Finding Jessica Lambert, page 13
She remembered waving goodbye to Jack when she’d left to film the first Atlassia movie, his face grinning and waving his arm in that goofy and enthusiastic way he had as a younger boy, excited that his sister was going to play the character in the graphic novels everyone talked about.
Then every time she returned he was a little bit bigger and a little more sullen. Then he didn’t wave goodbye anymore.
She had to stop. She’d run faster and faster into the woods, as if avoiding the memories, and a stitch stabbed her side as the several slices of ginger cake made themselves known.
Jess bent over breathing hard. “Shit.”
She took great lungfuls of air, trying to stretch the pain beneath her ribs away, standing up to let her lungs expand. She’d run further than she’d thought and found herself in a spot that was particularly familiar. She stepped over brambles away from the path and through the trees. If she was right, a fallen oak hollow with rot should lie a few trees further in. Twigs snapped beneath her feet, sharp and loud in the still air, and a disturbed blackbird flitted through the trees chattering with alarm.
She was right. The great tree slumbered here, not much changed in the last decade. She knelt down and peered through its hollow stem. Could she still fit through? She put her hands forward, tentatively, and crawled in. The wood was soft and spongy beneath her fingers and little woodlice scuttled away on all sides. The musty, earthy smell filled her head and she closed her eyes. She could imagine the shuffling footsteps of Maisie and Sandeep running around the fallen oak. Their shouts and cries rang in her ears.
How many days, weeks, months even, had they played here? Her chest filled with sudden longing to go back. This was the place that had changed everything.
Jess crawled through the tunnel and sank onto the forest floor on the other side, her back and head slumped against the trunk.
This is where they’d filmed their version of Atlassia, all three of the teens obsessed with the new series of graphic novels that had become a youth hit and threatened to spill out into mainstream consciousness.
Jess had dressed in head-to-toe black Lycra to resemble the prodigal Kalemdra coming home to save her arboreal lands from the threat of destruction, a character she related to so strongly and resembled so completely that kids at school ribbed her for it.
She’d stuck up her hair into the iconic style with cheap gel Maisie had nicked from her mother and Sandeep had filmed them on an old mobile phone. They uploaded their clip, in all its variable focus glory to YouTube, and played it over and over on their parents’ computers, buzzing with excitement.
Then Maisie had shared it. And it snowballed.
Soon Jess's athletic leaps and dashes though the local woods had been viewed thousands of times and it didn’t stop there.
The first she heard of an independent studio making a modest-budget version of Atlassia was the phone call to her parents from Matt the producer. Jess's dad had taken her to London to see him and she was thrilled when she met the young wife and husband team who dreamed up the story and illustrated her favourite epic.
Jess and Dad had walked into the hotel meeting room: Matt, all little and lithe in his skinny jeans and Converse, Kuniko who was tiny next to her colossal husband Jacob who looked as if he could carry the other two in his arms. They’d all stood when she’d entered, their eyes wide. It was Matt who stepped forward, his hand reaching out.
“Good god,” he said. “You are Kalemdra.”
And here she sat, three films later, each a bigger budget version than the last. She was now such an integral part of the story that Kuniko and Jacob wrote further volumes of their originally conceived arc to encompass Jess's age and growth. The enormous pressure of just that was overwhelming. And to think, if Sandeep had never shot that little film, if Maisie hadn’t stolen her mother’s gel and made Jess resemble Kalemdra so perfectly, if she’d never shared the link and let the clip silently lay there, everything would have been different.
Jess stood up and started walking back, kicking through the leaves that shushed with every step. Her thoughts swirled through her head and she wished she could escape to Anna’s flat and pretend none of it existed.
Chapter 21.
“Your new friend wants sex.”
