by Anna Hope
The casting director sighs. ‘Did you read the brief, Lissa?’
‘Obviously not quite closely enough.’
‘No.’ He flicks the sofa men an apologetic look. ‘Shall we go again? And Lissa, could you flirt a little more with the cookies this time?’
Oxford Street is a scrum of lunchtime shoppers. The entrance to the Tube gapes, but she walks past it. She doesn’t want to go down, not home, not yet.
Fuck the cookies.
Fuck the fat casting director with his three holidays a year. Fuck those two directors sitting behind their monitors like bored teenagers. Fuck the camera that pans up and down your body more slowly than it does the men’s. Fuck the scriptwriters for these fucking commercials. You just can’t help yourself. Fuck the men that run this fucking show.
Without thinking, she heads north and east, picking up Goodge Street, emerging on to Tottenham Court Road and then Chenies Street, past the red door of her old drama school. Now Bloomsbury, past the gates of the British Museum, the lung of Russell Square; the relief of it, the green. She walks on, further north, through Gordon Square to the clamour of Euston Road, where she ducks into the courtyard of the British Library, opens her bag for the man on duty, stands in the hush and bustle.
How long since she has been in a library? She takes the escalator up to the first floor, where banks of people sit at chairs with small armrests as though they themselves are some sort of exhibition, some sort of display. But here – ah – here are the Reading Rooms. Rare Books. Humanities One. She pushes the heavy door open; perhaps she can sit here for a while, in Rare Books, and let the rare books calm her, bring her back to herself.
‘May I see your card, madam?’ A pleasant-faced guard has his hand out to stop her walking further. ‘Your reader’s card?’
‘I don’t … I’m sorry.’
There is someone behind her, tutting, his belongings in a see-through plastic bag, card held out already in one bristling fist.
‘You need a card, madam, to enter the Reading Rooms,’ says the guard, waving the man along.
‘Oh, I see.’ The world is full of spikes today. She turns, pushes back out towards the main concourse, where she sinks on to a nearby bench.
‘Lissa? Liss?’
For a moment she doesn’t recognize him, here, out of context, but then – of course – ‘Nath!’ She stands and they hug hello.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I …’ What is she doing here? ‘I thought I’d do some reading for something,’ she says.
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah – a … course I’m thinking of taking. But they won’t let me in.’
‘Oh? Well. They’re funny like that in here.’ He smiles, and she is glad of him. She needs someone familiar today. ‘Listen’ – he gestures behind him to the crowded restaurant – ‘I’m just on a break. You fancy a coffee?’
As they queue she scans the crowd: people of all ages, clutching laptops beneath their arms, tapping away on phones, all with those same see-through bags. She orders her coffee and as Nathan orders himself a cappuccino, double shot, she thinks of Hannah – no coffee, no booze, not for years now. She used to wave the wine bottle in her face – Go on, Han, surely a little won’t hurt – but by now she has learned not to. How many years have they been trying? Four? Five? She has lost count.
In the early days, when Hannah and Nathan first started trying and nothing was happening, she remembers Hannah weeping one evening. But I’ve worked hard. I’ve worked so hard all my life. And her saying something back, like, Of course it’ll happen. It has to. It’s you two, isn’t it? as though the universe gave two shits whether or not you’d worked your arse off and paid your taxes and your TV licence fee, whether you were the deputy director of a large global charity and married to a lovely man who was a senior lecturer at a leading London university and put your hand up first in class. What she had wanted to say was, Bad things happen to good people all the time. Every day. Do you watch the news?
‘So,’ Nathan says, letting Lissa go first as they thread their way towards an empty table. ‘What sort of course?’ He sits down before her and she sees his eyes are tired. But he looks well, still has something of the boy in him, still wearing the same flannel shirts he wore twenty years ago, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Even his hair has hardly changed, thick and dark, cropped close to his head.
‘Ah … well.’ She takes a sip of her coffee. ‘Um … film.’
‘Film?’
‘Yes – it’s a … PhD.’
‘A PhD? Blimey. Careful. You can cut yourself on those things.’
‘Yeah. So I hear.’
