They were quiet for a moment with just the noise of the rain on the car roof.
‘And you’ve always worked there?’ Connie asked at last.
‘Aye, and my father before me and his before him.’
‘Wow,’ Connie said. ‘I like that. I like the continuity.’
‘It’s what places like this are all about.’
Connie nodded. ‘I’m beginning to see that.’ She unclipped her seat belt and turned to face him properly and that’s when she saw it – the newspaper and one dreaded word in the headline: Connie.
Euan immediately saw where she was looking. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I wasn’t sure you’d want to see this. I bought it for the archives. I keep all the clippings, you see.’
Connie looked at him. ‘Can I see it?’
Euan held her gaze and then took the paper out of the carrier bag and handed it to Connie.
It was Vive!, one of the more tacky tabloids. Even in the US, Connie was aware of it because she’d had run-ins with Vive! before. Like the time she had been filming Guinevere in Cornwall and had been snapped by one of their photographers when she’d walked out of the woods with her skirts hitched up around her waist.
‘Connie Caught Short’ the headline had read, which had been a load of nonsense. She’d actually twisted her ankle when she’d fallen due to the ridiculous length of her costume. So, she wasn’t exactly looking forward to the latest headline. She took a deep breath and unfolded the newspaper.
Connie – Missing!
Well, she thought, that was pretty restrained stuff for Vive! but it was still infuriating.
She sighed. ‘I thought I’d get more time before I became a missing person.’
‘But at least they don’t know where you are,’ Euan said.
‘Good,’ Connie said, scanning the piece quickly and grimacing when she saw the photo they’d used. It had been taken by paparazzi whilst she’d been on a morning run with her trainer. Her hair was pulled back and she wasn’t wearing a scrap of make-up. She was also wiping her brow after a particularly hard session involving squats. The caption underneath read: Under pressure.
‘Bastards,’ she said and then caught Euan’s eye. ‘Sorry.’
‘No need to apologise, lass.’
‘Those paps are like hyenas – they wait for you to be at your weakest and then they strike.’
There was a sudden roll of thunder that made Connie jump. She liked storms about as much as she liked the paparazzi.
‘How long do you think Maggie will be?’
‘Not long,’ Euan said.
Connie returned to the article to try and take her mind off the storm.
Oscar-nominated Hollywood actress, Connie Gordon, has gone missing after she walked off the set of her latest film, The Pirate’s Wife, following a huge argument with its director.
‘Liars!’ Connie said. ‘Have you read this?’
‘Well, I tried not to. It’s all lies.’
‘Yet still they print it. God! It makes me so mad! Look!’ Connie said, reading on.
Gordon, who recently broke up with long-term boyfriend, Forrest Greaves, is thought to be mending a broken heart in her hideaway home in Malibu.
‘It’s rubbish! Why do they do that?’
‘Ah, lass, you mustn’t let it get to you.’
‘It’s hard not to sometimes,’ Connie said, throwing the paper back at Euan. ‘It’s pretty much constant, you see. It’s easy to ignore one or two stories from time to time but they come thick and fast and there’s never any truth in them.’
‘They’re not interested in the truth. They’re interested in sales.’
‘But it’s impossible to ignore when even your own mother sides with the press.’
‘What do you mean?’ Euan asked, concern in his voice.
‘I mean, she talks to the journalists and tells them all sorts of things about my life.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because it’s in the papers!’ Connie said in exasperation.
Euan frowned. ‘And you’re sure it’s your mother’s actual words?’
‘Why wouldn’t they be?’
‘Because I thought you were just saying how the papers always manage to twist things and report things that aren’t true.’
Connie bit her lip. ‘No, I’m sure they’re all her own words.’
‘But you haven’t talked to her about this? You don’t know for sure?’
Connie could feel a blush colouring her cheeks.
‘I think you need to talk to her about all this,’ Euan continued from the back seat. ‘You can’t be thinking the worst of your own mother without any proof. She deserves better than that.’
