The Understudy: A Novel (9 page)

See? This is what happens when you leave the flat,
he scolded himself.
You could be home by yourself now, watching an old movie. But, no, you had to go and leave the flat. Never, ever leave your flat again….

And there must have been some sort of dreadful chemical reaction with the snorted antiperspirant, and the antibiotics, and the varied kinds of alcohol he’d consumed, because after that things started to get very fuzzy.

He remembered wringing the water out of his tie, then struggling out of the bathroom to find the place surrounded by three incredibly desirable women. One of them said something, the words sounding muffled and distant, as if spoken underwater, and the other women laughed. Stephen laughed too, in his raffish Errol Flynn way, at how desirable they were in their spangly dresses, like mermaids, and he said something aloud, something about mermaids, then said it again, then speculated on how he wished he were a merman, adding, by way of clarification, that he was on antibiotics and had also just inhaled Josh Harper’s deodorant. The women nodded, and walked around him, the way you’d walk around a hole in the road, and then all went into the bathroom together. This seemed an incredibly provocative thing to do, so he tried to follow, but could no longer find the door. He had a sudden, irrational, overwhelming desire to play those bongos. Maybe if he played the bongos for the mermaids they’d let him join them. Bongos were the answer. Bongos were the key. Must. Find. Bongos.

Then he glimpsed the Hot Young Brit in “The Bitch Is Back” T-shirt, the one who’d asked him for salt, crouched over a stained rug, waggling a tub of Saxa table salt at him accusingly. He veered away, past Josh, who was saying, “Steve McQueen, this is my mate Steve McQueen, that’s his name, can you
believe
it, an actor called Steve McQueen, Steve McQUEEN…,” and then, thank God, he saw Nora, his dear old friend and confidante Nora, lovely, smart, funny, sexy Nora, at the other side of the room, sitting on the sofa, stirring her drink with a straw, waggling her shoulders to the music in an aloof, noncommittal way, looking sad and lonely and glamorous and very, very beautiful, and he decided that his new mission in life was to rescue her from this terrible place and these terrible people. She must have sensed the undeniable truth of this too, because she caught his eye and smiled. He grinned and pointed at her, the way a sailor might point spotting landfall, and she pointed back at him, arm fully extended. Stephen took this as his cue, and tumbled over, beaching himself on the sofa next to her. He made noises that he hoped resembled language, and she made some noises back, kind, sympathetic noises, and then, fantastically to his mind, felt his forehead with the back of her hand, like a nurse.

Soon afterward, Stephen found himself lying in his overcoat, on top of a great pile of other coats in what must have been the bedroom, while Nora called a cab, or an ambulance, or an undertaker, he didn’t much mind which. Through the pile of coats he could feel the bed pulsing in time with the music, and when he peered around he realized that the walls and ceiling were pulsing too, exactly like the rubber walls of the bathroom. His stomach contracted suddenly, and vomiting on every single guests’ coat at once suddenly seemed a very real possibility, so he hauled himself upright, and searched for a point to focus on—a nifty little trick he’d picked up in a jazz-dance class—and settled on a reproduction full-size white Storm Trooper helmet from
Star Wars
. Like a toddler, he allowed gravity to take him over to the mantelpiece, and picked up the shiny white fiberglass helmet, which stood next to what seemed like a fairly comprehensive collection of
Star Wars
figurines, not boxed, but still in excellent condition. The inside of the helmet was lined with scrappy yellowing foam, and smelled a little musty. Might it be nearly thirty years old? Might it be—my God—an
original
? There are few, if any, men of Stephen’s generation who can resist wearing a genuine, original Storm Trooper’s helmet, and accordingly he lowered it reverently onto his head, like a crown, and nearly gagged at the sudden stuffiness, the distant aroma of a stuntman’s egg-and-chips breath from 1977. From somewhere within the hot, dense fudge of his brain came the instruction “Don’t spew in the Storm Trooper’s helmet,” and he hurriedly took it off again.

And putting it back on the mantelpiece, he suddenly became aware of what Josh was using as a helmet stand.

