by Victoria Fox
Simone helped things along by draping her protégée in designer finery: a spot of Balmain here, a dash of Elisabetta Franchi there. Tess was papped everywhere she went; she was mobbed on the street, targeted as she exited a car and rushed into whatever studio or restaurant she was visiting that day—would she wear this bracelet, these sapphire drops, this exclusive brand of mascara? Simone cherry-picked the best, and relished every minute: she had long been hot property this side of the Atlantic, but, having Tess at her side, the girl who put all others in the shade, her girl, was a pride like none she had known. ‘You’ve never looked better,’ Simone’s friends in London flattered whenever they saw her. ‘Motherhood suits you.’ And Simone would smile, aglow in the certainty that they spoke the truth. For starters, she looked years younger. She had energy. Purpose. Focus. She laughed easily. She no longer let snide remarks in the press get the better of her. She could now look back on her troubled past with detachment, as if her horrible pregnancy and the terrors of that Surrey attic hadn’t happened to her but to some other unfortunate woman. She could move on.
Tess, meanwhile, loved it all. She embraced her role with a vigour and dedication Simone could only have prayed for. They were going straight to the top.
On Friday night, Tess attended a supper soiree at Maximilian Grey-Garner III’s mansion in the Hills. She was tense about meeting him—her teenage years had played out to a soundtrack of ‘Once Maximilian takes hold of you’ and ‘Once we get Maximilian on board’ and there was much to live up to—but she knew she would impress. Maximilian was the man who would make things happen. Tess was hopeful that such a connection might win her distance from Simone. Now she was here, she intended to work on her own. She wanted the prize to be hers and hers alone.
‘Well,’ Maximilian bellowed when they arrived, striding in from the starlit patio where the rest of his guests were mingling, ‘here she is.’ He air-kissed Simone and did the same to Tess. His cheeks were heavy and sweating, clammy as they touched hers. He had a thatch of grey hair and his shirt was open at the neck and decorated with a garish floral print. On his feet he wore open-toed sandals and his ankles were slightly burned. Maximilian didn’t look as professional as she’d assumed, more like someone’s dad lolloping off across the beach to fetch ice creams.
‘Understatement equals power,’ Simone had counselled on the way over. ‘They’re the ones who don’t have to try.’ Tess reminded herself that Maximilian was, despite appearances, the most influential agent in Hollywood. His list was a phone book of big hitters. If she signed with him that would be it: the mega league.
‘You have an amazing home.’ Tess returned his smile.
‘Oh,’ said Maximilian, waving a hand, ‘Scott deserves the credit for that. He’s the designer round here. I make the money—he spends it! That’s what we always say. Come on through, darling, I want you to meet everyone.’
As Tess followed Maximilian outside, she judged that he was honest and direct, didn’t suffer fools, and that those qualities would serve her well. It was Sainte-Marthe all over again, just on a bigger scale: who was useful and when; who could be employed for what, and then how hard would it be to drop them? Everyone did it. It was endurance, the long slog to the top, and she wasn’t here to make friends.
Heads turned as she emerged on to the terrace. Women took a step closer to their husbands; men’s eyes flitted across her with appetite. Maximilian noticed, too. ‘Simone wasn’t making it up,’ he said. Flutes of pale champagne passed by on a tray, and Maximilian lifted two. ‘I hear you’re causing a stir with the studios.’
‘I’m trying.’
He narrowed his eyes at her. ‘I sense when you try, you normally succeed.’
‘Not normally: always.’
‘Then the signs are good.’
‘For …?’
‘For us, of course.’
Simone joined them in that immaculately timed way she had, looping her arm through Tess’s and smiling up at Maximilian. Tess wished she could negotiate this on her own. She understood Simone’s investment and all the preparation she had done, but Tess didn’t intend to spend the rest of her days paying this woman off.
Just like Calida was paid off.
‘You are on my team, aren’t you?’ Maximilian raised an eyebrow.
Tess met his glass with a little too much force. ‘You bet I am,’ she said.
