Chapter 39
Elle
This break from shooting actually feels pretty good now I’m in London. It’s a change of pace, a reprieve just when I need one (because we all know I need to save myself from myself where Josh Lander is concerned).
We shot a big ensemble scene this morning, which was fun and meant no intimate moments with Josh on set.
Thank God.
Then it was down to London in a car, and after two hours in hair and makeup, I’m ready to face the world.
Tonight, I’m on Gordon Kaye’s iconic green sofa with my wonderful and highly amusing Hysteria co-star, Leo Spence.
Leo played a most convincing villain and made my character’s life a living hell and my time on set a riot.
I’m going to need all Leo’s help to drum up some decent banter.
I’m exhausted, and when I checked my blood pressure this morning, it was pretty low.
Worst of all, my eyelids have started to hurt.
They tend to get a red rash on them when my body’s considering a flare-up; it’s one of the early warning signals I get.
There’s not much I can do about it given the relentlessness of my schedule this week, but I do make myself do a meditation in the car, which turns into a brief but restorative nap.
Anyway. Also on the sofa this evening are a YouTube cookery sensation and an Irish comedian.
The four of us hang out in the green room and I allow myself a small glass of wine in the hope it’ll loosen me up.
I’m choosing short-term fixes over my longer-term wellbeing; I know that.
Wine’s the last thing my body needs right now, but my sanity requires it.
I’ve had a total personality failure since my altercation with Josh this morning, mainly because an exhausting death-spiral of conflicting thoughts has taken over my entire brain.
I keep circling. Around and around and around.
I should never have let him get that close. Really, I should never have got naked with him this time around, and I certainly shouldn’t have let him spend the night and got all cosy and sleepy and vulnerable with him.
But last night was amazing. All the sex has been amazing. I can’t deny we have something incredible together.
But we had something incredible together last time, and look what happened.
It’s different this time. It feels different, anyway. I think. There’s a better balance of power. I’m not some star-struck innocent anymore.
But I’m not confident enough in my own objectivity to be sure it’s different. Maybe he is really a sociopath. Maybe he’s changed. Or maybe he’s just totally spineless and pathetic: a pandered child star who’s never had to be accountable to anyone in life or love.
Grrrrrrrrrrrr! I need to get out of my head.
There’s something about being fully made-up in a very sleek, modern way and donning a sexy little black one-shouldered dress and bad-ass, four-inch heeled gladiator sandals that helps me make the mental transition.
It feels like I’m always with Josh, whether as me or Georgiana.
Tonight I’m a movie star on the UK’s most beloved and long-running talk show to chat about a fun project that has absolutely nothing to do with you-know-who.
Gordon Kay himself is a national treasure, a terrifyingly witty Scot who can more than hold his own with the biggest celebrities. I’ve been on his sofa probably once a year since Gracie, and he’s always been an absolute sweetheart to me.
I suspect he feels partly responsible for the public shit show that was Josh’s Twitter break up with me, because it was his tweet Josh responded to. Maybe responsible isn’t the right word, but he seems invested in my wellbeing and he’s proven a steadfast champion of me and my projects.
He usually goes easy on me on the sofa, and I’m praying tonight will be the same.
Mara’s made it clear to him that she will not tolerate him asking me about Josh.
She’s been equally fierce with me. I’m to stick to the topic of Hysteria.
It’s a big-budget movie and there is, aptly enough, hysteria building ahead of the premiere.
My and Leo’s faces are on the side of every bus in London. It should be an easy gig.
Everything starts smoothly. We get a huge cheer from the studio audience as we traipse onto the set.
Gordon mock-greets us all with kisses (he’s already swung by to have a quick drink with us in the green room), and he kicks things off with a viewing of the Hysteria trailer, which we all dutifully watch on the monitors.
It’s high octane, fast and furious, and frankly ridiculous.
We’re all laughing by the time it wraps up.
‘Wowzers.’ Gordon crosses his legs and stacks his prompt cards on his thigh. ‘You look exhausted. That must have been exhausting to film. Was it?’
