The Confession

by Jessie Burton

  To Elise, watching as Barbara came towards the table in the restaurant, it was as if they were in the presence of an archangel. Here she was, sitting with humans! Barbara’s head was small but leonine, and her forehead was high. Her teeth, when she smiled – and she smiled quickly at Elise – were large. And that extraordinary mouth! The smile pleaded honesty. Her accent still held hints of the South: warm and deep and rolling, wry and musical. The blue-collar twang it was rumoured she’d started with had long evaporated. When she sat down, the air seemed to ripple outwards from the space she’d taken up. Her aura posed an interesting question in Elise’s mind as to whom this dinner was really for.

  ‘So how are you finding LA?’ Matt said as everyone took their seats. It was a moment before Elise realized he was talking to her.

  She’d become familiar with Matt and Shara over the last three weeks. The two couples were spending a lot of time together, with Shara and Connie eager to catch up. Shara had two modes: acting high on the sight of her old friend, or exhausted by everything. She had said she would take them shopping on Melrose, if they wanted. She rarely went these days, but she knew the perfect places for a manicure, a massage, a kiwi-juice cleanse. Shara wasn’t just American; Shara was Californian. She was a painter with family money, and had a huge airy studio overlooking the sea. She seemed a kind person, whose own history threaded six generations deep into this state, when the sun and the land and the water had glinted in the rush of gold, and wooden houses had nothing to do with drinks called Brain On and strip malls. Elise couldn’t imagine that past was any easier, but she was glad to meet Shara and Matt, and to get to know Connie’s friends, a fragment of her past. It made her feel more legitimate.

  She thought about Matt’s question. Truthfully, she found the place bizarre. How strange this place could be, a locus of work, not life, where even going to a pool party was about laying the ground for a job! There were the sinister undertones of insincerity from waitresses, more than average idiocies on billboards, and a plurality of everything, dizzying, deeply uncomfortable to her. You either hate it or love it! Shara had told Connie and Elise when they’d visited Matt and Shara’s Malibu home; the inference being that if they hated it, they were square and uppity, European.

  ‘It’s a bit different,’ she said to him.

  Matt laughed. ‘To London?’

  ‘To everywhere.’

  ‘Have you ever been to New York?’ he said.

  ‘Never.’

  He looked at her seriously. ‘I think you’d like it there.’

  At Matt and Shara’s beach house, when they all sat on the shore, looking at the ocean, Elise secretly believed she’d seen better coastlines in the south of France, and the sand on Malibu was gritty. Elise was glad for Connie’s acts of storytelling that had brought them here, but it seemed that everything was a plan for tomorrow, with nothing for the moment in hand.

  Shara was Connie’s age, but Matt was younger, probably about thirty. He was shortish, slender, with a wiry, sprung energy to him, a slim, attractive face, a shadow of stubble and dark circles under his eyes. His hair was a nest, scruffy and tawny-coloured. Apparently he wrote screenplays. Connie said that Shara had met him in a bar in Manchester, and he’d followed her over here to pursue his dreams. So far, none of his screenplays had been picked up. According to Connie, Shara’s parents had thought their only daughter had married some sort of English lord, but had rapidly been disappointed. Matt was very . . . normal. It hurts him, Connie said. Americans can be even snobbier than the Brits. All men are created equal? Some chance. Tonight, he was wearing a white blazer, and he’d rolled up the sleeves. He seemed twitchy. It’s Shara’s money, Connie said. He doesn’t know what to do with himself.

  Cicadas whirred in the background of the hills as the party filled their glasses, and Elise was disappointed to find she was not seated next to Barbara, but placed between Matt and Eric Williamson, who had Barbara on his left. She caught Connie’s eye, and they held a conspiratorial moment.

  Eric Williamson was small and intense, like a vibrating crystal at the table. He had grey hair and a taut, tanned face. He did not look like the kind of man who would wear a baseball cap and sit in a director’s chair. He looked more like a philosopher in a fitness instructor’s body. He did not seem interested in talking to her.

  ‘You think they’re all boneheads, don’t you?’ Matt whispered.

  Elise felt exposed. ‘No,’ she said defensively. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘I did too, at first. When I arrived. But actually, you have to be clever to survive here,’ he said. ‘I’ve met more bright men and women here than any other place on earth. And I’ve been to a lot of places on earth. Sure, some of them are as thick as shit,’ he went on, grinning. ‘But you’ve got to have ideas, enthusiasm, tenacity like you would not believe.’

