Mates, Dates and Pulling Power

by Hopkins, Cathy

  ‘Yeah,’ said TJ, ‘but the people that do these courses are usually middle-aged and decrepit . . .’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘No chance of humiliating myself in front of any cute boys of our age then. No, I think it will be brilliant. Just the thing. Excellento.’

  Izzie laughed. ‘You know what I love about you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The way you can go from total misery to total elation, all in the space of a day.’

  ‘All in the space of five minutes sometimes.’ I smiled back at her from behind my hand. I was feeling a million times better than earlier this afternoon. ‘My mum says that when life throws you a lemon, you have to make lemonade. My brace is the lemon, doing this course would be making lemonade, if you know what I mean. It would be a way of using my time constructively. Only one thing would make it better . . .’

  ‘What?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘If one of you guys would do the course as well.’

  ‘Not me,’ said TJ. ‘I have to work on the school magazine Wednesday nights.’

  ‘And I said I’d help Dad restock the shop on Wednesday nights this term,’ said Lucy. Her dad runs the local health food shop and putting in some hours there is one way Lucy can pick up some spare cash. ‘Sorry, Nesta.’

  ‘No prob.’ I turned to Izzie.

  ‘But I don’t want to be an actress,’ she said heading for the door. ‘I want to be a singer songwriter.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said, ‘but think Kylie, think Madonna, think J-Lo.’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘They’re all actresses as well as singers. My dad’s always saying that working in any part of the media can be feast or famine until you make it big. It’s good to have a few strings to your bow. And loads of singers have acted in films as well as pursued their song writing. Come on Iz, it would be another thing that you can offer when you’re famous.’

  I could see Izzie was thinking about it. One of the things I like about her is that she is into learning about so many things. She’s totally open-minded . . . which made me think, I know just how to persuade her . . .

  ‘Thing is, with learning,’ I began, ‘you can never stop. You can never think that you’re there. It’s like, you can always improve your performance skills whether it’s for stage, singing or acting . . .’

  Izzie sighed. ‘OK. Enough. You’re on. I’m in.’

  ‘Excellent,’ I said. ‘See Lucy, your mum was right, life never closes a wotsit without opening another wotsit.’

  Life never closes a door without opening a window.

  Chapter 5

  ‘Sorry, Nesta love, I thought you understood,’ said Mum when I got home and told her about the classes.

  ‘But it’s only five pounds for each class. That’s pretty good value.’

  ‘I know, but add that up over a term . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I interrupted. She looked sad and I didn’t want her to feel like that. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  I went to my room to mope, but I wasn’t in the mood for being miserable. Been there, done that. Got the T-shirt. I found it a humongous waste of time in fact. I lay back on my bed and had a good think. Ways of getting money. Hhmm. Well, I know one thing not to do again and that’s gamble. Earlier this year, I spent all my savings on Scratch cards. Lost the lot, so I won’t be doing that again. No, there must be some job I can do, babysitting or something. Suddenly a light switched on in my head. Course, that’s it, I thought as I quickly dialled Lucy’s number.

  ‘Hey, Nesta,’ said Lucy when she picked up the phone. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Actually, Luce, more like what can I do for you? Or more, for your dad that is. Does he need any other workers to do restocking in the shop.’

  ‘He does actually. On Fridays.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘He pays me five quid an hour. Two hours ten quid.’

  ‘Ask if he’ll give me a job.’

  I heard Lucy yell at the other end of the phone. ‘Dad, can Nesta have a job restocking on Friday nights?’

  I heard a distant voice yell back. ‘Yes. The more the merrier.’

  Lucy came back on the phone. ‘Sorted, mate.’

  ‘Excellent. Another string to my bow. Shelf stacker.’

  ‘I’ll do some hours with you as well as my Wednesday,’ said Lucy. ‘Be fun if we’re both doing it.’

  Ha, I thought as I put the phone down. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. And it’s part of the process according to my dad. He says that loads of great movie stars start out working in dead end jobs, so that they can pay their way before their big break.

  The following Wednesday, Izzie and I pitched up for our first acting class. It was to be held in Muswell Hill in a place that was an ordinary school in the day time and used for adult education in the evenings.

