Not Without You
Harriet Evans

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Prologue

Part One

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Part Two

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Part Three

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Harriet Evans

Read on for an extract

Copyright

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

A BRIGHT SPRING day, sunshine splashing yellow through the new leaves. Two little girls stand on the banks of the swollen stream, which rushes loudly past their small feet.

‘Come on,’ says the first. ‘There’s magic coins in there. Gold coins, from the elves. I can see them glinting. Can’t you?’ She pushes the short sleeves of her lawn dress up above her shoulders; a determined imitation of the men they see in the fields beyond, backs curved over the soil. Her brown hair bobs about her head, sun darting through the bouncing curls. She grins. ‘It’ll be fun. Don’t listen to them.’

The second one hesitates. She always hesitates. ‘I don’t know, Rose,’ she says. ‘They said it’s dangerous. All that rain … Father said you weren’t to do it again. He said you’d be sent away if—’

‘You believe them, don’t you.’ Rose crosses her arms. ‘I’m not doing all those things they say I do. They’re making it up. I’m not bad.’

‘I know you’re not.’ The younger one mollifies her sister.

‘I didn’t mean to break the jug. Something happened to me, everything went black, and I didn’t know where I was.’ She bites her lip, trying not to cry. ‘I don’t like it. I want Mother and she tells me I’m bad when I do.’

A tear rolls through the brown film of dust on her cheek. They’re both silent, under the old willow tree. Eve speaks first. She points at the gold coins, swelling and then vanishing in the water’s rush.

‘Come on, let’s try to get them, then.’

‘Really?’ Rose’s face brightens.

‘I’ll do it if you do.’ She always regrets saying that.

Rose immediately clambers in. ‘I’ll go first.’

Eve watches her doubtfully. ‘It’s awfully strong. You won’t get swept away?’

‘I told you, it’s fine. Thomas does it all the time,’ Rose says, leaning over, confident again now, and Eve relaxes. Rose is right, of course. She’s always right. ‘There it is. I’m sure it’s gold! I’m sure the elves were here – their kingdom is right under the ground, ancient noble soil!’ She claps her hands. ‘Golly! Imagine if it is! I told you, little Eve. You mustn’t worry – they won’t send me away. I’m not going anywhere.’

This is the last image of her that Eve remembers. Standing like a miniature pirate, legs planted firmly in the stream. ‘We’ll always be together. I’m going to be a famous explorer. You’ll be a famous actress. We’ll do different things for a couple of weeks at a time. I’ll see some polar bears and … pharaohs. And you’ll do plays and dine with Ivor Novello. Then we’ll meet up in New York, under the King Kong building. You’ll have that delicious robe on, the one Vivien Leigh was wearing in Dark Journey. ’Member?’

Eve nods. She joins in the game, smiling. ‘Oh … yes. We’ll stay in beautiful hotels and we’ll drink milk stout.’ This was a great obsession of theirs, after Cook had told them it was her favourite tipple. But Cook had left, like so many of the servants lately. Gone in the night, shouting, ‘I’ll not stay here with that thing in the house!’

Rose nods. ‘We’ll always be together, Eve, like I say, ’cause I’m not going anywhere, not without you.’

And she screamed, then jerked forward. I can still see it, as if something else, an evil spirit maybe, was knocking her over from behind.

Should I have stayed? Or gone for help and left her prostrate in the water, eyes wide open, small body rigid? I still don’t know to this day if I did the right thing. I ran to the house, as fast as my legs would carry me.

But it was all over by the time they came back, by the time the doctor arrived. I stayed in the kitchen, with Mother; they wouldn’t let me go out there again, and when they finally returned it was much later. Too late. You see, Rose was gone. My beautiful sister was dead, and it was my fault. I should have stayed with her. Not without you, she’d said. And I let her down.

That was my first mistake, though I couldn’t be blamed for that, as everyone told me. I was only six. It was many, many years ago. But I know what I did was wrong. I left her when she needed me. I carried that mistake with me, maybe for too long. And when someone showed me a way out, a new life, I took it.

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

Los Angeles, 2012

‘And … coming up next … Sophie Leigh’s diet secrets! How the British beauty stays slim, and the answer is … you won’t believe it! Chewing cardboard! I know, these stars are crazy, but that’s Hollywood for you. That’s all when we come back …’

IT’S A BEAUTIFUL May morning. We’re on the 101, on our way into Beverly Hills. I’m heading into my agent’s office and I feel like crap. I’m super late, too. I’m always late, but when your most recent picture had an opening weekend of $23 million it doesn’t matter. I could turn up at Artie’s mom’s funeral and demand to have a meeting and he’d clear the synagogue and thank me for coming.

I flip the TV off and chuck the remote across the car, out of temptation’s reach. There was a time when a ten-second trail like that would have sent me into a tailspin. They’re saying I chew cardboard? But it’s bullshit! People’ll believe it, and then they’ll … they’ll … Now I just shrug. You have to. I’ve never chewed cardboard in my life, unless you count my performance in that action movie. It’s a slow news day. Sometimes I think they stick a pin in a copy of People magazine to choose their next victim and then make something up.

When you’ve been famous for a while, you stop reacting to stuff like this. It just becomes part of life. Not your life, but the life you wake up to and realise you’re living. People filming you on a phone when you’re washing your hands in the Ladies’ room. Girls from school who you don’t remember selling your class photo to a tabloid. Being offered $5 million to sleep with a Saudi prince. Working with stars who won’t ever take their sunglasses off, ’cause they think you’re stealing their soul if you see their eyes. Sounds unbelievable, right? But there’s been some days when I almost know what they mean. I know why some of them go bat-shit crazy, join cults, wear fake pregnancy bellies, marry complete strangers. They’re only trying to distract themselves from how totally nuts being famous is. Because that’s what fame is actually about, these days. Not private jets, diamond tiaras, mansions and free clothes, handbags, shoes. Fame is actually about how you stay sane. How you don’t lose your mind.

I know I’m lucky. It could have been any one of hundreds of hopeful English girls from small towns with pushy mums who curled their hair and shoved them into audition rooms, but it was me, and I still don’t quite know why. All I know is, I love films, always have done, ever since I was little. Lights down, trailers on, credits rolling; I knew all the special idents the studios use to open a movie by the time I was eight. My favourite was always Columbia – the toga lady holding the glowing torch like the sun. And I know I’m good at what I do: I make movies for people to sit back and smile at on a Friday night with their best friend and their popcorn, watching while Sophie Leigh gets into another crazy situation. OK, it’s not Citizen Kane, but if it’s a bit of fun and you could stand to watch it again, is there anything wrong with that?

Lately I’ve been wondering though: maybe there is. Maybe it’s all wrong. The trouble is, I can’t work out how it all got like that. Or what I should do about it. In Hollywood, you’re either a success or you’re a failure. There’s no in-between.

The freeway is crowded, and as we slow down to turn off I look up and there I am, right by the Staples Center on a billboard the size of your house. I should be used to it but still, after six years at the top, it’s weird. Me, doing my poster smile: cute chipmunk cheeks, big dark eyes peeking out from under the heavy trademark bangs, just the right amount of cleavage so the guys notice and don’t mind seeing the film. I’m holding out a ringless hand, smiling at you. I’m cute and friendly.

Two years of dating. She’s thinking rocks.

No, not those ones, fellas …

SOPHIE LEIGH IS

THE GIRLFRIEND

May 2012

My phone rings, and I pick it up, gingerly, rubbing my eyes. ‘Hi, Tina,’ I say.

‘You’re OK?’ Tina asks anxiously. ‘Did the car come for you?’

‘Sure,’ I say.

‘The clothes were OK? Did you want anything else?’

Do I want anything else? The late-morning sun flashes in reflected rays through the windows; I jam my sunglasses on and sink lower against the leather seats, smiling at the memory of him asking the very same question, then taking my clothes off piece by piece, getting the camera out, and what we did afterwards. Oh, it’s probably insane of me, but … wow. He knows what he’s doing. I’m not some idiot who lets herself be filmed by a douche-bag who puts it on the Internet. This guy is a pro, in many many ways.

‘I’m good. Thanks for arranging it all.’

‘No problem.’ Tina is the most efficient assistant on the planet. She looks worried all the time, but I don’t think she actually cares where I was last night. ‘There’s a couple things. OK?’

‘Go ahead.’ I’m staring out the window, trying not to think about last night, smiling and biting my lip because … well, I’m exhausted, that kind of up-all-night skanky, hungry, and a little bit hungover exhausted. And I can’t stop smiling.

‘So …’ Tina’s voice goes into her list-recital monotone. ‘The People interview is tomorrow. They’ll come by the house. Ashley will arrive at eight a.m. Belle is doing your make-up frosty pink and mushroom – she says the vibe is Madonna eighties glamour meets environmental themes.’ Tina takes a breath. ‘DeShantay wants to drop off some more outfits for the Up! Kidz Challenge Awards. She has a dress from McQueen and she says to tell you you’re gonna love it. It’s cerise, has cap sleeves and it’s—’

‘I don’t want to sweat,’ I say. ‘Tell her no sleeves.’

‘DeShantay says it won’t be a problem.’

‘I’m not—’ I begin, then I stop, as I can hear myself sounding like a bit of a tool. ‘Never mind. That’s great. Anything else?’

‘Tommy’s coming over later this week to talk through endorsements. And he’s gotten Us Weekly to use some new shots of you doing yoga on the beach. And the shots of you grocery shopping are being run again, in In Touch. And TMZ want the ones of you getting the manicure, only they need to reshoot—’

‘OK, OK,’ I say, trying not to feel irritated, because it’s so fake, when you say it out loud, but it’s true, and everyone does it. You can so tell when someone doesn’t want their photo taken and when they do, and those ones of me pushing my trolley through the Malibu Country Mart wearing the new Marc Jacobs sandals and a Victoria Beckham shift, holding up some apples and laughing with a girlfriend, came out the same week as The Girlfriend and I’m telling you: it’s part of the reason that film has done so well. It’s all total bullshit though. The clothes were on loan, and the friend was Tina. My assistant. And I don’t go food shopping; I’ve got a housekeeper. Be honest. If you had someone to do all that for you, would you still go pushing a trolley round the supermarket? Exactly. Today stars have to look like normal, approachable people. Fifty years ago, it was the other way round. My favourite actress is Eve Noel; I’ve seen all her movies a million times, and A Girl Named Rose is my favourite film of all time, without a doubt. You didn’t have photos of Eve Noel in some 1950s Formica store buying her groceries in a dress Givenchy loaned her. Oh, no. She was a goddess, remote, beautiful, untouchable. I’m America’s English sweetheart. Pay $3.99 for a weekly magazine and you can see my nipples in a T-shirt doing the sun salute on Malibu beach.

Another thing: I starved myself for three days to fit into that fucking Victoria Beckham dress. That girl sure loves the skinny.

We’re off the highway, gliding down the wide boulevards of Beverly Hills, flanked on either side by vast mansions: old-looking French chateaux wedged right next to glass-and-chrome cubes next to English Gothic castles, Spanish haciendas, and the rest. My first trip here with my best friend Donna, both aged nineteen, driving round LA in a brown Honda Civic, these houses blew our minds – they looked like Toytown. It’s funny how things change. Now they seem normal. I know a couple of people who live in them, and I haven’t seen Donna in nearly seven years. Where is she now? Still living in Shamley, last time I Googled her.

We’re coming up to Wilshire and I need to check my make-up. ‘I’ll see you later,’ I tell Tina. ‘Thanks again.’

‘Oh – one more thing. I’m sorry, Sophie. Your mom called again.’ I stiffen instinctively. ‘She says you have to call her back.’ Tina clears her throat. ‘She says Deena’s coming to stay with you. Tonight.’

The compact mirror drops to the floor.

‘Deena? She can’t just— Tell her she can’t.’

Tina’s voice is apologetic. ‘Your mom said she has roaches and damp and it needs to be sprayed and … She’s got nowhere to go.’

‘I don’t care. Deena is not bloody staying. Why’s she getting Mum to phone up and do her dirty work for her anyway? No. No way.’

My head feels like it’s in a vice. It always aches when I don’t eat: I’m trying to lose ten pounds before The Bachelorette Party starts shooting.

‘Her cell is broken. That’s why. So – uh – OK.’ Tina’s tone conveys it all. She keeps me on the straight and narrow, I sometimes think. I’d be a Grade A egomaniac otherwise.

I clear my throat and growl. ‘Look. I’ll try and call Mum and put her off. Don’t worry about it. Listen though, if Deena turns up …’ Then I run out of steam. ‘Watch her. Make sure she doesn’t steal anything again.’

‘Sure, Sophie,’ says Tina, and I end the call with a sigh, trying not to frown. There are wrinkles at the corners of my eyes and lines between my eyebrows; I’ve noticed them lately. The Sophie Leigh on the poster doesn’t frown. She doesn’t have wrinkles. She’s twenty-eight, she’s happy all the time, and she knows how great her life is. That’s not true. I’m thirty, and I keep thinking I’m going to get found out.

CHAPTER TWO

‘SHE’S HERE! MAJOR star power incoming, people!’

Artie’s waiting for me as the elevator doors open, his arms open wide. ‘Sophie, Sophie, Sophie!’ The assistant on reception smiles, and someone whispers, ‘I loved your last movie,’ as I walk past, and Artie hugs me and kisses me on both cheeks. ‘Hola! She’s here, people!’

It’s all an act, and he knows I know it.

‘You look. Amazing,’ he says simply, and leads me through to his office suite, overlooking Wilshire Boulevard, the wide straight road lined with palm trees right along from Rodeo Drive where Julia Roberts went shopping in Pretty Woman. I like going into Artie’s office, seeing what’s going on, what’s new. And though it sounds stupid, I like being in places where normal people work. Not that anyone at World Artists’ Management is particularly normal, but I’m an actress. OK, I’ll never be Meryl Streep, but part of my job is to play girls who work in offices and you don’t get that realistic a view of the world living in the Hollywood Hills and having the kind of life where you have your own florist.

Once upon a time I used to be like everyone else. I’m beautiful, but so are many people. It’s like being left-handed or having freckles – it’s just a fact. Plus I freely admit that the facials, the clothes and the instantly recognisable bobbed hair do a lot of the work for me. Seven years ago you wouldn’t have looked at me twice on the street.

‘Sit down,’ Artie says, gesturing to a thin, angled leather couch in the centre of the room. There’s an armchair opposite, for him, and a box of Krispy Kremes on a glass table.

I stare at the doughnuts and my stomach rumbles. I’m so hungry. I’m always hungry but I haven’t eaten since yesterday lunchtime, unless you count the maki roll I had last night and the handful of popcorn – we watched a film before we went to bed. A film he’d made of us.

Tacky, I know. At the new memory of last night, I blush again, and my stomach rumbles with a sharp pain. Which is good. I hold onto that dragging, tightening feeling, the one you get when your stomach is crying out for food and you feel like you might faint. I hold it close, and smile brightly at Kerry, Artie’s assistant.

‘Can I get you something? Some coffee?’

‘That’d be great. No milk. And some water, please. Thanks so much, Kerry. Your top is so cute!’ I say, and she glows with pleasure.

‘Thanks, it’s from this totally—’

But Artie gestures that she should clear out, and Kerry’s mouth snaps shut. She retreats immediately, still smiling. Artie sits down, and stuffs a doughnut into his mouth. I watch him. I watch the crystals of sugar on his chin, on his fingers, watch his gullet move as he swallows.

When he pushes the box towards me with the tiniest of movements, I say nothing. I shake my head and give a regretful smile, though he and I both know, of course, I’ll never take a doughnut. It’s a test. I hate him just a little bit then.

‘So,’ he says, wiping his fingers and slapping his big meaty hands onto his black pants. ‘It’s great to see you, right? Everything’s good, isn’t it? It’s great!’

‘It’s great,’ I repeat.

He leans forward. ‘Honey. You’re being too British. The foreign numbers are in for The Girlfriend. We’ve already done forty million dollars – last week domestic gross was twelve million. That’s four weeks on! It’s killing everything else. It beat Will freakin’ Smith! You are back on top, baby. Back on top.’

‘Well, it’s the movie, not me,’ I say. This isn’t really true. The Bride and Groom, my breakthrough, was a really good film. Since then I think it’s been the law of diminishing returns, like Legally Blonde sequels. They’re not terrible, just not amazing. It’s not Tootsie: no one’s going to be studying the script of The Girlfriend in film school any time soon.

‘We’re on top of the world, OK? Enjoy it.’ His eyes linger on the doughnuts, and then he says, ‘So, you got a couple of weeks off now? Gonna read some scripts, take some meetings? Because we need to get thinking about your next project after The Bachelorette Party, don’t we? We’re excited about that, aren’t we? All good? You met up with Patrick yet?’

Artie put the deal together for The Bachelorette Party, the picture I’m due to start making in a few weeks. The male star, the director, the comedy-sidekick best friend, the scriptwriter and I are all agented by WAM. And Artie has got me a fantastic deal: I’m on a 20/20 – $20 million, 20 per cent of all revenues. If this film works, Artie will make a bomb.

‘No,’ I say. ‘It’s being fixed up.’

‘OK. Well, you’re gonna love Patrick, I promise you. He’s a straight-up guy. Brilliant comedian. I think you two’ll really get along.’

Patrick Drew is my co-star. He is a surfer dude with tatts who is always being photographed stoned or punching paparazzi. Last month they got him throwing up out of the side of a car, speeding along Santa Monica Boulevard. He’s extremely hot, but dumb as a plank. Apparently, we’re really lucky to get him because, you know, he’s authentic.

Artie reaches forward for another doughnut. His large meaty fingers hover over the cardboard tray, touching the smooth, shiny caramel frosting of one, the plump slick of custard on the other. I close my eyes for a second, thinking about how the sweet, fluffy cream inside would taste on my tongue. No. No. You fat bitch, no.

‘How about George?’ Artie says heavily, and when I open my eyes his mouth is full and he’s brushing sugar off his trim beard. ‘You guys met last month, yes?’

‘Yes. He’s great.’

‘George is a fucking great director.’ Artie nods. ‘The guy’s a genius. You’re lucky.’

‘I know it. He is a genius. I’m very lucky.’ I’m parroting it back to him.

Artie gives me a curious look. ‘I’m glad you two are getting along. Tell me something—’

Kerry comes in with the coffee and the water. Artie nods at her then shakes his head, swivelling on his chair.

‘Forget it.’ He rubs his hands. ‘What comes next, after you wrap on The Bachelorette Party. This is what we need to think about. The new Sophie Leigh Project, Fall 2013.’

Now’s my moment. My palms are a bit sweaty. I rub them together. ‘Actually, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about that.’

‘Great!’ Artie smiles happily.

I take a sip of the water ‘Just … run some things past you.’ I don’t know why I feel nervous. It’s crazy. I’m the A-Lister – a film with me in will always be a tent pole, something for the studios to prop up their profits with while they try out other, smaller, more interesting projects. ‘I’ve had some ideas … been thinking about them for a while. I – wanted to find the right time to pitch them to you.’

Artie frowns. ‘You shoulda told me. I’d have come over. Twenty-four/seven, Sophie, I’m always here. You’re my number one priority.’

‘It’s OK, I’ve been crazy with promotional stuff,’ I say. ‘I only – I want us to think carefully about what we do next. I kind of want to move along a bit. Not make the same old film again.’

Artie nods violently. ‘Me too, me too,’ he says. ‘Man, this is great, you’re totally right! I totally agree.’

‘Oh, good!’

‘Sophie. You’re a really talented actress. We have to make sure we exploit that. Let me show you something.’ He’s still nodding. Then he stands up, strides to the other side of the huge office, picks up a pile of paper.

My gaze drifts out the window. Downtown Beverly Hills gleams through the glass wall. It’s a beautiful day. Of course it is. The purple-blue jacaranda trees are out all over LA; they stretch in a line down towards West Hollywood. It’s spring. Not like spring at home in the UK though, where everything’s lush and green and hopeful. In northern California the wild flowers litter the canyons and mountains along Route 101, and the fog clears earlier in the mornings and the surf frills the waves, but in LA spring is like any other season: more sunshine. It’s the only time I miss home. I was never a country girl, but you couldn’t live in Gloucestershire and not love the bulbs coming up, the wet black earth, the freshly minted green everywhere. Sometimes I wish—

A loud thud recalls me to my senses as Artie throws a script on the table in front of me. ‘This,’ he says. ‘This will blow your mind.’

I look down at the title page. ‘Love Me, Love My Pooch’, I read.

‘Yes!’ Artie’s rubbing his hands. ‘It’s getting a lot of heat. Cameron’s interested, but she’s way too old. Universal want it for Reese but I heard she passed already. And some people say Carey Mulligan is super keen. So we need to move fast. Do you want to read it tonight?’

I’m still staring at the script. ‘Carey Mulligan wants to star in Love Me, Love My Pooch?’

