Miss World

Ms World

I’m waiting backstage for my moment. My moment, though it’ll be crushed in amongst these other girls’ moments. The bright spotlight will glide across hair-sprayed curls, tussled blonds, and bouffant brunettes, but it will only tease them. Me, it will blind with the purposeful power of its beam. Amongst these women with sugar-almond hues, wood-stained limbs, the shine of satin, the crinkle of lace, and the cling of polyester, there is me. Me in my dress to better show off my tan: the colour of a perfectly cooked cake.
    'Good luck.' 'Good luck.' 'Break a leg.' Their lips stick to teeth with cheap lip gloss. We drop our shoulders to look relaxed, life our head up to look confident. We practise the ways to smile: mouth open in joyous exclamation, lips together to hint at contained cheekiness, one-sided to show quirkiness, and if you have them - dimples out. So many different lips: retro red, peachy matt lipstick staining like a blush, clear shiny gloss swelled lips. Girls are holding hands. Girls are whispering, a hand poised around the ear – careful to not mess up elaborate hairstyles.
The audience is clapping. Rising feelings of nerves, of anticipation, of indigestion come from my stomach. The girl in front starts to perspire; it thins and kinks up her fringe. Silence backstage. We take deep breaths: rRising ribcages and expanding stomachs. Dresses are not made for this; there are tugs and wiggles. 
    A male voice calls out to us. 'Go Go Go.' The curtain is held back and the first girl walks out. We all follow. One purposeful glide to another purposeful glide. Grace, Poise: Grace, Poise.
My name is called distant and unreal. So much space, so much vastness, with the high baroque ceiling and the crowd seated in tiers. The light sweeps down, bright, blinding, fading. I must rely on my feet to do what they’re trained to do – one in front of the other in front of the other. I smile, show my newly bleached teeth vaselined to twinkle like diamonds. Darkness is disorientating; head towards the colours. Head towards the flowery scent of fifty perfumes all nudging for dominance. Eyes are on me, keeping my limbs supple and relaxed. Slowly, I walk up the steps. I take my place next to number 50. Smile wider at the crowd, we all do. I stand out. I know, I do. 
    Where are Mum and Dad? They have to see me so beautiful. Judges scribble quick notes and pass them across to each other like they’re at school. Uneasiness, for a second, for a heartbeat, but I don’t show it. I have a right to be beautiful, to be proud of my grooming and good genes. The last girl joins the stage. 
    The host in a shiny suit directs the audience’s gaze to us. Light returns. Beautiful, blinding light. Smiles: confident, demure, surprised, warm. Look at me. Look at me. A girl sways. A drop of sweat falls from her nose onto the hair of the girl in front. I must pretend not to notice,  keep on smiling. The host is talking, explaining the event to the audience. The judges will decide which girl is the best: poise, beauty, intelligence, talent, and personality. Well, I claim all of those for myself. I am the best. A stomach rumbles, a hand moves to quieten it but doesn’t touch because the girl remembers: shoulders back, head up, and smile, smile, smile.
    Back across the stage, back to the chaos on the other side of the curtain, we go. Re-animated, panicked, and ready to kick off shoes as we run to get changed. Hands yank zips, pop button, tear velcro. Swimsuits next. Bright colours. A trip through the ages; 90s’ Baywatch, 60s’ Ursula Andrews, 40s’ two-pieces,. There’s time to arrange hair into looser styles: unpin, shake, spritz with water to create some curls. Softening of make-up. We check our legs, especially around the knees, check our bikini lines, pulling at our skin to pop out stray hairs that have grown or uncurled in the last few hours. I slap mounds of glitter moisturiser onto my thighs and arms for a slight shimmer, to look like I just got out of the pool. 
    We join the line again. The girl in front has a red mark where her bikini has dug in. Last minute pink peony is added to my hair. I check how my breasts have settled in my white bikini. Always have a theme colour. White for purity. White to make your eyes pop. Another girl is in white, but there’s so little fabric she looks trashy; she’s nothing to worry about. More nerves now; nowhere to hide now. Light can be cruel. It’ll interrogate us for imperfections: a lump of cellulite, a slack muscle, a blob of fake tan inexpertly applied. Let it do its worst. I have brushed, I have plucked, and I have run mile after mile on an empty stomach. My breasts are real; there’s no tell-tale stretch of skin pulled across the breast and knobbly breast bone. The light loves to accentuate these things. A breath, we all take one.
    The first girl clops against the wooden stage. Hearts pound to the rhythm. Get me out there. Get the light on me.
