The Understudy

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘Hostel,’ the friend says, with a gleeful expression. ‘It’s really scary.’

  ‘Isn’t that an eighteen?’ I trawl the recesses of my mind and come up with a series of snapshots involving torture. ‘Are you sure that’s appropriate?’ I glance at the friend. ‘Maybe A—’ Dammit, what is her name? ‘Your friend’s parents might not approve.’

  Sadie rolls her eyes. ‘Alyssa’s parents’—the emphasis is for my benefit—‘are totally cool.’

  I give them both a hundred-watt smile. Far be it from me to be the uncool mother. Only just as they’re leaving, I spot the cans of cider in Sadie’s laden arms.

  You plied them with alcohol! . . .

  ‘No cider.’ I snatch it so abruptly, so clumsily, that half of what Sadie’s holding falls onto the floor.

  ‘What? But you always—’

  ‘No underage drinking.’ My voice is shrill, like Bronnie’s was this morning. I’m reading the script again, channeling someone I’m not. Someone afraid.

  Teenager injured after head of medical research organization plied her with alcohol.

  Sadie stares at me for a moment, her face a mix of confusion and embarrassment. She stoops and picks up the snacks. ‘Come on,’ she says to Alyssa. ‘Sorry about her,’ I hear, as they reach the stairs. ‘She’s not usually that mad.’

  I go back to my office. Tell myself I’ll speak to her tomorrow; take her out for lunch, maybe. We can have a girls’ day, before Nick gets back on Monday. But late Saturday night I find an inconsistency in the R&D report, and I spend Sunday figuring it out.

  ‘What have you got on today?’ I say on Monday morning. I don’t usually eat breakfast, but I got up especially to get croissants from the bakery on the corner. Sadie dips hers in milky coffee, and I pick at the flaky pastry on mine.

  ‘School?’ she says with a question mark that might as well be a ‘duh!’

  ‘Voice coaching? Choreography?’ I rack my brains to think of the subjects listed in the glossy brochure I last saw two years ago, when Sadie announced she wanted to leave academic studies behind and pursue a career in musical theater.

  ‘What about your A-levels? Don’t you want to go to university?’ I was incredulous. I blame Britain’s Got Talent, making every kid think they can be the next Ed Sheeran. ‘Your maths teacher thinks you’re Oxbridge material.’

  Sadie wouldn’t be swayed, not even when I gently pointed out that I just don’t think you’re good enough, darling . . .

  ‘We’re working on the showcase,’ Sadie says now. ‘It’ll be the auditions for the end-of-year musical, and Adam’s invited top talent scouts—everyone’s bricking it. Parents are invited. You will come, won’t you?’

  ‘If I can,’ I say, as I always do. After all, it’s impossible to commit, isn’t it? How can I know what might come up in the meantime?

  ‘The new girl’s got Ruby twitching.’ Sadie takes another bite of coffee-soaked croissant and carries on talking. ‘It’s only ever been her and Jess up for the leads, but now Imogen’s here and Adam bangs on about her like she’s Liza Minnelli—Ruby hates it.’ She looks at the clock. ‘Shit, I’m late.’

  Ruby hates it . . . Enough to push the competition down the stairs?

  ‘I’ll drive you,’ I say suddenly.

  Sadie looks at me in surprise. ‘Shouldn’t you be going to work?’

  ‘So I’ll be late.’ I pick up my car keys, ignoring my daughter’s open mouth. It’s not as though I never take her to school, for heaven’s sake. There was that time she had to take her cello, and the Tubes were on strike and . . . actually, did I get her an Uber? Well, anyway, I’ve definitely done it.

  As soon as Sadie disappears through the Orla Flynn Academy doors, I get out of the car and make for the headmaster’s office. If Ruby pushed Imogen down my stairs, then Imogen didn’t fall. And if she didn’t fall, no one will say it was because she was drunk, and if they don’t say she was drunk, they can’t point the finger at me, and if they don’t—

  ‘Mrs. Bond, come through.’ Adam Racki interrupts my thoughts, coming out of his office to the room where his secretary works, and where I am perched on a chair that has seen better days. In fact, now that I think about it, the whole academy has seen better days. The new roof Bronnie keeps banging on about is long overdue, and although the auditorium and dance studios are state of the art, backstage is shabby and old-fashioned. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’d like you to expel Ruby Donovan.’ No point in beating about the bush.

