The Bex Factor Read online

  ‘End of the corridor,’ I say, resisting the temptation to point out that her face looks pretty perfect to me. ‘Would you like me to . . .?’

  ‘Got to go,’ she says, unravelling her black silk scarf to reveal her smooth white neck. ‘When that rabble finally realise it’s time to shuffle back to Chavland, I’ll be going in next. See you at Basic Training perhaps.’

  Before I can say something that makes me look an even bigger dork, she waves her fingers at me and smiles. And that’s when I start wondering if I’m seeing things; that’s when I get my first glimpse of her glistening fangs.

  ‘Oi, matey,’ calls Mr McCrory. ‘What are you staring at?’

  ‘Well, I . . .’

  The shouting has died down. Mr and Mrs McCrory look like they’ve won the lottery, Kyle McCrory is punching the air like a footballer, Bex is kind of crying and laughing at the same time (only in a good way) and Nikki Hardbody is observing them all with a distant smile. I don’t get it.

  Bex

  I feel so happy I could almost kiss him. If it wasn’t for his brilliant guitar playing, we’d be back on the M25.

  ‘Hey, Bex,’ says Matthew. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘The judges want to see me again. Brilliant, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh . . . yeah,’ says Matthew. ‘Brilliant.’

  Nikki Hardbody looks well glamorous in her tight leather trousers and tight Say No to Poverty T-shirt. When she told me just now, I was like, Get out of here. I must have thanked her that many times she looks almost embarrassed about it.

  ‘It was Justin’s idea really,’ she says. ‘Let’s go in, shall we?’

  ‘I think I’ll stay here,’ says Matthew, staring down the corridor. ‘They don’t need me, anyway.’

  ‘No,’ says Nikki. ‘You’d better come too, Matt . . . just in case they want another song.’

  ‘OK then,’ says Matthew, glancing back over his shoulder. ‘You haven’t forgotten I need to be home by about six?’

  Nikki leads us back to the judges. She has a quick word with Justin and one of the cameramen before standing at the side and watching through a big TV screen.

  ‘Right,’ says Justin. ‘Listen up. I have a feeling we’ve made a mistake with you guys.’

  It happens nearly every year; someone thinks they’re going home and then Justin or Brenda changes their mind at the last minute. This is going to be so great. The hardest thing is trying not to let on that I know exactly what they’re up to.

  Justin takes a sip of water. ‘You see, we really liked Matt’s guitar playing.’

  What’s that got to do with it?

  ‘He’s got a gorgeous voice too,’ says Brenda. ‘Very contemporary.’

  ‘And doesn’t he look hot?’ says Jesamène. ‘The young chicks will go crazy for him.’

  Every camera in the room seems to turn towards me. ‘I don’t get it. Are you . . . are you saying you want us to be one of the groups?’

  ‘Not quite, sweetheart,’ says Justin. ‘Like I say, you’re a nice kid and everything – and don’t take this the wrong way – but you’ve got about as much chance of winning The Tingle Factor as my dead grandmother.’

  This time I’m too shocked even to beg. ‘Then what do you . . .?’

  ‘We’d like to take Matt through to Basic Training,’ says Justin.

  It feels like I’m keeping it together, until the room starts shaking and the scream that I thought was inside my head explodes into the outside world. ‘Nooooooo.’

  Brenda is on me in a flash, grabbing me round the neck and pulling my head on to her expensive boob job. ‘That’s right, precious child. Let it all out.’

  ‘Come on, Matt,’ says Justin, ‘it’s decision time. I don’t need to tell you that this is the chance of a lifetime. The question is: are you brave enough to take it?’

  I so don’t want to stick around to hear the answer. But Brenda is squeezing me, like a snake in expensive perfume. ‘Let go, you old witch.’ Kyle showed me this move, before they chucked him out of karate. I step back and plant my elbow right in her stomach. Brenda groans. I kick off my high-heels and start running.

  A pack of cameramen sets off behind me. When we get to the holding area I just keep running. Past my – very confused – Mum and Dad, past Kyle and the girl in the sequined hot-pants, past a posse of rapping chickens and a gothy girl who looks like she just stepped out of a horror movie, until I come to the one place I know they can’t follow.

