According to Carole, her agent, it was due to lack of attention as a child. ‘All the big ones are like that, sweetie. Nobody loved them enough when they were little and, by God, they’re determined to make up for it now.’
Megan had laughed when Carole said that. ‘Not all of them, surely?’
‘Yes, all of them. And stop calling me Shirley. Oh, the old jokes are the best.’
They’d been in the Victory House Club at the time, drinking dirty mojitos – Carole’s own concoction, which used two types of rum – to celebrate Megan getting the part in The Warrior Queen. Carole’s business partner, Zara Scott, had joined them. Both in their mid-forties, tough and energetic, the two founders of Scott-Baird International worked hard to make sure their agency ranked as one of the most powerful in the business. It had been Zara who convinced the director of Warrior Queen to consider Megan for the part of the Roman princess. He hadn’t wanted her to start with, he was looking for an unknown, not the girl who’d blown the screen away in a Cockney gangster movie where she’d had to wield a sawnoff shotgun. But Zara had persevered until he gave in and screen-tested Megan, and suddenly she was cast: a part many actresses would have killed for, playing opposite the craggy heart-throb Rob Hartnell in a historical epic.
On their third mojito, they’d moved on from sheer joy to discussing the ins and outs of Rob’s marriage to the Tony and BAFTA-award winning actress, Katharine Hartnell.
‘Everybody says Katharine and Rob have one of the strongest marriages in the business,’ said Carole. ‘I never really trust that type of schtick. Sounds like something made up for the papers.’
‘No, it’s supposed to be true,’ said Zara. ‘I have it on very good authority. Apparently Rob and Katharine are still crazy about each other. Hard to believe, isn’t it?’
‘Well, you wouldn’t kick him out of bed for getting crumbs in it, would you?’ Carole said. ‘He’s like a brunette Robert Redford, only sexier, if such a thing were possible. Lucky Katharine, that’s all I can say.’
‘She’s pretty stunning too,’ said Zara. ‘For her age,’ she added.
‘Yes, for her age,’ Carole agreed. ‘Why do we say that about women? Nobody ever says a man is good for his age.’
Zara erupted into laughter. ‘If you’re going to go all soft on me, Carole, then get out of the business, will you?’
Carole finished her drink and looked around for the bar staff. ‘Sorry, I slipped into nirvana there. Forgot that male actors are “distinguished” when they reach fifty, and female actors are finished, unless they want to play wise old grannies.’
‘Or do lots of theatre,’ Megan added.
‘Katharine Hartnell has done a lot of theatre,’ Carole went on. ‘I’ve seen her in Hedda Gabler. She was mesmerising, and very beautiful.’
‘Yes, she is beautiful,’ said Megan.
‘She’s so creamily pale with those Spanish infanta eyes,’ Zara observed. ‘She must have had some work done.’
They all considered this.
‘But not much, just mild tweaks. Not the full facelift, eyebrows-on-your-hairline job,’ Zara finished.
‘Less is more,’ Carole said.
‘Should I get botox?’ asked Megan, examining her face in the mirrored surface of the table in front of her.
‘It’s too soon for you,’ Carole advised. ‘Later, maybe. The problem is doing too much of it, mind you. You’ve no idea how many people get hooked on it. Let’s be honest, decent directors want some movement in the face. That porcelain doll look is on the way out. You can’t act if you can’t actually move any of the muscles in your face.’
‘As long as you can move your lips to ask “What’s my motivation in this scene?” when you have to snog Rob Hartnell!’ teased Zara.
‘Stop!’ said Megan. ‘I’m bloody terrified. He’s an icon.’
‘A very hot icon, and you have a huge love scene with him,’ Carole said.
‘That’s making it worse, not better,’ Megan laughed, although she was excited at the thought. This wasn’t happening to anyone else, it was happening to her. She’d somehow got this magical part where she would be acting opposite a man she’d watched, rapt, like everyone else, on the Odeon screen when she’d been younger. She’d be up there on the screen with Rob. It was heady stuff.
‘Don’t worry.’ Zara patted her hand. ‘Carole or I will stand in for you on the day. You only have to ask. I can bear to snog Rob Hartnell if it’s for a greater purpose.’
In Titania’s Palace, Megan Flynn sat with her empty cup and looked at all the people around her. Once, she wouldn’t have envied them anything. They had dull lives, she’d have told herself: the women with the grocery bags pooled around their feet, the young mothers with small children wriggling redfaced in high chairs, the men poring over crosswords or chatting just as avidly as the groups of women.
As she’d danced the night away in clubs and at wrap parties, posing for photographs and plotting with her agent about what she’d do next, Megan had thought these people were buried alive.
How could they not want to do what she did? How could they be happy in their humdrum lives?
But now she looked at them and she could see the lure of the simple life. They might have no excitement, but they were secure and happy in this cosy world of Golden Square.
None of them would be filled with anxiety at the prospect of the rest of their lives. None of them were waiting for someone to find them hiding out in Dublin. None of them had had their hearts broken. Or so she thought, in her self-centred way.
Was a boring life a good trade-off for that?
Never underestimate the power of a simple mushroom. When I was young, Agnes and my mother would head off at dawn on summer’s mornings to search for mushrooms. Nobody thought of growing them in the vegetable garden along with the potatoes and cabbage. Mushrooms were the fairies’ gift to us, my mother would say: like soft pincushions scattered on the grass as the sun rose.
You had to be quick, mind, or else the cattle would trample them and they’d be gone.
Home with their pot of mushrooms, we’d put the fattest on top of the range and sprinkle a little salt on them. Roasted like that, with the heat rising up into the mushrooms and the pink pleated underbelly turning brown, they were the most delicious thing you’d ever eat.
They made a great feast with a bit of scrambled egg: a plate of earth brown mushrooms with the juices running out of them and the eggs like yellow clouds beside them.
Even now – and it’s a long time since I walked a green field to pick a wild mushroom – I can still taste the freshness of one roasted on my mam’s range.
It was the simplicity we loved. Agnes had told us of the grand feasts in the big house, with sauces you had to stir for hours.
Hollandaise for asparagus was the fashion at the time in the grand houses. I’ve since tried asparagus and all I can say is, give me a roasted mushroom any day.
But the humble mushroom is proof that sometimes the best things in life are found growing wild and free right under your nose. Don’t rush so fast, Eleanor, that you can’t see the wild mushrooms around you.
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