Vengeance

by Susan Lewis

  ‘Kirstie . . .’

  ‘Oh God, Laurence, I didn’t know it would hurt so much,’ she sobbed.

  ‘I know,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve been trying to think of the right way for you to meet him. I knew it wouldn’t be easy for you . . .’

  ‘He’s wonderful,’ Kirsten said her voice muffled by his shoulder, her senses drowning in the belovedly familiar smell of him.

  ‘Yeah, well I kind of like him,’ Laurence smiled pushing her back so he could look at her.

  ‘Oh God, what an idiot I’m making of myself,’ Kirsten groaned, pulling away.

  ‘Hey, listen,’ Laurence said, catching her hand. ‘I understand how you’re feeling. And I told you, any time you want to talk about it . . .’

  ‘No amount of talking is ever going to change what I did.’

  ‘Kirstie, you’ve got to let it go, stop hurting yourself.’

  ‘I’ve tried,’ she said, ‘but it’s not easy. And seeing Tom . . . Oh God, what am I saying? I’m sorry, I’ll be all right in a minute.’

  Laurence dropped her hand, but he was aware of how the need to say more was almost choking him. Worse though was the feel of her still burning through his body. Sure he wanted her, he’d never deny that, but he didn’t love her and it would be wrong of him to give her any hope in that direction when they had so much at stake here. He wished to God Jane hadn’t brought Tom even though he knew that Kirsten would have had to meet him sooner or later, he’d just wanted it to be later. Having her around his son was going to be difficult to handle, for him as well as for her, and he sure didn’t want Kirsten getting attached to Tom when it was only going to end up hurting her all the more.

  Abruptly he turned and walked out of the door. He’d give her a while to collect herself while he got someone to drive Jane and Tom home. They had a pressing matter to discuss tonight, but as mad as he was about it he knew already he was going to go easier on her than he might have done if Tom hadn’t shown up.

  Fifteen minutes later Kirsten and Laurence were sitting at their desks with the door closed. Kirsten had by now finished reading the article about Helena in that morning’s paper and was looking at Laurence waiting for him to comment.

  ‘Did you know?’ he asked.

  Kirsten nodded.

  ‘Then don’t you think you should have told me?’

  ‘I would have if I’d thought this was going to happen,’ she answered.

  ‘You realize that we’ll have to pay her off and re-cast.’

  ‘But why? It all happened such a long time ago.’

  ‘The story’s right here in today’s paper,’ he reminded her. ‘And how’s it going to look once we come to shoot the scenes in New Orleans, scenes that involve boys the same age, when we’ve got someone notorious for her affairs with boys playing the part?’

  Kirsten knew he was right, she also knew she didn’t have much of an argument to put up in Helena’s defence except to say that Marie Laveau was a voodoo priestess not a paedophile. The fact that young boys were being procured from the school and that Helena was going to take part in those scenes was enough. With a weary irony Kirsten recalled how she had once slept with the head of drama in order to safeguard Helena’s job – that wasn’t going to work this time, Laurence would never be so easily coerced. But even if he could be it would have to be someone else who did the coercing, for never had he seemed more unapproachable than he did now. It was strange how those few moments of intimacy had brought down the barrier between them, and yet he now seemed to resent her for breaking down in front of him. And right now she was so tired and so confused all she wanted was to go home.

  ‘I can’t help wondering why this story should have broken now?’ she said.

  ‘The cast list was published yesterday. With your agreement to Anna Sage I saw no reason to hold it back.’

  ‘So it would seem that Campbell has been waiting in the wings. I mean, he couldn’t have got that story together overnight.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So it’s not just me he’s out to destroy it would seem, it’s Helena too.’

  ‘It would seem that way.’

  ‘But you’re prepared to put up with what he writes about me? Why not this?’

  ‘This is different.’

  ‘So, we give in to him and fire Helena?’

  ‘Kirsten, Helena Johnson went into a boy’s boarding school to research the role of a schoolmistress for a BBC play. While she was there, under total trust of the school authorities, she seduced, corrupted it says here, a fifteen-year-old pupil. Not once, not even twice, but repeatedly. She got that boy so mixed up and so crazy for her that when the authorities found out they expelled him and he hanged himself. Now tell me, how in God’s name can you defend that when we’re going to have her working with boys the same age?’

