Lucky Break (28 page)

Saul was waiting in the street. He'd bought himself a pair of shoes, not the Doc Martens that he usually wore, but black and pointed, with an inlay of suede.

‘Great,' they said, examining each other's purchases. ‘Nice.' But as they walked towards the theatre Nell felt deflated. It's as if we've committed a crime, she thought, we should have given the money away, to a beggar or a single mother, and she glanced at Saul, and wondered if he too felt soiled.

The show that night was half empty. ‘Matthew's gone to London,' Chrissie told her coldly, from her seat beside the radiator. ‘We're up and running now, I don't suppose we need him to be here, every night.'

‘I see.' Nell turned away, quickly, before the subject of the night ahead, Saul's empty room, ballooned between them. Instead she pulled out the new skirt. It wasn't really very nice. Or if it was, it didn't suit her.

‘Splashing out?' Chrissie eyed her, and Nell, in a sudden fit of inspiration, turned towards her. ‘Would you like it?'

‘Me? Chrissie patted her stomach and laughed. ‘It wouldn't fit me, are you kidding?' But later, when she made the tea, she asked Nell if she wanted a cup.

 

‘How's it going?' Saul murmured as they waited in the wings, standing close, his sinewy arm beside her.

‘Fine.'

‘Listen,' he leant in to her. ‘I've got someone in tonight. It's a bit awkward, it's . . . it's Lorraine, I didn't know she was coming. I guess she wanted to surprise me, and now she's suddenly turned up.'

Nell didn't look at him.

‘So if I don't see you afterwards. The thing is, we'll probably go and get something to eat. An Indian or something.'

‘Right.' Nell kept her eyes on Philip, who never missed a line.

Very lightly Saul put his hand on her shoulder.

‘That's you,' she said, as they heard his cue, and he glided away from her on to the stage. Nell stood and watched him, breathing in the last traces of his smell, and she wondered how Chrissie would hide her amusement when later that night she knocked on the door of their shared room and asked to be let back in.

The Dream

‘Really?' Jemma's eyes lit up. ‘New York?'

‘The play starts rehearsing in April,' Dan squinted as if he could see April, just there, in the future, ‘then runs to the end of July.'

‘Broadway . . .' Jemma seized a small pink sweatshirt from the ironing pile and pressed down on it so hard that it scorched.

‘It might be
Off
Broadway,' Dan wasn't sure.

‘Oh but Dan, can you imagine? Four months in New York! I knew good things would happen this millennium. I'm so in the mood for an adventure.'

‘They're seeing other people too.'

‘Who else?'

‘Five or six others, I'm not sure.' His agent, Lenny, had told him, but he decided not to say. It seemed just possible that by refusing to name the competition he could ignore them, for a while at least. ‘Scarlett Johansson is coming over to read with everyone next week.'

‘Scarlett Johansson! Is that really true?'

‘Yes.' Dan had been as excited as Jemma a moment before, but now, faced with her elation, the reality hit him – he probably wouldn't get the job. ‘I wonder,' his faith was wavering. ‘Is Scarlett Johansson actually right? I mean, when did she ever do any theatre?'

‘Of course she hasn't done any theatre.' Jemma folded a miniature pair of pants. ‘If she'd been touring round the country for the last two years she'd never have been cast. These days they need a film star in the leading role to fill a Broadway theatre.'

Dan opened the fridge. There was a white net tiara sitting on the middle shelf. He reached past it and pulled out the jam. ‘They're sending a copy of the play over this afternoon.'

‘Who's it by? Is it a new play?'

‘It's adapted from a film. Set during the Napoleonic era. Did you know there are more books about Napoleon than any other man that ever lived?'

‘Wasn't he a midget?'

‘No! Honestly, Jemma. Anyway, the lead part is a sort of Iago figure, a sexy, devious character, of any height, who Josephine takes for a lover only weeks after she and Napoleon are married.'

Jemma swung herself up on to the worktop. ‘Sexy and devious, eh?' She slid the fingers of one hand around his neck, distracting him as he rifled through the bread bin. ‘That doesn't sound like you.'

