by Alison Bond
‘I’d like to meet some of your friends,’ said Ruby.
‘Why?’
‘Because I think I ought to know the people you’re spending so much time with. You’re hardly ever home.’
‘Yeah? Well, you weren’t home for nearly three years and you don’t see me giving a shit who you were with.’
There was the sound of a car horn in the driveway and Octavia made to push past her. ‘Wait!’ said Ruby. She put a restraining hand on her daughter’s arm.
‘Get off me,’ said Octavia. ‘I’m warning you.’ There was venom in her eyes and Ruby recoiled in shock. Those eyes were Dante’s when he was angry. She instantly removed her hand.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She hated herself for sounding so weak. She hated being scared of her own daughter.
Victory gleamed in Octavia’s adolescent eyes. She knew she had won a battle.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Ruby.
‘Some kids at school have organized a gang bang,’ said Octavia insolently. ‘I’m going to take on all comers. Fifty bucks a fuck.’
‘Octavia,’ Ruby whispered, ‘what’s wrong with you?’
‘I couldn’t care less.’
They rarely spoke after that.
Ruby threw herself into her career; it was the only area of her life where she still felt in control. Fell in Love with a Boy was a big hit but she couldn’t relax, she wanted to capitalize on it. The parts available for a woman of her age were fiercely contested, and Ruby had to ensure that she was the best choice. That meant four sessions a week with her personal trainer, strict adherence to her nutritionist’s diet plan, trips to Palm Springs for detoxification and a non-surgical facelift. In order to be the first actress that everyone thought of, she needed to be seen. She could no longer hide out at the beach and wait for the party to come to her. She attended every high-profile function and attached herself to the most fashionable causes. It was a relief to be busy. Memories of Dante haunted her still and she saw him in the faces of her unloving children. She felt as if she had failed in the first half of her life and was desperate to make something of the rest.
‘That’s ridiculous,’ Max said. ‘You’ve had more success than most people dream of in their whole lives.’
So why did she feel as if she was constantly chasing the next wave? It was exhausting to stay on top, but when she thought about the alternative, a quiet slide into obscurity, the fear that shot through her kept her going.
When Octavia announced that she was four months pregnant, the news leaked and the press went wild over the scandal of a gymslip mum with Hollywood heritage. Ruby was devastated, but couldn’t help but be a tiny bit grateful to be back on the front pages as a result of the scandal. When Sofia was born – father unknown – Ruby privately enjoyed the flurry of publicity. The beach house was too small for all of them – herself, the twins, the new baby and the three full-time staff – so Ruby bought a pile in Beverly Hills. Octavia and the baby had their own suite of rooms and round-the-clock nurses. She never sold the other house. She couldn’t bear to let go of the memories.
She called Sean to let him know her new address. ‘In case anything happens,’ she said.
‘You’re never coming back.’ It wasn’t a question.
Ruby couldn’t conceive of it. She was working almost constantly, struggling to find the next hit movie. She went away for months at a time, paying through the nose for an army of housekeeping staff. She had failed to bond with her granddaughter: perhaps little Sofia could sense that the thought of being a grandmother repulsed her, or, more likely, Ruby just wasn’t a big enough presence in her life.
She had often heard her contemporaries say that their friends kept them grounded, that their love for their families was what life was all about, real life. She didn’t feel that way. Ruby never felt more real than when she was pretending to be somebody else, when she was in front of a camera. The mother, the grandmother, the friend – these were the fantasy figures she could not fully grasp. Ruby Valentine was an actress. That was where real life ended.
‘What about Kelly?’ asked Sean.
‘Haven’t you seen the newspapers? I’m a terrible mother.’
‘I’ve spoken to a solicitor’, he said.
‘A solicitor? Why?’
‘I don’t want you to turn up out of the blue one day and take Kelly away from me.’
‘I would never do that,’ said Ruby.
‘Then you won’t mind if I write that down and get you to sign it?’
