Lucky Break (30 page)

‘Let's read that scene again.' It was a challenge, and this time as they jousted, they kept their eyes fixed on each other until Dan felt a sheen of sweat across his back.

‘Thank you,' she'd watched him, her head a little on one side, and he'd shaken hands with the director, before turning to catch her slim fingers in his own. On his way out he'd nodded bountifully to Declan McCloud, pale, still waiting for his turn, and flashing one last unnecessary smile at the casting assistant he'd pushed the door open on to the street.

‘Sweetheart,' he looked at Jemma, ‘there's nothing I can tell you. We'll know when we know. It doesn't start till April, they're under no pressure to decide.'

All the same, with every hour that passed, he expected a call. At ten to six he couldn't bear it any longer. He phoned Lenny.

‘No news as yet,' Lenny told him. ‘But if you say it went well, that's great.'

‘Just thought I'd check in.'

‘Sure, sure, no problem. I'll call you as soon as I hear. Talk soon, all right?'

‘Yes, all right. Talk soon.'

 

Jemma knew him too well not to be hopeful. He heard her on the phone to her sister the next day. ‘Dan thinks Brooklyn, but Ruthie says we should find a place near her, down in the village . . . maybe you could come out and visit us, maybe June, before it gets too hot.' He heard giggling and high spirits, and later, Jemma singing as she ran out to get Honey from her nursery.

Dan waited two more weeks before calling Lenny. ‘Any news?' he asked, ‘on
Battle to the Heart
?'

‘Right,' there was an ominous pause. ‘Very frustrating. I was going to call you. They decided to go in a different direction. Although you did get down to the last two.'

‘So, who,' Dan swallowed, ‘did they go with?'

‘A surprise choice, actually. Do you know Laurence Ryan? I'd never heard of him, but that's who they went for in the end. Not long in the business, came from university . . . did a marvellous Benedict, apparently, at the West Yorkshire . . .' but Dan was so relieved it wasn't Declan McCloud he'd stopped listening. ‘Now,' Lenny caught his attention again. ‘You may not be interested, but I've got you an interview for a part in a
Miss Marple
. What do you think? Shall I send it over? It's another killer, I'm afraid, but it's all filmed here, in London.'

Dan paused. He could hear the blood in his head roaring. ‘No,' he decided. ‘I'll hold out.'

Lenny was waiting. ‘Right you are,' he said eventually. ‘I'll be in touch.'

 

A week later, after Jemma had throw up two mornings in a row, Dan called him back.

‘You know that
Miss Marple
, I've been thinking . . .' he held the sharp edge of a red electricity bill pressed against his palm.

‘Ahhh,' he heard Lenny's intake of breath. ‘That's gone, I'm afraid. Declan McCloud. Odd choice for him, but then they do well in the States. But . . . now, hold on a minute, there's a play on at the Bush, no money obviously, but it's a new play, sexual abuse in competitive gymnastics. You've nothing against playing a suspected kiddie fiddler, have you?'

‘I'll look at it.' Nauseous himself, Dan slid the bill into his pocket. ‘Bike it over. I'll be in all day.'

‘Sure. How're your cartwheels?'

‘Not bad,' Dan grimaced, ‘as long as I don't have to do the splits.' And he sat quite still, wondering how he would introduce this new subject to Jemma.

Part Three

2003–2006

The Other Girl

Nell scribbled the details on a pad she kept by the phone.
Mary Peacock. Stabbed and killed husband. Australia on a convict ship. Set up own refuge for women
. ‘I should warn you,' Nell's new agent added, ‘they're seeing everyone, the world and his wife, or should I say husband?' He coughed, embarrassed. ‘The thing is, they don't know what they're looking for. A
quality
apparently, so just go along and . . . meet.'

‘They're seeing everyone, apparently,' Nell repeated the news to Sita when she came in from work.

‘Well, they're not seeing
me
.'

‘True,' Nell bit her lip.

