by Jane Fallon
‘What if I give myself away?’ We’re sitting on their balcony, drinking wine under a patio heater, after a long day.
‘You can’t,’ Kat insists for the third time. ‘I mean, you can give away that you’re not Jack, but not who you really are. Not unless you announce yourself, and why would you do that?’
‘And you’re sure our number won’t come up?’
‘We’re ex-directory. And anyway, why would they be making a note of the number that someone rings them from?’
She’s putting way too much pressure on him. I chip in. ‘You really don’t have to do it, Greg. We can just forget about it and, eventually, they’ll probably contact him again and everyone’ll assume the first email got lost in the ether somewhere.’
‘I want to. I mean, I don’t want him swanning around with some flash new job after what he’s done to you.’
He looks at Kat imploringly. ‘Can’t you do it and say you’re my assistant? That I’m away or something?’
‘No! Why would his assistant even know he’d been applying for other jobs? Why do you think the offer letter went to his home email? Because he doesn’t want people at work to know.’
‘And you’re sure he won’t have picked it up on his phone?’
Kat rolls her eyes exaggeratedly. ‘I told you. I printed it and deleted it within about a millisecond of it arriving. He’d have to have been standing there looking at his inbox –’
‘He had a big presentation today. He would have been in that.’ I’d felt much better when I’d remembered this. I knew that a randomly beeping phone was a big no-no when pitching to a client, so Jack’s would have been turned off. Or, at least, he wouldn’t have been looking at it.
Greg runs his fingers through his neat quiff. ‘Jesus. Give it here.’ He snatches the letter out of her hand, heads inside towards the hallway.
‘Rob Sanders, please … Jack Carmichael here … sorry …’ he mutters as he goes off, rehearsing his role. ‘Many apologies … no … I appreciate it, but I’m afraid my circumstances have changed …’
‘Let’s go in the kitchen and shut the door,’ I say, pulling Kat’s arm. ‘I can’t bear to listen in.’
Earlier this afternoon, Kat and I visited two of the most soul-destroying flats known to man. One in King’s Cross, which, in itself, isn’t a bad thing but, in this instance, what the listing described as a flat was actually a damp-infested room with a manky old cooker in one corner and a shower and toilet behind a curtain in the other. One sink for both brushing your teeth and doing the dishes.
‘Jesus, this is awful,’ Kat said to the man showing us around. I’d like to call him an estate agent but he was more like someone you’d find lurking around a girls’ school at home time with his hand in his tracksuit pocket. ‘How can you justify charging this much for this? It says “studio flat with bathroom and kitchen” in the ad.’
The man waved his arm sulkily at the en suite facilities. Kat propelled me towards the door.
‘We’re leaving. This is a disgrace. I should report you.’
‘Report him to who?’ I said when we were back out on York Place.
‘I don’t know. Fucking idiot.’
The second, five minutes up the road, was marginally better, in that the toilet was behind a door. Well, half a door. One of those ones you see a horse peering over in a stable. Clearly to shell out for the top section would have been prohibitively expensive. The shower was still in the main room, though, next to the cooking area, which would be handy if you ever fancied a snack while lathering up. Or felt in need of a swift electric shock. Once again, we walked in and more or less straight out again, Kat a ball of fury on my behalf.
‘Honestly. I had no idea places like this even existed on the market.’
I laughed. ‘I thought you worked in property.’
‘Well, clearly none of my clients is looking in this price range.’
‘Sorry for not being rich,’ I said tetchily, and then felt bad because she had taken a whole day out of her real life to help me. Thankfully, she ignored my barb. I didn’t want to get into a fight with her.
‘I’ll have to do more research upfront. And you might have to up your budget a bit.’
I felt a wave of panic. ‘I don’t know if I can. What if I don’t get work –’
‘You’ll get something. You just need to get over the hump of paying a month’s deposit and a month upfront and you’ll be fine. And you’ll be able to get your savings out soon.’
‘You’re right. If I’m careful, I might be able to manage. Just about.’
‘Let me talk to a few people,’ Kat said. ‘You never know.’
