Little Liar

by Julia Gray

  ‘Long time no see,’ he said, kissing me on the cheek. He was wearing a Kermit the Frog T-shirt under a black blazer, and as we walked he regaled me with anecdotes, many involving vodka and poor behaviour on the slopes of a Canadian ski school. After some time, we turned towards the river – follow the river, my father said in my head – and came to Constantine’s Wharf. I could see a round, overgrown island not far away, which surprised me, because I hadn’t known there were any islands in the Thames.

  ‘Bel’s famous for her parties,’ Thurston told me, as we neared the row of houseboats. I looked at the names: Strange Fortune and Rover’s Revenge and What Moonlight and Idaho.

  ‘Who owns the boat?’ I asked.

  ‘Giacomo,’ he said. ‘You know him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’s one of Bel’s exes. A musician. This is it, here.’

  And sure enough, we had come to the fourth boat from the end. It was a barge of some kind, I thought. Morgan le Fay was painted in white on the dark-blue hull. Music – the squawking of digital ostriches, to my ear – flowed densely from the speakers on the deck. There was smoke too, and for a moment I thought the boat was on fire, but it was dry ice from a machine. Thurston took my hand and helped me across the gangplank, and I stepped onto what felt like hay. I looked down. Streamers of ivy and clumps of ferns were heaped all over the deck. A girl in an aquamarine sequinned tailcoat was leaning over the rails, warbling into her phone. The door to a kind of upper chamber was propped open, and from inside came more smoke and louder music, and a mist of green light, like some toxic ether. I felt an urge to turn around and flee, but Thurston still had a hand on my arm, and I steeled myself. I took off my jacket, which showed off my neck and shoulders and arms, and walked in.

  The upper room was empty; it had a table and chairs, and bits of musical equipment and instruments in cases. There was a steering wheel of polished wood. I remembered the right word for the upper room: wheelhouse. There was a short flight of very steep stairs, and I let Thurston go down these first, since he knew where he was going. I had a sensation of crossing some boundary between living and dead, land and sea; maybe it was the thought of water all around and beneath, or maybe it was the feeling of walking into something that couldn’t be known.

  Below was a dark oblong room with a leather banquette at one end, a kind of kitchenette at the other, and small rectangular windows. I saw Bel at once. She was wearing a man’s suit with flared trousers in bottle-green velvet, a cream shirt, a lime-coloured bow tie, a bowler hat. She was sitting on the kitchen counter and singing Ten Green Bottles with much merriment. Azia, her hair tied up in a green scarf, was dancing with a tall boy I didn’t know. Everyone else, apart from Thurston, was a stranger. I could not see Darian. Some people looked much older. Characterful, colourful people they were, with many-toned hair and elaborate voices that made their origins hard to identify. Their movements were grand and expansive; the small space made them seem grander still. They wore leather and animal print; they wore fishnet stockings and false eyelashes and high, high shoes, men and women both. And a lot of green, as per Bel’s instructions.

  I went over and talked to Azia, who was now adrift between dancers. She seemed pleased that I was there. The music was so loud that it was hard to hear, and we went up onto the deck for a while, which was a little better. I knew the kinds of things she liked to read, and it was no trouble to mention two or three writers that I thought she would admire.

  Later, as I was coming back into the wheelhouse, Bel cannoned into me. Her eyes were glittering and unsteady. She wrapped herself around me, singing into my ear.

  ‘Nora, I adore-ya,’ she sang. ‘I’m sorry I was so tragic all of last week. Everything’s better now. Daddy … well, he sort of changed his mind about something important. You’ll see.’

  I’d never seen her quite like this before, glib, almost gibbering, though over-glazed with a queenly grace. What she’d taken, I don’t know; I imagine a blend of substances, tailored to her particular desires. I didn’t know the party guests well enough to say whether their states were substantially altered by chemicals, but there was enough evidence – dark-coloured liquid in a wrought silver chalice, sipped and passed on; powders in thin lines on upturned mirrors – for me to assume that most of them were high on something. I found it alarming, unnerving. I was just starting to think that I had to get home – the last train would be leaving soon – when a bell clanged and Bel climbed back onto the counter with a glass of champagne in her hand.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Meine Damen und Herren, boys and girls and halflings and all my darlings,’ she said. ‘Welcome to my party. On Giacomo’s boat. Thank you, Giacomo.’