Sita was temping as a receptionist for a software company specialising in games. She'd been working for this same firm, on and off, for a year, and although she insisted it was boring, it was clear to Nell she was unusually content. Sita emptied the contents of her carrier bag on to the table, – apples, satsumas, and a string bag of mixed nuts – hazels, walnuts and brazils. Their shells clinked seasonally. ‘Do we have a nutcracker?'

‘Probably,' Nell pulled open a drawer. ‘Look, why don't you call your agent and ask straight out, why you're not being seen?'

‘I know why.' Sita reached for the scissors and snipped through the taut diamonds of the orange string. ‘As far as the whole bloody business is concerned, I'm Asian, and no one wants to look beyond that. Anyway, the boss at work has asked if I can do maternity cover for Belinda. I'll have to do a training day and commit to a minimum of six months.'

‘Six months!' Nell retrieved the nutcracker from a dusty corner where it had lain since last Christmas, undisturbed.

‘I know. But then I thought, why not?'

Nell made tea and set it on the table. She still had the black-and-white polka-dot teapot Charlie had never bothered to reclaim. As soon as she'd become a film star Charlie had bought everything brand new. New furniture, new cutlery, new clothes. True, she wore the same flint and khaki outfits, casually thrown on, but instead of cotton, frayed and creased, now they were spun from cashmere and silk. If
she
ever made any money . . . Nell looked around the kitchen and sighed.

‘Maybe . . .' Sita pulled out a chair. ‘I'll let fate decide. I've got one more week before I have to commit, and if my agent hasn't called by then . . . Can you imagine how my Dad will react when I tell him I've got a proper job? He'll probably burst a blood vessel and die from sheer relief.' Happily, Sita dug her nails into the skin of a tangerine.

Nell watched her. ‘None of this has anything to do with that guy Raj in Accounts, has it? I can just see it, after all your years of rebellion, you're going to find a nice Hindu boy, get a reliable job and settle down.'

Sita's eyes were shining. ‘You know what I will do if I take this job?' The peel had come off in one soft piece, spongy as a starfish on the table. ‘I'll book a holiday. An actual holiday. One where I'm not worried I'll miss out on the chance of a lifetime the minute I arrive in the Algarve.'

‘Remember the time I gave in and went to Spain with my Mum and missed the audition for
Twelfth Night
? The director had asked for me specially, I'd done a workshop with her at the Actors' Centre, and I know it's stupid but I still think, that could have been it.' Nell felt sickened, even now, just thinking about it. ‘But maybe it's never like that. Maybe there is no such thing as a lucky break. Maybe you do well, or you don't do well, and that's how it is.'

‘Maybe,' Sita shrugged. ‘But then there are always those stories about someone who didn't work for five years, and then, just when they were about to go and train to be a plumber, it turns out they're the only person in Britain who's right to play Paul McCartney, and suddenly they're in a West End musical, out at the Ivy every night, their wedding paid for by
Hello!
, going, “Oh, yes, I do have various projects in the pipeline, but I'm not sure which one I'll do next.” '

‘So how do people ever give up?' Nell chose a hazelnut and with all her strength pressed down on the flimsy silver ends of the nutcracker. ‘There should be a support group – we could start one – Actors Anonymous.' The nut slipped from its vice and flew across the room. ‘It would be so popular. In fact it's probably why so many actors in LA go to AA. Most of them don't even have a drinking problem. They're actually looking for tips on how to give up acting.' Nell sat back in her chair. ‘Sita. Do you remember when we were in youth theatre, and we did that improvised play about a women's hostel, and that mad director, what was her name, made us all go off and spend the weekend at a battered wives' home?'

‘Sure. But they're not called that any more.'

