Vogue

Once upon a time when Ugly Betty was still on television and ‘The devil wears prada’ had just been released to the literary world, a Northern Irish actress embarked on another temp job…at a fashion house on Bond Street.  We’ll call it Louise Feet On. 

Inside this institute, a girl started a temp job at the Press Office.  A job at the bottom of the fashion ladder that must be climbed with stilettos and ever decreasing waist lines.  Unknowingly I was the envy of many fashionista wannabies, a step in the right direction, a step I could not have cared for less. 

My job: to work in the show room, leaving clothes and bags presentable for stylists and celebrity visits, sending out clothes for shoots and premieres, and gifting the latest item to approved celebs like Madonna, Judy Dench and Keira Knightley.  I did check, but my name was not on the gift list.

The boss was a devil.  Not in Prada.  She didn’t smile, she didn’t talk, she didn’t eat.  She walked around yelling for her assistant as if calling a dog.  She did not speak when spoken to, she looked down from her slight 6’1” frame on everything…she was a monster.  I was petrified…the desired response…until I realized that even monsters need friends.  So… I persisted. 

I said ‘Hello’ to her every single time I saw her. I smiled at her in the corridor.  Nothing.  I worked there for about 8 months, it was a barren time in my acting life…that’s about 160 days worth of ignorance. 

There were a few minor breakthroughs. 

One day she entered the showroom with a grand throwing open of the door.  My colleague and I were busy note making for the day ahead, so busy we did not raise our heads.  There was a general sweep of the room, a faint ‘Hello’ and a door closing.  It was then we realised she had been in, she had spoken…to us…and we had not responded.

On another day, some important Louise Feet On people came over from Paris.  They wanted to meet everyone in the office.  Two men entered the showroom and came directly towards me, shook my hand, smiled and said ‘Thank you’.   She stood aghast.  They shook my hand, me, me with the jeans and t-shirt, with un-straightened hair and unpolished face.  Me with my small bank account and accent.  She saw me that day.

 

I stopped reading The Devil wears Prada.  I no longer watched Ugly Betty.  Fashion was taking over my life.

The office was made up of a few petite French smoking filles and the rest, pale English rose non eating types, then I… a Northern Irish tree in the eyes of these sticks.  I slouched to work apologising for myself in my non designer clothes, sending out garments, calling them back, tracking all press coverage and sorting through the show room.  On the days when celebrity visits were happening I would be banished.  Somewhere unseen, no one must see the strange Irish girl.  She laughs without a care for her wrinkles.  She eats brownies.  No one must catch sight, scent or smell of her.

Until one day…when Thandie Newton was in town.  She came in with her stylist, she was lovely.  There was no warning, the dragon boss knew but had forgotten to pass it on to her minions, so one minute I was adjusting scarves on a shelf, the next the steps had gone beneath my feet and I was in a heap on top of a pile of shoes with a cupboard door shutting in front of me.

I hear voices, I am about to laugh and excuse my apparent clumsy behaviour when I realize, no, this was the plan.  She of much fame, beauty, clothes must not be presented with real life, with hardship. 

I have actually been hurled into a store room to avoid visual contact with a celeb.  Thandie, her stylist and the dragon take their time wandering around the room, remarking on the different cuts and colours for the season, picking out a selection of next seasons dresses for the premier tomorrow night. 

After ten minutes the voices die down.  Unsure as to whether they are maybe deep in prayer or meditation over these clothes I wait a while more, I try unsuccessfully to squint through the slats in the door but to no avail…twenty minutes pass and I’ve had just about enough of heels.  So I slowly and carefully open the door to …an empty room.  No one had even bothered to let me know they had left the room.  The invisible helper, the no one.

When I next go to a premiere, I’m going to shop in Oxfam, that or I shall parade into that very fashion house and demand that the work experience girl fits me.  The irony of it all of course is that I am now the owner of a Feet On bag, shoes and gloves…a feat I’m rather impressed with.

to be of sound mind

I’d been home for an audition in Belfast city where the girls are so pretty, and flew back into Stansted airport at about 9pm.  I jumped on a train “to Liverpool Street, calling at Bishop’s Stortford, Tottenham Hale and Liverpool Street”, and settled into my seat.

I then became aware that I was being watched.

I was in fact the only person in the carriage.

Apart from my stalker.

A middle-aged overweight man in a beige raincoat with a hat and beady eyes.

An attacker.

A murderer…most probably!

He was sitting at the table across the aisle from me, preying on me.  The fact that I had sat down after him did not occur to me until quite some time later.

So I sat there trying to avoid his gaze and his general communicative gestures.  I looked out the window where the world was dark with night and all I could see was his reflection in my face.  I tried shutting my eyes feigning sleep, praying all the while that he would leave at Bishop’s Stortford…but he did not.

For those of you who do not know there is a substantial amount of time between Bishop’s Stortford and Tottenham Hale, just enough time for those possessing a heightened sense of imagination to go way overboard in their thoughts.

