The Wannabes

by F. R. Jameson

  Nick Turnkey was a sensitive singer/songwriter. When he first joined the group, everyone believed he was going to win Grammies and huge audiences for his pretentious tunefulness. Then they heard his songs. He talked a good career, made a convincing case for himself as some kind of missed musical genius, but lacked the intelligence, wit and talent to see that through. He was the first of their group to be picked out as a self-deluder – a passenger on this fast track to fame – and Clay guessed he was only kept around to boost the others with his failure. No matter how bad things got for them, at least they weren’t as horrifyingly desperate as they were for Nick Turnkey.

  Bunny was a struggling theatrical impresario, a tall and plump man who even in his most serious moments gave the impression of utter inconsequentiality. He believed his destiny was to make his name on the London stage, and constantly toured the provinces to spot the next big show to bring to the capital. Nothing ever worked out, but he was kept around on the off-chance that one day he might fluke something successful that they could all join in.

  Charles West was an actor in the worst possible sense – pretentious, smug and interested only in himself. There was a protean quality to him which meant he was always blandly interested in every conversation and never had an argument or dispute of substance with anyone. He always acquiesced and agreed and smiled as if that was enough to make him a real person. He was tolerated rather than kept around. Besides, even if you didn’t tell him where you were, he’d show up.

  “Who did Raymond speak to?”

  “Myself, but then I was like you – more of an observer than an active participant. Beyond that, I guess the only people he really spoke to were Jake and Flower – who by the way have now hooked their standards to each other and are a couple.”

  Jake Monroe was an American screenwriter who – unlike most of the group – was somewhat successful. He churned out episodes of British soaps and TV dramas and was the recipient of a good wage, but he suffered the frustration of his own personal self-developed projects being constantly refused and rejected. He was brash, loud and opinionated – but good company. He was kept around because out of them all, he definitely looked the kid most likely.

  Flower was a blonde, wide eyed, big breasted artiste. It didn’t seem to matter to her in which field she actually made it, as long as she was recognised somewhere. When he’d last seen her she was straddling that fine line between poetry and acting, and was determined to be taken seriously in both. She was highly pretentious, but shone that pretension onto the people she conversed with, so they regarded themselves as more serious and important too – and they liked that.

  It was Flower’s group. She’d arrived in London wanting to mingle and relate with like-minded people – similarly artistic and creative – and this was the salon that had formed around her. A place where ideas meant something, where notions were worth floating for all to see. True, there were a couple of uncreative hangers-on, but the rest were people who had the consolation of knowing that even if they weren’t noticed in life, real genius is nearly always recognised in death, and posterity allows it to shine on forever.

  “So when was the last time everyone was together?”

  “I don’t know. A year ago, a little over, maybe – about the time Raymond had that book accepted.”

  “Do you still have everyone’s numbers?”

  “Pretty much yeah, I think. I can get them, certainly.”

  “Let’s get everyone together tonight,” said Clay. “Let’s do it. I know there’s been tension, but one of us is dead now and, regardless of what people might have thought of him, he was a friend once and we should try to remember that. We should get together to remember Raymond. We should get everyone to toast him properly.”

  Toby’s brow crinkled like aged bark. “I’m not sure about this, my friend. There are gallons of bad blood here, a whole dammed reservoir in fact, and I’m not sure we’ll be doing anyone a service by removing that little Dutch boy.”

  “Come on,” said Clay. “Please. I haven’t seen anyone in such a long time and I’ve already lost one of you. Do it as a favour for me. I’ll bring out Belinda, Abigail and Judy – you bring out who you can.”

  “You’re not making this overly enticing, you know?”

  “Please, Toby. I’d just like to see everyone. We lost a friend today. We should make some effort. We’ll go back to the usual; it’ll be like old times.”

  Toby stared at him. “The usual is called The Murdered Bastard, remember? Perhaps it isn’t overly appropriate.”

  Clay shrugged. “Maybe it would make Raymond laugh.”

  Toby took a big sip of his pint. “All right,” he said. “I’ll be there. I can’t promise anybody else will, though.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’ve clearly come back record-breakingly stupid, and are making me stupid too.”

  Clay swallowed and held his empty glass up slowly and they clinked a tribute to Raymond and a tribute to nothing.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The dream was fading, falling away. Clay still trembled, but as he travelled back across London – as he got nearer Belinda and their flat – the more it seemed subsumed by his unconscious. He knew he’d dreamt about Raymond’s murder, but as the minutes passed and the sun continued to shine, he could no longer recall what really happened or picture any details. The fragments were dispersing; there was the odd faint flash but nothing more. He knew what he thought he’d dreamt and he knew what had happened in reality. But it was becoming harder to make one link to the other, he thought, as he called at the florists for roses and looked at the price of wreaths.

  He arrived with a big bouquet, but Belinda still opened the door without a smile.

  She wore a black dress – mournful perhaps, but a little short for grieving. She greeted him with a pout, and he guessed that in his absence she’d been working out the best way to play this scene: the shunned woman greeting her cad of a lover. It was the kind of thing she did – import a sense of high drama into her life, work out situations and bits of business to keep herself amused and make a point.

