by Alison Bond
‘Let’s have dinner next week,’ said Ruby. ‘Just the two of us. Like old times.’
‘That would be wonderful,’ said Max, knowing that he wasn’t free. He’d call her later and suggest a lunch instead. Right now he had to get back to the office; he had been able to feel his cellphone vibrating throughout the meal.
Ruby made her way home slowly. She stopped off at Bulgari on Rodeo Drive and considered buying a pearl choker that could be worn with the higher-necked gowns that were in her future. People would still say she was beautiful but would always add, ‘for her age’.
Next of Kin made her feel archaic. There was a whole generation of adult actors below her and they got all the best storylines. All Camille seemed to do was ruin their fun. Matriarch. Such a horrible word. She stood out like a grandmother at a frat party against the backdrop of a hip television show like this.
The episode directors were cutting edge, experienced but innovative, with one or two features under their belts and loads of ideas. They treated her differently, they treated her the same as everyone else and she didn’t like it. But what choice did she have? The money was excellent and her kickers over the next few seasons would ensure her financial comfort. She had points in the show and if the show was a success Ruby Valentine would be extremely rich, no matter what happened to Camille Burden.
By the time the second season of Next of Kin started shooting the producers were convinced that Ruby was completely wrong for the show. They had gambled, it hadn’t worked. She was a name, and a name always ensured that the first season ratings were high, but they were beyond that now and could do without her.
36
Once upon a time Ruby had been Max’s favourite client. These days he had to steel himself whenever they met. Next of Kin had brought out the very worst in her and sometimes the truth was that he hated her.
He visited the set and knocked on the door of her state-of-the-art trailer. ‘What?’ yelled Ruby from inside.
‘Hey, Ruby, it’s Max. Can I come in?’
‘Just a second.’ It was several minutes before Ruby opened the door. The air inside the trailer was warm and the light was poor. The narrow bed down one side was covered in grey chenille and littered with script pages. The fresh flowers that Ruby insisted were delivered every day were stuffed into the wastepaper bin. Max spotted an empty glass in the sink with a telltale glint of amber and he caught a whiff of Southern Comfort on Ruby’s mouth when she offered her cheek for him to kiss. She’d always hidden it so well before.
‘I’m glad you stopped by,’ she said. ‘I thought you might have forgotten me. I want this writer fired.’
‘Which one?’
‘Whoever wrote the piece of crap we’re shooting this week.’
‘Ruby, it’s a great script.’
‘For who? Certainly not for me. Three scenes, Max, and they’re all useless.’
‘Three’s better than nothing.’
‘Are you mocking me?’ Ruby folded her arms and looked Max in the eye. She was acting like a spoilt teenager. ‘Tell them I won’t shoot it.’
The air was thick with Gucci perfume. The scent was so overpowering it smelt cheap.
‘I can’t fire the writer, Ruby. He’s under contract.’
‘So am I. Last time I checked I had script approval.’
A year ago he’d put a three-year contract under her nose and she hadn’t even read it. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said. ‘Anything else?’
‘Yes. I think it’s about time Jack and Camille made up.’
‘Their rivalry is the core of the show.’
‘I know, but he’s the most popular character after me, and if I’m not talking to him by carrying on this ridiculous feud, then I can’t have any scenes with him, can I? Think about it, surely there’s a demand for it. The two most popular characters have a tearful reunion.’
Ruby was seriously deluded if she thought she was the most popular character on the show; she didn’t even make the top five. Sometimes Max regretted setting her up with such a rock-solid deal in the first place, but to be honest he’d never thought that the show would be quite as successful as it was. He’d thought Next of Kin was the best way to keep Ruby in work and out of trouble. All he could do now was continue to pick up his commission on her salary and various bonuses. The problem was that her dated approach to acting stood out in the fluid, action-driven storylines which were helping to make Next of Kin a modern-day television phenomenon.
‘I’ll speak to the team, see if they think it’s a good idea,’ said Max, knowing they would never go with it. More scenes with Ruby, the last thing anyone wanted.
When the dreaded call finally came it was cruelly terse.
‘We’re not picking up Valentine’s option for the next series. She’s fired.’
‘Thanks for letting me know,’ said Max.
He wasn’t sure if Ruby would ever work again. The kind of parts he could get her now, after this, were not the kind of parts she would want. She’d had a long career, but it was as good as over; being fired from a hit TV show was the sort of thing from which people did not recover.
Sheridan walked into the office. What’s wrong?’ she asked. It was so unlike Max to be sitting at his desk doing nothing.
‘They fired Ruby,’ he said. ‘Do you want to tell her?’ Sheridan’s face paled to the colour of raw pastry. ‘I’m kidding,’ said Max. ‘Get her on the phone for me.’
Sheridan raced off to do as he asked. That was the nice thing about Max. He was always pretty philosophical when faced with a crisis.
Ruby, on the other hand, was horror-stricken. ‘I don’t understand how this could have happened. Really, Max, I don’t think you’ve handled this at all well. I’m appalled. Is it time for me to find alternative representation?’
