Chapter 30
30
DAY FOUR
Now
‘So what were you kids doing working in Paris?’ Caryn asked, as she replenished three deep glasses of red. She watched Jesse and Minnie eat as if they were tucking into a midnight feast, which it almost was.
Minnie told Caryn about her audition for Wim Fischer’s as-yet-untitled next big film, and how it had gone terribly. Caryn had written a profile piece on Wim Fischer when his debut came out twenty years ago and said she didn’t realise how awful he was, otherwise she wouldn’t have been quite so favourable. At the time he was the toast of Hollywood.
‘How terrifying. Poor you! Have you told the police?’
Jesse shook his head gently.
‘No, I just ran. Out of the room, out of the hotel, out of the street, to meet Jesse.’
Caryn looked at Jesse with concern.
‘I’d been at the zoo,’ he said. ‘For Remy,’ Jesse confessed. ‘Although, did you know, there isn’t a red panda at Paris Zoo either?’
Caryn looked startled, by Minnie’s ordeal mostly, but also by Jesse’s progress.
‘I don’t even think a crime was committed,’ Minnie said, stabbing a plump butter bean with her fork. ‘He propositioned me and I said no.’
‘But it’s a terrible abuse of power!’ Caryn said, horrified.
Minnie nodded. ‘I know. I’ll talk to my parents when we get back to London. They’ll know what to do.’
Caryn raised an eyebrow and watched Minnie’s features as she ate voraciously.
‘I’m just gutted about the movie. I wanted to meet Viola Rubin and I wanted that part. So much.’
‘Well if he’s like that at a meeting, imagine how ghastly he would be to work with!’ said Caryn. ‘Lucky escape, I am certain of it.’
Minnie acquiesced.
‘You’ll be fine,’ Caryn said sagely. ‘I can see it.’
Minnie had only been in her house for an hour and already Caryn was completely charmed. It was a charm Caryn assumed would take Minnie far, even if the girl didn’t believe it herself.
Minnie and Jesse ate quickly, to power through their fatigue, and at midnight, having got Minnie a phone charger and some summer pyjamas, Caryn announced she was going turn in. It was a cold reminder for Jesse that his dad wasn’t asleep upstairs, or at a yoga class, or away on a book tour. He was gone.
‘Shall I make up the spare room?’ Caryn asked, as neutrally as she could. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to Jesse on his own about who this disarming woman was and what she meant to him. He might even have reconciled with Hannah; they hadn’t spoken for a couple of weeks, which was a long time in their relationship.
‘Yes please,’ Minnie and Jesse both replied firmly.
‘Here, I’ll help.’ Jesse followed his mother through the house to the laundry cupboard and held out his arms to make a shelf.
‘I’ll clear the table,’ Minnie called cheerfully.
‘Oh, no need to do that!’ Caryn shouted back, but Minnie carried on, trying to make herself useful.
While Caryn and Jesse made up the bed and Jesse told his mother he had got a children’s agent for Remy – that he was finally making progress with it – Minnie washed up the dinner plates and glasses in the kitchen. As she stood at the butler sink and looked out of the window onto darkness, she became aware of her mobile phone bouncing back into life on the kitchen counter. She glanced at it – still no signal. It had died just south of Paris and she didn’t know any numbers by heart to text anyone on Jesse’s phone. She hadn’t texted her parents to say how it went, or that she had left Paris, but not for London. She hadn’t texted Hilde to say she wouldn’t be back tonight. She hadn’t texted Devon to say how horrific the audition was.
As she plunged her hand into the suds and circled a cloth around patterned plates, she thought about Wim Fischer, a shrivelled little man in an enormous bath tub. How repulsive the whole scene was. What a waste of her time. She wanted to cry but the anger inside her countered it. How was she letting men, and their appraisal of her, shape her life? After everything her parents taught her.
Jesse walked into the kitchen.
‘Mum’s gone to bed,’ he said with a smile.
‘Your mum is awesome,’ Minnie replied, her anger softening.
‘I think she thinks you’re pretty awesome too. Although less so for doing the washing up. You didn’t have to you know.’
Minnie knew.
‘Is she OK?’
Jesse nodded.
‘I think so,’ he said, picking up a tea towel. ‘It’s just weird… Anyway, are you OK?’ He looked at her. Feet bare on the cool stone floor in her short skirt and ballerina top, and remembered how the day had started, as if there had been a hundred hours in this day.
Minnie flicked the suds off her hands as she finished the last side plate. She turned around and leaned back against the sink, folding her arms.
‘Yeah I’m all right. Trying to convince myself the film will be shit anyway.’
‘A rotten tomato!’ Jesse said triumphantly.
‘My parents predicted the script wouldn’t pass the Bechdel test. Medusa’s Mane didn’t. So… you know… they had their concerns.’
Jesse didn’t know.
‘What’s the Bechdel test?’
‘Jesse, you have a daughter. You should know what the Bechdel test is.’
