Tea is my typewriter

Ashley Wishart threw open the door to her dressing room, and in a few long, flouncing strides, extravagantly flung her lean frame onto the old threadbare sofa. There was a squeaking of springs and a cloud of dust.

Ashley waited. She looked to the still-open door. When nobody appeared, she walked back and stuck her head out into the corridor. There was only silence. When she was quite certain that nobody had followed her, she sighed sadly, dropped her shoulders, let her belly relax against the unrelenting pressure of her control girdle, and closed the door. She took off the dowdy grey bun wig and gave her sweaty scalp a right good scratch with both hands. 

It was the first night, she thought, sadly. I could have done with some adulation. Even just a little bit.

At forty-eight, Ashley was feeling increasingly insecure. She had begun to fear that the best years of her professional life were behind her. For the first time in her thirty years on the stage, she had no idea what her next job would be. Her agent had not made a reassuring noise for months. The phone calls from directors had become fewer and further between in recent years. 

Ashley Wishart was not rich, nor had she ever been a household name, but she was proud of what she’d done. She knew no other actors who’d spent no significant time out of work. She’d always made it her mission to know where the next job was coming from.

Living costs aside, she spent what she earned on acting lessons, retreats, pilates for body control, voice coaching and even psychotherapy. If it was recommended by a successful stage actor, Ashley had tried it. Her ambition to be the best stage actress she could be, made her a hard working, reliable, safe pair of hands. The result had been a consistent flow of work, an enviable lack of unemployment.

And yet, as she sashayed towards her half-century, Ashley’s phone rang less and less. The agent took the same fees and offered fewer roles. In the last few years she’d found herself performing for audiences consisting mainly of school groups, playing the parts prescribed by the syllabus of the Scottish Qualifications Agency. It bothered Ashley greatly that she was finally in her prime and ready to play Lady MacBeth, but the government had removed all traces of Shakespeare from the list of set texts. 

The roles which were suitable for her – meaning, the roles of middle aged women – were uninspiring. There was plenty of suffering, prejudice and hardship in the characters, but limited agency, passion, or power. Additionally, the audiences were mostly unwilling and restless – after all, English was a compulsory subject for most teenage pupils, and they found themselves attending theatre visits under duress, longing to be on their phones instead.

Ashley was learning that the rumours were true – that great parts for older women actors were few and far between. 

“I kept up my end of the bargain!” Ashley raged at the universe. “I did my work! What did you send me? You undermined my prime with a patriarchy and a Nationalist government!”

Catching her imaginary black dog before it could settle into it’s familiar basket in her brain, Ashley got up from the groaning couch and filled the kettle. Bitter experience had taught her the danger of alcohol when she was in this mood, so she always had a zip-lock bag of teabags in the dressing room. She took off her costume and wrapped herself in her old, tatty robe. 

She spotted an old, dusty, chrome teapot on a shelf and reached for it. It was approximately Art Deco in style, and it’s side view was reminiscent of a footlight, with rectangular panels fanning out from the centre. It had an angular, black handle and elegant narrow spout. Ashley wondered if it was ornamental memorabilia or functional, and gave it a gentle rub with the sleeve of her robe.

“HA-HA-HA-HA-HA, aaaaarrrred lorry yellow lorry red lorry yellow lorry HA-HA-HA-HA, oh my goodness darling, I’m not ready for this.”

Ashley spun round with her heart in her throat. In the middle of the dressing room floor stood an elderly woman, with cropped grey hair and large, extravagant spectacles, dressed in black trousers and a sweater. She was rolling her neck, forward and side to side.

Ashley gasped for breath.

“Yes, yes, Ashley my darling, breathwork is essential, that’s RIGHT! So stand up tall, that’s the stuff, aaaaand deep-and-slowly in through your nose, yes that’s right dear – and now SIGH, slowly, through your mouth, darling, that’s it, come on. Good good. Let’s get your heart rate back down.”