A British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award. Best Actor 2000.

He picked up the heavy bronze trophy, felt the weight approvingly, nearly dropped it, then scanned the room for a mirror, just out of curiosity, just to see what he looked like holding an award.

He decided that he looked superb, and entirely natural, and that he’d have looked even better had it not been awarded to someone else entirely. Swaying a little now, he attempted to swing the trophy up to arm’s length in front of him. “Ladies ’n’ Gendlemen of th’Academy, than’ you all f’votin’ f’me, and I’d jus’ like to say a big than’ you, if I may, to my old pal and understudy Josh Harper…”

It was at this precise moment that Nora Harper returned with news that the cab had arrived, and with an almost supernatural speed and grace, Stephen deftly tucked the award under his overcoat, clamping it tightly under his armpit.

And after that, everything got very vague indeed.

Fade to black.

The King of the World

T
he first thing Stephen saw when he cranked open his eyes on Monday morning was the man’s face on the pillow next to him. Classically handsome, a little like Josh Harper’s—flat-nosed and strong-jawed, and framed with short, curly Renaissance Prince hair, it stared back impassively at Stephen with its one unseeing eye, perched upright on a marble block pedestal, engraved with the words “Best Actor 2000.”

Stephen squealed, and scrambled to the wall side of the bed as far from the face as possible, tugging the duvet with him. The face teetered for a second, then fell backward onto the floor, landing with a thud, like a severed head. Stephen lay frozen for a moment or two, just long enough to work out where he was and what he’d seen, then crawled to the edge of the bed and peered over, hoping, praying that he’d imagined it. There it was again, next to a spilled glass of water, the heroic bronze face, just like Josh’s, looking up at him, the corners of his mouth turned up in an almost imperceptible grin.

A memory bubbled up like swamp gas, of a long, hallucinatory cab ride home, of finding the award jammed under his coat, where he’d hidden it from Nora….

He had accidentally stolen an award.

He must get rid of it. He contemplated wrapping it in a trash-bin liner and throwing it in the Thames. But it’s hard to throw anything in the Thames without someone seeing you, and what if someone called the police, or some freak tide washed it up? What if someone checked it for fingerprints? Prison. It took very little for Stephen to become convinced that he was going to prison. He pictured himself in prison uniform, a long period in remand, a distressing visit from his ex-wife, being sucked into the seedy world of smack, getting shivved in the communal showers….

Of course, he was being paranoid. No one goes to prison for stealing Best Actor awards. Best just to keep hold of the thing, pick a moment, sometime when the heat had died down, and smuggle it into the theater, and leave it at the stage door. Maybe with an anonymous apology, composed of letters cut from old newspapers. In the meantime he decided to wrap the head in a blanket, and stash it at the back of the wardrobe, along with his complimentary DVD of
Sammy the Squirrel Sings Favorite Nursery Rhymes
.

With a sudden surge of shame, he realized that he was going to be late picking up his daughter. Quickly pulling on his coat, he plunged his hands in his pockets to check for the keys, and immediately squealed and yanked them out again. The insides were warm and wet, and appeared to be full of some kind of soft matter. It was like plunging his hand into guts, but he took a deep breath, gingerly reaching in again, and pulled out a moist, disintegrating burgundy napkin, full of mashed-up canapés—miniature quiches, cocktail sausages tacky with mustard and honey, something that may once have been a devil-on-horseback, now dismounted. The buffet. He’d accidentally stolen the buffet. Had anyone seen him stealing the buffet? Had Nora? A BAFTA, the buffet, what else might he have stolen?
Cash?
He reached into his pocket again, and felt something made from hard plastic that seemed to bend as he squeezed. He pulled his hand out slowly. A six-inch pose-able figurine of Han Solo, in his costume from
The Empire Strikes Back,
daubed in what looked like satay sauce. A BAFTA, the buffet, a
Star Wars
figurine; for the first time he understood the full meaning of the phrase “toe-curling.” He could feel them straining against his scuffed sneakers. He shook his head, opened his eyes wide.

I must put last night behind me.

