by Paul Slatter
Then the next morning, the metropolitan police came to his grandfather’s home to chat, only to find Rann gone along with his prize money.
He leaned back looking at the silent sky as the orange grew, remembering his grandfather’s words, he wasn’t wrong in not wanting to come here, and now he saw why. What if it had been him lying there in his bed with his grandmother when the men from the mountains came? What if Rann was out of town? What if his granddad were there slowly being carved up until he gave them the cash he’d been hiding away for a rainy day. The man was right—his life was there in the England now, living near the airport, watching soaps and listening to Radio 2 as the airplanes landed.
Then, as he leaned his head back, breathed deep and closed his eyes, a calmness deeper than he’d ever known enveloped him as the now clear, once blacked out memories unfolded. Girls on his bed with their blonde hair, the dog he loved as a kid laying asleep with its head on his lap as it died, then seeing it running as fast as it could through the park. His parents holding each other and him before they took that ill-fated journey along the Great West Road and passed on. The kids at school bullying him all the time until he took himself off to the gym to learn how to defend himself and kept training night by night until they stopped.
Then he thought of Chendrill, laughing as he remembered the big fucker hitting him in the street, harder than he’d ever been hit, catching him unaware when he was thinking about pussy and knocking him to the ground. Then getting him back outside the fish restaurant and better still telling him he was a dumb fuck on the phone at the kinky guy’s place who liked to dress up as a postman. And Rasheed, standing at the side of the busy road and pissing him off, the guy there getting all gangster with him and Rann getting mad when it didn’t really matter now. He thought of Rasheed seeing his face and the anger in his eyes, the gangster looking scared and stepping back too close to the traffic and getting clipped by the passing truck that didn’t stop. He remembered holding the man, seeing the light go from his eyes and seeing the smile on the idiot with the diamond in his tooth’s face when he realized he had.
Then the Irishman was there in his mind, drunk and stinking of whisky at the top off those stairs with his girl who’d just been around with her friend and fucked his brains out. The Irishman getting greedy, trying to rip him off and writing on the picture of the King, then his girl there with him, shouting at him in a fury to stop in English and then in Thai—and he wasn’t listening, telling her to fuck off and her getting angry, whipping her leg up fast hitting him in the chest twice like one of the prize fighting kickboxers he’d seen touring the bars of Bangkok, making the Irishman drop the pen and stumble back, his legs buckling under him as he tried to get air into his winded body, then one foot catching the edge of the stair slipping down, his body following, rolling over and over head to toe, his eyes looking up at Rann at the bottom and the man’s girlfriend—or whatever she was, he or she—it didn’t matter now—gone. At least he hadn’t killed the man like he thought he had—or Rasheed for that matter; in fact, he hadn’t killed anyone except the cage fighter and the guys in his bedroom he’d asked to leave after they’d just told him they were about to kill him.
Then he felt the pain in his back grow and wondered where Joseph was. He was thirsty and now remembered the African slamming him against the wall and feeling his small coat hook he’d used as a kid break off as it punctured his skin, leaving itself inside like a huge splinter to rip up his insides as he fought like he’d never fought before.
He looked to the mountains feeling his insides go numb as they bled and listened to the first people in the village wake, knowing Joseph would be along soon with his tea and he could tell him what had happened and ask him to call the police.
Then he looked back to the mountain, with its jagged range clawing at the sunrise as the sun began to rake its slopes, laying its rays across the treetops of the forest, catching the morning dew on the fields that were now his, fields that stretched all the way from the forest to the garden that the women from the village who his grandfather knew so well swept in the afternoon—and where his mother and father now stood, waiting for their only son to come join them.
Chapter Forty
Dan stepped inside Iron Works and wondered where the big green field was that he’d stood against before on the day Mazzi Hegan had starved him and nailed his feet to the floor, the day he’d met Marsha and punched out Philipe Tu La Monde for getting too familiar. Then he saw Mazzi Hegan standing on the other side of the open space around a movie type set talking with another guy who looked just like him.
