Foursome

by Jane Fallon

  As well as the people she has taken on herself since she became AN AGENT! – Mary, Craig and Heather – Lorna was handed the floundering fortunes of four others who Joshua and Melanie no longer had the stomachs to look after, but who they also couldn’t get up the courage to sack. They are: playwright Joy Wright Phillips who once won a young writers award and subsequently had her play staged by the Donmar as part of a new-talent season, but who seems to have been suffering from writer’s block ever since; actors Samuel Sweeney and Kathryn Greyson who tick along with varying degrees of success in regional theatre and, very occasionally, on TV; and ‘personality’ Jasmine Howard who is really a gossip-magazine journalist, but who has found her niche as a pundit, willing to give her views on anything from female circumcision to why she loves the 1980s, so long as the money is right.

  I call Samuel first because one of the messages Kay took for Lorna a few days ago was from a casting director asking him to come in and read for a small part in hospital drama Nottingham General. It’s the first he’s heard of it, but he seems completely unfazed. The audition is the day after tomorrow, he’s free and the fact that it’s such short notice makes no difference to him. He won’t be given the scenes until he gets there anyway. It’s a process he’s used to.

  ‘Oh great,’ he says genuinely. ‘My car’s MOT is due so I could do with the money.’

  Next I pick Jasmine who I figure is the one most likely to actually have something going on in her life.

  ‘Did she ring Phil?’ she says.

  ‘Phil…?’

  ‘Phil Masterson, the producer of London at Six,’ she explains in a tone that suggests I’m an idiot for not knowing which Phil she’s referring to.

  ‘Oh. I have no idea, I’m afraid. Was it urgent?’

  ‘She’s meant to be ringing him every week to see what topics they’ve got coming up. It was her idea, but I haven’t heard from her since she suggested it. There’s no point having good ideas if you’re not going to follow them through. I said to Joshua when he asked if I minded going over to Lorna that it was fine, but she’d better be good –’

  ‘Let me check,’ I interrupt. ‘She probably called him before she was taken ill and then didn’t have a chance to tell anyone about it. She did get taken ill very suddenly.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘Um… they’re not sure yet, actually. She just collapsed. They’re doing tests at the moment.’

  ‘She probably just needs to eat more,’ Jasmine says, a woman after my own heart. ‘She’s way too thin. Don’t you think she’s too thin?’

  ‘Oh, but she had all these symptoms, fever, nausea, a headache. Pins and needles.’ OK, Rebecca, shut up, you’re protesting too much. ‘Listen,’ I say. ‘Let me see what I can find out and I’ll call you back, OK?’

  I give Kay instructions to go through Lorna’s book for the past two weeks to look for Phil’s name. Lorna, Joshua and Melanie all have these books where they write down every call they make and the gist of the conversation. It’s to cover their backs, really, and it works.

  Once when Joshua got into a fight with a TV producer about the finer details of a very complicated contract they were trying to negotiate for one of his actress clients, he had me go right back through his book highlighting every conversation they’d had about it. It took me hours. Later I’d heard him on the phone – ‘On the twenty-fourth of May you agreed that my client could have second billing above the titles and be on a shared card with no more than two others in the end credits. Why would I have agreed to a five per cent drop in the episode fee otherwise?’

  He’d won his corner in the end and the producer had had to concede. He would never have had the leverage, he’d said afterwards, if it hadn’t been for his meticulous – and more importantly contemporaneous – note taking. Recall after the event was never going to be as accurate.

  It feels a little intrusive to be doing forensic tests on Lorna’s book without her permission, but I figure we have no choice. Kay does the deed – again, I assure her that I will accept all blame if necessary – while I call Kathryn Greyson who is sweet and says, no, there’s nothing much going on, but that she will call me if she needs anything. She’s in the florist where she works three mornings a week. I can’t actually remember the last time she had an acting job.

  Lastly it’s playwright Joy Wright Phillips. She takes an age to answer and then, when she does, I realize from the confusion in her voice, that she was still asleep.

