‘Would you like a really unsympathetic cuddle?’
‘Yes, although gentle on this boob because it’s agony.’ She looked up. ‘Sarah! Oh my God. I have to buy you that. You look . . . like . . . beautiful.’
She stood up. I opened my arms and we hugged gently. We were there for a long time. I thought I heard Rachel say, ‘Thank you,’ into my hair but I didn’t say anything and I didn’t hear her speak again. Then a song came on the sound system and it sounded like the singer was singing, ‘Fuck the pain away,’ which made us laugh. So I said in a funny voice, ‘I won’t be doing that, no.’ And then she said, ‘Thank you,’ again, and her voice sounded so choked that I just carried on hugging her.
‘Come on, let’s pay for the dress and then I want to take you to the bookstore,’ she said eventually.
‘Book shop. Why?’
‘I want to buy you a book called Get the Love of Your Life Back.’
sixty-six
That day changed everything really. I started doing different things. Odd things.
The first one happened the next day. I walked to the Santa Monica LA post office with a parcel under my arm. It was a bright, airy, calm building, nothing like the post office in Camden where they once had a queue out of the door and onto Camden High Street. I thought that was impressive, because it’s as big as HMV inside and it wasn’t even Christmas. I liked to annoy other queuers there by guessing which of the cashiers would come free next and saying, ‘Cashier number seven, please,’ before the automated response system. Easily pleased.
The problem with sending a package through the post is that the recipient equates a package with pleasant things. They think, ‘Oooh goodie, a parcel. Someone is thinking of me and has bought me a present,’ and then they tear it open and cry, ‘Oh, they shouldn’t have! How kind, it’s lovely.’ Only in this instance I suspected the receiver would open it and their face would drop and then they’d sadly say, ‘Oh bollocks.’
Not that I was completely cruel. My package did come with a warning. Once the package had been pulled out of the jiffy bag there was a handwritten sign on a Post-It saying, I AM SORRY FOR THIS. I AM A DICK. BUT I HAD TO DO IT, which I considered pithy under the circumstances. The package was for Simon. My Simon. Funny how hard it was to stop calling him my Simon. He wasn’t my Simon. He was Ruth’s. And by sending that parcel I was letting him go. I hoped. Contained in that parcel were all the Simon-related bits and pieces I owned, and a note. So, wrapped in bubble wrap I held
1 the newspaper advertisement for the ‘how to stop being a crazy freak’ workshop
2 the sleeve of the book The Secret. I thought it would be too expensive to send the whole lot and I wasn’t sure if the starving waitress wanted it back
3 the sleeve of the book Get the Love of Your Life Back
4 Ruth’s packet of contraceptive pills
5 the naked photo of Ruth and the ‘come in lie down with your legs akimbo’ note, complete with Blu-tack on the back
And my note.
Dear Si,
Above all, I’m sorry. So sorry. Sorry not to have been the person you or I hoped I was in our relationship. I was a mad woman. If it is any consolation I was a mad woman because I wanted to be the right woman for you so much.
I think you’re amazing. You’re like sunshine in Wales or a ray of light when the bulb’s gone. There’s no one else like you and I thank you for the years I’ve had you as my mate. Because right now I really miss you as my mate. But I hope you’re happy. I hope Ruth’s happy. I hope the foetus is healthy. I mean that.
Anyway, what I want to say is good luck. I wish you well. And I’m going to fuck off now.
I’m going to stop sending you texts, which incidentally take three hours to write and work out where to put the mistakes in. I’m going to stop making myself amenable to small children in the hope that I will one day make a good step-mum. (Not that I intend to be cruel to them, but I’ll stop homing in on them and doing my Yogi Bear impression.) I’m going to stop spending money and time on working out how to repair things. Because I can’t. I accept your decision. I want to move on from all this. I wish you well and I hope more than anything that one day we can be friends.
