The Understudy: A Novel

by David Nicholls

  “Well, run up and get your coat on,” he said, pushing her toward the staircase. They stood in the hall in silence, listening to her clomp upstairs, and Stephen passed the time by wondering if he could have Colin in a fight. Certainly, Colin had the edge in body weight, but Stephen had the motivation. Especially if he were armed with, say, a cricket bat. Or a samurai sword…

  “Hey, listen,” whispered Colin, “we’ve been meaning to ask—what are you getting you-know-who for Christmas?”

  “I don’t know yet. Why, what are you getting her?” Her own house, maybe? Stephen wondered. A small island, perhaps?

  “A piano,” whispered Colin, and Stephen felt the wet towel snap near his ear.

  “But haven’t you already got one?” said Stephen, remembering the old upright that he and Alison had bought from a junk shop ten years ago.

  “That old pub piano? It’s unplayable. No, we thought we’d invest in a baby grand or something. I wanted to tell you, just in case you wanted to, I don’t know, chip in for the piano stool or some sheet music or something.”

  Snap went the towel…

  “Actually—I’ve sort of got something special planned for Sophie,” Stephen improvised.

  “Oh—right. Okay, well, if you’ve got it covered…”

  “Oh, I have.”

  “Right. Well. Great.”

  And that was that. They both stood in silence, leaning against opposite walls of the hall, like mismatched wrestlers. Colin broke first. “Right, well, the Lady of the Manor is in the breakfast room, if you want to say hi.”

  “O-kay,” Stephen said, and followed the burble of Radio 4 in the direction of the breakfast room, whatever the hell that was.

  He found his ex-wife standing precariously on a stepladder, hanging curtains, her back to him. He stood in the doorway and watched her silently for a moment, and found himself wondering how he’d ever managed to get away with marrying her. She had certainly transformed from the lippy, dungaree-wearing chain-smoking pint-drinker that he’d married eight years ago at Camden Registry Office. Small, healthy and neat, dressed in expensively casual clothes, her hair expensively disheveled, she looked like a TV Commercial Mum now, the perky, wise, sexy mum with a contemporary edge, tucking her pretty daughter up in bed, before returning to the dinner party to hand expensive mints to attractive professional friends. She’d absolutely clean up, he thought, if she hadn’t given up acting for recruitment consultancy.

  “I was told to ask for the Lady of the Manor.”

  “That’ll be me, then.”

  “Need a hand?”

  “Hi, Stephen. No, I’m fine. With you in a second,” she said, her breath a little strained with the effort of holding her arms above her head. Her voice was soft and bright, with the trace of a Yorkshire accent, which, like the meaningless Celtic symbol tattooed on her hip, faded a little year by year. She was wearing jeans and a sweater in some kind of expensive creamy wool, tugged up at the elbows, and Stephen found himself regarding the light downy hair on the small of her back, the two inches of expensive-looking underwear peeking over the edge of her expensive-looking jeans. Was it wrong to look yearningly at your ex-wife’s underwear, he wondered. After all, they’d been together for nearly eight years, happy for seven—six, at least. They’d had a child together. They had made love hundreds, maybe thousands, no, okay, hundreds of times; surely it was only natural for him to look at her this way? In the end he decided that, while it wasn’t exactly wrong as such, it was undoubtedly pretty futile.

  “What are you doing anyway?”

  “Just putting up the winter curtains,” she said. Winter curtains—they had different curtains for different times of the year. Amazing. “Have you boys been chatting?” she asked hopefully.

  “Uh-huh,” mumbled Stephen.

  “What about?”

  “I was just asking him why he always keeps the collars of his shirts turned up.”

  “Stephen…”

  “Is it just a look? You know, a fashion choice…”

  “I love this tone of voice, Stephen, really I do.”

  “…and isn’t that difficult for you? I mean, don’t you want to reach over and just turn them down?”

  “D’you want to wait outside?”

  “No.”

