Innocence

KATHLEEN TESSARO

INNOCENCE

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2005 1

Copyright © Kathleen Tessaro 2005

Kathleen Tessaro asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Ebook Edition © 2005 ISBN: 9780007330751

Version: 2017-12-08

For my family

‘No Coward Soul Is Mine.’

EMILY BRONTë

Table of Contents

Copyright

PART ONE February 1986

Chapter 1

PART TWO 21 June 1991

Chapter 2

PART THREE 21 June 1996

Chapter 3

PART FOUR December 1997

Chapter 4

E-book Extra

Also by Kathleen Tessaro

About the Publisher

PART ONE February 1986

Chapter 1

I’m seated next to a red-headed woman on the plane. My supper of creamed chicken royal and boiled rice sits untouched in front of me. Instead, I stare at my new Keith Haring Swatch watch (a going-away gift from my boyfriend, Jonny). It’s my first trip abroad. In only eight hours and twenty-two minutes, we’ll be landing in London and a whole new chapter of my life will begin. Who can eat chicken at a time like this?

The redhead can. She’s an old hand at foreign travel. Lighting another cigarette, she smiles at me.

‘Oh, London’s great! Great pubs. And you can have fish and chips. “Chips” is English for French fries,’ she translates. ‘They put salt and vinegar on them over there.’

‘Ewwww!’ I say, ever the sophisticate.

‘But it’s good! You have them with mushy peas.’

‘Mushy what?’

‘Peas!’ She laughs. ‘They’re sort of smashed up. You don’t have to have them.’

‘Oh, but I want to!’ I assure her quickly. ‘I want to try everything!’

She exhales. ‘Where are you from?’

‘Eden, Ohio.’

‘Is that near Akron?’

‘Actually, it’s not near anything.’

‘And what are you doing? Studying?’

‘Drama. I’m going to be an actress. A classical actress,’ I add, just in case she gets the idea I’m going to sell out. ‘I’ve been accepted into the Actors Drama Workshop Academy. Maybe you’ve heard of it?’

She shakes her head. ‘Is that like RADA?’

‘Almost.’

‘Well, you’re a pretty girl. I’m sure you’ll be a big star.’ And she nods, drumming her long pink nails against the shared armrest. ‘Yeah, London will be the making of you. It’s a long way from Ohio, kid.’

That’s exactly what I’m hoping for.

I don’t fit in in Ohio. I don’t fit in anywhere yet. But back home, nobody seems to get me—apart from my boyfriend Jonny. He’s going to study Graphic Arts at CMU next term. He understands what it’s like to be an artistic soul trapped in a working-class town. That’s why we get on so well. I pull out his going-away letter to me and read it one more time.

‘I know this is going to be a completely amazing adventure for you, babe. And I can’t wait to hear each instalment. Write often. Never lose faith in yourself. And think of me slaving away over my drawing board, dreaming of you and your perfect, beautiful face until you get back…safe and warm in my arms. I’m so proud of you.

My darling Jonny.

We’ve been dating for nearly two years. When I get back, we’re going to live together. In New York City if things work out. Already I can see us: drinking coffee in the mornings, padding about in our loft apartment overlooking Central Park—sometimes there’s a dog in the picture, sometimes it’s just us.

Folding the letter carefully, I slip it back into the side pocket of my carry-on bag.

I think of my parents, standing next to one another at the departure gate of Cleveland airport. They just couldn’t understand why I needed to go so far away; why anyone would ever want to leave the States. I’m the only person in my family with a passport.

There’s a whole entire world bursting with beautiful language, enormous, crushing emotions and stories so powerful they break your heart in two—just not in Eden, Ohio. How can I explain to them that I want to be part of it? To rub up against the culture that inspired Shakespeare and Sheridan, Coward and Congreve; the wit of Wilde, the satire of Shaw, the sheer wickedness of Orton…I want to see it, touch it; experience it all first-hand instead of reading about it in books, in between taking orders at Doughnut Express.

And, at last, I’m on the verge.

