Pleasure Island

by Anna-Lou Weatherley

  ‘What the fucking hell is this shit?’ she shrieked, throwing it to floor, incensed. It fell on its face and she saw there were words written on the back of the picture: ‘Kit. September 21st 1978.’

  ‘Kit?’ She was hysterical now, the ramifications of everything only just beginning to sink in. ‘Who the fuck is Kit?’

  Nate snatched the photograph from the floor with shaking fingers. ‘September twenty-first, nineteen seventy-eight. That’s my birthday.’ He stared at the photograph, at the woman holding the baby. Was it him? Was this his birth mother? Was it … he looked up. Mia was standing in front of him, her face a mess of mucus and mascara.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, her voice low and calm as she handed him the birth certificate that had been inside her black box. ‘Hello. Kit. I’m your mother.’

  Nate visibly stumbled backwards.

  ‘Holy fuckamoly,’ JJ said. This had been some fucked-up vacation and no mistake. If he’d been a gambling man he would have put money on the idea that they’d just entered the fucking twilight zone.

  Rupert reached inside his box and pulled out the contents. It looked like a press-cutting and a hospital-scan picture.

  The cutting was taken from the obituary pages, for a Michael Curtis. He recognised the name instantly. Apparently some months ago Michael had hung himself.

  Shaking, Rupert discarded it and looked at the hospital scan. It had been taken at the Marie Stopes clinic in 2007, and the small-print read: gestation, 16 weeks … the name on the top: Angelika Deyton.

  Silently, they sat around the table. It was a while before anyone spoke.

  ‘I never wanted to give you away.’ Mia looked at Nate through blurry eyes. ‘I was so young … on the brink of stardom. I was forced to choose and I … I made the wrong choice.’

  Nate stared at her blankly. His whole body had gone into a state of paralysis as he struggled to comprehend. Mia Manhattan? His blood mother?

  ‘Can you forgive me, Nate? Please say you will forgive me. A day has never passed when I haven’t thought of you. I have carried you in my heart from the moment I held you in my arms. Those few short moments before they took you from me … they were the happiest of my life. Please, Nate,’ she begged him, ‘please believe me.’

  She was on her knees now, her beautiful Marchesa gown gaping open to expose her bejewelled matching underwear, her face a blacked mess of MAC make-up and years of regret. She had dreamt of this moment, fantasised about it her entire life, and yet here it was, delivered in the most brutal fashion by the very man who had fathered him, a man so insidious and sick and evil that she wished she could go back in time and re-write history so as never to have met him. She would have traded it all in now, the fame and the riches, the adoration and success. The day she had met Martin McKenzie had shaped her entire life, and blighted it too.

  Billie-Jo made to put her hand on Nate’s but he moved it away.

  Oddly, he felt relived somehow, like a particularly persistent boil had been finally lanced. They’d been sharing the same space for the past two weeks, neither of them aware of the revelation that was to come. Mia Manhattan was his mother. McKenzie had known all along, orchestrated this whole charade for the purpose of throwing them together, watching them, observing them, with the intension of dropping the final bombshell for his own voyeuristic pleasure in a bid to cause maximum pain and humiliation. It beggared belief, like something out of a twisted fairy tale. Still, if they had got through these past couple of weeks, then somehow he figured they could get through anything. McKenzie wouldn’t win; he’d make sure of it.

  After a long moment’s silence he looked up at her.

  ‘Who is my father?’ His voice little more than a whisper.

  Mia shook her head and gave a small howl, a low, primal scream.

  ‘Mia, please …’

  ‘Oh, God,’ she moaned as though she were in physical pain. ‘Oh, Nate. I’m so, so sorry.’

  She was holding onto his knees now; the poor woman looked wretched and, despite himself, he touched her hand.

  ‘Will you ever forgive me?’ Your father is Martin McKenzie,’ she said, before collapsing at his feet.

