by Alison Bond
‘You look fantastic. How come you never get dressed up like that at home?’
‘To do what? Go down to the chip shop and play on the arcade games? KFC and a video?’
‘Yeah, why not?’
He was absolutely right. There was nothing stopping her going out for a newspaper dripping in jewels, wearing red satin to the chip shop or for a quiet dinner at home. She could always suggest a night out somewhere special, a break from the ordinary, an adventure, but she never did. And equally, if she was really as bored by her life as she’d claimed to be, there was nothing stopping her leaving Jez, moving to a city such as this to hunt out that elusive happiness. But she didn’t want to. She felt as if she could be happy just to finish her drink and feel the safe softness of Jez’s palm against hers. The question of what to do when her drink was finished could wait.
31
They took a drive. Jez had hired a car and Kelly was impressed. Not because it was a nifty little convertible, which screamed ‘tourist’, but because he had been sensible enough to get his own wheels. She’d been here weeks and had been relying on taxis, lifts and the occasional limo. Why hadn’t she just strolled down to Hertz and picked something up? How come Jez, who usually struggled to find two matching socks in the morning, appeared to be more organized than she was? He had the car and a room in a funky-sounding hotel on the promenade at Venice Beach.
‘You’ll like it,’ he said. ‘There’s surfers.’ She hadn’t seen a single surfer since she’d arrived in California. She’d been wondering where they’d been hiding. So many of her preconceptions had been proved wrong that she’d almost given up on the Beach Boys’ image of California dreams.
The backdrop of the city unfurled before them like a road movie. She told him about Ruby’s missing money. ‘I get the strongest feeling that there’s something Max isn’t telling me,’ she said.
‘You should trust your instincts,’ said Jez. You’re a brilliant judge of character.’
She looked across at him in surprise – what a lovely compliment. Only trouble was that her instincts were being blurred by having Jez close to her once again. He’d caught the sun. There was a flush of red across his nose that she knew he would hate.
‘Ask him to tell you the truth,’ said Jez.
‘I already have.’
‘Ask him again. If something is important to you then you don’t take no for an answer.’ Jez grinned at her as he said this and she knew he was talking about her.
The companionable silence was as familiar to her as toast and jam. ‘Is that it then?’ said Kelly. ‘Are we back together?’ He hadn’t tried to kiss her yet or anything. She wasn’t sure what she would do when, if, he did.
‘Don’t sound so excited.’
Surely they were supposed to have some sort of big discussion about the obstacles in front of them? About the future? He had flown thousands of miles to see her, didn’t he have a speech prepared? It was a grand gesture without the pay-off, the last scene in the movie but without the moral message. This was their cue to communicate, learn a little something and go forward with a clear understanding of what had gone wrong before. A passionate kiss and a big finish. Happy ever after as the credits rolled. If this was it, then was it enough? She loved him, just like she loved toast and jam, but what if what she really wanted to wake up to every morning was Eggs Benedict? Not that she was the biggest fan of hollandaise sauce, that wasn’t the point, the point was – didn’t she deserve something special?
‘I should have known you’d make this complicated,’ said Jez. ‘Lighten up.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing, forget it.’
But she didn’t want to forget it. ‘No, tell me what you mean.’
‘Let it go,’ said Jez.
‘You always have to let everything go. Why can’t you get mad with me once in a while? I’ve never seen you angry’.
‘You want me to be mad with you?’
‘I want you to disagree with me occasionally. Otherwise, where’s the spark? Where’s the passion?’
Jez rubbed his nose. ‘I thought you and me always had plenty of passion.’
‘We do, I don’t mean that, it’s not about sex. I mean drama, excitement.’
‘You know what I think?’ said Jez. ‘I think you’re just afraid to be happy. You’d rather be in a bad relationship that’s going to end than a good relationship that’s for ever. You’re safer that way’.
‘That’s just stupid,’ said Kelly.
‘You said it.’
