The Understudy: A Novel

by David Nicholls

  With some apparent reluctance, Josh extricated his face from Maxine’s chest and, remarkably, instead of looking straight at Stephen, looked in the mirror first, at himself, tossed his hair, then looked at Stephen, and even the shock of seeing someone else in the room wasn’t quite enough to wipe the grin off his face.

  “Hi, guys,” said Stephen.

  Without quite keeping her hips still, Maxine turned her head to look at Stephen too, with a basilisk glare. The small room was quiet, except for the sound of breathing, the steady creaking of the swivel chair and the orchestral music on the CD player, now rising to a lush, dramatic climax, which Stephen suddenly recognized as the soundtrack to The Lord of the Rings.

  He watched as a dirty smirk started to form on Maxine’s face.

  “It’s our warm-up!” she said, and started to laugh, and then Josh laughed too, a lewd, low chuckle, before he caught his breath, straightened his face, and said, in a low voice, very slowly and distinctly…

  “For fuck’s sake, Stephanie. Shut the door behind you.”

  The Phantom of the Opera

  INT.THEATER.NIGHT

  C/U An upright piano is suspended from a rope, swaying, the rope dangerously frayed, chafing against a metal bar or

  No, hang on. Start again…

  the rope is being cut with a large knife, by an UNSEEN ASSAILANT wearing a black cloak and sinister white mask. WE CUT TO—

  JOSH HARPER, 29, devilishly handsome, onstage performing his climactic speech, unaware of his impending doom. CUT TO—

  —the rope again. C/U on the fibers snapping one by one as, down below, Josh approaches the speech’s climax.

  Extreme C/U on the final thread as it stretches and ultimately snaps, and the piano plummets. Josh hears the sudden snap and rush of the rope running through the pulley. Crash Zoom into the startled expression on Josh’s face, CUT TO the gasps of horror from the audience, the booming atonal chord as the piano hits, extreme C/U of a WOMAN screaming, then back to C/U of Josh’s arm in his puffy white shirt, protruding from beneath the debris, the fingers twitching uselessly as a pool of blood starts to trickle from beneath the remains of the piano. Above the screams, a sinister, vengeful laugh can be heard as we CUT TO—THE GHOSTLY FIGURE. A twisted, leather-gloved hand reaches up to the white mask, which he now removes, revealing the disfigured, hate-twisted features of

  “Mr. McQueen!” hissed the voice from the stage-left loudspeaker. “Once again, this is your cue, Mr. McQueen. McQueen, you’re on!”

  Quickly Stephen pulled his mask down over his face and trotted, a little less supernaturally than usual, through the gloom at the back of the stage, to stand at the door and wait impatiently for Josh to get on with it and die. He did his bit—open door (slowly), bow (somberly), close door (slowly), walk off (quickly)—though perhaps with a little less grace and commitment this time.

  Josh was waiting for him in the wings, grinning.

  “Hey, there, Bullitt!” he shouted over the applause, biting his lower lip in his version of cheeky remorse. “Sorry about that whole sexual intercourse business earlier. Want to go for a drink after? Talk things through…”

  “Josh, it’s really none of my business,” said Stephen, scowling somewhat ineffectively behind his mask.

  “Let me give my side of the story, yeah? Clear the air?” The applause surged as the lights came up on an empty stage. “Look, I’ve got to go and do this, but I’ll come and get you afters. Give me five, yeah?” and Josh did his absurd little hop-and-skip backward, then trotted out to the front of the stage as the applause swelled, and the mores and bravos started, and he gave his “I am ex-haus-ted” flop forward.

  Stephen pulled the mask up onto the top of his head and watched. “Don’t clap!” he wanted to shout. “Don’t applaud him. He’s a buffoon, a preening, narcissistic, arrogant, puffy-shirt-wearing fool. Do not applaud this man. He is definitely not a nice man. This is a man who has sex to the Lord of the Rings soundtrack.”

  As if any of this would have made the slightest difference.

  As he stomped up the stairs back to his dressing room, Donna, the company manager, pounced.

  “So, Mr. McQueen, what was all that about?”

