Who's That Girl?

by Mhairi McFarlane

  The room’s décor was standard issue for a comfortable, 2.4 family in this postcode, if a little staid. There was a thick deep beige carpet, a floral sofa set with those napkin-like thingies over the back – antimacassars? A varnished oak cabinet, the type that definitely had gummy-capped bottles of Advocaat and Martini Rosso behind its doors. A clock in a glass dome with a metronomic swinging device gave a hypnotic tick-tock-tick-tock.

  Elliot’s parents were away on a cruise, his agent had told Edie, so he’d opted to stay here rather than a hotel. She added lots of strenuous caveats about not disclosing this address to anyone, which offended Edie, as if she was going to go on Reddit and post GUESS WHAT, GUYS.

  The cabinet shelves displayed childhood portraits in chunky silver frames. Elliot had been, as expected, an angelic-looking little boy, marble skin and molasses-dark hair. Edie could see how he’d got a role as a Celt warrior.

  His younger brother was completely dissimilar, as Meg was to Edie – blond, stouter, blunter of features, still handsome.

  ‘… that a threat? Are you serious? Take him then, I honestly don’t care what your fork-tongued friends say about it, do you? Huh, clearly. Wait, WAIT. So on one hand you’re saying you’ll have to take him if I don’t show, as if that’s going to cause me to kick off, but I’m an uncaring bastard for not kicking off? What kind of stupid trap is – oh really, Heather. Have a word with yourself.’

  Yeah, maybe she has a word with herself and you have a word with me, how does that work for you?

  Edie deduced the argument had something to do with Elliot not dropping everything and attending Heather’s birthday in New York, and Heather’s subsequent threats to arrive on someone else’s arm. It sounded like it had turned into a full-scale ‘you never put me first’ which showed no signs of burning out any time soon. Edie checked her watch. She’d been here twenty minutes. Tick-tock.

  She could check her phone. She did some listless scrolling, although with no Facebook and no friends, there wasn’t much to distract her. She’d not looked at Twitter in an age. With a jolt, she saw some abuse on there: messages from Lucie and probably friends of Lucie asking her how she could sleep at night. Edie quickly shut it down: not now. She read news sites, she did flower doodles on her notepad, and tried not to think about how the number of people who reviled her was enough to fill a village hall, with garden overspill.

  The beautiful people and their imaginary problems saga continued next door. She checked her watch. Forty-five minutes. This was turning Naomi Campbell – and not only that, he was on the bloody premises. It was perfectly within his power to end the call.

  At fifty-two minutes, when Edie’s chest was tight in irritation with his manners, Elliot went quiet, banged about for a few seconds, then entered the room.

  He flopped down on the sofa and barely looked at her. Edie waited for an apology about keeping her waiting, none was forthcoming. Anger was a useful cure for awe, anyway.

  ‘Hi, I’m Edie,’ Edie said, and ran into an instant roadblock. You usually introduced yourself to get a name in return. Given she patently didn’t need one, it left the line dangling.

  ‘Hi. Yeah. This project. I don’t know whether Kirsty spoke to you. I really don’t want to do it.’

  Edie summoned courtesy with some effort and said: ‘Oh. I thought we were meeting up because you wanted to do it?’

  ‘Nah, my agent signed me up for it. I really don’t see the point. The whole thing is just an exercise in ego.’

  Hahahhahaha and you hate indulging your ego, I can tell, thought Edie.

  ‘Soo … should I tell them it’s off? Or … should you?’

  ‘We’ve done all the paperwork, so it’s going to be a pain in the arse. Can you just draft as much as you can without me for the time being, and I’ll take a look?’

  Oh right, so you want the money but you won’t do the work. This is just BRILLIANT. Next time anyone told Edie they fancied Elliot Owen, she wouldn’t make the Trainee Barista coffee joke, she’d throw one over them.

  ‘I can draft something but it really needs your input. I was told the publisher wants, uhm, real meat.’

  Elliot had been rubbing his eyes and they suddenly snapped open in a not-very-friendly way, like she’d poked a crocodile with a stick.

