Trouper
Laura Cassidy - The Pig’s Back, Issue Five
Edward Hopper, New York Movie, 1939, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA.
Apparently Caoimhe and her new boyfriend were well into the first date before either realised they’d once played siblings in a TV ad for chocolate cereal. I hear the spiel a few times before I see him; fourth row in the theatre, knees hunched and paperback in lap, as we block the penultimate scene. Our semi-professional company has one rule – no outsiders in rehearsals – but they’re getting the bus together afterwards and the café next door is closed and it’ll only be the once, Caoimhe says.
At the smoke break he goes, ‘Your hair is class’ and I wait for Caoimhe to respond before I register who he’s talking to. ‘Oh thanks,’ I say, touching the stippling of freckles on my neck. ‘I’m not mad about it myself.’ The pixie cut is a souvenir from an undercover cop drama that got cancelled after one season. I was the sidekick to the stoic lead, and the best thing about that show was the stew I had from the catering truck on set. He smiles when I tell him this. His own blond hair is tied back with a bobbin I recognise as Caoimhe’s. She grinds her cigarette into the stonework and turns to Frieda, who is uncharacteristically cheerful, high on the news that we’ve received funding to tour her play after the initial two-week run. I had hoped we’d stage mine this year but it remains, chronically, unfinished. As the others chat about theatre festivals he sidesteps closer and tells me, unprompted, that he hasn’t acted since childhood but recently dabbled in screenwriting. Caoimhe looks beyond him, to the neon Stage Door sign humming in the alley. There is a familiar pressure between them that unnerves me but that I don’t dwell on, like a pebble clipping my windshield at dusk.
After the break, we go over the scene again. I fluff a line, don’t think much of it. Our director, Karl, barks orders from the stalls. Caoimhe struggles to focus. Her new boyfriend remains in his seat in the fourth row, taking notes in the margins of his book with a mechanical pencil. That night, at 2 a.m., I get out of bed to make sure I’ve locked the door to my basement flat.
When not in rehearsal, or at an audition, I can spend hours at home doing nothing much – moving from the kitchen island to the seashell velvet chair to the couch, laptop whirring, monitoring social media like I’m being paid for it. I never get bored, rarely have the urge to leave. Occasionally Karl will come over and we’ll gossip about the other members of the company, and he’ll mither me to finish my play so he can direct it. I want to be rid of the thing and yet I’m conscious that it’s still in motion – the setting, the characters, the timeline keeps changing. I’ll know when it's right, like a musician tuning for a recital, plucking until she gets what she needs. Sometimes I catastrophise that I’ll crack my head open on the concrete tiles after one too many beers and Karl will find my body, and then the draft, and will stage my mediocre work to a packed house, and I’ll win a posthumous theatre award because everyone will feel bad about the dying. I keep the script in an encrypted folder, next to the company bank details and screenshots of affirmations.
He's at the next rehearsal too; same seat, different book. Nobody protests, so neither do I. We work from ten to two, break, and back for three to five. I say my lines and try to look enthusiastic. Frieda’s play is fine. A little boring, but the structure holds. It follows a melancholic twenty-seven-year-old research assistant named Freya who, over the course of a year, dates a series of unseen older men who do unforgivable things like rearrange dates and tell dumb jokes and forget to text her back. Freya, much like Frieda, believes she deserves the undivided attention of men she barely knows and doesn’t particularly like. But there are some clever moments. Caoimhe plays the character of Freya well. It’s the kind of thing that, after a few glasses of lobby wine and no convenient means of escape, people will probably find themselves enjoying. The play’s final and most successful scene involves Freya undressing in front of a polyester cloud and striding confidently towards the recorded waves – embracing death, or a kooky midnight swim, we can’t be sure. It’s the only point of ambiguity in the play and it comes as a relief to all involved. My character, Freya’s best friend, exists mainly as a sounding board for her meandering monologues. I stand there and nod or shake my head or offer encouragement. I attempt to give the character shape but she is one-dimensional, tedious, clichéd. ‘It’s the perfect part for you,’ Frieda had said at auditions.
