He Loves Me Not...He Loves Me

by Claudia Carroll

  ‘What about it?’ asked Montana, wondering what was coming next.

  ‘Oh nothing, it was just unusual that Anne Frank was naked in almost every scene.’

  ‘The nudity was entirely justified by the script, Guy – sorry, I mean Brent,’ Montana almost spat at him. ‘And it’s the mark of a fine actor to do theatre work.’

  ‘Honey, that show was so far off Broadway, it was in Harlem!’ Guy sneered at her.

  Daisy was unsure what to make of the rivalry between Guy and Montana, or even if they were joking with each other for her benefit. However, she was saved from wondering by the timely interruption of Mrs Flanagan, who waddled into the room saying, ‘Right! Youse can all come in for yer grub now, or, as they say in Dublin: “Yer dinner’s poured out!”’ She almost had to shout, to make herself heard over Lucasta’s squalling at the piano.

  ‘Really, Mrs Flanagan,’ Lucasta hissed at her as their guests filed out of the door to the Dining Room. ‘Can’t you use the dinner gong when we have guests?’ she added, bashing down the lid of the piano.

  ‘I turned the gong upside down and I’m using it as a salad bowl,’ replied Mrs Flanagan. ‘And in case ya recognize the soup tureen I’m using tonight, yes, it is the chamber pot from yer bedroom. And if ya don’t want it, don’t eat it.’

  ‘We’re awfully sorry, but I’m afraid we have a strict policy of no jeans allowed in the restaurant area,’ the hostess informed Portia and Andrew as she came briskly from around her desk to meet them.

  ‘I mightn’t look like I’ve just stepped off the catwalks of Milan,’ Andrew replied, smiling, ‘but this suit cost me a packet and it most definitely doesn’t look much like denim to me.’

  ‘I was referring to the young lady,’ said the hostess, peering over her glasses at Portia.

  ‘Oh Jesus,’ said Portia, glancing down at her blue denim jeans. ‘Andrew, I’m so embarrassed, I had no idea that there’d be a dress code.’

  ‘Couldn’t you make an exception, just this once?’ said Andrew, turning his charm up to its highest voltage. No go.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s policy,’ replied the hostess.

  ‘Have you met my dinner guest?’ he then asked, changing tactics. ‘This is Miss Portia Davenport, daughter of the ninth Lord Davenport, perhaps you may have heard of him?’

  ‘I don’t particularly care if her father is Archbishop of Canterbury, no jeans allowed,’ she replied, brushing past them to greet an incredibly glamorous-looking couple who’d just arrived, neither of whom was wearing jeans. Portia turned to Andrew, her face scarlet from sheer mortification, when a voice from behind said, ‘I don’t believe it. Andrew!’

  ‘Edwina?’ replied Andrew, stunned. Portia turned around to see an exquisitely dressed woman standing behind them holding the arm of a very familiar older man, who looked like he’d had one sunbed session too many. She was about thirty years of age, blonde and beautiful, with a perfect size-ten figure, emphasized by the skin-tight black silk dress that fell in elegant folds down to her ankles. She was impeccably made up, with just a hint of lip-gloss, and wore one simple diamond cross around her neck.

  The whole effect was dazzling, which was more than could be said for that produced by her companion. He looked ancient, wizened and grey, with long, lank shoulder-length white hair scraped back into a greasy ponytail. He was about half the height of his dinner companion, and was wearing leather trousers with a shirt opened to the navel revealing a very orange-looking suntan, topped off with a pair of wraparound sunglasses. In short, he looked like a right eejit.

  ‘It’s great to see you,’ purred Edwina to Andrew, kissing him on each cheek. ‘It’s been, what, six weeks now? How have you been?’

  ‘Very well thanks, glad to be home,’ Andrew replied flatly. If Portia hadn’t been so overwhelmingly embarrassed about being refused admission, alarm bells would have been ringing in her head right now.

  ‘And your parents?’ asked Edwina, her eyes not leaving his face. ‘Your mother took me to lunch in the Unicorn last week and was telling me all about the new house. It sounds wonderful. I’ll have to come and see for myself soon.’

  ‘You’re welcome anytime,’ was all Andrew said in reply.

  ‘Won’t you pass on my very best love to them? And tell your mother lunch is on me next time she’s up in Dublin shopping.’

