Dream Machine Read online

  Please . . . says the girl, please . . . Jack!

  This is your last chance to get that fucking thing away from me!

  The camera crew calmly carry on shooting, and the man suddenly looks at his feet. Boringly it looks as though he’s got a grip. Then he raises up his fists again and loses it completely. He lunges at the camera. Before he can reach it the sound geezer steps between them holding the boom out in front of him. Now listen . . . he starts to say, but he’s cut off by the dad as he charges into him, sending them both flying into the crowd, which immediately moves out the way so that they land on the carpet on top of each other. The boom pole thumps down next to them.

  Stop it . . . just stop it . . . the girl in pink is moaning.

  Get the . . . off me! the sound guy is yelling as the dad twists his arm behind his back and then sits on him like a school bully, pushing his head into the ground with one knee.

  I warned you! pants the dad.

  For a minute everyone just stands around gawping at them and not lifting a finger to help. The camera guy is still filming as the dad grinds his buddy’s face into the carpet. Disgusted cos of how pathetic everyone is, I leap into action-mode. I jump forward and tug at the crazy dad’s shoulder, trying to get him away from the poor sound geezer who’s now making these noises like he’s gone into labour.

  Get the fuck off him, you bullying bastard!

  There are more gasps from all the parents. Now I’m no soft touch, but rage has made this guy strong as a fucking ox. The mother cunt shakes off my grip with a single shrug and then without even looking shoves me backwards with his arm. I land on the carpet flat on my arse. I’m about to go at him with teeth and nails when the miserable-faced woman with the clipboard arrives on the scene with two beefy security guards.

  Excuse me! she screeches at a couple of gormless parents who are in her way filming the attack with their mobiles. Without waiting for them to move the security guards push them to the side and march forward like SS officers. They each take one of the crazy dad’s arms and yank him off the poor spluttering sound geezer.

  You can’t do this! the man shouts. I’ve got rights! You’ve infringed them! Ella! Where’s Ella?

  Get him out of here! orders the woman. The security guards start tugging the dad through the crowd. Everyone’s just talking in whispers like they’re not s’posed to speak out loud. The camera dude follows the security guards, still shooting the angry dad as they take him out the doors of the entrance. The woman with the clipboard crouches next to the sound geezer. Apart from the purple colour he seems to be fine, and far more worried about his mangled equipment than maybe being concussed. Total fucking idiot, he mutters, flipping all these toggles on the box that connects to the boom. The woman stands up again and clears her throat. Everyone stops whispering and goes silent.

  Right, everybody, show’s over! she declares. I want friends and family back in the auditorium and girls to start lining up at this door. The judges will be delivering their verdict in ten minutes.

  Instantly the room explodes into noise and movement.

  ‘I feel . . . nervous. I never felt so nervous before! Not even the night before a test when I know I haven’t revised enough. This means absolutely everything to me . . . If they don’t pick me I don’t know what I’ll do!’

  Jack’s waiting in the car. His hands are resting on the wheel and his head is drooping over his lap like he’s lost the will to live. I’m shaking with every step I take, but I keep on going and climb in beside him, leaving the door open. We sit there in silence for a while, during which I realise that he’s shaking too. It suddenly seems funny, both of us quivering away like this, especially after what’s just happened, and before I know it I’m giggling. Once I’ve started I can’t stop, and the next thing Jack’s giggling away like mad too. He lifts his head and I catch his eye and suddenly it’s just like old times, the days when he’d pick me up after school and drive us to the common and we’d sit in the car looking out over the green and telling jokes about how rough our days had been. It’s been so long since we laughed together, and it’s so nice, I want to reach over and hug him. But I don’t. I know that if I do he’ll just draw back like he always does when I touch him, like I’ve got an infectious disease. Thinking about this makes me stop giggling, and gradually so does Jack. Then we’re back to an awkward silence again.

