and they’re all small and delicate, like little dolls. If they piled the makeup on and stuffed a pair of socks down their bras, they’d be almost as lovely as the three girls we met today. Pask runs back over and stands next to Dean. She towers over the twins and looks ungainly next to them in her daft football shirt, baggy jeans and trainers.
‘I love soccer,’ I hear her say, as the twins look at each other in astonishment. ‘I’m going to this fantastic school with the best football pitches I’ve ever seen!’
‘Come on,’ says Sian. ‘Let me show you three girls what I’ve got in the kitchen. Frozen fat-free yoghurt!’
‘Yummy!’ shout the twins.
‘Whooppee!’ says Paskia, her voice weighed down by sarcasm. ‘I thought you were going to say pizza and chips.’
I’m not sure whether the ‘p’ word or the ‘c’ word has ever been used in this house before. I can see Sian fighting to regain her composure before leaving the children to their ‘treat’ and marching back towards me.
‘Tracie, can I introduce you to Poppy and Macey?’ she says, indicating two women standing to my left. One has plain dark hair and the other has plain blonde hair, and neither is wearing makeup. They stare at me as if I’ve been beamed down from outer space.
‘Great to meet you,’ says Macey, flicking her natural locks away from her face like the girl in the Timotei advert. She’s wearing a long white cotton skirt and a white crop top which, I’ll grant her, does display her large breasts to their best advantage, and gives you a peek at a flat, tanned stomach, but it’s not right. She needs a belly-button piercing at the very least.
Poppy’s incredibly sweet-looking, with her long dark hair and the way she tilts her head to one side, like Snow White. I expect bunnies to come hopping through the sitting room at any minute. She’s wearing a sun dress in an emerald green colour with simple kitten-heeled shoes. It’s shameful the way these women dress. I must work with them and try and inject a little of Luton into their wardrobes.
‘We’ll all get the chance to chat later,’ says Sian, dragging me away from them and over to one of the many huge cream sofas in her sitting room. Happily, our journey takes us right past the drinks – all laid out neatly in the kitchen.
‘Ooooh,’ I say as we pass, my glass now a desperate, Bacardi-free zone.
‘A little juice?’ asks Sian, picking up a glass, inspecting it, and handing it to one of the women on drinks patrol. ‘How does celery and carrot suit you?’
I laugh madly at this. Why the holy fuck would I want a glass full of mashed-up celery? ‘You’re funny!’ I say, minutes before realizing that she isn’t joking. I glance around the room. Dean’s right. No one appears to be drinking alcohol.
‘I’d prefer something a bit stronger … if you don’t mind.’
‘Wheat grass?’ she suggests, and I realize that it’s time to stop being subtle.
‘Alcohol, please,’ I say. ‘I’d prefer champagne, vodka or Bacardi, but really any alcohol at all would be great. Absolutely anything. I’ve even got my own bottle with me – it’s hidden in the cloakroom if you want me to go and get it.’
‘No, no, I’ve got some somewhere,’ she says, looking quite thrown by my confession. ‘And you’re right. We should allow ourselves a little taste tonight, shouldn’t we? We are celebrating, after all. Goodness, I should have thought of that – let’s have a little treat.’
Weird, weird, weird. I have alcohol because it’s Wednesday, because it’s 8.40 p.m., because my name is Tracie, because the sky is blue. Who needs an excuse to get mullered?
‘Right, take a seat,’ she says, handing me a glass that’s got so little in it, it’ll probably all evaporate before I get to it. ‘Now, tell me all about your screen test. Dean mentioned it to Chuck. Sounds very exciting.’
Oh God. Do we have to talk about this?
‘I decided not to do it,’ I say. ‘I don’t really have the time for it right now. I told them to give the role to Nicole Kidman or J-Lo or someone. Just one second.’ Sian looks on all confused as I clip-clop across to the kitchen, pull out a large beaker and fill it with champagne, then I tip vodka in the top and walk back to my seat with the glass in one hand and the bottle of champagne in the other. ‘Cheers,’ I say, and ‘Cheers,’ she replies. But her eyes don’t say cheers; her eyes say, ‘Your body is a temple. How could you do this to yourself?’ My eyes say, ‘How I’d love to take you out in Luton for the night.’
‘Tracie, I’m sorry you didn’t do the audition. You’d have been great as a film star. What was the role? Did they tell you?’
‘They didn’t,’ I lie. ‘They just said it was about life in the city.’
‘You’d be great in that,’ says Sian. ‘Look at you! You were made to be a film star. Can’t you call them and tell them you can do it after all?’
I feel I ought to tell her the truth but what if she says, ‘Yes, I can see their point. You do look like a bloke.’
‘I didn’t do it because I thought I might not be attractive enough,’ I say.
‘What are you talking about?’ she says. ‘Tracie, you’re stunning. You’d look better without so much makeup, but you’re very attractive indeed. Why would you think otherwise?’
‘So you don’t think I look like a man?’
‘You don’t look a bit like a man, Tracie. I’d never realized you were so self-critical. Promise me that every morning you will look in the mirror and say, “My name is Tracie Martin and I am a beautiful person, inside and out.”’
‘Yeah, right,’ I say.
‘This is important,’ says Sian, deadly serious now. ‘Our thoughts define our actions. Self-love is vital for a happy life, and affirmations are part of that. Maybe you should think about seeing someone. My psychoanalyst is very good.’
She hands me a card and I take it gratefully, but I don’t think the woman will be getting my business. As long as people keep reassuring me that I don’t look like a transvestite, everything will be fine.
10.30 p.m.
I’m off my tiny trolley. Whey-hey! Bring it on. I just wanna dance, but the music isn’t really dancing music. It’s all whale sounds and seagulls and shit like that – the sort of stuff they play while you’re having a massage that drives you up the bloody wall.
‘Someone shoot that dolphin!’ I shout, and Dean falls about laughing. He’s not drinking very much, but at least he’s entering into the spirit of things. Any minute now he’s going to start singing ‘Ingerland, Ingerland, Ingerland’.
To be fair to the other guests, they’ve had a few, too. I don’t think they wanted to, but in the end I just went round and poured vodka into their drinks, and they all thought it would be easier to get pissed than to keep saying no. Pester power! The thing is, cos they don’t normally drink very much, just a couple of half pints of neat vodka and some of them have really let their hair down. Three have vomited in the garden, which is always nice to see at a party. Even Chuck’s managed to take his phone away from his ear, which is a clear sign that he’s pissed. There’s some terribly respectable, middle-aged director of the club shagging one of the cheerleaders in the corner.
‘This is more like it!’ I cry, full of genuine enthusiasm for the happy turn that the party has taken. ‘Let’s all dance!’
‘Yehhhhh!!!’ they all chorus back. Trouble is, none of us is sober enough to use the stereo, so I start them off on a sing-song.
‘There’s only one Deany Martin … There’s only one Deany Ma-a-artin,’ I shout punching up into the air. Soon they’re all joining in. We’re in a circle in this lovely, sophisticated house, knocking back