A member of the acting troupe coughed. The acting troupe were infamous in the college: two boys and a singular girl, each of them dark-haired and intense, they stalked around as if they were in possession of a secret, unbearable knowledge of the outside world. Natasha thought they were pretentious assholes.They owned three sets of high cheekbones and came from acting dynasties. Their Shakespearean deconstructions were set in asylums and all they did, from what Natasha could tell, was grind their teeth. As if that’s all madness was: grinding your teeth. In these productions, the girl was always tied extravagantly with ropes. The ropes symbolised her lack of sexual freedom. The few minutes of these performances that Natasha had caught had depressed her beyond all reason.
Offstage, the girl slithered around the college, her eyes narrowed into slits, her mouth furious, as if expecting a sea to part for her, a seismic shift in the universe that would restore her to her rightful place. All three were rumoured to be in a tempestuous relationship, arguing loudly in the college coffee shop over what sounded like grim, selfish sex. Natasha’s gaze flitted from Lucy to check from their body language who was sleeping with who today. They were auditioning actresses for their latest project and Natasha had persuaded them to try Lucy. Natasha could tell, from their backs, that they were unimpressed. They wanted Lucy to be grateful for this opportunity. Lucy wasn’t grateful. Natasha suspected she had never been grateful in her life. She didn’t know how.
‘Can I start over?’ Lucy asked again.
‘Fine,’ the lead actor intoned, bored. He was a legendary piece of work
Lucy disappeared behind the curtain and re-emerged in a pure white nightdress.
‘Why are you wearing that?’ the girl-actor asked.
‘It signifies the mental state of my character,’ Lucy explained, ‘which is destructive.’
‘Just say your name and where you’re from.’
‘I’m Lucy.’
‘And where are you from?’
‘I don’t know where I’m from.’
Natasha laughed. The troupe turned to look at her, three serious faces. ‘She really doesn’t know where she’s from,’ Natasha said, ‘just let her start.’
Lucy moved behind the table as if to begin her monologue. She looked at the table for a few minutes. She started making choo-choo noises, performing the motion of a train with her arms.
‘What’s that?’ the piece of work asked.
‘That’s the start.’
‘No, it’s not.’
‘That’s how I’ve interpreted the start of this woman’s sad journey,’ Lucy explained.
‘Just say the monologue,’ the girl interrupted. ‘Say the lines as you’ve learnt them.’
‘Okay,’ Lucy agreed, but didn’t supply anything further. There was a short silence. ‘Can I start again?’ she asked.
‘Jesus Christ,’ the shortest, most aggressive actor shouted.
‘Just let her try again,’ Natasha pleaded from the back.
‘What is wrong with you?’ the girl-actor asked Lucy, genuinely interested.
‘I’m here to audition,’ Lucy replied haughtily, ‘not for a character assessment.’
‘Okay, go then.’
Lucy hid behind the curtain. Natasha could see her fluttery, desperate movements.
She walked out unsteadily wearing a stained dressing- gown and carrying a whiskey glass.
‘What’s that?’ The short actor rubbed his hand across his face in weariness.
‘It’s a drink. If I know this particular character she would need a drink at a time like this. To assist with her illusions and keep reality at bay.’
‘What’s a time like this?’
‘A time of despair and pitiful loneliness.’
‘Has she put her dressing-gown on because of despair?’ Natasha could hear the sneer in the girl-actor’s voice. It came naturally to her, like birdsong.
‘No,’ Lucy said, ‘she’s put her dressing-gown on because she’s cold.’
‘Just begin. Please begin.’
‘Okay,’ Lucy agreed.
‘Is that actual whiskey in that glass?’
Lucy nodded.
‘Put it down.’
Lucy put down the glass. ‘Do you want me to pick up anything else in its place?’
‘No. Just begin.’
‘Fine.’
Lucy paused.
‘I’ve forgotten, do you want me to pick up the glass or put it down?’
