by H. Y. Hanna
“They were almost like furry caterpillars,” said Ethel. “I once mistook them for woolly bear caterpillars when he and June were visiting, and we were sitting out in the garden. I nearly sprayed some BugClear on his face before I realised.”
“Bill was always very sensitive about his eyebrows,” said Glenda in a hushed voice. “He felt that he was ridiculed and laughed at wherever he went, and it put him at a disadvantage in his career and community positions. So he decided to set up a support group to help others like him.”
“A support group for people with bushy eyebrows,” I said, not quite believing my ears.
Ethel nodded eagerly. “Oh, he had great ambitions for it. He hoped to promote awareness of the special needs of those with bushy eyebrows and even raise funds to provide scholarships for young men and women of certain eyebrow thickness.” She screwed up her face in an effort to remember. “I think it had to be over half an inch thick to qualify.”
I burst out laughing. “What? That’s the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever…” I trailed off as the Old Biddies frowned at me.
“It may be a little silly, dear, but it’s important to June,” said Mabel, glowering at me.
Glenda sighed. “She misses Bill terribly and this is her last connection with him. If she can keep the support group going, then she feels like she’s keeping him alive too, in some way. Isn’t that romantic?”
“But the support group never quite took off, even when Bill was alive,” said Florence sadly.
“I even made my Henry become an honorary member, though his eyebrows are really quite sparse,” said Mabel. “But B.E.A.S.T. has been struggling over the years and now with Bill gone, it’s in danger of fading away completely.”
“But not if we win the grand prize in this talent show!” said Ethel. “June is sure there would be more members if only people knew about the group. She wants to print leaflets and make badges and do other… other promotions, you see, to raise awareness for B.E.A.S.T. But she needs money to do all that—that’s why she came up with the idea of a granny band! She saw the advertisements about the Open Auditions—”
“—and asked us if we would join her band!” finished Glenda, beaming. She fluffed her white hair. “I’ve always rather fancied myself as a rock chicken.”
Well, it seemed that the judges and the TV audience fancied the idea of ageing “rock chickens” too because—over the next two weeks—the Pussy Puffs sailed through the early rounds of the competition. Five contestants were eliminated in the live shows each week, so that the initial twenty were whittled down to ten semi-finalists, and to my utter astonishment, the Old Biddies and June were among them. Somehow the nation loved them, and there were even whispers that the “granny band” might be in with a chance to win the contest…
***
Which is how I found myself wandering backstage at the new Oxford Concert Hall three weeks later, looking for the contestants’ Waiting Area. It seemed a bit crazy that I had been catering for the show for over three weeks now and I still didn’t really know my way around, but so far, most of the time, I had simply dropped off the food at the Concert Hall kitchen and rushed back to the tearoom.
Against Cassie’s advice, I’d decided to keep the Little Stables open while also catering for the show and now, three weeks later, I had to admit that it had been a mistake. Dora, Cassie, and I had been run off our feet, with crazily early mornings and exhausting late nights, trying to fulfil the orders and keep normal business running at the same time. Two days ago, after stern words from Cassie, I’d finally had to admit defeat and decided to close the tearoom for the remaining duration of the show. It had been so much more relaxed since then, that I wished I’d listened to her earlier!
So now, with no need to rush back to Meadowford, I decided to indulge my curiosity and see what it was like backstage. In particular, I was keen to see the Old Biddies and how they were getting on. I knew that all the semi-finalists would be here today, rehearsing for the big Semi-Finals show tomorrow. In contrast to other shows, which had been accused of setting up contestants to be stressed and humiliated in order to create artificial drama for TV, Monty Gibbs had wanted his image to be kindly and magnanimous. So, before each round of performances, he had been giving his contestants the opportunity to prep their acts in situ before the big day.
