by Randal Eliot
Chapter Four
They'd hate her even more than they already did! She could take it from girls who are so devastatingly plain they'd welcome an outbreak of yellow heads as if they're a natural cosmetic, like saggy arse Brogan Davis - 'A Hundred and One Handjobs' as the bad boys called her - or that foul, tourettic megaphone, Jasmine Meacher, who so eagerly spread her fake-tanned legs she'd been nicknamed Marmite. She could see straight through their niggling jealousies and nasty insecurities that make it so clear why no one is loved by everyone. But it's so gutting when, as soon as your back is turned, the people you've bent over backwards to win over rag you like a pack of deprived Rottweilers with a soft toy. It had been futile, pathetic, to think that the world might identify with her, the lost princess of… of… excruciating heartbreak. Her career was over before she could perform a dirge! And she'd so wanted to prove that her beauty comes from within. Only a pure heart can produce such sweet, delicious melodies.
Alicia stared into the condensing mirror on the whitewashed dressing room wall. The misty sheen would soon cloak her reflection; it'd be as if she'd never stood there. And it was just as well. She couldn't go through with it. Not for all the front covers on W H Smith's shelves.
Two wooden chairs covered in chips and stubbed-tab burns and an equally squalid, small round table, with a half-empty bottle of water on its sticky top, were the luxuries of what was effectively a box-room. No more than eight feet by eight feet, it hosted the turns in the social club where, in just twenty or so minutes time, Alicia was booked to make a song and dance. The room had two doors - one led to three worn, wooden steps and up them, oh my god, the stage; the other opened onto the concert room where how many people were waiting? Her mother had put posters up at work and in shop windows! Alicia herself had pinned up a huge, glossy announcement in the college common room! Beyond the concert room door, under the loud grooves of seventies disco, the babble of the crowd got louder by the minute.
People can be so much crueller when they're drunk, thought Alicia. She recalled some school lesson based on a letter by Dickens about hangings. From the highest to the lowest in society, the Victorians took to public executions as if they were fairs. No one was excluded. Even the clap-ridden prostitutes had a banging good time! It was only the humiliating thought of tearfully rushing through the gathering throng in order to getaway that held Alicia back. The rotten room was a cell! Oh, if only it was her coffin! It'd be over! She wouldn't have to suffer any more! How had she ever believed she was a natural born diva? Thank God her dad wasn't here to say, 'I told you.' Hadn't it been blatantly obvious after those horrible auditions?
All the same, Alicia had news for her dad who she now pretended was stood right in front of her. She hadn't lied about the first audition! So there! And it hadn't been half the inconvenience he'd made it out to be; okay, he'd driven over to Manchester, but he hadn't queued in the rain! He'd spent the afternoon quaffing cocktails in the hotel lounge! It was Alicia and her mother who'd suffered under an umbrella amidst the swarm of fame-hungry hopefuls surrounding The Theatre of Dreams.
Alicia's stomach had cramped in the small hours. By the time her mobile's alarm broke into the X-factor theme, she'd been up sporadically spewing into the toilet bowl for what felt like the duration of her dad's Pink Floyd collection, live bootlegs included. She sobbed, horrified by her death-white reflection in the mirror over the washbasin - the judges would think she was some kind of Goth! Why was this happening? Had the capricious gods of entertainment sent her a test? Did she have to demonstrate that the show always goes on? Feeling like she did, she wasn't fit for the bottom of a bill never mind those demanding high notes. Humph with maudlin violins! She should have picked an easier song for her audition. And it later proved to be a colossal mistake to blame nerves when Dad asked her why she was so quiet. She hadn't even kicked up a fuss about her outfit, allowing Mum to choose from the three they'd packed due to Alicia's indecision about which one fate had specifically designed for her triumphant moment. Mum opted for the long black gown so that stains wouldn't show so much should an accident occur. Now I really look like I've crawled from a crypt, thought Alicia, so crippled by belly ache she hadn't the strength to object. She'd have awakened the dead otherwise.
When the taxi dropped them off, the mob of hopefuls had grown intimidatingly ginormous. Under a bronze statue of three footballers, Alicia lurched over and vomited yellow bile. The victorious salute of the statue's central hero seemed to ridicule her plight, yet a nearby steward ceased shepherding new arrivals behind temporary steel barriers to bark: 'How disrespectful! That's the holy trinity! Any more of it and I'll turn you away, madam.'
'Haven't you any compassion?' Cathy asked, scoldingly. 'She's sick with nerves!'
'Get into this queue if you want to get in,' he replied, adding to the sea of waves that greeted a low-flying helicopter. A camera man dangled a leg from its sides as he filmed. 'Hi Mum!' the steward shouted over the cheers, cutely waggling the fingers of his right hand. Enough footage captured, the helicopter buzzed off over the football ground's stands.
Alicia and her mum forlornly waited in the swollen, winding queue. The sky was a cold, grey sheet as comforting as one covering a bedwetter's mattress. Cathy put up her umbrella, embracing her pale daughter under its shelter. Thankfully she'd persuaded Alicia to borrow her stylish trench coat and slip it on over her gown. The queue shuffled along. Stopped. Urrgggh! The remains of Alicia's stomach lining splashed at their feet.
