Elegance and Innocence (59 page)

We sit, side by side, on a couple of old chimney pots, not bothering to make conversation. Downstairs, kegs of lager are being delivered, loaded into the basement of the
pub below. Old Eileen, her hair in rollers, is waving her cigarette and swearing as two bewildered drivers roll them down into the cellar. She’s always at her worst in the mornings – I feel almost sorry for them.

‘Another day in paradise.’ Hayley smiles. There are dark rings underneath her eyes. She spots the book I’m holding. ‘Is that the play? How’s it coming on?’ She drains the last bit of tea from her cup.

‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘I gave that up. Chris said it lacked a strong central message; it needed a theme, something other than love. It was a stupid idea anyway.’

‘I liked it.’ She stands up, rubbing her eyes. ‘It was fresh, romantic. The rock musician and the actress … they’re great characters.’

‘Only I didn’t know what to do with them. I couldn’t make it work out happily.’

‘So make it work out sad. What’s the difference? It’s all drama.’ She stretches her arms above her head. ‘Is Jake downstairs?’

‘Why?’ My voice is sharper than I intended.

‘Chill out, Evie!’

‘Why, Hayley?’ I can’t help myself.

‘God, I’m only asking!’ She stomps across the roof towards the fire escape. She’ll be in a mood all day now. ‘And by the way, it’s your turn to buy supper!’

She climbs down the metal ladder. I rest my head in my hands.

It’s still early but already the heat is sticky and unbearable. There are dark rain clouds massing in the corner of the sky. ‘Fair is foul and foul is fair’… lines from
Macbeth
march like soldiers through my brain. ‘By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.’

I open the book.

It’s small, beautifully made from soft black leather, properly bound, with thick, good-quality paper. I found it in a sale bin at Liberty’s. It looks like a journal, but it’s not.

It’s a collection of letters – to Jake.

But he doesn’t know they exist yet.

There’s so much I’d like to say, that never gets said. I don’t know why it’s so hard but the words get stuck. So I write instead. Some day I’ll leave it out for him. Or maybe one day he might open it by chance. And there it will be: a written testament of my love. All those times we spent fighting and struggling will vanish. I was thinking of him, believing in him all along.

Turning the pages, I find the last entry. It’s almost full now. I date a new one.

‘My darling J,’

I pause. What is it? What would I like him to know? I stare up at the sun, hot and heavy in the sky.

‘I wish I had the power to change our lives. I wish that I could take away our difficulties and transport us to a safe, clean place, some time in the not so distant future …’

I stare at the words on the page.

Then I tear the page out, crumpling it into a hard little ball between my fingers.

He’ll take it the wrong way; he’ll think I’m criticizing him; telling him what to do. A faint feeling of nausea washes over me. The day is too sticky, too hot.

I force myself to concentrate again.

What will make him smile? Amuse him?

‘Jake the Famous Conquers Rome’ I scrawl across the top of the fresh page.

Rome is no stranger to heroes

To passion, to art, to the annihilation of the senses

And neither is my Jake

Who is every bit a Caesar

As noble and courageous as David

Dauntless, dangerous, defiant

And beautiful

His slingshot draped loosely over his shoulder

Staring down Goliath, certain, sure

Naked and intense

(In or out of the bath)

Rome is no stranger to heroes

A thousand years pass in the blink of an indifferent eye

History loiters on every corner

Gods and goddesses eavesdrop on the conversations of passers-by

Longing to point tourists the right way round

Cemented in marble

Waiting for the next siege, the next triumph, the next big thing

And here he is

Strong and slim, like

Augustus, Daniel, the king of kings

And Rome is waiting. Smiling in the evening sun

Veni, vidi, vici!

The time is come
.

It’s what she was built for, made for, and yet still dreaming of

For Rome is no stranger to heroes

‘You are my hero,’ I write at the bottom.

Some day we’ll go there, to Rome. And he’ll remember. He’ll grab me about the waist, kiss my cheek … ‘Rome is no stranger to heroes,’ he’ll whisper in my ear. We’ll laugh, gazing out across the city …

I close the book.

As I make my way back down the fire escape, I look up at the sky.