Ruby thought she could hear a child laughing in the background. Is that Kelly?’ she asked. ‘Can I speak to her?’
‘I don’t think so.’
Her throat burned. She wouldn’t even get the chance to say goodbye. ‘If something happens to me,’ she said, ‘she’s my daughter, and I will remember her.’
‘What do you mean? You think I want money?’
‘One day Kelly might want something that she can’t afford. Like a secure future.’
‘To make up for her insecure mother?’
He was being too hard on her. She couldn’t take it. ‘Do you hate me?’ she said.
There was a long silence, broken only by Sean’s disappointed sigh. ‘Oh, Ruby,’ he said, ‘stop judging yourself through the eyes of other people. What does it matter as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror every day?’
But what if you can’t look at yourself in the mirror? What if for the next twenty years all you can think about is how you once had happiness in the palm of your hand but let it fly from your grasp because you didn’t know what it was?
30
‘This is bullshit,’ said Kelly.
Max spat out a mouthful of brandy and looked like a slapstick comedian from an old silent movie, struck dumb by Kelly’s interruption. For almost an hour she had been listening to his stories of Ruby, lapping them up, asking pertinent questions, sitting there with those big blue eyes that reminded him so much of her mother.
‘You’re saying my father forced her to leave me behind? No way. That isn’t how it happened.’
‘That’s not what I said. It was mutual. She always meant to go back.’ He almost smiled when he said that but tried to hide it.
Kelly noticed, and her face burned. Was it so ridiculous to think that Ruby might have been happy with her and Sean in their leaky old house by the sea? What’s so funny?’ she demanded.
Max pushed his glass aside. ‘It’s getting late,’ he said. ‘People are leaving. We paid five thousand dollars a plate and we missed the party. That’s what’s funny’.
‘It’s a tribute,’ she said automatically.
‘And it went great,’ said Max. ‘You can see how much she meant to people.’
Was that right, exactly? Kelly could see how many people came out for a photo opportunity, how much people were willing to pay for a mediocre dinner in fine surroundings, but where were all the people who had been in Ruby’s life? There was nobody here who loved her, unless you counted the three children, all of whom she had abandoned in one way or another. She had left everyone in the end.
‘What about the money, Max?’
Max was tired. It had been a long night. ‘I have to say goodbye to some people. You should come with me, enjoy being Kelly Valentine for a while.’
‘Octavia’s determined to have an investigation, did you know that?’ she said.
‘We’re ready for her. A proper investigation would cost thousands of dollars, and she doesn’t have that unless she has Ruby’s money’.
‘We?’
Max hesitated. ‘CMG has a multi-million dollar turnover. Believe me, we’ve won bigger battles.’
‘I’m selling this necklace.’ Kelly’s hand went to the ruby that nestled in her throat. Well, it’s not really me, is it? And I’ll sell the rest if I have to.’
She had a rare moment of courage against this man. Her latent fighting spirit surfaced. She was a bit surprised to find that she had one. How dare he? But more to the poin
t, in a short while she would just be plain old Kelly Coltrane again; she could run away and shut the door, and she might not get a chance as good as this again.
‘ You can’t sell anything until the estate is settled,’ he said.
He presented this obstacle too quickly, as if he had already given the matter some thought. You’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you?’ she said.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ He fixed her with steady eyes that had survived many worse confrontations than this.
Kelly was tired of being intimidated. She was tired of feeling as though she was the only person in the room who didn’t belong. Kelly thanked maids and chatted to waitresses, she liked her dresses to come in under fifty quid, seventy-five for a special occasion, she liked driving her own car and cooking her own meals. Most of all, Kelly was tired of trying to be something she was not. Her dad had raised her not to stand idly by and watch bad things happen.
‘You should know,’ she said, ‘that Tomas suspects you did a lot worse than steal her money. And if Tomas and Octavia get their heads together you could be in a lot of trouble.’
