by Jo Cotterill
Fliss put down her spoon. ‘You never said you were that young.’
Jeanette shrugged. ‘Not much to say. Not after him walking out like that. But we were together for a long time when I was young. Well, we were both young. I thought we’d be together for ever. You do when you’re a teenager in love. I wanted to get a tattoo to prove it would be for ever, but I was too young. Just as well now, eh?’
‘What happened?’ asked Fliss. Her mother so rarely mentioned her father. Whenever Fliss brought him up, Jeanette would change the subject.
‘You know what happened. I got pregnant, he ran away.’
‘Yes,’ said Fliss, ‘but you never really talk about it. What was he like?’
Jeanette looked down at her hands. ‘What was he like? Goodness, I don’t even know if I can remember now.’
Fliss was sure this was a lie, but she merely said, ‘Anything. Any little thing.’ Anything, she thought, so that I can better imagine him in my mind. It’s hard to imagine your father when you don’t know the tiniest thing about him. Jeanette didn’t even have any photos of him.
‘Well,’ said Jeanette, ‘he was short. Not shorter than me, but short for a man. Probably explains why you’re such a petite little thing. He used to wear his hair a bit too long. I was always telling him to get it cut, but it was the fashion at the time.’ Her gaze swept up to the TV even though it wasn’t on. ‘He was so funny. Used to have me in fits of giggles all the time. And then he’d suddenly be all serious and give me this look – well, never mind.’
Fliss watched her mother with a growing feeling of sympathy. When she talked about Fliss’s father, Jeanette’s face took on a younger look – a softer look. It was almost as though by remembering her youth, she became younger again. What was she like when she was a teenager? Was she happier? More carefree?
‘We were at school when we started going out,’ Jeanette went on. ‘Silly little things we were, always holding hands in class and sneaking kisses behind the bike shed. And then we both left school at sixteen and tried to get jobs. But it was hard. There wasn’t much around at the time. He had better exam results than I did, but I was the one who got the sales job. They said they gave me the job because I was persuasive and convincing.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘It was funny really because inside I was terrified, but somehow I always knew what to say.’
‘A bit like acting,’ said Fliss.
Jeanette looked at her as though she’d forgotten Fliss was in the room. ‘Yes, I suppose. Never thought of it that way. Anyway, he didn’t get a job for ages. I used to pay for things for him when we went out. He didn’t like that. And I guess maybe I should have seen the signs then. But I was still – well, I still believed we were going to be together. Then a couple of friends asked if we wanted to share a house with them. They had a spare room. So we moved in together. I was only seventeen. My parents were scandalized.’ She smiled briefly. ‘Mum said she’d never speak to me again if we didn’t get married. I told her that was so old-fashioned and who needed a bit of paper to prove they were in love? But she kept on at me, and in the end I suppose I mentioned it so many times that he got annoyed with me. He said we were too young, we didn’t earn enough money, we shouldn’t rush into that kind of thing. So I tried not to mention it, for ages.’ She paused. ‘And then I found out I was pregnant.’
There was a pause. Fliss twisted her fingers together. Her mother hadn’t mentioned her father’s name once. Fliss knew what it was – Robert – but it seemed Jeanette found it easier to talk about him if she didn’t have to say his name. So much of this story was new to her, Fliss didn’t want to break the spell. ‘What happened next?’ she prompted quietly.
‘Well,’ said Jeanette, ‘that was that, wasn’t it? Off he went. Thought I was trying to trap him into marriage – that’s what he said. Turned out he’d been having a bit on the side too. I was the only one who didn’t know. Wish I’d found out earlier. I wouldn’t have wasted my time.’
‘Did you – how did you feel about me?’ Fliss asked hesitantly. ‘When you knew you were going to be on your own, I mean.’
‘Mum said I told you so, of course,’ said Jeanette. ‘She let me move back in for a while, until you were born. But she kept saying I needed to stand on my own two feet. She looked after you while I went out to work – to start with, anyway. It was very hard. I worked all day and then when I came home, I had to look after you.’ She looked at Fliss and there was a weariness in her expression. ‘You were a bad sleeper,’ she said. ‘You didn’t sleep right through the night until you were nearly two. And then you had nightmares. You used to creep into my bed in the middle of the night and cry.’ She blinked. ‘But I kept us going.’ The shine to her eyes disappeared, to be replaced by something harder. ‘I kept us off benefits. You never went without. A neighbour said she was going to start being a child minder and she let me have a reduced rate for you. But it was tough. Especially with having no real qualifications. GCSEs aren’t enough – not to get up the ladder, not these days. A levels and degrees, that’s what you need. That guarantees you a decent salary, at the least.’