Sooner or later, it’s going to rain.

Reaching across the table, Allyson grabs both my hands. ‘I’m moving to Rome, Evie!’

She’s sitting across from me in Brown’s café in Covent Garden. It’s started to shower properly now, in grey sheets, the windows fogging up. A thick, warm humidity hangs over the crowded dining room, where plates of cheap hot pasta are served to weary tourists, crammed together at narrow tables. Our waiter plops a couple of glasses and a bottle of still mineral water down before swinging round to take another order.

‘I’m sorry … Rome?’

Her whole face is radiant.

‘I’ve got a job at Teatro Dell’Opera Di Roma! In
La Somnambula
! Ian … you remember Ian, don’t you? The baritone from Queensland?’

I nod my head numbly.

‘Well, he’s doing really well in Europe and now he’s broken up with his boyfriend and he’s got a fabulous flat right in the centre of Rome. It could be a base for me, Evie … The English don’t really get my voice and there are so few chances here to build a proper career. I’m tired of covering for divas who can’t act and can’t sing while I wait around in the dressing room night after night! And anyway, I’m not getting any younger …’

Her voice washes over me. She talks on and on, telling me about her plans, about Italy and Italian men, of how many more opera houses there are in Europe and how well
they pay … our lunch arrives, two steaming plates of spaghetti which sit in front of us, untouched.

‘You’re leaving,’ I say, after a while.

There’s excitement in her eyes; a passion igniting her features. I’m struck by how beautiful she is. ‘I’ve got to move on. I really want this, Evie! I’ve always wanted it; from as far back as I can remember.’

I nod again.

I understand. Of course, I do; I remember what it’s like to risk everything – to pick up and leave in pursuit of a dream. It just seems so long ago now; like something that belongs to another age and another woman, far removed from me.

I try to swallow. My throat’s dry. Taking a sip of water, I hold up my glass. ‘Well done you! Congratulations, darling!’

And she laughs, clinking her glass against mine. ‘You’ll come and visit me, right?’

‘Just try to keep me away!’

‘And Alex too?’ she presses.

‘Of course!’ I reach across the table, folding her fingertips into my palm. ‘You’re doing the right thing. I’m sure of it.’

For the first time since we sat down, her smile fades; a trace of fear flickers in her eyes. She holds my hand tightly. ‘You have to try, don’t you? I mean, you never really know, do you, until you try.’

I hadn’t realized until this afternoon just how much I like her; how much I’ll miss her. A vision of her room, bare and quiet, materializes; the empty space on the kitchen counter where all her endless vitamins and herbal tinctures used to be …

I pick up my fork, pushing the noodles around on my plate. ‘Jump first and look later. That’s the way it’s done!’

‘I’m a little scared,’ she confesses.

‘Don’t be. You’re a star, Ally. It’s always been clear, from the first moment I met you. You have something special.’

‘Isn’t that funny!’ She twirls her spaghetti expertly round her fork. ‘That’s what I thought when I first met you!’

‘Really?’ A rush of blood warms my cheeks. ‘So, shall we have a party for you before you leave?’

‘Absolutely! But you’d better show up this time, OK?’ She gives me a warning look. ‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

‘Our very own Evie Garlick!’ She laughs. ‘Hey, that wasn’t your stage name, was it?’

‘No.’ I sigh. Some things never change.

She waves to the waiter. ‘I’m getting a mint tea. Do you want anything?’

I shake my head.

‘So what was it?’ She waves again, unable to get his attention.

‘Albery. Eve Albery’ It’s been so long since I’ve said it aloud; just the sound of it makes my skin go cold. I look
away, just beyond the top of her head, in case something in my face gives me away.

But it doesn’t.

She’s more intent on attracting the waiter than unearthing my past.

‘Wow. That’s really pretty. Where’s it from?’

‘Just an old family name.’

‘Eve Albery,’ she repeats, savouring the open vowels in the way that only a singer can. ‘But you changed back.’

‘It takes so long to establish yourself,’ I explain, ‘that I didn’t dare change it when I was working. But now I don’t need it any more. That’s all over.’

She leans forward. ‘Come on, don’t you miss it sometimes? Just a little?’

