Material Girl (39 page)

‘Okay, calm down, Tristan,’ I say, ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. Have another cigarette.’ I gesture at the pack in one hand and the smouldering cigarette butt in the other.

He takes a long and agitated drag on the butt, smoking the filter, but breathes it out slowly. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says to me.

‘It’s okay,’ I console him, patting his arm. ‘It’s completely understandable. On a separate note, Tristan, your black eyes
still haven’t gone down: do you want me to put some make-up on them on Monday night? If you tell me now I can make sure I bring the right concealer?’ I lean forwards to touch one of the bruises that circle his eyes like coffee rings on a wooden table, but he ducks out of the way.

‘I couldn’t care less about them, Make-up,’ he says, flicking his cigarette nervously. ‘Some of us couldn’t give a shit what we look like. Some of us have careers that are about to …’ he snaps open his Zippo lighter, and takes a drag on a fresh cigarette, ‘… go up in smoke.’ He exhales from the side of his mouth and a stream of smoke slithers like a ghoul up into the Gods.

‘All right, Tristan, I was only trying to help.’ I glance around and realise that everybody is looking at us, and I feel foolish and shallow and of no consequence. I turn on my heel and head towards the door at the side of the stage.

‘Look!’ Tristan shouts after me. ‘Look, don’t take offence, Make-up, you know me by now. You have to understand the pressure I’m under. You know that I like you, but your crazy old lady is pushing me to the edge! And I am not used to kowtowing to crazy old ladies! Apart from my mother, and you can always go upstairs if she gets too much, and turn off the Stannah stairlift.’

I suppress a smile. ‘You can be mean,’ I say to him sternly.

‘Not mean, Make-up, Byron-esque.’

‘And what does that entail?’ I ask. ‘Being rude and snapping at the crew and making people feel trivial?’

‘No! God no! Well, maybe a bit. But I’m anti-establishment, love. I’m a loner. I don’t care about black eyes! In fact I like black eyes, if it’s going to shock a few people, make them think how I got them. I’m like George Gordon himself.’

‘Who?’ I ask, looking around for some new member of the cast I haven’t noticed.

‘George Gordon,’ he says, nodding.

‘I thought we were talking about Byron?’ I reply, confused.

‘We are,’ he nods enthusiastically.

‘So who is George?’ I ask, starting to feel silly.

‘That’s his real name,’ Tristan says, trying to suppress a smile.

‘Not Byron?’ I say, feeling ridiculous.

‘No. Well, he was Lord Byron.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Tristan can’t fight his smile any more, and it spreads all over his face like a plague. He isn’t wearing his hat or his beads or his glasses today. He looks positively normal in a grey roll-neck sweater and a black suit, except for his high hair and black eyes.

‘Let’s be honest, you’re Make-up. You don’t have to understand.’

‘Okay, that’s rude,’ I say, and turn to leave again.

‘I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean it! Come on, I’m sorry, accept my apology,’ he wheedles, running around in front of me. ‘I’m just nervous, Make-up! What if it all goes wrong? We preview on Monday! Monday!’ Tristan screws his hands into fists and holds them at the side of his face, squeezing his eyes shut. ‘What am I doing, what am I doing, edelweiss, edelweiss, edelweiss,’ he mutters to himself.

Gavin takes another giant step towards us.

‘You’ll be fine, Tristan, you’re too passionate to fail. It will all be wonderful. You’ll see.’

‘But why?’ he asks, his eyes snapping open, red from smoking or tears.

‘Why not?’ I reply, and shrug and smile.

Tristan nods and points at me as if I’m on to something. Gavin seems sufficiently relieved to kneel down and continue unscrewing the vent.

‘And you know, if it starts to feel like too much, just stop and think, What would Byron do?’ I say.

‘Oh, love, he’d be off shagging the principal boy, and girl, in a cupboard.’

‘Well then, there’s your answer,’ I say, but I can’t help a quick grimace. The runners look on nervously.

‘You got it!’ Tristan replies, biting his lower lip and firing a finger gun at me. ‘Pow,’ he says.

