Elegance and Innocence (58 page)

There’s something nibbling at the back of my mind; a single persistent thought that won’t go away. I look at her sideways. ‘You really hated me for a while, didn’t you?’

She shakes her head. ‘No, Evie.’

‘You didn’t come to the wedding. I didn’t hear from you
for a long time. Almost five years. I was so excited when I got your letter.’

She grins. ‘Pretty smart of me to trace you through British Equity, huh?’ She stops, digging out the packet of cigarettes. ‘It was a rough patch, Evie. I wasn’t so well then. Don’t take it personally.’

I watch as she lights up, hunching over to keep the flame alight.

‘You never told me exactly what was wrong,’ I remind her.

She carries on walking, pretending to be distracted by the passing window displays. ‘My mother took me in hand. I was treated for everything: drug addiction, alcoholism, sex addiction, unipolar psychotic depression with hallucinatory suicidal tendencies … you didn’t know I was so fascinating, did you?’

I suppose I did know. But I hadn’t realized just how serious it was. ‘I’m sorry. I just … I just regret that you never told me.’

‘It’s not the kind of thing you chat about over the phone.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I say again.

‘Forget about it. Besides,’ she smiles at me, ‘You were busy. Being in love.’

I smile back, although something in her tone cuts through me. ‘Yeah.’

‘So.’ She stops, leaning back against the outer wall of an apartment block. ‘Was it nice? The wedding?’

I roll my eyes, relaxing a little. ‘It was … interesting. My parents flew in on the day with a dress that my mother bought – at least two sizes too big. Jake’s mother turned up pissed. His grandmother couldn’t even look me in the eye. I’d never met his family before. There we all were in the Camden register office …’

Suddenly I’m there again, in the square, empty room; rows of navy-blue office chairs arranged on either side and my mother twisting her hankie, Jake’s brothers trying to make him laugh, and Jake, tall and sure, holding my hands, looking into my eyes … ‘With this ring, I thee wed …’

‘You went to Brighton for your honeymoon, didn’t you?’ Her voice rouses me.

‘Yes. It seemed like the beginning of a whole new life. I know it sounds strange,’ I smile at her, ‘but it was so exciting. Even being poor was an adventure to start with. So many people were interested in the band … they had quite a following. And we were so passionate about each other. Any minute it seemed as if our luck might change.’

She takes a final drag, throwing her cigarette to the ground; silent. And the old feeling returns, the unnamed rift between us. I never could discuss anything about Jake with her. I feel stupid for trying; like I’m trying to convince her of something.

‘You never liked him.’

Her face is impassive; she doesn’t bother to deny it. Why
did I ever imagine it would be any different – even after all these years?

‘Not that you’d be able to understand,’ I add bitterly. ‘Sex was just a game for you. You’ve never loved anyone that way, have you?’

But she flashes me such a fierce look that suddenly I’m frightened.

‘I have loved,’ she corrects me sharply. ‘I’ve loved more deeply than you can ever possibly comprehend! It’s just I don’t go on and on about it like it’s a fucking fairy tale!’

And to my surprise, she strides off, rounding the corner before I can even open my mouth.

I look down the long avenue of shops, searching for some sort of internal bearings among the landscape of Long Acre.

There are none.

A fairy tale.

Maybe I did expect it to be that way.

And suddenly I’m reminded of the last time I saw her alive: that summer, June 1991.

The fairy tale had definitely faded by then.

For all of us.

PART TWO

21 June 1991

Chapter 2

‘No, no!’ he tosses; throwing himself from side to side.

The room is black; I can’t see.

‘Evie!’

‘Shhh.’ I roll over, only half awake. ‘I’m here. I’m just here. Lie back down,’ I whisper, pulling him to me. ‘Come and lie in my arms. It’s just another dream.’

He rests his head against my chest, hair spilling out across my breasts. ‘It won’t ever happen,’ he murmurs, ‘and you’ll leave!’

‘Shhh. You’ll wake the others.’ I stroke his head, pulling my fingers gently through his hair. ‘It will happen. As sure as I’m holding you now, it will happen. You’ll be huge, famous, rich beyond all imagination, and girls will swoon when you look in their general direction.’

‘You’re making fun.’

‘No, I promise you. It will happen.’ His heart’s pounding; his forehead damp with perspiration.

‘Tell me where we are … right now.’

