C2 PART TWO

Shara Quinn put down the baton and rolled her shoulders to loosen the kinked muscles, letting the second movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony start without her. In the recording, André Previn continued to do an excellent job and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra didn’t notice her absence. It wasn’t one of Jessa Hanson’s signature pieces, so Shara would not be called upon to conduct it for the film, but a musician friend had suggested it as a great piece to practice on, because the tempo throughout was easier to track than in Holst’s Planets or others that had been included in Jessa’s best-selling recordings. “It will allow you to perfect your right-hand technique, so you don’t have to think about tempo and you can concentrate on everything else,” Julian had told her in what he’d thought was a reassuring tone.

At the time, all Shara could think was that what she’d thought would be the “fun” part of the project: dressing in drag and waving a baton, was turning out to be more of a challenge than faking virtuoso piano performances. She was a decent piano player and could manage simple pieces on the violin without too many mistakes, especially since she’d been practicing for months just as a way of getting an edge in the audition for the role. She’d known that she wasn’t the physical type Peter Garofolo had been looking for when he’d been working with casting directors on the principal role for his new film, but she’d never wanted anything this badly, so from the time she’d heard rumors of the film rights to Jessa Hanson’s biography having been acquired, she’d engaged tutors and started brushing up on her skills. She doubted that any actor could be fluent in eight instruments as Jessa Hanson was, but she was competent at one and could get by on violin and guitar, so she intended to milk that for all it was worth. She’d also worked with a voice coach to temporarily obliterate the Irish accent that had been key to her breakthrough film role in Hollywood. Authenticity had got her her first big break and Oscar nomination, and she hoped that musical authenticity would do it again.

She sighed and turned off the music. She needed to work out the tension in her muscles, so she put on shorts, t-shirt and trainers and went for a run on the treadmill. She resented the fact that nowadays she ran more on the treadmill than outdoors, but she hated being recognized when she was running, so although this came in a distant second to running outdoors, it was slightly ahead of being pointed at or, worse, being stopped in the middle of her run.

She could hardly wait to give up her leased house in the Hollywood Hills and head back to London, despite the fact that Derek loved it here. He’d given up his gardening business to be near her and because he didn’t need the money, but his constant presence was starting to grate. A month ago when she’d taken a three-week stretch in London as an opportunity to speak to Jessa’s agent about access to the subject of the film, he’d invited himself along and proceeded to behave like an absolute prat.

She really needed to do something about him, but he did provide companionship and sex when she needed it, and he wanted nothing from her that he wouldn’t have wanted if she’d been an unknown civil servant with a modest salary. She knew it was a terrible reason to stay in a relationship, but she hated the thought of being single and dating.

“Hiya babes.” As though conjured up by her negative thoughts, Derek appeared at the door to the exercise room, his hair flopping boyishly over his forehead and his lean body looking California casual in blue jeans and a translucent white cotton shirt. His feet were bare and he was holding two of his healthy yoghurt-shakes in his hands. “I thought I’d make you an after-workout treat.”

“Thanks,” Shara said, polishing off the bottle of mineral water she’d taken from the small fridge in the corner of the room and reaching for the shake. “What’re you doing today?” Derek’s professional idleness fascinated her, despite an innate distaste for people who didn’t work for a living that would no doubt make her very pedestrian and working-class in the eyes of Derek’s friends in England and the little clique he spent time with here. They weren’t famous, but they were rich – the children and grandchildren of Hollywood legends and powerful investors, who rated their acquaintances according to the table they were assigned at the trendy restaurant of the moment.

“Brent is driving up the coast to visit an artist he’s sponsoring for a new show.” Brent Heywood owned an unprofitable art gallery in Venice Beach that Shara thought was little more than an excuse to have parties to celebrate the openings of exhibitions which were raved about in unprofitable boutique magazines run by people with names like “Tiffany” “Tory” and “Justin”, but ignored by the mainstream art world. Those patrons of the arts, avant-garde “journalists” and the artists themselves, all seemed to be part of a Southern Californian elite of beautiful young people with trust funds. Despite the difference in nationality, it was disturbing how easily they and Derek had found each other and how seamlessly he’d integrated into their social sphere.

Shara imagined that the drive to “the coast” meant a beach house owned by the artist’s parents, where Brent, Derek and at least one flawlessly tanned female would sip champagne, or indulge in a discreet amount of some recreational drug and listen to music by an unknown band with a demo CD that had been paid for by patrons such as Brent and which was highly acclaimed in a small, glossy (but largely unread) music magazine whose editor was one of Brent’s social acquaintances.

Derek would get home just before dinner, exhausted and withdrawn, or energetic, chatty and horny, depending on the drug and the company. There was no doubt that Derek attracted the attention of the women he socialized with, but she was sure that he never cheated on her. Derek loved her, so she tried her best to appreciate that and not dwell on the emptiness she sometimes felt in their relationship.

