Get Into The Light: Chapter Seven- You Can't Act Sexy. You have to Be Sexy

‘That’s it, stand right where you are and don’t move. Perfect’
The eye twitch that had started as a low level pulse, rather like an ant trying to exit my eyeball had now become more intense, like he’d burrowed his way into my cheekbone and was having mini-seizures.
‘Relax,’ Joost said.
There is nothing worse than someone telling you to relax in front of the camera –it’s like saying ‘Don’t be scared,’ just before you get pushed off the bungee jump platform.
‘Forget the camera is even here.’

I thought of all the miserable photos that had documented each awkward stage of my life thus far. The primary school portrait where I thought it would be cute to feign a lisp so stuck my tongue out a little and ended up looking mentally unstable, the way I always scrunched up my eyes in bright sunlight and ended up looking forty years old and then my tendency to hunker forward with slumped shoulders like I was just about to experience a crash landing. Lynette was giving sympathetic looks from the sidelines as Joost clutched the camera in his giant hands and moved seamlessly around me, trying to find an angle or pose where I looked like a rising star of the Dutch dance scene. There was nowhere to hide. Joost seemed impossibly graceful. The bat-winged design of the dress seemed to emphasise my lack of mobility- the fabric designed to respond to movement - to swish and whoosh like Kate Bush- rather than hang limply on a dummy. Lynette was twisting her body, giving examples of poses I could try for myself, she arched her back and swung her long hair forward, then bent her knees. But her movement only emphasised how trapped and inflexible I felt.
‘Loosen up- perhaps we should have had a few drinks,’ she said.
‘I never take a good picture. That’s just the way it is.’
‘Joost is doing us a favour,’ she said, ‘Here let me show you how to move.’
I walked off to one side and leant up against a radiator. Lynette pushed her arms behind her head and her chest out; she licked her lips and pouted. Joost responded by taking what seemed like one hundred photos, one after the other. The music got louder even though no one had adjusted the volume.

‘See it’s easy,’ Lynette said moving into the next pose, hands on hips and head cocked to one side, ‘You can’t act sexy. You have to BE SEXY.’
She was a female Jim Morrison, she was Bono on one knee, next she was leaping in the air like Pete Townsend as my vertebrae dissolved into dust and I slowly slid to the floor with my head nudged painfully against my knees. It had been a dreadful mistake getting Lynette to join the band. I should have picked someone fat, ugly and awkward – not this gyrating, stringy exhibitionist Queen. I was standing next to the sportiest girl in the class in my gym vest and knickers and waiting to be picked last if at all. I was the girl who served you chips and a cheeseburger and you didn’t even register her face. I was something that lived in the bin and survived on stale bread. I was a Cliff Richard fan. There was no semblance of cool to be found on my person. I couldn’t even write good lyrics. They sounded like you’d heard them before because you probably had. Bernie Taupin didn’t use a rhyming dictionary. He didn’t need one. And was it really a surprise? – when I was never actually inspired by anything meaningful and had a natural tendency to be drawn to soap operas and music videos? The documentary had come to an end. If I went home now I might just get a job in retail and live out my days smiling inanely at greedy people who wanted to embellish their already gaudy selves with more gold. I wasn’t the type of person that spontaneously started riffing on a particular insight and then sat, wild-haired typing away until I got it nailed. I wasn’t Chaucer. And if given the choice I’d probably rather play Sonic The Hedgehog and drink Grolsch.
‘You are an elephant devoid of ideas,’ the voice in my head said.
‘You’re bloated yet full to the brim of absolute nothing.’
‘I know,’ I said, ‘You don’t have to rub it in.’

Lynette had stripped down to her bra and leggings. The girl who was helping with the make up was packing up her things. I went over just so I didn’t have to watch the mating dance of these two fantastically attractive people.
‘How do you get to be a make up artist?’ I asked.
She shut the lid of her box and stood up.
‘I did a training course at Fashion College and then mainly it’s just practice and knowing the right people.’
‘Do you think I could do it?’
‘It’s hard work,’ she said.
‘Do you think I could be a model?’
‘You’re not tall enough and your nose is a bit on the big side. You’re not very relaxed in front of the camera either. I’m just being honest.’
‘What about the singer in a band?’
‘I guess.’
‘Do you think I’d be good?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But just looking at me now. What do you think?’
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘Do I seem good at anything? Just looking at me now as I stand in front of you?’
‘Sorry I don’t know how to answer that question,’ she said lifting the box under one arm and shuffling quickly towards the main exit.
I needed reinforcement of key messages. I needed evidence of talent. I needed guidance and hope and support. The simple encouragement that only a friend can give you. I missed home. I missed my Mum’s ratatouille and the way it always tasted like boiled up chunks of rubber. I missed the way Dad pretended he wasn’t watching rubbish on TV but really he was.

