Family Fan Club (4 page)

“Did you get the part?” said Jazz.

“No, I did not, thank you very much for asking. Wouldn’t have wanted it, anyway.”

“So why did you go for the interview?” said Rose.

Mum cleared her throat, rather loudly. “I think we’ll open the presents, now.”

“Yessss!” cried Laurel.

“Daisy,” said Mum, “come and help me give them out.”

“For the next ten minutes all that could be heard was the rustling of wrapping paper being ripped and scrunched, together with glad cries of “Oh! Brilliant! Just what I wanted!” plus the occasional sniff from Lady Jayne, who always found it difficult to be pleased about anything.

“Oh! Look what Dad’s sent me!” breathed Laurel, kneeling on the floor as she undid her presents.

“What is it, what is it?” Jazz craned to see.

“A signed photograph of Leonardo!” Laurel keeled over, dramatically, clutching the photo to her chest.

“Last of the big spenders,” sniffed Lady Jayne. But Laurel couldn’t have been happier.

“Wait till I show it at school! They’ll be green with envy!”

“Well, whatever turns you on.” Lady Jayne gazed down, distastefully, at the present she had just opened. What’s this supposed to be?”

“It’s from me.” Daisy announced it, proudly. “I made it for you specially! I got one of those tubes that people put things in to send through the post, and I put pretty
paper all over it and made a little handle so you can hang it up somewhere.”

“But what is it for?” said Lady Jayne.

Daisy beamed. “It’s to put plastic bags in. Instead of throwing them away … you put them in the tube.”

“You
re-use
them,” said Rose. “It’s environmentally friendly.”

“Oh. Well!” Just for a moment. Lady Jayne seemed at a loss. She sniffed. “That will help save the world,” she said.

Well, it would, thought Jazz. If everyone recycled instead of chucking out, there would be a lot less litter cluttering the place up. Lady Jayne was always so
ungracious.
Daisy had spent hours making her presents.

“Girls!” Mum intervened, hastily, before Jazz could start anything. “What about this surprise you promised me?”

“Yes!” Jazz scrambled eagerly to her feet. “Wait there! We’ll go and get ready.”

“I don’t know what it is, exactly” – Mum leaned across to Lady Jayne – “but it’s something they’ve been working on.”

Lady Jayne rolled her eyes. Miserable old witch! thought Jazz. We’ll show her!

Jazz headed for the door, the other three hot on her heels. Laurel’s bedroom, being the biggest, had been
pressed into service as a dressing room. All their clothes were laid out neatly on Laurel’s bed.

“And then for Jazz,” announced Laurel, “there’s this.” She scrambled on to a chair and proudly lifted something down from the top of the wardrobe. Jazz felt her jaw drop open.

“That’s Mum’s wig!”

“Yes,” beamed Laurel. “I dyed it.”

There was an appalled silence. The wig, which had been honey blonde, the same colour as Mum’s own hair, was now a pale sludge brown.

“Does Mum …
know?
” breathed Jazz.

“No, but it’s all right, it’ll wash out. At least—” Laurel seemed suddenly stricken with doubts. “I think it will. But even if it won’t, she can always have it dyed back again! Let’s put it on and I’ll pin it up the way Jo would have hers.”

Jazz had to admit, she certainly felt more Jo-like wearing Mum’s wig. She just hoped Mum wouldn’t immediately recognise it and start screaming. Because she
was
going to scream! Laurel had better be prepared.

Fortunately, being sludge brown and pulled back into an elaborate bun (Laurel quite fancied herself as a hairdresser) it didn’t bear very much resemblance to Mum’s wig at all. At any rate, Mum didn’t immediately scream and cry, “Stop the show!”

“Oh!” She gave a crow of delight. “Charades!”

“Not charades,” said Laurel. “It’s a
play.
”

“Even better!” cried Mum.

“And look, we’ve done programmes!” said Daisy, thrusting one each at Mum and Lady Jayne. “I did them,” she added.

Daisy was proud of her programmes. She had written them out in her best handwriting, and decorated them with coloured flowers.

“Well!” Mum beamed, brightly, at Lady Jayne. “How exciting! I wasn’t expecting this. Live entertainment on Christmas Day!”

Lady Jayne just sniffed. But no one took any notice of her; Mum was the one who counted. If only, prayed Jazz, Daisy could manage to remember her lines …

Miracle of miracles! Daisy did!

“I tried specially hard,” she whispered to Jazz, as very solemnly, at the end, they took their bows. “’cos I know how much it means to you.”