  The ladies’ toilets. I lock myself in a cubicle, grab a handful of toilet paper and start to cry.

  Three buckets of tears later, someone knocks on the door.

  I don’t answer.

  The knocking gets louder.

  ‘If that’s Brenda, go away.’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s not Brenda,’ says a soothing voice. ‘It’s me, Nikki.’

  ‘Please. I just need some time on my own, yeah? Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.’

  ‘No, it’s not that,’ says Nikki. ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Come out here and I’ll tell you.’

  Nikki Hardbody is smiling at herself. I try not to let her see how devastated I am when our eyes meet in the mirror. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘It’s about Matt.’

  ‘You don’t think I want to talk about him, do you? That rat ruined my life. And you know what? I bet he planned the whole thing. He knew how much I wanted it, and he pretended to be all nice, just so he could steal it for himself.’

  ‘Well, no, he didn’t actually.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Nikki’s frown still looks more like a smile. ‘Matt says he can’t do the show.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Nikki. ‘And no prizes for guessing why.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He didn’t say anything. But I would have thought it was obvious, even to you. He doesn’t want to upset his little girlfriend.’

  ‘Look, I’m not his girlfriend,’ I say, starting to feel better already. ‘Anyway, it’s none of my business.’

  ‘You’re not going to let him get away with it, are you?’

  ‘Get away with what?’

  ‘Throwing away his big chance out of some juvenile sense of misplaced loyalty.’

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s up to him, isn’t it?’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d be so selfish,’ says Nikki, examining her crow’s feet. ‘Just because you can’t follow your dream, you don’t want him to either.’

  ‘No, it’s not —’

  ‘Matt could go all the way in this competition. From what I can tell, his voice is refreshingly average, he looks good behind that guitar, and when we cut together his lovely audition sequence everyone will see what a great guy he is. All you’ve got to do is get him to see sense.’

  ‘What makes you think I could change his mind?’

  ‘Oh, please,’ says Nikki with a hollow laugh. ‘It’s what I’ve been doing for the last twenty years. Did you ever see Kids with Cancer?’

  ‘What, that documentary my mum liked?’

  ‘I was executive producer. You remember Rowan – God rest his soul – the little lad in the baseball cap? Well, let me tell you something. That kid was terrified of water. Do you really think he wanted to swim with dolphins?’

  ‘So what am I supposed to do?’

  ‘Tell Matt you’re cool about it. Tell him if you can’t be on the show, then the next best thing would be to see him doing it for you. Look, here’s my number.’ She hands me a white business card. ‘Who knows, next year we might even be able to sort you out some work experience. Now get him to call me. You’ve got twenty-four hours.’

  ‘I don’t know, I . . .’

  ‘It’s up to you,’ says Nikki, checking her face again in the mirror. ‘I mean, it would save me an awful lot of time, but we can always find another singer like Matt for Basic Training. It’s the spectacularly deluded, tone-deaf little freaks who think
they’re the next Elvis that get harder to dredge-up every year.’

  ‘Yeah but —’

  ‘If you were any kind of friend, you’d get him to call me. OK?’

  Matthew

  ‘So what’s Justin like?’ says Emily, stacking the pasta bowls in the dishwasher.

  ‘Pretty much like he is on TV,’ I say, reaching for the garlic crusher.

  ‘How about Brenda? I bet she’s really lovely.’

  ‘Yeah, kind of.’

  Actually, I’m doing my best to delete the whole day from my memory. The audition was bad enough, but the journey home was a total disaster. It was like being in the car with Mum and Dad just before they split. No one said a word, apart from Bex’s sister – and that was only to tell me what a doughnut I was for not doing the show.

  ‘How did you get on at Sainsbury’s?’ I whisper. ‘Was Mum OK?’

  ‘She was fine this morning, but then after lunch she had that pain in her hand, so we went home early.’

  ‘But she didn’t do anything . . . weird, did she?’

  ‘Not really. I think she might have cried a few times.’

