by Nigel Planer
‘Well, the whole business is slow at the moment, it’s very hard …’ I was standing in the kitchen near the only decent bottle of wine.
‘That’s exactly what my last agent used to say. He was completely useless too…’ Maybe she thought that this badinage would endear me to her enough to offer her something.
God, I hate going to parties in Islington. I always seem to be the only male not wearing an Afghan hat. In the pubs and on the streets everyone looks at you in that judgemental way peculiar to N1. One wrong item of clothing, one chance remark, and you are branded on the politically correct blacklist. And of course if you drive as opposed to cycle, you must be very careful not to incur the Islington sneer. Your car should not be, as mine is, a Vauxhall Cavalier, or a Sierra or suchlike, which is low on petrol and runs OK, but looks, well, salesmanny, Milton Keynesy, eighties-ish. Classic Saabs which belch black fumes on to the run-down Georgian house fronts are OK, of course. Everything must look run-down, in fact, while costing more to maintain than it does in, say, Wandsworth or Tooting. I say our car was OK, but to compound the awfulness of the weekend, it was at the mender’s with an ironic wiring fault. Yes, I should have fixed it myself like a proper hubby, but it had gone wonky in the week when in Liz’s care, so I hadn’t interfered.
‘Have you tried writing off for work yourself?’ I tried to continue a non-inflammatory dialogue with the cauliflower scoffing actress.
‘That’s what a bloody agent is for, isn’t it?’ she said.
At Mullin and Ketts we get, I’d say, thirty to forty letters a week from actors who want to change their agents, who don’t think their current one is ‘right for them’. I prefer clients who talk to me if they’re unhappy, rather than whinge behind my back at parties and then secretly write to someone else imagining glorious new scenarios. If you don’t know something’s wrong, how can you go about fixing it? Actually, Liz left her previous boyfriend, Andrew, to be with me. Another sign I failed to read. It’s worth remembering that if they can do it for you, then they can do it to you, whoever said that. Actually, I think it was my father who said that. In which case, I take it back.
I asked why this actress had left her previous agent, more out of personal vacuity than out of any genuine interest.
‘I mean, when I was at the British Shakespeare Company I found out that I was on less than what the younger men actors were on, I couldn’t believe it. I mean, it was so totally sexist. And my fucking agent didn’t seem to give a fuck. He just told me they were all playing much bigger parts than me. I mean, as if the number of lines was what it was all about. Soooo fucking petty.’
Being in the British Shakespeare Company, as a woman, and probably one of the only two or three in the minor touring company, and not a leading woman at that, not even the second leading woman, she probably didn’t have very much to say, or do, in the actual plays. It was Shakespeare on a shoestring after all. No doubt she made herself Equity dep.
‘I mean, there I was getting less than some boy just out of drama school, and I came out of drama school ten years ago.
And it shows, I thought. Liz’s friends. Best to keep quiet.
‘Yes, it’s just luck not talent,’ said Liz, joining us.
Well, it’s luck and talent, I thought, and an ambitious killer instinct, and above all an ability to get on with people one way or another, something this woman with the cauliflower obviously needed extra tuition in.
‘Anyway, it got sorted out in the end, but it’s disgusting, women get treated so badly in the theatre.’
Agreed. Agreed. We pride ourselves at Muffin and Ketts that we negotiate very hard for parity between the sexes. It’s true, women are often still paid less than men, even in this business, and we adopted a sort of ‘favoured nations’ policy early on, which helped us gain a reputation as a new up-and-coming agency. But it’s not just that. I actually believe in equality, although of course I wouldn’t say that in so many words for fear of inviting a visit from Dorothy Derision. In theory, if we had equal wages across the board, then I’d be allowed presumably to have some time off to spend with Grace, or with Liz even, were she interested. In practice, it doesn’t seem to work like that — I did try to bring Grace into work a couple of times when she was smaller, but people start to lose faith in your business, acumen with puke all down your lapel.
