Vengeance

by Susan Lewis

  Ruby shook her head, then, as the tears welled in her eyes again, her chin dropped on to her chest and she bunched her fists to her eyes. ‘I hate this goddamned place, Kirstie,’ she sobbed. ‘Don’t ask me why. I mean, I don’t believe in all that voodoo rubbish any more than you do, but that darned French kid, the one who calls herself a priestess, she really got to me. You know I tried to get to see her again, to get her to explain what she was talking about, but she’s gone. No one knows where she is and it feels like she’s left me with some goddamned curse hanging round my neck.’

  ‘Ssh, ssh,’ Kirsten soothed. ‘Come on now, that’s not true and you know it.’

  ‘Do I? I don’t know what to think any more.’

  Kirsten gazed at Ruby’s forlorn, wrinkled face and felt her heart go out to her. ‘Maybe we should try to think of something to stop this getting to you the way it is,’ she said. ‘Gin isn’t going to help, we both know that. Perhaps if you spoke to Helena . . . She knows about voodoo and she laughed when I said you’d had your future told through a coconut. She’d never heard of it.’

  ‘I know, I already talked to her. And I got to tell you, Kirstie, I feel pretty damned stupid going on like this. But it’s keeping me awake at night. You know, I even thought about going to see a priest, I mean a real, Roman Catholic priest, to see if I was possessed or something . . .’

  ‘Oh Ruby!’ Kirsten laughed, hugging her. ‘The only demon that ever possesses you is drink, and I’ve got to admit you can get a bit out of hand then, but if you did as Laurence said and got some help . . .’

  ‘Yeah, I know what Laurence said, but I don’t reckon it’s the drink making me do things. I reckon there’s something going on inside me making me do things and I don’t even know I’m doing them. That kid, the French one, she said there was a child in me . . . Well we all got a child in us, don’t we? But what if mine’s some kind of monster? What if it’s taking me over and I don’t know it . . .’ She wiped a hand across her mouth and gave a watery laugh. ‘Jesus Christ, listen to me . . . I’m turning into some kind of fucking fruitcake. You know what I was thinking yesterday? I was thinking that Anna Sage was going to get pregnant with Laurence’s kid and do to it what you did . . . That’s what I was thinking . . . The French girl, she said something about a baby . . .’ She stopped as she felt Kirsten’s arms stiffen.

  It was a while before Kirsten spoke. The idea that Anna might get pregnant by Laurence had never occurred to her before now and the very thought of it was so unbearably painful it made her feel faint. Then she realized what else Ruby had said, about her own baby, and turned to look at her. ‘I didn’t know you knew about that, Ruby,’ she said in a hollow voice.

  Ruby’s face creased in hopeless confusion. ‘Shit, there I go,’ she said, ‘saying things and I don’t even know what I’m saying . . .’

  ‘But you do know about . . . about my baby?’

  Ruby nodded. ‘Sure, I know,’ she sighed.

  ‘But how? Laurence would never have told you.’

  ‘No. Thea told me. His mother. But I know how badly screwed up he got over it, it was why he married that silly bitch, Pippa. He got himself two kids within the space of two years after what you did.’

  ‘Two?’ Kirsten said.

  ‘Tom and Pippa. Now he’s getting himself another in the Sage. That woman’s no good for him, she’s as wrong for him as Pippa ever was, but he’s as likely to make the same mistake again, men do . . . They’re not like women, they don’t see these things . . . He’ll get her pregnant, she’ll have a kid and then something terrible will happen to it.’

  ‘Ruby! You’ve got to stop this,’ Kirsten declared, shaking her. ‘You’ve got no way of knowing that and you’re making yourself ill. And you have to stop worrying about Laurence this way. I know he means a lot to you, but he can take care of himself.’

  ‘No, he can’t. Men never can. They need the right woman . . .’

  The way Ruby’s pale eyes were staring into hers looked to Kirsten uncomfortably like a challenge. ‘Are you . . .? Are you saying you think you’re the right woman for him?’ Kirsten breathed, hardly able to believe she was even voicing the question when the idea of Laurence and Ruby together defied imagination.

  ‘No, that’s not what I’m saying,’ Ruby sighed, blinking back a fresh flow of tears. ‘But I can’t stop worrying about him and there are things I could do for him, things a mother should do, like try to protect him . . .’