Connie didn’t say anything but his words resonated with her and she knew that things with her mother would have to be resolved at some point. It was eating away at her and she knew that the only way forward would be to talk things through. Connie sank back in her seat. ‘Why is everything so complicated?’ she asked. ‘I hate it all sometimes. It’s too much, you know? I just want to be left alone. Is that so much to ask?’
‘In your line of work, I’m afraid it is.’
Connie sighed. ‘Why did I ever become an actress? I should have just become a secretary. Or a lawyer or something. Why did I have to end up in a job that’s so public?’
‘Sometimes the jobs choose us,’ Euan said.
Connie sat quietly, listening to the hammer of the rain on the car. ‘It wasn’t actually me who chose acting,’ she said at last. ‘It was my mother.’
Euan didn’t say anything and the words hung in the air as if nobody wanted to claim them. Connie blinked. She hadn’t meant to say such a thing. Why had she? And why to this stranger? Perhaps it was the situation they had found themselves in – trapped in a broken-down car by the rain. The car had turned into a confessional and Connie was making full use of it.
She cleared her throat. ‘She was the one who always wanted to act. I thought I just inherited that urge although I often wonder if I really did. Was it inherited or enforced?’ Connie asked. ‘I really don’t know.’
‘Does it matter?’ Euan said. ‘If you love it, I mean.’
Connie shrugged. ‘I suppose not. And I do love it – I truly do but I don’t love all the other stuff that goes with it. That’s more tiring than the job itself.’
Euan nodded and Connie felt safe to continue. She told him how much it meant to her to play the parts she chose for herself; how it was an honour, even. She loved the challenge of becoming somebody else. It was, she said, like mental and emotional gymnastics. You got into a different mindset. Becoming someone else meant that you thought how they thought and behaved as they would behave. It was incredibly liberating because it made you forget about yourself. Perhaps that’s why people became actors, Connie reasoned, because they were unhappy with themselves. They didn’t want to live in their own skins. But perhaps that was why she had been working so hard lately – because, when she stopped, she became just Connie Gordon again, and who was she? She had no idea who she was.
She stared out of the window, gazing at the drenched Scottish landscape. The road was still river-like with torrents of water flowing down it, and the sky was dark and marbled. A strong wind had picked up and was buffeting the car. Connie swallowed and her hands curled into fists inside the thick warm gloves Euan had given her.
‘And I can’t seem to find the right man,’ she continued, her mind floating back to her life in Hollywood. ‘Why is that? What’s wrong with me? I keep thinking there’s something wrong with them but what if it’s me there’s something wrong with? Well, that’s what I’ve been thinking the last few days – or last few months really, if I’m honest. That’s why I’m here. I had to get away and, I know it’s a cliché, but I needed some space – to find myself. I only hope there’s something here to find.’
Connie stopped, realising that she’d just spilt the entire contents of her heart to a complete stranger. What was going on here? The same thing had h
appened with Maggie and the warped Oscar-winning speech. What was it about the people of Lochnabrae? Had they the secret to unlocking hearts? She was going to be in big trouble if they couldn’t be trusted and were to sell her secrets to the tabloids.
She cleared her throat, not daring to catch Euan’s eyes. She could feel her face flaming with embarrassment and stared out of the window. There was nowhere to go, of course. She couldn’t exactly run out into the storm. This wasn’t Wuthering Heights and she wasn’t Catherine Earnshaw. She was just Connie Gordon, runaway film star, who’d made a mess of her life and now had to face the consequences.
She took a deep breath and turned to face Euan.
‘I shouldn’t have said all that, I’m sorry.’
‘There’s no need to apologise, lass,’ Euan said in a voice that was low and soothing. ‘We all need to talk now and again.’
‘You won’t say anything, will you? To anyone?’
Euan’s eyes narrowed slightly. ‘I wouldn’t betray your trust.’
Connie nodded. ‘I’m sorry to ask, it’s just—’
‘You don’t need to explain,’ Euan said. ‘I know what’s happened in the past. I know how many people have betrayed you.’
Connie gave a small smile. ‘That seems strange. You know so much about me and I don’t know anything about you.’
For a moment, they held each other’s gaze and Connie felt quite sure that he was about to say something when they heard a car horn.
