You Don't Know Me

by Sophia Bennett

  Nell stops and stretches her arm out in front of her, palm down.

  ‘What?’ Jodie asks.

  ‘Just do it,’ Nell says.

  We put our hands on hers, and then I remember.

  ‘Seminal leotards,’ Nell and I say in unison.

  Jodie shrugs and joins us. ‘Seminal leotards.’

  *

  Nell leads the way because she’s studied the lay-out. There’s an archway beside the main building, and we pass through it into a cobbled courtyard, where various people are unloading crates of food and flowers from vans, and taking them inside through a side entrance. This is where the staff come and go, out of sight of the guests.

  ‘Look as if you know what you’re doing,’ Jodie mutters.

  We march past the busy people and in through the door. Nobody pays us much attention in our dark clothes, boring jackets and sensible shoes. We’re in a service corridor, grubby and beige, with old, dirty carpet. Nell hovers for a moment, uncertain, then leads us right, down another corridor, until we pass a door with a small window in it at head height. Peeping through, Nell squeals with delight.

  ‘Yes!’

  She opens the door and we’re at the back of the main house, not far from the Blue Room of the Rose Ireland Special fiasco. In fact, we can see the door to it a few metres further along.

  ‘I’m sure we passed a loo on the way here on Tuesday,’ Nell says.

  We walk quickly, in single file, hoping not to be spotted. Nell squeals again. At the end of the passage is a door marked ‘Ladies’. Inside, we commence part two of the plan. We stash our jackets inside the towel cupboard under the basins. Nell gets her makeup bag out from her tote and we all put on lashings of lipstick and mascara, to make ourselves look old enough to work here. I get three little white frilly aprons, borrowed from the café, out of my bag and pass them round. We put our hair in the neatest ponytails we can manage, stash the bags with the coats, and we’re ready.

  ‘At the end of this passage there’s a staircase to the main floor of bedrooms,’ Nell whispers. She doesn’t need to whisper: there’s no one else here, but it feels right, somehow. ‘We take that and go to the middle of the corridor. That’s where the best rooms are. If she’s not there, she’ll be on the floor above. I think.’ She gulps. She also studied the hotel website to look for the rooms where Rose is most likely to be staying. We’re in her hands now.

  ‘Talk in some kind of accent,’ Jodie advises before we set off. ‘It’ll make us seem more realistic.’

  ‘What kind?’ I ask. ‘French?’

  ‘No. Russian or Italian or something. Just la-di-da-dida-di. It’ll help. And look out for a tray.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Nell says, hyperventilating slightly. She’s really not cut out for this stuff, but we agreed we had to do it together. Taking a deep breath, she leads the way and Jodie and I, doing our best chambermaid impressions, follow.

  We start with the first floor. It’s tricky, because whenever we see real hotel staff approaching, we have to nip out of sight so they won’t get suspicious of our slightly dodgy uniforms. We also have to find an abandoned breakfast tray outside someone’s bedroom – which I do – and dress it up by putting fresh white napkins (brought with us for the purpose) over all the empty plates and bowls. Armed with the tray, we follow Nell to the door halfway down the corridor. This will, apparently, take us to a suite with big windows overlooking the gardens. I knock, while Jodie calls out ‘Room service!’

  After two minutes of anxious waiting, a stubbly man in a towelling robe comes to the door.

  ‘I didn’t order any food,’ he says, confused and grumpy, looking at the napkin-laden tray.

  ‘Oh, I’m so-a sorree-a,’ Jodie says, in the WORST Italo-Russian accent I have ever heard. Didn’t she practise? ‘I thought you-a ask-a for eet.’

  God, Jodie. Shut up.

  ‘Well I didn’t.’ He looks at us crossly, then hesitates. ‘Although, now I’m awake . . .’

  ‘No no no! It’s-a fine,’ I say in a bit of a panic. Damn – my accent’s as bad as Jodie’s. ‘This ees-a cold now. We get you a better one.’

  We bow and scrape and scuttle away as fast as we can, stifling our giggles until we’re at the far end of the corridor. What on earth will real Room Service think when he calls down to complain?

  ‘We’d better get moving,’ Nell whispers. ‘They might start looking for us soon.’