Now she has lied she should feel worse, but she feels marginally better. Why not? Why not do something different? Why not change her life?
‘Hannah didn’t mention it,’ says Nathan.
‘No, well, it’s quite a new idea.’
‘So, tell me,’ he says, his gaze levelling with hers.
‘Um.’ Lissa stirs sugar into her coffee. ‘It’s a sort of … feminist appraisal. Using the – you know, the Bechdel test … looking at films now and in the seventies, and … the forties. Comparing parts for women. How they’ve shrunk. Changed. All About Eve, Network …’
‘Network. Isn’t that the one where he dies on screen?’
‘Yes. Yes! But Faye Dunaway in that – she’s incredible, totally fierce, totally unlikeable. And all those pictures of the forties, the “women’s pictures”’ – she makes quote marks in the air with her fingers – ‘they were actually pretty great. Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn …’
‘Autumn Sonata,’ Nathan says, leaning forward.
‘What’s that?’
‘You don’t know it? Seriously? Liv Ullmann. Ingrid Bergman. Two incredible parts for women. Fierce doesn’t even cover it. I needed therapy after that film.’
‘I’ll watch it,’ she says, laughing. ‘Thanks.’ She leans over and takes his pen, scribbles the title on to the back of her hand.
‘Hey,’ he says, ‘maybe you should invest in a notebook, for this new academic career.’
‘Yeah.’ She hands him back his pen. ‘Maybe I should.’
‘How’s the acting then?’
‘Oh. You know.’ She shrugs. ‘Appalling. Humiliating. Ask me tomorrow.’
‘Really? But I thought it was going OK. There was that thing … the Shakespeare. You were great.’
‘That thing was three years ago, Nath.’
A fringe King Lear at the back of a pub in Peckham. Playing Regan for two hundred a week plus expenses. Raising her voice even louder when the racing was on in the bar.
‘So how do you live? You don’t still work in pubs?’
She pushes her cup away. ‘I do shifts in a call centre. Raising money for charities. And I do the life modelling.’
‘Still? Jesus, really?’
‘Yeah. Well.’ The look on his face pricks her. ‘It’s not so bad. They’re good charities. And the life modelling’s fine. I work at the Slade. It could be worse.’
‘Yes, but surely there’s something else. You’re so bright.’
‘Thanks, but it’s not so easy to find a world-beating part-time job that lets me go to auditions at short notice.’
He nods, chastened.
‘What about you, Nath?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘How are you doing?’
‘Oh, OK. Overworked. Underpaid. Drowning in admin.’
I didn’t mean that. I meant the baby stuff. The no-baby stuff. How are you doing with that?
‘But, you know, we academics love to moan.’
As they stand to say their goodbyes her phone buzzes – her agent. She gestures to Nathan, who waves his hand for her to take the call.
‘Lissa?’
She can tell by the tone it’s good news. ‘Yes?’ She tries to keep the eagerness from her voice.
‘They want you. The Chekhov. You’re in.’
Cate
Sam is at t
he wheel as they drive westwards, through the terraces and pound shops of Wincheap, out to where the city thins and frays into the ribbons of A-roads that lead to London, to the coast. They are late. She and Tom were asleep when Sam came back from work, both of them sprawled together on the bed. Now Tom nods again in the car seat as they take the Ashford Road, passing garden centres, small industrial estates housing soft-play zones, motor-home dealers, stands of scrappy-looking trees.
She’s wearing the first decent blouse she could find and her maternity jeans, the ones with the huge black waistband. An old cardigan on top. She could have done better. Should have done better. ‘So is anyone else going to be there?’
‘I don’t think so. Just Tamsin and Mark.’
‘What is it he does again?’
‘He’s got a company. Agricultural machinery. He’s doing really well.’ Sam turns to her. ‘He might invest in a restaurant. He’s got the cash. We’ve talked about it for years.’
She tries to remember Mark’s face but cannot quite picture it. She’s only met him once since the wedding, the time they came down to see the house. But everything then was a blur. ‘How long have they been married?’
‘Forever. They got together at school.’ He turns to her, a small tightness at the edge of his mouth. ‘They’re lovely people. Really. Just stay away from politics and you’ll be fine.’
