Photographic (6 page)

Del and Ian: Is it True Love, or a Film Fling? Only Time will Tell! 

“Ha.” Marta finished reading the blurb in the
Shout
and slapped it down on the small round table in her room at the Inn. She sucked on her grapefruit spoon while she considered what to do. Without turning her head, she leaned her chair back and reached an arm out to the corner of the bed to grab the crammed leather notebook that was never far from her side. Now for her connection abroad. She dialed, hoping for better luck than her last three attempts.

“Beezer. God, I finally got you.”

“Yeah, bleeding cell phones don’t work half the time. No reception on this hunk of rock. What now? On the job, luv. Can’t talk, really.”

“I know, I know. I’m so close to something big, Beeze, you’ve got to help me out.” She fell naturally into the British accent of her youth, which she discarded and reassumed as needed.

“What now?” His voice held the combination of utter boredom and edgy anticipation only Beezer could manage.

“I need some eyewitness stuff on You Know Who. Rumors are fast and thick this side of the pond. If you could get the two of them in one of their trailers. Picture confirmation she’s been in his or he’s been in hers. Get it sort of grainy and seedy, not all high-fashion gorgeous how you like it. That looks too set-up. But good enough to see. You know the stuff I like.”

“Shite, you want the bed linens after, too? Listen, he hasn’t got a trailer. Her neither. We’re not in bloody Burbank or Hertfordshire. She’s in a little family hotel, and him, you wouldn’t believe it if I told you.” He snorted.

“Try me.”

“Sleeping in a hut on the beach. Made it himself.” 

“No shit.”

“Couldn’t make this stuff up. And the effing thing is approved by the Powers That Be, so it seems. Must be. Thought I’d seen it all. I never claimed to know Reilly, but bloody hell.”

“So, does she go to his hut?”

“He’s quite private about the whole business. Doesn’t want visitors. However…people visit people, other places, wouldn’t doubt it. Who knows what they get up to.”

“You need a nice little surprise gift for Missy?”

“Aw, hell.”

“If you can get a good photo for me. I can’t very well pop up there on site, can I? Get me something good and I’ll get you…I can almost certainly say fifty, if it’s the goods. And if we’ve caught onto the tail of something…” 

“Sky’s the limit? Heh. Fifty? That’d be euros, right?”

“Hah.”

“Are you guaranteeing me something, luv? And why do I suspect we’d be splitting something double or triple, and me taking the risk and doing all the work?”

“We have to choose our moments for the good dosh. This has to be played carefully, Beeze. On the quiet. Do I have to go over our arrangement again?”

“No, you don’t have to go over the bloody arrangement.” He shifted around, pocket change jingling. “I’ll see what I can do for you. They ain’t joined at the hip or nothing. There might be something in it. Can’t rightly say.”

“Go with it and get me some stuff, as heavy as you can—don’t get sacked or anything—and it’s fifty at least. You know it. Think of what we’re talking about. And fast. I don’t have a lot of time. But on the hush. Your best.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m not promising. Ciao, luv.”

Marta looked at what she’d printed out from the day she fell out of the tree: her secret stash, the file she’d kept back from Jane. 

The first few showed the surrounding area, the house seen in perspective down the avenue of trees. Then the first ‘people’ shot. It was Tam running ahead of her mother, running and laughing. Jane was a blur in the background. Marta sorted through some garbage shots. Next good one Jane came into focus, grabbing Tam and whirling her around. That was it; she knew without even looking at the rest of them. The shot was from above, of course, at an angle. It caught joy, affection; that moment. It was a treatise on motherhood in one. You could see their faces. 

It had been a chilly spring day and there the two of them were, an ordinary morning walking to the bus, while Reilly was off probably screwing some extra. Or the leading lady. There was more to him than Jane had figured out. Poor woman. She didn’t know what was about to hit her. Ah well. It was best for the truth to come out. Marta tapped the pictures into alignment and tucked them and the memory chip into a manila envelope for safekeeping. On the outside, in black magic marker, she wrote REILLY and the date she’d taken them, filing the envelope away in her special leather case, locking it with a small silver key from her necklace keychain, which she tucked under her shirt.

