by Wendy Holden
Had something happened to her mother? Her father? Panic seized Darcy's throat as she answered.
"We haven't spoken," came the booming voice of Mitch Masterson. "But I'm the agent representing you in Hollywood, and I'm calling with some very good news."
Darcy felt an uncharacteristic wave of annoyance. It was late, and she was tired. If this was someone's idea of a joke, it was not very funny. She had not even realised she was represented in Hollywood. Her London agents, a pair of exuberant, eccentric, and much-powdered old ladies who had been her parents' and, towards the end of Anna's career, her grandmother's agents before that, seemed to have enough problems representing her in London.
Darcy had stuck with them out of a sense of loyalty and history, but she had been sent to the wrong auditions too many times recently—the latest to be a singing grape in a wine commercial when she had expected to be testing for Miranda in The Tempest. The infuriating thing was that the woman who had been intended for the grape had landed the Miranda part and was now playing to great acclaim in Stratford.
"What good news?" Darcy said suspiciously, her voice low so as not to wake Niall.
At the L.A. end of the phone, Mitch Masterson, the receiver under his chin, rubbed his hands gleefully and prepared to tell her.
Chapter Ten
Mitch had expected almost any type of reaction from this unknown British actress. Screams of disbelieving joy. Sobs of passionate delight. Even a thud and a crash as she collapsed in an ecstatic dead faint to the floor. But never, not even in a million years, had he expected an outright refusal.
"What do you mean you're not sure you're interested?" he exploded, after listening to her speak in her rather high, prim, very English voice. "It's one of the leading parts, for Chrissakes."
The woman was obviously insane—like most Brits, Mitch thought grimly—and clearly had no idea what she was saying. He was determined not to let her mess this chance up. Hers wasn't the only career on the line, after all. What sort of an agent would it make him look? What would Arlington Shorthouse think? Nor did he want to miss out on what that smug slimeball Greg Cucarachi would think when he realized he'd given Mitch a diamond amid all the dust. A side issue, admittedly, but potentially an extremely satisfying one.
"Do you realize what Galaxia is?" Mitch asked Darcy, in the tones he might have used if he was talking down a dangerous lunatic bent on leaping off a high roof to her death. Which, in a manner of speaking, he was. If Darcy turned this down, she would be through in Hollywood. And so would he. He was, Mitch recognised, fighting for his professional life here.
"It's gonna be the new Star Wars," Mitch said tremendously. Surely if anything was going to make this dame focus, that would.
As he waited for what she would say next, every hair inside
Mitch's large, hot ears strained erect. "I've never seen any of those, I'm afraid," Darcy added, evidently unmoved.
Mitch's eyes were bulging and seemed to be fizzing in his head. Never seen Star Wars? Was that possible? This chick was unreal.
He decided to cut to the chase. Subtlety had got him nowhere, after all. "Don't you want to be famous?" As he heard the question disappear down the line to London, part of him wondered if it had ever been asked in Hollywood before.
Darcy had a stubborn streak, and being rung at one o'clock in the morning—by someone she had never met, telling her to fly halfway across the world and test for some kids' space film in which she had absolutely no interest—brought it out.
"I'm a proper actress," she stated primly. "I do proper things. Theatre. Shakespeare."
Mitch took a deep breath and thought as best he could, given that his mind was a hot churn of frustration and disbelief. It was like moving a paddle through very thick, hot mud. But finally, in his darkest and most desperate moment, inspiration struck.
"Hey, don't write it off, baby," he urged Darcy. "Some of the greatest actors make these films. Star Wars, for example. Sir Alec Guinness, you know, he was in it, and he was one of he most famous Shakespeare actors ever, right? English too," Mitch added, striking home what he felt was his advantage.
He was right to feel this. Mention of the name of the great Shakespearean made Darcy pause. Part of what had driven her initial refusal was the knowledge that Niall, even more of a purist than she was, would be in equal parts amused and appalled by the Galaxia prospect. She had not even wanted to speculate about what her parents would think; for them, she knew, Hollywood symbolized all that was worst and crassest about the American capitalist machine. But the fact that Guinness had appeared in Star Wars films was something for both parties to consider.
Mitch sensed the tide had turned. Deftly, he increased the pressure. "Look, baby. You make this film, and you make enough money to do whatever you like afterwards. It'll make you free. You can do all the Shakespeare there is. Hell, you could get someone to write some more for you if you want."
Another good argument, Darcy recognised. And she was too honest with herself not to admit that, despite herself, she was curious about Hollywood. Who in the acting profession wasn't?
"If you've ever been interested in seeing Hollywood—just for interest, y'know—this is the best possible way," Mitch now breathed into her ear.
To his own amazement, he seemed to have developed a psychic understanding of what was required. He was obviously at his best in the afternoon. Late afternoon too, Mitch saw, looking at his watch and seeing it was 5 p.m. No wonder he'd never gone anywhere, given the Hollywood obsession with meetings at the crack of dawn.
"You'll breeze in as Tinseltown royalty, make a fortune, see everything and meet everyone, and just breeze out again. None of that coming in by Greyhound bus and working in a burger joint for years while trying to land a part in a bitcom," Mitch added, with what could have been a guilty glance in the direction of his filing cabinets.
