Bethany's Tale

I

"So what would you say was your earliest childhood memory?"

Bethany took a sip of apple juice and frowned. Outwardly, it was a
pensive frown, a frown indicating deep consideration of the question.
But inwardly it was a dejected frown, a frown indicating a general
annoyance at being asked the same question six times that morning
already.

This was the 8th press call of the day, the 7th she had become bored
with in two minutes flat. Number 2 had been interesting, but for all of
the wrong reasons.

At precisely 8:00 am, Reginald Butterstone had fallen through the door
of the interview room and collapsed across the bed, spreadeagled like a
bloated starfish.

Reginald was the aged and respected editor of Stage Lights magazine,
and so in keeping with his profession was of course a raging drunk. He
was infamous for his insistence on early interview times, on the basis
that it was the only possible chance he had to do it sober.

Today, though, he had failed, and there was an embarrassed hiatus as he
lay there panting like a flustered walrus. "Give me one moment, my
dear", he croaked and began to pull himself upright in a pitifully
feeble fashion. Bethany did not know where to look as there were plus
fours, spotted handkerchiefs and loose foolscap pages whirling
everywhere in a bizarre, drunken reel.

After ten minutes of these balletics, the now almost level Reginald
mopped his brow with an inky sheet of foolscap, poised with his best
fountain pen over his spread handkerchief, and burbled:

"Have you ever, you know, been a child?"

As she placed her glass back down at interview number eight, she told
herself to be professional, as it was all part of the job these days.
Besides, "Forgotten Times" was already international sensation before
it had even premiered, and as a young starlet playing the lead heroine
Kristina, Bethany had to get used to being in demand. They all wanted
to talk to her: the snotty one from The Telegraph, the foxy one from
The Guardian, and the stupid one from The Mail. The Face wanted her
face, Hello! wanted to pop in and say Hi! and Dazed and Confused wanted
something, but they weren't sure exactly what.

So she took a deep breath, picked her best glamourpuss smile from the
wardrobe and then told Number 8 the same as she had told numbers 1 to
7.

II

Describing her early years as a piece of theatre was a journalistic
clich? Bethany had long grown tired of, but she had to admit it had a
certain ring of truth about it. For just as her working, breathing life
involved her thinking and speaking in theatrical terms, so she found
her memory acting in the same way.

She could recall only a handful of events from her infancy, none in any
great detail, but with enough to accurately reflect her key moments.
The people from these memories were rich portraitures (sometimes even
caricatures) always there to fulfill a purpose. No-one was ever just
'there' in the background; if they had nothing to add to the story,
they were lucky to make the list of unnamed extras.

But there, right at the top of the dramatis personae in large capital
letters was JOANNA, MOTHER OF OUR HEROINE. Though she could also be
reasonably called AUTHOR OF ALL OF OUR HEROINE'S SUCCESSES, she never
saw herself in this particular role. This was unlike most of the
mothers of the stage-school ingenues Bethany had studied with, who
flogged their delicate little things on the treadmill and then creamed
off the accolades for themselves.

No, Bethany's mother would have been the same, even if her daughter's
work in the theatre merely consisted of selling the micro-tubs of
ice-cream during the interval. Besides, she had her own career in the
World of Publishing, with her own dreams and ambitions quite different
to her daughter's, so wish-fulfillment through one's children was not
in the script.

It may have struck most psychologists as strange, then, that Bethany's
earliest memory was not of her mother. Instead, it was of that
childhood emblem the blanket (colour, shape and origin variable,
according to Bethany's disposition at the time of recall). The memory
of this mysterious blanket were intertwined with that of a sofa, for
her early childhood was one of warmth, comfort, sleep, but also
frequent bouts of illness, all played out using these two props.

The earliest person she could remember wasn't her mother, either.
Instead, it was the father of a family friend. His face was forever
fixed in her mind as a grotesque pantomime villain's mask, frightening
a two-year-old version of herself with a ghostly "Boo!", with only
Jemima Puddleduck to protect her. This was his part, and he could not
play any other.

III

Bethany tapped her foot impatiently and gazed heavenwards, seemingly
oblivious to the cliched nature of her behaviour. Her director, Sidney
Quarm, removed his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose, fully
aware of how cliched his action was, as he knew it was the negating
reaction to Bethany's action.

Sidney had expected this; after all, you do not win a BAFTA without
having to do a little research. Her agency profile described her as
"quick-witted" and "passionate about her work", but only the legions of
her doting fans believed that bilge. No, in Sidney's wide experience, a
well-timed phone-call to an ex-agent, or a discreet whisper during an
awards dinner was the only way to glean the real truth.

