My heart was pounding. Even though it was nearly twenty-four hours now since she’d told me, I was caught in a rage. I hadn’t slept since that conversation with Eden; I hadn’t been able to think of anything else. It was like a jagged spike had been rammed into my skull and I had to do all I could to get the damn thing out.
There was silence from the other side of the door, so I smashed my hand again. With his thick dark curtains, it was as if he was expecting the Blitz to start up all over again, but it meant I’d no idea whether he was in or not. Right then, it’d be fair to say, I didn’t have any clear idea what I was going to do if he actually swung back the door. I knew it’d be something rough, though. The thought of that sneering little bastard Raymond Wilder having those photos, looking at those photos, using those photos as a peepshow to amuse his friends, was just unbearable. But it was all I could think about now and my disgust was all I could taste.
So I banged his front door, yelled out his name, snarled at the windows, until I thought – or imagined – I saw movement of the curtains.
Maybe he was in and cowering and wondering what he was going to do, or maybe he was out at a party. I stayed there, though, kept yelling his name. And I was going to keep on slamming my hand and raising my voice until that bastard either pulled open the door, or a cab swung around the corner with him in it. I wasn’t going to quit until I saw Wilder, I wasn’t going to quit until I got those bloody photographs.
It took at least five minutes, but suddenly there was a click of the lock and the door swung back. There was Ray Wilder, trying to give the impression of a man who’d been rudely awoken and was stumbling into consciousness. A performance that wasn’t particularly good because there was no way – as much as he tried – that he could hide the startled fear in his eyes.
He couldn’t hide it even as he moved on to baffled amusement, a smirking pout appearing on his lips. “Well, if it isn’t Sammy the Stuntman. What the fuck are you doing here, Sammy?”
“You and I need to talk.”
“Do we?” he asked. “Really? Is there any reason on God’s green earth why you and I would ever need to have a conversation?”
Suddenly he seemed to remember that he was supposed to have a backbone, and he actually tried to push the door shut in my face. But he was too slight a man to achieve that. It was easy for my shoulder to force him back. Even though the struggle was uneven, he kept going with it for a good ten seconds. Before he gave up with a bored casualness. Like he was Sinatra or someone and the only thing which interested him in life was his next martini. Not that Sinatra – skinny runt that he was – would ever have backed down from a fight so easily.
“Fine,” he said. “I suppose I have nothing else to do this evening. Although I can’t see how speaking to you, Sammy, is going to be more entertaining than lying on the couch and playing with myself, but, I suppose – as you’re leaving me no option – I’ll give it a go.”
I stepped over the doorstep and slammed the door behind me. Wilder had already backed away and was headed up the hallway towards the lounge. In real life he was a lot paler than the tanned matinee idol who apparently made housewives go weak at the knees. He looked particularly wan this evening. The grey shirt and black trousers he’d thrown on seemed to drag all the colour from his skin. As if he was actually part chameleon and was trying to blend in with his outfit.
“You don’t mind if I don’t offer you a drink, do you, Sammy?” he called back. “It’s just that I keep that for the actual invited guests. Besides, it’s damn good stuff and I doubt that your simple Welsh palate would appreciate it. It is Welsh you are, isn’t it? I always get the Welsh accent and the Scots accent and the Geordie accent mixed up. Impenetrable and sounding like poverty, the lot of you.”
“Joe,” I said to the back of his head. “My name is Joe.”
Just before he reached the door to the lounge, he glanced back at me. “I honestly don’t care.”
His lounge was much as I’d expected it to be. There were photographs of himself adorning every wall; black and white glossies and posters for films he’d been in. One wall was taken up completely by a large framed print – pretty much life-size – of him and a busty Elizabeth Taylor. Even though she probably didn’t even remember who he was anymore.
