Love

by Clare Naylor

  “Darling, let’s see if we can make it in to work and then we can sit somewhere quiet and talk about it.” Amy glued herself to her seat like a toddler refusing to go to playschool.

  “I can’t, Luce.”

  “Come on, whatever it was couldn’t be so bad, think of what poor Orlando has been through and he’s still standing.” Amy was thinking of Orlando, but not poor Orlando. Bloody Orlando, if I’d never met him … But she wished he was there now, too. Couldn’t decide whether she loved or loathed him. Hither, thither, which way next?

  “Luce, it was me … without my top on.” Amy was in denial; the topless part she was coming to terms with, the fact that there was a shadowy figure of a man lurking in the same picture, the fact that she was actually having sex in print seemed not quite to sink in.

  “But how, darling, was it another holiday snap?”

  “No, it was the photographer.” Lucinda was getting nowhere with her line of inquiry so pulled the deadweight to her feet and marched her military fashion along the platform and up the escalator. Outside the station she picked up copies of every tabloid and left the change of her fiver with the fortunate vendor. After a frog-march down Hanover Street and a difficult negotiation of the revolving doors of Vogue House the girls found a quiet corner of the beauty cupboard and Lucinda extracted two plastic cups of tarry coffee from the machine and set about making sense of Amy’s rantings.

  “Here’s some coffee, now let’s see what this is all about,” said Lucinda, opening the offending Sun.

  “No!” Amy reached over and tried to cover the headline with her arm but was soon defeated. “I suppose everyone’s going to see it soon enough.” Lucinda scanned the paper with barely concealed amusement.

  “Darling, how on earth did they get hold of all this? Was this Toby’s idea?” Amy shrugged her shoulders feebly.

  “It’s really not funny, Luce. Look, this bit here says you can buy the video for £11.99 on their hot line. They can’t do this.”

  “Darling, they are doing it, but don’t worry, it’ll be a one-minute wonder. And anyway, if I had boobs like that, I wouldn’t care if they were on News at Ten.”

  “But it’s not just that, it’s the fact that Toby’s there, too, God, it’s disgusting. It’s so sordid. I feel so violated, Luce, it’s horrible. I don’t want to see anyone. What am I going to do?”

  “Well, Toby actually just looks like part of the mattress he’s such a dark shadow, so don’t worry about that too much. And you’re going to feel shit for a few days, your parents will disown you for a bit, and your answerphone will be overflowing with offers from Playboy, and then it’ll die down and you’ll wonder what the fuss was all about.” Amy remained singularly unconvinced. Of course she did. AMY AND AMIABILITY, and it wasn’t just about how nice she was to animals and children, it was liberally strewn with phrases like insatiable and curvaceous, free-thinking, and even, heaven forfend, wait till her mother sees it, a bit of a goer. No! thought Amy. I can’t bear it. She couldn’t sit still and she couldn’t go anywhere. If she looked at the papers, she felt sick, but if she didn’t read them, she imagined the reports as ten times more crass than they actually were. She was embarrassed even in front of Lucinda but couldn’t bear to be on her own. Oh God, she thought, what am I going to do? For a moment she was struck with empathy for Orlando. Now I know how he felt, she thought. But she quickly forgot about him. She was more concerned with herself right now, more terrified of her fate.

  “Oh well, look who it isn’t. I had no idea you were moonlighting as a porn queen, Amy.” Nathalia flashed into the room, her silver puffa jacket setting off her ski tan, and her “helped” blond hair lent her that fresh-from-Klosters look.

  “Come on, Nats, Amy’s having a rough time, she can do without that,” said Lucinda, firm but fair.

  “Darling, if I were to prostrate myself naked before a video camera, it would be naïve to think that it was going to end any way other than messily.”

  “Piss off and leave us alone,” Lucinda snapped, her fair aspect vanishing behind a cloud. Nathalia picked up a pair of shoes fresh from a high-street fashion shoot and, with a wrinkling of her nose and a cursory “Cheap rubbish,” walked away.

  Amy bit her lip and tried not to cry. Lucinda decided that it was time to take action.

  She picked up the phone.

  “Who’re you phoning?”

  “I’m going to get hold of Orlando. There’s no way you can go through this on your own, darling.”

  “Luce, that would just be too embarrassing. Besides, he was awful to me, accusing me of all sorts of things, I wouldn’t ask him for help if you paid me.” Defiant, she was. She was also deeply worried how he would react to her recent excursion into pornography. While he may have forgiven her for blabbing to her flatmates (although she wouldn’t give him the chance), she could see she’d have problems explaining away her top-shelf antics. And bloody hell, I’m a grown woman, if I want to experiment with sex, I will, it’s none of his business. Amy was defiant, if distraught.

