I Know Who You Are
I stare at his face, so serious all of a sudden. Then the creases fold and fan around the corners of his mischievous eyes, and he laughs at me. ‘There’s a journalist waiting in your dressing room, too, by the way.’
‘What?’ He may as well have said assassin.
‘Apparently your agent arranged the interview, and they only want to speak to you, not me. Not that I’m jealous . . . ’
‘I don’t know anything about—’
‘Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry, my bruised ego will regenerate itself, always does. She’s been in there for twenty minutes. I don’t want her writing something shit about the film because you can’t set an alarm, so you might want to be a little more tout suite about it.’ He often adds a random French word to his sentences, I’ve never understood why. He isn’t French.
Jack walks off down the corridor without another word, in either language, and I question what it is about him that I find so attractive. Sometimes I wonder if I only ever want things I think I can’t have.
I don’t know anything about any interview, and I would never have agreed to do one today if I had. I hate interviews. I hate journalists; they’re all the same – trying to uncover secrets that aren’t theirs to share. Including my husband. Ben works behind the scenes as a news producer at TBN. I know he spent time in warzones before we met; his name was mentioned in online articles by some of the correspondents he worked with. I’ve no idea what he is working on now, he never seems to want to talk about it.
I found him romantic and charming at first. His Irish accent reminded me of my childhood, and bred a familiarity I wanted to climb inside and hide in. Whenever I think it might be the end, I remember the beginning. We married too fast and loved too slowly, but we were happy for a while, and I thought we wanted the same thing. Sometimes I wonder whether the horrors of the world he saw because of his job changed him; Ben is nothing like the other journalists I meet for work.
I know a lot of the showbiz and entertainment reporters now; the same familiar faces turn up at junkets, premieres and parties. I wonder if it might be one of the ones I like, someone who has been kind about my work before, someone I’ve met. That might be okay. If it’s someone I haven’t met before, my hands will shake, I’ll start to sweat, my knees will wobble and then, when my unknown adversary picks up on my absolute terror, I’ll lose the ability to form coherent sentences. If my agent had any understanding of what these situations do to me, he wouldn’t keep landing me in them. It’s like a parent dropping a child who is scared of water into the deep end, presuming that the child will swim, not sink. One of these days I know I’m going to drown.
I text my agent, it’s unlike Tony to set something up and not tell me. Other actresses might throw their toys out of their prams when things don’t go according to plan – I’ve seen them do it – but I’m not like that, and hope I won’t ever be; I know how lucky I am. At least a thousand other people wish they could walk in my shoes, and they are more deserving than I am to wear them. I’m still fairly new to this level of this game, and I’ve got too much to lose. I can’t go back to the start, not now. I worked too hard and it took so long to get here.
I check my phone. There’s no response from Tony, but I can’t keep the journalist waiting any longer. I paint on the smile I have perfected for others, before opening the door with my name on, and finding someone else sitting in my chair, as though she belongs there.
She doesn’t.
‘I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting, great to see you,’ I lie, holding out my hand, trying to keep it steady.
Jennifer Jones smiles up at me as though we are old friends. We are not. She’s a journalist I despise, who has been horribly unkind about me in the past, for reasons I’ll never understand. She’s the bitch who called me ‘plump but pretty’ when my first film came out last year. I call her Beak Face in return, but only in the privacy of my own thoughts. Everything about her is too small, especially her mind. She leaps up from the chair, flutters around me like a sparrow on speed, then grips my fingers in her tiny, cold, claw-like hand, giving my own an over-enthusiastic shake. Last time we met, I’m not convinced she had seen one frame of the film I was there to talk about. She’s one of those journalists who thinks that because she interviews celebrities, she is one too. She isn’t.
Beak Face is middle-aged and dresses like her daughter would, had she been willing to pause her career long enough to have one. Her neat brown hair is cut into a style that was almost fashionable a decade ago, her cheeks are too pink and her teeth are unnaturally white. She’s a person whose story has already been written, and she’ll never change her own ending, no matter how hard she tries. From what I’ve read about her online, she wanted to be an actress herself when she was younger. Perhaps that’s why she hates me so much. I watch her tiny mouth twitch and spit as she squawks fake praise in my direction, my mind already racing ahead, trying to anticipate the verbal grenades she plans to throw at me.
