One Year After You, page 5
Odette sat in the chair in front of the fire, picked up Agnes’s glasses from the side table and lifted her book. It was one of Agnes’s trademark saga novels, set in the Glasgow shipyards of the thirties. Tress’s attention to detail when it came to Agnes’s home and life had been meticulous – Agnes had been working her way through this series of books for the last few months and now she was on the final instalment, just another layer to the final act.
The director hushed the set, Odette took a deep breath, closed her eyes, exhaled. This had to be perfect for many reasons. It was her swansong. A scene that would be replayed for years to come in the shows that covered landmark moments in TV. This was one of them. The demise of one of the longest-running soap characters in the country. She wasn’t quite in the same bracket as Ken, Rita or Gail from Coronation Street, but she’d made the four-decade mark and that was something special, so this scene had to match it.
The producers had initially wanted to keep it under wraps, top-secret, but they’d gone for a ratings grab instead. For the last fortnight, there had been a media blitz of adverts proclaiming that Odette’s last episode would be shown next month, in a special extended episode, and it was anticipated that they’d have the highest viewing figures in years. Strange how her goodbye was apparently something special, yet the new team of idiot producers and writers hadn’t wanted to keep her around. Ageism. Sexism. Stupidity. It was all of the above.
The day she’d been let go, she’d gone into a meeting with the new production team to renegotiate her contract, just as she’d done every year. As always, Calvin was by her side. ‘Head up, stomach in, a big fat pay rise we will win,’ he’d chanted on the way down the corridor to the boardroom, making her laugh, as he always did when she was anxious. She really needed the money. She was still paying off credit card debts years after Mitchum had bled her dry and she needed to make the next few years count if she was ever going to be able to start enjoying her life again. Of course, Calvin knew the bones of her financial issues, but she’d kept the scale of it even from him, so he had no idea how much debt she had. Shame. Embarrassment. Humiliation. Secrecy. That pretty much summed up her situation.
As soon as she’d gone in, they’d got straight to it. There were apologies, platitudes, fake regret. Thanks for her lifelong commitment to the show. And then the announcement that they’d decided to write her out, that they were shifting the focus to the younger characters.
‘You mean, cheaper actors,’ she’d spat, ignoring Calvin’s shooting glance of reproach, that said ‘leave it to him’, even though they’d both realised that his legendary negotiating skills weren’t going to win here.
The show execs didn’t spell it out, but what it all boiled down to was that after forty years of annual raises, she was too expensive. They could bring in two or three mid-level names for what they paid her and that was exactly what they planned to do. Calvin had tried everything from reasonable discussion to playing hardball and threatening to sue, but nothing worked. They’d made up their minds. Put her out to pasture. And there wasn’t a damn thing she or Calvin could do about it. Her contract was up and so was her time on the show. Killed off. No return.
‘At least this way, you’re going out in a blaze of glory, my darling,’ Calvin had consoled her, although, as always, he couldn’t resist adding a teasing, ‘I mean, I can think of worse ways to go than being up close and personal with Rex Marino.’
The thought caused her glance to wander now to her manager at the side of the set, and he returned her gaze with a smile of such affection she almost crumbled. Almost. But not yet. Right now, she had work to do.
‘And… Action!’ Carl, the director, bellowed.
The whole room immediately fell silent. This was a show with insane shooting schedules and deadlines, so where possible, they got the scenes in the first take. No room for error. When it came to discipline and preparation, this was the best training ground any actor could have.
Agnes was dozing, her book on her lap, her head tilted to one side on her red plaid armchair, when the door burst open. Her son, Hugh, roared, ‘Ma!’ and stormed across the room. Startled from her sleep, Agnes’s head shot up, just as Hugh’s snarling face crowed over her, spittle coming from his mouth as he shouted, ‘What have you done, you stupid old…’
‘Hugh!’ Agnes blasted back, ‘Don’t you dare raise your voice to me! How was I to know? They tricked me…’
His eyes were blazing as he spat, ‘You mean us! Us! That money should have been coming to me. And now you’ve lost it all.’