    'I can’t do it,' the girl in front of me says. She moves anyway, caught in the line. I’m so near. So near I can smell the mould on the curtains and see dust dancing like dandelion wishes. 
Out onto the stage, I go. The air is cooler. Our nipples come out in response. Sexual power. Sexual promises but pure, as if we don’t know the power we have, as if we don’t realise that high heels make our hips wiggle and our breasts bounce. Promise, I could be yours. Promise. I could be a bad girl if you ask nicely. My smile is innocent and wide-eyed. Touch me. Touch me again, light. I flutter my lashes at it. I call it down. Down it comes, sweeping, across, up to the next girl. 
Questions begin. I don’t catch what the other girls are saying, only following the timbre of voices, the clip of words, the juddering of nerves. Some accents are curves and lilts. Other accents are brittle and high pitched. A few giggles, real and fake. Light ushers me to the centre of the stage, to the host. His hand’s out for me. I shake it. I turn to the audience and smile.
    'So, Bethany.' The emphasis is on Beth, as he reads from a card in the palm of his hand. 'It says here you are training to be a surgeon.'
    He holds the microphone out but not too close, not close enough. But I will not bend to it. I will not create rolls at my side.
    'Yeah.' Loud and proud, I speak. 
    The audience makes appreciative noises. 
    I smile at them.
    'What made you decide on this?' He has a real tan, drying and wrinkling his forehead. He needs some cocoa butter. 
    I push my tongue to the bottom of my mouth for moisture. Speak. 'Well, like, you know beauty, it’s a weapon, ain’t it, like? Innit what Estee Lauder or that L’Oreal or something said. Move the world. That’s me. What I’m gonna do. For all women, yeah? If she ain’t born with it … you know that ad, like?’ I tap my chest with my nail, french polish catching the light and rainbowing it around the room. ‘Me, I’m gonna make it for her, like mould her ‘cos, well, faces, they’re just things, right, and you cut things. Make perfect. Girl power! And all that. Oh and, ain’t forgetting ‘bout men too. I’ll help them. You know, short men, like yourself can—‘ I stop myself because he looks angry. 
    I smile.
    The audience is clapping. Politely? The hare ost’s hands on my back, nudging me off.
    The tension is rising, girls pulling at their swimsuits, fluffing up hair, transferring their weight from one foot to another. A girl’s toes slide in her shoes. I must remain still; the light does not favour fidgeters. It’ll jump to them. Suddenly, surprising them into ugly expressions. The host rushes through the questions as if he needs the toilet. Girls are looking more and more confused but their voices remain chirpy. The host calls break before the last girl has rejoined us. The curtain’s down.
    The host’s waving his hand around until someone brings him a plastic cup. ‘Ridiculously fucking hot.’ The host loosens his tie. Off he goes, mumbling, ‘Fucking short. I’m not fucking short. I’m taller than Tom Cruise.’ His assistant chases after him, fanning him with the running order for today. 
    We girls breathe out. A girl sits on the stage, takes off her gold shoe, and rubs her foot.  ‘Fucking things.’
    Someone calls out, ‘Water, water.’
    I pray to the light. Swing back to me, light; there’s not much time left. Don’t leave me to normal sunshine or the flickering of fluorescent bulbs. Not now. Give me another moment. Swing to me again so my body glistens, my hair shines, my teeth sparkle and rays reflect off my jewellery. 
I am nothing huddled with these sweating girls; their natural body odour starts seeping through their perfume. Without the light, this is only a village hall, loud and echoey. A hall where small girls learn to tap dance. A hall where old people revisit acting dreams. It doesn’t belong anywhere near my white bikini. 
    I check for dust patches. I check for smudges. It’s so hard to see anything in this half-light. A half-light like sepia photos left in junk shops. Don’t breathe, in case this stale air of resignation gets inside and undoes all my good work of no carbs, no sugar, and faster cardio. The host returns and sprawls on the stage, trousers tight against his crotch. I can see everything: the length, the swell and a spot of dampness. A girl yawns. A girl farts. A girl laughs. 
    The audience shuffles back. Everyone, breathe in.  Everyone, stand up, head back, shoulders down. The curtain’s raised. Light returns, warming my toes, then my legs, then my belly, my breasts, my face. I trust it. I love it the most. Let the other girls be hazy in its periphery. 
    The host calls my name. 
    Me?
    He gestures to the side of the stage. It’s dark there. I’m not meant for the dark. 
    He nods. He flashes a tight, toothy smile. ‘You, Bethany from Colchester, have been eliminated.’ 

