The Extra

Chapter 1. The Return

AS SOON AS he returned to England, Walker made enquiries with a network of contacts in the film and television industry with regard to securing work as an experienced walk-on extra. Surprisingly quickly, considering the circumstances, he picked up a few walk-ons for the odd TV soap and a domestic comedy pub scene, more he suspected for his novelty value than anything else.

He also managed to pick up the odd film, averaging a day's filming every couple of months or so. He found that the film work in England was much more seasonal than his previous home in Burbank, California, where filming was pretty much an all-year round occupation, but he persevered and hoped that persistence would in time bring its own rewards.

"Walker Pickering?" the young receptionist reading the name off of her tablet screen at the end of an impossibly long painted fingernail, addressed the room, full of theatrical hopefuls. They were there for a 10am appointment in competition to fill one advertised temporary three-month role, with a six-month extension option, on a twice weekly soap opera. It was already half an hour past the time of that appointment without a single movement toward the impending auditions, or any explanation forthcoming for the long delay. Most of the individuals were therefore tense with anticipation and surreptitiously sizing up all the competition sitting around them.

One man who gave the clear impression that he wasn't the least bit nervous, was a tall, slim man, at least a decade and a half older than the next oldest man sitting in the room. He rose at the receptionist's mention of his name.

"That's me," he drawled, sounding like a world-weary cowboy, recently stepped off the overnight stagecoach from some frontier town way out West, somewhere over near hostile "Injun Territory" no doubt. He strolled up to the receptionist as if he had all the time in the world.

Sitting in the seat next to where Walker had immediately vacated, the beauty salon-tanned young actor muttered to no-one in particular, "Must be an established actor. He only walked in here two minutes ago and he gets to see Ted Silvers straight away; we've all been kept hangin' about here for three-quarters of an hour at least."

"Nah, he's not an actor at all," someone a little older than the impetuous young man sitting opposite him said, "He's only an extra, I can assure you; he only does walk-on parts. Mind you, he's famous in the industry already and the chances are that he'll probably always be way more famous than you ever will be, son."

All around the room, more than two-thirds of the participants were nodding in agreement, the first smiles to be seen in that nervous room that morning.

One of the others added, "That bastard Silvers probably only wants to take the piss out of the poor sod and send him packing with his tail between his legs, just for the satisfaction of putting the rest of us off our strides before we have our auditions. Just don't look Pickering in the eye when he storms through here on his way out."

Several nodding heads added a collective murmur, read as being in complete agreement with the last speaker.

"Famous?" the first young actor queried. "Just an extra?"

"Believe you me son, when you get home, search YouTube for 'Walker Pickering Extra'," the man opposite added, "I guess you must be the only person in this room that hasn't seen it. That video went viral several years ago, maybe before you even joined the profession. Watch it my friend, watch it and weep ... weep for that man Walker."

***

Walker Pickering wasn't his real name, but he hated his given name "Walter" and, perhaps because of that, he disliked his parents just a little bit too, for imposing his grandfather's currently unfashionable name on him. All right, that was an exaggeration, he didn't quite dislike his parents exactly, and certainly not his surviving mother, having lost his father to cancer about twelve years before. But he hated the traditional name that they had saddled him with. And Walker couldn't even fall back on his second name, that one he considered was even worse; not that Walker had ever used it or divulged whatever that unmentionable name was to anyone of his acquaintance. The middle name, somehow, wasn't even on either of his passports, as he held joint UK and US nationality.

The name Walker, he had decided while he was still in school, was just a single subtle consonant different from his original name but the way that it was perceived, and how he felt about the name, were whole worlds apart as far as Walker was concerned.

What exactly was he doing at the Regional TV Studios, speaking to the Producer of a screened-twice-a-week Soap Opera? Well, he was about to find out in more detail than Mr Silvers' private secretary had hinted at when she rang him the day before.

Walker was led into a cavernous office, with a portly gentleman in his fifties, maybe five to ten years older than himself, Walker guessed, sitting behind a huge, impressibly imposing desk, made of Brazilian mahogany he noted with interest. There was also a video cameraman setting up his equipment and taking light readings around the desk.

"My apologies for the cameraman, Mr Pickering," the Producer said smoothly, "But we have a few screen tests to do in here later on this morning but I believe you were anxious to meet with me as soon as possible."

"Yes, Mr Silvers, it was about the terms your assistant Julie was offering for the temporary position of technical advisor covering a particular story line for the 'High Street' soap."

"Oh, we never call it a 'soap' here, Mr Pickering, never; it is regarded as a very much-loved and successful family drama series," the tacked-on Producer smile was vaguely unsettling, "Now, shall we get down to brass tacks?"

***

Walker had worked in the States for more than twenty years until returning home to England. As we have just heard, he was not employed as an actor in the media and entertainment business but supplemented his main income as a casual TV and film extra. For his full-time job he had once worked night shift for the Burbank city electrical power company in California for several of the twenty years that he had lived in that city. He had no formal training in the electrical industry and knew nothing at all about the supply of electrical power, other than what he picked up casually during his employment. They had plenty of guys on hand with college degrees who knew all of that technical stuff, though. All Walker had to do was take the calls, log all the details and, in timely fashion, send out engineers to deal with whatever emergencies they were informed of. Also, he would book specialist investigations and routine inspections as required. If he needed any advice about some problem he had not had to deal with before, he'd call the duty officer, who would use his specialist expertise to decide the appropriate response.

