Chapter 14
Fourteen
IN WEEK EIGHT, STEFANO’S living situation broke down.
He’d had a good deal, lodging on the cheap with a woman in Kilburn, but her new boyfriend didn’t like Stefano’s ‘energy’, so he was asked to leave.
Meanwhile, one of Jolly’s housemates, who was on the set design course, had dropped out two weeks prior.
According to Jolly, she’d decided travelling around India on Daddy’s Amex would be much more beneficial to her creative process than building miniature coat stands out of toothpicks and glue.
And so, with one beat-up suitcase of black clothes and a rucksack of textbooks, Stefano rolled up the cement path, knocked on Jolly’s front door, and stepped across the threshold of his new home.
While living in halls was the norm for most university students, at RLSDA students were strongly encouraged to live with housemates who can empathize with the demand and intensity of the school’s workload and expectations.
There was even a list of letting agents included in the welcome booklet.
Every year, all across north London, RLSDA students squatted, studied and shagged within the same register of chipped suburban houses.
But me? I wanted the sanitized version of university I’d been promised in sixth form, the glossy UCAS one with its new-build flats and brochure-friendly campus life.
I wanted privacy, a room of my own, a cell with blank walls to paint myself upon.
The Saturday that Stefano moved in, it was the birthday of another of Jolly’s housemates.
Abigail was a first-year on the costume design and construction course.
I don’t know what it was like at other drama schools, but at RLSDA, costume girls were the good girls.
They were polite and well dressed, wearing homemade tea-dresses or hand-crocheted jumpers.
They didn’t barge past you in the corridor.
They didn’t drag their egos around with them like the acting students did, expecting you to make way for their monumental talent.
They just quietly got on with the job and grew into highly employable professionals.
Jolly liked to joke that Abigail and his other housemates never made a sound at home, that the only reason he even knew they were there was because of the rhythmic chugging of sewing machines behind closed doors.
‘At least, I think they’re sewing machines,’ he joked. ‘Either that or they’ve got a lot of pent-up energy.’
When Jolly told the class Abigail was having a party, we weren’t interested. Our final week loomed ahead of us with all the attendant assessments to prepare for and lines to drill. But Jolly begged us.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘The house will be crawling with techies and costume people. I need you there. Plus Stefano’s moving in. We can make it a housewarming.’
And so, reluctantly, we agreed.
THE PARTY WAS DUE to start at nine, so I arrived at ten.
‘Oh my God, Shannon, you’re so early,’ Jolly said, air-kissing my cheek.
‘I’ve barely done my face.’ His hair was scraped back from his forehead.
He wore a mask of foundation, a navy dressing gown and pleather crimson stilettos.
‘Come in, come in,’ he said, ushering me inside. ‘I’ve got gin somewhere.’
The hallway smelled of stir-fry and old trainers.
As I followed Jolly through into the kitchen, I bumped into a plastic airer crammed with socks and faded pink polyester bras.
The house was already filled with people.
I looked around for someone I recognized, but it was mostly hairy young men wearing dark T-shirts and cargo shorts.
‘Sorry about this lot,’ Jolly whispered, as he slid the gin from the counter and led me upstairs. ‘Abi invited a bunch of people from lighting and props.’
I peered over the banister. A guy with frizzy shoulder-length hair and a blurry Sonic the Hedgehog tattoo on his arm caught me staring. He raised his beer and winked at me. I hurried upstairs.
Jolly sat in front of the mirror and I settled myself on the bed.
Jolly’s room was a mess of sensuality. Despite the same tired IKEA furniture of every other student’s bedroom – the paper globe lampshade, the brIMNES wardrobe, the BILLY bookcase – Jolly had somehow made the space his own.
He’d created a canopy over the bed with a slip of red taffeta.
What should’ve been a study desk was instead a riot of bottles, creams and hair-styling products.
Pinned to the mirror were ticket stubs, Polaroids and cut-outs of his favourite actors, singers and artists, while the dresser overflowed with satins, sequins, velvets and feathers.
The only evidence of our strict day-to-day was a heap of black clothes on the floor, which he kicked aside as we entered.
‘I don’t know why I bother with all this,’ Jolly said, applying a thin strip of eyeliner to his lid and addressing me through the mirror. ‘It’s not like there are any hot guys coming tonight.’
‘What about Jonah?’ I asked.
Jonah was on the Musical Theatre MA. He was 6’1”, Canadian, and had never shown the slightest interest in Jolly. Despite this, Jolly had spent the first few weeks of term trailing him around school in the hopes of an organic meet-cute.
‘Ugh, he’s straight.’
‘Really?’
