by Jane Fallon
‘What else?’
Kat is still engrossed, Oscar purring on her lap. ‘I don’t know. Mugs?’
‘You can buy four mugs for about two pounds fifty. I’m not that desperate.’
I hunt about in the drawer under the hob and take out a Le Creuset saucepan and frying pan. Neither Jack nor Mel ever cooks, beyond heating up a can of beans. I rearrange the drawer a bit so it’s not obvious anything’s missing. Luckily, Mel’s tidiness obsession hasn’t yet extended to the insides of my storage units.
I look longingly at the beautiful Alessi kettle I bought a couple of years ago. I know I can’t get away with it but then I remember that I stuck the old one – which was still functional, but ugly – at the back of one of the kitchen cupboards so I help myself to that. I add the tin opener just for fun, check that they’re still feeding Oscar his favourite pouches so it won’t affect him. And the corkscrew. Let’s hope for their sake they buy a screw-top bottle next time they want to share a cosy drink.
My mobile rings, making us both jump. ‘Shit, it’s Mel.’
‘You can’t answer it. Not now.’
‘I know that.’
We both stand there, listening to it ring. When it stops, I realize I’ve been holding my breath. A minute later, just as we’re about to leave, it pings to tell me I have a message.
‘Let me just listen to this.’
Kat waves: be my guest.
‘Oh God, where are you? I’m so bored.’ Mel often rings me from work when she can get away with it. It always used to be a welcome distraction. A taste of home.
‘John’s given me half of Mick’s outstanding approvals to do because he’s so fucking slow …’
She rambles on about work. I’m fascinated by how routine the message is, how so exactly like her normal self she sounds. No hint that she might be feeling guilty or anxious that I might one day find out what she’s doing.
‘… so now I’ve got twice as much work, which means, what am I doing? Calling you, obvs! Do you think I should try and seduce him at the next office party? John? He might go a bit easier on me then. Only as a means to an end. He’s hideous. Well, you’ve seen him. Oh Christ, I’m losing it. Call me back when you can. Save me from terminal boredom. Or terminal slutdom. One or the other.’
The thing is, I have always felt bad for Mel that her job is so dull. I know her life didn’t turn out like she thought it would, but that’s largely because she sat around waiting to be handed everything on a plate, waiting for the future she felt was rightfully hers. I’ve spent years listening to her complain about how hard done by she is. And I’ve never once said what I really think, which is Do something about it, then. Because she was my best friend.
Mel’s mum started buying The Stage every week, and we would scour the pages for news of any upcoming productions she might be able to audition for. The local theatre in Windsor put the word out that they needed an actress who could convincingly be thirteen so we got a copy of the play out of the library and Mel studied it in her sunny garden and rehearsed the scenes out loud. (I read all the other parts. Badly, I should add. Although, who knows? Maybe the experience helped me get better in the long run.) I tested her on her two audition pieces – one tragic, one comic – that Sylvia had told her to have ‘camera ready’ at all times. When she heard she had got an audition I practically took out an ad in the local paper I was so proud.
On the big day, we curled her hair and did her make-up. I went with her to keep her mum company while she waited.
‘I wonder what Sylvia’s told them about me,’ Mel said as we got off the bus. ‘Maybe they’ve seen me in something.’
‘Probably The Sound of Music,’ I said. Mel had played Liesl in a recent production by the Pentagram Players, our local am-dram group, in the village hall.
‘Remember to smile,’ her mum chipped in. Sylvia was very keen on her protégées smiling.
When we got there, I thought I’d come to the wrong place. The queue was round the block and further. Hundreds of girls aged anywhere from eleven to twenty, some of whom I recognized as other locals Sylvia represented (they were easily spotted, with their ringlets and blue eyeshadow. Blue eyeshadow, Sylvia always said, made the eyes pop from the stage).
‘This can’t be right,’ Mel said, in a smaller voice than usual, as we lined up at the back.
