Homecoming (14 page)

A knock on her trailer told her it was time. Megan breathed deeply.

She was scared. Her previous acting work had been with people her own age, and her own experience. It had been a giant lark. This was different.

Perhaps some actors got paid vast sums of money because it was one of the few jobs where you had to be willing to relinquish self totally and do whatever the director demanded. It was like being taken over by aliens: becoming something or someone entirely different. After ten years in the business, since the age of sixteen, she understood totally why so many performers ended up in rehab. Opening up your soul to vitalise a performance was agonising work. When the show was over, and the gaping hole was still open, it was all too tempting to numb it with alcohol, drugs or sex.

‘Hi,’ said the national treasure when they met on set.

‘Hi,’ said Megan nervously. Use the nerves, her acting coach would have said. Today, the nerves refused to be used and danced merrily inside her, making her feel nauseous. It was hard to look luminous and beautiful when you thought you might throw up at any moment. She’d gone over this scene with the director, talking about what he wanted. She’d have loved to have been able to do the same with Rob, but icons did not show up for read-throughs and didn’t give out their phone numbers for long talks. Not like the cast on her last film. They’d all become pals. Rob Hartnell was not.

Unlike an astonishing number of big stars who were a disappointment in the flesh, he was tall, rangy, still clearly very fit and still unreasonably gorgeous for a man thirty years her senior. In heavy velvets and brocades, he was regal and golden, his famous hair still rich brown despite sprinklings of grey, his blue eyes undimmed, and his face – untouched by surgeon’s scalpel – though craggy with age, was still redolent of his youthful beauty. He didn’t speak as they waited through the interminable last-minute lighting and camera adjustments. A method man? she wondered. But no, if he was method, he’d have been storming around, eyes blazing because his character was a fierce monarch who specialised in wars. He was not the sort of king who would die peacefully in his bed but one who would perish on the battlefield, fighting to the last.

As yet another angle was worked out and the long wait continued, Megan sat on her chair and wished she’d learned to knit like so many actresses did. Perhaps she should have tried embroidery; that would have helped her stay in character, perhaps. Did Roman princesses do needlework? She focused her mind. She was a feisty woman meeting the first man she couldn’t control…It didn’t work. She still felt like a very young actress about to play the most important role of her career with an experienced actor, someone who’d been in the theatre, someone who probably hated working with naïve youngsters.

‘We’re ready,’ said a voice.

Sven the director nodded at her.

Megan stood on her mark, trying to think herself into being a feisty foreign princess alone for the first time with the man who’d had her kidnapped in the hope that by marrying her off to his middle son he could forge an alliance between the two kingdoms.

She knew her character, had familiarised herself with the look and feel of her, and yet here, on the set, the character had fled. Rob still didn’t even look at her. This was going to be hell, she thought.

And then, in a flash, Rob was gone and in his place was King Varl, all-powerful, controlling, looking at her with hungry interest. Megan had no idea how he’d done it, but he was someone else, he
was
the king. Something in her responded but it wasn’t an actor’s response. She felt her legs tremble under the scratchy heavy gown. She stammered out her lines, feeling herself actually blushing as he stared at her. Some purely intellectual part of her brain knew this was all good, powerful stuff. The camera would love it, Sven would wet himself with delight. And the instinctive part of her didn’t really care how good her performance was, all she cared about was having this man’s eyes on her, caressing her, telling her with his eyes what he was going to do with his hands later.

He had to reach out and touch her cheek, half paternal, half something else entirely. Megan leaned into his wrist, closed her eyes, although that wasn’t how she’d planned to do it. His palm was cool and she wanted nothing more than to have it slip down and nestle against her breast.

Afterwards, they walked off set together in the direction of their trailers. People handed them anoraks and Megan reached into her pocket for her cigarettes. She lit up as she walked, utterly conscious of Rob nearby, walking with his people who were all chattering to him about phone calls and how brilliant he’d been in the scene.

‘Can I have one?’ he said, and Megan turned around, wondering if he was talking to her.

Someone in his entourage offered a pack of cigarettes, but Rob ignored it, looking pointedly at Megan.

‘Sure,’ she said, passing over her packet.

