Photographic (23 page)

He wandered into the hall and stood at the threshold of her room. With one foot, he casually pushed the door open. It creaked in protest. He staggered in, feet crossing as he heeled diagonally in the general direction of his intent, but steady in the main. The bed was made, the suitcase propped on the level back and arms of a low, modern armchair. A flick of the light switch hardly illuminated the room. The two pillows plumped on the bed called to him. He reached out, lurching forward, hesitated in the air for a breathless moment before grasping one of the pillows to him in an embrace. With a deep breath he inhaled. After another deep sniff he fluffed and placed the pillow back on the bed. He’d been very curious about aspects of Jane. A man like Ian Reilly, who could have anyone; how would she smell, the woman he would choose? 

The suitcase. Clothes. Jeans. Sweaters. Automatically he checked labels, etc, to see what sort of person Jane was. He was a firm believer you could tell a great deal about a person from what she wore. His own wardrobe was a gimmick, of sorts. Appearing in the same costume was a way to be recognizable to the people he photographed. His work as an on-set photographer was his legitimate career. Then there was his shadow side, as a secret source for tabloids, scandal sheets, the rags. He had to walk a very fine line. If people suspected him, that could still be all right. Everyone suspected everyone of something, sometime, in this business. But if they knew, that would be a bit tragic for his legitimacy. He still had a ready-made second career to step into at any time, so he wouldn’t be crying for long. But he liked the work, hanging about the sets, mooching around, picking up gossip; the righteous sheen he had on himself. He’d be sorry to give that up. It couldn’t last forever. But he’d milk it as long as he could. 

This lady didn’t spend as much on clothes as she should. There were brand names, but they weren’t all the right brand names. The of-the-moment, in-the-know, he-said, she-said, brands. He could tell her a few things about clothes. As far as he could tell, she had packed for variations in weather. There was one nice shimmery silver dress and some silver sandals. That outfit he could give the nod. 

He stuffed everything back into a neat semblance of order and stuck his hand into the first of several pockets. His hand felt something hard and square. He pulled out a small folded leather case. With some eagerness he loosened the strap and opened it. It was a pair of photographs, Ian on one side, Tam on the other. He studied it for a moment and tucked it away. The other pockets revealed underwear (these passed with better marks), and a book:
The Odyssey
, translation by Robert Fagles. Not hard to guess why she was reading that one. Surprising she was erudite or curious enough to attempt it, though. Beezer’s education had been rather good until he chucked it at fifteen. He’d stuck closely to his roots in his speech and manner whenever he could, preferring the vernacular of the working people he’d come from rather than the scrabbling middle class. Reilly struck him as the reading type; Jane, in their brief acquaintance, seemed more…he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Not that she wouldn’t read. Really he couldn’t say what occupied the lady’s thoughts. It made her an object of even more interest to him. 

Beezer shut her suitcase and looked around the room. A disappointment, that’s what the search had been. Other than the ring (was she wearing a wedding ring?—he was slipping) he hadn’t found near enough dirt at this end to make it worth his while. So he’d have to use his imagination and combine what pearls he had from the set and what he’d scraped from here and whip them up together into something really good. He rubbed his hands together. You couldn’t ask for more access than he had been privy to. It had been a dream, really, so he couldn’t grumble. Just because this lady had squeaky clean writ large didn’t mean she didn’t have skeletons in her closet to match her husband’s.

Beezer sat down on the bed. The pertinent question was, did she know? The trip shouted yes.

IS EVERYTHING SHIPSHAPE WITH REILLY AND WIFE?

Rumors of on-set sparks between
Odysseus
  costars Delaney Corts and Ian Reilly have died down since the film wrapped in June. But now that Jane Reilly has decamped to London with six-year-old daughter Tamsin in tow, it looks like there’s trouble in paradise, indeed! Mother and daughter have been spotted enjoying summer afternoons in Kensington Gardens, minus dear old Dad, who is at home in the States until production starts on his next project,
Bourbon Street
, in September.