I must not let Sophie down.

I must concentrate.

I must be at my best for Sophie.

My aim and objective is to show Sophie and Alison that I am a good, responsible, loving, successful father.

As quickly as possible, he stuffed the stolen buffet deep into the bin, washed his hands, splashed his face, shaved, all the time feeling his brain, bruised and sore, rolling around in his head like an orange in a shoe box. He changed his clothes to something clean and smart, an ironed shirt, sensible trousers, a proper jacket, proper shoes. He swallowed two aspirins, gargled with TCP to fend off the tonsillitis, put his coat back on and stepped out into the street, hopefully to some degree a new man.

Harrison Ford and the Breakfast Room of Doom

S
hortly after the birth of his daughter, Stephen had indulged in the orgy of solemn philosophical speculation that inevitably accompanies new fatherhood.
What,
he worried,
will happen to my family if I’m not around to look after them? How will they manage if I’m not always there?
Now, seven years later, he had his answer.

They were actually managing fantastically well.

Sophie now lived with Alison and her new husband, Colin, an investment banker, in a comfortable Victorian house conveniently near Barnes Common. The house, or home, had five bedrooms, a large garden with a gazebo and a modernist water feature and two shiny new cars in the front drive. Detached, red brick, with large sash windows and a smoking chimney, it was the kind of house a child would draw; after all, how do you draw a bedsit?

Standing at the door, Stephen glanced down to his left at the neat row of green wellies by the doormat, arranged in descending order of size, like the Three Bears. He rang the doorbell, and tried not to feel like a salesman.

The door was opened, as he knew it would be, by Colin. He was wearing his various shades of moss-and-lichen-colored catalog casual sportswear, stretched unappealingly over the broad, doughy physique of a public school rugby player turned occasional golfer, and once again Stephen felt the sharp thrill of unambiguous, guilt-free hatred. Colin, meanwhile, offered up that self-satisfied smile on his big, pink rugby-captain face, the collar of his polo shirt turned up in irreverent celebration of the holidays, his cheeks so rosy they might have just been freshly rouged. Or slapped. That was how Stephen liked to imagine it anyway; slapped, very hard, simultaneously, with table tennis paddles.

“Steve!”

“Colin!”

“We wondered if you were coming.”

“Well—here I am.”

“Well—good to see you!” he lied. “I’ll let the young lady know!” Colin turned and shouted into the depths of the house. “Sophie, Steve’s here!”

Pause.

“So, come in,” said Colin, opening the door just wide enough for Stephen to squeeze through. He wondered whether he should wipe his feet, then decided against it. That’ll teach him. He followed Colin through toward the kitchen, but was stopped in his tracks by Sophie barreling into him at high speed from the living room. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, her legs around his waist as if clinging to a tree, squeezing all the air out of him.

“Hey—where did you come from?” he gasped, kissing her forehead.

“Why are you wearing those clothes?” she said, peering down the short length of her small nose.

“What clothes?”

“Nice clothes.”

“Hey, I always wear nice clothes.”

Sophie just frowned.

“Well, I knew I was seeing you, so I got dressed up specially!”

She frowned harder. “No you didn’t, silly.” Then, her face brightening, “Have you got a job interview?” she asked.

Stephen paused just for a second, before saying, levelly, “No, Sophie, because I’ve already got a job, thank you very much.”

“I know, but a
proper
job.”

“Get down now, dumpling,” said Colin, diplomatically. “I think you’re a little bit heavy for poor old Steve.” Colin was one of those men who seem to carry around an invisible wet towel to flick at people. Stephen heard it snap, and once again felt the hot flush of hatred.

“No, she’s not! You’re not too heavy for me, are you, Princess? You’re light as a feather!” and with some difficulty, he extended his arms to full length and locked them at the elbows, so that Sophie’s forehead clunked noisily against the lampshade.

“Could you please put me down now, please?” asked Sophie quietly.

Struggling to suppress a groan, Stephen lowered her to the floor.

“All ready and raring to go then, Sophie?” asked Colin, rubbing her bruised head.

“I’m nearly ready.”

