The Understudy: A Novel

by David Nicholls

  The Be-Good Voice

  Lounge was a subterranean candlelit box full of leather and metal, glass and rubber; the kind of stylish bar-of-the-future that instantly seems incredibly dated. In design, it was a fairly good approximation of the Korova Milkbar in A Clockwork Orange, and with a similarly convivial, easygoing atmosphere. Instead of Droogs, the clientele was composed largely of sleek, hard-faced, willowy girls, listening to boozy, lecherous, prematurely gouty young men from the media, reclining in cream-and-liver-colored leather booths, or perched uncomfortably on what used to be called, on the Isle of Wight at least, “poufs.”

  “You boys make yourselves comfortable,” said the replicant, planting another kiss on Josh’s cheek. “I’ll be over in a second for your order.”

  “Who was that, then?” asked Stephen, after she’d left.

  “Absolutely no idea. That’s why I always say ‘Hello, you’ or ‘Sweetheart’ or whatever. That way you don’t have to remember anyone’s name.”

  “Nice tip, Josh.”

  “So, where shall we go then?”

  “How about that banquette?” said Stephen, using the word “banquette” for the first and, he hoped, last time in his life.

  “Cool. Lead on, Macduff!” said Josh, deftly casting himself in the larger role.

  They turned and began to weave between shin-scraping glass tables, past a tablecloth-sized dance floor, flashing ironically, where a lone skinny girl danced with an aloof, narcotic stagger, as if stumbling away from a crashed car. They squeezed into the dimly lit booth in the corner. Stephen had been to exclusive private clubs like this before, and always found himself weighing the thrill of being admitted against the awfulness of the place itself: the rubbernecking, the cokey self-absorption, the physical discomfort and simmering hostility, the complete absence of human warmth and affection. Still, he supposed that this was yet another of the prices Josh paid for his fame, doomed to a lifetime of martini holes like this.

  They looked at the cocktail menu in silence, Stephen’s hopes of a pint of Stella and a packet of Twiglets fading fast. They ordered Japanese beers and Spanish olives from the replicant, and sat looking out into the room, Josh biting his plump lower lip and bobbing his head slightly to the music. For something to do, Stephen bobbed along.

  “What do you think?” Josh smiled, proudly. “Bit poncey, I know, but at least we won’t get hassled.” We. Stephen loved that “we.”

  The drinks arrived. “So”—Josh chinked his beer against Stephen’s—“I expect you must think I’m a real tosser.”

  Stephen thought it polite to at least try to argue. “I don’t know, Josh. It’s just, well, I know Nora now, and we’re sort of friends, and it puts me in a difficult position, that’s all…”

  “I know, I know, Steve, and I really wish I hadn’t put you in that position. Me and Maxine—well, I don’t know what she’s said to you, but it’s just about the sex, really. And I have to say, it is pretty amazing sex.”

  “Yeah, so she said.”

  “Did she?” said Josh, momentarily puffing up, then remembering he was meant to be ashamed, and deflating again. “I mean, it’s hardly surprising, is it? I have her lying starkers across my lap onstage every night—what am I meant to do? I’m only flesh and blood. It doesn’t mean I love Nora any less.”

  “Except—it sort of does, doesn’t it?”

  Josh considered this for a moment; sipped his beer. “Yeah, well, maybe a little bit less, but I do still love her. I really love Nora. Really I do. And I would never do anything to hurt her, it’s just”—he put his beer down, solemnly—“can I be frank, Steve?”

  Like “I’ve got a bone to pick with you,” “Can I be frank?” always made Stephen’s heart sink. The best answer, he felt, would be “I’d rather you weren’t,” but instead he nodded, and said, “Of course.”

  Josh shifted sideways in his seat, and shuffled a little closer.

  “The fact is, Stephen, I’m not like you. I know I’m not very bright. In fact, it’s worse than that. I’m actually pretty dumb. Like when I got this part, I went out and bought all the books on Byron, just like you did—I know, I saw them in your dressing room—and I tried to read them and had to give up, because I didn’t understand a word. I just left them lying around in rehearsals. Same as when I played Romeo—I had to sneak out and buy the bloody course notes. Most of it I got from watching the DVD. I reckon a good fifty percent of my Romeo was nicked off Leonardo DiCaprio. I’m so stupid, for years, I thought the Swan of Avon was an actual swan.”

