Dirty Movies (18 page)

‘Did they tie your shoelaces together?’ he teased
her, attempting to keep it light.

‘Not quite, but I used to creep up to my room every night after dinner and accidently forget to return.
’

‘Except Vincent.
So how does his raging libido fit into all this?’

‘Oh it wasn’t until the wrap party that I showed up on his radar. He came over and insisted on buying me a drink for all my hard work. Seven hours later I woke up with the worst headache of my life and, well, you don’t need me to spell out the rest’. Lily felt sick just thinking about it
. It was the same reaction she’d had that morning after waking up next to a fat, naked Vincent.

‘What a bastard! He got you drunk and took advantage!’

‘It takes two to tango, all the way to the pregnancy test aisle in Boots,’ she said quietly. ‘I flew home the next day and confessed all. My husband was devastated but we pulled together and chose to stick it out.’

‘I guess Lucas changed all that?’

Lily nodded and picked up her glass. She needed all the courage she had to get through the next bit.

‘The cross on that positive pregnancy test proved to be mine to bear and mine alone.
My parents disowned me, Andrew left the same day. I refused to consider an abortion and he couldn’t face the thought of raising another man’s child.’

Michael scowled. He wanted to punch her gutless, wife-abandoning ex-husband right in the mouth. ‘So what happened?’

‘I told Vincent.’

‘The devil incarnate! Where did you find him? Lounging in some Soho den of inequity?’

‘I turned up at GBA’s London office unannounced.’

‘Same difference
.’

‘He made me wait hours. He called me a whore
.’ Lily’s eyes filled with tears again. ‘At first, he denied everything. I think he was panicked at the thought of some obligatory Sunday tabloid expose. He threw me out after that and I didn’t contact him again. Then four months after Lucas was born he showed up on my doorstep spouting nonsense about paternal rights. At first I couldn’t get my head around it.’

‘Probably stoned, I presume he offered you some sort of visitation deal?’

Lily nodded. ‘In exchange for access, a full-time nanny and my silence, he offered to keep me on the GBA payroll permanently. I had no choice. I was broke. It was the worst decision I’ve ever made.’ A lone tear trickled down her cheek and smashed into the counter. ‘Oh dear,’ she sniffed, wiping it away with the sleeve of her mushy-pea green M&S V-neck, ‘i’ll be kicked out at this rate.’

‘Not if i’ve got anything to do with it
,’ said Michael, glaring at the advancing bartender. The guy beat a hasty retreat. 

‘
After I let him into our lives he didn’t stop until he had full control over Lucas.’

‘Did you try reasoning
with him?’

‘Only once
.’ Lily trembled at the memory. ‘There was a confrontation over Lucas’ fourth birthday party. We fled to a cottage in the Lake District, the furthest my old car would go before overheating. It was only a matter of time before he caught up with us but I cherished every moment’. She left out the part that had resulted in a three-day hospital stay for her and a broken jaw.

‘But what’s to stop you leaving now?’ said
Michael suddenly. ‘My dad’s jet is still sitting at Erizo Airport. It’ll fly you anywhere you need to go, Barbados, America, Australia... He’ll never find you there.’

She shook her head. ‘I can’t do tha
t to Lucas. He needs his father.’

‘But he’s Vincent Edwards!’ said Michael, gaping at her. ‘Surely NO father is better than him!’

‘Please lower your voice,’ she pleaded. ‘If he found out you knew our lives wouldn’t be worth living.’ 

‘But can’t you see? You and Lucas are just pawns to him, to be manoeuvred and man-handled h
owever and whenever he sees fit.’

‘We’ll be ok
,’ she said shakily. ‘We’ve survived this far, and when all’s said and done I don’t regret having Lucas for a second.’

‘Then let me pay some lawyer to get Vincent out of your life forever?’ he begged her.

‘I could never accept that.’

‘But there must be another solution. Just give me some time to figure it out, ok?’

Lily looked away again.  Michael was the kindest, most generous man she had ever met but beneath the suntan she sensed more turbulence than a jumbo jet in freefall. For the briefest of moments she wondered if Maisie Peach had felt it too. 

