who cut him up.
Gareth pulls over, almost taking out a cyclist in the process, and I gather my things together. ‘Do you think I should portray myself as the new Marilyn?’ I ask. I suddenly feel nervous. I don’t know how to act.
‘What do you think, Dean? Marilyn?’
‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I only know about football. You decide.’
‘You don’t think they’ll want me to recite Shakespeare or anything, do you?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought so, Candyfloss,’ he says. ‘But you never know with these people. Film people love books and stuff, don’t they?’
He’s very wise, is Dean. ‘Does my makeup look OK?’ I ask. I redid it in the loos at Pask’s school so that it now stands about three inches off my face. They’ll expect me to be camera-ready. I don’t want to let myself down.
‘Yeah,’ says Dean without looking, and we jump out of the car and head to the building. The reception area is painted a bright, glossy orange. Dean says that if I put my head back against it, it looks as if my features are painted onto the wall, so similar is the painted interior’s colour to that of my foundation.
‘Tracie Martin?’ asks a rather scruffy guy with khaki shorts and a baggy grey T-shirt that’s seen better days. ‘Follow me for the screen test.’ He’s not what I was expecting at all, but I wave goodbye to Dean and teeter off after the man.
‘Through there,’ he says dismissively, signalling towards a large, messy room with four men standing in it, surrounded by technical-looking equipment
‘Tracie Martin?’ asks one.
‘That’s me,’ I say with confidence, giving them my best smile.
‘Great. Glad you could make it. Are you ready to get going?’
‘Absolutely,’ I say, with a shake of my blonde mane.
The room has rugged wooded floorboards and bits of white masking tape all over the place. It’s not very LA at all. More like the sort of place you’d find in Camden High Street than on Sunset Boulevard. There’s peeling paint and piles of cables lying all over the floor – knotted and twisted together. I’ll need to recall this when people ask me about the audition. I need to remember the moment when my acting career began.
If things take off the way I want them to, I may refer to this moment in my Oscar acceptance speech. I’ll thank Dean and Paskia for their support and Victoria for her inspiration. ‘And, you know, as I stand before you today, as the most successful and most dearly loved actress in the world, dressed in £100 million worth of diamonds, I should tell you about how it all started – in a messy studio just a few months ago.’
I’ll dedicate the Oscar to Dean’s late grandmother Nell and I’ll make sure I mention every one of my friends. I’ll also thank my mum and tell her I forgive her. Forgiveness is important, and I think I could find it in me to be forgiving, especially while covered in Tiffany sparklers.
‘Do you want me to say anything?’ I ask the guys. They seem to be just standing there, looking down at a pile of equipment.
One guy looks up from where he’s fiddling with the camera. ‘Wow. Your voice is amazing,’ he says. ‘You’d never know. I think we’ll have to make a feature of that. Can we mike her up, John?’
An amazing voice, eh? That’s what being born and bred in Luton does for you.
I stand still while a microphone is attached to the collar of my pale pink jacket.
‘OK. First thing I need you to look into the camera and read this. I’ll give you a few moments to learn it,’ says the cameraman.
I take the piece of paper that he hands me, hoping that I’m going to be playing a beautiful, fragile princess, waiting for her knight in shining armour to return from battle. The men are still looking over at me, so I smile back and think to myself that I’ll try and mention as many of them as I can in my Oscar-winning speech – it’s only fair.
OK, here we go. What have I got to read out? ‘Hi, my name’s Tracie Martin, and though I may look like a woman, take a closer look and you’ll see I’m a man. Welcome to Tranny Town – the new film about Transvestites in the City.’
‘Why do you want me to say this?’ I ask.
‘Screen test,’ mutters the guy.
‘For a film about transvestites? I’m not a transvestite.’
‘Aren’t you?’
‘No!’ I howl. ‘Of course not. How could you even think that?’
‘Well – the piles of badly applied makeup, the trannie clothes and really skinny legs. Sorry. Simple misunder-standing.’
I tear off the microphone as theatrically as I can, and turn on my heels with a level of drama that these fools can only dream of injecting into their films, then I charge out of the room – away from my dreams of becoming a film star. The Oscar will have to wait. The friendship with Keira and the affair with Brad are on ice for now, I’m off back to Deany.
5 p.m.
Paskia’s tucking into a big cheese sandwich when I walk into the kitchen, and almost crash into the door because I’m so busy looking at my reflection in the stainless steel fridge. They do not look like the legs of a man. Why would anyone think I was a transvestite? Is my jaw too square or something?
‘How did the screen test go?’ asks Pask, and I feel my heart sink. ‘Dad says you won’t talk about it.’
‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ I say, giving her a little hug. ‘I just decided that being an international superstar wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. I decided that my main job was being a good mum to you, and a good wife to your dad.’
Paskia looks confused. ‘But you are a good mum. I thought you wanted to be a film star, too.’
I’m a good mum.
‘I’m not really bothered about a life of fame, wealth, free clothes and global adoration.’
Did she really say I was a good mum?
‘So you didn’t do the audition?’ she asks.
‘No. In the end I walked away from it,’ I say, but all the time her words are ricocheting round my mind, bubbling up and busting into silky, rainbow-coloured happy thoughts as they glide around my head. I’m a good mum!
‘In what ways am I a good mum, Pask?’ I ask gently, sitting down next to her and stroking her hair in a way that she clearly finds very irritating.
‘I dunno,’ she says, between chews. ‘I know you love me and care about me.’
‘I do, Pask,’ I say. ‘I really do. I worry that you don’t realize how much I care about you.’
‘Course I realize,’ she says. ‘Even when you’re being mad I know you mean well. It’s like Dad’s always saying – you look for the best in people. I’ve never heard you say a bad word about anyone. You’re the nicest person I’ve ever met. Stuff like that.’
‘Pask, that’s lovely,’ I say, and suddenly it doesn’t matter that all the movie-makers in LA think I look like a bloke in a skirt. What do I care about them? Paskia loves me and Dean loves me. Nothing else matters.
‘How was school?’ I ask her.
‘Man, it was unbelievable,’ she says, her eyes sparkling as she recalls her day. ‘I wish I could start straight away. Do I have to wait until Monday?’
‘It’s only a few days,’ I say. ‘I’m sure you can last until then.’
‘I guess,’ she says. ‘I’ll practise some maths, and read as much as I can between now and then.’
That’s