‘Yes, but don’t you think that if you want to have equal pay, which I agree with you is essential,’ a male voice here, ‘women should be accepting equal responsibility? It’s fine to want to share some power or even have it all, but with that power goes responsibility … I mean, men are still legally expected to support families.
I let Liz and the cauliflower woman continue their Late Show-type discussion with whoever the poor misguided bloke was. Josh Baines I think, the fringe director. A man with alimony and several children to support, no doubt.
Bringing Grace to work really made it hard for Naomi Ketts. I mean, she’s forty-three this year and after fifteen years in the biz and a string of crappy relationships with unsuitable men, she must feel cheated. She desperately wants a baby herself, I know —well, we all know, it’s pretty bloody obvious — and it’s hard enough for her, seeing the picture of Grace on my desk. Knowing Naomi Ketts as I do, though, I suspect she would have liked the baby, but not the life-long commitment to the adult it would turn into. Mustn’t bitch, though, I think she dealt with her envy of Liz very well, considering. She’s only ever once openly expressed it.
It was when Liz was going through the old post-natal depression. The dreaded and denied PND. No one, especially me, was allowed to mention it, let alone suggest she go for some kind of help. It was pretty self-evident however. She would ring the office, sometimes three or four times a day, on my direct line. There would be a couple of seconds’ silence and then a scratchy crocodile of a voice would whisper, ‘I — can’t — cope —Guy. I — can’t — cope.’ Sometimes Grace would be crying her head off in the background and Liz would scream at her, ‘Jeeeeeeeesus Christ. Shut up. Shut uuuuuuup!’ Which of course made Grace redouble her efforts. These were difficult calls to handle, finding a tone that was both genuine and soothing for Liz and yet, at the same time, nonchalant and cheery so that the women in the office would think I was neither some kind of wife-beater nor a hen-pecked patsy.
It was during one of these calls, when Grace must have been about six months old, that Naomi Ketts lost it. A coffee cup hit the wall, some ten-by-eights were flung across the floor and Naomi was heard to say something like ‘That fucking lazy bitch. Why doesn’t she try working for a living!’ before storming out of the office into Old Compton Street for a cool-down, cappuccino and maybe a Danish or two. I sympathized with her sentiment but it’s not true to say that Liz doesn’t work at all. Giving birth and bringing up a baby are hard work, and she does do the occasional fringe show.
One thing I knew tonight, however, was not to enter into this kind of conversation under any circumstances, least of all when out as a couple. Any moment now someone would say, ‘Have you read Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus?’ and then we’d be on to the whole subject of the differences between men and women. Are there any? Are they fair? Does this mean we can all start shagging again?
‘Have you read Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus?’ said Josh Baines, walking into it with hobnail boots.
It’s difficult for an agent to be married to an actress. Particularly one who is not so often in work. Out-of-work actors and actresses have on the whole, amongst themselves, one main subject of conversation, and it is us, the agents, and how awful, crap, money-grabbing and lazy we are. How we do not do enough for them. They do talk a bit about plays and films, and how certain other actors are ‘not right for the part’ or simply ‘can’t do it’, but this soon leads them back to how on earth these lucky actors were given the part in the first place, and from there to talking about agents, and how crap, money-grabbing and lazy we are.
I looked at my watch. In half an hour or s
o it would be time for me to start rounding us up. ‘We have to go because of the baby-sitter.’ Useful things, baby-sitters, on a night like this. Liz would probably want to stay longer, but two cabs from Islington to Fulham is too expensive so we’d definitely have to leave together this time.
It had started to go wrong the moment she gave birth to Grace. During labour a lot of women evidently scream, ‘You put me through this, you bastard, it’s all your fault!’ Liz didn’t, but it was as if she let this thought linger over the ensuing years. As if she nursed a resentment at me for the pain of childbirth, and the ensuing tiredness and depression and, of course, what it had done to her acting career. And how annoyingly dependent having Grace had made her on me. Breadwinner, macho man, two thousand years of oppression — all my fault. The more I tried to help, the more this resentment grew.
