by Lynne Shelby
‘When have you ever minded being stared at?’
‘I was thinking of you,’ Daniel said. ‘You’re supposed to be going to the play as Owen’s agent, not the Fallen Angel’s girlfriend.’
‘I’m sure I can do both,’ I said. ‘Besides, once the play begins, everyone’ll forget you’re there.’
‘No they won’t,’ Daniel said. ‘I’m unforgettable.’
‘You’re so up yourself,’ I said.
Daniel put his hands on my shoulders, turned me around to face him, and kissed me, a long languorous kiss that left me breathless.
‘I think I’ve every right to be up myself,’ he said.
‘You do when you kiss me like that.’ I smiled at him. He trailed a finger down the side of my face. He cleared his throat.
This is it, I thought. This is the moment when he tells me he loves me and asks me to live with him in his new house in Primrose Hill.
I tried not to mind when all he said was, ‘Lucy, your lipstick’s smudged.’
Arriving at the theatre by taxi, we made it across the pavement and through the doors before Daniel was inevitably recognised. Whispers followed us through the foyer and into the auditorium: ‘Look, isn’t that Daniel Miller?’ and ‘That’s Daniel Miller – I think that’s his girlfriend, Lucy What’s-her-face,’ and ‘Oh my goodness, it’s Daniel Miller.’ Heads turned as we walked down the central aisle to the front of the stalls.
A few minutes after we’d found our seats, those next to us were taken by Owen’s other guests, Michael and Annette. I introduced them to Daniel, and to my relief they displayed no signs of being starstruck. We all chatted easily until a disembodied voice reminded us to switch off our mobiles, the houselights went out, and the play, a dark, satirical, and extremely funny comedy, began.
Owen had told me once that he never suffered from nerves before a performance, but as I sat waiting for him to walk out onto that West End stage, I found myself nervous for him. I needn’t have worried. As soon as he made his entrance towards the end of Act I, and delivered his first line with perfect comic timing, he had the audience laughing out loud. In the interval, when we went to the bar, I heard his name mentioned more often than the play’s leading man, if not quite as often as Daniel’s.
‘Owen’s so good,’ I said to the others, as we stood in a corner, drinking our interval drinks, and ignoring the sidelong glances from the people in the bar who had recognised my boyfriend.
‘He’s brilliant,’ Michael said.
‘I do not understand all the English words he says,’ Annette said, ‘but when he is acting you have to look at him, non?’
‘Yes, you do,’ I said. ‘You’re right. Owen has great stage presence.’
Daniel said, ‘I was two years above him in drama school, and I have to admit that I never rated him as an actor, but tonight… Well, he’s certainly got something.’
‘I am so excited to see him in a famous theatre,’ Annette said. ‘Have you acted in the West End, Daniel?’
‘No, I’ve no desire to perform live.’
Annette’s English had improved a lot since I’d first met her, but now she looked confused.
‘Daniel only acts in films and television,’ I said to her in French. ‘He doesn’t want to work in the theatre.’
‘You like only the cinema, Daniel?’ Annette said. ‘But Owen says that all actors want to act in the West End. Even the stars of Hollywood.’
‘Owen and I are very different,’ Daniel said. ‘He’s passionate about acting. I’m only interested in roles that are going to make me a lot of money.’
I laughed. ‘You are so shallow.’
‘Yes, I am.’ Daniel said.
Annette smiled a little uncertainly. ‘Shallow?’
I said. ‘Il est tres superficiel.’ Somehow, it sounded more damning in French.
‘Superficiel?’ Annette said. ‘Ah, you are joking. Pardonnez-moi. I do not understand the English jokes.’
The second bell rang, signalling the end of the interval, so we drained our glasses and returned to our seats. Owen made only a brief appearance in Act II, but once again he had the audience in fits of laughter. The cheers when he took his bow at the curtain call were deafening.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to do live theatre?’ I said to Daniel, as the audience got to its feet to give the cast a standing ovation. ‘Wouldn’t you like to stand on a stage and listen to an audience going wild?’
‘Only if it’s the stage at the Oscars and I’m making my Best Actor acceptance speech,’ Daniel said.
