I didn’t get as much make-up as I was hoping for Christmas so that was next on my job list. I managed to get a job at Clinique, with a whopping 70 per cent off make-up. I worked there for a few months – and loved it. However, after a couple of warnings I eventually got the sack for the most ridiculous reason. Apparently I was making all the customers ‘too orange’. Yes, I am known to love a bit of bronzer; yes, I did like to go a couple of shades darker than people’s skin tone; and yes, sometimes people’s faces ended up a different colour to the rest of their limbs but I just like giving people that ‘just come back from two weeks in Tobago’ look.
My manager kept saying, ‘You know, Clinique is all about looking au naturel.’ But I’d reply, ‘It’s cold outside, let’s make people smile. Everyone feels better with a tan, don’t they?’ I was gutted when I lost that job; no more £3 eyelashes that were so long I had to throw my head back to open my eyes.
My favourite job at uni was when I worked at a club called Salvation. It was the big club in town, but the queue was always massive. We didn’t have to queue anywhere else in York because we were out so often we were friends with most the bar staff, door staff and DJs. But we didn’t know anyone at Salvation. ‘Well, I’ll have to take one for the team and start working there then,’ I told Sarah. I would sell shots or do promo for them. I was one of the arseholes in the street with a big bomber jacket on, giving leaflets out. You know, the ones that you cross the street to avoid. That was me.
I even remember the jargon I used to give to passers by. ‘Excuse me, can I just stop you please? I’ve been looking all night for someone who looks like they know how to have a good time and wants to get mortal. I’ve only got a few of these flyers to give out – it’s to make sure the club is filled with fun people to give the place an even better atmosphere. So if you hand this leaflet in at the door you and your pals get free entry and a free shot. You know it makes sense.’
Even though we would be out in all weathers until stupid o’clock in the morning we had such a giggle. Plus there was a pasty shop that was open until about 2 a.m. so if morale was down we would all just go and get a big Cornish pasty.
I always had a job throughout uni. I was even a quantitative research analyst for three months. I always seemed to be skint though. I didn’t even know where my money went. Recently I went for a catch-up with my friend Zoe. She had brought her friend Christie down with her. Zoe said to me: ‘Tell Christie how many big shops you did when you were at uni.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Tell her how many big shops you did.’
It is only when I was reminded of this that I started to cringe. ‘Eeeh no, I can’t!’
The truth is that I went to a supermarket once in the entire four years I lived in York, and even that was when my mam and dad came and they did a big shop for me. Other than that – and I’m going to sound so bad here – I ate all of my housemates’ leftovers. Zoe would make noodles, and then whatever she left over, I’d eat. No wonder I was so slim at uni. I literally only ate leftovers. Or the other thing I’d do was just buy massive bags of pasta and have that with tomato sauce. I don’t mean tomato pasta sauce; I mean ketchup. So I’d just have pasta and ketchup. Unfortunately, it was always rock hard. I didn’t even know how to make pasta properly.
How scruffy is that? My mam would be like, ‘Oh, you look like you’re losing weight. Are you eating well?’
‘Yeah, I had king prawn linguini last night.’ I didn’t tell her it was just scraps. But it wasn’t lying, technically. I don’t know what I would have done without Jess and her big portions. In fact I don’t know what I would have done without any of my girls at university. I certainly wouldn’t have ended up graduating. On my graduation day I didn’t just leave York Minster with a 2:1 degree (and debt up to my eyeballs), I left with friends for life.
Best of all, they were friends for life who loved me for me. With the confidence I had learnt from dancing and with the encouragement from my family and what I’d learnt at secondary school, I walked into that university being nothing but Scarlett Sigourney Moffatt. I embraced my weird traits; I danced like a robot in clubs; I told the girls stories of aliens and conspiracy theories; I had the confidence to teach children and I changed my dance course even though it was completely changing the path I thought I wanted to take. Through it all, the girls helped me and I helped them. We built each other’s confidence up every single day and we all wanted each other to succeed so badly. I have learnt that it’s important when you find true friends to never let them go and to never betray them. As an Aesop fable once said:
‘Betray a friend, and you’ll often find
you have ruined yourself.’
Chapter Eleven
THOSE DARK DOLE DAYS
The University of York lost a rubber duck they sent into space; there’s a £200 reward for its safe return.