She nods, smiles, circling the spider at her wrist with her finger and thumb.
They turn up a country lane with large houses on either side, past a huge fruit wholesaler where even at this time of the day forklifts roam around the forecourt. Pulling up at a wooden gate, Sam presses the button on an intercom. There is a buzz and the gate slides open. A black Land Rover Defender stands on the driveway. Sam parks beside it and lifts a sleeping Tom out of the car. In answer to the bell there is the tinny yap of dogs, the scuttle of claws on a wooden floor, footsteps.
‘Sorry we’re late,’ says Sam, as his sister opens the door. ‘We had to get Tom dressed. Then traffic.’
Tamsin is dressed in jeans, heels and a grey jumper. Sequins crust like icicles at her shoulders. She hugs them – brief, angular, fragrant – then shoos them through to the kitchen, where a vastness of shining floor is punctuated by a large granite island. Cate pulls her cardigan tighter around her while Sam hoists Tom and the car seat on to the dining table. Three large black pendant lights hang suspended above it. On the wall, a sign reads ‘EAT’ in large wooden letters, as though without it Mark and Tamsin and their two children might forget what this side of the room is for.
‘They’re here!’ Tamsin calls to her husband, who emerges from a different room. Mark is tall, broad. His shirt hugs his frame. He looks like an advert for a certain sort of manhood, a certain sort of success. He kisses Cate, fist-pumps Sam. A watch the size of a small mammal grips his wrist.
‘Would you like a drink?’ Tamsin ushers Cate towards an armchair. ‘Fizzy water?’
‘Actually,’ says Cate, ‘I’d love some wine. A red wine. If that’s OK?’ Her voice sounds odd. She has hardly used it today. ‘I’d love a small red wine,’ she says again, giving each syllable equal weight, as though speaking a language that is new to her.
‘Mark!’ barks Tamsin. ‘Glass of red for Cate.’
‘Coming up.’ Mark moves towards the kitchen counter, behind which cabinets are lit from within, and pours wine from an open bottle into a goblet. He looks like a mortician, standing behind his slab, dealing in blood.
‘There,’ Mark says, bringing it over and setting it on the glass table before her. ‘Put some colour in your cheeks.’ And he laughs. And Tamsin laughs. And Sam laughs. And Cate laughs too, though at what she is not quite sure. Both Tamsin and Mark are deeply tanned. Their teeth are extraordinarily white against their skin. She remembers now Sam telling her – they have recently been on holiday. She can bring it up later, when she is at a loss for something to say.
‘Antipasti,’ says Tamsin, lifting a plate where meats and cheese and olives glisten in the bluish light.
Cate takes an olive and rolls its saltiness on her tongue.
Outside is a large garden, laid to lawn; beyond it, a fold in the hills where the river runs. The Great Stour, the same river that runs behind their house – she knows this because they walked there together, she and Sam and Tamsin and Mark, when they came down the first time to get a sense of the area.
Let’s walk through the orchard! Tamsin had said. And so they did, the route taking them over the lane, past the wholesaler, past the cabins with the numbers spray-painted on the sides housing the fruit pickers, the dartboards, the mothers on camping chairs with their babies in their laps, watching them warily, the radios, the sound of Russian being spoken, then the orchard, which was simply lines and lines of trees. It was summer and the trees stood penned, grafted on to wire, their arms stretched in supplication, or defeat. It’s not an orchard, she wanted to say, it’s a factory farm.
‘So how was your holiday?’ she asks, turning back to the room.
‘Oh, amazing,’ says Tamsin. ‘We were in Turkey. All-inclusive. The kids loved it. They were gone from breakfast till dinner. Had the run of the place.’
‘Where are they?’ Cate has the sudden terrible thought that they have been left somewhere, forgotten.
‘In the snug.’ Tamsin gestures to a door half open, and she sees them, their son Jack, their daughter Milly, faces stunned and immobile in the blue TV light. ‘Hey! You should come, next year. We should all go together. We could bring Alice too, a big family holiday – she’s amazing with the kids. Wait – or Dubai. Christmas!’ She claps her hands together. ‘Mark! Tell them. Tell them they should come to Dubai.’
