The Understudy: A Novel (29 page)

Gunfight at the Idaho Fried Chicken

A
s 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.”

“Fine. Sorry.”

They stood in silence for a moment, Nora glancing around as if looking for some means of escape.

“You seem…angry with me,” he said.

Nora sighed, and finally forced herself to look at him. “Not angry. I’m still grateful to you for looking after me and everything, and I’m touched that you…feel so strongly about me. And I suppose I may have had some suspicions of my own. But, still, you have to admit, well…this is all a little weird, Stephen.”

“I know.”

“I mean, I need time to clear my head.”

“Any idea of how much time, though?” She raised her eyebrows in warning. “Actually, don’t answer that. But just so you know, I meant what I said. I meant it very much. I really do adore you. I always have.”

“And what am I supposed to do with that information, Stephen?”

“I sort of hoped maybe you’d give it some thought?”

“You don’t think I have enough to think about?”

“I know. I’m sorry. I had to tell you, that’s all. It just seemed the right thing to do.”

She reached out and took his hand by the fingertips. “Freak,” she mumbled, and smiled weakly. “I should go,” she said finally, stepped closer and hugged him, initially taking care to hold her body a little farther away than usual, the very model of a platonic embrace. He put one hand in the curve of her back, and thankfully she moved closer, placing her cheek lightly against his. They stood there for a moment. Looking over her shoulder, on the other side of the road a short distance away, Stephen noticed a low silver Audi TT roar suddenly into life, then pull blindly into traffic. Instantly, he recognized the car, the face at the wheel, and instinctively he tugged Nora back against his front door, just in time, as the car hurtled across both lanes, bucked up onto the high pavement and, with an awful metallic crunch, beached itself there, the front wheels still spinning, the bonnet of the car just feet away from the window of Idaho Fried Chicken.

Without turning the engine off, Josh Harper tumbled out of the driver’s seat, his leg tangled in the safety belt. He stumbled, fell onto the pavement, then got back onto his feet, and hurtled toward them, toward Stephen. He was dressed, bizarrely, in his costume from the show, and before he knew what was happening, Stephen found himself held high against the glass window, Josh’s arm in a puffy white shirt jammed painfully under his chin.

“Hello, Bullitt! Didn’t expect to see me, did you, you fucking
traitor
…”

Josh’s hair was stuck to his face with sweat, his eyes were wide, red and wild, his jaw clenched, he stank of sweat and booze, and a slight frosting of yellow-white powder could be seen around one nostril. Stephen felt something jam into his hip, and was suddenly aware that Josh was wearing his sword too, and that he was being assaulted, in the street, in Battersea borders, by a drunk and wired world-famous actor dressed as Byron, with a sword. It was not a situation that he felt readily equipped to deal with.

“JOSH,” Nora shouted. “JOSH, PUT HIM DOWN. YOU’RE BEING RIDICULOUS!”

Josh’s face was mean and twisted. “I just want a little word with our friend here, my love, my sweetness, just a friendly little chat with our mutual friend here.”

“All right, okay, but let’s go indoors, Josh,” mumbled Stephen.

“No! I like it out here.”

“Josh, am I meant to find this in some way endearing, or dramatic or something?” scoffed Nora.

“Let go of me, Josh.”

“Or what? Or
what,
Bullitt? What are you going to do about it?” He pressed his hands hard against both of Stephen’s shoulders, so that Stephen imagined he could feel the plate glass bow behind him. “You know, Steve, I may not be perfect, and I may have done some stupid things in my time, but at least I’m not a hypocrite, Steve, at least I’m not a little sneak, at least I don’t skulk about like you, acting all friendly, sucking up to me, hanging out in my house, and all the time wheedling your way into my wife’s knickers…”

“Oh, this is pathetic, Josh,” hissed Nora, standing at his shoulder. “Grow up, will you…?”

