I’d leave the stage door tired from work. I’d gone straight from filming on Eyre into A Doll’s House in the West End. At first he just wanted a signed program, and then a chat, and then longer chats that got harder to leave until finally he was following me to the tube station still talking. I had to start leaving with friends. I had to be chaperoned. One day he couldn’t stop crying, this stranger in his fifties. He just walked behind me and my friend, silent tears dripping down his slack face. His name was Shaun. I’d tried to sort it out with the police myself but it wasn’t until my agent received a package that they took it seriously. He was just a stalker. Not even a stalker really, just a lonely man trying to make friends. I told the police that, of course, but they insisted on following it up, issuing an official warning. I think his wife had died recently.
They wouldn’t tell me what was in the package he sent. I jokingly asked if it was a head, and they all laughed, so I guess it can’t have been a head. I felt guilty about what happened; the friendlier I had been, the worse it had gotten and the more I strengthened his perceived connection to me. I hope he’s doing better now. I wish they’d just told me what was in the package straightaway, though; instead I spent a week imagining the absolute worst. Weird photos. Skin. Teeth. Something his wife had owned. It was just a stuffed toy in the end and a slightly unsettling poem. But it’s hard not to think the worst when you’re trying not to think the worst.
I know not everyone is strange. But some people are.
At the next stop as I gather my things and disembark, a few eyes follow but when I surface at Green Park and the cold February air hits me, cooling my flaming cheeks, I chalk today’s trip up as a success. No incidents this time, no drunken football chants demanding I “Say it! Say it!”
Who knew Jane Eyre had a catchphrase?
Who knew Arsenal supporters read Bront??
And yes, in case you’re wondering—much to my shame—reader, I said it.
* * *
—
“You’re late,” my agent, Cynthia, smirks as I plonk down into the restaurant seat opposite her.
“Sorry. Tube,” I counter.
She’s already ordered us two glasses of champagne. I eye the chilled bubbles in front of me greedily. “Are we celebrating, again?” I half joke as I shrug off my coat, but her silence makes me raise my gaze.
“You could say that. Yes,” she says, grinning before pointedly sipping from her champagne flute. “I got a call this morning,” she purrs, placing her glass down calmly. “From Louise Northfield at BAFTA. A heads-up if you will…Louise and I went to St. Andrews together; we tend to keep each other posted—she loves you by the way. So the word on the street is…though they’re not announcing the nominees until a month before the ceremony, which is in May, but…” She pauses for effect. “You’re on the BAFTA list. Nominees. For Eyre. Best actress.”
For a moment her words don’t make sense to me. Then they slowly shuffle into meaning. I feel the blood drain from my face, then my hands, and in its place a rush of serotonin floods in, the like of which I have never felt before, crashing through me.
“Holy shit.” I hear the sounds come from me, distant, as I fumble with a shaky hand for my champagne and gulp down a cool, crisp mouthful. The light-headedness only intensifies. Seven years I’ve worked for this. This is it. This is what I wanted. “Jesus Christ,” I mutter.
“That’s what I said.” Cynthia chuckles, grinning from ear to ear. “Now here’s the really good bit. All the other nominees are over fifty, and they’ve all won before.”
I sober quickly, brought up short. “Wait. Is that good?”
“Yeah, it is,” she says with a laugh. “People love discovering actors, even if they’ve been knocking around for years. Plus, you’ve got great credits, pedigree, even though this is your first major leading role. You’re academy catnip. A safe bet that seems like a wild card. And everyone will be rooting for you, nobody needs to see one of the ‘Ladies in Lavender’ win another bloody award.”