Dream Machine Read online

  Will Davis

  Contents

  My name's Riana

  My name's Ella

  My name's Joni

  I'm Louise

  How long does it take to ruin a life

  Oh my God!

  What I've always

  It's like, the greatest

  I am so thrilled

  It's just tense

  I feel . . .

  Oh my God!

  . . . just totally

  I just want

  Feeling quite nervous.

  Well . . . it's tough

  All I can

  Oh, I'm not

  I'm so happy

  I can't believe

  It's shocking, just

  I should have killed the pigeon first

  These girls are

  Everything's changed

  I can't believe

  Sometimes I just stare at her

  God's seen me

  Victory's so close

  It ain't me

  I rember it like it was yesterday

  When I first

  It's been a rollercoaster

  I made a mistake!

  It's still early when I get up

  I'm on the blimmin

  So psyched now

  Even before Purrfect

  Epliogue

  A Note on the Author

  Imprint Page

  Acknowledgements

  Advert

  ‘My name’s Riana. I’m twenty-three years old, I’m from Watford and I’m an exotic dancer. But please don’t let what I do to pay the rent put you off. All I want is an opportunity to prove to you that I’ve got what it takes. I can do this. I know you’re gonna love me.’

  Been fantasising about a hot bath all night, but by the time I get in I’m so knackered I end up just flopping down in front of the telly with a packet of Doritos, staring through this blur of tiredness at some crappy old late-night chat show. Shouldn’t have done that last line. Might have made the last hour at the club go quicker but now I’ve got a bugger of a headache and the thought of getting up again to switch on the heating, then of waiting till enough water’s dripped out into our bucket of a bathtub to make a bath, is frankly fucking painful.

  I close my eyes and drop the Doritos on the carpet. Slowly I ease my feet out of my trainers and kick them over to the pile of my shoes in the corner, which Eddy is always on at me to put away. Where? I always want to know, cos our matchbox of a flat’s not exactly full of nice little compartments for footwear. I reach down and start massaging my ankles. Started aching even before I put the heels on tonight, and those pads that are s’posed to cushion the ankles have gone and given me two arse-angry red blisters. You might think that by this time I’d have developed Superman-like skin and be able to wrap them in barbed wire if I wanted, but they only seem to get sorer. So stop dancing in those instruments of fucking torture! is what Eddy always snaps when I complain to her, like I’ve got any choice in the matter. Like it don’t turn her into a bitch on heat if I wiggle around in front of her in nothing but a pair of spikes. Sexiness is a painful business, that’s the trouble with it. But it’s also my business. It’s what I do and what I’ve always been good at.

  There’s this piano tune and then these drums, and then all these girls’ voices break into my thoughts. Do you have what it takes to be the new Purrfect girl? they chorus. I open my eyes. Course it’s just the telly, some advert for yet another neuron-eating reality TV series they’re putting together, one of those shows where they take a bunch of young hopefuls and film them getting their innocence slowly sucked out of them bit by bit, till only one’s left, who then gets congratulated for surviving and given a record contract. On the telly this girl band Purrfect are standing in front of a Hawaiian backdrop all smiling and pointing out from the screen, their bits held in (only just) by bikinis, their arms and legs all wrapped round each other in one of those girl-on-girl could-be-friends/could-be-lovers poses. I could do that, I think to myself, and what’s more, I could do it a lot better too. Look at that girl on the left, that Monique or whatever her name is. Someone really ought to tell her to lay off the pasta if she’s going to be flaunting it in killer panties. Doesn’t she have a PA or whatever it is that’s supposed to prevent these celeb types from going out looking like heifers?

