It was the only remotely titillating bit in the whole movie.
Steff saw her in the flesh later the same day, but he had to wait longer still for a sighting of the real Madeleine Witherson.
There was a press conference and photo-call scheduled to promote Angel’s Claws, the pish-looking ‘erotic thriller’ la Witherson was making her feature film début in. It wasn’t due to start shooting until April, but its producer, Line Arts, was giving it big licks to boost the pre-sales while its star was still news. The photo-call was to happen beside the main swimming pool, down on the Beachview terrace, with the Q&A set up around a table nearby. Jo wasn’t going, and she told Steff he had no real need to either. Jo had set up a proper one-on-one with Witherson, who had agreed to it because Scope was a British mag and she quite fancied giving her viewpoint to a readership who wouldn’t have quite so much prior information – or misinformation. It had helped also that Jo knew her agent, Tony Pia, whom she described as ‘a sleazy bastard in a hazardously appealing kind of way’.
She further informed Steff that Pia was treading on eggshells around the AFFM after the uproar he had caused two years previously, when a stalker was apprehended for plaguing an actress client of his. The problem was that Pia had in fact hired the stalker in an attempt to increase his client’s media profile, on the grounds that it was the latest de rigueur accessory for a Hollywood star, and ‘far cheaper than a Humvee’, as he told Jo. The whole stunt had the actress’s blessing, and it had been working out, too, until one of the PV’s security staff made his own bid for stardom and collared the guy.
Jo told Steff the press conference wasn’t really worth bothering with, as it had been made clear that Witherson was there only to answer questions about Angel’s Claws, and anyone enquiring about other matters would be asked to leave. The photo-shoot was to be a strictly staged affair, an opportunity for the trades to get a glamour pic to fill a space in their market dailies. There’d also be photographers from the agencies, consumer film mags and a few of the less pretentious newspapers, getting some fresh stock-shots of Maddy Witherson before the world forgot her name again.
Steff was, like Jo, going to get her to himself later, but he decided to check out the circus anyway. He thought it might be illustrative to include some shots of her doing the star-holding-court thing, but mainly he was just impatiently intrigued. It was like a reverse of the normal male curiosity. Having watched Madeleine Witherson naked and having sex earlier on, he was dying to see what she looked like fully clothed and just going about her day.
The party had already started when Steff breezed down to the terrace at the edge of the hotel’s private beach. The hacks sat in a semi-circle of chairs facing a wide table, sipping mineral water laid on by Line Arts, taking the odd note and holding up their pens for the chance to ask the next question. Maddy Witherson sat behind the table flanked by two men, a clutter of tape recorders surrounding the microphones in front of them. The men were, according to place-cards, Zip Spigelman and Tobe Delgado, respectively the producer and director of Angel’s Claws. Witherson had no place-card; Steff didn’t know whether this was an oversight or a compliment to her supposed celebrity.
The big blonde curls, almost certainly a wig, were gone. The new Madeleine Witherson had short, straight black hair in what, in his limited knowledge of such terminology, Steff could only think to describe as a Cleopatra cut. She wore a lightweight black dress that was presumably supposed to be vampish and thus suggestive of her role in the film, black gloves up to the elbows surely serving no other purpose at that time of the morning. Her heavy makeup was consistent with the vamp look, and served more to obscure than enhance her features; a plastered-on face, as they said back home. But then she wouldn’t be wearing her own face: she was still acting. Saying the right things in the right enthusiastic-but-relaxed tone, smiling all the time, talking about the story, the script, the director, playing the actress at the press conference.
Steff took up position ten yards or so back from the encircled hacks and clicked off some shots of the whole assembly. To his right he could see the photographers setting up by the Beachview pool, around which the film’s cardboard promotional displays had been erected. He zoomed in on the main attraction, and was momentarily surprised to see that she was effectively zooming in on him, her gesticulative, including-everybody delivery suspended for a second as she stared with consternation at the giant blond geek with the camera. The hacks didn’t notice, as she hadn’t skipped a word. Steff, aware that his presence could be distracting at the best of times, decided to cut the girl some slack and sit down, pulling up a chair in the backmost row of the semi-circle.
