Ханиф Курейши - Best British Short Stories 2020

Baker nodded. She walked over to the box, sucked open the lid. ‘Here’s the wig.’

‘Here’s the role.’ Ellen took the platinum curls and turned them around in her hands, her fingers becoming entangled in the fabric. ‘Looks authentic, at least.’

Baker nodded, gestured to the chair by the mirror. ‘Are you ready for your transformation?’

Ellen sat. She closed her eyes, searched for the character. Monroe was there somewhere. It was like peeling an onion. You had to discard the layers until all that was left was raw. Baker elongated her eyelashes, red-lipped her pout, stuck on a beauty spot big enough for a picnic, pinned back her hair and then pinned the wig into it. When Ellen emerged from the trailer she was the photographer, Monroe, a Konica Autoreflex T SLR 35mm camera dangling off its strap on one finger, white jacket, white blouse, white skirt, white heels. She walked the way they wanted her to, right across the lot. Cukor nodded approvingly, standing to one side as she approached the set. She didn’t understand his expression, til he yelled Cut! and turning she saw the camera rolling behind her.

‘Cukor. I feel violated. I want to be an artist not an aphrodisiac.’

‘Enough of that. We making a movie or not?’

The liver weighs 1890 grams. The surface is dark brown and smooth.

Light dappled her body as she turned and twisted under the water. She was embraced. She swam to the bottom, touched it with an outstretched finger, then rose upwards, eyes open. Her breasts were in sway with the motion, the water adding fluidity to their movements, something which rarely happened when wearing underwear. She could see Kennedy standing poolside, his left hand holding his right wrist. Breaking the surface she scattered droplets on his black brogues.

‘Hey,’ she breathed.

‘Miss Monroe.’ He bent and gripped her extended right wrist, effortlessly hauled her up, residual water stripped from her body as she left the pool, as though she were sloughing a layer.

She stood exposed in the moonlight. She didn’t want him to take her, and he had to know that, even though she seemed there for the taking. A couple of inches separated them. She watched him unmoving until goosebumps bumped her dry. Eventually he stood aside and let her pass, handing her a towel which barely covered what he’d seen.

‘I thought you might have sent someone.’

His jaw was so chiselled he might have auditioned for Mount Rushmore. ‘I wouldn’t miss this for the world.’

She walked into the house. Wondered where his bodyguards were. ‘Something to drink?’

Kennedy nodded. Watched her pour a couple of fingers of bourbon. ‘Nothing for yourself?’

‘Maybe when we’re done.’

‘Will we ever be done?’

‘You’ll have it all. The prints, the negatives. I never intended to take those photos. I stumbled into that room.’

Kennedy downed the whiskey. ‘You stumble into blackmail, too?’

Monroe sat down, crossed her legs. ‘There’s a story,’ she said. ‘There’s a pretty girl on the train, not a beauty, but still something to look at. A guy boards and sits opposite. He’s not good-looking either, but he’s not bad. After a while he leans over, and says, I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but would you sleep with me for a thousand bucks. The girl does mind, but she doesn’t say anything because the offer has caught her attention. There’s something she’s wanted to buy, for some time now, a pipedream. And he’s polite, not a bruiser. So she says, yes. ’ Kennedy watched Monroe’s eyes dart around the room. She continued: ‘So the guy leans back, crosses one leg over the other. How about for twenty? The girl almost shouts, Twenty! What kind of girl do you think I am? And the man, Mr President, the man says, We’ve already established what kind of girl you are. Now we’re just haggling the price.’

Kennedy eased himself onto the opposite sofa. He placed his empty glass on a wooden side table with an audible knock.

‘What security do you have that I won’t kill you?’

She laughed. ‘I’ve paid the huntsman.’

Outside, dark fell in a torrent, a molasses-thick night. All the lights of Hollywood couldn’t penetrate the gloom.

The spleen weighs 190 grams. The surface is dark red and smooth.

‘Keep the wig on.’

‘Oh Nick.’

‘Just keep it on.’

‘Hey, you’re hurting.’

‘Ssh.’

‘Don’t ssh me!’

‘Sorry, losing concentration.’

Ellen put her legs over his shoulders. ‘Fuck her then. Fuck Marilyn.’

Nick slid his cock in and out of her cunt. There was something universal in her expression. She was his wife and yet she wasn’t his wife.

Ellen did the voice: ‘I think sexuality is only attractive when it’s natural and spontaneous.’

‘Is that from the script?’

‘There’s always a script.’ Ellen put a finger in her mouth and bit. She knew it looked seductive, but it was to keep her from laughing. There was something ridiculous in Nick’s ritual determination, something animalistic. She normally loved sex, but getting in Monroe’s head had proved anathema. Her character was all about insinuation, but never the act. It was Ellen who had convinced Cukor that simmering heat was better than fire. The script had Kennedy and Monroe making love, but Ellen suggested it should be the mental emasculation of the president which would lead to Monroe’s death. Not that it was a death, for she had indeed paid the huntsman.

Nick climaxed and fell on top of her. She tucked her legs around his back, then changed her mind and scissored off him at the onset of cramp. Rolling onto her front she reached out to the side table for a cigarette. ‘Want one?’

Nick lay on his back beside her. ‘Let’s share. You can take that wig off now.’

‘Maybe I’ll wear it a while. Freak the kids.’

‘No. Take it off.’

Ellen pouted. ‘What is it now?’

Nick dragged on the cigarette. ‘There should always be some distance between fantasy and reality. How’s the movie going?’

Ellen sighed. ‘The movie doesn’t go anywhere, that implies linear motion. We film it in pieces, you know this. Monroe’s dead, but then she’s already come back, and sometime after she’ll also be dead again.’

‘You never told me what happens after she’s killed.’

‘I was saving some surprises for the premiere.’

Nick handed her the cigarette, blew smoke to one side. ‘Just tell me, Ellen.’

She turned onto her back, pulled the sheet over her body. ‘The president believes Monroe’s dead but just like Snow White she’s escaped into the forest. She dyes her hair brunette, changes into a plain brown wool suit, spends some time in the Pacific. She could spend all her days there, if she wanted. But she misses the glamour. So she comes back, calls herself Ingrid Tic, gives herself an accent. Fools everyone.’

‘Except the president?’

‘Except the president.’

Nick leant on his side. ‘But what was her story? Where was she supposed to have gone?’

‘Purgatory or hell. There was a drug overdose. She’s supposed to be dead, remember.’

‘So who was dead?’

Ellen furrowed her brow. ‘The script doesn’t make that clear. But when we’re filming it’s actually Baker.’

‘Baker? Your make-up girl?’

‘She’s a ringer, don’t you think? They wanted someone who looked like me – like Monroe – but for it not to be me. There has to be a disconnect with the audience, a nudge that maybe Monroe wasn’t killed, until it’s clear that she’s back. So they used Baker. She was right there, after all.’