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‘Why talk about it, then?’
‘I wish I hadn’t, but I had to give them something. They need those sorts of details to manufacture the image of … “the” Maximilian Fry.’
I pull a face at him. ‘Did you just place an italic ‘the’ before your name and imaginary parentheses around it?’
‘Not purposefully,’ he replies. ‘I’m severely dyslexic – so that all sounds rather complex.’
I realise the lilt in Maximilian’s voice is not laziness, it’s guardedness mixed with arrogance … plus a tinge of self-persecution. Or possibly self-righteousness. Definitely self-indulgence.
‘Give them something else, then,’ I tell him. ‘Lose the spiritual stuff and find another party piece.’
He peers at me.
‘You know, a prop, a talking point, a gimmick …’ I explain. ‘What about a pig? George Clooney used to bang on about his pot-bellied one the whole time and everyone always says what a regular dude he is. Make sure you opt for traditional swine like him, though, those tiny micro ones are way too 2010 and dubiously bred. You wouldn’t want animal rights groups on your back.’
Now, he yawns. We stand in silence, and I really mean silence. It feels weird, being in London and hearing no sound whatsoever. Actually … what’s that? I hear a very faint humming noise. Possibly the buzz of anxiety from a neighbour running low on Prosecco or Jo Malone candles. Then I realise it is coming from Maximilian’s gigantic steel fridge.
‘Well,’ I say. ‘This is, er, … fun.’
He drains his bottle of water, then crunches the plastic container into a ball. ‘It wasn’t my idea, it was Barb’s,’ he replies, flatly. Irritability now edging past the guardedness and arrogance.
‘Charming.’
‘But obviously, I am glad you’re here.’
‘Oh, clearly you are. Although, I have to say you were a lot more convincing as a wild dog human hybrid in The Orc’s Progress than you are now as the welcoming host in your own home.’
He gives me the faintest hint of a smile. ‘I would say touché but then the “pretentious wanker” badge would be a done deal, wouldn’t it?’ He pauses and throws the crumpled bottle of water in the direction of a steel column by the door that leads out onto the terrace. Annoyingly it sails over my head and lands perfectly in the slot at the top. ‘Look, I’m not great at entertaining, never have been. Not a very attractive trait, I know …’
It is impossible to put into words how attractive he looks as he says this. His sudden body movement has caused beads of sweat to slide down between his pectorals and then one, two, three, four … they trickle over his eight-pack as if they were driving over speed bumps, and consequently disappear under the low-slung waistband of his tracksuit. But just as a new batch of droplets are about to begin their journey, he ruins the show by yanking out the T-shirt from his pocket and putting it on. I force myself to speak.
‘Don’t worry, you’re doing okay. I wasn’t expecting to arrive and find you setting up for a game of Twister. But I suppose if I was being really picky, you could have said “hello”.’
He rubs his head with his towel and I notice a small ‘Z’ tattoo on the inside of his wrist. I’m surprised he didn’t have it lasered as soon as he found out Zoe had cheated on him.
‘Didn’t I even do that? Fuck … sorry. Let me get you some tea or something.’
‘What’s the “something”?’
He goes over to the fridge – I can almost taste the trail of Issey Miyake he leaves in his wake – and opens the door. Every shelf is packed with row after row of Fiji water, each bottle placed perfectly in line with the label turned out.
‘Is that the only choice for “something”? I ask.
‘Yes, this would be the “something”.’
‘Well, you’ve redeemed yourself a little bit in the pretentious wanker stakes. I was fearing coconut water.’
He starts opening cupboards randomly, briefly reminding me of Luke in Adele’s kitchen.
‘Bet I lose points for not knowing where the glasses are kept, though … the housekeeper usually leaves some out.’
‘I’m fine with the bottle,’ I tell him, although I am intrigued to see what he keeps in those cupboards; whey powder, protein bars, supplements … no real food. Interesting.
‘Who the fuck drinks coconut water, anyway?’ asks Maximilian.