  ‘That seems a little extreme.’ Adam rests his elbows on the arms of his chair and steeples long, thin fingers. His desk is in chaos, half-drunk coffee cups hiding between precarious piles of scripts. A dozen Post-it notes of varying colors decorate his desk phone with reminders to CALL THE OLD VIC and SUBMIT GRANT APP. A heart-shaped sticky note with GRACE2504 curls at the edges, and the handset itself bears a lurid green note wondering if there might be a CHEAPER QUOTE FOR ROOF? Adam Racki has clearly never heard of Marie Kondo.

  ‘So is pushing another girl down the stairs,’ I say, refocusing on the matter at hand.

  Adam closes his eyes for a moment, as though he’s grounding himself. As though this isn’t the first conversation he’s had about Imogen Curwood. ‘I’ve spoken to the girls about what happened at your house.’ Am I imagining the extra emphasis at the end of that sentence? Or has Bronnie been filling Adam’s head with notions of my negligence? ‘And Imogen is quite clear that she simply tripped. No one was anywhere near her at the time.’

  ‘She told Bronnie Richardson that Ruby pushed her.’

  ‘ “Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie,” ’ Adam says, half under his breath. He smiles, and gives a little nod, like he’s taking a curtain. ‘Othello.’ He holds up both hands, palms uppermost, like he’s asking for divine inspiration. Or giving it, which is perhaps more his style. ‘Who knows what goes on in a teenage girl’s mind?’

  I make speech marks in the air. ‘ “The price of admission to being in the room with me is I get to tell you you’re full of shit if you’re full of shit.” ’

  Adam looks uncertain. ‘Blood Brothers?’

  ‘Steve Jobs. Now look here, Adam, we all know what a bitch Ruby Donovan can be—to be quite honest, I wouldn’t put it past her to have pushed Imogen. Expel Ruby, and you cut off the problem at the source.’

  ‘Believe me, I was most insistent Imogen tell me the truth, and given the tears—trust me, it wasn’t a comfortable conversation—I’m confident I got it. No one pushed Imogen Curwood. Least of all Ruby.’

  ‘Ruby Donovan is a bully.’ I have no intention of letting her off the hook that easily. ‘She made Jess’s life a misery last year—’

  ‘That was all sorted out long before the summer,’ Adam interrupts.

  ‘Except that it clearly hasn’t been, because poor Jess had that terribly distressing music box in her locker.’ I accept I’m being a little disingenuous. Poor Jess is more than capable of holding her own—like mother, like daughter—and the music box was a joke at best, ghoulish at worst.

  ‘There’s no evidence that Ruby planted the music box.’ Adam sits heavily in his chair, meaning I have to sit too. ‘I don’t know if Sadie mentioned it, but Ruby was the subject of an unpleasant piece of graffiti on school property last week.’

  I shrug. ‘So someone’s giving her a taste of her own medicine—or trying to throw us off the scent. Either way, remove Ruby Donovan, and you remove the problem from school.’ And from me, I add silently.

  ‘And if it was Jess who did the graffiti?’

  I let out a sharp tsk of annoyance. Music boxes, graffiti . . . it’s all so petty. All I’m interested in is putting the blame firmly on those responsible, so that no one casts aspersions on an innocent parent who in good faith let five almost legal teenagers have a few cans of very low-alcohol cider. ‘Expel her too, then,’ I tell him, exasperated. Why does everything have to be so complicated?

  There’s a beat. Adam leans forward. ‘Perhaps
I should expel everyone?’

  I narrow my eyes. ‘Is that supposed to be funny?’

  ‘Not remotely, Mrs. Bond.’ Adam holds my gaze. ‘I can assure you—this is no laughing matter.’

  I don’t make it into the office till ten thirty, and I leave again at four.

  ‘Is everything all right, Elise?’ My PA, a bright Swedish girl studying for a PhD in the evenings, is used to my arriving at eight and leaving twelve hours later. She never leaves before me, and I wonder now what time she’ll go home today.

  ‘I thought I’d pick my daughter up from school for a change.’

  ‘Oh! I didn’t know you had children.’

