Writing – Page 3 – Stefanie Moore

Spoetify #2 Ladies of the Canyon (written very early in the morning beside a creaky dog)

Gloria said to dig below

So she does, for the millionth time, as she’s told to

The sand there is hot red blood of course but powder

Her mother’s blood perhaps? Old blood? Dried blood?

Thoughts swarm and meander up over, behind the horizon

There is nothing but mother’s blood

She squints towards the sun

and thinks of the crows feet far too late to stop them

The dogs trots off

Returns

With a dead thing?

Just green fronds

The last living thing in this godforsaken etcetera

But Gloria said dig down below.

The Delivery Man (sort of after the Elvis Costello song and written very early this morning)

Your seams stretch tight like crocodile’s teeth as you supplicate.

Khaki khaki moves apart. You bend.

White T-shirt. Roll up those sleeves, baby,

Make me your queen of the drop off

Hard-curved calves, biceps, steel-tipped boots

Show me yourself

I didn’t catch your tattoo’s story

Too busy delving into the musk sweat of a thousand porches and side gates.

I like the sweet smell of a brown bin.

I could talk about your hands, but I bet

they all

write about your hands in their red books.

In the window like flies

waiting for anyone to arrive.

This has no meaningful title for a reason

I’ve taken a step back from writing recently – that’s what the pros call it, isn’t it? A break, a step back, focussed my energies elsewhere. This is what people call it when they have a handle on their life or at least pretend they have a handle on their life and believe in fake it till you make it.

I despised these people for a while. now I envy them.

A lot of this past year has left me feeling like Ray Liotta in Goodfellas, in that bit when he’s spinning out and can hear the helicopter above him (massive para-remembering here) except my experience was not drug fuelled and the sound of the helicopter was the theme tune for Finding Nemo at 7.30 in the morning. But I sure did a lot of squinting, alternating big eye and little eye in an attempt to get a grip and at least think about getting out of my pyjamas.

I also did a lot of things that are already becoming cliched 2020 things – I homeschooled, I built a veg patch and thought about planting things. We got a dog. I’m very lucky.

But I also experienced other things that are already sadly becoming part of the cliched 2020 experience, thought it destroys me to think that such things become so commonplace that they already feel tired to write about. I tried to hold my family together with Zoom style pub quizzes, I watched older relatives suffer alone, fret about doctor’s appointments. I felt guilty about not being there, because that would be the boldest sacrifice to make, to fling a suitcase together and move in. But I didn’t. I grieved for a relative who couldn’t get the help they needed because of the ‘ongoing situation’ and died. I felt my asthma creep up again and again and grip hold of my lungs, uninvited. Not a good time to have an exacerbation.

I tried to hold it together. I specialise in writing characters who look as if they are holding it together and being very brave. This year, I became one of my characters.

And about three moths into trying to be good, a do my Duolingo, and my Yoga and writing, yes my writing! I stopped doing all of it.

And now the worlds has shifted ever so slightly again; my son is back at school (reluctantly) and I meditated this morning. Really badly, but I sat there for fifteen minutes waiting for my head to stop thinking about drag queens. I did a Spanish lesson. And then I thought about writing.

But what to write about when nothing has happened? Well, when so much has happened but none of it is what I want to write about? I’m trying to bizarro myself – my natural instinct would be to keep hurling myself at the page like a bird at a window until one of us breaks.

But this time I’m sitting it out. I will do my journalling. I am very slowly editing a piece of theatre – maybe two lines a day. And as soon as I get the inkling to do something else (which usually happens within the first five minutes of writing)I am walking as far away from it as I can. This year has sucked all the grit out of me and if my writing pace is geriatric as a result, so be it.

The veg patch out the back still contains no vegetables, just mud. But inevitably, there are weeds and things pushing through the surface.

Green shoots. Upwards. More cliches, but still.

Monologue Mayhem – Part Deux

So I’m trying to write more monologues at the moment for no apparent reason other than the world is tough and it can be hard to commit to something longer. Here’s one, anyway, called Mudslides.

Cassie (mid 20s) is sitting on the sofa with a remote control in her hand.