  ‘What time is it?’ she says, clearly irritated at being disturbed. I check my watch. ‘Quarter past eleven.’

  ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘I had a late night. I was writing,’ she adds unconvincingly.

  I tell her about Lorna and she says that, no, she wasn’t expecting anything to be happening. Nothing was ever going to happen until she had finished writing something.

  I know all about Joy’s writer’s block even though she tries to pretend it doesn’t exist so I say, ‘I don’t know how you do it. I’d never have the discipline. I think if it was me I’d write first thing. Before I even got dressed or had any other distractions.’ What I know about it I don’t know, but I feel like I ought to say something to help get Joy her mojo back. ‘That way you get it out of the way. It’s not hanging over you for the rest of the day. And I’d work on a computer that didn’t have the internet so I wouldn’t be tempted to check my emails every five minutes or spend all day on Facebook. Anyway…’ I’ve run out of words of wisdom so I decide to shut up.

  Joy doesn’t really respond so I just say goodbye. I know what Craig and Heather are up to so that just leaves Mary. I decide that I can allow myself a quick coffee break. I feel like I’ve achieved an awful lot already this morning – apart from actually doing my own work, of course, that’s piling up on my desk. Kay seems to have finished scrutinizing Lorna’s notebook by the time I get off the phone.

  ‘Well, the good news is that there’s nothing else really in here that hasn’t been dealt with,’ she says, waving the book at me. ‘The bad news is there’s nothing really in here at all. She’s hardly made any notes in the past couple of weeks.’

  ‘No mention of Phil Masterson?’

  ‘None.’

  I decide that Phil is not urgent and that he and Jasmine can wait for a couple of days. That way, if Lorna comes back and looks like she’s got any intention of actually doing anything, then she can call him herself which would be much easier all round.

  Kay and I sit and drink our coffee in silence, staring off into space like two shell-shocked soldiers. I feel quite proud of myself. Everything is under control, all of Lorna’s clients are happy, everyone is where they are meant to be and no one is any the wiser. This feeling lasts for, oh twenty-odd seconds, until I answer the phone and it’s Mary who seems to be in tears. I tell her that Lorna’s sick, blah blah, and I ask her what’s wrong.

  ‘I bumped into Marilyn Carson this morning. She’s casting that new production of A Doll’s House that Elizabeth O’Mara is starring in – and she asked me why I wasn’t at the audition yesterday. So I told her that I didn’t know anything about it and she said that’s a shame because she thought there was definitely a little part in there for me and she’d even suggested they look at me for Nora’s understudy. Understudy Elizabeth O’Mara? Can you imagine? And I said, well, maybe they could see me today or over the weekend; I’d cancel anything that got in the way. But she said they’d already given the part to some other girl because they start rehearsal next week. She said it was a shame because she liked me in my final-year show and it was only a few lines so she thought the director would definitely take a chance on someone new. In fact, he has. The girl they’ve picked has almost no experience at all. And it’s a big regional tour and then almost certainly coming into the West End. A proper paying job, Rebecca. And everyone knows the star always misses a few matinees deliberately to give the understudy a go. Nora? Can you imagine?’

  Oh shit.

  ‘Calm down, Mary,’ I
say. ‘Do you want me to ring Marilyn Carson?’

  ‘There’s no point. Like I said, they’ve offered it already.’

  I have absolutely no idea what to do. I make more elaborate excuses for Lorna, but Mary’s not really in the mood to listen. To a seasoned old pro like Samuel this would be a tiny insignificant blip. One of a thousand parts that have slipped through his fingers over the years for one reason or another. But for Mary it’s a major catastrophe. Marilyn is the only casting director she has even met so far in her short career.

  I know exactly how she feels. In my brief incarnation as an actress-cum-waitress-cum-telesales person I would view every audition as a watershed, the break I needed to really launch me into, at least, being able to drop two of my professions. Every disappointment hit me like a high-speed train and I would fixate on who they had actually given the role to and why. Every other young actress’s triumph was an opportunity missed.

