Page 103 of Best Supporting Actor

When he glanced at his mother again, it was to find her eyeing him curiously.

“Do you mind if I ask,” she said tentatively, “what actually happened that night? When you froze, I mean? I realise I’m a little late with this, but I’d like to know what it was you wanted to tell me.”

Jay blinked, surprised.Didhe want to talk about it now, after so long? In truth, he wasn’t sure, but at last he shrugged. “We didn’t get off to a very good start—Seb and I had argued the night before, and he was barely speaking to me when we got to the theatre.” Jay grimaced at the memory of that argument—it had been another fight about their sex life, with Seb, who was an uncompromising top with little patience for foreplay, accusing Jay of being uptight and impossible to please because he couldn’t orgasm within five minutes of them getting naked. It had been the last thing he’d needed when he was already eaten alive with nerves at the thought of his first big opening night.

“What a shit,” Dame Cordelia said feelingly.

Jay gave her hand a comforting pat. “He was a shit,” he agreed. “And I was terrible at sticking up for myself. It’s embarrassing to look back on.” He paused, then went on. “The moment I stumbled was quite near the start of Act Two—there was just the two of us in the scene, and there was this one line—when we’d done it in rehearsal, Seb would always walk to the front of the stage, looking out at the audience. He’d have his back to me, but I was looking at him as I delivered the line.” He paused, taking a shaky breath, a little surprised by how emotional he felt even now, after all this time. “But on the night, he didn’t do what we’d rehearsed. Instead, he walked behind me and sat down on a chair, completely out of my line of sight, so I’d have to turn away from the audience to look at him.” Jay swallowed hard, embarrassed by the constriction in his throat. “I got completely flustered. I remember thinking,Should I do what we rehearsed? Should I improvise?And then I became aware of the silence—too many beats passing since Seb had spoken—and then the words were just… gone and my mind was racing with complete panic. I remember I turned to look at him and tried to catch his eye to get him to give me a prompt, but he wouldn’t”—Jay’s voice broke—“he wouldn’t evenlookat me.”

It was even worse than that in fact, though he found he couldn’t bring himself to share every single humiliating detail with his mother, who was already looking furiously angry. Seb had been doing little things to put Jay off from the moment the curtain had gone up that night, and when he’d finally managed to throw Jay off his game, there had been a nasty little gleam in his eye. He’d been pleased that Jay was struggling, and that was the thing that had really winded Jay. That this man, who had professed to be in love with him, seemed to be relishing his humiliation. It had been a punishment for the fight. At the time, that was what had finished him off, the pain of that betrayal stealing the very air from his lungs.

“That’s fuckingappalling,” his mother said grimly. “And the director said nothing?”

Jay shook his head. “He couldn’t get me off the stage—and Clive on—quick enough.”

Dame Cordelia pressed her lips together. “I’m going to need a list of names, you know.”

“Don’t be silly,” Jay said. “It was a long time ago. I’m long past the revenge fantasy stage.”

“Well, I’m bloody not!” She shook her head then. “I’m sorry, darling. I should have talked to you about this before. I’ve always lived by my old mentor’s advice that dwelling on things that go wrong in performance is a mistake—he used to say that the best thing was to put it behind you and get back on the horse as quickly as possible. But that’s all very well when the mistake is your own fault. This was— Darling, I hadn’t realised what actually happened to you!” Her eyes filled with tears and she gave a noisy sniff. “I shouldn’t have assumed it was all down to your inexperience.”

Jay shrugged. “You weren’t the only one. Everyone thought that. To their eyes, I’d just forgotten my lines—which, in fairness, Ihad. Itwasme who fucked up. Seb just—”

“Seb is an irredeemable, abusive shit!” his mother snapped. “He plainly put you off deliberately because he was annoyed with you—and he was probably jealous of you too. His talent isvastlyoverrated. And now I feelawfulfor all those times I pressured you to get back on stage.” She dashed tears from her eyes. “God, I’m a horrible,horriblebitch!”

Jay gave a rueful laugh. “You’re not a horrible bitch, Mother. You’re actually very nice.” He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “Do you want some more coffee?”

She sniffed again, and nodded, and he got up to refill both their mugs.

When he returned to the table a few minutes later, she was looking calmer.

He set her mug down in front of her, and she sipped at it thoughtfully. After a bit, she said, “Can I ask you something aboutLet Us Go Back?”

“Okay,” he said warily.

Meeting his gaze, she said simply, “Do you think Tag is capable of doing to you what Seb did?”

Jay jerked back in astonishment. “No!He would never do something like that!”

She nodded slowly. “Then, can I ask… whatisit that you fear might happen?”

Jay opened his mouth to answer her, but nothing came out. He just sat there, staring at her open-mouthed as he tried and failed to come up with an answer to that simple question. But there was no answer to it. He knew with absolute conviction that Tag would never turn away from him as Seb had, that he would never leave him isolated and floundering, much less deliberately make him feel that way. Hell, Tag would break character in a heartbeat to give Jay a prompt if he needed it, even if it compromised his own performance. Even if they’d fought the night before.

Jay knew it. He knew it with a solid, unmovable certainly that made his chest ache.

“It’s about trust, you see,” Dame Cordelia went on. “Trusting the other person to have your back. Trusting them enough to be vulnerable with them. It’s always difficult, never easy, but if you have that trust, it’s… very possible.” She smiled fondly at him, her eyes damp.

“Are you still talking about acting?” Jay said huskily.

“I’m talking about all of it. Acting, yes. But also living. And loving.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Have you been talking to Phil?”

“I don’t need Phil to tell me what’s going on,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It was obvious at the party that Tag’s absolutely besotted with you.”

“Yes, well, as much as I’d like to believe that—”

But Jay didn’t get to finish that sentence, because just then, the kitchen door opened and Phil stuck his head inside.