by Jess Ryder
‘Somebody’s got to do the paperwork, and you’re so good at that kind of thing.’ Isobel paused her toast-buttering to check her friend’s expression. ‘And I’m going to be directing the show, so it makes sense for me to cast.’
‘You want to direct? But I thought it was going to be group-devised.’
‘Come on, we all know that never works in reality.’
Cara knew she’d been outmanoeuvred, but there was nothing she could do about it. In truth, she was good at the paperwork and Isobel had directed shows for Drama Soc at university. It made sense to share out the responsibilities in this way. She just wished they could have had a proper discussion about it and reached a joint decision. She tried to put the matter to the back of her head. The auditions were more important and she couldn’t bear even the thought of falling out with Isobel. In all the years of their friendship they hadn’t had a single disagreement about anything – something they were both very proud of.
To their surprise, only half the number of actors they’d called to the first session actually turned up.
‘I don’t care,’ said Isobel. ‘I’d rather have people with commitment.’
She had forbidden any discussion of the candidates until everyone had been seen, but Cara thought she’d already worked out who were her favourites: a young man called Toby, who campaigned regularly with CND; and an older woman from Manchester called Gina, who clearly knew a lot about the Arts Council and getting funding from charities. Ideally, Isobel wanted to recruit three people, making five of them altogether. She liked odd numbers because it meant the group couldn’t split down the middle.
‘Let’s hope there’s somebody good in the last session,’ said Cara, turning over a new page on her notepad.
They had a full turnout for the final workshop of the day, and soon Isobel was putting them through their warm-up stretches and vocal exercises. Cara, installed behind the card table in the corner, pen poised over the paper, tried to think of something insightful to write about each candidate. But so far, she’d found herself only looking at one person.
You couldn’t call him handsome, not even fashionably so, but he was ugly-beautiful: thick, unkempt black hair, pale, almost transparent skin, and a slightly broken nose. Cara caught glimpses of him darting like an insect between a forest of bodies – bare, skinny arms and bony legs wrapped tightly in black jeans. He was tall and slightly built, with the haunted look of somebody who didn’t eat properly and spent a lot of time in darkened rooms.
If I put my arms around him I would be able to feel his ribs, thought Cara, and immediately blushed inside. He looked a couple of years younger than her and wasn’t even her type; how could she be thinking about touching him? Nothing about this boy invited intimacy. He was wearing a grubby sleeveless T-shirt featuring a stick-man hanging from a gallows. She wondered whether he’d worn it deliberately or whether it had been the only clean thing available, and found herself wanting to know, because either way, it would reveal something about his character.
Isobel sat everyone down in a circle and gave them her well-rehearsed spiel about Purple Blaze taking provocative new work to people and places up to now ignored by the theatrical establishment. She kept saying ‘I’ instead of ‘we’ and if Cara hadn’t been so distracted she would have felt hurt by the exclusion. She surreptitiously read the boy’s application again. His name was Jay. Whether that was his first or last name, he wasn’t prepared to divulge. He’d left school with only two O levels, was currently unemployed and lived in a part of Birmingham Cara hadn’t heard of – in other words, he was their target audience, the disenfranchised proletariat, supposedly hungry for culture but until now unable to access or afford it. He’d sent them a short hand-written letter with no photo or CV attached, the facts unembroidered, the tone cool with not a hint of begging. Cara had initially rejected him for being too young and inexperienced, but Isobel had thrown him back onto the pile because he was local and ‘real’.
As the session wore on, Cara dutifully jotted down comments against every name on the list – ‘stiff and physically bound’, ‘probably not a team player’, ‘definite maybe’, ‘sorry, just don’t like her’. She didn’t write a thing next to the boy’s name, just drew a big hairy asterisk and doodled around it until she’d covered the page.