If you’re wondering why I’m doing this now, it’s because Rachel Bird’s got cancer, although please keep that to yourself because no one else knows. It’s breast cancer. And even after she’d been given this terrible prognosis she wanted to take me shopping. She wanted to buy me a beautiful dress to make me look nice even though I wasn’t feeling great. And she wanted to buy me a book called GET THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE BACK which as you can probably tell by the cover is an unbelievably priced pile of tosh. And I felt glad that she had something to take her mind off with on the one hand but on the other hand ashamed that it was my refusal to let go of a bloke who clearly wasn’t interested in me.
But if you want to take slight consolation, Rachel and I have become really close and I don’t think we’d have done that if you hadn’t dumped me so brutally (joke!!!). No, if we hadn’t spent many hours and martinis plotting ways in which to make you love me. Duh! Women!
So, that’s it. Apologies on top of more apologies.
Take good care of yourself, Gusset, because you’re very, very special.
SS.
x
‘Next, please,’ smiled the cashier.
sixty-seven
It was very quiet on set. Normally there were about a hundred people walking around with a walkie-talkie, a cable or a purpose. However, Eamonn wanted a smaller crew for that ‘delicate’ scene. The crew might have been small and sensitive but I was still tense. I was so tense I made Gordon Brown look like he was on opium. At least it was essentially a rape scene, so I wouldn’t be relaxed at all. Leo looked nervous too. Handsomer than Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise, but nervous. We were sitting side-by-side, waiting for Eamonn to instruct us in our first take.
‘Do you have to wear protective underwear too?’ I asked Leo. I had meant it to break the ice but a make-up girl giggled, so perhaps it sounded a little more suggestive than I meant. Actually, from the way she was laughing I might as well have said, ‘Hi, I’m Sarah, I don’t have a gag reflex.’
‘I have a sort . . .’ He started cupping his right hand as though it was holding his imaginary penis. The make-up girl and I didn’t blink. ‘A sorta . . .’ He moved the cupped hand back and forth as he searched for the right word. ‘A sorta . . . it’s sorta like a sock on my penis.’
Now, I was pretty sure that Leo was plumbed with a penis, but now he’d confirmed that, I felt a little warm. He confirmed that he had one, simulated its girth and told us there was a sock on it. I glanced at the make-up girl. She was blushing. I think we would both have liked a quiet, uninterrupted moment to process that information.
‘Well, well, well. How are you two doing?’ said Eamonn, clapping his hands and joining us under the gazebo-style tent that was behind the bush where we’d be filming. It was 8 p.m. and very dark already. It was a little chilly so I had a puffer jacket over my costume.
We both nodded and mumbled ‘mmm’s.
‘It’ll be fine. Now that you know your positions, we’ll just start shooting. Try to forget the cameras are rolling. I find in these scenes the good stuff happens on early takes, if not in rehearsals. So we’ll just keep repeating it with the cameras rolling until we’ve got enough. I’m not entirely sure what I want from this yet to be honest, so I’ll direct as we go. I saw the rushes of the strip bar scene and we got a terrific moment between the two of you, just before Sarah, er, crashed to the floor and hospitalized an extra.’ He laughed.
‘Bastard.’
‘It’s very powerful, that look. Anyway, don’t think of it as a rape scene. It’s consensual sex but it’s the disgust you feel after you’ve slept with her that makes you murder her . . .’
‘Oh, ta very much.’
‘In the film, he feels disgust that he allowed himself to sleep with this stripper and that’s when you kill
her. Clinically, cleanly, quickly. She liked you; she fell head over heels for you. Literally.’
‘That’s right, Eamonn, you wring that joke out for all it’s worth.’
‘Sarah, that story’s going in my memoirs.’
‘Oh,’ I said, rather pleased I’d get a mention in his memoirs.
‘So, have fun,’ he said.
We took our positions. I took off my puffer and hid myself in the hedge. I felt strange. I didn’t think these strange feelings were particularly professional. I, Sarah Sargeant, was looking forward to kissing Leo again. Normally before you’re about to do a scene you try to get into the head of your character. You try to lose your own thoughts and become someone else. But at the moment I didn’t actually have a clue what my character was thinking. I just wanted Leo to do that thing where he cupped my cheek and we looked at each other and breathed together. I suddenly gasped. He’d be cupping my cheek with the same hand that just cupped his penis! You see, that was where my imagination currently was. And it was definitely not where it should have been. What was wrong with me? I went to a convent. It occurred to me that this might have been my sexual peak. Perhaps I’d just, that second, entered my sexual peak. I took consolation that the make-up woman had as well. If it was my sexual peak I might as well enjoy it. If the last four years were anything to go by, it’d probably be the only bit of action I’d get while I was in it.
