The Girl Who Came Out of the Woods Page 18

  ‘I’ve never had ice cream,’ Arty told her, ‘but I’ve read about it in books.’

  AMK roared with laughter at that. ‘She’s never had ice cream,’ he said to the woman, ‘and her first taste of it is lentil flavour. You tell that to your chef!’

  The waitress, Arty thought, was trying not to stare at AMK. ‘I’ll make sure she’s informed,’ she said, and she laughed too.

  ‘And you, my dear,’ he said to Arty, ‘you must go to Chowpatty Seaface and try some more conventional ice cream before you leave Mumbai. Though I think right now it would be as hard for you as it would for me to go there incognito. All the world knows that you watched some cricket and then went to the cinema this afternoon.’

  ‘Did he put up a photo of me at the cricket?’

  ‘I don’t think so. There was one of cricketers, and then the cinema, but not with you in it. He still said he was with you, so same difference really.’

  She was pleased that Joe had, at least, kept his promise not to use her photo. Still, it hadn’t stopped him telling everyone about her, and that was nearly the same thing.

  ‘He’s not my real friend, is he?’ she said.

  AMK sighed. ‘I fear not.’

  Arty looked around. Her head was spinning. She wanted to go back and to try to explain all this to everyone in the clearing, but there was too much. She could never make them understand that she had become famous, that the greatest movie star in history had taken her to dinner, that she had gone to the outside world and found cricket and cinema and lentil ice cream. And that she had met a boy who told the whole world about her on his phone. In the clearing they had thought that phones were for talking to one person at a time.

  Maybe, she thought, she had died. Perhaps this was her afterlife. Maybe the plague had killed her too, and this was the weirdness her brain had spun for her for eternity.

  She pushed those thoughts away. The room was quite dark, with candles on the tables, so even though it was an expensive restaurant it felt cosy. There were other people here, but their tables were far away, and it didn’t seem like the kind of place that would let anyone come over to ask for a selfie. Even if they did, they would want them with AMK rather than with Arty. That made her feel happy.

  ‘You were going to tell me,’ he said, ‘where you found your extremely flattering appraisal of my modest talents.’

  ‘It was truly one of the first things anyone told me when I came to Mumbai,’ she told him. ‘I’m afraid I hadn’t heard of you in the clearing, because I’d barely heard of cinema. But when I got to this city I met a man called Salman. He was my taxi driver. He moved to Mumbai because of you. He said I had to go to Bandra and see your house because you are the greatest movie star in the history of the world. So I did.’ She smiled at him. ‘I agree with him.’

  ‘But you’ve seen none of my movies?’ He leaned forward. He did not look annoyed that she hadn’t seen his films.

  ‘Not yet, but I promise I will. How many have you made?’

  ‘I’ve starred in seventy-three. I’ve directed six.’

  ‘Can you tell me about it? I went to the cinema today. You know that. I went because I was meeting you and I wanted to know what it was like to see a film so that I’d understand a little bit. But we went to see 1921 because it was on at the Regal Cinema. Do you know the Regal Cinema?’

  ‘Of course! One of the finest. It is a very historical place. From the nineteen thirties. So those bastards weren’t showing one of mine?’ He was saying angry words, but he was laughing.

  ‘Not today, but probably all the other days.’

  ‘Probably. I expect you were very unfortunate with the schedules.’

  ‘So how do you act a story and then it becomes a film? What’s … I don’t know. What happens?’

  He settled back and sipped his glass of wine. It was red wine, but really it was dark purple.

  ‘It’s a long and complex process. Are you sure? I’ll tell you while you eat that lentil ice cream.’

  Arty picked some of it up with the little spoon that had come with it. When she put it in her mouth she jumped a bit on the inside because she had never expected that. She knew it would be cold, but the way it kept its coldness so small, so pinpointed on her tongue, so it spread slowly through her mouth, that was not something she had expected at all.

  She swallowed. ‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘That’s amazing.’

  She saw his eyes laughing as his mouth stayed serious. ‘I’m glad to hear it. So fervent an assessment.’

