You Don't Know Me (6 page)

‘That was lovely,' Bert smiles when she's finished. ‘You have impeccable timing. And a real gift. When you're in your comfort zone, you definitely stand out.'

Rose shifts around, super-embarrassed, staring at the floor.

I give her a squeeze, while Bert makes more notes on his clipboard.

‘That's it. You can go now. Good luck with the judges.'

What exactly was he writing on that clipboard? It was a lot.

‘You were amazing,' I whisper to Rose as we leave.

She shakes her head. ‘Not really. It's just a good song, that's all.'

Outside, Rob greets us with a grin. ‘That go OK?' he asks, not waiting for an answer. ‘They're ready for you now, you'll be pleased to hear.'

Rob introduces us to a woman I've seen popping in and out, always looking busy. She's dressed in smart grey jeans and a soft black jacket, with sharp brown eyes and blonde hair scraped back into a bun.

‘This is Janet,' Rob says. ‘She's the floor manager. She'll take care of you.'

I notice Janet's radio mic, and the tired look around her eyes. We're among the last to be seen. It's almost evening already, and she must have arrived here, like us, long ago. Nevertheless, she gives us a smile.

‘This way.'

‘Good luck, everyone,' Nell whispers.

As we troop behind her towards the theatre, where the
judges are, I think about the musical director's last piece of advice:
Loosen up; enjoy yourself.

Yeah, right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Catsuit Girl

W
e creep through the wings, onto the main stage. The judges are sitting at a table facing the stage, just like we imagined, each one spotlit for extra, nerve-racking effect.

Linus Oakley sits stiffly in the middle. To his left, Sebastian Rules is so relaxed in his chair he's practically horizontal. But it's Roxanne Wills who really gets our attention. She's got one camera zoomed in extra close on her face as we walk in. Perhaps it's not just in my imagination that we have some sort of connection. Perhaps, somehow, the TV people sense it too.

‘How are you?' she asks, in a low, husky voice.

We mutter that we're fine – which is code for the fact
that we're sick with nerves and we still can't quite believe we're here at all.

Linus checks the notes in front of him. There are lots of them. I think I recognise some of Bert's upside-down scrawls from our meeting with him just now, but I can't be sure.

‘You got your backing track ready?' Roxanne asks.

We shake our heads. After our success at George's party, we've decided to pare things back.

‘It's just us and the guitar today,' Rose explains, after a cough to clear her throat.

‘And we're doing one of your songs,' I tell Roxanne. I sound as if I'm being strangled. Roxanne ignores my nerves and beams delightedly.

‘OK,' Linus calls out, checking that the cameras are in place. ‘Off you go.'

One of the stage hands comes on, as we requested, with a stool for Rose and her guitar. She sets herself in position on the right-hand end of the group with the guitar in her lap. At this moment, I remember that we didn't say ‘Seminal leotards'. We meant to, but we got so distracted by following Janet. Too late now. Rose taps her guitar and starts to play the opening chords of ‘I See The Light'.

Oh. Utterly. Wow. This moment is really happening. I am about to sing Roxanne Wills's lyrics. TO Roxanne Wills. In a theatre in a space-age HQ. Surrounded by my best friends. Dressed in a catsuit. It's bizarre, certainly, but possibly in a good way.

We've practised a thousand times, and we know the song backwards. We've tried to recreate the feeling we had when we sang it that time at George's party, after
‘Sunglasses'. We launch into our harmony on the second verse and, as far as I can tell, we sound OK. Certainly not a disaster. In my dreams, I've pictured the judges leaning in towards us and singing along, like the crowd did then. Maybe even some of the camera crew and producers. Wouldn't it be wonderful if everybody . . . ?

‘
Stop!
'

I'm startled out of my daydream. Linus is holding his hand up. He looks frustrated and almost angry. In the silence that follows, the sound of my heart beating is deafening. We don't look at each other. We don't dare.

Linus sighs. He must see the crushed look on our faces, because his scowl fades slightly.

‘It's not
terrible
,' he says, ‘but it's not working. What d'you think, Roxy? It's your song.'

Roxanne purses her lips. ‘Oh, I don't know. You're cute, girls. But it needs . . . something.'

Linus and Sebastian both nod.

