Looking for Andrew McCarthy (19 page)

‘So have you decided what you’re going to do?’ asked Andrew II.

‘Uh huh,’ Julia nodded. ‘We’re definitely heading East. We’re going to drive somebody else’s car across the States for them. That way it doesn’t cost us any money.’

‘Courier cars! Great! I hope you get something cool – an open-topped Jag or something.’

‘Or a ’59 Chevy,’ said Ellie. ‘I have no idea what one of those is, but it sounds about right.’

‘It’s a bit like a buffalo with wheels,’ said Andrew. ‘Not necessarily recommended. Ehm, listen, where is it you’re picking up your friend again?’

‘Kansas City,’ said Julia.

‘It’s about sixteen cheeseburgers away from here,’ added Ellie. ‘We’re meeting Arthur there.’

‘He’s gay,’ added Julia quickly.

‘Oh – is he chasing after your movie star too?’

‘Oh no, that’s just Hedge … Ellie.’

Ellie’s mouth fell open with the injustice of it all.

‘And you!’ she yelped. ‘You’re going to ask him …’

Julia made judicious use of a fork.

‘I really like British girls,’ said Andrew, leaning back. ‘You’re feisty.’

Ellie and Julia glared at each other. There was a bit of a silence. Then Julia turned round with her smile back on.

‘So – what’s it like living in LA?’

‘So, Hatsie. What’s your favourite kind of hat?’ asked Ellie, a tad sullenly.

‘Oh it’s great, really shallow,’ Andrew said. ‘Actually, it’s weird. It’s like living in one of those factory communities. Everyone knows everything about everyone else and basically works at the same place.’

‘Plus, they all look like big genetic weirdo science experiments,’ added Ellie, licking her spoon.

Andrew laughed as another young woman, skinny to the point of anorexia but with two grapefruit stapled to her spine, flounced past on shoes made out of matchsticks.

‘Yes, you do get a bit of that. It tends to be a bit homogenized.’

‘Like milk.’

‘Some people like milk.’

‘Yeah, really boring people. I like Bloody Marys,’ said Ellie.

‘So do I.’

He grinned at her, and suddenly Ellie found herself holding his gaze.

Julia coughed none too subtly.

‘Need the loo again, Ellie?’

Ellie grudgingly obeyed the rules and got up. ‘Sorry,’ she said apologetically to Andrew.

‘That’s okay, people go to the bathroom all the time in LA. Which is it: powdering your nose or making yourself vomit?’

‘Neither!’ said Ellie, shocked. ‘Actually, we’re going to talk about y … owww.’

Julia put her emergency fork back in her handbag.

‘I reckon he wants both of us,’ said Ellie, punchily. ‘Three in a bed. What do you say?’

‘I say that is crap and also you never would.’

‘I would!’

‘You would not. You think you’re really cool and hip when it comes to sex, but what about that time Billy tried to put his finger up your bottom?’

‘Thanks for that. I can’t pee now.’

‘Look. I’m sorry. I don’t like us muscling each other. But you have your whole life to find a boyfriend and I have three weeks, okay?’

‘Kansas City,’ said Andrew. ‘You know, I have a bit of business that’s going to take me up that way.’

Julia’s face lit up.

‘What do you mean?’ said Ellie scornfully. ‘I thought you wrote tag lines. How much research do six words need?’

‘I am writing,’ said Andrew, ‘the tag line for next year’s big film,
actually
. It’s about space aliens who bomb a city with earthquakes and meteors. Then it
turns out that the space aliens are actually mutated dinosaurs and that’s how the dinosaurs disappeared – by going into space.’

‘Do any beautiful prostitutes get murdered?’ asked Julia.

‘Not murdered as such. But the explosions tend to make their clothes fall off. AND it’s set in Kansas City. So I have to go there to get a feel for it before I can write my tagline.’

Ellie pretended to sneeze and actually said ‘bullshit!’ into her napkin. Andrew noticed this and smiled to himself. The mafioso-type guys, after much patting on shoulders and congratulations and a couple of kisses had gone on their way. However, now the chef had come out of the kitchen and was anxiously eliciting Hatsie’s opinion of the food. Hatsie was snurkling at him.