Fliss kept quiet. Jeanette hadn’t really answered her question, and she wondered why. Had she been unhappy when she discovered she was going to have a baby? Had she considered getting rid of it? Or had she felt a secret delight, knowing there was a new life growing inside her?
‘That’s why I want the best for you,’ Jeanette was continuing, staring hard at Fliss. ‘I want you to have the opportunities I didn’t. If you want to go to university, then I’ll work every hour I have to send you. I just don’t want you to end up with no prospects, like me.’
‘You have prospects,’ said Fliss. ‘You have a job.’
‘But not one I would have wanted,’ Jeanette replied. ‘Not one I enjoy. I do what I do because I don’t have many options.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I’d give anything for a job like Vivienne’s. Or like your friend Victoria’s parents. She lives in a lovely big house; her parents must be rolling in it.’
‘But they’re never there when she comes home from school,’ said Fliss gently. ‘She has to make do with the au pair. You’re always here for me when I get home. Asking me about my day. Making sure I’m all right.’
‘That’s what mothers are for,’ said Jeanette practically.
‘Giving me a hug,’ said Fliss.
Jeanette stared at her daughter for a moment, and Fliss was astonished to see her eyes shone with tears again. ‘I do try,’ she said softly. ‘I do try to be a good mother. But it’s not easy when you’re on your own . . .’
‘You do a brilliant job,’ said Fliss firmly. ‘Brilliant.’ Apart from not listening to my dreams, she thought traitorously to herself.
Jeanette reached out. ‘Let’s have one of those hugs now.’ Fliss went into her arms, and Jeanette sighed again. ‘I just want you to fulfil your potential,’ she whispered into Fliss’s ear. ‘You’re a bright girl; you do well at school. I know money isn’t everything, but there’s nothing more reassuring than a stable career. When you’ve got enough money and a bit over, you can do other things as hobbies. Don’t you think?’
‘Mmm,’ said Fliss.
Jeanette pulled back and framed Fliss’s face with her hands. ‘Don’t live hand-to-mouth like I’ve done, Felicity. Make something of yourself. Promise me.’
What about acting? said a tiny voice inside Fliss. She nodded and said, ‘I promise, Mum.’ And after all, maybe her mother was right. There was no money in acting, everyone said. Was it worth the risk for your dream?
‘This is the big one,’ said Candy. ‘The balcony scene. How are you doing with your lines?’
‘I know mine,’ said Fliss.
Tom looked at her, amused. ‘Do you know all the lines in the play?’
Fliss blushed. ‘Only Juliet’s.’
He laughed. ‘You’re showing me up, you know. I haven’t learned mine yet.’
‘It’s easy once you get going,’ Fliss told him, but something was bothe
ring her. Where was Samantha?
‘Samantha had something on tonight,’ said Candy, as though reading Fliss’s thoughts. ‘She can’t make it today.’ She pretended she didn’t see the relief on Fliss’s face. ‘Well, let’s take it from the top and see how we go.’ She indicated the floor, where some strips of coloured tape had been laid out. ‘Obviously we don’t have a real balcony yet, but we will do on the set. I’ve marked the floor so you can see where it will be. Fliss, you will go round the back of the set to the ladder. The balcony isn’t going to be that high off the ground – about eight feet – but it’ll be high enough to hurt yourself if you fall off. There won’t be much room up there, so just be careful.’
‘OK.’
‘Now,’ said Candy, ‘this is the second time Romeo and Juliet have met, but this time they can’t physically reach each other. It’s incredibly frustrating for them. Also, Juliet keeps being called away, so their conversation is interrupted. I’ll do the off-stage lines for the moment. Fliss, here’s a chair. If you pretend the back of it is the rail of the balcony . . .’
