The Bex Factor (7 page)

‘I’m Bex,’ I say, wondering if I should ask what she did to her leg. ‘Bex McCrory.’

‘Bex needs to go, Mum,’ says Matthew, pointedly. ‘She’s had a hard day,
haven
’
t you, Bex
?’

‘Yes, of course,’ says Mrs Layton. ‘You must be the girl from
The Tingle Factor
. You’re Matthew’s imaginary girlfriend.’

‘Yes but I’m not his —’

‘You’ve got five minutes, haven’t you, Bex? Why don’t you come out to the kitchen and drown your sorrows in a mug of hot chocolate?’

Matthew is furiously shaking his head behind her back. ‘No, Mum, she doesn’t want to talk about it.’

‘Don’t be such a bloke,’ says Mrs Layton. ‘If your friend has taken the trouble to pop round to see you, the least you can do is offer her a drink. Isn’t that
right, Bex?’

‘I’m not sure if —’

‘Oh come on,’ says Mrs Layton, suddenly sounding like she’s going to burst into tears. ‘I don’t get many visitors.’

‘She’s going, Mum,’ says Matthew. ‘Aren’t you, Bex?’

And that’s when I remember why I’m here. ‘No, it’s all right. I can stay for a quick chat.’

‘I can’t wait to see you two on telly,’ says the kid with the skanky stuffed rabbit.

‘We’re not going to be on telly,’ says Matthew, ramming the bread knife back into a wooden block.

‘Who’s your favourite judge?’ says the kid with the rabbit.

‘I don’t like any of them much,’ I say, wondering if organic hot chocolate is supposed to taste this disgusting. ‘The new one’s OK, I suppose.’

‘I like Brenda best,’ says the kid with the rabbit. ‘If I had a big sister, I’d want her to be just like her.’

‘That’s what I used to think.’

Matthew’s mum nods jerkily. ‘Well, I reckon they treated you very badly, Bex.’

‘It’s OK, Mrs Layton,’ I say, trying not to gawp at her eye. ‘It wasn’t that bad really.’

‘It sounded pretty grim to me,’ she says. ‘Matthew told me all about it.’

‘Did he? Oh well that’s good then, because that’s why I’m here.’

‘I thought you said you only had a couple of minutes,’ says Matthew. ‘Hadn’t you better get moving?’

‘Hang on a minute,’ says Mrs Layton. ‘What do you mean, that’s why you’re here?’

Matthew races round the table and starts tugging at the back of my chair. ‘Bex is just leaving, aren’t you, Bex?’

And that’s when it hits me. ‘You haven’t told them, have you?’

‘Told us what?’ says the kid with the rabbit.

‘Just leave it,’ Matthew says. ‘You don’t know what you’re getting into.’

‘No, come on,’ says Mrs Layton. ‘What’s he hiding from us?’

I thought I was doing him a favour here, but from the way Matthew’s looking at me, you’d think I’d trashed his guitar and made a scale model of Canterbury Cathedral out of the
pieces. ‘The judges didn’t like me. They didn’t like my singing and they didn’t like the way I looked.’

‘We know that,’ says Mrs Layton, impatiently.

‘They didn’t like
me
, but they loved Matthew.’ It still hurts when I say it out loud. ‘They wanted to take him through to Basic Training as one of the solo
acts.’

A stuffed rabbit flies into the air and a small girl screams, ‘Yeeeeees!’

‘It’s all right, Mum,’ says Matthew. ‘I told them I couldn’t do it.’

‘Matthew didn’t want to upset me,’ I say, ‘but I’m fine about it, I promise. The producer gave me her mobile number. If he calls her tonight, they’ll save a
place for him.’

The girl with the flying rabbit starts dancing round the kitchen. ‘
Matthew
’
s going on telly. Matthew
’
s going on telly.
’

‘Shut up, Emily,’ says Matthew, smashing his fist down on the table. ‘You know as well as I do I can’t do it.’

The little kid stops dancing and looks over at her mum. ‘Oh, yeah.’

‘Why?’ I say. ‘You’d have a great time. If you got into the Celebrity Conservatoire, you could be off school for over a month.’

‘Exactly. So just drop it, OK?’

‘Not until you tell me what the problem is.’

‘Yes, go on,’ says Mrs Layton. ‘I think you’d better explain.’

‘All right.’ Matthew walks slowly to the sink. ‘I can’t do it because of
her
.’ He wrings out a J-cloth and starts wiping down the work surfaces.
‘It’s not her fault or anything, but I can’t do it because Mum’s got MS and I’m her carer.’

‘MS?’ I say, thinking that apart from the crutches she looks OK. ‘What does it stand for again?’

‘Multiple sclerosis,’ says Mrs Layton. ‘The disease that never stops taking.’

‘Stop it, Mum,’ says the kid hugging the rabbit.

Mrs Layton isn’t listening. ‘Well, come on, Matthew. Aren’t you going to tell her about the “wonderful” things you do for me?’

‘I don’t do that much really, Mum,’ says Matthew.

‘Exactly,’ says Mrs Layton. ‘So why don’t you run off to join the circus and leave me in peace? I can see you want to.’

Matthew twists a strand of hair around his index finger and pulls it into his mouth. I kind of feel like giving him a hug or something, but he looks well hacked-off. ‘Mum gets a bit
depressed sometimes.’

‘Yes and I wonder why?’ says Mrs Layton, starting to cry.

The kid with the rabbit hands her a tea towel. ‘It’s her medication,’ she whispers. ‘The stuff they give her when she has a flare-up. Mum’s really nice . . . most
of the time.’

