Pride, Prejudice and Jasmine Field Read online

Matt Jenkins, the producer, a short man in a bulky anorak and sneakers, had joined Harry halfway through the auditions and Sara Hayes had never come out since her audition. Her staccato laughter had punctuated the intervals between each victim.

  “Dross of the highest order,” boomed Harry's voice. “The only cast this lot could play is a plaster cast.”

  “Really?” Sara's voice, genuinely hurt.

  “Come on, Harry, it can't be that bad.” Matt's voice.

  “It's worse. I've seen better acting from sitcom sets. The nearest thing we've got to Darcy is a five-foot-four actuary - unless I succumb and give it to that poisonous hack they call a theatre critic - and not a single Lizzy in sight.” He threw his pencil on to his desk. “It would damage my reputation to be seen at the same nightclub as most of these people, let alone direct them in a play.”

  Jazz shut her eyes tight and committed everything he'd said to memory. This was too good not to use one day.

  “Think of what this charity work would do for your reputation, Harry. Something like this is sure to make you the golden boy in Hollywood, as well as our tabloids, for ever. Hollywood loves London actors at the moment. Put that together with fundraising and they'll want to make you President.”

  “I don't want to be President, Matt.”

  Matt wasn't listening. “It's just a shame their golden boy Tim Shanks couldn't take a break off filming to be Darcy. Everyone loves him. We'd have had them queuing as far as the Finchley Road if we'd got him. We'd have bloody cured cancer with that! But if you play your cards right, Harry, we could get the nearest thing: someone everyone hates. Poison Pen Peters has more enemies than he has blackheads. People will be longing to see him fail - they'll come in their droves. And, as a nice little bonus, Harry my boy, if you give him Darcy, you need never worry about a first night again in your life. It couldn't be better.”

  During the pause that followed this impassioned speech, Jazz found herself thanking her lucky stars that Matt and Harry hadn't been referring to Gilbert when they mentioned the word "hack", but of course, were talking about the most feared man in theatre, critic Brian Peters.

  “Anyway,” continued Matt, after he'd let all that sink in, “you haven't seen everyone yet.”

  “Who else is there?” sighed Harry.

  A pause indicated that the three of them had caught sight of Jazz, who was by now standing just outside the door, facing away from them. She froze and tried to pretend she was invisible, which seemed easy with her eyes half-closed. They had no idea she could hear every word they were saying.

  After a moment, the voices started up again.

  “More of an Ugly Sister than a Lizzy Bennet,” said Harry laconically, at which Sara burst out into a loud and delighted laugh. “I wouldn't give her a lift in my car, let alone a part in my play,” he went on, warming to his theme. Laughing again, Sara shushed him so loudly that for a moment Jazz thought the Thameslink had entered the church.

  Jazz opened her eyes wide and found herself staring at a noticeboard with some Psalms pinned up next to an advert for a charity cake sale.

  Too stunned to move, too angry to breathe, she was still there when Matt Jenkins opened the door wide and stood grinning at her.

  He was still wearing his anorak. He was about one inch shorter than Jazz, with thin, tufty hair, small, blinking eyes, no neck and a long, thin nose that twitched nervously. He looked like a Womble.

  “I'm afraid I'll have to be your Darcy,” he said, his earlier confident tone now somewhat diminished.

  “Oh,” she said, and followed him in. If he can do Darcy, she seethed silently, I can do Lizzy. Hell, if he can do Darcy, I can do Elvis. Her spirits rallied.

  The room was the size of a small shopping mall. She strode up to the desk where Harry was perched, with his back to her, looking out at the view of rooftops. She crossed her arms and waited for him to turn round, her breathing shallow from the sudden shock of discovering what he thought of her. Sara was staring at her with an infuriatingly knowing smile. Infuriatingly, Jazz knew why. Eventually, with a monumental sigh, Harry turned round.

  “Name?” he asked, without looking up at Jazz.

  “Jasmin Field,” she managed.

  He scraped his chair back noisily, lowered himself into it with effort, and wrote down her name. Then he stopped and looked at what he'd written.

  “Georgia's sister?”

