Who's That Girl?

by Mhairi McFarlane

  A rapping of knuckles disturbed them. Archie Puce popped his face round the door.

  ‘Well done, Owen, that was a fucking triumph. Not just a pretty face. I’d need a doll to show you where that touched me.’

  ‘Thanks, mate!’

  He spotted Edie and visibly blanched. ‘Oh. Hello again, Linda. You and your tambourine are just what our band needs, once again.’

  Edie got the reference to The Beatles, with a spasm of embarrassment, and nodded curtly. ‘Hello, Archie.’

  ‘You completely disproved everything I accused you of when we last spoke, well done. I think the turnaround for a result was under two hours, wasn’t it?’

  Edie hadn’t considered until now how it looked: she had found Elliot, she had persuaded him to speak to Archie. Just not using the methods Archie imagined.

  Edie said nothing, and Archie stared some more, then withdrew.

  ‘Linda?’ Elliot said. ‘What’s he on about, disproved what?’

  ‘He thinks it’s funny to get my name wrong, or something,’ Edie said, quickly. ‘I said I didn’t know where you were, and he’s gloating that I must’ve done.’

  ‘Oh.’ Elliot frowned. ‘What does he mean about your tambour—’

  ‘We should crack on, on a bit of a clock,’ Edie said, pushing the Dictaphone towards Elliot. ‘So, we’re doing romance today.’

  ‘Hell’s bells. Buy me a drink first.’

  ‘Hah. Er,’ Edie shuffled her papers, pretended to look at her notes. ‘Does fame make it easier to meet women? Or not?’ Edie said. She didn’t really want to know.

  ‘Before we start, can we agree you’ll find a way to say all this that doesn’t make me sound grotesque? You’re good at doing that.’

  Edie nodded and smiled. Elliot smiled back and had some more water, keeping his eyes on her. He had spare energy to burn off, after that scene, Edie sensed, that was where the idle flirting was coming from. Wasn’t it?

  She’d have dealt with it so much better without Jan’s ‘schoolgirl crush’ accusation. Edie felt she had to counter that, with every word and action.

  ‘The thing about having been on a screen is that suddenly people start throwing themselves at you. I remember that from before Blood & Gold, you know, you can be in any old thing. And it’s not really real attraction. It’s not even that flattering. You know they’re thinking, even if he’s a crap shag, it’s an anecdote. It’s probably a rare chance for men to find out how it is for women: you’re a trophy. I don’t know about you but it does a lot more for my ego when someone likes me, you know, for my,’ he sucked in breath, ‘personality. Not: Oh, you’re that guy off that thing, OK you have my interest. That stops being flattering and starts being depressing veeeery quickly.’

  Edie put her chin on her hand.

  ‘I mean, if a man’ – he gestured to the empty seat next to him – ‘had a fetish for talented copywriters and asked you out because he wants to have a copywriter on his arm, would you feel chuffed? Or would you rather date this man over here who’s noticed all the particular reasons it’d be incredible to go out with you, Edie, the person?’

  Which man? What? Edie felt her neck grow warm. ‘Ah, yeah. See your point.’

  ‘It puts me off, compared to when I had to work for it. You know, the greedy kid in the sweet shop becomes Augustus Gloop. I didn’t want to start Augustus Glooping and sicken myself with my own behaviour.’

  ‘Hah! Glooping. I like that verb.’

  ‘Yeah, but don’t make it sound like I’m saying women are Snickers bars.’

  ‘You miss the thrill of the chase?’

  ‘Argh, no, you see: that sounds creepy. It’s just harder to find that natural slow burn of attraction where someone intrigues you and you intrigue them back and one day you wake up and they’re all you can think about.’

  Elliot looked at her steadily and Edie nodded and pretended she needed to write it down in her notepad as opposed to needing to break eye contact.

  ‘It’s hard to meet women who like you, for you?’ she said.

  ‘Well, what is “liking me for me”? I’ve been doing this job for a while now. It’s a bit disingenuous to say I want them to love the kid from Nottingham.’

  Edie once again thought, Damn: you are sharp.

  ‘What about falling for your co-stars?’

