the heart of London. Even as a child I hated parties. I never had anyone to talk to and I didn’t fit in. I’ve never known who to be when I’m supposed to be me. I don’t want to go tonight, but my agent says I should and, given everything that is currently going on, it seems wise to do as I am told. He doesn’t seem to understand that social gatherings, with people looking at me all night, fill me with the most horrific and inexplicable fear.
Perhaps I’m just scared of what they might see.
I think about the version of me I need to be tonight, then flick a switch and turn her on, hoping she’ll stay with me for as long as I need her to. She doesn’t always.
I pass a McDonald’s and remember that I haven’t eaten. I double back and order a Happy Meal, hoping it might work in more ways than one. I choose the same things I used to as a child thirty years ago: chicken nuggets and french fries to take away. I don’t get far. I don’t even open the box. I see a homeless girl lying in a doorway on a folded-up piece of cardboard and I stop. I know that could have been me. She looks cold and hungry, so I give her my coat and my Happy Meal, then carry on towards the tube station.
I stare at the floor of the train carriage, avoiding eye contact with my fellow travelers, pretending they can’t see me if I can’t see them. When I was a little girl, I was always afraid that I might disappear, like the little girl who lived in the flat above the shop before me. I still don’t have children of my own, despite wanting them so badly, and time is running out for that dream. The only way I can now live on after I die is through my work. If I could star in the perfect movie, a story that people would remember, then a little bit of me might continue to exist. Someone once said that people like me are born in the dirt and die in the dirt, and I don’t want that to be true. The Fincher audition might save me, and if I get the part … well, then maybe I won’t have to be scared of disappearing anymore.
I get off the tube and fight my way to the surface, walking up the escalator, through the barriers, and up the stone steps, until I am in the open air again. I’m cold without the coat I gave away, but it feels better to be above ground and I remind myself to breathe.
It’s just a party.
I let go of the me I need to be for just a moment and lose her in the crowd. My fear turns the volume and my terror up to maximum. I stare down at my new red shoes; it’s as though they have become stuck to the pavement. I wonder if I click my heels together three times, if I might magically vanish, but there’s no place like home if you’ve never had one, and I was only ever pretending to be Dorothy in that school play all those years ago. Just as I’ve only ever pretended to be Aimee Sinclair.
The closer I get to the venue, the worse it gets. I haven’t slept for days now, and it feels as if I’m losing my grip on reality. I lean a trembling hand against a wall to try to steady myself as the rush-hour traffic roars past. A black cab races by, then a red double-decker bus seems to charge straight at me, its windows morphing into the shape of evil yellow eyes in the darkness, and even though I know it can’t be real, I turn and try to run away, pushing through the crowds of pedestrians marching in the opposite direction. It’s as though they link arms and deliberately try to block my path. I cover my head with my hands and close my eyes; when I peer out between the fingers I’m hiding behind, it feels as if the whole world is staring at me. The canvas of multicolored faces starts to twist and blur with the streetlights and traffic, as though someone has taken a paintbrush to this scene of my life and decided to start again. When I lower my hands, I see that they are the same color as