Chapter 21 2011
Viola leans naked against the bathroom door, avoiding the mirror.
On the other side is a real, slowly exhaling man, a man who comes and goes and remembers her birthday but forgets her middle name, who leans his head to the side and listens to her opinions on matters of varying importance, who keeps most but not all of his promises.
“Everything okay?”
Orson is everything she wants. Over the last year, their relationship has grown in the eaves of their lives, in a handful of stolen moments during the breaks in his filming schedule and her term time.
They have met in London’s private corners, sharing drinks, tentative brushes, occasionally—when they know they are alone—a kiss.
He touches her like he cannot resist her, like he ought to resist. He disappears into taxis.
Until now, time has frustrated them, refusing to amount to anything, to give them certainty and space.
The world detains him for long, unpredictable months.
But he sends her small intimacies, her phone blinking out the thrill of him like a lighthouse.
O
saw a crow on set today kill a pigeon
sorry is that disgusting
i had to tell someone
Viola
you didn’t intervene?
I thought you were a hero
disappointed x
O
too fast. too evil. I am but human
shite weather have to extend a day filming
sorry
means sat is off
i really wanted to see you
Viola
sorry for you
and me
but I understand
O
how is school
are you a genius yet
Viola
yes
ask me anything
O
how did the universe begin
no
what shampoo do you use
oh god sorry what a creep
i just want to know what that smell is
Viola
coconut and rosehip
weirdo
;)
O
am I a horrible old man
Viola
no, you’re a very nice old man
benign
like a
O
I didn’t know roses had hips
Viola
pigeon
O
jesus
does that make you the crow in this analogy
are you going to eat my heart out
Viola
yes x
His bathroom gives little away. Slate and silver, a powerful, pendulous showerhead. A few jars in the corner: Marine Collagen, Wrinkle Corrector, an expensive-looking deodorant. Outside is December: colored light displays switching on and local vendors shutting for the evening.
This is mad, he said on the phone last month.
What, just generally?
No, well yes, but no, I had a specific madness to suggest…
She imagined his trailer somewhere in northern Iceland, his windows glowing into the starry abyss.
She imagined him lying on his small bed, shirtless perhaps, his face shiny from makeup remover.
Were the remains of dinner on an abandoned tray, or had he eaten with others: the gorgeous costar, the clever production crew?
Who else was attending to his needs? On the phone, he shape-shifts, becomes younger versions of himself, characters from decades ago.
Go on, madman.
His calls had become frequent, and she understood there was little else to do.
For a moment, the phone cut out and when it came back in, he was saying—it’s just too weird now, with their boyfriends or girlfriends all trying to get you presents, being all Ho Ho Ho, you just feel like a bit of a spectacle, and I’d rather just do something quiet anyway.
Sorry, your niece and nephew?
Oh, did you miss that?
Sorry, I—
Ach, God. Do you want to come for Christmas?
She closed her eyes and allowed his voice to become the only moving thing in the universe.
There is nothing I want more.
She said it because it was true. Because it overwhelms her—God, each morning she is hit fresh with need.
The whole world has taken him on as a permanent undertone: the music on the radio, the earth under her feet.
Is love a persistent wondering? What will he think, say, feel?
How will he—? Has he ever—? When, when, when?
They still have not slept together.
Do you think your family will mind? he asked. Do you have, you know, Christmas stuff?
I think they’ll get it.
Is that a twin thing, you just get each other? Do you have freaky twin thoughts?
About blood elevators in old hotels? Yes.
He laughed hard, then said: I always felt like my family was a bit of a weird appendage, even when I missed them terribly and was fucking homesick.
They just never felt more important than the whole great adventure, you know, the whole spectrum of what you could do with a life.
And they never really understood what I was trying to do until I had done it.
I get that, she said. Your world was so different to anything they’d ever known.
Exactly, he said.
He was trying to empathize, to make them alike—two people without a need for the worlds they had left.
But she cannot reciprocate his vulnerability.
She cannot reveal to him her baggage. He has all the choice in the world, but for her, he is singular.
She has to be perfect for him. It’s why he had not known to ask: Do you miss your brother?
