The Understudy

I have known every part
in this theatre for nineteen seasons
I have been on eleven times
and nine of them were flu
There is a photograph in the foyer
with about forty faces
I am at the back on the left
and I am slightly out of focus
People say it must be maddening
and they say it kindly
It stopped being maddening at some
point around two thousand and six
I did not decide to stop
minding it just stopped happening
And what is underneath the minding
turns out to be quite good

I know the part better than
the man who plays the part
I know it the way you
know a road you have never driven
He is better than me on the night
and that is the whole trade
He has got the thing
that makes eight hundred people go quiet

I am the understudy
and I have made it into a trade
Somebody has to be ready
for a Tuesday that never comes
I am not waiting
and I want to be
very clear about that
Waiting is a thing that eats you
and I stopped doing it
I turn up and I am ready
and then I go home unused
And being ready is the job
and I am extremely good at it

In two thousand
and nineteen he was ill on a Saturday
Eight hundred people and a matinee
and forty minutes notice
I was completely fine
and I did not feel a single thing
There was a moment in the second act
that I had thought about for years
And when it came I did it
and it was exactly what I thought
Then it was over and there was
a taxi and a bag of chips
He was back on the Monday
and he thanked me in the corridor
And I have never once wished
that he had stayed ill

I am the understudy
and I have made it into a trade
Somebody has to be ready
for a Tuesday that never comes
I am not waiting
and I want to be
very clear about that
Waiting is a thing that eats you
and I stopped doing it
I turn up and I am ready
and then I go home unused
And being ready is the job
and I am extremely good at it

My mother asks about it
every time I see her
She means well and she means
when are you going
to be the other one
I have tried three different
answers over about fifteen years
And the true one is that there is
more than one way
to be in a room

I am the understudy
and I have made it into a trade
Somebody has to be ready
for a Tuesday that never comes
I am not waiting
and I want to be
very clear about that