Fearful, but not one to back away from a fight, even with her own son, Agnes’s temper began to fray, and her voice went low and cold. ‘That was my money, not yours. And how dare you charge in here…’
She was cut off by the hand that went round her throat, and began to squeeze. Her eyes widened as she saw for the first time that her son was unhinged, dangerous.
‘Hugh, son, don’t…’ she croaked.
Consumed by rage, he didn’t even register her words. His other hand joined the first one and he began to choke her. She tried to fight back, but he was too strong, and her blows didn’t even dent his grip on her.
His face was almost touching hers now. ‘If there’s nothing left, then all you’re worth is the life insurance.’
Agnes was still struggling, but weakening, her voice now gone.
‘I hope you’ve got no regrets, Ma,’ Hugh growled. ‘Because it’s too late for you to fix them.’ With that, and one final squeeze, Agnes McGlinchy, the cornerstone of The Clydeside for the last forty years, took her last breath, before, eyes still open, her head flopped to one side.
A pause. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
Carl yelled, ‘Cut!’ and the silence lingered another moment, before the whole set erupted in cheers and applause, a tribute to one of the most beautifully acted scenes that had ever been shot on The Clydeside. The director and his assistants were gathered around the monitor, re-running the tape, but they all knew there would be no need for a retake. It was perfect. And the sheer ferocity of the emotion could never be repeated.
Odette raised her head, stretched her neck from side to side, as Rex offered his hand, this time to help her out of her chair. The applause was still rolling as she stood up and they both took a bow. Odette realised that her throat felt like it was in a vice, not due to the authenticity of Rex’s hands squeezing her neck, but because a wave of grief, of fear, of devastation had just risen from her breaking heart.
It was over. Just like her character Agnes McGlinchy, the very real Odette Devine had breathed her last breath. And Olive Docherty had no idea who she was supposed to be now. Somehow the emotion of the scene, the fatality, the end of her career, the recurring thought that her life falling apart was karma for what she’d done to become Agnes McGlinchy, all of those things collided like a car crash in her head and she couldn’t muster the cool, collected diva she’d been until the last breath of her character.
Rex Marino released her hand and stood off to the side, joining in the applause, and allowing her to take a bow. Odette felt her eyes fill up, then her cheeks dampen, and she knew tears were falling, but she couldn’t wipe them away for fear of revealing her shaking hands. After the third bow, she straightened up, and thankfully Calvin caught her darting gaze of panic and he immediately read the situation. For the first time ever, she needed to be out of the limelight, away from the eyes of the cast and crew. She was about to crumble, to fall apart, and Odette would rather meet Agnes McGlinchy’s fate than do so in a public setting, with eyes and cameras fixed on her every move and reaction. He executed her retrieval perfectly.
‘Odette, darling, you were magnificent,’ he announced loudly, for the benefit of the crowd, as he approached her, arms wide, before enveloping her in a very luvvie, dramatic embrace. ‘I’ll get you out of here,’ he whispered, out of earshot of the assembled spectators and the microphone of the documentary crew. His voice rose again. ‘I’m sorry, I need to whisk you away. There’s a very special phone caller waiting to congratulate you on your final scene. A very “royal” caller,’ he threw in pointedly. ‘We’ll tell you all about it as soon as we get clearance from the palace,’ he added jubilantly to the onlookers.
Odette somehow managed to smile, before he strategically manoeuvred her off set, the lens of the documentary camera following her the whole way.
At the door of her dressing room, Calvin put his hand up to stop them. ‘I’m sorry, chaps, you’ll have to give us a minute. The other side are insisting that the call is confidential.’
With that, he opened the door, practically shoved her inside, and followed her, immediately locking the door so that they wouldn’t be interrupted. Odette barely made it to her seat, before she buckled over, eyes bulging, mouth wide, her face twisted as she convulsed into a silent scream.
