A very nice girl, p.20
A Very Nice Girl, page 20
I could still taste the whisky, and I imagined it drying and taking with it all the moisture in my throat. But if I said that, he’d think I was mad.
I didn’t mean to hurt you – I said. – I was trying to make you stop.
He was looking at me like I was making no sense at all, and then he went into the bathroom and I heard the water from the shower. I could feel my heart fluttering like it was trying to break out through my ribs, and my limbs all felt too big and not attached to my body. I wished he’d shouted. I would have understood shouting. The quiet, I couldn’t understand.
He was in there for a long time, and then I thought he must be waiting for me to leave. I’d taken his shirt off, was putting my own clothes back on, when he came out, towel wrapped round his waist.
What are you doing?
Leaving.
I sat on the bed to put on my tights.
Why are you leaving? Don’t leave.
You’re angry with me.
I’m not – he said. – I’m not angry anymore. I know it was an accident. Anna? Are you listening to me? Don’t leave.
He pulled me up off the bed, and he wrapped his arms round me. His chest was still damp, and he smelled clean and fresh.
I hurt you. I didn’t mean to hurt you.
He put his hands on my shoulders and said – look, look at me, see, it’s really nothing, it was just a shock, that’s all. I’m sorry I was angry.
And I looked up at his face and he was right. Now that he’d cleaned it, it really was nothing. It was barely even a scratch.
I woke up tired, and he was gone. There was an envelope propped up on the bedside table, written on the front, in his touchingly childish writing – Good luck with the audition. Get a taxi. I opened it and counted the money inside. It would have paid for a taxi to France. I added the amount to the list I’d started on my phone, which I showed him periodically, saying – look, see, I know exactly how much I owe you. I’ll pay you back – and he always said – sure, whenever, no rush – and I wondered if he had any idea how much he’d given me over the last month or so. Looking at it now made me feel a bit sick.
I lay in bed for a little while. I had a few hours before the audition, and I knew I should get up and do a proper warm-up, but that didn’t feel important. Tiredness, maybe. I made coffee, opened all the curtains, and took it back to bed, drank it, staring out at the white sky, the fluorescent lights of office buildings. Then I opened his bedside drawer and took out the stacks of cash, started looking through the papers underneath. I knew that going through his things wasn’t exactly moral, but it didn’t feel like that was what I was doing. The stuff seemed too impersonal. I didn’t know what I was looking for, anyway. Evidence, I suppose, though evidence of what, I wasn’t sure. Something I could fix him with – turn him into a butterfly pinned on a corkboard, a beetle trapped in a glass, hold him still, stop his wings from flapping. But I didn’t find anything like that. Documents from work that I didn’t understand, lots of figures on them, paper-clips, expired visas, biros printed with the names of different hotels. Nothing with emotional content. I got up and opened the drawers in the wardrobe. Nothing much in them either. Underwear, belts, a jumper I’d never seen him wear. A bag was hung on one of the hangers, and I opened that too. Some documents in a plastic folder. A couple of letters. One of them was still sealed, but the other was open. A bank statement. I looked through it, but it didn’t tell me much. The only thing that really surprised me was the amount he’d been paid that month. I checked it three times to make sure I’d read it right.
I was about to put it back, when I noticed it had been sent to his house in Oxfordshire. I took a photograph of the address, then I sat down on the bed and typed it into Google, found out how much he’d paid for it and when. April last year. So they’d chosen it together. Lived there together, perhaps. I’d never asked. And did he not want to disturb the memory of that, like when a parent leaves untouched the room of their missing child? Was that why he wouldn’t let me go? I found out how many bedrooms and how many bathrooms it had, but there weren’t any photos. I looked it up on Google Maps, and then I tried to switch it to Street View, but it was off in one of those unphotographed bits, and I could only get as far as the bottom of the road. Then I had to get up and take a shower. I was going to be late.