‘Celebrities. It’s the showbiz refreshment of choice … especially post work-out. You must know that? Everyday there’s a picture on the TMZ website of some ambitious personality vacuum leaving a West Hollywood studio gripping on to a yoga mat and a carton of the stuff.’
He shrugs. ‘I’ve never used the internet.’
‘You what?’ I try to imagine the self-control and the complete indifference to modern culture that must require. It is mind blowing. ‘Aren’t you remotely curious?’
‘No. Barb does my official site, but I’ve never looked at it. Occasionally, I look at a computer screen when my financial advisor is here … but I don’t even have an email address.’
‘And you’ve never Googled yourself?’
‘Why would I need to do that?’ His eyes focus directly on mine for the first time. ‘I’ve got a pretty good idea of who I am.’
I’m still considering how to reply to this when Barb clip-clops in. She winks at me, then nudges her client in the stomach and pretends she has hurt her knuckle on his rock-hard abdominals.
‘That’s what you call marketable goods, right, kiddo?’ she gushes. ‘Bet you’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘Him,’ mutters Maximilian. ‘Him.’
‘Yeah, you, er … must have a really good team of trainers,’ I say casually, in a bid not to sound as if I am agreeing too wholeheartedly. ‘Or do you just have one really mean one?’
‘I don’t have any,’ he says, his voice flattening again.
Barb’s BlackBerry vibrates. She checks the caller ID and immediately answers it.
‘Yeah, it’s me. Shoot … uh huh. I’m listening.’ She covers the phone with her hand and glances over at Maximilian. ‘It’s JP. I’m going to take this in the study and put him on speaker with Nicholas. FYI, Maxy, Vivian was telling me she also acts.’
As she leaves the room, I shake my head at him. ‘When she says I “act”, she doesn’t mean I act in the way that you act.’
‘What way would that be?’ he asks, indicating to me to sit down at the large glass table in the centre of the room. ‘Acting is acting. Either you are or you’re not.’
‘I mean, I haven’t hit that level … doing movies and stuff,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve appeared in lots of commercials. Have you ever been in an ad?’
‘No,’ he says emphatically. ‘I don’t do advertising.’ He adds this in the same tone as Martha Stewart might insist she has never bought pancake mix. ‘We’re talking about you, though. What about television drama … done any of that?’
‘Yeah, a fair bit.’ I sit down in a Perspex dining chair. ‘The best role I’ve had was the first one I landed after college: a prostitute in Prime Suspect. I featured prominently in the first two-hour episode but then I was garroted and dumped in a lock-up.’
‘You got to work with Dame Helen Mirren?’ comments Maximilian. ‘Many actresses would kill to work alongside her …’
‘… and more often than not pretend to have been killed too,’ I laugh, but he only reciprocates with another tiny flicker of a smile. ‘Have you ever died on screen? I mean, acted as if you were passing away, not been crap in the role.’
‘I nearly died in A Son and a Lover of pneumonia.’
‘Oh yeah, I remember. You were skeletal …’
All the papers reported on Maximilian’s dramatic weight loss for the role, especially as he was still only a teenager. It seemed extreme then, but not so much now. Since then, actors such as Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey, Michael Fassbender … they’ve all been allowed to damn nearly starve themselves to death to play a movie character. It’s weird how actresses never get to go that far on screen. (They’re expected to look skinnier in real life.) Even when supposedly suffering from malnutrition in Les Mis, Anne Hathaway merely looked as if she was on the Attack phase of the Dukan.
‘How did you reach your target weight?’ I ask casually. But specifically so.
Maximilian shrugs at me. ‘Incredibly, I ate less and exercised more. It wasn’t a big deal. I’ll do whatever a role requires to convince an audience I am that character. I love what I do and get paid stupid amounts of money to do it. Ultimately, total dedication is what the crew who surround me and the audience who pay to come and see me deserve. It’s no more or less fucking complicated than that.’
