Blurred Lines: The most timely and gripping psychological thriller of 2020

by Hannah Begbie

  Matthew’s own office at the end of the floor is screened with glass walls and blinds. Becky looks at it anxiously. Matthew is inside it.

  Siobhan grabs the phone on her desk before the door to the stairs has even swung shut. ‘David, I’m sorry, I did tell him you’d called. Yes, yes, I know … hold on.’ She presses her hand to the receiver. ‘It’s David Barraclough from Total Agents. Matthew’s been avoiding this call all morning. David is like, fever pitch angry.’

  ‘Really? But he’s so nice.’

  DB, they call him: the linen-suited, salt-and-pepper-haired agent to a scrolling list of A-list actors whose careers he has launched and whose offspring he later calls godchildren. Becky recently took him for lunch at a tapas restaurant on Dean Street to discuss Medea casting ideas over half a carafe of red, chorizo and squid which she only occasionally sipped and picked at while he did most of the talking. He told lots of stories, some about the days he and Matthew were junior agents together, and she had encouraged it all by laughing along. Their lunch finished without any real business done but with DB feeling the warm fuzz of having been listened to, and that was everything that lunch needed to achieve. A success, by all accounts.

  Siobhan throws up a hand as the voice on the end of the line rants on.

  ‘Hand it over, I’ll give it a go.’ Becky takes the phone from her, smiling. ‘Hello, DB! It’s Becky. I’m so sorry you’re having to chase Matthew. It’s crazy with Cannes at the moment. Is it anything I can help with?’

  ‘He needs to call me.’

  ‘He definitely will. And while I have you, in terms of Medea I think we’re closing in on our lead actress. Hoping to pin her down at Cannes, and then we’ll have someone for your men to cast against. You’ll be top of the list, of course.’

  ‘Matthew knows what I’m calling about. Tell him to stop avoiding my calls and get him on the phone to me.’

  He hangs up and Becky holds out the receiver. She feels ants under her skin – scared, perhaps, that she may have somehow made things worse.

  ‘What’s that about?’ Becky says to Siobhan.

  ‘I dunno but he’s having a bad day about something. Maybe one of Matthew’s little lies about shooting schedules caught up with him. So anyway, listen to this. I emailed a new idea to Matthew over the weekend.’

  Something feels off. It’s a small office and they are all aware of which calls need avoiding, delaying or returning within the hour. Aware of any conflict over contracts, pressure on production, egos, fallings-out, ground to be made up … And DB and Matthew have never had a falling-out before. At least not as long as she has worked there.

  ‘So it’s kind of Beaches but funnier, but really more like The Hangover only sadder, with really upbeat yet emotional music, actually probably more like if Watership Down was actually happy?’

  ‘Sounds good.’ Becky is biting her fingernails, one so much it stings.

  ‘Two female leads so, you know, on trend, pretty topical. I’m thinking Aniston. Go big, or go home. And then I’m thinking Emilia Cosvelinos. More classical, but she is bankable now with the Scorsese film coming out and I think she’ll add real weight to the crying scenes. What do you think?’

  ‘Sounds great.’

  Becky has barely been listening, but Siobhan’s face fills with sunshine and she claps her hands together. ‘Exactly!’

  At that moment, Matthew opens the door to his office and waves them in. ‘Let’s get started.’ The volume of his voice makes Becky jump and her heart shudders with the thought that this is it, the end.

  The two of them take their places on the olive velvet sofa opposite Matthew’s desk, so low that he appears to be on a raised stage looking down at them. His office smells so faintly of whisky that it might not be whisky at all. And coffee, drying in the heat, at the bottom of the cup. The smell of the place, the way it looks, it could be a normal morning at the office, the stage set for the start of business: windows closed, blinds pulled down over the glass walls in preparation for a private meeting, books straightened and arranged in the cases so they descend in shapes like flights of steps. Apart from his computer, he keeps an entirely clean desk: blade, fineliner pens in one drawer, pending contracts in another. Scripts piled into a cupboard, titles inked onto their spines. Everything must have its place: stacked, stored, tidied and hidden away.

  ‘Travel arrangements for Cannes,’ he says.

  Is this how he’s going to do it? Work through the list towards her? Siobhan rattles off flight names and departure times.

