by Jon Teckman
This set Bennett off again and soon his hideous cackle had been caught by the other two like some anti-socially transmitted disease.
Not for the first time since I’d returned from New York, I wanted to shout out to the disbelieving world that it was I who had slept with Olivia Finch. She was my celebrity conquest, not Bennett’s. But discretion, once again, proved the better part of candour and I kept quiet. When the trio of oversized schoolboys had calmed down again, Davis moved the meeting forward.
‘OK, chaps, now we’ve got you two sorted – for which, by the way, many thanks, Dai – we need to think about our strategy for Cannes. Joseph and I are flying in on Saturday afternoon for a couple of days. What are your plans, Joe?’
‘Actually, Bill, I was thinking about giving it a miss this year,’ I replied. ‘You and Joseph seem to have it pretty well covered and, what with getting my teeth sorted out and everything, I thought that—’
‘Nonsense,’ said Bill, slamming the door shut on my hastily conceived escape plan. ‘You’re still our main man with these guys, for the time being at least, until Joseph can really get to grips with how it all works. You know how to talk to these people. So when are you flying out?’
‘Friday, Bill,’ I mumbled, defeated and deflated. ‘I’ve got a couple of meetings and a lunch over the weekend and invites to see a few films. Then there’s the out-of-competition screening of Nothing Happened on the Saturday night, followed by the PPP party.’
‘The p-p-p p-p-p party?’ asked Dai, generating another round of raucous laughter from the other two.
‘The Printing Press Productions party. Buddy Guttenberg’s company,’ I explained as if I was trying to tell Matthew why it wasn’t a good idea to stick his sucked thumb in the electric socket. ‘And then I’m flying home on Tuesday.’
‘Excellent,’ said Bill. ‘It’s still really important that we keep Guttenberg sweet and you’re definitely the man for the job. And Joseph,’ he said to Bennett, ‘I want you to build some bridges with Guttenberg as well – use some of your legendary charm on him. He’s an important client for us and, as Head of Division, the lead on the relationship should rest with you. But do me a favour – stay well out of that ruddy Finch girl’s way! You don’t need the aggravation and I certainly don’t need the hassle. There’ll be plenty of other totty there for you if you must have a go.’ He gave a short laugh – at once both supercilious and degenerate. Bennett smiled and pretended to be coy. He reached inside his jacket pocket and produced a folded piece of paper which he placed on the table in front of him, smoothing out the creases with a slow roll of his hand.
‘I don’t think that will be a problem now, Bill,’ he said, pushing the paper across the table. Wainwright adjusted his seat so that he could read the mysterious message. I could see enough of it to identify it as a print-out of his latest e-mail exchange with Olivia. ‘It looks like she knows she’s overstepped the line and is trying to back down now. I wouldn’t mind talking to her to find out why she started harassing me in the first place and make damn sure it really is all over. I mean, look, she even talks about Sandra and the kids – she’s obviously been stalking me for some time.’
‘Well, this is certainly more measured than most of her stuff,’ Davis agreed. ‘What do you think, Dai?’
‘I don’t know, Bill,’ Wainwright said, stroking his chin to demonstrate how deeply he was thinking about this complex state of affairs. ‘If I were Joseph, I’d still steer well clear of the woman. She could be crazy – psychotic even. Let West handle her and you two keep out of her way, would be my advice.’
‘Yah, you’re probably right, Dai,’ said Bill. ‘Joseph, you stay away from Ms Finch. West, could you get us tickets for the screening and the party so we can have a decent chat with Guttenberg? But keep that mad woman as far away from us as possible. OK?’
I nodded, although I wasn’t confident I could deliver. Keeping Olivia away from Bennett wasn’t going to be difficult, seeing as she didn’t know he existed other than as a misattributed name on a business card. Getting a pair of tickets for one of the hottest parties of the fortnight, on the other hand, could be tricky.
The last couple of days before Cannes passed peacefully. I was still something of a tourist attraction, with members of staff I’d never met before bringing friends and relatives in to look at me. At last, that Thursday evening, I was able to return to Mr Hopper for the temporary solution to my dental impediment.