  ‘What’re we celebrating?’ called someone from the corridor, where there was a disorderly queue for the bathroom.

  ‘Hush now,’ said Bel. ‘I’m just getting to that. We are gathered here today, because … but let me tell you the entire story, my loves. Once, long ago, a couple of years after Mama died, our father secured the rights to Jacaranda. For those of you who are ignorant simpletons and do not know, Jacaranda was a prizewinning novel that was adapted into a movie directed by Vincent St Clair and starring Ken Harmon and Susan Lorrimer and … my mama – our mama, I should say, Darian, sorry – in her first major feature. Jacaranda was hailed as a great English love story. Hers was a small role – that of Clementine, the daughter – but it was the role that set her on her path to greater stardom and for which she was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress. She was nineteen at the time of filming. In fact, it was when he saw this movie that our father fell in love with her – so he says – although they didn’t meet until many years later.’

  As Bel spoke, the room was totally silent. I moved away from a rowdy guest, wanting to hear her clearly. She held out her empty glass of champagne and waited for someone to refill it. Someone did.

  ‘Ta,’ she said. ‘So, as I was saying, Papa bought the rights to Jacaranda nearly ten years ago. He got different people to write treatments and scripts. None of them right. Then he had some meetings with a writer-director called Gabriel Glass, and Gabriel wrote a script and it was perfect. Now Papa has raised money from all kinds of different places, they have the script and the director and two major names attached as the stars, and I have promised on pain of death not to mention who they are just yet. Ladies and Gentlemen, Jacaranda has received, officially, a greenlight!’

  To this there were cheers, though I felt they were out of pleasure at Bel’s happiness rather than genuine excitement. I found Bel’s little speech quite fascinating. She seemed so lucid, so word-perfect. Was there any more exciting phrase in the English language than the path to greater stardom? I’d yet to hear it, if so. I watched Bel’s poised, angular, pearlescent face, as she said:

  ‘There’s more.’

  A cry of ‘more, more!’ echoed around the room. Green bulbs glowed from two wall lamps, and I realised, quite late, the point of the dress code. Looking about the room, I saw Darian, his gold hair combed straight back over his head, sitting on the banquette and watching his sister with an expressionless face. Hers was anything but expressionless, of course.

  Managing to look coy, wistful and proud, all at the same time, Bel said: ‘Now, as soon as I found out that the movie was greenlit I sat down with Papa and I said to him: “Daddy, there is nobody who can play the role of Clementine as well as I can. You have to let me play her.” And, d’you know what? He told me he’d been thinking the exact same thing. Principal photography starts in the autumn, once they’ve worked out their budgets and schedules and whatnot. I’m going to be Clementine. And I’m going to do an incredible job!’

  Azia said, ‘Well, I never.’

  The music came back, raucous and thundery. Bel took a bow. Slipping through the crowd, I waited to use the bathroom. It was a tiny, alarming place with black walls and a black toilet, a headless doll suspended from the light cord and a skeleton – like the one Bel had – jammed under
the window. By the time I returned to the party, the room was heaving with formless green debauchery. Azia was nowhere to be seen. Bel was sitting on the lap of a boy with long black hair who I presumed was Giacomo, the owner of the boat, drinking from a jar. I checked the time. Ten past midnight. I’d missed the overland. Probably the tube as well. I’d have to take a bus, though I hadn’t a clue which, or how long it would take me.

  A hand on my shoulder. ‘Are you OK, Nora?’

  It was Darian.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Just tired.’

  ‘I can’t give you a lift anywhere,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I have to stay here. Perhaps—’

  The sea-green-tailcoat girl came over and claimed him, weaving busy hands around his neck.

