Bite The Wax Tadpole (16 page)

“You’ll end up living on Pedigree chum and crackers, you know. I did.”

Norman Tubby, as ever, was at his shoulder.

“I’ll get other work. There is life after soap opera, you know.”

“For some, perhaps, but you’re no Kylie Minogue, are you?”

As Malcolm piled tins of no name beans into the trolley, Malcolm, belying his age and status as a deceased person, danced and skipped ahead. “I should be so lucky, lucky, lucky, I should be so lucky...”, he trilled.

“Oh, for God’s sake, stop that, will you!”, boomed Malcolm. A lady in the next aisle who had taken the top off a bottle of deodorant in order to assess if it really did smell of Alpine meadows, snapped it shut and looked around guiltily.

“Sorry, old boy”, said Norman. “I’m merely advising you not to make the same mistake that I did. Go out with a bang, not a whimper.”

A few minutes later Malcolm exited the store with Norman standing upright in the front of the wonky trolley, arm raised like Lenin addressing an excited crowd in Red Square. “Blow wind, come rack; At least we’ll die with harness on our back.”

If ever Yves St Laurent decided to launch a range of male fragrances called “Gloom”, Rob, that morning, would have been odds on favourite to be the face of the campaign. He sat in the Writers’ Room with a small, dark cloud of gloom hovering over his head like smoke over a guttering barbecue. Could it only be a week or so ago that his life, if not exactly glittering with expectation, had, at least, a scintilla of mid to long term predictability about it? Right now, he yearned for predictability. Excitement and journeys into the unknown are for when you’re young and you haven’t signed your first mortgage. When he’d arrived in Australia he’d done some research into his family history and discovered that in the nineteenth century a chap on his father’s side of the family had borrowed a horse from a neighbouring farm and found himself transported to the colonies for forgetting to ask the owner’s permission first. By dint of hard work and keeping his nose clean he’d become a free man. How galling it would have been for him to know that succeeding generations would be shackled by credit cards and mortgages for the terms of their natural lives. The worst of it was that debt and domesticity had stripped away his, Rob’s, courage and sense of perspective. If “Rickety Street” got canned and he didn’t take the “Mall” job then he’d almost certainly end up bankrupt and living in a housing commission flat with drug dealers and insomniac rap artists for neighbours. Fat lot of use he’d have been at Rorke’s Drift.

He called Gloria. Even her recorded message caused the little bones in his ear to whimper.

“Hi, Gloria, Rob. Yeah, I’ve given it some thought and the show seems too good an opportunity to miss. So, yes, pipe me aboard. Maybe we could talk about the money and so on some more but... right, give me call when you’ve got a minute. See you soon.”

He looked at the phone as if it were somehow responsible for the message it had just sent. He hadn’t exactly crossed the Rubicon but the water was up to his shins. And pretty soon it would be up to his...

“John Thomas.”

“What?”

Hope had just come into the room. “You wanted to know the name of the new Head of Drama at Channel Six. John Thomas.”

“Never heard of him. Probably some spotty eighteen year old whose parents haven’t read “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.”

Hope gave him one of her slightly open-mouthed questioning looks. “How could you...?”

“You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes, Hope. I take it you’ve never read any Lawrence.”

She shook her head. “I’ve seen the film, though. That scene where the sun comes up over the desert...”

Whoever John Thomas was, Rob would give him a call, see what was what and what was coming up with Six. One never knew. Hope turned to go.

“These were very good, by the way.”

She turned back and he tapped the pile of scripts on the desk. “The re-writes. Very good.”

“We were here till ten o’clock.”

“You shall be suitably recompensed, promise.” And they were very good, the re-writes. What’s more, he could tell which bits were Hope’s. She certainly had something though where she kept it hidden for most of the day was a mystery. Perhaps she was channelling someone; maybe Dickens was keen to get back to writing serials.

“Do you want to see some baby photos”, he asked.

“Baby? But I thought she was only...”

“Ultrasound.”

It was Alison who had insisted on him bringing in the images to show “the girls” but he couldn’t help but evince some pre-paternal pride as he guided the cooing Hope around the dots and blots.

“See, there’s a head... and that’s a leg. And an arm...”

“So cute. And what’s that?”

“Another head.”

“Oh, my god!”

“It’s all right, it’s twins.”

