‘We’re being abducted!’ Bex said. ‘Help, help!’ She stuck her hands to the window and pressed her face against it and snorted with laughter.
‘You mad cow.’
There was a screen between us and the driver so he couldn’t hear us when we asked him where we were going. Not that it mattered. If Kelmore was your life, you dreamt of being kidnapped.
We passed the time dancing, doing the arm actions to ‘Vogue’ when it came on the radio, bouffed our hair when Cher’s ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’ came on, gyrated to Lil’ Louis, ‘French Kiss’.
By the time we hit the country lanes we were on the cusp of boredom. The Skittles were working their way back up. Bex had gone white. ‘I get really travel sick,’ she said.
‘Now you tell me.’
The first view of the house silenced us. It was cartoon big, bursting out of the trees.
‘Whoaaa!’
‘Is that a hotel?’ Bex shouted to the driver, who had dipped the music.
‘No.’
‘And I’m Annie at Daddy Warbucks,’ I said.
‘I wish we hadn’t eaten all the Skittles,’ Bex moaned.
‘Energy,’ I said. ‘We’ll burn them off.’
We did. We danced all day. Camille was there, still not chancing a smile. We joined a group of four girls. I say joined, more like hovered on the edge as they whispered to themselves and giggled when we messed up.
‘Ignore them,’ Bex said. ‘Bitches don’t want the competition.’
Now and again Greg poked his head around the door and watched a few routines, arms crossed, eyes pinched in concentration. He was very thorough in the way he studied us and how our bodies moved. I could tell he was looking after us, wanted us to do well. It felt good to have someone in our corner for a change. His attention forced me out of myself. The music lifted my body and pushed it in directions I didn’t know it could go. Bex had come alive too. The thing about Bex was her eyes could often look dead, like she’d seen too much. Now they held diamonds in them, sparkling in the light. There was no limit to what we could do.
‘Don’t tell me you’re worn out already?’ Greg had found us in the hallway, propped up against the wall. My body sang with exhaustion. ‘You’ve got a performance tonight.’
‘A performance? Aren’t we going back?’
‘No, you get to stay here until tomorrow. You didn’t know?’
We didn’t. Mrs O’Dowd hadn’t shared any details.
‘There’s food downstairs, go eat and then shower. Curtis has guests tonight, backers for the show, industry folk. You’ll want to impress.’
‘But we’ve only brought leggings.’ Bex looked panicked. The thought of being shown up was too much.
‘Don’t worry,’ he smiled. ‘We’ve taken care of everything.’
We only knew one kind of make-up, the orange stuff that blanked out your face, but this was the real deal, done by a professional. She introduced herself as Anouk, spoke with an accent so thick it hurt my head trying to decipher it. I was mesmerised as she worked away at my face, inviting my cheekbones to pop out, magnifying my eyes with kohl and false lashes, turning my lips juicy red. My hair was combed in a side parting, tied back. If it hadn’t been for the mascara I would have cried with happiness. I was someone else. I wanted her to take over and swap places with Charlie for good.
‘Thank you,’ I said to Anouk but she brushed me away and started on the next girl.
Bex was already in our room when I got back. She didn’t look like Bex either.
‘Well, heeellloo,’ she said.
Camille had laid clothes out on the bed. Twenties silk dresses, one in red, one in black.
We made each other close our eyes for the big reveal.
‘One. Two. Three. Open.’
‘Oh my fucking God. Who knew we were so gorgeous,’ Bex said.
This is what I remember from the first night: being seen; how the watching eyes electrified me. Kelmore taught us to make ourselves small, our bodies trained to apologise for their presence through stooped shoulders and bowed heads and eyes cast downwards. We had learnt to occupy the least space possible. No one wanted to hear or see us, why else would we be hidden away in a crumbling Victorian building miles from life?
Now our hands reached upwards and outwards and marvelled at the space they found. Our backs straightened, surprised that we could stand so tall. We faced the people gathered in front of us, drank in their smiles. We had been invited here. They wanted us. They liked what they saw. And the dancing, when our turn came, happened almost without thought or instruction. It was natural. This was who we were. Every molecule of air we touched thrilled us, every beat we hit made our smiles wider. Like our future had begun to flower in those ten minutes on stage, the past shaded away.
