‘Down the hall, second turn on the left.’
‘Where’s the bathroom?’
‘Hers is opposite, you can use that if you’re discreet. Anything else?’
I rack my brain, trying to stumble across the gaps in my knowledge, all the necessary pieces of information that could be missing. Theatre is new to me, it’s not my thing. I do shoots. I do hanging around all day eating crap from a van and dabbing sweat off actors or singers with a puff pad. I do wine at lunch on set and pretty much all afternoon. I do big airy warehouse spaces, not strange little rooms with scarves thrown over lamps and bad heating.
‘Is Tristan crazy?’ I ask finally, as it seems to be the most pertinent question I can ask. ‘I mean, previews are supposed to start next week, aren’t they? That’s why they got me in and didn’t wait for someone with theatre experience, my agency said. But it kind of … doesn’t seem ready?’
Gavin smiles and the room feels warmer. He coughs, looks away, and then back at me. It is a theatrical move. Maybe you can’t help it if you work in this environment, maybe these strange dramatic pauses and looks and asides are contagious? Maybe everybody here is crazy.
‘Is Tristan crazy?’ he repeats. ‘No more than any of the rest of them. He likes the sound of his own voice. And he can be very charming, for a short bloke from Streatham with a pill habit. But you’ll get used to it. He calls everybody “love” so he doesn’t have to remember names. It’s actually quite clever. But you’re okay, you’ll be Make-up.’
‘Isn’t it funny, I mean funny strange – maybe funny tragic for me – that one man can be so easy with it, and another so mean?’ I sip my coffee and lean back on the counter.
‘With what?’ he asks, half of him out of the door, but still loads of him in the room.
‘The L word. Love. Ben won’t say it. Tristan can’t stop. So is he gay?’
Gavin takes a step back into the room and pushes the door ajar behind him. ‘No, not gay. I’m sure he’ll tell you. He told me three days after I met him and it took him a while to warm to me, he said because of the height thing. It’s … Tristan is a non-libidinist. That’s his phrase, not mine. It means he doesn’t think about sex. Or care about sex. He doesn’t want sex.’ Gavin’s eyes widen like spaceships in his face, illuminated and strange and high up in the sky.
I stop myself taking another sip of coffee, and angle my neck to look up at him and make sure he isn’t joking. But he nods his head and doesn’t even smirk.
‘He doesn’t care about sex?’ I ask.
‘Nope.’
‘And he doesn’t think about sex?’
‘Nope.’
‘But men are supposed to think about sex every seven seconds or seven minutes or something, aren’t they?’
Gavin coughs, embarrassed. We’ve spent at least half an hour together this morning … reckoning on those figures Gavin has felt fruity and not admitted it a few times already.
‘Christ, that’s the statistic that keeps me awake at night when Ben doesn’t want to … you know … But Tristan doesn’t even think about it? How does that work? How do you stop yourself? That would be fantastic!’
‘You think? Christ, I think it would be awful.’
‘But Gavin, I mean, if it didn’t even bother you, if you didn’t even think about it, life would be so much easier. If I didn’t miss sex so much there would be far fewer problems in my relationship.’
‘It’s not fantastic, it’s weird. And so is your bloke by the sounds of it, so don’t go thinking that not thinking about sex is an answer to anything. Sex is the thing that keeps most of us going!’
‘Shouldn’t that be love, Gavin?’
‘I’ll take sex over love most days. It doesn’t hurt half as much, under normal circumstances at least!’
I grimace at Gavin, but he just winks and I blush. It’s not him, I blush if anybody winks at me. I find it intimate and peculiar and sexual. I’d blush if my own grandmother winked at me, and then of course I’d throw up.
‘So Tristan doesn’t have sex, ever?’
‘Oh no, that’s not true, I think he has it quite a bit. It’s just not about him. He doesn’t care if he gets it or not. I think he does it for other people …’
‘But – I’m sorry, Gavin, for all these questions – but how does he get … you know … aroused? If he doesn’t want it, or care about it?’
‘My guess is Viagra. Any more questions?’ Gavin pulls the door open again with one of his huge hands. He could be a one-man circus, with a few lights around his torso, offering rides on his palms for fifty pence or a pound. I’m sure I could sit in one of those hands.
‘Gavin, what’s your girlfriend like?’
‘What’s she like?’
‘Is she freakishly tall too?’ I smile at him and I see a smile form in his eyes in return. The big Gavin smiles must be rationed, like chocolate in the war.
‘Not freakishly tall, but not short like you either.’
‘I am not short, I am five foot five, which is two inches above average. Is she pretty?’
‘Why all the questions about my girlfriend?’
‘I’m just interested, Gavin. Other people’s relationships interest me. I just wonder what you go for, what your type is. Everybody has a type. Some men just go for baubles, decoration. The only thing more attractive to a man than a beautiful woman is an easy life. And I just wondered what your type is. Beautiful or easy?’
Gavin looks at me with an element of serious concern. I don’t think he likes this line of questioning. But he answers anyway.
‘Arabella? She is very beautiful. And not at all easy. So there’s your answer I guess.’
‘Arabella from the play? But Gavin, she’s stunning!’
‘And?’ he asks me, like a dry old maths teacher waiting for an answer from a stupid young pupil.
‘And nothing, nothing at all. That wasn’t surprise, I just meant … good for you!’
Gavin lowers his head and inspects the coffee I spat out onto his trainers, which is drying into a dirty stain that looks a bit like the birthmark on Gorbachev’s forehead.
‘We’ll see,’ he says, half out of the door now. ‘She is gorgeous. But she’s definitely not easy, and it can wear you down.’
‘Not easy is the best kind!’ I say, as he is almost gone, but I hear him mutter ‘Tell that to your boyfriend,’ just as the walkie-talkie on his belt starts spewing white noise and static, and I hear a muffled voice say,
‘Dolly’s at the back door.’
My door opens again and Gavin pokes his head back in. ‘Dolly’s arrived,’ he says, and turns to leave.
‘Should I wait here?’ I shout, a hint of panic in my voice.
‘Depends on her mood. She might throw you out, she might want to meet you straight away. You may as well stay, I suppose. I’ll try and gauge how she is before she gets down here.’
‘Should I be scared?’ I ask him.
‘I don’t know, are you scared of most things?’
‘It’s starting to feel that way.’
‘Well if you are she’ll sense it, like an attack dog, so try and keep it under control. And don’t worry, with any luck she’ll be hammered.’
Gavin