Beautiful People (7 page)

    Great friends with Hugh, Richard thought with uncharacteristic sourness. Oh, absolutely. Great friends to the extent that Hugh, recently promoted to the Shadow Cabinet, had taken to stalking past him in Westminster corridors without even acknowledging him. But Georgie had been beside herself in delight to find that her husband's former university friend was now so elevated, and this, Richard suspected, was one of the reasons she had invited him for dinner.

    Of course, Hugh would have accepted with alacrity. Not the least cause of Richard's disquiet was the fact that Hugh, or "Freebie Faugh," as he was known in the corridors of power, was notorious for his interest in all things complimentary. He was famous, in particular, for the zest with which he proved there absolutely was such a thing as a free lunch—and a free dinner as well.

    Thank God, the summer recess was coming soon, Richard thought. Time for a change of scene. Time for Italy.

"Am I speaking with Mitch Masterson?"

    "Yeah," Mitch drawled, not bothering to conceal the fact that, contrary to his doctor's instructions concerning his increasing weight, he was chewing on a jelly doughnut as he spoke. It was his second jelly doughnut, as well. And he had just had lunch into the bargain.

    "I have Arlington Shorthouse on the line for you," the female voice said.

    Her words electrified Mitch. His hand jerked in shock, and the coffee he was about to swig to wash down the last of his second doughnut now landed on the front of his shirt. His eyes watered, and he wanted to scream as the scalding liquid made contact with his nipples.

    There were many reasons why NBS Studios, of which Arlington was head, could be calling him. At least fifty reasons: Mitch had upward of fifty clients after all, and they were all actors. But it was the fact that Arlington himself was calling that rang alarm bells.

    Arlington, even though he was a well-known workaholic and famously hands-on, only called agents directly for two reasons. One was because he wanted to launch a career. The other was because he wanted to end one. Mitch, for whom thoughts of Belle Murphy were never far away, had a sudden, sickening, guilty feeling that had nothing to do with jelly doughnuts.

    "Good morning, Mr. Shorthouse," he said meekly, as if his own good behaviour could somehow mitigate for his client and earn her a reprieve. And yet it wasn't a surprise that the end had come.

    Since being dumped by Christian Harlow, Belle had hit the ground running—literally, and more than once after oblivionseeking, champagne-fuelled benders in nightclubs that had been mercilessly covered by the press.

    Day after day, Mitch had opened the tabloids to find, to his despair, lurid photographs of his former star client struggling, blind drunk, in and out of limos in wisps of dresses with a glaring absence of underwear. All of which would have been unlikely to impress the only person, apart from the state attorney, who mattered. This was the teetotalling and puritanical head of her studio, who felt his stars should be paragons of American virtue at all times. Arlington Shorthouse, the man who was ringing now. Doubtless to knock Belle's career on the head.

    Arlington's next words, however, knocked Mitch as flat as Mitch could be knocked, given that he was sitting up at his desk. "We're making the
Galaxia
movie," the studio head announced in the quiet, ominous voice that could, Mitch imagined, freeze vodka solid. "We start shooting in the summer."

    Mitch blinked. That was sensational news. Of course, many studios had tried and failed with space sagas since George Lucas had brought out
Star Wars
. But NBS's track record meant it had a very good chance. It was a prospect almost as dazzling as the sunshine.

    It was also a relief. The news was clearly connected to one of his actors, and Belle, for all her troubles, was the best-known actor on his books. Arlington could hardly be ringing about anyone else. Perhaps he wasn't about to fire her, after all.

    "You've got someone I want to offer one of the two main roles to," Arlington said.

    A main role? Holy crap. In the darkness below his striped shirt, beneath his flabby upper arms, Mitch felt a nuclear glow of moisture. Sweat gathered on his forehead. Belle's career was saved, and his own was too. She'd be back at the top, the biggest movie actress of the day, probably the best paid too, which was the bit that interested Mitch. And would interest the Associated Artists CEO, when it came to doling out the promotions.

