The Stand-In

by Deborah Moggach

  ‘Don’t bother then.’

  He carried on talking in that low, soft voice. ‘My whole life has changed. It’s amazing. I never knew it could be like this. Nothing in the world matters except her and yet I love the world more than I ever did. Christ, it sounds so bleeding pompous, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m just trying to explain. I just hope other people get the chance to feel like I do . . . like we both do . . .’

  My ears were roaring. I realised, quite clearly, that I was drunk. Maybe he wasn’t really saying all this. He was saying something completely different. He was talking about me.

  ‘. . . having this baby . . . the best thing that ever happened . . . I want to go and shout in the streets . . .’

  My father’s voice was in my ears. How pitifully inadequate, he had told me, is the language of joy. Those tired old clichés, flogged into twitching life.

  Drone drone. The words rose and fell, in waves.

  ‘She’s funny, too. I’ve never met a woman who’s really, naturally funny . . .’

  In my ears the roaring grew louder. His voice was a sing-song, miles away.

  ‘. . . know something? I love her so much I’d die for her . . . would you believe that? A bloke like me? . . .’

  Shut up! I screamed, silently. Shut up! But on he went.

  ‘. . . I want to be inside her skin . . . I’m jealous of the food when she puts it into her mouth. Even her horrible Carob Chips . . .’

  Things that he had told me rolled round and round my drunken head. ‘You’re a lousy actress’ . . . ‘you’ve got no friends’ . . . ‘when you screw, it’s like you’re . . .’

  I looked at Trev. He was burbling on about some incident of vomit-making sentimentality between the two of them, I can’t start to describe it.

  And then, with shocking clarity, I realised the truth.

  He had forgotten that I was there.

  He had simply forgotten all about me. I didn’t exist.

  It was then that I grabbed the pistol, aimed it in his direction and squeezed the trigger.

  Eight

  I DIDN’T THINK I had hit him. Not for a moment. I thought he was playing. Just like Trev, to fool me.

  The gun had jerked out of my hand, as if it had a spring inside, and fallen on the floor. The noise had been shockingly loud; it still rang in my ears. I smelt Party Poppers; you know the moment, when you pull the string? But a stronger smell than that.

  He was just pretending. The bullet had missed him – for Christ’s sake, I couldn’t shoot! It had landed harmlessly in a dust-sheet.

  How embarrassing! That’s all I felt. I felt terribly foolish.

  He was still looking at me, you see. His face was tight – sort of pulled together – but his eyes were open. He had relaxed back in the armchair but that was only to survey me better.

  I had wet my knickers. Wasn’t that humiliating? Just a little. But he could tell. I hadn’t wet my knickers since I was a child.

  It’s a funny thing. You see people being shot all the time, on TV. Staggering, gasping, clutching their innards. Sliding to the floor. You see it thousands of times but it’s the one event that you never see in real life.

  So it was sort of familiar. I watched, with a detached kind of curiosity, the stain spreading across the front of his towelling bathrobe. It was movie blood. How many kinds could you buy? I had forgotten. There wasn’t a lot of blood; not at first.

  I avoided looking at his face. I just sat there, damply, waiting for him to speak. I think he had made a little grunt, earlier.

  I don’t know how many minutes passed. But when I dared raise my eyes again, I could see that he was dead.

  I had never seen a dead person before. But if you have, you’ll know what I mean. It’s unmistakable. The face changes. It’s not just the colour, though that changes too. The face literally empties.

  It was no longer Trevor, sitting there. It was an uninhabited body. A sort of mannequin, in a powder-blue bathrobe, with moccasins on its feet. It was as if the bones inside it had been rearranged. It looked somehow smaller, too.

  I couldn’t possibly touch his skin, to make sure. Not in a thousand years. I’ve killed a man. For a while, the words made no sense. They danced inanely, like a nursery rhyme.

  Then, suddenly, I panicked. The neighbours had heard! Somebody must have heard. They were coming to batter on the door.

  I jumped up and stumbled into the kitchen. I slammed the door shut and stood there, trembling. What the hell was I going to do? There was no escape. They were bound to find me.

