Nell’s agency was run by an old woman, with an old woman’s name – Ethel Dabbs – but Nell dealt almost entirely with her assistant, Lyndsey. Lyndsey was young and enthusiastic, and she’d taken Nell on after seeing her play the nurse in a production of Romeo and Juliet in a theatre above a pub in Chiswick.
‘Welcome to Ethel Dabbs Associates.’ Lyndsey had ushered her into their office, and Ethel Dabbs herself had looked up from behind a desk, and adjusting her glasses, peered at her unsparingly.
Nell was delighted to have an agent. Instead of scouring the pages of The Stage for adverts, or writing off with her photo and CV to every repertory theatre in the country, she sat and waited for the phone to ring. Mostly it was her mother wondering how she was getting on, but sometimes, thrillingly, it was Lyndsey with details of auditions – a play at Leicester Phoenix or a season at the Glasgow Citizens. Once she even called with news of a meeting for a small part in The Bill. Nell forced herself to wait for several days before ringing her back, and when she did, Lyndsey was always cheerful. ‘Not this time, I’m afraid. It didn’t work out. On to the next one, eh?’
‘Yes,’ Nell agreed, but as the months passed Nell felt increasingly alarmed.
Early in the New Year Lyndsey called and asked if Nell would pop into the office. ‘Is anything wrong?’ she asked, aware that the word ‘pop’ usually preceded something unpleasant – an invitation to climb on to a doctor’s couch, a request to pop to the toilet – but Lyndsey reassured her. ‘Ethel wants to have a little chat, that’s all.’
Ethel Dabbs’s agency was in the basement of a house in Putney. The basement was as cluttered as a real home – with a sink and a draining board under the window, and three desks arranged around the room. Ethel was busy on the phone. ‘Yes, darling. Yes, of course. I’ll tell them you can’t possibly.’ She took up a pen and made a note. ‘I know, I know, it’s one of your peccadilloes. You just can’t share a dressing room with anyone!’ When eventually she was finished she beckoned to Nell. ‘Now,’ she adjusted her glasses, ‘it seems we have a problem.’
Nell swallowed.
‘My dear girl, you’re not getting any work.’
Nell stammered. ‘I know, but . . .’
Ethel put up a hand. ‘I’d like you to try something. I’d like you to go and see someone. He used to be an actor himself, one of mine in fact, but now, among other things, he gives coaching in audition skills.’ She wrote an address on a piece of paper and pushed it towards her.
Nell felt herself enveloped in a flush of shame. She’d spent three years at drama school – in fact it had been two, but she couldn’t always admit, even to herself, that she’d been asked to leave. She shouldn’t need any kind of coaching.
‘Don’t worry about the money.’ Ethel mistook her hesitation. ‘The agency will pay. We’ll consider it an investment.’
‘No. It’s not that, it’s just . . .’ Nell remembered her manners. She folded the address and put it in her pocket. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and smiling briefly at Lyndsey, she hurried towards the door.
The ex-actor lived in Pimlico in a large, solemn apartment. He led Nell through the hall and into a study. ‘Please,’ he said, indicating the polished parquet of the floor before him. ‘When you’re ready.’
Nell took a breath. She looked round as if to centre herself, cleared her throat, coughed twice, and then, knowing that really she’d never be ready, she chose a chair, placed it at an angle and began.
‘He thought it was terrible, the idea of women shooting at each other . . .’ She’d chosen a play by Ian McEwan, a play for television that she’d never seen. ‘It is terrifying . . . But it terrifies men for a different reason . . .’ Nell, although her gaze was fixed on an imaginary colonel from the Second World War, was also watching the actor. ‘On the anti-aircraft units the ATS girls are never allowed to fire the guns.’ She saw the actor blink, and scratch his head. He hates me, she thought, he knows I’m useless. Nell had to struggle to remember the next line. ‘Their job is to fire the range finder. If the girls fired the guns as well as the boys . . .’
Nell had borrowed this audition speech from her new flatmate, Sita, who’d got it from a friend. ‘. . . if girls fired guns, and women generals planned the battles . . .’ She imagined Sita in their tiny sitting room, her long hair flying, her cat’s mouth spitting out the words, and she wondered if she should attempt to sound more like her, less West Country, more East End. ‘. . . then the men would feel there was no . . . morality to war, they would have no one to fight for, nowhere to leave their . . . consciences . . .’
In her imagination the colonel leant forward and put his hand, condescendingly, on hers. ‘Take your hands off me!’ she bellowed, flinging away his arm. But immediately she was plunged into doubt. What if the actor was offended by her choice of speech? Thought she was a feminist making a point? She dropped her voice, showed she could be thoughtful. ‘When we went to bed it didn’t matter that he couldn’t . . . I didn’t care . . . I really didn’t care . . .’ and as she mused about love and shame, and the parallels between the war and sex, she sank down, finally, on to the chair and waited for whoever was judging her to lift their rifle and take aim.
‘Thank you,’ the actor said, giving nothing away. He motioned for Nell to come closer. ‘I want to ask you a question.’ He looked at her, kindly. ‘And I want you to tell me honestly.’ There was a pause. ‘What are you thinking when you’re doing your piece?’ Nell looked at the floor and without expecting it, her eyes filled with tears. ‘What am I thinking?’ She frowned. ‘I’m thinking . . .’ She thought of all the many things that she’d been thinking, but then one clear truth rolled towards her. ‘I’m thinking . . . I’m not going to get the job.’
‘So what happens?’ The man was smiling at her.
‘What happens?’ Nell’s head was so full she could hardly hear. ‘What do you mean?’
‘What happens when you stand there, laying bare your heart and soul, with that certainty running through your brain?’
‘I don’t get the job?’
‘Exactly,’ the man rewarded her. ‘Exactly right. Now, I want you to answer me a few more questions. Are you a good actress?’
