Chapter 3
THREE
Olly
From the look on Tarun’s face, I’d say he’s about as thrilled as I am that we’re sharing a room.
I knew something was up as soon as Sabrina said Zeb was with Hugo and Nate. Zeb and I blindly assumed that after we shared a room last year that it would be the same this time. We should have spoken to Sabrina.
Zeb’s at a loss for words – an exceptionally rare occurrence – as we pick up our bags from Studio Six and head out to the busy Covent Garden streets. ‘We’re not roomies…’
I nod grimly. ‘Don’t know who’s got it worse… Me with Moody Pants or you with Boarding School “I get all the girls” Boy.’
Zeb rolls his eyes. ‘That was him? And I’m with the ASM as well! What are we going to talk about? LX tape?!’
‘At least neither of us are with Evil Eyes…’
He huffs, letting out the tension in his shoulders. ‘I suppose. But why would they split us up? When are we going to have fun together? I’m leaving early on Sunday 46morning for my Cambridge induction so I’m not going to even get to dance the night away with you at the after party!’
‘Hey!’ I say, both of us stopping as we reach a busy crossroad. ‘Even if we’re not roomies, or going to the party together, we’re sticking to the mission objectives, and you’re going to have the best time.’
He murmurs, ‘Okay,’ and we carry on towards our hotel on the Strand.
I peer over the heads around me and my new roommate is easily identifiable due to the guitar on his shoulder at the front of the pack.
He’s with Ella, a younger contestant who I’ve seen him with a few times today.
I don’t know how I’m going to play it when it’s just the two of us alone in the privacy of our room. Whatever I say is going to be awkward.
‘How much longer to the hotel, Olly?’ asks Jas, whose pale face flushes red from dragging three enormous suitcases over the cobbles.
‘We’re nearly there. Only two more lefts.’
‘Oh, come on,’ says Hugo, his lip curling upwards. ‘Let’s be chivalrous and take the pretty lady’s bags.’
Winking at Jas, he passes one of her trundle cases to me and takes another for himself. He then turns to Gabby, seeming to be about to offer to take one of hers, but she cuts him off before he gets the chance.
47‘My girlfriend and I saw ourselves through a three-week backpacking trip around South America, without any need for chivalry, so I’ll make it down the road to the hotel, ta,’ she states calmly but bluntly, launching off ahead of the crowd, leaving Hugo in the dust as she aptly demonstrates her lack of need for assistance.
Zeb and I try to hide our giggles as Hugo looks around, before deciding not to make any more offers to ‘assist’ some of the most impressive female performers in the country.
It only takes a few minutes of me pulling Jas’ bag alongside my own luggage until we arrive at the magnificent Dawlish Hotel.
Golden light dances around the lobby, reflecting off the crystal chandeliers.
It puts the Zone Five budget hotel Dad and I stay in during our annual trip to London for my birthday to shame.
The Dawlish is over a hundred years old and has a rich theatrical history, including Laurence Olivier (from where ‘The Larrys’ comes) having a suite here back in the fifties.
The décor’s a stunning deep theatrical red, with black-and-white shots of Judy Garland, Lena Horne and other theatre stars of yesteryear lining the walls for a touch of theatrical glamour.
These are faces that exude star quality and show what it means to be a theatre legend.
Imagine if in a hundred years my face was up here? That would be the ultimate dream.48
Whatever hell awaits with Tarun, I’m here to do more than make friends.
I’m here to cement myself as a future performing legend.
It’s what the Ghosts of Musical Theatre Past (Sondheim), Present (six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald) and Future (some unborn baby who can tap dance en pointe while singing an electronic version of an MT banger that hasn’t been written yet) compel me to do.
Tarun
‘Wait in line until one of the receptionists calls you forward so they can issue you a room key,’ Sabrina shouts, raising her voice over the echoing chatter in this ridiculously over-the-top hotel foyer.
‘Once you’ve received it, you can head upstairs and unpack before our film kicks off in the screening room. ’
Ella’s keenness to reach the hotel means we’ve wound up right at the front of the queue. The receptionist hands me a key card for Room 709 and I follow Ella into the lift, not looking back to check Olly’s whereabouts. I don’t know what we’re going to say when we’re alone.
‘See you at movie night?’ asks Ella when we step out of the elevator onto the seventh floor which has doors dotted all the way along the corridors.49
‘Aye, see you there.’