‘You two wait here. I’ll find Sylvia,’ her mum said, wandering off towards the stage door, where the line snaked inside.
I desperately wanted to cheer Mel up. ‘They’re probably here for all sorts of different parts,’ I said, and she snapped, ‘Then I should be up for those parts, too.’ So I shut up and concentrated on picking off a hangnail.
‘She says not to worry,’ Mel’s mum said reassuringly when she returned. ‘It’s always like this, but half these girls won’t have any experience at all.’
It took two hours to move to the front of the queue. They were seeing girls in batches, and we all held our breath when it was Mel’s turn to go in with the next group of ten. Her mum and I hotfooted it round to the other side of the theatre, where, we had been told, the girls would exit. The whole process, a woman with a clipboard who had walked up and down the line had told us, could take anything up to three hours, as there would be a series of cuts and recalls. Mrs Moynahan and I found a spot on a low wall and she got chatting to a couple of other mothers while I dug in my bag for my book. Thankfully, it was a warm day, and I leaned back, happy to be there for the long haul.
It couldn’t have been five minutes later that a red-faced Melissa stormed out of the exit, trailed by four other devastated-looking girls.
‘Too tall,’ she snapped, tears brimming at the corners of her eyes, blue eyeshadow smudged.
Her mum tried to give her a hug, but she wasn’t having it. ‘It’s still good experience. What did they say about your pieces?’
‘I didn’t get to do them, did I? I don’t want to talk about it.’
That was a fun bus ride home.
Before Kat and I leave, I go in the bathroom, prop the toilet seat up and squirt a bit of toothpaste in the sink. If Mel gets back before Jack, she’ll go spare. I remember she once had a blazing row with Sam when the four of us went on holiday together because he’d failed to clean the bath tub the second he’d got out of it. Mel has always been a clean freak. That alone should have given the game away when I saw how tidy my flat was.
I get a little warm glow, imagining her and Jack fighting over who used the bathroom last. I can picture Mel, cheeks flushed, getting righteously angry. She’s never been one to let things go. ‘It must have been you. Why would I ever put the seat up in the first place? I’m a woman!’
It’s as easy as that.
12
Kat has to go back to her real life on Wednesday, leaving me to trek to the frozen north of London to sign the contract on my new pied-à-terre alone. I’ve closed down my ISA and withdrawn the cash for the deposit and the first month’s rent, and it’s burning a hole in my pocket as I traipse up the road from the bus stop. Murder in Manhattan have emailed a reference in which they’ve somehow managed to imply that I’m good for the rent and not mention they’ve just sacked me. I asked Morgan, the production secretary, to provide it and, being a good friend, she helped me compose something that served my purposes but didn’t leave her too exposed, should Fiona uncover my fate. The truth is, so long as I produce the money from somewhere each month I don’t think she’ll give me a second thought.
Once I have the key in my hand, I know I should go and take another look at what I’ve let myself in for, but I can’t quite face it so I take a walk round the block to get to know my new area.
There’s a hardware store that I imagine might come in handy at some point, a little newsagent’s and a few shops selling specialist things I can’t imagine I’ll ever need, like bathroom fittings and carpets. I get myself a watery coffee from a café on the corner and decide to brave the horror.
Last night, I was trying to convinc
e myself that, maybe, there would be some kind of hidden treasure among the previous tenant’s stuff. Authentic seventies pieces that I could clean up and use to furnish the place. Maybe even a couple of bits I could sell on eBay. Of course, the reality is very different. It’s just a pile of crap. Old newspapers and heaps of fusty old-lady clothes. A sofa that not only smells of wee but looks as if it might collapse if you so much as breathed on it. A cheap divan bed that has lost two wheels. I can’t even look at the mattress. I know no one’s naked mattress holds up to close scrutiny, but this one could probably be used to cultivate new antibiotics. I want to sink to the floor and cry but no way am I touching that thing without a bio-hazard suit on, so I just do it standing up, coffee in hand.
