Alarm Call
Page 29
‘Five, once you’ve had time to think about things, you’ll come back to Scotland and give yourself up. You’re not facing any criminal charges here, but there are things over there that won’t go away till you’ve dealt with them. I’d rather my son’s mother has a prison record than she’s a constant fugitive.
‘All of those things: do you promise them, now?’
She dabbed her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she said, quietly. And I believed her. So far, I have to say, she’s kept her word.
Chapter 36
That’s not where it finished, of course. I went back to the Bellagio, woke Susie, and told her everything she hadn’t known up until then, especially the fact that I had a son neither of us had known about till the day before. (Maybe it was two days before in Susie’s case: I’m really crap when it comes to time differences.)
She took it all pretty well, although when I told her that Prim wouldn’t be liable to arrest in the US, and that I’d turned her loose, she huffed for a bit.
She stayed in Vegas with me for the rest of my commitment to Serious Impact. That’s just been released, by the way. It’s doing a bundle at the box office, and Liam, the spotless Jerry, Santi Temple, the new girl in GWA, whose name is Gamma Raye, and I are getting some very nice reviews.
When it was finished we went back to Scotland, with things to do. Some of them involved the flotation of the Gantry Group, making us even more stupidly rich. Some of them involved receiving Henry Potter’s proposal and accepting it, to the extent of going shopping for homes in LA and Monaco. Some of them involved my sister’s wedding to Harvey January, who, for some reason, asked me to be his best man. (Jonny was excellent as an usher, but Colin was a complete disaster. My dad held up well; it’s not right that a man should fork out for two weddings for one daughter, so I picked up the tab.)
However, above and before all that, there was another more important item on my agenda. As soon as I had dumped my luggage, I drove up to Auchterarder to pay my respects to Elanore, and to collect my overjoyed, exuberant son.
He chatted all the way back to Loch Lomond, where I introduced him to his tearful ... I’d seen so many of those that I feared I was beginning to dissolve ... stepmother, and to his half-sister and half-brother.
I’d explained to Janet who he was; she simply accepted him, welcoming him to the team more or less as her deputy, more or less as her mother would have welcomed a new member of staff. Wee Jonathan looked at Tom, then bit him, his own form of acceptance. In time, my application for custody was granted, uncontested, and, fortunately, unreported.
Primavera returned to Scotland a week later, and gave herself up to the police in Edinburgh. She was charged and released on bail, then went straight to Auchterarder. She and Dawn were by Elanore’s side when she died, a few days afterwards.
I took Tom to the funeral . . . she was his granny, after all ... and he rode in the car to the church and the cemetery with his mother and me. There wasn’t a lot said between them, indeed among the three of us; Tom watched us, curiously. No wonder: it was the first time he’d seen his parents together. I don’t know what was going on in his head, for he hasn’t told me yet.
A week after that, Prim pleaded guilty to charges of perverting the course of justice and contempt of court. The judge took pity on her downcast expression and was impressed by her well-expressed remorse and gave her only six months. With a good behaviour discount she’ll be out soon, although it might be another couple of months before they give her back her passport. It’ll be interesting to see what she does then.
I won’t be in Scotland to welcome her out of the nick, though. I’ll still be in Toronto, finishing off the rock-star movie that Roscoe fixed for me. We changed our minds about taking the whole family there. Instead, Susie and the three kids, plus Ethel, Conrad and Audrey, are in our new place in Beverly Hills, sometimes being neighbourly with Miles and Dawn at theirs. When they do that, all four youngsters are looked after by their new carer, Marcie Wallinger. (Nice touch, that, Dawn.)
Nicky Johnson? Thirty years.
And that’s just about it, save for one thing.
On our last night in the Bellagio, after I’d done my big closing scene, been shot again, and been given the clapperboard that they used on it . . . Hollywood tradition ... Susie and I had dined with the team and were getting ready for bed, when she turned to me and gave me one of those looks that always fill me with anticipation.
‘Hey, Oz,’ she murmured, in the voice that goes with them, ‘do you know where you can buy that GHB stuff?’
‘Not a clue. Why do you ask?’
She winked at me. ‘You don’t really think I wiped those pictures, do you?’