Gradually, they started to stumble through the scene. Candy interrupted them often, saying, ‘Try to move about a bit, Tom. You’re a bit stuck in that corner now,’ and ‘Fliss, just because the audience won’t be able to see your feet doesn’t mean you can stand pigeon-toed.’
It was a difficult scene, much harder than Fliss had realized. Confined to the small space of the balcony, she couldn’t move around much, and after a while she realized she was waving her arms around all the time in compensation. She made a noise of annoyance and stopped halfway through her speech.
‘What’s the matter, Fliss?’ asked Candy.
‘I hate it up here,’ said Fliss. ‘I can’t do anything!’
Candy looked thoughtful. ‘I think that’s where the intensity comes from. Because you have this barrier, this obstacle between you.’
‘But I can’t even walk about!’ exclaimed Fliss. ‘And Tom can’t talk to me without turning his back on the audience!’
‘That’s true,’ said Tom. ‘I can’t face you properly because you’re behind me all the time.’
They looked at Candy. She grinned. ‘Fine. Then play the scene without the balcony.’
‘What?’ Fliss was puzzled.
‘Pretend there’s no balcony.’ Candy spread her hands. ‘Just for now. In fact, pretend there’s no audience either. Just do the scene as if you’d met in the garden.’
Fliss looked at Tom. ‘What do you think?’
He smiled. ‘I’m game if you are.’
‘Do it with the script if you have to,’ said Candy, ‘but try not to read too much. Use it as a prop, not to rely on.’
‘OK.’ Fliss took up a seated position on the floor, and Tom glanced at his script. ‘But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!’
Fliss began to giggle. Tom stopped. ‘What?’
‘You can’t stand there,’ said Fliss. ‘I can see you. Surely the point is that I don’t know you’re there for ages.’
‘Oh, sorry. Good point.’ Tom looked around. ‘I need something to hide behind.’ Candy watched in amusement as Tom grabbed a couple of chairs and balanced one on the other. Then he ducked down behind them. ‘Better?’
‘Much better,’ said Fliss.
It was the silliest balcony scene ever performed. Tom darted from chair to chair in order to stay out of sight, finally crashing through a pile of them to reveal himself. Fliss had trouble saying her lines, she was laughing so much. Both of them became more and more over the top, declaiming their lines as if in a pantomime.
By the time they reached ‘O blessed, blessed night,’ Candy had had enough. ‘Stop!’
Fliss and Tom, flushed and weak with laughter, turned to look at her. ‘Oh,’ said Fliss, ‘but I haven’t even got to “Hist!” yet. I was looking forward to that bit.’
‘I think that’s enough, don’t you?’ said Candy, trying to sound stern, although a little smile hovered around her mouth. ‘It was very funny, guys, but this is meant to be a deeply romantic scene. I thought taking away set and audience restrictions might loosen it up a bit, but I wasn’t expecting Carry On Romeo.’ She chewed her lip for a moment. ‘I think you’d better take a few minutes to calm down. Go get some fresh air or something. Come back in five minutes and we’ll do it again – back on set.’
Fliss and Tom obediently went out of the room, casting guilty glances at Candy. ‘It’s raining,’ said Fliss, when they reached the front doors of the building.
‘We can stand under the porch thing,’ said Tom. So they went out onto the concrete area and looked up at the perspex roof, which was running with water.
‘Hope it doesn’t rain when we’re performing,’ said Fliss. ‘What would we do?’
‘Keep going, I guess,’ said Tom. ‘Unless it got really heavy. Then I suppose we’d have to stop.’
‘We could do it indoors somewhere,’ said Fliss.
Tom shook his head. ‘Where? We’re going to be in the park, remember?’
‘There’s that bandstand thing . . .’
‘You’d never fit us and the audience under there. It’s too small.’
‘Hmm. Candy must have somewhere in mind. She said so.’ Fliss looked up at the roof. ‘I love rain.’
Tom looked at her curiously. ‘Why?’
Fliss shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I love being indoors, sitting by the window, watching the rain run down the glass. It’s – cosy, somehow.’
‘Ah,’ said Tom. ‘You like rain if you’re not out in it. That’s different.’
‘Well yeah,’ said Fliss. ‘I like watching it – not getting wet. And I hate thunderstorms.’