They stopped outside his trailer and she watched him pull the cigarette out, then she tried to hold her hand steady as she flicked on her little silver lighter. It shook and the flame went out.

Rob covered her hand with his and flicked the lighter into life. Megan inhaled swiftly at his touch.

Just as quickly, he removed his hand and took a long draw on the cigarette.

‘The scene went well,’ he said, in a very normal voice. ‘We should talk about it, how we go forward. Sven would love us to get this right.’

He waved his entourage away with a hand. ‘I’ll smoke this outside,’ he said. ‘Don’t want to stink up the trailer. Else you’ll all want to smoke inside.’

They laughed politely.

‘Mike, can you come back in fifteen and we can go through the messages?’ This to his assistant, a short guy in glasses.

Everyone wandered off.

Megan could barely smoke, she was shaking so much.

‘What just happened back there?’ she said suddenly. Had she imagined it?

Rob looked down at his cigarette, nearly half-smoked, then threw it on the ground impatiently. ‘I haven’t smoked for fifteen years,’ he said. ‘Fifteen years. Katharine would kill me if she saw it.’

Megan nodded calmly but inside, she was falling apart. She’d made a mistake. A huge one. He’d been acting, not feeling. It hadn’t been real. When he mentioned his wife, that was the hint. What an idiot she’d been to mistake acting for reality.

‘You want to come in?’ He held open the door of his trailer.

‘Sure.’ She stepped inside, feeling embarrassed, waiting for him to let her down gently and explain that this often happened. Perhaps tell her exactly how often it had happened, offer a litany of other young actresses who’d fallen for him and had mistaken acting for real life. How to apologise for that?

‘I just want to say, Rob–’ she said, as he shut the door.

She got no further.

He pulled her close, as close as they’d been earlier that day. Megan felt the exact same shiver.

‘What do you think happened? Why do you think I’m smoking? So I have something to do with my hands to stop myself grabbing you.’

‘Oh.’ Megan stared up at him.

‘We can’t do this now, not now and not here. I have never cheated on my wife,’ he said, seeming almost bewildered.

And then he kissed her again, like on set earlier, only this time there was nobody to yell ‘Cut!’ when his hand grazed her nipple. Megan leaned into his body, her hands clinging to him, her mouth open under his, eager, frantic.

She knew there would be a bed in his trailer; there was in hers, though hers was much smaller. She wanted him to throw her on it and to rip off her clothes. She wanted his body on hers, in hers. She wanted him now.

‘Fuck,’ he said, leaning back. ‘Not here. Please.’

She nodded shakily. Not here. Right.

‘Where?’

‘Prague, the last night, we can do it.’

Sven was passing when she came out of the trailer five minutes later, her head still reeling, her mouth raw from Rob’s kisses.

The actress in Megan rescued her. ‘I feel so guilty,’ she told Sven. ‘Rob says Katharine is going to kill him because he’s smoking again. I know it’s my fault – I’ve always got cigarettes.’ She waved her pack as proof.

Sven laughed. ‘If Katharine comes after you for that, she’ll kill you! It took her years to wean him off them. But it’s hard not to when you’re on location. The rules change, right?’ His look was penetrating.

Megan nodded gravely, as if to say it was all about the film. But it wasn’t. Her life had just changed for ever.

Connie said she was going to order another coffee.

‘Are you sure you don’t want something to eat?’ she asked, looking at her own empty plates.

‘No,’ said Megan. She was slim by nature, but nature had been helped by the actress’s code of not eating. It was the only way. She was so used to it that eating something in Titania’s would be a traumatic event. Coffee and fags for breakfast, fruit and rice cakes for lunch, fish and vegetables for dinner. Wine, champagne and vodka didn’t count.

‘You’re too thin, if you don’t mind me saying so,’ Connie said in her teacher’s tones.

Megan laughed at the notion. ‘In my job, you can’t be too thin.’

Connie looked horrified. ‘What do you do?’

‘I’m an actress.’

‘I thought you were going to say you were a model,’ Connie replied. ‘Those poor girls, it’s not natural to make them that skinny. Are you…’ she paused, trying to say the right, nonhurtful thing ‘…working right now?’

