by Helen Warner
Charlie closed the door behind him and followed Martha into the suite, which was as big as Martha’s entire house. In the reception room there were several pale blue over-stuffed sofas arranged around a heavy stone coffee table. On the table sat two silver pots, some china cups and a plate of freshly baked croissants. The smell of the fresh flowers that were stuffed artfully into over-sized vases on every spare surface combined with the aroma of coffee to make Martha feel light-headed.
She turned to face Charlie. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she began, feeling herself turn a deeper shade of red as she looked up at him with what she knew must be a pleading expression, ‘but can I use your loo before we start?’
‘Er, I guess so,’ he said, his eyes moving down her body and settling somewhere around her midriff.
Oh shit, thought Martha, realising with a dull horror that Charlie now suspected her of being a cokehead. He couldn’t even meet her eye. ‘It’s not to go and snort coke!’ she blurted, acutely aware that her sweaty appearance and red-faced breathlessness must look like she was about to do exactly that.
Charlie bit his lip, as if he was making an effort not to laugh. His gaze was still fixed on her stomach for some reason. ‘I should hope not,’ he murmured in his deep, velvety voice that contained the merest hint of a Welsh accent. ‘It’s the second door on the left.’
Martha frowned, then dashed gratefully towards the door, suddenly concerned she might not make it. She slammed the door shut behind her and sank down onto the seat, exhaling with relief as she was finally able to let go.
Standing up to wash her hands afterwards, she gazed at her reflection in the mirror. She looked flushed and there was a faint sheen of sweat on her face. She splashed cold water over her cheeks and patted them dry before running her fingers through her hair to straighten it out. As she did so, her dress rode up slightly and she could finally see why Charlie had been staring at her midriff and why she had been getting so many ‘admiring’ glances all morning. There, outlined in glorious burnt technicolour against the pale beige of her dress, was a perfect iron-shaped hole, through which the top of her red lacy knickers was clearly visible.
‘Oh shit!’ she wailed, suddenly wanting to cry. How could she possibly go out there and interview the most famous film star in the world right now with a hole in her dress and her knickers visible? There was nothing for it. She would have to stay in the bathroom. She dropped the lid and sat back down to think through her options.
After a while there was a tentative knock at the door. ‘Er, hello?’ said Charlie’s unmistakably gravelly voice. ‘Are you OK in there?’
‘No!’ Martha shouted back. ‘I’ve got a massive iron-shaped hole in my dress!’
There was a snort of laughter from outside the door, followed by a long pause, as Charlie apparently composed himself. ‘Sorry,’ he said in a slightly strangled tone. ‘I won’t laugh again. It’s hardly noticeable . . .’ His words were swallowed up by another bout of laughter.
Sitting on the loo, staring down at the gaping hole in her dress, Martha felt the beginnings of a smile tugging at her lips. It was quite funny, she supposed. She would probably laugh about it herself one day. But not yet. It was just too bloody embarrassing.
‘Look, do you want to borrow something of mine?’ came Charlie’s voice from the other side of the door after another couple of minutes had elapsed. ‘Maybe some sweatpants and a t-shirt?’
Martha took a deep breath and looked down again at her exposed midriff. ‘That would be great,’ she admitted meekly.
After another pause she heard a swish as something was dropped at the door. ‘There you go,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait in the bedroom. Let me know when you’re ready.’
‘Thanks.’ Martha waited until she heard his footsteps retreating, before opening the door and scooping up the clothes he had left there. She whipped off her dress and deposited it into the bin with a mournful stare. She knew that it was unsalvageable, but was nevertheless reluctant to let it go. Then she dressed quickly in Charlie’s clothes, trying not to notice the faint scent of expensive cologne that still clung to the navy blue t-shirt, even though it had been laundered.
Feeling idiotic in her over-sized outfit, she emerged from the bathroom and cleared her throat loudly. ‘Er, I’m ready!’ she called out into the empty space.
There was a click as the bedroom door opened and Charlie appeared, all dark curls and handsome amusement.
