Lucky Break (19 page)

 

‘I just
love
the photos,' Amanda told her as she spread them over her desk.

‘Yes?' Nell looked at them, once more upside-down, and her heart sank. For all the bright make-up and dazzling lights they were pale and un-arresting. They were printed on ultra glossy paper as if to make up for the murkiness of vision, and Nell imagined how easy it would be to toss one into the bin.

‘Trust me,' Amanda told her. ‘These are much more commercial. You look young, and sexy and . . .' she peered closer, ‘available.'

‘OK.' Nell was willing to be convinced, and she imagined that Amanda was unlikely to be putting her up this year for a season at the Sheffield Crucible.

 

The play was in its last week and all the talk was whether or not it would transfer. ‘Don't tell Timmy, but as far as you're concerned,' Amanda lowered her voice, ‘we don't want it to go on and on . . . we want you to be available for work.'

‘But it would be work,' Nell suggested, and Amanda laughed. ‘Oh, I was thinking something more high profile.'

There was a party on the last night and although Amanda didn't make the play – there was one empty seat right there in the middle of the third row – she arrived in time for drinks in the upstairs rooms of a club in Soho. She was with a man, a tired-looking banker, and announced that they'd just become engaged. Everyone congratulated them and poured them champagne, and Nell found herself in a corner talking to Timmy's boyfriend about his lifelong passion for embroidery. By the time she extricated herself Amanda was gone.

 

The first few days after the play were glorious. Nell woke each morning, thrilling with the sense of freedom, the lack of fear, the promise of a new day, a new life, but by Thursday she was bored and lonely. Sita had accepted a part in a daytime TV series, not only playing another Asian girl but one whose marriage was being arranged, and she left at six every morning and arrived home late, exhausted. ‘It's work,' she said, throwing herself down on the sofa. ‘I mustn't complain. But honestly, I feel as if I'm just saying the same lines over again.'

Nell rang Amanda and for once was put straight through.

‘Hello?' Amanda sounded snappy.

‘I was just wondering,' Nell gulped, ‘if there was anything going on?'

Amanda took an audible intake of breath. ‘It's only Wednesday . . .' (Thursday, Nell wanted to correct her.) ‘You've been unemployed for exactly half a week.'

‘I know . . . it's just . . .'

‘Patience. Have patience. I'll be in touch soon.'

Nell called Phyllida and arranged to have tea.

‘Darling,' Phyl wailed, ‘isn't it awful? These endless days. Oh, I do hope the play transfers. God knows what I'll do if it doesn't. I'll probably never work again.'

‘Of course you will,' Nell protested, and Phyllida took her hand in her own – manicured and elegant with one dark ruby where a wedding ring might have been – and asked her how many parts she thought there were out there, good parts, parts worth doing, for a woman of her age?

Nell sighed. They'd told her at drama school that only 8 per cent of actors were working at any given time and mostly it was the same 8 per cent, and mostly they were men. But she hadn't believed them.

‘And what about Timmy?' Nell asked. ‘Have you seen him?'

‘Oh, Timmy, he's off to New York. Always got a finger in several pies, the slut.'

Another week passed in which Nell heard nothing from Amanda, and then another week, after which she plucked up the courage to call. ‘I just wanted you to know,' she said, when she eventually got through, ‘that I'm going away for a few days, in case you need me.'

‘Going away?' Amanda sounded alarmed. ‘Oh dear. Will you be far?'

She and Sita were planning to go to Somerset to stay at a cottage belonging to a family friend. Sita had hardly ever been out of London, only to Bradford and Birmingham, for work, and now she had passed her driving test and had a small second-hand car of her own, she was in a rush of excitement to get going.

‘I'll ring in every day and see if there's anything happening,' Nell told Amanda. ‘I can always get back.'

‘Good,' Amanda sounded relieved. ‘I've been working very hard here . . . so don't go far!'

‘I won't!' Nell was thrilled. ‘I promise.' And she danced around the flat and sang as she packed her bag.