‘True. It's just this part, it's for a woman – a victim of domestic abuse – who set up the first ever refuge in Australia. It's a film about her life.' Nell had a vision of Sita, as she was then, sixteen years old, sitting with the others in the basement kitchen of the hostel. She had her hair tied high up on her head, as if her mother might have done it, and she was wearing bright make-up, pink lipstick, and eye shadow of variegated blues. They'd all sat around that kitchen table, cradling their mugs of tea, turned away politely from a tall thin woman, newly arrived. The woman was dressed smartly, in dark trousers and a short belted coat, a doctor's wife, they found out later, and she'd stood by the barred window, a handkerchief held up to her nose, her handbag tucked under her arm, and quietly cried.

‘Honestly, what were we thinking?' Sita frowned. ‘Those poor women. Can you imagine? You finally escape your violent relationship only to find seven teenage members of a youth theatre looking you over and taking notes.'

‘We should never have gone.' Nell could still feel the chill of her discomfort, watching the women on cooking duty, stirring metal pots of mince, drifting in and out of the steam of the potatoes boiling, ghostly, preoccupied, sad. ‘I mean, if we could have done anything to help, that would have been different, if we could have made them a meal, or . . . I don't know, entertained them, sung some songs. Remember Binny? She was brilliant on the guitar . . .'

‘
No more, no more
,' Sita began to sing, ‘
no more . . . beating
.'

Nell had forgotten there'd been songs, but unable to resist she joined in on the next line. ‘
Women are not made for . . . hitting
.' Their voices swooped and chimed like Japanese. ‘
Woman are not made for this
.'

‘But what if it was good?' Nell reconsidered. ‘If it made some kind of difference? Even if one person . . .'

‘I suppose that's what we hoped,' Sita agreed. ‘Someone saw it and thought, no, I'll stand up for myself. Get help. Do you remember that girl who'd had to leave her baby?'

Nell had seen her, standing in the hall, holding on to herself so hard her fists were claws.

‘Is that hostel still there, do you think?'

Nell didn't know. How strange to think it might have been there all these years, with its scarred front door, its empty windows, the silent hull of its basement kitchen, while she'd done A levels and struggled through drama school, played a penguin over one entire winter of five a.m. starts, won and lost agents, driven to Edinburgh, the mirror ball sparkling on the back seat of Sita's car, performed fourteen sold-out shows at the festival, had an affair with a comedian. She'd endured ballet classes, tap classes, diets, jogs around the park, productions in cellars and above pubs all over London, and then they'd taken her and Sita's show back up to Edinburgh, where, mysteriously, it had failed. ‘I hope it is still there,' she decided. ‘I just hope it's nicer now, that's all.'

 

Nell expected nothing from the audition.

‘They're seeing
everyone
,' Hettie told her when they bumped into each other on the steps. ‘I was only in there for five minutes. The casting man looked girl-blind.'

‘How are you?' She had on a purple coat with a fake fur collar and she looked more than ever like a little girl, dressed up.

‘Good,' Hettie smiled. ‘I'm doing panto.
Jack and the Beanstalk
. I love this time of year, at least I always work. And you?'

‘Yes.' Nell nodded. ‘All good.' She didn't elaborate. She didn't mention she was still doing shifts at Pizza Express. ‘Have you seen any of the gang?'

‘Umm. Let's think. Samantha. She's not been working much. But she's married. Unbelievable. They moved to Brighton. Jonathan's not too bad. He's helping out at the Terence Higgins Trust. It's a miracle really. These new drugs he's on. And Pierre. My God! Who'd have thought he'd be such a big shot at business? Have you seen his new offices? You know he's done a deal with Saudi Arabia. He's virtually in charge of all the telecommunications in the middle east.'

‘Yes.' Nell beamed. ‘And Dan?'

Hettie clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘Did you not hear? Jemma's pregnant again. With twins!'

‘No.' Nell frowned. ‘But didn't they just have another baby?'

‘I know. It was an accident, apparently. They went away without the children. For the first time in God knows how long, and . . . well . . . they must have got carried away because when they got back . . . last time I spoke to Jem she was in tears . . . but then she cheered up and said at least there'd be lots of people to visit them when they're old.'