As nonchalantly as he could manage, he dropped himself into the centre of his large black leather sofa. I don’t think in my whole life I’d ever seen a leather sofa before. It was pretty much the only furniture in the room. There was a small occasional table, a teak radio and a bookshelf with paperbacks gathering dust, but nothing else. The room was just him and his sofa and the pictures of glory days on the wall. He was still absolutely a star, but it seemed like he was clinging on to something he knew had already escaped him.
With a snarl of contempt, but with no guts to do anything else, he stared up at me as if sizing me up.
“So, Sammy,” he said. “A little bird tells me that you have a new girlfriend. Sweet on her, are you? Looking to buy her a ring? Thinking you’ll swing one at some old boyfriends in the meantime, just because…”
“I want the photos, Wilder!”
“A-ha!” He clapped his hands together. “You know, I wondered what absolute fool’s quest that bitch had sent you on. What she’d said to bring you here. And now I know.”
I took a step closer, so that I was standing right over him. Satisfyingly, I saw him wince. His muscles tensed as if preparing for a blow.
“You can stop your talking,” I told him, “and you can give me the bloody photos!”
”What’s the problem?” Somehow, despite his obvious fear, he managed to smirk at me. “Don’t you like the thought of another bloke looking at your bird’s tits? Or at her fanny? Come on, you’re Welsh, aren’t you? I thought you people were all dirty beasts. Share and share alike, isn’t it? Don’t you want to see the proof of the satisfied smile she got on her face right after she’d serviced my big throbbing cock?”
There was no way I could hold myself back. I seized his shirt collar and yanked him up from the couch. Pulled him so close his bare tiptoes were only just balancing on the carpet, letting him get a good close view of the anger in my eyes.
“You will give me those bloody photos!”
Amazingly, he laughed in my face. “Or what, Sammy? What are you going to do? We both work in the business, after all, but your job is a lot more vulnerable than mine. I heard all about Cheesewright, Sammy. I know you already have a big black mark against your name. What’s that pudgy little queer going to say when he hears about this? What’s going to happen to your job if you beat me up? To any prospect of gainful employment? What’s going to happen to Eden’s already boringly failing career? This won’t be one you can just sweep under the carpet, you know. I’m a much bigger deal than some fucking journalist. I can fucking ruin you, boyo!” It was his turn to yell now. “Do you know who the fuck you are dealing with? I’m Raymond Wilder! I am not some fucking nobody!”
I hurled him into the wall, so that his head missed the bookshelf by about an inch. He thudded to the floor, a thumbed paperback of Lady Chatterley’s Lover dropping onto his head.
Wide-eyed, shocked and terrified, he stared up at me. His hands were held up and quivering in front of his face. It was as if he’d seriously expected me to back down and beg for some kind of forgiveness.
When I spoke, I managed to lower my voice. “I might not be able to beat you up, Wilder, at least not in any way which leaves bruises on the outside. But the thing is, I know lots of ways to really hurt you that leave no marks whatsoever. I know how to hit you in the belly so I don’t leave the slightest blemish, but it will hurt you so hard and so deeply I can guarantee you won’t shit painlessly again for the rest of your miserable life.”
There was no way for him to tell I was bluffing. I had no idea at all how to do such a thing. But I could remember how, one night in our cups back in Cardiff, Luca had said how he’d used it as a threat and how effective it was.
He
was completely right.
Worry and panic flashed across Wilder’s face, before he somehow stretched his smile back into position.
“Can’t a bloke play hard to get these days?” he asked. “Of course, protective boyfriend that you are, you’ll want those photos. It’s a totally fair request. Like that queer, Kenneth Williams, used to say, I was just messing about.”
Doing his best not to tremble, he led me upstairs and retrieved them from the bedroom. Another room which, if it wasn’t for the mirrors and the framed ten by eights of himself, would have been considered sparsely furnished. He got down on his knees and removed a 2ft square steel case from beneath his bed. He undid the lock, and, without even needing to look through it, pulled out an A4 envelope with Eden’s name printed neatly on the front. There were other envelopes in there, even rolls of film. I was just about getting my temper cool again, and thought that if I found out what they were, my calm head would vanish. As long as they were nothing to do with Eden, that was enough for me.