  I climbed the staircase back up to the deck. Night twinkled through the small round portholes of the wheelhouse, which was deserted except for Zubin, asleep in a chair. I sat on the floor and took out my phone. The battery was flat. I didn’t have a bus map. I would have to guess. If Thurston were still there I might have been able to charm him into escorting me, but I hadn’t seen him. Perhaps he was in one of the bedrooms. The air was sharp and cold and I wanted my jacket, but I hadn’t seen that either. I didn’t want to go back downstairs. I felt very tired. Every time I tried to galvanise myself to get going, a fear of being alone in the London night stopped me.

  Perhaps Zubin had the right idea. I climbed into the other chair, and I was, like him, just small enough to fit well inside the seat. I didn’t have the inner tranquillity that he clearly had, however, because the noise, the smell of smoke and dry ice, the instability of it all made it hard for me to fall asleep. But the greenlight party raged on and on until the noise dwindled, and eventually I must have slept.

  3

  ‘I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding. You did well, sweetheart. You and your troupe in the children’s ward. But one good deed does not a reformed character make.’

  Before I opened my eyes, I knew that it was daylight, and from the solidity of whatever I was lying on I realised that I was no longer on Giacomo’s boat. A nudge of fur at my ankles told me that an animal was present. Opening my eyes, I saw the tortoiseshell cat and realised I was on the sofa in the Ingrams’ conservatory, under a crocheted blanket. Some way away at the kitchen table were Bel and her father, speaking quietly, with a teapot between them and plates of toast, untouched. The earthenware jar containing the remains of Phyllis Lane sat thoughtfully on the windowsill, looking on.

  ‘Daddy,’ Bel was saying. ‘But you said …’

  ‘I understand why you want to play this part.’

  ‘It’s my part. I can do it justice. Only I can do it justice.’

  ‘This is not school,’ said Anton, buttering toast. ‘This isn’t some threepenny costume drama, a play you’ve decided to put on in the middle of the night, amateur dramatics in the village hall or even a performance for sick children that you’ve cooked up out of the kindness of your heart. These are serious people. This is serious money, with serious expectations to go alongside it. Look at what happened at your school last year.’

  ‘I was exceptional in Cabaret. Everyone said so.’

  ‘You were so late for one of the performances that they nearly had to cancel it.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘And what about Teen Spirits? You can’t say that was an overwhelming success now, can you?’

  The conversation was a rapid back-and-forth, and I got the sense they’d played the scene many times.

  ‘They were going to ask me back for a third series,’ Bel began.

  ‘Only because they couldn’t prove that it was you who flooded the set,’ said her father. ‘The problem, Annabel, is that you have no sense of responsibility for anything.’

  ‘How can you say it’s not my part when you told me I could play her? I had a party to celebrate! A greenlight party!’

  ‘This is exactly my point. It’s not about parties, awards, red carpets or greenlights. This is not about what you tell your friends, Bel. I did not promise.’

  ‘You said YES.’

  ‘Yes, I would think about it. That’s all I said. You chose to interpret this in your own way.’

  ‘You. Said. YES.’

  I kept very still as I listened, not wanting them to know that I was awake. I was surprised that Bel herself was up. She couldn’t have had much sleep. I didn’t feel like I’d had much, myself. How had I got here, from the boat to the conservatory? I closed my eyes and continued to feign unconsciousness as their conversation went on.

  ‘Your predicted grades are appalling,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, come on, Dad—’

  ‘Your lack of intellectual ambition is something I find quite deplorable.’

  ‘I have plenty of ambition. My ambition is to play Clementine in Jacaranda.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Drama school.’

  ‘Along with a thousand other people. All just as hungry and full of ambition. You’ll have nothing to fall back on if you leave school with no qualifications.’

  Silence.

  ‘I’ll get better grades.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘For Chrissake, Daddy. I promise you I will. But you have to promise me too.’

  The scrape of a chair; I opened a subtle eye to see Anton walking over to the range, where the kettle was whistling. My throat ached for tea.

