The Understudy: A Novel (13 page)

The Man of the Year Awards

H
e had come to America after his big break, playing Clarence, the terminally ill, mentally handicapped, disabled hero of
Seize the Day,
a TV movie that got an unexpected cinema release, confirmed his potential, toured the festivals and won him his BAFTA. The reviews had been glowing, superlative, and the TV, film and theater offers had been pouring in. He had put in the hours too, flirting ruthlessly with journalists in hotel bars, and had had any number of weak-kneed articles written about him as a result—crude passes disguised as journalism: those amazing eyes, that lopsided smile, the down-to-earth unaffected charm, the sex appeal that he apparently oozed without intending to. He had modeled the new season men’s suits in the weekend supplements, and got to keep them afterward. He’d invested in property. He’d been invited to a magazine’s Man of the Year awards, and though he hadn’t actually been named
the
Man of the Year, he’d at least met the Man of the Year, and snorted coke with him, ironically enough, in the disabled toilets. Suddenly, he had acquired two agents and a manager, a publicist, an architect, an accountant, a financial adviser; he had People. He was a person who needed People.

Offbeat, ultraviolent transvestite gangster drama
Stiletto
followed, then the raffish antihero in a BBC costume drama in which, according to the
Radio Times,
he “set the ladies’ hearts a-racing.” Seeking to broaden his range and appeal, he had accepted the second lead in
TomorrowCrime,
a big American commercial movie, in which he was to give his portrayal of Otto Dax, a Wisecracking Rookie Cop with Principles at War with the Corrupt Authorities in Megapolis 4, a role he referred to either as “just a bit of fun” or “the most appalling sellout,” depending on who he was talking to. Best of all, on the flight over to LA, he’d flown first class—no, not even first class,
premiere
class, “first” in French, courtesy of the studio. As he accepted his third glass of complimentary champagne from the air hostess (noticeably prettier than those in economy), and surveyed the vast, indecent savannahs of almost empty space from his reclining chair, it felt as if some wonderful mistake had been made. Better still, on opening the in-flight magazine, he discovered an article, “Mad about the Boy; Why Hollywood’s Going Crazy for Josh Harper.” No wonder people were staring. He lifted the glass of champagne to his lips, and saw that the air hostess had written a phone number on his coaster. The flight from London to Los Angeles takes twelve hours and, for Josh, it wasn’t nearly long enough.

After two weeks on the Evian trail in LA, it was back to New York, to see new friends and, in theory, work on his accent for the movie. Coming into Bob’s late one night, drunk and a little stoned, he’d made the potentially mortal error of snapping his fingers to gain his waitress’s attention. The ensuing tirade had been so vituperative, so sharp and funny, that Josh had had no choice but to apologize profusely, to buy her a drink, then another, to stare at her as she tried to work, then tip her ostentatiously. After the place had closed and everyone else had left, he helped her refill the saltcellars and the ketchup bottles, and put the chairs on the table, all the time stealing little glances at her. Then, once everything had been put away, they slid into a booth and talked.

As was her nature, Nora had been skeptical at first. She didn’t particularly care for English people, especially not the young, supposedly hip ones who came into the bar most evenings and brayed. She disliked the patronizing, superior attitude, the complacent belief that just being English was remarkable enough in itself, as if Shakespeare and the Beatles had done all the work for them. And, no, she did
not
care for the accent, which always sounded nasal, snide and brittle to her. She hated the political self-righteousness, and their absolute conviction that the English were the only people in the world who could be left wing, or use irony. Nora had been deploying irony to great effect for the last twenty-five years, thank you very much, and didn’t need lessons in it, least of all from a nation that couldn’t even pronounce the word properly. When it first became clear that Josh was not only English, but an English actor, it was all she could do not to tumble bodily through the fire exit. If ever there was a word that set off alarms for Nora, it was “Actor”; only “Juggler” and “Firearms Enthusiast” held more dread.

