When the Curtain Falls

  ‘No,’ she laughed. ‘I’m going home but it sounded as if you were going to try and change my mind. I guess I didn’t want my riveting plans involving sitting on my sofa staring at my telly for the evening to sound too set in stone.’

  ‘So, you’d be happily persuaded into doing something else?’ He raised his eyebrows. Olive’s heartbeat had picked up speed from the moment he’d walked into the room, but now he seemed to be asking her out for the evening, she could feel it in her fingertips.

  ‘Well, it depends on what that is. I won’t change such irresistible plans for just anything, y’know.’

  ‘Or just anyone?’ Oscar rested his chin on the back of his fingers in an attempt to look sweet and innocent.

  ‘Or just anyone.’ She nodded.

  ‘Well, I was wondering if you fancied coming back… with me tonight. Maybe.’ He ran his fingers across the velvet on the chair and fiddled with a frayed edge of the fabric that had come loose.

  ‘Maybe?’ She shrugged, hiding a smile underneath the make-up wipe.

  ‘Definitely.’ Oscar stroked a stray curl on the back of her head and she shivered.

  ‘No dinner? No movie? Just a straight invitation to go back to yours.’ She turned to face the real him, rather than his reflection. ‘Bold move!’

  ‘We can have dinner and a movie! At my place.’ He grinned, showing all his teeth, like a child being asked to smile for a photo.

  ‘Is this about sex? It sounds like it’s all about sex.’ She turned back to the mirror and started to scrub at her eyes. Please don’t let it be just about sex, she thought.

  ‘It’s not about sex!’ He laughed and placed his hands on her shoulders, giving her a light shake.

  ‘So, you’re saying if I came back with you tonight… we wouldn’t have sex?’ She tossed her make-up wipe aside, slid her make-up bag towards her and looked only at her own reflection.

  ‘If that’s what you wanted.’ Oscar glanced up at himself to see if his sincerity was showing.

  ‘Am I that easy to resist?’ she asked, pulling her dressing gown tighter around her shoulders. How much are you supposed to make a guy sweat before it starts being cruel, she wondered when she caught his pleading eyes in the mirror.

  ‘What? No? I want to have sex with you!’ he said, a bead of sweat dripping down the small of his back.

  ‘So, it is about sex?’ She squirted foundation onto the back of her hand and then started smearing it onto her cheeks with her fingers.

  Oscar sighed. ‘No! Let me be perfectly clear. I want to have sex with you, but this isn’t just about sex.’

  ‘Sure,’ she laughed. Olive’s romantic past hadn’t been squeaky clean and although it hadn’t put her off putting herself out there for life, she was much more cautious as to whom she was handing her heart over to. She couldn’t help but think of the actors she’d had romantic encounters with over the years. Whilst many had been brief spontaneous affairs which had eventually simply fizzled out, one in particular had been rotten from the word go.

  Jason Butler had been a dancer with muscles in places that Olive hadn’t realised you could even have muscles, and although the conversation between them was never particularly riveting they seemed to be able to talk about nothing for hours on end and never get bored. Although Jason had had a girlfriend when rehearsals had started, they’d split up in the first week of performances and he’d made his move on Olive when they’d been out celebrating the end of a successful run of the first eight shows. From that point onwards, Olive and Jason were inseparable. They would kiss in her dressing room during every interval, and they’d elongate their days by going for drinks after the show at the pub across the road, just so they had a little more time together.

  Every relationship that’s formed in the West End will move at the speed of light, but when Olive and Jason had finally had sex, despite it being nearer the end of their run in Little Shop of Horrors, Olive felt it had happened quite quickly. She knew that was the consequence of the theatre bubble – when you spend that much time locked up with a group of very liberal, free-thinking, creative people, sooner or later, things will start to spice up.

  It was only until she came into work the next day, thinking nothing had changed, to find actually everything had changed. Jason had avoided her eyes across the stage in warm-up and sought conversation elsewhere. He hadn’t come to her dressing room in the interval, and when she went to find him he was missing from his own. She tried to shrug it off, hoping that if something were truly wrong, he’d talk to her about it, but with the contract nearing its end, Olive found herself wondering what would happen when they were no longer in each other’s pockets. Being loved-up was easy when you were forced to be in the same place as each other, but when you lived at opposite ends of the city and weren’t going to be seeing each other every day, it was harder to keep the momentum going on a relationship, especially when one of you had decided to ignore the other without rhyme or reason.

  Olive had never been one to beat about the bush. She liked everyone’s feelings out in the open where she could see them and keep an eye on them.

  ‘What’s going on?’ She caught Jason’s arm at stage door before he whizzed past her, his beanie hat pulled down around his ears and his backpack high on his back.

  ‘I have to get my train,’ he said, pulling away from her, but he hesitated and Olive took her chance to touch his arm again.

  ‘Jason…’ she pleaded.

  ‘Look.’ He pulled her to one side so that none of the fans crowded around stage were within earshot. ‘I’m not into… this any more,’ he said, his eyes darting from her to the fans behind them.

  ‘What do you mean you’re not into this any more? What changed from yesterday to today?’ She shook her head.

