Laurie blinked.The quiet statement of necessity—of reality,falling like a stone into their sealed-off world—had given him ashock.For just one instant, on reflex, he became his father’sson.Bugger work.Stay here.I’ve gotplenty of money.I can make it go away.
But hecouldn’t, could he?As for money, he had nothing.Sasha wasregretfully untangling himself from the bedclothes.Laurie watchedhim, the truth of his own self and his resources slowing descendingupon him.It was a mix of joy and fear.Freedom and cold-bloodedterror.But if Sash looked pale and tired beneath the weight of hisobligations, they conferred on him a dignity as well.His ownmoney, honestly earned.Laurie could tell he was proud.“Yes,” hesaid quietly.“Yes.Me too.”
Chapter Nine
Lauriestood outside the Rayne’s End theatre in East Hill.A thin Decembersleet was falling.Already it had penetrated the jacket Sash hadloaned him, and he was cold.
Hedidn’t really mind.He had just left a coffee shop up the road,where Sasha had bought them both breakfast before heading off tohis shift at the car wash.Sasha had paid for their bus fares fromBirchwood and a copy of the Stage, which he had folded andsmilingly left by Laurie’s plate.He hadn’t leaned across the tableand kissed Laurie good-bye in the middle of the crowded café, butthe look he had left him with was somehow better yet.It had stayedwith him, as warm and real as the lingering soreness insidehim.
TheRayne’s End Empire was a million miles away, in style and purpose,from the plush little Twilight on the Strand.All he had wanted ofthat place was a refuge, somewhere to be that wasn’t home.What hewanted from the grim redbrick in front of him now was a job.Thechill sinking down into the bruised bones of his ribs and face wasa friend to him, repressing the jump of his nerves.
He’dthought he had to apply, when he saw an advert in the paper forauditions.Apply, fill in forms, supply full personal details, thenwait.The process had been so daunting—and, he now knew, his ownmotivation so slight—that he’d never got further than putting a redmarker ring around the ad.He was still fairly sure that formalapplication was the protocol, but he couldn’t wait.
Hetugged up the collar of Sasha’s coat, drawing comfort from thescent of him.Then he climbed the concrete side steps that led tothe door marked AUDITIONS—just a sheet of A4 in a plastic folder,felt-tip letters starting to blur in the damp—and pushed it open.Beyond it lay a small office, empty at the moment, though he couldhear a buzz of conversation in the next room.Deciding to take hischances as he found them, Laurie did not stop to find whoever wasmeant to be fielding the candidates as they arrived.He paddedsilently into the corridor and listened, taking stock.
IfLaurie knew nothing else, he knew theatres.The darkness thatdescended on him as soon as he was well away from the outside worldwas reassuring to him rather than disorienting.This corridor, withits slow curve, must lead around the auditorium.Good.Officesbehind him, so stage to the front.A few steps into the half-lightconfirmed it.Voices, one patiently reading and the other chimingin for all it was worth.A little closer and Laurie could pick outact, scene, and players.A pair of double doors was ahead of him,their peculiar heaviness familiar to his hand.Accomplished atopening and closing these in perfect silence, Laurie let himselfinto the auditorium.
Seven young men of about his own age were gathered in thefifth row back from the stage.An eighth was up there, making amess of Hamlet’s first dialogue encounter with poor bewilderedOphelia.The reader, an unlikely maiden in his fifties, was doinghis best to prompt as well as provide Ophelia’s lines, but it wasplainly slow going, and Hamlet was starting to sweat.Laurie raisedan eyebrow.The weaknesses of others were not ordinarily pleasingto him, but the moment might be opportune.He went and sat down,very quietly, at the end of the fifth row.The boy in the seat nextto him gave him a polite, puzzled glance.Who are you?Laurie, who wouldnormally have told him, with full background and apologies, simplyflashed him a smile and settled to watch the performance as if heowned the place, actors, furniture, and all.
Bristling, the other boy turned his attention back to thestage, where the director was thanking the would-be Hamlet with adon’t-call-us politeness Laurie knew well.He took his moment.Thestage assistant stood up, clipboard in hand, and gestured for thenext candidate.“That’s me,” Laurie said, getting calmly to hisfeet.Peripherally he saw the young man on the far end of the rowturn a startled look on him, but he ignored it.“Laurence Fitzroy,here for Hamlet or anyone else you need.”
Thedirector took the board from his assistant and ran his finger downthe page.“Well, we’re only casting Hamlet this afternoon, son,and…” He paused, frowning.“Furthermore, I don’t have your namehere.Did you register?”
“No.I can do this play, any part, start to finish withoutlooking.You don’t even need to rehearse me.I’m here to save yousome time.”