  “Well, pack it in then,” she said, smiling just a little as she came down and kissed him lightly on the cheek, the platonic kiss that they’d been working on for two years now. “What’s that funny smell?” She wrinkled her nose, sniffed his neck. “TCP? Run out of aftershave?”

  “It’s a new antibacterial aftershave. ‘Destiny’ by SmithKline Beecham.”

  “You’re not ill again?”

  “Oh, you know, just a little glandy. I think it might be tonsillitis.”

  She tutted in a matronly way, then stood back at arm’s length to get a better look. Since the divorce, she’d developed an irritating tendency to scrutinize him in this cosseting manner, as if he were an evacuee.

  “You’ve ironed a shirt.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re wearing proper shoes.”

  “Is that allowed?”

  “Of course. I just thought, what with your gypsy lifestyle and all. It’s like you’re on your way to the magistrates’ court.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Job interview, is it?”

  Stephen sighed. “No. And, anyway, I’ve got a job, remember? Till Christmas, anyway…”

  “You look tired, though. Wild night?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Anywhere special? Movie premiere, awards ceremony?”

  Stung now, Stephen put on the modest tone that inevitably ended up sounding cocky, and said, “Oh, you know—just Josh Harper’s birthday party.”

  “Josh Harper’s birthday party! Whoooooo-ooooh! ’Ark at you, with your fancy showbiz pals!” Alison’s accent tended to make a comeback when she was being sardonic. “So where was the party, then?”

  “At his apartment, of course,” mumbled Stephen.

  “Not his house, not his flat, his apartment. Which is where?”

  “Oh, up Primrose Hill way.”

  “Up Primrose Hill way! ’Course it is. Meet anyone nice among the showbiz community? Any ladies?” She leered suggestively, a little ironic twinkle in her eye. The question irritated him, partly because it made him feel like a teenager, but primarily because it cost her so little to ask it. The unfortunate fact was that Stephen still loved his wife—ex-wife—still ached with it, would be very happy to still be married to her, would marry her again, right now, here, in the breakfast room with the winter curtains, if he possibly could. It was only in recent months that he’d managed to contrive a practicable, day-to-day method of living without her, and the fact that she’d clearly be delighted to get him off her hands caused him a shiver of sadness. It reminded him of what he already knew—that if he told Alison that he’d met someone else, and they were very much in love, her response wouldn’t be jealousy or regret, but relief, glee even, the sort of unseemly glee you might feel in off-loading a house that you knew was subsiding.

  “Go on, spill the beans.” She winked and nudged him. “Is there a new special friend?”

  “Could we change the subject, d’you think?” he said eventually.

  “Okay, what time are you bringing Sophie back?” she said, climbing back on the top of the stepladder and straightening the curtains.

  “Not late. Five-ish.”

  “Good, because she’s got homework to do.”

  “Homework?”

  “Yes, homework.”

  “School homework?”

  “As opposed to…?”

  “What subject?”

  “I don’t know. French, I think.”

  “But she’s seven, Alison!”

  “So?”

  “Seven-year-olds can’t speak French.”

  “French seven-year-olds can.”

  “So what kind of school gives a seven-year-old homework?�
��

  “I don’t know, Stephen, a good school?” she said, and even though he loved her very much, Stephen was seized with a momentary desire to kick the stepladder over. There were two clear courses of action open to them, to change the subject and keep things civil, or to have a futile row.

  “Oh, a private school, you mean?”

  “Oh, here we go,” she sighed, stepping down off the ladder once more. “Not this again. Stephen, I’d love nothing more than to have a sixth-form debate about private education, but there’s not much point, is there? I mean, we’re not suddenly going to take Sophie out of a good school, and put her in a crap school, just because of your political principles.”

  “They used to be your principles too, as I recall.”

  “Well, it’s much easier to have principles when you don’t have a child of school age.”

  “I do have a child of school age, it’s just I still have the principles.”

  “Yeah, well, I changed my mind.”

  “So did you change your mind, or did Colin change your mind for you?”

