‘Oh God, that sounds good – a forever of normality,’ I bit my lip, diving into his eyes again and swimming around for joy before splashing my way tearfully towards the most wonderful of long kisses.
‘There’s only one problem, Al,’ I realized as I resurfaced for air. ‘Half the country’s press are camped outside this house right now and they know we’re in here.’
‘So?’ He laughed. ‘Let’s give them something to write about before we disappear forever. Where’s your suitcase? Does Carrot need anything packing? Some food and her bed, maybe.’
Now that gave me an idea …
As we tanked along to M20, laughing our heads off, we heard the first reports of our extraordinary exit from my cottage on Radio 5 Live.
‘The couple are believed to have left Smack’s house dressed in gorilla suits. Most of the tabloids have already put this down to a publicity stunt after Bill Roth’s extraordinary confessions in today’s News. Editors say that the Alchemist has stretched his credibility too far this time.’
‘Welcome to incredibility,’ I laughed.
‘Incredible,’ Al stretched across to kiss me as we queued for the Channel Tunnel. ‘We’re the first celebrity couple who got together to escape the limelight completely. Where do you fancy going? I hear the South of France is lovely at this time of year.’
‘Too many stars.’ I wrinkled my nose. ‘How about Belgium?’
‘Well, the chocolate’s nice,’ he nodded. ‘And we could afford to rent a little farmhouse somewhere remote.’
‘Perfect,’ I sighed, leaning back and tickling Carrot’s nose. ‘What will we do there?’
‘I rather thought,’ he chewed his lip and glanced at me guiltily, ‘that we could set up a super-discreet retreat for harassed celebrities?’
I started to giggle in England, and I was still laughing when we got to France.
Marian Keyes
Marian Keyes' international bestselling novels include Rachel's Holiday, Last Chance Saloon, Sushi for Beginners, Angels, The Other Side of the Story, Anybody Out There, This Charming Man, The Brightest Star in the Sky and The Mystery of Mercy Close. Two collections of her journalism, Under the Duvet and Further Under the Duvet, are also available from Penguin. Marian lives in Dublin with her husband.
The Truth is Out There
Marian Keyes
Los Angeles International Airport: teeming with passengers, arrivals, film stars, illegal immigrants, a dazed English girl called Ros and, of course, the odd alien or two freshly landed from another planet. Well, only one alien, actually. A small, yellow, transparent creature who liked to be called Bib. His name was actually Ozymandmandyprandialsink, but Bib was just much more him, he felt. Bib was in Los Angeles by accident – he’d stolen a craft and gone on a little joyride, only planning to go as far as planet Zephir. Or planet Kyton, at the most. But they’d been repairing the super-galaxy-freeway and diverting everyone and somehow he’d lost his way and ended up in this place.
Ros Little hadn’t landed from another planet, she just felt like she had. The twelve-hour flight from Heathrow, the eight-hour time difference and the terrible row she’d had the night before she’d left all conspired to make her feel like she was having a psychotic episode. Her body was telling her it should be the middle of the night, her heart was telling her her life was over, but the brazen mid-afternoon Californian sun dazzled and scorched regardless.
As Ros dragged her suitcase through the crowds and the drenching humidity towards the taxi-rank, she was stopped in her tracks by a woman’s shriek.
‘It’s an alien!’ the helmet-haired, leisure-suited matron yelled, jabbing a finger at something only she could see. ‘Oh my Lord, look, just right there, it’s a little yellow alien.’
How very Californian, Ros thought wearily. Her first mad person and she wasn’t even out of the airport yet. In other circumstances she’d have been thrilled.
Hastily Bib assumed invisibility. That was close! But he had to get out of here because he knew bits and pieces about planet earth – he’d been forced to study it in ‘Primitive Cultures’ class. On the rare occasions he’d bothered to go to school. Apparently, Los Angeles was alien-spotting central and the place would be overrun with X-Filers in a matter of minutes.
Looking around anxiously, he saw a small girl-type creature clambering into a taxi. Excellent. His getaway car. Just before Ros slammed the door he managed to slip in beside her unnoticed, and the taxi pulled away from the crowd of people gathered around the hysterical matron.
‘But, Myrna, aliens ain’t yellow, they’re green, everyone knows that,’ was the last thing that Ros heard, as they skidded away from the kerb.
