What They Do in the Dark - By Amanda Coe Page 0,86

the empty chair.

After this came a double run of a more stately pan, close in over the desk and chair, marking out the kid’s absence for any numbnuts who hadn’t got it yet. Maybe they wouldn’t use that, maybe it’d be beautiful and essential in the assembly, maybe she and her bosses would be yakking on about cuts and it would go in the end.

Suddenly, at the end of the slow journey, Lallie’s face reared, hijacking the end of the shot in a real-life cameo, home-movie style. Huge and partial and unfocused in the frame, she roared mutely, exposing her fillings, then was consumed to black. Never out of the picture for long – she must have turned up from make-up just as they were finishing the shot. The contrast when she appeared in the next sequence gave Quentin a drop in the stomach. So real, when she was pretending. Restored to life for a scene that would come right at the beginning of the film, before all the bad stuff started, there she was, among her snaggle-toothed classmates, lifting a pencil from her pal at the next desk, just one of the gang, although you knew to look at her. And again, and again. She’d break their hearts, if they had hearts left to break. How did the kid know to be ordinary in her pretending, when in truth she fought every moment of her life to stand out from the crowd?

But hey. Dead kid sad. Let’s all agree that on the whole, killing children is a bad thing. It was an entertainment, a fake constructed of glued-together sequences, whatever Mike’s solemn pronouncements about the ending offering ‘no consolation’ (and those certainly made Hugh and her and all the studio guys prone to conversations behind his back). The rushes were finished. What was she, Quentin Montpellier, even doing here? Pretending to have a job which pretended to help to make pretend shit. A butterfly who dreamed she was a producer. A botch job.

Quentin plucked at the secret sore places on her arms. She needed something. The party should at least be good for that. Even Hugh should be good for that, if there was nothing else on offer but his magic beans. There was something wrong with her, that’s what people didn’t realize, although you’d think they could see it, the way her skin didn’t hang right. Everyone else’s seemed to, even Bri’s, whose one scampering glance at her tits as he tweaked the curtains had been underlyingly furious. She wondered if she could play chicken with her self-love to the extent of screwing him, an old game of hers. It could be dangerous, and not just for the ego, and was really only possible drunk or stoned.

‘That’s it, unless you want to see the last batch as well.’

Quentin declined, saying she had to get ready for the party. Was Bri coming to the party? He was, unenthusiastically. She left him, diverted by film cans, and headed back to her room. Had Hugh set up their little session to keep her out of his way? Would have served him right if she had screwed the little jerk. As. If. He. Cared. Oh God, how she dully, truly hated her own company. It was like a holiday in hell. An unending cruise with a nagging, overweight country cousin, whose polyester gingham wardrobe gave her BO which permeated their tiny, shared cabin.

She stuck on false eyelashes for the party. Why not? When Quentin looked in the mirror she didn’t recognize herself, which was always a bonus. Why hadn’t she got hold of something in Rome, instead of freaking out about being stopped at Customs? Prescription medicine, after all, wasn’t illegal. She was even shambolic about self-abuse. OK, if she devoted herself to acquiring a stash of some kind she would become a professional pill-head, but the amateurism was getting her down. And the hotel room. And her cancer was troubling her.

It was just a trip down the stairs to the party. Straightaway, to be on the safe side, she stopped at the bar and downed some warm vodka. The function room was packed with people Quentin didn’t recognize, or not enough to speak to. Just as the vodka was stroking her nerve endings, there he was.

‘No Dirk, I’m afraid. He hit the M1 the moment they called it a wrap. He’ll be somewhere near London by now.’

Midnight-blue suit, white shirt, close shave. A good smell. Bay rum? Or maybe she was