Seven Lucie
Seven
LUCIE
B y the time I head out of the house for my last job of the day, I’m feeling a little brighter. It helps that my housemate Lyle had a baking morning and left me a feast of pie, fresh sourdough bread and walnut cookies along with a note that is pure Lyle Robinson magic:
Fair Lucinda
Behold the fruits of my flour-dusted labours. Eat, enjoy and be merry. Also get some sleep, woman!
Laterz, L x
p.s. I have carefully removed all calories from said treats, so feast with abandon x
I love him – and not just because he leaves me homemade goodies (and tells blatant lies about calorie removal). Carbs definitely helped, along with the five hours of sleep the feast induced. Having an empty house aided that, too. Lyle will be home when I get back later and by then I’ll be ready to recount the events of my day.
Between that happy meeting and now lies a long, six-hour shift at Gonzalo’s, the half-timbered restaurant in Sheep Street. It’s going to be a busy one tonight: two plays opening, one at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and one at The Other Place. Consequently, theatregoers are due early for pre-show dinner and there’s an extended opening for the actors and theatre crew to grab a late celebratory supper.
And it’s extra money, which helps.
It’s also the chance to share the space with fellow actors, even if I’ll be serving them rather than celebrating with them. That’s the real draw: it reminds me that success is still possible. One day it will be me enjoying an opening night supper. That thought will carry me right through my shift.
All the same, my body wishes it hadn’t already worked two jobs today. I push my aching limbs into reluctant action as I climb onto my bike and pedal towards the restaurant.
It’s a beautiful early evening, the sky just beginning to glow that glorious pink-gold that it does in the summer. We’re hours from sunset proper, but the promise of it illuminates the sky over Stratford’s higgledy-piggledy roofs, making every window glow. Shame I won’t see its colours merge and intensify as sunset nears, or get to enjoy the pleasantly cool evening with a glass of wine somewhere, but I have this, now. One thing I’ve learned in all the struggle and graft of the last few years is to appreciate what I have, where I am. Money might be tight, but I have three jobs. Four, when the ice cream bike work begins next week for my best friend Cass, who is doing her best to support me. Some people struggle to find one job. And I might not have the career I aspire to yet, but I am working as an actor, even if that’s only for a few hours each day.
Although if I leave The Garden Players …
I stop my train of thought before it goes wildly off the rails.
I can’t think about that now. I won’t. The post-mortem tonight with Lyle will be enough.
‘They’re arriving already, Lucie,’ Ben the chef growls as I hurry into the kitchen.
‘Sorry, chef, I’m here now.’
‘So you are.’ He gives me a rueful smile. ‘Gonna be a crazy one tonight. You ready to look happy about it?’
‘As I always am.’ I dazzle him with my brightest fake-ittill-you-make-it smile. It’s our regular joke and his chuckle is my reward.
‘Bloody actors,’ he grins, ‘what would I do without you, huh?’
Ben’s not joking about tonight being busy. Within half an hour the restaurant is packed, only two tables empty and both of them reserved for late-arriving pre-show diners. The customers are in good spirits, mostly, excited by the prospect of watching the opening night of a new play, but they’re impatient, too. It means that the other servers and I have to be on our toes. Delays just aren’t possible this evening.
I get their impatience: whenever I can afford to go to the theatre I’m always there an hour before I need to be. But for me it’s about soaking up the atmosphere, that feel-it-inyour-toes tingle that always comes before a production starts. It takes me right back to being a kid, bouncing in my red velvet auditorium seat waiting for the performance to begin. My parents took me and my cousins to the Wolverhampton Grand and Birmingham’s Hippodrome, Alex and Rep theatres as often as they could, so my earliest memories are of lights and music, spectacle and hold-your-breath excitement. It was what set the fate of this bright-eyed girl from a little town in the Black Country. I was going to be on the stage, no matter what …
‘Waitress!’
I see the sour-faced diner beckoning to me and adopt my professional smile as I head over. He’s doing that clicking-fingers-in-the-air thing that people doing it think makes them look important and people watching it know makes them look like a knob.
‘Can I help you?’ I ask.
He observes me like I’m a rogue slug reclining in his salad. ‘My steak is wrong.’
I glance down. For a wrong steak he’s eaten a surprising amount of it. ‘In what way, sir?’
‘I asked for rare. This is not rare.’ He prods it with his fork and it practically moos.
‘It looks rare to me,’ I offer, my smile bright.
‘Well, that’s because you’re an imbecile who clearly knows nothing about fine dining.’
Wow. Straight to mocking the serving staff . Impressive. Most complaining diners at least ramp up through being unhappy , being disappointed and threatening to tell friends before they slug it out on their server. Not this guy.
