The Little Christmas Kitchen (26 page)

Contemporary pop wasn’t Maddy’s forte. For one, she was a rubbish dancer – and while she could belt out a Mariah Carey or Christina Aguilera for fun in the shower, her voice was all gravelly emotion and frayed edges. ‘Yeah I suppose so. Urm, what about Amy Winehouse.’

Rollo made a gun with his hand and pretended to fire a shot at her, ‘Perfect.’

Maddy edged her way nervously to the side of the stage, hearing the chatter quieten as people looked up and started to watch her.

‘You gotta climb up.’ the girl hanging the drapes shouted. ‘There are no steps yet.’

Maddy winced. Then as demurely as she could, hoisted her knee up and hauled herself up onto the stage, her trousers getting marked with chalk and dust.

‘Can you stand on the cross in the middle, honey.’ a guy behind a camera shouted. ‘No not that one. That one.’ he added, exasperated as Maddy moved between crosses, none of which seemed to be in the middle.

Her brain was still trying to catch up with her body. How was this happening? She was suddenly standing on a stage about to audition for a girl group in front of loads of record execs. Her hands were shaking.
Come on, Maddy. This is what you wanted
. She looked at the girls, one dressed in a multi-coloured crop top, lycra leggings and Nike hi-tops, the other in a vintage prom dress and the Spanish girl was in a black pant suit with huge fluorescent jewellery. They were like One Direction Spice Girls. Who would Maddy be? The old, out of place one? The idea of her actually being in this group made her smile to herself – it was so ridiculous, and that thought immediately relaxed her.

Standing on her cross she looked out at the impassive crowd.

‘I’m er going to sing
Back to Black
by Amy Winehouse.’ she half shouted.

She saw one of the women watching lean over to the guy sitting next to her and whisper something, making him snigger.

‘Jez can you light her?’ Clarissa with the clipboard shouted and suddenly the spots on the lighting rig flared to life almost blinding Maddy where she stood. ‘Great, thanks, perfect.’ Clarissa did a thumbs up to the back of the room. ‘When you’re ready, Mandy.’

‘Maddy. It’s Maddy.’ Maddy said but Clarissa was already doing something else.

So Maddy coughed, brushed down some of the dust on her trousers, looked up over the heads of the people watching and out at nothing, trying to imagine she was in Dimitri’s bar wearing her shorts and flip flops, her hair still damp from the shower, her skin freckled from the sun, bottle of Evian on the table next to her, bottle of retsina waiting in the fridge.

She could hear the waver in her voice when she started. Thought about starting again but carried on. Nerves made her slightly off key and she was suddenly far too aware of what to do with her hands with no mic and no guitar.

She battled through the song but knew it was terrible. Embarrassingly so. The workmen banging in the background kept distracting her and Clarissa and Rollo had a really loud conversation mid-way through. All she could think was that she was glad her dad and Veronica weren’t there.

When Rollo’s mobile rang and a couple of the crew started to build the staircase up to the stage she decided to put herself out of her misery and cut it off. Running her hand through her hair she stood waiting for someone to say something. Feeling naked. Foolish. Mortified that she’d been watched by all these industry professionals.

‘Honey can you show us your dancing?’ Clarissa called out over the drilling of the men putting the staircase together.

‘Oh no I can’t dance.’ Maddy said.

Clarissa frowned.

‘Sure she can.’ said Rollo, his hand over the mouthpiece of his phone. ‘Just bob around and do something, everyone can dance. We just need to see that you can move. Jez, put some music on.’

The French rap blared out again.

‘Very funny. Not that crap. Something she can dance to.’

Maddy felt like she was in some sort of nightmare. Last time she danced had been the Easter festival when she’d got so pissed she couldn’t say no when Dimitri and his friends had bet her fifty quid to dance Gangnam-style. The resulting effort had been videoed and screened in the taverna the next day while Maddy was lying on the cool tiles at the back trying not to be sick.

‘Seriously I can’t dance.’

‘She says she can’t dance, Rollo.’

‘Can one of them not dance?’ he shrugged. ‘Like Posh Spice?’

‘No.’ Clarissa shook her head.

Lady Gaga boomed out of the speakers.

‘Maddy, just do something. Pretend you’re at a club.’ Rollo sounded like he was getting annoyed. People in the audience were shifting uncomfortably in their seats. The Topshop girls were whispering, dubiously.