  ‘“Real meat”? What the hell does that mean?’

  ‘Er …? Things that haven’t been anywhere else, I suppose.’

  ‘Gossip and generally invading my private life? No fucking way. I knew this was a disaster.’ He said this to an invisible third party, instead of Edie, although she felt entirely invisible.

  ‘We could work on what we wanted to leave out and …’

  ‘No no no. This is trashy.’

  In another time, and another place, when she hadn’t been shredded by humiliation, flattened by shame, involuntarily thrown back to her home city and forced into a bruising encounter with a truculent narcissist, Edie might’ve handled this more diplomatically. As it was, she was boiling with fury.

  ‘I don’t understand your attitude. You’ve signed off on this and presumably accepted the money. The idea is you collaborate with me and we both get a good book out of it.’

  Elliot’s eyes widened and she felt she finally had his attention, at least.

  ‘Oh yeah, you’re going to write a good book. C’mon. We both know this is one of those hack job cash-ins you see in the bargain bin at the supermarket. Like Danny Dyer’s A Cheeky Blighter or whatever.’

  Edie could think of a few titles for Elliot’s right now.

  ‘Well it’s definitely going to be a hack job if you won’t be interviewed properly.’

  Elliot ran a hand through his hair and again appeared to look offstage to some imaginary PR handler.

  ‘Sorry for your disappointment.’

  Edie was humiliated, and spoke before she thought.

  ‘This isn’t disappointment, it’s anger at having to work with someone being completely unprofessional. And spoiled.’

  ‘Woah!’ Elliot’s eyes were round.

  Edie had gone too far and they both knew it.

  ‘This must be the rapport-building phase to win the subject’s trust,’ Elliot said. ‘Tell you what …’ a pause here while he realised he couldn’t remember her name, ‘I think we’ve established this isn’t going to work.’

  He got to his feet and pulled his stripy grey jumper over his flat stomach.

  ‘Great meeting, thanks a lot.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks a lot,’ Edie said, with similar sarcastic intonation, and briskly showed herself out, to spare him the effort he wasn’t going to make.

  18

  What a wanker! Would you believe it? What an utterly intergalactic astrotwat.

  Edie was already replaying lines from that brief encounter in her head, almost chuntering quotes out loud in the street, in the way of deeply indignant people.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she slipped it out. Richard. Her rage march to the nearest bus stop was stopped in its tracks. She let the call ring out and saw the words New Voicemail appear ominously on the screen.

  It would be a check in, a ‘how are you getting on’. I had a row with him and the project is cancelled, Edie imagined herself saying. Oh, and his agent might hear I was … forthright.

  She swallowed hard. That would be an awful conversation. Even worse than the one about the wedding. Then, she hadn’t owed Richard quite as much. He had since taken pity on her and extended her this lifeline. She knew he wanted to keep her, not Jack – it was Edie he liked, Jack, not so much, and Richard always said employing people you liked was good business sense. He’d maybe even choose Edie over Charlotte, if it came to a her-or-me stand-off from one of his best account managers.

  Edie would now repay this faith by embarrassing him in front of the publisher contact and letting him down entirely. At least the last writer to walk out hadn’t burned the bridge behind him. And she’d been warned that Elliot was difficult. Elliot Owen was a star, and being an arseh
ole was a clear perk. That was what was nagging at Edie throughout their confrontation. Not that she wasn’t well within her rights to sound off, but that they weren’t on an even footing when it came to losing your rag. He could be mardy, she was expected to keep her cool in the face of complete unreason. She was supposed to sweet-talk, wheedle and cajole, and in her ire at the Heather delay, she’d lost sight of the mission.

  She didn’t see a way out of calling Richard back and copping to this mistake. Richard’s disgust and disappointment with her, she couldn’t handle. She couldn’t lose another friend. One of the very few real ones.

  There was a possible plan B. Could she bear to try it? It was a vile prospect but on balance, the marginally less vile of the two. She vacillated. She stared at the New Voicemail, as her heart thumped.