“Pen!” Anna checked towards where Bibs was sitting on the rug, apparently unperturbed by her mother’s background conversation and playing with a wooden alphabet board. They’d been out to the playground in Regent’s Park then on to a greasy spoon to feed Penny’s hangover with every fatty food imaginable in the form of an English all-day breakfast, and had now returned to the flat. They sipped at the umpteenth coffee of the day at the island, while Bibs had a quiet play in the sitting area, looking sleepier with every moment as the light faded outside.
“Believe me, she wants your bod,” Pen continued, smiling lasciviously over her coffee.
“Not necessarily,” Anna replied. She squirmed on her seat.
“What? A pretty young thing who you, Anna Mayhew, kissed and believe me I’ve heard your kisses are legendary and it quite clearly worked on Miss, what did you say her name was, anyway, that got her churning inside so much she started grinding your nether regions.”
Anna made a face. That was not how she’d related it at all. “I so regret telling you.”
“Believe me, people don’t do that without wanting the whole dirty.” Penny said it with a grotesque shimmy that made it gleefully obscene.
“Pen! I might not see her again.”
“She’ll be back.” Pen said, knowingly. “That young thing will be back.”
“She’s busy.”
“She wants sexy time with you.”
Anna screwed up her face like she’d bitten a piece of apple with a whole convention of maggots inside. “You are putting me off sleeping with anyone.”
“Charming,” Pen said, high pitched and affronted.
“Just because she’s a young thing…” Anna tutted at her use of Penny’s lingo. “Just because she’s younger than us doesn’t mean she’s…” She searched for a delicate phrase.
“Gagging for it.”
Anna sighed with frustration. “Yes, for the want of a better word.”
“Come on,” Pen said. “What were we like in our twenties?”
Anna recalled. “We were working so many badly paid jobs that we were too exhausted to even think about sex.”
“Well, there was that.” Pen shrugged. “What did you say she did again?”
“Publicity of some sort. Marketing I think. She clams up whenever she talks about it. She travels a lot and it doesn’t seem to suit her and it’s stressful, so,” Anna sighed, “we tend to avoid the topic.”
“Hmm. So, an exhausted, stressed, hot, young thing?”
“Exactly. So she might not be ‘gagging for it’ and might not be back in any case,” Anna said, satisfied with her riposte.
Penny groaned and took a sip of coffee, then her face wrinkled into naughtiness. “But she will be.” And her face broke out into a blatant grin.
Anna growled her frustration.
“Why would a hot young thing not want sex with Anna Mayhew?” Penny shrieked.
Any number of reasons. Anna’s worst fears could list a lot. But Penny would counter them, one by one, to logically dismiss them from the argument if not from Anna’s deepest fears.
Pen leaned forward and squeezed her hand. “I understand your anxieties, I really do,” she said gently. “But who you are and what you look like shouldn’t be the cause of any of them. For a start, physically, you walk for miles and do yoga. You haven’t had a young child stretch your body to oblivion then let it sag like an old party balloon. You look great.”
“You haven’t seen… you know… me naked for years.”
“You wear summer dresses so I’ve had a good letch at your pins.”
Anna made a mental note never to wear summer dresses again.
“And your arms are in spectacular shape. Honestly.” Pen ran her hand up Anna’s arm. “I’ve always been envious of these elegant long things. And your tits…”
Anna wondered if this assessment was actually worse than having sex.
“I would put good money on her wanting to ravish you,” Penny said. “So. Be. Prepared.”
And Penny made a self-satisfied noise and leant back. At last, Anna could relax.
“Oh god,” Penny said, sitting up alert again.
“What?”
“Your bush.”
For the love of all things sacrosanct.
“You need to get that in order. When did you last attend to that for anyone?”
“I’m not talking about my…that.”
“When did you last bother? I imagine it’s way out of control,” Penny said with too much gusto. “I bet your bush is so overgrown it’s under the jurisdiction of The Forestry Commission.”
“Pen!”
“You could probably get a grant for it as a rewilding ecology project.”
Anna wanted to die.