  ‘Calls,’ he says.

  ‘DB called again,’ says Siobhan. ‘He sounds fucked-off.’

  ‘Thank you. Noted.’ The subject is closed.

  ‘He’s called five times,’ says Siobhan.

  ‘And he can call again, if he likes. I’ll speak to him when I get round to it.’

  Siobhan tucks the borders of her script outline neatly behind her notepad but recovers quickly, saying, ‘Did you manage to get to the Deal cottage this weekend?’ because this is always her strategy for deflecting the energy from a conversation that has caused him stress, like telling a child to think of nice things like beaches and sweets before they go to sleep at night.

  Matthew is studying something intensely on his phone, glasses balanced at the end of his nose. He doesn’t reply immediately but when he does he says, ‘Yes. The weather was lovely. The jasmine is out.’

  His gaze is nowhere near Becky. It is dissociated, disinterested, so far from her that she might not be there at all …

  He looks up at her suddenly, as if he’s sensed the beam of her thoughts on him – his brow still furrowed, his eyes narrowed. He takes a deep breath and reorientates himself by saying, ‘Tux?’

  ‘Waiting for you at the hotel,’ Becky says, laying down the order confirmation sheet in front of him.

  ‘Accreditation passes?’

  ‘Waiting for you at the hotel,’ says Siobhan.

  ‘Good,’ he says. ‘Becky, have you got yours? You’ll need them for all screenings and parties.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Becky, looking away from Siobhan instinctively, feeling uncomfortable that she is the one who gets to go to the ball.

  ‘Have you confirmed all our meetings with the actors tomorrow? You should get Jenifer Palmer and Sarah Pastor on the list. Both look the part.’

  ‘Yes, all set.’

  ‘On which note,’ says Siobhan, more quietly than usual, ‘I just wondered whether you’d had a chance to look at my film idea so you can, I don’t know, maybe give it to someone you know who might be visiting the festival and might sort of like it?’

  ‘It’s interesting,’ he says, which Becky knows means it’s not interesting enough, but before the conversation can progress further his mobile rings and without looking at either of them he waves them out of the office like he is directing traffic. He waits for them to step outside before he answers.

  Becky is the last to leave. She hears him say, ‘Yes, David.’

  The two wait outside. Siobhan sat at her desk, Becky perched on the edge, waiting to be called back in.

  ‘Fuck, he’s in such a bad mood.’ The door buzzes and Siobhan picks up on speaker, ‘Bonjour?’

  ‘Siobhan, it’s Antonia, can you let me in?’

  ‘Er, sure.’ Siobhan presses the buzzer and looks at Becky, shrugging.

  Antonia sometimes calls the office more times in one day than she does her own child (a tall and gawky boy called Bart) and Becky knows this because Antonia tells her this. She calls Becky to co-ordinate stuff or just to remind her that she needs to usher Matthew out of the office on time because they are popping down to the Deal cottage for the weekend and want to miss the worst of the weekend traffic. Antonia gets Pucci scarves and spa weekends for her birthday from Matthew that have been researched and paid for on his credit card, by Becky, and Antonia knows this because Becky needs to check in advance that Antonia doesn’t have allergic skin reactions to mud wraps and whether she – discreetly, of course – would
like Becky to secure her an appointment with that special Botox man everyone always raves about.

  Antonia enters the room in a cloud of expensive perfume. Her black and silver hair is tangled in a bun and strands have escaped everywhere. The shape it makes, tested through time to work with the curve of her face, is both messy and yet impossibly stylish. Her hairstyle works with the linen dress (a tailored and loose cut, only a few crumples) which in turn works with her leather sandals (one gold strip across the place where fine foot bones fan) and buffed sandstone calves. She is expensive and lovely and perfectly curated for a warm spring day.

  She is also, most definitely, feeling harassed. Her face is drawn and her words quick. ‘Becky. Siobhan. Where is he? He’s not picking up the phone to me.’

  Becky answers. ‘He’s in his office. On a call. Won’t be long. Can I make you a coffee while you wait?’

  ‘No, thank you, I need to talk to him.’

  ‘I don’t think he’ll be long.’

  ‘I mean now.’

  Becky feels an instinctive need to give Matthew the space and privacy for his call with DB. It’s what she’s paid to do. But Antonia is glaring at her.

