Selection from the novel Brats

The obvious, doughy face tries to look understanding. His fluffy eyebrows, out of place on an otherwise bald face, force to a sloppy arch in an expression of false concern. Wait for it- the plump little hand never fails to place itself, sausage fingers splayed, smack down on my asking-for-it knee. Every time.

-How did it go?

They didn't even give me anything to read, said they were looking for a face. Pointed the camera like a weapon, an enemy leering down from its tripod: "Just talk a little bit about yourself". A bit about myself. Started with my name. "My name is…" Like paper badges on the first day of school.
My Name.
Roll smooth pastilles of melting ice slowly round their confines.
I'd like another drink.
-Would you like another drink?
He thinks you were hinting, staring through the bottom of the glass like that. Let him. Sort of was anyway. Exit Mark, uncannily pig-like, trotting off. Enter Daniel.
-So, they didn't really audition you at all then?
-No, just getting a load of faces to show this director, you know."
Why does he make me say it all again?
My Name. What else? Wanted to stand up, and with a flourish of the hand and a deep, pretentious voice, declare, "I am an actor. Anything but another name and face and voice.

God, anything.

Can't do that though. Have to give your name and agent - a bit about yourself.

Tell us who you are.

Who are you, huh?

Who am I?

Wanted to say "I am an actor, I play roles: this is my father this is my lover, these are my friends and my sisters and brothers. I am many different people to many different people. Ask anyone but me." How should I know anyway?
Oh stop it.
Pretentious git, me. Count to ten before you think.
-Don't worry, maybe you have the face.
Must look worried. A face: two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. Do with it what you will.
-Like remember when Michelle thought it had gone really badly for that radio thing, the yoghurt ad. and…and…and
Cut the small talk, Daniel. Who am I? The fundamental question. Don't pretend you don't spend every second of every day screaming it: What am I? Who am I? Split me down the middle, see what's inside. Is it something hard and smooth and solid as melting ice? Snap a vital bone, a pillar, a corner stone- in a shock of pain or joy or something real, let all the sides and angles, screens and mirrors and curtains shatter and crumble and fall.
Let's see what's left.

Mark in, fade out D- has done his gentlemanly duty. Smile sweetly, receiving a glass of ice and a bottle of clear liquid. Looks like a bottle of purity to make you clean. To counteract the dankness, the dullness, the wines and blacks and browns, the stickiness that seems to cover everything.
The deliberate, pregnant weight of his touch.

-Where were we?

Look helpless and mock-upset: didn't get to do a piece or anything, looking for a face. Am I flirting? God, why? Because he asks me to. I take on the role I am given.

The bull my brain is churning out tonight!

Count to ten before you think.

Sausage fingers, a fat white spider on my knee. Must have read a book of pointers:" 101 Ways to Score that Girl! Touch the elbow; the knee; the waist; catch the eye; listen sympathetically to her tale of woe...a few easy steps and she's all yours!"

Only twenty-five and already he's a sleazy little man who imagines he's in his prime, knows all the tricks. He should be in a Casino in Las Vegas, hung with heavy gold garlands and stuck with cigars.
-Poor baby
Goes for the face- that's enough of that, over to you Laura. She leads him onto the dance floor. Would I do the same for her? Don't know. She doesn't hate it as much as she pretends to anyway. Craves the attention.

Daniel's making a clumsy attempt to flirt with a loud animated blonde. Doesn't go well with his brooding artist's image. Like a cartoon character and a black and white film star conversing. Doesn't work. He looks well in blue. Will anyone ever love him? Hope so. I do, in a way. Care about him anyway. Why? Don't know.