Calvin gave her space, either sensitive to her pain, or just paralysed by the shock of this utterly uncharacteristic display of emotion. Not that it would have mattered. Odette couldn’t hear, couldn’t see, couldn’t feel anything but the visceral, excruciating pain that was ripping through her. Her breaths were shallow rasps, her heart was beating out of her chest, every muscle in her body was trembling and she couldn’t make it stop.
Eventually, Calvin, perhaps unable to bear watching her like this any longer, came to her side with a bottle of water, his arm going around her shoulders as if he were trying to squeeze her distress out of her. ‘Darling, just breathe. Take a sip of water. And breathe. I know, it’s awful, but you’re strong. You’re Odette fucking Devine.’
Something in his words permeated her pain and she caught her breath, then exhaled, inhaled, exhaled, forcing her lungs to slow back into a steady rhythm. After a minute or two, she felt her heart begin to calm, her shaking gradually subside, and her vocal cords were finally released from the vice-like grip of her grief.
‘The line…’ she panted. ‘It was the line.’
How could she explain it to Calvin when she wasn’t sure she understood what had happened herself? She’d read the line in the script a dozen times when she was preparing for the scene, and it had washed over her. Maybe it was because her mind had revisited the past earlier. Or it could have been the fact that his words came at one of the most devastating moments of her life. But even now, she could hear Rex’s warning thunder in her ears. ‘I hope you’ve got no regrets, Ma. Because it’s too late for you to fix them.’
Regrets.
Too late for Agnes. But not too late for Odette. Or more accurately, for Olive.
Olive Docherty had a huge regret, one that she’d suppressed until today, because it had been worth it to be a star. Tonight, the sun would set on that stardom and tomorrow morning, she’d wake up with no job, no applause, no spotlights, no money, no friends. There would be nothing left. Except, perhaps, a chance to apologise and ask for forgiveness.
She’d wronged one person more than any other in her life.
The question was, after four decades, was it too late to make amends?
6
TRESS
Standing in the wings, watching the action, the emotional impact of seeing Odette film her last scene hit Tress like a hammer to the gut. It was testimony to the sublime acting of Odette and Rex, that for a moment there the set had faded into the background, all sense of pretence had diminished, and Tress was right there as a desperate elderly lady was brutally murdered by her evil son.
It had clearly shaken Odette too. Tress had spotted the pain in her beaming smile as she took her bow and her heart had hurt for her. Tress was heartbreakingly aware how it felt to come to the end of an era, of a way of life, and to stare at a brand-new future full of uncertainty, with a void where the thing you loved once was. Tress had adored every second of her marriage to Max. The sheer joy of waking up next to him every morning. The sexiness and warmth of going to bed with him every night. They’d often lamented the injustice of meeting so late in life, when they were both in their thirties, but that had been soothed by the unexpected wonder of falling pregnant at forty-one with Buddy, when she’d thought her chance to have a child had passed her by.
‘You know I don’t do that in real life, right?’ The words snapped Tress back to the present and she jumped. Something in her mind hadn’t quite readjusted from fiction to reality, and the sound of Rex Marino’s voice made the hair on the back of her neck bristle. He had a towel round his shoulders and his usually swept-back raven hair was falling over his forehead, dislodged by the violence and the physical effort of the scene. ‘Go around murdering old ladies, I mean,’ he went on, with that easy, sexy grin that she’d seen on adverts and billboards for years before she joined the show.
She covered up the momentary reaction with a chuckle. ‘I hope not. I’m trying my best to avoid homicidal maniacs in real life. It’s one of my general rules. No homicidal maniacs. No pathological liars. No serial killers.’
He leaned against the wall so that he was facing her, his teasing expression matching the levity in his words. ‘How’s that working out for you?’
‘Haven’t dated for a year,’ she shot back, deadpan, making him laugh. And, oh dear swirling ovaries, she could see why the viewing public were obsessed with this man. He was the romcom Mr Right, the sexy action hero, the gallant officer in the civil war. Or, as Nancy often put it, one glance from those blue eyes could make a woman shudder in her slippers.