'Excuse me. Should she be here?' asked a skeletal, zitty indie kid. He wore round glasses, a sickly green, suede smoking jacket and torn jeans so paint-splattered it looked like Jackson Pollack did his laundry. Indie kid was stood directly behind them, smoothing his greased-up quiff. 'I don't want to be catching whatever she's got.' He jigged like a puppet on strings in his bright red brothel creepers. 'I've a date with stardom, missus.'
'She hasn't got anything catching. She's just apprehensive, aren't you, babe?'
'Doesn't look like that to me,' fired a bloated Madonna-alike in front of them. She bulged in a pink leotard under a studded leather jacket. Her white tights and canvas plimsolls were saturated, as if she'd paddled up the Manchester Ship Canal en route. 'Pick Me!' demanded the white letters amateurishly sewn into her fluorescent pink headband.
'She's sick as a parrot with bird flu!' So claimed a lanky transvestite in some kind of tin-foil spacesuit, a deep purple bob wig and matching platform boots. They had tiny silver stars glued all over them. His lipstick was black as if he'd kissed the Grim Reaper. 'And she probably squawks like a parrot!' He fluttered his purple eyelashes with his hands on his hips. 'Put Polly back in her cage!'
'They ought to send you to a freak-show!' The transvestite's camp bitching had crawled under Alicia's skin; she angrily hit back despite her cheeks turning a shade too close to the green of the indie kid's jacket.
'It's you usual suspects whose goose is already cooked,' Cathy shot from her lip. 'You've even come prepared for an hour on gas mark five going on the way you're dressed. The judges will recommend you to Ready Steady Cook.'
Everyone in earshot giggled at the transvestite's tin-foil spacesuit.
'I suppose, duckies,' he whimpered, twiddling the ends of the fake fur round his neck, 'you'll pay my train fare if…'
'I'll hang you with that if I hear any more,' Cathy rapped.
'Blimey, listen to it!' The tranny stepped back, as if fearing Cathy might at least swing for him.
'I think I ate something bad for supper in the hotel,' Alicia groaned.
'Me and Dad are fine, babe. Supper was fine.'
'You didn't order the…' Farrrphhhh!
'That smells disgusting,' the transvestite complained, holding his nose. Cathy had to agree. Dirty nappies had always repulsed her; changing them had been the bane of motherhood, and it had many moments.
Alicia's face tearfully screwed up as she clutched her bum through the trench coat like she was holding
something up.
'Goodbye. Get well soon,' smirked the transvestite.
Everybody but Alicia and Cathy howled. They applauded as the blushing mother and her teary-eyed daughter skulked away under their umbrella, the latter still clutching her backside like it might fall off.
Alicia's soiled knickers were dumped in the toilet of a nearby pub before they requested a number for a taxi from the barman. He gave them a card, and Cathy ordered drinks. The pair silently waited for their lift in a corner, under a framed black and white poster featuring a jubilant player holding aloft the European Cup. Alicia didn't touch her mineral water, but Cathy sipped away her Bloody Mary that had a little too much Tabasco sauce. She needed a drink for what might come next.
'She did what?' Dad asked, unable to believe his ears, when his wife had dragged him up from the hotel bar. 'Show biz isn't for you, Alicia,' he called through to the bathroom where she was hiding, 'if you get stage fright so bad.'
'She thinks she ate something that'd gone off,' Cathy explained, relieved that her husband hadn't particularly overreacted, one way or the other. He leaked that slightly silly glow of alcohol consumption.
'Food poisoning?'
'From this rotten dive,' sniffled Alicia, emerging from the shower wrapped in a great white towel.
Her dad had been enjoying a tipple or two with a Scouse nurse and his carer wife. John and Julie were visiting Manchester for the opening date of some comeback tour, greatest hits and several original band members included. By the time John arrived to take a look at her, Alicia had slumped onto the couch in her pyjamas. 'She's got the symptoms of quite severe food poisoning,' the off-duty nurse confirmed, his breath reeking of garlic, which made Alicia retch again. John moved towards the door. 'Plenty of fluids, rest and a complaint are going to remedy things.'
The hotel manager had eyes like a bird of prey and an unflappable disposition. He slickly asserted that his staff had impeccable curriculum vitaes and pointed out that no other guests had been taken ill. 'It's a four-star hotel that's worthy of its five-star reviews - an excellent base from which to explore the city,' he smiled, expediently withholding the information that only one guest had opted for egg mayonnaise on her salad. 'Everything's accessible from here. And I'm sure you'll appreciate a case of white wine to take home as a goodwill gesture.'
'Quality stuff?'
'Most excellent, sir.'
'Ian!'
'Dad!'
'Stage fright, after all,' said Dad, and Alicia's second stab at fame a year later seemed to vindicate his hotly-disputed opinion.
