The Understudy: A Novel

  “Well, that’s flattering, isn’t it?”

  “I did film it, what, eight years ago. I’d rather he showed a little more interest in the contemporary model, to be honest.”

  “Well, I still think you’re amazing.”

  “Don’t flirt with your ex-wife, Steve. It’s not on.”

  “So I’m wasting my time?”

  “Absolutely. I love you loads, Steve, you know that,” she said, and Stephen noted once again how the addition of the word “loads,” like “lots” and “tons,” rendered the three words that preceded it entirely innocuous. “And if things had worked out differently…” She arched her back on the sofa, took a drag of the cigarette and stretched her arms up above her head. “But, well, I’m with Colin now and I do love him. God knows why—he’s a pompous old bastard sometimes.”

  “Can I ask you something?” said Stephen, pouring more wine.

  She peered down at him, along the length of her body, and narrowed her eyes. “Go on.”

  “You promise not to get angry?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay.” Deep breath. “What the hell do you see in him?”

  “Colin?” Alison laughed a little drily, screwed up her face, then sat up suddenly, and locked her arms around her knees. “I tell you what it is. It’s like cars.”

  “Cars.”

  “Cars. When you’re young, you want something wacky and fun, a yellow 2CV, or a crappy old mini or something, and you don’t mind if it breaks down, or if people laugh at you, because you still can’t believe that you’re allowed to drive. You’ll drive anything. Then you get a bit older and maybe you want something a bit flasher, not expensive necessarily, but a bit zippy and cool and dangerous, something that everybody else wants. And then I suppose, with me, I just got to the age where what I really wanted was just a big, heavy, expensive old BMW. Something that makes you feel…safe.”

  “And that’s Colin? Colin’s the Beamer.”

  “Colin’s the Beamer.”

  “Well, he’s certainly roomy.”

  “See—I sound shallow now, don’t I?”

  “Uh-huh. So, what was I then? The yellow 2CV?”

  “God, no. You were my VW Golf.”

  “One point eight?”

  “One point six diesel engine.”

  “Economical…”

  “Navy blue, but with leather interiors. And one of those natty little sunroofs.”

  “I don’t know whether to be pleased or appalled.”

  “Be pleased. Lovely little car, that. Lot of women would kill for a little blue VW.”

  “You think so?”

  “And I’m speaking here as the one previous careful lady owner.” There was a small silence while they sat and looked at each other, then, out of the blue, she leaned further forward and took his hand.

  “I don’t think we see enough of you.”

  “Who?”

  “Me and Sophie. I mean, I’m not suggesting we all go on some family caravanning holiday or anything, but we’d like to see you more. We miss you. Especially Sophs. You know, if you wanted her to stay over, or to go away somewhere…”

  “And what’s bought this on?”

  “Nothing. Just you seem…better.”

  “Better?”

  “Not so sad.”

  “Well, you know—I did go a bit nuts back then.”

  “I know you did, and that was my fault, and I’m sorry. But you are better, yeah?”

  Stephen felt his head get hot. “Getting there.”

  “And has that got anything to do with this mystery married woman?”

  “Don’t know. Maybe.”

  “You think something might happen?”

  “Not sure.”

  “But you’re heavy-penciled?”

  “Not heavy. Medium-penciled.”

  “A TwoB.”

  Stephen’s pun reflex kicked in. “TwoB or—”

  “Stop!” said Alison, grabbing his arm in an unspoken “…or I’ll kill you.”

  Stephen closed his eyes tight. “Fight it, fight it, fight it…”

  “I do love you, you know,” said Alison, and Stephen opened his eyes. “Not like I used to, not in the same way, I mean, but I really do.”

  “Yeah, well—you too.”

  “Well—that’s nice to know,” and, with half a smile, “I’ll bear it in mind.”

  “Do,” said Stephen, and they heard the sound of a key in the lock. “It’s the Beamer.”

  “Right on bloody cue,” murmured Alison, stubbing out the cigarette.

  “Ali? Is someone smoking?” shouted Colin from the hallway.