The reality, of course, was that the shrewd little businessman wasn’t just being generous—he knew that with so many nervous and competitive contestants crammed together, all desperate for their turn to rehearse on stage, there would be more than enough drama and conflict to go around. Which is exactly what had happened. And since Monty Gibbs had cleverly arranged for a separate roving camera crew to shadow the contestants, all the petty squabbles and jealous tantrums had been captured for viewers to enjoy in the televised episodes each week. It was a formula that he had come up with for the show’s first season and it had proved such a hit that he was repeating it for the second.
Oh yeah, the man is a master of milking drama for monetary gain, even while appearing to be virtuously above such manipulative practices, I thought. Then I paused as I rounded the corner and heard the sound of shrill voices raised in anger. Hmm… it sounds like there’s some drama going on now.
The voices were coming from one of the rooms off the main corridor—a dressing room filled with a row of chairs before mirrors framed with lightbulbs. I caught sight of two women through the open doorway. I vaguely recognised them as two of the contestants: Lara, a voluptuous redhead in her late thirties with a sultry voice and improbably big breasts, and Nicole, a quiet, intense young woman who played the piano. Lara was standing with a hand on her hip, a cocky smile on her face as she addressed the younger woman.
“…nothing like the challenge of a married man,” she purred. “Seducing him and watching him lie to his wife, just so he can meet you for a sweaty hour in a seedy motel…” She laughed, a deep, sensual sound. “And it’s especially thrilling when they throw it all away—their wives, their kids, their safe home life—just to be with you. There’s no feeling of power like it! I once had this chap leave his wife and son on Christmas Day—can you believe it? I waited until I knew they were about to eat Christmas lunch, then I rang him and told him he had to walk out on them and come away with me immediately—or never see me again.” She gave a self-satisfied smile. “Guess what? He came. Didn’t even say goodbye to his five-year-old son. And that’s not even as bad as the guy who left his pregnant wife while she was in labour to sneak out of the hospital and meet me for lunch and a little bit… extra,” she giggled. “Just think—it was their first baby and he should have been by her side; instead he was busy shagging me!”
“You’re disgusting!” Nicole said, her face pale. “I can’t believe you’re just standing there, proud of saying those things. It’s… it’s despicable! There are loads of single men out there—why can’t you leave the married ones alone? Don’t you realise how much their families must suffer?”
Lara tossed her head. “It’s not my problem if the wives can’t hold on to their husbands. They should blame themselves. Who told them to turn into fat frumps with nothing to offer but constant nagging and boring sex?”
“How dare you!” cried Nicole. “They’re… they’re bringing up their children and cooking and cleaning… and they’re tired and stressed… They can’t be expected to look like… like sex kittens all the time just to keep their husbands happy—”
“Well, then they shouldn’t whinge when their men run off to shag someone else.”
“You cold-hearted witch!” Nicole’s eyes smouldered as her hands clenched into fists. “It’s women like you who ruin people’s lives. You think you’re so smug now but… but someday you’ll live to regret it! Someday, someone will make you pay!”
“Ohhh, I feel so scared now,” laughed Lara with a fake shiver.
Nicole flushed bright red and, with a shriek of fury, she launched herself at the other woman, her hands reaching for her neck.
“You… you… AAAARRGGHHH!”
CHAPTER TWO
The two women fell to the ground in a tangle of thrashing arms and legs. I stared in horror as they wrestled and fought, screeching like banshees. Nicole had her fingers around Lara’s neck, squeezing hard, her eyes burning with hatred, while the redhead gasped and choked, trying to claw her hands away. Then, somehow, Lara managed to twist her body and tear free of Nicole’s grasp; she grabbed the pianist’s hair and yanked hard, twisting cruelly and causing the younger woman to shriek in pain.
“Stop!” I cried, rushing into the room. To my surprise, it was bigger than I’d thought, and a man and woman were tucked in the far corner: he had a video camera clamped on one eye and she hovered next to him, clutching a clipboard.
“Can you get them both in the frame?” she was asking.
“Yeah… but I think a close-up would be better…” he mumbled, approaching the fighting women.
I couldn’t believe my ears. “Aren’t you going to stop them?” I demanded. “They could hurt each other!”
