‘Jesus Christ,Claude.I think you’re the cat’s pyjamas, ok?’
I hated that we’d ended the day like that, when only a few hours before we’d been holding hands. It was like a brief window had opened, making that possible for us again, and somehow we’d slammed it shut.
But that wasn’t the only reason I went upstairs.
After days of being too intimidated to return to the attic after dark, I felt myself drawn, irresistibly, up there. Perversely, Iwantedto discover if I could see those flares again, hear thoseplanes. Ever since I’d left Tim, I’d been replaying my slip back to Bettys on repeat, and was craving more.
I needed another fix.
I saw no flares that night though.
I heard no planes.
No matter how intently I stared down at the set from the attic window, it remained silent, bathed in the fluorescent glow of Jeff’s security lights.
Dejectedly, I wrapped myself up on Iris’s bed, and dreamt dreams that began as scenes from the movie, then took a turn, filling with other actors, different lines, crowds in a pub, smoke in the air, the taste of boiled sweets, and homemade apple cake.
When I woke, I felt disorientated, giddy. It was as though I’d returned from a journey on which I’d left half of myself still travelling.
All day long on set, I continued to feel that part of me missing, except for during shooting, when, as Iris, I became secure in my own skin again.
Safe.
Off-camera, I know I was quiet, I’m aware I was withdrawn, and Nick wasn’t the only one to throw a frowning look my way when, in our breaks, I sat apart from everyone, grappling with my dislocation at finding myself back in fifty per cent, worrisome, past-tense me.
She’s another escape route for you, Mum said to me of Iris, back on Parliament Hill.A fresh golden ticket to a different mind, a different world.
Iris’s mind doesn’t feel different any more though.
Her world doesn’t.
There are times when she feels more me, than me.
‘That doesn’t sound entirely healthy,’ said Emma, when I confided in her about that much.
‘It’s helping,’ I told her.
‘Is it?’ she asked, dubiously.
‘It really is,’ I said.
And, on-camera, it really has been. That day in Bettys, as Iris, I joked with Felix, I chatted with Emma, I teased and smiled with Nick, kissing him for the first time in longer than I’m ok thinking about – pressing my body against his with my nerves firing, and his heart hammering against mine – and what we canned was great, I know it was all great. ‘Circle it,’ Ana said, over and again, and Ienjoyedmyself. There was this one moment whilst we were all jitterbugging – Felix with me, Nick with Emma – when Emma landed on Nick’s head, with such comedic inelegance that none of us could hold it together, and I laughed. I laughed so much. It feltgood. They were such fun scenes. Caught up in them, swept up in Iris, I forgot everything else. I wasn’t lonely, I wasn’t scared, or failing. I washappy.
‘You looked happy,’ said Felix to me, when, the day finished, we walked behind Emma and Nick, back to our trailers. ‘What about now?’
‘Now?’ I turned, meeting his dark gaze, and, thinking of all the long weeks we’d been at odds, found a smile, because he was there, with me. ‘Now, I’m glad we’re talking again.’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m glad about that too.’
Only, he didn’t seem glad.
He seemed … edgy.
Preoccupied.
‘Areyouok?’ I asked.
‘Me?’ he said. ‘Yeah, of course. I’m fine. Just tired from swinging you around all day.’ He summoned a smile of his own.
