The Understudy: A Novel by David Nicholls Page A

had just been too embarrassed to use the word “waiter.” What Stephen had taken to be the hand of friendship was actually just passing him a full ashtray.
    Far away in the distance, he heard the pop of a fork piercing the film seal on the top of a ready-meal.
    He thought seriously about climbing out of the window, but it was too high and too small, and simply admitting the mistake would just push the humiliation one stage further—he imagined Josh’s embarrassed, pitying look. No, clearly the only mature, sensible thing to do was feign acute illness. Do some acting—that was his trade, after all. He started flicking through the mental medical dictionary he kept at hand for such emergencies: angina…no, beriberi…no, cholera…no. A stroke was too extreme, tonsillitis too mild, irritable bowel syndrome too intimate. Was there a quick and easy way to make your own lung collapse? He settled on that all-rounder food poisoning—perfectly plausible, as he did in fact feel like throwing up. He put his hand on his stomach, clutching it as if he’d just been shot in the guts, bent over slightly, practiced his queasy face in the mirror, swallowed another rogue antibiotic, flushed the toilet unnecessarily and stepped out into the room.
    The music was louder now, generic cocktail-bar dance music, and Josh was hunched over the DJ decks, bobbing slightly, eyes screwed shut and the tip of his tongue protruding, one cup of the headphones pressed to his ear, as he concentrated on mixing seamlessly between two apparently identical records.
    “Josh, I—”
    “Heeeeeeey! Stephanie, Stevearoony, the Stevester.” Josh jabbered away like some beautifully coutured village idiot. “I just wanted to say massive cheers for doing this,” he shouted, coming out from behind the decks, and putting his arm around Stephen’s shoulder. “It’s just I hate having a party and having to worry about filling people’s glasses and tidying up and all that crap.”
    “ ’S all right, really, I just—”
    “And strictly between me and you,
these
guys”—he nodded toward the trio of caterers in the kitchen—“well, they’ve all got a bit of an attitude, if you know what I mean, like they’re too fuckin’ good for it or something. Plus the fact that they’re bloody expensive, so it’d be nice for the money to go to someone I know, if you see what I mean. And I expect you’ve done this kind of thing before, haven’t you? Catering?”
    “Yeah, yeah, Josh,” he said, taking the dusty bubble pack of mystery antibiotics out of his pocket, for use as a prop. “It’s just I’m feeling a bit—”
    “And you know your cocktails? A bit of basic mixology, yeah? I mean, not the fancy stuff, but vodka martinis, margaritas, all that shit.”
    “Oh, yeah, sure, but—”
    “Well, why don’t you bartend then, to start off with, anyway, and we’ll call it, what, ten, no, fifteen squid an hour, yeah?” He was holding Stephen by the shoulders now, his face just inches away, looking at him intently with his expensive blue eyes, as if about to kiss him, and Stephen realized that if he brought his head down hard and fast enough, he could quite easily break Josh’s nose.
    He thought about the money he’d spent on the bottle of champagne, his impending unemployment, the mortgage on that hellhole, his lack of a fridge, his daughter’s Christmas present. He made some calculations in his head, fifteen times six hours, fifteen times seven maybe…
    “Fifteen quid’s
way
too much,” he said finally.
    “Rubbish. You’re easily worth that!” said Josh, lightly punching the top of Stephen’s arm, and despite himself, Stephen actually felt flattered—yes, he
was
definitely worth at least fifteen squid an hour. “Besides, you’ve got to give something back, haven’t you?” said Josh.
    “Okay, then,” said Stephen, finally.
    “Goodly good! Give us a hand with these fairy lights, would you?” he barked, padding off.
    At the far end of the