Page 22 of The Cut
In the darkened room, a heaviness hung in the air. The digital footage was uploaded on to the hard drive and a retro filter was processed over the iPhone video of the audition. It still wasn’t good enough to use in any large format, but all he needed to know was if this boy could convey the truth. That’s what he was hunting for: truth. Not some stage school kid who had been coached, but someone real and touching. There was something about Nathan Knot, something you just couldn’t take your eyes off. Maybe there was an imprint there, an endowment of an essence he wanted to see, a memory of the past. Max Crow had found his muse.
He squeezed his eyes closed, trying to shut out the cacophony of thoughts cluttering his mind. He needed a break, needed to think. He leant back in his chair and stretched his arms as the door behind him was nudged open. A dog padded across the room, hopped up on to the leather couch and nuzzled under an outstretched arm.
‘Good boy, is that dinner or garden?’ The tail wagged as the good boy cleaned the hand with his warm tongue. ‘All right, all right.’
Max stood and stretched. That was enough for today. He opened the shutters, letting the bright sunlight stream into the room, before pulling open the door to the terrace where warm evening air perfumed the stifling atmosphere with bougainvillea. As he turned back to the paused screen, the face in the darkness stared back at him. Max tried to imagine him in the role. Was he up to it? Could this kid take what was about to happen to him, physically and emotionally?
TheCutwas deep. It wasn’t his intention to make it bleed. After all this time, old wounds were supposed to have healed. But88if he would insist on picking at the scab, forcing the skin to tear, enjoying that moment of stinging pain and the relief of blood flow, then what did he expect?
Max hesitated for a second. Was he really going to do this? He slowly pulled his phone from his back pocket and opened his contacts. He scrolled down to her number then dialled. It went straight to voicemail.
‘Hey, it’s me, it’s a green light. Offer him the role.’ He hung up.
There were many pieces to this puzzle that would need to be found, but the first, most crucial piece was Nathan Knot.
He was the muse. He was also the target.
89
16
NOVEMBER 1993
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
W. H. Auden
She’s his muse. Her hair is gathered up into a knot on the top of her head, revealing smooth skin on her neck. The cervical vertebrae are visible through the fine layer of pink fabric stretched tight over perfectly aligned shoulders. Her head inclines forward then backward in hypnotic motion, keeping time to the glissando of the piano. The muscle that runs from the back of the skull behind the ear guides the eye down into the soft skin of the shoulder and along the arm, now extending into a beautiful arc overhead. Then, light as air, her arms float down and scoop as if the atmosphere in the room is like sand running through fingers. She is bathing in a ring of light as the rays of the morning sun flare through the glass and blow out the camera frame for a second. Zooming in even closer through the reinforced windows of the classroom, his eye passes through the buried wire in the glass that imprisons these caged swans.
Annie Maddock is an inch or so taller than the other girls holding on to the barre. Her neck seems longer than the rest, her arms more expressive, as if she is suspended on a soft cloud. She is mesmerising, in every possible way.90
Dave holds the camera in his right hand over his shoulder, and for a second his eye leaves the viewfinder and he watches her with naked eyes through the window. Her ruddy cheeks betray the concealed effort in her body and the small beads of perspiration on her forehead and neck are dabbed with a towel from her bag, before the dancers move into the centre of the room. Dave ducks down slightly, bringing his camera to the floor outside the window to change the tape. Once reloaded, he peeks back up. His eye glues itself to the viewfinder. The frame in and out of focus judders to find its subject then bang! The crack of metal on glass. An angry, heavily made-up face, filling the lens, is glaring at him, ringed knuckles rapping on the window. Patel sharply backs off from the viewfinder as Mrs Clarke, the ballet teacher, orders the piano to stop. She mouths something and shoos him away dismissively with her hand.
‘Go home, Peeping Tom.’
Dave cuts his camera and slinks away as the girls grab a break, to sip water and towel down. Annie stands in the centre of the room, watching him leave. She stares at him, smiling, then lifts her leg, pulling it high behind her ear like a gymnast, inclining her head towards him as she mouths ‘Bye-bye’.
The roar of the throttle and the spluttering backfire of Dave’s motorbike tears up Forest Hill. He skids to a halt outside the vicarage and cuts the engine, removing his helmet and shouldering the gate. He wheels his bike quietly around the side passage of his dad’s surgery to the back of the house. He opens the kitchen door and starts upstairs to his room.
‘I thought you were going to help me on reception today, young man?’ Sandeep’s stern tone makes Dave stop midway up the stairs.
‘Sorry, Dad, I got stuck at school.’ Dave unzips his bag and pulls out the camera. ‘I’m making a montage for my GCSE art course work.’91
‘On a Saturday? Hmm … well, so long as you’re not just wasting time.’ Sandeep eyeballs him over the rim of his glasses.
‘Don’t worry, this will be worth it, you’ll see.’ Dave turns to head up the stairs.
‘They’ll try to sabotage you, you know.’ Sandeep’s voice catches him as he reaches the top.
Dave stares back to his dad. ‘You always do this, kill all the fun. It’s always homework and coaching and hard graft.’
‘I just don’t want you held back by shirkers.’ The electronic sound of the door opening signals Sandeep’s next patient.