 

It was May and the Somerset hedgerows were thick with spring flowers. The lawn was a carpet of daisies and the field behind the house shimmered with new grass. She and Sita sat in the garden and looked up at the pale blue sky. ‘I could stay here for ever,' Sita said. ‘I'm sure if I lived in the country I wouldn't care about anything so much.'

Nell folded over a corner of her book. ‘Maybe we could start one of those community theatres in an abandoned barn or something. Never have to wait around for anyone to offer us work ever again.'

‘Yes. We could put on plays, have a youth theatre, workshops. Can you imagine? But are there enough people to actually make up an audience, let alone be in it?'

‘Probably not.' Nell looked round. All she could see were birds, twittering and scrapping in the hedges, and beyond, a field of sheep. ‘But maybe they're all hiding. Just waiting to rush out into the open if there was only something to do. That's what it was like in Wiltshire.'

‘Really?'

‘Why do you think I moved to London as soon as I was legally allowed?'

They lay back on their bed of rugs and looked up at the sky. ‘So maybe it's time to move back.'

‘Maybe,' Nell yawned, ‘but I don't think so.'

After lunch they walked down the sloping lane to the village. They wandered through the one street of houses, peering into sparse front gardens, at the overgrown churchyard, the pub and the village stores. They bought two tins of soup for supper and a loaf of bread, and then, as they struggled back up the steep hill, they came across an abandoned shop, set back from the road. It must once have been an ironmonger's. There was a pile of old screws and hinges on the window ledge, scattered with dead flies, and on the faded paint above the door, a sign: Knobs and Knockers. Both girls screeched with laughter. ‘Maybe that could be the name of our company,' Nell choked, and she laughed so hard, doubling over to hold her stomach, that a tin of Heinz tomato soup fell out of her bag and rolled into a ditch. ‘Let's take over this shop,' Sita said. ‘Turn it into our café theatre. Can you imagine how perfect it would be, to stop and have some tea and entertainment right here? It's all that's missing.'

Nell pressed her face against the glass and stared through the dusty window. ‘We could have round tables and a small stage at the back and we could get all our friends to come from London and do cabaret while people eat scones with jam and cream.' As her eyes adjusted, she could make out a ruined wooden floor, bare bulbs, green and yellow panelled walls dotted with nails. ‘Just think of all the unemployed actors we know who could do with a break. Fresh air, a bit of singing and dancing. We'd be providing a social service for everyone involved. We could apply for a grant. Aren't New Labour promising to pour money into the arts?'

‘Knobs and Knockers. Complementary rhubarb jam with every ticket sold.' Sita turned to look left and right along the empty road.

‘Or we could call it Star Lollies,' Nell suggested. ‘And hand out sherbet dips.'

‘Café de la crème.'

‘Sita and Nell's.'

They linked arms and began to walk uphill, amassing names as fondly as if they were expecting a child, moving on eventually to the menu – meringues, apple upside-down cake, brownies, lemon tart – so that by the time they reached the cottage they were so hungry that they tore open a packet of digestive biscuits and with mugs of tea they sat out on the back porch and watched the sun go down.

‘It's brilliant here,' Sita said, breathing deeply, and Nell confided in her how worried she'd been in case she was bored.

‘Bored!' Sita huffed. ‘You know what I'm really bored of, ringing my agent and hearing: “Sorry love. Nothing new. Talk tomorrow?” '

‘Oh God!' Nell put a hand over her mouth. ‘I promised I'd call Amanda.'

‘Don't worry about it.' Sita collected up their cups. ‘Just ring in the morning. I haven't called my agent all week.'

‘But it's different for you. You've got work, on and off, until October.'

‘True. But all I can think about is when it'll be over. I guess it's not the kind of work I want to be doing. You know the joke about the unemployed actor?'

‘No.'

‘He gets a job. First thing he does is look through the schedule for his day off.'

They laughed despairingly and stepped into the kitchen. ‘Here's another one,' Sita said. ‘Why doesn't the actor look out of the window in the morning?'

‘I don't know. Why doesn't the actor look out of the window in the morning?'

‘So he has something to do in the afternoon.'

