Love

by Clare Naylor

  Amy lay in the bath and let the water lap over her head. She heard the swirling sounds of the pipes beneath the water and felt minute tingles as the bubbles of air rose from her hair to the top of the water. She couldn’t really focus on what was happening. Orlando was in New Zealand and kissing Tiffany Swann. She looked at her pink-striped body where her swimsuit had been as they’d snorkeled on the reef, and felt chilled. Back in her room she tossed the newspaper off her bed and straightened the sheets. Bastard! she growled, and kicked the desk.

  The phone rang and she was nearly sick. She crept toward the door and stood on the other side, dreading it being Orlando and preparing insults and accusations, but even more dreading it not being him. She held her breath.

  “I just want to talk to Amy,” Lucinda yelled down the phone.

  “There’s really no need to shout, and I don’t think she wants to speak to anyone right now,” said Cath, her philanthropic tone serving only to piss Lucinda off even more.

  “If you don’t get her at once, I’ll break both your legs.”

  Cath tramped up the stairs and knocked on Amy’s door.

  “Someone on the phone for you.”

  “Who?” asked Amy, desperate for it to be Orlando so she could at least scream at him, or he could explain the terrible misunderstanding.

  “That woman you work with,” spat Cath. Amy opened the door and greeted Cath red eyed and pale.

  “OK, I’ll take it. Lucinda. Hi.”

  “You’ve seen it?”

  “Sure have,” she said bravely.

  “I’ll come and pick you up.”

  “No, look, it’s better if I stay here.”

  “Amy, if he calls, the bitches can give him my number.” Lucinda anticipated Amy’s worry.

  “OK.”

  Sitting at Lucinda’s kitchen table, Amy allowed Benjy to read out the salient horrors of Orlando’s indiscretion.

  “They were at a party for the launch of one of New Zealand’s major artists … Tiffany Swann, Rock’s costar in the forthcoming film of Hardy’s Return of the Native, wore a stunning blue dress and the couple were spotted chatting intimately. A fellow party-goer said, ‘They couldn’t keep their hands off one another. The relationship seemed more than just professional.’ ”

  “Enough!” shouted Amy. “I should have known better than to trust an actor, especially one with a reputation for womanizing. What a bloody idiot I am.” Lucinda put her arm around Amy, and Benjy made some more tea.

  “Screw him!” Amy yelled, kicking the table. “Why can’t I just find someone nice? Just a boyfriend, no bells, just a bloke.” They all knew that Amy wouldn’t just settle for any old bloke, but humored her, and Benjy took his cue and left the room. Better not to be a moving target when there’s a general down-on-men vibe darting around and one of the women present is virtually mainlining Bach Rescue Remedy.

  A few nights later Amy’s anger had hardened like lava on the side of a volcano. Molten Amy, she thought. Mount St. Amy. She was still grinding her teeth ferociously, but staying with Lucinda and Benjy was a comfort. They’d fed and watered her, and in between bouts of dying to see Orlando just so she could hit him she also felt as though she was getting over him. We’ll let her live with this delusion, too, if it helps the healing process. Eventually the resident carers, Benjy and Lucinda, decided that what she needed was to dance. Shake it, strut it, and let go a bit. Lucinda came into her room wielding a secret weapon in the form of a laughably tiny corset and some PVC trousers.

  “Oh my God, it’s a glittery boob tube! You’re never going to wear that, Luce, you’ll fall out of it,” Amy shrieked, perking up at the sight of this wonderful garment.

  “No, sweetheart, you’re going to wear it,” said Lucinda, with no fuss and no room for maneuver. “We’re going to a club, c’mon.” The sergeant-major diction worked a treat, and ten minutes later Amy was suffocating herself into the corset and zipping up the trousers. She wiggled her bottom to herself in the mirror and felt a bit of a Gloria Gaynor coming on … ba na na na ba na na naaaa. Amazing what a new outfit can do for a girl.

  The club was beneath a market stall in Camden Town, seedy and packed to the rafters with hip young things. Two transvestites stumbled around crashing into furniture and revelers.