That was the terrible thing. How was one to know? ‘I think so.’ She took courage. She remembered her performance as Emilia in Othello. ‘Yes. I can be.’
‘And are you reliable, co-operative, hard-working?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would you be a valuable member of a company?’
Nell shrugged, but the actor wasn’t letting her off. He cupped his hand to his ear.
‘Yes.’
‘So you may in fact be just what a director is looking for. You may be the answer to their prayers.’
‘Well . . .’ It had never occurred to Nell that she might actually be useful. Each time she’d been offered a job she assumed it was a mistake which the director would soon discover and regret.
‘Now.’ The ex-actor leant back in his chair. ‘Will you do your piece again?’
‘All right.’ Nell grimaced. What if she was just as bad?
‘All right!’ he challenged her.
Nell found her spot on the floor. ‘He thought it was terrible, the idea of women shooting at each other.’ This time she knew who he was, and she remembered that she liked him. Loved him, even. She flew through the lines, Sita, a distant memory, working as she was today in Monsoon Accessories, her long black hair tied back with baubles, her ears hung with silver hoops. ‘The men want the women to stay out of the fighting so they can give it meaning. As long as we’re on the outside and give our support and don’t kill, women make the war just possible . . .’ She glared, not at the actor but at the colonel, who was, frankly, scared. ‘But I’m withdrawing my support.’
When she was finished she looked up and it didn’t matter to her what the actor thought. What anyone thought. Even whether or not she got the job. Not that there was one.
‘Thank you so much,’ Nell smiled.
‘Thank you,’ the actor told her.
Nell reached for her coat. ‘Or is there something else?’
‘Nothing else.’
‘So it’s just . . . confidence. Is that all it is?’
‘Confidence.’ He shrugged. ‘And talent obviously, and luck.’
They laughed, and the actor held open the door. He watched her as she ran down the stairs. ‘When we went to bed, it didn’t matter that he couldn’t . . . I didn’t care. I really didn’t care.’ The words bubbled out of her, transparent, delicious. It was as if she’d thought them up herself. ‘He didn’t have to be efficient and brilliant at everything . . . I liked him more . . . But he couldn’t bear to appear weak before me. He just couldn’t stand it. Isn’t that the same thing? I mean . . . as the war. Don’t you see, the two . . . the two . . .’
Ecstatic, she leapt aboard a bus and settled herself at the front like a queen.
Within two weeks Nell had her first professional job, at Hampstead Theatre. She was to play a singing telegram-a-girl caught up in a shopping centre siege. At her audition she’d had to bark the first verse of ‘My Way’ as if she was a dog.
‘Woof, woof.
Woof, woof, woof, woof.
Woof, woof, woof, Wooooooooooof.
Woof, woof. Woof, woof, woo . . . ooof.’
But nothing had fazed her.
‘Congratulations.’ Lyndsey was as pleased as if she’d got the part herself. ‘I knew you could do it.’ And on the first night she sent her a spray of pink and red carnations with a card signed from all at Ethel Dabbs.
‘Who’s your agent?’ The lead actress, Phyllida de Courcy, squinted at the card as Nell stuck it on to the mirror, and the director, Timmy, who had sidled into the dressing room for a last quick chat, answered for her. ‘Ethel Dabbs. You know, when they sent out her CV it was all round the wrong way. Nell, really, you should have a word with them about that.’
‘The wrong way?’ Nell didn’t understand.
‘They’d put everything in order of the date.’ He turned to Phyllida. ‘Not with her most recent work first, but what she’d done at drama school!’ The two of them laughed in an agonised sort of way as if it was just too hilarious and sad to bear.
Nell put her carnations in water.
‘Darlings, my darlings, one last note.’ Timmy turned and put his spare arm round Nell’s shoulders. ‘Pace. Pace. Pace.’
‘That’s three notes.’ Phyllida laughed, but Nell saw that under the rouge and the lipstick she was pale.
‘It’s the half,’ the stage manager called from the corridor and Phyllida shrieked. Nell rushed to the loo. Her body felt molten, flaming, slick with fear. It was as if she was about to step out of an aeroplane and plummet into space. She pressed her face against the smooth paint of the door, crouched down and wrapped her arms around her knees. Why am I doing this? she asked herself, and she imagined the shock of her mother, her sister and her sister’s boyfriend, of Lyndsey, Sita, Pierre, Charlie, everyone who’d promised they would come, their faces dissolving as she crashed to the floor.
‘Fifteen minutes.’ Someone was knocking and she roused herself. ‘Please God,’ she murmured, and she swore that if she made it through the night she’d never, ever put herself through anything so terrifying again.
When she went back into the dressing room she found Phyllida smoking out of the window. ‘You don’t mind, do you, darling?’ she asked and she offered her a puff. The stage manager was back. ‘The five,’ he said gently. ‘Positions, please.’
Phyllida clasped Nell’s hand. ‘It doesn’t get easier.’ Her whole body was trembling. ‘I feel more nervous now than when I first began. More to lose!’ and they stood together, ice-cold with fear, their palms sweating, clutching each other in the wings.
The audience were in, they could hear them shuffling and chatting, happy, innocent, not knowing that only yards away there were people suffering in agony for their sakes, and then to Nell’s horror the lights dimmed, the music faded and forgetting everything she’d ever known, even her name, she stepped out into the empty white glare of the stage.
There was silence. The audience, she assumed, were just as panic-stricken as her, and then, as she’d rehearsed them, her lines came out quite normally, as if she was someone else. Phyllida was behind her, humming, bustling, offering her toast, and by the time Howard entered in his security guard’s uniform, Nell was able to turn to him, a cup of tea in one hand, a broom in the other, and welcome him as if this was her home.