She cackles and sways at something he has said. Her roots are showing. She's going about it all wrong. He'll have her anyway, but they won't get what they want. It wouldn't be hard to make him think he was in love with you: smile shyly, listen with fascination to his monologues about the cinematography of some grubby short his friend's friend made: reds and blondes "they're lights now, not girls!" We know. Seduce him and he'd tell you he loved you- it would be a quick and clean. Yes, he'd fall if you just knew where to push him. Worrying actually, how easy it would be. Hope he doesn't end up marrying some woman who talks about her husband's work and gets an allowance for shoes.
Hope he doesn't end up with the miserable, old-dog's eyes of our fathers.
Our Father, who art in heaven. Let me see you as you were meant to be seen.
Drain the watered remains of the drink.
-Laura, come get a drink with me.
Hips and arms pause mid-motion and return to base. She can't hear but follows me off the dance floor. Leaves Mark standing, disposed of. Walks over with a you took your time face. She looks really good in this setting, sort of shines. She can dance too, which is maybe part of it. Men really can't dance. Step from side to side, swagger, lock their bodies awkwardly with yours. Obscene really.
-Thanks, by the way.
-I had to dance with him Dorina, it was mortifying, he's such a creepy little midget.
-I know, thanks. Look, I'm buying you a drink, see?
Vodka and blackcurrant. Girly drinks, pure to behold and red as pleasure.
-Can I just ask how old yis are girls?
Lost little country boy with a new Dublin accent.
Forget it. Send Daniel. Push a fiver -enfolded coin into his warm, moist palm. Would like to take it, but will not. Chivalry.
A whitishness billowing from the base of the brain, filming over parts. Drank that a bit fast. Daniel pushes a glass into my hand. Say thank you.
-Thanks.
Swish the liquid round itself. Clink the ice against the glass. Only wet your lips. A taste at a time.

Daniel's talking about some film he's going to make.
-And then, see the music comes back, but softer, you know, like it's the same tune and all, but just the em.. melody, on a flute, or a violin or something, cause he's so alone now, you know.
I know.

His breath is white and smoky, like there's something inside him, an ethereal, twirling thing: ghost; ghoul; soul. Something.
You smoke very awkwardly Daniel, the cigarette folded under a cowed hand, sort of warped looking. Do you practice that in front of the mirror? Practice your speech for when you win best director at some smelly film festival? Do you stare into the blacks of your eyes, searching? You won't find it there- that is a reflection like all the rest

Small talk: blondes and reds; reds and blondes. He hitches them around the waist; they giggle and wriggle in admonition. He is so afraid though, clamped shut like an oyster round a speck of dust, cowering. Do you ever sing in the shower, Daniel, making up a never-ending nonsense song that means nothing? Have you ever opened your mouth to the lashing rain, or twirled, hands hands outstretched, now collapsing, now surrendering to a world that is spinning and still and beautiful? If so you don't remember. Is this all there is then? Blondes and Reds. Cut to---, and pause for---your life rolls on in reels of film- negatives and positives, and then you flicker out.

Laura grabs Daniel's hand the three of us push to the dance floor. His hand is a man's- it is made of bone and muscle and skin. It is as it should be. I want him to take my hand. My hand would feel small and girlish in his. I can smell what I think is Daniel's fresh sweat. It smells sugary and familiar.

We dance, embarrassed at first and unsure, struggling to remember how it is we usually do this. We dance and try to lose the sense of being watched, we dance and with the help of the drink we can begin to wriggle out of ourselves, to slip away and forget to imagine how we look. We dance because we are afraid, terrified that we will shrivel up and die of fear. We dance. We immediately have this group of groping men around us, Laura's prettier and looks like she's up for it so she gets felt up more. Pretends not to love every minute. She's strange that way: she'll let them all feel her and everything and then she'll turn around and push some guy away, as if she's shocked and appalled that he's dancing with her at all. She looks really well tonight though, and there's something so real about the way she dances. When she dances she means it. I believe her. I want us all to dance. We dance. Yes, let's dance. Yes. Let me love you my brothers, my sisters, my neighbours. Let me do unto you--- Dance. How? Not sure. With our bodies: hips and shoulders. We dance to a beat that is not in the music, it's not in the earth either, or the blood. People just dancing as best they can, dancing their lonely little hearts out. We are all part of this something. Something like sex or Daniel's smoke. We will all twirl out and be forgotten in a hush.

.

Biography

Elske Rahill was born in Dublin of Belgian-Irish parentage. Apart from a poem in a children's anthology when she was twelve, this will be her first published work. She is an English Lit. student at Trinity College and works on and off as a waitress and actress, but is living in Paris for the summer playing traditional Irish music for her daily bread. She is currently working on a novel, Brats, and her first play Pray will be performed in The Players Theatre in October