Fighting fit and dressed to kill in a black PVC catsuit that had almost stopped Dad's ticker, Alicia made it all the way to the entrance of an audition booth on her return to the Theatre of Dreams a year later. She'd rehearsed her routine so thoroughly she could practically perform it in her sleep while dreaming of cruising LA's sun-kissed boulevards in a classic red Cadillac. What came over her? She'd never been able to say, although the catsuit did her no favours. She'd suddenly felt nauseatingly daft - most of the others were in denim or dresses! Blubberwubber! She kicked her new high heels over the protective flooring on the pitch and fled, dodging contestants, wrong-footing a concerned steward, leaping over a barrier and - ouch! - she stubbed a big toe on the stand's concrete aisle. The other hopefuls who waited their turns in the seats heartily cheered the mad, sexy girl as if her frantic performance was part of the day's official entertainment. Avoiding their stares, Alicia raced up the steps alongside the seats towards an exit sign. She tripped over herself down some other steps, and tumbled into the heart of the stand. Another flirtation with fame was over. Only a handful of those queuing for overpriced snacks or to spend pennies in the ladies noticed the barefooted girl who almost fell down the stairwell in her haste to get out.
An hour later, Cathy and Ian braked alongside their crestfallen, puffy-eyed baby, shivering on a windy street corner in some downbeat area whose imposing, towering buildings still, after so many years, secreted a ghostly stench of the industrial revolution's privations. Alicia slipped into the back seat without a word. Her parents said nothing. Dad eased the car into slow traffic.
The loaded silence held until Cathy closed the door of their hotel rooms behind them. 'What the hell were you thinking running to a place like that in an outfit like that? You could have been mistaken for a hooker!'
'You put her up to wearing that gear,' Dad interjected. 'And who was right about Alicia and stage fright?'
'I put her up to nothing! She's got a mind of her own.'
'And we've standards and rules of our own.'
'Responsible parents aren't necessarily control freaks.'
'I didn't know where I was going,' Alicia sobbed. 'I didn't know!'
'We know where you're not going,' Dad said, 'and that's to the top of the charts.' He realised how harsh that sounded right now. Maybe it was just what Alicia needed. 'You'll get over it by getting your head in textbooks. Staying in will at least save me and your mother a few quid.'
'That's all you're bothered about? Alicia can have a portfolio. Modelling is more her thing. Strutting and posing is so easy anyone can do it.'
Cathy's words tormented Alicia by emphasising her failure. With a grimy, blistered foot, she kicked over a lampshade and ran to her room, locking the door behind her.
'Less of that!' Exasperated Dad rushed over to the toppled lampshade and stood it up. 'Only rock stars can behave like that in hotels!'
And now, on her return to show business - or rather on her stage debut should the role of Virgin Mary in a nativity play be discounted - the same miserable fear gripped Alicia. She trembled under her long, snow-white gown, which, with its thigh split and plummeting neckline, did too much flaunting when she only wanted to hide. Oh, for her cosy room where she might open the cupboard to her own secret doll land! Her inanimate childhood friends were stored in a shiny red box with a silver ribbon on the lid, and once they were let out, didn't they walk and talk just how she liked them to? And didn't she love them with all her heart in return? How could she sing in front of so many hateful strangers? She wouldn't find the right key! She was so clumsy she might trip over herself as she tried to dance! The club's drunken rabble had never done anything special; how could they sit in judgement over her? But oh, what if she brought the house down with laughter by filling her knickers again? The shame of it! Her sole consolation was that Dad wouldn't see it. She had to face it - she just wasn't pretty enough. Good enough? She'd never make it.
Alicia glumly considered sneaking round the back of the stage in the hope she'd locate a fire exit. Her plan was extinguished by the realisation that Davie would tease her to the infernos of hell and back once he got wind of any such move. And what about Mum's disappointment? She'd worked so hard to make this a memorable, big night. It was Mum's skilled, feminine touch that had made Alicia look like a million dollars with interest even if nothing could stop her feeling impoverished. And imagine the rumours at college! Alicia wished she could be anywhere but the horrid dressing room. She'd even exchange places with Lisa Barrett who had turned up at college and told their physics tutor - in front of the whole class! - that she hadn't done her boring homework because her parents couldn't afford a textbook. What about that? Why couldn't Alicia put on a strop, say it was a load of rubbish, and walk out? The kids from skint families did it all the time, only it was because they couldn't do something rather than they didn't want to do something. But it would work both ways, wouldn't it? Pooh! Nobody would believe her. Everybody had heard her promise to become a star. Maybe she'd have to drop her A-levels and… It was no use. She was trapped.
A sudden rage overwhelmed Alicia, giving her something that resembled courage. Who were these fools to think they could draw her tears and ruin her make-up? Who were they to laugh? The great joke of life was on them because they were all - down to the last man and woman - the worst thing of all: non-entities! She was Alicia Randall and a pimple on her butt - except she nev
er got them - was worth more than the lot of them! She'd show them! She'd do it! Her angelic voice would make them bow down like God Almighty had come to earth to revive his popularity. She'd…
Someone knocked.
'Who is it?' Alicia fiercely demanded.
'Only me.' Mum stuck her head round the door. 'How are you feeling? All set?'
'I could do with a hug.' Alicia's fury had liquefied to an emotional puddle like an ice-cube thrown onto a sun-baked pavement.