  Mary knows that doing a few lines in A Doll’s House and maybe, if she was incredibly lucky, taking the lead in the odd matinee in front of an audience reeking with disappointment that the woman they had really come to see was apparently sick, wasn’t going to change her life. But it would have been a validation of her decision to call herself an actress, and at her fledgling stage of the game the importance of that can’t be underestimated.

  ‘Listen, Mary,’ I say. ‘You just have to write this one off to bad luck. I’ll call Marilyn anyway, just to make sure that she knows it’s our mess up, not yours. You just have to look ahead to the next audition.’

  I don’t really know what else to say to her.

  ‘There is no next audition,’ she says. ‘Marilyn is the only casting director who’s ever even agreed to see me. Why should anyone else? I have zero real experience.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what, we’ll find you an audition for something else, OK? I promise you I’ll get you in with another casting director if it kills me.’ Kay is looking at me, eyebrows raised. I shrug.

  ‘Leave it with me,’ I say to Mary.

  ‘Don’t go native,’ Kay says once I’ve put the phone down. ‘You’re covering Lorna’s tracks, remember? You’re not actually meant to be doing her job.’

  ‘What else could I say?’ Fucking hell, Lorna.

  For the first time today my newly burgeoning sympathy for Lorna wavers. I have to remind myself that, really, this is all Alex’s fault, and remembering that spurs me on.

  ‘Well,’ I say to Kay. ‘What castings do we know are coming up? I’m going to get Mary in to see somebody. How hard can it be?’

  I know Marilyn at least to speak to. I must have spoken to her a hundred times over the years.

  ‘Oh, hi, Rebecca,’ she says in a friendly voice. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Good,’ I say unconvincingly. ‘I’m just calling to apologize about Mary Fitzmaurice.’ I go into the whole poor Lorna’s sick routine and, of course, Marilyn’s absolutely fine about it. Why wouldn’t she be? It’s not her who’s missed out on a job.

  ‘The thing is, Marilyn, I need to get Mary into another casting. This has knocked her confidence a bit. Do you have anything else coming up?’

  ‘Not really. I’m doing Journey’s End next, which is all boys… but tell her not to worry. I’ll have her in again next time there’s something relevant. She shouldn’t panic.’

  ‘I know. But you know what it’s like. Thanks, though.’

  I follow my call to Marilyn with five calls to other casting directors who are apparently also looking for people at the moment. No one is very interested in seeing an actress who has no track record and who they’ve never met. I agree to let them all know when there’s something they can see her in and they all agree to see her for a quick general meeting after that if they think she’s any good in it. I tell them she’s great even though I’ve never seen her act, and then leave it at that. It’s something.

  While I’m talking to one of them, Paul Seeborne, Joshua comes into reception and hovers around looking for something in one of the filing cabinets. I’m in full flow – ‘We think she’s got great potential as a young character actress. She’s got something of Samantha Morton about her, that edginess…’ – when I realize he’s there and I stop abruptly and say, ‘Anyway, I’m sure Lorna will get back to you as soon as she’s back,’ which must confuse Paul enormously because, so far as he’s aware, he has nothing he needs to be talking to Lorna about. ‘OK, well, thanks. Bye,’ I say, and I put the phone down before he can respond. Joshua shows no sign of having witnessed anything untoward so I figure I’ve got away with it for now. I really must go and hide in Lorna’s office before I make any more calls.

  ‘Settling in OK?’ Joshua says to Kay, not really interested in the answer.

  ‘Yes. It’s a real eye-opener,’ she says, smiling at him. ‘An education.’

  ‘Good, good,’ he says, and he rushes off again, thankfully with no idea of what she’s referring to.

  By the end of the day I’m exhausted. I feel like I need to be taken home on a stretcher and put straight to bed, but instead I’m heading off to Isabel’s because we arranged a girly night in days ago and I haven’t the heart to cancel.