  She took some more. There wasn’t enough of it here but she thought she wouldn’t ask for more because that would be rude and she didn’t really know the rules. ‘Go on then.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, taking some of his cauliflower on his fork, ‘the first thing that will happen these days is that a script will arrive. By the time I see them, enough of my people will have read them for me to know that they will be worth a bit of my time.’

  ‘And that’s all the words you’ll say in the play written down? Like Shakespeare?’

  ‘Yes, and I have played my share of Shakespeare in my time, my dear. I did Lear last year.’

  ‘King Lear?’

  ‘You know it?’

  ‘I do! I’ve read it. I’d love to see it.’

  ‘I’ll get you a DVD of my Lear. It’s far from definitive, no doubt.’

  Arty didn’t know what a DVD was, but she decided to find that out later.

  ‘I bet it is definitive,’ she said. ‘Thank you. So then …’

  ‘So then, let’s say I read it and think, Yes, this is an excellent script and very much what I would like for my next movie (generally I don’t think that). Then my people will work out terms, and all the paperwork and financial things. Don’t worry about that. Fast-forward a little, and it’s the first day of filming. Indoor scenes will all be shot on set, in a studio, with tight security. Outdoor ones in a carefully chosen location.’

  ‘What if it’s on the street?’

  ‘Then the street will be closed off, and the general public are not allowed in. Anyone you see in the background of the shot will be an extra, that is, someone employed by the production for that purpose. Otherwise people see a camera and smile and wave, and that is, of course, untenable.’

  He explained cinema to her all the way through dinner, and Arty couldn’t believe she had worried that she wouldn’t know what to say to this man. It turned out she could ask him anything she wanted about himself, and he was happy to talk and talk and talk. He explained everything. He was very kind. She added him to her list of friends. Joe was off that list, and AMK was on it.

  Arty had had no idea there were starters and main courses. She was glad, as it turned out, that she hadn’t asked for more lentil ice cream, because there was a massive plate of food still to come. It was paneer and spinach, with cauliflower and all sorts of bits of sauce. She had never had cauliflower before, and its taste was a bit weird, but everything around it was delicious and so she dipped it in the sauce and ate it anyway. Her drink was Coca-Cola, which was the best drink ever. She drank two of them, and then switched to the water that was already on the table, because she was worried that the Coca-Cola might be costing too much money.

  ‘I know you hate beer,’ he said when he saw her looking at his wine. ‘But have a sip of this. It’s very different. You’re too young to drink really, but one sip when no one’s looking and no harm will be done.’

  He handed her his glass and looked around. Arty noticed that the only two empty tables were the ones on either side of them.

  She sipped it. It coated her tongue and tasted bitter and strange, but a moment later it was nice. She sipped again. ‘That’s much better than Kingfisher,’ she said, and she drank it all, then handed the glass back to him.

  When the puddings arrived she was astonished all over again. Hers was made from pineapple and coconut and it came with some special cardamom ice cream in a bowl on the side, which the lady said was a gift to Arty from
the chef – ‘So you can try something more conventional with regards to the ice-cream world.’

  AMK had something with cream and nuts, and a glass of a different wine.

  Arty tasted the ice cream and couldn’t believe anything could be quite that delicious. The sugar danced in her mouth and made her head spin and sing. She wanted to stay here forever. She loved it that they had talked about movies and not about her life, but now she wanted to tell him.

  ‘Where I grew up,’ she said, picking her words carefully, ‘we have a celebration once a year. This year.’ She swallowed. It took a lot of work to say this. ‘This year was the twentieth one. Anyway, every year Hella, who is our shaman, which means she’s the only one who goes into the outside world, she would bring us treats for that day only. And the biggest treat in the world was a chocolate bar. Dairy Milk. You know it? In a purple wrapper.’

  He nodded. ‘Sure I know it. Who doesn’t?’