  Martin McKenzie had been watching Mia’s performance with elation but as soon as she said those words he stopped laughing. He was Nate Simmons’ father? That lying cunt. Frantically he cast his mind back. Mia had been stepping out with that American chap at the time she’d got herself in the family way, if he remembered rightly. Brogan … Chad Brogan … yes, that was it, some flash-in-the-pan overrated young actor. He’d assumed he’d been the one to father the child, although now that he thought of it Mia had never actually confirmed this, and the timing of their own brief affair … he supposed … No, she was bluffing, wasn’t she?

  McKenzie unbuckled his seat and picked up the Colt M1911 pistol that Aki had duly brought to him on request. He kept one in every aircraft he owned – a man of his wealth and status could never be too careful – and made his way, unsteadily, through the red, velvet curtain.

  ‘Turn the plane around,’ he instructed Hiro. Aki’s wide eyes were drawn to the gun in his unsteady hand and she said something to her husband in their native tongue.

  ‘Is impossible right now, Mr McKenzie,’ Hiro replied. ‘The visibility is poor. It be too dangerous. We need more height, better vision –’

  McKenzie wasn’t interested in the details that accompanied the word no.

  ‘I’m not asking you, you stupid nip, I’m telling you, turn this damn plane around right now! Take me back to the island immediately. That’s a command!’

  Hiro and Aki began conversing quickly, their expressions animated.

  ‘Is no safe, sir,’ she explained, ‘my husband say if we do, we die.’

  ‘And tell your husband that if he doesn’t he’s dead anyway.’ McKenzie pointed the gun at Hiro’s head. He had a son … a son. A decent, successful, talented, handsome son. His son. It was what McKenzie had always wanted: a child who would continue his legacy, someone to which he could pass down his knowledge and wisdom, who would follow in his footsteps, look up to him in awe adoringly … the unconditional love of a child which would offer the narcissist his purest source of supply.

  ‘No, sir, no!’ Aki made to seize the gun and began to grapple with him. It went off almost immediately and she screamed as the contents of her husband’s head exploded over the small cockpit.

  ‘Bloody hell! Now look what you made me do, stupid bitch!’ he pistol-whipped her face and she collapsed on top of her husband’s corpse. Ironic really, McKenzie fleetingly observed; it was almost an exact re-enactment of the death they had staged. Well, they did say life imitated art. And then it struck him: with the pilot decorating the cockpit who was going to fly this damned plane? He pulled Aki from her husband’s body, and she fell lifelessly to the floor. He took up a seat, cursing to himself as he irritably wiped the blood and grey matter from his pristine, white shirt. He searched the control desk for autopilot mode. For a man with such an impressive collection of private jets, McKenzie surprisingly knew very little about how to operate one. He did, however, know that in an emergency, for which he felt this qualified, an aircraft could fly itself for some considerable time, giving him opportunity to contact the necessary people to talk him through landing the blasted thing.

  Aki groaned on the floor beside him and he resisted the urge to put a bullet in her, kicking her in frustration instead. He’d deal with her later. She was silent once more. Women; they complicated the most simple of tasks. If this silly bitch hadn’t made a rush for his weapon then it wouldn’t have gone off, Hiro wouldn’t be distributed all over the cockpit, and they wouldn’t be in this mess. He stared at the control panels, attempting to make sense of the myriad lights and switches and buttons but reluctantly he was forced to concede he didn’t have the first idea what he was doing. Randomly he began to press things and when nothing erratic happened he pressed more, flicking switches and lights with purpose. He hit the ALT mode and the aircraft
began to descend rapidly, dropping vertically.

  ‘Fucking hell!’ McKenzie screamed, frantically pressing and flicking. What he didn’t know was that when first turned on, the ALT mode immediately tries to maintain the current altitude of the aircraft and that this can cause serious control issues, particularly if the vessel is climbing or descending too rapidly. Shaking his head he thought he felt the plane steady itself for a moment and stopped pushing buttons. A light suddenly came on signalling that the aircraft was in ‘Infinite flight Mode’ and he felt the aircraft stabilise. He began to laugh manically.

