I either suffer from a terrible case of Main Character Syndrome or am far too aware of how to plot a novel, because I have started to view this stupid endeavour as a self-contained story.
On my last day of work, I was telling my colleague Jo about the idea of The Hero’s Journey - a basic narrative structure in which a protagonist confronts obstacles, overcomes them and reaps rewards within the confines of three acts. Within the acts, the story is broken down into a varying number of stages, but I was taught twelve in a novel-plotting course I did when I was nineteen, in which a fellow student hissed, “Don’t you have anything nice to say?” when I laid out why I thought her poor-veiled autobiography about the joys of wildlife photography lacked any meaningful stakes.
At the time of leaving my job last Friday, I felt I had just passed the third stage of The Hero’s Journey having initially refused The Call to Action, in which I was fired, made grand plans, but scrapped them when I was rehired. Now firmly leaving my post, I felt I was answering action’s call. Besides, I had always felt it made more narrative sense to go into literary exile in Gdańsk.
“What’s the stage after that?” Jo asked.
I had to check my phone, “Meeting the Mentor.”
Meeting the Mentor is the part of the story where someone usually older and a good deal more experienced shows up to bring the protagonist into the new world; it’s Obi-Wan Kenobi, it’s Glinda the Good Witch, it’s my arch-nemesis (and star of The Stage’s recent one-star review of King Lear) Kenneth Branagh asking Robert Oppenheimer, “Can you hear ze music?” It was a stage of my journey that I had dismissed as being literal, imagining it would most likely take the form of talking on the phone to my fairy godmother, Christina, or something a bit more tenuous.
Over cake that afternoon, I shared more details of my deeply stupid plan with my colleagues.
“The whole point of it is that I’m not allowed to come home until I get a literary agent. I’m going to Gdańsk first and then maybe Wrocław after Christmas.”
“Does your Mum know?” my boss asked.
I only realised then that I hadn’t actually told my mother, despite booking flights and a very neon Airbnb overlooking the Royal Chapel.
“She doesn’t, but she’s expecting it.”
“How will she feel?”
“She won’t give a shit.”
I left with hugs and went to celebrate my unemployment with a much too large three-course meal that sloshed around my stomach as I sat down in the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre.
The woman next to me asked me if I was alone, and on the lookout for potential mentors, I starting talking to her. It transpired that she had taught at the Royal Ballet School and offered to introduce me to the dancers sitting a few seats down from us.
“That’s really kind of you,” I said, tilting my head to look at First Soloist Nicol Edmonds, unsure if he was mentor material1.
After the performance, I darted out of my seat and passed more than one Royal Ballet Principal as I quickly climbed the tight winding staircases and surfaced to the light-filled bar, where, leaning on a table, I suddenly saw my mentor.
I don’t know why I should have ever expected it to be anyone else.
I was very good at not baulking as I crept over to lean against an emotional support pillar, keeping him firmly in my gaze. There was only one reason I was at the Royal Opera House, only one reason that I would have ever recognised Nicol Edmonds. Indeed, so much of what I do and how I am everyday begins and ends with this man.
It’s serendipity, I thought, not even attempting to talk myself out of it, Lily, you have to.
He didn’t stay very long, but I wouldn’t have minded if he did. Very soon, he began to walk long carefree strides to the staircase and I quickly ran after him, his Nike (yes, Nike) trainers in my eye line until I surfaced and caught up with him, asking in a very high voice, “Excuse me, Mr Fiennes?”
He was taller than I expected, and his blue eyes were warm as he turned to look at me.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt you, but I just had to let you know that The White Crow changed my life.”
He smiled, “I’m very glad to hear it.”
Afterwards, I wept in the bathrooms of the Royal Opera House with my whole body. The noises that came out of me were so primal, so obscene, I didn’t even know that I was capable of making them. You could have easily mistaken me for someone in labour.
“Is everything alright in there?” someone cautiously asked.
I begged my body to compose itself as I replied, “I’m honestly happy if you can believe it.”
“Are you sure you don’t need anyone to talk to?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
And I was, as I continued to quietly weep on the bus, messaging my friend, Sinead (who, again, I would never have met were it not for a certain someone).
I genuinely can’t believe it happened. Like, it could never have happened. I could have spent my life dreaming of it happening.
Sinead understood the gravity of this world-shifting meeting. After all, she had been privy to my original plan for meeting Ralph, which included a very long and expensive game of courting his ballet teacher.
No, it was inevitable, she wrote, Just a when not an if.
I texted my mother that I needed to speak to her in the first instance and to not look on Instagram, where I had posted a very weepy story. She, of course, looked on Instagram instantly.
I don’t really think Mummy has ever really understood it. You’re twenty-two years old and sit in the BFI in March 2019 to watch a film directed by Ralph Fiennes a few days after your world has fallen apart, and suddenly ballet, a subject that previously meant nothing to you, is your ticket out of despair.
“I just feel like Ralph Fiennes is the sign, you know? Like, I’m doing the right thing. I have to be,” I said to her.
Unconvinced, she said, “Ok.”
“And by the way, I’m moving to Gdańsk.”
Unphased, she said, “Ok.”
As I did my makeup the following morning, I noticed that I had wept so much that my under eyes and cheekbones were littered with petechiae.
Stage 5 of The Hero’s Journey is Crossing the Threshold, in which the protagonist makes those first steps into a new and exciting world. I’m still at home and am unsure whether I have yet crossed this boundary. You don’t see Tolkien making Bilbo wait to leave The Shire because he had stalls tickets to see Nicole Scherzinger in Sunset Boulevard.
I have embraced my new writer’s lifestyle. I congratulate myself on my professionalism as I open up my laptop at 8:00 a.m. in a Cecil Beaton sweatshirt and a towel on my head to draft cover letters. I have a detailed plan christened The Ralph Fiennes Plan and am actively sending my book to agents. 117 agents to be precise, having taken illicit pictures of the entire Writers and Artists Yearbook Agent Directory, a heist almost as audacious as Julia Fox stealing an Oscar de la Renta clutch.
I go forward, on the verge of adventure - a pretentious, expensive adventure for a pretentious, expensive person, but not for me, never for me. I’m doing it because I told Ralph Fiennes I had written a book inspired by The White Crow, and I cannot have him thinking I’m a liar, or worse, a flake that lacks the courage and conviction to weather the agenting process to get her book published.
I move on, stopping only to speed read Barry Lyndon so I could then speed read Margot, just to double/triple-check that it is good enough to actually embark on this endeavour.
I think it is, and there is no point in any of this if I do not think I will be successful.
It is inevitable, just a when not an if.
Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing or sharing with a link. If you would like to get access to more, exclusive posts, the Funemployment discount still valid for another week.
My special thanks to the divine Sinead Skinner for the photographs and for recognising the gravity of any ballet-related situations.
Next week is all about the joys of agenting with a little help from someone very special to me. See you then! L x
Nicol, darling, if you’re reading this, I have nothing against you. You’re just a bit random, is all.
I guess I know what movie I'll be watching this weekend... thanks for the tip and the Ralph story. Definitely a sign! x