  ‘I’m not trying to defend it, I’m just asking you to help her put her past behind her, the way you have with me.’

  ‘I am not a charity, Kirsten.’

  ‘And neither are you perfect, you supercilious bastard. Don’t you think she’s paid for that? How many nights do you think she’s lain awake thinking about that boy and dying inside for what he did to himself? Do you honestly think she intended that to happen?’

  ‘She was a grown woman. He was just a boy. But even if that were supportable, which it’s not, what about her mother? For God’s sake, Kirstie, the woman’s still in prison for terrorizing people with voodoo curses. And in a Louisiana prison at that. How much worse can it get?’

  ‘So you’re going to throw Helena out and let Campbell win?’

  ‘It’s not a point of letting him win. It’s a point of what this is going to do to the movie. I know she’s a friend of yours and I appreciate that you want to help her, but she’s got to go, Kirsten.’

  ‘She’s set her heart on this, Laurence. She hasn’t worked in over four years . . .’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t help that.’

  ‘But that boy’s suicide happened over fifteen years ago! I know,’ she sighed, ‘it’s in the paper today . . .’

  ‘And it will continue to be in the paper as long as we keep her on. Is that what you want for her? Do you want people walking out of the movie because they’re revolted at seeing her with teenage boys?’

  ‘There has to be a way round it,’ Kirsten said helplessly.

  ‘Well if there is let me know and I’ll consider it. You’ve got twenty-four hours.’

  But the following morning when Kirsten arrived late in the office, having been to see Helena to explain that on this occasion there really was nothing she could do to save her, Laurence was waiting with the news that Helena was to stay on the cast.

  ‘. . . and he just refuses to tell me what happened to change his mind,’ Kirsten said to Helena that night. ‘I mean, it doesn’t make sense. He was so dead set against it and now – well, I guess we shouldn’t knock it.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what happened,’ Helena said staring down at her drink.

  ‘You mean you’ve spoken to Laurence?’

  Helena shook her head. ‘No, to Dermott Campbell. He was here last night.’ She gave a sad and bitter laugh. ‘He came to apologize, can you believe that? He actually thought I’d forgive him.’

  ‘What? Was he drunk?’

  ‘Very.’ Again the same dry and cheerless laugh. ‘That guy has to be some kind of fruitcake to think I could ever forgive what he’s done. But I can’t help wondering what that makes me for going to bed with him.’

  Kirsten blinked, opened her mouth to speak then closed it again. Her eyes started to hunt the shadowy room, moving over the untidy rows of paperbacks, the cheap abstract art, the old-fashioned hi-fi, the tiled grate with its gas fire. She looked back at Helena. Her head was still bowed, her hands were circled around the stem of her glass, her wiry hair sat dejectedly in a knot at the nape of her neck.

  ‘He told me he loved me,’ Helena whispered as a solitary tear splashed on to the table. ‘How can he love me when he did
what he did?’

  ‘He used you to get to Laurence and me,’ Kirsten answered.

  ‘Yes. But he wanted to get to me too. He blames me for putting the idea of employing you into Laurence’s head.’

  ‘Does he really think that Laurence could be so easily influenced?’

  ‘It would seem so.’ The loneliness and desolation that emanated from Helena was almost unbearable. It was so rare to see her like this that it seemed all the more tragic.

  ‘He called Laurence last night, from here,’ Helena said tonelessly. ‘He told Laurence that if he didn’t keep me on he’d go to Dyllis Fisher with the story about how you and Laurence broke up.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Kirsten murmured. ‘How on earth did he find out about that?’

  ‘I’ve got no idea. All I know is that Laurence told him to go to hell, but obviously Laurence has given it some more thought. My guess is Laurence wants to protect you.’

  ‘More likely his investment,’ Kirsten half-heartedly joked.

  ‘Yeah, that too. But he can’t afford for that kind of story to be spread across the papers, at least not the way Dyllis Fisher would tell it, and with this scandal of mine too . . . Don’t you see, one way or another it’s all to do with children. People don’t take well to horror stories about children.’