  “In fact, I think you’re still absolutely amazing…”

  “Pack that in now,” whispered Alison, removing her feet from Stephen’s lap.

  “Do we have to?”

  “I can smell smo-oke,” shouted Colin.

  “Yes, we do,” hissed Alison, curling her legs up beneath, brushing the ash from her lap. Red-faced and maybe a little drunk too, Colin loomed in the doorway, like a strict but fair head boy.

  “Hi there!” said Alison and Stephen simultaneously.

  “Oh—hello there, Steve. Where’s Sophie?” said Colin, somehow contriving to make it sound like “What have you done with Sophie?”

  “She’s upstairs, smoking,” said Alison. “Stephen bought her her first pack of fags. He’s been teaching her, haven’t you, Stephen?”

  “Uh-huh.” But all the fun and flirtatiousness had gone, and Stephen was now trying to work out the quickest way to leave the house.

  “Right. I see,” said Colin, with his space-hopper grin, as he crossed over and picked up the second empty bottle of wine by the open neck, as if it were forensic evidence. “Goodness! Are you both pissed?”

  “Just a little, my love,” Alison said affectionately, taking Colin’s hand by the fingertips, shaking out his arm. “Just a little.”

  “Well, that’s fine, just so long as you remember it’s a Sunday night, and it’s a school day tomorrow.”

  “I know what day of the bloody week it is, Colin,” snarled Alison, throwing his arm away from her. “And I’m thirty-one years old, I don’t have school days.”

  And shortly afterward, Stephen left to get the bus home.

  He got back late that night, woozy, elated and flirtatious, and resisted the temptation to pour himself one last drink, partly because of the calories in a glass of wine, and partly because there’s ultimately very little satisfaction to be had in flirting with yourself. He had an intense desire to talk to Nora. Maybe he should call Nora. Maybe not.

  Instead, he sat at the small desk that overlooked the backyard of Idaho Fried Chicken. In a pile of postcards on his desk was a first-night card from Josh Harper, written way back in July. He’d meant to throw the thing away, but had been prevented by a shabby notion that it might one day be used to impress someone. If Josh’s career went according to plan, it might even be worth something.

  Scrawled on the back of the postcard, in fat, loopy blue ballpoint, it read:

  TO STEPHEN—THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT, MATE. HOPE YOU GET YOUR BIG BREAK SOON, AND GET TO SHOW ME HOW IT’S DONE. BREAK A LEG. OR BREAK MY LEG! HA HA!!! LOADS OF LOVE, YOUR MATE, JOSH HARPER!

  He leaned the card upright on the desk in front of him, then took a pen, and on the back of an old phone bill, practiced Josh’s signature ten times, squinting in the light, like the Donald Pleasence character in The Great Escape. It wasn’t bad—not exactly a perfect forgery, but it would do for his purposes. He took a copy of the theater program from the small pile he kept in his desk drawer, and opened it to the full-page, black-and-white photo of Josh near the front, all cheekbones and perspiration, slightly parted lips and blazing eyes. He took one last look at Josh’s signature on the postcard, then, speaking the words in Josh’s voice, and with as much of a flourish as he could manage he wrote—

  TO THE LOVELY MISS SOPHIE MCQUEEN, BIG LOVE AND KISSES JOSH HARPER XXX

  He compared Josh’s
handwriting with the original. Not too bad. On the front cover of the program, with a different pen, in his own handwriting, he wrote,

  Hello there, Princess! It was great to see you on Sunday.

  It’s always great to see you, of course, but it was particularly great. Didn’t you think so? I thought so.

  Anyway, look at page 4! A FAMOUS ACTOR’S AUTOGRAPH!

  Hope this does the job at school. And remember, I love you very, very, VERY much.

  Dad.

  Then he put the program into an envelope, wrote Sophie’s name and address in a slurred hand, and put it by the door, to send later in the week. Then he turned on the DVD projector, put on one of his favorite movies, Sweet Smell of Success, turned off the light and watched as the bare wall opposite shuddered into life in black and white, and soon fell asleep in the flickering light.