  Kirsten felt herself start to laugh, but caught herself sharply. Ruby was insane, she had to be if she was deluding herself that she was Laurence’s mother. Christ, she was talking about Thea not two minutes ago. Kirsten had never met Thea, but he knew how devoted Laurence was to her and to his father.

  ‘I know it’s kind of hard to believe, someone like me, Laurence McAllister’s mother,’ Ruby said sadly, ‘but it’s true. Why do you think he puts up with me the way he does? Anyone else would have fired me long before now . . .’

  Kirsten’s head was starting to spin. ‘But how?’ She took a breath. ‘I don’t understand . . .’

  Ruby smiled and looked down at her hands. ‘I guess it’s hard for me sometimes too,’ she said. ‘He’s such a fine, handsome boy. Thea did well, he’s always going to think of her as his mother, I know that. She brought him up since he was two. Don’s his father, I mean his real father. He married me when I was a kid of sixteen. I had Laurence a couple of years later, just when my career was getting going. I didn’t want no kid then, I didn’t want no husband either. I walked out on them and two years after that Don met Thea. After we got divorced he married her and that was that, until I took it into my head that I wanted to meet Laurence. He was at University by then and my career had long wrapped up. I’d done a bit of writing, but nothing any good, I was just a drunk really, I was the way Dermott Campbell was before Dyllis Fisher hiked him out of the gutter and aimed him at you. But then Don let me meet Laurence. ‘Course he didn’t realize what I’d do . . . Neither did I at the time, but it was a real shock when I saw Laurence. He was such a good looking boy and he wanted to get to know me. I couldn’t get myself to believe that – this handsome young boy wanted to know me. It had been so long since anyone was interested in me or what I thought, what I had to say. And I couldn’t handle it . . . Having such a grown up son . . . But he didn’t feel like my son. So I flirted with him. I mean I came on to him pretty strong, frightened the hell out of him . . . I won’t go into what he said, I guess you can work that out for yourself, and, well, you can’t blame him now, can you? I deserved it right enough, a mother coming on to her own son that way. See, I was kooky even then. But like I said it had been a long time since a man was interested in me and Laurence, well you know, he’s got that way with him that can make a woman feel real special when he wants to – and I just couldn’t think of him as my own flesh and blood. ‘Course, he walked out on me, said he never wanted to see me again – that I disgusted him. I wrote to him after, all the time, trying to say I was sorry, but he wouldn’t have no more to do with me. And he didn’t, not until little Tom was born. I don’t know what made him change his mind then, but I think it was Thea. God knows what she said to him, but he gave me another chance. It was because he gave me that chance that I started to get myself together again and then, when I came up with this screenplay he said he’d do it. Oh, I’m not kidding myself here, he didn’t do it out of no sentimental reasons, if he hadn’t liked it he’d have turned me down just like anyone else. But I’d worked real hard on it before I took it to him . . . He could see that and well . . . the rest is history.’

  Kirsten was very still. In the street outside she could hear the clatter of horses’ hooves and the distant roar of traffic. A steamboat whistle blasted into the dusk and someone along the hall slammed a door. On Ruby’s bedside table there was a half full bottle of gin, a phial of pills and an overflowing ashtray. It was strange how her conscious mind was taking in all these mundane things while her subconscious tried to work out why
this mind-numbing revelation of Ruby’s should be so important. ‘Why are you telling me all this?’ she asked softly.

  Ruby shook her head. ‘Because, that goddamned slip of a French kid came up with all sorts of stuff that meant things to me. She said the child was going to die. I keep asking myself does she mean Laurence? Does she mean Tom? It’s driving me crazy, Kirstie. I know I shouldn’t listen to her, but it all just keeps going round in my head and I wish to God I could forget it.’

  ‘I think that somehow you’re going to have to,’ Kirsten said gently. She attempted a smile and gave Ruby a quick hug. ‘Come on, I’ve even heard you laugh at the fact that this was all done through a coconut. And the way you’re interpreting it, well it’s all pretty abstract, you have to admit.’

  ‘That’s because what she said was abstract,’ Ruby said miserably.