‘Mr West,’ he said, ushering me into his chamber of horrors, ‘please sit down.’ There was no sign of Ms Stiletto. Their differences had obviously proved to be irreconcilable. She had been replaced by a slightly dumpier and more sensibly shod assistant. While Hopper fiddled around with all kinds of painful-looking equipment, she busied herself covering every surface within six feet of me with plastic sheeting. It looked like they were expecting a lot of blood. I wasn’t sure I had much left to give them.
‘Right, let’s see what we can do with that gap. Miss Smith could you prepare the clamps for me? No, that’s the hacksaw. The clamps are over there next to the scrapers.’
When Hopper loomed over me, I tried to tell him that I’d changed my mind – what’s wrong with a little gap between the teeth, after all? – and would come back after Cannes, but as I opened my mouth to speak, he shoved in two clamps and a vacuum pump and I was rendered, literally, speechless. I felt the short sharp shock of a needle, followed by the longer ache of the anaesthetic entering my gum. The rest was drooling.
Once the anaesthetic had taken hold, Hopper worked like a master potter at his wheel, his fingers a blur as he cut and drilled and screwed and prodded and fiddled about for well over an hour. I sat in the chair with my head back, insensitive to what was going on in my upper gum, but still rendered nauseous by the mixed aromas of this oral charnel house: the antiseptic, the smell of seared flesh, the hint of last night’s curry on Hopper’s breath as he leaned over me – the new assistant’s cheap perfume.
The complexity of the procedure meant I couldn’t change my position, swallow or rinse. I gagged frequently, and was on the point of insisting I needed a drink before I threw up when Hopper stepped back, gazed lovingly into my mouth to admire his craftsmanship and, finally, invited me to rinse, gargle and expectorate to my heart’s content. As soon as I’d recovered some semblance of poise, he handed me a small mirror and invited me to inspect the results.
After a pause to absorb the shock, the first words that came to mind were: ‘They’re a bit big, aren’t they?’ This was an understatement. I looked like I was about to gnaw down some trees to build a lodge.
Hopper was confused by my lukewarm reaction. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘they are exactly the same size as the two you lost. With the temporary structure they’re sitting in, they do drop down a little further than before, I’ll give you that. I’ve built a platform out of a light steel and tin compound, glued that onto your gum and then screwed the teeth into that. I say “teeth” but in fact they’re made from the same compound and coated in enamel. Pretty ingenious really – I was up half last night working on them. But it does mean that, temporarily, your teeth will appear to protrude a little more than before. And they might clang a bit if you bite down on a fork or when you’re drinking from a can. I meant to check whether they were magnetic but I ran out of time. So be careful if you go near any magnetic objects. Do you mind if I take a quick photo? It really is a brilliant piece of work, even if I say so myself! What do you think, Miss Smith?’
The assistant looked into my mouth and, although her facial expression suggested mild horror and major amusement, she held herself together long enough to congratulate her employer on his heroic orthodontic achievement. ‘Very nice, Mr Hopper,’ she said as he handed her the camera so that he could appear in the shot beside his masterpiece, like an angler with his catch of the day.
‘Oh, there’s one more thing,’ Hopper added as I was about to leave. ‘The fixing is quite fragile, so I’ve knocked this up to hold ever
ything in place. Can I check whether it fits?’ He pushed me back into the seat and asked me to open my mouth again. I felt something cold and hard being pressed against my teeth. ‘There. That will do nicely. It might be a bit uncomfortable, but do keep this brace on whenever possible to make sure the bridge doesn’t move. And always put it on when you are going to sleep so nothing shifts during the night.’
A few minutes later, I walked out into the cold evening air with teeth like Bugs Bunny and a bill to suit Daffy Duck. With the braces in place, I couldn’t close my mouth completely, so I proceeded down the street and into the Underground like a whale eating krill. Cannes, I reflected, would be a nightmare with these teeth and Bill and Bennett for company. But first I had to survive the reactions of my family.
