Charlie stood in front of the bathroom mirror and examined her face. ‘Oh God,’ she murmured, peering closer, but there was no denying it, there they were. Three spots pushing up under her usually smooth skin. One on her chin, one on her jawbone and worst of all, one in the middle of her cheek.
‘Why, why, why,’ she howled, but quietly, because she didn’t want to wake Ian, the lodger, who might stumble out of his room and witness her humiliation.
She leant into the mirror again and, knowing she shouldn’t, she attacked the biggest spot, squeezing it hard, rubbing it, and then when it only darkened and grew larger she changed her tactics and doused it with cold water. The others she stared at, turning her face right and left to catch the light, frowning, smiling, pouting, but whichever way she looked, they were still there. ‘Fuck!’ She felt like sobbing, but instead she took a deep breath and began applying foundation. She added mascara, lipstick, and then taking a wad of tissue, she smudged the lipstick off again. Shit. She stared at herself coldly; it’s only six in the morning, and anyway, once she reached the film set, Lauren, the make-up woman, would scrape back her hair, wipe her face clean and reveal the truth.
‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ Lauren said dutifully. ‘I hardly even know what you’re talking about.’ She peered into the mirror at Charlie, already in costume as Melina, a girl from the South Sea Islands, brought into the country as a slave, but now, through her own ingenuity and astounding beauty, the wife of a country squire.
‘I just don’t understand it.’ Charlie felt despairing. ‘I’ve always had good skin. Why this, now?’
Lauren swivelled her round so that she could stare with professional scrutiny into her face. ‘Little outbreaks like yours,’ she conceded, ‘they’re not at all uncommon. Acne can be caused by any number of things. Food allergy. A change in cosmetics. Genetics. Stress.’
Charlie shrank away from the word ‘acne’. Honestly. She only had three spots! ‘I don’t know,’ she hesitated. ‘I guess I am quite stressed about this part, I still don’t really know who Melina is.’ But then a new job was always stressful. Not that the alternative of no job was any better. The best moment in an actor’s life, Rob had once told her, was the day the work was offered. After that it was all downhill.
‘The good news . . .’ Lauren was still squinting at her, ‘is no one will ever know. You wouldn’t believe the repair jobs we have to do on some people, really, some of the problems we see.’ And as she worked, smoothing and moulding, fluffing and patting, she lowered her voice to tell Charlie about rashes, cold sores, spots and boils on the most celebrated faces.
With every new story Charlie felt increasingly alarmed. And you’ll never guess what I spent all morning doing . . . she could imagine Lauren whispering to whoever took her place in the make-up wagon next . . . covering up Charlie Adedayo-Martin’s appalling break-out. Like the surface of the moon, it was . . .
‘There, my beauty,’ Lauren patted her. ‘All done.’ And Charlie thanked her dolefully and moved along three seats to where Jilly was ready with her wig.
Later, her auburn hair wound into a loose bun, Charlie picked up her long skirts and stepped through the early morning sunshine to her caravan. As she pulled open the door she held her breath against the smell of the bright blue disinfectant they used to douse the toilet, which permeated every synthetic fibre of the built-in furniture. The caravan was large – a sitting room with a pull-down double bed, a kitchenette, a loo and separate shower – and as a sign of her elevated status, it was just for her. I’d have happily lived here a few years ago, she muttered when she was first shown round, although it wasn’t long before she noticed it was smaller than her co-star’s caravan – Ben Trevelyn, who, although he had half her lines, was being paid roughly twice as much.
Charlie slammed the door shut and looked at herself in the full-length mirror. Not just at her face but at the line of her body in her pleated skirt and waisted shirt and the hair pulled softly up to show off her neck. ‘He’ll just have to film me in long shot today,’ she shrugged, remembering the director’s appreciative glances, and she shouted, ‘Come in!’ to Matty, the runner, who was knocking on her door with a polystyrene cup of coffee and a bacon roll.