With heartfelt relief, Ros collapsed on to the air-conditioned seat – then froze. She’d just got a proper look at her cabbie. She’d been too distracted by Myrna and her antics to notice that he was a six foot six, three hundred pound, shaven-headed man with an eight-inch scar down the back of his scalp.
It got worse. He spoke.
‘I’m Tyrone,’ he volunteered.
You’re scary, Ros thought, then nervously told him her name.
‘This your first visit to LA?’ Tyrone asked.
‘Yes,’ Ros and Bib answered simultaneously, and Tyrone looked nervously over his shoulder. He could have sworn he’d heard a second voice, an unearthly cracked rasp. Clenching his hands on the wheel, he hoped to hell that he wasn’t having an acid flashback. It had been so long since he’d had one, he’d thought he’d finally grown out of them.
When the cab finally negotiated its way out of LAX, Los Angeles looked so like, well, itself that Ros could hardly believe it was real – blue skies, palm trees, buildings undulating in the ninety-degree haze, blonde women with unfeasibly large breasts. But as they passed by gun-shops, 24-hour hardware stores, adobe-style motels offering waterbeds and adult movies, and enough orthodontists to service the whole of England, Ros just couldn’t get excited. ‘It’s raining in London,’ she tried to cheer herself up, but nothing doing.
To show willing she pressed her nose against the glass. Bib didn’t, but only because he didn’t have a nose. He was enjoying himself immensely and thoroughly liked the look of this place. Especially those girl-type creatures with the yellow hair and the excess of frontage. Hubba hubba.
Tyrone whistled when he drew up outside Ros’s hotel. ‘Class act,’ he said in admiration. ‘You loaded, right?’
‘Wrong,’ Ros corrected, hastily. She’d been warned that Americans expected lots of tips. If Tyrone thought she was flush she’d have to tip accordingly. ‘My job’s paying for this. If it was me, I’d probably be staying in one of those dreadful motels with the water-beds.’
‘So, you cheap, huh?’
‘Not cheap,’ Ros said huffily. ‘But I’m saving up. Or at least I was, until last night …’
For a moment terrible sadness hung in the air and both Bib and Tyrone looked at Ros with compassionate interest laced with a hungry curiosity. But she wasn’t telling. She just bit her lip and hid her small pale face behind her curly brown hair.
Cute, Bib and Tyrone both realized in a flash of synchronicity. She’s cute. Not enough happy vibes from her though, Tyrone felt. And she’s not quite yellow-looking enough for my liking, Bib added. But she’s cute, they nodded in unconscious but undeniable male bonding.
So cute, in fact, that Tyrone hefted her suitcase as far the front desk and – unheard of, this – waved away a tip.
‘Maaan,’ Tyrone thought, as he lumbered back to the car. ‘What is wrong with you?’
After the glaring mid-afternoon heat, it took a moment in the cool shade of the lobby for Bib’s vision to adjust enough to see that the hotel clerk who was checking Ros in was that Brad Pitt actor person.
What had gone wrong? Surely Brad Pitt had a very successful career in the earth movies. Why had he down-graded himself to working in a hotel, nice as it seemed? And why wasn’t Ros collapsed in a heap on the floor? Bib knew for a fact that Brad Pitt had t
hat effect on girl-types. But just then Brad Pitt shoved his hair back off his face and Bib realized that the man wasn’t quite Brad Pitt. He was almost Brad Pitt, but something was slightly wrong. Maybe his eyes were too close together or his cheekbones weren’t quite high enough, but other than his skin having the correct degree of orangeness, something was off.
Before Bib had time to adjust to this, he saw another earth movie star march up and disappear with Ros’s suitcase. Tom Cruise, that was his name. And he really was Tom Cruise, Bib was certain of it. Short enough to be, Bib chortled to himself smugly. (Bib prided himself on his height, he went down very well with the females on his own planet, all two foot eight of him.)
The would-be Brad Pitt handed over keys to Ros and said, ‘We’ve toadally given you an ocean-front room, it’s rilly, like, awesome.’ Invisible, but earnest, Bib smiled and nodded at Ros hopefully. This was bound to cheer her up. I mean, an ocean-front room that was rilly, like awesome? What could be nicer?
