Free The Understudy: A Novel by David Nicholls Page B

had a hit single too. Way back in the mists of time.”
    “Really?”
    “Uh-huh. Well, I say ‘hit.’ Number a hundred and two in the Billboard chart in 1996.”
    “That’s fantastic.”
    “Well, not
fantastic,
” she insisted, though Stephen was being entirely sincere. Nora was the kind of woman who particularly suited a low-slung bass. “What did you sound like?”
    “Oh, you know, the usual—jangly, sub–Joni Mitchell college-radio stuff. Music to Comfort-Eat By. We were called Nora Schulz and the New Barbarians, if you can believe that. I was being cloned by the record company as the new Alanis Morissette. I was like Alanis Morissette’s stunt double. If she ever fell backward off her stool, the record company was going to parachute me in to take her place. God knows why—I don’t even particularly
like
Alanis Morissette. Ironic, don’t you think?”
    “Nora Schulz and the New Barbarians. Great name.”
    “Trips off the tongue, doesn’t it? I can’t think why we weren’t bigger. Of course, the record company wanted me to change it to something more WASPy, ideally Malanis Florissette, something like that. They thought we’d sell more that way, but I stuck to my artistic principles, and I stayed Nora Schulz, and, well, the rest is rock-and-roll history. Number a hundred and two with a bullet.”
    “And what was the song called?”
    “You mean you don’t remember?”
    “Remind me.”
    “Trust me, you won’t have heard of it.”
    “Tell me anyway.”
    “I’m not proud of this…”
    “Go on.”
    “It was called,” and she winced, “oh God—it was called…‘Love Junkie.’ ”
    Stephen winced too. “Great title.”
    “Isn’t it? And the kids
love
those drug metaphors. And any song that rhymes junkie with monkey, funky and flunky has got to be a hit, right?”
    “You know, I think I
have
heard of you.”
    “Liar.”
    “So why did you give it up?”
    “I didn’t. It gave me up. Besides, the few connections I have are in the States, and Josh needs to be here for his work. He’s at that
crucial
stage in his career, or so he keeps telling me. So we’ve decided to put it on hold. Temporarily, of course. In the meantime, I’ve been writing a little.”
    “What sort of things?”
    “The usual, stories, a screenplay or two.”
    “Sounds interesting.”
    “Not really. I mean everyone
writes,
don’t they? If you went down to that party, went up to someone and asked them how the
writing
was going, not one of them would say, ‘What writing?’ ”
    “Have you shown anyone anything?”
    “No…”
    “Well, you should.”
    She drew hard on her cigarette, and gave him a stern look. “
Why
should I?”
    “Well, because I think it’s important to persevere with these things.”
    “ ‘Hold on to your dreams’?”
    “No, but to have ambitions. To find the thing that you love doing, and do it to the best of your abilities.” He glanced across at her, to see if he’d got away with this. There were, at least, no outward signs of gagging. “And also because I imagine you would be really good.”
    She curled a lip dismissively. “That’s just something
nice
to say. How could you
possibly
know that?”
    Stephen felt slighted. He was perfectly capable of making blandly soothing remarks to people, but this hadn’t been one of them. “From the way you talk. You just seem as if you would be. A good writer, I mean. That’s all.”
    She dipped her head a little, a sort of apology, and took the bottle of champagne from his hand. “Thank you, Stephen.” Then she took a long swig, wiped a drop of champagne from the tip of her chin with the back of her hand, then quickly sucked the drop from her finger, the whole gesture striking him as wonderfully deft and cool.
    Shortly after the breakup of his marriage, when he’d pulled himself together enough to leave the flat, Stephen had started to notice that he had developed an unnerving ability to make women need the toilet. He’d be at a