While we’re waiting in the kitchen, gin and tonics poured, for Greg to reappear, my mobile rings.
‘Shit. It’s him. Jack.’
Her eyebrows shoot upwards. ‘Don’t answer it.’
‘If I’m going to keep up the pretence everything’s fine, I have to talk to him sometime.’
‘Okay. Back to the balcony.’
I let his request for a video chat ring out, and then I call back.
‘Hi!’ I keep the phone pressed against my ear as hard as I can, in the hope that it will cut out the ambient noise.
‘Hey,’ he says. ‘All okay in the Big Apple?’
It’s freezing out here. I stand there shivering. ‘Sure. We got a bit delayed last night so I didn’t dare try you when we got in –’
‘Listen, Ames, sorry I got so wasted on Saturday. You really should have woken me up to say goodbye. I felt awful that I’d missed you.’
‘It’s all right. It was fun, though, wasn’t it? The party. I wonder if Mel got home okay.’
I wait for a giveaway pause but he doesn’t miss a beat.
‘God knows. Someone’s home probably, even if not hers.’
‘She’s bound to call me later. Give me all the gory details.’
He laughs, and I think how satisfying it would be to land a punch square on the end of his long nose. ‘Where are you? It sounds windy.’
‘We’re filming by the river. I don’t have much time, actually, they broke early for lunch.’
Through the glass patio door I can see a silent film of Kat telling Greg to shush, pointing at me out in the cold, trying to make sure he doesn’t say anything loud enough that Jack might hear.
‘Shit, I see the third assistant. We must be back. If I get off early enough, I’ll try you later, but I’m in every scene from now on. Are you going out?’
‘God, no. I’m still recovering from Saturday. Early night.’
‘Right. Well, maybe later, then.’
‘Love you,’ he says as I hang up.
The firm of Colby Sachs, so Greg tells us when I go back in, is sorry that Jack won’t be joining them but have asked that he keep them apprised of his movements in the future.
‘They asked if it was to do with the money, as if they might offer more if I said yes. I was tempted to ask them how much they’d go to.’
‘You didn’t, though, did you?’ Kat asks with a frown.
‘Of course not. They obviously really wanted him, though.’
‘Shit,’ I say. ‘Now I feel guilty. Have we done a terrible thing?’
‘Well, yes …’ Greg says. ‘But he’s done much worse. Anyway, it’s only a job. If he’s that in demand, he’ll be offered something else sooner or later.’
‘Oh my God, what if he calls them to find out why he hasn’t heard?’ Why this has only just occurred to me I have no idea. But you would, wouldn’t you? If you’d applied for something you really thought you were in with a chance of getting and they never replied.
Kat shrugs. ‘He might, but who cares? Although I don’t think I would –’
‘Me neither,’ Greg says. ‘I mean, you’d just assume they didn’t want you and you wouldn’t want to humiliate yourself by calling.’
‘And they’ll probably have offered it to someone else by then, that’s the beauty of it.’
She’s right. Wh
atever way you look at it, we’ve almost certainly lost him the job.
I think about how happy I would have been for him in our old life when he told me his good news. How proud I would have felt. How we would have planned a celebration, maybe thought again about moving to a bigger and better flat. Set a date for the wedding.
But that’s the problem with living in blissful ignorance. At some point, you might just find out the truth.
At a few minutes before nine, just as I’m about to announce I’m off to have a bath, my phone rings again. Mel wanting to video chat, as she does maybe three or four times a week. Usually, I can’t wait to grab up the phone to catch up on what I’m missing. I do a quick mental calculation. It’s nearly four in the afternoon in New York. Even though I’m sure she’s not studying the relative sunset times, I’m pretty sure the lack of daylight would give me away. I could happily ignore the call and she’d just assume I was filming, but I want to speak to her. I want to hear her voice as she tries to pretend that everything is fine with us.
I wait for the ringing to stop.
‘I’m going to call her back. Keep it down a bit.’