Cassie: I got stuck in a mudslide once. Yeah. El Salvador. I turned around and this .. just this wave of shit was cascading down the road. Anyhow – I mean I was wasted – but I did manage to scrabble away and then I lay down and I looked up at this big scab of a sky and I thought …

I’m going to write a blog post about this…

And I did. It was called ‘Live It’ and it was about the mudslide and how exhilarating and rare these near death moments are.

I mean – I lost a flip flop that day, not my house. But still – 3257 likes in two days – that says as much about you as it does me. So I kept pumping it out and then I got my first deal – posing with vegan running shoes, then cork yoga mats, an an organic lip filler. All in six months.

And it means that 2 years later I’m now, well I was, the kind of woman who leaves her flat in the morning to go to another house that isn’t mine that has a beautiful bottle green kitchen so that I can pose holding a griddle pan like a newborn, extolling the powers of apple cider vinegar. Or in down dog explaining the wellness of breath. I tell nearly 1 million people how to be almost as good as me.

So you’re thinking that’s it then, the mudslide, that’s the moment that changed her, smug get.

Nope.

The mudslide made me, but it didn’t change me. I was already a smug get.

The moment that changed me came about ten days ago. I’m standing in the garden of the hired house dressed in a white linen smock and I’m talking to the camera.

Talking about tea tree oil. And how fulfilling it is to grow tea tree plants and then use them to distill your own oil and then to use this oil to tackle cellulite.

Now this, this is when I snapped to. I could hear myself telling people to grow a plant, a beautiful and complex thing, in order to destroy it, in order to rub it on their own arse cheeks, just so that they could be their ‘best selves’ and by best I was definitely implying their thinnest, no question. And all the time the planet was shifting beneath me and there were probably mudslides going on somewhere so I – yeah just like that – I stopped talking and went home and I haven’t been out since.

I’ve got through three series of Law and Order since then. Hashtag proud. And the only post I’m interested in getting is the leaflets from pizza places or … no. That is the only post I’m interested in getting.

There’s 20 seasons of Law and Order to watch. In yesterday’s tracksuit. And let’s face it – no-one’s life is worse for me not telling them about tea tree oil and arse cheeks, is it?

Steve Brookstein

This here’s a monologue that I wrote for Up ‘Ere Productions and their Talking Heads Programme. It’s called Steve Brookstein. Have at it, dudes.

Steve Brookstein

Caroline (mid-late 30s, in a relatively formal outfit, is peering off stage through some long curtains, watching someone out of view with some anxiety.)

(With forced brightness) Oo – now then, hello – I’d rather you didn’t fiddle with the delphiniums (pauses for his response) Well- if they’re looking a bit crispy swivel them round. Okay?

(She returns to the room, the brightness falls. She starts gloomily applying make up. Stops)

They sent a boy over. From Hull. Bruce said he’s doing the course, the same one that I did. Doing the course I did, I thought, that’s an odd choice, for a boy from Hull. ‘We thought you might need some help’ said Bruce and and then he sort of wrinkled his eyes up. ‘This one’s tough for everybody at Restful Souls.’ He said.

He shouldn’t wear that brown leather jacket, not in this weather. It only enhances his bullishness. I opened my mouth to fire back but then I thought leave it Caroline, when a man wrinkles his eyes up like that he thinks he’s being sensitive and you won’t dissuade him otherwise.

Bruce is very huggy (and it’s too much in brown leather!). I’m convinced it was him who’d stashed the vintage pic of Linda Lusardi in amongst the coffee filters . I didn’t know people still did paper porn. I think it’s a predilection. And I could tell from the way he called us together afterwards in the staff car park to denounce the objectification of women, that it cut a little too close to home. The only red face was his.

You know, I can see feelings. I’m an empath. I empathacise every day. Maybe that’s why I got the ‘calling.’

If this is a calling. Can it be a calling if you had to print off your own certificate?

My sister thought I was absolutely fruitcake. Caroline, you’re the number three children’s entertainer this side of the county line and a balloon artist of note and you’re going to give it all up? All that time working your way up the google rankings to commit career death? She was fraught that day, off the back of a slew of IKEA runs, but still, too abrupt.