  Maja has worked at BONDical for the best part of a year. Something twists inside me, and as I drive back to OFA I’m not thinking about Imogen Curwood or Ruby Donovan or the possibility of my reputation being tarnished by underage drinking accusations. I’m thinking about Sadie, and me and Nick, and whether our insistence on raising an independent, free-thinking child might not have gone as well as we thought.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Outside OFA, Sadie leans through the open window of the Merc and eyes me suspiciously.

  ‘I thought it would be nice to pick you up.’

  ‘You dropped me off.’ She slides into the passenger seat and waves goodbye to Ruby, Jess, and Bel, who walked out of school with her. She spins round to face me, her eyes wide. ‘God, Elise, you haven’t—you haven’t been sacked, have you?’

  ‘Sadie, it’s my company. I am BONDical.’

  She relaxes, but as I pull into traffic, I see her tense again. This time she’s less sure of herself, less willing to hear the answer. ‘Are you and Dad getting divorced?’

  Dad. Sadie calling us Mum and Dad is a surefire sign she’s not happy.

  ‘No!’ I reach out a hand to find hers, my eyes flicking between the road and my daughter. ‘Sweetheart, no. It’s nothing like that. I just . . .’ I trail off, unable to put into words everything I’m thinking. ‘I just thought it would be nice.’

  We drive in silence for a while, traffic making the journey longer than Sadie’s usual Tube commute would have been.

  ‘So,’ I try after a while, ‘who did you hang out with today?’

  ‘The usual crowd. Ruby, Bel, Jess.’

  ‘Did you eat lunch together?’ Christ, this is boring. Is this really what other mothers do? Do they really enjoy it? I channel Bronnie again. ‘How are you feeling today?’

  Sadie gives me a side-eye. ‘You are being so weird.’

  I abandon my attempts at parenting small talk and get down to business. ‘Speaking of weird, what’s the latest on Imogen Curwood?’ I check my mirrors and change lanes, cutting ahead of a bus hell-bent on overtaking me. Ha! Beat you.

  ‘She’s still cray cray, if that’s what you mean. She lost her shit today because someone moved her stuff and she couldn’t find her hairbrush, and Ruby said she’d used it to clean the loo only obviously it was just a joke but you’d never know it because Imogen was like screaming at her. It was hilarious.’

  The start of a headache nags at my temples. ‘Bronnie Richardson thinks Ruby pushed Imogen down the stairs.’

  ‘She wouldn’t do that.’ Sadie starts to untangle a coil of headphones in her lap. The lights in front of us change to red, and I stop the car and turn to Sadie.

  ‘Tell me honestly, do you think Ruby Donovan is dangerous?’

  ‘She’s one of my best friends!’

  The two things, I think, are not mutually exclusive. I repeat my question, and this time Sadie sighs. She twists the headphone cable around her fingers.

  ‘Ruby can be a bit full-on. Bitchy, sometimes. But she’s really nice to me.’ Behind us, a car toots impatiently; the light is now green. ‘Most of the time,’ Sadie adds.

  I pull away. Most of the time. Okay, so Ruby Donovan is a two-faced bitch. But does that make her dangerous?

  ‘She thinks she’s better than the rest of us.’

  ‘And is she?’ Bronnie wouldn’t ask that, I think with a wry smile. Bronnie would jump in with a She most certainly isn’t! and a Sweetheart, you’re the best in that school and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Bless her.

  Sadie considers the question. ‘She’s better than me,’ she says slowly, ‘but she isn’t better than Jess. And even though some people don’t rate Bel, I think she’s the best in our year.’

  ‘But Ruby still thinks she’s the star?’

  ‘She had offers from all the best stage schools in the States before she came to OFA.’ She picks at a knot in the headphone cable, and carefully unwinds it. I’m confused. Kendall and Ruby are from California, for heaven’s sake! They’re a stone’s throw from Hollywood! I don’t know much about the industry, but surely if you want to be an actress, living in America is a pretty good place to start?

  ‘Why would you come to London when you could go to New York?’ I ask Sadie. ‘Broadway’s bigger than the West End, right? Brighter lights, better audiences?’

  ‘Maybe they just liked the Orla Flynn Academy more,’ Sadie shrugs. ‘Life isn’t always about searching for the absolute best of everything, you know. Sometimes people just want to be happy.’