‘Cut!’ It was early afternoon and the director and the lighting cameraman were in conference, heads bent together, gesticulating, concerned.
What’s the problem? she wanted to ask Lauren, who had run forward, a finger ready with a dab of concealer, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. She already knew . . . The problem was her. Eventually they started up again and shot the same scene from another perspective. ‘Get as much cover as you can,’ she heard the director hiss, and then, an hour earlier than expected, she was told she wouldn’t be needed any more that day. They were going to get some landscape shots while it was still so bright.
‘You all right, sweetie?’ The director approached. ‘You don’t seem very focused today. Big scene tomorrow, though.’ He patted her arm. ‘OK?’
‘OK,’ Charlie said cheerily, ‘see you all in the morning,’ but she felt her stomach lurch.
On the way home she sat silent in the back of the car, warding off conversation with her driver – every detail of whose life she already knew – by pretending to sleep. But she wasn’t sleeping. Her eyes were open, just a fraction, enough to see the men and women on the streets, at bus stops, in cars, pushing babies, all of them, although they didn’t need it – didn’t even care – with perfect, unblemished skin.
When Charlie arrived home, her lodger, Ian, was in the kitchen, making himself a nut roast. Two weeks before he’d been offered an advert, and now he was on a diet. Having never dieted before and knowing nothing of the myriad choices available to dieters, he’d simply opted to miss out lunch and buy a three-week supply of instant nut roasts from the health food shop under the bridge. He’d given Charlie the impression that he’d been asked to diet, that the producer of the commercial (a woman) had told him that he’d be expected to walk bare-chested along an Algarve beach, and even though the advert was for a sickeningly sweet breakfast cereal, she still hoped to see him svelte and defined in his trunks.
Charlie watched him pour boiling water into the mixture and turned away to avoid the smell, but however disgusted she was with this repetitive meal and Ian’s dogged observation of it, she couldn’t help but admit that it was working. When she’d rented him the room, only a month before, he’d been a heavy-set, unexciting man in jeans and a sweatshirt, a lodger she thought she could safely rely on for a weekly influx of cash without being in any way distracted, but now, with his jeans hanging a little more loosely, his faded T-shirt flat against his stomach, she found herself uncomfortably aware of him.
‘Hi,’ she said, coolly, tugging at her hair in an attempt to hide the already hidden spots. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Fine.’ Ian slid the foil baking tin into the oven. ‘Beautiful day today.’
‘Yes,’ Charlie nodded. She’d spent most of it in the drawing room of a country house near Watford, attempting to avoid the shafts of light that fell through the half-drawn curtains, arguing archly with an admirer who was imploring her to run away with him. For every one of her tart replies he became more genuine, more passionate and desperate, offering his heart to her, his very soul, if she would only consider him, so that it seemed by the end of the scene that they were speaking two different languages, were standing on either side of a wide, intricately carpeted divide.
Ian checked his watch. Charlie knew from the night before, and the night before that, that his nut roast would take fifty minutes. Fifty minutes! She was irritated and impressed by his organisation. If she was hungry, she’d pull something out of the fridge right there and then, and if she wasn’t, she probably wouldn’t bother to eat at all. And what if someone called and invited her out at the last minute? All that planning, and chopping. It was hardly worth the bother.
‘Oh, I forgot . . .’ Ian frowned, his hand already on the door. ‘A man called for you . . . Rob, I think it was.’
‘Thanks,’ she yawned, but as soon as he’d retreated up the stairs she picked up the phone. ‘You rang?’ she said, imperious.
‘I did indeed.’ Rob’s voice was low and teasing. ‘I’m coming into town tonight, wondered if you fancied a drink?’
Charlie hesitated. A drink meant many drinks. His hand on her arm, a tussle on the pavement while she tried to resist his kisses and then, giving in, a thrilling, thrashing film-star fuck up against the wall of the hall with the door slammed hard behind them.