Was it her imagination, or did Max skip a breath and struggle briefly to maintain his composure? ‘I can handle trouble,’ he said.
‘Me too.’
The conversation, which minutes before had been so sweet and intimate, ground to a painful halt. Max downed the last of his brandy, then stood up and, in a corny gesture that made Kelly like him despite everything, he tipped an imaginary hat at her and went to say goodbye to his guests. That was the thing about Max, he seemed more like a charming grandfather than a merciless schemer. He truly seemed to care about Ruby too. Nothing made sense any more. Perhaps, as Max said, Ruby had just been careless with her money.
*
Kelly didn’t want to see anybody She didn’t want to see Tomas and listen to false apologies, his version of their aborted kiss, which would just be an attempted side-route into her pants. She remembered the look on his face when he’d called her a prick tease. She didn’t want to give him the chance to confuse her. She didn’t want to see the photographers lined up outside the main entrance and put on a fake smile. She needed to find something real.
She left a message on Sofia’s cellphone saying that she would make her own way home and slipped through the empty kitchens to the street. The distant flashes of light as famous faces left the tribute by the main entrance were like unseen explosions.
Beverly Hills at night was quiet. The traffic was lighter and the tourists were few and far between. Kelly had the wide, spotless pavements all to herself. The fancy storefronts were shuttered in corrugated steel, allowing only the tiniest glimpse of the riches inside. Kelly ducked into a doorway and removed the ruby necklace. She wouldn’t want to be an obvious target. She slipped it into her bag and doubted whether she would ever wear it again. She couldn’t exactly see herself at the First Fiscal office party wearing more than her annual salary around her neck.
She wondered what Tomas had done after their dance on the rooftop. For just a moment then, with the fireworks all around them and the sound of his heartbeat next to her ear, she had thought that she could embark on a wild affair with a sophisticated older man and enjoy it. She had thought that she was someone else. Tomas wasn’t the right man for her; he wasn’t even the right man for one night of passion. Because Kelly wasn’t a one-night kind of girl and she couldn’t pretend that a few weeks in LA would change who she was. She couldn’t disconnect her heart from her head like that, and if she had kissed him back she would be involved. She just would be. Fact. And then she would have spent far too much of the next few days wondering if he was going to call, or if she should call him, or if she was good enough for him. It would end in tears. It was better to keep her distance. It wasn’t her style to be caught up in a tormented relationship. She had friends like that, good luck to them, but Kelly didn’t like rollercoaster rides, she liked solid ground beneath her feet. Did that make her boring? She had come out to Los Angeles to pursue adventure, to break away from the ordinary. Only problem was, she missed the ordinary.
She wasn’t thinking about where she was going but when she saw an old-fashioned sign hanging in front of a building down the street, she felt as though her feet had brought her home. Ye Olde Dragon’s Head. It was so cheesy that it made her laugh. It was futile to look for something real on these streets.
Inside the decor struggled to re-create a genuine British pub atmosphere. The air was too clean for one thing. Everything was spanking new and there were no cigarette burns in the upholstery. It was too brightly lit. There was no fruit machine, no tanked-up hen party in the corner, no darts. And where was the old guy nursing half a brown ale and checking the racing results? But the bar was a reassuring chunk of dark wood with beer pumps and a Guinness tap, and somewhere out the back she thought she could hear the voice of a BBC newsreader. It made her think fondly of the things she’d left behind. She ordered a lager shandy at the bar, although she had to explain what it was, and made her way to the back room where the artificial light was more forgiving and the reassuring tones of the Queen’s English brought everything into sharp focus.
Her life didn’t have to change just because she’d found out who she was; perhaps she had known all along. She wouldn’t find happiness by running away from it. It was time to start liking who she was, instead of always thinking that she wasn’t good enough. Ruby had her own reasons for leaving. Kelly wasn’t to blame. And she realized then that for as long as she could remember she had thought she might be. She’d thought it was somehow her fault that her dad was all alone, that they were both alone with each other. While she’d been labouring under this false assumption she’d been blind to it; only now could she clearly see the effect it had had on her.