  ‘It’s not as simple as that. One thing you don’t want in this business is a reputation. Sure, directors will go out and party with you and have a good time. But you’ll find after a couple of years that you just won’t get the parts you want. People won’t want to work with you if they’ve seen you off your face too many times. Or, indeed, if you commit acts of wilful vandalism.’

  Another pause, and then: ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Sure, Dad.’

  ‘So there will be no more parties on boats, automobiles, in circus tents or nuclear bunkers, or anywhere else you manage to dream up,’ said Anton Ingram, as he poured water into the teapot. ‘I’m not proposing a curfew here. Just an observation of principle. Convince me that you can pass your exams, show the occasional spark of altruism – those sick children were a nice touch, but I could see what you were doing – and live like a healthy human being and not a coffin-dwelling wraith, and—’

  ‘Oh, man.’

  ‘Don’t “man” me, Annabel.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘What do you think? Can you do all those things?’

  ‘I can. I definitely, definitely can.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Girl Guides’ honour. Cross my heart and hope to—’

  ‘Then,’ said Anton with robust dramatic timing, ‘I shall think about it. Careful of the hot water.’

  My neck was bent at a strange angle. I unbent it; the cat slithered off me and Bel looked over from the stove, where she and Anton were mid-hug.

  ‘Hi, sugar!’ she said. ‘Just in time for breakfast.’

  ‘Good morning, Nora,’ said Anton. ‘I’ll see you later,’ he said to Bel, kissing her on the cheek. ‘We’ll talk more. You look very like your mother when you argue with me, incidentally.’

  ‘It’s all going to be magnificent,’ said Bel, eating jam out of the jar with a knife.

  Darian, who had come into the kitchen not long after, rolled his eyes. ‘You’re an idiot,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise when you borrowed the boat that you were intending to tell everyone you had the part. He’ll never give it to you.’

  ‘He will.’

  ‘Why did you say that he already had, in front of everyone?’

  Bel rolled a cigarette, although I noticed she did not smoke it immediately. ‘I was getting the universe to sort it out,’ she said. ‘I was making it real. If you say things enough times, they become true, you know.’

  Darian said, ‘Giacomo says you owe him two hundred and thirty quid, incidentally.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘All the stuff th
at got broken.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Bel. ‘What are a few old plant pots between ex-lovers? It was hardly much of a party, anyway. A very small gathering of intimate friends. Anyway, I practically own that boat. He named her for me and everything.’

  I could hear Anton on the phone in the living room, and wondered if he was speaking to some mysterious financier, or even Mr Gabriel Glass himself, about Jacaranda. Could it really be as simple as that? Was Anton really able to promise a part to his daughter? Later, conversations with people who knew about such things would inform me that yes, he could; for a producer as powerful as Anton Ingram, it really was that simple. Although the big parts required big stars in order to secure funding – whether from the BBC or a bank or a media investment company – a relatively small part like Clementine, suitable for a début performance, was certainly something that he could give to whomever he chose.

  ‘D’you really think he’s going to let you be in the movie?’ said Darian.

  ‘Why the hell not?’ She licked the knife with relish.

  ‘Your history, for a start.’

  ‘We’ve already discussed that. I need some OK-ish grades, though.’

  ‘He’ll probably get you a tutor,’ said Darian. ‘God help the tutor.’

  ‘No,’ said Bel. ‘I can’t deal with that. Having to be at home at the same time every week and watch them squirm and stare at the clock and feeling so incredibly stupid. I have a much better idea.’ She smiled. ‘Now I shall go for an energising jog in the park. Wanna come, guys?’

  But Darian wanted to practise the piano, and I said I wasn’t much of a runner.

  I could see from the way that Darian was covering his toast with Marmite and then cutting the slices into ever-smaller rectangles that something was bothering him. I didn’t feel that I could ask. Instead, I asked him if there was somewhere I could charge my phone.

  ‘Behind the kettle,’ he said. ‘Just unplug the juicer. No one uses it anyway. There’s a whole bunch of chargers there, in the drawer. Any good?’