I try to make myself feel better by replaying last night’s phone conversation with Jack in my head. I’d called him from the safety of Kat and Greg’s spare room, hoping that it would go to voicemail – he would probably be sitting with Mel and wouldn’t feel able to pull off the deception. This has been my ploy every evening: ring when I’m pretty sure he won’t answer and then leave a loving message saying I’m probably not going to be available for him to call back for some reason or another, but that I’ll try him again next day. I imagine he’s as relieved as I am. This time, though, he picked up, so I can only assume Mel was having a night out, or in her own place. Hopefully, she’d stomped off for the evening after Toiletseatgate.
‘Hi, babe,’ he said and, despite everything, I felt a bit melty.
I rambled on a bit about things I might conceivably be up to, just trying to fill the silence. ‘How’s work?’ I said finally, when I’d run out of steam.
‘I didn’t get the Colby Sachs job,’ he said with a sigh. My heart started to race. How did he know?
‘Oh, no. Did they call you?’
‘No. Because Dave fucking Sharp got it.’ Dave fucking Sharp is Jack’s main rival at work. He and Dave fucking Sharp started at the same time, as junior account managers, and Jack has measured his own success against Dave’s also stellar progress ever since. I fight to subdue the smile that has crept over my face. He’ll hear it in my voice. I can’t wait to get off the phone and tell Kat and Greg.
‘Shit. Bad luck, babe.’
‘I mean, what the fuck could they have seen in him that they didn’t see ten times over in me?’
‘Maybe he asked for less money?’
‘It can’t be about the money. They’re rolling in the stuff.’
‘Well, they’re idiots, then. Something else will come up.’
He huffed. ‘That was the one I really wanted, though. They’re the most prestigious –’
‘I know. But it’s not like you really hate it where you are.’
‘He’s really fucking gloating, too.’
‘Ignore him.’
‘I mean, why would they ever pick him over me? I’m not being funny …’
I leaned back against the pillows. ‘You just have to let it go. They’ll soon realize they’ve made a mistake.’
‘I miss you,’ he said after a moment.
‘Me, too,’ I said, after a too long pause.
13
As the taxi edges up Third Avenue, I feel as if I’m seeing New York for the first time. Before, when I’ve got back from a trip home to England, I’ve felt out of sorts, uprooted all over again, anxious about what I’ve left behind, my heart firmly in London. Now that I’m about to leave, I wonder if I’ve appreciated it enough. If I actually realized how lucky I was as it was happening.
I surprised myself by managing to sleep for most of the flight, my head wedged against my jacket. I woke with a stiff neck, just as they announced twenty minutes to landing, grateful that I’d managed not to spend the whole journey fretting about my mess of a life.
We turn right and head towards the Hudson River. The doormen at my building greet me like an old friend, carrying my bag, handing me a small pile of post, holding the lift. Up on the fourth floor, I shut the door behind me and almost burst into tears at the sight of my tiny but perfectly formed apartment. The shiny dark wood floors that I’d never be able to afford at home. The sleek miniature kitchen like something from a space capsule. The production company have long-term leases on several apartments in the building and I know that, in a week or so, some other member of the cast will be moving in, sitting on my beautiful cream sectional sofa and gazing out of the window at the sliver of Manhattan skyline that’s visible beyond the surrounding buildings.
It’ll be someone with a smallish role, because the more important members of cast have bigger apartments on higher floors, while the stars are housed in another, plusher building altogether. I’ve never cared. It’s a little slice of heaven and, for the past seven and a half months, it’s been mine.
