Page 10 of The Typo

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: 19 Jan, 19:51

Subject: Penguin passion!

Hi Cameron,

Well, this is going to be the true test of your spam filter as I decided to be brave and go ahead and mention penguin passion, because why not? I am delighted and honoured to receive the good wishes from the penguin folk, and I return it wholeheartedly. I would add greetings from Eliza and Fraser (my neighbour’s cats who are currently staying with me) but I suspect they might have an ulterior motive in saying hello. I’ve told them Antarctica is a very long way away, but I saw the glint of mischief in their eyes, so I decided to move the conversation along.

My fingers hovered over the delete button. Was I sounding too whimsical? But then again, I got the impression that Cameron was very much an animal person, so he would probably understand attributing personalities and emotions to the cats. As long as it didn’t make me sound like a mad cat lady. I frowned. Now that I thought about it, nobody would dream of calling Mr McTavish a mad cat man because he lived alone with a couple of pets. It seemed unfair women always got tarred with that derogatory brush. I vowed not to use the phrase in the future, even in my own head. I carried on typing.

Eliza in particular is a big fan of the violin, and can’t resist inspecting my case at every opportunity. I don’t blame her. The violin has held a fascination for me ever since I picked up my sister’s instrument at three years old and declared I wanted to learn it too. Liv’s ten years older than me so of course her violin was far too big, but she patiently helped me pluck a simple nursery song—‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’—and from then on, I was hooked. School let me borrow a tiny quarter size instrument, and then I worked my way up through the sizes as I, and my enthusiasm, grew. My poor parents sat through many a Junior String Group concert, but I like to think their patient support has paid off now.

Not entirely true. By now my parents had realised they were on a hide into nothing trying to bring up the subject of the violin, but I knew it was always there hanging between us, the great unspoken difference of opinions. On the rare occasion one of them tried to bring the conversation subtly around to music, I would shut it down instantly. They thought I couldn’t see them exchanging worried glances, and I always acted as if I was oblivious of their quiet concern for me. They couldn’t understand why I’d had to quit, and I was tired of trying to explain it to them.

I forced my stare from middle-distance back onto the screen. Time to commit.

In answer to your question, I perform solo and with others. I particularly love the camaraderie of a string group, the way we communicate through the slightest glance, the entire silent conversations that we can hold during a performance: ‘Nice vibrato’, ‘Give a bit more with that staccato’, ‘Good audience tonight’. A mere quirk of the eyebrow or a tiny movement of a little finger says it all. Sometimes when we’re meant to be providing background music at an event, the room gradually falls silent as people are caught up by the emotion of the piece. That’s the power of music for you.

Yes, we’d been a force to be reckoned with, the four of us. Me as first violin, Jodie second, Cass on the cello and Meg on viola, the butt of all musicians’ jokes. What’s the difference between a dressmaker and a viola player? One tucks up frills, the other f— well you get the idea. Of the four of us, I was the only one who dreamed of turning professional. The others enjoyed the extra money we made doing gigs during university, but they were always going to go on to other things. Cass into medicine; Jodie focusing on her beloved museums; Meg strategically pursuing accountancy. ‘My greatest ambition is to be well paid, and well laid’, she would always say. But I was determined that music was my calling. Until it wasn’t. However, Cameron didn’t need to hear about all that. He was interested in the life of Amy Cameron, virtuoso violinist, not the second-rate version, the person dogged by failure at every turn.

I’m based at one of the older theatres in Edinburgh at the moment. It’s a beautiful venue, all red velvet seats and gold leaf on the plasterwork. I like the size of the auditorium, the way I can look out from the stage and see the faces of the people in the stalls. I enjoy imagining what it was like when it first opened, back in Victorian times, the thick fug of smoke, the sharp smell of the oil lamps. So many talented people treading the boards that I am fortunate enough to walk on now.

Strictly speaking, none of this bit was a lie. I was based in a theatre, and I did very much like the auditorium. But I knew I was implying something which wasn’t true. By not spelling out what I really did at the Variety, I was letting him believe that I was a performer on the stage rather than a worker bee behind the scenes. In another life, perhaps that would have been the way things had worked out. But there was no harm in stretching the truth of my current existence, I told myself. I didn’t owe Cameron anything. Besides, I’d noticed that he’d not responded to my question about how he’d got into expedition photography. There was no obligation on either of us to answer everything and put it all out there. Our email exchanges were a welcome escape from reality. Why shouldn’t I create a better world for myself within them? I quickly checked back through the message to make sure that I hadn’t accidentally let slip the name of the theatre I worked at. Cameron might claim to prefer asking questions, but I didn’t want to run the risk of him getting tempted to look me up online if his internet connection improved. And if he did end up doing that and couldn’t find my musical persona, at least I’d be able to reply in all honesty that I always performed under a stage name. I’d ‘forget’ to tell him what it was, if it came to it.