  I shut my eyes again and try to imagine myself up there on a podium as a pop star stead of a stripper. Mum was a singer. I used to want to be one too, but a couple of years of struggle wore me down. There’s nothing more soul-destroying than crooning your heart out in some flea-pit pub to a bunch of beer guts that are only interested in your cleavage. That’s why I switched to stripping: least the clients aren’t allowed to heckle you, and there’s no pretending about what they’re there for either. Pays a fuck of a lot better too. I did stick it out for a while, mind. Sent off letters and demos to producers, joined local groups and did free gigs in parks, entered local talent contests and sang at weddings, that kind of thing. I even did busking after I heard how the popular spots sometimes get scouted by agency reps. But the fact is the last thing anyone’s looking for is another black female singer, specially one who’s already hit the twilight years of her early twenties. And the only other option is the backing route, the kiss of death to a singing career if ever there was one. I’m well fucking versed in what happens when you go down that miserable back alley – sob story of Mum’s life, that’s what. Still, I never meant to turn to stripping full time. It’s just that once I got into it I found out I was pretty special at it. There’s a real craft to pole dancing, and to lap dancing, too. Even to something as simple as taking your clothes off. That’s what most people don’t get, including Eddy, who still reckons all it takes to be a stripper is a bust and a beaver. I’m constantly having to stress to her that actually darling it’s fucking hard work, thanks very much.

  The chat show comes back on. It’s called My Kid’s An Addict With Attitude. The kind of show I’m a sucker for, which I can’t watch when Eddy’s around cos they make her so mad. There’s some fifteen-year-old chav in a shell suit being slated by his mum and dad because he steals from them to buy crack. His parents list all the bad things he’s ever done to them like it’s some kind of competition, and when he finally gets the chance to defend himself it’s not long before the smug hostess cuts him off with all these bitchy comments of her own. The audience boo and hiss, and everyone lines up to have a shot. But this teenager just sits there and endures it, staring into the air like a statue while everyone tells him what a waste of life he is. It’s enough to drive anyone to crack.

  There’s the sound of a key in the lock. The door opens and closes and there’s the heavy thud of storm trooper boots as someone who just doesn’t get dainty stomps up our little passageway.

  Riana? shouts Eddy. You up?

  Hello baby, I call as she comes into the room. Eddy’s hands appear on either side of me and touch down on my shoulders as she leans over and kisses me. I reach up and stroke the top of her head, running my fingers over the bristle of stubble that covers it and using my pinky to set the earrings on her left ear jingling like a wind chime. She peers over at the telly.

  What crap is this?

  Newsnight, I say. Where you been?

  At a meeting.

  I don’t ask for details. Eddy likes to be all mysterious about her SCUM meetings. Every so often she goes out at the dead of night to attend one of these super-secret get-togethers, where they plot mini acts of terrorism, like sending off hate mail to homophobic MPs and planting stink bombs in shopping centres. Pretty juvenile stuff if you ask me, but Eddy’s very political and shit, and thinks doing stuff like that makes her a radical. Maybe it does, I don’t know. I guess it is sort of radical to be letting off stink bombs in Debe
nhams when you’re thirty. I’m pretty curious about SCUM actually, though I’ve never been to one of their meetings. I did offer once to go with her, but Eddy said I wouldn’t like it. I let it slide, but really I knew it was cos she wouldn’t like it, since her hardcore dykey pals probably wouldn’t be too happy about her having a stripper girlfriend who’s into skirts and lipstick. I’m her guilty secret. Like she’s mine.

  I reach up and grab Eddy by the waist. Eddy doesn’t usually like being the one who gets manhandled, but she lets me pull her on top of me so she’s sitting in my lap and gives me a grin.

  How were the pervs tonight?

  No more pervy than you are, I tell her, as she places her hand over my right tit and starts to knead it. Loves my tits, she does. I’ve not told her they’re fake cos I don’t know how she’d deal with it.

  As a matter of fact, I got a proposal of marriage.

  Oh? Eddy raises one eyebrow. And what did you say?

  Said I live with a violent bastard who’d chop off his balls if he so much as mentioned the M word again. Tipped me twenty quid, didn’t he?

  Mmmm, good work.

