Lucky Break (3 page)

‘Now,' Silvio said, when each student had introduced themselves. ‘I want you to greet our accompanist, Miss Louise Goeritz.' A tiny, ancient woman was crouched behind the piano, her head nodding rhythmically to music only she could hear. ‘Miss Goeritz, would you play us something? Miss Goeritz?' But it wasn't until Silvio touched her shoulder that she came to life, her fingers trilling automatically up and down the keys, running together, crashing down in a crescendo of surprising force. ‘Thank you.' Silvio bowed, motioning for the students to applaud, and the old lady sank down once more on her piano stool and drifted into a reverie of her own.

Silvio waited for absolute quiet. Not a sigh or a shuffle in all the rows of black. ‘What I am about to teach you will be difficult,' he looked small and mournful suddenly in his woollen trousers and black top. ‘Impossible even for some to understand, but if you can take it in, then, instead of nothing, there will be something, on which to base your art.' There was a general stir, a shifting of bodies. It was harder than it looked, standing still. ‘Now, I want you to think about the four concepts,' Silvio spread his arms as if he might fly, ‘of Sensing. Thinking. Intuiting and Feeling. These four concepts are revealed in our movements by the motion factors of Weight, Space, Time and Flow.'

Dan glanced around him. The faces of his fellow students were expectant, anxious, baffled. ‘There is much to learn,' Silvio continued. ‘But let me tell you first about character divisions. All humanity,' he explained, ‘is divided into six character types. And each character is made up of conscious states. Now, I do not expect you to remember everything. There will be many other opportunities to learn . . .'

In front of Dan, Pierre started to droop, and then as if to save himself, he began slowly rotating his head, emitting a series of sharp crunches which made Dan wince.

‘Now, each of these conscious or subconscious states,' Silvio continued in his silky voice, ‘can be activated by bodily movements. We'll take one character type at a time, and work on it and by the time we've examined them all, you'll have six basic characters, each with its own rhythm, on which to base any part you're given.' He let his eyes peruse them for a minute as if to ensure that they were worthy of his effort. ‘So for example, Number 1, which I call Close . . .' he roused himself, ‘is light and quick, a not very deep-thinking or complicated person, whose rhythm is made up of quick, dabbing strokes.' Silvio adopted the voice of a young girl, ‘ “I will not go down to the shops for you.” ' But his flowery Italian accent blunted the effect. ‘ “You can bog off with your demands,” ' he continued, jabbing with his finger for effect. And relieved to have something to smile about, the whole class smiled.

‘And now,' Silvio stretched his body into a star. ‘We will begin our movement. Keep your heads entirely still, and look with your eyes to the right. Only eyes. Now left. Lower left, upper right, right forward, lower right. And left.'

Dan thought he might be going to faint. He'd spent the night before on a friend's too-short sofa, a boy he'd met at youth theatre. They'd sat up late, toasting his new beginning, his new life, only pausing to jeer at the TV news which showed John Major, white-faced and coldly sweating, reassuring the country that even though billions of pounds had been sold in order to keep Britain in the ERM, interest rates wouldn't rise above 12 per cent. ‘The man who ran away from the circus to be an accountant,' Dan's friend laughed. ‘I bet he regrets it now.' And then just when he'd been ready to sleep, three flatmates, eager for a party, had come stumbling in and opened up more beer.

‘This is how we mark our thought processes in time.' Silvio's eyes were alive with wonder, and he explained how by looking up, and to the right, you could take your audience with you into the future, or back through time into the past. Dan's body ached. There was nothing to lean against, and he wondered what would happen if he lay down on the floor. And then Silvio was dancing. He bent his knees, his body upright, and stamped his feet fast. The stillness and the force of him was startling. He moved in parallel planes, Cossack style, with his arms crossed, stamping, up and down and side to side. Miss Goeritz, awakening, caught up with him, and Silvio sprang on to his toes. He leapt and twisted, twirled and arced, holding his body, pulling against air, pressing himself into the ground, and then releasing, spinning, free.

How old is he? Dan wondered, and humiliated, he shook his tired limbs.

