He had a detached manner and a weird kind of humour that combined to suggest he found everything around him faintly ridiculous – but not ridiculous enough to be amusing. Between that and his physical imposition, she’d have been scared even to talk to him, had circumstances not introduced them. He was here with her now, but that was because they had been thrown together; and because she had asked him; and because he was a decent and considerate guy. He looked like he’d have some tall blonde waiting for him back in England, someone elegant and artistic who understood what the hell he was talking about. There’d be framed shots he’d taken of her all round their apartment.
That’s why she’d been so nervous at the beginning of the shoot. He’d seemed all interested and complimentary yesterday, and she’d felt like killing Tony for lining up that meeting that had forced her to run out on him. But by the time morning came she’d been far less certain of what their previous conversation had meant – wasn’t making you feel comfortable, confident and attractive part of a good photographer’s technique? Wasn’t he just being professional? And why would a guy like that be interested in her, more than for just the shoot and the story?
She’d spent ages waiting on that stairwell, composing herself, getting into character, ready to walk out on to that roof all Hollywood confidence and goddammit just tell him she was taking him out for lunch. It was when he said nothing in response that the façade crumbled and she turned back into a quivering amateur.
But this was all back when shit like that mattered. Guys, dates, photo-shoots, careers. Back in the ancient history of five hours ago.
She walked into the hotel room and sat on the edge of the bed, her elbows on her knees, chin in hands. The sound of the door closing brought out a lung-crumpling sigh, like she hadn’t breathed out since the bomb went off. It should have been the moment of blessed relief, when she looked back at what had happened from the disbelieving perspective that comfort and security afford. It should have been the moment that her mind had been focusing on when she was in that swimming pool, and later as she took Stephen’s wrist in her hand, trying not to look at what lay beyond his dangling legs. Instead it sounded like the closing of the condemned prisoner’s deathwatch cell. There was a release, yeah, but only because the time of uncertainty was over. Now came the calmer time, the slower time, to contemplate her fate.
‘Hell of a date,’ she sighed, speaking because she wanted to hear his voice and she knew he wouldn’t say anything first.
‘Well I’m sure it could have gone a wee bit smoother,’ he said, his tones soothingly reverberant. ‘But on the plus side, from my point of view, I did manage to get you back to my bedroom.’ His voice was drily languorous; he wasn’t trying to cheer her up, just laughing with her in the dark.
‘Yeah, well, that’s only a qualified success,’ she replied, her throat swollen from gulping back tears and chlorinated water, not to mention shitty coffee. ‘A porn star, Whore of Babylon, fornicating slut like me gotta be a sure thing, even on a first date.’
He smiled. He was leaning against the dressing table, his straggled blond hair hanging down across the left half of his face like a half-drawn curtain. It was the look Evan Dando had been aiming at for years for his album covers: variously evocative of humour, pity, pain, fear, affection, fatigue, knowingness, innocence, infatuation and unknowable depth. She was sure Stephen could organise the photo-shoot, but was less sure that Ev could handle the being-blown-up part.
‘I should really offer you a cup of tea,’ he said.
‘Oh, no more caffeine, please.’
‘No, not for refreshment purposes. It’s just traditional where I come from to offer a brew to the hopelessly afflicted. You know, “The doctor says it’s the big C, I’ve got three months to live” – “Never mind, have a cuppa tea”. This would be my chance to set a new international record. There can’t be anyone on the planet a cup of tea would make less difference to right now.’
‘You got that right.’
‘You’re hangin’ on by your fingernails, aren’t you?’ he said softly, his tone bereft of its previous wry levity. It wasn’t an offer of help; it felt like an entreaty to her to grant herself some sympathy, telling her it was all right to feel that way. She had been fighting it so hard, and part of her hated him for so deftly puncturing her efforts, but maybe she needed to let go. She nodded, feeling her eyes fill up again but determined not to break down. It felt like an easeful temptation, an abandon to luxuriate in, the comforting release of giving herself to crying, from the eyes, the mouth, the shudder of her body like a distant shadow of orgasm. But she feared that if she let go now she’d never recover.
‘I know it’s not gaunny solve anything,’ he said, ‘but would a bath do you any good?’
She rubbed at her puffy cheeks with the over-long sleeve of the police uniform and ran a hand through her tangled hair. ‘More than you could possibly imagine.’
Jo Mooney didn’t have the energy to Join in the wide-spread histrionics, the practisedly supercool movie people metamorphosising into headless chickens around her as they finally encountered a problem they couldn’t get their lawyers to sort out for them. She wasn’t frozen with fear or exhaustedly resigned to her fate either: it was more like she’d been punched in the gut and was taking time to reconstitute herself before considering her next move.
She sat and listened to the details, the shouting, the questions, the panic, the disbelief, absorbing it all as though it would inform her response. But she knew there could be no response. There was no next move.