But Josh wasn’t listening. “I asked you last night, didn’t I, Steve,
pleaded
with you, as a mate, where’s Nora, where’s Nora, where is she? No idea, you said, and, yet, what a surprise! Next morning, here she is, in this dump, shagging
you
…”

“Josh, don’t be ridiculous,” scoffed Nora.

“Well, you can forget the deal, my friend. The deal is most definitely
off
.”

“It was never that kind of deal, Josh, you know that.”

“Deal?” said Nora, looking between them, confused. “What deal?”

“And as for you, sweetheart, you’ve got a cheek, haven’t you? Giving me a hard time, then sneaking off to Bullitt’s love nest here.”

“This is stupid, Josh. We’re friends, that’s all.”

“I thought you had better taste, sweetheart. You can do better than this”—he turned back to Stephen, his face up close, and sneered, with infinite contempt—“…this
understudy
.”

Stephen’s hand-to-hand combat experience came primarily from stage-fighting classes. Consequently, when throwing a punch his natural instinct was to aim for a point just upstage of the target’s head with his right hand, and simultaneously make a noise by slapping his thigh with his left. He suspected that this technique would not have much effect on a crazed man with a sword. Forced to improvise then, he managed to wrap one leg around Josh’s ankle and, with both hands, push him with all his strength. Josh stumbled back hard against the side of his car.

“Okay, now that’s enough, the both of you,” said Nora, arms out, like a referee.

But Josh was standing now, rubbing his back and laughing, and reaching for his sword.

“Call the police,” said Stephen, looking to Nora.

“I am
not
going to call the police.”

“He’s got a fucking SWORD, Nora!”

“Josh, listen to me. PUT…THE SWORD…DOWN.”

“All right, all right, look—” He unbuckled his belt, and threw the sword through the car window. “No sword, okay?”

Stephen thought he ought to do something, so assumed a defensive stance, one leg forward, fists raised, making him look like a figure from a Victorian circus poster. Josh just laughed. “I’m a trained martial artist, you little sack of shit.” He grinned.

“Oh God. Please, just get a
grip,
will you? Both of you!”

Josh ignored her. “Come on then, come on, give it your best shot,” and he assumed an action-figure fighting pose, one that Stephen seemed to recall from the climactic cyborg fight in
TomorrowCrime,
a pose that had seemed striking in Megapolis 4, but looked a little out of place in Battersea borders.

It was Stephen’s turn to laugh. He started to speak—“Josh, do you have any idea what a complete and utter
cock
you look…” and then Josh was high in the air, spinning round, his leather-booted foot connecting hard with the side of Stephen’s head, and the move that had proved so effective against the cyborg proved equally effective here. Even as the pavement rushed toward his face, Stephen had to admit that it was pretty impressive….

An arm came down, grabbed his shoulder, then pulled him over, and then Josh was sitting on his chest, his face up close, ugly and distorted, his hands tugging on the lapels of Stephen’s overcoat. He was dimly aware of Nora, face white, eyes wide with panic, her arm around Josh’s neck, trying and failing to pull him off, and Josh reaching back and pushing her away, so that she stumbled back against the window.

Josh’s sour breath was hot on Stephen’s face as he hissed in his ear: “I know you called those photographers, Bullitt. I can’t prove it, but I know. I worked it out last night. And I know why you did it too—because you’re
jealous
, you little shit. You’ve never achieved anything in your useless, pointless life, nothing worthwhile, and you see someone who
has
achieved something, someone who’s got everything
you
want, and so you skulk about and fuck it up for them. Well, d’you want to know why you’re the underdog, mate? Why you’re the understudy? Because you
deserve
to be. You’re nothing, friend, a nobody—no one cares about you, no one even knows you exist, you’re invisible, a talentless, mediocre, invisible piece of—”

…And before Josh could finish, Stephen felt the air shift, saw something fly past his eyes, and connect audibly with Josh’s face. He heard a sound he’d never heard before, the sound of bronze on tooth, and then Josh was falling backward to the pavement, where he lay sprawled, eyes fluttering, hand clasped to his mouth, felled by his own Best Actor Award.