  ‘Corr-a ect-a,’ I agree.

  We try a couple more doors, getting no reply, or an unfriendly glare from someone who’s unhappy to see us.

  ‘Let’s try upstairs,’ Jodie says.

  We take the nearest staircase and tiptoe up it, listening out for sounds of danger – which is basically anything.

  I hear it first, and stop dead. Jodie crashes into me and swears under her breath.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Listen.’

  It’s a noise I thought I never wanted to hear again: Linus Oakley, on his phone, talking loudly.

  Jodie looks at me and grins. We’re close. He’s on the floor above us, but heading away down the corridor to the far staircase. We stand just out of sight, listening.

  ‘What? What? I can’t hear you. Reception’s terrible in this place. What’s that? No, she’s fine. Just a bit of stress. Nothing the girl can’t handle. She’ll be in New York when you need her. Yes, she can do that show. And that one. It’ll be a pleasure. What? Seventeen, I think. Sixteen? Can’t remember. No, it’s not a problem she’s below the drinking age, Al. She doesn’t drink. That’s just something the papers said. She really doesn’t. It’s stress, I’m telling you. Look, Al, I’m the one who needs a drink. I’ll call you back.’

  He disappears down the stairs.

  We creep along the corridor.

  ‘I think it’s this one,’ Nell whispers, as we reach the door in the middle.

  I hold the tray and Jodie knocks.

  ‘Room service!’

  As we’re standing there, a rattling trolley rounds the corner, piled high with sheets and towels. It’s being pushed by a girl dressed in a similar outfit to ours, except she’s got the official one, which is smarter and more expensive. Even from the other end of the corridor, she stares at us.

  ‘Room service!’ Jodie calls more loudly, bashing on the door now, as if she’s trying to knock it down.

  The girl with the trolley heads in our direction, suspicious, peering at all our faces in turn. Nell is lipstick-pink with embarrassment. I look down at the tray, trying to hide my face with my fringe. Jodie has a glint of desperation in her eye.

  Just as she’s about to knock for the third time, the door opens.

  ‘I didn’t order any . . . Oh.’

  Rose is standing there, in leggings and a sweatshirt, with her earbuds in.

  ‘Quick!’ Jodie hisses. ‘Let us in.’

  Just as Trolley Girl reaches us, we nip into Rose’s room and out of sight.

  ‘Phew.’ Jodie closes the door behind us with her bottom and leans against it. ‘That was exciting.’

  I glance around the room. Big windows, thick curtains, huge four-poster, which I recognise from the photo on Interface, and a general sense of wow. It’s also very messy, with clothes and papers scattered all over the place. Rose has obviously made herself at home.

  Rose, meanwhile, is giving us the same sort of stare that the chambermaid did.

  ‘What are you doing here? Oh my God, is that food?’

  She moves in on my tray. I whip off the napkins to reveal the empty plates underneath.

  ‘It was part of our cunning plan,’ I explain. ‘To see you.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK.’ She sighs, standing stiffly in the middle of the room. It’s just like before: us three on one side and her on the other. And like before, this is not the Rose of all the glamorous photographs on Interface. Her cheeks are hollow, her hair is a tangled mess, and there are dark purple smudges of tiredness under her eyes.

>   ‘We didn’t think you’d be up,’ Nell says into the awkward silence, echoing my thoughts. We’d expected to find her in bed this early in the morning, not dressed for a run.

  Rose looks down at her leggings and customised Nike trainers as if even she can’t believe she’s wearing them.

  ‘I go running every day. But I can skip it, seeing as you’re here. Why are you here?’

  ‘We’re here because we really need to talk to you,’ I say, marvelling that we’ve actually done it.

  Jodie waltzes over to the big four-poster and sits back on the crisp white duvet, covered with a thick wool blanket.

  ‘Mmm. This is lovely. The thing is, Rose, we need to ask you a favour.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘That TV thing we did . . .’

  ‘It was terrible,’ Nell chips in.

  ‘We hate it,’ I finish off. ‘Can you persuade them not to show it?’

  ‘Oh.’

  Rose’s face crumbles. It wasn’t far from crumbling before. She looks as fragile as an eggshell.

  ‘So?’ Jodie challenges her.

