Material Girl (32 page)

‘Selling?’

‘Oh yes,’ he says, dramatically nodding his head again, his tongue poking the inside of his cheek and forming a lump like a tumour that just swelled up in front of me. I wonder if cancer can catch that quickly?

‘What?’

‘What what, Make-up?’

‘What are you selling?’ I am intrigued.

‘Oh I’d rather not say.’ He studies the screen intently, then makes a tutting noise. He lowers his finger-gun and presses a key, then replaces the gun beneath his chin, poised to shoot.

‘I could just lean around you and look at the screen, Tristan. What are you selling?’

‘I’m not telling, Make-up, go and play with Gavin.’

‘Why aren’t you telling?’

‘It’s personal.’

‘Is it sperm?’ I ask.

He widens his eyes and looks directly at me.

‘Shit,’ he says, rolling his eyes.

‘Did I guess right?’

‘No, but I wish I’d thought of that earlier.’

‘So not sperm, but it’s personal? Oh just tell me, you big baby! Don’t be afraid, Tristan, you mustn’t be afraid, Tristan – remember, fear is the enemy, Tristan.’

‘Okay, you attentive witch.’ He glares at me, opens his mouth, then pauses. I nod my head at him to go on.

‘My soul,’ he says.

‘What about your soul?’

‘That’s it.’

‘That’s what?’

‘What I’m selling. On eBay.’

‘No you are not.’

‘Yes I am.’

‘No you are not.’

‘Yes. I am.’

‘No, seriously, Tristan, what are you selling? Tickets to this at a discount? Or a director’s tour or something?’

‘Both of those are good ideas, and I wish I’d thought of those earlier as well. But no. I’m selling my soul.’

‘Have you had any offers?’

‘A few. There’s a bidding war.’

‘Cool. What’s it up to?’

He clicks a button. ‘One hundred and twenty-two quid.’

‘Oh.’ I am embarrassed. ‘How much longer?’ I ask, forgetting to disguise my grimace.

He double-takes at me with reproach. ‘Twenty-three hours,’ he says, nodding his head seriously.

‘Oh. Well. I reckon you’ll get at least three hundred quid for it, Tristan.’

‘Hmmm. Yes. Probably. I’ll be honest, Make-up, I was hoping for a little more.’

‘Well you would.’

‘That won’t feed me and twenty priests for a month at Venice prices.’ He hunches back over the laptop.

‘What do you think you’ll have to do, you know, when somebody buys it?’ I ask, a little scared for him.

‘I’m not sure, Make-up, to be honest. I don’t think I really thought it through. I guess I should just cross my fingers and hope they aren’t into heavy metal.’

‘Okay then, I’m gonna go,’ I say, brushing off my skirt.

‘Love and death, Make-up. The two most important things in the world and don’t let anybody tell you different.’

‘Okay, I won’t,’ I say.

‘Seriously. Anybody that trivialises love is a demon, a monster. They think they know something they don’t. It’s important. It’s like … it’s like fuel. When it stops, you die. It’s the point of us, the centre of us, it’s what we need. Love and death, Make-up.’

‘Roger that. What’s with the pep talk?’

‘
Death in Venice
, it’s got me thinking.’

I turn to walk away, but stop and ask, ‘Tristan, what will your mother do if you go to Venice with the priests?’

‘Oh I’ll probably take her with me. She could do with a holiday.’

‘On a bus, all the way to Italy?’

‘She’s sitting down already, Make-up, she’ll be the last one shouting to stretch her legs.’

‘But what if she doesn’t want to go?’

‘Who’s pushing the chair?’

‘Oh … I just … I don’t know, I thought …’

‘Make-up, do you think anybody that doesn’t look like you doesn’t function? Is everyone bar the pretty people locked up in your world? Is there a secret law that says all uglies must be shut-ins?’

‘I …’ I don’t know what to say. I didn’t think I came across as that shallow, but perhaps I do. I do believe that pretty is important. The world is always nicer to me when my make-up is on and my hair is freshly washed. I thought it was a universal truth. I thought it was the same for everybody.