But, in this instance, Nora had decided to give Josh the benefit of the doubt, a decision made somewhat easier by the fact that he was, by some considerable way, the most attractive human being she had ever seen in her life. She had to stop herself bursting into laughter, he was so beautiful. He was a walking, talking billboard; absurd blue eyes, full lips and flawless, seemingly poreless skin, as if he’d been air-brushed, but not effeminate, or preening or, God forbid, groomed. Not only was he beautiful, and undeniably sexy, but he was funny and charming too, if a little gauche and puppyish. He listened to her with unnerving attentiveness, a steady, incisive gaze that teetered on the edge of being stagy, perhaps a little overdone. He laughed at her stories, he made all the right encouraging noises about her fumbled singing career while being suitably self-effacing and wry about his own; he seemed genuinely bemused by all that was happening to him, refreshingly modest about what he called his stupid good luck. He was almost absurdly gentleman-like and charming, like something from an old black-and-white British movie, yet not at all meek or sexless; quite the opposite, in fact. And yet the charm, the attentiveness, didn’t seem like an act, or if it was an act, it was so accomplished and convincing that she was perfectly happy to accept it as the real thing.

They discovered that they were from similar backgrounds—boisterous but affectionate upper-working-class families, where you had to shout to make yourself heard. When the bottle of whisky they were draining made them too woozy to talk properly, they switched to coffee, and before they knew it, it was starting to get light outside. So at six in the morning Nora locked up the restaurant, and they walked down to Brooklyn Heights and over the Brooklyn Bridge into Lower Manhattan. This was exactly the kind of cutesy, self-consciously romantic behavior that Nora usually liked to sneer at, and accordingly she did sneer a little as they crossed the bridge, hand in hand, but without really meaning it this time. It made a change, after all. On her first date with Owen, he had taken her to a Mexican restaurant in the late afternoon, so that they could catch the two-burritos-for-the-price-of-one happy hour, then on to
Stomp!,
which had given her a migraine. She hadn’t minded at the time, or not too much. Romance embarrassed her, and Owen was just being practical, even if the rest of the evening was a little gassier than a girl looks for on a first date.

They arrived back at Josh’s hotel, just as the rest of the city was struggling to work. There they’d fallen asleep in T-shirts and underwear on the freshly made bed, curled up facing each other like parentheses. They awoke three hours later, both thick-mouthed and a little self-conscious, and while Josh was in the bathroom, Nora drank a large glass of cold water, then another, then used the hotel phone to call her apartment. Owen was still asleep, only noticing that Nora hadn’t come home when the phone had woken him. It was not a particularly long or tender conversation. Nora simply suggested that he put his pants on, pack his stuff and get the hell out of there, and to take his
Alien
DVDs with him while he was at it.

Then she lay back on the huge bed for a moment, curled up on her side, looking out the hotel window at the office building opposite, trying very, very hard to conjure up something that felt like sadness or regret. When this proved impossible, she started to laugh quietly to herself. Then, feeling much better, lighter and happier, she sat up, took the rest of her clothes off, went into the bathroom, pulled back the shower curtain and kissed Josh Harper.

They didn’t leave the hotel room for three days. By the following September, they were married, and Nora Schulz had become Nora Schulz-Harper.

Coffee and Cigarettes

“…
and that’s how we met. More than two years ago now. It’s a very touching story, don’t you think? Still, I expect Josh has already told you about it. He tells every damn
journalist
he ever talks to—‘How I met my wife, the plucky waitress, and rescued her from a life of mindless drudgery.’ It’s even on his official Web site…”

They were sitting drinking gritty, bitter cappuccinos and eating partially defrosted cheesecake in the Acropolis, an original ’50s greasy spoon on a side street off Shaftesbury Avenue. Their initial intention had been to go to the movies, but they couldn’t find anything that they hadn’t already seen, or that wasn’t composed entirely of CGI, so had gone and sat in a café instead. There they’d drunk enough coffee to start to feel sick and shaky, and had talked and talked, or rather Nora had. Stephen didn’t mind, though. He found himself liking her even more now they were both sober. She was funny and bright, dry and self-mocking and smart and sexy and…what was the point? Clearly she loved him. Why else would she talk about him all the time? In the spirit of self-protection, he had decided to concentrate on Nora’s flaws, but was having trouble actually spotting any.