He glanced around at the reporters. Most of them looked bored; after all, it was just another market puff conference for a straight-to-video B-movie. But a few others wore a uniformly ironic sneer, in which assorted forms of contempt were writ large: Maddy Witherson was merely the latest recipient of random, lightning-strike fame that would otherwise never have been conferred upon such a nonentity. Tomorrow’s oh-so-fucking-hilarious columns were taking shape behind smug faces. Arch glances were exchanged, a silently conspiratorial hackpack version of the schoolboy snigger. The nature of her previous career was playing a big part in wrinkling their noses, Steff guessed, as they smirked at the thought of her perceived indignities, or made the snobbish but common assumption that having worked in dirty movies meant she had to be thick. Eventually, one of them remembered what he was being paid for and asked a question.
‘How do you envisage that your role in Angel’s Claws will differ from your previous acting experiences?’ he said, loading as much innuendo into his tone as was possible without hiring Eric Idle to pop up and add, ‘Know what I mean? Eh? Eh? Nod’s as good as a wink to a bliiiind bat, eh?’
Witherson reached for a gulp of mineral water, the producer looking to her for a signal that she’d like to skip the question. Steff caught the tiny shake of her other hand that told Spigelman she was cool.
‘Well,’ she said, putting the glass down and smiling again, ‘I guess first of all there’ll probably be fewer come-shots, and it’s my understanding from the script that I won’t have to fuck anybody. Is that what you were getting at?’
Stick that up your arse and light it, Steff thought, delighted. The hack turned pale, then tried to look unruffled and continued his question, but it was too late. The tables had been turned and the schoolboys dismissed.
He ambled around to the photo-call later, again keeping his distance and observing from the side, like a lion checking out the herd for the infirm. He had the haircut for it. It was also pretty obvious which of the assembled photographers a predator would go for. There was one poor bastard in there who looked like he had spilt a napalm-bomber pilot’s pint then paid for the cosmetic surgery with the last of his pocket change. It was short odds the guy didn’t do a lot of portrait work: having a melted head can be very distracting for the subject. The boy looked like he really ought to be covering air crashes and car pile-ups, although the difficulty there might be fighting off the paramedics mistaking him for one of the casualties.
Steff backed up a little and took some pictures of the picture-takers taking pictures of Witherson. Who watches the watchmen? Juvenal asked. Me, Steff answered. The girl posed amid the cut-outs to the whining accompaniment of film-winders and shutter clicks. She threw a few sultry shapes for a while, then her two press conference buddies came along for a three-shot that no one would use, because who the hell was interested what they looked like? Steff remembered the first time he had seen Witherson between two men and felt vaguely embarrassed.
He hooked up again with Jo at a quiet table on the far side of the terrace, looking out on the Pacific while the cut-outs and tables were disassembled and removed. By the time Steff’s drink arrived, there was no trace left of the earlier activity, and within ten more minutes there were people putting up a different promo display in the same spot.
‘I want you on your best behaviour, Shor
ty,’ she warned. ‘No smartass one-liners and no hysterics. We got this interview because Witherson thinks this is the one time she’s going to get spoken to like an intelligent human being.’
‘She is an intelligent human being. I watched the conference, remember. I wouldn’t try taking the piss out of her – she’d eat me alive, pardon the phrase. I won’t say anything, honest.’
‘That won’t do either. I do want you to ask her some questions. She’s doing this because we’re not an American publication, but first thing she’s gonna find is her interviewer’s from LA. Your accent should put her at ease a little, if she can understand a damn word you say. Plus, everybody over here knows – or thinks they know – all there is to know about Madeleine Witherson. British readers know dick about her, pardon the phrase. So if there’s something I’m not covering, feel free to ask, long as it’s not “What’s it like to fuck eight guys at once?”, or something equally sensitive.’
