I Make My Own Fun
Author: Hannah Beer
Date: 2025-10-14 07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Thriller; Contemporary; Adult; Mystery
Description: An unhinged romp through fame, obsession, and fandom Everyone knows Marina, the A-list movie star. But very few know Marina, the absolute monster. Years at the top have proved that whatever Marina wants, she gets. But when she meets bartender Anna, Marina discovers something that can't be Anna's affection. As Anna remains unmoved, Marina's advances become more desperate, and her obsession more dangerous. The price of fame is heavy—and someone will have to pay for it …
Publisher: Anansi International

Published in hardback in Great Britain in 2025 by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright © Hannah Beer, 2025

The moral right of Hannah Beer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

No part of this book may be used in any manner in the learning, training or development of generative artificial intelligence technologies (including but not limited to machine learning models and large language models (LLMs)), whether by data scraping, data mining or use in any way to create or form a part of data sets or in any other way.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

Quotation from Rachel Kushner, ‘Famous Strangers’, December 2023, Harper’s Magazine reprinted by permission of the author

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Hardback ISBN: 978 1 80546 021 3

Trade paperback ISBN: 978 1 80546 443 3

E-book ISBN: 978 1 80546 025 1

Printed in Great Britain

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Celebrity is a projection that will dissolve upon genuine contact

Rachel Kushner

PART ONE

Marina’s Meteoric Next Act:
The Only Interview

It’s hard not to blush in Marina’s presence. Anyone lucky enough to have spent even a few moments in the actor’s company will know what I’m talking about: her eyes pierce straight into your soul with just a fleeting glance. It would make you feel uncomfortable if she didn’t go to such lengths to put you instantly at ease. Instead, you just feel bad for being intimidated in the first place. Hence: the blushing.

‘Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry!’ she says in her legendary British lilt, laughing, when I confess this to her over coffee and egg whites in her sun-drenched California home. ‘How awful of me – let’s start again, shall we? I’m Marina,’ and she smiles at me, extending her hand out to mine to shake. And there it is: the charm that solidifies her icon status and makes her the most enduring and beloved star of her generation. Nearly a decade and a half into her otherworldly, stratospheric success, this household name still feels the need to introduce herself.

I’m sitting down for a late breakfast with the famously tight-lipped actor in her beautiful, alabaster marble kitchen. Outside, there’s a vast expanse of verdant lawn, dotted about with impressive sculptures. The actor is gearing up for the release of the Lucy Kissig-directed Interspace, her latest project with her off-screen partner and longtime collaborator, Henry Easton. Marina and Easton are co-producers of the film, in which they star as a couple desperately in love, separated by space and time, who must somehow find their way back to one another. It’s a tender portrait of a partnership but it’s also rip-roaring fun, a balancing act that, in less capable hands, might not work – though of course, here, it does. Off screen, the pair are resolutely private, choosing to keep their home life firmly under wraps. Their romantic relationship is strictly off limits for the duration of our conversation, but the warm smile that spreads across her face when I mention Easton’s name lets me know that Hollywood’s golden couple are very much still golden.

‘He’s an absolute joy to work with, I will say that,’ she says when I probe her about what it’s like to work with your real-life partner. ‘He makes even the trickiest of scenes feel easy. It’s all about the work, really. Every time I act alongside him, I feel this enormous sense of privilege that I get to sharpen my skillset by learning in real time from one of the greats.’

She’s being modest, as I’m sure any reader would attest. Her incredible career – not to mention her talent – is by now the stuff of legend: Marina, plucked from obscurity somewhere in small-town England, won her first Oscar at just 15 for her debut role, the titular Calypso in Stan Sterling’s epic Grecian retelling. The role catapulted her to the top of every ‘Ones to Watch’ list going, but it was her undeniable sincerity, tempered with a wit beyond her years, that captured the hearts of the world. She followed Calypso with a string of critically acclaimed turns in what have since become contemporary arthouse classics. By 20, she had worked with the kinds of directors that would make most actors seethe with envy – and become the subject of a media frenzy that would make even the Beatles nervous to step outside. After all, there was a time when every paper in the country, tabloid or otherwise, wrote about who Marina was having dinner with. It’s no wonder that when she met Easton, she retreated into the private love bubble I find her in today. Marina survived the media storm, forging strong creative partnerships with the likes of Dior and Gucci – and then came the superhero box-office domination with the Protectors franchise and her successful producer credits. Now, on the precipice of her third decade, Marina’s star shows no sign of waning.

‘Marina is the real deal. I can’t think of any other actor working today, or even this side of Monroe, who has the kind of screen presence or command of their craft she does. She’s mesmerizing,’ says Interspace director Lucy Kissig when we speak on the phone later that week. Or, in the words of Marina’s TIME Magazine Person of the Year profile, written by her Protectors co-star and friend, Jenni Klein, ‘Watching her on screen is so transfixing, it’s like being on hallucinogens... It’s an almost religious experience. You just never want to look away.’

Kissig and Klein aren’t the only ardent Marina fans. With 450 million Instagram followers, a good portion of which are dedicated #Mariniacs (the name given to her core fan group), Marina is arguably the most popular woman on the planet. I ask her if she ever feels overwhelmed by all those eyes – after all, she’s only mortal – and she takes a sip of her coffee before answering, weighing up her response.

‘You know, I can’t lie and say I don’t think about that sometimes, but – oh, sorry, would you like some more?’ she interrupts herself when she notices me swilling the dregs of my own coffee around my cup. Before I can answer she’s up, filling the stovetop coffee maker with water and freshly ground espresso and turning on the gas with grace.

‘Sorry – what was I saying? Oh, yes – the many eyes of the internet,’ she says as the coffee percolates, her signature low, warm laugh filling the room. ‘Well, it’s an obscene amount of people, isn’t it? There’s no denying that. But really, it’s such a privilege to be in this position. All those people, I am where I am because of them. Any storyteller wants their work to be seen, right, so they can keep doing it?’ She pauses then, and a look of deep seriousness flashes across her eyes. All of a sudden, the impressive woman in front of me is 15 years old again, accepting her first Oscar from Meryl Streep. ‘All I’ve ever wanted is to do this job, and do it well, and it’s... extraordinary to me that 450 million people have endorsed my ability to do it. I could choose to be overwhelmed, but why would I focus on that when I can just be grateful and keep doing my job for them?’

The coffee bubbles over, and she leaps into action. Gas off. Cup in hand. Slow, steady pour. ‘God, sorry, gratitude and storytelling. That was all a bit LA, wasn’t it?’ she says as she passes me the cup, and I’m struck at her ability to poke fun at herself. Perhaps, I say, but if it’s any consolation, I believe you. In fact, I tell her, you seem pretty grounded, all things considering. I point to the expert cup of coffee she’s made me. ‘How do you do it?’ I ask.

‘It’s a Bialetti – the trick is low and slow,’ she says, with a knowing smile. ‘But if you want a serious answer: I don’t read the reviews any more, or anything else anyone says about me in the papers, online. Even all those Instagram followers – I just post my pictures and log off. I have to be strict with it.’ She looks at me almost apologetically now. ‘Can I confess something? I probably won’t even read this!’ But careful not to offend, and now blushing herself, she adds, ‘Although I’m sure you’re a brilliant writer! I just know that that way lies madness, so my strategy for years has been to just keep my head down and focus on doing the best job I can.’ She fixes me with a wolfish grin. ‘I think it’s working so far.’

Can’t argue with that.

THE PLANE

The problem is that, for someone like me, being entertained is a full-time job. Everything I say in interviews about staying grounded and doing my work, it’s all bullshit. The real hard work is simply sustaining interest in anything, because most people are only interested in you, and you realize very quickly that they have nothing of worth to offer beyond that. Not losing one’s mind from boredom requires a genuine discipline that most people just can’t attain. It’s why so few people get to where I am and stay here. It’s why I am who I am.

You see, I can entertain myself just fine.

That said, listening to my boyfriend drone on about the mid-tier influencer he’s currently fucking requires something stronger than discipline. I’ve opted for full-blown dissociation: Henry is, I don’t mind admitting, very beautiful, so it’s not difficult to tune out his voice and focus on the gentle undulation of his clavicle and the muscles beneath his T-shirt as he waves his hands about. Sure, sleeping with him is always underwhelming, but with looks like his it’s easy to imagine otherwise. His sculpted body is as good a distraction as any from these desperately boring conversations we have every few weeks. It’s necessary admin to keep the machine of our public-facing relationship well oiled, and it usually happens, like now, when we’re suspended 30,000 feet in the air on our way to some industry function and I’ve no choice but to sit through it.

‘...and anyway, it’s been about six weeks, on and off now. I think you’d like him, Marina, he’s actually super sweet...’ There’s a casual tone to Henry’s voice, but I can tell by the way he’s used my name that he’s been gearing up to say this for some time, and he’s hoping I’ll say something encouraging in return. I look over at my assistant, Jules, who has stopped furiously scribbling notes to give to our lawyers and is now looking up at me, the same forced nonchalance in her eyes as in Henry’s. Obviously, as Henry well knows, nothing could pique my interest in a person less than describing them as ‘sweet’, and I’d rather hurl myself out of the plane window than meet whoever Henry’s decided to moon over this month.

The truth is, Henry gets a lot more mileage than I do out of our arrangement; he frequently has some cardboard cut-out lover he wants me to approve. Henry, at his core, is a deeply uninquisitive person: lazy and predictable in his tastes. By contrast, I find sex is no fun without a little intrigue. People talk a lot about mystery but what they really mean is that you have to want to uncover something about the other person. It’s been a while since I met anyone that sizes up.

I consider saying something dismissive in response to Henry, but I might as well toy with him. God knows, this conversation needs some spice. I let a moment or so pass before fixing my eyes on him, then turn the corners of my lips up ever so slightly and say, ‘Well, if he’s super sweet, then I must meet him when we get back to LA, Henry.’

To imply I’m serious, I look back to Jules and add, ‘Tell the lawyers that I want to meet him when you give them these notes. In fact, ask them to write a clause into the NDA stipulating it. Make it happen as soon as we land.’

Jules’s face, doughy and forgettable, looks slightly stunned. It’s not often that I grant one of Henry’s feeble bids for connection. Henry, clearly pleased with this outcome, pulls out his phone to – one assumes – message his influencer. I’ll wait until we’ve landed to tell him I’ve changed my mind. Much more fun to burst the bubble when he’s had a while to get used to it.

I’m almost relaxing into the flight, the dullest part of it out of the way, but I’m jolted out of my reverie when Jules reaches for her pen and knocks my copita of mezcal from the table in front of her. The glass shatters on the table, spilling the drink all down my plane’s beautiful, custom velvet seats. Immediately, three of my security men leap into action around me to sweep up the glass and blot the seat; it won’t stain – the mezcal is far too clear and expensive – but I roll my eyes at the disruption nonetheless. Jules jumps up as well and starts uselessly flittering around the aisle like a fruit fly, squawking about shards of glass on the floor. She gets like this sometimes, just desperate to show her worth. Sometimes it’s almost amusing, like watching a baby spontaneously burst into tears across the street. But here, in this stale plane air, it becomes intensely irritating very quickly and I just need it to stop. I cross my right leg over my left, swinging a stilettoed foot out in front of her to make her stumble. She falls almost right into my lap, grabbing my arm with a surprisingly firm grip. At this, the security men stop sweeping and crowd around us, trained as they are to protect me from danger.

‘For God’s sake, Jules, you’ve already broken a glass, can you not break one of my bones as well?’ I snap, underlying my irritation with the faintest whisper of panic to lend my words some legitimacy. ‘Just sit down and stay still.’

Jules scrambles up, looking humiliated, sending a small ripple of satisfaction running through me. She mumbles an apology as she settles back down in her seat, and the men finish their job.

‘I don’t know how that happened,’ she says, so quietly I wonder if it’s to herself.

‘Yes, well,’ I reply. I’m already rooting around for my silk eye mask from my bag. ‘Perhaps there was some turbulence.’

Jules nods her head slowly, and then, satisfied that that’s the end of the conversation, I place the eye mask on my head and pull it over my eyes. At least now, with Jules chastened into silence and Henry absorbed by his phone, I can have some peace and quiet before we land in London and the Interspace promotional circus resumes. Finally, I think. Home stretch.

LONDON

The hotel suite in London is fussy and looks almost full to bursting with the sorts of odds and ends that are always associated with a particular British luxury by those who have no direct experience of it: antique vases, endless lamps, tasselled throw pillows as far as the eye can see. It’s easy to imagine the type of people this room caters to: rich Europeans looking for somewhere ‘proper’ as a base whilst they visit distant relatives, obnoxious Americans seeking out some authentic English cosiness, Australians obsessed with the Royal Family.

The thought of the oohs and aahs those people might exclaim when they walk into the space makes me feel nauseous. I prefer hotels to feel like a blank canvas for my own taste, even if I’m only in them for a few nights. Usually, Jules would have ensured that my things were in place by the time I entered the suite, removing any trace of the hotel’s decor choices and fixing some paintings from my own collection to the wall, but the one I chose for this trip is propped unceremoniously against a dresser on the back wall. Too exhausted from eight hours of Henry’s yapping and Jules’s incompetence to investigate the hold-up, I just gesture in its general direction to Jules on the way to my evening session with my trainer.

‘Tell Henry I’m with Magnus, Jules,’ I say as I leave, ‘and can you make sure he doesn’t bother me now until tomorrow?’ It’s a rhetorical question. I don’t need to wait for her response before I let the suite door swing shut behind me.

Tomorrow is the final premiere for the schmaltzy, spacey, Academy-catnip film Henry and I have produced together. Well, together is a loose term; Henry is, it goes without saying, a moron, and I allow him minimal input into any of our shared projects, including our relationship. He doesn’t mind: it’s a small price to pay for what I’ve given him. Years ago, I hand-selected him from a long list of inoffensively handsome actors of middling talent to be my public-facing boyfriend. If it weren’t for me, he’d never even have dreamed of fulfilling his greedy, unimaginative ambition for fame. I dragged him by his perfectly silky, Ken-doll locks right up to the A list. Without me he’d be a recurring part on a cable show by now, and he’s never once lost sight of that. Still, without him, I’d be a lot less likeable to the general public, and a lot more exposed. As much as it pains me to admit it, I need a Henry. It’s so much harder for people to speculate on my life when it’s securely tied to someone else’s. I’m more powerful this way.

I take the service lift down to the gym in the basement. When it reaches the ground floor, a boy in sauce-splattered chef whites a few inches shorter than me moves to enter the lift without looking up from his phone.

‘Going down?’ he says, and then looks at me, stopping just over the threshold. As I’ve come to expect, I watch a supercut of emotions flash across a stranger’s face as they register who I am. Shock. Embarrassment. Reverence. Lust.

‘Oh, hi!’ he says then, as if I’m an acquaintance. I get that a lot.

‘Hi, yourself,’ I reply, shooting him a warm, mechanical smile. He’s so starstruck that he doesn’t notice my hand repeatedly pressing the ‘close’ button. After a moment, the door starts bashing against his right arm, the lift dinging as it does, and it takes him a second too long to leap back into the corridor behind him. He looks slightly sheepish, as if he’s only just remembered his hotel-mandated do-not-bother-thecelebrities training.

‘Nice to meet you!’ I hear him half-shout, panicked, as the door closes, revealing in that split second how he’ll relay this briefest of encounters to anyone who’ll listen. This acne-riddled boy will be dining out for years on how he met Marina at work, stretching the two words I spoke to him to breaking point. He will, inevitably, forget that I didn’t let him share the lift with me. He may even pretend we had a little flirt. Social media is full of these kinds of tales. That’s another line I like to trot out in interviews – that I don’t read my own press. It’s par for the course in my position. I’ve had a Google alert set for myself since I was fifteen, and I regularly scroll through the articles, sometimes venturing over to Twitter, and, even the cesspool that is my Instagram comments. It’s taught me that people believe what they want to believe, and the image of me they revere – that I’m good, and sweet, and kind – is no bad thing.

When I get to the gym – a dark, dingy space with a long, low-mirrored wall – my trainer is already waiting for me. He’s the only other person in the room, and his hammerhead shark body takes up almost as much space as the slightly shabby gym equipment dotted around the room.

‘Magnus,’ I say, walking over to him. ‘I have to say, I’m pleased to see you after the day I’ve had.’ There are very few people I would say this to, but Magnus is essentially an animate brick wall who does nothing but tell me I’m fantastic. Time with him always soothes me because I know he’s making me tighter, stronger, hotter. I don’t prescribe to this new fad that all bodies are beautiful, despite what my public personal brand might suggest. My body is beautiful because I work hard to make it so. People don’t need platitudes, they need discipline.

‘Love to hear that, Marina!’ Magnus replies in his booming, blandly American voice. Magnus has about three stock phrases in his vocabulary, and ‘Love to hear that’ is one of them. He gestures to the exercise mat in front of him, beckoning me towards it.

‘Let’s work those superstar abs of yours, shall we?’ That’s another. Every muscle in my body is a superstar, according to Magnus.

After forty minutes of Magnus’s militaristic regimen I feel much more centred than I did when we landed. We do five minutes on the treadmill to round it off, at the end of which Magnus shoots his right hand into the air and exclaims, ‘That’s the stuff, Marina! Give me five!’ Stock phrase number three.

As I’m taking a sip of water and Magnus is wiping my sweat off the mat, he starts his usual end-of-session small talk.

‘Are you happy to be back in London? Home-town show, right?’ he asks.

He’s only making conversation, but my internal response to it takes me by surprise. I have, I suppose, been eagerly anticipating this final stop; yearning for this grey, suffocating city and the space it will free up in my head once this carousel is over. I always feel at ease in London, with its rigid and deeply entrenched understanding of status. Not that I would confess any of this to Magnus.

‘Yes,’ I reply neutrally, handing him back the empty water bottle. ‘It’s good to be here.’

‘Sure is,’ Magnus says, chipper as ever. We start walking towards the door; he falls in step behind me. ‘I want to see some of the sights when I’m here, get myself down to Buckingham Palace’ – pronounced Buck In Ham – ‘Abbey Road, just go full tourist mode, you know? That’s if you’ll let me stop doing these damn squats for an hour or two...’ He grins foolishly, flashing his too-white veneers.

I raise my eyebrows at him in return. We’re at the lift. I’m full of endorphins, but I still have no interest in continuing the conversation any further.

‘I’m sure I could get us into Buckingham Palace to do some squats if you wanted, Magnus,’ I say. And then, stepping into the lift, ‘See you tomorrow.’ He salutes at me as the doors close.

Back in the suite, I head to the bathroom. The decor in this room is less offensive than the rest of the suite, all white marble and low lighting, and the bath faces the window so I can look out towards the city as I’m lying in it. I turn the tap on, and when the bath is ready, I take my phone in with me and open up the dating app I downloaded a year or so ago to entertain myself in precisely these sorts of in-between moments.

I open ‘Jules’s’ profile, which I made during a particularly boring film screening. It was fun to make, getting her answers just so, equal parts sexy and wholesome. I chose the best possible pictures of her I could get hold of. My Jules avatar is nothing like the real one. The real Jules is still much the same as she was when she interviewed for my assistant job all those years ago, fresh out of film school: uninspiring and hungry for my world. There’s a weakness to her want, like a kitten abandoned on a highway, listlessly hoping some food might simply come its way. Feeble. But the Jules I’m pretending to be is different. She’s very adventurous. She’s coquettish. She uses a lot of suggestive emojis. She wants to show you a good time, if you’ll let her, and naturally everybody does, because people are predictable. They’ll all take the easy route if it’s presented to them.

She has no idea, of course, which makes it so much more enjoyable: my own little secret. I am, as they say, so good at acting. As I scroll through the matched profiles, all the hey Jules how are you doings, several viable options present themselves to me. I tend to ignore the good-looking ones, who are usually less interested in dowdy Jules anyway. I find the ugly ones more satisfying. It’s so rare that I encounter these people in real life.

Adding more hot water to the bath, I settle on Jules’s next paramour. A man, somewhere around his mid-thirties, wearing a tired baseball cap in every image in a clear attempt to conceal what little hairline he has left. According to his profile, he’s looking for someone to do the Sunday morning crossword with, which is ironically exactly the sort of lame line the real Jules would absolutely die for. I think about striking up an overtly sexually charged exchange with him, but something tells me I could play it smarter this time. Why not draw it out a while longer? After all, I’m here for a few more days, and this one has an appealing sheen of loneliness. There’s a lot to work with here.

I send a red love heart his way, and wait for him to take the bait.

Marina Touches Down in London for Final Leg of Promo Tour

Marina was seen arriving at a central London hotel to a swarm of adoring fans ahead of the eagerly anticipated London premiere of her new film, Interspace. The star, who had her long-term boyfriend and co-star Henry Easton in tow, was ushered swiftly into the hotel but made sure to stop and take a few selfies with some lucky fans on her way inside.

‘Screaming crying throwing up just met Marina in London she was so beautiful omg I CANT’ wrote one fan, @marinaseyezzz, on X, formerly known as Twitter, sharing a picture with the star.

‘Marina was so sweet to us today!!! Can’t believe she took the time to say hi, honestly made my day!’ wrote another, @catjenks__98o.

The London event is the final stop in the press tour, following hot on the heels of the star-studded New York premiere two nights ago and the Los Angeles premiere just two nights before that.

A source close to the star revealed that Marina requested London as the final premiere so that director Lucy Kissig could celebrate her first major motion picture release in their shared home country.

‘Lifting up the women around her is close to Marina’s heart, and she knows how important a milestone this film is for Lucy,’ the source told us. ‘She knew it would mean the world for Lucy to round off this intense promo period on home soil.’

The film, an epic intergalactic love story, has already generated awards buzz, with early reviews praising the five-time Oscar winner’s nuanced performance and Kissig’s bold directorial vision.

SUNDAY CROSSWORD

I love premiere days. I love starting the morning with an expensive, elaborate facial that tightens every square inch of skin on my face, and spending the rest of the day watching everyone run around, getting more and more stressed out the closer to 7 p.m. we get. I love having a team of people make me look absolutely fucking incredible, and for my own reflection to make me gasp. But more than anything: I love that it means that after today I won’t have to talk to any journalists or fans or anyone in this room again for months. There’s nothing like that anticipation. It feels like Christmas Eve.

Our floor of the hotel has been completely taken over by the film team. It’s been shut off to everyone else: even the hotel staff aren’t allowed up here without clearing it with Jules or Henry’s assistant, Anthony, first. There are hair and make-up people everywhere, waving brushes and curling irons and long, expensive extensions for the rest of the cast, who are all in one of the other suites together. Henry is amongst them, I believe, as is Lucy. The doors of all the suites are flung open for ‘flow’, apparently, and I can hear the earnest, corralling speech she’s making to everyone from the next room.

‘This is it, team,’ she’s saying. Even without being in the room, I know she’s squatting on the floor, leaning so far in towards her audience of cast and crew that she’d topple over if pushed.

‘I know it’s been a long few weeks taking our baby on the road. I know we’ve been dialoguing with this story – these characters – for even longer. And yeah, I know you’re all probably desperate to get this over with – Come on, Lucy, get on with it! – and I hear ya!’ – a ripple of laughter amongst the cast, an eye roll from me – ‘but I just want to take this opportunity to let you all know, one last time, how proud I am to have been on this journey with you.’

There’s a murmuring of agreement amongst the cast.

‘It’s been the greatest honour to see you all bring this vision to life. So tonight, let’s celebrate the magic we’ve made together! To Interspace!’

An eruption of cheers, followed by a chorus of dull thuds as all the men in the cast pat each other on the back. I can’t bear to be present for this sort of intimate display of sincerity, but I’m glad to hear the rest of them lapping it up, getting giddy from ego inflation like laughing gas. Premieres work best when everyone on the carpet believes for that moment that they should be there, even if most of them shouldn’t. Just one weak link can throw the whole vibe off and then you’ve got a problem on your hands with the coverage. It’s why I no longer take a film to Venice these days – too much of a risk. All those sensitive artists crowded onto one island for a weekend, jostling for the world’s attention, their work laid bare for all to judge? It’s a petri dish of insecurity: poison to on-carpet chemistry. I have a specific, direct hire for all my premieres. Her name is Jocelyn and she understands as well as I do the importance of a good premiere to how a film’s received by the public. Now that I think about it, she’s probably the one who told Lucy about the importance of that pre-showtime pep talk. Lucy is not really a people person.

That said, Lucy is integral to my next career move: the Siren Calling Foundation, which will ‘actively seek out and support young female directors wanting to make their way in the film industry’. Working with women directors and shouting about it makes me look good. Championing women directors makes me look even better, and that’s my next, great strategic cause. A project like this takes me to a higher level: it makes me untouchable. Or it will do, provided I get Lucy Kissig on board to legitimize it and my very expensive lawyers pull their fingers out to make it all line up.

I make a mental note to check in on the Siren Calling progress tomorrow, when the premiere is wrapped up. I’m naked but for a pair of towering heels and someone is buffing out my arms in preparation for some shimmery stuff that makes them look even longer and more toned than they already are. With my free hand, I pull up the dating app on my phone. The Sunday crossword guy is falling hard and fast for ‘Jules’. We’ve had quite the heart-to-heart these past twenty-four hours. Mike’s told Jules things he’s never told anyone before, he says. He feels so comfortable talking to her – he can’t believe what a good listener she is, how it feels like they’ve already learned so much about each other. How kind she is. It’s my Cancer rising sign, Jules says, and Mike says he doesn’t really know what that means, with a crying laughing emoji, but for her he’ll learn. God, this is easy. Mike wonders if Jules would like to go for a drink with him. He’s sure she probably has plans, but if, on the off chance she’s free, would she like to go tonight even? Bingo. Now we’re talking.

Jules: Owh, I have a work event tonight, probably shouldn’t... ☹

Mike: Ah, that’s okay, it was a long shot!

Jules: Although... maybe we could do after? Would you mind meeting later on?

Mike: ☺ Not at all, later on sounds great. Grateful you can find the time at such short notice, aha!

Mike: I hope it’s not too forward to say, but.... I can’t wait to meet you x

It goes something like this with every one of these men, but I have to say Mike got here a lot quicker than some. He must be really starved of attention. I would feel bad for him if it wasn’t so funny. As the person buffing my arms moves down towards my legs, I send him the address of an exclusive, covert bar he will never have heard of and will never be able to get into again. I tell him to get there for 10 p.m. and tell the man on the door he’s there for Jules, and then I text the host of the bar to make a reservation under Jules’s name.

I can’t wait to meet you either! I type back in the app, and then, because I’m on a roll: my turn to be forward... I think we’re going to have an amazing time together x.

@marinaupdates_ Marina looking ethereally gorgeous in custom Gucci this evening at the INTERSPACE premiere in London
7:30 PM • Jun 3 • 1.6M Views

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@calypsogirl456 @marinaupdates_ an absolute icon!! We don’t deserve her

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@justcallmemayax @marinaupdates_ the way i’m obsessed w her... wow

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@richowen_90 @marinaupdates_ the most beautiful woman the world has ever seen that Henry Easton is one lucky cunt fr lmaooo

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@DerekJ4ck @marinaupdates_ cause of death: Marina in this gown. Like, OMG.

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@eloise_dunne @marinaupdates_ As a rule, I’m not that interested in celebrities, but I make an exception for this woman. I mean LOOK at her – she’s grace personified. Can’t wait to see this movie.

PREMIERE

‘Marina! Marina, look this way—’

‘Yes, Marina, you look incredible, turn to me, look over your shoulder, that’s the shot—’

‘Henry, Marina, let’s get one of you together – that’s it, lean in, you guys look beautiful!’

A lot of my peers hate this part. They can’t deal with the camera flashes, all those people shouting their name, the cacophony of screams that come from the crowd beyond the carpet. Not me though. I love standing there, swishing my hair over my shoulders, feeling the weight of millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds in my ears, smoothing my hands over a gown that’s been hand-sewn especially for me by a team of people in a dark studio in Paris. You’re never more of a star than at that exact moment, and I never tire of drinking it all in. I don’t even mind the feeling of Henry’s damp palms on the small of my back, or the hot feeling of his breath on the nape of my neck as he leans in close for the money shot. In fact, the high I get from the red carpet is enough to convince even me that there’s some chemistry between Henry and me, at least for those few moments.

It’s the bit that comes after the carpet that’s the real drag. Sitting on a stage in some shitty cinema, under a wavering spotlight, answering yet more mindless questions from parasitic critics without an inventive bone in their body? Talk about crashing back to earth. I’m even less impressed by the quality we’re getting today. It’s almost impossible not to zone them out when all the journalists ask their questions like they’re reading the six o’clock news, totally one-note and devoid of any enthusiasm. I’m cycling through my usual, artfully considered responses, sprinkling them with an airy laugh here and a gentle brush of Henry’s arm there, when something pulls me quite violently out of autopilot.

‘...and Marina, you’ve been acting for half your life, and many of us – myself included – grew up watching you on screen. How do you feel about turning thirty and entering a new stage of your career?’

That question reaches me like the wail of an ambulance on a city street. At first I barely register it, but by the end of it, the words ring impossibly loud in my ears. I look towards the person who posed it to me, a young blonde girl with an Instagram filter-face and long, tapered nails rapping against a TikTok-branded microphone. I blink at her, her words circling my thoughts. A new stage of my career? I’m hardly Dame Helen fucking Mirren. I’m turning thirty. Thirty, for Christ’s sake! Most people are barely off the ground at this point. As my mind scrambles to find an appropriate answer to the question I’m suddenly aware that the room is silent. It’s my turn to say something, clearly. Laugh, I tell myself. I laugh. But I’m still drawing a blank, and my laugh trails off into nothing, again – what the fuck is going on with me? – until Henry, prompted by Jocelyn, off stage, says:

‘If I may just jump in on behalf of both of us—’ Thank God, I think, and then almost immediately, looking directly at him, Don’t screw this up, Henry. ‘I think we’re excited about what the next decade holds for us. Well, I know I am at least. And though Marina is far too modest to say so herself, I know she has some really ground-breaking things in the pipeline. But I mean, when does she not, right?’

The audience laughs. Relief runs over me like warm water.

‘Henry’s too kind! But yes, I couldn’t be more excited about what’s to come. You know, it’s a real honour to get older, and hopefully wiser, and as a woman in this industry, I just can’t wait to tell the sorts of stories that do that process justice...’ The chairperson nods enthusiastically, and selects another question from the audience.

As the discussion rolls on, I feel an icy, aimless rage hardening inside my stomach, and by the end of the session it’s found its target: Jocelyn, who I trusted to prepare me for these things and has substantially failed to do so. If she had done her job properly, I wouldn’t have needed to rely on Henry to answer that question. In fact, yes: if she had done her job properly, there wouldn’t have been influencers in the audience at all. Critics are pointless, but at least they know their place. By the time we move through to the screening room, I’m so angry I have to channel years of resilience training just to not scream at her in front of everyone. As I sit down on one of the red seats and Jules slides in next to me, I turn to her and say Jocelyn’s name through my smile. She looks at me blankly.

‘Do I need to spell it out?’ I say, barely above a whisper. ‘Get. Rid. Of. Her.’

Jules’s blank face transforms into something that resembles worry.

‘Do you want to be next?’ I ask. ‘Do it as soon as the film starts. I don’t want to see her again after the lights come up. Am I clear?’ She nods. I see her pull out her phone, to make a note of her task, before replacing it in her purse and squirming in her seat. Then I look her directly in the eyes and add, ‘Thank you, Jules. I appreciate it,’ and watch her shoulders soften, relieved that I think she’s doing a good job. Jules believes her hard work will pay off one day. As long as I feed that thought every now and then, she’ll never leave me.

As the cast, the crew and their ‘loved ones’ pile in to watch the movie, my anger starts to dissolve. I check the Omega watch I keep in my bag, and feel lighter: I’ve got fun to come this evening. It’s 9.30 p.m., which means if I leave after the opening credits, I’ll get to the bar in perfect time to watch Mr Sunday Crossword get his little heart broken.

MEET CUTE

The bar I’ve directed Mike to is a bit of a trade secret. Hidden behind an unassuming door down a back street in Marylebone, it’s usually half-empty, frequented only by those rare few who know it exists – people like me, who want to drink somewhere they won’t be stared at by ordinary people or spotted by errant paparazzi. Tonight, most of those people are at my premiere, so I expect it to be even quieter than usual. For a moment I wonder if I’ve made a mistake revealing this place to a person like Mike, but something about him – the cheap clothes in his photographs, his appreciation of the great outdoors – tells me that he doesn’t exactly have his finger on the pulse, culturally speaking. And it’s not like he’ll be in a rush to come back here after tonight.

I have my driver drop me off at the back entrance so I can slip through the service door. Most of my security team went through the front and have already stationed themselves strategically at different tables around the bar. I’m wearing layers and layers of red tulle that swish as I walk, but the music obscures the sound, so I can slide into a dark corner booth unnoticed. I sit at the centre of the table, tulle spread out over the rest of the leather seats, and do a quick scan of the room. As expected, it’s largely empty: the few clusters of vaguely recognizable Brits dotted around the room are the only other people here, except for a pink-haired girl and her colleague behind the bar.

