Ex-Girlfriends United by Matt Dunn

Author:Matt Dunn
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General, Fiction
ISBN: 9781847395184
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2008-10-06T13:32:22.566518+00:00

Chapter 11

Today is Dan’s first day of filming on Close Encounters, and as his “agent” I’ve called round on my way to work to wish him good luck. To be honest, I’m more interested in getting his advice on how to ask Sam to move in, having bottled out again last night, although that was partly due to my fears over the identity of Sam’s mystery client. When he answers his front door, I’m quite pleased to see that he’s back to his usual chirpy self. Or so his cheery greeting of “morning, loser” would indicate, anyway.

“Not nervous, then?”

“Nah.” Dan follows me into his kitchen. “Let me tell you, when you’ve done live TV, this kind of thing’s a doddle.”

“Yes, but, this is acting, isn’t it? And you’ve not done much of that, have you?”

He shrugs. “Maybe not. But I don’t know what the big deal is. These actors, they get revered and all that, but all they’re really good at is kids’ games.”

“Kids’ games?”

“Yup. Every kid loves to dress up and play pretend. That’s all acting is. Piece of piss.” Dan pauses to check his reflection in his side of the stainless-steel kettle. “Remember, I was in Casualty once.”

“So you keep reminding me. As ‘corpse number two.’ Which meant all you had to do was lie still for five minutes.”

“So? It’s hard to play dead.” He grins. “Just ask Sam.”

“What’s it got to do with her?”

“She does it every time you’re in bed together.”

I pick up what I guess must be the script from Dan’s kitchen table. “So, have you learnt your lines?”

“Hands off,” he says, snatching it from me. “That’s highly confidential, that is. Leak it to the press and I’ll be off the show before you can say ‘and the BAFTA for best-looking soap actor goes to…’”

“Dan,” I say, grabbing it back from him and flicking through the pages, where he’s helpfully marked his bits in yellow highlighter pen. “I’m hardly going to leak it to the press. Besides, I don’t watch Close Encounters anyway, so I’m hardly going to be interested in…You get to sleep with twins?”

I can’t believe it. For some people, life imitates art. For Dan, it’s the other way round. If Close Encounters counts as art, that is.

He grins. “Yup. Although not both together, sadly. And then I tell each of them that I thought I was sleeping with her when I was sleeping with the other one—which is a pretty good excuse, if you think about it—when secretly I knew all along.”

“This kind of stuff isn’t exactly going to show you in the best light, you know.”

Dan sticks his lower lip out and shakes his head. “At five grand a week, and all the actresses I can eat—on screen, at least—who gives a damn?”

“And you’re not worried that it might influence what you’re trying to do? Making amends with all these ex-girlfriends of yours?”

“Nah,” he says. “In fact, the way I see it, it might actually be a good thing. Make them realize that however badly I treated them, I wasn’t as bad as Wayne.

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