I head for the spare bedroom and shut myself in. I put some music on the iPod by the bed in case Greg or Kat forget their instructions and suddenly say something loud. Then I double check that I’m making an audio call. I sit on the bed to try to steady my nerves. She picks up almost immediately.
‘Hi! I just tried you.’
‘I know. I’m at the studio, so not enough reception for video, I think. How’s it going?’
She launches into a story I have no interest in about her boss, John, and the way he’s been flirting with her. Melissa always thinks everyone is flirting with her. I’ve teased her about it before but now it feels like proof of how self-obsessed she is. As she prattles on, I suddenly remember a night years ago when the two of us had gone to a club with a group of her work colleagues. She was already with Sam but he was away, and I was single, yet to meet Jack. A bloke had come over and started chatting to me. A good-looking bloke, I remember that much. Andy, I think his name was. He was with a big, mixed group of friends, and I remember he made me laugh, telling me that he was the only single saddo. All his friends were feeling loved up and he was starting to feel left out.
‘I just love how guys are always too intimidated to approach me directly,’ Mel had said when he went off to the loo at one point. ‘It’s so funny the way he’s chatting to you but he keeps giving me little looks to check I’m listening.’
Or he could just be being polite. ‘He seems nice,’ I said, because he did. Not love-of-my-life material but fun for the evening and possibly a bit longer.
‘I’m married,’ she said, rolling her eyes.
I should have said, ‘I don’t think he’s interested in you, I think it’s me he likes, actually,’ but, as usual, I didn’t. I fell back into my role as her chief cheerleader.
‘Well, you can’t blame him for trying.’
When Andy came back I notched my own flirtation down and watched as she turned hers up to eleven. At first he looked a bit confused. He kept trying to reignite the little spark he and I had had, but I retreated into monosyllabic monotone. In the end he gave up and, no doubt flattered by Mel’s attentions, allowed himself to bask in her attention. Of course, when he asked for her number at the end of the night she said no. Looked at him like he was a speck of dirt on her Jimmy Choos. But she’d won.
And I knew, I’ve always known, that that’s what she was like. But I used to defend her to other people by saying things like, ‘That’s just Mel, she can’t help herself’ or ‘She’s totally unaware she’s doing it.’ And I believed that, too. I never would have thought she’d have done anything to hurt me.
I realize the topic’s moved on when she says something about Saturday night. I wonder where she is at the moment. Back in her own place, or still at mine? Has she effectively moved in, or does she flit between the two? Is Jack lurking in the other room, or is she alone in her flat and in need of an audience?
I suddenly can’t be bothered to listen to her any more.
‘I think we’re about to rehearse the next scene,’ I say when she’s halfway through a sentence. ‘Gotta go.’
‘Speak soon,’ she says, as I cut her off.
I never had any doubts that I was going to stay on in the sixth form. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life but I knew I needed to get some qualifications – any qualifications – in order to enable me to do something. I had no obvious talent, no calling. I was good at random things like netball, French and art. Nothing that screamed out for me to make it my career. But I was happy to be the tortoise, to plod along slowly and let things unravel at their own pace.
Mel, though, couldn’t wait to leave school. It was all the teachers could do to persuade her to stay long enough to take some GCSEs. And then she only agreed because we were doing an end-of-year production of The Boyfriend (I was in charge of lighting, which basically meant I flicked a couple of switches. But I got to miss a few lessons and hang out with Mel during rehearsals) and she couldn’t bear the idea of someone else taking the lead. All that singing and dancing and praise and applause.
By then her parents had found a local agent to take her on. She mostly looked after children and didn’t seem to do much else beyond getting them work in the local amateur panto, but Mel couldn’t have been more excited. ‘My agent …’ she would say at any opportunity. ‘Sylvia … she’s my agent.’ And, to be honest, I was excited for her, too. Obviously, I didn’t know then what I know now, which is that the fact Sylvia charged a (small) regular fee to represent her clients, as well as her fifteen per cent should they ever get any work, was a dead giveaway that she was a bit of a charlatan. Not a crook, really, but someone clueless. Someone who had basically come to terms with the fact she was never going to deliver the goods so she needed to cover her costs.