  My legs buckled and I slid to the floor. This seemed a stagey and melodramatic thing to do but I simply couldn’t stand upright. I sat cowering, jammed against the units. They smelt of glue. A’ bag of carpenter’s tools lay beside me. The floor was cold; it was made of granite or something. I don’t know. I could feel it after a while through the fur coat. A red light glowed at me, from above the cooker.

  Maybe I sat there for a quarter of an hour, I’m not sure. I sat scrunched up, my arms around my knees, burying my face in the fur. I willed Trevor to disappear. I kept expecting to hear a police siren down in the street, but for once I heard nothing. Nobody rang the bell or knocked on the door. Even in the kitchen I would have heard it.

  Finally I climbed to my feet. On the draining board was the remains of his supper: an empty Budweiser can and a slightly smeared plate. He had left a piece of pizza crust. I wished he hadn’t done that.

  I turned away and opened the door, slowly. For one mad moment I thought he had got up and walked away. He’d hid in the bedroom. ‘Fooled you!’ I could still smell the cordite in the air, mingled with our long-extinguished cigarettes.

  It still sat there. I could see the top of its hair above the rim of the armchair.

  Familiar, but utterly unlikely words rose in my throat. Evidence. Clues. I tried, laboriously, to connect these dime-novel clichés to myself. I felt I was hauling them in on a fishing-line. Flustered, I swivelled round, looking for signs of my visit. I had to move fast.

  I took the wine glasses into the kitchen and rinsed them under the tap. I felt strange, washing them up in leather gloves, but what did people do in this situation? I emptied the ashtray into the bin. Would the butts be tested for saliva? I had never read about that. In fact, I hadn’t read many whodunnits. I didn’t like them.

  I tried to keep myself under control. I thought: Idiot. If you manage this properly they won’t be looking for you anyway.

  It was hard, going back into the living room. I steered clear of the armchair, giving it a wide berth. I didn’t dare look at it. I pinned back my hair, with shaking hands, took the wig out of my pocket and pulled it on. I felt like an old boozy actor in some preposterous stage-play, who had forgotten his cue. My leather gloves were soaking. I kept my eyes on the half-painted wall. All that trouble, doing up his apartment; all that effort, and money.

  I wrapped the scarf around my head, picked up the pistol and put it in my pocket. Fumblingly I put on the dark glasses. Had I forgotten anything?

  Then I checked myself in a mirror, left the room and let myself out of the apartment.

  Nobody waited for me. The corridor was empty; the doors of the other apartments were dosed. I pushed the elevator button. It arrived, swiftly. It was empty too. Nobody else called it while I descended. Superstitiously I took this as a hopeful sign.

  There was nobody in the lobby except for the doorman. He sat behind his desk, watching TV. I tap-tapped across the marble. As I passed the pool the fish gaped at me, their mouths working. They looked as if they were trying to speak.

  The doorman seemed to be opening the door for me.

  ‘Good night,’ he said. ‘Go easy.’

  ‘Night,’ I mumbled.

  Once outside, my head cleared. It seemed even colder. I hurried along the street. It was late, and a residential area. There was nobody around. I still felt numb. All I knew was that each step took me further away from the lan
guorous mannequin in the bathrobe.

  I retraced my steps down Central Park West. I crossed 72nd Street . . . 71st. Ahead of me I saw the lit canopy of Lila’s apartment building. Ironically enough, I felt quite confident. Just at that moment. Nobody had stopped me yet. Cars passed and none of them slowed down.

  I remember thinking this as I approached the entrance. A car stopped outside and a tall man got out. I slowed my steps. He went into the building.

  I gave him a moment or two and then followed. The doors were open. Nestling my face in my collar, I went in.

  A blast of warm air greeted me as I crossed the threshold. As I walked across the lobby, I turned to nod goodnight to the doorman.

  It was another one.

  My heart stopped. The shift had changed; a new lot came on at eleven. But this was a new doorman; I had never seen him before.