‘I just have to do a few more things around the house,’ says Matthew. ‘It’s no big deal.’

‘Couldn’t you get someone else to help out?’ I ask. ‘Just for a few weeks?’

Rabbit kid looks at me like I’ve totally lost it.

‘We have had a few part-time carers,’ says Matthew, ‘but none of them lasted longer than a week. Mum can be a bit of a perfectionist.’

‘Bloody impossible, you mean,’ says Mrs Layton, crying and laughing into a National Trust tea towel.

I know I’m a nosy cow, but I just can’t help myself. ‘What sort of things do you do then? Take her out and that?’

‘Mum hardly ever leaves the house,’ says Matthew. ‘She’s got a wheelchair, but she won’t use it.’

‘Who’s “she”?’ says Mrs Layton, ‘The cat’s mother? Look, I can talk for myself, you know.’ Her face softens as she smiles at her son.
‘Matthew’s been really good since their father left. The truth is, I can be a bit of a nightmare – especially when I’m having a flare-up. That’s when he helps with the
cleaning, gets all the shopping we can’t order online, does most of the cooking and still manages to put up with me when I throw a wobbly.’

‘And he takes me to school everyday,’ chips in Rabbit Girl. ‘Don’t forget that.’

‘He even gives me my injections,’ says Mrs Layton. ‘I’ve got this silly needle phobia.’

And I
so
should reply, ‘Yeah, me too’, but something else slips out, something I’m really not expecting. ‘I could do all those things. I’ve looked after my
sister’s baby before. Why don’t I take over from Matthew for a few weeks?’

Matthew

The vocal coach takes the final fifty through a warm-up onstage while the judges loiter at the back of the auditorium with their mobiles. I cling tightly to my guitar, dodging
cameramen, doing my best to hit the high notes and surreptitiously checking the crowded stage for the main reason I let Mum and Bex talk me into this.

Once Justin is happy with his make-up, they herd us into the stalls and we wait for our final chance to impress the judges. I’m not on for ages, so I settle back into my plush velvet seat
and kind of let it wash all over me.

‘Hi,’ says the girl in the long purple dress. ‘My name’s Yvette, this is Mary . . .’

‘And I’m Beth,’ says the one wearing glasses.

All three of them put their hands together like they’re praying. ‘And we call ourselves The Holy Joannas.’

I don’t know if it’s because Yvette tells Justin that God is everywhere or just that they’re really good singers, but halfway through
Amazing Grace
, I start feeling
guilty. You see, when Bex’s dad dropped me at the theatre this morning, I did something I’m not particularly proud of.

It’s not that I’m ashamed of Mum or anything, but I hate it when people find out she’s ill. They either smother you with sympathy or laugh at you behind your back. That’s
why I stopped writing songs with Curtis Morgan. It
wasn
’
t
because of ‘artistic differences’; it was because he kept asking me how she was. In fact, Bex is probably
the first person who’s seen me and Mum together since we took Curtis to Pizza Express and she collapsed in the toilet.

That’s why I did it. In the unlikely event of me making it any further than Basic Training, I don’t want anyone from the show to find out about her. So when the researcher handed me
that form to fill in, I may have skimmed through most of it as quickly as the
Call of Duty
licence agreement, but I was really careful when it came to forging Dad’s signature and
naming him as my next of kin. I knew his address would come in handy one day.

And that’s not the only thing I feel guilty about. Today was the first day of term. Everyone at school will have watched Saturday’s audition show, and if I know anything about St
Thomas’s Community College, they’ll still be giving Bex a hard time about it when she’s collecting her bus pass. Perhaps she’ll cope with the Year Nine comedians and the IT
club wits, but I’m not so sure she’ll be able to handle Mum. Bex has promised to take Emily to school every morning, and pop in at teatime to help out with the cooking and stuff.
I’ve warned her about Mum’s mood swings and some of the stunts she pulls when she gets really stressed out, but how could I tell her about the grisly surprise lying in wait for her on
the dining-room table?

And that’s the thought that keeps running round and round my head until a tall girl in a short black dress glides on to the stage and I remember why I’m here.

‘Hi, guys,’ she says, ‘I’m sure you remember
me
. My name’s Twilight and I’m a vampire.’

Bex

School’s over, thank God. I’m halfway to the gate before Shezza catches up with me.

‘Oh
pleeez
, Justin. I’ll be your bestest friend.’

‘Shut up, Shezza. You’re getting on my tits.’

‘But Justin,’ she says, bursting into fake tears. ‘This means
everything
to me.’

The kids at the bus stop start singing an out-of-tune version of ‘Umbrella’.

‘Yeah, come on, Justin,’ says Barry the Bus Driver. ‘It’s my dream.’

And that’s what it’s been like all day. Even Mr Catchpole said I’d need to concentrate more if I wanted to crack the States.

‘Don’t get the hump,’ says Shezza. ‘I’m only having a laugh.’

‘Well I’m glad you think it’s funny.’

‘You should have bunked off, like your boyfriend, Matt.

What a loser, eh?’

They only showed the part where Justin told me how crap I was. They’re probably saving the really embarrassing bit for next week. ‘Look, he’s not my boyfriend,
OK
?’

‘Yeah, whatever.’

At the bottom of the hill, I realise we’re going in opposite directions. ‘I’ll see you later then, Shezz.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Nowhere.’

‘What do you mean nowhere?’

‘I’ve got this . . . new job.’

‘Oh yeah?’