"A bitcom?"
"A small sitcom. Kind of unsuccessful. As opposed to a hitcom," Mitch supplied helpfully.
She said nothing after this. He sensed that she was thinking. It wasn't a sense he often had. Most actresses he knew didn't think; they just shouted. Like Belle, who he had to ring next. The dreadful thought made him all the more determined to close down Darcy's objections and make this offer a done deal. Something good had to come out of his day.
"Darcy," he said, summoning his most serious, persuasive tones. "The Galaxia series is gonna be the biggest thing since Star Wars. It'll send your career into the stratosphere. Quite literally," Mitch added, snorting at his own joke.
"But I want to be known for quality," Darcy objected, but less stridently than before.
"And you can be," Mitch reasoned. "You'll be in such a good position after this film that you'll be able to choose whatever part you want. In any bloody theatre you like."
Darcy darted an apprehensive look at the still-sleeping Niall. But a certain excitement was stealing over her as well. Mitch was offering a first-class flight to L.A. When was that ever likely to happen again? Her grandmother had been a film actress after all.
"OK," Darcy muttered. "I'll come and meet the director."
"You've made the right decision, baby," Mitch said as calmly as was possible while simultaneously pumping the air with exultation.
For five minutes after the phone call, he ran round his office, whooping in delight. The walls shook, and Greg Cucarachi, the agent in the next-door cubicle, who Mitch had not realised was in the building, suddenly poked his narrow, foxy face through the door.
"Good news?" Greg asked, his tone pleasant and interested but his eyes straining with competitive fear.
"Great," said Mitch smugly, slowing to a halt and breathing heavily after all the exertion. He passed a plump hand over his sweating brow.
A glint entered Greg's preternaturally shiny eyes. "I see from the gossip sites that Belle Murphy's had another great time on the town."
Mitch held his gaze steady, but his hands shook and he felt his heart sink like lead into the soft mush of jelly
doughnut in his stomach.
"Yeah," Greg Cucarachi said. "Major bender, by the looks of it. At lunchtime too. Lots of nice, clear pictures." Satisfied that his dart had found its target, he grinned wolfishly and withdrew.
Slowly, Mitch sat down.
The telephone rang. He picked it up to find Arlington Shorthouse on the other line, and his foreboding became immediately colder. "Darcy will be here next week," Mitch blustered, in order to get the good news in first.
"Sure she will," Arlington snapped. "I'm not calling about her. I need a meeting with you and Belle," the studio head said, his chill voice a few degrees more frozen. "She's becoming a problem," he added ominously. "A big problem. We need a meeting. Next Monday at 7 a.m., okay?" Arlington rang off before Mitch could answer.
Mitch's heart plummeted. Another early-morning meeting. That it was now all over for Belle seemed inevitable. But she had no one but herself to blame. Apart from him, of course.
Chapter Eleven
As soon as he opened the front door, Richard sensed anticipation in the air.
"Ta da!" Georgie suddenly appeared in the hall in a white kaftan. "Like it?" she trilled. "It's one of my new ones!" Her rather anxious eyes sought his. "From the Countess of Minto's organic après-yoga collection." She was twirling so hard that she caught her heel in its hem, lost balance, and staggered, heels clattering, into the kitchen.
Richard followed her in and sniffed appreciatively. "What's for dinner, darling?"
Georgie turned on him, her eyes accusing. "You haven't forgotten that the Faughs are coming?"
Immediately, Richard tried to look as if, indeed, he hadn't; few things annoyed Georgie more than her social arrangements slipping his mind. Although in this case, it was less that something had slipped and more that Richard had been in denial that the dinner was happening from the moment it had first been discussed.
"You have forgotten!" Georgie wailed despairingly.
"I, um, well, no, absolutely, um…" Richard stammered helplessly. He was nothing if not truthful, which had never exactly been a boon to his career either.
The twins looked even worse than Orlando remembered. The new jeans with a stiffly ironed crease in the front and the pressed City shirts with cufflinks were all present and correct as they exited the family Range Rover—parked illegally in a disabled spot, Orlando noticed—and tripped confidently after their parents up the front steps into the hall of the house. Orlando, in his usual unlaced trainers and baggy, unbelted jeans, looked in disbelief at the Faugh footwear. Ivo and Jago wore identical shiny, black, clumpy-soled loafers exposing a lot of chunky white foot.
"Good evening, Mrs. Fitzmaurice," the twins chirped smoothly, clicking their solid heels together and making a great display of kissing Georgie on both of her wan cheeks, which rose with delighted colour.
"So lovely to see you," swooned Georgie. "You look marvellous, as always."
"Not as marvellous as you, Mrs. Fitzmaurice!" she was immediately assured.
Orlando, while wanting to retch at the sycophancy, was nonetheless transfixed by the twins' hair. It was flat, black, short, and with side-partings so straight they could have been done with a surveyor's theodolite. Shoved on top of each large head was a pair of Raybans, which Orlando felt would have been better employed worn on the twins' faces to cover up their goggling black eyes. Admittedly, not much could be done about their unattractive, big, and shiny red lips and huge, horsey teeth.
