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38
Jack
I walked from the station to the TV studios, taking my time. I’d been called for 10.30 and it was only 9.35. I hadn’t been able to risk getting the later train out to Elstree, because if it had been delayed, I would have been cutting it very fine indeed. It was better, I’d thought, to arrive in a cool, calm and collected manner, even if it meant hanging around a bit. Besides, this way I’d get to spend longer in the green room. I might get to see some of the other actors, people I’d watched on TV myself since the show had started god knows how many years ago. I’d been a teenager, I knew that. I’d never managed to watch a whole episode, mind you, because my mum would generally sweep in and switch the channel to some boring documentary about art or fashion, the kind of thing that she felt I should be watching. The kind of programmes that her pretentious interior designer friends liked. She’d always say: Get this rubbish off and I’d protest that I was enjoying it, but to no avail. Dom had never stuck up for me, either, because he’d been in his room 24/7 playing FIFA on his PlayStation. He was obsessed with football, which, according to my dad, was what boys should be interested in. Not dance or drama, Jack.
I hovered around on High Street for about ten minutes, parking myself on a bench outside Tesco Extra so that I could read over my script again. I remembered how impressed Rebecca had been. I could do this. I knew the lines and I was confident that I was about to give the performance of my life. I thought that this was probably the point at which my career took a much-needed upward turn. I’d do well at this job and then the casting director would get me in for something else at the BBC. A bigger part. And then the next step, surely, would be the thing I coveted most: a series regular role. I’d be making serious money. I’d be doing interviews in the Radio Times and covers for TV Choice and I’d be part of something. I’d hang out with the cast and crew, we’d become close, I’d have everything I’d ever wanted. And my dad would have to eat his words, which would be the ultimate triumph.
I went through security, was ticked off a list and given a visitor’s lanyard and then directed to one of the buildings I could see at the end of the driveway. As I walked along, I recognised sets I’d seen on other TV shows. A building I remembered from a drama series set in a school. A square I recognised from EastEnders. My heart started thumping in my chest. My mouth was dry, so I swigged at my bottle of water. I couldn’t work out if I was nervous or excited. It felt like this was where I deserved to be. Now all I had to do was show them what I could do.
I was perched on a low sofa in the green room. There was a pool table in the centre of the room, a drinks machine and a smattering of chairs and cushions and lamps which made it look like a cosy, communal place to hang out. Presumably the regular actors had their own dressing rooms as well. God, I dreamed of having my own dressing room.
‘Jack?’ said a girl appearing next to me wearing a headset and khaki cargo pants.
I threw the script down on the sofa, looking up at her, attempting to exude a professional yet relaxed vibe. ‘Hi. Yes,’ I said, smiling inanely at her.
‘We’ll get you into wardrobe as soon as we can. We’re running a little bit behind schedule, so bear with us, OK?’
I nodded vigorously. ‘Sure, sure, no problem. Whenever you’re ready.’
‘Anything I can get you?’ she asked.
Before I could answer, her walkie-talkie crackled and she began talking into her headset.
‘I’ll get it from his dressing room right now. Does he want the blue one or the grey?’
And then she was off without so much as a glance in my direction.
I spent the next couple of minutes fantasising about which actor had demanded something from his dressing room and wondering what this thing was in muted colours that he couldn’t do without. I then extended my fantasy out, so that I was a well-known TV actor who could ask runners and production assistants to fetch me things (what things I didn’t know) from my dressing room. I thought it might feel weird if it was something I was perfectly capable of getting myself.
I looked up as three actors I recognised tumbled into the room. I pretended to check messages on my phone whilst secretly listening in on their conversation. Something about a barbecue on Sunday. Someone – the actor who played Doctor Brian Keene, whose real name I couldn’t remember – said the weather wasn’t supposed to be good, that April was too early for barbecues. The woman said maybe she’d get catering in instead.
I dared to look at them. They were fully made up ready for set, stethoscopes round their neck. They all played doctors and had done for years. They were older than me, mid-forties perhaps, and I thought that if I carried on as I was, I was bound to be in their position at some point. If I continued to work hard, then that could be me in a few years’ time.
Several hours later, I was still perched on the sofa. I’d been to wardrobe and was now dressed in a red and white checked shirt and a pair of chinos. My hair had been flattened and brushed into a neater, teacher-like style with a side parting and was held in place with copious amounts of wax. I didn’t dare move an inch for fear of creasing my costume, or brushing a hair out of place.
I’d watched various cast members waltz in and out, grabbing coffees, or the younger ones would have a game of pool. I’d overheard conversations about a script one of them had taken umbrage with, somebody’s crap agent, somebody else’s sick dog. Not one of the cast had even looked in my direction. So much for wanting to feel part of something: I felt completely invisible.
‘They’re ready for you, Jack,’ said the girl with the headset. She looked even sweatier than she had several hours ago, presumably having spent the day rushing between the dressing rooms, the set and the green room. I smiled encouragingly at her, hoping she could feel my empathy, and stood up. I took one last look around. I was as good as these people. I could do this.
This was only my second job for a network show and as we walked along a series of corridors and up a flight of stairs towards the set, my heart began to race. As we rounded a corner to the set, I saw that there were more people involved than I’d remembered from my last TV gig, twenty or so of them, all immersed in important-looking tasks, like plugging in cables and adjusting lights. A group of them were gathered around the cameras; somebody else was rearranging the fruit on top of a bedside cabinet. The director, a cocky-looking guy in his mid-thirties, was reviewing something on a monitor and then barking orders at the lighting department. The girl who was presumably playing my half-dead pupil was lying on the bed connected to mock monitors. I got a sudden flashback to Clive and wondered what he would think of all this. And Rebecca. What would she say? Would she tell me I could do it? That this was what I was trained to do, that I was as capable as any of these people?
‘Have we got the actor playing the teacher?’ said someone whose job I didn’t know but seemed to be the assistant director from what I could tell.
I raised my hand. ‘Here,’ I said, stepping forward, feeling as though I was facing a firing squad rather than a film crew. My character did have a name. Peter Walsh. Somehow that felt important.
‘Can we have you in position?’ the guy said, beckoning me over.
I said a quick hello to my ‘pupil’, who couldn’t talk because she had a fake tube in her mouth. I ran my lines over in my head as they clipped a mic to the inside of my shirt and the make-up lady powdered my face and somebody waved a boom over my head. Nobody introduced themselves. And before I could focus, catch my breath, I heard the director say Action.
I imagined the smell of a hospital ward and, although it was completely silent, the sounds I might hear. I put myself in the shoes of Peter Walsh, a new teacher who had been distracted for a few minutes by a pupil misbehaving and hadn’t noticed that somebody had fallen into the water and was in trouble. I took the girl’s hand. My first line was on the tip of my tongue. I looked poignantly at the heart monitor to buy myself some time because my mind had gone completely blank. What was the fucking line? Panic flashed through me.
I shifted position, filling the silence by picking up her notes from the end of the bed and pretending to scan through them. I imagined myself in the pub, with Rebecca sitting next to me with her sweet, encouraging face. The line came to me immediately. I opened my mouth to say it—
‘Cut!’ shouted the director.
I coughed. ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled, shaking my head. Seriously, was I really doing this now? Messing up my one big break? Not managing to say the eight very simple lines I’d been assigned?
The assistant director came scuttling over. ‘Do you need me to give you your first line?’ he asked, looking worried.