Do you regret fighting? Do you wish you could tell him about us?
After a minute, she asked: Do you think everyone in Hollywood feels that way about their families? Like they’re less important than the rest of it?
No. Definitely not everyone.
The next month throbbed with the anticipation of it, a giddiness she tried to hide from Orson but could not hide from Niamh, who insisted on referring to the whole thing as sex-mas.
For all her teasing, Niamh was fantastically discreet.
In public, she only ever alluded to Orson as Viola’s “elderly paramour”; most people assumed she was sleeping with a married man. She was surprised how little she cared.
When she called her father to say she wasn’t coming home, she blamed her studies; it was a currency he had to respect.
He reassured her he would spend the day with Tillie and her family, and Sebastian would spend it with Sadie.
Still, it was hard to ignore the disappointment in his voice.
She could live with it, as long as he didn’t suspect anything.
Not that she wanted to lie to him—only, oh, how could she explain any of it in a way he could understand?
Maybe it would only last a moment. Maybe her degree would end and she would go home and never hear from Orson again.
Or maybe she would spend every Christmas with him for the rest of time.
O
don’t get me any presents
you are my present
Viola
come on
a little mistletoe?
O
you are so cute
but I’m serious
commit to naughty Christmas
I’m only getting you coal
Viola
I’m getting you lingerie
satin or lace?
She had taken the long walk north from the station, trying to slow the anticipation of the threshold, of what their need would become in private.
She is still unused to this part of town, to any London that people actually live in.
She tried playing a song on her headphones, but found it unlistenable against the pounding of her heart.
Gradually, the houses began settling back from the road, cloaking themselves in sturdier hedges, the motorbikes roaring up the high street puttering farther and farther away.
The problem arose when he opened the door, vibrating and human, his body calling her body into being.
Come in, he said, taking her hand, I missed you.
She had entered his large clean house and he had taken her through to the back (away from the windows).
The cold expanse of it jarred against the warmth of him.
Is it what you expected? he asked, and she said, It’s smaller, which made him laugh, but wasn’t true.
She was aware that they had not yet kissed tonight, aware of his awareness. He seemed nervous, more nervous than he had ever been in public, decanting boxes and boxes of Chinese food from a paper bag. I realized I didn’t know what you eat, he said. Do you eat?
No, I just photosynthesize. She stood on the other side of the kitchen island, allowing him to serve her.
I suspected as much.
But seeing as it’s Naughty Christmas, I’ll indulge, she said, and though her stomach was swimming, she placed a dumpling onto her plate. Orson stuck a spoon into a carton of rice and ate a heap of it, plain.
God, just, thank God, Viola.
For rice?
No—
He bent himself over the kitchen island and sighed, and she ventured a hand to the top of his head. His hair was damp, and he exhaled for a long moment, allowing her to massage his scalp.
I was just thinking how nice it is that you’re not going to go around telling everyone you know that I eat heaps of plain rice.
I might.
You won’t.
I won’t. You can be yourself.
When he lifted his face it was very close to hers, and she looked at the peaks of his mouth, his thin nose, the lines tracing down to his stubble. Thank you, he said. I will.
A small plastic tree with fake snow on the branches sat on the table, a tag still wrapped around its base. While they ate, his foot found hers, pawed at the toe of her boot.
Can I offer you a tour? he asked when they had finished, handing her a very large whiskey and leading her through his living room strewn with scripts and half-read books and a couple of expensive-looking paintings.
This is where I spend most of my time. He allowed her to thumb through his detritus and point at photographs and ask Is that your sister, and say She is very beautiful.
Above them was a shelf lined with statuettes of gold and glass engraved with his name.
Then, on the sideboard in a small silver frame, she saw it: a photograph of her own mother.
Grayish around the edges with the quality of a disposable camera.
Susan was sitting at a simple wooden table, laughing hard, head thrown back, one hand almost obscuring her face.
Wearing a low-cut blouse. Was it the same blouse from the tabloid?
Viola could not remember. It had disturbed her, just a few years ago, the photo.
She couldn’t bear the thought of anyone seeing it. And now?