What Girls Are Made Of

Cora Bissett

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781786825506
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre

It's 1992. In a small town in Fife, a girl is busting to get out into the world and see what's on offer. And an ad in the local paper declares: Band Seeks Singer. Grunge has just gone global, scruffy indie kids are inheriting the earth, and aschoolgirl from Glenrothes is catapulted to a rock star lifestyle as the singer in a hot new indie band. Touring with Radiohead, partying with Blur, she was living the dream. Until she wasn't. What Girls Are Made Of is the true story of Bissett's teenage years, basedon her meticulously detailed, pull-no-punches diaries, which she found after the death of her father. It's a rollercoaster journey from the girl she was to the woman she wanted to be: rocketed into teenage stardom, suddenly dropped by their manager, and then the following of years of becoming an actor, writer and director. Described by Miro Magazine as "a glorious mixture of harrowing and life-affirming messages", the script also includes a play list of female-led soundtracks, that were played in the production.

Glenrothes. Fife. My parents’ loft. 2015.

I am meant to be clearing it out, but I have been here four hours and I have done nothing but look at these piles of family memorabilia, and think about how everything is changing in this moment.

I see Mum and Dad’s old wedding album. Movie stars; she, tiny, with a thick auburn bob, sixties shimmery lips, bright eyes with flicked kohl liner. Home-made sheer satin dress.

She looks like she is the happiest girl on the planet.

Dad, fresh-faced, a country boy in his only suit, slightly bewildered, like he can’t quite believe he pulled this sassy chick on his arm and like he’s not quite sure what he’s doing there, but he’s pretty happy to be there nonetheless.

I move some old dusty blankets aside to reveal box upon box of old diaries which I had kept since I was nine. Every detail of my life from primary school, through teenage years, right up ’til my early thirties is charted in infinite detail; photos stuck in, significant cards, notes from friends, letters from lovers.

Next to them is an inconspicuous little shoe box with marker pen on the front.

CORA’S CLIPPINGS.

I look inside and find a perfectly preserved cover of The List magazine, 1992, with my face on it. A collection of yellowed newspaper cuttings from the Fife Free Press. Years of clippings from reviews, gigs, features covering my journey through my teen years.

Dad.

He had saved every bit of paper I was printed on since 1992. Why? He was never the kind of man who would bring out anything to brag to anyone. He was a quiet, gentle, funny, modest man from the Irish countryside.

And he is gone. The family home is being sold. Our childhood’s fading with the memories of it.

He made us gang-huts, stilts, and go-karts.

He helped make us.

And right now, I need something. I need to know what I am made of, and I can’t seem to remember.

So I open the diaries, and I start to read.

#

1992.

An average school morning in the Bissett house starts in the bathroom. Four women, one man, one mirror.

A blast of sounds of the nineties…

Family mad flourish…

MUM

Who’s got the hairdryer?

CORA

Nuala had it last

NUALA

I gave it to Maura

MAURA

Who nicked my mascara?

NUALA

Oh I chucked that one, it was all dried up!

MUM

Cora, have you got your lunch money? Don’t go to that burger van again, that truck is filthy.

CORA

The school lunches are mingin’ though!

MUM

They are not minging, get a salad

NUALA

They are pretty mingin’ actually mum

MUM

WHERE IS THE HAIRDRYER????

CORA

Where’s my English folder? I left it on the kitchen table? Who took my English folder??? Dad?

DAD

Can I just get in to get my raz /

CORA

Dad can I get some more cash for heading up the town after school?

DAD

I don’t have any change on me, here comes your mam… /

MUM

IS ANYONE LISTENING TO ME HERE, I HAVE TO TAKE ASSEMBLY IN EXACTLY FIFTEEN MINS AND SOMEONE HAS BLOODY HIDDEN THE HAIRDRYER!!!!!!!!

#

I am sixteen. And I am an indie kid.

Grunge has gone global, scruffy indie kids have inherited the earth. Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is the anthem of every single grotty local pub, student union and teenage bedroom. Everyone wants to be a bit like Nirvana, Nirvana want to be the Pixies and the Pixies wanna be God, which they kinda are…

I am hanging out with Markus who has an awesome record collection. He is the quirky kid in school who scrawls Captain Beefheart graffiti into the tuck shop doors. It was so cryptic that no one had a clue what it was about. Markus does his own thing.

MARKUS

You’ve got to listen to Pavement, American Music Club, Hugo Largo…and oh, hold on, check this out.

There is a thin, androgynous woman on the sleeve in a white shirt with a thin black tie hanging loosely round her neck. She stares defiantly at the camera. She has a coolness, a fuck you-ness that is so casual, so uncontrived, so unbelievably classy and punk all-in-a-one-er that I don’t know if I am in love with her or want to be her.

‘Horses’…

She is Patti Smith.

She sounds raw and ugly-beautiful, and so untouched by anything else on this planet that I sit and listen to the entire album all the way through without breathing.

It is the moment I realise I want to sing in a band. But I don’t know any girls who do that round here.

CAITLIN

Only fannys sing in bands.

Caitlin McElhenney. I am at a school in Kirkcaldy and kids from all the tiny, desolate ex-mining towns in Fife get shipped in every day. Leven, Cardenden, Lochgelly, Methill. They are built from solid carbon. They are hard as nails. Caitlin’s parents own a chippy. She comes in with a black eye one day.

CAITLIN

Some bastard’s spray-painted oor chippy wall ay. Said ma maw was a fat bitch. I mean, she is like, but that’s no the point ken. Four wee skinny rajes fae ballingry ay, I kicked their cunts in.

When a fight is announced by any of the tough lassies, they will draw a crowd in the football pitch comparable to a rock gig. No flyers needed. Word spreads: Caitlin McElhenney and Sharon McTaggart will kick the arse out of each other at 1pm. Stilettos will be involved. Hair will be ripped, spitting will occur.

It has been rumoured I am on Caitlin’s target list.

CAITLIN

That Bissett bitch is tight ay? Hinks s...