Perhaps the documentary hadn’t ended. Perhaps it had just changed. Perhaps I needed to take it down a peg or two. What would Mum say? Would she tell me to wear a proper coat? Would she say that the glittery smock wasn’t really doing anything for my A shaped frame? And what would she do if she saw these lovers pretending to take photographs but really just waiting for the glittering elephant to clear off and leave them to it.
‘I’m leaving,’ I shouted over the music.
Neither answered. Lynette was playing air guitar on the floor with her pelvis pushed up towards the ceiling. Joost was crouched down beside her. I went to the toilet and took off the glittery shroud and pulled on my jeans and cardigan. Momentarily I felt a little bit better. I wasn’t trying to be something I wasn’t.

When I got home Carl had rented a few 80s films. We watched Trading Places, then Caddy Shack, then The Jerk. We ate half a pizza each and cuddled. I’d edited out some of the more painful details of the photo shoot. I reassured him that there’d be at least a couple of photos in there that we could use. I also told him how well Joost and Lynette had got on and didn’t realise that I probably should have been more discreet and left that part out too.
‘So Pete has no clue that she likes this Joost guy?’ Carl said turning down the sound on the TV.
‘He’s always encouraging her to act out. Maybe he wants an excuse to leave her.’
‘Still it doesn’t give her free licence to do what she pleases.’
‘But Pete makes her feel disgusting.’
Carl turned the sound back up and we stared at the TV. After a while I could feel my brain flesh softening like it was undoing its trousers and letting its belly flop out.
‘Did Joost chat you up as well?’
‘Look I probably shouldn't have told you about that. The truth was I was a nervous wreck. It was a bit of a disaster.’
‘It was your first time. Things will change.’
Pete jumped up and grabbed a carrier bag that had been hiding in the bottom of the wardrobe under a pile of old clothes. He started pulling out photographs- some stills taken from one of the ‘Secret Scribe,’ videos, some concert photos and other individual black and white shots of Carl. Carl didn’t look very comfortable in most of them but many were so blurry that it was hard to make out any expression at all.
‘Look,’ he said throwing a bunch of them down on the cushion beside me, ‘In this one I’ve got one eye shut so it looks like I’ve had a stroke and then in this one I’m like a geriatric- look at the bags under my eyes!’
I squinted. They looked okay to me. Carl had an interesting face- even when he looked uncomfortable, he looked intriguing. He didn’t need to try to be something he wasn’t. For me it was different. I needed to become someone else- not the fat kid in her gym knickers crying in the corner.
‘ I still had to go on all the photo-shoots,’ Carl said, ‘And I hated it. Really hated it. The other two were much more confident and natural and I just felt totally ill equipped to give the photographer what he needed.’
‘I gave him something but he definitely didn't want it.’
‘But you’re beautiful.’
‘The make up artist said I had a big nose.’
‘It’s good to have a big nose. You’ll become more natural with time. The next session won’t feel like such an ordeal.’
‘I hope so but I’ll be really embarrassed when I see Joost. It was like I turned into a scarecrow except at least scarecrows move when the wind blows.'

We stayed silent a while. The fleshy parts of our brains had now slumped down and were emitting low, steady snores. The film was funny but I’d seen it many times. In fact we’d watched it only three days previously. We seemed to enjoy turning our brains off in tandem.

‘Do you fancy this Joost guy too?’ Carl asked suddenly.
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
He turned the sound down on the TV. His face had the same intense look as the photographs.
‘I like him as a friend,’ I said.
‘But you’re not in love with him?’
I shot him a look. We sometimes got into these petty arguments late at night. You couldn’t be cooped up together in a tiny cave like this and not have things get tetchy - even if you had pizza and light-hearted films to jolly things along. We watched the screen again but the sound was down and neither of us could be bothered to turn it up.
‘He has giant hands, I said. ‘They’re like Gorilla Hands. He can hold his camera in one hand and take a photo at the same time.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Carl said lighting another cigarette.
‘He has really big hands.’
‘So you do fancy him. Okay okay.’

