Perfect on Paper by Gillian Harvey (top 20 books to read txt) 📕

Forties. Clare straightened up, offended. ‘Thirties, actually’, she hissed at the screen.

‘Women have complained for years about feeling invisible as they get older, and Martha B.’s clever summation of this feeling clearly resonated with her audience, who created the hashtag MehToo as a way to connect with others feeling the same way.

‘Women from across the country, and even further afield, have gone online to complain of the bitter blow life deals women of a certain age – the fact that they feel stretched beyond belief, but invisible at the same time. The feeling that life hasn’t quite worked out the way they’d hoped.

‘We spoke to Professor Agnus Alder, Director of Women’s Studies at the University of Oxford, for her opinion.’

The camera cut to a white haired, female professor. ‘This idea of women feeling dull or taken for granted at a certain age is nothing new. But Martha B.’s rap seems to have provided a platform for an outpouring of suppressed rage that has been building up across the country,’ the woman said to her nodding interviewer. ‘Bringing attention to what is quite a significant problem for this demographic can only be a good thing.’

The camera now panned onto Gilbert’s face, zooming in on his clear skin, designer stubble and piercing blue eyes. ‘By midnight on the evening it was posted, the hashtag had been used almost four million times. At one point, the site crashed from overuse.’

Tweets started appearing on the screen. I’m fed up! #MehToo, Time we got noticed #MehToo and Women power! #MehToo.

‘One thing’s for sure,’ concluded Gilbert, half hidden behind the messages. ‘The mysterious Martha B. has captured the imagination of millions of women and given them a collective voice with which to call for change.’

Clare stood in the shower moments later, feeling surreal. When she’d boarded that bus, agreed to some rehearsals – even when she’d agreed to let Dan post the footage on YouTube – she’d never expected things to gather pace the way they had.

Like it or not, Martha B. had taken on a life of her own. After this coverage, surely tonight’s run-through would just be a formality – there was no way the judges were going to say no. People would be watching the competition to see them. They’d expect them to make it to the next stage of the contest at least. She felt a flicker of something a bit like fear.

At the same time, she thought, as she scrubbed her hair with something that promised not only to wash the grease from the roots but transform her into some sort of natural goddess, it was a strange situation but it was something she’d created. Something that in some odd way she’d maybe needed.

That battered book of poems she’d carted around for all those years, feeling slightly embarrassed, didn’t seem so daft now. Sure, she loved her job in the law – but there was something great about putting your feelings out there to the world and have the world embrace you. All that time thinking she was the only one who felt the way she did – when there were millions of women feeling the same.

She thought back to the times when Toby had begged to have a peek at her writing; when Katie had found her book in the bottom of a bag and Clare had snatched it from her hands. All the competitions she’d thought about entering. The social media posts she’d been tempted to write. You can’t exactly complain of invisibility, she thought, if you’re hiding.

Chapter Twenty-Four

There was no sign of Eezee Troupe when Clare drew up outside the audition venue after work. The car park was almost empty – there were a couple of motorbikes in the corner and three battered-looking silver cars parked randomly in the other spaces. She parked her red, overpriced, car of the future in the corner – feeling conspicuous – and turned on the radio to pass the time before the boys arrived.

A few minutes later, a rattling minibus pulled up next to her. The doors opened and the boys came tumbling out of the back like a spilt load on a motorway.

‘Do you like it?’ Dan said, walking over to her open car window with a grin. ‘My mate coaches a footie team and he let us borrow it.’

‘Very nice,’ she smiled.

He was dressed in light blue jeans, a white T-shirt and a black jacket that had ‘Crew’ stitched across the top pocket. ‘You look nice,’ she said.

‘Reckon?’

‘Yeah.’

She snapped off the radio and got out of the car, locking it before Claudia had time to start nagging, and they walked into the building together. A woman dressed in jeans and a T-shirt that said ‘Mellow Grooves 1984’ was waiting in the small reception area with a clipboard and a worried expression. ‘Are you Martha?’ she said to Clare.

‘Well … yes.’

‘Great. You’re the last act on the callback, if you’d like to come and wait here?’

She gestured to a room on their left where a few blue cushioned chairs had been placed in rows. A sign on the wall, wonkily applied with Blu Tack, said ‘Wait Here’.

They filed in, the boys sitting and wriggling like infants in assembly. The room smelled of sweat, and the window was steamed up. Mark went over and drew a face, which began to drip and run as soon as his finger left the glass.

‘Pack it in, Mark. This isn’t your mum’s sitting room, mate,’ Dan said, standing at the front like an impossibly young, cool teacher.

‘Sorry, Dan.’

‘So, remember,’ Dan said to the boys, who were all dressed in black tracksuit bottoms and green T-shirts, ‘this is your chance. We ain’t gonna mess it up are we?’

‘No,’ replied the boys in unison.

‘I can’t hear ya?’ Dan said, reminding Clare of the pantomime she’d watched with the kids last Christmas. ‘What did you say?’

‘No, Dan!’ the boys chorused.

‘God, no pressure,’ she whispered as he sat down next to her. ‘What if