  There’s a slight pause, while Rose looks from one of us to the other.

  ‘Of course,’ she says. ‘If that’s what you want. I’ll ask them.’

  She sighs as if all the air is leaving her body.

  OK. So that was easier than we were expecting. Jodie, certainly, had been prepared for fireworks, stamping, shouting and regal-style sulking. But there’s none of that at all.

  ‘Was it me?’ Rose asks tremulously. ‘I didn’t know what to say. I thought it would be so good to see you, but . . .’

  She falters and stops.

  ‘But it was a nightmare,’ I finish off for her, gently. ‘We’ve been trying to get in touch with you ever since. Why’ve you been ignoring us?’

  ‘Have you? I didn’t know.’

  ‘What d’you mean, you didn’t know?’

  She dips her head.

  ‘I . . . I don’t check my phone. I get so many messages these days, Elsa checks it for me.’

  ‘Who’s Elsa?’

  ‘My assistant. Sort of. I suppose. She works for Linus, really. She helps me out. She writes stuff for me on the internet. I’m not sure what she does.’

  ‘Well, she does it with hideous grammar,’ I mutter.

  ‘Wait,’ Jodie says, getting up from the bed and coming back over. ‘You have an assistant to answer your phone?’

  ‘Yes,’ Rose says in a tiny squeak. ‘I suppose so. When I got fam— I mean, after the show, I got so many messages they filled up my message box. I don’t have time to answer them all, so Elsa does it for me. She passes on the ones I need to see. I don’t know why she didn’t pass yours on. Perhaps she didn’t want to disturb me.’

  Oh God, I suddenly wonder: did she even get any of my apologies all those weeks ago?

  ‘Disturb you from what?’

  ‘The studio,’ she says, not looking very happy about it. ‘Trying to get new songs ready to show Linus.’

  She’s still looking down. Her lips tremble when she talks. I could swear a teardrop lands on the Nike trainers. Then, to all our astonishment, she sinks into a little puddle on the ground and buries her head in her hands.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ she mumbles. ‘I just wanted to see you again and . . . I’ve made a mess of it all.’

  Living The Dream

  Jodie’s face says it all. This is not the monster she came to see. This is not a monster at all.

  She comes over from the bed. I’m already next to Rose, taking her hands in mine. We all sit cross-legged on the floor. Nell stretches out a hand and strokes Rose’s hair.

  ‘Hey, you didn’t make a mess of it,’ she says. ‘We did.’

  Rose shakes her head.

  ‘No. When you came, you looked so beautiful, the three of you. You were so cool, sitting there together. And I’d just come in from a rubbish day at the studio and I was hopeless.’

  ‘But we couldn’t think of anything to say,’ Nell interjects.

  ‘Nor could I. I just sat there like an idiot. I shouldn’t have agreed to see you on TV. I shouldn’t have agreed to any of it.’

  ‘Then why did you?’ I ask.

  Her blue eyes stare up at us from her pale, soulful face. ‘It was the only way to see you. I had to talk to you before going back to St Christopher’s for the launch thing. I didn’t want that to be the first time we . . .

  So she’d pictured that moment too. The awfulness of it.

  ‘You could always have called,’ Jodie says, pointedly, unable to resist.

  Rose looks down again, contrite.

  ‘I know. I should have called you a long time ago. But I didn’t, because I was angry. Then I didn’t because I was embarrassed. And now there’s never any time. I can’t explain it. If it’s not in the schedule, it doesn’t happen. And anyway, I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me after . . . everything.’

  ‘We wouldn’t want to see you?’ I ask. ‘What about you wanting to see us?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve wanted to,’ she says eagerly. ‘So much. But I’ve been in this bubble. It’s constant meetings and interviews and singing. I don’t seem to have time for anything of my own, But all this time, people have sold so many stories about me and none of you ever have and you’ve been great, like you always are, and I know you didn’t mean what happened . . . I just got lost in my bubble. I’m so, so sorry.’

  There’s a long silence in the plush, untidy room while we all adjust.

  ‘We’re sorry too,’ I say.

  ‘I know.’

  This is the moment, perhaps, that the TV cameras would want to capture. The ‘closure’. Except it’s very still and undramatic, and nobody cries, and nobody says anything for a while. Everybody’s sorry. That’s all there is.