A small-scale production like Live, Laugh, Love didn’t have the budget for a lavish after-party, but once the paying audience had left the theatre, Daniel and I, Michael and Annette, and other invited guests crowded back into the bar to meet up with the cast for celebratory drinks. The young, hot-shot director and his actors made their entrance together, and were greeted by another tremendous round of clapping. The director made a short speech, thanking everyone who’d been involved in the production for all their hard work, and the leading man made a speech thanking the wonderful audience. And then, after more clapping, the actors were finally free to join their assembled friends, family and agents, bask in the warmth of their congratulations, and drink the cheap white wine provided by the theatre management.
Having spotted our group while the director was making his speech, Owen started to make his way through the crowd towards us, but was waylaid by a man I recognised as a theatre critic. Having extracted himself, he was immediately surrounded by the extended family of one of the other actors. I turned to Daniel to suggest that we go and join them, only to find him deep in conversation with the hot-shot director. I turned back to Michael and Annette, but they had vanished into the increasingly animated crowd. Then a man I knew slightly, the head of a rival theatrical agency, caught my eye and beckoned me over to where he was propping up the bar. Reminding myself that networking was part of my job, I went and sat on a bar stool next to him, and found myself bombarded with questions about whether I was happy working at Reardon Haye, and if I’d ever thought about moving to a larger agency, because he might have an opening for me. I’d have been flattered, if I hadn’t suspected that he was only interested in hiring me because he thought I could bring Daniel Miller to his agency. I assured him that I had every intention of remaining at Reardon Haye for the foreseeable future, and dived back into the crowd in search of my friends.
‘Hey, Lucy.’ Suddenly Owen was standing in front of me, his blue eyes shining. He put his arms around me, pulling me close to give me a hug. I could almost feel the adrenaline still coursing through him.
‘So how did I do?’ he said.
‘You did great, as if you didn’t know that.’ I smiled up at him. ‘How does it feel to act in the West End?’
‘Oh, Lucy, there’s nothing like it –’ Owen broke off abruptly as a girl, a tall, willowy blonde, stepped out of the crowd and put her hand on his arm.
‘Hello, Owen,’ she said.
‘Vanessa!’ Owen said. ‘I’m so pleased you managed to get here.’
‘I said I’d come if I possibly could,’ the girl gushed in a cut-glass accent. ‘And I’m very glad I did. You were wonderful, Owen. And so funny.’
All the while she was talking, the girl kept her hand possessively on Owen’s arm. She was quite pretty, I decided, but there was something of the horse about her teeth.
‘Thank you so much.’ Owen beamed at the girl. To me, he said, ‘Lucy, this is Vanessa. When we were eighteen, she played Juliet to my Romeo – in a school play.’
‘My one appearance on the stage,’ Vanessa said.
‘We hadn’t seen each other in years,’ Owen said. ‘We met up again at that barbeque I went to the other week.’
‘I was amazed when Owen told me he’d become an actor,’ Vanessa said. ‘I only did Romeo and Juliet because I was at an all-girls school and it was a joint production with the boys’ school down the road. I thought it would be a good way to
improve my social life.’
‘I only took up acting to meet girls.’ Owen laughed, and Vanessa joined in. She had a rather irritating laugh, I thought.
‘Most of the cast of Romeo and Juliet were more interested in pulling than performing Shakespeare,’ Vanessa said. ‘Didn’t you go out with the girl who played Lady Capulet?’
‘Unfortunately, our relationship didn’t last longer than a clinch at the cast party,’ Owen said, ‘but I seem to remember that you dated the boy who played Tybalt for a while?’
‘I dated him for the whole of the summer term,’ Vanessa said. ‘We broke up when he went to Oxford, but I still run into him occasionally at parties. He works in the City now…’
Owen and Vanessa embarked on a long reminiscence about various people they both knew from their schooldays. Obviously, I couldn’t join in the conversation, so I stood there in silence, trying to look interested, and wishing that Vanessa would go away so that I could talk to Owen about Live, Laugh, Love and his performance.