‘Why would anyone be scared of happiness?’
‘Because you don’t believe it can last. Maybe it’s because of your mum. Or maybe because it means you’d have to choose someone, choose something to hold close, and live with your choice instead of running away whenever it gets hard.’
‘Hey, I don’t run away, okay? Not me.’
‘You ran all the way here,’ he pointed out. ‘Just because we were getting serious.’
‘Being here has got nothing to do with you!’ She was amazed by his arrogance. She’d come out here for her mother’s funeral; how much more of an excuse did she need?
‘Then why didn’t you want me to come with you?’
‘Maybe I just don’t like you any more,’ she said.
‘Now, we both know that’s a lie. Admit it, you could stay with me for ever, and that scares the shit out of you.’
‘You love yourself.’
‘Nope, I love you. You just can’t handle it.’
She was hurt. She stared out of the window in a bit of sulk for a while until Jez playfully punched her shoulder. ‘How was that?’ he said. ‘Did I do okay?’
Their first row. She hadn’t enjoyed it as much as she thought she would.
It was starting to get light and they stopped at an all – night diner for coffee and a slice of pie. Although Kelly was one hundred per cent certain she had never been in this diner before, there was something hauntingly familiar about the turquoise decor, the retro vibe and the view of Pico Boulevard. She sipped her coffee and tried to shake off the unsettling déjà vu.
‘True Romance,’ said Jez.
‘What?’
‘The Tarantino movie? And a bunch of others. They were filmed here.’ He shovelled cherry pie into his mouth and spoke with his mouth full. ‘That’s the problem with this whole city, you feel like you’ve seen it all before.’
‘You think you know it, but you don’t,’ she said.
‘Like Ruby?’
‘Exactly.’
Jez looked at her and saw that she was locked in thought. He wanted more than anything to help her. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.
Where to?’
‘See this Max fella. Get some answers.’
‘Now?’
‘Yep, right now. Why not?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, maybe because it’s five o’clock in the morning and he won’t be at the office for hours?’
‘So we’ll go to his house.’
‘I don’t know where that is.’ Her eyes flickered with a half-forgotten memory and Jez caught it.
‘Liar.’
She felt deep in the bottom of her bag, past her priceless ruby, her new cellphone and her designer sunglasses, and pulled out the crumpled piece of paper that Sean had given her with Max’s home address. It seemed like so long ago. ‘Here. It’s in Malibu.’
‘Great, come on, finish your coffee.’
‘You’re serious about this, aren’t you?’
‘Deadly,’ he said. ‘I won’t take no for an answer.’
A short while and a few wrong turns later they were parked up outside an imposing set of solid wooden gates. The sun was low in the sky behind them and the humid air was filled with the chattering sound of early birds. When they got out of the car, climbed up on to the hood and stood on tiptoe they could see a few tall treetops and some natty mock-Tudor panelling, a slate roof and a weather – vane. The Old English style looked incongruous in the Wes
t Coast landscape, the morning traffic on the Pacific Coast Highway steadily building from a dribble to a flood
‘This is silly,’ said Kelly. ‘Some housemaid will answer and she’s just going to tell us to get lost.’
‘There must be another way in, a back door.’
‘I think the back garden of this place is the Pacific Ocean.’
‘That’s a start.’ Jez turned the car around and drove off, looking for an access road to the beach, but there was nothing. The half-mile from here to the surfline was chock-a-block with valuable real estate, as if every last cent’s worth of land had been snatched up and cemented over to keep out the riff-raff, a ghetto of privilege.
‘What’s that?’ he said, stopping the car and backing up. ‘There.’ He pointed to the narrowest of stone staircases with a blink-and-you-miss-it signpost that said ‘Beach’.