Artie nods, looking amazed. ‘Sure, honey. Why not? You think – oh, wait, do you think it’s, ah, kinda silly? The title?’

‘A bit,’ I admit, relieved. ‘It’s—’

‘No problem!’ He waves his hands. ‘Listen. We can change that. The important thing is the material. And the material is fan. Tastic.’

‘What’s it about?’

‘I heard it’s Legally Blonde meets Marley and Me. Schlubby guy meets hot girl, hot girl not interested, schlubby guy uses dog called Pooch to get hot girl. Girl falls for schlubby guy.’ He laughs. ‘Cute, huh? It’s so cute!’

I hear myself say, ‘Yeah! Sounds good.’ Then I correct myself. ‘What I mean, Artie, is – sure it’ll be great, but I don’t know.’ I take a breath. ‘I’d like to do a movie that’s – uh. Maybe not about some girl hanging out for a boyfriend and being ditzy. Something a bit more interesting.’

Artie nods enthusiastically. He brushes sugar off the front of his black silk shirt. ‘Great. Sure. I’m with you. Let’s talk about it. I can see you want a change. You’re not just a beautiful face. You’ve got so much talent.’

‘Well … thanks.’ I nod politely; I’ve learned to accept compliments over the years. Not that everyone agrees with him. The critics are … hmm, how shall I put this? Oh, yeah, VILE about my films; the more money I make the ruder they are. ‘Sophie Leigh’s Sweetener Overload,’ the LA Times called my last movie.

‘Listen, I don’t want to play Chekhov or anything. I’m not one of those annoying actors who tries to prove themselves on Broadway.’ I can hear my voice speeding up. ‘It’s that I don’t always want to be playing someone who’s a dippy girlie girl who gets drunk after one cocktail, who’s obsessed with weddings and babies and has a mom and dad with funny one-liners who live in the suburbs.’

There’s a pause, as Artie tries to unpick what I’m saying. ‘I guess you’re right.’ The smile has faded from his eyes and he’s silent for a moment, tapping one foot against the coffee table. ‘We don’t want to get into a Defence: Reload situation,’ he continues, suddenly. ‘You’re back on top. We shouldn’t jeopardise that, Sophie, that’s totally true.’

‘No way,’ I say warmly. Though I hadn’t said anything of the sort, he’s right. ‘God, that was terrible.’

‘Listen.’ He grabs my hands. ‘You were great in it! Astonishing! It’s just America’s not ready for you to do martial arts action.’ He shrugs. ‘Or hipster mumbly independent shit. You’re with me now, OK? I am never gonna let you make the same mistake.’

‘Sure.’ Artie’s right, as always. Anna was my old UK agent back from South Street People, the teenage soap that I had my first big role in. I left her after first Goodnight LA, the art-housey independent film I’d always wanted to make, disappeared without trace and then Defence: Reload totally bombed. Two flops in a row. Biiiiiig mistake. Huge. As they say. I’m not made to wear leather and do high-kicks. The film was horrible and Anna was useless about it – everything seemed to take her by surprise and she’d flap and cry down the phone. It was time for a change. I went with Artie, and he put me in Wedding of the Year, and it spent three weeks at number one and was the fifth-biggest grossing picture of 2009. Anna understood I had to move. It’s all part of the game – we’re still friends. (Translation: I sent her a gift basket. We’re not friends.)

‘I’m not talking about doing another Defence: Reload,’ I say. ‘But … well, I don’t always have to be the daffy girl who loses her engagement ring, do I? Look at that pile. There has to be something in there.’

Artie gets up. ‘You don’t want to see everything, trust me. Here’s the highlights.’

He flicks the list over to me.

Bridezilla. Boy Meets Girl. Bride Wars 2. Two Brides One Groom. I glance down the list, the same words all leaping out and blurring into one huge inkjet mush of confetti. I turn the page. ‘This is the rest of the scripts I’m getting sent?’

‘Yeah, but you don’t need to worry about that. These are not projects to take seriously.’

I scan the second and third pages. Pat Me Down. She’s So Hot Right Now. From Russia with Lust. ‘What’s My Second-Best Bed?’ I say wearily.

Artie takes the piece of paper off me and looks at the list. ‘No idea,’ he says. He gets up and goes over to his glass desk, taps something into his computer. ‘Hold on. Oh, yeah. It’s some time-slip comedy. They sent it to you because … there was some note with it. I remember reading it but I can’t remember it. I think it was because you can do a British accent.’

‘Well – yes,’ I say. ‘They’re right there. What is it?’

‘Second-Best Bed …’ His finger strokes the mouse. ‘Second-Best – oh, yeah, here it is. She’s a guide at Anne Hathaway’s cottage and she dreams Shakespeare comes and visits her.’ Artie shakes his head, then turns to the shelf behind him, picking a script out of a pile. ‘Who’d wanna guide people round Anne Hathaway’s cottage? Why’s Anne freaking Hathaway living in a cottage anyways? She just got a place in TriBeCa. I don’t understand, that’s crazy.’

‘Anne Hathaway was Shakespeare’s wife,’ I say. ‘That’s who they mean. Her house was outside Stratford-upon-Avon.’ I’ve been to Anne Hathaway’s cottage about three times. It was a short coach drive from my school. Closer than the nearest Roman fort or working farm, so our crappy school used to take us there every year – it was almost a joke. I remember one year Darren Weller escaped from the group and ran into the forest. They had to call the police. Darren Weller’s mum came to meet the coach. She screamed at Miss Shaw, the English teacher, like it was her fault Darren Weller was a nutcase. I can picture that day really clearly. Donna and I went to McDonald’s in Stratford and drank milkshakes – simply walked off while the others were going round his house or something. It’s the naughtiest thing I’ve ever done.

It’s funny – I never thought Donna and I would lose touch. We stopped hanging out so much when I moved to London for South Street People, then she had a baby. She wasn’t best pleased when I told her I was off to Hollywood. I don’t think she ever really believed I wanted to be an actress. She thought it was all stupid, that Mum was pushing me into it.

‘OK, OK.’ Artie isn’t interested. ‘Take them, read them through if you want. But will you do me a favour?’ He puts his hand on his chest and looks intently at me. ‘Will you read Love Me, Love My Pooch for me? As a personal favour? If you hate it, no problem. Of course!’ He laughs. ‘But I want to see what you think. They’re offering pretty big bucks … I have a feeling about this one. I think it could be your moment. Take you Sandy–Jen big. That’s the dream, OK? And I’m working on it for you.’ He takes his hand off his chest, and gives me the script, solemnly. ‘Now, tell me what picture you’d like to make. Let’s hear it. Let’s make it!’ He claps his hands.

I’m still clutching the pile of scripts, with Love Me, Love My Stupid Pooch on the top. I clear my throat, nervously.

‘I want to … This is going to sound stupid, OK? So bear with me. You know I moved house last year?’

‘Sure do, honey. I found you the contractors, didn’t I?’

‘Of course.’ Artie knows everyone useful in this town. ‘You know why I bought that house?’

‘This is easy. Because you needed a fuck-off huge place means you can tell the world you’re a big star. “Look at me! Screw you!”’ Artie chuckles.

‘Well, sure,’ I say, though actually I don’t care about that stuff that much the way some people do. I’ve got a lot of money, I give some of it away and I take care of the rest, I don’t need to go nuts and start buying yachts and private islands. This was the place I always wanted. It’s a beautiful thirties house, long, low, L-shaped, high up in the hills, kind of English meets Mediterranean, simple and well built. Blue shutters, jasmine crawling over the walls, Art Deco French doors leading out to a scallop-shaped pool.

I love it, but it has a special connection that means I love it even more.

‘I bought the house because it belonged to Eve Noel. She lived there after her marriage.’

Artie’s lying back against the couch. He scrunches up his face. ‘Who? The … the movie star? The crazy one?’

‘She wasn’t crazy.’

Artie scratches his stomach. ‘Well, she disappeared. She was huge, then she vanished. I heard she was crazy. Or dead. Didn’t she die?’

‘She disappeared,’ I say. ‘She’s still alive. I mean, she must be somewhere. But no one knows where. She made those seven amazing films, she was the biggest star in the world for five years or so, and then she vanished.’

‘OK, so what?’ Artie puts his hands behind his head.

‘I want to make a film about her.’

From my bag I pull out a battered copy of Eve Noel and the Myth of Hollywood, the frustratingly slim biography of her that ends in 1961. I must have read it about twenty times. ‘So … it’d be a film about where she came from, about her starting out in Hollywood, what happened to her, why she left.’

‘I never knew you were into Eve Noel. Old movies.’ Artie makes it sound like I’ve told him I love anal porn.

‘Sure,’ I say. ‘My whole childhood was spent on the sofa watching videos. It’s a wonder I don’t have rickets – I never saw the sun.’

Artie grunts. He doesn’t much like funny women. ‘So why the big obsession with her?’

‘She’s the best. The last real Hollywood star. And she … She grew up near me, a little village near Gloucester?’ I can hear the edge of the West Country accent creep into my voice, and I stutter to correct it. ‘It’s crazy, no one knows what happened to her, why she left LA.’

The first time I saw A Girl Named Rose, I was ten. I remember we had a new three-piece suite. It was squeaky, because Mum didn’t want to take off the plastic covers in case it spoiled. I was ill with flu that knocked me out for a week and I lay on the sofa under an old blanket and watched A Girl Named Rose, and it changed my life. I never thought about being an actress before then, even though Mum had been one, or tried to, before I was born, but after I saw that film it was all I wanted to do. Not the kind Mum wanted me to be, with patent-leather shoes and bunches, a cute smile, parroting lines to TV directors, but the kind that did what Eve Noel did. I’d sit on the sofa while Mum talked on the phone or had her friends over, and Dad worked in the garage – first the one garage, then two, then five, so we could afford holidays in Majorca, a new car for Mum, a bigger house, drama school for me. The world would go on around me and I’d be there, watching Mary Poppins and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, anything with Elizabeth Taylor, all the old musicals, Some Like It Hot … you name it, but always coming back to Eve Noel, A Girl Named Rose, Helen of Troy, The Boy Next Door. I even cut out pictures of my favourite films and made a montage in my room: Julie Andrews running across the fields; Vivien Leigh standing outside Tara; Audrey Hepburn whizzing through Rome with Gregory Peck; Eve Noel walking down the road smiling, hands in the pockets of her flared skirt.

Everyone else at school thought I was weird. It was weird, probably. But Eve Noel and that film opened a world up for me. It seemed magical. It isn’t, any more, and I should know. Back then it was all about glamour and artifice, these gods and goddesses deigning to appear on a screen for us. Whereas I know what it’s like now. It’s a business, less profitable than online poker, but a profitable business still, until the Internet kills it totally dead.

Mum and I used to drive past Eve Noel’s old house. It’s in ruins now. It’s funny – everyone knows that’s where a film star grew up. But no one knows the film star any more, or even where she is now. Her last picture was Triumph and Tragedy, in 1961, and it was a big flop. There’s a picture of her at the Oscars, the year she didn’t win and her husband did. She’s smiling, so lovely, but she doesn’t look right. Her eyes are odd, I can’t describe it. And then – nothing.

I try and explain all this to Artie. He nods enthusiastically. ‘Give me the pitch then,’ he says.

‘The pitch?’

He’s grinning. ‘Come on, Sophie. You know it’s you, but you’re gonna have to get some big guys to put big money up if you want this thing made. Give me the one-line pitch.’

‘Oh …’ I clear my throat. ‘Kind of … A Star is Born meets … um … Rebecca? Because the house burns down. I suppose maybe it’s more The Player set in the fifties meets A Star is Born, or—’

‘Boorrring!!’ Artie buzzes. My head snaps up – I’m astonished.

‘Listen,’ he says. ‘You are my number one client. You are so important to me. This could be amazing. I’m talking Oscar-amazing. But it could be career suicide. Again. And you can’t afford that. Again.’

He stands up again and pats his stomach. ‘I’m a pig. I’m a pig! Listen to me, sweetheart. Go home. Think up a great pitch. We have to get this thing made.’

‘Really?’ I stand up, stumbling slightly.

‘Really. But you’re totally right. If we can’t do it properly we should forget all about it.’

‘That’s not—’

‘And you’ll read the dog script? For me? Think about who’d be good, who you’d like to work with?’ I must have nodded, because he gives a big smile. ‘Thank you so much. Take the other scripts. Read them. I wanna know what you think of them all. I’m interested in your opinion. Sophie Leigh Brand Expansion. We’re big, we need to go bigger, and you’re the one who’s gonna lead us there. Capisce?’

‘Thanks, Artie,’ I say, aware that something is slipping from my grasp but unsure of how to take it back. ‘But also the Eve Noel project, let’s think—’

‘Sure, sure!’ He pats me on the back and squeezes my shoulder. ‘I think with the right project and a good writer we could have something wonderful. And listen, I spoke to Tommy, did he tell you?’ I shake my head. Tommy’s my manager, and he rings Artie roughly ten times a day with ideas, most of which Artie rejects. ‘It’s fantastic news!’

‘What?’

‘He tested the line we discussed for the Up! Kidz Challenge Awards on a focus group and it came back great. So that’s what you’re saying. OK? Wanna give it a try, for old times’ sake?’

I smile obligingly, hold up my bare left hand, then scream, ‘I LOST MY RING!!!’

This is the line I’m famous for, from The Bride and Groom. It’s a cute film actually, about a wedding from the girl’s point of view: bitchy bridesmaids, rows with parents – and from the guy’s point of view: problems at work, a bachelor party that ends in disaster. The bride, Jenny, loses her ring halfway through in a cake shop, and that’s what she screams. I don’t say it often, because I don’t want to have a catchphrase. Tommy would sell dolls that scream ‘I LOST MY RING’ and T-shirts by the dozen if I let him. I don’t let him.

‘Wonderful. Just wonderful.’ Artie’s clutching his heart. I push my sunglasses back down over my eyes.

‘It’s good to see you,’ I say, hugging him. ‘We’ll talk soon. When are the awards?’

‘Two weeks. Ashley will brief you. So you’re OK? You know you’re going with Patrick, yes?’

I hesitate. ‘Well, and George,’ I say. ‘A bonding night out before we start shooting.’

‘George? OK.’

I match him stare for stare and as I look at him I realise he knows.

‘George is a great director.’ For once Artie’s not smiling. His tanned face droops, like a hound dog. His beady eyes rake over me.

‘I know he is,’ I say slowly.

‘That’s all.’ He turns away. ‘That’s all I’m gonna say. OK?’

I can imagine what’s going on in his mind. If she’s banging George, they’ll be making trouble on set. Patrick Drew’s gonna get difficult about his close-ups as it’ll all be on her. George’ll dump her halfway through and start fucking someone else and she’ll go schizoid. This is a disaster.

I know it’s nothing serious, me and George. He’s A-list, so am I; we won’t squeal on each other. He’s way older than I am, he’s been around. Plus I don’t need a relationship at the moment, neither does he. If we screw each other once a week, what’s the harm?

Artie chews something at the back of his mouth, rapidly, for a few seconds, then claps his hands. ‘OK, we’ll regroup afterwards about your Eve Noel idea. I like it, you know. If not for you then someone. Maybe you’re right! Could be big …’ He pauses. ‘Hey, you should be a producer.’

He laughs, and I laugh, then I wonder why I’m laughing. Me, in a suit, putting the finance on a movie together, all of that. Then I think … no. That’s not for me, I couldn’t do that. I’m too used to being the star – it’s true isn’t it?

‘Read the scripts, think it over,’ he says, as I leave the room. ‘Then we’ll talk.’

CHAPTER THREE

AS I EXIT the building, I’m still thinking about Darren Weller and the day we went to Stratford, me and Donna escaping to McDonald’s. I’m smiling at the randomness of this memory, walking through the glass lobby of WAM, clutching this bunch of scripts, and suddenly—

‘Ow!’ Someone’s bumped into me. ‘Fuck,’ I say, rubbing my boob awkwardly and trying to hold onto the scripts, because she got me with her elbow and it is painful.

This girl grips my arm. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says, her eyes huge. ‘Oh, my gosh, that was totally my fault. Are you OK—?’ She looks at me and laughs. ‘Oh, no! That’s so weird. Sophie! Hi! I didn’t recognise you with your shades on.’

I’m trying not to rub my boob in public. I can see T.J. waiting by the car right outside. ‘Hi there,’ I smile. ‘Have a great day!’

‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

I stare at her. Who the hell is she? ‘No, I’m sorry,’ I say, beaming my big megawatt smile and going into crazy-person exit-strategy mode. ‘But, it’s great to meet you, so—’ She’s still grinning, although she looks nervous, and something about her eyes, her smile, I don’t know, it’s familiar. ‘Oh, my God, of course,’ I say impulsively. I push my sunglasses up onto my head. ‘It’s …’

I search my memory, but it’s blank. The weird thing is, she looks like me.

‘Sara?’ she says hesitantly. ‘Sara Cain. From Jimmy Samba’s.’ She’s still smiling. ‘It’s been so long. It’s really fine.’

I stare at her, and the memory leads me back, illuminating the way, as scenes light up in my mind from that messy, golden summer.

‘Sara Cain,’ I say. ‘Oh, my gosh.’

Back in 2004 I starred in a sweet British romcom, I Do I Do, during a break in South Street People’s shooting schedule. It did really well, better than we all expected, and LA casting agents started asking to see me, so I went out to Hollywood again the following summer. That was when Donna and I kind of fell out, actually; she told me it was a big mistake and I was in over my head.

She was wrong, as it turns out. It was a great time. I was young, didn’t have anything to lose, and I thought it was pretty crazy that I was there anyway, to be honest. Jimmy Samba’s was the frozen-yoghurt place on Venice Beach where my roommate Maritza worked and we all practically lived there: a whole gang of us, actors, writers, models, musicians, all waiting for that big break.

‘Your twin, remember?’ I stare at her intently. She gives a small, self-conscious giggle.

‘Wow,’ I say. ‘The twins. Sara, I’m so sorry, of course I remember you.’

The thing about her was, we had a few auditions together, and every time people always commented on how similar we looked. She had a couple of pilots, and the last time I saw her it looked like things might be about to happen for her.

The sight of her is like hearing ‘Hollaback Girl’ – that was my song of that summer. Takes you totally back there to a time that I rarely think about now. It’s gone and that’s weird, because we were friends. Her dad was a plastic surgeon, I remember that now, an old guy who’d done all the stars; I loved hearing her stories about him. She even came up to the rental house in Los Feliz, her and some of the gang, after I moved out of Venice. But it was an uncomfortable evening. Sara especially was weird. And even though I called her and a few others a couple of times afterwards, no one returned my calls. Turns out we weren’t all friends, just people in similar situations, and I didn’t belong in that gang, the clique of hopefuls. I’d passed onto the next stage, and they didn’t want to know me any more.

Now I try to look friendly. ‘That’s so cool, bumping into you here. How’s it going? Who are you here to see?’

She doesn’t understand and then smiles. ‘Oh. I’m not acting these days.’ My face is blank. She smiles again, a little tightly. ‘I – work here? I’m Lynn’s assistant? She’s in the same department as Artie.’

‘I know Lynn,’ I say. ‘OK, so …’ I trail off, embarrassed.

‘It’s fine,’ she says, nodding so her perky ponytail bounces behind her. ‘It’s totally fine. Guess some of us have it and some of us don’t. I don’t miss the constant rejection, for sure. That time they told me no when I walked in the room, you remember that?’

I screw up my face. ‘Oh … oh, yeah, I remember. What was it for?’

‘It was The Bride and Groom, Sophie.’ She grins. ‘You should remember, we were totally hungover from being up all night drinking Bryan’s tequila?’

‘Oh, my God,’ I say, shifting my bag onto my other shoulder. ‘That night.’

‘Some of us get the right haircuts at the right time, you mean!’ Sara smiles, and says suddenly, ‘That was a totally insane evening, wasn’t it? You getting that bob, like … who was it? Eve Noel?’ She looks at my hair. ‘Still rocking it, right? You always said those bangs got you the part – maybe that’s what it took!’ She stops, and then looks alarmed. ‘Sorry,’ she says, flushing. ‘I mean, of course … you’re so good as well, you totally deserve it!’

‘No way. I was probably drunk,’ I said. ‘I’d never have got that bob if I hadn’t been totally bombed. I owe Bryan … it was Bryan, wasn’t it?’

She nods. ‘It was.’

My memory is so shit, it’s terrible. Maybe the tequila drowned my brain cells, because they were kind of crazy times. We behaved pretty badly, we didn’t have anything to lose. I was still seeing Dave, my boyfriend back in London who I met on South Street People, but I knew he was cheating on me by then. (Turns out he was cheating on me about 80 per cent of the time we were together anyway.) It’s the only slutty period of my life; maybe everyone has to have a summer like that. I’d always worked so hard and all of a sudden it was so easy. America was easy. Sunshine, friendly people, and I was young. I lived for the ocean, the cafe, the bars and the crowd I hung out with.