Cathy's lemon and chocolate paisley blouse harmonised with her cream cravat, faded, bell-bottom jeans and sandals to generate her rock chick look, which she hoped was stylishly subdued and wouldn't upstage the main attraction. With the door closed behind her, Cathy placed her spritzer on the table beside Alicia's bottle of water. 'You're the real thing, darling,' she enthused, embracing her daughter. She pecked her on the cheek. 'It'll be the best ever show.'
'Honestly?'
'You're my Alicia. You can't possibly fail.'
'You're the one that's impossibly unique,' Alicia said, clinging to her mother. 'And I'm so sorry, really, I'm so sorry.'
'Don't be worrying about that. It was always going to happen. And we're happy, aren't we?'
'I… Yes.'
'Dad will come round in the end.'
'He will?'
'He loves you in his own way. Now let me go before we make a mess of ourselves over history. So many people have turned out! It's unbelievably exciting! And guess what else? Mr Boden is here and he bought me a double.'
Alicia had to sit down and take a drink of cool water. Mr Boden was the agent they'd led everyone to believe had taken Alicia on. It was only a white lie; he'd put her on his books providing tonight went well.
'So,' Cathy lavishly smiled, 'it's time to take your first steps along the road from humble beginnings to where you want to be. Mr Boden has kindly agreed to introduce you. When you hear three knocks on the door he'll be making his way up onto the stage. That's when my number one steps through the stage door…'
'Mum!'
'Oh babe, I'm fussing and upsetting your final preparations. I'll make myself scarce. Do you need anything?'
'I think I'll be fine,' Alicia replied, steeling herself to face her worse enemy. Her own company.
'Break a leg, babe,' Cathy said, picking up her drink, hoping she hadn't tempted doom by saying the wrong thing.
The excited chatter that poured through the door as she left brought Alicia's alienation crawling out of the four walls. 'Oh my god, this can't be normal,' the teenager muttered, beside herself. Was she insane? What did Davie mean when he called her a weirdo? Would doing herself up like Marilyn Manson make her feel authentic? But then, hadn't she, Alicia Randall - whoever and whatever she was - drawn a bigger crowd than the useless talent show contestants before they hit television screens? It must be easy with a whole world of publicity and people to advise you, people who knew about what it takes. What if - just what if - tonight's audience didn't hate her? And Mr Boden had turned up and bought Mum a drink… Huh! As if that signalled a man's best intentions. Alicia hid her face in her hands. She was thinking like a tart now! Really, how do you make sense of anything?
The three knocks never came. Alicia had only spoken over the phone to Mr Boden after sending him a You-tube clip of her performing in her bedroom, but she recognised him from his photograph in the Express when he stuck his trilby covered head round the door. 'Let's be having you!' And that was it. He disappeared like he was late for his own funeral. Or somebody's. Gulp.
Alicia's hand quaked so uncontrollably on the stage door's handle she had to pause to pull her pieces together and check nothing had dropped off. With a deep breath, she plunged through to the other side. Her fear of the dark at the bottom of the three steps made her skip up them onto the stage where it was lighter, if still dim, behind the red, musty curtain that would shortly lift onto teenager-devouring terror. She pictured bloodied talons swooping down from a great hole in the collapsing ceiling. Her mouth went dry; a tickling bead of sweat slithered down her back to soak into her knickers' elastic. At least they were clean this time, she giggled hysterically... 'Testing, testing, one, two, three, ahem.' Mr Boden's amplified voice on the other side of the curtain so startled Alicia that she jolted as stiff as if she'd already died on the stage. 'Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to return to your wonderful, hospitable club to introduce a gorgeous new talent, a star in the making, and one that will shine for years. Let's hear it for magnificent Alicia Randall!' Weirdly distant, polite applause broke out creating the illusion that Alicia was travelling - hurtling - away from everybody. She looked down at her feet in silver high heels. She was in the same spot. And then she heard a click. The two-bit stagehand, who was already tipsy when she arrived, had put on her backing track with the old hand finesse - slap! - he had to learn to keep to himself. The curtain twitched. Alicia closed her eyes and her pulse in her ears caused a drowning sensation that made her gasp… The curtain had gone. Alicia could see nothing but the hot, blink-inducing glare of stage lights. She had to squint to make out, beyond them, people's silhouettes along the bar. It was the only source of light out there, as if the room was under an eclipse… Here's the music! What the hell did she do? The mic! In her eagerness to take it from its stand she almost went over on one of her high heels... The song! Sing it! Alicia's knees nearly gave way - she'd forgotten the lyrics! No! Wait! She knew them! 'Whoo! Ooo yeah! Uh-huh!' - don't forget the melody! - 'clock strikes upon the hour and the sun begins to fade…' Incredibly, her voice was loud and proud. Yes, that's me! Alicia Randall - doing it! She kicked off her high heels and stomped her right foot as if it was hotwired to the beat. Her hips twitched, swayed, and the momentum spread through her until she burst out of herself and soared so high she felt she was invincible, going out of this world towards the great blazing flames of the biggest star in the whole universe.
