The Stand-In

  I sat beside the pool doing nothing, like these three women here, and I watched people getting in and out of their cars. There were two shabby palm trees and the scaffolded back of a hoarding: beyond was the sliding glitter of the freeway.

  Dusk fell. Lights were switched on in the rooms, one by one. Shadows moved behind the blinds; someone laughed, high and hysterical. Through the bushes came the Babel chatter of twenty different TV channels. Other cars arrived and left; lights swung over the building. I sat there until it was dark. Some machine that was aerating the pool bubbled and burped. Earlier in the day the water had been as warm as mucus. There was a faint hum from somewhere, like the hum of a generator when you’re filming. I felt conscious of the machinery of my veins, and my moist cunt that nobody had touched. I looked up; for once it was a clear sky, with the stars in arrangements that nobody had explained to me. I didn’t know what any of them meant; besides, above California the stars were different. Stars – up there, breathing a different ether. I thought of Lila’s thighs, smooth as satin.

  I brushed past a bougainvillaea; its thorns scraped my leg. And then I was in my room. I took off my clothes – shorts, t-shirt, briefs. I was glowing from my birthday sun. I lay down on my bed and I started stroking my small, spread breasts that had never suckled a child.

  Then I got up and lit a candle. I had bought it earlier that day – I believe in ceremony, don’t you? And then I lay back, my head flung over the edge of the bed, my throat stretched. Blood rushed to my cheeks. I started touching myself as Trev had touched me. His face was pressed against the window, watching me. They were all watching me – Lila, Roly, my father whose finger moved to his moustache, who coughed his little cough but who then attended. Because I had got him now; I had got them all.

  Scrape-scrape went the cicadas, outside in the bushes. I was both inside and yet I was outside, looking in. Their sound was the sound of the cameras, whirring. I began in earnest. I heard my own rasping breaths, and as I heard them I breathed more heavily, the heat was spreading and I was burning. I started crying out, little yelps for my audience, as if I wasn’t really alone – and I wasn’t, was I? Just then, just for a few moments. And then, in a spasm, my back arched and my nimble finger made me shudder so sweetly, again and again, and there seemed no end to it until I was gasping, beached on my bed like a porpoise. And only then did I hear the hum of the air conditioner, and I felt the sheet bunched up beneath me, pulled half off the mattress. My candle had sunk and was starting to gutter – it was only one of those cake candles, it hadn’t lasted long.

  So that was my birthday present to myself. I lay back, my cheeks burning, my father turning his face away. I thought you would be a great actress, he said, but I could hardly hear him now, he had buried his face in his hands. I didn’t listen; I just heard the murmur of the freeway.

  I can hear the traffic now. But it seems so far away; it seems to come from another country.

  I should be feeling homesick; I’ve been in America two and a half years now. I have a mother and a brother in England. But I feel nothing. No – not quite. I feel detached, as if I’m standing on the opposite bank of a river from myself. My past is simply the sound of that traffic, murmuring in the distance. I inspect my feelings, like a mathematician looking at a graph, and only I can juggle the figures.

  I told you it’s inhuman, didn’t I? I think I talked about John Lennon. Only yesterday, but already it seems a long time ago. And when on earth did he die? Can you remember?

  Time is elastic. Time is what you need it to be. In your hands it can shrink and stretch. When you are driving to a new destination the journey seems endless; when it is a familiar route you are there almost before you have begun. The beat between I’ve got something to tell you and the dreaded news itself – in that beat your life replays as if you’re just about to die. But if the person is simply opening the newspaper, then time is as transparent and tasteless as water.

  Ah, but when it thickens.

  I’m thinking, now, of that moment when Lila’s limo dropped me off at my flat. She sank back, just a woman in dark glasses, though the car made her special and a neighbour I had never spoken to paused, and glanced at me again. I took my suitcase upstairs. In my sitting room the plants had wilted. I counted the hours until the car would pick me up again.

  I showered. I had a beautiful bathroom. Spotless. Blue-grey tiles. Lila might have a limo but I guessed she wasn’t finicky. I pictured her shower cubicle, long blonde hairs blocking the plughole. There was something sluttish about her that appealed to the Trevor in me.