I loved acting, but I never thought I’d make it, to be honest. I knew I wasn’t as talented as someone like Sara, knew I wasn’t trained. I didn’t know anything about stagecraft or method; I turned up and said the lines the best way I could. Still do, I think. I’d already got further with my career than I’d ever expected to without Mum by my side all the time, and I suppose I thought I’d ride it for as long as I was allowed to. They’d find me out and I’d be sent home and so for the time being, I reasoned, I should hang loose and enjoy myself – and for once, I really, really did.

I stroke my forehead and fringe, trying to remember. ‘Bryan. He was hot, wasn’t he? Kind of Ashton Kutcher-y.’

She smiles. ‘That’s him.’

‘I think I slept with him,’ I muse.

‘Yeah, I know,’ she says, then she adds, ‘You know, I went out with him for a while. Maybe we are twins!’

There’s an awkward pause. Sara clears her throat, and stares at me after a moment. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I’m being weird. But it’s really good to see you, that’s all. I never returned your calls. I suppose I was jealous. Brings back those days and it’s crazy, remembering how it used to be, I guess.’

‘You were really good,’ I say, changing the subject. She looks uncomfortable, but I press her. ‘Have you totally left it behind? That’s a real shame.’

Sara knits her fingers together. ‘Yeah. At my last audition, this guy, the director I think it was, stared at me and said, “This girl’s just an uglier Sophie Leigh. Next, please.”’ She’s smiling as she says this, but there’s an awful expression in her eyes. ‘That’s what made me give it up.’

‘That … that sucks, Sara.’ We’re silent. I sling my bag over my shoulder again and as the silence stretches on, and Sara says nothing, blurt, ‘So, Bryan! What’s he doing now?’

‘Bryan moved to New York. He has his own salon now – he’s doing really well.’ She recovers her smile again. ‘Hey, I’m super happy for him. And for you! You totally deserve your success, Sophie! It’s not only about the bob, so don’t believe people who tell you it is!’

‘Uh – thanks.’ Maybe it’s time to go. ‘Great to see you, Sara.’ I wave to T.J., my driver.

Sara calls after me, ‘You look so great, Sophie. Sorry again!’

I stride out, smiling at another WAM minion who glows when she spots me and at the doorman as I exit the building, momentarily catching the wall of fierce afternoon heat.

I climb into the car, sinking into my seat. T.J. has got me a diet root beer and some carrot and celery sticks, and there’s even a packet of crisps (which I’ll never eat, of course), all nicely laid out in the back. Chips, I should say. I’m mostly American these days, but some things never feel right. Chips are the chips you have with fish and burgers.

‘Mulberry sent you over some new stuff to pick out. Tina was unpacking it when I left and she told me to tell you,’ T.J. says. He pulls the limo away from the kerb.

‘Get Tanisha to come over.’ Tanisha is T.J.’s daughter.

‘I’ll call her. That’s kind of you. She did well on her test yesterday, Sophie, I’m real pleased with her.’

A thought occurs to me. ‘Did Deena arrive yet?’

‘I don’t know,’ T.J. says firmly. ‘She wasn’t there when I left.’ He switches topic. ‘So how’s your day going?’

I have to think for a moment. ‘Not sure.’ Now we’re gliding away from WAM, I recall what I wanted to say to Artie, and what in my hungover state I actually said. I said I would read that stupid script. I didn’t really get to talk about Eve Noel, the film I want to make one day, the mystery about her that I still don’t understand. Not because it’s complicated, because that’s obvious. But because she was new in town once like I was, and it must have started out OK for her. And I don’t know what happened to her, no one seems to know or care. I’m on every billboard in town but she was the last great film star, to my mind. Hollywood is about extremes, as someone once said. You’re either a success or a failure, there’s no in-between.

We’re turning into Sunset, right by the Beverly Hills Hotel, and I glance over at the white italic scrawl, the palm trees that reach up to the endless blue. I pull my sunglasses on and lie back against the soft leather. For a few minutes I can be still. Don’t have to worry about that wrinkle on my forehead, that bulge in my stomach, that crappy script, that feeling all the time that someone else, someone better, should be living my life, not me.

the avocado tree

Los Angeles, 1956

‘NOW, MY DEAR,’ Mrs Featherstone whispered to me as we entered the crowded room. ‘Don’t forget. Call everyone Mr So-and-So and be simply fascinated, no matter what they say. You understand?’

‘Yes, Mrs Featherstone,’ I answered obediently.

She put her hand on my back and smiled mechanically. ‘And remember, what are you called?’

‘Eve Noel.’

‘That’s it. Good girl. Your name’s Noel now. Don’t forget.’

Her thumb dug into my shoulder blade. I could feel the side of her ring pushing into my flesh and involuntarily I stepped away, then smiled politely, looking around the room.

It was a beautiful old mansion house in Beverly Hills; at least it looked old, though they told me afterwards it had only been finished last year. At the grand piano a vaguely familiar man sat playing ‘All the Things You Are’ and my skin prickled with pleasure: I loved that song. I had danced to it only two weeks ago, on our clapped-out gramophone in Hampstead. Already it seemed like a lifetime ago.

Mr Featherstone was at the bar, shaking hands, clapping shoulders. When he saw his wife, he nodded mechanically, excused himself and came over.

‘Hey,’ he said, nodding at his wife, ignoring me. ‘OK.’ He turned to the three men standing in a knot beside us, and grasped the hand of the first one.

‘Hey, fellas, I want you to meet someone. This is Eve Noel. She just arrived from London, England. She’s our new star.’ His arm was around my waist, his fingers pressed tightly against the black velvet. I wanted to shrink away.

Each man balanced his cigarette in the cut-crystal ashtray, then turned to shake my hand. I had no idea who they were. The third, younger, man narrowed his eyes, and turned away towards the piano player to ask him something. The first man smiled, kindly I thought. ‘When did you get here, Eve?’

‘Two weeks ago,’ I said.

‘Where are you staying?’ He smoothed his thinning hair across his shiny pate, an automatic gesture.

‘She’s at the Beverly Hills Hotel at the moment, and Rita is chaperoning her where necessary,’ Mr Featherstone said before I could speak. He cleared his throat importantly. ‘Eve is our Helen of Troy, we’re announcing it next week.’

‘Good for you,’ said the second man. ‘Louis, you dark horse. You swore you’d got Taylor.’

‘We went a different way. We needed someone … fresh, you know. Elizabeth’s a liability.’ His hand tightened on my waist and he smiled.

‘That’s great, that’s great,’ said the first man. ‘So – you got what you wanted from RKO, Louis? I heard they wouldn’t give you the budget.’

He and the second man smirked at each other. ‘Oh,’ said Mr Featherstone. He flashed them a quick, automatic smile. ‘Hey, we all make mistakes, don’t we.’ His voice faltered. ‘But they’re coming around. We’ll start principal photography in a couple of weeks – we don’t need the money right now. It’s only that – well, fellas, this thing is going to be huge, and I’d like a little extra, you know? I’ve been thinking, a big studio might like to share some costs. I assure you, they’d get more than their share back. MGM and David O. Selznick, ring any bells?’ He winked at the first man, as though trying to make him complicit in something. ‘But let’s not talk business in front of Miss Noel.’

‘Of course,’ said the second man. He was short and greying where the first man was short and fat with black hair; they looked similar, and it occurred to me suddenly they must be brothers. ‘How do you find LA, Miss Noel?’

‘Oh,’ I said. I moved away from Mr Featherstone’s hand. ‘I think it’s wonderful.’

‘Wonderful, eh?’

‘Oh, yes, wonderful.’ I could hear myself: I sounded dull and stupid.

He laughed. ‘How so?’

‘Oh, the …’ I couldn’t think of how to explain it. ‘The sunshine and the palm trees, and the people are so friendly. And there’s as much butter as you like in the mornings.’

He and his companions laughed; so did Mr and Mrs Featherstone, a second or two later.

‘I’m from London,’ I said.

‘No,’ the first man said, faux-incredulous. ‘I would never have guessed.’

I could feel myself blushing. ‘Well, it’s only – we had rationing until really quite recently. It’s wonderful to be able to eat what you want.’

‘Now, dear!’ Mrs Featherstone said. ‘We don’t want you talking about food all night to Joe and Lenny, do we! They’ll worry you’re going to ruin that beautiful figure of yours.’ Again the thumb, jabbing into my back.

‘Oh, no!’ I tried to smile. As with everything else here I was constantly trying to work out what the rules were; I always felt I was saying the wrong thing.

‘I’m sure that would never happen.’ I jumped. The third man, who’d not yet spoken, had turned back from the piano and was eyeing me up and down, like a woman scanning a mannequin in a shop window. He smiled, but it was almost as though he were laughing. ‘You look as if you were born to be a star,’ he said.

It was all so ridiculous, in a sense. Me, Eve Sallis, a country doctor’s daughter, who this time two months ago was a mousy drama student in London, sharing a tiny flat in Hampstead, worried about nothing so much as whether I could afford another cup of coffee at Bar Italia and what lines I had to learn for the next day’s class: there I was, at a film producer’s house in Hollywood, dressed in couture with a new name and a part in what Mr Featherstone kept referring to as ‘The Biggest Picture You Will Ever See’. Tonight a beautician had curled my short black hair and caked on mascara and eyeliner, and I’d stepped into a black velvet Dior dress and clipped on a diamond brooch, and a limousine with a driver wearing a peaked hat had driven me here, though it was a 300-yard walk away and it felt so silly, when I could have trotted down the road. But no, everything was about appearance here. If people were to believe I was a star then I had to behave like a star. Mr Featherstone had spotted me in London. He had spent a great deal of money bringing me over and I had to act the part. It was a part, talking to these old men, exactly like Helen of Troy. And I wanted to play her, more than anything.

‘Well, I’m Joseph Baxter,’ said the first man, leaning forward to take my hand again. He really was quite fat, I noticed now. ‘This is my brother Lenny, and this interesting specimen of humanity is Don Matthews. He’s a writer.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘First rule of Hollywood, Miss Noel. Don’t bother about the writers. They’re worthless.’

The third man, Don, nodded at me, and I blushed. ‘Hey there,’ he said. He shook my hand. ‘Well, let me welcome you to Hollywood. You’re just in time for the funeral.’

‘Whose funeral?’ I asked.

They all gave a sniggering, indulgent laugh as a waiter came by with a tray. I took a drink, desperate for some alcohol.

Don smiled. ‘Miss Noel, I’m referring to the death of the motion picture industry. You’ve heard of a little thing called television, even in Merrie Olde England, I assume?’

I didn’t like the way he sounded as though he were poking fun, and the others didn’t seem to notice. Nettled, I said, ‘The Queen’s Coronation was televised, over four years ago, Mr Matthews. Most people I know have a television, actually.’

I sounded like a prig, like a silly schoolgirl. The three older men laughed again, and Mr Featherstone raised his eyebrows at the two brothers, as if to say, ‘Look fellas, I told you so.’ But Don merely nodded. ‘Well, that’s told me. I guess someone should tell Louis then, before he starts making The Biggest Picture You Will Ever See.’

Mr Featherstone looked furious; his red nostrils flared and his moustache bristled, actually bristled. I’d discovered in my whirlwind dealings with him that he had no love for a joke. I knew what Mr Matthews was talking about, though. Every film made these days seemed to be an epic, a biblical legend, a classical myth, a story with huge spectacle, as if Hollywood in its death throes were trying to say, ‘Look at us! We do it better than the television can!’

‘We’ll come by and meet with you properly,’ Mr Featherstone told Joe and his brother. ‘I’d like for you to get to know Eve. I think she’s very special.’

‘We should … arrange that.’ Joe Baxter was looking me up and down once more. ‘Miss Noel, I agree with Louis, for once. It’s a pleasure to meet you.’ He took my hand. His was large, soft like a baby’s, and slightly clammy. He breathed through his mouth, I noticed. I wondered if it was adenoids. ‘Yes,’ he said to Mr Featherstone. ‘Bring Miss Noel over, we’ll have that meeting. Maybe we’ll – ah, run into you again tonight.’

‘Bye, fellas.’ Don stubbed out his cigarette, and winked at me. ‘Miss Noel, my pleasure. Remember to enjoy the sunshine while you’re here. And the butter.’

He touched my arm lightly, then turned around and walked out of the door.

‘Who was that?’ I asked Mrs Featherstone, who was ushering me towards another group of short, suited, bespectacled men.

‘Joe and Lenny Baxter? They’re the heads of Monumental Films, have you really not heard of Monumental Films?’

‘Of course, yes,’ I said. ‘I didn’t realise. That’s – gosh.’ I cleared my throat, trying not to watch Don’s disappearing form. ‘And the writer – Don?’

‘Oh, Don Matthews,’ she said dismissively. ‘Well, he’s a writer. Like they say. I don’t know what he’s doing here, except Don always was good at gatecrashing a party. He drinks.’

‘He wrote Too Many Stars,’ Mr Featherstone said absently, watching the Baxter brothers as they walked slowly away, to be fallen upon by other guests. ‘He’s damn good, when he’s not intoxicated.’

I gasped. ‘Too Many Stars? Oh, I saw that, it must have been four, five times? It’s wonderful! He – he wrote it?’

‘She’s got enough people to memorise without clogging her brain up with nonentities like Don Matthews,’ said Mrs Featherstone, as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘Who’s next?’

‘Well.’ Mr Featherstone scanned the crowd. ‘I wanted to get the Baxters, that’s the prize. If I could put her in front of them they’d see—’ He nodded at me, his expression slightly softening. ‘Honey, you did very well. Make nice with the Baxters if you run into them again, OK? I want them to help us with the picture.’

It was hot, and the smell of lilies and heavy perfume was overwhelming, suddenly. ‘May I be excused for a moment?’ I heard myself say. ‘I’d like to use the – er –’

‘What? Oh, yes, of course.’ Mr and Mrs Featherstone parted in alarm; any reference to reality or, heaven forbid, bodily functions, was abhorrent to them. I’d discovered this the evening I arrived in Los Angeles, tired, bewildered and starving after a flight from London that was exhilarating at first, then terrifying, then just terribly tiring. When we got to the hotel I’d said I felt I might be sick, and both of them had reared back as if I was carrying the bubonic plague.

I slipped through the crowd, past the ladies in their thick silk cocktail dresses, heavy diamonds and rubies and emeralds and sapphires on their honey skin, in their ears, on their fingers – and the gentlemen, all smoking, gathered in knots, talking in low voices. I recognised one ageing matinee idol, his once-black hair greying at the temples and his face puffy with drink, and a vivacious singer, whom I’d read about in a magazine only two weeks ago, nuzzling the neck of an old man who I knew wasn’t her husband, a film actor. But they all had something in common, the guests: they looked as though they were Someone, from the piano player to the lady at the door with the ravaged, over-made-up face. The party was for a producer, thrown by another producer, to celebrate something. I never did find out what, but it was like so many parties I was to go to. It was the first of a template in my new life, though I didn’t know it then. Old-fashioneds and champagne cocktails, delicious little canapés of chicken mousse and tiny cocktail sausages, always a piano player, the air heavy with smoke and rich perfume, the talk all – all, all, all, always the business. Films, movies, the pictures: there was only one topic of conversation.

It was early May. In London winter was over, though it had been raining for weeks by the time I left. But here it was sunny. It was always sunny, the streets lined with beautiful violet-blue blossoms. The air on the terrace outside was a little cooler and I stood there, relief washing over me, glad of the breeze and of this rare solitude. There was a beautiful shell-shaped pool, and I peered into the shimmering turquoise water, looking for something in the reflection. The trees lining the terrace were dark, heavy with a strange green fruit. Idly, I reached up and touched one, and it dropped to the ground, plummeting heavily like a ripe weight. I picked it up, terrified lest anyone should see, and held it. It was shiny, nobbly. I turned it over in my hand.

‘It’s an avocado,’ a voice behind me said.

I jumped, inhaling so sharply that I coughed, and I looked at the speaker. ‘Hello, Mr …’ I stared at him blankly, wildly.

‘It’s Don. Don’t worry about the rest of it. You’re very – er, polite, aren’t you?’ He finished his drink and put it down on a small side table. I watched him.

‘What do you mean, “er, polite”?’

He wrapped his arms around his long lean body, hugging himself in a curiously boyish gesture. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I just met you. You’re awfully on your guard. Like you’re not relaxed.’

I wanted to laugh – how could anyone relax at an evening like this?

‘I – I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Back in London …’

But I didn’t know how to explain it all. Back in London I was always late, I was always losing parts in class to Viola MacIntosh, I never had enough money for the electricity meter, or for a sandwich, and my flatmate Clarissa and I alternated sleeping in the bedroom with its oyster-coloured silk eiderdown that shed a light snowfall of feathers every time you moved in the night, or on the truckle bed in the sitting room, with the springs that pierced your sides, like a religious reproach for our sinful ways.

Whoever I was back then, I wasn’t this person, this cool demure girl, and I knew I was always relaxed. This was my dream, wasn’t it? Training to be an actress. And that’s all I’d ever wanted to do since I was a little girl, playing dress-up with Mother’s evening gowns from the trunk in her dressing room. First with Rose, then by myself after Rose died. There was a brief period during which my increasingly distant parents were concerned about my solitude enough to organise tea parties with other (suitable) children who lived nearby, but it never took. Either I wouldn’t speak or I went and hid. A punishment to myself, you see. If I couldn’t play with Rose, then I wouldn’t play with anyone.

One night, when I was older, I had crept back downstairs to collect my book, and heard their voices in the parlour. I stood transfixed, the soles of my feet stinging cold on the icy Victorian tiled floor. And I remember what my father said.

‘If she’s as good as they say she is, we can’t stand in her way, Marianne. Perhaps it’s what the girl needs. Bring her out of her shell. Teach her how to be a lady, give up this nonsense of pretending Rose is still here.’

My father, so remote from me, so careworn. I looked down at the avocado in my hand. I found it so strange to think of him and Mother now. What would they make of it all? How would I ever describe this to them? But I knew I wouldn’t. When I’d left the cold house by the river eighteen months previously to take up my place at the Central School of Speech and Drama it was as though we said our goodbyes then. I wrote to them and of course I had let them know about my trip to California. But I was nearly twenty. I didn’t need them any more. I don’t know that I ever had, for after Rose died we eventually shrank inwards, each to his or her own world: my father his surgery, my mother her work in the parish church, and I to my own daydreams, playing with the ghost of Rose, acting out fantasies that would never come true.

Mr Featherstone had called my parents himself, to explain who he was. ‘Funny guy, your old pop,’ he’d said. ‘Seemed to not give a fig where you were.’

I couldn’t explain that it was normal for me. I was alone, really, and I had been for years; I’d learnt to live that way.

I felt a touch on my arm, and I looked up to find Don Matthews watching me. He said, ‘It’s a culture shock, I bet, huh?’

‘Something like that.’

He smiled. He had a lopsided grin that transformed his long, kind face. I watched him, thinking abstractly what a nice face it was, how handsome he looked when he smiled. ‘It’s also …’ I took a deep breath, and said in a rush, ‘Don’t think me ungrateful, but I feel a bit like a prize camel. With three humps. Mr Featherstone and his wife are very kind, but I’m never sure if I’m saying what they want me to say.’

‘They don’t want you to say anything. They want you to look pretty and smile at the studio guys in the hope that they’ll give Louis some money to finance the picture. Oh, they say the studios are dying a slow death, but there’s no way Louis will be able to make Helen of Troy without a lot more money than he’s got.’ He reached out to the tree and twisted off another avocado. ‘A camel with three humps, huh? Well, you look fine from where I’m standing.’ He took a penknife out of his pocket, and sliced the thin dark green skin to reveal the creamy green flesh inside, then scooped some and handed it to me. Our fingers touched. I ate it, watching him.

‘It’s delicious,’ I said. ‘Like velvet. And nuts.’

‘It’s perfectly ripe,’ he said. ‘Enjoy it, my dear.’

I nodded, my mind racing.

‘What’s your real name?’ he said, his voice gentle. ‘It’s not Eve Noel, is it?’

I swallowed, blushing slightly at being thus exposed. ‘Sallis. Eve Sallis.’

‘Eve’s a nice name.’

‘I hate it. I wanted to—’ I looked around, weighing up whether to take him into my confidence. ‘I called myself Rose at drama school. Rose Sallis, not Eve. But Mr Featherstone liked Eve, so I’m Eve again.’

‘Why Rose?’

My hands were clenched. ‘It was my sister’s name. She died when I was six.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Don, his face still. ‘You remember her at all?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Very clearly.’ Then, in a rush, ‘She drowned. In the river by our house. It was a strong current and she fell over.’

‘That’s awful. What the hell were you kids doing in there anyway?’

