The Understudy: A Novel (18 page)

There’s No Business Like Show Business

T
he international headquarters of the Creative Talent Agency Enterprises Limited were located on the further outskirts of London’s glittering West End, in Acton, to be precise, on what used to be called an industrial estate, but had now been redesignated a “business park.” Stephen did not relish going to see his agent. Frank was always supportive and cheery, but it still felt a little like visiting an enthusiastic amateur dentist. On a day like this, as he walked across the rain-swept forecourt to the low, gray sprawl of aluminum and chipboard prefabs, surrounded by a razor-wire fence, the business park looked more than ever like somewhere you might try to tunnel out of.

The offices themselves occupied a compact two-room “suite” in between a dubious travel agent’s and a debt-recovery agency. A gang of big, sour, red-faced debt collectors loitered on the stairwell, eating sandwiches and smoking violently, and Stephen squeezed past them sheepishly, then stood outside his agent’s office, dried his damp hair with the sleeve of his overcoat, patted it down, assumed a confident, urbane, professional smile, knocked gently on the flimsy wood-veneer door and entered.

Melissa, the receptionist, stood guard at the front desk, methodically scouring the bottom of a low-fat yogurt carton with a plastic spoon. A stationery catalog lay open on the desk before her, a game of solitaire flickered on the yellowing computer monitor by her side.

“Hi, there! I wanted to see Frank,” said Stephen, smiling and, for no apparent reason, pulling on the lobe of one ear.

Melissa glanced up momentarily from the wide selection of ring binder files, then went back to noisily digging for subatomic traces of yogurt in the bottom of the pot.

“Is it about representation?” She sighed.

“Well, not exactly…”

“Because we’re not taking on any new clients at the moment. The books are full, but if you want to send us your photo and CV, we can keep your details on file.”

“No, you don’t understand, Melissa—I already
am
a client. It’s me—Stephen McQueen? Frank’s expecting me.”

Melissa sucked her teaspoon. “Oh, right, of course, sorry, Stephen, I didn’t recognize you.”

Well, whose fault is
that
?
thought Stephen, but didn’t say it. First rule of showbiz: never, ever alienate your agent. Melissa sat up straight, settled the hands-free headset back on her head, and dialed Frank’s extension, a slightly redundant use of the technology, given that Frank’s voice could be heard perfectly clearly through the prefabricated partition behind her.

“Frank?”

“I’m on the mobile, Melissa, what is it?” growled Frank from the other side of the wall.

“Just to say Steve McQueen’s here to see you.”

Stephen braced himself.
Here it comes…

“
The famous one? Or the client?” shouted Frank.
…and there it is.

“The client,” smirked Melissa.

“Lovely. Tell him if he’d care to take a seat I’ll see him in a minute.”

“If you’d care to take a seat, he’ll see you in a minute.”

“Okay, fine. And, eh, Queen of Hearts next, I think,” said Stephen, in a stab at raffishness.

“What?”

Stephen nodded at the game of solitaire on the computer screen.

“Oh, I see,” mumbled Melissa, smiled for an instant, then began jabbing flamboyantly and seemingly randomly at the keyboard like a deranged concert pianist. “If you’d like to wait over there…?”

Stephen settled on the row of seating a short distance away from Melissa, seating so low that it felt effectively like sitting on the floor, lowering himself down carefully until his knees were level with his head. Mustard-colored foam filling peeked invitingly out of a hole in the fabric, but he fought the temptation to pick at it.

Melissa’s intercom buzzed. “Tell Steve I’ll see him now,” said Frank from the other side of the partition.

“He’ll see you now,” said Melissa.

“Oh, right-ee-o,” said Stephen, hauling himself up from his seat on the floor.
Right-ee-o.
Where did
that
come from? He squeezed past Melissa and headed into the inner sanctum.