MILL HILL, NORTH LONDON
Natasha laughed, Helen cried and Matthew tried to prise them out with a plastic fork.
‘I’ll get your dinner, darling,’ said Natasha after the kids were safely filed away in bed. ‘I’ve got us a lovely piece of liver. I thought we could have it with a few fava beans and a nice Chianti.’
HEATHROW AIRPORT, LONDON
And so to Cannes. With a mouth full of temporary teeth and the worries of the world upon my sagging shoulders, I set off for five days of film, food and fun on the French Riviera. The Film Festival actually runs for a fortnight but only the hardiest of souls last the entire course – the hardy and the desperate, for in truth the whole world of cinema descends on Cannes for the middle two weeks of May: the superstars, the once-weres, the wannabes and the never-will-bes.
I arrived at Heathrow in plenty of time and mooched around the shops, wondering, as I always did, why anyone would want to buy new luggage at an airport. Hadn’t they packed before they left home? I had managed to find a way to close my mouth over the braces which meant I no longer looked like Hannibal Lecter on remand, but now had a stiff protruding upper lip that was so stretched over the metal brace that I resembled a Bee Gee stifling a burp. I still received funny looks from passers-by, but at least I didn’t scare any children.
I walked down to the security gate, showed my boarding pass and joined the queue for the X-ray machines. Except there wasn’t a queue – there was mayhem. Hundreds of people were trying to squeeze their way through the two available channels. A helpful sign told me that due to the heightened state of alert, fewer channels were available so that more officers could attend each one. This was little comfort for the people who were running late for their flights and were now trying to negotiate or simply push their way further up the queue. I wasn’t due to board my flight for more than ninety minutes, so I watched amused as tempers frayed while no one appeared to gain any ground. Paschendale with carry-on luggage.
Forty-five minutes later, and still some distance from my appointment with the heavily manned X-ray equipment, I was starting to get worried. Soon it would be my turn to beg to be let through or to start manoeuvring the less physically robust out of my way. Arguments were starting to break out and one or two shoving matches had begun as people started to get desperate about making it to their departure gates. Realising that the situation was threatening to blow out of control, the officials opened a third checkpoint – and 300 people from behind me in the melee rushed forward to jump the queue. Somewhere deep within the belly of the Yellow Meerkat, a Purple Monster was aching to break free and smash the place down.
I finally made it to the security gate half an hour before my plane was scheduled to take-off. I had already emptied my trouser pockets, removed my belt and shoes and made sure I wasn’t carrying any liquids. I took off my (beautifully dry-cleaned) jacket and folded it into a grey plastic basket, then placed my briefcase in a second basket, having first removed my laptop, taken it out of its cover and placed that in a third tray.
‘Beep!’ The red light flashed and a piercing alarm announced I had failed the simple challenge of walking through the X-ray machine. Several guards turned to look at me. One rather portly officer, wearing a pale blue shirt stained with egg yolk and tomato ketchup from his breakfast sandwich asked me to step back through the gate and remove my shoes. I did as I was told, placing them in a fourth grey plastic tray, and walked confidently back through the gate.
‘Beep!’ The alarm seemed even louder this time. People in the queue behind me tut-tutted. They had waited more than an hour to reach this point and were now being held up at the moment of their liberation.
‘Do you have you any other metal objects on you, sir?’ the attendant asked. ‘A watch? Jewellery?’
With an apologetic smile, I took off my watch and wedding ring and placed them in a fifth tray, a smaller one this time. Then I checked my pockets for any recalcitrant coins hiding deep within and passed through the gate once more.
‘Beep!’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ someone said. I looked at my wrist, worried I would be late for my flight, but saw only white flesh and a patch of damp hair pressed down by the weight of what had been there until a few moments before. The clock on the wall shouted that my flight was leaving in twenty-five minutes.
‘Could anything else be causing the machine to beep, sir?’ asked the guard, struggling to hide his irritation.