‘Sorry about that,’ Martha smoothed herself down in an attempt to look briskly assured. ‘Now, shall we finally get down to business?’
Charlie threw her a sideways stare and nodded warily. ‘Sure. Those sweats look great by the way. Who knew they could work so well with gold platform sandals?’
Chapter 5
‘Sweetie, eat your cereal,’ entreated Liv, as Felix sat with his head bowed and his shoulders hunched over the games console in his hand.
Felix looked up at her in surprise, as if he’d forgotten she was there. ‘Oh, sorry, Mom,’ he said, giving her a conciliatory flash of his gap-toothed smile. Liv gazed across the table at him, wondering how it was possible that he could look so much like his father at such a tender age, with his dark eyes and curls and wide, cheeky grin.
Liv took a sip from her cup of English Tetley tea, several boxes of which her mother had brought over with her on her last visit. She couldn’t function in the mornings until she’d had at least three cups. Danny laughed at what he called her ‘quaint English habits’, but she didn’t care. For her, the American obsession with coffee seemed just as strange.
In the background, Radio 1 burbled out from the laptop on the steel work surface. It was another way for Liv to connect with home, even if it did mean listening to the afternoon show at breakfast time due to the time difference between LA and the UK.
A tiny hammer pounded against the inside of Liv’s skull. She got up and walked over to one of the over-sized, sleek white cupboards and retrieved a packet of Paracetamol. She popped two pills out of the blister pack and put her mouth under the running tap to swallow them quickly. As she stood up, she caught her reflection in the gloss surface of the cupboard and instinctively pulled her fingers through her messy sheet of gold, wavy hair. The eyes that stared back at her were indistinct, but their shadows occupied a disproportionate area of her tiny, heart-shaped face. She blinked and looked away from her ghostly, shadowy self.
Felix galloped through his cereal at an alarming speed, gulping and crunching with the energy only small children can bring to any task. As he crossed the finish line and triumphantly dropped the spoon into his empty bowl with a nerve-jangling clatter, his head tipped upwards towards Liv with a beseeching expression.
Liv smiled, unable to resist. ‘Go on, then. You can have fifteen more minutes playing on your computer before we have to leave for school.’
‘Aw, thanks, Mom, love you!’ he cried, hopping down from the table and racing towards his bedroom.
‘Love you too,’ Liv murmured to his retreating back, but he was gone and her words carried themselves in a circle around the cavernous space, before returning to her own ears.
She picked up her iPhone, which was never more than an inch or two away, and checked for emails from her PA, Carrie. Sure enough, there was a message notifying her of a couple of appointments over the next few days. She tried to ignore the fact that there were fewer appointments and requests than there used to be.
Liv put the phone down and picked up Felix’s bowl, which she placed into the dishwasher, before putting on the kettle in preparation for her second cup of tea. She could have left it for Juanita the housekeeper, but that was something Liv had never quite got used to; she always felt guilty just leaving stuff for her to clear away. ‘It’s her job!’ Danny would say. He never seemed to experience the same sort of embarrassment at having staff, but Liv still preferred to do some things for herself and that included clearing away her son’s breakfast things.
She knew that she was an exception among the a
ll-American moms of Felix’s classmates. Almost all of them had at least two nannies taking care of their children full-time, so that they could either work on their latest movie role or album, go shopping or have lunch at their leisure. But while Liv had a nanny who worked for her when she was shooting a film, she already felt terrible enough that Felix lived half a world away from his beloved dad; she wasn’t going to let him have an absent mother too.
At the end of each school day, Liv usually found herself standing alone in the playground, waiting for Felix. The army of nannies who were also there weren’t unkind or bitchy towards her, but they weren’t friendly either. They knew they would have nothing in common with her. Liv was a rich, famous film star, with an even richer, more famous film star for a boyfriend. She could know nothing of their lives and they could know nothing of hers. Ironically, Liv often thought that each and every one of those nannies was probably happier than she was.