  What? Portia thought. She’s friendly with his mother? And seems actually to like her? The plot thickened.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Morrissey? Your table’s ready,’ the hostess interrupted. ‘It’s your usual seat, in the VIP section.’

  ‘Would you like to join us?’ Edwina asked, glancing at Portia for the first time. ‘Trevor and I are just having a quick bite before the MTV music awards later in the Point Depot. You’re very welcome to join us.’

  So that’s why her companion with the orange skin tone looked so familiar. He was Trevor Morrissey, the rock musician, nicknamed the grandfather of Irish rock, who still toured occasionally, in between hip-replacement operations.

  He looks like a dried carrot, Portia thought, never having seen skin that colour before in her life.

  ‘We’d love to but . . . we can’t,’ said Andrew, unable to think of a lie to explain their hasty departure from the restaurant. ‘Another time, Edwina,’ he added as he ushered Portia out of the door. They’d got as far as the car before it struck Portia that he’d never even introduced her.

  ‘Davenport bottled water. It’s going to make me a million, you know. Easy as eggs,’ Lucasta announced to the guests seated around the dining table as she helped herself to yet another gin and tonic.

  Steve sighed deeply. ‘Lucasta, we’ve been through this a thousand times already today. You can’t just stick labels on a couple of bottles and smack them in a supermarket. For starters, you’d have to get the mud removed, then you set up a limited liability company, register it, then apply to the Department of the Environment for them to come out and inspect the spring you’re talking about. If, indeed, such a spring exists.’

  ‘Oh, sweetie, I need positivity around me right now, you really must try not to be such a Taurus, darling. This is going to make us all so rich, rich, rich!’

  Steve was about to answer, but wisely decided against it.

  Suddenly there was silence in the room. Mrs Flanagan trundled into the room, wheeling a squeaking trolley in front of her. ‘Right! Grub’s up!’ she hollered, leaning over to stub out her fag in an ashtray on the sideboard.

  ‘I sure am looking forward to some home-style Irish cooking,’ said Guy as he sat himself down beside Daisy.

  ‘Bacon and cabbage, Irish stew, oysters and Guinness, the more traditional the better for me,’ said Jimmy D., knife and fork in hand, with his mouth practically watering.

  ‘Ya can’t get much more traditional than this!’ said Mrs Flanagan as she passed around a stacked-up pile of plastic trays as expertly as an air hostess. ‘Take one each and pass it on,’ she announced to the table at large. There was a general air of puzzlement as everyone helped themselves to a tray from the top of the pile.

  ‘Is this some kind of Irish custom?’ Montana asked innocently.

  ‘Now mind your fingers, they’re straight out of the microwave and they’re very hot,’ cautioned Mrs Flanagan, positioning herself behind Guy’s chair and leaning forward to grab the tray in front of him. With a flourish, she whipped off the plastic wrapping which covered the tray, and said, ‘Chicken à la king with pilau rice on the side. Enjoy yer dinner, everyone!’

  There was a stunned silence around the table, broken only by the clinking of the ice in Lucasta’s gin and tonic.

  Eventually Montana spoke. ‘I sure am sorry, but I can’t eat anything that ever had a face,’ she said, pushing the plastic tray away from her.

  ‘There’s more than one food group on that tray, luv,’ said Mrs Flanagan. ‘Eat the rice, so and you’ll be grand.’

  ‘I’m afraid Miss Jones doesn’t eat carbohydrate after six o’clock in the evening,’ Car
oline explained, looking down her nose at the TV dinner in front of her.

  ‘Ah Jaysus, luv, no wonder you are the size you are,’ replied Mrs Flanagan, looking sympathetically at Montana. ‘Sure there’s more meat on a butcher’s pencil.’

  ‘I sure am sorry not to eat this, emm, lovely meal,’ said Montana sweetly, ‘but I have to be so careful not to carbo load.’ Mrs Flanagan wasn’t in the least offended but did look a bit puzzled. ‘You see, the camera puts about seven pounds on you,’ continued Montana by way of explanation.

  ‘Right, well, I suppose that’s the end of any chance I had of being a Bond girl then,’ replied Mrs Flanagan, cheerfully waddling her fourteen-stone frame out the door.