It would be wrong for me, or anyone at Mullin and Ketts, to take on Liz, even though professionally she uses her maiden name, Garnet. I am far too close to tell if she’s really any good, for a start. It’s complicated because I don’t think she’s a crap actress, I just fancied her more than I found her work exciting. As an agent, if you meet someone you fancy, you have to make a decision: whether to fuck them or represent them. This is why straight male agents — of whom there aren’t many, actually — end up living with bad actresses. And then came Grace, and suddenly we were no longer two autonomous individuals. No, suddenly we were catapulted into ‘me Tarzan, you Jane’ time: I get the money in, you do all the home stuff. Difficult for us, because Liz is a good two inches taller than me. Definitely a no-win situation, bringing up a kid with a partner and no little trickle of private income. Liz resenting me for being out in the world, having a job, having a willy even, and me envying her time with Grace, the fact that she’s provided for, the way she’s out of the heart-diseasing marketplace. It’d be nice to share it out more evenly but somehow, in this country, no can do. Sometimes I wish I was Swedish. Mind you, their comedy is crap.
On Sunday, the stress of having a weekend off continued unabated. I had suggested we get off the bus and walk the rest of the way home after dropping Grace at her mother’s for the night. To my surprise, Liz had agreed. Surprise, not just because she hated walks but because her usual stance was one of contempt for anything I might suggest, on the grounds, I assumed, that it had been suggested by me. We were walking along the towpath at Fulham. It was Sunday, and the calmness of the trees in the breezeless evening made it possible to ignore the heavy traffic noise from the main road, and Putney Bridge, from which we had just descended. We could talk more quietly now, the playground sandpit was empty of children and beginning to lose heat. It was May 1st, I think. A few young couples played showing-off games along the thick black wall, beyond which the river ambled slowly at depth, while the twinkling reflections on its surface danced hyperactively in the fading light.
Away from the road now, I felt more courageous about speaking to her, I felt I could broach subjects, ask questions. I could forget the bruising attack of the traffic noise, which was now a distant throb.
‘So what did you want to talk about?’ she said in a tone that did not exactly invite a warm response.
The evening was such that I let fear of her customary aggression subside in me.
‘Us,’ I said as a joke, but managed to hang on to my thoughts enough to formulate them into something which resembled coherence, while keeping the Bob Henderson factor temporarily at bay. ‘I would like us to run our lives differently.’
‘I don’t want my life to be “run” by anyone,’ she replied as I could have predicted.
Instead of trying to rephrase my thoughts, try a different track that would be acceptable to her, thus apologizing for my impulse, I felt unusually motivated to continue in my own way. The trees and the river had given me that space, even if Liz had not.
‘I know you are not happy with me. These days I feel like I can’t do anything right.’
‘You don’t even try any more, Guy. Do you?’
I knew she was referring to the fact that I’d stopped making the beds. I always used to make them, but then she would remake them afterwards, neater, with the top cushions at particular angles. After a while, observing this ritual of hers, I stopped bothering.
‘Look, it would take me three hours to make the beds the way you do it. We can’t afford the time. And anyway, I don’t feel the need to be so incredibly, unbelievably tidy as you do.’
‘You don’t have to look at them all day, Guy.’
‘I could give up the agency,’ I said, feeling righteous. We’d been here before.
‘Bollocks,’ she replied. ‘It all has to be so stated with you, doesn’t it? So self-conscious. You can’t negotiate for happiness, you know, I’m not a deal.’
I felt the clanging bell of shame calling me again. D for Dong. D for Liz’s disappointment in me. We lapsed into a silence in which she no doubt returned in her thoughts to her Bob and their times together, while I muffled the hammer of the bell and breathed deeply. The air smelt of beech sap. I tried putting my arm around her. She let it rest there like a yoke while she trudged on like some large pained ox. Hugs and cuddles between us had long ago become the arena for savage disagreements, she maintaining that I saw them only as precursors to sex, whilst I — well, no, she was right there too, I suppose. Clang. ‘We can cuddle as much as you like afterwards,’ I can recall shouting at her through some intervening door or other. Hugs which led nowhere with Liz seemed to me like having diarrhoea with a cork up your bum. It’s funny, because at work I spend half my time hugging people, I really do. It goes with the job. But today, down by the river, I just wanted it to be alright between us. That, and her to tell me about Bob Henderson of her own free will.
