‘No way, Lexia. There’s no way you’re going to any audition in London for TheBest.’
‘It’s not in London,’ Lexia tutted crossly. ‘I told you, it’s the local heats in Manchester. You don’t begin in London, that’s just daft.’
‘Mum?’ Pandora glanced across at Helen Sutherland who was curled, foetus-like, in the brown leather armchair Patrick had always favoured, had always sat in when he was at home and watching TV or reading, peering in some frustration at the print, too vain to admit he needed glasses. Helen ignored Pandora, pressing her nose into the battered leather in an attempt to find Patrick’s scent. ‘Mum? Come on, you need to make the decision; I’m not Lexia’s mother. She’s only fifteen – far too young to be heading off to Manchester by herself.’
‘What is it you want to do, Lexi, darling? Sing? Of course you must sing.’ Helen’s words slurred slightly, a result of the heavy medication she’d been prescribed. ‘I was singing in the pubs and nightclubs in London when I was your age. You have a beautiful voice, darling. Just like me. You know, I’d been invited to do several gigs in Cambridge when I wasn’t that much older than you. It was where I met…’
‘Mum,’ Pandora snapped crossly. ‘We know the story of how you met Dad. And you were much older than fifteen. You were…’ Pandora stopped, trying to work out exactly how old her mother must have been when she’d first set eyes on Patrick. ‘You must have been at least twenty.’
‘I don’t think I was, Pandora…’ Helen trailed off as her full bottom lip began to tremble and the beautiful doe-like eyes filled with unshed tears.
‘Mum, just tell Lexia she’s too young. She has school. Anyway,’ Pandora went on, ‘I’m sure you really are too young, Lexia. I’m sure you have to be at least sixteen, maybe even eighteen to enter these things. God, I hate these reality shows,’ she added for good measure.
‘It’s on a Saturday, so you don’t have to worry about me missing lessons, and Dad says I can go. He’s in Manchester and he says he’ll take me, meet me off the train and go with me.’
‘Daddy did? Your daddy said so?’ Helen sat up, staring at Lexia.
‘Hmm,’ Lexia lied, not looking at her mother or Pandora. She had rung her father loads of times, leaving messages on the answer machine in his flat in the up and coming area of Didsbury. He’d not returned any of her calls but, a couple of days ago, the last time she’d attempted to contact him, Anichka had picked up the phone. Having built Anichka up into some sort of illiterate Russian pole dancer that Patrick had picked up in one of the seedier nightclubs of Manchester, Lexia had been unprepared, shocked even, for the response once the phone was answered. The cultured voice was that of a young woman but with only the slightest of accents and, while Anichka was obviously somewhat nervous at having this initial conversation with Patrick’s youngest daughter, she said she was pleased that Lexia had made contact but unfortunately Patrick was away for a couple of weeks, promoting his new book, a biography of the poet Sappho, in the States.
‘That’s just typical of Dad,’ Pandora had fumed when Lexia had related the conversation to Pandora in a whisper while their mother, still curled up in the armchair, had suddenly fallen asleep. ‘Writing about lesbians and kinky sex, for heaven’s sake.’
While Lexia had no idea who or what Sappho was, and was totally clueless as to whether the said Sappho – she’d blushed an adolescent pink at Pandora’s words – was either a lesbian, kinky or even both, she kept to herself the bit – in truth, the very big bit – in the conversation where Anichka added that she too would have been in America with Patrick, had it not been so difficult to find an airline willing to insure a six-and-a-half-months’ pregnant woman.
Lexia had put the phone down, gone up to the attic and cried buckets at that. Her dad was going to have another child. She wouldn’t be the youngest, his favourite, anymore.
‘And Dad says he’ll meet you at Piccadilly and accompany you to this thing?’ Pandora was asking in a whisper, not wanting to wake Helen who’d fallen asleep once more. ‘He’ll be responsible for you?’
‘Hmm, I said.’ Lexia outstared Pandora.
‘Well, I’m not ringing him to check,’ Pandora snapped. ‘Not only do I not know his new phone number – or want to know it, mind – I’m not speaking to him.’ Just a few weeks pregnant with her first child, Pandora suddenly felt an overwhelming tiredness and need to be at home. In her own home, lying down on her own bed. ‘If that decision’s been made,’ she went on, ‘and I tell you now, Lexia, I think it’s a totally wrong decision – you’re far too young to be entering competitions like this – then it’s out of my hands. Nothing to do with me. I wash my hands of the whole ridiculous thing.’
*
While, in truth, Patrick Sutherland might not be waiting to accompany her from Piccadilly train station down to the TheBest regional auditions at the newly opened Lowry theatre in the Salford Quays, Lexia certainly wasn’t alone. It had been Damian St Claire’s suggestion, after hearing her impromptu debut performance at the Ambassador Club on the Tuesday lunchtime, that she must, she just had to, sign up for an audition.
‘Babe,’ he’d almost crooned, as Lexia, blushing, shaking and yet triumphant, had walked off the stage and back to where Damian was lighting a cigarette with a gold lighter, ‘you are going to be one very big star.’