‘I mean, when I wrote that one about the big lizards coming up through the sewers of Washington DC and having their brains modified by toilet cleaners to make them super-intelligent hunters … that was “It’s a Capitol Offence – Murder in the First Flush”. And, you know, I had to go to DC to get that inspiration.’

‘You did?’ said Ellie.

‘Oh, sure. And do you know what? That film did $22 million in its first weekend.’

‘Is that good or bad?’

‘It means I earn my gigantic salary, okay? And that research is important.’

‘But what’s in Kansas City?’

‘Well, you two for starters.’

Ellie was going to stick two fingers down her throat when she remembered that that was socially acceptable behaviour here. She stuck them up her nose instead.

‘Are you okay?’ asked Andrew II.

‘Fine thanks.’

‘Okay! Well, if you’re looking for hat tips, you should take your special cowboy hat … It’s like, “Go West young man.”’

‘Except we’re not men.’

‘Or going West.’

‘We’re very young though.’

‘
Extremely
,’ said Ellie. She turned to look at Hatsie.

‘Shall we get the bill?’

Hatsie indicated with a snorch and a wave of his hand that the bill had been taken care of and they wandered out into the scent of oleander and car fumes.

‘Can I drop you two?’ said Andrew II. Julia was standing close to him.

‘No!’ said Ellie. ‘We’ve got an early start tomorrow. Off to … Kansas and all that.’

‘That sounds lovely,’ said Julia at exactly the same moment.

Andrew looked from one to the other. ‘Well?’

There was a long pause. Hatsie was snuffling around next to Ellie’s shoulder. Suddenly, on a whim out of nowhere, she leaned over and snatched his enormous Jamiroquai hat and ran halfway across the darkened car park.

Hatsie let out a loud screech, and Julia jumped away from Andrew’s side.

Standing on the restaurant forecourt was, now, a shortish bald man who looked a lot like Duncan Norvelle.

‘CHASE ME!’ shrieked Ellie.

‘Christ,’ said Andrew, wincing.

‘SORRY! COMPLETE ACCIDENT!’

‘Snffghhg!’ Hatsie implored Andrew desperately.

‘Yes, yes of course,’ said Andrew. Then, across the car park, ‘Look, I’m sorry … Ellie can you bring back the hat, please?’

‘Why?’ said Ellie. ‘Is this a medical emergency? Do we need to call 999? No, hang on, it would take them too long to get here from Britain – call 911.’

Hatsie was whimpering. Ellie turned around and wandered back.

‘No problem,’ she said, walking up to him insouciantly. Hatsie tugged on Andrew’s arm anxiously.

‘Oh, look … I think we’d better be going,’ said Andrew.

‘Hfn,’ said Hatsie, nodding his head vehemently. As soon as Ellie got close enough he grabbed the hat back and forced it down onto his head.

‘I’m sorry … Hatsie can’t stand people touching his hat,’ said Andrew apologetically, jumping into his car. ‘It’s like … the Fonz’s leather jacket.’

‘
Ohh
, that makes it even cooler,’ said Ellie. ‘Come on Julia.’

Julia looked imploringly at Andrew.

‘Bye then.’

He leaned out the car window. Hatsie had ducked down where he couldn’t be seen.

‘Have a good trip,’ Andrew said, looking at them both. Ellie couldn’t quite tell, but he looked like he was trying to hide his amusement.

They watched the car dip below the crest of the hill.

‘Well, thank you very much,’ said Julia, as they puttered to the less nice end of LA.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Ellie. ‘I don’t know what came over me. But I know what didn’t come over you.’

‘Yeauch,’ said Julia. ‘And that makes it an act of sabotage.’

Ellie leaned her head against the window of the car, watching the lights fall away behind her.

‘I’m sorry, I just suddenly thought …’

‘Look, let me make the moral decisions around here, okay?’

‘Yes. Yeah, alright.’

