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crowds of people waiting to audition.
    Jo grabbed her arm. ‘You don’t think she might be totally mortified that we’ve all just rocked up, by any chance?’ she said, trying to present her sister with a bit of sense.
    ‘Her? Embarrassed of us? Why?’
    ‘Let me think,’ Jo said, looking at her dad as he picked a remnant of his breakfast out of his beard, inspected it and then popped it in his mouth.
    ‘So what are we doing here if we’re not going to stick up for her?’ Claire asked.
    Jo looked at Claire, who looked different somehow. She had only just joined them after parking the car but she was wild-eyed with excitement. Jo could tell that her sister was getting caught up in the atmosphere. If she wasn’t careful, she’d be the one bursting through the audition doors and singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’. ‘What’s up with you? You look half-demented.’
    ‘Nothing’s wrong with me, I’m just taking things in. Look!’ Claire shrieked, star struck. ‘There’s Jason P. Longford.’ Claire set off in the direction of the TV presenter. The rest of the family followed. Jo thought for a moment about what to do and then, deciding that she really couldn’t do anything other than wait for Catherine to come back out, followed them.
    When she arrived at the doors to the audition room Claire had already struck up conversation with Jason P. Longford. ‘We just love your show.’
    ‘Vomit, Claire. Stop bum kissing.’ Jo said, sweeping past the TV presenter and sticking her ear against the audition room doors.
    ‘Can you hear her?’ Maria asked.
    Jo shook her head. She could hear voices but no singing.
    ‘And who is this beautiful lady?’ Jason P. Longford said, sidling up to Jo. Jo’s eyebrow shot to the top of her forehead.
    ‘Bleurgh,’ she said, folding her arms across her chest.
    Maria stepped in, speaking quickly over Jo, who knew Maria would be like this as soon as she clapped eyes on someone she’d seen on the telly. If there was a casting couch there Jo was sure that Maria would lie on it, legs akimbo, shouting ‘Take me Jason you big hunk of famous love!’
    ‘She’s our sister. The youngest. Everyone says she looks like Angelina Jolie,’ Maria gushed.
    ‘Maria, for the love of God!’ Jo seethed. She didn’t look anything like Angelina Jolie in her opinion. She had the same sort of hair and big lips – which Jo thought made her look more like a sucker-fish than a film star – and bright blue eyes, but all of her sisters had bright blue eyes. She didn’t get what the deal was. Jo wasn’t stupid; she knew that something had happened when she was sixteen. Until then she had always been too tall and too skinny for any of the boys at school to look at her twice. But on returning to school after the six weeks’ holidays that year, all of the boys in her year suddenly seemed to notice her. It was as if she had somehow grown into her features. Well, they could get stuffed, Jo had thought. And that had pretty much been her attitude to men ever since. If they were only interested in how she looked then she wasn’t interested in them. It didn’t seem to put them off though, annoyingly. Even clearly gay ones like this Jason guy.
    ‘And you’re here for the girl in there?’ Jason asked, as if there must be some mistake.
    ‘Yeah,’ Jo said. ‘She’s our sister.’
    ‘She’s your sister?’ Jason asked, shocked.
    ‘Yes.’ Jo was losing patience.
    ‘Really?’ he said, raising his eyebrows to the researcher guy next to him.
    ‘What?’ Jo asked, her eyes narrowing.
    ‘Well, you don’t look like her,’ Jason snapped. They glared at one another for a moment until Claire cut in.
    ‘I’m Claire, this is Maria, Jo, my daughter Rosie and our dad Mick and we’re all here to support Catherine.’ Maria chirped, as if she was introducing the Reillys on
Family Fortunes
.
    ‘And where’s Mum?’
    ‘She buggered off when I was twelve,’ Jo began.
    ‘Joanna,’ Mick hissed. Her