  “Off their tits,” muttered the guy on the cloakroom. This struck Amy as amusing since they didn’t even have real tits. In another corner Boy George was holding court in a denim jacket, and it was rumored that Naomi Campbell was upstairs. Amy doubted it and hoped not. The last time she’d seen Naomi had been on a shoot and she’d bought her the wrong kind of muesli bar and as everyone knows, hell hath no fury like a supermodel given the wrong kind of muesli bar. Amy could only afford one beer so asked Benjy to baby-sit it in between spells on the dance floor. Lucinda and Amy were in their element: they gyrated and writhed, their hips swung giddily from side to side, and they looked fab.

  “Are you feeling better now, darling?” Lucinda leaned over and yelled in Amy’s ear, causing her eardrum to vibrate.

  “Yup,” Amy mouthed. And she was. The best outfits on the floor, the coolest dancers, and a bevy of ardent admirers waiting on the sidelines for the girls to come up for air, but they didn’t. Breathless and hot they carried on dancing. All that coaxing models into funky positions had left them both with a variety of stunning poses to strike, and they struck. The music pulsed through Amy’s blood and she felt strong and resilient. Even as they stood at the bar the aura of ferocity about them warded off all but the most die-hard suitors. Benjy made himself known as Lucinda’s must-have accessory, but Amy was easy prey. She sipped at the warm dregs of her beer and watched the men watching her. The femme fatale in her came to the fore. And the crueller she looked, the more they hankered after her. If only it was always so simple, but the general nature of men is one of perversity, so unfortunately it’s not. Benjy and Lucinda went back to the dance floor, and Amy was left seductively handling her beer bottle. It didn’t take long, that’s the great thing about nightclubs, it never does takes long. No intellectual pretexts are needed, just plain old, “You dancing?” a voice behind her drawled.

  Amy was tempted to run the gamut. “You asking?”

  “I’m asking.”

  “I’m dancing.” But she put her Liverpudlian accent on the back burner and turned to face the face whence the invitation had come. Not a bad face, thought Amy. Male modelish. Yes, nice. And not Orlando Rock. Not remotely like Orlando Rock. Blond and Australian-looking, longish hair, brown eyes. Highlighted hair then? Probably. Don’t think I like the idea of that. Oh, come on, Amy, beggars can’t be choosers, and he looks nice, not like a pervert or anything. Not like he’d chop you up into little bits if you went home with him. That’s a relief.

  “OK,” said Amy.

  So she slunk about and the male-modelish-looking person put his hands on her hips; he closed his eyes and danced a bit like Jim Morrison. Not bad. After a while her hips obviously weren’t doing the trick for him so he moved them up a bit. Amy sped up her dancing so that his hands couldn’t keep up with her. She wasn’t nearly drunk enough to be doing this, she told herself. But then the image of Orlando’s cheek, the cheek she’d stroked and pinched, the one she’d watched as he slept, flashed into her mind, and that tart’s lips all over it. She braced herself and let her nameless blond take hold of whatever bits he wanted. She pulled his shirt collar down and kissed him. They danced close, he pulling Amy against him, against the unabashed hard bit in his trousers. Amy kissed him lots more and was reminded of seventeen-year-old nightclub kisses that were all you could manage because you had to go home to your parents. Their faces slipped sweatily against one another and he tasted of beer and cigarettes. It was so like her first forays into sex that she was quite turned on at the thought. But not enough. I can’t. I just can’t. She pushed his shoulders away gently and, smiling, said, “I’m just off to the loo, back in a minute.” He nodded dumbly; Amy pegged it to the ladies.

  “Shit s
hit shit.” She splashed cold water all over her face and looking up saw herself in her gold corset and smudged mascara.

  “What do I look like?” she said under her breath. A six-foot transvestite lurched out of the cubicle behind her in a figure-hugging Vivienne Westwood dress and winked a false-lashed eye at her.

  “You look gorgeous, honey, too nice for this place,” he rasped wisely.

  “Thanks. You’re probably right,” said Amy, blow-drying her hands.

  “Men, eh?” he smirked, wiping some lipstick off his front teeth.

  “Exactly,” she agreed.

  She went outside in search of Lucinda, keeping her head down, trying to avoid the Australian. Spying Lucinda and Benjy at the other side of the room, she wound her way around the outside and grabbed their arms.

  “Guys, I’ve got to go.”

  “We thought you were enjoying yourself,” said Benjy.

  “I’m much too old for this kind of thing,” she said, hanging her head for fear of being spotted. Oh God, there he is, he’s looking right at me.

  “Luce, help!”

