Dirty Movies (40 page)

The pavements by Waterloo S
tation were jammed with theatregoers, indulging in their last minute G and T’s before shooting off to catch a performance at the Old Vic Theatre. Joe politely jostled his way through the plumes of chitchat and cigarette smoke, unaware of the appreciative glances from a group of women all clutching their chardonnays like a singleton’s answer to a lovey-dovey handhold. His brother was such a wily old bugger at all this press stuff, he reflected enviously, as he crossed the road. It didn’t matter how shocking the headlines, or how many female journalists’ hearts he ripped apart, like the papers they wrote for. Nothing seemed to taint that glossy public persona.

Deciding to ditch his drink with Sam, he hopped aboard the station escalator with every intention of heading home and crawling into bed. Instead, he found himself standing outside Polly’s flat an hour later. He had never been here but it seemed so familiar, convivial even, all this despite the fact that their relationship barely passed for civil courtesy these days. It was his fault. He knew that. He had been so focused on
Memoir
, he forgot to change his underpants most days, but his admission of guilt didn’t stop him hating the situation any less. What’s more, he was buggered if he knew how to fix it.

One of Polly’s neighbours had left the front entrance on the latch
, so he slipped into the hallway and knocked on her door without any of the usual awkward buzzer repartee. After a while she appeared, all dancing eyes and quizzical fading smiles, as if she had been laughing for hours and hours but now that he’d turned up she had developed a stitch. In turn, Joe didn’t much feel like chuckling himself when he looked over her shoulder and spotted Michael, shoe-less and stretched out on her sofa with a beer in hand. He made to leave immediately.

‘W
ait!’ Polly took a step forward and shivered. The chilly air whistling through the corridor was more sobering than a drink drive advert. Or was it the expression on Joe’s face?

‘Are you ok?’ she asked him
, tentatively. ‘Did I forget something at the office?’

He shook his head. ‘No it’s nothing…’ He paused. ‘Actually there is something
, but it can wait. On second thoughts, it can’t. What’s going on between you and Michael?’

Polly took a step back as if slapped.

‘Oh c’mon, don’t play innocent,’ he hissed, ‘I saw you two together in Cannes!’

‘Cannes?? Joe, I swear to god
, I have absolutely no idea what you’re…’

‘The café.
The night of the boat party,’ he prompted. ‘When you two ran off, I came in to find you. I saw you draped all over each other by the soggy Orangina mats.’

‘He was miserable over his father
. I was comforting him as a friend.’

‘So what’s that then?’ he argued, jabbing his finger in the direction of her flat. ‘More TLC for our good-looking, lovelorn Producer? Christ, you’re no better than Cassie!’

‘I invited Michael round for some pizza, Joe, PIZZA!’ cried Polly, losing her temper. How dare Joe turn up at her flat and fling about unfounded allegations like a Greek diner and his crockery. ‘I didn’t realise a bit of tomato sauce and mozzarella was testament to the affair of the century!’

‘Don’t be childish
.’

‘I’m not being…’

‘Hello Joe, everything alright?’ enquired Michael, popping his head round the door.

‘I was just leaving.’
 

‘Yes
, you do that,’ snarled Polly. ‘You’re rather gifted at high-tailing when things get a bit dicey.’

‘Woah honey, that’s not fair
,’ remonstrated Michael gently.

‘You keep out of it!’

The American backed off right away. Polly’s hostility was spitting off her like chip fat.

‘You know what your problem is?’ she cried, turning on Joe
, as months of pent-up frustration exploded like a James Bond ‘shoot ‘em up’. ‘You’re more like your bloody brother than you think!’

‘Bullshit
,’ snapped Joe, storming off down the drafty hallway, ‘I don’t need this crap.’

‘Well
, it’s the truth!’ howled Polly after him. ‘You’re a master manipulator, just like him! You used me in Morocco, then you used me to help make your bloody film. Well, I’ve had it with the both of you!’ Shoving Michael out of the way, she dived back into her flat, only to reappear moments later. She hurled her office keys at his departing back.

‘I hate you, Joe De Vries!’ she screamed at him. ‘I hate that piece of string you’ve kept me dangling on for the past eighteen months, I hate being your so-called friend, and most of all
, I hate your stupid job!’