‘Ah,’ Euan said, ‘Alastair to the rescue.’
Chapter Eighteen
Connie turned and saw Alastair’s Land Rover pulling up alongside them with Maggie waving wildly from the passenger seat.
‘Well,’ Connie said, ‘looks like we’re out of here.’
Euan looked at her. ‘Connie,’ he said.
‘Yes?’
Euan rubbed a hand over his face. ‘Be happy, lass. That’s all that counts in this world.’
Connie looked at him as if expecting more but was then startled by a mad knocking on her car window. It was Maggie and she was holding a huge umbrella that was threatening to take off – Mary Poppins-like – across the valley.
‘Come on, you two, before you’re drowned in all this rain!’ Maggie shouted as she opened the door. Euan grabbed hold of the shopping bags and he and Connie ran towards Alastair’s car.
‘Hi!’ Alastair called from the front.
‘Alastair!’ Euan said.
‘Oh, Connie!’ Maggie cried as she saw Connie’s long red hair plastered to her face and neck. ‘You’re soaked to the skin. Let’s get you back to the B&B.’
‘What about your car?’ Connie asked.
‘Alastair will tow it home later,’ Maggie told her. ‘But we can’t have you all wet like that.’
‘I’m fine – don’t fuss, Maggie.’
‘You’d better let her fuss,’ Alastair said from the front seat as he turned the Land Rover around. ‘It’s what Maggie does best.’
‘Alastair, it might have slipped your notice but we have a drowned Hollywood star in the back of your Landy,’ Maggie said.
‘It certainly hadn’t slipped my notice,’ he said with a grin.
‘Good. Then put your foot down and get her back to the B&B before she freezes to death. I don’t want to have to announce on the fan site that I’m responsible for the demise of Connie Gordon.’
Alastair got them back to Lochnabrae before the cold and the wet got the better of them.
‘I’ll see you guys for the hike, right?’ he called as they bundled out of the car.
‘Right!’ Maggie called back. There was then an almighty scrum to get into the B&B.
‘You’re a star, Euan,’ Maggie said as he placed the innumerable shopping bags in the hallway and left with a brief wave. ‘You two looked as if you were getting along,’ Maggie said once the door had closed behind him. ‘What were you talking about?’
Connie could feel her colour rising again. She’d never blushed so much in her life since she’d left America. ‘Oh, you know – the usual.’
Maggie looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I think he’s rather taken with you.’
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous!’
‘No, really!’ Maggie said. ‘There was a look in his eyes.’
‘Whose eyes?’ said a voice from the sitting room and Isla appeared in the hallway. ‘Och! Will you look at the state of yous twos!’
‘My car broke down,’ Maggie said. ‘Alastair had to come and rescue us.’
‘And is it his eyes you were talking about? Is he after our Connie?’
‘No!’ Maggie laughed. ‘Not Alastair! Euan!’
‘Euan Kennedy?’ Isla said in disbelief. ‘But he’s way too old for Connie!’
‘That doesn’t usually stop men, does it?’ Maggie said.
Connie took her coat off and put her hands on her hips. ‘I don’t know why you’re both making such a fuss. We were just talking – that’s all. He’s a sweet guy.’
‘Oh, aye. He’s that all right. Sweet on you!’ Maggie teased.
‘Ah, leave the poor gal alone,’ Isla said. ‘And let her get out of those wet things. You too, our Maggie – before you catch your death.’
‘You can change in my room,’ Connie said. ‘Give us the opportunity of trying on some of those new clothes.’
‘Clothes?’ Isla said. ‘Maggie never buys new clothes.’
‘I know,’ Connie said. ‘But all that’s gonna change, right, Maggie?’
Maggie nodded, her hair glistening with rain.
‘Come on, then,’ Connie said, grabbing some of their bags. Maggie followed her up the stairs with the rest, placing them on the floor of Connie’s bedroom. ‘I’ll take the bathroom,’ Connie said. ‘You have the bedroom. Here’s a towel,’ she said, throwing a fluffy white bath towel at Maggie.