Ella flashes her megawatt smile and waves before turning towards her room at the other end of the corridor to mine. I swipe my key card and am beeped into the room.
‘Woah…’
It’s four times as big as my bedroom at home – there’s space everywhere.
The carpet is soft and deep under my feet and when I open the ensuite bathroom door, there’s a giant walk-in shower.
Even the showerhead is the size of a pavement slab.
Turning the handle, the water springs to life, as powerful as a waterfall.
I’m going to have the best shower of my life in here.
‘The shower’s amazing, isn’t it?’
I turn with a start. I didn’t realise anyone had come in. Olly’s standing there, practically filling the entire door frame. His arrival must have been masked by the water pressure.
‘You made me jump,’ I say, trying to appear calmer than I am as I turn the shower mixer off.
‘Sorry! I should have announced myself when I walked in…’
We both stand gawping at each other, waiting to see who is going to broach the fact that we’re such badly suited roommates with enough reasons to not want to chat let alone live with each other after today.
‘Have you, uhh, picked a bed yet? Just so I know which side to put my stuff on?’50
I peer through to the bedroom and the two beds are of … differing quality. In the middle of the room there’s a mammoth king-size bed and off to the left there’s a single.
‘You have the double,’ I say with a shrug, knowing that’s what he’ll want and not sure I’ll even make it to bedtime tonight.
‘You sure?’ he says, surprised.
‘Aye, it’s alright…’
His nose wrinkles. ‘Cheers…’
Not knowing what else to say, silence fills the room, and we move to the bedroom. He starts to unpack, and even though it’s probably a waste of energy, I do too, just to have something to do.
‘I’m sorry about what Zeb said earlier,’ he says as I put boxers into a drawer.
‘It’s fine,’ I say. If I’m about to call Mum and quit the competition, what’s the point of having this out with him anyway?
He carries on though. ‘He’s just very passionate, and this is the one place we get to be our full, musical-loving selves without judgement, so you can see why he gets on his high horse when there’re straight people who don’t care the way we do, right?’
‘You don’t need to explain,’ I say through gritted teeth, unsure or not whether I should be grateful that he hasn’t sniffed me out as a fellow homosexual.
We clearly don’t 51‘get’ each other, and I’m not coming out to someone as confident in their sexuality as him when I barely know myself yet.
I’m trying hard to bury the rising panic coming over me: my hands trembling, heart pounding.
‘You’re right: I’m not special and I don’t belong here, and you can just get on with being the star you want to be… ’
‘What?’ he says, his face shifting as he tries to figure out what’s going on, but I need him to stop.
‘Just … just leave me the fuck alone, okay?’ I surprise both of us with how loud I shout. It’s the only way to shake off the panic I’m feeling.
His hands gesticulate as he searches for words. ‘I … I don’t know what your problem is!’
‘You!’ I spit out before I can think better of it. When I know that really, I mean ‘Me!’ because I always am the problem. Not good enough; not stable enough; not confident enough.
His eyes go wide. ‘What? I’m going to the movie, seeing as I offend you so much by just existing…’
I nod, not having the strength to speak and hold in the volcano that’s about to erupt inside me. He shakes his head, picks up his phone with a case covered in musical-theatre logos and storms out of the bedroom.
The door shuts with a thud behind him and, finally alone, the trembling in my hands spreads up my arms. Fuck.
The flood doors have opened, all the feelings of 52worry that I’ve been pushing down all day rise to the surface.
There’s nothing I can do but give into the shakes as my entire body is taken over by pure, white panic.
Olly
It has not been the ideal first day at The Larry Awards.
Thank Sondheim for the plump, sizzling hot dogs and gooey pizzas that are being passed around on platters: cinema time doubling up as dinner, because food and movie musicals are the best antidote against the grouchy boy in my room who hates me for breathing.
The screening room is one of the parts of the hotel they have restored from the 1920s rather than updated, so it’s an authentic old-school cinema.
Apparently, Olivier used to screen his films in here before they premiered, so at least the end of day one is in nicer surroundings than the hostility facing me upstairs.
‘Here they come!’ exclaims Zeb, batting my arm with a level of enthusiasm that only we could have for the stepsisters in the Brandy-Whitney Houston-Bernadette Peters version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella.