Material Girl (7 page)

‘I don’t see a gun to your head …’ Gavin turns to me as if breaking out of a trance. I snap myself out of it as well. I wonder whether Tristan has opium sewn into his suit. He has left us both dazed and a little cloudy.

‘But …’ I shake my head to clear it, ‘but I love him, Gavin … it’s so hard …’

‘Nothing is that hard really … look at the facts …’ He turns and walks towards the stage. I follow.

‘Okay,’ I count on my fingers, ‘he doesn’t say he loves me. He doesn’t want to have sex with me. He doesn’t say nice things to me, even when I ask him to …’

‘Has he ever said anything nice to you?’

‘He said I was “electrifying” once …’

‘Electrifying? What does that mean?’ Gavin looks nonplussed.

‘I know. Pretty much nothing. It made me sound like a waltzer at a fun fair …’

‘Or a broken hair-dryer,’ Gavin offers as we walk through a small door at the side of the stage.

‘Thanks, Gavin, thanks very much.’

‘Is he seventy-five? Or a miner?’ he asks.

‘No … He’s thirty-three and he runs a branch of Dixons … Are there any miners left? You know, after Thatcher?’

‘Not really. You should leave him.’ He says this with some certainty, and I wonder how he can be so sure.

‘But why doesn’t he leave me, Gavin, if he wants to? I love him! If he doesn’t want to be with me, why is he still with me?’

We reach a small door backstage that has been freshly painted lilac. A sign that reads ‘Do NOT disturb’ swings from the doorknob, as well as what looks like a lavender sachet, the type they sell at school fetes, that somebody’s granny made at her club. Gavin turns the knob as he says, ‘Because he’s weak.’

I feel hugely disloyal. I hate that Gavin has just said that. He doesn’t even know Ben. I have painted this picture, and it is obviously an awful one.

‘I don’t know, Gavin, I don’t think that’s fair. He’s come from a really hard place, he left his wife for me, and …’

I start to defend him, but Gavin fixes me with a stare, from way up high. Maybe that
is
it – he’s weak. I hadn’t thought of that.

‘Scarlet. He’s weak. Most men are.’

‘But I thought that men were supposed to be the strong ones?’ I say, quietly confused.

‘They are … This is it.’ Gavin shrugs at the little room and it feels like the room shrugs back.

‘We might need you to make-up some of the other leads. Our Cast Make-up, Greta, is about eighty. She’s always got a hipflask full of Drambuie on the go. We can’t let her do eyeliner. We haven’t got enough insurance.’

‘Fine.’ I dump my make-up box on a table covered in flowers and cards, in front of a long, thin, badly lit mirror. ‘As long as Dolly’s okay with me doing it I’m happy to.’

‘It’s cool, you could get here at midday every day and still have time to do the two other principals before she turns up.’

‘Anybody I know?’ I unclip the three locks on my carrier. It’s like a portable Fort Knox, but the prospect of it falling open on the tube and thousands of pounds’ worth of make-up tumbling out to be crushed under loafers and court shoes is unthinkable.

Gavin passes me a polystyrene cup of instant coffee that has appeared like magic. ‘Arabella Jones and Tom Harvey-Saint,’ he says as I take a sip.

I spit it back out all over Gavin’s huge trainers.

‘Didn’t realise he was in it, did you?’ Gavin smirks at me.

‘No … I didn’t realise he was in it.’ The blood rushes from my legs to my head and I lean back against the table urgently.

‘Fancy him, do you?’ Gavin asks, but as if he is reading court notes back to a jury.

I gulp but don’t answer.

‘Watch out Ben,’ he whistles, and edges towards the door.

The side of the room that isn’t the table and mirror and flowers and cards is cushions and more flowers, a large gold chair with deep red velvet backing, and a tall lamp with a fuchsia scarf thrown over it to soften the light. It’s a tiny space crammed with decoration, an old room dressed up to the nines.

A noisy fan blows hot air out in the corner, but it seems fairly warm anyway.

‘Do we really need that?’ I ask Gavin, nodding at the heater.

‘Yep. The pipes are rubbish and she likes it to be twenty-four degrees.’

‘The lighting in here is terrible,’ I say, spinning around, trying to find another plug socket.