  He stood behind the desk, writing something down: a young, coffee-coloured guy. Good-looking.

  My steps faltered. He wasn’t a doorman at all. He was a cop. He was writing down information about me.

  I nodded to him and made my way towards the elevators. The tall man stepped in and the doors closed. I hesitated.

  I could see the doorman coming out, from behind his desk. He was walking briskly towards me. I heard his shoes clack-clacking on the marble.

  14 . . . 15 . . . 16 The elevator was rising without me. The other elevator seemed to be stuck at the 9th floor. I was trapped.

  ‘Pardon me, Miss Dune.’

  I swung round, as if he had stung me. He stood near, panting slightly. He had a notepad in his hand.

  ‘Yeah?’ I said. My voice croaked; I cleared my throat.

  ‘Sorry to intrude on you,’ he said.

  21 . . . 22 . . . The light stopped at the 23rd floor.

  ‘I wonder if I could ask you something,’ he said.

  The light started to descend. 22, 21. My mouth was dry; I couldn’t speak.

  ‘I’m a real fan of yours. Could you please sign me your autograph?’

  A long moment passed. He was holding out something for me. It was a pen.

  I must have looked odd. I simply couldn’t move. My mind had locked. I knew I had to reply.

  What on earth did her writing look like? Bloody Americans, they’re always on the damn phone. They never write letters.

  She had sent me that note, with the perfume. Big, childish, loopy writing.

  ‘I’m kinda cold,’ I said. ‘Excuse my writing.’

  I took the pen but simply couldn’t write, in the glove. It seemed to have shrunk on my hand. I peeled it off. My skin did, indeed, look cold – mottled purple. I was shivering.

  ‘Who shall I say?’ I asked.

  ‘Lorry.’

  I paused. ‘As in truck?’

  ‘Pardon?’ he asked.

  ‘Truck – lorry?’

  ‘I don’t know, ma’am.’

  Christ I was an idiot. No American actress would think of the word ‘lorry’.

  ‘Spell it,’ I drawled.

  ‘L-A-U-R-I-E.’

  ‘Ah.’ I wrote, ‘Hi, Laurie!’ and signed it with a flourish Lila Dune.

  ‘Wow. Thanks,’ he said.

  It was the strangest sensation, letting myself into Lila’s apartment. Everything was exactly the same. I had been away nearly two hours but it was as if I had only stepped out for a moment. I couldn’t believe that after all that had happened I would find Lila still sleeping, but when I checked the bedroom there she lay, motionless in the bed. Orson trotted up to me, tail wagging. He didn’t bark, this time. In my chaotic state, he suddenly seemed my only companion.

  He followed me into the living room. Through the windows, the faint glow of the city illuminated the same furniture in the same places. Nobody had been here. In the corner, the video recorder glowed. Its clock displayed 11.55.

  With some difficulty I had pulled on my cold, damp gloves. This sign that I still possessed my wits reassured me, just slightly. I took out my handbag from behind the settee, and fed Orson the rest of the M&Ms. He snuffled around on the floor; it was nice, having a living creature near me. A dog didn’t think I had done anything wrong. I paused, trying to remember my list of things to do.

  Letter. Gun. Whisky.

  Take your time, I told myself. Keep your head clear.

  I took out the forged letter from Trev, folded it and hid it under the paperweight on the table. Wasn’t that amazing, to remember? Lila wouldn’t notice it there, but when the apartment was searched it would be found.

  If the apartment was searched. What happened if Trevor wasn’t dead, he was only fooling? He had waited until I had left, then he had jumped to his feet and called the police. I know it sounds stupid, but now I had left his apartment I simply couldn’t believe what had happened. It was so utterly improbable.

  The next moment I firmly believed that nothing had happened at all. I hadn’t even shot him and missed. I would wake up in my apartment and realise that it had all been a dream. One of my violent ones. I would lie in bed, listening to the breakfast TV burbling next door and it would all drain from me like poison, leaving me innocent. I would lie there, filling up like a reservoir with the sweetest relief I had ever known.

