The Understudy: A Novel

by David Nicholls

  “There was a bit of that, yes.”

  “Can’t have been much fun for you. Some weepy, big-boned old lush slobbering all over you…”

  “Well, usually that would have been fine, but the timing wasn’t great, I suppose.”

  “And did anything—you know…?”

  “I helped you pull your tights up, but that was about it.”

  She screwed her face up, put her fingers in her ears. “That’s a horrible word. ‘Tights’ is a terrible word.”

  “Sorry—‘pantyhose.’ ”

  “ ‘Pantyhose’ is much better. So I guess you must have found me pretty irresistible, huh?”

  “Well, yes, I do, did, but you were also a little drunk and, well, there are rules about that sort of thing. And, besides, I was a little anxious that you’d throw up on me…”

  “Oh God…”

  “…and you’re married, of course…”

  “Not so’s you’d notice.”

  “…and, also, to be honest, I was still a little angry with you.”

  Nora winced. “Wanna tell me why?”

  “Well, you had just punched me.”

  “I did?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She sat up straight, took hold of his chin and scrutinized his face. “Oh my God, where?”

  “Just the ear. I did slap you first, but that was for medical reasons.”

  “Well, maybe I punched you for medicinal purposes.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. And for anything…unkind I might have said too. And thank you for resisting my wet-faced charms.” Then, in her best accent: “You’re a proper English gent.”

  “Any time.”

  They were silent for a moment, and lay on the bed next to each other, staring at the wall opposite. After a while, she nodded toward the framed photo on the wall. “Your wife and daughter, huh? At least, I’m assuming it is, unless you’re one of those guys who hang round maternity wards with a camera.”

  “No, that’s them.”

  “They look great.”

  “They are.”

  She turned her head to look at him. “So—what do we do now?”

  “Stay here?”

  “Here?” said Nora, without enthusiasm.

  “I’ll go now and get some food, and while I’m gone, you can phone Josh, tell him you’re in a hotel and you’re safe, and you’ll call when you’re ready. Then when I come back, we’ll have a shower—separate showers—lock all the doors, turn all the phones off, I’ll make us some breakfast, some coffee, and we can just, you know, hang out. Watch movies. Of course, I’ll have to go out to do the show tonight, but I’ll come straight back. I’ll be back by ten. How does that sound?”

  “Like I’ve been taken hostage?”

  “No, it’ll be like…we’re on holiday.” He noticed her eyes flick around the room. “Okay, well, not holiday maybe. Just, you know—safe.”

  “We can’t just stay at home and watch old movies, Stephen.”

  “I know.”

  “At some point, we’ll have to go out and face the real world.”

  “I know that.” Feeling scolded, he got up and moved quickly toward the door, pulling his coat on. “I’ll be back in five minutes.”

  “Stephen?” He turned. Nora lay on her side on the bed, looking at him. “You do know I’ll have to leave you eventually, don’t you?”

  “Of course. But not just yet, eh?”

  “Okay. Not just yet.”

  And Stephen turned, and left before she could change her mind.

  The Big Speech

  “You do know I’ll have to leave you eventually, don’t you?”

  The day was dark, heavy and numbingly cold. The sky looked bruised and low, and the air had that metallic taste, as if threatening snow or a storm. Walking down the street to the arcade, Stephen C. McQueen was entirely sure of two things—that he loved Nora, and that he would have to tell her this at the next available opportunity.

  He stood in the Price£avers, searching the barren shelves for groceries so startling and delicious that they might tempt her to stay, or, failing that, something with any nutritional value at all. He bought soluble aspirin, milk, a loaf of brownish bread, fizzy water, and two Mars Bars, and thought about what else he might do to persuade her to stay, to get her to see past the crappy flat and the stalled career, to see the potential rather than the raw materials. To somehow make her swap an unfaithful success for a passionate failure.

  He would have to make a big speech.

