Material Girl (30 page)

‘I don’t know where it’s gone, the mink. I never took to it; I think maybe I lost it when I moved to Denver. But of course, I can’t lose the memory.’

She sits in silence. Her hands tremble at her sides.

‘There was one, Lulu, even that early on. It was the sex. His name was Don, like Don Juan I joked, and he was a carpenter at Universal, on the set of my first feature. Of course by then Charlie had gone back to his second wife and I was glad to be rid of him. And Universal had signed me for three pictures anyway, so I got another manager easy enough and somebody they liked as well, not a small-time chancer like Charlie. But Don opened his eyes and
looked at me, Lulu, while he kissed me. He kissed me while we made love. I felt it moved him to be with me. A lot of men, they can only kiss with their eyes closed, because they are scared of what they’ll feel if they open them. But Don used to hug me at strange times. Huge unexpected hugs. He used to knock me off my feet with the things he’d say. Small things, stupid things, not poetry, he was just a carpenter, but just silly things. He wasn’t scared either, of his emotions, of being left. He was, probably, the most marvellous man I have ever known, and yet I never married him, because I never expected it to last. He died, unexpectedly, a year after I’d last seen him. It didn’t make it any less perfect. It made it perfect, in a way. He moved to New York one month for work, in the theatre can you believe? And he stayed, and it went on and on, and he never came back. There was an accident, on a set, and that was that. I certainly loved him, but then in a way I loved them all. I loved Charlie as well, he had his qualities, we had good times. Charlie and I hustled together and I wouldn’t change it, Lulu. Love isn’t such a crazy concept, you shouldn’t put it on a pedestal, or let your chap do that either. I was happy to love them all, I saw its benefits, even though I rarely stayed for long. But I learnt early on that telling somebody that you love them makes you love them, in a way. And not telling somebody that you love them makes you not love them. And now that seems obvious, to me, and that any idiot should know it. It’s a door you can open or a door you can keep closed. That’s all it is. Sometimes somebody will open it for you, but sometimes it’s shut so tight we have to do it ourselves, open it for them. Sometimes you have to say it to let yourself feel it.’

‘We’re done,’ I say, wiping the leftover moisturiser into my hands and wishing I’d taped everything she’d said so I could play it back to Ben in his sleep – slip the earphones
on and hope he learns it all subconsciously like a foreign language, and wakes up a new man.

She opens her eyes slowly. ‘What will you do tonight, Lulu?’ she asks me.

‘I’m not sure. I might hang around and go for some drinks at Gerry’s.’

‘You should go home. You should see your chap, Lulu. Don’t prolong the agony if you don’t have to. Be brave. A woman needs to be brave. We have too much to lose.’

‘Maybe,’ I say, wishing she hadn’t even suggested it. ‘What will you do tonight, Dolly?’ I ask, reaching down for her bag to pass it to her.

‘Sleep, mostly. Of course my daughter will call – she was supposed to call last night, but she must have got caught up, or the damned stupid hotel staff mucked up the lines again and didn’t put her through. I expect she’ll call tonight.’

I hand her the bag, and she walks towards the door.

‘Tomorrow, then,’ she says, and leaves.

I turn off the lamps, pull off the scarves because I’m afraid of fire, and duck out of the back entrance without saying goodbye to anybody else. I don’t want to get caught by Tom, he can take off his own damn make-up.

It’s warm, early evening, five o’clock. There was a time when my five o’clocks were late. Now it seems so early, I am generally still on set, on my third glass of wine, we’ve only just finished lunch and we are kicking in for the main body of the shoot, hoping to get everything done by eleven. But I remember a time when it seemed like the end of the day, when kids were washing up for dinner and mums were burning fishfingers, and
Newsround
was about to come on, and then
Blue Peter
, and my dad would come in from work and wash his hands and sit at the table. It’s funny how quickly I grew up, and how easily I forget. My life isn’t what I
thought it would be. I realise now that I thought I would be like the adults in my childhood, and that I would be the one cooking the fishfingers by now.

I check my watch and wander down to the
Evening Standard
seller.