So Mel left school, steadfastly refusing to apply for college, even to do drama. Why waste time? was her rationale. Why not get a head start on all those other young hopefuls who were going to lose precious years training to do what she could already do instinctively? She was teetering on the brink of stardom and she didn’t want to miss her moment.
That summer solidified our friendship even more, if that were possible. She was a ball of energy. Sylvia arranged for her to have her head shots taken in a variety of costumes (such a no-no, I realized later. No producer has ever asked to see an actress because they were wearing a cowgirl outfit in a photo. Even if they are making a Western). I helped her do her make-up and went to the shoot with her because she was nervous. Sylvia was there in a floaty scarf and even floatier, tent-like dress over her large frame, shouting, ‘Eyes and teeth!’ at every opportunity. She had me pile a bit more eyeshadow on Mel and borrowed another client’s hair tongs (there were five other girls and one boy there also having their pictures done. All clients of Sylvia’s. She had obviously got a group discount with the photographer) and curled her hair into ringlets.
‘You’re not worried you don’t quite look like you?’ I asked hesitantly at one point. I had recently watched Just William one rainy afternoon with my mum and let’s just say there were alarm bells.
Mel had looked at me with a slight eye-roll. ‘It’s stage make-up.’
‘Ah, okay,’ I said, feeling stupid. What did I know? Maybe she was right.
That night I was staying at hers, as I often did. I loved sleeping in her family’s spare bedroom. The crisp pale yellow sheets always smelled of flowers and the sun-coloured walls and blue floral curtains defied you to be anything less than cheerful. I remember there was a thunderstorm. Lightning flashing across the sky. Thunder roaring. I eventually managed to fall asleep – we’d had our tea in front of the TV after the photo shoot and then sat up way too late in Mel’s room, chatting about everything and nothing – but I was woken in the early hours by someone crawling in beside me. I knew immediately it was Mel.
‘Are you okay?
’ I said, only half awake.
‘I’m scared,’ she answered, snuggling down under the duvet. I had never known Mel to be scared of anything.
I turned over to look at her in the half-light. ‘Of the thunder?’
‘Yep. Stupid, right?’
There was another loud crack and she squeaked, grabbing on to my arm.
‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ I said. ‘It’s miles away.’
‘It was okay today, the photo shoot, wasn’t it? I didn’t look like an idiot?’
What could I say? I would never have wanted her to know the truth. ‘Of course not. It was great. You looked gorge. Obvs.’
‘So long as you think so. I mean, obviously Sylvia knows better than anyone, but I really trust your opinion. I’ve decided. You’re going to be the person who keeps me grounded when I’m a huge star.’
I laughed, but the idea that Mel was thinking we’d still be best friends when she hit the big time made me feel warm inside.
‘Go to sleep,’ I said. ‘That’s me keeping you grounded. I’m making sure you get your beauty sleep.’
‘I’ll be okay now I’m with you,’ she said sleepily. ‘You make me feel safe. You always do.’
It was the first time I had ever seen her vulnerable. I lay there, listening to her breathing slowing down, glowing with the thought that she needed me.
11
‘It’s a bit quiet out there, to be honest. There are a couple of things gearing up but they’re only going for star casting at the moment. It’ll probably be a few weeks before they start on the lower tier. Not the best time of year to suddenly find yourself out of work.’
My agent, Sara, ladies and gentlemen. Also known as the prophet of doom.
‘Yes, sorry about that.’
She shuffles a few bits of paper around on her desk. I have no doubt that when I got offered the job on Murder in Manhattan and had to sign the watertight option (on their part only) for a further six seasons, her first thought was relief that she could forget about me for the foreseeable future while her fifteen per cent commission on my fee rolled steadily in. Me being written out was probably as big a blow to her as to me. After all, it’s not as if I really earned her anything significant in the five years she’d represented me before that. I like her, though. She’s straightforward. She tells it like it is. And that’s a positive in this industry, where so much of what you hear is bullshit.