    And not before time. Mitch had been passed over not once but many times too often recently, and there were other unpleasant reminders of the extent to which his status had slipped within the company. Associated's thrusting, younger agents, who felt they were too important to handle anything other than superstars, were increasingly palming off their smaller or older clients on him. Thanks to people like Greg Cucarachi, who was one of the palmers-off in chief, Mitch's list was currently thick with duds, small-timers, oldtimers, and also-rans, and he had heard that some of the other agents sneeringly referred to him as "the graveyard."

    The graveyard! Ha! He'd show them. With one of his clients a star in the new
Galaxia
film!

    "Who is it?" Mitch asked, his voice smiling.

    "Darcy Prince," replied Arlington Shorthouse.

    Mitch's mind instantly dissolved into a fog. He felt he was standing over a bath and watching the pictures that had formed of Belle and himself—on the red-carpeted entrance to the Kodak Theatre, the Oscar-night paparazzi going crazy—disappearing down the plughole.

    "Darcy Prince," he repeated, with a calmness he did not feel.

    Darcy Prince? Who the hell was that?

    Mitch groped about in the mist in his mind, panicking that Arlington had rung the wrong agency, that someone else was going to get this big chance, and wondering about the chances of finding this Darcy Prince and taking him or her on anyway, all in the next few seconds.

    Then, with a great rush of relief, he realised that he did, in fact, represent Darcy Prince. He remembered the name vaguely; it had been in the latest sheaf of hopeless cases dumped on him by Greg Cucarachi the other day. Mitch had filed the slim sheet of details away without even reading them, never expecting he would ever have to. Now, with the receiver containing Arlington tucked unsteadily under his flabby, stubbly chin, Mitch shot again in his chair over to his filing cabinet, trying to open it silently and fish out the details with trembling, sweating hands.

    "Darcy Prince!" he said in musing tones, whilst frantically shoving his stubby hands into overstuffed folders that cut his fingers. Was it a man or a woman, he wondered.

    "Yes. I was just in London, and I caught Darcy in a play there," Arlington remarked. "What was it called?" he mused.

    "Er…" gasped Mitch, screwing up his eyes as he tried to remember what was currently going down in the British capital.
Mamma
Mia
was all that came to mind. Was that a play, strictly speaking? And if it was, was Darcy Prince in it? He should know, of course, should have the information at his fingertips, being her agent.

    "
A Doll's House
. That was it," Arlington said, his thin voice faintly warmed with self-congratulation. "She was impressive."

    
A Doll's House
? Was that some kind of Bratz musical, Mitch wondered. But at least he was now straight on one thing. She! She! Darcy was a woman. He had secured the crucial information on gender.

    And now, miraculously, he had also found Darcy's details. He scanned them eagerly.

Name:
Darcy Alethea Desdemona Prince

Nationality
: English

Address:
43 Montague Mansions, Wilton Street, London SW1

Age:
24

Education:
St. Paul's Girls' School, London; Girton College, Cambridge (BA Hons—first class—English); Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA)

Mitch could see why Greg had dumped her on him. There was nothing remotely Hollywood about this woman. She had never even made a film. No doubt, whatever two-bit London agency represented her—it obviously wasn't a big one—had one of those deals with Associated in which they paid the American agency to handle their clients' L.A. interests.

    These were known as "drawer deals," because the dark inside of a filing cabinet into which they were immediately shoved, never to be extracted, was usually all these British clients saw of the famous bright lights of Hollywood. And at Associated, most of these unfortunates were shoved in filing cabinets in Mitch's office.

Acting career:
Ophelia in
Hamlet
, Cambridge Shakespeare Company, 2005; Cordelia in
King Lear
, CSC, 2006; Viola in
Twelfth Night
, RSC, 2007. Nora in
A Doll's House
, Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, 2008

Mitch blinked. This was all way off the usual Hollywood acting resumé. Most of the women he handled didn't mention their education or early experience, and not without good reason.

    "She's gonna be the next Keira Knightley," Arlington asserted.

