Stolen Beginnings

by Susan Lewis

  ‘Frightened you? In heaven’s name, Deidre, aren’t you being a touch theatrical?’

  ‘I expect so,’ she said, holding a photograph up to the light. After she’d studied it for a moment or two, she put it back on the pile and turned her eyes to Roy. ‘But when he looked at me it was so eerie. I mean, it was as though there was no one inside his body. He looked . . . He looked dead.’

  ‘Dead?’ Roy burst out laughing, and pursing her lips Deidre carried on through the photographs.

  ‘I’ve got the answer,’ he said, once his hilarity had passed. ‘Paul O’Connell is Sergio Rambaldi’s doppelgänger. How does that sound?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Deidre said, laughing despite herself. ‘Still, you’ve met Paul, what’s he like?’

  ‘Decent enough chap, I quite like him. Bit of an intellectual when Madeleine’s not around, but you can’t dislike a fellow for that. What you could dislike him for, though, is those looks.’

  ‘Oh Dario,’ she muttered. ‘These shots are great as test shots go, but you haven’t captured the look.’

  ‘Oh yes he has,’ Roy said. ‘Take a gander at the ones in the other envelope.’

  She did, and immediately her spirits soared. ‘Shit! How did he do it? How does she do it?’ She put them down quickly. ‘If I look at them any longer I’ll be begging you to fling me down and have your wicked way with me on the sofa,’ she grinned.

  ‘Always happy to oblige. But back to Paul. I got in touch with that friend of yours, Philip Hoves. He’s going to set up a meeting with Paul and Madeleine, just do it casually, and see what he thinks.’

  ‘See what he thinks? Didn’t you offer him . . .’

  ‘I did. And he’s taken it, so Paul’s as good as got an agent. What are you doing now?’

  ‘Calling Madeleine to tell her she’s being photographed for the Sun next Thursday.’

  ‘One of the bookers has already done it.’

  ‘Then I’ll call to tell her I’m back.’

  ‘While you’re at it, why don’t you speak to Paul, ask him if he knows Sergio?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘You’re the one who was so concerned about it only five minutes ago.’

  ‘Was I?’ She shrugged. ‘Well I’m not any more. Besides, what difference does it make if they do know one another?’

  Roy stared at her, open-mouthed; then shaking his head, he muttered something about women and left the room.

  Since Madeleine had been taken in under the Crabb umbrella, she and Paul were out almost every night. They dined at all the well-known restaurants, danced at exclusive night clubs and gambled into the early hours. Everywhere they went, photographers were at hand, and Madeleine’s pleated mini and over-the-knee socks caused a sensation when one photographer caught her whirling round a dance floor and revealing the microscopic G-string she wore underneath. As she was dancing with a distant relative of the royal family at the time, the picture was all over the tabloid press the following day, and thanks to Roy’s and Dario’s friends her name was already starting to appear in gossip columns.

  ‘It’s me! It’s me!’ she would shriek whenever she opened a paper. ‘What do you think, Paul? Do I look good there? No, I prefer the picture in yesterday’s paper, my hair looked better. Look! You’re here too. Where were we? We must have been coming out of that restaurant. What was it called? Who’s that we’re with? Can you remember their names? Oh, isn’t it the couple who invited us . . . Where did they invite us? Paul!’ And Paul would drag himself from his typewriter, study the picture for a moment or two, tell her she looked wonderful, remind her where they’d been invited, then kiss her before ambling back to his machine.

  Madeleine was ecstatic about her new life. She hardly ever thought about Marian or Bristol or her aunt, they belonged to a past so dim and distant that it might have been a dream. And on the rare occasions when they did manage to break through to her conscience, she merely shrugged them to the back of her mind and returned to the mirror. While she watched her reflection she practised laughing, frowning, pouting, eating, and once – after Paul had dragged her out of a nightclub and slapped her face for letting one of Roy’s rock star friends fondle her while they danced – even crying. After the incident Paul had taken her home, and she’d been so aroused by his violent display of jealousy that they’d all but made love in the back of the taxi. It was only when they reached the hotel that she discovered he was still angry.