  Hadn’t Josh used this line in an interview somewhere? Stephen was pretty sure he had, but smiled politely anyway.

  “You see, you’re laughing at me, and I don’t mind. People laughed at me when I was doing Romeo as well—all those snooty, floppy-haired bastards who went to Oxbridge, playing Angelo or Fernando or whatever, all standing around the rehearsal room holding their spears and sniggering, because this pleb was playing the part that rightfully belonged to them. People laughed at me then, same as they laugh at me now, same as you laugh at me, and Nora probably too—don’t deny it, I know you do. And you’re right to laugh, because the fact is, I am a deeply ignorant, shallow, foolish man. The only thing I have in my favor is this…this…”

  Josh screwed up his face, gestured vaguely in the air, searching for a word that was accurate without sounding arrogant. Once again, it struck Stephen as strange that someone so graceful and expressive onstage, someone who, on a cinema screen as large as a house, he had seen save the human race on more than one occasion, could frequently be so bumptious and incoherent in real life. Seeing Josh look for the right word was like watching a toddler shuffle an immense pack of cards.

  The search for the word continued for some time, before Josh settled on “…thing. This thing—acting. Fuck knows where it came from; at school I couldn’t do anything. I was Remedial Kid, Special-Needs Boy—that’s what the other kids used to sing on our way to classes.” And to the tune of “Let It Be,” he sang, “ ‘Special needs, Special needs…’ Thick as shit, no prospects—useless. And ugly too—I know you must think, I’ve always been”—another word search—“that I’ve always looked like this, but I haven’t. It’s only since I started acting, got a bit of confidence, got my hair cut, spent a bit of money on clothes. For the first time in my life, people actually pay attention to me, actually listen to my opinions. Radical Islam! A journalist asked me the other day what I thought of radical Islam! I said to him, I haven’t got a bloody clue, mate! All this fame stuff, I know I don’t always handle it well, and I talk a lot of crap and everything, and I do stuff I shouldn’t, and I can be a bit arrogant sometimes, a bit selfish. But I’m really trying to be a decent bloke, really I am.” He leaned forward, tapped the side of his head with one finger. “Every single day, when I wake up, there’s this voice in my head, and it’s saying, ‘Remember, Josh mate, you’re nothing special, you don’t deserve any of this, you just lucked out. This could all end at any moment, so behave. Be nice. Be decent. Be good.’

  “But…” Josh leaned in closer now, so as to talk man to man, a slight smile playing on his lips—“…I get these letters, Steve, at the stage door, I get these letters from women, and I see them in the front rows of the stalls, looking at me, giving me, you know, The Look, and I go to parties and I get passed these little notes…check it out”—he reached into his wallet, pulled it open for Stephen to examine—“…names and phone numbers, from posh women, famous women, women I’d only ever seen in magazines, models, singers, actresses, society types, aristocrats…” And he pulled a scrap of cigarette packet from the confetti in the folds of the wallet, passed it to Stephen.

  “Josh—call me, you won’t regret it!—Suzie P.,” it read.

  “ ‘You-won’t-regret-it-exclamation-mark.’ What does that exclamation mark mean, Steve? What kind of images does it suggest? I’ll tell you—that exclamation mark represents sex. That, my friend, is dirty punctuation. And I don’t even know who Suzie P. is! Just s
ome girl who came up to me in a club. I’m even a gay icon, apparently. I mean, it’s just mad. And, I can’t lie, it’s wonderful too. I’ve got everything I’ve ever wanted and I can’t help it, I love it. I love it all! I even love being a gay icon! And if you had it, even a taste of it, you’d love it too. And you know what? Married or not, you’d do exactly the same as me. Any man would.”

  “Not if I was with Nora,” Stephen said instinctively, then, moderating it slightly: “Someone like Nora. I mean, Nora’s amazing.”

