‘Vile meat it is, anyway,’ Vivienne said, with a brief show of animation. ‘Always as dry as cardboard no matter how much you brine and baste the buggers. Goose is far tastier.’
I smiled. ‘Mind you don’t say that to the team in there.’
Vivienne turned her head towards the door, and I swear she paled under her carefully applied, natural-looking make-up.
‘God, I’d forgotten how terrifying this always is. I wish I’d brought a hip flask.’
I’m bloody glad you didn’t, I thought, pain twisting my heart again as I thought of Mom. Besides, going into a callback and wafting gin all over the assembled decision-makers would have been an absolutely terrible look.
‘You’ll be fine. Deep breaths, remember? Right down into your diaphragm.’
Vivienne nodded, then closed her eyes. I could see her chest rising and falling, and hoped that she was willing herself into her happy place, wherever that was. Hopefully, in her mind, she was in her glorious garden, looking at the sunlight filtering through the leaves overhead, hearing birdsong.
‘Vivienne Sterling?’ A young girl with indigo hair, clutching an iPad, had opened the door to the audition studio. ‘We’re ready for you now.’
Vivienne’s eyes snapped open and she sprang to her feet, forgetting her handbag on her lap. Keys, wallet, mobile phone, tubes of lipsticks, stray tissues and a plastic box of mints all spilled out onto the floor, and for a second I thought she was going to cry.
‘I’ve got this.’ I knelt down and scooped everything hastily together. ‘You go on in. I’m right behind you.’
Seconds later, I followed Vivienne into the studio and took a seat in a corner, cradling her bag and mine. She was on her own now – there was nothing more I could do.
‘I’m Lucy,’ the purple-haired girl said, shaking Vivienne’s hand. ‘And this is…’ And she quickly rattled through the names of the art director, the casting director, the camera and sound crew, and the head of marketing for Timpson’s Turkeys.
Casting by committee, I thought gloomily. Everyone in the room would have come with their own preconceived ideas of what made a granny glamorous and what was right for their brand – it could go any way at all. The CEO’s mother-in-law could decide she wanted a crack at acting and get the gig, and the ad agency wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it.
‘If I could just ask you to stand over here,’ Lucy said, and Vivienne followed her obediently to a spot on the floor marked by an X of masking tape, surrounded by a forest of lights, mics and cameras.
In the glare of the lights, she looked small and terrified, her skin as white as snow against her red jumper.
‘You’ve seen the script, of course,’ Lucy said, ‘but here’s an extra copy if you like.’
‘That’s all…’ Vivienne began croakily, then tried again. ‘That’s all right, thank you, darling – I can manage perfectly without it. But could I possibly trouble you for a glass of water?’
There were a few minutes of faffing about while water was fetched, a battery pack on one of the cameras changed, and the head of marketing decided he needed a bathroom break.
The delay could go either way, I reckoned: either it would give her a chance to compose herself, or it would rattle her further. Looking at her face, so still under the lights it almost looked frozen, it was impossible to tell which.
At last, Vivienne had said her name for the camera – twice, because the first time the sound guy sneezed right in the middle – and we were ready for the main event.
‘Whenever you’re ready,’ Lucy said encouragingly.
Vivienne paused for a second, and then said, ‘Having all my family around me makes Christmas the most special time of the year. That’s why I choose tasty, juicy Timpson’s Turkeys.’
She was amazing. She managed to pack cosiness, foodieness and even sexiness into those few words. Her voice was slightly husky, not too posh, warm and welcoming. She looked like Nigella Lawson’s equally glamorous aunt.
‘Once again, with a bit more oomph,’ requested the casting director, and my heart leaped with excitement. If he hadn’t been impressed, he would have thanked Vivienne and let her go – by asking for more, he was seeing how she took direction, assessing what it would be like to work with her.
Vivienne said her lines again, with more oomph. Then the casting guy asked her to try in a Northern accent, and she pulled it off perfectly. He asked for ‘more Mary Berry’ and she nailed that too.
