‘I know,’ Nick says. ‘It’s all right … ’
‘It’s not.’
We’re here, says Robbie.For now we’re here.
It’s not enough, I think.
And, with a slow blink, it’s only Nick I see.
Only his eyes that I look into: the wrong colour, but full of a love that might well be award-worthy, but which I do also believe is real.
Love isn’t our problem though.
I realise it never has been.
And it’s not enough.
Because it’s everything else that’s destroying us.
It’s always been everything else.
Nick knows that too.
He can’t bear it either.
I feel that in the way he’s holding on to me.
I see it in the pain that’s snapping in his stare.
Neither of us want to be doing what we’re doing, acting out the dying days of this other doomed love story, but we keep going anyway for the cameras, for the crew, until Ana calls,cut, Naomi circles what we’ve done, and, stepping away from Nick, I let him go.
Emma stays with us for one more night.
We don’t have a big send-off.
‘Who in hell feels like that?’ she says, when, wet to our bones, we head back to our trailers together for the final time.
But later, after I’ve finished my other scene for the day – packing away Clare’s belongings on the set of our bedroom – we do have a farewell just the two of us, up in Iris and Clare’s actual room, dressed in our pyjamas, dressing gowns and thick socks, eating dinners we’ve carried up from downstairs, drinking from miniature bottles of medicinal brandy.
It’s not the first time we’ve eaten together this week. I haven’t braved the dining room since Saturday, and Emma’s been keeping me company – always in my room, up until now. We’ve talked a lot, including about our plans for after this. Mine’s to finally have a break, while she’s looking at taking the lead in a fantasy, shooting in New Zealand, with Felix again. Her new agent, at my agency, is handling the negotiations.
‘I just hope Felix doesn’t try to get me fired again,’ she says – not coldly, notunkindly, but with a wry smile, a lot more magnanimous than I, to my prevailing shame, managed to be about what he did.
You need to tell them, I snapped at him, back on Sunday.Don’t take too long.
He did it this morning, while I was with Ellen, and the rest of them were together, about to start shooting.
‘I found myself hugging him,’ Emma told me, when she and Ana caught me up on it all before our scene earlier.
‘So did I,’ said Ana. ‘After I ate him for my second breakfast, obviously.’ She raised a brow. ‘But he was sowoefulabout it, and we all know there’s not a malicious beat in his heart. Blake’s actually thrilled. He wants to use Felix now.’
‘What about Nick?’ I asked, feeling even more like crap in the face of their generosity, and selfishly hoping Nick would make me feel better by having been even more unforgiving. ‘How did he react?’
‘He hugged him too,’ said Emma, with an apologetic pout. ‘Said he appreciated him. I think they were both trying not to cry. There was a lot of back slapping.’
‘You gotta throw him a bone, Claude,’ said Ana. ‘He won’t be ok with himself until you do.’
‘I’m looking forward to NZ,’ Emma says now. ‘It’ll do me good not to be in a part that breaks my heart. And Iknowyou need to give yourself this rest.’