Close friends say there may be more than the flirtation with Delaney Corts behind the couple’s estrangement. Ian has long wished to try for a second child, says a source close to the couple, hoping for a boy to carry on the family name, while Jane is reluctant to expand the family, preferring to concentrate her attention on their only child.

The
Stargazer
has uncovered exclusive photos of Ian and Delaney on the set of
Odysseus
, published here for the first time!

Jane put the paper down on the kitchen table. She smoothed it out, looking at the photographs one by one. They were the same ones she had been sent, along with new ones of Tam and her in the park. Her hand spread out over a picture, covering the silhouetted image of her husband in the door of his trailer. Delaney was on the steps of his trailer waiting to come in, as she herself had waited on his steps all those years ago, when she had been in the wrong place at the right time. 

They had got the story twisted, latched on to the wrong part of the beast and tugged to bring the prey down where it was strong, not where it was weak. How long would it be before they ran closer, more tightly in formation; found the throat? She brought her hand up, touched her neck. She closed the paper and crumpled it into a little ball before she crushed it into the trash and covered it with the lid. 

“Sweetheart.” His voice, in the middle of the night, when she picked up the phone. She was getting used to receiving and making late night phone calls lately. She’d left the number of the flat in the kitchen before she left, with a note saying she had Tam, and not to call. The mistress of mixed messages.

She couldn’t say anything.

“I miss you.”

She made a small noise.

“I’m biting down so fucking hard. I can’t stand it.”

 The raw emotion in his voice licked at her charred heart like cool flames, unable to ignite. She had no pity. “They’ve found out, Ian. They know we’re here.”

“They?”

“The papers. All about you and Del. And me and Tam in Kensington Gardens.”

“Oh, shite.” She could hear him breathing. She felt a bitter kind of vindication. Of course they’d found out. Marta had tried to warn her. “I’ll get someone. Hire someone. For you to be safe.”

“I can handle it." She didn't want his sympathy or protection. Their voices were whispers. “How long until they figure out the real story, Ian? These people aren’t stupid. Don’t call me.” She heard him struggling on the other end. “Good night.” 

She cradled the phone in its stand, putting it in its place, cutting him off, keeping hold of herself, feeling her own separate body in this bed, divided by an ocean from her mate. She had put the distance between them and felt her body as her own, not belonging to anyone; she had switched places with him. Here she was a stranger. Here she was herself.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

W
ITH
A
SMART
knock on the front door, Marta rolled back and forth on the balls of her feet and hummed to herself. She hadn’t bothered with the front gate, leaving her car just outside and walking around it—down the ditch, over the fence—straight up to the house. A quick check in the mirror, perhaps. Smoothing her eyebrows with a licked finger, she smiled at the tiny round picture she had pasted in the corner of the compact mirror. She was about to meet the real thing. Snapping the silver compact shut, she tucked it in her pocket and waited. A good sixty seconds passed before she put her eye up to the small peephole, trying to see in. She started as the door swung back. Ian Reilly stood there.

“Ah…hello.” Marta couldn’t quite believe it.

“Hello.” He blinked in the light.

“I’m a friend of Jane’s. Martaclarkedwards.”

He opened the door wider and stepped forward. She stepped back. He had on plaid flannel pants and a flannel bathrobe. No shirt. She tried to keep her eyes on his face. 

“I’m sorry, Jane’s not here.” He rubbed the back of his neck. He looked pale, beneath his brown skin, and tired. And dreamy. His eyes were green and gold; his skin smooth and taut to his face and body. His dark hair was longer than any photographs she’d seen recently. It was tangled and tucked behind his ears.

He scanned the front yard as if looking for some sign of how she had gotten here.

“I parked outside the gate.” She waited. Out in the middle of nowhere surely friends got invited in.

“Did you want to come in for a minute? I’ve got coffee.”

“Sure.”