  ‘And we would unwrap it so slowly. And lick it, and savour every moment. To me, for all of my life until a little while ago, that was heaven. It was blissful. It was like magic. We thought it was rare and special. I never, ever imagined that this could exist.’ She gestured with her spoon to everything and dripped some ice cream on the table.

  AMK dabbed it with his napkin. ‘It was rare and special to you, my dear. It sounds a lot more sane. We have so much excess out here.’

  ‘And people with nothing too.’

  ‘And far too many people with nothing. I try to use my money for good. I have a foundation to help street children, and I sponsor a programme to get education for girls.’ He drank the rest of the wine in his glass quickly. ‘But I also know that’s not enough. I have been lucky with my success.’ He paused.

  Arty thought she was meant to say something, so she said, ‘You’re lucky to be the greatest actor there has ever been.’

  ‘Thank you. And, really, I should take as much as we need to live a comfortable life, me and my family, and give everything else to those who need it. But then you need security – you’ve seen that. What are they like, those fans at my gate?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Arty. ‘They’re so friendly. They pass around food and take lots of pictures in front of your house. They’re amazing.’

  ‘I owe it all to them and yet I can’t stop and talk to them because it would never end. Oh yes – I brought you these. Signed photographs of myself, for you to give to any fans you meet.’ He handed her an envelope. ‘But nonetheless, when they wait outside one’s house, security is required. I am both grateful and wary. Then you need a driver. You know why I first got a driver? It was when a fan jumped in front of my car and I swerved to avoid her and hit a cat. It was a street cat, and it didn’t die straight away, but that was it for me. It was a cat, but it could have been a child. So then you have a driver and then you need blacked-out windows for privacy because they take photos of you all the time, and then you’re expected to have the right lifestyle, and I got married and my wife couldn’t be expected to work. The spotlight would have made it impossible for her. In fact, she gave up a promising career in medicine for me. So I am eternally grateful, and she is a wonderful, wonderful woman. She wishes to meet you too incidentally – for me to invite you to our home.’

  ‘Please say thank you to her for my clothes.’ She patted her dress.

  ‘Of course. Then children come along, and education is expensive, and then they grow up and want to move to New York and London and some such. And I suppose the expectation of it all mounts and mounts and mounts, and then you find that you’re never away from it. I choose to come to this restaurant because they are discreet, but you can be one hundred per cent certain, Artemis, that one of the other patrons at least is snapping or filming us here, and you can be certain that it will appear on the internet later tonight.’

  ‘Do you look at that stuff?’

  ‘Oh heavens, no. That way madness lies. You mustn’t either.’

  ‘No. I agree. Madness.’ She was warm inside, filled with gratitude that he understood these feelings. ‘Joe showed the hashtag stuff to me today and I hated it so much. Just so, so, so, so much.’

  He took a deep breath and looked as if he were about to say something, then stopped.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘Well – like you said, Joe isn’t your friend. If I were your father, I would forbid you to see him again. He has proven himself to be exploiting you for his own gain and notoriety.’

  ‘He’s not a very good Buddhist, is he?’

  ‘Indeed he is not. And for another thing you’re a teenage girl and he is a man of, what? Twenty?’

  ‘Nineteen.’

  ‘Exactly. He’s an arsehole. I know boys of that age are arseholes because I’ve been one myself.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I don’t think I’m going to see him again.’ She thought about the feelings Joe gave her. She certainly wasn’t going to discuss them with AMK. Anyway, nothing was going to happen between them. Joe had said that.

  ‘Good. I wouldn’t trust him an inch.’ He put his glass down and sighed. ‘And again I hope it was OK that I got involved in your life. I felt responsible when I heard that you’d been to my house. I wanted to know you were safe and sound. I wanted to take you to dinner and hear about your life. And now I believe I have to pay some money to a boy who works in a computer centre.’

  ‘You do! Thank you for caring about me.’

  ‘But of course. Now I want to know more about your clearing. I’m fascinated by the Dairy Milk. Would you feel up to talking about it? Not the bad things. But your childhood. You grew up in a matriarchy?’

