‘Go!’ He shoved Froggy at her. ‘Get outta here!’
‘Hiya, bug-face!’ Froggy crowed. ‘Hiya, fallguy! Howzit hanging!’
Annalise hugged Froggy then went to gratefully hug Levine too, but she forgot she was tied to Proctor, who fell against the bodyguard.
‘Thank you so much. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.’
‘By gettin’ the hell outta here,’ he growled. He looked over his shoulder. ‘Aw, shit…’
Emerson came charging through the colonnade, wearing a pair of black silk pyjamas.
‘Levine!’ he squawked. ‘What the fuck?’ He scuttled across the garden. ‘Gimme back that goddamn frog!’ He noticed Proctor. ‘You again! I’m gonna have you killed, you fucker! Stay away from my woman! Stay away from my movie!’ He leapt at Annalise and Froggy but stopped abruptly, inches away, clawing at the air. With one hand, Levine held him by the throat.
‘Now,’ the giant told Proctor and Annalise, ‘would be a really good time for you guys to leave.’
‘He’s right.’ Proctor lifted her onto the lip of the wall, climbed up beside her and clipped them both to the rope.
‘Graaaaaaaaghhh!’ Emerson was choking, still scrabbling but unable to advance, like a rabid dog on a leash. Bernstein jogged from the colonnade holding a pistol, followed by Frost, who wore only a skimpy negligee.
‘Get them!’ she yelled. ‘Stop them!’
Still holding Emerson, Levine levelled the shotgun. ‘Bernstein!’ he barked. ‘Not this time, man!’
‘Kill them all,’ Frost countered, ‘or you’re fired!’
Bernstein stopped, scratched his head with the butt of his pistol, then put it away. He shrugged at Frost. ‘Might hit the boss…’
‘You goddamn wimp!’ she snarled. ‘Gimme that!’ She tore at his blazer, trying to take his weapon, but he pushed her off and, with a bright splash of water, she fell into the pool. Levine lowered his shotgun.
‘Thank Christ for that…’ Proctor breathed. Levine released Emerson’s throat but still held an arm up to prevent him from getting to Annalise.
‘You’re fired!’ the star shrieked. ‘So fuckin’, fuckin’ fired!’
‘You can’t fire me, asshole,’ Levine poked his chest, ‘’cos in my head, I already quit.’
‘I order you,’ Emerson turned to Bernstein, ‘to stop that woman!’ But Bernstein ignored him and reached down to help the sopping, spluttering Frost out of the pool. Emerson turned to Levine again.
‘Do you have any idea how much it cost,’ he pointed at Annalise, ‘to have her brought back here?’
‘Yeah, like a goddamn piece of meat…’
‘I order everyone,’ Emerson looked around wildly, ‘to obey me!’
‘You knew about Jimmy,’ Annalise perched on the wall, ‘didn’t you?’
‘Jimmy? Jimmy? Who the fuck is Jimmy?’
‘You sent me to Bristol on your jet, knowing full well what I would see when I got there. And if I hadn’t caught them in bed, you’d have found another way. But I suppose, on one level, I should thank you.’
‘Goddamn right you should thank me! You gotta lotta be grateful for!’
‘Harry, this is real life, not one of your film sets.’
‘I have too much invested in you to let you walk away!’
She took his ring off and lobbed it at him. Disbelieving, he caught it against his chest. ‘Sorry,’ she sighed, ‘the wedding’s off. I guess it’s the perfect heresy: all these things we’re all supposed to want so badly – success, fame, money – and here I am, just walking away.’
‘We’re abseiling.’ Proctor grabbed her waist. ‘Technically, we’re abseiling away.’ He pushed with his feet and they were out, over the edge. She couldn’t see the bottom of the drop for blackness, so she looked up. Emerson peered after her, silhouetted by spotlights.
‘Do you think we should spend our honeymoon rock-climbing?’ Proctor panted, as he used his legs to bounce them off the wall. ‘You know, sorta symbolically?’ She didn’t answer, just hugged Froggy. His fur still smelled of Whin Abbey. Her feet met the earth. Proctor unhooked her. She could just about see that they were in a lane behind a row of old houses, all tightly shuttered against the night. He led her into the narrow street, where a small hatchback waited. Its indicators flashed. She stopped.