“Ooh, that’s an idea, Jeff,” said the woman with the clipboard. “If either of them end up going to hospital, make sure you ride in the ambulance with them—”
“What?” I started to say something else, then thought better of it. Instead, I whirled and rushed over to Lara and Nicole. “Stop it! Stop it, the two of you!”
I pulled them apart and they faced each other like hissing, spitting cats, their chests heaving, their hair wild. I was relieved to see, though, that neither seemed to have serious injuries other than a few scratches and bruises.
“Keep rolling!” the woman with the clipboard hissed to the cameraman.
However, her voice seemed to bring Nicole to her senses. The pianist looked around and a mortified expression crossed her face as she saw the cameraman. She put a dazed hand up to her forehead, groping at her hair, which had come loose from its tight bun.
“I… I don’t know what came over me…” she mumbled. “I… um… I need to go and get ready for my act…” Stumbling backwards, she turned and ran out of the room.
Lara was shaken as well, but she recovered quicker than Nicole and, when she noticed the camera on her, she brightened and leaned forwards surreptitiously, so that her open top displayed more of her cleavage.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Fine, fine,” she said airily, tossing her hair. “Maybe that will teach that uptight little cow not to pick on me in the future.” She blew a kiss at the camera, then sashayed out of the room.
“And… CUT!” said the woman with the clipboard. She frowned at me. “What did you think you were doing, barging in like that? That was some great footage there and you ruined it.”
“They could have hurt each other! How could you just stand there and watch?”
She shrugged. “My instructions from the boss are clear: we don’t intervene with anything the contestants are doing—we just film them.” She wagged a finger at me. “What we had there was great TV! And you had to go and ruin it with your Little Miss Policewoman act.”
“I—” I couldn’t believe that she was making me feel defensive for what I’d done. “That’s crazy! You can’t let people hurt each other just for the sake of ‘great TV’!”
“Welcome to the real world—or rather, the reality TV world,” said the woman with a harsh laugh. She glanced at her watch, then said to the cameraman: “I need a quick ciggie break. Then we’d better go and cover that magician chap.”
“Right-o,” said the cameraman, lowering his machine and reaching in his own pockets for a packet of cigarettes.
Without another glance at me, they left the room and disappeared down the corridor. I stood fuming for a moment, then stomped off in the direction of the Waiting Area. There, I found the air thick with tension as the various contestants camped out in different parts of the room feverishly practised their acts. Slowly, I began to make my way through them, looking for a group of little old ladies. I dodged around a teenage boy practising hip hop dance moves and skirted a woman energetically manipulating a puppet, only to bump into a collie walking backwards, balanced on its hind legs.
“Oi—watch it!” his owner snarled. “He was almost at the end of that sequence! Now you’ve broken the flow. Do you realise how difficult it is to reverse chain the choreography?”
“Sorry!” I said, facing a thin woman with cold blue eyes. “I’m really sorry.”
This must be Trish and Skip, the “dog dancing” duo, I realised. I remembered seeing this woman and her dog in one of the many show trailers being broadcast on TV and shared across social media. The producers had attempted to do one of those “warm, fuzzy” interviews of pup and owner, but Trish Bingham had been dour and unresponsive. She had struck me then as an odd, hostile woman and I had to admit, meeting her in person didn’t do much to change that impression.
She scowled at me. “It’s taken me months to teach Skip the sequence—I don’t need you messing it up for us at the last minute.”
“I’m sorry—it was an accident. I just didn’t see him,” I said, starting to feel annoyed now. How many times did I have to apologise?
Then my heart softened as I looked down at the collie, who wagged his plumed tail and opened his mouth in a wide doggie grin. I crouched down to pat him, thinking that Trish was lucky: her handsome canine partner more than made up for her lack of charm.