  “Yup, I’d like to speak to Orlando Rock, I believe he’s in room … Amy, which room is it?” Lucinda was on fine form.

  “Can’t remember.” Stubbornly.

  “Amy, which room is Orlando in?” she shouted.

  “Fifty-nine.” Surly.

  “Yeah, he’s in room fifty-nine, I’m a friend. What do you mean his agent, I’m his friend, please put me through,” Lucinda bellowed. But she persisted, agent’s number from directory inquiries. Dial dial.

  “Yes, I’m trying to get in touch with Orlando Rock, his girlfriend needs to speak to him.” Contempt on the other end of the line.

  “Look, he doesn’t pay you to be some moral judge, so just tell him to call Amy as soon as possible. If you don’t, there’ll be hell to pay. What do you mean you don’t know where he is, just tell him, OK?” Lucinda hung up.

  Amy was mortified. She may be Miss Big Happening Girlfriend in her head but in the eyes of the world she was Miss Kiss-and-Tell Sleazy Sex Scandal. I’ll show him, she thought.

  In an unconscious mirroring of Orlando’s behavior yesterday Amy sat on the floor in the corner of the fashion room with the papers about her, deep in thought. Orlando, however, had braved it out of his room and was sitting in the hotel dining room sipping black coffee when he encountered Amy’s proud breasts half obscured by a bowl of cereal. AMY AND AMIABILITY. He couldn’t believe it either. Firstly he couldn’t believe that she’d ever have let herself be filmed having sex with some social-climbing photographer, secondly he felt incredibly sorry for her. But decent though he is, Orlando could not help countering his sorrow with the hope that there’d be a chastening lesson in there for her. And let’s face it, this could happen to anyone, Orlando knew only too well, he’d been caught in a few clinches in his time. But despite this he didn’t feel as philosophical as he should. There was a glint in her eye; he’d seen it in his wife on many an occasion. Amy may not be solely responsible for yesterday’s tabloid fest, but she wasn’t opposed to it and was quick to dismiss his anxieties as paranoia. Maybe now she’d have a bit more sympathy with his plight. He also still wanted to hug her though, wished she hadn’t been so wretchedly stubborn and would call him. With the perspicacity only marriage to an actress can bestow, Orlando realized he’d just have to give Amy time if he wanted her and let her work some things out of her system, so when he packed his bags to return to New Zealand later that day it was with a sagacity and patience often granted only to Buddhist monks.

  Later on in the day Amy was smuggled out of Vogue House under an Isaac Mizrahi parka, its furry hood over her head and a pair of Ray-Bans obscuring her eyes. This was at her own insistence. She’d decided that the ponytailed couriers littering the pavements of Hanover Square were in fact paparazzi in disguise. Lucinda had tried but failed to take a firm stance.

  “Amy, these guys don’t even bother to disguise themselves when they’re lurking outside Nicole Kidman’s front door trying to catch her in
her rollers and La Perla. What on earth makes you think they’d go to such lengths just to snap you leaving work on a rainy Tuesday?”

  “Because I swear to you, that one down there, the one with the label with CFP Couriers on his back, the bald one with the ponytail, he was definitely outside Orlando’s flat and he was also outside the hotel. I’d know those beady eyes anywhere, I even had a nightmare about them last night.”

  “Darling, don’t you think you’re being just a bit melodramatic?” said Lucinda. Orlando may be being saintlike in his patience but Lucinda could feel her halo sliding.

  “Lucinda, I’m telling you, just let’s find something that doesn’t show my face and certainly not my body, and then we can call a cab and have the security guards radio up when it arrives.”

  “Look, I’m sure you’ll be perfectly safe on the tube, it’s not as though you’ll be topless, is it?” Lucinda instantly regretted her cheap jibe but after approximately five hours of being barricaded into a room in Vogue House with Amy and her bruised yet recovering speedily ego she felt rather worn.

  “Lucinda, I need my friends for support, how can you joke about it?”

  “Sorry, sweetheart. Look, here’s a lovely coat to hide your face and some glasses, et voilà, nobody will look twice at you.” But of course they did: in her fashion-conscious, Ray-Banned-Eskimo-in-April attire she presented a strange sight even for those accustomed to beholding the curios coming and going from Vogue House. But if they stared, they merely saw a prettily dressed fashion editor, her glossy locks skimming her shoulders in an immaculate bob, escorting someone who was clearly off their trolley, but who was certainly not to be recognized as this morning’s Stunna from Surrey. So, almost sadly, Amy had her anonymous way.

