Star Struck

by Jane Lovering

  His voice raised in a sudden shout and I turned to see Jack up on the roof behind us. I was filled with sudden anger. How dare Gethryn assume how I felt about Jack?

  ‘Before you get carried away, Geth, Jack’s already told me about the drinking. And, so what? Plenty of people drink too much! He’s given up now,’ I indicated the bottle in Geth’s hand, ‘and maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you followed his example.’

  Gethryn started to laugh, blond eyebrows raised in comic surprise. ‘Wow, this one’s got it bad for you, man.’ He took a couple of steps back, away from me, towards the edge. ‘Better watch it. Don’t want another one on the pills after you dump her ass.’ Suddenly his accent sounded less Welsh, the vowels were flattening and the whole intonation had changed, as though he were mirroring Jack’s own speech to taunt him.

  Jack stood rigid. He was still breathing hard from the four-storey ascent and his hands were so tightly fisted that his knuckles were blue. His whole body was rigid. ‘Don’t go there, Geth.’ Even his voice was tight, as though he was squeezing each word out of a constricted throat. ‘Just don’t.’

  ‘Oh, I dunno. Quite fancy picking up the pieces of this one when she finds out what you’re really like.’

  There must have been a tiny bit of my old personality still lurking underneath the new me, because normally I would never have thought of behaving the way I suddenly did. I stalked across to Gethryn, slapped him hard across the face and said, ‘And don’t you assume that I’m some weak, pathetic little thing who’s going to collapse if a man doesn’t want to fall in love with her. I might have scars, but, you know something? When scars heal, what’s underneath is stronger.’

  Gethryn started to laugh. He swayed backwards across the roof away from me and raised the bottle to me in a toast as he went. ‘Oh, so you’ve not told her about Suicide Sophie then?’ Lowering his voice in pretend confidentiality to me, ‘He had a girl, Skye. Bloody adored him, she did, but our Jack, our Iceman, oh, he can’t possibly love her can he? Not with him bein’ all cool and unemotional now, be letting the side down, wouldn’t it, Ice? So she ups and tries to top herself.’ Another huge swig. ‘And our Jack? Hardly even fucking blinks. That’s him, that’s the man you’ve got yourself all hot an’ bothered over.’

  A quick glance showed me Jack had squeezed his eyes shut.

  ‘I don’t care.’ I surprised myself by having such a level tone. ‘Everyone has the chance to start again, Gethryn. Everyone.’

  Geth laughed into the neck of the bottle. ‘Playing this one different, are you, writer-man?’

  ‘This one is different.’ Jack edged a little further onto the roof. ‘And this isn’t about her. It’s about you and me, isn’t it? That’s why you’re up here, Geth, after all. Leave her out of it.’

  Gethryn sat suddenly, as though his legs had lost strength. ‘Oh, but it’s such fun to see you squirm. Betcha regretting all those girls you chucked out; Sophie and Mariette and Del and … that little one with the big …’ cupped hands to chest, Geth grinned hugely. ‘All of ’em runnin’ to me, full of stories about “howwible nasty wyter man”.’ He tilted the bottle to his lips at an angle that indicated it was almost empty then, in a move that was at odds with his cheerful drunk persona, he drew his arm back and threw the bottle off the edge of the roof, giving it a vicious spin.

  We waited a moment, then heard it shatter.

  ‘And anyway,’ Gethryn again carried on his one-man conversation, ‘if you thought this was only about you and me, why’d you send her up? Eh? Or is she the cover, something disposable?’

  ‘Skye. Is not. Disposable.’ When I looked at Jack his face was so pale that his eyes and hair seemed to hang unsupported. He had his hands clenched so tightly that his nails must have been hurting his palms.

  I crouched down beside Geth, who’d sprawled his legs and leaned up against the air-conditioning funnel. ‘What is all this about?’

  A sigh. ‘Now, let me see. How long have you got?’