  ‘Eureka!’ His warranted panic began to neutralise almost instantly, his heart rate beginning to slow down to a more natural rhythm. ‘Thank fucking God for that!’ he said aloud, just as Aki pulled the trigger at the back of his head.

  58

  ‘If I never fly again it will be a moment too soon,’ Angelika said to no one in particular.

  Kirkbride, as promised, had sent a plane for them. They were going home, although somehow the word meant something different to all of them now.

  Rupert looked at Angelika. They had all been in complete shock but now it was starting to wear off…

  ‘You had an abortion and never told me.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because … I don’t really know, Rupert. Because something told me it was the right thing to do at the time…something inside told me it was.’

  He looked down into his lap in resignation. This time there would be no smart comeback.

  ‘Who is Michael Curtis?’ There was no anger in her tone, just a deep sadness that had wrapped itself tightly around her throat like a vice. His denial and deception hurt beyond words, no one more so than himself, she could see, and so her anger had tempered more into pity for him really; for both of them.

  Rupert stared at the cutting he still held between his fingers. There was no point in denial now; McKenzie had seen to all of it. He glanced over at Mia, slumped in her seat, still wearing in her finest evening attire, her crumpled face indicative of her once magnificent dress.

  She briefly met his eyes and he saw the anguish in them as though it were his own. Sighing heavily he took a swig of champagne.

  ‘He was Mia’s driver during the trial,’ he said. ‘It was a dalliance …’ He looked at her, met her in the eye. ‘We were lovers, briefly.’

  Angelika nodded. ‘Lovers …’ The word trailed from her lips and oddly she thought of a phrase she had remembered from the Bible. She’d read it as a child, many years ago now, and had largely forgotten it, but somehow these words came to her: ‘the tongue is a small thing, but what enormous damage it can do.’ It all made perfect sense to her now, the years of bitter resentment, his physical despondency, his growing indifference towards her.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’m gay, Angelika. I think I always have been.’ He had said it aloud, thus making it real at last. Even if she could not understand, he hoped she would forgive in time, just as he hoped he could forgive himself, and even though her ensuing silence pained him, he felt a sense of release, even elation. Not because of a lack of consideration for her feelings but because there was nothing left to do. It was the truth: a fait accompli.

  ‘We should prepare ourselves,’ Angelika said eventually. She looked at Nate and wondered if he still wanted her with the fervour he had displayed in the boat the night before. ‘Kirkbride has warned me that the paps are waiting for us by the truckload. None more than for you, Billie-Jo,’ she added. ‘We’re famous now, international superstars by all accounts, whether we like it or not.’ She supposed in a strange way they had all gotten what they wanted in the end: Billie-Jo would now have the fame she so desired; Mia and Nate had found each other; Joshua’s band would attract huge attention on the back of the furore; and Rupert … she felt the pain burn inside her guts. Well, Rupert got to tell the truth about who he really was. So where did that leave her?

  Nate suddenly seized her hand in his, in full view of everyone, though no one objected. This experience had pulled them all apart and thrown them back together in the strangest and most bizarre way. She took his hand gratefully and kissed it.

  They didn’t speak for the rest of the duration of the journey. There was no hate or animosity between them, just a collective sense of survival. The silent sense of comradery between them was almost palpable, each of them understanding the powerful connection they would have for life as a result of what they had experienced together. Angelika could not help but feel that even among the madness of it all – and the sadness – that somehow the wrongs had been righted and natural order restored. There had to be some good in that surely, because whatever else she understood in that moment as the plane finally began to make its descent onto home soil, she realised that wherever there was pleasure in life, there was always, inevitably, pain.

  Epilogue

  10 months later

  ‘It’s here,’ Nate said smiling, handing her the envelope as he trotted out to join her on the patio where she’d been working and enjoying her favourite breakfast of fresh coffee, fruit and French toast.

  ‘Wow, that really was quick,’ she said, opening it, ‘but then again I expected nothing less.’

  He took a seat next to her, his hair still a little damp, his white T-shirt off-setting his suntanned skin. She loved him fresh from the shower; she loved him full stop.

