The Skylark's Secret(2)

Lexie, 1977




As I hurry along the street, weaving in and out through the crowds, the clock at Piccadilly Circus tells me what I already know: I’m late. And this audition is my big chance, a shot at a major female lead in a West End production. In my haste, I catch the platform toe of my boot on an uneven paving stone and trip, gasping with the sudden pain of it, stumbling against a passer-by.

‘Sorry,’ I mutter, but he doesn’t even raise his head to acknowledge either the contact or the apology and we both hurry onwards, caught up in the rush of our busy lives.

I’m used to it now, the impersonality of the city, although at first, all those years ago, I found the move to London pretty tough. I missed Keeper’s Cottage so much it hurt. And I missed my mother even more. She was my friend, my confidante, my greatest supporter and I thought of her often, alone in the little whitewashed house beside the loch. The city was full of people and lights and the sounds of the traffic. Even a cup of tea didn’t taste the same as it did back home in the Scottish Highlands because the kettle in the galley kitchen in my digs was encrusted with phlegm-coloured limescale that tainted the water as it boiled.

But, at the same time, a part of me was relieved to have left Ardtuath. The anonymity of the city was welcome after the claustrophobia of living in a tiny community where everybody made it their business to know your business and no one was ever backward in coming forward with their considered opinion on it. My new life gave me a freedom that I’d never had at home and I was determined to move forward into my bright future without so much as a glance back over my shoulder.

I’d soon made friends at the stage school I was attending as a scholarship student and begun to adapt. The long hours of gruelling classes – dance, singing, acting – and the novel excitement of my urban life quickly replaced my old reality with a new and far more superficially glamorous one.

Of course, that reality wasn’t really so glamorous at all. Up close, the costumes and make-up lost their magic under the glare of the spotlights, revealing their makeshift tackiness. We would change in cramped dressing rooms, vying for space in front of the mirror among a clutter of clothes, eyeliner and hairpins, where everything was covered in a fine layer of the powder that we used to set our make-up and kill the shine. The air would be heavy with the smells of sweat and stale perfume and the damp soot carried in on our coats from the London streets, and we would snap at each other, releasing little bursts of pre-performance nerves. But all of that would be forgotten in an instant with the adrenaline rush of the five-minute call.

Little by little, I’ve grown accustomed to walking for miles along streets where the air is filled with the stale breath of seven million people and the sky above is cut into dirty grey rectangles, glimpsed here and there between the buildings. It’s a far cry from the skies over Loch Ewe, which arch from hills to horizon in an unbroken sweep. I’ve grown used to the London weather, too. Or rather to the lack of it. The seasons in the city are marked by the changing of the displays in the shop windows rather than any real climatic shifts: even in the middle of winter the city seems to generate its own heat, rising up from the damp pavements and radiating from the brick walls of the houses. Occasionally at first I used to miss the sense of wildness that the Scottish weather brings, the unfettered power of an Atlantic gale, the breathtaking chill of a clear, frosty morning and the first faint, elusive warmth of a spring day. But I quickly buried my hand-knitted jumpers at the back of the chest of drawers in my bedsit and replaced them with the figure-hugging cotton tops and floaty cheesecloth shirts that the other students wore, more suited to the fug of audition rooms and more likely to catch the eye of an agent or a producer. And I learned to drink coffee instead of tea, even though a cup cost more than a whole jar of the instant stuff that Mum would buy from the shop in Aultbea.

I duck into the alleyway that runs down one side of the theatre and shoulder open the stage door. My stomach churns with nerves and I swallow the bile that rises in my throat, which isn’t going to help my voice one bit. The last few months have been stressful, finishing my run in Carousel and starting the whole gruelling process of going for auditions again. I’ve not been eating or sleeping very well. I tell myself the anxiety is entirely understandable, given the work situation and worries about how I’m going to pay my rent as my bank balance dwindles. But underneath that lies another horrible realisation that has dawned slowly but inexorably over recent weeks: Piers is losing interest in me. Maybe, just maybe, if I land this role then he’ll love me again. Maybe we’ll be able to recapture the passion and the excitement of those early days and everything will be all right.

I join the others who’ve already gathered backstage and shrug off my coat, running my fingers through my hair to smooth the unruly red-gold curls back into some semblance of order. ‘Sorry,’ I mouth at the production assistant, who ticks my name off on her clipboard. She flashes me a smile, too brief to be real, and then turns away. I recognise one or two of the others: the world of musical theatre is a small one. But we avoid meeting each other’s eyes, concentrating on keeping our nerves under control and listening to the first hopeful to audition for the female lead. Competition for the role is going to be keen – the press is already buzzing with news of the Broadway revival and the London show is selling out.

I try to take deep breaths and focus on channelling the role of Mary Magdalene, but my attention wanders back to another audition, two years ago, in another theatre. It was for a production of A Chorus Line, directed by the brilliant Piers Walker whose star was in the ascendant on the West End theatre scene.