The Disappearing Act by Catherine Steadman
The place is unreal. The people are unreal…Even the streets and buildings are unreal. I always expected to hear a carpenter shout “Strike” and the whole place come down like a stage set. That’s what Hollywood is—a set, a glaring, gaudy, nightmarish set erected in the desert.
—Ethel Barrymore, America’s “First Lady of the Theater,” on Hollywood When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should—so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again.
—Charlotte Bront?, Jane Eyre
Have you ever asked yourself what kind of story the story of your life is?
I always thought mine would be a coming-of-age story. A small-town girl making it in the big city, like Melanie Griffith in Working Girl or Dolly Parton in 9 to 5. Sure, I’d struggle for everything I achieved, but in the end my plucky can-do attitude would ensure I’d triumph over whatever obstacles stood in my way.
Like Legally Blonde or Pretty Woman or Pride and Prejudice, the story of my life would be an uplifting comedy, in turns fun and moving and aspirational. I’d be strong and spirited and a riot to be around. I’d be beautiful and smart and kids would love me.
That’s what I thought. But now—looking down at the gun in my hands, feeling the heft of it, its cold reality in my palm—I’m not so sure I got the genre right.
In fact I’m not even sure I’m the main character anymore.
1
The Good with the Bad
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5
Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t disappear. There’s nothing you can do to melt back into the crowd around you no matter how hard you wish you could.
The tube carriage rattles and jolts around us as we clatter along the tracks deep beneath the streets of London. And I feel it again, the familiar tug of the stranger’s eyes on me, staring.
I’ve been in their house. Or at least they think I have, but I don’t know them. We’re friends already, or we’re enemies, but I don’t know which. I’m part of some story they love or hate. I’m part of the story of who they are. They’ve rooted for me, cried with me, we’ve shared so much, and now I am right here in front of them. Of course they’re going to stare. I’m the unreal made real.
On the fringes of my awareness I feel the figure finally break the connection and whisper to the person beside them. I try to focus on my novel, to let my breath deepen and the story wash over me once more.
All those gazes, like robins alighting on me and fluttering away, wary but interested. I know people always stare at one another on the tube. But these days it’s different.
The carriage rattles on shuddering around us.
Since the show started airing, four weeks ago, I’m lucky to get through any journey without some kind of interaction from strangers. A shy smile. A tap on the shoulder. A selfie. A handshake. A late-night drunken gush. Or a hastily scrawled note. And sometimes even, quite confusingly, a scowl.
I don’t mean to sound ungrateful; I love my job. I genuinely can’t believe how lucky I am. But sometimes it feels like I’m at the wedding of a couple I don’t really know. My face aching from meeting so many well-meaning and complicated strangers, while the whole time all I want to do is bob to the bathroom so I can get away and finally relax.
I don’t feel threatened by attention, exactly, I know I’m safe.
Although, of course, it’s not always safe. I learned that the hard way, a month ago, when the police showed up in my living room after countless calls and emails, finally taking notice when my agent stepped in.
He’d been waiting outside the theater, every night. Not particularly strange or concerning. Just an ordinary man.
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!”