He's at the next rehearsal too. And the one after that. He’s even there when veteran theatre actress, Maura Milburn, arrives late in her puff-sleeved satin dress. She’s doing us a solid by playing Freya’s long-suffering mother – her name on the bill is responsible for most of the pre-ordered tickets. Maura has wild grey curls and a soft Crumlin accent. She’s polite to everyone and injects some life into Frieda’s script, through careful beats and inflections, with the skill of a street artist muralling a derelict depot. I’ve heard rumours circulating at the film institute about her health, but she looks radiant to me. I have a scene with her in which our characters discuss Freya’s state of mind, and to my horror, I mess up a couple times. Fragments of a TV script from a decade ago shift about in my head, instead of the words I’m meant to be saying now.
‘The line is, I’ve never heard something so problematic’, says Karl, exasperated.
‘What did I say?’ I ask.
‘So post-traumatic.’
‘Don’t worry, love,’ says Maura, tapping my arm as she passes me on the stage. ‘You’re well able.’
At the break, the others buzz around her. I sneak into the green room and lock the door behind me. It’s crammed with dusty old props – inherited, along with the building, from an amateur musical society. I make my way carefully through the chaos, lean against a huge papier-mâché plant, and try to ignore the persistent feeling of flesh in my mouth.
The play starts to come together. Caoimhe begins to wear a lot of polo necks. Her poreless skin sweats in the July heat as she recites her monologues, and he turns the pages of his epistolary novels. It’s two weeks before opening night and I’m still busy trying to remember my lines. For the first time in my acting career, I find myself scribbling sentences on my hand, resting the script in the plastic dinner bowls on stage. And it’s not just the lines that are a problem. I spend fifteen minutes looking for eggs in the supermarket, before realising they’re right inside the entrance, and already in my basket. I ask people how their weekend was, and then ask them again five minutes later. I can’t remember what I’m supposed to be doing but can recall entire conversations from ten years ago, as clear as if they’d happened yesterday. When Maura asks how I am during rehearsal, I want to tell her I feel the worst I’ve ever felt in my life. Except that’s not quite true.
The scene with Maura is the only one that clicks for me. In it, Caoimhe is silhouetted in the window upstage and Maura and I are on the high stools, discussing Freya’s life choices.
‘She never could follow the rules,’ says Maura, taking a drag of her menthol
cigarette and staring into the distance, towards the lighting box.
‘Maybe the rules aren’t there to be followed,’ I say, fixing my scratchy beret. The dialogue is nonsensical but we somehow make it work, we bounce off one another, like players in a dimly lit games room passing a ping-pong ball in easy rhythm. When the scene is over Maura nods to me and I know that we have it. That we don’t need to do anything more.
‘This is what I’m looking for,’ shouts Karl, dropping his clipboard to the floor and starting a long, slow clap that the others reluctantly join in on. Caoimhe takes time to turn from her position in the window, even as we all disperse for break, grabbing snacks from the table.
‘Do you notice anything weird about Caoimhe?’ I ask Karl one evening when he’s on my couch, eating stale crackers and hummus from the upscale grocery store where he works. He has just been on a date with a guy who collects taxidermy ferrets and poses with them for a recurring photo series commissioned by the gallery of modern art.
‘Weird how?’
‘The lack of make-up. The frumpy jumpers.’
‘Didn’t she always wear those?’ he says, between munches.
‘And he’s constantly there, like he’s keeping an eye on her.’
Karl shrugs, goes for another cracker. ‘He’s writing a screenplay about a theatre
troupe, he just wants to observe the dynamics.’
‘He keeps giving me random compliments too, it’s weird.’
‘Right,’ says Karl with a snort. ‘What an asshole.’
I know there’s no point pressing it. Individually everything can be explained
away, like the components of a homemade bomb.
On Saturday he’s at rehearsal again, inviting everyone to his for a barbeque afterwards. We’re almost done with the third act when Caoimhe starts wondering, out of nowhere, if she should actually take her clothes off at the end.
‘I just feel like Freya would at least wear a swimsuit?’
Karl is frustrated at this eleventh hour questioning, but is hearing her out. ‘Can I ask where this is coming from, Caoimhe?’ he says.
