LIZ HOLLIDAY’s story in this volume is her first crime sale. Previously involved in the science fiction field where her stories have appeared in various anthologies and magazines, she lives in London and is working on her first novel.
ANDREW KLAVAN is the author of three international bestsellers Don’t Say a Word, The Animal Hour and Corruption. An American presently settled in London, he previously wrote a series of thrillers as Keith Peterson, and the screenplay for Michael Caine’s A Shock to the System.
PERFECT CASTING by CHRISTOPHER FOWLER
It was the season of sulphur. The autumn air already held a sharp smell of fireworks. Just beyond the edge of Regent’s Park, the keepers were raking a bonfire. Peter Tipping noticed spirals of sparks above a sore amber glow of dead leaves just before he turned into the north end of Baker Street. Night had fallen before five. For the next few months darkness would achromatize the days. London was a private city in winter. People remained hidden inside, leaving the buildings to come alive in damp air.
The curving cream stone of the apartment block drew close, and then he was standing below the entrance. Reluctantly withdrawing his hand from the warmth of his overcoat pocket, he pressed the brass stud and bent close to the intercom, waiting for the familiar sound of Jonathan’s voice.
‘You’re late, Peter.’ A hurt tone filtered through. The buzzer sounded, and he stepped up into a marble hall. Beyond that, rich crimson carpet and a trellis lift. Chalfont Court was not at home to the twentieth century. There was still a porter’s lodge beside the main entrance, still a mahogany box affixed to the wall for the placement of calling cards. The building lodged liverish retired colonels, ancient widows with tiny hyperactive dogs, a couple of discreet escort agencies and a few old show business types.
Jonathan belonged to the last group. His apartment on the fifth floor had been his combined office and home for the past thirty years, during which time business and leisure had lived in easy symbiosis. It would have been impossible to imagine any other arrangement, as the elderly theatrical agent was attuned to receiving lengthy telephone calls near the midnight hour. At this time he would calm his nervous charges, soothe their fears of thespian inadequacy, listen to their analytical appraisals of the night’s performance, always reassuring, calming and cajoling. He wouldn’t be doing that for Peter tonight. Peter had let him down again.
‘So, you finally made it.’ Jonathan pursed his lips and stepped back in the doorway, allowing him to enter, a balloon-shaped figure balancing on tiny feet. The passage was lined with posters for shows misbegotten and forgotten, the disco Ibsen, the reggae Strindberg, a musical version of Bleak House called ‘Jarndyce!’ starring Noelle Gordon, fading signatures from faded stars. Jonathan’s fat right fist contained a tumbler filled with gin and irregular chunks of ice, and there were telephones trilling in the distance. Peter was always comforted by the changeless disarray of the flat. This was a place where actors were cushioned and cosseted, heard out and then fed with alcohol. Jonathan puffed past, rings glittering in the dim hall, ready to make Peter a drink even though – ‘Even though I’m terribly, terribly angry with you.’ He entered the kitchen, chipped off an ice-chunk and dropped it into a tumbler, pausing to push his spectacles back up the bridge of his nose. Jonathan was constantly in a sweat. It leaked from beneath the auburn wig that fooled no one, and trickled beneath his bulging eyes so that his clients were misdirected into believing that news of their backstage woes had moved him to tears. ‘One should always be grateful of an audition, Peter, bitterly grateful, and you do yourself no favours by acting otherwise.’
Peter had thought the job beneath him anyway, but he hadn’t had a decent audition in nearly three months. Playing a jolly dad in a commercial for frozen lasagne wouldn’t have been the zenith of his performing career, but it would at least have brought in steady residuals.
‘The director was a complete arsehole, John.’ He accepted the drink and followed the agent through to his desk. There was parkland below the windows of the semicircular lounge, but even during the day it was barely visible through winter mist and traffic fumes. ‘I was kept waiting for over an hour, and then asked questions about my motivation by some adspeaking agency slimeball,’ Peter complained. ‘I answered him back a little sharply, nothing more, and they told me I wasn’t needed any longer.’
Jonathan waved the explanation aside. ‘I know, I had them on the phone for half an hour warning me never to send you there again. You’re going to be blacklisted by the agency, Peter, the third largest advertising agency in London.’ He pushed back-issues of The Stage from a leather sofa and sat, daintily crossing his legs at the ankle. ‘What have I always said is your biggest stumbling block?’
‘Arrogance,’ Peter admitted, knowing he was about to receive the usual lecture.
‘You’ve been with me for nearly a year now, and you’ve hardly worked. You come back with the same story after every audition. You’ve had three – it is three, isn’t it? – agents before me. You can’t go on blaming your representation. It’s a matter of learning to handle authority.’
He felt the need to explain himself. ‘I couldn’t see that there was much authority coming from -’
‘Authority is anyone who employs you, Peter, and you simply can’t afford to alienate them. At least you could wait until you’ve got the job and you’ve established a working relationship. Christ, even Larry managed to do that.’
‘But you’re sending me along for rubbishy little parts directed by ignorant children.’ He could feel the gin and the heat of the apartment forcing colour into his face. ‘Half of these brats are barely out of film school.’
‘You want me to change the system for you? I can’t help it if the industry is getting younger around you. That’s all there is, you either take it or leave it.’
‘Perhaps if I had some new shots done…’ He had been considering an image change for some time. A new haircut, sharper clothes.
‘Photographs aren’t going to make any difference, Peter. Let’s be honest, you don’t look like a classic leading male. You nose is too long, your eyes are too small and your weight fluctuates. You’d make a good villain, but you’re never going to get juve leads. You won’t take serious theatrical roles -
‘I can’t remember long speeches,’ he admitted. ‘Lots of actors get by without classical theatre.’
‘You’re not prepared to do panto, so what does that leave? There’s no British film industry any more and the network franchises are carving each other up, so you should face the fact that if there’s an audition - any audition – you have to go for it.’ He wiped the sweat from the edge of his wig. ‘That’s if you want to work. You’re too old to have tantrums, and there’s always someone else willing to take the part. As Coward used to sing: “There’s another generation knock-knock-knocking at the door.’”
Even though he realized that Jonathan was trying to help him, he wanted to punch the smug little man squatting opposite with his empty tumbler balanced on his paunch. He knew the agent meant to shock him into better behaviour but he wasn’t prepared to waste his career behaving like a sheep, being pushed about by some snotty MTV kid turned commercials director. Hadn’t Hitchcock said that actors were cattle? Had nothing changed since then? It was fine for the pretty teenagers flitting in and out of the office on casting calls, busy enjoying their fifteen minutes of fame, happy to do what they were told, but he was an adult with opinions of his own. He looked across at Jonathan, who was waving his hands as if acting out part of some wailing chorus. ‘Oh, I don’t know what more I can say to you, Peter. I’ve always had a lot of working people on my books, some of them very successful -’