‘Right, can I go now, or do you still need me?’ I ask, my hand resting on the door, poised to leave.

‘Do you want something that’s just for you, Make-up?’ he asks with a wink, that obviously sends a shot of pain through his face because it is quickly followed by a stream of expletives.

‘I’m not sure …’ I say. It makes me nervous. The kids on the stage have stopped moving lamps and vases and rugs, and they are all staring down at him expectantly. I realise like a sandbag falling on my head from a great height that they worship him. For all of Dolly’s derision, and Tom and Arabella’s disdain, these kids think he’s a genius, and I should let him show it, revel in the opportunity. It is not often that you meet men of passion these days, especially one that claims to have no libido.

Tristan composes himself with a cough and looks up, fixing me with his big brown vein-infested crazy eyes:

For the sword outwears the sheath,

And the soul outwears the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

And love itself have rest.

He winks.

I don’t know what to say, so instead I say, ‘Tristan and Byron sitting in a tree,’ childishly, and I hear a runner tut at me like I’ve just sworn in front of the Pope.

‘Yes, it’s true,’ Tristan says, nodding, laughing.

‘“
The heart must pause to breathe
.” I like that,’ I say. ‘What does it mean?’

‘I don’t know for sure, Make-up, but at a guess I’d say that sometimes even love has to stop and catch its breath.’

‘Even love?’ I say.

‘Even love,’ he replies.

‘You see, now, that is beautiful,’ I say.

‘To love!’ Tristan shouts, then spins on his heel and lights another cigarette.

An hour later Dolly is sitting comfortably in her chair, practising her lines.

‘
Blackie! Blackie, don’t leave me alone!
’ she says. She keeps looking down at the play, and then off into the distance, and then at me when she delivers her line.

‘
Blackie! Blackie, don’t leave me alone!
’ she says again, as I dab highlighter on what I can find of her cheekbones.

‘Is Arabella playing Blackie?’ I ask as casually as I can.

‘Yes, she is,’ Dolly answers absent-mindedly, looking back down at her script, muttering.

‘What do you think of her?’ I ask.

‘What do you mean, Lulu?’ – except it’s ‘Whatsdoyoumeanslooloo?’ She’s had two gins already this morning to my knowledge.

‘I mean, she is obviously very beautiful, of course, but in a horsy kind of way …’ I wait for her to tell me if she likes her or not, but instead she says, ‘My mother always used to say to me, Lulu, “Pretty is the wallpaper, but wallpaper won’t hold up the wall.” Now, did you have it out with your chap, finally, Lulu?’

‘No, I wanted to, but he didn’t come home.’

‘Oh, do you think he stayed with somebody else?’ she asks, but with little obvious concern.

‘He might have done.’ I pause, a brown eyeliner hanging
in the air between her face and my fingers. I feel sick. ‘I don’t think he would lie to me,’ I tell her, but more to control my own nausea.

‘But have you asked him, Lulu, outright?’

‘No.’

‘Then he hasn’t had to lie. Ha!’

‘Don’t laugh at that, Dolly, please,’ I say, and she purses her lips but stops talking.

We are silent for a moment.

‘Well, you should know by now, anyway, Lulu, if he is an honest chap or not. Because you can’t tell the truth to a liar, it doesn’t work. The truth bounces off a liar like a tiny rubber ball on a tennis court, quick and uncontrollable. The only way to communicate with a liar is to lie a little too.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I say.

She sighs. ‘Honestly, Lulu. I mean, is it easy to be honest with him, or does the honesty slip off him, and you find yourself telling half-truths as well?’

‘I do keep trying to be honest, but you’re right. It just doesn’t work. It doesn’t come out. And more than that, I can’t be honest half of the time, because I’m trying to cover up all the little lies in my head: that this is enough, or that we are enough, or even that he is when he acts like he does. I don’t want the world, Dolly, but I want more than this. How do I say that and still keep him? How do I tell him that and not have him leave me? How do I do any of this and not have it hurt us?’

