Chapter Four
Miranda
Miranda isn’t quite sure where she is when she surfaces from her post-arrival nap. She’d been so exhausted after the palaver of travelling– the delay at Gatwick, the cramped flight full of parents with screaming infants– that when she eventually made it to her suite, she collapsed onto the bed and fell asleep almost immediately. She’s always been a good sleeper, Miranda– it’s one of her superpowers, the ability to shut her eyes and nod off, whether on a train or backstage before an evening performance or in noisy digs with paper-thin walls during the tight-budget days of repertory theatre. ‘Classic psychopath,’ her sister Imogen once joked, back when they were still friends. ‘Most of us normals have this thing called a conscience that keeps us awake at night.’
‘Ithink you’ll find that’s a guilty conscience,’ Miranda had retaliated. ‘Maybe I’m just a nicer person than you?’
Oh, the irony, she thinks, remembering this now and grimacing. Pushing Imogen from her mind, she starfishes on the vast bed, wondering how big a room service bill it’s possible to rack up over the next fortnight. It’s tempting, after everything she’s been through, to keep at a remove from the other holidaymakers and skulk alone for the duration. But one glance through the balcony doors reveals that it’s a glorious evening, the blue sky giving way to tones of bronze and pink as the sun begins its slide towards the horizon. What are you doing, moping about inside on such a lovely day? she hears her mother’s voice in her ear– an outdoorsy person, who can never bear to stay indoors if the sun is even semi-visible. Come on, up and at ’ em!
She’ll probably be hearing her mother’s bossy voice on her deathbed, Miranda thinks, rather grumpily, but swings her legs from under the covers nonetheless and sits up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. All right, all right. Give me a minute.
A while later, following a quick wash and change of clothes, Miranda tucks her long blonde hair up into one of the wigs that she has brought with her, a dark brown pixie crop that she wore years ago in a production of The Seagull . She has always loved dressing up, completely inhabiting a role, and, as she checks her reflection in the mirror, it feels as if the real Miranda has taken a back seat for the time being. Tonight, she’ll play the part of Happy Single Holidaymaker; far less stressful than being her usual messy self. After putting on some jewellery and perfume– Happy Single Holidaymaker always makes the effort– she sets out to find the well-reviewed taverna that Google Maps assures her is a mere eight minutes’ walk away.
The restaurant is down a steep hill towards the beach. It’s eight o’clock and the sun has set, but the evening air is still pleasantly warm, which is cheering, given that it was lashing down with rain when she left the UK this morning. A bird swoops silently past her– an owl? she wonders with a thrill– and there is jasmine flowering fragrantly along the fence on her left, as well as the briny tang of the sea beyond. Maybe this will be okay after all, she thinks, as she rounds the corner and sees the lights of the taverna ahead. Her sister’s hurt face, Helen’s cold disapproval, the paparazzi frenzy. . . they all seem mercifully far away now that she’s here. Her shoulders are already lowering. Perhaps she needed this more than she realised.
The taverna is a simple structure, built into the side of the hill, and opens right onto the beach at the front. Even in this dusky light the view is gorgeous, with a silvery cast to the sand, and the sea deepening from mid-blue through to inky midnight on the horizon. Inside, it’s busy, with pretty candle-lit lanterns on each table, and bouzouki music playing, and the waiting staff shoulder large platters of delicious-smelling food. Oh yes , thinks Miranda, suddenly appreciating the liberation of not having to be filmed and shown on television any time soon. There’s so much pressure to keep up appearances when you are broadcast into people’s living rooms week in, week out; God help you if you dare put on a few pounds, or leave the house without a full face of make-up, because it will be noted and commented on and shared. It’s bad enough in print or online, but it’s so much worse when people say terrible things to your face, as if you’re not an actual human being with feelings. ‘Oh! You look much fatter on television than you do in real life,’ she’s been told before. How are you supposed to respond to that?
A handsome young waiter with dark, gelled-back hair and exactly the right amount of stubble notices her and gestures for her to take a table on the far side of the room. ‘Thank you,’ she says, as he brings her a menu, a wine list, a basket of rustic-looking bread. Then she undertakes a precautionary sweep of the place, hoping that the wig will be enough to afford her some privacy. Funny that she used to long for recognition, back in the day. Astonishing, to remember the buzz she’d experienced, the frisson,
the first time someone approached her in a pub, shyly asking, ‘Are you in that cereal ad on the telly?’ How ecstatic she had been to say yes! To sign a beer mat, to pose for a photo!
