Withering Tights

Chapter 5

Into the bosoms of the Dother ship

We first learn to fill our tights

I woke up early the next day. I’d been dreaming that I had a bra made out of soap. It slipped off when I did my special audition dance and everyone laughed.

I am going to tie my hair up and wear a hat. Cain won’t recognise me again out of my jim-jams, will he?

Oh Lord, he has seen me in my jim-jams. Watching him snog.

I went down to breakfast and the Dobbins were all as cheerful as people who hadn’t been caught in their jim-jams in the middle of the night. Pretending to clean windows. But really watching people snog.

The twins were ready for an action-packed day of being really odd. Dibdobs said in her beamy way, “Morning, Tallulah! Say morning, boys. To Tallulah.”

They looked at me.

Sam said, “Oo been seeping?”

Dibdobs laughed, “Yes, clever boy, Tallulah has been sleeping and now she’s awake and going to school. Hurrah!!!”

But I don’t think Sam meant had I been sleeping. I think he meant had I been seeping. Because then he said, “I been seeping a lot.”

Dobbs said, “Yes, clever boy, you’ve been sleeping too. Like Tallulah. You’ve been sleeping in your beddy-byes and now you are up and dressed!”

Max said, “No! Lady!!! He not seeped in his beddy-byes, he seeped in his pants!”

I had to go.





I met Vaisey by the post office. She had her hair in a plait so it didn’t stick out.

She said, “Ruby plaited it for me, do you think it looks alright?”

I said, “Yes, it looks nice.”

I think she is wearing a bra, she seems more sticky-outy somehow. I didn’t ask her, but I might sneak a look later on.

I do like her, she’s so friendly. And she seems all excited and happy.

She said, “Did you do your assignment? What words did you come up with?”

Before I could tell her she went on. “At first I was thinking about what people said about me, you know…nice. Bit young. Mad red hair, sticky-out bottom. But somehow, nice, young, red hair, big bum didn’t make me feel good. And then I thought the words that sum me up are Black Beauty.”

I said, “Um, that’s a horse.”

As we walked through the woods she said, “Black Beauty was my all-time top favourite book when I was little.”

I said, “Yes, but you didn’t want to BE a horse, did you? You wanted to HAVE a horse.”

Vaisey said, “No, I wanted to be the horse. I was Black Beauty.”

“You were Black Beauty?”

“Yes, you know, free and galloping and so on. With black hair like yours. Not red hair. Sometimes just trotting along. Or cantering in high spirits. Look, I can even do dressage.”

As we went up the lane to Dother Hall she started lifting one leg really high, and leaving it there for a second, and then hopping on to the other one and lifting that really high. And then criss-crossing her legs to the side.

She said, “I used to ride as Black Beauty to school.”

She trotted the rest of the way to college. Occasionally when she veered off towards Woolfe Academy, I shouted, “Black Beauty, steady!”





I told her that when I went to school, I rode an imaginary Harley Davidson motorbike.

As we reached the gates Vaisey reined herself in and said, “What words did you think of to describe you?”

And I said, “Um, it’s a surprise.”

And I wasn’t fibbing because I haven’t thought of anything.





When we arrived at the entrance hall other girls, older than us, were dashing in saying stuff like, “Hello, darling, I saw the BEST Beckett the other day. I wept it was soooo good,” and “Hi hi, one and all. God, nobody can lend me any panstick, can they? I completely forgot mine this morning after London.”

They must be the permanent students. I wonder if I will ever be like them.

Gudrun was there to greet us.

“Guten tag, fräulein!!! Wunderbar!!”

And she actually got hold of Vaisey’s cheek and shook it between her fingers. She was still going, “Ooooooohhhhh, look at you!”

I’m glad she didn’t do it to me because I am easily startled.





Our little group gathered together feeling a bit shy and lost. Gudrun shepherded us into the main hall, her bun waving about wildly. She said, “Ms Beaver wants you to go straight up on the stage, so that she can introduce you to the rest of the college.”

We shuffled up and sat down on the chairs there. I looked out over the sea of faces. Were the faces looking at my knees? I had done my best to play the knees down by wearing black trousers. I curled my legs under the chair.

Everyone in the auditorium was chatting away, looking relaxed and cool. Vaisey looked at me and gave me a little thumbs-up. Then, from the side of the hall, Gudrun sounded a big gong and Sidone Beaver entered stage left. All of the girls stood up, so we did too. Well, I did eventually once I had managed to untrap my legs.

Sidone wafted backwards and forwards. She was doing her world-renowned ‘filling the stage’ thing.

Looking round, she smiled and then swept a hand across her body towards us.

“Girls of Dother Hall, I present fresh blood. I present to you these embryos. Will they grow into infants of theatre, dance, music, art? Perhaps one or two of them will be giants of mime, or others medium-sized players of harps, others tiny but perfectly-formed backstage scene shifters. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the playing, the taking part in this wonderful adventure.”

Holy Mother of God and also Sweet Jesus!

Sidone went on. “I want you to welcome our new little embryos into the bosoms of the Mother ship or Dother ship.”

Sidone laughed in a tinkling way.

She said, “Did you see what I did there, girls?”

There was almost universal nodding from the audience.

Sidone said, “And to introduce themselves I have asked our new shipmates to come up with a word or words that sum them up. So now I ask you, new little friends, to tell us your words. And then, this is the bit you didn’t know, I want you to improvise a movement or dance to go with the word or words.”

What?

That hadn’t been in our note.

We all looked at each other.

