Vengeance

by Susan Lewis

  There was one other person who was proving a godsend and that was Vicky, Kirsten’s personal assistant. She was the only member of the team Kirsten had hired herself and in her own inimitable fashion had managed to organize Kirsten’s busy schedule. Vicky, just like Jake, succeeded in keeping Kirsten’s spirits buoyant during times when she just wanted to throw up her hands and scream or fall to her knees and weep. In fact Vicky, who was as pretty and lighthearted as she was efficient, had worked for Kirsten on the drama that had won Kirsten a BAFTA, so even if no one else had known Kirsten at her best at least Vicky had. But even if the others had known Kirsten then, there was no getting away from the fact that Kirsten’s success had been in TV and that held sway with no one. Stripes had to be earned in the world of features or they were no stripes at all and that, even more than Campbell’s attacks, was what really lay at the root of the problem.

  Still, it wasn’t all bad, she reminded herself when she tucked herself up in bed at night. She couldn’t have wished for a greater challenge and neither would she have dared to hope that her own confidence would turn out to be her greatest ally. Things were beginning to take shape, the re-working of the script was exciting everyone and the casting, by now almost complete, was terrific. There was only one part on which she and Laurence couldn’t see eye to eye and that was the one of Moyna O’Malley herself. Laurence wanted Anna Sage, who was, to Kirsten’s mind, too young for the part and far too pretty. She had the talent to carry it off, Kirsten would concede that, it was just that she looked wrong. They’d tested her and though the wigs, make-up and costume had undoubtedly helped, she still hadn’t quite worked for Kirsten. Laurence had ended up storming out of the screening room, not uttering a word, but obviously furious at her stubbornness.

  In fact the tension between Kirsten and Laurence was growing by the day and Kirsten knew that it wasn’t only professional disagreements that were causing it. It was the proximity they shared that seemed to be creating the real difficulties. Their office, at the back of the building, gave them a privacy they both needed to work – which was of course precisely what they did. But all too often the need to sit closer together, or to lean over the other’s shoulder as something was being explained, would create an atmosphere of such acute awareness of the other that it required a superhuman effort on Kirsten’s part to keep cool. To her annoyance he seemed to sense her tension and though it could all too easily make him irritable with her it could also, though rarely, bring a teasing lilt to his voice and a softness to his eyes that was in its way so intimate and so compelling it was as though he was stealing into her with all the potency of a lover.

  Kirsten smiled sleepily to herself as she turned over, hugging the pillow. It was inevitable that part of her was now daring to hope that eventually they would get back together. She was exhilarated by the unsteady beats of her heart when she watched him taking charge, when she felt his presence as though he was touching her, when she heard his laughter and felt herself almost melt at the incredible intensity of his blue eyes, yet in a way she was terrified. For, as intransigent as her confidence might appear to others, she knew how reliant it was on Laurence for its strength. That in itself told her that it had been a mistake to take this on, but it was too late now to back out, not that she would have dreamt of doing so, it was just that her nervousness that he might do something that would hurt her emotionally was hard to shake. She knew she was in danger of becoming paranoid, but Anna Sage’s resemblance to Pippa was as unsettling as Laurence’s determination to cast her. And Anna’s obvious attraction to Laurence on the few occasions she and Laurence had met with her irked Kirsten in a way that only added to her unease. Laurence couldn’t be ignorant of the likeness though he’d never mentioned it, not even when a couple of weeks ago Dermott Campbell had run with the headline ‘Kirstie Doll snubs wife look-alike.’ Kirsten knew that Laurence hadn’t spoken to Campbell himself, he’d instructed the publicists to handle the situation; then he personally had got on the phone to Anna to laughingly tell her not to believe everything she read in the papers and had invited her to lunch to – as he put it – explain the situation. Exactly what explanation he’d given Kirsten had no idea, and neither would she ask.