During the interval Timmy put his head round the door and blew them both a kiss, and when Nell went on for the second half she was skipping, flying, barking out her song with glee. ‘Woof, woof . . . woof, woof, woof, woof . . .’ She caught Phyllida’s eye and smiled, she waltzed around the stage with Howard and later, when they all hid behind a bunker of jaffa cake boxes, she crouched there, her blood singing, ecstatic as she’d not been since she was a child. And it was over. There was rapturous applause. The three of them gripped hands and bowed, three times, their hearts high as the moon. ‘You were marvellous, absolutely wonderful.’ Lyndsey hugged her, and over her shoulder Nell saw her mother, tearful, glowing, a look of wonder in her eyes, as if now she understood.
That night Nell could hardly sleep. There’d been drinks in the bar of the theatre and then a party back at Timmy’s in Brick Lane. His agent had been there, a bright and efficient woman from Dove Coutts, and afterwards Timmy had whispered, ‘She liked you. I think she’d take you on if I put a word in.’ He topped her glass up with champagne. ‘A chance to get away from the dreary Ethel Dabbs?’ And by the time she’d finally got to bed her head was spinning.
Lyndsey rang early with the first review. ‘ “. . . as truthful and charming a performance as I’ve seen this year on the London stage”,’ she crowed. ‘Hang on, hang on, there’s more. “With affecting insouciance, newcomer Nell Gilby . . .” ’
Nell didn’t ask what insouciance was. Her head thudded too painfully to care. ‘Thank you, so much, for calling,’ and she crawled back to bed, making ugly faces at herself in the hall mirror as she remembered her introduction to Amanda Jones of Dove Coutts and how she’d smiled and simpered and lapped up her praise.
That Sunday there were more reviews, many of them carrying large photos of Phyllida and Nell, and the words underneath. ‘Mesmerising’. ‘Deeply affecting’. And under one small picture of her, alone, ‘A talent to watch’.
Lyndsey called, although she said that really she shouldn’t, not on a Sunday, but she just couldn’t resist it. ‘Congratulations! I hope you’re thrilled.’
‘Well, yes.’ Nell was still in her pyjamas, having walked up to the corner shop with her coat on over the top.
‘I’ll be coming to see the show again soon,’ Lyndsey promised, ‘and I hope to bring some casting people with me.’
‘That’s great,’ Nell told her, ‘thanks,’ but beside her was her diary, with 11.30 a.m. Wednesday – Amanda, Dove Coutts, written in black ink.
‘What if she finds out?’ she turned to Sita, who was preparing for her lunchtime shift at Pizza Express.
‘Don’t worry. You don’t have to go with her. Just see what you think. Anyway, she might not even take you on.’ Sita tucked her red T-shirt into her skirt – she hadn’t worked as an actress since a TV play she’d done last year in which she’d played a young Pakistani girl caught up in an arranged marriage. Now she couldn’t get seen for any part unless it was specified as Asian.
‘Fuck.’ Sita was plaiting her long hair. ‘I’m going to be late. The manager will have a fit.’
‘Bye then.’ Nell spread the papers out before her. ‘And bring me back some chocolate fudge cake, if you can.’
‘Don’t get your hopes up. Last time they fined me for eating a slice. They took the money out of my wages.’ Sita slammed out through the front door.
Dove Coutts had smart offices on Oxford Street. Nell gave her name to the receptionist and looked round warily as she waited to be seen.
The phone rang constantly, and each time the receptionist answered in the same cool tone. ‘Dove Coutts? Sorry, her line’s busy. Can I take a message?’
Eventually Amanda Jones appeared. ‘Hello!’ She put out her hand. ‘What amazing reviews you’ve been getting!’ But she said it accusingly as if she was a particularly rivalrous friend.
‘Yes.’ Nell was flustered, and then remembering she was here because of Timmy, ‘it’s great for Timmy. He’s hoping the play might transfer.’
Amanda didn’t comment. She turned and led her back down the corridor and into an office with one large desk and a plate-glass window, through which could be seen the sharp lines of other offices and the green sloping tiles of a department store roof. Amanda tucked her swathes of cashmere around her and swung into her seat. She pushed a vase of flowers tied up with ribbon to one side. ‘My boyfriend keeps sending these ridiculous bouquets!’ and she smiled sweetly, as if, finally, she was all Nell’s.
‘Well,’ Nell began, ‘I thought this might be a good opportunity to get a new agent. I mean, I haven’t actually been with Ethel Dabbs for long, but they’re very small, and well, Timmy seemed to think that you might be interested . . .’
Amanda leant towards her and took a good long look. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you wouldn’t be here if we weren’t. The wonderful thing about this agency is, we have so many big stars here, actors and directors, and we have offices in America, obviously, but what it means is . . . when we’re negotiating deals we can push our younger, less well-known people forward.’
Nell nodded. She could see how cleverly it could work.
‘Now, I’ve been thinking . . . there’s the new pirate film, casting at the moment, and they’re making a film about Shakespeare’s wife, they need a girl. We could get you seen for those. What kinds of things do you like? Where do you picture yourself, say, in five years?’
Nell was dazzled. ‘Well . . . I’m not sure. Mostly I’ve done theatre, which I love, and I’d like to do some TV, but film,’ she took a deep breath, ‘I’m really enthusiastic.’
Amanda smiled at her. ‘You could still do theatre. They’re looking for someone to take over in the Neil Simon play in the West End.’
‘That would be amazing.’
‘So,’ Amanda was leafing through her diary. ‘How long does your run have to go?’
‘At Hampstead? Another three weeks.’
‘Great. We’ll get working. Start sending you up for things straight away.’
Nell’s breath was shallow. ‘I’ll need to tell Ethel, and Lyndsey . . .’
Amanda ignored her. She took down a copy of Spotlight, Actresses D to G, and leafed through it till she reached Nell’s quarter page. ‘You’ll need new photos.’
Nell looked at herself upside-down, her hair pulled back, her eyes shining clear out of a freckled face. She rather liked the photo.
