“Rosaline is Juliet’s cousin. She appears on stage because Romeo was supposed to love her before he claps eyes on Juliet. Rosaline has no lines to speak, most directors don’t even cast the part. See? That’s me. Always the pretty girl with nothing much todo. InMy Fair LadyI played one of the dancers. I got a moment to curtsey when the prince walks by. That was all. Regional theatre and panto give me a bit more, but always roles where I have to look pretty and not much else.Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Goldilocks.”
Raff sits up a little straighter; he has his problem-solving face on. He scratches his jaw under the beard. “Have you had any film or TV work?”
Heat floods my face because this is going to be humiliating. But I’ve already started so may as well finish. “I’ve been in a hundred films.” I hold up my hand and count them off. “Always a Bridesmaidabout a lonely jealous woman. I was the beautiful bride. I didn’t have a single line to speak. InGold Dust” – I hold another finger – “I was the nameless naked girl between the sheets when the wife comes home and finds her husband cheating. I’m the barmaid getting ogled by the customer, the sexy passer-by, the legs, the cleavage, the cute smile.”
It's the first time these thoughts have been spoken out loud. Normally I’m too ashamed.
“Once, I had to play a snow fight scene, and the director wanted me in a crop top to show off my stomach. Can you imagine? In a winter scene! When someone argued it wasn’t realistic, you know what he said?” – I imitate the director’s voice – “‘Audiences won’t mind as long as her stomach is nice and smooth’.” I blow out an angry breath. “They always put me in clothes too tight, too short, too see-through.”
Raff has lost the problem-solving face, he offers no suggestions. And who can blame him? This isn’t an easy problem to solve. Any minute now he’s going to say something hollow likeI’m sure it’ll get better, orI’m sure something will turn up. But he doesn’t. He just sits still, watching and listening.
“Don’t think me ungrateful. I know lots of actors would love to get as many jobs as I do, but I’ve had to take my clothes off more than is good for anyone’s self-respect. It gets humiliating after a while. You think Bill is proud of me? He wouldn’t be if he knew the truth. Directors look at me and just see the cute blonde. Even people, normal people, out there in the world.” I point a finger at the dark window behind which the wind and rain are getting worse.
“No one sees the real me.It’s one thing to play the nameless blonde in films, quite another to be the nameless blonde in real life, in my own real life. You shouldn’t be an extra in your own life. You should be the lead, the star of your own life, shouldn’t you?”
Slowly, Raff places his mug on the floor. “Okay,” he says, voice very calm. “Tell me. What do you want people to see? If you weren’t pretty, who would you be?”
My mouth opens and closes a couple of times. I never had to answer a question like this. No one ever asked me a question like this.
“Don’t know.” I have to think for a minute. “All my life, my mother told me to make the most of my looks. She is bitterly disappointed in me for failing to catch or hold on to a gorgeous rich guy. It’s what she did, flitting from one affair to the next. Dad” – I have to fight to keep the wobble out of my voice when I mention him – “he never said a word against her, not to me. But once he told me something I’ve never forgotten. He said‘Choose a partner for character not looks. Beautiful or plain, soon you get used to them. You don’t notice anymore. But character, good or bad, you never get used to, you always see character’.”I breathe out slowly.“More and more I find myself thinking of those words.”
Funny how talking about it to Raff, having to explain it in words and sentences makes me see it clearly for the first time. All my boyfriends were good-looking and by the time we broke up I couldn’t see it anymore. Or they, me. They started admiring me, but by the end, the adoring looks faded. They got used to my appearance and found my character had nothing in common with theirs.
“It’s difficult to answer your question.” I look at Raff across the red velvet sofa. “In some ways I wish I knew what character people think I have. Do they ever see past the legs, cleavage and a cute smile.”
Raff studies me for a long moment. His eyes travel over me from the still damp hair to the loose hoodie that doesn’t show curves, to the yoga bottoms that cover me to the ankles.
He clears his throat. “You want to know what I see when I look at you?”
My heart kicks up, huge thump-thump in my chest.
“I see a woman who wants to make everyone happy.” His grey-green eyes meet my gaze, steady, no pretence, no attempt to be funny or flatter.
“The woman who goes every day to sit with a bunch of old people and make them smile. Everyone else, even the kindest of staff in that house treats them like patients, like things to be fed and wheeled around. Not you. You listen to their stories and ask them questions, you care. They light up when around you. And” – he holds up a finger to stop me interrupting – “before you say it’s only because of your cute smile, it’s not that. Yes, any old man is going to light up when a pretty girl comes to sit with him, but that’s not it. You have something fierce in you, a crusading passion. You jumped to defend Philomena when shewas accused of stealing biscuits even though she actually had stolen them. Not from the kitchen, but from you. You went to so much trouble for Jack. An old man that until last week you’d never met. And. Leonie?” He tilts his head and his expression softens with sympathy. “I know you want to make him happy. But he can’t come to live here, he needs lots of nursing. I love that you sat by his bed and read to him so he didn’t feel abandoned.”
He curls a hand around his own chin, rubbing a thumb on his bearded cheek. The brown hairs burnished copper by the light from the small lamp.
“You may have a” – he mimes quotation marks – “a nice smooth stomach, I don’t know. And yes, your eyes are a dazzling baby blue. But your character is the most dazzling, beautiful, radiant human being I even met.” He stops suddenly as if embarrassed by what he just said.
He looks anywhere but at me, as if he’s said too much and revealed something he wanted to keep secret. As if he’s gone out on a limb and now he needs to excuse himself. In fact, I start to look around the way people do when they’re preparing to get up and leave.
“Raff?” I wait until he meets my eyes. “Do you know what I see when I look at you?”
His mouth quirks. “A yeti? Not a handsome man, for sure.” He pushes a hand though his hair which pulls the bun loose and makes the long waves fall about his face hiding it.
“Maybe not in the traditional way. But I’ve dated handsome men. Lots. With expensive suits, designer haircuts and sports cars.” I move up on my knees so I can reach over and brush theair away from his face. “I see a man more beautiful than all of them.”
His hair under my hands is surprisingly silky and rich, and now I’ve pushed it away from his face, I can see how smooth his skin is, slightly tanned a warm honey colour. The strong eyebrows are a nice shape and frame his wide eyes. And there are silver flecks in the green eyes, very unusual. And very nice long lashes.
He blinks slowly which makes me notice where I am, suddenly. I seem to be straddling him, and his hands somehow are around my waist.
We stare at each other.
“You know my mum warned me about not leading you on.”
He quirks his eyebrows in that way he does; he uses them very effectively. And, God, I could dive and drown in his green eyes. “Lead me on?” he asks.
I sigh. “Because I won’t be here for long. We would never have a future. It would only be a short adventure.”
