The Best of Times (51 page)

She had never seen Linda totally lose it. Which was what happened then. She put down her cup, stood up and folded her arms, and confronted her across the room.

“Georgia, I’m finding something hard too, and I’ll tell you what it is. You. You and your self-obsessed, pathetic attitude. You get this part, this amazing opportunity, and ever since the very beginning you’ve whinged about it. I can tell you I wouldn’t like you either if I was on that production. It is of no interest to them whatsoever that you’ve had a traumatic time and you’re suffering from survivor blame or whatever it’s called; although I’m sure initially they were very sympathetic. You’re been hired to do a job. Grow up. Life’s tough. Get used to it. And find yourself somewhere to live in the process.”

And then she turned and walked out of the room and into her own and slammed the door shut.

• • •

Georgia didn’t go to bed at all that night. She sat in the big comfy chair in her room, fully clothed, in a state of shock. She kept hearing what Linda had said, replayed it over and over again in her head, trying to make sense of it, trying to believe that Linda could have been so horrible to her; but as the night wore on, a small, sneaky voice began to tell her that there might, actually, be at least something in what she had said. She still felt Linda had been totally out of order and she should have seen that it was support that Georgia needed, not a bollocking, but as long as she could get out of the flat and in somewhere else … Someone had suggested the YMCA, which Georgia had been horrified by at the time, but it would be better than hanging around crowding Linda’s space.

At six o’clock, she got up and packed, wrote a note telling Linda she wouldn’t be getting in her way any longer, and called a cab and
went to the church hall where rehearsals took place. She knew the cleaners came at six, but she hadn’t bargained on Merlin being there.

“Heavy night?” he said sympathetically, and, “No,” she said, “not in that way,” and started to cry.

Merlin was wonderful; he found her a box of Kleenex and sat down beside her, put his arm round her, and asked her to tell him what the matter was.

Which, having recovered from the considerable shock of finding herself where she had dreamed for the past four weeks—in close physical contact with Merlin Gerard, which suddenly wasn’t particularly exciting, but just cosy and comforting—she did.

All of it.

He really was very sweet: he said he could imagine how terrible she must have felt about the crash, and he’d really felt for her … “so vile, the tabloids,” but he told her no one else had really taken it in at all.

“They all really like you, Georgia. Davina’s always saying what a sweetheart you are, and I know Bryn can be awkward, but he’s a perfectionist, and he’s not remotely regretting casting you. You’re doing really well. You’re very talented, you know; you should believe in yourself a bit more.”

Georgia sniffed. “I don’t feel very talented. I don’t feel talented at all.”

“Well, you are. Now, look, I really have to get on; I came in early to catch up on some stuff, and if Mo finds me sitting here having a goss with you she’ll get very sniffy. But … what are you doing this evening?”

“Nothing,” said Georgia, trying very hard to believe this was actually happening. “Probably trying to find a park bench.”

“Why? Oh, yeah, Linda’s thrown you out. I’m sure she didn’t mean it. But it would be nice to have somewhere of your own. Anyway, I think I can probably help. Hang around if you finish before me and then we’ll go for a drink and I’ll tell you about it.”

He gave her a quick kiss and disappeared into the kitchen; Georgia went through the rest of the day in a trance.

• • •

Merlin’s help came in the form of his friend Jazz, whom he’d been at school with; Jazz helped his dad with his building business and what he called his property empire, which was the ownership of two large, crumbling houses the wrong end of the Portobello Road.

“They’re divided into bed-sits,” Merlin said, “and there’s usually at least a couple looking for occupants. I’ll give him a call.”

Jazz said he did have one, and if Merlin would bring Georgia round in an hour or so, he’d show it to her.

• • •

Jazz was fun: she liked him. He was taller than Merlin, and heavily built, with close-cropped black hair and almost black eyes; he kept punching Merlin on the arm and calling him his old mate; he also argued with him a lot, mocked his job, and told him more than once that he was a bloody great poof.

“Pardon my French,” he said, grinning, seeing Georgia’s face, “just a joke—got stuck with it at school, didn’t you, mate? I thought so meself for a bit, used to stand with me back to the wall when he was around, but don’t you worry, my love; nothing fairylike about our Merl. OK, let’s go and have a look at this accommodation, shall we?”

It was pretty grim, right at the top of the house, one of two converted attics, and very cold. It had a gas ring and a sink behind a curtain, and a money-in-the-slot electric meter, and the bathroom was a floor down, not dirty exactly, but grubby, freezing cold, with stains in the bath and a suspicious wetness round the base of the loo. It was all a bit smelly.

But it had brilliant views, through a rather sweet little dormer
window … and she loved the way the ceiling sloped almost to the floor on two sides. And it would be hers. Her very own home. She said she’d take it.

“Right-o,” said Jazz, “it’s yours. Next door’s some bloke who works for a charity real do-gooder. Won’t cause you no trouble. Anyone does, you just let me know. But we don’t take none of your rough types; they’re mostly a nice crowd, lotta females—you’ll be fine.”

And she was.

• • •

She replaced the filthy curtain that shielded the kitchen with a bamboo screen and bought some thick blinds at IKEA, and a gorgeous white furry throw for her bed and another for the lumpy armchair, which she supposed was what made the rooms officially bed-sits … and she bought a convector heater, which ate money, but even so, she was cold a lot of the time.

Nonetheless, she loved it; it was hers, her very own home that she was paying for; she felt independent and pleased with herself, and that kept her going through the very tough times she continued to have on the series.