‘Hello,’ I say.

‘Thoreau?’ he responds.

‘No, I said hello,’ I reply.

‘I know. Thoreau,’ he says again.

I sigh. ‘Sorry?’ I ask. I realise that I am too tired tonight to even think. It’s warm and a bead of sweat trickles down the back of my neck, beneath my hair, tracing my spine like that game I used to play with my brother when we were kids: ‘Does – this – make – your – blood – run – cold?’ we’d ask, pressing fingers into each other’s backs and then grabbing at each other’s necks, squealing at the inevitable shiver.

‘Thoreau,’ repeats the seller.

‘What about him?’ I ask.

‘Love your life, poor as it is,’ he lisps through his remaining teeth.

‘Right. Love your life, poor as it is. What does that mean, that I shouldn’t change it? I should just accept it?’ I ask, exhausted.

‘LOVE your life, poor as it is,’ he says once more, and takes my forty pence.

‘Or does it mean that you should make sure you love your life, make it the best that it can be?’ I ask.

‘LOVE your life,’ he says.

‘Okay, fine,’ I reply, shaking my head, grabbing my paper and walking off without a smile towards the tube.

I flap along Ealing Broadway, my tired toes fighting desperately to keep me in my shoes as I pass flower-sellers and the North Star pub, and Marks & Spencer’s end-of-summer sale
and a nightclub, and gaggles of giggling schoolgirls and shifty-looking texting teenagers in hooded tops who’d rather faint than look a woman in the eye. It’s not quite dark, yet, but the moon is out, round and fat already. It’s magnolia tonight, not neon like last night. It’s always one or the other. Plain or wildly exciting. Ordinary or full-fat with possibilities.

Sometimes I feel like I have made the same mistakes as my mother and trapped myself in my own life, and they are my own teeth marks in the tape that binds my wrists and my feet. But of course she was married, and had me and my brother, and she still found a way out. My bonds are only as tight as I make them.

God is locking up Plump and Feather. She is dressed head-to-sandal in white linen, and her face is red and shiny like a washed tomato. She glances at me without recognition. I am never home this early.

‘Are you a friend of Ben’s?’ she asks with a smile so wide she must have to practise it at yoga, as I put my key in my door.

I ignore God and shut the door behind me. She’ll have to forgive me, that’s what God does.

‘It’s me,’ I say, walking up the stairs. ‘I’m … home.’

Ben pokes his head out from the kitchen. ‘Why are you so early?’ he asks, holding a saucepan. He is wearing his Everton shirt. He went to Blackpool once, on a stag do, but that’s the extent of Ben’s travels in the north.

‘Well it’s nice to see you too,’ I say, determined to smile.

‘It’s just a surprise.’ He shrugs and his eyebrows raise as he licks a spoon with his whole tongue, and it looks flat and battered like the flap of an old leather shoe.

I step forward to kiss him hello but he turns back into the kitchen.

‘Hey,’ I say, following him in, ‘I was going to kiss you hello.’

‘Oh, hello,’ he replies, and pecks me on the lips. With his eyes closed.

I lean back against the kitchen counter and pull off one of my shoes, rubbing my foot with my thumb.

‘I can get home early sometimes, Ben, it just always depends on the cast. But I think this theatre thing is going to be different. Dolly gets tired so I can finish sooner. It might be different once the play actually opens, but for this week at
least … Oh my toes hurt! These shoes have been playing me up all day – I might have to get you to rub my feet later.’

‘No thanks,’ he replies, carefully escorting pasta tubes onto a large navy blue plate.

‘Are you makin’ dinner?’ I ask in a silly American accent – I don’t know why, maybe to seem cuter than I am.

‘Yes, I am. I have. But I didn’t think you’d be home.’ He grinds pepper onto his plate. One plate.

‘Well, I’m not crazily hungry, can’t we just share yours? What are you having anyway?’ I tug at his arm to get him to turn around, but he resists and shakes me off.

‘Don’t, Scar, I’ll spill it. Tuna and pasta,’ he addresses his plate, dusting on parmesan like he is sifting for gold, ‘but I’ve only made enough for me.’