Dan walked over as Mazzi saw him and, all flustered, said, “Oh my God, you’re here. Sebastian’s been going crazy since six!”
“Why? He said be here by seven and I was,” Dan said as he watched Mazzi run his fingers through his hair and then the guy who looked just like him do exactly the same.
Mazzi said, “It’s how he is, Dan. He gets all worked up on something and can’t let it go.” Then he said, “This is my friend Einer. He’s over from Germany.” And Einer said, sounding English, “Hey, glad to meet you, I thought you’d be bigger?”
Fuck you, Dan thought, then said, “Yeah and from over there I thought you were a girl.”
Mazzi said, “Speaking of that, we need to get you sorted.”
Then Dan saw her coming through the door with five people hanging all around her as she walked, eating a breakfast wrap and heading towards her personal Airstream trailer covered in chrome and positioned inside. Dan asked, “Who’s that?”
And Einer replied, “It’s Adalia Seychan. She’s going to eat you for breakfast.”
Looking for food, Dan walked about a bit hearing his mum’s flip-flops slap against the bottom of his feet as he wandered around on the concrete floor. He found a tray of pastries, in the craft service truck, took two, stuffed them down his throat and then another one before he felt the soft touch of Buffy holding his elbow. She said, “Dan, you’re not supposed to eat.”
Dan said, “I’m doing a photoshoot, not going for an operation.”
“Mazzi says, we need to keep your stomach flat.”
For fuck’s sake, Dan thought. He said, “I just saw Adalia Seychan and she was eating.”
Buffy said, “She’s not taking her top off, Dan.”
Dan said, “Well leave mine on as well then.”
“That’s not why you’re here.” Then she said quietly, holding his arm again as though she was doing him a favor, “Dan, get the shoot done then eat as much as you want, okay.”
Thanks for fuck all, Dan thought, and wondered if the big girl had a boyfriend. Throwing her, he said, “I need to increase my body mass index—it’s against the law to starve models these days.”
Which was only half true, and was something he’d glimpsed from a newspaper Chendrill had left in the kitchen and the article was referring to a law recently passed in France, not Canada. And all Buffy said was, “Go call your lawyer.”
They took him to makeup, where they washed his hair in a basin and faffed with him for twenty minutes until, in his eyes, he looked no different to how he’d looked when he’d went in. Then they escorted him to wardrobe where a guy who Mazzi used to know put him in a pair of tight shorts and said, “You look fabulous!” And giving him a bathrobe, aimed him out the door.
He spotted Sebastian sitting on a chair by the monitors and wondered what TV show the man could be watching at 7:30 a.m. in the morning and walked over to see the screen was blank. Sebastian looked at him and asked, “Did you get the shorts?”
He did, and they were too tight. Dan said, “Yeah but I can’t feel my feet.”
Sebastian smiled, that was perfect, he thought. If it all went well, he was going to use the footage for another pitch and had flown in a corporate representative of Mammoth Clothing to give them a taster of Dan in their shorts and hopefully of things to come. All things being equal, he was on for laying the foundations down for two campaigns that would cover the cos
ts of Patrick’s new ever-changing venture. He said, “I don’t think it’s a good thing you’re talking with Mazzi’s new friend.”
Dan said, “Too late, I’ve already told him he looks like a girl.”
Sebastian replied, “I know, Mazzi’s upset.”
Dan said, “Well Mazzi can fuck off, and tell him to tell his friend not to wear pink.”
Then Sebastian asked, “Has Gill Banton been in touch?”
Dan stared at him. Then said, “Yeah, she said if I come work for her, she’d never have me in before eleven.”
Sebastian replied, saying, “I doubt that darling.” The woman was starting to concern him now, as the rumours were beginning to fly that she was so pissed off about losing out on Dan and about Marsha being poached that she was going to open offices along the road from Sebastian and flood it with talent. He asked again, “She’s been in touch—yes or no?”
Dan thought about it, smiling at the memory of the last time he’d seen her and said, “No.”