She’s not an empath.

(Looks at herself in the mirror. Then she goes back to curtains. Peeks out.)

Pardon? No. I’m fine. If you’re at a loose end though, could you defuzz the chair fabric? What? (Pause for response) Well, you wrap some cellotape, there’s some in the first aid box, I don’t know why, wrap it around your hand, no, sticky side out and (does the gesture) lift it off. Yes, just like that, fantastic.

(She keeps her smile as she returns to us, gives us a knowing look regarding the boy from Hull. She starts to do some vocal exercises. Stops.)

The bereaved are terrible at providing detail. ‘She was a good mum’ – could Jerry Seinfield do anything with that? Unlikely. No. It’s only when you get to look beyond the digestives that you find the real dirt. I miss a good home visit. Douglas was a sponge. He’d be next to me on the sofa – by god he had a knack for this – and he would wait till they were up and at the tea tray and then he’d whisper in my ear ‘There’s hiking boots in the hall’ or ‘Michael Buble – DVD – mantlepiece – 2’oclock’ and then we’d start again – ‘was your wife a keen rambler? A light jazz fan?’ and they’d be off – telling us about the time that she’d passed out on the 3 peaks challenge, or when she’d almost touched Jamie Cullum’s shirt cuff.

Because think about it: I’m charged with writing the big finish, tying a whole life up in a sparkly gift bow, for a person that I’ve never even met. The only way I can do it is with specifics, that’s the stuff that pushes them over the edge. All those mourners – close family, old friends, members of your amateur dramatic society – are brought together for one day to sweat it out, flop it on the floor and leave it behind for Nadia to sweep up along with the shredded Kleenex. If they leave in bits, I’ve done my job.

( Through curtains to Boy)

What was that? (Pause for response) Well if they’re saying they haven’t got the passcode, they’re leaving it a bit late. Get them to look at their spam.

(She returns, starts checking teeth)

You know , I had an email from a woman the other day, asking whether her son would be ‘prepared’ by robots. Imagine that! Weird sinewy metal arms cradling your head, washing your ankles, buttoning up your party shirt. I told her no, of course not. It was still Keith and Sheila, fabulous couple, and they did it with the same love and care as before, just with two pairs of latex gloves on rather than one.

2020. (she shrugs).

(She pauses thinking about the ceremony ahead, Her mood has changed)

The first time I stepped out into that empty room was awful. Awful. I said the words, but I didn’t ‘give’ them. I should have said ‘sorry Andrea, you didn’t get the best from me today’ but by that time, she’d disappeared behind the curtain and what good is an apology to a box on fire?

Two days later, I’m standing ‘in the wings’ if you like. And Douglas sidles up to me. He had this way of creeping up so you wouldn’t know he was there until he was practically on you, remarkable, I’ve only ever experienced it before with a black alsation in my local park and a street mime, once, in Bury St Edmunds. No malice, just a quiet mover. Anyhow, he’d wiped around the catalfaque, opened up the Zoom room, put the music on. Ave Maria. You know that they’re not a real music lover if they go for Ave Maria. It says virtually nothing about the person in question. I imagine them lying in the coffin when that comes on, thinking, why this? Avoid. Just my advice.

Anyhow Douglas says to me, how are you feeling? And I say ‘I feel like …’ and he says ‘Steve Brookstein?’. And I look at him – because he’s absolutely right. I feel like Steve Brookstein. I feel like the man who won the first season of X Factor, bagged himself a number one and then just – fell away.. I feel like a man who had it all, a man who is standing, in that moment of iffy behind the curtains, knowing that he is about to perform with all his slick professionalism to an audience of stragglers on a P & O ferry.

Empathy. Guilty as charged.

Not that I have anything against Steve Brookstein. The industry’s very cruel, and he has a terrific voice. But what Douglas said that day was so right and wrong and funny, that it put a rocket up my jacksy. And I went out and really eulogised. I mean really eulogised.

After that, Steve Brookstein stuck. I think we dared not not say it if you know what I mean. Every time, Douglas would be out front, fingering the mousepad with a face like a newsreader, all business, and then he’d turn away and mouth it at me- Steve Brookstein. Or like this – ‘Steve Brookstein’ (does funny voice/face) . And it never failed!

