Very strange indeed. My sister would just say stuff and nonsense and I should do the film. But …
E
July 16th
Sorry: I was out of town and I just got this. I think you should do the film too!
But seriously, I also think that girl sounds cracked in the head. I know movie stars these days are all crazy but that’s too much. Call the movie producers or the film company, or get your agent to do it.
Listen, Rose, I’m coming to London. Finally. In a couple weeks. An old projectionist is restoring one of my films, and the Arts Council is paying for me to come meet with the guy and talk him through the last section. They’re paying! I’ll be here three days, I’ll let you know the details when I’m booked.
We’ve both changed a lot. I have some things I want you to understand. It’s very, very easy if you want to say no and I won’t be surprised. But this time I’m really coming and so I’m going to ask you again. Can I meet you again?
My love
Don
PS Reread this. I don’t like it. I think there’s something kinda strange going on. Be careful, Rose, my love.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
A GIRL IS cycling along the road by Hyde Park as we drive towards the Dorchester. She has a red-and-white flowered dress on, scruffy grey Converse, a bright green helmet jammed over messy curls, and a brown leather satchel slung over one shoulder. She slides calmly in and out of the traffic, the evening sunlight filtering through the trees in the park and flickering on her dress. As she moves past us I watch her through the blacked-out windows, glad she can’t see me. She’s so free.
I can’t stop thinking about Eve and Rose. And Don. The letters lie beside me, read and reread, now neatly stacked in their box. But they’re not just letters, or faxes. There’s three whole exercise books full of stories, scenes from her life back then. How she met Don. How she came to Hollywood. What she remembers about the day Rose died. She writes so clearly and beautifully as if she is excising something. I want to know when I can go back to the house, read some more of the letters and see them again. How do you live so quietly when you should be so angry? I suppose because of what I saw in Eve before: that she has a contentment I, for example, don’t. She knows the confines of her life, though my eyes burned with angry tears as I read about Rose’s imprisonment, or Don’s sad, wistful declaration of love to her. She has to meet him again! She has to. It’s crazy … The moment I get to the hotel, I’m tracking him down, telling him he has to come see her anyway. She’s persuadable, I know that much. Yes, I’ll get Sara to …
Sara. It brings me up short. What comes next. I touch the letters, like a talisman. I stare out of the window again, wondering where the girl on the bike is going. Into town, to meet up with friends? Where would someone like her hang out in London, what would she do?
I lived here for three years doing South Street People and I don’t know it at all any more, except as a series of luxury hotel suites. Back then I was nineteen, and I thought I was it, with my flat in Shepherd’s Bush with the IKEA sofa, my knee-high black boots, my Heat magazine party album I played on my brand-new iPod, the series of crusty pubs, tapas joints and pizzerias in St Christopher’s Place I used to hang out in with the rest of the cast and crew. I liked South Street, for all that it was silly at times (one Halloween episode had me blacking out and dreaming about marrying a goblin). I played a girl called Nina, she was a trainee doctor in an A&E ward and she was cool, I loved being her. That was the time of Alec Mitford, when I realised I liked living like this, away from Mum, doing this job that I knew how to do and was good at. Before my life became like this. This … thing, totally separate from who I am.
From the front seat, Gavin is issuing instructions into a tiny black headset.
‘Bayswater Road incoming. ETA three minutes. Thank you.’ He turns around and nods at me. ‘So this is how it’s going to work, Sophie. No one knows you’re going to the Dorchester. The photographers don’t even know. There’ll be no one outside, so we’ll get you straight to your suite. It’s been swept and it’ll be on lockdown. Only people with security clearance admitted.’
‘Who’s that?’
He stops, confused at being interrupted. ‘I don’t know. You. Me. Your assistant – what’s her name?’
‘Sara,’ I say. ‘It’s Sara.’
He looks at me. ‘You don’t want her coming in? That’s fine, I’ll get her struck off. You and me, then.’
‘No, make sure she has clearance,’ I say. ‘I think … yeah. I think I have to see her.’
He nods, uninterested. ‘Fine. You film the final two scenes at Pinewood this week, three guards with you at all times. Then we fly you home – the studio will pay for a jet.’ He sees my expression. ‘It’s covered by their insurance. You will not go out of the hotel unless accompanied by myself and two others. The police say they have several leads they hope will result in arrest.’