‘We have someone we tend to send our people to.’ She handed Nell a card. ‘Nicolo Manzini. He’s ever so good.’
‘I’ll have to tell Ethel . . .’ Nell repeated.
Amanda looked towards the door. ‘Of course. Well, just let me know when you’ve done that and we’ll get going. See what we can do.’ She made as if to get up, and Nell imagined all the messages banked up at reception waiting to come pouring through.
‘Bye then, thanks so much.’
‘Bye.’ Amanda gave her a twinkly smile. ‘I’ll be waiting for your call.’
Nell walked back along the corridor, past the array of posters, Ben Hur, Gone with the Wind, King Kong, all starring, she imagined, exclusively Dove Coutts clients.
Nell didn’t call Lyndsey that day, she couldn’t find the courage, but the next morning, before she’d had a chance, Lyndsey called her. ‘Just thought I’d let you know I’m in tonight and I’m bringing a casting agent from Granada.’
‘OK,’ Nell said. She didn’t say anything else.
‘Is something wrong?’
‘No,’ Nell faltered, and then knowing it could only get worse, she let the words rush out, hopeless, as if it was all beyond her control. ‘Actually, Amanda Jones at Dove Coutts wants to take me on.’
There was a silence.
‘And is that what you want?’ Lyndsey’s voice was flat and cold.
‘I don’t know,’ Nell lied. ‘I suppose it seems such an opportunity and they’ve got so many big names that are already in films, so many contacts.’
‘Well, we have contacts . . .’
There was another silence.
‘Listen,’ Lyndsey said. Nell heard her swallow. ‘Think about it. Really think about it and call me later and tell me what you’ve decided.’
Nell wanted to shout that she’d decided now. She couldn’t call her again. She just couldn’t. ‘All right,’ she said in a small voice and she put down the phone.
Nell waited until three o’clock before calling back. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said by way of explanation.
‘Right,’ Lyndsey’s voice was clipped. ‘So you’ve decided to leave. One minute. Ethel wants to have a word.’
Nell felt herself go pale.
‘Well,’ Ethel spoke sharply. ‘I think you’re a very ungrateful girl. We’ve worked hard for you, young lady. Lyndsey in particular. And now, after all the groundwork we’ve done, someone else will reap the rewards. I expect you’ll go on to do good work. I’m sure you will.’ She paused. ‘But I just want to say, I think you are being very disloyal.’
‘Sorry,’ Nell said. She made a face across the room. ‘I’m really sorry.’
‘Be that as it may,’ Ethel Dabbs answered curtly, and when Nell put down the phone she was cheered by the thought she’d never have to speak to her again.
Immediately she rang Amanda.
‘Hello, Dove Coutts, can I help you?’
‘Yes, it’s Nell Gilby, can I speak to Amanda Jones please?’
‘I’m sorry,’ the voice said breezily, ‘she’s busy, would you like to leave a message?’
‘Oh.’ Nell felt deflated. ‘Please tell her that I called. Nell. Gilby.’
Nell waited by the phone but Amanda didn’t call and by 5.30 she realised that if she didn’t hurry she’d be late for her warm-up at the theatre.
Timmy and Phyllida thought it was marvellous. Phyllida, fresh-faced with happiness at the successful run, took her in her arms and danced her round the room. ‘A real, starry agent,’ she told her, and Timmy said he hoped she’d remember him in her Oscar acceptance speech.
Then Nell told them about Ethel Dabbs. ‘I think you’re a very ungrateful girl!’ she mimicked. And they all squealed. She didn’t tell them about Lyndsey and the break in her voice when she called back with her decision. She supposed she wouldn’t be coming tonight, and neither would the casting director from Granada.
That night the show was flat. ‘The audience is terrible,’ Howard muttered, ‘there’s a woman in the third row practically asleep.’
‘Brutes,’ Phyllida said. ‘There’s a man in row F sucking a bloody lolly.’
Timmy came in during the interval. ‘Pace. What have I told you!’ And he stomped out to talk to Howard.
Nell tried calling Dove Coutts again the next morning, but it wasn’t until late afternoon that she got through. ‘Yes?’ Amanda said, ‘is the deed done?’ and she yelped with such excitement when she told her, that Nell didn’t like to mention the fact she’d never returned her call.
‘Now,’ Amanda said. ‘We need to get those new photos, and start sending you up for things. I hope you’re keeping your days free?’
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘Great. I’ll be in touch soon. Bye till then.’
The photographer, Nicolo, was based in Fulham. He had cowboy boots and tight white jeans, and a girl to fix Nell’s hair and make-up. But first he looked Nell up and down and asked if she’d brought any other clothes. ‘Yes,’ Nell clasped her carrier bag, ‘but you don’t think this will do?’ She was wearing a striped blue-and-white T-shirt cut square across the shoulder and she liked the way it made her look, young and a little theatrical.
‘Show me what else you have.’
Nell pulled out a black cardigan, bobbled from the wash, and a flowered calf-length dress.
The photographer stared at them. ‘Try the cardigan,’ he said.
‘Over this T-shirt?’
‘No. On its own.’
Nell felt self-conscious when she re-appeared. The cardigan wasn’t a cardigan she usually did up and those buttons that she had managed to fasten strained across her bust. Nicolo put his head on one side. ‘Try undoing one more,’ he said unhappily, as if even then, it wouldn’t please him, and so Nell let the cardigan bulge open still further, exposing the high curves of her cleavage and the lace trim of her bra.
Nicolo turned to his assistant. ‘Hair down, I think, Gina, over one shoulder, and some nice strong colours on the lips and eyes.’
‘Actually,’ Nell sat down, obedient before the vast array of make-up, ‘I prefer a natural look.’
Nicolo ignored her. ‘I’ll be right back,’ he said, and he sauntered from the room.
