Wise Follies by Grace Wynne-Jones

Author:Grace Wynne-Jones [Grace Wynne-Jones]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780671855185
Google: x0TNAAAACAAJ
Amazon: 1905170637
Goodreads: 2519905
Publisher: Accent Press
Published: 2012-07-21T14:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

I really enjoyed writing that article about being an extra. It was such fun. We’ve got some lovely photographs to go with it. The film publicity people have sent them on.

I’m so looking forward to seeing the film when it’s finished. I’ll bring a posse of friends to the cinema and I’ll sit on the edge of my seat waiting for the hotel scene. ‘That’s me!’ I’ll whisper, and they’ll scour the screen dutifully. I hope they show the bit where I clutched my bag when the shots rang out. I winced and gasped a bit too. It was done with considerable feeling.

‘Did you get Mel Nichols’s autograph for me?’ Annie is now asking eagerly. We’re sitting in my garden. It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon.

‘No, I’m afraid I didn’t,’ I sigh, realizing that Annie would have got his autograph if she’d been on that film set. She would have marched right up to him. She’s so much more daring than I am. ‘He was very busy,’ I explain. ‘But I did get quite close to him at one point and watched him for a while.’

‘What was he doing?’ she asks excitedly. She’s a big fan of his.

‘He was…mmmm… he was picking at his polystyrene cup.’

‘Oh.’ She doesn’t seem too impressed. Then she adds, ‘Come on, come on, tell me all about the scenes you were in, Alice. They sound really romantic’.

‘Yes, they were,’ I agree happily, thinking of how Mel had stared deep into Julia Robbins’s eyes. I’d just got a quick glance at them because I was supposed to be chatting to the woman in a bonnet. But one glance was enough.

After Annie has quizzed me about Mel and Julia for at least half an hour, I tell her about my swim in the river. ‘Ah, yes, that sounds like the old Alice,’ she smiles.

‘What do you mean?’ I give her a quick, almost fearful glance.

‘Oh – oh nothing. It sounds fun, that’s all,’ she replies, suddenly bashful. It’s as if she’s said something she hadn’t meant to say. Something she’s been thinking for some time. Friends do that sometimes. They let something slip and you realize they’ve formed some opinion about you that they haven’t shared. They may allude to it indirectly, but they don’t want to be too blunt. Maybe they sense you’re not ready to hear it, but it tends to leak out anyway.

I don’t press her for an explanation about the ‘old Alice’ she’s referred to. I know what she means. She has known me for so long she can remember happier, carefree times. Younger days when swimming in my undies wasn’t that uncommon. Days when she and I laughed wildly as Aaron chased us with a frog he’d caught. We weren’t even frightened of frogs, we just liked the squealing. Afterwards we’d let the frog go. We’d watch it hopping away and Annie would say, ‘Maybe we should have kissed it.’ But, like her, I don’t want to talk about all that now.

‘Yes, swimming in that river was fun,’ I agree.

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