  ‘Is this normally the sort of food y’all eat here at the Hall?’ Guy asked Daisy in his Southern accent.

  ‘Well, it’s not exactly Michelin-starred here,’ she replied, mortified. ‘We’re not really used to entertaining, you see.’

  ‘It’s just that I have a fine bottle of Jack Daniel’s up in my bedroom that’s crying out to be drunk, preferably in the company of a beautiful woman,’ he murmured to her.

  Daisy may have been mistaken, but she could have sworn she felt his hand graze against her thigh under the table. ‘That’s if you have no objection to a liquid dinner,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘I find myself in need of a little alcoholic fortification tonight.’

  This time she wasn’t mistaken. His hand was on her leg, slowly working its way upwards. Daisy found her breathing getting heavier. Jesus Christ. Guy van der Post was feeling her up! One of the most famous movie stars in the world was groping her under the dining table! Never one to let an opportunity slip through her fingers, she leant in to him, so that her lips were brushing against his earlobe. ‘Excuse yourself from the table now,’ she whispered urgently, ‘and I’ll meet you upstairs in five minutes.’

  It had been so easy, almost too easy. Tony Pitt almost had to pinch himself in disbelief as he waited for something to go wrong. And yet what could possibly go wrong now? he asked himself. Wasn’t he home and dry?

  He’d always prided himself on how quick he was off the mark; there was no one on the staff at National Intruder to touch him. Of course, he’d heard rumours about Montana Jones, fresh out of rehab, filming in Ireland, of all places, in some stately pile. And with Guy van der Post (known in the showbiz circles Tony aspired to be part of as ‘Ed Wood’, a reference to his tree-stump-like performances) who had once been one of the hottest things in Hollywood and now couldn’t get arrested if he tried. Tony well remembered the days when a shot of Guy leaving a nightclub (usually with Leo or Ben or Tom in tow: the ‘crap pack’ as they were known in journalistic circles) would have fetched him a fortune. But lately, that had all changed. Guy van der Post was still a big name, but he hadn’t made a hit movie in some time and his old crap pack buddies seemed to be deserting him one by one, or so Tony’s sources said. Not that his sources in LA were impeccable (one was a driver who worked at Paramount and another had just been promoted to a senior street sweeper on the Warner’s backlot) but a story’s accuracy was never something that bothered his bosses back in the States. ‘Just as long as you can get a picture,’ Tracey Reeves, his editor, always said, ‘we’ll fill in the rest.’

  So Tony found himself on an Aer Lingus flight to Dublin and then, without delaying for a moment, en route to County Kildare in his hired car. But Christ Almighty, nothing prepared him for the Irish road system, or lack of signposts anywhere. Eventually, after asking for directions about a dozen times, he stumbled on the sleepy town of Ballyroan almost by accident.

  He checked into a b. & b. (where, conveniently, some of the film crew were sequestered too; that could be useful later on, he thought) and waited for nightfall. Then, at about ten p.m., he told his landlady he was heading out for a stroll, and started off towards Davenport Hall. It was relatively easy to find: the huge entrance gates were a giveaway (someone had written in graffiti across the brick gateposts, ‘All hope abandon ye who enter here.’ Very encouraging.) Tony had expected to encounter huge, burly security men on the long walk up the driveway, but no one attempted to stop him. And then, after a marathon walk in pitch darkness, here it was, the Hall itself. Sure, it looked a bit run down, Tony thought, but was probably fabulous and opulent on the inside, a bit like that place in County Monaghan where Paul McCartney got married.

  As he skirted around the perimeter of the Hall, he was careful to stay well back on the grass (the gravel on the forecourt would be too noisy underfoot and there could be guard dogs about, he was taking no chances). He searched frantically for an open door or window or, better yet, a room full of people he could photograph from a safe distance. He could hardly believe his luck when, walking around the edge of the east wing, he heard voices, laughter, the clink of glasses. Looking up, he saw a dining room full of people, through an open window, and YES! There was his prey, Montana Jones, playing with the food on her plate, looking moody and sulky. Better still, through his telescopic lens, he could just about make out Guy van der Post, sitting with his back to him and feeling up a very pretty blonde girl. Bingo!

  The trip’s been well worth it for this alone, he thought as he huddled down in the overgrown grass and shot off his first roll of film.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘TWO BATTER BURGERS with chips and two Diet Cokes please,’ said Andrew. ‘That it?’