  “Yes, that's right,” said Jazz, barely controlling her fury. “The ugly one.”

  Sara pretended not to be able to hold back a stifled guffaw, but to Jazz's increasing anger, Harry didn't even look up as he fiddled with his papers. He obviously hadn't even heard her.

  Jazz's nerves and anger zoomed into adrenalin mode. Her heart was thumping so hard she thought it might leap on to the table.

  “Right,” said Harry, in a thoroughly bored tone, as if he was reading a shopping list. “Lizzy doesn't realise Darcy is in love with her, she's surprised when he appears at the door—”

  “Yes, I know the story,” cut in Jazz.

  Harry paused.

  “Right. Off you go then.” He crossed his arms, leaned back and scrutinised her properly for the first time. Jazz preferred it when he was ignoring her.

  She took a deep breath, turned her back on him as rudely as she could and walked to the end of the room, telling herself this would all be over in ten minutes and then she could buy herself a chocolate bar the size of a house. With her back still to the desk, she closed her eyes for a second and imagined herself in an Empire-style dress. Unconsciously, her shoulders dropped and her chin lifted. She turned round slowly, walked back to the middle of the room, and with as much confidence as she could muster, she sat herself down with one swift movement that managed to make her look inches taller.

  Matt Jenkins rushed into the room - quite an alarming sight with his flat feet. Lizzy was all astonishment.

  Matt Jenkins paced the room, the toggles of his anorak napping wildly and his elbow jerking out at right angles from his body due to an unfortunate nervous tic. Lizzy sat stiffly on the chair, staring in quiet bewilderment at him. Was this for real?

  Matt Jenkins paced back and forth, toggle in mouth, stopped, read his script, twitched and then eventually asked her to allow him to tell her how much he admired her and loved her. Then he insulted her family and took the toggle out of his mouth. Lizzy's dark eyes widened as she tried to hide her mortification. If she'd have had scissors on her, she'd have cut off his toggle and fed it to him. Matt Jenkins insulted her personally, sneezed and apologised. Lizzy looked horrified as he wiped his nose on his anorak sleeve. Matt Jenkins' neck went rigid as he told her he loved her profoundly, asked her to put him out of his misery and consent to be his wife, picked his ear and looked at it.

  Lizzy's face was utter disbelief.

  Slowly and stonily she collected herself and answered Matt Jenkins, explaining that she had done nothing to excite these feelings and could not accept them. Once or twice, her voice failed her as the humiliation of the situation overcame her.

  Matt Jenkins nodded firmly, twitched, jerked his head disconcertingly, then turned two pages over at once. He said, “whoops,” wiped his sweaty brow and then demanded to know why he had got such a rude answer.

  Lizzy, her voice growing in strength with her confidence and anger, assured him quietly but firmly that there were two reasons. One, he had been instrumental in breaking the heart of a much-beloved sister and two, he had ruined the life of a certain Mr Wickham.

  Matt Jenkins started shifting his weight from left foot to right and noted that she took a great interest in that man. He peered closer at his script, took a deep breath and read that perhaps he should have pretended not to have been in any doubt about proposing to someone whose family's position was so much further below his own. His left shoulder hunched suddenly to his ear in a spasmodic twitch of tension. Then in a split second, his right elbow shot out to his side and back again.

  Lizzy fixed him with a steely eye and c
lenched her teeth, sharpening her cheekbones even more. She explained clearly, and with a quiet force, that far from preventing her from accepting his hand, that had only made it easier for her to care less about hurting him. In a voice like iron wrapped in velvet, she used this perfect opportunity to vent her hurt feelings and told him that from the very first time she had met him she had found him unpleasant. He was the last man she could ever want to marry. Her voice broke and her eyes shone with injured pride as she went on to tell him he was arrogant, rude and self-satisfied, and that even if he had acted in a more gentlemanly-like manner, her answer would have always been the same.

  Relieved beyond belief that they had reached the end, Matt Jenkins said “Rightie ho,” beamed at Harry, tapped his watch and scarpered from the imaginary stage.