“I…” Anna closed her eyes and steeled herself. “I am not discussing the state of my….”
“Vulva? Poonani? Vajayjay?”
“Exactly.”
Penny leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. “I think my work here is done, although I’ve always loved grossing you out for fun.”
Anna said a noncommittal “hmm” and finally realised what Penny was doing, an odd sort of desensitisation therapy, and the knowledge made her want to hug her friend and maybe pinch her a little bit so that it hurt.
“You like her don’t you?” Penny said, more gently. There was a sincerity in her voice and Anna’s heart beat faster at having to answer.
Whenever Anna thought of Jess she had a sense of longing and comfort all at the same time. There was that simple compulsion to be with her and loss whenever she wasn’t near so that Anna would seek her out again, even if they were in the same room. Like when they walked home from the canals, neither of them could bear any distance between them.
“She’s funny and flirty,” Anna said, a smile creeping across her face, “not brash or loud, or in an overconfident way. If anything I would describe her as quiet. Then she’ll surprise me,” Anna’s smile bloomed into a grin, “with a cheeky compliment or forward suggestion, a grand movement and burst of showmanship, then…” Jess would say something that resonated so poignantly with truth and meaning that Anna’s heart would skip a beat and she would be lost for words. She didn’t say this to Pen. She didn’t trust herself not to become choked.
“She’s different to me. Very different. Down to earth, only withdrawn or quiet when she lacks confidence. She’s more open like you otherwise,” Anna said, looking up at Penny who had remained motionless and attentive.
“She’s full of charm, not like you’d describe my well-mannered version, not the kind that drops a compliment for decorum’s sake, but the charm that comes from saying the best feelings from the heart.
“I say she’s different to me, but only in ways that make me want to know everything about her. I could spend all day and night doing just that, talking to her about everything and nothing. Time seems to fly when I’m with her and I’m shocked when the sun comes up and I’ve spent two nights and days and never wished for a moment that it went faster or had been spent in any other way.”
Anna stopped and cleared her throat. “Yes,” she said at last. “I like her.”
Penny didn’t say a word. She slid off the stool and came to Anna’s side and clutched her head to her bosom.
–
It was late. Penny had gone. The flat was quiet and it was dark outside. Anna sat on the floor, hugging her knees.
With the light and Penny gone, the thought of someone out there wanting to have sex with her was terrifying and overwhelming.
Anna held her breath and closed her eyes, holding back the rush of fear.
“Stop it. Think,” she told herself.
Her heart skipped several beats then lurched into action again. Oh god. This was going to take renewed effort, the kind of energy she poured into rehabilitating herself a handful of years ago.
What was the worst that could happen? She summoned her therapy. Really, when she thought through the scenarios, visualising them and preparing herself to keep the panic at bay, what was the worst? That Jess would be over-solicitous? But then Jess didn’t seem to have time to think straight let alone turn overly attentive. If anything she was skittish and Anna wondered if she scared easily herself.
But what if they saw each other again, if Jess was indeed a young thing intent on jumping into bed with her? Would Anna freeze, shake, vomit in the sheer terror of it all. Yes, that might happen. She could see it clearly. That might indeed happen. Could Anna cope with Jess seeing all that? Actually, she thought she could. If anyone had to see that, Jess is who she’d choose.
Another option – what if Jess never came back? And this made Anna’s mind trip over and her heart stop. What if Jess wasn’t interested in the reclusive and older Anna? Was that what she feared most? After the piquancy of Jess's company and a vivid glimpse of life – the possibility of being intimate and close with someone – that it might not happen after all left Anna cold and desolate.
Her phone vibrated on the floor. Message from Jess. Anna twitched, as if she’d been caught thinking of her, then smiled, picking up the phone.
“Hi,” was all the message said, but it conjured warmth and Jess's presence and the desire and taste for life flooded through Anna again. Anna pictured Jess somewhere, she had no idea where, but somewhere thinking of her and Anna was comforted and her world full of light again.