  ‘God, just what kind of man is Dermott Campbell,’ Kirsten muttered. ‘He calls himself a friend of Laurence’s, he tells you he loves you . . .’

  ‘He’s totally fucked up, that’s what he is,’ Helena said. ‘Like me, I guess.’

  ‘Come on. You’re not fucked up, you’re just . . .’

  ‘Kirsten, I went to bed with a guy who’s just destroyed my career. Who’s quite effectively seen to it that I can hardly show my face in the street again. If that’s not fucked up then tell me what is?’

  ‘What made you do it?’

  ‘Loneliness, what do you think?’

  ‘It must have been more than that.’

  ‘Yeah. I fancy him. Now that’s seriously fucked up, wouldn’t you say?’

  Kirsten was on the point of reminding her that she’d never gone for men his age before, but under the circumstances thought better of it. ‘Are you seeing him again?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘I don’t know that either.’ She let go of her glass and dropped her head in her hands. ‘Oh God, Kirstie, I’ve made such a mess of my life and nothing I do seems to change it.’

  ‘You’re still on the film,’ Kirsten reminded her gently.

  Helena shook her head. ‘There’s no way I can do it now and you know it.’

  ‘Laurence and I have already spoken to Ruby about putting a different slant on your character. There won’t be any scenes with young boys, if that’s what’s bothering you.’

  ‘Isn’t it what’s bothering you?’

  ‘Of course. That’s why we’re changing it. We want you with us, Helena.’

  ‘You might, but Laurence is being forced to accept me. I can’t work like that.’

  ‘I’m going to call him,’ Kirsten said, getting to her feet. ‘I’ll let him speak to you himself, because he’ll put what he has to say much better than I can.’

  ‘Oh shit, I don’t think I’m up to speaking to him right now,’ Helena groaned. ‘No, no,’ she said, as Kirsten started to dial. ‘I think you’d better sit down and hear the rest of it before you do that. You might change your mind.’

  ‘What do you mean, the rest of it?’ Kirsten said, an uneasy sensation stealing over her.

  ‘The rest of it is, that it was me who gave Dermott Campbell his information about your rise to the top.’

  ‘You,’ Kirsten said incredulously sliding back into her chair.

  ‘I did it to stop him printing his story about me,’ Helena said, her voice starting to break. ‘I guess you could say he blackmailed me into it. And I asked myself which was worse, that the story about James Scott came out, or that your reputation got damaged. I thought you could weather the storm better than me, so I told Campbell what he wanted to know.’

  ‘Including what I did when Laurence and I broke up?’ Kirsten said wanting more than anything that this conversation wasn’t happening.

  ‘No. I swear I never told him that. I don’t know who did either. He won’t tell me. But I guess keeping that to myself isn’t enough to make you forgive me for doing what I did and don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you if you don’t.’

  Kirsten sat quietly for a long time going over everything in her mind. It was almost laughable really, to think that all the time she had been trying to protect herself from being hurt by Laurence she’d had just as much to fear from Helena. In a different way, of course, but what was this thing Helena had going with Campbell?

  She took a sip of wine and tried to shake off the encroaching feeling of isolation. That her own best friend should be responsible for the difficulties she was having now was hardly conceivable, and if it hadn’t been Helena herself who was telling her she doubted she would ever have believed it. But she had to ask herself, if she had been in Helena’s shoes with the history of James Scott hanging over her, wouldn’t she have done the same thing? She honestly didn’t know the answer to that, loyalty was something she put great store by, but with all that had happened to her, didn’t she put even more by self-preservation?

  ‘I guess it’s too late to say I’m sorry,’ Helena croaked, and as her eyes moved from Kirsten’s to a distant place in her mind Kirsten sensed the same isolation wrapping itself around Helena. She too was on the point of losing her best friend, but unlike Kirsten she had no career to turn to now, neither did she have the comfort of someone doing his best to shield her the way Laurence was shielding Kirsten.

  ‘No, it’s not too late,’ Kirsten said, reaching out for Helena’s hand. ‘We need each other, Helena. We’ve been through a lot together, we can weather this too.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Helena gasped, swallowing hard on the lump in her throat as her fingers tightened around Kirsten’s. ‘I don’t deserve you, Kirstie.’