It takes some time to find my target, given his entirely forgettable aura, but when my eyes land on him I feel a rush of adrenaline. He looks even sadder than I’d expected, wearing a fraying polyester jumper over a shirt whose crumpled collar is slightly discoloured with sweat. He has scraped his thinning hair back over his scalp to reveal a forehead so shiny even the dim candlelight is bouncing off it. Best of all, he’s laid some red roses, still wrapped in supermarket cellophane, on the table in front of him. I look at the clock on my phone: 10:10 p.m. He’ll be starting to get nervous now. Ten minutes is a reasonable amount of time to be late, he’ll be thinking. She’ll probably walk through the door any minute. Sure enough, when the door opens two minutes later his head springs up expectantly, snapping into action like a marionette. It is, obviously, not Jules – it’s just Clive, my head of security. He always comes in last. Mike looks back down at his hands in a bid to ignore the pink embarrassment creeping up his neck.

Over the next twenty minutes I watch from my corner as he orders a beer, takes his phone out of his pocket and replaces it countless times, either just to check the time or to type something. I know when it’s a message to Jules because I can feel the vibration coming from the clutch bag which is sitting neatly on my lap. At some point someone brings me a perfectly cold martini – Clive must’ve ordered one for me when he arrived. I sip on it slowly and deliberately as Mike experiences the whole spectrum of human emotion. This is why people go to the movies, I think, and I can’t help but smile. There’s nothing like the thrill of seeing true vulnerability laid bare.

Finally, after one last look at his phone, Mike gets up to leave, a full forty-five minutes after I arrived. A valiant effort! Gold star for participation. He glances furtively around the room on his walk of shame towards the door, his shoulders somehow even more rounded than when he arrived. He’s so downtrodden he doesn’t even look twice at me. I notice that he’s left half a beer, stagnating, on the table: the bubbles are rising more and more slowly towards the surface, satisfyingly useless. Poor Jules, I think for a second. There’s a string of men around the world that have been stood up by ‘Jules’, enough sad faces to fill an arena. The unwitting cast of my own private reality show.

Now that he’s gone, my attention wanders to the pink-haired girl working behind the bar. I’ve never seen her here before: I’d remember if I had. She’s got a great face – not beautiful, exactly, but interesting: strong jaw, round cheeks. The strands of her shocking pink hair that have sprung loose from her bun frame it well. It’s nice to watch her. There’s something so delicious about the way she’s moving around the space: swift, exact, fluid. She makes cleaning glasses and printing receipts look like ballet. It’s rare to see someone so effortlessly competent.

My martini glass has developed a thick, smudgy film of condensation, which I take as my cue to walk over to the bar and order another directly from her. At this point the crowd has thinned out enough that when I walk across the room, people are aware of my presence. Her included: I can feel her looking at me and pretending not to. The pretending-not-tonotice-me thing got old years ago: not least because it’s literally impossible not to notice me thanks to the six house-shaped, armed men that tend to follow behind me like a bridal train on nights like this.

As I move, I can feel Clive’s watery eyes following me warily across the room from his position in the doorway, always on high alert. Sweet, simple Clive. He’d take a bullet for me, if he had to – but I suppose it is in his employment contract.

I take my seat at the bar opposite where she’s standing, which involves folding the tulle of my gown in on itself several times in order to get near enough. Up close, I can see that that interesting face of hers is perfectly irregular and highlighted by a gentle, almost post-coital sheen of sweat. I think back to the conversation with Henry and Jules on the plane over here, and how long it’s been since I took advantage of our arrangement. I bite my lip, flash her a smile.

‘Can I have another martini?’ I say, leaning across the bar so she has no choice but to admit she knows I’m there. ‘Gin, olive,’ I add.

She looks at me, almost resignedly, but there’s a glint in her eye.

‘Dirty?’ she asks.

‘Of course,’ I reply, with the smallest hint of a wink.

‘Did you really just wink when you said that?’ she asks, but the corner of her mouth turns upwards. Bullseye. I’m ’80s Harrison Ford in a Gucci gown. I’m unstoppable.

‘I did. Did it work?’ I reply, although I know how this goes. She won’t answer me. Instead, she’ll roll her eyes, smile at me and start making my drink.

She takes a beat, and then, like clockwork, she rolls her eyes and smiles at me, and starts making my drink. Hook, line, sinker.

‘I’m Marina,’ I say, leaning back.

‘Hi, Marina,’ the girl replies, ‘I’m Anna’ – she hands me my drink – ‘and I’m busy.’

This I find charming and, I’ll admit it, a little surprising. Imagine being busy doing something so uninspiring! I smirk at her.

‘Okay, Anna.’ I take a sip of my martini. ‘Well, when you’ve finished being busy, I’ll be here, and I’d like to get to know you.’ And then I retreat to my corner, and I wait.

She takes her time. I’ve turned my phone off and don’t look at my watch so that I can keep watching her, so I can’t tell how long it’s been exactly, but I’ve had Clive order me another, worse, drink from her slack-jawed colleague and the lights have come up by the time she finishes wiping down the bar. I watch her talk to the colleague, who steals a few last excited looks in my direction before slouching off through the kitchen, and then Anna pours herself a vodka and comes my way.

‘Hi again,’ she says. Her earlier bravado has dropped. She’s decided she’s going to reveal something of herself to me, I can tell. We’re the only two people left in the bar, except my security, who by now have basically blended into the furniture anyway.

I love this bit, when I get to really see how someone ticks. What can I say: I’m a people person.

‘Hi, Anna,’ I say, and I watch her eyes light up when her name comes out of my mouth. You should always call people by their names. It makes them feel special.

‘You know, I have an aunt called Anna,’ I continue. This is a lie, but I’m putting her at ease. Letting her feel like we have some common ground.

‘It’s a pretty popular name,’ she replies, and I smile.

‘Do you know who I am?’ I say then.

‘Doesn’t everyone?’ she replies, and there’s an electric playfulness to her tone. She looks towards my men by the door.

‘And even if I didn’t, your girl gang over there kind of give it away. You’re not a very subtle group.’

‘Well, if you know who I am, why did you keep me waiting so long?’

‘I told you – I was busy. And I don’t really care who you are, anyway.’ She fixes me with an expression that’s trying to be defiant, but there’s so obviously a smile underneath. It makes me laugh, this insistent coolness, which is a thrill. I don’t usually find other people funny.

‘If you don’t care who I am, then why are you talking to me?’

‘Oh, you know. For the story,’ she says, smirking. Ah, I think. So this is how she’s playing it. In this moment I know I’m going to sleep with her, and that everything that happens between now and then is foreplay. I raise my eyebrows at her.

‘You know I could sue you for that.’

‘I’m sure you could. It would probably ruin me, financially speaking.’

‘And personally?’

A pause. Her mouth twists into a smirk again. ‘Eh, I think I’d get over it.’

‘Well, I guess you’d better keep all this to yourself anyway.’

‘All what?’

I smile at her. It’s a brilliant smile. It’s actually award-winning: I won a Teen Choice Award for it in 2019. It involves turning the corners of my mouth up just a fraction and letting my eyes do the talking. On this occasion, they’re making it clear to her that I’m mentally undressing her.

‘Why don’t you come and sit next to me?’

As I knew she would, she gets up and slides her body next to mine in the booth.

‘So,’ I say, when I can feel the stiff fabric of her shirt against my bare arm, still glossy from the premiere, ‘you obviously know all about me already. What is there to learn about you?’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Whatever you think is worth me knowing.’

She pauses. ‘You know, you didn’t answer my question just now. What am I supposed to be keeping to myself?’

‘That’s true, I didn’t. Okay, we’ll play a game. You tell me something interesting, and I’ll give you something to keep secret. How does that sound?’

One thing you learn from making cinema is that most of sex happens before the actual sex. A man looks at a woman’s mouth and scans, slowly, up to her eyes. A woman bites her lip and presses her tongue against her two front teeth. Someone runs their fingers, delicately, up someone else’s thigh. Those moments are the best part of it, really. Those moments when you know you’ve got someone.

Anna presses her thigh against mine. ‘Okay,’ she says. She puts her glass to her lips. ‘Let’s play.’

Magic.

THE CAR

Anna and I continue our flirting until she says she needs to lock up, at which point I tell her I’ll be waiting for her outside with my car. There comes a point in every flirtation when someone needs to take decisive action. There’s a small frisson of electricity between us after I say it and she looks at me, meeting my gaze, and says okay. I let her fingers linger over mine as she gets up and heads over to the front door. By the time she’s headed back to the bar I’m already outside. My driver is parked exactly where I left him, in a dimly lit back alley. I lean against the blacked-out windows of the Mercedes door and wait, drumming my fingers on the metal in anticipation.

It’s gone midnight, but the air is dense and warm still, the night sky full of hazy clouds that have an orange almost-glow, embers of a once-hot day. There is nothing to suggest romance or desire or even sex about this night, except for what’s passed between me and Anna. Which is just the way I like all my trysts: secret and exclusive.

When she comes out of the door I see that she’s taken her hair down so it’s falling slightly over her face. She tucks it behind her ears and slings a large leather jacket over her shoulder, like she’s James Dean. Or cosplaying James Dean. I have to laugh.

‘What?’ she asks when she gets close to me. She has that defiant look in her eye again. It’s hot.

I roll my eyes at her, my laugh lingering on my mouth. She’s mere inches from my face now.

‘Just get in the car, Brando, before I remember all the reasons this is probably a bad idea,’ I say, and she obeys, but not before pressing me into the car door and kissing me, running her tongue over the edge of my front teeth and her free hand up my torso. A steady, delicious heat creeps up my neck. I wasn’t expecting her to make the first move. I’m taken aback: no one ever catches me off guard, and I have to say, it’s exhilarating. I return the kiss, opening the door behind me as I do, and we fall into the back seat.

HOTEL

The rest of the cast and crew are still out at the post-premiere party when we pull up to the hotel, so there’s no risk of bumping into anyone. Which is just as well, because I can’t keep my hands off this girl. I’ve forgotten all about the evening’s events; Jocelyn and Henry and that influencer are long gone from my mind. All I can think about is the urgency of her lips on mine. We sneak in through the back entrance and get into the service lift. As the doors close, I watch in the mirror as Anna’s hand pushes past layers of tulle to find the taut skin of my thigh before lifting it to wrap around her waist. Her lips are making their way from the backs of my ears to the nape of my neck. The diamonds in my earlobes glint in the soft lift light when she moves past them, nudging them out of the way. She has this smell that’s like vodka and lemons and sweat and jasmine. I can feel my hips tilting towards her, inviting her in, as she presses her legs into me. I think I actually groan when the lift pings to let us know we’ve reached the top floor.

The second we get into the suite we start pulling off our clothes as we move through it, clumsily and frenetically. I’ve done this on camera a thousand times, this stumble through the dark soundtracked by heavy, synchronized breathing. I always thought it was just artistic licence, an easy way for screenwriters to communicate desire. I didn’t think people actually did this. I’ve never felt this urgency before. I’m reaching for her shirt, but before I get there Anna is sliding off my dress and then my pants and then, suddenly, I’m standing in the middle of the room naked in my heels again. Déjà vu. For the first time in minutes, Anna speaks.

‘Fuck me, you’re hot,’ she whispers, and even though I know this is simply an objective fact, it still feels good – great, even – to hear those words coming from her mouth. I grin at her, a real one this time.

‘I know,’ I say back, and bend down to take off my heels. As I get up, I run my hands up and under her polycotton shirt, lifting it over her head as I stand to full height. I’m a fraction smaller than her without my shoes on, so that when she pulls me in by my waist and kisses me, biting my bottom lip gently as she does, I have to stand on my tiptoes. She leads me towards my own bed. It feels trite to say that everything has been building up to this moment, but it has, and I can tell she feels that same electric sense of relief that it’s arrived, because when we get there everything goes into perfect, harmonious overdrive. I turn on the lamp and she takes off her jeans and it’s like it’s one swift movement, our mouths finding each other the whole time. And then finally, finally, all of her skin is on mine, and the bones of her hips slot on top of my pelvis like they’re tailor-made for it. With her left hand she’s holding both of my wrists over my head, and with her right, she’s tracing the surface of my stomach, up and over my breasts, circling her fingers around my nipples and then back down my body until she slips them down between our hips.

She asks if it’s okay and I reply yes like it’s the only word I know. Our bodies are so close that it’s impossible to know whose sweat is whose. She releases my hands, and I pull her face down towards mine as she moves her fingers inside me, one and then the other, fucking me with the same exactness I was transfixed by at the bar. I move my hands down to her back so my fingernails are digging into her skin, enough that if I thought about it I’d know she’ll be left with ten half-mooned marks, but I’m not thinking. I’m just doing. My heart is jumping against my ribcage, so forceful I swear she can feel it. This is so good. This is so fucking good, and I say it out loud because I feel like I might die if I don’t, and she looks at me and in that moment I think I’d kill for her if she can keep making me feel like this.

SUNRISE

At some point the light from a milky, pink sun beams in through the gap in the curtains, illuminating her face like a spotlight. It’s even more interesting now that I’m looking at it up close, with full cheeks that are slightly pigmented and skin that looks dehydrated but glows with an early-twenties brightness nonetheless. She’s lineless, but still looks nothing like the surgically tweaked faces I’m used to. She has a face that looks like it’s from real life.

We’ve been talking and fooling around for hours by now. My instincts at the bar were right: Anna is unlike anyone I’ve ever met before. For starters, she doesn’t do anything. She works in the bar, she says, and she looks after some children, and she has no plans to do anything else. ‘Why would I?’ she says, with no trace of irony. She already has exactly what she wants from the world: to have a good time with people she likes. She knows a lot about a lot. She speaks with a kind of manic speed about all the things she’s interested in, with no discernible structure: she talks about Formula One in the same way she does French New Wave cinema, like she’s a kid who’s just found out about dinosaurs.

Lying next to her in bed as she talks, I can feel the energy coming off her like heat through a grate. She’s telling me a story about how she once made it all the way from London to Naples by train without paying for a single thing, simply by pretending that she had already bought a ticket, or charming old men into buying one for her. She says that by the time she reached Venice she was doing the same thing for another woman she’d met along the way, working several targets at once to get what she needed. As she speaks, I can’t help but think of Henry and the way he follows me around like an injured dog, about Jules and Jocelyn and all the mindless journalists I’ve ever met who expect so much from me, from the world, without a single independent thought. The contrast is startling. I guess what I’m trying to say is that she reminds me of myself.

‘I should go,’ she says, when the strip of light has morphed from pink to orange to a brilliant clear. She’s right: technically, she should go. I have a full day of Interspace obligations ahead of me. In fact, Jules will be knocking her limp knock on the door to this suite any moment now to wake me up.

‘I guess you should,’ I reply, examining her face carefully. The last time I slept with someone this way – randomly, with a total stranger – I couldn’t wait to be rid of them. I mean, to be honest, I rarely do it. Usually, the sex is average and the curiosity that led to it is totally killed by the reality of the person they turn out to be once it’s over. There was that musician in Sydney who called me Calypso when he came and then burst into unstoppable tears because Calypso is ‘technically a minor’. Then there was a couple I spent the night with in Paris who tried to get me to their apartment so I could take a selfie with their child before I left. Tacky. But this night with Anna... it’s been different. More intimate. I’m looking at her, the eyeliner smudged beneath her deep brown eyes and the soft round of her cheeks in the sunlight, and I don’t want her to go. I want to keep soaking her up.

And after a moment, I think, Why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I get just as much of her as I want? I’ve been lying here feeling in awe of this girl who takes what she wants from the world. For a second, I let myself forget that I do too.

‘I come back to London every now and then,’ I say to her then, letting my voice fill the space I’d opened up. ‘Give me your number, and I’ll let you know when I’m next here. I’d like to do this again.’ I reach for my personal phone and unlock it, passing it to her.

Anna meets my gaze and takes the phone. She hovers over the screen for a second before typing. ‘Sure,’ she says.

‘No harm, right?’ She hands my phone back to me as she says it, and I glimpse her full name on the screen until it locks again: Anna Young. Before I can say anything in response, she leaps out of bed with a suddenness that’s almost violent.

‘Are you leaving right this second?’ I ask, as she pulls on the jeans she left on the floor just a few hours ago, and there’s something strange in my voice as I say it.

‘All good things must come to an end,’ she replies, fiendishly, and then right on cue there’s a soft knock at the suite door. ‘Besides, sounds like you have company.’ Anna walks across the suite, grabbing the last of her possessions on her way through, and then opens the door to Jules, who is standing with her arm mid-air and her hand curled into a fist. I can’t see Anna’s face any more, but I watch the glimpse of understanding pass over Jules’s face as she registers the stranger standing in front of her. In a few moments, she’ll be asking me for Anna’s full name and how I met her and taking down the details the lawyers need for an NDA, and the magic of the past couple of hours will be well and truly broken.

Anna turns back to me once more before she goes. ‘Nice room, by the way,’ she says, looking at my painting over the dresser. ‘I like what you’ve done with the place.’ I know, then, that I won’t give Jules any of the details she’ll ask me for. Not yet. I feel certain that Anna recognizes the sacred quality of what’s passed between us; that she won’t go blabbing to the press. And anyway, I want to keep this girl all to myself.

I smile at her in response. She throws her jacket on and disappears into the dark of the hallway, and I lie back in bed and look at the ceiling, feeling vividly, unshakeably alive.

FANFORUM / MARINA

A subthread dedicated to the greatest actor of our generation, the one and only Marina

[post by intrepidturtle23] THROWBACK TIME: in honour of INTERSPACE press circuit coming to an end: what’s everyone’s favourite Marina interview?

personally I love this 2013 Actors on Actors – baby Marina! You can see it in her eyes how lucky she feels to be in the same space as Daniel Day-Lewis when she was still so young and fresh, it’s so pure <3 Love that line about finding a good part being like falling in love, she was so wise even then. Feel like she doesn’t show this type of vulnerability that much anymore, but we have this stuff to look back and know it’s still there. She’s always been such an inspiration.

[reply by mariniaaaaaaac] Miss those days when our queen would talk to the press more openly – obvi we understand why she keeps herself to herself these days, god knows she had her fair share of INTENSE media attention when she was younger. But you’re so right – love looking back on stuff like this. Personally I love watching the footage of her first post-Oscar win interview, it’s so raw lol >.< You just want to wrap her in cotton wool, she’s too precious for this world! You just know this is who she is to her core <3

DOING GOOD

I’m brought crashing back down to earth by the day that unfolds ahead of me. The morning’s schedule – gym, hair and makeup, photocall, press junket – feels punishingly dull, especially compared with the preceding few hours. Sitting next to Henry against a green screen erected in one of the hotel suites, hot studio lights burning through my make-up, my mind wanders to the crinkle on Anna’s nose when she laughed, and the tangle of her pink hair against the white pillows.

I’m concentrating so little on my recycled answers about how marvellous it is to work with female directors like Lucy Kissig that I nearly veer off course and start talking about the role I’m lining up for her. But then the memory of my stilted response to the question on stage last night stings me like a wasp, grounding me unpleasantly in the present moment. Come on, I tell myself, Siren Calling looming suddenly large in my mind. Don’t fuck this up for lack of focus.

After the junket, as I’m being driven to a lunch across town, my head is full of Siren Calling and all that needs to be done to get it firmed up. I’d hoped to be able to use the car journey to replay my night with Anna, but by the time I’ve collected my thoughts on the foundation I’ve already pulled up to the restaurant, waved to the flashing cameras we’ve summoned for the occasion, and walked under a bright blue awning into the mirrored belly of the restaurant inside. My lunch date is sitting directly ahead of me. Anna will have to wait.

‘So, Mimi,’ I say to the woman across from me once I’ve sat down. ‘Tell me. How’s everything going?’

Mimi Westenberg and I are a similar sort of age, both British, but that’s about where the similarities end. For one, I’ve been famous a lot longer than her. For another, Mimi is a model-turnedactress, and she makes TV shows for streaming networks. She’s not a serious actor, but once she’d been on air for a couple of seasons she garnered a hefty, committed fanbase I figured I might as well tap into. I offered myself to her as a mentor of sorts, a woman supporting women, an emotional guide through this tumultuous business. Plus, it makes me look good to have friends.

I lean in towards her, grabbing her hand like we’re about to share secrets. Mimi is a killer combination of extremely entitled and woefully dim, so she would never suspect that I use these sessions to keep tabs on her. That I stow the various vulnerabilities and misdemeanours she confesses to me away in a rainy-day arsenal for hungry journalists.

‘Oh, good, you know? Yeah, great actually, lots going on at the moment – I feel like I’ve barely stopped recently, it’s just been go, go, go – not that I’m complaining...’ she replies cheerily, and then she’s off.

Mimi talks as if she’s trying to exorcize something; cycling through words and conversations so quickly it can be difficult to know when one topic ends and the next begins. As our dishes arrive, she rattles through the musician she’s been casually dating, the showrunner she hates working with, all the partying she’s been doing lately, and the colonic she had recently that changed her life and that I really must try. By the time the plates are cleared, she’s on to philanthropy.

‘I think at this point in my career I’m just ready to start giving back,’ she says, eyes widening at the last two words. ‘I look at you and all the good work you do with those less blessed than us and I think, fuck, I should do that, you know? I should take what I’ve been given and find something important to channel it through. I mean, our world can be such a vicious place, particularly, you know, for women. Not everyone has it as easy as I’ve had it, and if I’m honest I feel a bit guilty about that sometimes, do you know what I mean?’

She doesn’t notice, but this is the first time all lunch I’ve paid any real attention to what she’s saying. She’s right, of course. I have already done a fair amount of charitable work. It’s par for the course if you want the public to adore you. But Siren Calling is really my first foray into philanthropy proper, and I don’t want Mimi stumbling around my territory. The tips of my ears burn slightly.

‘Go on?’ I say, nodding, my voice full of empathy, but I’m stiffening as I say it, steeling myself for the answer.

‘Well, I mean, I don’t know where I’d even begin just yet, but I’m thinking about women—’ As she says it, something twitches ever so slightly on the left side of my neck, a sharp twang like the snapping of a guitar string. It doesn’t hurt exactly, but my hand flies to massage the spot without thinking. I know, then, that I have to interfere. Mimi doesn’t have the clout, or frankly the cash, to start something like Siren Calling, but I can’t risk anyone derailing my plans; there’s no point bothering if I’m not the only player in the field. I have to throw her off the scent. I lean in close to her, grab her hand with both of mine again, and interrupt her.

‘Mimi, that’s really wonderful of you, and you’re so right. The world is a vicious place for women, and you’ve done so well to get to where you are today, particularly when you think of where you started.’ Mimi started by walking in Paris Fashion Week for a friend of her mother’s, but that’s not what I’m getting at.

I continue, radiating warmth, ‘I mean, forget Hollywood – you were in the trenches even before you made it to the screen! We all know the horrors of the modelling industry, how exploitative it is of young, beautiful girls’ – I squeeze her hand, lean in even closer, shake my head slightly. ‘But so many don’t, do they? They just go in completely blind to all that. I think it’s so admirable that you’d want to make things better for them. Really, I commend you.’

I watch as my words land, see the cogs turn in her head as she drinks in what I’m saying. I try to ignore the adrenaline spiking through my veins.

‘Yes, that’s exactly it, the models – I hadn’t even thought about it that way, but you’re totally right, it is so fucked up... I mean, the stuff I saw some of those girls go through...’ I loosen my grip on her hand, and sit back in my chair as she takes ownership of the idea I’ve fed her. I barely hear anything else she says, and get through the rest of the lunch on autopilot: I’ll need to hurry things along with Siren Calling the minute I’m free of Mimi. After we hug goodbye in front of the paparazzi and go our separate ways, I climb into the car and pull out my phone. I fire off an email summoning the lawyers to this side of the Atlantic, and then a few anonymous tips to a journalist about Mimi’s recent excessive partying, for good measure.

The uneasy threat of competition lingers. I ask the car to drop me off a couple of streets away so I can walk and clear my head. I’m bound to be stopped by some member of the public at least once, but I don’t care. I want to stamp Mimi right out of me, get back to reliving the sunkissed, dreamlike world of my early morning with Anna. Besides, it’s only a short way, and I can feel Clive’s steady presence ten steps behind me the entire time. As I walk, I sense a few phones pointing covertly in my direction, but no one actually disturbs me until a few feet from the hotel entrance. A nervous man with a small child on his shoulders bounds over to me and asks for a selfie.

‘Absolutely!’ I say in the honeyed voice I use for these sorts of encounters.

‘The little one’s a huge fan,’ he says by way of explanation. The ‘little one’ is indeed wearing a Protectors T-shirt, but I suspect by the globule of spit that formed at the dad’s mouth as he garbled out his request that this photo is more for him than his child. Regardless, I oblige and coo at the child, who has been placed down on the filthy pavement in preparation for our photo before I even ask what his name is.

The dad and I crouch down next to him, and I wrap my arm around the dad’s waist and pose for the camera. He’s so concerned with trying to make himself look good for the selfie – difficult; he’s somehow both scrawny and chinless – that he doesn’t notice my hand slip into his jacket pocket. With the lightest of finger work, I find his wallet and curl it into the palm of my hand. I have a collection of items like this lifted from these people the world over. Wallets, phones, children’s toys, house keys. I don’t think of it as stealing – more like an exchange of goods. They take from me, I take from them.

‘Have a lovely day!’ I say to the man as I pull away from him, like butter wouldn’t melt. He’s already locked into his phone, zooming into his own face in the picture. I go to hug the kid goodbye and tell him how sweet he is loud enough for the dad to hear, and then, much quieter, whisper, ‘Your dad’s a fucking loser’ into his tiny, unsuspecting ears. I get up and walk towards the hotel lobby quickly and don’t get to see the kid’s face crumple as he registers what I said. Even so, I feel a delightful, puckish thrill that soon gives way to something like serenity. Sometimes all you need is a spike of adrenaline to clear the mind.

I watch them walk away from behind the lobby’s tinted glass, running my thumb over the fraying edge of the wallet in my palm. When they’ve disappeared into the crowd, I slot the wallet into the zip pocket in my handbag, placing it right next to my Calypso hairpin. I’ve carried this around with me ever since I wrapped the film all those years ago. Not for sentimental reasons: but because it’s sharp enough to pierce straight through the flesh and spill a person’s blood with just one controlled flick of the wrist. After all, being famous can be very dangerous.

DOWN TIME

At eight o’clock the next morning I’m sitting at the table in my hotel suite, surrounded by the lawyers. They are updating me on the Siren Calling progress which, it transpires, is pathetic. I was right to feel nervous after that conversation with Mimi Westenberg. All of them are bleary-eyed, moving through their agendas very slowly, as if they haven’t had more than an entire eleven-hour flight to prepare for the meeting. I can feel myself getting more and more irate as they go on, fidgeting with their papers and not saying anything of use.

‘Can you just tell me plainly what the hold-up is?’ I say eventually, Mimi Westenberg’s trill voice saying women and give back on a loop in my head.

‘Well, there’s the charitable status thing, Marina,’ one of the suits says.

I look back at him blankly.

‘What we’re trying to say,’ he continues hesitantly, ‘is that Siren Calling in the format you’ve described... well, it doesn’t really class as a foundation.’ He shifts nervously in his chair. I spot a tiny bead of sweat forming at his left temple. When I say nothing, the woman to his right pipes up.

‘It’s more like a network,’ she says, her voice bright and peppy like she thinks she’s being helpful.

At this point, I’ve had enough. I slam my hands down on the table, more for effect than out of genuine rage. Sometimes you have to act like a man in a boardroom to remind these people who’s in charge.

‘Enough,’ I say, looking directly at the lawyer who’s just been speaking. I watch her glasses steam up ever so slightly as I train my eyes on hers.

‘This is your job. This is what I’m paying you all this money to do. Sort it out. I don’t want to hear another thing from any of you until it’s launching, as a charity, and you’ve got Lucy Kissig sitting on the board. Understood?’

They all start nodding their heads and gathering their papers together and pushing their glasses up their noses. Jules ushers them out and they scurry back to the airport. When they’re gone, I signal to her to leave me as well. With a whole commitment-free day ahead of me before we set off for LA ourselves later this evening, I can finally, uninterrupted, cast my mind back to the other night.

I have an excellent memory: forensic, really. Just as I did the night of the premiere, I take myself into the bathroom and draw a searing-hot bath. Once I’ve lowered myself in, I lie back, close my eyes and replay the whole evening like a tape. I spend most of the morning like that, thinking about Anna’s hands and the way she moved them over my body, the feel of her lips against my neck. It might be the lack of sleep and the stinging heat of the bathwater, but I feel lightheaded just at the thought of her touch, my memories lit with glorious technicolour. By the time the bubbles have disappeared and the water around me has become tepid, I’ve fucked her at least five more times in my head.

The thing is, I haven’t had sex like that in God knows how long. But I can tell it’s more than just sex. Even when I’m out of the bath and getting myself dressed and ready for the rest of the day, I can’t shift the image of Anna in my doorway out of my head, the shock of her pink hair against the dark of the corridor beyond her. She carried herself with such confidence, like she was so sure that she belonged there in that room with me, even though she was just... some random girl who works in a bar. I know that certainty. It’s what’s propelled me my entire career. It’s so rare to encounter it in someone else. The world is so full of watery, unsure people, desperate for approval or attention or love or glory. But not me. And not Anna, either.

I finally let myself think about how and when I might see her again as we pull up to the airport that evening. I’ve resisted looking at her entry in my contacts this whole time, wanting to wait until I’m back in the comfort of my own home with no one else around until I see her name shining back at me from my screen, but I’ve been patient enough. These last few minutes in the car feel like a special, delicious kind of torture. The driver pulls up on the runway, waves at the pilot, Frank, and unloads my bag so slowly that I feel sure he’s conspiring against me, and I almost snap then. But I hold on – I’m so good at delaying gratification when I want to be. The velvet seats of the plane are calling my name – calling Anna’s – beckoning me inside to plot my next move.

PART TWO

FOCUS

If I were to be honest in interviews about why I do what I do, why exactly I bother with things like Siren Calling and the sham relationship with Henry and being generous with my time to random people on the street, I would say something like this: I like the shield my reputation gives me. I can do literally anything I want.

‘I can’t stress enough how limitless your possibilities are when everybody loves you,’ I would say, and the interviewer would laugh at my brazenness.

‘Tell us more!’ they’d cry, eyes shining with greed, and I would launch into tales of how I luxuriate in being Marina, telling them about my glorious imagination and how I keep myself entertained by indulging it wholeheartedly.

‘My only rule,’ I would say, ‘is that whatever whimsical idea I have, I commit to it entirely. It’s good to dedicate yourself to something, and I like the satisfaction of following things through right to the end.’ And the interviewer would nod and urge me to give an example, and I would tell them about my current project, which has been on the go for over a year.

I’d been leafing through a script about a seventeenth-century Austrian princess when the idea came to me. The script was terrible, as most are, but as I was reading around the subject it became abundantly clear that those seventeenth-century royals really understood indulgence. I became somewhat fixated on the royal menageries in particular, that idea of keeping all these beautiful, rare creatures for your own personal folly. I closed Versailles and Schönbrunn to the public for a day or so to understand how they did it, and it wasn’t long before I was drawing up plans for a menagerie of my own in the grounds of my coastal home. I’ve shot two films on location and done three press tours since the idea first came into my head over a year ago, and each time I’ve come back from set, the zoo has been my sole focus.

This is all hypothetical, of course. I would never be honest in interviews. I’ve earned the right to say very little to anyone at all. In all the paperwork I make sure that the project is called the more acceptable zoo, because I know that animal rights activists would have something to say about a menagerie if they were ever to find out. There has to be some element of conservation underwriting it, just in case.

I arrive back in California to find that now, finally, the enclosures are all fitted, the staff quarters are nearly habitable and the palm trees I’ve had shipped in to shield the site from drone view have arrived ready to be planted. All I need now is an Amur leopard, which will be the jewel in the crown of the whole thing. Before I left for the Interspace press tour, I’d tracked down someone in Russia who can provide one and I’m now feverishly close to cinching the deal. The Amur leopard is a rare beast; there are fewer than a hundred of them left. They are solitary creatures, and especially smart predators, and their coats are so beautiful that people will pay any price to have a piece of them. I had to have one for myself.

All along, I’ve been planning to throw an exclusive, lavish party for what’s left of Hollywood’s uncancelled royalty to mark my zoo’s opening, as much to celebrate our collective longevity as to make sure I’m front of mind for the Academy as we go into awards season. Overseeing the planning of the party was supposed to be my task for when I got back from London. But here I am, so close to the finish line after all this time, and I’m bored. Restless. Distracted. I can barely concentrate on choosing which animals should go in which enclosure, let alone on reviewing the guest list.

Instead, I can’t stop thinking about Anna, her hands on mine and the sweet jasmine scent of her neck. I’m moving around the house in this sluggish, unintentional way, waking up too early and picking up my phone to look at Anna’s name in my contacts every twenty minutes or so.

I still haven’t messaged her, obviously: that would be too easy. No fun at all.

LOS ANGELES

In search of something to hold my attention, I find myself in a dire Hollywood club at Jenni Klein’s birthday party. This is the third party I’ve hopped around this evening – the first two were vampirically draining, but thankfully I remembered Jenni Klein. She’s been obsessed with me since we met when she joined Protectors for the third film. She always invites me to her parties, and even though I hardly ever say yes I actually don’t mind getting the invitation. Jenni’s not exactly talented or interesting but at least she doesn’t pretend to be otherwise. Frankly she makes up for it by throwing a good party and being very beautiful. She’s also, as I’ve learned the past couple of years, pretty good in bed, which is where I see this night ending up.