  I didn’t phone Trev – not yet. I plucked my eyebrows and gazed at myself in the mirror. Compared to hers, my lips looked thin. Trev once went out with a girl who had lips as full and soft as marshmallows. He said he could come, just looking at her mouth.

  I pouted. I held up a hand mirror and inspected my profile. Strong nose, heavy chin. From the side I didn’t look like Lila at all.

  I phoned the garage at Much Wallop. My car would be ready the next day. I sat on the sofa and looked at my sitting room. When you live alone, everything is as you left it. Depending on your mood, this can either be reassuring or unnerving. My room looked neat and unremarkable, as if anybody could live there – a wall of books, two posters from the Jeu de Paume in Paris, a Habitat dining table and chairs. It looked like the sort of room people rent out. It looked as if I had never lived in it.

  It was up on the first floor, with a big window and a balcony. In the summer my view of the houses opposite was blocked by a lime tree; it greened and shadowed my room, giving it an oppressive feeling, as if it were under water. The tree dripped sticky stuff on the cars below. My neighbours wanted it lopped, but I coveted my six months of secrecy each year. I’ve never liked real people looking in; imaginary ones are so much more interesting, aren’t they?

  I can see my flat quite clearly today. There must be somebody else in it now; if I went back I would hardly recognise it. My possessions have been put into storage. Perhaps the chimney pots have been thrown away, who knows?

  I can remember that Friday afternoon. I wandered around, doing nothing at all. My flat existed in a vacuum, like a stage set. I feel, now, that I was emptying myself, preparing myself for something important. I was preparing myself for Lila. But maybe I was just exhausted from a week’s hard work, not acting.

  You might ask: why didn’t I tell her that the author of the play was my boyfriend? It was for Trev’s sake. I wanted her to think we were going to see a terrific new play, by a terrific new playwright. I didn’t want her to think I was only taking her along because I was involved. I think my motives were as pure as that.

  At six o’clock I dialled Trev’s number. When the ringing stopped and there was that pause, my heart sank. I hated speaking to his machine; it made me feel that we had nothing to say to each other. When the beep went I suddenly wanted him, badly.

  ‘Hi, it’s me. I’m back. Listen, I’m bringing Lila Dune to Use Me – who says I’m not supportive? Don’t come. I want her to see it on its own merits.’

  I put the phone down. Five minutes passed, and then I dialled again. I misdialled, once, because I couldn’t concentrate. I got the Texas Pancake House. I tried again.

  ‘It’s me again. Do come.’ I paused. I didn’t say I love you. I said, ‘I’d love you to meet her, but pretend we hardly know each other, OK?’

  I put down the phone. It was the greatest mistake of my life.

  Lila was an hour late. I sat waiting, my hair brushed. Had she forgotten? When Trev was late – he usually was – I seethed, because he had stolen an hour of the time we would have together. I feared his priorities. My mind raced with alternative scenarios, which grew more lurid as the minutes passed. My guts shrivelled. But I always kissed him lovingly, I never let him know.

  Waiting for Lila, however, I simply felt nervous. I had changed three times, and had finally settled for my blue jacket and the trousers Lila had admired in the car. I hadn’t booked a meal becau
se Lila had said this was her no-food day, but I had bought some juices and drinks which I had put into the fridge. I had polished a couple of glasses; they waited on the stage set that grew more unreal as the minutes passed. I had put on the Mozart Requiem; the voices were singing now, all over again, a second time. I wanted Lila to come in when it was casually playing.

  Perhaps I should play something lighter – show songs? I hadn’t got any. Perhaps Lila wasn’t coming. The more I thought about it the more unlikely it seemed, that I should take a film star to a grotty pub off Tottenham Lane. Lila wore backless dresses and went to premières. Maybe she thought even Belsize Park wasn’t safe.

  Our moment of intimacy on the journey had drained away; Lila was simply a film star again, unknowable, with a suite at the Park Lane Hotel. She was like royalty. She wore the invisible envelope of the famous; she moved in a driven network of accompanied visits to Bond Street, her London wasn’t my London. She probably hadn’t stepped on public transport for years, except for a shoot.

  Suddenly the bell rang. I clattered downstairs. At the door stood the driver. He was an ex-jockey called Pat. Behind him the limousine was double-parked, its lights winking like a police car. The man in the basement flat, who was putting out his rubbish, straightened up and looked across at the long black car blocking the road.

  I ran upstairs, got my things and rejoined them, panting. I was a fool – of course Lila wasn’t going to see my flat. I stepped into the back of the car, like stepping into a room.

  ‘You guys use the Ouija board here?’ asked Lila.

  I shook my head.

  Lila said, ‘It’s nifty. Irma, she hid it in the closet. She thinks I listen to it better than I listen to her. You think it’s garbage?’

  ‘No. I just like to make my own decisions.’ That sounded priggish. I said, ‘I think women ought to take their lives into their own hands, rather than listen to a bit of cardboard.’

  ‘That’s just what it told me, the Ouija board!’

  Lila was wearing a yellow jacket and slacks, with high-heeled sandals. Underneath the jacket, her knitted top was appliquéd with rhinestones. She wore the curiously fashionless clothes of somebody who dresses for men. She seemed different tonight; fresh and alert. Her perfume filled the car.

  ‘I look OK?’ she asked, taking off her dark glasses.

  ‘You look fine.’

  ‘This the kind of stuff to wear?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, copying her accent.

  We drove through the streets. We passed shops and shabby buildings, ruddy in the sunset.

  ‘This is fun!’ said Lila. ‘It’s great of you to ask me.’

  She had closed the windows. They were tinted, one-way, so outsiders could not see in. As the car stopped at some traffic lights a group of youths jostled and peered. I met their blind eyes. I smiled at them; they could just as well be watching me. I re-crossed my legs, slowly; I wished I were wearing a skirt, so it could move up my thighs.

  The Three Crowns was a gaunt pub next to a funeral parlour. It was embellished with graffiti. Two black youths leant against its wall. Nearby, a green light flashed above a minicab hire office. Above it stretched the suffused sky.

  I said, ‘You’d better not expect merry cockneys and toffee apples.’

  We got out of the limo. As we did so, a flashbulb popped. I swung round; a man had come out of the pub. He took another photo. I hurried Lila past him.

  Trev was in the bar. He looked so unfamiliar, after two days, that my heart lurched. He had slicked back his hair with gel; he was wearing his black leather jacket and a black leather tie I had never seen. He looked studiously mafiosic. The director was with him; he must have come in specially.

  I introduced them. ‘This is Trevor Parsons, the writer. And Reece Bendien, the director.’

  They all shook hands. Various drinkers, mostly old Irishmen, paused to gaze at us, their glasses halfway to their lips.

  We went upstairs; Trev even stood aside to let us, the women, go first. Next to Lila I felt both proud and anxious, as if I were accompanying a precious piece of porcelain. Even the girl taking the tickets, who was usually cool, included me in the smile she gave Lila.

  The room was half-full. As we entered, a hush fell. Then a ripple ran through the audience. Some of them, I guessed, recognised Lila. The rest just saw a very sexy, rather overdressed woman. She must be famous; hadn’t they seen her somewhere?

  The four of us sat in a row near the front. Without her attendants, without even her driver, Lila was my responsibility. Was it too stuffy? Too cold? Was the seat too hard?

  I whispered to Lila, ‘Sorry about the photographer. Nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Sorry about what?’ In fact, I was to learn, Lila hardly noticed. Clicking cameras were as familiar to her as the beat of her pulse; she no longer knew an ordinary reaction.

  Reece was sitting the other side of Lila. Next to him, Trev seemed beyond my reach. And when the curtain rose, the play seemed miles away.

  I had already seen Use Me a couple of times. Tonight it seemed to be played down the wrong end of a telescope, in mime. The actors mouthed, they moved, I heard the echoes of what they must be saying. The woman was married. The plumber came to her house to mend the boiler, and then she begged him to stay because there were so many more things for him to do. Each night she undid his handiwork – she broke the pipes, like a goblin in a fairy story; she fused the lights. Each day he had to return and repair them all over again. As he did so she told him about herself and her husband, in greater detail, and each day she wore less and less when she opened the door to him.

  I sat on the hard seat. I had stomach cramps; I felt suffocated. On the stage the plumber was kneeling on the floor, fixing, something with his screwdriver. The actress came in; she was wearing a black negligee and high-heeled slippers; she stood behind the plumber and just touched him with her pointed toe. She started speaking about her wedding night but I didn’t hear. My face was burning. Why had I brought Lila to this place?

  Lila’s perfume dizzied me. On stage the woman took a spanner from the plumber and started stroking it. Then they were on the kitchen table and she was straddling him. I closed my eyes and the curtain fell.

  There was a smattering of applause.

  ‘Holy shit,’ giggled Lila. ‘You guys are kinkier than I thought.’

  ‘He’s what’s called rough trade,’ I said. ‘He comes with our class system. Middle-class women are supposed to be overeducated and frigid. That’s why they go for men like that.’

  ‘Billy Hurt, he was in this picture about a janitor. But he was Billy Hurt.’

  Down in the bar Trev had ordered a bottle of champagne for the interval. Champagne! Lila, however, drank orange juice.

  ‘Your play,’ she said. ‘It’s so powerful!’

  Trev, for once, had bought his own packet of cigarettes. He offered one to Lila, and then one to me, with the courtesy of a stranger.

  ‘I’m trying to show that it takes two to be used,’ he said.

  ‘How’s that?’ Lila asked.

  He lit Lila’s cigarette, leaning close to her. ‘For every sadist there has to be a masochist. It’s a collusion.’

  ‘On account of her wanting it?’

  ‘Exactly!’ He grinned at her, moving closer. My skin prickled.

  Reece joined in. ‘Every relationship is a form of manipulation.’

  Lila sighed. ‘Boy, you’re so right.’

  ‘Trev’s play shows how none of us is free of guilt,’ said Reece. ‘Outward liberation means nothing if we are still, inside, crippled by our patterns of behaviour. In The Duchess of Malfi she needs to be used by Bosola, the self-destruction is inbuilt from the start. And you know how that ends.’

  ‘How?’ said Lila.

  Reece ran his finger across his throat. Lila shivered, and pulled her jacket across her shoulders.

  In Act Two the woman has kicked out her husband. The plumber had moved in. Once installed, however, he becomes her mas
ter and she his slave. He ties her apron so tight that she cries; he forces her into crippling, higher heels. She serves him meals, she sponges his brow. She lies naked, spreadeagled on the table, as he sits smoking a cigarette. It is his turn to speak now. He describes his sexual conquests, he tells her that she is worse than the lot of them, she’s a slut. He taps his ash into her belly button. The play ends when she murders him.

  Pat, the driver, was waiting in the bar, drinking tomato juice. With Lila’s imminent departure, Reece moved in for the hard sell. ‘Pinter understood the pornography of class, of violence.’ He put his arm around Trev. ‘This bloke, we predict his impact’s going to be even greater.’

  Trev simpered – a new sight for me. I glared at him. With his sleek hair, he looked like a water rat. I realised that I hated his play.

  Lila said, ‘You guys, you’re all over Broadway now. There’s been this sweet show, Me and My Girl.’

  ‘We’ll get there,’ said Reece. ‘You wait.’

  I turned to Lila. ‘They’re working on this really terrific show already. It’s about two young pseuds.’ I smiled. ‘It’s called Me and My Gel.’ Before Trev could react, I ushered Lila away. For some reason, I wanted to get her away from them both.

  We drove back to Belsize Park. In the car, Lila sat huddled in her jacket.

  ‘Does that guy have talent!’ she said. ‘You’re lucky.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t get to hear that kind of talk.’

  I was just going to apologise for its pretentiousness. I stopped.

  ‘All I hear is the gross,’ said Lila. ‘All I hear is dollars. Twenty million, domestic. Forty million, worldwide. They don’t say, is she crippled by her old patterns of behaviour?’

  ‘What do they say?’

  ‘They say, What did her last picture do?’

  We slid through the dark streets in our dark car. Illuminated signs passed us by . . . World of Sarees . . . Nicolette Sauna and Massage . . . We passed the Five-Star Tandoori. Behind its curtains, red light glowed. A waiter stood outside, ready to usher customers into his little theatre.