‘My agent didn’t mention anything about an interview . . . ’
‘Oh, right. Well, if you’d rather not? It’s just for the TBN website, no cameras, just little old me. So you don’t need to worry about your hair or how you look at the moment . . . ’
Bitch.
She winks and her face looks as if it has suffered a temporary stroke.
‘I can come back another time if . . . ’
I force another smile in reply and sit down opposite her, my hands knotted together in my lap to stop them from shaking. My agent wouldn’t have agreed to this unless he thought it was a good idea. ‘Fire away,’ I say. Feeling like I really am about to get shot.
She takes an old-fashioned notebook from what looks like a school satchel she probably stole from a child on the street. I’m surprised, most journalists I meet nowadays record their interviews on their phones. I guess her methods, like her hair, are stuck in the past.
‘Your acting career started when you got a scholarship to RADA when you were eighteen, is that correct?’
No, I started acting long before that, when I was much, much younger.
‘Yes, that’s right.’ I remind myself to smile. Sometimes I forget.
‘Your parents must have been very proud.’
I don’t answer personal questions about my family, so I just nod.
‘Did you always want to act?’
This one is easy, I get asked this all the time and the answer always seems to go down well. ‘I think so, but I was extremely shy when I was a child . . . ’
I still am.
‘There were auditions for my school’s production of The Wizard of Oz when I was fifteen, but I was too scared to go along. The drama teacher put a list of who got what part on a notice board afterwards; I didn’t even read it. Someone else told me that I got the part of Dorothy and I thought they were joking, but when I checked, my name really was there, right at the top of the list – Dorothy: Aimee Sinclair. I thought it was a mistake, but the drama teacher said it wasn’t. He said he believed in me because he knew I couldn’t. Nobody had ever believed in me before. I learned my lines and I practised the songs and I did my very best for him, not for me, because I didn’t want to let him down. I was surprised when people thought I was good, and I loved being on that stage. From that moment on, acting was all I ever wanted to do.’
She smiles and stops scribbling. ‘You’ve played a lot of different roles in the last couple of years.’
I’m waiting for the question, but realise there isn’t one. ‘Yes. I have.’
‘What’s that been like?’
‘Well, as an actor, I really enjoy the challenge of becoming different people and portraying different characters. It’s a lot of fun and I relish the variety.’
Why did I use the word relish? We’re not talking about condiments.
‘So, you like pretending to be someone you’re not?’
I hesitate without meaning to, still recoiling from my previous answer. ‘I guess you could put it that way, yes. But then I think we’re all guilty of that from time to time, aren’t we?’
‘I imagine it must be hard sometimes, to remember who you really are when the cameras aren’t on you.’
I sit on my hands to stop myself from fidgeting. ‘Not really, no, it’s just a job. A job that I love and that I’m very grateful for.’
‘I’m sure you are. With this latest movie your star really is rising. How did you feel when you got the part in Sometimes I Kill?’
‘I was thrilled.’ I realise I don’t sound it.
‘This role has you playing a married woman who pretends to be nice, but in reality has done some pretty horrific things. Was it a challenge to take on the part of someone so . . . damaged? Were you worried that the audience wouldn’t like her once they knew what she’d done?’
‘I’m not sure we want to give away the twist in any preview pieces.’
‘Of course, my apologies. You mentioned your husband earlier . . . ’
I’m pretty sure I didn’t.
‘How does he feel about this role? Has he started sleeping in the spare room in case you come home still in character?’
I laugh, hoping it sounds genuine. I start to wonder if Ben and Jennifer Jones might know each other. They both work for TBN, but in very different departments. It’s one of the world’s biggest media companies, so it has never occurred to me that their paths might have crossed. Besides, Ben knows how much I hate this woman; he would have mentioned if he knew her.
‘I don’t tend to answer personal questions, but I don’t think my husband would mind me saying he’s really looking forward to this film.’
