Family Fan Club

by Jean Ure

  “Just as well I didn’t ask if we could use the car. I get the feeling she might have said no.”

  “We don’t need the car!” Rose danced jubilantly ahead of them up the road. “Cars are stinky!”

  “Quite right,” said Dad. “Let’s all jump on a bus!”

  Getting on a bus with Dad was almost a treat in itself. They took the number 88 all the way to Trafalgar Square and went to have coffee and cakes in the restaurant of the National Gallery. Well, Dad had coffee, and so did Laurel, trying to be grown up; the others had Cokes. But they all had wondrous sticky buns of the type that Mum didn’t very often let them eat.

  “Full of calories! Ugh! Bad,” said Jazz, in Mum’s voice.

  “Now, don’t go and tell on me,” said Dad. “I’m in quite enough hot water as it is.”

  At this point, Rose dug Jazz very hard in the ribs. Jazz squirmed. She knew Rose wanted her to bring up the subject of bills. But not now! she thought. Not while we’re having fun.

  “Do you want me to let you into a secret?” said Dad. Daisy nodded, blissfully.

  “I been back in England since just before Christmas.”

  Just before Christmas? That was almost four months ago!

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” whispered Jazz.

  “I felt so bad,” said Dad. “No job, no money … just a useless bum. I didn’t know how to face you. It’s what this business does to a person. It can really bring you to your knees. Know what I’m saying?”

  Jazz nodded, solemnly. It was what Lady Jayne was forever telling them.

  “And then – wham!” Dad broke into a beam. The old, happy, Dad-beam that they knew so well. “My luck turned!”

  “How?” Jazz leaned forward eagerly; but Dad shook his head.

  “I can’t tell you! Not right now. It’s a secret.”

  “Dad!”

  Dad put a finger to his mouth. “My lips are sealed, baby … much as my life is worth. Tell me about your mum! How are you all coping?”

  “Um – well.” Jazz crinkled her brow.

  “We’re not,” said Rose, bluntly. “Mum’s show’s finished and she’s waiting for something else to turn up and while she’s waiting we’ve got so many bills she says we could paper a room with them.”

  “Rose,” said Laurel, “it’s not that bad!”

  “Yes, it is,” said Rose. “Mum’s dead worried. She’s even talking of going out and getting a proper job.”

  “Hey, hey, we can’t have that! No way!” Dad suddenly put a hand in his jacket pocket and brought out an envelope. He slid it across the table to Rose. “You give her this. Tell her there’ll be more. Tell her just to hang on in there. OK?”

  “What is it?” said Rose.

  Laurel snatched at it. “It’s for Mum! Nothing to do with you.”

  They were all sad when the time came for Dad to take them home. Daisy wept, and clung to him.

  “I don’t want you to go! I want you to come back and live with us again!”

  “Oh, baby!” Dad held her to him. “I wish it could be. But your mum—” He glanced at the others, over Daisy’s head. “I don’t reckon your mum would be too agreeable to that idea?”

  There was a silence. Jazz chewed her lip, Laurel stared at the ground. Only Rose was brave enough to say anything.

  “She’s still really mad.”

  “Yeah.” Dad nodded. “I guess I gave her cause.”

  “It wasn’t all you!” Jazz burst out with it. “It was both of you!”

  “That’s my baby!” Dad reached out a hand and ran it over Jazz’s cropped head. “You stick up for your old dad.”

  “Not old,” muttered Jazz.

  “I’m not sticking up for either of you,” said Rose. “I think grown-ups are pathetic, if you want to know. Utterly pathetic.” And Rose went marching off, up the path, slamming the gate behind her.

  Dad sighed, and unwrapped Daisy’s arms from round his waist.

  “I’ve got to let you go, baby. But I’ll be back!”

  “W–when?” stammered Daisy.

  “Soon! I’ll be back soon.”

  “Are you going off somewhere?” said Jazz. “Are you filming?”

  Dad tapped the side of his nose.

  “Why can’t you tell us?”

  “’cos I’ve taken an oath!”

  “But when are we going to see you?” screeched Daisy.

