe enough for her to pay the first term’s fees …
She found that Rose was tugging at her sleeve.
“Bills,” mouthed Rose.
Jazz’s heart went clunk! into her shoes. Was Rose really hinting that she should use her first ever acting money to pay the gas bill? The electricity bill? The telephone bill?
I won’t! she thought. It’s not fair!
Mum held out her arms. “Come here, and let me congratulate you … my little actress! You know I don’t think it’s at all a sensible career, in fact I’m dead against it, but—” She threw up her hands. “What can I do? I didn’t take my mum’s advice, I don’t expect you’ll take mine.”
“No, I won’t,” said Jazz, grinning.
Rose shook her head. “It’ll all lead to gloom and despair. Out on the street, living in a box.”
“Oh, Rose, hush!” said Mum. “Don’t ruin it for her.”
“Well.” Rose stared at Jazz; a horridly penetrating stare.
Oh, bother! thought Jazz. Damn and bother and blast. Damnation and hell. She took a breath.
“When I get paid,” she said. Damn damn damn. “We could use it for some of the bills.”
“What?” Mum’s eyebrows shot up into her hair. “I’m not using my daughter’s hard-earned money for paying bills! That will be your money; you hang on to it. Don’t worry about the bills, something will turn up. Something,” said Mum, “always does.”
“And sure enough, something did. It wasn’t what they were expecting – but that just made it even better.
On Friday afternoon, just as they got in from school, Dad rang. It was Jazz who answered the phone.
“Guess what?” said Dad. “Guess where I’m calling from?”
Dad was calling from England!
“Just the other side of town, baby. How ’bout we all meet up for the weekend and I take you some place nice?”
“Mum as well?” said Jazz.
Dad hesitated. “Would she come, do you think?”
“I – don’t know. I could ask her!”
But Mum wouldn’t. “Why should I want to see him?” she said. “What’s he doing over here, anyway?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. He’s going to tell us tomorrow. He’s taking us out for a meal!”
“Hm! Someone obviously has money to burn. You might ask him, if he’s come into a fortune, to channel some of it this way. Just remind him,” said Mum, “that he does have four growing girls to provide for.” Jazz sighed. This would be the first time they had seen Dad in almost a year. She didn’t want to nag him! But Rose said Mum was quite right.
“Men can’t expect to have children and then run off and not take their share of the responsibility.”
“Oh, shut up being so politically correct!”
“I’m not being politically correct,” said Rose. “You just shut up being sexist! Why’s it always left to the women?”
“Look, you two, we don’t want to fight,” said Laurel.
“Let’s just concentrate on being happy!”
“Well, we have to mention it,” hissed Rose.
“We will,” said Jazz, “but not right at the start! And anyway, it hasn’t all been left to Mum. What about some of the cheques that came in? They were Dad’s!”
“I know. I was just saying.”
“Don’t!” Laurel clapped her hands over her ears. “I don’t want to hear another word! Not from either of you!”
Dad came to pick them up after breakfast next day. Daisy was so excited at the thought of seeing him again she could hardly keep still and kept racing from room to room, from window to window. Even Mum, who refused to come to the door to say hello – “What do I want to speak to him for?” – couldn’t resist the occasional peek from behind the sitting room curtains.
“There he is!” yelled Laurel, at last.
Daisy gave a great squeal and went rushing out into the hall. Mum sniffed.
“All this big build up! I just hope it doesn’t end in tears.” Jazz looked at Mum, reproachfully.
“Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry!” Mum flew at Jazz and hugged her. “He’s your dad, of course you’re excited! Don’t take any notice of me, I’m just a sour old woman. Off you go!” She gave Jazz a little push. “Have a good day.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to come and say hello?”
Just for a moment, she thought Mum might be weakening; but then they
heard Daisy’s joyous cry of “Dad!” and Mum’s lips went into their tightening routine.
“No, thank you,” she said. “I don’t think so.”
“But, Mum!”
“Maybe next time,” said Mum.
Jazz turned, and walked, rather slowly, across the room. She found herself strangely nervous at the prospect of being with Dad again. It was so long since they had seen him! Would he be the same Dad that she remembered?
She went through to the hall – and there he was, the same old Dad! Jazz caught her breath and stood, suddenly shy, in the doorway. Dad held out his arms.
“Hi, baby!”
Her cheeks fired up. She had forgotten how handsome he was, her dad. “Drop dead gorgeous!” She had laughed when Carmel, one time, had said that. But it was true! It was true! Dad really was tall, dark and handsome. Like a film star!
“Well?” He laughed. “Are you just going stand there?”
“No!”
Jazz hurled herself at him. For just a moment she had been scared that she might be tongue-tied – Jazz, who was never at a loss for words! But no one could be tongue-tied with Dad for very long. By the time he had swept them off their feet, one after another – even Rose, who liked to stand on her dignity: even Laurel, who considered herself grown up – they were all clamouring for the opportunity to get in first with their bits of news.
“Dad, guess what? I’m going to be on telly!”
“Dad, I’m going to be in a fashion show!”
“Dad, Tink got lost! But I found him again!” That was Daisy, very proud.
“I got an A+ for one of my essays.” Rose; who else?
“So what do you all want?” laughed Dad. “Gold stars?”
“No! We want to hear about you,” said Laurel.
“All in good time, baby! All in good time.”
They set off up the road, Daisy on one side of Dad, clutching his hand, Jazz on the other, Rose and Laurel in front.
“I take it your mum didn’t want to come and say hello to me?”
“She said maybe next time,” said Jazz.
“She still not happy with me?”
“We–e–e–ll …” Jazz hunched a shoulder.