Best British Short Stories 2020 by Nicholas Royle (best novels to read for students txt) 📕

Another girl entered, humming a tune from Ladies of the Chorus. That musical must be a decade old. The girl lipsticked her mouth, sang ev’ry body needs a da-da-daddy.

Ingrid thought: sometimes they don’t don’t don’t.

She watched the girl make-up. The girl glanced at the camera slung around Ingrid’s shoulder, then at the girl in the cubicle. Smiled. ‘Say,’ she said. ‘You look familiar. Are you the actress, Ellen Arden?’

Ingrid shook her head. She felt strangely dislocated.

She stumbled out of the bathroom and straight into the arms of Cukor.

Cut! he yelled. What were you doing in there?

She looked back.

‘I was trying,’ she said. ‘I was trying to be sick.’

The kidneys together weigh 350 grams.

‘You’ve lost more than 25 pounds, I’ve never seen you so thin.’

She poured herself coffee. They could hear mourning doves from the terrace. She glanced down, saw the maid opening the car for the children. ‘It’s the role, Nick. I’m doing it for the role.’

‘I went down to the lot yesterday. Spoke to Cukor. He says you’re not putting the hours in.’

She raised her eyebrows, her anger: ‘Why would you talk to Cukor?’

He sighed. ‘I’ve seen the rushes. I’ve seen you. You’re not well. You look like a photographer playing an actress as a photographer.’

‘Being smart doesn’t suit you.’

Nick shook his head. ‘Truth is, I’m caught between Ellen and Monroe.’

‘I’m Ingrid, Nick. Ingrid.’

‘Are you kidding me? You can’t pull this off. Something’s got to give.’

She looked out from the terrace. In the distance, the Santa Monica mountains. She took another sip of coffee, then turned a semi-circle taking in their apartment’s wooden backdrop, the props, the cameras, Cukor, the facsimile.

She held up her hand.

‘Can we do this again? One more take? And the script. The script is Goddamn awful.’

… Monroe wasn’t killed. So they used Baker …

Cukor spoke to Schulman: ‘Is this a work of fiction or isn’t it?’

Schulman shuffled his notes, a pencil behind his ear. ‘I’m struggling to remember.’

‘Just write it like it is. We’re never going to finish this picture. We’re ten days behind schedule as it is.’

Cukor looked out through his office window. Baker was leaning against the side of Arden’s trailer, cigarette nonchalant. Arden had yet to arrive. Some mornings she was heavylidded. Who said nights were for sleep? When she did arrive, Baker spent so long preparing her for the set she might have been embalming a corpse. Cukor stroked his chin. Baker had played a good corpse. But there was more to an understudy than a physical resemblance. Not that Baker was an understudy. He wondered if she could be.

‘Let me take a look at that script.’

Schulman handed it over. Watched as Cukor flicked.

It made no sense. Arden was Monroe was Ingrid. Schulman had scored through and rewritten the names so many times that in some places only a hole remained. Baker was written in the margins.

Cukor rubbed his eyes. ‘What do you think to Baker?’

‘Baker? She’s plain, stutters sometimes, is overall drab. What are you thinking about Baker?’

‘Could we transform her into Monroe?’

Schulman shook his head. ‘You could never transform her into Monroe. You couldn’t even transform her into Ellen.’

‘Ellen. That’s what I meant.’

Cukor watched as Ellen’s pink Lincoln Capri swept onto the lot. She saw him at the window and waved before disappearing into her trailer. Cukor looked at Schulman. ‘You see that?’

‘See what?’

‘Ellen just arrived as Monroe.’

‘So what’s she doing now? Transforming back into Baker?’

‘Not Baker, Schulman. Ellen.’

Cukor threw the script to the floor. He left the office and walked across the lot. There was no time for sentimentality. He swung open the door of the trailer. Ellen was surrounded by the cast and crew. Baker held a sheet cake depicting a naked Ellen. Happy Birthday (Suit). Ellen looked Cukor in the eye and smiled. She was undeniably perfect.

In that glance Cukor might have thought he w as t he president.

‘8 mg of chloral hydrate, 4.5 mg of Nembutal.’

There was a hard pain in her stomach. She looked at her hand holding the Bakelite phone which would soon go out of production. She could barely contain herself.

I’m fired? But I’ve destroyed the negatives.

‘The appendix is absent. The gallbladder has been removed.’

Nick!

He looked over the top of his newspaper. The table was set with breakfast things. Fresh coffee. She could smell fresh coffee. Butter was melting into toast.

I paid the huntsman.

‘I’m a role,’ he said. ‘Haven’t you read the script?’

But she had been reading. Chekhov, Conrad, Joyce. There were four hundred and thirty books in her library.

‘The temporal muscles are intact.’

She squeezed her eyes shut. She would count her true friends and everything would be all right. She would count to ten.

One.

‘The urinary bladder contains approximately 150 cc of clear straw-coloured fluid.’

Two.

‘The stomach is almost completely empty.’

Three.

‘No residue of the pills is noted.’

She swung her head around. She’d lost count. Those damn pills. They were supposed to be her salvation.

‘No evidence of trauma.’

No evidence of trauma! Who said that? Who’s there?

Thomas Noguchi, Deputy Medical Examiner, looked up from Monroe’s body.

‘Did you just hear something?’

The man who wasn’t Kennedy shook his head.

HANIF KUREISHISHE SAID HE SAID

Sushila was walking in the park when she saw Mateo and his male assistant sitting on a bench. As she approached them, she noticed Mateo was dishevelled in his black suit; in fact, he was very drunk, which was unusual for him at that time of day, late afternoon. She greeted him, kissing him on both cheeks, and he asked if she would sleep with him. Why hadn’t they slept together? he went on. They could do it right now, at his place, if she had time. He had always found her sexy but had been too nervous to mention it.

They had known each other for at least eighteen years but he had never spoken to her in this way. She was surprised and tried to seem amused. She had always liked him. Clever, witty, Mateo worked with her husband, Len. His wife, Marcie, was a confidante. They had all gone to the