‘You should come to Dubai,’ says Mark, with an indulgent smile to his wife. ‘We go every year. I do a bit of work, then we have a week at Atlantis. You seen it?’
Mark brings up pictures on his phone and they all crowd round. Cate sees a huge pink stone edifice, a strip of sand, the ocean beyond. ‘It’s a man-made island,’ he says. ‘They’ve got everything – Gordon Ramsay restaurants. An aqua park. The kids go mental for it.’
It looks terribly fragile, its hugeness, its hubris. ‘Atlantis?’ says Cate.
‘Yeah.’ Mark nods. ‘Check it out.’
‘Didn’t Atlantis disappear in the flood?’
‘Which flood?’ Tamsin looks bewildered.
‘The Bible.’
‘Thanks,’ says Sam hastily. ‘But I don’t think we can get away this year – maybe next time.’
Cate looks over to where Tom lies. He looks tiny there, vulnerable, a small craft floating on a sea of polished oak. He is so still.
‘Excuse me.’ She rises quickly, goes to him, puts her hand to his nose, feels the soft relief of his breath. Outside, beyond the glass doors, the hillside is turning russet in the last of the light. The lawn is mown to within a millimetre of its life.
Tamsin comes over and joins her. ‘Gorgeous, aren’t they, when they’re asleep?’ Her face, dusted with a light pink powder, shimmers in the overhead lights. ‘So how’s the house?’ she says.
‘Oh.’ Cate shifts a little. ‘It’s good – it’s great. We’re so grateful.’
‘When are you going to invite us round?’
‘Soon. When we’ve unpacked.’
‘You’re kidding?’ Tamsin laughs. ‘You haven’t unpacked yet?’
‘Still a few boxes left to go.’
Tamsin’s hand lands on her sleeve. ‘You look tired,’ she says. ‘Sam says you’re sleeping together?’ Her voice drops to a whisper. ‘You and Tom? In the same bed?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’
‘It’s just easier like that. For the night feeds. You know.’
‘You should stop.’ Tamsin is gripping her now. ‘Get that baby off the boob. You know what? You should have some time off. One day a week. What do you say?’
‘I—’
‘Say yes! Alice will do it. She’s de
sperate to spend some time with Tom. Hang on – Sam!’ Tamsin turns to the men, clapping her hands. ‘Sam! Cate’s going to have a day off! We’ll arrange it. Me and mum. Alice is dying to help.’
It is almost dark when they return. Tom stays asleep as she lifts him from the car seat and into her bed. She goes down to the living room, where Sam is lying on the sofa, plugged into his computer. He pulls his headphones off as she comes into the room and raises his beer. ‘You want one?’
She shakes her head. He makes room for her to sit. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’
‘Why did you tell your sister I share a bed with Tom?’
‘Because you do.’
‘Don’t you like it?’
‘Well, I’d rather share a bed with you.’
She laughs. She cannot help it. The thought is too absurd.
‘I’m worried about you, Cate.’
He looks genuinely concerned. Or perhaps it is not concern, perhaps it is disappointment – the disappointment of one who has bought something online and then, just when the warranty has run out, realizes that it is faulty in all sorts of hidden ways.
‘Did you ask Tamsin to arrange a Tuesday with your mum?’
His face tells her.
‘Did you not think of asking me first?’
‘I thought it would be good for you. I thought you would be relieved.’
‘I thought you might have the courtesy to check with me before you rearrange my life.’
‘Wow. OK. I’m just trying to help. I thought that’s what mothers needed.’
‘This isn’t help. It’s an ambush.’
‘Jesus Christ, Cate.’ He holds up his hands.
She gets up and goes into the kitchen. She is shaking. She looks through to the living room, where Sam’s back is to her. He has already clicked on to some computer game or other, put his headphones back over his ears.
This is the pattern of their evenings. A little passive-aggressive banter and then separate computers on separate chairs. If she is lucky, she gets the sofa. Then they go to bed. In separate beds. Repeat.
Her phone buzzes. A message from Hannah – a missed call. Her heart leaps. She can navigate by Hannah. Hannah is true north. She lifts the phone and calls her back.
