The Understudy

The Understudy

You know what it’s like when your thirteen, you just want to fit in. You want to be like all the other kids; go where they go; dress as they do; be accepted as one of them; but there was no way I was like any of them.; no, not one. Firstly, my accent was wrong; I talked differently. I’m Scottish and they’re English and they mocked me for it. The second thing wrong was my clothes; they were either hand-me-downs from my sister, Ruth, or second-hand from someone else, either way they never quite fitted me. The third thing wrong was…..no wait!….I could go on, but I won’t; I’ll just say I stuck out like a Great Dane in a poodle parlour, and I hated it. Most of my time was spent wishing there was a hole that I could bury myself in. Some of my earliest memories were of clinging to Mum’s leg trying to avoid the gaze of any who came within five miles of me. Well-meaning relatives filled me with dread as I desperately tried to pretend I wasn’t there. It was gross! I had to kiss the powdered cheek of this aunt, or the stubbly face of that uncle, who said he was growing a beard, but really just couldn’t be bothered to shave.

The worst times for me, though were the times I grew. Out would come my sister’s old clothes that had been carefully folded and put away for the time I had grown enough to wear them. This meant that my clothes were either too small because I was growing out of them, or too big because I was growing into them. There never seemed to be a time that they were just right

It was the 28th of December and snow lay on the ground.

“What are you doing, Leah?” Mum shouted down to me from her bedroom.

“I’m just going to feed my rabbit,” I shouted back.

“Put your coat on, it’s cold out there,”

“Ok” I took my coat off the banister and put my arms in. Oooh. This is tight. I don’t remember it being this tight. I caught sight of myself in the mirror. Oh no. Look at it. It’s too short. I must have grown. This is my worst nightmare. I got out of the house as fast as I could before she came downstairs. When I came back into the kitchen she was there.

“Leah!” I froze.

“You’ve grown!” Why did Mum always make it sound like one of the deadly sins. “I think I’ve got a coat that used to be Ruth’s put away.” Yep! Thought she might have. It’s a good job Ruth’s a Goth. I don’t get noticed so much in black and grey,

“But couldn’t I have a new one?” I said. “The sales are on, we could get one cheap,”.

“No, no. Coats are such an expense even in the sales and you know we’ve got to be careful with money since your dad died, besides I’ve got a perfectly good one put away. We’ve just had to buy Ruth a whole new school uniform, you know. It’ll be fine,” she said, and disappeared upstairs. I went into the lounge and switched the tele on before throwing myself on the sofa in a miff. It wasn’t fair. I never got anything new. Inside I was bubbling like lava in a volcano about to erupt. When she came in half an hour later, she was carrying a coat.

“Here you are, Leah. I remembered, it wasn’t Ruth’s it was your cousin’s,” she said cheerfully. I turned to look. It was lime green.

“I’m not wearing that.” The volcano erupted. I don’t know where I got the gall, but I spat it out as if it had been some foul-tasting medicine she had been trying to force me to take.

“Yes, you are,” said Mum, her lips tightening and her eyes narrowing.Her voice was quiet and menacing. And that was the end of it.

Each day I had no option but to wear ‘The Coat’ to school. It was like The Joker was to Batman. Something that was out to get me. It had a role in the play of my life, and I’m sure it played it with gusto. The school was close enough for me to walk, but I tried to be late, so everyone would have already gone in. Mum cottoned on to this and threatened to come with me to make sure I was on time. It was bad enough that the kids behaved like a disgruntled audience at The Globe, hissing and booing, mocking and jeering, but it had got worse since I started wearing ‘The Coat’. I thought that was bad, but if they saw me being delivered to school by my mum like some little primary school kid it would become unbearable. I hid away as best I could in a secluded corner of the school,

“Will ye nooh gie ower.”

“Och away an’ boil yer heid, ye wee sassenach.” I could hear them laughing and imitating the way I talked. I put my hands over my ears to try and shut it out..

One day, when I was hiding as usual, Mrs Dexter, my teacher searched me out. I liked her. She was a kind old lady, or I thought she was old. She had white hair that looked as soft as a fresh drift of snow. It was tied in a bun, but she had whisps of hair, that weren’t long enough to be tied round the back, framing her face and making it look gentle rather than harsh and severe, like some people looked when they pulled their hair back tight into a ponytail.

“Leah, come with me,” she said, and lead me to her classroom.

“Come and stand here,” she said. Then, seeing me picking at the skin of my thumb nail and my eyebrows trying to hide the fear in my eyes, she said “It’s alright. You’re not in trouble.” I went and stood at her desk uneasy at what was coming. Turning her chair so she was facing me she started telling me about when she left school.

“I took a job as a model because I needed the money.” I wondered where she was going with this. “I was taught how to walk and how to carry myself. Even if I thought the outfit they wanted me to wear was hideous, I had to model it as if I was a trend-setter showing the next season’s fashion-craze. It was my job to make the clothes look good and desirable. I had to learn to carry myself as though the clothes made me look and feel like I was the Queen of England. I had to reign in my feelings of embarrassment and lack of confidence, and act a part.”

I must have had a puzzled look on my face or something because she looked amused.

“What I’m trying to say, Leah, is if you walk and talk and behave confidently you will exude confidence.”

“But I don’t feel confident. I feel like a rag bag not the Queen of England, and I don’t know how to walk different to what do.” I felt and sounded ungrateful.

“I know, I was just like that. What I learnt as a model was how to act one way while feeling another way.”

I frowned and shook my head. “I can’t do that.”