  ‘What you don’t deserve is what Campbell’s done to you,’ Kirsten told her. ‘And you don’t deserve to lose the film either. Now I’m going to call Laurence and let him tell you himself what he’s done today to make it possible for you to stay.’

  ‘No, you tell me.’

  ‘OK. But remember, this is Laurence’s doing, not mine. I know he was pushed into it, but he wants you for that part every bit as much as I do. I’m telling you that so’s you know that we’re both on your side. He called a conference with the publicists this afternoon and had them draw up a draft statement for the press voicing your remorse for what happened to James Scott. They’ve touched on your mother’s involvement with voodoo, but none of us really saw that as much of a problem and it’s up to you how much of it you want to reveal. My advice is to play it down. Evelyn, the chief publicist, is lining up a sympathetic journalist, probably someone from a woman’s weekly magazine, to handle the story. It’ll be done in the form of an interview, but most of what you say has already been written for you. I’ve read it myself, it’s pretty moving and I imagine by the time Evelyn’s finished, providing you stick to what she tells you, there won’t be a dry eye in the house. Just before I left this evening she told me she’d been in touch with James’ parents . . .’

  ‘Oh God, no,’ Helena groaned.

  ‘And they told Evelyn,’ Kirsten continued, ‘that they’ve forgiven you. They said they couldn’t go through their lives with so much hatred and bitterness, so they took the decision some time ago now to forgive you. They were as upset as you were that the story had come out now and they’re contacting Dermott Campbell’s editor to ask for a printed apology for stirring up things that were best left in the past. After that, with any luck, there’ll never be any mention of it again and by the time the movie comes out hopefully most will have forgotten. But like I said, there’s going to be nothing in the film now even
to suggest that the character of Marie Laveau is in any way involved in procurement. Laurence is overseeing everything, he wants to see you tomorrow before you speak to Evelyn. There’s only one thing left for me to say . . . I don’t know how you’re going to take it, but I don’t really have any choice but to ask for your solemn promise that you never have anything to do with Campbell again – at least not for the duration of the film.’

  ‘You have it,’ Helena choked through her tears. Then letting her head fall to the table and burying her face in her arms she sobbed, ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this for me, Kirstie. I just can’t believe it.’

  ‘I’m doing it,’ Kirsten said, ‘because you’re my friend. And because you’re a great actress. A really great actress.’

  16

  ‘What did you just say?’ Kirsten laughed.

  ‘I said, you’re getting too skinny,’ Laurence grinned.

  ‘And what, may I ask, does it have to do with you?’

  ‘Nothing. Just thought I’d tell you.’

  ‘Well if you’re waiting for me to admit to being scared half out my wits because I stupidly agreed to taking on something you pushed me into . . .’

  ‘Oh, so that’s the reason you’re not eating.’

  ‘That, and the size of this ridiculous menu,’ Kirsten declared. ‘I mean, who’s ever heard of a five-course breakfast with wine?’

  ‘I guess the people in New Orleans have,’ Laurence laughed, setting aside his menu and picking up his coffee. ‘So what are you going to have?’

  ‘I’m still undecided,’ Kirsten said and returned to the menu.

  They were at Brennan’s on Royal Street, a New Orleans restaurant famed for its breakfasts and as Laurence was heavily into breakfast meetings this was where they were going to meet Little Joe from the Independent Studios who had been setting up things this end for the past couple of months.

  The night before Kirsten, Laurence and the rest of the recce team had checked into the Richelieu Hotel after a gruelling flight from London and gone straight to bed. So far Kirsten had only seen the town from the car in from the airport, except Laurence had walked her through the French Quarter on their way here and though she had seen instantly how wonderfully the timeworn streets and beautiful filigree balconies would add to the story, the idea that she was in charge of capturing the city on film was daunting to say the least. In fact the further into production they were going the more nervous she was becoming. There were so many people on the team now, almost two hundred at the last count, and every single one of them was depending on her, and her alone, for direction. And the fact that most of them didn’t think she was up to it added an edge to her nerves that, were it not for Laurence – and Jake – could easily turn her fear to terror, or worse, panic.