  “I’ll make you a promise,” said Dad. “Beginning of May … my sacred, solemnest word! That’s not too long to wait, now, is it?”

  They speculated all evening on what Dad could have meant. Mum speculated along with the rest of them.

  “Something’s turned up, that’s for sure … I knew he was back! I knew he couldn’t be calling from the States! You remember?” She turned to Jazz. “You remember, at Christmas? I tried dialling 1471? But all I got was Caller withheld their number. Honestly! That man!”

  “He was ashamed,” said Jazz.

  “Ashamed of what? Being out of work? So what’s new? We’re all out of work! And now he’s got something and he won’t tell you. Why not?”

  “He’s taken an oath.”

  “Oh, rubbish!” said Mum. “He’s just enjoying himself, keeping us in the dark.”

  “Well, at any rate we can pay the bills,” said Rose. In the envelope that Dad had given them was a cheque for a sum which had momentarily stunned even Mum into silence. “At least we shan’t have to go and live in a box. And he said,” said Rose, “that there’d be more.”

  “Oh, don’t be so money-grubbing all the time!” cried Jazz.

  “I’m not being.”

  “Yes, you are! Always on about bills.”

  “Bills,” said Rose, crushingly, “have to be paid.”

  “Unfortunately,” agreed Mum, “Rose is right. I’m just glad your dad showed a proper sense of responsibility.”

  “He did it by himself.” Jazz was quick to point it out.

  “He’d got the cheque already written! We didn’t have to ask him.”

  All Mum said to that was, “Humph!”

  We’re really going to have to work on her, thought Jazz. There had to be a way to get Mum and Dad back together!

  “Oh. Why do you girls have to be so fractious all the time?” cried Mum, one morning at breakfast.

  “What’s frackshus?” Daisy wanted to know.

  “Bickering and backbiting and totally ungrateful!”

  It was true they had been rather quarrelsome of late. Jazz and Laurel had quarrelled on the subject of clothes. Jazz had accused Laurel of dolling herself up just to please men, while Laurel had accused Jazz of slobbing around like a refugee from Oxfam. No man, she said, would ever look twice at her.

  “Don’t want them to!” had declared Jazz.

  Laurel had said in that case she would end up as a sour and embittered old maid; to which Jazz had retorted, “And a good thing, too! At least it’s better than being some empty-headed bimbo!”

  Rose had sided with Jazz on that occasion; but then she had started lecturing Laurel about “only going out with white boys. First it was that creep Simon, now it’s that creep from Year 12.”

  “Martin Balcombe! He’s not a creep.”

  “He’s white,” said Rose.

  “So what?”

  “So why can’t you go out with a black boy? If you’ve got to go out with boys.”

  “Yes, I have, and why should I?” screeched Laurel, getting herself in a muddle. “What business is it of yours, anyway?”

  Jazz sided with Laurel on that one. Rose really could be quite impossible! But even Daisy seemed to have caught the bug. Peevishly she demanded to know who had shut poor Tink in the airing cupboard.

  “He’s been there for hours! He could have suffocated. You’d think people could just look before they close the door!”

  “Well, it wasn’t me,” said Jazz.

  “Wasn’t me,” said Laurel.

  “Wasn’t me,” said Rose.

  “It had to be someo
ne!” shrieked Daisy. “Poor little thing! He couldn’t close the door by himself, could he?”

  “What’s the matter with you all?” said Mum. “Haven’t enough good things been happening?”

  Good things had happened. For all of them. Mum’s good thing was that Icing had been scheduled for repeats. That meant loads of money. It also meant that Mum’s face would be back on television, and who knew where that might lead?

  Laurel’s good thing was that she had done her fashion show and had her picture in the paper. Mum had bought a copy of the original print and had it blown up, and now it was in a frame, on the sitting room wall. Laurel could be seen taking surreptitious peeks at it when she thought no one was watching her.

  Jazz had done her television part and had lived in a state of high excitement from beginning to end. Theo might keep yawning and complaining that “It’s all so boring!” but to Jazz a television studio was like an Aladdin’s cave, full of wonder and delight. She couldn’t wait to do more! And Theo’s dad, the great Rufus White, had promised her that she would.