Maddy closed her eyes and started to shuffle her feet from side to side. Then her arms.

‘That’s it. Good girl.’ Rollo shouted.

Dying inside, wishing she was on her balcony again in the snow, feet up, singing soft lullabies while her neighbour listened, Maddy carried on moving. Shuffling and side-stepping and trying to do interesting things with her arms without looking like she was writhing in pain.

‘Ok that’s enough.’ Rollo called in the end and she saw the interns cringing. ‘Come down here, Maddy.’

Maddy sloped off the stage, feeling the amused glances of Rollo’s staff follow her as she went to stand next to him, Clarissa jogging over behind her with her clipboard.

‘I like her.’ Rollo said to Clarissa. ‘I like her look. It’s different to the others and–’ He shrugged. ‘She’s definitely got something.’

‘The dancing is a problem. We can fix the singing, that’s fine, but she’s definitely not a natural mover.’

‘She has good hair,’ said a woman with a bright purple crop who’d been in the group watching and had strutted over to join them. ‘And you’re right about the whole gap-tooth thing. I think she has a look.’

Maddy went to say something but Clarissa just talked over her. ‘You can definitely tell she’s older than the others though.’ she said. ‘I mean do you see that as a problem, Rollo?’

He made a face. ‘I don’t know. I think we could get away with it, with the right styling. It could even work in our favour.’

‘We just need to let something slip about her and Harry Styles.’ the purple-haired stylist said, and Rollo boomed a laugh.

‘Yeah, perfect. Love it.’ he drawled. ‘I think she could definitely work.’

Maddy was perplexed. No one had spoken to her and she felt like wheels were in motion that she couldn’t stop.

But this was the dream, wasn’t it? The blinding lights, centre stage? Styled, primped, made over? This was her as Ginger Spice dancing in the kitchen. This was why she was here.

‘And I mean, if we have to take her–’ Clarissa shrugged. ‘It could be worse!’

Rollo shrugged, distracted by his phone bleeping.

‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’ Maddy asked, taking a step forward.

They ignored her.

‘Excuse me.’ She tapped Clarissa on the shoulder. ‘What did you just say?’

‘When?’ Clarissa asked, already focused on the next item on her clipboard.

‘Just then–’ Maddy said, feeling her cheeks getting hot. ‘If we
have
to take her.’

‘Oh nothing.’ Clarissa waved the question away and trotted over to where the interns were standing around attempting to look busy.

The purple-haired stylist was checking her lipstick in a compact and when Maddy asked her the same question she said, ‘I don’t know the ins and outs, sweetheart. Rollo just announced yesterday that the trio were going to be a foursome. God knows why, four never works. Look, can you pop by the dressing room before you leave, I need to fit you. I’ve got a lovely little pair of leather leggings that I think would work, they just might be a bit small. We can work on your weight though. Christ, I am dying for a cup of tea.’ She snapped the compact shut and with a quick fake smile, strutted away in the direction of the tea urn.

Maddy stood watching Rollo as he talked into his phone. Waiting.

The other girls in the group were huddled together throwing her less than friendly sidelong stares.

What must they all be thinking? She could hardly bear it.

‘Rollo?’

He held up a hand to make her wait. ‘Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah I’m on it. Ok, yeah gotta go.’

‘Rollo?’

‘Yes honey. That’s all good isn’t it? Exciting times. You’d better go out now and enjoy some incognito time, because in a couple of weeks you won’t be able to walk down the street.’ He cocked his head as he took a long drag on his e-cigarette, waiting for her to thank him.

‘Rollo, why did Clarissa say that you
had
to have me?’

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘The group, it’s gone from three to four people.’

‘Four’s always better.’

‘I can’t think of a four person girl group.’

‘
All Saints.’
he said with a raise of one brow. ‘What’s wrong with you? You should be delighted.’

‘But I was awful. And I’m too old for this group. Look at them, they’re like sixteen. I’m twenty-four and I can’t dance.’ She felt her voice choke on the last bit as annoyance started to build up inside her. ‘He made you, didn’t he? My dad.’

‘No one made me, what are you talking about?’

Maddy shook her head.

There, handed to her on a plate, was international stardom. Waiting within her grasp. Even if the group didn’t last long they’d at least have a decent shot at fame.

