The Understudy: A Novel (7 page)

“Not while I’m on duty,” said Stephen, feeling that their moment had passed. “I’d better go…”

Once again, she placed her hand on his arm. “Hey, have you seen the roof?” she said, widening her eyes. “The view’s amazing. Come on—I’ll show you.”

“But don’t you think I ought to—”

“Stephen, I’m sorry, you don’t seem to understand. If I hear one more showbiz anecdote, then I will start to scream, and there’s no guarantee I will ever stop.” And she slotted one arm through his, grabbed a bottle of champagne with the other, walked him out of the kitchen, and over to the glass-stepped spiral staircase that led up to the roof.

“Quick, before they find where I’ve hidden the bongos…”

They climbed the stairs, a little unsteadily, and just as they reached the door that opened up into the night air, a particularly full-throated, flamboyant, vibrato-rich chorus of “Happy Birthday” broke out from the room below. Nora looked over her shoulder, smiling conspiratorially at Stephen, and waved her bottle in the direction of the party below.

“You know how you can tell they’re all actors?”

“Go on.”

“Because every damn one of them is
harmonizing
.”

Two Cigarettes at Once

T
he long low flat roof of the old umbrella factory had been turned into some sort of minimalist urban garden, expensively decked and sparsely planted, and lit with strings of all-weather bulbs that transformed the fine drizzle into a special effect. Stephen turned the collar up on his suit jacket, and folded his arms tight across his chest. He’d never been on a transatlantic ocean liner, just the Isle of Wight ferry, but he had a vague notion that this was what it might feel like to stand at the railings and contemplate the wake behind you. What was that corny old film with Bette Davis, set on the ocean liner? Where someone—Paul Henreid, is it, or Fredric March?—lights the two cigarettes he holds in his mouth, and passes one to Bette Davis. He had cigarettes in his pocket, he could try that if he wanted to. Feeling woozy and reckless, he decided to give it a go.

“What in
God’s
name are you doing?” said Nora.

“Sorry?”

“You smoke them
two at a time
?”

“One’s for you,” and he took one from his mouth, and offered it to her. Nora stared at it. “Sorry, did you not…?”

“Thank you. Very suave. If a tad unhygienic.” She placed the cigarette in her mouth, a little gingerly, he thought. “Josh keeps on at me to give up. Says it’ll make me look
old,
an idea which clearly
appalls
him. I had been trying those nicotine patches, but I had to wear so many of the things that naked I looked like a quilt.”

The word “naked” hung in the night air for a moment. He tried to concentrate on the view. The sodium lights of the King’s Cross redevelopment glowed in the distance, and, once again, the occasion seemed to demand a certain mode of behavior, and conversation—wry and witty, world-weary and elegant; David Niven, perhaps.

“So—what did you get Josh for his birthday?” he asked, more prosaically than he’d intended.

“Oh—a new iPod.” She sighed. “Original, huh? I’ve been trying to resist, but he wore me down. So I got him a new iPod and told him to just shut the fuck up about it. It was either that or a goddamn samurai sword.”

“Still, what d’you get the man who’s got everything?”

“Well, everything
Star Wars
–related, anyway.”

He laughed and glanced sideways at her. Her face, beneath the glossy black fringe, was round and pale, split with a large red mouth, placed, somewhat lopsidedly, under a small, neat nose, slightly pink now in the autumn air. Her teeth were large, not quite as white and regular as he expected for an American, and there was a small chip in the enamel on one of the front teeth, a smudge of lipstick on the other; something about her makeup made Stephen think of a child sitting at her mother’s dressing table. Her skin was pale, with a slight, not-unpleasant oily sheen around what he believed was called the T-zone, and small amounts of makeup could be seen clumping in the lines of her eyes, which were green, dark and heavy-lidded, and quite beautiful. Although at present she was fairly drunk, or drugged, or both, her natural expression seemed to be a kind of pouty amusement, a slightly stern, sleepy look, as if she had woken a little sulky from an afternoon nap. She leaned lazily on the ocean liner railing, brushing her short fringe across her forehead with her fingertips, drawing occasionally on her cigarette, and once again Stephen thought of an old film, something starring Carole Lombard or the young Shirley MacLaine, maybe, an effect heightened by the dress she wore, black, plain, old-fashioned, a little too small for her slightly—what was Josh’s word?—
lush
body, shiny with wear on the shoulders and bottom. He found himself wondering what it would be like to put his hand in the warm curve at the small of her back, lean over and kiss her, when she turned suddenly to look at him, eyebrows raised questioningly.

