‘I feel fine,’ Laura says. ‘A little bit anxious.’ Laura mimics last year’s winner. A seventy-year-old folk singer and harmonica player. Rachel smirks.
‘It looks exciting,’ Laura says, as if she hasn’t sounded like a mouth organ. ‘I feel excited. Like it’s the start of something new. I mean, this whole week has been new.’
‘Do you know what you’re going to do for your audition? Should you rehearse something? Plan a routine?’
Laura looks down at her fingers. ‘I don’t really plan it. It just … happens.’
‘Do you remember the first time you discovered you had this incredible ability to mimic?’
Laura is silent for a moment. Solomon is almost waiting for her to say, what ability? It has seemed so much a part of her, something she’s not conscious of. She thinks hard, eyes flicking left and right as they search. Then they stop and Solomon is sure she has remembered, as is Bo.
‘No,’ Laura says finally, avoiding all eye contact. She’s a bad liar.
The disappointment is clear in Bo’s voice. ‘Right, so it’s something you’ve always done?’
Another pause. ‘Yes. For a long time.’
‘From birth, perhaps?’
‘I don’t remember back that far.’ She smiles.
‘I don’t expect you to,’ says Bo, her tone neutral. ‘What I mean is, do you think this … ability …’
Solomon would have said talent, gift. He’s sure Bo still isn’t seeing it that way. To her it’s an affliction. Interesting only for the purpose of a documentary. Still, it’s a positive that she didn’t say disability.
There’s a knock on the door, a loud quick rap and Bianca enters.
‘I’ll take you to wardrobe now, Lyrebird.’
Solomon wants to tell Bianca that her name is Laura, not Lyrebird, which is clearly the ‘act’s’ name but he stops himself. Detach, Solomon, detach.
Keeping their sound packs on, Laura and the crew follow Bianca to wardrobe where she will try on clothes before her hair and make-up.
As she makes her way down the corridor, she turns and looks at Solomon with uncertainty written all over her face. He winks at her in support and she smiles excitedly and continues.
‘It’s a bit tight in here, ladies,’ the head stylist snaps as Rachel and her camera, then Bo, try to squeeze in after Laura. She’s not lying, the room is filled with dozens of rails of clothes from one wall to the next, there is barely room to turn around.
‘I’ll wait outside. Rachel?’ Bo says.
‘Got it,’ Rachel replies, understanding the tone of voice to mean ‘capture everything’.
‘Wow,’ Laura says. She walks down the rails, her hand running along the fabric.
‘I’m Caroline. I’ll be styling you,’ she says looking Laura up and down, scrutinising her body. ‘This is Claire.’
Claire doesn’t smile and doesn’t speak. Claire is an assistant who has probably learned not to open her mouth unless asked to.
Laura grins. ‘Mum and Gaga would love this. They were dressmakers.’
Caroline doesn’t seem overly impressed. She has ten people to style, in a room with no windows, and very little time to do it in, and a frustrating production team who keep changing their mind and expecting her to be able to pick up the pieces. But Laura moves at a different pace to everybody that’s come through the door and into Caroline’s world. She closes her eyes and suddenly the room is filled with the sound of a sewing machine. It is rhythmic and soothing, like the constant chugging of a train, a sound you want to sway with.
Caroline’s eyes fill. ‘My goodness!’ She places a hand across her stomach and another over her heart. ‘You’ve just taken me right back. That’s a Singer.’
Laura opens her eyes and smiles. ‘Yes.’
‘My mother used one of them,’ Caroline says, her hard voice suddenly emotional, her face softening. ‘I used to sit underneath the sewing table and listen to the sound all day, watching the lace float to the floor beside me.’
‘I did too,’ Laura says. ‘I used to make clothes for my dolls from the scraps.’
‘So did I!’ Caroline says, the stress completely eliminated from her face.
Laura’s not finished yet. There are new sounds, the sound of scissors clipping at fabric, the snip snip, and the tearing and ripping sound of fabric pulling apart, then back to the sewing machine, which rises and falls, quickens and slows as it turns corners, manoeuvres the fabric.
‘Oh. My dear. My love. Let’s get you into something beautiful, you magical creature,’ Caroline says, completely swept away by what she has heard.
Fifteen minutes later, Laura steps out of the makeshift dressing room.
‘Well?’ Caroline looks at Rachel. Of course Rachel doesn’t respond, but her camera does the work. What she sees is Laura as she’s never seen her before, and Laura as she has never been before. Laura looks at their faces, uncertain, but with a shy smile. She likes it, she hopes others do.
Claire sets about accessorising Laura.