The applause. I remember that too. It ricocheted through me, brought every nerve ending to life. Bex’s eyes found me, brighter than bright. The world had changed colour.
My first champagne, thrust into my hands. And another. And another. I drank them fast, like fizzy pop, as I was guided around the room by a man whose name I can’t recall but was full of praise for my dancing. ‘This is Charlie,’ he said, and someone new would kiss my hand or cheek. Gentlemen, I remember thinking. The grown-up smells of aftershave, a woody cinnamon scent, cigarettes, champagne sweetening their breaths.
At some stage the room began to dart around me. The lights dipped. I searched for Bex but my eyes couldn’t pull anyone into focus and when I closed them trails of yellows and oranges and pinks danced on my eyelids.
‘You were marvellous,’ said a male voice from behind. I didn’t recognise the voice but his arms on my waist suggested he knew me. His eyes travelled around the edges of my body. ‘Look at you!’ I tried to follow his suggestion and look down at myself but the movement pushed me off balance. I fell into him.
‘Sorry,’ I said.
‘No need to apologise.’
The way he stared confused me. And then I remembered I was someone different tonight. Charlie Pedlingham from Kelmore was still in the bedroom hiding under an old hoodie and leggings. I was a woman, made up, dressed up. Borderline beautiful. A future star. The thought made me light. Light and free.
‘I’m Curtis,’ he said. By now I recognised him from the theatre and I wondered why of all the people in the room he had chosen to talk to me.
‘You’ve got something,’ he whispered.
I swelled at his praise, felt myself lifted on the curves of the music. ‘I’d like to see more of you.’
What to say? A nervous laugh escaped and I tried to cobble together some words to form a sentence. ‘Henry, my friend,’ he called to a man passing us. ‘Come here. Don’t you think Charlie is wonderful?’
Henry stood in front of me. He looked like the kind of man who took a tie off to go casual. His face was ruddy with the heat. He kissed me on both cheeks.
‘I couldn’t agree more. Curtis here has impeccable taste. Stick with him and you’ll go far.’
Outside the bathroom, Greg appeared. ‘You were great before.’
I let the wall hold me up. ‘I’m not used to drinking,’ I said.
He laughed, traced a finger along my cheek. ‘It’s been a long day.’ He produced his wallet and I thought he was going to give me money for a cab back to Kelmore. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘To pick you up. Don’t look so worried. It will straighten your head out.’
I stared at the pill as it danced in my hand. It looked just like a paracetamol.
‘You sure?’
He held another in front of me before placing it on his tongue. ‘Just promise not to tell Mrs O’Dowd.’ His laughter caught me and made me laugh too, like it was the funniest thing I’d ever heard.
A hand pulled me along the hallway. It wasn’t Greg’s. Where was Greg?
Did it matter? This hand belonged to someone else. My body was fluid, flowing like water through the crowd of people. Small glares of light pierced the darkness. Chatter rose and fell away from somewhere in the labyrinth of doors and rooms. What had Greg given me? Not paracetamol like Matron doled out for period cramps. I’d never felt like this in the sick bay. It was different to the champagne too; that had made me heavy, mixed up my words. This. This was light, stripped all the weight out of my body so I was a balloon being guided on a string. Soaring. Heat radiated through my bones, gushed into every part of my brain, waves of it pushing forward and slipping back. Turned my face into a smile. Nothing mattered but this moment. Nothing at all.
A door opened and the hand guided me inside. The air had dropped a degree or two. Cleaner, no one else breathing it, just me, the hand and its owner. The room was hung with a moody light. Being here meant something, I sensed it, but when I scratched my mind for an answer it revealed nothing. The effort of thinking was too much. I closed my eyes, fell back and landed where it was cold and soft beneath me. The hand moved over me, sent a tremor down my neck, a current of pleasure. And the answer flashed before me. This was grown up. I was entering an adult world where the edges were fuzzy and there was a new set of rules.