The small brown office smelled of stale fags and instant coffee, and was thick with the billows of blue-gray fug emanating from Frank, late forties, a bony, elongated man with swept-back thinning hair and teeth the color of pound coins. Even the whites of his eyes had somehow turned a bruised yellow, and he wore an almost flesh-tone polo-neck, overstretched and slack at the neck, giving him that much-sought-after slipped-goiter look. He sat twisting his chair jerkily from side to side with the nervy energy of a man who subsisted almost entirely on catering tubs of generic chicory coffee, powdered milk, room-temperature Coke, sweets and Silk Cut. On the edge of the cluttered desk, a Glade pine air freshener made the room smell like a pine forest destroyed by fire, and, next to that, a bowl of gourmet jelly beans was peppered with ash.

“Hello, there, Mr. McQueen, and how
are
you?” he said, balancing his current cigarette on the edge of a Coke can and offering Stephen his bony, yellow-tipped hand. Frank had the look and demeanor of an inappropriately cheerful mortician who’s made an unusual sideways step into showbiz. In reality he was an ex-actor who’d had a long, successful stint in a soap as a randy, bigamous greengrocer. When the greengrocer had died in a freak forklift truck accident, Frank had looked forward to the challenge of taking on the classics—a chance to give his Vanya, perhaps, even one day his Lear—but all people could see was that randy bigamous greengrocer, and in the end he had crossed to the other side: “Poacher-turned-gamekeeper, if you will…”

“Good to see you, good to see you. Sit down, sit down, help yourself to jelly beans.” Stephen gingerly sat opposite on the somewhat unstable second-best swivel chair—again, the mustard-colored foam peeked through the seat fabric. Don’t pick. Concentrate. Be firm but friendly, professional but relaxed.

“Raining, is it?” asked Frank. Given that rain could be heard on the roof and seen through the window, “Yes” seemed the only appropriate reply.

“So—good news, young man,” said Frank, retrieving his cigarette, and getting down to business. “I have a little something for you here.” And he searched through the topsoil of paperwork on his desk, before retrieving a slip of paper, which he snapped tight a few times in front of Stephen’s face. “A check, made out to a Mr. Stephen C. McQueen for the princely sum of £1762.24.”

“Really? What for?”

“
Sammy the Squirrel
. Foreign sales. Apparently, you’re absolutely massive in Eastern Europe.”

“Well, that’s good to know.”

“Told you it was worth it, didn’t I? And it gets better. They want you back for more.”

“They do? What for?”

“The sequel.
Sammy the Squirrel 2—If You’re Happy and You Know It
.”

Stephen’s good mood evaporated. It would have been expecting too much, perhaps, for Frank to offer him the title role in the romantic comedy he’d told Alison and Sophie all about. That had, after all, been a figment of his imagination. But Sammy? Again? It was like being told that he’d have to go back to prison.

“And d’you think it’s going to be one of those sequels that’s actually better than the original?”

“Didn’t you say you wanted to work, Steve? Well, you ask, and Frank provides. Think of it as an opportunity to revisit a much-loved role.”

“And what does the part entail?”

“ ’Bout two grand.”

“No, I mean, what does the role involve?”

“I don’t know, the usual—singing songs with your Woodland Pals, holding a big acorn…”

“But have you seen a script?”

“Not yet. I don’t think I can get you script approval or anything, but they were very keen to have you back.”

“All right, Frank, I’ll give it some thought.”

“Could get you noticed.”

“Only by preschoolers, Frank.”

“Hey, film directors have children too, Steve. And the money’s not bad. A grand and a half plus potential residuals…?”

“I’ll think about it, Frank.”

“What’s to think about?”

“I’d just rather do something new, that’s all.”

“This is new!”

“What’s new about it?”

“Well, the first one was about numbers, whereas this one focuses on the alphabet.”

“It’s still dressing up as an animal, though, Frank.”

“What are you talking about? They can see your face.”

Stephen sighed and looked at the rain on the window. “Well, like I said—I’ll think about it.”

“All right, but don’t think about it too long, yeah? Winter’s a quiet time of year and, like it or not, a grand and a half is not peanuts.”

“Or hazelnuts,” added Stephen.