Megan was touched. In many of the circles she moved in, other people were pleased to learn an actor was out of work.
More chance for me
, they thought. Which was a first cousin of:
I knew it was fluke when she got those roles, I could have done it better and now the casting directors agree!

‘No,’ she replied. ‘I was, but it’s over now and I’ve nothing lined up.’ Understatement of the year.

‘Never mind, something will come up, you wait and see.’ Connie reached out and patted Megan’s hand. ‘Golden Square is a great place for a break. You must come to dinner with my sister and me. You’d love Nicky, she’s nearer your age and works in publishing. You’d meet Freddie too, he’s her boyfriend and they’re joined at the hip. He’s a sweetheart.’

‘Are you seeing anyone right now?’ Megan asked carefully.

Connie laughed. ‘Oh sure, who’d have me?’

Megan frowned and opened her mouth to say something, but seeing Connie’s closed expression, decided not to.

After the coffee, Connie stopped off at The Nook to stock up the fridge and buy some magazines to read in bed, then went home. Megan was sweet, she thought. Nicky would like her too. They’d have her to dinner some night. It had to be hard, being a young actress these days. Broke, always trying to get a commercial here or a small acting part there.

When Nicky got home from work, Connie had recovered enough to be sitting on the couch in her pyjamas, with a china pot of tea in front of her, the magazines read and the evening news on.

Once they’d chatted about Nicky’s day, Connie told her about meeting Megan in Titania’s.

‘She had a fling with a married man, God love her,’ said Connie. ‘She reminds me of someone, you know –’

‘She reminds you of that girl in the papers who had a thing with Rob Hartnell,’ said Nicky, ‘because that’s who she is.’

‘Oh.’ Realisation flooded through Connie. There had been a paragraph about Rob in one of the magazines. No one knew where he was.

‘Kevin, who works with Nora, told me,’ said Nicky. ‘He says nobody’s supposed to know or else the place will be overrun with gossip columnists. Is she nice?’

‘Megan?’ Connie didn’t have to think about it. ‘She’s lovely. Sort of shy, if that’s not a strange thing to say about an actress. But she is.’

Snippets of newspaper articles about Megan filtered through Connie’s head. There was no way the wary, dark-haired girl she’d met in Titania’s was the supposed brazen creature who’d snared a married man. No way at all.

Connie remembered who it was Megan had actually reminded her of: a girl she’d taught years ago. The girl had been pretty and outwardly confident, but secretly very vulnerable. Connie had felt protective of the girl and she felt the same now about Megan.

It looked as if Megan had it all – certainly all the things people valued: beauty, talent and fame. What she’d managed to hide was that she was deeply hurt underneath that glamorous exterior. Everyone hid things, Connie knew. She certainly did. She hid her sadness so well that nobody would suspect it. Which meant that she and Megan had a lot more in common than Nicky would ever know.

7
Imbolg, festival of light

Eleanor had moved the walnut writing desk into the large bay window. When she sat at the desk to write, she was facing the trees of the square, their dark branches reaching up bleakly into the grey of the late January sky.

A brass lamp with a creamy silk shade cast a mellow light around her, and in the fireplace behind, a gas fire burned merrily.

Eleanor liked to write in longhand on yellowing legal paper. This was the way she’d taken all her notes during her years practising, until Gillian her grand-daughter had taught her how to use a computer several years before.

‘Do you think I’m too old to learn all this stuff?’ Eleanor had asked Gillian. They’d been in Eleanor and Ralf’s apartment on West 73rd Street. The teenage Gillian had dropped in to see her grandparents and had found Eleanor getting frustrated trying to set up an email account on her newly purchased laptop.

‘Nonsense, Grandma, you’re never too old. You’ll pick it up pretty quickly. You’re good at surfing the web, aren’t you? This is just an added bonus. You’ll love email.’

Gillian had turned back to the laptop and Eleanor had smiled affectionately at her beloved grand-daughter. In skinny jeans, Converse trainers and a little knitted camisole, Gillian Filan was the very picture of a cool New York teenager. She had a mane of dark, shiny hair, perfect skin from years of Dermalogica products and a hint of silver eyeliner on those big chestnut-hued eyes, but in every other way, she was an O’Neill woman from the small Connemara village of Kilmoney. Strong, kind and gifted.