How to be Famous

by Alison Bond

  29

  The first day of a new shoot rarely goes smoothly and never goes quickly. There are always last-minute kinks in the script or eleventh-hour appointments to the cast and crew. People need to be introduced and morale needs boosting with a pep talk from one of the producers, usually the big guy, the one who won’t be on set for weeks at a time but the one who is quietly working in the background, gathering the financial backing to ensure that the cameras keep rolling. The one who signs the cheques. Even an established drama series needs the requisite period of adjustment, and Justice was only one year old. They would be unlikely to start any actual shooting before lunch.

  But once the cameras start rolling there is a groove to fall into, an organic energy that pushes the whole process continually forward, and by the end of day two it’s like you were never away. From there the months race towards the final day, then the mad scramble for a classy project to squeeze into your off-season. It’s a never-ending production line. Is it any wonder they used to call Hollywood the dream factory?

  There are more people around on the first day. By the middle of the week entourages have dwindled and agents don’t visit any more. But the first day is practically an open house for well-wishers and hangers-on. Lynsey liked to think she fitted snugly into both categories. She watched proudly from the sidelines as Serena stepped up to take her place in what the producers called, without a trace of irony, the Justice family.

  Serena charmed the crew by arriving on set with gifts for everyone. The heads of department all received individual gifts that were so personal it was obvious Serena had given them a lot of thought. Lakers tickets for one of the ADs and Dodgers tickets for the other. She’d ordered organic fruit to be delivered to the set every other day for the blender that she gave to the catering crew. Serena turned up an hour before her call to distribute her gifts so that she didn’t waste too much of anyone’s time. By her official call time Serena was already sat in makeup ready and waiting.

  Outside on set, Lynsey was watching them set up the first shot of the day when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned round to see Fabien, his usual easy-going expression replaced with a frown.

  ‘Hey,’ he said.

  ‘Hey,’ she replied. She got the feeling he wasn’t just being sociable.

  ‘You’re like Melanie’s PA or something now, right?’

  ‘Yep,’ said Lynsey. ‘It would seem so.’

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘This is what I need you to do…’

  By the time he had finished Lynsey was already making the first telephone call.

  Melanie Chaplin arrived in make-up twenty minutes late and the make-up artist was impatient. Serena, half-finished in the next chair, couldn’t help but notice the chilly reception when Melanie walked in the room. Serena had planned to be sweetness and light with Melanie but if no one else liked her then why should she? She’d anticipated a little animosity, after all Serena was, according to the media, having a very public affair with Douglas Mullraine, the husband of Melanie’s only sister. Serena planned to put her straight at the first opportunity but from Melanie’s steely expression she doubted that she’d even have the chance. Somehow she couldn’t imagine them being friends.

  Melanie was oblivious to the atmosphere in the room. The way things were at home with Fabien the tension here was like a lazy Sunday by the ocean.

  She wasn’t speaking to Fabien and he wasn’t speaking to her. At first Melanie thought they should resolve things, seeing as how they had to work together for the next eight months, but Fabien hadn’t ever tried to apologize and she’d be damned if she was going to be the one to start the peacekeeping talks. The open hostility was exhausting though. They were both stubborn and the house was a hotbed of bad feeling. It made it difficult to concentrate.

  Melanie knew she would be lucky to remember her lines today and flicked through the script while her face was made up with a thick textured cream base that made her skin gasp for air. The make-up artist assumed that Melanie was ignoring her.

  Serena thought that Melanie was being deliberately rude and felt insulted. They were colleagues, contemporaries, and that should count for something. She wasn’t some little girl who could be intimidated. She turned to stare at Melanie, determined to break the silence. If they were to be enemies then Serena might as well have the fun of the fight.

  After a minute or so, Melanie turned around in her chair as far as she could without disturbing the work in progress on her face. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I was just curious how they get your skin to look so flawless,’ said Serena.

  The two make-up artists looked at each other in amusement.