Leaving the unfriendly woman calling her dog to Heel once more, I continued across the room, carefully skirting around a tense-looking woman with a pair of identical twin girls, and also a young man in a black cape, nervously trying to shuffle some playing cards. By the time I finally spotted the Old Biddies, I felt like I was walking on eggshells and I was relieved to find that they, at least, didn’t seem to be unduly stressed. They were chatting to an elderly lady wearing large horn-rimmed glasses, whom I recognised as their friend, June Driscoll.
“Gemma, dear—how nice to see you!” said Glenda as I joined them. She smoothed down her outfit. “What do you think of our new costumes? How do we look?”
“Er…” I stared at them, torn between honesty and politeness. “Um… you look… er… very eye-catching.”
They looked hideous. For some reason, the Old Biddies had decided to take to the stage in replicas of Elvis Presley’s white jumpsuit, complete with flared hems, huge upturned collars, and hundreds of fake precious stones stitched to the fabric.
“Do you think there are enough rhinestones?” asked Florence. “We wanted to make sure that we really sparkle on stage.”
“Oh, don’t worry—you’ll definitely sparkle,” I said, thinking that any more embellishments and the judges were likely to be blinded.
“I stitched on some extra stones myself,” said June proudly.
“I still think some lace doily on the sleeves and collar would have looked nicer,” muttered Ethel with a sulky look.
“No, no, we discussed this, remember? We’re saving lace doily for our last costume for the Finals,” said Mabel. “We need to have something that will really wow the audience.”
“Er… do you think you’ll make it through to the Finals?” I asked, surprised.
“We must!” said June. “I can’t go home without the prize money—it’s the only hope for keeping B.E.A.S.T. alive!”
“It is going to be very hard competing against the twins though,” said Glenda, with a doubtful look across the room at the two little girls. “They do dance beautifully and look so adorable. My great-nephew Mike told me that the bookmakers have Molly and Polly down as the favourites to win the competition. They always have the highest number of public votes, by a wide margin.”
June looked indignant. “They might be cute but we have public appeal too! People love to see feisty old grannies. We might have slightly fewer votes but I’m sure we’re not far behind. Surely, we must be in second place in the polls?”
“No, actually, that… er… lady, Lara, is in second place,” said Glenda, stumbl
ing slightly over the word “lady”.
“Lara?” June screwed her face up. “That horrid woman? How on earth can people be voting for her?”
“Well, she is very sexy, dear, and she does have a wonderful voice. Her rendition of ‘Feeling Good’ in the last round got a standing ovation from the audience.”
“She’s an awful person! Did you hear her making fun of poor Mr Ziegler last week? She was jeering at him as he was warming up for his routine and saying the most nasty things.”
“Who’s Mr Ziegler?” I asked.
“He’s the Yodelling Plumber, dear,” Florence explained. She cocked her head. “Listen, he’s on stage rehearsing now—can you hear him?”
I realised suddenly that the strange ululating sound I’d been hearing in the background was a man’s voice warbling up and down, accompanied by the occasional whoosh of water that sounded like a toilet flushing.
“He’s ever so clever.” Ethel beamed. “He yodels while fixing leaks and blockages, and he’s made a contraption of pipes and drains that he can take on stage with him, to provide water sound effects.”
“Yes, although he does leave terrible puddles on the stage,” said Mabel, sniffing disapprovingly. “The last time we had to rehearse after him, we nearly slipped in all the soapy water.”
“Wow… he’s doing pretty well to make it so far into the competition. I mean, yodelling is a bit of an acquired taste, isn’t it? Once the novelty wears off, I wouldn’t have thought most people would like it that much,” I said, wincing slightly as the yo-yoing voice began to get a bit loud and repetitive.
“The judges like him,” said June. “That’s why he made it through the last round, even though he didn’t have a lot of public votes.” Her face turned serious. “Hmm… that’s something to remember. The focus is always on the public votes but one must never underestimate the influence of the judges. Still, Ziegler isn’t the competition we have to worry about. It’s Lara and the twins…” she continued, pursing her lips and scanning the rest of the room. Then her gaze lit on Trish and Skip, and her eyes narrowed. “And that lady with the dog—they’re very popular with the audience… They could be a serious threat.”
