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Saturday, May 15th, 1999 — Hanover Gardens
Smoke and mist did not billow as the door opened. Fire and brimstone did not rise from the ground to bar our way. There was no thunder to deafen the ears, no lightning to blind the eyes, no heroic trial to overcome.
Nothing so dramatic at all, I swear.
But I was observing Thea as if these things would happen.
I did not live inside a wind tunnel — though sometimes it felt that way. Still, if an outsider walked into this room for the first time, I could imagine them reacting as though they had stepped into something with the same theatrical gravitas only my demented imagination could think up. I would have if I stepped into this room for the first time.
Thea did not.
My makeshift studio was the most beautiful room in this tiny house. Three floors and a basement. That description makes it sound like I live in a mansion, something fancy that could conceivably be called Chateau de Price, specifically named in a foreign language so that our visitors might think of the place as having had a longer and more storied past. That place was imaginary.
The reality was that for how many floors we had, the rooms were quite tiny. Terraced houses were famous for being sliced in two. It was sort of like when Mum would slice a meat pie in two so Dad and I wouldn't have to fight over it. That's how you make two shares out of one. Sure, Mum — but we both would've enjoyed the win of having the whole thing to ourselves. It wasn't really about the slice. Thankfully, that concept didn't quite apply to the property market. You could slice a house in two, dress it up and sell it for the same price to two different families. They were slicing their cake and eating just as well. In my case, I was perfectly happy with my perfectly sized room. I wouldn't have minded not having the other three floors as long as this basement was right here.
The entrance opened straight towards the garden door — fifteen feet by fifteen of greenery, though far less of it was actually to be enjoyed. Gardens are for growing things, Mum had said. Nature seemed to have heard her saying because it had claimed most the grounds back for its own use. My studio occupied a space barely half of that losing battleground. The path to the garden was blocked by my camcorder and a cluster of lighting stands in one corner. A grey bedsheet was taped to the wall there, stretched tight as a backdrop. The lights were positioned just so, angled to catch the strange way natural sunlight filtered down into the lower ground floor. Hanging leaves, dappled light. It had taken ages to get the position just right.
Coloured tape marked multiple positions across the floor — precise spots for lighting setups at night or during what I liked to call caramel hour. Not the famous golden hour — London skies were way too overcast for it. The garden bent the light oddly as it filtered down, and I'd learnt the hard way how to make nature and the unnatural work together. Turns out, gaffers weren't just for standing around. Maybe I would have known that if I joined Thea more on her conversations with the most important members of the film industry.
Unlike her curious self on set, Dorothea's eyes only stayed on my lighting setup for seconds before her attention was dragged away. I couldn't blame her. There were more interesting things in my studio.
The centrepiece was my piano, a great mahogany upright piano that I loved to embrace each day. I expected her to fall in love with it at first sight and we would have to duel over who would get to play it. But her eyes lingered there not even for a second, not enough to even take in the beauty of it.
Instead, her gaze slid to the wall beside it, where an L-shaped bookshelf stood. I'd bought it on the recommendation of a permanently grumpy guitarist at Archie's Archive. Robbo had not been thrilled about giving me a bulk discount to furnish the insides of each square shaped compartment in it. Thea's gaze roved over the plastic and cardboard sides of hundreds of vinyls that made it look like some unruly child's coloured pencil case.
I'd been told that filmmakers purchased vinyls by the foot to be used as a prop on a set. Judging by what I paid, they'd cost me at least one.
The look on Thea's face made the price almost worthwhile.
"Did you rob the shop?" she demanded.
I didn't bother answering. She clearly wasn't going to hear a word, so deep was she in wonder.
She moved along the shelves the way customers did at the Archive — fingertips nudging one sleeve aside, pausing to study title after another. Unlike at the shop, nothing here was labelled. No categories. No neat order. Just rows waiting to be sorted through one day. I was trying my best but this process was impossible for me to do fast. At my current pace, that day was going to be in the next century.