  ‘That has to be it,’ said Izzie as we approached a four storey building. ‘It looks like a school with all those windows.’

  ‘And it looks like ours isn’t the only night course being held here,’ I said. Music was pounding out from every level and we could see girls in leotards ballet dancing on one floor, another bunch jazz dancing on another, others kick-boxing on the ground floor. ‘Looks like lots of girls come here, hope there won’t be too many boys.’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ said Izzie. ‘You may be having a year off boys, but I’m not.’

  After signing in at reception, we made our way up to the first floor where our class was to be held. As we waited for the ballet class to finish, a group of people began to assemble outside the door.

  Excellent, I thought as I watched them arrive and, like Izzie and me, smile apprehensively at the rest of the group. A bald guy with a beard, a petite white-haired lady, two curly-haired twenty-year-olds, maybe sisters, a chubby guy with glasses, probably in his forties. A couple more middle-aged ladies. Couple more guys, probably in their thirties. Excellent, I thought. Not one cute boy in sight.

  Our teacher was a slim red-headed woman in her late twenties called Jo. She started us off with a few introduction games. First we had to say our names and five things about ourselves. I was third.

  ‘Nesta. Star sign Leo. Fave band, Red Hot Chili Peppers. Fave TV programme, The Simpsons. Fave food, pizza. Live in Highgate.’

  The introductions were a bit of a blur and, by the end of it, I’d only got about four people’s names.

  Then we had to say our name again and do an action that started with the same letter as your name.

  ‘Make it as mad as you like,’ said Jo.

  Everyone seemed a bit shy at first, so I decided to start us off as we’ve done stuff like this in drama at school.

  ‘Nesta. Napping,’ I said, then closed my eyes and put my head on one side.

  Izzie went next. ‘Izzie: itching.’ That got a laugh as she played out scratching herself all over. After that the others were off.

  ‘Jan: jumping.’

  ‘Dave: drawing.’

  ‘Catherine: canoeing.’

  There were twelve of us in all and the game seemed to do the trick as, afterwards, most of us found we could remember most people’s names.

  I’m going to enjoy this, I thought as Jo asked us to stand anywhere in the room.

  ‘Choose a character,’ she said, ‘male or female, any age, then walk round the room as you imagine they would.’

  I decided to do a bloke I’d seen walking down Archway Road last week. He walked like a gorilla with a swagger. A real tough man. After we’d swaggered, minced, strode, tiptoed round for a while, Jo asked us to lie on the floor and go to sleep in the manner of our character. I lay in the corner and started snoring. After a while, Jo said, ‘OK, now it’s six a.m. What’s your character doing now?’

  I heard a few people get up but I stayed where I was. No way, my character would be out of bed yet. He was a yob. Probably didn’t even know that there were two six o’clocks in a day.

  Jo went on. ‘And now it’s seven a.m.’ I could hear more
people get up. When she said, ‘Eight,’ even more got up. As she said, ‘Nine,’ then, ‘Ten,’ then, ‘Eleven. What’s your character doing now?’ I could hear that everyone was up. I opened my eyes and sneaked a look. My fellow luvvies were acting their socks off, miming driving, typing, on the phone, eating, talking, having a life.

  ‘OK, twelve o’clock and what are your characters doing now?’ said Jo. ‘Er, on the floor, Napping Nesta isn’t it? Is there a problem? I see your character hasn’t done anything? Are you stuck about what to do?’

  ‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘My character’s a lazy yob and never gets out of bed before one.’

  In the corner, Izzie cracked up.

  ‘OK,’ said Jo. ‘Maybe your yob could get up a bit earlier today so that you get something out of the exercise.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. I got up, mimed having a fag, lay about, scratched a bit, watched telly and studied the others. Some people were really going for it. Bet they’re sorry they picked such overactive characters, I thought as I mimed having another fag.

  When we’d all finished our day, everyone had to say what character they’d been doing. Izzie, poor thing, had played her mum and had had to get up at six-thirty to go to work. She had her mum’s walk down really well though.