‘I don’t know, darling, but I have to go upstairs now or that strange little man will have a hernia. I’ll have a think. Ask somebody else as well. Another man, perhaps?’ She shuffles out of the room.

I grab my phone and make my way upstairs. Wandering down the road, staring into LK Bennett and Reiss, I call my dad.

It rings three times before he answers in his telephone voice. ‘Hello?’

‘Hi Dad, it’s Scarlet,’ I say.

‘Scarlet, how are you?’ He always sounds genuinely pleased to hear from me.

‘I’m okay, Dad, how are you?’

‘I’m fine. Fine!’

‘What have you been doing?’ I ask.

‘Oh, you know, just pottering around. Fixing the car. Playing some darts with the lads down the pub. Watching some football. I see Everton lost, I bet Ben’s not happy! How about you?’

‘Just work really. I might go down to Sussex and see Mum soon.’

‘Right, right.’ My dad has never once said a bad word about my mother, not to me anyway. I think that he might still love her, even after all this time. He loves her enough not to attack her, at least, for leaving him, when women didn’t really leave, with two kids to look after. My parents shared us soon enough, but Dad had the hard shift, during the weeks, because Mum couldn’t get a place that close to our school. So Mum got us larking about at weekends, and Dad got us moaning about having to go to bed early every night, and doing our homework on the kitchen table when he was trying to serve up fishfingers.

‘How are you, though, Dad?’ I ask again.

‘Yeah, I’m all right, Scarlet, I just said I was all right.’

‘And how’s the house?’

‘Yeah, it’s all right. Richard came down, brought Hannah and the boys last weekend, which was lovely, because they’ve got so big! But how are you, Scarlet?’

‘I’m fine, Daddy, fine. Lots on, but I’m okay.’

‘Right, right. And how’s Ben?’

‘He’s okay. Well, not really. I don’t think he loves me, Daddy,’ I say.

‘Right. Right. You should speak to your mother about that sort of thing.’

‘Can’t I speak to you about it?’ I ask.

‘You know I’m no good at that stuff, Scarlet. I’m a man.’

‘Do you love me, Daddy?’ I ask, feeling sorry for myself.

‘Of course I do! You’re my daughter!’

‘But that doesn’t mean you have to love me …’

‘Of course I do! Of course I do! Will I see you soon? It would be lovely to see you,’ he says, moving on quickly.

‘Yes, soon, I promise. I’m crazy busy but maybe in a couple of weeks, or you could come up to town and we could have lunch or dinner or something?’ I say, and hear him freeze up on the other end of the phone line. He doesn’t like London, it’s ‘too crowded, too busy, too dangerous’. Of course it’s not, but he thinks it is.

‘It’s fine, Daddy, or I’ll come home.’

‘Right, yeah, that’s probably best,’ he says.

‘I’ll speak to you soon, Dad, take care, lots of love.’

‘Lots of love, Scarlet, see you soon,’ and he hangs up.

I wander back up towards the stage to watch the last of the rehearsals. Dolly is nowhere to be seen, but everybody else is milling around nervously, glancing anxiously at Tristan as he wrings and shakes his hands like some kind of 1950s dance he’s learnt in order to win a jive competition.

‘There you are!’ I look behind me, because it seems as though he is talking to me, but there is nobody there. It is me. What have I done now?

‘Go and get her! Go and get her!’ he pleads, grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me so my head rattles about on top of my neck.

‘Okay,’ I say, ‘but where is she?’

Tristan lets go and points dramatically at the side of the stage with one hand, covering his eyes with the other. ‘She’s on the sodding phone! In the middle of our final dress rehearsal!’ he says, and a bead of sweat shoots down the side of his face. ‘Please, Make-up, for the love of God, for the love of God! Somebody give me strength!’

‘Okay, I’ll go and get her,’ I tell him, as if talking a potential jumper back in off a ledge. I walk up the stairs at the side of the stage, slowly, glancing back over my shoulder at my audience of cast and crew, forty fingers crossed for me. I scan for Gavin and spot him at the side of my stage, and feel a little safer than I did a moment ago.

Leaning around the curtain nervously, I peek at what is lurking in the wings.