50 Ways to Find a Lover (39 page)

‘Are you sure that’s an American accent?’ he quizzes.

‘Yes!’

‘I might just have the uncut version of
The Texas Chain-saw Massacre
,’ he says smugly. He gets up and proceeds to put the DVD on. I hate horror movies. I’m still getting over watching
Ghostbusters
as a child. Still, I must suffer for my art.

‘So tell me more things about your character.’

‘Well, her name is Benitta and she takes heroin. She snorts it. I didn’t know people did that!’ I say, trying to concentrate on getting my accent to sound like the actresses in the movie. He nods at me and then goes to his room and fetches his laptop. He puts it on his knee and starts to type while looking at the screen intently.

‘OK, when you’ve just done heroin you feel euphoric, then you get drowsy and your speech is slow or slurred. Then when you start to need some more you yawn! Oh, that’s good, Sare, you yawn all the time. And you might get itchy, chilly. Oh, and vomit and have diarrhoea. But I don’t think we’ll go there.’

‘OK, that’s very helpful. So I should speak slowly?’ I ask him, slowing down the way I speak. I start to sound like a stoned college kid.

‘That’s great!’ he enthuses. ‘And try and do some yawning and scratching and stuff and make me think your concentration is a bit flaky, which shouldn’t be a problem for you, Sare!’

I start to yawn as I watch a bit of the hideous film, then I furiously scratch my neck. I finger a bit of the brown sugar and wipe it around my gums. Then I pretend I’m chilly which causes me to go and fetch an old hoodie from my room.

‘PVC with a hoodie. I like it. Off-duty hooker! That’s looking really good, Sare.’

‘Thanks, Denzel,’ I say, giving him a dopey, sexy smile.

‘Wey hey! This is fun, Sare. Shall we have a cup of tea?’

‘I’d rather have one of these,’ I say, trying to dopily and sexily undo the taut plastic wrapper on a Cockalada.

‘Yep, your character would definitely be into liquor in the daytime. And Denzel Cruise is a big fan of a Cockalada before lunch.’ He grabs himself one from the fridge, cries ‘Cheers’ and takes a big swig.

‘Now do you know which bit of the script they’ll want you to do tomorrow?’

‘Yep, it’s this—’

‘AMERICAN!’ he corrects me.

‘Ooops, sorry,’ I giggle and then I hand him the script with the big speech that I’ll have to do tomorrow.

‘OK, I’ve got to make some calls, you learn this and then I’ll come back at three and we’ll work on it.’

I want to squeeze him and thank him. He’ll probably tell me off for being out of character. I just smile at him and nod and he walks towards me and kisses me on the head before leaving the room.

I spend the rest of the afternoon learning my speech and watching
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
. When it’s finished I put on
Psycho
and get my laptop. I type in ‘dominatrix blog’ and up comes a brilliantly written journal of the life of a dominatrix in the States. It’s funny, sad, surprising and such an amazing window into a life I know nothing about. For some reason the thing that strikes me most is the fact that she has a cat. My character shall have a cat too. Then I try to find out as much as I can about being psychic, which isn’t quite as easy. I am just looking up from my computer screen at the shower scene in
Psycho
when Simon comes bounding through the door.

‘Hi, Denzel.’

‘Sare – I mean Benitta. I’ve just got another massive contract for these drinks. It’s gone mad.’ He doesn’t look happy so much as shocked. He goes into his rucksack and pulls out a bottle of champagne and a lot of takeaway food containers. He opens a lid and I immediately smell my all-time favourite dinner.

‘Massaman curry!’ I moan.

‘Yep, and salmon and those starter nibbles we like.’ He smiles. We lay it all out on the Cockalada boxes and feast. Then Simon, or Denzel, drills me on my speech for the next four hours.

fifty-one

An audition is like having sex with a new partner:

After both acts I develop an unhealthy relationship with my mobile phone. I do mind-tricks learnt in
Star Wars
films to make it ring. I hold the hot gadget in my hand. I close my eyes and I think, Please ring and tell me you want me, please ring and tell me you want me. Invariably it doesn’t and I throw it on the floor, or on one occasion out of the window. I haven’t thrown it anywhere yet because I only left the audition half an hour ago and I am on the top deck of a moving bus. That’s not to say I don’t want to do any mobile-phone-throwing. On the contrary I would like to do some heinous hurling of one particular mobile phone, which belongs to the girl behind me. She’s playing music on it. I’m not opposed to music on buses at all. I think all buses should have wired-in sound systems which play soothing, democratically chosen music out of good-quality speakers. The song the girl behind has arbitrarily selected to play today is called ‘Fuck the Police’ and the speakers on her mobile phone are so bad the sound seems to be coming from inside a blocked toilet in a public convenience in Deptford. The din is interfering with my Jedi mind-tricks.

I turn around. There are two girls sitting side by side. They look about seventeen, which means they must be thirteen. They are wearing green school uniforms.

I smile. I look apologetic. ‘I’m really sorry, girls, but I’ve got a really bad headache. Do you think you could turn that down?’

I clutch my head above my right eye. I am good at acting headaches. I once got down to the last two for an Anadin commercial.

