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4
Jack
I took a sharp left out of Tottenham Court Road tube with the extra scenes that I’d finally got hold of this morning (thanks to Rebecca getting her act together) clutched in my hand. I was pretty much off-page, but I was never completely confident about it. Some casting directors didn’t mind you having the script in your hand, anyway, as long as you didn’t bury your face in it the entire time; others found it massively unprofessional if you hadn’t learned the whole thing off by heart, no matter how many scenes, no matter how little time you’d had to work on it. I was crap at learning lines, as it happened, and it didn’t seem to be getting any easier. I tried to be kind to myself. I couldn’t help being dyslexic, could I? It was just that nobody really knew that, so whenever I messed up, it probably looked as though I’d been lazy and hadn’t bothered to put in the hours. Chad had warned me, very early on, that I should never, ever mention the dyslexia. They’ll think you’ll be problematic and cast somebody else, he’d warned me gravely. I wasn’t convinced that this was true, not anymore, but Chad shut me down whenever I tried to bring it up.
My throat was dry, so I stopped at a kiosk, baulking at the fact that a bottle of Volvic cost twice as much here as it did anywhere else because we were in tourist-central. A scrappy piece of paper stuck to the card machine stated that you needed to spend over five pounds for a card transaction. I picked up a packet of crisps that I didn’t really want and two Kit-Kats that I did but probably shouldn’t have and added them to my haul.
‘Five ninety-five,’ mumbled the guy behind the counter, digging out a flimsy blue plastic bag.
I tapped my card and waited, trying not to think about the fact that I could have got nearly two whole meal deals for that from Boots.
‘Declined,’ said the shopkeeper, scooping my stuff up and chucking it behind the counter as though I was going to try to grab it and run.
Highly embarrassed, I skulked off, still thirsty, pulling my coat around myself and feeling utterly fucked off. My finances were in a worse state than I’d realised. At this rate, I’d have to ask for even more shifts at the pub, which would leave even less time for auditioning and potentially rehearsing. It seemed unlikely that Barnaby – the landlord, who had clearly never struggled for cash in his life and who wasn’t overly empathetic to my plight as a struggling actor trying to make a living in London – would give me an advance on my wages. He wasn’t usually forthcoming about such things, but it was worth a try.
I turned onto Soho Street, looking for the address Chad had given me. After two full circuits of the square, I finally pushed through the revolving glass doors of Lightning Productions, which were so well hidden that you might have thought you were entering MI5 headquarters.
They’d clearly tried to create a certain vibe in the reception area, with soft new-age music piping out of gigantic speakers and a black buddha with water trickling out of its belly button (which was plain weird) taking pride of place in the centre of the foyer. The desk looked as though it had been chiselled out of a rock face and dropped casually into the building. A girl wearing a tailored, grey jacket with what appeared to be nothing underneath was glued to her computer screen.
‘Hi,’ I said, walking confidently over to her. ‘Jack Maxwell for the Lightning Productions casting?’
The girl, who was probably bored stiff and hating on her job, sighed (I wasn’t sure why) and began dragging an electric blue fingernail up and down a list of typed names on a piece of paper.
I ripped my coat off, flinging it over my arm. Why was it so hot in here?
‘Everything all right?’ I asked, concerned that I’d got my timings wrong or that there had been a devastating admin error and Chad had messed up and I wasn’t supposed to be here at all. The names were mostly typed, but a few had been scrawled onto the bottom in green felt tip.
‘There you are,’ she said at last.
I was disappointed to see that I was one of the green additions. In other words, not quite good enough for the main list. This was, I’d realised some time ago, the story of my life.
‘Fourth floor,’ she said, her eyes pinging back to her screen. ‘Somebody will meet you there.’
I crossed the foyer to get to the lifts. A gold plaque detailing all the businesses in the building had been erected proudly on the wall – there were several theatrical agents, a couple of production companies and two casting offices. I took a deep breath, taking in my surroundings; being somewhere like this always made me feel like a proper, working actor. Sufficiently hyped up by that thought, I got into the lift and checked myself out in the mirror. Chad had said to dress with a hint of the character, which I already knew you had to do for TV and film castings and didn’t need him to tell me. This didn’t mean that if you were auditioning for the part of a doctor, for example, you had to wear a white coat with a stethoscope hung around your neck, but you might wear a shirt and tie.
The role I was up for today was a soldier called Samuel who had returned from Afghanistan with both post-traumatic stress disorder and some vital information on a known terrorist. Luckily for me, Samuel was supposed to be edgy and traumatised, so I could use the fact my stomach was doing somersaults and magnify my real emotions for the scene. That was the theory, anyway. I’d worn a pair of beige cargo pants with a white T-shirt, which was now damp under the arms thanks to the heat blasting out of every orifice of the building. My hair was too long and floppy and I wished I’d followed my instincts and shaved it off. It hardly said military like this, did it?
The lift doors opened with a ping and several pairs of eyes looked furtively in my direction. My heart dropped when I saw that the two guys sitting on the sofa looked like a more attractive version of me. They were in their early thirties like I was, had dark hair (like I did, but theirs was styled to within an inch of its life) and buff bodies (not like me) housed in tight T-shirts. Once they’d realised I didn’t pose much of a threat, they went back to whatever it was they’d been doing before I’d arrived.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a girl with a clipboard came bounding up to me like an overexcited Springer Spaniel.
‘Jack Maxwell?’ she said.
I nodded. ‘Yep, that’s me.’
‘Take a seat,’ she instructed. ‘We’re running pretty much to time, so we shouldn’t be long.’
‘Great,’ I replied, forcing a smile.
I sat down next to a guy I recognised but couldn’t think where from. I nodded a hello.
‘All right?’ said the guy.
His voice was rich and silky and he seemed completely relaxed, as though he was having a beer in a friend’s living room and not at an audition for an amazing project that had the potential to change everything.
Samuel was one of the leads; I’d be in every episode if I got the role. This was the kind of thing you read about in the quality Sunday supplements when actors did their first big round of interviews; how it had felt surreal to be offered the part. How I’d known the script was special from the off. How I was still getting used to people asking for my autograph in the street.
I coughed and looked down at my script, reading through my notes.
