The Chocolate Run

by Dorothy Koomson

  ‘I’d say, “Go back to Jackie Brown, boy.”’

  Greg physically relaxed. ‘Come here,’ he whispered, pulling me close and pressing his lips against my forehead. He then kissed me on the lips before snuggling back against the pillows and closing his eyes. That was all he needed to hear – that I wasn’t hankering after something from the past.

  I listened to his breathing as it slowed and slowed the closer he got to sleep. His hold around me loosened slightly as he finally succumbed to slumber.

  I wasn’t sleepy any more. I was wide awake. The fairy lights were still on. How can I slip out of his arms without waking him and turn them off before I go to sleep? Sleep? Like I can sleep now, I thought. I wish Greg hadn’t dragged all that stuff out of me. Why did he have to bring up Sean? When things were so perfect, he had to bring up Sean. It’d meant I had to, well, not lie, lie. Just be economical with the truth.

  Greg wouldn’t be able to handle the truth. It was for his sake that I omitted a few details about Sean and me. They were salient details, but I did it for him. To protect him.

  All right, so the lady doth protest too much. But it really was for the greater good.

  ‘when you buy chocolate you’re buying yourself a new best friend’

  chapter eleven

  the thing about cannes

  ‘I’m not going and that’s final.’

  ‘You are!’

  I could hear Martha and Renée from the far end of the corridor. In fact, the second I stepped out of the lift, I heard Martha’s Yorkshire accent ‘explaining’ that she wasn’t open to the idea Renée had put to her, and Renée’s Yorkshire-tinged French accent trying to ‘persuade’ her into it. I spun on my heels to get back in the lift.

  Unfortunately, the lift doors closed in my face.

  My heart plummeted and settled around my ankles as I approached the office. I didn’t need a calendar to work out what time of the year it was. It’d started. The annual row that was who was going to Cannes.

  ‘It’s not in my job description. I am the administrator,’ Martha shouted like a teenager telling her parents she’d go out with whoever she liked. ‘I keep an eye on the accounts, I run the office, I tell you which films you can afford, I tell you how much you can spend on the brochure. Nowhere does it say I have to go to Cannes.’

  See?

  I slowed my walk.

  ‘It says in your contract that you have to do whatever extraduties we decide,’ Renée replied in the manner of a parent telling her daughter as long as she lived under her roof she’d do as she was told.

  I paused beside the office next to ours so neither of them could see me. God knows what the people in the other two offices on this floor thought of the constant screaming that emanated from our office.

  I hated rows. Even from a voyeuristic angle. Particularly from a voyeuristic angle. Arguments took me right back to being a girl. To what rowing meant. I couldn’t stand to listen to raised voices, unnecessary insults, words being scalded as they were issued. Waiting, just waiting for that one insult too far; that word that would send someone over the edge . . .

  Renée loved arguing. I was convinced she had employed Martha because Martha had ‘bring it on’ written all over her and I wouldn’t give her the rows she wanted. If Renée went off on one, I’d say nothing ’til she finished. I’d say nothing when she finished. My basic plan of action was waiting for Renée’s temper to blow itself out, which it inevitably did.

  Martha, on the other hand . . . Martha had an aggressive streak a mile wide. She’d worked with WYIFF for about twenty-one months and not one of those months had gone by without her and Renée having some kind of throw-down moment, where one of them would literally throw down the gauntlet and a big fight would follow. When they started, it’d be my job to stop them. Calm them down, play best mate to both of them, reassure them they were both right, agree the other was a bitch who really did deserve to have her hair ripped out from the roots, dispense tea and biscuits. Those were the big rows, every week they had some kind of spat. Even during Martha’s three-month probationary period she’d rowed with Renée, which was incredible to me. You’ve just started a new job, you could get fired at a week’s notice, so what do you do? Tell your boss to piss off at every given opportunity, of course. Still, she’d got the job so it worked for her.

