‘You know each other?’ gasps Jennifer. ‘What a small world. There’s me, who used to go to bed under your picture every night, and now I’m an extra myself with an agent who actually knew Matthew Gordon back in the day. How incredible is that?’
They’re all looking at me. I have to say something. ‘You’re right,’ I blurt out. ‘It is a small world. Great to see you, Matthew. Sorry I can’t stay longer to chat but I’ve just got to ring my kids.’
For a minute, I enjoy the brief moment of surprise on his face. Yes, that’s right, Matthew Gordon. I have a family of my own now. I survived without you.
‘Did you know that Poppy has found me a role in a really great advert?’ I hear Doris telling Matthew.
‘That reminds me. I need you to sign the contract for that,’ I say. ‘It’s quite urgent.’
‘I could pop round to your place if you like,’ she offers.
Doris lives near me and we shop at the same local deli. Although we know each other’s address, neither of us has been to the other’s house. Despite working from home, I don’t usually invite clients round. I want to keep the two separate. It’s more professional and besides, it wouldn’t be fair on the family. Luckily, nearly all my work is done online or on the phone. Signed contracts are scanned and emailed through. But Doris is old school and can’t do it that way, so we usually meet in public places like coffee shops. This is an exception because of the urgency.
‘Monday morning, first thing?’ I suggest.
‘Perfect.’
Then, desperate to get away from Matthew, who’s still hanging around, I start to thread my way through the crowds towards reception.
I’m in need of a phone charger so that I can ring home and sort out the latest domestic upset. But I also need some headspace to get over the shock. Matthew Gordon doesn’t belong here. I had packed him firmly away in a box labelled To Be Forgotten. Sometimes over the years, I’d wondered uneasily if we might bump into each other at some point. Maybe on set when I went along to support my clients. But we never have. Until now.
‘Would you like a drink, madam?’ asks a passing waiter. Without thinking of my drive home, I take a glass of bubbly and swig it down, followed ten or so minutes later by another. I need something after the shock.
It takes time for the young things on reception to find me a charger that fits my three-year-old phone but eventually one of the girls comes up trumps. She produces it with a triumphant flourish – as if she’s just discovered it in the archives – and offers to plug it in so I can speak immediately. ‘Everyone all right?’ I ask when Betty answers. Clearly, she must have finished her meditation session now, or perhaps my daughters have interrupted her.
‘Fine, dear,’ she trills. ‘I’ve found Melissa’s leotard and mended it. We’ve also been playing this really clever game called Articulate. So good for the brain, you know!’
I can’t help feeling a bit hurt. The last time I suggested Snakes and Ladders to the girls, my older daughter declared she wasn’t a ‘kid any more’. But they don’t have any problems playing games with Betty. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Is Stuart back?’
‘Not yet. He had to take an emergency, poor man.’
‘I’ll try not to be long,’ I say. ‘Just got to talk to a few more contacts.’
‘No rush, dear. But keep an eye on the weather. According to one of my yoga friends, Storm Tanya is heading over from the Caribbean. The bad ones never seem to have male names, do they? Talk about sexist! Now come on, Daisy, it’s Melissa’s turn. See you later!’
I head back into the ballroom, keeping my distance from Matthew, who looks as though he hasn’t been able to escape from Jennifer and Doris’s barrage of questions. Part of me would like to join them and ask him a few myself. Maybe even mention Sandra. But I know that’s a really, really bad idea. I need to let bygones be bygones.
‘Hi! It’s Poppy, isn’t it?’ says a voice behind me.
I swivel round. It’s one of the new casting directors I’ve been trying to network with. They’re the ones who read the scripts and see that the storyline requires a couple snogging in a coffee bar in the background, behind the main characters. Or a grandfather feeding the ducks in the park with his grandchildren just before a body is discovered. Usually extras aren’t required to speak or have experience but directors can’t just go out and find anyone to play these parts. There are too many rules and regulations. So they use agencies like mine.
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘it is.’
‘Who was that man you were with just now?’ he asks. ‘The rather striking middle-aged bloke with the scarlet bow tie?’
‘Oh,’ I say lightly, ‘just someone I trained with at drama school.’
‘Is he on your books?’
I almost laugh at the thought. ‘No.’
He strokes his trim goatee beard. ‘I need to find out if he’s available. I’m looking for some middle-aged men for a comedy that might be coming up.’
‘Really?’ I say, mentally running over my client list. ‘I think I might be able to help you with that.’
Then I reel off a list of names – including ‘Vicar’ Ronnie’s – and launch into my pitch. Frankly, it’s a relief to distract myself. But as I talk, fragments of memory come floating back. The pain when my mother left home to ‘find herself’ soon after I’d started my first year at drama school. And the unexpected comfort that had come from the stunningly handsome fellow student whose own mother had also ‘bolted’ when he was only twelve years old at boarding school.
‘I understand your pain,’ he’d told me, giving me a hug in the kitchen of my college halls of residence where I had broken down.
I can see it now as if it was yesterday. I am inside the body of the dumpy, completely overawed young girl, lying next to Matthew Gordon in bed.
‘Why me?’ I’d asked.
He’d stroked the outline of my breasts and then bent down to kiss my nipples. ‘Because you don’t know how beautiful you are.’
‘I’m not beautiful,’ I’d laughed, embarrassed.
‘Yes you are. Well, you’re pretty on the outside and beautiful underneath.’
I wasn’t sure whether to take this as a compliment or not.
‘But the most wonderful thing about you,’ he continued, ‘is that you’re different from the others. You wouldn’t kill someone to get a role. And you understand. You know what it’s like when your whole family falls apart.’
That was certainly true. My poor dad was in bits after being abandoned. He was in no state to help me. As for Mum, I refused either to take her calls on the college payphone or to open her letters.
‘My mother married again,’ said Matthew. ‘And again and again. I don’t even know where she is now and I don’t care.’ His face had darkened with anger. For a minute, I had almost felt afraid. ‘What is it with women that makes them such sluts?’
Matthew must have felt me stiffen beneath him at his words because he quickly added: ‘Now come here. I want to show you how much I love you.’