Jesse started drying up the plates and cutlery on the side, waiting for an explanation.
‘My parents always judge a work of fiction – a movie, a book or TV programme – on whether it passes the Bechdel test, regardless of whether they enjoyed the film or not. And if it doesn’t meet the criteria, they like it a little less.’
‘So what’s the criteria?’
‘Well the work of fiction has to have at least two female characters in it, and they should be named.’
‘Right.’
‘Who talk to each other.’
‘OK…’
‘About something other than a man.’
Jesse stopped drying the plate, dumbfounded.
‘Surely every work of fiction passes this test?’
‘Jesse, you have no idea.’
He was baffled as he tried not to drop his mother’s floral plate onto the floor.
‘Loads of things don’t pass the test. Although if I’m right… I think your dad’s books do – otherwise my parents wouldn’t have loved him.’
‘That’s a relief.’
‘We were discouraged from watching or reading things that didn’t meet our parents’ barometer of equality when we were kids. Then it was given a name: a cartoonist in America – Alison Bechdel – actually made it A Thing, but my parents had already followed it as a life rule.’
Jesse shook his head.
‘I can’t believe stories don’t pass it today.’
‘Oh please! Half the films that have won Best Picture at the Oscars fail the Bechdel test. It’s so commonplace, people don’t even notice. Avatar : fail. Cocaine Bear : a surprising pass. Although I doubt that won any Oscars…’
Jesse thought about all the cartoons Ida consumed. Encanto and Frozen passed of course, although he wasn’t sure about The Little Mermaid , given Ariel’s motivation for becoming a human was to be with a man.
‘What about My Little Pony ?’ He winced.
Minnie’s face lit up.
‘ My Little Pony has exceptional girl power: sisterly ponies working together to solve problems in the community. No man troubles.’
‘Thank fuck for that.’
‘ Shrek on the other hand… the first movie fails dismally, but they redressed it in the sequels.’
‘So the movie you just went to audition for, was Veronica Valla not a kickass woman?’
‘I hadn’t seen the whole script – you never see a whole script at this stage, unless you’re an A-lister. She might have been the only woman in it for all I know, and then it’s a fail. Maybe not, but my parents had concerns after they streamed Medusa’s Mane the other night.’
Jesse thought Minnie’s parents sounded amazing.
‘And you know what pisses me off most?’ Minnie ran her fingers through her hair in exasperation.
‘What?’
‘I am totally failing in the Bechdel test of my own life.’
Jesse looked puzzled.
‘What do you mean?’ He threaded the damp tea towel through the oven handle. It would be dry in no time on this warm night.
‘When I’m talking with my girlfriends, or when I’m talking to Tony, it’s invariably about JP and how he dumped me. Or I’m talking about?—’
Minnie stopped herself and took a sharp intake of breath. She looked briefly at Jesse and away with a scowl.
‘Hey, are you OK?’
Minnie picked up her phone. ‘Dammit. I still can’t get reception.’
‘It’s hopeless here. Do you want to use Mum’s landline? She still has one.’
Minnie looked at the clock on the kitchen wall and sighed.
‘No, it’s OK, it’s late. I’m wiped out. They’ll be all right.’
She rubbed a despairing hand up through her short fringe. She looked tired and defeated. Jesse pondered her.
‘I put pyjamas and towels on your bed – and some shorts and a vest Mum dug out. She figured you’re about the same size. The spare room is up the stairs and left, at the end of the corridor.’
Minnie felt bad for snapping.
‘Thanks, Jesse.’
‘Hey. That’s OK.’
‘I don’t know what I’d have done if I wasn’t with you in Paris today. I have no clue where anything is, I couldn’t think, I can’t speak French…’
‘I’m sure you would have been fine.’
And, thankfully, they both knew that much was true.
As they whispered on the landing of the farmhouse, and Jesse assured Minnie she could help herself to anything she needed, Minnie felt compelled to stand on her tiptoes and give Jesse a wholehearted hug.
‘Thank you, really.’
Jesse was taken aback, but hugged Minnie in return, his arms not fully wrapped around her.
‘I mean, I don’t have any clean pants and you’ve made it even bloody harder to get home, but thank you.’ She pressed her cheek into his chest and tried to ignore the rhythm of his beating heart. ‘This is a lovely home. And I am going to sleep for days. Well, not literally days, we don’t have time…’
I want my time with you.
Jesse smiled.
‘Thanks for letting me tag along,’ he countered, and Minnie released herself, smiled and opened her bedroom door quietly.
Jesse walked a little way down the corridor, glanced out of the open hallway window at the sparkling sky and stopped on the threshold of his room.
‘Hey, did you see them?’
‘See what?’
‘The Northern Lights, in Scotland?’
‘No. Next time.’
Jesse looked at her cynically.
‘I will see them without flying, Jesse Lightning!’ Minnie assured him as she pointed a finger. And there, she realised she had said it. His name out loud.