  ‘Oh, and an onion ring please,’ said Portia. ‘For some reason, I have a huge craving for an onion ring.’

  ‘And an onion ring!’ Andrew called out to the chipper, almost having to shout to make himself heard over the din of late-night revellers in the queue behind them. ‘God, you’re an expensive date, Portia, you’ll be looking for paper serviettes next,’ he said, twinkling down at her. She said nothing, but blushed prettily at him.

  Her sane mind told her that she’d effectively blown any faint whiff of a chance she may have had with this man, not only by getting him thrown out of the snootiest restaurant in town but then by having the gall to suggest they grab a bag of chips each and eat them on the beach. In the lashing rain. But the weird thing was that she didn’t care. She was having far too much fun with Andrew to mind that this was probably the last time she’d ever see him. What the hell, she thought, may as well go out on a high note.

  ‘Well, this is certainly one date I won’t forget in a hurry,’ said Andrew as they dashed back to his car, clutching greasy chip bags dripping with vinegar and giggling like a pair of teenagers. ‘It’s been years since I’ve seen the inside of a chippers.’

  ‘You mean you can’t get a battered sausage in Manhattan? How on earth did you cope?’ Portia replied, tongue firmly in cheek as she clunked the car door behind her.

  ‘Where to now, my lady?’ he asked, running his fingers through his fair hair, which was damp from the rain.

  ‘If you’re going to have fish and chips, there’s only one place for it and that’s Killiney Beach,’ she replied, being careful not to let vinegar drip on to the cream leather upholstery.

  ‘Do you know Dublin well?’ he asked as they splashed through the streets, heading southwards towards the affluent suburbs of Ballsbridge, then Dalkey and on towards the seaside town of Killiney, past queues of soaking-wet party-goers waiting for taxis.

  ‘Actually, Daisy and I used to come to town a lot when we were small—’ she began before breaking off. ‘Why are you laughing at me?’

  ‘Because you’re so funny.’

  ‘Explain!’

  ‘You’re the only person I’ve ever met who refers to the capital city, which houses over a million people, as “town”, that’s all.’

  ‘If I could just be permitted to finish my story, thanks,’ said Portia, pretending to be annoyed with him, though she wasn’t really. ‘We used to be sent up here when Daisy was still in nappies to stay with our grandmother who lived here, in Killiney, actually.’

  ‘I thought you were a tenth-generation blue-blooded Davenport. Don’t tell me you ha
ve middle-class blood flowing in your elegant veins, my lady.’

  ‘I meant my grandmother on my mother’s side, smarty, and, by the way, I’m not a lady.’

  ‘What a thing to admit to!’

  ‘My father is a lord so Mummy is automatically a lady, but Daisy and I just get lumped with “the Honourable” before our names. Not that either of us could be bothered using it.’

  ‘The Honourable Portia . . . it certainly has a ring to it. So who was your granny in Killiney then?’ he asked, pulling the car over to the side of the road so that they were looking out across the moonlit beach.

  ‘Mummy’s family were called Elgee. She was an only child and grew up here, in a house that was quite close to the beach. Daisy and I often used to visit Granny here. I suppose we were the opposite of most normal people, in that we were country bumpkins who’d spend our holidays in the city.’

  Again, he roared laughing.

  ‘What is so bloody funny?’

  ‘With blades of straw in your hair, no doubt. Poor little rich girl.’

  ‘Only someone who’d never seen the inside of the Hall could ever accuse me of that! Rich? The only member of my family who ever had two pennies to rub together was this granny, who left a fortune after she died.’

  ‘So what happened to the money?’

  ‘She left it to the cats’ and dogs’ home. I think she realized that if she gave it to Mummy, my father would get his paws on it and lose the lot on a horse.’

  ‘Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne eat your heart out! To think that I imagined Americans to have the monopoly on dysfunctional families. Is your father really all that bad?’

  ‘Andrew, he once put Daisy up as collateral in a card game. She was about six months old at the time. Thank God he happened to win, that’s all I can say. If a social worker knew half of what she and I endured as children, we’d have been packed off to reform school immediately. And probably been a lot better off.’ Andrew glanced over at her, and wisely judged it best to change the subject.