I started to go to auditions the first week when I came to London. But a month and a half later I still had no success at all. When I was in my parents’ home near Inverness and I dreamed about my living in London the picture had nothing to do with my present situation. I taught it would be enough to appear on one or two castings so the people of the theatre industry could discover my talent. Of course I guessed that some of the theater figures might not like me. I even imagined how some producer would tell me that I have no talent at all, but the next day some other producer or director would be fascinated by my acting skills and would make me the next star of London theatre scene. After some months the first producer would be sorry for his mistake, but it would be too late.
But these things were only in my imagination and there were still no producers, no directors and no acts in my life at the moment. My acting career was not progressing at all. At the auditions the directors did not tell me that I have no talent, but they wasn’t fascinated by my talent either. They were just smiling polite, they told me that they might call me and they never did.
To be honest, after some unsuccessful auditions my enthusiasm decreased and I often wandered what am I doing in this big city. How long would I be a cleaner?
But in fact, if I did not have my job as a cleaner and my chatty partner John, I probably would go crazy. Sometimes I taught my colleague invents all of these stories about him, his neighbour and their wives. And the stories were getting more complicated and interesting. I even told him he might write a book or a movie script about their relationships. But he felt offended and said that I don’t trust him.
Little by little John and I became a good team. We did not have to allocate our tasks. Everyone of us knew what to do and when the other needs help.
I knew John did not like cleaning ovens and any kind of kitchen appliances. He knew that hate cleaning living room furniture like sofas and armchairs. So we took the tasks we prefer and we divided the ones, which wasn’t anyone’s favourite.
I knew that John appreciates my work and values me and it helped me a lot. I even accidentally heard him talking to another colleague yesterday. The other joked: “So, John, how is the freshman doing?” And John answered: “Much better than you, Harry… Much better than you…”