The Understudy: A Novel (11 page)

If I Only Had the Nerve

S
o wrote Kevin Chandler, theater critic for Shanklin St. Mary’s Comprehensive School’s
Termly Times
student newspaper of Stephen’s 1986 performance. The
Sandown and Shanklin Advertiser
concurred, calling him “a star in the making, just like his namesake, the American film star Steve McQueen!” It was, everyone agreed, a fantastic performance; he was, in Kevin’s evocative phrase, “really, really good.” At the last-night party, Beverley Slater, his Dorothy, and generally considered by pundits to be
way
out of his league, led him behind the humanities huts, and as he stood there, shivering in the December night, one hand placed gingerly in Beverley’s bolero, head spinning with applause and lust and contraband cider, his mind was made up. Clearly, a career in show business was a surefire gateway to social status, artistic fulfillment, critical acclaim and barely comprehensible sexual adventures with beautiful women, women even more glamorous, and fascinating, gorgeous and complex, than Beverley Slater. The only real dilemma would be how to balance theater work with his Hollywood commitments. He had the dizzying sensation that he wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

He was, however, still on the Isle of Wight; a nice-enough place to grow up, but from a show business point of view, he might as well have been on Alcatraz. Over the Christmas holidays, Stephen decided to radically rethink his long-term career options. A career in computer programming lost its previous heady splendor, and he took up acting classes instead, the local equivalent of running off and joining a circus. To his parents, who ran a newsagent’s and were engaged in a tireless lifelong crusade against young shoplifters, he might just as well have announced that he had decided to drop computer studies in favor of crack and prostitution.

Over the next few years he grew and developed as an actor. He bought a lot of candles, and tried to read by them. For a brief, regrettable period, he took to wearing his sweater knotted around his neck. He started carrying a small bottle of water around with him, and observing and imitating people he saw on buses, once nearly getting beaten up in the process. He watched
Amadeus
six times. At seventeen, in tribute to James Dean, he took up smoking and driving badly, bought a number of oppressively tight black polo-necks, and a long flowing overcoat, which he wore, collar up, all year round, turning Shanklin High Street into his very own Boulevard of Broken Dreams. He devoured a secondhand copy of Stanislavsky’s
An Actor Prepares
, and began to work hard on his affectations. Performing a scene from
Look Back in Anger
at college, he employed The Method, and managed to stay quite snippy and miffed for several weeks, ruining several family meals in the process.

Right up until he started applying for drama schools, his parents hoped that he’d have a change of heart, do something more vocational, more structured. But it was no use trying to persuade Stephen; the words of the critics still sang loud in his ears: “A Rrrrrrrrrrroaring Success,” proclaimed the
Termly Times
. “A glowing future in acting awaits the talented Master McQueen,” screamed the
Sandown and Shanklin Advertiser
. In retrospect, it was perhaps an almost perfect example of why you should never believe your own reviews.

Even now, some fourteen years later, watching a sparsely attended half-term matinee screening of
The Wizard of Oz
at the Richmond Repertory Cinema, Stephen couldn’t help thinking back to his own acclaimed interpretation, and wishing that Sophie had seen that performance. A videotape of the show did exist, in his parents’ loft, but theatrical magic rarely comes across on the small screen, and, besides, it was Betamax. He reached into his pocket for another fizzy cola bottle, and settled a little lower in his seat.

Sophie, meanwhile, was doing her best to communicate that she found the film inappropriately babyish and unmagical: swinging her legs extravagantly, kicking the back of the empty seat in front, exhaling loudly through her nose during the soppy scenes, making facetious groans all through “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” During the winged monkey attack, she’d slipped off to the toilet, and not returned. Stephen was too engrossed to notice at first, but when he eventually realized that she’d been gone for at least ten minutes, he leaped from his seat and stumbled up the aisle to look for her.

On the way he cursed his inability to judge these days properly. She seemed to be growing up so quickly and, seeing her so briefly and intermittently, it had become impossible to spot the small increments of change, to notice the point at which she’d stopped liking
The Wizard of Oz
and started to worry about whether he had a girlfriend. Watching her grow was like a jerky stop-motion film: with every week that passed something small but significant had changed, something had been lost. Was she drinking coffee? Buying pop music? What was on the walls of her bedroom now? Did she want her ears pierced or not? This multitude of small gaps in his knowledge accumulated, until he didn’t know how to pitch his behavior anymore. He felt himself coming across as awkward, or patronizing, or self-conscious, or banal, or, worst of all, slightly creepy, fearful and strange, as if he’d abducted her for the afternoon. She was slipping away from him, just as Alison had, and there seemed no plausible way to prevent it.