In this dank, windowless room, over the blaring EDM, I feel sticky with the sweat of strangers. The club is full of regular people who have paid to be here and are clearly elated to be brushing shoulders with the elite. At first I’m surprised she hasn’t hired the whole place, but Jenni loves being fawned over and clearly sees being wished happy birthday by a million perspiring people at once as a perk of being famous.

Jenni, ignorant of my discomfort, keeps throwing her arms around my neck and calling me her best friend to a throng of people I don’t care to know, who pretend politely to be able to hear her over the music. At one point, she cups her hand around my ear to whisper to me on the dance floor.

‘Do you mind that I didn’t invite Henry?’ Her breath is thick with tequila and I can see how blotchy her skin is underneath her foundation.

‘Of course I don’t,’ I tell her, because I know it’s exactly what she wants to hear. She knows I don’t mind. ‘I want you all to myself tonight.’ She kisses me on the cheek in glee, brushing her hand over my hair as she moves away.

The real party begins a couple of hours later, when the actual guest list move on to her place. We ride to Jenni’s in separate vehicles so as not to cause a commotion amongst the regular folk, which inevitably means that by the time we get there the crowd has dwindled, as the worse for wear have been taken home by their drivers.

Still, Jenni delivers despite the smaller crowd; her vast home is filled with huge, gawdy disco balls and dancers in elaborate outfits, and music pumps through the sound system. I’m successfully entertained, spending a relatively pleasant few hours sitting by the pool watching the sun come up over Los Angeles whilst Hollywood’s incumbent thirty under thirty share a communal platter of cocaine around me. The conversation is a variation on my lunch with Mimi Westenberg; a revolving door of insecurities dressed up like ego. Jenni brings me a margarita at some point, using the moment to slide onto my lap, and I let her, placing my hand casually on her bare thigh.

Some of the younger guests start talking about work, anxiously crowdsourcing opinions on how to avoid being typecast, and Jenni, wrapping her arms around my neck, says, ‘You guys should talk to Marina about this, honestly. She’s got this whole industry on lock. They’ll cast her in anything! She’s magic!’

A short girl I’ve never met before with an elfin haircut is sitting on the ground at my feet. At Jenni’s words, she propels her hand onto mine, the one that’s sitting on Jenni’s thigh. It feels clammy against my cool fingers. ‘Oh, my God, yes, please!’ she says, her jaw straining with each elongated vowel. ‘Marina, you’ve been around for, like, ever! You’re like a veteran. Teach us what you know!’

There’s a sharp pinch at the bridge of my nose as I hear the word veteran levelled at me, like she’s smacked me round the head. I turn my hand over and lace my fingers through this girl’s, lightly digging my nails into the back of her hand, and the pinch dissipates.

I smile at her icily and work my hand loose. ‘Maybe some other time,’ I say, and take a sip of my margarita before looking up at Jenni. ‘This is your party, J. You ought to be the centre of attention.’

Jenni squeals. ‘Yes! You’re right! No more shop talk.’ And she leaps up, grabbing the elfin girl by the hand and twirling her around. The other anxious actors get up too, and they weave back towards the music and the dance floor together, leaving me alone.

I lie back in my lounger to let the gentle heat from the new sun hit my face. Nothing wrong with experience, I tell myself, lifting my hand to my face to run my fingers over the perfectly smooth skin of my cheekbones. I’ll outlast her, anyway, I think, and then I find my phone from the bag next to me and look at Anna’s name in my contacts. Without thinking, I take a picture of my view, the pink-lilac sky over the Hollywood Hills, and send it to her.

Watching the sunrise again made me think of you.

She comes back instantly.

Who is this, sorry?

That makes me smile, all thoughts of my last conversation fading.

Take a guess. How many people do you know in LA?

Lol oooh. Hey.

Nice to hear from you

Hope ur journey back was ok

I feel a warm, pleasant shock, like a drizzle of hot honey or the crack of a whip, in the pit of my stomach to see her instant recognition of me, her pleasure at hearing from me. That’ll do for now, I think, and replace my phone on the lounger next to me. I’ll let her wait now.

At some point the dancers change clothes and breakfast is served and the vibe shifts to something more mellow. By the time the last people leave, it’s 8 p.m. the next evening. I crash out in Jenni’s guest bed for a few hours, and when I wake up, it’s just the two of us here.

We have some sleepy, easy sex that evening waiting for her doctor to bring us a pair of IV vitamin drips so we can speed up our recovery. Sleeping with Jenni is a meditative practice: the girl is so eager to please that I can just lie back and relax.

Marina Makes Rare Appearance at Los Angeles Nightclub to Celebrate Jenni Klein’s Birthday

The actress, 29, was seen letting her hair down with famous pals in the early hours of Saturday morning.

She’s just finished the press tour for Interspace and is already generating Oscar buzz for her performance. So Marina had lots to celebrate of her own when she joined the festivities for Protectors co-star and close friend Jenni Klein’s birthday.

The star was spotted dancing the night away by several fans at an exclusive Los Angeles nightclub and reportedly did not leave the venue until 3 a.m.

‘Completely freaking out to be on the same dance floor as MARINA!!’ one fan tweeted, sharing a picture of Marina and Jenni in close conversation.

The event was certainly a star-studded affair, with many of Jenni’s celeb friends out in force joining the festivities, but fans were surprised to see Marina, who famously strives for a quiet life in between her busy schedule, amongst the attendees.

‘Marina and Jenni looked absolutely STUNNING tonight, didn’t take any pics as wanted to respect their privacy <3 all I’ll say is Marina must love Jenni a LOT cos we all know our girl doesn’t love the club haha,’ said another Twitter user.

‘Two Marina sightings in as many weeks? We are BLESSED!! Love to see our girl getting in all this gal pal time as well,’ said another, referring to Marina’s recent catch-up lunch with fellow Brit actress Mimi Westenberg in London.

‘Marina and Jenni go back a long way, so she would want to celebrate Jen in whatever way Jen wanted,’ an insider said of Marina’s attendance. ‘It might not be her usual scene, but Marina will do anything for her friends!’ the source added.

Click through the gallery below to see all the pics of Marina’s rare night out.

DARLING

‘Can I ask what’s going on between us?’ Jenni’s voice reaches me from the other side of her bed. It’s morning, soft Californian light filtering through the blinds.

It’s been just over two weeks since my last night in London and I’ve spent most of that time here with Jenni. The more I sleep with her, the more I think about Anna and our night together. Jenni’s head could be between my thighs and her hands around my waist, but my mind is on Anna, on the idea of her cleaning glasses behind the bar and how it surely reminds her of me and my martini. Picturing her picturing me. I love seeing myself through other people’s eyes, tracing the web of golden thoughts that make up someone’s image of me.

‘Marina?’ Jenni’s voice again, piercing my reverie. I’ve already forgotten whatever she said to me a few moments ago.

‘Yes?’ I snap back at her. She’s started to irritate me the past day or so, following me around wherever I go, giggling, doing this staring-up-at-me-from-behind-her-hair thing that she obviously thinks is coy. For all her bravado and extravagant birthday parties, deep down she’s a doormat. I can never seem to shake her off and I always forget that that’s why I avoid saying yes to her parties. I’ve got to stop mistaking tolerance for fondness, I think, as Jenni’s big, imploring eyes burn a hole through my cheekbones.

‘I was just wondering – I mean, I’m down for whatever, you know, I’m casual, but I suppose I was wondering what you’re... looking for?’ She trails off, and her voice almost cracks as she speaks.

‘What do you mean, what I’m looking for? From what?’

‘You know, from me – us—’

From the corner of my eye I see her sit up in bed. She’s fidgeting with her hands, rubbing her right thumb against her left palm, her toes wiggling underneath her crossed legs. She’s nervous. Suddenly I sense this is a rather delicate situation. I ought to choose my next words carefully to make her understand.

‘Well, there isn’t an “us”, for starters.’

Jenni’s eyes flit over to mine, and I see her searching for something within them. I meet them with a blink.

‘I guess I just thought – with you staying here the past couple of weeks, and you seem to have had a good time with me...’

Poor Jenni, I think, watching her drop her head to look at her fidgeting hands. She’s as hopeless as the rest of them.

‘Jenni, darling,’ I reply, doing my best to inject my voice with a soothing quality that could pass for kindness, ‘this is nothing, just something to do for a little while.’ I reach over and run my fingers lightly through her hair. ‘We’re just passing the time, that’s all. But you know that, don’t you? Where’s all this coming from?’

She starts to say something in return but she’s so quiet that I have to bark at her to speak up, shattering the illusion of gentleness.

‘I just thought we liked each other,’ she says eventually. Fucking hell.

‘I think you’re mistaken,’ I reply coolly. ‘You like me. Perhaps that’s clouding your judgement.’

‘Oh.’

‘You mustn’t worry about it, darling,’ I say then, kindness in my voice again. ‘Everyone likes me. You’re certainly not the first to get confused about it.’

‘Right.’

I laugh.

‘Besides, what exactly did you think would possibly happen between us? I’m with Henry, remember?’

Jenni nods a small, downtrodden acknowledgement of my words.

‘Try not to ruin a good thing by thinking too much about it,’ I tell her. ‘This is exactly what I need right now, anyway.’ Then to close the conversation out I lift her face up by her chin and kiss her until she kisses me back.

WASTELAND

I hear a buzzing from the bottom of my Birkin as I’m trying to enjoy an afternoon by the pool. I retrieve the phone and squint down at the screen and see Jules’s name emerge through the glare of the sun beating down on it. I consider not answering it, but I’d welcome the distraction from Jenni, who has become increasingly morose since our conversation in bed the other day.

‘Jules, why are you calling me on this number? Has someone died?’ I say when I answer. I always speak to Jules on my work phone, which has been lying dormant, on airplane mode, ever since I got to Jenni’s.

‘Marina, I’m so sorry to disturb you, but we haven’t heard from you in a few days—’

‘With good reason, Jules. I’ve been taking a much-needed break from work after Interspace.’ I look over at Jenni doing sad, slow laps of her pool and the thought occurs to me that I need a break from her as well. Her wounded-puppy act is getting tiresome.

‘Of course, of course,’ Jules replies, the familiar pandering in her voice.

‘But, well, there are a few things I need you to sign off on before I go back to the lawyers – foundation stuff – and Graydon has sent through some options for Jocelyn’s replacement...’ Ah, Graydon, my agent/manager, who once represented a long list of Oscar winners and now works for me and me alone, making the easiest money in Hollywood. I rarely have the need for him these days. In fact, this is the first time he’s done any work in quite some time. He spends most of his time in Palm Springs buying drinks for muscle gays from Northern California with 20 per cent of my hard-earned money.

‘What’s he done that for?’ I ask. ‘We’ve got months until the next press tour, and I don’t need yet another person on my payroll draining my resources between now and then. Don’t I employ a team of people to take care of the press the rest of the time?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Well then. Tell Graydon to stop wasting my time and pause the search.’

I can almost hear Jules’s ferocious nod through the phone. ‘Anything else?’ I ask her.

‘Um... Lucy has sent over her expectations for the director’s fee for the foundation and I need to know if you’re okay with it?’

‘Of course I’m okay with it. Whatever it is, I told the lawyers to get it sorted. Just give her what she wants, Jules, I don’t care so long as I don’t have to deal with her myself.’

As I’m speaking, Jenni climbs out of the pool and looks over towards me, seeking my gaze just so she can look away again, injured, as she walks back inside. I roll my eyes and feel them ache when the light from the sun hits my pupils again. Suddenly, it strikes me just how fucking bored I am here, not just at Jenni’s but in LA, this endlessly sunny wasteland littered with the vain and vapid. Jules is droning on about something else now and I use the white noise of her voice to take the phone from my ear and look up my schedule for the next few weeks.

‘...and so I was wondering if you’d had a chance to take a look at it yet?’ I hear Jules say just as a decision clarifies in my mind.

‘At what?’ I reply, tuning back into the phone call.

‘The script – my script – I sent it to you last week, after we discussed it in London?’

I leave this hanging for a moment. Before Jules came to me, she’d recently graduated from film school. Periodically, she’ll talk to me about her aspirations, and now that she mentions it I do recall an unstimulating conversation about a script just before the premiere. In truth, I’d completely forgotten about it in the wake of everything that’s happened since – Jocelyn, Jenni... Anna.

‘So that’s why you called me on my personal number,’ I say, after a lengthy pause, and before she has a chance to respond, I continue. ‘Next time you want me to give up my free time to look over your passion project, you could at least have the courtesy not to hound me about it. I’ll look in my own good time, Jules.’

Jules sniffles down the line.

‘I’m sorry, Marina, and – thank you, for saying you’ll take a look, it really means so much to me—’

‘And speaking of London,’ I interrupt, ‘I’ve decided to head back there for a while. I’m suffocating out here. I need you to get the jet ready and pack some bags for me to leave tomorrow morning.’

Jules starts to ask questions like how long will you want to be away for and do you want to cancel your sessions with Magnus and will you want to attend that gala in London in September and finally am I coming with you. I brush all of them off except for her last question, to which I tell her no.

‘Don’t think this means you can slack off, Jules,’ I say, my voice ice sharp. ‘Just because I don’t want you hovering around me in London doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty for you to be getting on with here.’ I run through my mental checklist of everything I won’t be able to keep as close an eye on whilst in London. ‘You can keep a handle on the lawyers, for a start. And my zoo, Jules. It’s very important that I get my leopard. I want to welcome guests to the zoo in the autumn and I can’t very well do that without the star of the show.’

‘Of course—’

‘Don’t interrupt me, please, I’m not done yet,’ I say. I take a second to recall the last point on my mental list. ‘And Henry. Tell Anthony to let him know I’m away. Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid whilst I’m gone. And Jules?’

‘Yes?’

‘This is an important opportunity for you. I’m leaving certain things in your care – things that really matter to me. If you want me to read your work and take it seriously, I need to know that you take your duties to me seriously as well. Do you understand?’

I let the subtext of that linger for a second. I can practically feel her heart pounding through the phone. God, making her squirm is so satisfying that it’s actually worth relinquishing a modicum of control just to watch her try not to fuck it up.

‘Yes, one hundred per cent, I understand,’ she replies, and then adds, ‘thank you for the responsibility – I won’t let you down.’

I hang up the call and feel a renewed surge of energy as soon as I do. I allow myself to look at Anna’s entry in my contacts and welcome the now familiar electric thrill that accompanies it. By the time I walk back into her bar, it will have been three weeks exactly since our morning, and even I have to admit there’s a certain poetry to that. Three weeks and one tiny text exchange is more than enough time for Anna to have grown absolutely sick with longing for me. I draw a deep breath in and feel it filter through my body like molten gold, walk over to the pool, and take a perfectly aerodynamic dive into the water.

FANFORUM / MARINA

A subthread dedicated to the greatest actor of our generation, the one and only Marina

[post by malteeeezies] Marina sightings?

Hey guys, wanted to share that a friend of mine was in a club in LA the other night and saw Marina and Jenni in there! There were a bunch of other celebs there too but obviously Marina (and Jenni) were the highlight for her (she’s got good taste lol!) I was soooo jealous when she told me, like they’re my literal fave duo ever, I’ve got a tattoo of their Protectors! So crazy to see her outside of a promo period so thought it warranted a post. Also wanted to open up the floor for people to share their ‘meeting Marina’ stories ☺ have you ever met her? What was she like? I haven’t been so lucky yet but I did wave at her at a premiere once and I’m pretty sure she waved back! She looked so beautiful!

[reply by laidbackrat] I met Marina a few years ago at one of the 10 year anniversary Calypso screenings and she was amazing. SO kind and funny and sweet. I was doing my finals at the time and told her I was super nervous for my French exam and she gave me a hug and told me she’d be thinking of me and said ‘bonne chance’! Meant so much to me! Also she smelled incredible lol – like super clean and sexy at the same time??

[reply by purplelemonheads] OP, was Henry there too??

[reply by malteeeezies] Hey, checked in with my friend and no he wasn’t. just Marina!

[reply by whisperingwingsoO] That’s weird I swear Marina and Henry do everything together, do you think Jenni didn’t invite him?

[reply by marinaadmin_01] Hi – a reminder of the forum rules. NO speculation on Marina’s personal life in this space! There are other places you can do that like fanforum/marinatheories, but in this forum we just support her, share stories and reminisce on her amazing contribution to cinema. Please respect these rules!

THE BAR

Anna isn’t here and, okay, I’ll admit it, I’m disappointed. I had the whole thing planned out in my head: after arriving in London I’d go straight to the hotel, where I’d get changed into something visually arresting (done) and make my way immediately to Anna’s bar, plain-clothed security in tow (done). There, Anna would be exactly where I first met her, standing behind the counter. As soon as I walked in, she’d would look up from whatever she was doing and lock eyes with me across the room and give me that smile, her brown eyes glinting in the lamplight. And then I’d whisk her away to the best restaurant in London – which I’ve already booked out entirely, obviously – and she’d tell me all kinds of stories to entertain me. It’s just the sort of fun I’ve been craving; it was supposed to be perfect. Only she isn’t here. So now I’m just sitting, waiting.

Perhaps it’s the time of day. It’s still light outside, though only just; a dull pink already creeping across the sky from the west. But I didn’t get here until at least a couple hours later last time. Maybe she doesn’t start until 10 p.m. Maybe she won’t be arriving at all – maybe this isn’t her regular shift at all. She could have been fired, or quit, for all I know. God, look at me, thinking about shift patterns. Unthinkable.

I’m nervous. My leg is jittering, shaking the table so much that the water in my glass has its own tidal movement to it, and as I stare down at it I’m rudely reminded of Jenni and the ripples she charted through her pool. If it weren’t for her and how desperately annoying she was being I might have planned this out better. Fucking Jenni, I think.

‘You look pissed off,’ a voice says from above.

I look up and there she is: Anna, her hair a fresher, brighter pink than the time I saw her. Standing in front of me.

‘Anna,’ I say, and my face betrays my usual composure by breaking into a smile. ‘Hi.’

Anna whips out her notepad. It’s then that I notice the ring on her left hand: a carved silver snake writhing up her middle finger. Briefly, I think of my zoo.

‘What can I get for you?’ she asks, and I’m charmed by this charade of hers – I’m certain this place is bar service only. She wants to speak to me.

I arch my right eyebrow and look directly at her.

‘What, no foreplay? Aren’t you supposed to warm your customers up a little first before taking their order?’

She hovers her pencil over the notepad and lifts her eyes to meet mine. The snake on her hand glimmers in the lamplight.

‘Do you need warming up?’

‘Well, it wouldn’t go amiss,’ I say, holding her gaze, and for a moment the image of our bodies moving together flashes in her pupils. ‘Anyway, I’m not really interested in what you can get for me here.’

‘You don’t want to order anything?’

I smile at her. Shake my head.

She moves to put her notepad away and our eye contact breaks.

‘Okay. Well, if you change your mind, I or one of my colleagues will be over to take your order.’ This again, I think. Making me work for it.

‘I don’t want anyone else to come over here,’ I say in return before she has a chance to move away. ‘I told you I wanted to see you again, so I’m here. Seeing you again.’

‘Oh.’ A tiny furrow forms between her eyebrows as she says this. I’ve surprised her, clearly.

‘I wanted to invite you to dinner this evening, but’ – I lift my wrist to look at my watch: it’s just before 9 p.m. ‘It’s a little late for that now.’ Of course, there’s nothing wrong with a European dinner sitting, but she ought to remember who has the power here. ‘But if you’re around tomorrow,’ I continue, ‘I’ll still consider it.’

For a second it looks as if she’s actually weighing up her availability, as if there’s anything usual about this invitation, as if she doesn’t know how lucky she is to have been asked at all, and then she says, ‘Urm, yeah, okay. I can make tomorrow work.’ She looks at me then, cocking her head to one side with the slightest hint of amusement – flirtation, surely – coming through her poker face. ‘You have my number, right? Just text me the details.’

I stand up. Silently, Clive and the others dotted around the bar stand up too. Anna and I are face to face now.

‘Wonderful,’ I say, and then I brush past her towards the exit. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Anna.’

It takes until I’m back at the car for my heart rate to go down again. I hadn’t even noticed it was up.

DINNER

Honestly, this is going exactly as I planned. The restaurant is totally empty, except for my security who are stationed, as ever, at the bar and by the locked door, and it’s just me and Anna, dimly lit by the soft orbs of candlelight in every corner of the room. The menu, which I called ahead to dictate this morning, is just right. We start with oysters (because I want her to watch my mouth as I eat them), followed by langoustines and a perfectly bloody hand-cut steak tartare. The kitchen brings us a series of sculptural masterpieces-in-miniature between courses, tokens of appreciation from the chef: bluefin tuna, caviar, morels, each more delicate than the last. I’m wearing a tiny skirt that shows off my bronzed legs, and a shirt that’s just the right amount of sheer. My hair, loosely held together by my Calypso pin, is tumbling artfully over my face so I have to tuck it delicately behind my ears every now and then. Effortless; brilliant.

‘Do you mean does anyone know I’m here?’ I ask, in response to a question about how my journey back to London was when we’re on the bluefin tuna, waiting for the langoustines. ‘Well, you know, these days it’s de rigueur to lament the intrusion that comes with this kind of work. Everyone pretends they’ve made some sort of Faustian pact for their privacy in exchange for global fame’ – I roll my eyes dramatically, leaning in towards her, as if my own global fame is totally inconsequential to me – ‘but it’s not like that at all. I mean, not for me, anyway.’

Anna cocks her head, intrigued. ‘Is that so?’ There’s a whisper of a smile on her lips as she says it. She crosses her arms, left in front of right, and the same silver snake ring she was wearing yesterday winks at me in the candlelight.

‘Of course,’ I say, and I take a sip of wine before continuing. ‘It’s all about how you play it, really.’

‘You sound like you’re giving an interview,’ Anna replies, and I laugh, momentarily taken aback.

‘You haven’t read a lot of my interviews, in that case,’ I say in return. ‘I’m never this open with journalists.’

Even though we’re joking around, I decide to pivot the conversation away from this topic. Anna doesn’t need to know all the ways I hide in plain sight when I want to, and everything it took to get me to a position where I can.

In the early days, I could barely move for someone with a camera wanting their pound of flesh. That was an unpleasant wave to ride out, obviously. But the point is, I did ride it out. The trick – and this is where so many of my peers fall down – is never to speak on it yourself. You should never give the public any reason at all to think you’re ungrateful for your lot, because they are fickle. Place some well-timed stories about threats to your safety and stay quiet, and eventually you get to be where I am: only seen when I want to be.

No, Anna doesn’t need to know any of that. All she needs to know is that right now, I want to be seen by her.

‘Shall we stop talking about how famous I am and focus on you?’ I say with an exaggerated wink, letting her know I’m in on her joke. ‘The floor is yours.’ I gesture in front of me and lean back in my chair to let her talk.

As the meal progresses, Anna rises to the challenge. She couldn’t have known, but my real motivation for seeing her this evening – the reason I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her – was to gauge whether she was really as interesting to me as I suspected that first night, or if she’d turn out to be another Jenni: boring, needy. And as it turns out, she is beguiling. As we eat our steak tartare she’s talking and talking and talking, and I’m hanging on her every word because, God, she looks so good doing it. She moves her hands around when she talks even when she’s holding her wine glass, so there are splashes of burgundy on the concrete floor all around her seat like a sacrificial circle.

While we’re waiting for dessert – a lemon vodka sorbet, a nod to Anna’s drink of choice – she’s telling me what she likes doing for fun. She pulls out her phone to show me some of her photographs, which she takes in a loose, non-committal way, working with a film camera some uncle left her after he died.

‘Mostly it’s just pictures of my friends in nice places,’ she says as she scrolls through an album of vaguely ethereal-looking images, groups of limbs foregrounded against anonymous seas. The people in the photographs don’t look like anything special, but there are a few close-up images of hands intertwined in dappled light that trigger a strange, hot pang in the back of my head. The pang lurches all the way down to my stomach.

‘These are really good,’ I say, surprising myself when I realize I mean it.

‘Yeah, thanks, I’m pleased with them,’ Anna replies, not looking away from the heat of my gaze. This evening’s full of surprises, it seems.

‘You should exhibit them somewhere. Have you been to New York? I know a gallerist there who’d be very interested in these.’

‘Oh... no, I don’t really want that, I mean – these are just for me, you know?’ She puts her phone back down and looks up at me. ‘Thanks, though. That’s nice of you to offer.’

‘Of course,’ I smile back, and stretch my legs out under the table to find her ankle with my foot. ‘I’m happy to help. I’m very passionate about undiscovered talent.’ Anna flushes and scrunches her face up so that a small crinkle forms in her nose. Sweet, I think. I signal to the waiter to bring us some more wine for her to spill on the floor.

*

After dinner I decide to take her to a party on the top floor of The Standard hotel, partly because I’m sure she’ll be seduced by its opulence, but also because I like the thought of her watching me work the room, oozing power and charm like molasses. Making everyone sticky with it.

The host, Isaac, is the son of an oil tycoon who is as ferociously untalented as he is well connected. I’ve sort of known him for years but rarely accept his invitations, so when we step out of the red bullet lift a flash of genuine astonishment moves across his face before he fixes his expression to something closer to ecstasy and comes rushing over to greet us. His hair, which he’s grown out so it’s long and flowing, billows behind him as he moves towards us, and I think, generously, that he looks almost elegant. I must be feeling romantic.

‘Marina, what a treat to have you here!’ Isaac greets everyone like an elderly woman greeting her long-lost grandchild: over-familiar, oddly talc-y. He kisses both my cheeks and then turns to Anna, as if to examine her. I can feel my goodwill towards him draining.

‘This is Anna,’ I tell him, smiling, and then, to cut short his examining: ‘We met in a bar the other night, didn’t we?’

‘Yes,’ Anna says, offering her cheeks to Isaac for kisses too. ‘Well, I work at a bar, and Marina was there for a while, so we ended up... talking.’

‘How fun!’ Isaac says. It’s unclear whether he’s referring to Anna’s choice of career or our meet cute, but I can already see the cogs turning in his head, wondering what the Marina could be doing with someone who works in a bar. Anna makes a strange sort of agreeing noise in response and then asks him about himself, which I take as my cue to excuse myself and head to the terrace to make my rounds with the smokers and people on uppers needing some fresh air. I make sure to brush past Anna as I walk off, letting my hands graze the small of her back so she thinks about me after I’m gone.

The terrace is high enough that you can’t hear any of the traffic from the main road below, and with the doors closed you can no longer hear the music from inside either. The air is hot and still, and the whole scene is rudderless, with the artificiality and expensive tension of a film set. I sit down next to a woman in archive Versace, perfectly positioned so I can see Anna through the glass. She’s still talking to Isaac, poor thing, but a model has joined them now too. The model is blocking Anna’s sight line to me, which sends a rush of irritation, like a caustic burn, up my spine.

‘They haven’t evolved that much, then,’ I say out loud to no one in particular, although the woman in Versace clearly thinks I’m talking to her. Her face is familiar to me, although I can’t tell why.

‘I’m sorry?’ she says, looking at me with a smile that doesn’t quite mask the question in her eyes. She’s nervous of me, I can tell. She thinks she’s missed something important in what I’ve said.

‘Isaac’s parties,’ I reply. ‘They’re still full of models he’s trying to fuck even if he has graduated to a better venue.’

The woman laughs a short, breathy laugh and says, ‘Oh, I don’t think Isaac wants to fuck me – at least, I don’t think that’s why I’m here—’

I realize now that the reason I recognize her is that she, too, is a model, albeit much more successful than the one Anna is stuck talking to: Alexis Shahdi, who was on the cover of Vogue the issue before mine this spring.

‘Oh, no, darling, of course not, but you know – everyone wants to fuck you at the moment, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did too,’ I say and give her one of my most sparkling looks, holding her eye contact a nanosecond too long, forcing her to look away.

Alexis relaxes and starts saying something about how wonderful it is to finally meet me, what a huge fan she is, etc. Over her shoulder, Anna is leaning in towards the model inside, cupping her hand around her ear so she can speak into it better, which stirs something primal in the pit of my stomach. It’s time to head back inside. I reply something generic to Alexis and stand up. I can sense she’s eager to firm up our interaction, so I ask her to light me a cigarette, and thank her effusively when she obliges. Her pupils dilate just a little when I do. Sometimes it’s so easy to know when you’ve got someone. I take a second look at her like that and think that in another universe, on a different night, I might have taken her home this evening. She really is very beautiful, almost extraterrestrial, huge gumball eyes atop diamond-sharp cheekbones.

I make my way back into the fray, still watching Anna and the model, and Isaac, who is standing there staring hungrily at the model. I have to move through lots of bodies to get to them – they haven’t budged from their spot by the door – and by the time I do I’ve smoked nearly all of Alexis’s cigarette. (The trick with smoking indoors is simply to do it.) None of them see or hear me approach.

The model is standing in between me and Anna and, given the volume of the music, there’s no point in asking her to move. Her arms are bare, so I take a last drag on the cigarette and then press it lightly into her sinewy tricep, just enough so that the tip of it burns a bluish orange before extinguishing, causing ash to skim over her elbow. I drop the cigarette and watch a tiny, lurid pink mark start to bloom on her arm. She jumps, offering me a perfect gap in the circle.

‘What the fuck?!’ I half-hear her say, but no one cares enough to stop their conversation. They barely register as she throws her drink onto her arm. There are candles everywhere; so many open flames. She should have been more careful. In the hubbub, I turn to Anna, fixing my eyes on hers and gesturing to the door: Shall we go?

GAME

‘I actually think I need to go,’ Anna says after we’ve spent a few dizzying minutes kissing against my car in an alley like teenagers. Again. This is becoming a habit of ours.

‘Really?’ I say, although I can barely hear myself say it because my face is nestled into her neck.

‘Really,’ Anna replies, and as she does she pulls her body away from mine, extricating her hand from my hair. Fuck. She’s being serious.

‘What, do you have a better offer elsewhere?’

‘Something like that,’ she says, and even though she’s just playing hard to get, surely, a small flame of jealousy leaps from the pit of my stomach to the tips of my fingers, making them pull her back in towards me. When I can feel the bones of her hips against mine, the flame extinguishes.

‘I don’t believe that,’ I whisper, and kiss her again. I’m sure I can feel her smile as I do.

‘This was fun, though,’ she says, stepping away this time. So she really is leaving. Behind my indignation, I’m impressed. I mean, I’ve been irresistible. She’s got a stronger will than I anticipated.

‘It was.’ I let go of her hand, tracing the silver snake on her middle finger as I do. ‘Good ring,’ I add.

‘Thanks for dinner and everything,’ she says, ignoring my compliment, but giving me a look which makes me feel pleasantly light-headed.

‘You’re welcome, Anna,’ I say, turning back towards the door of my car, the movement of my silk shirt cutting through the thick, heady air between us.

By the time I’m in the car, Anna has already started walking away. I roll down my window.

‘See you around,’ I call out to her, my voice carrying across the space between us, making her turn back around to face me. Rather than saying anything in reply, she just looks at me with a smile that’s somehow soft and fierce at the same time; barely moving her lips but setting her eyes alight. It’s as if she’s giving my own award-winning smile a run for its money. Our eyes meet for a second and then she turns on her heel, her head a blur of pink as she does, and walks on.

It’s funny. In all the times I’ve done this rigmarole I’ve never once been the one to chase. I’ve never had to; everyone always offers themselves up to me on a silver platter. It’s so boring. Watching Anna walk away, the heat from her gaze lingering on my face, it feels like she really gets that. Gets me. She’s determined to make this interesting for me.

I think back to that first night we met, when she locked her eyes on mine in the booth and said those two words: Let’s play. They circle my mind now as we drive away. In this light, they read like an invitation. An incantation.

Fuck it.

Why not?

Let’s play.

FANFORUM / MARINATHEORIES

A subthread dedicated to fan theories related to Marina

[post by whisperingwingsoO] what’s up with Marina and Jenni??

Hey guys – long time lurker first time poster here, I spend more time over on fanforum/marina but there are pretty strict rules on what u can post about there. No speculation!! Boring!!! Lol. So anyway, I was just looking at old interviews and stuff with Marina and Jenni Klein from the Protectors days and it got me wondering about the two of them. I swear there was a rumour about them back then but I literally can’t see any evidence of it anywhere so maybe I imagined it lol? Just wondered what the general consensus was on those two now that it’s been a few years. Did something happen between them???

[reply by marinni456] OMG first of all welcoooome, happy to have you here!! Second of all sooo glad you brought this up, any excuse to dive down the Marinni rabbit hole ;) in my opinion YESSS something definitely happened between the two of them, you can tell by the way Jenni looks at Marina in all those promo vids she’s like 1000% in love with her lol. I mean everyone is obvs cos marina is an actual heaven sent angel but Jenni looks at her with such palpable sapphic vibes, you can see it here at 04:56 – when Marina jokes about their costumes. also like you know about Jenni’s tattoo right?? the pin on her left ribcage??

[reply by astrobramble32] lollll whisperingwingsoO there’s a reason there’s no evidence of this rumour – it’s because it’s NOT TRUE! Marina was falling in love with Henry Easton the whole time she was filming Protectors. that’s like concrete fact. Also marinni456 Jenni’s tattoo is a needle and THREAD because her grandma was a seamstress she literally said that in an interview once – nothing to do with calypso

[reply by whisperingwingsoO] yeah I knew that about Henry and the timeline I was just curious I guess. Couldn’t Jenni have been into marina but not the other way round?

[reply by astrobramble32] I’m pretty sure Marina wouldn’t still be friends with Jenni if that were the case

[reply by marinni456] no offence astrobramble32 but you have obviously never been a lesbian in love.