“I know. It takes practise. Would you like me to teach you what to do, and then you can practise at home?” she said. I nodded. “Stand up straight. Tuck your bottom in. That’s right. Now, put your shoulders back, and your head up (she pushed my chin upwards gently). Ok, now, stretch your neck, as if you’ve got a string attached to the top of your head pulling it up. Don’t let your chin stick out. Now, hold that position, and walk across the room.”.

At first, my body swayed like I was trying to walk a tight rope, and I stuck my chin out and set my face like a rock, but after a time I began to get the hang of it.

“Good.” said Mrs Dexter. “That’s it…. Keep going……You’re doing well,” she was like a cheer leader, and it made me keep trying.

“Now pretend you’re a queen.” I walked back as if I’d a crown on my head and waved my hand with little flicks of the wrist. When I got back to Mrs Dexter, I solemnly held out my hand. She took it and kissed it and bowing over it, “Your Majesty,” she said. We both laughed.

“How did that feel?” asked Mrs Dexter.

“It felt good,” I said surprised.

“Now go and practise it, and when you come into the playground, pause, think yourself into the role, and walk through the playground like you’re a queen. Ignore them. If they try to get in your way give them a withering look, wave them out of the way and command them ‘Move.’ If they don’t, walk towards them and if they still don’t move put your arm out and push them back firmly. Not hard, mind. You don’t want to push them over.”

We practised the whole thing several more times before I left, thanking her for her help. I felt buoyant all the way home. I had a plan, a way to cope, and I was thrilled. “Act, act, act,” I repeated under my breath all the way home.

It was the half-term, so I had a whole week to practise my walking and my demeanour. I spent hours and hours practising in front of the mirror and I felt I was ready to face ‘The Punters’, but before I could take centre stage in the school playground, Granny died.

The next day, we went to Birmingham. Granny and Grandad lived in a big double-fronted Victorian house. Inside, it was much darker than the house we lived in and it had tiles on the floor which made walking quietly, impossible. On the floor were rag-rugs that Granny had made. I’d never seen rag rugs anywhere else. I had helped her cut old clothes into strips to make them. I looked at them now, remembering when my cousins and I used to come and visit,

“Com’on. Let’s go and upstairs.” That was nine-year-old Billy.

“Race you up there,” shouted eight-year-old Ray.

“Come on, Leah,” said six-year-old Pam holding her hand out to a five-year- old me.

“Wait for me,” I said grabbing her hand. We’d all rush upstairs elbowing each other out of the way. Then, standing in a line at one end of the hall, we waited our turn to run and jump on the rag rug and send it whizzing across the floor.

“I’ll go first. I’m the oldest.” Billy ran and jumped on the rug. It flew down the hall, “Wheeeeee,” went Billy. It came to a standstill at the closed door at the end.

“My turn. My turn,” yelled Ray as Billy dragged the rug back to where we were waiting. I jumped up and down.

“When’s it my turn?” I said jiggling about.

“You can come with me,” said Pam holding my hand, and together we ran and jumped on the rug. I squealed with laughter as the rug hurtled down the hall.

“Hold tight, Leah,” said Pam, and I squeezed her arm with both hands.

“Leah, Leah. Come on.” Mums voice brought out of my daydream. There be none of that this time.

All my aunts, uncles, and cousins had arrived by the time we got there. They all spoke in hushed voices, and Granny lay in state in The Best Room. This room was one of the front rooms. It had a big bay window with two deep comfy, brown leather armchairs. The bay was partitioned off by two heavy, brown velvet curtains. I used to pull the curtains and sink into one of the armchairs and sit quietly, thinking. No one could see me.I was like the audience, waiting for the curtain to go up and some drama to be performed in the room behind them. But now Granny was in there waiting for the funeral directors to come and put the lid on her coffin. Mum asked me if I would like to go in and see her before they came to take the coffin to prepare it for the day of the funeral. Not likely.

The day of the funeral arrived. Over the bannisters I watched as people came and went all dressed sombrely. This deepened my sense of foreboding as an image of my coat floated into my mind. I pushed it away. There was a low hum of voices as people offered their sympathy. The dining table was laid out with a variety of sandwiches - egg and cress. cheese and ham. There were bowls of crisps, some salt and vinegar, some cheese and onion and some plain, some cakes, some biscuits and a big bowl of trifle. These were all for the obligatory post-funeral feed up. A white tablecloth covered it like a shroud, but as I watched I saw an arm reach up from under the table and lift some crisps out of a bowl placed too near the edge of the table. I realised it was Pete, my youngest cousin, and if I hadn’t been so terrified about my coming ordeal, I’d have laughed. I came down, and to keep out of the way, I crawled under the table with Pete. He had a little hoard of crisps in his lap. He gave me one and I took it. The condemned man ate a hearty breakfast, I thought.

There was a heavy snowfall forecast, and the cloud cover was heavy and threatening. Everyone had gone to the church by the time I finally managed to stop shaking enough to get my shoes laced.

“Are you ready?” Mum called up the stairs. As I came down, I could see Mum at the bottom holding my lime green coat ready for me to put on. As I stepped off the last step Mum held it up and I put my arms in and pulled it over my shoulders then I walked to the door and paused. I was an understudy whose star actor had gone down with the pox, and I was having to take her place without having done a dress rehearsal. I had spent the last week perfecting lying like an adult. My heart was thumping and my palms were sweaty, I took a deep breath, put my shoulders back, and with my head held high, I put my hand on the door handle and opened the door. This was going to be an Oscar-winning performance.