He turns around, plate in hand, and gives me an apologetic shrug. The EEC pasta mountain steams before him. I didn’t realise there was a European pasta surplus until now, but there it is, on Ben’s plate.

‘My Goodness! Training for a marathon, Ben?’

‘No …’

‘Well, can we share? Have we got any bread? We could dip that in some oil, we’ll be stuffed before you know it and …’

He sighs and looks at the wall, as if summoning up the energy to explain applied physics to a glamour model.

‘Scarlet, I made this much because I want this much.’

I look at him and try so hard, so very hard not to let my smile slip. He looks down at his plate, back to me, at the cooker, back to me, at his plate.

‘Can I have one mouthful, Ben? Just one?’ I reach for a fork on the side.

‘Jesus.’ He whistles under his breath. ‘Yes, if you want, but that’s not going to be enough, is it?’ He sighs and looks away again.

I’m done with smiling.

‘Christ, Ben, what have I done that is so bloody bad? When did everything I do begin to irritate you so much that you can’t even let me have a mouthful of fucking pasta? If it’s such a huge sodding deal, don’t bother! I’ll starve!’

He shrugs and walks past me, plate in hand. I consider tipping it up; just for a second I entertain throwing the whole damn thing on the floor. But I don’t seize my moment. I have a feeling Dolly would have let him have it. I have a feeling another man would have let me have a mouthful of his pasta.

‘We do have other food,’ he says, turning and standing in the doorway, his loaded fork poised before his open mouth.

‘You know what Ben? I don’t even care. Eat your shitty student meal, I’ll have cereal, thanks.’ I slam the fork down and throw open the cupboard.

‘Oh here we go,’ I hear him mutter as he walks off towards the living room.

‘Is bloody Iggy coming around again tonight?’ I ask, slamming my Alpen down on the counter so ferociously that the top bursts open and I am covered in a dusty muesli shower storm. I say ‘shit’ as a flake flies in my eye, and I try not to cry. I take three deep breaths. I yank open the cutlery draw as noisily as I can, grabbing a spoon, slamming it closed again.

There is practically silence from the other room. Occasionally I hear the fork clink against the plate. Once I think I hear Ben gulp.

I shake Alpen into my bowl, and then milk, and dunk in my spoon. I lean back against the counter and take a breath. I don’t want an argument. Maybe I was just hungry, low blood-sugar levels or something. I take four more deep breaths, and carry my bowl into the living room.

‘Is Iggy coming round?’ I ask again, in more measured tones.

‘No, I was just going to watch this.’ He gestures at the TV with the remote control, flicking it on. He doesn’t look at me, but concentrates instead on shovelling a huge mouthful of pasta into his mouth without dropping any, while simultaneously not missing any of the riveting BMW advert that is now playing.

‘Okay then … I’ll watch it with you.’ I walk around our coffee table, which is loaded with PC and gaming magazines, plus a new and alarming addition that looks to be an instructional magazine that promises to teach the reader how to make his own
Lord of the Rings
figurines: part one comes with a Gandalf mould and grey paint …

I sit on the other side of the sofa next to Ben, trying not to think about him making pottery action figures that can fight with Iggy’s pottery action figures to their broken pottery death. I repress a shudder.

‘So, what shall we watch?’ I ask with a smile.

‘The football’s on.’ Still I get no eye contact.

‘Oh … can’t you tape it? And we can watch something else together? Maybe there’s a film on the other side, check Teletext,’ I say, reaching forwards for the remote, but he grabs it.

‘But Scar, it’s England …’

‘Okay, Ben, you’re being a bit weird.’ I stare at the remote control but he doesn’t hand it over as the adverts finish and the ITV football theme plays. I am running out of time. ‘And it’s not often I get home this early. I just thought we could watch something together tonight …’

He stares at me. Then he rolls his eyes and sighs.

‘But it’s England, Scar,’ he says again.

‘Okay, fine,’ I whisper.

He turns back to the TV and puts the remote control down next to him, on the side furthest away from me. If I want it, I am going to have to fight him for it.