‘So, let’s put you in your positions and have a crack,’ said Eamonn. ‘I mean a bash.’
The scene started on me. I was sitting in a hedge spying on a house, as you do, when Leo appeared by my side. You see, it was a psychological thriller. I knew I was being stalked, but I thought it was by the man who lived in this house. Hence me sitting in the hedge. However, he wasn’t stalking me. He was stalking four other women. But not me. Leo’s character was stalking me. So he follows me to this hedge, seduces me and then murders me. Erin then finds my body. She was the other stalker man’s daughter and she ends up working it all out and being the hero.
A few shots were taken of me looking at the house and feigning boredom. Then the cameras shifted so we could move on to Leo’s entrance.
Leo quietly came into shot. I thought it was the stalker. I grabbed my gun. Yes! I had a gun! But luckily I didn’t hold it for long because I hate firearms. I saw that it was Leo, whom I recognized from the stripping club. I looked scared.
‘I know,’ whispered Leo, in a way that didn’t make me suspect him to be a murderer. ‘I’m here to help you.’
I hesitated for a long time. Then I put the gun down. Then I smiled. Then we both started looking at the house. Then slowly, ever so slowly, Leo stopped looking at the house and started looking at me. I didn’t know why. A house would have been prettier. But slowly I turned my head and met Leo’s eyes. Now it was the fun part. We looked at each other. We held the gaze. I was doing ‘I want you to shag me’ breathing already and I wasn’t sure it was acting. His hand was on my cheek. It was like the beach again. He touched my lips with his thumb. It was rougher than we had done it before but I wasn’t complaining. He moved me towards him. My dress rode up. I know, I wouldn’t hide out in a hedge in a dress either, but this was Hollywood. We were kissing. It was much more urgent than the beach. He was touching my breast already. Leo Clement was touching my nipple and we were being filmed. I groaned. That bit was acting. Sort of. I hoped my parents would never see this film. Leo was really good. It was like he was possessed. He manoeuvred himself on top of me and pretended to line things up down there. Then he pressed down on me. I thought I felt a semi! Leo Clement or his character had got a semi. I could feel it against the top of my leg. He was squashing me now. It was full-on frottage. I tried to take things slower and push him off me a bit but he held me down and did a very good impression of an orgasm. I smiled dreamily at him and played with his hair. But he forced my hand down and picked up the gun.
‘Cut.’
Leo touched my face. I looked at him. We held the gaze. What were we doing? This was the film again.
‘Did I hurt you?’ he whispered.
I shook my head. I covered myself and stood up. I needed to be away from this man.
Was it a semi? And if it was, is that normal? I mean, when Keira Knightley is having a bit of James McAvoy in Atonement has he got a raging stiffy? I’d never thought about it before. I’d never had to. There had been something to be said for playing comedy maids and bit-part shop assistants. Genitals never came into ‘Your tea, ma’am,’ or ‘That’ll be three pound ten.’
‘Bloody brilliant!’ shouted Eamonn. ‘Bloody, bloody brilliant.’
sixty-eight
Dolph Wax only lived on Mulholland Drive. I had to make the taxi driver stop and take a photo of me next to a road sign. That one would end up on Facebook. Well, Dolph said he lived there, but I think he might have been having us on and really it was a modern art museum. His house didn’t have normal things that homes have, like a sofa and a telly and an area near the front door with a pile of shoes. He didn’t have much in there at all. Although maybe he’d hidden everything because he thought we’d nick it, which was actually a sensible idea on his part because I would definitely have taken a souvenir to give to Julia. The few things he did have were unnickable and odd. He had armchairs but they were so high you needed a leg-up to get into them and they were made out of plastic. A chair made out of plastic in your living room? The electric chair would be more suitable for idle reclining and watching Dave.
