Jemima J. (44 page)

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“Who
are
all these people?” Ben whispers to Simon, as they’re led into a room that is apparently known as the den.

“The film publicist, the assistant, the agent. God knows.”

“But why are they all here?” whispers Ben. “I mean, this is only a bloody TV interview.”

“I know,” Simon whispers back. “Anyone would think we were out to murder her.”

“Where is she anyway?”

“The assistant said she’d be down in a minute.”

“Jesus. Can you imagine how much money she must make? Look at this place!” Ben is gazing around the building in awe, at the huge, Mexican-style villa set high up in the hills above Santa Monica.

“This is the
den
?” says Ben, laughing, because he’d pictured a small, cozy room, a bit like a library, the very opposite of the enormous white room in which he and Simon are now standing. Simon creeps across the flagstone floors to the french windows at the far end.

_p. 333
“Get a load of this, Ben,” ‘ he says, looking out at a heart-shaped swimming pool cut into the side of the hill, complete with rocks, statues, and fountains.

“I think I’m in the wrong business,” says Ben, walking over to join him.

“I think you are,” says Simon. “I think I am too.”

“Can I get you something to drink?” The boys turn round as Alexia Aldridge’s assistant walks in the room.

Simon nudges Ben and says under his breath, “Double scotch on the rocks?”

“That would be lovely,” says Ben.

“Iced tea?” she says.

“Perfect,” he says.

“Iced tea?” says Simon, looking at Ben in disgust. “Iced tea? No bloody alcohol in iced tea is there?”

“Somehow I don’t think alcohol would be appropriate,” Ben laughs.

Simon checks his watch. “I’d better go down to the front door, the crew should be arriving any minute.”

Ben walks over to the bookcase, looking for clues to some inner life of Alexia Aldridge that the public might not know, although he thinks it’s unlikely. Ben is sure that there’s very little chance of him finding out some fantastic fact about her, something guaranteed to make the front page of every tabloid.

Ben reread his cuts last night, and the more he read the more he started to read between the lines. He suspects that Alexia Aldridge hates playing the Hollywood game. That she’s actually fiercely bright, and very few men are strong enough to match her. He suspects that she’s extremely private, and that were it not for the publicity value of the occasional hand-picked interview, she would lock herself away in her beautiful house and never come out, unless she were making a film. And he suspects that she’s fantastically insecure, which is surprising for one so young, so beautiful and so talented, and that she hides those insecurities with the arrogance for which she’s so famed.

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Finally he suspects that he’s going to leave this house having fallen deeply in love with Alexia Aldridge.

The bookcase is an eclectic collection of art books, psychology books, contemporary literary fiction. Ben’s not surprised, it’s the standard stuff of everyone he’s ever interviewed. What does surprise him, as he pulls out a book on the artist Egon Schiele, is that it’s been read. That the pages are dog-eared and slightly bent, and that someone has obviously pored over it, cover to cover.

Ben turns as he hears someone walk into the room.

“Sorry I took so long,” says Simon, leading the cameraman and soundman into the room.

“God.” Ben puts a hand on his heart. “For a minute there I thought it was her.”

“I could pretend,” says Simon, pouting and fluttering his eyelashes.

“Where is she anyway?” says Ben. “What’s taking so long?”

“Hollywood luvvies,” says Simon, sitting down and pouring himself some iced tea, “are even worse than theatrical luvvies.” He drinks it down in one gulp before adding, “Darling. Mmm,” he says, looking at the glass. “That’s bloody nice, that is.”

An hour later the crew have set up their equipment and they’re standing around, looking at their watches. The door opens. It’s the assistant again.

“I don’t want to trouble you, but any chance we could get to see Miss Aldridge soon?” says Ben politely.

“Like, this year,” mutters Simon, softly so she can’t hear.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” says the assistant. “She should be with you shortly. She’s just finishing getting dressed.”

Half an hour later they’re still sitting there.

“This is definitely happening isn’t it?” says Ben.

“Of course it is,” says Simon, except he’s not sounding half as cocky as he did earlier on.