‘Mr Scascetti’ll want first dibs at this one,’ the barman said warningly, frowning at Damian. ‘You take your life into your own hands, mate, if you keep this one to yourself.’
‘Well, he’s not here, is he?’ Damian said, smiling at Lexia and ordering her another coke. ‘Right, babe, let’s check when and where the regional auditions for TheBest are happening. Anytime now, I know. If we’ve missed Manchester, we can always try Nottingham or Leicester.’
*
Lexia made sure her mum had taken all her medication despite Helen saying she was fine, she didn’t need her pills anymore. Once Lexia had announced she’d been in touch with her dad, that he would be meeting her off the train in Manchester and was going with her to the TheBest auditions, Helen had perked up, convinced that this was a first step to his coming back to her and the family in Midhope. Patrick, she confided to Lexia over the burned omelette she’d made a big effort to cook for Lexia the previous evening, would soon tire of this, this, Russian trollop. He’d soon be back where he belonged.
Not if the Russian trollop is seven months pregnant, Lexia thought crossly. She was glad her dad wasn’t meeting her, that he had absolutely no idea of her dreams to be even better than Holly Valance, that he was away in America somewhere with some lesbian poet. She didn’t need him. She had Damien, who’d arranged it all for her and was going to be accompanying her as her agent. Her agent. She had an agent.
‘Get some makeup on, babe,’ he’d said on the phone the day after her singing debut at the Ambassador. ‘And some sexy clothes. You have to be seventeen to enter and I know you’re only sixteen. I’ve got the forms here and I’ve filled them in for you. Just need a parental signature to say you’re seventeen and have their permission to enter.’ Lexia had given Damian her address and he’d called round the next evening when she knew Pandora wouldn’t be there to question him and put a spoke in the wheel. That was the problem with Pandora being a solicitor: she questioned everything. Mind you, Lexia thought to herself as she recalled Damian’s streaked-blonde hair and devastating eyes, she bet anything if Pandora met him she’d think he was pretty hot too. Compared to old Tricky Dicky, anyone would be hot.
Damian had come round to their house after supper, explained to her mum that Mr Scascetti at the Ambassador Club had heard Lexia sing and was convinced she’d be a star like Avril Black. Lexia had been a bit confused at this point – wasn’t Joe Scascetti away in Jamaica or somewhere? – but, she thought to herself, maybe he was back and he was going to be there in Manchester too? Helen Sutherland had been more than happy to sign the consent forms, taking a pen and, with the same hand she’d practised over and over again in readiness for signing her one contract with that record deal thirty years earlier, had written her signature with a flourish. ‘Now, do tell Daddy when you see him on Saturday that I am so much better and I’ve forgiven him. He can come home now, the poor darling.’
Damian had looked at Lexia in some confusion but, standing behind the brown leather chair, she’d shaken her head at him at the same time as patting her mother’s shoulder.
*
So here she was, on a wet, foggy early November morning waiting at the bus stop for the double-decker to take her down to Midhope train station where she’d arranged to meet Damian. And possibly Joe Scascetti? Pandora had said she’d come over and drive her down to the station, but then she’d rung to say she wasn’t feeling well, was being sick, and unfortunately Richard couldn’t come over in her stead as he was still away with work in China, as he so very often was, and could Lexia get the bus down instead?
Lexia had been up since six, willing the temperamental boiler to work a bit faster so that she could wash and condition her hair into a shiny semblance of Holly Valance’s. She’d gone through everything in her – let’s face it, limited – wardrobe, had tried various pieces of underwear and nightwear from her mum’s top drawer in an effort to copy the skimpy outfit she’d seen Holly Valance wearing on Top of The Pops but had rejected them all, realising she just looked like a little girl in her mum’s nightie.
In the end, she’d pulled on pink cargo pants and her favourite pink Juicy Couture top that Juno had posted down from Aberdeen for her fifteenth birthday. She spent ages on her makeup, copying the eyeshadow and blusher Holly was wearing in a photo in Smash Hits and then she’d left the house after laying the breakfast table with juice, cereal, bowl and spoon to encourage her mum to eat something alongside the drugs she’d been prescribed. Lexia knew to leave out only the daily allocation of pills, hiding the full bottles and packets in a cupboard that she and Pandora had decided upon, weeks before.
At eight o’clock on a Saturday morning Midhope train station was quiet – just a handful of people, resentful at having to work at the weekend, making the short journey to Leeds, or the slightly longer one across the Pennines to Manchester. There was no sign of Damian on the steps of the station where they’d arranged to meet, and certainly no indication that any of the other passengers, reading newspapers, queuing for tickets or simply standing looking bored, could be Joe Scascetti. Lexia looked at the departure board and saw that there was a train to Liverpool, calling at Manchester Piccadilly, five minutes later.
‘Hi, babe, I’m here.’ Damian kissed Lexia’s cheek briefly before heading for the ticket queue, and she watched as he talked with the ticket master, laughing at some comment he’d made as he glanced over at Lexia herself. He was so lovely; so tall and gorgeous. She was so lucky to have this twenty-three-year-old helping her to become famous.
