The Unheard words of new writers...

Episode 16: School Assembly; characters featured: Self, Junior

He had called his son that Thursday evening knowing very well he had meant to call him on the Tuesday gone. Junior had taken part in a special school assembly, and he had said he would call him to see how it had gone. On Tuesday however, he was in Barcelona on business - he had forgotten all about this. Wednesday he’d flown back and arrived home too late to call. So Thursday evening had come around and having spent the day working from home at seven o’clock he’d sat down to make the call. He knww that it wasn’t only the travel and late flights that had prevented him from calling his son. Sometimes it was hard to speak to your beloved child out-of-nowhere. Sometimes the thought of just turning up in your child’s life, in voice alone, and striking up a genuine conversation was one hill too many to climb. The effort was a reminder of the fact that you were not there and therefore couldn’t really engage in spontaneous, haphazard banter. Instead, it sometimes felt like so much pressure was on you to hit the conversation running that you were reluctant to call and were secretly relieved when there appeared to be a legitimate reason why it couldn’t happen.

“Hello.”
“Err.”
“Hello.”
“Oh.”
“Hello. Junior?” He struggled to establish contact.
“Yeah. Oh yeah, dad.” Junior replied. A flat and tired voiced.
“Junior?” He enquired.
“Yeah. Dad.” Junior responded.
“Are you ok?”
“Yeah.” Junior was unconvincing.
He felt guilty, to have let his son down like that. He’d already started to reprimand himself but that aside he still needed to talk them both through this. “I was in,” he thought of Bacelona and change it, “away on Tuesday Junior.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. So I couldn’t call to see how the assembly had gone.” He paused, and sensing no come back he continued. “How did it go. I hope it went ok. And, I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there to see your star performance.” He chuckled in order to get Junior to lighten his mood, but there was still silence. “I’ve been rushing around with work this week. I need to slow things down, sometimes there seems to be so much going on, but when you get to look back on it, you wonder what all the mad rush was about.” That chuckle again.

Pause.

“It was ok.” Junior spoke softly.
He picked up on this quickly. “Really. It was ok then. That’s good. That’s really good.” But, again the lack of response. “Can you tell me about it? Did you have a big part to play?”
“Mum said I was excellent on the day. She thought I’d be more nervous because I kep’ on forgetting my lines. So she was pleased. As if I’d forget my lines for real.” He tuted. “Excellent, acclaim indeed. And how do YOU think it went?” He tried to rally on the positive.
“Alright. But mum’s a bit fed-up with her job at the moment.”
“Really.”
“Yeah. I think she’s looking for another one.”
He decided to go with Junior on this topic, it gave him some relief from the knowledge he’d let his son down. “Well, I suppose your mum is looking for a new challenge. Like the role you had to take on, that was a challenge for you wasn’t it. But, once you’ve done the hard work, if a challenge pays off, it can feel so good.”
“Yeah, but mum says it might mean us having to move far away.”

Now Junior really had him hooked.
© editor@unheardwords.com, 2004 (all rights reserved)

Episode 17: View From The Bridge; characters featured: Evoke, Richard

“You know Ashanti2 do you?” Richard asked.
They were on their way to visit Tate Modern, approaching via the footbridge from St. Paul’s.
“Do I?” She said. She was trying to be obstructive but the day was lovely, clear and crisp and she didn’t have the hard heart for it. “I do. I’ve been there with some of my old old friends a couple of times. It’s fine.”
They could see the old power station that was the new Tate across the river. Somehow, the scene, the bulk of the brown brick building, and the expanse of the silver grey bridge fitted well with her recollections of Ashanti. Its design resembled a modern gallery she recalled. “It’s like a gallery inside, all on the level, but with different decks and stainless steel rails, like on a ship. Light music, very arty, great for talent spotting.” She smiled in spite of herself. ‘Not that I was talent spotting.’ She was going to add, but decide not to.
He looked at her with indifference. “Sounds a bit Nuevo.”
“I agree, it sounds that way, but it’s also got this school canteen look and feel about it. Music’s late 80’s, or it has been when I’ve been, so that definitely isn’t what it is. More old my days.”
They both smiled.
“Keep on dancing, to that funky music.” He sang, and they smiled a little longer.

They started across the bridge, and she stopped in the middle to take in the river view. She caught him making a view finder by forming his thumbs and forefingers into L-shapes. “Don’t tell me. Tré’s been talking about making this one of the locations for the film.”
He sigh, dispensing with the view finder and pulling the lapels of his overcoat up. “Shall we continue?"
She sensed his restraint, avoidance of the temptation to talk work. “What’s going on at Ashanti?” She asked.
“I’m trying to assemble some old friends to celebrate some ones birthday.”
“It’s a good place for that.” She assured.
“That’s exactly what I need to hear.” He told her.
They crossed the bridge in eager anticipation.
© editor@unheardwords.com, 2005 (all rights reserved)

Episode 18: Champagne and Gratitude; character featured: Self

“Do you have any champagne?”
He re-entered the bedroom, having changed the music. The still pretty but less lovely (than she’d seemed the night before) Loren was sitting up in his bed, bottom half still under the covers and top half dressed in his T-shirt style pyjama top. The room lamp lit and only slightly lightened by the dull morning seeping through parted curtains.