‘I think I’m getting a very bad press here,’ he complained, grinning. ‘You’re a cold and cynical hack, Jo Mooney, with no capacity to see the love and goodness in people. In fact, I think I’ll tell this Witherson lassie she should stay away.’
‘Too late. Here she comes.’
Steff was about to ask where, when he realised he had been looking through her as she walked towards their table. He had subconsciously been looking out for the black dress she’d worn earlier, which he would admit was stupid, but even if he hadn’t he guessed he’d still have been surprised. This wasn’t the porn star, public-scandal figure or aspiring actress. This was Maddy Witherson. And this was the moment Steff Kennedy began to experience the sort of feelings only previously inspired by Tommy Coyne and Paul Lambert.
She wore light-blue Levi’s and a plain white T-shirt, dozens of thin bangles chinking on each wrist. Her hair sat untidily in a mop of wet black strands, still damp from the shower. But it was her face that threw Steff most, divested of all the warpaint, glowing from recent bathing, and much younger. Behind the microphone, behind the cut-outs, behind the makeup, she had been like a picture in a magazine, attractive in a strictly aesthetic manner, but a cold remove from reality. The woman in the black dress answering journalists’ questions didn’t exist any more than the vamp in Angel’s Claws existed. The face he was looking at now was not attractive in that classical way; indeed some might say it was plain. But in it Steff saw stories, secrets, fears and a natural beauty his camera had taught him was all too rare.
‘You’re Jo Mooney, right?’ she said, as Jo stood up and offered her hand.
‘This is Steff Kennedy,’ Jo said. Steff stood up and tried not to tower too much.
‘Oh my God, it’s you,’ Witherson gasped, taking his hand in a waft of shampoo and body spray.
‘You know him?’ Jo enquired.
‘I was hovering about at the press conference,’ he explained to Jo. ‘Sorry if I freaked you out, Ms Witherson,’ he added.
‘Not at all. You were just kinda hard to miss. Call me Maddy.’
Jo offered to get her a mineral water. She asked for a beer, Dos, same as Steff was drinking. Jo got the chat going, Maddy’s answers getting longer with every few mouthfuls.
Steff watched her as she spoke, glad that he had the ‘working out your best angle’ excuse to fall back on in explaining why he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Something about her was really getting to him, more so every time he caught her glance, but he had no idea what it was. The natural beauty bollocks didn’t cover it at all; that was just the sort of thing you told yourself to explain the unexplainable, that which you couldn’t render in language. Not without making a total arse of yourself, anyway.
She reached for her beer and the bangles slipped down her arm when she tipped the bottle to her lips. As they slid back they revealed that her wrists were scored by several scars, criss-crossing the soft-looking skin. Steff looked back at her face, where he found the feared confirmation that she knew what he had seen. He felt more shamefully voyeuristic than if she knew he had been watching Babylon Blue that morning.
Jo either hadn’t noticed or had been more discreet in spotting the scars. Witherson looked down at the table for a second and swallowed her beer. Steff had seen her capably ride out the press conference earlier on, but just then she seemed a little jolted. This was a lot more intimate, right enough, and the person in front of him looked a lot more fragile than the persona who had paraded for the hacks.
She hit her stride again soon enough, quickly becoming expansive in Jo’s easy company, enlivened by the prospect of getting her story across to an audience who hadn’t heard the prosecution speak first. She spoke with an appealing mixture of passion and humour, like she had a lot she needed to get off her chest but wasn’t taking their interest for granted. She didn’t talk much about her time in the porn business; she wasn’t being evasive, it just didn’t stand a chance against the more pressing issues of what had happened since.
‘The weirdest thing was that suddenly everybody felt qualified to pass judgement – or at least diagnosis – on what I had done or what was somehow wrong with me,’ she told them. ‘As they say, opinions are like assholes: everybody has one and they’re usually full of shit. For instance, it was said I had only done this to hurt my father. Did it never strike these people that there were simpler ways to embarrass him, if that was what I was trying to do? Or did they forget that I used an assumed name, told no one who I really was, and that it wasn’t me who broke the big secret to the world? Why did this have to be about my dad? This was about me.