‘That’s not true,’ I can’t help but say. ‘Seriously, if they knew who it was they’d have got them by now.’
Gavin cranes himself around even further so he can make eye contact.
‘I know it’s unpleasant. Look, this will all be over soon. You just need to do as we say till then. Is that clear?’
I watch the girl on the bike as the road opens up and she flies away. Her dress flutters and her legs pump up and down, furiously. ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘I – Gavin, can we –’
‘What?’ he says. His eyes narrow.
I look at him. Think everything through. ‘You know what, it doesn’t matter.’
He turns back, and I lie against the seat and look out of the window. I’m sick of being driven around in cars. I want to walk down the street myself, like Alec can. I’m sick of men with earpieces surrounding me wherever I go. I want to sit in a cafe and read a magazine, without some photographers trying to get a shot of my tits. I think I know how I can make this all go away. I just need to handle it myself, and maybe, just maybe, I’ve got it right, and I can start to look at my life again in terms of what I want to do, not what I can’t do.
I check my phone again. There’s a text from Alec, like I called him up by thinking about him.
Really hope you’re OK. This is all a little freaky. I’m fine, hope we’re cool. I need to clear my head for a bit. I’ll catch up with you later, lovely. Be brave, be strong, OK?
Oh, fuck off, Alec, I want to reply. But that’s exactly how I would have expected him to have behaved, if I’m honest. I’m more annoyed with myself, for allowing myself to think even for one moment that we could be more than just a one-night stand. I feel like I fell for the oldest trick in the book, like someone holding out their fingers and then waggling their thumb on the end of their nose when you go to shake hands. He’s always been like that: I wish I didn’t care. Something he said last night is in the back of my mind, troubling me, and when I can, I need to pluck it out, think about it, work out what to do.
We pull into the forecourt of the Dorchester. My eyes flick up, and I frown, as Gavin swears under his breath, ‘What – what the fuck?’
A great horde of people is standing outside the doors. Young girls, some boys, and a throng of photographers in their black puffa jackets and caps, their huge lenses pointing at the door. They see the car arriving and turn towards us. Gavin is shouting into the headset. ‘How the fuck did they know she’s here?’
Two burly guys are standing on the steps, holding their arms out and yelling at the crowd. A third guy dashes forward, opens my door. I wish I didn’t feel so scared; I grab Eve’s papers in their box and he almost yanks me out of the car. ‘Clear space, please, incoming,’ he’s yelling, as the crowd surges nearer. The girls start screaming, the photographers are pushing them out of the way, swatting these young things to the ground to get closer to me.
‘Patrick!’ ‘Patrick!’ ‘I love you, Patrick!’
I stand up, look around, blinking in the evening sun, and the first burly guy pushes me towards the door.
‘Oi, where’s Patrick?’
The photographers keep snapping, but the girls and boys have stopped screaming, arms down, some folded. The doors open and Sara bursts out onto the steps.
‘You’ve been so long!’ she says. Her jaw is tense, her eyes wide. She reaches forward to take my arm and I pull it away instinctively.
‘Hey, Sara.’ I give her a small smile. I don’t know what to say to her.
She scans my face. She does look worried. ‘I was … I really was concerned there for a while. Come inside,’ she says, and they’re pushing me up the steps.
‘This is shit,’ one of the girls is shouting. ‘Where is he?’
‘Let’s go inside, Miss Leigh,’ says Gavin.
‘Sophie Leigh,’ says someone. ‘It’s Sophie Leigh! Oh, my God, that bitch. I can’t believe she just turns up here like that. After dumping him and like running away?’ She starts sobbing. ‘Oh, my God, poor Patrick!’
The revolving doors have stopped working and we’re stuck on the steps. I want to laugh – it’s so ridiculous, the whole thing. I don’t care any more. I turn around and watch the crowd. The photographers start snapping, I’m smiling, I feel an uncontrollable urge – which I resist – to lift up my arm and point at my armpit. Or to shout something totally nuts.
‘What the fuck is going on?’ says Sara, pushing at the immobile door. She bangs on the glass, almost hysterical. She’s on the edge, this is taking its toll on her. I start to listen to what’s going on around me.