“There’s some in the fridge.” He said, wishing that there hadn’t been. Loren left the room hastily as he sat down at the bottom of the bed. He heard the thump of a bass drum, the crack of a drumstick against the rim of a snare. He listened to the tight rhythmic pattern beat out by the drummer and the release that came with the crashing of the ride cymbal. ‘Are yeah!’
He heard his one night bed fellow rummaging about in the fridge. The clink, clink of glass on glass.
His body felt as if he had just emerged from a timely soak in a warm bath, rested. And, his mind envied the prospect of such relaxation.

“Do you always drink champers in the morning then?” Loren asked, entering the bedroom carefully, a flute in each hand.
He looked up at her about to answer, but decided against it, such a stupid question. He looked around him, caught an earful of that magnificent track once again. Such a stupid situation.
Loren crawled back into bed. “I brought some for you too my baby.”
He looked through her. “Thanks.” He said, sounding grateful but without gratitude.
© editor@unheardwords.com, 2005 (all rights reserved)

Episode 19: Auditioning; character featured: Evoke

“I think he likes me. The way I can convince with a gesture.” Monica sought to enact the gesture. Gracefully lifting and turning her head to gaze into a distance, somewhere beyond the kitchen walls of the two-bed flat in which they sat. In her enactment, hope was near lost but the defiance and determination of her character remained steadfast.
“Yeah.” She looked over at her friend, struck by her power to conjure mood, and at the same time bemused. “You can.”
Monica relaxed. “Right.” The enactment ending abruptly. “He likes that too. He’s got this way. Not sly and lust laden like some I’ve put it on for but hesitant, grandiose and very over done.” She paused for thought. “He’d make a dreadful actor, all upfront, all front and so obvious. I had to read through the same scene in different ways and he says, read it o-n-e more time.” She emphasised the ONE. “All slow and pondering, drawing my attention by walking slowly over to me, staring in my eyes, flicking the script, read it. R-e-a-d it. His face an inch from mine now.” She paused for calm. “The man breathing me in.” She looked across at Evoke.
“Oh.”
“Oh.” Monica concurred. “The things we babies have to swing E.”
“Yeah.” She patted Monica’s arm gently. They were sat at right angles, huddled round a corner of a rectangular wooden table.
“Still, I do think he likes me, beyond liking to have me. He likes me for my fit with the part.”
“And so he should.” She reassured. “Like you for the part I mean.”
© editor@unheardwords.com, 2005 (all rights reserved)

Episode 20: Auditioning (2); character featured: Evoke

So there were some things worse than her job, she thought, and felt perversely pleased for an instant – though she was genuinely concerned for Monica. Having to put yourself directly at the mercy of some sweaty palmed man for the right to audition for a part-time role. Having always to think about your opportunity to impress as an actor, disregarding the lousiness of the lines you’d been given to say. Having to retain a belief in your abilities and the rightness of your decision to act, despite the knock backs from dogs bodies, assistants to assistant producers and fledgling directors. And working menial, whilst part-timing on the pet projects of student film geeks. Her dear beautiful friend, having to put herself in the hands of so many hopeless men, awaiting the big time. Enduring their sticky palms, roving eyes and might-get-lucky banter for a 30 second on-stage or screen appearance that may herald the big time.

Were all women auditioning? Auditioning for bit parts in the fantasies of men. She liked the peculiar possibilities of this idea. Was she starring in one of Richard’s third rate movies? ‘And action’, she mused. And. CUT.
© editor@unheardwords.com, 2005 (all rights reserved)

Episode 21: Slam Doors and Seasides; characters featured: Self, Junior

Junior sat back in his seat as the train lurched forward and juddered yet again. "This train's old, and it isn't bold either." He said with characteristic abandon.

He smiled at his son, who had just been standing, staring out through the open carriage door window - you used to be able to lean out of the window, but this possibility was now barred, literally.

The train snaked its way out of London's Victoria Station, slowly, cautiously.

Nine years, he thought of his son's age. He looked at the blue chequered pattern that adorned the fabric of the seats. It was new. Fifty years, he considered the train's great age. And, in the time of now he returned to then.
© editor@unheardwords.com, 2005 (all rights reserved)

Episode 22: Slam Doors and Seasides (2);
characters featured: Self, Junior

He was seven or eight years old back then. Standing as Junior had been at the carriage window, only with his head and shoulders poking out - as was possible back then. It could have been the same train as the one on which they now rode - a slam door, still in active service. And he'd be looking ahead, towards the front of the train, as it hurtled along, with the wind racing across his face, and the sights of countryside and the sounds of the tonnage of the great machine propelled along the tracks at high speed.