“Well, run up and get your coat on,” he said, pushing her toward the staircase. They stood in the hall in silence, listening to her clomp upstairs, and Stephen passed the time by wondering if he could have Colin in a fight. Certainly, Colin had the edge in body weight, but Stephen had the motivation. Especially if he were armed with, say, a cricket bat. Or a samurai sword…

“Hey, listen,” whispered Colin, “we’ve been meaning to ask—what are you getting you-know-who for Christmas?”

“I don’t know yet. Why, what are you getting her?”
Her own house, maybe?
Stephen wondered.
A small island, perhaps?

“A piano,” whispered Colin, and Stephen felt the wet towel snap near his ear.

“But haven’t you already got one?” said Stephen, remembering the old upright that he and Alison had bought from a junk shop ten years ago.

“That old pub piano? It’s unplayable. No, we thought we’d invest in a baby grand or something. I wanted to tell you, just in case you wanted to, I don’t know, chip in for the piano stool or some sheet music or something.”

Snap
went the towel…

“Actually—I’ve sort of got something special planned for Sophie,” Stephen improvised.

“Oh—right. Okay, well, if you’ve got it covered…”

“Oh, I have.”

“Right. Well. Great.”

And that was that. They both stood in silence, leaning against opposite walls of the hall, like mismatched wrestlers. Colin broke first. “Right, well, the Lady of the Manor is in the breakfast room, if you want to say hi.”

“O-kay,” Stephen said, and followed the burble of Radio 4 in the direction of the breakfast room, whatever the hell
that
was.

He found his ex-wife standing precariously on a stepladder, hanging curtains, her back to him. He stood in the doorway and watched her silently for a moment, and found himself wondering how he’d ever managed to get away with marrying her. She had certainly transformed from the lippy, dungaree-wearing chain-smoking pint-drinker that he’d married eight years ago at Camden Registry Office. Small, healthy and neat, dressed in expensively casual clothes, her hair expensively disheveled, she looked like a TV Commercial Mum now, the perky, wise, sexy mum with a contemporary edge, tucking her pretty daughter up in bed, before returning to the dinner party to hand expensive mints to attractive professional friends.
She’d absolutely clean up,
he thought,
if she hadn’t given up acting for recruitment consultancy.

“I was told to ask for the Lady of the Manor.”

“That’ll be me, then.”

“Need a hand?”

“Hi, Stephen. No, I’m fine. With you in a second,” she said, her breath a little strained with the effort of holding her arms above her head. Her voice was soft and bright, with the trace of a Yorkshire accent, which, like the meaningless Celtic symbol tattooed on her hip, faded a little year by year. She was wearing jeans and a sweater in some kind of expensive creamy wool, tugged up at the elbows, and Stephen found himself regarding the light downy hair on the small of her back, the two inches of expensive-looking underwear peeking over the edge of her expensive-looking jeans. Was it wrong to look yearningly at your ex-wife’s underwear, he wondered. After all, they’d been together for nearly eight years, happy for seven—six, at least. They’d had a child together. They had made love hundreds, maybe thousands, no, okay, hundreds of times; surely it was only natural for him to look at her this way? In the end he decided that, while it wasn’t exactly
wrong
as such, it was undoubtedly pretty futile.

“What are you doing anyway?”

“Just putting up the winter curtains,” she said.
Winter
curtains—they had different curtains for different times of the year. Amazing. “Have you boys been chatting?” she asked hopefully.

“Uh-huh,” mumbled Stephen.

“What about?”

“I was just asking him why he always keeps the collars of his shirts turned up.”

“Stephen…”

“Is it just a look? You know, a fashion choice…”

“I
love
this tone of voice, Stephen, really I do.”

“…and isn’t that difficult for you? I mean, don’t you want to reach over and just turn them down?”

“D’you want to wait outside?”

“No.”

“Well, pack it in then,” she said, smiling just a little as she came down and kissed him lightly on the cheek, the platonic kiss that they’d been working on for two years now. “What’s that funny smell?” She wrinkled her nose, sniffed his neck. “TCP? Run out of aftershave?”