He tied the belt on his bathrobe and held the door open for her. She passed by him, peering around the living room to see if anything had changed since her last visit. Everything looked pretty much the same. There was a book on the coffee table, a throw and a pillow on the couch. He might have been there when she knocked, asleep maybe. Detouring into the living room, weaving around like she didn’t know the house all that well, she eyed the cover of the book.
Opened Ground: Selected Poems
, by Seamus Heaney.
Humpf
. She had hoped for something in the Self Help line, a clue:
How to Save a Marriage on the Rocks
, or
Recovering from an Affair
, or
Fucking Your Co-star: Advantages and Implications
.

Following him into the kitchen in her own good time, she took a seat at the kitchen table, sliding into the comfortable oak seat like she had never left. He poured her a coffee and sat down, giving her déjà vu back to her first visit with Jane. Something about his demeanor put her in mind of Jane that day, as well. The quiet feeling of the house; his air of a soul alone.

Sitting there, sipping, all she could think at first was, ‘I’m having coffee with Ian Reilly.’ She had thought she was professional enough not to be starstruck like this, even if it was him. Maybe it was the bathrobe, or that he had invited her in. The pertinent question: Did he know who she was? She had the uneasy certainty, especially with the elision of her name, that the invitation was for Jane’s friend, not her specifically.

“Jane’s in London.” He smiled at her over his coffee. 

Marta felt her heart do a little flip-flop. “Yes, I knew she went. I wasn’t sure when she was coming back.”

Ian tipped back in his chair, balancing his coffee on the belt of his robe, a foot hooked around the table leg. “That makes two of us. She and Tam are having a vacation. They didn’t plan an exact return date. It’s sort of a mother-daughter thing, I guess.” His mouth turned up in an attempt at a smile, but it didn’t quite make it, and instead he looked wretched.

Marta nodded, wondering how to play this.

“How did you two meet? You live in town?”

Marta laughed. “Oh my, no. She didn’t tell you about me?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear your name properly earlier, what was it?”

She swallowed, turning her mug around in her hands. “Marta Clark-Edwards?” It wasn’t the name she’d given Jane. She’d told Jane her working name, Kuhonik.

“Marta?” His eyebrows shot up. Tipping the chair back down with a punctuating clump, he set his coffee on the table. “I have heard that name, now you mention it.” He shook his head. “I thought you were someone from the book club. They’ve tried to get her to come for years.”

Marta cleared her throat and shifted under his scrutiny. “However we may have met at first, I think Jane would agree we’ve become friends. As a matter of fact, she’s staying at my place as we speak.” There. If that didn’t give her credibility, what would?

“I see." 

He watched her now as if they were in a stand-off, like she might draw her six-shooter on him. Yet she was the one who felt fear, that he had some invisible weapon she couldn’t identify.

"So you were pretending with me. To put it nicely."

"I wasn't sure…"

"You knew she wasn't here."

"I mean, I just thought maybe you'd like a shoulder to lean on."

"Are you kidding?"

"I've been a friend to her. I haven't sold her out, whatever you want to think."

“She told me a friend had offered her a place. I heard about you. I wondered if it were possible she would trust you, of all people. But then I thought I was being unfair. It was too unbelievable. Why did you do it?”

Marta felt herself flushing, an unfamiliar sensation. “She’s a nice woman. I didn’t need another reason than that.”

Ian leaned in. “They’ve started on her. Did you know? They’ve found her. How did that happen? A tip-off? If you have a flat there, you must do business there. It's a small world, your business. How much did they pay for the information, the address? If you didn’t want to have your name associated, I suppose you could do it anonymously. But then, they probably know who owns the house by now.” He straightened. “I guess you don't have scruples enough to care."

Marta sat rigid in her seat. She pushed her mug away. Except for Jane, who’d been, considering, downright nice about it, she’d seldom been confronted about what she did. She stayed too far away from her subjects for that. She prided herself on her long-range, shoot-and-go technique. Ever since she’d left the U.K. for the States, that had been her modus operandi.

The pleasant feeling she’d had at the beginning, the pleasure of being invited in as a guest of Ian Reilly, had dissolved and given way to an uncomfortable roiling in the pit of her stomach. “You’re angry. I didn’t mean harm. I didn’t come here to hear…”