  ‘I’m not deaf, you know,’ says Mum, slamming down the business section of the newspaper on the kitchen table. ‘If you want to talk about me, you might at least have the decency to do it behind my back.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, struggling to get the bits out of the garlic crusher. ‘Shall I get you some camomile tea?’

  ‘No, you’re all right,’ says Mum. ‘Tell me some more about The Tingle Factor. What happened to your new girlfriend?’

  ‘Look, she’s not my —’

  ‘Yes I know,’ says Mum, her sly wink to Emily almost reminding me of the old days. ‘How did it go, anyway?’

  ‘I told you, she didn’t get through.’

  ‘I thought you said she was really good.’

  ‘She is. They just didn’t think she was good enough.’

  ‘That is so unfair,’ says Mum, teetering on the brink of one of her crying fits or a furious rage. ‘Fancy getting the poor kid’s hopes up like that.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Emily, not knowing whether to reach for the Kleenex or full body-armour. ‘It would have been so cool to actually know someone on TV.’

  ‘Next time you see her, Matthew, you tell her bad luck from me,’ says Mum.

  ‘I doubt she ever wants to see me again.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s hardly your fault she didn’t get in.’

  I’m staring guiltily into the onion marmalade when the doorbell rings.

  ‘Oh God,’ says Mum. ‘Not that lot again. I told them this morning I wasn’t interested. If the end of the world really is coming, I’d rather spend my last Saturday night in peace. Ignore them and they’ll go away.’

  But they don’t. The door knocker joins in with the bell, and I can’t ignore them any longer. ‘It’s all right, Mum. I’ll go.’

  ‘And tell them where to get off,’ calls Mum. ‘If they think life is so bloody precious, they should try being me for a day.’

  I hurry out to the hall, shivering as I hit a wall of cold air. I’ll let you into a little secret. Mum doesn’t realise I’ve noticed, and I’m certainly not going to tell her, but if you look behind that bowl of potpourri on the hall table, you’ll see the only picture of Dad in the whole house. Two days after he’d gone, Mum swept all his stuff – including his beloved World Cup coins – into a black bin-liner and dumped it in the garage. It’s a miracle that a Japanese tourist’s photograph, of the whole family outside the Houses of Parliament, survived the cull.

  Anyway, if that knocking is anything to go by, the end of the world is coming sooner than we think. ‘Hang on a minute!’

  Mum changed the locks too. No wonder they’re getting impatient. It’s like Dracula’s castle in here. Once I’ve untangled the security chain, there’s a huge bolt to contend with. But I finally manage to heave open the front door. And I can hardly believe it when I see the black-hooded figure standing in front of me.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Bex

  ‘Can I come in, please?’

  Matthew almost slams the door in my face. ‘It’s a bit difficult right now.’

  ‘Come on,’ I say, pushing past him, still wishing Mum hadn’t made me wear the anorak that makes me look like a black marshmallow. ‘It’ll only take a minute.’

  ‘I thought you weren’t talking to me.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m not. But this is important.’

  ‘You’d better be quick,’ says Matthew, rushing round closing doors. ‘We’ve . . . we’ve got visitors.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I say, starting to have second thoughts. ‘Don’t want your posh friends to see me or something?’

  ‘Just trying to keep the heat in, that’s all. Now what do you want?’

  After I’d stopped crying, after I’d stopped wanting to rip his head off and after Mum had made me hot chocolate and a bacon sandwich, I started thinking Nikki Hardbody might be right. Maybe I was being selfish.

  ‘It’s about the audition,’ I say, wondering what’s going on behind the closed doors.

  Matthew looks down at the shiny wooden floor. ‘Yeah. I . . . I really thought you deserved to go through.’

  ‘Come off it. They said I looked like a pig and my singing sucked.’

  ‘No, they didn’t.’

  ‘They might as well have done.’ And now for the hard part. ‘You were the only one they were interested in, Matthew. That’s why they wanted to put you straight through to Basic Training.’

  ‘And I told them I couldn’t do it.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, hoping my smile doesn’t come out too fake, ‘and I know why.’

  ‘Do you?’ says Matthew anxiously.

  ‘Of course, it’s obvious.’

  ‘Is it?’ he says, checking the doors again.

  ‘It’s because you didn’t want to hurt my feelings.’