  I looked out across the 360° panorama of Nevada visible from the roof. To our left the encampment was beginning to pack up as the sun rose and the temperature climbed. A number of people still stood, phones raised as they captured our high-rise drama, but most of them had lost interest as soon as Geth had stepped back from the edge, and were concentrating on the last dregs of convention-spirit flying around. To our right and stretching behind us was a cordon of security, masterminded by the probably increasingly frantic Gary and his huge henchmen. Everyone stood at a distance. No-one could hear a word we said up here. It was probably the ultimate privacy.

  ‘Gethryn.’ I copied Jack’s technique when he’d been talking to Felix. Made my voice go low and gentle. ‘Tell me.’

  When I looked across to see how Jack was taking all this I saw that his eyes, burning deep and dark in that haunted face, were fixed on me.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Skye, don’t.’

  Gethryn laughed. ‘She doesn’t know the worst of you yet, does she? You given her the edited version of your shit, have you?’ His face darkened. ‘Told her about the “tortured writer, struggling to keep his show on the road”? Done the whole “but I had the strength to get over it, not like poor old Gethryn who can’t stop drinking and had to be fired to stop him ruining the filming”? Christ, man, you really take the fucking biscuit, you know that?’ Another new bottle tipped to his lips. He seemed to have an inexhaustible supply, which meant he’d been hiding them up here systematically. Planning this? I couldn’t guess.

  ‘I’ll tell her.’ Jack had come closer while I’d been paying such close attention to Geth. He now stood only a handful of inches away, close enough for me to smell the coconut scent of his hair and the sharp, salty smell of his skin. ‘Let me do this, Geth.’

  Geth’s face had fallen in, become lined and old as though opening that last bottle had released centuries. ‘You ask him …’ he spoke slowly, deliberately, keeping his eyes on my face, ‘about that leather lace around his neck. That’s what’s at the heart of him, if he’s even still got a fucking heart.’ The neck of the bottle pointed at me. ‘You ask him about that, girlie.’

  ‘Geth.’ Jack’s voice was heavy with pleading.

  Gethryn leaned in closer, lowered his voice to little more than a breath. ‘Ask him about Lissa. Ask him about the baby.’ Then he leaned back, spread his hands. ‘She’s all yours, man. Be my guest. I’m looking forward to her slapping you around; she’s got one hell of a right hook, your girl.’

  Jack reached out a hand and tugged at my elbow. He pulled me across the roof until we stood in the shadow of a cooling tower, our backs to Gethryn. ‘I would have told you, you must believe that. I would have told you. But I thought it best … I wanted … ah, shit.’ He ran both hands through his hair until it stayed away from his face. ‘I wanted you to see me as I wanted to be. I wanted to keep it all going, as though by making you believe it, it could all become a little bit more real.’

  I looked steadily at him. ‘And that is why you backpedalled on me? After we … after the gulley?’

  ‘Everything I’ve ever touched has ended badly,’ he said simply. ‘Everything. And I don’t want to start something new, something with you, only to watch it all crash and burn when I do something, say something, stupid or when the drink comes back to haunt me or when …’ A hand reached up to roll the leather against his skin. ‘When the memories get too much.’

  I put my hand up and covered his to still the restless motion of his fingers on the thong. ‘Tell me. Let me make my own decisions, Jack. Please. I can’t help you if I don’t know.’

  Despite the heat from the rapidly ascending sun, Jack’s hands were icy. ‘I don’t want …’ His voice came at an odd pitch, as though it was fighting to get out of his throat, ‘I don’t want you to hate me. Not you, Skye, with your kindness and your innocence, wanting to help me – I don’t want to see all
that die right in front of me when you find out what a useless fuckwit I really am.’ His voice lowered still further, hissing out between his teeth. ‘I want you to like me. I want to pretend that I’m still someone good enough to like.’

  I took both his hands in mine, trying to will some warmth into them. Jack just stood, head hanging so that his hair obscured his face. ‘I need to know,’ I said, steadily. ‘I need to know you. If you only tell me the good stuff and I only like you because I think you’re … well, it won’t be real, will it? Like with Gethryn, it’d only be superficial. Jack, I need to know.’

