by Alice Feeney
“So, how are you?” he says, closing the door behind me as I take a seat.
I’m fucking fucked and you know it.
“I’m great, how are you?”
I bet he says busy.
“I’m busy, real busy. The film is finished, right? I didn’t want to have this conversation until it was all wrapped up.”
Fuck. I knew it. I’m toast. Bastard, why couldn’t he have just told me by email? I can get another agent, maybe, but it won’t be the same. I’m sure I only got the parts I did because he represents me. I trust Tony, or at least, I did. I don’t trust anyone else. I’m fucking fucked.
“Aimee?” He interrupts my internal monologue. “Are you all right?”
No.
“Yes, sorry, just … tired.”
“I’ll get straight to the point then. Do you know why I asked to see you today?”
Because you are going to dump me and I hate you for it.
I shake my head. My fear dictates what I will say now. And what I won’t. I find myself staring down at my feet, unable to watch or listen while this person I trusted sharpens the knife. The nausea rises to grab my attention once more, and I think I might be sick right here in his office. My knees start to do that thing where they tremble when I’m scared. It’s such a cliché. I use my hands to try to keep them still, while wondering if there is anything at all I could say that would change Tony’s mind. He speaks before I get the chance.
“Well, it’s two things really…”
I always listen to what he says, but most of my efforts are currently focused on trying not to cry or throw up.
Please don’t do this.
“I received an email from your husband.”
Time stops.
“What?”
“He wanted to let me know that you weren’t coping with the pressure you’ve been under. I’m aware that you’ve basically made two films this year, which is a lot, even for an experienced actor. I want you to know that you can tell me if it’s ever all too much. It is okay to say no to things from time to time. There are things, and people, I can protect you from.”
“I don’t know why he got in touch with you, I’m fine. Honestly.”
He stares at me for a long time. “Is everything all right at home?”
“Yes.” I’ve never lied to Tony before, it feels all wrong. “Actually, no, but it will be, soon. I hope.”
He nods, looks down at a script on his desk. “Good, because the other reason I wanted to see you is that a director has been in touch about another movie. They wanted you to fly out to L.A. for an audition last week, but I said no on your behalf, seeing as I knew your filming schedule wouldn’t allow it. So, the director and his team are coming to London next week, specifically to meet you. I think the part is pretty much yours already … if you want it. The job won’t start for at least a month, so you’ll get a little time off…”
“Who is the director? Is it someone I’ve heard of?”
“Oh, yes.” He smiles.
“Who?”
“Fincher.”
I wait a moment, wanting to be sure I’ve heard him correctly. I conclude I haven’t.
“Fincher?”
“Yes.”
It must be a mistake or a really mean trick of some kind.
“Are you sure it’s me he wants to meet? Maybe they meant Alicia?”
I stare at him, looking for something in his face that isn’t there. “I don’t represent Alicia White anymore. There’s no mistake. What is it going to take for you to start believing in yourself?”
I travel back through time and space. I’m at school, in my drama teacher’s office, just after he gave me the part of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, even though I was too scared to audition. My agent reminds me of that teacher a little bit. I don’t understand why either of these people took a chance on me, but I’m so grateful that they did. My life might not have turned out exactly how I wanted, but sometimes I feel so lucky I swear it hurts. And this is one of those times.
“Thank you,” I say eventually, finding my way back to the present.
Tony is pulling that face he pulls when he has another meeting fast approaching and needs me to go away, but doesn’t know how to say it. I stand to leave, relieved that he hasn’t read any of the online nonsense written about me today.
“Aimee.” I turn back. I can see from his face that I’ve got that wrong, too, of course he’s read it, he reads bloody everything. But I’m surprised to see that he’s wearing his kind face, not the disappointed-father one I expected. “If you only remember one thing that I tell you while I’m your agent, then I hope it’s this. You should always fight, especially when you think you are going to lose. That’s when you should fight the hardest.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, and leave before he can see me cry.
Thirty-three
Essex, 1988
Today is my birthday.
Not my real one in September, Maggie said I had to forget about that. Today is my new birthday, the one in April, and she says that I am seven years old. Even though I am only really six.
I don’t mind that I have a different name and birthday now, I’m starting to like it here. Maggie buys me little presents all the time, and even John got me something today. Maggie got all upset when he gave it to me, and he looked at the floor and played with his new beard, the way he always does when she gets cross. Then he said something that I can’t get out of my head, as if his words got stuck between my ears or something. “A child needs company.” I understood what he meant, but I think he’s wrong about that. I like being on my own.
I was still happy that he bought me a hamster though. I’ve named him Cheeks.
Cheeks doesn’t do much. He lives in a cage and sleeps a lot. Sometimes he likes to go for a run on his wheel. He runs and runs and runs, but he never gets anywhere. I wonder if he minds. Maggie does not like the hamster; she refuses to call him Cheeks and calls him Vermin instead, which does not sound like a nice name to me.