‘Put it down.’ The piece of work said each word slowly, as if communicating with a child.
Lucy perched herself at the edge of the table and rested her chin on her knuckles.
‘Thank you for the flowers,’ Lucy said.
‘There are no flowers in this play,’ the short actor said.
‘I love the flowers you’ve brought me, but I must comport myself like a woman and say no.’
‘There are no flowers!’
Lucy was holding an imaginary bunch of flowers in her right hand. ‘Are these lilies?’
Natasha watched the girl-actor, waiting for her to say something. Instead, she was leaning forward, her body bobbing back and forth. She was laughing. Lucy had made this professional mourner laugh.
‘It’s just I read the whole play,’ Lucy said, ‘and I thought this woman has been through a lot. Why not give her a bunch of flowers?’
‘Right,’ the short actor said.
‘You don’t like it,’ Lucy said. ’You don’t like it. Let me go again.’
The two male actors looked traumatised.
Lucy grabbed the flesh of her face. ‘Soon I will grow old and die,’ she announced.
‘Are you saying that or is the character saying that?’ the short actor asked, as if at least trying to understand.
‘Oh both,’ Lucy said. ‘Both. I can declare it’s true. It’s something I learned on my recent exploration and discovery of myself, far away from here, far away from this college.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘Spain.’
The girl-actor wiped away tears of mirth as Lucy, once more, stumbled behind the curtain. In that moment Natasha realised something, something so obvious she couldn’t believe it had taken her this long. She gathered up her bag and the papers on her lap. She stood up.
‘Thank you,’ she said to the troupe, as she exited. ‘I used to think you were all incredible assholes, but you’re not so bad. Please tell Lucy when she’s finished to meet me in the coffee shop.’
When she left the theatre she heard a glass smash. ‘It’s so hard to behave like a lady,’ Lucy screamed in a southern accent.
*
That night they met in the restaurant, after they had said goodbye to Professor Carr, kissing him on each cheek, making vague promises, Lucy and Natasha ran together through the city streets. What was happening to the city? Glass covered every millimetre. There were no faces, only glass. Natasha could hardly believe, in only two months, she would be expected to live in it forever.
Lucy’s apartment was full to the brim with colourful stuff, tiny handbags, bottles with labels identifying the style of scent, exercise equipment, beautification tools Natasha had never seen before. Nothing looked touched. It was as if there had been a reverse burglary. Lucy lay on her bed and seated Natasha beside her.
‘You know what I thought when I first saw you with the professor?’
‘What?’
‘I thought: there goes a real idiot.’
‘I see.’
‘And I had a crisis of conscience. Should I tell her she’s an idiot? Maybe she doesn’t know?’
‘That was thoughtful of you.’
‘I got hopelessly sucked into your emails.’
‘It was rude of you to read my emails.’
‘They were very compelling.’
‘Good, I suppose.’
‘And I figured I got you wrong. I like the clips your dad sends you. Did you write them?’
‘They are from television.’
‘I like bo
oks,’ Lucy said, airily. ‘Quotes.’
‘Oh.’
‘You don’t sound excited by books.’
Natasha was quiet.
Lucy flipped onto her stomach and held up an imaginary clipboard.
‘When I saw you outside the computer house,’ Lucy said, ‘your hair everywhere, spitting, throwing stones at the building, I couldn’t describe the feelings I had.’
‘No?’
‘I felt like I had finally found my artistic equal.’
‘I don’t really like art.’
‘That doesn’t make any difference.’
‘Okay.’
‘What was dating the professor like?’
Natasha eyed a pile of perfumes that looked like it might topple over. Glasses of different sizes and shapes, an unwieldy pyramid, with notes in similar handwriting attached to each lid. ‘Brutal, unforgiving,’ Natasha replied. ‘He kept making me watch films of a high cultural standard.’
‘Why did you do it?’ Lucy made a note on her imaginary chart.