  The Big White Bed

  Stephen and Nora lay together on a bed as wide and white as a cinema screen. It was one in the morning, and Nora was wiping the tears from her eye with the back of her hand.

  On the wide-screen television at the end of the bed, the credits were rolling on The Philadelphia Story. It had been Nora’s suggestion, and Stephen had gone along with it, without quite remembering how woozily romantic the film was. Watching it late at night on Josh’s huge, immense television, in Josh’s bedroom, felt unbearably suggestive. He wasn’t aware of the existence of a film called Stephen Is in Love with Nora, but perhaps only that would have been more pertinent. The long, drunken wooing scene between Jimmy Stewart and Katharine Hepburn seemed particularly eloquent and apt. He wondered if Nora had felt the same thing too, but judging by the vast quantities of hummus and pitabread that she was eating, the emotion that she mainly felt was peckish.

  “Now that is an amazing film,” said Nora, twisting around and crawling the considerable distance down to the far end of the bed to turn the DVD player off. “Anyone who prefers High Society to The Philadelphia Story is insane,” she said, leaning over the edge of the bed for the second bottle of wine. “Excuse me for sticking my fat behind in your face.” She was wearing an oversized white dressing gown of the kind more usually found in upmarket hotels, and the whole bedroom had that modern hotel-room atmosphere, albeit a room that had been fitted out with a set of dumbbells, a pogo stick and a scale model of the Millennium Falcon. Josh had had friends in to see the show, and had promised to join them as soon as he could, but the film was over now, and it was assumed that he had probably ended up in some private club. From the chest of drawers, Josh’s original Storm Trooper helmet glared at Stephen accusingly. The old helmet stand, the BAFTA, still lay at the back of Stephen’s wardrobe, wrapped in a blanket.

  “You know what I really hate?” said Nora, clambering back up the bed to Stephen.

  “Go on.”

  “Special effects. What’s special about special effects? Even when they’re amazing, it’s like watching a big, dumb cartoon. It’s just embarrassing, sitting in a cinema with all these supposed adults, all leaping up and down watching a kids’ movie. Whatever happened to movies with people in them? Human beings.” She lay on her side, facing him now, her head resting on her hand. “It’s like these auditions Josh keeps going for, where they want him to be a killer cyborg, or the cop-of-the-future, or half-man half-terrapin. What’s the point? He’s throwing his talent away—after all, it’s not like anyone’s going to be watching him act.”

  “D’you tell him this?”

  “Yeah, but he just says that I don’t understand the grand world-conquering master plan that is his career. Besides, Josh loves all that comic book stuff. He pretends he doesn’t, but he does. I’ve seen him weep, actually weep like a baby, when Han Solo gets carbon-frozen in Empire Strikes Back.”

  “Well, it’s a very powerful moment.”

  “Yeah, for an eleven-year-old, maybe. Actually, I think the idea quite appeals to Josh. He doesn’t want to be buried or cremated, he wants to be carbon-frozen. Has he told you the latest, by the way?” She took a sip of the red wine, and Stephen braced himself once more for someone else’s good news. “They want him to be the new Superman.”

  “Well, it was bound to happen eventually. Superman, James Bond or Jesus.”

  “Except he’d only agree to play Jesus if he could be armed.”

  “He shoots first, forgives later.”

  Nora slipped into her passable Josh impersonation, “The thing is, I just think the character could be a bit more proactive, ’s all…,” then laughed, and pulled herself upright against the pillows. “I’m amazed he hasn’t told you about Superman. It’s meant to be top secret, of course, but he’s telling just about everyone he knows. People he brushes up against. Apparently, if the studio can get their heads around casting a cock-er-ney Superman, the part’s his. God knows what that’ll do to his ego; he already thinks he can leap buildings in a single bound. I caught him in the bathroom the other day with his hair waxed into a little kiss curl, doing this”—she pulled a determined frown, and put her clenched fist at arm’s length in front of her—“in the mirror. I asked him what he was doing. He said he was stretching.” They both laughed. “Don’t know where I can get my hands on some kryptonite, do you?”