Standing so close to him he’d inevitably have felt my breath on his sweaty brow, I snatched them off him.
“Are the negatives in here?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said, as casually as he could possibly manage.
“Did you make any copies?”
He stared up at me, as if I’d insulted his good name. “I made them for my own personal use. Not for distribution.”
I moved my chin in even closer. “If you’re bloody lying to me, Wilder…”
“Don’t worry, Sammy – I mean, Joe – I’m not.”
With a grunt I turned to leave the room, to leave his tiny but expensive house, to leave the disgusting stench of sordidness which surrounded the man.
But he called after me. “Just so you know,” he said, “there may very well be consequences for this.”
I stared at him from the bedroom doorway, not quite believing what I was hearing. “Are you actually threatening me, Wilder?”
“Not me, no.” He chuckled unconvincingly. “But consequences do have a habit of showing up when we least expect them.”
It was my turn to smirk. “I’ll take my chances,” I told him.
Then I left the bastard standing weak-kneed and bullied on his own bedroom carpet. He might have been able to act the big man with a script in front of him and a more sympathetic stuntman ready to have his back, but he was no kind of hero at all.
Chapter Eleven
Slumped in a stinking minicab on the way back to Eden’s, I made the decision that, now I had them, I didn’t even want to look at the photos.
Having been to Wilder’s, having reminded myself of what a swine he was, I didn’t want to think of him with Eden. Even if he was behind the camera, I’d still imagine nothing but his leer.
There was a deadness to me when I arrived at her place. The adrenalin had faded and all I was left with was numbness. Even the fat cabbie spotted it, asking me if I was alright, mate as I handed over the fare. I didn’t say a word, but nodded that I was fine.
Eden rushed to the front door.
“Oh, Joe!” she said. “You’ve no idea how much I’ve fretted. It was stupid of me to let you go there. Anything could have happened. It was so stupid of me!”
She reached her arms around me, but I stepped past her and stumbled into her living room. Eden might have been a film star too, but her living room was like a slice of good taste compared to Wilder’s. There wasn’t a self-absorbed publicity shot anywhere in sight.
My legs wobbling, I groaned out loud and landed with a soft thud on her sofa.
Biting her lip, she stared at me. An intense weariness was pressing down hard on my shoulders and spine, as I undid my jacket and pulled out the white envelope. My head lowered, I held it up for her to take. I couldn’t even look at it any more.
With three steps forward she was next to me. Her nose crinkled with distaste at the sight of her name on the thick white paper.
“It’s unopened,” she said.
“He told me that it’s all there, photographs and negatives and all.”
“What if he’s lying?”
I shrugged, before dropping it with a slap onto her coffee table. “I made it clear to him that it really didn’t make sense to lie to me. I scared the hell out of him. So I believed him when he told me that this was all of it. Besides, I watched him get the envelope out of his tin box storage place, and he didn’t have time or warning to take anything out and hide it elsewhere.”
“But you didn’t actually check?”
“I didn’t want to see.” I shook my head. “They’re yours.”
Her hand trembling, she bent down and picked up the envelope, hooking her thumb beneath the flap. “Are you alright?” she asked. “Is there anything I can do?”
“I’m just tired. I always get like this after I’ve been in a scrap. I guess some men use anger to invade nations, but I always find that it wears me out.”
“Oh – can I get you a coffee perhaps?”
I didn’t reply, just stared at the blurred space in front of my eyes for what felt like a minute or so.
“Joe?” she asked, worried.
My fingers reached up for hers and gave them a brief, tight squeeze. “I do love you, Eden,” I said, “but I can’t be your attack dog.”
“What?”
