Read an excerpt from Almost Sincerely by Zoë Norton Lodge
Zoë Norton Lodge is the author of Almost Sincerely. Here is an extract from her book: ‘The Red Light’.
A little fly buzzed its way around the room. It bounced from wall to table to wall and then it flew up to the top of the cupboard and settled next to the flashing red light. It nestled itself down next to the red light and it said to me, ‘Zoë, see this red light? This red light is probably not a good thing.’
I had been left in the little room to read my script. I had just finished high school and was at my first audition. For reasons Mamma said no one would ever understand, I had been overlooked by NIDA so if I was ever going to be an actor I was going to have to make it on my own.
Of course all actors have to make sacrifices and take on jobs that aren’t commensurate with their profound ability to move people. And I made my dollars working for a telecommunications company where my job was to dress in an extremely tight lycra onesie, which betrayed all the times I got drunk and ate kebabs and didn’t go to the gym. The horrible thing was garnished with a giant skunk’s head, that sat on my face and obscured ninety per cent of my vision. In this magnificent garb, I had to stand at St James station during peak hours, with my arm outstretched, attempting to hand out pamphlets and not be stampeded by the busy and in-no-way-sympathetic-to-my-situation commuters. It was good, honest work. And in some ways, I’d tell myself in my less depressed moments, it was a bit like acting. Be the lycra skunk. And I was sure as hell going to stop doing it the very second I got my first acting job.
And so there I was, at my first audition. Sitting by myself in a little room at a desk that was covered in cow-themed contact paper. A tiny window high above reminded me that outside it was summer and everyone else was probably swimming and having barbeques, and on top of the tall cupboard was a little plastic fan blowing little blue streamers towards me and this little black dome with a flashing red light.
Even though I had attended every drama lesson at school I couldn’t remember what the teacher had said about what to do if you get overlooked for NIDA. So I went on a job-seeking website and searched for ‘acting’. There was only one job.
Woman required for theatrical production. Rehearsals paid and catered. Must provide some elements of own costume.
Greg didn’t even need to see my CV. He must have heard of my impressive Drama HSC mark.
An hour earlier I had left Annandale to head out to a farm. I hardly ever went any further than wherever we could get to in Mamma’s car with the petrol sign flashing ‘empty’, but I really wanted to be an actor, so I printed out the directions Greg had sent me and I got on the train. As I sat on the train, I watched as all the houses and shops and factories slowly thinned out and became trees and bushes and streams.
I got off the train where Greg had told me to, and walked across a paddock. There was a big country house with a cobblestone footpath and stone arches at the front. But that wasn’t where Greg lived. I walked past the farmhouse until I saw a little cottage. The outside of it looked like how Mamma shabby-chic-ed everything only not on purpose and it had a big rusting corrugated iron roof.
I knocked on the door.
‘You must be Zoë,’ said Greg, and I accepted his sweaty hand. He led me through the cottage, leaning on every doorframe and then pushing himself in the desired direction as though he had worked out the most energy efficient way to manoeuvre his unsettling form through the narrow, twisting building, like an obese astronaut wandering around his space station. As he did, his little purple shorts rode up in the middle, revealing what might have been the beginnings of a hairy testicle.
And now I was in the little room reading this script and trying to ignore the flashing red light, then trying to imagine everything else that that flashing red light on the little black dome could be, everything that wasn’t a webcam. I couldn’t think of a single thing so I tried to ignore it again.
Greg had decided to leave me alone to read the script. He’d left the room and closed the door. I didn’t really seem to have a surplus of options, so I just sat there and read it.
Scene 7
Leanne was emotionally and physically scarred when she was younger. Some of those scars are on her face. As a result she now likes to hit people and call them names – especially Steve, her husband. Leanne is wearing thigh-high black patent leather fuck-me boots, fishnets ripped at the crotch and a leather corset. She’s holding a whip. Her breasts are popping out of the corset so you can see her nipples.
Leanne cracks her whip on Steve who is cowering on the ground.
Leanne: Down Piggy, down!
Greg returns to the room with two cold cups of Milo. He squeezes past me and sits on the other side of the desk. The desk was clearly designed for one person, leaving us awkwardly proximal.
He pushes a Milo in front of me.
‘Thanks,’ I say.
‘What do you think?’
‘It’s very interesting. Did you write it?’ I ask. I have no idea why I’m asking questions, only I figure if we’re talking then that’s way less scary than if we’re not talking.
