Dreaming of Mr. Darcy

by Victoria Connelly

  Gemma looked around, and her sight landed on a figure she hadn’t expected to be there. Even without her contact lenses, there was no mistaking her or the work she’d had done to keep the ageing process at bay.

  ‘Gemma!’ the woman with the sleek black bob called, a manicured hand waving in the air.

  Gemma walked towards her and was instantly enclosed in a heavily perfumed embrace.

  ‘Hello, Mum,’ she said.

  ***

  Kay watched Beth being examined by Dr Floyd, a portly gentleman whose fat hands were holding Beth’s ankle oh, so gently.

  ‘There are no bones broken,’ he said with a smile. ‘But it’s a very nasty sprain.’

  ‘Nothing broken?’ Beth groaned. ‘Then why does it hurt so much?’

  ‘You put the entire weight of your body on this little ankle,’ Dr Floyd said, using the excuse to stroke it again. ‘You’re very lucky it’s only a sprain.’

  Beth grimaced, and Kay bet she wished it was Oli’s hands that were touching her and not an overweight GP’s.

  ‘I’m glad to see you’re already doing all the right things. Plenty of rest, try to keep the foot elevated, and ice is an excellent idea to prevent swelling.’

  ‘Have you got any painkillers?’ Beth asked in a girly voice, her eyes suddenly looking twice their normal size.

  ‘I really wouldn’t recommend them,’ Dr Floyd said. ‘Pain is nature’s way of reminding us to take things easy, and my guess is, if you think the pain’s gone, you’ll be up and around, jumping off Cobbs again. Am I right?’ He smiled, but Beth didn’t smile back at him.

  ‘Sadist!’ she said as he left the bed and breakfast.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ Kay asked. ‘Another cup of tea?’

  ‘God! I’ve got more tea swirling around my system than blood.’

  ‘Any magazines to read? Or a book? I’ve got all the Jane Austens,’ Kay said.

  ‘A sprained ankle and Jane Austen—could the day get any worse?’

  Kay frowned. She always made the mistake of assuming that everyone loved Jane Austen as much as she did. ‘I’ll leave you to have a little rest, then.’

  ‘Kay!’ Beth called. ‘Don’t leave me, will you?’

  ‘I’ll only be upstairs or in the kitchen.’

  Beth pouted. ‘Nobody cares! Everyone’s forgotten about me.’

  ‘No we haven’t,’ Kay said. ‘But I’ve got baths and sinks to scrub, that’s all.’

  ‘Will you come and talk to me later?’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  Beth nodded. ‘Maybe I’d better have a book—just for company.’

  Kay smiled. ‘I know just the remedy,’ she said. ‘Wait here.’ She returned seconds later with an old paperback copy of Pride and Prejudice. ‘It’s the best medicine there is.’

  Beth gave a little smile, not looking totally convinced. ‘Seeing as there isn’t a single glossy magazine in this establishment, I’ll give it a go.’

  ***

  Kim Reilly’s arrival in Lyme caused no end of excitement, and Gemma was soon forgotten in the general scrum to get close to the famous actress. Hot dogs by the harbour were abandoned, and a sit-down meal in The Harbour Inn was demanded by the cast and crew as Kim regaled them with stories of her career.

  ‘Take after take in that jumpsuit,’ Kim said, sipping a lunchtime martini. ‘I tell you, I lost a stone in weight that day.’

  ‘You didn’t need to,’ Oli said. ‘You were always the perfect shape. If you don’t mind my saying so.’

  ‘Honey, I don’t mind your saying so,’ Kim said, batting enormous eyelashes at Oli.

  ‘Do you still have the jumpsuit?’ Sophie asked. Gemma rolled her eyes. Her mother’s famous jumpsuit had been regularly wheeled out at parties over the years as guests harangued her until she put it on, posing and pouting for photographs in the iconic outfit.

  Kim waved a hand in the air as if batting the question away in embarrassment. ‘I think I may still have it somewhere.’

  ‘And I bet it still fits you like a glove,’ Oli said.

  Gemma groaned. She wished Oli wouldn’t encourage her mother, not that she needed any encouragement. She always had the knack of steering the conversation around to whatever she wanted to talk about, and sooner or later, the famous black jumpsuit would be the topic of conversation.