  The girls, with no William to torment, are the model of sweetness and good behaviour. They help with the vegetables for dinner and then, once we’ve eaten, sitting around the big kitchen table, they offer to load the dishwasher. I tell Izz about my day while they clear up and fetch us glasses of wine like two mini waitresses. I’m much more interested to hear her news, but I know I have to wait for the twins to decamp to their room at the top of the house before I can bring up the subject of Luke.

  Isabel lives in a proper house – three storeys and a cellar that, while not enormous, could fit our little flat into it several times. Despite that, the girls have always insisted on sharing a room, so Alex knocked down the walls between two tiny attic bedrooms and now they inhabit the top storey like a pair of very loud mice. They go off promising not to watch too much TV and to come down promptly at half past eight to say goodnight, and Isabel and I move into the comfortable sitting room, taking the bottle with us.

  ‘I don’t really understand why you’re helping her out,’ she says when I’ve finished bringing her up to date with events at the office, including a version of Alex’s drunken visit. ‘She’s always been horrible to you.’

  ‘I know, neither do I really. But she’s completely fallen apart and I just think if she loses her job then she’s got nothing. She might be vile sometimes but no one deserves to be treated the way Alex treated her. She’s heartbroken. And I suppose I feel responsible in a way. If I hadn’t introduced them…’

  ‘Well, I hope she’s grateful.’

  I laugh. ‘She won’t be.’

  ‘Don’t get yourself in deep water, will you?’ Isabel says, suddenly serious. ‘It’s all very well trying to cover up her fuck-ups, but if she doesn’t come back in a couple of days you’re going to have to come clean with Joshua and Melanie.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘She’ll probably be back tomorrow anyway,’ I add, although I don’t believe it. I can’t imagine Lorna just pulling herself together and breezing back in somehow.

  ‘So…’ I say to her once we’ve exhausted the subject of Lorna. ‘How’s love’s young dream?’

  She smiles. ‘It’s good. I’m having fun.’

  She and Luke have been out again since I last saw her, this time to a small local bistro. They had gone back to hers again, only this time Luke made sure she was aware that he wasn’t going to be able to stay over before they left the restaurant.

  ‘He had to get to St Pancras first thing to get on the Eurostar,’ she tells me, ‘so he needed to get home and pack.’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘Miles away. He’s taken a flat in Teddington while he waits for the divorce to go through and they decide what to do with the house. He did ask me if I wanted to go back there, but it seemed crazy
when we were just round the corner from here. And, besides, I would have had to come back here before work to get ready anyway.’

  ‘Fair enough. But it was fun? You had a good time?’

  ‘Definitely. He makes me feel… I don’t know… desirable and all that stuff. I need that after Alex. He never really made me feel attractive.’

  I nod. ‘You do.’ The more I hear about Isabel’s marriage to Alex the more I’m amazed that I could ever have been so blind.

  ‘I hope that Alex is OK, though,’ she says, veering off the subject. ‘I mean, being drunk in the day, getting aggressive. It’s not like him at all. I’m worried about him, now he’s got no one…’

  Isabel still has a tendency to look wistful and concerned whenever Alex is mentioned, which after the way I now know he treated her is pretty laughable.

  ‘Tell me more about Luke,’ I say, wanting to get her off the subject. It makes me uneasy. She needs to move on and, surely, Luke is the perfect vehicle to move on in.

  ‘His son is called Charlie. He’s ten. I haven’t met him yet, but I’ve seen his picture and he looks cute. He lives with his mum in Highgate. They moved from round here last year, but the school agreed that Charlie could stay on. He has ADD, I think, so he would have found it hard to settle in somewhere new and he leaves next year anyway. Luke’s forty-four. He’s got brown hair. Lots of hair, actually. And brown eyes and a really sweet smile that he does all the time, like he knows something funny that no one else does. He’s into music and films and stuff, and cars, although I told him I couldn’t drum up any enthusiasm about that so he doesn’t go on about them. He’s funny and clever and I fancy him like crazy.’