‘Thanks,’ Maggie said.
The bathroom door was slightly ajar and Maggie could see Connie dropping her clothes in a wet sodden heap at her feet. She didn’t mean to stare but there, in the Lochnabrae B&B, was a Hollywood movie star and she was standing right before her in her underwear.
Connie looked up. ‘Maggie!’ she said. ‘Get those things off. What’s the matter with you?’
Maggie gasped at having been caught. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered.
‘What is it?’ Connie asked, walking out into the middle of the bedroom in her knickers and bra.
Maggie turned away and hid her head in her towel. ‘It’s just—’
‘What?’
‘You’re in your undies,’ Maggie said.
‘You’ve seen me in my undies before,’ Connie said. ‘Blimey, if you’ve seen City of Broken Hearts, you’ve seen more than my undies!’
‘Yes, but—’
‘What?’ Connie said. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘You’re – like – in the flesh now. I didn’t mean to stare. It’s just – you’re Connie Gordon. I didn’t think – I didn’t imagine—’
Connie stepped forward and grabbed Maggie’s shoulders, then slowly lifted the towel from her head. ‘Maggie,’ she said softly, ‘you’ve got to stop doing this.’
‘Doing what?’
‘This! You keep treating me as if I’m some sort of goddess. Well, I’m not. I’m just a normal woman. Look!’ Connie stepped backwards and pointed to her thighs. ‘Cellulite.’
‘Where?’ Maggie said, not convinced.
‘Right there.’
Maggie peered closer and saw a slight wrinkling of skin. ‘That’s not cellulite.’
Connie frowned. ‘Well, whatever it is, it’s damned well not perfection. And look at these,’ she said, pointing to her eyes. ‘Wrinkles!’
‘You haven’t got wrinkles!’ Maggie said.
Connie’s eyes widened and then she gave a broad smile whilst pointing to her eyes. ‘See?’
Maggie took a step forward. ‘Oh, aye. I can see them now.’
Connie laughed. ‘I’m just like anyone else, right? A woman with wrinkles and cel
lulite. It’s just I can afford to hide them under layers of designer make-up and clothes. That’s all.’
‘Okay,’ Maggie said at last. ‘I get it this time. You want to be treated normally, right?’
‘Because I am normal!’ Connie said.
Maggie nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said.
‘Okay, what?’ Connie asked.
‘You’re normal.’
Connie nodded. ‘Good! I’m glad we’ve finally got that sorted out.’ She grabbed a sweater from her suitcase, pulling it on and sitting down on the edge of the bed. Her legs were bare and looked snowy white.
‘I’m far from wonderful, Maggie,’ Connie said. ‘I’ve done dreadful things.’
‘No!’ Maggie said. ‘I don’t believe you. You couldn’t do anything dreadful.’
Connie shook her head. ‘There you go again – believing the very best about me when I don’t deserve it.’
‘But—’
‘No,’ Connie interrupted, ‘listen. Just listen.’ Connie took a deep breath and, for a few seconds, all that could be heard was the rain on the bedroom window.
‘I’ve done some things in my time that I’m not proud of,’ Connie began. ‘I’ve discovered recently that I’ve been more ambitious – in my past that is – than I ever realised. When I first started acting, it was almost like a game. It was fun and I loved it and I did it because of that love. Then something changed and I can’t really pinpoint exactly when that happened. I started reading my reviews. I became obsessed with them. Most of them were good but there were some dreadful ones too. Gordon should be better than this. Her talent is wasted in this ridiculous vehicle.
‘I became competitive. I started looking around me and seeing what my peers were doing. Why did she get that role and not me? Wouldn’t I have done a better job? Why haven’t I worked with this director yet? I had so many questions all the time and it was driving me mad and it was affecting my performance too. Remember my reviews for Autumn Serenade?’
Maggie nodded.
‘Well, I got pretty annoyed after that and really started pushing things. One of my friends at the time – you know the actress Jay Royale?’
Maggie nodded again. ‘She was in Milly in the Morning with you. She was great.’
The Runaway Actress Page 15