My gaze wandered around the room. I spotted Michael talking to the theatre critic, while Annette listened with an expression of intense concentration on her face as she tried to follow a discussion in English. And I saw Daniel sitting at the bar, talking to Live, Laugh, Love’s leading actress, an attractive, vivacious woman in her thirties. The way she was looking at him and leaning towards him so that he couldn’t avoid seeing down her top, I was pretty sure she was coming onto him. When she took a piece of paper out of her handbag and wrote something, presumably her phone number, on it before handing it to him, my suspicions were confirmed. I watched as Daniel read whatever she’d written, smiled, and put the paper in the back pocket of his jeans. Women came onto Daniel all the time, but that didn’t make it any easier for me to see it. I fought a sudden impulse to pick up a glass of the theatre’s disgusting wine and throw it in the actress’s face. And over Daniel as well, because he didn’t seem to be exactly discouraging her.
Vanessa said, ‘Isn’t that Daniel Miller over there at the bar?’
‘Yes, it is,’ Owen said.
‘He is so hot,’ she gushed. ‘No wonder he’s slept with so many women. Don’t you agree, Lucy?’
‘I – He’s –’ I really wasn’t in the mood to discuss my boyfriend’s sexual prowess with this annoying school friend of Owen’s.
‘A good looking boy,’ Owen said. ‘It’s a pity he’s such a little whore.’ Which was actually one of his lines from the play.
I glared at him, while Vanessa laughed her irritating laugh, as though he was some sort of comic genius.
‘Owen, you are hilarious,’ Vanessa said, when she’d managed to stop laughing. She added, ‘I’ve had a really good time tonight, and I’d love to stay longer, but I have to go now and catch my train.’
‘Are going to be OK going home on your own?’ Owen asked. ‘Would you like me to walk you to the station? Or maybe we could share a taxi?’
I remembered that he’d offered to share a taxi with me when I’d gone to see him in Siblings. I found myself even more irritated with this girl who’d monopolised his attention and was now going to drag him out of the theatre before I’d had a chance to have a proper talk with him.
‘No, I’ll be fine,’ Vanessa said, ‘I don’t want to take you away from your friends.’ Once again, she put her hand on his arm. ‘It’s been great seeing you, Owen.’
‘Straight back at you,’ Owen said. ‘Maybe we could go for a drink sometime?’
I thought, is he asking her out on a date?
‘Or how about lunch next week?’
He was asking her out on a date.
‘That would be lovely,’ Vanessa simpered.
‘I’ll call you.’
He’d asked her out on a date and she’d said yes. It struck me that while I’d been wishing Vanessa would go away and leave me alone with Owen, he’d most likely been wishing I’d push off and leave him alone with her. I thought, I am selfish, self-centred and a bad friend.
Vanessa said, ‘Bye, Lucy. It was good to meet you.’
‘You too.’ I tried to sound like I meant it.
With several backward glances over her shoulder and a wave for Owen, Vanessa left the bar.
As soon as she’d gone, Owen said, ‘Lucy, what I said to Vanessa about Daniel, I’m so sorry. It was just a line from the play.’
‘I know. Don’t worry about it.’
‘And what she said –’
‘It doesn’t matter. Forget it.’ I made myself smile. ‘Besides, Daniel is hot, and he has slept with a lot of women.’
‘She can’t have recognised you, otherwise I’m sure she wouldn’t have said anything like that.’
‘It does seem rather unlikely.’
Suddenly, Owen’s face broke into a grin. ‘I remember being so nervous when I had to kiss her.’
I shot him a look. ‘You had to kiss her?’
‘In Romeo and Juliet,’ Owen said. ‘It was my first stage kiss, and I wanted it to look convincing. Especially as Tybalt was glaring at me from the wings.’
‘The duel between Romeo and Tybalt in Act III must have been interesting.’
Owen laughed. Then he said, ‘Vanessa’s lovely, isn’t she?’
I thought, how would I know? I only met her half an hour ago. Aloud, I said, ‘Yes, she seems very nice.’
Fortunately I was spared further discussion of Vanessa’s inherent wondrousness by the arrival of Michael and Annette, and then Daniel, the three of them full of praise for both Owen and the play. When Daniel mentioned that he was surprised how old the leading lady was, I decided that my evening had improved considerably.