  ‘You’ve also gotta make sure you don’t drink the Kool-Aid,’ Barbara interrupted, emerging suddenly from behind them, putting her hand on the back of Matt’s chair. Elise felt herself go rigid with the proximity. ‘You know, go travelling up your own ass?’ Barbara went on. Her cigarette was balanced between two fingers and the smoke was curling into Matt’s hair.

  Matt turned his face up to her, acting relaxed. ‘I’ll remember that,’ he said.

  ‘I just wanted to get that clear,’ Barbara said. ‘Felt I should.’

  ‘Don’t you think Elise should do a screen test?’ Matt said, turning back to address the table.

  ‘Me?’ said Elise.

  ‘With your face,’ he said.

  ‘Just with my face?’ she said, and everybody laughed. Barbara moved on, back to her own seat. ‘I’m not an actress,’ said Elise.

  ‘You just have to be a good liar,’ said Matt.

  ‘Hey!’ said Barbara, but she was smiling.

  ‘I’d say the writers have to be good liars, and the actors are the ones who have to be truthful,’ said Connie.

  Shara sucked on a slice of lemon and bobbed it back into her vodka tonic.

  ‘You’re a good liar, then, Con?’ said Elise.

  Connie looked at her. ‘Most of the time. I’m also good at the truth.’

  ‘Would you call London home, Elise?’ said Shara. The softly lit courtyard lent itself to her cream shoulder pads and the amber necklace on her tanned décolletage. The insistent way Shara uttered the word home, and the talk of Connie being a good liar, made Elise uncomfortable.

  ‘I run away a lot,’ she said.

  Matt laughed, and Elise thought she saw a flicker of disappointment in Shara’s eyes. Elise wasn’t sure Shara would understand her lifelong experience of constant moving, nor absent parents, nor the perverse comfort of pitying yourself for not yet arriving where you’re supposed to be. ‘I mean, I used to run away. Before Connie,’ she said.

  *

  The setting of Heartlands had been moved to America. London had become New York and the English countryside was now the Catskill Mountains. The exterior shots – Beatrice’s village, its surrounding woods, her daughter Gaby’s walk-up in Greenwich Village – were to be filmed in situ. All interior shots were to be filmed on the Silvercrest lot. Thus Connie’s novel was to be anatomized, broken apart over the stretch of a huge continent, to be put back together at the end in a coherent whole.

  ‘Does it matter to you, Connie?’ said Barbara. ‘That it’s American now?’

  Connie considered this. ‘I’ll rub my cheque into the wound,’ she said, and everyone laughed.

  ‘So are you two ladies gonna hang around for the whole shoot?’ said Bill Gazzara. ‘You’d be more than welcome.’

  Connie’s expression was unreadable to Elise – a first – and she did not like it.

  ‘We’re not sure yet,’ said Connie. ‘We don’t want to get in the way.’

  *

  Barbara was a good actress that night. She was no fool. Elise supposed Matt was right: you wouldn’t last long in LA if you were. She must have known what her presence would do for this film. It was part
of Barbara’s mythology that she’d had four husbands so far – the truth was, she was as famous for her marriages as her acting. She was often quoted as saying, I love men, I just couldn’t eat a whole one – but no one knew if she’d really said it. Elise watched how delicately she ate her prawn cocktail. Like Shara, she had a vodka tonic bubbling before her: Elise hadn’t seen any of this arrive; she felt blind to detail, yet paranoiacally aware of everything larger. A waiter poured her a white wine, and she watched the cold liquid form a film of condensation on the glass, wishing someone would give her some food. Barbara, Connie and Eric were now talking about Wax Heart and the book’s theme of how one can be reborn without having to die.

  ‘I believe in that kind of reincarnation,’ said Barbara. ‘Except we don’t even need to be reborn to make the same mistakes again and again. There’s something in us that just goes on repeat.’

  ‘When it comes to me and tequila I’d be inclined to agree,’ said Bill.

  ‘It’s about where the coin falls,’ said Eric. ‘You gotta get lucky.’

  ‘The bit by the coffin, Constance. When Bea says to Gaby she’s a disappointment? Jesus Christ,’ said Barbara.

  ‘Oh, call me Connie, please.’

  Bill cackled. ‘It’s amazing. But why doesn’t she just say something back?’