(She takes a moment, suddenly upset.)

(Almost to herself, pulling herself together) I’ve got my notes, here. Ready. But. May be I should just go out there – just go out, put my hand on the coffin and sing it. (To the tune of Goldfinger) Steve Brookstein!

She thinks for a moment.

Douglas’ mum wouldn’t get it though, bless her. And the boy from Hull will probably report me. The bereaved of course, they want the greatest hits of Douglas – the scout leader, dutiful son, keen gardener. Who am I to deny them?

(Trying to be cheery, but struggling)

(One last time. Hopefully). Steve Brookstein. Steve Brookstein. Steve Brookstein.

(She looks crestfallen – it hasn’t shifted her mood. Ave Maria starts playing. She looks up, rolls her eyes. )

Oh no. (She starts to laugh)

Onwards.

(She heads out behind the curtain.)

Like Busses

I have a strange approach to memory. I mean, I don’t know because I don’t really know how anyone else’s memory works, even when they say ‘oh my memory is terrible’. It’s all approximation, baby. But I’m going to go ahead and presume that mine is neither orthodox or particularly good.

I can’t remember dates, years, locations, events or even humans very well, but if I try to remember a very particular thing, like, when did I first hear the phrase, ‘Like busses, there’ll be two along at the same time’, what I see in my head is a wind swept playground in front of a low red brick primary school. I don’t know if there’s any correlation between this phrase and the place, but it’s what I see in my head.

I am envious, in awe and suspicious of people who can recall moments with ease. How the fuck does anyone write an autobriography? ‘I first met Joaquin at a drinks party given by Sooki. We were at a bar in Mayfair, The Chiselled Chimp’. He was wearing a blue cashmere rollneck and initiated conversation by enquiring after my Chagalls. We drank ‘Noisy Williams’ till dawn ..’ (Yes, this is my idea of glamour. No apologies.)

How do people remember to remember this detail? Or do people who write autobiographies have the self belief to think ‘I should probably note all this down because I’m the kind of important person who will have to write an autobiography one day’? Which is how and why they end up writing an autobiography.

So this is why I can pin down (or think I can pin down, in some way) the phrase, ‘Like Busses’ but not where I spent Christmas two years ago. Oh and if you’re not familiar with the phrase, “Like Busses’, it basically refers to the idea that nothing will come along for ages and then two will come along at the same time and can refer to anything; job interviews, lottery wins, unsolicited travelling salespeople. It’s kind of rueful and carries that sort of pissy British way of downplaying the hand of fate with it. I recall hearing it a few times in it’s full form ‘Like Busses, you want it for ages and then two come along at once’) until finally I must have given off the air of being someone who understood the phrase at which point it was shortened to ‘Like Busses, isn’t it?’ With whom I shared this landmark moment remains a mystery of course, but when I think of this particular ‘Like Busses’ I see the shop front of a butchers in my hometown. Memory, huh.

And I also wonder if the phrase ‘like busses’ is in itself, a bit ‘like busses’, because, after a long drought, I heard it twice yesterday in entirely separate contexts; I said it at exactly the same time as another woman in the post office queue and then we’d laughed at the very ‘like bussiness’ of it. The second time was later, and with thanks, in my own head, when I opened my email to see that two piece of flash fiction had been accepted after a long and stomach churning silence. Like Busses, I tell you.

Quick – Before the Monkeys Get Me!

It has been a while, hasn’t it? And honestly, if I had to compile a ‘greatest hits of 2018’, even if i combined it with ‘wackiest nights out’ and the ‘memorable moments’ package, there wouldn’t be enough to fill an ad break. For clarity, I should add that no one has actually approached me to put this together, so don’t worry, you won’t have to watch it.

So what happened this year? Not a lot that is not solely attached to motherhood and while this is, yes, a big part of me and what I do, it is not the entirety of me. And now, as we shudder and jolt into December, one eye glued to the screen for news of Britain’s impending Brexit shaped implosion, the other scoping out black Friday deals, is there time for all this distraction to get a good thing going?