He found her sitting in the lobby, swinging her legs, reading her Jacqueline Wilson novel, and clearly identifying with it.

“There you are! I was just getting worried about you. What are you doing?”

“Just reading.”

“Well, d’you want to come back in? We’re missing it.”

“Don’t mind.”

“It’s those monkeys with wings, isn’t it? That bit always freaks me out too. Look—” And he held out one violently shaking hand.

“It’s not that.” She scowled.

“Bit too banal for you, is it?”

“A little bit banal.”

“So, d’you want to go? Are you bored?”

“Don’t know,” she said, unable to look at her father. She was pouting now, and staring at the floor. Not on the verge of tears, but just clearly terribly sad. This happened a lot on his days out with Sophie. Things would start well, with hugs and silly games and larking about, but gradually she’d lose her enthusiasm for him, and the fun would dwindle away, like a toy winding down. Stephen remembered what it was like, that terrible heavy sorrow you feel as a child, and knew that, short of producing a pony, or a baby grand, there and then in the cinema lobby, there was little he could do to shift it. He wanted desperately to try, though, so he crossed to her, held the top of her head with both hands and kissed it, then knelt down in front of her, and held her gently by both shoulders.

“The thing is, Sophs, I know it’s only a silly film for little kids, and I’m a big, proper grown-up who should have grown out of all that stuff, but if I don’t find out if they get back to Kansas, then there’s no way I’m going to be able to sleep tonight. So come back in with me, and we’ll watch the end of the film, and then we can go absolutely anywhere you like, and do absolutely
anything
you like. All right?”

Sophie looked up at her father through her fringe, then down at the floor. Smiling with her lips shut tight, she said, “I think—if you don’t mind—I think that I would like to go home now.”

It was only with a great deal of conscious effort that he managed not to alter the expression on his face.

“Okay, then! I’ll take you home.”

Performance Anxiety

T
raveling back into town on the train, Stephen realized that he would have to find a way to make his daughter proud of him.

There had been some successes before, of course—his Benvolio in
Romeo and Juliet;
that interesting new play; a not-so-bad-considering production of
Godspell;
a fringe production of
The Caretaker
back in ’97, other little sips at success. Unfortunately, Sophie had been unable to share in these moments, and the only performance she had ever seen her father give was his tragic, doomed Asthmatic Cycle Courier in
Emergency Ward,
which had made her cry uncontrollably, though not for the right reasons. In all his other work for the screen he had been dead or dressed as a squirrel, and now he worried that maybe Sophie thought his career was something he had made up, a complicated conspiracy between Alison and Stephen, to explain where he got to in the evenings. He had a sudden horror that Sophie might grow up and never see him doing anything wonderful, or even just good. Surely he had to represent something more to his daughter than two legs of a piano stool.

Something had to be done, and urgently, but how to go about this remained a mystery. The title role in
Johnny Johnson
would be perfect, of course, but was also a figment of his imagination, and so unlikely to come off. All he needed was a major role that wasn’t a lie, a Best Actor Award that wasn’t stolen. Perhaps if Josh were sick to-night…Perhaps if something terrible had happened at the party…What if he had drunk too much, or there’d been some terrible skateboard pileup, he’d choked on a smoked almond, or been beaten up by his own caterers…?

Josh was standing outside the stage door, jauntily signing autographs for a trio of Japanese students, grinning away, laughing and joking, in overenunciated English. After the monumental eight-hour faux pas of the party, Stephen decided the best thing to do was keep his head down, and slip by unseen.

“Hey, Steve—hold on, will you?” shouted Josh, gave a solemn little fake-Oriental bow to his new friends, said
“Sayonara”
with a Japanese accent, then bounded over.

He knows,
thought Stephen.
He knows I stole his BAFTA. My motivation now is not to reveal that I stole his BAFTA.

“I ruv Japanese girls, don’t you? Vell-y sexy, velly, velly sexy. How are you today, rou
naughty
boy?” Josh barked in his ear, draping his arm over his shoulder, causing all the muscles in Stephen’s neck and face to contract simultaneously; a gangster’s hug, like the one Al Pacino gives John Cazale in
The Godfather Part II
. “I know it was you, Fredo…”

He knows. He can smell his own buffet on me. He can sense his Han Solo in my pocket. He definitely knows…

Joined at the shoulders, they squeezed, with some difficulty, through the stage door.

“…feering a riddle bit tender, are rou? A riddle bit lough?”

