Amy let the water in the shower scald her; she lathered up an old cracked cake of Imperial Leather all over her and sneezed at the smell. She felt fully fledged, extremely sophisticated, and she grinned like the cat who’d eaten the canary. And a ruddy pretty canary at that, she smirked. Like Vita Sackville-West, Sappho, and a Georgia O’Keeffe flower all rolled into one. Yum. The brimming embodiment of femininity stepped out of the shower into the steaming condensation of the minuscule bathroom and dried every limb with histrionic tendresse.
In the kitchen everyone sat around peeling feathers from freshly laid eggs and shelling peas in a quaint but pointless way. They’d already decided to have fish and chips on the quayside for lunch.
“Guys, please don’t do too many. Every Monday morning I’m left with a colander full of the bloody things and every Friday I throw them out,” begged Lily as she bent over to feed her cat.
“Why don’t you make soup or something?” Lucinda advised helpfully.
“Because there’s a Marks and Spencers in town and they do it for forty-seven pence a tin.” Everyone saw her point but carried on shelling peas anyway. Amy made her entrance. Gone were the tweeds and in their place was a sort of lavish sarong garment, all the colors of the rain forest with a couple of parrots for good measure. She was barefoot and satisfied. Hmmm, pondered her audience. Hmmm, pondered Lucinda. Did her the world of good, obviously.
In town they browsed around all the haphazard china shops and whiled away an hour in a secondhand bookshop. Amy’s mind was half on the day, half on her newfound glow. It wasn’t really to do with Lily, not in the way that having a man made you all focused on that man. Amy was thinking of herself and what a sexy individual she was.
Lily and Amy broke away and made their way along the windswept quayside, down some fearsome steps and, sitting just clear of the water, munched their vinegar-sodden chips, chirping about boats and books and chickens and …
“It’s been fun having you here, Amy,” said Lily. “Come again in the summer when we can have candlelit picnics in the wood at midnight.” She held her hand on Amy’s thigh; Amy visualized wood nymphs and moonbathing.
“Love to.” She coaxed the last chip from the bottom of the soggy bag.
She was interrupted by a pair of navy blue trousers towering above Lily. The trousers slowly bent down and kissed Lily’s cheek.
“Good God, woman, you’ll be the size of a tank if you carry on eating those things.”
Lily’s shriek scattered the seagulls padding around beside them.
“Orlando Rock, well, he-low!” Amy puzzled at the name—she’d heard it before, a thousand times, but couldn’t place it. School? Male model? My dentist? She was craning her neck around to see who Lily was hugging so furiously when she caught a glimpse of his profile. My God, it’s Mr. Rochester. Her heart stopped beating and she stopped chewing her chip. The Actor. Here. On the beach. But how on earth does Lily know him? The pair stopped cavorting and Lily introduced him.
“Amy, Orlando. Orlando, Amy.” And? willed Amy.
Mr. Rochester, alias Orlando Rock, bent down and shook Amy’s hand firmly.
“Always a pleasure to meet one of Lily’s friends,” he breathed huskily, and stared her crash-bang in the eye. Amy gulped and smiled.
“Hi.” Feeble, Amy, you can do better than that.
They stood around awkwardly for a couple of seconds before Lily pulled Amy to her feet and, one arm around Orlando’s waist, marched them off to an olde tea shoppe. They sat among women of a certain age whose little fingers cocked as they sipped Earl Grey. They ordered cream tea and iced buns with a cream horn for good measure.
“Lapsang souchong, please,” requested Lily.
“ ’Aven’t got none, luv,” said an elderly waitress, her yellowing lace apron somehow not managing to convey much olde-worlde charm.
“OK, Tetley’s then, please.”
The lady was clearly not impressed. “We ’ave Earl Grey, English breakfast, or rose ’ip.” This struck Amy as a curious array, but given the take-it-or-leave-it tone it was presented in, Lily conceded and opted for rose hip. She and Orlando chatted about an assortment of glamorous topics, when they were last in Chile and my God we haven’t seen each other since the Warhol party in New York. The more Amy thought of to say, the less she was capable of contributing to the conversation. She just smiled periodically and sought out the fragrance of bergamot in her Earl Grey, carrying out a little experiment to see if when you held your breath and stopped sniffing, you could still taste the Earl Greyness of the tea. You couldn’t. Then she noticed the horrible peeling border of the wallpaper and the swirly patterned carpet. She’d prefer to have high tea in Claridges, she decided. Looking around at the clientele, she suddenly became aware that more than one middle-aged lady was glancing in their direction, in one case accompanied by a whisper to her companion. Amy heard the buzz in her head.
“Isn’t that whatshisname, terribly handsome?”
“But not nearly so tall as he looks on the telly.”
“Yeees, you’re right, Jessica, now what is his name?”
Orlando Rock. Amy filled in. His eyes were inordinately blue and his features so aquiline and delicate he looked like a Roman god. And he was sitting at her table tucking into a cream horn. They barely exchanged a glance, but when they did, his was warm and friendly.
A stout figure in pink bouclé loomed over the table, peering down at them from her horn-rimmed spectacles.
“Hello, Mr. Middlemarch.” She nodded, very pleased with her memory and casual wit.
The actor looked up and smiled kindly.
“Hello,” then turned back to Lily and Amy for conversation.
“You were ever so good, would you mind signing my lottery ticket?”
He obliged her and she puffed back to her table like a Trafalgar Square pigeon.
“I wasn’t even in bloody Middlemarch,” confided Orlando. The trio burst into repressed olde-tea-shoppe laughter and devoured the rest of the scones. When the time came to leave, Amy had ad-libbed a few entrées into the chitchat and even raised a smile from her god.
“Amy works with Benjy’s girlfriend at Vogue,” Lily informed him. Amy smiled weakly and resisted saying “for my sins.” Her job sounded so stupid. Yes, I’m a multidimensional person who knows about hemlines and can spot Versace leggings at fifty paces.
“So how long have you and Lily been together?” he inquired sensitively when Lily had leaped up to go to the loo. No. Please, God, no. It’s not like you’re even in with a chance, Amy, she told herself. But Oh No. He thinks I’m gay.
“Oh, well, we’re not … umm exactly …”
“It’s OK, I’ve known Lily for years. It’s hardly a secret,” he reassured. I’m trying to flirt with him. I have a god of stage and screen. Mr. Rochester. Mr. Middlemarch. At my table. And he thinks I fancy women. Fuck.
“We’ve only just met. Yesterday, in fact. I’m only here for the weekend.”
He chuckled throatily.
“Lily always was a fast worker.”
Lily reappeared at the table, shaking her hands dry.
“Shall we go, guys? The celebrity angle’s getting them confused, the waitress just asked me if I was Goldie Hawn.”
They said fond good-byes outside. A gargantuan hug for Lily and a polite pair of kisses for Amy. Good going though, she thought, from a megastar.
“Lily let’s have supper midweek, I’m filming just round the corner. I’ll give you a ring. And, Amy.” He turned his attention to her. She felt ridiculous in her Amazonian sarong ensemble, as though she was wearing a brightly colored paper napkin. “Amy, it’s been a pleasure, and who knows, Vogue have asked me to do a shoot for them, maybe now I’ll oblige.”
Puff. Amy was Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, and any other pigeon you cared to mention. Prehistoric and postmodern pigeon. Her feathers puffed proudly and her chest burst with pride and excitement. She pushed the gay thought to the back of her brain and longed to be back at work where the actor could call her, as she knew he must.