  Lizzy, stunned, angered, confused and exhausted, stood up to start pacing but realised she felt too weak. As Matt Jenkins did a scene-hogging Scoobydoo-tiptoe to the front corner of the room, Lizzy sat down heavily again, put a hand to her heaving chest, closed her eyes, let a tear fall down her cheek and an unexpected sob escape.

  * * *

  The sound of her sniffing filled the audition room.

  Slowly Jazz took a tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose loudly.

  Eventually Harry spoke. “Have we got your phone number?” he asked quietly.

  Jazz looked up at him. He was staring intently at her. “No,” she said dully. “I wasn't asked to give it.”

  “That's all right, we'll get it off your sister.”

  She waited for a while, and looked at Matt Jenkins. He smiled back and winked at her. Then his shoulder twitched again and his elbow shot out from his body, leaving his hand on his waist. No one took any notice. Good God, thought Jazz, alarmed. Any minute now, he's going to break into Riverdance.

  She was surprised at how exhausted she felt. Harry was still scribbling but Jazz decided she'd had enough. She didn't care if he was planning to try and direct her like he had George, she was ready to go home.

  “Bye then,” she said to Matt.

  “Ta-ta,” he said jovially, his nose now the only part of him that was moving out of context. “You were rather good.”

  Jazz thanked him, knowing she was not enough of an actress to return the compliment. She looked at Harry. He was still writing. She walked out, humming determinedly, without glancing at Sara Hayes.

  Chapter 3

  “Anyway, thanks for the mango, George,” said Mo and they all started chortling weakly. Jazz could still taste toffee at the back of her teeth and Mo had just eaten most of a packet of chocolate eclair sweets. George, who had polished off the marshmallows, joined in guiltily.

  They all looked at the unpeeled mango that Georgia had brought round. It lay on the coffee-table, surrounded by lots of brightly coloured sweet wrappers. They just couldn't be bothered to peel it.

  “A mango is like a man,” decided Mo.

  “Why?” asked George.

  “Because it's too much effort to open up and has a heart of stone.”

  Jazz smiled. “You forgot "And it tastes like shit to swallow and it's always you who has to wipe up afterwards".”

  Mo snorted the remains of the last eclair up her nose.

  “I love mangos,” smiled George happily.

  They all turned to watch the mute TV for a moment.

  The flat in West Hampstead belonged to Mo. It was bright, cosy and well-worn. She'd bought it five years ago, just before the latest boom, when her mother had died and left her a substantial amount of money.

  Jazz loved living there. She could be in the heaving metropolis of central London in fifteen minutes and in Brighton in half an hour on the Thameslink. And she could be with Mo when she needed good company or stay in her room with its sofa and heaving book shelves when she needed space. What's more, George lived five minutes away in the next road. Jazz was delighted with her home.

  George pulled her face away from the TV screen.

  “Did you see that gorgeous blond bloke at the auditions?” she asked.

  Mo shook her head. “Nope. I was too busy wondering when, how and where I was going to be sick.”

  Jazz knew exactly who George was talking about. Maybe Action Man was on his way out, she thought hopefully. She turned her gaze away from a tap-dancing tube of toothpaste and a happy set of sparkling white teeth doing a Busby Berkeley number. It wasn't easy. She looked at her sister.

  “Why don't you chuck Simon?” she suggested bravely.

  George grimaced. “I'm too scared.”

  “Of what?”

  “I don't want to hurt him.”

  Jazz wasn't sure if that was an answer or a new thought. She suspected the latter.

  “How many bastards have hurt you?” demanded Mo.

  “Exactly,” said George. “I'll know how awful he'll feel.”

  “George,” interrupted Jazz. “How long have you been going out with him?”

  “Three and a half months.”

  Only Jazz's sympathy for her sister could have stopped her from laughing out loud.

  “Chuck him, girl,” she said firmly but kindly. “I know he'll probably never find anyone as lovely again, but he will get over it.”

  George's large white-blue eyes looked at the carpet. “I'll wait until he chucks me,” she said quietly.

  Mo and Jazz erupted.

  “Chuck him!” they both shouted.

  “OK!” shouted George back, shutting them up.