Leaning back in my seat, I gaze out of the window. Somewhere, far below, my parents are driving back home now, thinking about what to have for dinner. And just beyond this expanse of blue, on a small green island, people I’ve yet to meet are drifting off to sleep, dreaming of what tomorrow might hold.

The stewardess leans over, collecting my tray of untouched food. ‘Not hungry?’

I shake my head.

The next meal I eat will be fish and chips.

With plenty of mushy peas.

The Belle View Hotel and Guesthouse in Russell Square is considerably darker, colder and altogether more brown than the pictures in the brochure. The rooms, so spacious and inviting in the leaflet, are cell-like and lavishly appointed with tea-and coffee-making facilities (a kettle and teacup on a plastic tray), and a basin in the corner. Boiling-hot water steams out of one tap, icy cold from the other. A certain amount of speed and physical endurance is required to wash your face but the reward is a genuine feeling of accomplishment.

However, the reality of shared bathroom facilities is another matter. No amount of counselling could prepare me for crouching naked in a shallow tub of tepid water while three large German businessmen wrapped in nothing but old bathrobes lurk outside the door. The whole experience is like a trip to the gynaecologist’s, simultaneously intimate and deeply unpleasant. The English must have a relationship with their bodies that’s alien to me; like a couple who are divorced but still living together in the same house; forced to be polite to someone they hate.

After bathing and making myself an instant coffee (breakfast with the Germans is a bridge too far), the time has come. I’m ready to visit the offices of the Actors Drama Workshop Academy in north London and introduce myself to the people who are going to mould the rest of my life.

It’s further than I thought. I take a bus to Euston Station, a tube to Camden Town and change lines before I find myself in Tufnell Park Road. I wander up and down the long residential street, which at this time of the morning seems to collect old women glaring at the pavement, dragging blue vinyl trolleys behind them. And then I’m there, standing outside the North London Branch of the United Kingdom Morris Dancing Association. This is the address. There’s no mention of the Actors Workshop anywhere.

A Glaswegian caretaker comes to my rescue. He explains, through the universal language of mime, that I do have the right address; the academy’s somewhere in the basement.

The building seems empty. My footsteps echo down the corridor. A creeping sense of doom grows in the pit of my stomach. This isn’t the hive of artistic activity I’d imagined, with students rehearsing in the hallways, singing and dancing like extras from Fame. What if I’ve made a huge, expensive mistake? What if I’ve travelled all this way for nothing?

I turn a corner and walk down the steps.

‘Where the hell are the student registration forms! For Christ’s sake, doesn’t anyone around here know how to do anything right? I want those forms and I want them now! Gwen!’

I freeze at the bottom of the stairs.

A breathless woman in her early forties flaps past me, carrying a pile of photocopied papers. Her hair’s cut into a faded blonde bob and she’s wearing a navy wool skirt and a shapeless, rather bobbly green cardigan. Round her neck, a collection of long gold chains, some with lockets, some without, clink and rattle, swaying from side to side. ‘I can hear you perfectly well, Simon. You’re not playing to the back row of the Theatre Royal Haymarket, you know’ She heads into a small office.

There’s the sound of paper hitting the floor.

‘These are last year’s forms! My God! What have I done to deserve this? Just tell me, Lord! How have I betrayed you that I should be tormented by such incompetence?’

I can hear her gathering them up again.

Her voice is quiet but lethal. ‘These are not last year’s forms, Simon. They’re this year’s. I know because I photocopied them myself. Now, if you’re keen to continue in this vein, then you’ll have to do it alone because one more word from you and I’m leaving. And you’ll have to pick your own papers up next time.’

She slams the door and marches into a larger room across the hall.

Maybe this isn’t a good time.

As I turn to escape back up the stairs, the door of the office opens and a man in an electric wheelchair comes out. He’s a tall man—even though he’s seated I can see that—in his early fifties with a mass of wild grey hair. His legs are thin and strangely doll-like under the faded tweed suit he’s wearing.

‘Gwen!’ he shouts, disappearing into the next room, ‘I’m a swine!’

‘Yes, well, we know that.’

‘And you! Loitering on the stairs! Come in!’

I hesitate.

‘Yes, you!’ he booms.