He had paintings on the walls. But the paintings were of stripes. And in Dolph’s house, walls looked like walls but they were actually cupboards. But the strangest bit of interior design was the room that had just one table in it. One table but no chairs. I saw it and said, ‘You didn’t tell us to bring our own chairs, Dolph.’
I always thought that I’d be tongue-tied and embarrassed meeting an A-list Hollywood star. But I wasn’t around Dolph. That could have been because I thought the Absolute Destruction series was about as good for the world as genocide. Dolph didn’t seem to mind when I said that about the table though. He just looked and me and told me I was funny again. Apparently the table belonged to James Dean and no one was allowed to touch it.
‘Live fast, die young. But keep your hands off the furniture,’ I said. And Dolph didn’t mind when I said that, either. But that was because he didn’t notice. He was too busy looking at Leo’s bottom. I know this because I was also looking at Leo’s bottom. Giovanni needed to be sedated. But I defy anyone not to have been looking at Leo’s bottom too. Because Leo Clement was wearing a suit. But it was more than a suit. The trousers were tightish – hence Dolph and I gazing when Leo bent down to look under the table – the shirt was white against his surfer’s tan, and he was wearing a thin black tie and, best of all, a waistcoat. I love a man in a waistcoat. He had been wearing a jacket but he’d taken it off and now he’d rolled his shirtsleeves up. And his shoes were cream. I know! Cream shoes. Bless him!
‘Leo, I’d like to show you my library.’
Leo’s eyes darted towards me. Dolph had been showing both Leo and I around his house while the other guests were outside. Obviously I was not allowed to see the library. A knowing smile crept across Leo’s lips. I smiled and raised my eyebrows in response.
‘This way, Leo, you’ll like it,’ Dolph said firmly and extended his arm for Leo to follow him. I pretended to be riveted by a stripe painting as they left the room. Then I quickly looked in my bag to check my phone. No news from Rachel. She and Eamonn weren’t there. They were having a quiet night in under the pretext of going to a fundraiser because Eamonn said he’d rather eat his own liver than spend leisure time with Dolph-Drive-Any-Director-Demented-Wax. But Rachel was planning to tell Eamonn tonight.
‘Sarah, come and see the library!’ Leo appeared in the library doorway. He was pulling a face like Benny Hill when he was being chased and it’s a close-up.
‘Do you need me to save you?’ I whispered.
‘Please.’ He mou
thed the word but as he did his face lit up. He looked so gorgeous that of course I’d go and see the library with him. I’d go and see a dirty cotton bud with him. I wondered whether it was like this for men? When us women say, ‘Why is he going out with her; she has no personality?’ is the man just so enraptured that the beautiful woman could burp and he would dance? Because that was me at that moment.
Leo put his hand on my arm. I hopped into the room because it still hurt to walk on my bad ankle. I was wearing the navy dress, so his skin touched mine. Dolph was standing in the library. It was not a library in the sense of a room with lots of books in it. The library looked like all the other bare rooms. It had four white walls, although one of them had a few hardbacks lying flatly on a few shelves. You’d find more books in a branch of Iceland. And I could forgive Dolph for the plastic chairs in the other room if he’d had a chair with all the comfort of a bed hidden there in the library. But he didn’t. He did have a chair in there though, to give him credit. Of course he did, because people like to sit down comfortably with a book. Only in Dolph’s house you had to recline with a nice book on a stool. A stool? I considered popping a DFS catalogue through his letterbox.
Dolph was standing next to the stool looking petulant and holding out a large, heavy, what looked to be beautifully illustrated book called The Art of Zen. He ignored me and looked at Leo.
‘It’s for you,’ he said. The corners of his mouth were folding tensely in on themselves. I noted that Dolph was probably a snake kisser.
‘Dolph, man, I can’t take that from you.’
‘I want you to have it.’ His voice was starting to rise.
‘Dolph.’
‘I like you, Leo. I want to give you this book.’
I considered volunteering to take the book, as it looked very nice. But I didn’t. I didn’t think that was what Dolph had in mind. Leo opened his mouth and shook his head for a moment.
The (Im)Perfect Girlfriend Page 23