‘Do you know what?’ Charlie caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. ‘I can’t tonight. Filming at the crack of dawn. Sorry.’ She yawned to show how tired she was. ‘Another time maybe?’
‘Baby . . .’ Rob said enticingly. ‘Just one small drink?’
‘Sorry. No.’ She held fast, savouring her power.
‘Hmmm.’ Rob paused. ‘So what’s the story? Got someone new?’
Charlie gasped in mock outrage. ‘I’m tired, that’s all. And I’ve got lines to learn. Some of us take our careers seriously.’
‘It’s that new lodger, isn’t it? I expect he’s cooking for you right now, while you take a bath and slip into something comfortable.’
‘Hardly. He’s only got one thing on his mind and that’s an advert for Munchy Mix.’
‘Tasty.’ Rob laughed. But her cruelty had infected her and she asked coolly after his latest girlfriend, a regional theatre director with a ten-year-old child, the last in a long line to have lured Rob away.
‘OK, OK,’ he said huffily. I just wanted to catch up, that’s all. Another time. Sweet dreams.’ And he put down the phone.
Charlie lay in the bath and worried about Melina. She knew she could write a back story for her, dissect her actions, imagine for herself every intimate detail of her life, but she’d always claimed to despise such methods. ‘Have you never heard of Acting?’ she liked to quote Laurence Olivier, with whom no one was inclined to argue, and she’d looked on scornfully as her fellow students sat ensconced in their research. But Melina was tricky. She was so hard, so relentlessly cold. If I was her, she thought, I’d have run off with the gorgeous Colonel by now. Or at least abandoned myself to him behind the topiary, and then, although she’d promised herself she wouldn’t, she began thinking about Rob. The magnets in the pads of his fingers, the electric current that shocked her each time they touched.
Fuck it, she decided, I’ll call him back. So what if I look hideous? We’ll go somewhere dark. And she leapt out of the bath, and grabbing a towel, she flung open the door just as Ian appeared on the landing. ‘I’m sorry,’ he stammered, his eyes widening, his neck flushing deep red, and shaking her head, Charlie retreated into the bathroom. ‘Bollocks,’ she said, although she was grateful too for being saved, and she splashed back into the water, where she lay, her long brown body submerged, the smell of nut roast, nauseating, drifting in under the door.
The next morning her skin was worse. There was a fourth spot, and a raised ridge of tiny white pimples in the crease of her chin. She peered at herself in disgust.
‘What am I going to do?’ she said to Lauren, silently beseeching her to say that it was nothing – but Lauren took her face in her hands. ‘I suppose you could see a doctor.’ She was sombre. ‘Get some antibiotics or topical lotion of some sort.’ She began to mix a mud paste of foundation. ‘Before it gets any worse.’
All afternoon they worked on an exterior shot of the garden. Melina bending gracefully in long shot to gather armfuls of white flowers, meandering between the box hedges, sniffing the occasional rose. But as she neared the camera her self-consciousness rose up and strangled her, and twice, just the thought of her lumpy face swimming into focus made her stumble, and they had to start again. ‘Cut!’ The director was flustered. ‘I’ve told you, no emotion! No one should know you care.’
As soon as she was safely in the car Charlie scrolled through her list of contacts. ‘Nelly?’ she managed, turning away from the driver. ‘It’s me. Something . . .’ and then, unable to control herself a second longer, she began to cry.
‘Oh my God.’ Nell was alarmed. ‘Sweetheart, darling, what is it?’
‘It’s . . . umm . . . I . . it’s . . .’ but she couldn’t get a hold of herself. ‘I’ve got . . . oh it’s so terrible . . .’ Her tears turned to painful rasping sobs. ‘I’ve got spots!’ Now she’d said it she was laughing. Sobbing and laughing, and wiping her nose.
‘You what?’ Nell, relieved, was laughing too. ‘I thought someone had died!’