‘I’m not getting in that car.’
‘Sorry,’ Proctor opened her door with exaggerated chivalry, ‘but it’s all they had left at the airport.’
‘I’m not getting in that car, as in thanks, Ben, but see you around.’
‘You’re not serious…’
She waved Froggy at him. ‘You heard her, fallguy. Say hello and wave goodbye!’
‘Stoppit!’ he snapped. ‘Stoppit with that stupid puppet shit!’
‘Who’s the puppet, fallguy? Me – or you?’
Even in the darkness, Proctor looked stunned. ‘Look… Emerson could be down here any second with his goons, and I’m not rescuing you a third bloody time!’
She used her own voice now – quiet, deadly serious. ‘But that’s not what you’ve been doing, is it? Rescuing me?’
‘Eh? What would you call it then?’
‘I’d call it more like keeping an eye on me. That night in the train, you said I lived in a pretend world–’
‘Jesus Christ, this is no time to be casting up silly arguments!’
‘ENOUGH!’ she roared. A dog started barking and a shuttered window lit up. ‘As it happens,’ she spoke less harshly, ‘you’re not a bad actor. But I’m better – do you know how I know?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Because you really do think that I’m as naïve as I pretend to be!’
He drummed his fingers on the roof of the car. ‘Okay. You’re right. I’ve had enough of this myself.’
‘No more play-acting?’
‘No more play-acting.’
‘If I get in that car, do you promise to tell me everything?’
‘Even better, I’ll show you everything.’
‘Everything?’
‘Everything.’
‘When?’
‘Right now; do not pass go, do not collect two hundred pounds.’
At first, the roads were dark and slow but, eventually, they came to a well-lit motorway and he turned south. They didn’t speak. She didn’t feel excited, just completely worn out, so she reclined her seat and, using Froggy as a pillow, gave herself over to sleep. Waking fitfully, she saw that Proctor had covered her with his jacket. Through the windscreen, illuminated signs for places like Toulouse, Perpignan and Barcelona passed overhead. Somewhere in the Pyrenees, they stopped at a service station, where Proctor downed multiple espressos. He said he wanted her to know before they went any farther that he was really sorry, then he went outside to smoke – a cigarette, she noticed, not a joint. Wrapped in his jacket and still clutching Froggy, she joined him for one. He looked pale and preoccupied; scared, almost, in a way that she herself did not really feel until around six in the morning, when they finally left the motorway and pulled into a resort-type town by the sea, called Roses.
‘You’re kidding.’ Her stomach tightened.
‘Kidding about what?’ He hadn’t said anything for at least an hour.
‘The name of this place.’
‘Salvador Dali used to live near here – that’s all I know about it.’
‘So this is it?’
‘No. We still have a wee way to go.’
‘Then what are we doing here?’
‘Just passin’ through.’ But he stopped the car in a car park.
She softened her tone. ‘How did you get mixed up in all this?’
He looked at her, his face haggard. ‘I really think it’s better for you to see for yourself; then, if you don’t hate me so much you never speak to me again, I’ll tell you everythin’ you want to know.’
‘Just what I need – a bit of reassurance.’
‘I swore to myself before this started
that I wouldn’t get involved. With you, I mean.’
She threw him her most sardonic smile. ‘Maybe what you wanted and what I wanted were two different things – did that ever occur to you?’
‘It sort of is, now – belatedly.’
‘So why have we stopped?’
He opened his door. ‘Bring the frog.’
A low ceiling of cloud obscured coastal mountains, as dawn broke against a wall of bland apartment blocks. She followed him across the car park into a marina, where he pressed a numbered keypad to open the security gate. They walked across the water on floating gangways. From amidst all the gleaming, shark-like yachts, he chose a modest cabin cruiser. With silent, single-handed efficiency, he got the engine running and cast off, and soon they were surging out across the bay, still headed south. She stood on the rear deck until the land disappeared, then, as Proctor steered, she climbed down a wooden stepladder and inspected the accommodation, which consisted of a cramped galley and, beyond that, a tiny two-bunk bedroom. She rifled the galley cupboards until she found half a bottle of brandy. She poured two stiff drinks and returned up top. He accepted his gratefully.
