Martyn Pig Read Online Free Page B

character?’
    â€˜I don’t know ... there was something ... a disagreement with the producers or something. Mum doesn’t like talking about it.’
    Over the next few weeks we talked about everything. Alex told me all about herself, where she was from, what she thought about stuff, what she wanted to do.
    â€˜I’m going to be an actress, too,’ she told me. ‘Mum was dead against it at first, she kept on telling me I ought to be a lawyer or something. “That’s where the money is, Alex, there’s no such thing as a poor lawyer, you know.” But once she realised I was serious about acting she changed her mind, and now she really helps me. She’s brilliant, Martyn, you ought to see her. She’s only got to raise an eyebrow and she becomes a different person. She can do anything: voices, the way people walk, their posture, anything. She’s brilliant.’
    I thought of asking: if she’s so good, how come she can’t get a job? But I didn’t. I didn’t want to spoil the atmosphere. And in any case, I was genuinely impressed. Even if she wasn’t semi-famous any more, at least Alex’s mum had done
something
. All right, so she was a has-been. But a has-been is better than a never-has-been-and-never-will-be, like Dad. And Alex was so proud of her. It was such an alien concept – being proud of someone – I couldn’t help but be impressed. But what impressed me most about Alex was her ambition. She had an
ambition
. She knew what she wanted to do, she wanted to be something. And she was good, too. A good actress, I mean. ‘Tell me what you want me to be and I’ll be it,’ she said once.
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜Anything,’ she said. ‘A situation, an emotion, a person ... anything.’ She flapped her arms in an elaborately dramatic gesture and put on an actory voice, ‘I will
act
for you.’
    â€˜Anger,’ I suggested.
    â€˜Can’t you think of anything better than
that
?’
    â€˜Well, I ...’
    Her rage disappeared and she grinned. ‘Acting, Martyn. I was acting. Anger.’
    â€˜Yeah,’ I mumbled. ‘I knew that.’
    â€˜No you didn’t. Give me another. A person.’
    I thought for a moment, then smiled. ‘My dad.’
    â€˜OK. Just a minute.’ She was sitting cross-legged on the bed. She closed her eyes, muttered under her breath for a while, then got up and loped across the room and went out the door. I thought she’d gone to the bathroom. Just then there was a heavy knock on the door followed by a deep slurred voice. ‘Mar’n! Mar’n! Get down ’ere and get the bloody tea on!’
    I answered without thinking. ‘Yeah, OK, Dad.’
    The door opened and Alex came in grinning triumphantly.
    â€˜And don’t take all bloody day about it, neither.’ It was uncanny. She sounded
just
like him.
    â€˜Brilliant,’ I said. ‘Incredible.’
    She licked her little finger and groomed an eyebrow. ‘It was nothing, a mere trifle.’
    Ambition
and
talent ... it was beyond me.
    â€˜What about you, Martyn?’ she asked me. ‘What do you want to do? What do you want to be?’
    What did I want to be? I’d never even thought about it. What did I want to do? All I wanted to do was something else. Something that wasn’t what I was doing. Whatever that was. Nothing much. What did I want to be? What kind of question is that?
What did I want to be?
God knows.
    I said the first thing that came into my head. ‘I want to be a writer. I’m going to write a murder mystery.’
    â€˜Really?’
    â€˜Yeah. They’ll make it into a television series and I’ll make loads of money.’
    â€˜I hope there’s a part in it for me. And my mum.’
    â€˜The ghost of Shirley Tucker?’
    â€˜Yeah!’
    â€˜OK. And who do
you
want to be?’
    She thought about that for a