  ‘That was the absolute worst!’ he says finally, giving me a weak and exhausted grin. ‘I’m really sorry, Ella. I lost it big time back there. I . . . I don’t know what came over me. I just completely saw red.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I say, wanting to sound strong and grown up but hearing my voice come out in the usual pipsqueak it turns into when I’m nervous. Jack seems satisfied though. He turns back to the wheel and starts the ignition.

  ‘Close the door and put your seatbelt on,’ he says.

  I don’t move. Down the street I notice a ticket inspector is checking the windscreens of parked cars. She’s wearing one of those fluorescent jerkins which stands out like a streak of yellow fire against her dark skin. It’s quite similar to an Armani one I saw in a recent issue of Fascinate!

  ‘Come on, Ella, I haven’t got time to mess around,’ says Jack, putting on his pretend-grumpy voice, the one he uses when he’s trying to get something done quickly with as little fuss as possible. He casts a hopeful look at me.

  ‘But I’ve got to go back inside,’ I say slowly, trying to enunciate each word so it sounds like I mean it.

  ‘Forget about your clothes!’ Jack cries. ‘We can return that dress another time. Or else just keep it! I don’t suppose they’ll care, will they? You should keep it. It looks . . . it looks good on you.’

  He gives me another grin, but I can see that it’s desperate, that he knows perfectly well I wasn’t talking about collecting my clothes.

  ‘I have to go back inside to find out if I made it through,’ I say. Even though my voice is still quivering, I think there’s a hint of strength in it. A hint of Rita’s no-shit-taking. The tiniest little bit, but there nonetheless.

  Jack loses his grin. He turns back to look at the street. The female inspector is just a few metres away from us now, making notes on her pad about the blue car in front of us. Her expression is tired and bored, like she’s been doing this job for years and years and is truly sick of it. I suppose it can’t be much fun walking up and down streets, checking to see if people have paid to park and then writing out tickets if they haven’t. I wonder how she gets up the energy to go to work every day? If that were my job I’d probably just end up at home, lying there all day depressed, staring at my fluorescent uniform and getting fat on Maltesers and yoghurt bars.

  ‘I was good, Jack,’ I say. ‘I was really good!’

  I can see he doesn’t believe me. But the thing is, it’s true. I was incredibly nervous when I went onstage, so much so that my knees kept hitting each other from all the shaking I was doing. I kept trying to think of myself as a character in a film, like Baby in Dirty Dancing, or Lauryn Hill in Sister Act II, doing what I had to despite what my family thought because song and dance was in my blood and one day the whole world would be changed by watching me perform. Then I got onstage and it was like nothing I’d ever experienced in my whole life. All these faces and bright lights, all aimed directly at me, watching and waiting. I thought I was going to have a seizure, that they’d have to get paramedics in to remove me from the stage. I could see Tess folding her arms impatiently at the judges’ table, her mean old face unimpressed, and suddenly I thought to myself, You’ve got to try. Even if you fail, you’ve got to have a go. Otherwise there’s nothing. As I began ‘Petrified’, which is a song I love because I know just how Cindy Shaw felt when she sang it, all frightened and alone, the nerves – they just vanished! It was amazing, like the audience suddenly ceased to even exist and I was on my own in my room, singing to the mirror the way I always do when no one else is home. And afterwards Emma said I was really good and Joe said that I made him re
ally believe in what I was singing about. And Tess said I was stomachable. It felt just amazing.

  ‘Look, Ella,’ breathes Jack. His hands have tightened on the steering wheel and turned white around the knuckles. ‘What is this about? Do you want to tell the world about us? Do you want me to get charged with statutory rape and go to prison? Are you trying to punish me? Is that it?’

  I’m shocked. Shocked by the idea, shocked by the way he says this, shocked that he might actually believe it.