She had also formed a hugely supportive friendship with Anna.

Anna had had a great life; she had trained as a classical singer, fallen in love with a jazz pianist called Sim Foster, and ran away with him. Georgia could see how it had happened; she was astonishingly glamorous and sexy out of makeup and looked far younger than her sixty years. She said she loved character roles: “The less I’m like myself the better I like it.”

Her parents had lived in Surrey, and were completely horrified that their beloved daughter should be living with what they called a coloured man and not even married, touring the world with him, singing jazz for fifteen years …

“He was fantastic, Georgia, not first division, but definitely top of the second. I adored him, and I adored the life we led, all those wonderful
smoky bars—God, how I
miss smoky bars—we even played New Orleans.”

They had been quite successful, if not exactly Cleo Laine and Johnny Dankworth: “But we put out the odd album, did quite a bit of TV.”

Sim had died—“Well, he killed himself, really, just one too many cocaine cocktails”—and she had come home and had to make a new life for herself and their daughter, Lila.

“She was only four. I couldn’t support her on the road, so I started doing modelling, mumsy stuff for the catalogues, and some commercials, and one thing led to another, and I got lucky and started acting. Twenty years later, here I am.”

Lila was at college training to be a musician: “She can play a mean clarinet, I tell you. You remind me of her, Georgia.”

Lila turned up on the set to collect her mother one night; she was very pretty, huge fun; Georgia was flattered by the comparison.

Anna had done a lot to help Georgia over her nerves. “I know what it’s like, and it was worse for me; I was a novice at forty, not twenty. You think it won’t be easy, of course, but you got the part, for God’s sake, so you must be OK, but everyone else belongs to this club with its own language and customs, and you’re on the outside, fighting to get in.”

They were actually filming now, and she found it much easier in some ways. She recognised that her problems were due to inexperience, not everyone being against her, and she felt more self-confident as a result.

And the others were actually very nice to her … even Bryn Merrick had taken time out to go through certain scenes with her.

She had had a rather emotional reunion with Linda, where Georgia cried a lot and Linda cried a bit, and Linda told her how proud of her she was and that Bryn Merrick had called her personally to say how well Georgia was working out and how he knew it must be difficult for her. And Linda was clearly impressed by all that she had done.

She even apologised for her behaviour the night she had lost her temper.

“I’m sorry, Georgia; it was wrong of me.”

“That’s OK,” said Georgia, giving her a hug. “I’d probably still be here if you hadn’t.” None of it would have happened, of course, without Merlin; Georgia felt she owed him everything. And said so, and even offered to cook him supper on her gas ring to show him her gratitude.

Merlin refused; she was disappointed, but not really surprised. He moved in such exalted circles, was always mentioning famous writers and artists and even the odd Labour politician who’d been to dinner with his parents. How could he be expected to enjoy chilli (her only culinary accomplishment) cooked in a bed-sit? But he continued to be really friendly, to ask her to go for drinks after work, to pass on any compliments.

The weather had been a big factor in the shooting; because it was winter, there were many days when they had to move inside and change scenes at a moment’s notice. This necessitated wardrobe changes as well as everything else and was a nightmare for continuity.

But in the end they ran out of indoor scenes, and one very cold November morning Georgia had to run down the street wearing a vest and shorts, buy an ice cream, and stand licking it while she chatted to a woman on a flower stall about her granny; the sun was brilliant, but not exactly warm, and kept going in, and she had to do it five times because, in spite of Merlin’s best efforts, cars kept coming across the shot. It was the sort of day guaranteed to produce one of Bryn’s hissy fits … although as she said to Merlin in the pub, he’d had “a thick coat on and a scarf and gloves, for God’s sake.”

She remained puzzled by Merlin’s attitude to her. He was so sweet, so attentive, and he really didn’t seem to have a regular girlfriend, so she couldn’t help being hopeful …

CHAPTER 42

“Alex, are you going to this wedding on Saturday?”

“I am indeed. I’m told by Maeve that if I don’t, she’ll never forgive me. I feel a bit of a fraud; I’ve never done anything for Mrs. Bristow, except chatted to her once or twice, but she said the hospital had been so fantastic to her, looked after her so well, and she wanted to have some representatives there. Plus the Connells are going to be there in force, apparently, Patrick’s first outing, and she said she knew what a lot I’d done for him.”

“I’ve been asked too.”

“Really? How very nice.”

“Yes. I had a sweet note from Mr. Mackenzie saying it was a small token of his gratitude for helping him to find Mary that day.”

“I didn’t know you did.”

“Well … I didn’t really. Bit of a long story. You don’t want to hear it.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, you’re not going to.” Emma sighed. “Anyway, maybe we could go together?”

“That would be delightful. I think the whole thing will be delightful. We can feel fraudulent together. You’re … you’re all right, are you, Emma?”

“Yes, thank you, I’m fine.”

“Good. You look a bit tired, that’s all; I wondered if—”

“Alex, I’m fine.”

“Good.”

• • •

But she wasn’t fine; she felt absolutely terrible. She hurt all over—physically, somehow, as well as emotionally. It was extraordinary. Her skin felt tender and her eyes were permanently sore, and she felt
utterly weary, as if her bones were somehow twice their proper weight. When she allowed herself actually to think about Barney, she wanted to cry; and even when she managed not to think about him, the awful sadness was still there, oppressing her. She couldn’t imagine ever feeling properly happy again.