Pride, Prejudice and Jasmin Field (7 page)

Mo had come straight from work and George would be coming straight from doing a play on Radio 4. Jazz didn’t think she’d tell Mo that she was the only person there not involved in the arts. She’d only end up in the toilet throughout the entire rehearsal interrupting herself with offers of Mintos.

She barely noticed that Sara Hayes and her friend Maxine were there, but she instantly recognised their friendly, blond companion - George’s next conquest - who seemed to recognise her and greeted her with a warm smile. She didn’t know anyone else. There were lots of ridiculously handsome people taking their seats and hiding their nerves behind self-conscious airs of indifference or weariness. Jazz watched them all keenly.

Mo came and sat next to her. As the seats filled up, Jazz realised that William Whitby wasn’t there. How could he not have been given a part? He was so … watchable. Just as her stomach was deflating with disappointment, the door opened and there he was. Maybe it was because she was so obviously aware

of him, maybe it was because there was a spare seat next to her and their eyes had met as soon as he

had walked in, she didn’t know why, but he saw her, grinned and came to sit down next to her.

‘Hi,’ he smiled, proffering his hand to be shaken ‘I’m Wills.’ Jazz nodded. It would have looked stupid to pretend she didn’t know his name. His openness of expression and large, brown eyes that crinkled at the edges when he smiled, were even more endearing in the flesh than on television. Jazz almost had to stop herself from bear-hugging him.

‘Hi,’ said Jazz, shaking his hand vigorously and grinning like a moron. ‘Jazz.’

‘Short for?’ he questioned.

‘Men over six foot four. My only restriction.’ Dear God, had she really said that?

He chuckled. ‘Who are you playing?’

‘Lizzy,’ she said, wondering if her pupils were dilating so much that her eyes were now just two black holes.

His grin widened and he touched her arm affectionately.

‘Hey wow, congratulations,’ he said. ‘You must be really good.’

Impossibly, she warmed to him even more.

‘Must I?’ she said as coyly as she could. ‘Who are you playing?’

‘Terribly Wicked Wickham,’ he said wickedly.

‘Ooh, how exciting,’ she said, noticing that he had several freckles on his nose and golden flecks in his eyes.

‘Yes, it’ll be a laugh,’ he agreed. ‘And from a professional point of view, it’s a great opportunity to play a baddie. I don’t want to be typecast as a priest for ever, you know.’ A heart-blisteringly wide smile, ‘Of course, you realise we’ll have to learn how to flirt with each other.’

With considerable self-control, Jazz managed not to cheer. Maybe this acting business was going to be more enjoyable than she’d anticipated.

Just then, she became aware of a blurred image behind William’s head and, with some effort, drew her eyes towards it. It was a beaming Gilbert.

‘Jasmin!’ he exclaimed. ‘You made it, I knew you would!’ He kissed her smack on the mouth. She was too shocked to move. Thankfully there wasn’t a seat next to her and with an affectionate squeeze of her shoulder, Gilbert had to go and sit somewhere else. As she watched him go, she wondered idly what part he could possibly have got.

Wills turned back to Jazz. ‘That’s Gilbert Valentine, Theatre Hack, isn’t it?’ he whispered to her.

‘No,’ whispered Jazz back. ‘It’s Gilbert Valentine, Pathetic Twat. We used to work together.’ She wondered why life was never perfect.

Wills meanwhile, was laughing with delight.

The atmosphere cooled as soon as Harry Noble entered the room. He walked over to where the chairs were stacked, his eyes fixing on no one. He picked up a chair and stood silently behind two people in the circle. Without a word being said to either of them, they made room for him. Jazz was so preoccupied watching the remarkable reaction Harry seemed to create on everyone that she scarcely noticed the quiet, red-headed young woman who had come in with him. Silently the woman — or girl - found herself a seat at the back.

Eventually Harry honoured his cast by looking briefly at them.

‘Hello people,’ he said quietly, and Jazz marvelled at how he could fill those two short words with such considered condescension. Everyone inched closer and Harry took off his black leather jacket exposing a loose, black V-neck jumper and faded black jeans. He leaned back lazily in his chair, fully aware that everyone was watching him avidly. Jazz observed in wonder as the entire room eyed his body, greedily taking in the curve of his Adam’s apple and the enticing peek of olive-brown collarbone, his languidly elegant torso, broad shoulders, long, flat stomach and perfect thighs.