And then the workshop was over and all the auditionees were leaving, congratulating Isobel on the amazing session she’d run, and reaffirming their commitment to coming to live in Birmingham and working for nothing for as long as it took to get Purple Blaze off the ground. Only Jay left without making a final gushing plea, putting on his heavy black boots and tying the laces in silence, looking up only once to meet Cara’s insistent gaze – as if he’d known she’d been staring at him all afternoon.
‘I think Jay’s definitely a possibility,’ Cara declared later, trying not to betray her keenness.
‘Yes, he was by far the best,’ Isobel agreed, opening a bottle of wine to celebrate. ‘Goes by gut instinct, doesn’t over-think everything. You can spot the university graduates a mile off. Too intellectual, too competitive. And the drama school ones can’t improvise. I like his vulnerability – it’s attractive don’t you think? He might not hack it, but he’s worth a try. He’s got it, that thing. He’s watchable.’
‘So you think we should offer him the job? I know it’s not actually a job, but you know what I mean…’
‘Definitely. He’ll still be on his way home, but we can ring him later.’ Isobel put down her glass and smiled. ‘Actually, why don’t you ring him? It’ll sound more official coming from you.’
‘Okay.’ Cara felt a thrill course through her body, like she’d just stepped onto a fairground ride. Excited and afraid. She couldn’t explain it, daft really…
Chapter Nine
Jay
Now
He blinks at the dance of fuzzy coloured lights from cars and shops and street lamps as the day cross-dissolves into evening. He hates driving the minibus, especially in Camden, and especially when it’s full of rowdy students, joking and arguing with each other, behaving like kids on their way to the seaside. Time’s running out, so he drops the students off at the front door of the theatre and goes to find a place to park.
‘Jesus Christ!’ He beeps the horn as a young man appears from behind a parked car and saunters across the road right in front of him, hands in pockets, head down, not even looking up once to check that it’s safe. Yet whose fault would it be if he got knocked over? Nobody takes responsibility any more. If they scrape your car in a car park they just drive away, don’t leave a note or anything. That’s why he’s given up his Fiesta – the insurance was crazy, he could never park outside his front door and he lost count of the number of times the wing mirror was knocked off. You didn’t need a car in London anyway.
A small van suddenly pulls out of a space a few cars ahead of him and his stomach knots. Will someone else get there first? Will the space be big enough for the twelve-seater? He flicks on the left indicator and stops just beyond the space, but the guy in the car behind either isn’t concentrating or doesn’t care and drives right up to his back bumper, leaving him no room to reverse.
‘Bastard!’ He peers into his rear mirror; he can’t make out the driver in the growing darkness, but he’d like to get out and punch him. He looks at the clock – how can it already be five past seven? Cars behind start sounding their horns. Nobody’s prepared to back up; he has no choice but to move on.
He turns into the next side street and finds a nice juicy space a hundred yards further down. Maybe he’ll make it after all. He locks up the minibus and starts retracing his route with long, impatient strides. He’s sweating under his overcoat, the cold wind snatching at his breath, but he quickens his pace all the same, turning onto the main road. Commuters are emerging from the tube, slowing him down as they pause to check their phones. He shoves his way past, sidestepping like a rugby player with his eye on the try line. Squints at his watch. Seven fourteen; there’s still time. Just.
Why did he wait for the latecomers? Why didn’t he take the students on public transport instead? Or better still, tell them to make their own way? They’re all seventeen or eighteen, for Christ’s sake, they’re not babies, but you have to wipe their arses or they won’t do anything. He might have known that their appalling punctuality would conspire to fuck it up, although they had no idea how important tonight was for him. They thought they were just seeing the opening performance of a new play directed by someone they’d never heard of. How he’d enjoyed their vacant shrugs at the mention of her name; their ignorance had comforted him. And God bless the Arts Theatre for ‘reaching out’ to the community with free tickets for local college students and a first-night drinks reception for heads of department. Not that he was a head of department – Isatu had been busy tonight and asked him if he wouldn’t mind stepping in. Wouldn’t mind?! He’d nearly kissed her. For once in his life all the stars had lined up in his favour. He’d had his hair cut and nostrils trimmed; spent days planning what to wear, what he was going to say, how he was going to do it. This was the best opportunity he’d had in years to get to her.