  ‘OK, sure,’ she says. ‘Let me pop in and get him off the phone.’

  Becky moves quickly, perhaps to get ahead of anything Antonia might be planning on doing, like bursting into the office. She pushes Matthew’s door open and hears the words, ‘She misinterpreted that. That’s not what happened at all.’

  He looks up, cheeks flushed a deep pink.

  Becky just has time to mouth the word ‘Antonia’ and for Matthew’s face to arrange itself in a way that Becky has never seen before. Something almost childish: both beseeching and perturbed. But before she has a chance to enquire, Antonia moves past her. ‘Thank you, Becky. I’ll take it from here. What the fuck are you playing at? In our house?’

  Becky backs out quickly and sees the door is shut firmly behind her.

  Siobhan whistles through her teeth like a bomb flying through the air. Then for a short time they listen to Antonia and Matthew’s raised voices behind the door, nothing distinct enough for them to understand exactly what the argument is about but enough for it to become clear to Becky that it might concern the woman on the floor of their well-appointed kitchen.

  Becky fights the urge to cower under her own arms as if that were protection enough from the explosion that will surely come. And, as the net of aggravated people surrounding Matthew widens, Becky fears he will take his frustration out on her by frog-marching her out of the office saying she stepped over one too many boundaries. She saw him part-stripped of his clothes in his own home and part-stripped of his dignity and composure in the office and it’s too hard to maintain a professional façade after that kind of thing.

  Becky finds herself googling her boss’s name, wanting to know the identity of the woman getting between such a couple.

  She feels afraid of what might happen next and yet also relieved that someone other than her knows about the woman on the kitchen floor. Surely Becky can afford to forget what she saw now that it’s clearly just business between husband and wife?

  She takes hold of her own wrist, lightly, instinctively, and bends the joint at small angles, back and forth, back and forth so that it aches a little.

  Antonia leaves very suddenly and in silence.

  Matthew appears in the doorway of his office.

  ‘Where were we?’ he says. ‘Siobhan. Yes. Your film outline. The idea doesn’t hold together. It’s muddled. But that casting idea you had. Emilia Cosvelinos?’

  ‘Yes?’ Siobhan’s eyes brighten with hope.

  ‘She’s a great idea for Becky’s film. She’ll be in Cannes promoting her Scorsese movie, we should get a breakfast booked in with her. I’m mates with the agent. I’ll put the call in. He’ll go out to bat for us if Emilia bites – but she won’t bite unless it’s fucking irresistible and if the Scorsese film’s as good as everyone’s saying it is, then she’ll want an Oscar for whatever she does next. It’s worth a shot.’

  Becky squirms with discomfort. ‘Mightn’t it be better if you pitched it to her, Matthew?’ she says, trying to put some space between her and what is happening. ‘As your idea. I mean, you’ve won Oscars for actresses—’

  ‘No. I like the project. But you love it. It’s your baby. That goes a long way with actors. Pitch her like you pitched me and you’ll do fine. Right, that’s it. Siobhan, can you get our man from IcePR on the line.’ It’s not a request. ‘I need to speak with him as soon as possible. Tell him it’s urgent.’

  Matthew used to be in PR. Telling a story, spinning a story, knowing when to take the heat off one character and put it on another: such a transferrable skillset for the film industry.

  ‘I’ll call him right away,’ Siobhan says quietly.

  Becky’s house is on the way to City Airport so she plans a quick trip home to collect her things. She arrives to the sweet, steamy scent of pancakes on the skillet. It is the food that Maisie and Adam make together every time he comes to stay, their most enduring ritual. They mix it up in terms of the recipe – made extra fluffy with egg whites, coconut and banana added, criss-crossed with candied bacon – but always they have pancakes.

  Adam’s chocolate-coloured leather weekend bag has been dumped at the top of the stairs next to a pair of unlaced Campers, worn in and bashed up to the perfect fit and level of comfort. She can hear Maisie and Adam talking in the kitchen, giggling their way through the rambling conversations they specialize in. Adam and Maisie are masters of mimicry together: if Adam is Kermit, Maisie will reach for her best Miss Piggy. Neither of them would ever say it, but clearly they don’t like it if Becky tries to join in. So that’s become the tacit rule when they’re all together. Becky speaks with just the one voice; Adam and Maisie are multitudes.