Although she had devised ways to cope with her homesickness, it still dogged her every move and she sometimes wondered how much longer she could stay in LA without losing it completely. But while Danny’s career went from strength to strength, there was no way he would consider relocating to London, and with Felix so happy with his LA lifestyle, she knew that for now she was stuck here.
Felix emerged from his bedroom twenty minutes later, looking for all the world like a true American boy, his baseball glove in one hand and his basketball in the other. ‘Remember I’m going to PJ’s after school, Mom?’ he said in the Californian accent he had developed and which still took Liv by surprise.
‘I haven’t forgotten, sweetheart,’ she replied, scooping up her bag and heading for the garage, where there were three cars waiting for her to choose from. She glanced knowingly at Felix before unlocking her original black Fiat 500, which Danny had had refurbished and shipped over to LA for her not long after they got together.
‘Aw, Mom, do we have to take that one?’ Felix groaned, looking longingly towards the black Range Rover parked beside it.
‘There’s nothing wrong with FiFi!’ Liv protested, but she was already fishing in her bag for the Range Rover keys. Felix was at an age where he didn’t want to stand out from his friends and she didn’t want to embarrass him.
On the way back from dropping Felix off, Liv called in at Bristol Farms, the upmarket grocery store in Beverly Hills. Juanita did their grocery shopping as well as their cleaning, but Liv had got into the habit of dropping in herself, mainly because she didn’t want Juanita to know what she was buying. Juanita was a devout, teetotal Catholic, and Liv suspected she would disapprove.
When Danny was home, alcohol was never an issue because she could pretend that they were both drinking, but with him away on a shoot, as he was right now, she had to be a little more resourceful. It wasn’t even as if she drank very much. It was just that she found that a few glasses of wine helped ease her loneliness a little.
She was aware that she was getting some curious glances as she pushed her cart up and down the carefully lit aisles. Back in Britain she had often been recognised, but the British public never approached her in the way the Americans did. In LA it seemed as though everyone was connected to the film industry and felt the need to say so whenever they met anyone remotely famous.
Sure enough, as she headed for the tills, having selected four bottles of white wine and a bottle of vodka, a tall, dark-haired man darted towards her and put his hand on her arm, forcing her to stop. ‘Hey, Liv!’ he cried in that over-familiar way that Liv had never quite got used to. ‘Left Danny at home today?’
Liv smiled a tight smile. ‘Something like that,’ she said, making a point of manoeuvring her cart in the opposite direction. The man didn’t get the hint. ‘So . . . what movie are you working on at the moment?’ he persisted, falling into step beside her. ‘Only, I’m an actor myself and I—’
‘Sorry . . .’ Liv interrupted him with another forced smile. ‘I’m in a bit of a rush. Excuse me.’ She walked as purposefully as she could towards the till, where the girl on the checkout greeted her with a grin of recognition.
‘Hi again. That must get a little tiresome,’ she said, as she began to scan Liv’s bottles.
Liv blinked back at her, making a mental note to vary the stores she shopped in. ‘No, really, it’s fine,’ she lied, thinking how very British she sounded.
The girl gave her a sideways look, before pausing with a bottle in her hand and peering at her screen.
‘Problem?’ Liv’s voice had become higher suddenly and her heart gave a nervous flutter.
‘No . . . just checking I’d scanned them all,’ the girl said distractedly, tearing her eyes from the screen and back up to meet Liv’s.
Liv noticed that two strawberry-coloured patches had appeared on the girl’s pale, freckled cheeks. She took the final bottle from her and placed it beside the others in the cart, trying and failing to stop the accusatory sound of glass hitting glass.
As she drove up Coldwater Canyon towards home, already anticipating her first sip of chilled white wine, Liv’s cellphone rang.
‘Hello?’ she shouted, inclining her head towards the hands-free speakers, even though it wasn’t necessary.
‘There’s no need to shout!’ said her agent, Jonathan.
‘Sorry, darling,’ Liv cooed, switching automatically from harassed mother mode into smooth, movie star mode. ‘What news?’