For something to say, he blurted out: “Amazing apartment!” In the spirit of transatlantic communication he’d attempted the word “apartment,” and almost gotten away with it.

“You really think so?” She frowned, instantly making Stephen question if he did really think so. “I
hate
it. It’s like this men’s magazine bachelor pad. Every morning I wake up and feel like asking if there’s a toothbrush I can borrow, and then I remember I actually
live
here. I mean, what’s wrong with having
rooms,
for chrissake? Josh likes to say that he put the funk into ‘functional.’ Personally I think he just put the ass into ‘embarrassing,’ but, hey, what do I know?”

Stephen laughed. “So why did you buy it?”

“Oh, I didn’t, Josh did, just before we got married. Technically, I’m just the lodger. Most of my stuff’s still in storage in the States. It’s not exactly to my taste, but you know what they say: a house is not a home without a skateboard ramp.”

“You should see mine. What a
dump
…”

“You live alone?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Single?”

“Recently divorced.”

“A little young to be divorced, aren’t you?”

“I’m precocious.”

Nora laughed, and Stephen felt a quick jab of delight watching her laugh, then there was another pause, as she drew hard on her cigarette.

“So why did you get divorced?”

“Ah…”

“If it’s not a personal question.”

“Well, let me see…”

“Let me guess—she beat you up?”

“No. Well, not physically.”

Nora winced. “Hey, you’re not going to hurl yourself off the roof, are you?”

“No.”

“Because I’d hate to be responsible for the death of a guest. Well,
certain
guests, anyway…”

“Except I’m not a guest.”

“Even so. It’s none of my business. I apologize. Change subject…okay, tell me, why the hell do you do this ridiculous job?”

“You mean acting or catering?”

“Well, catering isn’t a ridiculous job, so…”

“You say what you think, don’t you?”

“Stephen, between you and me, I’ve possibly had a little too much to drink.”

“Well, I do it because I love it. Even if it is ridiculous. When I’m actually doing it, I love it. The bits in between aren’t great.”

“So why do it, then?” she asked—a little more harshly than necessary, he thought. It was a conversation he’d had innumerable times, usually with concerned elderly relatives at Christmas, and he never enjoyed it.

“Don’t know—overactive imagination? Watched too many movies growing up, I suppose.”

“A lot of people watched the moon landings too, but they didn’t all try and become astronauts.”

“No, but you know how it is—you do a couple of plays at school…”

“You went to the theater a lot?”

“Not really. I was
in
plays, but I didn’t really go to the theater at all, only panto. The Isle of Wight doesn’t really have a West End. Well, it does, but it’s called Ventnor.” Nora looked blank. “So I liked acting in plays, but I always preferred watching movies.”

“Me too! You know, I’m probably not meant to say this—Josh thinks it’s some kind of blasphemy or something—but I can’t
stand
going to the the-ater. Every time Josh hobbles out on that stage on his orthopedic shoe and starts talking in that weird, crazy, warbly voice he puts on, I just want to burst out laughing. I just want to shout out, ‘Talk
properly
!’ Don’t you agree?”

“No comment.” Stephen smiled, and looked back out at the view.

“So which do you prefer, acting in theater or movies?”

“Difficult to say.” He could, of course, come out with the party line about preferring the immediate response of a theater audience, but his main screen experience came from playing the title role in
Sammy the Squirrel Sings Nursery Rhymes,
and he suspected that this fell outside of what is generally meant by “movies.” He decided to change the subject. “How about you? What do you do?”

“What do I
do
? Well, that’s a very good question. When I met Josh, I was a waitress in this bar in Brooklyn.”

“Is that where you’re from?”

“Brooklyn? Yeah, well, no, no, New Jersey. My family’s from Jersey, which is near New York but not, if you know what I mean. Anyway, that’s how we met, in a bar. A humble waitress brings Josh Harper his club sandwich, and the rest is showbiz history. All of this”—she swept her arm across the view—“is like the world’s greatest tip.” She took a long swig from the bottle of champagne she held by her side, holding it by the neck, as if it were a beer bottle, then passed it to Stephen, adding, almost as an afterthought, “Oh, and I once had a hit single too. Way back in the mists of time.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh. Well, I say ‘hit.’ Number a hundred and two in the Billboard chart in 1996.”