‘It was only her,’ I said, and I blinked. ‘We weren’t allowed. I was chicken.’

‘But she wasn’t.’ His tone was even, not judgemental.

‘Rose was … naughty. Very wild. They said it was dangerous, there’s a weir upstream and the current’s too strong. But she never listened.’ I scrunched my face up. ‘I can see her if I really concentrate. She was older than me, and she’d get so furious with them, shouting, screaming, and sometimes she’d play dead … I thought she was playing dead that time, you see, and I left her to get help, and it was too late …’

It felt so good to be talking about something close to me, to share a piece of my real self with someone, instead of this artifice all the time. Don watched me, a sympathetic expression in his kind dark eyes.

‘You must miss her.’

‘Every day. She was my idol, my sister.’ My shoulders slumped. ‘And they never let me see her afterwards, to say goodbye, you see. I …’ I shook my head. ‘I used to go over everything we did together in my head. So I’d remember. I didn’t have anyone else, you see. She – she was my best friend.’

‘So Rose was like a tribute to her.’ Don sliced another piece of avocado, watching me. ‘That’s nice.’

‘Nice is such a little word, isn’t it,’ I said after a moment’s silence. He raised his eyebrows.

‘You’re right, Miss Noel. It’s not nice. Well, I’m sorry again. Rose, huh? Maybe I should call you Rose.’

‘OK,’ I said, sort of laughing, because it was a strange conversation, yet I felt more comfortable with him than anyone that night.

‘OK, Rose.’ I liked how it sounded when he said it.

‘Can you tell me something?’

‘Of course, Rose. What did you want to know?’

The noise from the party inside washed over towards us. A shriek of hilarity, the sound of men laughing, the distant ringing of a bell.

‘What happens if I don’t stay quiet?’ I said. ‘What about if I tell them I’ve made a mistake and I want to go home?’

‘Do you think that?’

I breathed out. ‘Um – no.’ My throat felt tight all of a sudden. ‘I’m not sure. It’s been two weeks and …’ I swallowed. ‘This is stupid. I’m homesick, I suppose. It’s such a different world.’

The sky above us was that peculiar electrifying deep blue, just before the moon appears. He took my hand. His skin was warm and his fingers on mine strangely comforting, even though he was a stranger. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Look at the stars above you.’ I looked up. ‘And the fruit on the trees, the smell of money in the air. You’re in California. You were chosen to come here. You’re going to star in what could be the biggest picture of the year. I know Louis can come off as a jerk, but he knows what he’s doing, trust me.’ He shrugged. ‘This is the break thousands of girls dream about.’

‘I know,’ I said. I wished I could put my head on his shoulder. I could smell tobacco and something else on his jacket, a woody, comforting smell. ‘And I can’t go home. The thought of going back to London with my tail between my legs. And seeing my parents – explaining to them.’ I stood up straight. ‘I have to get on with it. Stiff upper lip, and all that.’

‘You British,’ he said. He released my hand. ‘Where’s home, then?’

How did I explain I didn’t really have a home? ‘Oh, it’s a village in the middle of the countryside. But I was at drama school, in London. I was living in a place called Hampstead. That was really my home.’

‘I’ve always wanted to go to Hampstead. Oh, yes,’ Don said, smiling at my surprise. ‘My father was a teacher. Taught me every poem Keats ever wrote.’ I must have looked completely blank, because he said, ‘Keats lived in Hampstead, you little philistine. I thought you Brits grew up on the stuff.’

I shrugged. ‘He didn’t write plays. I like playwrights.’

Don leaned his lanky body against the tree, sliced a little more avocado, and said, ‘How about screenwriters?’

I smiled. ‘I like them too, I suppose.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ he replied.

‘There you are, Eve.’ Mr Featherstone came waddling out onto the terrace. ‘I was wondering where you’d got to.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said guiltily. ‘I met Don – Mr Matthews – again, and we were—’

‘I was monopolising your star,’ Don said smoothly. ‘I should let you go.’

‘No, I don’t want to interrupt,’ Mr Featherstone said genially, wiping his moist brow with a handkerchief. ‘Eve, I wanted you to meet the head of publicity for Monumental, Moss Fisher. He’s a great guy, and if he likes you too I really think the Monumental deal’s in the bag.’ He smiled at me. ‘Joe Baxter liked you, honey. Really liked you. He wants us to go out to dinner with him. So I’m gonna take you to meet Moss now and then we’re going to Ciro’s. You’ll love it.’ He looked at Don. ‘Won’t she, Don?’

‘Depends,’ Don said. ‘But yes, I think she might like it. If she makes up her mind it’s what she wants.’

The shade from the tree was black. I couldn’t see his face. ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Goodbye – and thank you.’

‘It was my pleasure,’ he said. ‘Hey, do something for me, will you? Try and enjoy it.’

He moved away and I suddenly realised I might not see him again. I don’t know why but I called after him, ‘I loved Too Many Stars. It’s my favourite film.’

He stopped and turned around, one half of his slim body golden in the light from the hallway, the party. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Rose.’

He disappeared through the door and then he was gone.

‘Did you tell Don Matthews to call you Rose?’ Mr Featherstone said, a note of displeasure in his voice as he steered me back inside. ‘Why would you do that?’

‘I – it’s – oh, we were having a joke.’ But then the guilt I always felt deepened some more, as though I thought Rose was something to joke about. ‘I’m sorry, I won’t do it again,’ I said, more to myself than to him.

‘It takes time to learn these things,’ he said. ‘You’ve done very well, my dear.’ His eyes ranged over my dress again. ‘Now, here’s Mr Baxter. And Mr Fisher. Be nice. Moss, hey! This is the little lady I was telling you about. Eve dear, this is Moss Fisher.’

Out of the shadows stepped another man, thin and even shorter than the Baxters. His thick curling hair was smoothed down with Brylcreem or something that made it look wet. His dark eyes darted from side to side, then stared coldly at me. He nodded.

‘Hi,’ he said, to no one in particular.

‘Hello, Mr Fisher,’ I said politely.

He didn’t acknowledge this, but turned to Joe Baxter. ‘The teeth need fixing, Joe.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Mr Baxter said under his breath. ‘Still though—’

‘How old are you?’ Moss Fisher asked, almost uninterestedly.

‘I’m – I’m nearly twenty.’

He nodded. ‘Maybe it’s worth it,’ he said. He shrugged. ‘The hairline, too. It’s awful but they can change it. Do a screen test. I’m going, Joe. See ya tomorrow.’

Joe Baxter rose a hand in farewell as Moss Fisher walked away.

‘Don’t mind Moss,’ he said jovially. ‘He’s all business. A great guy, a great guy, isn’t he, Louis?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Mr Featherstone. He stared at my hair in annoyance. I put my hand up to my brow, self-conscious.

Behind me, Mrs Featherstone had brought my velvet cape. With a quick flick of her wrist she twisted it up and around my shoulders, and I screamed, and she jumped. Mr Baxter was standing behind the cape. ‘Sorry,’ I said, clutching my hand to my heart, which was thumping ridiculously. ‘I didn’t see you, Mr … Mr …’ Suddenly I couldn’t remember his surname. I smiled in what I hoped was a charming, apologetic way.

‘It’s Baxter,’ he said, putting his watch into his pocket and offering me his arm. ‘Come, my dear. We’ll ride to Ciro’s together. I’d like to show you my Rolls-Royce. All the way from England. Louis, we’ll see you there?’

We left the party, and I remember it clearly now, to this day, how the waiter bowed and said, ‘Goodnight, Mr Baxter, congratulations on Eagles Fly North,’ and Joe Baxter ignored him. I don’t think it was because he was a rude man. It was because he simply didn’t notice people like waiters. It was as if they were completely invisible to him. He could only see two things: stars and power.

‘Here we are,’ said Mr Baxter as we approached a powder-blue Rolls-Royce, waiting on the kerb for us. A driver jumped out and opened the door. I looked around for the Featherstones, but I couldn’t see them.

‘Oh …’ I said, and I must have sounded wary.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Mr Baxter, smoothing his hair over the top of his head again. ‘They’re getting a ride with Lenny.’ He looked around. ‘Would you feel more comfortable with them here too? Yes, you would.’ He signalled to the driver. ‘Go and find Mr Featherstone.’

‘It’s no problem, Mr Baxter,’ I said. ‘I just wanted to make sure they were coming too.’

‘Of course,’ he said. He held the door open. I climbed in and he followed me. ‘I don’t want to do the deal with you, now do I? Or are you telling me you have a head for figures too, as well as a figure that turns a man’s head?’

I laughed; I couldn’t help it, and I wondered what Clarissa would say if she heard him. But Clarissa was thousands of miles away, asleep. I knew tomorrow was Thursday, and she’d have vocal classes first thing in the morning. Making ridiculous vowel sounds, sitting cross-legged on the floor and pretending to be farm animals. That was what we’d done, the final class I’d taken, before I said goodbye to her, to my friends, and left them behind for ever.

The seats were huge, the butter-coloured leather soft, sewn with tiny powder-blue stitches that matched the outside paint. ‘What a beautiful car,’ I said politely, trying to sound normal. The two of us alone together in the back was rather strange.

Mr Baxter put his hands on his knees, and sat up straight, looking ahead. He muttered something under his breath. ‘Thank you, dear. Now tell me, where are you from in England?’

I answered, as I’d been told to by Mr Featherstone, ‘Warwickshire. Shakespeare country.’

‘Very good. Your father’s job?’

‘He’s a doctor,’ I said. ‘He’s a very good doctor.’ I don’t know why I said this. I ran my fingers along the polished walnut interior, tracing the clover-shaped whorls of the wood. We drove off slowly, and my stomach lurched. I was hungry, or nervous, I didn’t know which.

‘Any brothers or sisters?’

‘I had a sister. She died.’

He nodded, eyes still fixed straight ahead of him. ‘Sad. Anything else?’

The spot in the river where Rose drowned was next to a willow tree. The trunk was hollow and almost dead, but there were green tendrils creeping off it and eventually they might make another whole tree. When I was little I used to think she lived inside it, that she’d just come back one day. I’d play by the tree, and talk to it, until Mother said I wasn’t to any more. I said, ‘Anything else? I—’

‘Any stories we need to know, any secret marriages to unsuitable actor boyfriends, kids, anything that the fan magazines or the gossips can dig up on you?’

‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. It was so strange the way everyone in Hollywood wanted to know about the secret past lives I’d lived before I’d got here. I wasn’t twenty till November. I’d done nothing with my life, really. I’d never been abroad, unless you counted holidays in Scotland. ‘Nothing at all.’

‘Nothing at all? You’re not lying?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m very dull, I’m afraid.’

Mr Baxter said something, to himself this time. He turned to me. ‘I would disagree, my dear,’ he said, and he moved across the seat towards me. He put his hand on my knee, then slid the palm up my thigh. I remembered again his clammy, hot skin.

The strange thing is I didn’t do anything. I was so surprised I sat there, bolt upright. He was such an odd man, with his black comb-over, his fat, unexpressive face, his strangely babyish expressions. I thought he must have made some kind of mistake. But then he reached out and, with the other hand, squeezed my breast, then stopped and made a snuffling noise. His fingers started scrabbling at the neckline of my dress, flickering under the velvet to try and worm their way towards my bare skin as all the time his other hand scratched at my underwear, under the skirt. I pushed him away, a short sharp action, and he fell back against the seat.

‘Mr Baxter!’ I said, thinking how high and stupid my voice sounded, and what a silly thing it was to say, like a heroine in a melodrama.

He was breathing heavily, and his eyes darted around, avoiding mine. He reached for me again, only this time his clammy, horrible hands were under my backside, and he pulled me further down so that I was half-lying with my head against the door, then he lifted my skirt and pushed it up over my hips. I screamed, in indignation more than anything else, but he put his hand over my mouth. I bit him, and I heard the snuffling noise again, as he started nibbling at my ear, my neck, my jaw, with slippery wet movements, and the sound he was making was like the jeering newspaper boy I scurried past outside Hampstead Heath tube every morning: heheheheheheh, heheheheheheh, only very soft.

‘Pretty girl, pretty girl,’ he said, in this soft, high-pitched tone. ‘You’re a very pretty girl. Now you lie still. The driver understands – he won’t stop till we’re finished.’ He smiled at me, a little impatiently. ‘Unzip the dress … unzip the dress …’ Again the snuffling noise, as he licked my ear, juddering against me in excitement. He slid his hands underneath me, undid the zip and pulled the beautiful velvet dress down my shoulders, and I struggled to free my arms. I could see the driver through the glass. Did he drive him around every day, while he did this? He didn’t move. His green cap, clipped hair. And I knew if I screamed he’d take no notice.

Joe Baxter pulled the dress further down, so it was ruched around my middle, the bottom half pulled up to my stomach. My neck felt as if it might snap. He pulled my breasts out of their brassiere, chuckling to himself, then buried his head between them, murmuring. Heheheheh. Heheheheh. It got faster and faster, and he started rocking against me. He took my hand and rubbed it up and down the front of his trousers. I could feel his hard penis. I knew that much, at least; my boyfriend at Central, Richard, and I would kiss for hours the week when I had the good bed in Hampstead, and I knew this was what happened to him after a while. But Richard was a vicar’s son, a sweet gangly boy from Yorkshire. It wasn’t like this with him, this undignified, frightening tussle, in which I didn’t know where I was or who I was.

And so it was the first time then, I suppose, that I realised I had to pretend it was happening to someone else, not me. Eve Noel. Pretend you’re this girl called Eve Noel. The indignity of it was worse than the force, the assumption of rights over my body. He was mounting me, in his own car, and his driver was ignoring us. I didn’t know where we were. I didn’t know where my hotel was, or how I’d get home. As I lay with him above me, looking out of the window at the blurred scenery, I could see palm trees flying past us, and a street light.

He pumped against me, holding my hand against his body, and then he said, ‘It’s time, you pretty little girl. I want to play with you. You’re so beautiful. I won’t hurt you …’

So I acted then. I knew suddenly that I wasn’t going to lose my virginity to him. I wasn’t going to start a baby because I’d been violated in a car by this fat, awful man, because he had power and I didn’t. I pushed him back, in a different way this time. I caressed his neck and pushed my breasts into his gobbling face. ‘Let me do something,’ I said, sitting upright, playing bright and confident, laughing. Rose used to laugh, hiding and then appearing behind the willow tree. ‘Catch me if you can,’ she’d say, and then she’d vanish, her fleet steps taking her further and further away.

I kissed his neck, his oily, stubby neck, watching the palm trees over his shoulder so I didn’t gag. And then I opened his trousers, and did what I used to do with Richard. Only two weeks ago, two weeks and one day in fact. I rubbed him with my hand, pushing my breasts against him rhythmically, until he groaned, spurted his stuff all over: all over me, all over him, all over the buttery leather. And then, God help me, I kissed him on the mouth, and told him how much there was of it, how big he was, and how it scared me. And then I zipped his trousers up as his head lolled forwards and he panted, still making that snuffling noise in his throat.

He patted my head after his breath was back. Squeezed my breasts again. But I knew he wouldn’t be able to do it again, not for a while. He was old. I was young, I look back now and smile to think how extremely young I was. I wiggled myself back into my brassiere, slid the beautiful dress over my arms and shoulders again. I moved towards him. ‘Mr Baxter,’ I said, in a sweet, little-girl voice. ‘Could you zip me up again now?’

I gave a little giggle. And he did too, girlish and funny, as if we’d just enjoyed a picnic in the woods, not a rape.

‘You know some tricks, don’t you, Eve?’ he said. He zipped me up, and kissed the top of my neck. I held still. Now it was over, now he’d zipped me up, I felt sick. His hand stroked my thigh again. ‘Pretty girl, but you’re a clever girl too, aren’t you?’

‘Just like Helen of Troy, Mr Featherstone says,’ I said in my best cut-glass English accent.

‘Very good,’ he said. ‘Very good.’ He stared at me. ‘You’re beautiful. He’s right.’ He ran his fingers over my forehead, and I tried not to flinch, hating him, hating myself.

‘But I think you’d look better with a widow’s peak. Change the hairline. Moss is right. He’s always right, goddammit, the son of a bitch. I’ll speak to Tyrone at the studio – he’s the master. Smile?’

I smiled, automatically, too shocked to know what else to do. He was panting still, as if trying to regain his breath. ‘Yes,’ he said softly. ‘The teeth, maybe the nose. But it’s fine. I’ve seen worse. I’ve seen much worse. Well done. We’ll arrive shortly. I tell you, I could use another drink.’

He gave another snuffling laugh and patted my thigh with his clammy hand. He didn’t seem unduly pleased with himself, or to think that he’d done anything wrong or marvellous. It was, I realised, purely transactional. In a way that made me hate him even more.

On the door of the Rolls was a tiny silver vase, fixed into the walnut, with a spray of roses in it. Mr Baxter took a single stem out and gave it to me. It was a white rose, beginning to bloom, its waxy petals slowly unfurling, glowing in the dark of the car like something ghostly.

‘This is for you,’ he said.

I took it and smiled at him, and put the rose in the buttonhole of my cape. I could smell its rich, heady scent. I knew that by accepting it I was accepting something bigger. I knew I shouldn’t but I did. I went along with it because I was desperate for the part, and I realised it then. I wanted to act, that’s all I’d ever wanted to do. But I know now I did it because my survival instinct is strong. Over the years, I convinced myself it was because I wanted to act. And so it became acceptable for me to do things that I’d never have done before, because I told myself I wanted to act. It came out of this night, the warm night that I met Don Matthews and he gave me an avocado; my first Hollywood party, the night I ended up in the back of a car with bruise marks on my thighs and scratches and an angry red rash from his stubble on my breasts, marks I ignored as I’d ignored the indignity of the situation and got myself through it. It was the beginning of everything, and the end of something too.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE CAR WINDS through the dusty, shrubby hills, into Mulholland Drive, and begins its twisting final ascent towards Casa Benita. I’m staring out of the window, at nothing really, and so I jump when Denis, the security guard, taps on the glass and waves.

‘Hi, Sophie, that was quick! You’re back so soon!’

I wave at him, but don’t correct him. Denis is not as young as he once was. He was a doorman at Caesar’s Palace in the seventies. He’s seen a lot; I like to think of this job as his reward in later years for services to excessive celebrity behaviour. My life’s pretty boring: he just has to sit at the gate doing his crosswords and wave through packages and the occasional sushi takeout. No wrestling Frank Sinatra to the floor or mopping up Elvis’s girlfriend’s vomit.

As we pull up in front of the house Tina lopes onto the terrace. She is tall but her shoulders droop; the afternoon light catches her dark hair.

‘Hi, Sophie,’ she says as she opens the car door. ‘How’re you doing?’

‘I’m good, thanks,’ I say, hopping out. I stretch, looking up at the bougainvilleas and jasmine scrambling along the walls in a riot of purple and white. When I first came here to look around, all I knew was that it was Eve Noel’s old house. I didn’t expect to fall in love with it. The realtor stood by my side, like a cat ready to pounce, as I gazed round at the light, airy rooms.

‘If you knocked it down,’ she told me excitedly, ‘you could really build something beautiful here. I mean that hydrangea –’ she gestured out at the wall beside the pool, where white flowers and green foliage smothered the whitewash – ‘it’s been here like half a century.’

‘Why would you knock it down?’

She looked at me like I was crazy. ‘It’s old,’ she said.

‘That’s why I like it,’ I told her.

‘Isn’t it a beautiful day?’ I ask Tina now.

‘They say there’s a storm coming,’ she says sadly. Tina is not a positive person.

T.J. heaves out the box of scripts. ‘Can you put those in my office, T.J.?’ I look at Tina. ‘How are you?’

‘Good, good,’ Tina mumbles. Her lips are like hard chipolatas. I don’t know whether to offer to pay for it to be sorted out; I know a surgeon who could do it, but maybe she loves those lips, thinks they make her look like Nicole Kidman or something. She says awkwardly, ‘Carmen said to tell you she has lunch ready – you’re on week two of the diet already.’

‘OK, great.’ I take my sunglasses off and head into the sunny hall which smells of grapefruit, the floorboards gleaming in the midday glow. I breathe in. I love coming home. No matter how stupid the day, how cruel some studio exec has been, how spiteful some TV report about me is, being back here always makes things better. I control this environment and I feel safe here.

I decide to start on some of the scripts now: I’m so hungry, but if I hold out a while longer the lunch will go even further, though already I feel kind of faint. I’m glad I don’t have any interviews coming up. You have to munch down a burger and chips to convince the (female) journalist you love food and you’re just naturally this thin. I hate it. I wish I could just say once when someone asks, ‘Candice, no one’s naturally this thin, for fuck’s sake! I’m this thin because I eat bloody nothing!’ I know a famous actress, an A-lister, who wanted a baby but was so terrified of putting on weight that someone else had the baby for her and she wore an expanding prosthetic belly for four, five months. I don’t know how we got like this, but it’s wrong, isn’t it?