She turns on her heel, her face shiny with sweat. ‘You should be playing the lead.’ She aims an unsteady finger in my direction. ‘You’re a better actress.’
To hear this spoken out loud feels wrong. ‘You’re a brilliant actress,’ I say, my cheeks reddening.
‘Exactly,’ says Karl. ‘But you don’t hear of too many people topping themselves in their speedos?’
‘Well, I think the scene is exploitative,’ Caoimhe says, glancing to the fourth row. There’s a streak of sunlight coming from the open stage door, and it makes his blond hair look almost red.
‘I never meant it to be distasteful,’ says Frieda, visibly upset. ‘I’m not sure the play will even work without it...’
Caoimhe avoids her gaze, and I can sense Frieda’s anxiety at the threat of her vision falling apart. A hot rage makes its way from my stomach up to my throat. ‘This was his idea, wasn’t it?’ I hiss. ‘He put this in your head.’
Caoimhe looks confused.
‘What is he even doing here?’ I say, louder.
Startled, he looks up from his book.
I see the outline of Maura moving backstage and I jerk. I didn’t think she was in today, and I’m worried she overheard. How could she not have? Karl takes my arm, guides me to the darkness of the wings. ‘Do you think it’s possible you might be projecting?’ he whispers.
I hurry out to my car, but my hands are shaking so much I can’t get the key in the ignition. I think of them all eating vegan burgers in his garden later, bitching about me. Caoimhe’s right, I should be playing the lead. But I’m not ready for the questions, only a few people know about the scars. Ten years ago, in an attempt to comfort itself, my brain chose a permanent release. Like a ball bouncing in a game show wheel, it could so easily have landed on something else: sugar, cocaine, triathlons. I put my head between my knees and take deep breaths. When I look up, I see Maura through the window, trying to manoeuvre a six-foot crucifix into her Peugeot.
‘Oh thanks, love,’ she says, when I get out to help her. ‘Karl said I could borrow some set pieces.’
‘For a production?’
‘Of sorts.’ She drags a seatbelt to hold the plywood in place. ‘Can I ask what all that was about, in there?’
I hesitate, attempt to shrug it off. ‘He just reminds me of someone,’ I say. I help her load bunches of artificial roses into the passenger seat, next to paper bags from a party supply shop in Kimmage.
‘I’m having a bit of a shindig tonight,’ she says. ‘You should come, there are some people I want to introduce you to.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Maura but–’
‘You have something the others don’t,’ she says, speaking over me. ‘Trust me on this, I can see it in you.’
I bat away the compliment as a reflex.
‘Things kick off around eight,’ she adds, leaning down to adjust the cross. ‘Oh, and wear black.’
In the hours before the party, I find myself working on my play. Buoyed by Maura’s words, I type in a frenzy. I make mistakes and misspellings, but it doesn’t matter, because everything will be changed so many times anyway. I feel like a kid learning chess, practising against herself. I can’t lose.
Maura’s dusky pink door is ajar when I get there and so I step inside, and hear a showtune blasting from down the hall. There’s a basket of brightly-coloured accessories under a sign that says ‘PICK ONE’, I choose a mini sequin top hat and fix the elastic under my chin. I follow the music to a living room with a high ceiling, shelves bulging with paperback books, and windows that have been painted to look like stained glass. There’s a black coffin covered in confetti in the middle of the room, surrounded by flickering candles of varying heights. Karl once told me a rumour about a group of Dublin creatives who are into occultist orgies and the like, but everyone here is fully clothed, wearing the requisite black. There’s a rotund cat with a halo attached to its collar, stretched out under the drinks table. Maura’s ex-husbands are in the corner, sipping brandy from crystal tumblers. An actress from a day-time soap opera is brushing tortilla dust from her dungarees, and a Booker prize winner is on his hunkers, trying to get the cat’s attention. There’s a portrait of Maura in a gold frame, mounted on an easel, and a banner of balloons that spell, in large bubble font: ‘FUN-ERAL’.
‘You made it!’ says Maura, gliding towards me in a linen fuchsia two-piece, cocktail in hand.
‘Is this–’
‘My funeral?’