That was what everyone on board was finding so hard to accept. There was no-one they could call, no ‘people’ to put this on to, no deal to be done. They had heard the rules and knew they had no option but to obey, blindly and unquestioningly. Veltman and the captain, Baird, hadn’t said what the bomber wanted. Jo guessed they knew more than they were letting on, but knew also that it made no difference. All they needed to know was that there was a bomb on their boat and they weren’t allowed to get off it.
Reaction gradually changed from fear and anger to a mixture of rationalisation and comradely bravado, like they were conspiring to convince each other that somehow it wasn’t for real, or at least that the worst wouldn’t come to the worst. These guys never actually detonated their bombs, they told each other. That wasn’t what they were about. They were about publicity, first and foremost, and negotiation after that. Or they were after money, like Dennis Hopper in Speed. But no matter, the bomb was merely the bargaining chip with which they acquired those things. Terrorists – guys who really wanted to blow people up – just blew people up. No rules, no warnings, no games. If that was what this bomber was interested in, they’d all be dead already.
Jo overheard a group of execs discussing a co-production deal for a movie based on the day’s events. They reasoned they should pool resources rather than everyone make their own dramatisation. After all, nobody would have exclusive rights. Pretty soon they were arguing over casting and producer credits. Jo just hoped there’d be a happy ending.
‘Paul Sorvino as me? Get the fuck outta here. I’ll sue your Jewish butt off, you suggest that again. How about Kathy Najimi as your wife?’
A couple of guys mooned the camera on the mast that was monitoring the deck, raising a few cheers.
Then the news began filtering through about an explosion at the Pacific Vista. Jo didn’t know where the reports started – whether somebody got a call on their mobile or someone with a Walkman was tuned to a news station – but it spread through the boat like a blaze. Veltman confirmed it, admitting that he and Baird had heard about the explosion minutes before, but had been advised by the cops not to pass it on, at least until the cops themselves knew exactly what had happened.
Exactly what had happened began to emerge over radios, phones and the boat’s TV – and it changed everything. You could see it on every face: the comfort of doubt and speculation had been withdrawn. This was not about bargaining, negotiations or publicity.
This was about atrocity.
Nobody spoke. They sat silently, blank-faced, the only voices audible those of the radio and TV reporters describing the scenes at the Pacific Vista, and of the captain, Micky Baird, in quiet communication with the authorities on land.
People were dead, people they probably knew. Hundreds were injured. The hotel that was so familiar to them, the lobby they had walked and met and schmoozed in yesterday was now the site of unimaginable destruction and horror. A merciless, massive violence was abroad, and its gaze was fixed upon them now.
Veltman took the boat’s microphone and asked for attention. He didn’t have much in the way of competition. He held a sheet of paper in front of him and read from its hand-scrawled notes, relaying to them the full text of the message that the bomber had sent out to the world.
Aside from the standard levels of guilt that were attendant upon every non-Republican in late twentieth-century America, Jo didn’t feel much like a sinner. Then again, Jeffrey Dahmer probably hadn’t felt much like a sinner either, but that aside, she was pretty sure that on the list of people whose deaths would ‘cleanse the world’, there were a lot of names ahead of her own and everyone else on the Ugly Duckling. (Anyone on daytime chat shows for a start, and the cast of Friends would do to be getting on with.)
But then that was what this lunatic wanted them to think about, wasn’t it? That was what he wanted the whole world to think about. Not generally who would most deserve to die for their perceived sins ‘against God and America’, but whether Madeleine Witherson deserved to die more than the people on the boat.
Morality as a mathematical equation, the cold logic that would occupy the minds of the vultures back home, watching the pictures relayed by the ‘copters sweeping back and forth over their floating limbo.
The people on the boat may have been accused of polluting minds with their movies but, really, do we know exactly which movies these particular people were responsible for? Or quite what effects they had on their viewers? Because basically, they were just making a living, really, weren’t they?, and a few transgressions of taste aside, they surely didn’t set out to pollute or corrupt or any of these things. But Maddy Witherson, well, that was a different story. No room for interpretation there. She was a sinner. She was, by definition, a whore. She had sex for a living. And worse, she had sex before the cameras so that her behaviour could disseminate its influence far and wide.
Those people on the boat had families. Children, wives, husbands. Witherson didn’t have a husband, or kids either, and her father had all but disowned her. So who would miss her?
Fortunately, so far the only mention anyone on the boat had made of Maddy Witherson was when Tom Wilcox stood up and held out his portable phone. ‘That bastard Tony Pia’s line is still fuckin’ busy,’ he said to anyone in earshot. ‘Mark my words, he’s behind this. He’s Witherson’s agent. The son-of-a-bitch hired a stalker to trail Tanya Lee two years back. This stunt’s got his name written all over it.’
A few made an effort to laugh, Jo among them.
There were people using their mobiles to call the mainland. She heard one guy on the phone to his wife, his voice cracking as he failed to choke back the tears. She heard another on the line to his lawyer, dictating changes to his will. On top of that there were at least four passengers giving live ‘from-the-scene’ interviews to radio and TV stations, and she heard another negotiating a per-minute fee before commencing, telling the guy at the other end to up the price because ‘it might be all my kids have to live on after dawn tomorrow’.