“That’s fantastic.”

“Well, not
fantastic,
” she insisted, though Stephen was being entirely sincere. Nora was the kind of woman who particularly suited a low-slung bass. “What did you sound like?”

“Oh, you know, the usual—jangly, sub–Joni Mitchell college-radio stuff. Music to Comfort-Eat By. We were called Nora Schulz and the New Barbarians, if you can believe that. I was being cloned by the record company as the new Alanis Morissette. I was like Alanis Morissette’s stunt double. If she ever fell backward off her stool, the record company was going to parachute me in to take her place. God knows why—I don’t even particularly
like
Alanis Morissette. Ironic, don’t you think?”

“Nora Schulz and the New Barbarians. Great name.”

“Trips off the tongue, doesn’t it? I can’t think why we weren’t bigger. Of course, the record company wanted me to change it to something more WASPy, ideally Malanis Florissette, something like that. They thought we’d sell more that way, but I stuck to my artistic principles, and I stayed Nora Schulz, and, well, the rest is rock-and-roll history. Number a hundred and two with a bullet.”

“And what was the song called?”

“You mean you don’t remember?”

“Remind me.”

“Trust me, you won’t have heard of it.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“I’m not proud of this…”

“Go on.”

“It was called,” and she winced, “oh God—it was called…‘Love Junkie.’ ”

Stephen winced too. “Great title.”

“Isn’t it? And the kids
love
those drug metaphors. And any song that rhymes junkie with monkey, funky and flunky has got to be a hit, right?”

“You know, I think I
have
heard of you.”

“Liar.”

“So why did you give it up?”

“I didn’t. It gave me up. Besides, the few connections I have are in the States, and Josh needs to be here for his work. He’s at that
crucial
stage in his career, or so he keeps telling me. So we’ve decided to put it on hold. Temporarily, of course. In the meantime, I’ve been writing a little.”

“What sort of things?”

“The usual, stories, a screenplay or two.”

“Sounds interesting.”

“Not really. I mean everyone
writes,
don’t they? If you went down to that party, went up to someone and asked them how the
writing
was going, not one of them would say, ‘What writing?’ ”

“Have you shown anyone anything?”

“No…”

“Well, you should.”

She drew hard on her cigarette, and gave him a stern look. “
Why
should I?”

“Well, because I think it’s important to persevere with these things.”

“ ‘Hold on to your dreams’?”

“No, but to have ambitions. To find the thing that you love doing, and do it to the best of your abilities.” He glanced across at her, to see if he’d got away with this. There were, at least, no outward signs of gagging. “And also because I imagine you would be really good.”

She curled a lip dismissively. “That’s just something
nice
to say. How could you
possibly
know that?”

Stephen felt slighted. He was perfectly capable of making blandly soothing remarks to people, but this hadn’t been one of them. “From the way you talk. You just seem as if you would be. A good writer, I mean. That’s all.”

She dipped her head a little, a sort of apology, and took the bottle of champagne from his hand. “Thank you, Stephen.” Then she took a long swig, wiped a drop of champagne from the tip of her chin with the back of her hand, then quickly sucked the drop from her finger, the whole gesture striking him as wonderfully deft and cool.

Shortly after the breakup of his marriage, when he’d pulled himself together enough to leave the flat, Stephen had started to notice that he had developed an unnerving ability to make women need the toilet. He’d be at a party, and at a certain point, usually when he mentioned the recent divorce, they’d touch his arm lightly and say, “Will you excuse me? I must go for a pee,” and he would realize, once again, that he was, in fact, the Human Diuretic, a superhero with extremely specialized powers. Usually, he didn’t mind too much; the divorce had leached him of any romantic instincts, and he’d managed to avoid casual, loveless sexual encounters with disconcerting ease. But, even so, he was surprised, and a little unnerved, to realize how much he wanted Nora to stay here with him. He felt the pressure of her elbow against his on the railing.
Put your hand in the warm curve at the small of her back, lean over and…