‘Now?’ I press my eyes together, gathering my thoughts and forcing myself into wakefulness. ‘Right now we’re in … Rome.’

‘Rome? What does it look like?’

I pause. ‘The streets are narrow and twisted,’ I whisper, ‘the night air scented with lemons, and the rare, expensive perfume of beautiful women who sit by the windows of their ancient villas, staring out into the darkness, waiting for their lovers or the rain or both …’ He’s starting to relax, his limbs growing heavy. ‘Ancient cypress trees and faceless statues wait on every corner, silent and still, and we’re standing, you and I, in the moonlight, on top of a mountain. The wind blows, warm and gentle against our skin …’

‘Some day we’ll go.’ He nuzzles deeper into my chest.

I hold him tight. ‘Yes, some day.’

The others are already awake. I can hear them arguing in the bathroom.

They always argue about the same things; not enough takings, not enough publicity for the new show, having to live with us … She’s in the shower and he’s shaving. She always showers first because the hot water runs out and she likes to wash her hair. I’m far too familiar with every bit of their morning routine, as I’m sure they are with mine.

Jake’s still asleep, stretched out so his feet dangle off the edge of the futon.

That’s the other thing they argue about: Jake. Should he be here, shouldn’t he; how he doesn’t pull his weight. He’s not an actor, so how can he contribute to the company?
On and on and on … Their voices echo, bouncing off the tiles but they don’t bother to keep them down any more.

We share a room between four of us at the back of the theatre – what used to be an old prop annexe. It’s large but not large enough. There’s a curtain hung on a drying line down the middle to divide it in half. But after almost a year of living, working and sleeping in the same space, there’s really only so much a piece of cloth can do. All our possessions are stacked on top of one another; Jake has only two guitars now, he sold a couple to pay for studio time. But there are still boxes of sound equipment, books, black bin liners full of old clothes …

There’s no point in getting up right now; the bathroom’s clearly occupied. So I turn on my side, curling into the curve of Jake’s stomach. Without even waking, he automatically throws his arms over me and pulls me closer. I love the smell of him in the morning.

It had seemed like such a wonderful, daring scheme. I met a girl named Hayley at an audition for a play last spring. I liked her immediately; she spoke about the passion of theatre, the importance of storytelling. She had soft brown eyes and short, cropped hair; she seemed vibrant and sensitive. Hayley and her boyfriend, Chris, a self-styled actor, director and playwright, were about to buy an old abandoned theatre, above a pub called the Angel in Islington. Chris went to Oxford. He plans to run the National Theatre some day soon. But in the meantime he’d inherited some
money from his grandfather. They were going to form an intimate, raw acting company; living and working together to create a new dramatic experience – just like Peter Brook in ‘The Empty Space’. And the best part was there’d be no rent to pay; we’d remodel the theatre ourselves and live in the back rooms, performing new works in the evening, while devising and rehearsing during the day. They were looking for like-minded souls to join their band of artistic rebels.

The first play we performed was one that Chris wrote,
The Cell
, all about detainee refugees in a waiting room. I played a Polish girl who gets strangled by an IRA suspect (Chris) for protecting a mentally ill girl (Hayley). After that we did another one of Chris’s plays,
The Bridge
, about homeless people living underneath a bridge. We all hung out near Waterloo Station for a week and I ended up playing a mentally ill girl who’s raped by an old drunk (Chris), while his heroin-addict daughter (Hayley), looks on.

The critics have been slow to appreciate our work. Chris claims they’ve been brainwashed by television. He wants to do a piece, improvised fresh each night. There’s a new one about mentally ill people being abused by their carers called
The Home
. But we’ve run out of money. So we’re working on audience participation plays instead called ‘Cream Pie Classics’. Now we do very abridged versions of Shakespearean plays, dressed in plastic aprons. It’s
Macbeth
this week. And for one pound a go, audience members can
chuck a cream pie at you at any time they want. That was Jake’s idea. We’ve had to get in more actors but it’s a huge hit with the late-night drinking crowd. It’s the only thing we’ve done that’s made any money. But Chris feels we’re selling out; compromising our artistic integrity as a company. (Company direction is another thing we argue about. That and who’s going to buy the groceries.)