Opinions were divided over Miss Taylor; those who could get close to
her loved her, whereas those who couldn't didn't. In her brief career,
she had worked with all of the greats (Ricci, Reeves, Smith), none of
whom had much to say about her. After all, they had seen many blazing
comets rise and fall, and were exercising the hereditary right of the
older generation to hold all younger people in contempt.

Today had been a very bad day for her already, as Sidney had
discovered, when she arrived thirty minutes late for the final
rehearsal and proceeded to fiercely berate one of the runners over a
squeaking door in her dressing room. Sidney later heard (via a
voicemail of worryingly inarticulacy from her agent) that she had spent
that morning at a press call, answering the same inane questions for
twelve different inky pen-pushers.

But to Sidney this was scant justification for her attitude. She was
just starting to build her reputation, whereas he had his
long-established one to preserve. He had to get a strong, disciplined
performance from her, otherwise he would have the dubious distinction
of having failed where so many had already succeeded.

There were also two more important and incontravertible facts to take
into consideration: firstly, Dicky Fontaine had boozily confessed to
him at the Winslet Benefit Dinner that Miss T seemed to go for older
men. Secondly, her last director Guy Melly had whispered to him in the
toilets at the interval for Birdsong! The Musical that she was
currently "between relationships".

IV

Sacha was angry with Bethany, and was beginning to think that she
didn't want her as a friend any more. Logically, therefore, she didn't
want her at her birthday party either. But these firm principles would
be held by Sacha for no more than a couple of hours; children forget
and forgive easily.

But at that moment in time, as she helped Izzy clean Julia's knees with
that magic restorative, spit and tissue, the cause of their argument
was the only thing on Sacha's mind.

That lunchtime in the playground they had begun their usual game of
witches and wizards, as they always did. The wizard lived at the end of
a path made out of magical playground squares, and the idea of the game
was to hop along the path to escape the evil witch. Of course, you
didn't run from a witch, you had to hop, but it was OK because the
witch had to hop as well.

Each of the four had their favourite, but they agreed for the sake of
fairness to take turns in being the different characters. They all knew
how witches and wizards looked and sounded, and each played their role
in their own way, with differing levels of success. Izzy, for example,
was regarded as the best wizard, managing deep, Dumbledorian tones
despite being only six years old.

However, Bethany seemed to put rather more effort in than the rest. And
moreover, no matter what character she played, the others had to play
their characters her way too. They had to say the right things, hop the
right way, and put on this or that tone of voice. And rather than
leaving the outcome to chance or hopping ability, she wanted the game
to turn out in a particular way, often nothing to do with the simple
grid of squares. For example, one day she wanted the wizard and witch
to meet, and subsequently get married.

Poor Julia, though the smallest of the group, was the best at this
game, hopping around the squares like a little frog that the witch
might have conjured up. She wanted nothing to do with Bethany's
directions, and this was the cause of the mud and tears that Izzy and
Sacha were wiping up.

V

Bethany flicked the buttons of the remote control distractedly.
Fifty-five satellite channels, but all trash. Cooking shows with D-list
celebrities, soap operas with Jurassic storylines and pop videos
verging on the pornographic all blended into an ever-changing wallpaper
of banality. But at this time of night, after the day (and one and a
bit bottles of wine) she had had, the bright superficial images played
in front of her eyes in a gentle dance of shapes and colours like a
comforting child's mobile.

She had earlier occupied herself constructively for five minutes by
putting her electronic organiser on charge using one of the fifteen
spare sockets in her hotel room. She imagined itinerant businessmen
creating a mini-office for themselves, entangling themselves in a
sprawling network of internet connections, printer cables and fax
leads. But she needed just the one wire - her whole life could be put
into a box eight inches by three and a half.

She had checked her organiser earlier on in the evening, immediately
after that disastrous rehearsal which was terminated by that pig Sidney
Qualm walking out. But instead of being a touchstone of social
reassurance it acted as her guilty conscience, reminding her of
birthday cards not sent (Julia, who had shifted from Perth to Sydney,
and then back again), appointments missed (her Time Management
Consultant, again) and dinner dates she knew full well that she could
not honour (Sacha's teacher friend, who was great fun at the party, but
was subsequently revealed in a rogue e-mail to Sacha to be a Star Wars
geek).

But the one thing she never had to put in her organiser was the one
thing she never forgot to do. No matter where she was in the world, and
no matter what time of day or night it was, Bethany just had to
telephone her mother. Once, when she was travelling on her year out,
she had to pay a Brazilian taxi-driver $50 for a three-minute mobile
call. And just two months ago, she had to cut dear old Kenny Branagh
short during yet another of his Hamlet anecdotes to catch her mother
before she flew off on holiday. Joanna never expected Bethany to
perform this devotional ritual, again refuting the stereotypical
ingenue's mother. But Bethany had to do it, all the same.