‘Yeah. Do you think you can see yourself as a Leanne?’
‘Maybe, it seems like a challenging role,’ I say.
‘Yeah, it’s very challenging. Do you own any fuck-me boots? It’s very important that Leanne has fuck-me boots.’
‘To be honest, I’m not sure if I do.’
‘That’s okay,’ said Greg, ‘we can work something out.’
I can hear a clock ticking very loudly. It’s reminding me how much more wrong it is when we’re not talking, when we’re just staring at each other across this tiny desk. I pick up my Milo and take a big sip.
‘Thanks for the Milo,’ I say, ‘I love Milo.’ I don’t, I hate it. I hate that the chocolate bits don’t blend into the cold milk. It’s just milk and a soggy crust of chocolate at the bottom.
‘That’s okay,’ says Greg, smiling.
A pause. I can hear that damn clock again and I just stand up.
‘Greg,’ I say, ‘Greg, I had no idea what the time was, I have to go and see my Mum.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, she’s sick.’ What the hell am I saying? ‘She’s very sick in the hospital and I have to go and bring her an egg sandwich because she likes eggs and she won’t eat the hospital food.’
Why so many lie details? I’ve completely stopped driving my mouth and my brain, there’s a tiny sociopath behind the wheel now, a tiny sociopath having a panic attack.
Greg looks upset. Great. I’ve made him upset. Now I’m going to die.
‘Wait here,’ he says and closes the door as he leaves me alone in the tiny room.
How will he do it? He’ll probably come back in and just strangle me from behind. Maybe with some sort of rope or possibly just with his bare pink hands. That’s how I’ll go. Lured into the trap of a sadistic pervert reading a script about Leanne and the last thing I’ll ever say is a lie about Mamma being sick.
Greg comes back in the room. His clasped hands are hiding something.
Then he opens them. I look into his palm. He’s holding an ornament. It is a bright orange nest tended by a little sparrow that seemed to have real feather stuck to it. And underneath the sparrow are five speckled pink eggs.
‘Here,’ he says, pressing it into my hands, ‘give it to your mum.’
‘To my mum?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, she likes eggs.’
I stare at him, and I burst into tears.
‘Maybe you better go now. Go and see your mum.’ Greg puts a very kind hand on my back and leads me back out of the little cottage.
I step into the bright summer light and I let it warm my face.
I’m not going to die and I just told a terrible lie about Mamma. Oh, and there’s also the crippling guilt that has taken a stranglehold over my entire body for confusing a sexual torturer with a perfectly nice sexually curious lonely man.
‘So, Zoë, I’d like to offer you the role, if you’ll take it.
I look at Greg. He might not be a rapist, but he certainly wasn’t clear in his job ad.
‘No, I don’t think I do.’ Greg’s face dropped. He scratched his disappointed little head. Then he reached into his wallet and pulled out a fifty-dollar note.
‘I understand. This is for your time today,’ he said, handing me the cash.
Holy shit. My mind started spinning. Was I making a terrible mistake? Fifty dollars to just sit around terrified reading what was objectively quite a funny script even though it wasn’t supposed to be.
‘Is that what you’d pay for rehearsals?’
‘No, it’s seventy-five dollars per rehearsaal, plus pizza.’
Could I do that? Could I come out to this farm once a week to humour a very sensitive if mildly disturbing man for seventy-five dollars?
‘I’m sure you’ll find someone who is just great,’ I say as I wave goodbye.
On the train on the way home I start thinking of everything that little black dome with the red flashing light could have been. A small, personal gaming console I hadn’t heard of. An up-market egg timer, security alarm, fancy computer mouse, some sort of medical device that surely Greg needed for something.
When I get home to Annandale, Mamma is waiting for me.
‘How did it go?’ she asks.
‘It was pretty weird. The guy was a bit pervy, but turned out not in like a bad way, you know?’
Mamma was not impressed. Then she was even more not impressed as she pointed at the ornament in my hands. ‘What is that?’
I laughed. ‘It’s actually for you. I told him you were sick in the hospital and he told me to give it to you.’
Mamma laughed.
‘Was he trying to make me depressed? He is a sicko, trying to make someone in the hospital depressed with this terrible gift. Throw it away.’
I didn’t look at it as I threw the little sparrow in the outside bin.