Something was swimming round in my veins. Flooding me. My body was soft, I could stretch it out in any way I wanted. I lifted my hand to my head, didn’t quite make it. I held it out in front of me. My fingers cut shards of light out of the dark. I turned and found myself in a mirror. Not Charlie, the new version of her.
Look at me, all grown up.
I wanted to drift, stumble into sleep. Was I being helped to bed? Nice to be taken care of. The hands (two now) peeled my dress away, slipped off my underwear. No need, I wanted to say. I can sleep in my underwear and Mrs O’Dowd told us not to disgrace ourselves, but I didn’t say anything at all. Too woozy.
The hands surprised me. Rougher now, they began to press me into a shape I didn’t want to make. My legs split, arms raised above my head. I wriggled, tried to explain it wasn’t comfortable, and please, I’m feeling very strange. But I couldn’t speak because my mouth was covered with lips and there was a tongue inside. ‘Shhh,’ he said when he took the tongue out. ‘Relax.’
Relax. Like a grown-up. But surely it shouldn’t hurt like this? The weight on top of my body made me sink further down into the bed.
‘It’s OK,’ he said.
Is it? He knows the rules and I don’t.
Play the game, learn the new rules.
I tried. But the new rules stung my skin, burnt me inside.
‘No,’ I said. Not loud enough. I turned away. He pulled me back. ‘Now, now. Don’t be a tease.’
A tease. Is that what I am?
All I want to do is sleep.
But I can’t.
I’ve sold him a different version of me. Older. Grown up. He wants that one.
Too late to change my mind.
‘Too late,’ he said. ‘I’m inside.’
On the journey back there were no Skittles. I don’t suppose we’d have had the stomach for them anyway. Bex and I stared outside as the country lanes turned into motorways and took us back where we had come from. We knew something had changed, could taste it in the air between us, but it wasn’t what we had expected and we didn’t mention it. Some emotions are too complicated to set to words.
‘Lots of work to do today, girls,’ Greg said. We were back at the theatre. The production was in six weeks, he told us, and we assumed this meant we had a part. His hand grazed Bex’s shoulder, slipping down to the small of her back. Her reaction, I recognised that. Cheeks full of heat, jumpy. Pleasure and fear, equal in measure. What to do?
The day passed in a whir of music and dance. Bex and I were happy, that’s the thing. Or at least we thought this was hapiness. We had caught a glimpse of a future, been pushed through a door of opportunity, and we didn’t want to give up on it. Even the attention, kind sometimes, caring too, and the eyes that stripped us bare, better than eyes that turned away in disgust.
Evening came and with it trays of drinks and food. Bex slipped away. Greg had focused his attention on her. I imagined what she was doing, then tried to score it out of my mind. A stirring of jealousy in my stomach. I drained my glass. Hovered on the periphery of the girls’ circle. Spinning round at the sound of his voice.
‘There you are,’ he said as his eyes picked me out of the group.
Still special after all.
He took me to another room.
‘I want you to dance for me.’ He pointed to the camera at the other end of the room. ‘Give it a wave.’ I obeyed. Didn’t occur to me to say no.
I didn’t dance for long, a few minutes or so, self-conscious at first, then warming to it as his eyes drunk me in. ‘You’ll go far,’ he said, dangling bright lights and fame and freedom in front of me. ‘If you want to. Do you want to?’
‘I do,’ I said. Then he came close. Closer. He pressed me down, unbuttoned his trousers, and pushed himself into my mouth.
I fixed my eyes shut, blocked it out. An explosion of light behind my eyes. There was something I wanted to say but the words were pushed back inside me, deeper and deeper down. Can’t breathe. It’s not OK. Yes, it is. Relax. Once would have been a one-night stand, made me a slut. Twice means he really cares, makes it special, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it?
‘How is it going, girls?’ Miss Reilly asked at netball. ‘You look tired. Are they treating you well?’ Bex and I exchanged a look. ‘Girls, if there’s anything you are not happy with, you can tell me, OK?’