Stephen stumbled to his feet. Nora was crouched down over Josh, the bronze statue still in her hand, mopping at the red mess with the corner of her coat, and saying, over and over again, “Josh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Open your eyes, sweetheart, speak to me…” And from behind them Stephen heard a first-floor window squealing open, looked around and saw Mrs. Dollis gawping down at the scene.

“Bloody hell!” she gasped. “You’ve killed Josh Harper!”

A Star Is Born

A
n August day in the long, disappointing summer of 1983.

At the age of eleven, at the public swimming baths in Ventnor, Stephen had sought to impress Beverley Slater, the girl he loved more than existence itself, with his high-diving prowess. Making sure that she was watching, he had climbed to the very highest level, stood at the end of the board, and it was only then, as he stood alone in the high, hot afternoon sun and looked down at the pool and the people many, many miles below, that he realized that he could neither dive nor swim, at least not without the aid of various kinds of flotation device. He was scared of water, of heights, of falling, of the inevitable full-body slap of the water as he belly flopped in, like a side of meat thrown off a high building. He was completely and entirely unsuited and unqualified to be in this particular place, at this particular time, high up above the clouds, barely dressed in bathers far too small, with Beverley Slater and the entire population of the Isle of Wight watching skeptically from below. The diving board suddenly seemed like a gallows.

And yet he’d chosen to climb the ladder. He hadn’t been bullied or pressurized into it. He didn’t have to be there at all, but he had chosen to, because he had wanted people to see him do something impressive, something startling and unexpected, something
extraordinary
for a change. Now here he was, finally coming to the awful realization that diving and falling are not the same thing at all.

According to that year’s edition of
The Guinness Book of Records,
it was possible to fit the entire human population of the planet on the Isle of Wight, and, looking down, it certainly seemed that a pretty high proportion of them were there that day. Everyone was watching him now. People had stopped swimming and talking, dive-bombing and heavy petting, and all faces were turned upward in anticipation of the young lad from Shanklin’s spectacular high-dive. Gripping the end of the board with his toes and leaning out, he could just about make out Beverley Slater too, biting her lip and willing him on. Clearly there was only one thing he could do if he wanted to avoid complete and total humiliation.

Stephen took a deep breath, and no one in the crowd could quite believe the extraordinary poise, control and skill with which Stephen turned around and very, very carefully climbed back down the ladder.

S
hestooduponthebalconyinexplicablymimickinghimhiccoughingandamicablywelcominghimin…

Stephen C. McQueen sat in Josh Harper’s dressing room, staring in Josh Harper’s mirror, wearing Josh Harper’s costume, and trying very hard to remember how to breathe.

His conventional approach, the in-out rib-and-lung technique he had favored for more than thirty-two years now, didn’t seem to be working automatically anymore. He was breathing on manual, reminding himself, step by step—breathe in, breathe out, now breathe in, and now breathe out again—and while this would do for the moment, clearly it wasn’t going to be practical for very much longer. He felt dizzy and light-headed and nauseous, and with barely enough air in his body to sit and stare in the mirror, let alone stand and move about and do what he had to do. He looked at his watch without seeing it. Ever since he’d arrived at the theater, time seemed to have lost its conventional chronological quality—instead it was stretching, and stopping, and sometimes even going backward, so that he had absolutely no idea how long he had until…

“Mr. McQueen, this is your ten-minute call,” rumbled the loudspeaker. “Ten minutes, Mr. McQueen.”

He got up to stretch his legs, then immediately sat down again. Breathing and walking. He could no longer breathe, walk or tell the time. What about speaking? Could he still speak? Stephen leaned in closer to the mirror, spoke again.

“Mad, bad and dangerous to know…”

He noticed his nostrils were flaring. Do it again, without flaring your nostrils.