‘She won’t have it any brighter either, and when you meet her you’ll see why,’ he says. ‘Do you need anything before I go?’

‘Where’s the kitchen?’

‘Down the hall, second turn on the left.’

‘Where’s the bathroom?’

‘Hers is opposite, you can use that if you’re discreet. Anything else?’

I rack my brain, trying to stumble across the gaps in my knowledge, all the necessary pieces of information that could be missing. Theatre is new to me, it’s not my thing. I do shoots. I do hanging around all day eating crap from a van and dabbing sweat off actors or singers with a puff pad. I do wine at lunch on set and pretty much all afternoon. I do big airy warehouse spaces, not strange little rooms with scarves thrown over lamps and bad heating.

‘Is Tristan crazy?’ I ask finally, as it seems to be the most pertinent question I can ask. ‘I mean, previews are supposed to start next week, aren’t they? That’s why they got me in and didn’t wait for someone with theatre experience, my agency said. But it kind of … doesn’t seem ready?’

Gavin smiles and the room feels warmer. He coughs, looks away, and then back at me. It is a theatrical move. Maybe you can’t help it if you work in this environment, maybe these strange dramatic pauses and looks and asides are contagious? Maybe
everybody
here is crazy.

‘Is Tristan crazy?’ he repeats. ‘No more than any of the rest of them. He likes the sound of his own voice. And he can be very charming, for a short bloke from Streatham with a pill habit. But you’ll get used to it. He calls everybody “love” so he doesn’t have to remember names. It’s actually quite clever. But you’re okay, you’ll be Make-up.’

‘Isn’t it funny, I mean funny strange – maybe funny tragic for me – that one man can be so easy with it, and another so mean?’ I sip my coffee and lean back on the counter.

‘With what?’ he asks, half of him out of the door, but still loads of him in the room.

‘The L word. Love. Ben won’t say it. Tristan can’t stop. So is he gay?’

Gavin takes a step back into the room and pushes the door ajar behind him. ‘No, not gay. I’m sure he’ll tell you. He told me three days after I met him and it took him a
while to warm to me, he said because of the height thing. It’s … Tristan is a non-libidinist. That’s his phrase, not mine. It means he doesn’t think about sex. Or care about sex. He doesn’t want sex.’ Gavin’s eyes widen like spaceships in his face, illuminated and strange and high up in the sky.

I stop myself taking another sip of coffee, and angle my neck to look up at him and make sure he isn’t joking. But he nods his head and doesn’t even smirk.

‘He doesn’t care about sex?’ I ask.

‘Nope.’

‘And he doesn’t think about sex?’

‘Nope.’

‘But men are supposed to think about sex every seven seconds or seven minutes or something, aren’t they?’

Gavin coughs, embarrassed. We’ve spent at least half an hour together this morning … reckoning on those figures Gavin has felt fruity and not admitted it a few times already.

‘Christ, that’s the statistic that keeps me awake at night when Ben doesn’t want to … you know … But Tristan doesn’t even think about it? How does that work? How do you stop yourself? That would be fantastic!’

‘You think? Christ, I think it would be awful.’

‘But Gavin, I mean, if it didn’t even bother you, if you didn’t even think about it, life would be so much easier. If I didn’t miss sex so much there would be far fewer problems in my relationship.’

‘It’s not fantastic, it’s weird. And so is your bloke by the sounds of it, so don’t go thinking that not thinking about sex is an answer to anything. Sex is the thing that keeps most of us going!’

‘Shouldn’t that be love, Gavin?’

‘I’ll take sex over love most days. It doesn’t hurt half as much, under normal circumstances at least!’

I grimace at Gavin, but he just winks and I blush. It’s not him, I blush if anybody winks at me. I find it intimate and peculiar and sexual. I’d blush if my own grandmother winked at me, and then of course I’d throw up.

‘So Tristan doesn’t have sex, ever?’

‘Oh no, that’s not true, I think he has it quite a bit. It’s just not about him. He doesn’t care if he gets it or not. I think he does it for other people …’

‘But – I’m sorry, Gavin, for all these questions – but how does he get … you know … aroused? If he doesn’t want it, or care about it?’