  I leant against the wall, started to gnaw on the edge of my thumbnail.

  To be fair, though, this wasn’t just their argument – it’d gone on for all the eleven years I’d been involved with the Festival.

  The Cannes Film Festival (Cannes, to those of us in the industry) seemed so glamorous when you first started working at the Festival that you never understood why nobody wanted to go. You got up close to all those actors, writers and directors. You sometimes got to be in the same picture as Denzil Washington or Susan Sarandon. That’s what working in the movie industry was all about, no? When you actually went . . . Put it this way, the first year I attended, I’d arrived with sunglasses and summer clothes packed, a script and a novel to read, plus a guidebook to see some sights when I wasn’t working . . .

  I soon discovered it wasn’t all press conferences, premiere screenings and walking around on the Riviera being important. It was nine days of no-sleep, arse-kissing, abuse-receiving (West who? Film Festival ) hell. You had to go to as many screenings as possible and a lot of the ones we’d be likely to show were late-night screenings. You had to schmooze people who hadn’t heard of West Yorkshire, let alone thought about attending your Festival.

  Plus, you had to phone in a report to the office so they could update the Festival newsletter, which was printed three times during Cannes instead of once a fortnight. That was pre-Internet. Now we had our website, you had to phone in the report whenever anything even vaguely interesting happened so the website could be updated daily, or sometimes hourly (who said the Net made life easy?).

  The first year I went I hardly saw my hotel room; I was competing with the London Film Festival (which people had heard of ) and I could hardly form sentences while I gave the news reports on the phone.

  I’d cried all the way home from the airport because exhaustion seemed to fill every sense, every muscle. Even my blood vessels seemed compressed by weariness. Worse, I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep because I was so tired and that thought distressed me to tears. The taxi driver asked me what was wrong, expecting to hear I’d been chucked by my boyfriend, and I’d sobbed, ‘I’m really tired.’ He’d given me a look as if to say, ‘Is that it?’ and I’d forlornly nodded in reply.

  We’d unofficially been taking it in turns to go since I became full-time and, since I’d gone last year, unofficially it was Renée’s turn – which was obviously why she was officially trying to foist it onto Martha.

  I could see Martha’s point: it wasn’t in her job description. And it wasn’t in her life description, either. She liked her existence with her boyfriend and her run-ins with Renée and telling us off if we spent too much. She put in extra time and effort during the Festival, but she was on her home turf. She knew what she was doing and had a support network around her (I also had a sixth sense for when she was about to punch someone for giving her attitude and stepped in). Martha hadn’t become an administrator so she could go around kissing arse.

  When Martha had come in for her interview she’d been wearing a smart white blouse and a black skirt suit. Her shoulder-length brown hair had been combed with a side parting and she carried a briefcase. I knew instantly that she was fruit and nut chocolate. Something reliable, an old favourite you liked having around. She’d always be on your favourite list of confectionery, you’d always think of her if you were having a party or needed someone to talk to. She was unpretentious, like the chocolate, and sweet, like the raisins, in a fruit and nut. But Martha had an excess of nuts, the hard bits you weren’t expecting to encounter when you were chillin’. The nut you could break your tooth on if you pushed it. You found that out very quickly because with Martha w
hat you saw was what you got.

  Martha liked her life as it was and no group of international stars was going to change that.

  Having said that, the way Renée was at the moment we could end up with an international incident on our hands if she went. I could see it now: someone from the London Film Festival gets to Julia Roberts first and Renée pulls out a huge Fatal Attraction-type knife and starts hacking indiscriminately.

  The only alternative was that I go. Which was not going to happen.

  ‘I can hear you two all the way down the corridor,’ I said, entering the office at a brisk, no-nonsense pace that belied the panic inside. I always stepped in when they kicked off, but it terrified me. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I’m not going to Cannes, that’s what’s going on,’ Martha said and folded her arms. The matter was closed.