The colour returned to Hope’s face. “I thought it was...”

Rob shrugged. “A two-headed baby? Wish it was – I could have done a deal with Hello Magazine. As it is, I’ll have to pay for their upbringing myself.”

There was a knock on the door and, preceded slightly by a whiff of the outback, Gerry came in.

“I’ve finished it”, he said proudly, taking a folder out of his pouch.

“Oh, right. I did tell you you’ve to till next Wednesday, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, yeah but this isn’t the scene breakdown, it’s the script.”

“You’ve written the whole script already? Overnight?”

“Couldn’t sleep. Any changes you want doing just let me know. Yeah. Got to go, shooting in five.”

He handed over the folder and was gone. Rob took the script out of the folder and stared at it. Overnight. His first script and he’d written it overnight. Without handing in a scene breakdown first. Mad. The man was mad, insane. What were the chances of the script being within fifty nautical miles of acceptability? Zero to the nth degree although Rob couldn’t swear to the mathematical accuracy of the statement. Did raising zero to anything make any difference? Anyway, the bloody point was, who was going to have to re-write it? The idiot who’d given an alcoholic kangaroo impersonator the script in the first place. That’s who.

In the small but brightly lit studio of Radio 2XM, Charlea sat opposite Casey, the DJ, while she listened to the sound of herself singing through the headphones. This was her first ever talk-back radio interview and the nerves were only just beginning to settle down. But Casey was far from being the shock-jock type and the callers had all been very nice. The music ended.

“That was the debut single from Charlea Beccles, Logie nominated actrine from the soap that’s older than she is – “Ricketty Street”. Ready for some more calls, Chas?”

“Go for it.”

“Okay, line one, Harriet. Hello, Harriet.”

“Hello”, replied Harriet and “Hi” said Charlea.

“So, what’s your question for Charlea?”

Harriet had a strong, well-modulated voice. “I just want to ask this so-called actor how she gets away with it. You got onto “Ricketty Street” by winning a competition, didn’t you?”

“I came second”, stammered Charlea. “First prize was...”

“I studied for three years at NIDA”, continued Harriet. “And, hey, guess where I’m working? K-Mart. Ninety five per cent of all actors in this country are unemployed and someone who couldn’t act her way out of a wet paper bag gets a gig on prime-time TV. I know the show’s a pathetic joke but at least it’s paid work.”

“I can act”, said Charlea.

“Sorry, Charlea, sweetie but I can’t quite see you as Portia.”

“Who?”

“Portia? “The Merchant of Venice?” You have heard of Shakespeare, haven’t you?”

“Of course I’ve...”

“God, not only can she cannot act, she’s a moron.”

At this point, Casey decided to intervene. “Thanks for the call, Harriet. Bit early in the day for personal abuse. Carol, line three, got something nice to say to Charlea?”

Casey smiled at her and circled his index finger round his temple. But Charlea found herself unable to laugh it off. Is that what people really thought of her? Was she a joke? Did out of work actors despise and loath her? Were people all over the country, all over the world, laughing at her attempts to act? She could do Shakespeare she told herself. If she wanted to. No problem. She could, she really could.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Running late as usual, Rob at last found a narrow street in which to park and hurried, in something between a shuffle and a run, towards the inner city RSL. I’m late, the psychologist within told him, because I do not want to arrive at my destination. I do not want to listen to Jimmy Gardner wittering on about his triumphant breakout from Stalag Luft Channel 8 to the verdant and free pastures of Hollywoodland. And I especially do not want to tell Niobe, however softly and eloquently, that whatever it was we had has gone the way of the dodo and the thylacine.

The evening was humid, the sun sinking slowly behind the scratchy grey clouds. Everyone else seemed to be moving languidly, to be better acclimatised, to be cool with the weather where he was at odds with it. He made it to the RSL with the back of his head dripping, the hairs on his chest showing through his clinging shirt and dark patches smudged on the knees of the light coloured trousers he’d been foolish enough to choose that morning. Inside the foyer, the air conditioning caressed him like a long lost, but rather frigid, lover. A notice board with stick-on letters announced: Writer’s Guild Meeting – Regency Room, 1
^st
floor. Pausing only to move the apostrophe to the other side of the “s”, he made his way up the stairs. Sycophantic laughter told him the meeting was underway.

