You probably just invited yourself like usual.
She doesn’t wait for a response, which is good, because I can’t come up with a polite one.
“We’ve been keeping it a secret, but I don’t think he could stand to be apart any longer, I know I couldn’t. He’s here somewhere. It can be so hard maintaining a relationship when you’re always away filming, but I don’t need to tell you that. How is your husband?” She looks around the room. I really have no interest in meeting her latest boyfriend. I’m about to make my excuses and walk away when she speaks again. “Jack, darling, come on over here and say hello to your co-star.”
I feel physically sick.
Jack emerges from a huddle of men in the corner of the room and strolls over in our direction. She snakes her skinny arm around his waist as soon as he’s within touching distance, but he only looks at me, as though he knows he’s standing next to Medusa. She kisses him on the cheek, watching for my reaction the whole time, her red lips leaving their mark. My smile is in serious danger of sliding off my face, and holding it there is exhausting.
“Now, I know those pictures in the papers weren’t real, but I can’t stay too late to keep an eye on the pair of you tonight, so don’t go getting any funny ideas. I need my beauty sleep for my audition for the next Fincher film tomorrow,” she says. My face gives me away for less than a second, but she sees it. “Oh, you have an audition too? You didn’t think you were the only one, did you? Bless, always so sweet and naïve.”
“I’ve just seen someone I just must say hello to, will you excuse me?” I say to them both, with the best smile my face can manage.
I walk away without waiting for either of them to reply. I find myself in a red room this time—red walls, red furniture, my red shoes scurrying across a plush red carpet—unable to stop thinking something that I shouldn’t. The thought is only on loan, a temporary rental that I already know I will have to give back sooner or later. I mustn’t hold on to it. But for now, for just a little while longer, I permit myself to indulge the idea. I get myself another glass of champagne, the words repeating themselves over and over, loud and clear inside the privacy of my own mind:
I wish Alicia White was dead.
Forty-one
Essex, 1988
We have carpet.
Brand-new red carpet all over the flat, except in my bedroom, which already had pink carpet, and in the kitchen and the bathroom, which both have a new floor with a name all of its own. It’s called lino, and I like to skid across it in my socks. Maggie says the carpet is red so that I can practice being a film star, but for now my favorite thing to do is to slide all the way down the stairs from the flat to the shop on my bottom. John laughs at me and does it, too, yelling he’s going to race me down the apples and pears. He does that a lot, makes up silly rhymes that mean something else. Apples and pears means “stairs.” Dog and bone means “phone.” Sometimes I don’t know what he’s talking about, like when he says brown bread—we only ever eat white. Maggie looks over the banister at us racing down the stairs and takes a picture on John’s camera.
“Eejits,” she says, but she smiles, so it’s okay. I hear her put on the TV upstairs, leaving John and me laughing, but then there is a knock on the outside door and we both jump. It is Sunday. It is always just the three of us on Sundays, unless we go to the pub to see Uncle Michael, and we’re not going there today because John says we need to lie low. I thought that might mean sleeping on the floor or something, but Maggie said it means something different without telling me what that was. There is a tall basket at the bottom of the stairs next to the outside door, and we keep umbrellas in it. There are also golf clubs, and a baseball bat, even though we don’t play either of those things.
John picks up the bat before pushing me behind him, then moves closer to the door. “Who is it?”
“It’s Mrs. Singh,” says a voice outside, and I recognize the sound of the beautiful woman from the corner shop, with her brown skin and red spot. John opens the door a little, still holding the bat out of sight behind him.
“How can I help?”
“Someone has left something outside your shop, and I thought you should know.” She sounds sorry, but I’m not sure what for.
John leans out of the doorway and stares at something that I cannot see.
“What is it?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer.
“What is it?” Maggie asks, like a grown-up echo. She has reappeared at the top of the staircase, and I know he won’t ignore her; nothing makes her more cross.
John’s mouth opens but the words don’t come out at first, as though they got stuck. Then he takes the cigarettes he gave up giving up from his pocket and lights one. It seems to help him speak again.
“It’s a box.”
Maggie comes down the stairs superfast. “Well, open it.”
John thanks Mrs. Singh and brings the box inside, dragging it through to the betting shop, where there is more room. It’s large and looks very heavy. He takes a penknife from his pocket, cuts the cardboard, and lifts the lid right off.
Maggie’s face turns white and cross. “Go upstairs,” she says in my direction, but I don’t move, I want to see what it is. “I said, go upstairs!” She pushes me. She seems very upset all of a sudden. I start to walk away, slowly, and when I turn back, I see an empty white coffin. Not a big one, like I’ve seen at funerals; this one is about the same size as me.
Forty-two
London, 2017
I imagine what Alicia would look like dead as I make my way around the party.
I realize that these thoughts are neither normal or healthy, but they are the only ones currently occupying my mind, and I’m rather enjoying them. I need another drink. The club is full of bars, so that at least is one desire that shouldn’t be too hard to satisfy. I climb the spiral staircase and head for the third floor, the place physically farthest away from Jack and Alicia.
I don’t know what I’m so upset about or why I’m so surprised. Men fall for women like that all the time; as if they can’t see the bitch behind the beauty. Why should Jack be any different? It isn’t as though I thought there was anything real between us; obviously the sexual tension was just an act for when the cameras were rolling, and any friendship that developed as a result of spending all those months filming together was just the product of time shared, the camaraderie of a common experience.
As for the audition, I think I’m justified in feeling upset about that. Tony made it sound as if the part were already mine. I guess agents, like normal human beings, occasionally tell people what they want to hear. Maybe he was trying to boost my confidence after the online article about the affair I’m not having. Maybe he could see that I was falling apart and was simply trying to stitch me back together, protect his investment.
The drinks are all free, paid for by the film company, so I have another. I feel like I’ve earned it. Anxiety changes my relationship with food and drink; it comes between me and food, forcing me closer to alcohol. I know I need to slow down, but sometimes the advice we give ourselves is the hardest to hear. The barman looks surprised to see me again so soon. I tell him this glass is for my friend, and he nods politely. My acting skills are clearly fooling nobody tonight.