  She took a step back, her pout unmoved. He knew she was acting, but couldn’t be annoyed. Her hair lacked some of its bounce (as befitted an upset woman) and the only make-up she wore was pale pink lipstick, but she was still so beautiful. And that dress was incredible. The material curved around her and showed that even when abandoned and distressed, she still had the pill of sexiness.

  Her only problem was her stage – their hallway; the scene seemed incongruous when played in front of yellow walls.

  Their hallway was painted the shade of a bright sunny day, while the carpet had a lemony hue and all the ornaments had been bought in saffron. Originally it was meant to be the same metallic yellow as an Academy Award. The girls wanted a foreshadow of the glory they were bound to achieve, a reminder of what they were working towards. But it turned out that, away from those statuettes and the razzamatazz, the colour was gaudy – it seemed as if the room was constructed entirely from the shiniest kitchen foil. So the notion of a summer room was born, a sanctuary where even on the greyest November day there was a hint of high California sun. Of course, the colours would still match any eventual Oscar or Bafta. In fact a little yellow table was ready to display the trophies.

  But right then, the decor created a sense of misery as an intrusion. It was as if her unsmiling face, and the news he had to impart, were both taking place on the wrong set.

  He handed her the flowers and she thanked him with a nod and pushed her cheek towards him. Dutifully, he kissed it and she pulled away again.

  “Well, did you see Raymond?”

  “No,” he said. “He’s dead.”

  She clung tighter to the flowers. “What?” Her mouth hung open. “When? How?”

  “Last night. He was murdered.”

  “Murdered?” She staggered back, supporting herself against the yellow walls, but she continued to cling on to the red roses.

  “Y
eah, I got there and the police were outside. Someone murdered him and then set fire to his house.”

  “My God!” Her hand shot to her mouth, stopping just close enough for her to have space to articulate. “Did you speak to the police?”

  “No, I didn’t, but I saw Toby Coops in the pub at the end of the street and he’d spoken to them.”

  She gasped and jerked forward, pressing into him – the flowers held safely behind his back, her face pressed to his chest, her tears racing down his shirt.

  “I can’t believe it!” she murmured. “I just cannot believe it. I know we weren’t speaking, but I never thought it was permanent, I didn’t think it was forever. I always thought we’d have a chance to make up. Oh my God! How could this happen? Who would do such a thing? It’s horrible, just so horrible.”

  He held her and she held him, she almost dug her fingernails into his clothes. After his morning it was even more intoxicating to have her near again, and he wished he could freeze-frame the moment.

  She pulled back, jarring him from his reverie.

  “Come on!” she said firmly. “We have to tell the others.”

  The others were in the blue room – their lounge. The walls and the ceiling were painted the colour of a beautiful, cloud-free sky. Then there was the cyan mantelpiece, navy drinks cabinet, azure picture-frames, and an aquamarine TV, video and DVD player. The only disappointment was the window. It opened onto a tiny concrete courtyard – so even if there was a cerulean horizon outside, they’d have to crane their lovely necks out of the window to get a glimpse of it. There was no chance of it shining through and making a fourth wall.

  There were two dark blue sofas and Judy was on one and Abigail the other. He blinked as he entered – moving from the yellow hallway to the blue lounge without flinching always took some practise.

  Judy was lying back, reading a showbiz magazine. She was wearing one of her many white dresses and her legs were crossed in the air, so the hem came to rest barely an inch below her knickers.

  Abigail was in a posh pair of jeans and an immaculate white blouse. Her brunette hair fell in conditioned splendour over her right shoulder. She too was reading a showbiz magazine, but whereas Judy did it in the way of a teenager chewing gum, Abigail looked like a member of the aristocracy taking a sneering glance at this ‘show-business’ she’d heard about.

  Belinda had a dramatic announcement to make – one of those moments people remember – and Clay knew that she was going to play it to the rafters. She’d only travelled from the hallway, but gave herself a little breathlessness.

  “Guys! Guys! Guys!” she said, making sure both handed her their full attention. “I have terrible news for you.” There was the inevitable pause as she eyed first Abigail then Judy. “Raymond Jones is dead!”

  “What?” Judy gasped, her open hand rising immediately to her face.

  There was a flicker from Abigail, but not enough to break her cool demeanour.

  “Yes, Clay just came from there. Apparently he was murdered last night.”

  “Oh my God!” said Judy. She sat up, tears flowing from alarmed eyes.

  “How do you know this?” asked Abigail.

  “The police were outside his home,” said Clay.

  Her voice still cool and calm, Abigail asked, “Did you speak to them?”

  “No, but Toby Coops did. Raymond was beaten to death.”

  Now he was back in their flat, now he had seen Belinda, the dream seemed gone. The detail had floated away into the wilderness of lost dreams.

  Judy made a dive from her sofa into Abigail’s arms. She rested her head on Abigail’s chest and grabbed tight around her waist. Abigail put one arm over her shoulder and moved her free hand soothingly through Judy’s hair.

