I'm sitting out on the terrace, or decking, or whatever home makeover shows call planks these days, staring through ashy cloud at the brightening Hampstead stars. Smoke from Spike's scrubbed-out cigarette drifts up from the table, tangy and sour. I remember kissing him in the downstairs cloakroom before dinner; the flavour of Colgate and tobacco weirdly mingled on his tongue. I lick my lips.
James, Spike's silver-fox father, shoulders open the French windows, a wineglass swinging in either hand. He sits down heavily on the seat next to me, his big body blocking the light from the mock-Narnian patio lamp. The garden is all topiary, rockery and gazebo, designed by Sandra, James's wife and creator of tonight's effortlessly delicious dinner. She's in bed already, sitting up between their marital John Lewis sheets with her reading glasses on, editing or doing Sudoku.
Sandra is forty-eight, looks older; salon-blonde, kind and round. Her plain, motherly appearance renders her erotically invisible. I can tell that she was once pretty, before her looks drowned in age and fat. Sandra has an extraordinarily large collection of shoes, which I covet. Sandra's feet always look beautiful. They're small, like mine, size five: the only delicate part of her left.
James clears his throat.
“Amila, I want to apologise about the thing at dinner. You know, the, er ... my little joke. I'm sorry, I hope you didn't think it was in bad taste.”
“Why should I think that? They're the hypocrites, not you.”
“I just wish Spike hadn't told you that way. He's rather indiscreet when he's had a few, I'm afraid.”
He says the same thing about you, I think, smiling patiently. “Don't worry about it,” I say aloud. He looks away and grins without humour.
“Sorry. Last act of a desperate man, I suppose.”
“Is it?”
“Isn't it?”
A pause.
“Can we stop talking like we're in a Noel Coward play now?” I ask.
James's laughter is genuine and loud and relieved. He rests his hand on my knee, briefly. His touch travels right up into my gut. There's something about him; he's like Spike, but better at being what he is; not having to prove anything. Tallish, over six feet; widish, thickset, but not fat. His unruly hair is faded chestnut, the colour of horse-blankets. He wears writer's knackered cords, an expensive, lived-in jumper, appalling should've-gone-to-Specsavers glasses. Behind them his eyes are large and deep, the irises a dark liquid brown I'd never seen in a white guy until Spike. I wish Spike would come out again, bring a bottle, rescue me.
“Good point,” James says. “Nothing worse than bad dialogue from a playwright.”
I've read a couple of James's plays, as a courtesy to Spike, whose pride in his father is both touching and naïve. Spike seems to believe that everybody in the world has heard of James Harbury, that anybody cares any more. James is a writer who can't get arrested these days. The last time he had a full production was in 1998; an embarrassing flop at the Royal Court. He does hack-work and script polishes for Hollywood studios and writes angry young plays he's old enough to know better than, that nobody wants to produce.
Disaffected youth crying havoc from the cadavers of classrooms, tramp prophets and feral children stalking a burning land: very Edward Bond; hardly Sarah Kane. No parts for my casting type, I notice. I wonder if that's deliberate. Write what you know, they say. But what does he know about rock-bottom, about struggle and suffering?
I catch myself doing a character breakdown already, wondering what it would be like to hotseat as him, inhabit his head. Bad drama-school habit, hard to shake.
“I shouldn't have done it,” he says, “but now I have and they're interested, I don't know what to do. I mean, it's a ridiculous situation. I brought it on myself."
I let him think aloud. The impossible question sizzles in the air like a wasp at a picnic.
“Listen, I hope you don't mind me picking your brains on this, but as a –
As a black girl ... I'm enjoying his struggle. I can see the words peeking over the tip of his tongue, lassoed back at the last second. Lucky him! Another half-glass of red and they'd have spilled out. And then what would he have done?
“As a friend of Spike's, I'd like your advice. I don't know a lot of –”
Black people.
“People your age, and – and I think you're uniquely –”
Black.
“- qualified to give me a –”
Black?
“Grassroots perspective,” he finishes, exhausted, having picked his way through the minefield.
“You'd like me to read it?” I say.
Spike got over the race thing after about a fortnight. His father's taking a little longer. At first, Spike was as careful and proud of me as a new car; now he just likes the looks he gets. The “where did he find her?” question in everyone's eyes. I know what a rarity I am, especially in Hampstead. Something eyecatching, something exotic. But I'm tired of my exoticism. Actors need to be adaptable, not unique. I've trained for three years to become other people, but nobody will let me. Wrong look, they say, wrong voice. I know what they really mean.
When I open my mouth, people always expect me to sound either New Cross or New York. Never what they would call, behind closed doors, “normal”. My voice is my special talent: I can imitate any accent and on my CV my voice quality is described as “rich”: warm, low tones that comfort and soothe. Spike loves my sultry voice, especially when I talk dirty in flawless RP.