  Angelika looked at the decree absolute. The end of her marriage was right there: final, in black and white, stamped by someone deemed high enough to adjudicate such decisions. She wasn’t sure how she really felt but it was something close to relief. There was no real bitterness, no anger, nothing but a sense of finality. She and Rupert had parted on the best terms as they could have, under the circumstances. In truth she had felt pity for him for having not been true to himself, or to her, for all of these years but it was hard to hate him; they had experienced so much of life together that she could not bring herself to regret, even if she struggled to forgive. Like her, being thrust into the public eye had been too much for Rupert to bear, the exposure just too intrusive, and as a result he had fled the UK for South Africa with his son, Serg, for what he had called a ‘life sabbatical’. She understood his need to escape the harsh glare of the media spotlight, to start over again. She would never forget him; a part of her would always love him in a strange way. But he was no longer the man she had married, perhaps he never really had been.

  She stared at the official document for a few moments before folding it up and placing it back into the envelope. It was a glorious morning and the sun was high already as she gazed out across the patio at the tranquil setting, at the miles of spectacular Italian countryside below. She was happy here in Urbino; they were happy. The town, nestled on a high, sloping hillside, was as beautiful as it was historic, having been home to artistic greats such as Raphael, Botticelli and Piero della Francesca during the Renaissance period. It was peaceful and private and still retained much of its picturesque medieval charm. Their villa, perched atop a hill, was modest but stunning, with original wooden shutters that opened out onto the spectacular view and mosaic tiles on the walls. No one bothered them there; they were able to go about their day in relative obscurity, her with her writing and him with his photography. No one knew their story, and if they did then they certainly didn’t remind them of it. It was the kind of town that was big enough for you disappear in, and remain anonymous – something with they were both content to be.

  ‘How’s the writing coming on?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s getting there.’ She smiled. ‘I’ll read you something if you like?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  He studied her face, drinking in every part of her: her skin lightly sun-kissed; the faintest smattering of tiny freckles on the bridge of her nose which he was sure he’d never noticed until now; her long, wavy hair, which always looked as though she had just come back from the beach; and, of course, that snaggle tooth, the one at the fron
t … perfectly imperfect. She was a picture he would never tire of looking at, seeing something new in her every time.

  ‘I have to say it’s been quite cathartic so far,’ she explained, ‘and you never know, after this they might stop requesting interviews and finally leave us alone.’

  The months following their return from Pleasure Island had passed in a blizzard of press attention of the like she had never seen, and that was some statement coming from a journalist. Nothing had prepared them for the media onslaught. The six of them had become an overnight sensation and the interest – particularly in her and Nate’s budding romance – had been off the scale, eventually forcing them into hiding.

  One small mercy was that the final act, as McKenzie had referred to it, had not been broadcast, thus sparing Nate and Mia from inadvertently sharing the revelation that she was his birth mother to the world. They had made a pact between them all to keep this information private, allow them to come to terms with the truth without the eyes of the world watching. Lord knows, everything else was out in the open, their tangled lives served up for scrutiny. It was a small victory perhaps, but a victory nonetheless.

  Angelika sipped her coffee and gazed at Nate with loving eyes.

  ‘Looks like Billie-Jo’s having the time of her life,’ she said, nodding to the newspaper on the table that contained his estranged wife’s picture alongside the caption ‘BillieJosh – the official on-tour pictures!’ Angelika laughed. ‘She’s been on the front page pretty much every day since.’

  Billie-Jo and Joshua – or ‘Billiejosh’ as they were now known in the press – in direct contrast to Nate and Angelika had positively relished the exposure in the wake of their ordeal, cashing in on their notoriety without regret. Billie-Jo’s sex tape had jettisoned her into A-list territory, ranking her alongside the likes of Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson: a list she considered to be most illustrious indeed. Although at first Billie-Jo had been mortified by the fact the world had witnessed her sexual encounters on the island, not least because it had exposed her lack of moral compass, she had soon realised that there was a silver lining, a platinum lining, to such hideous intrusion.