Gina hovered over her. She picked out some eyebrow tweezers and after a few seconds’ scrutiny nipped in and plucked out a hair. ‘OW!’ Nell screamed. She had never encountered anything so painful. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I just thought I’d neaten up your eyebrows.’ She stood back and waited, arms crossed, as if to say, fine, it’s nothing to me if you want to look like a Yeti. Unnerved, Nell capitulated. ‘OK, then, do it,’ and she sat, her body tensed, trying not to scream as the hairs came out with a tiny audible tear.
Afterwards Gina dusted shadow on to her newly tender skin, smoothed colour into her cheeks and painted her mouth with a slick black paintbrush dipped in red. ‘Right,’ she said, having fluffed and brushed and blow-dried her hair so that it felt a foot high, and she stood back to admire her.
‘Can I see?’ Nell asked, looking round for a mirror, and while Gina dug for one in her bag, she assured her. ‘You look fabulous.’
The mirror was small and Nell had to squint to see more than one feature at a time, but even so she was appalled. She looked like someone in fancy dress, a harlot from a Restoration comedy. ‘It’ll look very natural in the photographs,’ Gina swore, but Nell began to rub it off. She smeared the lipstick on to the back of her hand and dabbed at her sore eyes, but just then Nicolo came in. ‘Wow. You look fantastic. Let’s get going straight away,’ and he took her arm and led her over to where a large white sheet was hanging from the ceiling. For two hours she stood against it, twisting and turning, smiling and sombre, sultry and cheeky, a hand in her hair, a finger in her mouth, eyes forward, to the side, modestly down, having given up all power to resist.
‘I just love the photos,’ Amanda told her as she spread them over her desk.
‘Yes?’ Nell looked at them, once more upside-down, and her heart sank. For all the bright make-up and dazzling lights they were pale and un-arresting. They were printed on ultra glossy paper as if to make up for the murkiness of vision, and Nell imagined how easy it would be to toss one into the bin.
‘Trust me,’ Amanda told her. ‘These are much more commercial. You look young, and sexy and . . .’ she peered closer, ‘available.’
‘OK.’ Nell was willing to be convinced, and she imagined that Amanda was unlikely to be putting her up this year for a season at the Sheffield Crucible.
The play was in its last week and all the talk was whether or not it would transfer. ‘Don’t tell Timmy, but as far as you’re concerned,’ Amanda lowered her voice, ‘we don’t want it to go on and on . . . we want you to be available for work.’
‘But it would be work,’ Nell suggested, and Amanda laughed. ‘Oh, I was thinking something more high profile.’
There was a party on the last night and although Amanda didn’t make the play – there was one empty seat right there in the middle of the third row – she arrived in time for drinks in the upstairs rooms of a club in Soho. She was with a man, a tired-looking banker, and announced that they’d just become engaged. Everyone congratulated them and poured them champagne, and Nell found herself in a corner talking to Timmy’s boyfriend about his lifelong passion for embroidery. By the time she extricated herself Amanda was gone.
The first few days after the play were glorious. Nell woke each morning, thrilling with the sense of freedom, the lack of fear, the promise of a new day, a new life, but by Thursday she was bored and lonely. Sita had accepted a part in a daytime TV series, not only playing another Asian girl but one whose marriage was being arranged, and she left at six every morning and arrived home late, exhausted. ‘It’s work,’ she said, throwing herself down on the sofa. ‘I mustn’t complain. But honestly, I feel as if I’m just saying the same lines over again.’
Nell rang Amanda and for once was put straight through.
‘Hello?’ Amanda sounded snappy.
‘I was just wondering,’ Nell gulped, ‘if there was anything going on?’
Amanda took an audible intake of breath. ‘It’s only Wednesday . . .’ (Thursday, Nell wanted to correct her.) ‘You’ve been unemployed for exactly half a week.’
‘I know . . . it’s just . . .’
‘Patience. Have patience. I’ll be in touch soon.’
Nell called Phyllida and arranged to have tea.
‘Darling,’ Phyl wailed, ‘isn’t it awful? These endless days. Oh, I do hope the play transfers. God knows what I’ll do if it doesn’t. I’ll probably never work again.’
‘Of course you will,’ Nell protested, and Phyllida took her hand in her own – manicured and elegant with one dark ruby where a wedding ring might have been – and asked her how many parts she thought there were out there, good parts, parts worth doing, for a woman of her age?
Nell sighed. They’d told her at drama school that only 8 per cent of actors were working at any given time and mostly it was the same 8 per cent, and mostly they were men. But she hadn’t believed them.
‘And what about Timmy?’ Nell asked. ‘Have you seen him?’
‘Oh, Timmy, he’s off to New York. Always got a finger in several pies, the slut.’
Another week passed in which Nell heard nothing from Amanda, and then another week, after which she plucked up the courage to call. ‘I just wanted you to know,’ she said, when she eventually got through, ‘that I’m going away for a few days, in case you need me.’
‘Going away?’ Amanda sounded alarmed. ‘Oh dear. Will you be far?’
She and Sita were planning to go to Somerset to stay at a cottage belonging to a family friend. Sita had hardly ever been out of London, only to Bradford and Birmingham, for work, and now she had passed her driving test and had a small second-hand car of her own, she was in a rush of excitement to get going.
‘I’ll ring in every day and see if there’s anything happening,’ Nell told Amanda. ‘I can always get back.’
‘Good,’ Amanda sounded relieved. ‘I’ve been working very hard here . . . so don’t go far!’
‘I won’t!’ Nell was thrilled. ‘I promise.’ And she danced around the flat and sang as she packed her bag.
It was May and the Somerset hedgerows were thick with spring flowers. The lawn was a carpet of daisies and the field behind the house shimmered with new grass. She and Sita sat in the garden and looked up at the pale blue sky. ‘I could stay here for ever,’ Sita said. ‘I’m sure if I lived in the country I wouldn’t care about anything so much.’