He had enjoyed the night shift work, it was varied and interesting, he enjoyed the technicalities involved in the business of providing enough power as demanded by customers, while keeping down costs and eliminating delays in the system. It had paid reasonable money in compensation for the unsocial working hours and he was happily employed on permanent night shift.

Walker really lived for the days, though. Then he worked as a TV film or TV series extra, doing the rounds of the various studios, spending maybe a couple of hours here or half a day there, either by appointment or simply waiting to be selected or rejected. He was picked reasonably regularly, at least often enough to earn a respectable amount in fees as well as enjoying the high quality free lunches and refreshments, which were generally laid on for everyone involved in the production of viewing entertainment, whether it be for home viewing or theatre screening.

Walker was always adamant, whenever asked what he did in the studios, that he wasn't an actor. Most of the other extras were desperate wanna-be actors. He had no aspirations whatsoever to join the theatrical profession at all. The last thing that he wanted to do was to have to pretend emotions and learn lines. He had never had any amateur theatrical experience and certainly no formal thespian training, nor was he interested in taking future acting lessons.

He wasn't even particularly star-struck, although he admired without envy the talents of the best of the actors he witnessed at work during his limited and peripheral involvement. He was happy to observe the process with interest and relax, knowing that he didn't have to go through the emotional highs and lows that he saw the real actors having to endure in order to perform their pieces in the emotions required, all expected on tap, turned on to order. Walker did have the odd line to deliver every now and again, usually something called out from within a crowd or a bland snippet of a conversation in the background. He never had to deliver a succession of lines, he simply enjoyed his appearances in the background of the set.

Curiously, he never went out of his way to watch himself, either in the cinema or on the television. In fact he hardly ever watched the television at all except for news, sports and the Discovery Channel, and he fervently hoped he would never figure in any of those particular programmes. So, when fifteen years later his video of striking his wife's lover went viral, it was a source of both embarrassment and agony for him.

For eighteen years or so during his time Stateside, he was a regular extra on "Never Say Never", a daily five-times-a-week daytime domestic soap opera which had been running for, well running virtually forever. In that programme he played a regular customer in a lounge bar which was heavily featured in the show and occasionally Walker was asked to get involved in the action, either by playing pool, throwing darts or collecting a round of drinks in the background immediately behind one of the featured stars.

He met his second wife on the set of that soap opera, an actress who had been on the show since she was a child. When that marriage ended, five years ago, so did his involvement with that particular show. His ex-wife Crystal Mackintosh, real name Christina Mackenzie, had only continued appearing in the family-orientated show for a few months or so after that, before she moved on to greener fields. She was now an established and well-respected actress in her early 40s, mostly playing romantic comedy or Hallmark-type romantic leads or important supporting roles in dramas, and had more recently gravitated upward, playing several lead roles in top-rated movies.

***

Walker had been back in England for about thirty months by the time he was summoned to see Ted Silvers, the producer of 'High Street'.

Originally he had flown back over the Atlantic to the old country just for a visit; his mother was in hospital and his sister Sharon understood that their mother didn't have long left in this world. However, their mother's hospital spell turned out to be a rather brief low point in her otherwise continually healthy existence. She was still going strong, well into her late eighties, but Walker decided he would stay on in the Old Country, at least for the short-term. He was certain that at present there was nothing in his future to encourage him to return Stateside any time soon.

He found it difficult to get full-time employment at first, though, in something similar to either of his previous full-time jobs. He was reluctant to return to his original calling as a cabinet maker and joiner, as working during the day would conflict with his longing to continue working in the film industry. He took a job as a night security guard in the interim period but persisted in his appointed task of writing to local power companies, emphasising his Californian experience, backed by glowing testimonials. Eventually, one of the power companies called him in for an interview and he managed to sweet talk them into giving him a temporary contract on their night shift.

The shift pattern was different to what he was used to but six nights of ten hours each, followed by six nights off, was acceptable to him. This left Walker lots of free time to follow his passion as a film and TV extra. It could not be said that he had anything else in his uncluttered life to occupy his time. He was living back with his mother, who was now fit as a fiddle and leading a busy social life with her many friends most of the time, leaving the house quiet when he needed to sleep.

Walker was 49, tall and slim and kept himself generally fit, not with any gym work, but with regular swimming, running and walking. Of course, swimming in the UK was nowhere near as convenient as the private pool he once shared with Crystal, or in the apartment block pool he shared at his small bachelor condo in LA. He made it a point that on his night shift he always went for a half-hour run about 2 or 3 in the morning during his "lunch break". He had never smoked, rarely drank alcohol and always ate healthily, keeping a careful watch on his weight. He had a good head of hair, which he wore cut short, with a hint of grey appearing at the temples. He wasn't what you'd call silver screen handsome, but he felt he was a long way from ugly, and being kind of nondescript-looking, he thought, helped him merge into the background, so he was quite often used in a number of different walk-on roles in the same film.

