Zo

by Leanne Owens

  Only Peter, dear stuttering Baa-Baa-Barker, had shown her consideration in those bulky years. And Ally, of course. A moment of guilt washed over her and she quickly shoved the crippling emotion away - she had to stay focused in this scene. It was not the time to remember the day of Ally’s treatment. They thought it would help her. They never suspected it would remove her from their lives. But this was not the time for guilt. She would think about it later.

  It was a short walk from her trailer to the stables where one of the crucial scenes of the movie was being shot, and her co-star held her arm worshipfully as they made their way along the cobblestone path. She loved English period dramas. The clothes were sumptuous, the accents delightful after too many movies burying her Australian accent under American tones, and she loved the locations. It was going to be a good movie, she knew that from the moment she received the script and saw who was directing and co-starring. The characters were interesting, the plot was enthralling, her love interest put bums-on-seats in theatres regardless of the movie, but this one would guarantee to have his myriads of fans turning out several times to view it. Life was good, she thought as she nodded at the film crew waiting on set, she had a fabulous role to play and she knew she would put in the performance of a lifetime in this one. It felt special, and she had learned to trust that feeling.

  ‘Phone call,’ Sandy’s assistant came running up with a mobile held at arm’s length.

  Her assistant knew there were no interruptions on set unless it was an absolute emergency, so Sandy had no hesitation in accepting the phone from him.

  ‘Sandy here,’ she remained in character with her British accent.

  ‘Peter Barker, Sandy, how are you?’ the educated Australian voice greeted her.

  Sandy hid her astonishment and racing heart under a still mask, ‘Never been better, Peter, and yourself?’

  ‘I’m OK, Sandy, but it’s Ally,’ he hesitated.

  ‘You found her?’ Sandy dropped out of role and spoke in her native accent, turning away from the film crew so that her facial expressions remained private. She was an actress - she acted. In front of the camera, on the set, in front of the film crew and her co-stars, with interviewers, fans, and her own staff, she acted. That was what she did. She did not want them to see her face when it was showing her own emotions rather than those she placed there for public view.

  ‘She’s been really ill, Sandy. She thinks she’s meant to die so that she can be with that man.’

  ‘Zo?’ she uttered the name that Peter detested.

  ‘Yes, him. I’ve had her here in the clinic for a few weeks trying to help her back to reality, but she’s tried to kill herself a couple of times, and I’m worried that she’ll succeed, unless we can convince her to stay with us.’

  ‘Us against him?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘I want us all to be here for her. If you can get here, I want you to be here to hold her hand and help bring her back to this world. I’m…’ his voice faltered. ‘I’m not sure how much longer she has. I have such a bad feeling about this, Sandy. I think I’m too late.’

  Sandy shut her eyes as she heard the raw pain in his voice, and she took a slow breath. She was in the middle of shooting the movie of the year, the one that would get multiple BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Academy Award nominations, the movie to remember whenever someone mentioned her name. Like Peter, she was fifty-nine, though ‘fifty-something’ seemed a more popular age than ‘turning sixty’. There were not going to be many more roles like this for her, she was reaching the age when the roles of grandmothers came her way, not the love interest. It was one of the most important movies of her entire career, and she would be mad to jeopardise her role in it.

  The director expected perfection and obedience from everyone he worked with. He was notorious for firing actors, no matter how important, for minor infractions such as being late onto set or arriving under the influence. The producer was even more demanding, and he had a foul temper to go with his high expectations. No one walked out on him and managed to return. He did not give second chances. It would be impossible to leave.

  ‘I’ll be there tomorrow,’ she told him, throwing her career away with only a brief thought of the consequences. To hell with the consequences, she raised her chin and drew her shoulders back. ‘I’ll leave now, and should be there some time after lunch tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll ring the others,’ said Peter, a sense of relief in his voice as the first of the crew agreed to come. ‘I don’t know if they will be able to make it.’

  ‘Peter,’ she said gently, ‘I can’t make it, but I’m coming, anyway. You know what she means to me. To us all. They’ll come.’

  ‘I know,’ he smiled, remembering the overweight girl at primary school who sat alone at lunch time and cried when she was the second-last picked for the sporting teams. Ally had worked her magic and waved her wand, and that lonely, sad, big-eating girl, who hid from the world behind growing layers of fat, metamorphosed into one of the most celebrated and enduring actors of her time.

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ Sandy farewelled him in her Australian voice.

  ‘See you then,’ he replied.

  When Sandy lowered the phone, she rubbed a hand over her eyes and spent a few minutes thinking of what she was about to do. All these years, her career had been her life. She had a reputation for being one of the most reliable actors in Hollywood. No alcohol or drug problems, no going off the rails over love interests or the paparazzi, always controlled, always delivering a great performance, always a pleasure to work with. She appeared perfect. And she was about to throw it all away.

  No one around her understood that inside the beautiful body and behind the breathtaking face, there was still a plump girl who sat alone at lunch time, cringing at the taunts from the boys, until that day when Alice Lamore stood over her, stretched out one hand to take the pudgy fingers in her own, and used a tissue in the other hand to wipe away the tears.