  ‘Bea’s just more interesting than her daughter,’ said Shara. ‘Gaby – that woman! Oh, I could not bear her.’

  ‘She’s just a girl,’ said Matt. ‘Cut her some slack.’

  ‘Me and Eric have worked together four times,’ said Barbara, raising her glass in Eric’s direction. ‘We know each other. I know you, Eric. This is gonna be exciting. It’s gonna be such a great movie. Though it’s a shame you couldn’t get Derek Yelland to shoot it for you.’

  ‘Barb, he’s eighty-four,’ said Eric. ‘He had a stroke last year. Give the guy a break.’

  ‘Derek wouldn’t have done it anyway,’ said Bill. ‘I offered him Glory Days, but his wife wouldn’t let him work again. She won’t even let him off his ranch. I think he’s in a bridle.’

  ‘It’s likely,’ said Eric. ‘But this wasn’t right for him, anyway. I love the guy, but when was the last time Derek did a picture with intimate scenes like this material requires? Everyone’s either grunting or kicking the shit out of each other.’

  ‘I don’t go to the cinema very often,’ said Connie.

  Barbara winced theatrically on her behalf, covering her eyes with her hands. ‘Is this an attack?’ she said, but she put one hand to her temple and pointed her other hand ridiculously at Connie, so everyone knew it was a joke. ‘You sounded so English!’

  ‘English people don’t make movies,’ said Connie. ‘We prefer to tell stories by a spitting fire as sheets of rain travel over bogs.’

  ‘That’s probably a good thing,’ Barbara said. ‘So many movies are just a crock of shit.’

  ‘What I was looking for,’ said Bill, trying to draw the attention back to himself, ‘and what I got, is someone who can tell a story, who actors like, but who has a sense of the epic beyond the individuals moving in the drama. Someone with a wild vision, but who knows how that translates to a housewife in Ohio or a nurse in Detroit or a business guy in London.’ He pressed his hand to the tablecloth as if it was an altar. ‘We needed someone with a heart. But instead, we got Eric!’ Everyone laughed. ‘Kidding, buddy. What an absolute coup you are, to be doing this. Everyone at Silvercrest is so delighted.’

  The company appeared moved by this conviction, and let the moment sink in: a movie director who had a heart. Glasses were clinked.

  ‘Wrong town to have a heart,’ said Barbara, with a dry laugh as she lit a cigarette. The catch of the flame, the quotidian ease of her inhale – Is this a line from a movie? thought Elise. Her timing was just too good.

  They raised their glasses to Barbara’s observation. Then to Barbara, then to Heartlands, and finally to Connie – the heartiest toast, ‘because without you, Connie,’ said Bill, ‘none of this would be happening.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you’d find another novel, Bill,’ said Connie, but Elise could tell she was touched and happy.

  The appetizers arrived. Elise wasn’t sure who ordered them, but here they were – terrines and tiny salads and over-the-top architectures of mousse that could be snaffled in a mouthful. She thought about pasta. Maybe this would come next? Barbara declined it all: the prawn cocktail and the vodka tonic were apparently all she required.

  ‘Ursula Inning was keen to play your daughter,’ said Eric. ‘I didn’t think she was right.’

  Barbara frowned. ‘Urse? She wanted to play my daughter?’

  ‘I’m glad we got Lucy Crenshaw.’

  ‘Who’s she again?’ said Barbara.

  ‘Oh, she’s beautiful,’ said Shara.

  ‘How old is she?’ said Barbara.

  ‘Eighteen,’ said Eric.

  ‘Going on twenty-eight,’ murmured Bill.

  ‘Have I seen her in anything?’ said Barbara.

  Eric rolled his eyes. ‘You know, Barb,’ he said. ‘She’s Chubby Crenshaw’s kid. Left Juilliard early to film Red Destiny.’

  ‘Chubby Crenshaw?’ Connie snorted, covering her mouth to stop herself hooting.

  Shara looked at her. ‘Charlotte Crenshaw – the model?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. No idea,’ said Connie.

  ‘Married the movie composer, Tom Crenshaw?’ Shara persisted. ‘Retired years ago, runs a llama sanctuary in Topanga. Now her daughter’s making waves.’

  ‘How the hell do you know all that?’ said Matt.

  ‘Magazines,’ said Shara.

  ‘I’m just the one who writes the novels,’ said Connie heavily.