CHAPTER EIGHT

H
OT
ON
THE
tail of the story, Marta could hardly keep still. She balanced her chair on its two legs, an old habit, as she flipped open her notebook to a certain page and stared at a number. It was not exactly a legitimate number, in that it was not one that had been given her by the owner. Technically speaking, it had been swiped. She had swiped it. 

To be left alone in that kitchen for great gaps of time was too much; she did the natural thing. She got the number for the very reason she was calling. Simply to thank Jane for her hospitality. That was a plausible enough explanation, if the question came up. But Marta was betting it wouldn’t come up.

Jane woke with an awful start as the phone on the bedside table rang. A pain in the side of her neck reminded her she’d spent most of the night before in an armchair. She cleared her throat and pressed the “Talk” button after two rings. Maybe it was Ian.

“Hello?” 

“Jane?” a voice whispered, conspiratorial.

“Yes?” Fuzzy-headed, Jane tried to place the voice.

“Sorry for bothering you—this is Marta—from the tree? I really wanted to thank you for your incredible kindness.” 

Marta rushed on so no questions would arise over the number. “It was so out of the ordinary and wonderful to be rescued. You really went above and beyond. I can’t thank you enough.” 

“Oh…oh. Yes, of course. Well, you didn’t need to call, really, but you’re welcome. How’s your foot?”

Marta flittered her fingers against her chin in pleasure. 

“Oh, painful, swollen. Black and blue. Listen.” Her voice shifted back to a confidential tone, shaded with a slight degree of gloom. “There’s something else. Something I saw in the paper, and I thought of you. I know it’s hard for you to speak to Ian sometimes while he’s on this location, and I thought you might not know…”

“Oh my God. Tell me quick.”

“Oh no, no, nothing’s wrong with him. Not physically, at least. Nothing like that. It’s just a little piece in the paper about
Odysseus
and how there are some problems on the set. I knew you’d had difficulty reaching him sometimes, and I thought you might like to know, in case you haven’t talked to him lately. That’s all. I never meant to give you a fright.”

“Oh.” Jane took in a big breath, let it out. “Problems on the set?” Her voice was a bit choked. She cleared her throat.

“Yes. They mentioned clashes between Ian and Tor and, something else, between Ian and Delaney. Just rumors, perhaps."

There was a thick silence on the other end. 

“Mm-hmm?” 

Marta stood up, letting the chair fall with a clunk, so as to listen better for any further reaction. She favored her right foot, leaning on the table for some support.

“Well, thank you.” Jane sounded subdued. “Thank you for thinking of me.”

“Of course.” Marta was bitter with disappointment, over what she wasn’t sure. “Shall I send you the clipping?”

“Well, okay,” Jane said, in an ‘if you must’ voice.

That was something. 

“Right,” Marta said. “I’ll do that.” On the other hand, she could just drop it by personally. She was itching to get back to the Reilly homestead, since she couldn’t be on Crete. Her man there would do his job. She darted around in her mind for ways to extend the call. “How’s Tam?”

“She’s fine. Oh, gosh, I just looked at the time and I have to get her up for school. It was good of you to call. Take care.”

“Take care,” Marta echoed, hope slipping away. What did she really expect? That she’d get invited over for tea? She held on to the phone until she heard a click and the dial tone in her ear. 

Flipping her phone shut, she considered her position. She was in a quandary as to how much she should tell her editor about this intimate little interaction with Ian Reilly’s wife and child. While she could fly back to present the scenario to her editor in all its glory, now she wasn’t so sure. She had the bit of string at the end, and who knew how far it might go if she pulled it. If she gave up what she had now, it would be put out right away. But if she held on until she had the whole thing, she had a chance for the cover photo, lead story. 

Photos juxtaposed of Reilly and Corts vs. Innocent Wife and Child. Direct quotes from trusting wife. First-hand copy of behavior of child. First-hand photos and gossip on Reilly’s activities on the set. Off the set and in the trailer, or wherever. It would be the biggest story of her career to date. The juiciest, anyway. If only Beeze could get something. Too bad Jane didn’t go for setting up the interview with Ian. Marta stared off into space, imagining it. What she’d say, what he’d say. What she’d say in return. What she’d wear.
Ian Reilly
.