  In a movie, of course, this speech would have come entirely naturally, fluent, unforced, unpremeditated. Passionate, eloquent, clinically effective declarations of love were as commonplace in movies as “You’re off this case, it’s gotten too personal” or “Don’t you go die on me, you hear?” or “Whatever it is, it’s not human,” and, even now, all the various conventional formulations he’d ever heard were running through his mind on fast-forward—random, stock words and phrases: worship adore ever since we first met more than life itself can’t live with- out you we belong together think about you every waking moment in my dreams as well you are my rock my northern star the air I breathe…

  Clearly, none of this stuff would do. Yet he knew that, as things stood, he couldn’t compete, didn’t stand a chance. Of course the timing was all wrong, and he should wait, and pick his moment, but if he didn’t act, didn’t say something now, she might go back and see Josh, might forgive him, even. Not initially, of course, but eventually. Stephen had to make his case now, and get Nora to see another, better version of himself, one that was worth sticking with, at least until his luck changed. He had to persuade her that he possessed qualities far, far more desirable than money, success, travel, status, charisma, immense self-confidence, charm, glamour, popularity, sexual virtuosity and physical beauty. Qualities like…

  Nothing sprang to mind immediately, but he’d come up with something. He would improvise, live in the moment, speak from the heart, not the head. One thing was already clear, though: it was going to have to be quite a speech.

  “You do know I’ll have to leave you eventually, don’t you?”

  But what if she wasn’t there when he got back?

  He broke into a run, his breath visible in the air, the bags of shopping banging against his shins, rehearsing potential words and phrases in his head, trying to find a way of expressing himself that didn’t feel like bad dialogue, or too conventional, or plagiarized: ever since I met you more than just good friends really want to kiss you adore you worship you we belong together you complete me love you need you want you etc. etc. etc. blah blah blah… Should he shower first, brush his teeth, in case it led to…? No, keep it spontaneous, stay in the moment. He pounded up the stairs, the words accumulating in his head, ready to make his big entrance and let everything he felt about her flood out. He was just putting the key in the door when, for the second time in twelve hours, he heard a noise that made his chest contract with panic.

  His own voice. Singing.

  “ ‘The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round…’ ”

  And Stephen felt all his internal organs simultaneously try to squeeze up into his mouth. He slid the key into the lock, and opened the door.

  Nora was sitting on the sofa, sucking on her toothbrush, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Projected on the wall, eight feet by six feet, was Sammy the Squirrel Sings Favorite Nursery Rhymes. On her lap she cradled the severed head of her husband’s Best Actor Award. Without looking away from the screen, Nora delved into the folds of the blanket for the remote control, lowered the volume by a couple of notches, then took the toothbrush out of her mouth. “Hey,” she said, flatly, eyes fixed.

  “Hey, there,” said Stephen, as calmly as possible, stepping into her eye line and the light of the projector. “What are you doing?”

  “Learning ’bout numbers,” she replied, sucking on the toothbrush again, peering around him.

&n
bsp; “No, really, Nora—what are you doing?” he said, his eyes fixed on the trophy in her lap, the one with her husband’s name engraved on it.

  “Okay, well, if you really wanna know, I’m just sitting here trying to work out what’s weirder—you stealing Josh’s Best Actor Award, or you dressed up as a massive singing, dancing squirrel. Usually I’d say it was stealing the award. Until I started watching this, that is. Now I’m not so sure…”

  A new song had started: “If you’re happy and you know it, shout ‘We are’…”

  “We are,” said Nora, quietly to herself, then smiled briefly at Stephen. He put the bags down, and reached past her to the projector to turn it off. “Don’t you dare!” she snarled, and knocked his hand away with the BAFTA, so instead he came and sat next to her, and gazed up at his own big, red stupid face projected on the wall.

  “Well—it’s a look,” she said, without smiling.

  “It certainly is,” he said, weakly.

  “If you’re happy and you know it, stomp your feet…”

  Nora stomped her feet.

