by Clare Naylor
Drifting out of her dream blow-job scenario, she heard Orlando shout. Not mildly irritated toe-stubbed crossness.
Terrifying angry shouting. She pulled on his toweling dressing gown and went out and sat on the top step listening to his conversation. He saw her and shook his head in despair, listening intently to the voice on the end of the phone.
“Bill, why the fuck don’t you just sack her, what the bloody hell was she thinking of?” He listened, scowling for a while longer and then slammed the phone down.
“Come on, my love, we’ve got to go,” he said so firmly and sexily she wanted to jump back into bed with him.
“Go where?”
“It’s in the papers, that little bitch Tiffany, I’ve no idea what it says but we have to leave the house.” He walked over toward the windows at the front of the house and looking out, screamed a string of abuse unpunctuated by sense.
“Darling, what’s wrong?” Amy felt a surge of fear at this outburst and was panic-stricken as to what was in the papers.
“She’s told some wretched bloody magazine all about me, what a misogynist, etc. etc. I am, how I’ve no idea how to treat women, and they’ve got my bloody ex-wife giving her thoughts and feelings on the matter … Shit!” He ran up the stairs past Amy and pulled a canvas bag out of a cupboard.
“You’d better come with me, you won’t be safe on your own if they get wind of us.”
“Where will we go?”
“A hotel somewhere, a big one, they’re better equipped at keeping the bastard press out. Look, they’re crawling all over the street!” Amy took him at his word and wandered toward the window to have a look. So they were. Lots of men in jeans and leather jackets hanging around sipping coffee from polystyrene cups. Bastards seems a bit harsh, she thought, trying to peer at them discreetly though a crack in the curtains. They saw the curtain twitch and, discarding coffee, reached for their obscenely long lenses. Amy looked at her toweling dressing gown and recoiled in horror at being splashed all over the papers in it, her hair unwashed and teeth unbrushed. She’d look like some aging fat actress in the Betty Ford Clinic, she thought. Can’t have that. So she ran a bath and soothed Olly as much as possible. She made him tea and, holding his hands, said she couldn’t imagine that anyone could say anything too nasty about him. And besides, he had her. They’d be fine, she’d tell them that he was a darling.
“You won’t say anything to them, sweetheart, you can’t trust any of them. Just stay well away. Look, you have a bath and I’ll sort things out, a taxi and book the hotel. I’d better speak to my agent, too.”
Amy cradled her tea in her hands and disappeared into the bathroom. I’m sure I could convince them that he hadn’t done any of the things they’re saying he’s done, she told herself. As she stepped into the bath she gave an interview to herself: “But what about the allegations of mistreatment of women that have been leveled at Orlando Rock?” asked a voice.
“Well, Orlando and I have been together for about two months now and I can categorically say that he has been nothing but wonderful to me, he’s been supportive of my career and behaved like the perfect gentleman.”
“And what is your career?” said the voice, urging Amy to talk more about herself.
“Oh, I work for Vogue as a fashion editor.” Nobody would bother to query the minor details, editor, assistant, all the same, she thought.
“So you lead a very glamorous life and are obviously very beautiful and talented but do you think Orlando would still love you otherwise?” Amy cleverly anticipated this question and delivered what she thought was an eloquent and deft reply.
“Orlando and I have a very profound love. It is more than a façade of film-star glamour, we live a life of celebrity only in parenthesis; our love is very real and we connect on an intellectual as well as a very physical level.” Don’t let them think he only loves me for my brain, she thought. It’ll be obvious from my vocabulary that I’m clever. No, I have to get in the sex angle, too, put all those hormonally crazed fans off sending him their knickers in the belief that he doesn’t get enough already.
She rounded off the interview in a dignified but charming manner, leaving the journalist besotted and willing to write all manner of obliging things about how she was softer and prettier in the flesh than in her photos and how it was obvious why Orlando was in love with her, what man wouldn’t be, frankly.