Maggie got me something called a Walkman, so that I can listen to my Story Teller tapes and elocution lessons without her and John having to listen too. I’m getting pretty good at sounding English so that I can go to school in September, and my Walkman is very cool. I’ve worn the headphones all day long, even when I wasn’t listening.
John got Maggie a present today, too, even though it is my pretend birthday, not hers. It was wrapped in the same She-Ra paper as my presents, and I felt a little bit funny about not being allowed to open it. She-Ra is a princess of power and my new favorite thing. She lives in a castle, flies around on a horse, and stops bad people from doing bad things. I would like to be like She-Ra when I grow up.
John said that Maggie deserved a present, too, because today is a special day for her as well. He said it is the day she brought a life into the world. He looked at me when he said that, but it wasn’t me he was talking about. I might only be six or seven, but I’m not stupid. Maggie didn’t look at me when he said it, she looked at the picture of the little girl inside a frame on the mantelpiece. She cried a little bit, but pretended it was her hay fever that made her do it, then she wiped the lie away with a tissue. I suppose it was just a white one.
When Maggie unwrapped her present, I didn’t know what it was. It’s called a Deep Fat Fryer. I don’t know why I think that’s a funny name, but every time John calls it that, I giggle. Maggie asked if he got it off the back of a lorry, and that seems like a strange place to buy presents to me. John ignored her and said that the Deep Fat Fryer would change our lives. I didn’t believe him at first, but he was right. We always ate everything on toast before, but now we eat everything with chips instead. It’s wonderful! Maggie has only had the Deep Fat Fryer for one day, but already we’ve had eggs and chips for lunch and burgers and chips for dinner!
It works like magic. Maggie peels potatoes, chops them into chip shapes, then throws them into the machine. When it beeps, it means that the potatoes have magically turn
ed into chips! I’m not allowed to touch the Deep Fat Fryer. It has oil inside that gets very hot, so hot that Maggie burned her finger badly the first time she used it. John offered to kiss it better, but she pushed him away. It made me think that maybe sometimes kissing something better is really kissing something worse.
We’re having a special dessert tonight for my birthday, and Maggie says it is a surprise. I hope it is one of her nice ones. She makes me sit in the front room on the sofa beside the electric fire. The lights go out, but it’s because John has turned them off, not because the meter needs feeding. Maggie comes into the room carrying a cake with candles on it, then puts it down on the coffee table where we only drink tea. I’ve never had a birthday cake before. She tells me to make a wish and blow out all the candles, so I do, and John takes a picture of me on his Polaroid camera. There were seven candles, but I know I’m only six, so I don’t know whether my wish will still come true.
After we have all eaten two slices of chocolate cake, John stands up and walks over to the mantelpiece. He takes the picture of the other little girl; she is blowing out candles on a birthday cake too, but I only count six. He opens the frame and starts to put her photo in his pocket, but Maggie says no, so he puts it back and slides the new photo of me over the top. It’s strange seeing a photo of myself in the frame. The other little girl is tucked just behind me, I can’t see her anymore, but I know that she’s still there.
Thirty-four
London, 2017
I sit on the Central Line, trying but failing to read the book I bought earlier. It’s an old story, but it’s putting new thoughts in my head that I don’t currently have room for. Books can be mirrors, too, offering a reflection of our worst selves for appraisal; lessons tucked between pages, just waiting to be learned. I put the book back in my bag and drink in the faces of my fellow travelers instead, wondering who the people wearing them really are.
Ben and I used to play a game on the tube. We would pick a couple of people talking in the distance, and we’d take it in turns to speak when they spoke, making up silly voices and amusing dialogues that didn’t fit the faces we saw, finding ourselves hilarious. We were fun back then. It was good. The memory makes me smile, but then I realize I am grinning at strangers and a past I can never get back. It’s rude of me to stare like this, but nobody says anything, people don’t even see me doing it. They’re all far too busy staring at their phones, partaking in the daily withdrawal from wonder and the world around them. We’ve all got so busy staring down at our screens that we’ve forgotten to look up at the stars.
I think it can be dangerous to spend too long watching the lives of others; you might run out of time to live your own. Technology is devolving the human race. Eating up our emotional intelligence, spitting out any remnants of privacy it can’t quite swallow. The world will keep on spinning and the stars will always shine, regardless of whether anyone is looking.
Sometimes I think that every person might be his or her own star, shining at the center of his or her own solar system. I observe the changing expressions of my fellow commuters and am certain I witness an occasional flare on their surfaces, as they contemplate their past or worry about their future. Each walking, talking, thinking, feeling human star has its own planets revolving around it: parents, children, friends, lovers. Sometimes stars get too big, too hot, too dangerous, and the planets closest to them burn to oblivion. As I sit and stare at the galaxy of faces, trying to get from one place to another, I understand that it doesn’t matter who we are or what we do; we’re all the same. We are all just stars trying to shine in the darkness.