A dance?

Oh, Holy Mother of Mercy.

I hadn’t even thought of any words! Perhaps I could just faint and that would be good. Then I’d be dragged off stage and taken…

Sidone pointed to the end of the line.

“Let’s start here. What is your outside name? Your pre-magic of theatre name.”

She was pointing at Jo.

Jo looked like an astonished (tiny) rabbit. She stood up.

You couldn’t say she hadn’t got pluck. You could say she was insane, but you couldn’t say that she wasn’t plucky. Anyway, she said, “My name is Jo.”

Sidone beamed at her.

“Jo…Jooooooo…say it loud, Joooooo.”

Jo said it loud. “JOOOOOOOOOO!!”

She’s got a loud voice for a short person.

Sidone stepped away from her a little and then went on. “And what was your descriptive word or phrase, Jooooo?”

Jo said, “Well, it’s ‘strong’.”

Sidone said, “Good, good. Jo is strong. How would you show us that, Jo? That ‘strong’. Show us your ‘strong’, Jo. Show it! Use the whole space!!!”

And in front of our amazed gaze, Jo started growling.

Sidone encouraged her, “Good, good, I am feeling your strength.”

Jo was feeling her strength as well. She started stomping around with her face all screwed up. And undoing her cardigan and puffing out her chest.

Vaisey whispered to me, “What is she doing?”

I said, “I think she’s being the Hulk.”





Vaisey was next. Alarm bells must have been ringing with Sidone because when Vaisey said “Black Beauty” she said quickly, “Now, Vaisey. We have just had a lot of charging energy from Jo and we need a change of pace. Perhaps you might like to think of prancing rather than galloping?”

Vaisey said, “I was going to do dressage.”

Sidone said, “Excellent. Trot on.”

And Vaisey did her leg-holding and criss-crossing.

I could see some of the girls in the audience laughing.

Honey chose ‘Thweet’.

Sidone said, “Pardon, dear?”

Honey’s dance was waggling her hips from side to side and going, “Mmmmmmmmmmmm, yummy! Mmmmmmmmmmmm yummy.”

Milly did ‘cheerful’ (mostly very scary smiling), Becka did ‘light-hearted’ (skipping and clapping), and Tilly did ‘thoughtful’ (frowning and skipping).

When it was Flossie’s turn she said her word was ‘grand’ in a Southern drawl and then started quietly going, “Oklahoma…Oklahoma…Oklahoma…”

Then she belted out, “The land we belong to is GRAND! And when I sayyyyyyyy…Hiyipppy yayyyyy…I’m saying you’re doing fine, Oklahoma…” And doing big arm movements and high kicks.

She would have done the whole song if Ms Beaver hadn’t caught her firmly round the arms. Some people clapped at the end.

Then it was my turn. My brain had frozen over. In terror.

I stood up and my legs felt like jelly, with jelly knees. Sidone looked at me. “Well, Tallulah, what have you chosen?”

Yes, a very good point.

I looked out at the sea of faces. And I stood there. A girl and her knees. And then for some reason, I remembered my grandparents coming round to our house when I was little and in bed. After a few Guinnesses I would hear the Irish records being put on and then “Get the bairn up and daaaancing!” And I would be got out of bed and put up on the table in the dining room to dance.

I started singing, “Hiddly diddly diddly.” In an Irish accent. To an Irish tune that nobody has ever heard of, because it doesn’t exist. I started doing Irish dancing, keeping my arms straight by my sides and kicking my legs about whilst hopping on tippy-toes.

I don’t know whether you have ever seen Irish dancing, but you’ve probably never seen it done by someone with eight-foot legs. I struck Sidone a glancing blow with my foot as I turned round.

I like to think it was a showstopper.





In the break we all went to the café to calm down.

Flossie, Vaisey, Jo, Honey and I sat together. Shipwrecked from the Dother ship.

Honey said, “Cwikey.”

And she wasn’t wrong.

A group of older girls came over. The leader was a slim girl with copper-coloured hair and very blue eyes, wearing expensive-looking clothes. She looked about seventeen or eighteen.

She said, “Now would you be Oirish, to be sure, to be sure?”

She was talking to me.

I said, “Well, yes, half of my family is Irish, and the other—”

Before I could go on any further she said, in a very posh voice, “That was railly fun. Railly fun. Wasn’t it, girls?”

The other two were nodding and looking. And saying, “Ya, raaillly fun. Well done.”

The blue-eyed girl said, “You did railly, railly well. I’m Lavinia, for my sins, and this is Dav and Anouska. Noos for short.”

The others said, “Yeah, hi.”

Lavinia went on. “You mustn’t feel that you made berks of yourselves.” And she looked directly at me when she said that bit. “We’re like a family here. And funnily enough my mater and pater have an old groundsman in our country place and he’s Oirish too! To be sure, to be sure. So we’ve lots in common. To be sure.”

Vaisey said, “Are you on the proper course?”

Lavinia laughed, “Yes, it can be hell, but I suppose we must love it! Come and see the performance lunchtime, some of us are doing a work in progress. See you later, begorrah, bejesus.”





After they’d gone, Vaisey said, “She seems very nice, doesn’t she? Good-looking too, isn’t she?”

Flossie was chewing her hair, “Hmmmmm.”

I said, “What does hmmmmm mean?”

Flossie said, “She does seem nice, but I wanted to squeeze her head, and my squeezing-head instincts are usually good.”

Jo said, “Hmmmmm.”

I said, “Is this a hmmmmm-in?”