‘Nowhere of any importance.’ She shrugged, fixing her make-up in the mirror.
‘Well, wherever it was it is keeping you from somewhere important. You’re the star of the show, after all. People will want to meet you tonight at the party.’
‘I’m actually a little tired. I thought I would go home and —’
‘Go home? And leave me without a date?’ Hamish tried to laugh but it sounded forced and panicked. Fawn’s insides squirmed at the idea of going anywhere with Hamish in a romantic setting.
‘It’s been a long day,’ she said, trying to remain calm and kind. ‘Not to mention the matinee we have tomorrow.’
‘I’m trying to give you a career, Fawn. You need to mingle, socialise. The producer of your next show might be at this party.’
‘I just think the show would benefit from me having a good night’s —’
‘You are coming to the party!’ Hamish snapped and instinctively Fawn flinched and covered her already bruised cheek with her hand. ‘Oh, Fawn, hush now,’ he said, racing to her side and caressing her face as much as she let him. ‘No need to be like that. No need to be frightened. What happened earlier was merely a hiccup. A little blemish on an otherwise perfect day,’ he said, ignoring the tears in her eyes. ‘No need to let it ruin the evening,’ he said, stroking her hair.
Fawn started to pull away but his grip tightened at her slight show of disobedience and so she stayed very still. ‘What’s going to happen now, is you’re going to get into a nice dress. You’ve got one of those with you, haven’t you?’ He patted her hand and she nodded whilst biting her tongue. ‘Good. You’re going to get into a nice dress, put on your heels and come to the party. I will meet you there and introduce you to anybody who’s anybody and you’re going to smile, be polite and be grateful.’ He gave her cheek a stroke and as he stood he leant in just that little bit too close to her face and her breath caught in her throat.
Hamish walked to the door with a swish of his long tan coat. ‘After all,’ he said, opening the door an inch, ‘there are hundreds of actresses out there who could do this job better than you. You’re just awfully lucky you’ve got a father whose wallet is larger than his brain.’ Hamish left and closed the door with unnecessary force, leaving Fawn alone once more with tears in her eyes. But this time they didn’t fall, and instead of dwelling on that awful moment, she got dressed, re-did her make-up, then ripped a clean sheet of paper out of the notebook on her dressing table and scribbled on it as fast as she could. She folded it twice and wrote an address on the blank side then folded it once more, concealing the name.
Despite her heels, Fawn took the stairs down to stage door two at a time. She reached the bottom and pulled her thin shawl around her cold shoulders and clutched it tightly in her hand, the piece of paper clenched in the other. As she reached the first set of double doors, she could see Hamish was already waiting for her on the pavement outside, a cigar between his thin lips. A young girl outside was first to see her through the small window and she raised a pen and an autograph book and called her name before Fawn had even opened the door.
‘Looks like you’ve got some admirers,’ smiled Lenny from his seat through the hatch. ‘Well done tonight, Miss. You did good.’
‘Thank you. I don’t suppose I could ask a favour, could I?’
‘Anything,’ Walter said, moving to lean against the table where the sign-in sheet sat. Fawn smiled at his eagerness but not too widely as she could feel Hamish’s looming presence.
‘I have a letter of great importance that needs to be read rather urgently. I just know that you are the one to get it where it needs to go.’ Fawn gently winked with her right eye so that Hamish wouldn’t be able to see were he looking, which he most likely was. Walter took the letter, careful not to touch her hand although desperate to.
‘Absolutely.’ He nodded. Fawn stepped to the left and Walter followed. She stepped to the right and Walter stepped the same way.
‘Sorry I just need to…’ she mimed writing.
‘Oh! The sign-in sheet. Yes, of course.’ He stepped out of the way. Fawn looked at the clock above the desk and wrote the time in the ‘out’ column next to her name.
‘Coming, sweetie?’ Hamish put his head through the door and breathed out a plume of stinking smoke that practically filled the small space between both sets of double doors.
‘Yes,’ Fawn replied without a trace of feeling. Hamish held out his arm and Fawn took it with cold fingers and a grip lighter than a breeze. Fawn stepped out onto the pavement and the air filled with voices calling her name, camera flashes filling the street.
‘Seems like she won a few hearts tonight,’ Lenny said, closing the double doors to drown out the rabble outside. Fawn turned and caught Walter’s eye the split second before the door clicked shut, but it was just enough time for her to flash him a smile that made his stomach flip and his cheeks burn.
‘More than a few, I’d say.’
12
For What It’s Worth
Olive collected her coffee from the barista with a nod and an attempt at a smile, but the weight of her heart was dragging down the corners of her lips. She wrapped her cardigan more tightly around her as she stepped out into the crisp morning air, enjoying the peace and quiet of the usually bustling streets of London’s Soho. Today is going to be a good day. It’ll all be fine, she repeated in her head, not only to convince herself it was true, but also to push away any other unwanted thoughts that had a habit of clouding her mind. It’s a new day and an important one so you gotta be on top form. Olive stepped off the curb and as the stage door of the Southern Cross theatre came into sight she noticed Oscar walking up from front of house and Tamara walking up to stage door from the adjacent side. Olive’s steps slowed, and she prayed Oscar wouldn’t see her. Her plan had been to put her stage make-up on inside the theatre, ready for the dress rehearsal, and she knew her face would currently look blotchy and swollen from crying the night before.