‘My flies?’ I offered, unable to think of anything else I was wearing that could be guilty – hell, I hardly was wearing anything else. Most of my clothes were already in grey plastic trays accumulating at the other end of the conveyor belt.
‘Very funny, sir,’ said the guard with no trace of amusement. ‘You’d better come with me.’
There was a cheer from the gallery as I was led away to a small room to the side of the main security area. As we entered, my companion, who had now added sweat stains to the artist’s impression of his breakfast on his shirt, reached into a drawer and pulled out a pair of clear plastic gloves.
‘Would you mind stripping off, sir?’ he asked as he pulled on the first glove with a resounding snap.
A wave of panic rushed through me. I could feel my brain function closing down. I was rooted to the spot, paralysed. I couldn’t even move my arms to undo the buttons on my shirt. The sweaty one was staring straight at me, snapping the second glove into place. ‘Well?’
‘I … I,’ I stammered, ‘listen, I’m going to miss my plane if I don’t hurry. Do I have to do this?’
Sweaty cocked his head and stared even harder. ‘Say that again.’
‘Do I have to take my clothes off, sir?’ I stammered like a boy on his first day at boarding school.
‘You stupid idiot!’ he said, more in exasperation than anger. Then, remembering his customer service training: ‘What I mean is, sir, I think I can see the answer to our problem. You might have mentioned you were wearing braces. The way those machines are set up today that contraption in your mouth would light them up like a couple of pounds of Semtex.’
He removed his gloves and led me back to the gate. I took the braces off my temporary front teeth and walked through. The light shone silent green. I collected my possessions from the pile of grey trays that were causing a log-jam at the end of the conveyor belt, put on my shoes and raced to my departure gate. I heard my name being called over the Tannoy, asking where the hell I was, and, a moment before I arrived at the gate, threatening to remove my luggage from the hold. I presented my boarding pass and passport to the attendant and ran down the walkway onto the plane, avoiding the serried ranks of impatient faces looking up at me from their free newspapers and in-flight magazines. I buckled up my seatbelt as the stewardesses began their safety routine and, once I’d got my breath back, smiled at the close call I’d had. This would be a funny story to tell Natasha and the kids when I got home, I thought, as the engines roared and we pushed back from our stand.
I looked at my wrist to see exactly how close I’d come to missing the flight. And that was when I realised I was no longer wearing my watch – or my wedding ring.
CANNES, SOUTH OF FRANCE
And so, eventually, to Cannes. The plane landed in
Nice Airport on time, but after taking into account the one-hour time difference, the interminable wait for my luggage and the slow taxi journey into town, it was early evening by the time I arrived in my room. As I unpacked, I searched obsessively for my missing watch and ring, even though I knew they were, at best, in a grey plastic tray several hundred miles away and, at worst, already on eBay. For the past eleven years, I had worn it every day. I’d even kept it on during my one bout of adultery – there hadn’t been time to take it off, and it hadn’t got in the way. I already felt its absence and dreaded having to tell Natasha about its loss.
I was staying in an aparthotel a few hundred yards behind La Croisette, the legendary main street of Cannes along which, for the two weeks of the Film Festival, all manner of human and vehicular traffic would pass in noisy anonymity, while the huge crowds hunted their real prey – the superstars of the film world. Despite the proud traditions of the Festival – and much to the chagrin of the French cinema elite – the real stars of the show would be flying in from Los Angeles and New York.
I didn’t have anything to do that evening – no films to watch or parties to attend – so I went for a walk down past the Palais du Cinema to the Old Harbour, enjoying the spectacle of the people clamouring for attention – the hangers-on watching the desperate antics of other hangers-on. I was hardly an A-lister myself, but at least I had a reason to be there. I had meetings to go to, events to attend that I’d been invited to, films to see because I was on a studio’s guest list, not because I’d queued to buy a ticket. I wasn’t there simply to observe a moving Madame Tussaud’s exhibit, waiting hours in the burning sun or pouring rain for a glimpse of Nicole Kidman’s Manolo Blahnik-clad right foot. I had a purpose.