Free (2003) Overtaken by Alexei Sayle Page A

by the fact that there were pictures of movie stars torn from magazines
and books strewn all over the floor and all over the ratty brokendown
furniture. As soon as she got back in the room the girl started crying again. It
struck me that there was already a gap between me and this girl, even though if
she was in the same year as Siggi she must be more or less the same age as me.
I felt like I was an adult and she was a child, albeit one with spectacular
tits visible inside that dressing-gown. I stood there enjoying the feeling of
being like a grown-up in my narrow dark blue trousers and my cream jumper
bought from the Emporio Armani shop that had just opened in Manchester , spinning my car keys round my
finger.
    The
girl continued to sniffle miserably as she made me a horrible cup of instant
coffee.
    ‘Erm,
is there something the matter?’ I finally felt forced to enquire.
     In
response the girl stuck both her thumbs up at me, which seemed an oddly
positive gesture for somebody who was sobbing wretchedly.
    She
quavered, ‘Do you see anything wrong with these?’
    ‘Your
thumbs?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘No,
they seem fine to me.’
    ‘Exactly,
that’s what I thought. Well, we had a film workshop at college yesterday with
Szigismond Wajeckej; he was the cameraman on The Laughter o f Larks. Did you
see it?’
    ‘Not
yet,’ I said.
    ‘Well,
anyway, he took one look at my thumbs and he said they were too broad for me
ever to be a success in films. So I’ve been looking through all these pictures
of movie stars and I can’t see any difference between their thumbs and mine. Do
you want to have a look?’ she said, holding out a giant magnifying glass.
    ‘Er,
sure.’
    For the
next twenty minutes I studied the thumbs of the highest grossing film stars of
1991: Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, Meryl Streep, Chevy
Chase . I could see no difference between their thumbs
and those of the redhead. I told her this and she calmed down a little. As she
said, ‘It’s not as if you can get plastic surgery on your thumbs. Not even in Ecuador . I’ve asked their embassy and they
said definitely not. Honestly, the fucking criticism you have to put up with if
you’re an actress; how are we supposed to live with stuff like that?’
    Surprising
myself, I found I could see her point, not entirely sure if it was simply
because I wanted to fuck her or not but I felt I could understand how horrible
and intimate and wounding such criticism must be. Where I worked, in the
building game, if you were displeased with someone you might sometimes come up
behind them with a length of pipe and smack them with it but there was nothing
personal about your actions, it was simply one of a range of options that were
open to everyone. But to have a go at a girl’s thumbs, now that did seem way
too cruel.
    Siggi
came back from her dance class a little later looking sweaty and dishevelled.
At first there was some awkwardness between us about what my motives were for
being there, so we were forced to energetically send out signals to each other
like ironclad battleships cutting through the grey sea on manoeuvres off
Jutland Sound until we had sorted out what I was doing there. ‘I j-u-s-t
c-a-m-e f-o-r a v-i-s-i-t i-n m-y c-o-o-l c-a-r, I’m n-o-t a-f-t-e-r a s-h-a-g
o-f-f y-o-u h-o-n-e-s-t. T-h-o-u-g-h I m-a-y b-o-i-n-k y-o-u-r l-i-t-t-l-e
f-r-i-e-n-d,’ the semaphore flags flapped.
    The
Aldis lamp clacked back: ‘S-h-e’s a r-a-n-d-y s-l-a-pp-e-r y-o-u c-a-n h-a-v-e
h-e-r.’
    ‘Wow,
Kelvin,’ said Siggi, standing back and taking in my new clothes. ‘You look like
a drug dealer.’
    That
night I drove Siggi, the redhead and another girl from the drama school to a
studenty-type pub. They told me excitedly that they had put together their own
comedy group called the Hitler Sisters and that night they were putting on
their own one-hour show in a room above the pub. Their show was called Am
Misbebavin.
    The
redhead said, ‘Those stiffs who teach us at the