Withering Tights (5 page)

We first learn to fill our tights

I
woke up early the next day. I’d been dreaming that I had a bra made out of soap. It slipped off when I did my special audition dance and everyone laughed.

I am going to tie my hair up and wear a hat. Cain won’t recognise me again out of my jim-jams, will he?

Oh Lord, he has seen me in my jim-jams. Watching him snog.

I went down to breakfast and the Dobbins were all as cheerful as people who hadn’t been caught in
their jim-jams in the middle of the night. Pretending to clean windows. But really watching people snog.

The twins were ready for an action-packed day of being really odd. Dibdobs said in her beamy way, “Morning, Tallulah! Say morning, boys. To Tallulah.”

They looked at me.

Sam said, “Oo been seeping?”

Dibdobs laughed, “Yes, clever boy, Tallulah has been sleeping and now she’s awake and going to school. Hurrah!!!”

But I don’t think Sam meant had I been sleeping. I think he meant had I been seeping. Because then he said, “I been seeping a lot.”

Dobbs said, “Yes, clever boy, you’ve been sleeping too. Like Tallulah. You’ve been sleeping in your beddy-byes and now you are up and dressed!”

Max said, “No! Lady!!! He not seeped in his beddy-byes, he seeped in his pants!”

I had to go.

I met Vaisey by the post office. She had her hair in a plait so it didn’t stick out.

She said, “Ruby plaited it for me, do you think it looks alright?”

I said, “Yes, it looks nice.”

I think she is wearing a bra, she seems more sticky-outy somehow. I didn’t ask her, but I might sneak a look later on.

I do like her, she’s so friendly. And she seems all excited and happy.

She said, “Did you do your assignment? What words did you come up with?”

Before I could tell her she went on. “At first I was thinking about what people said about me, you know…nice. Bit young. Mad red hair, sticky-out bottom. But somehow, nice, young, red hair, big bum didn’t make me feel good. And then I thought the words that sum me up are Black Beauty.”

I said, “Um, that’s a horse.”

As we walked through the woods she said, “
Black Beauty
was my all-time top favourite book when I was little.”

I said, “Yes, but you didn’t want to BE a horse, did you? You wanted to HAVE a horse.”

Vaisey said, “No, I wanted to be the horse. I was Black Beauty.”

“You were Black Beauty?”

“Yes, you know, free and galloping and so on. With black hair like yours. Not red hair. Sometimes just trotting along. Or cantering in high spirits. Look, I can even do dressage.”

As we went up the lane to Dother Hall she started lifting one leg really high, and leaving it there for a second, and then hopping on to the other one and lifting that really high. And then criss-crossing her legs to the side.

She said, “I used to ride as Black Beauty to school.”

She trotted the rest of the way to college. Occasionally when she veered off towards Woolfe Academy, I shouted, “Black Beauty, steady!”

I told her that when I went to school, I rode an imaginary Harley Davidson motorbike.

As we reached the gates Vaisey reined herself in and said, “What words did you think of to describe you?”

And I said, “Um, it’s a surprise.”

And I wasn’t fibbing because I haven’t thought of anything.

When we arrived at the entrance hall other girls, older than us, were dashing in saying stuff like, “Hello, darling, I saw the BEST Beckett the other day. I wept it was soooo good,” and “Hi hi, one and all. God, nobody can lend me any panstick, can they? I completely forgot mine this morning after London.”

They must be the permanent students. I wonder if I will ever be like them.

Gudrun was there to greet us.

“
Guten tag, fräulein
!!!
Wunderbar
!!”

And she actually got hold of Vaisey’s cheek and shook it between her fingers. She was still going, “Ooooooohhhhh, look at you!”

I’m glad she didn’t do it to me because I am easily startled.

Our little group gathered together feeling a bit shy and lost. Gudrun shepherded us into the main hall,
her bun waving about wildly. She said, “Ms Beaver wants you to go straight up on the stage, so that she can introduce you to the rest of the college.”

We shuffled up and sat down on the chairs there. I looked out over the sea of faces. Were the faces looking at my knees? I had done my best to play the knees down by wearing black trousers. I curled my legs under the chair.