“I’ll do anything for you, you know that, but you can’t just send me after those who’ve done you wrong in the hope I’ll give them a bloody nose. The likes of Cheesewright or Wilder.”
“I never sent you after Cheesewright!” she said.
“You didn’t stop me either.” My voice was little more than a whisper. “You could see how het up I was getting, knew the reason, but you never stopped me.”
“I didn’t mean…”
My head down, my shoulders hunched, I raised my hand to stop her. “And you most definitely sent me after Wilder. You wound me up and you let me go.”
“I’m” – she hesitated – “sorry. I just didn’t think. I’m not used to having a man as kind as you, I’m not used to having a hero.”
There was no way I was going to stay mad at her. Her beautiful face looked radiant as she peered down with such concern for me. I reached for her fingers again and this time grabbed her whole hand and pulled her into my lap. She came with a scream and the two of us sat facing each other.
“I love you, Eden,” I said, holding her tight. “I want to make you happy and to be happy with you.”
Her hands moved soothingly down my shoulders. Even that brief a touch made me feel so much better.
“You make me feel happy too,” she murmured, her voice breathless. “I want you to know that. I’m never happier than I am with you.”
A grin coming to my face, I wrapped my arms tight around her waist and she leant into me. We kissed deeply and lustily.
I wish I could say that we made love right there and then and forgot about everything and everyone else in the world. But of course that envelope was still sat ugly on the coffee table. Shiny white and expensive paper, always gleaming at the corner of our vision no matter where we looked. It was like it was taunting us.
Right then, even after all I’d gone through to get the damn thing, I’d have thrown it in the bin and tried to forget it existed. But of course, she had to check it. I understood why. She had to know that Wilder hadn’t been devious with us.
She told me, with relief, that the photographs and the negatives all seemed to be there. Of course there was always a chance that he had made copies for other bastards like him, but Eden was happy. There was delight in her eyes as she took out her cigarette lighter and burnt them all.
I kept my promise to myself and didn’t look at them. All I caught was the briefest glimpse as I coughed and turned my head.
Even that glimpse was enough to hurt me, though.
It was the left side of Eden’s body stretched long and taut. I couldn’t see her face, and as such, I suppose, it could have been any woman. But I was too familiar
with Eden’s curves and smooth porcelain skin to really think that.
There was one thing missing, though, and maybe she knew I’d spotted it as she winced away from me, her hand rubbing automatically against that deep scar on her hip.
In the photographs it wasn’t there.
Whatever had happened to her had happened after these photos were taken.
I closed my eyes and promised myself I wasn’t going to ask about it again.
Not that night, anyway.
Chapter Twelve
The consequence Ray Wilder had warned of came swifter and more brutal than I could have imagined.
It was three days later and I was down at Motspur. I’d been called in for a short notice meeting with Hank Stewart, who was stunt coordinator for this new English Civil War film the Yank, Boris Wachtel, was making. Hank and I had known each other a couple of years and it was a good meeting. It looked like I might get a few weeks of work from the picture. Pick up work, cash in hand stuff, as and when it was needed. But Hank thought that, such was the ambition of the film, a lot of it was going to be needed and I’d likely do very well from the project. So it was with a satisfied smile on my face that I strolled back to my Hillman in the car park.
Maybe I was careless, or distracted by the sunshine, or an easy target because I wasn’t expecting anything – Wilder’s threat had seemed like the stuff of fairy stories – but the attack was so sudden I didn’t hear it coming. Without any warning, there was a furious blow to the back of my skull and I was sent sprawling to the warm tarmac.
Even now, I don’t know what he hit me with. If I had to guess, I’d say some kind of knuckle-duster. Certainly it wasn’t just a fist. Absolutely he levelled out the odds with something else. Something that laid into my skull like a sharpened horseshoe.
Falling fast, dazed and disorientated, I didn’t even get a chance to put my hands up to break my fall. My left cheek crashed into the ground, a wheeze of trapped breath and spluttering shock escaping my lips.
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