  ‘You behave like a common little slut!’ he had snarled as he slammed the door behind him. ‘And the reason you behave like a slut is because you are one. Marian would never dream of making a public spectacle of herself the way you do.’

  Madeleine was so shocked by the attack that she could only stare at him; she had thought that the moment they were in the privacy of their room, they would carry on where they’d left off in the taxi. Then he flung the door key onto the dressing-table and told her to get out of his sight before he hit her again. She fled to the bathroom – and that was when she practised crying.

  She had remained in the bathroom for over half an hour, determined not to speak to him and planning how to make him suffer. But her anger turned to unease when he made no move to come and get her. After a while she unlocked the door, but still he didn’t come. In the end, her heart pounding with dread that he might have gone, she crept back into the room. He was sitting on the bed with his head in his hands.

  ‘Paul?’ she said tentatively.

  He didn’t look up but reached a hand out towards her. She grabbed it and fell to her knees in front of him. ‘I’m sorry!’ she cried, smothering his hand with kisses. ‘I shouldn’t have done it. I just didn’t think. I’m sorry.’

  He snatched his hand away and pulled her into his arms. ‘It’s I who should be sorry,’ he groaned. ‘But I was so jealous, I couldn’t help myself.’ He cupped her face between his hands and kissed her roughly on the mouth. ‘They can look at you, Madeleine, but for God’s sake don’t let them touch you.’

  ‘No, no,’ she sobbed, ‘I won’t. Not ever again.’

  ‘If there’d been a photographer there it would have been all over the papers, him with his hand up your skirt. Can’t you see what a fool that would have made of me?’

  She nodded, sniffing back the tears.

  His hands tightened their grip. ‘There’s no one in the world I’d have left Marian for, except you. Don’t drive me back to her.’

  Her eyes widened with terror and she threw herself against him. ‘No! No! Don’t say that. I love you, Paul. I won’t ever do it again, I promise.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said, holding her close and smoothing her hair. ‘It’s all right. I love you, and I’m here. I shouldn’t have hit you, I’m sorry, my darling, but I’ll make it up to you. Tomorrow night I’ll take you to dinner, just the two of us.’ He laughed. ‘We can celebrate surviving our first row.’

  She giggled, and wiping away the tears with her fingers, she watched his hands as they unzipped his trousers.

  ‘Now you can make it up to me,’ he murmured, and pulling her towards him, he guided his erection into her mouth.

  On the morning of their move to Holland Park his hangover was ferocious. He was aware that they couldn’t go on celebrating every little thing they did like this – otherwise he’d never finish his second book. However, the pleasure he was getting from Madeleine had far exceeded his expectations, and she was providing the most satisfactory raw material for his writing. At this very moment she was ordering delivery men about and getting MFI wardrobes constructed in the bedroom. Three hundred and fifty thousand pounds she’d paid for this mews house, and she was doing it up from MFI! Still, at least she was keeping her body covered, which made a change. Last night she’d had the idea that he could screw her in the bathroom with the door unlocked while all this was going on, and if anyone walked in, all the better.

  Thankfully she seemed to have forgotten that now, and was leaving him alone to loll about on a sofa that would
deeply offend his eyes even if he weren’t hung-over. Decent of her, though, to have considered him when she’d been house-hunting; it was quite a study he was going to have – but he would furnish it himself.

  Madeleine popped her head round the door. Even with her hair screwed up, no make-up and the sloppy T-shirt that fell off one shoulder, she managed to look desirable. ‘Just nipping out for some food. Keep an eye on the men, will you?’

  Paul closed his eyes, lifted a hand to wave her off and waited to hear the car pull away. It was on hire until the cars she’d bought the week before could be delivered. Thank God he’d gone with her on that particular spending spree, otherwise he’d have ended up with a Porsche or, even worse, a Rolls Royce. As it was, she had blown a hundred grand on a Range Rover for him and a Maserati for herself. The cars had been to celebrate the fact that she had her first modelling assignment and he now had an agent. He couldn’t recall now how many days it had been since Madeleine had invited Philip Hoves round to Blake’s Hotel and introduced him as a friend of Deidre’s. Friend of Deidre’s he might be, but Paul knew full well that the man was the biggest independent literary agent in the country. Well, however long ago it was, the chap hadn’t elicited any response from a publisher yet.