And it would appear, yes. I have momentum! I am writing again, not as part of Nanowrimo (although I salute all brave souls who are) but I just picked up a pen, chose a title, thought ‘this will probably be a bit shit’ and started writing! And you know what, it was a bit shit! But it was writing! And I have kept this going for the past two weeks. I’ve submitted some flash and I’m working on an application for a mentoring programme. I’ve become much less precious about what I’m working on. Lightness of touch is everything, although a creeping doubt has started to set in . My brain is run by a panel of monkeys in lab coats who throw out suggestions, instructions or queries at random – most often ‘You suck!’ ‘What even is this?’, ‘Why?’ or ‘Your kid hates you’. Which I, for reasons unbeknownst, then take as gospel. So, I am fully expecting the panel of monkeys in lab coats to wake up soon – I’ve never had such a long run without their toxic input – and my question is – how do I keep going? I can’t get rid of them, so how can I circumvent their meddling and keep the pen on the page? Writers, please let me know how you do this because I am sure that I’m not the only one out there. All suggestions taken very seriously and will be followed to the tee.

Fresh grass

The smell of fresh grass. As far away from the big building as can be. I’m lying down, it’s magnified; the foil from a cigarette pack in front of me, it brings a smell to my nose that isn’t really there, I’m sure of it – some kid staggers away into the glare of the sun, skinny tie askew. He’s on a slant because I’m lying down. Everyone laughs. One of them passes me a large brown plastic bottle of shandy, but my angle is wrong and I don’t want to move, so I shake my head, no. Gravel leaves a pattern in my knee – an indentation of an asteroid belt. The bells and whistles and shouts are coming but they’re so far away. We look elsewhere – who lives in the house over the other side of the fence? I never seen them. Probably a pervert. I saw a ghost at the window once. No you fucking didn’t.

A loud echoey belch, beautiful. We’re all silent. Another little kid comes up and he squints into the sun or he’s got narrow eye holes like those slits they use to fire through in old castles. I don’t look at him for long because I don’t like the way my throat feels when I hold my head up but I hear him.

‘Can I have a fag?’

‘What?’

‘I want a fag off you?’

‘What year you in?’

I look up then – do I know him now he’s closer – but he’s at the sky, glancing between clouds. Then he turns and wanders back to the other side of the field, between the netball courts.

One of us throws a balled up can at his back, but it’s light in the breeze and lands far away from him, far enough for him to keep walking.

We’re the kings of this corner and for this moment we’re kings of all time. Our gestures and words and feelings are real and elegant and there’s not one of us now, wherever we are, who doesn’t feel their breath stop and heart catch, once a year or more, or less, to return to that flash, that moment, and feel the whole of it.

Midget Baby

‘Well, spit it out then –you don’t have to swallow’ Chloe flipped the water bottle 360 degrees. Yvette kissed her teeth in agreement. How nice, a rare moment of solidarity between two rival gang bosses, she thought.

‘Right, thanks for that, Chloe. You could do that, Skye, if you were concerned. Or you could just not do it all if you didn’t want to. Use your assertiveness – remember our assertiveness from last term? Well use that to say, no thank you Lawson’

‘His name is Dawson, Miss’

‘No thank you Lawson, that’s enough for now. Let’s watch a film or hold hands or …something else. You could say that and not do it at all.’ She looked at the clock – why hadn’t it moved? Sweat sprung along her hairline and spread in her armpits – not the menopause, was it? How bloody apt. Sex Education withered my ovaries.

Chloe voiced her inner scream.

‘Miss Nesbitt, man, this is long!’

‘I know, Chloe, but we need to do it – just try to stay calm, could you?’ She looked at the pile of word-searches teetering on the edge of her desk. Remnants from a cover lesson: Religions of the World, they were called. Could she make them last till break if she explained them slowly?

‘Does…anyone else have a question?’

‘I do’. The voice was sing song, smartarse.

‘Yes Patricia?’

‘If only a little bit of sperm gets in, do I get a midget baby?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Like that guy on Games of Thrones?’

‘Yes like the guy on Games of Thrones!’

‘Or the adverts.’

‘Yeah the adverts.’