The visitor was poking Ashley’s recently-relaxed belly, prompting her breath like so many coaches had done before. Although, in those situations Ashley had been a willing pokee – she had generally expected it, paid for it, and known the pedigree of the poker.

After a few more deep breaths and a bit more poking, Ashley said “Thank you, I think I’m all right now. Do you mind if I ask who you are? I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here.”

“And isn’t that a travesty, my darling? Your first performance in a new run, and nobody here to tell you how wonderful you were? It’s simply not good enough. We actors deserve encouragement! Now, before we proceed, please let me ask you, do you remember the first rule of improvisation?”

“Always say yes,” said Ashley spontaneously. While she much preferred the security of a good script, Ashley was definitely no stranger to the rigours of improvisation.

“Indeed”, said the visitor, “You must simply go with what is offered to you. All of our best work here will be collaborative. I am a Genie. I am here to grant you three wishes. You rubbed the teapot” – she gestured to the object d’art – “and I am summoned.”

Ashley nodded. “I see. I didn’t expect a Genie to look so much like Judi Dench, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“My darling, it’s essential that I stay in character. I appear to you as someone you can trust, confide in, collaborate with, someone who makes you feel SAFE. I can’t remember the number of times I’ve had to appear as Bernard bloody Cribbins, but this is so much better.” The Genie raised an eyebrow as she smoothed down her breasts.

“So you do this often?”

“Well, I don’t know about often, darling. Not many actors reach for the teapot in the dressing room. Now if I were the genie of the Famous Grouse, that’d be a full time gig, I can tell you.”

The Genie ambled over to the dusty sofa and gently placed herself down without a creak or squeak. She arranged herself elegantly with crossed legs, knees together, one bare foot tucked behind the other calf. Demurely she adjusted her spectacles and placed her clasped hands on her knees. “Now then, Ashley darling, what can I do for you?”

Ashley was a veteran of group sessions – both in theatre and in therapy – which made her an expert at thinking on her feet. She felt she was rather going to enjoy this. After all, she had nothing to lose. 

“Well, Genie, you’re right about collaboration. My best work has always been with great directors. The relationship between the actor and the director makes a special kind of magic. The connection sparks the creative process. I’ve only found it once or twice, but it’s the relationship between the creator and the muse. I want to be an inspiration, I want to give someone that creative spark. I wish for a director to have me as their muse!”

Ashley turned to look at the Genie, who seemed to be scraping some dirt from beneath a fingernail. Evidently disturbed by the sudden silence, the Genie jolted upright to look at Ashley. “You want to be someone’s muse? There you go.” 

The Genie gave a swift nod of her chin. There was a puff of dust from the sofa. The Genie disappeared. 

Ashley’s phone began to ring.

***

A week later, wearing a rather more glamorous robe, Ashley reached for the teapot and gently rubbed it with a dishcloth.

“What a lovely robe, darling. Did you come into some money?”

Today the Genie was in a fitting black wrapover top, leotard and black yoga pants. She was reaching her arms over her head and leaning from side to side.

“I am precisely ten grand richer, Genie, thanks to your intervention. I am not ungrateful, and it has bought me this lovely robe, but it wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for. Do you know what a muse is, Genie?”

Genie looked offended. “Do you think anyone as old as me doesn’t remember the daughters of Mnemosyne? The inspiration of all the creators?”

“So, may I ask – why was it that when I got a phone call from one of the hottest movie directors in the country, she asked me to provide the voice of her latest animated cat?”

“You have lost me, my dear.”

“I’ve lost YOU? She asked me to be her MEWS. The voice of an animated CAT.  So I spent a day in London, voicing a peculiarly unsettling dominatrix of a feline for a forthcoming animated crime caper, and I am paid ten thousand pounds plus expenses. She does not want me back, because the cat, in fact, dies in the movie, so there is zero scope for a sequel. I wanted to be a muse. Not mews.”

The Genie smiled maternally and shrugged. “Oh well my darling, you don’t get to my age and have perfect hearing, you know. And you do remember the second rule of improvisation, don’t you darling?”