PLANS

The morning after our dinner I spring into action with a drive I haven’t felt for years. God, I feel alive. I went to bed practically vibrating, completely wired from strategizing. I could never understand people who are satisfied with leaving victory up to chance. I love a good strategy game. And this one Anna’s kickstarted, this romantic cat and mouse, well. It could be one of the greats. It’s like she could sense I needed some fun. Thinking about our kiss the night before, I feel again that we’re beautifully, effortlessly in sync.

Clearly, I’m going to need to be here for quite some time, which means I’ve got to find somewhere more permanent to use as a base. I’d rather not be bothered by the hotel staff. I reach for my phone and compose a text to Graydon. This isn’t the sort of task I could entrust to Jules. For all Graydon’s uselessness, he does at least have a decent idea of what’s worth spending money on.

Graydon I need your people to find me a house in London

Just a rental I don’t want to have to deal with the paperwork for a sale

I need it asap

I get a reply instantly. It’s 2 a.m. in Palm Springs.

Marina YES we will get u simthng fabulous. George will reach out to London office and get it sorte.d

Where in ldnon do you want?

I’m mildly vexed by his drunken typos but he raises a good point. I hadn’t even thought about where would be suitable yet. I entertain deliberating it for a second but there really is only one appropriate answer. I open Instagram and type Anna’s name into the search bar. I haven’t looked at her online presence yet and it feels illicit to do so now, randomly, without any particular forward planning or ceremony. I’m disappointed to see that she’s private and all I can see of her is a pink blur. Whatever. I’ll come back to that. For now, I copy the link to her profile and send it over to Graydon.

Somewhere nice near her

His little dots come and go on the screen.

Haha anything more to go on?

I don’t bother to reply. Instead, I call down to room service for a plate of fresh fruit and egg whites. Whilst I wait I pull up my emails and scroll through the various missives I’ve been ignoring since I got to London. There’s one from Jules, with the subject line Thank you!

Hi Marina,

Hope you’re settling in nicely in London. Frank said the journey over was pretty smooth. He also said he’d clear his schedule for the rest of the summer as I know we don’t know when you want to come back just yet, so let me know when you’ve made a decision and Frank can bring the jet to take you home whenever. As we discussed over the phone I’ve attached my screenplay for you to read if and when you get the chance – I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you’d even consider looking, let alone giving me your opinion on it! Thank you so, so much. I’ve also attached the treatment – I’d love to know if you think the script does a good enough job of pulling it all together... I know you’re an expert at these things.

And just to confirm I’ve gone ahead and cancelled all your plans in LA for the next couple of months, but let me know if you want to pick any of them back up again and I’ll arrange.

Thanks again,

Jules

She’s got some nerve. Jules’s screenplay is called The Sun on the Plains which instantly makes me want to hurl my phone at the wall. And she hasn’t even mentioned the one thing I actually asked of her when I left LA. I craft a reply.

Jules

No one will want to look at anything called The Sun on the Plains. It’s not 1993. Send it back to me when you’ve thought of a better title.

In the meantime I need you to remind me of the address of our research assistant. Pls put me in touch with him asap. Graydon may already have reached out for a related job I’ve given him so if you are struggling please do not come to me with questions. Direct them to him.

I’m disappointed that you don’t seem to have taken my words on board re: zoo. Seeing as you haven’t updated me on the leopard, I am choosing to believe it is all on track with the Russian. I hope I won’t be let down.

M

There are some others in there: a couple from the lawyers about the foundation, one from Lucy Kissig, one from Jenni with no subject. Lucy’s thanking me for the opportunity to join the Siren Calling board, which saves me having to open the lawyers’ emails because she wouldn’t be thanking me if things weren’t all ironed out.

I ignore Jenni’s email, although seeing her name there does remind me of what she said about me at her birthday. She was right, I think as I wait for my breakfast to arrive. I really can play anything, and I’ve taken care to ensure everybody knows that, right from the start. Calypso could so easily have been written off as an inspired casting decision, simply the right fit for a brilliant director’s vision for his young heroine. I always knew that if I was to be recognized for the talent and presence I genuinely was, I needed to shine whatever the size of the role. My second-ever job, the one that cemented my place in the industry, was this stunted supporting role, the troubled granddaughter of a man suddenly lumped with shepherding her into adulthood.

Of course, the film was primarily about the old man and what he learned about masculinity through the process. My character was just a teenage girl-shaped vessel for the protagonist’s personal growth. But I ended up being the only part of the film people remembered. In the press junkets I would get asked constantly how I prepared for such an emotionally demanding role, and each time I would trot out an answer about approaching it with a delicate sense of empathy and doing as much research as possible. All the while my eyes and my voice would betray that I understood just how heavy the mantle of representation of these difficult experiences was, that I took my role seriously.

That wasn’t necessarily a lie. I do undertake a lot of research for every role I play. I spoke to countless sad, lonely people – not hard to do, given that most people are sad and lonely – and scrutinized how they held themselves, how they walked and talked and related to other people. This was back when the internet was in the vice grip of personal blogging and I would spend hours and hours trawling through woeful declarations of sadness by girls my age: I’ll never get a boyfriend; I feel so alone at my school; I’m in love with my best friend; I need to lose a stone like now, I’m disgusted with myself. I’d file away the different notes of despair and anguish and figure out how to make my eyes communicate the same thing in front of a camera. It worked wonders, of course.

As the bell rings, signalling the arrival of my breakfast, it occurs to me that I should apply the same strategy to my present situation with Anna. There’s an art to research, and Anna’s unusual, sure, but she’s not that special. Really, she’s just another character to crack.

HOUSE CALL

By mid-morning, Jules has shared the address I asked her for, together with an update on the leopard (no joy). I’m too excited about getting started on my research to bother about that just yet, so I let it slide for now. Instead, as soon as I’m showered, I grab an ugly, utilitarian backpack I fold into all my luggage in case of just these sorts of occasions, tell Clive I’m going to work out and head down to the hotel gym. Once there and quite alone, I change out of my expensive workout gear and put on some high-street leggings, a drab, bobbly fleece, and a pair of cheap flip-flops. I face myself in the mirror and wince at the reflection, but carry on, reaching into the backpack for my wig – expertly cut to look like an overgrown short crop – an unbranded cap, some supermarket sunglasses.

It always feels blasphemous doing this: transforming myself into someone plain. Of course, it’s not as easy as throwing on a wig and a hat and calling it a day. If you really want to disappear into the crowd, you have to move like them. Normal people walk differently. They slouch, backs bent out of shape from years of desk work and not enough exercise. And they’re so tense: whether sad or angry or anxious, it’s all the same, they all hold their shoulders like they’re propping up whole buildings. It’s what caught my eye about Anna in the first place – the strong, confident way she held herself. In front of the mirror, I alter my posture, sticking my head out in front of my neck and rounding my shoulders and protruding my pelvis so I can shuffle despondently down the street like the weary woman I’m pretending to be.

I don’t like seeing my reflection like this, with all its shine rubbed off. But I take the lift up to the lobby and walk to the exit with my backpack hanging precariously off my right shoulder, looking down at my phone, and no one on the front desk even looks up from their computers. When I get out on the street, I slip seamlessly into a group of shoppers making their way towards the Tube. It feels illicit, being this anonymous, which makes my discomfort with my reflection worth it. Besides, I might as well get used to it. Me and this wig are going to be spending a lot of time together over the next few days.

I’m making my way to the address Jules sent, the home of a repugnant man called Charles. Charles is a private investigator. He worked at a string of ratty tabloids in the ’90s – peak phone-hacking era – so it wasn’t exactly a huge leap from that to PI. He knows all the tricks of the trade and, being entirely morally bankrupt, is more than happy to farm them out to just about anyone for the right fee. I don’t particularly enjoy paying him a visit – not least because he lives in a depressing new-build in one of the more oppressive London commuter towns. But he does have his uses.

Still in the slipstream of shoppers and tourists, I descend into the Underground station and board a Tube going in the general direction of Charles’s town, trying to ignore the stale air of the morning commuters. Because of the time of day – no longer rush hour, not quite lunchtime – once we move through the central stations my carriage thins out almost entirely. By the time we reach the residential area on the edge of Zone 3 I’ve selected as my first stop, I’m the only one still in it. I’m feeling so pleased with myself that I almost strut off through the station before remembering who I’m supposed to be. When I get out in the fresh air again, I’m faced with row upon row of neat, 1930s terraces, a far cry from the graceful crescents of the city centre. Once again, I’m the only person here. I walk the streets a while, taking it all in. Assessing my options.

I’ve picked up a lot of skills from my work. I absorb something new from every role I play – and by now, there have been a lot of them. I know how to speak French; how to play Lizst’s ‘La Campanella’ flawlessly on the piano; how to bring a knife to a gunfight and actually make it work. I also know how to break into a car, which is ludicrously easy if you have the right tools: and of course I do, in this ugly-as-sin backpack. There are scores of cars, and whilst I could take the easy route and use a fob to clone the key for any one of them, I feel like going analogue. I scan for all the cars that look like they’re used to cart multiple children to and from school and doctors’ appointments and play dates. In my experience the people who drive these vehicles are prime car-theft targets: often too stressed to be truly organised, always leaving the spare key in the glovebox it arrived in rather than bringing it into the house where it might actually be of some use.

I settle on a teal six-seater littered with unidentifiable crumbs and a school tie strewn on the back seat. I pull the pump wedge from my backpack, an item that looks too ridiculous to be capable of anything so devious as grand theft auto. But then again, I’m only borrowing this car. Gleefully, I slide the wedge into the car door and pump until it springs open and I can slide in and search the glovebox. Not that it was in question, but I chose my victim perfectly, and the key is sitting in there next to a crumpled packet of cigarettes and some deodorant. People are so predictable. It’s not long before I’m zooming even further into suburbia, watching the streets get more tree-lined and the houses further apart the closer I get to Charles’s. I beam with self-satisfaction the whole drive. I’m so much more than a pretty face, I think as I go, fingers tapping merrily on the steering wheel. It’s a shame no one will ever know just how much I’m capable of. But then again, I counter, it pays to keep things for myself.

By the time I pull into Charles’s driveway and remember the slimy sewer rat I’m here to see, the sheen of my morning’s success has somewhat worn off. I park next to a matte-black sports car that definitely wasn’t there the last time I was here. He’s already waiting at his front door for me, as I suspected he would be, so he can watch as I de-wig in the wing mirror. Pervert.

‘Marina!’ he exclaims as I walk towards him, gravel crunching unpleasantly through my flip-flops. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure of a home visit?’

I roll my eyes.

‘You already know why I’m here, Charles,’ I say when I reach him. ‘I know my agent’s been in touch.’

He chuckles – a grating habit – and leans in to give me a kiss on the cheek, which I dodge, crossing my arms over my body instead. As if. Nodding at the matte-black monstrosity on the driveway, I say, ‘Business has been good, I take it.’

‘Technically, you bought me that,’ he replies, with a filthy, wheezing laugh and a wink that should count as a sexual offence. ‘Got her after the last time I came to your rescue.’ He’s referring to some old files he excavated for me a couple of years ago, stuff the press couldn’t print that helped me build a portrait of a politician I was playing in a biopic.

‘Please, Charles,’ I say, rolling my eyes again, ‘I didn’t need you to rescue anything then, and I certainly don’t now.’

He laughs again for no discernible reason, and swings open the front door, beckoning me inside. We walk straight to the living room, all black leather sofas and cabinets of trophies from his glory days. I’m hit with the smell of stale smoke and bad aftershave. If it wasn’t already clear: Charles is very divorced.

Even in these dowdy clothes, I don’t particularly want to sit on his furniture in case I end up smelling like it. He sits, though, the leather squeaking as he leans back into it; he leers up at me, his beady eyes on mine sending a shiver down my spine.

‘All I ever want from you is some light desk research,’ I continue. ‘Just the stuff I don’t have time to do myself. That’s all I’m here for today.’

‘Mmm. Desk research. On this Anna Young girl?’

‘So you have already spoken to Graydon,’ I say. ‘Yes, on Anna Young.’ A small jolt of electricity runs through me as I say her full name out loud.

‘Who is she?’

‘You tell me, Charles. Isn’t that the point of you?’

‘What, total stranger to you, is she? Plucked her out of thin air?’ He chuckles again, licks his teeth. He looks like a lizard. It irritates me, him thinking I’m here to banter with him: like I haven’t got infinite better things to do. All my bravura from this morning has dissipated. I just want to get what I need from him and leave.

‘I don’t think my reasons for contacting you are of any particular importance,’ I say, taking a step towards him as I do. I’m standing to my full height now, shoulders square and authoritative. ‘I just need you to do the job I’m going to pay you handsomely for, and not ask any unnecessary questions.’

Charles shifts. The leather squeaks.

‘Right you are,’ he grumbles. And then, finally, ‘What do you need?’

‘I need access to an Instagram account that already follows her. I need to know who her family is and where they live. And’ – I pause for a second – ‘and you might as well give me her address too, seeing as I assume you’ve already given it to Graydon. I can do the rest myself.’

Charles nods, tells me he can give me the address now and get the rest of it to me in a couple of days, max.

‘That’ll do,’ I say, walking towards the front door. As soon as I see his message come through, I head back out to the joyless teal people carrier.

I only need Charles for the boring stuff – the foundations that I can stand on to do the rest of it. Access to her Instagram, details of her family, her home address. It’s child’s play, really – desk research.

The fieldwork is the fun bit.

RAPUNZEL

I park the teal people carrier somewhere on the way between Charles’s house and where I picked it up; I can’t be bothered to do the whole drive again. Instead, I send Clive my coordinates so he can come collect me. Even through his stoic texting style, I can tell he’s relieved to hear from me. When I didn’t come back from my workout after my usual forty-five minutes he was probably having kittens. I can’t imagine he’d take it well if something were to happen to me on his watch.

Stay there please, Marina, he texts back.

I’ll be with you in less than an hour. Should be able to blue light it.

After a perfunctory browse of my fan Twitter accounts, I rifle through the glovebox again. In addition to the cigarettes and the deodorant I found earlier, there is a lighter, a half-finished packet of Polos, an ice scraper and, amusingly, a pack of Protectors-branded playing cards. I pull out all the ones featuring myself or Jenni, placing all of mine carefully in the front pocket of my backpack. I grab the lighter and, one by one, burn all but one of Jenni’s cards, watching her tiny smiley face melt into the blue flame until there’s nothing but ash left. Then I rearrange the remaining cards in ascending order in their pack, place the pack back in the glovebox, and take the last Jenni card round to the front of the car. I stick it under the wiper like a parking ticket, enjoying the thought of the confusion this will cause the stranger who owns this car when they eventually track it down. Perhaps it’ll even spook them, make them think they’ve been marked by some superhero-obsessed killer. A delicious thought.

When Clive arrives, blue light and all, his brow is so deeply furrowed you could land a plane on it. He was worried about me, slipping away like that. Or worried about his job – I suppose they’re one and the same.

‘Don’t give me that look, Clive,’ I say after I’ve climbed into the back seat and taken the wig off again. ‘You know I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself if I need to. And besides’ – I hold up the wig so he can see it in the rear-view mirror – ‘I have protection.’

‘I know,’ he replies in his slow sergeant’s staccato, ‘and I don’t want to intrude on your private life, but if you let me know the next time you want to leave the premises, I’d be more than happy to arrange for some plain-clothed security to keep an eye on you. Your safety is my number one concern, Marina.’

I think about my next couple of days, the field research I want to do on Anna whilst I wait for Charles to send through his research. It would be much easier if I just have Clive on side and out of the way, then I won’t have to deal with his worries. Clive is patriarchal to a fault: to him, I’m somewhere between his small, sweet daughter who’s never been told no and a Disney princess, locked in a tower he’s duty-bound to guard.

I let out a melodic, weary sigh, as if I’m feeling terribly misunderstood.

‘I know it is, and I know you would. But sometimes I don’t want an eye on me. Sometimes I do just want to feel like everybody else...’ Is this overkill? I think as the words come out, but one glance at his glinting eyes in the rear-view mirror tells me it’s bang on. I keep going.

‘I’m here strictly for pleasure, Clive, no business whatsoever. I want to wander round the city inconspicuously, even if only for a few days. Couldn’t we just... pretend I’m a regular person, no security, for a day or two?’ I imbue this request with enough wistfulness and hope to give a real Disney princess a run for her money.

Clive catches my eye in the mirror and breaks into a reluctant smile.

‘Well, you’re the boss,’ he says by way of approval. ‘But any trouble – anything at all – and I’m there.’

I beam back at him. Like taking candy from a baby.

FIELD WORK

I start each of these days by making myself unremarkable again – wig, bad clothes, defeated posture. Then I walk north from my hotel to the address I got from Charles. The first time, it’s all I can do not to skip the whole way there – I’m full of girlish anticipation to see her life unfold before me. To really get under Anna’s skin.

Her flat is the ground floor of a tired Victorian house on a corner plot. There’s a sad playpark with a rusty slide and a broken swing set directly opposite the house, and I set myself up there, early in the morning, waiting for the house to wake. I think about the last time I saw her. I look at the black front door, paint peeling, and the overgrown square patch of grass sitting just in front of it. So this is where she came back to, after she last kissed me. I imagine her as she was that night, red-wine drunk, consumed with thoughts of me – my scent, my clothes, my lips on hers. I imagine her walking through this front door, forcing herself not to call out to her flatmates all about the life-changing evening I’d given her. Lying in bed and willing herself not to message me because she’s trying to play it cool, to drag out her time with me.

After about twenty minutes, someone opens the curtains in the window facing me and I feel the hairs on my arms stand on end. It’s not Anna, just another girl – but not long after that the front door swings open and out she comes, her shock of pink hair ablaze in the morning sun. I linger in the rusty playground for a moment, my eyes on her, before falling in step with her movements, going wherever she takes me. Surrendering control. She puts her headphones on, and I type her name into Spotify to find her profile so I can see what she’s listening to and play the same thing. This is good. This is fun! I’m having fun.

I follow Anna as she goes about her morning. She picks up a coffee from a tired café and I hear her laugh with the barista from the doorway two shops down. She doesn’t take the Tube, for which I’m relieved – I don’t think I could stand two Tube journeys in as many days – and walks instead down endless winding streets, avoiding the main roads, until she gets to a canal. The canal path is narrow, single-file only, and I have to work a bit harder to make sure she doesn’t notice me; she turns around to pet a dog at one point so I turn around as well, face to the mildewy brickwork.

When I reach the dog myself, I feel a stab of envy that this slobbering thing had her hands on it so much more recently than me. I bend down to hold its face myself when its owner isn’t looking and stamp hard on its tail as I walk away. Eventually, Anna leads me to a children’s nursery which she disappears inside for several hours, during which time I scroll through her Spotify playlists, all named, rather earnestly, after the date they were made.

When Anna leaves the nursery in the early afternoon, she heads back to her home, where I watch her again from the playpark. With the curtains open I can see that the room facing it is a living room. Anna sits in there for hours with her flatmates – I count two of them, both women – laughing and watching TV. Lazing around, basically. I admire it: how at ease she is in her space, in her body.

The second day begins much like the first, the only variation being the strength of the morning sun – weaker – and the lack of a dog on the canal walk. As we walk just out of step with each other, I find myself marvelling at how Anna never once looks over her shoulder or suspects she’s being followed. She’s so certain of her own security and so unbothered by the world around her. I fight the urge to itch my scalp through my wig.

When we get to the nursery I station myself in the exact same spot as the day before, perfectly positioned on a bench to see when she leaves. Every so often a bus goes past, and my own face on an Interspace poster beams down at me like a god, or – less divine – Mimi Westenberg’s on some mid-range clothing campaign. I’m pleased that there are more of mine than there are of Mimi’s. As I’m working my way through ‘17.03.17’ – a mixed bag, musically speaking, some Nicki Minaj, some Mac DeMarco – Anna comes back out the nursery entrance. This time, she’s not alone. She’s moving her hands a lot as she speaks. It makes me smile, thinking of our dinner and the wine she spilled everywhere. Only now she seems angry. Her cheeks are a violent red. Her companion, a man whose dour face is as thin and angular as the offensive loafers on his sockless feet, is clearly the object of Anna’s ire. They walk together in a different direction to Anna’s house, and I follow suit, resuming my position several beats behind her. I can just about hear their conversation.

‘...you just had no right to do that, Matt, not in front of everyone else. How do you think that made me look to all of them?’ I hear Anna saying, and I feel a soft ache in my chest at the frustration in her voice.

‘I think you’re overreacting, to be honest,’ Matt replies. ‘It wasn’t that big a deal. I would want you to tell me if you thought I was doing something wrong.’

I nearly scoff out loud at that. In my experience good-looking, interesting women are very rarely ‘doing something wrong’. Mostly, the average men they work with just want something to lord over them.

‘Yeah, well, I didn’t fucking ask you, you just offered me your unsolicited opinion on something that doesn’t even concern you. You just couldn’t resist sticking your nose in. You’re a ghoulish fucking twat.’

‘Ghoulish? Come on, mate, that’s a bit harsh.’

‘Ghoulish is like the least offensive word I could call you.’ Anna practically spits the words out. She comes to a sudden halt – as do I – and continues: ‘Whatever. I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m going this way.’

At that point, Anna crosses the street and Matt is left standing alone, his pointy feet sticking outwards like hands on a clock. He looks around furtively to see if anyone saw Anna yell at him – he doesn’t register me in my pedestrian outfit – and in that moment Matt strikes me as a pitiable husk of masculinity. Anna was right to call him ghoulish.

Just as I’m considering whether I should stay behind Anna or follow Matt, my phone buzzes with an email from Charles. Greedily, I open it up there and then to see what he’s found for me, the people I can use to really understand the depths of Anna’s character. I would never go to the immediate family, obviously – parents get a little funny about people poking around after their children, even very charismatic, famous people like me. I’m hoping for someone slightly removed.

Her family isn’t huge, so there aren’t a lot of options. No siblings. Two sets of dead grandparents. Just the one uncle. I laugh when I see he’s called Neil Young. I put on ‘Harvest Moon’ and look into what this ersatz Neil Young can do for me. He works in finance, and lives right here in London. He has a wife called Clara who doesn’t work, but, according to her very public Facebook account, spends all her time raising her three kids.

Clara is exactly the person I want to speak to.

FAMILY

‘I hope you don’t mind me bothering you at home?’ I say to the serious-looking woman standing in front of me almost as soon as I’ve said hello. I’m standing on the doorstep of a handsome, double-fronted London townhouse, the sort of place you’d see in a Richard Curtis film, with potted jasmine plants climbing up the columns either side of the door. The serious-looking woman is Clara, and she looks like she’s been struck by lightning to see me standing there.

‘I – sorry, are you – I mean, I’m right in thinking you are—’

‘Marina, yes, you’re quite right, guilty as charged,’ I reply. I’m in full film-star mode. I’m dripping in warmth. ‘It’s so lovely to meet you. Can I come in?’

‘Of course, so sorry – of course you can. Please, do come in.’

I smile at her graciously and step over the threshold into the hallway. I have to say, Clara has taste. If I didn’t already know that she and her husband Neil had money thanks to his job in financial services, I would’ve been able to guess by the way she’s decorated her hallway. I’m always impressed when civilians know how to pull a space together.

Clara is leading me through to an expansive kitchen extension at the back of the house, which smells faintly, still, of fresh paint. It’s quaint, this impulse to constantly be improving. Striving. She is looking back over her shoulder furtively like she thinks she might be in trouble. These people never really know what to do with me, but that, I suppose, is the whole point. Confusing people is the easiest way to get what you want from them.

‘Your home is lovely,’ I say, looking around as I sit myself down in the seat Clara has pulled out for me.

‘Oh, thank you! We really gutted the place, lived in a building site for months – it wasn’t quite so lovely back then, believe me—’

‘I can imagine,’ I reply, an ache creeping into my cheeks from smiling. ‘I just renovated myself back in California. I swear I’ve brought the dust with me here!’ Just the right mixture of relatable and friendly. Right on cue, Clara laughs.

‘Can I get you something to drink?’

‘Just a sparkling water, if you have it, thanks so much.’

She nods effusively and trots over to her larder to grab an unopened bottle of San Pellegrino and a glass. She’s flustered, I can tell. I’ll ease her in.

‘It’s really so kind of you to invite me into your home, I can’t thank you enough. I’m sure you’re wondering what on earth I’m doing here unannounced.’

Clara laughs a breathy, girlish laugh. It feels wrong coming from her, and you can tell she thinks so as well because she instantly puts her hand over her mouth as if to stuff the laugh back in again.

‘Well, I mean – I hope you don’t mind me saying, but it’s not every day you get an Oscar winner show up on your doorstep. Forgive me if I’m taken aback.’

‘Not at all. And you’re handling this expertly, if I may say so. I actually had a barista pass out on me the other day, so you’re doing much better than he was.’

Another laugh from Clara. I let it hang in the air for a second before I pick up again.

‘I’m sorry not to have emailed or something first, but I try to avoid putting details of my whereabouts into the ether when I can – I hope you can understand?’

Clara nods eagerly and contorts her face into a sympathetic grimace. I can see various ancient headlines – Marina hounded by obsessive fans; Teen acting sensation involved in paparazzi car chase; Man jailed for Marina break-in – flash across her mind.

‘Of course – can’t imagine how difficult – truly, not a problem,’ she says. I take this as my cue to begin in earnest.

‘The reason I’m here is that I’m interested in getting involved with a children’s charity that I believe you know well,’ I continue. It hadn’t take me long to uncover that Clara and Neil are generous donors to a charity that helps dying children – one of those Make-a-Wish types for which I’m always having to don my Protectors costume and visit hospitals. A quick scroll through Clara’s thousands of public Facebook posts showed that one of their three darling children was ill as a toddler and nearly had to make a wish of his own. Evidently the child survived, because he still appears in her regular Facebook posts – as does this charity. I barely needed to skim through the charity’s press releases to see that Clara and Neil donated enough money to refurbish the charity’s tired East London outpost, presenting me with the perfect alibi to pay her a visit.

‘Oh! That’s brilliant – they’re really an excellent charity, they do such wonderful work. We’re very proud to support them.’

‘Yes, exactly. Well, whenever I get involved in this sort of thing I like to get to know the existing network of donors and trustees, to find out how best I can help.’ Clara’s head is nodding up and down like a dog on a dashboard. ‘You never want to be one of those people who just throw money at something and walk away.’

‘Absolutely,’ she says.

‘So would you mind if I asked you a few questions?’

‘Please, go ahead.’

I start plying her with questions I will never need the answer to, about what they do with the charity, where she sees the gaps to be, how much of her time is involved, who else in her family devotes their time to it. I’m trying to create the perfect inroad for her to mention Anna. I feel like I’m on a game show, listening out for a certain word so I can hit the buzzer and claim my prize money. But she’s not giving me anything. Eventually I have to change tack.

‘Is this your family?’ I ask, pointing to a picture on the wall of the kitchen that I’ve already seen on Facebook: Clara and Neil and their three interchangeable children, all in matching white shirts and blue jeans in a photographer’s studio. They look like a cult.

‘Yes, it is. That’s Jamie there’ – she points to smaller of the children – ‘he’s the reason we first got involved. Bless him.’

I smile at her and make that noise people make when looking at pictures of babies.

‘He’s precious,’ I say. ‘They all are.’ My eyes move over towards the fridge, which is barely visible underneath the reams of terrible children’s artworks and yet more family photos. It’s then that I spot it: the three children, Clara, a few years younger than she is now, and standing next to her, Anna, her hair pink even then, but shorter, bobbed. This I haven’t seen before. Perfect. I linger on the picture long enough for Clara to catch me looking and come stand next to me.

‘That’s my niece the kids are with there,’ she says. ‘They adored her, their cool older cousin.’ She’s rolling her eyes exaggeratedly, and there’s a softness in her voice. Here we go.

‘That’s so sweet. I had a cousin like that when I was a kid, too. I was completely obsessed with her, copying everything she did.’ This lie comes easily to me.

‘Ha, tell me about it! There was a time when I was probably confiscating an average of one box of pink hair dye a week.’

Past tense. Two instances of it, in fact. That’s interesting.

‘Sounds like they grew out of it eventually, though? Are they no longer obsessed?’ I say.

‘Oh, well, yes. Sort of,’ Clara replies. She’s hovering over saying something more, I can see it in her eyes. I meet them with my own, very briefly. Once more inviting her in.

‘That picture’s a few years old. We haven’t really had much to do with Anna’s side of the family in a while,’ she says, eventually. ‘Money stuff. You know how it can be.’

I have to admit, this feels like a small punch in the gut, and I forget to react to what Clara’s saying and let a couple of seconds too long go by.

‘Sorry – gosh, I don’t know why I told you that,’ Clara says, turning away from me. She’s embarrassed.

As Clara heads back towards her marble island, still wrapped in blue protective plastic, I assess the situation. I could try and squeeze some more information out of her – what Anna used to be like at least, if there’s anything unusual about her, as far as she remembers. But judging by how quickly she turned away from me, I sense that Clara’s shame at airing her family’s dirty laundry has clammed her up. And given the fact that she hasn’t even seen her in years, I’m unlikely to get anything useful out of her.

Fuck, I think. What a waste of my time. Frustration courses to the top of my throat like bile. I swallow it down and paint a sympathetic smile back on my face.

‘Please, don’t apologize,’ I say, but I’m already mentally cursing useless Clara and her petty financial feud. ‘Families can be tough.’

Clara smiles back at me, and the gratitude behind it makes me want to slap the smile right off her. I have to get out of here.

‘Well, listen, thank you for your time,’ I say, clapping my hands together. ‘It’s been great to understand some more about the work I might be doing. I’ll get out of your hair now.’

Clara looks bewildered at the abrupt change of tone, but her shoulders melt down ever so slightly. She’s relieved she won’t have another opportunity to humiliate herself in front of a celebrity.

‘Of course, of course,’ she says, and we walk together back through her manicured house. ‘If you need any more information about the charity – well, you know where I am!’ She laughs.

I laugh back, and then I lean in conspiratorially and ask her to keep our visit on the down low, if she wouldn’t mind. ‘Trying to maintain a relatively discreet profile whilst I’m here,’ I say, and she nods like a dashboard dog again, looking so completely, idiotically delighted to be in cahoots with someone as important as me.

By the time I’m back on the doorstep, I feel as if Clara herself has administered a pernicious anger directly into my veins. I’m furious with her, with the whole abortive conversation. I feel thwarted, and it’s Clara’s fault, her and her ridiculous, useless family dispute, wasting my time. I hate not getting what I want.

I wander down the driveway and along the street to where Clara and Neil’s car is parked. It’s several doors down from their house, completely out of sight of their windows. I know it’s theirs because she recently posted a picture of Neil and the three children lined up alongside it captioned Road trip with these cuties! The car’s four large SUV tyres almost look like they’re beckoning me over. Suddenly, a wave of calm washes over me and I know what will make me feel better. I reach into my bag and grab my Calypso pin, and then, very swiftly, I pierce several imperceptibly tiny holes into each of Clara and Neil’s tyres before walking off round the corner, my heels making a satisfying clack against the paving, to where my driver is waiting.

CIRCLES

I have a dream that I’m in an enclosure at my zoo, it’s just me and the leopard in there, and in the Californian light her fur looks almost pink. We’re circling around each other, the only sound the soft pad of her paws on the ground. I’m barefoot, completely naked. My feet don’t make a sound. I get on my hands and knees and start to crawl so I can feel the tall grass brush against my stomach every time I inch forward. I’m trying to close the gap in the circle between us. But no matter how silently I move, she stays just out of reach.

When I wake up from this dream, I’m wet.

BOOM BOX

I pour myself a cold glass of Riesling and sit on the terrace of my hotel suite. The sun has just started to dip behind the clouds, its last embers bouncing triumphantly off the skyscrapers in the distance. Briefly, with the crispness of the wine and the peacefulness of my terrace, I forget about my failed reconnaissance mission yesterday, but then the memory of standing, furious, on Clara’s porch comes flooding back and I feel compelled to turn to Facebook to check if there’s anything to see. To my delight, she’s already posted another public photo of herself – in a hospital bed, legs in traction, and with a seriously busted lip.

Car disaster!! Friends, this is a reminder to get your tyres checked regularly. You DON’T want to end up like this! Only plus side is Neil has to wait on me hand and foot, hahaha ;)

Clara’s wan thumbs-up in the picture does amuse me. I spend a few enjoyable minutes imagining the circumstances that will have led to her post: Clara climbing into the car to collect her creepy children from school, unaware of the pressure leaking slowly out of each of her unnecessarily large tyres. Clara’s car careening into the one in front before she even reaches the school gates. Clara’s car, completely totalled.

But even so, it’s not quite enough to distract me from the disaster of my efforts. I think back to the other night, when I was full of enthusiasm for this game, and try to remind myself of what I do know. I know where Anna lives, where she works. I know she doesn’t like that bore Matt. I know how she likes her coffee (cortado with oat milk, a grown-up’s order). That’s not nothing, I reason. That’s the bones of a person. And – I almost forgot – I now have Instagram access. Thank you, Charles, I think, as I drain my glass of Riesling and pour myself another.

The profile Charles has hacked into for me is a mousy, twenty-something banker who, by the looks of her scant profile, spends most of her spare time baking and running 10ks. She’s not much of a poster, and she’s clearly not close to Anna – a search through her direct messages shows they’ve never even interacted.

