Make me a Star (The Silver Bridle Book 1)

by Caroline Akrill

  by

  Caroline Akrill

  First published in 1988 by Armada

  Republished in 1993 by J A Allen & Co

  This e-book edition 2015

  Copyright © Caroline Akrill 2015

  The right of Caroline Akrill to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of the copyright holder.

  Disclaimer:

  This is a work of fiction.

  The author would like to stress that no character in this book relates to any person living or dead and that all incidents are entirely imaginary.

  Other books by Caroline Akrill

  Flying Changes

  Eventer’s Dream

  A Hoof in the Door

  Ticket to Ride

  Stars Don’t Cry

  Catch a Falling Star

  Non-fiction:

  Not Quite a Horsewoman

  Showing the Ridden Pony

  CONTENTS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  “Look, Moira,” the man with the clipboard was saying wearily as I pushed open the doors, “we’re looking for a teenager here, and I know for a fact that you’re knocking thirty years old. I’m sorry love, but I really want a new face…” He passed a hand over his thinning hair and glanced unhappily at the dark-haired young man who was slumped in a chair by his side. By way of reply the young man pulled up the collar of his anorak and retreated into it like a hibernating tortoise. He closed his eyes.

  The next girl stepped forward. She was pretty in an elfin way, dressed like a dancer, and could have been except that she was too skinny; lacking a dancer’s muscle. Goose bumps pricked the thin nylon sleeves of her unitard. She gave the Casting Director a brilliant smile.

  “Look, love,” he said with a sigh, “can we take off those ridiculous shoes for a minute?”

  The brilliant smile vanished. The elfin girl pushed up her leg-warmers and stepped reluctantly down from her five-inch glamour heels. Already her face had assumed an expression of defeat.

  “You’re just not tall enough, are you love? Five feet six minimum, we said. Yes, I know you can make the height with heels – I could make six feet myself with stilts, but we can’t get away with anything less than the minimum this time, it isn’t as if it’s a normal part…”

  I flopped into a vacant chair at the end of the line of waiting girls and I wondered if the word normal could be applied to anything at all in the world of stage and screen. I was feeling harassed and cross with Ziggy because the journey by tube and bus had been lengthy and tiresome, and now that I had arrived I could see that it had all been futile. There would be no work to be gained from this. I had been to more than thirty auditions since leaving theatre school, and I could recognize a doomed casting session when I saw one.

  It was not that the church hall was anonymous and far-flung, with stone-cold antiquated radiators, orange plastic chairs and dusty floorboards, because that was typical enough; it had more to do with the stultifying blanket of gloom which hung over the proceedings. There was none of the nervous banter, the forced animation, the false gaiety of previous auditions I had attended. The air of palpable excitement, of tense yet hopeful anticipation was notably absent from this place. And there were other absentees. Three empty chairs, a scattering of paper cups and a circle of stamped-out cigarette ends behind the Casting Director told of interested parties who had long since lost hope and departed. The few remaining girls waited in glum silence. In an atmosphere such as this nobody could please, nobody could hope.

  The elfin girl picked up her shoes and shuffled back to her chair to collect her coat. Without the glamour heels she was tiny, and looked about twelve years old. It was hard to understand why some people turned up to an audition when they bore no resemblance to what was wanted. Not that I had the slightest idea what this particular Casting Director was looking for. Ziggy’s last-minute telephone call had told me nothing apart from the fact that I should get myself out to the audition, pronto, within the hour, and ‘play this one low key, Kiddo – nice jeans, a shirt, leave the hair loose, knot the jersey round the neck – got the gist, have you?’ After which, before I could protest, question, he had rung off. I knew it was useless to attempt to ring him back. Messages for Ziggy reached him via The Café Marengo in Soho, a corner booth of which he utilised as his office when he was not hanging around the drama schools, the model agencies and the dance schools scouting for marketable, unsigned talent.

  Ziggy was not a licensed agent, and what he did was probably illegal, but he always knew who was casting for what and where. He had taken me on when no agency would, and his percentage was ten per cent of my earnings instead of the usual fifteen – ‘low overheads make economies possible, Kiddo.’ Well, Ziggy, I reflected as I watched the last of the waiting girls present herself for inspection, you’ve got your money on a loser today.

  Now it was my turn. The young man in the anorak did not even bother to open his eyes as I stepped forward. I was not sure what connection he had with the part on offer; for all I knew he could have been the producer, the director, the male lead, or the money, but I thought him bad mannered and I was annoyed. The Casting Director looked as though he could have used some support. Despite the fact that the hall was unheated and distinctly chilly he had been obliged to remove his jacket and roll up his shirt sleeves. Beads of desperation glistened on his brow. “Cheer up a bit, love,” he pleaded. “Smile a bit. Try to look pleasant. It’s been a long day.”

  “It’s almost over,” I said. “I’m the last. After me, you can both go to sleep.”

  The dark-haired young man opened one eye. He frowned.

  “Have you got a name?” the Casting Director said hastily.