  “Borrow Benjy,” said Lucinda, quick as a flash. “Benjy, kiss Amy, now!” Benjy looked flabbergasted and far too nervous to move; time was running out and the Australian was on his way over, practically groping distance away. Lucinda grabbed Amy and kissed her smack bang on the lips; they wiggled their faces around a bit in their best imitation of a snog. Benjy looked on in admiration at Lucinda’s ingenuity. The Australian lumbered around, looking quizzically at Benjy. Benjy just shrugged his shoulders. Realizing his luck was out, the Australian gave a some-you-win toss of his head and went to seek out the next sure thing. Amy and Lucinda kept up the charade all the way to the cloakrooms, looking lovingly into each other’s eyes and holding hands. Then, when they’d all had their jackets safely returned, they tore up the stairs of the club and collapsed laughing in the street outside. Benjy wandered around doing his best “women, what are they like?” impression, but they all knew that he was feeling proud, if a little bewildered.

  “You missed your chance there, Benjy,” said Amy.

  “I think that’s just something he’ll have to live with, sweet pea,” Lucinda said sagely.

  In the taxi it began to sink in what Amy had done.

  “Thank God you guys were there. I mean, he wasn’t the sex-fiend type, but you’d have thought I’d have grown up enough not to snog the first guy who crossed my path after Orlando Rock.”

  “You’re never too old to do stupid things, Amy, just put it down to experience,” said Lucinda.

  “Oh, harken unto the agony aunt here,” said Benjy. “If I’d just made an itsy-bitsy mistake like getting off with a complete stranger in a nightclub, it’d have been a castratable offense.”

  “Naturally,” said the girls in unison. You’re a lone male, Benjy, just leave it alone, for your own sake.

  When Amy woke up the next morning she could smell cigarette smoke. Oh God, it’s me. Her mouth tasted very parrot cagey and, oh no … regression. It was the regression to that feeling when you’ve had one too many ciders when you’re sixteen, you’ve snogged someone—you know that because your lips are cut—and you’ve kissed for so long that you’ve got kind of chilblains around your mouth, you can feel a nagging ache in your tummy, will he be at school on Monday? Did I give him my phone number? If you gave him your phone number, not only were you brain-dead, you also have to spend the rest of the weekend darting for the phone every time it rings because if your parents get it, there’ll be interminable inquisitions, which will either take the form of: “I think you’re still too young to be going to discotheques, you’re only sixteen.”

  “It’s not a disco, Mom, it’s a club.”

  “Precisely.”

  Or alternatively, and much worse, “Ooohh, Amy met a young man last night, Peter!”

  “Tell us all about him, do you want to invite him to tea?”

  “Dad, shurrrup.”

  Occasionally the younger siblings became involved, in which case you could guarantee that your diary would be quoted from at the breakfast table, and every visitor to the house from the person collecting for Christian Aid to Granny would be greeted with the singsong rendition of, “Amy’s got a boyfriend.”

  “Bugger off.”

  “Mom, Amy swore.”

  Amy’s stomach churned at the thought. And it was often worse if you didn’t want to speak to Friday night’s snog because they had spots and were in the third form.

  “Amy, you can’t just leave that poor young man on the end of the phone. Go and speak to him.”

  “Mom, he’s ugly.”

  “Amy, I have not brought you up to be rude and cruel. Go and talk to him, now!”

  Adolescence, thought Amy, suddenly putting all her problems into perspective. I suppose it’ll be the same throughout my life: the men you don’t fancy send you flowers, phone you incessantly, and can afford to buy you Hermès handbags. Those you do fancy are utter bastards and infidels. C’est la vie.

  CHAPTER 22

  As Amy was tickling the tonsils of her nameless consort in deepest North London, Orlando Rock was having breakfast with his director and great friend Bill Ballantyne. A hefty Scot, Bill was tucking into the full sausage, bacon, and eggs while depriving Orlando of anything other than muesli and semiskimmed.

  “Bill, you’re six stone heavier than me and you’re having the works. Please, let me have just one sausage.”

  “No way. If you come back from your shag-fest two stone heavier, it is nae ma problem. I’m not the madman going in front of the camera.”

  “Bill, come on, one sausage and I’ll fix you up with that Anthea Turner,” Orlando promised.

  “I said no. You had your oats for two weeks and now you’ll have none.”

  “I don’t want porridge, just a sausage sandwich,” pleaded Orlando, starving hungry.