  “Now that I’ve seen what you can do, I shall certainly bear you in mind!”

  Jazz had been so thrilled she couldn’t stop repeating the words, over and over, in her head: I shall bear you in mind, I shall bear you in mind … And next time, perhaps, he might trust her with a real part!

  I don’t mean to be greedy, she thought, but it would be lovely to have more lines!

  And after all, you had to aim high if you wanted to get anywhere. Jazz didn’t intend to turn into another Lady Jayne. She was going to be a STAR!

  Rose, in her own way, was already a star. Her end-of-term report had made her sound, said Laurel, without any trace of envy, like some kind of child genius. Which of course she was! The family had long known it. But it was nice that other people had found out. The only subjects where she wasn’t a genius were PE – Rose does not exert herself, Home Economics – Rose shows no aptitude, and Handicrafts – Rose appears to lack coordination. For English, Mr Gallimore had written: Rose is a quite exceptional student. Her written work betrays an understanding and grasp of language far beyond her years.

  Jazz glowed when she read that. Rose just shrugged and made like she couldn’t have cared less, but Jazz still remembered the day she had come home from school upset because Mr Gallimore had accused her of cheating. Rose knew that she was bright; she didn’t need people to tell her so. But she was human, the same as the rest of them! Jazz bet she had stolen just as many surreptitious peeks at her report as Laurel had at her photograph.

  As for Daisy, she had perhaps had the biggest triumph of them all, for Daisy had actually been awarded her school prize for Student who has Tried Hardest, and what was more, she had gone up on stage, in front of three hundred people, to receive it! A year ago, wild horses wouldn’t have dragged Daisy on stage.

  “I knew we were right to send her to Linden Hyrst,” said Mum. “If only that stupid man had been there! He’d have been so proud! Well, it’s his own fault. I don’t see why I should shed any tears over it.”

  But at least she had mentioned him! And Jazz couldn’t help noticing that Dad had progressed from being that man to that stupid man. As if maybe Mum felt just a little regretful. She exchanged glances with Laurel. Was Mum softening?

  She certainly wasn’t softening that morning at breakfast.

  “I’m sick of the lot of you!” she said. “You do nothing but whimper and whinge.”

  “I was only saying,” said Rose, aggrieved, “it’s all very well spending all this money on drama school—”

  “It’s my money!” shouted Jazz. “I earnt it!”

  “But you’re so unaware,” said Rose. “Get real! How many black actresses ever earn a living?”

  “How many actresses ever earn a living?” said Mum. “I’ve already been through all this with her! My mum went through it with me. I didn’t take any notice; why should Jazz?”

  Jazz looked at her mum, gratefully.

  “I’m just trying to make her aware,” sighed Rose. “I don’t want it to come as a rude shock.”

  “I am aware, thank you very much,” said Jazz. You couldn’t be brought up in a theatrical family and not be.

  “It’s a sexist world out there.”

  “Not just sexist! Racist. It’s even worse for black actresses than white.”

  Laurel groaned; long and deeply.

  “Why do you keep on about being black all the time?” said Jazz, irritably. “We’re not black, we’re half and half!”

  “That’s right,” said Mum, who could rarely resist the chance to join in an argument. “Are you trying to deny part of your heritage?”

  “No, I’m facing facts,” said Rose. “And anyway, it’s a political statement.”

  Jazz tossed her head. “You can be a political statement if you like! I’d rather just be a human being.”

  “Well, you can’t,” said Rose. “It’s not the way people see you.”

  “It’s the way I see me.”

  “That’s what I’m saying! You’re not being realistic. You only got that telly part ’cos of Theo’s dad thinking it would be good to have someone from an ethnic minority.”

  There was a silence.

  “I don’t think that’s very kind,” said Mum.

  “But it’s true! She told me. It’s tokenism,” said Rose. “So long as you have just one person from an ethnic minority, they can’t accuse you of being racist. That’s all they do it for.”

  “Oh, shut up!” cried Jazz. “Just shut up!”

  Jazz pushed back her chair and blundered from the room. Trust Rose! Why did she always, always have to go and ruin things?