He cautiously pushed open the door to the Regency Room but whoever it was whose job it was to oil the hinges had been remiss in their duties and a dozen heads turned towards the ghastly squeaking. Nineteenth century British history wasn’t his specialist subject, it was true, but the connection with Nash, Beau Brummell and the fat old prince wasn’t immediately apparent. It was entirely possible, of course, that the elegant houses of London’s Regent’s Park did have cork tiled ceilings, plastic chairs and cheap carpets but he somehow doubted it.

At the front of the room Jimmy Gardner was being interviewed by Arthur Sturgis, the Writers’ Guild President and author of such plays as “Requiem for a Dingo” and “Pissing in the Wind”.

“No, seriously”, Jimmy was saying, “Hollywood’s like that. Truly. As someone once said: sometimes the only way to get across the street in LA is to have been born there.”

Rob scowled inwardly as the audience laughed at Martin Amis’ joke.

“But I presume”, said Arthur, “that you eventually got to your meeting.”

Niobe was sitting on the end of a row to Rob’s left and had put her bag on the chair next to her, presumably to reserve his seat. He made his way cautiously towards her and sat down. She smiled and put a hand on his thigh. Oh, God...

“Yeah”, said Jimmy. “Poolside at the Beverly Wilshire. Bit of a cliché, I know, but what can you do?”

Stop smirking for a start, thought Rob as Niobe took his hand and slid it across to rest on her thigh. She was clearly going to make it hard for him. Although difficult might be the more appropriate word. The Q and A seemed interminable and the name dropping unbearable. Rob couldn’t quite understand how he could possibly be the least bit envious of what Jimmy had done. But he was. More than a bit. There was the money, of course, one should never forget the money. But that wasn’t the half of it. Hollywood, for all that it was in some ways the lowest point on the planet, was also the screenwriter’s Everest. If you cut a deal there you’d made it to the top, reached the peak, touched the face of eternity. Well, maybe that was going a little far but you certainly got the respect (in the sense of setting their teeth gnashing) of every poor bastard who was still stuck in Sydney churning out twenty two minute episodes of serial TV.

At last the questions ran out and Arthur reminded them that alcoholic beverages were on sale.

“Are we staying for a drink or..?”, asked Niobe with a curl of the lip that left no doubt what the ellipsis at the end of her sentence meant.

Amid the scrape of chairs and snippets of conversation they made their way to the bar.

“... completely bollock naked in the health food section, I heard.”

“... couldn’t cross her legs for a week afterwards.”

“...seven episodes a week? You can’t shoot seven episodes a week.”

“...you know how he got the job, don’t you? On his knees in front of the producer.”

“...that script she won the AWGIE with? Completely rewritten. Not a word of hers in it.”

“ ... so I thought, do I tell them the storyline’s complete and utter balderdash or do I keep my place on the writers’ list?”

“... sacked her at her own birthday party.”

“... if he’d edited the Ten Commandments we’d all be fornicating with our neighbour’s ass.”

They squeezed round a small, uneven table in a dim alcove and perched themselves on stools made for dwarf milkmaids

“I’ve been looking at villas to rent in Greece on the internet”, she said, sipping her Pernod as Colette may once have done and neatly deflecting his determination. “You can get some amazing places for next to nothing.”

“Excellent.”

“Just think of it, we could spend our days writing, drinking retsina and making love. Wouldn’t that just be heavenly?”

“Heavenly, certainly.” Another double gurgle of gin found its way down his gullet. “Listen, the thing is...”

“Thought I saw you slip in late, you old bastard.”

Jimmy Gardner slapped Rob on the back and, unbidden, sat down at the table. “Not interrupting anything, am I?”, he grinned knowingly, winking at Rob.

“No, you’re not interrupting anything”, said Rob summoning up all the world weariness he could muster. “This is Niobe. Niobe, this is the big mouthed tosspot who was boring us all rigid a few minutes ago.”

“Got a way with words, hasn’t he?”, said Jimmy, holding out his hand for Niobe to shake and giving her his best Hollywood smile.

“I think so”, she replied.

“So... still doing R Street, are you?”

“For now.” No, don’t lie, don’t embellish, don’t bullshit. “I’ve got another project lined up. New series. Quite an original concept, actually.”