 

Copyright 2023 A Head

Behind the Scenes

I wanted to give a little behind-the-scenes look at my current work in progress. I enjoy it when writers are brave enough to show me a rough cut. It’s like a little peak behind the curtain in Oz, although it’s not a charlatan you find but rather someone frantically trying out all their tricks to grab your attention and make you stay. Please stay.

I also wanted to demystify creative writing courses a little by sharing the feedback I received. It’s rare that we’re shown the process of writing in such gritty detail, flaws blowing in the wind like a pair of lacy knickers on a nun’s washing line. By hey, I’m going to learn from them and they won’t be in the finished piece. I’m lucky enough to have access to great courses such as this one (Writing Historical Fiction, if you’re interested) but a lot of people aren’t. Maybe they (you) can learn from my mistakes.

Chapter 1

‘Why not just tell me? Give me the name and address?’ I ask for the hundredth time. My voice is so shrill it must hurt Freddie’s head. He’s nursing a hangover, judging by the green tinge of his skin, his slouch, and the smell emanating from him. It wafts around this rickety carriage that he’s somehow got hold of. ‘Answer me. Freddie.’
    ‘Do you ever shut up?’ He pinches the bridge of his nose. ‘And it’s Frederico.’
    The trim hanging off the ceiling swings as we jolt down the bumpy road. A particularly nasty dip sends me sliding and banging into the wall, a wall of worn, sticky velvet. My crinoline squashes on one side and lifts on the other, exposing my ankle to the draught coming up through a hole in the floor. At least it’s letting some air in because the driver has not properly brushed out and replaced the straw on the floor, adding a mustiness to the smell of Freddie’s sweaty body and making me nauseous. All the shades are down, which isn’t helping either. I go to open one and he slaps my hand.
    ‘How many times do I have to say no? By God, I’d forgotten how annoying you are. They can put little Ade in a fancy dress and house and still—‘
    ‘You’re one to talk Freddie McPhinney from St Giles.’
    ‘It’s Federico Russo,’ he shouts.
    I tuck into my bonnet the lock of my hair that had escaped and was swinging across my face and ticking the tip of my nose with each rock of the carriage. ‘Why can’t we at least have the window open?’ My best day dress must be picking up the stench of this carriage. How will I explain that to my sister, Marianne, and her husband, Mr Longbourne?
    Freddie sighs dramatically.
    ‘I already know we’ve left London. There are no street merchants yelling for sales, no clops from other horses. There are no clangs of building works. It smells different too. That draught. There’s no tang of London in it.’
    He says nothing.
    'I don’t understand why secrecy matters so much to this man.’ I kick his foot with mine.
    He glares at me. ‘Who knows why aristocrats act as they do?’
    ‘He is expecting us, isn’t he?’
    ‘Of course.’ The twitch of his lips has me doubting him.
    I squeeze the tips of my gloves, whitened especially for this meeting. ‘Why the all mystery?’
    ‘You’ll have to ask him when we get there.’
    ‘And where is there?’
    He checks his battered pocket watch. The initials on the back aren’t his. ‘Three hours of this. Three hours, I’ve had.’ He appeals to the ceiling, a faded and tatty black. ‘What did I do to deserve this?’
    ‘Sold my painting.’
    ‘Not sold. Lost. If you stopped talking for five minutes—’
    ‘You don’t misplace a portrait of that size.’
    ‘Lost.’
    ‘Well, it’s mine. I paid for it and I need it, so you better get it back for me.’
    He sits up. ‘What are you going to do, Miss Adelaide Hastings, if I don’t? Get your father to write about me in that rag he works for?’
    ‘My brother-in-law is a barrister.’ I cross my arms over my chest.
    ‘Sue me then.’ His hands fly up into the air, unbuttoned sleeves flailing. ‘Sue me. Think I have anything.’ He laughs.
    I bite back a curse word as the carriage lurches. His head bangs on the ceiling. ‘This better be worth it,’ he groans. ‘Worth it? What are you going to get out of it?’
    ‘What any painter wants—fame, recognition, commissions. You think any artist wants to create a portrait that never gets seen?’
    ‘Then why didn’t you get it back yourself?’
    ‘Gentleman’s honour.’
    I huff and let out an ugly laugh. ‘You a gentleman, Freddie?’
    ‘It’s Fredrico Russo.’
    ‘If you say so.’
    He unscrews the lid on his battered hipflask and tips it to his lips. It must be empty, judging by the despair on his face. He returns the flask to the pocket of his frock coat, a pocket that is two stitches away from becoming a flap. ‘You wouldn’t understand. Gentleman’s honour is something you women will never understand.’ He lurches forward, squashing the hat on his lap. ‘It’s between men, it’s about being and doing what we say, upholding certain silent rules and behaviour towards each other.’
    If I was a man, I’d slap his face with one of my gloves and call him out for behaving so dishonestly towards me by selling my portrait.
    ‘Careful, you’ll break those lovely gloves of yours.’
    I let go of the button at my wrist and rest my hands on my lap like Mr Longbourne is always telling me to do. ‘I have no …’ Freddie taps his head, ‘…no inspiration. No ideas. Everything has been done before, everything is a hackneyed copy of everything else. Nothing is new. That portrait. Your portrait took it out of me. Succubus, that’s what you are. So … so … way I figure it – you owe me.’
    ‘I’ve paid you well enough.’
    ‘Not for taking my talent, my ability, my, my … inspiration. Look at me.’ He spreads out his arms. ‘Look at me, nothing now.’
    ‘You were nothing then, too.’ I tug on the cuff of my gloves and fan out my fingers. Why did I trust him to paint me? Had it been in the passion in his blue eyes, the galloping speed of his speech when he’d rhapsodized about Romanticism in art? He was strikingly handsome when we’d first met, wild and out of place like a character from a Bronte novel, and he was starry-eyed for Gabriel Dante Rossetti who he swore he’d met in some gin palace and had sold a drawing too. I’d been selling watercress to keep me and Papa alive after Mother died and the subsequent grief had floored Papa. The Freddie sitting across from me is haggard and hollow as if talent kept him full, not food.
    ‘Don’t you pity me,’ he says.
    ‘I wasn’t.’
    ‘You had a look of it. I might be low but you wait. This is temporary. When the world sees that portrait, when the world…’ He pulls the end of the blind away from the window, peeps behind it and frowns. ‘Why’d you want it so much, anyway?’
    ‘That’s none of your concern.’
    ‘What’s wrong? Don’t like questions?’ His grin shows burgundy-tipped teeth.
    ‘No.’ I bash at the lock of my hair that has escaped my bonnet again and is ticking my nose with every rock of the carriage.
    ‘Sure looks like it.’
    I try to relax my jaw, impossible. I try to move my lips up into a pleasing half-smile but I’m picturing Mr Chelton with his face purple as he rants about morals, manners, and moral decline of London.
    We drop into another rut. I go to hold on to the roof but my dress restricts my arm and I bang into the wall. ‘Ridiculous.’
    This whole escapade is more than ridiculous. It’s dangerous, foolhardy. Worse: Marianne would say it is scandalous, me going to visit a man without first receiving a proper introduction, let alone me being here with Freddie. But what else can I do when everyone refuses to help me? Maybe if Mr Chelton knew I was alone in a carriage with a man it would be enough for him to stop his unwanted courtship and threats of marriage. Maybe I don’t need the painting.
    ‘Thought that would shut her up,’ Freddie mumbles.
    But this not talking, this thinking about Mr Chelton, adds force to the rocking nauseous in my belly and the pounding tension in my forehead. ‘I’ll be quiet when you tell me where we’re going and who we’re going to meet.’
    ‘He’s a very private man. A recluse.’
    ‘I know that already. You told me that days ago when I tracked you down to that hovel.’ ‘Not all of us have rich relations.’
    ‘I want a name. Can you tell me that at least?’
    The sound of the wheels changes to a low staccato purr. The jolts are more frequent but less intense. ‘Hallelujah,’ Freddie says when the carriage stops. He lifts his clasped hands to his lips, kisses them, and then shakes them at the ceiling. ‘Finally.’
    ‘You’re always so dramatic.’ 