  ‘I’m just going to make a call,’ Gemma said, getting up from the table in the corner of the pub.

  Gemma wasn’t going to make a call. She needed to get away for a moment. Goodness, her mother had been in Lyme Regis for less than half an hour, and she was already driving Gemma nuts.

  What is it about Mother that upsets you so much? she asked herself, looking in the mirror of the ladies’ toilets, where she’d taken refuge.

  ‘She always—always upstages me,’ she said to her reflection.

  But doesn’t everyone? That’s one of the downsides of being shy.

  It was also, perhaps, one of the reasons Gemma had become an actress. A part of her wanted to shine as brightly as her mother. She wanted people to see that she counted too. She wasn’t just Kim Reilly’s daughter; she was a person in her own right, and she didn’t need a black jumpsuit, either. She had as much talent as her mother ever had.

  Competing with your mother was exhausting sometimes, and Gemma wondered why she even tried to bother, because it was always going to be a losing battle that she didn’t really want to win anyway.

  ‘Not really,’ she said to herself. Because she knew she wouldn’t be happy being the centre of attention. As much as she’d love Oli to look at her the way he was looking at her mother and pay her that sort of attention, she knew it wasn’t in her to command such interest.

  She’d rather be sitting in a nice comfy room somewhere with a cup of tea and her knitting. She laughed at the image. She sounded ancient before her time, didn’t she?

  She fished in her handbag for her lip gloss, covering her lips with a nice red coat. It looked funny, with her Anne Elliot hair and her Regency costume, but it made her feel a little less invisible.

  The door to the ladies’ opened and her mother stepped inside.

  ‘There you are!’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘I thought you were making a call. Where’ve you been?’ She looked annoyed, and Gemma guessed that she’d missed her mother recounting some scintillating anecdote that Gemma had heard a hundred times. ‘And why aren’t you out there flirting with that gorgeous man?’

  ‘Oli?’

  ‘Of course Oli. Who else?’

  For a moment, the face of Rob floated before Gemma’s eyes.

  ‘Because if you don’t make a move on him, I will!’ her mother said with a lascivious wink.

  ‘Oh, Mother!’

  ‘Don’t oh, Mother me!’ she said, nudging her daughter out of the way so she could get to the mirror. Gemma watched as Kim brought out her own lipstick. It was called Red Vamp, and her mother had been wearing it for about twenty years longer than she should. Next came the powder—a dab here and a dab there. Gemma knew the routine so well. Then the perfume. Three liberal squirts of Lady of the Night. Gemma grimaced. She’d never liked the perfume, finding it heavy and cloying, but her mother never travelled anywhere without it.

  ‘Will I do?’ she asked, her fingers pulling her dark hair until it was just right.

  ‘You’ll do,’ Gemma said, and they left the ladies’ room together.

  ‘Just one thing, darling,’ her mother said, stopping before they got back to their table.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Try and make an effort with everyone. You were sitting at the table like a stuffed doll before. You can be quite the sparkling personality when you want to, except I get the feeling you never want to.’

  Gemma sighed. At least her mother understood one thing about her.

  Chapter 20

  After a lunch filled with even more anecdotes from Kim Reilly’s days as a TV sex goddess, it was time to resume filming.

 
‘It was lovely to see you,’ Gemma said, leaning forward to kiss her mother’s cheek with the generosity of spirit available to one who knew her guest was leaving.

  ‘You say that as if I’m going somewhere,’ Kim said.

  ‘You’re not going home?’

  ‘I’ve only just arrived!’ She laughed.

  ‘You mean you’re staying?’

  ‘I’ve booked a couple of nights at some bed and breakfast down the road. Charmouth?’

  Gemma nodded. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘Of course you didn’t. I wanted to surprise you. I thought I’d better come and see if my daughter really could act.’

  Gemma swallowed hard, knowing that her mother wasn’t exaggerating. She’d want to know if all the drama school fees she’d paid over the years had been worth it.

  ‘Is that a good idea?’ Gemma said lamely. ‘I mean, I don’t know if Teresa will—’

  ‘Oh, I’ve sorted all that out. She said I can stay as long as I like. In fact, she said she’d value my opinion. I could maybe give her some direction, what with all my experience.’