Isobel Dalliday.
She’d always been there, lurking in the shadowy corners of his mind. When they parted company over thirty years ago, he knew they hadn’t quite done with each other. He heard that she’d sold the house (well, who wouldn’t after what happened?) and moved to London, no doubt in search of the fame and fortune she’d always believed was rightfully hers. He’d had to get out of Birmingham, choosing London for opposite reasons, seeking anonymity and finding it easily enough. He gave up his non-existent acting career and went to college to get some qualifications; stopped insisting everyone only called him by his cool, monosyllabic surname and returned to his first name, Christopher, shortening it to Chris. He started behaving like he thought a guy called Chris should: quiet, calm, private but not unsociable. Unthreatening. Normal. Forgettable. He grew into the part; sometimes even playing ‘Chris’ when he was on his own. It really helped with the anger management. So much so that there were days when he hardly clenched his fists, when he only thought about it a few times; in his solitary moments, when he was on his way to work, or trying to get to sleep.
For seventeen years he heard nothing of Isobel Dalliday, which, to be honest, surprised him. He started to wonder whether she’d gone abroad, or got cancer, or been killed in a car accident. As much as he liked the idea of Isobel being dead, he preferred the explanation that she’d left the theatre and was stuck in some mind-numbingly boring job. His fantasies spurred him on. In those seventeen almost-happy years, he put himself through teacher training, got a job in further education, saved up a deposit and bought a small flat. He dared to think that maybe, just maybe, Chris Jay had turned out to be the success and Isobel Dalliday the failure.
Then everything came crashing down – in an instant, when he was totally unprepared. He’ll never forget how it happened, every single detail branded into his memory. He was in the staffroom, moaning about how hard it was to find material that was relevant to a group of mostly BAME students, when a colleague suggested a play she’d recently seen at the Royal Court and handed him a copy of the script. He started flicking through the pages, idly, just to get a feel for the dialogue. It looked promising, so he checked the cast list to see how many actors were needed and her name shot out from the page, stabbing him in the eyes.
Isobel Dalliday had directed the first production. Or, as he’d come to refer to her in his thoughts, Isobel Fucking Dalliday. It had to be her, it couldn’t be anyone else with the same sunny, irrepressible name. Isobel Fucking Dalliday had become an associate director at one of the most dynamic, cutting-edge, highly regarded theatres in the whole country, maybe even the world.
He’d been living in a state of permanent envy and hatred ever since, watching her career rise to ever greater heights, with her Evening Standard Theatre Awards, her thousands of Twitter followers and her much-appreciated support for popular causes like climate change and female genital mutilation. Not only that, she’d become a celebrity dyke – she and her girlfriend Alice Anderson among the first to have a civil partnership and then to get married.
Oh yes, everyone loved Isobel Dalliday, even more so now that she was ‘giving back’. She’d spurned the National Theatre and the RSC. Now she was only interested in doing creative work with London’s disenfranchised ‘youff’ – the more multicultural, poverty- stricken and inner-city the better. That was when it all got too much. Because it was exactly what he’d been doing for the last twenty-odd years, although nobody gave a shit about that; nobody even knew. Only clever, talented, beautiful people like Isobel Dalliday could make the world a better place. Now she was going to single-handedly stem the flow of Islamic radicalisation by founding a citywide festival of young people’s theatre, including a playwriting competition for under-25s. Yup. Isobel Dalliday (OBE for services to theatre) had even stooped to direct the winning play, written by a Muslim teenage girl and performed by young, local amateurs. There’d been an item on the local news, articles in the Guardian; the London glitterati were wetting their pants with right-mindedness. Tonight is the big opening night, with champagne and samosas and journalists from all the quality broadsheets. And he’s going to piss all over it.