‘Will I be frightened?’ she asked.
‘If I were you, I’d be torn between curiosity, fear and uncontrollable rage.’
She downed her drink in one and grimaced. ‘Actually, that’s a pretty accurate description of how I feel right now.’ She climbed back down the ladder and crawled into one of the bunks, hugging Froggy tight. She didn’t expect to sleep but, before long, the bouncing rhythm of the boat rocked her off.
17
The engine had stopped. She had slept for longer than she’d meant to; her left side ached from lying on it. She sat up, stretched, pushed her hair from her face, smoothed Roselaine’s dress as best as she could and took Froggy up top. Ben wasn’t on board, so she stood on the deck, shading her eyes from the strong, high sun. She peered around for him. The boat was tied to a small stone pier in a sheltered cove, the rocky sides of which were a mixture of yellows, reds and white. The sea was an impossible greenish-blue, like something from a holiday brochure. Enormous old pines leaned towards her, as if straining to dive into it. The only sounds were the steady slap of wavelets against the hull and the lazy creak of the bumpers as they rubbed against the pier. Squinting in the brightness, she didn’t see him at first. He must have been sitting in the shade of one of the pines and, when he stood up, the movement caught her eye. He stepped onto the pier as if to greet her, but halted, awkwardly. She stiffened, her feet bolted to the gently moving deck.
‘I thought I’d let you sleep.’ He smiled, but she didn’t answer. He nodded at Froggy. ‘I see you’ve still got our little friend.’ He was as nervous as she was – worse, perhaps.
‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘I still have Froggy.’
He jammed his hands into the pockets of a pair of denim shorts. A white T-shirt covered sloping shoulders and a distinct pot belly. He wore small, frameless spectacles and his skin was a leathery brown – she thought of photos she’d once seen, of the older, satyr-like Picasso.
‘How did you know?’ he asked.
‘I… I didn’t know.’ Her mind flashed like a stroboscope. In a café in Beynac, late at night, a pair of drunken extras, chatting up the local girls. He’d even shouted after her, ‘Coo-eee! Annaliiise! Coo-eee!’ Then, on a balcony above the Chemin du Château, wearing silly underwear and a droopy moustache. She’d even wished him good morning, but he hadn’t answered. Then, on Beynac Castle ramparts, the day of the stunt. The diseased old beggar – ‘Pick me! Pick meee!’ The traffic warden outside Goddards’, talking to Ben. He’d been right behind her all the time, while she was frantically searching… no! The bloody ticket collector on the train! God in sodding heaven! How had she not…?
‘I didn’t know,’ she pointed at her forehead, ‘up here. But I must have known,’ now she pointed at her heart, ‘down here.’
He took a few steps closer. He was smaller than she remembered and almost bald, although the hair was still thick on his arms. His face had pouched; only his eyes still seemed to belong to him, with their deep, sad brown. He opened his arms slightly, but she didn’t step off the deck.
‘Aren’t you glad to see me?’
‘You callous bloody bastard,’ she mumbled, ‘you callous, selfish bloody bastard… the roses: that was you, wasn’t it? You were mocking me! Standing right in front of me, mocking me! How could you do that?’
He assumed a pained expression. ‘You know, the past few years have been very difficult for me too, watching from afar as my little girl grows into this beautiful, successful woman, and I can’t hug her and tell her how proud I am.’
‘Well,’ her mouth was dry, ‘I imagine that would be one of the problems with being dead… wouldn’t it?’
‘I’m sorry, I truly am,’ and now his face was a masterpiece of contrition, ‘but if you’d just let me explain…’
She guffawed. ‘Explain?’
He gestured at the trees. ‘Come up to the house. We can talk there.’
‘Where’s Ben?’
He waved vaguely. ‘Off skulking somewhere, afraid you’ll never speak to him again.’
‘He could be right about that.’
‘I’m pretty cross with him myself, actually, for taking advantage of my daughter when he knew fine well that it was his job to look after you. I have a good mind to–’
‘Hey!’ She held a hand up. ‘Before you start with the Daddy stuff – what makes you think that I want to talk to you, either?’