  “Stephen, no one changes my mind for me,” she snapped back, eyes narrowed, and silently acknowledging this to be true, Stephen attempted a different tack.

  “I just sort of naïvely imagined I might have some say in my own daughter’s education.”

  “You did have a say, and we listened to it, and took a different view. Besides, what do you care? It’s not as if we’re asking you to pay for it!” Alison said this with only the trace of a sneer, but still enough of a sneer to make her now look ashamed. She turned and stared out of the window. Stephen could feel it looming between them—The Row. They were going to have The Row again, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Best to just get it over with.

  “Meaning what?” he said.

  “Nothing.”

  “Meaning if I got a proper job…”

  “No.”

  “…if I stopped daydreaming, stopped wasting my time…”

  “I didn’t say that, did I?”

  “I’m not going to give up now, Alison.”

  “I know! And I didn’t ask you to. You’re free now, you can do what you want. I just sometimes think you might be happier…”

  “…if I just gave up?”

  “Yes, fuck it! Give up! Sell out! Surrender! Join the real world!”

  “And is this Alison the recruitment consultant speaking?”

  “No, it’s Alison your friend. You’re capable of so much more, Stephen.”

  “That’s not the point. It’s like the other day, Josh almost didn’t turn up for the show. I was actually in the wings in his costume, more or less. Two more, one more, minute, and I’d have been onstage, playing the lead role.”

  “You are never going to play the lead role, Stephen. These sudden, amazing reversals of fortune, they never happen. Most people learn this stuff just from living—why is it taking you so long?”

  “But it does happen; it happens all the time!”

  “Not to you, Stephen, those things never happen to you. And even if they did, what then?”

  “Well—it would be a break, wouldn’t it? A change, an opportunity to show what I can do, the start of something…”

  “And this lucky break, what if it never, ever comes? What if you wait and wait and wait, and nothing happens, and you end up with nothing?”

  “That’s not going to happen…”

  “…You can’t build your life on the possibility that Josh Harper’s going to get struck by lightning, it’s just not realistic.”

  “Okay, maybe not, but you know what it’s like in this business. There are loads of actors whose careers don’t take off until they’re much older.”

  “Yes, but like who, Stephen?”

  He remembered the Han Solo figure in his pocket. “Harrison Ford didn’t make it till he was thirty-six!” And even as the words left his mouth he realized it was not the right thing to say. Maybe she’d pretend she hadn’t heard it.

  “Oh, for crying out loud…”

  “What?”

  “You’re not Harrison Ford…”

  “I know! That’s not what I meant.”

  “…and you don’t live in the Hollywood Hills, Steve, you live in Battersea borders.”

  “I know that! I’m just saying…” Stephen paused, just for a second. Aware that his argument was crumbling, he decided to do the only sensible, mature thing, and create an elaborate, unsustainable lie. “Look, if you must know, I’m waiting to hear about something right now, as a matter of fact. Something big.”

  “What?”

  “A…movie. The lead. The lead role in a movie.”

  “The lead role in a movie?”

  “Uh-huh. A big-budget American thing. Romantic comedy. I can’t say too much about it at this stage. But it’s a big role. The title role, in fact.”

  Alison narrowed her eyes, and shook her head skeptically. “The title role?”

  “Uh-huh. The title role.”

  “And what’s it called?”

  “It’s called…can’t remember.”

  “You can’t remember the title?”

  Impro! Think of a name, just any simple name, any plausible-sounding man’s name…

  “It’s called John…Johnson. Johnny Johnson.”

  “Johnny Johnson…”

  “It’s a working title.”

  “I see. And why you?”

  “What d’you mean, why me?”

  “I mean, why cast you? Why not cast, I don’t know, Josh Harper or someone?”

  “They want a fresh face.”

  “A fresh face?”

  “An unfamiliar face.”

  Skeptically, she examined Stephen’s unfamiliar face. “And it’s a romantic comedy, you say?”

  “Not so hard to believe, is it?”

  “The comedy I can see, but the romance…”

  “Alison…”

  “So what’s it about then, this ‘romantic comedy’?”