A little over half an hour later, as a muffled, flat voice called out bingo numbers, Alicia buckled and fell into one of the chairs in her dressing room. She began hyperventilating; her fingers, toes and lips tingled as if the electricity of life was surging through her veins, sparking, crackling, charging up a new incarnation. Several convulsions rocked her body. And then her panicky light-headedness was engulfed by sheet lightning blankness without thunder, as if forecasting a peaceful, refreshing downpour on the grey matter that had hitherto been hot and barren. Alicia caught her breath and her body went limp. Somewhere between sleep and consciousness, she rode on a magic carpet, up, up and through the clouds. The next thing she knew she was showering under a stunning, serene, natural waterfall in a balmy clime. In this unexpected, verdant, exotic calm in the wake of her after-show storm, everything seemed so vibrant, so promising. For a moment she was mesmerised by huge, beautiful, strange white flowers that seemed to smile just before she blinked. Her gentle, invigorating ecstasy - quietly echoing her spiritual soaring up on the stage - testified that, if she had been a monster that everyone had helped a modern, societal Frankenstein to create, she was also gifted with the charming looks to acquire acceptance and love. Ultimately, much more in the line of a contemporary, repackaged Gothic heroine, Alicia quivered with exhilaration as she came round. Her gig had not been the 'unconquerable horror' of literary yesteryear. She felt brand new. Miracles can happen.
Even so, she had no idea as to whether they had booed, clapped or cheered and, already, her experience had the foggy quality of a memory so old it seemed to exceed the years of her existence. Only when Cathy burst in and popped the bubble of Alicia's incipient reverie, in which an obsessive hunk hunted her down for her autograph, did she discover she had truly been a success. 'Darling, words can't describe it! They were dancing round the tables and chairs!' Cathy skipped over the fact that she had instigated such carousing by performing sultry, covered-up belly dances that rubbed up the bodies and steamily breathed in the faces of the men who stood impassive. When she had pricked h
er victims' instincts for carnal, primeval ritual and they joined in - encouraging the women they were with - Cathy moved on to enrapture others. She flitted like a succubus who penetrated fantasy worlds rather than dreamscapes.
'Mr Boden wants you to have a drink with him before your second set. And your friends and Jessie, Carol and Ann are dying to congratulate you. Are you ready to meet your public?'
'Am I a mess?'
'You're a star!'
'Give me, um, a few minutes.' Alicia showed her mother out with puckered lips blowing oversized kisses. When the door closed Alicia spun on her heels and fell back, propping her slight shoulders against it. A second set! She had to do it again!
The extraordinary idea that she at last had an appreciative public rinsed away the residue of Alicia's former fear as if it had been nothing but badly applied mascara. Certain that no one else would intrude upon her solitude, she took the few steps across the poky room to study her reflection in the mirror on the wall. Wiping at the condensation with her fingers, she sent droplets trailing from the looking-glass down to the grubby whitewash. Her fringe, which her mother had meticulously curled into golden ringlets, was drooping as if Alicia had sweat out a dangerous fever. A cringe accompanied the thought that she endured the same bodily functions as everyone else; she should be aloof to such vulgarity, just like a goddess toned in smooth, hard, cool marble. At the very least she should be akin to a super heroine with no need for those things they so embarrassingly advertised on TV. The girl lightly patted and flicked her ringlets, fluffing them back to second-class heavenliness. She was ready for the mortals.
Unsure how to carry herself in public now she was the latest next best thing since Leona Lewis, Alicia's strut had a pained, tiptoeing, wobbly awkwardness. She felt the eyes of the little people pore over her and she just resisted the impulse to wave in every direction, unaware that the keenest observers suspected she'd something stuck in her high heels. Should she be reinvented as a coquettish angel-next-door? A rebel rocker? A steamy siren? With costume changes, she could be all three in her future videos, that much was obvious. Her astonishment as she peered around the shadowy, humid room put her identity crisis on hold - every seat at every table was taken; men and women were stood three deep along the back wall; even more were packed along and around the bar, lapping it up like jailbirds who'd been let out for the weekend. If Alicia didn't care for the majority of her fans, her mother's promotional skills were sensational. What a party!
Alicia got over herself when the brawny captain of the club's rugby team elbowed one of his team-mates into her. 'He can't get out of bed for a cup match so he might as well have a trophy worth staying between the sheets for,' he guffawed. Alicia stepped back, appalled. 'Oh dear, beauty doesn't want the beast!' The entire scrum laughed and drummed on table tops, spilling beers, as their tardy winger got out of the way faster than he ever dissected opposing defences.
The revelation that she had serenaded loudmouthed apes threatened to douse Alicia's elation. Luckily for her, Cathy had spied her flustered starlet and rescued her from another internalised tempest by waving her over. Cathy proudly beamed at Jessie and co as Alicia coyly picked her way to the thereabouts of her mother's bosom, which had seen so much unwanted limelight over the years Cathy had learned to blank out its glare if not switch it off.
'Babe!' Cathy opened her arms.
'Mum!' Alicia stepped up to be held.
'We'll riot if it gets any better,' grinned Jessie.