“There are no mistakes, only opportunities?”, replied Ashley

“Exactly, darling! You took the opportunity to get a lovely new robe and enough left over for another block of pilates, I expect. Have you decided what you’d like to wish for next?”

Ashley had done a fair bit of reflecting on the first class flight as she returned from London. Perhaps expecting collaboration was a mistake. All her life, she’d done her best to hone her skills and build her talents. She’d spent 30 years working bloody hard, and asking for a collaboration was asking for more of it. It seemed to Ashley that her current problem wasn’t about talent or work, but about luck. She had decided that wishing for some good luck seemed like something she was perfectly entitled to do.

The Genie was swinging her arms, folding her body forwards and making a deep, guttural sound in the back of her throat. She paused, arms overhead. “Take your time, darling, it’s lovely to have the opportunity for a bit of a limber.” 

Something occurred to Ashley. “Are you a slave, Genie? Is this one of those genie situations where you’d like me to wish for your freedom? Is there something you’d rather do than grant wishes?” Ashley’s confidence in her forthcoming wish was strong, and she felt generous towards the old girl, despite the mews. 

“No”, said the Genie. “It’s not one of those situations. You carry on, dear.”

“Very well. Genie, I wish to be offered all the best parts.”

The Genie raised an eyebrow, gave a deft nod with her chin, and disappeared. 

***

Ashley stormed into the dressing room and threw off her coat and scarf. She was enraged by the audacity of the man she’d had lunch with and enraged by the ineptitude of this alleged Genie. She leapt on the old sofa and pummelled at the dusty cushions with her fists, roaring until she began to choke on the dust.

When Ashley had received a phone call from a Mr Robert Tawkes about a “mutually beneficial proposal”, she’d assumed the Genie’s handiwork was here in the form of a new agent. Tawkes’ tone was sleazy enough, his taste in restaurants expensive enough. When she moved to shake his hand, he had taken her hand and kissed it, saying “Please – call me Bo.”

Over starters, Bo had enthused about Ashley’s work, going through a long, flattering list of her early roles. Soon Ashley was riding high on what she assumed was the imminent offer of lucrative representation. 

But as the mains arrived, Tawkes had revealed himself, not as an agent, but as an “aesthete”.

“Like Oscar Wilde?” Ashley ventured, picking up the steak knife.

“No, Ashley. I am obsessed with aesthetics. I am a surgeon, a very accomplished, skilful and most importantly, creative surgeon.”

Bo Tawkes went on. “You are the perfect actress, at the perfect age, Ashley Wishart. You are in your prime, but this world does not let women age with grace. I can offer you the chance to suspend your aging process. 

Ashley’s steak went cold as she stared blankly at the portfolio of photographs he showed her, illustrating his handiwork interspersed with pictures of his favourite actresses.

“I want to give you Audrey Hepburn’s eyes. I want to give you Anne Hathaway’s smile. I want to give you Lauren Bacall’s voice. I want to give you Marilyn Munroe’s legs, Jennifer Aniston’s hair, Emma Stone’s nose. I can rebuild you, I can sculpt you – in short, Ashley, I want to give you every part of every actor that makes them a star. I can offer you ALL the parts. All the very best parts.”

Ashley had felt nauseous as she looked at the glee in the eyes of this filthy fantasist Frankenstein – although now she came to think of it, he didn’t seem too capable of expressing emotion with his face. As she stood to leave, he had leaned in and told her he could give her “exactly the same part that gives Gerard Butler his role-commanding allure – I assure you, you wouldn’t even need to show it to anyone! That’s why he has that enigmatic smile!”

She had stormed all the way back to the theatre. 

Now Ashley got up, smoothed down her hair, and reminded herself that, in improvisation, an actor makes themselves look good by making others look good. The Genie didn’t need her rage. She would instead meet the Genie with encouragement and scope for creativity.

