I’m standing on a pavement, squashed in a crowd, straining to see the stars who parade the red carpet, pausing for the cameras, lit and sanctified by white flashing lights. Knowing poses, shining eyes, a flick of hair and a backward glance, again and again, a parade of goddesses in flimsy gowns and impossible shoes. Tilda appears and, like the rest, she has that entitled, self-regarding smile, always for the cameras, scarcely registering the fans crammed behind the metal barrier, the contemptible civilians.
“It’s Tilda Farrow,” says the obese woman next to me, her breath smelling of gum. “She was in the press—some girl died at her house, and now she’s got this big new role in a movie called The Stranger.”
Tilda hadn’t told me, but I’m not surprised. Of course her dream has come true. It was inevitable, I suppose, because of her determination, her power. I stand on tiptoe, to get a better view, hoping she’ll spot me. But she doesn’t, she’s concentrating on giving an interview to a man in a tux holding a microphone. I can’t hear, but I can imagine what she’s saying: “Yes, I’m excited about this new part. It’s challenging, but I’ll be working with some amazing people.” All the deceiving platitudes of her profession delivered with ease and self-absorption. Then she turns to go into the building, and it’s only now that I realize that she’s wearing the golden dress with the crisscross straps going down her back. She rescued it from the pool, had the seam repaired.
I turn my back on the revolting scene and make my way back through the crowd. I’m going home, to England, and Wilf and gardens, to Mum and her bad paintings, to Daphne and Willesden Green, even to Liam. Now that I’ve found him again, I’m not going to let him go. I plan to live the life that Tilda imagined for me all those years ago, back in Gravesend, when she identified my “calling.” One day I’ll be in a house with a good man, maybe Wilf, with children and dogs, and I’ll give myself to ordinary things, everyday loves.
But I do know—how could I not?—that I’m the keeper of a secret that puts sinfulness at the heart of me, that I’m eternally tainted. I’ll have to live with that, because I’m not going to betray my sister. It would kill her if I did; she’d fall off that balcony, stage a beautiful death. I can’t allow it. Instead I’m choosing to believe that she’s done her harm; that now she’s moving on. She’ll discard Lucas, of course, he’s a temporary crutch; and thanks to Felix’s money she’ll become a film star, surviving on my silence, on the absence of normal life and endlessly craving the adoration that sustains her in the darkness.