‘They have. Me. And the new spotty Charlie Adedayo-Martin has been reborn.’ Charlie sniffed and without looking up, took the box of tissues offered by the driver.
‘Sweetheart,’ Nell soothed. ‘Honestly. Do you want me to come over?’
‘Would you?’ Charlie felt her eyes well up again. ‘I’ll be home in forty minutes. I’m warning you I look horrific.’
‘Likely story,’ Nell snorted, and she promised to be there by seven.
Ian was sitting at the table eating his nut roast when Nell arrived. ‘Hi,’ he looked up, still chewing, when Charlie introduced them. Nell had brought a bottle of wine and Charlie set about opening it. ‘Do you want a glass?’ She turned to Ian, but he shook his head, and pointed to his tumbler of water. ‘Nothing impure shall pass my lips.’
Charlie carried the bottle through to the sitting room and Nell followed with an ashtray and two glasses. She pushed the door shut behind them and they grimaced at each other. ‘Where did he come from?’
‘Some friend of a friend of Dan’s. He’s here to help pay the mortgage.’
Charlie poured the wine and went and peered at herself in the expensive gilt mirror above the fireplace. ‘See?’ she turned to Nell. ‘Look what’s happened to me.’
Nell came closer, creasing her forehead and screwing up her eyes as if she’d have to search for years before finding anything. But even though Charlie knew she was pretending, she was grateful all the same. ‘Well, I do see a few small . . . blemishes.’ Charlie’s heart sank. If even Nell was prepared to admit she looked like a monster, then what hope was there? She wished she hadn’t rung her. She wished she hadn’t come. ‘But I promise you,’ Nell carried on, ‘unless I was this close, staring at you, searching for something wrong, I’d never notice. Truly.’
‘Really?’ Charlie loved her again. ‘It’s so strange, for the first time in my life I don’t want anyone to look at me. And this job doesn’t help. I’m meant to be a flawless beauty. Able to transcend impossible social barriers by the sheer irresistible gorgeousness of my looks. Yesterday they shot my whole scene from the point of view of the servant. All anyone will see is the back of my head.’
Nell laughed. ‘I don’t believe you.’ And Charlie, her hand up to her face, feeling for the little bumps along her jawline, agreed it wasn’t entirely true.
Charlie and Nell curled up at either end of the sofa.
‘So how are you?’ Charlie remembered to ask.
‘Not bad.’ Nell poured herself more wine. ‘You know we’re taking Two Lobsters and a Prawn to Edinburgh. To the festival.’
‘That’s great.’
‘We’ve got these brilliant posters. Me and Sita with our guns, and once we’re there we’re going to go out flyposting. There won’t be a person north of the border who doesn’t know our show is on.’
Charlie had never seen Nell so happy. ‘Maybe I’ll come up and see it, if I get a few days off.’
‘Yes, that would be great. But the place we’re staying . . .’ Nell looked worried. ‘It’s a friend of Hettie’s and she said if we didn’t mind we could kip down in the kitchen . . .’
Charlie laughed. ‘I’ll stay in a hotel. But I’m not sure anyway. I don’t have my schedule yet. I may not have time.’
‘If you can . . .’ Nell drained the last of her wine. ‘Bloody hell, this bottle’s finished already! Shall I run out and get some more?’
‘No. I’ll go. Stay right here.’ Charlie snatched up her bag and ran down the stairs to the front door. As she stepped out on to the street she came face to face with the man who paced daily back and forth, shouting and cursing, his eyes darting sideways as if it may not have been him. Sometimes it seemed that Charlie never opened her door without confronting him, his stick raised, his mouth open in a roar. She waited a moment until he was ahead of her and then darted across the road, round the corner and past the chip shop to the off-licence. She chose a chilled bottle of white and waited while the man in front bought three cases of lager.
‘All right,’ he winked at her as he stacked them into his arms and she smiled her most unfriendly smile.