‘It’s fine, miss.’
‘Good, then you can get changed now.’
‘I’m not feeling up to it,’ Bex said. I’d seen the bruising on her thighs the night before. There was no way she could wear a netball skirt.
‘Do you want to tell me what the problem is?’ Bex shook her head. ‘Then, Bex, I really need you to get changed. You have five minutes, otherwise I will take you to the sick bay.’
There was no way around it. Sick bay would mean a once-over from Matron, and she couldn’t suffer that. Reluctantly, Bex dressed for games: gym top, socks, netball skirt last.
‘You all right?’ I said, pointlessly. It was obvious she wasn’t.
‘Ah, Bex, nice of you to join us,’ Miss Reilly said when we made it out on to the court. A trickle of sweat ran down my back. The sun, when it cracked out from the clouds, was intense, but mainly it sulked behind them.
I was goalkeeper and our team was winning so I had plenty of time to watch Miss Reilly. The initial looks she cast across to Bex, running around in her position of wing attack, followed by the furtive ones, as if committing what she saw to memory.
After a few spits of rain she shouted, ‘OK, girls, we’ll call it a day.’ No one could believe she’d surrendered so easily to the weather. ‘Bex and Charlie, you can help me gather the bibs and balls.’
‘Bex,’ she said when we had finished our task. ‘Can you tell me how you got those bruises?’
She looked to the ground, kicked up some gravel with the toe of her shoes. ‘Dancing.’
‘I’ve danced a lot, you know that, don’t you, Bex? Practised for hours and hours. I’ve had bruises too . . . but not there.’
The sun had slipped out again, burnt on to Bex’s face. She couldn’t look at Miss Reilly without squinting. I watched a lone tear fall down her cheek like a drop of liquid silver.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
The next day we saw Miss Reilly’s blue Ford Fiesta swing out of the grounds for the last time. Bex said she looked back and waved. But I think she made that up. It was impossible to tell from the dormitory window.
The statue of the Virgin Mary watched over us as we sat outside Mrs O’Dowd’s office. We’d been summoned an hour earlier, ma
de to wait in the heat, sweat out our sins.
‘She does this on purpose,’ Bex said. ‘I bet she’s not even busy.’
Finally, the door swung open and Mrs O’Dowd’s face filled the space.
‘Gaarls,’ she said. She was Irish, but insisted on talking like she was from Kensington. Her flat ‘a’s gave her away. She reached her arm out in a long expansive gesture. ‘Do come in.’
Bex went first. I followed. We remained standing because woe betide you if you sat before you were invited.
‘Take a seat . . . Do cross your legs, Charlie, you don’t want to come across as one of those girls, do you?’
‘No, Mrs O’Dowd.’
‘Now, I want to talk to you about Curtis Loewe.’
His name lit a touchpaper in my head. I stared at the picture of Jesus on the cross above her head.
‘Have you met him?’
I nodded.
‘Do you know that you are extremely lucky to be chosen for his play? Two girls like you.’
Silence.
‘Well, do you?’
‘Yes, Mrs O’Dowd.’
‘There are plenty of girls out there more talented than you two, I dare say, who’d jump at the chance. But he seems to see something in you.’ Her stare tunnelled into me. My mouth filled with glue while my arse sweated in the plastic chair. I shifted to one side, made an unfortunate noise that sounded like a fart.
‘Mr Loewe has been a very generous patron of the school. He has his own charity that raises money for unprivileged children. That’s you, by the way. For instance, the trip you went on in the summer to Wales, that was thanks to Mr Loewe. He is very well respected. Do you understand what I am saying?’
‘Yes, Mrs O’Dowd.’
‘Good, I’m glad. I take it you have no reservations about continuing the rehearsals and appearing in the show?’
Time unspooled. It was a test. A moment presented to us. One way or the other.
Legs apart. Hands eating me. Weight driving through my body. Stealing my breath. Slut. Slut. Slut.
Do you want it?
An Act of Silence Page 13