Whilst I sat there in silence avoiding my murderer I became completely and utterly convinced that my last moments were to be on this train.

It was then the brainwave hit.

If I could just get a photo of him then he would be identified in my court case!

So, casually, I pulled out my phone…not a sound apart from the noise of the train on the tracks.

No verbal contact until…click…

And he’s waving at me.

So I look at him and engage my murderer in conversation…

“What…are…you…doing?!” I snap.

“Oh pardon me” he says jovially, with a toothy charming grin, “I thought you were taking a photo!”

“What?”

I am now completely aware that I have just been caught alone in a train taking a photo of a man I do not know.  I become fully aware of the insanity of my actions.

“I was trying to send a text!” I state, blushing.  “You see there was no reception, and I was trying to send it…and…” I teeter off, this story does not wash when spoken out loud.

I sit back aware that I have now engaged in open contact with a complete stranger, the man who will later kill me, but…at least I have a photo!

He of course did not kill me.  I write this about four years after the event.  And two days after being released into the real world again.

Lessons learnt:

Never try and take a photo of a stranger unless you want to engage in conversation with them.

Not all men in raincoats who travel by train are bad men.

Simon and the Witch

One evening on tour after a performance, it came to that time of night when the get out begins…once more.  Lugging an iron set into the back of a van that took the best part of two hours.  The show came down at 10pm and we had performed that evening in a church surrounded by a field.  Added to this the monsoon rain that had fallen since our arrival and the fact that the church had no outside lights I am much surprised Michael Burke never made an appearance to voice his concern.  

Set safely in van I was then beckoned to a sweet lady’s house.  This lady like many others over my two years of touring had voluntarily decided to host me: a stranger, feed me wheat free goodies and let me sleep in a bed in her house. 

And so I arrived, with a backdrop of thunder and lightning and a white transit van…it’s all very glamourous…to a huge empty porch.  With a solo light shining down on me, I knocked.  The door opened and there was my host.  A lady in her 70’s who looked exactly like the witch in ‘Simon and the Witch’…kind and wild looking.  I instantly loved her and profusely began to apologise for the wet and dirt I would be bringing in.

“Oh don’t worry about that,” she said, “We don’t worry about dirt in this house.”  

And indeed she did not. 

You see I’d been spoiled.  Housed by about 200 families throughout the UK who had supplied some of the most scrumptious breakfasts and restful times, I’d become very accustomed to royal treatment (always with a genuine thank you I might add!) What a gift these people provided.  

And so too, this woman, providing a bed, breakfast, my own toilet and bathroom.  Her house was 3 storeys 

high, and the “we” she had referred to on arrival was herself and her aged dog.  A mutt who adored her but nipped me at any given opportunity.  Yes yes little doggie, I know where you live!  

The air was thick with dust.  She told me she had food in the fridge for a fry up which was all very kind, until she said that she hadn’t bought it specially, she’d had it there for ages! She gave me tea and a saucer…of someone else’s crumbs.  My bed had moths flying out of it and when I climbed into the bath the next morning, I grabbed a sponge to give it a rinse and brown sludge came out.  A tiny squeal of despair exited my mouth.

Her generosity knew no bounds and she delighted in reporting what birds had visited her bird table so she could inform the RSPB.  I did however inherit a nasty rash but it was not to be with me for life.

Another evening, over dinner at another venue I was told that I was to have an American hostess.  “A model host” was the report across the dining table.   I had visions of waffles for breakfast and coffee machines and stories of her 17 Irish relatives who I must know.  Set back in the van and we pulled up outside her house.  

This time no rain but a solo light…above an empty porch…there is a pattern people there is a pattern.

This time no dust just dolls.  

Everywhere.  

Silently smiling, staring…where? Why there on the stair.  Of course.  

Completely blocking access to the top floor was a frightening display of miniature things…a lot of dolls, a Christmas tree (it was September), tinsel, and unlit candles…a shrine to a jumble sale?  She led me downstairs, where I was brought down an empty corridor past closed doors and a bowl of rat poison.  Which just so happened to be right outside my room for the night.  She opened the door to reveal a mattress on the floor surrounded by huge bookcases.

“ So they said you were pretty self-sufficient so good night!”

“Stop” I involuntarily shout “I mean…excuse me, would it be possible to get a glass of water?”

She offers tea, I accept. What follows is the most uncomfortable 10 minutes I’ve ever had conversing with someone I’ve just met.  As I scratched around for things to say I realized she looked like a doll.  Left hand side beside a vase of dead flowers, third stair…yes.  And she stared quite a lot. 

Then she bid me goodnight and I made my way down the stairs, down the empty corridor to the bathroom where I brushed my teeth wondering if I would survive the night.  Death by book? Rat? Host? The options were endless.

I did sleep.  I slept.  And awoke to silence.  No rats, no stares.  I did not revisit the upper stairs and asked one of the cast to come pick me up as soon as they were ready.

Facts I learnt: Not all Americans cook waffles.  Not all hosts own hoovers.