I do a lot of radio work. There's not much room for a posh-sounding black girl on TV or on stage, and although I can do Catford, Jamaica, Uganda, casting directors seem to think that's cheating, somehow. They want the real thing. Someone “street” they can discover and mould. That's when I find I'm not exotic enough.
James is looking down at my bare legs wordlessly, lost in thought. I'm willing to bet he's imagined me naked. Maybe he's doing it now. Thinking about the colour of my nipples, what I'd taste of, how I'd move underneath him. I bet he's never slept with a black girl. Spike hadn't, before me. The first time he kept going on about my arse, how amazing it was. Spike's tastes are pretty simple, though; whisky, arses and avant-garde theatre. His career as a director keeps threatening to go somewhere, but never quite does. Privately, between us, he blames his father's name. The Hanbury curse, he calls it. The theatres won't touch his father's work with a bargepole now, and that's why he doesn't get the apprenticeships and scholarships and chances and opportunities he should. There's nothing so peevish as a white middle-class male who's discovered he's got to struggle like everyone else.
What the hell is he doing in there? Spike has a habit of passing out on sofas when he's over his limit. He's a lightweight; I sometimes thinks that's the only thing that stops him becoming an alcoholic.
“It's a good play,” says James defensively. “I'm proud of it. It's not like my other stuff. It's something fresh. Something new. And the National thinks it's good too. That must mean something.”
Oh yeah? I think. I've been in and seen quite enough crap to feel qualified to judge. I wrote a play myself, once, down in the dressing-room waiting for the call that never came, the year I was understudying in The Lion King. It's a hard thing, writing. And James keeps doing it even though nobody wants to hear what he has to say any more. Because he can't do nothing and he can't do anything else. I respect that.
“If they like it, why not come clean?”
“If I tell them it's mine they won't produce it.”
“No?” I ask, gently.
He traps his thumb in his fist, squeezes hard until the knuckle cracks.
“No. They want 'new voices'. They're bored of me now, or scared, or something. I don't know what I did wrong. Too old, I suppose. Too white and lefty and male and unfashionable. I swear they don't even open submissions from my agent any more. They've put me on some sort of –”
Blacklist? The grin threatens to curve my lips again. The pitfalls, the pratfalls, of political correctness make me giggle. I can't help it. Why can't people say what they mean?
“... some sort of slush-pile for has-beens. And if they find out about this they'll never work with me again.”
No change there, then. I'm bored of watching him twist on the hook. I'm keen to get down to business. Does he really think I believe he just wants my forgiveness? Does he really think I don't know where this is going?
“I'm sorry I used your name,” he says. “It was unforgivable. I was angry, and a bit drunk. I sent it off before I had a chance to change my mind. It was an appalling liberty. I'm sorry.”
He knows he owes me. But he's wondering how much. What I'll want.
“I just ... I just wondered if it would make any difference. If they saw a different name, thought it was someone fresh, someone new, someone ...”
Black?
“It's my chance to get back in the game, if only I could take it.”
“You want me to work with you on it?”
“In a sense. If you would. You could ... represent the piece. You inspired it, you know.”
“Represent?” What an interesting word.
He looks up at me, chocolate Labrador eyes appealing. Like Spike when he wants a blow-job. I batten down a smile. I'm an actress, this is a role, what's the difference? Last chance for him, big break for me.
I think about the National. Being a new writer; a new voice. They'll want to nurture me, workshop me, trap me like the exotic bird I am in the aviary of a office, a writer's room, milk my raw talent so that I can represent, stand up and show the world that theatre is not just for the white middle classes, but for everyone of every colour, the universal panacea, the answer we're all looking for, the key to world peace, the cure for AIDS, whatever. Give the public what they want. I can play that role, if they'll cast it. If James will write it. That's what I do.
I look around me, down at the designer garden, back up at the rambling Hampstead home. If this is what success gets you, I'll take it, all I can get, everything I want, for a change. Acting or writing, who cares? Lying or acting, what's the difference? I'm sick of trying to do things the right way, the long way. Where did it ever get me?
“OK,” I say, and smile again, prettily, naughtily. “It'll be fun.”
His eyes widen with greed and relief. I knows this isn't all he wants. I've seen his wife. I've noticed where his gaze falls when he looks at me. I've 'inspired' him. I know what that means. And he's still got connections; directors, casting agents, producers. The next play he – sorry, I – write can star me; that's common enough with actor/authors. At last a part I was born for: one they'll let me play.
Yes, this'll be fun. I've never slept with an older man before. I wonder what he looks like naked, how he kisses, what he'll want in bed. I'm almost looking forward to it: he'll be a thrill, a milestone. Something exotic.
~
Something exotic by CT Kingston was read by Sabina Cameron at the Liars' League Black & White event at The Wheatsheaf, London on Tuesday 11 August 2009
i love this story. i've read it a few times to break it down and learn from.
thanks
Posted by: adam | Oct 29, 2009 at 03:04 PM