  Paul fell asleep then, and didn’t stir again until six that evening. Madeleine was sitting in front of a newly installed gas log-ette fire, leafing through photographs of herself and muttering replies to an imaginary interviewer – something she’d been doing ever since Deidre had mentioned coaching her for television appearances. He looked round the room, winced, and closed his eyes again. This time it wasn’t the weight of his hangover that hurt, but the sight of all those ornaments. Horse brasses hanging by the fire, china ladies in hooped skirts decorating the tops of fake wood sideboards, glass vases filled with plastic flowers, and paintings of children with tears in their eyes.

  He struggled to his feet, making for his cigarettes on the mantlepiece. He howled as he trod on something, and looking down, saw that he had ended the life of a nodding dog.

  ‘You idiot!’ Madeleine cried, picking it up.

  ‘Well, what the hell was it doing there?’

  ‘I put it there to remind me to take it out to the car – when I get it,’ she added sulkily.

  This was too much. He lit a cigarette. ‘Later, Madeleine, you and I are going to have a talk about credibility – and taste. Where are the delivery men?’

  ‘Been and gone. Do you want to look round?’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m up to it, not if this room’s anything to go by.’

  ‘What’s the matter with it?’

  ‘Everything. Did you get to the bank?’

  She shook her head. ‘I got lost, then when I got to the Strand I couldn’t find anywhere to park.’

  He didn’t even bother to ask why she hadn’t taken a cab as he had instructed her. ‘So how did you tip the men?’

  A light shot to her eyes, and inwardly he cringed. She’d let them fondle her tits, or that’s what she was going to tell him. Knowing her though, he was pretty sure she’d shown them and the fondling bit would be added on to spice up the foreplay. He didn’t feel like sex right now. ‘I’m going to take a shower,’ he said.

  He stepped into the bathroom – and then immediately stepped out again. The gold taps and accessories he could just about live with, even the pink-spotted plastic shower curtain, but the picture of the Queen, never!

  ‘Get out here!’ he yelled.

  ‘Don’t speak to me like that,’ she grumbled as she sauntered into the hall.

  ‘Make your choice, Madeleine. That photograph, or me. And that goes for every other piece of tack you’ve got scattered round this house.’

  ‘How can you call the Queen tack?’

  ‘It’s where she’s hanging that’s tacky. The throne room. That’s what you were thinking, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I thought it was witty.’

  He groaned. ‘You’re not out in the sticks now, where they write letters on lined paper’ – he was referring to the note of apology she had written after walking out on some minor photographic session – ‘and spray air freshener round the rooms. Shape up!’

  ‘I happen to like air freshener,’ she snapped. ‘And I like the Queen too. She stays.’

  He cast her a glance – and nearly laughed at her mutinous face. A battle of wills. He might not be quite up to it, but he was going to do his best to enjoy it anyway. Lowering the lid of the lavatory seat, he sat down. She waited while he looked round. ‘Even Marian had more style,’ he sneered, knowing it was a remark guaranteed to bring out her claws.

  ‘Don’t you mention her name to me! You keep doing that. You did it last night, going on with all that crap about ancient egg-heads and the rubbish they talked.’

  He grinned. ‘Metempsychosis. Transmigration of the soul. Marian would have known what I was talking about.’

  ‘She would, wouldn’t she? She’s just as boring.’

  Paul watched her agitation increase as she tried to think of something else to say. He knew it was cruel to taunt her with her intellectual inadequacies, but she was so easy to provoke and sometimes her responses were a sheer delight.

  ‘Anyway, she wouldn’t know what style was if it hit her in the face,’ Madeleine went on. ‘Going about in those baggy Laura Ashley frocks, trying to cover up her fat bum. Christ, it doesn’t even bother her that she’s ugly . . .’

