Chapter 3
“This—” Ellie pointed at Jared with her teaspoon, “is fucking bananas.”
“They’re blueberry pancakes, actually,” he replied mildly, looking up from his plate, mid-forkful. For a hot second she wanted to rub her agent’s carefully twirled blonde moustache into the maple syrup.
“I’m serious! What kind of insanity is this?” She gestured at the document on the screen of the iPad he’d laid on the cafe table between them.
“Look, I can’t lie, I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” Jared admitted.
He chewed for a minute, his eyes on her face.
“When Jenkins’s EA contacted me last night, I literally thought it was a joke.
The news only broke two days ago. You can’t create a TV show out of an active investigation, it would bias a fair trial, if it comes to that.
They’d slap a cease and desist on us so fast we wouldn’t have time to shit.
But he was insistent: book Eloise Silver immediately.
She’s to hold off on all conflicting offers that may impact March through to June next year. ”
“I can’t do that on an off-chance,” Ellie protested.
“That’s prime audition period! Besides, that counts me out from every other ongoing role I could take this year.
Surely, I have the right to take on whatever roles I like until a filming schedule is actually announced?
It’s not like they could film this without me.
Jesus, Jared… this story could all drag out for years! ”
“Apparently Jenkins knows something we don’t, because Fallen will foot the bill if they’re not on schedule.” Fallen was Jenkins’ production company, the same one that had bankrolled six previous seasons of Universe Below. “You’ll be well compensated whether you’re shooting or not.”
“That’s hardly the point.” Ellie screwed up her nose. “I want to be working. I don’t want to sit on my arse for months when I could be out there, building a name for myself. Fallen doesn’t own me.”
“Well, not exactly…” Jared hedged.
“Jared!”
“Look, when we signed for season six, it was a big deal! We discussed it at the time; Estella is an incredible role. Being promoted to lead for the upcoming season is one hell of a break. It could be just the thing you’re looking for.
And besides, you agreed to be contractually bound to up to three seasons if her character was developed further—”
“I didn’t know Fallen were going to become literal ambulance chasers! The bodies are barely even cold yet! What are we doing here?” Ellie started to feel sick all over again.
“We’re making great television.” Jared raised his voice over the hum of the busy cafe.
“We’re not getting our arses sued by Jimmy Jenkins, who, by the way, you do not want to fuck with.
And we’re getting you your big break. All you have to do is agree to a four month paid holiday next year if this shitshow of a schedule falls over. ”
“This could fuck up my career forever,” Ellie groaned. “Why the hell did we sign this thing?”
“Because it could also make your career, for once and for all. You want to be a star, Eloise Silver? Then buckle up kiddo, because Estella Grant is your ticket to fame.”
Ellie was glum the whole train ride back to Zara’s.
She had her own apartment in Brunswick, high above Lygon Street, because she liked being in amongst it all and just a quick tram ride to the city.
But some deep part of her avoided the emptiness of the place.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like living on her own, it was more that she didn’t like living without her family.
Zara had pushed a few times over the years for Ellie to formally move back in with her, but despite the best-friend closeness of their sibling relationship and her love for her nephew, there was a part of Ellie that knew for her own self-preservation she had to say no.
That for her sister’s own sake, she had to say no.
They’d been through too much together, had their lives far too entangled to ever go back there, to that point where no one could conclusively say whose life belonged to who.
And so Ellie technically lived two suburbs away and yet spent half her week at her sibling’s house.
She watched the familiar scenery flash by the train window, the backs of the same houses whizzing past, the same graffiti-covered walls, the same level-crossings, the same station names.
Getting off at Dennis, she sucked in a deep breath of hot sweaty air as the train doors opened.
It was only a block to Zara’s, but she was damp with perspiration when she all but fell in the door with a groan.
“Shh!” whisper-yelled her nephew. “You’ll frighten Genevieve!”
“Everything frightens Genevieve,” she told him, as she crossed the living room to pour herself a giant glass of iced tea from the fridge. “Genevieve is scared when you slice her carrot sticks the wrong way. I can’t be held responsible for giving a guinea pig a heart attack.”
“She’s seen some things.” Arthur frowned up at her from his position on the floor, the small ginger creature on his lap. “She witnessed her sister’s murder.”
“That’s true.” Ellie came and sat cross-legged opposite him.