Simone announced the following week that the Chilcotts were flying over from England. ‘Brian needs a break,’ she said, and then, in a slightly strangled voice as if Tess had disputed or challenged her on that fact, ‘and so does Lysander.’
Days before, on the seventh of July, London had been rocked by a series of terrorist bombings, three explosions on the Underground and a fourth on a double-decker bus. It hadn’t occurred to Tess to worry for Simone’s brood, not just because the tragedy was unfolding so far away but also because they rarely, if ever, took public transport. Even so, it had been a relief when Simone reached the mansion and learned that everyone was safe. ‘And the kids?’ she’d demanded shrilly. ‘They’re both OK?’ Her white-knuckled grip had relaxed on the phone. The extent of the household’s involvement had lain with Vera, who had been passing Tavistock Square moments before the bus detonation and had stayed behind as an eyewitness.
The Chilcotts arrived on the morning Tess was due at her first casting: for Caitlin Wood’s new movie, White Candle. Caitlin was LA’s number one female director, having hoarded a net of awards and acclaim at last fall’s festival season: at Cannes she was incandescent, at Tribeca she was tremendous, at Sundance she was sensational. Tess was ready for it. She had practised the script, knew it by heart. There was never a question in her mind that she wouldn’t deliver. She had to deliver.
‘Whoa, check this place out!’ Lysander led the brigade into the Malibu villa. ‘This is sick!’ He dumped his bags. ‘Hey, Tess, looking hot as always.’
Simone flushed an angry shade. ‘That is your sister, remember?’ she hissed, folding her arms, but she accepted his peck on the cheek all the same. Tess noticed that she touched her stepson’s elbow very gently as he did so. The gesture shouldn’t have stood out, it was so tiny, so fleeting, but it did.
Emily skulked behind, determined to remain unimpressed. ‘Bit of a cliché, isn’t it?’ she said boredly, flumping down on the white leather couch. ‘Nowhere near as cool as the warehouse I’m moving into with Fi …’
‘Right,’ said Lysander, ‘the Hoxton Squatters. That place is a shit-pit.’
‘Fuck off, ‘Sander.’
‘Such a lady.’
‘Such an arsehole.’
‘Come on, you two.’ Brian was struggling through the door with the remainder of the luggage. ‘I’ve had this bickering the whole trip!’ Simone stood by the counter, looking pained, her mouth set in a line of mild distaste. He approached Simone and held her stiff shoulders, before leaning in to kiss her closed mouth.
‘You’d think they’d have some perspective after what’s happened,’ Brian went on. ‘Lysander’s friend Raoul was two stops from Edgware Road.’
‘Raoul’s fine.’
‘But others aren’t. Have some respect.’
‘I do have respect! Christ. What do you want me to do? Life goes on, Dad.’
Brian heaved his suitcase. Tess went to help him, since no one else was.
‘Thanks, love,’ said Brian, as they reached for the handle at the same time and his rough skin brushed against hers. ‘You’re a good girl.’
Tess flinched. Ever since Brian had cracked on to her in his office, he’d made her skin crawl. He looked up at her now with a sad longing. Was it any wonder? He hadn’t had a job in months, the kids disrespected him, the whole family treated him like an unwanted Labrador, and she had no doubt Simone lived up to her Ice Queen name in the bedroom. Tess questioned what life would be like being married to a titan like Brian. She could pinch him right from under Simone’s nose if she chose to.
‘We’ve got to get moving,’
said Simone brusquely. ‘Tess has an audition.’
‘Audition?’ Emily snorted, picking at the stitching on the couch. ‘Don’t know why she’s bothering—the part’s already hers, right?’
‘Shut up, Emily,’ said Simone.
‘Isn’t that how it works? Never mind about actual fucking talent—’
‘Now, now,’ said Brian, ‘let’s keep things peaceful.’
Emily rolled her eyes. But she gave Tess a reluctant ‘They’re such losers’ look that confirmed her attitude was directed at them, not at her stepsister.
In the end, the Chilcotts tagged along. Simone tried to tempt them into a siesta by the pool or into exploring the boutiques at the Colony Plaza, but Brian wouldn’t be dissuaded. The others were too busy squabbling to form a persuasive protest.