  “I’m Grace,” I said, “Grace Darling.” I was not. My name was Grace Vincent. The Darling had been Ziggy’s idea. “You got to give them a handle they can latch onto, Kiddo, something that sticks in the old grey matter. Grace Darling’s a peach.”

  “Have you got an agent, Grace Darling?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Ziggy Stanislavski, Starlight Promotions.”

  The Casting Director winced.

  Unexpectedly the young man opened both eyes. “Is that all your own hair,” he wanted to know, “or are you wearing a piece?”

  “I’m not wearing a piece.”

  “Have you got Equity?” the Casting Director said.

  “Now look here,” I said crossly, “I thought you wanted a teenager, a new face? Because even with my limited experience I know that undiscovered teenagers don’t usually have Equity membership.”

  “All right, Grace Darling, keep your hair on.” The young man grinned.

  I ignored him. The Casting Director said, “What do you mean, with your limited experience? We’re looking for a trained actress here, you know. We don’t want any amateurs.”

  “I’m not an amateur,” I said indignantly. “I’ve done three years at stage school.”

  “The Rose Jefferson, for a guess,” the young man put in. “And I bet it cost Daddy a packet.”

  I glared at him. This was a sensitive point. From my earliest schooldays I had wanted nothing but to become an actress. All my pocket money had been spent on theatre tickets and cinema seats, and when there was no money, I watched television. By watching others I had learned, and at Wallingford
Grammar School I had been rewarded with the leading role in every dramatic production and my future had seemed assured. I had received much praise for my acting ability at school and I was confident that either The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art or the Central School of Speech and Drama would immediately recognize my talent and offer me a place. They did not. To my intense chagrin I failed both auditions twice.

  After that I lowered my sights and auditioned anywhere and everywhere. The Rose Jefferson Academy had been the only school to offer me a place, and as it had not been accredited by the National Council for Drama Training, I had been unable to obtain a government grant. So yes, the Rose Jefferson had cost my father a packet, but it still did not mean that my acting diploma had been bought for me. I had worked extremely hard for it.

  I decided it was pointless to continue and would have turned to leave, but the young man beat me to it. He stood up, stretched out his arms briefly as if to ascertain that they were still connected to his body, and with somewhat extravagant finality zipped up his anorak. “OK, Melvyn,” he said, “let’s call it a wrap.”

  The Casting Director stared at him. He struggled to his feet. He looked distraught. “You can’t mean it! You can’t mean that after all the hassle over the contract, after we’ve auditioned all these kids, you’re backing out because you can’t decide the female lead?” He pulled a handkerchief out of the pocket of his crumpled trousers and wiped his face with it, but really, I think he could have wept.

  “We’ve got our female lead,” the young man said. “I’ve just decided.”

  The Casting Director’s jaw dropped slightly. So did mine.

  “I have just decided to take Grace Darling,” the young man said. “Grace Darling will be our female lead. We will take Grace Darling, trained by the Rose Jefferson Academy, managed by Ziggy Stanislavski of Starlight Promotions, and we will make her into a star. Grace Darling will be perfect.” With sudden and surprising agility he capered away across the dusty floor, bowed in an exaggerated manner to the row of empty chairs, and finished up at the doors with a perfectly executed pirouette. As the doors swung back against his departure, an out-of-date calendar fell from the wall. Its pages fluttered in the silence like the wings of a wounded bird.

  The Casting Director stared at me. I stared at the Casting Director. Neither of us could quite believe what we had heard. I didn’t know what to think, but certainly I did not imagine that I had landed the part. Twenty auditions had shown me the competition. From twenty auditions I had learned that if one survived the first, there would be a second. After which there would be a short list. And after that, a short list compiled from the first short list. And even if one survived all that, until the very end, until the final three, the odds were still two to one against. And so I was not naïve enough to believe that I could simply walk into the tail end of an audition and be handed the female lead in whatever the production might be. And yet…

  “I don’t suppose he can actually decide,” I said. “I don’t suppose he actually has the authority…”

  “You bet he has the authority,” the Casting Director told me. “Don’t you know Tom Silver? He’s the writer of this little piece. If he doesn’t get to choose the lead, we don’t get the script. This contract’s a killer.” He subsided into one of the hideous orange plastic chairs. The expression of incredulity on his face was unmistakeably charged with relief. “Oh glory,” he exclaimed, “Oh, Jesus Christ, Superstar.”

  I still could not believe it. It seemed the craziest way to land a part. “But he can’t have meant it,” I said. “For one thing, he didn’t even hear me read – he doesn’t even know if I can act!”

  “Now listen to me, Grace Darling,” the Casting Director said in a threatening voice, “you had better be able to act. You had better be able to act because we’ve been holed up in this draughty barn of a place for two whole days; two hundred and twenty-seven females I’ve auditioned for this lead, and not one of them he’s liked, not a flicker of the eyelid until you came along, and normally I’d have short-listed a dozen by now. So let’s forget he didn’t hear you read, forget Rose Jefferson, forget Ziggy Stanislavski, because you’ve got yourself the part, Grace Darling, and you’ve got Equity as from this minute – you can ride?” he added.

