Chapter 1 #2
I can’t mask the heat rising to my cheeks as the whole bar, whether named Cara or not, turn to look for the source of interest. Actors great and small are dotted around the place, swirling their drinks, arse-licking producers, directors, writers, you name it, anyone who will land them their next job.
This back-room bar of the Royal Festival Hall is full of the interesting and powerful escaping from the pressures of the larger room and audience and swap them for equally stiff one-on-one conversations, always about business, of course, and yet I am now somehow the centre of attention.
‘Oh, I should probably head—’ I start, scanning the room for a quick exit.
‘Eddie Cavendish, no way!’ A woman, I assume Cara, emerges from the crowd, and I notice some eyes in the audience scanning the room, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man Sade’s friend mistakes me for.
‘Arthur,’ I say, outstretching my hand to her, hoping she doesn’t notice how it shakes. Cara stops for a moment, confused, until I add, ‘Cavendish.’
‘His son,’ Sade clarifies. Cara looks to her friend and raises her eyebrows with an ‘oh’ and then quickly repaints a smile onto her face as she shakes my hand.
‘I’m a big fan of your dad,’ Cara breathes close to me, as though to compliment my father is somehow a little seductive. The brief moment of disgust that overwhelms me at the thought is a welcome respite from my nerves. ‘Can I take a picture?’
‘Oh, yeah, yes, sure,’ I say, falling back a little into my comfort zone. She hands Sade her phone and shoves herself up close beside me, her hands heavy everywhere she lays them.
‘Hang on, the girls need to see this.’ Still clinging to me, she calls, like her friend before her, across the room, ‘Shannon, Zara, Camille! Check this out.’ She points at me and then gropes my backside with her free hand.
With the attention of the room still transfixed on the scene, I instinctively flinch away from the pair, my cufflinks snagging on Cara’s dress in the process and tearing at its sequins.
‘What the fuck?’ she says, looking at the loose thread on her navel.
‘Shit, I’m really sorry.’ My hands tremble visibly now as I try and untangle myself.
Sade’s calm and enigmatic air shifts as she watches the scene unfold. Her face contorts with disgust, as if she can’t decide whether to think me insolent or pathetic.
‘I can pay, to fix the dam—’ I try and speak but Sade cuts me off.
‘It’s loaned from Chanel. It’s an archive piece.’ She shakes her head. ‘It’s worth more than your parents combined.’
‘Is that Eddie Cavendish I hear calling for his mum and dad?’ The last voice I could wish to hear in this moment slinks around the bar and its speaker smirks just wide enough for me to see the pointy tips of his incisors. ‘Oh no, of course not, just his little Artie.’
Charles River, actor, rising star, and the human embodiment of a cat’s anus; an irritating stink that always somehow ends up in your face. ‘What do you want, Charles?’ I say, incensed.
With his entrance, the two women seem to have forgotten the previous to-do and Cara’s dress becomes less exciting than the pompous prig who has graced the cover of Vogue at least three too many times.
With a false and scheming smile, he shifts his gaze from me, to Cara and Sade.
‘What’s the matter, ladies, he refusing to pay you for your services?
’ They’re stunned into silence. ‘He definitely hasn’t got enough money for girls as beautiful as you.
Your family have spent all their money on paying off producers and buying their awards, haven’t they, Art? ’
The rest of the room either remain transfixed on us, or avoid looking with all of their might, finding the carpet particularly interesting.
Clenching my fists at my sides, I try my hardest to keep my composure.
Growing up in the spotlight, hearing fucked-up rumours about my family has always been a normal thing that we laugh about at the dinner table, but on hearing them come from the mouth of someone as vile as Charles River, my patience is thin.
Turning to Cara and Sade, who finally seem to be feeling the weight of the insult to the both of them, getting this whole interaction over with becomes my priority.
‘I truly am sorry about your dress, and even more sorry for the words of this gentleman. Please accept my card—’ I slide out my ‘in case of emergency’ card with the numbers of the family assistant and lawyer from my wallet and hand it to Cara ‘—and I shall do my utmost to sort this.’