When I started working at Gonzalo’s, situations like this would floor me. Despite my colleagues telling me not to, I always blamed myself. But five years of working for the great British public has stopped all that. I accept blame where I should, but I’m not giving my power to a chancer who doesn’t want to pay for his dinner.
I catch the eye of my manager, Hal, seated by the front desk. He’s gruff and no-nonsense, brilliant at his job and a genuine hero, being a volunteer fireman in addition to his role here. We all love him, even if us saying so makes him visibly cringe. He raises an eyebrow, but I shake my head.
After the day I’ve had, it’ll take more than Mr Clicky-Fingers and his pathetic attempt to score a free dinner to defeat me.
So I wield my smile like a weapon, set my frame like it’s sheathed in armour and go to battle.
‘On this occasion I can refund the cost of the steak,’ I reply, not giving any notice to the personal insult he’s just served or the grotesque grin he’s aiming in my direction. ‘I’ll remove it from the table for you.’
That wipes the mirth from him. ‘But – but I haven’t finished,’ he splutters.
‘If the plate isn’t to your liking we wouldn’t dream of inflicting it on you a moment longer, sir.’
The other diners at his table are avoiding eye contact now, and I wonder how many times their objectionable friend has attempted to pull this stunt.
‘No – well, it’s not – forget I mentioned it,’ he stumbles, making a grab for the plate.
‘Very good sir,’ I reply, the urge to giggle strong. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’
‘No. No, thanks,’ he mutters towards the tablecloth.
I offer one last dazzling smile as I walk away. By the time I reach Hal’s desk, he’s already grinning.
‘Free dinner, eh?’ he asks, keeping his voice low.
‘He had a change of heart,’ I reply, keeping my smile in check in case any of the customers at the nearby tables overhear us.
‘You’re a marvel, Lucie,’ he replies, eyes bright with fun.
I shrug. ‘It was nothing.’
‘Spoken like a true champion.’ He gives me a wink, which is his version of a full-blown, fortifying hug. ‘Pop into the kitchen and give Ben the thirty-minute warning, would you? We need to get the pre-shows out by six-forty-five p.m.’
‘No problem.’
‘Cheers, Lucie.’ He pauses just as we’re about to go our separate ways. ‘You know what we need in here?’
‘What?’
‘Ejector seats. And a big button that controls them—’ he hits the edge of his desk with a gleeful slap ‘—right here.’
I bite my lip and just about make it to the kitchen doors before my laughter wins.
It isn’t bad tonight, the rest of the diners lovely. By the time the pre-show customers leave and the lull before the main dinner service comes, we’re still smiling. That’s a good sign. But the best is yet to come.
At 11.30 p.m. the casts and crew from the two opening-night productions explode into Gonzalo’s in a burst of joy and noise. We’ve already rearranged the dining tables into two long sets running the length of the restaurant, and bottles of pre-ordered Prosecco and wine form sentry lines along the middle of each one. Hal has swapped the usual playlist to a cool, jazz-infused set and Gonzalo’s feels transformed.
I watch the companies bustle in, air-kisses and loud congratulations being exchanged between the two tables, and instantly my heart feels at home. It will be crazy busy – the combination of post-performance adrenaline, paid-for alcohol and starving actors making a heady mix to navigate – and I’m already shattered from my seemingly endless day of work. But I don’t care. As I edge and weave my way around them, delivering food and replacing bottles, I soak in the buzz that only comes from theatre people.
I catch bits of conversation as I work, each one in terms I recognise and long to share.
‘Davey missed his cue, as usual.’
‘I did not! I just creatively rewrote my entrance.’
‘I’m sure Christopher Marlowe is grateful for that, love …’
‘There was a woman in the front row incessantly filming, as if nobody would know. It was like having a blue-faced Smurf following my every move …’
‘Maybe you have a covert Smurf-following, AJ!’
‘Loved the trip you did in Act Three, Scene Two, Frankie.’
‘Hey, I styled it out. Just call it my forward moonwalk, darling!’
There are worries about opening night reviews, attempts at performance notes from the director drowned out by raucous laughter and moments of genuine compliment that are greeted by a hush of agreement across the table. I love it all.
And through it all, I just keep thinking that this banter, this energy between actors, is something I will miss if I leave The Garden Players. It’s smaller where we are, and nowhere near as loud as it is here, but there’s a strong sense of belonging in our small company. We’re all there to work, of course, but it’s more than that: being a Garden Player means we’re exercising our dream, doing what we love, even if we wish our stage was bigger.
I hate that Theo Larkin barged his way into that.
But if I leave, I let him steal the rest from me.
By the end of my shift, I know what my answer will be.