It probably needs a group of girls who've done more than four live performances, to be fair, and who don't normally just muck around in each other's bedrooms singing in their pyjamas. I guess I was getting carried away just now.

‘Try losing the guitar,' Linus calls.

‘No!' Rose exclaims. The sudden fear in her voice startles me. ‘But I need it!' she stutters more quietly. ‘Without it we can't—'

‘Sure you can,' Linus says. ‘We've got the track for that, haven't we?'

He looks at Janet, the floor manager, who's hovering near the wings. She presses her headset to her ear, listening for instructions coming from the control room at the back
of the theatre. Ivan Jenks is sitting up there, watching us all and controlling what's happening. Janet nods. She comes over to collect the guitar, which Rose hands over reluctantly.

‘OK,' Linus instructs us. ‘Now stand all together. I see you as a girl band. I want to see you moving, like catsuit girl did in your video. I loved the video, by the way.'

Right. So he loved the video. That's good. Bert mentioned the video too. Girl band: we can do that. Perhaps I wasn't getting too carried away.

‘I refuse to jiggle,' Rose mutters to me through gritted teeth while they quickly sort out the backing track in the wings.

I give her half a smile.

‘Oh, come on. It's not jiggling, it's dancing. You'll enjoy it.'

‘I won't,' she says, grim-faced.

I sigh. I wish she wouldn't be so down on herself, or us. I know it's hardly Ella Fitzgerald, but it's supposed to be a masterclass and they're giving us advice.

‘Just do it a little bit,
please
,' I whisper.

‘I hate it. You know that.'

Poor Rose. She does. Not that she can't dance: she just doesn't enjoy it.

Nell and Jodie get into position. Rose huffs discontentedly, smoothing down her skirt with restless hands. I try and relax my shoulders so I can get into the mood to impress the judges. If they want jiggling, they can have jiggling. Actually, this is what can help me ‘stay loose', like Bert Blackwell suggested. I try to imagine myself back in my pyjamas, the way I was for the original video. It seems to work.

The track starts. I know I haven't got the best vocals, but as we sing I try and remember some of Roxanne's moves from her video of this song. I have a go at a simplified version and to my left, I can see Nell and Jodie doing their best to follow. To my right, Rose is just about swaying from side to side, but that's it. This is hardly team spirit. I pirouette. I move my hips. It's a fun song and it needs some fun presentation. I know Rose isn't a huge fan of Roxanne's music, and I'm sorry about the guitar, but I wish she'd at least try.

At the end, I crowd in with Jodie and Nell, panting, to see what the judges thought this time. Rose stands a little apart.

Roxanne beams up at us and claps her hands.

‘That was cool. I really liked that. I
love
you girls.'

Oh. Wow. I mean,
wow.

At the end of the table, Sebastian Rules shrugs and spoils the moment slightly. ‘You're OK. It was better. Still not really working, though.'

‘I'd like you to try it again,' Linus announces. ‘One more time. Give it all you've got. You,' he says, ‘the girl in the catsuit. Move over there.'

He makes me swap with Jodie, so I'm between her and Nell, with Rose still on the end. As we shuffle around, Jodie stares at me, her mouth a round O. I think she's thinking what I'm thinking: despite what Sebastian said, there's no way they'd be giving us this much attention if we didn't have a serious chance.

Two more minutes and forty-five seconds. Nell, Jodie and I give it everything, all over again. Rose holds the tune for us and even jiggles slightly more this time, although she doesn't appear to smile. The harmonies go to pieces a
bit by the end, but overall, I'm pretty sure, to quote Jodie, that we did not ‘totally suck'.

When we finish the song, there's a silence. A long silence. The kind of pause they love in talent shows, when they allow your heartbeat to get so fast you think you might need medical attention.

Two of the judges are leaning forward this time. Linus and Roxanne. The silence continues.

Nell sneaks her hand into mine, and I squeeze it, holding out my other hand for Jodie. I can't see Rose properly, at the end of the line, but I assume she's holding hands with Jodie too. We watch and wait. The nearest camera moves in to focus on Linus. He lets a slow smile gradually play across his face.

‘Well, yeah. OK. That worked.'

Did he really say that? Nell squeezes me again and squeals under her breath. Jodie grins a totally un-Jodie, un-cool grin.