    Mitch felt his excitement peak. Keira Knightley. So Darcy looked like her? Wow. Keira Knightley was one hot babe. Thin, and maybe a bit flat-chested. But definitely hot.

    "I want her to play Princess Anatoo," Arlington was saying in his cold voice. "She's the young Grand Duchess of the Galaxy who must enlist the help of her dead father's supporters, the Kinkos, to overcome the evil that threatens her and her realm, the Kingdom of Anoo."

    "Darcy's your woman," Mitch said confidently. "If ever anyone had Grand Duchess potential, it's her."

    "Yeah, well, it's not cut and dried yet," Arlington snapped. "I think she'll be great, but she needs to meet with the director."

    "Oh, sure," said Mitch, warmly. This, of course, would be a technicality. If Arlington wanted the film to go ahead with Darcy in it, then go ahead with Darcy in it the film duly would. The director was hardly likely to make a difference. "Who is the director?" he asked, as if mattered.

    "Jack Saint," said Arlington.

    "I thought he'd retired," Mitch said, his spirits slumping slightly. It had been a loss to the studios, no doubt, when the celebrated Saint had bowed out last year with an unparallelled string of successes behind him. The agenting industry, however, had breathed a sigh of relief. Saint had been an extremely difficult person for their clients to work for. He had wanted them to act, for a start. He had begun each day's shoot with an improvisation session that had proved almost more than the average Associated client could bear.

    "He had," Arlington returned. "But I persuaded him out of it with enough money and the chance to out-Lucas George Lucas. He's always been pretty competitive with him. Can you get her over here by Friday?"

    "Sure I can." Mitch's confidence shot back. What choice did he have? He absolutely could, even if he had to go over there, to—he glanced at the resume—43 Montagu Mansions, Wilton Street, London SW1, and drag Darcy back by the scruff of the neck. Which, of course, he would not have to. No one in their right mind was going to turn down a chance like this.

It was, as always, gone midnight before Darcy Prince, her pale face scrubbed of make-up, her black hair drawn back into a roughly brushed ponytail, emerged from the stage door of the theatre. She felt, again as always, drained after yet another performance of
King
Lear
, in which she played the troubled monarch's fatally honest and tragic youngest daughter Cordelia.

    The part was exhausting enough, but equally harrowing was the proximity, for more than three hours, of the naked, swinging, and shriveled testicles of the septuagenarian actor playing Lear and giving it his all in every sense.

    Fortunately, his playing Lear semi-naked was interpreted by both critics and audience as a metaphor for the exposed and vulnerable predicament of Shakespeare's tragic king, rather than the blatant exhibitionism Darcy suspected it really was. And, of course, this publicity was helpful; the production was by one of London's least famous, most experimental directors and in one of the city's smallest and least well-known theatres. Basically, it needed all the help it could get. Still, everyone in the play was passionate about their work, passionate about Shakespeare and the theatre, and this was all that mattered to Darcy.

    Leaning against the bus stop, watching taxi after taxi go by, all enticingly lit up in front with that glowing yellow rectangle, Darcy wondered whether she was being slightly hard on herself. With the allowance from her grandmother, she could easily have afforded to take one of them. She dismissed this as a weak moment. Struggling actresses couldn't afford taxis across town at nighttime rates, and she was determined to live within the means of her earnings—the absolute Equity minimum, not what inherited money made possible.

    She was equally determined to make her own success, not trade on the name of her family. And, within the theatre, the Prince family had quite a name. Her paternal grandfather, Sacheverell Prince, had been the Hamlet of his day despite looking, in all the pictures Darcy had even seen of him acting, like an irascible middle-aged man with a moustache. A far cry, she had always thought, from the volatile and indecisive teenage boy of Shakespeare's play.

    Her own mother and father were among the most celebrated classical actors of their generation and extremely politically committed. As a child, Darcy was taken to far more demonstrations than she ever was birthday parties and once suffered terrible fright at the sight of her father in handcuffs—by his own volition, it was quickly explained to her—and attached to the railings of a bank that had interests in the then-ostracized South Africa.