It’s still light outside so I grab my phone, a book and some dollars and head downstairs again without even taking off my coat. There’s a table free outside my favourite neighbourhood café on the corner. Of course there is, it’s barely April. The overhead heaters are on, though, so I take my usual seat, order a glass of white wine and settle down to people-watch. I brush away the offer of a menu – even though my flat, like most flats in Manhattan, has a kitchen so small it’s more for show than practicality because no one here really cooks, I am going to have to start. In London, I used to make dinner every night. It was my favourite way to relax. But once I got here it never seemed worth shelling out on pots and pans when there was no one to share the meal. I blush when I consider the amount I’ve spent on takeout deliveries. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
When I got off the plane, I noticed I had two missed calls from Jack. Of course, he has no idea that I’ve been in the air most of the day but, luckily, the nature of my job means it’s not an issue if he can’t raise me for hours or even days on end. I check my watch. It’s almost midnight at home. I can at least show willing. As predicted, it rings and rings. I’m relieved.
I spend most of Saturday and Sunday sorting out my stuff and trying to work out how I’m going to get it all home. You can accumulate a lot of crap in seven and a half months. On Saturday afternoon, I take a box of potentially useful things that it makes no sense to take halfway across the world with me – a digital radio, a make-up mirror, hair tongs – up to floor six, where my friend and fellow cast member Mary has an apartment that’s about six inches bigger than mine, because she plays a regular in the police precinct where our heroine works and therefore has, maybe, two minutes more air time than me each week.
‘You’re back!’ she squeals when she opens the door. Because so many of us know each other in the building (and because of the two burly doormen, not to mention the concierge at the front desk, who screen all strangers twenty-four-seven), no one bats an eyelid at unannounced visitors.
She’s dressed for a workout. But then, Mary is pretty much always dressed for a workout when she’s not in costume, so it’s difficult to know if I’ve disturbed her or not.
‘Shit, sorry, are you on your way to the gym?’
She looks down at herself, confused. ‘What? Oh, no. Come in. How was it?’
She makes coffee while I fill her in. Oohs and aahs in all the right places. Swears a few times when I get to the juicy bits.
‘Do you want any of this?’ I say, handing over the box. ‘It’s a bit random.’
She falls on it like a fox on a bin bag. Mary has always had a much better sense than me of how temporary this whole thing is. She was in a big network show about ten years ago but it got axed halfway through the season because the ratings weren’t high enough. She was partway through buying a new apartment and she’d had to pull out. For years after, she was back to one line here and there and a lot of off-off-off-off-Broadway theatre (i.e. in a room above a bar) and precious little else. She kept herself going by waitressing. So she has no shame about accepting freebies.
‘Definitely. I can’t believe you’re going back. Hey, why don’t you stay? Now you’ve … well …’
‘Got nothing
to go home for?’
She shrugs sheepishly. Don’t get me wrong, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered it the past few days. Not being in the same city as Jack and Mel definitely has its appeal. But, truthfully, being jobless in London feels less scary than being jobless in New York. Not to mention the fact that I’d have to work illegally if I worked here at all. My visa was very specifically for one job and one job only.
‘Let’s go to the flea market on Sixty-seventh,’ I say, standing up. ‘It’s a beautiful day.’
My death scene is scheduled to be shot on Monday night but there’s a freak rainstorm so, after many hours of hanging around hoping it will pass, it’s postponed until Tuesday. Despite the fact I was psyched up to get it over with, I’m relieved I won’t have to lie for hours in a freezing puddle while lightning bounces off the pavement beside me.
They finally send us all home around three in the morning, so I FaceTime Jack from the cab on the way. This time he answers, so either Mel didn’t stay over last night or she’s gone home before she goes to work. No way would she have left for her office at 8 a.m. She always leaves it to the last minute, postponing the misery for as long as she can. Of course, she might just be hiding in the other room, tiptoeing around so as not to give herself away.
Jack is sitting at the kitchen table, work clothes on.
‘You’re up late,’ he says, as soon as we connect.
‘It would have been later but they had to stand down.’ I aim my phone out of the window just as there’s a thunder crack that makes the taxi windows rattle.
‘Jesus.’
‘Rescheduled for tomorrow.’ I can’t, of course, tell him exactly what we were supposed to be filming. ‘How was work yesterday? Dave still showing off?’