Everyone in the auditorium was chatting away, looking relaxed and cool. Vaisey looked at me and gave me a little thumbs-up. Then, from the side of the hall, Gudrun sounded a big gong and Sidone Beaver entered stage left. All of the girls stood up, so we did too. Well, I did eventually once I had managed to untrap my legs.

Sidone wafted backwards and forwards. She was doing her world-renowned ‘filling the stage’ thing.

Looking round, she smiled and then swept a hand across her body towards us.

“Girls of Dother Hall, I present fresh blood. I present to you these embryos. Will they grow into infants of theatre, dance, music, art? Perhaps one
or two of them will be giants of mime, or others medium-sized players of harps, others tiny but perfectly-formed backstage scene shifters. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the playing, the taking part in this wonderful adventure.”

Holy Mother of God and also Sweet Jesus!

Sidone went on. “I want you to welcome our new little embryos into the bosoms of the Mother ship or Dother ship.”

Sidone laughed in a tinkling way.

She said, “Did you see what I did there, girls?”

There was almost universal nodding from the audience.

Sidone said, “And to introduce themselves I have asked our new shipmates to come up with a word or words that sum them up. So now I ask you, new little friends, to tell us your words. And then, this is the bit you didn’t know, I want you to improvise a movement or dance to go with the word or words.”

What?

That hadn’t been in our note.

We all looked at each other.

A dance?

Oh, Holy Mother of Mercy.

I hadn’t even thought of any words! Perhaps I could just faint and that would be good. Then I’d be dragged off stage and taken…

Sidone pointed to the end of the line.

“Let’s start here. What is your outside name? Your pre-magic of theatre name.”

She was pointing at Jo.

Jo looked like an astonished (tiny) rabbit. She stood up.

You couldn’t say she hadn’t got pluck. You could say she was insane, but you couldn’t say that she wasn’t plucky. Anyway, she said, “My name is Jo.”

Sidone beamed at her.

“Jo…Jooooooo…say it loud, Joooooo.”

Jo said it loud. “JOOOOOOOOOO!!”

She’s got a loud voice for a short person.

Sidone stepped away from her a little and then went on. “And what was your descriptive word or phrase, Jooooo?”

Jo said, “Well, it’s ‘strong’.”

Sidone said, “Good, good. Jo is strong. How would you show us that, Jo? That ‘strong’. Show us your ‘strong’, Jo. Show it! Use the whole space!!!”

And in front of our amazed gaze, Jo started growling.

Sidone encouraged her, “Good, good, I am feeling your strength.”

Jo was feeling her strength as well. She started stomping around with her face all screwed up. And undoing her cardigan and puffing out her chest.

Vaisey whispered to me, “What is she doing?”

I said, “I think she’s being the Hulk.”

Vaisey was next. Alarm bells must have been ringing with Sidone because when Vaisey said “Black Beauty” she said quickly, “Now, Vaisey. We have just had a lot of charging energy from Jo and we need a change of pace. Perhaps you might like to think of prancing rather than galloping?”

Vaisey said, “I was going to do dressage.”

Sidone said, “Excellent. Trot on.”

And Vaisey did her leg-holding and criss-crossing.

I could see some of the girls in the audience laughing.

Honey chose ‘Thweet’.

Sidone said, “Pardon, dear?”

Honey’s dance was waggling her hips from side to side and going, “Mmmmmmmmmmmm, yummy! Mmmmmmmmmmmm yummy.”

Milly did ‘cheerful’ (mostly very scary smiling), Becka did ‘light-hearted’ (skipping and clapping), and Tilly did ‘thoughtful’ (frowning and skipping).

When it was Flossie’s turn she said her word was ‘grand’ in a Southern drawl and then started quietly going, “Oklahoma…Oklahoma…Oklahoma…”

Then she belted out, “The land we belong to is GRAND! And when I sayyyyyyyy…Hiyipppy yayyyyy…I’m saying you’re doing fine, Oklahoma…” And doing big arm movements and high kicks.

She would have done the whole song if Ms Beaver hadn’t caught her firmly round the arms. Some people clapped at the end.

Then it was my turn. My brain had frozen over. In terror.

I stood up and my legs felt like jelly, with jelly knees. Sidone looked at me. “Well, Tallulah, what have you chosen?”

Yes, a very good point.

