Material Girl

by Louise Kean

  She shoves the rings back onto her fingers, grabs the gold arms of the chair with both hands and pushes herself to her feet.

  ‘It wasn’t to drink, Lulu. It was to clean my rings. But anyway. Be here on time tomorrow,’ she says, picking up her coat.

  ‘Sorry, but what time is that?’ I ask.

  She moves towards the door, and I lean against the wall to allow her enough room to get past, but she stops directly in front of me.

  ‘What are you so sorry for? Sorry this, sorry that. Who did you kill?’

  ‘Sorry?’ I ask again.

  ‘The apologies, and the tears! Store them both up for when somebody you care for dies, or you accidentally kill somebody, in a speedboat or with a knife or something. Don’t even apologise to me, darling. The only thing worse than a girl with no respect for other women is a girl with no respect for herself. You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, have you? Did somebody die? And was it your fault?’

  ‘No. I guess it’s just a habit. Sor—I’ll try. But there are other bad things too, that you can do. Not just killing somebody.’

  Dolly smiles and it throws her off-balance, and suddenly she is leaning dangerously like the tower at Pisa. She grabs for me and I lurch out to catch her. We lace our hands together automatically, and I feel her palm and the inside of her fingers are still slippery with hand-cream. I take her weight to keep her up.

  ‘No more apologies. Anywhere. I bet you’ve said enough sorries for a lifetime,’ she says. Her hand is cold in mine.

  Gavin knocks and opens the door. ‘Your car is upstairs, Dolly,’ he announces. He glances at me, but it’s cold like a day-old bath.

  ‘On time is any time before I’m here, darling,’ she says to me, snatching away her hand, but Gavin has already seen me holding it. She straightens her back for the man that just entered the room. Her hand flies up to her cheek, and her fingers dance across her face nervously, obscuring her from vision.

  ‘Gavin, help me up the stairs, will you?’ she says with a roguish smile and a wink to him, reaching forwards to take one of his hands. It seems to me that she is perfectly capable of walking on her own. Maybe she just likes the lean on a man. She tucks her arm into Gavin’s, who is forced to squat to half his size so that she can reach. I contemplate suggesting he give her a ‘wheelbarrow’ to finish her off, but think better of it. As the door swings shut behind Gavin I hear her cry ‘Lulu!’ one last time, and snort a laugh. She leaves without a goodbye.

  I feel the tears spring to my eyes as if they have just been told ‘at ease!’ and they suddenly have permission to erupt now that she has left. But nobody has died. I’m not supposed to cry.

  ‘You learn, you straighten your back, you smile,’ she said. Whatever the hell that means. But I’m damned if I’m going to let her catch me crying either, she’s probably hovering outside with a glass to the wall, giggling evilly with Gavin and waiting for me to break down. There is spite in her, I can tell.

  I grab for my phone before I can weaken – I still have one bar of reception – and check my messages.

  ‘You … have … ONE … new message. First message sent … today … at … twelve … forty … three: ‘Scarlet, it’s Helen. I’m at the hospital. Don’t worry, it’s not me. It’s Jamie. He … oh God, Scarlet, he slit his wrists. I tried to … well, I tried to end it and … Steven’s not here. He left last night. Nikki with an “i” is pregnant. He didn’t go out, came home early, proclaimed, “We need to talk.” Then she stumbled up the driveway while I was opening a bottle of wine, banging on the door, shouting out his name. “Baby!” She kept shouting it, Scarlet, like he’s hers … anyway, she’s claiming she’s pregnant. And, well, they left. He left. Scarlet, can you meet me at the hospital? I don’t really know what I’m doing and they keep telling me to turn my phone off – something to do with equipment failing – so if I don’t answer come to St George’s A&E in Tooting. But I think his mum is coming, Jamie’s mum’s … Christ, Scarlet, what do I do? Bye.’

  I hit a number and the phone tells me: ‘Message will be saved for … three … days.’

  I stare at my feet. A fist bangs on the door so strongly I think its owner would prefer to punch straight through it. Before I can say ‘Come in’ the door swings open and Tom Harvey-Saint fills the frame. Cue wild cheering and applause from all the teenage girls in the audience. I shiver.

  ‘Still here then?’ He smirks.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ I ask.