Then she realized she hadn’t washed her hair for two days so shoved it underwater and gave it a thorough shampooing. Oh, why hadn’t she brought her thicker, fuller hair stuff; Orlando just had some medicated gunge lying around and she’d end up smelling like a bathroom cabinet. Oh well, the paparazzi wouldn’t get close enough to smell her, as long as she looked OK. She went into Orlando’s bedroom and surreptitiously coiffed her hair; she did a little beehive thing at the back and thanked her lucky stars she’d remembered her sunglasses—Jackie O. That was it. Perfect. Bellissima. The tragic woman, the limelight-shy beauty. She looked stunning, if she did say so herself. Orlando trailed back into the room with a few carrier bags, and she quickly flipped her sunglasses to the top of her head, no point in showing her ace until she was in front of the paparazzi, and she knew he’d probably think sunglasses a little too media-tartish and tell her to put a baseball cap on instead to defy recognition, no way José, she was going the whole hog, hog heaven.
The taxi pulled up outside the house and they stood in the hallway with their bags and contemplated the dash. Amy tried to avoid the plastic carrier bags screaming Sainsburys and took the canvas number; it wasn’t Vuitton but didn’t clash too horribly with her outfit.
“OK, darling, now or never, I’ll go first and just stay close behind.” He took hold of her hand and led her out of the front door into the fray of cameras and polystyrene cups. Amy held her breath, waiting to be beset, but instead they just kept their distance and snapped away, almost casually. She held Orlando’s hand and, sucking in her cheeks and pouting subtly, tried to stop him going so fast, just in case they didn’t get the picture she wanted to see. The black-and-white grainy look of Orlando Rock and his mysterious beauty, who is she? they will ask, where does she come from? In the back of the cab Orlando looked down at his feet and held her hand with such ferocity she saw her fingers start to turn blue. And here she was, the mercurial femme fatale weaving a web of intrigue about herself, the cherished lover of a famous, much desired actor. Orlando felt sorry for her, guilty at dragging her into this topsy-turvy world of celebrity.
“Thanks for being such an angel,” he said, believing her the one good thing in his life right now. When they arrived at the hotel they were hurried through the lobby by a silent man in a green peaked cap who took their bags and ushered them into a lift. On the fifth floor they stopped and he led them to their room. But room was not description enough for this lavish suite. Cloud nine, thought Amy. More soaps and shower caps than she could wish for, white bathrobes, one for each of them, and fresh flowers. She swirled around as soberly as the decorum of the situation allowed, concealing her delight beneath, “Oh well, if we’re to be kept prisoners by those wretched newspaper people, at least it’s a comfortable cell.”
Amy unearthed the champagne in the ice bucket—until now she had believed champagne in hotel rooms to be apocryphal, the preserve of honeymooners in holiday brochures and lotharios in Hollywood movies, preparing to get the dame at all costs. As she rubbed condensation from the label, Orlando was busy scanning the front pages of the newspapers laid out on a coffee table.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe they’ve said all this.”
“What have they said?” Amy sat beside Orlando on the sofa, looking over his shoulder at the pictures, one of Tiffany in a dress tighter than a tube of toothpaste, one of Orlando and Joanna together at some long-ago award ceremony.
“She’s quite beautiful,” said Amy generously. She felt she could afford to be generous now she had Orlando alone, on the right side of the paparazzi, and besides, she was feeling buoyant, but
in a strictly tragic sort of way. Dignified, that’s what she would be, yup, dignified was good.
“She’s not beautiful, she’s a bitch,” said Orlando flatly as he scanned the paragraphs beneath the photo.
“ ‘Rock frequently ignored the other members of the cast, choosing instead to spend his evenings in his hotel room, virtually snubbing his costar Tiffany Swann, who tried many times to break the ice with the reclusive star. “Eventually I just gave up. I think Orlando Rock has a problem with women, finds it very difficult to talk to them. Some people would say he thought women inferior, good only for one thing,” says the strikingly beautiful Swann …’ I can’t believe what rubbish this is.” Orlando grasped his head in his hands and shook his head in despair.