‘Ian’s got a crush on you,’ Nell whispered delightedly once they were back on the sofa.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Charlie shook her head – she’d found them chatting together in the kitchen – but all the same she went and looked at herself in the mirror. Her cheeks were flushed from the wine, and the spots had darkened to maroon points under the concealer. They felt itchy and sore. ‘What makes you say that?’
Nell looked at her. ‘Just the usual signs. Blushing. Stammering. An inability to stop mentioning your name . . .’
Charlie flung herself back down. ‘He’s all right. Just one more insecure actor, that’s all.’
‘You know what’s happened to me?’ Nell’s eyes were sparkling.
‘No? What?’
‘I’ve met someone.’
‘You’re joking. Why didn’t you say? Who is he?’
‘He’s . . . well, the really amazing news is . . . he’s not an actor.’
‘My God . . . there are such people!?’
Nell was excited. She knelt up on the sofa. ‘I did this thing. I read about it. I made a wish list. Apparently if you write down everything you want and put it in a drawer, it all comes true. So at the top I put “A Boyfriend – But No Actors”.’
‘What else?’
‘A job. A flat of my own. With a view.’ She looked round wistfully at Charlie’s large sitting room which she’d helped paint in a ragged distressed yellow. ‘Children. Umm. What else. A waist . . . smaller tits.’ She was laughing. ‘Anyway, three days later, literally, I went to see a play at the Finborough Theatre. You know Samantha was in The Maids, again. And I got talking to this guy.’
‘And did you warn him?’
‘What? That I’d sworn off actors. No. Well, not until I found out he was a stage manager.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘Well.’ Nell went dreamy. ‘He’s good at moving furniture around.’
Charlie kicked her.
‘No, he’s lovely. He’s about 5.10, curly hair . . . Green eyes.’
‘Sounds like Dan.’ Nell kicked her back. ‘I hope he appreciates you, that’s all.’ Charlie was already prepared to hate him. She wouldn’t admit it but it suited her when Nell was single. ‘So, not a hopeless loser like all the others?’
‘You can talk!’
‘True,’ Charlie agreed and she reached for the wine.
‘I’m starving now,’ Nell said hopefully. ‘Do you have anything in?’
‘Sorry.’ Charlie shook her head. There was nothing in the house except fifteen boxes of nut roast mix and they weren’t even hers.
‘You don’t look after yourself,’ Nell told her.
Charlie put a hand to her face. ‘Maybe it’s all the location food. It is particularly disgusting this time.’
‘You know, there’s a brilliant Chinese doctor round the corner from here. He cured a friend of my sister’s who had eczema. I’ll get you the number. Or a nutritionist. Or maybe you should see one of those homeopaths that tell you about your allergies.’
‘Yes,’ Charlie sounded unconvinced.
‘Well, if I’m going to get the bus . . .’ Nell looked round for her bag, ‘I should get going.’
‘So where’s the gorgeous stage manager tonight then?’ Charlie asked as she hugged her goodbye.
‘On tour. I’m going to stop on the way to Edinburgh and see him.’
‘Have fun.’
‘I’ll ring you with those numbers. As soon as I get them.’
‘Thank you. And thanks for coming round.’
‘Bye.’ Nell trotted down the stairs, her lovely homely body swaying with wine and the knowledge she was useful.
‘Bye,’ Charlie waved. ‘Bye.’ And she was gone.
Charlie was woken by the bell. Who could that be? Today was her day off, and no one visited at ten in the morning. She waited, hoping Ian might rise from the cave of his room and answer it, but assuming, rightly, that no one ever called for him, he didn’t stir. The bell rang again. Sharp and insistent.
Charlie wrapped herself in a long wool cardigan and went downstairs. Two smart, black Jehovah’s Witnesses stood on the doorstep. ‘Hello,’ they beamed, and the man’s aftershave hit her like a wave. ‘Do you believe in God?’ He spoke in a strong West Indian accent.
‘No,’ Charlie told him.