  Stephen decided to go on the offensive, to convert shame into indignation. “Of course, another question might be, what gave you the right to start nosing around in my stuff?”

  “Hey, look, Sammy—I understand. You’re not happy, and I know it. But I wasn’t ‘nosing around.’ It’s just I was cold, and I was looking in your wardrobe for a sweater, or a blanket or something, and I sort of stumbled upon…these.”

  “That still doesn’t give you the right to—”

  “I was going to put them back and pretend that I hadn’t seen them, but…well, I’m sorry, but some things are pretty hard to ignore, Steve.”

  “If you’re happy and you know it, shout ‘Hooray’…”

  “You know, most guys would just have porno hidden in the back of their wardrobes.”

  “Would that be better, or worse?”

  “It’s a close call, Steve. It’s a very close call. If it was a DVD of, say, you in a squirrel costume having sex with my husband’s BAFTA, that might conceivably have been worse. You’re very good, by the way,” she said quietly.

  “It’s the role I was born to play,” he said.

  She smiled, very briefly. “I think this is the moment where you say, ‘There’s a perfectly rational explanation for all this.’ ”

  “There is.”

  “I’m all ears,” she said, then turned back to the screen. “As, indeed, are you.”

  “Okay, well, this”—he nodded at his huge, burbling red face on the screen—“this I do partly for the money, and partly because I enjoy—”

  “Do?”

  “Sorry?”

  “You said ‘do’ not ‘did.’ ”

  “I’ve been filming the sequel.”

  “That’s what you were filming yesterday?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I thought you said it was a tough indie crime thriller.”

  “Set in woodland.”

  Nora laughed, and Stephen took the opportunity to reach suddenly for the remote control, but she rapped his knuckles with her toothbrush, hid it under the blanket. Sammy the Squirrel had mercifully stopped singing, and was now struggling to explain the difference between adding up and taking away to Brian the Bear.

  “In my defense, I actually think I’m pretty good.”

  “You are. But isn’t there a scale issue here?” she asked.

  “That’s exactly what I told the director.”

  “That is one dumb bear.”

  “That’s true.”

  “…Four hazelnuts! You owe him four hazelnuts, you idiot…”

  “Nora, you are listening to me, aren’t you?”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m finding it impossible to look away.”

  “Well, could you try, Nora? Please? You’re not making this easy for me.”

  “I have no intention of making it easy for you.” She turned to him, smiling again, but still only slightly. “Stephen, this”—she nodded at the screen—“this is fine. This, I don’t mind. In fact it’s actually almost quite cute, in a…sinister kind of way. To be honest, I’m a little more concerned about…this,” and she pulled the trophy out from the blanket, placed it on the coffee table in front of them. It stared back at them, with its one good eye. “I mean, it wouldn’t be so bad if you’d stolen—I don’t know—cash or something.”

  “I didn’t steal anything.”

  “So what happened, then?”

  “Okay, well, the thing is, you remember that party, where we first met? Do you…please, do you mind if I turn this thing off?” said Stephen.

  “Put it on PAUSE. I don’t want to miss anything.”

  He paused the DVD. “Okay, well, that party, you know, when I drank a little too much, and had that weird attack, because of those antibiotics I’d been taking. Well, I was in your bedroom, and I saw Josh’s award, and I was picking it up, just to look at it, and I was, you know, goofing around in front of the mirror when you came back in the room, to say the cab was there, remember?” She nodded. Stephen took comfort and plowed on. “And I clearly wasn’t thinking straight, because I sort of stuffed it under my coat, and the next thing I knew I was in the taxi on the way home, and I still had this…thing.”

  “So, let me get this straight—you stole my husband’s Best Actor Award—”

  “Not ‘stole,’ just…misplaced it in my flat. Temporarily.”

  “You temporarily misplaced my husband’s Best Actor Award in your flat because you’d been taking antibiotics?”

  “Well, no, not just because of that. It was booze mainly, but…”

  “And Josh’s affair?”

  “Affair?”