But Ros could only nod miserably. And just as she turned away from the desk Bib watched her dig her nails into her palms and add casually, ‘Um, were there any messages for me?’ While Brad Pitt scanned the computer screen, Bib realized that if he had breath he would have been holding it. Brad eventually looked up and with a blinding smile said, ‘No, ma’am!’
Bib wasn’t too hot on reading people’s minds – he’d been ‘borrowing’ spacecraft and taking them out for a bit of exercise during Psychic lessons – but the emotion coming off Ros was so acute that even he was able to tune in to it. The lack of phone call was bad, he realized. It was very bad. Deeply subdued, Bib trotted after Ros to the lift, where someone who looked like Ben Affleck’s older, uglier brother pressed the lift button for them.
Bib was very keen to get a look at their room and he was half impressed, half disappointed. It was very, tasteful, he supposed the word was. He’d have quite liked a water-bed and adult movies himself, but he had to say he was impressed with the enormous blond and white room. And the bathroom was good – blue and white and chrome. With interest he watched Ros do a furtive over-her-shoulder glance and quickly gather up the free shower cap, body lotion, shampoo, sewing kit, emery board, cotton buds and soap and shove them in her handbag. Somehow he got the impression that she wasn’t what you might call a seasoned traveller.
A gentle knock on the door had her zipping her bag in a panic. ‘Come in,’ she called and Tom Cruise, all smiles and cutesy charm was there with her case. He was so courteous and took such a long time to leave that Bib began to bristle possessively. Back off, she’s not interested, he wanted to tell Tom. Who’d turned out not to be Tom at all. He only looked like Tom when he was doing the smile, which had faded the longer he’d fussed and fiddled in the room. At the exact moment that Bib realized why Tom was lingering, so did Ros. A frantic rummage in her bag and she’d found a dollar (and spilled the sewing kit on to the floor in the process). Tom looked at the note in his hand, then looked back at Ros. Funny, he didn’t seem pleased and Bib cursed his own perpetual skintness. ‘Two?’ Ros said nervously to Tom. ‘Three?’ They eventually settled on five and instantly Tom’s cheesy, mile-wide smile was back on track.
No sooner had Tom sloped off to extort money from someone else than the silence in the room was shattered. The phone! It was ringing! Ros closed her eyes and Bib knew she was thanking that thing they called God. As for himself he found he was levitating with relief. Ros flung herself and surfed the bed until she reached the phone. ‘Hello,’ she croaked, and Bib watched with a benign smile. He almost felt tearful. But anxiety manifested itself as he watched Ros’s face – she didn’t look pleased. In fact she looked bitterly disappointed.
‘Oh, Lenny,’ she said. ‘It’s you.’
‘Don’t sound so happy!’ Bib heard Lenny complain. ‘I set my clock for two in the morning to make sure my favourite employee has arrived safely on her first trip in her new position, and what do I get? “Oh Lenny, it’s you”!’
‘Sorry, Lenny,’ Ros said abjectly. ‘I was kind of hoping it might be Michael.’
‘Had another row, did you?’ Lenny didn’t sound very sympathetic. ‘Take my advice, Ros, and lose him. You’re on the fast-track to success here and he’s holding you back and sapping your confidence. This is your first opportunity to really prove yourself; it could be the start of something great!’
‘Could be the end of something great, you mean,’ Ros said, quietly.
‘He’s not the only bloke in the world,’ Lenny said cheerfully.
‘He is to me.’
‘Please yourself, but remember, you’re a professional now,’ Lenny warned. ‘You’ve three days in LA so put a smile on your face and knock ’em dead, kiddo.’
Ros hung up and remained slumped on the bed. Bib watched in alarm as all the life – and there hadn’t been much to begin with – drained out of her. For a full half-hour she lay unmoving, while Bib hopped from pad to pad – all six of them – as he tried to think of something that would make her happy. Eventually she moved. He watched her pawing the bed with her hand, then she did a few, half-hearted, lying-down bounces. With great effort of will, Bib summoned his mind-reading skills. Jumping on the bed. Apparently she liked jumping on beds when she went to new places. She and Michael always did it. Well, in the absence of Michael, she’d just have to make do with a good-looking – even if he did say so himself – two-foot eight, six-legged, custard-yellow life-form from planet Duch. Come on, he willed. Up we get. And took her hands, though she couldn’t feel them. To Ros’s astonishment, she found herself clambering to her feet. Then doing a few gentle knee-bends, then bouncing up and down a little, then flicking her feet behind her, then propelling herself ceiling-wards. All the while Bib nodded unseen encouragement. Attagirl, he thought, when she laughed. Cute laugh. Giggly, but not daft-sounding.