“Hi,” Anna replied. “Hey, are you busy? Can I call you?”
Anna smiled at the prospect. Then smiled in puzzlement when Jess didn’t immediately reply. Then her smile turned wry. “You don’t talk on the phone often do you?”
The phone rang and Anna answered straight way.
“Busted,” Jess said. “You’re right, I’m definitely a say-it-with-a-message kind of girl.”
Anna laughed. Jess's voice came through loud and clear and filled her imagination so that it was like she was in the room again.
“How was your day? How are your folks?” Anna said, not able to keep the laugh from her voice.
“They were great. I can’t believe I haven’t been home for so long. I’ve missed them.”
“I’m really glad.”
“They’re all in bed now and I’m trying to get to sleep on the sofa bed in my Nan’s annexe, except she’s bonkers about wind chimes and there are so many hanging up it’s like trying to get to sleep with a kids’ triangle band playing outside.”
Anna’s cheeks were aching. Yes, Anna liked her. Yes, she wanted to see her again.
“I need to be in bed too,” Anna admitted, “but I wanted to say hi before getting some sleep. I’ve got a client early tomorrow.”
“Hey, I never asked,” Jess said. “What do you do?” And she went quiet on the other end of the line, as if reminded of her stressful job.
“I’m a voice coach,” Anna said.
“Oh, like for actors?” Jessa replied.
“No. Everyone always assumes that. But no, not actors if I can avoid it.”
“…oh?” Jess said.
“My partner and I run a consultancy that helps people improve their presentation and oratory skills. I know acting seems the obvious application, but our main revenue is from business people, politicians, anyone who has a professional role where they need good presentation skills to get their point across.”
“Right,” Jess said, full of understanding.
“So that’s me early tomorrow,” Anna said. “How about you?”
“Ah.” The reply was laden with dread. “I have to meet my manager and take it from there.” Jess was quiet and the air was heavy. “I’m not looking forward to it. You can probably tell.”
“Yes I can,” Anna replied. “And,” her heart beat quicker wondering if she should mention it, “is this in London?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think… you’ll have time to see me? Afterwards?”
Jess hesitated again, and Anna suddenly felt foolish for raising it.
“I hope so,” Jess said, so full of honest longing that Anna drew breath.
“Call me if you can,” Anna said, “or message if you must.”
Jess laughed. “I would love to see you again.”
Anna’s spirits lifted, soaring way too high so that she inhaled sharply to try to keep them under control.
“Good,” she said.
“Really,” Jess said, “I can’t think of anything better than hanging out with you. I…” and she suddenly cut herself off as if she was about to say too much. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Anna sensed Jess being coy and couldn’t help herself, some of her old playfulness often coming out with Jess. “Anything you’re looking forward to in particular?”
“Sorry?” Jess sounded intrigued and a little alarmed.
“Is it the pancakes?” Anna suggested with a hint of irony.
“Um, yeah?” Jess offered.
“I do make particularly good pancakes, even if I say so myself.”
“You definitely do.”
“Or perhaps you’d prefer relaxing on the balcony with a cup of hot chocolate?”
“Yeah. I’d love that. Snuggling up under a blanket would be…erm.” Again Jess sounded like her mouth had run away with her and given away her thoughts and desires.
“That can be arranged,” Anna said, her face aching with delight. “And perhaps after all that,” she paused. It was like she could almost feel Jess leaning in with anticipation. “Perhaps I should kiss you again?”
Silence.
Absolute silence from Jess.
Anna leaned into her own phone, dreading that she presumed too much. Those nagging doubts wriggled deep down and clawed their way up. All she could hear from the other end was wind chimes.
“You promise?”
Anna’s grin shot wide. The relief was intense and the prospect more so.
“I promise,” she said, her delivery the epitome of poise and nonchalance, while her tummy fluttered and her heart went wild.