I laugh. ‘It was pretty physical.’ Not as physical as filming Grosvenor, for totally different reasons I have no intention of disclosing to Gordon, but still.
‘Leo was already in great shape’—I grab his bicep to demonstrate—‘but they put me through a killer regime of weights and boxing to get me fit, and it was a shock.’
‘They practically had her in tears,’ Leo confirms. ‘Poor little snowflake.’ He hugs me to him in a brotherly way.
‘But it must have been great fun, all the same. What did you guys get up to together?’
‘Leo was the funnest part about it,’ I tell Gordon. ‘When there’s that much green screen, you really rely on your co-actors to keep the energy levels high. Leo’s great at impressions, so he kept me doubled up with laughter the whole time.’
‘Impressions like what?’ Gordon asks. ‘Give us an example, Leo.’
‘You sure you want me to do this?’ Leo launches into an impression of Gordon that’s so evilly accurate we’re all shaking with laughter.
I carefully wipe under my eyes. The makeup team did a great job of covering up my rash, but the cosmetics are irritating my eyelids even more.
I just want to get home and wipe this muck off.
‘You’re never invited on this fucking show again.’ Gordon points his cards at Leo. This show airs after the 9pm watershed, so the language usually gets fairly fruity. ‘Anyway, my dear.’ He swivels to me. ‘Going from Hysteria to Grosvenor must be a huge shift for you.’
I smile carefully at him to let him know he’s on thin ice, and cross my legs prettily. I think about taking a swig of the wine that’s been laid out for me, but my stomach is cramping.
‘It is. But they’re both great production teams, and I’ve wanted to do a Regency drama forever.
Playing one of Nicola Marchant’s heroines, especially Georgiana Kenworthy, is a dream come true.
And thankfully, playing a nineteenth-century lady means no gym.
Which is a huge bonus for me. It’s basically the reason I took the role. ’
Cue more laughter from the sofa and the studio audience.
Gordon leans forward in a predatory fashion. ‘Interesting. I was wondering what on earth attracted you to the job when you knew your co-star would be Josh Lander.’
He raises his eyebrows and sits back. The audience sucks its collective breath in with a drama level that’s totally unnecessary.
My stomach complains.
I ignore it.
My smile doesn’t reach my eyes.
‘Josh and I are both professionals, and for all those Nicola Marchant fans out there, let me tell you this. He’s going to make the most fantastic Dominic.’
‘So you haven’t gouged his eyes out yet?’
Leo still has his arm around me, and he gives me an imperceptible you’ve got this squeeze.
‘Sorry to disappoint, but we’re getting along just fine.’ If only you knew, Gordon.
I’m hoping the firmness of my tone communicates to Gordon that this avenue of conversation is closed, but he’s like a dog with a fucking bone.
‘Any chance of a happy ending for you two? That would be quite the story, wouldn’t it?’
This is only the start of it. I can’t even imagine what the questioning will be like when the Grosvenor publicity circus starts later this year and I have to sit next to Josh and politely bat back question after question about our personal lives.
There is no story.
There can’t be a story.
Because the only version of our story I can imagine the press spinning is that Josh broke my heart and I went back for more.
I’ve spent the past five years building a dazzling career for myself despite the stupid fucking headwind of being the girl Josh Lander dumped. On Twitter.
I think of his words this morning. I’m not gonna let you slip away again, Elle.
For fuck’s sake. Everything about that sentence tells me the man is incapable of accountability.
How ironic, given his tales of endless hours of self-work.
You’d think if rehab had drummed anything into him, it would be the need to take responsibility.
But if he feels no accountability for last time, he can’t feel any accountability to make us work this time.
I draw myself up so my spine is ramrod straight. I ignore the ominous, stabbing pains in my abdomen. The building nausea. The sheen of cold sweat blanketing my skin. I give Gordon my coldest, most Thatcher-esque smile and turn to Camera Three.
‘You can tweet this, Gordon. I don’t do re-runs. Ergo, I wouldn’t give Josh Lander a happy ending if he was the last man on earth.’