  Elise felt as if they’d been sitting at this table for fifteen years.

  ‘So why isn’t Lucy here tonight?’ said Barbara. ‘If she’s my daughter?’

  ‘She’s finishing shooting out east. She’ll be back next week.’

  ‘And the men?’ said Barbara. ‘Have I got a lead yet, fellers? What’s the delay?’

  ‘You could take your pick,’ said Eric.

  ‘Baby, I always do.’ Barbara seemed congenitally incapable of not making her conversation sound like lines from a screwball comedy. ‘Let’s get some of the theatre men in,’ she said. ‘Please not the meatheads. It’s too much.’

  ‘Agree with you,’ said Eric. ‘I totally agree.’

  ‘It’s impossible to find everything in one man. I never can. I want one guy’s dick and another one’s mind, and I can never find those two things in the same damn place.’

  *

  To Elise’s delight, the main course was pasta; beef shin ragu farfalle or courgette and cannellini tagliatelle. She took portions of both. So did the men, and so did Connie. Shara took some of the vegetarian option and forked small discs of courgette into her mouth, twisting the strands of pasta round and round on the plate, as if she was preparing the meal, not eating it. The talk of actors faded, people moved places, lit cigarettes, ordered brandies and random desserts. They discussed Reagan and Thatcher in slightly detached tones, as if the food had sedated them and no one could be bothered.

  ‘Wasn’t he an actor once, too?’ said Elise.

  ‘He was better in his former job,’ said Barbara.

  The evening began to lose structure. Connie and Barbara went towards the pool, arm in arm like ladies from an Austen novel. Elise watched as Connie said something to make Barbara laugh. Bill and Eric were still at the table, leaning back from the soiled tablecloth, discussing the script, which had been written by a new wunderkind called Daniel Stein, who lived out in New York. Matt was listening to them, and Elise wondered how he felt. Daniel Stein was twenty-six and already being feted. ‘He’s gifted,’ said Bill. ‘He’s taken Connie’s novel – he gets it, and he’s turned it into this script I wanna kiss. You know, Barb loved the novel, but she’d never have done it if it wasn’t for Danny’s script. He’s made it sing.’

  Shara excused herself a
nd went to the ladies’. ‘Honey,’ she said, placing her hand on Matt’s shoulder. But she didn’t say anything more.

  Matt and Elise watched Shara disappear into the main building. ‘Do you write?’ he asked her, turning away from Bill and Eric.

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘Are you working on anything at the moment?’

  ‘Recently, it’s been mainly poetry,’ he said.

  ‘Wow. Have you been published?’

  ‘Small presses, based out here. You should come surfing one Sunday,’ he said. ‘If you’re bored.’

  ‘I’m not bored.’

  ‘You might get bored.’

  ‘I’ve never surfed.’

  ‘I’ll teach you.’

  ‘OK.’

  Matt was not looking at Elise now, but across the pool to the stately progress of Barbara and Connie. The women were indifferent to everyone, their heads together, until a waiter came to whisper in Barbara’s ear. ‘My driver’s here,’ Barbara said loudly. The evening was over and it had only just turned nine o’clock. Shara returned from the ladies’, a smile laid on her mouth. They all stood to say goodbye to each other, but it felt natural that Barbara should be the first addressed. Each of them embraced the movie star lightly, like family members used to a certain ritual. Elise did it too, feeling the slightly damp touch of Barbara’s cheek, the scent of vanilla, the wisp of Marlboro.

  ‘Call me,’ Barbara said to Eric. ‘Connie!’ she cried, taking Connie’s hand. ‘It’s like meeting a soul sister.’

  Connie smiled. ‘The pleasure’s all mine.’

  ‘I can’t wait to give Beatrice the passion she deserves.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And we’ll see each other soon.’

  Barbara let go of Connie’s hand. She smiled at Elise. Then she was gone.

  *

  In the taxi home, Connie and Elise dissected the evening. ‘I think that was one of the most insane nights of my life,’ said Connie.

  ‘I didn’t know Matt was a poet,’ said Elise.

  Connie laughed. ‘Matt and his fucking poetry.’

  Elise recoiled at Connie’s tone, and Connie seemed to sense she’d gone too far. ‘Elise, you haven’t read them. He reads them out at dinner, sometimes. You literally have to put down your knife and fork and listen to him. Can you imagine if I did that?’