And then twenty minutes later, just as they’re giving up hope, the assistant rushes in and clears the glasses and jug away. “She’s on her way,” she says, and they stand up to greet her.

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Nothing could have prepared Ben for the sheer magnetism of Alexia Aldridge. She is beautiful but not classically so. Her mouth is slightly crooked, her nose has a bump on it, but the aura around her is such that none of the men can take their eyes off her.

She’s wearing tight lime green trousers, a white sloppy sweater, a huge amount of makeup that makes her look as if she’s wearing no makeup at all, and her hair is perfect.
She’s
perfect, thinks Ben, who, for a few seconds, is so mesmerized by meeting a real-life Hollywood star he can’t move, can’t speak, can’t do anything at all other than stare at her.

“Miss Aldridge?” Simon is first to recover his composure. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Simon Molloy, the producer and director. And this,” he says, “is Ben Williams, our presenter.”

“I’m delighted to meet you,” says Ben, shaking her hand.

“And I, you,” she says coyly, looking up at him from under her eyelashes as Simon looks at the crew and raises his eyes to the ceiling.

And so they start running the tape, and Ben starts asking her questions. He sits in a large white armchair opposite Alexia, who curls up on the sofa, one hand resting on the arm, the other protectively curled round her knees.

“So tell us about your latest film,” he starts, keeping it professional, trying to put her at ease before he starts asking her any personal questions, because she has to trust him, and Ben knows that it may take some time to build up this trust, but he’s finding it hard to concentrate on anything, she’s just so beautiful.

Alexia starts talking, in her famous throaty voice, and Ben sits there and nods his head, but he’s not listening to a word she’s saying, he’s losing himself in her big, brown eyes.

They talk about the film
‌
—why she decided to do a low-budget film and waive her usual multi-million-dollar fee; what she felt when she first saw the script
‌
—the story of a single girl who’s trying to find love, but can’t tell the difference between
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passion and love, and nearly loses out when she doesn’t realize what she’s found, and how she feels at the superb reviews; the film, like all other American-made films, has opened in the States already and is not due to open in England for months.

“I know you’re very private about your own love life,” Ben ventures, as Alexia nods encouragingly, “but would you say you related to the character?”

“You mean, do I go for passion rather than love?”

Ben nods.

“I think relationships are very difficult, especially in this industry,” she starts. “And I think it’s very easy to get swept away with glamour, excitement, passion. But look at Hollywood marriages, they so rarely last, and I think the trick is, just as my character in the film does, the trick is to look for friendship rather than passion.”

“So are you attracted to your male friends?”

Alexia laughs. “Now there’s the tricky bit. Unfortunately I’ve yet to have a friendship with a man which turns into something more, but I’m still looking.”

“So you’re not in a relationship with anyone now?” Ben almost blushes as he says this, because it sounds so personal, and the question isn’t for the benefit of the viewers, it’s for him.

“No.” She shakes her head and leans forward, giving him a flirtatious smile. “And to be honest I’m happy with that. I’m very busy with work, and I have a lot of close friends, and I really feel, for the first time in my life, that I don’t need a man to fulfill me.”

“So obviously you related to your character quite a lot.” That’s it, Ben, bring it on to more comfortable territory.

“Absolutely.” She nods. “I suppose when I was younger I did go for that initial passion, but you change as you get older, and now I’d like to think I look for something more substantial.”

“How do you think you’ve changed?” I love her, Ben’s thinking, still mesmerized by her beauty, she is my perfect woman.

“I’m much more aware as a person. I think I’ve finally found self-fulfillment. I’m more relaxed with who I am, I do yoga, I
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meditate, I believe in the power of visualization and I use it. Frequently.” She pauses and looks at the ceiling for a few seconds. “But I think the main thing is I’ve learned how to nurture my inner child, and that’s the thing that’s really made a difference.”

“Your inner child?” says Ben, feeling slightly stupid, for he doesn’t have a clue what she’s talking about.

“Absolutely.” She nods again. “My inner child. The lonely, scared, insecure child that lives inside all of us.”

“Er, yes,” says Ben, with typical British reserve. “Quite. So how did you come to find your, er, inner child?”