The audition was at someone’s house, which was odd. Trying to cut costs, I suppose. It was further out of London than I’d planned for, and the house was so big, it took me ten minutes to find the way in. A woman answered the door.
Hi, I’m Anna – I said. – I’m a little late, I’m sorry.
Anna, welcome. You’re our 14:03? Don’t worry, we’re a touch behind too.
She led me into the kitchen, which had tiled floors, oak surfaces and lots of copper pots hanging above a chopping island, like an American farmhouse.
If you could wait here until the warm-up room’s ready for you – she said. – Oh, and I don’t think you’ve paid your audition fee yet, have you?
I found Max’s latest envelope, pulled out a couple of notes and handed them over.
There was a girl, about my age, sitting at the kitchen table, flicking through a score. She’d highlighted her text in pink.
I sat.
Zerlina? – she said.
Sorry?
You’re trying for Zerlina?
Oh right. Yes. You?
Same – she said, lips slightly pursed, as if to say – yes, I thought so.
The ones who talked to you before auditions were always like this – smiling mouths and hard eyes – because it was never really a chat, not really.
She shut her music, and started to ask me questions.
What’s your name? – she said. – Anna? Hm. Anna. I don’t think I’ve seen you around before, Anna. Not much on the London singing circuit, hm? What’s your surname? I haven’t heard of you. Oh, new in London? Well, sort of new. That would be it then. Are you studying here? Oh really? Interesting. How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking? Sung this role before? The full role, I meant. Sung with the company? Do you know the MD then? The director? The repetiteur? Well, who do you know exactly? Which companies have you sung with? I meant in London. And who’s your teacher, anyway?
She listened carefully to my answers, and then she nodded and turned away. She got out a brush and ran it through her long blonde hair, flicking it first this way and then the other, flick flick flick, trying to work out which side it looked best flicked on. She dabbed on a bright red mouth, checked her teeth in her hand mirror and smiled. She pulled off her trainers and picked up her tote bag – name of an opera festival printed on the front – took out some Louboutin shoes, patent leather, high but undeniably classy. She stood up and stepped into them, and then she sat back down, opened up her score. She didn’t look at me again.
Anna? – our hostess poked her head round the kitchen door. – The warm-up room’s free. If you’d like to come this way.
I followed her upstairs.
Through there – she said. – I’ll come and get you when they’re ready.
The room was small, with lots of clashing florals – floral wallpaper, floral throw on the sofa, floral curtains. It was very warm. I took off my jumper. I hadn’t noticed it so much downstairs, that clammy heat you get in old people’s houses – heat needed to toast those who never move, like lamps to keep lizards warm.
I went over to the window. Huge landscaped garden, some construction at the end of it, a pool house maybe. I felt no urgency. The pre-audition high should have hit me by now, but it hadn’t. I stood there, looked out at the improbably green lawn, the designer cat picking its way across the garden wall. A couple of weeks ago, Max had made a comment about art being less important to a country than politics. I’d tried to explain why I didn’t think that was necessarily right.
He said – but what you’re saying is so obviously not true, Anna, it’s hard to believe you believe it.
He said – but a large part of what motivates an artist is what they personally want, right? There’s something fundamentally selfish about that, isn’t there? Something arrogant? You’re saying, the world’s not good enough for me. You’re saying, I want a different sort of life. Yes, maybe there’s some external benefit, but it’s secondary, right, to what you personally want?
I’d been offended, and he’d said then that he thought we were having a theoretical discussion, he hadn’t meant me, and I shouldn’t be so sensitive.
I remembered that, standing, looking out of the window. I thought about what he’d said, and I knew he was right. This wasn’t important. This little company. Their little performances in a room above a pub. Their chi-chi Islington audience, there for the interval wine, and so they could say – oh yes, we saw that. I wasn’t even sure that it was important to me. It felt pointless, actually, auditioning for a role I’d have to pay to do, imagining his face when I told him that and what he’d say – but aren’t they meant to be paying you? I thought you said they were a good company? But, so, how does that work?
