The Understudy

by Sophie Hannah

  Welcome back, Adam Racki, flashes my screen. I take a triumphant swig of wine. Who needs hackers when people are still stupid enough to write down their passwords? I hum happily to myself as I find my way through the system to the student records.

  It’s disappointing. A list of grades (I note that Jess didn’t score the distinction Carolyn made sure we all knew about last year, and file the knowledge away for the future) and a record of fees paid, but little else. No free text reports, or mention of detentions or sanctions, and—most frustratingly—no mention of which school each student attended before arriving at OFA.

  I click back to the list of students and scan the page, hoping for inspiration. Ruby, Jess, Sadie, Bel . . .

  I stop. Read the list again.

  Where is Imogen?

  I read the list three times. It changes nothing. Imogen Curwood isn’t there. She doesn’t exist. I shiver, remembering the way she appeared so suddenly behind me in the bathroom. Like a ghost, I think before I can stop myself. A ghost student.

  ‘That’s enough,’ I say out loud. I have work to do. There must be another way to find out where Ruby went to school. I shut down the school website, resisting the temptation to change Sadie’s grades, and flex my fingers at the keyboard. Ruby Donovan: Who are you really?

  The first few Google search pages all relate to the Orla Flynn Academy. Ruby Donovan gave an assured performance as Priscilla . . . Residents of the Memory Lane Retirement Home were treated to Christmas carols sung by students of the Orla Flynn Academy. I scroll down and down, clicking through the pages, clicking on dead links, on useless links, on links for Ruby Donovans in Ireland, in Canada, on foreign exchange programs in Russia. I find a good, clear photo of Ruby, and drag it to my desktop, then upload it to Google for a reverse image search. I search and I search and I search . . .

  I don’t even bother looking for Ruby on Facebook. She might have a profile, but she certainly won’t use it, and if she’s on Twitter, it’ll be to retweet pithy observations about Jeremy Corbyn and to fangirl Ruthie Henshall. No, I know where today’s kids hang out. If Ruby’s anywhere—if she’s been anywhere—it’ll be Tumblr.

  It wasn’t even called ‘blogging’ when I was doing it. They were just diary entries, on a clunky platform that later morphed into LiveJournal, with comments from other people geeky enough to know how it worked. In today’s high-tech society, the world and his wife have blogs, and everyone’s grandma’s on Twitter. I keep my life to myself nowadays, but that doesn’t mean I’m not au fait with what platforms are hot.

  It takes me half an hour.

  There, buried in a page of one-word comments—Sick!, Lol, FML—is Ruby Donovan. Cool, her comment reads. Such a wordsmith . . .

  The post prompting all these erudite comments is a photograph of a gymnasium, benches lining one long side. In the center, on a floor covered with blue crash mats, is a group of ponytailed girls in red-and-white cheerleader outfits. Eight of them lie on their stomachs, beaming at the camera, while another eight stand in a circle behind them, looking up at their final number, who is flying high above them, legs scissored either side like they’ve been dislocated. The photo is a riot of pompoms and shiny white teeth.

  Cool.

  Clicking on Ruby’s name doesn’t give me much. She has a Tumblr account, but doesn’t post. I go back to the cheerleading photo and scan the girls’ costumes, but there’s no school logo, no team name . . . They should really sort out their branding, I think idly, and I’m conscious that I’m wasting time now, that all I’ve found is a photo of a cheerleading team—there’s nothing to suggest that Ruby has any connection to them, beyond finding the photo online.

  But wait . . .

  There’s a woman in a fire service uniform. She’s sitting on the benches—clearly spectating, not on duty—and I imagine her leaving work early to watch her daughter perform. I wonder if any of her colleagues said, I didn’t know you had children. I look at her for a moment, at her face shining with pride, then I snap myself out of it. I zoom in on the picture. Her badge says LA City Fire Department. Los Angeles. This is Ruby’s old school, I just know it.

  There are signs above the benches—support and sponsorship from businesses. We do the same from time to time at BONDical, if the PR opportunities are good, or the cause convincing. I scan them for something local. Not a chain, nothing generic . . .

  I find it.

  The Draycott. Relaxed dining in Pacific Palisades.

  I hit Google again—Schools in Pacific Palisades—then search Ruby Donovan Palisades High, when I get a result.