‘How long are you staying?’ Tess asked Emily in the Escalade.
‘Dunno,’ she sighed, ‘I didn’t even want to come …’
‘That’s a heap of crap,’ chipped in Lysander, his handsome lip curling. ‘Em reckons she’ll get spotted by some casting couch perv and they’ll give her a job on a porno. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Em—a nine-to-five fuckathon?’
‘You’re disgusting.’
‘Lysander, behave!’ came Brian’s voice from the front.
‘All right, old man, don’t give yourself a coronary.’ After a moment, he asked: ‘Would you, Tess? Do a guy onscreen?’
‘No.’
‘A girl, then.’
‘Lysander—please!’ Simone’s rebuke choked out of her.
‘I’m only asking. You’ve never done it … have you, Mummy?’
There was a long, loaded pause. Brian continued driving and Emily scrolled down her iPhone. ‘Certainly not,’ said Simone quietly.
‘Not even in the old days? When you were getting started?’
‘You go too far, Lysander,’ warned Brian.
‘She hasn’t answered. Come on, it’s not like we keep big bad secrets in this family, is it?’ His question hung on a tantalising, torturous thread. Simone blurted:
‘I’d never do that kind of film. Never. That’s the end of the discussion.’
Lysander, satisfied by this exchange, wound down his window and sat back.
It was a relief when they reached Maximilian’s office on Broadway. Simone grabbed Tess and hauled her inside, barking at some poor receptionist that Caitlin Wood was expecting them and fiercely jabbing the elevator call button.
Upstairs, Brian and the others hovered in the waiting area. Simone produced a mirror and had Tess check her reflection five times, a spot of gloss added and a quick rearrangement of her hair, before she was ready. ‘You,’ she barked at the Chilcotts, ‘wait outside.’ Then, to Tess, she whispered: ‘Go for it.’
They stepped through the door and introductions were made. The great Caitlin Wood sat between Maximilian on one side and two producers on the other.
‘When you’re ready, Tess.’
She took a breath and centred herself; found the opening line. The scene was a family reunion, Tess’s character vulnerable yet proud, a girl whose parents disown her after they find out she is pregnant. She stumbled through the first part, slipping on the words and then struggling to regain focus, and Caitlin remained inscrutable, her cropped hair and slash of red lipstick ever-present in Tess’s peripheral.
And then something crazy happened.
Although Tess was accustomed to the words, speaking them aloud changed them. For the first time, she was there; she was this person, it was happening.
Rage, unchecked, spilled out of her. Tess allowed her emotions to run away, knowing she should rein it in but unable to—she had come too far and the pain was too deep, too real, and there was no way of containing it. As she drilled into the climactic scene, the confrontation with her family, the moment she had waited for and wanted for years, she all at once forgot she was in a casting room. She was with Calida, raining hurt on her, hitting her, shaking her, begging her for answers but all along knowing her sister could not give them because her mouth was forever silenced.
Fury and bitterness she had kept in check broke free in a tidal wave; the hatred, the sadness, the heartache, it all came out. None of it was hard to bring up.
She would never be able to say these things in real life. It was too late for that. The people she needed to say them to were gone, their deaths sealing shut any chance of a way back, and now she was cut loose on the ocean of her future, no land in sight, no place calling her back, faintly, faintly, in spite of how she stifled it. She would never be able to express her torment, the soreness and upset that had nowhere to go except here, now, into this audition, in front of faces she scarcely knew. These people witnessed her heart and soul, crushed as those things were, pour on to that floor with absolute release. When she finished, nobody spoke. Even Simone was mute.
Tess took a second to come back into her body, to remember where she was. She felt cleansed, controlled, fundamentally altered. As if she had expelled a demon.
She clutched the script to her chest, waiting.
Caitlin and the panel conferred.
‘Simone, could you give us a minute?’ said Maximilian, nodding to the exit.
When the door had closed behind her, Caitlin spoke.
‘That was impressive, Tess,’ she said. Her eyes were sparkling. ‘I’ve never seen anyone like you—especially not at a first audition. How old are you?’