I think a moment.

It’s been a long time since I really thought about it; about what it used to be like, day in and day out – the waiting, the auditioning.

‘No,’ I say finally, ‘I don’t think I miss it at all.’

I check my watch.

I’m going to be late.

There are twelve of us auditioning today, crammed into a narrow Soho office waiting room. We all look the same – variations on a theme of long dark hair and brown eyes. It’s extremely disconcerting, when you’re used to
imagining yourself as unique, to discover you’re just a type.

There’re two girls here I see at every audition I go to. One’s a rounder, more buxom version of myself, whom I think of as ‘Bubbly’. Each time I see her, I resolve to eat less. Bubbly obviously thinks she’s fat and has to make up for it by being super positive and super nice to everyone. She spends a lot of time befriending the receptionists, as if they’re undercover casting operatives, secretly able to sway the director’s decision. The other girl’s older, probably pushing thirty, and disturbingly thin. I call her ‘Inch’. When we fill out our details and measurements, she always asks, in her sharp, cut-glass accent, ‘Do you want this in centimetres or inches?’ The answer’s always the same, but she asks nevertheless, like an oracle tossing out riddles to fools. She carries a large bottle of Evian and spends a lot of time in the loo. She’s recently taken up knitting. Before that, she used to do books full of crossword puzzles in ink, timing herself on her watch.

Bubbly, Inch and I pretend not to notice each other, which takes real skill in a room as narrow as this one. Instead, we’re all focused on the most recent arrival, a slim vision of a girl, dressed in a school uniform, carrying a satchel. Is this fair? Can we really be expected to compete with the creamy complexion of a fifteen-year-old?

The room’s decorated with a single square black-leather
sofa, a glass coffee table and a huge Andy Warhol painting of Chairman Mao. Capitol Radio blares in the background. There’s a young woman behind the receptionist’s desk. The advertising world is too cool for normal office dress codes; she’s dressed in jeans and a tank top, her hair in two skilfully uneven blonde braids. She wouldn’t look out of place perched on a bale of hay at the Grand Ole Opery.

I dislodge myself from the sofa where I’m wedged with three other girls and make my way up to the desk. ‘Excuse me,’ I don’t want to speak too loudly, just in case the others can hear me, ‘but do you think I could go next? I’m meant to be picking someone up from the airport in an hour.’

She sighs. ‘And you are?’

‘Eve Albery.’

She refers to a clipboard stashed just underneath her copy of
The Bottom Issue of Marie Claire
. ‘Sure.’

‘Thanks.’ I walk back and force myself between the other girls. They glare at me for trying to sit down again. I pick up a copy of a trendy magazine called
The Face
.

My skirt’s riding up. I tug it but it refuses to budge. It’s Hayley’s; a black polyester mix from Warehouse, paired with a blouse I bought from Oxfam. I look like a secretary. But then my agent, Dougie, wasn’t very clear in his brief.

This isn’t surprising. Dougie Winters is known in the
business to be mad; not cute or crazy but genuinely insane. Originally from some minor aristocratic family, he’s tall and thin with shocking blue mad eyes – the kind that roll about of their own accord, completely unrelated to the act of seeing. He owns a rambling basement flat in Hyde Park Gate, crammed with antiques and a considerable collection of poor-quality homosexual pornographic art, quite a bit painted on vast swathes of black velvet. I’ve never seen him wear anything but shorts, no matter what the weather. And he’s fond of carrying a walking stick. He struts around the flat in his bermudas like a majorette, whacking the stick around on anything from an elephant foot table to a Queen Anne writing desk. Now in his early sixties, he’s been working in ‘the trade’, as he calls it, for almost thirty years. He has an enormous client list, largely due to the fact that he almost never turns anyone down – he’s refreshingly untroubled by a client’s CV, lack of experience, or even talent, but works instead on the premise that the whole industry is a numbers game. It’s the one thing about him that’s proved remarkably sane. He simply sends all of his clients up for everything. And, sooner or later, some of us are bound to luck out. But he’s impossible to speak to, not only because he rarely remembers anyone’s name but also he’s a shouter. Conversations go something like this: