Not Without You (28 page)

‘Ready as I’ll ever be, Jimmy.’

ACTUALLY, IT TURNS out it’s a bad day on set today. You have them, sometimes – nothing goes right. When the budget’s $80 million you can afford a few upsets. But if you’re shooting on a shoestring and you’ve only paid the crew for eight weeks, a bad day is a disaster. They’re only short scenes, right at the end of the movie, but they are crucial. I am Annie, back working in Anne Hathaway’s cottage after the whole knock-on-head-wake-up-in-dream-world scenario, wondering if it was all in my imagination. I see a guy walking through the gardens with his mother, out for a nice day trip. He comes into the house, smiles at her and tells her he‘s the new manager, and you realise it’s Shakespeare, in the modern day, and the elderly lady who’s his mother is the same actress who’s played Anne Hathaway in the later scenes. After the first couple of takes I’m sure it’s not as good as it could have been. I’m not bringing the warmth to Annie that I want and I’ve fluffed my lines, nerves I think. And now filming has totally stopped.

Halfway through the morning we get the message that Cara is definitely out of the picture. She’ll be in hospital for at least another week and then recovering, and the insurance company is saying we have to find someone else. There’s an idiot producer from LA, Carl, who’s just arrived and who knows nothing; he’s yelling into his phone and slicking his hair back. T.T.’s jumping up and down, waving his arms and screaming. He can’t cope in a crisis. ‘Where’s Tony?’ he keeps screaming. ‘Where’s fucking Tony? What are we gonna do? I can’t take this any more! I can’t!’ Carl stares at him and looks even more panicked, and the assistant director, Paula, keeps wiping her brow in stress, and pushing her baseball cap so far back on her head it slides to the ground, so she picks it up and then hits her head on a piece of equipment. It’s turning into a farce.

I sit there, watching this all unfold. I know what I’d do if they asked me for my advice. Find Eve Noel. Re-jig the schedule so we shoot the scenes without Cara that don’t mention her in any way so we can reshape the script if we have to go ahead using Cara’s already-filmed stuff and a swift rewrite if we can’t get anyone. Luckily her scenes are mostly ones that lift right out of the action. She’s almost like the narrator of the story. I know that script backwards, I could do it in my sleep. But it’s not my position to jump in, some star giving her opinion is the last thing you want here. And I wrote to Eve already anyway, and got the briefest brush-off from her UK agent, Melanie something. ‘
Miss Noel is not contactable
’ was the line I loved best. What does that even mean? I emailed back asking for more information, but she never replied, not to me or Tina, or to Sara either.

When I can’t hack the cold any longer, I stand up and stretch, then climb the steps to the long, low thatched house – it’s not a bloody cottage, that Anne Hathaway must have been minted – and slip inside.

‘Do you know where these beams came from?’ comes a voice from the next room, an old lady’s voice.

‘No,’ comes the reply, that voice that always used to send a shiver up my spine all those years ago. ‘Ships? Do tell me. They’re beautiful.’

‘The Forest of Arden,’ says the old lady. I can see her now, a stern figure just inside the door, staring beadily up at someone. ‘And do you want to know something very interesting about the Forest of Arden?’

‘Oh, absolutely I do,’ says the silken voice, and she makes a gruff, pleased sort of grunt.

I gently open the door. ‘Hello, Alec,’ I say.

Alec Mitford eases himself away from the old window-seat. He’s in modern dress for this scene: chinos, a navy polo shirt, a casual jacket. His black hair is close-cropped; usually it flops a bit. His eyes are dark blue too, and his mouth pouts, just a little, when it’s in repose. The summer we were sleeping together, his beautiful Notting Hill flat was on the corner of two main roads and the traffic would wake me up. I’d lie there, one arm propped up on its elbow, and watch him sleep, then snuggle against him, trying to get him to have sex again, and make him think it was his idea. He wasn’t ever as keen as I was, especially on the sex part. Thankfully I realised, before I was told, that it wasn’t going to last.

‘Ah, Soph,’ he says. ‘Escaping the sturm und drang outside, are you? Great minds.’ He kisses me on the cheek. ‘Margaret, this is Sophie Leigh. She’s the star of the film. Soph, Margaret helps out at the house.’

‘Nice to meet you.’ Margaret glances at me, then goes back to staring up at Alec.

People like Margaret are like the patrons of the Oak. They have no idea who I am. Unless Margaret’s seen
Wedding of the Year
, which I doubt. ‘Don’t let me disturb you,’ I say.

‘Just telling Alec about the Forest of Arden,’ Margaret says.

‘Yes, how interesting. Where is it now, what’s left of it?’ Alec says.

‘All gone,’ Margaret tells him, slapping her thighs in pleasure at being able to impart this information. ‘None of it left, not a single tree.’

‘Why?’ Alec says. ‘What happened to it?’

‘Humans,’ Margaret tells him grimly. ‘Most beautiful forest in all of England for thousands of years. Beech, rosewood, oak. Taller and thicker they are, the better, see? Then we start cutting it down, for houses like this.’ She pats one of the ancient beams. ‘And for the navy. The Hundred Years War, the Armada. You know, most of the ships built to fight the Armada came from the Forest of Arden. The
Mary Rose
, she was too. By the eighteenth century –
phut
. All bloody gone.’

It’s moments like this I start to feel very far from home. Alec is shaking his head. ‘That’s awful. Just awful,’ he murmurs. ‘And now they want to privatise our woodlands. What next.’

Margaret rolls her eyes at him. ‘Well, I know. Sometimes I think, you know, running this place here, it’s the last piece of really old England we’ve got left?’

Alec puts a fist to his solar plexus, and intones quietly, ‘“This blessed plot, this earth, this realm,
this England
.”’

‘Aah,’ Margaret says, gruffly thrilled. ‘Marvellous stuff.’

I hide a smile and turn away, looking out of the window at the rain, my mind wandering. Alec will always be in work. He’s like one of those actors in
Upstairs, Downstairs
or
The Jewel in the Crown
; there will always be an Alan Ayckbourn or a Noël Coward revival in Bath or Richmond that’ll be glad to have him. His female co-stars, however, won’t be so lucky. When I try to think about what parts I’ll have in five, ten years’ time, I can’t see it at all. I’ve got no successful template, unless you count Jennifer Aniston, and I’m not sure I want to be like that, to be honest. All that yoga must be exhausting and the tan – her skin’ll be worse than Deena’s when she’s older.

I wonder how Deena is, with a start. I keep thinking about her, and our last meeting, her face as she held the car keys in her hand, ready to drive off and have sex in costume with some disgusting guy in a motel. Does she feel like this, when she comes back to England? Not fitting in. Does Mum know how she’s making a living, these days? I smile though it’s not funny. Of course Mum doesn’t know.

It occurs to me then that Deena might want to stay in the house. That place is like Fort Knox now plus I don’t fancy anyone else’s chances against my godmother. I take out my BlackBerry and email Sara:

Then, as an afterthought:

I know the answer to that one. But it doesn’t hurt to ask.

And then, because I tell myself I want to give her something to do:

It’s just my way of apologising again, I tell myself. My heart thumps as I do it. I reason with myself that I’m only trying to make sure he doesn’t bad-mouth me all round town, though I’ve taken no similar action with George. Rather, I hope to slide out of George’s life as easily as I came into it. Anyway, Sara told me yesterday the project was back on. They found some actress from
90210
to take my part. Good luck to all of them. Patrick can take her to Big Sur for Thanksgiving.

I’m behaving like a Taylor Swift song. I shake my head and put the phone away. Alec is nodding sympathetically at Margaret. ‘Listen, Margaret, will you excuse us? I need to talk to Sophie.’ He pulls me by the elbow. ‘OK if we go upstairs?’

‘Of course.’ Margaret clenches her jaw and looks straight at him, then nods. ‘Jolly good to talk to you,’ she says. ‘Think you’re – damn good news. Anything I can do, let me know. Hm?’

‘How kind you are.’ Alec smiles graciously and almost bows at Margaret, while I try not to be sick. He leads me up the oak stairs, varnished into blackness over the centuries, and into a large room, the roof sloping up on both sides. ‘Is this Anne Hathaway’s room?’ I ask. ‘Did Shakespeare … sleep here?’

‘Fuck knows,’ says Alec, looking around cautiously. ‘Thank God, we’re alone.’ He stares at me. ‘You all right? You look tired.’

‘Oh, I was rubbish this morning,’ I say.

‘It’s nerves. You’re doing damn well, especially considering you were parachuted in at the last minute.’

‘But I want to be brilliant,’ I say. ‘And it’s really hard.’

‘Brilliant?’ He laughs. ‘Don’t we all. Look, you know better than me how to make this script work. You’re the one who pummelled Tammy into revealing she’d even done the rewrites. And you’re the queen of being likeable. You can do this standing on your head.’

‘I don’t think I can.’ I try to make it sound like this is a casual conversation, not my darkest fears given an airing. ‘I’m not feeling it. Every line I say comes out dull and …
bleurgh
. I don’t believe the situation. I don’t believe in me. It’s easy in LA. Everyone …’

Everyone tells you you’re great even if it’s a lie. And here I don’t know what I’m doing.

Alec sighs. ‘God, Sophie, what do you want me to do, read you out some Eckhart fucking Tolle? Listen. Just because you’re used to being surrounded by people telling you how
amazing
you are every time you fart on set doesn’t mean your acting’s any better. Trust me. I know what they’re like. Those guys like to make you think they’re essential so they keep themselves in a job. And it’s crap.’

‘Maybe you’re right.’

‘Maybe?’ He rubs his forehead. ‘They’ve made you think these things are important and they’re not. You’re a great, natural comedian. And a bloody good actress. Grow up and get over yourself.’

I blink at him. ‘Wow. Thanks for going easy on me.’

‘You know what I mean. I yell because I care, sugar tits. Take responsibility for your own happiness and all that. I got rid of everyone and moved back to the UK last year and it’s been so much better ever since.’

‘I hate the way people assume the UK is morally right and LA is automatically some cauldron of evilosity,’ I say crossly. ‘Like Mordor.’

‘Well, it is.’

‘It’s not. Just a lot of people there are.’

‘So don’t let them tell you how to have your hair, or what you’re doing next, or all of that. And definitely don’t let them put you in pink dresses with sleeves.’ He raises a wicked eyebrow. ‘Apart from the pit stains, darling, pink is so not your colour.’

‘You bitch.’ I jab him in the arm, laughing, because it’s true, though no one says that to me any more. ‘I’ll flounce off set and then you really will be screwed.’

‘You wouldn’t dare and you know it.’ He kisses me on the head, then something catches his eye and his expression changes. ‘Oh, fuck. Listen, Soph. Can you do me a favour? Look out the window.’ I peer out of the old wooden casement. He stands behind me.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘What do you want?’

‘Er – um. Is Eloise out there?’

I can see a group of people from the crew standing by the willow cabin, in massive kagoules and padded jackets. They’re pissed off, if their crossed arms and tight expressions are anything to go by. At the edge of the group are two women.

‘I think I see her,’ I say. ‘She’s got some large garden shears in her hand. The thin, beautiful one with straggly split-endy hair?’

‘Yes.’ Alec shudders, and moves a little closer, so he’s just slightly leaning against me. ‘She’s a nutter, Soph. What am I going to do?’

I try not to laugh. ‘Alec, you make your bed, you know, darling.’

As I turn around he grabs my arm. ‘She was waiting outside my door this morning. She writes me notes. I gave her my mobile—’ He smacks his forehead. ‘Why the fuck did I do it? She rings me, texts me, all the freaking time.’

‘Hold on, when did you – er, actually sleep with her?’

‘About a week ago.’

‘And then you shagged Helen.’ Helen is the runner, a bright, bouncy twenty-year-old with enormous tits. ‘And now Eloise has gone mad. She’s French, Alec, they don’t like that sort of thing. She’s not some English slapper you can bonk and leave.’

‘You weren’t a slapper, don’t do yourself down,’ he says.

‘Har-di-har-di-har,’ I say. ‘Well, she’s the one who’s about to get us kicked out. All. Because. Of. You.’ I jab him on the chest.

‘Oh, God. Why?’ Alec’s thin face grows pale.

‘She went mad with some shears after lunch and over-trimmed the willow cabin. It’s ruined.’

Alec looks pale. ‘Oh, shit. Oh, shit.’ He stops. ‘What’s a willow cabin, when it’s at home?’

‘Make me a willow cabin at your gate,’
I say. ‘
And call upon my soul within the house
. Come on, Alec! If I know that, you must do. You were the one quoting Shakespeare downstairs to that old biddy.’

‘Margaret. Don’t be rude. Anyway, I only knew it because it used to be a Tetley advert. Where’s the willow cabin from?’