The bartender wasn’t Lily’s only bristling bystander that evening. Through the patio doors, Fifi was watching the scene unfold with growing indignation.  Lily was sitting a little too close to Michael for her liking. Everyone knew producers fingered runners but had shameless affaires with their Heads of Departments. Namby-pamby, drippy script supervisors didn’t usually have a look-in.

‘Get a gander at that’ she said, nudging Rachel in the ribs. ‘Michael’s going above and beyond the call of duty for Miss Drippy. He’ll be taking G
randpa Moore on set visits next.’ 

Rachel followed her gaze and raised a curious eyebrow. ‘I do believe that’s the first time i’ve seen Lily in the company of anythi
ng other than a lever arch file.’

‘Fat lot of good it’s doing her
,’ sniffed Fifi. ‘Her expression is more ‘funeral’ than ‘fun fun fun’. Lily looks more like a wet lettuce leaf than her namesake this evening.’

Rachel shrugged. Like the final resting place of Atlantis and Scorsese’s Oscar snub for Goodfellas, Lily was still an unfathomable mystery to her.
For all her talent at rooting out scandal, she couldn’t for the life figure out what sway Vincent and GBA Pictures had over the timorous woman. As they watched, Michael lent in to peck Lily’s cheek and she flinched away as if scalded.

‘Ha!’ crowed Fifi in delight. ‘Not exactly romance of the century behaviour is it?’

Rachel frowned and pulled out a small square plastic bag from her pocket, out of sight from Polly who was nattering away to Joe over by the sun loungers.  ‘Give it a rest Fi. Those two are about as likely to copulate as George Clooney and Dot Cotton.’ She tapped the white powdery contents onto her notebook. Fifi’s eyes lit up when she saw it. 

‘Ooh
, give us a snort Rach’

‘Keep your voice
down. I don’t want Polly to see.’ 

‘Why? Still trying to delay the inevitable? Give her another month and she’ll be
as screwed up as the rest of us.’

‘Not if I have anything to do with it
,’ said Rachel grimly. She was determined to bottle up Polly’s innocent ambition and preserve it like an aromatic marmalade.

Deftly divvying up the powder into two lines, she inhaled one in a single hit, gasping as the blood vessels in her nose ignited with all the old familiar fireworks.

‘Are you trying to be ironic snorting off your local video shop card?’ observed the Make-Up Artist wryly.

Rachel dabbed at her streaming eyes. ‘What can I say? I like to lump all my film-related habits
together.’

‘B
y anaesthetizing the torture of working here with another industry staple?’

‘Oh make it quick, would you
,’ snapped Rachel, ‘this conversation’s boring me already.’ These days a quick snort tended to be accompanied with an unpalatable combo of guilt and self-loathing. ‘Sod this, i’m going to bed’ she announced, jumping up. As she did the remaining line tipped all over the flowerbed.

‘Y
ou selfish cow,’ squealed Fifi.

Polly glanced over then to see the revolting Make-Up Artist sink to her hands and knees with a rolled up twenty clamped to her nostril.

Maisie squealed as the silver jaws of the lash curlers snapped shut like a guillotine. The device slackened immediately and there was a horrified pause. The spider leg remnants of three whole eyelashes were stuck fast to the white plastic trim.

‘You stupid bitch!’ she screamed at the terrified trainee make-up assistant. ‘How dare Fifi send such a novice to my trailer!  And where the hell’s Gemma? I want my hair curled,
NOW
!’

‘I’m so sorry
, Ms Peach, I’ll find her right away.’ The young girl shot out of the trailer only too happy for the excuse to leave. 

Maisie picked up a box of false eyelashes and hurled it at the mirror. The box exploded and the contents flew in all directions. One stuck fast to the glass, a wispy black blob
, obscuring her reflection, before it worked itself loose and landed in amongst a bowl of cotton buds. The mirror had suffered worse abuse in recent weeks.  There were the inch long fractures next to a photograph of her and Zach Roberts, as well as the surfeit of smeary white dribbles of some cream or another. Objects didn’t tend to stay put on the counter when Maisie’s temper flared which was happening more and more often. Lately, her much lauded ‘Queen of Cool’ PR persona was showing every sign of abdicating.