“Oh my God, look at this, they’ve asked that stupid journalist cow what she thinks: ‘defensive, sexist, and difficult,’ and Joanna: ‘Orlando and I often clashed about work, he wasn’t happy having a wife who was more successful than him.’ Bloody bitch!” Orlando stood up and paced the room, quite obviously racked with misery. Amy suddenly felt quite sorry for him. How could they say things like that? He was so amazingly fair and kind. Poor Orlando.
“Amy, you don’t believe them, do you?” He knelt at her feet as she sat on the soft magnolia-colored sofa.
“Of course not, sweetheart. Look, they don’t know you, it doesn’t matter what they say. We’re stronger than that, and we’ve got each other.” It sounded suitably filmy and she touched his hand for sincerity.
“It matters because now you’re involved. Now nothing you do will be private either, to a lesser degree. They won’t rest until they know what your father does and how many times a night you like it. Poor child, it’s going to be hell for you.” Hell indeed, thought Amy, my father’s a chartered accountant. Why oh why can’t he be a fabulous rock star like Lucinda’s father, that would make for much better copy.
“Olly darling, don’t worry about me. I’d better give Mom and Dad a ring and warn them about all this, though.”
“Yeah, just dial nine for an outside line,” he said, distractedly riffling through the assortment of broadsheets, just in case.
“Hi, Mom, it’s me.”
“Amy, thank heavens, we’ve been trying to get hold of you all morning. Some man came round to the house, wanted to know all about you, asked if that young actor had ever been here for tea.” Her mother sounded bewildered but not terribly concerned, Amy thought. Mom had probably invited him in for tea and fruitcake.
“Mom, what did you tell him?” Amy tried to sound a bit anxious for poor Orlando’s sake.
“Oh, I didn’t speak to him, love, I was in my gardening clothes, you see. Jake spoke to him.”
“OK, can I have a word with Jake then?”
“Jake, Amy wants a word. I’ll be off then, darling.”
“OK, Mom, love you lots, see you soon.”
“Amy?”
“Jake, what’s been going on? What did they say?”
“Well, I guess you’re about to get your fifteen minutes’ worth, sis.”
“My what?” said Amy, her brain scrambling through nerves and excitement.
“Your fifteen minutes’ worth of fame. I was just sitting here picking my nose when this bloke from the Express turns up on the doorstep. It’s OK, he was much shorter than me, I could have hit him if I’d wanted but he was quite polite, just asked about your boyfriends and stuff.”
“Jake, what did you say? You didn’t tell him anything, did you?” Amy felt sudden panic that one of the mangier specimens from her past had been exhumed for public consumption, perhaps some art student or … oh God, that hairdresser she went out with for six weeks with pink hair … please, God, no.
“Of course I didn’t, I’ve got a reputation to think of, too. Those blokes were bloody awful and after reading the papers today I don’t think much of that Rock bloke either, sounds like a bit of a …”
“Yeah, OK, Jake, but don’t believe everything you read in the papers, eh?” she chided.
“Yeah, look, I’ve got to go. I’ve got rugby training, I’ll give you a call later.” And he rang off.
“Patience of a gnat, my brother,” said Amy fondly, for had he not just protected her from the hooded claw, from the death by humiliation which was the small legion of long-ago undesirable men in her life? Phew.
Orlando came over to the bed and put his arm around her.
“Can I get you a drink or something?”
“I know it’s not really a time for celebrating but we could have champagne. Never look a gift horse in the mouth, eh?” she said rather glibly, feeling sure that champagne must also be drunk at salubrious funerals. It couldn’t just be the preserve of celebrations, surely?
“Well, OK, I suppose a drink might steady my nerves a bit,” he agreed.
Amy cracked open the champagne and tried to cheer Orlando up a bit. She stroked his beard and kissed his ears; she reminded him of the time they’d been on the beach in Sydney and had shocked the old lady to an early grave, but Orlando only smiled weakly and responded to her physical advances with the kind of pats and strokes designed for pets, not lovers.