‘I do things and I don’t know why I do them.’
‘Were you in love with him?’
‘No.’
‘I was in love before,’ Lucy said sadly. ‘But it was over like that.’ She clicked her fingers.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I called him once when I was drunk from a payphone near my hotel.’
‘Oh no.’
‘And he answered and I said: “Relax, stay on the line. Stay on the line. I’m not going to say anything mean.”’
‘And?’
‘I said something mean.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I couldn’t repeat it.’ Lucy looked away. ‘It’s that shocking. It wouldn’t be right if I told you. No one will ever know what was said on that payphone.’
‘Obscenities?’
‘Things are said when you drink.’ Lucy cleared her throat. ‘Would you admit to having self-destructive impulses?’
Natasha nodded. ‘I would admit that.’
‘Would you say that you’re a typical Irish girl?’
‘I would say I’m not a typical anything.’
‘Where is your home?
‘I could point it out on a map but I don’t know really.’
‘How do you feel about this college?’
‘I feel every day,’ Natasha said, ‘that I’m in the process of losing a long and complicated bet, one that will carry on for several years, where I will end up down a huge amount of money.’
‘Is that a secret you’ve never told anybody before?’
‘Yes.’
Lucy swung her legs over the side of her bed. She had tiny, well-manicured feet. The room seemed to reverberate, the walls shaking, the perfumes emitting all their scents at once. ‘Would you say that you’re a complete liability in almost every respect?’
‘I have a lot of self-control,’ Natasha said, as if it were her final prayer.
‘Would you say that you’re a complete liability in almost every respect?’ Lucy repeated.
Natasha looked at Lucy’s tiny feet. How had she walked across the world on those? She cast her memory over her life. She saw certain scenes. ‘It’s possible I have no self-control. None at all,’ she said, finally.
‘Hold on.’ Lucy jumped off her bed. ‘I will be back.’
When Lucy was gone, Natasha examined the inscriptions on the perfume bottles. It was Professor Carr’s handwriting on every single one. The emotion she felt most overwhelmingly was pity.
Lucy walked back in carrying a thick, brown envelope. ‘This is my life’s work,’ she said. ‘I wrote it in a hot foreign country when I was having a life-changing experience. I believe it’s the result of visions. I want you to read it and then we will perform it together in the college theatre. It is important to me.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I can’t imagine we will be the same after it’s finished.’ She drew the envelope close to her chest, as if saying goodbye to it, and then thrust it at Natasha.
‘Do you want me to read it now?’
‘I must warn you,’ Lucy said, ‘it’s not a healthy work. I was heartbroken when I wrote it. It might unnerve you.’
Natasha shook the envelope.
‘It might make you question everything you know.’
Natasha sat down.
‘You can’t read it here,’ Lucy said. ‘I don’t want to hear the conversation you have with it.’
Natasha left and walked back through the city in the early morning sunshine. She bought a small cup of coffee and strolled in the direction of the library. Natasha had avoided the library since the early days of first year when she had interrupted the tour guide to ask if the building was an ‘antique’ and the group had laughed at her. She tried to relax now, going back in, but her mouth felt dry and thirsty. When she thought of all the knowledge that had been gathered there, all the expensive jackets that had been carelessly draped on the backs of chairs, all the minds seeking Truth, she felt sick. She hurried to the first floor before she could back out.
The place was empty except for one boy, his head buried in a heavy book. He was sniffling and wiping his nose on the back of his hand. Natasha stared at him. ‘College,’ she said, as if it had just been invented, as if she had invented it. She rolled her eyes to indicate her workload. The boy only buried his head further in his book, his loud snuffles cracking the silence.
Natasha took a seat near the studious boy and began examining Lucy’s play. She slid it out from its envelope. It was written on hotel stationery and long sections were illegible. On every page Lucy had crossed out the name of the hotel and written ‘Hotel of Lost Souls’ instead. On some pages the play veered into room service orders. It appeared to have been written in great haste. Several of the pages were damp from the sea or had gin spilled on them. In the margins Lucy had left little notes for herself like ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here!’