  “Affair’s a stupid word—this woman, these…women, he’s been seeing.”

  Stay calm. Just act. Act well. Perform. “What about them, her?”

  “Did you know about it?”

  Shake head, roll eyes to ceiling, laugh in surprise and disbelief. “No-ho-ho.”

  “What was that?”

  “What?”

  “ ‘No-ho-ho.’ ”

  “It means I didn’t know.”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “No.”

  Pause.

  “I think you’re lying.”

  “What makes you think I’m lying?”

  “Your nostrils flare. And you do this weird ‘no-ho-ho’ thing. I don’t know where you picked that up from, Steve, but I have to tell you, no human being has ever made that noise, ever…”

  “Okay. Yes.”

  “Yes, you did know?”

  “Yes.”

  “So did you lie to me, or was it just the antibiotics talking?”

  “No, no, I lied to you…”

  “You lied to protect Josh?”

  “No.”

  “ ‘No’?”

  “No, I lied to protect you.”

  She laughed bitterly. “How does that ‘protect’ me, Stephen?”

  “I—I didn’t want to see you hurt, and Josh promised he’d change, and there were…other reasons why I didn’t want to be the one to tell you. Also, I thought it was none of my business.”

  “And none of my business either, obviously. Well, all I can say is I hope you act better than you lie, Stephen, because as a liar, you absolutely stink.”

  “That isn’t a lie! I knew you’d find out sooner or later, I just didn’t want you to find out from me. It wouldn’t have been right to tell you myself.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because…”

  “Because what?”

  “Because I’m in love with you.”

  Pause.

  “You are?”

  “Yes.”

  Beat.

  “In love with me?”

  “That’s right, in love with you. I think I love you, Nora. In fact I know I do. I love you very, very much.”

  “For how long?”

  “Always. Since we met.”

  She sighed. “How do you know?
”

  “Know what?”

  “That you love me.”

  “Because…because it’s agony.”

  She considered this, then turned back to face the projection, the big red buck-toothed face, flickering slightly on PAUSE. “I see.”

  He reached across to take her hand, but she pulled away, pointed the remote like a pistol, and pressed PLAY on the DVD, and the image sprang into life again, Sammy the Squirrel and Brian the Bear counting out the hazelnuts. One nut, two nuts, three nuts, four nuts…

  “Where are you going?” he asked, as she bundled up her dress and coat, and headed for the bathroom.

  “Home, Stephen. I’m going home.”

  Gunfight at the Idaho Fried Chicken

  As love scenes go, it had not been an unqualified success. The location had been all wrong, his timing had been off, and he would have ideally welcomed a chance to run it again, from the top, but it was too late now. Nora was making her exit. With one hand held to her head, as if this were the only thing keeping it on her shoulders, she was stomping downstairs, Stephen following a few steps behind.

  “Where are you going, Nora?”

  “I told you, Steve—I’m going home.”

  “But won’t Josh be there?”

  “Who knows? Probably.”

  “Don’t you want to stay and talk things through?”

  “Not right now, no.” She was tugging at the front door.

  “The door is double-locked; you need to…here, let me.”

  He opened the door for her, and she stepped out into the street.

  “Want me to walk you to the bus stop?”

  “I’ll be fine—thanks,” she said, unable to look him in the eye.

  “Okay, well. Here—you might as well have this, I suppose,” and he handed her Josh’s misplaced Best Actor Award in a Price£avers plastic bag. She sighed, took the bag from him, holding it with distaste. “Obviously, I’d appreciate it if you could just, I don’t know, tell him you found it under the bed or something. It would lessen the humiliation, make things a bit easier for me. But if you have to tell him the truth…well, I was going to get it back to him, eventually. I swear, it really wasn’t intentional. If I hadn’t taken those anti—”

  She brandished the bag containing the award, holding it like a blackjack. “Stephen, I swear, if you mention the word ‘antibiotics’ again, I will make you eat this fucking thing.”