Max almost lost his temper. They both knew Ruby would never find anyone to do as much for her as he did. For a second he was tempted to tell her to go ahead and find someone else willing to be agent, lawyer, publicist and priest for a lousy 20 per cent. But he knew that he couldn’t.
Finally Ruby realized she was in serious trouble. She started to cry. ‘Max,’ she said, ‘what will I do?’
Everything she had worked hard for in her life was about to be destroyed. Her reputation had been on a downslide for a year or so, even she was aware of that in the recesses of her mind, but now it was in tatters. Next of Kin had seemed like such a big opportunity to get back on track; now it felt like a curse. Fired from a successful television show. Canned. Nobody would ever give her a movie. Her brilliant life was collapsing around her. There was only one way out. Only one way her star would shine for ever.
37
Kelly wasn’t convinced. Max wanted her to believe that her mother, who had known such unhappiness in her life, killed herself over a broken contract? For vanity? It just didn’t fit.
Could it be that she didn’t want to believe it? She’d come all the way out here to try to find some memories of her mother. Who could blame her for wanting those memories to be of a better person than Ruby actually was? Maybe it wasn’t all lies. Maybe her mother had been a selfish, lonely old woman, a bad mother. Perhaps the reason there were so few tears shed by friends and family was because those people who knew her personally knew what she was really like. She wasn’t any of the strong, beautiful characters she portrayed. She was an insecure lush whose greatest achievement was a ten-year marriage to a man who had broken her spirit. The only reason Kelly didn’t want to hear the truth was because she couldn’t handle it.
She wanted the storybook version, the long-lost mother whose only crime was constantly being misunderstood. But she wasn’t going to get her happy ending, because there would never be that tearful reunion and she would have to carry with her for ever the certain knowledge that her mother died alone because nobody loved her any more.
Jez, meanwhile, felt as though he was on the set of a soap opera. This was all great stuff. He was very comfortable listening to Max. He’d tr
ied some of the green health shake and it wasn’t too bad – appearances could be deceptive.
‘You really want to do this?’ asked Max. ‘Get the police involved? What if I told you Ruby wouldn’t want you to? Kelly, I’m begging you. You’ve got no idea what you’re getting into.’ There was no mistaking the tone of his voice. Max Parker was afraid of what she would do next.
She stared at him, thinking of all the pieces of the jigsaw. The massive ratings boost Ruby’s death had engineered for Next of Kin, the missing millions. Max had just admitted that by the end he hated her. Ruby had trusted him. She had trusted him with her life.
Kelly froze, the most obvious answer to all of this becoming fully plausible in her mind. She asked him outright before she had time to think of her own safety, ‘Max, did you kill my mother?’
He shook his head over and over, his hands trembling. ‘You don’t understand,’ he pleaded, and his eyes were those of a guilty man.
‘You killed her,’ said Kelly. She backed away from the table, scraping her chair loudly across the floor, eager to get distance between them, as if he might shoot her dead there and then for working it out. She had to get to the police, right now.
‘Wait!’ he said. ‘I’m going to tell you something, okay? The truth.’
What?’
‘It’s a secret.’
‘I’m good with secrets, I used to be one.’
‘She’s still alive.’
‘You what?’ said Kelly.
‘Ruby. She’s still alive.’
38
The audacious plan was all Ruby’s own idea. She was going to kill off Ruby Valentine. When she explained what she meant Max was amused, but never in his wildest dreams did he think it was a serious option.
‘We have to think outside the box,’ she said.
‘We’d never get away with it. We can’t.’
‘Don’t say can’t,’ said Ruby. ‘We won’t know unless we try. What’s the worst that can happen?’
‘Both of us get tried by a high court for fraud?’
‘No such thing as bad publicity, isn’t that what you once said to me?’
Immediately Max knew she was right. It would be great for ratings.
Ruby chose to die because she could see her fame fading and she couldn’t face the consequences. This way she would be spared the indignity of an old age in the public eye. It would be the ultimate retreat. She would out-Garbo Greta Garbo. She would have the chance to relax and spend the money she had worked so hard for, rather than giving it away as a replacement for the affection she could not muster. She’d laboured for most of her life. She deserved it.
Octavia and Vincent would not miss her. She would leave them the beach house to fight over. She would miss them, but not enough to make her stay. They stopped loving her the day that Dante died.
‘Hypothetically, how would we do this?’ she said.
And slowly they worked out the details.
At first the idea of suicide didn’t appeal. Ruby screwed up her nose. Too messy, too pitiful. Ruby was a survivor, she would never quit. Then Max had said, ‘Marilyn,’ and suddenly it all made sense. To leave now would mean real immortality, not a lifetime of cameras trying to capture her decline.
‘Where will you hide?’ said Max.
‘I know a place.’
Where?’
‘I’m not going to tell you. If I’m really going to do this then it has to be all or nothing.’
‘I’ll miss you,’ he said.
‘How long?’
‘Ruby, it’s for ever, you understand that, right?’
‘I mean, until you can liquidize all my assets?’
‘Everything?’
‘Everything except the jewels and the beach house. They’re for the children.’
‘Are you absolutely sure about this?’
‘How long, Max? How long do I have to live?’ She was immersed in the self-created drama. It was the most spectacular production she had ever been a part of. It was the perfect ending. It didn’t occur to her that she would never be able to take the credit.