I look half-heartedly through the people the banker follows – more an exercise in self-control than anything else; I want to see how long I can go before looking at Anna. I only last a few minutes, but it’s worth it. She’s posted to her story a picture of her and a friend; they’re sitting in the park having a picnic. She looks relaxed, happy, a little drunk, her cheeks lightly flushed. I screenshot the image – it’s sweet to see her this way. I scroll all the way through every picture she’s posted, zooming in on each one to see it as clearly as possible. Unlike my boring banker, she’s quite prolific. Well, that makes sense: she’s got a lot to say. There’s some of those film pictures she shoots, some posters for what I can only assume are friends’ art shows at tiny galleries, and some film stills. These I decide to pay close attention to. You can learn a lot about a person by the art that leaves an impression on them. By and large, I approve of all the stills, although her taste skews a bit old – all the films she’s shared had been out for at least ten years before I started making movies.

Several years into the scroll I come up against a shot of John Cusack with a boom box held high above his head from Say Anything. Anna has captioned it ‘Love’ with a heart emoji, and upon seeing it a short, sharp shock of an idea hits me. Suddenly, it feels very obvious what I should do. All this covert, under-the-radar subtlety – I’ve been misguided. When I met the girl I was wearing couture, for fuck’s sake. What more do I need to know about her? She’s clearly drawn to extravagance. I’ve been so sure that I could just chip away at her world until I was all there was left of it. Looking at this grainy picture of John Cusack I realize: what’s the point of chipping away when I can just buy a bulldozer?

I jump up, delighted by my genius, and at that moment I get a text from Graydon sharing a link to a house.

Marina darling – new crib for you. She’s a beaut! Up on a hill and nice and private. Ready for you in two days. Jules has been a real gem helping furnish it.

I open up the link and head straight to the map at the bottom of the page. It takes me a while to orientate myself, even though I’ve been walking up and down these streets for the past few days. But he’s done his job: the hill my new base is on is just a few streets away from Anna’s houseshare.

About time! I thought you’d died, I reply.

But good. That looks fine.

Graydon replies with a cry-laughing emoji to my first message which I find so irritating I toy with the idea of firing him. But I let it slide. He has, after all, done what I asked – and, well, I’m not a monster.

CHECK IN

‘Marina? Are you okay?’ Jules answers after a few rings. Her voice is thick with sleep.

‘Jules. Am I paying you to sleep in late?’ I ask in return. It’s 8 a.m. in LA.

‘No, sorry, I was just – it’s still early, so—’

‘No matter. Jules, I’m surprised not to have heard from you these past few days, that’s all. I thought you had a project you wanted me to look at?’

If I’m honest, my life in California has all but disappeared from view this past week, and it’s been complete bliss not speaking to Jules every second of every day. But even through my Annainduced haze, I’m steadfast in my commitments to myself, which means, reluctantly, I must call Jules to make sure she hasn’t ruined my long-standing zoo project. Because before there was Anna, there was the leopard. And I want my leopard. She’s proof I can do anything I put my mind to, and that’s a particularly comforting thought as I embark on this Anna challenge.

‘Well, of course, yes, I do,’ Jules says in reply. ‘But I was thinking about a new title, you know, after your last email...’

‘Aren’t titles supposed to be the easy part?’

Jules stumbles over a retort.

‘Don’t answer that,’ I say. ‘I’m really only calling for an update from home. I had expected you to keep me in the loop on everything. How’s my leopard coming along?’

‘So sorry, yes, I was just about to get to that. Well, we’ve had a bit of a problem with the zoo – nothing we can’t handle, but—’

‘Problem? With the leopard?’ I ask.

‘No, sorry – we’re still negotiating with the Russian over the leopard. There isn’t really an update there.’

I feel my brow furrow.

‘Then what could the problem possibly be?’

‘It’s, um. Well, it’s the other animals. They sort of – well, the ones that have arrived, they’re...’ Jules is struggling to find a word here. God knows what she could possibly say that’s so difficult to get out. My mind starts racing, mentally sifting through the Marina Google alerts I’ve left languishing in my inbox for days.

‘They’re what, Jules?’

‘They’re not quite... alive.’

‘Do you mean they’re dead?’

A pause. And then, very quietly, ‘Yes.’

I laugh. Relief floods through me.

‘Christ, Jules, I thought you were going to tell me something actually bad for a minute there. They’d been confiscated by the port authorities or something; the tabloids had been sniffing around. Don’t scare me like that!’

Jules makes a strange noise, like she’s being lightly asphyxiated, and then sniffs loudly.

‘Just – I don’t know, get hold of some more,’ I carry on. ‘Ask Graydon. Ask the Russian, I don’t care – you’ve been given carte blanche of my little black book here. It’s not like the zoo isn’t going to do some net positive for the zebras of the world anyway.’ I pause, batting away the unwelcome image Jules has conjured up for me. It’s not my fault the world’s zoologists can’t do their jobs properly, I reason with myself. ‘Regardless,’ I say, determined not to show Jules any sign of hesitance, ‘they’re all just supporting roles to the leopard anyway.’

‘Right. Absolutely. Yes.’ Jules takes a deep breath in and a long, shallow exhale.

‘Is there anything else you’ve been keeping from me? Any other nascent disasters you’re trying to contain? What about Henry? I haven’t heard from him in a while either. I trust you and Anthony are keeping him in check.’

‘Oh, Henry, yes, Henry’s fine.’ A pause. ‘Jenni’s called by for you a couple of times, by the way. I told her you were in London.’

Christ, that girl does not give up.

‘Good. Have you got my new address from Graydon? Make sure Henry has it. Do not under any circumstances give it to Jenni. That woman’s obsessed with me.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Another pause. ‘Marina?’

‘Yes?’

‘I just wanted to check – you said you didn’t want me to contact you by email, so I haven’t. But are you saying now that you do want me to contact you?’

‘Don’t ask so many questions, please, Jules, it’s boring. You’ve been my assistant for long enough now, you should know what I need. That’s your job.’

‘Right. Sorry. Of course.’

‘Is that all?’

Jules hesitates on the other end of the line. ‘I – um – I think so? Did you get everything you wanted?’

I roll my eyes.

‘Goodbye, Jules.’

‘Bye – thank you—’

She starts to say something else, but I hang up before I can hear it.

Best Friends Forever? Jenni Klein Hints at Rift with Long-Term BFF Marina

The actress, 24, looked less than enthused to be asked about her supposed friend just weeks after their big night out.

They were pictured together as recently as three weeks ago at Jenni’s epic Los Angeles birthday party.

But it seems there’s more than meets the eye between Jenni Klein and her ‘best friend’ Marina, the Star can exclusively reveal.

Speaking to our roving reporter at the Sunshine Gala in New York last night, Jenni appeared to roll her eyes when asked about Marina, before hastily commenting on their close friendship. Uh oh!

What’s behind this new frostiness? We spoke to a source close to both stars to get the scoop.

‘Although they have been friends for a long time, Jenni can be jealous of Marina,’ our source revealed. ‘Following the success of Interspace, Jenni can’t help but compare her own recent box office performance to Marina’s.’

Who else feels comforted to know that even celebrities feel insecure sometimes? Either way – we hope these two powerhouse women can work it out!

Reps for Jenni Klein and Marina both refused to comment for this story.

CHALLENGE

Satisfied, or at least part-satisfied, with the update from home, I can focus on the new house. And, well. I have to hand it to Graydon. It’s beautiful. It’s got what an estate agent would call great bones, which is another way of saying its superiority to other houses is intrinsic. It’s just next to Hampstead Heath and high up on a hill, the only detached property on the street, with a high fence and a lush, landscaped garden blocking all view of the building from the outside. It’s cavernous inside, and I fill the walls with paintings by Jenny Saville and Joan Mitchell, the colours pleasingly disruptive against the white of the walls. There’s a grand, sweeping staircase with a circular porthole window that looks out across the neighbourhood, including the house Anna lives in with her friends a few streets over. I can’t see in, but it’s delicious to know that she’s there. I feel newly connected to her and spend a lot of time sitting in the middle of my new staircase and looking out at her house, thinking about my next move.

I’ve never been the chaser before. I’ve never had to even think about what a grand gesture would look like, let alone try to tailor one to a specific person, so I find myself turning over the times I’ve been chased myself. When I was still a teenager, I was pursued by the director Troy Sorensøn for a role. He only shoots a movie every fifteen years or so, and is renowned for the way he ensembles his casts – he collects actors like postage stamps over the course of years, keeping some of them waiting in the wings for decades before using them for a project, and even then only giving them a cameo. A wonderfully vindictive process.

Naturally, I got the call. We sat in the high-ceilinged living room next to a grand piano that had clearly never been played. Troy is a very small man, physically. At one point during my visit, he walked behind the piano and all but disappeared from view. The meeting was going very well, and I could sense, like I always could in auditions, that he was going to offer me a part in his next film, which up until this meeting had been shrouded in mystery. Reappearing from behind the piano, he’d pressed a printout of the script into my hand like a chef presenting a dessert, with great care and a pride teetering on arrogance. I was to read through it there and then.

‘She’s the protagonist’s best friend,’ he’d told me, sitting down on the piano stool as I towered above him when I reached the final page. ‘She’s somewhat in love with him, they’ve got one of those will they/won’t they relationships. It’s a cute part. You’re the perfect age for it.’

I remember the room feeling colder, despite the sunlight pouring in through the windows. How disappointingly pedestrian the part was. There was no way I was going to follow my recent world-class performances with some cute two-dimensional girl best friend. Where would that get me? Silently, I handed him back the script, and an idea bloomed as I did. I walked over to the door.

‘The script is brilliant, Troy,’ I’d said, turning back to face him from the door frame. ‘I’d love to work with you. Truly, I would. But I just don’t think it would work unless you make some fundamental changes. The lead should be female.’

Troy’s eyes had blinked very rapidly then. I don’t think anyone else had turned him down for a role before.

‘Think about it,’ I continued. ‘That’s a complex emotional journey your protagonist goes on, and you and I both know that I’m the only actor in this age bracket who can do that complexity justice. That’s why you sought me out in the first place, isn’t it? Why don’t you call me when you’ve reviewed the script?’

When I called Graydon from the car to let him know how the meeting went I could practically see the vein in his temple bursting. Marina, darling, that’s not really how he works, he said, charged with condescension and panic. I can still hear the intermittent click of his cigarette lighter as he stress-smoked his way through the call. You don’t really turn down an opportunity like Troy Sorensøn. You might not get it again.

Obviously Graydon was wrong. The letter came a few days later: Marina, you’re right. I’ll rewrite the part for you if you say yes. It was almost grotesque, how much he wanted me. Just to fuck with him, I had Graydon call the director’s team and say I’d wait for the new script before giving my answer. The script was hand-delivered to my house along with six trucks full of the most gorgeous white lilies, their heady scent colliding with the orange trees in my driveway. The character had been renamed Lily.

To this day even a hint of orange blossom and lily in someone’s perfume sends a triumphant rush of blood to my head. That’s what I want to inspire in Anna: something that years later, long after I’m done with her – as I’m sure to be at some point – reminds her that for one dazzling moment she was wanted by me.

I look back through my screenshots of Anna’s stories, collated over the past few days. They are littered with obscure, blurry images of her coffee cup or wine glasses or peonies wrapped in brown paper. Very rarely do they include pictures of her face; she posts all the time but leaves so much to the imagination. Coy. I zoom in on the peonies. I’ve always liked the way peonies look so chaste until suddenly they open up. Such elegantly slutty little flowers.

Yes, I think. Yes, peonies will do nicely.

FUNNY

‘And you’re sure these are the very best you have?’ I say to the leathery, fleece-clad woman in the fifth luxury florist I’ve visited today. I’m examining a not-quite-perfectly-spherical peony, trying to envisage how it would look next to 3,000 others on a truck. Unimpressive, I’m concluding. Just like every other flower I’ve seen today. God, who knew being a romantic was such hard work.

The woman looks at me, slightly despairing. Very unprofessional of her, I think. I’m myself today: Marina in full Hollywood-off-duty mode, all shiny hair and perfect posture and expensively understated linens. Doesn’t she know I could make or break her business with a couple of sentences on an Instagram story?

‘This is a wonderful crop. We get them from a farm in Provence, and they’ve had a really good year.’ She smiles at me.

I’m doing my best to be congenial, but she’s being evasive. And I can’t stand evasiveness.

‘So this is absolutely the best you can provide?’ I run my thumb over a loose outer petal. ‘This doesn’t look very wonderful to me, I’m sorry to say. This looks rather withered, in fact. Sad.’ I sigh, wearily, as if it pains me to give such feedback. I hand the peony back to the woman in the fleece. ‘Wouldn’t you say so, Clive?’ I’ve brought Clive along with me, as much for my own amusement as for my protection – everyone is terrified of the size of him and his unsmiling face. Clive grunts in response to my question.

‘Would you like to take a look at some of our other options? Hydrangeas, perhaps? Or roses?’

‘Roses are tacky,’ I say. I’m smiling as I say it, but it doesn’t reach my eyes, and I can see the woman shrink under the coldness of my gaze. ‘And,’ I continue, ‘if you’d done your research on me, as you should’ve done with any potential client wanting to spend this much in your establishment, you would know that I hate hydrangeas.’ This actually isn’t true – I have never expressed public allegiance or otherwise to any particular flower – but I’m bored of this woman and the obstacle she’s presenting to my plan.

She opens her mouth and takes a sharp breath in, as if she’s about to speak at length and needs the oxygen.

‘I think we ought to go, Clive,’ I say then, cutting her off before she can begin. Clive nods, saying something in his earpiece to the other men dotted around on the street. ‘Thank you for your time, though,’ I add as I walk towards the door, beaming at her until she smiles back.

Okay, I’m being quite prescriptive about the peonies. But I have standards that need to be upheld. And why shouldn’t Anna, my valiant paramour, have 3,000 perfect peonies delivered straight to her door? I want them to be perfect, and there’s no real reason why I shouldn’t be able to make that happen. These florists are supposed to be the very best there are, providing flowers for royal weddings and fashion shows and billionaire birthday parties.

As I walk on to the next florist to continue my search, I instinctively look around, as if I’m checking I haven’t lost sight of Anna. There’s a slight twinge in the left side of my neck when I remember that’s not what I’m here for. In fact, I’m so surrounded by plain-clothed security officers I can barely see a member of the public not in my employ. Funny.

FANFORUM / MARINA

A subthread dedicated to the greatest actor of our generation, the one and only Marina

[post by guiltyfish73] NEW FAN SHOTS: Marina spotted in London!

Re-sharing these pics taken by a fan from @marinaupdates_ on Twitter. RARE! Marina spotted out and about in Mayfair, London. The fan said you could tell Marina didn’t want to be disturbed so she didn’t bother her for a pic together but she saw her go into several high-end florists and make a few phone calls. Her bodyguard can also be seen in the pictures in plain clothes

[reply by intrepidturtle23] Shout out CLIVE!! Always doing the most for our girl <3 Proud of Marina for venturing out in the real world – we know how much she likes to keep herself to herself when she’s not filming so it’s cute to see her doing normal things. So glad to see the fans let her be to run her errands :)

FANFORUM / MARINATHEORIES

A subthread dedicated to fan theories related to Marina

[post by bagelchips98] what do we think of those pics of Marina in London??

Here’s the link if anyone hasn’t seen them – marina browsing like a million florists in London with Clive. Kinda weird for her to be so publicly out and about right?? do you think she meant to be seen? Also is it just me or does it look like she’s a bit stressed out in the close up shot? who do you think she’s buying flowers for??

[reply by blackcurrenttribes] my money’s on Jenni K after that comment she made about Marina at the sunshine gala... she seemed pissed for whatever reason. the girls are fighting!

[reply by astrobramble32] bagelchips98, I agree she looks stressed out in these pictures. I don’t think she actually meant to be seen but I reckon that’s why she looks stressed. Marina is probably buying the flowers for Mimi Westenberg. Everyone knows that girl has a coke problem and it’s only gotten worse recently. Marina really cares about her so that’ll be why she’s picking them out herself.

[reply by marinni456] blackcurrenttribes I think you’re right and they’re for Jenni!!! It feels very... suspicious that we didn’t hear anything about the two of them forever and now all of a sudden after that sunshine gala incident marina is out and about in public BUYING FLOWERS?? She’s telling us something for sure

[reply by astrobramble32] marinni456 not this again lol! You’re obsessed

[reply by bagelchips98] soz should’ve flagged up top i’m not a Marinni so don’t come here with that shit lol. Astrobramble32 ur probably right but that doesn’t really explain why she looks so pissed. Or why she’s even in London in the first place actually. It’s so weird to see Marina so openly... emotional? in public... do you think everything’s okay w her??

Marina Crosses the Pond (Again!)! Actress Moves into £5m Mansion in Leafy Star-Studded North London Enclave

There have been whispers for weeks, and now it’s confirmed: superstar Marina has swapped Los Angeles for London – at least temporarily! The Oscar-winning actress, 29, has signed a lease on a £5m, 5 bedroom house in the north London area of Hampstead, a source close to the star elaborates.

‘Although she feels really at home in LA, Marina’s been spending a lot of time in London recently – it’s been many years since she left the UK, and now that she’s older and settled in her career she felt it made sense to lay down some roots back home,’ the source told us.

‘She loves the cutesy village feel of Hampstead, and she’s already got a real community here as several of her friends live in the area too.’

Marina’s long-term partner, Henry Easton, is currently enjoying some down time in Los Angeles but our source tells us we can expect to see him at Marina’s side from across the pond later in the summer.

One person we can assume won’t be visiting the star in her new home is Jenni Klein, as the former BFFs are rumoured still to be on difficult terms following a feud earlier this summer.

BLUE

Eventually, I find the right florist for the job, and I spend days and days holed up in her back room over the next couple of weeks, ironing out the details of the design, showing her the picture I want recreated with the peonies. John Cusack and the boom box, of course – what else? Anna will love it, I’m sure, a grand gesture with a heavy wink to camera. It hits all the right notes.

The florist is, I have to admit, a shrewd businesswoman. She’s delighted to be working with me, and she can meet my demands, but she asked that I arrange their transportation, ‘seeing as it’s such a central part of your vision’.

‘As soon as the flowers are loaded onto the van, they, and everything in it, are handed over to you,’ she’d said, not entirely softly, and I respected her for that. What she really meant is she doesn’t want to be liable for thousands of pounds’ worth of important cargo going awry. Fair enough.

‘Absolutely,’ I’d replied. ‘I have someone in mind for the transportation anyway. I like to have as much oversight as possible over my personal projects.’ I’m primed to tap up Charles for one of his cash-in-hand lackies to do this job. I, too, am always thinking about liability.

Every minute that I’m not at the florist, I find myself increasingly slipping into civilian mode so I can keep an eye on Anna. I so enjoy watching her life that the sight of my altered reflection doesn’t even sting much now. I’m beginning to see the richness of her world. She spends a lot of her time on Hampstead Heath. She’s often there with a big group of people in the weak London sunshine regardless of what day of the week it is. The people are interchangeable, extras in the scene. They sit around her in a circle, like a seance, laughing at her jokes. I sit at a distance, observing the whole scene. I love seeing people light up around her. I don’t know anyone except myself with the kind of magnetism it takes to draw a new, large crowd every twenty-four hours.

To my delight, we are texting back and forth a little. Nothing major, just the odd brief exchange; a very leisurely tennis match. I tell her I’m still in Europe but don’t mention anything more: I don’t want to give too much away. I’m getting to know the way she texts. It’s an extra treat to observe the difference between this and how she is in person; she’s less forthcoming this way. I suppose you’d call it deadpan, although I can still pick up some hints of her wry, spiky humour shot through her messages. I like it this way: it feels like each message holds a code that only I can decipher, some word or phrase that reveals the secret heart of our interactions and her desire for me.

One night we’re messaging as I’ve got one of my films on in the background, the first I ever shot with Henry. She tells me she’s working a lot.

At the bar? I ask, hungry for her to tell me what I already know, enjoying her inviting me in.

Yeah, but also at this nursery I work at part-time, she replies. I nearly ask her how things are going with Matt, her obnoxious co-worker, before remembering she doesn’t know I know about him.

On the TV screen, I’m in character whispering sweet nothings to Henry. The shot’s all me, my mouth, my hands cupped around his ear, my hair tumbling down my shoulders. The camera pans down my perfectly arched, nude back to Henry’s hand at the base of it. It’s easy to feel, as I text Anna, that I’m whispering to her like I am on the screen.

That’s very noble of you, I reply.

Haha, not really... I’m only doing it for the cash

I can hear the way she’d say this; she’d have those same delicate, erotic top notes to her words that she did the first night we met. It makes me smile, imagining it. The warm memory of the defiant glint in her eye as we sipped our drinks in her bar that night makes it feel like she’s right here in the room with me, her body casting the only other shadow against the blue light in the otherwise empty room.

DISTRACTION

‘I’m celebrating!’ I say to the man standing next to me at the bar, slamming a shot glass down on the marble countertop. It’s the night before the peony delivery and I’m so buoyed by my imminent victory that I’ve taken myself out to capitalize on the feeling. I thought about calling up Mimi Westenberg before I remembered I don’t want to risk being seen out with her after what I leaked to the tabloids. But that’s okay, I don’t need a companion. Like Anna, all I need is some extras – I can carry most social scenes myself.

I look at the man I’m talking to. I know him, or know of him anyway. He’s a singer. He’s having a moment. He’s very good-looking.

He’ll do for the next couple of hours.

‘What?’ he shouts back to me. The bar is dark and loud and smells like oud and vanilla and violet: sensual, evocative. It’s an exclusive room within a members’ club, accessed via an unmarked door at the end of a staff corridor. No one in this room has done anything so gauche as apply to gain access: you have to be invited. Like Anna’s bar, the world’s 99 per cent would never even know this room existed. Unlike Anna’s bar, there is a strict no-guest policy – and an even stricter nocamera phones rule – in this space. It’s a den of iniquity, with absolute discretion enshrined in its entry agreements.

‘I said, are you going to get my next one?’ I reply to the singer and give him my good smile.

He jerks his head as if to look behind him, and then grins back, slightly wide-eyed.

‘Really? I mean – yes, obviously. Of course I am.’ He tries to meet the sunbeam of my gaze, then looks down, suddenly flushed.

‘Right answer,’ I say, and he moves closer to me as he orders two shots of mezcal. When they come, we clink our glasses together messily and knock them back. I finish mine before him, and watch him wrinkle his nose up slightly when the liquor hits his throat. The drink he bought me was my fourth, and I can feel it course through my bloodstream almost immediately, snakes up a ladder. I’m pleasantly, potently drunk.

When he’s done, I order us two more. Once they arrive, I grab his hand and take him through the crowd, which parts before us, the odd cluster of freshly famous faces pausing their conversation as I walk past, their excitement at being in my vicinity palpable. I guide my singer to an unoccupied corner in the back. When we sit, I examine his face and see he’s young, almost exhilaratingly so. This guy was probably masturbating to a poster of me on his ceiling in his parents’ house less than half a decade ago. His eyes – framed by a curtain of lashes so thick they surely have their own fan accounts – flit up my body, and he tries to mask his open desire by sipping at his second glass of mezcal, flinching at the hard liquor he swallowed just moments ago at the bar with his chest proudly puffed. It’s almost endearing.

‘Do you want to touch me?’ I ask him, placing my hand on his thigh.

He looks back at me and laughs, a nervous, excited snort that betrays his inexperience.

‘I – is it that obvious?’

When I don’t say anything in return, he clears his throat. ‘I mean. Yes. I can’t believe I’m actually sitting here and you’ve just asked me that.’

He glances down at my hand on his thigh.

‘Aren’t... aren’t you with Henry Easton though?’

Sweet.

‘You’re new to all this, aren’t you?’ I say.

He nods.

‘Well, I’ll let you in on a trade secret, because I’m feeling generous today.’ I lean in and stage a whisper, my hand in front of my mouth. ‘You can do anything you want now. Enjoy it.’

I move my body closer to his, take my hand off his thigh and grab his instead, placing it at the top of my own leg.

‘I won’t tell if you don’t.’ I move his hand up towards my pants and use his fingers to push them aside. He takes a breath in as gulping and sharp as his very first, and looks at me again.

‘Here? What about all these people?’

I look back at him and laugh. ‘I just told you. We can do anything we want. These people’ – I gesture my free hand out to the crowd – ‘won’t tell anyone. Nothing that happens in a room like this gets outside of it.’

I’m right, of course. For as much as people couldn’t help but look at me as I walked him through the crowd, there’s a social code to adhere to in this room that nobody in here is interested in breaking.

I let him touch me and kiss me for the rest of the night, help his hands move up and down my body until he relaxes into it. He’s good. It’s clear he’s already learned something from his first foray into being one of the world’s most desirable people. I’m priming myself and my body for what’s to come, with Anna. All night, I get off on the fact that the singer’s breathing is laboured and laden with the kind of fervour only I can inspire in someone.

BEST-LAID PLANS

It was supposed to go like this: the floral arrangement was to be collected from the warehouse it was assembled in at the crack of dawn. The driver that Charles had sourced for me was then to set off, driving extremely carefully through the city’s rush-hour traffic, winding all the way up to Anna’s road. I would be waiting, not in the park in my plain clothes this time, but in the back seat of my Mercedes in a silk dress I’ve shade-matched perfectly to the vivid yellow of the peonies. I was supposed to watch him park up in front of her house, pay him his cash before he leaves by foot, and then wait until Anna came out of her front door to head to the nursery. I was supposed to watch a radiant smile break out on her face as she saw, and was completely blown away by, the outrageous peony display. By me. By the sheer Hollywood romance of it all.

But that’s not how it’s going. I’ve held up my end of the bargain – I’m here, a vision in citrine with a suitcase full of cash ready to give to this driver, the easiest money he’ll ever make. He, on the other hand, is nowhere to be seen. I’m getting increasingly nervous, my stomach tightening the closer it gets to the time Anna usually leaves the house. I’m tracking his phone’s location, and either his signal is fucked or he’s decided to make the world’s longest pit stop in the centre of the city. I’ve called him and called him, but he’s refusing to pick up. Every time it rings out I grip my phone tighter, until eventually my knuckles are white.

‘I knew I shouldn’t’ve trusted Charles’s contact with something like this,’ I say, ostensibly to Clive, who is sitting in the driver’s seat and had been prepped to whisk Anna and me back to my new house once she’d swooned sufficiently. But it’s not as though Clive has any idea what I’m talking about. Knowing the intricacies of my personal life is not in the human-shield job description.

Just as I’m about to call this feckless driver again, the peeling, black front door I’ve been staring at swings open and out walks Anna. All the blood drains from my head as I watch her walk down the street, out of view, and realize my plan has failed. Anna is walking off to start her day, and my grand gesture is apparently somewhere stuck in traffic.

I look down at my phone again and pull up the driver’s location – not that it makes much difference now. To my shock – he’s moving again. Not just moving, practically flying he’s going so fast – much faster than he should be with such precious cargo. But he’s going in the wrong direction. Alarm bells start going off in my head. Where the fuck is this guy taking my peonies at such breakneck speed? My mind is racing. I feel almost nauseous, like all the alcohol I consumed last night is finally catching up with me. A sharp spasm runs down the side of my neck and spins my head to the left, so sudden and uncomfortable I let out a gasp. I have half a mind to tell Clive to take me directly to Charles to make him pay for the appalling service he recommended me, but then I see that the driver has stopped. I zoom in on his location – he’s at a hospital. That’s odd, I think. Why would he kidnap 3,000 peonies and take them to a hospital in central London? Unless—

‘Clive,’ I say, a bud of a suspicion forming in my mind, ‘turn on the radio. The local station. I want to listen to the news.’ My voice is smooth and steady, but I can feel my pulse in my ears.

It only takes a few seconds before we hear it.

‘...Early reports are coming in of a catastrophic traffic accident at rush hour this morning, involving several passenger cars and a large HGV, thought to have been caused by an oil spill on the road. Paramedics attended the scene before several drivers were taken to hospital for further treatment. The police have advised drivers to avoid the Oxford Street south area entirely as they deal with the incident...’

A large HGV. Paramedics. Hospital. The driver’s blue dot zooming across London makes sense now. He wasn’t driving – he was being driven, my peonies presumably abandoned in a pool of oil. Without even thinking about who might see me, I kick open the door of the car and step outside it. I slam the door shut, the yellow silk of my dress billowing from the force of it. I lean both of my forearms against it like I’m trying to push the whole vehicle away with my fury, cradling my head in my hands. The anger courses through me, stretching from my shoulder blades down to my elbows and finally curling my hands into fists that bang on the car roof. Clive leaps out of the front seat and asks me if everything is okay.

I stand to full height, taking my hands off the car. The words come through my teeth like hot pearls of spit.

I tell him to take me to the hospital.

PROTECTORS

I ask Clive to go via a costume shop and pick me up an outfit on our way to the hospital. I sit impatiently in the back of the car whilst he calls up a few shops to check if they have one in stock. Some don’t, but we find one eventually that I change into in the back of the car, the yellow silk relegated to the footwell. The material is so cheap and scratchy I feel I might combust right there in the car, but as soon as I have the Protectors outfit on, a wave of purpose comes over me. When we get to the underground car park of the hospital, I tell Clive to wait there.

‘I won’t be too long,’ I assure him when he tries to come in with me. ‘Very little bad can happen to me in a hospital. Plus,’ I add, ‘this is a surprise visit. No one knows I’m coming.’ Then I jump out of the car and walk through the dark space, silent but for the odd drip of water from its low concrete ceilings.

In the lift up to the main hospital entrance I look at myself in the mirror in this imitation Protectors outfit. Briefly, I’m reminded of Jenni Klein, how it would take hours to get the two of us ready for our scenes and zipped into our tailor-made catsuits. Running my fingers through my hair, I shake the image out of my mind. I need to focus. I flash myself my sweetest smile as the lift pulls to a stop, then I turn around and stride out into the room. I feel the air stiffen around me as everyone – patients, nurses, receptionists – looks up at me as I move, but I keep walking, following signs to the children’s ward. At least one good thing has come out of that fruitless visit to Clara, I think as I walk, getting ready to make as many children’s wishes as possible come true until I can be sure the real reason I’m here is through triage. Besides, only an idiot would miss a PR opportunity as easy as this one. Two birds and all that.

‘Hello, there,’ I say to the nurse on reception when I arrive at the children’s ward, all bright colours and signs in comic sans. The nurse recognizes me instantly – in this costume it’s impossible not to. She blushes as I lean over the desk and smile down at her like we’re sharing a secret.

‘I’m Marina. I hope you’ll forgive the way I’m dressed, but – I’m here on very official business.’ I wink ever so slightly. ‘I’m making the rounds of children’s wards of hospitals in the area – surprise visit from a superhero, you know, it can sometimes help to...’ I look at her, eyes wide, knowing she’ll finish my sentence for me.

‘To keep their spirits up? Oh bless you, that’s so thoughtful – these kids will be absolutely delighted! What an honour to have a real-life superhero with us!’ Her pale eyes well up.

‘Are you sure? I’m sorry not to have booked it in, but my security don’t love me advertising my whereabouts, if I can help it...’ I shrug apologetically, a hint of anxiety in my voice to seal the deal.

The nurse almost knocks me over from waving the thought away so emphatically. ‘Absolutely not,’ she says, ‘this will make their week! I’ll take you round now. You just come with me, love.’

I spend a couple of hours killing time with the sick children, holding their hands, posing for pictures and performing my catchphrases from the Protectors films. After that, I thank the nurse for being so accommodating of me and then head on to my final destination: the ICU.

I’m prepared for entry to the ICU to be trickier, but I needn’t worry: the person on the desk here is just as bowled over by my magnanimity and gives me free rein of the place. I mean, talk about blinded by celebrity. The ICU obviously has a different feel to the children’s ward – there’s no forced joy here. Only pain and fluorescent lights and beeping. The people whose beds I sit next to are either unconscious or so whacked out on morphine that they don’t even know I’m there, and the doctors and nurses are rushing around, talking in hushed tones about vitals and scripts.

I leave his room until last. The driver. I wait until his nurse leaves the room so we’ll be quite alone. I thought he might not be here yet, or it might be hard to recognize him given that I’d only seen a photo of him, but he has a tattoo of a swallow on his right cheek. Even with all the swelling and the bruising around his eyes, it’s visible. He’s been sedated, tubes coming out of his mouth and arms. I look at him, momentarily transfixed by the purple mottling on his face and the blood crusted in his moustache. But I don’t have much time for sentimentality. I place my left hand over his, as I have done with countless people in this hospital today, and lean in close enough to his face that I can feel the bristle of his moustache.

‘You ruined my plans today,’ I whisper in his ear, placing my right hand over the infusion pump that’s keeping his blood pressure level. ‘I told you not to drive so recklessly. You have no idea how important this was to me. You really should be more careful.’ I squeeze his hand and the pump at the same time, counting three seconds in my head. I’ve only got a couple of minutes at most until his blood pressure drops to a critical level, alerting the medics, so I wrap up.

‘You could’ve got someone killed,’ I hiss, and then I walk out of his room and through the ward, stopping briefly to express my thanks to the nurse on reception, who beams up at me. The beeping coming from the driver’s room crescendos as the ward door swings shut behind me.

Driver in Critical Condition Following Oxford Street Floral Fiasco

HGV driver remains in intensive care following central London oil spill disaster.

The driver of an HGV involved in yesterday’s road traffic incident on the south end of Oxford Street is still in critical condition, the Metro can report.