‘Wow, that’s a particularly un-pretentious and nonwankerish thing to say. Didn’t you mean, I believe in becoming one with my art?’
He ignores my quip and sits down opposite me, his eyes focus on mine again. ‘So, tell me, Vivian, how far would you go?’
‘Erm … oh, I er … well …’ I look at my lap. ‘To be honest, the sort of parts I audition for don’t require too much application.’
‘There’s your answer, then.’
‘Answer to what?’ I ask, suddenly noticing a loose thread on the bottom of Adele’s vest. Shit. I must have snagged it on something.
‘Why you haven’t hit “that level”,’ explains Maximilian. ‘Decent casting directors can sense a lack of commitment. They can smell it the moment you walk in the room. You should approach every part wanting to feel that person; give everything, do everything, be everything that they are … because that’s what acting is. The ability to reach inside yourself and pull out a truth …’
He pauses. I glance up. He is staring at me. I stare back.
‘But you won’t be able to do that until you know the truth,’ he continues, his eyes penetrating mine. ‘Until you know your truth … who you really are, you can’t pretend to be someone else.’
‘O-kay. Thanks for the career advice. I’ll bear that in m—’
He interrupts me. ‘Oh, that wasn’t just career advice, Vivian. That was advice for life.’ He holds my gaze for a few moments longer, then his eyes dart to the side. ‘Barb?’
I twist round to see her head cocked round the door. She is chewing her gum even more vigorously.
‘Maxy, we need to have a quick pow-wow with Nicholas.’ She beckons at him with a heavily jewelled hand and then beams at me with an overly generous smile, one that I haven’t seen yet. ‘Apologies, kiddo. We won’t be long.’
As they leave she pulls the door behind them, but it swings back open.
‘Okay, Maxy,’ I overhear her say as they disappear down the corridor. ‘I’m going to give you this straight. JP has bailed. He’s looking to cast elsewhere for Truth 2.’ She doesn’t give him a chance to react. ‘Am I surprised? Not really. Your train hasn’t exactly been pulling into Good Press Central recently, but hey, I’ve never let you come off the tracks. You know I’ll get you to your final destination.’
‘Barb, lose the clunky metaphor. I’ve already told you, I’m not going t—’
She interrupts him. ‘You’ll do what’s required, Maxy. You hear me?’ Again, she doesn’t give him time to reply. ‘By the way, how did you get on with that Vivian?’
‘Why?’
‘She could be useful.’
Then a door slams and I can’t catch any more.
I sit back in my chair. Useful? Really? I’m not usually. Most of what I do on a daily basis could easily be done by someone else. I like the idea of being considered useful, though. Definitely a step up from simply serving a purpose and a world away from being wholly surplus to anyone’s requirement, something which I used to feel every day when I wasn’t so …
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_6ca3246b-03e6-588f-9a5c-5454de49b5f9)
… normal.
Obviously, now I am. Aren’t I? But I was not a normal child. I had a sort of … dark side. I wasn’t born with it. One day the darkness descended and before I knew it, that’s who I was: someone who preferred to hide away in the shadows. Nowhere was this more noticeable than in the framed photographs that decorated the corridor of my family’s home. On the wall, you could see my football-fanatic brother scoring goals, celebrating with team mates and waving his club scarf at away games. My teen-model sister was pictured (professionally) frolicking in paddling pools or through sprinklers for leading homestore retailers or leaping off a diving board for travel brochures. There is no photographic record of me after I hit double figures. I avoided cameras.
Obviously, my parents were not oblivious to my downward spiral but they dealt with it in different ways. My father said nothing. My mother asked Jesus to help me. (As in the Son of God – our local GP was not an immigrant Mexican.) She encouraged me to pray as well … up at the jagged crack in the ceiling of my bedroom, which according to her had been created by God with a thunder bolt to create a clear pathway of communication to Heaven. Clearly, all the crap that was stored in the loft kept getting in the way of my prayers, because my mood did not improve. So then – on advice from her church group – my mother screwed a full-length mirror to the wall, on the opposite side to the other one that was already there. They thought it may help if I could look at myself from a different perspective. But it only gave me a new angle from which to question myself. … And now I could see exactly why Kate Summers thought she had all the answers.