  She sighed heavily as she reminded herself that Laurence strongly objected to relationships on the set. It was small comfort. So too was the flirtation she had started up with Jake. She couldn’t deny that she enjoyed the attention, almost as much as she did the sour looks it provoked from Laurence, but in truth she was doing herself no favours and she knew it. Everyone on the movie had read enough about her in the press to know that she’d slept her way to the top once, so as far as they were concerned she was doing it again. What they made of her relationship with Laurence she had no idea, but her friendship with Jake had reached Campbell’s ears and so too had the fact that Jean-Paul, the quirkily handsome Frenchman who was playing the part of Moyna’s lover and conspirator in crime, had flown into London the previous day and spent the evening with Kirsten. If only, Kirsten thought to herself, she could get her hands on whoever it was who was giving Campbell his information she’d . . . Well, she didn’t know what she’d do, but whatever it was it wouldn’t be pleasant.

  Wearily she reached into the darkness for the telephone as it started to ring. It was just before one in the morning she noticed on the bedside clock as she said hello.

  No one answered.

  ‘Hello,’ she said again, feeling her nerve ends start to prickle. Had she not been half asleep the unease might have reached her sooner for this wasn’t the first time her telephone had rung at this hour bringing an anonymous presence into the privacy of her darkened room. ‘Hello,’ she repeated.

  Still there was only silence. But someone was there, she could hear them breathing.

  ‘Hello, who is this?’ Kirsten said, her heart starting to thud as she sat up and flicked on the light.

  More silence, but as she listened Kirsten thought she could make out the distant tinkling sound of music. She pressed the receiver closer to her ear. It was a gentle, comforting sound, like a musical mobile used to lull a baby to sleep.

  ‘Hello,’ she said again. ‘Hello.’

  The line clicked and the whine of the dialling tone replaced the silence.

  A week later Kirsten was on a flight back from Dublin giving an interview to a freelance reporter who was doing a piece for Screen International and whose only chance of fitting herself into Kirsten’s schedule was to accompany her on this flight.

  ‘So,’ Kirsten was saying, ‘Rochette isn’t there, he’s out trying to find food. Moyna is asleep on a makeshift bed and doesn’t realize until the man starts to attack her that it isn’t Rochette who’s come in. She struggles, but to no avail. The man leaves and when Rochette returns he finds Moyna dead.’

  ‘Dead?’ the reporter gasped.

  ‘Yes. She’s been strangled,’ Kirsten said matter of factly. ‘Rochette is hunted down. He stands trial for Moyna’s murder and is once again sentenced to hang.’

  ‘So does he hang?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You mean the bad guys are going to win?’

  Kirsten grinned. ‘You’ll have to watch the film and find out, won’t you?’ she said, looking at Jake who was trying very hard not to laugh, and gathering up her things she prepared to disembark.

  ‘I thought for one minute there you were going to leave her up the garden path,’ Jake remarked as they left the aircraft and the reporter was whisked away by a publicity assistant.

  ‘Now would I do something like that?’ Kirsten said, all innocence. ‘Poor thing she’d never find her way back. Anyway, what I want to know is why I had to tell her the story when the publicist should already have given her a press handout. Telling it cold like that never works.’

  ‘So young Lisa’s in for a bollocking, is she?’ Jake grinned, his brown eyes dancing.

  ‘Don’t mock me,’ Kirsten warned. ‘I’ll get around to sounding off one of these days, believe me.’
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  ‘Here, let me carry that,’ Jake interrupted, as Kirsten moved her heavy bag from one shoulder to the other.

  ‘It’s OK, I can manage,’ she said, but he’d already taken it from her. ‘Ah, such chivalry,’ she laughed. ‘You wouldn’t have done that if I were a man.’

  ‘There are a lot of things I wouldn’t do if you were a man,’ Jake responded, ‘and before you get on your high horse I apologize for the sexist remark, it’s just that you bring out the macho beast in me.’

  ‘Well, just so long as the macho beast remembers to be a Director of Photography when the time is called for . . .’

  ‘He will. But I don’t suppose he can take a beautiful woman to dinner tonight, can he, and forget for a while that he’s really a DP and you’re really a director.’

  Kirsten laughed. ‘OK, why not? These past three days have been pretty gruelling racing around the Irish countryside, I guess we could all do with some relaxation.’