  Once back at Lucinda’s they endured the six, nine, and ten o’clock news, just in case in the “and finally …” section an item on the latest love of Orlando Rock had been slipped in by some duty manager with a sharp eye for detail and penchant for firm 34B breasts. Mais non, of course. Lucinda was not too miserable about the news-watching part of her care in the community duties as she had a bit of a crush on Peter Sissons. Ever since she’d seen him in a moment of national crisis and he’d furrowed his brow and asked scarily intelligent questions to government ministers, she’d found him disturbingly sexy. But that was another story, and one which she’d rather keep to herself. What she did mind, though, were Amy’s worrying sojourns into the world of media prostitution.

  “Do you think maybe I should get an agent, Luce?”

  “Why do you need an agent?” Lucinda’s darlings were noticeably absent.

  “Well, to ensure my privacy, and also, well … if people want to talk to me, well, it seems more professional for them to go through an agent, really. You know, money is quite vulgar.”

  “I’ve always thought money far from vulgar,” chipped in Benjy, who darted into the room to extricate some cigarettes from down the side of the sofa.

  “Oh God, darling, can I have one?” begged Lucinda.

  “You’re supposed to have given up.”

  “Needs must and all that,” said Lucinda, gesturing discreetly toward Amy who was engrossed in last week’s Hello! It’s enough to make a grown girl cry, she thought.

  “How much do you think they pay Fergie for appearing in here?”

  “Bloody fortune,” said Benjy, heading back to the safety of the kitchen.

  “Really?” Amy’s eyes shone. “If they pay someone like her so much, someone passé and outmoded who never really did anything but get married and have Titian hair, well then, I’m sure the sky’s the limit for someone, y’know, a bit cooler, younger, fresher.”

  “Anyone in mind?” asked Lucinda tetchily, taking a lungful of heavenly tar.

  “No, just thinking out loud really.” Lucinda could barely stand any more. People deal with shock in different ways, she told herself, they do all sorts of funny things, you don’t just faint and turn white, you say all kinds of weird things. Perhaps I should be more understanding.

  “But I suppose if I were to be asked, I mean I would be stupid to turn it down. Just a bit of posing in other people’s clothes. I’ve heard they don’t even use your own house, just some plush hotel and fill it with your own stuff, at least then I wouldn’t have to have the flat monsters sitting at the kitchen table looking homely.”

  Heaven forfend. Bollocks to understanding, she needs a big kick up the backside.

  “Amy, don’t you think you should call your parents? I mean they’re bound to have seen all that stuff and they’ll be desperate to get in touch with you, to make sure you’re not too upset.” Upset? I don’t think so, after all, tears don’t photograph well, do they, thought Lucinda.

  “Maybe I’ll call them tomorrow, they’ll be in bed by now.”

  “Yeah, well, I think it’s past my bedtime, too. Do you think you’ll be OK if you’re alone, not too upset or anything?” sniped Lucinda.

  “Oh, I think I’ll be all right. Besides I need my beauty sleep, too, and I’m still utterly miserable about Orlando.” Like hell she was. She’d barely given a thought to Orlando since the prospect of fame in her own right writ large appeared in her sights. Her eyes should be like those cartoon characters but instead of pound signs she just had popping flashbulbs and Hello! covers. Without another word Lucinda tripped off to bed feeling like a bad troll lurking under the bridge, but she couldn’t help it. It’s not much fun watching a friend transform into the picture of Dorian Gray before your eyes.

  . .

  The next morning saw the bathroom door slammed in the face of Lucinda and Benjy from six-thirty until they could wait no longer.

  “Amy, I’ve got to pee!” Lucinda knocked.

  “Won’t be a mo, I’ve just got to chip this face pack off, five minutes, OK?”

  Lucinda crossed her legs in the bedroom and cursed Amy.

  “I just can’t believe it. If she’d show some bloody remorse about Orlando, it’d be more tolerable but she’s totally forgotten about him. I can’t believe what a self-obsessed cow she’s being.”