Harry was almost sunbathing in the warmth of everyone’s stare. Then without eyeing any of his new cast, he delivered a speech that Jazz thought he must have had written for him by some out-of-work ham playwright - a speech called ‘Director Drivel’. He hardly bothered to move his body as he spoke, and his voice was so cold and quiet that people were leaning forward to catch every little gem. Jazz was transfixed, amazed that someone with such screen presence could be such an atmosphere vacuum in real life. It was as if he only gave of himself when he thought it was worth it, and he certainly didn’t rate his present audience.

‘Some of you have never acted before,’ he droned on. ‘Some of you may think you have. But all of you will discover new meanings of the word if you listen to me.’ He now looked deliberately at them; some

of the women blushed under his steady gaze. ‘And trust in me. Let me be your guide.’ Jazz gazed round at his audience. They would let him drill their molars if he so desired. They were eating out of the palm

of his hand.

Incredible. She’d never seen anything like it before. Slowly, she tore her eyes away from his entranced followers and looked back at him. She was more than surprised to find that he was looking straight at

her. She became aware that everyone else was now looking at her and realised that he had just asked

her a question.

She smiled half-heartedly. ‘Sorry, I -1… wasn’t listening.’

He tilted his sculpted face at her with an expression she couldn’t yet read.

‘An excellent start, Miss Field,’ he said calmly, hardly moving his perfect lips.

There was a slight laugh from the audience.

Jazz felt her cheeks warm.

‘I just asked our starring lady, our Elizabeth Bennet (crescendo) to stand up and introduce herself.’

Jesus Christ.

She stood up.

‘Hi,’ (cough), ‘my name is Jasmin Field. I’m a journalist. So don’t piss me off. Ha ha. And um - well, I can’t really act. Ha ha.’ No one laughed.

She didn’t know what else to say. Harry’s almost inaudible voice cut the atmosphere like an ice-pick.

‘I don’t work with people who can’t act, Miss Field.’

Oh pur-lease, she thought. Get out of your bottom, it’s dark in there.

‘Good job this is voluntary then,’ she smiled sweetly.

There was an uncomfortable pause.

‘Money has nothing to do with an excellent performance, Miss Field.’ He smiled wrily at the rest of the cast. ‘Although I don’t expect a journalist to understand that.’ They broke into relieved laughter, grateful that he had shared a joke with them. Out of the corner of her eye, Jazz could see Gilbert attempting the look of an offended genius.

Harry started looking around the room for his next victim.

‘Oh, you’d be surprised,’ Jazz said a bit too loudly. ‘We journalists understand lots of things. Particularly,’ she pretended to pluck words out of the air, and finished softly with ‘pomp and affectation.’

The room held its breath, but Harry merely looked back at her. ‘Oh dear,’ he said in an infuriatingly measured tone. ‘Miss Field, we might as well sort this out once and for all. For the short period of your life that you leave behind the tacky world of women’s magazines and work with me, I will turn you into

a good actress. However painful that experience may be for both of us.’

Jazz bristled. ‘I never leave behind my “tacky world”, as you put it, Mr Noble - it follows me, I’m afraid. Much in the same way that a bit-part in a “tacky” American sitcom would follow a classic actor.’

A couple of people coughed nervously.

‘Well, there you’re very much mistaken, Miss Field,’ said Harry, leaning forward and allowing his voice more inflection. ‘I don’t allow anything to follow anyone when they act with me. I want you, Miss Field, completely and utterly naked.’ A fractional smile. ‘I’m speaking emotionally, of course.’ Jazz grimaced. ‘And that’s your first lesson.’ He threw her a hard smile that landed, with a dull thud, in her gut. ‘Learning the difference between pomp and affectation and substance and integrity we’ll have to leave to another day.’

And with that he turned swiftly to his next victim. Somehow Jazz found her seat again without falling flat on her bottom. The fact that everyone had now stopped watching her did nothing to lessen her sense of embarrassment. She hated him. In fact, she was so shaken by the public humiliation that it was several moments before she began to look forward to describing it in her column.