  ‘I think it does. Besides . . .’

  ‘Oh yeah? When did you ever see her pluck her eyebrows or paint her nails? There’s something wrong with her. All she can ever talk about is those boring philosophy things, and you encouraged her. If she’d been a bit more like me she wouldn’t be the one wallowing in misery now, would she? Stuck up little bitch! Always had to tell people she’d been to university, just because I hadn’t. Had to let everyone know what a wonderful mother and father she had, always using long words when no one knew what the hell they meant, anything to try and belittle me. Well, she’s no one, and she’s ended up with no one, which is just what she deserves. So why the hell should I feel sorry for her?’

  Paul’s eyebrows were raised. ‘So your conscience is troubling you, Madeleine. What a surprise.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ she snapped.

  He smiled. ‘She’s worth a lot more than you think, your cousin Marian. Beauty isn’t everything, you know.’

  ‘No, money’s the rest, so just you remember who’s paying the bills around here. And shut your mouth about Marian.’

  She slammed the door and ran upstairs to the bedroom. If he didn’t keep flinging Marian in her face, she wouldn’t feel guilty at all. For God’s sake, Marian was a loser, even he knew that. She’d never been able to do anything. It was she, Madeleine, who’d had to go round those pubs, stripping to earn them some money, because Marian had got herself a degree that was no bloody use to anyone. So what if she was on her own now, it would do her good to stand on her own feet for once. And if she wasn’t surviving, what was that to do with her? She couldn’t go on looking after Marian for the rest of her life, she had other fish to fry. And everything was working out fantastically. All the newspapers were calling her gorgeous and glamorous and things like that, and she had Paul, which was even more important, so what did she want with Marian?

  An hour later, bathed and shaved, Paul came into the bedroom and found her watching herself crying. He sat on the bed and pulled her onto his lap. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’

  ‘Then why did you have to start on about Marian again? I thought you said you didn’t care about her any more.’

  ‘I don’t. Now come on, stop crying. It’s your big day tomorrow and you won’t want a puffy face, will you?’

  That he minded what she looked like on her big day was more than enough to pacify her. She gave him a look of pure worship and he kissed her gently on the mouth.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘how about showing me some of the poses you thi
nk you’ll be striking?’

  She shook her head. ‘I want you to explain to me the trans . . . the emigration . . . you know, of the soul.’

  He laughed. ‘OK, but only after you tell me exactly how you tipped the delivery men.’

  The next morning Madeleine was up early. She didn’t have to be at the studios until three, so there was time for one last sun bed session, and Paul wanted to take her for an early lunch. She loved their togetherness, and the tremors of excitement she felt when he told her how very special their relationship was, reminded her that at last she had someone she could call her very own. Someone who loved her for herself, and not out of pity like her aunt and Marian. She never allowed herself to dwell too long on the fear that he might leave her – as her parents once had; besides, she was doing everything she could to learn things, and prove to him that his career meant as much to her as it had to Marian – more, even.

  When she returned from the beauty salon he had left a message for her to meet him at Julie’s Wine Bar. She was disappointed because she had wanted him to check her tan before she went off to Wembley, but when she read the rest of his note she actually jumped up and down with joy. He had gone to see his agent; Freemantle’s, the publishers, were interested in his book.

  She was early getting to Julie’s, so she sat down to wait with a newspaper someone had left behind. She didn’t pay much attention to what she was reading, but kept glancing round to see if anyone was looking at her.

  The instant Paul walked through the door she could tell he was in a foul mood. He didn’t even bother to kiss her, but flung himself into a chair and started ranting on about characterisation, belief in motive, and structure – none of which Madeleine understood.

  ‘Anyway,’ he growled, ‘if I make Jim Penn a rich adolescent so that the female readers can fantasise about him – Jesus, anyone would think I was writing for Mills and Boon – then they’ll publish.’

  ‘That’s fantastic!’ She threw her arms round him. ‘You see, I told you you’d find a publisher once we got in the papers.’