Tina follows me into my office as I sit down in the swivel chair and swirl around – I like the swivel chair for that very reason. I touch my fingers together, like when I was young and used to practise being a newsreader.

‘Any messages?’

Tina starts and frowns, glaring at her BlackBerry. A vein pulses on one caramel-coloured temple. ‘OK, well, while I remember, Sophie, Kerry from Artie’s office called about finalising the time for you to meet up with Patrick Drew. They’re thinking coffee, in a cool place in West Hollywood. He’s on board.’

‘Fine,’ I say, without any enthusiasm. I’m sure he’s going to be a massive douche. I wish I didn’t have to bother. Maybe I could get George to come along too? He is the director, after all. The thought of George makes me sit upright – a cool breeze seems to slide over my face and down my neck. George. Mm.

‘There are a couple of additional publicity days next week for The Girlfriend, you remember?’

‘Yep,’ I say. ‘What do I have to do?’

‘Ashley sent over the schedule. You’re in NYC next week, going on The View and maybe Today if we can get it to work. And you’re on Ellen in a couple weeks, I’ve sent the dates to your diary.’

I am twisting round in the chair. ‘Great. You should come then – you love Ellen, don’t you? You could meet her.’

‘OK. Sure.’ Tina looks mortified at my attempt to be friendly. She always does, so I don’t know why I bother, except I hate the fact I work with her and have no other interaction with her apart from conversations about my schedule, my diet, my photo shoots, my security.

The door bangs open and T.J. appears with the box of scripts. ‘Here?’ he says, gesturing to the floor.

‘No, on the desk, please. I’m going to start going through them now.’ I try to sound businesslike.

‘But you hate reading scripts,’ T.J. says. ‘You never look at them.’

‘Thanks, T.J.’ I shake my head and ignore him.

‘Do you have anything on tonight?’ Tina asks me.

I’m waiting for George to call. ‘I’m not sure … I might slob out in the den. There’s an Eve Noel season. Lanterns Over Mandalay’s on TNT tonight.’

‘Oh. Haven’t you seen all her films like a million times?’ asks Tina with a shy smile.

‘I don’t care,’ I say. ‘It makes me happy.’ It’s true, it does, even when I’m sitting there sobbing my heart out at the end of A Girl Named Rose or Triumph and Tragedy, which is a strange film, and Eve Noel herself is strange in it. It’s about a nurse who keeps having visions. I think they were trying to replicate the success of A Girl Named Rose but it didn’t work. It was a big flop. She disappeared afterwards, left this very house and no one knows where she went.

The thought still makes me shiver. I look up at Tina, a wave of longing for something washing over me. Lolling on a couch having silly chats and eating cheesy snacks, dissing programmes on TV – all things I don’t have any more. ‘You should stay over, watch them with me. You’d love A Girl Named Rose.’

‘I – well, I have to – sure, Sophie. Maybe.’

I say, embarrassed, ‘Or … whatever. Of course. So, anything else?’

She hesitates. ‘In fact … there’s two more things. I need to talk to you.’

‘What’s up?’

‘I’ll – no, I’ll ask you about it later.’

I put my elbows on the table. ‘I might be out later, I don’t know. Talk to me now.’

Tina puts her BlackBerry in her back pocket and twists her long, slim fingers together. ‘I need to have some time off. It’s not in my contract. You can – um, I’m gonna need two months.’

‘Two months? Why?’

She flushes and looks furiously at her hands. ‘I – medical reasons.’

I follow her gaze. She bites her nails; it’s the first time I’ve noticed. ‘Are you OK, Tina?’

‘Sure. I’m fine.’ She stares at me defiantly, her dark eyes flashing. I realise she’s quite beautiful; like the nails, I never noticed before. She always looks so downbeat, and those terrible lips … Suddenly it makes sense.

‘Are you having your lips done?’ I ask, and immediately wish I hadn’t. Tina is an unknown quantity. She worked for Byron Bay, the big action star, for several years before me and I think he was such a basket case she wanted a change. She’s been here for three years, but apart from the fact that she has a mom in Vegas and she once got an infected finger from a cactus prick, I know nothing about her. I’ve asked, believe me. I’m nosy, and a little bit lonely, plus there’s something about her I really like. She’s kind of loopy, but cool. But there’s some stuff you just shouldn’t ask. I’ve lost a level of appropriateness, living in my bubble.

‘I’d rather not say,’ Tina tells me firmly.

‘I’m sorry. Tina, I shouldn’t have asked.’ A wash of mortification floods over me. ‘It’s none of my business. Two months is fine – I guess we’ll have to find someone to cover you, and—’

‘I’ve already spoken to Kerry at WAM about it,’ she says. ‘In preparation. She’s talking to Artie and Tommy and I’ve contacted the agency who covered me last time. You liked that girl Janelle, didn’t you?’

‘Sure … sure …’ I’m looking at her now, wishing there was something else I could say, some way to cross the gulf between us. ‘She wasn’t as good as you, of course not, but – thanks, so …’ I sound so over-keen, it’s tragic. It’s like a scene from He’s Just Not That Into You.

‘I’ll leave you now.’ She takes a big breath and her pink tongue runs over her swollen lips. ‘Um, hey. Just one more thing. Deena’s arrived.’

My mind is still turning over the conversation, and it takes a moment before I catch up. ‘What?’

‘I warned you earlier, Sophie …’ Tina looks like she’s about to burst into tears. I wave my hand at her.

‘I know, I know. Don’t worry. Oh, jeez. Where is she?’

‘In the guest house. Unpacking. Her pickup is in the garage.’

‘She has a pickup truck?’

Tina gives the slightest suggestion of a smile. ‘It’s got three pairs of mannequin legs in the back.’

With anyone else this would be strange, not Deena. I give a small groan. ‘Listen, can you go across to the guest house and take out the laptop and the projector? Just in case.’

‘Sure,’ says Tina. ‘I’ll – leave you then.’

She closes the door and I stare at the pile of scripts but my eyes dart towards the window, in case Deena’s peering in, watching. My ghoulish godmother is here. When Mum was in London in the seventies, during her brief bid for fame as an actress, Deena was her best friend. They did everything together. Deena was always the star; my mother was dazzled by her, and still is. In the early eighties Deena moved to LA for a part in a TV soap and for a while she was doing well – Mum could boast to people she met in Woolworth’s that she knew someone in Laurel Canyon, and that she might have a guest role in next season’s Dynasty – but then she turned thirty-five and it all sort of petered out, like it does for hundreds of women here every year.

But I don’t trust her and I don’t think she’s a good influence, either. Mum behaves like a Bunny Girl when they’re together, wiggling and giggling and batting her eyelashes at everyone, and telling anyone who’ll listen that they used to ‘rule London in the seventies’. Those were her glory days, she’s always telling me. They can’t have been that glorious though. I mean, she ended up moving to the middle of nowhere and becoming the wife of a man who runs garages in the Gloucester area.

Still, Deena’s my godmother. I can’t let her sleep on the streets, can I, but I wish she wasn’t here. My shoulders slump childishly as Tina shuts the door, and I’m left alone gazing around my office at the markers of my career: the MTV movie award for Best Kiss, the magazine covers with my face on, the poster for A Cake-Shaped Mistake from Italy that looks a bloody piece of human tissue and not a wedding cake. I pull out the box of scripts, open page one of Love Me, Love My Pooch, and start to read.

CHAPTER FIVE

HALF AN HOUR later I put Love Me, Love My Pooch down and gaze around the room. I wish I had a cigarette. Or a gun. I pick some gum out of a drawer and chew three sticks in one go. Love Me, Love My Pooch is shit. Perhaps I’ve been blind all these years, just happily saying what people told me to say, but this is a new low. Sample extract:

Int. House.

SEAN IS TALKING ON THE PHONE.

SEAN (chuckling into phone):

Yeah, she’s a bitch. And those puppies of hers … man, they are cute!

MEGAN IS COMING IN FROM OUTSIDE. SHE HEARS SEAN TALKING. SHE IS DISGUSTED.

MEGAN (in hallway, standing holding mittens in hand, mouth wide open):

What kind of man am I dating! A man who calls women bitches and talks about their puppies?

SHE WALKS INTO THE KITCHEN AND TAKES HER COAT OFF. SHE BENDS OVER SEAN.

MEGAN:

I hate you, Sean Flynn! Get out of my life! You’ll never see these puppies again!

SHE SQUEEZES HER BREASTS IN HIS FACE AND LEAVES.

I keep thinking, Oh, no, this is so bad, there’ll be some pay-off, it’s setting itself up for a secondary joke, it’s not totally this one-note and crass and shit. But I’m wrong. This is the movie Artie thinks is going to take me ‘Sandy–Jen big’. Well, if Cameron and Carey Mulligan really are dying to do it, which I doubt, they’re welcome to it. No way. No freaking WAY.

Carmen brings me my lunch in the end and I spend the afternoon going methodically through the rest of the pile. Boy Meets Girl is about a boy who meets a girl. Yep, you guessed it. She seems really sweet at first but then turns out to have a wedding album full of pictures of dresses she wants, and flower arrangements, so by accident he sleeps with a stripper. From Russia with Lust is an American Pie style frat-comedy: a cute local prosecutor marries a girl he has a whirlwind romance with and she turns out to be a Russian prostitute! Pat Me Down is about a waitress who falls in love with a bodyguard after he strip-searches her at a nightclub and she takes secret stripping classes as a fun thing to do with all her girlfriends! Because being a stripper is every little girl’s dream, isn’t it? Then there’s Bride Wars 2 – seriously, who thought that was a good idea? Did they not see Bride Wars?

Not one of these girls has anything to say about anything other than boys, weddings, clothes and shoes. I mean, I like all those things, but is that all there is?

I scuff at the carpet and my toes kick something by accident. It’s the Eve Noel biography which has slid out of my bag. I frown as I remember Artie’s reaction. I know when Artie’s playing me, and most of the time I just go along with it, because I trust him and I want an easy life. But I want to make that film about her. Or rather, I want to find out what happened to her.

I Google her again – “Eve Noel where is she now”, “Eve Noel disappearance”, “Eve Noel living in England” – but I get the same results I always do whenever I cunningly use my wiles to track her down, i.e. Google her. The same old stuff. A review of the biography, which in itself doesn’t have any answers, it’s really just a retelling of what we know anyway, but even so it’s a good story. The only actual hard facts it has are that all her residuals and any monies from films are paid into a bank account by her agents in London, and they have no contact details for her, or none that they’ll say. An article in the Sunday Telegraph last year about her films, which tails off at the end and asserts, kind of limply, ‘She now lives anonymously out of the spotlight’ – yeah, thanks, crappy journalist, good one. An advertisement for a British Film Institute retrospective which says, ‘It is a mystery that Eve Noel’s whereabouts are not a greater mystery. One of the UK’s most successful and talented post-war stars, she must surely know some of the esteem in which she is now held. Yet she chooses, for whatever reasons, to remain out of the public eye. A salutary lesson for many of today’s young actresses.’ The rest of the results are stupid blog references or DVDs on eBay or people talking in discussion threads about her. The Internet is useless when you actually need to find something important. Perhaps she’s dead? Her husband’s dead, but she must have had some family? Well, maybe I should actually do some proper research. Like, call her agency and get them to give me her address. I bet they have it. I email Tina.

Can you track down Eve Noel’s British agents and say I’m interested in talking to her?

Won’t work but can do no harm, I reason, and I go back to my pile, flicking through to find something I might vaguely like. I’m relieved when I get to the bottom and see My Second-Best Bed, the Shakespeare script which I’d sort of been subconsciously hoping would be something special. As I start to read it I’m practically crossing my fingers.

And it’s no good which somehow makes me angrier than ever, because out of all of these scripts this one could be great. The girl working at Anne Hathaway’s house is OK, actually quite cool. She’s a nice character, a bit chippy, funny. Even the bits in the past aren’t too wacky, to start with – she hits her head on a low beam and passes out, and when she wakes up she’s the younger Anne Hathaway meeting Shakespeare and it almost works because you don’t know if it’s a dream or not. But then she and Shakespeare and Elizabeth I – yes, she suddenly turns up – go on a treasure hunt to find this key to take her back to the modern day, and it turns into a weirdly crappy sort of trawl through history. All these historical figures keep appearing, like Jane Austen and Lord Nelson and the ones they didn’t use in Bill & Ted, and it’s ridiculous. In the end you sort of wonder if it’s a piss-take.

It annoys me, because like I say it could be really good. Some of the scenes have a special sharp, cool charm, and I want to keep reading, no matter how ridiculous it gets. It’d be easy to whip into shape – if I had my own production company or some people on my side I’d get them to work with the girl who wrote it. But I don’t and I can’t take it back to Artie; it needs to be straight out of the ballpark good, this one.

Idly I look at the title page, wondering if there’s an email address for the writer or her agent.

My Second-Best Bed

Tammy Gutenberg

I sit up straight. I know Tammy. Maybe it’s because seeing Sara and thinking about those Venice Beach days is fresh in my head but it comes to me right away this time. She used to hang out at Jimmy Samba’s; she got a job at Castle Rock, I think, and moved on from that scene before I did. She was half English: her mother was from Bristol and she knew some of the places I knew. It’s a sign, I’m sure it is. Well. I type her an email, which I send to Tina to pass on, asking if we can have coffee some time to talk about it. I don’t know what good it’ll do but it’s a start. I’ve done something, at least.

My neck hurts, my shoulders are stiff. I look up to see it’s nearly seven. There’s a framed photo of Bette Davis in All About Eve I’ve had hung on the wall next to the clock. No one ever sent Bette Davis a script called From Russia with Lust. I think for a moment. Fatigue, adrenalin and excitement mingle in my stomach, making my blood pump faster round my body. I pick up the phone and dial a number I’m ashamed to say I’ve learned by heart.

A deep, gruff voice answers, smoky with promise. ‘Hello?’

‘Hi, George – it’s me.’

‘You? Hey, you. How are you?’

‘I’m good.’ I wriggle in my chair, pleased. Last week when I rang him he thought I was his sister. She’s fifty-five and lives in Wisconsin; I remember everything about him.

‘What you up to, honey?’

‘Oh.’ I don’t know what to say. ‘Just hanging out. Had the meeting with Artie.’

‘Good, good,’ George says. ‘He tell you how good you’re gonna be in The Bachelorette Party? How hot you are? How tight your smooth little buns are, honey? Did he tell you that?’

I laugh. ‘No, he didn’t.’

‘Well, he’s a fucking idiot,’ George says. ‘Tell him I’m taking that deal away from him and going to Paramount. What else?’

‘Artie gave me a load of scripts for my next project, and they’re kind of crap. I don’t know, I want to—’

‘Show ’em to me,’ George interrupts smoothly. ‘He should know what to put in front of you. He shouldn’t be wasting your time with stupid art-house shit and sci-fi. He doing that to you?’

‘No, the other way round,’ I say. ‘It’s … Oh, never mind.’

‘We’ll get it sorted out.’ There’s a noise in the background, voices, an echoing sound, maybe splashing from a pool. George’s voice gets closer to the phone. ‘Listen, now’s not a great time, sweetie. Listen to me. I have to fuck you today, honey, otherwise I’ll lose my mind. Come over, later.’

I’m knackered, I realise. ‘Well …’

He lowers his voice even further. ‘I want to show you something, Sophie babe.’

‘Really?’

‘What we shot last night. I want you to see it. I want you to see how hot you are. There’s one shot I got of you – mm.’ His soft, low voice rasps gently into the phone. I press myself against the leather chair, mad for him. ‘Can you bring some different clothes? You got any babydoll nighties, that kinda thing?’

‘Honey, what I’ve got’ll blow your mind,’ I say softly into the phone. I can hear him breathing. ‘I’ll come by this evening?’

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Around eleven, eleven-thirty? I have to have dinner before with some friends.’

‘Oh – OK,’ I say.

He says slowly, deliberately, ‘Will you be ready for me?’

‘Yes,’ I whisper. ‘Yes … I will.’

He puts the phone down. I uncurl myself from the chair and stand up. I realise I’m flushed, and my heart is pounding. I’ve never been with anyone like George before. He is like a drug. It’s a cliché but it’s true. He’s so powerful; it oozes out of him, and he knows it. He’s not a megalomaniac, he’s just … intense. When you’re with him you know he’s in control and he’s so used to being in control you’ll let anything happen.

I mustn’t let him bite my tit again though. That fucking hurt. I don’t care if it was hot on film or not. And that stupid girl bashing into my boob – humph. Sara. I open the bottom drawer to put the script of My Second-Best Bed away until I hear back from Tammy, and see a bag of Goldfish crackers I’d stowed for a day like today. I’m sick of doing what someone else says all the time. I tear open the bag and munch, and when the other scripts cascade to the floor I pay no attention. I close my eyes, imagining the night ahead. It’s good to be bad sometimes.

CHAPTER SIX

UP IN MY white bedroom, I take off my clothes and stand naked in front of the mirror. I turn around slowly, appraising myself. I hate this part so much but it’s my job, this delicate balancing act. You can’t have any fat on you, yet you don’t want to end up like Nicole Richie. It’s not a good look for a bona fide A-Lister being scary-thin – unless you’re Angelina, but Angelina’s a basket case. I turn slowly. My butt is still high, and firm. When I turned thirty a couple of months ago, Tommy suggested I get it lifted before it needs to be, but I told him to fuck off in such definite terms I don’t think he’ll mention it again. My tits are good – I wish they were bigger, but bigger means you’re fatter and so far I’ve had no complaints. Tommy’s suggested having a tiny lift in a year or so. He says it just makes the job easier later on. I cup them in my hands, thinking about tonight, wondering what George will make me do, what I’ll do to him. I shiver with anticipation and smile at myself in the long mirror, shaking my head at my stupidity; but it’s so good to have someone to go and be this person with, someone who understands, and he does.

And then a shadow on the bed reflected in the mirror catches my eye.

At first I think it’s just a crease in the sheet, but when I turn around and walk towards the bed, I realise it’s not. It’s a rose. A perfect, white, single rose. There’s the faintest hint of cream in the soft buttery petals, and when I pick it up I cry out, sharply, because it has thorns. It smells delicious.

I suck my thumb and look towards the window, almost expecting to see a face there, but this side of the house looks directly over the hills and the road and they’d have to be suspended 30 feet above the road to get a good look in. I pull on some sweatpants and a top, hurriedly peering into the bathroom, then into my closet, but there’s no one. A hair on my neck itches, as if there’s something else there.

So I tell myself I’m overreacting. It was probably delivered to me and left here by Tina. Or maybe Deena stole it from somewhere and left it as a present. There’ve been guys in and out of the house all day, fixing the TV, steaming the carpets. Probably some loser trying to make a joke.

Why do white roses ring a bell though? There’s something about them that makes a knot tighten in my stomach. I can’t put my finger on why. I stand there for a moment trying to remember, then suddenly I pick up the rose and throw it out of the window. It loops awkwardly in the air and disappears. It will land on the road below me and be crushed by a car and it’s nothing – I’m being stupid. I go downstairs, to try and find something to eat.

Carmen is clearing up, polishing the wood. ‘Carmen,’ I say. ‘Did someone leave a rose for me on my bed?’

She frowns. ‘What?’

‘A rose. Single stem.’ I sound insane; I wish I hadn’t thrown it away.

Carmen gives me a curious look. She shrugs. ‘No, Sophie, I have not seen a rose. No roses here.’

‘Where’s Tina?’

A slight spasm crosses Carmen’s face. ‘She on the phone outside.’

Tina is standing by the pool whispering urgently into her cellphone. I clear my throat and she jumps, automatically putting her spare hand on her head, like she’s been busted in a police raid.

‘Oh! Sophie. Hi there!’ She kind of bellows this at me. ‘Are you OK? Do you need something?’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.’ I feel stupid, even asking. ‘Er – did you put a rose in my room?’ I say.

She looks understandably confused at this question, though her rigid forehead remains immobile. ‘Uh – no, I didn’t, Sophie—’

She must think I’m going mad today. ‘Not you personally,’ I say impatiently. ‘I mean did someone ask you to or did they drop it off there? I was just in there. There was a white rose on my bed.’

‘I don’t know,’ says Tina. She narrows her eyes and then clears her throat. ‘Do you think someone was in the house?’

When she says it like that, it sounds kind of sinister, and I don’t want to hear it. ‘I’m sure not,’ I say. ‘I bet there’s a perfectly simple explanation.’

‘Sure,’ Tina says. ‘Let me just call Denis.’ She dials the gatehouse. ‘Denis, can you read me the list of who’s been checked in today? Uh-uh … sure. Sure.’

She ends her call. ‘You, well, you and T.J., the carpet guys, Juan was here in the garden, me, Carmen. The Mulberry guy but he didn’t come inside. A FedEx guy, ditto. We can go back to the carpet company too, see who came in, ask them if they left it. OK?’ She sounds calm. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing.’