Mum and Lady Jayne both clapped.

“Bravo!” cried Mum. She jumped up and gave them all a hug, in turn. “That was wonderful, darlings. What a surprise! It was lovely!”

Even Lady Jayne seemed (just a little bit) impressed.

“Looks like there’s another actress in the family,” she grunted.

It was quite the nicest thing she had ever been known to say.

“Yes,” agreed Mum, “Jazz is—”

It was as far as Mum got, for at that moment the telephone rang, loud and shrill, out in the hall.

“
Dad!
“ shrieked Laurel, and went tearing out there.

Jazz is what? thought Jazz. It was so frustrating! Mum had already jumped up and followed Laurel into the hall.

“I don’t think it can be your father,” she was saying. “It’s far too early in the day.”

“It’s one o’ clock!” squealed Daisy.

“Not in California. It’s only” – Mum did some quick calculations on her fingers – “only five o’ clock in the morning in California!”

But Laurel was holding out the receiver and beckoning urgently at Daisy.

“Quick, quick, it’s Dad! Have you got your list?”

Mum raised one eyebrow after the other and went back to the sitting room. Daisy reached up her skirt and pulled out a scrap of paper. (Where had she been keeping it? In her
knickers
?) Timidly, she took the receiver. The other three clustered round, impatient for their turn.

Dad rang them once a month but they could never talk for very long. A minute each was the very most they ever had, which was why it was important for Daisy, who always got tongue-tied, to work out beforehand what she wanted to say. Today, perhaps because it was Christmas, Dad was splashing out. Laurel, who had grabbed hold of the receiver as soon as Daisy had finished, seemed intent on gabbling for ever. Agitated, Jazz tugged at her sleeve and mouthed, “Me!”

Laurel put her hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s all right, we can talk as long as we want!”

Mum had come back out into the hall. She seemed surprised they were still on the phone.

“It’s all right,” said Jazz. “We can talk as much as we want.”

Mum raised her eyebrows again and disappeared. She and Dad hadn’t spoken once since the Great Row, except just occasionally when Mum had happened to pick up the phone and it had been Dad calling from the States, when Mum would say, “Oh. It’s you. Hang on, I’ll get the girls.” Not even, “How are you?”

But then Dad never asked after Mum, either. Parents could be
so
uncivilised.

Jazz got her turn at last. She snatched up the receiver.

“Dad?”

“Hi, baby!” Dad’s rich, velvety tones came clearly down the line. It was hard to believe he was all those thousands of miles away. “What’s all this I hear about playacting?”

Jazz launched enthusiastically into an account of
Little Women,
how she had written the script and Laurel had made the costumes and how even Daisy had managed to learn her lines.

“What I really, really want to do is go to drama school, you know? Just that little one up the road? Like if someone could wave a magic wand and—” Jazz stopped, and bit her lip. It wasn’t fair, laying all this on
Dad. He didn’t have a magic wand. Nobody did.

“Well, anyway,” she said, “I think it was a success!”

By the time they had all had their turn at speaking, and Daisy, as promised, had spoken twice, they had been on the telephone for almost half an hour.

“Well! That will have cost a pretty penny,” said Lady Jayne. “Come into a fortune, has he?”

“It’s
Christmas
,” said Laurel.

Lady Jayne sniffed. “Tell me about it!”

“So what’s he up to?” said Mum.

“Er—”

Laurel turned, helplessly, to Jazz.

“He didn’t say,” said Jazz. She should have asked him! How could she have been so egotistical? Going on about herself all the time!

It seemed that the others had gone on about themselves, too.

“I guess we can take it he hasn’t landed a part in the next Bruce Willis spectacular.” Lady Jayne gave a self-satisfied smirk. She would hate it if Dad were suddenly to become a big star.

“He might have got a part,” said Jazz. “Just because, he didn’t tell us—”

“Oh, he’d have told you!” Lady Jayne nodded, smugly, and sat back in her chair. “He’d have told you, all right!”

Unfortunately, Jazz knew that that was probably true. If Dad hadn’t talked about work, it meant that nothing had happened. He hadn’t even talked about auditions or interviews.

“Well!” Mum stood up. “I have to say your play was absolutely brilliant. I’m really proud of you all! I’m sure your dad would have been, too.”

“He was!” said Daisy. “I told him all about it. He said he wished he could have been here.”

There was a silence.

“Yes. Well. How about you four going off to get changed?” said Mum. “I’ll go and see to lunch.”