Stephen wondered how long Josh was going to keep the accent up for. Often when Josh discovered a comedy voice, there was a very real possibility of it going on for several days.

“Oh, I’m all right. Little bit worse for wear, I suppose…”

“Come on up to my dressing room, we’ll have a little chat, yeah?”

Josh Harper’s large, comfortable dressing room was situated at the front of the theater, just behind the massive billboard, so that he could experience the pleasing sensation of looking down at the rumble of Shaftesbury Avenue from between his own massive thighs. There were semifresh flowers in a vase, a shiny new private kettle, a set of weights, a daybed on which Josh could recharge his animal magnetism between matinees and evening shows. There was even a complete working set of high-wattage pearly lightbulbs around the massive mirror, which was partially obscured by all the hundreds of good-luck postcards—Van Goghs and Cézannes and pictures of Burton and Olivier by way of comparison, Blu-Tacked to the mirror, as required by strict Equity bylaws. Bottles of room-temperature champagne and a thick pile of play and movie scripts humbly awaited his attention, next to a cellophane-wrapped basket of scale-size muffins with a gift card attached. Josh nodded toward the basket.

“From the movie studio. Fancy one? They’ll only go stale, and I can’t eat them, I’ll get fat,” he said, somehow managing to imply that, for Stephen, that particular battle had long since been lost.

“No, I’m all right, thanks.”

“Steve, can I just ask…What do you think of my teeth?” asked Josh, making Stephen jump by leaning in suddenly, and baring them.

“Sorry?”

“My teeth—d’you think I need them done? Be honest, now…” and, like a horse trader, he pulled his lips out of the way with two index fingers. It was a toothpaste commercial.

“I think they’re lovely,” said Stephen.
Lovely? You called his teeth “lovely,” you little freak. Where did “lovely” come from?

“D’you really think so?” Josh asked, putting them away. “My agent wants me to get them whitened, or capped, or something. For ‘the movies.’ Can you believe it? She knows I
hate
all that showbiz Hollywood bullshit.”

“So are you going to do it?”

“Oh, yeah, probably. Hey, maybe you should get yours done too. Not that there’s anything wrong with your teeth or anything, but it
is
tax deductible. I could talk to my guy, see how much it would cost you.”

Stephen’s mouth puckered involuntarily, keeping the offending teeth well out of sight.

“Hey, make yourself comfy.” Josh nodded toward the daybed, flicked on the kettle, then sat astride the swivel chair and swung it around to face Stephen, his head on his folded arms, cocked at a questioning angle, an unsettling combination of the macho and the effeminate.
No man looks good astride a chair,
thought Stephen. It was like being ruthlessly interrogated by a member of the touring company of
Chicago
.

“So—what time did you get in?”

“God, can’t remember. Three?”

“You didn’t throw up in the cab, did you…”

“I think I’d remember that.”

“…’cause you were pretty out of it, you know?”

“I was aware of that.”

“Apparently you told a certain someone to go fuck himself.”

“Yeah, that rings a bell. Sorry about that.”

“ ’S all right, he probably deserved it. Still—great crack, wasn’t it? Great crack…”

“You smoked
crack
?” said Stephen, impressed despite himself.

Josh slipped into a top-o’-the-morning accent—“No, you know great
craic
, great
craic
.”

“Oh, right, yes. Great craic!”

“Aren’t my friends a
maz
ing? You got to talk to them, yeah? I mean, it wasn’t all work, was it? Didn’t look like it. Anyway—I haven’t been to bed yet. I am absolutely
wasted
today, man. Completely wasted.” He didn’t look wasted. If anything, he looked even better than usual—peachy and glowing and healthy; a slightly sweaty plastic sheen perhaps, like a mannequin, but otherwise absolutely ready for his close-up. But then he always looked like this; it would come as no surprise to discover that Josh Harper had a Dorian Gray–style portrait in the converted loft of his apartment, the difference being that the portrait looked fantastic too. “Shame you had to work, mate,” he said, adding meaningfully, “for
some
of it, anyway. Oh, which reminds me…” He reached into his back pocket.

There’s a standard moment in any film featuring a prostitute as a central character: the awkward-and-degrading-handing-over-of-the-money scene.

“…there you go, my friend—one hundred squid-ders exactement.”

“That’s way too much.”

“No, go on—take it.”

“I can’t. Anyway, I didn’t
do
anything for the last two hours, except abuse your guests.”

“Go on—take it. I’m earning
way
more than you, so it’s only fair. Practical socialism, isn’t it?” He waggled the wad of twenties under his nose, and even Stephen had to admire the way Josh could pass condescension off as political integrity. He palmed the money, quickly crumpling it into his pocket.

