JONATHON - Book 1 [Watty Awards 2012]

Chapter 8

Jonny loved having his guitar and he relaxed and played it often, sometimes accompanying the music with a song. She loved hearing him play and sing but he couldn’t spend as much time as he would have liked on that pursuit, there was much more serious business at hand. With the coming of the script he immersed himself in that. He had to. So much depended on it. The pressure was on.

There were tantrums. There was the throwing of the script against the wall, on the floor, across the room. There was the pacing up and down and the slamming of doors. There were streams of obscenities, curses and blasphemies that seared her. He was scolded and reprimanded and occasionally even slapped. Sometimes the shock and sting was the only method of bringing him up short when he was in danger of losing total control. He was reminded of his debt and moral duty and made to wait in her disfavour until he apologized and behaved himself and tried again. And he always did. He took it because he deserved it and he owed her most of all.

There were even bitter tears of anger and frustration and despair. But those times she wrapped him in her arms and told him how wonderful he was and that he could do anything. Anything. Her belief in him never wavered.

‘I can’t do it Bea,’ he raged after a morning of utter frustration when he just couldn’t get the words in the right order. ‘They’re right. Again! I can’t do it!’ She shook him as hard as she could, which wasn’t much.

‘Stop it, Jonny. Don’t you dare.’ she scolded him. ‘This is who you are. They said you weren’t right for this part, didn’t they? You weren’t tall enough, red-haired or heavy enough to play him. But it isn’t about that.  You showed the power and magnetism of the man and the pure animal brutality of him as well as his weaknesses and vulnerabilities till no-one, no-one on this earth could ever imagine anyone else in that part. They are only words Jonathon. It’s you who unlocks them and gives them meaning and life! Now come along! I’ll help you.’

‘You!’ he scoffed in spiteful derision.

She slapped him then. A hard, stinging blow across his cheek and he gasped in disbelief and with the shock and pain of it. She’d really meant that. That wasn’t the playful smack she handed out when he was acting the naughty boy. She stood waiting and he knew what for. She saw the stubborn rebellion, the sulky pout. She massaged her stinging palm with her other hand, she had struck him in anger and she thought her heart would break with the misery of it. Then he had taken her hand and was stroking it soothingly.

‘Did you hurt your hand, darling Bea? Did you hurt your hand on me?’ he wanted to know.

‘Just a bit.’ she admitted, trying to make light of it.

‘I said I’d get you a big stick.’ he reminded and he bent and kissed her hot, aching palm.

She moaned at the intensity of feeling that roused in her and then he lifted up and his beautiful, sensual mouth descended again but this time he kissed her mouth with a tenderness and passion she almost drowned in. She clung to him just for a moment then struggled softly at first and then, when she wriggled more strongly, he straightway released her.

‘I apologise.’ he said almost making a little bow. Oh not for that she begged silently. He seemed to sense her thoughts and smiled and shook his head slightly.

‘Not for that. I was a boor’ he admitted repentantly.

‘Fetch your script, Jonathon.’ she said. He lowered his head.

‘Yes, ma’am.’ he said and like a scolded schoolboy, did as she ordered. He picked the scattered, dog-eared pages up and returned to her.

They sat and read the script together. It was awkward at first and she sensed his growing frustration again. There was so little time and so much depended on it. She played the fool for him and he laughed and the tension eased and then she began to get the metre of it and finally it fell into place for him and he finished the scene, word and gesture perfect, in triumph