Tristan smiles and glances down at the laptop. Clapping his hands he jumps to his feet and shouts, ‘Fantastic.’

‘What?’

‘One hundred and thirty quid! Come on, you bugger, come on!’

‘You’re through the channel tunnel at least. It could always be
Death in Calais
instead, your hero could get squashed under a crate of cheap Stella or something.’

He chuckles and points a finger at me and says ‘Good one’ but doesn’t look up.

‘I’m going to go down and prepare for Dolly then, sort out my shadows, clean my brushes, that kind of thing. Don’t let it be said that I am not terribly professional,’ I announce, glancing towards Gavin who is pulling at wires on the opposite side of the stage. I thought I felt him watching me but if he was he’s looked away again now.

Two hours later the door bursts open and I jump behind my
Hello!
magazine.

‘Get up get up get up,’ Dolly demands sternly.

‘Me?’

‘Of course you, who the hell else? Is there anybody else in this glove-compartment of a room? Maybe a dwarf or
an anorexic or a small child? Of course you! Are you drunk?’

Dolly throws down her bag and spins quickly on the spot, grabbing hold of the arm of her chair for support. She wags a finger at me and I feel like I’ve been dropped into a pantomime.

‘You went out last night, didn’t you?’ she says, narrowing her eyes.

‘No, I took your advice and went home,’ I reply, and what rubbish advice too! Except of course I don’t say that.

She turns to face the counter, and places her palms flat in front of her, hunched over like a politician with the world on his shoulders and at his feet, deep in contemplation, wracked with emotion and guilt. I back away towards the door.

‘Pardon?’ I say, when I hear her muttering something just under her breath like Hail Marys after confession.

‘Don’t lie to me, don’t you lie to me, Lulu!’

Dolly looks up at me and her face is red and pumped full of blood. She looks like death might be standing beside her, ready to catch her when she falls.

‘You stand here and you stink of booze and cigarettes. You reek of booze when you know I can’t drink!’

‘What?’ I am incredulous. The stench of booze only hit me when she walked in. It smells like she’s had a gin bath.

‘Don’t lie to me!’ She slams her fist down on the counter. Except it sounds like ‘don’tslietome’ instead. ‘You stand there with your plastic titties out again when I told you to put them away! Put them away!’ she shrieks and dramatically covers her eyes with one hand.

Dolly and I stand still, frozen by her performance, as we try to determine in our own heads if she really just said what she said, and if so, did she even mean it?

There is sudden knock, to the theme of
Hello Dolly
. I take
a step back against the door, and pull it slowly open with my hand behind my back. My spine is the only thing on view to whoever just knocked, but I am scared that if I turn and face them, Dolly will stick a knife in my back.

Somebody prods me in the arm like a finger punch and I turn around to see who it is. Tristan fires me a broad smile. He is wearing his hat again.

Dolly barks ‘Come in’ as sweetly as a bark can be, but Tristan isn’t quick enough to get into the room before I have whispered to her, ‘You’re a nutcase.’ Who cares, if she is going to have me fired anyway?

She raises her eyebrows at me, and half smiles like it’s a game.

‘Dolly!’ Tristan says, lifting the veil on his old-lady black funeral hat. ‘I just wanted to, you know, wanted to check in on you, make sure everything is okay. Super. Wonderfully okay.’

Dolly beckons him in with her hand and closes bashful eyes. He smiles and shunts into the room like a naughty schoolboy, and stands in front of her expectantly and in awe. She lowers her head and opens her eyes, looking up at him. It’s a practised routine, the angle of her chin is perfect, pointing down towards her chest but not leaning, not creating double or treble chins, or any unsightly rolls of face fat. The look almost floors Tristan, the non-libidinist, and he reaches out to grab on to something and finds me, using my arm as support as if I were a piece of old furniture. Dolly smiles at him wickedly.

‘All is well in here, my darling, although Lulu has been at the booze and we were just having a laugh about it, because as you know I am teetotal, have been for three years since the doctor warned me off it. It will age you, Lulu,’ she says, throwing me a quick glance like a knife through the air. ‘It will make those tremendous breasts of yours sag
and deflate like punctured footballs. I think it’s already started …’

I feel my shoulders rolling in, my chest becoming concave.