  ‘Oh . . . yeah . . . that’s right,’ says Matthew, looking well relieved that it’s all out in the open. ‘I could see how upset you were.’

  ‘Thanks, it was really nice of you. I just wanted to let you know that I’m completely over it.’

  ‘That’s great,’ says Matthew, almost sprinting over to the front door. ‘Might see you at school sometime.’

  ‘Hang on a minute, I haven’t finished yet.’

  ‘Well, could you hurry up, please? I’m needed back there.’

  And now for the really hard part. ‘I want you to do it, Matthew.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I want you to go on The Tingle Factor.’

  ‘Too late. I’ve already turned them down.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I say, feeling like the smug fairy godmother who’s just scored tickets for the ball. ‘Nikki Hardbody gave me her number. If you call her before tomorrow, she says she’ll save you a place at Basic Training.’

  I’d expected him to be a bit more excited. ‘I still can’t do it.’

  ‘Of course you can. Look, I mean it, Matthew. I’m over it, OK?’

  ‘It’s not that simple.’

  ‘Oh yes it is!’

  ‘Shhhh, someone might hear you.’

  ‘I don’t give a monkey’s. Why can’t you get it into your stupid thick skull that I really want you to do it?’

  ‘I can’t,’ whispers Matthew.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because.’

  ‘Some people would give their right arm for a chance like this. What’s the matter with you? I just don’t see —’

  It’s not the sound of the handle turning that stops me, it’s the look on Matthew’s face as the door slowly opens and a voice asks, ‘What’s going on out here?’

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ says Matthew, turning on me like that supply teacher who lost his marbles. ‘You couldn’t just leave it, could you? You had to poke your nose in. Well, I hope you’re happy now. You wanted to know why I couldn’t go on The Tingle Factor. See for yourself.’


  The lady leaning on the crutches looks about Mum’s age, but with a better haircut. ‘What was that, Matthew?’ she says, slowly turning on him, like that supply teacher after he’d popped a couple of happy pills. ‘Talking about me again, are we?’

  ‘No, Mum.’

  ‘And who’s this? I didn’t know we had visitors.’

  ‘Bex is just leaving,’ says Matthew.

  ‘Sorry about my son,’ says the lady on the crutches. ‘He has the manners of a donkey. I’m Sue, by the way, Sue Layton.’ When she smiles, her eyes set off in different directions. ‘And you are?’

  ‘I’m Bex,’ I say, wondering if I should ask what she did to her leg. ‘Bex McCrory.’

  ‘Bex needs to go, Mum,’ says Matthew, pointedly. ‘She’s had a hard day, haven’t you, Bex?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ says Mrs Layton. ‘You must be the girl from The Tingle Factor. You’re Matthew’s imaginary girlfriend.’

  ‘Yes but I’m not his —’

  ‘You’ve got five minutes, haven’t you, Bex? Why don’t you come out to the kitchen and drown your sorrows in a mug of hot chocolate?’

  Matthew is furiously shaking his head behind her back. ‘No, Mum, she doesn’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Don’t be such a bloke,’ says Mrs Layton. ‘If your friend has taken the trouble to pop round to see you, the least you can do is offer her a drink. Isn’t that right, Bex?’

  ‘I’m not sure if —’

  ‘Oh come on,’ says Mrs Layton, suddenly sounding like she’s going to burst into tears. ‘I don’t get many visitors.’

  ‘She’s going, Mum,’ says Matthew. ‘Aren’t you, Bex?’

  And that’s when I remember why I’m here. ‘No, it’s all right. I can stay for a quick chat.’

  ‘I can’t wait to see you two on telly,’ says the kid with the skanky stuffed rabbit.

  ‘We’re not going to be on telly,’ says Matthew, ramming the bread knife back into a wooden block.

  ‘Who’s your favourite judge?’ says the kid with the rabbit.

  ‘I don’t like any of them much,’ I say, wondering if organic hot chocolate is supposed to taste this disgusting. ‘The new one’s OK, I suppose.’

  ‘I like Brenda best,’ says the kid with the rabbit. ‘If I had a big sister, I’d want her to be just like her.’