She took a long sip from her glass and reached over to scratch Genevieve’s head.
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” she said gently.
Genevieve made a little rumbling-squeaking sound that Ellie was pretty sure meant she had no real residual trauma from the fox attack in the backyard she’d survived three years ago.
She seemed fully appreciative of her smug little life as a spoiled indoor pet. “How was your day, kiddo?”
“Pretty good,” Arthur said. “Wilton came to school with green hair and Miss De Lucca said that he’d be suspended if it wasn’t brown again by Monday because it’s against the uniform rules. Which seems dumb. Like how does green hair stop anyone from learning?”
“I don’t know,” Ellie agreed. “It does seem dumb.”
“Are we adulting, Eloise?” called Zara’s voice from her bedroom across the hall. Ellie sighed.
“Yes mum,” she called back. That was a joke. Their mum hadn’t adulted in… well, ever. Ellie looked at her nephew, who had his eyebrows raised, waiting. “It’s indoctrination,” she staged-whispered. “They’re trying to turn you into good little capitalist soldiers.”
“I don’t know what that means,” he whispered back. “But it sounds stupid.”
“Totally,” she kept her voice low. “It’s about demonstrating school pride through respect for your uniform,” she projected her voice for the audience across the hall. “Resist,” she added in a whisper. Arthur giggled.
“I know what you’re doing,” Zara called out again.
“Arthur, don’t listen to anything your aunty says, she’s a starving artist.” There was a rustle as she got off the bed and padded across the hall.
Zara pointed sleepily at her son. “We need someone in this family to be a lawyer or an accountant or something, okay?”
Zara was joking, but the huge dark circles under her eyes added a weight to her words that made Ellie’s heart sink. She glanced at Arthur, but he was busy feeding Genevieve a blade of grass he’d harvested from the yard, happily ignorant of the adult woes around him.
Zara collapsed onto the couch beside them, her t-shirt and pyjama shorts wrinkled from what looked like a failed attempt to nap. She was on night duty that week, so Ellie stayed overnight to supervise Arthur, while her sister tried to sleep during school hours. She looked wrecked.
“You doing okay, Florence Nightingale?” Ellie tried to keep her voice light. Zara shot her a slightly huffy, indulgent look. They both knew what she really meant.
“I’m fine. You don’t need to big sister me, I promise. Just sick of nights. Ward’s been feral.”
“Sick people keep wanting things from you, huh? So rude.”
“So rude,” Zara agreed. “Can you get me one of those too please?” Ellie went and poured her sister a cold iced tea and sank down on the couch next to her. “Tell me about your meeting.” Zara nudged her thigh with her feet.
“Ugh, ridiculous.” Ellie launched into the story of Fallen’s demands and Jared’s assessment.
“I have auditions for that indie film next week, but if I’m in the running I’ll have to tell them that four months early next year are blocked out just in case.
It’s one thing to turn down one role for another, but another thing altogether to turn down something good just on the off-chance.
And it’s such an off-chance. Like are the writers literally just waiting around to see a conclusion and then start writing?
What does that even look like? Estella behind bars? ”
“They could write a whole damn series about the last week,” Zara said. “I’d watch the hell out of that. What a tale. Blood and betrayal, Estella’s husband taken out. Estella tipped to take over. Oh my god, you don’t think she killed him do you?”
Ellie clenched her jaw. This was the whole crux of it for her.
Zara looked ready to munch popcorn over the details, but Ellie would have to be complicit in turning real deaths into entertainment.
It felt queasy. She opened her mouth but caught sight of her sister’s exhausted eyes.
There were better people to complain to, about what she was paid to do.
“I’m not Estella’s keeper,” she grumbled instead. “I have no idea what that woman would or wouldn’t do.”
“What would be more satisfying to play?” Zara mused. “A husband-killer or a grieving mob boss?”
Both seemed overwhelming in that moment.
Ellie considered the difference between playing a woman sentenced to life in jail, or a woman willingly leading a bunch of brothel-owning, drug-dealing, money-laundering, murderously violent thugs.
Overall, she preferred it when Estella had been simply an adulterer, the other stains on her conscience plausibly existing only by association.
That was what her sister failed to understood about acting.
For Ellie to do her job well meant delving deep into Estella Grant’s psyche.
To have empathy for her. And that, right now, looked like willingly diving into the pits of hell.