‘And so you see,' Silvio came to a gentle stop, unfolding from a perfect pirouette, ‘nothing comes from nothing. Everything in this life, it comes from dedication and work.'

There was an awed silence.

‘We will meet again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that.' Silvio let his gaze wash over them. ‘And in each of you, if it is there to be discovered, we will find the kernel of your talent. Now . . .' he looked as if he might be about to let them in on a final secret. ‘You may get changed.' And, an old man again, he shuffled from the room.

The Lesson

Babette's method acting class took place in the large, oval hall. A stage had been set up at one end, built from hollow wooden blocks, and one by one, the students were expected to step up on to it and present their understanding of Stanislavsky's Action and Three Activities for her discerning eye. ‘Oh Nell . . .' Pierre leant over to her and nudged her in the ribs. ‘I have to tell someone . . .'

Nell kept her gaze fixed on the stage where Samantha was shrugging off her coat.

‘It's agony,' Pierre tried again, his large eyes threatening to overflow, and Hettie, who was sitting on his other side, hissed, ‘Save it for your improvisation.'

‘I cannae.' Pierre's voice rose to cod-Glaswegian. ‘I think I'll die . . .'

Nell turned towards him and pretended to be stern. ‘What is it?'

Pierre gave a wide slow smile. ‘I'm in love.'

‘Really?' Nell was unable to resist. ‘Who with?'

‘Shhh.' A Swedish girl spun round in her seat. Pierre ignored her. ‘Go on,' he grinned. ‘Try and guess who it is.'

Nell glanced round the room. The students were scattered across the hall, some singly, others in groups. Babette, their teacher, sat at a table in the centre, her possessions strewn around her, coats and scarves, an overflowing bag, a dog with a matching mop of faded yellow hair. She gave the impression that she must be involved in some multi-fabric task, weaving, or knitting an enormous shawl, but she was in fact keenly watching each exercise, making notes, giving her verdicts in a slow, throaty, American drawl. Nell's eyes settled on Jonathan, who, at thirty-one, had a car and his own terraced house in Fulham, where, last week, he'd invited a group of them to supper, serving up a stew he'd left all day slow-cooking in the Aga. Or could it be Stuart, short and stocky with a perfect alto, who tramped off every evening in his motorcycle boots to seek new thrills, or the same thrills possibly, on Hampstead Heath? These were the only two, apart from Pierre, who were openly gay, although there were others who may well be about to come out – soft-spoken Cecil, who spent extra hours practising his pliés in the movement studio, and Giles and Kevin, who recited poetry at every opportunity in plummy, competing voices. Nell ignored Rick with his leather jacket and quiff. She didn't linger on Billy or Jermaine, a couple of chancers, both of whose names had gone up on the board for lateness, whose lives at Drama Arts were already under threat, even though Jermaine could triple-flip across the movement studio and had mastered Silvio's Cossack dance in less than a week. Nell looked over at Dan, dreamy, distant Dan, his dark hair tufted into peaks, but even as she looked, Jemma leant towards him and whispered something into his ear. Nell sighed, a small knot of longing tightening her gut, and turned back to the stage. Samantha had hung up her coat and was standing before an imaginary mirror. Nell knew it was a mirror, because both Hettie and Charlie had already peered into it, but Samantha wasn't brushing her hair, or applying make-up, Samantha was unbuttoning her shirt. The room fell silent. Every murmur and shuffle cut short as button by button, Samantha's fingers fumbled, until her shirt fell open to reveal the bright purple lace of a bra. Next she unzipped her skirt. Her knickers were purple too. She must have planned this.

‘Bloody hell,' Pierre hissed as she unclasped her bra. ‘Typical. That's upped the ante. Whose turn is it next?'

‘Yours,' Nell told him.

Samantha turned away and flung her bra on to the bed, and then, in one swift movement, peeled away her knickers. Her body, from behind, was strong and white, with a scattering of orange freckles on each shoulder. Nell held her breath. Would she turn to them? Would she examine herself in the invisible mirror like any normal woman? But no, Samantha was running in a sideways crab towards the wardrobe. She was searching for something she'd hung up, a grey silk slip, which she pulled over her head, where it stuck, just for a moment, but long enough to give the room the luxury of examining her unseen. Her large white breasts with their unexpectedly small nipples, the narrow triangle of flaming orange hair. And then the silk of the slip fell, and with a communal sigh Samantha was covered, her poise regained, and she ran back across the room and slid into bed.