Nell folded over a corner of her book. ‘Maybe we could start one of those community theatres in an abandoned barn or something. Never have to wait around for anyone to offer us work ever again.’
‘Yes. We could put on plays, have a youth theatre, workshops. Can you imagine? But are there enough people to actually make up an audience, let alone be in it?’
‘Probably not.’ Nell looked round. All she could see were birds, twittering and scrapping in the hedges, and beyond, a field of sheep. ‘But maybe they’re all hiding. Just waiting to rush out into the open if there was only something to do. That’s what it was like in Wiltshire.’
‘Really?’
‘Why do you think I moved to London as soon as I was legally allowed?’
They lay back on their bed of rugs and looked up at the sky. ‘So maybe it’s time to move back.’
‘Maybe,’ Nell yawned, ‘but I don’t think so.’
After lunch they walked down the sloping lane to the village. They wandered through the one street of houses, peering into sparse front gardens, at the overgrown churchyard, the pub and the village stores. They bought two tins of soup for supper and a loaf of bread, and then, as they struggled back up the steep hill, they came across an abandoned shop, set back from the road. It must once have been an ironmonger’s. There was a pile of old screws and hinges on the window ledge, scattered with dead flies, and on the faded paint above the door, a sign: Knobs and Knockers. Both girls screeched with laughter. ‘Maybe that could be the name of our company,’ Nell choked, and she laughed so hard, doubling over to hold her stomach, that a tin of Heinz tomato soup fell out of her bag and rolled into a ditch. ‘Let’s take over this shop,’ Sita said. ‘Turn it into our café theatre. Can you imagine how perfect it would be, to stop and have some tea and entertainment right here? It’s all that’s missing.’
Nell pressed her face against the glass and stared through the dusty window. ‘We could have round tables and a small stage at the back and we could get all our friends to come from London and do cabaret while people eat scones with jam and cream.’ As her eyes adjusted, she could make out a ruined wooden floor, bare bulbs, green and yellow panelled walls dotted with nails. ‘Just think of all the unemployed actors we know who could do with a break. Fresh air, a bit of singing and dancing. We’d be providing a social service for everyone involved. We could apply for a grant. Aren’t New Labour promising to pour money into the arts?’
‘Knobs and Knockers. Complementary rhubarb jam with every ticket sold.’ Sita turned to look left and right along the empty road.
‘Or we could call it Star Lollies,’ Nell suggested. ‘And hand out sherbet dips.’
‘Café de la crème.’
‘Sita and Nell’s.’
They linked arms and began to walk uphill, amassing names as fondly as if they were expecting a child, moving on eventually to the menu – meringues, apple upside-down cake, brownies, lemon tart – so that by the time they reached the cottage they were so hungry that they tore open a packet of digestive biscuits and with mugs of tea they sat out on the back porch and watched the sun go down.
‘It’s brilliant here,’ Sita said, breathing deeply, and Nell confided in her how worried she’d been in case she was bored.
‘Bored!’ Sita huffed. ‘You know what I’m really bored of, ringing my agent and hearing: “Sorry love. Nothing new. Talk tomorrow?” ’
‘Oh God!’ Nell put a hand over her mouth. ‘I promised I’d call Amanda.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’ Sita collected up their cups. ‘Just ring in the morning. I haven’t called my agent all week.’
‘But it’s different for you. You’ve got work, on and off, until October.’
‘True. But all I can think about is when it’ll be over. I guess it’s not the kind of work I want to be doing. You know the joke about the unemployed actor?’
‘No.’
‘He gets a job. First thing he does is look through the schedule for his day off.’
They laughed despairingly and stepped into the kitchen. ‘Here’s another one,’ Sita said. ‘Why doesn’t the actor look out of the window in the morning?’
‘I don’t know. Why doesn’t the actor look out of the window in the morning?’
‘So he has something to do in the afternoon.’
Nell groaned, although secretly she was thrilled to be making jokes about what was now officially her profession. Sita turned the radio on, filling the room with music, an old-time quickstep from before the war. ‘It’ll all be different when we get Knobs and Knockers off the ground,’ she shouted, and she grabbed hold of Nell and danced her round the kitchen. ‘Here’s to Knobs and Knockers,’ they toasted later with red wine, and they scalded their mouths on the soup which had been left bubbling until it overflowed.
It was impossible to hear the phone from the garden, so Nell sat on the sofa in the darkened sitting room, leafing through copies of old National Geographic, waiting for Amanda to call her back. ‘Right,’ she said, when finally she did. ‘There is something. Yes. Can you be at the Athenaeum Hotel this afternoon at three o’clock?’
‘Today? But I’m in Somerset . . .’
‘What! Well, can you get back? I might be able to change it to four.’
Nell hesitated. ‘Yes. Sure. What’s it for?’
Amanda shuffled more papers. ‘It’s to see the director for a film they’re making in Russia. They need a girl . . . they haven’t sent in anything very detailed. Just go in and meet. He’s a big director. Raoul Romolkski. Four o’clock. OK?’
Nell looked out of the window. Sita was lying on a mound of cushions, reading a magazine in the sun. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere so peaceful,’ she said, squinting, as Nell came out. ‘I did once go to Wales but it rained non-stop, and anyway that was with school.’
‘Sita,’ she stood over her, blocking out the sun, ‘you’re not going to believe it but I’ve got an audition.’
Sita sat up. ‘What for?’
‘Some Russian film. Raoul Romolsksi? Oh God, the thing is, it’s today, at four.’
Sita flopped back onto her cushions. ‘That’s so bloody typical. Couldn’t they see you some other time? Even tomorrow. We’ve just arrived.’
‘You could stay here. You could drive me to a station.’ Nell looked round as if there might be a branch line on the other side of the hill. ‘And I could come back first thing tomorrow.’
‘Are you crazy?’ Sita scowled. ‘I couldn’t stay here on my own. I’d be terrified. Did you see how dark it was last night?’ She glanced round at the green wash of the valley, the hedgerows full of voles and birds, the dilapidated roof of one lone building on the crest of the next hill.