  “Sorry, wasn’t concentrating.”

  “For God’s sake, Steve, all you have to do is bow to Josh and open a flipping door. It’s not much to ask, is it?” she said, squeezing past him. “A monkey could do it, if we could find one with an Equity card.”

  Maxine stood waiting outside his dressing room.

  “Any chance of a quick word?”

  She followed him in, and leaned with her back against the closed door, biting her lip, a film noir femme fatale from just outside Basingstoke, and it was perfectly possible to imagine a tiny silver pistol in the pocket of her fluffy white dressing gown. Or an ice pick, perhaps.

  “I know what you think, Steve,” she purred.

  “What do I think, Max?”

  “You must think I’m a real flirt.”

  Stephen turned, to see whether she could be serious. It wasn’t true to say that Maxine was entirely devoid of principles. She tried, wherever convenient, to buy dolphin-friendly tuna, and had unshakable convictions about, say, the wearing of tights with mules, or navy blue with brown, but, these aside, Maxine was pretty much free of any values whatsoever. Consequently, she was clearly struggling to maintain her approximation of a guilty expression. The corners of her mouth were visibly fighting not to turn up, the smirk of a toddler who has just taken great pleasure in deliberately wetting herself.

  “ ‘Flirting’ doesn’t really cover it, though, does it, Max?”

  “No, I suppose not. Still, if you’d knocked on the door, Stephen, instead of bursting in like that—”

  “I did knock!”

  “Not a proper knock, though. What’s the point of knocking if you don’t want anyone to hear it?”

  “Well, if you’d turned the Lord of the Rings soundtrack down maybe…”

  “How long were you stood there, anyway?”

  “No time at all.”

  “Still, having a good old look, though, weren’t you?”

  “No!” he said, struggling not to sound defensive.

  “Mouth open, eyes out on stalks. I mean, anyone else would have just walked out and shut the door…”

  “Hey, Consuela—”

  “…not stood there for fifteen minutes, lapping it all up.”

  “I can’t—”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t pop home and get your camera.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “What?”

  “You expecting me to apologize!”

  “Well, I’m certainly not going to apologize! It’s only sex—phenomenal sex, as a matter of fact—but I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “And what if it had been Nora who’d walked in?”

  “It wasn’t, though.”

  “She was just outside on the street, Maxine.”

  “Josh says she never calls by uninvited, she always phones first. It’s one of their boundaries.”

  “Well, that’s handy for you.”

  “Honestly, Steve, I can’t believe you’re turning this into some big deal. It’s not even like it’s this great marriage or anything. Josh tells me all about her; she’s weird, if you ask me. I mean, you’ve met her, Steve—don’t you think she’s weird?”

  “No! She’s just quite…intense.”

  “ ‘Intense’ is just the arty word for ‘loony.’ Josh reckons she’s schizophrenic or manic-depressive or something.”

  “Rubbish.”

  “It’s not rubbish! It’s true. She’s on medication and everything. And she’s got a drink problem. Josh is always getting home and finding her drunk.”

  “So does that make it better or worse?”

  “What?”

  “You and Number Twelve having this…thing. Does it make it better or worse if Nora’s unhappy?”

  He watched Maxine’s face contort as she st
ruggled with the dilemma. “It makes it…God, that’s so like you, Stephen.”

  “What is?”

  “Making it into a whole big right-and-wrong thing.” She sat on the edge of the dressing table, gathering the dressing gown over her thighs, slowly organizing her features into an expression entitled Compassionate Remorse. He could see the facial muscles straining to keep it in place, like guy ropes.

  “I’d like to get changed now, Maxine,” said Stephen, beginning his nightly tussle with his hosiery, in the hope it would drive her from the room.

  “So. Are you going to snitch on us then?”

  “Who to?”

  “You know—the newspapers. Or her.”

  His mobile phone started to ring. He glanced at the display—Nora. “If you don’t mind, Maxine…”

  “Who’s that? Is that her?”

  “Close the door behind you?”

  Maxine pulled a face, and reluctantly backed out. Stephen waited one more ring, then picked up.

