Elegance and Innocence (66 page)

My landlady’s a woman called Amanda in her early fifties with short blonde hair. Her children are all grown up and her husband is always on business trips (I suspect he has another family somewhere). She invites me almost every day to come ‘up the garden path’, as she calls it, and have a glass of wine (or four), even though I’m always in rehearsal or performing. She asks anyway, her voice bright, almost metallic with cheerful desperation.

There’s a large brown envelope waiting for me on the doorstep – my post forwarded from London by my flatmate, Kelly. I’ve rented my room out to a Japanese girl, who’s come over for a year to learn English, but I’ve kept my old address. I tear the envelope open – a catalogue from some clothing company, a voter registration card, a schedule of teaching classes from the Guildhall … and another letter from Messrs Strutt and Parker of Mayfair.

Again.

Why doesn’t he just leave me alone?

I walk back into the kitchen, lean back against the kitchen counter, turning the letter over in my hand. It’s expensive, heavy, watermarked paper, signalling the expensive, heavy-weight services provided. I should throw it away; that’s what I normally do. But this one’s more solid, thicker than most.
There’s something perverse in my mood today (most likely the hangover).

I tear it open.

Dear Ms Albery
,

Please find enclosed a letter, forwarded to you on behalf of our client Mr Jake Albery
.

I hope all is well with you
,

Yours truly
,

Alfred Albert Manning Esq
.

As promised, another letter waits inside. It’s written on hotel stationery, doubtless composed on one of Jake’s many sell-out tours. It’s embossed, Hotel Del Coronado, San Diego. Maybe he’s recording another album; his third. My name, ‘Evie’, is scrawled across the front, underlined emphatically. My stomach lurches at the recognition of his handwriting, followed very quickly by a sense of outrage. He has no right to call me Evie. My friends call me Evie.

I slip my finger underneath the seal and force it open.

There are two closely written pages; the paper’s filmy; like tissue paper.

‘Evie-Ex,’ it begins quite abruptly.

I don’t know why I bother writing to you. All you do is ignore me. You should take the money. You can get a place
of your own. I never looked after you. And now I’ve got the money, so let me do this for you. You can have whatever you like – a flat in Chelsea, in Mayfair, in bloody Eaton Square …? I don’t care
…

The handwriting’s sloping and erratic, crowding together, then veering off the page. ‘We’re not finished … it’s not over … you can have whatever you want …’

I crumple it between my fingers; it’s the same as all the other letters … the same thing, again and again. Now that he’s made it, he thinks he can erase the past.

I throw it in the trash, on top of the cold used coffee grounds, adding Alfred Albert Manning’s letter with it.

These things unsettle me. I don’t know why I do them.

Reaching over, I pour myself a cup of strong black coffee and try to focus. There’s an understudy rehearsal today for
Richard III
; I’m covering Lady Anne. Boyd will be there, so I need to be on form. Should also think about groceries for the weekend; Evan will be coming … I rub my eyes. It’s such an effort to think about him; for some reason he just won’t stick in my mind.

‘It’s twenty past ten and a beautiful Thursday morning … You’re listening to 105, Radio Warwick and this is Raven … “Baby Home Wrecker!”’

I reach across, yank the little portable radio out of the wall and throw it in the trash too.

I never saw Jake again.

After I came out of the hospital, I never spoke to him or made contact. He’d moved out before that; Chris made him. For a while he crashed on CJ’s floor and then he was seen, Hayley said, hanging out near Jasmine’s flat in Westbourne Grove …

It was a shock, when the magazine came out. Suddenly he was everywhere; the band was signed; almost immediately they were on tour, supporting Guns and Roses in America. That’s how it happens; what success looks like.

Like absolutely nothing. Until it hits.

Then there were letters, phone calls … I ignored them. After a while they died down.

Then they began to look official.

Divorce is easy, which seems ironic, considering how difficult it is to be married. But all I had to do was sign a few papers and wait.

And then, out of the blue, they started again. They came through his solicitor, some with cheques in them, some just letters. One even had a first-class plane ticket to Hong Kong. They always seem to know where I am, what I’m doing. They follow me around the country.

But I don’t want anything from him. Ever.

Of course, I’m aware of women; the ‘episodes’, the cars, the drunken brawls, the court case in Arizona with the sixteen-year-old, the models and the models’ sisters … but only peripherally.

I stay away from all things Jake. He isn’t, although I’m sure it would cut him to hear it, as omnipresent as he’d like to be. Anyway, from what I gather, he’s changed. And the music’s full of keyboards now; overproduced. Sometimes in a bar or in a store, I can’t help but hear it.

The best thing, in fact, is to imagine it never happened; I pull my memory up short, like a dog on a lead, whenever it strays into the past.

My heart is a cage.

There is no key.

Later that afternoon I’m backstage in the dressing room, sharing a cigarette with an older actress, Eloise Kurtz, who’s covering for Margaret. The rehearsal’s almost over and we’re both dead; I’ve been dead for at least an hour and am now busying myself Sellotaping my good luck cards up on my mirror. Eloise is reading the paper. Most of an actor’s life is spent waiting; we’ve become experts at dragging even the most banal activities out for hours at a time. There’s a delivery of flowers from my parents, who are coming to visit next month, and even a telegram from Robbie. ‘About bloody time!!!’ it screams. She’s been studying yoga in India; says it’s the next big thing. She claims she’s mellowed but I doubt it. I’m not very good at keeping in touch with old friends anymore; I seem to do better with strangers nowadays. Evan’s long-stemmed red roses are elegant, in excellent taste and predictable. He wanted to come last night, but I put him off.