‘I’m sorry.’ Nell picked a blade of grass and tore it into fine green strips. ‘The thing is if I’m going to make it, then we’ll need to leave . . . quite soon.’
Sita pulled herself up. ‘OK,’ she said, ‘let’s get going. I suppose we need to clear everything up.’ And dragging the cushions with her, she went into the house to pack.
Nell sat on a spindly gold chair in the corridor of the Athenaeum Hotel. Lined up against the walls were at least ten other girls. Blonde and dark, short and tall, all wearing carefully applied make-up, with bare legs and high heels. Nell had on a thick coat with a fur collar. It was hot in the hotel and Nell longed to take the coat off, but underneath she only had on a strappy flowered dress, and anyway the coat, she was sure of it, was Russian. One by one the girls were called in. Theresa. Sheridan. Jade. Nell looked down at her black boots. How many parts were there? And she remembered Phyllida telling her that on average there was one woman cast to every five men.
Eventually Nell was called in. The director stared at her. He was not Russian but American. Big and fat, with lines across his forehead so deep they’d dented into grooves. ‘Too . . .’ he shook his head, ‘young,’ and the assistant showed her hurriedly to the door.
A month passed without any more auditions and then another month. Hettie called to tell her she’d been cast as a child in a play about a chimney sweep, and then Pierre phoned to invite her out to celebrate his promotion. He’d been invited on to the managerial team of the cold-calling company for which he’d been working for the last year. Nell took a job at Sita’s branch of Pizza Express, working six shifts a week, from five till midnight, taking orders, eating her supper in the kitchen, alone except for the clatter of the dishwasher being loaded and unloaded by Dragan, the silent Croatian. Nell’s mother asked if she wanted to come on holiday. She was going to Spain with Nell’s sister, a last trip before the birth of her first child, but Nell was unsure whether or not she could risk it.
After another month she rang Amanda. ‘If it’s convenient I’d like to pop in – (pop in!) and see you, just for half an hour . . .’ and as she spoke she looked at herself for signs of idiocy in the hall mirror.
The first thing Amanda did when Nell was shown into her office was thrust forward her hand. ‘Look!’ Nell stepped back, confused, and then she saw it – a huge glittering engagement ring studded with stones. ‘He finally came up with it.’
Nell smiled weakly. ‘It’s lovely,’ she said, and as Amanda made no effort to do so, she slid the vase of flowers to one side of the desk.
‘I’m really worried.’ Nell came straight to the point. ‘The play finished in April. It’s now August and I’ve only had one audition. I mean, have you been sending out my photos, my CV and reviews? It’s pretty clear the play isn’t going to transfer.’
Amanda looked amazed. ‘Of course we have. Constantly. Now . . .’ She stood up. ‘Where’s your file?’ She began pulling open drawers, and finding nothing she picked up the phone and spoke into it, imperious. ‘Please bring in Nell Gilby’s file. Right,’ she smiled, ‘I know it’s been disappointing. But I have been talking you up and it’s just, over the summer, it’s often a slow time. September is when things tend to get busy again.’
‘Really?’
There was a knock on the door and a timid, middle-aged woman put her head in. ‘Here’s Nell’s file, but I’m afraid there’s nothing much in it.’
Amanda rose up out of her seat. ‘Nothing in it?’ She glared. ‘What on earth is that about?’
The woman looked at her as if she had no idea.
Nell stared at the desk.
‘Sort it out. Photos. CVs. Reviews. They must have gone astray. Unless . . .’ There was a pause, ‘we’ve run out.’
Amanda sat down and opened the empty file. One CV fell flatly to the side. ‘You’ll have to order more photos,’ Amanda told her. ‘I’d no idea we’d run out. So sorry. Now. If there’s nothing else, I’ve got to dash. I’ve got a screening. Rupert’s in rather an exciting new film.’
Amanda pulled on a gauzy shawl and picked up her bag.
Nell stared at the file. ‘But could you have really used 100 photos? Are you sure they’re not somewhere . . . I mean.’ Nell remembered the sheer cost of having the last batch printed. ‘And the reviews I gave you. Wouldn’t you have photocopied them?’ She saw the long-ago clip from the paper – A talent to watch – sliding away into the bin.
‘Well,’ Amanda did pause, ‘I’ll talk to my secretary about it. Shall we go down?’
It was awkward in the lift. Amanda, her whole self gleaming, her hair bouncing, her nails buffed. Beside her Nell felt dull – three months of pizza suppers and late nights, of wearing the same red cotton T-shirt and black skirt, of running between tables, mindful of the orders, the side salads and garlic bread, the ever important tips.
‘Bye then,’ Amanda hailed a taxi. ‘Golden Square,’ she ordered, and she was gone.
When Nell got home she wrote to Lyndsey. I’ve made a terrible mistake. I wish I’d never left. Is there any chance at all of you taking me back on? I understand of course if you can’t. Please let me know. She signed and sealed it, and marking it ‘private’, ran to the postbox and sent it on its way to Ethel Dabbs’s.
Four days later Lyndsey called. ‘What happened?’ Concern almost masked a whisper of clear joy.
Nell poured her heart out to her.
‘I have news too,’ Lyndsey told her. ‘When you left, I had to admit, I was pretty shaken. I actually went home and cried. And then I thought. It’s not me, I know that, I couldn’t have worked harder. It’s the agency.’ She giggled. ‘Ethel Dabbs.’
Nell pressed the receiver hard against her ear.
‘So. I applied for a new job. I’m working for A.G. Blythe. In Covent Garden. They’ve got a wonderful client list. Much more vibrant, and I love being in town.’
‘So . . .’ Nell felt her heart thumping. ‘Is there any chance . . . I mean . . . I . . .’