  ‘People think that acting is about learning lines,’ said Jo, ‘and to some degree of course, it is. But there’s so much more to it than that, which is why I wanted to start with this exercise. Think about it. Before someone has even opened their mouth, other people have made an assessment or a judgement. Why is it, we steer away from certain people on the street, others we feel are OK?’

  ‘Clothes, image,’ I said. ‘Your choice of style says a lot about you.’

  ‘Yes, but even more than that,’ said Jo. ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘Body language,’ said Jan, the white-haired lady.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Jo. ‘How people walk, how they sit, how they hold themselves, says infinitely more than what they choose to verbalise or choose to wear. In the same way, if you want to act, your audience has to know who your character is the second you walk on the stage, way before you begin to say your lines. It’s not enough to just put on a costume. You can’t just walk on as you in another person’s clothes and expect to be believed as someone else.’

  What Jo said was very true, I thought. One of the things I love doing is sitting in cafés watching people go by and I’ve always thought that you can tell so much about them by how they walk, whether they scrunch their shoulders up, if they stride or dawdle. Like even at school, without visuals, you can tell which teacher is coming along the corridor by the sound of their footsteps. Mrs Allen’s are really quick, confident, like she doesn’t have time to waste. Click, clack, click. Miss Watkins’ are slower, more considered, sort of ploddy, like she is. I’m going to really watch people and how they walk from now on, I decided, so that I can put it into practice for different roles in my acting career.

  After the ‘character’ exercise, we played some games where we had to close our eyes and wander round the room trying to work out where other people were by the sounds they made. At first I couldn’t see the point of it, but afterwards Jo explained that one of the first things you had to learn on stage was awareness of other actors. ‘So many people are so concerned about doing their bit, their moment in the spotlight, that they forget that they’re part of a team.’

  By the end of the class, I was well impressed. I felt I’d learned loads in just over an hour and still had much, much more to discover.

  ‘That was five quid well spent,’ I whispered to Izzie as we got our coats to leave at the end. She nodded and, as I turned to the windowsill to get my scarf, I was aware that someone had walked in behind us.

  Izzie nudged me. ‘Eyes left,’ she said. ‘Ding do-nnggg.’

  Ding dong is our new alert for when there’s talent around. Lucy’s brother Lal started it after he’d watched the movie, Carry On Nurse. Leslie Phillips plays a character called Jack Bell in the film and he says, ‘Ding dong’ whenever he sees someone he fancies. We’ve all started saying it now along with, ‘Oo, matron!’, an expression used by the character played by Kenneth Williams in later Carry On films. People at school think we’re mad, but we all think it’s hysterically funny especially if Mrs Allen is reading out something really serious and Lucy, TJ, Izzie and I all turn to each other and mouth, ‘Oo, matron!’

  I turned to see a boy going up to Jo. I couldn’t see his face, but from the back he had dark hair and was wearing a calf-length tweedy coat and a red scarf. Trained up as I was now, I could tell just by his body language that he was flustered. Izzie and I strained to hear what he was saying.

  ‘I’m so sorry’ he said. ‘I went to the wrong place. I thought the class was at the Institute so I went there then by the time I discovered I was in the wrong place, the class here had already started. I tried to get here, but I had to wait ages for a bus and . . .’

  Jo smiled at him. ‘No problem. At least now you know where we are for next week.’ She checked her list. ‘You must be . . . Luke.’

  ‘Yeah. Luke De Biasi.’

  ‘Well, it’s a bit late to introduce you now,’ said Jo indicating the rest of us, ‘as we’re all just leaving, but these are the people who will be in the class with you.’

  As Luke turned round to look at the group, I quickly turned away, so that he wouldn’t catch me staring. Izzie wasn’t as cool. She dug her elbow into my back and whispered, ‘Hubba hubba.’

  I couldn’t resist, so turned for a quick peek at him. When I saw his face, my peek became a look that lasted . . . and lasted . . . I couldn’t help it. I knew that I ought to look away, but something in his eyes held me like a magnet. Time slowed down and my heart seemed to speed up. It was like Luke and I were the only two people in the room. Finally I broke his gaze and ran.

  Ding dong: – talent in the vicinity.

  Hubba bubba: – cor! He’s tasty.

  Oo, matron!: – oo, er!