  ‘But you’ve never directed.’

  ‘My darling girl, you don’t need experience in this business. You just need opportunity and a bit of cheek.’

  Gemma watched her mother waltz over towards Teresa and then closed her eyes. This was a nightmare.

  Sophie tapped her shoulder. ‘Wow!’ she said. ‘I wish I had a mum like yours.’

  Gemma was tempted to say, take mine, but resisted, thinking that it might sound ungrateful.

  ‘I can’t believe she came down to see you.’

  Gemma shook her head. ‘She’s not here to see me. She’s here so people can see her.’ She watched in horror as her mother joined Teresa. Oli was deep in conversation with her, but the two of them broke off when Kim approached. Gemma looked on as her mother batted her long eyelashes at him again.

  ‘Angela Tyrrel was one of the defining roles of seventies’ cult television,’ she heard Oli say to her mother.

  ‘Oh, you’re too sweet.’ She was lapping up praise like a kitten would cream.

  No, Gemma thought, her mother wasn’t here to see her at all.

  ***

  ‘It’s so unfair!’ Beth complained from the sofa. ‘Everyone’s at the pub having fun with Kim Reilly, and I’m stuck here with a sore ankle.’

  It was ten o’clock in the evening, and word of Kim Reilly’s arrival had reached the bed and breakfast.

  ‘I’m stuck here too,’ Kay said.

  ‘Yes, but you don’t count,’ Beth said with a sigh.

  Kay looked across at Beth, shocked by her comment.

  Beth turned to see her expression. ‘You know what I mean. You’re not an actress—it couldn’t possibly mean as much to you to meet Kim Reilly as it would to me.’

  Kay supposed she was right in her own rude way, but she would still have liked to have seen the famous actress. Not that she didn’t have famous actresses coming out of her ears, and Beth was more than enough for any sane person to cope with.

  ‘God, I’m bored,’ Beth said with an enormous sigh. ‘I could never have lived in Jane Austen’s time and just hung around the house all day.’

  Kay looked across at her. ‘How are you getting on with Pride and Prejudice?’

  ‘Oh, I got fed up with it,’ Beth said. ‘I read as far as that ball where Elizabeth gets in a tizz with Darcy for not dancing with her and gave up.’

  Kay’s mouth dropped open. That was one of her favourite bits. How could somebody give up there? she wondered ‘You really should read some more.’

  ‘Please don’t make me!’ Beth said dramatically. ‘It would be like doing homework, and I never bothered with that, even when I was at school.’

  Kay shook her head in miscomprehension, wondering what on earth they were going to talk about if Beth wasn’t an Austen fan.

  ‘What made you want to become an actress?’ Kay asked at last.

  Beth—who had slumped since the Pride and Prejudice conversation—seemed to perk up a little. ‘You get to wear nice things,’ she said. ‘Did you ever have a dressing-up box at school?’

  ‘No,’ Kay said, thinking back to the school she attended. Actually, she attended three different schools, because her mother moved house a fair few times in an attempt to make ‘a fresh start’ after Kay’s father left them, but it had always been disappointing, with Kay’s mother still unable to find the perfect relationship and Kay feeling displaced in her role as the new girl at school. ‘I would have loved a dressing-up box,’ she said, thinking of how one might have helped her to feel more at home at her new schools. She had always loved dressing up and pretending she was a fictional character.

  ‘We had one,’ Beth said, ‘and there’d always be an almighty scrum for the best clothes. I remember there was this emerald gown with sequins along the top. All the girls would make for that, and whoever got it would be instantly transformed into a princess. It was glorious,’ Beth said, smiling. ‘I thought acting was like that too. You got to wear glamorous clothes that transformed you into somebody else. But it doesn’t always work out like that. My first job was as a walk-on in one of those dreadful kitchen-sink dramas, and my costume was hideous. I looked like a dishcloth.’

  ‘I suppose that’s fitting for a kitchen-sink drama,’ Kay said, but Beth wasn’t amused.

  ‘It’s important to be beautiful,’ Beth said.

  ‘But surely the role is more important.’

  ‘Certainly not,’ Beth said. ‘I don’t take anything now unless it’s going to make me look good.’