  Melanie scowled, she was in a foul mood. ‘It’s a shame they can’t do the same for your performance,’ she said.

  ‘You should wait until you see me before you start putting me down. You’re only making a fool of yourself,’ said Serena.

  ‘No, sweetheart,’ said Melanie. ‘That’s your department. Tell me, exactly who did you have to sleep with to get this part? Let me know and I can make sure that they get to the clap clinic.’

  ‘Okay, ladies,’ interrupted one of the make-up artists, deliberately placing herself between the women and deflecting two sets of glowering eyes. ‘You’re done. And you both look gorgeous.’

  Both actresses went for the door at the same time and someone had to give way.

  Serena stood aside. Age before beauty,’ she said, with her sweetest smile. ‘Nice to meet you.’

  Later, they bumped into each other at the water cooler and Serena tried again.

  ‘We have a lot of scenes together,’ she said. ‘Do you think we could possibly be friends?’

  ‘Our scenes will be fine. I’m an actress, I can pretend to like you, but we will never be friends,’ said Melanie.

  ‘There is nothing between Douglas Mullraine and me,’ said Serena. ‘There never was.’

  ‘Right, so he was just with you for your mind? Give me a little credit, Serena, I know my brother-in-law and he doesn’t date fifteen-year-old girls for the conversation.’

  ‘Why are you so determined to hate me? I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘Just stay out of my way,’ said Melanie, ‘and I’ll stay out of yours.’

  Serena’s first scene required her to run away from Fabien Stewart. It was a small scene that involved Fabien arriving late at the office one night to find Serena looking in his filing cabinet; he yelled, ‘Hey,’ and Serena jumped out of an open window. From there she would run across the rooftops for a panoramic escape (currently scheduled to shoot in around eight weeks’ time). It took most of the afternoon to shoot the office set-up. First the lighting was all wrong and when they did eventually find an effect they liked the bulb exploded, scratching the tint. Fabien and Serena had a lot of time to talk.

  Fabien wasn’t a man to let a thing like tender years come between him and a beautiful woman. He poured on the charm, oozing around her like hot sauce on ice cream. She melted.

  Although men approached Serena pretty much whenever she left the house, she had yet to meet one who was so at ease with an obvious attraction. She found that men either became hopelessly tongue-tied in her presence or overcompensated by showering her with unoriginal compliments. They would either stare at her shamelessly or avoid eye contact all together in an effort to appear detached. Fabien, on the other hand, flirted comfortably, with frequent body contact and the occasional penetrating gaze.

  Off camera, Melanie watched and understood. Disturbed by a searing flash of jealousy she returned to her dressing room to wait out the day.

  Serena saw her go. ‘Tell me about Melanie,’ she said.

  ‘Needs to find a good man,’ said Fabien, immediately.

  Serena smiled. ‘Oh, I thought you and she…?’

  ‘No. Not any more, hardly even then, but we have a boy, Joseph. You’ll meet him, he’s terrific.’

  Serena could hardly contain her excitement. That was a swi
ft clarification of his romantic situation and a reference to their future. There was more adrenaline pumping through her veins than at any audition or on any stage, but the sensation was comparable, a natural high.

  This, she thought with the naive certainty of a teenager, is love.

  Lynsey went to Melanie’s dressing room as soon as she saw her leave the set.

  Melanie opened the door impatiently but then she saw the serious look in Lynsey’s eyes. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Has somebody died?’

  Lynsey paused just a second too long.

  ‘Oh God,’ wailed Melanie, ‘somebody’s died?’

  ‘It’s Jonathan,’ said Lynsey.

  ‘Who?’ said Melanie.

  Lynsey passed over a faxed copy of a newspaper article from England.

  ‘Oh Jonathan,’ said Melanie. ‘I thought you said…’ She trailed off realizing she didn’t have a decent excuse and read the brief article about the death of her most recent ex-boyfriend.