The play itself was a chore – no spirit, no excitement, no life. The exact opposite of Lucy. It was an extensive history of Irish women played by two female characters. Every time you thought you got rid of them, they pulled themselves up and gasped another agonising breath. Several sections were written in verse for a Greek chorus. There were scenes where women rose out of the soil; a scene where the two girls lay face down on carpets. The play couldn’t accommodate all the misery that was in it. Natasha felt greyer after finishing it. She took out a red pen and begin drawing lines through sentences, rearranging words. An hour passed before she realised what she was doing.
‘I know how to do this,’ she said, in shock. ‘How do I know how to do this?’
The boy looked up and gave his most elaborate sniff yet.
‘I’m trying to study,’ he said.
‘That won’t help you in life,’ Natasha said, with weary finality. ‘You should stand up, put your pricey jacket on and walk the streets.’
‘I will call the library police.’
Natasha left the library with Abortion, A Love Story tucked under her arm, the sheets ruffling in the wind. She knew she couldn’t perform the play with Lucy. They would be laughing stocks. She thought about the most sensitive way to tell her. She rang the doorbell to Lucy’s student house but there was no answer. She knelt down and called into the letterbox.
‘Lucy.’
She knew Lucy was leaning on the other side of the door.
‘Lucy,’ she said, ‘I’ve just been to the library.’
‘That place is an antique,’ Lucy said, softly.
‘I want to praise your play. I liked its anger. I liked in the second act when the women call the college a prison. I think you’ve done a tremendous job. You said everything you need to say, in language that sometimes makes sense. And the completion of great work is its own reward. You don’t need to take it any further. You came close. It’s enough to know you nearly got there. ‘
Lucy opened the door. Her hair was wild and her face was tear-stained. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s not enough. Why isn�
�t it enough?’
Natasha knew just from looking at her, that this was a woman in the grip of a great dependency. ‘Let’s see what we can do,’ she said.
*
Natasha thought Lucy’s particular urge might be satisfied by acting in a play instead. She went to the computer house and emailed the acting troupe to tell them about Lucy’s tiny feet, shoplifting addiction and periods of mania. They said they were very interested in her coming on board. For two weeks, the girls immersed themselves in plays to find a monologue that Lucy could audition with. It was March and there were no seats in the library. Just looking around gave Natasha palpitations. They took off their jackets and lay on the floor.
In the plays, there were women walking in and out of doors, women calling their husbands for dinner, women staying faithful to their husbands, or being unfaithful and getting severely punished for it; women who lived on islands, lonely women or women who wanted to be left alone, plain women, watchful women and, frequently, dead women. Throughout, Natasha kept Abortion, A Love Story in an envelope beside her. She couldn’t leave it. She thought it might reveal something to her.
‘Here,’ Natasha said, one Wednesday afternoon, sliding a script over to Lucy. ‘I think you should audition with this.’
Lucy read through it. ‘This woman seems delusional and unstable.’
‘She is delusional and unstable,’ Natasha said. ‘It’s perfect.’
Now, Natasha waited in the college coffee shop for Lucy to return from her ill-fated audition. She had the pages of Abortion, A Love Story spread out in front of her. She watched Lucy enter the coffee shop in a huff. She took a fizzy drink from the fridge and slammed the door shut. She pulled out the seat opposite Natasha.
‘I don’t like that acting troupe at all,’ she said. ‘They pretend to be the gatekeepers of something. What the hell are they the gatekeepers of?’ She stabbed her drink with her straw. ‘Tell me. Be honest. Was I bad up there?’
‘Lucy,’ Natasha said, holding up a page covered in red marks, ‘let’s make this a comedy.’
Show Them a Good Time Page 9