‘Let’s have a go with the baby, shall we, Luce?’ said the marketing guy, and I noticed a slight grimace on the casting director’s face and an exchange of eye-rolls between two of the creatives. Whatever this was, it was controversial. And it wasn’t in the script.
I wondered if Vivienne had picked up on the vibe too – she looked suddenly afraid again, immobile like she was pinned to that taped X on the floor.
Lucy hurried off to the back of the room and returned with a plastic doll, dressed up in a Santa babygrow.
‘We’ll have a real one for filming, obviously,’ she said, handing it to Vivienne.
‘Just a bit of a snuggle, and a “coochie coochie coo”.’ The marketing guy spoke for the first time. ‘Our customers love a sprog. First Christmas as a nana, that’s what we’re after.’
Vivienne was holding the doll like it was made of ice, as far from her body as possible, barely touching it with her fingertips.
‘Take your time, Vivienne.’ There was a note of respect in the casting director’s voice, but some apprehension, too. He’d seen what I’d seen – that Vivienne wasn’t comfortable with this at all.
She tried. I could see her steeling herself, taking the bundle of fabric, fake fur and plastic close to her breasts, struggling not to recoil from it.
‘Who’s Nana’s little princess then?’ she began. ‘Who’s a little Christmas mirac—’
She stopped abruptly and dropped the doll to the floor. Lucy scurried over and picked it up, holding it out encouragingly to Vivienne.
‘Just one more time?’ the casting guy suggested gently.
Reluctantly, Vivienne took the doll. This time, it was worse.
‘Who’s Nana’s little princess?’ Her words were wooden, utterly without feeling. Then she bent down and placed the doll on the floor by her feet, almost tenderly. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do this. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.’
She turned and rushed towards the door like she was leaving a burning building. I stood and hurried after her, taking her arm and guiding her out onto the street and into a café. She’d probably rather we’d gone to the pub, but I figured what she needed right then was sweet tea, so I ordered two cups.
‘I honestly wouldn’t worry about what happened there,’ I heard myself jabbering. ‘They loved you, they really did. The thing with the baby – I bet the agency will persuade the client to drop it. Never work with animals or children, right? And even if they decide to go with another actress, at least you know you can do it. You totally smashed it – you were great.’
Vivienne looked at me, her eyes hollow in her pale face.
‘You’re very kind, Sloane. But I fucked that up.’
I’d never heard her swear before. In her beautiful, resonant voice, the word sounded shocking.
‘What happened, Vivienne? Do you want to tell me about it?’
She shook her head. ‘It was a long time ago. Water under the bridge.’
But I was fairly sure she did want to talk, so I just waited, sipping my tea.
‘Max and I never thought we wanted a family,’ Vivienne said. ‘At first it seemed like it would be an interruption to my career, one I didn’t want. And then Max… well, I realised our marriage was in big trouble. But I kept trying to make things right with him, and then, after one of his visits home, I found out I was pregnant. I was forty-three – the doctors called me an elderly primigravida because I was having my first so late. Isn’t that awful?’
‘Awful,’ I agreed.
‘But once
I knew I was having the baby, everything changed. I suddenly realised I didn’t mind so much about Max and his other women. He was thrilled about being a father – I suppose he thought it was proof of his virility. But for me it was as if there was something of him – some piece of what we’d felt about each other in the beginning – that could be salvaged. Something precious.’
‘I can see why you’d feel that way.’ I felt a stab of sadness for her – because clearly, nothing had been salvaged.
‘I loved being pregnant,’ Vivienne went on. ‘I was never sick or anything. I felt marvellous, right until six months. And then I started to bleed.’
I reached across the table and held her hand, but I didn’t say anything.
‘They told me afterwards that the placenta had come away. Quite often babies survive when that happens, but Juliet didn’t. She died before she was born. She was so small, but so perfect. My beautiful daughter. Max never saw her – he wasn’t there. He wasn’t there very much at all, after that.’
