“Damn it, John, this was meant to be perfect.” She looks behind me. I turn and see John in the doorway. I didn’t even know he was there, he always seems to be hiding in the shadows.
“Hold your horses.” He reaches inside the pocket of his jeans and disappears down the hall. It’s a silly thing to say because Maggie doesn’t have any horses to hold.
A thing called a meter lives inside the big cupboard at the top of the stairs. It’s where the ironing board and Hoover live, too, not that we ever use those. If we don’t put enough fifty-pence coins inside the meter’s mouth, the power goes off. It needs feeding all the time, the way I think a pet dragon might. John must have fed it, because the lights and the fire come back on.
Maggie is wearing her happy face again, just like the one on her T-shirt. “Well, go on.”
I walk a little closer to the tree, and when I bend down, I can see that all the presents have little name tags tied on with ribbon. I turn one over and it says AIMEE. I look at another and it says the same thing. But they are all covered in dust, as though they have been sitting under the tree for a very long time. I look around the room and see that everything else in here is covered in dust too.
“Aren’t you going to open something?” asks John, lighting a cigarette and sitting down on the sofa. “I don’t see nobody else called Aimee around here, do you?”
Just as he says it, I do see another little girl in the room, or at least a picture of her in a frame on the mantelpiece. She looks a bit like me, but older, with exactly the same length hair. Maggie sees me looking at it and lays the frame down flat.
“Open your presents,” she says, folding her arms.
I pick up the one nearest to me, getting dust on my fingers and pajamas. I open it slowly, peeling back each piece of Sellotape, trying not to tear the pretty paper. I see what looks like orange wool inside and pull it out. John takes a picture of me with his Polaroid camera; he likes doing that. He takes pictures of me everywhere all the time—in the shop, in my bedroom, in the bath. I don’t think the photos he takes of me in the bath or in bed at night can be very good; he never shows them to me or Maggie afterwards.
“It’s Rainbow Brite, your absolute favorite! Do you like her?” asks Maggie. I nod, not sure who Rainbow Brite is, but remembering her from the duvet and wallpaper in my bedroom. “Well, go on, open another.”
This time it is a red machine.
“It’s a brand-new Fisher-Price cassette player, so you can play all those Story Teller tapes you like so much. Just try not to break this one.”
I didn’t break anything.
“Now, what do you say before you open the next one?”
I think hard before answering. Maggie gets awful cross when I get things wrong. When I think I know the answer, I turn and look at her. “Thank you, Mum.”
I pick up another present, hoping I’m still allowed to open it.
She smiles at me. “You’re welcome, Baby Girl.”
Twenty-one
London, 2017
“Are you okay?” asks Jack.
No.
My husband is trying to frame me.
The only person who ever really knew me, who I thought loved me, is coming after me in a majorly messed-up way. I feel terrified and broken and so fucking angry all at once.
Jack knocked on my dressing room door less than a minute after the police left. I thought they had come back, so seeing him standing there instead brings nothing but relief.
“I’m fine,” I say, as he steps inside uninvited and I close the door behind him.
“You’re a great actress, but you’re a terrible liar. Tell me to mind my own business if you like, but I thought you might need to talk, and I wondered if you fancied getting a quick drink in the bar. That was our final scene together after all, and I think I’m going to miss your face.”
I would love a drink right now. It isn’t as though I have anything to look forward to at home. Ben has clearly decided to punish me in the most elaborate and inventive way. I find it hard to believe he came up with something like this all by himself. Now that I know he went to the police and told them some story about me attacking him, any concern I felt has unraveled into hate, but he surely can’t plan on keeping this up forever. Faced with the facts that have stacked themselves higher than misremembered truths, and although I’m sure it’s the wrong decision, I do want a drink.
“Yes, that sounds nice, I’ll just grab my bag.”
“Great, you might want to change first, too, mon amie.”
I follow Jack’s gaze down my body and realize I’m still wearing the silk nightie that wardrobe dressed me in earlier. I can’t believe I spoke to the police looking like this. Everything is covered up, but I’m completely naked underneath. I can see the outline of my nipples through the thin pink material.
“Are you sure you’re okay? You know you can trust me, don’t you?” The kindness in his voice pierces my emotional armor and my eyes fill with tears. “Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry.” He wraps one arm around my waist and pulls me close. I just stand there, not knowing what to do at first without a script and stage directions. He wipes my tears away, then kisses my forehead. It feels a little fake, but that’s the problem with actors, they never know when to stop. I do start to relax, though, resting my head on his shoulder and closing my eyes, while he strokes my hair. I breathe in the smell of him, and when he pulls me closer still, I don’t resist. I enjoy the feel of his body next to mine, picture his chest beneath his shirt, imagine taking it off. I can hear his heart beating almost as fast as my own.
“If you want to wear a sexy see-through nightie to the bar, then you go ahead, there’s really no need to cry about it, I won’t try to stop you.”
I laugh. Jack is one of those men who thinks you can heal any hurt with humor.
“Or I can help you slip out of it?”
I presume he is still joking, so I step behind the screen to change into something a little less revealing. Then I quickly wipe all the tearstained makeup from my face, while Jack plays with his phone. He’s concentrating so hard I wonder what on earth he can be doing; checking his Twitter account no doubt.
We walk along the corridor to the Club Bar at Pinewood, attracting stares from everyone we pass along the way. The bar is sometimes used as a set, but the rest of the time anyone can drink here, a good example of life imitating art and making a healthy profit. The place is busy, but the manager asks two other people to move, freeing a table for us to sit down at. It’s the sort of thing that I hate, but I’m too tired to stand so I go along with the suggestion. Besides, it’s Jack they are being asked to move for, not me. He is most definitely A-list, everyone says hello to him and smiles in his direction. It’s like walking into a bar with a tall Tom Cruise, and I’m only too happy to hide in his shadow.
“You don’t have to talk about it with me if you don’t want to, but I’m here for you if you do,” he says once we’ve chosen a bottle of wine. Everyone else has to order at the bar, but not Jack.
“Ben is still missing.”
He frowns at me. “So why are the police coming here and not out looking for him?”
“Because they think I had something to do with it.”