‘Twenty.’
‘You read like an actor with their whole life behind them. It was outstanding.’
‘Thank you.’
Minutes later, Tess went out into the lobby. She leaned against the wall, exhaling a lungful of air. Her blood was hot. Her mind was alert. Her pulse was racing. The ball of anger she had held in that room warmed her stomach, her chest, her neck, her whole body. I earned this. I’m entitled to it. It’s mine.
Too long she had buried her feelings, guilty at hating her family because they were dead and that was the greatest karma of all. But now she saw she was permitted her wrath. She should let it grow. She had a right to hit back against the injustice of it, the heinous decision they had made, even if there was nobody to hit back against.
Calida wished me gone. My twin, my sister, my friend … She sold me.
It was with some surprise that, on reaching the elevators, hushed voices disrupted her thoughts. She had thought the Chilcotts had been relegated down on to the street. ‘We have to tell him,’ a man hissed, out of sight. Despite his low pitch, Tess recognised him immediately as Lysander. There was a scuffle, like someone escaping an embrace, before the woman replied. Tess’s stomach lurched.
‘Are you insane?’ Simone shot back. ‘This is my marriage. He’s your father.’
‘It has to be soon. I can’t do this any longer. All the pretending, it’s doing my bloody head in. I can’t stop thinking about you. I’m mad about you.’
‘Don’t say that!’ Another scuffle; this one combined with a moan. ‘Please …’
‘You know how I feel—’
Tess dropped the script. Mierda! The voices stopped just as abruptly.
Simone popped her head round the corner and turned on a mega-watt beam. ‘Darling!’ she cried. ‘What did they say? Are we celebrating?’
Her adoptive mother looked wired; her eyes were wild, as if she’d emerged from a wind tunnel. Lysander nicked his chin with his thumb and hung back. Tess caught his gaze and this time there was no cocky retort or self-satisfied sneer.
‘They gave me the part,’ she said.
‘That’s wonderful!’ Simone locked her in a hug. She smelled of Lysander’s aftershave. ‘Let’s go and find the others, shall we? This calls for champagne!’
Tess followed Lysander out. As she stepped into the sunshine, watching the back of his head, the hot tips of his ears and the flush of colour spreading down his neck, she sensed that her life wasn’t the only one about to change beyond recognition.
24
Argentina
The first few attempts, he didn’t pick up. Calida couldn’t blame him. After what she’d said to him at Cristian Ramos’s house, she didn’t deserve his time.
When finally she got through:
‘I’m going away,’ Daniel said. ‘I won’t be back until the New Year.’
‘Where?’ she asked.
His answering quiet told her it was none of her business. She no longer had his friendship. Remembering how he had let her inside that door, a glimpse behind the shield he kept so solidly in place—I trusted you, and you ran out on me—made her shrink with regret.
The weeks crawled by impossibly slowly … waiting for him.
Calida handed in her notice at the club.
‘You’ve brought this place up from its knees,’ said Paola, who was sad to see her go. ‘I will miss you—but I understand.’ Her contract obliged her to work a remaining two weeks. On the nights Rodrigo tangoed, she avoided him.
In a stroke of luck, Calida’s exit from El Antiguo coincided with the pizza place opening another shop across town. Calida jumped at the supervisor’s role. The money was double what she’d previously earned and over the coming weeks she watched the funds in her bank account climb, slow but steady, to the point where she was able to skim the top off her income and save every month. Next came news that her landlord was seeking a quick sale on the Belgrano apartment: was she interested in buying? Yes, she was. Property was a sensible investment, a home in her name, and the place had potential. She could do it up, sell it on, the market was rising …
All the while, one man stayed in her mind. Calida yearned to show him all she had learned. She fantasised about spending the night with him—but, instead of the inexperienced child who had lain next to him, trapped in the wanderings of her mind, she would take him in her arms and make love to him for real.
When they saw each other again, it would be OK. It would work out. She needed Daniel at her back for where she was going. She needed his support and his love. When she met Tess Geddes again, she had to know he was on her side.
She only had to be patient.