  ‘I wasn’t planning to take the whole unit,’ Jake objected.

  ‘And I wasn’t planning for them to come.’

  ‘Kirsten,’ David said, catching up with them, ‘could we go over the Walk On list again on the way into London?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Kirsten said readily. She didn’t mind how many times they went over it as long as he discussed it with her and not Laurence.

  ‘Hey, what do you mean, on the way into London?’ Jake suddenly cried. ‘My need is greater, more pressing and since I’m more senior I get to drive her.’

  ‘Jake, for heaven’s sake,’ Kirsten said, glancing uncomfortably at David as the three of them were swallowed up in the crowd of people waiting.

  ‘Actually, I get to drive her.’

  Kirsten spun round and found herself face to face with Laurence. ‘Laurence!’ she gasped. ‘Where did you come from? I didn’t know . . . You didn’t say you . . .’

  ‘I’ll take that,’ Laurence said, taking Kirsten’s bag from Jake and without uttering another word he turned and started out of the terminal.

  ‘If he weren’t the producer I’d smack him one for the way he always cramps my style,’ Jake muttered.

  Kirsten laughed uneasily. ‘Looks like we’ll have to take a rain-check on dinner,’ she said, her eyes still on Laurence.

  ‘I’ll keep you to that,’ Jake said, but Kirsten wasn’t listening. She’d have liked to think that Laurence’s foul temper was because he’d seen her clowning around with Jake, but she knew instinctively that it was nothing so trivial. In fact if it had brought him out here to the airport to meet her she could only conclude that it must be pretty serious.

  ‘Just quit hassling me for what this is about,’ Laurence said, hitting the indicator and pulling from the slip road on to the M4, ‘and tell me about Ireland. Did you settle on Killua Castle?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kirsten answered, ‘and I’ll give you a full report as soon as you’ve explained why you came to the airport.’

  ‘Did David work out yet how many days you’re going to need at the castle?’ Laurence asked, pressing his foot harder on to the accelerator and steering his black Mercedes into the fast lane.

  ‘Twelve, I think he said – four of those will be night shoots. And before you ask I’m going over the Walk On list with him again and the total is somewhere around one-fifty. Now, will you please tell me exactly why you’re in such a vile mood.’

  ‘It can wait till we reach the office,’ he said with a finality that made Kirsten want to scream.

  ‘Laurence,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘I am not a child and I deeply resent you turning up like this and behaving as though . . .’

  ‘I wanted to be sure you didn’t pick up a newspaper before I had a chance to stop you,’ he said, flashing someone in front for them to pull over.

  Kirsten paled as she turned to look at him. ‘What do you mean?’ she said. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘You can read it for yourself once we get to the office, then I’ll be asking you for some explanations,’ he said keeping his eyes straight ahead.

  ‘Is it . . .? Does it have something to do . . .?’

  ‘With the movie, yes. With you personally, no,’ he interrupted.

  ‘For God’s sake, Laurence, stop doing this!’ she cried. ‘I’m not in the mood for guessing games.’

  ‘Then stop trying and talk to me about Ireland.’

  Some forty minutes later they walked into the office. It was past six o’clock, but there were still people around. Laurence stopped to speak to one of the accountants while Kirsten went on ahead to their office hoping to find a newspaper, but what she found instead was something she was totally unprepared for.

  For several seconds she merely stood in the doorway watching the little boy who was happily tapping away on a computer keyboard. With his black curly hair, thick dark lashes and deep blue eyes he was so like Laurence there couldn’t, even for a moment, be any mistaking who he was and for one horrible moment, as her heart contracted painfully, Kirsten wanted to run. But it wasn’t only that he was such a beautiful child that was causing her to back away from him, it was the fact that she was only now realizing that Laurence had very likely been keeping him away from her deliberately. He was prepared to work with her, to flirt with her even, to support her and encourage her, but she could see now what a distance in reality he had kept from her. His son was the very core of his life and not once had he ever discussed him with Kirsten, nor had he mentioned Tom to anyone in front of her.