‘It’s a shame you can’t come with us, make pancakes for us on the road,’ said Ellie hungrily the next morning. Julia wasn’t eating.

‘Well, like I told y’all … if you’d stuck to Rob Lowe.’

‘I know.’

Julia sat and sipped her coffee in silence.

Ellie turned back to the waitress. ‘Do you really like Los Angeles? Living here, I mean?’

The waitress stared straight ahead, as if she’d never really thought about it.

‘Well, yeah … I mean, I guess so … I mean, there’s the ocean out there, and, I tell you what, if you’ve not got too much money … best to live somewhere hot.’

Ellie nodded. ‘What if you never make it as an actress?’

‘Sweetheart, hardly any of us are going to make it. We hang out. We support each other. It’s cool. And think of all the millionaires here. Hell, if we’re having a pretty day, who knows what can happen.’

She jutted her hip out in the direction of an old, slavering guy.

‘It’s cool. Plus, Christ, you should have seen where I grew up.’

‘Where’s that?’ asked Ellie, with a sudden leaden sense of oncoming doom.

‘Kansas City.’

‘I can’t believe it.’

Ellie stood staring at their transport car.

‘We don’t have any money left,’ said Julia patiently. ‘We might have done, if you hadn’t insisted giving all that cash to the waitress.’

‘Which
should
have come back to us as fantastic karma. But LOOK at this.’

They were standing in the forecourt staring at an even older and tinnier model of Toyota than the one they were currently driving.

‘This just isn’t fair.’

‘At least it’s not covered in your dead skin.’

‘Who on earth would care enough about this to transport it from one side of the country to the other? Why not just cut your losses and replace it with an electric toothbrush? All the power at a fraction of the cost.’

Julia got in the car to forestall further argument.

‘Oh well. At least it’s not going to work as a massive pick-up man magnet. Keep you out of further trouble,’ said Ellie.

‘I heard that!’

Ellie sighed.

‘Just get in.’

‘Okay,’ said Ellie, slinging her bag in the back. ‘Here we are. The low-rent Thelma and Louise. Tracy and Denise.’

Julia pulled out of the lot onto the left slipway, reversed and managed to make it onto the intersection on the right side of the road, heading in the direction of the rising sun.

Arthur gazed into the dark night and gave a melodramatic sigh. ‘Is it
ever
going to stop raining?’

‘Huh?’ said Big Bastard. He was utterly engrossed in Colin’s video of
The Sound of Music
.

‘Are you enjoying the film?’ asked Colin from Arthur’s lap.

‘No, it’s shit. Now, shut up,’ said Big Bastard, not moving his eyes from the screen. ‘Oh God! Don’t marry that bitch!’

‘Hi everyone,’ said Loxy, sidling in. Colin couldn’t be trusted with keys, so the door was permanently on the latch.

‘Hey, Loxy, what’s up?’

Loxy shrugged.

‘Oh, nothing. Oh no, hang on, my girlfriend’s on
the other side of the world chasing some other guy she’s never met.’

‘I didn’t want to say anything before,’ said Colin. ‘But that’s getting really boring.’

Big Bastard and Arthur nodded vehemently.

‘Fine,’ said Loxy, sitting down heavily and pulling out some tins of beer. ‘I’ll do the traditional British thing and swallow all my emotions. Maybe it will turn into cancer.’

‘Actually, if your balls fell off that would solve all your problems, mate.’ Big Bastard threw a practised hand round the back of the chair and picked up a can of beer without looking.

‘Lox, would you shag Julie Andrews?’

‘Depends if I’ve got any balls left after all the cancer.’

‘I can’t decide either. I mean, do you think she’d like it? She looks so clean.’

‘Hey!’ shouted Arthur. ‘If you want to keep watching this film, I’d recommend you show a little bit more respect.’

Big Bastard shrugged. ‘I couldn’t possibly care less. Pff, but she’s not going to like being back at the convent, I can guarantee you that.’

‘Oh God!’ The front door slammed open, and Siobhan ran in, sat down in the middle of the floor and burst into tears.