The man rebounded. ‘NO?’ He looked aghast, although he must have heard the word a thousand times. ‘Did you ever believe in God?’
‘No,’ she lied. There had been a time, she supposed, but her Catholic boarding school had put an end to that.
‘What do you believe in, then?’ The man moved closer.
Charlie looked from his gleaming face to the woman’s, a little more reserved, her eyes already retreating. ‘What do I believe in?’ Charlie put her head on one side. ‘I believe in . . .’ She knew she didn’t actually have to answer. ‘I suppose I believe in myself.’
The man widened his eyes, the woman pursed her lips.
‘I believe,’ Charlie continued, ‘in people being big enough to say sorry. I believe in . . . hope.’
The man shook his head as if that was the wrong answer, but the woman looked interested. She rummaged around in her bag. ‘We believe in hope too,’ she said, ‘and one day there will be the end to our hoping when good will conquer evil, and we will be rewarded.’ She held out some photocopied pages with several lines underscored.
‘No thanks.’ Charlie shook her head.
‘There will be an almighty battle. A heavenly war. Only the good will prevail.’
‘But where will this war happen?’ Charlie looked round to check no one was listening. ‘In heaven?’
‘No,’ the man boomed. ‘Here on earth. And then peace will reign.’
‘But you can’t have a war without guns and bombs and people dying, and that’s why I don’t want anything to do with God.’
The woman looked genuinely shocked. ‘But there will be angels . . .’
‘So what happens when someone sets off a bomb? What about all those people in Omagh, the woman pregnant with twins, out shopping with her mother? Were there angels there then?’ Charlie began closing the door.
‘If God created the earth,’ the man tried a last different tack, ‘then there’s hope, and if he didn’t . . . what is there to hope for?’
‘Sorry,’ Charlie said, diminishing him to a slice.
‘Think on that,’ he called.
‘I will,’ she called back, and she went upstairs and watched them from the sitting-room window, scouring the houses, wondering which bell to try next.
Ian was in the kitchen making tea. ‘Who was that?’ he asked and Charlie laughed, more at herself than them, as she repeated the conversation. ‘Tea?’ he offered, and Charlie sat down.
‘So when do you start this advert?’ It was rare, she realised, that she asked him a question.
‘The week after next. I’ll be gone for five days.’
‘And then?’
‘Nothing then.’ Ian wilted. ‘My agent says it’s a slow time. Slow in summer. But I haven’t worked since January. Slow in winter. Slow in spring.’ He laughed wryly. ‘Actually I’m thinking of packing it in.’
‘No!’
‘And retraining.’
‘Retraining as what?’
‘A lawyer.’
Charlie was amazed. ‘How long will you give it?’
‘Not sure. One more year.’
‘I don’t know what I’d do if I stopped acting.’ She felt a chill of alarm run through her. ‘I don’t think there’s anything else I could do.’
‘But you’re a success,’ Ian gazed at her. ‘You won’t need to. What was that film I saw you in? The Haven Report. And Celestina. You were brilliant.’
Charlie blushed. ‘Hardly.’ But she felt a glow of pleasure all the same.
‘And Giant Small Steps. That was the best thing I’ve seen on TV in years. Have you got anything lined up, after this film you’re doing now, I mean?’
‘Not really,’ Charlie shook her head. ‘I’ve been offered a tour. Rosalind in As You Like It, but I don’t know if I can face it. All those dreary northern towns in winter.’ Too late she remembered Ian was from Birkenhead. ‘And anyway, I don’t know if the production is themed. Once I was offered Juliet at the RSC and I arrived to find that the Capulets were all of African descent and we were expected to be half-naked, playing the bongos at every opportunity, tearing into strips of meat.’
Ian laughed uproariously.
‘My agent swears that this is a colour blind production, but I’m going to wait and see who else they cast.’
‘Well, I hope it works out.’ Ian was still chuckling, gratifyingly. ‘You’d be perfect.’
