Chapter 4 #3
‘Oh, everywhere. It was the national tour. I got to meet Julie Andrews after the show one evening, which was just insane. But then after that I didn’t really act again for a while.’ She grabbed both her tits. ‘Alas, the awkward adolescent years.’
‘Not a girl, not yet a woman.’
‘You said it, Britney. Then I did some stuff at boarding school, a load of gender-bending because it was all girls and I was unlucky enough to have a husky voice, so I had to play all the old man parts.’
I smiled and scooped a piece of muffin into my mouth. I liked Victoria. I liked her stories.
‘And then, when I was sixteen, I played Gwendolen Fairfax in The Importance of Being Earnest.’ She stopped and her shoulders seemed to slump. She cleared her throat. ‘Sorry, can you pass me that coffee?’
I handed it to her. She took a sip and stared at her lap for a moment.
‘Anyway, it turns out there was this BBC casting assistant in the audience, some relative of one of the girls, and he invited me to audition for Sense and Sensibility. It was just a small role, a maid, but I got the part, and that was the last time I acted. So, I don’t know when I decided to be an actress. I guess it just happened.’
‘Wait, wait, hold on. You were in Sense and Sensibility? You were in a period drama on the BBC?’
She gave me a tight smile. ‘Yep.’
‘That’s huge.’
‘I guess.’ She placed the coffee down and got up. ‘You know what – sorry, Shannon – I’ve got a busy day. I should probably get back.’
‘Do you want to shower?’ I asked, crestfallen. I didn’t want her to leave. ‘You can shower if you want.’
‘No, it’s fine. Thanks. And thanks for letting me stay.
’ She grabbed her things and went towards the door.
But then, thinking better of it, she stopped and turned around.
‘Although, maybe we could hang out later?’ All of a sudden she looked nervous, like a little girl.
‘If you want to. Only if you want to though.’
‘I do want to, yeah.’
‘Cool.’ Her eyes lit up. She smiled and, despite the hangover and the bed head and the makeup still smeared across her face from last night, just then, my new friend Victoria looked impossibly beautiful to me. ‘I’ll text you.’
WE ENDED UP SPENDING the whole week together.
I visited her at her father’s house in Hampstead.
We climbed out of the poky attic window and onto the roof, where we settled ourselves on the lichen-covered slate.
We drank whatever we could find in the house.
We smoked. We stared out across sunsets on the Heath.
She told me about the girls she’d been to school with, that they were all bitches, that they were all sweethearts, that she wished she’d been home-schooled, that boarding builds character, that she didn’t want children, that she longed to be a mother.
I listened to it all. I ummed and ahhed and cooed at all the right moments, lapping up her stories like a greedy cat, my whiskers covered in cream, enjoying every slick morsel of information, storing away each memory to be taken out and turned over, rattled and cherished.
We went to pubs, we visited bars. She took me to a rooftop in Dalston where we danced until 4 a.m. We caught night buses and rode on the top deck as dawn broke and the city’s cleaners boarded, ready to scrape away the detritus of the previous day.
We went to the theatre. We got groundling tickets for Macbeth at the Globe.
We gazed up at the wide eye of the sky. My legs ached from standing.
My cheeks ached from smiling. Red liquid sprayed the audience when the knife plunged into Duncan’s heart.
When we emerged onto the riverbank, she licked her thumb and wiped the blood from my forehead.
One week. That’s how long it took for me to love Victoria completely.
I stopped checking the Facebook group. I didn’t care about the others. I’d meet them when the time came. And until then, I had Victoria. We were going to conquer the school, the stage, the world – together.
REGISTRATION WAS ON MONDAY. On Sunday afternoon I called Victoria.
It went straight to voicemail. I left a message.
Let’s get a drink. Shall I come over? That evening I still hadn’t heard from her.
I called again. This time she picked up.
Hi, she said stuffily. She said she was sorry for not calling but she felt like she was coming down with something.
She said she thought she’d better rest, that she didn’t want to turn up on the first day feeling ill.
I said that was fine, it was fair enough.
I offered to come over with a tin of chicken soup.
She laughed and said I was sweet, but no.
She said she was just going to take a bath and go to sleep, that she’d see me in the morning, bright and early, Shirley.
She said goodbye and hung up. Love you, bye. I lay on my bed. I hoped my friend would feel better by tomorrow. She was right, it was for the best that we didn’t see each other. We’d catch up in the morning. We had a big day ahead of us. I put my phone on the floor and, within minutes, was asleep.