One of the girls is holding a pink phone. She lifts it up slowly until it is almost touching my ear. Then she turns the volume up. I feel like a knob and want to cry. I turn away from her and seek refuge in willing my phone to ring. It does. It’s my agent. I answer it quickly.

‘Now then, Sarah, there was something I was going to tell you, but now I’ve got you I can’t remember what it was.’

‘Geoff, I hope you don’t do this on the phone to the people from
24
!’ I say. I have to speak loudly because the girls behind me are shouting, ‘Could you keep that down I’ve got a headache!’

‘Sorry, Sarah, I’ll have to call you back, it’s completely gone.’

‘All right, Geoff, call me back when you remember.’

‘Oh hang on, Sarah, I was, oh wait, it’s coming back to me. It’s coming back to me. Oh yes, it was that the director was blown away by you, quote unquote, “one of the best auditions he’s ever seen”.’

‘OH MY GOD!!’ I scream. Both the girls behind me jump up. They’re both clutching their right eyes and shouting:

‘I’ve got a headache, yeah!’

I look at the rest of the full bus. ‘I got the part!’ I whimper. I start crying. I wish I wouldn’t cry when good things happen. It’s weird.

I run down the stairs and get off the bus at the next stop: Camden High Street. My phone starts to ring again. Please be Paul, please be Paul. It’s not Paul, it’s Simon.

‘Hiya, gorge, sorry to call, I know how you get when you’re waiting to hear about auditions. You get all excited when you hear your phone go and then all disappointed when it’s your mate and not your agent.’

‘But Si, I got it!! They already called, they said it was like the best audition they’d ever seen.’

‘Whooo-hoooo!’ screams Simon.

‘Thank you, thank you, thank you, Denzel,’ I scream back.

‘Oh, Sare, I know something else you’ll be pleased about.’

‘What?’ I squeal.

‘Your blog’s back.’

‘What?’

‘Your blog, you know that thing you’re addicted to? It’s back online again. I clicked on it a second ago just to see if it was still down. And it’s there again.’

‘Ahhhhhhhhh. I’m so happy!! I’ll be home in a minute for some serious blogging.’

When I hang up I am at the bottom of Eamonn Nigels’ road. It’s just gone six o’clock so there’s a very good chance he’ll be in. It had to be Eamonn Nigels who destroyed my blog. He had the motive. Admittedly, it does seem a juvenile act for a mature and successful British director. But then again he is a man and men are known for never growing up.

‘It’s him!’ I say adamantly as I ring on his doorbell. Compose yourself, Sarah Sargeant. Don’t get hysterical. You need to ask him questions, in a calm controlled fashion, like Columbo. You must kill him with kindness, wound him with reason, knee him in the bollocks with forgiveness. Because I have forgiven him. I just need to know exactly why he did it. And then I can sit back and light the scented candle of peace.

His house is so beautiful. Even his front door is tasteful. There’s a pear tree in the garden. Well, I’m not sure if it’s a pear tree but it’s definitely a tree of some sort. He opens the door, looking relaxed and dare I say it flushed with some sort of excitement.

‘Hello,’ he says cheerfully as he opens the door, then, seeing it’s me, he says disappointedly, ‘Oh, it’s you.’ Thus proving that he hates me and he did it.

‘I knew it was you!’ I spit.

‘Sarah!’ he says, clearly shocked that this waitress blogging person fights back.

‘Yes, Mr Eamonn Nigels!’ I say, with my hands on my hips. I am quite impressed by how loud and clear my voice sounds. It must be the vocal warm-up I did before my audition.

‘So why did you bring my blog down and replace it with a Viagra advert? That wasn’t a very mature thing to do, was it? Not very mature at all, I’d say! In fact I’d say sodding sperm would behave with more maturity than you.’ I was supposed to calmly ask questions and wait for the replies. I seem to be sounding like a particularly crap panto baddie. It’s not the best start.

‘Sarah. Would you like to come in, or carry on shouting and swearing on my doorstep?’

I don’t know what to say, so I start chewing my lip. It’s not brilliant.

‘OK,’ I say, following him into the house.

‘Now then, I’m expecting someone. So please tell me what’s on your mind. Or we can arrange a lunch date to discuss whatever it is you’re talking about.’

‘Whatever it is I’m talking about! You deleted my blog for two weeks!! I want to know why.’

‘Sarah! Why on earth would I delete your blog?’ he says calmly. He’s doing the Columbo, he’ll probably light a cigar in a second.

‘Because you have a public profile and don’t want to be written about in that way! Remember?’ I’ve got him now.

‘Sorry about that, I did sound rather pompous then, didn’t I? But I was jet-lagged and understandably quite concerned to hear that my son was gay and felt unable to confide in me. In actual fact, finding out like that has been a blessing. Marcus introduced me to Clive last night and I like him very much, Sarah. Marcus and I are communicating better than we have for ten years and in a funny sort of way I shall always be grateful to you for that.’

‘Hmmm,’ I say, looking at him suspiciously. This could be a cunning piece of deflection on his part. I must keep my wits about me.

‘Would you like a drink of something?’ he asks kindly.

I shake my head slowly. A gin and tonic would be lovely but he probably wants alcohol to impair my judgement.