  Elliot clicked the record button off and said in a stage whisper: ‘Jeez, do you mean Greta? You might as well try to cosy up to a pair of secateurs.’

  ‘She’s so beautiful though.’

  Elliot did a mock shiver. ‘Yes, like the Arctic Tundra is beautiful. I wouldn’t recommend trying to spend a night there.’

  ‘Alright, Greta aside,’ Edie said, and felt uncomfortably like a possessive girlfriend pushing to hear things about the past that she couldn’t actually handle.

  Elliot clicked the record button back on.

  ‘When you’re acting being into someone, surely that can slide into actually feeling it?’ Edie continued.

  ‘Nah not really, or not so far. What’s exciting when you’re kissing someone for real is that you chose to kiss each other. Take that out of the equation; they could hate your guts, but the kissing’s in the script. It’s not so hot. And you’ve got someone dangling a boom and a hairy-arsed crew watching and a director about to shout cut. The thoughts on your mind are not amorous ones.’

  ‘And you’ve never …’ Edie cleared her throat, it was next on the list and she wasn’t clear enough of head right now to improvise an alternative, ‘never done, an, er, nude scene.’

  ‘Hahahaha.’ Elliot was enjoying her discomfort hugely. ‘No.’

  ‘Would you do one if the role demanded it?’

  Elliot started laughing in earnest, a blushing Edie squealing: ‘What! It’s a fair question isn’t it?’

  ‘It is, it’s just such a funny cliché …’ Elliot said. ‘I mean, unless you’re playing the lead in The Naked Rambler Story, you can stay zipped up for pretty much everything. It’s rare a role demands it.’

  ‘Is that a yes? Or a no?’

  ‘Depends what’s demanding it, I guess.’ Elliot paused. He looked her in the eye. ‘Or who.’

  Edie hoped she wasn’t looking like she felt. There was a terrible, embarrassing, loaded silence but Edie couldn’t think of the words to break it.

  ‘I mean, Scorsese. That’s a yes,’ Elliot said.

  ‘Hah, of course!’ Edie said, in a strangled voice.

  If Hannah and Nick could see this, they’d be absolutely pissing themselves.

  Edie usually had more poise than this.

  ‘Can I ask you a favour?’ Elliot said. ‘I’m actually having trouble with a scene in Gun City and,’ he lowered his voice, ‘I don’t want to rehearse any more with Greta than I have to. Would you read with me?’

  ‘I can’t act,’ Edie said, warily.

  ‘You don’t have to be able to act, you have to be able to read.’

  ‘What’s the problem with the scene?’ Edie said. She didn’t like the sound of this, somehow.

  ‘Edie, you look as if I asked you to skinny dip with me!’

  Edie blushed hard again. She had never seen Elliot like this before: hyped up, mischievous and determined to get a rise out of her. Elliot saw her discomfort and relented, speaking in a more conciliatory tone.

  ‘My character is an over-confident chauvinist type and I think he’s meant to be very appealing to women in this scene, but I’m worried he’s coming off as overbearing. I value your opinion and if you read with me, you can tell me what you think.’

  Edie prevaricated. What if this was a love scene, of some sort? She didn’t want the mind games of trying to work out whether to tell Elliot his fictional alter ego was ‘appealing to women’.

  ‘Do I have to …?’

  ‘You don’t have to. I’d be so grateful if you did, though.’

  ‘Then, I suppose so …’

  ‘Great! Thank you,’ Elliot sprung out of his seat and returned with a thick, sl
ightly dog-eared script, black Courier type on white A4 paper. He sat down next to Edie and she felt like volts had gone through her.

  ‘Page 124,’ he said, flipping through the pages. ‘Take it from INT: NIGHT. A rain-streaked window in a near-empty hotel piano bar, a pianist plays. Headlamps from passing cars cast an intermittent searchlight through the gloom. A slow pan to its only customers, GARRATT and ORLA, who are at a table alone. It’s the first drink after work in a very long day. The mood is tense and they’re both pointedly avoiding discussing what happened between them at the mortuary earlier. You’re “Orla”.’

  Edie swallowed hard. ‘What “happened between them in the mortuary”?’

