to walking for miles along streets where the air is filled with the stale breath of seven million people and the sky above is cut into dirty grey rectangles, glimpsed here and there between the buildings. It’s a far cry from the skies over Loch Ewe, which arch from hills to horizon in an unbroken sweep. I’ve grown used to the London weather, too. Or rather to the lack of it. The seasons in the city are marked by the changing of the displays in the shop windows rather than any real climatic shifts: even in the middle of winter the city seems to generate its own heat, rising up from the damp pavements and radiating from the brick walls of the houses. Occasionally at first I used to miss the sense of wildness that the Scottish weather brings, the unfettered power of an Atlantic gale, the breathtaking chill of a clear, frosty morning and the first faint, elusive warmth of a spring day. But I quickly buried my hand-knitted jumpers at the back of the chest of drawers in my bedsit and replaced them with the figure-hugging cotton tops and floaty cheesecloth shirts that the other students wore, more suited to the fug of audition rooms and more likely to catch the eye of an agent or a producer. And I learned to drink coffee instead of tea, even though a cup cost more than a whole jar of the instant stuff that Mum would buy from the shop in Aultbea.
I duck into the alleyway that runs down one side of the theatre and shoulder open the stage door. My stomach churns with nerves and I swallow the bile that rises in my throat, which isn’t going to help my voice one bit. The last few months have been stressful, finishing my run in Carousel and starting the whole gruelling process of going for auditions again. I’ve not been eating or sleeping very well. I tell myself the anxiety is entirely understandable, given the work situation and worries about how I’m going to pay my rent as my bank balance dwindles. But underneath that lies another horrible realisation that has dawned slowly but inexorably over recent weeks: Piers is losing interest in me. Maybe, just maybe, if I land this role then he’ll love me again. Maybe we’ll be able to recapture the passion and the excitement of those early days and everything will be all right.
I join the others who’ve already gathered backstage and shrug off my coat, running my fingers through my hair to smooth the unruly red-gold curls back into some semblance of order. ‘Sorry,’ I mouth at the production assistant, who ticks my name off on her clipboard. She flashes me a smile, too brief to be real, and then turns away. I recognise one or two of the others: the world of musical theatre is a small one. But we avoid meeting each other’s eyes, concentrating on keeping our nerves under control and listening to the first hopeful to audition for the female lead. Competition for the role is going to be keen – the press is already buzzing with news of the Broadway revival and the London show is selling out.
I try to take deep breaths and focus on channelling the role of Mary Magdalene, but my attention wanders back to another audition, two years ago, in another theatre. It was for a production of A Chorus Line, directed by the brilliant Piers Walker whose star was in the ascendant on the West End theatre scene.
He singled me out at the audition. At the end of the exhausting day, he asked me to join him for a drink. He told me that he wanted me in the show even though I was more of a singer-who-could-dance than a dancer-who-could-sing, which was what they’d originally been looking for. He told me I had a luminosity, that I reminded him of a red-headed Audrey Hepburn. Later that evening, he told me he’d never met anyone like me. That I had a rare talent. That he could help me with my career. And that night, as we lay in the tangled sheets on the bed in my dingy digs, he told me I would be his muse and that together, we would blaze a trail to the very top of the industry.
I drank in his words as thirstily as I’d downed the glass of wine in the pub behind Drury Lane. How naïve I was: they