  Even though it was unlikely to do any good, she’d have to at least try to see if there was a chance of rescue. Richard would surely demand she tried anyway.

  With lead in her shoes and a stomach full of ball bearings, she walked back down the street to Elliot’s house, and rang the bell again. Her nerves now had nothing to do with his fame, though it hardly helped.

  One of the problems of meeting celebs was knowing that you’d comb over every stupid thing you said afterwards, even if they’d not remember you five seconds later. It was certain she was going to have the full Gollum body cringe whenever Elliot Owen’s name came up. This might be an even worse cringe than ‘Charlack’.

  He opened the door, leaned on the door frame and peered at her, inscrutable apart from the sullen set of his mouth.

  Edie cleared her throat.

  ‘Hello again. Er, OK, that didn’t go quite how I planned. How about this. I write some draft copy and you see if you like it. We do a few interviews but you keep the topics to things you’re comfortable with. We’ll see how we go.’

  ‘I thought a moment ago I was a spoiled unprofessional twat?’

  Edie bit down ‘you were’ and said: ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped like that. Obviously I was thinking about what I’d been—’

  Elliot interrupted.

  ‘Have you been told to come back here and persuade me?’

  ‘No.’

  Elliot folded his arms. ‘Liar.’

  ‘I’m not lying!’

  ‘It’s still a no, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Look. Please, can we – I’m in an impossible position …’

  ‘Get down from your stool, there’s no point doing the ballad.’

  He had a sharper tongue on him than Edie expected. Elliot went to close the door and Edie near-shrieked.

  ‘Stop, stop! No one’s told me to apologise. But I have to do this book. I can’t go back to my office, and face everyone I work with. Please.’

  Elliot opened the door again. ‘Why not? Did you insult them too?’

  ‘I kissed someone’s husband on their wedding day. Both he and his wife are my colleagues. My company is weaponised right now. I asked to be sacked and my boss gave me this to do instead, while it blows over.’

  Arrrgh shut up, Edie.

  That part might’ve been best left out, especially as Elliot had done a double take. This was a large gamble. Edie reasoned that throwing herself on his mercy was the only thing she had left; but on the other hand, it could be repeated to make her look like a completely incompetent fruit loop, and embarrass Richard further. Short of pulling a gun on him, however, she had nothing.

  There was a pause. Elliot shifted his weight and frowned.

  ‘You kissed someone’s husband on their wedding day? Like on the cheek?’

  ‘No. Kissed-kissed.’

  He lifted his eyebrows. ‘Christ.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘In front of who?’

  Asking questions had to be a cautiously good sign.

  ‘No one, we thought … then the bride saw us.’

  ‘Y’kidding?’

  ‘No. They split up on the spot. I should say here that he kissed me. I didn’t try to kiss him.’

  ‘Not sure you’re the person I should feel sorry for in this anecdote, but whatever you say.’

  There was unexpected wry humour in his tone.

  ‘I might not be. I’m begging you not to send me back to London yet. I’m from Nottingham too, so it’s good to be home …’

  That was an openly craven untruth, Edie thought.

  ‘… I’m not as lucky as you though, my family are all at home. Hah.’

  She was gabbling now. Elliot folded his arms. His expression closed again but Edie had an inkling she might just have won a second chance. If it was a no, surely the door would be shut by now.

  ‘Please,’ Edie soldiered on. ‘Let’s try to do this book. There’s got to be a way of making this work, so that I—’

  Elliot chewed the inside of his cheek and held up a palm.

  ‘… No rubbish about who I’m seeing though, I can’t stand all that.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Edie said, feeling giddy with shock that he’d relented. ‘You sign off everything I write, so no surprises. I’m quite good at writing. You might even like what I do.’

  Elliot made a sceptical face and scratched the back of his neck, exhaled.

  ‘I’ll give it a go, but no promises.’

  Edie could fist pump, while doing a knee slide. ‘Absolutely. Understood.’

  ‘I don’t have many scenes on Friday so I should be done by afternoon. How about we do it over a pint?’

  ‘Sounds great.’ Edie beamed.