  Kay was quite shocked by this admission, but she supposed she wasn’t really surprised.

  ‘And between you and me, I should have been cast as Anne Elliot, although I do still think that Louisa is the most important role in the story, don’t you?’

  ‘At least you’re not Henrietta,’ Kay said. ‘She gets much less screen time than Louisa.’

  ‘Yes,’ Beth said. ‘I wouldn’t have even read for Henrietta. I don’t know why Sophie bothered, really, although beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose.’

  Kay tried to hide her smile at this comment. She was quite sure Sophie was aware of Beth’s sniping comments, and she knew Sophie would just laugh them off.

  ‘I wonder where Oli is,’ Beth said. ‘What’s keeping him out so late?’

  ‘I was meant to be drawing Oli this evening,’ Kay said.

  Beth didn’t look too happy with this piece of information. ‘He stood you up just like every other woman he’s ever been involved with.’

  Kay sighed. She could tell she was pouting and tried to stop.

  ‘I hate men,’ Beth said, but the expression in her eyes seemed to be saying the very opposite. ‘Most of them are wasters, and the others just waste your time.’

  The front door opened and a voice called from the hallway. It was Oli.

  ‘We’re in here, darling,’ Beth called from the sofa, quickly fluffing up her hair and seeming to forget that Oli was a man and that she hated every last one of them.

  ‘Hello, ladies,’ he said as he entered the room, a huge smile on his face, his cheeks glowing with an evening of alcoholic consumption and fine conversation. ‘You two missed one hell of an evening. Kim’s amazing. You should hear the stories she has to tell.’

  ‘You were meant to be with Kay this evening,’ Beth said, completely taking Kay by surprise.

  ‘What?’ Oli said.

  ‘Kay was going to draw you, but you forgot. You’re a pig, Oli.’

  Oli looked suitably crestfallen. ‘God! I’m so sorry, Kay,’ he said, stepping forward and grabbing her hands in his. ‘Beth’s right—I’m a pig.’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ Kay said with a little smile.

  ‘I’m a pig,’ he said, giving a little oink, which made Kay giggle. ‘But there’s still time, isn’t there?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Oli looked at his watch. ‘It’s only ten thirty,’ he said. ‘C
ome on!’ Still with her hand in his, he led her through to the dining room, where he pulled out a chair and sat down in it, straight-backed and straight-faced.

  ‘Is that you posing for me?’ Kay asked with a smile.

  Oli nodded. ‘Okay?’

  She bit her lip. ‘Well…’

  ‘Not okay? Where do you want me, then?’ Oli asked, turning around.

  Kay swallowed hard, desperately biting her tongue lest she answer him honestly.

  ‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘You’re fine there. Let me get my things.’

  ‘Kay!’ Beth called from the living room. ‘You just left me.’

  ‘I’m going to draw Oli,’ Kay said, poking her head around the door.

  Beth pulled a sour face. ‘And what am I meant to do?’

  ‘Go to bed?’

  Beth did not look amused. ‘You’d better pass me that bloody book.’

  Kay passed her the copy of Pride and Prejudice. ‘It’ll make you feel better, I promise.’

  ‘I doubt that very much,’ Beth said, but she opened the book and cast her weary eyes to the printed page.

  Chapter 21

  Kay rushed up to her room to get her pad and pencils, but she had to stop by the mirror first, grabbing a hairbrush and attacking her tresses.

  ‘Blast!’ she said as the fine hair floated out in a static halo. She hurried into her en suite and ran her brush under the tap, doing her best to control the errant strands. She fished in her makeup bag for a lip gloss and mascara. For a moment, she worried about the dress she was wearing, but she didn’t have time to get changed.

  Oli was still sitting in the chair when she re-entered the room, and she had to take a moment to believe the scene in front of her.

  ‘Okay?’ Oli asked, turning to face her.

  Kay nodded, holding up the tools of her profession. She was ready to begin.

  ***

  She had never sketched such a handsome profile. The heroes she had drawn for her books had always been from her imagination or inspired by the heroes from the films she watched. Never had she been presented with a real-life hero. She had to concentrate on the task in hand in order to do a good job, but she knew how easy it would be to just sit and stare at Oli and end up with a blank sheet of paper. But she was working now and had to take things seriously.