Of course, it wouldn’t hurt to drop off the clipping. And maybe some flowers.

CHAPTER NINE

“I’
M
IN
A
little hut.”

He had called. There would be fewer calls as he got deeper into filming. For now, he was accessible.

“Sounds cozy.” Jane couldn’t hear the ocean through the phone.

“How’s our girl?”

“Reading.”

“You’re killing me.”

“I know. Our baby.”

“If I can, I’ll call tomorrow after school. She can read for me.”

“How’s the shoot?”

“Director’s a bit of a toughie.”

“You’ll take care of that.”

“He’ll take care of me, more likely.”

“Are you okay?”

“Have a bit of a bad feeling about this one. Not about the part.”

“It’s a long one.”

“Shite. Evelyn. She called me.” 

Evelyn Kenny, Ian’s old drama school friend. The other one from his class who’d made it, if making it was everyone knowing who you were and what you did and buying a ticket to watch you do it.

“Oh?”

“Remember she was going to visit?”

“While you’re gone?”

“I know. I’m sorry. She really needs it at the moment. She’s had a rough time lately. You’ll like her.”

“Oh, Ian. You already told her it’s okay, I suppose.”

“She’s my friend.”

“I’m your wife.”

“No we’ve got that straight.”

“I love you.”

“Love you.”

Jane hung up, stretched thin by the leagues separating her from Ian, the oceans. She sat upright, hands folded in her lap. One of Marta’s questions replayed itself in her head, over and over.
What is he really like?
She couldn’t remember what she’d said. It seemed important, and she couldn’t remember, and not remembering made her wonder if she knew the answer.

Ian sat with headphones over his ears, watching people scurry around the set. They would slow down before the day ended, the heat would see to that. Grips struggled with equipment, wrestling black boxes up the stone steps of the courtyard. It was as if he were seeing it all from a great distance. The columns of the fine temple presented a diminishing line of perspective, echoed by the narrow Cypress trees pointing to the sky. Their pots lined the outer courtyard, giving Ian a line of focus as he studied where his ship’s crew would walk to their doom, transformed by the witch-goddess Circe into swine. In an apparition enhanced by the shimmer of the rising heat, he thought he could see his future self, striding into Circe’s palace to intercede for his mens’ lives. Her bargain would lead him to her bed, to breed deep trust, as she put it. Before he consented, he would exact a promise that she’d not plot against him anew. Wily Odysseus, Ian thought, always suspicious, and so often rightly so. 

That night, lying on his back on a stack of woven blankets, head resting on a folded blanket and one bent arm, he stared up into the sky, wondering at this beauty powerless to touch him. With civilization’s sequined cloak pushed back, he was a habitant of darkness, privileged witness to the stars adorning the shoulders of deep night. He felt empty as an abandoned conch.

CHAPTER TEN

E
VELYN
K
ENNY
. J
ANE
remembered Ian telling her weeks earlier that Evelyn was under a lot of strain coming off her last project. She needed peace and quiet in a place where she wouldn’t be bothered. Would Jane mind if she came to visit? Of course, if it made her uncomfortable since she didn’t really know Evelyn, he understood, but she needed something short of a mental hospital and less public than a spa, and he knew what being home always did for him. She suspected him of trying to matchmake her a friend. Thoughtful of him. But Evelyn Kenny? At the house for a week, and no Ian to bridge the gap? 

They had met once. Had a ten minute conversation about bedding. Good kinds of sheets and duvet covers and quilts. What kind of pillow was the next best if you were allergic to down. Whether the European idea of having one sheet and one duvet on the bed summer and winter was a more efficient solution than sheet, blanket, quilt. It had been an interesting conversation to Jane, who had developed a fondness for good bedding. And Evelyn knew her thread counts. Jane had even confided in Evelyn that one of the few ways someone might know the people in the Reilly house really had money was by feeling their sheets. There were other ways, like looking in the converted barn, but Jane hadn’t mentioned that. However, one conversation about down did not a friendship make.