  “I know! I know she is, and I love her, I really, really love her. Nora is far and away the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me in my whole entire life. It’s just that since I married her, all these other amazing things have happened too. And inevitably that means…opportunities. I swear, ninety, no ninety-five percent of the time, I am one hundred percent faithful. But every now and then, that voice in my head, that Be-Good Voice? Well, it sort of…goes…very…quiet. The fact is, Steve, I’ve discovered that it’s incredibly hard to become even a tiny bit famous without turning into a bit of a wanker. Another beer, yeah?”

  “Okay.”

  Josh raised his hand to the replicant, who had been staring at him anyway. Stephen was still holding the scrap of Suzie P.’s cigarette packet. You-won’t-regret it-exclamation-mark. He caught Josh staring at it. “D’you want this back?” Stephen said, offering him the phone number.

  Josh looked at it for a moment, then with some effort said, “No, fuck it, you have it.”

  “What am I going to do with it, Josh?” Stephen laughed.

  “You could call her.”

  “You think if I call her, she won’t regret it?”

  “You don’t know till you try, mate.”

  “ ‘Hi there, Suzie? We’ve never met, and Josh can’t make it, but it’s okay, I’m his understudy…’ ”

  “All right, all right, chuck it away then.” And Stephen screwed up the piece of card, tossed it in the ashtray, where they both continued to glance at it as they waited for their drinks, like ex-smokers eyeing an open fag packet. You-won’t-regret-it-exclamation-mark. Finally, Josh had to snatch the number out of the ashtray and set fire to it with the complimentary matches.

  “You know what the real problem is, Steve?” he said, holding the burning phone number with the tip of his fingers.

  “What?”

  “The constant erotic possibilities. It’s agony. Especially if you’re stuck with a condition like mine.”

  A condition? What condition? Not an…illness? “What condition’s that, then?” asked Stephen, taking care to keep hope from his voice.

  Josh was looking mournfully down at the ashtray now, poking the ash with the burned match. “Well, not a condition, an addiction more like.”

  “What, cocaine?”

  “No! Sex. I think I might be a sex addict.”

  Stephen choked on his laughter.

  “No, seriously. It’s a proper condition. You wouldn’t laugh if I told you I was anorexic, would you?”

  “No, of course not,” said Stephen, fearing that perhaps he might.

  “Well, then. It’s the same thing.”

  “Josh, it’s so not the same thing.”

  “No, but it’s serious. Very serious. It’s very, very serious. It destroys relationships, really it does. I’ve read all about it. It’s because I’m basically insecure.”

  Stephen felt laughter bubbling up. “Josh, you’re lots of things, but, trust me, you are not insecure.”

  “I am! I am so insecure. And consequently, I seek affirmation through sexual gratification, and that’s why I’m a sex addict.”

  “That’s such crap. We’re all sex addicts, Josh, it’s just most of us never get a chance to do anything about it.”

  “But this is different. I’ve read all about it, on the Internet,” said Josh, warming to his subject and, rather disconcertingly for Stephen, subconsciously caressing his own left pectoral. “I’m a classic case, putting my relationship at risk through dangerous liaisons with inappropriate partners, like Maxine and…well, like Maxine. It’s because sex is the only other thing that I’m any good at, apart from acting. It’s basically down to low self-esteem.”

  “You think you suffer from low self-esteem?”

  “Absolutely! If I learned to love myself a bit more, I wouldn’t be in this situation.” Stephen felt laughter bubble again. “And the awful thing is, all of a sudden, people keep offering it to me. I tell you, if I wasn’t married, I’d be just appalling.”

  “Yeah, but you are, aren’t you? Married, I mean.”

  “Yeah. You’re right. I am. I so am,” he said with a sigh.

  “So…what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know, mate, I really don’t know…” mused Josh, shifting his attention to his right pec now, where others might scratch their head. “I mean, there’s meetings and support groups I could go to, but I’d probably just end up shagging the other sufferers. And if the press ever found out—”

  “I meant, what are you going to do about Maxine?”

