The Understudy: A Novel (23 page)

Superman vs. Sammy the Squirrel

EXT. WOODLAND POND. DAY

SAMMY THE SQUIRREL sits in a rowing boat on the lake (we’ll blue-screen this). In the boat is a birthday cake he has made. (“Happy Birthday Olivia” must be written on it—BIG letters please, props!) He notices the children at home…

Stephen sat in his dressing room, front teeth resting on his bottom lip, unconsciously slipping into character. He looked at the page for some time, wondering if there was some way to memorize the words without having to actually read them. Perhaps he could absorb them through his fingertips. It wasn’t that he minded doing kids’ stuff—he actually quite enjoyed it—but it brought back bad memories of the dark, depressed period just after the divorce became official, and the four long, grim days in an underheated warehouse in Mill Hill, dressed in an eczema-inducing squirrel suit, singing about the wheels on the bus going round and round, and round, and round…

He shivered, leaned back and rolled his shoulders, as if physically shrugging something off, then went back to learning his lines. At 8:48 precisely, as he’d done exactly one hundred and twenty-two times before, and as he would do another twenty-two times more—or nineteen times, if you allowed for his three performances as Byron—he headed down the treacherous back staircase that led to stage left, to watch from the wings. He walked on (ghostly), opened door (slowly), bowed (somberly), closed door (slowly), walked off (quickly)—and was about to slide off back to the dressing room, when Josh tugged on his cape.

“Hey, come and see me afters, will you? I need to ask you a big favor.”

“Actually, I really ought to—”

“Two minutes, yeah?” And without waiting for an answer, Josh did his high-diver’s hop-and-skip and went back out for his curtain call.

After the show, Stephen knocked at Josh’s door, heard an affirmative grunt over the sound of very loud hip-hop, and went in.

Josh lay stretched out on the floor facedown, wearing only his underpants, moaning, and for one terrible/wonderful moment Stephen thought he had hurt himself, had fallen over, and was struggling to get up, then collapsing again. He was just about to ask if he could help when it became clear that Josh was in fact performing elaborate press-ups, launching himself up into the air with a grunt, and clapping in between each one, like an unnaturally toned performing seal.

“Oh—I’m sorry, I’ll go…” Stephen said, backing out the door.

“Hey [clap] there! [clap] Come [clap] in! [clap] Sit [clap] down…”

Stephen settled into the swivel chair at the dressing table, nearly putting his elbow into the four fat slugs of cocaine that were lined up on a CD cover, Public Enemy’s
Fear of a Black Planet
. A rolled-up twenty-pound note and a platinum credit card lay alongside, next to a bottle of champagne and a
Les Misérables
souvenir mug.

“Tuck [clap] in [clap], Stephanie [clap]…”

It wasn’t a good idea, of course, not with another ten hours under hot studio lights staring him in the face. But there it was, a gift from Josh. Stephanie tucked in, winced, then drank warm champagne from the
Les Misérables
mug.

“D’you want to see something really funny?” giggled Josh, pulling himself to his feet, and pulling his trousers on.

“What?” said Stephen, blinking hard, pinching his nose.

“I mean
really
funny.”

“Go on.”

“You’re not to tell anyone I showed you this, all right?” Josh pulled open the drawer of his dressing table, reached beneath a pile of scripts, and pulled out a Jiffy bag. “And you’ve got to promise not to take the piss.” Grinning and giggling, he reached into the bag, and pulled out a garishly colored rectangle of cardboard, which he turned around slowly, like a conjurer. In a bubble of clear plastic was a small plastic doll.

“Josh Harper is proud to present [drum noise] my…very own…action figure!”

“Oh…my…God!” laughed Stephen, in spite of himself, snatching the toy from Josh’s hand. Against a black background, in raised metallic capitals, were the words
MERCURY RAIN
, and a photograph of Josh in futuristic military garb, a space rifle clasped across his chest. Stephen felt his jaw tighten, and began to hear the blood in his head.

“Lieutenant Virgil Solomon—Planetary Expedition Force!” barked Josh. “That’s me! All the way from a sweatshop in Taiwan. Gangs of twelve-year-olds, painting my hair on for seventy-five cents a day. It’s appalling, really,” he added, unable to suppress his glee in the face of global exploitation. Stephen peered closely at the action figure’s face—there was a vague resemblance, he supposed, but not much; two little blobs of cornflower blue for the eyes, but a fat nose and thick neck, slicked black hair and a little crimson scar on one cheek.

“Where’d the scar come from?”

“Fighting huge mantislike creatures,” said Josh, buttoning up a beautiful, fresh white shirt.

Stephen peered closer. “Bloody hell—you’re ugly.” He laughed.

“I know! Look how fat they’ve made me too—big fat bloody great porker. Do you think they’ve made me look fat?”

“No, not really.”

“Seriously, though…” said Josh, rubbing his abs for reassurance.

“A little bit fat, maybe.”

“I knew it! Those Taiwanese bastards. I should sue!”

“Still, they do say being turned into an action figure adds ten pounds.” Josh tried to snatch the toy from Stephen’s hand, and for a moment they resembled two eight-year-old boys, friends almost, bickering in a playground.

“I want to open it!” whined Stephen, enjoying himself more than he really ought.

“Well, you can’t. I’m worth more in my original packaging. Go and buy one if you want one.”

“So apart from being pose-able, do you actually
do
anything?”

“What, like fire a rocket or something? Nah.” He pinched his nostrils together, snorted, swallowed. “My utility belt glows in the dark, but, apart from that, sod all. Though I do have my very own hover chopper, retailing at £17.99.”