Jazz trailed up the stairs after the others. She was still brooding over what Mum might have been going to say.
Yes, Jazz is
– what?
What?
Jazz is
what
? She had to know!

Jazz turned, and went bounding back down again. Mum was in the hall, punching out numbers on the telephone. 1_4_7_1. It was what you dialled to find out the last caller. But Mum knew the last caller! It was Dad.

“What are you dialling that for?” said Jazz.

“Oh!” Mum started, guiltily. “I just wondered where your father was ringing from.”

“America,” said Jazz. Where else?

“Well, anyway, they didn’t have the number,” said
Mum. “You were excellent as Jo, by the way. Really excellent. Well done!”

Jazz glowed. “Mum, do you think—”

“I know what you’re going to ask me,” said Mum. “I know you want to go to drama school. But Jazz, sweetheart, we simply can’t afford it at the moment! Give me a while. Maybe something will turn up … some telly. A commercial.” She laughed. “Even a movie! Just keep your fingers crossed. You never know what might happen. By the way—” Mum leaned forward, peering suspiciously through narrowed eyes. “What
is
that you’re wearing on your head?”

Mum had been rather cross about her wig. If it hadn’t been Christmas, she blisteringly informed them, she would have been even crosser. She had been quite cross enough, as it was.

“What a thing to do! How utterly thoughtless and selfish!”

Jazz defended her sister by pointing out that while Laurel may have got a bit carried away, “It was all for the sake of the play!”

“You think that makes it any better?” fumed Mum.

Laurel declared that she was sorry, but “I was doing it for Jazz! She really wanted to impress you!”

Mum refused to be placated.

“You’ve ruined a perfectly good wig! Do you have any idea how much that wig cost?”

“It’ll wash out,” said Laurel, hopefully.

“Oh, will it?” said Mum.

“Well … it might,” said Laurel. She was beginning to sound rather miserable.

“And if it doesn’t?”

“You could always have it bleached back!”

Lady Jayne sucked her breath in.

“Let’s go and give it a shampoo!” cried Daisy.

“I’m warning you,” said Mum, “if it doesn’t work I shall expect you to contribute your Christmas money for a new one!”

“Cheap at the price,” sniffed Lady Jayne.

Two spots of colour appeared on Laurel’s cheeks. She had been relying on Nan’s Christmas money to buy herself some new tights and some make-up.

“Don’t worry,” whispered Daisy. “You can have mine!”

“I was only doing it for Jazz,” muttered Laurel.

Jazz wrestled a moment with her conscience. Did that mean she ought to offer
her
Christmas money?

The moment passed. There wasn’t any reason, Jazz decided, why she should be expected to make a sacrifice. Whatever Laurel might say, she hadn’t really dyed Mum’s wig just so that Jazz could impress Mum with her acting skills. She’d dyed it because she wanted her costumes to look their best. Which was perfectly understandable, but no concern of mine, thought Jazz. Besides, Jazz needed her Christmas money. She had started a drama school fund, which so far had only reached the pitiful amount of £8. Nan’s contribution would bring it to £28, which was more like it. Twenty-eight pounds made you feel that you were getting somewhere.

They all clustered anxiously in the bathroom, watching as Mum doused her wig with shampoo.

“If anything will shift it, this will.”

A great cheer went up as streams of sludge brown water gurgled down the plug hole.

“I told you, I told you!” crowed Laurel. “I’m not stupid! I knew it would come out!”

While Rose and Daisy laid the table for lunch, and Jazz gave a hand in the kitchen, Laurel rushed off with the wig to blow dry and style it. She came back down, beaming triumphantly.

“See?”

Laurel did have a way with hair. The wig was now smooth and gleaming.

“Not quite the same colour, though, is it?” sniffed Lady Jayne.

Laurel’s face fell. “It a–almost is.”

“It’s honey brown,” said Jazz.

“Oh.” Lady Jayne curled her lip. “Is that what you call it?”

Laurel looked anxiously at Mum.

“It might suit you better like this,” she said.

Mum tried it on. They held their breath.

“Well,” said Mum. She turned this way and that, studying herself from all angles in the large mirror over the mantelpiece. “I suppose it’s a new image,” she conceded. Then she smiled. “Maybe it’ll bring me luck!”

Danger averted! They let out their breath. Laurel hurled herself at Mum and threw her arms round her neck. Lady Jayne sniffed.

“You let them run rings round you. They’re spoilt.”