  I stood like a zombie in the middle of the room. My shoes still pinched; my knickers were still damp. I must have done something most peculiar, to wet my knickers. The coat still weighed on my shoulders.

  Whisky. I darted to the kitchen, switched on the light and went across to the right-hand unit. Lila kept her liquor stores there. Americans always have stores, thank God. I opened the door and fished out a bottle of bourbon.

  With a crack, I twisted open its cap and poured most of its contents down the sink. I turned on the tap and washed the sink clean.

  ‘Want to know why I quit drinking? See, I do things I don’t remember later.’

  I straightened up and listened. Silence. Doing these things that I had planned was curiously soothing. It was like being on stage and returning to the script after a wild period of improvisation. I fetched a glass and poured a little bourbon into it. Then I took both the glass and the almost-empty bottle into the living room and hid them on the floor, behind the armchair. Lila wouldn’t notice them there, in the morning. But somebody else would.

  I took off the dark glasses and replaced them in her handbag. I took the gun out of my pocket – it gave me a shock, just feeling it again – and put it cautiously into her bag. I had locked its safety catch shut but I didn’t trust it. Not now.

  Then I slipped off the coat and shoes and tiptoed towards Lila’s bedroom. Halfway there, I froze.

  Down in the street I could hear a police siren. Not one – several. I couldn’t hear the traffic but I could hear them. It was a whole cacophony.

  I stood still, my heart pounding. The sounds stopped. Was that because they had turned the corner, or because they had stopped outside, their lights flashing?

  The police were surrounding the building. At that very moment the elevator was rising to the PH floor.

  There was no time to lose. I pulled off the wig and replaced it on its stand. I shrugged myself out of the coat and dumped it on the floor of the walk-in closet. I heard a sound, behind me. I swung round. Orson stood there, a glimmering white shape. His tail waved to and fro. Had he come to tell me they were here?

  I emerged from the closet and took a last look at Lila. She lay, curled on her other side. She scarcely seemed to be breathing. Her digital clock glowed. 00.08.

  Just then I felt a strange sensation. She was dead; just an empty husk. I had drawn her life from her. By pupating in her apartment, emerging from it dressed as her and killing Trevor, I had left the real Lila hollow. It was as if her duvet were an empty chrysalis. I had a ridiculous urge to prod her gently, and see if my finger fell through.

  00.09. It flipped to 00.10. Suddenly I felt flustered. What else was I supposed to do? Shoes. I laid them gently on the floor at the end of her bed, as if she had just kicked them off. When she wok
e, this would confuse her further.

  Then I left the room, put on my own coat and boots, picked up my handbag and went into the hallway. I dropped the scarf into the copper bowl.

  I was just about to let myself out of the door when I realised: keys. They were still in the pocket of her coat.

  The police were arriving. I knew they were. Somebody had dropped in, to visit Trev, and raised the alarm.

  I hurried back into Lila’s bedroom. At midnight? Somebody would visit at midnight? I tiptoed into the closet, knelt down and rummaged in the pocket of the coat. My fingers closed over the keys.

  The bed creaked. Lila made a sound: a low, sighing groan. I stayed in the closet, crouched over the heap of fur. The mattress creaked again. It sounded as if she was getting out of bed.

  The closet door was ajar. I stared at the greyish strip of light. I didn’t dare move.

  Five minutes must have passed. I could hear no sound from the bedroom. She had climbed out of bed and padded into the kitchen. When I crept out, the bed would be empty.

  Finally I emerged. Lila had turned over, onto her back. Her masked face gazed at the ceiling. I knew her eyes were open, under the mask. I stood still, and listened. Her breathing was deep and regular. She was still asleep. You shouldn’t sleep on your back; it gives you nightmares.

  I fled. I let myself out of the apartment, double-locked the door and took the freight elevator down to the ground floor.

  I pushed open the side-entrance door and looked up and down the street.

  It was empty. Just two rows of parked cars. I slipped out like a shadow.

  Released into the night air, I walked very fast. I walked four blocks before I peeled off my clammy gloves and threw them into a trash can.