I looked out at the sea of faces. And I stood there. A girl and her knees. And then for some reason, I remembered my grandparents coming round to our house when I was little and in bed. After a few Guinnesses I would hear the Irish records being put on and then “Get the bairn up and daaaancing!” And I would be got out of bed and put up on the table in the dining room to dance.

I started singing, “
Hiddly diddly diddly
.” In an Irish accent. To an Irish tune that nobody has ever heard of, because it doesn’t exist. I started doing Irish dancing, keeping my arms straight by my sides and kicking my legs about whilst hopping on tippy-toes.

I don’t know whether you have ever seen Irish dancing, but you’ve probably never seen it done by someone with eight-foot legs. I struck Sidone a glancing blow with my foot as I turned round.

I like to think it was a showstopper.

In the break we all went to the café to calm down.

Flossie, Vaisey, Jo, Honey and I sat together. Shipwrecked from the Dother ship.

Honey said, “Cwikey.”

And she wasn’t wrong.

A group of older girls came over. The leader was a slim girl with copper-coloured hair and very blue eyes, wearing expensive-looking clothes. She looked about seventeen or eighteen.

She said, “Now would you be Oirish, to be sure, to be sure?”

She was talking to me.

I said, “Well, yes, half of my family is Irish, and the other—”

Before I could go on any further she said, in a very posh voice, “That was railly fun. Railly fun. Wasn’t it, girls?”

The other two were nodding and looking. And saying, “Ya, raaillly fun. Well done.”

The blue-eyed girl said, “You did railly, railly well. I’m Lavinia, for my sins, and this is Dav and Anouska. Noos for short.”

The others said, “Yeah, hi.”

Lavinia went on. “You mustn’t feel that you made berks of yourselves.” And she looked directly at me when she said that bit. “We’re like a family here. And funnily enough my mater and pater have an old groundsman in our country place and he’s Oirish too! To be sure, to be sure. So we’ve lots in common. To be sure.”

Vaisey said, “Are you on the proper course?”

Lavinia laughed, “Yes, it can be hell, but I suppose we must love it! Come and see the performance lunchtime, some of us are doing a work in progress. See you later, begorrah, bejesus.”

After they’d gone, Vaisey said, “She seems very nice, doesn’t she? Good-looking too, isn’t she?”

Flossie was chewing her hair, “Hmmmmm.”

I said, “What does hmmmmm mean?”

Flossie said, “She does seem nice, but I wanted to
squeeze her head, and my squeezing-head instincts are usually good.”

Jo said, “Hmmmmm.”

I said, “Is this a hmmmmm-in?”

Quickly get a bucket of water
It’s a girl fest

F
or the rest of the morning Gudrun took us round for a tour of Dother Hall. We saw the studios for painting, the kiln area, the technical workshop. The backstage dressing rooms. We even went down to the music recording studios. Bob’s office is to one side and Gudrun said, “We can just ‘Bob’ in.”

He didn’t hear us ‘Bob-ing’ though, because he had heavy metal booming out of his speakers and he was pretending to play a guitar.

I said, “I didn’t know that Mrs Rochester was musical.”

And the others sniggered. Which was quite a nice feeling.

After our tour, we were all lying down on the grass when Sidone came across to us. She was wearing an enormous hat and dark glasses.

“Darlings, darlings. Are you having fun? So, so thrilling, isn’t it?”

We mumbled, “Yes.”

She went on. “Now then, all in to the studio theatre for the performance lunchtime. It’s a work in progress by some of the seniors called ‘Untitled…Now!’ Oh, and by the way, girls, would you use the upstairs loos for the rest of the day. There has been an unfortunate blockage situation which Bob is trying to get to the bottom of.”

I didn’t look at the others.

In the studio we were handed slips of paper.

Untitled…Now!

Question: What is a woman?

Is it a Woe…man?

Is it a Wombman?

How can we re-find our egg-sistence?
A work in progress by Lavinia Pilkington, Davinia
McCloud and Anouska Pritchard
With thanks to the example of our inspirational
teacher Sidone Beaver

The studio went black and a faint spotlight came up in the centre. Lavinia walked into it. She was carrying an apple. She walked right into the centre of the light and looked at us meaningfully. She pointed to the apple and said, “Orange.”

And smiled sadly.

Then Dav and Noos came on with scarves all over them and started snaking about chanting, “I saw the snake, I saw the snake, and the snake saw me.”