Sebastian said, “If she contacts you, you let me know okay?” Dan nodded, knowing that the last thing he was going to do was go running to phone Slave if anyone called him—and it wasn’t because he would be looking for a better offer to advance his career. It was simply because he wouldn’t be assed.
Then Sebastian said, “Have you read the script I sent? It’s really short, but I thought it would be good to see if there’s any chemistry between you and Adalia.”
Dan thought about the chemistry between him and the woman he had in his bedroom a couple of nights back. He also hadn’t read anything. He said, “No.”
“What do you mean—No? You’re saying you haven’t read it?” Sebastian scoffed.
Dan stared at him a moment confused and then said, “What do you think I meant?”
“You’re supposed to read it.”
“Well I haven’t.” Sebastian stared at him in complete amazement. Dan said to him, “What you looking at me like that for? You’re the one wanting me here. I didn’t come banging on your door on the way home from acting school wanting to be a star.”
Sebastian thought about it and frowned. The kid was right, they were leaning on him as though he was one of these driven go-getting cool boys that bludgeoned Slave’s offices with their portfolio’s full of pictures taken by parasite photographers who didn’t have what it takes to get a real job and preyed on the hopeful. Dan didn’t want to be there—and that’s exactly why he was there. It was also why Mazzi had cancelled the trailer which had been ordered for him to relax in so he could stand all day and get pissed off and frustrated in his shorts that were too tight—it was the look he was after. Pulling some sides from his briefcase, Sebastian said, “Well, read it for me now, please?”
Dan took them, skimming in a matter of seconds the three little pages pulled from Megan’s script that amounted to a scene and handed them back, and said, “You changed it a bit?”
Sebastian had, but God knows how Dan could have known as he hardly looked at it; yes, he’d tinkered so to speak. It was a hobby he had that had started back in university in London when he and Alan had put on shows in the art house pub theatres over in trendy Camden town. Although the only thing he’d done in this one was have Dan in less clothing. He said, “Are you going to read it or not?”
Dan stared at him confused, “I did! You just saw me?”
******
Two hours later, Dan was still wandering around in his bathrobe looking for food and only being given water. Why the fuck he’d been gotten up so early and had to suffer Chendrill getting pissy at him, he didn’t know. Finding an apple box, he sat down and stared across the building’s vast interior at Adalia Seychan’s personal Airstream trailer with its blacked-out windows and thought about the woman inside, probably sleeping on a huge bed with silk pillows and one of those night masks on her eyes. He looked around at some people doing stuff, but almost everyone else was just chatting and eating. Then Einer with his hair bleached blonde pulled up an apple box next to him and sat down. He said, “Had enough yet?”
You’re kidding, Dan thought, and said, “What the fuck’s going on.”
As he looked at Hegan, futzing around a light with a guy in shorts. Einer saying, “It takes time to get it looking good.”
Dan looked at the man, a little younger than Mazzi Hegan, with the same haircut, but rougher around the edges. He said, “All looks the same to me, I’ve been watching him switch things around—here there, up down.” Mimicking Hegan in his best camp Mazzi Hegan voice, “Little something there, little something here.”
Einer looked to the kid sitting there in his bathrobe and his mum’s flip-flops. He wanted to give him a quick lesson in photography, but what was the point? In his eyes, the kid was probably as dumb as a plank but just looked good on film with his tight body and busted up face. He looked to Adalia Seychan’s trailer and said, “I bet you’d like to be in there sorting her out? I know I would.”
Dan looked to him confused, this Einer in a pink shirt who was ‘friends’ with Mazzi but had the hots for the Oscar-winning superstar? Einer said, without taking his eyes off the trailer, “Oh yeah, I could throw that bitch around the room.”
And Dan said, “I thought you were a faggot.”
Surprised, Einer looked at him, staring for a moment.
“Why’d you think that?”
Fucking hell, Dan thought, try the pink shirt for one and the tight trousers and the hair like Hegan’s. He said, “Just did—maybe ’cos you’re hanging with Mazzi Hegan staying over at his place.” And he’s got that painting on the ceiling of his bedroom of a guy sucking another guy’s dick.