Take it, Maddy, don’t question it. Just take it
.

She looked at the girls, heads together giggling. Looked at the lighting rig, the scaffolding, the curtain held together with pins, the shabby tea urn, the bored interns, Rollo and his endless cups of coffee and inane phone calls, the backdrops for promos being built in the background, the wardrobe room with the tiny leather leggings and the idea of ‘working on her weight.’

What was it Walter had said?

It’s never going to be how you want it to be
. The dream, it’s all a mirage.

Taking a last look around, Maddy shook her head and said, ‘Thanks Rollo, but I’m not going to do this.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The group, it’s not for me.’ She started to walk away in the direction of the lift.

‘Are you crazy?’ Rollo called after her.

She turned and walked a few steps backwards. ‘Maybe.’ She shrugged. ‘But better crazy than a fool.’

CHAPTER 33

ELLA

‘Wait one second, could you.’ Ella heard Max bash into a couple of things then a long pause and then the sound of a door shutting.

‘Sorry. Amanda’s watching
Strictly
in the front room.’ he said breathlessly.

Ella made a face at the window. ‘You hate
Strictly
.’

‘I know, I know. And she doesn’t like
X-Factor
.’ Max sighed.

‘Oh god that’s rubbish.’

‘Yes, I’m beginning to think I’ve made the wrong choice?’ he drawled.

‘I think maybe it’s too early to joke about it.’ Ella said, listening to the rain clattering on the metal roof of the phone box and imagining Max sitting somewhere in secret, the phone cradled between his ear and shoulder, flicking through the paper as he spoke or inspecting his nails, never able to concentrate on only one thing.

Max sniggered, ‘Yes, sorry. Apologies. So am I in the doghouse?’

Ella wound the phone cord round her wrist and smiled. ‘Yes. I hate you.’

‘Quite right. I’d hate me too. I’m just greedy. I want all the cakes in the bakery.’

‘Except I’m not a cake. I’m a person, Max. With feelings.’ she said, while tracing the list of emergency numbers on the keypad.

‘I think you’d be a cream horn.’ he said.

Ella couldn’t stifle her astonished laugh.

‘Hard on the outside but soft and squishy in the centre.’

Ella leant back against the glass again. ‘I can’t work out if this is flattering or not. What’s Amanda? A fondant fancy?’

Max snorted. ‘Don’t make me laugh, she’ll come in.’

Ella paused, smiling into the handset, then writing her name with her finger in the misty window, then she said, ‘Max, do you think our time together was a half life?’

‘Absolutely not. Why?’ She heard him pour something in the background, maybe a glass of wine.

‘Do you think we were ourselves?’ she asked, staring at the letters she’d drawn, at the olive leaves she could see through the clearer sections of glass and the taverna, someone getting a vin chaud and pointing at the nativity.

‘Well who else were you?’ said Max, sounding confused.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Ella, I used to have this bloody marvellous maths teacher who said to us, “Boys, it takes a lifetime to find out who you are. So go out, try everything and remember the body completely regenerates every seven years so you’ll end up being someone completely different anyway.” I think if you look at it that way, life’s much less serious and a lot more fun. Us. We had a jolly good time. I doubt you learnt anything from me, but I think I learnt a whole lot from you. And now, well, we’re regenerating.’

Ella tapped her index finger to her lips and thought about what he was saying. ‘So you don’t think our relationship was a lie?’

‘Some of it probably. But isn’t everything? El, you have to be a bit kinder to yourself. You’re always so hard on yourself. Even what you wear you give yourself a beating over. You’re not the girl I met at nineteen any more, you know that don’t you?’

There was a pause as Ella considered it.

‘Ella, you’re a really successful woman now. You’re funny, kind, pretty, much cleverer than me. You’re quite terrifying when you want to be. Maybe actually you’re not a cream horn. You could be a black forest gateaux. God I haven’t had one of those in years. All sultry and moody and juicy.’

‘Ok Max, you can stop now.’

He boomed a laugh. ‘Sorry I just started to get into it. Never going to be able to look at a black forest gateaux in the same way again. Not actually that I’d know where you could buy one nowadays. D’you know what I’d be? Probably one of those donuts I like from Krispy Kreme. The glazed one with the hole in the centre. Sweet, shiny and delicious on the outside and completely hollow in the middle. What do you think?’