‘He sounds like the perfect partner.’
I worry about what my face might be doing now, and focus all of my attention on reminding it to smile. What if she does know him? What if he told her that I’d asked for a divorce? What if that’s why she’s really here? What if they are working together to hurt me? I’m being paranoid. It will be over soon. Just smile and nod. Smile and nod.
‘You’re not like her then, the main character in Sometimes I Kill?’ she asks, raising an overplucked eyebrow in my direction, and peering at me over her notepad.
‘Me? Oh, no. I don’t even kill spiders.’
Her smile looks as if it might break her face. ‘The character you’re playing tends to run away from reality. Was that something you found easy to relate to?’
Yes. I’ve spent a lifetime running away.
A knock at the door saves me. I’m needed on set.
‘I’m so sorry, I think that might be all we have time for, but it’s been lovely to see you,’ I lie. My phone vibrates with a text as she packs up her things and leaves my dressing room. I take it out as soon as I’m alone again and read the message. It’s from Tony.
We need to talk, call me when you can. And no, I didn’t arrange or agree to any interviews, so tell them to bugger off. Don’t speak to any journalists before speaking to me for the time being, no matter what they say.
I feel like I might cry.
Six
Galway, 1987
‘There now, why are you spoiling that pretty face with all those ugly tears?’
I look up to see a woman smiling down at me outside the closed shop. I ran all the way here after my brother shouted at me. All I wanted was to look at the red shoes I thought someone might buy me for my birthday this year, but they’re gone from the window. Some other little girl is wearing them, a little girl with a proper family and pretty shoes.
‘Have you lost your mummy?’ the woman asks.
I start to cry all over again. She takes a crumpled tissue from the sleeve of her white knitted cardigan, and I wipe my eyes. She’s very pretty. She has long dark curly hair, a bit like mine, and big green eyes that forget to blink. She’s a bit older than my brother, but much younger than my daddy. Her dress is covered in pink and white flowers, as if she were wearing a meadow, and she is the spit of how I imagine my mummy would have looked. If I hadn’t killed her with a wrong turn. I blow my nose and hand back the snotty rag.
‘Well now, don’t you be worrying yourself – worrying never solved anything. I’m sure we can find your mummy.’ I don’t know how to tell her that we can’t. She holds out her hand, and I see that her nails are the same colour red as the shoes I wish were mine. She waits for me to hold it, and when I don’t she bends down, until her face is level with my own.
‘Now, I know you’ve probably been told not to talk to strangers, and that there are some bad people in the world, and that’s good if you have, because it’s true. But that’s also why I can’t leave you here on your own. It’s getting late, the shops are closed, the streets are empty and if something were to happen to you, well, I’d never forgive myself. My name is Maggie, what’s yours?’
‘Ciara.’
‘Hello, Ciara. It’s nice to meet you.’ She shakes my hand. ‘There, now we’re not strangers any more.’ I smile, she’s funny and I like her. ‘So, why don’t you come with me and if we can’t find your mummy, we can call the police and they can take you home. Does that sound all right with you?’ I think about it. It’s an awful long walk back home, and it is getting dark already. I take the nice lady’s hand and walk beside her, even though I know home is back the other way.
Seven
London, 2017
Jack takes my hand in his. He stares at me across the hotel restaurant table, and it feels as though everyone in the room is watching us. It’s impossible not to form a relationship off-screen when you spend this many months filming together. I know he’s enjoying this moment and his touch feels more intimate than it should. I’m scared of what is about to happen, but it’s far too late for that now, too late to pretend we both don’t know what happens next. I can see people staring in our direction, people who know who we are, and I think he senses my apprehension, gently squeezing my fingers in silent reassurance. There’s really no need. When I make my mind up about something it’s almost impossible for anyone to change it, including me.
