‘So Jonah, how’re things?’
His probation officer leafed through a file. Buried under an unmanageable caseload, Mr ‘Call-me-Billy’ Riley probably hadn’t had time to read through it in advance of his eleven o’clock. The manila cover only had one handwritten note on it: the date of Jonah’s release from Belmarsh some six weeks ago. The rest would all be on the computer. Jonah didn’t know why they still bothered with paper.
‘Good, thanks, Mr Riley.’ Jonah hunched over, hiding the spiderweb tattoo on his fingers. The blue plastic chair rocked where it had come adrift from the screws on one side. He rebalanced his weight before it came apart entirely.
‘Call me Billy.’
Like hell he would. Mr Riley was system and Jonah didn’t want that masked by false friendliness.
‘Any work come in, Jonah?’
‘Yeah, maybe. I got a call back for a part.’
Mr Riley looked up, a smile of surprise crinkling his cheeks. He had been a sceptic when Jonah mentioned that he’d been taken on by an agent. ‘You did? That’s great!’
‘It’s just a small part – drug addict in alley.’
Mr Riley’s pleasure dimmed a little. Well shit: what did Call-me-Billy expect? That Jonah would go straight from prison to landing a part as the RSC’s Hamlet? ‘And you’re pleased?’
‘Hell yeah. My agent says it’s a good role. He’s got three lines – gives a vital clue to the police.’
‘Is it for anything I might watch?’
‘I dunno.’ Jonah scratched at a graze on his palm, caught himself, and stopped before it bled on his smartest jeans. ‘They said it’s one of those police procedurals with a quirky detective.’
‘I like those. I’ll definitely watch you when it comes out.’
‘I might not get it.’ If his life ran true to form, he’d be rejected.
‘I understand, but well done anyway. I’m pleased for you.’ Mr Riley found the page he wanted in the file and popped the nib on his ballpoint pen. ‘So what’s the quirk?’
‘What?’
‘Of the detective: jumper fetish, Asperger’s, tortured past, opera lover?’
Jonah shrugged. He hadn’t watched that kind of programme inside, or even before that. ‘Don’t know yet. I only read my scene.’ And when he’d read it, he’d been thinking how it was too fucking polite for life as he knew it on the street; but he guessed the TV people had to think about audience and watershed and shit.
‘Best of luck then. OK, here we are. Your psychologist is very pleased with your progress.’ Mr Riley put a little tick in the margin.
The tightness Jonah habitually felt in his chest loosened a little at this rare praise. It was like he’d been given permission to breathe.
‘I get the impression Dr Wade likes you.’ Mr Riley grinned. ‘Rose says you’re quite her star pupil. I’m jealous.’ Again he tried for the matey tone Jonah despised. He knew what they thought, these government paid hacks, how unequal this conversation really was despite the attempt to make superficial connections. Billy Riley was a similar age to Jonah, in his late twenties or early thirties; but Jonah guessed that was where the resemblance ended. He would put money on Billy Riley’s course having been a smooth one from school to college to training in the probation service, not at all like his own checkered one that had set him on the path to this wobbly chair. If Jonah was ‘drug addict in the alley’, Billy Riley looked like he’d been sent up for a role as ‘hipster bloke in pub’: lush brown beard, heavy rimmed glasses, weird-as-shit checked shirt and bow tie. Jonah also noted the trilby on top of the filing cabinet next to the exploding spider plant that was sending escapee plantlets roping down the grey wall in a mass breakout. He was never there when Mr Riley left work but Jonah could imagine him walking down the busy high street to Angel tube station, tailored coat flapping, rolled umbrella tapping, content that he’d made a difference. For all the joking about jealousy and Dr Wade, there was probably some hot girlfriend at home and they’d go out for – what did they call it? – tapas? Spicy shit on little plates, cost loads. Yeah, tapas. They’d laugh over Call-me-Billy’s anecdotes about the ragtag army of ex-cons he tried to reform, then snuggle down together under freshly laundered sheets for no-kink sex and untroubled sleep.
It would be good to swap lives just for a bit. Even if just for the night with the girlfriend.
Smiley Mr Riley was definitely getting some. And for that alone most of Jonah’s fellow inmates would want to give him a good kicking. It didn’t take much to earn one.
‘Jonah?’
He realised he’d been drifting again in dark thoughts. ‘Um, yeah, Dr Wade’s been great. She was the one who suggested I try out for small parts – got me an agent who likes my ex-offender CV. Adds credibility, she said.’
‘That’s new: for an employer to find it a plus. You never told me how that came about.’
‘I told Dr Wade about the production of Henry V I was in.’ Jonah was cautiously proud that he now said it the right way to an educated man like Mr Riley – Henry the Fifth. When he’d first been given the script, he’d thought it was like the Star Wars saga, Henry part five. Fucking embarrassing to be corrected. The drama teacher had cut short the laughter and told the others that Jonah was right in that Shakespeare really went in for sequels.
‘I remember now. I’ve got something about that in your file. You were the lead, weren’t you?’
Jonah nodded. So many lines to learn but he’d a lot of time on his hands and discovered he had a good memory. Who would’ve thought? Certainly not any of the teachers who’d given up on him. The king had masses of words; it was like he had Google in his brain and could just keep on pumping out new combinations. For Jonah, who had very little say, or to say, in his life, finding the speeches tumbling from his lips had felt like discovering the kick of a new drug without any side effects. ‘You should’ve seen me: I fucking killed that role, Mr Riley. Now Dr Wade’s helping me with my application for drama school. She says I should aim for the best.’
Mr Riley spread his hands over the file. ‘Then I’m superfluous to requirements.’
Good word ‘superfluous’. Old Billy boy had a bit of Henry the Fifth in him. ‘That’s one of the things I wanted to ask you, Mr Riley.’
The probation officer waved a little impatiently. ‘It’s Billy. And, Jonah, I have to tell you that I know nothing about acting. Zilch. Nada.’
‘Not that, it’s just, I mean, do you think I’m too old for this? Am I wasting my time?’ He didn’t like confiding but who else could he ask?
‘On drama school? I can’t see why. You’re only twenty-seven. Quite a few of my friends have gone back into education to do a masters or retrain. We’re all thirty so got a few years on you. That isn’t that old, is it? Damn, I hope not.’ He offered another of his slightly self-mocking smiles. ‘Anyway, they’ll not let you in if they think they’re wasting a place on you. You do know it’s really competitive?’
Jonah nodded.
‘I see you did some GCSEs and an A levels while you were at Belmarsh?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That might not be enough. You’ll be OK with rejection if it comes? Not lose it like before?’
‘I’ve got it under control.’ He hoped he had. He was sometimes scared of himself, what he might do when pushed.
‘If they take you, have you given any thought how you’re going to fund your studies?’
Money. It always came back to money. Jonah had done terrible things for it in the not-so-distant past. No longer. ‘They have bursaries and Dr Wade says she has a friend, her old landlady, who takes lodgers at below the market rate if they’re in the Arts.’ The woman was a nutter to pass up income like that but he wasn’t going to complain. ‘And I was planning to keep with my job at Timpsons for the moment.’ Key cutting and shoe mending weren’t the most exciting of professions but it was a regular income and his boss had a soft spot for ex-offenders; he didn’t mind a bit of crude language as long as it wasn’t in front of customers. Jonah knew he was lucky to have found the position.
‘That’s good. Jonah, you’ll probably hear this a lot around acting, so let me be the first …’ Mr Riley paused, relishing his punchline.
‘Hear what?’
‘Don’t give up the day job.’
Now Jonah wanted to give him a good kicking too.