They parked the car, went down the dilapidated steps on to the wide flat sand and walked back the way they had come. Every few yards a sign reminded them not to come any closer to the houses than the high-tideline or they would face the risk of criminal prosecution for trespass. The damp sand shimmered silver beneath their feet. Now they could see that the houses were truly phenomenal. From the road they had only seen an endless succession of gates and bland concrete, but from their new vantage point these mansions with their million – dollar views were displayed in all their architectural splendour; steel and glass creations that reflected the prying rays of the sun like a mirror, white castles on the sand with turrets and trailing vines, sun-bleached stucco with wraparound decking on every floor.
A solitary jogger, i-pod firmly in place, gave them a curious look. Kelly took off her shoes and felt the exquisite pleasure of sand between her toes. Finally, she thought, I feel like I’m in California. In fact she was half-expecting David Hasselhoff to leap from the waves in his red swimsuit.
‘This is great,’ said Jez. ‘Let’s live here.’
‘And work ourselves to death paying for it?’
‘Good point. Maybe not, then.’
After a mile and a half they spotted a familiar weather – vane. One look at Jez told her that he fully intended to go through with this. He was sizing up the place like a petty criminal. For a second there she had thought that they were just enjoying a romantic walk on the beach.
‘Do you remember when we met?’ she said.
‘On the beach, right? Early, just like this. You tasted like a cheeseburger.’
‘Doesn’t it worry you that’s the most romantic moment we’ve ever had?’
‘Nope.’
‘How come?’
‘Because whenever I think about that morning, seeing you sitting there like a mermaid staring at the waves, I know that I’m a lucky man. And I feel good, deep down inside.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. So don’t spoil it for me with your needless madwoman worrying, all right, babe?’
She looked at him and fully understood how far he had come for her. He could have stayed at home moping, he could have gone out and got himself another girlfriend, but instead he had got on a plane and found her. What more could she possibly want? A man whose actions spoke louder than words, who wouldn’t take no for an answer, who loved her and thought she was special. That should be enough for anyone, more than enough, a gift. And she had almost pushed him away.
‘I am special?’ she said.
He looked up in surprise. He was staring at her so hard that she felt embarrassed under his gaze.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘It’s just that I don’t think I’ve ever seen you be… well, needy’
She closed up. Just like that. Jez could practically see the iron doors slam down. ‘No, wait a second,’ he said. ‘I didn’t say ‘I didn’t like it. People like to be needed.’
‘Forget it.’ She turned away from him and looked out at the endless blue, pretending that she didn’t care.
‘You’re special to me,’ he said behind her. ‘You would be special to anyone that got to know you, but nobody gets the chance. And that’s a shame, because they don’t get to see just how amazing you really are. How sweet you are when you’re not being defensive, how funny you are when you’re not even trying, how smart you are about people…’ She turned around. ‘… how beautiful you are when you look at me like that.’
‘Stop,’ she said. ‘I believe you.’ She threw herself at him and kissed him, long and hard. She could feel a smile stretching across both their lips as she did so. The sun warmed her face, the Pacific Ocean curled around her feet, and a wave of seagulls took flight around them, crying out like sirens. When they broke apart, Kelly could have sworn she saw a dolphin leap in a perfect arc out in the wide blue sea. Or perhaps she imagined it. Either way, she had her new romantic moment and knew that she’d be replaying this kiss for months to come.
‘Ready?’ he said.
‘Let’s do it.’
They walked up on to the dry sand towards Max’s house. Kelly kept expecting big angry Rottweiler guard dogs to come out and stop them, or security guards with Rottweiler attitudes. But nobody did. A CCTV camera stared uselessly at the main back gate, several yards from where Jez gave her a leg-up over the wall.
She landed amid a bed of tree ferns feeling like a high – class assassin, like Bridget Fonda but without the gun. She was still wearing her red satin, not the best camouflage. Jez landed beside her with a dull thud.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘We are now officially trespassing’.
‘I know, man, isn’t it cool?’
