Ah, the old name, home and interesting fact exercise. Easy. Kate had done this before and had a whole host of interesting facts about herself she could use.
“OK, I’m Anna Roberts and –”
Oh, Christ. She had to give interesting facts about Anna.
Beyond the immensely interesting fact that Anna was currently engaged in an exciting psychological experiment that may or may not be a route to identity theft, she really didn’t know anything interesting about Anna. She could just say she was a psychology student but she didn’t just want to be consigned as dull for the rest of the year.
“And, um, I live in Camden too. Great place, Camden, isn’t it? All those shops, and restaurants, and, um, goths. Really great, those goths.”
Come on, Kate, think of something!
“Two minutes left everyone!” called out Hilary.
Kate began to panic, frantically trying to think of anything off the beaten track she knew about Anna. Internet dating! Yes, that would do – it was a bit different, surely, even these days.
“I’m on an internet dating site and I’ve met someone called Luke!” she blurted out, and immediately wished she could bring the words back in. She would now just be viewed as the desperate girl who shared too much information.
Ben looked surprised. Kate attempted to mock-flirt her way out of her blunder.
“What, are you surprised that an attractive girl like me would have to resort to internet dating?”
He paused. “No,” he said slowly. “It’s more the fact that you’re wearing a wedding ring – I noticed earlier.”
Blast, thought Kate, so she was. She looked down at her ring, as if amazed to see it there. She really ought to have taken it off, but she was so used to wearing it that it didn’t occur to her. She thought quickly, wondering how she could get out of this one. Trust this guy to be the sort to notice wedding rings.
“Divorced!” she yelped.
Ben nodded his head. “That explains it then. Pretty recent I guess if you’re still wearing the ring.”
“Um, yes. Pretty recent. Not strictly speaking divorced yet – just separated,” added Kate, hoping that fictitiously separating from Neil would somehow be less faithless to him than suddenly divorcing him, and slightly more of a white lie than the divorce – after all, he was thousands of miles away so they were separated in that sense. And that way she would only have made Anna married in the space of two minutes, rather than also making her go through a divorce as well.
“It must be tough – well done getting out there again on the internet,” congratulated Ben, looking sympathetic and serious.
“Oh, you know, it’s fine, hadn’t been married all that long, and he cheated on me anyway,” lied Kate, feeling she had to add some verisimilitude, while mentally apologising to Neil, Anna, and Anna’s fictitious husband for making him into such a stereotype.
She pulled her ring off and thrust it into her pocket.
“There! That’s off! And I’m back in the game!” she laughed, hoping she hadn’t just made herself sound like a desperate divorcee. Ben smiled at her, but before he had a chance to respond the tutor called the class to order. They went round the room, and five or so moderately interesting facts were revealed, along with three very drab ones, she revealed Ben’s and then they came to him. Ben paused before the interesting fact.
“And Anna’s fact is that she has successfully got rid of a cheating husband. Sure we all wonder how anyone could cheat on her but there you have it – men are bastards!” he joked, ending with a mock self-deprecating shrug. Most of the class laughed warmly, including Kate, who was flattered at the approach he had decided to take, and impressed that he had now twice made the effort to make someone who he had only just met feel better about themselves. They shared a smile and turned back to the tutor.
“How sweet,” intoned Hilary dryly, noting the shared glance. “But a bold choice of opening fact about yourself – well done. Let’s hope you can put some of that pain into your characters and then perhaps it will all have been worthwhile.”
The class tittered nervously, eyeing Kate as they did so. The two girls who had been giggling at Kate earlier were for their part now looking disgusted. Kate felt that their disgust was directed more at her than at the tutor, and felt vaguely disquieted – perhaps they felt she had given away too much about herself in the first class. She was going to have to work them round somehow – she didn’t fancy having two girls glaring at her for the next two months. For now, she shrugged.
“I’ll do my best – but I won’t send him a thank-you card until I’m quite sure I’m about to launch a stunning acting career!” she joked, and sensed the relief of the class that she hadn’t been offended and that it was safe to laugh. She was conscious of Ben smiling to himself beside her.
This short diversion aside, they were again split up into pairs, and began a series of longer exercises. They each had to tell the other about their day so far, using as much expression in their faces as possible, but within the realms of their own usual facial expressions. The other then had to mimic it back to them, trying to use exactly the same expressions and tone of voice that the other person had used. The next exercise was to go into character and imagine something either very happy or very sad or exciting that had happened recently to their character, and describe it to the other person, and again the other person would have to mimic it back. Kate was easily able to conjure up a diverting account of her morning of proofreading and was happy that it was sufficiently true to Anna’s life to be able to pass it off as her. She enjoyed seeing Ben focusing hard on her features, and laughed to see him try to copy her afterwards.
For her ‘in character’ part, she decided to opt for herself, Kate, and related the story of her dad’s funeral. She allowed herself to shed tears. Ben watched her with avid attention, and Hilary on her rounds came to watch them and nodded approvingly at Kate’s pain. Ben didn’t quite manage to conjure up tears, but he squeezed his eyes up and made his voice crack to register the emotion. Kate for her part had to mimic Ben’s character of being a clown in costume who was in a hurry so had to run for the bus in his character shoes. She wasn’t sure she had done a very good job of it, but Ben made her laugh at both him and herself, and as she wiped tears of mirth from her eyes she was pleased that he seemed again to be trying to cheer her up. Going back into the very real pain of her dad’s death had reminded her of how recent her grief was. She saw how quickly she could be sucked back down into despondency again.
At the end of the class as they were packing away, Ben came up to her.
“That was a good session, partner!” he bantered.
Kate laughed. “You weren’t so bad yourself! Not quite BAFTA level, but give it a few more clown stories and we’ll see,” she joked.
“Well, obviously!” he countered, pretending to preen himself. “I’m practising my acceptance speech already! Seriously though, you did some good work this week – not just with the acting. See you next time, and take care of yourself, right? Remember, this Luke guy may write like a Greek god but he may not look like one,” he advised, locking her eyes in his whilst momentarily touching her elbow.
As he walked away, she reflected that this last comment would be slightly crushing if she was actually pinning her hopes for a revival of her love-life on someone she had met on the internet. It was out of synch with his earlier attempts to cheer her up. She smiled to herself. Perhaps he wanted her for himself? Oh well, he could just go on wanting, she said to herself, slipping her wedding ring back on as she left the room. Still, she allowed a slight strut to slip into her walk and the occasional toss of her hair over her shoulder as she walked to the bus stop, in case he should be looking.
Chapter 10