  Later, Mum came upstairs to give Jazz a hug.

  “Rose doesn’t mean to be hurtful. You have to remember, no matter how clever she is, she’s still only eleven years old. She still sees things very much in – well!” Mum laughed. “Black and white.”

  “She’s right, though, isn’t she?” Jazz scrubbed at her eyes. “They’ll never let me play Beatrice, or Ophelia, or – or anything in Shakespeare!”

  “How do you know?” said Mum. “Things are getting better. People are beginning to fight for their rights … gay people. Disabled people. Black people. Women! Rose is right about one thing, we do have to face up to reality, but that doesn’t mean being defeatist.”

  “But Theo’s dad did say it would be good to have someone from an ethnic m–minority!”

  “Well, maybe he did, but he wouldn’t have used you if he didn’t think you could do it. And he certainly wouldn’t have said he’d like to use you again! You obviously made an impression on him. So cheer up! And don’t let Rose get to you. She still has to learn a bit of discretion.”

  Jazz didn’t personally think that Rose would ever learn discretion. She had visions of one day being a famous actress – because she was going to be – and of Rose putting her to shame by screaming and shouting and waving banners outside the theatre. And everyone would know that they were sisters and they would expect Jazz to scream and shout and wave banners. But I won’t! thought Jazz. I don’t care about all that. I just want to get on with my life!

  She said this to Mum, and Mum said she knew exactly how Jazz felt.

  The world needs people like Rose … people who are prepared to make a stand. But they’re certainly not easy to live with!

  Dad had rung three times since that Saturday they had all gone out together. But he wouldn’t ever say where he was ringing from! Jazz had tried pressing 1471, only to hear the recorded voice at the other end tonelessly informing her that “We do not have the caller’s number.” And whenever they tried ringing him at his flat on the other side of London, there was no reply.

  “He’s just playing games with us!” said Mum. “There’s no reason for all this cloak and dagger stuff.”

  Meanwhile, Easter had come and gone, and so had the Easter holidays. They had started back at school, and any day now it would be the beginning of May – which was
when Dad had promised they would see him again. Daisy had ringed it on the calendar in red pen. D. A. D., she had written.

  “I’ll murder him if he lets her down!” said Mum.

  “Dad’s not a let-down merchant,” protested Jazz; but it was worrying, all the same. The disappointment would be hard to bear, and so would Mum’s unspoken “I told you so.”

  And then one morning the newspapers were delivered – Mum’s Guardian and the Radio Times. It was Daisy who ran to the door to collect them. The others were in the kitchen, eating breakfast, when they heard her high-pitched scream.

  “My God!” cried Mum, shoving back her chair. “What’s happened?”

  “Mu–u–u–u–m!” Daisy practically fell into the kitchen. She was waving the Radio Times above her head.

  “What is it, what is it? Calm down!” shrieked Mum.

  “Dad,” whispered Daisy.

  “What?”

  Laurel snatched at the Radio Times. Her jaw fell open.

  “Where, where? Let’s see!” Jazz and Rose jostled to look over Laurel’s shoulder.

  “Hey! Wow!” Jazz jumped up and punched the air. “He’s made it, he’s made it!”

  From the cover of the Radio Times, Dad’s face grinned up at them. He was wearing a green uniform with gold piping. Underneath were the words, New boy on the block. Actor T.J. Jones joins the Greens as Det. Insp. Ben Arlott.

  “Green Force!” Laurel waved the Radio Times at Mum. “He’s got into Green Force!”

  Green Force was the big one. One of the most successful series on television.

  “It even sells to America,” gloated Jazz.

  Mum sniffed. “I still don’t see the need for all that cloak and dagger stuff.”

  “Mum, it was a secret! It says—” Laurel had opened up the paper and had found the article inside. “It says, TV’s best kept secret.”

  “He probably had to sign something,” said Rose.

  “What else does it say?’ Jazz craned to see. “Does it mention us? Ooh, yes, it does! It says he’s got four daughters and is married to actress Debbie Silver, famous as best friend Sophie from Icing on the Cake. Isn’t that nice?’ Jazz beamed hopefully at Mum. “He talked about you!”