Charlie sipped her tea. ‘Maybe.’ She could feel Ian looking at her, stealing glances while he had the chance, and she kept her head tilted, showing her best side, the lace trim on her slip just visible beneath the grey wool of her wrap, and then she remembered. Of course, he wasn’t admiring her at all. He was looking at her spots. Setting down her tea she ran upstairs. Maybe there is a God, she felt like wailing as she peered into the mirror, and he’s decided it’s my turn to be punished. She mixed a pool of foundation in the palm of her hand and smeared it on, reminding herself she was one of the lucky ones – if she could take a bigger view – she was one of the luckiest people in the world.
‘Well, it’s hardly life-threatening.’ Dr Helik smiled, blushing a little as he had done ever since he’d made the error of mentioning he’d seen her in an episode of Sisters of the Night, in which she’d appeared dressed only in the skimpiest of underwear, brandishing a whip. ‘But then again, in your profession . . .’ he conceded, frowning, shaking his head. ‘Presumably,’ he had to ask, ‘the problem is only on your face?’
Charlie nodded tersely.
‘Right.’ Dr Helik scribbled on a slip of paper. ‘These antibiotics are very mild and won’t take effect immediately. Come and see me again in three months and we’ll . . . um . . . review the situation.’
Charlie stared at him. I’ll be dead by then, she wanted to say, or too busy retaking my A-levels, but she stuffed the prescription into her pocket and sauntered across to the chemist.
She took the first pill as soon as she got home, and although she knew it was ludicrous, she ran and checked to see if there was any change. ‘What am I going to do?’ She bit her lip, and unable to think of anything else she lay on her bed and flicked through some of the scripts Maisie had sent her. Mika, exotic beauty . . . Gloria, strong, charismatic career woman. Loretta. Sultry, sexy mistress of Philip.
Charlie sighed, pulled the quilt over her head and slept.
That night Charlie made a plan to stay in. It wasn’t that she’d never had a night in alone before, she had, but she’d never actually planned one. She bought vegetables from the stall at the end of the road and some fish from the fishmongers that until now she hadn’t noticed was there. She even took down a cookery book her mother had once given her. A book she’d never opened, not even to read the inscription which she now saw for the first time.
‘To my beautiful daughter, stay well. With love always. Mummy.’
Charlie flicked through the pages. This doesn’t look so hard, she decided, but she had to run out twice, once to buy a lemon and then again for bay leaves. When she had everything she needed she put on an old Country and Western tape. ‘Joleen, Joleeeeeen,’ she belted along with Dolly Parton, and for a moment she felt supremely happy.
She sliced courgettes, celery and aubergine. She dipped tomatoes in boiling water and peeled off the skin, and as she sang, and twirled and chopped, she imagined Ian might come through the door and be amazed to see her. Not just a talented actress but a goddess in the kitchen as well. But the time for Ian’s nut roast to go into the oven passed, and then the time at which he usually ate it. Charlie sat down at the table, with her slice of grilled cod elegantly perched on a bed of ratatouille, alone. Not bad at all, she nodded, and she ate it, ravenous.
After she’d eaten, and left the dishes in the sink as proof of her productivity, she sat with her back against the sofa and switched on the television. But it bothered her to see the actors playing parts that should have been hers, or playing parts badly, or worse, with style and grace. It made her uneasy, and reminded her she still didn’t understand Melina, and had no idea how to approach tomorrow’s scene – a confrontation with her husband, her children hanging on her skirts. She switched off the TV and put on a CD, a Bach sonata she’d bought once to impress Marcel on his first and last visit to this flat. He’d been on his way to New Zealand, where she’d been planning to join him for a month of travel, kayaking with dolphins, catching river taxis along the Marlborough Sound, but before she’d had a chance to book her ticket he’d called to say he was sorry, he’d fallen in love with a documentary filmmaker who was making a film on the making of his film. He didn’t know how it could happen, the girl was half-Maori, had only recently graduated from film school . . . and the attraction, it was . . .