  ‘That’s not it at all!’ I cry. ‘I just want—’

  I stop. I can’t say what I want, because it’ll only sound daft, and I know Jack doesn’t want to hear it anyway. He’s not interested in the real reason I’m doing this, only in how he can stop me. But what I want is for him to put his hands on me again, like he did back when we would sit side by side in the car at the edge of the common, on my shoulders, on my breasts, on my knees, before sliding them up to my pussy as he gently presses his lips to my lips, his face prickling ever so slightly against mine from a day’s growth of stubble. I want him to grin when I act as though it hurts and for him to promise he’ll shave if only I’ll touch it, just quickly, just for a minute. I want to hear him groan as I take it out of his pants and hold it with both hands, revealing the dark red part that looks like a turnip. I want to feel him shudder as I put my tongue to it and run it over the little slit at the top, which always reminds me of a baby rosebud. I want to hear him whisper my name as his stuff shoots out, making me scream and then sit back giggling and telling him off for not holding it for longer. I want to see his eyes full of love for me as we sit in silence afterwards, not the awkward silence we have now, but the gentle, knowing silence we used to share, smoking forbidden cigarettes I’m not allowed to inhale while our hearts beat loud and hard because we know what the world doesn’t, which is that we belong together.

  ‘For God’s sake, Ella!’

  He suddenly turns to me again. He’s got this horrible look of panic on his face, like he’s a wanted man and I’m the reason he’s going to get caught. I stare into his eyes. Jack’s got eyes like no one else in the whole world. They’re deep blue, almost violet, with massive black pupils no matter how light it is, and when he looks at you – and I mean properly looks – those pupils seem to draw you inside. I feel my heart begin to flutter.

  ‘Don’t you see that if you do this it’ll all come out?’

  ‘No!’ I say. ‘Nothing’ll come out! I won’t tell them anything!’

  ‘You’re not good with people, Ella – you’re going to be under a lot of scrutiny. Don’t you see what the consequences will be? For both of us? They’ll say I took advantage of you! And that you . . . that you need help.’

  I force my eyes to break away and look at the road. He’s wrong. Poor Jack. He just doesn’t get it. This is something I have to do. I take a slow breath of air, preparing myself. In front of us the inspector finishes her writing and leans over the windshield of the next car along to slide a ticket under its wiper.

  ‘Do you love me?’ I say.

  ‘What?’ cries Jack, obviously thrown by the question. ‘Of course I do! How can you even ask a thing like that?’

  I turn, hope flooding into my heart. But then I see his face and my hope dies like a puppy blown to smithereens by the shotgun of reality. He doesn’t mean it. Not the kind of love I’m talking about. The kind of love we used to share. He just means he loves me as a person, that’s all.

  ‘I’ve got to go now,’ I say.

  ‘Absolutely not!’ shouts Jack.

  He puts his foot on the accelerator and turns the wheel sharply. The car lurches into the road then stops as it slams jarringly against the rear light of the car in front, sending my forehead walloping into the dashboard. Pain rushes into my temples and I let out a little scream. The traffic inspector jumps back, staring at us wide-eyed with surprise.

  ‘Close that door!’

  But I’m already climbing out. Jack suddenly reaches out and grabs me by the wrist, trying to yank me back into the car.

  ‘Let go of me!’ I scream. Immediately the ticket inspector leaps into action and starts to hurry towards us. Jack’s grip loosens and I pull free. I leap out onto the pavement and start running, ignoring the inspector as she opens her mouth and asks if I’m all right, passing her and racing for all I’m worth towards the studio. I run through the entrance hall. At the far end the girls are all queued up outside the door that leads to the stage area, listening to the woman in the lemon Chanel two-piece, who’s giving them instructions. Blocking my way are the men who were filming earlier, the ones that Jack attacked when he lost it.

  ‘Hey,’ says the guy with the microphone pole, ‘where’s your dad? He nearly bust my DAT!’

  ‘I’m sorry!’ I cry, not knowing what else to say, knowing that if I don’t join the queue I’m going to miss it and then it’ll all be over.

  ‘Listen,’ he says. ‘Can we get a quick sound-bite?’

  ‘A sound-bite?’ I’m distracted and confused. ‘What about?’

  ‘Just about what happened. And how you’re feeling.’