'You look fabulous!' Alicia shrieked, unhooking herself from her mother and shaking her hands by her own diamond-studded ears as if her excitement was uncontainable. As if Jessie had spent the last decade in Australia and this was the first time she'd flown back to visit. Jessie's newly crimped, brunette tresses and red and white polka dot rah-rah dress made her look like a dinner so past its sell-by date a half-starved, scraggy dingo would turn up its nose, or so Alicia thought. But she wasn't going to wreck her moment of glory with the critical truth. 'Your outfit is… is… really… something.'
'I knew you were going to do some oldies so I came as an eighties chick.' Jessie gave a dainty twirl.
'Oh…' A theme! '…I adore it! You're very thoughtful!'
In Alicia's eyes, Ann and Carol's lippy and blusher looked to have been applied with decorators' rollers. Their too similar black dresses with hefty, square shoulder pads made them look like heavyweight drag queens in mourning. But they had gone to the trouble of giving their hair some life with a new bob and a perm, respectively. They gushingly praised Alicia. 'I hope you won't forget us when you're rich and famous!' Carol nudged Alicia with her shoulder a tad too enthusiastically.
'Of course not,' Alicia smiled reassuringly, struggling not to grind her teeth. 'I'll give you my autograph and you can sell it when my time comes. Have you got a pen?'
'That would be lovely, and somewhere,' giggled Carol, unsure that Alicia meant it. Carol rummaged in her leopard-print handbag.
'Unfortunately, it'll have to wait,' Cathy interrupted. 'Mr Boden expects. Excuse us, ladies.'
Alicia followed her mother's gaze to the far side of the busy bar. The man who had stuck his head round her dressing room door was beckoning to them.
'I'll be with you in a jiffy,' Alicia squealed to her besty, Sally, who had just crossed the empty dance floor to invite her over to their college friends. 'I've got to see my agent, tch.'
'Life in the fast lane already. We're over there when you can fit us in your diary.'
Alicia leaned over and put her lips to petite, cute Sally's cheek. But had that remark flashed claws?
Mr Boden - a gaunt curmudgeon in his mid-fifties, with a disproportionately large, red, bulbous nose like that of an alcoholic clown's, and a gawky, jerky gait as if he couldn't get rid of a random itch - had named his agency Circus. His watery, bloodshot, cobalt eye and fastidiously ignorant ear had failed to pick up on the pokerfaced cheek of a comedian who'd had it up to here with underpaid shows. 'You say a ringmaster with a whip, my lad? Hmmm, I like it.' Though Boden had inherited a butcher's on a row of shops in the middle of a tough estate, he mostly left it to his cheery, ruddy missus, Dora, who had in recent years piled on so much weight that her wedding ring was too tight to be worn on her finger, and her assistant, grey, skinny Joan, to sweat over dead meat. He much preferred his cluttered office on the floor above, where he spent his time bargaining over the telephone or getting lost in crosswords, having had one too many nips from his personalised hip flask. In Derek Boden's opinion, a bloodstained, stripy blue and white apron impaired the dapper image he projected when in his trademark hat, which he'd first donned in the nineteen-eighties. The black trilby not only obscured Boden's bald pate that he was most touchy about, what with 'the biz' being unforgiving and fickle, but also set off his pin-striped black suit with wide collars, affirming his credentials as a seasoned guru. Boden always left his jacket unbuttoned to cleverly spawn an air of casual sophistication, which, by way of mental association - at least in those worth knowing - emphasised that he was 'in the know', as his weekly column in the local rag was entitled.
Boden's tone deafness had never impeded him in the slightest; he knew a good-looker and, after seeing just one performance of a prospective act, gauged from the audience's reaction whether he'd regularly be able to take his cut. Of late, he'd been alarmed by the rise of a Leeds-based agency that gaudily flashed all the trimmings and said all the right things on its website, and he deemed that he needed something with that little bit extra to secure his domain. Alicia's looks said she was a contender; the crowd's reaction, which, in his experience, was slightly better than the usual fair to middling - if you subtracted her mother's sexualised shenanigans from the equation - confirmed it. Besides, hardly anybody pulls a crowd like this when money is tight.
At the bar he handed Cathy and Alicia a Bailey's each. 'Just a taste to mark the occasion.'
'I'm in?' Alicia squealed disbelievingly.
'Yes, and
I'm in the business of satisfying punters - make sure your second set is a bit punchier.' It was Boden's law to show them who's the boss immediately. 'And,' he continued, remembering that a feisty member of the late Whitney Houston's fan club had dragged him to one side to register a complaint, 'your I Wanna Dance With Somebody is' - and he went verbatim - 'like letting a flea-infested mutt piss up the statue of an adored, recently departed queen, God bless her. Drop it for your next show.'
'I… I…' Alicia choked.
Boden scowled; he hadn't anticipated Alicia's sensitivity, which would ride roughshod over any kind of indebtedness she might feel. And, well, it didn't look good to so quickly wipe the smile from a pretty girl's face.
'Alicia was nervous and that was her opening song.' Cathy slammed her glass on the bar, one more wrong word, I dare you! 'People were bopping by the time she got to the chorus. Her rendition, as everybody else has pointed out, had the hallmarks of a professional.'