  ‘So you’re just making things apply. I know, I know, you’re thinking about the castle tower coming down. Well, I have to admit that was a bit of a coincidence, but people dying, children dying . . . It’s all a bit farfetched, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Sure, the whole goddamned thing is far-fetched. It’s just like I said, I feel that something kind of weird is happening to me. Shit! I can hardly believe I’m going to say this, but you don’t reckon that kid has put some kind of curse on me, do you?’

  Kirsten laughed. ‘No, of course I don’t. But I’ll tell you what, if you’re really worried about it then I think you should talk some more to Helena and perhaps go along to see someone who you know for sure doesn’t practice the blacker elements of voodoo. They’ll get you sorted out, because remember, when you started this research it was you telling me how much good voodoo can do for people . . .’

  Ruby was shaking her head, but as her hand reached out for Kirsten’s she gave a tired laugh. ‘You’re a good kid, Kirstie,’ she said. ‘I reckon there’re a whole lot of people who have been wrong about you, but you have got to be as big a nutso as me if you think I’m having any more to do with those people. Leave well alone now, is what I reckon. I’ll get over this, talking helps. I guess if I didn’t get so stuck into the gin we could have talked sooner . . . But just listening to myself makes me see that I’ve been kind of stupid not to have put all this out of my mind right after it happened. I mean, come on, I’m a grown woman, I might have my problems, but I sure as hell ain’t no bubblehead. So, what do you say, how’s about you and me hang on to the little secret I told you and make a pact?’

  ‘What’s that?’ Kirsten smiled.

  ‘That we see this movie right through to the end and make it a winner.’

  ‘We’ve got a pact,’ Kirsten said, squeezing her hand.

  ‘And I’ll make you a promise. I’m gonna try specially hard to stay off the gin. I mean, I know that’s not really a promise, but it’s a good intention, right?’

  ‘Right,’ Kirsten laughed. ‘So what are you going to do now?’

  ‘Me, I’m gonna rewrite those bits of dialogue, and you, you’re going to go off and enjoy yourself the way I did when I was your age. Well, I guess you’d be wiser to be a bit more circumspect these days, but that Jake seems like a decent boy to me.’

  When Kirsten left Ruby’s room a thousand and one thoughts were chasing through her mind. That wasn’t so unusual, it had been like that since she’d started the movie and it was almost impossible, unless engaged in something palpable, for her mind to alight on one topic for more than a few seconds at a time. As she walked along the corridor what Ruby had told her was already being eclipsed by the angle at which she had taken a particular shot that day and how it was going to cut into the shots before and after – should she mix through and if so how many frames? Then she was thinking about lighting and how stupendously it had affected Jean-Paul’s performance. The soundtrack played itself through her head, adding effects that were as yet only in her imagination. She thought of the composer and wondered if he should come out here. She’d speak to Laurence. Thinking of Laurence she felt a strange sort of vacuum open up inside her which was quickly filled by the re-emergence of what Ruby had said. But again her mind was racing on to other things. She must contact Little Joe – Vicky would remind her what about. What time was she meeting with the choreographers tomorrow? How long would it take to rig the set at Scout Island? Was she happy with the costume parade she’d seen the night before? She thought so – yes, she was. There was so much to think about and it was all going round so fast in her mind.

  When she reached her room she checked for messages, then went downstairs to find the others. They’d wrapped early that day, had viewed rushes by six-thirty and probably most would have taken themselves off to a jazz club or some other exotic night spot on Bourbon Street, taking advantage of the lie in they would have the next day before the night-shoots began. Helena, Kirsten thought, seemed particularly edgy about the nightshoots, but that was understandable as they were her biggest scenes. Anna fortunately had much less to do, just one scene in total, which was a godsend for Kirsten was feeling so exhausted lately that she wasn’t too sure how much longer she could carry on on this relentless emotional see-saw.

  It was over a week now since they’d shot the big love scene between Anna and Jean-Paul and still the vision of Anna standing semi-naked in Laurence’s arms was playing cruelly on her mind. But she wasn’t going to let it get the better of her, she needed her wits about her for what was coming up and Helena obviously needed a great deal of support. The trouble was it seemed as though Helena didn’t want the support, she was drawing away from Kirsten in a way that confused and upset Kirsten. She’d tried to talk to Helena, but Helena had denied that there was anything wrong.

