Fleetwood Mac.
Aged twenty-four, he’d made a catastrophically bad choice of sour, bossy wife in Alice. Hannah had once described marrying Alice as ‘an act of self-loathing’.
It seemed as if it was so much strife for him to wriggle out from under the yoke of oppression, it was easier to turn down social occasions. They had a young son, Max, and Nick had pretty much been grounded by Alice, forever.
‘Do you think A Town Called Malice is letting him roam around free range, yet?’ Hannah said. They had called her this for some time.
‘I doubt it,’ Edie said.
‘I want to talk to him, you know. Life is too short to put up with being unhappy.’
Edie nodded, though she suspected it was futile. ‘We should definitely let him know we’re back.’
Now she thought about it, Nick had been unusually quiet on email, even by his standards. Maybe Baby 2 was on the way and he didn’t want to face their creaky-polite erm great what wonderful news.
‘If he tries to avoid us, we can call in to his radio show,’ Hannah said.
Edie agreed. ‘We could even ask him out with Alice? Turn a new page?’
‘We could. I bet that page will say Yep Still A Cow on it though.’
When she rolled in later, revived, Edie was surprised to find her dad waiting up for her, watching the television with a glass of Glenmorangie.
‘Haven’t waited up for you to come home for quite a few years,’ he said, smiling.
Edie had to say it fast or she’d lose her nerve. ‘Dad, I’m going to find somewhere else to stay, tomorrow. Me and Meg is too much stress for everyone.’
Her dad didn’t look surprised.
‘Look. Give it a week or two. The settling in was always going to have its rocky moments.’
‘She hates me!’ Edie said, in hysterical whisper-squeak. ‘I don’t do anything to provoke her and she gets at me, all the time.’
‘I know you don’t. She doesn’t hate you. It’s very difficult for Megan. She sees you as the success who gets all the glory and her feathers get ruffled. I’m not excusing her behaviour tonight and I’ve had a word. But she really does suffer with some sibling envy, I think. Let it settle down a bit. For me.’
Edie already knew she couldn’t refuse her dad this. Her shoulders sloped.
‘… OK.’
‘It is good for us to see you, you know.’ He gave her a hug and Edie surrendered to it with that waterlogged feeling in her heart. ‘You never know, one day we might even be good for you.’
He said this with such forced-lightness and sadness that Edie had to squeak ‘Night’, before she teared up.
The Elliot Owen Story had started in the somewhat sleepy but ‘sought after’ suburb of West Bridgford. It was a place Edie had lived, long ago. Her brain had been too small to record many memories but she had a few. They flashed on and off like old jumpy sound-free sunny frames of a Super 8 Cinefilm and Edie turned her internal projector off.
Elliot’s parents’ home was large and comforting, the doorway partially hidden by clematis. He would have one of those mums who used to pack his ingredients for Home Economics into a wicker basket with a pristine gingham tea towel on top. Edie used to buy her supplies from the local inconvenience store, while missing the bus and factoring in a sneaky fag. She rang the solidly middle-class, stiff brass bell and waited, prickly with anticipation.
Elliot answered the door himself, which surprised Edie a little. His neon-green eyes met hers, and there he was, in the sculpted flesh. A fact that was both shocking and completely banal at the same time. It was ridiculous to be surprised he answered his own door, the man had to be by himself sometimes. He wouldn’t have an Alfred, as if he was Bruce Wayne. (Would he?)
She kept her expression steady and said: ‘Hi, I’m Edie,’ and as soon as she said it, felt irrationally foolish, as he had a mobile clamped to his ear and she was talking over him. Elliot made the ‘point to phone and make twirling finger to indicate the call is running on’ gesture.
He wedged the door open with a pristine white sneaker-clad foot as Edie brushed past him into the house, nerves jumping like fizzy beans. She’d sternly told herself not to wilt and thrill at being in his presence, yet it wasn’t possible.
It didn’t matter how indifferent you declared yourself to be to the particular celebrity, seeing someone famous in the flesh had a weird hysterical buzz of cognitive dissonance. Edie couldn’t quite compute Elliot Owen’s proximity, even though it was a simple thing to understand.
The clean-shaven, dark-haired man in the stripy jumper in this suburban hallway had the same face as the dishevelled hero she’d seen charging around in battle on her telly. Her brain roared IT’S HIM IT’S HIM OH MY GOD IT’S REALLY HIM.
OK, the sight of Elliot didn’t knock Edie out or make her almost ovulate. He was just ‘people’, except a pumice-stoned, cleaner, clearer, more bone-structured, symmetrical version. He looked like he’d smell of cut apples and fresh linen. And like all famouses, was smaller than the towering, glowering hunk she was expecting. He was a fairly good height, if on the slim side.
Elliot opened the door to the sitting room with one hand and Edie took that as direction to go and sit in it.
She thought he’d follow her, instead he went into what must be the kitchen next door. He’d only half-closed the sitting room door so Edie could hear most of what he was saying.
‘… that’s not it, though, is it. Why would I do that? Tell Larry that I’ll pay the deposit and if I can make it I can ma— oh bloody hell, Heather, really? Is this how we’re going to do it? You know what my schedule is like … oh WELL when you put it like that …’
Edie had a jolt of realising she was overhearing a domestic between Elliot and his famous girlfriend. Something actually newsworthy – well, if you subscribed to our messed-up twenty-first-century news values – was happening on the other side of that white glossed door, with an audience of only Edie. Not that she could do anything with it, if she valued her employment.
She wriggled out of her coat and laid it neatly on the arm of the sofa, got her Dictaphone and notepad out. She felt the hum of her jittery anticipation: she’d once again steeled herself for the first meeting and once again, he’d hit pause. And how was he difficult last time, exactly? Was he going to toss his curly hair around and get shirty at her opening questions? She wished she could’ve spoken to the outgoing writer, though that might not’ve helped.
The row continued offstage.
‘I don’t understand why you’re being so stroppy when you knew … what the fuck’s the dog’s quarantine got to do with me?! Oh, I invented rabies, my mistake.’
Edie scribbled ‘Inventor of Rabies’ at top of her notes, giggled idiotically to herself and then heavily scored it out. More disorientation: in Blood & Gold, Elliot had a cut-glass English RP madam I’m afraid I must ravish you at once voice. In real life, it was a soft Midlands burr. Not Nottingham-Nottingham, a middle-class version, still with the flat vowels. Actors put voices on, who knew!
Edie considered that this humdinger with Heather Lily wasn’t going to put him in the best mood for their chat. Or maybe it’d help, maybe he’d be fired up and unguarded? Think positive.
The room’s décor was standard issue for a comfortable, 2.4 family in this postcode, if a little staid. There was a thick deep beige carpet, a floral sofa set with those napkin-like thingies over the back – antimacassars?