"You've listened to all of these?" she murmured out in wonder.
I chuckled and shook my head. "I can't listen to music the way I watch films. It's… different. I get goose pimples. I have to feel what the musician's feeling. Some records I can't feel at all. Others — I can't stop playing them on repeat."
"How many have you listened to?"
"All of that top row. And this one here." I pointed with my thumbs behind me.
She turned — and froze again.
The wall that hugged the door was long, the door was at the very end unlike the garden door that divided the opposite wall. A sofa of some kind sat there. According to my Nain, it was called a chaise lounge. Something from the Regency Era but my Grandad just called it the daybed. I could see that being the valid name for this unholy mixture of all lounging furnishings in the world. Lovely to lay down while listening to a great album though.
Thea's eyes did not acknowledge the daybed. Her gaze was set higher, as her aims.
Above the daybed was a custom record holder display shelf drilled right into the wall — brilliant in its white colour, sturdy in the metal it was made of. These were "shelves" with enough space to house at least a dozen records that you could flip through just like at Archie's. But the main purpose was to display the records, so the front only had a thin bar going through it to provide the function of keeping the records from falling but not block the view in any meaningful way.
And what a view it was.
These records were different. Heavy pressings, thick sleeves, proper presentation. No flimsy dust jackets or thin plastics with paper printouts. Each one looked like an art statement just as much as it was a musical one.
I liked to arrange it once every other day so that I could admire the new arrangement. Get inspired.
Currently the six shelves in a W pattern displayed my newest masterpiece of an arrangement. One bore a massive black stag beetle, extreme dark on stark white. Another showed an arse in blue jeans against the backdrop of the American flag. Next to it was the front of that view but in black and white. Different artists, different bands but the opportunity was right there and I thought it was hilarious. Another had a blonde man with his feet up on a step in a London street. Some sort of glammed up rock hooligan partly lit under a K West sign at the top. Then there was a group wearing their denim jeans and looking just as cool around a concrete monolith. Light to dark and back again. Perfect arrangement, really.
"Wow…" she breathed out.
I could only nod in understanding.
Anyone who claimed cover art didn't matter understood nothing about music — or books, for that matter. If it didn't catch the eye, no one would pick it up to listen, to read. Yes, marketing was effective and in this case had worked on me a bit too well. This might sound defensive but I didn't always judge a book by its cover — there was no point picking up something that shouted the loudest. I was beyond that marketing trick or at least I was trying to get beyond that level. Some covers simply fit the music and the artist. Not every statement needed to be bold. Sometimes restraint said more, mystery intrigued the soul. These ones I was currently displaying had amazing covers sure, but what they contained inside reached me deeply and it was nice to put an image to go alongside the music.
Most of the records in these special shelves had cost the advertised price, not the one it originally sold with but the sticker price that Archie wrote down himself. "No discount," Archie liked to say whenever I opened my gob. I was the cat and he controlled the catnip supply, no amount of threats from me could call in a discount. Looking cute or adopting a sad longing expression didn't change his mind either. He knew that I'd come back for a nip. Weeks and weeks of blood and sweat sat on those shelves. When you paid for something with your own effort, it mattered more. When the records were really good, it became priceless. These were my precious.
"What's your favourite?" she asked brightly. "Put it on. I want to hear it."
I laughed. Choosing a favourite film was hard enough. Choosing a favourite music was impossible.
"Wrong question. You should ask which one I like right now. At this exact moment. Today… probably this one."
She frowned at the jacket. "That's the dullest cover you've got here."
"Dull? Look at her and the cat. That's the most famous tabby cat in the world. And it fits. Sometimes music suits your mood. Sometimes your mood shifts to match the music. Some records are great in the background. Others grab hold of you and don't let go until the needle lifts and you hear the static again. They're all my favourites — just at different times."
"That's such a rubbish answer," she said — smiling anyway. "Still… it's good to have strong opinions. Dad says if you want something, you have to be decisive."
