Free Fallout by Sadie Jones

short hair, workman’s jacket; Luke, leaner, in his father’s air force greatcoat, three feet apart from one another and appraising. Paul took in Luke’s duffel bag and holdall.
    ‘Off somewhere?’
    ‘Just got here.’
    ‘Oh, right . . .’
    ‘What are you doing?’ asked Luke, keenly.
    ‘What am I doing?’ Standing on the pavement by Barons Court tube in the drizzle and the dark . . .
    ‘I mean are you busy?’
    ‘I was going to see a play.’
    ‘In the West End?’
    ‘No, in fact, at a drama school. LAMDA. Students.’
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘ Three Sisters .’
    ‘I love that. Can I come?’
    Paul laughed. ‘What are you going to do with all that?’ He nodded towards Luke’s luggage.
    Luke looked down with surprise at his two lumpy bags slumped on the pavement beside him, the record player propped against them.
    ‘Where are you staying?’ asked Paul, and Luke rubbed the back of his neck vigorously. He gave a shudder that seemed to go through his whole body and laughed.
    ‘Not sure,’ he said.
    ‘There’s a coffee shop on the corner. I’ve not much at home.’
     
    They walked to the theatre in Logan Place in the damp chill, Luke bounced along, craning his head from left to right, looking up at the houses, down at the cracks in the pavement, into windows and backs of cars, firing questions at Paul and trying to shut himself up, itching with the blood rushing through him and his thoughts, topped up with life – too full, too tight. Very often he welcomed this familiar singing charge in himself but out of Seston, like a patient on day release, he had an unusual desire to be normal. Paul appeared to be indulging him, head down against the rain and smoking; taciturn and friendly.
    The small foyer was cramped and crowded with people shaking off raincoats, pushing together in one movement towards the interior. Over their heads, beyond the double doors to the studio, was blackness. They went inside. Voices dropped as people took their seats. Luke willed himself to stay still and not to say he had never been to the theatre before in his life. Paul was ignoring him, greeting one or two people he knew. Luke sensed a well-controlled tension in his affability. He realised Paul wanted to impress.
    ‘Who are they?’ Luke’s eyes switched from face to face, from black-framed glasses to long hair trailing over the back of a seat. He could smell scent mixed with stale smoke and the singed dust on the lenses of the lights in the rig above him.
    ‘Agents. Producers. Friends and family of the students. They’re third years.’
    ‘Who, the students?’
    ‘Yes, the students . . .’ And Paul’s eyes flicked over him, briefly sardonic.
    Luke shut up.
     
    The dressing-room air was charged with fear and thrill as each girl followed rituals according to her personality; chatter or steadying breaths, warm-up or silence, like athletes drawing focus from within.
    The others hurried into their costumes but Nina took her time. The sisters went on first; her entrance wasn’t for twenty minutes or more.
    After the night that her mother and Jeremy had— Nina could not think what they had done, and thought of it now only as leaving her out . After that night, Nina had lost the fragile hold she’d had on the part of Irina. She couldn’t look at Jeremy, lost her lines, and stumbled through a week’s humiliation before Richard Weymouth had taken the part away from her. He had swapped Nina and Chrissie’s roles; Chrissie was Irina now and Nina was demoted to Anfisa, the servant. Jeremy’s performance was unaffected. If anything, it had improved.
    Anfisa! her mother had said as Nina lay on the sofa crying. In a grey wig and some ghastly padding! You’ll never be seen! She never referred to Jeremy again, nor gave any sign that her failure might stem from anything but her daughter’s own weakness. It was a yoke beneath which Nina easily bent; not Marianne’s fault, but her own. And anyway, she forgot it quite fast. She had