Innocence

That’s exactly what I’m hoping for.

I don’t fit in in Ohio. I don’t fit in anywhere yet. But back home, nobody seems to get me—apart from my boyfriend Jonny. He’s going to study Graphic Arts at CMU next term. He understands what it’s like to be an artistic soul trapped in a working-class town. That’s why we get on so well. I pull out his going-away letter to me and read it one more time.

‘I know this is going to be a completely amazing adventure for you, babe. And I can’t wait to hear each instalment. Write often. Never lose faith in yourself. And thinkof me slaving away over my drawing board, dreaming of you and your perfect, beautiful face until you get back…safe and warm in my arms. I’m so proud of you.

My darling Jonny.

We’ve been dating for nearly two years. When I get back, we’re going to live together. In New York City if things work out. Already I can see us: drinking coffee in the mornings, padding about in our loft apartment overlooking Central Park—sometimes there’s a dog in the picture, sometimes it’s just us.

Folding the letter carefully, I slip it back into the side pocket of my carry-on bag.

I think of my parents, standing next to one another at the departure gate of Cleveland airport. They just couldn’t understand why I needed to go so far away; why anyone would ever want to leave the States. I’m the only person in my family with a passport.

There’s a whole entire world bursting with beautiful language, enormous, crushing emotions and stories so powerful they break your heart in two—just not in Eden, Ohio. How can I explain to them that I want to be part of it? To rub up against the culture that inspired Shakespeare and Sheridan, Coward and Congreve; the wit of Wilde, the satire of Shaw, the sheer wickedness of Orton…I want to see it, touch it; experience it all first-hand instead of reading about it in books, in between taking orders at Doughnut Express.

And, at last, I’m on the verge.

Leaning back in my seat, I gaze out of the window. Somewhere, far below, my parents are driving back home now, thinking about what to have for dinner. And just beyond this expanse of blue, on a small green island, people I’ve yet to meet are drifting off to sleep, dreaming of what tomorrow might hold.

The stewardess leans over, collecting my tray of untouched food. ‘Not hungry?’

I shake my head.

The next meal I eat will be fish and chips.

With plenty of mushy peas.

The Belle View Hotel and Guesthouse in Russell Square is considerably darker, colder and altogether more brown than the pictures in the brochure. The rooms, so spacious and inviting in the leaflet, are cell-like and lavishly appointed with tea-and coffee-making facilities (a kettle and teacup on a plastic tray), and a basin in the corner. Boiling-hot water steams out of one tap, icy cold from the other. A certain amount of speed and physical endurance is required to wash your face but the reward is a genuine feeling of accomplishment.

However, the reality of shared bathroom facilities is another matter. No amount of counselling could prepare me for crouching naked in a shallow tub of tepid water while three large German businessmen wrapped in nothing but old bathrobes lurk outside the door. The whole experience is like a trip to the gynaecologist’s, simultaneously intimate and deeply unpleasant. The English must have a relationship with their bodies that’s alien to me; like a couple who are divorced but still living together in the same house; forced to be polite to someone they hate.

After bathing and making myself an instant coffee (breakfast with the Germans is a bridge too far), the time has come. I’m ready to visit the offices of the Actors Drama Workshop Academy in north London and introduce myself to the people who are going to mould the rest of my life.

It’s further than I thought. I take a bus to Euston Station, a tube to Camden Town and change lines before I find myself in Tufnell Park Road. I wander up and down the long residential street, which at this time of the morning seems to collect old women glaring at the pavement, dragging blue vinyl trolleys behind them. And then I’m there, standing outside the North London Branch of the United Kingdom Morris Dancing Association. This is the address. There’s no mention of the Actors Workshop anywhere.

A Glaswegian caretaker comes to my rescue. He explains, through the universal language of mime, that I do have the right address; the academy’s somewhere in the basement.

The building seems empty. My footsteps echo down the corridor. A creeping sense of doom grows in the pit of my stomach. This isn’t the hive of artistic activity I’d imagined, with students rehearsing in the hallways, singing and dancing like extras from Fame. What if I’ve made a huge, expensive mistake? What if I’ve travelled all this way for nothing?

