Not Without You (3 page)

‘I’m not talking about doing another
Defence: Reload
,’ I say. ‘But … well, I don’t always have to be the daffy girl who loses her engagement ring, do I? Look at that pile. There has to be something in there.’

Artie gets up. ‘You don’t want to see everything, trust me. Here’s the highlights.’

He flicks the list over to me.

Bridezilla. Boy Meets Girl. Bride Wars 2. Two Brides One Groom.
I glance down the list, the same words all leaping out and blurring into one huge inkjet mush of confetti. I turn the page. ‘This is the rest of the scripts I’m getting sent?’

‘Yeah, but you don’t need to worry about that. These are not projects to take seriously.’

I scan the second and third pages.
Pat Me Down. She’s So Hot Right Now. From Russia with Lust.
‘What’s
My Second-Best Bed
?’ I say wearily.

Artie takes the piece of paper off me and looks at the list. ‘No idea,’ he says. He gets up and goes over to his glass desk, taps something into his computer. ‘Hold on. Oh, yeah. It’s some time-slip comedy. They sent it to you because … there was some note with it. I remember reading it but I can’t remember it. I think it was because you can do a British accent.’

‘Well – yes,’ I say. ‘They’re right there. What is it?’

‘
Second-Best Bed
…’ His finger strokes the mouse. ‘
Second-Best
– oh, yeah, here it is. She’s a guide at Anne Hathaway’s cottage and she dreams Shakespeare comes and visits her.’ Artie shakes his head, then turns to the shelf behind him, picking a script out of a pile. ‘Who’d wanna guide people round Anne Hathaway’s cottage? Why’s Anne freaking Hathaway living in a cottage anyways? She just got a place in TriBeCa. I don’t understand, that’s crazy.’

‘Anne Hathaway was Shakespeare’s wife,’ I say. ‘That’s who they mean. Her house was outside Stratford-upon-Avon.’ I’ve been to Anne Hathaway’s cottage about three times. It was a short coach drive from my school. Closer than the nearest Roman fort or working farm, so our crappy school used to take us there every year – it was almost a joke. I remember one year Darren Weller escaped from the group and ran into the forest. They had to call the police. Darren Weller’s mum came to meet the coach. She screamed at Miss Shaw, the English teacher, like it was her fault Darren Weller was a nutcase. I can picture that day really clearly. Donna and I went to McDonald’s in Stratford and drank milkshakes – simply walked off while the others were going round his house or something. It’s the naughtiest thing I’ve ever done.

It’s funny – I never thought Donna and I would lose touch. We stopped hanging out so much when I moved to London for
South Street People
, then she had a baby. She wasn’t best pleased when I told her I was off to Hollywood. I don’t think she ever really believed I wanted to be an actress. She thought it was all stupid, that Mum was pushing me into it.

‘OK, OK.’ Artie isn’t interested. ‘Take them, read them through if you want. But will you do me a favour?’ He puts his hand on his chest and looks intently at me. ‘Will you read
Love Me, Love My Pooch
for me? As a personal favour? If you hate it, no problem. Of course!’ He laughs. ‘But I want to see what you think. They’re offering pretty big bucks … I have a feeling about this one. I think it could be your moment. Take you Sandy–Jen big. That’s the dream, OK? And I’m working on it for you.’ He takes his hand off his chest, and gives me the script, solemnly. ‘Now, tell me what picture you’d like to make. Let’s hear it. Let’s make it!’ He claps his hands.

I’m still clutching the pile of scripts, with
Love Me, Love My
Stupid
Pooch
on the top. I clear my throat, nervously.

‘I want to … This is going to sound stupid, OK? So bear with me. You know I moved house last year?’

‘Sure do, honey. I found you the contractors, didn’t I?’

‘Of course.’ Artie knows everyone useful in this town. ‘You know why I bought that house?’

‘This is easy. Because you needed a fuck-off huge place means you can tell the world you’re a big star. “Look at me! Screw you!”’ Artie chuckles.

‘Well, sure,’ I say, though actually I don’t care about that stuff that much the way some people do. I’ve got a lot of money, I give some of it away and I take care of the rest, I don’t need to go nuts and start buying yachts and private islands. This was the place I always wanted. It’s a beautiful thirties house, long, low, L-shaped, high up in the hills, kind of English meets Mediterranean, simple and well built. Blue shutters, jasmine crawling over the walls, Art Deco French doors leading out to a scallop-shaped pool.

I love it, but it has a special connection that means I love it even more.