We’re not, thought Jazz. We just have a wonderful mum! But they had a wonderful dad, as well. How come two such wonderful people couldn’t get it together? It just didn’t make any sense.

On Boxing Day, Mum’s show opened and they all went to see it. Mum went off early, in the car, while the rest of them travelled down later by train. Lady Jayne came with them. She had a cold which she said she had
caught from the cab driver (the one she had accused of daylight robbery).

“I don’t see how you can have done,” objected Rose.

“Colds don’t develop that fast.”

“This one did,” said Lady Jayne.

“But it can’t have!”

“Well, it has. What do you know about it? Are you a doctor? That’s right, you edge away, miss! You keep your distance!”

Jazz had wriggled herself to the far end of the seat. She didn’t want to catch Lady Jayne’s rotten cold! On Sunday she had an important party to go to. It was a showbiz party, given by a director friend of Mum’s. He had said that Mum was welcome to bring Jazz and Laurel with her. Jazz had been looking forward to it for weeks!

Laurel had obviously remembered the party, too. She shuffled along the seat after Jazz. Rose, on the seat opposite, next to Lady Jayne, also shuffled. Only Daisy was left, trapped between Lady Jayne and the window.

I suppose it must look rather rude, thought Jazz, but she is spraying her germs absolutely everywhere. It was true that Lady Jayne was somewhat vigorous in her sneezing. First there came a long-drawn-out “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah", during which she threw back her head, nostrils flared, nose pointing ceiling-wards,
mouth gaping open. This was followed by a resounding “TISHoo!” like a great clash of cymbals. Sometimes she managed to catch it in her handkerchief, but quite often she didn’t.

Laurel put her mouth close to Jazz’s ear. “I hope she isn’t going to do that all through the performance!”

I shall die if she does, thought Jazz. But Lady Jayne, for all her moaning and groaning, was just as much a pro as Mum and Dad. She could control her sneezes if she really wanted. Obviously, on the train, she was just being self-indulgent, for she sat through the entire performance of
Little Women
with no more than the occasional muted “Whumpf!” into her handkerchief.

It was exciting, standing in the foyer of the theatre and seeing a large glossy photograph of Mum, and on a poster, in big red letters, WITH DEBBIE SILVER AS MARMEE.

Silver had been Mum’s name before she married Dad. In married life she was Mrs Jones. Jazz could never make up her mind, when she became an actress, whether she would be Jasmine Silver or plain Jasmine Jones. Silver was more glam, but Rose always said that Jasmine Jones had a ring to it. Rose could be right; she often was.

The girl playing Jo was called Keri Dunn. She was tall and slim with thick chestnut hair. Jazz couldn’t help
envying her. What she wouldn’t give to be up there on stage in her place! Afterwards, Laurel said loyally that “She wasn’t half as good as you,” but Jazz wasn’t quite sure whether she could believe her. She sometimes thought that Laurel said things just to be kind. But then Rose leaned over, under cover of the applause, and hissed, “You were far more convincing than she was! She’s too
pretty.
”

Rose almost never said things just to be kind. It cheered Jazz up, until she remembered that no matter how convincing she was, no one would ever dream of casting her as Jo. They wouldn’t cast her as Ophelia, either. Or as Lady Macbeth. Or as Beatrice, in
Much Ado about Nothing.
Jazz wanted to play Beatrice almost more than anything in the world! There wasn’t any reason why Beatrice shouldn’t be black. Maybe one day …

“Hey!” She felt a finger poking her in the ribs. “Get moving!” said Laurel.

Lady Jayne led them to the pass door, which divided the world of make-believe from the world of reality. Backstage, all was hustle and bustle. Jazz could feel the blood pounding through her veins. This was where she belonged! This was her home.

On the way to Mum’s dressing room they passed the girl who had played Jo. Keri Dunn. She didn’t look
quite as stunning offstage. Her skin was bad and she had a rash of pimples on her forehead. Jazz tried not to be pleased, but after all, she thought, I am only human.

Driving home in the car, with Lady Jayne in front with Mum and the four girls squashed up in the back, they discussed the performances. Everyone agreed that Mum had been brilliant as Marmee.

“You do a good accent,” said Lady Jayne.

“Thank you kindly!” laughed Mum. “What did you think of our Laurie?”

Laurie was the Lawrence boy – the boy next door. Jazz said she thought he was OK, Rose that he was a bit wet. Daisy, always the most impressionable, thought that he was lovely.

“Not a patch on Leonardo,” said Laurel. Everybody groaned.