I imagined Vivienne bearing the burden of her grief alone for all those years, hoping in vain that Max might eventually come back to share it with her, and then losing him, too. No wonder she’d been trapped in that kind of limbo all this time, unable to cope with daily life but tending her garden with the same loving, nurturing care she’d have lavished on her daughter.
‘Vivienne, I’m so sorry. That’s the most terrible loss. I feel awful that you had to go through what happened today – it must have brought it all back.’
‘Oh, darling,’ she said. ‘It didn’t bring it back, not really. I think about her every single day.’
Her voice overflowed with sadness, but her eyes were dry – I sensed that all her tears for Juliet had been shed long ago.
Eighteen
As well as adjusting my morning routine to keep my mind off the yawning gap left by Myles’s absence, I’d changed my habits after work, too. I was busy enough to keep me in the office until after seven most evenings, and after that I didn’t hurry home. Months before, I’d joined a fitness studio down the road from work and been to about half a dozen classes in my first frenzy of enthusiasm, imagining myself becoming fit, toned and limber and eventually sailing through childbirth thanks to yoga breathing.
But, obviously, that hadn’t happened. I hadn’t got pregnant, for one thing. And also, life had got in the way. As the house renovation lurched from crisis to stasis and then back to crisis, I’d had to spend more days working from home, and my preoccupation with the meltdown of my marriage had left little space in my head for the calm and stillness I so badly needed.
But I’d convinced myself that it was just a blip. I’d get back to it next week, or as soon as the extension was weathertight, or once I wasn’t getting home as early as I could to shower and cook dinner and be a perfect wife.
And all the while, the direct debit for the frankly extortionate monthly membership had kept winging its way out of my bank account each month.
Now, though, I had time. I had mental space that was all too ready to be filled with anxiety, regret and shame, if I didn’t fill it with something else instead. So, after work on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays – Fridays being the evening I most desperately needed to fill, without the ritual of a takeaway, a bottle of wine and, most likely, sex with my husband – I left the office, walked the short distance to The Space, as it was rather pretentiously named, changed into my Lycra kit in the sumptuous locker room and joined whatever class there was a space in.
I sweated and groaned my way through hot yoga. I tried a HIIT spin class and literally thought I was going to throw up afterwards. I gave Thai boxing a go, imaging that the unfortunate woman I was partnered with was Myles as I pummelled her with my padded gloves. I tried Zumba one time, but when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I literally saw my dad dancing to Gloria Estefan in our living room in 1997 and was so mortified I couldn’t bring myself to go again.
At first, it was the promise of a luxurious shower, using copious amounts of free aromatherapy shower gel, shampoo, conditioner and body lotion, as well as vast fluffy white towels that I didn’t have to wash, that kept me coming back. Then I discovered the on-site café, which offered a pay-by weight buffet of organic wholefoods. I was always starving after a workout, and I soon learned to game the system by choosing the highest-value, most delicious options. Marinated tofu and hard-boiled eggs could go to hell – I was all about the flame-grilled free-range chicken, garlicky puy lentil salads and tuna sashimi. Oh, and of course the vegan chocolate brownies.
After a week or two, I was well into it. I found that it wasn’t just the prospect of a fragrant shower and meal I hadn’t had to cook that kept me coming back – I was actually relishing the challenge of the classes themselves and the endorphin-induced euphoria I felt afterwards.
It was in this supremely chilled-out state that I arrived home on the last day of September, almost three weeks since I’d last seen Myles. Okay, it was Friday. Friday was hard. Saturday was harder and Sunday was purgatory. I’d been through two weekends alone so far. On the first one, I’d spent Friday night crying, Saturday pacing up and down the stairs, taking occasional rest breaks during which I flung myself down on our bed and cried some more.
Then I’d bought a bottle of bourbon on Amazon Prime Now and drunk almost half of it, ordered a Domino’s meal for two (large Pepperoni Passion, wedges and a bottle of Coke) and troughed most of that before passing out and waking the next morning with the worst, puking, meat-sweating hangover I’d ever had in my life. So Sunday, obviously, had been spent ricocheting between my bed and the toilet, hoping I might die soon and end this self-inflicted agony.