She was convinced that she just wasn’t the “relationship” type, because this restlessness had been a characteristic of her interactions with all her previous boyfriends. Derek, at least, was just the sort of person she’d have come up with if she had to imagine a personality that balanced hers. He was laid-back where she was intense, he would rather do something physically demanding whereas she was happiest with things that were cerebral. He enjoyed the spotlight and loved having her on his arm at red-carpet events and she hated that aspect of her career. He thought little about appearances and she was completely paranoid about the way she appeared in public, he thought work was something you did because you had to and she had a tendency to focus on it to the exclusion of everything else; he was outgoing and social while Shara always preferred to stay home with a book and good music on the stereo. On any given day their differences balanced each other out or caused almost unbearable friction.

“What about you?” Derek asked. “Any plans? You know you’re welcome to join us for the drive if you’re not doing anything.”

Shara felt a moment of panic, then she remembered that she had a legitimate excuse. “Thanks, babe, but I’m still preparing for my new role. I have a piano lesson this afternoon and then I’m probably going to watch some DVD’s of Barenboim and Karajan.”

“Isn’t it enough that you’re going to spend six whole weeks following that woman around? How much can it possibly take to play the role of a lesbian who dresses in men’s clothes for work?”

Shara pressed her lips together and her nostrils flared. Derek was often disdainful of her work, but normally he hid it better than this. She struggled to control her impulse to snap at him. “I’ll be playing someone who is still alive and who isn’t even at the peak of her career. I want to be true to the role and I want my performance to be respectful of the woman I’ll be pretending to be. That means musical training and understanding the life of the woman herself. All of that is time-consuming, but it’s an honor to be allowed this opportunity and I want to be as close to perfect as I can get.”

“That’s the story of your life in a nutshell, isn’t it, Shara? As close to perfect as you can get?”

“Is that a criticism?”

“No, not really. But it’s a tall order for mere mortals to live up to.”

“Derek, I’m working hard to get ready for a challenging role. Have I asked anything more of you than to understand why I have to go away for a while?”

“A while? You’ll be gone for six weeks! And, as I understand it, you’ll be living with a lesbian.”

“I won’t be ‘living’ with her in any sense but the technical one, as well you know. I want to understand the routines and pressures of her life and how they affect her emotionally. It’s a miracle that someone as private as she is has consented to allow me to do that, because it certainly won’t be convenient for her.”

“Well I’m glad you considered her convenience, because I don’t recall your having considered mine when you took this role.”

“Is that what’s bothering you? That I didn’t ask your permission before reading for a role that has fascinated me from the time I read the biography it’s based on? Since when have you shown the kind of interest in my career that would encourage me to discuss future roles with you? Correct me if I’m wrong, but whenever I talk to you about scripts I’m studying, your eyes all but glaze over.”

Derek looked slightly guilty, obviously having thought that he’d hidden his boredom better. “Look, all I’m saying is that a six-week absence is something we should have discussed beforehand.”

“It’s a six-week absence during which you can visit me as often as you like. I can’t have overnight visitors, but I understand the woman practices piano for two hours a day, spends time writing music and has two to four hours of orchestra rehearsals every weekday, not to mention two performances a week, so it’s not as though I won’t be able to get away. Do you want me to be the kind of woman who asks your permission before she takes a trip? We’ve been together for five years and I’ve never been that kind of girlfriend.”

“Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe if your status were more formal, you’d feel more connected with me and you’d discuss things more.”

Shara frowned, genuinely confused. “Derek, what are you on about?”

“I mean, if we were married, you’d be my wife, not my girlfriend, and perhaps then you’d consider how your career decisions will affect me.”

“I’m an actress . I was an actress when you met me. Most of the work I do is in film and that means location shoots that last for weeks and even months. Even when I did guest spots on television, you knew, and accepted, they could be on either side of the Atlantic. When did that start to become a problem for you?”

“I’m thirty-two now and when we were home last month, I realized that most of my friends had settled down and started families. Even over here people are moving on. Brent and Soraya are engaged, did you know? It’s just all made me think about things and about the hints my parents have been dropping for years.”

Shara put down the glass with the shake, her stomach suddenly feeling sour. “So your friends get married or decide to have children and, as a result, we should do the same and I should start running my career decisions by you for approval. Have I missed anything?”

“You’re twisting my words. That’s not what I meant . . .”

“So tell me what you meant, Derek. We’ve been living together for almost four years, I thought we were reasonably happy, things have been going well and my career has taken off more than I could have hoped for or predicted. Suddenly you seem resentful of what I see as a huge career opportunity and you see my being a mere girlfriend, when your friends have fiancées or wives, as a problem .”

“I don’t want to fight about this; I just think it’s time to take our relationship to the next level . . .”

She shook her head in disbelief. “Is that a proposal?”

“Yes, I suppose it is. I want us to be married, Shara, and interact with each other the way married people do . . . and have a couple of kids. You’d make a great mother.”

Shara felt the half-digested shake rising into her throat and forced herself to take deep breaths. “I can’t talk about this now. I’ve just made an enormous commitment and worked for months to earn the privilege of being allowed to make it. If what you’re asking is for me to change my focus now and undo everything I’ve worked for, then I just can’t.”

“It doesn’t have to be right away, but surely you didn’t think we could continue this way indefinitely?”

As a matter of fact, I did. “Can we talk about this when I get back to London? I really need you to bear with me right now. This project means a lot to me.”

“Shara, I’ve just asked you to marry me.”

“I know,” she said miserably, before stepping around him and hurrying out of the room.