  ‘Cardinal sin, the Make-up being late for the talent. I thought she might fire you, and then I’d have nothing to look at. Make sure you’re on time for me tomorrow. I want to try out some looks before preview, make sure you’ve got it nailed by Monday.’

  ‘I’ll check with Tristan,’ I say, my blood running cold. I don’t want to be alone with him in his dressing room with the door shut.

  ‘You don’t need to check with Tristan, I’m telling you. Be here at ten a.m.’ He lingers in the doorway.

  ‘Was there something else?’ I ask.

  He takes a step towards me, but then thinks better of it.

  ‘Last night.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘When you drink, you’re very rude. That’s just an observation but I don’t think you can deny it. I hope that our relationship isn’t going to sour, Scarlet.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware that we had a relationship, Tom?’

  ‘You see, there you go again. Would it kill you to be a little nicer? Confrontational is not a sexy attitude, Scarlet. What have I done that’s so bad?’

  I very nearly say, ‘Apart from not remembering that we fucked in an alley?’ But I don’t. I don’t even want him to remember the damn alley. I want to forget it completely. And he’s right, as far as he’s concerned I must seem pretty aggressive, unnecessarily so.

  I open my mouth to apologise.

  ‘I’m …’ But I stop. ‘Let’s see how it goes,’ I say, and then, ‘I have to go now. I have an emergency.’

  I grab my bag and stand expectantly in front of him. If he doesn’t move I’ll have to push past him and I don’t want to get any closer, even though tomorrow we’ll be face-to-face as I pad his cheeks and try to disguise the sleaze and the menace.

  I am momentarily embarrassed as he stands and smirks at me, making no effort to move. I am close enough to smell his breath and I catch a wave of sickness that makes me want to wretch, so I say, ‘You’re being weird. I need to get past.’

  He throws me a dagger of a look and walks out.

  I run up the stairs as quickly as my outfit allows, and spot Gavin talking to a guy who got introduced to me at Gerry’s as something to do with lighting. I beckon Gavin over, and even though he looks irritated he stops the lighting guy straight away and strides to the front of the stage. He stands above me and I feel instantly self-conscious about the ravine of cleavage he must be able to see from that height. He seems to feel it too, because he drops to his knees and says simply, ‘What now?’

  ‘Gavin, I have to go. It’s an emergency. I thought I should tell somebody.’

  ‘Tell him,’ he says, gesturing to the swing doors that are flapping behind Tristan as he walks towards us in the same clothes he was wearing last night. In his hand he is carrying what looks like a swathe of Japanese material – pink and white and red, delicately dotted with tiny flowers.

  ‘Tristan,’ I raise my voice so he’ll hear, ‘I’m really sorry but I have to … what the hell happened to you?’

  Tristan’s lip is swollen and glistening like a doorstep slug, and he has dried blood in a patch on the side of his head. Gavin jumps down from the stage in alarm but we both leave three feet between Tristan and us in case he starts spurting blood. His Jackie O’s are cracked yet still on, but he tears them off to reveal two dirty blue-black eyes, the colour of tights that you buy by mistake. The knuckles of the hand that hold his glasses are bruised and swollen like molehills.

  ‘It’s nothing, it’s nothing,’ he says, dismissing it with his ha
nd.

  ‘Who did this to you?’ I ask.

  ‘That’s the way. That’s what I love about women. Eh? Instantly, instantly, you’ve made me feel like I lost a fight to a bigger boy. So now I feel like rubbish, when of course I haven’t got a clue who did it, because funnily enough they didn’t shout out their names! Some kid and a couple of his mates. That’s all I know. They took twenty quid and my phone, left me my wallet because it had a picture of my mum in it. And who says kids today are all bad?’

  ‘They were robbing you!’ I say.

  ‘Yes, they were. But luckily for me, unluckily for them, I’d spent nearly everything I had at Gerry’s last night. So not only did they get shit-all money, I was drunk enough not to care that much when they punched me.’

  ‘Tristan, I’m on the way to hospital now: why don’t you come with me?’

  ‘Why? What bits of you are bruised?’ He raises his eyebrows suggestively and winces with the pain.

  ‘It’s not me, it’s a friend. Come with me.’

  ‘No, love, no can do. Too much work to be done here. We open on Monday, anybody else realise that? That’s come quick, hasn’t it? Dolly in?’ he enquires of Gavin.

  ‘But it could get infected,’ I say, reaching out to touch his fat lip but thinking better of it as something yellow oozes out.