Carl stormed off to the bathroom and locked the door behind him. It was a challenge to throw a proper strop because the bathroom was so tiny, damp and unpleasant that you knew no one would choose to spend time in there unless they were trying to make a point. I’d locked myself in there before. It wasn’t fun. There were no distractions, no bath that you could sit sulkily in for an hour or two and you didn’t dare turn on the light because the ceiling was covered in frosty residue, even in the middle of April. I leant back against the wall. Today was a great day. What was going on? Carl’s jealousy was completely out of character. Sometimes I wished he’d be more jealous - he didn’t flinch if I spoke to guys when we were out together and still disappeared for most of the night, only to crop up every hour or so to ask if I was okay and then disappear again. If anything I was the one thinking he had some secret woman who he was hanging out with whereas I was never the type of person to flirt with a stranger. If you’ve been overweight as a child (and I had) then you found it hard to think anyone would come over because they wanted to get to know you. Usually they wanted your dinner money or your Basil Brush pencil case. I could hear Carl’s teeth chattering. It was two in the morning. The film was drawing to a close. Why were we arguing? I got up and knocked on the door.
‘What?’ Carl said sniffing.
‘Why are you angry?’
‘I’m not.’
‘Have you got a bad tummy?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because you’re sitting on the toilet.’
‘I haven’t taken my pants off.’
‘Oh okay.’
‘I want some time on my own.’
‘Is it something I’ve done?’
‘No.’
‘Did someone say something about me that made you upset?’
‘No.’
‘Are you going to come out?’
I sat back down. This argument was flapping about like a pair of trousers in the wind and there was nothing solid to grasp hold off. It was better to sleep it off. Carl emerged from the bathroom and sat down bringing with him a burst of icy cold.
‘Was it Eddie- did he say something?’
‘Drop it.’
‘Was it Pete?’
‘Why would Pete say something?’
‘He said I looked like a goat.’
‘Let’s turn the TV off and go to sleep.’
‘You’re being strange.’
The walls of the flat seemed to be closing in and I imagined us squished together but still bickering right up to the moment when our flumpy- wasted brains oozed out of our ears and onto the ten centimetre gap that had once been the floor.
‘Someone has obviously said something,’ I said and took my turn on the toilet seat, slamming the door behind.
I sat there for ten, twenty, thirty minutes. The seat radiated cold up into my buttocks (I still had my jeans on), then into my bones and I thought about the disastrous shoot, Carl’s sudden jealousy and then how I couldn’t go out and face him because he was in the wrong. Was he trying to push me away? Did he want me to leave? Was it his way of getting me to quit the band?
‘Come out,’ Carl said, his voice close to the door handle.
‘If you don’t want me to be in the band, just say it.’
‘Come to bed.’

I waited another ten minutes. I could barely stand up straight because the cold had cut off the blood supply to my thighs. It was a good tactic though. Whoever came out of that bathroom had the upper hand. And it cleared the head especially if you’d watched three films back to back and needed some mental rejuvenation. It was like a flotation tank but you were sitting up straight and it wasn’t very relaxing. But I’d misjudged Carl’s tolerance levels so when I sat back down, Carl wouldn’t look at me and got up and sat in front of the computer, pulling his headphones on. I resented the fact that he had this thing he could pull out of the bag whenever he wanted to get away from me. I looked at the TV and Steve Martin was leaving his Hollywood mansion and going back to his life as a homeless person. With no sound, the scene seemed incredibly poignant. I stared at the back of Carl’s head. There was no natural order - it wasn’t up and down – it was just down and down.
‘Stop staring. You’re freaking me out,’ he said turning round.
‘How can you tell I’m even looking at you?’
‘I can feel it. It’s making my hair stand on end.’
‘You’re missing the film.’
‘I’m going to work on this for a bit. Why don’t you go to sleep?’
‘I can’t be bothered to get the bed out.’
‘So don’t bother then.’
I stared at his head a while longer. It was bobbing rhythmically as he tapped on the side of the desk. I was excluded from this world. He wouldn’t even let me listen when he was in a mood like this. I switched the TV off and rolled onto my side.

Mum would have helped me get the bed out. She'd have been upset to see two people arguing over nothing. She'd have thought Carl was being very childish right now.

And if I'd told her that these Dutch people were talking about me behind my back - she would have been absolutely livid.