‘I read somewhere she was being lined up to go out with Tom Cruise but he says no, she’s well ugly?’
‘That film she’s making, it’s supposed to be shit and she’s soo all I reckon myself.’
‘I bet he dumps her. They ain’t together no more.’
‘I don’t like her dress. It’s like a sack.’ All of this is bellowed in the charming way people have of speaking within earshot of famous people like they’re deaf.
Two girls are crying. ‘I have to go home now, I’ve missed him,’ one of them is wailing to her friend. ‘I can’t believe it? This is so shit? And I hate Sophie Leigh, she’s so not right for him? I want to die?’
‘Welcome back, Miss Leigh,’ the doorman says suavely. ‘My colleague is releasing the door manually. It appears to be stuck.’
I’m hugging the letters to my body but I release one arm and wave at him. I feel safe out here, that’s the weird thing. Too many people. Too many harmless lunatics around.
‘Oi – hey, miss? Will you sign this?’
The first crying girl steps forward, hands me a pink biro, and then turns over her hand. ‘Miss Leigh. Come this way.’ One of the guards has me by the arm.
‘It’s OK. Look, I’m not signing the back of your hand,’ I tell the crying girl, feeling like a Victorian schoolteacher. ‘Haven’t you got a piece of paper or something?’
‘Nah,’ she says, giving me a hard, angry look.
‘Jackleen,’ one of her friends says. ‘Here, have this, you lesbian.’
Jackleen thrusts a magazine at me. ‘Sign it? Yeah? To – I don’t know, put “Wishes and dreams come true” … No, “May your wishes and dreams come true, Yours sincerely, Sophie Leigh”. Yeah?’
I wedge the box under my arm and take the magazine. There on the front cover:
SOPHIE: FAT AND FRIGHTENED:
Dumped by Patrick for Amanda?
There’s a photo of me with my mouth open, yelling at some premiere, facing a photo of Patrick, arms crossed and looking sad, walking alone on a beach.
I start to say something and then stop. There’s no point. It’s all just stupid. Gavin’s pushing me from behind. ‘Let’s move inside,’ he says.
I sign the cover, awkwardly, and hand it back. ‘Are you going to eBay this?’
‘Yeah,’ she says.
‘And who are you waiting for?’
Jackleen’s friend, the magazine-thruster, says bossily, ‘Er … don’t you know? Patrick? He’s staying here, tonight? His like manager told us?’
‘Who?’ I say foggily.
They look at me like I’m a total loser. ‘Your boyfriend, Patrick Drew?’
‘She doesn’t even care where he’s been?’ One of them starts crying. ‘OH, MY GOD, poor Patrick, it’s awful?’
‘I’m not going out with him,’ I say. They stare at me.
‘Eh?’ Jackleen says. ‘Yeah, you are.’
‘I’m not—’ I begin, but two of them cross their arms. I can’t compete with the truth as laid out in red and pink on the front of a magazine.
Sara touches my arm. ‘Come on.’ The doors start turning. ‘Yes, of course,’ I say, recalled to the present. ‘Look – see you later. Er – thanks,’ I add, not sure why I’m thanking them. They turn away, utterly indifferent. One of them lights up a cigarette, another peers inside her Topshop bag.
I wave goodbye to Jimmy, who’s leaning against the car, watching me. He blows me a kiss and I go inside, feeling light-hearted, I don’t know why. The fact that they knew who I was but literally couldn’t have cared less is somehow comforting. Plus, I’d forgotten teenage girls are hilarious. I don’t mind any more, that’s the thing. If I’m right about what’s been going on – and I must be, mustn’t I? – then pretty soon, it’ll all be over. I just need to carry on going through the motions. Stay relaxed, and just keep on wheeling in and out of the traffic, like that girl in the red-and-white dress on her bicycle.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A NERVOUS YOUNG man in a too-big suit shows me to my suite on the top floor. The view stretches west, across the park, framed by the white stucco enclaves of Bayswater and South Kensington. The last rays of the sun are bathing the city in an amber glow.
‘Artie’s on his way up,’ Sarah says. ‘You’re … OK?’ she says anxiously. I turn and see her face. She is pale, her eyes have delicate blue circles under them, like she’s not slept properly.