 

 Feedback
SPECIFIC ASPECTS OF YOUR ASSIGNMENT THAT WERE EFFECTIVE:

This is outstanding work which grounds the reader in the chosen historical period: 1860. A pair of characters, Ade and Freddie, are on their way to a mysterious assignation. Or rather, it’s mysterious to Ade. Freddie is clearly keeping something from her though she has her own secrets too. The piece very effectively conveys the world view of the characters and pays close attention to what’s happening around them. Mention of Brontë novels and Rossetti gives the cultural context for this moment, while the close attention to clothes is very revealing of both social standing and the emotional state of the characters. Working particularly well is how Freddie’s clothes are shown to be in a state of disarray which makes clear his stress. There is also very rewarding attention to sensory detail – the movement and smell of the carriage is extremely vivid. An intriguing and richly conceived extract of historical fiction which convinces as the start of a novel.

SPECIFIC ASPECTS OF YOUR ASSIGNMENT THAT COULD BE FURTHER IMPROVED:

There’s some good mystery generated by this opening, with lots of unanswered questions which will keep the reader guessing and wanting to know more. That said, it’s a fine line between curiosity and uncertainty, and the latter can make readers turn away from a story, no matter how well the period is conveyed. There are several mysteries here: where they’re going today and why, and the painting – what’s happened to it and why Ade needs it so much. This perhaps risks overburdening the start of a story and the reader might conflate the different mysteries which might not be the intention, e.g. does Ade think the man she’s going to meet will have the painting?

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Copyright 2023 A Head

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