  “Hush up, now, tell me about your lassie, what’s she got that young Tiffany doesn’t then?”

  “Half a brain.”

  “Come on, Olly, Tiffany’s a bright woman. You could do worse now Joanna’s out of the picture.”

  “Let’s leave Joanna out of this. She’s in LA doing her thing and good luck to her. And can we leave Tiffany out of it, too? Amy’s nice, bright, funny, extremely attractive and that’s it.”

  “And I bet she’s not averse to having her very own celebrity to take her out on the town.”

  “Bill, Amy’s really great.” Orlando took the opportunity to lean over and help himself to one of Bill’s sausages.

  “I know, but you could do worse than Tiffany. Good publicity, too.”

  “Bill, you’re supposed to be my friend and you’re beginning to sound like a pimp.”

  “OK, but I like to get to know your young ladies. I’ve been in the business thirty years and you’re a young pup who could easily be conned by some conniving young beauty dying to make it big.”

  “Amy’s already got a career. She’s done very well in her life without you or me and you’ll get an introduction when we get home. OK?”

  “Och, don’t mind me, I’m just a cynical old bastard. I’m sure you’ve done very well for yourself and I canna wait to meet her.”

  Orlando was impressed at the resemblance between Dorset and New Zealand: grassy, rocky, enough sheep to keep you in chops for the rest of your born days, and the film-set banter of English voices made him feel almost at home. But he kept remembering little things that he’d had in England. For instance he couldn’t just nip round to Lily’s after filming and trawl through the verbal archives of their childhood. The time they’d kissed at the age of ten and then not spoken to each other for two years. The time Lily broke her arm as they played circuses in the garden and she’d confused the seal part, standing on the ball instead of balancing it on her nose. All the adults kept saying, “Poor Lily, what have you done to your arm?”

  “I fell off a ball.”

  “Oooh, Terence, poor Lily fell off a wall.”
/>   “No, it was a ball,” the tyrannical two chimed, time and again.

  He missed Lily in the way that being thousands of miles from home makes everything seem much more acute. If someone said Marmite, he melted; and every British television program under the sun became a masterpiece of comedy or drama. Are You Being Served? was repeated once a week on satellite and Orlando would not move from the screen.

  “Classic British comedy,” he’d mutter if anyone tried to disturb him, but try making him watch it in London and he’d have said TV was for sad people without lives of their own. So I think we can safely say he was homesick. But more than homesick, Orlando was Amysick.

  It had been a year since he’d had anything resembling a relationship with his ex-wife Joanna, but it was only recently that the press had cottoned on, probably because Joanna had started parading a string of handsome young men on her arm at every LA dinner and dog dance and none of them was Orlando. But that was past. There was absolutely no comparison between Joanna and Amy. Joanna was as hard as nails, which had turned him on when he was in his early twenties: Blond Ambition, as every magazine article about her headlined. Orlando had been mad about acting, fresh out of drama school, and she was great for him. But then she started inviting journalists into the house, telling all about their decision not to have children because they valued their careers too much, where they bought their sofas, and the perils of a show-business marriage. Orlando had become increasingly uncomfortable with this side of his life. He couldn’t take his wife out to dinner without the paparazzi collaring them and journalists asking the restaurant staff if he was a generous tipper. Eventually, he didn’t really want to take his wife out at all; she had little conversation beyond herself and her latest role, and he just began to find her very dull. He had a vague string of other women: models, costume designers, scriptwriters, all in the demonic world of stage and screen. The reputation kind of stuck, but he hadn’t really been out with anyone for the past year, and didn’t really want to until now. But Amy, different kettle of fish, he told himself. Or even soup tureen of fish, remembering their mad encounter in the Conran Shop. Amy was real. Real and bright and inspiring. She was also the kind of girl who, once you’d got a look at, nobody else seemed quite as strikingly beautiful. Other women stopped traffic. Amy stopped your heart. (And Amy was, at this very moment, squeezing the bum of a modelly looking guy in a nightclub.) It was such a relief to be with someone so completely natural and clever. She taught him things he didn’t know, and didn’t really need to know, but that was part of the fun. And he wanted to impress her, take her to places that she’d love. Show her that he wasn’t just some showbiz himbo. It wasn’t the acting he minded, that was his passion, his raison d’être. It was the trappings, the interviews, the media. Clichéd but true, folks.