  ‘No, love, I just need a pack of frozen peas and some steak. Gavin, could you be a love, a great big bouncy love, and send one of your minions out to get it. I can’t face the sunshine again, I might melt.’

  ‘Dolly’s gone,’ Gavin says. I wait for him to say something about me being late, but he doesn’t. ‘I’ll send somebody out,’ he adds, and walks off.

  ‘For fuck’s sake! For fuck’s sake!’ Tristan starts spinning on the spot. I glance around for the lone gunman who must have just shot a rage arrow into his neck.

  ‘What? What?’ I ask, backing away.

  ‘Make-up, I don’t even think this play is going to open! Look around, where are my cast? Where is my set? Where are the rehearsals?’

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to organise them, though, Tristan? I mean, I don’t know much about theatre, but you are the director, right?’

  ‘Go if you’re going,’ he replies, and storms off backstage, turning the air blue as he does.

  I hail a black cab on Long Acre and jump in but almost immediately we are stuck behind a Tesco Metro van unloading.

  ‘We’ll be a while. Sodding things,’ my cabbie calls into the back.

  ‘No problem if you turn the meter off,’ I say, and he does, although I think I hear him call me a cheeky tart.

  I call Helen. She answers after two rings.

  ‘Good, your phone is on. I’m on my way … kind of. Where are you?’

  ‘Outside having a cigarette. But I’m leaving in a minute. It’s okay, don’t come now.’

  ‘Shut up, of course I’m coming. Shall I just come straight to your house then?’

  ‘No, don’t, Scarlet. I just need to sleep. It’s fine, I’ll call you later.’

  ‘But is anybody there, Hel? Or are you going to be on your own?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she says.

  ‘Okay, but that’s not what I asked.’

  ‘I have to go back in, the doctor wants to ask me a couple of things before I go,’ she says, ‘so I’ll call you later.’

  ‘But is he okay, Hel?’

  ‘They don’t know yet. He lost a lot of blood.’

  ‘Oh, Helen.’

  ‘I’ll call you later, Scarlet, I have to go.’

  And as if by magic the cab starts moving again.

  ‘Change of plan,’ I shout through to the cabbie.

  ‘Where now, love?’

  ‘The City. Monument,’ I reply.

  I sit at a bus stop opposite Katie’s office. Suits stream past me swinging Pret a Manger bags. I just sit for a while, as the buses pull up, exhale some people, inhale some more, and pull away. Eventually I see her. She moves through the swing doors first, followed by a tall guy with blond hair and broad shoulders. He has the same build as Ben. I would bet he has skinny calves as well, and a crucifix of hair on his chest. But Ben is dark, of course. I sit at my bus stop and watch them.

  They walk forwards towards the road, and stand opposite me, as if directed. She chats, he laughs, they are both animated, more so than is usual or natural, love hormones coursing through them. A bus pulls up in front of me, but I don’t move, I just wait for it to pull away. Then I see that they are kissing. It’s a new kiss, she seems excited. She flirts, holding on to the lapels of his jacket for a moment. She looks happy. I can’t turn away.

  I hear a large crack: the glass in the bus shelter shatters behind me, littering the pavement with chips and shards. People walking past gasp and jump away. I look back towards her as she pulls away from him, startled, looking over the road at the commotion. Everybody seems to stop and stare at the bus shelter, and then at me, the only person in it. A woman runs up to me and asks, ‘What happened? Are you hurt?’

  I shake my head. I don’t even feel scratched.

  ‘I don’t know, it just smashed,’ I say, bewildered. ‘Was it lightning?’ I ask her.

  ‘It’s not raining,’ she says, patting my arm with concern.

  I turn back towards the road, and Katie sees me standing here. We stare at each other. I grab my bag and run off towards the tube station, shaking the glass from it as I go.

  Katie’s happy, and I’m sad.

  I take the overland to Woking, and my feet begin to tingle with pain as I walk the twenty-minute trek from the railway station to Helen’s house. It’s late afternoon. As I pass the secondary school I hear an umpire’s whistle, and the girlish cries of a netball match being played. I see the caretaker mowing the grass that smells old and dry at the end of summer. It’s the last time it will need to be cut this year. The chill will set in, then lashings of rain. Football boots will chew the field up, and spit it out as mud. I am always a little down when the summer ends, every year it catches me by sad surprise. I just want it to keep going. The problem is that I want a white Christmas as well, and I don’t see a way that I can have both, and still have it be real. I have to ring the bell four times, but eventually a soft light comes on in the hallway, and Helen answers the door. Her eyes are red from crying and sleeping, and there are creases in the coat that she hasn’t taken off before going to bed. I smile weakly at her, and her face crumbles.