  She doesn’t have long to get her things and catch her flight, but she still takes a moment to enjoy the sound they make together, then peeks in to see that Maisie is back in her pyjamas, school done with. Right now she is moving photographs around the surface of their fridge, like pieces of a jigsaw. Every few weeks she takes new photos, prints and sticks them here, leaving only a loyal few old-timers by the handle. A faded colour one of her being bathed as a baby in the kitchen sink at the Hounslow house, just before the two of them moved with Becky’s mum. Another favoured photo is of the three of them together, Becky and Adam standing at either end of a low mossy log while ten-year-old Maisie steps along using a stick for balance, her great high-wire act.

  Adam tips batter from a metal bowl into the frying pan.

  ‘Is there one for me?’

  Adam’s face lights up when he sees Becky, and that’s a lovely thing. Not for the first time the thought rushes in: how might it be to be smiled at that way every night? To come home, kick off your shoes, and for there already to be conversation in the kitchen and somebody else taking care of dinner?

  ‘These are genuine buttermilk pancakes,’ he says. ‘How many d’you want?’

  ‘They’re an eight,’ adds Maisie. They started ranking pancakes five years ago. To begin with they had a log book, but while that’s long since been abandoned, the need to allocate marks has endured.

  ‘Just the one, please.’

  Adam may have aged – of course he must have – but to Becky his face is the same now as it was at school. Kind, curious and easy to read despite his efforts. His buttoned-up skinny-fit shirts give the impression of him being a well-turned-out kind of guy, but she knows the cupboards and drawers of his Shoreditch apartment are total chaos. His jeans, like his face, are unchanging, always bought from the same website in the same size, same shade of indigo, a replacement sought once the old pair has faded and thinned at the knees. He’s as loyal to his jeans as his friends.

  ‘Adam dumped Brooke,’ chirps Maisie. ‘She offered to get the cover of his favourite magazine, Men’s Health, tattooed onto her back to try to make him love her.’

  Adam erupts into laught
er. ‘Men’s Health isn’t my favourite magazine!’

  ‘She got as far as inking the title across her shoulder blades.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that,’ Becky says.

  ‘About what? Brooke’s shoulders?’ Maisie loves being in the middle of any conversation when they are all together. She’s grown up that way, thinks Becky. It might have done her good to have a sibling. And then she thinks, it’s not too late for her to have a sibling, is it? Becky’s only thirty-two after all so there’s still plenty of time, a decade perhaps … And then she has to remind herself to put those thoughts down and concentrate on what’s in front of her. A pancake bubbling over heat. A plane to catch.

  ‘How did you do it?’ demands Maisie. ‘Gory details. Come on.’

  ‘I don’t find break-ups easy …’ Adam blushes.

  ‘No one does but come on, she was planning your interiors. You had to pull the trigger.’

  ‘I didn’t really read that as a sign she might want to stay,’ he says. ‘I thought it was handy because, you know, she had good taste. I thought she enjoyed picking out blinds.’

  Maisie slaps her forehead in delighted disbelief.

  ‘Was she American, with a name like Brooke?’ asks Becky.

  ‘Tell her the surname!’ crows Maisie. ‘What was her surname, Dad?’

  ‘Waters,’ says Adam, sheepish, as if he’d named her himself.

  ‘Brooke Waters!’ howls Maisie. ‘Damn, girl! Headline for the week: Adam’s Waters broke.’

  ‘Hey, Maisie,’ says Adam. ‘Can you go into my bag and grab the blueberries I bought?’

  ‘Yep, I’ll be a minute OK? Got to get sorted for tonight first.’ She takes a few steps toward Becky and pecks her on the cheek. ‘You’re amazing, my hero, I totally love you.’ Then she wanders out, answering her phone on the way.

  ‘Thanks for keeping an eye on her tonight. I appreciate it.’ Becky stifles a yawn and looks round the kitchen trying to remember where she put her travel-sized sun cream. ‘What stuff is she getting sorted? Are you guys doing something fun tonight? Bowling …’

  ‘Well no,’ Adam looks up, perplexed. ‘The sleepover?’