That’s enough about me. How is life at the bottom of the world treating you? Is it still very cold where you are? I’ve seen videos of people in Antarctica throwing boiling water into the air and it falling to the ground as frost. Have you tried that? Or do you have to be on your best behaviour around the guests? You mentioned that on the coast it’s a little less extreme. Maybe it’s even brighter than Edinburgh is today. The January mizzle has set in, proper chilly stuff that defeats even my best waterproofs. Time to keep cosy and enjoy watching the clouds from the comfort of the indoors. Maybe I need to invest in one of those red coats you guys are wearing.

All the best,

Amy x

PS: what’s the one photograph you’re hoping to take while you’re on your voyage?

ChapterSix

When I made it back into the theatre on Friday, I made a point of smiling at all my colleagues, especially the ones who were still giving me the cold shoulder. I was determined to be optimistic and to approach my job with renewed vigour. I had very little time to try to make a difference, and I needed to make sure that every day counted.

Ian was conspicuous in his absence, although he had left a long list of tasks on my desk to make up for not being around. So much for him becoming a hands-off boss. I read through the list and dismissed at least half of his ideas. I wasn’t scared of grafting, but in this situation, we needed to work smarter, not harder. I could film all the backstage reels in the world, but if the content on the stage was no good, people still weren’t going to book tickets. I decided to put those further down the priority list, and instead focused on one of the most challenging parts of my job: persuading people to review our shows.

I wrote a couple of press releases and geared myself up to make personal calls to the journalists who would be receiving them. I knew half of what I sent out would be instantly deleted, but if I spoke to people before I sent the releases, maybe they’d pay more attention. Or that was the theory, anyway.

Unfortunately, it appeared that several of my contacts in the media world had stopped answering the phone, or perhaps they’d blocked the Edinburgh Variety’s number after suffering through too many of our previous productions. At any rate, despite my best efforts, I only managed to get through to one of the arts correspondents, and he sounded distinctly uninterested in my best sales pitch. But perhaps the vague promise that there would be hospitality on offer would be enough to convince him to attend. In my experience, most theatre critics loved a freebie, and I hoped that if I plied him with enough alcohol, he wouldn’t concentrate too hard on the performance.

Our next show was a particularly hard sell as it was a three-hour epic in which a single actor played all the parts in the story of his life. While I was sure the process of writing his autobiography in script form had been very cathartic for him, I wasn’t convinced the theatre lovers of Edinburgh really needed to be subjected to the utterly cringe-worthy section where he re-enacted wetting his pants in Year Four. The actor must be yet another friend or relative of Ian’s because I couldn’t think of any other reason why the boss would be prepared to fork out the overtime necessary to get the backstage crew to stay until the bitter end. I idly wondered if it would be unethical to lock the doors of the auditorium so the audience couldn’t walk out halfway through.

I spent ages on the press release, trying to talk up the show as ‘experimental theatre at its finest’ but despite my best efforts, I didn’t think it was going to get the crowds thronging through the doors. It was a frustrating situation. I thought enviously of Cameron living his dream while I was stuck with the reality of my own thwarted ambitions, then I gave myself a stern talking to. There was no point in moping around, dwelling on what might have been, and passively accepting whatever fate threw at me. It was time to pull myself together and make the best of my Plan B life.

Perhaps I needed to think outside the box. The idea struck me as I was pondering the strongest drinks I could serve to the theatre critic, if he actually made an appearance. As I’d originally suggested to Ian, what the Edinburgh Variety really needed was to diversify. We were stuck with the programme on the main stage, but if we were able to put on events or performances elsewhere in the building, then we would double our chances of getting people through the doors. I’d once been to a production where two plays were on simultaneously, the same cast running between them both, the stage divided up front to back so half the audience was in the auditorium and the other half was in the backstage area. That had been for a specific set of performances, but it demonstrated it was possible to look at venues in a different way.

There was no way Ian would sign off dividing our auditorium like that, even if we had the budget for it, but as I carried out a mental exploration of all the unused spaces in the building, I figured there was perhaps one option worth exploring. One of the many quirks of the Edinburgh Variety was that it had a very large cellar which had been converted into a bar some time back in the 1970s. It had been shut the entire time I’d worked at the theatre, but perhaps these desperate times were reason enough to rethink that. If the space was as big as I had been told it was, then it could be exactly what I was after.

As I tramped downstairs to take a closer look, I bumped into Malcolm who was looking wearier than I’d ever seen him.

‘Are you okay, Malc?’ I asked, concerned by his breathlessness.

He leaned against the wall, affecting nonchalance.

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