"Sound advice. I'm simply being decisive about not choosing one kind of music to like. If I ever make an album, it'll be whatever I love at that moment. Next time — something completely different. I don't want to be stuck listening to the same thing forever."
"You really love music, don't you?"
Her smile was so open I found myself smiling back without thinking.
"When I play or sing, I get lost in it. It's like… I can almost taste the sound when I really get going. Sweets could never compare. Nothing else can."
She lowered her head, face out of sight for a moment, then nodded.
"I like music. Just… not like that. I wish I had something I cared about that much."
"You do. Even when you were in character, you kept pestering everyone about what they were doing — lighting, cameras, everything. I could easily see you making your own film with all that you've learnt."
Her face lit up. "I'd love that. I think I'm good at acting—"
"You are good. Be decisive."
She giggled. "Alright. I'm a good actor," she declared. "It's like when I first started dancing. Suddenly every part of my body could move on its own. Individually, separately. Acting felt the same. The movements are easy… but the mindset isn't. If I don't understand the character, it never feels right."
"That why you started doing method acting?"
"Yes! It's amazing. It's a challenge. I don't want to play at a character. I want to be them." Her eyes almost twinkled despite this being the darkest part of the room.
"I do method acting too but I've been trying something else…"
Our conversation seemed to flow from there. All the things that bothered me in acting, she could relate and all her worries I could also relate to. We shared our process and I learned from hers. A way for us to both improve. I was sure that she learned from mine even if she couldn't understand why I had to "lie" to myself.
I reminded her that she was lying to herself too but she wouldn't hear of it. She liked to call her process truth-telling, only it wasn't her truth. I pointed out that was just lying but with extra steps. That brought us into an argument that no ten-year-olds should have. But even a drunk at a pub could debate about the meaning of life and higher mysteries of the world. Why couldn't the two most talented children currently in the Oval? My gaze almost crossed to the Oval House, which was right over the fence. Was the Lion King crowd still practising there, I had no idea.
This line of our discussion was a good place for me to bring up the warnings about method acting, especially in children who didn't have a fully developed brain. She didn't take to that well and was visibly irritated within few sentences. Her rejection of the negatives reminded me of myself, her arguments were almost exactly like what I'd said myself when Georgie and Gilles cornered me that one day.
'Combining classical and the method, zat is mad speech.'
'Genius are often perceived as mad.' I would reply and the two adults would shake their heads in disbelief.
Much like me, Dorothea too would hear none of it and no amount of warning would steer her from the path. The so-called True Path acting. So dramatic, this silly girl.
But that was like pot calling the kettle black. It was the same for me, why should I listen to anyone warn me about the collapse method.
That was the path I'd chosen for myself and if my feet bled on the journey, it was merely the price of living my truth… God, I was starting to sound like her.
When we burned off our excess conversational energy, she bid me to play the record on the turntable. This beauty sitting on top of a mahogany stand was built on the British Isles, out there in Scotland somewhere. Not quite the top of the line as far as turntables were concerned but it was almost on the verge and premium enough for the likes of me. The turntable had a vibration-cancelling suspension system. I tapped on the platter to see it go boing-boing, so satisfying! How amazing was it to have the platter almost float as if by magic?
"You handle that like you're holding a baby." She called me out on my pre-record ritual.
"It is my baby!" I scoffed.
She had no idea how much time, effort and money it had cost me to customise it by adding a new tonearm, custom headshell and a fancy stylus. First-time set up had been a head-scratcher and Archie had come down with a protractor tool that cost thousands to set it just right. What made it cost a hundred times more than the normal version, I hadn't the foggiest but the result was a perfectly tuned machine that did one thing exceptionally well. So yeah, this was my baby and unlike my piano, who was also my baby, it couldn't take a beating.
"You called the cover bland. Open the gatefold." She did and went silent, I grinned knowingly, "What do you think?"
"It's a dishrag." She said flatly.
I groaned, why couldn't folks enjoy things just as much as I did? Everyone on this rain soaked island seemed to love blowing out someone else's fire.