“How about Jo?” said Mum.

“Nowhere near as good as Jazz,” was the general verdict.

Lady Jayne sniffed, and sneezed, but she didn’t actually argue. I
am
good, thought Jazz. I know I am!

“Now, are you sure you’re going to be all right?” said Mum.

“Mum! I told you!”

Rose gave Mum a little push towards the front door, where Jazz and Laurel stood waiting. It was Sunday, the
day of the party, and if Mum had asked once whether Rose and Daisy would be all right, she had asked a dozen times. She was anxious about Daisy, who had caught Lady Jayne’s cold and was tucked up on the sofa, with Muffy and Tink. Daisy’s colds were always worse than other people’s. Once when she was little she had caught pneumonia and had to go into hospital, so Mum always fussed over her more than she did the others.

“You’ve got the telephone number?” she said.

“Yes, Mum! I’ve got the telephone number.” Rose said it kindly and patiently, as she shepherded them down the hall.

“We shan’t be long. Just a couple of hours. We’ll be back by nine at the latest.”

“
Yes,
Mum.”

“If anyone comes to the door, don’t open it. Not even on the chain!”

“
No,
Mum.”

“Well, then.” Mum smiled, brightly. “Are we ready?”

Jazz had been ready for over an hour. She liked to look neat, but she knew she could never be glam so she didn’t try. She was wearing a crop top, bright orange, and a short black skirt with an orange border which showed off her legs. Jazz wasn’t vain, but she was secretly proud of her legs. She considered them her best
feature. (Even if a girl at school
had
once said she looked like a racing spider. Totty Langhorn, that was. Squat little gnome.)

“Laurel?” said Mum.

Laurel had come sailing down the stairs at the last minute. Laurel was someone who
could
look glam. She was wearing a blue dress that had been one of Mum’s favourites until an awful day, just a few weeks ago, when she had discovered she could no longer get into it. She had blamed it on Dad. (Mum blamed everything on Dad.) She said that she had done nothing but “comfort eat” ever since he had left, which Jazz found odd since Mum always claimed to be glad that Dad had gone. Anyway, she had got too fat (not that anyone could call Mum
fat)
and so the dress had passed to Laurel. With a few nips and tucks it fitted her perfectly.

But how grown up she looks! thought Jazz. With her hair swept back, Laurel could almost have passed for eighteen. It made Jazz, in her crop top and short skirt, feel about ten years old.

“Have a nice time,” said Rose, who didn’t mind in the least not going with them. Rose quite liked being left at home, in charge. Dad always said that Rose was the one real adult in the family.

“The rest of us are all just children.”

Mum was driving them to the party because that
way, she said, she wouldn’t be tempted to drink. (She was on a diet and drink was strictly forbidden.)

“Can we drink?” said Jazz.

“Certainly not!” said Mum.

“But we’re not on diets!”

“Can’t help that.”

“It’ll seem so childish,” sighed Laurel. “And there’s bound to be champagne!”

“Too bad,” said Mum. “Just think yourselves lucky you’re coming at all.”

The director giving the party was called Rufus White. He only lived twenty minutes away, in an old tall house near Clapham Common. Mum said that some people were going on afterwards to have dinner, but she hadn’t wanted to do that.

“Why not?” wailed Laurel. “I’d love to go and have dinner!”

Crushingly, Mum said, “The dinner is for grown-ups. Not for children. You’ll have your fun early on.”

Just at first, Jazz wasn’t sure that she was going to have fun. Mum disappeared almost immediately, swept away by an actress friend.

“Be all right, you two?” She beamed and nodded and vanished into the crowd, leaving Jazz and Laurel on their own clasping glasses of orange juice.

“There
is
champagne,” whispered Laurel. “I saw it!”

Jazz shrugged. She wasn’t interested in champagne, she was interested in people, only there didn’t seem to be anyone else there of her age. There were several little kids racing about, all over-excited and showing off, and lots of what Dad called Beautiful Young Things, also over-excited and also showing off, shrieking and kissing and making a lot of noise. Jazz thought she recognised one of them. A girl dressed in deepest black with spiky hair and lips painted purple.

She wondered if she dared go up to her. Well, why not? she thought. It’s a
party.

Jazz took a breath.

“Excuse me,” she said. She said it in her best voice. Polite and posh. Her actress voice. Not the one she used for school or with friends. Her Sarf Lunnon voice, as Dad called it. “Excuse me … were you on television the other day?”