Lav went off backwards and walked back on a minute later, slowly carrying an egg.

The snakes were still giving it their all with the scarves. Lavinia said in a dramatic voice, “We come from eggs, but some of us are eggier than others.”

She looked at the snakes, they looked back, and then they all smiled ironically.

They were still smiling ironically as the light went down very, very slowly.

Sidone started clapping so we joined in. I don’t know why.

Gudrun, who was right at the front, was looking back at us and beaming like she had just seen an elephant reading a poetry book.

Afterwards, Lav and Dav and Noos explained what it was about. Lav said, “I think what we were trying to get to is…you know, our sort of similar eggness. How women should stick together and support each other.”

One of the snakes (Dav) said, “Yes, the bit where I come on and I’m still being the snake…but I am aware of the of the…”

Lavinia said, “Of the egg?”

And Noos nodded enthusiastically.

“Yes, yes, yes exactly.”

Lavinia interrupted. “Yes, good point, Dav, and in fact one that I was just about to make…thanks for that. I wonder if anyone in the audience noticed that I became more egg-shaped during the performance?”

The next day, Sidone announced that our performance project for the summer course is
Wuthering Heights
. The fifteen of us have to adapt and present an original reworking of it. Sidone said, “Go out and see what the countryside suggests to you.”

Outside in the warm sunshine again, I began to cheer up. The friends had been nice to me about the hiddly diddly thing, in fact, Vaisey said, “It was unique.”

And the others nodded.

Jo said, “It was almost in a way…so weird that you might be…well, known for your weirdness.”

That’s good, isn’t it?

I felt smooth and purry, like a cat in a cream shop. With new friendies and no grown ups to tell me off. I know that the Dobbins are officially grown ups, but their idea of telling you off is to only give you a small bit of cake.

So everything was looking up, apart from having no boys to look at yet. We had the afternoon off for sketching and ideas.

I said, “So, Woolfe Academy is somewhere over there. On the other side of the woods.”

Flossie said, “Maybe we should go in the direction of the sign and see what it suggests to us.”

Milly and Tilly and the rest of the others forged off down by the river, and our little group went in the vague direction of Woolfe Academy.

After two minutes of pretend looking at stuff we were out of sight of Dother Hall and found a comfy tree with soft grass underneath it.

I said, “This soft grass suggests ‘softness’ to me, but also at the same time ‘lying-down-ness’.”

As we lay around the tree, Vaisey had obviously
been thinking about Honey and her snogging stories. She said, “How did you get a boy to kiss you the first time? Did you say ‘give us a kiss’?”

Honey lay down on her back and, putting her legs up against the tree, said, “Well, yeth, in a way. I did it with my eyeth. I did eyeth work.”

Eyeth work?

Honey reckons that girls should be the ones who decide stuff.

Flossie said, “Well that’s all very well for you, you smoothy smooth person, but I’m quite big. I think I frighten boys with my bigness.”

I said, “And your violence.”

Flossie said, “Granted.”

Honey was still being the Love expert. She said, “If you think you are gorguth then boyth think tho too.”

That was a novel idea.

Honey said, “You thtart off with thinking about yourthelf in all your glorwee.”

I said, “I don’t think I’ve got a glorwee.”

Vaisey said, “She means in all your glory.”

And she really did mean that. Not in all your glory with all your clothes on, but in all your glory in the er…in the
buenas noches señor
. In the pink pyjamas. Or as the French say,
dans votre sans pantalons
.

She said that we had to love every bit of ourselves and stop criticising our knees.

We should imagine we are in the
buenas noches señor
and feel free.

Jo said, “Like in that book where the boys all go native.”

Honey said, “Yeth, thort of, but don’t they eat each other in the end?”

Honey got up slowly. “Say, pwoudly…Oooooohhhh, I’m gorguth!”

We all sat there.

She said, “Do you want boyfwendth?”

We got up.

She said, “Follow my inthtwucthionth.”

She started sidling up to the tree saying to it, “Ooohhh, I’m gorguth. I weally, weally am.”

And she was shaking her bosoms at it and waggling her legs about.

She was so confident, it was amazing.

And sort of catching.

Vaisey started waggling her bottom at the tree saying, “Look at my lovely bottom, it’s like a lovely…jelly!”