"Just taking the piss. The colours look amazing and the linen background is nice."
"Thank you, at least someone around here appreciates my purchases." I eyed the ceiling as if I could burn through stone. "That one's supposed to be a tapestry Carole King knit it herself. My least favourite song on the album actually. I'll show you more artwork, some are really fun. I've got this one that's a lighter and when you open it, there's a fire burning inside."
She didn't believe me but I brought it out for her to see. The chrome zippo opened up to reveal a fire. Such a cool interactive design.
"It is not a real fire."
"Never said it was." I chuckled. "I also got some special ones. This is my Hobbit one, Rankin Bass production but it's signed by the actor who does the voice of Bilbo. I'm not sure if he sings on it, kind of a weird choice. Oh and I've got Julie Andrews signed Mary Poppins vinyl. I also got Cher's new album, signed too but it's on CD… She promised me a vinyl if I go to her concert in October. Oh look! This one's…"
Ever since I'd started building my collection, I'd never really had anyone to show it off to. So I took my time explaining what a refined musical connoisseur I was becoming.
After a while, though, Thea's oohs and aahs began sounding a little less enthusiastic than they had a minute earlier. Before I exhausted what goodwill remained, I decided to stop lecturing and actually play the record.
Perhaps one day I'd meet someone happy to spend hours digging through every record I owned. Clearly today wasn't that day.
When I clicked the only switch the turntable's belt began spinning the vinyl. I lowered the needle gently onto the record, the grooves pulling the stylus along their tiny ridges. Those vibrations travelled through the cartridge, turned into signal, passed into the amplifier and came out the speakers as delectable music.
A century ago people had been playing music on wax cylinders on much the same contraption. In truth, the basic idea hadn't changed all that much — though everything around it certainly had.
We listened quietly as I Feel the Earth Move filled the room. Like most pop songs, it was about love, but Carole King put it simply and perfectly: the earth moving under your feet, the sky tumbling down. With everything hanging over me — the audition and the silence from casting — it genuinely felt as though the world might collapse if the wrong answer came back. The song even mentioned the mellow month of May, and I understood why the album had called to me when Thea asked for a record. My subconscious clearly knew the mood I was under. If I didn't get a callback for Billy Elliot, it would ruin me; I'd probably end up bedridden for months heavy with regret. The worry kept creeping back, but Carole King brushed it aside each time the chorus returned. The recording itself had that strange, imperfect quality — little artefacts in the sound and slightly murky vocals, as though it had been recorded in someone's garage. I'd even bought a Japanese pressing once, convinced my copy must have been faulty, but it wasn't — that roughness was clearly intentional. The album cover suited the homemade feel perfectly too. Listening to it, I could almost picture lying in a field beside a barn, the smell of animals in the air and grass brushing my bare feet. Some records filled you with energy, some drained you, and others simply settled your mind. This one somehow managed all three.
When a faint crackle stretched across the speakers as the song faded out, Thea suddenly grabbed my shoulders and shook me awake from the musical dream. I blinked and sat upright on the daybed.
"Why all this?" She gestured vaguely at my collection sandwiching us on both sides.
Pride enveloped me and I felt ten foot taller and twenty foot wider — It reminded me of the girl I knew, I vaguely recalled her name was Estella Havisham.
"When I first got to the set of Great Expectations, I was angry. Mostly at you, because you were annoying," she looked away, probably to roll her eyes. "I was so focused on my performance and you kept interrupting me. Acting in theatre is nice, I mess up one day, I pick it up again and we go again. Go again, I hear that phrase a lot. I think that's the English mantra. Footy players miss a shot? Go again, someone says. The same if it's cricket or rugby. It's heard when I scuff my knees and hurt my leg because I tried a grand allegro much too early than my body could handle. On camera, it's all different. 'You have just one go, there's no again,' Three lionesses told me that." I smiled at the memory.