“It’s a new antibacterial aftershave. ‘Destiny’ by SmithKline Beecham.”

“You’re not ill
again
?”

“Oh, you know, just a little glandy. I think it might be tonsillitis.”

She tutted in a matronly way, then stood back at arm’s length to get a better look. Since the divorce, she’d developed an irritating tendency to scrutinize him in this cosseting manner, as if he were an evacuee.

“You’ve ironed a shirt.”

“That’s right.”

“You’re wearing proper shoes.”

“Is that allowed?”

“Of course. I just thought, what with your gypsy lifestyle and all. It’s like you’re on your way to the magistrates’ court.”

“Thank you.”

“Job interview, is it?”

Stephen sighed. “No. And, anyway, I’ve got a job, remember? Till Christmas, anyway…”

“You look tired, though. Wild night?”

“You could say that.”

“Anywhere special? Movie premiere, awards ceremony?”

Stung now, Stephen put on the modest tone that inevitably ended up sounding cocky, and said, “Oh, you know—just Josh Harper’s birthday party.”

“Josh
Harper’s
birthday party! Whoooooo-ooooh! ’Ark at you, with your fancy showbiz pals!” Alison’s accent tended to make a comeback when she was being sardonic. “So where was the party, then?”

“At his apartment, of course,” mumbled Stephen.

“Not his house, not his flat, his
apartment
. Which is where?”

“Oh, up Primrose Hill way.”

“Up Primrose Hill way!
’Course
it is. Meet anyone nice among the showbiz community? Any
ladies
?” She leered suggestively, a little ironic twinkle in her eye. The question irritated him, partly because it made him feel like a teenager, but primarily because it cost her so little to ask it. The unfortunate fact was that Stephen still loved his wife—ex-wife—still ached with it, would be very happy to still be married to her, would marry her again, right now, here, in the breakfast room with the winter curtains, if he possibly could. It was only in recent months that he’d managed to contrive a practicable, day-to-day method of living without her, and the fact that she’d clearly be delighted to get him off her hands caused him a shiver of sadness. It reminded him of what he already knew—that if he told Alison that he’d met someone else, and they were very much in love, her response wouldn’t be jealousy or regret, but relief,
glee
even, the sort of unseemly glee you might feel in off-loading a house that you knew was subsiding.

“Go on, spill the beans.” She winked and nudged him. “Is there a new
special
friend?”

“Could we change the subject, d’you think?” he said eventually.

“Okay, what time are you bringing Sophie back?” she said, climbing back on the top of the stepladder and straightening the curtains.

“Not late. Five-ish.”

“Good, because she’s got homework to do.”

“Homework?”

“Yes, homework.”

“
School
homework?”

“As opposed to…?”

“What
subject
?”

“I don’t know. French, I think.”

“But she’s seven, Alison!”

“So?”

“Seven-year-olds can’t speak French.”

“French seven-year-olds can.”

“So what kind of school gives a seven-year-old homework?”

“I don’t know, Stephen, a
good
school?” she said, and even though he loved her very much, Stephen was seized with a momentary desire to kick the stepladder over. There were two clear courses of action open to them, to change the subject and keep things civil, or to have a futile row.

“Oh, a
private
school, you mean?”

“Oh, here we go,” she sighed, stepping down off the ladder once more. “Not this again. Stephen, I’d
love
nothing more than to have a sixth-form debate about private education, but there’s not much point, is there? I mean, we’re not suddenly going to take Sophie out of a good school, and put her in a crap school, just because of your political principles.”

“They used to be your principles too, as I recall.”

“Well, it’s much easier to have principles when you don’t have a child of school age.”

“I
do
have a child of school age, it’s just I still have the principles.”

“Yeah, well, I changed my mind.”

“So did
you
change your mind, or did Colin change your mind for you?”

“Stephen,
no one
changes my mind for me,” she snapped back, eyes narrowed, and silently acknowledging this to be true, Stephen attempted a different tack.

“I just sort of naïvely imagined I might have some say in my own daughter’s education.”