  Theatre director Jonathan Ellis was found dead today at the house he shared with his fiancée, Alicia Marness, daughter of the Rt Hon. Gordon Marness. Ellis, 43, (pictured below with Marness) is believed to have suffered a heart attack…

  ‘His fiancée?’ said Melanie, checking that part again. She looked down at the grainy black-and-white picture of Jonathan with the unknown woman. Pretty, young. What on earth had she seen in Jonathan?

  ‘Amanda just faxed it over,’ said Lynsey. ‘The funeral’s on Monday.’

  ‘I can’t go,’ said Melanie automatically. ‘I’m working.’

  ‘There’s something else,’ said Lynsey.

  Melanie dragged her eyes away from the picture in her hand. ‘What?’

  Lynsey looked around her furtively and dropped her voice. ‘Fabien spoke to me this morning.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘He wants me to get you booked on a plane back to London, to get Joseph. The baby,’ she added, just in case.

  ‘Fabien said that? Behind my back?’

  ‘Yep,’ said Lynsey, aware of how awkward this was and just wanting to get it done. ‘He, uh, he said he doesn’t want to have to get a court order.’

  ‘He’s threatening me?’

  Melanie was appalled. Was this what had become of their relationship? She remembered a time when she had trusted him and he had trusted her. A time when they were friends. Whatever had happened to make him communicate through a third party and talk about court orders? Yes, they’d agreed to get Joseph back but that was before they started work and before the drug-fuelled behaviour that made her question whether or not Fabien was even fit to be a father.

  ‘He knows how impossible it is for me to get away right now,’ said Melanie.

  ‘Well, actually,’ said Lynsey, referring to the scrap of paper in her hand. ‘I’ve checked the shooting schedule and you could get an afternoon flight on Sunday and be back for your call on Tuesday.’

  ‘Let me see that,’ said Melanie, grabbing Lynsey’s scribbled notes. A car from the studio, a pre-arranged check-in, a car at the other end, twenty-four hours in London and then all the way back again. With a baby.

  Lynsey pointed out the relevant times. ‘Fabien must have worked it out, Melanie. He seemed to know all the answers and, looking ahead, this is the only time for months that you could go.’

  ‘If he’s so fucking concerned then why doesn’t he go?’

  ‘He doesn’t have a gap like this; it’s a fluke really. I have to get special permission from the producers for you to go at all.’

  ‘Maybe they’ll refuse?’ said Melanie, hopefully.

  ‘They didn’t.’

  ‘You already asked them?’

  ‘I thought you’d want to go!’ said Lynsey.

  She had spent most of her morning on the phone booking flights and cars. She had begged the producers to release Melanie for the next two days and allow her to leave the country, hinting that Fabien and Melanie’s working relationship depended on it, and she had called Amanda in London. It was all arranged. She thought by now she knew how Melanie liked things to be done – quickly and the fewer decisions she had to make the better – but it never occurred to her that Melanie wouldn’t want this done at all.

  ‘You have to go,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t have to do anything!’ said Melanie. ‘How dare you? This is between Fabien and me, this has nothing to do with you.’

  ‘He asked me –’

  ‘I don’t care. You work for me, not for Fabien. I can’t believe you talked to the producers. Christ!’

  ‘Hey, Melanie, calm down.’

  ‘Calm down? I have to fly ten thousand miles in two days to pick up a baby I don’t even want…’

  Lynsey looked around her and noticed with horror that a handful of crew were listening with interest. She reached out to put a placatory hand on Melanie’s arm. ‘Hey, come on,’ she said.

  ‘Get your hand off me,’ said Melanie. She was breathing deeply, aware that she had said something terrible but with no inclination to take it back.

  But she was all out of excuses. Lynsey was right. Fabien had given this a lot of thought and had put her in an impossible situation.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, finally. ‘I’ll go to London, but you’re coming with me. This is all your fault.’