Questions seemed to bubble out of her at the nickname for the most famous British women in the world but I stumbled on, not letting her stop wherever this monologue was taking me. I cleared my throat.
"Point is, I was doing my best to try and deliver a performance I can be happy… or just content with. I gave it my all, practises in front of a mirror, daydream work, endless rehearsals, the lot. Then you come on set, waltzing along through your lines, perfect performance after perfect performances. Moment the film stopped rolling, you were away and asking questions from the gaffers, grips, assistant directors — first, second and third! You perform and you're already studying for your next thing. Adding strings to your bow. This whole thing?" I gestured around, I must've had nearly a thousand records at this point.
"This is my study. I'm getting on in acting but my real talent is in here. I listen to Nina Simone, BB King, Otis Redding. Sometimes, I feel defeated because there are people like Aretha Franklin, Donny Hathaway and Luther Vandross who, by the way, was born with voice like honey dripped over oxygen. So airy! I heard Bishop Marvin Winans sing, Churches that my Grandad drag me to never made my feet grow restless from wanting to dance. Gospel over hymns! When I put on Nick Drake, tears come rolling out because he was a special soul who couldn't carry on. He was decades too ahead of his time, no one was ready to embrace his music. Ian Curtis was right on time, shame what happened. Sometimes the mind tear us apart… I listen to Stevie Wonder and have to put the record away — because no one will top that, ever! Don't even get me started on The Beatles. The old greats, the hip new trends, they all are my teachers. They are the ones I ask for advice between takes, they are the gaffers, my cinematographers. I am learning in here just like you were doing. So many ideas, so much history and I haven't even turned half the pages." I whipped around to look at my collection.
Thea looked around the room following my gaze. Dozens upon dozens of records walled up in a cutout for books. Hundreds upon hundreds of songs for me to emulate from the best, learn from failed experiments, commercial mistakes and the regularly cited wonders. She took in the enormity of what I was trying to do and warmed up the heat of my burning passion when our eyes met. She did not blink.
"You could've done it with CDs," Thea pointed out.
I sagged back down on the chaise lounge. It didn't really feel like lounging weather in this moment. Thea giggled joyously at my pathetic state and I couldn't help but laugh at it too. So, she still had some humour left in her. She would bounce back.
"Are you looking forward to America?" She changed the topic suddenly.
"Yeah. The film's amazing — the script's amazing," I corrected myself. "Just a shame I'm not a big part of it all."
"You'll get a lead role if you keep going at it."
Her smile didn't quite reach her eyes. The laughter was gone as was her fire.
I watched her closely as she looked away. And then I understood her. She must've been working all this time to get a lead role of her own. Endless auditions, weeks on set, learning all the time for that moment the call would come. Only to leave the country when her profile had reached a height to match her talents.
"You're worried about moving to Germany."
Her shoulders drooped. But she nodded in affirmation.
"Is your mum going to work there?"
The abrupt shift unsettled her, but she answered anyway. "Probably not. Unless she teaches English or something. She'll need to learn German first for most everything. Dad's been giving us lessons, but he's terribly impatient as a teacher."
"What about your agent?"
"Lorraine?" I could see her brain work to unravel my intentions, "Absolute bulldog, she is. I told her I'm moving and asked her not to submit me for anything new. Ever seen a dog without a bone? So scary… Mum will break our contract but for now she's still my agent, at least until the ADR is complete."
Mad plans were exploding inside my tiny little brain. Dozens of ideas created and discarded in microseconds but one of those ideas felt like it could just about work. But for it to work, I would need cooperation from the inside, an inside agent.
"Would your mother accompany you to England for films if you get more roles?"
"She'd love to but Dad doesn't want to be far apart. Maybe I can do an occasional thing every once in a while but you know there's the working hour limits. It'll be really hard to shoot something big, Dad will reject it if I have to go off for more than a few weeks. That means I won't even be able to go do auditions which means I won't get roles," she said forlorn.