  And there she is: Ruby Donovan, Palisades High School, 2016. Bingo. I pick up the phone. I’ve been doing my research back to front. Why call a hundred possible outcomes, when you can call the control? Hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.

  ‘Oh hello, may I speak with the school counselor please?’ My accent, already polished, morphs to somewhere between Emma Watson and the Queen.

  ‘Please hold.’

  I’m through. ‘I’m calling from the Orla Flynn Academy in London—I’m head of student care here.’ Nice touch, Elise, I think. Maybe I should be the one on stage . . . ‘I’m concerned about one of our pupils and I wondered if, as her former counselor, you might be able to give me some guidance.’

  ‘I’ll certainly try!’ The counselor is warm and reassuring.

  ‘Her name is Ruby Donovan.’ I hear a sharp intake of breath. ‘You remember her?’

  ‘Of course. She . . . I . . .’ The woman stops, but I don’t speak. Leave an uncomfortable silence, and someone will fill it. They always do. ‘I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you’re having problems,’ she says eventually, but her voice is lower, quieter, like she’s frightened of being overheard.

  ‘She’s an excellent actress,’ I say, ‘but her behavior is a little . . . erratic.’

  The counselor gives a humorless laugh. ‘That’s one way of putting it. To be frank, I’m astounded you guys took her.’

  My pulse picks up. I see Nick’s number flash up on my mobile and I reach out and cancel the call. This is too important. ‘Ah yes, she had some problems with you, didn’t she?’ I try to keep it casual, but I can feel the tension crackle down the line, and when the counselor speaks again, she’s cautious. She knows I’m fishing.

  ‘Perhaps if you email through a request, I can speak to the principal and—’

  ‘Or you could just tell me—’

  ‘I have to go now.’

  ‘Please!’

  ‘Look.’ There’s a pause, and I know she’s wrestling with her conscience. ‘I’m not putting my job on the line for Ruby Donovan. You want information, you’ll have to go through the proper channels. All I’m saying is I’m surprised you took her. No one in America would touch her after what she did.’

  There’s a click, and the line goes dead. I pick up my mobile and find Kendall’s text again. Ruby had offers from all the top schools in America, but we turned them all down for OFA.

  Kendall Donovan is a liar.

  ‘What do you think she did?’ Nick got back an hour ago, with a Chinese takeaway. We’ve both been so busy it’s been ages since we’ve spent an evening together, so now we’re in the living room, picking at leftover spring rolls we’re too stuffed to eat, and watching a film we’ve wanted to see ever since it came out.

  ‘I can’t think what could be so bad she’d be blackballed from an entire country.’ I’m catching up on emails on my phone, and I double-check what I’ve written before pressing send.

  ‘Gossip travels fast in a closed industry.’ Nick looks up from the report he’s reading. ‘I’d imagine the networks in theater are pretty tight. Maybe she stole something. We should ask Yuliya to keep an eye on her, next time she comes over.’

  I picture Ruby. A bit bitchy, sure. A bit too full of herself. But also funny and sparky, and a good friend to Sadie . . . I’m struggling to reconcile the two halves of the same girl. On the TV screen, Ethan Hawke delivers a sermon to a wary
congregation, and I realize I have absolutely no idea what’s going on.

  ‘When’s your San Fran trip?’ Nick says. ‘I can’t find it in the diary.’ He’s looking at his phone, and on a reflex I do the same, pulling up the family Google calendar.

  ‘Wednesday.’ It’s there, he just hasn’t looked properly. ‘We should find a date for Rupert and Jolie to come over—they had us for supper at New Year, do you remember?’ We scroll through the calendar on our respective phones, and eventually find a Saturday in March next year. ‘I’ll ping them an email—put a placeholder in for now.’

  Diaries sorted, we watch the rest of the film, and I finish my emails and clear away the Chinese. I go to bed with a promise from Nick that he’ll be up shortly, and I give him the sort of lingering kiss that carries an invitation for more. An hour later he still isn’t up, and as I’m drifting off to sleep I wonder if it would be too much to schedule that into the Google calendar as well.

  I spend two nights in San Francisco and two in Silicon Valley, speaking to investors half my age taking home twice my salary. As I pick up my phone to check in for my flight home, I have an idea.

  I couldn’t.

  Could I?

