exhaustion into bed for the next seven hours and that to date has been pretty much his one and only comment on the subject.
But deep down I know he’s right, of course. As of now I don’t have the job, so nothing for me to do but try and put it right out of my head. Which of course is like trying not to breathe. A few days after my first audition, Fag Ash Hil rang saying they wanted to see me for a call-back. Good sign. So up I traipsed to the National in Dublin: same drill all over again, with Jack Gordon sitting there cool as a fish’s fart and apologising for hauling me all the way from Waterford for a second time, then telling me, actually saying it to my face, that he still wasn’t any closer to making a final casting decision yet. That he needed to mull it over for a while longer and ‘give full thought to the chemistries between each of the characters’. So I was put through my paces all over again and now there was nothing to do but wait it out.
That aside, I’ve got two secret Christmas wishes in my heart: one is that I’d have news about the job…whether good or bad…by Christmas. Because nothing on this earth is worse than the not bloody knowing. Not to be though.
Lizzie rang me yesterday, hung-over as a dog after the National’s Christmas party the previous night, to celebrate the show coming to an end, ‘prior to Broadway transfer’.
Funny, but just hearing her stories about the mad piss-up they had, then how they’d all staggered into Lillie’s Bordello and stayed there till five in the morning, made me stop in my tracks. Like I’d suddenly just got a flash of the parallel life I might have had, if I’d never married. Because you know, that might have been me…out on the tiles…celebrating a blossoming career…off to play Broadway for an entire year…
God, it might yet be me, I suddenly thought, if I get good news, that is. For a split second, I allow myself to get sucked into the fantasy, the excitement of not knowing what other wonderful work opportunities might come from playing Broadway…which American agents might come to see the show and maybe even take me on…then put me up for other big jobs…I mean, who could tell? Maybe even the ultimate dream might miraculously come about…that I’d somehow get a crack at a few movie castings too?
Then a stab of reality so sharp it almost winds me; that’s Lizzie’s future I’m describing, not mine. For the coming year, the world is her oyster and if I’m being honest with myself, I envy her from the very depths of my bone marrow. And right now, she’s out partying and having hangovers then staying in bed till the crack of lunch, like you’resupposed to when you’re twenty-eight and when you’ve absolutely no one else to answer to but yourself.
And here’s me, stuck in my mother-in-law’s house, listening to all her passive-aggressive little digs for not clearing out ash from the grate properly AND for using cranberry sauce out of a jar and not making it from scratch, like all Ferguson women have done for the last two millennia.
But then I’ve no choice in the matter. Because I’m married, aren’t I? With my husband of course, nowhere to be seen. Leaving me yet again feeling like I’m trapped in a cage of my own making, watching everyone else have fun in the outside world, through reinforced steel bars.
Lizzie, bless her, made the right noises on the phone, saying all the things you need to hear when waiting to find out about a job that could potentially change your entire life. That no news was good news for starters. Oh, and that Jack had taken himself off to London for a few days to accept some award, so chances were I wouldn’t hear anything till New Year and I’d just have to put it out of my head till then.
‘Though why in the name of Jaysus he bothered leaving town just to collect some award, I couldn’t tell you,’ she’d croaked down the phone to me in a just-out-of-bed voice, though it was well past
But deep down I know he’s right, of course. As of now I don’t have the job, so nothing for me to do but try and put it right out of my head. Which of course is like trying not to breathe. A few days after my first audition, Fag Ash Hil rang saying they wanted to see me for a call-back. Good sign. So up I traipsed to the National in Dublin: same drill all over again, with Jack Gordon sitting there cool as a fish’s fart and apologising for hauling me all the way from Waterford for a second time, then telling me, actually saying it to my face, that he still wasn’t any closer to making a final casting decision yet. That he needed to mull it over for a while longer and ‘give full thought to the chemistries between each of the characters’. So I was put through my paces all over again and now there was nothing to do but wait it out.
That aside, I’ve got two secret Christmas wishes in my heart: one is that I’d have news about the job…whether good or bad…by Christmas. Because nothing on this earth is worse than the not bloody knowing. Not to be though.
Lizzie rang me yesterday, hung-over as a dog after the National’s Christmas party the previous night, to celebrate the show coming to an end, ‘prior to Broadway transfer’.
Funny, but just hearing her stories about the mad piss-up they had, then how they’d all staggered into Lillie’s Bordello and stayed there till five in the morning, made me stop in my tracks. Like I’d suddenly just got a flash of the parallel life I might have had, if I’d never married. Because you know, that might have been me…out on the tiles…celebrating a blossoming career…off to play Broadway for an entire year…
God, it might yet be me, I suddenly thought, if I get good news, that is. For a split second, I allow myself to get sucked into the fantasy, the excitement of not knowing what other wonderful work opportunities might come from playing Broadway…which American agents might come to see the show and maybe even take me on…then put me up for other big jobs…I mean, who could tell? Maybe even the ultimate dream might miraculously come about…that I’d somehow get a crack at a few movie castings too?
Then a stab of reality so sharp it almost winds me; that’s Lizzie’s future I’m describing, not mine. For the coming year, the world is her oyster and if I’m being honest with myself, I envy her from the very depths of my bone marrow. And right now, she’s out partying and having hangovers then staying in bed till the crack of lunch, like you’resupposed to when you’re twenty-eight and when you’ve absolutely no one else to answer to but yourself.
And here’s me, stuck in my mother-in-law’s house, listening to all her passive-aggressive little digs for not clearing out ash from the grate properly AND for using cranberry sauce out of a jar and not making it from scratch, like all Ferguson women have done for the last two millennia.
But then I’ve no choice in the matter. Because I’m married, aren’t I? With my husband of course, nowhere to be seen. Leaving me yet again feeling like I’m trapped in a cage of my own making, watching everyone else have fun in the outside world, through reinforced steel bars.
Lizzie, bless her, made the right noises on the phone, saying all the things you need to hear when waiting to find out about a job that could potentially change your entire life. That no news was good news for starters. Oh, and that Jack had taken himself off to London for a few days to accept some award, so chances were I wouldn’t hear anything till New Year and I’d just have to put it out of my head till then.
‘Though why in the name of Jaysus he bothered leaving town just to collect some award, I couldn’t tell you,’ she’d croaked down the phone to me in a just-out-of-bed voice, though it was well past
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