32
It was six o’clock in the morning and Max Parker was swimming laps in his heated outdoor Olympic-sized pool. He churned the water thinking about Ruby and whether or not they would get the viewing figures they were looking for with tonight’s new episode of Next of Kin. They needed to deliver three seasons before anyone got rich, they’d all known that from the start. The renewed interest in Ruby had practically guaranteed syndication, serious money, but the product had to be good. It had to be a hit. They had risked too much to fail.
He turned over and started swimming backstroke, looking up at the sky. He missed Ruby, he hadn’t thought that he would, but he did. He had thought that her absence would give him a feeling of liberation, of closure, but he was working for her as hard ever, trying to organize her finances, dealing with her family. He had Octavia Valentine threatening to tie the process up for years, though he was sure he could dissuade her. And every other day he had Vincent Valentine, a small-time actor at best, clamouring for scripts and advice. Didn’t Vincent realize that Max had only ever represented him as a favour to his mother? Now that she was gone, was he really expected to handle her second-rate offspring? But he had to keep Vincent happy for a while, he didn’t need any more enemies, not right now. The threat that everything he had done would be exposed was a constant anxiety.
And then there was the other daughter, Kelly. So much brighter than the others, with a sense of perspective that only distance could give. She was the one who scared him the most. Her sense of morality was different to the rest of them. She had one.
Max saw a movement by the edge of the pool and looked up, his eyes stinging from the chemically treated water, and there stood a woman in red satin backlit by the early sun on his deck. She looked so much like Ruby that his heart leaped painfully in his chest and he momentarily feared death.
‘Hi, Max,’ said Kelly.
Max recovered his composure and climbed from the pool. ‘Kelly, what a surprise!’ He was terrified. What the hell was she doing here? He pretended to be pleased to see her. He saw a young man emerge from the bushes. Oh God, had she brought back-up? Why had he never hired a proper security guard?
‘This is Jez,’ said Kelly. ‘My boyfriend.’
‘All right?’ said Jez. Max nodded, utterly bewildered. He pulled on his robe, feeling vulnerable.
It was the first time Kelly had seen Max without the power suit. He looked older, weaker and invertebra
te. She wasn’t afraid of him. ‘I want you to know I’m going to the police,’ she said, and braced herself for him to… what? Pull a gun? Flee? She had to keep trying to remember that she wasn’t Bridget Fonda, this wasn’t an action movie.
‘Yοu are?’
‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘Ruby was worth millions. I think some of her money has disappeared and I think you know where it’s gone.’
‘You’re wrong. Ruby did movies before they were expensive and television when it was cheap.’
‘Save the sound bites, Max. I don’t believe you.’
They held each other’s gaze for the longest time. Then Max softly shook his head and chuckled. ‘I need some breakfast,’ he said. ‘Have you eaten?’
Kelly declined with a shake of her head. Breakfast? This was a showdown, didn’t he realize?
Jez stepped forward eagerly – it felt like a long time since the cherry pie – but then stopped when he saw the look Kelly gave him.
Max walked into the house and they followed him. Kelly raised her eyebrows at Jez; he shrugged. She was starting to feel more apprehensive. She didn’t like the idea of being contained in Max’s house. What if he was dangerous?
In the kitchen Max opened his mammoth refrigerator and took out a jug of green sludge. He poured some into a glass. ‘It’s good for me,’ he said, when he saw Jez’s look of horror.
Kelly looked at her surroundings. Luxurious, masculine, lots of paperwork, just like Max’s office but with more soft furnishings and twenty times as much space. The high walls at the back completely blocked out the view of the ocean.
‘Sit down,’ said Max. ‘Both of you.’ He pointed at the kitchen table. They sat down. Now what?
‘Let me tell you what happened.’
33. Ruby Who? 2003
Ruby was miserable. Sometimes it seemed as if she had been miserable for all of her life. Or perhaps that was just being melodramatic, as she was often wont to be. She’d worked so hard over the years and for what? So that the new maître d’ at Spago could question her credentials? She’d tried to book a table for lunch that day and he hadn’t known who she was. What more proof did she need that her career was effectively over?