  One hand released itself so that he could make a half-hearted attempt to clear the hair from his face, but it simply slumped back down again, leaving me staring at a curtain of black. ‘I don’t know where to start, Skye. That’s the truth of it. I’ve been carrying it all for so long I …’ A huge, indrawn breath made his shoulders rise. ‘Okay. Take it from the top. The car crash where Ryan died.’ Seemingly unconscious of what he was doing he looped a finger underneath the lace. I could see his hand shaking. ‘I’d stolen the car earlier that night; we were out of our brains on crack, doing ninety down a dual carriageway and I hit a bollard.’ He sucked in air as though it wasn’t touching his lungs. ‘I had a record. Possession of Class As, car theft. They locked me up, Skye. I’d killed the best friend I ever had, and they locked me away.’

  He glanced up now; his eyes were desperate, willing me to understand. ‘I was a crack-smoking lowlife and I killed my best friend; Ryan died because I was high and thought I could handle a performance car.’ It was only when I felt the hot, wet weight hit my hand that I realised he was crying. His expression hadn’t changed, but tears were gathering and falling steadily. ‘And I didn’t learn my lesson.’ Without acknowledging the tears he swiped the back of his wrist across his eyes. ‘You’d think, wouldn’t you, killing someone would do it? But not for me, Skye, for me that wasn’t enough.’

  Gethryn was watching us over the lip of the bottle. He raised an eyebrow when he saw me looking at him, and gave me a little wave. He seemed to be enjoying Jack’s misery.

  ‘When I got out of prison I reinvented myself. Used my mother’s maiden name, went on courses, started writing. Had to tell the network heads when they brought me over to the US, had to tell immigration and all, but I’d been a minor when I was convicted and they were desperate to get me over here so it all got … swept away. Pushed underground. No-one knew about the real me, the old me. I felt such a fucking fraud, is it any wonder I stayed hidden? Lied to anyone who asked, “Yeah, I’m just this guy from Leeds, nothing to see here, keep moving.” It made me feel crap. And people were digging, y’know, press, other writers, looking for that little titbit they could use against me, get me fired, get me off the show, fucking Brit boy coming over here, taking their jobs …’ He held a finger against his mouth as if to stop himself pouring the horror out over the gritty roof. ‘I needed help, needed someone, and one night I got blasted and I told Lissa. She helped me keep the lie, mostly to save her own skin, or at least the agency’s. Don’t think people would have liked to deal with an agency that had a convicted criminal who’s lying about his identity as a client.’

  ‘It was her choice, Jack.’ I touched his arm, but he didn’t react. ‘And how does it affect Geth? Why does he hate you so much?’

  Jack’s whole body stilled. ‘I thought it was fate, you know? Finding Geth … persuading him to come back into acting for Fallen Skies, because, even with everything, even with all this –’ an arm swept around, – ‘he’s still a terrific actor. That Emmy wasn’t a fluke, Geth.’ He raised his voice slightly, but it was met with a shrug and another raised bottle. ‘But I didn’t know about him. I should have checked up, looked into it all but … too drunk. Too desperate to get the show made while they still liked me.’

  ‘So his drinking was a problem?’

  That got me an impatient shake of the head. ‘Geth’s family came over here when he was fifteen. Running from their own ruined lives – what the hell is it with the States, that we all end up here when we can’t bear it at home any more? Sorry. Rhetorical. Can’t help myself sometimes.’ Another tear caught on the stubble on his cheek, one single bead of misery, unacknowledged. ‘They moved from Leeds. He’s Ryan’s brother. I never even knew Ry had a brother – course, we weren’t exactly dropping round to each other’s houses for tea or anything but … you’d have thought I’d have known. But. Yeah. He was eleven when Ryan died …’ Another indrawn breath, as though he was trying to pull all the misery back inside. ‘I didn’t find out until he told me. The English accent he used on Skies, that’s his real one. It’s the Welsh that’s a put on.’

  My eyes went back to Gethryn. He was still sprawled as though lying on this sunny rooftop was the only thing he had to do all day, relaxed and at ease. But now I could see underneath to the bones of unhappiness. ‘Geth,’ I whispered.