‘Because,’ and to her utter surprise, he opened his arms and sang, ‘Call me darling, call me sweetheart, call me dear…’ and now she didn’t know whether to leap off the boat and physically attack him or just to cry, so she did neither. ‘By the way,’ he grinned and pointed, ‘I dig the dress. Very Ella.’
‘It’s a memento of the film you’ve just ruined, probably the last job I’ll ever be offered.’
‘Your heart wasn’t in it – I could tell.’
‘So you decided to wreck it on me?’
‘You can’t blame me for that! You know yourself that The Pefect Heresy is going to be an absolute disaster; that idiot Emerson is wrecking it all by himself. You did the right thing, walking away from it!’
‘If you’re so bloody clever, then what were you doing there?’
He shrugged. ‘Because that’s what I do, nowadays. Scraps of extra work, here and there. Usually shoots that Ben’s contracted on – I travel incognito, as you can imagine.’
‘Actually, I can’t imagine. I can’t imagine what goes on in your…’ Another thought occurred to her. ‘Wait a minute, are you and Ben…?’
‘Gay lovers? No. We fight enough as it is, without bringing sex into it.’
‘Were you?’
‘Why can’t a man and a man just be friends without everyone assuming–’
‘Because you never had any friends.’
‘True,’ he nodded, ‘and that was one of the many things wrong with my life before I… you know, before I…’
‘Abandoned your only child?’
‘Well…’
‘Or do you have news for me on that front, too?’
‘You’re being silly, now.’
‘Sorry,’ she spat the words, ‘I can’t imagine why such a fucked-up notion would even occur to me!’
‘All right, all right! No, I have no secret family here, if that’s what you mean; no litter of little Davids to mess the place up; no native squaw women heavy with child. But I do have a nice, cool verandah where you can be as furious as you like. Come on – it’s too hot out here.’ Beckoning, he walked into the trees. She paused, as if undecided, but curiosity was slowly overcoming shock, so she stepped onto the pier and followed him up a steep forest path, where crickets buzzed like faulty lightbulbs and green-brown lizards wiggled up the tree trunks.
‘Where are we? What is this place?’
He threw a crafty smile over his shoulder. ‘I could
tell you, but I’d have to kill you.’
‘You won’t have to kill me because, on the inside, I’m dying from laughter.’
‘Come up here,’ he pointed ahead, ‘and see for yourself.’
He was, she noticed, quite short of breath by the time the path broke through the trees. Before them, squatting snugly on a natural terrace in the hillside, was a solid two-storey stone house of an old design; small windows with heavy green shutters and a shallow, brown-tiled roof. Two modern intrusions jarred: a dusty jeep parked in a nearby shed and an enormous white satellite dish outside the front door, angled at the sky. Cables ran from the base of this into the house.
‘Now,’ he waved an arm, ‘where do you think you are?’
The façade was in shadow, so she reckoned the house must be facing roughly north. She turned around, and the view nearly flattened her. A vast, powder-blue sea melded into a distant heat haze; above her on both sides, dramatic yellow cliffs tilted into crags, before plunging almost vertically downwards. Scrub and grass clung on where they could, but it was as if God had cracked a piece of the earth’s crust and left it as a testament to His might.
‘No one else around,’ he smiled, ‘just how I like it. But about six miles in that direction,’ he pointed west, ‘is a charming spot called Porto de Soller, and beyond that, Deia, which you may have heard of because all sorts of famous people tend to holiday there. Although,’ he laughed, ‘we don’t socialise, not as ourselves, anyway. I do sometimes pretend to be a stupid British tourist.’
‘Mallorca,’ she breathed. ‘I thought Mallorca was all tower-blocks and stag parties…’
‘Well as you can see, it’s not. Not the north side, anyway. Some of the resorts are a bit tacky, but people are always surprised to find large parts of the island still unspoiled.’ About a mile out to sea, a yacht inched by. ‘And we picked a nice tricky cove with plenty of underwater rocks – mostly, the daytrippers don’t try to get into it.’
‘How long have you had this place?’
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