There was a pause, in which Pierre clutched Nell's arm.

‘Well done, Samantha.' Babette nodded. ‘So tell me, what was your Objective?'

‘To get a good night's sleep.'

‘And your Action?'

‘To prepare myself for sleeping. To get undressed. To put on my slip. To get into bed.'

‘Very good. That's excellent.' Babette turned and shot a swift look around the class. ‘Next?'

Pierre stood up. ‘Keep guessing,' he told Nell as he hurried on his skinny legs to the front of the room.

Pierre waited a few moments before leaping on to the stage. He ran forward, almost tripping over a corner of the bed, and set down a cassette player on the floor. Then he turned away, his back to the audience, and struck a pose. The class could hear the grind and hiss of the tape turning, but no sound came. Hettie and Nell exchanged a glance. The tape hissed on. Pierre waited. Eventually, red-faced, he turned, adjusted a dial and suddenly the music burst up to the ceiling, startling everyone, even the dog, who sat up and gave a bark.

Pierre threw himself into the dance, wiggling and strutting, twirling and tapping, striking sudden idiotic poses until the audience of Year 1 was united in compulsive, convulsive laughter and Babette was forced to rise from her nest of wool and call a halt.

‘What are you doing?'

Pierre looked jubilant. ‘Dancing?'

‘And your Objective? Your Action?'

‘To . . . um . . . entertain you all.'

Babette paused. ‘But you're not telling a story, not showing us anything. Pierre, honey, you're just showing off.'

Pierre slunk back to his seat. ‘Bitch,' he hissed, ‘just because I didn't get my knob out.' But Nell knew he was ashamed.

 

The pub adopted by Drama Arts was warm and dimly lit, with tassels on the curtains and heavily upholstered seats.

‘The thing that worries me,' Hettie said, once they'd slipped in behind the much-coveted corner table, ‘I have to decide who Thea is by tomorrow. Apart from being a wallaby, I mean. Well, obviously, she's a girl, but the animal I've chosen for her is a wallaby. So, anyway, I've done her back story, which is fine, but the real problem is, I'm still not sure which of the Inner Attitudes she has, and our scene's coming up before Patrick Bowery tomorrow.'

‘OK.' Pierre flipped over a beer mat. He prided himself on being Silvio's most assiduous student. ‘What's the first Inner Attitude?' Nell and Hettie leant forward as if he might be about to perform a trick. ‘It's Close.' He sunk his biro into the soft cardboard. ‘Which is sensing and intuiting. And aren't all children Close? I mean, Thea's a child really, isn't she? I mean, more so, say, than Moritz, who's probably number 6 – Adrift.'

‘Do you think?'

‘Well, Adrift is sensing feeling. With Inner Participations of Intending and Adapting. Motion Factors are Weight/Flow and Inner Quests – What/Why?'

Hettie frowned and Nell caught her breath. ‘I wish I understood it like you.'

‘Yes,' Hettie agreed. ‘You're amazing. So, if Moritz is Adrift what are his elements?'

‘Light and strong, free and bound,' Pierre came back.

‘That's brilliant.'

‘So if Thea's Close,' Pierre said reassuringly, ‘her elements will be light and strong, sustained and quick.'

‘Right.' Hettie blinked. ‘Sustained and quick. And while we're on the subject, who fancies another drink?'

‘I'll get them,' Nell said. ‘Same again?'

Nell stood on the metal footrail and used her extra height to attract the barman's attention. But for all her efforts the man beside her, more recently arrived, was served first. He was stocky, dishevelled, in an overcoat and a paisley scarf. No one she recognised from Drama Arts. A paperback novel, the title of which she couldn't read, protruded from his pocket. He ordered his Guinness and walked over to a table not far from theirs, where he proceeded to roll himself a cigarette.