  ‘Come and sit with Peter and me,’ Ally had said, a smile lighting her eyes as she looked down at her, so that Sandra Martin felt as though she was someone special. ‘No one will ever tease you again if they think I’m likely to belt the shit out of them for it.’

  And they didn’t. The teasing stopped that day. Everyone feared Ally after the schoolyard rumours went crazy about how she nearly killed three boys for picking on Peter. They left Sandra alone once she was under Ally’s wing. Other people looked at Sandy and saw a fat girl with a plain face and crooked teeth. Ally looked at her and saw someone beautiful and worthwhile and, bit by bit, Sandy became that person. She was Ally’s dream, her creation. Where Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother waved her magic wand and turned Cinders into the belle of the ball, Ally had turned Sandra into Sandy L. Martin, only it was her love and belief, and not a magic wand, that changed Sandy, and the spell did not end at midnight.

  In that last year of primary school, the three of them walked and played together, and eating didn’t seem quite so important to Sandra. They hung upside down on the monkey bars in the Highton park and sang Beatles’ songs, laughing at each other. They walked up the hill to Belmont High, their future school, and wondered what it would be like to be teenagers. They had competitions with Sandra’s hula-hoops to see who could do the most spins in a minute. They played Twister at Peter’s house, and roamed the streets of Highton with yo-yos trying to master the latest tricks. By the end of that last year at primary school, she was still a solid girl, but no longer the little butterball. Ally never mentioned her weight, except to say it didn’t matter, that it was just the clothes her soul was wearing at the time. Unlike her family, who never stopped teasing her about her weight as they continued to provide the high fat and sugar that enabled it.

  In high school, Andrew and Lynette joined them, and the five of them walked everywhere around the leafy streets of Geelong. Ally loved being out exploring the streets, and although they visited each other’s homes, no
one ever visited Ally’s place, but they accepted that as they’d heard Mr Lamore was a cranky old ‘b’. They swam in the Barwon River at Queens Park, and hung out at Eastern Beach. On weekends in months with an ‘r’ in them, they rode bikes up into the Barrabool Hills, carrying buckets and lengths of string with lumps of meat attached, and caught yabbies in dams next to the road. They walked their bikes up the steep hills around Highton and Belmont just so they could whiz down, out of control, screaming with laughter.

  They explored around Buckley’s Falls at Fyansford, rock-hopping across the river, and skimming stones across any calm surfaces. They joked about the convict who gave the falls his name: What chance do you have of being famous? Buckley’s chance! What chance do you have of travelling the world? Buckley’s chance! The common use of the expression, ‘Buckley’s chance’ meant ‘no chance at all’, but since Buckley had survived thirty-two years living with the local Aborigines after escaping, they felt that ‘Buckley’s chance’ was a good chance to have.

  As the first years of high school passed, Ally’s gang of friends grew fit, strong, and confident. They changed from shuffling children who stared at their feet and waited for life to hit them on the back of the head, to teenagers who walked with their shoulders back and their heads held high as they gazed at the horizon looking for all that life had to offer. They laughed, and talked, and dreamed. Ally made them all believe that dreams could come true if they were willing to work for them.

  At Ally’s urging, they all joined the drama group, Geelong Rep, and took part in workshops. They helped backstage in the last years of the old GAMA Theatre. They were in their second last year of high school when Sandra found the courage to audition for a part in one of the productions.

  All went with her to the theatre and forced her to step on to the stage when she wanted to run and hide. Despite what Ally said about her talent, she believed she was better off staying in the background rather than the limelight. Sure, the theatre called her, but working with the props would be far more comfortable than stepping on to the stage where everyone would look at her, and judge her.

  ‘Every day we act,’ Ally told her as they stood behind the musty curtains, one hand gently touching her cheek as she looked into her eyes. ‘You do it, we all do it. You have no idea how much I act, every day. Life is about acting. Believe me – you can act and you can read lines better than anyone else here'.

  Moving her hand from Sandra’s face to her shoulder, she gripped it firmly, and her eyes burned with the intensity that lit the souls of her friends. ‘Forget Sandra Martin, leave her with me and I’ll take care of her until you get back. Now, you will step out on stage and believe that you are this person so that you rise above acting - you’re not acting, you are her'. She shook the script at Sandra. ‘Become this person. You can do it.’

  ‘What if they don’t like me?’ Sandra asked in a small voice, the remnants of the girl picked second-last speaking up.

  Ally stepped forward and hugged her, holding her close as she whispered in her ear, ‘They don’t have to like you. You don’t ever have to worry about that when you are on stage, because that isn’t Sandra Martin out there for them to see, it’s the character from the script they’re seeing. They won’t even see you – they’ll only see the person you’re playing.’