Einer nodding now, getting it, saying, “Yeah—well, you only see that if you lay down. Mazzi showed it to me, but no I’m not into guys. We’re friends, he likes to party yeah, but no, I eat fish.”
Dan looked at him and smiled and after the woman the other night giving him a face scrub, he understood exactly what he was saying. He said, “Oh?”
Einer nodding, looking at Dan then to the trailer, saying, “You ever been with an older woman?”
And as a matter of fact, he had—kind of.
******
They sat for an hour talking about women, Dan realizing the man was as far as he could tell a straight guy who hung with gay guys. It was the way he liked it, he said, “Gay guys have girlfriends—and I prey on them. Let them think I’m safe then next thing you know, they’re digging me because I’m not.”
Dan saying, “Why don’t you just go to the bar and be normal?” Einer didn’t have an answer.
Then Einer looked to the Airstream trailer again and after a moment said, “You know she wants you, don’t you?”
“Who?” Dan asked.
“This chick, this superstar up from Hollywood for a test.” Einer saying ‘test’ like it was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. He carried on, “I’d say she’s been looking at those posters of you Slave’s put out there and when the chance came to be in the same building with you, then she jumped on it.”
Dan said, “She walked right past me this morning and didn’t even know I existed.”
“Did Marshaa acknowledge you straight away?” Dan thought about it, remembering how she looked at him, the first time she’d ever laid eyes on him as she’d walked up on that stupid green stage, licked the sweat from his chest, and asked him to fuck her.
He said, “Yeah she did.”
Einer said, “Yeah and look, you had the most beautiful woman in the world who could work anywhere and with anyone come here to work with you just because Sebastian showed her the photos they had of you in the elevator. You think this horny bitch in her trailer’s not seen those posters out there? Got herself all wet and gooey downstairs and wondered what it would be like to feel you all over and have you slip it to her. She’s not married, you know. She divorced her third husband last month; she’s hot and primed and here for you.”
Dan said, “Yeah, I had some woman come onto me the other nig
ht, said a similar thing. Except she kind off roughed me over and then my mum kicked her out.”
Einer started to laugh and it was genuine, this ‘straight’ guy in a gay guy’s clothes having fun. He said, “What, you’re mum kicked her out?”
Dan said, “Yeah, she got me going just by saying dirty stuff, then I came in my pants and so she sat on my face and that’s when my mum came in.”
Einer nodded, still laughing quietly as he looked around, wondering and hoping no one else had heard Dan as the tears began to run down his cheeks. He said, “You got to take control Dan. It’s got to be you that says, ‘sit on my face, or, get on down there and start sucking’.”
Dan said, “Yeah she did that an all.”
Einer then stood and said, “You’re a good kid Dan, I can see why they’ve got you here, you’re honest.” Then he said as he pulled a packet of Archall Diamond’s pills he’d picked up for free on the beach from his pocket, “Take a couple of these now; then if she comes onto you, you won’t have to worry about any unexpected accidents in your shorts, because regardless of what happens down there, these’ll keep you as hard as a rock.”
******
Sebastian wasn’t happy. This man who’d been hanging out with Mazzi and disrupting him had been talking to Daniel for over an hour, chumming up with him, laughing and looking at Adalia’s Seychan’s trailer. Knowing that Dan hadn’t read the script yet, Sebastian was thinking the worst.
Patrick arrived late, as producers often do, carrying on as though the shoot day was the last thing on their list. The guy coming in and taking over the studio with his grandiose hand gestures and laughter, sitting around the monitors, asking where Sebastian’s dog Fluffy was and wondering why Mazzi was taking so long to get things up and running. It was his new friend, Sebastian had wanted to say, keeping him up all night clubbing—and he knew what time they’d been getting home. Belinda’s driver, who worked the night shift, had been keeping him up to speed on that front, telling him where they’d been and the types of people they’d been with and how, strangely, there had been girls involved, which wasn’t usually Mazzi’s thing.