“I did these fabulous rebirthing classes,” she says earnestly, “and taking me back to the trauma of birth, actually being able to feel the shock and terror of emerging from the womb into this world, completely changed my life.”

Ben’s just sitting looking at her, not quite open-mouthed, but the look of love that had been in his eyes since the beginning of the interview is rapidly disappearing. There’s always a bloody catch, he thinks. She’s beautiful, she’s single, and she’s full of psychobabble bullshit. Damn.

“But surely someone like you doesn’t have to go through something like, um, rebirthing?” he ventures.

“This is all image,” she says, “and actually I’m very ordinary. I go to the supermarket, I go shopping, I go for walks. I’m just like everybody else.”

Yup, thinks Ben, and that’s why it’s taken us months to set up an interview with you. That’s why, in fact, we’re bothering to interview you at all. Because you’re just so ordinary.

“Do you get recognized when you go out?”

“Occasionally,” she says, “but, believe me, when I’m walking around with no makeup on and a baseball cap I look very different. It’s lovely when people come up to you and tell you they admire your work, but sometimes it can be bothersome if they just want to touch you and get close to you.”

“Has it ever worried you?”

“There was a recent incident, which I haven’t talked about
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before. A guy started following me,” she says slowly. “He knew where I lived and started sending me letters. First of all he told me he liked me, then he loved me, and eventually they got more and more bizarre and he thought he was married to me.”

Thank you, God, thinks Ben, knowing that this is the story that will make the papers, that Alexia Aldridge has her very own stalker.

“Were you frightened?”

“Yes.” She nods. “And finally he started sending packages and saying that he knew where I was, who I was with, and what I was doing, and he was going insane with jealousy. In the last note I got he said if he couldn’t have me, no one would, and he was going to kill me.”

“What happened to him?”

“He’s being held for questioning, and it’s the first time I’ve slept in months. But it’ll take a long time to get over that feeling of always looking over your shoulder. I guess”
‌
—she shrugs her shoulders and smiles
‌
—“it’s kind of an occupational hazard.”

Ben catches Simon’s eye, who winks and gives him the thumbs-up.

“I think it’s time to wrap it up,” says the assistant, standing up. “Miss Aldridge has a meeting.”

“It’s okay, Sandy,” says Alexia Aldridge, waving her away. “I have a few more minutes. Do you want to carry on?”

Ben looks at Simon, who shakes his head. “I think we’ve got enough,” says Ben. “If we could just finish by wishing you luck.” And they do, and Alexia smiles her famous smile and thanks them, and they get ready to pack up.

“It’s been a pleasure,” she says, shaking Ben’s hand for rather a long time when the interview is over and the crew have walked out of the room. “I wish I had more time.”

“You were wonderful,” says Ben, still trying to figure out whether she’s flirting with him, but suddenly not really caring. Although it would be an ego trip, all this rebirthing talk has changed his view of her completely.

“Maybe we’ll meet again in London?” she says.

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“Oh absolutely. That would be great.”

“Here,” she says, handing him a card. “These are my numbers. You should call me.”

“Oh.” Ben’s shocked. “Okay.”

“In fact,” she continues, “I was wondering whether you were free tonight. I’d love it if you stayed for dinner.”

“You mean the crew?” says Ben, who’s just checking.

“No.” She smiles her pussycat smile and taps him on the nose. “Don’t be silly. Just us. You and me.”

A million thoughts seem to go through Ben’s mind at once. She’s Alexia Aldridge! She fancies me! What a story! I could dine out on this for years! But I promised the crew I’d go out with them! They wouldn’t mind! She’s full of shit! But she’s Alexia Aldridge! But what would be the point?

“Um, I’d love to,” he says finally. “But I’m taking the crew out, and they’ve worked so hard I can’t let them down.”

Her smile hardens. “Okay. Never mind. But look, you should call me, I’m spending more and more time in London and I’d love to see you. I know a great healer in London who I think would really help you learn to love yourself. I must introduce you.”

Alexia, unknowingly, has banged the final nail in her own coffin.

“That would be so great,” he says, and he kisses her on the cheek, pockets her card, turns away, and rolls his eyes at Simon as she walks out of the room.