‘I know. Apparently V saw him making out with some Contemporary Theatre slut in the library. It’s so annoying. I could’ve sworn he was gay.’
‘Maybe he’s bisexual.’
Jolly turned to me. ‘Oh honey, bisexuals don’t exist. They’re just gays who can’t commit or straights who want to play dress-up.’
‘Oh, OK.’
‘Anyway, what about you? Anyone on your horizon?’ Jolly said, his eyes glinting mischievously.
Recently I’d begun to notice Jolly and Victoria do this; treat me like a sort of project, a doll they could dress up and parade around.
In the last few weeks, their attention had turned towards trying to help me lose my virginity.
I’d never asked them to do this, but whenever we talked it was always: what about this guy, or this guy, or this guy.
I fidgeted against the pillows. ‘No, no. Not for me.’
‘What about Stefano? He’s pretty fit.’
I must’ve pulled a face. Jolly laughed. ‘Not a fan of the bad boys, then?’
I scoffed. ‘I don’t know if he’s a bad boy or just plain bad.’
‘You’re too hard on him. I reckon he’s a big old softie deep down.’
‘Maybe.’
‘I was chatting with him this morning, you know, helping him unpack. He was talking about his sister getting engaged, how he’s giving her away. It was quite sweet actually.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Fine, never mind then! You look cute by the way,’ he said, pointing the eyeliner pen at the glass. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen you wear makeup before.’
‘Oh it’s just a bit of foundation and mascara,’ I said, lowering my eyes. ‘Unless Frida’s invited, I think I’m safe.’
Jolly snorted. ‘Yeah, what is it with her? I mean, I get that we shouldn’t be focusing on what we look like and stuff, but we’re actors.
Of course we care how we look. And like, how is a bit of concealer going to harm anyone?
What’s me covering up a blackhead got to do with Bertolt Brecht, you know? ’
I shrugged and let my eyes wander across the room. There was a book open down the side of Jolly’s bed. Freeing the Natural Voice by Kristin Linklater. He’d stuck a blue Post-it note to the front page. Must make myself heard!!!
‘Frida scares me,’ I said.
‘Me too,’ Jolly said, tilting his chin in the mirror. ‘But I also respect her. Like she’s scary, but in a kind of diva way. Like Joan Crawford or something.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed, although I wasn’t 100 per cent sure who Joan Crawford was.
‘Bet she’s into some Mommie Dearest shit.’ He turned around and jabbed the eyeliner pen at me again. ‘No wire hangers! No wire hangers!’
I laughed. I found when people did impressions, even if I didn’t recognize them, it was best to laugh.
Jolly stood up. ‘Do you mind if I put some music on?’ he asked.
‘Go ahead.’
He fiddled with his iPod for a moment, then returned to the desk. A tinny drumbeat started up. ‘Do you like Sparks?’
‘Yes,’ I replied, making a mental note to google them later on.
‘I fucking adore Sparks. The guy on the piano?’ He fanned himself. ‘Oooft.’
‘Yeah, they’re great.’
He narrowed his eyes at me. ‘OK, now don’t get me wrong, but to be honest – and like absolutely no offence, Shannon – but I’m kind of surprised you know who they are?’
I dug my nails into the meat of my thigh. ‘Oh yeah?’ I said, trying to keep my voice even. ‘Why’s that?’
‘Well, I don’t know.’ He laughed. ‘Sometimes, I guess you just come across as a bit’ – he thought for a moment – ‘small town. But like, I’m not saying that in a mean way.’
‘Right.’
Jolly jumped up and came towards me. ‘Oh no, no, no. God, I feel like I’ve offended you now.’
‘No, not at all,’ I said stiffly.
He pulled me into a hug. ‘I just don’t want you to pretend to be someone you’re not, you know?
’ He held my head against his torso and stroked my hair.
‘I mean, I spent so long pretending to be someone I wasn’t, back when I was a teenager, and let me tell you, it’s just not worth it.
’ He took a step back, still holding my shoulders.
‘All I’m saying is just, like, you do you.
Like no one cares who you are, as long as you’re yourself. ’
I cleared my throat. ‘Yeah, no, of course. I get it.’ I tossed my hair over one shoulder like I’d seen Victoria do countless times.
Victoria, who would never find herself in a situation like this.
Victoria, whose authenticity no one would ever dare question.
‘I get your concern, but like, I’m totally just me. ’
Jolly offered a tight smile. ‘Good.’
Just then there was a knock at the door.
‘Come in!’ Jolly yelled.
It was Obi.
I sat up and smoothed my skirt.
‘Hello ladies,’ he said, brandishing a bottle of Jack Daniel’s from his coat.