‘I take it you’re quitting
then,’ he said, whirling round. They glared at each other for a moment before Polly nodded.

Moments
later, and with tears glistening in her eyes, she slammed the door on both of them.

The worst thing about Christmas Day was
all the washing-up, decided Lily, surveying the debris of dirty plates, encrusted veggie dishes and used baking trays with her own greasy mixture of inertia and despair. It didn’t matter how weedy her turkey, or how compact her Christmas pud, she had still managed to use every utensil in the kitchen, even the old plastic measuring jug she kept at the back of the cupboard to water the plants with.

Armed with a scrubbing brush, she was just beginning to clear a path through the carnage when an enormous, puffed-up wood pigeon crash-landed on her birdbath outside. Now that’s a bird
, thought Lily, eyeing it hungrily through the window. A great pie-stuffing specimen. You wouldn’t need more than one to feed a family of four.

With a jolt
, she realised she was obsessing over food again. Miracle fad diets always did this to her, made her compare everything to tantalising calorie-busting treats. She had even found herself fantasising when putting out the bins last night. The crinkles in the black plastic had looked remarkably similar to the chocolate shavings on top of frozen chocolate gateaux. Her tummy rumbled hopefully. Despite the mess, she had only eaten a dollop of bread sauce and three Brussels sprouts for lunch. Perhaps a celery stalk would perk her up. Heading over to the fridge, she cast a worried eye over Lucas as she passed. Her son was slumped over one end of the kitchen table, gazing at the television and pretending, for her sake, to enjoy Mary Poppins as she jollied along her charges.

It was all Vincent’s fault
, thought Lily in anguish. Their father and son trip to the zoo last week hadn’t exactly been a success. Livid, after a monkey filched his ice cream, Vincent had thrown an almighty wobbly during the 3pm insect and arachnid talk after some bearded oik dared suggest he stroke a tarantula.  Chucking his Blackberry at the row of glass display tanks at the front, it had rebounded with a clonk and landed in amongst a nearby ‘petting tray’, squishing a number of luckless leggy critters. Understandably, Lucas had been beyond distraught ever since.

‘I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!’ she heard her son mutter as he speared his untouched pudding with his fork. His little voice was muffled with emotion
, yet impassioned enough to startle the wood pigeon outside. With another petulant squawk, the bird attempted a takeoff, masked as a potential suicide mission, and Lily breathed a sigh of relief when the frantic flapping produced enough oomph to deny next door’s cat a Christmas feast all of its own. She ran a soothing hand across Lucas’ shoulders.

‘Darling, please don’t take what he said seriously
,’ she crooned softly. ‘Of course daddy’s not going to massacre all the stick insects and tarantulas.’

‘He is, he is! He said so!’

Lily sighed. She wasn’t too bothered at the thought of a few less spiders in the world but she was rather partial to a stick insect. They reminded her of Polly in a funny sort of a way, slim and graceful and enviably adept at blending in with her surroundings.

All of a sudden, Lucas sat bolt upright with a look of intense purpose on his little face. Lily held her breath as he belted into the living room and dived headfirst into his wooden toy chest. Pulling out a Spiderman mask t
hat Michael had given him last summer, he waved it aloft in triumph.

‘Me and Spidey are off to save the insects!’ he announced jubilantly, yanking it over her head
, before scooping out the limp red carnations from a nearby vase and depositing them all over the rug. ‘And this can be their new home!’

Better the loss of a vase than a house overrun with insects, reasoned Lily
, as he bounced off into the garden. It was just a shame that Spidey couldn’t come to the rescue of single mothers as well.

If Stephen thought his producer was out of control in October, then January proved to be a real low point. Not content with scaring the patrons of the local zoo, Vincent had gone out of his way to make himself the least popular passenger on his Virgin Atlantic flight to Los Angeles a month later. After making crude advances to all the female cabin crew, he hit the on-board cocktail bar so hard that he passed out dead drunk in the aisle by the lavatories. This meant that, for the rest of the flight, the Upper Classers had to endure the downright indignity of traipsing through Premium Economy for a pee.

Having
refueled in his limo, Vincent arrived at Global Studios for an awards campaign strategy meeting with his head hanging out of the sunroof like a Stag on his night out in Weston-Super-Mare. Stephen, who had only just landed back on American soil himself after his ‘mercy trip’ to Bucharest, which, by all accounts, had involved more strippers than street urchins, watched the performance unfold with increasing alarm.