“And do any of your clothes come off?”

“Not unless I have another couple of these,” Josh giggled, nodding at the remaining lines of cocaine, and Stephen became aware of the need to say something quickly.

“So—a BAFTA, your very own action figure…”

“Yeah, life’s sweet, isn’t it? Except I still can’t find that bloody BAFTA.”

There was a moment’s silence. Stephen couldn’t feel his teeth anymore, and had become aware of the sound of his heart beating against his chest. Could Josh hear it, he wondered. And why had he asked him here anyway? Surely not just to show off his action figure. Out of friendship? Were they friends now, or did he just want someone to watch him do his press-ups?

“Listen, Steve, here’s the thing—” Josh turned the music down, settled astride his swivel chair again, crossed his arms, gripped and squeezed his own biceps, and Stephen felt the first shiver of anxiety—“I’ve told Nora that you and me are going out for a drink after the show tonight.”

“Did you? Right, well, that would be cool, Josh, but actually, I’d better not stay out too late. What with the eighteenth coming up and everything…” In fact, the shadow of the big red squirrel was looming, but there was no reason for Josh to know that.

“No, no, ’s all right, I don’t want to go either, it’s just I sort of needed, well—an alibi.”

“An alibi?”

Josh snapped his teeth together a couple of times, and started to examine the tips of his fingers. “I’m sort of having a drink with someone, you see. At that club we went to.”

“Josh…”

“It’s not what you think it is, Steve. It’s just to talk. The thing is, this certain someone, this woman, she’s a friend of mine and, well, she’s only decided she’s gone and fallen in
love
with me.” He wrinkled his nose and groaned at the inconvenience, as you might groan at finding out a goldfish had died. “She’s getting pretty serious about it too, texting me all the time, sending me letters and everything, so I said I’d go and meet her for a drink and talk about it, try and calm her down before she gets all Fatal Attraction. And that’s why, if Nora asks, I just need you to tell her you were with me.”

“But there’s nothing going on, with this other woman?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re sure, Josh?”

“Absolutely.”

“Because I know we’ve got a deal but—”

“Not a deal.”

“An…arrangement then.”

“It’s nothing to do with that.”

“But I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I thought…”

“I completely understand…”

“…if I thought I was just creating a, a diversion for you.”

“I know. And you’re not.”

There was a knock at the dressing-room door. Josh leaped quickly to his feet and opened it a small way, leaning out into the corridor. Stephen could hear voices, low and urgent, and Josh gave a small nod in Stephen’s direction, indicating that they should be careful what they say. The woman leaned in to follow the direction of Josh’s nod, and that’s when Stephen saw her, Abigail Edwards, TV’s Constable Sally Snow, his costar from
Summers and Snow
.

“Hello, there,” said Abigail, peering into the room, smiling politely.

“Hello,” said Stephen, as coldly as he could muster.

“Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

“Maybe.”

“I know—aren’t you Dead Guy?”

“That’s right,” said Stephen, quietly. “I’m Dead Guy.”

“Steve was one of the waiters at my party, remember?”

“That’s right, I remember now. You told my best friend to go fuck himself.”

“That’s me.”

And then there seemed to be nothing else to say.

“So I’ll see you there in ten, yeah?” said Josh.

“Okay, lover, don’t keep me waiting,” murmured Abigail, then kissed Josh on the cheek. Then putting on a fake smile, leaned in and said, “Nice to see you again, Dead Guy,” then was gone.

Josh closed the door. “Aren’t our police wonderful?”

“Your new lover, Josh?”

“Absolutely not,” he said, with a smile, a smirk. “What makes you say that?”

“She just called you ‘lover.’ ”

“So? Loads of people call me lover.”

“I’m sure they do.”

“All right—we’ve got together maybe once or twice.”

“Josh!”

“But I swear, I didn’t enjoy it…” And he laughed out loud, and hunched back over the cocaine, sniffing hard, then pressing both his eyes with the heel of his hand.
“Ay, caramba!”
he gasped, and swigged from the mug of champagne. “I don’t know what it is, Steve. Maybe it’s the uniform…”

But Stephen was on his feet now, reaching for his coat.

“You know your problem, Josh?”

“What?”

“All cock, no heart.”

“Oh, come on, don’t get like that, Steve.”

“Like what?”

“Like my bloody mum. I’m only human, mate, I’m only flesh and blood.”

“Yeah, so you keep saying.”

“And, anyway, you know what they say—it doesn’t count if you’re on location.”

Stephen sighed. “You’re not on location, Josh.”

“No, but as good as,” and he pushed the cocaine toward Stephen. “You sure you don’t want any more of this?”

“You’ve no idea what you’ve got, have you?”

“What d’you mean?”

“Nora. You’ve no idea what she’s worth, how lucky you are…”

“ ’Course I do! That’s why I’m seeing Abi tonight, to knock it on the head.”

“And then what?”

“What d’you mean?”

“I mean, who’s next? Maxine, her, God knows who else—who’s next to get that special Josh Harper treatment?”

“Hey, you can love someone without actually being
faithful
to them, Steve,” he said, then to his credit, looked just a tiny bit shamefaced. “All right, I admit, maybe we got married a bit quickly, and maybe I’m not ready for that level of commitment. But I worship Nora, really I do. She’s smart and she’s funny and I like having her around.” His eyes were misting up now, getting rheumy and moist, and he was speaking his dialogue in his best “emotional” voice, slightly cracked and wavering, and Stephen wondered if he was going to go the whole hog, and actually start to cry. “Nora’s my rock, Steve. She’s my Northern Star. She’s…” And he paused, searching for his next line.