Dan laughed. ‘It's been on once before. With John Malkovich and Julianne Moore, but now it's being directed by a Brit, and there's some deal with Equity which means they have to cast the male lead from here.'

He pulled out a loaf of bread and sniffed it. ‘Is this old?' He turned it over and found a ring of green mould furring on its base.

‘Sorry.' Jemma eased it from his hand and slung it into the bin. ‘But just think, Dan. If you got it we could rent an apartment. Take Honey to Central Park. Eat out in diners. Even breakfast. Maybe we could get somewhere downtown. Near Ruthie. I'll ask her. I'll ring her now. No, wait, it's five in the morning. Just think . . . New York City in the spring!'

‘Shhh. Calm down. I might not get it.'

‘But you might,' Jemma bent forward and pressed her face against his. ‘They'd be lucky to have you. Who could be better?' She nuzzled him. ‘Who?'

‘You know what?' Dan wished he hadn't said the words ‘John Malkovich' because now how would he ever get that menacing, pigeon-toed performance out of his head. ‘If we do go, we should stay in Brooklyn. Steve lives there now, you remember Steve? He says it's a real community. And it's cheaper. Look, if this job happens there's not going to be a lot of money in it.'

‘Brooklyn?' Jemma frowned. Dan could see her, attempting to adjust to the sudden relocation when, a moment ago, she'd been skipping through the air vents and glamour of Manhattan. ‘I've never been to Brooklyn.'

‘Nor me.' Dan looked out of the side window, at their neighbour's extension, the pipes that ran along the wall, the green stains from the overflow, where, the year before, and the year before that, fallen leaves had blocked the guttering. In Brooklyn they'd have a Brownstone, overhung by a pale-leafed maple, and every afternoon when he set off for the theatre he'd wave to the neighbours out on their stoop, all making good new beginnings in the bright, new city of New York.

‘Right,' Jemma shook herself free. ‘I'd better get Honey from nursery. Do you think you'll have to do a French accent?'

‘No!' Dan was appalled. ‘I'm sure I won't. Well, no one's mentioned it. I can't see Scarlett Johansson doing . . .'

‘I'm meeting Mel in the park.' She'd stopped listening to him. ‘We'll give the kids lunch in the café if it's not too cold. Fancy it?'

Dan sat down at the table. ‘I'll probably work, or go to the gym,' but once Jemma's coat, her gloves and scarf had been pulled on, the empty pushchair wrested from the hall, the door slammed shut, Dan opened the newspaper and bent his mind to the crossword as if solving its fabricated puzzles was the most pressing task in the world.

 

The play didn't arrive till late that afternoon. It was delivered by a courier who stared, unspeaking, at Dan through the window of his motorcycle helmet. A courier had once smiled and said how much he'd enjoyed his performance in
Rainstorm
, a series he'd done when he'd first left college. ‘Fucking tops,' he'd grinned, before handing him a pen, but today this man said nothing, simply watched him, balefully, while Dan printed his name and signed. Several years ago, in a horrible moment of awkwardness, he'd thought he recognised Gabriel Grant peering out at him through the visor, but when Dan moved towards him, arm outstretched, the man stepped back, alarmed. ‘Sorry . . .' Dan murmured, ‘I thought . . .' But he didn't go on.

Dan used to play football with Gabriel Grant. Gabe had organised a group of actors, boys from RADA and Central, a couple from Mountview, most who'd been out of college a year or two, some who'd started working, others who never had. They met up on Saturday afternoons on Hampstead Heath, just above the running track, and Gabriel had even brought along a sack of coloured bibs. Friends and girlfriends came out in support, standing along the sidelines, chatting, but the first time he played, Jemma arrived with Honey, a baby in a sling, just as Gil Bisham was being carried off the field on a stretcher. ‘What happened?' she gasped, still blowsy and easily moved to tears, and Dan told her it was just bad luck, an accident, Gil would be all right.

‘Poor kid,' Gabriel joined them, ‘what a disaster. He starts rehearsing at the National next week, and it looks like his leg is broken.'

Jemma's eyes spilt over with tears.

