Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?. Claudia Carroll

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СКАЧАТЬ But I don’t get back to her, deciding instead to postpone the guilt trip till tomorrow. This is one fire I’ll just have to pee on later.

      I swear to God though, even just being back inside the theatre does my heart the world of good. Like the little actress that’s been dying inside me for years suddenly gets an adrenaline shot right to the bone marrow. I’ve worked at the National many times before and it feels beyond exhilarating to be back and to see everyone again.

      Tom, the gorgeous front of house manager is straight over to me, giving me a big bear hug and welcoming me back so warmly that I almost get a bit teary. Then the box office girls all squeal when I stick my head in to say hi and tell me it’s like old times seeing me back. Like this is the set of Hello Dolly and somehow I’ve morphed into Barbra Streisand for the night.

      And the play is only mesmerising. Hilariously funny, but in the blackest way you could imagine, yet packing such a mighty powerful punch that judging from the look of the audience around me, leaves people reeling by the final curtain. The cast takes an astonishing three standing ovations and I’m pretty sure I’m the last person to leave the auditorium; I just want to stay here, soak up the atmosphere and not break the magical spell that’s been woven round us all.

      Even better, a very old pal of mine going back years, an actress called Liz Shields is in the cast too, so I text her to tell her I’m here and waiting in the bar to say hi to her. Ten minutes later, she bounces out from her dressing room, still in all her war-paint, with her swishy blonde hair extensions and wearing her usual ‘rock chick’ gear of leather and denim. Looking like a young Madonna and Christina Aguilera if they were to step out of the matter transporter in The Fly, if you get me.

      I’m not joking you; Liz yells out my name so loudly that half the bar turns round to take in the sideshow.

      ‘Holy Jaysus, Annie bloody Cole!! Come here and givvus a hug! Have you any idea how much I’ve missed you?!’ So we hug and squeal and kiss and I can’t tell you how beyond fab it is to see her again.

      Liz and I trained in drama school here in Dublin together, ooh, way back in Old God’s time, and from the day we met, we just clicked. She’s completely wild and mad and fun – one of those people that you could start off having a normal night out with, like say, grabbing a few drinks in town…then you wake up the following morning in Holyhead. And by the way, that Holyhead story is no exaggeration and I should know; it happened on my hen night.

      Anyway, we grab a table, order a vodka for Liz, a Coke for me and settle down into a big catch-up chat, yakking over each other just like we always used to. Juggling about five different conversations up in the air simultaneously.

      ‘So what did you think of the show?’ she asks excitedly, ‘and by that of course I mean, what did you think of me? Go on, rate me. And none of your plamassing either; be inhuman. Be vicious.’

      ‘Easy, eleven out of ten,’ I giggle back at her, loving the banter and not realising just how much I’ve missed it. For a split second not even being able to remember the last time I actually laughed.

      ‘Feck off, eleven out of ten sounds insincere.’

      ‘Right then, nine point nine if it’ll make you believe me! Seriously, Liz, do you even know how amazing you were out there tonight? Honest to God, girl, you’d be magnetic if you stood on the stage reading out instructions to an IKEA flat pack sofa…but in a show as good as this? You were bloody mesmerising! Only the truth, babe.’

      She playfully punches me, then yells over to the barman: ‘What’s keeping our drinks, Ice Age?’

      Pure, vintage Liz. I give her a completely spontaneous hug and then tell her the real reason why I came to the show all by myself tonight. Well, they must hear her shrieks all the way back in The Sticks. I honestly think that she’s more excited about my audition than even I am, if that were possible. Bless her, she even offers to ring up another one of the cast to get her to say her magic, foolproof novena to Saint Jude, to guarantee I land the part.

      ‘So tell me then,’ I ask, fishing for the one scrap of information I’m burning to find out. ‘What’s he like to work with? The mighty Jack Gordon.’

      Liz sucks in her cheeks and thinks before answering.

      ‘Jack is…it’s hard to say…I don’t really know him, even though I’ve known him for years. He’s like nine parts genius to one part knob, if that makes sense. Hard to please. Never happy with the show, even on nights when we take three standing ovations, one after the other. Never happy with anything. Apparently the National are putting him up in some five star hotel in town and he walked straight into it and said, ‘what a dump.’

      My heart shrivels at this, suddenly nauseous at the thought that I have to audition for him tomorrow.

      ‘Oh and he’s having a fling with one of the box office girls here in the theatre,’ Liz continues. ‘A young one barely old enough to have seen all the episodes of Friends. And he treats her like complete shite, if you ask me. Always saying he’ll call her and then not. Inviting her to dinner after the show then not turning up and leaving the poor kid standing here on her own, with the rest of us all looking at her mortified. And afraid to bitch about him to her in case it all gets back. So in short: beware. Jack’s a guy who’s very good at saying things that he doesn’t mean to people, then trampling on them to get what he wants. And because he’s lauded as the wunderkind of the theatre world, he gets away with it.’

      Just then, the drinks arrive and the two of us automatically get into an ‘I’m getting this/no, feck off, I am’ tussle over who pays. ‘Anyway, do you realise,’ Liz says, mercifully changing the subject, ‘that if you do land the gig, we’d end up playing best friends? I mean, come on, Annie, how incredible would that be?’

      I glow a bit, for a split second, allowing myself to believe that the fantasy might really come true. And then I remember the full details of the job, spelled out carefully to me by Fag Ash Hil in her office earlier. The massive, full extent of the commitment involved, in the unlikely event of things going my way. In other words that, no matter how overwhelmingly thrilling the thoughts of doing the gig might be, fact is, it still comes with the most massive price tag attached.

      Anyway, there’s no time to dwell on that because meanwhile Liz has already buzzed onto another major catch-up topic, as she brings me up to speed on her love life.

      ‘So in unrelated news,’ she says, laying into the vodka, ‘I’m still single. In fact, since I last saw you, I’ve had a total of about thirteen flings, roughly about the same number of shags and only one actual bona fide boyfriend. Crap, isn’t it? Oh and by “boyfriend”, just so you’re clear, I actually mean, “guy who I saw for longer than a single weekend”. Although, to be honest, he was one of those blokes who basically would have gone home with a gardening tool. And by now I’ve gone on so many blind dates, they should consider giving me a free guide dog. In other words, Annie, I still have a massive radar for emotionally unavailable guys with low self-esteem. Commit-twits. Half the time they don’t even have jobs either. So there you go. But, in a way, isn’t it reassuring to know that some things don’t change? You got lucky and meanwhile, I’m still out there chasing after nut-jobs.

      ‘Anyway,’ she breaks off, waving to the barman to send over another vodka, ‘like I always say, if Matt Damon was single and if he wasn’t famous and if he lived and worked in Dublin and if he knew me…I’m highly confident that we’d be dating, you know.’

      ‘That’s an awful lot of ifs, babe,’ I giggle.

      ‘Easy for you to say. Cos СКАЧАТЬ