Big Apple Farm

Chapter 1

Arthur

‘And the BAFTA for Leading Actor goes to …’ The announcer fills his dramatic pause with a theatrical opening of the envelope, making sure to milk every single second he graces the stage.

You can tell his agent has told him to be ‘the show’, to try his hardest to create a clippable moment that gullible fans will repost every award season henceforth.

The co-presenter, sewn into her dress and hardly able to move nor breathe, isn’t given a chance to add her two pennies’ worth in speech so instead she places a hand to her chest, and shakes her head softly with faux pride.

It is such a performance that one could almost be convinced that it is her winning this award, or that she in some way gives a shit about the name we all know is on this card. But that’s all this is: a performance.

The camera operator crouches at the end of our row, the lens fixed upon us, impatiently awaiting our reactions as we all feign surprise.

Taking another swig of free wine from the bottle, I suppress the urge to roll my eyes as dry tears are wiped away around the room, purely for the benefit of the big screens dotted around the venue.

That’s how they get their airtime: fake some big emotion and the camera guys are compelled to follow your every expression.

Why anyone still wishes to watch this spectacle is beyond me.

I’ve seen more real emotion in museum wax figures, and judging by the array of business cards that offer to give you a ‘brand-new face’ scattered in our ‘party bags’, I’m surprised that no one here has melted under the heat of the lights yet.

My mother sits beside me, clutching my hand, and still after all this time I’m unable to tell if the apprehension in her whole mien is real or it’s just her BTEC in performing arts doing the heavy lifting.

The slickness of her palm is surely not something she can fake so perhaps it’s only for me that the novelty of such pompous nights of splendour has worn off.

Still, I play to the camera. Readjusting my satin tie, twiddling my cufflinks, then a cheeky Artie Cavendish wink to blast through the fourth wall and end up as a gif by the time the announcers finally get to the point and realise their pause is less ‘dramatic’ and more exasperating.

‘Edward Cavendish!’ My father’s name splits through the microphone.

Rising from his seat, he coolly buttons his blazer, kisses my mother on her cheek and shakes my hand with his award-winning humble smile.

As he leaves us behind to take the stage, the camera stays fixed, hoping my mother will cry, or longing for me to do something that they can make a headline out of.

‘Thank you, thank you.’ My father begins his speech as the cameras fall to his greying hair and weathered face that make up his ‘working-class boy’ charm the industry seems to love.

‘You know me well enough by now to realise that the first person I must thank is my beautiful wife, Helena. We made a vow to one another thirty years ago – in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, to love and to cherish – and by God do we feel the weight and power of those words every single day. It should be her, right here, collecting this award, although I’m not sure she has any room left in her own trophy cabinet …

’ He waits a perfect amount to allow for the polite chuckles of the knowing audience.

My father is a clever man, charming; there really is no wonder he became who he is.

British acting royalty, that’s what they call him, and my mother too.

They fit perfectly into the Hollywood model of the underdog story.

A couple from nothing and nowhere stick together through thick and thin to work their way up the ladder to become two of the most decorated actors of the last two decades.

Best of all, it’s all real; their love isn’t for show, no matter how much the industry wants to make a drama of it.

It really is baffling how, in a world of falsehoods, they manage to remain so honest. To one another, at least.

‘Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.’ That’s what Shakespeare said, isn’t it?

But old Willie seems to forget those of us who have greatness gifted to them, those of us who ride the greatness wave of those around them, those of us who reap the benefit of greatness without so much as having to lift a finger.

That’s me, so I’ve been told. Countless times.

‘What do you have to say, Arthur, to all of those who call you a nepo baby on social media?’ The interviewer holds a comically tiny microphone towards me.

We’ve been funnelled like cattle into the press suite for our post-ceremony interviews, and despite having lessons in PR since before I even started school, my chest tightens and I suck at the insides of my lips, trying to moisten them enough to speak.

I should be used to it by now, but by the look of things, the ‘press’ in this room are just influencers with little to no journalistic experience or ability, looking for their latest clickbait title, and I can never quite predict what they might ask next.

Steadying my breathing, I grin so wide that the flash of my composite bonding is enough to mask the turmoil in my stomach.

‘Well, I would have to say that I’m not a nepo baby.

I think I’ve worked incredibly hard to be who I am …

I am the nepo baby.’ The interviewer giggles, and it is her turn to scramble for her words.

Her giggling stops abruptly. ‘So, you admit that you’ve never had to work hard to achieve anything in your life?’

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some of us live in the shadow of greatness. No matter what I may do, it shall always be attributed to, or eclipsed by, that one great man or woman to whom I could never compare.

‘Well, I am flattered that you accredit my brilliant wit and fine figure to nature,’ I say, trying not to allow anyone to see how their words have ruffled me.

‘Yet another thing you’ve inherited from your father.’

‘Indeed, and my mother too, of course.’

‘Of course.’

The evening stretches on. Hours upon hours of small talk and smiling begin to wear on my face, and my cheeks ache with the strain.

Somehow, the whole thing seems to be getting louder: voices, classical music chosen specifically to hurry on speeches, or make the whole evening follow the tempo of its ever-increasing allegro, the clicking of heels on tile; they all thunder through my head and join the wine in making it pound.

I never know where to be at these things. Mum and Dad are off doing all their press and I’m left alone to mingle. Without my parents beside me, I am entirely unknown, irrelevant, and I hover around the bar, swiping at the condensation on my glass to try and calm my nerves.

Embarrassing, isn’t it? Being twenty-five years old and losing my composure because I haven’t got Mummy and Daddy around to help me.

But I know that anything I say, anything I do, will have some sort of repercussion.

Even my words, my actions, aren’t my own.

Every single thing is a reflection on my parents and somehow their royal reputations rest on me. What if I fuck it up?

I must become an actor, whether I want to or not.

My entire appearance is an act; it’s theatre.

I am simply a character existing in the perfect film of their perfect lives.

But as Letterboxd reviewers and Rotten Tomato scores love to remind me after my little nepotist role in a film Dad was producing, I am a horrible actor.

I’m unconvincing, false, soulless. How can I pretend to be someone else, when I have no idea who I actually am?

That’s why I’m Arthur Cavendish: the cocky, the arrogant, the nepo baby.

‘Oh my gosh, you’re Eddie Cavendish’s son, aren’t you?’ I feel a delicate hand on my shoulder and turn to meet the dark eyes of a woman with the sort of beauty you believe only exists after several skilled rounds of editing.

‘The one and only. And who do I have the pleasure of meeting?’

She giggles and attempts to swipe her hair behind her ears but the dark ebony curls are structured so tightly atop her head and suspended with pearls, like a vision of the night sky, that not a strand of it moves with the effort.

‘I’m Sade.’ She’s a model; I’m sure of it. I haven’t heard of her but she stands so tall, so poised, every inch of her dark skin so flawless, that it would be impossible not to scout her the instant she left the house. ‘I’m a big fan of your dad.’

Nothing more of a mood killer than when a beautiful woman approaches you, only to talk to you about your middle-aged father.

But it’s a conversation I’ve had many times.

I have the whole thing mapped out already; she’ll ask a bunch of questions about Dad, hoping for a secret; say she loved him in one film or another; then ask for a photo.

If they’re attractive enough, as this one is, perhaps we’ll be papped together at the back door, maybe share a kiss or two on the streets of London, but I’ll disappear alone into the night well before they have the chance to realise that I have nothing of my father in me.

A dick move – I know that. But it’s better to be an arsehole from the get-go, than be a disappointment later on.

‘Cara!’ a woman calls across the bar to her friend, a grin stretching her smooth face. ‘Come, look who it is!’