  ‘Yes. My mum was the goddess. I’m a goddess now too.’

  ‘I would say you are, my dear. Yes. You are.’

  Arty took two sips from his wine because it made her feel braver, and she told him all about the clearing, about the rules and the ideals. After a while he asked the waitress for a pen and paper, and started writing it all down.

  ‘Would you mind if I got someone to write a film about you?’ he said. ‘I would like to direct this myself.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind at all,’ Arty said. ‘As long as you put in the bits where I’m waiting outside your house with your fans. Can you be in it?’

  ‘How meta!’ he said. ‘Yes of course. I would like you to entrust me with your story, Artemis. I promise to consult with you at every stage. I may even have to make a cameo appearance playing myself. What do you say?’

  Arty grinned.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Of course I say yes.’

  Later, as she lay in her huge bed and stared up at the ceiling, her head spinning with the strangeness of it all, she realized that her story would involve actors pretending to be her family, and dying, and she cried and cried and cried. She didn’t want there to be a movie about that at all.

  In the morning she noticed that there was a telephone on the table in her room, half hidden by a vase of flowers. She found the piece of paper with Cherry’s phone number on it and decided to call her and tell her about AMK. However, just as her hand touched the smooth plastic, it rang, which made her gasp.

  She picked it up, and two days later she was on an aeroplane.

  June

  No one was coming. The rabbit was just a toy rabbit. The monkey was a stuffed monkey. Only the bear was still talking to me. Only the bear had been with me through all of this.

  ‘Come on,’ it said. ‘You can do this. Let’s throw the water. We haven’t come this far just to give up, have we? Hey?’

  I threw my bucket and cups of water at the flames, with the bear jumping up and down on its little legs, encouraging me, but it was so pointless that it made us both laugh a kind of despairing laugh in the end. The fire had eaten half the room. Everything was fuel. The whole thing was out of control. I pushed myself back against the door and watched the flames coming closer.

  I watched it eat the world I had lived in for so many days I had lost count. I was glad to see that go.

  I had
thought I could use fire to my own ends. Of course I couldn’t. When people think they can have any kind of control over anything, the universe laughs at them.

  It was licking the wall opposite me. It was coming closer every second. Everything smelled of smoke. Everything was closing in. There was a locked and bolted door behind me and a greedy fire eating everything in front of me. There was only me in the zone between the two. Me and the bear.

  I couldn’t get out and so it was going to eat me too, and my clothes and my hair and my bear and everything that had ever made me, me. All my atoms would be rearranged and used as something else, and my energy would be transferred into the fire’s energy, and I hoped it would eat the whole of this house and the other people in it while it was at it.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said the bear. ‘Don’t worry.’

  I knew that your life was supposed to flash before your eyes, and I tried to make it happen, but all that was in my head was white-hot terror. I tried to remember good things, but I could only find the bad ones. I was a ball of fear, and the flames were strengthening it and making it real.

  If I get out of here, I said, I will lead a good life. I will devote it to doing good to everyone.

  The flames were at my feet. I didn’t care any more.

  I stepped forward. My hair was smoking. I held the bear behind my back, out of harm’s way. This was it.

  PART TWO

  * * *

  17

  As the aeroplane wheels touched down, she closed her eyes and hoped it was meant to be that way. She was using all her powers of self-control not to scream and pull her seatbelt off and run for cover. Air travel didn’t feel like a thing that could reasonably happen. But it had worked, and here she was, landing in London. She was on a mission. Now it was time to find Matthew and Persephone and, most of all, Zeus. She had AMK supporting her, and the fact that he was supporting her gave her strength. She had emailed him to thank him for the dinner and to tell him she was going to England, and he had replied wishing her luck. He’d made her promise to tell him how it was going and said he would send her anything she needed. That gave Arty a little warm feeling inside. She had just got thousands of miles closer to Matthew and Persephone and Zeus – and Matthew at least should be easy to find now. And she had the greatest movie star of all time telling her: ‘This story has a happy ending. I know it.’