  Fortified by Ally’s words, and aided by a strong push, Sandra stepped out on to the stage. It wasn’t well lit, but the rest of the theatre was darker, so all she could see was the dusty floor and the actor who would read the lines opposite her. His bored voice began reciting before she was in position. She was the seventh to try for the part and he wanted the auditions to be over. Despite his flat delivery, Sandra lost herself in her character and spoke without looking at the script in her hand. She let the paper fall to the floor as the words played in her mind. She bounced off the man’s wooden lines, slowly lifting him from reader to actor as he rose with her through the emotions of the play. When she reached her soliloquy, she turned and spoke to the darkness of the almost empty theatre, her heartache alive in every word and gesture.

  Ally had been right. She could become the character and feel safe, hidden away behind the protection of that mask.

  The producer had been stopping each audition after a minute or so, and it was only when Sandra reached the end of her monologue that she realised at least five minutes had passed. Everyone else had stopped well before that.

  Worried that she may have missed his signal to stop, she fell silent and stepped forward to the edge of the stage to peer into the dim world of the theatre seats. Her eyes stopped on Ally, sitting in the third row away from the producer and his helpers. Ally stared at her, her hands clasped beneath her chin as though she was praying, and diamonds on her cheeks reflected the stage lights. She was crying. But they weren’t tears of sadness. Sandra could see a face enraptured by what took place on stage.

  Nothing else in her entire career compared to that moment when Sandra realised that her performance moved her best friend to tears. That was the moment when she felt the full power of acting, when she realised that she could make people feel. Ally sat there, tears on her cheeks, looking at her as though seeing the most beautiful sight in the universe. Squaring her shoulders, Sandra turned to the producer and smiled, confident that her performance had been good.

  He gave her the part. On opening night, the Lamore gang sat together watching the first of Ally’s creations bloom into life on stage. At fifteen, they were too young to fully appreciate the significance of Sandra’s performance but, as the decades passed, they looked back and realised that it was Ally’s strength of spirit, and her belief, that lifted Sandra up into that stunning debut performance. She raised them all to the tops of their own mountains, and beyond. They fed off her soul and she willingly gave them more and more to lift them up into lives beyond their own dreams.

  On that first night on stage in Geelong, the audience felt the power of Sandra’s performance, and the reviews in the Geelong Advertiser the next day hailed her with the clichéd words, a new star was born last night.

  There were more theatrical roles after the first play and, if she had followed her parents’ advice, she would have left school early to take up a role on a television series offered to her. Both Ally and Peter urged her to finish Form 6 and matriculate before going to the Victorian College of the Arts. She had been loath to leave the safety of the Lamore gang where she felt safe and loved, so she ignored her parents and stayed at school with her friends, believing, when Ally promised it, that great things awaited.

  They all went to university in Melbourne, following the different degrees that would take them to their futures. While Sandra studied at VCA, she met with the gang most weekends. She shared a house with Peter and Ally for a year before moving in with a fellow drama student. After three years, she graduated from VCA and, at the end of 1979, when she finished her final exams, she travelled to Hollywood to audition for some movies.

  Ally went with her and, with hindsight, Sandra had the impression that Ally was delivering her creation to her destination - she wanted to ensure that Sandra arrived safely at the next stage of her life. Contacts from VCA helped open doors to auditions, and she only had to complete two minor roles before co-starring in a blockbuster science fiction movie with A-list stars. Ally found work as a barmaid and tutor, and spent most of that year in the States with Sandra during shooting of the film, and some of the next as they prepared it for release. Then, on opening night, she helped ready her for the evening, doing her hair and checking that her gown fitted perfectly. When the limousine arrived, she handed Sandra to her partner for the night, the main star of the movie, and informed her that she was flying back to Australia.

  ‘But you’re coming with me tonight, aren’t you?’ Sandra stood next to her enamoured co-star as he gazed at her with equal measures of adoration and lust, which she ignored in equal amounts. She had no time for the man, although she would always be polite to him. All her thoughts were for her friend, l
eaving her on this night.

  Ally shook her head, ‘No. This is your night. I already know you are brilliant. This is the night everyone else discovers that.’

  ‘But I want you here!’ Sandra felt a moment of panic as she thought of facing the world without Ally next to her, like a rock to lean against.

  ‘I know you want me there,’ Ally smiled at her, touching her cheek gently, the backs of her fingers barely touching her skin so that the makeup remained perfect, ‘but you don’t need me there, now.’

  Ally paused as she studied the worried face of her friend, seeing the doubts and fears resurfacing from the green depths of her eyes.

  ‘Remember the magpie that we found at school?’ Ally asked her. ‘The one that flew into the science room window?’

  Sandra nodded. She remembered how Ally had taken her jumper off that day, and gently picked the concussed black and white bird up off the asphalt, and wrapped it in the warmth of the wool. She kept the bird in her locker, wrapped in the jumper, all day while she shivered through her classes in her school shirt and bottle green tunic. The magpie was still unable to fly at the end of the school day, so Ally took him home and cared for him. Two weeks later, on a Saturday, she brought him back to the school grounds. Sandy remembered how he perched on Ally’s hand for several seconds, his intelligent head tilting left and right, before taking to the air with swooping strokes of his wings. He flew straight up into the grey sky, circled once, and shot like an arrow towards the trees where he settled on a branch and began carolling his melodious song.