The woman hadn’t told me how much time I had, probably twenty minutes, not long left now. There was an odd pleasure in not warming up. A perverse excitement in being bad. I’d felt it as a child – when the teacher told us to get out of the swimming pool, I’d dive under the water and hold my breath, look up at the wobbly shape of her standing over me, know I was in trouble. I’d feel this excited sting between my legs, though I wouldn’t have known then what it was, just that I liked it. I looked at my watch. Ten minutes had passed. I was running out of time.
I stood in front of the mirror, struck a note on the upright, and started to sing. As soon as I opened my mouth, I wished I’d gone into the Conservatory first thing, actually done some work, instead of wasting my time going through his stuff – looking for evidence – for fucking evidence – for evidence of what? I didn’t even know. I was tired, and my voice felt unwieldy, like a too large parcel that didn’t fit under my arm. I looked at myself in the mirror, and saw that my heels were too high. They hadn’t seemed it yesterday, but looking at them now, undeniably, they were. Too high and trashy looking, particularly with that dress, I’d have to put my jumper back on, never mind the heat, because I wasn’t like that girl downstairs – that girl whose clothes just worked, who was whole and complete, just one thing, while I was made of all these different parts that didn’t fit together.
I was warming up the scale but I still wasn’t in my voice, I was standing outside it, and I looked into my face and saw that my eyes were wide and black, and I realised, suddenly, horribly, that I was frightened. Not standard pre-audition nervous – those nerves you can use and channel into energy – but frightened. Fully, bodily, Run Away frightened. It tingled through me. It paralysed my throat, as if someone had put their fingers round my neck and squeezed. Something gave way. The note split, it broke in half, it stuttered, faltered, then it stopped.
There was a knock at the door, and the woman stuck her head in.
They’re ready for you – she said.
I wasn’t sure how long she’d been outside. My heart was beating in my throat, high, too high, like if I opened my mouth I might vomit it out.
They’re just through that door there – she said. – Knock and wait, and they’ll call you in.
I stood outside for a second, breathed, then knocked, but nobody answered.
I knocked again, and I waited. Still nothing.
I knocked a third time, and then I was worried they hadn’t heard, so I pushed open the door and went in.
The space wasn’t big. A grand piano filled most of it, rug on top, piled with scores. There was a sofa on the opposite wall, four men squashed together, looking too large for the room, like adults trying to squeeze into a child’s playhouse. They were all wearing suits, although one of them had discarded his tie and undone some buttons, and another had taken off his shoes. He was sitting in mismatched socks.
I realised why I hadn’t heard them say come in. None of them could speak. They were all helpless with laughter.
The Shoeless Man had his head on his knees, hands interlaced over his skull, shoulders heaving.
The Tieless Man was swinging his tie over his head like a lasso, hitting the Pink-Shirted Man with it, while he snorted and gasped and squirmed stop it mate, hey, hey, stop it.
The man in the middle sat with legs wide open, forcing the others into the corners. He looked to his left, and then to his right, and he smiled. He was, I knew, from Google, the Man in Charge.
Hi – I said. – Sorry, I did knock. Are you ready for me?
The sight of me made whatever they were laughing about funnier – they seemed to enjoy an audience – and I worried that it was my outfit, or – worse – that these rooms weren’t well soundproofed and they’d heard me warm up. I was about to say I was sorry, I didn’t feel well, I was going to have to leave, when the Man in Charge said – you’re Anna? Well, come on in – and without me wanting them to, my limbs obeyed.
Sorry about them – the Man in Charge said. – They’re just – they’re just—
He collapsed into childish giggles.
The room was oddly shaped, and there was nowhere obvious for me to stand. I ended up slightly too far from the piano, and slightly too close to the men. I said hello to the pianist, and she smiled at me, as if to say – sorry, tough luck, you’re on your own.