It was all
because of that stupid article thought Maisie, gazing moodily at her reflection.  One glance at it and she’d chucked up her breakfast, lunch and dinner - all thirty-eight calories of it. Damn
Hot! Hot! Hot!
The very thought of marrying Michael was at best intolerable and at worst unsustainable. All the stress was accelerating the nasty business of aging and she’d already had to fly out her Botox Whizz a month earlier than scheduled.

Leaning forward to examine a new wrinkle
, she made a mental note to call her PA, Bitsy. She better make the necessary arrangements to fly him out again first thing tomorrow.

To Maisie
, the very idea of a multi-million dollar wedding to anyone other than Stephen was as flawed as last year’s hemline. Her whole world revolved around him. He was her Heathcliffe, her Darcy, her Mel Gibson from Lethal Weapon, but without the mullet. Beneath the thick layers of fake tan and foundation, her pretty face hardened. There had to be some way to ditch Michael and declare her love for Stephen publicly without damaging her relationship with Global.

Just then
, her Hair Stylist Gemma came bustling in with overflowing bags of expensive hair products.

‘Ready for your close-up, sweetums?’ she beamed
at her.

Maisie said nothing and pulled out her iPhone.

Unfazed by her rudeness, Gemma set about unwinding the long black lead of the hair tongs and lining up rollers as large as swiss rolls, humming away to herself as she did. 

‘Oh shut up
, Gemma, you’re giving me a headache,’ snapped Maisie.

Gemma pursed her lips
and expertly divided the actress’ hair into sections.  Maisie squirmed under her touch, but not unpleasantly so. Gemma’s fingers were so pudgy, it felt like giant marshmallows were massaging her scalp.

‘Where’s your Mikey today?’ murmured Gemma, spritzing a whole bottle of heat protector serum over Maisie’s head. ‘I didn’t see him in
the catering tent at breakfast.’

‘
His name’s
Michael
,’ said Maisie withering, ‘and he’s back at the Studios. Some conference call about a script he’s been developing.’

‘Something for GBA?’

‘Nope, some low-budget crap.’

Maisie had barely looked up from the E! Channel when Michael had told her about
Love Letters
. Even the prospect of him going it alone hadn’t warranted a flicker of interest. The only way he could hold her attention now was to drop down dead. Besides, without Global’s backing the budget was never going to amount to anything more than her clothing allowance on
A Desert Affair
. Maisie loathed low-budget Indie flicks almost as much as Stephen and Vincent. It had never once crossed her silly little mind that he had just gifted an answer to all their prayers.

‘Michael branching out alone then?’
murmured Gemma.

‘I guess so. Stupid idea if you ask me. Oh for gawd’s sake
, you’re so slow. Are you gonna start curling my hair or what? I’m due on camera in two hours.’

But Gemma wasn’t listening. Discretion had nev
er been Maisie’s forte and she had made a packet over the years selling on the actress’ throwaway tidbits to the tabloids.

‘More serum needed
, sweetums,’ she muttered hastily, pocketing her phone and shooting off to the back of the trailer. ‘So, um, what was Michael doing drinking with Lily in the bar last night?’ she called out to Maisie as she speed-texted her contact at
The Sun
. ‘Have they worked together before?’

Maisie narrowed her catty green eyes. ‘What are you insinuating?’ she snapped
. ‘He wouldn’t look twice at that drab nobody!’ Suddenly, she was fed up with Gemma’s needling. Whipping out her phone she started texting too - Gemma’s marching orders to her agent.

‘Sorry sweetums, I thought you’d know all about it
,’ crooned Gemma innocently, popping up behind her. ‘What’s all this I hear about him babysitting her son as well?’

Maisie jerked her head up in surprise and the hot tongs slipped from Gemma’s hand. She snatched at them wildly and an acrid stench hit filled the air.

Maisie wrinkled her nose. Singed finger didn’t smell nearly as pleasant as toasted marshmallows. But what on earth was Michael playing at? Hanging out with that weedy woman and her snotty brat? He might be about as arousing as a garden slug but he wasn’t a bad-looking guy. Lily Moore had the dress sense of a geeky teenager and was in dire need of a decade at Fat Camp. It must be a pity call. It couldn’t be a booty one.

‘I’m sure it’s nothing
, darling,’ murmured Gemma. ‘I mean how could he possibly look at another woman when he’s with you?’