After the second mirror was installed, no matter where I stood in my bedroom I was reflected, so being horizontal was key. I would get under the duvet on my bed and place my hands straight down my sides, in an attempt to make myself as invisible as possible. I used to lie there for hours and hours and hours; day and night, in exactly the same position. But one day – not long after finishing school for good – I woke up to find my hands placed across my chest, not down by my sides as they usually would be. It was as if I was about to be buried. My bed had become a coffin, my bedroom was a morgue. I could see myself lying there. I still can. I was dead. Yeah, I know, I know … I told you … dark side! Anyway, I left home that day. Ironically, the next time I saw any of my family again was actually at a funeral.
I hear voices coming from the corridor.
‘You know as well as I do we’ve had worse freakin’ bull to deal with than this,’ says Barb. ‘It won’t take too much to get him back on top. Maxy isn’t just a ripped torso with a twinkle in his eye … he’s got talent.’
‘He’s also bloody temperamental and testing my patience.’ A flat male voice that I don’t recognise interjects. ‘Look, Silver, like I’ve always said: I certainly don’t give a singular monkey’s bollock whether Fry is respected. To misquote that bell-end in Jerry Maguire, “Show me the sodding money!” All I am asking you to do is make him popular and bankable again and fast. It’s getting ridiculous. Your face has had more work than Fry has over the last year. I don’t care if they spit his name at the Royal Shakespeare Company as long as every sad female singleton wants to screw him, every moronic alpha male wants to be him and he delivers the wonga. Now, where’s this waitress?’
Barb appears at the kitchen door with a sharply dressed man in a grey suit with a silk striped shirt and matching tie. His thick blond hair is swept back to show off an angular although not entirely unattractive face. He marches over to me.
‘Nicholas Van Smythe,’ he says, flashing a set of brilliant white veneered teeth. ‘Fry’s agent, visionary, evil overlord … depending on which rag you read.’ He kisses me on both cheeks. ‘Pleasure, darling.’
‘Hi,’ I stand up. ‘I’m Viv—’
He interrupts me. ‘Not to worry, darling, there’s only one thing I’m worse at than remembering names and that’s small talk, so I won’t bother with that either. Silver and I have got a proposal for you.’
Barb motions at me to sit back down at the kitchen table. ‘We thought we’d have some fun, kiddo. The Great British Youth Awards, sponsored by News Today, take place at lunchtime on Saturday. Usual drill: a bunch of adolescents who have fought against the odds get to go up on stage in a top London hotel to receive a trophy from a celebrity and the editor of News Today. The ceremony raises money for a children’s charity, is broadcast live and the paper always does a huge pull-out in the Sunday News. It’s a good marketing tool … it makes the celebrities look more sympathetic to their fans and the editor more sympathetic to his readers. Everyone’s a freakin’ winner.’
‘Except the courageous youngsters, of course,’ laughs Nicholas. ‘Who get to experience the charmed life of the rich and famous for just a few precious hours, before being herded on the early-evening train back to their insignificant lives in some depressing backwater of the UK.’
‘Really? There was me thinking everyone stayed in touch after those sort of events,’ I say sarcastically.
Nicholas smirks at me. ‘I think we all know that the whole point of celebrity charity work is to get recognised for it, not to do it on the quiet so you don’t get anything out of it for yourself. There’s a reason why Madonna takes a full sodding camera crew to Malawi; free children and additional downloads. I jest! I love that old crone. She’s an icon.’ He taps the table. ‘Let’s get to the point, Silver.’