  She drops her head forward and starts to kiss my neck. I look down at it and put my hand on the stubble again. Cocoa brown against creamy white. Together we make a mocha. I kiss her there, which is yucky because it reminds me of kissing someone with a beard, back in the days before I knew what did it for me. Just then something catches my eye on the TV screen – that ad again, the one about the girl band looking to find a new bitch for their group. For some reason I’m suddenly intrigued and I grope for the controller to turn it up.

  We’re searching for a new girl! chorus the girls from Purrfect as I raise the volume, thrusting their busts out like missile launchers and flashing killer wedges of white teeth. If you think it could be you then why not come on down and try out!

  Eddy stops what she’s doing and looks round.

  Oh my Lord, what fucking brainwashing, she mutters, frowning like they’re the faces of evil. She climbs to her feet and crunches down on the Doritos. Jesus, Riana, she moans. You’re such a slob!

  I dunno, I say, unable to resist the urge to needle her just a bit, cos I know how Purrfect are pretty much the opposite to everything Eddy believes in. That one on the left is kind of cute. Think I got that same bikini too.

  Eddy frowns and snatches the controller off me, pointing it at the telly and switching the channel to BBC News 24.

  There, watch something that won’t make you stupider.

  Looking all pleased with herself she stomps across the room and into our microscopic kitchen, where I hear her opening drawers and rummaging for spoons to make tea. I turn down the sound and change the channel back, but the ad’s already over and the chat show is beginning again. Another fat zitty teenager with a so-called attitude problem is in the hot seat, facing off his angry parents while the audience boo at him. In the old days they’d just have stoned him and been done with it. But I’m not really concentrating on this anymore. Stead I’m thinking about the ad. The old hamster’s at it in his cage and I’m thinking, Why not? I’m as good as any one of those bimbos. Do you have what it takes? That’s what they all wanted to know, shouting it like it was some kind of challenge. And do you know what? I reckon I fucking do.

  ‘My name’s Ella . . . I live in West London, I’m seventeen and I’m still in school. I’m studying French, English and History . . . I sing in the school choir and I used to do ballet when I was nine . . . I really want to be a pop star!’

  My plan is to lock myself in the bathroom until they agree to take me to the audition. I take my iPod and go and sit on the toilet for nearly three hours, staring at the wall, listening to Purrfect and imagining myself on stage with them. I picture myself standing between the other girls as they introduce me as their new member, thousands of screaming fans stretched out in the stadium below my feet. Monique is holding my hand up like I’m a champion, and Saffron’s got her arm round my shoulders like we’re best friends. I’m wearing my pink silk skirt from Lipsy that I had to save up to buy, this white halter neck with a golden swirly pattern on it that I saw in an old Mark Jacobs catalogue, and those new Chloé high heels with real gold on them that cost £2000 a pair. My hair’s got amber lowlights and cascades down around my shoulders in this waterfall of bouncing curls, and my eyes have got this silver glitter on them that make them look huge and catlike. I’m stunning and sexy, nothing like the frightened albino rabbit I usually look like. Then the girls start singing ‘Ooh’, harmonising with each other, Fina doing the high part, and then they start to walk to the sides of the stage and Saffron gives me a gentle push forward. I raise the microphone and the crowd let out a great cheer as I sing the opening line to ‘My Heart Is Not Your Toy’.

  Then Mimi ruins my fantasy by banging on the door and shouting at me that Rita’s just got home from work and says I have to get out of there right this minute. This is the tough part, because Rita still scares me even after all these years. She can be really sarcastic in that way that you can’t come back at, and has this tone of voice that makes you feel like the stupidest person on earth just because you forgot to put the cereal boxes away. She wasn’t so bad when Daddy was around, but after he died she morphed without warning into this totally evil stepmother who no one dares to cross, not even Mimi who she adores. But I know I’ve got to do this and so I keep quiet and refuse to answer. Finally Mimi goes away, but not before gleefully telling me how much trouble I’m going to be in. Still, I can hear this grudging respect in her voice which makes a nice change. Some girls look up to their elder sisters, but not Mimi. She thinks I’m a lost cause. And whenever anyone calls us sisters she always has to point out that we’re not biologically related to one other, like the idea of being genetically linked to me would be like being related to an amoeba.