Flossie was shouting, “Why!! You’re beeaauuutiful!!!”

It was very catching.

And I let rip with my legs.

As Jo was sweeping her hair up and down the tree, I was yelling at it, “You know you want the knees!!! Offer yourself to the knees!!!”

Then a voice behind us said, “Quickly, get a bucket of water, it’s a girl fest!”

We all looked round and a shortish boy with a dark brown, floppy fringe and good-looking face was grinning at us. Behind him was another boy, taller, with wavy, dark blonde hair. Also grinning.

None of us knew what to say. Perhaps we could pretend we were druids. Damn, I had forgotten my false moustache!

Jo eventually said, “Who are you, lurking about…er…lurking at people, who are…”

I said, “…who are doing a theatrical workshop.”

The floppy-haired one was Phil and the blonde one, Charlie. We told them our names and they leaned against the tree, looking at us. Phil has got a really nice smile, sort of twinkly, with nice teeth.

Then Charlie said to me, “Great kneework, Tallulah, if you don’t mind me saying.”

Crumbs.

Jo, who seemed to have developed the cocky gene suddenly, said to them, “What are you doing here?”

Phil said, “We are on a forced cross-country jog.”

I said, “But you’re not jogging.”

Charlie said, “Well spotted.”

Phil said, “We were on the jog, but we got tired of the jog.”

Charlie went on, “We got tired of the jog just after we came out of the school gates. And thank goodness we did, otherwise we would have missed finding the ‘Tree Sisters Club’.”

Phil said, “I would have never forgiven myself.”

Vaisey said, “We are getting ideas for our
Wuthering Heights
performance.”

We all nodded and I crossed my legs casually. Charlie smiled at me.

I said, “Yes, we are at the performing arts summer school at Dother Hall. That is what we are at…”

I trailed off because both Phil and Charlie were looking at me.

Phil said, “So, let me get this right, you are all training to be lesbians?”

I said, “I think you mean thespians.”

And Charlie said, “I know what I saw, love.”

And he and Phil laughed.

And funnily enough, we all laughed. It must have looked bloody weird dancing round a tree and trying to get off with it.

We all relaxed then. It was exciting having two captive, real-life boys to talk to. Vaisey asked them about their school, Woolfe Academy. “What do you do there?”

Charlie said, “We get bored and depressed, mostly.”

Phil said, “We’re there because…well it’s a small thing, really, there was a bit of…an incident at our, er ‘normal’ school.”

We looked at him.

Phil went on, “You know how it is with boys and home-made fireworks. And science labs that, you know…go…”

I said, “Go?”

Charlie said, “Up.”

Phil went on, “So the bottom line is that we are at Woolfe Academy to be taught how to become decent citizens.”

Wow.

Flossie said, “Are you, like, ‘out of control yoof’?”

Phil said, “Very like that.”

Vaisey said, “Is it because your parents don’t understand you?”

Charlie said, “No, it’s because our parents understand us very well, and that is why they wanted us to go away.”

Phil was nodding wisely. “Yes, we are here to learn
how to become normal young men, and to do that we have to jog everywhere with rucksacks on our backs. That is the key.”

Charlie went on, “Although, to be frank, if the headmaster had his way we would be hopping everywhere. Just to show us what real life is really about. He’s only got one leg.”

Out of the blue, Phil said to Jo, “I liked your hair dance thing. Was that the magic of modern dance?”

Jo frowned. And jabbered on like Jabber the Wok. “Yes. We do dance at college, in fact, hahahahaha Tallulah has already done Irish dancing. She kneed the headmistress. On stage. In front of everyone.”

Oh, thank you very much, new, strong, but thickish friend.

Charlie said, “Wow! You kneed the headmistress. Would you mind if I touched the sacred knees?”

What did that mean?

Was he joking?

Or had my knees made a real impact?

At that moment, there was a piercing whistle and the sound of pounding feet in the near distance. A
voice yelled, “OK, lads, keep it up! Well run, Miles Senior, just the ploughed field, through the copse and home. Keep it up!!”

Phil and Charlie got up and started jogging on the spot.

Phil said, “Time to take our surprise lead at the other end of the copse.”

As they jogged off, Charlie shouted, “Ta ta, don’t be strangers!”

And they were gone.

Wow.

And phew.