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12
Jack
I legged it into the pub, sweating in too many layers and wishing I’d left the flat earlier so that I hadn’t had to run all the way here. I’d made the mistake of putting on a film and had got all engrossed in it. I’d kept promising myself ten more minutes, five more minutes, until I was so close to the end that it would have ruined the whole thing to have stopped it and gone back to it later.
‘Sorry, mate,’ I said to Luke as I dashed behind the bar, slinging my coat into a corner. I ran my hands through my hair. ‘Right, what needs doing?’
The pub had been open for just over an hour and was already filling up with the usual slew of punters. There were all sorts of offices around here: solicitors and dance studios and property management companies; you never knew who was going to come in. It was a decent pub with a mix of loaded, bohemian clientele from Hampstead and Belsize Park and a more discerning bunch who came up from Kentish Town and Camden.
‘Tut, tut,’ replied Luke, tapping his watch. ‘I should put you on a disciplinary for this.’
‘Yeah, right,’ I said, laughing.
Luke had already commandeered the sound system and had put Oasis’ Definitely Maybe on for the one hundred and fiftieth time. Despite being sick of this (admittedly very good) album, I hummed along to ‘Cigarettes & Alcohol’ while I rearranged packets of crisps in a bowl.
‘Since I’m now a duty manager now and all,’ continued Luke, smiling smugly at me.
I did a double-take. ‘You’re a what?’
‘Yep,’ said Luke, tapping a navy blue badge attached to the lapel of his too-big shirt. Now he came to mention it, he did look a lot smarter than usual. ‘Barnaby finally promoted me.’
I leaned against the bar for support. Luke had worked here off and on for twelve years; this was big news.
‘What brought that on?’ I asked, fanning myself and pretending to be overwhelmed.
‘God knows,’ replied Luke. ‘I just said yes before he could change his mind.’
Still in shock, I slapped him on the shoulder, which was the closest we ever got to a hug. ‘I’m pleased for you, mate. Honestly I am. Now, about that disciplinary …’
‘You can wash all those glasses as penance,’ said Luke. ‘I’ve got some paperwork to do,’ he added grandly, picking up a clipboard and disappearing off into the staff area.
I looked around the all-too-familiar bar with its psychedelic patterned carpet and dark wood chairs and tables and the screen we occasionally played big sporting events on; they were particularly keen on Wimbledon around here. Was I, too, destined to work here for over a decade? Would I be promoted to duty manager in ten years’ time, at which point I’d be nearly forty-fucking-one?
Before I could contemplate that distressing thought any longer, the door swung open and a group of guys of about my age strutted in. I recognised one of them immediately: Seb. How could you bump into someone this often in a city of eight million people?
‘Oh hello again, Jack,’ he said, directing his friends to a table in the corner and approaching me in that cocksure way he’d permanently adopted. He hadn’t been like that on his first day at LAMDA. I remembered it vividly; he’d been so nervous when we’d had to perform our audition monologues to our new classmates that I’d been worried he was going to pass out mid-scene. He winked at me. ‘Still working here, then, are you?’
‘Looks like it. What can I get you?’
‘Two rum and Cokes, a pint of Red Stripe and a bottle of Becks. Oh, and throw in four packets of crisps, will you? Any flavour will do.’
I busied myself pouring the beer; measuring out the spirits.
‘Heard from Lightning about the Netflix gig?’ asked Seb, clearly fishing for information.
I glanced up, trying to tell from his facial expression whether he’d got the job and wanted to brag about it or whether he was as much in the dark as I was. I decided on the latter; for somebody who was quite a good actor, he was crap at hiding his emotions in real life. He’d never been able to keep his competitiveness a secret, that was for sure, and I’d seen him seething with envy in his seat on numerous occasions when I’d got a particularly good piece of feedback or a role in the end-of-term play that he’d earmarked for himself. To make it worse, quite often we were up for the same parts. Unlike me, though, Seb had got a couple of big jobs lately that were pushing his career into a whole new playing field. I didn’t suppose he was having to slog it out in a pub to make his rent.
‘Not yet,’ I replied. ‘Bit surprised, actually. Thought I’d at least have got a call-back.’
Mind you, I always thought I deserved a call-back and nine times out of ten I didn’t get one, but you had to believe in yourself, didn’t you, otherwise what was the point?
‘What about you?’ I asked him, sliding the rum and Cokes across the bar.
He picked up one in each hand. ‘Nah, nothing yet either.’
I nodded, momentarily united in disappointment with a fellow actor who was waiting for news, too. If we stopped trying to get one up on each other, we might actually be able to be friends. Although, saying that, he was a bit of a twat. He’d dated half our year at LAMDA at one point or another, and according to some of the girls he’d been out with, he’d been a complete nightmare. I’d never understood what they all saw in him in the first place, or why he felt the need to complicate everything by shagging girls from his own proverbial front doorstep. Life was so much easier when you steered clear of all that. I’d learned my lesson the hard way when I’d got involved with Nathalie, who had at least been in the year above.
‘What’s your next gig, then?’ asked Seb. ‘Got anything lined up?