'Oh sure, sure,' Boden replied grovellingly. 'I was overjoyed that a Nancy Sinatra number made it, too. It's a firm favourite with my beloved wife.'
'And what did you think of the more modern songs?'
'Excellent. I've already planned a write-up in the Express.'
'You have?'
'Certainly. I can't let the unleashing of a major talent go unnoticed. I wouldn't be the man 'in the know' otherwise.' Boden unctuously chuckled and put his hand on Alicia's shoulder. 'I noticed that you've taken some photographs of this young lady doing her thing. Perhaps you'd send them to my email address, which you'll find in the Express.'
'I think I can manage that.' Cathy picked up her Bailey's; the confidence had returned to Alicia's face.
Assured that he'd got back on the right side of the pretty pair, Boden resolved to get out for the time being while the going was good. 'I'm afraid I need to speak to an associate. Enjoy your drinks, girls.' An afterthought held him up. 'Make sure you let your kid sister rest,' he said to Cathy.
'She's my daughter.'
'I never!'
'Thank you.' Cathy smiled thinly.
'No need. Just think on that I'll have plenty of work for your daughter shortly. And you' - Boden addressed Alicia - 'had best get ready. It's almost time to treat everybody to your shimmering stage prowess again.'
'I'm ready! I'm ready!'
Boden slipped through the crowd along the bar, greeting the somebodies and snubbing the nobodies with calculated precision. A shiver ran down Cathy's spine. She considered forbidding Boden from having anything to do with Alicia, before conceding that her girl had turned eighteen and could work with anyone she liked. Alicia might be tempted to do a job with murder weapons if anyone tried to intervene now her musical career seemed to have some life. And didn't Cathy have her own man to deal with? She quickly typed a text telling Michael that she loved him. She couldn't let him forget.
Alicia deigned to acknowledge her friends. They had turned up to support the launch of her career, after all, and she didn't want them saying success had gone to her head. It was her opinion, after reading between the lines of numerous gossip columns, that little people tend to whine when giants leave them behind. Alicia sashayed across the dance floor, relishing the lusty gazes and the wolf-whistles from a gang of lads who weren't good enough to touch but who could look for free. Until her calendar came out, perhaps as early as the New Year.
Her friends - at least thirty of them after a quick head count - were crammed around the tables in the far, back corner. What was the fuss? That meathead Liam Briggs! Stevie's boyfriend, Chris, looked ruffled by whatever Liam was bawling into his ear. Alicia stormed up to the brute. 'It's my show and I can have you thrown out!' Her voice was so loud that anyone in the proximity who hadn't spotted the trouble knew about it now. Liam pushed Chris away. He sheepishly back-pedalled to stand by Stevie, who grabbed her boyfriend's hand.
'I've come to cheer you on,' Liam said, after contemplating the likelihood of Alicia's claim and glancing round, measuring up the onlookers. 'I was hoping to sit with Davie but I can't see him.'
'He's…' Alicia recalled the bruised state her brother had recently come home in. Even though she was annoyed with Davie for turning down a chance to see her show - Mum had arranged for the committee to turn a blind eye to her son's lack of years - Alicia was astute enough to be cautious. 'Davie's too young to get in. He's with Dad. Are you eighteen yet, Liam?'
'The bar staff think so,' he grinned, picking up a pint pot. 'It's a shame about Davie. I was looking forward to sitting with a member of the leading showbiz family in these parts, music, films, know what I mean?'
Alicia suddenly leaned towards Liam and hissed something into his ear.
'Maybe I will, maybe I won't,' he replied, shrugging his shoulders. 'No doubt I'll see Davie around. See you later, losers.' He drained his pint and gave the 'get fucked' sign to Alicia's friends. They stared at his back until he was lost in the crowd in the direction of the toilets.
Up on the stage a scrawny, grey man in a burgundy polo neck jumper took the mic and - dush, dush - tapped it with his knuckles. Alicia recognised the committee member who Mum had persuaded to give her a chance for a drastically reduced fee. After amplifying his smoker's cough, Mr Committee requested that the artiste prepare for her second stint. 'I'd love to chat, my luvvies, but you heard him. Peace out!' Alicia's hippy V met yays, heys, saluting fists and blown kisses - a more than favourable consensus, although you never can tell with phoney bitches like Jodie Brown around. And then the singer thought on about her fifty pounds and the new outfit it would buy!
Alicia flopped into her dressing room chair - phew! - this was her life from now on. What would it feel like when TV cameras zoomed in on her? Like being in the sights of a firing squad, if her expression was anything to go by when she once more went through the stage door. At the top of the three steps her upper lip curled into a sneer - she hadn't noticed the cheesy, tinselly backdrop the first time round! It'd ruin her photographs! She'd check out the damn venues in future!