  I email Maja. Change my flight and book me a hire car—I need to extend my trip. She replies within minutes. No problem. Where are you going?

  I smile. Pacific Palisades, I write.

  It’s time to find out what Ruby Donovan did.

  Kendall’s rented apartment in London is nice, but this is something else. House envy isn’t something I experience very often, but as I pull up in front of her Californian home I feel a twinge of jealousy. It’s still twenty degrees here, I remind myself, compared to the rainy twelve back home: Everything looks better in the sunshine.

  The house is set back from the road, behind a curved drive with electric gates. The drive slopes upward, with the house at the top, so that although the building is only three stories it towers over me. There are balconies on the top two floors. What garden I can see isn’t big, but it’s immaculately maintained.

  It wasn’t hard to find the address.

  ‘Let me guess—you’ve written a blockbuster,’ the man in the store said, when I told him I was looking for Greg Donovan, the TV network vice president. He leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘He gets a lot of those.’

  ‘Do you know where he lives?’

  ‘Do you know, I think it’s slipped my mind . . .’

  I slip a folded twenty in his top pocket, and he grins.

  ‘Well, look at that—I’ve just remembered it.’

  He writes down the address and waves me off with a cheery ‘Good luck, Spielberg!’

  I press the buzzer. Behind the gates, a black Mercedes Cabriolet sits in front of a triple garage. I wonder if Kendall’s car is inside; I wonder what she drives, when she isn’t being too freaked out by roundabouts to rely on cabs.

  ‘Hello?’

  I feel a frisson of nerves. I pretend I’m here to see a client, to broker a deal. I pretend this is business. ‘Hi, my name’s Elise Bond—I’m a friend of Kendall’s from London.’ There’s a pause, and I hold my breath. But then the electric gates roll silently to one side, and I’m walking up the drive, and I think I better make up a plan—fast.

  The front door opens before I get to it, and a man with damp tousled hair leans in the doorway. He’s late forties, tall and well built, with a well-practiced smile and perfect teeth. He’s barefoot, with sweatpants rolled up at the ankle, and a dark gray T-shirt that clings to a well-formed chest. Well hello, Greg . . .

  ‘I hope you don’t mind my dropping in.’ I take the lead, offering my hand and shaking firmly. ‘I had a meeting in Santa Monica, and I suddenly thought, doesn’t Kendall come from round here, and . . .’ I hold out both hands. Ta da! ‘We mums are all such good friends back home, and I thought, poor Greg, all on his own here . . .’ I pout. Yes, really. Who knew I had it in me? Turns out I’m quite the actress.

  ‘Well, it’s good to meet you! Come on in!’ If Greg’s enthusiasm isn’t genuine, it’s impossible to tell, and within seconds I’m sitting on a vast U-shaped sofa, upholstered in soft blue velvet. The living room is on the first floor, at the back of the house, with double doors on the balcony thrown open to make the most of the view. The walls are painted the exact color of the ocean, and I grudgingly admit that Kendall has great taste. Or perhaps her designer does. One wall is lined with bookshelves, and I tilt my head to make out some of the titles. Living Your Best Life. How to Talk to Your Kids So They Talk Back. What You Really Want in Bed—And How to Ask for It. I stifle a snort.

  ‘Coffee? Or something stronger?’ Greg gestures to the coffee table—a slab of rock that looks like it’s been hewn from the shoreline—where an open bottle stands next to a half glass of wine. Traces of fine white powder linger in the texture of the table; a solitary credit card giving the game away.

  While the cat’s away, eh, Greg? I like him already. ‘Maybe just a small one.’

  He brings me a glass and we toast to the kids, and make small talk about the weather here and in London, and the exorbitant fees we pay so that our children can fulfill their dreams of being on stage.

  ‘It’s all Ruby ever wanted to do,’ Greg says. ‘When she was little she’d put on shows for us all the time. I even took her to the studios once, and got the guys to do the lights, camera, action—you know, the full nine yards.’

  Well, that explains Ruby’s sense of entitlement . . .

  ‘Sadie was the same. She was so good academically, but she lived for Saturdays, when she had drama school. She just used to . . . light up.’ The memory makes me smile. Sadie would come back fizzing with excitement, showing off new dance steps and racing upstairs to learn her lines.