Then Linus pauses again, and his smile starts to fade. Oh no. I can feel a ‘but' in the air. This is definitely one of those pauses that ends with ‘but'.

But what? After all that. Did he notice that I was flat? I know I was, in certain places.

Linus taps his pencil on his yellow notepad.

‘I see you as a trio,' he says. ‘Like the Sugababes, or Stooshe – but younger. You look like a dream, you've got some crazy energy and . . . how old are you? Fifteen? Sixteen?'

We nod.

‘Yeah. You're young. You're hot,' he continues. ‘But like I say, as a trio. I think one of you . . . has a voice that just doesn't work with the others. It throws everything out.
And the dance moves aren't working.'

As he says it, my heart slows down. It feels like it's contracting into a tiny ball. Oh God. I was flatter than I thought. And I got so close and loved it so much and all the time I must have sounded ridiculous, and probably looked it, too.
Catsuit girl
. I can't bear to think that I've let everyone down.

‘The thing is,' Linus adds, ‘I think you're going to have to make a choice. The band, for me, is you, you and you.' He points with his pencil. ‘Like that, you could go through to the final nine. I'd send you through right now. But as you are . . .'

A camera moves in to do a close-up on his face, and then Roxanne's. She looks shocked for a moment, then she nods reluctantly. She stares at her multi-ringed fingers for a moment, while she works out what to say. At the end of the judges' table, Sebastian shakes his head.

I look along our line. Beyond Nell, Jodie is squeezing Rose's shoulder.

Rose?

Wait. Me . . . or Rose?

Rose wasn't flat. If anything, her voice was even more gorgeous in this big auditorium. But a camera is closing in to do a special close-up on her face.

How
did her voice not fit? It doesn't make sense. But it's happening.

Rose.

This is wrong. Rose is our best singer. I look across at her, but her face is a blank wall. She doesn't seem surprised at all, but I'm astonished.

Rose?

Meanwhile, Roxanne smiles for the nearest camera.

‘Oh, Linus. You're so mean! I remember when I was growing up, how close I was to my girlfriends. You can't do that to a girl!'

She smiles again at Linus, but he isn't smiling back.

‘So? D'you agree with me or not?'

Sebastian leaps in with his opinion.

‘You're such a doofus, Linus. I totally disagree. Let them stay together. I don't think they'll go that far, if I'm completely honest. But splitting them up like that? School friends? That's just perverse.' He shrugs.

Linus grins at Sebastian. It's clear he loves a fight.

‘Not just schoolgirls,' he counters. ‘I think they've got a look. Think the Spice Girls, remember? Or even Destiny's Child.'

As soon as he says Destiny's Child, Jodie squeezes my hand so hard I think she's going to break it. Beyoncé's old band: home to my other favourite pop star, apart from Roxanne.

‘Roxy?' Linus says. ‘It seems you might have the casting vote.'

Roxanne takes a deep breath and smiles wryly for the nearest camera.

‘Oh God, this is So. Hard,' she complains. She looks up at the four of us. ‘I mean, it's tough, girls, but I guess Linus has a point. We're here to deliver the good news, but the bad news too. The bad news is that sometimes a group just doesn't fit the way you hoped. But the good news is that the three of you could really make it as a trio. I see that in you. I do.'

She beams at us like what she just said is a good thing. But a trio is not good. Not when there are four of you.

She didn't seem to think that before. What happened?
What went wrong?

‘Guitar girl,' Linus calls out, making me jump. He checks his notes. ‘Er, Rose, right? . . .This is tough on you, I know. What do you think?'

Rose Ireland. The ‘stand-out' girl who could sing all of us off the stage without even thinking about it, never mind playing the piano like an angel and the guitar like a dream.

She dips her head forward to the mic in front of her and says in a clear, low voice: ‘It's a band decision. I'll do whatever the girls want to do.'

Jodie steps forward.

‘Er, I think we'll stick together,' she mutters.

Nell and I nod. I mean, obviously.

At the judges' table, Linus shrugs. ‘OK. But I want you to think about this. It's all nice and lovely if you all stick together and I'm sure you'll be an OK school band. But I don't think you get it. I'm not just talking about making the final nine here. I could make you into recording stars. I'm serious. Take fifteen minutes. Think about it.'