‘Hey, it's all right,' Dan reached for her hand, but she bent her head as a wave of sobbing convulsed her.

‘Hey, he'll get there, there'll be other jobs,' and Dan had to arc his body around the pouch of their baby in order to console her.

The next time Dan played, two actors got into a fight, mocking and lashing out at each other, and then just before the finish Gabriel had tackled him so ferociously he fell and sprained his thumb. ‘What are you lot trying to prove,' Jemma had shouted furiously from the sidelines. ‘Scared someone might think you're a bunch of poofs?' and she'd stomped back to the car.

It was a year at least since Dan's last game. He missed it, the camaraderie, the drink afterwards in the pub, but if occasionally he got a call, he was either working, or he wasn't working, and either way, he couldn't take the risk.

 

Dan carried the thick brown envelope upstairs to the bedroom, away from the noise of Honey, beating her spoon on the table, from Jemma, singing raucously to a tape ‘. . . Heads, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes . . .' as she prepared Honey's tea.

He could feel his heart beating as he slid out the sheaf of photocopied paper and flipped open the first page.
Battle to the Heart
. He ran his eyes down the list of characters. Josephine de Beauharnais. Albine de Montholon. Pierre Augereau. A flush of fear washed over him as he attempted to pronounce their names. ‘Jem!' he shouted. He'd been brought up in Epping, for God's sake. He'd left school with three O levels and not one of them was French. He'd only ever seen France from a train, except once when he'd spent a weekend there – Jemma didn't know this – she must never know – but he'd gone to Paris with Charlie in the first term of their third year. It had been her idea. She'd whispered the plan to him one wintry afternoon while they were rehearsing a play by Pinter. ‘Research,' she'd mouthed – they were illicit lovers in
Betrayal
– and so as not to lose momentum they'd taken the Tube straight to Victoria, the train to Dover, and boarded a ferry. They'd arrived late and waited in the station while a woman from the tourist board rang round for a hotel. ‘
Non
,' she kept shaking her head, but eventually she found them a room, far out towards the end of the Metro, somewhere cheap, and drab, but still French, and they'd drunk brandy and fucked, and when they'd finished fucking, some time around the afternoon of the next day, unable to think of anything else to do, or say, they'd almost smoked themselves to death. ‘Jem!' he called again, but it was clear she couldn't hear.

Dan remembered Charlie's long, strong, caramel-coloured body, the ridge of her breastbone, the beautiful jut of her hip. He could almost feel her silky lips, fluted as a sea shell, and the tickle of her kinked hair.

Josephine de Beauharnais. Dan sighed, speaking the French name with more confidence. Pauline Bellisle Foures. He imagined these women, their sloping shoulders and white necks, the soft folds of their pleated dresses, thinking of nothing except sex. His character, Hippolyte Charles, was described as charming, dangerous, capable of damage. ‘That's me,' Dan determined, his blood stirring, ‘that's my man.' And he closed his eyes and conjured up the figure of Josephine, who'd given herself so willingly to him.

‘DAN!' Jemma was calling him now.

He risked another minute before answering. ‘What is it?'

The tape must have started again. ‘Heads, shoulders . . .' He could hear Honey screaming. ‘Don't worry.' Her voice trailed up the stairs. ‘Forget it.'

‘Really?' He listened hard, and when she didn't answer he flipped over the page.

The casting director had marked three scenes. He read them through, taking all the parts, his spirits lifting and plummeting again every time he stumbled on the lines. Damn. He needed Jemma to read with him, but that wouldn't be possible now until Honey was in bed. He traipsed down to the landing and put his head round the bathroom door. ‘How you doing?' Honey's hair had been lathered up into a beehive and she was standing, admiring herself in the mirror. Sponge letters were scattered on the floor, pools of water lay in quivering puddles. Jemma looked up from where she was crouching, her arms on the edge of the bath. ‘Come in, love, and shut the door, you're letting in a draught.' Dan stepped forward and felt cold water seep into the toe of his sock. ‘Do you know,' he said, retreating, ‘I think I'll just nip out for a drink, I'll be back in a bit. Do you want me to get anything?'