“Mad, bad and dangerous…”

Nope, there they go again. It was as if they had a mind of their own, flapping open and closed in time with the words, like something you might find on a coral reef. He tried once more, physically holding them down; better, but clearly not a practical solution, not for a ninety-minute show. Perhaps he should go and tell Donna he couldn’t go on. It might be easier. Just go and tell Donna he was sick, he had accidentally fractured his skull or a lung had collapsed or something. Maybe that was why he couldn’t breathe. Maybe a lung
had
collapsed, entirely of its own accord.

Or perhaps he should just walk out now, with no excuses, sneak out of the fire exit, or climb out the dressing-room window, shin down a drainpipe or knot some sheets together, onto Shaftesbury Avenue and freedom. They couldn’t make him do it, after all. They couldn’t force him to.

There was a knock on the door, and a sudden surge of hope. It had been snowing fairly steadily all afternoon—perhaps they’d had to call off the show because of the snow. Or perhaps there’d been a power cut, or the upper circle had fallen in, or some other act of God, but, no, it was just Michael, the DSM, carrying a bunch of slightly frayed supermarket roses. Michael smiled pleasantly at Stephen from behind the flowers—the kind of gloomy smile more usually seen in intensive care wards.

“These just arrived at the stage door, Steve.” He glanced at the small envelope, addressed to “Mr. Stephen C. McQueen” in meticulous loopy blue handwriting, a smiley face in the center of the
Q.
He knew of only one person who filled every available space with a smiley face.

“Everything all right in here?” asked Michael, a hand on his shoulder.

“Absolutely. Any word about Josh?”

“He’s fine. He’s at home resting.”

“Alone?”

“No, Nora’s looking after him, I think.”

“Good. Good. So—no chance of him jumping in a cab, is there?”

“ ’Fraid not—sorry.”

“Okay—just a thought.”

“So—knock ’em dead, yeah?”

“I’ll try.”

“Ten minutes, okay?”

“Absolutely. Ten minutes.”

He waited until the door closed, then read the card.

They’d made it. So that was that, then. No backing out now. He slid the card into the envelope, stood up a little unsteadily, and headed down the long, treacherous staircase that led to stage left.

“See you out there, superstar,” said Maxine, in her white dressing gown, peering out of her dressing-room door.

“Thanks, Maxine.”

“And listen, that kiss in the bedroom scene—no tongues, yeah?”

Stephen laughed. “I thought I was meant to do exactly what Josh does.”

“Only up to a point, lover boy,” she said, and kissed him on his cheek. “You’re going to be fantastic.”

Donna was waiting for him in the stage left wings, smiling, like a jovial hangman.

“Okay—they’re all in.”

“They are? Good.”

“Crowd’s quite small, what with the weather, but it’s friendly.”

“Good, good…”

“You’re sure you’re okay?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“Because you look very pale.”

“I do?”

“Want me to delay the curtain?”

“For about a week and a half, maybe?”

Donna sighed, unamused. “If you really want, Stephen, I can always send them home.”

“No, no—let’s do it, Donna.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Because if you don’t think you’re up to it…”

“No, I’m up to it.”

“Okay. Obviously, there’s no one to open the door at the very end, so you’ll have to do it yourself. Is that okay?”

“I think I’ll manage.”

“You want a glass of water?”

“No, I’m okay.”

“Okay, well—do you want to get in position then?”

“I’ll get in position.”

“And, Stephen?”

“Yep?”

“Break a leg.”

“Probably.”

And Stephen stepped out onto the stage, walking a little gingerly, as if stepping onto thin ice. The safety curtain was down, and he stopped for a moment, and listened to the terrible hush of anticipation coming from the audience.

My motivation,
he told himself,
is to be strong, charismatic and Byronic. Remember—Sophie and Alison are out there. My motivation is to make them proud.

Then he turned and went to sit in his preset position, on the chair at the desk, and picked up the prop quill, feeling the shirt stick to the sweat on his back as he leaned against his chair. The working lights dimmed overhead, and the electric candle-effect candelabra came up. He noticed that the quill was shaking in his hand, and he had a sudden overwhelming need to use the toilet in every way imaginable.