‘Oh darling.’ Lyndsey’s voice was all regret. ‘When I got your letter I showed it to my colleagues, and the thing is . . . it’s such a problem, but we’ve got another girl on our books who’s rather like you.’
There was a silence in which Nell still allowed herself to hope.
‘It just wouldn’t be fair,’ Lyndsey continued. ‘To her. Or to you for that matter. I’m so sorry.’
‘That’s all right,’ Nell managed.
‘I mean,’ Lyndsey obviously felt bad, ‘I do see it’s been a disappointment, but Dove Coutts do have an excellent reputation. It may still work out.’
‘Yes.’ Nell felt like weeping. ‘Thank you, Lyndsey. And I’m so sorry to have upset you . . .’
‘No, I should thank you. Really. If you ever feel like having lunch, as friends, you know where I am.’
‘Bye then.’
‘Bye.’
Nell phoned her mother and sobbed. ‘It would all have been all right. But they’ve got someone else. Like me.’
‘You poor love,’ her mother sounded anguished. ‘It’s just you’ve been working so hard, that’s all, why don’t you change your mind and come away with us on holiday? There’s still time.’
‘Oh, Mum, you don’t understand. The thing is, I haven’t been working. Not really. And the last thing you feel like doing after no work is going on holiday.’
‘But you have been working, in that pizza place . . .’
‘No, you don’t understand. It’s not working really, it’s sort of . . . waiting . . .’
Nell sniffed and they both laughed. ‘Maybe next year.’
‘And Nell . . .’
‘What?’
‘There’s no one else like you.’
Nell took the bus to Soho and found a three-day-old copy of The Stage in a newsagent’s on Old Compton Street. She sat in a café and leafed through the adverts. This was where she’d found most of her work before she had an agent. A children’s theatre tour in which she’d played a penguin, the production of Romeo and Juliet Lyndsey had seen her in above the Chiswick Arms. Today an experimental company was looking for an actress with physical theatre skills, and a small outfit based in Balham needed a girl who could do an Irish accent for a play by Brian Friel.
Knobs and Knockers, Nell doodled a box of her own. Inventive performers needed for cabaret and improvisation. Singing, dancing, juggling, cake-making, ironmongery . . .
When she got home Sita was lying on the floor. ‘Are you all right?’ Nell asked, but Sita said she was exhausted. ‘I’ve been screaming at Harish all day. “I’m too young to be married. Don’t make me do it. Don’t marry me off to that old man.” By the end I just wanted to fly to Pakistan and have done with it.’
Nell sat down with her back against the sofa. ‘Why don’t we put on a show of our own. We don’t have to go to Somerset. I mean look at this,’ she opened up The Stage. ‘There are adverts here for all sorts of crazy things all over London. We could do Knobs and Knockers. We could have sketches about, I don’t know, anything . . .’
Sita pulled herself up. ‘I’ve always wanted to do a show about working as a waitress . . . you know, the first job I ever had, I had to dress up as a giant prawn. It was in a fish restaurant.’
‘Yeah, we could both be actresses, dreaming of stardom, and . . . you know a friend of mine worked in a burger bar where she had to rollerskate from one table to the next.’
‘Right.’ Sita leant over for a pen. ‘Let’s write it ourselves. What do you want to be called?’
‘Ummm.’ Nell considered. ‘Belle?’
‘Right. I’ll be . . . Rita. God, we’re imaginative. So,’ she began to scribble. ‘ “Two girls, on rollerskates, one dressed as a lobster, the other as a prawn . . .” This is going to be so good . . .’
They hunched over the paper. ‘We’ll start with really dreamy music . . . and then each girl can have a monologue . . . about their hopes and aspirations . . . and then . . . loud voice over. “Table ten is waiting. Hop to it.” ’
‘Yes.’
Just then the phone started ringing.
‘It’s probably my evil agent,’ Nell said.
‘Don’t answer it,’ Sita challenged her.
‘OK, I won’t.’ And they sat, pens poised while they waited for it to stop.
‘That’s better. Right, where were we? “OK, Hop to it, prawns, Table ten is waiting.” Then what?’
‘I know.’ Nell held up her hand. ‘A kind of mad rollerskating dance between the tables with more and more plates. Can you juggle?’
‘Not really.’
‘Fuck it, we’ll learn.’
The phone rang again. Nell didn’t look at it. ‘So,’ she said, leaning over to flick on the answerphone. ‘Prawns. Lobsters. Juggling. Music. Right, what next?’
‘A glitter ball.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, we have to have a glitter ball, and then the lights will dim and the whole black stage will be full of tiny silver reflections.’ A woman’s voice began to talk, nonchalantly into the machine. Sita twisted down the volume.
One glitter ball, Nell wrote, and she sat back and admired her work. ‘How about a sketch with all the worst chat-up lines we’ve ever heard.’
‘You’re Taurus. I’m Aries. Just think. Two horned creatures in the same paddock.’
‘Oooh, I remember him. Creepy.’
‘But, as it turns out, a source of good material.’
‘And how about, “You’re looking tired. An all-over body massage might do the trick?” ’
‘The manager of the Fulham Road Pizza Express! Promise I get to play him.’
‘OK,’ Nell wiped her eyes. ‘He’s all yours.’
Sita looked at her. ‘Will we really do it?’
Nell smoothed down the sheet of paper. ‘I’ll phone the Chiswick Arms tomorrow and book a date and then we’ll have to, won’t we?’
‘I guess so.’ Sita began scribbling stick figures on a set. ‘I’ve always wanted to use that Clint Eastwood music, you know, at the beginning of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly? We could have cowboy hats and guns, and whip them out when the customers are rude.’
‘I love it.’
‘I love it too.’
‘But will we still be dressed as lobsters?’
‘Possibly . . .’ Sita stood up and began pushing back the sofa. ‘Or,’ she was panting, ‘one long strip of Velcro and we’re free!’