I’m speechless and she laughs, kisses both my cheeks. ‘I know I’m technically supposed to be six feet under first, but I didn’t want to miss this, all my family and friends finally in one place. My oncologist is even here somewhere, he makes a damn good mojito.’
My stomach drops. ‘But… but you look so well.’
‘A combination of positivity and stage make-up, love. I was given six months to
live, nine months ago.’
‘Oh god,’ I say. ‘Oh Jesus, Maura, I’m so sorry.’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t warn you,’ she says, adjusting her plastic tiara. ‘But I was afraid you wouldn’t come. And there are some people here you really should meet.’
I pull myself together and dutifully trail Maura as she introduces me to a series of well- dressed, charming hotshots – most I haven’t spoken to before but recognise by their faces or names. An agent who represents up-and-coming playwrights gives me her card and I zip it carefully into the pocket of my clutch bag. When Maura gets pulled away, I make small talk with an essayist who has spent the last three months interviewing people who only have sex in submarines.
Later, we play a game of pass the parcel with Maura’s possessions, and I win a cameo brooch. Shortly after midnight, we go out to the long back garden and watch Maura’s adult son set off fireworks.
She stands with me, a little away from the rest of the group.
‘The person Caoimhe’s fella reminds you of,’ she says, between the pops and the screeches. ‘Is that person still in your life?’
‘God no,’ I say. ‘I’m well rid of him.’
‘I think we have to escape that kind of situation twice,’ says Maura. ‘The first time when we leave; the second time when we talk about it. Have you talked to anyone about it?’
I swallow, keep my voice even. ‘I tried,’ I say, quietly. ‘I booked an appointment with a therapist, even made it to her waiting room. But I became convinced he was going to walk down the corridor, that he had somehow infiltrated my email again. I left the clinic and turned my phone off for two days. I know I should talk to someone, but it’s hard, you know? There’s a long waiting list. Also, he threatened to kill me if I ever spoke about him.’ I laugh nervously, and Maura’s expression doesn’t change. ‘I keep remembering things I thought I’d forgotten,’ I say. ‘Things I don’t want to remember. I feel like I’m losing my mind.’
‘Sometimes our minds wait until we’re ready,’ she says. ‘To process things. It’s inconvenient but also comforting, to know that the mind looks out for itself that way.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘You have a lot to give,’ says Maura, and I’m afraid I’m going to cry, because I know I don’t love like other people do. What happened has not made me stronger, but more careful and frightful and harder than I need to be. Whenever some mad fucker is all over the news, people wonder how the partner could have stayed. I know the how and the why. It doesn’t start with: ‘You’re ugly’, it starts with: ‘The producer wanted to cast someone conventionally attractive, but I pushed for you because I think you’re beautiful’. When I’m seeing someone new, I try to avoid what I fear most, and in doing so I start to mirror the very thing that I hate. Men like to be observed but they don’t like to be scrutinised. I can’t blame them for walking away from the interrogations, the paranoia, the flinching every time they come into a room. It’s easier not to try.
‘Maura,’ I say. ‘I really am so sorry...’
‘It’s okay, love,’ she says, still looking at the sky. ‘I’ve had a good run.’
We go back inside, and I grab a beer from the bucket. I only sip it – I haven’t touched the party food and the other drinks have gone straight to my head. I make for the corner and sit on a purple corduroy beanbag. To my right, an artist and her college-age son are talking to a broad-shouldered man wearing a paper crown – the artist nudges her son forward and asks if he has any advice for an aspiring writer. He thinks for a moment. ‘Someday,’ he says. ‘You’re going to get the urge to write a story, or a novel, or a screenplay, about a writer…’ The boy nods, earnestly. ‘…suppress that urge.’
When their conversation peters out, the man orbits and then approaches the beanbag. I know by the head on him that he’ll make a statement rather than an introduction.
‘Someone’s all partied out.’
‘It’s been a long day,’ I say.
‘You do realise you’re sitting on Gerty’s bed?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘The cat.’