  ‘They had a fight,’ Elliot said.

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Garratt, that’s me, didn’t agree about what the ligature marks on the neck proved.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘We’re always bickering.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Because you fancy me rotten.’

  Edie stared as Elliot grinned.

  ‘I did warn you, I can’t act,’ Edie said, finally finding one of the comebacks she knew she had in her.

  51

  ORLA

  (pointedly keeping things business)

  If the Jane Doe we have in Retford can be matched with prints and DNA to the—

  GARRATT

  (interrupting)

  Why are you being distant with me? Ever since the Colwick case.

  ORLA

  I’m not being distant with you.

  (pause)

  I’m ground down by this job. The things we see. Why do we do it to ourselves, Garratt?

  GARRATT

  We can’t not do it. That’s why. We see these things and we want to run from them. And yet something pushes us towards the darkness.

  ORLA

  We do run. We run deeper inside ourselves.

  ‘Wow,’ Edie said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bit purple, isn’t it? Who’s ever said something like that?’

  ‘You did, just now. Stay in character!’ Elliot remonstrated.

  GARRATT

  You see, I wanted to talk about you and me, and you just turn it back to the job.

  ORLA

  There is no you and me.

  GARRATT

  Isn’t there?

  ORLA

  (fighting hard to keep her usual composure)

  I don’t want to make things complicated with someone I work with, Garratt.

  She sips her drink, eyes still on Garratt. We sense her nerves but also the tumult of her constrained desire.

  Oh arsing hell. Neutral, keep face neutral and stare at script, Edie told herself.

  GARRATT

  There’s nothing complicated about the way we feel about each other.

  ORLA

  Oh, it’s always complicated. And you don’t know how I feel about you.

  GARRATT

  The thought is in your eyes, every time you look at me.

  Edie’s heart raced. She couldn’t scan ahead or she’d lose her place, start stuttering and the jig would be up.

  ORLA

  (defensive)

  What?

  GARRATT

  You’re wondering if it would live up to expectations. You’re thinking about how it would feel. Look me in the eyes and tell me you’ve never thought about it.

  Elliot looked at her, and flipped the page. Edie almost coughed on her tea. Jesus Christ.

  ORLA

  I’ve never thought about it.

  (But she breaks eye contact at the last moment, sipping her drink)

  GARRATT

  Once again, with feeling.

  (pause)

  I’ve thought about it. I’m thinking about it now.

  ORLA

  Good night, Garratt.

  ORLA gets up, briskly crosses the short distance to the lift and hammers the call button. She knows she has only seconds to fight this, fight herself.

  GARRATT

  Orla.

  He grabs her arm and pulls her into an embrace. They kiss, grinding against each other: it’s urgent, passionate, with clear intent. The lift doors open and they stumble inside, together.

  Edie glanced up and Elliot said ‘And, cut. I’ll let you off that part.’

  He must’ve chosen this scene to rattle her. Surely?

  ‘What do you think to Garratt? I don’t like that line about “I’m thinking about it now” at all. He sounds like an 0898 line. You mess with Archie’s dialogue at your peril, though.’

  ‘Uhm, yeah … It’s quite full-on.’

  ‘If a man you worked with said, “I’m thinking about it right now”, you’d be a bit freaked out, right?’

  ‘Yep. To the point of going to HR.’

  ‘It’s a short hop to “I’m mentally undressing you” and no one wants that.’

  ‘Nope.’

  Edie couldn’t think of a single thing to say. She was going to ask about Fraser today, but it wasn’t the time. Was Elliot messing with her?

  ‘Edie,’ Elliot said, leaning in, speaking in a low, confidential voice. ‘I’m going to ask you something and I want you to be totally honest with me.’

  ‘Yes?’ she squeaked, pulsing with anticipation and apprehension.

  ‘Is Gun City completely fucking dreadful?’

  ‘Oh.’ Edie gulped air, wondered what other question she was hoping for, and tried to think what the appropriately sycophantic response was to a celebrity fishing for a compliment. ‘Elliot, I’m sure nothing with you in it could be completely dreadful,’ she said, in a suitably prim “on message” tone.