Jo sat and stared at her own portable, sitting uselessly in her hand, unsure whether to use it. Her daughter, Alice, would be in kindergarten all day. Playing games and drawing pictures, eating cookies and drinking soda. She didn’t know whether to call the place, talk to Mrs Crenshaw, ask to speak to Alice. Would it be fair? Would it make a difference? She began dialling the number then felt the tears well up in her throat, threatening to choke her voice. She pressed Cancel. She’d give herself five minutes then call her sister, make sure Alice got picked up when class was out.
The police launches had pulled up either side, not too close for fear of making the bomber nervous about a possible evacuation attempt. Further back there were boats bearing news crews, medical teams, Coast Guard, you name it. There were boats front, back, left and right, helicopters overhead. It seemed like the busiest stretch of water in the Pacific right then, but the Moonstar charter might as well have been the only vessel on the ocean.
The Ugly Duckling was the centre of the world’s attention, but it was also the most isolated place on the planet.
Dusk started to fall.
It was going to be a very long night.
Madeleine bent her knees, pulled her thighs against her calves, and sank lower into the caressingly warm water, drawing her head under and closing her eyes. She wished she didn’t have to breathe, wished she could stay there. She felt her head lifted from the bottom, her hair lifted from her scalp, heard the succussion of the water against the sides, all sound muted and distant, a world away. She imagined the percussive syncopation of a heartbeat; it was all that was missing. But no-one gets to stay in the womb.
She surfaced and sat up, eyes still closed, enjoying the sensation of the water running off her face and body. She reached for the soap and began running it along her legs. That was when she first noticed the bruising and abrasions. There were marks across her thighs, discoloration down her side, cuts and scratches on her upper arms. She realised that she had been feeling their aches and stings for hours but been unable to pay them any heed. Sorrow welled up in her once more, the constriction in her throat that heralded crying, as the revelation of what bad shape she was in took her by surprise. It was like she was fleeing for her life and she’d just noticed the red light blinking on the fuel gauge.
Now the sobbing took her, or maybe she gave herself to it, its cathartic flow, its soothing solitude, its intimate retreat. She sat up, her arms clasped between her thighs and calves, her face pressed against the wet flesh of her legs, crying quietly. Her body shook a little with each wave, but she made no sound in her throat, so that her weeping was like coughing; private, whispered, minute. It was a comfort no other’s arms could offer. Some lonelinesses can’t be cured by company.
‘What do you get if you cross Mommy and Daddy? – Maddy!’
Ha ha ha.
That was their little joke, about as risqué as Robert Witherson thought humour should get, and the only hint throughout much of her childhood that there was more to know about her origins than cartoon storks with two ends of a diaper in their beaks.
Well, maybe it was churlish to suggest that her formal sex education was so limited when her father had provided such a hands-on guide to these matters. When she was very young she had learned from him that little girls come from God; and when she was a bit older she’d learned from him that big men come from manual or oral stimulation of the penis.
She started to remember it all when she was sixteen. She’d never really forgotten, though, only suppressed the thoughts, the feelings, the images. It was as if she knew where they were inside her head, so she knew where not to look; but she was still aware that she was not looking, and of what she was not looking at. The kind of duality that makes you sound nuts, when in fact it’s the only thing keeping you sane. Maybe she thought she could run away from it, leave it behind – that one day the awareness would start to fade, and after that the memories.
There was no single spark or trigger, no sudden in-rushing of her banished past. It came in like a slow tide, over time, in small waves, but nonetheless ever deeper and irreversible. She knew in retrospect that it was tangled up in the belated stirrings of her teenage sexuality, as she sought out secret places within herself, places that should have been new and known only to her, and found them already discovered and defiled.
If other people enjoyed a sexual ‘awakening’, Madeleine had opened her eyes to find a monste
r sharing the bed.
There were all these moments of wonder that turned to disgust: a tingling between her legs late at night when she thought of a boy in her class, her hand descending in curious exploration; that second of surprised pleasure at the sensation when her fingers brushed her clitoris, then the paralysing coldness of a recognition.
I’ve been here before. I was taken here before. And now I know why. Or if I always knew why, now I can no longer deny it.
She was eleven when Mommy got sick. Well, she had been sick for a long time, but when she got really sick, when she was in her bed more than out of it. That was when it started, Daddy coming into her room last thing at night, lying beside her, giving her special hugs. And they just got more and more special as time went on.
‘You remember that movie you saw,’ he said to her, ‘where there was the little family and the farm? And remember the mommy got sick, and everybody had to do a little extra to keep things going, do all the work Mommy used to do? Well you and I are going to have to help out a little more, just like that, help Mommy, and help each other. And just like in the movie, we have to try and do it in ways so Mommy doesn’t know, because she’ll get sad if she thinks she can’t be a proper mommy any more.’
There were things they had to keep secret for Mommy’s sake. And with Mommy sick, it was only natural that Maddy would become even more special to Daddy, but again, they couldn’t let Mommy know because she might get upset.
Not the End of the World Page 28