‘So, kiddo,’ she continues, ‘we’ve decided to throw an olive branch to News Today after all the recent hoo-ha in Clint’s Big Column, by getting Maxy to present an award at their ceremony. It’ll be a good coup for them, what with it being Maxy’s first public appearance since rehab, and of course, if you came too we could show everyone that …’
‘… despite what happened,’ I continue for her, ‘Maximilian and I are great mates. Maybe even inspire Clint to write a little piece on what great mates we now are. Do you really think people are that gullible?’
‘The readers of News Today and the Sunday News are,’ confirms Barb, her voice thickening. ‘But, kiddo, this isn’t all about Maxy. It would be a nice little bit of exposure for you and that acting work you were telling me about. I don’t know what kind of performer you are – you could be shit or you could be shit hot, but either way no one is going to find out unless you get some roles. You’re not getting them at the moment because no one has a freakin’ clue who you are. In this day and age there is no such thing as a lucky break, everything is engineered by a relentless PR machine. Hype is everything. Silver’s Golden Rule Number Forty-three: There’s no such thing as a squirrel … he’s just a rat with a better tail and a good publicist.’
‘She’s right,’ adds Nicholas, twisting the gold Rolex on his wrist. ‘No offence, darling, but at your age you need all the help you can get. As far as the industry is concerned, as a woman in her mid-thirties—’
‘I’m only thirty-four.’
He smirks again. ‘As I said, mid-thirties … your career is pretty much finito. This is a good offer. We’re not asking you to snog some reality TV chump at a suburban nightclub, we’re asking you to attend a top-flight awards show at a five-star hotel with the Maximilian Fry …’ Clearly, this is how they all refer to him.
With perfect timing, Maximilian walks into the kitchen pulling a grey hooded sweatshirt over his head. I can tell that the top is fashionably distressed, i.e. it’s brand new but looks as if it has been damaged whilst the owner was engaging in some kind of heavy-going manual labour. (Not like Luke’s one that looks that way because he has been doing precisely that.) Maximilian gets another water bottle out of the fridge and swigs it back without looking directly at me. The expression on his face is exactly as it was when I arrived.
‘Come on, kiddo. It’ll be fun …’ pushes Barb.
‘Not for me,’ I tell her. ‘Rubbing shoulders with celebrities is not everyone’s idea of a perfect day out.’ She looks confused, as I expected. ‘Anyone who works in show business always finds this hard to believe. I mean, most of you assume any normal member of the public would sell a kidney to catch a glimpse of Kristen Stewart buying acne wash in Sephora, but it really isn’t the case. Besides, I see enough famous faces at work so when—’
Nicholas butts in and stands up. ‘Look, I don’t want to hear the labour pains, darling, I just want to see the baby. If you’re not up for it, fine. Obviously, this is the pro-active go-get-’ em attitude that has resulted in you clearing dirty dishes off restaurant tables at thirty-four years old.’
I look across at Maximilian and wonder whether he will apologise on his agent’s behalf, but he is concentrating on peeling off the label from his water bottle. Arsehole. Suddenly, I find myself thinking about the scene at the very end of The Simple Truth where Jack Chase leaves the exquisite Arabian princess (who is also a spy and a professor of metaphysical engineering) he has been shagging. By this point, the two characters have escaped from the desert and are back at the ornate Persian palace owned by the now-dead leader of the rebels who was also the princess’s husband. After a steamy session in her four-poster bed with the silk curtains billowing in the breeze as per movie-set-in-a-dust-bowl standard, Jack Chase waits until the princess is asleep, slips out the window and shins down the side of the building, onto his next adventure. When the princess wakes up at dawn, she touches the pillow next to her, realises Jack has gone for good and then smiles. She smiles. This is a woman who has betrayed her own people, committed adultery, got her husband killed, lost her job – and at one point nearly her right leg – all for some bloke. Who has now deserted her. But is she pissed off? Does she immediately get on the phone to a girlfriend and have a good moan about the chaos-causing non-committal tosspot? No, she walks over to the window and stares into the horizon all gooey-eyed … because he is Jack Chase. Well, I’m not such a sap.