After twenty years living on the west coast of the United States he had picked up a slight mid-Atlantic accent, slightly nasalising his native Home Counties' English. This had the effect of making him sound rather American to English ears, yet still very British to Californian listeners. He was quite relaxed and gregarious around the set, able to get along well with stars, fellow extras and background staff and, quite knowledgeable of the workings of the film and television industries. In addition he had a wealth of entertaining stories to tell about some of the acting stars and directors that he had met, some of whom were happy to call him a friend and visit with him when they were filming in the UK.

This helped Walker get a toe-in with studios to pick up some additional gigs as an extra. He was modest about his relationships with actors and generous to them in his stories, so few took offence, in fact a few stars urged him to tell those true stories and laughed along with them because he told them with such entertaining affection and enthusiasm that transcended acting the parts.

Wardrobe and make-up departments at the studios where Walker was known, were always glad to see him, as he was so professional in his attitude and accustomed to wearing glued on facial hair, for example, for the hours on end of inactivity which so often occurred on film sets, without having to be re-made up through any negligence on his part.

In the thirty months since he had returned from his long sojourn in the "Colonies", he had appeared in a number of films and TV dramas and twice on the set of the twice-weekly TV soap opera called "High Street" that Ted Silvers produced. This was set in a small suburban-edge semi-rural town in the Home Counties and its usual content consisted of a mixture of light humour and dramatic interludes in the form of family dramas, within a close-knit community faced with the pressures of increasingly expensive housing, commuting to the capital city for work and small family businesses who found themselves struggling in competition with out-of-town shopping malls. It was one of the most popular shows on UK TV and the best writers and emerging actors competed to be part of the show and get national exposure and noticed by casting agents.

As said before, Walker had spent two days on set for this day-time TV drama, the first time six months previously and the latest instance was about a month before his meeting with the producer Ted Silvers. Both times he featured only in crowd scenes, once in a street market and then in the local pub. The scene in the pub reminded him very much of all that time he spent on the "Never Say Never" lounge bar set, although the thought failed to bring a smile of happy remembrances to either his mind or face.

Featured in the main set on "High Street" was a long-established joinery workshop, which was set up to look as though it made high quality bespoke wooden furniture sold in the front shop in a prime location on the high street. One of the main characters and his son in the show mostly worked in the front shop, so the workshop at the back only featured briefly from time to time, using hand held cameras, Walker's limited watching experience had noted.

However, that workshop was fully-fitted out with equipment which Walker found fascinatingly familiar, machinery on which he had learned his original trade as a craftsman in woodworking. During a lull in filming on each of those two occasions on the set, Walker had walked around the workshop, fingering the planers, saws and routers and looked admiringly at some of the half-finished furniture which adorned the actual workshop behind the artificial set. There was a stack of raw timber at the back of the workshop that particularly caught his eye and he picked up one piece of heavy black heartwood with yellow sapwood attached.

"Need any help, son?"

Walker looked around to see an old man in an overall addressing him.

"Just lookin', man," Walker replied, smiling easily in his usual relaxed manner, "Ain't seen some of this stuff in a long while. I've always been fascinated by timber."

The older man smiled, nodding. "Understandable, that's beautiful wood you're holding there."

Walker continued, "Yeah, I smelt the gelatine gluepot from the street set, which drew me into the back here. Saw some real nice inlay work on some chairs there and I was just checking what wood it was originally. I'm Walker, by the way." he held out his hand, which the old man shook with a firm grip, "I'm working here today as an extra. Got a street scene in the market outside the pub comin' up, that is, when the director finally gets all the stars together after lunch."

The old boy smiled back at him. "I'm Bill, Walker, I'm one of the technical advisers on the show, covering this workshop and a couple of the other shops. Of course, most of the machinery put on the workshop set over there isn't plugged in, it's just for show. You used to work with wood or are you more of a DIY handyman?"

"Oh, I was trained from the age of 16 as a cabinet maker and joiner, but when I qualified as a journeyman an' got myself married to my first wife, I moved over to working on building sites, mainly building fancy stairways. At the time it made for a lot better money short term but was too seasonal to rely on for upkeepin' the big mortgage that she insisted we went for. Eventually I ended up indoors again, being employed by a company that produced film sets and I was part of the team on hand to erect, make good and repair or alter quickly as dictated. While there and hanging about doin' nothin' most of the time, I got called upon for a few crowd scenes an' well, 'fraid I got hooked." Walker grinned as some of those pleasant old memories flooded back to him.

"Well, this job certainly keeps me out of mischief," Bill chuckled, "What do you do, then, Walker, when you're not milling about in a crowd scene?"

"I work nights for the electric and power company, sorry, electrical board or whatever it is now over here," replied Walker. He had been holding a lump of timber which he put down. "Nice piece of African Blackwood, this."

"That's actually the original stuff from Africa, pretty rare nowadays." said Bill. "The Studio acquisitions' team, under my direction, bought this as bankrupt stock, a lot of good furniture companies have gone to the wall. This is good stuff though."