  ‘I’ve been to Cannes more than anyone else and I’m fed up of it,’ Renée replied and crossed her arms. The matter was definitely closed.

  I glanced from one to the other. ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ I said, dumping my bag and coat on my desk.

  I’m not going, I thought, as I filled the kettle. Ordinarily, yeah, I’d go. I’d done it before. The year before last I’d gone because we had a Festival Assistant as well as Martha and nobody would stop screaming about how they weren’t going. I’d sat there and listened and listened and listened until I couldn’t take it any more. I’d been the year before that already, but I’d stood up and said, ‘I’ll go. I’m not doing anything, I’ll go.’ I’d gone. And had another cry on the way home from the airport. It’d been the same taxi driver. He’d given me a look that said, ‘Tired?’ and I’d nodded forlornly again.

  Sean, who I was going out with at the time, had been majorly pissed off since he knew it wasn’t my turn. ‘You let them take advantage of you,’ he’d grumbled before sulking the evening away. He’d obviously been overjoyed when, on the morning I got back, I trailed across town to get Greg out of the police station.

  Like I said, normally, I’d go. But this year, I had Greg and I didn’t want to leave him. Not for a whole week. By the time Cannes arrived it, us, would’ve been three months and I didn’t want to leave him.

  It wouldn’t simply be a case of missing him – which I would – I, well, I didn’t want to give him the chance to find someone else. Going to Cannes for nine days equalled nearly eleven days of Greg being surrounded by sexy, confident, ‘get what I want’ women. That was eleven days of not spending the night with me, or calling me ’til the wee small hours. By the end of it, I’d have an ulcer the size of Nebraska and only tufts of hair on my head from where I’d have ripped it out in frustration. Basically, it was not going to happen.

  ‘OK,’ I said, coming back to the office and setting down a tea for Martha; a coffee for Renée.

  ‘Someone’s got to go to Cannes,’ I said, pulling up a chair between Martha and Renée’s desk at the middle point. Martha was staring fixedly out of the window, her arms folded tightly across her chest. Renée was also staring out of the window, her arms crossed just as tightly.

  ‘Renée, I know you’ve been most out of us because you went even before you were Festival Director. So, yes, you’ve got six-odd years on the rest of us.’

  I could hear Martha’s teeth starting to grind together. That nut was limbering up to break a couple of my teeth.

  ‘But, Martha, I know it’s not in your job description and I know you hate all that negotiating and networking stuff. But someone’s got to go.’

  This is the point where I usually say, ‘So, I’ll go.’ I swivelled to Renée. My heart started to pummel itself against my ribcage; if I didn’t pitch this right that iMac was going out of the window and I’d be following it. ‘So, what if you take your husband, Renée?’

  ‘We haven’t got the budget for it,’ Martha said.

  Cheeky cow. If you’re not careful, I’ll fabricate a sponsorship meeting and leave you to it.

  ‘What I mean is, why don’t you take your husband and make it a holiday? He’s a scriptwriter, he’s written stuff for the newsletter and the website so you could share the screenings and events you go to. It might even help him get funding for his next script. I’m sure we can stretch to you having a double room for nine days. And then, afterwards, you can go off and see some family in Paris or something. So, really, you can have three weeks off work. Three weeks. Off work. In France. The country of your birth . . .’

  No computers were being hurled, yet.

  ‘And we can have a double room?’ Renée said eventually.

  Martha, fruit and nut administrator extraordinaire, went to protest. I could see it in the way she moved her face. I raised an eyebrow at her that said, ‘We go over budget or you go to Cannes. Your choice.’

  ‘Yes, you can have a double room,’ Martha conceded.

  ‘And you’ll make Josh go to screenings?’ Renée asked. Like she didn’t rule Josh with a rod of iron anyway.

  ‘Yup,’ I said. ‘I’ll talk to Josh. I’ll write him a full brief, OK?’