Tom’s face lit up. ‘I love them! All that thunder crashing around. Bam! Blam! Bazam!’
Fliss laughed. ‘You say it like you’re playing the drums.’
‘I do play the drums,’ said Tom.
‘Do you?’
‘Yeah. Not very well though. I don’t think I’m coordinated enough. You’ve got to get each arm and leg doing something different all at the same time.’ Tom mimed playing an imaginary drumkit, and tangled his arms together. ‘Mad. If you start thinking about what you’re doing it all goes wrong.’
‘I don’t play any instruments,’ said Fliss. ‘I wanted to play the flute but my mum wouldn’t let me. Said it would disturb the neighbours.’
‘I could see you playing the flute,’ said Tom, looking at her critically. ‘Like a little elf or something.’
‘A what?’
‘An elf. No, hear me out – you’ve got a sort of pixie face, and your ears are a bit pointed . . . what?’
Fliss had gone red. It was one thing to be talking about music; it was quite another to have Tom examining her face as though she were some kind of experiment. She mumbled something at her feet.
Tom laughed. ‘Oh, don’t take offence. I mean it nicely. You’re a very sweet pixie – and you should be playing a little flute. Like Pan. You know, that garden spirit thing with hooves and panpipes. I could see you as that. And dancing.’
Fliss couldn’t help giggling. ‘Dancing? Me? Now you are being silly.’
‘And you’ve got a pixie giggle too,’ said Tom, smiling at her. ‘Maybe you grant wishes or something.’
‘Wishes?’
‘Yeah, you know – to help people out. Heal the sick. Make people fall in love.’ He suddenly stopped, and looked away. There was an awkward silence. Fliss’s fingers tingled. An odd atmosphere had descended and she found it impossible to look at Tom. That was a strange thing for him to say, wasn’t it? What did he mean? Make people fall in love? Who . . .
The door banged behind them, making them both jump. ‘Hey, daydreamers!’ said Candy. ‘Ready to go again?’
Silently, Tom gestured for Fliss to go first, and the three of them headed back to the studio.
‘You two OK?’ asked Candy, staring at them.
Fliss shook herself. ‘Fi
ne. We were talking about drums.’
‘And rain,’ added Tom. Fliss sneaked a glance at him and was relieved to see him looking more like his usual self.
‘Right,’ said Candy, ‘let’s take it from the top. And no silliness this time.’
Fliss had never felt less like being silly. All of the inside of her head felt like it was taken up with Tom’s words just before they came in. He had called her a pixie – was that a good thing? He’d said it with a kind of affection . . .
‘Fliss! Your line!’
‘Sorry.’ Fliss dragged her mind out of the previous conversation and tried to concentrate.
‘That was about a million times better,’ said Candy at the end. ‘We still need to sort out some blocking issues, but basically it’s taking shape.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’m sorry, guys, I need to run. Good work today – maybe it helped to be totally silly and over the top. Got it out of the way. It’s very natural to laugh when you’re embarrassed or a bit uneasy.’ She smiled. ‘But it’s looking really promising now. I must dash – learn those lines!’ She grabbed her bag and went.
Tom looked at Fliss. ‘I thought that went really well today. Nice to be a bit silly. All this tragedy stuff – it’s so . . . well . . .’
‘Tragic?’ said Fliss.
‘Exactly,’ said Tom.
They walked together to the front doors. ‘Rain’s stopped,’ said Tom. ‘So that’s all right.’
‘Yeah,’ said Fliss.
They stood awkwardly for a moment. ‘Well,’ said Fliss.
‘You – uh – you want to get a bite to eat?’ said Tom. ‘I missed dinner at home, and it’s still light. We could go get a burger or something.’
Panic flooded Fliss like a tidal wave. ‘Oh,’ she said in a strangled voice, ‘I think my mum’s expecting me home.’
‘Half an hour?’ suggested Tom. ‘You could ring her.’
Fliss’s throat closed in terror. Go for a burger with Tom? Like a date? She’d never be able to eat anything! ‘Sorry,’ she said, and shifted her bag on her shoulder. ‘Got to get back. See you soon!’ And without even meeting his gaze, she walked as fast as she could until she was out of sight.