It was Mr Darcy’s turn next. Jazz had at first been delighted to discover that Harry had succumbed to Matt’s advice and given the part of the greatest romantic hero to the acerbic critic, Brian Peters. But within moments, her delight turned to serious concern. Poison Pen Peters’ prose, albeit cruel, was always elegant, well-honed and majestic. His ‘voice’ was an aesthetic joy, something every reader was in awe of due to its obvious natural superiority, whether or not they agreed with its content. As a writer, he would have made a perfect Mr Darcy. As an actor, however, he would have made a perfect ferret. It appeared to Jazz, as she studied Brian Peters for the first time, that testosterone had passed him by. His shoulders were narrower than hers, his voice higher, and his long, slim head made him look as if he was still recovering from a forceps delivery. How could such magnificent prose come from such an unimpressive person?

By now, everyone else knew the sort of interrogation they would receive from their director and had time to think of something half-witty to say for their own introductions. They were all suitably banal and benign. Sara Hayes had won the part of Miss Bingley - Mr Bingley’s sister and doomed admirer of Mr Darcy - which almost managed to cheer Jazz up. How wonderfully typecast, she thought, with glee, watching the woman preen herself. Better still, Sara’s friend Maxine was Mrs Hurst - her sister — and the man chosen to play Mrs Hurst’s husband was Maxine’s own porcine husband. Charles Caruthers-Brown’s look of utter indifference to the proceedings suited his new role down to the ground.

The tall fair man who was still impersonating a stunned rabbit whenever he looked at George turned out to be called Jack - he was playing Mr Bingley, troubled suitor to George’s Jane. Would life imitate art here also? wondered Jazz to herself. Is the Pope Catholic? she answered herself happily. She was even quite excited to see that Gilbert had won the part of Mr Collins, the insufferable, social-climbing curate. Despite herself, Jazz began to feel some respect for Harry Noble’s casting ability.

The part of Lizzy’s mother, Mrs Bennet, had gone to a large woman with heavy-lidded warm eyes, cropped black hair and beautifully smooth skin. Mr Bennet was to be played by a character actor Jazz had seen in many period productions on the television. He had always had minor roles and she had never given him more than a cursory glance. She had certainly never attributed any great meaning to anything he’d said, yet now she saw him in the flesh, with his tired, ruddy skin, his desperately grave expression and deep, mellow voice, she realised that while she had been ogling handsome lead actors, she had been wantonly ignoring many actors’ lifetimes’ achievements just because they had less pleasing features. She felt profound sympathy for the man who was doomed to always have the smaller, instantly forgettable parts just because his nose was too bulbous, his eyes too close together and his mouth too far over to the left. Her sympathy for him didn’t last long though. She watched him for a while. He was unexpectedly self-obsessed and so blusteringly affected that she started to admire his lifetime’s work of modest, humble characters afresh. He was obviously a far better performer than she had ever given him credit for.

Lizzy’s three younger sisters were to be played by young fairly well-known personalities - one a novelist whose debut novel Monarchy, My Arse had had rave reviews, another a young photographer who had exhibited twice to rapturous reviews, and the other almost an ‘It’ girl - cable TV presenter, party-goer. Even they were quite obviously flustered in the company of Harry Noble. So Jazz had been right. The second day of auditions had just been a publicity stunt. There was no one here who was a complete unknown. Apart, perhaps, from Mo and from Maxine’s other half, Charles.

Just looking round the room at all the hopeful, determined faces was enough to convince Jazz that she had made the right decision never to try acting as a profession. She’d toyed with the idea for a week or two at the age of eighteen, but realised that she’d rather scrutinise the world than emotionally strip in

front of it.

She was relieved to find out that her new friend Wills didn’t think less of her after her tete a tete with

Mr. Noble. In fact, it was rather the opposite.

As soon as Harry and Jazz had finished their spar, Wills had turned round to her. ‘May I be the first to congratulate you,’ he murmured. ‘You have answered back the great Harry Noble.’

‘Is he always this pretentious?’ she asked.

Wills tried not to laugh out loud. ‘Believe me, you’ll get used to the bastard.’

Jazz snorted. ‘What, like I got used to PMT?’

At this he did laugh out loud. A great, manly bellow of a laugh. Jazz couldn’t help but join in. She was hooked. Nothing was as attractive to her as a man laughing at one of her jokes. Except a crowd of men laughing at a string of her jokes.

‘Probably,’ he said finally. ‘Perhaps that’s why women seem to get on better with him than men.’

‘Most women,’ reminded Jazz, ‘only want one thing.’