Emilia emails her in person. Their schedules don’t work in the next two days, though Sam and Mads – Sharon’s agent – have bent themselves in half trying to make it happen, so Emilia’s proposing flying to London before she goes home. Cake in Soho? The three of them?
The three of them!
Becky hides a smile at the fleeting image she has of herself as someone who is invited to summer cocktails on the rooftop of a London private members’ club and then, a few months later, to drink whisky sours and cinnamon-spiced mulled wines for the Christmas party season.
Once Matthew rejoins her, even more people stop by – sometimes staying for coffee – greeting them with kisses and sitting close to Becky, as if they know her well. She is his golden girl, the clever one who is making that timely film about women and revenge. Becky sees herself reflected back in other people’s faces as they tell her Medea sounds fabulous. What an exciting package. What a wonderful team. Send me a script. I’ll read tonight. I’ll read it today.
She begins to glow from the inside. Can they see her excitement? Is that off-putting? Or does it read as passion for the material, the actress, her director?
Sharon is ‘her’ director now.
Somebody notes that Becky is kind of what Sharon needs to move up the ladder: like she, Becky, has done Sharon an almighty favour anointing her as the one chosen for her Emilia pic!
The snot-blowing, insecure half-girl in the toilet stall is fading fast:
Becky was only ever there to adjust her eye make-up.
Sharon approached her.
They’d met before.
It was a meeting of minds.
Her eyes were clear and she hadn’t been crying.
Let me tell you a story, she’d said, across the marble hand basin, and Sharon, rapt, had listened to her, Becky Shawcross, protégé and producer.
A woman who gets things done.
Champagne, orders Matthew, and Becky allows him to fill her glass so that the liquid tips giddily over the rim. She drinks the whole thing down in three or four gulps, with everyone around her doing the same, toasting their, her success. She allows herself to let go and feel it all; her insides warm with the alcohol, her skin warm with the sunshine, her whole self cocooned and belonging with these interesting people. She is enjoying herself. She is safe. Snooker ball carpets and steak knives have no place in this Cannes, her Cannes. More champagne, orders Matthew. And Becky knows that now it has begun, it will never stop.
Chapter 10
Later that night, Becky and Matthew continue their work at a party on the beach – confirming the rumours of Sharon’s attachment, speaking positively about Emilia, keeping the energy high with talk of casting and shooting dates – leaning against the bar under swags of rainbow fairy lights and a straw roof, set up like something out of Cocktail. Many of the people they have spoken to that afternoon are there, plucking from trays of cocktails and canapés, all courtesy of one of the UK’s major film financiers.
The heat and adrenaline and half a bottle of champagne have taken Becky’s edges off and now she is taking the first sweet and sharp sip of a mojito, figuring it as the most sensible chaser. She’d forgotten how fabulous and invincible alcohol could make her feel.
‘Becky, right?’ The woman who has appeared at Becky’s side is a little shorter than her and has long dark hair scraped back tight. It is impossible to tell her age; her skin is stretched like cling-film, flat and shining as if it were fresh out of a packet, but then the stories about her go way back. She needs no introduction but gives herself one anyway. ‘I’m Madeleine, Sharon McManus’s agent. So pleased to meet you.’ She grasps Becky’s hand. ‘Sharon is so looking forward to getting her teeth into Medea.’
‘I’m thrilled she’s come on board.’
‘She tells me the updating really works? That it’s timely. I’m afraid I haven’t read the script yet.’
‘Yes, there’s the whole toxicity of men and how they don’t see women coming because of it.’ Becky realizes that she’s garbling her words, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Not here, with the sea and this cocktail and the heat behind her.
‘Is Matthew producing?’
‘I’m its producer but it’ll be through his company.’
‘I see.’
Becky picks up on a fine skein of something she doesn’t want to see. Dissent? A problem? What hasn’t she thought of?
‘I spoke to DB earlier,’ says Madeleine cautiously.
‘Oh, I love DB,’ blurts Becky. Then, remembering his curt words on the phone to her and his anger with Matthew, she speaks in more sober tones. ‘He’s such a great agent. So tough.’
‘We go back a long way,’ says Madeleine. ‘It’s not like in Hollywood where they’re all slitting each other’s throats before breakfast.’ She pauses. ‘We talk.’
Becky has no idea where the conversation is going now but she feels the low thrum of dread, something bad is coming. She hopes she’s wrong, hopes they’ll simply talk about favoured lunch spots. Does she have a DB story that she can table? She thinks hard.
‘I saw DB recently, he told me that an ex-client of his came over to his house one Christmas Eve. He was working as an actual Father Christmas in a shopping centre because that was the only work he could get, and he’d got drunk in his costume after work and had come over to shout at DB. Only DB’s kids opened the door and were all excited and then this man apparently felt so bad that he went through with it and