Tress had no idea why he gave her the time of day. None. Yet here he was, chatting to her as he’d taken to doing every day for the last few months. It had started just a few days after she’d landed the job, when she’d been sitting in the canteen, having a rare half-hour to herself. She’d still felt out of place, still wasn’t one hundred per cent confident in her ability to switch from interior decorating to set design. She’d landed the job by sheer fluke, after working on the home of Lina Worth, the former producer of the show, before the new team had replaced her. They’d got into a conversation about the authenticity of the home environment, of Tress’s talent for making a house reflect the character of the occupant, and Lina had asked her to help out with the design of the kitchen for a new arrival on the street of The Clydeside. Tress had done it as a favour, with no idea that it could result in a job, but she’d been both surprised and thrilled when it had. Even so, she knew she had a lot to learn, so she’d been alternating eating her tuna salad with doing research on her laptop, when he’d casually slid into the chair opposite her, and waited until she’d lifted her head before saying a word.
‘I hope you don’t mind. This seat was free,’ he’d commented. ‘Please carry on with your work and I’ll just sit here quietly and wonder who you are.’
That had made her shoulders relax a little. ‘I’m Tress Walker. New set designer.’
‘Hello, Tress Walker.’ He’d stretched his hand towards her. ‘Pleased to meet you. I’m Rex Marino.’
‘You do look vaguely familiar.’ She couldn’t help but make fun of him. Odette Devine and Rex Marino were the galactic stars of this universe, and their faces were everywhere: huge portraits in the corridors, photos on every set, articles in every newspaper and magazine, and they were at the top of the images that popped up when you googled the show.
That was the first day they’d spoken, and it had gone from a chance encounter to an almost daily habit. After a week or so, she’d opened up and told him the story of her husband’s relatively recent death and he’d seemed genuinely moved. After that, when the sad stuff was out of the way, they’d built a friendship based on Rex being funny and lovely, and Tress making him laugh and mercilessly poking fun at him. She was fairly sure rumours were swirling on set, but she didn’t pay any attention, mainly because she knew the truth. They were just friends. Or, at least, that’s all it had been until yesterday…
The crowd that had formed to watch the final scene was dispersing, so Tress began walking to her office, with Rex falling into step beside her. ‘Listen, about yesterday, I’m sorry if I overstepped…’
Tress felt heat rising up her neck and knew there would be a very attractive red rash of embarrassment accompanying it. She was hopeless at this stuff. Out of practice. She kept right on walking forward, although her mind was spinning backwards to the day before.
They’d been leaving the studio at the same time last night, just like they’d done countless times before. When they were going down in the lift, they’d been chatting about… actually, Tress couldn’t remember. It was just normal stuff. Probably about how their day was going. Maybe a bit about her preparations for Buddy’s birthday breakfast. Everyday life stuff. Until, like a scene from a million TV shows and movies, he’d leaned over and pressed the STOP button, before turning to face her.
‘Tress, if I don’t do this now, I never will, because at least here, I know you can’t run away. The thing is… I want to take you out. To go on a date. To kiss you. To see if maybe we could have something more than just friendship, because for me, there’s definitely a whole lot more to this.’
Tress was fairly sure she’d slid right into an impersonation of a guppy fish, mouth dropped, nothing coming out.
‘So, the question is, will you go out with me? Maybe dinner, next weekend? I was thinking that new restaurant in the West End. They’ve invited me to the opening next Saturday night and I’d like to take you.’
What? Tress’s brain was exploding. He wanted to take her out. On a date. And not just any date. A very public one. To a fancy restaurant. Where there would no doubt be cameras. And press. And crowds of people gathered to see the VIPs arriving. It was about as far from Tress’s idea of a lovely night as possible. She’d always preferred the background. It was one of the reasons that her marriage to Max had worked so well. Despite finding out that he’d been sleeping with Anya since before he even bumped into Tress for the first time, Tress would always believe that her husband did truly love her, and on a day-to-day basis they were genuinely happy. Tress knew that was because they’d balanced each other out. Max was the showman, the extrovert, the adrenaline junkie who lived a life of spontaneous excitement, whereas Tress was his anchor, the consistency in his otherwise unpredictable life.