  Renée left the air in the office straining under expectation. We were both holding our breath as we waited for her decision. She was totally doing it on purpose. She knew a lot about dramatic tension and she wasn’t going to agree or disagree without making us suffer. ‘OK, I’ll go,’ Renée finally agreed.

  Martha physically relaxed and I almost let out a sob of relief. If Renée hadn’t agreed, there would’ve been full-scale war in the office, because I certainly wasn’t going. I hadn’t realised until this second that my priorities had changed. I’d found something important. Not just Greg, but me. Me and my new-found star status.

  I often felt my life ran like a movie. With some of the things that happened – police station, hotel rooms, film stars calling me up at work and at home – my life was exactly like a movie. But, in the cinematic rendition of my life, I was one of the co-stars. My life was annexed onto other people’s stories so, even though it was my life story, other people had far more important roles and therefore got higher billing. First, it was my parents and their spectacular marriage. Then it was my brother and his unbelievable behaviour. Then it was Jen.

  It’d stayed Jen for the entire time I’d known her. She was the movie star type: blonde, fair of face, slender. The kind of woman who starred in movies and got equal billing alongside the likes of Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz. Whereas I, well, I didn’t. She had the types of dramas that the central character of the movie did. I didn’t. I was too sensible for that.

  I didn’t feel inferior to Jen. I had allure, charm. I was attractive, sexy, if it came down to it, but . . . Put it this way: I could walk into a bar, sit down to wait for Jen and within a few minutes I’d be approached by a man because I’m an attractive woman. This man would buy me a drink, chat me up, try to relieve me of my phone number, but the second Jen walked in he’d lose interest. His eyes would double in size as she came over, sat down. He’d drool and pant and practically trample me to death to get to her. Jen never made much of it. Would usually tell these men to get lost with a smile on her face. But, when she was around, I became invisible. It’s hard not to feel like a co-star, even if it is your own life story, when you’ve got Leeds’s equivalent of Jennifer Aniston at your side.

  With Greg, all that changed. I was suddenly a star.

  He made me feel like there was nobody else on the screen. In the world.

  He was always asking and questioning, as though prodding at the entrance to my heart, trying to get in, the way you would to a clam that wouldn’t open. It wasn’t enough to ask me what I thought about things, he wanted to know why I thought that. Where that thought came from, why it’d been formulated. Did I always think that? He also wanted to know about who I was, how I felt, what my dreams were. Like the other day. We were in the bath and he was slowly caressing my back with the soaped-up sponge. (He was always wanting to bathe with me. Most evenings he’d run a bath before bed and press-gang me into it. I did ask him if I smelt an
d this was his way of telling me so without telling me. He’d said witheringly, ‘You would think that. No, dear, it’s because I like bathing with you.’)

  ‘Tell me your dreams,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t have any,’ I replied.

  ‘Don’t give me that, for someone who thinks as much as you do, you must have dreams.’

  I wondered if I should confess to him the real truth. I was always telling people that my dream was to be director of the Festival, to run the whole show. That’s what they expected to hear. In reality, my dream, my big dream, was nothing like that. Should I tell Greg? Things were different now. He was my boyfriend as well as my friend. You shared the real dreams, the real hopes and fears, with someone you were double close to. At least I suspected you did. I wasn’t prone to secret sharing, not with fellafriends, not with friends. Not even Jen knew this dream. ‘I’ll tell you, but you mustn’t laugh,’ I eventually said.

  ‘Course I wouldn’t.’

  ‘My dream, if I could do anything, or be anything and money and reality weren’t an option, I’d love to be a film director. I’d love to write my own script, bring it to the big screen, and direct it. I always wonder what it’d be like to sit there and see something that I’ve written and directed on the screen.’

  Greg’s reply was silence. As I thought, mad insane dream, should never have brought it up. Said it out loud. Told anyone.

  ‘Please don’t tell everyone, that’s all I ask,’ I added quickly. ‘Please don’t tell everyone but if you can’t stop yourself, don’t laugh at me too much.’