‘You are looking hot.’ Damian grinned down at her. ‘Let me see what you’re wearing under your coat.’ He frowned slightly. ‘You’d probably have been better in a short skirt, but never mind. Too late. Now, have you been practising, sucking—’ he gave her a wink which she didn’t really get ‘—on those cough sweets I gave you?’
Lexia nodded, too in awe of this gorgeous man to do little else. On the train Damian bought her a coffee, told her all about the band he was in that was just about to hit the big time – a record deal was imminent – and then asked her more about her family.
‘Is your mum OK? You know, right in the head? She seemed a bit spaced out the other day when I was round at your place.’
Lexia felt a pang of hurt, somewhere in the region of her tummy, that anyone should think her mother wasn’t like other mothers. ‘She’s fine.’ Lexia tried to smile. ‘She’s just going through a bit of a bad time with my dad away at the moment. He’s a Classics professor at Manchester University,’ she boasted, ‘but away in the States for a while.’ No way was she admitting to anyone that her dad had moved out and left them. That he hadn’t loved her enough to stay. That he obviously thought it OK to leave her to look after her mum by herself.
*
Lexia was bitterly disappointed to realise she wouldn’t be singing in front of the four judges who habitually sat on the judging panel of TheBest on TV. She’d been desperate to sing in front of the curmudgeonly Steve Silverton who had discovered and taken on numerous boybands over the past ten years, as well as Kika Everton, one of her favourite singers, who was also judging this year’s competition. Even Damian had thought that would be the case.
‘’Fraid not,’ one of the black T-shirted admin workers frowned, obviously fed up with explaining the reality yet again of the day’s initial proceedings. ‘You’ll be given a couple of minutes to show us what you can do and then, if you’re any good, we’ll ask you to come back here again to Manchester for the regional rounds in front of the judges.’
‘So, the judges aren’t actually here?’ Lexia whispered, catching hold of Damian’s sleeve.
‘Bollocks, it doesn’t look like it. I need a fag… Just hang on here, don’t lose our place in the queue.’
Four hours later, it was Lexia’s turn to leave the rain-soaked queue snaking round the outside of the Lowry and actually enter the building itself. She’d spent a lot of that time just standing patiently by herself. Damian had a couple of mates in Manchester to catch up with, he’d said, leaving her to her own devices. She was hungry, having missed breakfast, but far too nervous to leave her place in the queue to find something to eat.
Another two hours and she was called forwards.
‘Right, love, you’ve got all the forms filled out?’ The admin guy – a totally different one this time with SAM printed in large black letters on his lanyard – didn’t look up as Damian handed them over and Lexia was directed to a mike in the centre of the room. ‘Right, go for it.’
The lack of any musical accompaniment didn’t worry her at all. Lexia did indeed go for it, closing her eyes and belting out the same Holly Valance number she’d performed at the Ambassador Club earlier in the week.
‘OK, OK, stop… that’s fine.’ Lexia opened her eyes to see the admin guy staring at her. And then smiling. ‘Wow. Simply wow. That is some voice.’ He continued to stare, scrutinising Lexia’s face, taking in every aspect of her. He looked down at the application form and then back up at her.
‘You’re seventeen?’
‘Hmm.’ Lexia felt herself redden.
‘You do know you have to be seventeen by the end of the current year in order to take part?’
Lexia nodded.
‘So, what year were you born?’
Lexia froze, her panicked brain unable to subtract seventeen from 2002. The silence stretched into the distance as she desperately tried the alternative method of adding two years to her correct birth year. ‘1988,’ she finally managed to stutter.
‘That makes you just fourteen.’ He smiled with a modicum of sympathy at her, but shot a look of distaste at Damian. ‘Lexia, you’ve got one hell of a voice, I really mean that. You’d have been through to the regional auditions here in Manchester like a shot if you were seventeen. I assume you’re sixteen? We check all birth certificates of those who we call back, so you’d have been found out then anyhow. Go away, come back next year when you’re seventeen.’ He turned to his assistant who was looking at the file in front of her, obviously marking off names. ‘Tell the next one to come in, Zainab.’
*
‘I need a drink.’ Damian slammed out of the glass doors of the Lowry, marching forward at such a pace that Lexia had to actually run along the pavement, her best Nikes splashing through the puddles as she attempted to keep up with him.
‘Can you hang on? Damian, wait, I’ve got stitch.’
He slowed down to a walk and then, scowling, turned to wait for her. ‘Mental maths obviously not your best subject at school then?’
‘I don’t seem to be really good at anything at school,’ she panted sadly, bending over to stop the stitch. ‘Apart from singing.’
‘Well, I need a drink. Or a spliff. There’s no point in trying to get you into a pub, is there?’
Lexia felt the tears well as Damian stood in front of her, glaring down at her. And then he smiled. ‘Not your fault, I suppose.’ He slung an arm around her shoulder. ‘Come on, my mate lives two minutes away. He’ll give us a drink.’ She cuddled up to him, pleased that he seemed less cross with her and, as she did so, felt his hand reach under her Juicy Couture top, his fingers moving exploratively as they walked.