A girl with a golden smile jigged onto the stage and up to the microphone. 'Hello again, ladies and gentlemen,' she said, gazing into the stage lights to make sure she couldn't see anybody. 'Are we ready to shake it again?' The response was lukewarm and, according to tradition, Alicia repeated her question more dynamically, bowing, when in time-honoured fashion the crowd cheered and whistled. 'And I'd like to say that music is for dancing. Can some of you come on down to the floor?' If the stagehand isn't too busy tipping his ale. He wasn't. A dirty, sustained guitar chord growled from the speakers. One, two, three, four - the beat! 'Kick it!' Cathy, Jessie, Carol and Ann charged for the right to party. 'You wake up late for school, girl, you don't wanna go…'
By the time Alicia had exhausted her repertoire the crowd had drunk themselves so merry and up for it they wouldn't have minded if she was the leading pussy in the alley cats' choir. More! More! They wanted more! They wanted it now! Superstition had prevented Alicia preparing an encore. She edged to the stage's wings for a shouty consultation with the stagehand, who agreed to play the track she'd started with. On hearing its introduction, a member of the late Whitney Houston's fan club pushed her Smirnoff Ice into her friend's hand, 'Hold that!' She barged through the revellers, past the ladies and gents, and interrupted Mr Boden as he auctioned knocked-off meat by the cigarette machine. The proprietor of a sandwich bar, down an alley off the precinct, looked like winning yet again. 'She's still murdering classics!' The protector of Whitney's legacy yelled, her blue eyes blazing, her fist shaking so that her bangles glinted and rattled in Boden's flabbergasted phiz. 'Have you no taste? No shame?' she ranted.
The taxi drew up outside home and Alicia gracefully slipped out of the passenger door, while Cathy, Jessie and Carol tumbled out of both sides of the back. Ann, who had to be up early, had been picked up by her feller. The girls tittered and screamed up the garden path, recounting the night's highlights. While no one had actually asked for Alicia's s
ignature, she'd received enough praise to turn most teenagers redder than Cathy's credit card statements. Several men - young and old - had drunkenly requested a date. More importantly, Mr Boden had said - tipping his trilby as Alicia and her mother's gang prepared to leave - that he'd dance with Alicia anytime, having dismissed a formerly noted complaint on the grounds that a certain member of the late Whitney Houston's fan club was four hits short of a compilation album. He'd necked his whiskey and promised to be in touch soon.
'We've also got infamy,' Cathy said, more soberly, as she put her key in the door. 'Let's hope our wayward Spielberg hasn't turned the house into a set for a movie about the apocalypse.'
Alicia was secretly disappointed that Davie saw fit to stay upstairs, out of the way. He was clearly awake judging by the sci-fi sound effects replicated by his TV. Nobody would sleep through that racket.
'Right girls, what's it to be? Red or white? Lager? Something a bit stiffer?'
'I'd like something stiff - it's the lump it's attached to that puts me off,' quipped Carol.
All but Alicia laughed.
'Don't you be prudish, Alicia,' giggled Jessie. 'You're a grown up dealing in the food of lurve.'
'She certainly is,' Cathy concurred, impressed by Alicia's handling of her big night's pressure. Her babe had a temper, sure, but who hadn't when you think about it? Perhaps they'd all underrated her ability and maturity. 'And on that note, you can have a drink with us. Do you want to try a wine?'
'White, please.'
'Already knows what rocks her boat. She's done it before.'
'Haven't we all?' Hee-hee-haw-haw-tee-hee!
Perhaps an hour later, when Davie felt hungry and could no longer avoid venturing downstairs, the girls' night was in full swing. Alicia had sneaked her fourth glass of Tesco's finest and was still regaling her elder companions with the story of her debut as if they hadn't been to it. 'When I sang Abba I danced like…' Her clumsy stumble as she got off the sofa alerted her mother. Shaking her head in disbelief at the near empty bottle on the floor at Alicia's feet, Cathy insisted that her young lady go steady.
'You're back,' Davie yawned, momentarily appearing in the doorway on his way to the fridge.
'Do you see what a fine brother I've got? Doesn't even ask how it went.'
'They're all the same, love,' replied fruity, sloshed Carol. 'You never met my first husband and you don't know how lucky you are for that small mercy.'
'My brother should want to know!'
'It was just a show down the local club.' Carol could no longer be bothered to hide her boredom at Alicia's suffocating attention-seeking. Alicia's presence had prevented Carol from pressing Cathy about the rumours concerning her new bloke. And it always miffed Carol to see her friend's showy little palace. How did Cathy do it? How could she afford it? 'You're a household name in this one house, lass.'
'Steady on, Carol,' chimed Jessie.
Cathy rolled her eyes on seeing her daughter's face.
'You jealous old fart! There's no wonder your husband fucked off,' Alicia yelled, tottering out of the room to confront Davie. An intense wooziness caused her to pause in the hall. It seemed to pass.
Davie was spreading Dairy Lea on cream crackers when his sister accosted him. 'You mean shit! Aren't you going to ask how it went?' Alicia hiccupped and - oh my god! - everything was spinning… She doubled over and splashed recycled wine onto the kitchen tiles.
'I guess you had your customary attack of nerves,' Davie commented, touching the faded yellow bruise over his brow. He picked up his plate and walked out. Lingering outside the room on the way to the stairs, he said, 'Mum, I think Alicia needs some assistance in the kitchen.'