  Life isn’t about searching for the best? If I hadn’t been there at the Portland Hospital when Sadie was born, I might question whether she was even my daughter. I turn to look at her, but she’s staring out the window, the headphones finally untangled, and her earbuds in. So much for mother-daughter time.

  By the time we’re home, the germ of a doubt that started in the car has grown to fully-fledged suspicion. There’s something not quite right about Ruby Donovan’s story. I send a text to Kendall.

  Just between the two of us, all this business has made me wonder if OFA is really such a great school. Thinking of looking elsewhere for Sadie—any schools in the States you’d recommend?

  Bait laid, line cast. And now I wait.

  It doesn’t take long.

  I spend the evening in my office, catching up on all the work I missed today, and wondering how on earth anyone is able to work part-time. Sadie and I cross paths briefly in the kitchen—her dropping off an empty plate of food prepared by Yuliya, me picking up a full one—but otherwise I’m alone. I’m eating quinoa one-handed when my mobile buzzes. I smile as I see the opening words; I knew Kendall wouldn’t be able to resist the chance to show off . . .

  Ruby had offers from all the top schools in America, but we turned them down for OFA—I hope we made the right decision! Auditions back home are fiercely competitive, so Sadie might feel more comfortable in the UK. xxx

  I register the burn. I might be pragmatic about Sadie’s lack of potential in theater, but that doesn’t mean I want other people pointing it out.

  The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it? I wonder how much of Kendall’s passive-aggressive bitchiness Ruby has inherited, and whether Sadie and the other girls cope with it as well as they seem to.

  I read the text again, and smell bullshit so strongly there could be a herd of cows in my kitchen. You’re a liar, Kendall Donovan, I think. I just don’t know what you’re lying about . . .

  Two hours later I’m still at my desk, staring at my screen. Another evening, another spreadsheet . . . Only this spreadsheet isn’t filled with year-end profits or with margins and predicted buy-ins. This spreadsheet is a comprehensive list of stage schools in the US, complete with addresses, phone numbers, and the last recorded principal. At the top of the final column, a question: Did Ruby Donovan audition for a place at your academy?

  I get lucky with my first call: a sloppy assistant who doesn’t think, or doesn’t care, about data protection.

  ‘Let me just . . .’ There’s a tapping of keys. ‘Nope, no one of that name recorded.’

  I type the letter N into the last column of the first line, then pick up the phone again.

  ‘I’m sorry, we don’t keep records of auditions.’

  ‘I can’t release that information, ma’am.’
r />   ‘Can I ask why you want to know?’

  I hang up. This isn’t going to work. For every school secretary happy to check their records for a Ruby Donovan, there are six more who won’t—or can’t—tell me if they’ve met her.

  ‘What school did you audition for, Ruby?’ I say out loud. I sit up, tutting at my ineptitude. I’m looking at this the wrong way round: not what school did she audition for, but which school did she audition from? If what Ruby did was bad enough to get her blackballed, someone at her old school will know about it.

  I drum my fingers on the desk for a second, then bring up the website for the Orla Flynn Academy.

  I never planned to go into medical research. I didn’t go to medical school, or have designs on being a doctor. It was the technology I loved. I built my first computer back when they were the size of fridges, and had an email address when they were all strings of numbers. I grew up on forums, even met Nick on a Yahoo chat thread. People are unreliable, inconsistent; you know where you are with computers.

  I scan the screen, but there’s no login area, no staff only button. Deftly, I move the cursor to end of the URL and type /admin.

  Username: ______________

  Password: ______________

  I type in adamracki@ofa.co.uk, then tab to the password field. Birthdays. It’s always birthdays, isn’t it? I search my WhatsApp messages for the thread Bronnie started a few months ago. A certain headmaster is going to be the big FIVE OH soon—I’ve started a collection so we can show our appreciation of everything he does. I grudgingly handed over a tenner and signed the card Bronnie had made, using old photos of Adam in his acting heyday.

  Last chance! the message read, further down the thread. The big day is tomorrow!

  Perfect. I type 140569 into the password field.

  Password not recognised.

  Crap. I try 14051969 but get the same result.

  Does Adam have any pets, I wonder? Bronnie would know. But just as I’m wondering how I can subtly text Bronnie to find out, I remember the heart-shaped Post-it note. GRACE2504.