  ‘A-right. I’ll get Kirsty to ping you the details.’

  Elliot closed the door in her face.

  Edie walked back down the street with a spring in her step, grinning like an idiot in relief. Elliot was … she wouldn’t say she liked him. At least he wasn’t a completely inhumane monster though. She might be able to break through to some sort of kernel of humanity, then grossly exaggerate it for the benefit of his fans.

  She listened to the message and pressed dial on her phone.

  ‘Richard! Hi …’

  19

  Her father had clearly said more to Meg than Edie realised. Meg was quieter, contrite, and even apologised.

  ‘Sorry if I was rude about your dress,’ she mumbled, when Edie was in the kitchen making a cup of tea on the following blazing hot Wednesday morning. Their dad was at the supermarket. ‘Was only meant to be a joke.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Edie said. She was going to exploit the moment to say something like, ‘I do have principles you know’ but then had the twin thoughts: don’t push it and why bother. Also maybe the woman hiding in her home town in shame wasn’t in the best position to make that case.

  Edie was glad of the temporary ceasefire though.

  ‘Want one?’ Edie asked, gesturing to her tea-bag dunking.

  ‘Ah, no. Winnie and Kez will be here in a minute.’

  Meg had mentioned she was having some friends over for a barbecue this afternoon. Edie had perked up – ‘ooh, barbecue!’ and considered dropping Hannah a text to see if she could join them. Then she remembered it was a Meg barbecue. Disintegrating Sosmix nut-turds would sit there smoking meatlessly on the coals, instead of burgers and chops. Also, Meg’s friends often conducted themselves like Fun Prevention Officers. Although Edie had met Winnie and Kez a while back and they seemed more docile than the more fighty social justice warriors of Meg’s acquaintance. Did none of them have work to go to on a Wednesday, though?

  Meg didn’t offer for Edie to join in and Edie didn’t want to, so she thought it tactful to go up to her room and stay out of their way. She started drafting The Elliot Owen Story, according to the How to Write a Novel book she was consulting. Though it had to be said, her data was thin stuff. He could’ve had the basic consideration of an interesting origins tale. The prequel to ‘grew up handsome and got famous’ didn’t have much storytelling value.

  After half an hour of pecking at her laptop, Edie heard music and clanking around in the back garden. She glanced out of her b
edroom window and did an involuntary gasp. ‘What the …’

  There was brazen, unexpected nudity, right in front of her: neither Winnie or Kez were wearing any clothes on their upper half.

  Winnie, a voluptuous twenty-something with curly hair, had unleashed stupendously huge mammaries. They were swinging gently like udders as she checked the foil-wrapped packages on the grill. Edie winced at her leaning too far and getting broiled breasts. Kez was her physical opposite: wiry and tiny to the point where you might mistake her for a teenage boy, at first glance. She had cornrows, a giant tattoo of the words ‘CAN U NOT’ across her very flat stomach, and nipple piercings like Frankenstein’s bolts.

  Mercifully, Meg was clothed. She was in what could be best described as dungashorts, with a striped vest underneath. They were all swigging from cans of Strongbow, smoking roll-ups and playing some music from a beat-up ghettoblaster that had a boom-digga-boom-digga bassy rumble. One of them had brought a thin, grey dog with mange, which sat on the concrete patio looking as embarrassed as Edie felt, head on paws.

  I mean, really though, Edie thought. You could celebrate your natural form and the wind on your skin any place you liked, but Wednesday afternoon in your friend’s dad’s garden seemed not the natural order of things. Society has taboos for a reason. Also, the narrow garden was overlooked by about a dozen windows. They’d make this house a magnet for perverts. Edie imagined saying any of this to them and realised she’d sound like an eighty-three-year-old, writing a letter to the Telegraph.

  She checked her watch. Her dad would be home soon. She didn’t want to be here where he got in and tried to conduct a stuttering, startled conversation with them. Edie bounded down the stairs, picked her bag up in the kitchen and put her head round the back door. They were all clustered round the barbecue, gnawing on corncobs.