The driver is one of six to have been admitted to hospital following the incident. The other five are reported to be recovering well; however, he is reported to be in a coma. The man was conscious at the scene of the accident, having sustained a severe blow to the head, but his condition has since deteriorated.

The collision, caused by an oil spill, involved six vehicles including the HGV, which was transporting an elaborate floral display. The accident caused thousands of peonies to spill out into the surrounding traffic.

An eye witness to the scene told the Metro: ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. There were flowers everywhere, all over everyone’s windscreens. None of the drivers could see a thing. It’s a miracle more weren’t hurt.’

The Metropolitan Police closed the street to vehicles and pedestrians whilst the clean-up took place, with drivers being forced to seek alternative routes through Central London in the 24 hours since.

@marinaupdates_ thread of cute pics of Marina making a surprise visit to a children’s ward in London today
7:18PM • Jul 18 • 2.7M Views

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@marin1ac @marinaupdates_ sweetest person on the planet!! Queen!!!!

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@protectors_realm85 @marinaupdates_ Icons only! Bet she made those kids days.

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@nickladdddd @marinaupdates_ ooof would you look at her body in that ’fit

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@marini1ac @nickladdddd man that’s inappropriate there are sick kids in these pics

GOD COMPLEX

In the days following my hospital visit I can’t bear to demean myself with the wig and the ugly clothes. I abandon my post by Anna’s house for a few days, instead taking myself around London’s galleries to regroup after the peony disaster. I choose something fabulous for each location. Sculptural Schiaparelli dress for Tate Modern. Romantic, archival Valentino gown for The National Gallery. Red Alaïa for Tate Britain. Of course, I call a couple of paparazzi to capture some candids of each occasion, aware that as soon as they’re published Anna will know for sure I’m still in her city, looking so fucking drop-dead incredible that she’ll go weak with desire. A good holding plan whilst I think of my next move. And I have to say, it feels good for the bright flash of the cameras to burn my retinas again after so many weeks pretending to be ordinary.

Clive calls ahead and gets everywhere closed to the public so I can have each place to myself. It’s a centring experience. I see some facet of myself played back at me at every turn, like my reflection’s arms are stretching out from every painting to stroke my hair, soothe me. My grace and poise shining out of Meredith Frampton’s Marguerite Kelsey at Tate Modern. My strength channelled through Artemisia Gentileschi’s magnificent self-portrait at The National Gallery.

At Tate Britain I’m transfixed by John Martin’s The Great Day of His Wrath, a triumphant, symphonic maelstrom of fire and waves and lightning; all of nature defying itself to create something terrible and beautiful. I stand in front of it for a long time, meditating on the infernal heart of the thing. There I am, I think. All of this is within me. I am creation and destruction. I am everything and everything is mine. It reminds me what I’m capable of.

When I return home from Tate Britain, I take a long, blistering bath. The room is dimly lit by candlelight and the air is thick with the mingling scents of lime and basil. My Alaïa dress strewn on the floor. I’m relaxed, thinking about Anna and reading through our last text exchange, when a message from Jenni pops up. Since putting on the Protectors costume, I’ll admit, it’s been harder to ignore her presence in my messages. Even though I specifically asked Jenni not to contact me when I left LA, somehow she’s still sent me scores of texts since then despite the fact that I haven’t once replied to her. That’s so classic Jenni – she’s forever pushing herself into my direct line of vision even when I deliberately remove her from it. Her levels of cognitive dissonance astound me.

Against my better judgement, I open the message.

M, I really miss you. Can we please talk? Xx

God, how boring. She’s so desperate for my attention. But sometimes you have to throw a dog a bone so it will stop hounding you for one. I compose a text back.

Jen, I thought I asked you to give me some space last time we saw each other. All these messages – it’s quite intense don’t you think?

While I wait for her to reply, I add some more hot water and flick through Anna’s profile again, heading to her tagged images to see if she’s been up to anything new in the time I’ve kept away from her. Jenni’s message pops up at the top of my screen and I reluctantly follow it back to our conversation.

AH it’s so good to hear from you M <3 You’re totally right and I’m so sorry for not respecting your boundaries, I guess I just got used to your presence and was really feeling your absence. If you’re ready to talk I’d love to know how you’ve been?

She’s too into me for her own good. It’s degrading. Still, looking at Anna’s face on the screen, I think that perhaps I could use it to my advantage.

I’ll think about forgiving you. What have you been missing about me?

Everything, duh!

Be specific.

Wait... are you doing what I think you’re doing?

Maybe I am.

I am in the bath if that’s any indication.

Is this how I get you to forgive me?

She follows with a winky face, which sends a shiver of revulsion down my spine.

Sure.

Give it a try if you think it will work.

Once we’re done, I feel even more relaxed. She sends me a photo of herself lying back in her bed, eyes closed, a dopey smile painted on her face. I don’t reply.

Flying Solo! Henry Easton Spotted on Boys’ Night Out at Exclusive Los Angeles Spot

The actor, 33, was enjoying a night out with friends until the small hours whilst Marina is away.

He’s the reigning king of the box office and what better way to celebrate than a night with the boys? Hollywood hunk Henry Easton was spotted at the celeb hotspot Tower Bar on Sunset Boulevard with a group of unidentified male friends.

The actor seemed to be in high spirits, stopping to take a few selfies with a group of fans and even getting a round of drinks in for the group.

‘He was so charming and friendly, it was SO great to meet him,’ the fan, TikTok user Rachel Carter, shared on the app when relaying the story. ‘He’s also ageing like fine wine – that man is BEAUTIFUL,’ she added cheekily.

It was a rare public appearance for Henry, who together with his long-term partner Marina tends to keep a low profile in his private life. According to sources close to the pair, who have not been seen together since the premiere of their box office smash hit Interspace, Henry is taking advantage of Marina’s travels to enjoy a much-needed catch-up with his tight social circle.

Meanwhile, Marina, nearly 30, has been turning heads in London and defiantly ignoring the rumours of a rift between herself and close friend Jenni Klein. The star has been spotted heading to meetings at various institutions in the city in a series of high-octane outfits over the past few weeks, leaving fans to wonder what she has planned.

‘Full Schiaparelli look at 10am in 31 degrees – our committed queen,’ @marinaupdates_ on Twitter shared.

‘She’s cooking something up for us and I’m guessing we can expect HIGH ART,’ wrote another user, @justcallmemayax.

Not everyone is a fan of Marina’s daring new look, however, with one user sharing that she looks ‘like an unhinged Capitol resident’, a reference to the bestselling dystopian series The Hunger Games.

CALYPSO

Anna’s started including more pictures of her face in her Instagram stories and I know she’s doing it for me. Even with this burner account, I can tell she’s performing for me alone; it’s obvious. Whenever a pink ring appears around her profile with new content, I press my right thumb down on the screen so hard that my skin starts to scorch where it meets my nail, just so it stays visible for as long as possible.

Most thrillingly, she posts a selfie of herself at Tate Britain, just days after my own visit, standing in front of Elisabeth Frink’s 1973 lithograph Calypso. That one feels special, I admit. I love that she’s communing with my art, pulling the threads of characters I’ve played and places I’ve been together to make a tapestry of her own. To this day, Calypso is one of my favourite parts I’ve played. I’ve always been able to command an audience even as a small child – the other school children would sit, cross-legged, at my feet, waiting for my say-so on how to behave at playtime. It’s why I started acting in the first place – I enjoyed wielding my power to make people feel things, grabbing their attention and pulling their emotions out of them like toys from a box. I was fourteen when I was cast as Calypso, and suddenly able to do just that on mass scale. Calypso opened everything up for me. So when I see this image of Anna, face just a fraction away from a version of this character, that means so much to me, it reinforces my faith in our connection. I know she’s still playing the game; that she’s daring me to make the next move.

Cheered on by her posts, I gradually slip back into watching her in real life. I spend my days stationing myself in close proximity to her again: in the park opposite her house, the pub across the road from her bar, benches on the Heath near where her circle usually whiles away the afternoon. Of course, I’m back to doing it all clandestinely, no superhero costumes here. The aim is still to fade, as much as possible, into obscurity.

One day I’m sitting in a pub near the nursery when Anna walks in with three of her colleagues. I’m shocked to see her in here – I’d chosen this spot precisely because I’d never seen her enter it before. Frankly, I’d assumed she’d want to steer clear of a place like this, with its fraying carpet and plastic menus on every table. God knows I’m only here out of necessity.

When she walks in, I slide down in my seat, fading into the shadowy corner so she doesn’t see me, but every nerve in my body stands to attention otherwise. She sits down at a table in the window, some distance from me, but it’s quiet in here and I can hear every word of her conversation.

‘He’s quite literally an insufferable pig,’ a short woman in head-to-toe brown, the last to sit down, announces to the table. Everyone nods enthusiastically, including Anna.

‘I know!’ Anna says. ‘He’s the worst. Did you hear him earlier? Actually, Anna, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to the education crisis, it’s quite complicated. All right then, fucking hell, sorry I’m just a classroom assistant and incapable of understanding complicated crises.’ She’s laughing, but there’s an edge to her voice. I can tell this person has upset her. My money, from the droning impression Anna just gave, is that it’s the colleague I saw her argue with. Matt.

All three of Anna’s colleagues laugh with her, and one of them, a man with a buzz cut and several earrings in both ears, pulls her in close to him in a totally sexless display of affection that nevertheless sends an electric jolt down the nerve in the left of my neck. ‘Matt only thinks he’s hot shit because he has a Master’s in Education, mate, I wouldn’t worry about it. He has no real ground to stand on.’ So I was right. She is still bothered by Matt.

‘Yeah, honestly, who cares about him?’ the third colleague, an acne-ridden girl with a raspy voice, chimes in. I’ve seen this girl before, in some of Anna’s Instagram stories; clearly their friendship transcends the workplace. ‘He’s a boring twat and you’re infinitely cooler than him. He probably fancies you and, like, resents you for it.’

‘Incel vibes,’ the buzz cut adds, nodding his head solemnly.

‘Oh great, thanks for that,’ Anna says, elbowing the buzz cut. ‘Can’t wait to be murdered in my sleep for being too hot.’ They all laugh again, and the conversation morphs to a podcast the short woman had listened to recently about incel culture and the dismal state of modern masculinity.

My heart is pounding against my ribcage, thinking about this Matt and the threat he evidently poses to Anna, to me. How can she possibly concentrate on the blossoming romance between the two of us when she’s got all this unwanted negativity at work? I’m lucky, I realize, that I can focus so singularly on this game we’ve started, no distractions.

‘Speaking of shit men, did you hear about the new Troy Sorensøn movie?’ the buzz cut says. I fight the urge not to sit up straighter in my chair, my attention suddenly back on their conversation. Sorensøn hasn’t made a movie since the one we did together. I haven’t heard anything from him in years.

‘Shit, yes! Isn’t Jenni Klein gonna be in it?’ the raspy girl says.

Is she?

‘Yeah! Isn’t that such a classic Sorensøn move?’ the buzz cut says, laughing. ‘Just casting the hottest woman he can get his hands on.’

‘She’s not that hot,’ Anna says, and it makes me want to kiss her. I slide further down in my chair instead, my cheeks burning. ‘Anyway, shall we go get another somewhere else? It’s a bit dead in here.’

They all finish their pints and leave shortly afterwards, but I sit there a while longer, going over their conversation with a fine-tooth comb. So, Jenni’s doing a Sorensøn. No wonder she’s been so desperate to talk to me all summer; likely she’s in way over her head. I try to focus on this – reminding myself of her middling abilities and the disaster the film will surely be as a result – rather than the burning, unpleasant pang in the left side of my neck that’s come on since the buzz cut said Jenni’s name. But it’s hard. There’s an uninvited conveyor belt of images whirling round my head: Jenni Klein. Sorensøn’s truck of lilies. My own, doomed peonies. The swollen, bruised face of the driver.

I tap my fingertips on the coated wood table to erase them and ground myself in the present moment, ignoring its slightly sticky residue. I don’t care about this, I tell myself as Jenni laughs in my head. I don’t care. I force it to run laps in my mind, the words matching the staccato drumming of my fingers. Eventually, it works, and I’m able to return to my original train of thought: the problem of Anna’s colleague. After a while, I get up and head towards the door, focus successfully diverted from Jenni and her new project. When I leave the dingy pub, I don’t go in the direction Anna went. Instead, I go back to my house and find out everything I can about Matt.

FANBOY

Back at my house, I head upstairs and set up shop in my bedroom. I don’t bother to take the wig or today’s pair of cheap leggings off; instead, I head straight to the bed and lie face down on the hotel-crisp duvet and open the browser on my phone. It’s surprisingly simple to find Matt’s profiles, considering all I have is his first name and his place of work. But then again, opinionated men are never especially concerned with not being visible. All it takes is a cursory look over the nursery’s website, where I see several desperately dull ‘news stories’ about finger painting penned by Matt Henkel. From there it’s an easy step to his Twitter account – where the bio says, as if anyone cares, ‘All views are my own’. It’s full of lukewarm takes about the state of the UK education system and football – and, as luck would have it, a ‘likes’ page full of GIFs of me, with captions like The things I’d let her do to me... and Helen of Troy if she were reincarnated.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen stuff like this; I haven’t been checking in on my press or my Instagram comments much at all since Anna and I started this cat-and-mouse. Seeing it through the prism of this odious man feels slightly sour. It all makes sense though: no wonder Matt resents Anna so much. If he knows even half of what the two of us have done together – and he probably does, the little creep, I’m sure he’ll have looked over her shoulder to see whose messages she smiles at on their lunch breaks – he’s probably seething with jealousy.

Part-amused, part-repulsed by the picture of Matt that’s forming in my mind, I click through to one of my fan accounts. I’m half-heartedly scrolling through pictures of a lifetime of red-carpet events when I see an image from the first Protectors premiere, in which I’m roughly the age Jenni Klein is now. I’m radiant, but I notice that the quality of the picture is worse, more pixelated, than one that would be taken today. A veteran, I think, remembering the girl at Jenni’s party and the influencer at the Interspace premiere. I glance at the mirror, but something lurches in my stomach at the sight of the mousy wig and the scrubbed, un-made-up face staring back at me. I drop the phone and tear first the wig, then the wig cap, off my head, running my hands through my hair until I look more like the woman in the Protectors picture. More like her, but older. The thought sprouts from some dark, craggy part of my mind like a weed, and whatever lurched in my stomach twists further. It feels like someone’s wringing my torso out from the inside.

I get up and walk towards the mirror, pressing my face close enough to it when I get there that the glass fogs up. I peer at the thinner skin around my eyes as if looking for wrinkles, even though I’ve had enough subtly administered filler to know I won’t find any. ‘Still perfect,’ I say out loud when I’m certain there’s nothing there, and then I laugh, just a little. I’m talking to myself. My throat catches slightly from lack of use. I pick my phone up again and click back towards Matt’s profile so I can read the Helen of Troy post again. It has hundreds of thousands of likes. There’s all the proof you need, I think, and then I hear Anna’s voice in my mind. She’s not that hot about Jenni, followed in quick succession by the Fuck me, you’re hot she’d said as she undressed me earlier this summer. I take my clothes off, letting the ugly T-shirt and the drab leggings fall to the floor, until I’m as naked as I was then. Yes, still perfect. Without a shadow of a doubt. As if Jenni Klein would have me questioning that.

It’s only then, when I’m satisfied with the tight, toned curves of the body I’m looking at, that I remember what I was doing on my phone in the first place; why I even saw that old photograph. Matt. He’s obsessed with Anna, getting in the way of our fun. Clearly, it’s not healthy. The thought of his crude desire for me and blatant disregard for her is enough to shake me out of the strange fog in my mind and put me back on track. I look again at his profile: I have all the information I need right here.

That night, after I’ve showered the day away and I’m lying in bed, I decide to pivot my attention from Anna’s daily routine to Matt’s. As soon as I wake up the next morning I throw on my horrible civilian outfit – without looking in the mirror – and get in my car. I park outside the nursery and wait for him to arrive, and I stay there all day until he leaves, at which point I start the engine and follow him to a house on a wide, tree-lined street. He walks up the front steps and lets himself in and then sits down at a computer in front of the window, where he stays for hours, only getting up to fetch himself a beer.

It’s as I’m watching him mindlessly surf the internet that an idea comes to me, the words of Anna’s friends whirring in my mind, and I almost laugh at the selflessness Anna has inspired in me. I’ll sort him out for you. He won’t be a problem for long.

DRY

This time in the dream the grass beneath me is dry and yellowed by the sun. I look down towards it and see two paws at the ends of my arms, which are in fact legs, because I’m a leopard, too. This is different to before, I think.

The dry grass makes the fur of my belly stand on end with each step I take towards her, the leopard from the first dream. We’re not circling each other this time. Instead, she’s lying resplendent in the last patch of daylight, and I’m in some never-ending shade on the other side of the enclosure. I’m trying to get to her, but I’m moving so slowly, my limbs creaking with each painful step forward, that I never get there. It doesn’t feel good, but I keep moving anyway, the small fizz of a tremor going down my spine with each scratch of the straw beneath me.

GHOST

‘Jules, this better not be about another fucking dead zoo animal, I swear to God,’ I say as soon as she picks up. I’m calling her back after she rang me an ungodly six times in a row, just as I’m getting ready to head out. It’s midday, and I’m due to make my way over to the nursery again.

‘Marina, hi, thanks for calling back. Did you see the emails?’ There’s a lot of noise wherever she is, and there’s a man’s voice in the background too. It sounds familiar.

‘Where are you?’ I ask. ‘I can’t hear a thing. You should step outside when your boss calls, Jules, it’s polite.’

‘Sorry, sorry’ – I hear her walk. The tinny background music is slowly replaced with traffic. ‘Better?’ she asks.

‘It’ll do. Was that Henry I could hear in the background?’

‘Oh, yes, it was. It’s Anthony’s birthday, Henry’s throwing him a party.’

‘I see. Well, I’m glad I missed it, it sounds terrible. What email?’

‘Oh, well, the lawyers wanted to know – well, have you heard of Leon Aston?’

‘Who?’

‘Leon Aston? He’s a British singer?’

‘I don’t know, Jules, there are a lot of British singers. What about him?’

‘Well, I said I’m sure it wasn’t true, otherwise you would’ve flagged it with us, but the lawyers were contacted by his team to say that something had... happened between the two of you in London?’

Oh. That. I’d forgotten about my little random act of kindness. That feels like years ago.

‘Marina?’ Jules comes through the other line.

‘Right, yes, him. I told you about that, I’m sure of it. Did you not pick it up with the lawyers?’

‘I – oh, did you really? I don’t think – I can’t see a record of that—’

‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you, because it was a phone conversation, wasn’t it? I’m hardly going to commit something like that to paper. You must’ve forgotten about it. Too busy working on your manuscript, I expect.’

‘Um, yes. I’m sure you’re right. So... I can fill the lawyers in then?’

‘It sounds like someone has got there before you, Jules, but yes. Better late than never.’

‘Okay... It’s just that Leon’s team said that you were quite... intense about things. They said he started to feel a bit uncomfortable? They actually just wanted to ensure it wasn’t going to happen again.’

What an ungrateful little shit.

‘They just want money, Jules. That boy is box fresh to this life and those vultures just want to milk him for all they can before his star wanes. But no, obviously I have no desire to rehash a second-rate experience with a sexual rookie. If you must know, I was doing him a favour.’

‘Of course, totally understand... So are you happy for me to tell the lawyers to just sort it out – they have your permission to agree to their terms?’

‘When has that ever not been the case? Is everything all right with you, Jules? You seem to have suddenly forgotten how to do your job.’

She makes a small gulp and I can picture her mouth opening and closing like a guppy fish.

‘Sorry, Marina. Yes, everything is great. I don’t know what I was thinking.’

‘Mmm. Is that all?’

‘Yes, I think that’s all, sorry to have kept you.’

I hang up the phone and run my hands over my stomach. The left side of my neck twitches, more forcefully than it has before. My head jerks to the left along with it, the joints cracking in my neck as it does. Strange. I’m slightly sweatier than I was before the phone call. I put it down to Jules’s painstaking slowness.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, though, there’s a bubble of unease at the thought of my tryst with the singer getting out to the press, his grubby hands snatching my hard-won reputation away from me. I shake my hair out forcefully, raking my nails hard across my scalp. I don’t need this, not today. Not when I have plans to see through. I head upstairs to the bathroom, where the morning sunlight is streaming in, and I turn the shower on as low as it can go. My heart leaps to the top of my throat at the cold. By the time I’m clean, the icy shock of the water has stamped the thought out until it’s nothing but a tiny, flat ghost of gum on the pavement of my mind.

ALPHA

I leave the house in a hurry after my shower, and although I’ve largely put Leon Aston out of my mind, I still feel distracted as I drive to my parking spot outside the nursery. I’m picking over the various ways the day might go like a scab. What if Anna sees me? What if Matt is sick and hasn’t come to work? What if I can’t orchestrate things properly when I get to Matt’s? The questions run on a loop in my head all the while I’m parked up, but as soon as the nursery gates open, they dissipate. Anna is one of the first to leave, and just the sight of her is enough to steel my nerves. Several minutes after her, out comes my target. Like I have every other day this week, I follow him, grateful for the slow traffic that means I can keep several cars behind his step.

When we arrive, I wait until I can see him slouched, illuminated by the blue light of the screen, beer in hand, before stepping out of the car and walking up his front steps.

I’m wearing my very best celebrity off-duty look: light blue Levi’s 501s, a cropped white top that artfully skims my abs, some leather mules. In short, I look like the girl-next-door version of my superstar self: Matt’s wet dream. I ring the bell, and when Matt opens the door and sees me standing there, his jaw quite literally drops.

‘Hi!’ I say, full of pep. ‘Are you Matt Henkel?’

‘I – um – yes, I’m Matt Henkel... Are you—’ He looks over my shoulder, out onto the street. ‘Is this a joke? You’re – you’re Marina, right?’

I laugh, moving my head to make my hair cascade over my shoulders so he smells my shampoo.

‘That’s me,’ I say then, ‘and no, this isn’t a joke, although if it is, your friends have a funny sense of humour.’

‘My friends?’

‘They entered your name into a raffle. Win a coffee date with Marina,’ I say, by way of explanation. ‘It’s a charity thing.’

When he’s silent, I cover my face with my hands. I’m leaning into it. Full coquette. ‘Sorry, this is embarrassing. Um – I can just go, if you’d rather not – the money’s already been donated to charity...’

‘No!’ he cries, swinging the door open so hard it slams against the wall inside. ‘No, please, please – come in, I just, um. Wow. Sorry. I’m, er, a bit shell-shocked.’ Matt scratches his head and lets me into his house. I smile at him, and, just for extra effect, lean in to kiss his cheek hello once I’m inside. He smells like Lynx and cheap hair gel, and I have to repress a shudder at the thought of poor Anna being subjected to this adolescent stench day in, day out. Not for long, I tell myself.

Matt walks me through into the living room, the room I can see into from the window. It’s stiflingly male in here – grey sofa, walls blank but for some strange, vaguely war-themed art (a picture of a Zeppelin airship), and a black MDF desk, on top of which sits his laptop. As I suspected, he’s too flustered to remember he’s left it open.

‘How do these coffee dates work then?’ he asks me, nervously.

‘Well, usually, I like to sit with someone in their house, just like this, drink a normal cup of coffee and get to know them,’ I reply, sitting myself down gingerly on his flat sofa. ‘I don’t get to do that very often. It’s a bit of a treat for me, too.’

‘I can absolutely make that happen,’ Matt says, and grins a peevish smile before disappearing into the kitchen to make a stovetop coffee.

This is all the time I need. I walk over to his desk. Quickly, I pull out the USB I’ve been carrying in my jeans pocket and insert it into Matt’s laptop. Instantly, the folder I’ve been assembling these past few days opens up on his desktop. ‘ALPHA (Private)’, I’ve called it. Then I drag it into his documents, eject the USB and lock the laptop.

I spend half an hour hearing about Matt’s small, insignificant life, letting him ask me questions about Interspace and my upcoming films. Then I head back out to the car and drive home, from where I send several anonymous emails: first to the nursery info page, then to the head of the parents’ association, then to the headteacher of the school the nursery feeds into. All of them say a variation of the same thing.

I’m writing out of concern about the views of Matt Henkel. I have reason to believe he subscribes to dangerously misogynistic ideology, and has been repeating this to young children. I believe he is in no way fit to educate the minds of tomorrow. Please look into this as a matter of urgency.

It takes hardly any time at all for the plan to take hold. The next day, back in stealth mode, I take up post outside the nursery. Matt doesn’t arrive for work – presumably because he’s been told not to. A day later, when the children and staff have filed out, I watch from my spot in the car as an older woman with a steel-coloured ponytail stands, waiting, on the nursery steps alongside a slightly younger, paunchy man. I recognize them both as the primary school headteacher and head of the parents’ association, respectively. After a few moments, Matt walks around the corner and up the steps, satchel on his shoulder and a nervous look on his face. Perfect.

The older woman gestures towards the double doors of the building, and they go inside. To my delight, they sit in a classroom visible to me from the road and I can watch the whole interaction unfold. I’m too far away to make out anyone’s expressions, but I watch as he takes out his laptop, unlocks it, and passes it to the two of them to inspect, see them sit back in their chairs and fold their arms, snapping the laptop shut after they’ve seen enough. I drive off before they leave the room, satisfied with the inevitable outcome.

Matt doesn’t show up at the nursery the next morning. Or the next, or the next. Each day that follows, as I watch Anna leave the nursery and go to the Heath or the bar or the pub with friends, she looks more and more relaxed. Like she’s finally able to think clearly.

FANFORUM / MARINATHEORIES

A subthread dedicated to fan theories related to Marina

[post by bagelchips98] leaked footage from Interspace premiere of marina looking kinda pressed....

Guys Idek how I found this but look at this vid from the q&a at the interspace premiere – at 05:32 marina completely freezes when that Tiktoker asks her ab her age. Look at her face she looks PANICKED! Henry has to completely leap to her rescue! Wtf was going on with her do you think??

[reply by whisperingwingsoO] yiiiikes yeah that is kinda rough. Never seen Marina lost for words before. I guess she’s as nervous about getting older as the rest of us!

[reply by astrobramble32] idk she seems almost angry at the tiktok girl for asking the question if you look at her face properly at 05:33:35... seems a bit extreme, it’s not a crazy question to ask or anything.

[reply by marinni456] astrobramble32 I think she’s pissed at Henry E not the person asking the question!! Feel like Marina wouldn’t like a man answering a question for her especially not about something as personal as this

[reply by blackcurrenttribes] marinni456 are u blind lol she’s blatantly mega relieved when Henry jumps in... sometimes I think u lot just see what u wanna see lol

FANFORUM / MARINATHEORIES

A subthread dedicated to fan theories related to Marina

[post by paninipsychic69] hey guys, bit of a sad one from me today – I was out in London earlier this morning and was sooo excited because I spotted Marina across from me in the park. From far away she looked like her normal self and obvs she is so stunning and amazing, but I went over to ask her for a pic and she looked kind of weird up close... idk I don’t wanna say haunted lol that feels dramatic but she was super gaunt and was like twitching a bit??? I didn’t even end up taking the pic because she just said she wasn’t in the mood and walked off. Ngl I felt a bit hurt by her reaction at first cos I only ever hear amazing things about her from other mariniacs so felt like maybe I’d done something wrong but then I just felt bad and it just got me thinking – I hope she’s okay </3

[reply by bagelchips98] I’m worried about her too esp given all this stuff in the press about Jenni Klein?? Did anyone see that video I shared here the other day of the interspace premiere where she was acting super weirdly? funny you say she was twitching today cos she’s definitely doing that in the vid too.... There’s definitely something up with her. Do you think everything is ok with her and Henry...

[reply by marinni456] I don’t wanna be mean paninipsychic69 but why do you expect marina to be superhuman?? She’s a person just like everybody else and she doesn’t owe you a picture or even kindness, she does enough for us by making incredible art for us to enjoy forever and supporting so many good causes and like being an ally to marginalized communities – everyone has off days even Marina. Stop being so selfish

[reply by astrobramble32] hate to agree with marinni456 but theyre right, why does everyone expect celebrities to be happy all the time and why are you bringing her appearance into it like that

[reply by staticmonkeys] you guys are being way out of line, paninipsychic69 is well within their rights to be pissed at that interaction and marina has no right to treat her fans like that, there’s no excuse for rudeness especially when you have literally everything you could ever want. Some people have real problems

[reply by whisperingwingsoO] how do you know marina doesn’t have real problems?? I’ve been doing more research into Marinni and given all that I think Jenni’s recent behaviour would definitely upset her – it looks like they stayed super close even after things ended between the two of them. plus Jenni’s apparently gonna work with Troy Sorensøn and isn’t he notoriously ~difficult~ to young women on his sets? Marina worked with him when she was like sooo young so she probs doesn’t have great memories of him... marina is probs super worried! I would be too if my ex worked with someone like that!!

GOODYEAR

It’s a shame, really, that I had to get Matt fired, because technically he’s in my good books. I mean, his absence from Anna’s daily life has led to an increase in regularity of her coded Instagram posts, for a start – lots of stories about feminism and women being amazing, which clearly means me. And even better, I have him to thank for my next move. Did you know that there are only twenty-five blimps left in the world? I looked it up after I saw the ugly Zeppelin painting on Matt’s bare walls; it made me think of the Goodyear blimp that appears in the Los Angeles sky seemingly at random, blessing those that see it with a magic dose of Hollywood iconography.

Only about half of those twenty-five are technically in working order, the rest put out to pasture, apparently no longer fit for advertising tyres or shelling countries or whatever they were used for in a former life. It doesn’t really matter to me. It’s all a lie, anyway.

Sure, now and then you see one of those novelty, inflatable blimps outside car dealerships, charting lamely through the air, so flimsy they’re translucent. Naturally I don’t want anything to do with something so low grade. I want the real deal, a proper Zeppelin that needs a real person to operate it and that can tow a banner behind it effectively. Anna wouldn’t be interested in a facsimile either, obviously. Anna’s no cheap suit, that much has been clear from the start. At this rate I’d go so far as to say she’s almost demanding – I’ve barely heard from her since I resolved the Matt problem over a week ago, despite all the free headspace I know she now has. But even so, I know, in my bones, that this will be the move that makes her fold.

I don’t sleep much as I’m pulling this plan together. I’m almost feverish as I sit up at my kitchen table for hours and hours at a time, combing through public records, trying to find a blimp pilot in this country who is still actually alive. My neck is killing me, the occasional twinge transforming into full-scale throbbing the longer I sit there, forcing my head into involuntary spasms to the left. But I barely notice. I’m absorbed in my planning, and I’m on a time crunch: Anna is going on holiday.

Can’t wait for a whole week of sea air with these legends, she writes over an image of some of her friends, sitting around a table on the train drinking puerile tinned cocktails.

It has to happen there, I tell myself, when she’s happy and relaxed and there’s nothing but sea and sky surrounding her. What could be better – for an ordinary person – than lying on a beach and looking up to see your name trailed through the vast blue?

DOWN

The man I’ve found to do this for me, Norman, is so old that I’m not sure I trust him to walk from his bed to his bathroom, but I don’t have any other options. He is quite literally the last man standing when it comes to blimps in this country, and it’s a stroke of pure kismet that he retired not far from where Anna and her friends are on holiday. I’m starting to believe in luck after all.

I had wanted to contact him myself, charm him into simply doing it for me on goodwill, but he lives in such a small village. There’s no way I can go unnoticed in a place like that – even in plain clothes, it’s too much of a risk. Word could so easily get over to Anna that I’m in the vicinity, and then she might suspect something. And I want it to be a complete surprise. So I entrust Clive with the task of driving out to the village and coaxing him out of retirement for one flight only. ‘Don’t take no for an answer, Clive!’ I instruct him as he drives off, by which I mean use all that military heft to make him do what I want him to.

‘Out of interest, how did you convince him?’ I ask him later that evening when he’s returned from his successful visit and is standing, square and hulking, in my doorway.

‘I told him that he’d be paid handsomely if he did it, and reported to the authorities for unregistered possession of a dangerous aircraft and intent to fly without a co-pilot if he didn’t,’ Clive replies, utterly emotionless, as if he’s telling me the time. A little shiver thrills through me. In that moment, I’m almost attracted to him. I might even have thrown my arms around him if my neck wasn’t so sore.

‘He says he can do it tomorrow, weather providing. I’ve got his phone number for you, so you can have some updates throughout the day,’ Clive continues.

‘Wonderful,’ I reply, and I really feel it. ‘That’s wonderful. Thank you, Clive.’ Again, it’s a genuine sentiment. I’m full of – if not gratitude, then something close to it – for this oafishly loyal weapons-grade man. I check Anna’s Instagram and see that she’s posted the exact beach she plans on visiting tomorrow for their last day. One more day on paradise strip before we go back to reality, she says, tagging the location. Another secret code to me, I think. Is she hoping I’ll show up there myself? I send the location to the number Clive gave me for Norman, telling him to make sure he’s there for as much of the day as possible. I want to give myself a wide window – I’ve learned from the peony incident.

When I go to bed that night I sleep like a baby, and I wake up feeling just as fresh: in only a few short hours I will finally have made the winning move and Anna will be running straight into my arms, delighted with the drama of the thing. I’m in such a good mood I decide to stay in my pyjamas and have a long breakfast like it’s Christmas. Hell, I even scramble my own eggs.

The trouble starts when I give Norman a call, around 10 a.m., to check in.