But Oscar glanced up and caught her eye and it took all the strength Olive could muster not to smile at him. Not even a little. Oscar stopped on the pavement, tried giving her a little wave and stepped towards the kerb, about to cross the road towards her, but Olive quickly took her phone out of her pocket and held it to her ear, averting her gaze. No one was on the other end of the telephone, and she made little effort to make it look like she was talking to someone, but she just needed something, anything to avoid a conversation with him. A conversation she knew would eventually have to be had but just not now. Just. Not. Now.
Oscar remained on the kerb and with a pain in his chest, turned back towards the stage door where Tamara was waiting for him dressed in a pink hairy coat and sunglasses (even though it was overcast and was probably going to rain at any moment), holding back her neatly straightened hair with one hand to scroll through her phone with the other.
‘Oh hi, Oscar!’ Tamara said as she threw her arms around him before he’d even registered who it was underneath such a flamboyant coat. The smell of her perfume, the one he’d not been able to get out of his clothes since their night in the pub, made his stomach turn and served as a sharp reminder that the arms encasing him belonged to Tamara Drake… the woman he had kissed instead of Olive.
‘Tamara,’ he said, firmly removing himself from her embrace. Tamara moved in to kiss him square on the mouth and from across the road Olive’s heart lurched; she had to stop herself running over to try and intervene. ‘Tamara!’ Oscar raised his voice but quickly composed himself. ‘I think we need to talk.’
‘What’s there to talk about?’ She flipped her hair back into place and tried to smile but Oscar could tell it was forced, as though she was fighting off the embarrassment of his rejection.
‘Look, I’m sorry. I seem to only ever be apologising to everyone these days, and I know it’s because I just keep making stupid mistakes but… I’m sorry,’ Oscar said, struggling to get his words out.
‘For what?’ Tamara replied snippil
y.
‘For… leading you on? If you felt led on? I don’t know. But that kiss on Saturday night should never have happened. I’ve got a thing going on with someone else and although that’s still kind of casual, and not official… we’re still… a “thing”.’
‘A… “thing”?’
‘Yes, and I don’t want to hurt her. I really like her.’
‘You like me,’ Tamara said, trying to interlink her fingers with Oscar’s, but he shook his hand from her grasp and stepped away from her.
‘Of course, I do, but I like like her.’ He shrugged.
‘Like like. Are you twelve?’ Tamara snapped, her words now even more clipped.
‘You know what I mean, Tamara. I fancy her. I want to spend my time with her. I want to kiss her.’
‘You can kiss her and me,’ she laughed, but it sounded too high-pitched and sent a shiver down Oscar’s spine.
‘No, I can’t.’ Oscar tried to step around her and into the safety of the theatre as he noticed a couple of people on the street turn their attention towards them, the faint hint of recognition in their eyes.
‘Why not? Because she says so?’ Tamara hissed.
‘Yes!’ he laughed. ‘Well, actually, no. Because I say so. We say so. If kissing you or anyone else hurts her, then I don’t want to do that. How she feels matters more to me.’
‘Oh, right, so if you saw her kissing someone else you’d be furious, would you?’ Tamara scoffed. The thought hadn’t yet occurred to Oscar what his reaction would have been had the roles from the other night been reversed.
Oscar thought about how the excuse of being intoxicated would have meant nothing to him either, had Olive been the one to have drunk far too much and locked lips with another cast member. He knew the image of her kissing someone else would haunt him for longer than he cared to guess and how difficult he would find it looking at her the same way again. Finally, Oscar felt the sting of humiliation at the idea of coming back into work, and facing an entire cast of people who would all know exactly what had happened, and wondering whether they were all discussing what it was about him that had made Olive find comfort in another man’s arms. ‘Actually, yes I would,’ he said, feeling his eyes inexplicably start to brim. ‘I think it’d break my heart.’
Tamara pulled down her sunglasses to check if she was seeing things or whether Oscar Bright really was getting emotional.
‘Ugh, whatever.’ Tamara pushed her sunglasses back up her nose and turned into stage door with a toss of her hair. Oscar took a deep breath to recover his emotions and took out his phone to check the time. He had a couple of minutes before he needed to be inside, so he could afford to give Tamara a little bit of distance before he followed her. Oscar turned back towards the way he’d come, thinking maybe he could quickly grab a coffee, when he realised someone was now standing close behind him.
‘Olive. Hi.’
‘It’d break your heart, would it?’ she said, trying to laugh but even feigning amusement at the man she was so furious with felt near impossible. ‘You’re a better actor than people give you credit for, Oscar.’ Olive walked past him and turned the big silver handle on stage door.
