‘He looks after me.’
‘You don’t need looking after. What are you, a toddler?’
I nudge her with my foot, and she breaks into a smile. ‘Sorry. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am jealous. You used to have more time for me. Remember that time at the Red Lion, when we did the pub quiz?’
‘That was ages ago.’
‘Yup, and it was the last time we hung out. Without Marco, I mean.’
‘Next weekend. No – no, I can’t – the weekend after. We’ll do something fun. I promise.’
‘You promise?’
‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’
Marco and I drive to Ullswater on the Friday evening and heavy rainclouds follow us along the M6, thickening as we approach the tiny guesthouse we are staying in. Just as we leave the car the downpour begins, and we run into the warmth with our hands over our heads, giggling. Marco is convivial and smiling, teasing me and calling me kitten, running his hands down the curve of my spine. We fall into bed and do not leave for two days and the rain pounds against the windows like tiny fists. Marco feeds me in bed – fruit slippery from his fingers, plump chocolate truffles, buttered toast – and I feel loved and safe. We have escaped, I think, feeling warm beneath the covers, we have escaped and we are happy.
When it happens it is like a huge silver bell tolling, once. Only once. We are eating Chinese takeaway from cardboard boxes, making a mess. I am sitting in a chair by the window where I can look out over the view of the lake, the mountains in the distance, shrouded in drifts of dark cloud like lace, like Italian widows. Marco is watching me from the bed, where he lies imperious against the cushions. He rests the box in his lap, chewing, looking at me thoughtfully.
‘That show you did—’
‘Oh God, Marco—’
I’m groaning but it is good-natured, feigned. Still, he holds up his hand, palm turned out. Stop.
‘Just listen, just listen. That show, Marigold!. How long did it run?’
‘Eight years. Seven series, seventy-four episodes including the pilot.’
‘Huh. And nine Labrador dogs, is that right?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I read about Joey Fraser in the paper again today. It said he was working in Hollywood.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yeah.’ He digs with his chopsticks to the bottom of the carton. ‘I think it was something with Samuel L. Jackson. Did you know about this?’
It’s Will Smith, I think, but my voice says, ‘No.’ It shakes just a little, a shimmer of sound, wind across glass. I don’t think he hears it.
Joey Fraser was cast from a stage school and even at eight already had a theatre background. He talked a lot about voice projection and establishing space. Once, when I came down with a bout of tonsillitis, he offered to put on a wig and fill my role and no one knew if he was joking or not. He was the only one of the original cast to achieve anything close to a career.
‘Yeah,’ Marco continues, chewing thoughtfully, ‘I thought it was funny, that’s all. I mean, meeting you like that and then seeing his name in the paper. What do they call it, when things happen like that, like one after another and all joined together?’
‘Synchronicity.’
‘That’s it. That’s the one. Like that.’
We are silent for a moment. I can see his shape in the dim light, the hard rope of his muscles. Marco had told me his personal trainer was an ex-marine, bullying, close-shaven. Kicked him out of bed in the pearly light of dawn.
‘He said in the interview that the show – your show – had been exploitative. To the kids, I mean. Would you agree with that?’
When I don’t answer immediately he nudges me with his foot against my thigh, repeating the question.
‘He’s full of shit. He’s just trying to get attention for himself and his failing career. They didn’t exploit us. We filmed, what, three times a week? I had a tutor on set – we all did – and a nurse and an assistant and God knows what else. Exploitative. Shit.’
‘Are you mad?’
‘Do I sound it?’
He see-saws his hand. A little bit, he seems to be saying. I squeeze his foot beneath the covers.
‘Sorry. Joey Fraser was always a prick, even at eight years old. I have a lot of bad memories from those days and he features in most of them. I just – he’ll say anything, you know? Don’t believe it. We were treated well; we were looked after. We were just kids.’
‘It must have made you a lot of money. The show was named after you, wasn’t it?’
‘No. “Marigold” was the family surname.’
‘Yeah, but you – you were the star.’
His toes press into me again. I favour him with a weary smile.
‘I made some money, sure.’
‘Did your parents put it in a trust fund?’
‘Why are you even asking me about this?’
He leans forward, running his palms up my bare arms, making me shiver.
‘Because’ – another kiss and another – ‘I’m interested. You made a lot of money at a young age. It kind of makes you a freak.’
‘Thanks a lot!’
‘You know what I mean. How many kids do you know under the age of ten worth a million pounds?’
I laugh scornfully.
‘First, that estimate is way off. Second, the big money was in advertising and public appearances – I could make the same money as I did on a whole series in one thirty-second ad for baked beans.’
Marco is looking at me with interest. ‘You haven’t answered my question.’
I study him. He has a day’s worth of stubble peppering his jaw, shocks of grey in his hair. We’ve been together just two months and are still at the stage of our relationship when we want to devour each other, sinking our teeth into each other’s names, the details, the rich smell of him in the crook of his neck. Perhaps that’s why I can’t tell him where the money went. Perhaps that’s why the lie slips from my mouth like ribbon being pulled from between my lips.
‘I don’t know. I just tapped into it when I needed it. I couldn’t tell you how much.’
I lift his feet into my lap.
‘Did you spend it all?’
‘Every penny.’
Liar. I fink we’d better ask Daddy.
Later Marco is naked, his arm beneath me, leg curled around my thigh. He is sleepy. I am watching his eyelids flicker, the way his lips part slightly. He shifts a little onto his elbow, kisses me lightly on the tip of my nose.
‘What happened to your teeth?’ he asks drowsily. I am close to drifting off myself and for a moment I struggle to understand what he means.
‘The gap,’ he says. ‘Katie Marigold has a gap between her teeth.’
‘Oh, that. I had it fixed. You can get it filled in.’
‘It’s a shame.’
‘I hated it.’
‘It’s meant to be lucky.’
I don’t know what to say. From the outside, my life must look charmed. I had been a star, in a show named after the character I played. My face had been on magazines and TV screens and there had even been a range of biscuits called Marigolds!. They had been buttery-soft with my face stencilled on the underside. The weirdest thing. Dad had hated them.