Thatlast had possibly been a bit much.The director came to the edge ofthe stage and raked a repressive gaze over Laurie and the otherhopefuls who were now gaping in outrage.“I see how you came bythose bruises,” he said conversationally.“Sorry, Mr.Fitzroy.There’s a process, or you don’t step on this stage.”
Laurieshrugged.“Okay.I can do it just as well down here.”
Hepicked up from the point of the scene between Hamlet and Opheliawhere the other boy had trailed off.For his first few lines, hemade no shift of stance or expression, not even taking his handsfrom his pockets, and he was vaguely aware of the assistant layingher clipboard aside and vaulting down into the pit as if to meetand restrain him bodily from the impromptu performance.Equallycalmly, he saw the director’s expression slowly change, saw himgesture to the girl to wait.
A fewlines in, Laurie paused.The reader, off-kilter, frantically beganlooking through his copy for Ophelia’s response, but Laurie lifteda silencing hand to him.He left it a beat or two, then, once morewithout movement or gesture, shifted roles.He could not haveexplained how he did it if his life had depended on it.Rehearsingdialogue in mirrors, he had seen that he still presented hisoutward masculine self.And yet, as if by an effort to look throughshifting veils or water, a girl would be there too—or a woman, or aman three times his age and weight, or whoever else wasrequired.
So Laurie became Ophelia.He folded up the fabric of Hamlet inhis mind, found its remembered connections and punched through itto achieve coherent passage between parts.He became, in rapidsuccession, Polonius, Gertrude, a frazzled combinationRosencrantz-and-Guildenstern.Claudius was easy, the shambling andlecherous old king a simple memory of his father, shining from hisflesh like a sickening beam.How likeHyperion to a fucking satyr… He continueduntil he was exhausted, and then he stopped.
Thedirector stood on the edge of the stage, hands on his hips, hisfrown made terrible and comical at once by the upward-blazingfootlights.He waited for a while as if to be sure Laurie was quitefinished.Then he said, “I can’t decide if you’re a genius or afreak.But either way, Mr.Fitzroy, you must apply.Actors needdiscipline as well as talent.”
Laurienodded.He wholly agreed, and he could see that what he had donewasn’t fair to the other boys waiting their chance.“I don’t havetime,” he said.“But thanks anyway.”
He gotas far as the aisle before the whispering began.The acoustics weregood, and theatrical people were rarely capable of holding adiscreet argument, even sotto voce.Still he knew his best bet wasto keep walking, and his hand was on the door when the assistant,panting from her dash across the auditorium, ducked under his armto block his exit.“This casting’s to replace a dropout,” she said.“We open in three nights’ time.Can you startstraightaway?”
“Yes.I’d have to.”Laurie looked past her shoulder to wherethe director was studiously trying not to take an interest in theoutcome of the conversation.His projection was excellent too, andhe didn’t need to raise his voice.“I’d have to be paid in cash,and I’d need the first week in advance.”
Thedirector’s head jerked up.“What?”he boomed.“Do you think we’rerunning some sort of sweatshop here?National Insurance number andEquity card, or the deal’s off.”
Laurie’s second retreat was as genuine as his first.He knewhe was good, but had no experience of his power to turn talent intocash.To make people drop everything to get him.He made his wayout of the Rayne’s End Empire, head down, hands in his pockets,because he knew another company in the area needed a Torvald fortheirDoll’s House—a Dora too, and Laurie was prepared to give them either—andafter that he had a whole day’s worth of hunting mapped out, circleafter numbered circle in theStage.He knew that getting knockedback was part of the business, and that his list of demandswould—should, anyway—preclude him from almost everywhere.If allelse failed, he had made Sasha promise to help him find a niche inthe car-wash trade.
A faintmetallic rattle behind him.Halfway down the Empire’s steps, Laurieglanced back.This time the poor assistant was struggling with theheavy exterior doors.On an instinct less of hope than habitualcourtesy, Laurie turned around and went to pull one open forher.
“Come back,” she said.“Come in.”
She ledhim to an office off the reception hall, where a flurried-lookingwoman in her fifties was sitting down behind a desk, putting on herglasses and reaching for a file.A cash box was open at her elbow.Laurie politely ignored this and sat down on the chair theassistant pointed out to him.“Alison, are you sure about this?”the woman asked.“It’s very irregular.”
“It’s a bloody outrage,” the assistant agreed.“But Mr.Jacobsinsists.He’s sent the other boys away.”
Thewoman raised her eyebrows.“Oh, God.You’d better be good, son.Andwatch your back on your way home.”
* **
