Fearful, but not one to back away from a fight, even with her own son, Agnes’s temper began to fray, and her voice went low and cold. ‘That was my money, not yours. And how dare you charge in here…’
She was cut off by the hand that went round her throat, and began to squeeze. Her eyes widened as she saw for the first time that her son was unhinged, dangerous.
‘Hugh, son, don’t…’ she croaked.
Consumed by rage, he didn’t even register her words. His other hand joined the first one and he began to choke her. She tried to fight back, but he was too strong, and her blows didn’t even dent his grip on her.
His face was almost touching hers now. ‘If there’s nothing left, then all you’re worth is the life insurance.’
Agnes was still struggling, but weakening, her voice now gone.
‘I hope you’ve got no regrets, Ma,’ Hugh growled. ‘Because it’s too late for you to fix them.’ With that, and one final squeeze, Agnes McGlinchy, the cornerstone ofThe Clydesidefor the last forty years, took her last breath, before, eyes still open, her head flopped to one side.
A pause. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
Carl yelled, ‘Cut!’ and the silence lingered another moment, before the whole set erupted in cheers and applause, a tribute to one of the most beautifully acted scenes that had ever been shot onThe Clydeside. The director and his assistants were gathered around the monitor, re-running the tape, but they all knew there would be no need for a retake. It was perfect. And the sheer ferocity of the emotion could never be repeated.
Odette raised her head, stretched her neck from side to side, as Rex offered his hand, this time to help her out of her chair. The applause was still rolling as she stood up and they both took a bow. Odette realised that her throat felt like it was in a vice, not due to the authenticity of Rex’s hands squeezing her neck, but because a wave of grief, of fear, of devastation had just risen from her breaking heart.
It was over. Just like her character Agnes McGlinchy, the very real Odette Devine had breathed her last breath. And Olive Docherty had no idea who she was supposed to be now. Somehow the emotion of the scene, the fatality, the end of her career, the recurring thought that her life falling apart was karma for what she’d done to become Agnes McGlinchy, all of those things collided like a car crash in her head and she couldn’t muster the cool, collected diva she’d been until the last breath of her character.
Rex Marino released her hand and stood off to the side, joining in the applause, and allowing her to take a bow. Odette felt her eyes fill up, then her cheeks dampen, and she knew tears were falling, but she couldn’t wipe them away for fear of revealing her shaking hands. After the third bow, she straightened up, and thankfully Calvin caught her darting gaze of panic and he immediately read the situation. For the first time ever, she needed to be out of the limelight, away from the eyes of the cast and crew. She was about to crumble, to fall apart, and Odette would rather meet Agnes McGlinchy’s fate than do so in a public setting, with eyes and cameras fixed on her every move and reaction. He executed her retrieval perfectly.
‘Odette, darling, you were magnificent,’ he announced loudly, for the benefit of the crowd, as he approached her, arms wide, before enveloping her in a very luvvie, dramatic embrace. ‘I’ll get you out of here,’ he whispered, out of earshot of the assembled spectators and the microphone of the documentary crew. His voice rose again. ‘I’m sorry, I need to whisk you away. There’s a very special phone caller waiting to congratulate you on your final scene. A very “royal” caller,’ he threw in pointedly. ‘We’ll tell you all about it as soon as we get clearance from the palace,’ he added jubilantly to the onlookers.
Odette somehow managed to smile, before he strategically manoeuvred her off set, the lens of the documentary camera following her the whole way.
At the door of her dressing room, Calvin put his hand up to stop them. ‘I’m sorry, chaps, you’ll have to give us a minute. The other side are insisting that the call is confidential.’
With that, he opened the door, practically shoved her inside, and followed her, immediately locking the door so that they wouldn’t be interrupted. Odette barely made it to her seat, before she buckled over, eyes bulging, mouth wide, her face twisted as she convulsed into a silent scream.
Calvin gave her space, either sensitive to her pain, or just paralysed by the shock of this utterly uncharacteristic display of emotion. Not that it would have mattered. Odette couldn’t hear, couldn’t see, couldn’t feel anything but the visceral, excruciating pain that was ripping through her. Her breaths were shallow rasps, her heart was beating out of her chest, every muscle in her body was trembling and she couldn’t make it stop.
Eventually, Calvin, perhaps unable to bear watching her like this any longer, came to her side with a bottle of water, his arm going around her shoulders as if he were trying to squeeze her distress out of her. ‘Darling, just breathe. Take a sip of water. And breathe. I know, it’s awful, but you’re strong. You’re Odette fucking Devine.’
Something in his words permeated her pain and she caught her breath, then exhaled, inhaled, exhaled, forcing her lungs to slow back into a steady rhythm. After a minute or two, she felt her heart begin to calm, her shaking gradually subside, and her vocal cords were finally released from the vice-like grip of her grief.
‘The line…’ she panted. ‘It was the line.’
How could she explain it to Calvin when she wasn’t sure she understood what had happened herself? She’d read the line in the script a dozen times when she was preparing for the scene, and it had washed over her. Maybe it was because her mind had revisited the past earlier. Or it could have been the fact that his words came at one of the most devastating moments of her life. But even now, she could hear Rex’s warning thunder in her ears. ‘I hope you’ve got no regrets, Ma. Because it’s too late for you to fix them.’
Regrets.
Too late for Agnes. But not too late for Odette. Or more accurately, for Olive.
Olive Docherty had a huge regret, one that she’d suppressed until today, because it had been worth it to be a star. Tonight, the sun would set on that stardom and tomorrow morning, she’d wake up with no job, no applause, no spotlights, no money, no friends. There would be nothing left. Except, perhaps, a chance to apologise and ask for forgiveness.
She’d wronged one person more than any other in her life.
The question was, after four decades, was it too late to make amends?
6
TRESS
Standing in the wings, watching the action, the emotional impact of seeing Odette film her last scene hit Tress like a hammer to the gut. It was testimony to the sublime acting of Odette and Rex, that for a moment there the set had faded into the background, all sense of pretence had diminished, and Tress was right there as a desperate elderly lady was brutally murdered by her evil son.
It had clearly shaken Odette too. Tress had spotted the pain in her beaming smile as she took her bow and her heart had hurt for her. Tress was heartbreakingly aware how it felt to come to the end of an era, of a way of life, and to stare at a brand-new future full of uncertainty, with a void where the thing you loved once was. Tress had adored every second of her marriage to Max. The sheer joy of waking up next to him every morning. The sexiness and warmth of going to bed with him every night. They’d often lamented the injustice of meeting so late in life, when they were both in their thirties, but that had been soothed by the unexpected wonder of falling pregnant at forty-one with Buddy, when she’d thought her chance to have a child had passed her by.
