Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?. Claudia Carroll

how useless her chiropodist is, no Agnes Quinn to playfully elbow me in the ribs and remind me that I’m not getting any younger, then ask me when exactly I’m going to put that huge nursery up in The Moorings to good use? No Father O’Driscoll to gently probe me about whether he might see myself and Dan at Mass one of these fine days…I am utterly and totally anonymous here and it’s wonderful. Feels like being able to breathe freely again after years of long, silent suffocation.

      I bounce along to the stage door of the National and the receptionist is almost flight attendant friendly. Yes, they’re expecting me and I’m to go ahead to the green room and wait there. She politely offers me tea or coffee while I’m waiting and I thank her but say no. Then I find my way to the green room which is directly behind the main stage, guessing that some other poor actress is out there strutting her stuff right now. I plonk down on a faded leather armchair and start thumbing through the script yet again.

      Fag Ash Hil was at pains to point out that, at this stage, I wasn’t expected to have actually memorised the lines, considering the short notice I’d been given to come and read for the part in the first place, but I know well enough how these things work. You’re told, ‘Oh, no need to be off book, darling,’ but the reality is that you’re expected to have studied the script the same way Egyptologists study tomb writings and it doesn’t matter a shite how late in the day you got the script.

      So I’m just re-reading through a pivotal scene for the character when the door opens and the stage manager comes to get me. No time to react, no time for nerves. I get up and obediently follow him.

      Two minutes later, and I’m standing on stage and it’s beyond weird having sat in the audience last night, now to be over on this side of the fence. The set, by the way, is a health spa in a five-star resort, with sun loungers dotted across the stage and offstage doors leading to a sauna, pool and steam room. It’s dimly lit and hard to see, then suddenly a split second later, it suddenly goes Broadway bright. I’m momentarily dazzled but then a disconnected voice from the dark auditorium tells me to come on down to the front of the stage. I do as I’m told, clutching the script like a talisman.

      Next thing, a striking-looking, long, lean guy is swooping down the centre audience aisle and striding towards where I’m standing centre stage, in a ball of sweaty tension.

      ‘Well, hello there,’ he calls out smoothly. ‘I’m Jack Gordon.’

      Not every day you come face-to-face with the David Beckham of the theatre world, so even though I’m blinded by the hot stage lights, I manage to squint through the darkness to get a half decent look at him. He’s a lot taller and slimmer than I’d have thought, wearing an impeccably-cut, slate grey suit with an open-necked, crisp, white shirt underneath, which somehow makes him look older than he actually is, even though he can’t be much more than early thirties. For a second, I can’t actually remember the last time I saw a proper well-dressed, metrosexual guy in a proper suit, outside of the local courthouse in Stickens, that is. Blue eyes and light brown-ish hair, but with slanting eyebrows that kind of give him the look of a satyr when he frowns downwards. And self-confidence that practically bounces off the auditorium walls; not a word of a lie, if the guy had antlers, they’d probably be well past his shoulders.

      In short, he looks like a Michael Bublé song.

      Anyway, he marches all the way down to the apron of the stage, walking as though he’s in his own spotlight and extends a smooth, lotioned hand out to me.

      ‘You must be Annie Cole,’ he smiles, flashing teeth brighter than a toxic blast from a nuclear bomb. ‘So good of you to come at such short notice. It’s an absolute pleasure to meet you.’

      And his voice is thicker than a jar of Manuka honey. A twenty-fags a day voice, if ever I heard one. Anyway, I mumble something inane and shake his ice cold hand. He’s focusing really intently on me now, keenly looking me up and down, then down and back up again and it’s making me bloody nervous. And the danger with me is that when nervous, I tend to act like I’ve got St Vitus’s dance of the mouth and start gabbling like a half-wit about complete and utter shite. Mercifully though, he doesn’t initiate any more chit-chat or small talk; just directs me towards the scene that he’d like me to read, coolly telling me to start in my own time.

      And for better or for worse, I’m on.

      Good sign: I’m asked to play one particular scene five different times, and in about five different ways. The logical part of my brain says, would Jack bother spending so much time on me if he thought I was really shite?

      Bad sign: As I leave the stage, I meet the other actress who was in before me, having a fag in the tiny yard off the green room. We both instantly cop on who the other is, the giveaway being the script we’re both clutching to our chests and each of us launch into a big post-mortem. Anyway, she says she was asked to do exactly the same thing. So much for that.

      Good sign: One of the pivotal scenes, feels completely fantastic. It’s impossible to describe the massive adrenaline rush I get from performing it – closest thing I can imagine would be like what a fighter pilot must feel on take-off. Or a cat burglar. For the first time in years, I find myself feeding off the sheer pleasure of acting and loving every second of it, thinking feck it anyway; even if I don’t get the part, I’ve come this far, so I may as well enjoy myself.

      Jack does a kind of deep, throaty, snorting laugh at some of the gag lines I deliver and this I find hugely encouraging.

      Bad sign: Then he excuses himself to answer his mobile phone and does precisely the same laugh.

      Good sign: After I’ve been put through my paces, he politely asks me about my personal life and whether the significant commitment involved in this gig would be an issue for me.

      Bad sign: When I tell him that I’m married but haven’t had a chance to discuss it with my significant other yet, he just nods curtly, giving absolutely nothing away. My gut instinct is to tack on, ‘But you know, everything’s OK, because it’s not like we have kids or anything!’ but I manage to restrain myself. I mean, yes of course I’d love the job, but do I really want to come across as a complete desperado?

      Shit anyway. Should have just told him the truth.

      That I’ve a husband who I honestly doubt would even notice I’m gone.

      Worst sign of all: When I’m leaving the stage, he shakes my hand quite formally and says, ‘Best of luck. We’ll be in touch.’ Otherwise known in the acting profession as the ‘don’t call us, we’ll call you’, kiss of death.

      So now there’s nothing to do but wait it out.

      

      It’s only early evening but already pitch dark by the time I get back to The Sticks. Dan, not surprisingly, isn’t back yet, but this would be perfectly normal. In fact it might be hours and hours before he does come home. So I decide that I’ll wait up for him, even if it’s two in the morning before he eventually does stagger in.

      My plan is thus: I will stand right in front of him, hands on hips like something out of a Western, blocking his path so he can’t dodge past me, claiming exhaustion and that all he really wants to do is go to bed. I will firmly say what I’ve got to say and not get fobbed off by his mobile ringing or him brushing me aside and saying, ‘We’ll talk later.’ Flooded with determination, I make up my mind. No more repeat performances of this morning. No more being brushed off.

      Enough’s enough. Some discussions just can’t wait.

      I let myself in through the side door that leads down a long, narrow, stone passageway to the kitchen and am delighted to see Jules standing there, wearing her pyjamas with a pair of my slippers and raiding our fridge, as per usual.

      ‘And where the feck have you been all day?’ is her greeting, not even looking up from the coleslaw she’s eating straight out of the tub.

      ‘Jules, please tell me you didn’t go out dressed like that? You look like the kind of woman that ends up getting escorted out of Tesco. You’re like a candidate for care in the community.’

      ‘Ahh,