Rowan Coleman - Ruby Parker - Soap Star

You see, the thing at school is that I try to be the one who doesn’t care what anyone thinks. I try to be the sort of witty and sparky one who doesn’t need to be accepted to be happy; who just shrugs off the snubs and teasing and stuff like that. And most of the time it works. OK, so only Nydia laughs at my jokes and everyone else couldn’t care less if I was witty and individual so long as their nail varnish and lip gloss match, but it’s a way of knowing how to be.

But then this thing happened and before I know it I’m all pulled out of shape, like I’ve been shoved back into the wrong-sized box or something, like no matter how hard I try to fit it I never will. It’s hard to explain, but once the future seemed like for ever away and suddenly it’s here – the beginning of being grown-up is here and it’s nothing like I imagined it would be. (Admittedly I imagined it would be Justin de Souza pulling up to school on my sixteenth birthday and asking me to go to the Oscars with him, but still.) It hurts and it’s awkward and not just because my bra pinches and rubs my shoulders.

Nydia tried to cheer me up about The Breasts when they appeared last term. She said I should be proud of what God had given me and pleased that I was becoming a woman, and that maybe Justin would suddenly see me differently and chuck his girlfriend and ask me out. And I tried to be pleased, I really did, and I tried to stop hunching my shoulders up. But then, that day at lunch, Mackenzie Gooding asked me if I had to go through doorways sideways now I was such a wide load, and Nydia went right up to him and said in front of everyone :

“I don’t know what you’re going on about it for, Mackenzie Gooding! I bet your willy’s so big you have to fold it up just to get it in your pants!” And all the boys nearly wet themselves from laughing and all the girls tutted and looked disgusted – especially Anne-Marie. I had to grab Nydia by the arm and drag her into the girls’ loos, because nobody could be any redder than I was just then. I said to her, “Nice try, but I think you sort of missed the point a bit.”

Nydia apologised and promised the next time she picked on Mackenzie Gooding she’d go on about his little willy instead, but I suggested she just leave it. Really, you think I’d be used to humiliation by now: I’ve had enough practice.

And anyway, I’m sure it’s down to The Breasts that I heard what I heard today. I’m sure it’s mainly because of them – and a bit because my hair always looks greasy and my skin always looks shiny – that the producers are going to axe me from the show!

Oh yes, and because I’m ugly.

KENSINGTON HEIGHTS

SERIES EIGHT, EPISODE EIGHT

“REVELATIONS”

WRITTEN BY: TRUDY SIMMONS

SCENE SIXTEEN

INT. AUCTION HOUSE – EARLY EVENING

CASPIAN and JULIA lean against a late-Victorian dresser in each other’s arms.

CASPIAN

It doesn’t matter what they think, Julia, they can’t stop us. I’m fifteen now and you will be too in a few months. I love you and if you’re ready, then, well so am I.

JULIA

Oh Caspian, I don’t know, I just don’t know. What would Mummy say if she found out…?

The door opens. ANGEL comes in looking for a book she has left behind.

ANGEL

What are you two up to? You’d better not be doing anything in here. If Dad finds out he’ll go ballistic. Caspian, you know that Uncle Henry says he’ll ground you for good if he catches you with her again!

JULIA

Oh please don’t tell anyone, Angel, please. They don’t know what they’re doing keeping us apart. We love each other, don’t we, Caspian?

CASPIAN looks a bit uncertain but he holds JULIA even tighter.

CASPIAN

Yes, yes we do. You won’t tell anyone, will you, Angel?

ANGEL shakes her head. CASPIAN and JULIA leave, leaving ANGEL looking forlorn and sad. It is clear that ANGEL has a crush on CASPIAN and would do anything for him.

Anyway, this is how it happened. I didn’t have much to do on set today, no crying or anything hard. Just Angel finding out that her cousin Caspian, who she’s in love with (who can blame her as Caspian is played by Justin. Whenever Justin talks to me I sort of have to stop breathing, so it’s lucky, when you think about it, that he hardly ever does talk to me.) and her father’s arch rival Harrison Archer’s daughter Julia are still seeing each other – despite being totally forbidden to do so by both of their parents. Also Caspian is trying to get Julia to have sex with him, but she’s not sure she wants to. She probably won’t in the end though because Kensington Heights in no way condones underage sex; we leave that sort of thing up to EastEnders. Or possibly she will say yes, but they’ll get found out and stopped in the nick of time. Probably by Angel. Angel’s main thing is finding out stuff and stopping it in the nick of time.

So I didn’t have much to do and I couldn’t go home because I had to do some reaction shots at the end of the day. That’s when you look just off-camera and have to pretend you’re reacting to a line another actor has said. Sometimes the actor’s not even there! Sometimes it’s just one of the runners or something, saying it all deadpan like they’re ordering a Big Mac and fries and you have to gasp or cry or something. I used to be terrible at reaction shots; I always wanted to laugh instead and then Liz, our producer, would say time is money, so I’d put a tear stick under my eyes and think about what it would be like if Everest ever died and usually it turned out all right in the end.

Brett and Martin had this big scene to do, and Brett said I was putting her off just hanging around watching her and that I should go for a walk or something, so I thought I’d go and see Liz because she’s really nice normally. I knew that Liz was upstairs in some kind of emergency script meeting, and because one day I want to write my own screenplay and direct my own film (an independent one with Justin in it because we’d be married by then), I thought they’d let me sit in on the meeting, because they have done before.

I got there and the door was open a bit, and so I thought I’d just wait for a lull in the conversation before going in, but then I heard my name! I heard Liz talking about me, Ruby. So I thought, Excellent – new story lines ! I crept up a bit closer and put my ear next to the crack in the door, and that’s when I found out.

“It’s just that Ruby seems to be going through a bit of a…difficult stage right now. That certainly is true,” Liz said, sort of sadly.

“Yes, she is a bit, she’s just sort of stuck between being a girl and being a woman. She does look a bit awkward, poor old thing,” I heard Simon Jenkins, the (I now know to be evil ) script editor say.

“I don’t think it’s that big a deal,” Trudy, the show’s main writer, said. “She’s just a normal girl. She gets loads of fan mail from girls just like her. She appeals to her demographic. I know that KH is partially about glamour, but not everyone can be glamorous all the time, and I thought we wanted a balance. Otherwise we’ll end up like Crossroads and look what happened to that! It’s not as if she’s the star of the show: I think we should let her grow a bit and then decide.”

At first it felt sort of strange listening to them talk about me, like they were talking about some other girl, like it wasn’t about me at all.

“I agree with you up to a point, Trudy,” Simon said. “But, say what you like, it does matter what people look like on TV. The public likes looking at pretty faces. It is important and, well, if you-know-who is worried about it then we have to be too. That’s just the way it is: for a lot of people out there, she is the show.”