The plunky electronic sound of Barber's Adagio heralded that some was
calling her mobile. It was Izzy. After chatting for about an hour, they
both agreed that they really had to get together one evening soon.
After all, how long had it been?&;#8230;

VI

Bethany loved the city of Oxford as much as Joanna, and she regarded
her school days there as some of her happiest.

They had originally moved there because of her mother's university
place, and Beth would astound her classmates with fantastical tales of
her scholarly parent, who had to wear a posh hat and gown, and spoke
Latin and Greek. Joanna had described university to Bethany as a giant
school, which did not mean that the BFG had to attend, but that lots of
people from all around the world studied there. Yes, including people
from Yately.

The University was divided into lots of small schools, called Colleges,
which were named after dead religious people or people who lived worthy
lives in Oxford first and then died. Joanna's college was a dead
religious person's one, St Hilda's, run by someone called a Principal.
Bethany got to meet her when her mother first went to visit the place,
and the old lady reminded Bethany of someone's grandmother. She even
gave Bethany a teddy bear with a humbug-coloured scarf like her
mother's, as if to prove her grandma-ish credentials. Knowing she was
in good hands, Bethany did not cry on her mother's first day, even
though she had done that very thing on Bethany's first day of
school.

Often in the evening or at weekends, Bethany got to meet her mother's
University pals, who were an odd collection, and not at all like her
own friends. They all talked about books, and sometimes even spoke in
her mother's favourite but strange languages. But nearly all of them
smoked, and some wore cool clothes like her and her mother, so they
were OK.

At other times, the two of them would go on adventures around the old
Oxford buildings. On foggy nights, some of the streets were only lit by
a single Dickensian gas lamp, and the pair would pretend that the
squeaking noise they heard was giant vampire bats. Then the black,
flapping fiends would come out of the darkness towards them - but they
were only the mad professors, capes billowing around them as they
creaked along on their bicycles (was it the wheels or their bones that
made that noise?).

At which point, Bethany and her mother would laugh, hug, pull their
scarves up tighter and hurry home for cocoa and the sofa.

VII

The three of them sat bolt upright on the slim, wooden high-backed
chairs, which were used by the restaurant to accentuate the shapeliness
of its clientele. The sort of beautiful people who could get
reservations at The Vine deserved to be shown to their best possible
advantage.

Sacha held the slender flute with the furthest tips of her
just-as-slender fingers, balancing it like some sort of levitation
trick. She had picked her meal in that direct and functional way that
she dealt with anything. For example, she had been out with the other
girls one night (minus Bethany, who had been in Paris or Prague or
Pimlico). She had walked straight into the cocktail lounge, looked
along the line of men hawking obviously at the front and picked out her
first candidate without a moment's thought. During the course of the
evening, he had to achieve certain pre-defined criteria which Sacha
mentally marked, and while he did not get a perfect score, he was
certainly in the top percentile, and so they dated for 4 months.

Bethany treated the menu entirely differently: after all, she was an
actress, not a project manager. She read out each item as if handling a
script for the first time (after all, is there not something poetic in
the lines of a well-written restaurant menu?). She enunciated each word
perfectly, rolling her girolles and rapping out her tarte tatin.

After they had each given their order to the waiter, all in flawless
French of course (except for Sacha, who insisted on stripping it down
to "pate and chicken"), they began to chat. And just like all
conversations between old friends, it followed the Christmas Cake
Pattern: once the thick, bland icing of small talk had been broken
through, the inside was rich, alcoholic and full of the good, sweet
things you remember from childhood.

They began by toasting the absent globetrotter Julie, and then
discussed Izzy's exciting new breakthrough in holistic medicine. This
was followed by a briefing by Sacha on her latest Far Eastern figures.
Then they all turned expectantly to Bethany, the only one of them who
would (legally) make The 6'O'Clock News or be asked to open up their
wedding to the photographers at The Tatler. But Bethany started by
saying one of the waitresses reminded her of Ms Patterson, their old
chemistry teacher who smelled of ammonia. The talk slipped into the
past prematurely and would never be brought back again the whole
evening.

VIII

They all sat bolt upright on the hard plastic chairs and waited for the
headmaster. Bethany, in an attempt to make conversation, turned to the
girl next to her and proclaimed:

"They have these chairs in prison"

The other girl looked wide-eyed, wider than you would normally expect
thanks to the over-sized magnifying lenses of her glasses, that her
parents presumed she would "soon grow into", like her uniform.

"Have&;#8230;have you been in prison?"

Bethany saw the potential for some fantastical story-telling, which was
her forte at family gatherings, but decided to gain this girl's trust
first.