  “You know, the usual. Transatlantic, culture-clash thing. It’s about this English guy who falls in love with a feisty American woman.” He was warming to his subject now, growing into the lie, casting the female role in his head, even visualizing individual scenes, the cute meet, the first kiss, but Alison still looked skeptical. “It’s much better than it sounds. Like I said, I can’t really say too much at this stage. I don’t want to jinx it.”

  “So you haven’t got the part?”

  “Not…definitely,” he said, fumbling behind him for an escape route.

  Alison sniffed, turned her back. “Oh, I see…”

  “But I’m heavy-penciled!”

  Alison spun around to face him. “Stephen, you’ve been bloody heavy-penciled all your life!”

  “Hello, there…?” asked Colin, sliding into the room as if on casters.

  “For Christ’s sake, Colin!” snapped Alison, deploying the Yorkshire accent. “We’re having a private conversation.”

  “I realize that. I just wondered if maybe you could keep your voices down a little, that’s all,” and he nodded toward the door.

  At the end of the hallway, now dressed in a yellow vinyl mackintosh and carrying a small rucksack tightly in her hand, Sophie stood patiently, staring intently at the floor, as if by not looking up she might prevent herself from hearing.

  “Just coming, sweetheart,” Stephen shouted down the hall in his best cheery voice. Then he took a deep breath and attempted a smile at Alison, who was biting her thumbnail. She raised one hand back. Then as quickly as he could, he squeezed past Colin in the doorway, took Sophie by the hand and left the house.

  A Madcap Life Force

  “Il pleut,” said Sophie.

  “Il pleut,” repeated Stephen.

  Sophie had only ever seen her father’s flat once. The visit had not been a success for either of them. Sophie had come round on a rainy Saturday afternoon, and together they had played a brutally melancholic game of Cluedo that had been scarcely less distre
ssing than witnessing a real-life murder, in the study, with a candlestick. The visit had come during a particularly dark time in the divorce process, the daytime-drinking months, his Miss Havisham period, and even now he would shiver at the possibility that he might be guilty of having scared his own daughter. Certainly, Sophie must have said something to Alison, because shortly afterward it had been diplomatically suggested that maybe they’d like to go on “day trips” instead. He had reluctantly decided not to push for further overnight visits, at least not until he’d brought some sense of order to his life.

  Consequently, today they found themselves walking hand in hand down Richmond High Street on a Monday morning in light drizzle, looking for somewhere they could drink soft drinks and talk until the cinema opened. These outings weren’t uncomfortable as such, but Stephen’s delight at seeing his daughter was always tempered by a vague feeling of restlessness and displacement. It was as if they’d lost their keys, and were waiting for someone to come home and let them in.

  “Il neige,” said Sophie.

  “What’s that, then?”

  “It’s snowing.”

  “Il neige?”

  “Il neige.”

  “Il neige.”

  “Très bon. Très, très bon, mon père.”

  “Merci beaucoup, mon chérie.”

  “It’s ‘ma,’ not ‘mon.’ Girls are feminine, remember?”

  “God—vaguely.”

  They walked past Burger King. Stephen was aware that Colin violently disapproved of Sophie eating fast food, and while usually this would have been recommendation enough, Stephen found the combination of strip-lighting and urban grooves too bruising for his present state.

  “So—where shall we go, then?” he asked Sophie.

  “Don’t mind.”

  “Well, what do you feel like eating?”

  “I like sushi,” said Sophie, showing off.

  “You don’t like sushi.”

  “Yes I do,” she said, but without much conviction.

  “You’re meant to be a child, Sophie; children don’t like sushi. Not even Japanese children.”

  “Well, I do. Sushi and sashimi.”

  “So when did you have sushi, then?”

  “In Waitrose yesterday. Colin gave me some of his.” Typical bloody Colin, he thought; dangling raw tuna from his fat pink fingers into my daughter’s mouth in Waitrose, explaining what wasabi is, making her taste a little, laughing when she pulls a face.