‘There’s a storm coming, miss,’ he tells me, sounding like a character in a badly written disaster movie. ‘It’s not safe to fly in these conditions, you’d be best having me wait until tomorrow morning.’

I roll my eyes.

‘Waiting until tomorrow isn’t an option, Norman,’ I say, coolly. ‘You heard my friend Clive. If you don’t do this, you’ll go to prison.’

‘I’ll do what I can, but if it’s unsafe it’s unsafe, and there’s only me to fly, which isn’t optimal as it is, miss—’

‘Didn’t your generation fly these in a war? Seems to me a storm is pretty safe compared to those circumstances. Just do what I’m telling you to do, please.’

An hour later, he calls me again, to let me know he’s up in the air, positioned over the beach like I asked. He asks if he can come back down now. I check my messages with Anna in case I’ve somehow missed something from her; there’s nothing. I check her Instagram story to see if she’s posted anything – I’m certain that she’ll post when she sees it in the air. It’s just the sort of thing she’d find poetic even if it weren’t connected to me. But again, there’s nothing. Yet.

‘Stay up there until I tell you to come down,’ I instruct him.

Norman calls again, a final time, at 12 p.m. The line is terrible. I can barely hear him. It sounds like he’s speeding through a tunnel. The storm, I’m guessing, has arrived.

‘I just wanted to let you know I’m taking her back,’ he roars through the wind. ‘There’s a lot of lightning. I’m trying to find somewhere to moor.’ I’m almost impressed such a loud voice can come from such an old person before I realize what he’s saying.

I’m in my kitchen, still in the silk pyjamas I woke up in. I’m pacing up and down, my feet clammy against the cold marble of the floor. I refresh Anna’s Instagram again, but there’s nothing still. She hasn’t seen it.

‘No,’ I shout back at him, my chest tightening, ‘no, you can’t. You have to stay over that beach until I tell you to come down. What part of that don’t you understand?’

I can’t be sure if he hears me or not; the wind in the background is getting louder and more aggressive as I speak. The sound of the rain against the blimp’s walls is like fireworks.

‘Hello? Norman?’ I shout down the phone again. I keep the connection, listening to the storm wage around him for a few minutes, telling him to stay where he is every time his voice comes through. I catch the odd word. Help. Please. Down. Each one more panic-stricken than the last, until eventually, I can’t hear anything except the thunder and the wind and the rain. Then, the connection cuts out. The old man is surely dead, the blimp certainly pulled into the waves. And Anna still hasn’t posted anything that indicates she ever saw it, or that she even made it to the beach in the first place.

Fuck. ‘Fuck,’ I repeat out loud, the word bouncing round the kitchen walls like a ping-pong ball.

What the hell am I going to do now?

MAJESTY

I spend a good couple of hours frozen in my kitchen, somewhere between monstrous frustration and disbelief that this could possibly be another failure. And then, at 2.32 p.m., she posts a zoomed-in, granulated video of the blimp and its banner, ‘ANNA’, emblazoned pink and majestic against the threatening grey of the sky beyond. Relief, followed by sheer jubilation, floods through my entire body when I see it. It was all worth it. All that planning, the nightmarish logistics, was worth it.

I watch it five, maybe six times over, and with each viewing I feel her getting closer to me, my mouth coating in a syrupy, victorious saliva that tastes like she did that night – of vodka and lemon and sweat.

I can’t resist. I open up our messages and send her a text.

Did you see the blimp?

Oh hey

Yeah I did, I’m in Norfolk and was on a walk with pals so saw it IRL

I thought London was missing something... so what d’you think? You like it?

I mean... sure? In that I’ve never seen a blimp before

Haha, okay. I get it. You’re playing it cool still. I can work with that.

Huh?

Don’t worry I won’t blow your cover, cool girl. But I know you’re impressed deep down. You can show me just how much next time we see each other...

It’s not my finest work, but the nerve in my neck is burning; I don’t have the patience to police my own tone.

I’m lost lol. Impressed with what?

Well if you’re making me spell it out...

My blimp, of course

That was yours??

Random

Why do you have a blimp lol

Why shouldn’t I have a blimp!

Lol ok

Who was flying it? Weather was pretty bad, hope they’re ok

I don’t stop to think about how to reply. I just type.

That doesn’t matter, he’ll be fine. Didn’t you like seeing your name in the sky?

Wow... ok

That’s kinda fucked up

HENRY

I have no idea how to reply to that. My instincts are telling me this is bad, but then surely she wouldn’t say wow if that were the case. Would she? I wouldn’t. And why didn’t she say anything about her name? The not knowing makes me feel itchy. I stare at her words for a while until eventually I feel as if I’m suspended above my body.

Absently, I take myself outside of this suffocating house, wandering out of the front door and down the driveway and out into the world beyond. I follow the road until it becomes part of the belly of the city. I don’t know how long I’m walking for but quite suddenly, or so it seems, I’m surrounded by shops and people. Everyone is looking at me but I zone it out. Vaguely I’m aware of my neck spasming, but I don’t feel any pain. I don’t feel a thing. Through my haze I can hear sirens and horns and the bleeping of pedestrian crossings. I keep walking, weaving my way around hordes of people and market stalls selling slogan T-shirts. Out of the corner of my left eye I spot my own face, badly rendered in crude pop art, nestled in a row of Kim Kardashians and Che Guevaras. I walk on.

At some point I realize I must have headphones in because I hear a ringing that, after a second or two, I notice is coming from my own ears. I look down at my phone and see Henry’s name on the screen. Henry is calling me.

Henry never calls me.

‘Henry?’

‘Marina, hey.’ There’s something strange, cautious, about his tone of voice. I need to pay attention.

‘Why are you calling me? Does the studio want something from us?’

‘No, no, not that. Um, it’s just, I have to tell you something. Are you at home?’

‘No, I’m out. What is it? What have you done wrong?’

‘Ah, I don’t really know how to phrase this. It’s – well – it’s just, it happened last night—’

‘What happened last night?’

Henry lets out a low, controlled breath. ‘Don’t be mad, okay?’

‘Why would I be mad?’

‘Jules and I... I mean, the three of us, me, Anthony, Jules, were having a drink at the end of the day at the LA house, and it got kinda late, and – well—’

‘For fuck’s sake, just spit it out. What are you trying to tell me?’

‘We slept together. Me and Jules.’

A few things happen in my body when I register what Henry says. First, a shiver runs from the nape of my neck down through all my limbs, and I feel cold from within even though it’s 36 degrees outside. Then the hairs on my arms stand up, like a cat that’s been brushed the wrong way. Finally, something drops inside my stomach and it feels so heavy, spectacular even; as if my stomach is a circus tent and the tightrope walker has plummeted from a great height to the ground below, caving the whole thing in on itself as she goes. I feel like I’m down there with her. Jules is my assistant; my territory. Henry knows I can’t stand him touching my stuff. Have I not given him enough? Is he acting out? Trying to torture me?

‘I wasn’t expecting it.’ Henry’s voice comes from somewhere distant. ‘She was really upset about the animals, you know, ’cause they keep arriving dead. I think she’s a bit overwhelmed, Marina. I was trying to comfort her, and it just sort of happened.’

‘I need to go,’ I say quietly.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I said I need to go.’ I’m louder this time. ‘I don’t want to be in this conversation any more. Don’t fucking call me again.’ With that, I hang up and immediately, without any thought, make another call. My breath is light and shallow and rapid.

He picks up on the sixth ring and says my name groggily down the line.

‘Graydon,’ I jump in. I can’t bear for him to ask me how I’m doing. ‘I need to get out of this city. I’m fucking suffocating. I need you to book me in somewhere, anywhere I can be in two hours from now. As soon as you’ve booked, tell Clive where to take me.’

He starts to say something, some murmurings about where and what sort of spa, but I cut him off.

‘I actually don’t care, Graydon. Just get me the fuck out of here for a few days,’ I say, and then, involuntarily, I add a please between my short, sharp breaths. That brings me back to myself for a moment. Fuck me, I think. I must be strung out.

UK’s Last Licensed Blimp Pilot Found Dead After Tragic North Sea Storm

Norman Westbury, 86, crashed just off the Norfolk coastline during worst thunderstorm seen in region for a decade.

The UK’s last licensed blimp pilot, East Anglia-based Norman Westbury, was found dead yesterday afternoon following a treacherous thunderstorm that devastated the Norfolk coast over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Westbury, 86, was in possession of a small, unregistered blimp and had been flying it without a co-pilot over the eastern coastline for approximately half an hour when the storm began. According to the RNLI, who Westbury placed a call to an hour later, the aircraft had faltered in the electric storm and crashed 10 miles from the shore. The RLNI arrived on the scene too late to rescue Westbury.

Westbury, who lived in the rural village of Cringleford, was unmarried and had no children. According to Westbury’s neighbour Carol Leighs, the pilot had been reminiscing about his flying days in recent weeks. ‘He had all that land, and that big barn – none of us would’ve guessed he had a blimp in there! He was a bit of a loner and we didn’t talk much, but he’d mentioned that he missed being up in the air the other week,’ Leighs told this paper, adding, ‘At least he died doing what he loved.’

AT THE SPA

This is just what I needed, I’ve been telling myself since the car pulled in last night, repeating it all day today, too, resolutely pushing the words to the forefront of my mind so I don’t have to think about Henry or Anna or anything else that might cause me undue stress. This is just what I needed.

The spa Graydon has booked is not up to my usual standard. It’s nice, sure, but the interiors are tired, very early 2000s. There’s a lot of chrome. The sauna isn’t even infrared, for God’s sake. Fuck knows what listicle he plucked it from. Regardless, I’m here, and I had two different facials and a pedicure this morning alone. I fall half-asleep in my 2 p.m. massage and dream of the leopards again, softly padding around each other in the candlelight as the therapist rubs the sore spot on my neck. Just what I needed.

After my massage I head to the pool and I’m dismayed to find two other people there. When I checked in last night I told the drip on the front desk to treat me like anyone else, but I didn’t actually mean it. Usually, people understand that: in America, I’d have the whole spa to myself. I consider speaking to the manager about the interlopers, but the idea of confronting yet another person’s incompetence feels needlessly draining, so instead I take a chance and settle into a sunlounger, put some headphones in and try to focus on feeling calm.

The focus is short-lived. Even with my eyes closed I can feel the two women across the pool staring at me, their delight radiating like heat on tarmac. And there are children, two of them, jumping into the pool and splashing about. They’re also running around the seating area, which is making it extremely difficult to concentrate on the white noise in my headphones. Checking in with myself, I realize I’m actually feeling increasingly irate, which is entirely not the point of this place.

I take in a deep breath, turn up the volume so my head is thick with television static and look over at the pool. I know I’m close enough to it: I keep getting splashed by the children when they jump. I make a few calculations and conclude that I wouldn’t even have to move my body from the lounger in order to solve my problem. I close my eyes and the next time I can hear their shrieks and the thudding of their feet on the ground (audible even through my noise-cancelling headphones), I nudge my bag with my foot so it obstructs their path. Suddenly, there’s a splash. The shrieks curdle into screams. I don’t open my eyes or look up, but I know if I did I’d see those two gawpers across the pool leaping into action to assess the damage, which, given the short distance there was to fall, should be minimal. Significant enough, though, to make them vacate the premises.

After a few minutes I can’t resist opening my eyes to peek at the progress. Sure enough, there’s a small puddle of blood on the edge of the pool, which is seeping into the cracks of the stone like snakes moving through grass. One of the women has gathered up all their possessions and the other has hauled the children out of the pool, inspecting their noses. One is completely unscathed, as predicted, and the other is bleeding just a little, neat trails of blood dribbling down his face. Both are crying, which is dramatic given the actual damage done, and it takes some strength not to roll my eyes. The women confer with each other, usher their children back inside and then finally – finally – I’m alone.

The problem is that now I’m alone I’ve no choice but to think about the phone call with Henry yesterday. With no treatments or people to distract me my new mantra doesn’t quite keep the thoughts at bay. It’s annoying, but I believe him when he said it ‘just sort of happened’. The man really is a fucking moron. There was no thought or calculation behind his decision. I shouldn’t be surprised. Sleeping with the assistant is just another iteration of men fucking the help. It’s so clichéd it’s almost funny. Almost.

I’m trying to figure out how I feel about it, and more importantly, what to do about it. On the one hand, if we leaked it, it could be excellent PR. The media loves a scorned woman, after all, and we could really milk the subsequent redemption arc. Golden couple back together and stronger than ever, etc. etc. We’d probably book at least two cover stories off the back of it. Maybe even another franchise offer if I play our cards well.

But do I even want to be the scorned woman? The influencer’s comment at the Interspace premiere about being in a new stage bubbles to the surface of my mind now. There’s no way the media wouldn’t bring my age – and Jules’s for that matter – into it, however sweet I keep most of those journalists. And honestly, the thought of pity in a stranger’s eyes fills me with disgust. I don’t want that, no. No one’s looked at me with anything other than deference for so long – well, apart from Anna, of course, but that’s different. And that’s another thing: it would fuck things up with Anna for sure. If she thinks I’m all down and out because of some action man she’ll lose interest in the game that she started with me. She’s been playing hard to get for long enough as it is. No. I don’t need this. Best to just pretend this whole thing never happened.

I pull my phone out of my bag and turn it on to send Henry a message. As I regain signal the poor thing is flooded with messages from him, scores of them since we got off the phone yesterday, which is, true to form, deeply embarrassing.

I’m so sorry Marina

I’m such an idiot

As I said it won’t happen again

Are we ok?

?

Hey can you get back to me, feeling a bit worried haha

Marina?

Listen, I’m really sorry. It was a moment of weakness I didn’t
even really enjoy it

Honestly she was just there

Should I tell the pr people

Marina????

Don’t worry about it, I reply.

He comes back instantly.

Which part?

Telling the pr people or the Jules situation

All of it

It’s fucked up but no point getting anyone else involved

Just keep your dick to yourself next time

Henry starts typing and then stops. Then he starts again.

What about Jules? he writes eventually.

Fuck. I’d been so busy trying not to think about Anna or Henry that I’d forgotten about Jules.

Now, for the first time since Henry told me what happened, I picture them together. Jules’s plain face rubbed raw by Henry’s stubble. Henry’s shiny, waxed body holding Jules’s girlish, sexless one, trying awkwardly to find some sort of rhythm. The image is so insane that I actually do laugh this time. And then, just as I’m wondering who initiated it in the first place, I realize that it happened in my home. In my bed, even. I stop laughing. I feel sick. My space. How dare she? How could I not have thought about Jules? Jules, who’s so desperate for – what? Attention? Approval? Assistance? – that she’ll do literally anything to get it from me? Henry’s words on the phone yesterday come back to me. Upset. Overwhelmed. I was comforting her. What bollocks. The idea that I might not be the only one playing a long game curls itself uneasily around my thoughts. I think about her pathetic script and all the times she’s pushed it on me recently – and all the times I’ve brushed her off. Maybe she thinks she’s more likely to get what she wants from Henry. Maybe I’ve underestimated her.

Instinctively, I look down at my phone and check my messages with Anna first. There’s nothing from her, but there are several more from Henry. I’m furious. I bite down on my lip and, after about ten seconds when I can taste my own blood, I let out a deep, guttural yell, closer to a howl than a scream. I feel cheated, although I can’t tell who by, which makes my frustration even worse.

I stand up and call Jules, who answers after just one ring.

‘Jules,’ I say before she has a chance to open her mouth. ‘I think you have some explaining to do.’ I make no effort to disguise the snarl in my voice.

‘Marina, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know what happened. I swear it didn’t mean anything – I’m sure Henry feels the same way—’

I laugh.

‘Do you really think Henry feels anything about this at all?’ I hiss.

‘No, I mean – I don’t think – it just didn’t matter—’

‘Maybe it didn’t matter to you, Jules. But did you think about me? How it would make me look if anyone found out? Did that even cross your mind when you were sleeping with my boyfriend, in my house? What the fuck is wrong with you?’ This feels good.

‘Marina, please,’ Jules says, and I hear then that familiar desperation in her voice. ‘Please, please, believe me. I was just – it’s been so stressful trying to deal with the animal transportation, I’ve been losing sleep over this leopard because I know how much it means to you and I don’t want the same thing to happen again. The thing with Henry – I honestly didn’t mean for it to happen, it was just a stupid mistake. Please forgive me.’

Listening to her beg for my forgiveness, I realize that of course she wasn’t trying to play me. She doesn’t even know there’s a game to be played.

Jules is actually crying down the phone, her sniffles filling the line. Pathetic. But this is the order of things as they should be, and I can’t help but feel soothed, like I’m on the final part of a rollercoaster, closing in on solid ground again after somersaulting through the air. I park her comments about my leopard for now. That can wait.

‘Jules, do you care about this job?’

‘Yes. Yes, of course I do—’

‘And do you care about your future in this industry?’

‘Very much so.’ Her voice trembles as she says this. Here we are. Solid ground.

‘Then I’ll need you to come to London immediately so I can work out how best to proceed. As you know, I don’t like having serious conversations on the phone.’

Jules stutters something incoherent but vaguely acquiescent in return and then starts apologizing again.

‘I don’t want to hear any more apologies, Jules. Just be in London tomorrow and we’ll talk. Until then, I don’t want to hear a single thing from you. I trust you’ll respect my boundaries enough to oblige.’

‘Thank you, Marina,’ she says, so meekly I can barely hear it. I breathe out, a long, deliberate sigh, and then hang up.

There’s still nothing more from Anna when I look at my phone, but it’s okay. I’m in control. Back in control.

Health Concerns for Marina as Star Steps Out Looking Dishevelled in London

Marina’s friends and family are concerned for her health following a series of uncharacteristically unkempt public appearances by the star, we can exclusively reveal.

The actress was spotted looking washed out and noticeably thinner as she took a distressed phone call whilst on a walk in central London over the weekend. Onlookers reported that she appeared visibly agitated and erratic, displaying unusual behaviour for the famously composed star.

‘Marina is one of the hardest workers I’ve ever met,’ a source tells us, ‘but recently she’s put so much pressure on herself and has been burning the candle at both ends since she wrapped press for Interspace.’

This sighting is the latest in a series of odd appearances in the capital by the star, who is approaching her 30th birthday. She has been spending more time in the UK recently, whilst her partner Henry remains in Los Angeles for work.

Model of the moment Alexis Shahdi, a close friend of Marina’s, insisted during an Instagram live this week that the actress had been ‘in good spirits’ when they last saw each other but admitted she hadn’t heard from her since. She expressed concern for the Protectors bombshell, and refused to address the rumours of a falling out between Marina and fellow actress Jenni Klein, saying, ‘It’s not my place to comment on that.’

‘We are trying to get her to slow down and take good care of herself, but it’s not something that comes naturally to her,’ another close friend added. ‘We’ve banded together to let her know we’re here for her and support her getting some much-needed rest.’

Marina’s representatives declined to comment for this article.

PART THREE

SEPTEMBER

By the time Jules lands in the UK I’m back in London and feeling closer to my usual magnificent self. She comes straight to the house from Heathrow – naturally, she flew economy – and as soon as she walks through the door I have her get to work cleaning up the place. It feels like a long time since I last saw her, and I’d forgotten how small she is, spiritually, how she holds her body in that hunched, nervous way. She has barely said a word since she arrived. Fear is coming off her like exhaust fumes. As she moves around the room she keeps shooting me these furtive glances, which I find deeply vexing. Having had time to get used to the fact of her ludicrous pas de deux with Henry, and seeing how desperately they both grovelled about it, I no longer care, but it feels like an easy win, a wonderful excuse to keep playing with her. I’ve missed this. It’s so healthy to have a proper outlet for my frustration.

‘I don’t know why you didn’t take me up on my offer to come with me in the first place, Jules,’ I call out to her from the garden. She’s on her hands and knees in the kitchen, scrubbing the floors.

‘Well, you thought it would be a good idea for me to stay behind to oversee the zoo and stuff...’ she replies.

‘That was one idea, certainly. But you could’ve found someone else to take care of that if you really wanted this job. Graydon, for example. Clearly you weren’t coping with it yourself anyway – perhaps he would’ve been better suited to it. I’m sure he would’ve secured the leopard by now.’

She doesn’t say anything to this, but she does stop scrubbing and stand up, exhaling laboriously as she does.

‘Um, I think that’s done now, Marina, are you happy with it? Is there anything else I can do?’

‘Actually, yes,’ I say, and beckon her over to where I am. ‘I’d like to go over my schedule for the next few days.’

‘Your – your schedule?’ Her eyes widen as she says this.

‘Yes, Jules, my schedule, or have you been too busy fucking my boyfriend to remember that’s one of your primary duties as my assistant?’

She winces and then scurries around inside the house before coming out, iPad in hand.

‘I don’t know if you remember,’ she begins. There’s a delicate tone to her voice. ‘But you asked me to clear your schedule for the foreseeable future last time you were in LA, so I cancelled all your appearances and engagements...’

‘I don’t remember asking you that. I distinctly remember telling you I’d let you know. Where are we up to now?’

‘Um – it’s September, September first...’

I’m shocked to hear it’s already September. I could’ve sworn it was only yesterday that we had the Interspace premiere and I had lunch with Mimi Westenberg. Briefly, I wonder what exactly I’ve been doing all this time. From the depths of my memory, I recall my conversation with Jules by Jenni Klein’s pool back in June.

‘Mmm. So that Royal Gala is just around the corner, isn’t it? Did you take it upon yourself to cancel my appearance at that as well?’

‘I – well – yes, it’s on Friday night, actually, right here in London. I don’t know if they’ll be able to squeeze you in at such short notice...’

I’m just having fun, really, making her squirm, but in the back of my mind the thought does occur to me that it would be quite nice to punctuate my Sisyphean quest with Anna with a touch of normality and a good gown. No harm in taking my eyes off the prize for a moment.

I look at her, tilting my head to the side and arching my brow.

‘I should think whoever is throwing this benefit would welcome my attendance, wouldn’t you? Or are you saying they’d think my money’s no good?’

‘No, no, not at all – I mean, yes, your money is good, and they would welcome you, absolutely. I’ll make some calls.’

I nod in approval.

‘I’ll need something fabulous to wear,’ I tell her. ‘Call Françoise in the Paris atelier and see what they can do for me. Make sure they have my current measurements. And bring the hair and make-up team over, too. Get them here nice and promptly, so there’s no rush. You know how much I hate rushing.’

She turns to go back inside, but I have one more tool in my arsenal to take out and play with.

‘Jules? Haven’t you forgotten something?’ I shout after her.

She halts in her tracks. ‘Umm – have I...?’

‘My leopard? The Russian?’ I blink at her sweetly.

‘Oh.’ She knits her brow. ‘Um, yes. I’m still just waiting for confirmation that there’ll be enough safeguards for the transportation, so she can be in good condition when she arrives – I’ll, um, I’ll chase it up again...’

‘No need for that. I’ll be taking matters into my own hands from now. It was clearly my mistake to give you that much responsibility.’

The look on her face is one of simultaneous relief and acute distress as she turns over my words.

‘Provided you perform the rest of your duties well, I’ll still consider taking a look at your script and seeing if I can find a home for it,’ I go on, ‘but I’m watching you very carefully, Jules. Do you understand?’

She pales. The pen slips in her hand from the sweat of her palms. Satisfied, I nod at her and gesture for her to go back inside.

Exclusive: The Secret Jealousy at the Heart of Marina and Jenni’s Feud

Leaked footage of the Interspace star’s scramble for words in press conference belies her secret ageing paranoia.

They’ve been dogged by rumours of a rift for weeks, with Jenni Klein making a string of barbed comments about her former co-star and bestie. Meanwhile, Marina has been spotted making a series of increasingly odd public appearances in London. And now, the Mail can finally reveal the reason for the pair’s falling out and Marina’s erratic behaviour.

‘Marina’s been in the biz a long time, and she’s ruled Hollywood for almost as long,’ a source close to Jenni Klein told us. ‘She’s definitely gotten used to things being the way they were, and that was fine when Jenni herself was coming up through the ranks. But recently Jenni’s been booking some incredible roles, and they’re the sort of thing Marina usually goes for.’

Jenni has landed two high-profile roles in the past two months, the first an adaptation of the New York Times bestseller The Bright Lights Within Us and the second the lead in indie-darling Troy Sorensøn’s upcoming, as-yet-untitled project, his first film since Constellation Forest, starring none other than Marina, came out thirteen years ago. Eagle-eyed fans suspect the star is already getting into character, dyeing her long black tresses strawberry blonde in anticipation.

‘Marina’s camp had been spreading the idea that Jenni was jealous of her, but really that couldn’t be further from the truth. Jenni looks up to Marina, but Marina found out that leading directors like Sorensøn have been bypassing her in favour of Jenni and she got really mad. Jenni’s reached out, but Marina refuses to speak with her. It doesn’t help that Jenni is several years younger than her and she’s already been feeling insecure about moving into a different age bracket.’

The source’s claim about Marina’s age is backed up by leaked footage obtained by the Mail, which shows the usually erudite star lost for words when a rising TikTok creator asked about her upcoming 30th birthday at the London premiere of Interspace.

‘Marina still thinks of herself as Hollywood’s bright young thing, and it came as a real shock to basically be told outright that no one else considers her to be that any more,’ another source close to the duo disclosed. ‘That was all really hammered home at Jenni’s 24th birthday party in June. Marina was a lot older than everyone else in attendance, and she really felt it.’

According to sources in attendance at the party, Marina and Jenni got into a falling out that very night. Several eyewitnesses report that Marina was noticeably frosty with her younger friend, and one partygoer claims they overheard her lamenting that she refused to engage when Jenni asked her for advice about the Sorensøn role.

‘Ultimately, I think it’s true that it’s a simple case of jealousy – just not the way the story’s been spun so far,’ the source close to Jenni tells us. ‘Marina can’t deal with the fact that Jenni’s just as talented as she is, and now people are starting to take notice.’

Representatives for both Marina and Jenni Klein declined to comment.

FANFORUM / MARINATHEORIES

A subthread dedicated to fan theories related to Marina

[post by astrobramble32] well fuckk. Anyone read that Mail article about Marina and Jenni??? What do we think?? Sounds pretty legit to me...

[reply by bagelchips98] I KNEW something was up with her. Didn’t I tell you guys?!?! admittedly I didn’t really think it would be something as base as female jealousy but I guess that’s Hollywood for you... chews you up and spits you out even if your name’s marina

[reply by marinni456] I actually can’t believe you’re believing that SHIT in the fucking MAIL? It’s a famously misogynistic publication ofc it’s going to pit women against each other like this... I’m not believing anything unless it comes from marina herself

[reply by staticmonkeys] who do you think these ‘sources’ are, marinni456?? They are obviously just their publicists but don’t wanna go on record

[reply by blackcurrenttribes] yeah also marina has been looking whack recently as well... seems to me she’s past it and can’t handle it

[reply by greenbenches] yo I’d be jealous of Jenni Klein too if I was a woman that chick is HOT. no wonder marina’s got her panties in a twist

[reply by marinni456] since when is 30 years old past it omg

[reply by whisperingwingsoO] ok ignoring green-benches’ gross sexist undertones, I do think there’s some truth to the mail article... marina has NOT been right recently, I’ve seen so many posts on here about weird interactions with fans the past couple months, and all those pap shots where she’s looking really messy (by Marina standards)? does anyone even know what she’s doing in London, like why is she there? Also @marinni456 when has Marina ever addressed anything herself anyway, at least not directly... I think if we’re waiting for that we’re gonna be waiting a long time...

THE DIARY

Jules leaves when I tell her to, late on Wednesday morning. The front door slams as she shuts it, and the sound echoes throughout the whole ground floor, a tinny, hollow thwack against the marble of the floors. I realize then that this is the first time I’ve heard that sound. This is the first time I’ve had a visitor leave this house – in fact, it’s the first time I’ve had a visitor at all. Clive usually just leaves when I do to station himself outside the front gate. The white walls and sparse furniture, which once seemed so chic, now make the place feel anonymous, even despite the art I’ve had hung. I feel consciously alone in a way that feels strangely unpleasant. It’s not a feeling I’m used to, and I don’t like it in the slightest: not least as it inspires an unfamiliar pang of empathy towards Jules and her meal-kitfor-one lifestyle. I push the thought to the back of my head.

My trip to the spa gave me the distance I needed on the Anna situation, and I’ve decided to be open-minded about my next move. I head to the bedroom, stopping briefly to look across at Anna’s house through the window in the stairwell, and focus on getting dressed. It’s a task that requires a lot of attention because I need to wear an outfit to inspire me. No civilian clothes this morning. Today, I’m Marina. Player One. The protagonist.

I take pleasure in getting dressed, in stripping down and looking at my body in the mirror’s reflection. And because I’m already thinking about Anna, I can’t help but think about her looking at my body too. I run my hands up my legs and imagine it’s Anna and she’s marvelling at how smooth they are. I move up towards my stomach and watch in the mirror as my fingers trace my ab line and picture her marvelling at how defined it is, her voice laced with an intoxicating blend of desire and jealousy. I lock eyes with my reflection – elegant, lean, superior – and sense my anxiety dissipate.

Feeling better, I reach for a black silk mini-dress and a pair of tall, pink satin platforms that feel instantly right for the day ahead. As I’m shaking out my hair, I look back at Anna’s crumbling houseshare and it occurs to me: it’s absurd that I haven’t seen it from the inside. All that time I’ve spent stationed outside it and I’ve never seen her bedroom. That’s the key to finding out what really makes her tick: there’s nothing like being actually there to truly get the measure of a space. I’m sure of it now: she’ll keep meaningful trinkets and photos on the walls, a film poster or two. So sentimental, so obvious. What a perfect way to while away the day. After a final look in the mirror, I head back downstairs, the sound of my heels on the stairs filling the space just like the slam of the door did earlier, but this echo sounds rich, powerful. I’m drunk with purpose. I don’t tell Clive that I’m heading out. Instead, I swing open the front door and step outside, no security, no wig, no hold-ups. This, too, makes me feel drunk on adrenaline.

Outside it’s a beautiful sunny day that enhances my mood. I put on a song by an artist that’s often repeated on Anna’s Spotify, something male and morose, which doesn’t match my vibe at all but marks my journey with a sense of occasion. As I walk my phone buzzes with messages from Jules, confirming that she’s got hold of the Paris atelier and they are sending over a gown and a seamstress later today. Good! I think. I’m practically skipping down the road at this point, my perfect pink shoes click-clacking on the pavement as I go. I barely even notice the twitch in my neck. I don’t care that the only face I see on the buses that go by is Mimi Westenberg’s – my Interspace posters no longer in circulation. In fact, I don’t even clock whether people on the street are recognizing me behind my enormous sunglasses. Everything’s coming together! By the time I get to Anna’s and see that there’s no one in, I feel like I’ve been touched by the divine. Standing on the doorstep, I reach into my bag and root around until I find what I’m looking for: the wallet I lifted from that nerdy dad on the street back in June. I grab a slim, flexible card and glide it down the door frame – another skill I’ve collected on the job. The lock clicks open.

The first thing I register is the smell of weed lingering in the air, and then I see the scuffed skirting boards and narrow corridor ahead of me, a long dark stretch punctuated by small slivers of light shining through cracks in doorways. I shudder, lightly repulsed – as if people actually live like this – but gingerly, I step inside, careful to avoid staining my pink satin with whatever substance is making the faded ‘welcome’ mat sticky.

Walking down the corridor, I see a room marked with a tattered wooden ‘A’. Cute. The door opens with an alarming creak, and I’m in. Finally. From the window, across the Heath, I can see the walled garden of my own house, as if I’ve stepped behind the glass in a hall of mirrors. Looking around the room, I feel a rush of adrenaline taking it all in: the unmade bed, complete with thin, limp-looking pillows, the cheap clothes strewn across a rattan chair. My stomach leaps as I see a postcard on the wall above her bed: Dame Elisabeth Frink’s Calypso lithograph, the one Anna posted on her Instagram when she went to the gallery. She brought this here, this talismanic piece of me. I move towards it, run my fingers over the lithe body in the drawing. Then, as if guided to it, my gaze lands on her bedside table. An empty water glass sits beside a ring I recognize as the silver snake she wore on our last date. Next to that, practically glowing, is a diary.

Perfect.

I take a deep, powerful breath in through the nose, feeling my shoulders rise and stretch out as I do; as if I’ve been hungry for days and I’m taking in the scent of a meal I’m about to devour. I’m greedy for it. I sit down on Anna’s bed and open the diary at the beginning.

I’m turning the pages feverishly, desperately scanning the words for something that reveals a desire she’s long harboured, something she’s always wanted to do or see that I can wow her with. But the more I read, the more my jubilation starts to falter. There’s page after page of convoluted emotional banality, but hardly anything in here that I can actually use. But then I reach April of this year, and it occurs to me that pretty soon I’m going to start reading about me. I feel a thrill at the prospect of finally seeing myself, shining, impressive, through her eyes on the page. The premiere was June 3rd, so, full of anticipation, I head to the 4th. When I get there, I have to read it twice to make sure I haven’t missed anything.

4th June

I’ve been thinking about quitting the bar and seeing if I can pick up some nannying hours or something. Feel like I’m missing out on loads of fun with everyone because I’m always working late and I’m getting bored of serving rich people their shit drinks all the time. Jack quit his bar job the other day and said he feels way better for it, although I’m not sure what he’s doing instead. Maybe I’ll ask him about it?? Could actually be a good way to start a conversation with him??