She closed her eyes in a slow blink, as if in thought. When she opened them,

15 year 10 girls were looking back at her, waiting for her to answer.

It made sense. They knew enough about sex to roll their skirts up to their knicker line, but not enough to close their legs when they sat at the bus stop, enough to giggle at men who stared at them through car windows but not enough to understand the casual violence of the words flung in their direction. Enough to demonstrate blowjob etiquette but not enough to grasp basic reproduction.

They were still looking at her.

‘No it doesn’t matter about the sperm. It’s only one sperm that gets you pregnant.’

‘Do you have kids, miss?’

‘No’

‘Do you want them, though?

‘Man, shut up, that’s personal to Miss, isn’t it?’

‘It’s okay. Grace. This is an honest space. We’d like to, and we’re trying. Now, enough of the questions. I have a word-search for you to complete. Religions of the world! It is, however, a little bit tricky, this one, so I’ll just talk you through it, okay?

Eventually, they settled.

She cast her eyes over Francesca and Ruby, who were stooped together, sharing headphone buds. Chloe was applying blusher.

‘Miss, can I talk to you?’ asked Oliva, a new girl from another borough. She was tall and awkward and her mouth hung open.

‘Of course – here?’

‘No – after.’

‘Okay’.

She hoped it wouldn’t be for long – she hoped that Olivia might forget – she needed coffee and a silent scream in the ladies’. But once the bell had rung and the girls departed with nary a glance in Miss Nesbitt’s direction, Olivia was still waiting. In fact, she was sitting down in a chair opposite her desk.

Miss Nesbitt stooped to the floor and began raking the blank word-searches towards her.

‘Okay, what’s up?’

‘I was wondering – can you be just a little bit pregnant?’

Olivia had put her notepad on the desk and was fiddling with the strap on her rucksack. On the pad there was a biro drawing of a boy in a baseball cap, like a Duplo figure, lines and circles.

‘Well, you’re either pregnant or you’re not.’ She scrunched up a loose sheet.

‘Yep, but can you be a bit pregnant and then it go away?’

‘you can miscarry or have an abortion, but, no, otherwise, you’re pregnant.’

‘Even if it’s just a little bit?’

Miss Nesbitt stood. Her knees creaked. She looked at the girl in the chair.

‘Is there something that you want to tell me? Remember, if you are in trouble, I may have to let somebody else know. I can’t keep it a secret, okay, Olivia?’

‘It’s this.’ She bent down to her rucksack and banged her forehead on the edge of the desk in her hurry. She muttered ‘God’ and tears jumped.

She held out a white cylinder, the length of a pen, and gave it to her teacher. Miss Nesbitt knew what it was and she knew what she saw.

Two lines. One fainter than the other. But two lines nonetheless.

‘Is this yours, Olivia?’

‘I did it this morning.’

‘Right’

‘I thought, because it’s just a faint line, it might be, not really, you know?

‘Do you have a boyfriend?’

Olivia nodded.

Yes, she should get the counsellor, or the girl’s head of year. But she’d never seen the two lines before.

‘Is he here?’

‘We only did it once. Before I left my old school. I’ve only done it once.’

‘Right.’

‘So, because it’s only a bit there, it could be wrong, I thought?’

Miss Nesbitt put her hands in front of her lips in prayer position. Her eyes moved from side to side; to the girl, it looked like she was reading a very serious text message. Finally, she closed the classroom door, threw the word-searches near the bin, smoothed her hands over her skirt and came to sit next to the girl.

‘Okay, Olivia. Thank you for coming to me, that must have been very difficult for you, so well done, okay? I think I can help you with this, but what we need to do is trust each other – no-one else – for the time being – can you do that?’

The girl closed her mouth and nodded.

Soho Walk Up

The first sign was the handshake at the door. For a tall man, he had small cool hands and skin as soft and plump as my old home economics teacher’s. Waterfall: the hand slipped out of my grip before I had made my impression, the one I’d honed on my dad, which told everyone that I was firm, in control, serious about the work.