  ‘Did Jamie … is he okay?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, he’s okay. Nobody died, thank God.’ She reaches up and puts her arms around my neck, collapsing into my shoulder.

  I let her cry, but I don’t. Because nobody died.

  ‘Hel?’ I say. ‘Do you believe in karma?’

  I feel the sobbing gradually cease against my shoulder as her breathing calms. We stand in silence, hugging, for what seems like half an hour.

  ‘Absolutely,’ she says finally, lifting her head, taking a step back to look at me. We grasp hands. The pale skin around her eyes is streaked black with wet mascara. ‘What goes around comes around,’ she says.

  ACT II

  Not a Rehearsal

  Scene I: Hello Dolly!!

  Wednesday. As I lean back against a Majestic wall a brushed velvet panel cushions me. It’s hard to lean anywhere in front of the stage at The Majestic and not be cushioned by a brushed velvet panel. Brushed velvet is compulsory in the theatre in my experience, all three days of it. Brushed velvet, and unreasonable behaviour, and a sliver of dramatic madness that has infected all the principal cast and crew like they ate the same infected prawns from catering and it’s caused an epidemic. The main symptom is constantly projecting their words and their actions and their expressions to the back of the hall and beyond, out onto Long Acre and east towards St Paul’s and west towards Marble Arch, ensuring nobody misses a moment of their gloriously performed lives. It’s exhausting, but I know a little of how they feel. I’m not as sick as the rest of them, I ate one bad prawn, maybe, the one
that puts me on display. We all assume we are being watched these days.

  The cast and their understudies are seated haphazardly on fold-down chairs around the stage. Those chairs took some setting up – they’re the kind that will bite your fingers off if you don’t give them your full attention. You can tell the understudies because they all pant enthusiastically like a pack of stray puppies, poor but eager, and a little desperate for the scraps. I’ve only spoken to a couple of them, on Monday night at the restaurant and in Gerry’s, and all they wanted to know was which other theatres I’d worked in, and who I know in casting. When I told them ‘Nobody, this is my first time in theatre,’ they didn’t even bother to say goodbye, they just walked away. I didn’t mind, it was no big loss. I heard them talking amongst themselves later, about foxes, and the ‘nuance of Hellman’, and I’m pretty sure they didn’t mean the mayonnaise, so I’d have had nothing to contribute to that conversation anyway.

  The Italian coastline has appeared overnight on Long Acre, Covent Garden. Gavin looks exhausted, as he should: it’s a whole country, plus an ocean, transplanted before sunrise. But then I bet Atlas can’t have been much bigger than Gavin and still have got trousers to fit, and he carried the whole world on his shoulders! Now Gavin slumps forwards in defeat. His eyes are swollen, and it looks as though somebody has squirted red ink drops into each.

  The backdrop to the stage is an abstract vista. A block of black to signify rocks, I think, and a swathe of blue for the ocean. Somebody somewhere is playing with the overhead lighting. Suddenly the stage is bathed in sunset orange, then just as dramatically the bright blue-black of nighttime, then the golden white of dawn. It makes me hot, then cold; I sweat then shiver in a matter of moments.

  From what Tristan has been saying, and the lines they’ve been rehearsing, a block of pink on the canvas that at first I thought might be a large pig – A pig in a play? But what do I know about theatre? – is actually meant to represent a villa in the distance, which of course makes more sense. The stage fades and glows, the faces of the cast illuminated by fake first rays and the pretend dying light of dusk. A heavy rope swings precariously at the back of the stage, like a hastily built swing hanging from a tree branch above a lake for summer swimming. Glancing up to see what, if not a summer breeze, makes this rope swing, I spot the electrician, whose name I still haven’t learnt, dangling dangerously from a horizontal ladder that runs from one side of the stage to the other, above the curtain. I catch my breath, and want to shout, ‘Be careful, don’t hurt yourself,’ but think better of it. He is not a child: he’s a grown man. Fully grown.