Jay pauses outside the theatre to compose himself. When he’s nervous, his voice squeaks, and he wants to make sure that doesn’t happen tonight. He clears his throat and makes his entrance. To his surprise, the foyer is empty save for a few stragglers. How come? He glances at his watch: it’s only twenty past, ten minutes to go until curtain-up. Maybe the audience are so eager they’ve already gone in to take their seats.
He looks about for the VIP drinks reception. It’ll be in some discreet corner, roped off from the public – it’s probably taking place in the upper foyer, he thinks, reaching into his breast pocket for his invitation and bounding up the stairs. His heart is thumping. Isobel will still be there, holding court, waiting to be escorted into the auditorium at the last moment like the queen. He reaches the top step and halts. He can see the white-clothed tables, the red rope cordon. But the only person there is a waiter, stacking empty wine glasses and bowls of peanut dust onto a tray.
Jay marches up aggressively. ‘Where is everyone?’
‘Watching the show, of course,’ says the waiter. Jay stands there, his brain whirring. But they can’t be. They can’t be. ‘It’s press night. We always start at seven on press night.’
‘But it says seven thirty on the ticket! I’m sure it does!’ He takes out his ticket and stares at it. Fuck. How could he have been so stupid?
‘If you ask the steward, she’ll let you in when there’s a—’
‘I don’t care about the fucking play. I haven’t come for the fucking play.’
‘Members of staff should not be subjected to verbal or physical abuse,’ the young man recites, adding, ‘and I’m not even paid. I’m a volunteer.’ He points to the large white V on his purple T-shirt.
‘Fuck!’ Jay picks up a bottle and pours wine into a glass with the remains of red lipstick around the rim. The volunteer opens his mouth to protest, then seems to think better of it, shuffling off down the stairs with the loaded tray.
Jay swallows the wine quickly and then drains the bottle. After all the build-up, the planning and preparation, the hours spent going over his lines only to be let down so cruelly – fuck it, he deserves a drink. He looks towards the auditorium door. At least he knows where the enemy is: no more than a few yards away, sitting in the darkness with no idea that he’s on the other side of the wall. He has her trapped; all he has to do is wait for the interval. Impossible that she could come out of the auditorium without seeing him. But… there’ll be hundreds of people milling around, the great and good of Camden pressing around her; he’ll have to barge his way through the crowd and get her attention above the chattering teenage throng. It won’t work, or even worse, it’ll go off at half-cock. She might not reco
gnise him immediately; she might not hear what he’s saying. If he’s going to do it, he’s going to do it properly. She has to know it’s him and she has to be terrified.
Another chance will come. He just has to be patient.
Chapter Ten
Me
It’s a beautiful day, the air so clean and sharp it sticks to my tongue as I come out of the railway station. There’s a small taxi rank and I only have to wait a few minutes before a white minicab pulls up. I climb into the back and ask the driver to take me to Berryfield.
I spoke to Eliot last night. He got the job at Heartlands and has been promoted to detective sergeant on Cold Case Review. He called me from his new one-bed flat in Birmingham, his voice echoing as he walked around, his shoes clipping the laminate flooring like some out-of-time tap dance.
‘What’s the place like?’ I asked, thinking it sounded empty and dismal.
‘It’s fine. Half the rent I’d pay in London and I can walk to work.’
‘Let me have your new address and I’ll send you a congratulations card.’
‘No need, it’s only a promotional secondment,’ he said, but he gave it to me all the same. There was a long pause, then he said, ‘How are things with your dad?’
‘He’s still ignoring me. Why?’
‘It’s just that… well, I’m going to need to talk to him about the Cara Travers case.’
‘But he had nothing to do with it.’
‘He made a witness statement at the time that needs checking. And I need to ask him if he knows where Becca is now.’
‘He doesn’t.’
‘He’s still legally her husband, so I have to ask.’
I started to feel panicky. ‘Please, El, can’t you keep him out of it? For my sake?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to give you the heads-up – thought you might want to have a word with him first, you know, smooth the way… I know he hates my guts.’
