What on earth did I tell him?

“We’ve all been there, believe me. You’ll be all right, I promise. It’s lucky I knew where you lived. You were adamant about not telling the taxi driver or anyone else your address.”

Having a stalker will do that to you.

My mind rewinds Jack’s words and plays them again.

“How did you know where I live?”

His cheeks take their turn to redden, and I’m surprised to discover that Jack Anderson is capable of blushing.

“I live a couple of streets away from here, just a house I’m renting while we’re filming at Pinewood. I’ve seen you running in the mornings. I’ve even said hi a couple of times, but it’s like you’re in your own little world, then you jog on past like we’ve never met.”

I don’t know what to say. I do tend to zone out, not even noticing the other runners that I pass, all chasing dreams they’ll never catch. It seems a little strange that he would live so close and never mention it before now, but I remind myself that my husband is the bad guy in all this, not Jack and not me. I mustn’t start getting paranoid.

I hear my mobile vibrate with a text. It’s charging on Ben’s side of the bed for some reason. I pick it up, reading the message before Jack reaches over, looking a little flustered and taking the phone from my hand.

“That’s mine,” he says. “Sorry, I was almost out of battery, so I borrowed your charger … I wasn’t planning to spend the night.”

That’s the trouble with iPhones, they all look the same. I decide not to mention what I just read.

Call me later, Alicia xx

I had no idea that Jack and Alicia were close enough to be exchanging text messages. I tell myself that it’s none of my business. I don’t want to sound like some kind of jealous schoolgirl.

“Do you know where my phone is?” I ask.

“I’m not sure. You dropped your bag downstairs, you sort of collapsed when we got through the door. I had to carry you up to the bathroom…”

I stand up and everything hurts. I think I might be sick again.

“Whoa! Maybe you just stay where you are, I’ll go get it,” he says, and I notice that he takes his own phone with him, as though he doesn’t trust me enough to leave it behind.

When he returns with my handbag, I’m relieved to find both my mobile and wallet inside; I was worried I might have lost them in that state. I turn on my phone and the screen lights up, a display of double-digit notifications on almost every app.

“That’s weird—”

“Shit.” Jack stares down at his own phone again.

“What is it?”

The wrinkles that fan his eyes disappear with his smile and seem to resurface on his now-furrowed brow. When he doesn’t answer, I open Twitter. It’s a fairly new account and I’ve never had so many notifications or DMs. To be fair, I don’t engage with social media too often, but this is insane. I click on a link and it takes me to an article on the TBN website, written by Jennifer Jones. Beak Face.

LOVE ON AND OFF SET AT PINEWOOD STUDIOS

 

My eyes are drawn to the pictures before the words written beneath them, because they are of me. There’s one of Jack and me in the bar last night. Another of us taken on set, simulating sex on a hotel desk. It looks real. The final one is of us in my dressing room. I’m wearing the silk nightdress from yesterday’s shoot, which leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination, and Jack appears to be holding me tenderly and kissing the top of my head. I don’t understand how someone could have taken this photo; we were the only two people in the room.

The words are even worse:

Jack Anderson left his wife soon after the filming of Sometimes I Kill began. Aimee Sinclair is still married, but didn’t want to talk about her husband during the interview. Now we know why.

 

I check my emails; there are hundreds. A lot of them from all those people who used to be my friends. I scan through them without reading, stopping when I see my agent’s name in among them. The message is short, even by Tony’s standards.

Aimee,

I think you should come in for a chat. Sooner the better.

Tony

x

 

I read the message twice. Due to the brevity, it doesn’t take long.

It all makes sense now: his text the other day, the unreturned calls. I digest his words, and having forced myself to swallow them down, I am satisfied I have understood them correctly: my agent is going to dump me and I am finished.

Twenty-nine

Essex, 1988

Today is Sunday.

It’s the only day of the week when the betting shop isn’t open, so we all stay in bed until lunchtime. We do this every Sunday, and I didn’t used to like it, but I do now.

John takes me to the video shop next door on Friday afternoons, and we choose two films to rent all weekend. We always watch the first one together on Saturday night, in the front room. The Christmas tree is still up in the corner, even though it is February now. I thought that maybe it was bad luck, but Maggie says it is fine, so long as we don’t turn the twinkly lights on. I think I believe her, because Maggie doesn’t lie.

We eat curry on Saturday nights too, and I like eating something that isn’t on toast. I’d never had curry before I lived here. It tastes wonderful and you don’t even have to cook it yourself, somebody else does. The food comes all the way from India, which is a faraway place where everything is hot, including the food. It’s still hot when John brings it home in a brown paper bag. It’s called a takeaway because you take the food away and eat it at home.

We always watch the second VHS on Sunday mornings, in John and Maggie’s bed with bacon sandwiches. Maggie calls them something else, which sounds like bacon buddies, but when I called them that for the first time, they both laughed. We all call them bacon buddies now, even though I know it is wrong.

John chooses one of the videos every week, and I choose the other. I don’t think Maggie cares much; she reads newspapers and magazines most of the time while the films are on, and covers my eyes and ears for some bits when John chooses a film that says eighteen on the front. Sometimes she forgets and I see bad things, but I know they aren’t real, so I don’t get scared. Today we are eating bacon buddies and watching a film called The NeverEnding Story. It’s the best film ever! We watched it last weekend too. I think we should watch it every Sunday, but Maggie said this might have to be the last time for a little while, which means a long while. For some reason, I start to think about what my Sundays were like before I came here. They were not like this.

“Why don’t we go to church on Sundays?” I ask, still watching the film.

“Because God doesn’t answer prayers from people like us,” says John, lighting a cigarette. He’s started smoking again since the bad men came. I’m a bit glad about that because it means he and Maggie argue a bit less.

“Shut up, John. Don’t listen to him. Do you want to go to church, Baby Girl?”

I think about it before I answer. Sometimes her questions are tricks. “No, I don’t think so.” I’m still staring at the screen. It’s nearly my favorite bit in the film, with a flying dog that is really a dragon. John seems bored, maybe because we’ve watched it before. I pretend not to see, but he keeps trying to touch and tickle Maggie. She tuts and slaps his hand away each time because I don’t think she likes it when he does that. I know I don’t like it when he does it to me.