  Chapter 6

  Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Ugggggggggg. Arghhhhhhhhhhh. That’s all I can say, I thought, as I stared at my reflection in the wardrobe mirror before I got into bed later that night. Sometimes life is so unfair. Why, oh why would I have to see the boy of my dreams when I look like a tin opener? We haven’t even met properly. We haven’t even spoken and yet I know that he’s special. I felt like I’d seen him before, then I remembered where. TJ’s house. There’s a painting in their hall. TJ said it’s by a Pre-Raphaelite painter called Edward Burne-Jones and it’s called ‘The Tree of Forgiveness’. Anyway, Luke looks like the man in it. Dark eyes, high cheek bones, wide mouth and I loved the coat he wore to the drama class. It looked like vintage American, like the ones that men wore in old black and white movie classics. Really cool. I smiled at my reflection again. The killer shark from the film Jaws grimaced back at me. No. There was no getting away from it. I looked horrible. The girls may say I have other things going for me but, when I open my mouth, all you see is the brace. It’s like, you can have a huge fifty foot white wall but, if there’s one black dot on it, that’s what your eye will be drawn towards. So agh. Ug. Argh. And, as Izzie would say, poo.

  Luke. I could still see him in my mind’s eye. Aristocratic-looking. Roman-looking in fact. His name is Italian. Luke De Biasi. Probably called Luca at home. He was very good-looking, but more than that, and I know Izzie would laugh at me for saying it, he looked intelligent. He did. There was something in his eyes. And I don’t mean contact lenses.

  Anyway that’s the last time I’ll see him, I thought, because no way can I go back to that class if he’s going to be in it. I’ll have to wait a year and bump into him when I’ve had my brace off and can smile at people and talk to them again.

  Izzie said I was being stupid when I told her that I wasn’t going back. Honestly, and she has the cheek to say that I’m blunt sometimes. Calling me stupid. Huh! That’s not exactly tact city. She doesn’t understand. I could never relax in class knowing that he
was there, watching me, thinking nice face, shame about the metal munchers. No, I couldn’t possibly. I know that boys imagine snogging as well as girls, but I can’t believe that braces figure highly on the fave fantasy girl requirement list. Like: nice hair, good legs, great bod, attractive mouth, brace.

  I don’t know. Maybe I could go back to class. I could be a quiet member of the group. An observer. There to learn. I could be silent. Never open my mouth. I could be mysterious. Enigmatic.

  Hah! Who am I kidding? Gobby is my middle name.

  I spent a few minutes practising my closed mouth smile in the mirror as I considered my options.

  Forget him? Not an option.

  Postpone meeting him until the brace is removed? No. Can’t do that. He might have a girlfriend by then. Yikes. He might have a girlfriend now! Of course he might. Probably does. All the more reason for not postponing meeting him. I have to find out where I stand.

  Go to class but disguise the fact I have a brace in. Hhhmm. Maybe. Yes. I think that’s the best plan. Is it? Isn’t it? I know! I could get one of those head-to-toe tent dresses that some Muslim women wear to cover themselves. I could pretend I’m a new girl in class and I am Muslim. Yes! That’s it. No one would ever know. Izzie could just say that Nesta decided not to do the class any more, but another friend of hers has come instead. Her Muslim friend, Mustapha Bracein. Then I could watch him from inside my dress. Burkas, I think they’re called. Yeah. Brilliant idea. Or is it? Hhmm. Best sleep on it, I thought, I can’t decide now and if I try to, I think I may well blow a fuse in my brain.

  I woke up the next morning with the solution. Or solutions. Disguise, distraction and decoys. My first plan was to wear a balaclava not a burka. Tony’s got one for when he eventually gets to go skiing. He is funny. He knows Mum hasn’t got the money to pay for him to go and he hasn’t got any of the really expensive equipment he needs, but he has got a balaclava. Izzie told him that he had to start somewhere and that sometimes if you make a symbolic step towards your goal/dream or whatever, the universe conspires to make it happen. Yeah, right. Mystic Izzie. She’s bonkers. Anyway, Tony let me borrow his strange but symbolic woolly hat, but sadly it didn’t go down too well at school.