‘It’d be good if we could manage to talk, don’t you think?’ I said.
Whether rightly or wrongly, I interpreted her simple lack of response as a tacit agreement. By now, we were approaching the football ground at the gates of the park and soon we would be on the streets again.
‘I need a sign,’ I said. ‘I need something to make it clear to me. A sign.’ I fantasized her breaking down in loving tears and telling me that Bob Henderson was a one-night mistake who had come in under three seconds from a penis so small she’d gone to the opticians the next day.
From the corner of my eye, I had been watching a small flotilla of mallards as they meandered alongside us. They had split now into two groups of three. The two brown females with a pair of males each. Both drakes fussed and fought, each trying to be the one to keep up with their duck, as she changed direction in a coquettish attempt to shake them off. I had learnt, when with Liz, to observe things like the birds and the bees privately, to avoid her comments about anoraks and trainspotters.
In the water, about ten yards from the shore, on the receding tide, stood what looked for a moment like a heron. I remarked on this since herons are not common on that reach of the river.
‘It looks more like the bottom of a tree,’ said Liz. And as usual, she was right. It did look more like a tree. As we strolled closer alongside it, we looked again and for a moment I thought I could see quite clearly that it was the face of a bearded man, still in the water, his body submerged beneath him. From his mouth came a string of what looked like seaweed, but could have been heavy saliva, vomit and twigs. He exhaled hugely, like a snorting seal, and then gracefully and slowly disappeared beneath the surface.
We stopped and waited for him to come up for breath. I scanned the river ahead in the direction of the stream, trying to calculate his speed in the undertow and so predict the area of his re-emergence, but the river remained flat with its sparkling ripples like dragonflies on the surface. Nothing. I ran in the direction of the flow, looking for some trace of him. A hand, an arm, perhaps his head again, further downstream. I climbed the thick black wall and scrambled down to the shore. I made my way back up towards the bridge, skipping across the driftwood and plastic detritus like a horse doing dressage. My feet
were splashing in the shallows now. A couple of teenagers on the top of the wall stopped their kissing to look at me. I shouted to them to look for the man and to point him out to me if I missed him surfacing.
By now I was knee-deep in water and the ground beneath me was lumpy and unpredictable. I would dive in but could not know where the man was. The river was unyielding. He had disappeared. I looked back to where Liz was. She had walked to the steps and was standing at the top of them, calling after me, but I couldn’t distinguish the words. I slipped, as the bottom beneath me descended too rapidly on an incline, and for a moment, I felt the huge power of the undertow of the river, my feet bicycling madly into the freezing black.
The water rushed to my shoulders, its coldness hitting me like a shot of iced Valium, and I was spun around. I must have travelled for some yards before sinking first one foot and then the other into the mud, which squeezed me to my knees. Breathless, and having swallowed some of the Thames, I hauled myself to the shore once again, and stood shivering and muddied.
The teenage girl was alone on the wall now.
‘Are you OK?’ she shouted down.
‘Yeah,’ I piped back, in that high pitch that comes from extreme cold on the testicles.
‘My boyfriend’s gone to call the police,’ she yelled.
‘Good. Did you see the guy?’
‘Naaa.’
I needed to keep moving and ran back to where Liz was standing at the top of the steps. There was a strange man in a shiny yellow shirt hovering just behind her on the path as I came up the steps.
‘I can’t get rid of this guy. He asked me if I was alone and if I would like to go for a drink,’ she said to me as I joined her.
I didn’t have the energy to do anything about the guy, and he hung around, a few yards off, like the second male mallard, looking Liz up and down. I leaned on the wall and gasped for breath.