‘Olive, please just… give me a chance to explain.’ Oscar reached out to touch her and when she didn’t flinch or pull away he squeezed her arm.
‘Okay,’ she said without looking at him.
‘Okay?’
‘Doesn’t mean it changes anything between us, but I’d be very interested to hear how you explain this.’ Olive went inside and only ticked the sign-in sheet next to her name, leaving Oscar to sign himself in. It was a small gesture of defiance and detachment, but it made her feel a little bit triumphant at least and that’s what she felt she needed today. Oscar followed solemnly behind her, the silence feeling heavier with each step.
‘Did you have a good day off?’ Just the sound of his voice felt like a ball and chain around her heart. The fact he was asking questions she deemed utterly ridiculous made her grip and pull on the straps of her rucksack so tightly that her shoulders started to ache.
‘Small talk, Oscar? Really?’ she snapped.
‘Just… making conversation,’ he said to the back of her head, where her hair was still slightly damp from the shower. She stopped on the landing before the last flight of stairs to her corridor and turned to face him.
‘No, I didn’t have a very good day off, Oscar. Did you?’ Now that he got a proper look at her face he noticed her cheeks were pale and her eyes puffy from crying. He shook his head as he realised he’d been the one responsible for causing her pain.
‘I guess not.’
Once inside Olive’s dressing room, Oscar closed and locked the door behind them and Olive sat at her dressing table, taking her laptop and her make-up bag out of her rucksack and setting them up ready for the day. She caught his reflection in the mirror, still at the door with his bag and coat on.
‘Well?’
‘Right…’ Now that he actually had to explain, Oscar found himself at a bit of a loss. ‘I have no idea what to say,’ he confessed.
‘That’s a great start,’ she said, squirting a little blob of foundation onto the back of her hand.
‘I have a lot to say, I just don’t know where to start,’ he said, sliding his bag off his back and walking to the radiator on the wall behind her, the heat warming his legs through his cold jeans as he leaned against it.
‘How about with you kissing Tamara?’ She shrugged.
‘I know, I know. I never should have done that. I’m sorry,’ he said, looking at her reflection.
‘Then why did you?’ She tried to hide her anxiety as her heart raced in her chest.
‘I don’t know.’ Oscar shook his head, replaying the events for the thousandth time. All he could remember was seeing glimpses of everyone’s warmly lit faces, the stickiness of his skin in the hot pub and then Tamara’s lips, thick with lip gloss, lapping against his mouth.
‘Again, great answer.’ She rolled her eyes.
‘I really don’t know! There was no logical reason. No thought process that I can even remember, let alone follow. You and I had had an argument, I was drunk, and she was… there,’ he said, rubbing his now sweating palm on his thighs.
‘Of course she was there.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Oscar asked, confusion showing on his face.
‘That must be a joke?’ Olive stopped rubbing foundation onto her cheek and turned to face him.
‘No… what are you talking about?’ Oscar’s head had started to thump. He’d continued to drink through his day off, alone in his flat, and had slept badly since Olive had screamed at him on Shaftesbury Avenue. Thinking straight wasn’t coming to him naturally.
‘Oscar, Tamara’s been trying to get her claws into you from the day we started rehearsals. I’ve lost count of how many times she’s touched your biceps and how many snide remarks she’s slid my way as a result of the attention you’ve been paying me and not her. Of course she was there. Tamara isn’t stupid. She waited until she saw her opportune moment and then swooped.’ Olive felt a little smug at how coherent she was being compared to the bumbling mess of Oscar who stood watching her through the mirror.
‘I think you’re overthinking things a little bit there.’
‘No. I’m not, Oscar,’ she laughed. ‘Sadly, I’m not.’
‘Who does that?’ Oscar said but then immediately thought of his ex-girlfriend, Zadie, and the lengths she had already gone to in order to get her own back. The stories to the tabloids, the tweets, the occasional text message containing a barrage of hate. Oscar knew people like that existed in the world, so was it really beyond the realms of reality that he had found himself working with someone like that, yet again?
‘Tamara. Tamara does that. Stories about her have floated around for a long time and now that I’ve worked with her myself, it’s horrible to know that they’re probably all true.’
‘What stories?’ Oscar asked, feeling the press
ure on his chest lessen a little now that he wasn’t the focus of her hard stare.
‘She picks up the latest guy who’s on the rise, uses them to get a little bit further ahead in her career, and then dumps them. She’s what we call a “star-fucker”.’ Olive said, turning back to the mirror before she got so angry at Oscar that she threw him out of her dressing room without the conversation coming to a proper conclusion. Keep calm and get closure, she thought to herself.
‘She has always been quite full on…’ he admitted, thinking back to only a few minutes earlier when Tamara had tried to plant one on him in broad daylight, as if their drunken kiss now tied them together and his relationship with Olive was merely a thing of the past.
When the Curtain Falls Page 15