  Abigail Désiray was both gorgeous and cruel – the two seemed interlinked, and it was hard not to believe that if she looked less good she’d have been a nicer person. She had the figure of a model – tall, with long limbs that seemed to challenge any tape-measure. She was thin and didn’t carry much of a bust, but knew what to wear and how to hold herself to guarantee she was the star of any room she entered. She had a pout – not like Belinda’s, which carried a smack of flirtation, but a pout that was unreachable. It said she was better than anyone else (better than any man), that she didn’t want to be approached by anyone (any man), that she didn’t need anyone (didn’t need any man.) Some men were scared of her and she liked that; most men found her irresistible and she liked that too.

  She had cold brown eyes – Toby Coops once described them as like a shark which had difficulty emoting – and the combination of that pout and those eyes could be chilling. But there was always a certain type of man who’d sit down next to her, buy her a drink (which she’d always accept without even a nod of thank you), and try to tell her how wonderful she was. Some she’d discard straight away, some she’d play with casually, some she’d keep on – but the fact they’d come to her even though she wore that pout meant the ground rules were laid down. It meant she could abuse them and make them debase themselves in whichever way she liked and they would have to take it, as she’d made it clear from first glance that she hadn’t wanted them.

  Through all his trying times with Belinda, Clay was always thankful he wasn’t one of Abigail’s lovers. His relationship with Belinda was carved, polished and laminated in the romance factory of Cloud Nine compared to all that Abigail made her men go through.

  Judy Mayhew was a different breed from Abigail. Blonde rather than brunette, happy blue eyes rather than distant brown, a giggle of smiles rather than trained cool detachment. She was constantly happy; it was the role she’d created for herself.

  Clay was convinced that actresses who can’t find work sometimes put on a performance in their real life. They decide the character they want to be and then play it. They keep this role until it becomes indistinguishable from whatever their real personality once was. So Belinda had taken the part of a blowsy charmer, Abigail had become a cool uber-bitch, but it was Judy who had the hardest challenge – she was Miss Sunshine herself.

  She was forever the younger sister, the enthusiastic teenager, the girl who’d scream at spiders and pat cute little bunny rabbits on the head.

  It was a difficult part to keep playing. When he’d first known her she was in her early twenties and there was a genuine optimism in her eyes, a fullness to her smile that showed she believed every dream was possible. Now she was in her thirties, and even though she maintained incredibly youthful skin, there was a hardness that had entered her gaze. Along with the cheers and the girlish giggles – and the holding her fingers to her lips if she did something wrong – there was now a hint of disappointment. No matter how good an actress she was (and he suspected – traitorously – that she was actually the best of the three) there was no way she could hide forever the failure she felt.

  She over-compensated for her age by becoming even more girlish – enthusiastic for anything, putting her hair in pigtails, sometimes arriving for a night out in school uniform with only a cheery word of bland explanation. Some found it irritating, even though she carried it off with such vim – especially as she carried it off with such vim, he thought. But even though she could annoy with her constant excitement and clearly practised childish mannerisms, she always retained a posse of followers because of her very adult attractiveness.

  Judy was the Page 3 ideal of big tits, flat stomach and no behind. A look, which – combined with her girlish attitude – drew pub-loads of slavering men towards her. She’d generally wear a tantalisingly short mini-dress – so that a glimpse of knickers was only a swish of material away – and she’d smile and simper and talk in a very young voice. The men who approached her saw this dramatically young creature, this unspoiled lovely, and they all reacted with dark thoughts of how to corrupt her. And even though they tried to smile wide and be charming and smooth, there was always a dark leer they couldn’t quite hide.

  She’d chat to any man, flirt with them
all. The hardness of saying No was not part of her character: she relied on Abigail and Belinda to do that for her. The three of them seemed to have a psychic link, so when Judy got bored with a man, was annoyed by him, was creeped out – one of her friends would step in to announce his time was over and he had to go back to the ranks of the losers. Judy would still smile even then, only offering a shrug of her shoulders by way of explanation or apology. Then she’d cuddle up close to Belinda or Abigail – whichever one of her big sisters had rescued her – and that poor bloke would be left with the impression that he was missing something spectacular.

  Now, following the dramatic announcement, Belinda stood with her hand on her hip and her chest out, catching her breath; Judy was curled in a ball with tears on her face; while Abigail ran her fingers through her young friend’s hair in a cool, detached manner. All was right and correct.

  “And how was Toby Coops?” asked Abigail.

  “He was shocked, but okay I think,” said Clay. “I’m meeting him for a drink later. We’re hoping to get everyone out again.”

  “What?” Belinda’s face jumped from its position of marvellous mournfulness.

  “We thought it was the right thing to do,” he said. “I know there’ve been problems, but one of us is dead now and we should try to honour his memory.”

  “He was hardly our favourite person,” said Abigail. “He was not a man who endeared himself to us, not a man who helped his ‘friends’.”

  “You weren’t here, honey,” added Belinda. “You don’t know what he did. It wasn’t very nice. I’m upset he’s dead, but I think it’ll be a little hypocritical for us to go out and mourn him – especially with people who were equally as unpleasant.”