  Only Amy knew that as she pondered the joys of celebrity, the lunches in nice restaurants, the mantelpiece bowing under the weight of party invitations, the column inches devoted to her latest hairstyle, there was one thing missing: Orlando Rock. She may have had trouble saying she loved him but she couldn’t eliminate the warmth she felt as she saw his head on the pillow beside her, the pride she’d felt walking into the hotel with him, the fun they’d had on their normal dates. Even the greasy spoon had taken on a romantic glow. Still, Orlando had questioned her integrity and she’d been humiliated, but also, as we know only too well, guilty. He’d trusted her and she’d spilled all their beans at the drop of a hat to people she didn’t really give a damn about. So what could she do? Her rationale, apart from vengeance toward his snide agent, was that if he saw her looking glorious in the papers with some handsome man on her arm, he’d be so overcome with jealousy that he’d have to have her back, sacrifice his pride and ride in on the proverbial white charger and kidnap her, Sir Lancelot fashion. Prove his love once and for all. For where was romance if not in jeopardy? But, Amy darling, how could you get it so wrong? Think about it. Can you really see Orlando running open-armed back to you just because you prove yourself incapable of behaving like a grown-up? Does being on the front page of a newspaper addle the brain?

  CHAPTER 30

  Amy was reconciled with the flat monsters. She was quite cross at Lucinda’s recent frostiness and they proved good listeners. Even if they stored it up to mull over and pull apart later, she couldn’t really give a stuff right now. She had her career to think of. Oh, girls, how we moan when we see bright, happy, highlighted-haired wonders transformed from just-another-weather-girl into the flavor of the month with a Chanel suit. How we hate to see the wife of a rugby player elevated to cover-girl status because of her saintly ability to smile through her husband’s infidelity. How we despise the cult of the model who becomes super
because she suppresses her appetite behind a wider smile than most women can endure. Oh la la, how bitter we are. Which of us wouldn’t throw in the towel of self-respect if presented with stardom on a silver platter? Well, Amy would, for one. The flat monsters sat at the table with her, limpetlike and sycophantically providing her with chamomile tea. I wonder if I could get sponsorship? she thought. Is there a chamomile marketing board who’d be happy to have a vivacious spokeswoman? Maybe not, chamomile wasn’t really a product she wanted to endorse, not terribly glamorous, enjoyable with hot water but a bit too organic. Her free-love reputation was already nudging at the boundaries of hippiedom, one had to watch one’s public image.

  “Amy, here’s one that doesn’t sound too bad.” Cath passed her an envelope with a News International logo on the back; she was quite au fait with that one now.

  “Life story to the News of the World, no, that’s just a bit too flat, too one-dimensional, I’m looking more for magazine features, something topical.”

  “Here, be on that debate program with the tanned dishy bloke, they want you to talk about being in a dysfunctional relationship.”

  “God, no, too parochial, they’ll set wronged housewives from Berkshire onto me and call me a slut, way too embarrassing.”

  “Oooh, a private view at the Saatchi Gallery.”

  “That’ll do, would you mind RSVP’ing a yes to that, Cath. You can come along, too. It’s really good gallery space, perfect for seeing and being seen.” The phone disturbed Amy’s master plan to be that most coveted of phenomena, famous for being famous.

  “Ames, it’s that Marquesa woman again, the one from Hello!”

  “Oh, good,” said Amy, running to the phone. “Marquesa, hi, yes, let’s do that. OK. Friday two o’clock. Bye.” Amy had just secured a preliminary interview with the woman who wielded the Hello! purse strings.

  “God, it’s harder than getting into Cambridge, she’ll probably ask me what I think of Tolstoy’s narrative style,” she bewailed, wondering which of her now depleted (she hadn’t seen Lucinda for a week) cache of outfits to choose from for the interview. But there was tonight to get through, a book launch. Amy had decided that if she were ever to sound like a legitimate celebrity, she had to have at least one substantial string to her bow—literary glamour girl was her chosen specialist style. At least it would set her apart from the fashion crowd, and she’d once practically worked in publishing, and who knows, Martin Amis might be there, very sexy voice, she’d once heard him on Radio Four while she was at the dentist. So she chose carefully, subtle and sober but with a flash of originality, she thought, some learned spark. She pulled out her trusty black suit and decided on a gold theme, some large bracelets, a gold bodysuit a model once left behind on a shoot, and a shimmery bronzed look for her face. Standing back, she couldn’t imagine that book people could be so dull so went for the final effect, some silk flowers sprayed gold—very messy and she had to soak her hands in nail-polish remover to get it off—but good. Yes, the effect was Dionysian, she thought, lavish and opulent and excessive, bit like me, she winked to herself. Ohhh, how that tiny, frail ego we first encountered has started to flex its muscles, toughen up and take over the world. Pride comes before a fall, Amy, but Amy’s effectively had a fall and come up if not smelling of roses, at least adorned by them.