A jogger
It’s a warm day on Hampstead Heath. The sunbathers face the panorama of the city, arranged in rows like they’re seated for a show.
And he’s providing it, this young man with the rolled-up cigarette behind his ear and the dark hair that keeps falling over his face, the one who seems like he’d rather be doing anything else.
‘Do we have to do this in public?’ he says.
‘Confidence,’ says the young woman sitting on the ground in front of him. ‘If you can’t act in front of an audience, you can’t act.’
The jogger has cramp, and he’s paused to stretch out his smarting leg.
He rests his heel on the arm of a bench and begins to count down from thirty, watching the young man as he does so.
He’s holding a script, this actor, dressed more like a stagehand in black jeans and a black T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
The young woman is sitting on the grass in denim shorts and a linen shirt, arms wrapped around her bare legs, men’s sunglasses perched on her head.
She has her own tattered script on the ground in front of her, covered in doodles and annotations.
Twenty-four. Twenty-three. Twenty-two.
‘This is ridiculous,’ the young man says, glancing at the amused onlookers to their left and right.
‘You can say anything,’ she says. ‘But unless it’s your lines, you’re not going anywhere.’
‘Fine,’ says the young man, pushing his hair out of his face. ‘Fine.’
The sound of bicycle bells and, beyond that, car horns. Other than that, silence.
Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen.
The young man makes a face. The young woman throws up her arms.
‘Jesus Christ,’ she says.
‘I thought you were going first!’
‘You’re terrible at this.’
The man shakes his head, then pulls the cigarette from behind his ear. He lights it with a metal lighter from his jeans pocket.
Nine, eight, seven.
‘OK,’ he says. ‘You go.’
She picks up her script, smooths out the crumpled page. The jogger wants to lean closer, to get a look at the words. He doesn’t have to.
‘How could you?’ the young woman begins, though her tone doesn’t match the sentiment. She’s enjoying herself too much. ‘I thought I told you never to step through this door again.’
The young man narrows his eyes, blows out a cloud of smoke.
Three, two, one.
He begins.