  Lynsey was quite excited to be jetting across the Atlantic at somebody else’s expense. Melanie wasn’t generous enough to spring for two business-class seats so Lynsey was on her own in economy, but that suited her fine. The more time she spent with Melanie the more stuff Melanie seemed to find for her to do. So this was eight unbroken hours of snoozing, movies and free alcohol. By the time they landed at Heathrow Lynsey was slightly tipsy and had to use the whole tiny tube of complimentary toothpaste to get her breath minty fresh.

  After a long cab ride, during which Melanie was thankfully half asleep, Lynsey fell into her bed, a poky single under the eaves at Amanda’s, and was asleep within two hours of being back in England.

  Although time was at a premium, Melanie decided to go to Jonathan’s funeral the next day. Naturally, she asked Lynsey to accompany her.

  Lynsey had been tentatively hoping to visit a few old London friends before they flew home, but it soon became evident that Melanie expected Lynsey to trail after her like some nascent entourage.

  Jonathan had died in his bathroom at home. ‘Like Elvis,’ said Melanie when she heard.

  The funeral was in a leafy part of south-east London near where his parents still lived. There were people everywhere, stalking the lawns like black crows. There was a sprinkling of well-known faces; Jonathan had had a long career and worked with a lot of actors likely to be free on a Monday afternoon.

  Family and friends were as distinct from one another as chalk and cheese. The friends all looked slightly ill at ease and protected their eyes with thousands of pounds’ worth of designer shades. The family were huddled together, bare-eyed and elderly, a selection of aunts and uncles crowded around a couple Lynsey assumed must be Jonathan’s parents.

  Close to the edge of the raw grave a row of chairs had been erected and a solitary woman took the central chair. Melanie nudged Lynsey. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘The fiancée. Do you think she knows who I am? Should I go over there or is it inappropriate?’

  Lynsey thought it was funny how Melanie could blame her for everything one day and ask for her opinion the next. Melanie had changed. Once upon a time she had been a promising actress with both feet firmly on the ground, but now she was exhibiting distinct diva tendencies. This morning, when they had arrived, Melanie had spent less than an hour with her baby before abruptly deciding she had to go to the funeral. Lynsey was almost certain it was just an excuse to get out of the house and delay the inevitable.

  Melanie didn’t wait for Lynsey’s reply. She checked her face lightning fast in her compact mirror and made her way over to the fiancée.

  ‘Melanie, I’m not sure…’ started Lynsey, but she was too late. She watched Melanie str
ide purposefully towards the grieving girlfriend.

  Alicia, Melanie reminded herself; her name is Alicia.

  She was certainly beautiful from behind, with auburn hair cascading over the shoulders of a black suit that might be Armani. Good shoes, too.

  Melanie was consumed with morbid curiosity. After all, if Jonathan’s bad habits had caught up with him a few years earlier, it could have been her. Privately, Melanie couldn’t help but think that Alicia would get over him quickly. She was young and likely to have other loves in her life, but right now Melanie could only imagine how she would have felt in her position. Had they truly been in love or, like Melanie and Jonathan, had they reached a point where they couldn’t care less? Wasn’t a part of Alicia’s grief, however small, a guilty kind of relief?

  She stood up as Melanie walked over. It was only then that Melanie realized why Alicia had been sitting down. She was quite obviously pregnant.

  Behind them Lynsey drew in her breath sharply. Not only grieving but pregnant too. She hoped that Melanie wouldn’t give her a hard time.

  Melanie stopped in her tracks. It doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it’s not Jonathan’s. Maybe they had IVF treatment. ‘You’re pregnant,’ she said.

  ‘And you must be Melanie,’ said Alicia.

  ‘I’m sorry – I mean, I didn’t know.’

  ‘Don’t tell me. The little shit got you with his “I can’t have kids” line too.’ Alicia flicked her hair in a practised gesture. ‘I used to think he pulled out because he liked to see his cum on my tits.’

  The words sounded so ridiculous in her clipped upper-class tones that Melanie was dumbstruck.

  ‘Now look at me,’ said Alicia, indicating her swollen belly. ‘Yuck.’ She fumbled in her Fendi bag. ‘Do you have a cigarette?’ she asked Melanie.