The following weekend, lesson learned, I’d gone to visit Megan, trawled the shops on Bond Street and bought stuff I didn’t particularly like or need (but at least returning it would fill some time, I guessed), and slept. A lot. And in between, I binge-watched the whole of Jane the Virgin on Netflix, desperately filling in every spare moment that I might otherwise have spent thinking.
And this weekend, I had a plan in place. When I got home on Friday, I was going to go straight to bed and sleep for as long as I could. On Saturday I’d have a healthy breakfast, go for a long walk, clear out my closet and take a bunch of clothes to the charity shop, grab some sort of street food for lunch, go and see a movie… And so on. Literally every hour was accounted for. I was not – repeat, not – going to think about Myles even once. Or about Bianca and her betrayal of our friendship. Or about my dreams of becoming a mother, now torn to pieces. Or about that empty condom wrapper.
But when I got home, I saw with a jolt of surprise that the lights were on, both upstairs and downstairs. None of the blinds were closed, and the boards the builders put over the downstairs windows, so passers-by wouldn’t see their power tools lying about and break in and steal the lot, weren’t in place.
What the…? Wayne and Shane weren’t still there, surely? It was gone ten on a Friday night. They’d have been in the George and Dragon pub for hours.
I fitted my key into the lock, turned it and stepped cautiously in. In the blaze of light cast by the bare one-hundred-watt bulb strung from the ceiling, I could see the new part of the house clearly for the first time in days. The floorboards were mostly covered by dust sheets, but round the edges I could see smooth, golden, newly varnished wood. The concrete floor had been poured and polished, and it glowed with a deep sheen like frosted glass in the harsh light. Around the walls were the carcasses of the kitchen we’d agonised over planning and ordering months before.
It was all beginning to look a bit like a home. Instead of heading straight upstairs, I found myself wanting to linger, explore and admire.
Then I heard a voice. ‘What d’you reckon, Sloane? Looking pretty good, isn’t it?’
Myles was standing on the stairs, about halfway down, his hand resting on the balustrade, which I noticed had been freshly painted a smooth, deep charcoal colour. He was still in the suit he must have wo
rn to work, but he’d taken off his tie – I could see the end of it dangling out of his jacket pocket. It was the silk one with owls on it that I’d bought him on a work trip to Milan a couple of years back.
‘It looks amazing.’ And so do you. My happiness at seeing him made me furious, but I couldn’t help it. He was there. He’d come back.
‘Shane texted me with a few questions about the kitchen cabinets, so I thought I’d better drop in and check things out. I tried to ring you, but your phone was off.’
Of course. I’d turned it off for my yoga class in accordance with The Space’s strict rules and forgotten to turn it back on, so I couldn’t even tell Myles off for turning up at the house without notice. Although it wasn’t that I resented so much as his entirely casual demeanour, as if seeing me for the first time in almost a month was nothing remarkable at all.
‘Come and have a look.’ He stepped down the last few stairs and paused in front of me in the hallway. For a second I wondered whether he might be about to kiss me, or hug me, or say he’d missed me, but he didn’t. My arms were almost aching to reach out to him, but I didn’t either.
He lifted a corner of the dust sheet and said approvingly that the floorboards had come up great, inspected a new piece of cornicing that had been fitted below the ceiling and said that looked a bit neater now, didn’t it, then strolled through to the new part of the house with me following him, my heart racing in my chest like I’d just done a spin class rather than restorative Yin Yoga.
‘I reckon another month, and we’ll be done,’ he said. ‘Now they’ve started the kitchen, it’ll all go really quickly. And then the worktops and the appliances will go in, last bit of decorating in the front room – and voila.’
Voila indeed. The house being finished would surely have to bring to a close this strange limbo of ‘some time apart’. A decision would have to be made about whether we’d sell it or if one of us would buy the other out, or something else.
Stay together. Try again. Make a new start.
No, We Can't Be Friends: A totally perfect romantic comedy Page 17