Ros wondered what she was doing. Her life was over, yet she was jumping on a bed. She was even enjoying herself, how weird was that?
Now you must eat something, Bib planted in her head. I know how you humans need your regular fuel. Strikes me as a very inefficient way of surviving, but I don’t make the rules.
‘I couldn’t,’ Ros sighed.
You must.
‘OK, then,’ she grumbled, and took a Snickers from the mini-bar.
I meant something a bit more nutritious than that, actually.
But Ros didn’t answer. She was climbing, fully dressed, into bed and in a matter of seconds fell asleep, the half-eaten Snickers beside her on the pillow.
While Ros slept, Bib watched telly with the sound turned off and kept guard over her. He couldn’t figure himself out – his time here was limited, they could find the space-craft at any time so he should be out there cruising, checking out the females, having a good time at somewhere called the Viper Room. Owned by one Johnny Depp, who modelled himself on Bib, no doubt about it. But instead he wanted to remain here with Ros.
She woke at 4 a.m, bolt upright from jetlag and heartbreak. He hated to see her pain, but this time he was powerless to help her. He managed to tune into her wavelength slightly, picking up bits and pieces. There had been a frenzied screaming match with the Michael person, the night before she’d left. Apparently, he hadn’t wanted her to come on this trip. Selfish, he’d called her, that she cared more about her job than she did about him. And Ros had flung back that he was the selfish one, trying to make her choose between him and her job. By all accounts it had been the worst row they’d ever had and it showed every sign of being their last.
Human males, Bib sighed. Cavemen, that’s what they were, with their fragile egos and sense of competition. Why couldn’t they rejoice in the success of their females? As for Bib, he loved a strong, successful woman. It meant he didn’t have to work and – Oi! What was Ros doing, trying to lift that heavy case on her own? She’ll hurt herself!
Puffing and panting, Ros and Bib maneovured her case on to the bed and when she opened it and started sifting through the clothes she’d brought
, Bib realized just how distraught she must have been when she’d packed. Earth still had those quaint, old-fashioned things called seasons and, even though the temperature in LA was in the nineties, Ros had brought clothes appropriate for spring, autumn and winter, as well as summer. A furry hat – why on earth had she brought that? And four pairs of pyjamas? For a three-day trip? And now what was she doing?
From a snarl of tights, Ros was tenderly retrieving a photograph. With her small hand she smoothed out the bends and wrinkles and gazed lovingly at it. Bib ambled over for a look – and recoiled in fright. He was never intimidated by other men but he had no choice but to admit that the bloke in the photo was very – and upsettingly – handsome. Not pristine perfect like the wannabe Brads and Toms but rougher and sexier looking. He looked like the kind of bloke who owned a power screwdriver, who could put up shelves, who could stand around an open car-bonnet with six other men and say with authority, ‘No, mate, it’s the alternator, I’m telling ya.’ This, Bib deduced with a nervous swallow, must be Michael.
He had dark, messy curly hair, an unshaven chin and his attractiveness was in no way marred by the small chip from one of his front teeth. The photo had obviously been taken outdoors because a hank of curls had blown across his forehead and half into one of his eyes. Something about the angle of his head and the reluctance of his smile indicated that Michael had been turning away when Ros had clicked the shutter. Real men don’t pose for pictures, his attitude said. Instantly Bib was mortified by his own eagerness to say ‘Cheese’ at any given opportunity. But could he help it if he was astonishingly photogenic?
For a long, long time Ros stared at Michael’s image. When she eventually, reluctantly put the photo down, Bib was appalled to see a single tear glide down her cheek. He rushed to comfort her, but fell back when he realized there was no need because she was getting ready to go to work. Her heart was breaking – he could feel it – but her sense of duty was still intact. His admiration for her grew even more.
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