Free The Understudy: A Novel by David Nicholls

film with Bette Davis, set on the ocean liner? Where someone—Paul Henreid, is it, or Fredric March?—lights the two cigarettes he holds in his mouth, and passes one to Bette Davis. He had cigarettes in his pocket, he could try that if he wanted to. Feeling woozy and reckless, he decided to give it a go.
    “What in
God’s
name are you doing?” said Nora.
    “Sorry?”
    “You smoke them
two at a time
?”
    “One’s for you,” and he took one from his mouth, and offered it to her. Nora stared at it. “Sorry, did you not…?”
    “Thank you. Very suave. If a tad unhygienic.” She placed the cigarette in her mouth, a little gingerly, he thought. “Josh keeps on at me to give up. Says it’ll make me look
old,
an idea which clearly
appalls
him. I had been trying those nicotine patches, but I had to wear so many of the things that naked I looked like a quilt.”
    The word “naked” hung in the night air for a moment. He tried to concentrate on the view. The sodium lights of the King’s Cross redevelopment glowed in the distance, and, once again, the occasion seemed to demand a certain mode of behavior, and conversation—wry and witty, world-weary and elegant; David Niven, perhaps.
    “So—what did you get Josh for his birthday?” he asked, more prosaically than he’d intended.
    “Oh—a new iPod.” She sighed. “Original, huh? I’ve been trying to resist, but he wore me down. So I got him a new iPod and told him to just shut the fuck up about it. It was either that or a goddamn samurai sword.”
    “Still, what d’you get the man who’s got everything?”
    “Well, everything
Star Wars
–related, anyway.”
    He laughed and glanced sideways at her. Her face, beneath the glossy black fringe, was round and pale, split with a large red mouth, placed, somewhat lopsidedly, under a small, neat nose, slightly pink now in the autumn air. Her teeth were large, not quite as white and regular as he expected for an American, and there was a small chip in the enamel on one of the front teeth, a smudge of lipstick on the other; something about her makeup made Stephen think of a child sitting at her mother’s dressing table. Her skin was pale, with a slight, not-unpleasant oily sheen around what he believed was called the T-zone, and small amounts of makeup could be seen clumping in the lines of her eyes, which were green, dark and heavy-lidded, and quite beautiful. Although at present she was fairly drunk, or drugged, or both, her natural expression seemed to be a kind of pouty amusement, a slightly stern, sleepy look, as if she had woken a little sulky from an afternoon nap. She leaned lazily on the ocean liner railing, brushing her short fringe across her forehead with her fingertips, drawing occasionally on her cigarette, and once again Stephen thought of an old film, something starring Carole Lombard or the young Shirley MacLaine, maybe, an effect heightened by the dress she wore, black, plain, old-fashioned, a little too small for her slightly—what was Josh’s word?—
lush
body, shiny with wear on the shoulders and bottom. He found himself wondering what it would be like to put his hand in the warm curve at the small of her back, lean over and kiss her, when she turned suddenly to look at him, eyebrows raised questioningly.
    For something to say, he blurted out: “Amazing apartment!” In the spirit of transatlantic communication he’d attempted the word “apartment,” and almost gotten away with it.
    “You really think so?” She frowned, instantly making Stephen question if he did really think so. “I
hate
it. It’s like this men’s magazine bachelor pad. Every morning I wake up and feel like asking if there’s a toothbrush I can borrow, and then I remember I actually
live
here. I mean, what’s wrong with having
rooms,
for chrissake? Josh likes to say that he put the funk into ‘functional.’ Personally I think he just put the ass into ‘embarrassing,’ but, hey, what do I know?”
    Stephen