‘Jesus fucking Christ.’ Mara’s head is in her hands in the back of the car. She’s insisted on accompanying me back to the flat, and not because she’s worried I’ve got a flare-up brewing.
Nope.
She is pissed off.
I ignore her and stare out the window at London scrolling past us as we crawl down Bayswater. The lining of my coat is sticking to the cold sweat on my bare back.
She stabs at her phone. ‘I don’t know whether to be more livid with you or that little Scottish prick.’
I take slow, deep breaths and keep one hand on my tummy, willing it to comply as I rub my itchy eyelid hard with my finger. I give up on the view and loll against the headrest. Closing my eyes makes me feel nauseous. I open them again.
‘What was I supposed to do?’ My voice is flat. I’m fucking exhausted. ‘He totally blindsided me. You drilled it into me to bash down the remotest suggestion that Josh and I might not be over. So I did.’
‘You certainly did that.’
‘So why are you so pissed off?’
I’m being disingenuous.
I know exactly why.
‘Because you’ve given the tabloids the headline to end all fucking headlines. I wouldn’t give Josh Lander a happy ending if he was the last man on earth. Fuuuuuck. It’s so… sexual. I mean, it’s pretty bloody graphic.’
Despite myself, I smirk in the dark. ‘I thought it was quite witty.’
‘It is witty. It’s very fucking witty. But I could do without you having found your inner comedian on the bloody Gordon Kay show. Now, instead of quashing rumours, the whole world’s going to be imagining you giving Josh Lander a hand job. Excellent. What the hell do you expect me to do about that?’
I wave a dismissive hand in the air. ‘Figure it out. That’s why I pay you the big bucks.’
‘You know I will. No thanks to you. I have seventy-two hours to work my magic before it broadcasts. Are you still fucking him?’
I hesitate.
‘Seriously, Elle?’
‘As of today, no. We had a bit of a bust-up this morning. Suffice to say I’ve come to my senses.’
For now.
While there are a few miles between us.
While I don’t have to see him.
Act opposite him.
Simulate all kinds of stuff that makes me want to break the handle off his trailer door in my haste to be with him afterwards.
Luckily, I’m feeling so rough right now that my libido has well and truly deserted me.
I couldn’t feel less horny. But I could feel less…
attached. I know. It’s not great. But the memory of being wrapped up in his body this morning, of waking up with him, and of the profound sense of wellbeing it gave me?
Well, that’s not something I can brush off easily.
We get back to mine. My cramping has grown steadily worse, and I clutch my stomach as Mara and I walk up the steps to my front door. I can feel a hint of dampness in my knickers. Thankfully, there are no paps loitering this evening. Not that I can see, anyway.
‘Is Nora home?’ Mara asks.
The lights are on. ‘Looks like it.’
‘I’ll come in with you. I want to make sure she keeps an eye on you.’
I wave her away. ‘I’ll be fine.’
She tuts. ‘Nice try, missy, but no way.’
Nora’s on the sofa, reading with Olive on her lap, but Olive hurls herself off and throws herself at me, leaping and twisting her little body in a frenzy of love and excitement. I grimace as I bend over to pick her up and kiss her little face, her tiny tongue darting all over me.
‘Hi girls,’ I say weakly.
‘Keep an eye on this one for me?’ Mara gestures my way.
Nora takes one look at me and bounds off the sofa. ‘Crap. You okay? You look like shit.’
‘I rubbed my eye makeup off. My eyes are giving me grief.’ I move slowly through the hallway. ‘I’m going to spend some quality time on the loo. Night, Mara. Thanks and sorry for fucking up.’
‘It’s nothing I’m not used to,’ Mara says gruffly as she hugs me goodbye and heads back out.
Nora pads down the hall after me.
‘Do you need help? What can I do?’
She’s well versed in my flare-ups.
‘A hydration drink would be great. And a heat pad? Thanks, Nor.’
I shut the bathroom door between us and pull down my pants. Sure enough, there are already some spots of blood. Holy fuck, that was a close call. I peel them off completely and sink down onto the loo, my head in my hands, as my angry, inflamed bowels begin their purge.