Vincent
then lurched into Walt’s office, demanding Bottinger and blow jobs from each one of his attractive interns, before pinning his super-stern PA, Serena, up against a picture of her boss shaking hands with the President, and getting himself kneed in the balls for his pains. Stepping in before Walt confined their new, but as yet unsigned, first look picture deal contract memo to the studio’s paper shredder, Stephen grabbed Vincent’s arm and yanked him outside onto their boss’ fancy balcony.

‘For fuck’s sake, sober up!’ he
yelled, losing his temper, as his producer lost his footing and commenced a rather undignified tussle with one of Walt’s potted Loropetalum trees.

‘Walt’s not impressed, and, quite frankly, neither am I. Do you want us to lose our new contract? What the hell’s got into you?’

But Stephen never got his reply, because all of a sudden the pretty pink branches of the besieged shrub gave way, sending Vincent tumbling headfirst over the balcony wall and three stories onto the ground below.

Rushing to the edge of the balcony, expecting to discover blood, gore and a whole lot more, Stephen was amazed to find Vincent peeling himself off the crushed white awning of a flattened golf buggy and waving two fat fingers up at him. Alas, whatever blind
ing good fortune had enabled Vincent to get thus far in life, finally expired when a passing Global Studio’s tour bus guide took his eyes off the road to point out a prop from last year’s cult hit,
Tractor Terror
, and ploughed into thirty stone of superstar Producer instead.

Vincent’s death sent shockwaves throughout the industry, not least from all the jumping up and down of delighted feet when the news finally broke on BBC News 24. Never one to miss an opportunity, no matter how crass, Patrick Garrett ensured that his death was twisted to GBA’s every advantage, from the endless mawkish interviews with Stephen, to the hastily commissioned celebrity documentary special that followed a ‘grieving’ Gillian on her shopping quest for a funeral frock. Whatever the press occasion, the general public, and more significantly the Hollywood Foreign Press, BAFTA and Academy Members, were guaranteed a bombardment of references to
Love Letters
and a protracted clip of the film.

The publicist’s strategy proved to be as ferociously effective as it was in bad taste
, and as twelfth night came and went, and moulting Christmas tinsel was once again banished to lofts across the world, the film was on course to conquer all.

Behind the scenes at GBA
, the sense of relief was insurmountable, not least from Stephen who was already wooing a prospective replacement rumoured to be twice as ruthless, but whose marbles were still very much intact. As for Gillian, she had been dismissed as soon as the documentary cameras stopped rolling. Not that she minded. Vincent had been more than generous with his ill-gotten gains over the years, and she had already struck up a six-figure sum with a notable publishing house to spill the carefully expurgated beans about her time as a producer’s moll.

The only other person more thrilled about the whole thing was Mich
ael who, after purging Janie’s Rolodex, had pinched Joe’s car and bunny-hopped all the way over to Lily’s with a bottle of champagne rolling about in the glove box. Unfortunately, he found her little house as empty as his Valentine’s Day mailing list. What’s worse, according to a neighbour, Lily and Lucas had vanished two days previously and not been seen since.

As for the rest of the Harper team, the news of Vincent’s death was met with a little more deference, but only just. It was a struggle to find anyone who hadn’t been insulted, scorned at and pushed around by him.
They were also mourning the loss of Polly who, true to her word, had packed up her things after her and Joe’s big blow-up and
vamoosed
, as Benito might say.  Joe was flatly refusing to talk about it and he was in such a melancholic fug these days that no one dared push the subject.

With
more nominations in the bag for the Producer’s & Director’s Guild Awards, they were all decamping to the States for the Golden Globes and the remainder of the awards season, save a trip back for the BAFTAS in February, if the ballots so blessed. Secretly, Michael was hoping that this would give Joe the distance he needed to get his head straight. Thankfully, their own relationship seemed back on track after he had insisted that the odds of he and Polly ever hooking up were far slimmer than Vincent’s chances of terrorising the red carpet again.

All in all, it was a pretty subdued bunch that sat waiting to board their flight to California the following day. Even Christine seemed unusually quiet.  According to Janie, things with Flavio were more ‘chilly Frappuccino’ than ‘piping hot Cappuccino’ these days and, although the actress wasn’t giving many details, she was spending an inordinate amount of time gazing wistfully out of humungous airport windows.