“Orlando, I feel like a cat,” she said, grumpily because she felt a bit rejected.
“Oh, it’s nothing personal, I just feel distracted. But it’s so good having you here, I don’t know where I’d be without you, really. I know I’m a bit bear-with-a-sore-head-ish but this is so awful, and I know when I see what they’ve written about you I’ll have to smash some bastard’s face up.” How romantic, thought Amy.
“Pistols at dawn,” she mused. Orlando was silent. He toyed with her hair and after a few minutes she wriggled away and went to the window and looked out over Knightsbridge.
“Do you think anyone would notice if we went shopping?” She was already feeling quite bored hiding out.
“I think it’s safer to stay here for a while. We could watch some telly.”
“Yes, and have some more bubbly.” She felt renewed. Don’t forget the glamour, she told herself. Here I am, hiding out like some shadowy Greta Garbo figure, not to be seen for days.
“It’s a bit like that line from Henry V, isn’t it, ‘being wanted I may be more wondered at’?” she said, to no one in particular.
“Sorry?” Orlando said, puzzled.
“Well, in some ways, the more rare you are, the more spectacular it is when you’re finally seen. You know that’s what Prince Hal said when he was hidden away with his drinking buddies.” She was proud to be able to quote Shakespeare on this occasion, and rather aptly, too, she thought. Oh, the multitude of uses for an education. She poured him another drink and relaxed a bit.
They watched MTV, dancing a bit when the Bob Marley vintage video slot came on, and stumbling around on their second bottle of champagne, Amy fell onto the very plush sofa.
“ ‘In order not to let the crushing burden of life get you down you must be ceaselessly drunken,’ ” she mumbled.
“What?” said Orlando, crashing down on the sofa next to her.
“Baudelaire,” she informed him.
“Thank you very much, rent-a-quote,” he hiccuped.
“Champagne is lovely, isn’t it? I think we should drink it more often.”
“Oh, give me an ice-cold beer anyday.”
“You’re just a pseudo-working-class boy, aren’t you? Downmarket aspirations?” she said, quite lucidly for her degree of inebriation.
“Don’t be silly, I just overdosed on the high life for a while. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, you know.”
“All the same I’d quite like to make that decision for myself. I guess I’ll just have to compromise myself and write an erotic blockbuster so I can buy a house in Monte Carlo.”
Orlando suddenly became quite coherent, too.
“Amy I don’t bore you, do I? I mean, I know maybe I go a bit overboard on trying to be normal and stuff, but if you want to do more, we could work something out, especially now you’re out of the closet, as
it were.”
“What?” It was Amy’s turn to be dumb. Her afternoon as Lily’s lover flashed into her subconscious.
“Now that you’re the official girlfriend, you’ve served your apprenticeship, made it to the front pages and the new woman in my life, and maybe now the hounds will stay away from our door.”
Amy lightened at the thought. She hadn’t really looked at it that way, and her new status was rather grand. She felt privileged and also quite safe with Orlando. Orlando the god. Orlando my boyfriend. She wasn’t sure which she preferred most at the moment. It was probably neck and neck, with the boyfriend just winning by a nose, because they were having a really nice time. How many boyfriends could you lock yourself away with in a hotel room and lurch drunkenly to Bob Marley with as though you were with your best friend? Not many that I’ve known, thought Amy, relishing the closeness that she’d often despised. Yes, maybe we’re getting there in the love department, she thought.
“Tell you what, let’s eat in the grand dining hall tonight, let’s put on our best togs and play the showbiz couple with aplomb.” He suddenly lit up.
“Really?” Amy was rendered satisfied. Wow.
“Yup, why not, you’ve put up with my crap for long enough, let’s have some fun.”
Bill’s words had reverberated in Orlando’s head for a while and he was determined not to let Amy pass him by. Anyway he would probably enjoy a night out, as long as the cameras could be kept at bay.
“I know it sounds corny but I haven’t got a thing to wear,” said Amy, suddenly realizing that all she had were the jeans and grubby sweater she stood in.