We were in Soho, but not the Soho that I wanted, that I saw my friends and peers getting familiar with: Bond girl receptionists, fresh flowers, coffee you could look forward to. I was in the Soho of shimmer curtains and cartoon eyes urging you to ‘look!’, drawn thickly in magic marker on fluorescent cardboard. Alleyways that you’d swear where not there the week before last. Shit smells. Not even DVD, but VHS.

We were on the first floor above an open doorway next to a Chinese Herbalist’s, teetering on the brink of Wardour Street. It was scuffed, scraped and cracked, dust trails and polyester curtains lending a sort of dingy glamour if you really searched for it. This room told me everything that I needed to know about the job – and still I was here.

So, I guess that tells you everything that you need to know about my career.

Despite not being a car, I made an unnecessary three point turn in to a boxy fuchsia pink bucket chair, so low to the ground that my knees bounced up to my rib cage. Obviously, I felt that this wasn’t awkward enough, so I looked down between my legs in surprise, noticing a big bruise of a water stain on the lower half of the chair as I did so. What on earth was I doing? I was seized by the sudden desire to let out a huge vaginal yawn, but I didn’t know what that meant and I doubt it would have led to anything other than an escalation in self diminishing acts from me.

He sat opposite, sleepy cat, endless legs crossed and contrived in unfathomable ways. Sordid, born to it. One hand cradled his phone, the other caressed a label dangling on a beaded plastic tie from the arm of the chair. Caution: Flammable. It was the only new thing in the entire room. A double bed gave a Gallic shrug in the corner. I could hear Soho outside, so I knew I hadn’t died, but the very air in the room shrunk out all life, charisma and energy.

Someone had to, had to, say a something.

‘Thanks for seeing me. I really admire your work.’

‘Great.’

‘It’s an interesting job. Lots of possibilities I think.’

‘I can smoke in here.’ Statement of fact, to himself: the day was looking up for him. He moved his attention to a pocket in his skinny jeans, pulled out a tin and started rolling a cigarette. His eyes flicked back to his phone screen.

‘Would you like to know about the work that I’ve done?’

My voice was girlish and shrill, creeping higher as I inched my way through the sentence, a trait first observed in me by a bitter choir leader at Brownies, one which had persisted (due to my failure to address) into adulthood.

It’s worse when I feel like I’m struggling. I pulled my skirt down towards my knees – damn bucket chair – and with no response from him I kept talking, a desperate, rickety Beckett-y monologue which took in and spat out details of my training and first gigs, inspiration and ambition pumping like pistons to cover the cracks in my resume.

My voice sank upwards, joining an exclusive frequency enjoyed only by electrical hums and dog whistles. The clip clop of a phone alert barely made the chorus. I knew it wasn’t mine, ringer off at the door of course, but I did take a break from all the great faces that I was pulling as I sold my tarnished wares to see him glance down to his phone hand. Glance then stay, rooted, finger twitching over the keypad, tapping in his response.

‘In an audition mate. This girl’s a dick’. Probably, probably that, I imagined, all the while teeth and eyes and tiny voice keeping it bright and right.

I’d decided to tell him how rude he was, that I’d spread the word about him to others, because I had that much about me, by God I did– until I remembered that I didn’t need to do any such thing. I pressed my hands into the sharp arms of the chair and levered myself up to standing. My skirt rode up and over my bandy, low-lying gusset, revealing no doubt to the observant eye all those tiny little white elastic worms that wriggle free to escape a dying pair of tights. It helped – all true warriors wear little skirts, don’t they? Better to take charge in, of course.

‘Do you want this job?’ I said.

He looked at me. Then my gusset, then back at my face – he did have lovely eyes. I pressed.

‘Because if you do, put down the phone, take your top off and get on the bed. The room doesn’t pay for itself and neither do I.’

He shuddered, muttered sorry and stood up, stuffed the still smouldering fag butt into his jeans pocket and started undoing his shirt buttons. I moved over to the bed, opened my toolbox and started laying out the kit.

When I turned around he was ready, the shirt stuffed in haste down the side of the bucket chair. Too brightly he struck a pose, nipples rosy, fingers splayed, hands outstretched. Ta-da.

I looked at the water stain and gestured towards the bed.

“Let’s get this done.’

Sometimes I just need to remind myself that I am, in fact, the boss.