‘Stop scaring the students, Simon. We’ve had words about this before.’

Moving closer, I poke my head round the corner. It’s a spacious room with a large sash window that looks out at ground level to an unruly garden in the back.

‘Hello.’ I feel like an eavesdropper who’s been caught out—which is exactly what I am. ‘My name’s Evie Garlick. I’m registered for the advanced acting workshop.’

Simon spins round and shakes my hand. He has a grip that could strangle a child. ‘Welcome, Evie! Welcome to London and to the Actors Drama Workshop Academy! I’m Simon Garrett and this is my assistant, Gwen.’ He throws his arms wide. ‘Don’t be deceived by these humble surroundings; these are just temporary accommodations while we wait for our new studios to be developed in South Kensington. Right next to Hyde Park and Kensington Palace. You’ll love it. Please have a seat!’ He gestures grandly to a folding chair in the corner. ‘Make yourself comfortable.’

I sit down.

Gwen smiles at me. ‘Would you like a cup of tea? I’d offer you coffee but we’re out of filters. Of course, I could make you an instant. Do you drink instant? Being American, I expect not. It’s Nescafe.’ She unearths a jar from her desk drawer. ‘I’ve had it for quite some time.’ She shakes it, nothing moves; the granules have formed a solid archaeological mass against one side.

I smile back, grateful for her hospitality. ‘No, thank you. I’m fine.’

‘How was the flight?’

‘Long.’

‘Oh yes.’ She wrinkles her face in dismay. ‘How terrible for you! How perfectly awful! I think there’s nothing worse. Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cup of tea?’ she offers again, as if it might erase the memory entirely.

‘No, really, I’m OK.’

Simon sweeps up to me, braking barely an inch from my toes. ‘So, Miss Garlick! What makes you think you’d like to be an actress?’ He’s staring at me with unnerving intensity.

‘Well.’ I know the answer to this question: I’ve been rehearsing it for nearly half my life. But still it comes as a surprise this early in the morning. ‘I have a real love of language and a deep appreciation for the dramatic tradition…’

‘Nonsense!’ he interrupts me. ‘It’s about showing off! You like to show off, don’t you?’

I blink.

I’m from a small, rural farming community. Showing off isn’t something anyone I know would admit to doing.

‘Well, for me it’s more about unearthing the playwright’s true intentions. Getting to the root of the story’ I explain slowly.

He’s having none of it. ‘Don’t be coy with me, Miss Garlick! And showing off! Go on, say it!’

This has all the hallmarks of a no-win situation.

I wince. ‘And showing off’

‘Good girl!’ He slaps my knee. ‘Remember, all Shakespeare ever wanted to do was show off and make loads of money. All those wonderful plays, beautiful verses, astounding sentiments were to a single end. He wanted nothing more than to escape Stratford-upon-Avon, arrive in London and have the time of his life! I hope you intend to follow in his footsteps!’

He smiles at me expectantly. There’s a sweet, somehow familiar smell on his breath. I try to laugh politely but a kind of snorting sound comes out instead. He doesn’t seem to notice.

‘Now’ He wheels round. Gwen, balancing two cups of hot tea, expertly sidesteps him. He yanks open one of the filing-cabinet drawers and pulls out an instamatic camera.

‘Smile, Evie!’

I blink and the flash goes off. Out spits the picture. Simon throws the camera back in the drawer. ‘There you go!’ He writes my name at the bottom in big block letters with a red marker. ‘Now we won’t forget who you are!’ He beams, sticking my picture on to felt board with a pin. ‘Here she is! Evie Garlick! About to take the London acting world by storm! Now. Lots to do. Lots to do. Lovely to meet you, Evie. Did your parents pay by cheque?’

I nod.

‘Brilliant! Boyd Alexander is your teacher. Won an Olivier last year for Miss Julie at the National. An expert in Ibsen. Brilliant director.’

I nod again. I’ve no idea what an Olivier is, but I’m pretty sure Miss Julie is by Strindberg.

‘Brilliant,’ I say. Obviously this is an important word to master.

‘Absolutely’ He accelerates into the hall. ‘Gwen, when you’re ready!’

