It didn’t help that their feet stuck to the carpet as they walked. Olive made a mental note that if the acting and the school dinner gig didn’t pan out, she could come pitch her services here as a cleaner.
‘Does my hair look okay?’ Fiona again.
Looking back, Odette had to admit that the three of them had scrubbed up pretty well. Gone were the school dinner lady uniforms and hairnets, and in their place were three women in their late twenties who’d worn their best looks. Nancy was in tight jeans and a white flouncy shirt with a frilly collar. Olive had taken out a credit account at Wrygges and used it to buy pale blue cord ski pants, new cream tukka boots and a pink denim jacket. Admittedly, though, Fiona was the most striking of the three. She was wearing black tight leather trousers (fake, but you couldn’t tell the difference), along with a black polo-neck jumper and a white furry jacket. She’d scraped her blonde hair up into a ponytail and she’d nipped into the toilets in Central Station to touch up her make-up while Olive and Nancy were in WHSmith buying a few packets of Tudor pickled onion crisps and a couple of Wham bars in case they got hungry.
Clipboard girl was bossing them again. ‘Right, if you could all take a seat, please, and I’ll give you all these forms to fill out. Alf Cotter, the director who will be auditioning you all today, will be calling the people he selects on Monday morning at 10a.m. So please put down the telephone number you can be reached on at that time.’
For Olive, that had been a no-brainer. Her phone had been cut off after Aunt Vi’s funeral because she hadn’t had the money to pay the bill. She planned to get it reconnected at some point, but what was the rush? No one ever called her anyway.
They’d filled out the forms and then waited another hour or so, until they were summoned through to the small function suite in groups of five. It smelled just as bad as the main club,but the small, wily-looking gent in a black jumper and Fedora, waving chain smoker’s fingers in a chair next to the stage didn’t seem to notice. He introduced himself as Alf Cotter, then had them all say their names, ages and what they did as a job.
Olive went first. ‘Olive Docherty. I’m twenty-eight. And I work as a school dinner lady.’
‘Of course you do, love,’ Alf had sneered. ‘And I’m the bloke that directedJaws.’
Olive didn’t understand, and she could see the same look of confusion on Nancy and Fiona’s faces too. ‘No, really. I am. The three of us work together in Weirbridge Primary School. We’re all dinner ladies.’
Alf sat back, took a cigarette out of his packet and lit it, before exhaling, an incredulous and slightly suspicious grin on his stubbly face. ‘So, you’re not just saying this because you’ve heard that one of the parts we’re auditioning is Agnes McGlinchy, a school dinner lady from the East End of Glasgow? Thirty years old, one kid, another on the way, and a husband who can’t keep his willy in his trousers?’
Olive felt herself flush, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of embarrassing her. ‘No. We’re really dinner ladies. If you want to see the burns on our arms from the pie oven, we can show you,’ she challenged him.
‘Un-fucking-believable,’ he crowed. ‘Right, you on the left, you can go – Agnes isn’t a ginger. And you on the right, that mole isn’t going to work on my screen.’
They watched as the two strangers who’d come in with them in their group of five were dismissed, and Olive knew she should be outraged that he’d spoken to them in such a nasty, condescending way, but the truth was, she was pleased. That was two less people to compete against.
‘Right, you three dinner ladies… You already know the job inside out, so let’s see if any of you can act your way out of apaper bag. I don’t need you to be polished. God knows, I’ve had every trained actress in Glasgow in here today and no one has nailed Agnes yet.’
Nancy went first, reading from the sheet of paper that Alf gave her. The scene called for Agnes to be having a furious argument with the headmistress of the school, bickering about a complaint that had been made about her. Agnes went on to threaten to tell every teacher and parent that she knew the headmistress was having a heated affair with one of the janitors.
Alf read the part of the headmistress, and Nancy threw her whole heart into it, leaving Olive open-mouthed and astonished at how great she was. Who knew she could act?
When the scene finished, Alf nodded thoughtfully. ‘Not bad. Not bad at all. Right, Blondie, you’re up next,’ he gestured to Fiona.
As Fiona made her way to the middle of the room, Nancy joined Olive at the back. ‘Bloody hell, Nancy, you were flipping fab. How did you do that?’
Nancy leaned in, spoke under her breath. ‘Just imagined I was having a barney with Georgina Walker. She was the bint that I caught sucking the face off my boyfriend when we were at our leavers dance, years ago. Oh, it felt good to get that off my chest.’ She gestured to their other friend. ‘Fiona’s giving it her best shot too, though. She looks like she’s about to knock that bloke’s head off.’
Olive turned her attention forward and saw that Nancy wasn’t kidding. Fiona had taken a step towards Alf, and was using her whole body to gesticulate and rage as they argued. Everyone was full of surprises today. She’d truly thought this was going to be a waste of time, and that they’d all just have a bit of a giggle, but the other two were definitely giving it their all. She continued to watch Fiona, trying to pick up any pointers that she could use. Okay. Inhibitions gone. Try to look up as muchas possible, even though you’re trying to read the words on the sheet of paper. Act with her body as well as saying the words. She could do that.
When Fiona was done, Alf gave another considered nod, then thanked her for coming. ‘Next!’ he shouted to her.
Olive’s hands were shaking and her knees felt like they could give way at any second, but she didn’t give a hint of that. This was all those times the schoolteachers had asked her if everything was okay at home and she’d slapped on a smile and told them of course it was, despite the fact that she’d eaten nothing but beans on blue-mouldy toast for weeks. It was every time she’d answered the door to the landlord and told him her aunt was out, but that she would be coming to give him the late rent tomorrow. It was every time she’d pretended not to care that other girls had normal houses, with normal mums and normal problems.
Alf checked his sheet. ‘Ready, Olive?’
Yep, this was going to be every single time she’d had to fake how she’d felt about anything in her life.
He gave her the opening line, and she went for it. Every word was delivered with vehemence, with commitment and with a level of bitterness that came straight from her gut and was aimed at every single bastard that had ever wronged her or treated her like dirt. It was aimed at the mum who’d left her. At the aunt who’d loved her gin more than she’d loved Olive. At the whole world for giving her the shit life that she had now.
She spat out the words until there were no more left on the page, and she realised that she was done, that she was back in the room, that Alf was staring at her and that her face was starting to beam with embarrassment.
‘I don’t know what goes on in your dinner hall, ladies, but I wouldn’t want to complain to any of you three about the lumps in my custard.’
He thought he was being funny, but Olive was too shaken to feel amused.
She slunk back over to Nancy and Fiona.
‘If we ever disagree on anything, remind me not to bother arguing,’ Nancy whispered to her with a wink.