It was impossible to break the news to the cast of Next of Kin gently. When Max Parker found Ruby’s body in her trailer on the empty Next of Kin lot, most of the cast were in cars on the way to work. They arrived to find an ambulance in the pick-up point and a makeshift barrier preventing them from entering the set. Simon Bull and Natasha Aldred, two second-string characters, exchanged pleasantries in the canteen and tried to guess what might have happened when they saw a body bag wheeled by on a gurney. It was enough to put Natasha off her pro-biotic oat bran.
Max came into the room shortly afterwards. He knew he had to nail this performance. His hands shook as he tried to dial a number on his cellphone.
‘Who died?’ Natasha was brutally succinct.
‘Ruby.’
‘Fuck.’ Simon shared Natasha’s way with words. ‘Max, what happened? Sit down.’
‘I can’t. I have to call Octavia. She should hear this from a friend.’ His hands were shaking so much that he dropped the phone.
‘Let me do it,’ said Natasha. She had recovered her composure and was simultaneously wondering if Ruby’s death would enhance her career and if her lack of tact with Max would harm it. She took the phone from his hand and tried to make amends.
‘What happened?’ asked Simon.
‘She was just lying there. I thought she was asleep and then I smelt… do you think I could get a glass of water?’
Simon looked around for a production runner and was momentarily at a loss without one. Realizing it was up to him, he walked over to the water cooler. Max sipped from a paper cone and some of the colour began to return to his milky-white face. He looked twenty years older. They waited for him to finish his sentence. ‘And then I smelt her vomit.’
Natasha winced at the thought of such an unglamorous death. ‘Octavia’s machine is on at home. I’m dialling the cell. Um, Octavia? Hi, I have Max Parker for you.’
‘Octavia, sweetheart, it’s Max. Where are you?’ Max sank on to one of the hard wooden chairs and Simon and Natasha left the canteen to give him privacy.
‘Wow, pretty heavy, huh?’ said Simon. ‘You got a smoke? Gave up last week. If ever there was an excuse to start.’
Natasha pulled out a pack of Marlboro Lights. ‘Do you think we’ll work today?’
‘I doubt it.’ Simon pulled heavily on the cigarette and appraised Natasha with a critical eye. ‘Wanna hang out in my trailer until they call us?’ Hell, yeah, there were worse ways to spend an unexpected day off than banging a blonde with a shit-hot rack.
Natasha looked him straight in the eye. She knew exactly what he was suggesting. What was it that people said about coming together in a crisis? ‘Sure.’
Simon and Natasha were just like the rest of Hollywood. They were stunned, but only for a short while, because this was a town where anything can happen and it takes a lot more than a drug-fuelled suicide to stop the clocks.
Right up until she died Max was convinced that it would never work. He had underestimated the influence of money and power. Ruby always got what she wanted. In Hollywood it would seem that even your death could be given the green light if you had the finance.
All you needed was a decommissioned ambulance off e-bay and a coroner willing to accept an enormous bribe. The media did the rest.
By ten o’clock that morning everybody knew a garbled version of the facts. By six, Ruby’s death was knocked off the top of the news by a sharp fall in the Dow Jones. By Saturday night it was history. Then a long-lost daughter emerged and kept the story running, a tribute was arranged to coincide with the start of the new series, and Ruby Valentine was hotter than she’d been for years.
39
Kelly couldn’t believe it. No way.
All her acquired knowledge about Ruby seemed to rearrange itself in her head with dizzying speed, like a magician’s shuffle. It was preposterous, it was impossible. Max had to be lying. But her insti
ncts were screaming at her to trust them. And they were telling her that what Max was saying was true.
‘Why should I believe you?’ she said. ‘Do you have any proof?’
‘Of course not,’ replied Max. ‘We covered our tracks very carefully. That was the whole point. Nobody will find anything, no matter how deep they dig.’
Kelly looked across at Jez, who was agog, bug-eyed and transfixed, looking first at Kelly then at Max. This was better than any soap opera. He was thrilled to be a part of it. He was happy for Kelly. Her mum was alive, that was good, right?
‘Let’s say I believe this crazy story,’ said Kelly, ‘Why would you tell me? Isn’t that a big risk? I could go running off to the newspapers right now.’
‘And tell them what? You said yourself, it’s crazy. Besides, I don’t think you’re like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘A sell-out. Sheridan told me how many offers you got to tell your story, but apart from that one profile with Sofia – which I know she kind of forced you into doing – you’ve kept your mouth shut. That’s classy.’
‘But being famous meant so much to her.’
‘Not really,’ said Max. ‘Only when she was right on top. Success is elusive that way. Once you’ve tasted it, everything else is failure.’
Kelly felt tears swim in her eyes. Her vision misted. Ruby was alive? What kind of person pulled that sort of trick on their friends and family? Put them through all that grief? Except, when Kelly really thought about it, perhaps Ruby had known that their grief would only be superficial. She had known that Octavia’s true concern would be money, Vincent’s his career, Sofia’s her profile.
But what about me? She didn’t know how I would feel.