‘My guess is Viagra. Any more questions?’ Gavin pulls the door open again with one of his huge hands. He could be a one-man circus, with a few lights around his torso, offering rides on his palms for fifty pence or a pound. I’m sure I could sit in one of those hands.

‘Gavin, what’s your girlfriend like?’

‘What’s she like?’

‘Is she freakishly tall too?’ I smile at him and I see a smile form in his eyes in return. The big Gavin smiles must be rationed, like chocolate in the war.

‘Not freakishly tall, but not short like you either.’

‘I am not short, I am five foot five, which is two inches above average. Is she pretty?’

‘Why all the questions about my girlfriend?’

‘I’m just interested, Gavin. Other people’s relationships interest me. I just wonder what you go for, what your type is. Everybody has a type. Some men just go for baubles, decoration. The only thing more attractive to a man than a beautiful woman is an easy life. And I just wondered what your type is. Beautiful or easy?’

Gavin looks at me with an element of serious concern. I don’t think he likes this line of questioning. But he answers anyway.

‘Arabella? She is very beautiful. And not at all easy. So there’s your answer I guess.’

‘Arabella from the play? But Gavin, she’s stunning!’

‘And?’ he asks me, like a dry old maths teacher waiting for an answer from a stupid young pupil.

‘And nothing, nothing at all. That wasn’t surprise, I just meant … good for you!’

Gavin lowers his head and inspects the coffee I spat out onto his trainers, which is drying into a dirty stain that looks a bit like the birthmark on Gorbachev’s forehead.

‘We’ll see,’ he says, half out of the door now. ‘She
is
gorgeous. But she’s definitely not easy, and it can wear you down.’

‘Not easy is the best kind!’ I say, as he is almost gone, but I hear him mutter ‘Tell that to your boyfriend,’ just as the walkie-talkie on his belt starts spewing white noise and static, and I hear a muffled voice say,

‘Dolly’s at the back door.’

My door opens again and Gavin pokes his head back in. ‘Dolly’s arrived,’ he says, and turns to leave.

‘Should I wait here?’ I shout, a hint of panic in my voice.

‘Depends on her mood. She might throw you out, she might want to meet you straight away. You may as well stay, I suppose. I’ll try and gauge how she is before she gets down here.’

‘Should I be scared?’ I ask him.

‘I don’t know, are you scared of most things?’

‘It’s starting to feel that way.’

‘Well if you are she’ll sense it, like an attack dog, so try and keep it under control. And don’t worry, with any luck she’ll be hammered.’

Gavin shuts the door.

I unpack and inspect my brushes to see if any of them need replacing, and open up a couple of samples that a new make-up company have sent me. I check my own hair in the mirror
and mess it up a little, and re-gloss. The trouble with talking is that it wears your gloss away. I think about sitting, but I don’t know where Dolly will want to sit, and I don’t want her to burst in and chuck me straight back out again for nabbing her favourite spot. I try to lean back nonchalantly, cross my arms, uncross them, strike a relaxed non-fearful pose that doesn’t just look ill at ease and terrified.

I spot a press pack sitting on the desk, and a picture of Tristan sticks out. Somebody has childishly drawn long eyelashes on him, and a pencil-thin moustache. Below the picture the text reads:

Directed by Tristan Mitra, Tennessee Williams’s
The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore
has been staged at The Majestic once before, starring Hollywood screen idol Joanna Till. The play marks Tristan’s debut in the West End, fresh from the success of his all-male adaptation of
The Sound of Music
at the Brixton Art House. He previously worked for the DSS for thirteen years, but was fired, which he believes intrinsic to his direction of the play
.

I pick up another page and see a heavily air-brushed close-up of Dolly. You can tell it’s air-brushed because no matter how good the make-up there would still be the suggestion of lines around her eyes and lips, but her face is like a porcelain mask instead. I skim-read text. It mentions Laurence Olivier and David Niven, but then nothing of note for two decades, until recently when it seems she’s been in some TV movies, playing ‘
the popular grandmother detective Mrs Mounting for the Hallmark Channel series
Mrs Mounting Investigates.’ From David Niven to the Hallmark Channel then. I toss the pack back onto the counter, sit on my hands to stop them from shaking, and wait for Dolly Russell to make her grand entrance.