“And you got married? Just like that?”

“Well, not just like that. He wooed me pretty ruthlessly. Champagne, presents, first-class transatlantic flights. Josh is a great believer in the magical power of florists. For months I couldn’t step out of the apartment without kicking a black orchid. You know Josh; he doesn’t do those things by halves.”

“Sounds romantic.”

“Oh, it was. But not corny-romantic, you know? It was wild too. I mean, for the first six months we were drunk or high or having sex pretty much
all
the time. What I remember of it was wonderful.”

“He really adores you, doesn’t he?”

“Does he?” she said, lighting up, despite herself. “I don’t know…”

“Of course he does. He worships you.”

“Well, being worshipped is all very nice, but we deities still enjoy a little conversation every now and then, you know? Something other than, ‘Do you think my teeth need fixing?’ ” She smiled, and sucked on her dessert spoon, then patted the back of Stephen’s hand with it. “Hey, how about you? How did you meet your wife, ex-wife?”

“Alison. Oh, college.”

“Ah—high-school sweethearts. Love at first sight?”

“Not really—not on her part, anyway. More a long, slow, methodical campaign.”

“You wore her down.”

“I wore her down.”

“You stalked her.”

“But tenderly.”

“I’m sure. So what went wrong?”

“You want the long version, or the short?”

“Do long. Unless it’s
really
long. If I slump facedown in my cheesecake, you should maybe think about winding it up.”

Stephen put the cold coffee to his lips, changed his mind, put it down again.

“I think she just got fed up, really, waiting for a break. When we first got together we thought we’d be okay—you know, an adventure, poor but happy. Then after Sophie was born, it turned out we were just poor. Not that Sophie was a bad thing—she wasn’t, she was great, is great, best thing I’ve ever done by far, and she probably kept us together longer than we would have without her. But it just stopped being any…fun, that’s all. Worrying all the time, doing crappy temp jobs, eating toast and bickering. At one point I used to—I’ve never told anyone this—I used to pretend I had interviews, fictional auditions for big parts in made-up movies, go out and sit in a café, tell her I’d been heavy-penciled, then make up an excuse for not getting it, like they wanted someone taller or something.” The confession was a little fresher than he could reveal, but he hoped Nora would reassure him.

“Wow. That
is
pretty pathetic.” She sighed, and shook her head.

“Isn’t it.”

“Still, if you will do this ridiculous job…”

“I know, I know. Anyway, in the end, she just got bored. You know how it is—the intoxicating aphrodisiac that is failure.”

“It’s not failure. It’s postponed success. We’re just late developers, you and me.”

“Yes, well, too late for Alison, anyway. She got this temping job in the City, and made herself invaluable, of course, and started to enjoy it, and work late, and the next thing I knew she’s having it off with her boss in a boutique hotel, and that’s it, really. She’s a recruitment consultant now. Lives in a big fuck-off mansion in Barnes.
Very
happy. Happy, happy, happy, happy, happy.”

“But at least you’re not bitter.”

“At least I’m not bitter.”

“And is that the long version?”

“Did you want it longer?”

“I don’t mind, really.”

“I think that’s quite enough.”

Nora stirred her coffee. “So—you seeing anyone?”

“God, no.”

“But don’t you get a little…?”

“Not really. I read a lot, watch a lot of movies, I have broadband, cable. I have a high-resolution video projector, surround sound. I’m like this high-tech monk. Really, it’s a lot of fun.”

“And what d’you think about her?”

“Who? My ex-wife? I don’t. Well, that’s not true. I try not to think about her.”

“But you still love her?”

“Sort of. I miss Sophie, though.”

“Your daughter?”

“My daughter.”

There was a moment’s silence, the first of the afternoon, and Stephen attempted to fill it by crushing a grain of sugar against the Formica table with his thumbnail.

“Well—I’m sure you’ll learn to love again,” Nora said finally, and nudged his hand with her own.

He looked up at her. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

She smiled, and there was another pause as they searched for something to say.

Nora shifted uneasily in her seat. “Jesus—listen to us. Let’s try and do something
fun,
shall we? Burn off some of this caffeine.”