Matthew rejoins them. ‘All good,’ he says to Becky. Then, to Alex, ‘Coming to the party on Freebird?’
‘What’s Freebird?’ asks Becky.
‘Petrovskaya’s yacht,’ replies Alex. ‘Apparently it’s been fitted with anti-missile technology.’
‘Won’t save anyone from a bad review,’ quips Becky, and Alex grins.
‘She’s funny,’ says Alex to Matthew. A two-word review, but a good one.
‘Did she tell you about Medea?’
‘Yeah. I’m sure she’ll make it work.’
‘If the stars align with the right people,’ says Matthew. And suddenly Becky feels naked: with these words, she senses the conditionality of Matthew’s help. Will he still support the project if the script doesn’t attract a glitzy and powerful enough cast? Or if its main financier ends up a little lukewarm on the whole thing and doesn’t make it a priority?
If it fails, it will be her failure. That is clear to her.
Isn’t that what she wanted? Something she could take absolute ownership of?
But she finds herself remembering how Alex had reduced her idea to something that people might snipe at or look down on and how he’d hooked his fingers into his jeans and bent his arms to make himself look bigger and wider, as he did it. And she remembers Matthew’s words again, allowing herself to feel the full force of what failure might bring. The exposure. The isolation. The fear, and the shame.
Becky excuses herself. She locks herself in a nearby toilet cubicle. Sits down on the seat, legs bent, leaning over with her head in her hands, as if she is about to be sick. She is so angry when tears come despite her efforts. They will leave her eyes red. For the rest of the evening she will look like a woman who has been crying. Soon she has cried enough to have blown her nose three times.
When she walks out of the cubicle thankfully the room is quiet. But at the far end of a row of pink-marbled sinks one other woman stands bent like a flower toward the mirror, fixing her lipstick. Her hair is cropped, her eyes fine and free of make-up. Becks recognizes her immediately. She is Sharon McManus, a director known for her big attitude and her low budgets. Becky has met her once before, briefly, at a festival gala. She doubts she is remembered. Sharon’s film Relics from the Near Future has screened today and been deemed a success. Becky recalls the photos on Deadline; like everyone, Becky toggles between being at the festival and reading about it, so that she’ll know where she is. On stage, taking questions afterwards, Sharon had raised both her arms and kicked out a leg, dressed half in flowers and half in sharp-suited lines: half like a woman and half like a man. The way Sharon kissed her lead actress? She looked so content, like the puzzle of her life is completed in such moments.
Becky walks to the sink and runs the tap, pressing cool damp tissues to her puffy eyes. Perhaps they can be saved. She can hear the conversation outside getting louder, bolshier – nearing the pitch of the summertime pavement crowds outside a pub at closing.
‘Boy trouble?’ says Sharon.
‘That’d be nice.’
‘I heard you blowing your nose. Very unladylike. I was impressed.’
‘Oh God. Sorry.’
‘No, fuck that. Trumpet it out. Don’t go dabbing it away now.’
Becky could, perhaps, paper the cracks with jokes, and then run to her room. But she feels the place inside that her crying has hollowed out and is suddenly too tired to cover up, weave round, edit and hide.
‘I just fucked up,’ she says.
‘How badly?’
‘Nobody died but … I got asked about something I’m working on and I felt like I couldn’t land it. I just allowed myself to be … It’s my job, my only job, to defend this thing and I let this guy …’
‘Shit on it?’
‘It wasn’t even that bad. I just did a rubbish job defending it. And now I feel like I’ve let someone down.’ Medea. ‘Even though … Even though it doesn’t matter to anyone except me.’
‘Been there a few times myself.’
Becky feels Sharon assess her. She feels sure she is looking at the running mascara, the tangled mess of hair and lopsided clothes, but that she is doing it with kind eyes while formulating something.
‘Never mind,’ Becky says. ‘I’ll just … I don’t know. Try and learn from it.’
‘What are you selling here anyway?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Come on, I’m asking. I’m not going to shit on it. You’ve made me curious.’
‘Yeah, but now it’d be pitching to a director.’
‘What, so you’ve been crying in there waiting till I need a piss so you can get five minutes at the mirror with me? I mean, if that’s your game-plan you’re the best fucking producer on the planet. Seriously wily. You’ve got Tamara Lenkiewa back there too. She’ll be needing a shit soon, you could have a crack at her as well.’
Becky laughs at her smudged mascara and puffy eyes. ‘Projecting an air of calm authority. A producer who never panics.’
‘I know that’s what you’re meant to be, but it’s all bollocks, isn’t it? Fucking hell, I look at my mistakes and I’m amazed anyone listens to me on set.’
‘And if they don’t?’
‘They’d get fired, obviously. I’m mean, I’m not having that!’ They both laugh now. ‘So what else have you made?’
‘Nothing as producer. I’ve been in development.’
‘First features are a fucker.’
‘I work with Matthew Kingsman and he’ll exec it, so it shouldn’t be as hard as I seem to be making it.’
‘That’s a good pedigree to stick on the table.’
‘Do you know him?’
‘I’ve done meetings.’
‘For anything I’d have worked on? I’ve been there a long time now.’
‘My thing with Matthew Kingsman is, you look at the films he’s made and you count how many women he’s had helming them.’
‘Andrea was on Eight