I’ll ring him later.

Over the tannoy, Richard’s calling for a horse and there’s the sound of actors scuffling and shouting, trying to depict a major climactic battle scene, even though there are only three of them on stage.

Eloise folds the paper over. ‘So, are you going to book a holiday this year?’

David, the stage manager, knocks on the door. He’s tall, thin and balding, with thick black-framed glasses and a sharp, witty sense of humour. ‘Good news and bad news, ladies!’ he announces. ‘Seems Janice ate a bad prawn for lunch. So, mazel tov, Eve! You’re our Lady Anne tonight!’

I stare at him.

I’ve only had two rehearsals and Lady Anne’s first entrance is notorious; you have to come on, all guns blazing, or the entire scene and the first major set piece of the play falls flat on its face.

Eloise registers my horror with delight. At last, a real drama. ‘Oh, dear! You’re about to pop your cherry! I’d best go and get you a cup of tea.’ And she hares out, stopping at every dressing room down the long hallway to deliver the news. Nothing’s more delicious to Eloise than a fresh morsel of gossip.

David comes up behind me and rubs my shoulders. ‘You can do this, darling. It’s the second night, after all. There are still press due in and it will give the show a lift. Second nights can be so flat.’

I nod, looking blankly at my reflection in the mirror.

I have every intention of conquering the world; I just hadn’t intended to do it today.

Boyd comes to visit me at the half-hour call.

He sits, watching me put on my make-up.

‘Ready?’ he asks.

‘Ready,’ I lie, smiling back at him in the mirror.

‘I want you to take it up a notch.’

‘Done,’ I promise; with my nerves right now, everything will be up quite a few notches.

‘And don’t let Anthony upstage you,’ he advises. ‘He’s a shit like that.’

I nod. The most important thing is that I should remember all my lines. Next: that they should be in some sort of order.

But I don’t want to tell him that.

Improvising in iambic pentameter is an art I haven’t yet mastered; it’s the Victoria Cross of stage acting. Of course, the only way you learn how to do it is by falling into the abyss. It’s already yawning before me; I have visions of opening my mouth and no sound at all coming out. They’ll bring down the curtain, refund all the money, take me out to the parking lot and shoot me.

However, I’m surrounded by help. My fellow actors rally round; bring me sandwiches I don’t eat, tell me funny stories I can’t hear; they’re helping me with my make-up and hair;
wrapping compliments round me like a protective cocoon.

The wardrobe mistress arrives. Janice’s gown is too big for me and they haven’t had time to make the understudy costumes. She’s pulled something from stock; a heavy black velvet dress with a long train. It weighs a ton. I hold on to the door frame as she laces me into the corset, wedging her knee into my back, pulling tight. Then the wig mistress fixes the veil; yards of sheer silk, tumbling down my back.

‘Sold out tonight!’ David calls, rushing down the hall.

It doesn’t even occur to me to ring Evan. And by the time it does, I’m too terrified to speak.

The house lights go down. Cue the music. And I’m standing in the wings, trying not to vomit.

A spotlight rises stage left and Anthony begins:

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York;

And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried
.

Behind me, the pallbearers of Edward’s body queue up, having just come out of the greenroom where they watch television and smoke. They’re on strict orders not to corpse me tonight.

‘Good luck, Evie!’

‘Break a fucking leg!’

But I, that am not shap’d for sportive tricks,

Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;

I, that am rudely stamped …

Michael, who plays Berkeley, leans forward, peeking out into the audience. ‘God, what a crew! Look at that old dear in the front row – she’s already starting to doze off! And she’s got a tash!’

He’s trying to get me to laugh. He needn’t bother.

‘And there’s that prick from the
Financial Times
… I’ll never forgive him. Called my Oberon “A spineless, energy-sapping nonentity in tights”. Never even bothered to mention my legs!’

I grin in spite of myself.

‘Oh, my God! Look!’ He pulls at Sam, who plays Clarence. ‘In the middle of the front row in the dress circle!’

‘Hey, mind me chains, mate!’ Sam looks out. ‘Fuck! You’re right! Gotta go. Good luck, Evie!’

Michael yanks my arm. ‘Evie! Look! You’ll never guess who it is!’

Sam strides on, flanked by two guards. ‘“His majesty, Tendering my person’s safety, hath appointed this conduct to convey me to the Tower.”’

‘Mikey, now’s not a good time,’ I warn. I need to concentrate. What’s my first line? ‘“Set down, set down your honourable load …”’

‘It’s that guy … you know, from that band …’ he blurts out. ‘What the hell is he doing here?’

Pushing him aside, I peer through the curtain.

Sure enough, there, sandwiched between two elderly middle-class couples in the front row of the dress circle, is Jake, wearing a suit.

I step back. Every day for five years, I’ve imagined what this moment would be like. And now, here it is, tonight of all nights. How could he have known?

And all the fear on the verge of overwhelming me a second ago distils; sharpens into a thin stiletto point.

This is not the night I fail.

David appears; fussing and restless. ‘Corpse up!’ he commands the pallbearers. ‘It’s time. Take a deep breath, darling.’ He looks at me. ‘Evie? It’s time. Did you hear me?’

Reaching up, I pull the long black veil over my face. ‘I’m ready.’