I turn a corner and walk down the steps.

‘Where the hell are the student registration forms! For Christ’s sake, doesn’t anyone around here know how to do anything right? I want those forms and I want them now! Gwen!’

I freeze at the bottom of the stairs.

A breathless woman in her early forties flaps past me, carrying a pile of photocopied papers. Her hair’s cut into a faded blonde bob and she’s wearing a navy wool skirt and a shapeless, rather bobbly green cardigan. Round her neck, a collection of long gold chains, some with lockets, some without, clink and rattle, swaying from side to side. ‘I can hear you perfectly well, Simon. You’re not playing to the back row of the Theatre Royal Haymarket, you know’ She heads into a small office.

There’s the sound of paper hitting the floor.

‘These are last year’s forms! My God! What have I done to deserve this? Just tell me, Lord! How have I betrayed you that I should be tormented by such incompetence?’

I can hear her gathering them up again.

Her voice is quiet but lethal. ‘These are not last year’s forms, Simon. They’re this year’s. I know because I photocopied them myself. Now, if you’re keen to continue in this vein, then you’ll have to do it alone because one more word from you and I’m leaving. And you’ll have to pick your own papers up next time.’

She slams the door and marches into a larger room across the hall.

Maybe this isn’t a good time.

As I turn to escape back up the stairs, the door of the office opens and a man in an electric wheelchair comes out. He’s a tall man—even though he’s seated I can see that—in his early fifties with a mass of wild grey hair. His legs are thin and strangely doll-like under the faded tweed suit he’s wearing.

‘Gwen!’ he shouts, disappearing into the next room, ‘I’m a swine!’

‘Yes, well, we know that.’

‘And you! Loitering on the stairs! Come in!’

I hesitate.

‘Yes, you!’ he booms.

‘Stop scaring the students, Simon. We’ve had words about this before.’

Moving closer, I poke my head round the corner. It’s a spacious room with a large sash window that looks out at ground level to an unruly garden in the back.

‘Hello.’ I feel like an eavesdropper who’s been caught out—which is exactly what I am. ‘My name’s Evie Garlick. I’m registered for the advanced acting workshop.’

Simon spins round and shakes my hand. He has a grip that could strangle a child. ‘Welcome, Evie! Welcome to London and to the Actors Drama Workshop Academy! I’m Simon Garrett and this is my assistant, Gwen.’ He throws his arms wide. ‘Don’t be deceived by these humble surroundings; these are just temporary accommodations while we wait for our new studios to be developed in South Kensington. Right next to Hyde Park and Kensington Palace. You’ll love it. Please have a seat!’ He gestures grandly to a folding chair in the corner. ‘Make yourself comfortable.’

I sit down.

Gwen smiles at me. ‘Would you like a cup of tea? I’d offer you coffee but we’re out of filters. Of course, I could make you an instant. Do you drink instant? Being American, I expect not. It’s Nescafe.’ She unearths a jar from her desk drawer. ‘I’ve had it for quite some time.’ She shakes it, nothing moves; the granules have formed a solid archaeological mass against one side.

I smile back, grateful for her hospitality. ‘No, thank you. I’m fine.’

‘How was the flight?’

‘Long.’

‘Oh yes.’ She wrinkles her face in dismay. ‘How terrible for you! How perfectly awful! I think there’s nothing worse. Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cup of tea?’ she offers again, as if it might erase the memory entirely.

‘No, really, I’m OK.’

Simon sweeps up to me, braking barely an inch from my toes. ‘So, Miss Garlick! What makes you think you’d like to be an actress?’ He’s staring at me with unnerving intensity.

‘Well.’ I know the answer to this question: I’ve been rehearsing it for nearly half my life. But still it comes as a surprise this early in the morning. ‘I have a real love of language and a deep appreciation for the dramatic tradition…’

‘Nonsense!’ he interrupts me. ‘It’s about showing off! You like to show off, don’t you?’