‘And they always talk about it like it was an affliction, or something that “happened” to me. It’s like if you break ranks from society’s code of sexual behaviour, there must be something wrong with you, like mental illness. Like you couldn’t possibly make that decision if you were in proper command of your faculties. That used to be the attitude towards homosexuality. Still is in a lot of places.’
She rolled the bottle between her hands, shaking her head with an ironic grin.
‘Some of the feminists have been more vicious than the moralists. I was ready for the stuff about being some kind of traitor to my gender. I never bought that one, and it’s pretty sexist if you think about it. You can’t make these things without guys. Why does no-one talk about their bodies being exploited? It’s always the woman’s fault – so what’s new there? But worse are the ones who want to save me, like I’m a victim. Like my sexuality has been somehow damaged or violated or, I don’t know, enslaved. Like I can’t be in control of my sexuality if that’s what I’m doing with it. Let me tell you, doing that was . . .’ She paused. Steff saw the same look in her eyes as when he had noticed her wrists: afraid of what someone might have seen, but knowing she had no way of hiding it if someone wanted to look.
‘Making porn was about being in control of my sexuality,’ she said, quieter, then reached for the bottle again and finished it off.
Steff wanted to spare her any silence that might follow and weighed in with a question. ‘Did you have any security concerns about coming here after what thon eejit across the road said the other day?’
‘Excuse me?’ Her eyes squinted in concentration as though looking into the sun. ‘Who did you say? Jonny Jit?’
Steff laughed.
‘Sorry. I meant that eloquent gentleman with all the laundered-looking friends, calling you the Whore of Babylon and generally laying the blame for the decline of Western civilisation at your door.’
‘Is Western civilisation declining? I didn’t catch Sixty Minutes.’She smiled and shook her head. ‘No, it’s old news, really. The Reverend Luth’s been calling me that for months on CFC. He just brought it up again because, conveniently for him, he knew I’d be attending the market.’
‘So why’d he call you that in the first place?’
‘I was in a feature called Babylon Blue, and as I was effectively having sex for a living, that made me a whore. Again, very convenient for biblical rhetoric.’
‘
No, I meant, why you specifically,’ Steff stressed. ‘I mean, you weren’t . . . I, eh, heard, the top-line star of that film. Why wasn’t one of the other actresses singled out?’
‘Why isn’t one of the other actresses sitting here right now? Because their daddies aren’t in the Senate. The film wasn’t remarkable or notorious, it was just one more skin flick that nobody would have heard of, or admit to having heard of, until the big scoop. Porn actresses would normally be too far beneath Luther’s contempt for him to talk about any of them individually, but in the public eye, I wasn’t born a porn actress, unlike those other poor unfortunates. St John got pissed off because he and my dad were sort of allies in the great crusade for all-American family values, and some of the embarrassment rubbed off. But what really jerked his chain was that I didn’t sit back and take my scolding. Somebody shoved a microphone in my face, I gave my own moral viewpoint, which shared little with the Reverend’s. That meant I graduated from being a wretched sinner to a full-scale force of evil.
‘You, eh, heard right, by the way,’ she added, looking Steff sharply in the eye. He felt like he had his dick out. ‘I was way down the cast on Babylon Blue. I was way down the cast on everything. I did get second billing on the last flick I made before the news broke, but I guess it’s hard to get a suitable pulpit soundbite out of a title like Clam Lappers IV.’
More beers arrived. Steff was planning to repair his image by taking confident charge of the bill, but he caught a glimpse as it hit the table and backed off sharpish. Jo was on exes.
‘You’re top billing now,’ Jo observed. ‘Above-the-line credit on Angel’s Claws. That’s not bad going for a feature début.’
‘Would be if it was the movie people were interested in, but I think we all know why I got the part and why Angel’s Claws isn’t just blending into the market slates along with all the other straight-to-video trash.’
Not the End of the World Page 17