  The man with the camera is already filming. My head hurts. I wonder if I’ve got a mark from where I hit the dashboard, and if they can see it. I start talking, apologising for Jack, telling them stuff about how I feel and not even knowing what is coming out of my mouth. Ahead the woman is opening the door and ushering the girls through it. I have to go. I give the camera a big smile, the sort of smile I imagine one of the girls from Purrfect might give in this situation, when everything has gone wrong but she still has to act like a professional and get the job done. The sound guy asks me another question but I don’t answer and run to the back of the queue.

  I scan the line for Joni as they file in, but there’s no sign of her. She must have already gone inside. I slip into place at the back. Nobody pays me any attention, including the Chanel woman who’s busy writing things down on her clipboard. My forehead throbs and I reach up and tug at my hair, loosening some strands so I’ve got something to cover it in case there’s a bruise forming.

  ‘Excuse me?’ I whisper to the super-skinny girl wearing the Debbie Gee peasant dress in front of me. She turns round, looking annoyed. ‘What’s going on?’

  She gives me a deeply scornful look, as if she’s already decided I must be a lost cause. It’s the sort of look I’m used to getting, that I get from all the teachers at school and from Rita at home whenever I make the mistake of trying to ask her a sensible question about the magazine.

  ‘We’re going onstage,’ she says slowly, like she’s talking to an idiot, ‘to find out who’s got through.’

  The woman in the Chanel utters a harsh ‘Shhh!’ in our direction and the girl glares at me like I’ve made her look bad. I follow her, a couple of steps at a time, past the woman and through the door, into the room behind the stage where we’re met by another camera crew. The woman enters behind us and splits us into two groups to enter from either side of the stage. I spy Joni on the opposite side, standing next to the tall black girl – the one who almost knocked me flying earlier – and chuckling about something with her. I try to catch her eye but she doesn’t seem to notice me. She looks excited and confident, pleased with herself even, her eyes all bright and shining. I wish I could feel like that. I can barely admit it to myself, but I’m even more scared than I was when I did my song, which is ridiculous because that was the hard bit. All we have to do now is stand there and listen to what they say about us. But I keep thinking of Jack, of that desperate look on his face and about how I screamed at him to let go of me when he tried to stop me getting out the car. I’ve never screamed at him before.

  A horrible feeling lurches through my stomach and I fold forward, crouching and dropping my head between my knees, wrapping my arms around my legs tightly.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ says the skinny girl next to me, in this accusing voice, as if she thinks I’m doing it just to get attention. She sounds a lot like M
imi. I feel a pressure against my back which I realise must be her hand. In the background some pop music has started up and there’s lots of movement as the girls start to file out onto the stage. From behind the wall comes the applause. It sounds like a hundred angry lions roaring for blood.

  ‘Breathe deeply,’ says the girl suddenly, in an unexpectedly kind voice. ‘Long, slow and deep.’

  I concentrate on doing what she says. I see Jack’s deep blue eyes and those blacker-than-black pupils. For a minute I have the sensation of falling, and I realise I’m probably fainting and that’s it, the competition is over for me, but then I open my eyes and find the girl has tugged me to my feet and is gently but firmly pulling me towards the stage entrance. Before we go on she puts her arms around me and gives me a quick hug. ‘Come on,’ she says, ‘let’s go out there and face the music!’ As she pulls back I see the camera behind her filming us. The lens looks like a single massive unblinking eye. Reflected in its black pupil is a white face under blonde hair, with this expression of sheer terror. Petrified. It’s only a few seconds later, as we’re ascending the steps to the stage, that I realise it was me.

  ‘Oh my God! Words don’t go near telling what I feel right now! I’m like, so happy I can’t even see straight. This is the most amazing and best thing that’s ever happened to me! All I can say is ARGHHHH!’

  All the train ride home I sit watching the fields pass by in this weird trance, like someone’s slipped me a Val. I’m in a total daze because of the fact that a week today I’m gonna be travelling back up to London to stay in a posh house and take part in this programme. They picked me – out of all them girls, they reckoned I was one of the ones who got the potential to be in Purrfect.