There was a pause and Liv frowned at the phone console, wondering if the line had disconnected. ‘I’m sorry, Liv,’ he said at last, ‘but the part’s gone to Sadie Roberts.’
Liv reached out and held her hand over the speaker for a second as she digested the news, fearful for a moment that she might start to cry. She had really felt that the role was hers. This movie could have been the breakthrough she so desperately needed and she just knew that she would have been perfect in the lead role. But Sadie bloody Roberts had beaten her to it. She wasn’t even a very good actress, thought Liv mutinously, after she had bid Jonathan a curt goodbye and hung up.
She arrived home and mooched into the vast hangar of a kitchen, opening the cupboards one by one and suddenly feeling desperately in need of a drink. She checked the large clock and saw that it was 10.40 a.m. Was that too early? She listened carefully to the sounds of the house and could hear Juanita’s vacuum cleaner whining from a distant bedroom. Quickly, she unscrewed the lid of one of the bottles and took a long swig. Only as the liquid hit her empty stomach did she notice that it was the vodka she had opened. She replaced the cap with a guilty shudder and put the bottle in the cupboard under the sink behind the cleaning products. No-one ever looked in that cupboard. Juanita had a whole utility room where she kept her own supplies.
Liv stood up, suddenly light-headed. She needed to eat but she had no appetite. Listlessly, she put a piece of white, sliced bread into the toaster and took the Marmite out of the fridge. Marmite on toast was like an edible comfort blanket to her whenever she was feeling low, but she only ever ate it when Danny was away, as he always moaned about the smell.
She made herself another cup of tea and perched at the steel island in the middle of the kitchen to eat the toast, staring out of the plate-glass doors at the infinity pool glinting turquoise in the sunlight above the dusty Hollywood Hills.
She felt bitterly disappointed that she hadn’t got the part, but more than that, she was nervous about telling Danny. She couldn’t shake the fear that he was losing interest in her now that she had started to drop down the Hollywood pecking order. And she was finding it increasingly hard to ignore the rumours that constantly circulated that he had been linked to a number of his other leading ladies. ‘Ignore it, baby,’ he would laugh, whenever she brought up the subject of the latest salacious headline. ‘It’s just crappy journos trying to fill the pages of their crappy little rags. Anyway, I’m not screwing Tatiana Brown because she has extremely bad breath thanks to that stupid high protein diet she’s on.’
Liv would laugh then too. She loved
it when he slagged off the gorgeous superstars he worked with, claiming variously that they had BO or bad breath, that they talked incessantly about themselves or, her particular favourite, that they were thick as two short planks. Liv knew that wasn’t an accusation that would ever be levelled at her, as her first-class honours degree in English from Oxford meant she was considered something of a freak compared with the usual Hollywood bimbos.
But as Danny’s career continued unabated on its upward trajectory, she was spending an increasing amount of time on her own at their sumptuous, high-tech home in the Hollywood hills, meaning that she had an increasing amount of time to get on the Internet and Google herself and Danny. She knew she shouldn’t do it. Knew she should resist the temptation. But it was becoming like a drug and she found herself unable to kick the habit.
Liv managed two bites of her toast. She looked again at the clock. It was still only eleven and the day seemed to stretch out before her like a carpet of loneliness. Felix’s playdate after school meant he wouldn’t be home until much later, and she cursed herself that she hadn’t arranged to meet anyone for lunch, or booked in for a session with her masseur Carlos, who seemed to work magic on her always-tense muscles.
She abandoned her toast eventually, finding herself inexorably drawn towards her office yet again, where her MacBook was waiting, calling for her to open it.
She tucked one leg underneath her, noticing with some satisfaction as she did so how thin it looked, and sat down in the soft leather chair in front of her desk. She automatically went to the MailOnline site first, which seemed to have become her default setting. She missed Britain terribly, especially her mad, outrageous mother and her lovely older sister, and somehow surfing MailOnline made her feel less homesick. She read idly through various stories about public sector strikes, a tragic suicide plot between two teenagers who had hanged themselves, and finally a story bemoaning the fact that this had been the wettest June on record.