  In a manner of speaking, Stephen was in possession of kryptonite himself, but nothing he could actually tell her. It wouldn’t have been fair; after all, Josh had promised he’d change.

  “Serves me right, I suppose,” she continued.

  “What for?”

  “For marrying a man who collects toys and calls me Nozza.”

  He pulled himself upright, leaned against the pillows next to Nora.

  “How is it going?” he asked, unsure of what he wanted the answer to be.

  “With Josh? Okay. Fine. Why d’you ask?”

  “I just wondered if there was any change.”

  “Why should there be any change?”

  “I just thought maybe…”

  “I don’t know, Steve.” Nora sighed, and flipped on her side to face him. “Sometimes I get the feeling he wishes he’d married someone a bit more red-carpet-friendly, that’s all.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “It’s true.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Just the way he…reads magazines, or looks around a party, like he’s choosing from a menu—‘Shall I have that? Or that? Or I could have that…’ Not just women either, men too; he’s a collector. He turns his attention on you, and that’s it. He’s got so much happening in his life, and I’ve got so little happening in mine…”

  “At the moment.”

  “At the moment, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was, you know, disappointed.”

  “With what?”

  Nora shrugged. “With me, sometimes.”

  “How could anyone ever be disappointed with you?” He had said it without thinking first, and Nora glanced at him sideways, and frowned.

  “Don’t be sappy, Stephen.”

  “No, I mean it.”

  She turned once more to look at him, with a slightly stern smile. “Are you flirting with me, Mr. McQueen?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he mumbled.

  She pouted jokily, her chin on her chest. “I’d like to think it maybe wasn’t quite so ridiculous.” She looked at him without moving her head, just out of the corner of her eye, frowning slightly, the ghost of a smile on her lips. And here it was, a chance to be reckless, to say something impetuous, provocative, to be the protagonist, not the understudy; make a move, say what you feel, like Jimmy Stewart in The Philadelphia Story. Even if she turned him down, or slapped him, at least it would be some kind of action, some kind of change or forward movement. Remember Josh’s motto? He put his glass down carefully on the hard flat mattress, put his hands behind him, and hoisted himself farther up the bed so that his face was level with Nora.

  “Oh, Stephen…” She sighed.

  “Nora…”

  “I think you may have just sat in my hummus.”
r />   Stephen lifted his left buttock to remove the plate of hummus, and in doing so deftly kicked over the glass of wine.

  “Oh, Jesus…”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I don’t believe it, I’m so clumsy.”

  “Really, it’s fine. I just need to get these sheets off before it soaks…”

  “Here, let me help.”

  “Please, Stephen,” said Nora, with just a trace of irritation, “I can do it.”

  Shortly afterward he stood in silence in the utility room, waiting for his cab to arrive. The last time he’d been in this particular room it was to fill the dishwasher with dirty glasses, and he couldn’t help feeling that he was already a little more familiar with Josh Harper’s white goods than he wanted. Yet here he was again, watching as Nora knelt and pushed the bedding into the washing machine.

  “So sorry about that.”

  “ ’S okay, these things happen.”

  He heard the click of the front door.

  “We’re through here, Josh!” called Nora, closing the washing machine door and standing.

  “Hello, beautiful,” barked Superman, barreling over, through the kitchen and into the back room, grabbing her so hard that she had to hold on to the washing machine for support, then kissing her once hard on the mouth, then again. It was a slightly lewd, openmouthed kiss, the kind of kiss you can actually hear, even over the sound of a hot-wash cycle, the kind of kiss more usually seen at a fairground, behind the waltzers. A kiss that makes a point.

  “What was that for, lover boy?” said Nora, coming up for air, glancing at Stephen, embarrassed.

  “Does there have to be a reason?” said Josh, clearly a little drunk.

  “No, it’s just I think maybe I lost a filling,” and she looked over at Stephen and laughed, and he did his best to laugh back.

  “Steve doesn’t mind, do you, Steve?”

  “Don’t mind at all,” said Stephen, minding more than he could possibly say.

  Superman vs. Sammy the Squirrel