  ‘She’s competent,’ I said to Nick once, ‘but she’s not gifted—not like she is in maths.’

  ‘But she’s happy.’ He’s soft, that’s Nick’s problem. Indulgent of anything his baby wants to do.

  ‘You must miss them both,’ I say to Greg now.

  ‘They came back for the summer, but Kendall wants to stay put for the rest of the year—she says there’ll be auditions, and . . .’ He reaches for the bottle and I let him top up my wine, not wanting to interrupt the flow. I can always get a cab back to the hotel Maja’s booked for me in Santa Monica. ‘I guess it’ll be turkey for one this Thanksgiving!’ He laughs, but it’s short-lived, and he stares into his wine glass.

  I go in for the kill. ‘It must be tough, especially after all that business at Palisades High.’

  Greg looks up sharply, and I rearrange my features into something I hope approximates supportive and sympathetic.

  ‘You know about that?’

  I make a noncommittal sound that could just as easily mean Yes, your wife told me as Yes, I stalked your daughter online and impersonated a teacher to extract information from her school.

  Greg gives a deep, shuddering sigh. ‘It was awful.’ I can hear the blood singing in my ears. This is it. He’s going to tell me. I edge a little closer to him on the sofa, my face still oozing sympathy. He’s wearing aftershave—something musky and woody—and this time the shiver that runs up my spine has nothing to do with nerves. Greg Donovan is a very attractive man.

  ‘It put a strain on us all,’ Greg’s saying. ‘Me and Kendall, Kendall and Ruby, Ruby and me . . . none of us quite knew how to deal with it. Kendall wanted us to have therapy, but—’ He breaks off with a bark of laughter. ‘How do you talk to a therapist about something like that?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I say soothingly. Get to the point, Greg. I pour us both more wine, desperately trying to think of something I could say to prompt a more useful explanation. I think of Nick’s guess that Ruby might have stolen something. ‘Were the police involved?’ It’s a bold question, but it pays off.

  ‘They were here before the paramedics.’ He stares out at the ocean, reliving a scene I still can’t see for myself. Paramedics? What the hell did Ruby do? ‘There was an
investigation, of course—Vee’s parents saw to that—but ultimately Ruby was cleared.’ Vee? Who’s Vee? Another girl, presumably—a friend of Ruby’s?

  ‘You poor things, it must have been dreadful.’ I slide along the sofa again, so close to Greg I can feel the warmth of his thigh against mine. He barely registers me.

  ‘It’s a relief to talk about it, to be honest. For nearly two years it’s been this terrible shadow hanging over us. Kendall went to pieces, and I wasn’t much better.’ He looks at me. ‘Pathetic, huh?’

  ‘Anyone would have been the same,’ I soothe. I try another tack. ‘Vee’s parents must have been beside themselves.’

  ‘They were distraught,’ Greg says. ‘She was their only child.’

  Was.

  I only just stop the gasp that rushes up from inside me. Was. Vee—whoever she was—is dead.

  ‘We’d had problems for years—called into the principal’s office to sort out whatever spat the girls were having that week.’ He pauses. ‘Ruby bullied Vee. That’s the ugly truth. It hurt to admit it then, and it hurts now.’

  I have uncovered Kendall’s lies! I am triumphant! I am Sherlock Holmes, Columbo, Miss Marple! My detective powers know no bounds! I drain my wine in celebration, and put a hand on Greg’s knee in commiseration. What else can I persuade you to tell me, Greg Donovan?

  ‘You’re so brave to say it. So many parents are blind to their children’s faults.’

  ‘It nearly broke our marriage.’

  ‘How awful.’ My voice has become breathy, reassuring. I think about Kendall and Ruby, keeping this gargantuan secret, lying to us all for more than a year.

  ‘Ruby’s my daughter, I love her, but I look at her and I think: Maybe she did do it . . . of course Kendall won’t entertain the idea that Ruby pushed Vee deliberately—’

  ‘Pushed her?’ I interrupt before I remember that I’m supposed to know what’s happened, but we’re a bottle of wine down, and Greg’s too wrapped up in memories to notice the slip.

  ‘Down the stairs.’

  This time I can’t stop the ‘Oh!’ that escapes through rounded lips before I clap a hand over my mouth. Ruby Donovan pushed a girl down the stairs.