With their collective mood glummer than their churli
sh check-in lady’s, things were not improved by the interminable, wall-to-wall live coverage of Vincent’s funeral on all four TVs in the terminal bar. Delayed by a bum-busting six hours, they were forced to endure an endless cavalcade of morose mourners and weepy well-wishes, all bunged of course by Patrick Garratt, as they sat waiting for their gate to be called. He had even managed to dupe Elton into performing one of his classics.

‘Nothing ‘Tiny’ about Vincent
,’ scoffed Michael, as the coffin advanced through the drizzly streets of Bermondsey. ‘Look at the size of that thing! You wouldn’t want to be a pallbearer today.

‘If anyone needs me
, I’ll be over by the Clarins counter,’ said Christine, unable to take it any longer.

Joe just grunted.

‘My father must be pretty serious about winning awards this season,’ confided Michael, as a grief-stricken old codger dramatically thrust his Zimmer frame out of the way and collapsed into the arms of his neighbour. ‘As for him, I don’t know what he’s so upset about. Some Global publicist’s just slipped him £50 for that performance. You could fit the number of people who gave a shit about Vincent on a tandem bicycle and still have two seats spare. I smell a rat. Pa’s never gone to this much trouble before.’

Realising he was prattling on to an impervious audience
, he stopped. ‘You ok, buddy?’

Joe nodded but
he never once took his eyes off the TV.

‘Sam joining you in LA?’

‘Nah, she’s not coming.’

‘What’s the deal with you two anyway?’

‘No deal. Not anymore.’ Joe took a gulp of his beer.

Michael stared at him
, thoughtfully. These days, his friend was more
disused old library
than
closed book
. In fact, coaxing any sort of reaction out of him was proving harder than driving a stick shift. 

Sat barely fifty feet away in the very same terminal, Lily watched as her son wolfed down three bacon double cheeseburgers, two medium fries and an extra-large coke. This was the first time he had eaten anything in weeks so she tried not to think about calorific comas or arteries more clogged than a Glastonbury Festival portaloo.

Like some parallel metamorphosis
, Lucas had sprung to life since Vincent’s death. No longer did he cringe at shadows or jump in fear every time the phone rang, and ever since the bug butcher himself had been resting in a Bermondsey funeral home, her house had become an insect free zone again.

‘Mummy, mummy, can I have another one?’ begged Lucas, expelling a great, meaty burp.

Lily looked at him in surprise. ‘You can’t still be hungry!’

‘Mummy, mummy pleeease
.’

‘Ok, darling…’ Shaking her head
, she slid three pounds across the table, but it was more to buy her time than anything else. She too had caught a glimpse of Vincent’s funeral parade as they whizzed past the widescreens in the window of the terminal’s
Currys.
Although Lucas seemed fine about it all, more than fine actually, positively euphoric, she didn’t want to run the miniscule risk of upsetting him today.

It had never crossed her mind to attend. Why celebrate the life of a man who had bound her with a barbed-wire mesh of intimidation and fear for the last six years? Yet
, she still cried when she heard the news, quietly though so not to disturb
Peppa Pig
in the next room. First came the tears of guilt for saddling her perfect son with such an imperfect father, then tears of joy when she realised that she never had to work for GBA again and finally, tears of utter delirious delight that she would be able to sack the stupid Charlene without fear of ending up in casualty.

The next
thing she did was book a three-week, all-inclusive trip to Disneyland in the hope that a lengthy stopover at the ‘Happiest Place on Earth’ would stop her thinking about Michael. Failing that, she could always get high on all the sugar instead.

Ten hours later, Michael swept through boarder control and into the arrivals hall, clutching his laptop and passport.

‘Hey Michael! Michael, over here!’

Michael turned instinctively towards the voice then froze. The Bill Chalmers waving at him bore little resemblance to the puffed-up, boisterous character from last year. Like an un-watered Christmas tree, everything about the Texan sagged, from his great hulking shoulders to his bushy moustache. Even his cigar looked in desperate need of a pep talk.

Michael swallowed uneasily. This was the body language of a man who
had been bested, a man who had employed every trick in the book, worked every hour under the sun, and yet, had still fallen short. Bill beckoned him over and stuck out his hand. He made no other concession to expedite the short distance between them, as if he was deliberately putting off bad news.