Ruby was the one with the issues, not me. She felt liberated. She felt ready to get on with the rest of her life.
And there in front of her, like an apparition, sitting with his feet up on a chair and a pint of orange squash, was Jez.
Jez He’d found the nearest pub. It was like a homing instinct.
He saw her immediately and didn’t flinch. She didn’t have time to run and hide. She didn’t want to. She hadn’t the energy to do anything but smile.
‘Come and have a look at this’, he said. ‘It’s amazing. You can watch breakfast television during last orders.’ If he was shocked to see her, he didn’t let on.
‘That is amazing,’ said Kelly. Sarcastic, but funny sarcastic, long-term couple sarcastic. Gently taking the piss and knowing that it wouldn’t matter, because if it did, and walking together became like walking on thin ice, then the relationship was doomed.
He made room for her next to him and ripped open his bag of Walkers crisps so that she could share them. He raised an eyebrow. ‘However did you find me?’
She didn’t tell him she hadn’t exactly been looking. Maybe she had.
They sat and watched the headlines: a Cabinet reshuffle, a new stadium in London, a missing girl. Then the weather; five grey clouds covered all of Wales.
She knew it was up to her to break the silence. ‘I shouldn’t have left you standing there,’ she said. ‘I freaked out.’
‘I felt like a right twat.’
‘I don’t want you to feel like a twat. I was confused.’
‘Why won’t you let me love you, Kel? Is it because of your mum, do you think?’
How could she have forgotten how perceptive he was? She had only just figured these things out for herself. The thought of somebody knowing her so well no longer made her feel vulnerable. Instead it made her feel almost safe.
‘I think she’s a big part of it.’
‘I won’t hurt you,’ he said. ‘I can prove that to you, but you have to let me in.’
‘ It’s hard for me. I really am sorry’.
‘I believe you. You’re forgiven.’ He smiled. She had missed that smile. It always lifted her spirits. ‘How did the party go?’ he said.
Was that it? Apology accepted and they were back to being Kelly and Jez again. Could it really be that simple to forgive? With all the tantrums and grudges she had seen of late, it had been a while since she had spoken to someone as uncomplicated as Jez. Was uncomplicated the same thing as boring?
‘Everyone seemed to be having a good time,’ she said.
‘And you?’
‘It was okay,’ said Kelly. She grabbed a handful of crisps. ‘This is better.’
He laughed as if she was joking, and she was, a bit. But not altogether.
‘I wanted to meet her friends and family. The family’s kind of crazy, and the thing is, I don’t think she had many friends, just this one guy, her agent, Max Parker.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘Shifty.’
‘Really?’
‘Maybe I’m just being paranoid.’
‘Paranoia is the worst,’ said Jez. ‘Try being me: my girlfriend is swanning around Los Angeles and all the newspapers keep banging on about how gorgeous she is.’
‘Did they?’
‘Oh yeah – Welsh stunner Kelly 25 – you know?’ ‘Seriously?’
‘And I kept thinking, hey, that’s the woman I love! I was dead proud of you, but still, it was weird.’
There he was again talking of love. Only this time it didn’t make her want to run and hide, it made her feel optimistic. ‘I can’t believe you came all this way,’ she said.
‘Come off it. It was either that or sit at home feeling like a wanker, imagining you out on the town with tall, dark and handsome strangers.’
Which was a pretty good description of what he’d seen. ‘That was Tomas,’ she said. ‘Tomas Valentine.’
‘He fancied you, I could tell.’
She was able to think: well so what if he did? She didn’t have to like him back just because he showed an interest. She didn’t have to feel beholden because she was flattered. The guy was an arsehole. ‘It’s the dress,’ she said.