  ‘You can’t be angry at me for changing my mind,’ he huffed.

  ‘Oh, I’m not,’ Olive had answered, feeling her fingers ball into fists, her nails digging into her palms. ‘Change your mind all you want, Jason.’

  ‘Then why are you so pissed off at me?’ he said, like she was someone he barely knew. Someone annoying that he was trying to cut loose.

  ‘I’m angry at you for avoiding me. For making me feel like it’s me who’s done something wrong.’

  He sighed and rubbed his temples with his hands and Olive knew it wasn’t because of anything other than a desire to hide his face from her. You know you’ve been an arsehole, she thought.

  ‘You’re just… wrong for me. Or we’re not right. Together. Or something like that,’ he said.

  ‘“Something like that”?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, taking a step away from her. ‘I need to get my train.’

  ‘Okay, Jason,’ Olive said, and she let him practically run away from her.

  Two weeks later, their short summer run of Little Shop of Horrors came to an end and it was only once the show was over that Olive discovered what had been going on. A message dropped into her Facebook inbox from Rosanna Lime, an American actress quickly on the rise in the UK. Olive recalled that she had just started a run in Annie Get Your Gun with none other than Jason Butler. The Facebook message began:

  Olive. You don’t know me and this may be completely out of line, but… I need to know.

  Rehearsals for Annie Get Your Gun began six weeks ago and I started getting more than friendly with a guy called Jason Butler who is in our ensemble…

  Once they’d gotten to the bottom of it, it turned out Jason was not only dabbling in half-arsed relationships with Olive and Rosanna at the same time, but the girlfriend he’d claimed to have split up with in the first place was also still on the scene.

  ‘He’s a star-fucker,’ Olive’s best friend Lou had said, sipping from a large glass of white wine.

  ‘A what?’ Olive sniffed from underneath several blankets, reaching for the chocolate caramel digestives.

  ‘A star-fucker. Someone who just keeps penetrating the next “big thing” on the scene until he’s worked his way up the ladder
to stardom.’ Lou shrugged as if what she was saying was common knowledge.

  ‘People do that?’ Olive sniffed.

  ‘Clearly.’ She gestured to poor Olive with her mascara-stained eyes, the biscuit crumbs in her scraggly hair and the several dozen scrunched-up tissues in a sea around the sofa.

  Olive had never forgotten that heartbreak, and whilst she genuinely felt it would be different with Oscar – she could feel his sincerity even when he was simply putting his arm around her – she wanted to be certain.

  ‘Do you want to have sex with me?’ Interrupting her wander down memory lane, Oscar moved round to the side of her armchair, got on his knees and faced her.

  ‘… I’m undecided.’ She squinted her eyes at him, a smile playing at the corners of her plump lips.

  ‘Well, I’m decided,’ he said with a single nod.

  ‘I’m sure you are!’ she laughed.

  ‘We don’t have to have sex at all. Ever. I just enjoy your company and I’d like to spend the night with you.’ Oscar stretched out his hand tentatively, as if she were a wild animal and he was daring to get close. She softened a little and moved her cheek to meet his fingertips. His hand brushed along her jawline and he stroked her skin with his thumb, careful not to ruin her freshly applied make-up. ‘This isn’t about sex, Olive.’

  She closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth of his smooth hands. Even with her eyes closed she could picture his face exactly, every perfectly chiselled line and even the exact shade of blue that shone in his eyes. ‘Haven’t you got hundreds of other women to choose from?’ She sighed.

  ‘No.’ He shook his head, trying to push from his mind the thought of all the texts on his phone from various women. ‘Even if I did, doesn’t it count for something that I choose you?’

  Her eyes snapped open. ‘Am I supposed to feel lucky?’ She pulled away, but only a little so that his hand was still touching her face.

  ‘Olive.’ He sighed and took her hands in his. ‘I have no hidden agenda here. No secrets. I’m not trying to add you to a list of women I’ve managed to “conquer”. I just want to spend my time with you. I’d love to have sex with you because I like you, but that’s not my aim here. My aim is simply getting to know you better. If you don’t want that, then just… tell me. But wouldn’t it be amazing if you wanted to spend your time with me too?’

  Oscar’s bright eyes and his smooth lips had already won Olive over. She knew he was kind, she knew he was well-intentioned and she knew that he liked her. Yet she could feel the demons in her head digging away at pre-existing craters in her self-worth, created by past romantic tragedies and men she’d trusted not to hurt her, but who’d hurt her anyway. When she pushed those demons away, they’d only come back again with bigger pickaxes and greater vengeance.

  ‘Okay,’ she breathed.

  ‘Okay?’ Oscar squeezed her hands. His palms had started to sweat so he deftly swept a hand through his hair.

  ‘Okay!’ she laughed. ‘I will come back with you tonight,’ she said, turning to the mirror. ‘But that doesn’t mean I’m going to sleep with you, though. You know that, right?’ Olive rearranged her dressing table into a slightly neater mess.

  ‘Of course! Okay. Um… okay!’ Oscar hopped up off the floor and wriggled his shoulders to reposition his rucksack.