Too late, because the music was starting now, sounding far louder and more portentous than it did when he listened in on the loudspeaker. He took a deep breath in, and another in, then a third, out, then two more in, and one out, one in and two out, two in and one out, licked his lips, and ran the first line over and over—

“Madbadanddangeroustoknowthatswhatheycallmemadbad anddangeroustoknowthatswhattheycallme…”

—and then he heard a click and a mechanical whirr and the safety curtain began, ever so slowly, to trundle up, like a guillotine blade being hauled into position. He felt the air of the auditorium mingle with the air of the stage, as if an airlock were opening on a spaceship, and he instinctively held on hard to the writing desk with one hand to prevent himself from being sucked out into the vacuum. Trying not to become aware of the absurdity of pretending to compose poetry with a large white feather, he wrote on the piece of tea-stained prop parchment, in imaginary ink, in a big, loopy Byronic scrawl:

Then the curtain was fully up, and the music began to fade down. He felt the warmth of the spotlight on his face, and a drop of sweat run down the length of his nose, and in his head he started the slow ten count—1, 2, 3—that he knew was always so effective—4, 5, 6—when Josh did it—7, 8, 9—

When he reached 26, he heard a cough from the auditorium, a get-on-with-it cough, and he realized that there was no avoiding it, he’d have to look up; he’d have to say something.
My motivation is to be…extraordinary,
he told himself, and felt the drop of sweat on the tip of his nose quiver, fall, and splat on the paper, the noise booming around the theater. He unfocused his eyes, looked out straight into the light, and said his first line—

He heard the voice in his head, as if played back on a tape recorder at slightly the wrong speed, so that it sounded several registers too high, thin, slightly strangulated and nasal. And hadn’t he said bad-mad instead of mad-bad? Had he or hadn’t he? That’s the title of the play—how could he get that wrong? How stupid could one person be? Should he start again? No.
Doesn’t matter, forget about it, say the next line, quick, you’re taking too long, you’re being too slow, get on with it, and be better this time. Remember—aloof, magnetic, charismatic. What Josh said isn’t true. You are
not
invisible, you
can
do this. You are Lord Byron, the most notorious man in Europe. Women desire you, men envy you. Now, smile slightly mockingly, not too much, one side of your face, and speak again…

Not bad, better, but you still sound poncy, lispy, like you’ve just had dental surgery. Talk properly. Clearly but properly. What now? I know! Why not get up! Walk around a bit. Move. That will get their attention. Try and move with a sensuous feline grace…

A
nd he placed the quill down, stood, and caught his hip against the edge of his desk. He remembered that old line, that acting is all about remembering the lines and not bumping into the furniture, and it suddenly seemed that he was incapable of either.

He had also become horribly aware of his arms. It was as if these spare appendages had suddenly sprouted from his shoulders—strange, alien tentacles that he had never seen before, had no experience of, or control over, that just sort of dangled there uselessly like meat in a butcher’s shop window. Where did they go? Where could he stash them? Clearly, he would need to get them out of the way before he could say the next line. He decided to dispose of at least one of them by putting it in the pocket of his breeches.

He tried this four times before he realized that there were no pockets in his breeches. He reassured himself that this was the kind of thing Byron probably did all the time, and instead he slid the arms behind his back, and left them there, hands clasped, until he needed them again. It felt good to get them out of the way. It also felt authentically “period” too, properly late eighteenth/early nineteenth century, and, eyes still unfocused, staring out into the spotlight, he sauntered downstage, taking one, two, three strides before he remembered Byron’s clubfoot. He turned the fourth stride into a limp, a slightly excessive limp he felt, a Richard III–limp, as if Lord Byron had just twisted his ankle. Best tone it down, best keep it grounded, but too late now, because he was at the front of the stage, as far as he could go. There was nowhere left to limp, and it felt like standing, naked and blind drunk, on the edge of a precipice.