“Or applying wrinkle cream.”
She snorted, and the piece of rice finally fell from her chin. “Yes, sure, whatever. So, if a guy called Joe comes on the show and says he’s just got engaged to his sister, and then six weeks later a guy called Phil, who looks maybe vaguely like Joe, only without the mustache and with darker hair, says he was born a man but he had an operation to become a woman, only now he’s had an operation to turn him back into a man because he dreams of being a professional footballer-well, who’s to notice? Who’s to care?”
I ate the rest of my meal, even though it wasn’t very good, because it is morally indefensible to waste food, and then I said: “What happens when you get caught?”
“We don’t get caught.”
“But if you did?”
She shrugged. “Slap on the wrist from the regulators. It’s not exactly genocide, is it? It’s just showbiz.”
We ordered coffee. “For five hundred pounds, who would I be?”
She got her personal organiser out, and flipped through it to find her place. “Okay, if you’re available on Monday, it’d be a choice between ‘Youth Detention Center Turned Me Gay,’ or ‘I Oppose Legalising Drugs Cos It’d Put Me Out Of Work.’ ”
I stirred my coffee. “I wouldn’t like to be a drug dealer. It might cause complications.”
“All right then, you’re a queer ex-con. Shall I pencil you in?”
“You have the money with you?”
“Half the money, like I said. Got it right here.” She tapped her trouser pocket. “I never keep money in my bag.”
“Very wise.”
“I know,” she said. She smiled.
I smiled back. “I might be available on Monday.”
“Good.”
“Sure. I think I might be.” I called the waiter over and ordered a brandy. “But I’d like to know why you chose me.”
She shrugged. “Spur of the moment. I saw you in the pub and thought you looked like the right kind of guy for the job.”
“What kind of guy is that?”
“Guy like you. You see, what we’re looking for are people who are convincing, imaginative, talented-and reliable.”
“You could tell all that from looking at me in the pub?”
She picked up the bill, glanced at it, put it back in its saucer and laid her credit card on top of it. “I’ve watched you working,” she said. “You’re a good actor. The way you smile at them.”
I felt like someone had slapped my face.
I DID THE Monday gig. Annabelle gave me a basic script-more of an outline, really-around which I improvised. That’s what it’s called, in acting, when you make stuff up: improvisation. Elsewhere, it’s just called making stuff up.
The whole thing took maybe two hours. I met Annabelle at a cafe around the corner from the studio, she took me in through a back way, and a makeup woman dusted my face with powder and gave me a shirt to wear. My own shirt wasn’t in character. The shirt she gave me was pink and had sweat stains under the arms, though it smelled fresh enough.
I was the first performer (or “guest,” as they say) on the show. I sat on a tubular steel chair and told Libby Priest my sad story. Once or twice she asked a question which I might have known the answer to, but didn’t, so when that happened I just cried and said I didn’t want to go there. The sad story had a happy ending (“I’ve learned to accept myself for who I am, and to be my own best friend”), which pleased everyone. The audience offered me various pieces of advice, all of them flatulent. I didn’t see anything of Libby Priest before or after my performance, which suited me. I don’t care for artificial women.
My work was clearly judged a success, as Annabelle sourced me for several other roles over the next couple of months. I appeared, under various guises, not only on Libby’s Place but also on a spin-off program named Libby’s Out, in which the studio audience ruled the set in Libby’s absence (a far superior format, in my view).
I wore spectacles of various types, and disposable coloured contact lenses during all my performances. Sometimes the makeup woman, or some other functionary, would ask me to take them off, saying they weren’t in character, but I always refused. I am no more immune to vanity than anyone else in showbusiness, but I’m not stupid. When you slap a woman’s face and take her handbag she will remember your eyes, if nothing else. She may be wrong about your height, build, beard, or clothing-and casual witnesses, bystanders, will be even less accurate-but she will remember the eyes, for sure. And the smile, of course.
It was a decent living; not as rich as robbing had been, but good enough and much easier. I had no regrets about leaving my old line of business. The work came naturally to me. In essence, all I needed to know was when to smile and when to slap. Indeed, life in general can be reduced to this formula, as any study of history will quickly prove.
The TV life is an enjoyable one; drugs, food, and alcohol (sex, too, no doubt, if that is one’s preference) are all freely available, and available free. I indulged carefully. It’s always best to be careful.
Every now and then-and constantly, at the back of my mind-I wondered what Annabelle might have meant when she said she’d seen me working. I didn’t ask her. If she didn’t want to say, I wasn’t going to ask. You have to know when to smile.
I was confident she couldn’t have been one of my victims; she was quite the wrong sort for me. Besides, I have a good memory for faces. I can remember them all. Not the features, as such, but there was a particular look I used to scan for when I was working as a robber, something of the woman’s spirit displayed on her face, and that look always stayed in my mind.
She could’ve been a witness, it was possible, but if so how had she tracked me down? I am a fast worker, and a fast mover. Just chance, maybe-she remembered me, and then saw me again some time when I wasn’t working. Possible. London’s a big city, but the West End is a small town. It could be coincidence. Or doggedness, or professional assistance.
At one point, after we had been working together for a few weeks, Annabelle asked me if I was still working. I pretended not to know what she meant, and tried to change the subject. We were in the studio canteen, speaking quietly.
“Doesn’t bother me if you are,” she said. “As long as it doesn’t interfere with the show.”
The way she spoke it seemed almost as if she was encouraging me to continue in my old trade. I thought that perhaps she found the idea of it exciting, in an indecent way. There are such women.
ONE BRIGHT DAY, the traces of makeup sticky on my face, I was exiting the studios in the direction of the Underground-my work as a Bus Conductor Who Converses with Dead Passengers done for the day-when I felt an unsought and unwelcome female touch on my elbow.
“George? Or whatever your name is. Can I have a word? It’s about money.”
I turned, to greet an ordinary-looking young woman of the sort who makes a great effort with herself which doesn’t quite come off. I was about to smile at her, when I realised that I knew her face. I frowned. I had to hope that a frown, and the sunglasses, would be enough to save me.
“I’m in a hurry,” I said. “I have another appointment.”
“OK, sure, I’ll make it fast. My name’s Miranda-hi.” She put her hand out for shaking. I didn’t take it. She took a few nervous breaths and stuck her snubbed paw in her back pocket. “You’re in a hurry, I know. Sorry. Here it is: I admire your work, and I-”
“My work?”
“You own the screen. I’m not kidding. And at the same time, you’re so versatile that a casual viewer wouldn’t recognise you from one part to another. I, obviously, am not a casual viewer.”
How much could I trust the sunglasses? How much would the frown protect me? “I have to go.”