(I Used To Be) Somebody

I love the energy of a crowd, you can't help but feel like a million bucks, with people screaming your name, camera flashes dazzling you, but you seem to float over it, you stay cool and calm, you turn your head, you angle your body, you make the shot. Sometimes you want to get closer, interact with your fans, they'll reach out just to let their fingertips brush your skin, tussle your hair, thrusting autograph books and photos into your hands for you to sign, like a forest made of arms, like a creature out of Lovecraft trying to embrace you.

My friend from back home finds it all so funny, he doesn't understand what they could hope to gain from just touching me, what possible connection could there be between me, the celebrity, and them, the fan, that would transpire at that point as those anonymous digits lightly nudge my cheek or clap my shoulder, what transference could occur? Do they hope that my fame, my success, might pass on to them?

It's my 42nd birthday. I'm sat in the dressing room, there are flowers and cards around the mirror in which I am reflected. I'm wearing a glittery silk shirt open to just below my chest, a large jewel-encrusted belt, tight black trousers and ice skates. I'm not going through to the next round, it doesn't effect my pay, but neither does it improve things for me, I'll be forgotten again in a week or two, especially over here, they treat me like a novelty, they dwell on my past.

My wife is on the phone, she wants to know, now that I'm off the show, when I'll be flying home. I tell her I'm not sure, I have to do some interviews, try and keep up some momentum from this. Later I speak to my agent, try to see if there are any British directors who might want to work with me that I could speak to. Then I call my wife back, ask if my daughter is in, she tells me she's asleep.

People come up to me in the street and still quote lines from my films, they tell me how much they loved them when they were growing up, they can't believe I'm forty two, they say I look so much younger. They usually say; "Don't look now!" or "Where do you kick a skeleton?" Some people ask me what I'm up to these days, and nod when I let them know I'm still working, still acting, I had five films out last year. Since doing the ice-skating show people have started to recognise me more. I guess I'm in the cultural ether again, so people are more inclined to notice me.

My daughter's birthday is the day after mine, I remember being in the hospital with my wife on the night of my 36th birthday, she was in and out of labour all through the night and into the morning, and my daugter was born as the sun was rising outside.

I want to make my daughter proud of me, have some sort of legacy that I can leave her, nobody wants a washed up old man. She was like a pill, filled me with energy when she was born, I spent some time out, just helping, looking after her, before going back to work. When I did I had a renewed vigour, a spring in my step, I think you can see it on screen. I did some of my best work in the years just after she was born. Shame a lot of it sank without a trace, bad marketing.

They showed a clip from 'Freak Street' on the talk show that evening, obviously the one where I shout "Where do you kick a skeleton?" They always either show that one, or the clip from 'Changing Tracks' where I hold the dead lamb and cry. The host of the show was very talkative, I didn't really say that much, just kind of reacted to the things he put in front of me, it was kind of a light entertainment show, nothing too in depth. When he asked me what I was doing next I suddenly realised I don't have any work lined up, fortunately I didn't blank for long, and just told him I was heading home to spend some time with my family. Which is good, it makes me sound down-to-earth.

Fame is a disease, you don't ask for it, really, you just want to work, do the thing you love, fame can sometimes be the price you pay, and it is a price. People treat you as if it's your own fault that you're famous, that you hounded it down, that you have given up on your rights to a private life, but it is the public that feeds the fire, creates the monster, and though, arrogantly, we, the famous, lap it up, there should be a switch to turn it off and on again. I became famous without realising, acting as a child, my father had heard about a casting session for an orange juice commercial in the building he was working at, took me along, I got the part and an agent hired me the day of the shoot. I did some more commercials, a couple of bit parts in sitcoms, a recurring role in a soap for a while, all before I even hit double digits.

Before I was twelve I'd landed my first film role, a supporting part, goofy younger brother, but the role was a hit, they made a sequel and I got equal billing with the lead. Then came Freak Street, that one's really endured, people love it, there's a sold out midnight screening of that film somewhere in the world practically every other week, and I get asked to all of them. The money's not great, but it's nice to meet the fans, hear how much that film meant to them. It's the positive side of everything that's happened to me.

My wife calls, my daughter's caught measles, on her birthday no less, they've had to cancel the party, but she's upbeat, my daughter that is. I sing Happy Birthday to her down the phone, she asks me when I'll be home, I say a couple of days, but if things go well here it might be longer.

You stand waiting in the wings, breathing deeply, psyching yourself up, holding the hand of your partner, a professional ice skater, you've been training intensely, every day, for this. You try to filter out the sound, it's overwhelming in a way, the boom of the audience. You listen only to the presenters, you wait only for your name, for the music, for the curtains to part, the lights to shine, they're blinding, and you step forwards out onto the ice, ready to dance, feeding off of the applause, the cheers, the gasps, the laughter, and then they judge you, one by one, and then they phone in to keep you or let you go, and you smile, you cry, you holler and scream, you wrap arms around one another either in joy or sadness, and then you trot backstage, to the green room, you sit and wait, they interview you, and it's over, you take off the blades, the glittery suit, wipe make-up away and ruffle the hair, heading for the car to drive you back to the hotel.

I haven't slept in my own bed all year, but I can remember what it feels like. I'll lie in the hotel room, in the large king-size, stretching my hand out and tracing the outline of where my wife would lay, the sheets are so starched and hard, emphasizing the absence. I can't sleep, so I pace the room, make myself a drink, idly flick through television channels, wondering if any of my old films are showing.

I fell asleep around 4am, glass was half full, but now it's empty on the floor by a small puddle, the thrum of my mobile is rattling the bedside table, it's eight in the morning.

My bags are loaded into the back of the waiting taxi, my flight leaves in three hours, I'm chewing the inside of my mouth nervously. It was hard talking to my wife on the phone, her sister was there, though she was upset too I got most of the information from her. My daughter has suffered from complications brought on by the measles, a chronic encephalitis, I keep Googling it and reading the wiki page, but I don't really understand what it's telling me, I don't understand what my wife or her sister are telling me, it says it can be fatal, but it's rare, like 1 in 100,000.

In the airport my agent calls, I tell him about my daughter, he offers his sympathy, tells me to take all the time I need, I thank him, he mentions a feature being shot in a few months, somewhere in Scotland, a horror, but they're interested in me for the lead, I'd need to audition, I shrug it off, I can't do it, he says I could video an audition tape and send it over, I tell him I'll think about it and hang up, my flight is boarding.

Over the ocean words sink in, the doctors told my wife that there's no cure for the disease, SSPE he said, it's always fatal, she may have a year or two, perhaps longer, it's so rare, we forgot to get her immunized, I don't want my wife to blame us, I don't know if she's even thinking about that, why would she think about that? We'll make the time we have special, I'll be there for what little time we've got. It's funny, on flights to and from home before the plane would judder and shake with turbulence and I'd think to myself; 'What if this is it?' I'd make little vows to spend more time with them both, my wife and my daughter, but now I know I never really kept those promises, they are things I felt that I would always have time for, like time is infinite, stretching out forever, that things will always last.

Nothing lasts, by next week or so the photos of me in the weekly magazines will have vanished from the pages, the offers will quieten down again, I should make that audition tape, I mean, the thought does enter my mind that this story, for all its sadness, could be good for me, we could get some perks out of it, like a trip to a theme park or something, she'd like that.

I realise I'm crying, I wipe my eyes, push the balls of my palms against my temple, shake my head. I used to tell people, when I was in my mid-twenties, that I was too selfish to settle down, have kids, I guess I was right. But she doesn't deserve this. What can I do to make things ok? I've been trying, I just want what's best.