I don’t know like last night I really just wanted to come home and hang out with the house but I didn’t end up getting back until super early this morning and then it turns out they’d just gone out without me... They all stayed at the boys’ and it sounds like it was so fun. I mean I had a good time with that actress, but I genuinely would rather have been with everyone else. She was hot at least though.

I think I will text Jack about the bar stuff. Ahhh hope he replies.

I turn to the next entry, on June 9th:

Saw Jack last night and it was so nice. We talked for ages about everything, he’s so funny. OK so I was pretty drunk but there was definitely something between us. Felt like a teenager because I kept stealing looks at him from across the room and seeing he was doing the same!! Hot!! The girls agree that we have a vibe too. I’m pretty sure something’s going to happen between us. Just a matter of time.

I read through all of June, July, August, thinking about everything I did for her over those months – the peonies, the dinner... the fucking blimp. None of it features at all. My name doesn’t appear once. There’s not even another mention of ‘that actress’. I can’t even see anything about Matt, which doesn’t seem right either – it was so clear how much he was bothering her. Meanwhile Jack, whoever the fuck he is, is scrawled all over these pages, all over her mind, mocking me. I mentally scan through all the pictures of her friends she’s always posting on her Instagram, but can’t remember any of them looking even remotely remarkable. I can’t remember any of their names at all.

Acid rises up my oesophagus and I swallow, coarsely, to push it back down. I’m suddenly very cold, but my palms are sweating. I feel a hot stinging pinch in the bridge of my nose.

My mind is racing. What the fuck has been happening these past few months?

I open my phone and reread my messages with Anna, trying to find something unseen in something I’ve seen a hundred times, and suddenly all the ‘no I’m good’s, all the ‘haha yeah’s and that final ‘That’s kinda fucked up’ from her look different, less flirtatious.

Out of the corner of my eye I see something moving by the door. Instinctively, I leap up from the bed and drop the diary, but it turns out there’s no need: it’s just a cat. I didn’t know Anna had a cat. I sit back down. But then again, there’s a lot I don’t seem to know about Anna. Like how she doesn’t want me, never, it seems, even wanted me in the first place. I can’t even imagine the words in this diary coming out of her mouth. Who is this vapid nobody on the page?

The cat wraps itself around my leg and I can feel its fur against my ankles, sticking, no doubt, to the ribbons from my heels. In that moment, I feel a blazing anger spread outwards from the knot in my stomach. I think about my body, and hers, and the last time her hips pressed into mine: how we were completely, undeniably in sync.

There’s no way.

I think about all the people I see every day who would kill to touch me, let alone fuck me. There’s no way Anna doesn’t want me. Everybody wants me. I smoothe my hands over the small of my waist. Everybody wants this. My eyes settle again on the Calypso sketch pinned directly above Anna’s bed. Clearly, there’s been a misunderstanding.

I look down at the cat, who has settled in the space between my feet. As quickly as it arose, my anger melts into a calm resolve. I just need to talk to Anna, face to face, no more games. I put the diary back where I found it, and put the silver snake ring in my bag. Then, in one swift movement, I stand up, place my heel on the back of the cat’s neck, and hear a nice clean snap as I walk out the way I came.

@marinaupdates_ NEW! Marina spotted out and about in London in a stunning LBD! Photo taken by a fan (September 4th, 14:05)

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@DerekJ4ck @marinaupdates_ MOTHER HAS RETURNED!!!

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@marina_daily @marinaupdates_ queeeeen heard what the ma*l was saying about her and said not todayyyy satan

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@vitam1nz @marinaupdates_ lolll don’t think she’s putting the mail rumours to rest with that outfit. you can practically see her whole ass its embarrassing... she’s trying way too hard

PREPARATIONS

My glam team arrive at the house at six o’clock the following morning, a full fourteen hours before I’m due at the gala. I’m looking forward to the evening’s plans. A gala is not much more than a beauty pageant for the wealthy and powerful – and, crucially, their wallets. Much more fun than a premiere, when you need to sell that you’re friends with your castmates in real life, and simper to the press. There are no stakes at all, making this the perfect precursor to what I have planned afterwards.

The problem is getting through the next fourteen hours. The activity in the house is unnerving: I’ve become so used to hearing nothing but Clive’s heavy tread that I feel claustrophobic at the cacophony of stylists and hair and make-up and Jules going from room to room. People keep asking me if I’m okay, which isn’t particularly unusual, but today feels intrusive.

‘I’m absolutely fine,’ I eventually snap at the last stylist to ask me as she’s pinning me into my gown and I’m trying to concentrate on looking at Anna’s Instagram. ‘I don’t know why everybody is so concerned about me all of a sudden. I have been to a red carpet event before.’ I’m certain I spot the stylist exchange a look with her assistant, but I do my best to tune it out. I’ve got bigger things to focus on, after all.

Anna’s back from her holiday. Though we still haven’t spoken, she posted a picture to her Instagram story just a few short hours after I left her bedroom. It’s the first picture she’s posted of herself in a week or so, and it feels so good to see her face again. It’s been beautifully sun-kissed by this long hot summer, and the light is hitting her brown eyes in a way that makes them look lit from within, two perfect orange diamonds. When the stylists have stopped hovering around me, I screenshot it in case she deletes it, as she often seems to do once they’ve been up for a while. She looks so like the girl I met in the bar in this picture, so different to whoever she’s pretending to be in that diary.

I type and delete several messages to her after screenshotting her photograph. How was your holiday? And Good trip? And even Heading to a gala tonight, will you be in the bar later? But all of them feel flat and clawing compared to the conversations we had in real life. It’s a useless exercise anyway: I’ve already decided that I’m going to see her tonight. Really see her, not just watch her. I made the decision as soon as I got home yesterday afternoon to go tonight, right after the gala. There’s a perfect symmetry to it: me in another jaw-dropping gown, her taking me in, just like that first time we met. I want to talk to her, face to face, and finally bring this little game of ours to an end.

FANFORUM / MARINA

A subthread dedicated to the greatest actor of our generation, the one and only Marina

[post by groundcontrolXO] NEW! Images of Marina in her first public engagement since INTERSPACE premiere – looking amaaaazing!

Alerrrt Mariniacs! Marina has just arived at the Royal Gala in London. As we can gather she’s been there for the past few months (before anyone asks we don’t know why and I’m not interested in your theories. Go to the other forums for that!) Anyway, LOVE the bold Valentino sheer vibes. So good to see her looking so fabulous especially after everything that’s been online about her recently!

[reply by guiltyfish73] that’s our girl <3 putting all those nasty tabloid rumours to bed I see!

[reply by intrepidturtle23] she looks completely incredible! No one but no one does a red carpet like Marina <3 <3

STRANGER

Tonight, I am the most dazzling version of myself, all Hollywood smile and shiny hair and glittering diamond choker sitting so tight on my neck there’s no room for sudden, uncontrolled nerve movements. The evening is planned to perfection: arrive at 8 p.m. sharp, walk the red carpet, get inside and shake hands with whichever minor royal is hosting this event. I move, gracefully, around the space, decline the canapés but accept the English sparkling wine. Smile and make small talk with a few unrecognizable people before making a beeline for the bathroom, where, once alone, I check my phone to confirm with Jules that everything is in hand for the latter half of my evening. At 9.15, when the auction starts, I’ll slip out.

I spot Lucy Kissig on my second walk around, prompting a thought to emerge from the mist of the past few weeks: the foundation. Siren Calling. I realize I have no idea if she’s on board or not.

‘I’ll give you a call tomorrow, Lucy, and we’ll talk Siren Calling,’ I tell her, as we pose for a photo together, which covers my tracks regardless of where we’re up to in proceedings. She nods, twisting her mouth in a bracing smile.

‘Absolutely – no shop talk tonight!’ she says, and then I air-kiss her and glide away.

On my third walk around, I’m accosted by a woman with expensive blonde hair and a face I half-recognize, tantalizingly close to my planned exit time.

‘Marina, hi!’ the woman says, with a smile. I must know her from somewhere.

‘Darling, hello,’ I reply, and lean in to kiss both her cheeks.

‘It’s so good to see you again,’ she says after we’ve greeted. She has huge, imploring eyes. I notice that she’s put one hand on each of my forearms, and she leaves them there even after she’s pulled away. ‘How have you been since... well, since Isaac’s party?’

That’s how I know her. It’s Alexis, the model I sat with on the rooftop at the Standard when I took Anna out after our dinner. She’s being awfully familiar considering we’ve only met the one time. Her right hand is squeezing my arm like a stress ball. In fact, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was being condescending, holding me like this.

‘I’ve been really well, Alexis, thank you,’ I reply, gently extricating myself from her grip. I meet her smile with my own. ‘How about you?’

‘Oh yeah, I’m great, everything’s great – but I’m so pleased to hear you’ve been well. I had wondered – well, I should’ve known better than to trust… what I mean is, I thought you must be, given how you were at Isaac’s, and that was only a couple months ago, but you just never know these days, do you?’

I blink at her, still smiling, though I have no idea what she’s trying to say, whether about me or her. I’m not sure I even care. I’m too conscious of the seconds passing.

‘I didn’t want to just ignore the questions they were asking – didn’t want to draw any attention to – just in case, you know?’ she continues, reaching out a French-manicured hand to brush my arm again. ‘Well, anyway, I’m glad I’ve had the chance to properly check in with you.’

What the fuck is this girl on about? As she removes her hand, I consider that perhaps she’s just drunk, or high, hence her apparent inability to string a sentence together. Maybe she’s even attempting some damage control after our last interaction. I can hardly remember it, I was so focused on watching Anna through the glass that night, but she could’ve been similarly out of it. That’s surely the only explanation for her to be chattering nonsensically like this now, all this muddled sentimentality. Not to mention the sloppy concept of personal space. God, I think conclusively, looking her up and down, they really don’t make them like me any more. I would never show up to an event in this state. It’s only just past 9 p.m.

I smile at her again and get ready to leave the conversation. I tell her it’s been lovely to chat with her and we should talk fashion week soon, thinking it’ll be a miracle if she lasts the next season at this rate. She nods so effusively I think her head might snap off her neck, and then I say that I’ve got to be on my way.

‘Don’t be a stranger, Marina,’ she says as I walk away, and then, ‘I still think you’re amazing!’

What an odd woman, I think once she’s firmly in my rear-view, but still, I make a mental note to check in on my press when I’m done with Anna in case I need to do some damage control myself after that garbled exchange with Alexis. I have, I realize, been a little lax with that lately. But that can wait. It’s 9.10 p.m., which means the call to head to our seats – and my cue to leave and head to Anna – is any minute now. Showtime.

VICTORIOUS

The driver collects me round the back of the venue in an unmarked vehicle. Clive is in a separate car, also unmarked, and we follow that one through the city to Anna. Jules is in her own just behind me, and she’s keeping abreast of any possible issues, making sure the press don’t tail us. As ever, though, we needn’t worry. This fleet of drivers is the best and most discreet money can buy. They know all the back routes and can slip through the city like mice in old houses.

I can’t help but feel excited at the prospect of really being near Anna again. You know, properly within spitting distance. I find it hard to believe it’s been so long since we last interacted face to face. Anna’s snake ring is in the clutch bag I took to the gala, and I reach for it now, sliding it on my finger. I’m absent-mindedly twisting it around as if it were Anna’s hand, thinking about the kiss we shared in front of my car the last time we were properly together. Just over ten weeks ago. Ten captivating, excruciating weeks.

The drive is long, almost an hour, and I use the time to think about all the things Anna and I will do after we speak, losing myself in thoughts of our skin touching, her clothes on the floor of my room, her mascara staining my 800-thread-count pillows. Through the blacked-out windows of my car, I watch the fabric of the city change as we go from the grand, Victorian villas of Kensington to the postcard scenes of Westminster and the bank of the Thames, right up through the cold chrome of the City. It’s strange, even though I’ve been here all summer I’ve barely left the square mile or so between my house, Anna’s house and her nursery. Looking out at the city now, I feel as if I’m seeing it for the first time. I’ve been so invested in Anna that I could’ve been anywhere, really, so long as she was somewhere in the vicinity. It’s a testament to my powers of concentration.

Eventually, the car pulls up round the back of yet another building, a tired, anonymous warehouse in a row of several other tired, anonymous warehouses, the destination of a Geotag Anna shared on her story earlier. I’ve instructed Clive and his team to go into the building twenty minutes or so before me to make sure everyone but Anna is gone by the time I enter. I have no idea how they are doing this, obviously. All I need to do is pay them overtime and wait in the car for Clive’s massive body to appear in the doorway, signalling to my driver to let me out.

I feel, once again, like I’m suspended in the air above my body. In this brief disembodied moment I watch the black organza of my gown move, snakelike, against the leather of the seat as I get the signal and exit the car; I see, rather than feel, my nipples stand up as they meet the brisk September night air through the sheer fabric. But it only lasts a moment. As soon as my stilettos hit the concrete I feel freshly, exhilaratingly back in my body, walking with the clearest purpose towards my imminent victory. Funny, I think, as I stand on the threshold of the warehouse’s grubby, scuffed door. If you’d told me three months ago I’d be feeling this good in a place this ugly, I wouldn’t have believed you. But I’m full of surprises. I make my own fun.

TARGET

I didn’t know what this place was until I walked through the door. I had no idea really what to expect, but the long, cavernous room that greets me, with its floor of untreated wood and strong scent of fries and cheap beer, threatens to burst my victorious bubble. One side of the room is lined with cages that make me think instantly of my zoo, except they’re all fitted with targets at the back of them. The floor is littered with, of all things, axes. I follow a trail of them like breadcrumbs towards the last cage in the room until finally, there she is, in the flesh: Anna. She’s sitting on a stool designed like a tree stump and it makes her look like a woodland creature. It’s cute. Even the sight of her tufty pink ponytail is enough to turn my stomach into ribbons. God, I’ve become so sentimental lately. Nothing could bring me down now.

‘Anna,’ I say when I’m close enough to her that the air smells like chemical lemons and jasmine rather than fried food. She turns to look at me and it’s like she’s revealing herself to me in slow-motion. It feels strange to see those brown eyes actually looking at me, up close, after so many weeks of keeping myself away. This must be how my fans feel when they encounter me in the street, I think fleetingly.

She doesn’t get up when she registers it’s me. Instead, she opens her mouth and closes it again, and then looks beyond me to the door I came in.

‘What are you – what are you doing here?’ she says eventually. I can see the shock on her face, and it fills me with a heady, sweet pleasure to be the reason for it.

‘Are you surprised to see me?’ I ask her, taking another step towards where she’s sat so that I’m towering above her, statuesque, and she has to crane her neck to look at my face. When she looks into my eyes, I can’t help it. I feel a grin run from ear to ear.

‘At an axe-throwing venue in Shoreditch? You? Yes, obviously I’m surprised to see you here,’ she replies. And then she asks again, ‘Why are you here?’

‘Why do you think I’m here? I came to see you, obviously,’ I say, throwing her own word back to her. I’ve been willing her to stand up, and she does, slowly. I feel like a god. Time suspends until she takes a step. But instead of moving towards me, Anna walks behind the tree-stump stool she’s just got up from.

She looks like she’s choosing her next words carefully. She looks... scared. This isn’t right. Another facade.

‘Why?’

I blink at her, feeling my smile falter slightly. I thought at this point she might have dropped the act. I guess not.

‘Come on, Anna,’ I say, moving myself around the tree stump so that we are finally close enough for me to run my fingers up her arm as I say it. ‘I wanted to talk to you,’ and then, leaning in towards her, I add, ‘properly.’ Her body stiffens with what I’m sure is desire as my breath reaches her neck.

She takes a beat and a soft, measured in-breath.

‘What could we possibly have to talk about,’ she says, and her voice is flat, uninviting. It slices through me like a blunt knife, snagging at the nerve in my neck.

‘Stop playing with me, Anna,’ I say then, and I’m surprised at how the words come out of my mouth, not quite angry, but urgent. ‘I think we’ve played enough by now,’ I add, in what I hope is a softer tone.

Anna looks at me again and there’s a glint of something hard in her expression that gives me pause. There are mixed signals, sure, but this is something new. Can she really be this good an actor? I can’t read her at all.

‘Marina,’ she says then, and her voice is steady, deliberate, but even hearing my name from her mouth brings back all the warmth to my body. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’ve barely... I mean, we don’t even know each other.’

‘That’s absurd,’ I reply. ‘Of course we know each other.’

‘No,’ she says, her voice firmer this time. She takes another step back, and this, too, is firmer than the one before. ‘No, we don’t.’

‘Well, maybe not as well as we should. But we’re very much alike. And besides, isn’t that exactly what we’ve been doing here?’

‘Doing where?’ Her voice rises now in what is unmistakably panic. ‘What the fuck are you on about? We’ve only met twice! We’ve exchanged, like, eight texts? I literally don’t know you.’

‘Actually, it’s three times,’ I say coolly. ‘We’ve met three times. Four if you count tonight.’ This isn’t how I wanted this conversation to go. Why am I getting bogged down in semantics? What does this achieve?

‘Hold on a second. How did you even know I was here? Are you – did you follow me or something?’

‘No, I didn’t follow you,’ I reply derisively. ‘My assistant looked into your plans and I came here after a previous engagement. I was at the Royal Gala.’ I gesture down at my gown, hoping this will diffuse the strange tension running between us, but my lie coagulates in my stomach.

‘Oh, my God,’ she says, very quietly. ‘Oh, my God. You’re insane.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You’re insane,’ she repeats. ‘You’re just... what do you mean your assistant looked into my plans? Do you think that’s a normal thing to do? Who would want that?’

‘I didn’t think you wanted normal,’ I reply, ‘but I’m glad we’re finally talking about this. Let’s just cut to the chase. What do you want, Anna?’

‘What?’

Now, I have to admit, my patience is running thin. How much longer can she keep this up? Still though, something within me stops me from expressing this thought. I don’t want to ruin it. I paint a smile back on my face.

‘I mean, it would’ve been useful if you’d given me a bit of a heads-up on that front before I spent all that time trying to win you over,’ I say.

She shakes her head very slowly, and then she says, ‘What are you talking about?’

I look at her then, really look at her. She’s walked so far back into the cage that she’s practically up against the target, and there’s sweat pooling underneath her armpits and gleaming on her forehead. Suddenly, she’s pissing me off.

‘Oh, come on, Anna,’ I say again, but this time the words leap right out of my mouth, propelled by frustration. ‘You know exactly what I’m talking about. This game we’ve been playing – all your covert messages in our texts, on your Instagram. Do you know how much effort I’ve put into it, into you?’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ she says, quietly. ‘You don’t... even follow me on Instagram. I’d know.’ I don’t engage with it. I’m on a roll.

‘The peonies – well, they were a bust, obviously, you can’t be expected to know about those. But I dealt with the idiot who ruined that for us, and then I helped you out with your Matt problem – he doesn’t bother you any more, does he? I mean, you must’ve known that was me – who else could’ve made that happen so quickly? And then the blimp – your blimp! It had your fucking name on it! I keep doing all these things that any ordinary person would fall to their fucking knees over, and you just—Can’t you just tell me what you want so we can get this over with? Don’t you just want to be with me again?’

Anna laughs then, a cartoonish ha! so unexpected it makes me jump.

‘Wait a minute,’ she says afterwards. ‘You mean Matt lost his job – his only source of income – because you thought that would help me? How did you even know about Matt?’ Her eyes are wide, searching, but before I can answer, she carries on, ‘What else did you just say – the peonies? You can’t mean… Are you talking about the Oxford Street crash? I read about that. That driver’s still in a coma. And the blimp! When you said that was yours I just assumed it was some stupid stunt in memory of your aunt’ – a memory of the easy lie I told about her name that first night in the bar comes suddenly, violently, to mind, but I don’t have time to dwell on it. Anna is still going.

‘—but I mean, what, did you deal with that guy too when I didn’t fall to my fucking knees? Or did you just let him die?’ She laughs cartoonishly again, then shakes her head. ‘All that pain... that was you? And – hold on – is that—’ She looks at my hand now, at the snake ring I’ve put on my finger. ‘Don’t tell me that’s my ring? How the hell did you get that?’

I roll my eyes. As if she’s trying to moralize about any of this now.

‘Actually, it’s because of you, Anna,’ I say, ignoring her question about the ring. ‘You’re the one who started this game in the first place. You challenged me to win you over. I wouldn’t have done any of that if you’d just come back with me that night after our date. You were playing the game just as much as I was.’

‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ she says, her eyes first widening and then narrowing so that she’s practically glaring at me. ‘What game? You are genuinely deranged. I rejected you, so you went and just... just had people killed and maimed left right and centre? How fucking fragile is your ego?’ Before I have a chance to even compute what she’s saying to me, or comprehend the word rejected, she continues.

‘Actually, don’t even answer that. I knew the answer myself the second we met. I only slept with you in the first place and went on that date’ – she sneers as she says this word – ‘because sure, you’re hot and I was looking to kill some time. I mean, fuck, I basically told you as much – it’s for the story – how did you not get that? Why would I want anything to do with you? Could you not tell how bored I was, listening to you go on and on about your gilded life? You know you barely let me speak that night.’ She snarls. ‘I find you disgusting. And we are nothing alike.’

It’s as if her words are coming to me from behind a wall. I can hear them, but I don’t register them. They don’t cut through.

‘I don’t understand,’ I say, and even I know that it makes me sound small. But I can’t help it. I don’t understand. I don’t know what she means about our dinner. I remember listening to her intently, more intently than I’ve ever listened to anyone. I have no idea what is going on. This exchange is now so far from where I thought we were heading.

‘Of course you don’t understand,’ Anna says, and by now her body language has shifted through the gears so completely that she looks so angry as to be ugly, her face screwed up like a pug. ‘Let me spell it out for you. Marina, you are a terrible, ridiculous person. I honestly regret ever meeting you. No wonder Jenni Klein got tired of your shit.’

At the mention of Jenni, a bell goes off in my head.

‘What the fuck does Jenni Klein have to do with any of this?’ I say.

‘You tell me,’ Anna replies, and I swear she actually starts to smile now. ‘Isn’t she the reason you’ve been acting so publicly unhinged lately? You’re jealous of your younger, hotter counterpart getting all the best roles while you’re staring down the barrel of the next decade like the washed-up has-been you are? That’s what everyone’s been saying about you, anyway. It’s all over the internet. I’m surprised your assistant hasn’t kept you up to speed.’

‘That’s horseshit,’ I say, quietly, but my mind is racing. An image of myself, forensically examining my face for evidence of the advancing years, elbows its way, unwanted, to the forefront. I push it away. ‘You’re making that up. Everybody loves me.’

‘Whatever,’ Anna replies. I hadn’t noticed it, but she’s edged ever so slightly forward. It’s almost as if she wants to leave. ‘I feel sorry for you, actually. The only reason I even replied to all those boring fucking messages you sent me is because I felt sorry for you. Does anyone even know you? You’re the least real person I’ve ever met. You only exist if other people are talking about you.’

My heart is beating so intensely I feel like I might pass out. I can hear them now, her words. They’re hitting me like shards of glass in the back of my throat. Like my Calypso pin, piercing tiny little holes in my world view.

‘Shut up,’ I say, but I’m wincing, the nerves in the left side of my neck seizing up, singed by her words. I move my hand up to loosen the vice-grip of my necklace but my fingers slip on the clasp. I take my eyes off her for the first time all evening, casting them about the space for something, anything, that will ground me, to remind myself where I am and what I’m doing here.

‘What? Did I touch a nerve?’ she replies, and there’s a cruel, taunting note to her voice.

‘I said shut up,’ I say again, and as I do, I notice, almost by accident, an axe at the foot of my gown. Anna is too incensed to even register that my eyes have left her.

‘You’re pathetic,’ she spits, and as that last word comes out of her mouth I’m overcome by a monstrous, uncontrollable fury that feels as if it’s been clamouring to be released all summer. I’m a leopard on its hind legs, roaring with a white-hot rage, clawing at the wire of my enclosure. Who the fuck does this girl – this nobody, this nothing – think she is, to talk to me like this? Doesn’t she know who I am? I bend down quickly, pick up the axe, and throw.

THUD

If you’ve ever watched the life disappear from someone’s eyes, you’ll know it’s a misnomer to say that it drains. Life doesn’t take a slow, steady journey out of the body and into the ether: it’s actually a very sudden, jarring process, a real blink-andyou’ll-miss-it event.

That’s how it is with Anna. She’s alive and then a nanosecond later, she’s not. Easy as that. The axe hurtles through the air and hits just left of the centre of her ribcage with an unceremonious thud before she even realizes I’ve picked it up. That Protectors-perfect aim. Then she falls backwards, her head hitting the target behind her as she does. Her body slumps down towards the ground as the blood starts to seep through her T-shirt, and before long it’s forming an undignified, garishly red puddle on the untreated wooden floor beneath her.

After a moment or two I walk over to her and examine her face, which, I’ll admit, is still interesting even in death. The room is gloriously quiet. Looking down at her glassy, lifeless brown eyes, I’m flooded with a sense of calm. What a shame, I think. What a waste of my time. Then I pick up the skirt of my gown, delicately, so as not to get blood on it, and walk back towards the door.

She was right about one thing, I suppose. In the end, she wasn’t like me at all.

CARE

When I get back in the car I make three calls. The first is to Clive, who is still stationed in the car parked directly ahead of mine, telling him to set off in exactly three minutes. The second is to Jules, who is still in the car behind. To her, I say she’s done an excellent job for me today, and that I’m really impressed with how she’s proven herself to me. I tell her I’m so pleased with her progress that I’ll pass her script on to Jenni Klein, who I think will be just perfect for the lead role, and who I know for a fact has been trying to find the right project to produce herself.

‘There’s just one more job I’ll need you to do for me tonight, and then I’ll send it over to her first thing tomorrow morning with my recommendation,’ I say to her. Jules will do just about anything for her shot. I know that now.

‘Absolutely, Marina, anything – thank you so much!’ Jules replies, her childish glee palpable even through the phone.

‘It’s just inside the warehouse,’ I say. ‘Clive and I are heading off in a second. We’re going back to the house. All I need you to do is take care of everything inside there, and then follow on. Try not to take too long. I want us to be packed up and ready to head back to LA by 11 a.m. tomorrow. Call Frank now, before you head inside.’

The third is to the Russian, offering him an obscenely high best and final offer for safe transportation of my leopard, which he accepts in almost the same breath. So easy. Everything is so easy now.

As I hang up, Clive’s car revs into motion ahead of me. I signal to the driver of my own to follow, and we’re on our way.

I do not look back.

East London Axe-Throwing Venue Forced to Close Following Fatal Accident

A young woman has died in a freak accident at an East London axe-throwing venue, causing the Shoreditch branch of the popular leisure chain to shut down.

The woman, who has been identified as hospitality worker Anna Young, had been enjoying a night out with friends when she fell, sustaining a fatal injury. Her blood alcohol levels were revealed to be 0.15%, which is considered very high.

Following the tragic accident, a petition to breathalyse punters before partaking in the dangerous activity has generated more than 5,000 signatures.

EPILOGUE

FANFORUM / MARINATHEORIES

A subthread dedicated to fan theories related to Marina

[post by marinni456] Has everyone seen the news about Marina’s Siren Calling Foundation this morning? Lucy Kissig steering the ship and Jenni Klein on the board?? Admittedly I don’t know what this means for Marinni but I do know it means that that Mail article was complete bullshit !!

[reply by astrobramble32] yeah saw that this morning. Happy to be proven wrong on this occasion. Marina seems way more balanced and happy as well recently, did you see those pics of her and Henry at Heidi’s Halloween party? Relieved to see her back to her normal smiling self.

[reply by whisperingwingsoO] honestly I was pretty certain the mail was onto something but I’m glad to see it was just them shit stirring as usual... I think it’s so cool that marina is making space for more women in the industry. Did you read the statement she put out alongside the news as well? ‘I’m so lucky to have worked alongside some fantastic, singular women already – some of whom you’ll know, like Jenni and Lucy, many of them behind the scenes – and as I stand here, in the last week of my twenties anticipating the next decade of my life, I’m looking forward to increasing that number even more.’ Tell me that isn’t her making a direct dig at all those ageing fear rumours!

[reply by blackcurrenttribes] whisperingwingsoO I totally agree. She’s such a rockstar. When they go low she goes high.

BUSINESS AS USUAL

Henry and I are standing, arm in arm, in the grounds of my coastal home. It’s a gorgeous, balmy temperature despite the fact that it’s late evening in early November. Surrounding us, gathered between cages of tigers and elephants and tropical birds, are two hundred or so of the most influential people in the country. Actors and Academy members, politicians and philanthropists, all here to celebrate me, drinking and laughing and marvelling at the extraordinary assortment of animals here for us and us alone. It’s my thirtieth birthday party.

We’re talking to a studio exec we’re working with on our next project, which begins shooting just after Christmas. Since I got back from London I’ve kept Henry on an extra short leash. As a precaution, I only let Jules interact with him via Anthony.

Out of the corner of my eye I spot Jenni Klein, sporting a short, strawberry-blonde crop – something for the Sorensøn role, I gather. I raise my glass to her and she nods, warmly, in return. After I offered her the spot on the foundation board she forgot all about her little crusade against me, both publicly and privately. Thankfully, after a couple of crisis summits with my PR team, the press also dropped their nascent anti-Marina campaign. Some of the more belligerent journalists took a bit of arm twisting, but they came around once I gave them some more dirt on Mimi Westenberg and her musician boyfriend. I can always count on her. Graciously, we also tipped them off about Siren Calling early, and Jenni, Lucy and I did a joint press conference that went down an absolute storm. The write-ups called us a powerhouse trio, Jules recounted to me gleefully one morning as I was on the treadmill. I did slip Jenni her treatment, as promised that night in London, but naturally Jenni didn’t want to go near it. I’ll get round to letting Jules know at some point, I’m sure.

From somewhere within the crowd, I hear Graydon and his braying voice making his way through the people to try find me, which means it’s almost time for me to give my speech thanking everyone for being here and instructing them to have as much fun as possible whilst the cameras aren’t looking, which will generate a ripple of knowing laughter from this crowd. I lean in to tell Henry to ready himself to join me at the mic, which is positioned a few feet away from us in front of the Amur leopard, lying glorious and lazy in her enclosure. As I do, someone catches my eye just over his shoulder. A cater waitress, with a long, raven ponytail at the nape of her neck, carrying a tray of hors d’oeuvres like a real pro. She smiles at me when she notices me looking at her. Something clicks between us. I drop Henry’s arm and flash her my best smile back, leaving the crowd to head towards her.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, foremost, forever: thank you to Joanna Lee. People throw this phrase around a lot but in this case it’s pure fact: this book would not exist without you. How lucky I am to have had your sharp eye, brilliant brain and impeccable taste shape these words. Bringing this book to life with you was an absolute joy, and I am so glad and eternally grateful that you wanted to do this. Every writer should have an editor like you.

Thank you to the entire team at Atlantic who embraced I Make My Own Fun so wholly, and particularly to Rachel Imrie and James Roxburgh for answering my many, many questions after Joanna’s departure and steering the good ship Marina so smoothly; to Laura O’Donnell and Alice Latham for championing her; to Holly Battle for the perfect, camp dream of a cover. Thank you, too, to Mary Chamberlain for making the text infinitely crisper, and to Marc Simonsson at SoloSon and David Forrer at Inkwell for taking this book under your wings.

It takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a whole city to get a first novel written. I am extremely fortunate that my city is so full of smart, generous people who gave me their time, humour and support. Thank you to Monica MacSwan and Caitlin Leydon for endless sage advice, and to Harriet Hall for answering my deranged medical questions without judgement. Thank you to my Jaded and Entitled pals for your wit and intelligence, which I am constantly trying to channel into my writing.

To Caitlin Griffiths, Amelia Brown, Alex Lockyer, Poppy Trivedi, Flo Lines and Beth Perkin: you are the very best focus group/cheerleaders/early readers a girl could ask for, and I am forever indebted to you for letting me babble on for hours on end about this whole thing. But more importantly – thank you for giving me your hands to hold many times over the million years we have known each other. An extra thanks to Beth, whose fingerprints are all over this novel and it’s all the better for it. Truly, I don’t know what I would have done without you and your never-ending creative energy, and I hope we will explore our made-up worlds together for decades to come.

Thank you to my parents, Sarah and Alan, for always encouraging my imagination, never making me feel my interests were anything other than vitally important, and many long and lively dinner conversations that helped Louis and I become who we are. I will never take it for granted. And Louis, thank you for spending your childhood inventing things with me and your adulthood making me laugh.

To Alex Ferrigno, for making my life possible when I was in the thick of writing this, and making it happier every day before, during and since. For believing in me so ferociously. For everything you are. Thank you for it all.

Table of Contents

- Title

- Copyright

- Part One

- The Plane
- London
- Sunday Crossword
- Premiere
- Meet Cute
- The Car
- Hotel
- Sunrise
- Doing Good
- Down Time

- Part Two

- Focus
- Los Angeles
- Darling
- Wasteland
- The Bar
- Dinner
- Game
- Plans
- House Call
- Rapunzel
- Field Work
- Family
- Circles
- Boom Box
- Check In
- Challenge
- Funny
- Blue
- Distraction
- Best-Laid Plans
- Protectors
- God Complex
- Calypso
- Fanboy
- Dry
- Ghost
- Alpha
- Goodyear
- Down
- Majesty
- Henry
- At The Spa

- Part Three

- September
- The Diary
- Preparations
- Stranger
- Victorious
- Target
- Thud
- Care

- Epilogue
- Business As Usual
- Acknowledgements