He watched as the twins' father now moved in on his mother. "Marvellous kaftan, Mrs. Fitzmaurice. You're just so fashion forward…" one of the twins was saying.
How could anyone be so cheesy, Orlando wondered, seeing Hugh reverently take Georgie's tiny, fragile hand and raise it to his plump, red lips, his eyes gazing fervently into hers all the while.
"Georgie! As beautiful and gracious as ever!" Hugh declared in his thick, rather sticky voice. As his mother quivered and squealed with flattered delight, Orlando wondered how she could possibly fall for it. Yet fall for it she obviously had. Along with the majority of Hugh's constituents, presumably. It was, Orlando thought, incredible.
"How's it going? A level results due soon, are they?" Orlando tore himself from contemplation of the father to find both pairs of the sons' goggling black eyes turned to him.
Beneath the curtain of his hair, Orlando's eyes narrowed with hate. Looking straight at Ivo, he saw that the goggling orbs were slitted in a similar fashion. Orlando felt a ripple of surprise. He had not realised until that moment that the Faugh brothers loathed him just as much as he loathed them.
Richard, as he busied himself taking Laura Faugh's pashmina, was battling with many of the same feelings. Passing down the hall in the direction of the cloakroom, his arms full of scented turquoise cashmere, Richard caught sight of the clock in the kitchen and estimated at least four hours would have to pass before he could retrieve the wrap and wave its wearer good-bye.
He had never liked Laura Faugh much, although, with his customary courteousness, he had done his best to disguise this. As opposed to her booming husband, Laura had always seemed rather repressed, although not a mousy sort of repressed. On the contrary, she gave Richard the impression of being inordinately pleased with herself.
She was tall, pale, and glacial, with a long neck, shoulder-length dark hair with a reddish sheen, and very straight shoulders. She had rather hooded eyes and lips—coloured in a dry-looking red lipstick— that seemed always to twist slightly with amusement or disdain.
How he preferred Georgie's warmth, immediacy, and excitability, even if she had her brittle and fragile moments and, at times, could seem rather unhinged. Unhinged, Richard knew, was how some of his colleagues saw her, and possibly this had been another brake on his progress. Laura, with her icy poise, had more of a power- wife air. On the other hand, she had also managed to produce the two Faugh boys, which Richard felt he would not wish on anyone, even Hugh.
Many of his young constituents in the housing estates were the sort that only a mother could love, and the fact that no mother ever had only deepened the problem. That such boys and girls were hard to like was no surprise, and Richard, knowing something of their history, treated them with the sympathy all but the hardest cases deserved. But Ivo and Jago's history was one of unremitting privilege, exposed as they had been and were being to the finest teaching and most beautiful environments. None of it seemed to have rubbed off on them however.
From outside, a tinkle of laughter (Georgie) followed by a cannon- like boom of mirth (Hugh) dragged Richard reluctantly back into the here and now. Georgie had ushered the guests out in the garden to enjoy the warm weather. She had spent some considerable time earlier arranging glasses, nuts, wine-chiller, and corkscrew at just the right angle on the white, cast-iron garden table, the sort, along with the rest of the furniture, that either scraped the patio or put his back out whenever Richard tried to move it.
Richard, having spun out for as long as possible hanging Laura's wrap in the cloakroom, now had no further excuse not to join them. He descended the steps slowly, sensing this would be his last chance to relax or enjoy anything.
It was a beautiful summer evening; the warm air was heavy with scent from Georgie's beloved wisteria, snaking along the wall dividing their garden from the neighbours in a discreet mass of lilac flowers and pale-green leaves. The unmown lawn—too late, Richard remembered this was supposed to have been his job—actually looked lush and lyrical in the lowering sunlight, whose yellow glow intensified the youthful green leaves of the old apple tree that stood towards the back of the garden and cast such a useful shadow in the summer over anyone lounging there with the Sunday papers.
As he crossed the lawn, Richard noted with dislike Faugh's big, tall form, clad, as indeed Richard himself was, in the standard upper-middle-class summer uniform of pale-blue shirt and lightfawn trousers, albeit a more expensive version than his own. This big Faugh form, one hand thrust into a pocket, but not so deeply so as to obscure an obviously expensive wa
tch, was rocking back and forth in appreciation of one of its own jokes or observations.
"Ha, ha!" boomed Hugh, nodding his big head with its thick black hair. Next to him, Georgie in her white kaftan was evidently engaged in fanning his wonders to a blaze with which even he was satisfied.
Surging up within Richard came an urge he had not experienced for the last half century at least. The almost overwhelming desire to spit. Firmly suppressing the compulsion, he walked up to the group with a smile.
"Family Values!" Hugh was orating. "In the end of ends, it's what it all comes down to: Family Values!"
Richard joined in. "I couldn't agree more. The thing is, what does it mean?" He turned to Hugh. "How would your interpretation of family values be a solution to, say, the increasing problem of bad pupil behaviour in schools, particularly those in poor areas?"