  Nell is the first to go over and give Rose a proper hug.

  ‘We’ve missed you.’

  ‘Awhmmooooo.’

  Rose mumbles it into Nell’s shoulder, but I take it she’s missed us too. When I approach her, she reaches out an arm and folds me in. The cashmere of her hoodie is soft against my cheek.

  ‘Although technically,’ Jodie says, ‘you can’t get lost in a bubble. I mean . . . just saying.’

  Rose reaches over and throws a cushion at her. So do I. So does Nell. But Rose, despite all this, still looks fragile and close to tears.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I ask. ‘I look you up all the time, you know – on the web. I hardly recognise you now.’

  She hangs her head.

  ‘I know. I hardly recognise myself sometimes. I try to do what they tell me, but it’s hard. Answering all those questions . . . trying to look like a pop star . . .’

  ‘Why would you even want to?’

  ‘Because . . .’ She struggles to explain it. ‘Because of the music. Because if I don’t, they might not let me sing. And I so want to sing, but even that’s gone wrong now—’

  I’m about to ask her about that when Jodie interrupts her.

  ‘And of course, there’s all of this.’

  She indicates the room, with its plump armchairs and ancient fireplace, the hangings on the bed, the designer shoes arranged in neat rows beside it, the Hermès handbag open on the coffee table.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose,’ Rose sighs, although I can tell that’s not the big thing for her. ‘I mean, it’s beautiful. And I get to record in Jim Fisher’s studio, and he’s like a legend. And I sang at this party and I got to meet Paul McCartney. I mean, I’m really lucky, right?’

  She looks from me to Jodie. What can we say? Paul McCartney? Of course she’s lucky.

  ‘But you said about the music . . . ?’ I prompt her. ‘Going wrong? It hasn’t, surely?’

  Rose sighs.

  ‘Can you pass me my handbag?’ she asks Jodie, who’s closest.

  ‘Sure. Is this the one Victoria Beckham has loads of?’

  Rose nods, embarrassed again.

  ‘I think so. Ivan gave it to me. Ivan Jenks,
from Interface. Do you remember him?’

  We shudder slightly. Of course we do: Mr Preserve-the-Drama. Jodie passes the bag over, pausing to admire the soft orange leather. Rose extracts a matching leather case from it, and from the case a shiny black tablet, like an iPad. She turns it on.

  ‘Linus came over this morning to show me a rough cut of the new ad. We’re still working on it, but it’s terrible. I’m terrible. I don’t think I can do it.’

  ‘You can’t be terrible,’ Nell assures her. ‘You were at number one last week.’

  Rose shakes her head, unconvinced.

  ‘Come on,’ Jodie says. ‘Show us. We’ll give you an honest opinion.’

  ‘Will you really?’

  Jodie laughs. ‘You know me.’

  Rose grins. She fiddles around on the screen for a moment – she clearly hasn’t mastered the technology yet. But eventually she finds what she’s looking for. She traces her hand across the tablet screen and a video appears. It opens on her, sitting at a white grand piano in what looks like an abandoned warehouse, wearing a tight white dress with gold sparkles, which looks difficult to breathe in. Her hair is caught up in a gold headdress. She plays an introduction and accompanies herself as she sings.

  ‘This is my moment

  It’s when the stars come out for me

  I have finally made it

  It’s all I ever wanted it to be . . .’

  Real-time Rose watches us, waiting for our reactions. I’m not quite sure what to do. I had my this-is-great face all ready, but the Rose at the piano has the same sort of pained expression as the one who was forced to ‘jiggle’ at our audition. The sound is good, but it’s clear to me that her heart isn’t in it. However, maybe a stranger watching would mistake her awkwardness for sincerity. I’m not sure. I hope so. Meanwhile, Nell is already smiling, although I hope Rose hasn’t noticed it’s her be-nice-to-Rose-in-case-she-cries-again smile. Jodie’s eyebrows are practically in her hairline. And not in a good way.

  On the video, the shot changes to show Roxanne Wills, standing on a mountaintop against an azure sky dotted with puffy clouds, also wearing a white dress – but one so short it could pass for a swimsuit – holding her arms out wide.