I begin to walk away, each of my steps heavy, laboured, and I don’t get far before Charles’s voice follows his obnoxiously loud scoff.
‘You know, Artie, no matter how many awards they win, your family will always be common filth. Even your sister—’ I have no idea how I get back across the room so quickly but Charles River’s shirt collar is balled between my fists, and I slam his shoulder into the nearest wall before he can finish spitting his bile.
Panic flashes across his expression for a moment, but as I press him further into the wall and he feels my chest heaving in my wrath, he grins. It’s a Kubrick stare, psychotic, disgusting. I lift my fist to wipe it straight from his face.
The flash of a camera startles me out of my red mist. There’s one at first – it’s Cara and her iPhone.
Then it’s another iPhone. And another. Until paparazzi cameras click their shutters so loudly, flash so brightly, that the weight of what I’ve just done crashes through me with such force I stumble backwards, releasing Charles.
He brushes down his shirt, as though only fazed by the wrinkles in the fabric.
‘You all saw that, didn’t you? Cavendish attacked me, entirely unprovoked.’ He plays to the gallery, successfully.
Two members of staff, as though having waited until all of the excitement has ceased and the press have all the photos they need, finally come to intervene. Shoving me away from the crowd, the men dressed all in black usher me to the doors.
‘I’m really sorry,’ I manage to squeeze out as my chest rises and falls so quickly it’s impossible to draw a full breath. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’
All I can think about is getting away, as far away as possible.
‘Keep walking, Cavendish,’ one grumbles, as both men shove at each of my shoulders like police officers marching me to my cell, or executioners delivering me to my fate.
Not wishing to hang around in the crowd any longer, I do as I’m told and stride quickly out of the door, into the blinding strip lights of the corridor where they finally leave me be.
A painful pang shoots its way across my chest and ricochets down each one of my ribs like a phantom bullet tearing me apart without so much as a single drop of blood.
Instead, it is sweat that trickles from me, dribbling down past my collar, soaking my shirt and leaving me clawing at my tie with the heat.
The more I pull at the knot the tighter it grows, and I’m suffocating.
The lights burn; with each laboured breath I feel myself blistering.
Am I dying? Is this what it feels like to die?
For your whole body to cease functioning with no warning?
To simply combust where you stand, where even though the beat of your heart can be felt throbbing, pounding, clattering, it will burst at any moment and all of the people around you, dressed in their finery, must deal with the burden of your spontaneous death in the centre of their ceremony.
‘Arthur?’ I hear Mum’s voice, though it’s tinny and distant, as though she speaks to me through a dream. Blurry faces appear before me. Nothing of familiarity greets me; even the feel of my own skin is foreign. ‘What has he taken?’ My mother’s voice is frantic now.
My face is damp now; I’m crying. I swipe and swipe at the tears but they don’t stop.
They just keep flowing down my cheeks, mixing with my sweat until the salty concoction stings at the grazed patch on my chin from this morning’s shave.
This morning. So much time feels as though it has passed since then.
The world around me rushes by, and yet I am paralysed, feeling every hair on my body as it prickles, straining on each breath. I am going to die.
‘We need him out of here. We cannot have this happening on our property.’ A voice I don’t recognise floats in beside my mother’s.
‘He needs a doctor. Can someone call an ambulance?’ My father’s voice is here now, frantic.
‘With the world’s media outside? Absolutely not. He’s already caused us enough trouble.’
‘What am I meant to do?’ The voices blend together in some sort of monstrous call and my own gets lost in the chaos of it all.
‘Stick him in a taxi and take him home. He’s clearly off his face. The boy needs tough love, not to burden A&E on a Sunday night.’
My body is shutting down. I wish nothing more than to curl up and sleep for an eternity.
As they barrel me out of some back doors and into a blacked-out car, there’s only one thing playing over and over in my mind: I fucking hate the BAFTAs.