  ‘Y’see?’ Jack’s voice sounded as though it came from years away. ‘It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that we found each other, the TV world isn’t that huge. But I’d changed my name and I’d never known he existed, so … and we worked together. It all worked.’

  ‘But he found out who you were.’

  Jack bunched the hem of his T-shirt and scrubbed it over his face. The scar over his ribcage flickered in and out of vision for a moment, like a flip-book animation, as though two alternate lives rode one over the other. ‘It was Lissa. She got pregnant. My baby, Skye. My child. And I thought … I honestly thought that it would save me. That I’d finally be able to care for something, that I’d be able to leave the past behind and start to love someone.’

  ‘Jack.’

  I couldn’t stop myself from looking away from him, tearing my eyes from his hunched shoulders and glancing over at Gethryn. The expression of triumph on his face made me feel sick.

  ‘But by then I’d crapped it all up with Liss – and I don’t blame her for it. Having a baby by a guy with my background, a drunken bastard who didn’t love her, couldn’t love her – who said I’d even be able to love the child? And she ran.’

  Gethryn was nodding now, smirking at me and raising his eyebrows.

  ‘She ran to him?’

  Jack’s eyes were closed and new lines of strain creased around them. ‘Yeah. She said she loved me. He was all body and brawn, she said. Until … well, he understood. That’s his real gift, Skye. He took all of them after that, all the girls I … every one I couldn’t love, they all ran to Geth in the end. I damaged them and he understood.’ Jack rested his forehead against my shoulder and just stood silently. I knew he was still crying because of the spreading dampness of the velvet across my skin, but he made no sound and no movement at all, until I put my arms around him, when he let out the single word, ‘Sorry.’

  The Iceman had shattered.

  ‘She told him all about me and he’s used it against me every day since.’ He spoke into my skin. ‘Every day. Whispering Ryan’s name, telling me what a lousy, fucked-up father I would have made …’

  ‘The baby …?’ I felt his tears against my neck, felt his shoulders give one last, huge heave.

  ‘She lost it. Stress, they said, when Geth cheated on her. Geth cheated on all of them, in the end.’ The words sounded as though they came from between clenched teeth. ‘No baby. No Lissa. No love.’ A violent shudder. ‘No salvation.’

  Gethryn had lost all pretence of gazing at the view or concentrating on the bottle. Those golden eyes were watching us and I noticed, for the first time, how predatory they looked. ‘You still think it was coincidence, don’t you, Ice? You finding me, me getting that part on North, you bringing me onto Skies? No, I knew who to talk to, who to put pressure on, to get in. You stupid, fucked-up bastard, I knew who you were all along. People talk, you know that? Everyone back home in Leeds, in the old neighbourhood, they all knew when you came out of prison, all knew you’
d changed your name and ponced off to live in York like nothing had ever happened – people don’t like that sort of thing, see. They like men who stand up and take responsibility, not men who run off and try to pretend to be someone else. Must have had thirty letters that week, my family. Leeds might be a big city, but you get a name for things like you did, a name that carries with you, whatever you call yourself. No, I knew who you were; I was just biding my time.’

  ‘So you let me blame Lissa?’ Jack’s words were muffled against my skin.

  Gethryn’s laughter made my skin creep.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The pain was indescribable. Jack felt it take the strength from his legs and the will from his mind as it swept through, riding the train of memory. But Skye stood steadily, letting him embrace the agony and wash it out in tears on her skin. She was even holding him, murmuring words he couldn’t hear into his hair, putting her cheek to his as if to share some of the pain.

  ‘You see what kind of man I am? Now, do you see? When I got out … I locked it all up tight, all the feelings and the guilt, all in a little box marked “alcohol”. I drank so that I could feel drunk. To reassure myself that I could at least feel something; even altered states of consciousness are better than nothing.’

  He didn’t tell her that nineteen years hadn’t dulled any of the memories. That he could still hear Ryan’s scream as the car hit, still hear the tearing, grinding sound of the car being peeled apart like an orange. Could still hear himself laughing, that stupid, piercing laugh of the recklessly high, blindly incomprehensive of just what he’d done.