  Elliot laughed and the tension broke.

  ‘Hah. I like you. You can stay.’

  And there it was: Edie had a resentful stab at him saying those words, in that flippant tone. Not meaning it.

  She was still palpitating over the things he’d said to her, in make believe. Pretending to feel things you didn’t was no way to make a living.

  52

  Edie had known for a while she wouldn’t be rebooting to her old social media accounts. However, as time had worn on, staying away felt less like self-preservation, and more like letting the bullies win. Also, she wanted to know what was going on out there, dammit.

  She could go back, with new profiles, and a new outlook. She relaunched her Facebook. She used the photo of herself with Hannah and Nick from her birthday as her thumbnail: the three of them wound round each other in smoke-hazy Rock City.

  She added Nick as a friend, and few others safety kite-marked as non-hostile and neutral, her dad’s cousins. Within days, she got a request from Louis – no surprise he was constantly scanning the horizon – and left it pending. She didn’t want a spy among the ranks. Nor did she want a fight, however. She’d use the ‘oh I rarely check it’ fib until she’d decided what to do.

  Hannah organised an evening at hers, watching films. ‘I’ve got Zodiac recorded, and I’m buggered if I’m watching that alone, so you and Nick can come round,’ she said when she rang, a week previous. ‘Also, it’s not the pub. I’ve got Nick into coming running with me instead of booze. The language that’s come out of him has been abysmal, but he admits he feels better for it. Do you think we should be discussing the Max situation more?’ she added. ‘I mean, not delve around in it. But draw it out of him.’

  ‘Nick loves his bad-taste jokes. I think perhaps we should joke about it.’

  ‘OK. That’ll either go well, or extraordinarily badly. Let’s balance on the knife edge.’

  God, but Hannah’s place was lovely. She’d unpacked since they were here last, and now there were candles in Moroccan-style holders casting handfuls of geometric patterned lights into chalk-white corners. The interloping cat was curled up on the linen-covered sofa.

  ‘He’s got his ginger feet under the table, I see,’ Nick said, taking his shop-fresh autumn/winter coat off and hanging it up neatly. ‘Shove up, Carrot Bollocks.’

  Edie still hadn�
�t taken her coat off, looking at the room. A certainty that had been forming was now fully formed.

  ‘Something I’ve been thinking about,’ Edie said. ‘I might move back. To Nottingham.’

  Hannah and Nick stared at her.

  ‘Really?’ Hannah said, in a tone of bare disbelief.

  ‘Yes. Is it that surprising?’

  ‘You’ve always been so London or bust, he who is tired of London. I honestly never thought you’d leave.’

  ‘I didn’t think you liked Nottingham much, either?’ Nick said.

  ‘I think it got tarnished with what it represented, some of the bad memories,’ Edie said.

  ‘Are you listening to these sick burns, Hannah? It’s like she’s pissing directly in our ears.’

  ‘Appalling,’ Hannah agreed.

  ‘Not you two! You’re the best of it. I meant family stuff.’

  They nodded.

  ‘Well, I’d be over the bloody moon if you stay. That goes without saying,’ Hannah said.

  ‘This is ace, ace news, Tommo,’ Nick said. ‘It took us a while, but the Avengers have reassembled, haven’t they?’

  They all grinned at each other stupidly. Edie thought she might feel some loss at saying she was weary of London, but she didn’t: only release.

  Hannah arranged bowls of crisps, nuts, grapes and olives and they enjoyed some serial killing in foggy San Francisco in the 1970s. Hannah declared she was ‘cacking herself’ after they turned the lights back up.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re so nervous, Hannah, they caught the guy,’ Nick said. ‘Oh no – wait, they didn’t, did they, hahaha. At least he’ll be very old now. He’d be buzzing after you in his mobility scooter like a homicidal bee.’

  Hannah topped up their drinks and Nick said his colleagues were trying to set him up with a girl called Ros who was billed as ‘lovely but a bit batty’.

  ‘There are a lot of lovely but batty women out there,’ Hannah said. ‘You’ve done your time. You are not the council bat catcher. Steer clear.’