‘I’m fine,’ I say. I put the box of Eve’s papers on the bed.
‘What’s that?’ she says, curious.
‘Stories,’ I say, because I don’t know how else to explain it.
‘Why were you so late, then?’ she says. ‘Sorry. I really don’t mean to like, pry? It’s just, I was so worried …’
‘The car got a puncture. We were on the M4 for an hour. Didn’t they call you? I told them to give you a message.’
‘No,’ she says. ‘A puncture?’
I nod. ‘Yep.’
‘That’s really strange.’
‘Yes, it is,’ I say. ‘But then a lot of messages haven’t been getting through lately, have they.’ She looks up again, not sure what to make of it. ‘Never mind, we’re in town now, things’ll be much easier. I’ll be done here soon and then I can go home, get out of here.’
Sara curves her plastic hotel key card between her fingers. ‘Right,’ she says. The card is almost bent double, the sides touching, like a teardrop. I watch, in an agony of suspense, to see if it’ll break.
She’s weighing up what to say and eventually she says, ‘Sophie, can I ask you something?’
‘Sure,’ I say. I sit down on the bed.
‘When you get back – what – have you decided … is Tina coming back to work for you?’
I turn to her. ‘You know what’s going to happen, Sara.’
She is about to speak but the door swings open with such force that it bangs against the mahogany desk behind it and Artie strides in, arms outstretched.
‘Sophie honey, hello. How the fuck are you. Give me a hug. Come here. What the fuck. How are you.’
He pulls me into a hard, almost painful, grasp, then grips my shoulders and pushes me away from him, looks me up and down like I’m a life-size doll.
‘How you doing?’ he says. ‘You look good, great in fact. You been eating?’
‘Not much,’ I say. It’s true.
‘Your skin is great.’ He turns around. ‘All that rain. Sara? Be a doll and get me a diet Coke from downstairs, will ya?’
‘There’s some in the minibar, would you like me to …’ She trails off.
Artie stares at her.
‘Did you hear me? I asked you to get me one from the bar. I don’t want some fucking minibar shit.’ Spittle flies from his mouth. ‘Did you not hear that’s what I asked?’
‘Artie, don’t talk to her like that,’ I say. Sara’s eyes are fixed to the ground. ‘Is that OK?’ I ask her.
‘Sure …’ she says quietly. ‘I’m sorry, Sophie.’
‘She working out OK?’ Artie watches her go. ‘That Lynn’s assistant? The one who was obsessed with you, had all those postcards of you up over her desk?’
I swing round to look at him. ‘She what?’
‘Sure,’ Artie says, scratching his beard and looking out of the window. ‘Nuts about you. It was a joke. Shelby told me about it, the girls used to laugh at her. I told you.’
‘No … you didn’t,’ I say, looking wonderingly at him. ‘Why—’
But Artie’s moved on. ‘Listen to me. What is going on with you? What the fuck’s been happening? I told Tommy he ought to fire himself, if he’s in charge of your security. It’s one fuck-up after another, honey – not any more, anyway. I’m gonna see to it. It’s gonna be OK though. You shoot two more scenes, we have you here, secure, you fly home, they’ll catch whoever did this shit, bam. OK?’
Bam. I look at the table, covered with glossy magazines. Paris Match at the top. SOPHIE: SE MARIE? on the front, and one of the photos of me and Patrick Drew having coffee. While I’ve been living in the Forest of Arden for the last few weeks, in some alternative celebrity universe Sophie Leigh is on the verge of marriage or break-up with Patrick Drew. Those photos must have had a good old airing, if that’s all they’ve got to go on, not that they need actual pictures to make up stories. They just do it anyway.
‘Where are they getting this stuff about me and Patrick from?’ I ask Artie, who’s sitting down and tearing at the little cellophane packets of complimentary biscuits.
‘No idea. We have a conference call with Ashley later on. Let’s ask her.’ Artie rips off the corner with his teeth. ‘It’s complicated – who knows where they get their ideas from.’ He raises his hands to heaven, thus admitting guilt and also dispensing with the topic. ‘I wanna talk to you, honey. Feel like I had to get on a plane to do it. You’ve been elusive and I’m concerned about you.’
Not Without You Page 36