‘Ah shite.’ I pull myself up and brush the hairs from my dress and he tries to help. He tells me his name is Gareth, and he’s written a prize-winning experimental novel I haven’t come across. His accent is crisp and hard to place, I imagine him on a radio arts slot, talking condescendingly about other people’s work. We keep chatting as people filter away, Maura kisses me on the cheek before she goes to bed and tells me to help myself to the whiskey, but it’s not long before I say I should probably get a taxi.
‘I’ve figured out where I know you from,’ says Gareth, suddenly. ‘That was a great show, it’s a shame they killed you off.’
‘Oh yeah,’ I say. ‘Good times.’ A lot of people died on that show, but I’m pretty sure the plan had been to keep my character until the end. They reincarnated her in season 4, in a colony on another planet, the kid who played her recently modelled in a magazine campaign for designer trench coats. I remember sitting in the producer’s trailer, telling him I wanted to take a break from acting, and on some level genuinely believing it was my idea. The man I lived with would start arguments with me whenever he wanted to sleep with one of the other actresses. I would, on some level, believe I deserved to be treated like that.
The industry is small. A woman with a reputation for being unpredictable, throwing opportunities away, is finished. And yet I can’t seem to leave. There’s nowhere I feel more alive than in front of a camera, atop a theatre stage. I’m terrified I’ll bump into him, of course, and avoid places I know he’ll be. But the thing is, he probably never even thinks about me. If he’s a hunter, I’m a slab of meat hanging in a cold room. His sights are on something that moves.
In the back of the taxi, Gareth asks the driver to turn up the radio, and starts to explain to me who the Hothouse Flowers are.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘I’m thirty-three.’
‘My god,’ says Gareth. ‘You look much younger.’ He has the expression of a
shopper surprised by a price at the till.
‘Is that a problem?’ I say.
‘It’s just that in my experience, women over thirty have an agenda.’
‘Excuse me?’
The driver’s eyes flick to the rear-view mirror, back to the road.
Gareth hiccups. ‘They tend to want to tie you down.’
Indignation bubbles inside me, but it has been way too long since a man other than Karl has been in my flat.
Leaning closer, I place a hand on Gareth’s thigh. ‘Tell me what you want me to do,’ I say. ‘Once I’ve tied you down.’
I fumble with my key at the front door of the building, sobered a little by the cold. Gareth tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear and I feel embarrassed for the two of us. We descend the stairs and turn the corner and I’m both disappointed and relieved to see Karl curled up in a ball outside my flat, his Fringe Festival tote bag still on his shoulder. I nudge him with my toe and he opens one eye.
‘I missed the last bus,’ he grumbles. ‘I thought you’d be here. You’re always here.’ He tries to get to his feet and staggers, I catch him under the shoulder and hold him upright, pick his denim jacket up off the floor.
‘This is Karl,’ I explain. ‘Our director.’
‘The cab’s still here,’ says Gareth, glancing through the bars of the basement window. ‘Will I hold it for him?’
‘He’s too far out,’ I say. ‘It’ll cost him a fortune.’
‘Who’s the snack?’ asks Karl, blinking.
‘You should probably take it, Gareth,’ I say. ‘He’s hammered.’
Gareth loiters for a while, before kissing me on the cheek and making for the stairs. I say I’ll call him, even though I don’t have his number and he doesn’t offer it. We both know the moment has passed, disintegrated into the night air like the fireworks.
The next morning, Karl is still asleep on the couch, and doesn’t stir when I make coffee. I sit at the kitchen island and flick through Frieda’s script, try to commit her words to memory. The sky is bright and clear, I dress for the gym but decide to go for a run instead. I head to the park and sprint straight through, past the train station and down the hill, along the narrow footpath by the canal. I run for miles, all the way to the foot of the mountains. I’m sweaty and out of breath, but I keep going until I can see the house he rented. He’s somewhere else now, the grass is overgrown and the weeds have flowered red and yellow. I run right up to the wrought iron gate, look to the upstairs window. I think of the young woman who lived there, making sure everything was perfect, apologising for things that were not her fault, performing the impossible task of keeping a deeply unhappy man calm. I think of her telling herself it was nothing, while wondering if the neighbours had heard. I tell her it is no way to live. I tell her it’s okay to come outside.
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