By now the crowd was thinning out as people started to leave the bar, and after one more glass of warm white wine, we left also. Daniel suggested we went on to a club, but the others weren’t keen and none of us were dressed for clubbing. We ended up piling into a taxi and going back to Cassie’s house, where Cassie and Ryan joined us as we sat around the kitchen table drinking coffee and eating biscuits. Michael and Annette did look a little wide-eyed as I introduced them to Princess Snowdrop and Ryan-he’s-so-Fleet, but they recovered quickly, and Annette was soon admiring Cassie’s engagement ring and wondering if she’d thought about flowers for her bridal bouquet. Michael, Daniel and Ryan talked about football before going on to cricket. I sat next to Owen, and we talked some more about Live, Laugh, Love, the cast of Live, Laugh, Love (the leading lady, Owen told me, was a right diva), and how Owen really needed to find a room to rent now that his landlord had chucked him out. He was currently living in Julie and Zac Diaz’s spare bedroom, but didn’t want to outstay his welcome.
It must have been after two in the morning when Michael got out his mobile and phoned for a minicab.
‘It’s all right for you actors to stay up all night,’ he said to Owen, ‘but some of us have real jobs to go to in the morning.’
‘We actors have to get up early when we’re filming,’ Cassie said, ‘but fortunately Princess Snowdrop has a day off tomorrow.’
‘What is your job, Michael?’ Ryan said.
‘I’m a journalist,’ Michael said.
Cassie shot Ryan a look of pure panic.
Oh, for goodness’ sake, I thought.
‘Relax, Cassie,’ I said, ‘Michael’s not about to tell the world that Princess Snowdrop spent tonight in the company of the Fallen Angel – and forget to mention that her fiancé was there as well. He writes for a weekly newspaper not Goss.’
‘You’re not a showbiz journalist?’ Cassie said. ‘You don’t write a gossip column?’
‘Lord, no,’ Michael said. ‘I’ve no interest in writing about celebrities – no offence.’
Ryan laughed. ‘None taken.’
‘What do you write about?’ Cassie said to Michael.
‘I’m a political correspondent,’ Michael said. ‘Well, I will be one day. At the moment my assignments are mainly local council meetings and un-neighbourly disputes over parking. But I have to start so
mewhere, right?’
Cassie forced a smile.
‘Am I right in thinking that you don’t have a very high opinion of my noble profession?’ Michael said.
Cassie flushed. ‘I’ve not liked reading some of the rubbish journalists have written about me and Ryan.’
‘It is different in France,’ Annette said. ‘We have the laws that protect the privacy of the famous people.’
‘But why should they be protected?’ Michael’s eyes suddenly had an adversarial glint.
Rising to the challenge, I said, ‘Surely people in the public eye are entitled to keep their personal lives private?’
‘Not always,’ Michael said. ‘If a politician spends his evenings picking up underage rent boys, I think the people who voted for him have a right to know.’
‘I’m not talking about corrupt politicians or shady financiers,’ I said. ‘I’m talking about people like my clients.’
‘Your clients who employ publicists to keep their names in the papers?’ Michael said.
‘All I’m saying is that there’s a difference between newsgathering and scandalmongering.’
The front door bell rang.
‘Much as I’d like to debate the freedom of the press with you, Lucy,’ Michael said, ‘that’s our cab.’ He stood up and smiled at Cassie. ‘Thank you for your hospitality. And I promise that anything you’ve said to me tonight is entirely off the record.’
‘He will not write about you, Cassie.’ Annette also got to her feet and picked up her bag. ‘It is not good for him to write about his friends. I do not allow.’
‘Just so you know, Michael,’ Daniel said, ‘you can write about me anytime. You can make it up, if you like. I don’t mind.’
I rolled my eyes at Annette. ‘Il est tres superficiel,’ I said.
‘What you see is what you get,’ Daniel said.
‘Then it’s lucky for you that I like what I see,’ I said.
Daniel grinned wickedly and planted a kiss on the side of my face.
‘I should get going as well,’ Owen said. ‘Michael, can I share your cab?’