He pays the bill with cash and stands, leaving the table without another word. I wipe my mouth with the napkin from my lap, even though I’ve hardly eaten a thing. I think about Ben for the briefest of moments, instantly wishing that I hadn’t, because the thought of him is hard to extinguish once inside my head. I can’t remember the last time Ben took me for a romantic meal or made me feel attractive. But then, the present is always a superior time; looking down its nose at the past, turning away from the temptations of the future. I ignore the fear trying to hold me back and follow Jack. Despite my hesitation, I always knew that I would when the time came.
He gets into the hotel lift up ahead of me. The doors start to close but I don’t run to catch up, I don’t need to. The metal jaws slide open again, right on time, to swallow me whole as I step inside. We don’t speak in the lift, just stand side by side. We’ve evolved as a species to hide our lust, like a dirty secret, even though finding other people attractive is exactly what we were designed to do. Still, I’ve never done anything like this before.
I’m aware of other people in the lift around us, aware of being watched. With each floor we pass I feel more anxious about our final destination. I always knew this was going to happen, even the first time we met. My heart changes speed inside my ears, I’m breathing too fast and I worry that he can tell how scared I am of what we’re about to do. His hand brushes mine as we step out on to the seventh floor, by accident I think. I wonder if he might hold it, but he doesn’t. He is not here to offer romance. That isn’t what this is and we both know that.
He slots the key card into the door, and for a moment I think it won’t work. Then I hope it won’t, something to buy me just a little bit more time. I don’t want to do this, which makes me wonder why I am. I seem to have spent my life doing things I don’t want to.
Inside the room, he takes off his jacket, flinging it onto the bed, as though he is angry with me, as though I have done something wrong. His handsome face turns to look in my direction, his features twisted into something resembling hate and disgust, as though he is mirroring my own thoughts about myself in this moment, in this room.
‘I think we need to have a talk, don’t you? I’m married.’ His final two words are like an accusation.
‘I know,’ I whisper.
He takes a step closer. ‘And I love my wife.’
‘I know.’ I’m not here for his love, she can keep that. I look away, but he takes my face in his hands and kisses me. I stand perfectly still, as though I don’t know what to do, and for a moment I worry that I can’t remember how. He is so gentle at first, careful, as though worried he might break me. I close my eyes – it’s easier to do this with them closed – and I kiss him back. He changes gear faster than I was anticipating, his hands sliding down from my cheeks, to my neck, to the dress covering my breasts, his fingertips tracing the outline of my bra beneath the thin cotton. He stops and pulls away.
‘Fuck. What the fuck am I doing?’
I try to remember how to breathe.
‘I know, I’m sorry,’ I reply, as though this were all my fault.
‘It’s like you’re inside my head.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say again. ‘I think about you all the time. I know I shouldn’t, and I promise I’ve tried so hard not to, but I can’t help it—’ My eyes fill with tears. He’s at least ten years older than me, and I feel like an inexperienced child.
‘It’s okay. This, whatever this is, is not your fault. I think about you too.’
I stop crying when he says that, as though the latest sentence to have spilled from his mouth changes everything. He lifts my chin, turning my face to look up at his own, which my eyes search, trying to determine whether there is any truth in his words. Then I reach up to kiss him, my eyes offering an unspoken invitation, and this time, he doesn’t hesitate. This time, our lives outside of this moment are buried and forgotten.
Jack’s hands move down to the front of my dress, expert fingers removing me from it, revealing the black lace of my bra underneath. He lifts me onto the desk, knocking the room-service menu and hotel phone to the floor. Before I know what is happening, he’s on top of me, pinning my arms down, forcing his body between my legs.
‘And, cut,’ says the director. ‘Thanks, guys, I think we got it.’
Eight
Galway, 1987
Maggie held my hand all the way back to the cottage on the seafront. She held it so tight that it hurt a little bit some of the time. I think she was just afraid I might run away again, and that a bad person might find me like she said. But the only running I did was to keep up with her walking. She’s a fast walker and I’m tired now. She kept looking around the whole time, as though she was scared, but we didn’t pass any other people at all along the back streets, good or bad.