"No, but I've seen them in hospitals. They're all the same sorts of
places aren't they? In-"
"Institutions"

This was a taller girl to Bethany's other side, whose hair trickled
over the edge of her chair. Bethany had been prematurely out-done; she
had known the word, of course, but had been a fraction of a second too
slow.

"Insti-whats?", asked Saucer-Eyes. This time Bethany was faster.
"Institutions. Places that all countries have a copy of, because
they're seen as good things - police forces, universities, that sort of
thing"

She smiled at Long Hair, who smiled back.

"I'm Bethany"
"I'm Laura"
"I'm Clare"

From this small nucleus of three, the word on institutions was spread
around the hall. Many children used the information to break the ice of
their first school day as Bethany had, and already wanted to be friends
with the smart girl who had known this amazing fact. But some children,
who visited close family members in prison, refuted the claim and took
an immediate dislike to the girl who had made it up.

Thus the ties were set in place, as were the divisions. With a single
sentence, Bethany had made the necessary friends, admirers and enemies,
and so could progress through secondary school in the normal way.

IX

"Curtain up in five minutes, Miss Taylor"
"Thank you, Poppy"
"Oh, and these arrived for you"

A huge bouquet, belted around the midriff by a luxurious red bow,
walked into the room. It then detached itself from its legs and leapt
into Bethany's grateful arms. Most leading actresses took their
bouquets with detachment, as if they were just another prop in their
performance, but to Bethany each one was special. She had loved flowers
as a child, and often gave the odd stem plucked from a vase as an
impromptu gift.

To Beth:- Break a leg! All our Love, the Institutionalists xxx

She smiled, and placed the flowers down carefully, adding them to the
collection that had already overgrown half of her dressing room. She
expected at least a couple of the group to be there tonight -
especially Laura, who was reviewing it for The Standard. She hoped one
of them had spoken to her mother, because she would be there too, and
Bethany hoped they could all meet up afterwards. It was time to call
her, anyway; it was twenty past seven, she was probably somewhere in
the theatre by now.

"Hi mum"
"Oh, hi Beth. I'm just about to go in. I was about to switch my phone
off, but I knew you'd call"
"I had to, you know it's bad luck if I don't!"
"But how do you know, darling, you've never tested the theory!"
"I don't know. I just think it would be"
"Well, you won't need my good luck wishes, then&;#8230;"
"Mum!"
"Only kidding, my wonderful, super, little starlet"
"Thanks, mum. I'd better go now&;#8230;and mum?"
"Yes Beth?"
"I love you"
"I love you, too. Now, get mean, your first scene is when you have that
fight with your drunken father! See you afterwards!"
"Bye"

Bethany placed her mobile on the dressing room table, and walked
through the door, towards ten thousand people waiting to be enchanted
back to the best and worst years of their lives.

X

Bethany walked through the main doors into the school hall. She took in
the scene, for it was not often that you saw the entire range of
emotions in one room at a single moment in time.

There was Bland Disinterest in one corner, played by a group of lads
who had stuffed their envelopes down the back of their jeans, and were
trying to get the cover off the pool table. In another corner, she saw
Hysterical Panic and Calm Stoicism sitting side by side in the form of
the Brown twins: though their entire life they had had the same friends
at the same school, where they had studied the same subjects, and only
now, on Results Day did they do something different from each other,
despite getting the same results.

Thankfully, Clare and Laura had kept the best parts, Joy and Elation,
for themselves. They both made their entrance the instant they saw
Bethany, and gabbled out their good news, as if it were the words of a
spell that would not work their magic if they did not shout it out
loud.

"I did it, Beth! 2 As and a B! Manchester only wanted 2As and a
C!"
"Me too! 4As! Oxford here I come!"
"Wonderful news! I predict now, with Mr Johnson as my witness, that
you, Laura, will smash every commercial glass ceiling until no-one will
be able to walk in your office in bare feet! And you, Clare, will
out-think the Greeks and out-conquer the Romans for the flag of
Sydenham!"

The happy pair laughed, their over-excitement causing them to find
Bethany's prophecy a little funnier than it strictly was. But then they
remembered themselves, and parted like a guard of honour to leave
Bethany to collect her own horoscope.

She approached the desk, and saw one envelope sitting alone, slightly
apart from the others. Her heart stopped - had hers been picked out for
special attention? Was that the failure pile? Her voice was a jittery
Morse code, as she asked for the results slip for Be-be-be-thany
Taylor.

The bearded man behind the desk (a bit Jesus-like, she thought after)
smiled, scanned the few envelopes left, and passed Bethany the dreaded
lonely one. She took a breath, spent an age gently running her fingers
across the top, and carefully removed the contents as if it were an
unexploded bomb. She quickly scanned the contents, the look of
incredulity spreading across her face.

The script was so good, she could have written it herself.