‘Yes! All right! Here you go.’ She hands me a slip of paper with an address written on it. ‘I’ve arranged for you to share accommodation with two extremely lovely girls who are staying on from last term. They’re really very lovely, very dedicated. And just…lovely. I’m sure you’ll be very comfortable…’

‘Gwen! If you don’t mind!’

‘Yes, I’m coming! For goodness sake! So lovely to meet you.’ She turns and scurries into the next room, carrying the two mugs of tea, a large leather diary and a packet of shortbread.

And I’m alone, for the first time, in the offices of the Actors Drama Workshop Academy.

Which is costing my parents untold thousands of dollars. That I had to campaign for six whole months to be able to attend. Which is further away from home than I’ve ever been in my life.

Just those three things alone should make it amazing.

I close my eyes and try not to cry. Then I get up and look at my photo. Sure enough, one eye’s open and the other one’s closed. I look like a drunk singing.

Here she is, Evie Garlick. About to take the London acting world by storm.

I show up at the address on Gloucester Place, my new London home, wheeling my bulging suitcases (the ones encased in layers of brown packing tape to keep them from exploding). They got stuck no fewer than four times in the terrifying grip of the Underground escalator. During rush hour. The experience is akin to an extra circle in Dante’s Inferno. Commuters vault up the steps on the left, the rest wedge in behind one another on the right. Tourists, however, suffer public humiliation as they grind the entire system to a halt by attempting to negotiate their bags unaided through the endless tunnels to platforms which, on the little multicoloured map, appear to be all in the same place. In reality they’re about as close as Amsterdam and Rome. The concierge at the Belle View Hotel insisted taking the Underground was cheap and easy. But I’m here now, hot, sweaty and considerably older than when I woke up this morning.

I take a deep breath and ring the bell.

A tall, slender girl dressed in a scarlet Chinese silk robe with a green face mask on opens the door. Her hair’s wrapped in a towel round her head.

‘I’ve got a date tonight,’ she announces, waving me in. ‘A real live English date!’

I’m not sure what to say.

‘Cool.’ I drag my bags up the steps.

‘You’ll love this.’ She props the door open while I continue to wrestle with my luggage. ‘His name’s Hughey Chicken! Isn’t that terrific? I got his number from a friend of mine in New York. She says he’s divine. You’re here for the room, right?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

She holds out her hand. ‘I’m Robbie.’

‘Evie,’ I introduce myself. ‘Evie Garlick.’

‘Really?’ She frowns and the green mask cracks a little. ‘Have you ever thought of changing your name?’

‘Well, I…’

‘We can talk about that later. I suppose you want to see it.’ She’s heading off down the hall, the silk robe flapping round her thin ankles. Pushing the door open, she switches on the light. ‘Ta-da!’

I walk in and look around.

It’s a cupboard. The kind of space that in America, they’d shove a washer and dryer into. There’s a narrow single bed covered in a brown bedspread, a lopsided wooden wardrobe in the corner, and a window that looks out onto a brick wall. The walls are covered in a sixties floral print of maroon and lime, and the carpet was at one time pink. There are bald patches in it now: pale threadbare sections just visible by the dim light of the single bulb that dangles from the ceiling, encased in a dusty paper lampshade.

At £70 a week, I was expecting something more. Something much more.

‘Isn’t it heaven? Everything you’ve ever dreamed of? Don’t worry, my room’s just as bad. She wraps an arm round my shoulder. ‘Come on. Let’s get drunk.’

I put my handbag down on the bed and follow her into the kitchen.

‘Fancy a sidecar?’

‘What’s a sidecar?’

‘Oh, Evie! Well, it’s just heaven on a stick! Or in a glass. Or in our case’—she rummages around in the cupboard—‘in two slightly chipped service station promotional coffee mugs.’ I watch as she blends together generous doses of brandy, triple sec and then crushes a wrinkly old lemon with her fingers. ‘Ice?’

‘Sure.’ Her face mask, gone all crusty, is beginning to flake off.

‘Cheers!’ She hands me a mug. ‘Come with me while I wash this mess off.’

