Midnight All Day Read Free Page B

performance art. When she kisses me goodbye and goes home, or out to meet her husband, I see actresses, girls who work in TV, students, au pairs. They keep me from feeling too much for Florence. Therewas one night of alcohol and grief, when I wept and hated her inaccessibility. I have not had a suitable girlfriend for more than two years. The last woman I lived with became only my friend; the relationship lacked velocity and a future. My life does tend towards stasis, which Florence recognises.
    I had been finding it difficult to break with my background in South London. The men I grew up with were tough and loud-mouthed, bragging of their ignorance and crudity. They believed aggression was their most necessary tool. On leaving school they became villains and thieves. In their twenties, when they had children, they turned to car dealing, building or ‘security’. They continued to go to football matches, drank heavily, and pursued teenage longings, ideals to which they had become addicted. What I want to do – act – represents an inexplicable ambition that intimidates them and, by its nature, will leave them behind. I am not saying that there are not any working-class actors. I hope to play many parts. I want to transform myself until I become unrecognisable. But I will not become an actor for whom being working class is ‘an act’. No cops or criminals in TV series for me.
    In the pub with these friends I try to retain the accent and attitudes of my past, but I have emerged from the anonymous world and they are contemptuous and provocative. ‘Give us a speech, Larry. To buy a drink or not to buy a drink!’ they chant, pulling at my expensive shirt. I am about to get into a fight over divergent ideas of who I should be. I begin to consider them cowardly, living only little lives, full of bold talk,but doing nothing and going nowhere. It is not until later that Florence teaches me that part of being successful is the ability to bear envy and plain dislike.
    I am not educated. If she notices it, Florence never comments on my ignorance. She can be light-headed and frivolous herself; once she shopped for two days. Nevertheless, she sits me down in front of the most exacting films. Bergman’s Cries and Whispers, for instance, she thinks it necessary we both absorb through repetition; it is as if she is singing along with the film, or, in the case of that work, moaning. She does not categorise these things as art, as I do, but uses them as objects of immediate application.
    Almost as soon as I met Florence, she altered the direction of my life. The Royal Shakespeare Company had offered me a two-year contract. I would share a cottage in Stratford. She would sit with me beside the Avon. I had celebrated in Joe Aliens with friends, and my agent was working on the contract.
    To celebrate, I took Florence out to lunch to celebrate. I read in a mazagine that the restaurant was one of the smartest in London, but she swung about in her chair. I should have remembered that she dislikes eating – she is as thin and flat-chested as a dancer. Certainly she does not like sitting down for her food surrounded by people she has seen on television and considers pompous and talentless.
    ‘I have to tell you that you must turn the Stratford opportunity down,’ she said.
    ‘It’s every young actor’s dream, Florence.’
    ‘Rob, don’t be such a common little fool. They’re too small, too small,’ she said. ‘Not only that suit you’re wearing, but the parts. Going to the Royal Shakespeare Company will be a waste of time.’ She flicks my nose with her fingernail.
    ‘Ow.’
    ‘You must listen to me.’
    I did.
    My agent was amazed and furious. Without entirely knowing why, I took Florence’s advice. Soon I am playing big roles in little places: Biff in Death of a Salesman, in Bristol; the lead in a new play in Cheltenham; Romeo in Yorkshire.
    With a girlfriend she came on the train to see a preview, and we travelled back