The Understudy: A Novel by David Nicholls Read Free Book Online

decadent hell of it, then suppressed the gag reflex as it adhered to the back of his throat. Then, stepping out into the night, he consulted the page that he’d recklessly torn from his A to Z, and headed off to a famous person’s wild party.
    It is,
he thought,
extremely important that things go well tonight. It is extremely important that I try and perform well.
                      
    S tephen rang the bell on the high, wire-topped sheet-metal gate that protected this converted warehouse from the wilds of Primrose Hill; high-tech security was clearly a big priority for Josh, and Stephen thought there was every chance he might have to have his retina scanned. Eventually, the lock clicked open.
Nothing special from the outside,
thought Stephen, crossing the expanse of rain-drenched tarmac that acted as a moat in front of the long, low, red-brick building. But why was it so quiet? Perhaps the wild party hadn’t got wild yet. Or perhaps it was a bad party. Perhaps Josh Harper was actually having a
bad
party, like other, normal people—eight or nine embarrassed strangers sitting around in silence, eating dry-roasted peanuts out of cereal bowls, maybe even watching television, before drifting off at ten-thirty. Wouldn’t that be…just
fantastic
?
    Stephen found the front door, another industrial steel-clad number, like the door of a vault, and cleared his throat, adjusted his tie and ruffled his hair one last time, and made sure that he was centered, focused and breathing from his diaphragm before pressing the button on the video phone. Josh’s face appeared for a moment, gratifyingly distorted in the fish-eye lens.
    “Hey, it’s only Steve McQueen!” he shouted into the mike. “The Cooler King…”
    “Heeeyy there, Josh!” Stephen grimaced, utilizing a strange American “game-show host” voice that seemed to spring from nowhere, and which he resolved he would on no account ever use again. He brandished the bottle of champagne at the lens, as if this would in some way guarantee admission.
My motivation is to be cool. Remember, Cary Grant. Elegant, suave, but also quietly capable of killing a man
.
    “Come on up, Big Guy—first floor,” said Josh.
    Big Guy
.
Where the hell did that come from?
thought Stephen.
Is he implying that I’m fat or something?
He entered the bare concrete stairwell, with its tangle of mountain bikes, clomped up the iron stairway to yet another metal-plated door where Josh stood, waiting for him. Despite the prescribed dress code, he wasn’t wearing a dark suit and tie. Instead he had on a beautifully tailored crisp white shirt, untucked at the waist and unbuttoned to below his pecs, so prominent as to almost constitute cleavage, worn with a tightly cut suit jacket and baggy, low-slung jeans, and bare feet, an outfit that trod the line between being either the height of cool, or its precise opposite. In his right hand he held a brimming martini glass held at the rim in a way that was elegant without being effeminate.
    “Wotcha, Bullitt,” he drawled, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. With a shudder of foreboding, Stephen noticed that Josh was carrying a pair of bongos.
    “Hello there, Birthday Boy!” chirruped Stephen, reminding himself he was pleased to be there, brandishing the champagne that had been warming up nicely in his tight hand.
    Josh took the bottle, politely, but with a fleeting look of bemusement and distaste, as if Stephen had just handed him his prosthetic limb. “Oh. Champagne! Smart! Thanks, mate,” he said, seemingly embarrassed. “Let me show you round,” and with one hand on his back, he ushered Stephen in through the vault door, closing it behind him with an industrial clang. Then drawing his arm expansively around the room, he proclaimed, “Welcome—to My World…”
    Stephen immediately noticed two things about Josh’s World.
    First, it was immense; like a domesticated nightclub, and easily large enough to play five-a-side in,