Most of the men were trying to control themselves by now. The Tieless Man was biting the back of his hand. The Shoeless Man was doing performative deep breaths. The Pink-Shirted man had gone pink himself with embarrassment. But the Man in Charge looked right at me, laughing openly, tears running down his cheeks. I wanted to cover myself with my hands.
Part? – he asked.
My throat was dry. It took a couple of goes to speak.
Zerlina.
Ok, right – he said. – So, Anna. We’ll start with ‘Batti Batti’, and, and, hang on—
He snorted with laughter, got out a handkerchief and blew his nose, wiped his eyes.
Ok, so, what I want you to do, right, yeah, is to sing the aria, ok? Ok, and – ha – and – and while you’re singing, I want you to look at me, ok? And what I’m going to be doing is – I’m going to be sort of like, waving my arms around –
He jiggled his arms in the air to demonstrate. The other men snickered.
And I want you to like, follow my arms, cos I’ll be showing you what I want you to do with it, you know?
Sorry, I don’t quite – you’re going to conduct it, you mean?
No, like, I’m going to show you how to interpret it? Ok? So if I wave my arms higher like this, that might mean I want you to be a bit, like, brasher, right? And – look, I just want to see how you take my direction, ok? Be creative.
Um, right – I said. – Ok.
Auditions are artificial. The panel’s always too close and the room’s always too bright. You have to block that out. You have to picture the scene very clearly, make it feel real. But I couldn’t. I was staring at the Man in Charge, his cold blue eyes and the open amusement in his face, and I heard, somewhere very far away, the pianist play the opening chord. He made a stabbing gesture to tell me I was meant to come in. She played the chord again, and then a third time. I stood there. Everything was quiet in my head.
They were laughing at me, now. I was sure of it. Not laughing in general, but laughing at me.
I turned to the pianist.
I’m really sorry – I said. – Could we start again?
She played the chord, and this time I came in, but the fear stayed. It normally went. It normally went when you started to sing and realised it was going to be fine, but this wasn’t going to be fine. My voice was thin and wispy and sticky, like candyfloss. The more I tried to grab at it, the more it came apart.
But what if I am not to blame?
I’d spent hours in the practice room working on these phrases.
What if it was all his doing?
The intention behind them, the changes in mood, hours and hours spent crafting Zerlina’s pleas, her interjections, her accusations. But I was staring at the Man in Charge and he had some very different ideas to me, and the more I tried to follow his movements, the more my voice detached, floated somewhere away from me up there on the ceiling like a lost helium balloon.
I tripped and stumbled through the opening recit, and launched into the aria. The Man in Charge waved his arms at me emphatically, like I was the entire section of a symphony orchestra playing wildly out of time, about to lead the performance to catastrophe. The room was getting smaller. Sweat pooled at my collar and pricked round my hairline. The walls were closing in, really close now. They were crushing my head, squeezing my lungs, they were about to force the organs out of me, and the men were on the sofa, somewhere over there, watching, laughing, because really it was too funny – haha – watching everything be squeezed out of me like this. With every note, thinking, that’s it, I have to stop, I just have to stop, I have to stop and say I’m sorry and leave, but you never stop, you never stop, those are the rules, whatever happens, you look like it’s right, you keep going. And then there we were at the end of the aria, and I almost didn’t want it to end because once it stopped I’d have to say something, or maybe they’d say something first, and I wasn’t sure which would be worse.
The pianist didn’t bother with the final bars of music, stopped with me. Nobody moved. Nobody said anything.
I swallowed. My tongue was too big for my mouth.
Well, thanks – I whispered, and I turned to go.
Hang on a minute – said the Man in Charge.
I turned back.
Zerlina’s got another aria – he said. – Have you prepared that too?
Um. Yes. I have.
We’d like to hear it.
I thought – he can’t be serious. You should turn and leave. But I heard myself saying – ok – because those were the rules. As long as he waggled my strings, I’d keep dancing.
So, what we’d really like with this one – he said – is to know what you’re like on stage. Tell us. What’s it about?