‘Thanks.’ I believe her. It could be any one of several things. There’s something about Tina – she is totally capable and calm dealing with my shit. I know I can totally trust her. Yet anything to do with herself is a different matter. I chew the inside of my cheek. ‘Look – Tina, I’m sorry about before,’ I say, edging towards her. She looks suspicious. ‘About you taking time off. It’s just two months is a long time, and I wanted to make sure – you are OK, aren’t you?’

She shoves her phone in her pocket and scratches her face. ‘Of course I’m OK. I just don’t want to talk about it much.’

‘Right,’ I say, and then fall silent.

‘You are right. It is a surgical procedure,’ she says eventually. ‘It’s my lips. Yeah.’ She’s looking at the pool and I’m looking up at the sky, both pretending this is a normal conversation. ‘I was stupid. I got fillers from some quack doctor years ago. He screwed them up and I haven’t been able to get them fixed.’

‘Why?’ I say. ‘Couldn’t you sue him?’

She smiles. ‘That costs money. I don’t have money. I wasn’t properly insured when I did it and it’s kind of impossible to fix unless you totally know what you’re doing. I’ve finally found someone on my insurance who’ll try and take some of the fillers out but it takes a few weeks to remove them. The surgeon’s in Vegas, so I’m going to stay with Mom …’

‘You should have asked me,’ I say. ‘I’d have helped you.’

‘Helped me take them out yourself?’ she says, with a glimpse of mordant humour. ‘Right. No, I need to …’ Tina looks across at the pool again, out to the city sprawled below us. ‘Some guy at a seminar told me if I got them done then I’d get more jobs, and I listened to him. Biggest mistake of my life.’ Her eyes fill with tears.

My heart aches for her. ‘So … you were an actress?’

She takes a tissue out of a pack and delicately wipes her nose. ‘A model.’ She adds, with a rush of bravado, ‘In fact I was Miss Nevada 1998.’

‘No way!’

‘Uh-huh.’ She’s smiling. ‘They said I’d be a star, but I didn’t want that. All I ever wanted to do was be a Victoria’s Secret Angel. I loved those girls.’

‘Wow.’ I am amazed at how people give themselves up to you all in one go. ‘I never knew that, Tina. You’re beautiful. You should have—’

‘It’s a long time ago. And it didn’t work out, did it.’ Her shoulders slope again and she adds, with something more like her normal tone, ‘I came to LA, so sure I was going to be a star, you know?’ I nod. ‘But nothing was really happening, and a year later I had this done. It ruined everything, I was broke and ugly. No one wanted me. That’s when I started working for Byron.’

‘Is that what you really wanted? To be famous?’ I am fascinated at the idea of this new Tina, the gorgeous young beauty queen and the awkward, withdrawn woman she is now.

She hesitates. ‘It was all I ever wanted. Then. Of course, now it’s different.’

‘What do you want now?’

‘Now – you know what I want now?’ I shake my head. I literally have no idea. ‘I want a nice house, near the ocean. A good guy, a couple of kids, a normal life. And I want to stay working for you so I don’t leave that world behind, because I love it. That’s really all.’ My expression must be incredulous, as she laughs and says, ‘I like working for you, Sophie. You’re doing so well but you’re easy to get along with – you’re talented, and you’re not crazy. You need someone to look out for you. And forgive me, but you’re kind of naive about some stuff in this town.’

This is completely fascinating. ‘What stuff?’

But before she can answer, a husky voice calls from around a corner.

‘Hey, doll.’

We both jump as a thin shadow falls on the ground, advancing towards us.

‘All right, Tina. Hi. Sophie. Wow. The gang’s all here, yeah?’

I blink, sunspots dancing in front of my eyes.

‘Hi, Deena.’ I kiss her, inhaling the familiar scent of cigarettes, sweat and Giorgio Beverly Hills. ‘You got everything you need over there?’

‘Yeah. Nice painting in the bedroom. Is it new?’

‘Yes,’ I say shortly.

‘Cool. Cool. I like its vibe. It’s all good. Listen, kiddo. Just wanted to say thanks, OK? Thanks for having me. Damn air con. It broke and then the water tank went and the whole house was flooded.’

‘I thought it was—’ I begin, then stop. What happened to the roaches? Tina glances at me, and looks at the floor. ‘Hey. No problem. Stay as long as you want.’

Damn. As soon as the words are said I wish I could reach out and cram them back in my mouth. ‘Hey, nice one, kiddo,’ says Deena. ‘We gotta look out for each other, haven’t we?’ She tips the imaginary brim of a hat to me. ‘Listen, there’s no kettle in the guest house.’

‘Kettle?’ Tina frowns.

‘You guys don’t do kettles. It’s fine. Just wondering if you could put one in there for me.’

Bloody cheek. I sigh and look at Tina. ‘Er …’

‘I’ll talk to Carmen on my way out.’ Tina nods at me. ‘So – I’m off now. I’ll see you tomorrow. You have everything you need?’

I nod, trying to meet her gaze, but she’s already halfway down the drive. ‘See you tomorrow. Thanks again.’

‘Odd gal,’ Deena says, after Tina’s vanished. ‘So how’s tricks? You’re on fire, en fuego, at the moment, huh? Everything lining up for little Sophie Sykes!’ She gives me a big wink. ‘Hey, sorry! Sophie Leigh.’

She says this like she’s revealing a massive secret about me, like I was born and raised as a boy, when in fact you can see my name’s Sophie Sykes if you go on IMDb. It’s not even an interesting story: Mum made me change it when I was sixteen because she said Sykes was too common, much to my poor dad’s resigned amusement.

I’m trying to think of the right answer to this when Carmen appears at the French doors. ‘Sophie. I got your dinner here. You want it outside?’ She looks at Deena. ‘Ma’am, can I get you anything?’

Deena runs a finger thoughtfully over her teeth. ‘Hm. I don’t know. What you got?’

‘Anything,’ says Carmen. ‘What you want?’

‘You got some ham?’

Carmen folds her arms. Her brows lower into one bristling black line. ‘Sure. I got some ham.’

‘Can I get a ham sandwich? With … some chips on the side. And some guacamole. Can I get that?’

Carmen says briskly, ‘Sure. No problem.’

She’s just retreating inside when Deena adds hopefully, ‘And a beer?’

‘You want Peroni, Budvar, Tiger? We got—’

‘That’s fine, just bring her anything,’ I say. ‘And thank you, Carmen. Listen to me, Deena.’ I move inside through the French doors, motioning her to follow me. ‘It’s fine for you to stay. But I might be having someone from the UK over in a couple of weeks, so …’ I scratch my head, searching for a name, any name. ‘My friend … Donna? My friend Donna’s coming to stay, yeah, probably in July? Just so you know.’

Deena takes a Zippo lighter out from a pocket in her impossibly tight jeans and starts flicking it on and off. ‘Listen, kiddo, I don’t wanna outstay my welcome. I said two weeks, I meant two weeks. I’m busy, you know. I’ve got a lot of stuff on. It’s just while they’re …’ She falters, and I feel like a total bitch. ‘While they’re fixing the drains.’

‘Of course.’

She moves a little closer. She’s always looked the same, Marlboro Man’s girlfriend: jeans, silk shirts, tasselled suede jackets. I see the flecks of brown in her hazel irises, the shadows under her eyes as her gaze meets mine, but then she swallows and says, ‘Yeah, like I say, I’m busy. Got a TV pilot I’m auditioning for next week, did your ma tell you?’

‘I haven’t spoken to her in a while.’

‘Hm, I know, she said.’ Deena’s still flicking the lighter. ‘She calls me when she can’t get through to you, you know that? You should call her.’

I change the subject back. ‘That’s cool, what’s the pilot?’

‘Oh, it’s about this chick who lives down in New Mexico and … has a lot of fun.’ She smiles enigmatically. ‘And I’m working with a European director on a couple of projects. Made an advert for German TV a few months ago. It’s all good.’

I would love to follow Deena one day. Just see what she gets up to, how she makes a living. Whether she’s totally feral when no one’s watching, living out on the hills and heading into the city to feed off scraps from restaurant bins. Her last entry on IMDb is 2004, some straight-to-DVD thriller. But she always tells Mum she’s shooting a new pilot, or working with a European director. I am sure ‘European director’ is code for something.

Carmen brings in my tray of food. I make a vague gesture to Deena but she shakes her head. ‘No, thanks. I’m gonna grab my sandwich and go. Got to see a guy about a fido, you know?’ She slings her battered old leather satchel over her shoulder. ‘See you later, kiddo. Thanks again.’

‘No problem.’

She’s halfway out the door when she hesitates, turns round and adds, ‘Hey. We should talk while I’m here. I’ve got a few ideas I wanted to run past you. Really good ideas. Maybe you could get me a meeting with … with some people.’

Everyone wants something off you, that’s the deal. I realised it when a camera boom hit me in the face while I was filming Sweet Caroline and the triage nurse at Cedars-Sinai gave me her head shot while blood was pouring from my scalp. It’s money. All to do with money, whether they’re aware of it or not. So I nod and I say, ‘Sure. We’ll talk soon. Bye, Deena,’ and wave politely, as she strolls out of the room.

Carmen is setting up the tray as I settle back into the La-Z-Boy recliner. There are fresh copies of Us Weekly and People on the coffee table – I reach for the former, then put it back with a sigh, knowing it’s for the best: it annoys me when I’m not in it, and it annoys me when I am. There was a time when I used to Google myself. I even had my own sign-in on a forum devoted to ‘Sophie Leigh Rocks!’ But I had to stop. Even the ones who like you still say things like:

I think Sophie’s hair needs extensions or filling out, it’s really thin/rank lol

Why isn’t she on Twitter? Why does she think she’s better than us? Won’t she give back to her fans who <3 her n made her what she is?

I fucking hate her. Liked the 1st film and now it’s like oh my fucking god how many times can one person play a dumb bitch. That cutesy act makes me want to barf.

And this particular highlight from a ‘fan site’:

Who does she think she is? She acts all smiley and perky and she’s NOTHING. Mate of mine knew mate of hers on South Street and said she was a fat slag who reckoned herself, had no talent and f*cked her way to Hollywood. Apparently she gave head to anyone who’d ask. Also her breath stank because of how much head she was giving. Gross.

Nice, isn’t it!

I switch on the TV. TMZ is on. They’re standing around talking about Patrick Drew. He was filmed coming out of a club in West Hollywood, his arm around some girl. She’s supporting him. He sticks his finger up at the paps, and then he’s pushed into a car by some entourage member. He is beautiful, it’s true.

‘Car crash,’ says Harvey, the TMZ head guy, who’s always behind the desk leading the stories. ‘That’s a night out with Patrick Drew.’

‘What about Sophie Leigh?’ one of the acolytes says. ‘He’s filming with her next. Maybe that’ll do him good.’

‘Sophie Leigh?’ Harvey says. ‘She’s too stupid even for Patrick Drew.’ They laugh. ‘How snoozefest is that movie gonna be? Him crashing into walls on his skateboard, her smiling from under her bangs in some titty top, following him round, saying, “I LOST MY RING!”’ They all join in and collapse with laughter. ‘“Oh, here it is, Patrick!”’ Harvey mimes a ring down an imaginary cleavage. ‘“Oh, it’s here, here are my tits, look at my tits!” Then an argument with a mom or a wedding planner, yadda yadda yadda. GET ANOTHER HAIRCUT, LADY! BOR-ING.’

‘I liked one of her movies,’ says a girl behind another desk, taking a sip of her coffee. ‘The one in LA. What was it called?’

‘You’re a moron,’ says Harvey cheerfully. ‘Seriously, these people. Patrick Drew doesn’t give a damn so at least you give him props for that. But Sophie Leigh – oh, man, I hate that girl! She’s so fucking fake and smiley and you know she’s going through the motions for the cash. “Hey, honey. Put this tight top on so the guys can stare at your tits. Now smile, now say this pile of shit dialogue and put on a wedding dress the girls like, repeat every year till your tits reach your knees and everyone’s died of total boredom …”’ He looks up. ‘She’s probably watching this now. Hey, Sophie! Your films suck! Message from me to you: I LOST MY WILL TO LIVE!!’

His voice is deadpan. The others are laughing hysterically. I switch the TV off and lean back in the chair, pretending to smile though no one’s watching. My heart’s beating. My BlackBerry buzzes.

Sorry babe, have to rain check tonight. Keep your tight ass on standby. I’ll need u soon. Hard for u when I think about u. G

Oh. Well. It’s very quiet in here. In my head I list the things I love about my life. I think about the house, my white bedroom with the closet filled with lovely clothes, Carmen’s ceviche, my firm smooth body that the best director in town says he wants, the cache of Mulberry bags I haven’t even looked at yet. I have to count like this; otherwise I’d go mad, and sometimes I wonder if I’m not going a bit mad, and it’s just that everyone else here is too so I haven’t noticed. I wish I had someone to talk to about it, someone I could ring up now and say, ‘Hey, could you come over?’ But there’s no one. Somehow. And that’s my fault.

I shiver, and switch over to TNT. Lanterns Over Mandalay is on. Eve Noel is a nun in the Second World War and she falls in love with an army captain, played by Conrad Joyce, while they’re fleeing the Japanese occupation of the city. Something tragic happened to Conrad Joyce, too, I forget now. He was killed? He died young anyway, then he totally fell off the radar. Hardly anyone remembers him now, but he was just divine. I gaze admiringly at his firm jaw, his sleek form in uniform which is immaculate despite the fact that they’ve just crawled through several miles of mud and barbed wire.

‘Damn it, do you know what you’re getting yourself into?’ Captain Hawkins demands angrily. ‘Diana, you’re a fool if you try to take these people out of here. We can manage it alone, but to attempt the rest – it’s suicide!’

I pull the rug over me, snuggling down so I’m as comfy as I can be and as hidden away as I can make myself. The black-and-white figures on the screen seem to glow in the darkening room. A world I can lose myself in where everything is, like the line says, fine and noble. I stare hard at the screen, sharp tears pricking my eyes.

‘I know, Captain. But I won’t leave them here to die. I simply won’t.’ I’m mouthing along with her, watching her perfect rosebud mouth, the dark, intelligent eyes that hint at something but never quite tell you what their owner is thinking. ‘I’m standing up for something I believe in. I’m trying to do something fine and noble in this awful mess. I’m trying to do something wonderful.’

Where is she? I look around our house, wondering how she came to lose her life here. How maybe I have mislaid mine.

I’ll be around

Hollywood, 1958

EVERYONE WENT TO Romanoff’s. It had started life as a small bistro on the Sunset Strip, run by His Imperial Highness Prince Michael Alexandrovich Dimitri Obolensky ‘Mike’ Romanoff (otherwise known as Harry Gerguson, a small-time crook from Brooklyn). I never did find out where he acquired his knowledge of Russian aristocracy or English country houses – he was able to describe the guest bedrooms at Blenheim Palace in detail to me. Perhaps the library at Sing Sing was particularly well stocked. But despite the fact that he was a crook, and the food was middling to fair at best, everyone went there. When I say everyone, of course I mean stars. By the time I was first taken there, it was well established in Rodeo Drive. Almost two years had elapsed since I came to Hollywood but it was still the place to go and be seen.

One fresh evening in March, Gilbert and I drove there for supper. We were both feeling extremely happy, on top of the world, in fact. We had just that day completed the purchase of a house just off Mulholland Drive called Casa Benita: a sprawling white clapboard bungalow high in the Hollywood Hills, complete with tennis court, swimming pool and suitably impressive views. We had looked at places in Beverly Hills, but I wanted to be able to see the city, not be right in the thick of it.

You were part of the club if Mike waved you into Romanoff’s without a reservation. I had seen him turn away millionaire oil barons, nouveau riche Valley residents, and New York society matrons by the dozen. Aspiring producers, new punk actors, hotshot directors – all were shown the door. Yet Gilbert and Mike were old pals, and at some point Gilbert had obviously helped His Imperial Highness out. Whenever we turned up, there was no problem.

‘Get a table for Mr Travers and Miss Noel. Snap to it, boys. Miss Noel, may I take your coat— Who, those sons of bitches? Fat fucks from Wyoming – get rid of them.’

Gilbert was always in a good mood at Mike’s. His old cronies were there, the rest of the original Rat Pack that had hung around Bogie when he was alive. A lot of people had deserted Gilbert when he came back to Hollywood after the war. It was the way of these things: they called him a hero, but the truth was he’d been out of pictures for five years, was heavier and older and things had changed. The audience had moved on, and Gilbert Travers’s brand of charming English gent wasn’t what American teenagers were looking for. I winced whenever we passed a billboard for Jailhouse Rock. Gilbert hated Elvis, with a passion that was almost violent.

As we sat down at a discreet banquette, an executive from the studio with whom I’d dealt on my last film, The Boy Next Door, passed behind us. ‘Great work on the Life magazine spread, Eve,’ he said. ‘Mr Baxter’s delighted they chose to run the feature about you.’

‘Two White Ladies.’ Gilbert flicked his hand to the waiter. ‘They’re lucky to have her,’ he told the executive. Then he gestured to one of the shots on the wall behind us, me arriving at Romanoff’s after the premiere for Helen of Troy the previous year in my white Grecian goddess gown, gold sandals, gold jewellery, real gold thread in my hair from the Welsh Valleys and spun into a beautiful diadem especially for me, reflecting my mother’s Welsh heritage. (Mummy was a vicar’s daughter from Berkhamsted, but the publicity department never allowed the facts to obscure a good story.) On one side of me stood Cliff Montrose, my co-star, and on the other, his arm around me, Joe Baxter. ‘Look at you, my dear,’ Gilbert said. ‘Many more such nights to come, I’m sure.’

His hand lightly pressed my arm, and I gazed up at him.

When the studio ‘suggested’ we go on a date together, I’d leapt for joy with excitement, but then demurred. It was well known in Hollywood that Gilbert Travers had a drinking problem. Margaret Heyer, his second wife, had left him and gone back to England three years ago; Confidential and Photoplay had still been full of it when I’d arrived here. He was a drunk; he beat her; she’d run out of the house naked, screaming, to be rescued by a zoologist who happened to be down on Wilshire Boulevard – which was a neat coincidence as Margaret Heyer’s latest film was about a young wife who goes to the Congo and falls in love with a zoologist. (The publicity machine at work again; Hollywood wasn’t ever that original in its ideas. Even I’d learned that, by then.)

But I thought about it some more and I felt sorry for him. I couldn’t help it. Gilbert had enlisted the day Great Britain went to war with Germany, had seen his friends killed, had caught dysentery and nearly died, and had come back to Hollywood to find film stars who’d never fought a day in their lives playing war heroes and lapping up the adulation of an admiring public. He never talked about the war to me, and after a few cock-eyed attempts to find out more, which he rebuffed angrily, I never asked him again. I understood, at least I thought I did. We both had secrets, things we weren’t to tell each other, and it was for the best.

The cocktails arrived and Gilbert lit our cigarettes. ‘Well, my dear,’ he said. ‘This is quite a red-letter day. Our house, us together. Are you excited?’

I looked around nervously. If the wrong people found out we were going to be living in sin, even if only for four weeks, it would be the end of my career. I’d laugh, afterwards, at how hypocritical it all was: what actually went on in this city while the proprieties were so slavishly observed. The studio, and Mr Featherstone, had spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars on my image, the perfect English rose. If Louella or Hedda, or some other unfriendly source, should be close by and should overhear, all hell would break lose. ‘Yes, of course, dear,’ I replied. ‘But – do keep your voice down.’

Gilbert clinked his glass against mine, his thin moustache twitching above his lip as he smiled. ‘You’re too concerned with appearances, Eve dear. We’ll be married as soon as the shoot’s over. And anyway, goddammit – you’re a star. They can’t touch you.’ He gulped most of his drink down and put his huge hand on my thigh. ‘Hm?’

‘Miss Noel …’ A photographer appeared, flanked by Mike and one of the doormen. ‘Coupla shots, please?’

‘Of course,’ I said, smiling slightly. One had to be polite to the press, no matter how much the inconvenience. And the story of the quintessential English gentleman actor, once at the top of his game but mentally scarred by war, brought back into love and life again by a young English beauty, star of the highest-grossing picture of 1957 and heroine of every fan magazine, was proving to be addictive to the American public. They lapped us up, Gilbert and me. The studio, and Gilbert’s new agent, fed the magazines and the radio shows a soapy romance about how I’d lured him out of his shell, taught him how to laugh again, and he had protected me, a young shy ingenue, from the bear pit that was Hollywood. It was a little ridiculous, sure, but I rather wanted it to be true, too. My old life – oh, it seemed as if someone else had lived it and then told me about it: a memory acquired elsewhere, not my own. My parents, the house by the river … Rose, her great fits of anger, her death, and my life without her – all solitary, sad, strange – and then my time in London, so much fun and so different again from this life here. Back in England, I had grown up feeling lost without Rose. I was working towards something unattainable. The reward was satisfaction of a job well done. Here, you just had to smile, and people told you how wonderful you were.