The solution was in the discarded pile of ideas. After all, there was a place with looser limits on child labour. Somewhere that didn't do enough to protect children. I shuddered at a revelation that was much too far to bother digging for.
"Would you like a new agent?"
"Why? I'm leaving anyway. I'll have to find one in Germany — if I want to keep acting." She seemed sad but I ignored it.
"Let me tell you about the baldest man in Piccadilly…" I said with a wicked grin.
She resisted at first — understandably, since I was essentially trying to recruit her onto my own agent's roster. But I told her stories about Adrian. How he'd left his old agency once it became all business and no craft. How he still cared about artistry — about the work, how he knew about the toil. His connections were nothing to scoff at either.
She wasn't a naïve little girl, though. She pointed out that working independently from the agency meant he earned more.
True. But Adrian worked relentlessly — I would say, even when he was paid sixteen pounds for a telly series I'd done.
"Does he push you to do commercials?" she asked. "That's how you tell if it's about the money or the artistry."
I stared at her, momentarily speechless.
Adrian had suggested commercials at least a hundred times. Not pushed, exactly — more gently nudged, then dropping the subject whenever I'd refused, which was all the time. Still… it made claiming pure artistic devotion bit harder to defend.
"Alright, maybe I oversold some things," I admitted. "But he's a good agent. He does far more than his contract requires. I kept pestering him about getting me work in America — and he did. Hell, I even made him hire people for me, schedule private lessons and he doesn't mind it. I want you to join his agency and let him submit you for foreign films. American films, I mean."
"My dad won't let me go. What's the point?" she said with a deeply defeated sigh.
That was painfully familiar. Actors faced rejection so often that sometimes they simply stopped trying. I'd seen it in theatre — and lived it myself. Older actors told stories about their drama school mates, dozen would go to audition the first year and only half would still be going a year later. Actors weren't fired, their fire was put out slowly.
"I think you can learn German. You're still young — apparently that's when you can develop a proper accent, learn languages quicker. That's another skill on your CV. But acting? That doesn't have to stop. Use your spare time to keep recording audition tapes, send it off to America… oh!"
I jumped up and grabbed my camcorder. It had served me faithfully — but perhaps it deserved a new career. Unlike me, it didn't need a visa to work somewhere else. I had work lined up until the summer and all of Billy Elliot auditions were in person.
"Here. Film your auditions and send them to Adrian. He'll handle everything."
She stared at the camcorder for several long seconds… then rolled her eyes in a way that strongly reminded me of her Estella character.
"I have eighteen credits to my name. Do you honestly think I don't own a camcorder?"
"Right. Of course you do. Sorry," I said with a cheeky smile. "My point is — if Hollywood comes calling, your dad might start treating this as a real career. Adrian's still got breakdowns from America. Imagine Disney casting you in a film. Your dad couldn't possibly refuse that. It's very different from appearing in a BBC production under Masterpiece Theatre… or turning up on Children's BBC as a sidekick to string puppets."
"I was not a sidekick to the Trolls!" she snapped. "It was also on ITV."
I scoffed, "Children's ITV. You keep telling yourself that. The mayor troll's daughter was more memorable than your character and I don't even remember her name."
"If that is your professional judgement, I'd rather not follow your mad plans. They're clearly unreliable."
"Alright, alright — I was joking." I raised my hands as if surrendering at gunpoint.
A moment passed. I half expected us to fall back into laughter, to let the tension dissolve as it had before, but it never came. The humour had drained from her entirely. She drew her legs up on the sofa, folding into herself, smaller somehow — distant.
"I'll go to school," she said quietly. "Learn German. Spend time with my parents. There was a stretch where I'd not gone home for nearly a year. Dad was always working, and when he finally saw me, he said I'd grown so much… changed a lot." She paused, her voice thinning. "He wants to see me grow up. Maybe acting isn't my future. Maybe my family is."