Ashley took a deep breath and muttered “Rule three – you can look good if you make your partner look good. Come on Ashley, keep it calm. There’s nothing to lose.”

She rubbed the teapot.

Today the Genie wore black leggings and fitted black polo neck, a thick black hair band and a twinkle in her eye. She was rolling her shoulders and shaking out her hands. 

“Ashley, my darling! How are the parts?”

“Fine, thank you Genie, my parts remain unscathed. Especially my lady parts. I don’t need to tell you about it, Genie, because the fourth rule of improvisation is -“

“Focus on the here and now, darling?”

“Exactly. Genie, are you looking for something from me? Are you perhaps here to teach me some sort of life lesson?”

“Oh no, my darling”, said the Genie, earnestly, catching her foot behind her and stretching her thigh. “I’m only here to help. I’m only here to grant your wishes. This next one’s your last, remember.”

“Okay then Genie. Let’s recap. You’re not willing to give me my own great director. You twisted my request for great parts. So if I can’t have a great director and I can’t have a great agent, I need an audience, Genie. I need an audience who appreciate what I’m trying to bring to them. An audience who are willing to be emotionally available enough to truly see me, the audience prepared to love me. I wish for the audiences who are always behind me.” 

Genie gracefully extended her leg into a perfect scorpion hold, gave her customary nod of the chin, and disappeared. 

***

When she took to the stage that night, Ashley sensed a peculiar restlessness in the audience. There was an unusual amount of neck-craning and seat-wriggling. At first she wondered if there was a rodent loose in the stalls, but soon she realised that the front row were in fact straining to see, not what she is doing on stage, but what is going on behind her. She felt a heavy coldness descend on her spirits as she realised what had happened.

In the second act, when Ashley turned her back to the audience to walk upstage, there was a palpable wave of joy from the audience. As she sat down on the prop chair at the back of the stage while the action continued, there was a small sad sigh. 

In that second, Ashley realised with a cringe that these people – and probably all the people she will ever perform for again – only wanted to be behind her. She knew that any future tabloid reviews will call her Ass-ley Wishart. 

As the final applause faded that night, Ashley lingered in the wings. In the front row, two young women were talking.

“Wasn’t that Ashley Wishart amazing? Why isn’t she on telly? I really wanted to like her, even though she was the baddie.”

“I know, right? And did you see her butt? Oh my god, I want an butt like that when I’m that old. Step aside Kim Kardashian!”

Ashley slumped. She had lost nothing, that was true – and, she reflected, perhaps this fixation with her rear view would bring her some new adventures, and some of them may even be tolerable. But the fact remained – this was the final night of the run, and for the first time ever, she didn’t have any work lined up. 

Ashley left the theatre for the last time, unsure of what the future held. Her efforts to achieve success with a director, a better agent and even a better audience had come to nothing. She wondered whether her resources would stretch to another block of therapy – and whether the therapist would believe her genie story. She also wondered whether this was all, in fact, a timely reminder of the rules of improvisation, given that she would now be improvising her daily life without a job.

***

In the dressing room, the Genie was dancing a salsa. She was reflecting on how, in her centuries of experience, she’d never had such unusual requests from an actor. Better looks, more adulation, increased riches or magnetic talent were the staple requests – actors being, as they invariably were, entitled narcissists who never hesitated to pursue their own success. In the last few hundred years she’d made it a sport to trick them.

But maybe this Ashley was different, Genie reflected. Ashley hadn’t asked for any particular outcome – only for opportunities. And nobody had ever asked the Genie if she wanted to be free before – that had been a curveball. It was just as well she was a professional or she might have lost her composure. 

That’s the trouble with spending so many years in the same role, she thought. By always playing the part of the wish-granter, she’d become hardened to her audience. She’d lost her empathy. Perhaps she’d been wrong to trick Ashley. Maybe there was, in fact, one actor who deserved a fair break instead of the usual just desserts. 

Oh well, shrugged the Genie as she placed the teapot back on the shelf and turned herself to vapours. Chalk it up to experience.