  “Oh, right. Well, I suppose I’ll just have to exercise some self-control.” He slipped into his best version of meek contrition, sighed deeply, ruffled his hair with the fingertips of both hands. “To be honest, I’ve been trying to call it a day, anyway. That’s why, in a weird kind of way, I’m actually glad you found out.” And here he leaned right in, so that his face was almost touching Stephen’s. “Stephen, I’m not here to pressurize you to keep quiet. You and Nora, you’re sort of mates now, and if you really feel you have to tell her, then so be it. I’ll face the music, and I won’t blame you.” He licked his lips, lowered his voice. “But what you have to know is that I really, really do love her. She’s my best friend, my soulmate, she keeps my feet on the ground. I wouldn’t be able to get up in the mornings without her, just wouldn’t be able to function. And that’s why, if you do decide to keep this to yourself, well”—he put his hand on Stephen’s forearm—“I’ll be very, very, very grateful.” Then he looked into Stephen’s eye, an earnest, pleading, moist-eyed look, and squeezed his arm so hard that Stephen had to fight not to wince. “And you have no idea how grateful I can be…”

  At this exact moment a middle-aged woman appeared over his shoulder, giggling, a little blowsy and clearly more than a little drunk, and placed her hand on his back. “Excuse me, Josh, I just wanted to say I’m a massive fan of—”

  “For fuck’s sake, what is wrong with you?” hissed Josh, with sudden, startling scorn, his teeth bared. “We’re trying to have a private conversation here! Just piss off out of it, will you?”

  The woman staggered backward, as if pushed in the face, stumbling against a chair, her mouth open, her eyes suddenly wet with shock, and Stephen watched, mortified, as she sloped back across the club, shoulders hunched over, and sat back down at her table, humiliated.

  “Sorry about that,” said Josh, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he turned back to Stephen, grinning but with the edge of disdain still in his voice. “I just get so…mad sometimes. I wouldn’t mind on the street, but you’d think in a place like this, people would perhaps be just a little bit less fucking dumb, wouldn’t you?”

  Stephen looked past Josh at the woman, back at her table now, in a huddle with her friends, one of whom was simultaneously rubbing her shoulder and scowling across at Josh.

  “They giving me grief?” asked Josh, his back to them.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You think I was a bit harsh?”

  “A little, maybe.”

  “Well—tough shit.”

  But the moment hung in the air. Josh stared at the floor mournfully, pouting and peeling the label from his bottle, but clearly they were no longer on friendly ground, and he suddenly downed the beer, and stood up.

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  Heads down, they were making their way to the exit, when Stephen felt Josh tug his elbow. “Wait here a sec, Steve. I’ve just got to do somethi
ng.”

  Stephen stood and watched as Josh walked back across the club to the woman, approaching behind her, then crouching at her elbow, touching her gently on the arm. She turned and initially her look was one of hostility, fear even, but Josh just whispered intently in her ear for a minute or so, like a stage hypnotist, his head humbly bowed, and before long she was nodding, then smiling, and then, remarkably, laughing. Josh stood now, bent humbly at the waist, said something to the whole table, hands out, palms up in self-reproach, and they all laughed heartily too, and a couple of people raised their glasses to him as he said good-bye. He kissed the woman quickly on the cheek, and she blushed, put one hand to the blessed cheek, the other hand to her chest, breathlessly, and, watching from a distance, Stephen was unsure whether he should feel impressed or horrified.

  “No damage done,” said Josh, at Stephen’s side. “Better be getting back to the little lady!”

  An Offer You Can’t Refuse

  Of course Stephen knew he would never tell Nora. Still, he couldn’t deny that there was something appealing, flattering, even, in having Josh dance attendance on him in this way. After the humiliation of the party, it felt like getting even, both for Nora and for himself, and he resolved to leave Josh dangling for a while, to keep him on his toes. At least he could feel confident that he hadn’t been taken in. He hadn’t been conned by Josh Harper.

  On the street it had started to rain, and they stood huddled together in the doorway, keeping an eye out for black cabs. “Oh, and by the way,” said Josh, casually, “I’ve been meaning to ask you—you do know my lines, don’t you?”

  “That’s my job, Josh.”

  “And the moves? I mean, you’d be confident, being me, if you had to?”

  “Absolutely. Why?”

  “Nothing, I’m just saying there’s a very good chance that you might have to cover for me for a couple of shows at some point, that’s all.”