Gilbert put his arm around me. I moved against him, hoping he wouldn’t crush the black silk birds that perched on each shoulder of the heavy cream silk dress. We paused for the photograph, holding our cocktail glasses high, heads touching, smiles wide. All of Gilbert’s teeth had been replaced by a zealous MGM in the thirties. Five of mine had been capped, but that was the least of what they’d done to me since I’d been here.

‘Anything to say about the rumours that you guys are headed for the altar?’ The photographer licked a pencil and took out a pad.

‘We couldn’t possibly comment,’ Gilbert said. ‘However, Miss Noel and I greatly enjoy each other’s company.’

‘Gilbert, how does it feel, stepping out with Hollywood’s biggest new star?’

‘She’s just Eve to me,’ Gilbert said. ‘You have to understand, Sid. When we’re together, such considerations aren’t relevant.’ He signalled for another drink.

‘Eve, Eve – what’s next for you?’

I paused, and blinked several times, smiling sweetly as if flattered by the attention; humble. ‘I’m making a wonderful picture, Sid, with Conrad Joyce, which I very much hope the movie-going public will enjoy. Lanterns Over Mandalay. It’s about a nun during the war, and it’s a most powerful story.’

‘She’s going to be absolutely wonderful in it,’ Gilbert said warmly. ‘Just wonderful. Aren’t you, darling?’

‘And Eve, you and white roses – are they still your favourite flower? You’re famous for it!’

My throat tightened; I felt hot, trapped behind the table, fixed to the floor. ‘I—’ I began.

‘No, Sid,’ the doorman said firmly. ‘Three questions. We told ya.’ He grabbed the photojournalist by the scruff of the neck and steered him past the tables and out through the door.

I breathed out. ‘Gosh,’ I said, taking another sip of my cocktail.

Gilbert said nothing, but stubbed a cigarette out viciously into the wide crystal ashtray, then immediately lit another.

‘Darling, what would you like to eat?’ I asked.

No answer.

‘Gilbert—’

‘You could have mentioned Dynasty of Fools,’ Gilbert said. He sucked on his cigarette tartly, his nostrils flaring. ‘I backed you up. You should have done the same for me.’

‘Oh,’ I said, appalled. ‘I’m sorry – darling, I didn’t think.’ I shook my head and tried to slide out of the banquette. ‘I’ll go and tell him how good you are, everyone’s saying so—’

‘Forget it.’ His hand was heavy on my shoulder, pushing me back down. ‘Forget it. You couldn’t be bothered to remember then so what’s the point now?’ There was a ripping sound. ‘Oh, this damned fool dress.’

I looked in agony at the little black silk bird on my shoulder, torn and dangling, its beak almost in my armpit. ‘It’s fine,’ I said, though he hadn’t said anything. ‘Perhaps I should just—’

Gilbert tutted in impatience. ‘Here.’ He wound the thread around my shoulder, tugging it tight, pulling the bird back into position again. ‘Damn it, I’m sorry, Eve. Shouldn’t have lost my rag like that, darling. Forgive?’

I smiled at him; he looked flustered and annoyed. ‘Of course, forgive,’ I said.

‘You’re a wonderful girl, you know that.’ He kissed me lightly on the shoulder.

We were unnoticed at the back of the room. I kissed him back on the lips. ‘You are a wonderful, wonderful man,’ I told him softly, relief flooding through me. ‘I can’t quite believe my luck.’

And I couldn’t, really. One part of me knew it was a good idea, this cooked-up romance with Gilbert Travers. Everyone benefited. The other part, the part I hadn’t told anyone at the studio about, was the twelve-year-old me, swooning over Gilbert Travers at the Picturehouse in Stratford, watching his films week after week in the lean years after the war where they showed old thirties fare again and again. He was a schoolgirl fantasy to me. The only crime I had ever committed in my short, boring life was that once I had sneaked into the library and cut a picture of Gilbert Travers arriving at Quaglino’s out of the Illustrated London News. And he was here, by my side – he was mine, and that was worth a hell of a lot of ripped birds, I supposed.

‘I don’t know how you put up with me,’ he said, shifting in his seat, still slightly red. ‘I’m a brute.’ His mouth drooped, his eyes were filmy. ‘A foul-mouthed, boozy, moody, selfish brute. You’d be happier if I let you go and find someone else. I’m more than twice your age, for God’s sake.’

‘You’re forty-eight, and I’m a grown woman, darling,’ I told him. ‘I know what I’m doing.’

In truth, I did dread his moods, which came without warning, throwing a black cloak over a perfectly nice evening. He could sit there and say nothing for hours, with me darting around him like a sparrow – Would you like another drink? Here’s the paper, darling, I thought you’d like to see this. Oh, by the way, I ran into Vivian at the studio today, and he says you’re marvellous in Dynasty. Everyone’s talking about it – working harder and harder to bring him back into the room. I was too afraid to call his bluff. I didn’t know what happened if you did, in any situation.

I wish I’d learned then that when you call someone’s bluff you usually win: it’s simply not what they’re expecting. And swimming along in the slipstream of another person’s current is no way to live.

It was then that I looked up and saw someone, staring at me from the other side of the room. What would have happened if I hadn’t? What if I’d never seen Don Matthews again? Would Gilbert and I have continued our evening and would it have been lovely? Would everything have worked out differently?

‘Excuse me, darling,’ I said. ‘Let me go and fix my dress. I’ll be straight back.’ I squeezed his hand and stood up, and as I walked out towards the terrace Don turned and saw me. He whispered something to his companion and left the bar.

‘Well, well. Miss Avocado 1956,’ he said, shaking my hand.

‘Don,’ I said, clasping his fingers in mine, tilting my head to meet his dark, warm gaze. ‘It’s good to see you. How are you?’

‘I’m the same, but you’re much better,’ he said, looking me up and down. ‘Congratulations. You were – well, I thought you wouldn’t make it. I thought you’d crack and go back home to Mum and Dad.’ He said this in a terrible English accent.

I had the most curious feeling we’d last met only days before, not nearly two years ago. ‘I don’t give up,’ I said. ‘I wanted to be a star. I told you.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, you did. But you were different back then.’ He stared at me. ‘Gosh. What did they do to you?’

I stared at him. ‘Oh,’ I said, after a moment. ‘It’s probably my hair. Electrolysis. They thought I should have a widow’s peak for Helen. It was painful, but I suppose they were right.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not that.’

‘Or the teeth?’ I said, opening my mouth. ‘Five caps – it’s made a world of difference.’ He shook his head. ‘I lost a stone, too, which was terribly hard, but I needed to.’

‘No, you didn’t.’ He gave that sweet, lopsided grin I’d forgotten about. ‘Forget it. I’m looking for something that’s not there, I guess. You’re all grown-up, Rose.’

I’d forgotten he’d called me that. Rose. I started and he smiled again.

‘I know all your dirty little secrets, remember,’ he said. I must have looked as worried as I felt, because he added, ‘It’s a joke. Hey, don’t worry. I’m not one of those guys.’

‘I know you’re not,’ I said, and I knew it was true. ‘Anyway,’ I said brightly. ‘How are you? What are you working on at the moment?’

‘Something special,’ he said. ‘I’m polishing it up right now. About a girl from a small town who moves to the big city and gets lost. In fact, I had you in mind for it. I always have done, Rose.’

His eyes never left my face but I avoided his gaze. ‘How exciting. What’s the title?’

He paused. ‘Wait and see.’

‘That’s a great title.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I mean, Rose, just wait and see. In fact, I’d like to be the one to tell you. Soon.’

‘Really?’ I said. I was embarrassed and I didn’t know why.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s for Monumental, and I think they’re talking about putting you in it after Mandalay’s done shooting. I’ll get you a copy.’

Typical that everyone else would know except me what I’d be doing next. My life wasn’t my own to plan; it was the studio’s, Moss Fisher’s in particular, and I knew it and was grateful to them. ‘That’s – great,’ I said. ‘Listen, Don—’

Gilbert appeared at that moment. ‘Darling, what are you doing?’ He stared at Don in that curiously hostile way that upper-class English people have. ‘Oh. Good evening.’

‘Mr Travers, a real pleasure to meet you. Don Matthews.’ Don held out his hand.

‘Don’s a screenwriter, darling,’ I said. ‘He wrote Too Many Stars.’

‘Ah.’ Gilbert could barely conceal his apathy. ‘Darling, I see Jack over there. I rather thought I might say hello to him. Excuse me, won’t you.’ He nodded at Don and strode off.

‘I don’t follow the fan magazines, I’m afraid,’ Don said. ‘That’s the guy they’ve set you up with? Gilbert Travers? He’s a little old for you, don’t you think?’

He tapped a cigarette on the side of a worn silver case. I watched him, rubbing my bare arms in the sudden chill of the restaurant. ‘He’s wonderful,’ I said. ‘We—’

‘You going to marry him?’ He rapped out the question, his voice harsh.

A commotion at the other end of the room forestalled my answer; a flurry of white floor-length ermine and flashing diamonds. I looked over to see Benita Medici, my rival at the studio, arriving on the arm of a suave, rake-thin man whom I knew to be Danny Paige, the biggest, wildest bandleader of the moment. ‘Oh, my goodness, Danny Paige!’ I said. ‘I just love him.’

‘I’m more of a Sinatra guy,’ Don said. ‘I like to listen at home. Too old to jive.’

‘Slippers and pipe and a paper by the fire, while your wife soothes your brow and fixes you a drink?’ I said. You don’t know anything about him. Why would you care if he’s married or not?

‘Something like that,’ he said, and he smiled again. ‘Only it’s hard for her to fix me a drink these days.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Why?’

‘Vegas is a long way away,’ he said. ‘Too far to commute.’

‘What does she do in Vegas?’

He waved his hand. ‘Doesn’t matter. She doesn’t do it with me, that’s the main thing. I’m not a great guy to live with. And I was a lousy husband. She made the right decision.’ He tapped the side of his glass. ‘I like to drink alone, so it worked out fine.’

I didn’t know what to say. ‘That’s so sad.’

‘Why?’ He smiled again. ‘Marriages fail all the time.’

‘But they shouldn’t,’ I said.

‘God, you’re young,’ he said. He jangled some change in his pocket. ‘You know, I worry about you, Rose. You’re such a baby. You shouldn’t be here, you know it? You should be back in England fluffing up an Elizabethan ruff and getting ready to go out on stage, not living this – life, like a gilded bird in a cage.’ His eyes scanned me, looking at the beautiful silk birds on my dress, the crooked one on my shoulder.

I laughed. ‘Don’t let’s disagree. Not when it’s so lovely to see you again.’ I looked over to where Gilbert was standing at the bar, a greyish-blue plume of cigar smoke rising straight above his head, like a signal.

‘Fine. Change the subject.’

‘What’s your favourite Sinatra album?’ I asked him.

Don whistled. ‘Gee. That’s hard. You like him too?’

‘Oh, yes, I love him too. More, in fact. He’s my biggest discovery since I came here. I’d never heard him before.’

‘You never heard Sinatra?’ Don’s face was a picture. ‘Rose, c’mon.’

‘We didn’t have jazz and … music like that, when I was growing up.’ My home was a quiet, forbidding house, full to me of the sound of echoing silence and my guilt which filled up the empty rooms, where once there had been shouts of joy, and more often screams of fury, thundering steps on hard tiles. When Rose was around there’d been no need for music.

‘Well, in London … of course. In the coffee bars, and at dances. Not before then.’ I shook my head, trying to remove the image of Rose singing, shouting, along to some song on the radio, her mouth wide open, eyes full of joy, with that intensity that sometimes scared me. She would have loved Sinatra. She loved music. I pushed the image away, closing my eyes briefly, then opening them. There. Gone. ‘I’m dying to meet him. Imagine if I did. Mr Baxter says he’ll fix it. We were in here once and he and Ava Gardner came in – I nearly died. I must have listened to Songs for Swingin’ Lovers around a thousand times. The record is worn thin. Dilly’s my dresser, and she says she’s going to confiscate it if she has to listen to it again.’

‘Well. In the Wee Small Hours is my favourite, since you ask. “I’ll Be Around”.’

‘Oh.’ I was disappointed. ‘But it’s so depressing. All those sad songs.’

‘I like sad songs,’ Don said. He looked over at Gilbert, then back at me.

My shoes were tight, and I rubbed my eyes, suddenly tired. It had been a long day, filming a gruelling scene in which Diana the nun hides out in a villager’s hut as the Japanese kill scores of people and retreat, setting fire to the village. My back ached from crouching for hours in the same position, and the tips of my fingers were raw and bloody from scrabbling at the gravelly, sandy earth (Burbank’s finest, shipped in from the edge of the Mojave Desert). ‘You OK?’ Don asked.

‘Just tired,’ I answered.

‘I’ll let you go. Just one thing, though. That white roses thing – why don’t you like them? I was watching you earlier. I saw your face when that reporter asked you about them.’

I stiffened. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The publicity guys made it up, didn’t they?’

‘Don’t let the fans hear you say that,’ I said, keeping my voice light. ‘I get about fifty a day.’ Mr Baxter’s publicity department put it out that Eve Noel the English rose missed her rose bush at home in England so much that she insisted on having white roses flown in from England for her dressing room, since when every day, to my home, to the Beverly Hills Hotel where I stayed on and off, to the studio, white roses arrived by the dozen. It was a sign I’d arrived, they kept telling me, as Dilly put armfuls in the trash or handed them out to girls on the set.

But I hated the things. Loathed them. They would always be linked for me with Mr Baxter in his car, hurting me, puffing over me, the feeling of his vile hands on me. The cloying sweet scent and the surrender I made that night; it was all linked. I tried never to think about that night, never. I assigned it a colour, cream, and if I ever was forced to think about it, like the time Mr Baxter tried it again, in my dressing room on set, or the time he and I rode in the same car after the premiere of Helen of Troy, I just thought about the colour cream all the way. I knew I’d done the right thing. I’d passed his test, and mine too, hadn’t I? Wasn’t I a star, wasn’t I adored and feted by millions around the world? So what if the sight of a few roses made me want to throw up.

Unfortunately for me, like all good publicity, sooner or later even those responsible for the myth in the first place started to believe it. Gilbert hated it too, because people were always trying to give me white roses, at premieres, at parties, wherever we went. Hostesses at dinners would thoughtfully always put white roses on the table and laugh a tinkling laugh when I murmured my thanks: ‘Oh, we know how you love them, dear!’

I shook my head, and said ‘Cream’ softly to myself. Don Matthews watched me.

‘Whose idea was it? The rose thing?’

I answered honestly, ‘Joe Baxter’s. I actually don’t like them.’

‘I thought so,’ he said. ‘He did the same with another girl he was trying to launch. Dana something.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Don. ‘He was obsessed with her.’ His voice was casual, as if he were giving me a piece of gossip from the studio, but something, something made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

‘What happened to her?’ I asked, my heart beating at the base of my throat.

‘Oh, she was Southern, and he put it out that she missed the camellias from home. But camellias only last a day or two and they’re a real pain in the ass to get out here. And then the big picture he’d put her in flopped – do you remember Sir Lancelot?’ I shook my head. ‘Exactly. She was poison after that. They put her on suspension for something, then she made B-movies when her contract expired, then she disappeared. Last I heard she was addicted to the pills and making ends meet in titty movies out in San Fernando. Poor kid.’

I knew all about suspension. People kept saying the studios were on their last legs, but the truth was my contract with them was still rigid tight. They owned me. I’d heard about the actors and actresses who stopped being favourites. Too old, too expensive, too demanding. They’d be sent scripts that the studio knew they’d never agree to do – playing a camp comedy part, or an eighty-year-old aunt. When they turned them down, the studio put them on suspension, which meant they couldn’t work for anyone. And they could only watch as someone cheaper and younger, with better teeth and smoother skin, took their parts from under them.

I swallowed, as the noise of the bar and my own fatigue hit me in another wave. Don said softly, ‘Hey, kid, it’s OK. I’m just warning you. Don’t become another Dana. You’re on top of the world now, but they’ll still spit you out if you get to be too much trouble.’

I nodded.

‘Don’t let them make you do anything you don’t want to do. You promise me, Rose?’ And again he looked over at Gilbert.

‘I promise,’ I said, not really sure what he was talking about, but knowing he was telling me the truth. His lean body moved closer to mine; I watched the grazing of nut-brown shadowing his jaw, the tight expression in his eyes. ‘I’m OK, really.’

‘I know you are.’ He squeezed my arm. ‘We’ll talk about my script. I’ll come find you at the studio,’ he said, and I wanted to say ‘When?’ But Gilbert approached, with his arm round one of his friends, his third or fourth cocktail in hand. Danny Paige was tapping a rhythm out on the bar, someone was singing, the moon was shining outside and inside, tiny shafts of light spun from the crystal chandelier above us. The bird was still dangling from my arm, untended, unloved. I excused myself from Gilbert and went to the powder room. Alone in front of the mirror, I stared at my reflection for a long time, to try and see how Don thought I’d changed. I didn’t know why it mattered to me so much that he thought I had.

CHAPTER SEVEN

IF YOU WANT to see how much of a blood sport Hollywood really is, go to an awards ceremony. You have no idea how the entertainment business really works until you’ve seen some doddery old children’s actor pushed out of the way because Selena Gomez is coming through and her manager and publicist are screaming at the E! producer to get her in front of Seacrest, now. If Marilyn Monroe was suddenly reincarnated with Jesus and Elvis on each arm on a red carpet somewhere at the same time as the arrival of a cast member from Twilight, I’m telling you, the three of them would all be asked to move along.

I’ve only ever gone to these things when I’ve been famous, and so you’d think I’d enjoy them. And at first, I did. Hollywood loves to think it’s a friendly community, so you wave at people you recognise and hug that girl from the sitcom who spent three months with you in Louisiana shooting a picture and who was your best friend for all that time but then you never saw again. You exclaim at how beautiful they look and examine their dresses so there’s a friendly shot in the magazines of you with some other star both looking like nice people.

But it’s business, like everything else here. You’re promoting the brand of you and your newest film. You’re like a mannequin with ten pre-recorded sentences, there to be studied and commented upon, while behind you a crazy woman with an earpiece and a clipboard shouts at your neck, ‘This is NBC. This is CBS. This is E!’ You say things like:

‘Hi, everyone! Thanks for voting for me! I’m really nervous!’

‘Oh, your dress is so cute too!’

Or the deep-breath one, which you have to rehearse beforehand with your stylist and manager, because God forbid you get someone’s name wrong:

‘Oh, thank you! I love this dress too, she [insert name of dress designer] is such a total genius, and my shoes are from [insert name of shoe designer], my bag is from [insert name of bag designer] and these cute earrings are from [insert name of jeweller].’

The other thing you don’t see is the queue. The UP! Kidz Challenge Awards is at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown LA, and a line of black limos or SUVs, all blacked-out windows and silver fenders, drivers in suits and shades, snakes down four faceless blocks. Inside each one is a star, waiting for his or her special moment on the carpet.

It’s humid tonight and the air con in the SUV is on max to keep me cool, which is making me sweat even more. A huge screaming cheer goes up from the crowd in the bleachers ahead of me and I peer out of the blackened windows, trying to see where we are in the queue. I hate this bit. At first, when I was over here promoting I Do I Do, I used to love imagining who was in the car in front of me. It could be Brad Pitt! Or Julia Roberts! These days I know it’s as likely to be some reality star with fake boobs who has 2 million Twitter followers and probably makes more money than most film stars. As the screams get louder I barely even look up from my phone. I’m waiting to hear from George, as ever. I don’t know where he is.

‘Did you meet Patrick Drew yet?’

I shake my head, fanning myself. ‘No.’

Opposite me sits my manager Tommy Wiley, frantically chewing gum, sunglasses on.

‘I haven’t seen you for weeks,’ he’s complaining. ‘This is how I communicate with you, these days? I ride with you to an awards ceremony? I’m like your security guy now?’

‘I’ve been … busy.’

‘Busy my ass.’ Tommy shakes his head. ‘Artie told me. You won’t commit to a new project, you won’t return his calls. What you been up to, for fuck’s sake, Sophie? He’s tearing his hair out trying to get something lined up for you.’ Tommy smiles. He likes it when Artie’s annoyed. ‘Poor guy.’

Under Californian law managers can’t negotiate contracts and agents can’t be producers on films. So Artie finds the scripts and the talent, inks the deal, talks to my lawyers, has the lunches to scout out the next hot project, and Tommy – well, he’s everything else. He has fewer clients, and I’m his priority at all times – I can call him day or night. He reads all my scripts and has a say in everything I do, but he also brings me business outside of the films. He takes care of the stylists and the journalists and the studios who want three extra days’ publicity off me, the airline that wants a fee in cash to stop me being papped on the way out of the plane, and the gay star who has his staff audition girlfriends for a million-dollar fee. Oh, yes, those stories are true.