  “Hey, superstar!” said Nora.

  “Hi! Hi, how are you?”

  “Oh, all right. Good show? Knock ’em dead, did you?”

  “Well, you know…” And the mobile phone slipped from his shoulder and nested in his gusset. He scrambled to retrieve it. “Sorry about that—I’ve got my legs caught up in this bloody body stocking.”

  “Well, now, there’s an image to conjure with,” said Nora, sniggering, and there was a brief silence, presumably while she conjured with it.

  “I can feel you mentally dressing me,” he said, and there was a fantastic bark of laughter down the phone. He waited until she had finished, then said, “So—where are you? What are you doing?”

  “Oh, you know, another thrilling night; hanging out by myself, watching the World Darts Championship. Now that’s what I call a Great British Sport. Sport of kings. Someone could clutch their chest and drop dead at any moment—it’s electrifying…” Her voice was low, and a little husky, and he pictured her lying alone on the sofa in front of that huge TV screen, bored, a little drunk, perhaps. The conversation certainly had the aimless, mumbled quality of the late-night, drunken phone call; he recognized the type, having made a few himself.

  Josh knocked and entered simultaneously, causing Stephen to redouble his effort at extracting his feet from the awful, sinister tangle of black Lycra.

  “Oh, sorry, mate, shall I wait outside?” he said, hand clamped tight over his eyes.

  “No, ’s all right, come in,” said Stephen, draping his overcoat over his exposed lap.

  “Who’s that?” asked Nora, on the phone. “One of your groupies?”

  He glanced over at Josh, standing in the doorway, engrossed in writing a text message. “Josh,” he whispered.

  “Yeah, he said he was taking you on the town with him tonight, is that right?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Well, behave yourselves. Send him home in one piece. Don’t wind up in some crack den or brothel or something. Well, you can do what you want, obviously, but don’t let Josh…”

  “I won’t.”

  “Remind him he’s a happily married man.”

  “Oh, I will.”

  “And, Stephen?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I just wanted to say it was good to see you this afternoon. I don’t actually have too many friends over here, ones who aren’t Josh’s cronies, anyway, and, well, it’s just good to occasionally spend time with someone who doesn’t want to screw my husband.” Stephen laughed through his nose, and clambered into his trousers. “Or do you?” mumbled Nora.

  Stephen glanced at Josh, who was leaning in the doorway with his mobile clutched to his chest, texting someone in quick squirrel-like gestures, biting his lip in concentration.

  “He’s not my type,” said Stephen.

  “No, mine neither.” Nora laughed quietly. “So. Soon, yeah?”

  “Hope so.”

  “Me too. Okay, pass me over, will you?” Stephen lobbed the phone to Josh, who, with some irritation, stopped texting for a moment.

  “Hi there, beautiful…I won’t…I won’t…’Course I won’t…I will…Love you too…Yeah, if you’re awake…I look forward to it. See you.” Josh hung up Stephen’s mobile with one hand, sent his own text message with the other, chucked the mobile back to Stephen without looking, and while Stephen retrieved it off the floor, said, “Right, then—let’s hit the town!”

  The Reluctant Bodyguard

  There are few places more uncomfortable to stand than just behind a man signing autographs.

  For a start, Stephen found it hard to know what to do with his face, or hands, conspicuously unencumbered as they were with pen or paper. He opted for deferential patience—an indulgent half-smile, hands behind back, the kind of posture adopted by someone standing near royalty.

  Josh, meanwhile, had adopted his after-show voice, a slightly husky, given-my-all growl, his cockney accent on full. As was his habit, he was also still wearing just a tiny bit of makeup.

  “Who shall I make it out to?” he asked the bobble-hatted lady that Stephen had noticed here several times before.

  “To Carol.”

  “ ‘To…Carol…’ ” murmured Josh, as if speaking the words made it easier to write them. “ ‘Loads…of…love…Josh…x…x…x.’ ”

  “Could you sign it to Kevin?” said a wizened young man in aviator shades from deep inside a parka.

