Nine Lucie
Nine
LUCIE
I ’m here.
The first to arrive, it turns out, which is both a relief that a certain famous actor isn’t here already and an annoyance because I now have to sit in the crew room twiddling my thumbs and agonising over everything until he arrives.
I called Ophelia yesterday and told her I was staying. Close enough to her deadline to make a point, not too close to lose my job. She was pleased, which I knew she would be, but it still felt like backing down. I wonder now if this will set a precedent for future ‘executive decisions’ she might make. I hope it doesn’t.
Ced was overjoyed when I told him, though, which more than made up for everything else.
‘Hey.’
Theo Larkin is peering around the door at me. I was expecting him to have some of the swagger I’d seen last week when he crashed my performance, but today he appears to be using the crew room door as a shield in case I hurl firebombs at him.
Wise move, Larkin.
‘Hello,’ I reply.
He dares to edge around the door. ‘Mind if I come in?’
Why does he need my permission? Is he trying to make a point? Instantly I’m on my guard, which I don’t want to be. Forcing away my suspicions, I manage a half-smile. ‘Be my guest.’
I watch him enter, taking in the decidedly cramped space. ‘Are we rehearsing in here?’
‘We usually do.’
‘Oh.’
‘Welcome to the crew room, our lavish quarters.’
Theo makes a sound that could be a cough or an attempt at laughter. Either way it’s not very successful. ‘The glamour of the job, right?’
‘You could say that.’
We eye each other cautiously.
‘Look,’ he says after a painful pause, ‘I feel like we weren’t properly introduced before …’
‘That’s probably because you turned up unannounced,’ I reply, keeping my smile in place. It sounds harsher than I intend, but I can’t take it back. I see it register with him immediately.
‘I did. So , that aside—’ He stretches out a hand towards me. ‘Hi. I’m Theo Larkin.’
I stare at his hand and then accept it quickly. As our handshake ends, the warmth of his fingers lingers on my skin. ‘Lucie Hart,’ I reply, stuffing my hand back in the pouch pocket of my hoodie.
‘Lucie with an i-e, right?’ He grins. ‘My agent told me. I checked your Spotlight. Great – um – résumé …’
If this is supposed to make me feel better, it’s spectacularly failed. My listing on the international database of actors is a triumph of omission – lists of parts played in productions during the first few years of my career, back when my agent was still in the country and still cared about finding me work. Most of the parts in the list were free gigs I had to do to boost my acting CV. The Garden Players are listed as a ‘subsidiary of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’, which is true, but included in my listing as such is meant to make people think it’s basically the RSC. Add to that my last official professional headshot, taken eight years ago, which hardly looks like me any more, and you have a perfect fiction dressed as truth. Anyone in the industry will know it’s complete bunkum.
‘Cheers,’ I reply, as if it doesn’t sting. I don’t mention that last night I spent a couple of hours researching Theo, too. And feeling progressively more depressed by each line of his glowing listings on Spotlight and IMDB. He’s been in this business eighteen months longer than I have but we are worlds apart in terms of success.
‘Ah! My star-crossed lovers!’ Ophelia announces, sweeping into the room. ‘Together at last!’
We stare back.
Ophelia giggles as she plants two air-kisses on Theo’s cheeks, then reaches for my shoulders, gripping them with surprising strength. ‘You two will be the making of this company, I can feel it! Magic on our humble stage!’
‘Some of us have been bringing the magic for a while, Pheels,’ a disgruntled Ced calls from the doorway, sending me a covert wink. The sight of my colleague, ally and friend is impossibly lovely.
‘Of course. Of course , maestro! But think of the possibilities for more …’ If she realises her mistake she doesn’t let it show. Ever the consummate professional, Ophelia blesses us all with a beatific smile and presses on. ‘I trust you received the message from darling Barry, Theo? About the pieces?’
‘Yes,’ he says, pulling a rolled-up paperback copy of The Tempest from his back pocket. ‘Petruchio from before and Ferdinand from this.’
For the tiniest moment, Ophelia’s mask slips as she stares at the broken spine, pages curled beyond rescue and deeply creased cover. But she quickly regroups. ‘Ah, you’ve clearly been hard at work, Mr Larkin. That’s what I like to see!’ She turns to me with a slightly longer than usual blink. ‘And Lucie?’
‘Word perfect.’ I smile back.
‘On The Tempest segment, too?’
My stomach hits the cold concrete floor. ‘That’s Theo’s monologue.’