  She pulled her long legs under her little bottom, as if making herself smaller would somehow improve things. Jazz watched her. Her naturally fair hair suited her highlights so well and her skin went a stunning honey colour after just one sun-bed session every six weeks. She had no hips to speak of, a pretty bust, a concave stomach and the rest of her was golden skin and delicate bones. Perfection. Very occasionally when Jazz looked at her, for a split-second it was like looking at her reflection, only in technicolour and on a thinner, taller scale. Jazz's hair was much darker than her sister's and her figure more rounded. Whereas George had the kind of tall, androgynous body that the media and fashion world adored, Jazz had what was known as The Winslet Body - that is, a body that the media and fashion world trumpeted as obese but that men seemed to like well enough. Jazz also had their father's translucently pale skin and his deep chestnut eyes. She often wondered wistfully if, had she been born with George's vivid colouring, she'd also see the world in bright primary colours. But as for envying George's figure, Jazz wouldn't have known how to. That was one thing Martha — mother to George, Jazz and their younger sister, Josie - had taught her girls. With her splendid bosom, gloriously rounded bottom and shapely ankles, Martha had given each one of her very different daughters a priceless gift - the gift of loving their bodies. By example alone (and some very choice words at sensitive, adolescent times), she had taught them how to celebrate their own shape. She'd left it up to the world around them to present it as something to be ashamed of.

  They all stared at the telly in silence, Jazz wondering how she could open up the conversation again. But within seconds her concentration was diverted by the images on the screen.

  George sat up and pointed. “Oh look — it's Andrew! I was in Lysistrata with him in Cardiff!”

  “Have you had him?” asked Mo.

  George smiled a confessional smile. Jazz shook her head in amazement. Was no actor safe?

  Before yesterday's audition, all Jazz and Mo had wanted to know about the Gala charity play was the address of the audition and the measurement of Harry Noble's inside leg. Now they had both, they wanted more information.

  “It's a one-off, one-night play in aid of breast cancer research, to be performed at the King George Theatre in the West End,” explained George, in an excited rush. “Part of a massive theatrical bonanza-type thingy. The Pride and Prejudice part is semi-professional, with a complete range in the cast from unknowns to working actors, journalists, novelists and artists. Then the next night there'll be a pantomim
e with soap stars and on the last night they'll be doing It's A Knockout with all the country's news presenters. They say they're going to get Jeremy Paxman in a Daffy Duck outfit. So our bit is the only bit that's serious acting. But what makes it so different from all the other charities is that the audience will be full of celebrities and the cast will contain some ordinary working people for a change. Get the celebs to actually pay the money this time - that's the twist. They'll edit the highlights for a TV programme and the cameras will be on the audience as much as - if not more than - the stage.” George ignored Mo's gasp of terror. “And the way to get such a star-studded audience was to ask Harry Noble to direct. Every actor wants to see his work. It's a massive coup. Apparently they managed to get him because his great-aunt died of the disease.”

  “And his Great British Public want to see him doing something good,” added Jazz. She told them how she had heard the producer, Matt Jenkins, telling Harry that this would enhance his reputation in Hollywood and the tabloids.

  “Are you going to put that in your piece?” asked Mo eagerly.

  Jazz shook her head. Much as she detested Harry's hypocrisy, that wasn't her style. She was a journalist and columnist for the popular women's weekly Hoorah! The women's magazine with a difference. She didn't waste her time writing celebrity gossip, although that didn't stop her being fascinated by it.

  Jazz had the perfect personality for a columnist. Where George was ready to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, Jazz was happy to give them the benefit of her wisdom. She was highly judgmental of everything and everyone. She could spot bluff at a hundred paces. She couldn't help it, it was like a sixth sense. But most importantly for a columnist, Jazz was very emotional and easily riled. Her weekly tirades were a unique blend of heartwarming tales about her perfect family and home life, mixed with apoplectic opinions about society's foibles. Her columns were highly popular with the . readers. She felt fairly sure she had a future, with or without Hoorah! It was just a case of waiting to be snapped up by a broadsheet and never having to do a proper day's work again.