they could to get something, anything, that would give them ‘visibility’ as the professionals called it.
She would wait hours for her turn to come, and meanwhile read books on meditation and positive thinking. She would end up sitting opposite someone - male or female - who ignored the letters and went straight to the photos, not that they ever commented on those either. They would make a note of her name. Sometimes, she would be called in for an audition, about one in ten of which bore fruit. There she would be again, with all her talent (or so she thought), standing in front of a camera and a lot of ill-mannered people, who were always telling her: ‘Relax, smile, turn to the right, drop your chin a little, lick your lips.’ And the result: a photo of a new brand of coffee.
And what happened when she wasn't called? She felt rejected, but soon learned to live with that and had come to see it as a necessary experience, a test of her perseverance and faith. She refused to accept the fact that the drama course, the letters of recommendation, the CV listing minor roles performed in minor theatres, were of no use at all…
Her mobile phone rang.
… none at all.
It continued to ring.
She was still travelling back in time as she gazed out at the tobacconist's and at the little girl eating chocolate, then she finally emerged from her reverie, realised what was happening and answered the phone.
A voice at the other end was saying that she had an audition in two hours’ time.
She had an audition!
In Cannes!
So it had been worth crossing the ocean, arriving in a city where all the hotels were full, meeting up at the airport with other young women in exactly the same position as her (a Pole, two Russians and a Brazilian), and going round knocking on doors until they found that shared, exorbitantly priced apartment. After all those years of trying her luck in Chicago and travelling now and then to Los Angeles in search of more agents, more adverts, more rejections, it turned out that her future lies in Europe!
In two hours’ time?
She couldn't catch a bus because she didn't know the routes. She was staying high up on a steep hill and had only been down it twice so far - to distribute copies of her book and to go to that stupid party last night. On both occasions, when she reached the bottom of the hill, she had hitched a lift from complete strangers, usually single men in magnificent convertibles. Everyone knew Cannes to be a safe place, and all women know that good looks help when trying to get a ride, but she couldn't leave anything to chance this time - she would have to resolve the problem herself. Auditions follow a rigorous timetable, that was one of the first things you learn at any acting agency. She had noticed on her first day in Cannes that the traffic was almost permanently gridlocked, and so all she could do was get dressed and leave at once. She would be there in an hour and a half; she remembered the hotel where the producer was staying because it was on the ‘pilgrimage route’ she had followed yesterday, in search of some opportunity, some opening.
Now the problem was what to wear.
She fell upon the suitcase she had brought with her, chose some Armani jeans made in China and bought on the black market in Chicago for a fifth of the real price. No one could say they were fake because they weren't: everyone knew that the Chinese manufacturers sent 80 per cent of what they produced to the original stores, with the remaining 20 per cent being sold off by employees on the side. It was, shall we say, excess stock, surplus to requirements.
She was wearing a white DKNYT-shirt, which had cost more than the jeans. Faithful to her principles, she knew that the more discreet the clothes, the better. No short skirts, no plunging necklines, because if other women had been invited to the audition, that is what they would be wearing.
She wasn't sure about her make-up. In the end, she opted for a very light foundation and an even lighter application of lip liner. She had already lost a precious fifteen minutes.
People are never satisfied. If they have a little, they want more. If they have a lot, they want still more. Once they have more, they wish they could be happy with little, but are incapable of making the slightest effort in that direction.
Is it just that they don't understand how simple happiness is? What can she want, that girl in the jeans and white T-shirt who just came running past? What could be so urgent that it stopped her taking time to contemplate the lovely sunny day, the blue sea, the babies in their prams, the palms fringing the beach?
‘Don't run, child! You'll never escape the two most important presences in the life of any human being: God and death. God accompanies your every step and will be annoyed because he can see that you're not paying attention to the miracle of life. Or indeed death. You just ran past a corpse and didn't even notice.’
Igor has walked past the scene of the crime several times now. At one point, he realised that his comings and goings might arouse suspicion and so decided to remain a prudent two hundred yards from the scene, leaning on the balustrade that looked out over the beach. He's wearing dark glasses, but there's nothing suspicious about that, not only because it's a sunny day, but because in a celebrity town like Cannes, dark glasses are synonymous with status.
He's surprised to see that it's almost midday, and yet no one has realised that there's a person lying dead on the main street of a city which, at this time of year, is the focus of the world's attention.
A couple are approaching the bench now, visibly irritated. They start shouting at the Sleeping Beauty; they're the girl's parents, angry because she isn't working. The man shakes her almost violently. Then the woman bends over, obscuring Igor's field of vision.
Igor knows what will happen next.
The mother screams. The father takes his mobile phone from his pocket and moves away, clearly agitated. The mother is shaking her daughter's unresponsive body. Passers-by stop, and now he can remove his dark glasses and join them as one more curious onlooker.
The mother is crying, clinging to her daughter. A young man gently pushes her away and attempts mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but soon gives up; Olivia's face already has a slight purple tinge to it.
‘Someone call an ambulance!’
Several people dial the same number, all of them feeling useful, important, caring. He can already hear the sound of the siren in the distance. The mother's screams are growing louder. A young woman tries to put a comforting arm around her, but the mother pushes her away. Someone attempts to sit the body up, and someone else tells them to lay her down again because it's too late to do anything.
‘It's probably a drug overdose,’ the person next to him says. ‘Young people today are a lost cause.’
Those who hear the comment nod sagely. Igor remains impassive while he watches the paramedics unload their equipment from the ambulance, apply electric shocks to Olivia's heart, while a more experienced doctor stands by, not saying a word, because although he knows there's nothing to be done, he doesn't want his colleagues to be accused of negligence. They place Olivia's body on the stretcher and put it in the ambulance, the mother still clinging to her daughter. After a brief discussion, they allow the mother to get in too, and the ambulance speeds away.
No more than ten minutes have passed between the couple discovering the