  She was about to slip away quietly when Tom looked up from the keyboard. For an instant he seemed frightened, as though he had been caught doing something wrong.

  Kirsten smiled shakily.

  Tom continued to look at her.

  ‘Hello,’ she said softly.

  His eyes grew wider.

  ‘Are you Tom?’ she said, her heart pounding in her ears.

  He nodded, uncertainly. ‘This is my Daddy’s,’ he said pointing to the keyboard.

  Again Kirsten smiled, but had to bite her lips to stop them from trembling. ‘Does Daddy know you’re here?’ she said.

  ‘I came on the bus with Jane,’ he answered.

  ‘And where’s Jane now?’

  ‘She’s gone to the toilet. Can I ring someone up?’ he asked, trying to reach the telephone.

  ‘Please,’ Jane corrected him, coming in behind Kirsten.

  ‘Please?’ Tom repeated, looking at Kirsten.

  Kirsten nodded and walked forward handing him the receiver. ‘Who are you going to call?’ she asked.

  ‘My Mummy.’

  Again Kirsten’s smile wavered. ‘Hello Jane,’ she said turning to her. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine,’ Jane said, shrugging as awkwardly as ever. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Yes, good, thank you,’ Kirsten mumbled. ‘Look, I’m sorry I haven’t returned your calls, things have been so hectic around here.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ Jane said hastily. ‘I understand. Tom, this is the lady I told you about. Do you remember? Did you tell him your name?’ she asked Kirsten.

  Kirsten shook her head and turned back to look at Tom.

  ‘This is Kirsten,’ Jane said. ‘I told you we might meet her today, didn’t I? And we’ve got a present for her, haven’t we?’

  ‘Is it your birthday?’ Tom said to Kirsten, the telephone pressed to his ear.

  ‘No,’ Kirsten smiled.

  ‘It’s my birthday soon. I’m going to be four.’

  ‘Here you are Tom, would you like to give this to Kirsten?’ Jane said, taking a package from her bag. Dimly Kirsten was aware of the difference in Jane’s voice as she spoke to Tom. She seemed so much more confident with him than she ever did with adults.

  ‘Can I have a present too?’ Tom said, turning back to Jane once he’d handed the packet over.

  Jane laughed. ‘You’ve already had a present today,’ she reminded him. ‘We went for a ride on the bus.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said dolefully. His e
yes returned to Kirsten’s. ‘Can I open your present?’

  ‘Please,’ Jane chided. ‘And no, it’s not for you . . .’

  Tom’s bottom lip jutted forward.

  Kirsten was on the point of handing it over when Tom’s eyes suddenly lit up and he was out of the chair like a shot leaving the telephone dangling. ‘Daddy!’ he shouted.

  Laurence swept him up in his arms, turned him upside down then raised him up to kiss him. ‘What are you doing here?’ he laughed into Tom’s up-turned face. ‘I thought you were going to Granny’s.’

  ‘I went on a bus,’ Tom told him.

  ‘Did you now?’ Laurence said, swinging him round so that he was sitting in the crook of his arm. ‘Was it good?’

  ‘Yes. Kirsten’s got a present.’

  ‘She has?’ Laurence frowned, turning to look at Kirsten.

  ‘Jane brought it, but I helped to make it, didn’t I Jane?’

  Kirsten hardly knew what they were saying, all she could feel were Laurence’s eyes on hers, as she somehow kept the smile on her face.

  ‘Jane,’ Laurence said, ‘take Tom out into the production office, will you?’

  Tom started to protest, but Laurence assured him there were lots of treats in store out there and setting him down he stood aside as Jane led the way out then closed the door behind them.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he said to Kirsten.

  ‘Yeah, yes, I’m fine,’ she answered.

  ‘You don’t look it.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it was just . . . Well, the shock . . . He’s so like you . . .’ tears were burning so painfully in her eyes and her heart was so filled with emotion she could barely speak.

  ‘Hey, come on,’ Laurence said, putting his arm round her shoulder. ‘I know what’s happening . . .’

  ‘No, don’t, please,’ Kirsten said, trying to, pull herself away.