  ‘Everything all right?’ She raised an eyebrow at him through the mirror.

  ‘Yeah, just… well, I didn’t really expect you to say yes and now I’m just trying to remember what state my flat’s in.’

  When Olive had finished putting on her make-up (which she took more time on now that she had a reason to make a little more effort), she got changed and was thankful that she’d worn one of her nicer dresses to work. Oscar had waited patiently in his own dressing room across the hall, making a plan in his head for what embarrassing things in his flat he’d have to quickly hide away when they arrived. Oscar suddenly realised he hadn’t thought this far ahead. This wasn’t like the few one night stands he’d had in the past because he knew Olive and although he didn’t know her all that well, he already cared about her far too much for it to be a one-time occurrence. Maybe this isn’t a good idea, he thought, suddenly starting to second guess himself. Is bringing her back to my flat serious? No. Maybe? Do I want serious? No, I don’t want serious. But I do want her. Why is this so complicated?

  As they sat next to each other on the Tube later, Oscar rubbed his eyes, trying to stop over-thinking the evening in front of them.

  ‘You seem quiet,’ Olive said. Her arms were folded, and she used her concealed fingers to stroke Oscar’s arm, just in case any of his avid fans happened to be on the train watching them.

  ‘I’m fine!’ he said, taking her hidden hand and kissing the back of it. Then they heard giggling. Oscar’s head whipped round to see two teenage girls sitting at the other end of the half empty carriage, watching very conspicuously. Oscar gently returned Olive’s hand to her own lap and gave the girls a smile and a nod, which prompted even more giggling.

  ‘Oh no,’ Oscar muttered through still-smiling lips.

  ‘What?’ she whispered back.

  ‘I think they’re about to come over.’ Oscar took out his phone and started randomly opening and closing apps in order to look busy. Olive glanced over at the girls through her hair and they seemed to be deep in frantic conversation. One of them was rooting through her handbag and decanting the contents of it onto the empty seat beside her.

  ‘How can you tell?’

  Olive was aware of the difference in fame between herself and Oscar and the types of fans they encountered. Olive could do a show, say hello to a few respectful and often shy fans at stage door and then happily and anonymously get on the Tube home without anyone noticing her again. She’d even sat opposite people reading the programme of the show she’d just performed in who still didn’t know who she was. However, she had seen the piles of letters that had poured in through stage door with Oscar’s name scrawled wildly on the front, often in pink or purple with the ‘i’ in ‘Bright’ dotted with a heart. His face had reached the TV screens of everyone in the country and even if they didn’t know his real name, they were more than happy to call him by his character name. Olive wasn’t adept in recognising he’d been spotted, but Oscar was a dab hand at seeing the signs.

  ‘I just have a hunch. Stop looking. If they think we’re busy it may put them off.’

  Olive averted her gaze to look over his shoulder at his phone. She noticed he’d opened his message inbox which he quickly closed again when she paid an interest, and her brain went into overdrive wondering if he had something to hide.

  ‘Don’t you want them to come over?’ she asked, fighting the urge to sneak a glance at the young girls again.

  ‘If they come over, they come over. It’ll be fine. It’s just the build-up to it that I hate – makes me anxious like you wouldn’t believe.’ Olive had already noticed that he had shrunk in on himself and his shoulders were no longer brushing against hers because they were up near his ears.

  ‘Anything I can do?’ she asked, squeezing her hands between her knees and feeling her own pulse quicken.

  ‘You got an invisibility cloak in that rucksack of yours?’ Oscar asked, hunching himself further over his phone, frantically scrolling through his Twitter feed and replying to every other tweet with various emojis.

  ‘Why? Did you leave yours at the theatre?’ She bumped his shoulder, just as a timid voice interrupted them.

  ‘C-c-can…’

  Giggle.

  ‘Can I get…’

  Giggle.

  ‘… a picture?’

  Giggle.

  Oscar looked up from his phone to see the teenage girl in her modified school uniform. Shirt ends tied together in Britney Spears fashion at the front, her skirt rolled up at the waistband so it sat high above her knees and her black heels which surely weren’t school regulation. Her face was shiny and so red Olive wondered if she might burst with one untimely jolt of the tra
in. Olive had never seen Oscar interact with a fan before and given his reluctance at being recognised, she worried this girl was about to be sorely disappointed.

  ‘Of course you can!’ Oscar’s face burst into friendliness, like someone increasing the brightness level on a phone screen.

  ‘Ohmigod!’ the girl squeaked, alerting a few other passengers to their interaction. Oscar stood and held onto the rail above his head and snaked his other arm around her shoulders, and Olive watched as the youngster melted into him like butter. The train juddered around a corner and when Oscar held onto her a little tighter to stop her from falling, her smile became a little wider. Then the girl thrust her phone at Olive.

  ‘Oh… um… sure!’ Olive took the phone that had been primed for a photo. She stood on shaky legs, her own face now hot, her hairline sweaty as she tried to take a picture but each one came out blurry as her hands shook. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’m not very good at this.’ Olive handed the phone back to the girl, but Oscar took it and expertly swivelled it around in his fingers, flipped the camera and snapped two selfies.