I get off the tube at Notting Hill and walk towards home, my neck seeming to hold my head a little higher than it has recently. I experience a trampoline of emotions with every step, bouncing from high to low then back again, before the mixed bag of feelings seems to collapse in an exhausted state inside my tired mind. I have an audition with one of my all-time-favorite directors, my agent is not dumping me, and despite all the problems in my personal life, there is a lot to be grateful for. This misunderstanding with Ben will get all cleared up. He’s trying to hurt me, but he can’t vanish forever, and I can’t be accused of a crime that never happened.
I turn the corner onto my street, feeling as if everything might just be okay after all.
The feeling doesn’t last long.
The two police vans that were sitting outside the house this morning are still there, but now they are empty. My front door is wide open. There is a steady stream of police officers going in and out of the building, and blue-and-white police tape forms a cordon between it and the rest of the street. I guess Detective Croft got her warrant.
This has to be a bad dream. Surely by now she must have realized that I’m telling the truth. I don’t know where my husband is, why he said the things he did, or why he is doing this to me. I expect he just wanted to teach me a lesson, but enough is enough. I certainly didn’t do away with him the way she keeps seeming to suggest. I might have been diagnosed with trauma-induced amnesia as a child, but the doctors were wrong, and either way, I think I’d remember if I’d done anything as dramatic as that.
I start walking towards the police tape. They’ll have to let me in, it’s my house, and besides, I need to get ready for the wrap party tonight, I can’t go dressed like this. The wind in my newly hoisted sails dies an instant death when I see two men dressed in white forensic overalls. They are carrying what looks like a stretcher out of my front door. Something, or someone, is on it, hidden beneath a white sheet.
At first I can’t believe what my eyes are seeing.
The image seems to burn itself onto my mind, leaving a permanent mark, and snuffing out my last remains of hope.
They can’t have found a body, because that would mean that someone was dead. And if someone really was dead, then that would mean that someone else had killed them. I spot the shape of Detective Croft coming out of the house; she’s pointing at something I can’t see. If she really has found something, she’ll never believe me about the stalker now; she didn’t believe me in the first place. I can’t make out the expression on her face from this far away, but I imagine that she is smiling. I turn and I run.
Thirty-five
Essex, 1988
I sweep and mop the shop floor every night now. I listen to my Walkman while I do it and practice saying things like, Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers or Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, or things about the rain in a place called Spain. Each evening, when I’ve finished sweeping, I refill the little plastic holders with new betting slips and blue mini-pens, ready for the next day. The betting slips are two pieces of paper stuck together, but when you write something on the top white page, it appears on the bottom yellow one, like magic. When people place bets, they give the whole thing to Maggie or John, then they get the yellow bit back along with their change. If they win, they take the yellow bit to the counter and collect their money. If they lose, they tend to screw the yellow bit up and throw it on the floor, along with their cigarette butts and other rubbish. Then, when the shop closes, I sweep them all up. This is what we do every day, except Sundays.
When Maggie yells that the shop is closed for the night, I take the broom and drag it behind the counter. She and John are still putting elastic bands around today’s bundles of notes, and filling tiny plastic bags with coins, before throwing them all in the safe, which is almost as big as me, and very heavy. I tried to lift it once and it didn’t budge, not even a little bit.
“Why aren’t you married?” I ask, watching them count the money. I’ve just read about a princess marrying a prince in my Story Teller magazine. I know Maggie and John aren’t married because they don’t wear rings, and the envelopes that come through the letter box at the bottom of the stairs have different names on them.
Maggie looks up from a pile of twenty-pound notes. “Because marriage is a lie, Baby Girl, and we don’t lie to each other in this family. I’ve told you that enough times for you t
o know it now.” I don’t understand what she means, but I don’t ask again because Maggie is wearing her happy face tonight and I don’t want that to change. John points at something I can’t see over the counter. When I reach the shop floor, I see two great big fruit machines, side by side.
“What are—”
“English,” says Maggie. I’m not allowed to speak like her at all anymore. I still have to think before making myself sound like someone else.
“What are they?” I ask with the right-sounding words.
John smiles, his gold tooth sparkling. “Bait.”
“Shut up, John. They’re for you.”
“But what are they?”
“Well, one of them is just a plain old fruit machine, and the other one is … Do you know, I can’t remember, can you, Maggie?” says John.
“I think it might be … Pac-Man!” she says.
Pac-Man is my new favorite thing. I play it every Sunday at the pub while they talk to the man who looks like Maggie and calls himself my uncle. They look the same and sound the same and say the same things. It’s as if they are the same person sometimes, but he is a boy and she is a girl.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I run back behind the counter to hug Maggie’s legs.
She says that I’m only allowed to play on the machines after I have swept and mopped, so I do it extra quick. Then John gives me a bag of change from the safe and lifts me up onto a stool.
“Now then, I know all you really want to do is play Pac-Man, and I don’t blame you, the little yellow chap is rather addictive. But first you have to play this machine, and you need to play until you win. All you do is put the coin in the slot and press the button. When you get three lemons, lots of money comes out the bottom of the machine. After that you don’t touch it again, at all, until tomorrow. Understand?” I nod. “Good girl. When you get the money out of the fruit machine, you can use it to play Pac-Man. I can empty that one anytime.”