  Across the dusty floor and the stamped-out cigarette ends I looked at him in astonishment. It was utterly incredible and marvellous to think that I had a part, any part, and that I would be given my Equity card, the precious union membership that all actors and actresses need in order to work and which they cannot apply for until they are offered a part. I was not, however, prepared for the last question.

  “Ride?” I said faintly.

  “Ride,” the Casting Director said heavily. “You’ve heard of horseback riding? It’s supposed to be a sport – you wear a skid-lid to protect your brain, and you sit between the ears and the tail.” As the implication of my negative response hit him he stared at me, appalled. “You must be able to ride, Grace Darling! This is a television serial about a horse we’re casting for! Jesus Christ Superstar, it was the audition requirement; it’s top priority – we did say!”

  And Ziggy, I thought in exasperation, you certainly did not say. You failed to mention it because you knew that if you did I would refuse to audition. You knew that I would not lie my way into a part, I would not pretend that I could ride when I could not, even for the female lead in a television serial, especially if it was the prime audition requirement.

  But an Equity card was an Equity card.

  And I was determined to become an actress.

  And so, calling upon all my training at the Rose Jefferson Academy of Dramatic Art, I gave the Casting Director what I hoped was an entirely reassuring smile.

  “Of course I can ride,” I said.

  “I do wish you had let me tell Richard you were coming home this weekend.”

  “I hope you didn’t.” Across the island of floribundas which divided the lawn from the vegetable patch I looked at my mother suspiciously.

  “I didn’t, I promise. I just wish I had been allowed to mention it, that’s all.” Nipping off a triple deadhead with her secateurs, she said in a carefully casual tone. “I have heard that he’s been seen around the village with Marcia Cunningham.” On the pretext of tossing the deadhead into the bucket at my feet she straightened in order to observe my reaction. Small, neat, with rosy cheeks, greying hair and shrewd blue eyes, wearing the inevitable green quilted jacket and tweed skirt, my mother was very much the conventional village woman.

  Marcia Cunningham. Marcia Cunningham of the pouting lips, the plaintive voice, the luxuriant tumble of red hair combined with the hour-glass figure, the upper part of which was blessed with more than ample proportions. ‘Lush’ was the adjective one would use to describe Marcia Cunningham. Nevertheless, I was determined not to show any reaction at all.

  I shrugged. “Why shouldn’t he see Marcia Cunningham? She’s pretty. Her parents are fairly well-to-do. Actually, it’s quite a good match.”

  The shrewd blue eyes were not entirely convinced. “Don’t you mind?”

  I sighed. Parents always meant well, but some things appeared to be quite beyond their comprehension. “I can’t exactly mind, can I? I haven’t the right to mind. After all, what I’m doing is my own choice, I don’t have to do it. If I preferred to stay here, to hang around after Richard Egan, if that was all I wanted out of life then I would, wouldn’t I?”

  Now it was Mother’s turn to sigh. “I suppose you’ve found a new beau in London.”

  “No, not at all.”

  She did not believe me. “What about Piggy, or whatever his name is?”

  “You mean Ziggy. There’s nothing between Ziggy and me. Ziggy’s just my agent. It’s purely a business arrangement.”

  “But you’re fond of him?”

  “Am I? I suppose I am.” I hadn’t really thought about it. Nor did I want to think about it. Any kind of personal relationship between agent and client was unprofessiona
l and Ziggy was a professional through and through. There was no chance of emotional entanglement with Ziggy. Nor, if Ziggy had his way, with anyone else whist I was trying to be an actress. “You get somebody whispering sweet nothings in your ear then you got to peg it in the opposite direction, Kiddo. You get yourself hooked so you got a choice of priorities and you’re running with a stone in your shoe. You’re out of the race. You got no chance.”

  “You wouldn’t approve of Ziggy. You wouldn’t consider him at all suitable. He isn’t well-connected or wealthy, not like Richard Egan,” I said, “and by the way, I’m not allowing myself to get too excited about it because I’m not absolutely certain yet, but I think I’ve got a part.”

  “Now what does that mean exactly?” My mother looked at me and her eyebrows were knitted with perplexity.

  “It means that I’ve been offered the female lead in a children’s television series written by Tom Silver; at least,” I added, wanting to be truthful without launching into explanations about how I’d said I could ride when we both knew perfectly well that I had never sat on a horse in my life, “provisionally I’ve been offered it.”

  “So you might not get it.”

  “I might not. But there’s a very good chance that I will.”

  From the middle of the floribunda bed the conventional village woman who, before her marriage to my father, had worked as a secretary to a country solicitor and who, after her marriage, had been totally absorbed by her husband, her house, her garden and the belated arrival of her only daughter, and had never been able to understand why that same daughter should aspire to anything different, regarded me with exasperation.

  “But every time you come home it’s the same old story, Grace,” she said. “There’s always a part on offer, isn’t there? There’s always a chance that at the next audition, or the one after that there will be a part that’s exactly right for you; but it never actually happens, does it? Success is always just around the corner but it’s always fractionally out of reach! How many auditions have you been to now? How many months have you been without work?”