A burst of laughter erupts nearby and she instantly goes cold, convinced that the sound is directed at her. Oh God, is it her, do you think? she imagines people giggling to one another, clutching their phones in readiness. The one who went viral on TikTok?
She risks a glance behind, only to see that the group she heard laughing aren’t looking her way and, in fact, appear to be speaking in a foreign language, so probably don’t even know who she is. Okay, stand down, she orders herself. It’s not about you. This is what fame does to a person, though– the paranoia, the constant feeling that you might be torn apart on a stranger’s whim. Is it just me, she’d once read in the comments section of the Amberley Emergency Facebook page, or does anyone else feel like smashing in Miranda Vallance’s head with a lump hammer whenever she’s in a scene? UGGGHHHHH! She’d closed down the laptop the moment she saw it, hands shaking, but the comment has lived permanently in her brain ever since. A lump hammer? They hadn’t been warned about that at drama school.
Good news anyway: at a first glance, she can’t detect anyone staring at her or, worse, trying to take covert photos. As well as the table in fits of laughter (five or six young women seemingly having a whale of a time), there are a lot of middle-aged couples with sunburnt noses chatting companionably. A large extended family with a small child slumped asleep in a highchair. A young couple smiling adoringly at one another over the table– eyes only for each other. Safe, safe, safe. Then her gaze shifts to the table nearest hers and she jerks in her seat with surprise. No way . Is that really Frank Neale sitting there, mere metres away? Yes, it’s definitely him, the celebrity chef and restaurateur whose bestselling cookbooks have found their way even to Miranda ‘Microwave Dinner’ Vallance’s kitchen. Not that he or the woman beside him look particularly overjoyed to be here, she notes, intrigued.
As if reading Miranda’s mind, the woman in question swings her head round, catches her staring and gives her a sharp look. Cheeks burning at being caught out, Miranda buries her face in the menu, feeling a hypocrite for gawking . She can’t get away with a ‘We’re both famous’ smile of acknowledgement either, because Frank Neale probably wouldn’t recognise her, even without the wig. There’s this weird fame hierarchy where other celebrities– even fellow actors!– tend to look down on soap stars, when, take it from Miranda, they are the hardest-working people in show business.
The group of young women explode into laughter again and, although the sound is one of exuberance, it sets Miranda’s teeth on edge. It makes her feel as if she’s back at school, friendless and alone, ousted by the other girls for being too weird, too nonconformist. You’re unique, that’s all, her dad once told her, his kind way of acknowledging her outsider status and trying to put a positive spin on it. But who wants to be unique aged fourteen? It feels like an effort even now, in her thirties. Sometimes she wishes she’d been born with the gene that other women seem to possess, the innate ability to gel with others, to fit in to a pack. Aside from her sister, Bonnie is the only woman she’s ever managed that with, she thinks, before remembering that Bonnie Beresford is the worst person in the world.
Sitting straighter in her seat, she tries to channel Happy Single Holidaymaker who has lots of friends back home, thank you, who never feels awkward, and who embraces the chance to dine solo for a change. It’s always been easier for her to adopt a role as camouflage rather than sit with her own feelings. But then she’s reminded of Patrick, one of her exes, who’d once said to her, exasperated, ‘Who are you though, underneath all of the roles and the acting? What bit is actually you, Miranda? Because– forgive me, but I’m looking, and Ican’t see anything there.’
Forgive me, he’d said, like that was possible when he’d basically told her she was nothing. He was a set designer at the National when she was understudying there for a season, ten years ago, and they’d dated for a few months. She’d dumped him soon afterwards though, not quite able to move beyond his damning remarks. Who are you, Miranda? A failure, Patrick. Exiled here like Circe in the Greek myths, a witch alone in the wilderness.
‘Madam? You are ready to order?’ says her waiter, and Miranda is catapulted from her reverie.
‘Oh! Yes, please. I’ll have the. . . um. . . prawns to start, then the sea bream,’ she says. ‘Thank you.’
‘And to drink, madam?’
‘I’d like the. . .’ Miranda opens the wine list and finds the first white wine she has heard of. ‘The Assyrtiko.’
‘A small glass? A large?’ the waiter asks, pencil poised above his little notepad.
Miranda pauses as if she’s deliberating, but she already knows her answer. Fuck it, she’s on holiday. Even Circe deserved a treat now and then. ‘A bottle, please,’ she says. Bring on sweet oblivion. After the few weeks she’s just had, she’s more than ready to fall into the soothing embrace of Dionysus.