  “Hey, I tell you whose autograph you should get, Kevin,” said Josh, nodding toward Stephen. “This gentleman here is Steve McQueen.”

  Oh God, thought Stephen, here it comes…

  “Not the Steve McQueen?” said Kevin.…And there it is.

  “With a P-H,” said Stephen.

  “Steve’s in the show!” said Josh.

  “I didn’t see you,” said Kevin, skeptically.

  “Well, it’s just a cough and a spit—”

  “Except the spit got cut!” chipped in Josh. Kevin laughed obediently, and Stephen felt stung into justifying himself.

  “And I understudy Josh too.”

  “Yeah, if I get hit by a bus, he signs my autographs for me. Right, sorry, folks, ain’t you got homes to go to?” Josh shouted humorously. “Got to run, sorry, bye now, see ya,” he apologized, backing away, hands outstretched, then did one of his trademark high-diver hop-and-turns and started sprinting up Wardour Street, Stephen following close behind, his reluctant bodyguard. Going anywhere in public with Josh was always a strange experience. Stephen watched the mouths fall open as Josh approached, heard the whispers of recognition that he left in his wake. In response, Josh had perfected a cheery, matey nod, a polite but professional yes-I-am-who-you-think-I-am smile, simultaneously amiable and excluding, which he tossed out left and right as they marched on through the crowds.

  “Autographs! What’s that about, hey?” said Josh over his shoulder. “Who the hell hangs around in the rain collecting autographs?”

  “It’s proof, though, isn’t it? A little bit of fame, a little bit of success and glamour to carry around with you. It’s the nearest most people get to it.”

  “But they don’t even bother to see the play, a lot of them! They’re loonies, Steve, I tell you—complete and utter nutters.”

  “I don’t know about that…”

  “Yeah, well, that’s easy for you to say, you don’t have them hassling you every night.” And then realizing that this might possibly be misinterpreted as conceit, Josh struggled to perform a U-turn toward humility. “I mean, I’d understand it if I was, I don’t know, Jack Nicholson or someone. When I met Jack Nicholson in LA, of course I asked him for his autograph, but that’s because it was Jack bloody Nicholson! But me? I’m just me—why would they want my autograph?”

  “Absolutely no idea,” murmured Stephen, in all sincerity.

  They barged north into Soho, ignoring the stares and shouts of recognition from the people they passed, the pissed-up after-office crowd, the herds of rickshaws, the underdressed blue-vei
ned women in the doorways of the clip joints near Brewer Street, offering Josh freebies. Heading up the alley toward Berwick Street, a gang of boozed-up office boys on a big night out spotted Josh, one of them shouting, “Oi, Harper, you wwwwwwanker!” and Stephen found himself wondering if a fight might break out, and if Josh, who had trained extensively in martial arts for Mercury Rain, might be tempted to try out a few moves, and might perhaps find those moves wanting in a street-fight situation, against a bar stool, say, or a bottle and four pissed-up blokes from Catford.

  But Josh ignored the remark, and they strode on in silence until they reached a fashion wholesalers just north of Berwick Street market, and a discreet reinforced black door that Stephen had never noticed before. Josh pressed the buzzer.

  “I thought we’d go here, if you don’t mind. It’s nothing spesh, but it gets us out of Cow Town for a while, yeah? And we can really talk properly, get to know each other a little better.”

  “Yeah, all right.” Stephen smiled. Clearly the important thing was not to get seduced. Let him do the talking, but don’t get taken in. My motivation is not to get conned by Josh Harper…

  The door was opened by a fantastically cool, hard-looking woman, black hair slicked back, like a particularly striking android. On seeing Josh she flung her arms apart, narrowly missing Stephen’s jugular with the edge of her clipboard, and threw herself onto Josh.

  “Hello, you bee-autiful man,” squealed the replicant.

  “Hello, you! This is my good friend, Steve McQueen.”

  “Not the Steve McQueen?”

  “With a P-H.”

  “Well, glad you could make it anyway, Steve! Come on in, come on in…” and she ushered them inside and down a dimly lit flight of faux-industrial stairs into the deluxe, exclusive bowels of the building.