They grasped hands briefly.

‘Michael.’

‘Bill
.’

‘The others with you?’

‘Still waiting for their luggage. They sent me on ahead.’

‘Right
.’ Bill started fanning his face with his newspaper then made to unravel it, before he changed his mind and tucked it awkwardly under his arm instead.

‘Michael, we
gotta problem. Seems you’ve got yourself a few enemies, son.’

‘Only a few?’ drawled Michael.

‘You only need one in this town. The guy who unleashes Garrett.’

Michael’s face darkened. ‘Let me guess, he’s dodging the Academy’s no-no rule on bad-mouthing rival movies by electing to discredit us as individuals instead?’

Bill nodded. ‘It’s circumstantial, of course, but the timing stinks. He’s gonna rip you guys apart, one-by-one.’

‘I see. Then who’s the first victim?
I assume that’s what we’re talking about here.’

Bill looked shifty.

‘Me?? Are you serious?’ Michael started laughing. ‘I bet Garrett had a tough time there. Not much lurking in my past.’

‘Except Christine
.’

The smile froze on Michael’s lips. Ah, that. 

The big Texan unfolded his paper, handed it over then glanced away, of which Michael was touchingly grateful for when he looked down and saw a photograph of himself and Christine plastered across the page in a tangle of bed sheets and limbs. Very, very naked limbs…

As customary with moments of great shock, Michael found his
mind shooting off on a tangent. He began to silently berate the idiot tasked with pixelating Christine’s nipples.  It was a piss-poor job by anyone’s standards. He could make out every goose-bump on her areola.

‘Images like these are always the most damaging
,’ he heard Bill say. ‘They have the propensity to offend Middle America’s delicate constitutions, far more than adulterous senators. I hate to say it but Garrett’s pulled off quite a coup. Not only has he made you out to be some kind of irresponsible playboy, he’s managed to paint Stephen as the wronged husband in every shade of bullshit as well.’

Michael’s hands convulsed into fighting fists. ‘Damn straight it’s bullshit!’ he yelled, making everyone stare. ‘Besides, this crap is nothing new. Everyone knows me and Christine hooked up, Ste
phen made sure of it last year. What he failed to mention is that
he’s
the one who’s been screwing Maisie behind my back for years!’             

Bill
’s head jerked up. ‘You got proof of that?’

Michael hesitated. That
had been his father’s reaction too. Suddenly a horrible thought struck him. Was it he who had sanctioned the release of those photos?

‘So?’ prompted Bill, trying not to sound too eager about it. ‘You got the proof or not?’

‘Not.’ he answered flatly.

The Texan s
lumped again. ‘Shame. We could have leaked it. Still, those Globes ballots closed a few weeks ago so the votes are already cast. As for the Oscars? We’ll just have to hold our breath and hope the Academy members judge your movie on merit alone.’

Michael forced himself to look at the revolting photo again. Poor Christine. She didn’t deserve this humiliation any more than he did. And what the he
ll was Benito going to say? He would need to be at least three continents away to escape the aftershocks once that fiery Italian volcano erupted.

T
his was just a taster, the inauguration of a long, dirty, drawn-out campaign slog. No wonder Bill was looking so deflated. If what he said about Garrett was true, then there would be a whole paperboy bagful of incriminatory headlines to fire-fight between now and late February. Not content with dreaming up bullshit charities and farcing up funerals, Garrett and Stephen were clearly gunning for a full set of Harper scalps.

Michael scowled. Suddenly it wasn’t about red carpets, campaign screenings and toe-curling speeches anymore.

This was personal.

They drove straight from the airport to West Hollywood, making one quick detour on the way to pick up a tux for Joe to wear to the Globes.

Lou Lou’s Rent-A-Tux
was cut-price and it showed, from the cheap neon sign flashing in the front window to the sorry-looking suits hanging on the rails inside, but Joe was adamant that there was no point dressing up a disaster. When Michael showed him the newspaper, he had known that
Memoir
’s chances this awards season were cooked. He knew it, Michael who was slumped dejectedly beside him on the shop’s shabby brown sofa knew it and Christine, who was still bawling her eyes out in the car outside, sure as hell knew it.