Nell groaned, although secretly she was thrilled to be making jokes about what was now officially her profession. Sita turned the radio on, filling the room with music, an old-time quickstep from before the war. ‘It'll all be different when we get Knobs and Knockers off the ground,' she shouted, and she grabbed hold of Nell and danced her round the kitchen. ‘Here's to Knobs and Knockers,' they toasted later with red wine, and they scalded their mouths on the soup which had been left bubbling until it overflowed.

 

It was impossible to hear the phone from the garden, so Nell sat on the sofa in the darkened sitting room, leafing through copies of old
National Geographic
, waiting for Amanda to call her back. ‘Right,' she said, when finally she did. ‘There is something. Yes. Can you be at the Athenaeum Hotel this afternoon at three o'clock?'

‘Today? But I'm in Somerset . . .'

‘What! Well, can you get back? I might be able to change it to four.'

Nell hesitated. ‘Yes. Sure. What's it for?'

Amanda shuffled more papers. ‘It's to see the director for a film they're making in Russia. They need a girl . . . they haven't sent in anything very detailed. Just go in and meet. He's a big director. Raoul Romolkski. Four o'clock. OK?'

Nell looked out of the window. Sita was lying on a mound of cushions, reading a magazine in the sun. ‘I don't think I've ever been anywhere so peaceful,' she said, squinting, as Nell came out. ‘I did once go to Wales but it rained non-stop, and anyway that was with school.'

‘Sita,' she stood over her, blocking out the sun, ‘you're not going to believe it but I've got an audition.'

Sita sat up. ‘What for?'

‘Some Russian film. Raoul Romolsksi? Oh God, the thing is, it's today, at four.'

Sita flopped back onto her cushions. ‘That's so bloody typical. Couldn't they see you some other time? Even tomorrow. We've just arrived.'

‘You could stay here. You could drive me to a station.' Nell looked round as if there might be a branch line on the other side of the hill. ‘And I could come back first thing tomorrow.'

‘Are you crazy?' Sita scowled. ‘I couldn't stay here on my own. I'd be terrified. Did you see how dark it was last night?' She glanced round at the green wash of the valley, the hedgerows full of voles and birds, the dilapidated roof of one lone building on the crest of the next hill.

‘I'm sorry.' Nell picked a blade of grass and tore it into fine green strips. ‘The thing is if I'm going to make it, then we'll need to leave . . . quite soon.'

Sita pulled herself up. ‘OK,' she said, ‘let's get going. I suppose we need to clear everything up.' And dragging the cushions with her, she went into the house to pack.

 

Nell sat on a spindly gold chair in the corridor of the Athenaeum Hotel. Lined up against the walls were at least ten other girls. Blonde and dark, short and tall, all wearing carefully applied make-up, with bare legs and high heels. Nell had on a thick coat with a fur collar. It was hot in the hotel and Nell longed to take the coat off, but underneath she only had on a strappy flowered dress, and anyway the coat, she was sure of it, was Russian. One by one the girls were called in. Theresa. Sheridan. Jade. Nell looked down at her black boots. How many parts were there? And she remembered Phyllida telling her that on average there was one woman cast to every five men.

Eventually Nell was called in. The director stared at her. He was not Russian but American. Big and fat, with lines across his forehead so deep they'd dented into grooves. ‘Too . . .' he shook his head, ‘young,' and the assistant showed her hurriedly to the door.

 

A month passed without any more auditions and then another month. Hettie called to tell her she'd been cast as a child in a play about a chimney sweep, and then Pierre phoned to invite her out to celebrate his promotion. He'd been invited on to the managerial team of the cold-calling company for which he'd been working for the last year. Nell took a job at Sita's branch of Pizza Express, working six shifts a week, from five till midnight, taking orders, eating her supper in the kitchen, alone except for the clatter of the dishwasher being loaded and unloaded by Dragan, the silent Croatian. Nell's mother asked if she wanted to come on holiday. She was going to Spain with Nell's sister, a last trip before the birth of her first child, but Nell was unsure whether or not she could risk it.