‘I bought the house because it belonged to Eve Noel. She lived there after her marriage.’

Artie’s lying back against the couch. He scrunches up his face. ‘Who? The … the movie star? The crazy one?’

‘She wasn’t crazy.’

Artie scratches his stomach. ‘Well, she disappeared. She was huge, then she vanished. I heard she was crazy. Or dead. Didn’t she die?’

‘She disappeared,’ I say. ‘She’s still alive. I mean, she must be somewhere. But no one knows where. She made those seven amazing films, she was the biggest star in the world for five years or so, and then she vanished.’

‘OK, so what?’ Artie puts his hands behind his head.

‘I want to make a film about her.’

From my bag I pull out a battered copy of
Eve Noel and the Myth of Hollywood
, the frustratingly slim biography of her that ends in 1961. I must have read it about twenty times. ‘So … it’d be a film about where she came from, about her starting out in Hollywood, what happened to her, why she left.’

‘I never knew you were into Eve Noel. Old movies.’ Artie makes it sound like I’ve told him I love anal porn.

‘Sure,’ I say. ‘My whole childhood was spent on the sofa watching videos. It’s a wonder I don’t have rickets – I never saw the sun.’

Artie grunts. He doesn’t much like funny women. ‘So why the big obsession with her?’

‘She’s the best. The last real Hollywood star. And she … She grew up near me, a little village near Gloucester?’ I can hear the edge of the West Country accent creep into my voice, and I stutter to correct it. ‘It’s crazy, no one knows what happened to her, why she left LA.’

The first time I saw
A Girl Named Rose
, I was ten. I remember we had a new three-piece suite. It was squeaky, because Mum didn’t want to take off the plastic covers in case it spoiled. I was ill with flu that knocked me out for a week and I lay on the sofa under an old blanket and watched
A Girl Named Rose
, and it changed my life. I never thought about being an actress before then, even though Mum had been one, or tried to, before I was born, but after I saw that film it was all I wanted to do. Not the kind Mum wanted me to be, with patent-leather shoes and bunches, a cute smile, parroting lines to TV directors, but the kind that did what Eve Noel did. I’d sit on the sofa while Mum talked on the phone or had her friends over, and Dad worked in the garage – first the one garage, then two, then five, so we could afford holidays in Majorca, a new car for Mum, a bigger house, drama school for me. The world would go on around me and I’d be there, watching
Mary Poppins
and
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
, anything with Elizabeth Taylor, all the old musicals,
Some Like It Hot
… you name it, but always coming back to Eve Noel,
A Girl Named Rose
,
Helen of Troy
,
The Boy Next Door
. I even cut out pictures of my favourite films and made a montage in my room: Julie Andrews running across the fields; Vivien Leigh standing outside Tara; Audrey Hepburn whizzing through Rome with Gregory Peck; Eve Noel walking down the road smiling, hands in the pockets of her flared skirt.

Everyone else at school thought I was weird. It was weird, probably. But Eve Noel and that film opened a world up for me. It seemed magical. It isn’t, any more, and I should know. Back then it was all about glamour and artifice, these gods and goddesses deigning to appear on a screen for us. Whereas I know what it’s like now. It’s a business, less profitable than online poker, but a profitable business still, until the Internet kills it totally dead.

Mum and I used to drive past Eve Noel’s old house. It’s in ruins now. It’s funny – everyone knows that’s where a film star grew up. But no one knows the film star any more, or even where she is now. Her last picture was
Triumph and Tragedy
, in 1961, and it was a big flop. There’s a picture of her at the Oscars, the year she didn’t win and her husband did. She’s smiling, so lovely, but she doesn’t look right. Her eyes are odd, I can’t describe it. And then – nothing.

I try and explain all this to Artie. He nods enthusiastically. ‘Give me the pitch then,’ he says.

‘The pitch?’

He’s grinning. ‘Come on, Sophie. You know it’s you, but you’re gonna have to get some big guys to put big money up if you want this thing made. Give me the one-line pitch.’

‘Oh …’ I clear my throat. ‘Kind of …
A Star is Born
meets … um …
Rebecca
? Because the house burns down. I suppose maybe it’s more
The Player
set in the fifties meets
A Star is Born
, or—’

‘
Boorrring!!
’ Artie buzzes. My head snaps up – I’m astonished.

‘Listen,’ he says. ‘You are my number one client. You are so important to me. This could be amazing. I’m talking Oscar-amazing. But it could be career suicide. Again. And you can’t afford that. Again.’