The cottage is very pretty, just like Maggie. It has a smart blue door and white bricks – it’s nothing like our house at home. She doesn’t have much stuff, and when I ask why not, she says this is just a holiday cottage. I’ve never been on holiday, so that’s why I didn’t know about things like that. She’s busy putting clothes in a suitcase now, and just when I think she might call the police, she decides to make us some tea and a snack instead, which is nice. On the walk here I told her all about how my brother said we can’t afford to eat, so she probably thinks I’m hungry.
‘Would you like a slice of gingerbread cake?’ she asks from the little kitchen. I’m sitting in the biggest armchair I’ve ever seen. I had to climb it just to sit on it, like a mountain made of cushions.
‘Yes,’ I say, feeling pleased with myself, sitting in the nice chair about to eat cake with the nice lady.
She appears in the doorway. The smile that was always on her face before, has vanished.
‘Yes, what?’
I don’t know what she means at first, but then I have an idea. ‘Yes, please?’ Her smile comes back and I am glad.
She puts the cake down in front of me, along with a glass of milk, then puts on the television for me to watch while she goes to use the phone in the other room. I thought she had forgotten about calling the police, and now I feel sad. I like it here, and I want to stay a bit longer. I can’t hear what she is saying over the noise of Zig and Zag on the TV – she’s turned the volume up very loud. When I’ve finished the cake I lick my fingers, then I drink the milk. It tastes chalky but I’m thirsty, so I finish the whole glass anyway.
I feel sleepy when she comes back in the room.
‘Now then, I’ve spoken to your daddy, and I’m afraid he says that what your brother told you is true: there isn’t enough food for you at home any more. I don’t want you to start your worrying again, so I’ve said to your daddy that you can stay here with me for a few days, and then I’ll take you back home once he’s sorted himself out. Does that sound grand?’
I think about the TV, and the cake, and the comfy chair. I think it might be nice to stay here for a little while, even though I will miss my brother a lot and my daddy a bit.
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘Yes, what?’
‘Yes . . . please . . . and thank you.’
It’s only when she leaves the room again that I wonder how she spoke to my daddy when we don’t have a phone at home.
Nine
London, 2017
I check my phone again before getting out of the car. I’ve tried to call my agent three times now, but it just keeps going to voicemail. I even called the office, but his assistant said Tony was unavailable, and she used that tone people reserve for when they know something you don’t. Or perhaps I’m just being paranoid. With everything else that is happening, I suppose that’s possible. I’ll try again tomorrow.
The house is in complete darkness as I trudge up the path. I keep thinking about Jack and the way he kissed me on set. It felt so . . . real. I wear the idea of him like a blanket and it makes me feel safe and warm, the cloak of fantasy always more reliable than cold reality. But lust is only ever a temporary cure for loneliness. I close the front door behind me, leaving longing back in the shadows, out on the street. I switch on the lights of real life, finding them a little bright; they permit me to see more than I want to. The house is too quiet and too empty, like a discarded shell.
My husband is still gone.
I’m instantly dragged back in time, reliving the precise moment when his jealousy climaxed and my patience expired, generating the perfect marital storm.
I remember what he did to me. I remember everything that happened that night.
It’s a strange feeling, when buried memories float to the surface without warning. Like having all the air sucked out of your lungs, then being dropped from a great height; the perpetual sense of falling combined with the unavoidable knowledge that you’re going to hit something hard.
I feel colder than I did a moment ago.
The silence seems to have grown louder, and I look around, my eyes frantically searching the empty space.
I feel like I’m being watched.
The sensation you get when someone is staring at you is inexplicable, but also very real. I feel frozen to the spot at first, trying, but failing, to reassure myself that it’s just my imagination. Then adrenaline ignites my fight or flight response, and I hurry around the house, pulling all the curtains and blinds, as though they are fabric shields. Better safe than spied on.
The stalker first entered my life a couple of years ago, not long after Ben and I got together. It started with emails, but then she appeared outside our old house a few times, and delivered a series of hand-written cards when she thought nobody was home. Someone broke in when I was away in LA, and Ben was convinced it was her. It was one of the main reasons I agreed to move here, to a house I hadn’t even seen, except online. Ben took care of everything, so that we could get away from her. What if she found me? Found us?