‘We should be making a statement!’ Chris snorts, pushing his glasses back on his nose. He’s got ginger hair and the kind of pale, copiously freckled complexion that flushes whenever he’s angry. (He’s always angry.) ‘Theatre should change the world! Keep you awake at night! Get right under your skin!’

‘Or pay the bills,’ Jake cuts in.

They don’t get on at all.

I detach myself from Jake and slither out of bed. There isn’t a kitchen as such; we use the sink in the bathroom and there’s a hotplate and a kettle on the floor in the corner. I give the kettle a shake to see if there’s any water left, then switch it on. There’s no heating. The cement floor is cold under my bare feet. I scurry back to bed while it boils.

Jake’s awake now. He smiles at me drowsily. Then he takes my hand, pushing it down between his legs.

‘Baby!’ I murmur softly. ‘I have to get ready. Robbie’s coming and I have an audition today …’

He puts his finger to his lips. ‘Shhh!’

And rolling me onto my back, he pulls up my T-shirt.
‘Go on,’ he whispers, ‘show Daddy what a good girl you are …’

The kettle boils.

Chris and Hayley are arguing on the other side of the curtain.

And Jake’s moving slowly, silently inside me.

‘Where’s she going to sleep?’ Jake lights a joint, watching as I shove our dirty clothes into a black plastic bin liner, ready to take to the launderette.

‘Ajax says he’s got a sleeping bag. Robbie can sleep on the stage. It just means she doesn’t have to spend a night in a hotel and I get to see her …’ I step over him as he lounges, naked, in the middle of the futon. He smokes too much.

He takes another drag. ‘I don’t like her.’

I retrieve a pair of Jake’s socks and what looks like a dingy rag but is in fact a pair of knickers, from behind a stack of paint pots. ‘Why?’

‘She doesn’t like me.’ He rolls onto his back. ‘That’s enough reason, isn’t it?’

‘It’s not true. She was just keen for me to go to New York. Besides, it’s only one night.’ I tie the bin bag in a knot at the top. ‘I’ll have to take this down later; I haven’t got time now.’

He props himself up on his elbow. ‘I need my jeans.’

I look at him. ‘Then you’ll have to wear them dirty. They’re in there somewhere.’ I peer at myself in the old
mirror leaning against a pile of mouldering books. I should pluck my eyebrows.

Shoving the joint into the corner of his mouth, he gets up, tears the bag open and dumps the whole lot onto the centre of the floor.

I swing round. ‘Jake!’

‘I need my fucking jeans, Evie! We never have any clean clothes!’ He shakes the remainder out.

I get up and start shoving the laundry back into the bag. ‘So take it down and do it yourself! What are you doing today anyway?’

‘I’ve got stuff on.’ He finds the jeans, holds them away from his body, disgusted. ‘They’re wet now! What the fuck!’

I throw the bag down. ‘What stuff? Jake, what stuff have you got on?’

He turns away from me, pulling on the jeans anyway. ‘Jasmine’s having a party tonight,’ he announces, ignoring me. ‘The Sluts have been signed by Virgin, and CJ and I are going.’

‘Oh. Are you?’ My temper’s soaring. ‘And when were you going to tell me? Robbie’s only here for one night. I thought you’d hang out with us, not with some … some old flame!’

Jasmine’s band, The Sluts, have been trailing around in Raven’s wake for years now, sponging up the limelight with their derivative Madonna-meets-Patti-Smith-in-a-see-through-bra kind of crap. And now they’ve been signed. Of all the bands in London … A thick, hot vein of hatred
bubbles up inside me. I hate the fact that I’m jealous of her. I’d give my right arm not to care. But she’s never stopped trying; she arrives before every gig Raven play, wearing something minuscule and obscene, passing around joints and lines of coke …

He yanks a T-shirt over his head, laughing. ‘Are you jealous?’

I stare back at him.

‘It’s business, Evie,’ he reminds me. ‘You could come, you know.’

‘I need some money.’ I turn back to the mirror.

He digs around in his pocket and throws a couple of quid down on the futon.

I look up. ‘I need more than that – I have to get a travel card and some lunch …’

‘I haven’t got any more.’

‘But what about …’

‘I told you,’ he cuts me off, ‘I’ll have more later.’

He stalks off.

I climb up to the roof, the only place in the building that’s private. But I’m not alone. Hayley’s drinking a cup of black tea (we never have any milk), staring out at the city below, as it slowly awakens on another hazy summer’s morning.