He stands up again and pats his stomach. ‘I’m a pig. I’m a pig! Listen to me, sweetheart. Go home. Think up a great pitch. We have to get this thing made.’

‘Really?’ I stand up, stumbling slightly.

‘Really. But you’re totally right. If we can’t do it properly we should forget all about it.’

‘That’s not—’

‘And you’ll read the dog script? For me? Think about who’d be good, who you’d like to work with?’ I must have nodded, because he gives a big smile. ‘Thank you so much. Take the other scripts. Read them. I wanna know what you think of them all. I’m interested in your opinion. Sophie Leigh Brand Expansion. We’re big, we need to go bigger, and you’re the one who’s gonna lead us there.
Capisce
?’

‘Thanks, Artie,’ I say, aware that something is slipping from my grasp but unsure of how to take it back. ‘But also the Eve Noel project, let’s think—’

‘Sure, sure!’ He pats me on the back and squeezes my shoulder. ‘I think with the right project and a good writer we could have something wonderful. And listen, I spoke to Tommy, did he tell you?’ I shake my head. Tommy’s my manager, and he rings Artie roughly ten times a day with ideas, most of which Artie rejects. ‘It’s fantastic news!’

‘What?’

‘He tested the line we discussed for the Up! Kidz Challenge Awards on a focus group and it came back great. So that’s what you’re saying. OK? Wanna give it a try, for old times’ sake?’

I smile obligingly, hold up my bare left hand, then scream, ‘I LOST MY RING!!!’

This is the line I’m famous for, from
The Bride and Groom
. It’s a cute film actually, about a wedding from the girl’s point of view: bitchy bridesmaids, rows with parents – and from the guy’s point of view: problems at work, a bachelor party that ends in disaster. The bride, Jenny, loses her ring halfway through in a cake shop, and that’s what she screams. I don’t say it often, because I don’t want to have a catchphrase. Tommy would sell dolls that scream ‘I LOST MY RING’ and T-shirts by the dozen if I let him. I don’t let him.

‘Wonderful. Just wonderful.’ Artie’s clutching his heart. I push my sunglasses back down over my eyes.

‘It’s good to see you,’ I say, hugging him. ‘We’ll talk soon. When are the awards?’

‘Two weeks. Ashley will brief you. So you’re OK? You know you’re going with Patrick, yes?’

I hesitate. ‘Well, and George,’ I say. ‘A bonding night out before we start shooting.’

‘George? OK.’

I match him stare for stare and as I look at him I realise he knows.

‘George is a great director.’ For once Artie’s not smiling. His tanned face droops, like a hound dog. His beady eyes rake over me.

‘I know he is,’ I say slowly.

‘That’s all.’ He turns away. ‘That’s all I’m gonna say. OK?’

I can imagine what’s going on in his mind.
If she’s banging George, they’ll be making trouble on set. Patrick Drew’s gonna get difficult about his close-ups as it’ll all be on her. George’ll dump her halfway through and start fucking someone else and she’ll go schizoid. This is a disaster.

I know it’s nothing serious, me and George. He’s A-list, so am I; we won’t squeal on each other. He’s way older than I am, he’s been around. Plus I don’t need a relationship at the moment, neither does he. If we screw each other once a week, what’s the harm?

Artie chews something at the back of his mouth, rapidly, for a few seconds, then claps his hands. ‘OK, we’ll regroup afterwards about your Eve Noel idea. I like it, you know. If not for you then someone. Maybe you’re right! Could be big …’ He pauses. ‘Hey, you should be a producer.’

He laughs, and I laugh, then I wonder why I’m laughing. Me, in a suit, putting the finance on a movie together, all of that. Then I think … no. That’s not for me, I couldn’t do that. I’m too used to being the star – it’s true isn’t it?

‘Read the scripts, think it over,’ he says, as I leave the room. ‘Then we’ll talk.’

AS I EXIT the building, I’m still thinking about Darren Weller and the day we went to Stratford, me and Donna escaping to McDonald’s. I’m smiling at the randomness of this memory, walking through the glass lobby of WAM, clutching this bunch of scripts, and suddenly—

‘
Ow!
’ Someone’s bumped into me. ‘Fuck,’ I say, rubbing my boob awkwardly and trying to hold onto the scripts, because she got me with her elbow and it is painful.

This girl grips my arm. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says, her eyes huge. ‘Oh, my gosh, that was totally my fault. Are you OK—?’ She looks at me and laughs. ‘Oh, no! That’s so weird. Sophie! Hi! I didn’t recognise you with your shades on.’