Cold sweat trickled down my back. I was trying to convince her to get a new agent but it turned out that she was in need of convincing to even stay in the industry. She would sacrifice her true path for her family. How ridiculous! Her parents would want her to chase her dreams. Was this the reason I'd had no revelation about her? Did she hang up her boots to never be heard of again — to live in the real world, away from the glitter and glam. If so, it was a loss to all of humanity.
But humanity's loss didn't even cross my mind. You see, I was much too selfish for that.
"Hold on!" I ran away to the cinema room and took out a VHS tape from the player and came running back. "It's yours."
My sudden excitement didn't quite infect her sadness and she looked at the tape as if it was a dead rat I'd dragged in, "What film is this?"
"Amadeus, Jan Tomáš Forman. 1984."
"Oh?" she said without any curiosity.
"It's about us," I said meaningfully, "When I first realised how good you were, I was so happy because you could be my rival. I've been looking for one for a long time, you see. When I came back home from the set, this was the first thing I watched. Mozart against Salieri. The most dramatic rivalry in all of history."
Her brown eyes were like big blobs, clearly not sure what she could say. Was she shocked at my arrogance at comparing my talents to someone like that? I carried on.
Her fire had diminished, there was no more fuel to keep it going — I was sure that there was an ember still in there under all the ash and cinder. You could fan an ember, breathe life into it then stoke the fire until it was a raging bonfire once again.
Alternatively, you could pick up a burning log from another fire. Throw it in so it all burns again. Carry the brand, so to say. She needed a little pick-me-up. She needed to remember how to burn again.
"The film is great but it isn't about a rivalry, not even close. Salieri is using all his power and influence along with some unhealthy amount of sneakiness to sabotage Mozart's career. Then when Mozart is suffering he goes on to torture him. All the while Mozart is thinking he's this good friend. He's never even thought of Salieri as a rival. The thought never even crossed his mind. His talent was that overwhelming, his self belief that strong."
All my energy faded at once, "Sorry… I shouldn't spoil it for you."
My words didn't quite reach her so I blazed yet again, this time injecting all the passion I could put into the words. Was that possible? I don't know, but I tried.
"My point is, I want a rivalry for the ages. Nothing like this film." I knocked away the tape from her hand, it rolled away.
"Rivalry where we both know we are competing. Where we set the rules and meet at dawn, test our mettle, fire our metal. One where you make a film and I watch it and suddenly there's a big hole where my belly used to be. It's burning with flames - the sudden desire and need to surpass what I've just seen. I work at my craft, make a bigger gun with bigger bullets. Then you see that film and now it's on you to repeat the process. Each time, I'll build a bigger fire, burn brighter and aim straight through your heart! Because when I aim for something, I will never miss. Because my film will be better than yours. My acting much more polished, my bullet more artistic, my character so much more true!"
My eyes must've been twinkling because she couldn't avert her gaze. I almost growled because my impromptu speech was making me giddy with energy.
"You'll be pushed to one up me. Show me that your fire is stronger. Your talent more blinding to behold. We will do this again and again until we are peerless. Until we stand on the mountain peak with no one else even in the same stratosphere as us." I whispered and hissed out, "Because, no one can be better than us. Because no one gave it as good as we did."
She was leaning in closer to listen to my words.
"And, we'll compete one more time. To know once and for all, who is more talented." I gave her a double dose of my passionate expression and extended a hand, "It takes two to tango. So — will you dance? Will you duel? Or will you sit there and admit defeat?"
Thea seemed to lighten up and grow more solid in the same moment. Then she took my hand. I pulled her up to stand. Her mouth opened, closed then her lips curled.
"I hope you won't take it too hard when you lose," she said lightly. "After all… there's only ever been one Mozart."
Goose pimples! Wow. Maybe she should've given that speech.
"Come on," I said, turning. "We'll find your mum. Grandad can run us to Piccadilly."
Her eyes made the shape of a curling moon. Was that even a thing? If not, no one had told her that it was impossible.
"You write songs, don't you?" she said. "Sing for me."
She tilted her head, studying me as a cat would a mouse.
"Go on then, piano man."