She pinks, just a little, across the apples of her cheeks. ‘Technically, yes. But read on from Ferdinand’s happy travails and there is the glorious dialogue with Miranda. Do you love me? … I, Beyond all limit of what else i’ th’ world, Do love, prize, honour you …’ She clamps a hand to her heart. ‘Wonderful, beguiling, timeless! And you two shall be the embodiment of those lovers!’
‘Now hang on …’ I say, as Theo starts to protest, too.
‘Ah ba-ba-ba !’ Ophelia snaps above us, her voice drowning our words. When we’re shocked into silence, she continues, ‘I believe I was quite clear on what was expected, Lucinda, if you were to remain in this company.’
If I was to remain ?
‘You didn’t tell me you wanted me to do this piece,’ I reply, my teeth gritted against what I really want to say. ‘You said Katharina from The Taming of the Shrew and Portia from The Merchant of Venice. ’
‘And Miranda, Act Three, Scene One, The Tempest. To support our dear Mr Larkin,’ she insists, imperious. ‘And Ced shall be our Prospero!’
Ced’s brow creases. ‘Pardon me?’
‘I don’t know that piece off by heart.’ I hate the admission, hate more that Ophelia is making me look unprofessional in front of the one person I don’t want to see it.
‘You’ll just have to mark it for now and read in. I’m sure Theo will share his playbook with you.’ She observes the tortured copy again, as if uncertain of whether she saw it correctly the first time.
‘Sure … um … I don’t mind,’ Theo offers.
‘I’ll find my own, thanks,’ I reply.
Ced is watching us like a nervous spectator at a Wimbledon final. ‘There’s one in the trunk, Lu.’
‘Thanks, Ced.’ I scoot past Theo and our simmering Director of Garden Performance to Ced’s side, pointedly using the trunk as an unofficial boundary between them and us.
Theo mutters something and starts flicking through his playbook.
Book located, I close the trunk lid with a little more force than is necessary and stand beside my colleague.
‘Well. If you are quite ready, Lucinda, Theo – we need to make a start. Places, please.’
We begin, Ced hastily clearing as large a space as possible in the cramped room and Theo walking to the centre of it as he becomes Ferdinand, forced to work for Miranda’s father, Prospero, in order to win his permission to marry her. He’s shaky at first, his voice dipping at the ends of lines, his eyes glued to the text.
‘ … This is my mean task
Would be as heavy to me as odious, but
The mistress which I serve quickens what’s dead
And makes my labours pleasures … ’
I wait while he finishes the first part of his speech. But as my cue arrives and I enter the scene as Miranda, Theo looks up and pointedly closes his copy of the play, dropping it onto a box of costumes beside him.
Now it’s my turn to stare at my lines.
I can feel his eyes on me as I begin, with Miranda telling Ferdinand not to work so hard, her adoration for him singing from the page. When Theo replies, it’s directed straight at me. It’s unnerving. And completely unfair.
I never thought of Ophelia Henry as sneaky before but as I run through my unrehearsed lines I can’t shake the feeling that she’s set this up to put Ced and me in our places. Theo is word-perfect, the consummate professional: Ced and I are forced to stare at lines we haven’t yet learned. Making Theo Larkin look like a star, with us as nervous understudies.
‘… Hear my soul speak:
The very instant I saw you, did
My heart fly to your service …’
‘Closer, Theo!’ Ophelia barks. ‘Lucinda, lower your book for a second, please. You know the next line without the text holding your hand.’
I hate her. I hate this game.
Steeling myself, I raise my eyes to Theo’s. ‘… Do you love me? …’
‘Again!’
‘… Do you love me? …’
‘Softer! With more breath!’
Ced mumbles something behind me.
My toes bunch hard in my sneakers. I push down the irritation, square my shoulders and look Theo Larkin straight in the eye. ‘… Do you love me? …’
‘Um …’ I see the whites of his eyes as he searches for the line.
‘Theo, your line, please.’
‘Yep, sorry, I just …’ He takes a breath and moves one step closer. ‘I …’
Ophelia groans. ‘… O heaven, O earth …’
‘Okay, yes, sorry … O heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound …’
It’s torture. As Ferdinand declares his love and Miranda fawns all over him – despite only just telling him her name but now apparently planning their marriage – Ophelia makes us weave and dance around each other, getting closer each time.
‘… My mistress, dearest; And I thus humble ever …’
‘… My husband, then? …’
‘… Ay, with a heart as willing,
As bondage e’er of freedom: here’s my hand …’
‘Take his hand, Lucinda.’
I look up from my lines to see Theo’s outstretched hand. He seems amused by my hesitation now, the tips of his fingers curling back and forth as if beckoning me on.
I have to take it. But I don’t want to.
Bloody Shakespeare!