  I can hear them in the kitchen down the passage, Mimi informing Rita that I’m not talking and Rita’s voice rising as she demands to know who the hell I think I am, playing games like this in her house and at my age. Then Jack, who’s cooking a mushroom risotto from the smell of it, says something I don’t catch but I know it’ll be designed to soothe, something like that I’m just a teenager and I’ll come out when I’m hungry. But if that’s what he does say then he’s wrong, because I’m in this for the long haul, and anyway, everyone knows that teenagers can do hunger strikes better than anyone. I put my earphones back in and turn up the volume.

  Bathrooms are really great places for sieges. You can totally see why girls are always running into them for refuge in TV programmes after bust-ups with their families. You’ve got everything you need – toilet, shower, bathtub, mirror and, most important of all, toiletries. The next hour goes by without me hardly even noticing, I’m so busy trying to make myself up to look like the girl in my fantasy. I experiment with some of Rita’s Maybelline, the new stuff that separates out your lashes and gives them coal-black definition and extra length. It makes my eyes look like they’ve got spiders’ legs stuck around them.

  At half-past eight Rita herself comes and knocks on the door.

  ‘Ella?’ she says in her reasonable voice, which isn’t really very reasonable at all since Rita’s one of those people who’s used to just demanding things. ‘Come out now, please.’

  I stick with my vow of silence. This is mostly because I’m afraid to speak, because if I do I know Rita’ll somehow get control and make me open the door. But it’s also partly because I don’t need to. She knows perfectly well why I’m in here. I cried myself to sleep after she said I couldn’t go to the audition, and when I got up this morning my face was all red and swollen like I’d had an allergic reaction overnight.

  ‘Listen, Ella,’ says Rita, a rising edge to her voice now. ‘You don’t want to parade around with a bunch of girls and then get judged for it. I’m not letting you go and that’s final. I really don’t care how long you stay in there.’

  This is rich of course, since judging girls for what they parade around
in is what Rita does for a living. But I know it’s not really her opinion anyway. It’s Jack’s. He’s the one who said I shouldn’t go and Rita always listens to him when it comes to Mimi and me. He said that it was damaging, that all they want to do is turn the girls they get into a product, first for TV and then for some corrupt record company. I said I was perfectly fine about this, but Jack said I didn’t know what I was talking about. He said I wouldn’t get in, and that then I’ll be crushed and he doesn’t want me to get scarred by such a stupid process. But that’s not the real reason. The real reason he doesn’t want to take me is because he doesn’t want me to get the attention. He doesn’t want to have to acknowledge me, to deal with me, to look up from fawning over Mimi and notice that I’m still here.

  ‘Ella, this is very selfish of you,’ says Rita, going all high and nasal, which is how her voice is naturally. ‘You know how much stress I’m under. I don’t need this.’

  Rita is always under stress because she’s the deputy editor of Fascinate! Every Sunday, the day before the magazine goes out, this stress boils over into fever pitch and she practically has a meltdown, and goes racing through the house looking for things to scream at you for. It’s quite frightening actually, but she always calms down the next day and makes up for it by giving Mimi and me loads of the free samples of perfume and cosmetics she gets sent, and sometimes even accessories.

  Still I don’t answer, though it’s really hard because I’m crossing a line and there’s no going back. After a few seconds of waiting Rita screeches ‘Fine! Stay in there for ever!’ and angrily clip-clops off down the passageway in her spikes. I put my ear to the door so I can hear everyone sitting down to dinner in the kitchen. The conversation is dominated by Rita, of course, complaining about some assistant at work and how impossible her deadlines are and how much she needs a holiday. Jack and Mimi eat in silence, except for Jack saying ‘Mmmmm’ and Mimi saying ‘Yuck’ from time to time. By dessert Rita’s ranting is all about me, how spoilt I am and what excruciatingly wanton behaviour I’m displaying; how I’m my father’s daughter through and through, unable to accept it when something doesn’t go my way.