‘Of course you’re right
,’ agreed Maisie catching another glimpse of herself. The idea of anything other than total fidelity from boring old Michael was laughable.

All of a sudden
, the door blew open and their trailer was invaded by the shouts and business of the unit base.

‘Gemma, leave us
!’ ordered Stephen, appearing in the doorway. ‘I’d like to discuss Maisie’s upcoming love scene with her in private.’ As he spoke, his dark eyes flickered to the front of Maisie’s grey silk dressing gown.

‘Certainly Mr De Vires
.’

As Gemma waddled out
, he yanked Maisie to her feet and caught her face between his hands. Bending down he traced her lips with his tongue. She grinned and reached for his cock. 

‘Not now darling
,’ he chided, swivelling his hips to the side like a Tango dancer. ‘We need to talk.’

Maisise scowled. ‘Words, words, words, why must my life revolves around fucking words
!’ she screamed, missing the irony completely. ‘Come on Stevie, your wife’s arriving any day now. We won’t be able to fool around with that old witch breathing down our necks.’

Stephen picked up a nearby pot of hand cream and took a sniff before dropping his bombshell.

‘Then maybe we should cool it until she goes. I can’t afford to have anything tip her over the edge right now.’

Maisie looked at him in amazement. ‘But you said you
wanted
her to drop down dead! Repeatedly!’

‘I wasn’t being serious darling. We’re at a crucial stage with our Pirates publicity. The Premiere’s in two weeks. The untimely death of one’s wife may just
be enough to jeopardise one’s film’s marketability.’

‘Then leave her!’ screamed
Maisie, marching up and down the trailer and leaving a path of trampled rollers in her wake.

‘Calm down
darling, I will. But I need her to give me a divorce first remember.’

‘For god’s sake
, Stephen, you’ve been asking her for, like,
forever
. What makes you think you’re ever gonna succeed?’

‘Because this time I have a plan.’

Maisie eyed him skeptically. His last ‘plan’ had involved her sitting tight until he could think of another one. That had been five years ago.

‘I don’t believe you
.’

‘Then you’re an idiot. Trust me
, darling, it’s devious, cunning and utterly brilliant, even if I do say so myself. Stop pacing and come here,’ he said, patting a chair. ‘I’ve thought of a way to get rid of her…Michael…the whole fucking caboodle.’

Maisie sat down faster than a musical chair champ. If Stephen was planning to axe Michael from the equation then he must be serious about their relationship. She watched him pull up a chair beside her.

‘How…?’

She was silenced with a kiss.

‘Vincent’s got these pills,’ he murmured pulling away. ‘A few years back the stupid dick mixed his drugs with his daiquiris. Sent him doolally then knocked him out cold.’

He waited patiently f
or Maisie to catch on but her face remained as blank as unused film stock.  Stephen felt a flash of irritation; Maisie was so much dimmer than anyone gave her credit for.

‘Engage your brain
,
Brittney
. This isn’t The Krypton Factor here,’ he snapped, as her facial expressions plodded through a jackpot wheel of emotions, from confusion to disbelief then eventual delight. Hurrah! The light bulb had finally gone off!

‘Oh my gawd!’

‘Exactly! We spike their drinks, shove them in a room together and happen to be standing by taking photographic evidence. I then file for divorce citing adultery and you,’ and more importantly me, thought Stephen, ‘can ditch Michael without losing face with Global.’

‘But honey its fabulous!’ she squeaked, rubbing her hands together in glee.

‘Extortion really is the most practical of sins,’ admitted Stephen, ‘and very convenient when you need a job done quickly. The only obstacle will be prising a vodka bottle from Christine’s hand long enough to plant the pills.’

‘When?’ whispered Maisie, breathless with excitement.

‘Next Saturday. It’s Joe’s birthday so everyone will be plastered. A perfect opportunity to set our little plan into action, don’t you think? Plus it’ll take a while for Vincent’s dealer to source the tabs and ship them over. All concealed of course.’

‘I love it
, and I love you darling!’ cried Maisie, throwing her arms around his neck.

‘I love you too
, honey, but hush now, not a word to anyone.’

‘I promise
.’

‘Good. Now get that dressing gown off
,’ he said, reaching for the cord. ‘As your superstar director, I insist on a little one-to-one coaching before your next scene…’