  Still, at least she’d managed to make some headway with Ruby tonight, Kirsten thought, feeling herself start to reel all over again at the amazing revelation that Ruby was Laurence’s mother. In fact she still wasn’t too sure whether or not to believe it, Ruby was as capable of making up a story as any actress was of turning on a performance. The trouble was Ruby had seemed to believe it, and come to think of it, it was exactly how she behaved towards Laurence, as though she were his mother. Kirsten wondered if perhaps she should talk to Laurence about it, but as she avoided all personal conversations with him these days she decided not to.

  She was wandering over to the reception desk, humming along to Fats Domino singing ‘Walking Through New Orleans’ which was wafting out of the juke-box in the bar when she heard a burst of laughter coming from the same direction. There was no need to ask the receptionist where Helena was, she’d recognize that laugh anywhere and turning back she walked into the darkened, smoke filled atmosphere of the bar. It was populated by locals and a couple of the hotel staff, but there was no sign of Helena. It wasn’t until Kirsten had gone deeper into the bar that she spotted her, sitting out in the conservatory, the rippling glow of pool lights reflected on the window behind her casting her in an almost dreamlike radiance.

  Smiling, Kirsten started towards her then suddenly, seeing who Helena was with, she froze. For a moment she couldn’t believe her eyes, felt it surely must be some trick of the light. Though she didn’t move she could feel herself recoiling at what she was seeing. It wasn’t so much that Helena was sitting at the table with Laurence and Anna, or the way that Laurence had his arm draped across the back of Anna’s chair, though that was bad enough – it was that Dermott Campbell was at the table too and the four of them looked so cosy, so at ease and so wrapped up in each other that they hadn’t even seen her come into the bar.

  Still laughing, Helena disappeared beneath the table to get something from her bag and at that moment Laurence happened to glance up. The instant he saw Kirsten the smile faded from his lips. He turned to follow the direction of her eyes and saw Campbell, slouched in his chair, a glass cupped in one hand, a fat cigar in the other and a grin of unmistakable triumph curving lazily across his mouth. Quickly Laurence turned back to Kirsten, but before he could speak Kirsten had turned and walked out of the bar.

&nbs
p; So many thoughts, so many words, so much charging through her mind. Fear and panic, hurt and betrayal. A craziness that was permeating the very pores of her skin. She had to get away from them, get out of here, run, scream, do anything to stop the truth of what she had seen. As she rode up in the lift she took deep breaths, holding on to the rail in order to steady herself. Dear God, please don’t let me have an attack how, she prayed silently. Please don’t let this be happening at all. She jerked her face up to the mirror beside her, glared at herself and willed herself to remain calm. There was no explanation in the world that could either excuse or lessen the pain of what she had seen, but she must not even look for one. She had just to get a hold of herself, remind herself of the way everyone was relying on her now to finish what she had started. She couldn’t back away from it, she couldn’t let them down. She wasn’t going to think about what she’d seen, she wasn’t even going to try to analyze what was behind it because if Helena really was still having an affair with Campbell, if Laurence knew about it and accepted it; if he’d decided now to go public about his affair with Anna and if they were going to throw all this in her face Kirsten just knew that she wouldn’t be able to handle it.

  She was fumbling her key into the door when she heard Jake calling to her from the end of the corridor.

  ‘I’ve been looking all over for you,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you get my message?’

  ‘Hi!’ Kirsten said, brightly, swinging round to face him. ‘No. Nothing’s wrong is it?’

  He laughed. ‘Why should anything be wrong? I was trying to get hold of you to see if you wanted to go to a jazz club.’

  ‘Oh, that sounds nice,’ Kirsten said. ‘Why not? Would you like to come in while I get myself ready? It won’t take long.’

  Once they were inside the room Kirsten suddenly felt emotion swelling in her like a storm. She was so close to breaking she could hardly bear to look at Jake. He was always there for her, turned up just when she needed him. He never questioned her, he simply gave her his support. There was nothing devious about him, he was kind and caring and honest and straightforward. So often people took those they loved for granted. Kirsten didn’t ever want to take Jake for granted. She wanted him to know how much she appreciated all he did for her, she wanted him to understand that there was nothing she wouldn’t do for him in return. She wanted him to hold her and embrace her with the kindness and warmth that came so naturally to him. She wanted to feel the strength of his arms around her, holding her physically the way his support held her mentally.