Tristan loves it. His eyes are wet with excited tears, and he keeps licking and smacking his lips, as if ready to lunge in and kiss the breath out of her. He seems utterly aroused by this daft and evil old lady. It occurs to me like lightning that it isn’t how she looks that turns him on, it’s who she is.

‘Well, good, good.’ He nods his head and holds her eye contact. ‘As long as you are happy,’ he says. They fix each other with a stare.

A laugh bursts out of me like a projectile sickness that I can’t control. These two are pretending to make eyes at each other but all to see who can control whom. I have never seen anything like it.

They don’t even look at me when I laugh, it is as if I have disappeared.

‘Don’t mind Lulu, she’s not the brightest penny in the jar,’ Dolly says, as I stand three feet away from her.

Tristan giggles.

I look from one to the other, incredulous. I am standing right here!

‘After lunch I thought we would pick up from Arabella’s “
everything signifies something
”’ Tristan says.

‘How appropriate,’ she replies, nodding, smiling.

‘I think you are doing just wonderfully, Dolly – just wonderful things up there. You bring that old stage to life.’ Tristan presses his hands together in prayer and rests his fingertips on his lips. He closes his eyes and I wait for him to genuflect. Dolly lowers her eyes again and passes him her hand, like royalty, but Tristan has his eyes closed. I watch as Dolly comically holds out her arm, waiting for Tristan to open his eyes and take it. She refuses to look at me, all three
feet away in this tiny dark lavender room filled with flowers and cards and make-up and half-light, dim like it’s three in the morning and the rest of the world is asleep but us. I want to laugh again, but I find I can control it this time. Dolly coughs sharply and Tristan opens his eyes, looks down at her hand and smiles to himself. He slowly reaches forwards, her hand hanging foolishly in the air waiting for him to support it. I think he is doing it to humiliate her, and I see the anger flash behind her eyes and her shoulders stiffen with shots of rage.

Tristan, finally, takes her hand.

‘That role is a tired old rag transformed into a wedding dress when you throw it on, Dolly.’ The rage dispels in her shoulders and she giggles like a barmaid who needs the tips, rather than responding with her usual gunshot ‘ha!’

‘Well, I should get back upstairs. How long do you think you’ll be, my star?’ Tristan fawns. I think I’ll need to mop the floor for grease when he’s left.

‘I can only be as quick as Lulu is,’ she says, shrugging.

‘So not that quick,’ Tristan responds, and they both raise their eyes and share a stifled giggle like naughty lovers rubbing naked feet under a restaurant table.

‘I am right here!’ I say loudly.

But they ignore me.

‘
Adieu!
’ Tristan kisses Dolly’s hand, but turns and shows her his back as he leaves and closes the door behind him.

Dolly shakes her old head. ‘Ha!’ she says, ‘Ha!’

‘Sit down and I’ll get started if you’re in a rush,’ I say angrily.

‘Rush? For what? For that fool! Lulu, are you out of your mind? There is no rush, let’s take our time, have some girl talk!’

‘I think you should get upstairs,’ I insist, tight-lipped, and shove past her to get to the cleanser.

‘Lulu, whatever is wrong with you, dear? You’re behaving strangely, and I have to say, you are being very rude.’

‘Me, rude? Me!’ I can’t turn around and look at her in case I explode.

‘Yes, darling, you,’ she says, and I hear her lower herself heavily into her chair with the creaking of furniture and bones.

I can’t say anything. She could easily have me fired and now the madness has passed I remember that I can’t be seen to anger talent – my agency wouldn’t let me near a star again.

She sighs and I squeeze cream onto my hands.

‘Oh, men. I do love them. Idiots to the last, of course. Fools. But the queers are always far more loveable. It’s the passion, it’s such an attractive quality to a woman. It’s like they’ve lost their fear.’ She rests her head back and closes her eyes and I streak her face with cleanser.