He loved this trip. The night before he'd hardly have slept, as he'd have been excited about tomorrow (this day). The annual summer trip to the seaside. The seaside which meant one armed bandits and arcade games, sand to play in and sea to wade in, with tides against which to skim flat round stones. The trip which changed behaviour, like that of his Nan who would become a high stakes roller for the day. Her hands and pockets filled with copper coloured coins ready to feed the one arms and the shove pennies. In life she had equated gambling with despair, so that he saw the book-makers as a place for the addicted and down and out. And, this meant that he dare not sneak a peek through the bookies door (which luckly tended to be shrouded by multi-coloured hanging streamers - like a pass through shutter, hung above the doorway). But, on seaside days, Nan was like a woman happy, abandoned (that word again) and possessed. She would lose all of those coins eventually but they would be spent on little pleasures that all could share.
© editor@unheardwords.com, 2005 (all rights reserved)

Episode 23: Slam Doors and Seasides (3);
characters featured: Self, Junior

This trip, he loved. There'd be deckchairs and sandcastles, fizzy drinks, buckets, spades and fish and chips, to eat in the salty air. But he also loved the trains and the train journey. Something about the marvels of mechanism in a boy's mind. The sounds these magnificent machines made, the articulation of their movement and the clickity clack of their wheels on the track (echoes - this sounded like a book he'd once read to Junior).

And now, here he was on the train from Liverpool Street Station to the sea. And, he had his head stuck out of the window of the slam door. And the wind rushed at him, kissed him quick and washed away. The sights were fields and houses larger than their own, with big gardens. The sights were other trains, carriages and wagons. The sight was the train on which he rode, it's carriages stretching out ahead of him, staggered occasionally as the train cornered. Perfect. The train, the ride, the sound of the train - clickity clack - the invigourating rush and the wonders of the day ahead.
© editor@unheardwords.com, 2005 (all rights reserved)

Episode 24: Slam Doors and Seasides (4);
characters featured: Self, Junior

His father passed him a toffee, and he unwrapped it - all the while leaning out of the window of the train into the wind. And he decided to let the toffee paper go into the wind. The train banked into a curve and he turned his head towards the rear of the train to watch the paper flutter away. Watch it go. How it went. Caught in the slip stream, carried along inline with the carriages, twisting and turning wildly.

Next he was somehow alerted - it could have been that he heard the urgent announcement of a train's horn. Sudden and shocking. He turned his head and saw a huge diesel engine close by, advancing from the opposite direction. He was being uncontrollably propelled towards the diesel by the train on which he rode and the diesel, though lumbering by comparison, was hastening a terrifying meeting. So close he could almost make out the driver of the diesel in his cab. He heard that horn again. Blast. And he pushed himself backwards into the carriage, just moments before the diesel engine and it’s cargo passed the point where his head would have been. He flung himself into a space on one of the seats, traumatised.

"Dad!" Junior was calling him as he re-emerged, leaving then and returning to now.
"Yeah," he came around quickly shaking off the day dream.
"Maybe if we move too far you can come and pick me up by train?"
He laughed, but it came out as a huff of air from his nostrils. Concealed laughter or laughter concealed. The truth of what you felt, he thought. "Yeah, maybe."
© editor@unheardwords.com, 2005 (all rights reserved)

Episode 25: The Sweepy Dressers; characters featured: Evoke, Monica

“You’re looking sweepy in that bay-bee,” Monica told her.
She looked bemused, “sweet-pea. What’s sweet-pea?”
“Sweep-ee.” Monica clarified.
“Oh, I thought you said,” laughter.
“Though I can see Rich as Popeye.”
“Or Brutus,” laughter.
“Now, Olive O’, that’s more you.” Monica instantly faked limp limbs and tiptoed around the bedroom, “where does a girl, have to go around here, to get a part in a decent movie.” She spoke high pitched, her impersonation of the strung-out cartoon character. Stopping suddenly, they looked at each other.
“The lack of an acting career’s driving you in-ane.” Laughter.
“I’m hysterical. But, weren’t you saying that Richard would have some filmic types there tonight? I would be a starlet by the morning. Or something like that.” Monica winked at her friend.
“Humm. Maybe and maybe not. Certainly, something like that. You’re looking good also, f-o-x-y.”
“Yeah, black helps to slim the regions it’s hard to stop fatty foods from reaching. But serious, he could have some of those producer types there, and if he does E you’ve got to get me introduced, ye-ear.”
“You’ve got my ears Moni. One day your director will come and when he, or she, does, I know your talents will be realised.” “Humm, maybe,” Monica, all hands on hips and looking sassy, smiled.

© editor@unheardwords.com, 2005 (all rights reserved)

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