Frank laughed and coughed at the same time. “Hazelnuts—like it, very good. You should be on the stage, friend.” Frank’s mobile started to chirrup Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer,” and he snapped it up instantly, scrutinized the display, and scowled. “Sorry, Steve, got to get this one. Bear with me, will you?” He pressed a button, swiveled the chair through ninety degrees, put his feet on the edge of the desk, and surveyed the car park—his movie-mogul stance. “Hello, there…Well, I’m with a client at the moment so it’s not the best time…Steve McQueen…No, not that one…Look, I thought we’d already gone over this…No, I’m not prepared to do anything before Friday…I don’t care…I told you, I simply
do not
care!…”

If he’s going to talk tough, maybe I should leave,
thought Stephen, rising an inch from his chair, nodding toward the door, but Frank gestured for him to sit back down, clearly relishing the opportunity to put on a show for a client.

“No, money is
not
the issue, it’s simply a question of schedule and
practicalities.
…Tomorrow’s an absolute nonstarter…. No, now listen to me, we’re just going round and round in circles here”—he glanced at Stephen, shaking his head and rolling his eyes theatrically—“Friday is my
final
offer. If you can’t wait till Friday, then I’m afraid you’ll just have to try elsewhere.”

Maybe Frank’s not so bad after all,
thought Stephen, feeling guilty. The truth was, he’d been planning to invite Josh’s high-powered agent along to his forthcoming Big Break, hopefully jump ship soon after, then break the news to Frank—“I think we should be free to see other people.” But maybe Frank was okay. This is, after all, what you want from an agent: tough talk, fearlessness, loyalty, an unwillingness to compromise on behalf of his clients…

“I’m sorry, no, that’s my final offer. All right, then, Friday it is…About four o’clock? And, Mum? I’ll need someone else there to help me get the fridge down the stairs…. Well, I can’t do it by myself, can I? Well, ask the neighbors. Ask whatsisname next door. Look, Mum, I’ve got a client here with me…. No one you’d know…. All right, see you Friday.” And he hung up.

“Sorry about that,” said Frank, once again rifling through the papers on his desk—the casting breakdowns, letters from prospective clients, pages torn from
The Stage
. “Mum’s got this new fridge coming on Thursday, and Argos are refusing to take the old one away. Can’t blame them really; I wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole. I’m surprised it hasn’t walked out the flat all by itself. And she’s on the fourth floor with no lift, don’t know what she expects me to do—drop it down the stairwell or something. Hey, I don’t suppose you know anyone who needs a fridge, do you? It’ll need bleaching.”

“Well, I do…”

Frank’s eyes lit up at the opportunity to help a client. “You do?”

“…but I haven’t really got the space for it.”

Frank stopped rustling papers. “You don’t have a
fridge
?”

“Not at the moment.”

“So what do you use instead?”

“Oh, the windowsill.”

“Bloody hell, Stephen, we really do need to get
you
some work!” he said, and started sprinkling ash on his desk with a renewed sense of purpose.

It can’t be good to smoke so much in such a small room,
thought Stephen. Frank was clearly being kippered slowly by Silk Cut. If he were to die suddenly—not impossible, given that he bought his weekly groceries at a convenience store—then there was a very good chance that he’d keep.

“Right, what have we got here. Nope…nope…nope…Ah, here we go—there’s a billboard commercial here. For floor cleaner. Blokey-types wanted, could be nice money. You can do blokey, can’t you? Want me to put you up for it?”

Stephen pictured himself on a billboard, mop in hand; imagined Sophie seeing it, on her way home from school, with a group of her posh school friends—“That’s my dad up there, the one in the pinafore…”

“Don’t think so, Frank.”

“It’s extremely quiet out there at the mo—”

“I know, I know. But, well, that’s modeling, Frank. I’d sort of hoped for something where I, you know, moved, spoke and stuff.”

“Can you speak Russian?”

“Not as such.”

“Pity. Nice job, next week, playing some Cossack or other. They need fluent Russian. You could always learn, I suppose.”