I follow her into the bathroom and sit on the toilet seat, sipping my cocktail while she splashes cold water on her face. The bathroom is long and narrow, with deep-pile navy-blue shag carpet. Every conceivable surface is covered in beauty products—cold cream, astringents, shampoos—used razors are heaped into the corners of the tub, along with an overflowing ashtray and several abandoned coffee cups. The air is heavy and damp, a sweetly scented fug of perfumed bath oil and rose petal soap.

I take another sip of my drink and watch as Robbie rubs off the mask. Her face is pale, lightly freckled, with no discernible eyebrows. Bending over, she unwraps the towel from her head and a pile of white-blonde curls tumble onto her shoulders. She lights two cigarettes from the pack in her robe pocket and hands me one, leaning back on the sink and taking a long, deep drag. I’ve never really smoked before, never quite got the hang of it. But now, with the thick, sweet mixture of brandy and triple sec smoothing its way through my veins, it’s easy to inhale without coughing. I roll the smoke round my palate and exhale slowly, just like Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep.

Suddenly things don’t seem so bad after all.

I’m free. Sophisticated; drinking in the middle of the day and hanging out in a bathroom with a girl I’ve only just met.

‘Let’s go sit somewhere where we can pass out in comfort,’ Robbie suggests and I follow her into the living room. Dark and draughty, it faces onto a busy through road. The greying net curtains flutter every time a truck or bus whips by. She puts on a Van Morrison tape and throws herself onto the faded black leatherette sofa, dangling her long legs over the side. She isn’t wearing any underwear. I sit across from her in one of the ugly matching chairs.

‘So, what are we going to do about this name of yours?’ She blows smoke rings into the air; they float, like fading haloes above her head.

‘Do we have to do anything about it? I mean, it’s not that bad, is it?’

She raises an eyebrow. ‘You want to be an actress with a name like Evie Garlick? I can see it now: Romeo and Juliet staring Tom Cruise and Evie Garlick. Evie Garlick is Anna Karenina. The winner of the Best Newcomer award is Evie Garlick!’

She giggles.

‘OK. Fine.’ I’ve lived with this all my life. ‘What would you suggest?’

‘Humm…’ She narrows her eyes. ‘Raven, I think. Yes. I like Raven for you. On account of your hair.’

‘My hair’s brown.’

‘Oh, but we can change that, no problem. What do you think?’

‘Evie Raven?’

‘No, sweetie! Raven for your first name! Now let’s see…Raven Black, Raven Dark, Raven Night, Raven Nightly! It’s perfect! Raven Nightly. Now you’re bound to be famous!’

I never thought of dyeing my hair. Then again, I haven’t come all the way to London just to be the way I was back home. Still, it’s a pretty big leap. ‘Raven Nightly. I don’t know. It sounds like a porn star.’

‘And Tom Cruise doesn’t? I think it’s fantastic. And listen, I’m good at this; I’ve made up all my friends’ names back home. My girlfriend Blue; she was the first person to start that whole colour-naming thing.’

‘Really?’ I’ve never heard of the colour-naming thing.

‘Absolutely! You don’t think my real name’s Robbie, do you?’

Suddenly I don’t feel so sophisticated any more.

‘My parents named me Alice.’ She grimaces. ‘Can you believe it? I had to do something and androgyny is so much more now, don’t you think?’

‘How old are you?’ Maybe she’s older and that’s how she knows all this stuff.

‘Nineteen. And you?’

‘Eighteen. And you’re from…?’

‘The Village.’

I stare at her.

‘New York City’ she explains. ‘The Big Apple. Born and raised.’

‘Wow’

She’s a New Yorker. And not imported; she’s always lived there. I’ve never met anyone who actually lived in New York all their lives. It seems inconceivable that children would be allowed in New York; somehow profane and dangerous, like having toddlers at a nightclub. Surely the entire population consists of ambitious grown-ups from Iowa and Maine all clawing their way to the top of their professions in between gallery openings, Broadway shows and foreign film festivals.

‘Wow,’ I say again.

She grins, basking in the glow of my small-town admiration.