CHAPTER ONE
SHE HADN’T NOTICED the sizable pores on his nose and chin until now. As he came closer she became fascinated by them, had to tear her eyes away so that she didn’t stare.
‘Darling,’ he said, ‘I don’t think you’ve got it yet. Remember, Nina is a girl about to become a woman. Can you show me that? Can you become a woman when you are still a girl?’
‘I understand,’ Mai said.
‘But do you, darling? We are here at the beginning of a great mission. I need to see that you are capable of being Nina. There is a lot of responsibility on your shoulders and I must understand that you will not let me down.’
‘I’m here to do the play, Pedro. I know the play. I know my part. Can we just try again?’
His eyes said that he was unimpressed. But his mouth pursed briefly in submission and then he shrugged, deliberately externalising what he felt. She wondered whether this was his idea of teaching.
The rest of the cast lined the sides of the defunct school hall they were using for rehearsals. Some were tired, reading newspapers, texting. A couple talking to each other now that Pedro was giving individual direction. The first day and already lassitude had set in. Another month of this, Mai thought, and I might give up too. Not reach the first night. Headline shocker: Rising actress dies of ennui before show opens. Director seeks easily-excited replacement.
Pedro had retreated to his chair. Now he flipped up the tails of his cream jacket and sat down with the extravagance of a swan landing on placid water, legs stretched out, arms extended on to the backs of the plastic chairs either side of him. He nodded at her.
She settled herself and went through the speech yet again, her voice rising into the hall. The speech was long and full of abstractions. It spoke of nature, of life, and explained that she was the world-soul who understood everything.
Pedro had turned his head to look out of the windows. A winter sky like a lead sheet. Bare trees in the park, skeleton fingers raised upwards. Echoes of kids’ voices still bouncing around ten years after the school was closed through lack of interest.
She came to the pause shown in the text and waited a beat before continuing. Then she felt a change in her voice – and knew the next section would be better, knew her technique was catching up with the meaning of the paragraph.
Pedro’s head turned towards her and he raised a pale hand. It was the ‘stop’ hand that she was beginning to recognise already. He rose and came towards her again, his leather soles clipping on the wooden floor.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes. I see what you’re doing. Playing with the voice. Adding some importance, some ... bravura. But listen to me, that will not work. I know the tricks. And if I know the tricks, so do others. We will not have tricks here. Do you understand?’
Mai knew that her cheeks were red. There seemed to be no way to make this man happy. She dared not look at the other actors in case they were watching. Instead she looked down and waited for him to say something. Anything.
The silence extended until she finally looked up at him, keeping the anger from her eyes. This time he smiled, showing teeth as square as tombstones and beige through smoking. He thought he’d won a victory.
‘You are a clever girl but you will not get your way with me. I have done this many times. You ... you are a girl from television. You do not understand rehearsals. You have some talent but you think rehearsing is about being in the right place and knowing where the camera is so that you can ignore it.’