I look out of the window and shiver involuntarily. The air con is on max; it’s freezing in here, and yet I’m still sweating in my pink silk dress.

‘I want to do that Shakespeare movie,’ I say. He growls.

‘Not this again. I’m telling ya, Artie’s right. For once! The guy is right. It ain’t for you.’

I take a deep breath. ‘Look, they reworked the script pretty quickly. We had the wrong version anyway. I met with Tammy Gutenberg, the writer. She only put in the crappy romp-through-history bit with Jane Austen and Nelson because the studio she was attached to made her. The new draft is great. Really great.’

One of the reasons why I don’t want to commit to anything yet is because of Tammy’s sending me this new draft. I read it and loved it. I loved how smart and funny and moving it was, how it deals with Shakespeare in an interesting way without making you feel dumb, how the modern story about Annie, the girl who works at the museum who is also young Anne Hathaway when she goes back to the past, is interesting and sparky, how it pokes fun at tourists without being mean. And the stuff after she bangs her head and wakes up in Shakespeare’s time … it shouldn’t work, but she pulls it off. It’s done totally confidently, so you buy it without knowing whether it’s real or not. Anne Hathaway and Shakespeare are a really lovely couple, and the scenes with the older, solitary, Anne Hathaway musing on their relationship and her life after her husband’s death are beautiful. A plum part for an older actress. And there’s a delicious bit at the end in the present day and Annie’s just woken up and is struggling to answer some punctilious question from an American tourist and Alec Mitford playing a modern-day bloke walks through the door of the museum and says, ‘Hello, I’m the new manager,’ and their eyes meet and he smiles like he knows he’s met her before …

I’m not questioning how two hot people come to be working at a tiny museum in the depths of the English countryside. When I mentioned it to Tammy, over lunch at Chateau Marmont, she laughed and said, ‘You need some suspension of disbelief in a film. Come on, Sophie. You ever seen ET? Exactly.’

I adored Tammy; she bowled me over, in fact. I’d forgotten there are people like this who work in movies. Lots of people probably, but you get past a point where you ever meet them. One, she remembered everything about our time back in Venice Beach – I was obsessed with frappe lattes (I know – so 2005). Two, she was really funny about all the guys we hung out with – I slept with way more of them than I should have, including Sara’s ex, Bryan the hairdresser guy, but she also reminded me about Jules the performance artist who lived on the beach and played the banjo, and Troy who was basically a high-school frat boy who thought he wanted to be an actor because he was, in the words of Zoolander, really, really ridiculously good-looking but basically had meat for brains.

‘Whatever happened to him?’ I’d asked Tammy.

‘He went to work at Goldman.’ She’d rolled her eyes, stuck her tongue in her cheek, and that’s when I realised I loved her.

The other thing I loved about her was that she ate her food. She ordered chicken and lentils and had a pudding. Didn’t talk about it, just ate it. And had a glass of wine.

‘I don’t understand why you can’t commit to this,’ she’d said. ‘It’s not a big deal. It’s not Ingmar Bergman. It’s just a romcom – it’s what you do.’

Afterwards I left and drove home, and I didn’t know the answer. It was so simple. This is the kind of movie I’m good at; why am I not doing it? Because other people have vested interests in me and the money I can make them, that’s why.

‘You met a writer?’

‘It’s not that big a deal, Tommy.’ I pat my hot face.

‘It is for you. You don’t like that stuff. Let me deal with the producers and the writers.’ Tommy’s jaw works even faster. ‘Who the fuck is she anyway?’

‘I knew her back in the day,’ I say. ‘Listen, Tommy, I want to do this movie. I’m serious. You and Artie’ll just have to find a way to fit it in after The Bachelorette Party.’

‘I looked into it, you know I did. The timings don’t work. It’s being filmed in England. This summer. You—’

‘The schedule is fluid while they wait for the last piece of funding to fall into place,’ I interrupt him. ‘And—’ I’m saving the best for last. ‘Alec Mitford is confirmed as Shakespeare. So there.’

Alec Mitford is box office gold at the moment. His last film, with Meryl Streep and Judi Dench, was number one for five weeks, knocked some comic book off the top. He’s a professional Englishman who plays smooth cool posh guys, although I happen to know he grew up in Swindon not far from me.

Oh, Alec. Actually … I knew him back in London, the summer I moved down when I got the job on South Street People. We had a … thing. He still makes me blush.

Tommy can’t help but look impressed. ‘OK then. Well, that’s something. Alec Mitford, huh? So that’s what you’ve been working on, these last few weeks.’

‘Sure.’ I shrug, like that’s the explanation for it all, and I look into the mirror next to me, pretending to fiddle with one of the (loaned) diamond drop earrings that flash and dazzle even in the dim inside light. I don’t tell him about the emails I’ve been sending about Eve Noel. Tina has found her UK agent, a tiny agency that barely has a website. They won’t confirm anything about her. They just say they represent her. I’ve written them three emails now. I’ll wear them down, I know I will. But Tommy does not need to know that, nor Artie; this is not part of their plan for me. Besides, I like the secrecy in my life at the moment. I don’t tell Tommy about George, either, the fact that I sneak over to his house every other night, and what we’ve been doing. I’m not sure I like thinking about it too much during the daytime, but for these last few weeks of hiatus while all I’ve had on my mind is my weight, and who’s been sending me these white roses, it’s good to forget all about it at night.

Two more white roses have arrived, you see. Both taped to the gate. Each one a week apart, after the first one. The CCTV didn’t cover the actual gate, just the path down to it. It’s been changed but we can’t see who put them there. I’m trying to play it down. I’ve told myself it’s just an over-enthusiastic fan. Someone a little bit too keen.

It’s strange though, I know it’s more than that. I just do.

There’s a loud banging and I jump. Someone knocking on the window, a guy in black with an earpiece. I wriggle in my pink dress, putting my fingers in my armpits. Tommy looks at me suspiciously. ‘You get them Botoxed?’ he says. ‘We don’t want slime.’

‘Relax,’ I say.

‘Sophie,’ says T.J., his voice a robotic static through the speaker. ‘I have a message from Ashley. Patrick Drew’s car is just ahead of ours. She says he’ll escort you up the carpet.’

‘I’ll see you the other side,’ Tommy says, putting down his BlackBerry and staring at me intently. ‘We’ll talk about this. All of this.’ He waggles his fingers at me, then reaches into his pocket for another piece of gum. ‘Get out there and make nice. Enjoy Patrick. He’s cute.’

I pull at my fringe, nod, and turn to Tommy. ‘Don’t worry, it’ll all be fine,’ I say.

The rushing sound is louder; the door is opened, and I step out onto the pavement, one glittering, designer-clad foot at a time, from the cool AC into the swampy evening air. It’s really muggy. I think there’s a storm coming. The roaring gets louder; I look up towards the bleachers full of ‘fans’ lining the carpet, as if I’m totally surprised, and smile my most engaging smile, waving enthusiastically. They scream back. It’s two types, it always is. Middle-aged, large women with tight perms and T-shirts that proclaim their devotion to various film stars or God; and teenage girls, all braces, hysteria and long, flicky hair. They scream when you smile, but just occasionally, there’ll be one who doesn’t respond, a blank glaring face watching you with open dislike, and you can’t show that you’ve seen them, that you want to go over to the bleachers and point at them, ask them, ‘What’s wrong? Do you hate me? Why?’

I think about the roses; the white perfection of them, the fact that someone’s hand put them there, laid the first one on the bed, taped the others to the metal gates. Is it one of these faces in the crowd? I shiver in the heat. There must be around a hundred cameras cocked like guns, firing in my face. People scream my name.

‘Hey!’ Someone pushes me from behind. ‘Hey, girl!’

I jump, then look round. ‘Hi, Patrick,’ I say, smiling mechanically and kissing him on the cheek. ‘It’s good to meet you.’

Patrick Drew grins, takes off his baseball cap and nods enthusiastically. His long shaggy hair bobs in front of his eyes. He is wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Sure, the T-shirt isn’t crumpled but … that’s it. We were sent twenty-eight dresses, I had seven different meetings with DeShantay, and today I spent four hours getting ready.

‘You look pretty,’ he says. ‘Wow, that dress must be hot.’

The pink dress with the cap sleeves is indeed hot. I stare at him, hating him.

‘OK then,’ he says. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Ready as I’ll ever be,’ I say.

‘Let’s do it!’ As he kisses me, the people in the crowd nearest us roar their approval, like they’re witnessing our romance. Oh, fuck off, I want to snarl at them. This guy is an idiot. Then I feel guilty: we’re doing this for them, so they’ll go see a film that hasn’t even started shooting. I put my arm round him, like we’ve known each other for years.

‘See you later, P,’ someone says.

‘J-Man! See you. Dudehead, Billy – catch you afterwards, yeah?’

‘Yeah, man,’ they call out. I don’t know when it became obligatory to have an entourage if you’re a male star, but these days there have to be at least three dufusy-guys with you at all times, otherwise you’re nothing in Hollywood.

‘Bye, fellas!’ Patrick shouts happily. ‘Cool! Good guys, crazy guys. What a trip!’

How can you be this up all the time? I wonder. Is he on something? Perhaps he’s a Scientologist. I bet he is.

The crowd roars as we move and the photographers scuttle along beside us, crab-like at our feet. I remind myself of what Mum used to say to me as she pushed me into an audition. This is your dream, isn’t it? You like this. Enjoy the moment.

‘Sophie!’ I spin around; stupid of me to turn and look when someone calls my name but I’m rattled, I don’t know why – this is full on.

‘You OK?’ Patrick says. I smile brightly at him.

‘I’m totally fine!’ I tell him.

Perspiration starts to build on my back, on my neck. I keep my armpits closely wedged by my side.

‘Man, you totally are beautiful, you know?’ He shakes his head. ‘Everyone says it, I mean, I know it, I’ve seen you in pictures, obviously. But wow … yeah, you really are.’

I think it’s a line, but he says it like it’s a fact, not as a compliment, nodding his head.

‘Well, I’m really looking forward to working with you,’ I say inanely.

‘Me too. You’re the queen of this kind of shit!’ he says, with a kind of goofy smile. It’s gonna be great. You know George, right?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I know George.’

Behind us, Ashley shouts, ‘Guys, this is Cally Colherne, E! news.’

‘Hi, Cally!’ I say. ‘It’s so great to see you!’

Cally bares her white, white teeth at us and sticks a bright green mike under our noses. ‘Hi, guys! Now, I hear you guys are just starting shooting a film together. That’s so cool!’

Patrick answers. ‘Yeah, Cally. It’s …’

Smile plastered on my face, I let my mind drift as I go onto autopilot. I wonder where George is.

We move on, stopping at each reporter, answering questions about the movie, about working with each other, and we don’t say, ‘We just met two minutes ago, I’ve no idea what his favourite ice-cream is,’ we say, ‘Hey, you love cookies and cream, I know you do!’ like we’re old friends in this big, shiny community of stars.

After about ten minutes I steal a glance at Patrick, as the intensity of the screams coming from the other end of the carpet indicate someone much bigger than us has arrived. He’s kind of cute, I have to admit it. He has big brown eyes, a huge sweet smile and this funny floppy hair and gangly limbs that almost seem to take him by surprise. He turns and catches me looking at him, and I feel myself blush with embarrassment. Maybe Tommy was right – I should have taken Botox armpit action.

Patrick talks incessantly, when we’re not being interviewed. How he just got a new dog. How he met Dennis Hopper before he died which was so cool because Easy Rider is his favourite film. How there’s this great new restaurant out on the highway next to the ocean that does unreal shrimp. He keeps asking me questions, but I answer in monosyllables, barely listening. I just want to get inside. As we’re reaching the end of the queue, he stops in front of a dinner-jacketed security guard, who nods and wave us through. ‘I think we could go further with the script and what we guys do,’ he says. And he looks across at me and smiles. ‘You’ve never done anything like that, neither have I.’

I am instantly wary, as that always, always means the girl has to go naked, probably full-frontal. Or do something disgusting. Going further, pushing boundaries, mixing it up – it’s all bullshit shorthand for: more girl nudity and if the girl complains, she’s a humourless bitch who doesn’t get comedy.

I know some cameras are still trained on us, so I keep my hands by my sides and say carefully, pretending to smile, ‘Have you spoken to George about it? What does he think?’

‘George is totally up for it.’ Patrick claps his hands and rubs them together happily. ‘It’s going to be so cool! You’re so talented. You’ll love it. I’m convinced you’ll get it.’

I know he’s trying to butter me up to do something disgusting on film and I’m not doing it. I feel flustered, cross that Patrick and George have already discussed this.

‘That’s kind,’ I say, buying time.

Patrick Drew nods enthusiastically, his broad grin even wider. ‘It’s not kind, Soph! You rock! You can really act, you know? I saw it and I was like— Hey, dude! You fucking rock, man! That beard is for real! It suits you longer! How are you!’

‘Er—’ I begin, then I turn around. George is standing behind us. The cameras click again; George is famous, the kind of director you might recognise on the street. Mainly that’s because he was married to Billie Gorky the year she won an Oscar, but also because he looks like an important person.

His hand is on my bare skin, where the dress is cut out at the back. ‘Hey, guys,’ he says, kissing us both. His brown, tanned arms, thick with black hairs, envelop us both. His cool grey eyes, flinty under the beetling black brows, meet mine. ‘Look!’ he says, in his rich, husky voice, to the reporters and the crowd behind them. ‘The stars of The Bachelorette Party! We’re going to have so much fun making this picture. Summer 2013, OK?’

And I am so flustered – from seeing him, from the heat, from the whole damn thing – that I raise my arm and wave. The camera shutters click madly, like a swarm of crickets chattering together. As I’m doing it, I realise it’s a mistake, and then I make a second one.

I look down.

Sure enough, the armpit is dark rose pink, and that’s the picture that changes everything. Not a photo of me stepping out of the car in my beautiful borrowed diamond earrings and hair that took an hour to style. Not me and Patrick with our arms round each other, laughing like we’re old friends or young lovers. No, the picture that runs on the front of Us Weekly, as the headline in TMZ, E! and every gossip website in the States, back home in the UK, on the front of Heat the following week, that’s re-Tweeted by everyone, is of me looking down in horror at the sweat stain under my arm, my face contorted into a twist of panic. SOPHIE’S STINKY SURPRISE! screams a tabloid the next day, like I’ve lost control of my bowels in front of the Queen, not just got a bit sweaty in the 90-degree heat of a muggy LA. You’re not allowed to sweat if you’re a star. It was only me who did, not those other stars gliding by, untouchable, beautiful, perfect, glittering in the golden evening light.

CHAPTER EIGHT

A WEEK AFTER Armpitgate, tired of the uncertainty, annoyed by everything else, I ask George to stay over, and he says yes. I can hardly believe it. I think he’s being nice to me because I want him more and more at the moment, I can’t stop myself, and of course – duh – he loves that. Like every time we fuck it pushes everything further away. He’s also being nice to me because he wants me to do something for him. I’m not stupid, though I think he thinks I am. But mainly I think he’s being nice to me because Armpitgate is bigger than anyone could have realised. In fact, it’s a total disaster.

But it’s a mistake, having him in my pretty white house. He’s like John Huston; I should have killed a bear and had it mounted on the wall to make him feel at home. He’s too big and hairy and … there, in my space. He arrives late, after dinner with some old buddies (I’m never asked, and I don’t want to go anyway), and he stinks of cigars and meat grease: I can smell it on his skin. I lie there watching him take his black silk shirt off and suddenly I wish he wasn’t here. I don’t know why.

So we don’t have sex and I can tell he’s pissed about it. He paws at me a few times and kisses my neck, says, ‘C’mon baby, c’mon.’ But I yawn, tell him I’m tired, I have an early start. I keep seeing the video camera by the side of the bed. I notice it more than I do in his room. It looks out of place.

‘That’s a shame,’ he says eventually. He lies in the white bed, naked, playing with himself. I think he’s going to go next door and jerk off in a minute.

I watch him, my arms crossed. ‘George, Patrick said something at the awards about a nude scene. Did you discuss it with him?’

The hand under the sheet stops moving. ‘What? No.’

‘Don’t lie to me.’

‘I’m not lying to you, Sophie. I wouldn’t discuss stuff like that with Patrick Drew. He’s a pansy. He’d never agree. I thought you’d be totally into it though.’

‘So you do want a sex scene.’ I pull the sheet over myself, yanking it away from his body. He clenches his jaw and sits up. ‘Why didn’t you ask me? I’m not doing it, I can tell you that straight off.’

‘Why are you being so uptight?’ George is looking impatient. ‘It’s not that big of a deal. I thought you liked your body. You certainly act like you do when I’m filming you.’ He reaches out and tweaks one of my nipples. It hardens instantly. ‘Come on, honey. You’re acting crazy.’

I hug my arms tightly to me. I wish I wasn’t naked. ‘George, I’m not—’

‘It’s a shame, that’s all,’ George interrupts. ‘I know you don’t do full-frontal, and I wouldn’t ask you to. I respect you, you know that.’ He leans in towards me and lowers his voice, even though we’re alone. He strokes my ear and neck with his fingers, lightly dusting my skin, and I sigh a little, half-closing my eyes. ‘Baby, I just want you to think about it. It’s only your tits. You’ve done it before.’

‘I feel funny about it. I want to move on. Not start doing this kind of stuff. And I’m – I’m nearly thirty.’ Yeah, right.

‘Listen, think about it. I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want. It’s that I think it could be really great. Provocative. If we can get the mask right, it’ll be like he doesn’t know it’s his fiancée showing him her tits – he thinks you’re just some stripper. You’re in control. That’s why you take your clothes off. You see? I think the audience would totally get that.’

They’re always saying that, I’ve noticed lately. Because of course we all know women who are in control are notable for the way they always take their clothes off.

Then he adds, ‘You’re hot, baby.’ He kneels on the bed and rubs my arms. His cock starts to harden. ‘You’ve had a crappy week, that’s all. Been hiding away here too long. You haven’t seen enough people. You need … some release. Mmm?’

I push him away and lie down, turning my back to him. ‘Sorry. No. No to all of it.’

As he gets up and stalks into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him, I turn the light off and stare into the dark. He’s right, I am hiding away. Festering. I’ve been to George’s, been to Tommy’s office, been to the Malibu Country Mart wearing my sunglasses and cap, but I haven’t put my face on and got out there. I am still a bit mortified – I know it’s stupid. I’m sure you’ll agree that, in the great scheme of things, it’s not really that big a deal, is it?

Yet all around me, people are treating Armpitgate as if it’s something terrible. I’ve had emails of sympathy from other celebrities. The worst kind of humiliation, one of them, an Oscar-winner who played my sister four films ago, wrote. More humiliating than, say, losing all your money and having to beg on the street? I don’t think so. I got a text from my co-star on Defence: Reload, an action star who is so far back in the closet he’s practically out the other side in Narnia. I really feel for you with what happened. Stay strong, Sophie. I keep getting messages of support from the public. I even got a card from Sara Cain, a picture of a fifties lady in a pink dress, her hands in the air and the caption in white ticker-tape strip above it: Sometimes Muriel wondered if it would just be easier to walk around in a sack. Inside she’d written, It was really nice to see you the other day. I’m sorry you’re having a crappy time. You don’t deserve any of this. Which was actually really nice and made me smile.

Even Tommy said we should reschedule our original meeting and instead have a crisis meeting about Armpitgate, and when I told Artie, assuming he’d tell me Tommy was a madman, he said, ‘Maybe we need to discuss it. It’s going on too long. This thing has a tail.’

Perhaps he’s right. It’s been a week and this one image, with my terrible expression and my body twisted into a crazy shape and that dark raspberry stain, has become a sort of meme for the current celebrity culture. The hidden message of it all is: Hah – see how stupid they look when it all goes wrong, and I’m the one getting a kicking. There’s a Tumblr page of Armpitgate mock-ups: me on the moon, me transposed over some aide in the Situation Room with Obama and Hillary waiting for news about bin Laden, me and Ryan Gosling and he’s saying, ‘Girl … I’d never let you go out without checking for sweaty pits.’ Ashley, my publicist, is on the phone fifteen times a day and her voice gets higher every time we talk. ‘Laugh it off. Laugh like you’re a sweet klutz and it could happen to anyone. OK? Don’t be annoyed, or irritated, or comment in any way. You come off like a prima donna. OK?? Laugh it off. It’ll go away.’ Pause. ‘It has to. OK????’

But a week later it hasn’t gone away. Up on Hollywood Boulevard over the stars on the Walk of Fame they’re selling T-shirts and mugs emblazoned with that photo and the slogan, ‘I’VE LOST MY DEODORANT!

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