“So, you met the lovely Nozza, then!” said Josh, in an attempt to clear the air.

“Who’s Noz—Oh, you mean
Nora
.”

“Uh-huh. Fan
tas
tic, isn’t she?”

“Absolutely.”

“A truly beautiful woman.”

“She’s very attractive…”

“And
incredibly
sexy too”—closing his eyes, shaking his head slightly.

“Yes” was all Stephen could think of to say.

Josh opened his eyes. “Sorry, that’s a naff thing to say, I know, but she just is.”

“No, I can imagine,” said Stephen, who could imagine, and had imagined. “Very, very funny too.”

Josh smiled sadly, breathed out through his nose. “What, sarcastic, you mean?”

“No, you know—feisty.”

“What, because she gives me a hard time?”

“No, I just mean—”

“ ’S all right, I deserve it most of the time. Problem is, she’s just so much smarter than me, you know?”

“I’m sure she’s not.”

“Trust me, she is.
Much
smarter. I do all this…stupid stuff, say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing and…well, I know I’m not up to the job. But I worship her, you know, Steve? I really do, whatever she thinks. I just wish she’d trust me, that’s all.”

Stephen wasn’t sure what to say to this, so was silent, nodding sagely, listening to the squeak of Josh’s swivel chair as he moved it side to side with the tips of his toes.

“Anyway, she
loved
you,” said Josh, eventually.

“Nora? Did she?” said Stephen, delighted.

“Yeah. She said you were the only person there she could have a decent conversation with. She
hates
my mates usually. Absolutely
hates
’em. ’Specially the girls. She’ll be in later; you should come and say hi.”

“Okay. All right, I will.” Stephen heaved himself up from the daybed. “See you later—have a good show, yeah?”

“Yeah—you too, mate.”

You too
—that’s a laugh, thought Stephen, opening the door to leave.

“Did she talk about me, by the way?” Josh asked it as an afterthought, but the look on his face was that of an anxious schoolboy. What did he want to hear? Stephen wondered.

“No. Not really. I mean, only good things. Why?”

“Just…no reason, no reason…”

He closed the door and was about to leave, when Josh called again—“Oh, Steve!” He opened the door again. Josh was still sitting astride the chair, lighting a cigarette now. “One other thing?”

“Go on.”

“I can’t find my Best Actor Award.”

Time to do some acting. Pretend. Do your “innocent” face. Furrow your brow, let your mouth hang open a little, raise the pitch of your voice…

“
What d’you mean?”

“My Best Actor Award—some wanker stole it from my bedroom.”

Innocent. Think innocent. You are innocent. Maybe chuckle a little bit as you say…

“
Why-hy-hy would anyone do that?”

“I don’t know, Steve.” He folded his arms, gripping his own biceps. “Jealousy, I suppose, or spite. You didn’t see anyone with it, did you?”

“No. No, no, I didn’t, no.”
Too many “nos.” Keep it real, keep it grounded…

“
I mean, it’s just a stupid hunk of metal, awards don’t actually
mean
anything, and I hate all that showbiz bullshit, but I just don’t like to think one of my real mates would do that. Unless it was the cleaner’s, of course…”—and an idea could be seen forming behind his eyes—“or one of the bloody caterers.”

“I’m sure it’s not one of them.”
Too confident, too certain…

“
Why not? They were in and out of that bedroom all night.”

“It’s probably still at home, or it’s a joke, just a stupid joke, someone pissed and mucking about. You’ll get it back, it’ll turn up.”
Too much dialogue. Stop talking. Remember, less is more…

“
Yeah, well, funny kind of joke. I’m just glad they didn’t nick my original Storm Trooper’s helmet.”

“You’ve got an original Storm Trooper’s helmet?”
Incredulity—nice touch
.

“Yeah, original 1977. Only fifty still in existence. Worth a fortune too. Almost as much as my complete set of
Star Wars
figures.” In his pocket, Stephen felt Han Solo kick him hard in the hip. Josh sniffed, spun the chair back around to face the mirror, pulled his lips apart, and returned to the vexed issue of his lovely teeth.

Stephen backed out, and closed the door softly behind him.

In films, when a character has managed to get away with something, they signal their relief to the audience by leaning with their back against the door, their hand still on the doorknob, looking up at the ceiling, and exhaling audibly, perhaps making a noise that sounds like
“Pheeeew!”

And even though there was no audience, that is exactly what Stephen did.