‘No,’ Charlie stopped him, ‘please, don’t, don’t . . .’ and afterwards she’d lain on the floor, curled up against the pain, and thought, so this is how it feels – and she’d prodded the pulpy bleeding muscle of her broken heart.
Charlie let the music swell around her. It was too late to switch it off. And wondering what she could possibly do now she remembered a packet of white organza on a shelf in her cupboard where it had sat since the week that she’d moved in. She’d planned to make a lace curtain for her bedroom window several years before but had never found the time. She retrieved it and tipped it out on to the floor. The material was fine and creamy, a little dusty from lying folded for so long, but she ironed out the creases and then turned the top over in a pleasing double hem and pinned it. The curtain wire was coiled in the packet too, and as she was threading it, pushing it inch by inch through the hem, bunching and straightening with a caterpillar’s progress, she heard a crash outside. There was some muttering and cursing and the scratching of a key at the front door. Charlie frowned and continued threading, hoping it was someone from the flat below, but then her lodger’s unmistakably heavy steps began ascending.
It took Ian some time to fathom the intricacies of the next lock, but eventually he was in, and she could feel him standing looking down at her from the hall. ‘Charlie,’ he spluttered, helpless, ‘meet Charlie,’ and she glanced up to see he had a traffic cone in his arms.
‘What about your supper?’ She couldn’t think of anything else to say. ‘You missed it.’
‘Oh that,’ he stumbled forward and still holding the cone, he slumped on to the sofa. ‘I met up with a friend, we went to the pub and I thought, fuck it, fuck the advert, fuck Munchy Crunchy mix. It won’t get me anything I want.’ He looked at her mournfully, his eyes so shiny they were wet.
Charlie continued with the threading. The material was all bunched up now and she had to ease it along the wire with great care so that it didn’t slide off. ‘Could you take one end?’ she asked, thinking she could measure it against this window, identical to the one above, and Ian leapt up to help her so quickly that he stumbled over the cone and fell. ‘Charlie,’ he moaned to the cone, ‘I’m sorry, baby, I’m so sorry,’ and the real Charlie stood and looked at him, her face closed. It occurred to her that she was haughty as her character, cold and admired and absorbed by domestic deeds. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said when Ian dropped the wire for the second time, ‘I’ll take it, I’m going up to bed now anyway,’ and still in her role as nineteenth-century paragon of womanhood she gathered the white organza in her arms and aware how much it suited her, how the nape of her neck looked as she bent over it, she walked quickly up the stairs.
Once she was in her bedroom she realised she’d forgotten the little screws that needed twisting into the wooden window frame, but she couldn’t go back down. She abandoned the material in a pile and pulled off her clothes. This is ridiculous, she thought, it’s only ten o’clock, and it occurred to her she hadn’t seen a single person that day, apart from the doctor. If Ian comes up, she thought, and if he waits for long enough outside my door, I’ll let him in. He’s not that bad. She opened her script and looked over the next day’s lines. Just to have someone’s arms around her, a man’s hot beery breath against her ear, but the minutes passed and there was no sound from him. It’s for the best, she told herself. Just think of the next morning. A small tear trickled down her face. We’d have to eat breakfast together like some horrid suburban couple, and with Melina’s lines circling in her head she fell asleep.
The next day at six a.m., her face made up, her skin still blotched and lumpy, she came downstairs to find Ian asleep on the sofa, the traffic cone beside him, his arm clutched tight around its base. Charlie looked at him, and then she went and found a blanket. As she draped it over him he reached up and caught her hand. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, his eyes still closed, and for a moment she allowed herself to sink down beside him. To feel the warmth of his touch, the pressure of his fingers, smell the male hay and sweat smell of his skin. ‘Charlie,’ he moaned, ‘sorry about being an idiot . . .’ and as he tightened his grip she remembered herself, and who she really was, and disentangling her fingers she turned impassively and walked away.