'So bouncing the cheque was just my stupid little way of letting them know that I haven't forgotten.'
'To an outsider though, who doesn't know the facts, it just makes you look mean.'
'That's why you're here, Dan. To set the record straight. Isn't that what it's all about, getting at the truth, writing about the man behind all this . . . shite?'
I nodded. I took the first bite of my orange.
'I always find it's better to peel it first,' Sean said.
He had a point.
19
I spent most of the last week of filming talking to everybody involved in The Brigadier but Sean O'Toole. Shooting was running behind schedule because of the enforced break after the attack on Alice, and the last person he wanted to talk to was me, the fool who didn't know how to eat an orange.
There was no shortage of interviewees. Making a film requires only slightly less planning and coordination than the invasion of Normandy, and the consequences of getting it wrong are only marginally less serious. Low-budget film-makers face arguably a greater foe than Adolf Hitler – not the weather, not lack of resources, not even Michael O'Ryan, but lack of time. You have so long, and then your window of opportunity passes. At Normandy, they could have waited for another week or two, though history likes to claim otherwise. In a big studio film, sure, you can keep people hanging around for weeks or months on the payroll; if it goes over budget you get more money, if it goes over time you pay them to stay on. But on a low-budget number like The Brigadier there was no such freedom; the crew was being paid minimum wage and they all had other jobs to go on to. It was a case of getting it done, getting it done now, or not getting it done at all.
I talked to set designers, dialogue coaches, the continuity girl, the costume designer, the grip, the gaffer, the best boy, the rigging gaffer, the art director, the storyboard artist, the unit production manager, the production coordinator, the choreographer, the boom operator . . . there were dozens. Even a doctor. An American called Abel Fruitke who was known to one and all as Fruitcake.
I said to him, I take it you gave him the syringes?' and he looked at me blankly for a moment until I added, 'For the oranges in the fridge.'
Then he smiled and nodded, though I wasn't entirely sure if he knew what I was talking about. Not that it mattered. It was only small talk. He was Sean's personal physician, had been with him for years, following him from movie to movie.
'He's not sick, is he?' I asked.
'Healthiest man I know,' said the Fruitcake.
'Easy job then.'
'My job is to keep him that way. He goes down, the whole picture closes, insurance companies have to pay out millions. It's not exactly Vietnam, but he keeps me busy. Combination of nutritionist, physiotherapist, psychologist, MD, personal trainer, chiropody . . . you name it, I see to it.'
I left it at that. I'd been speaking to people all week and all I was getting were variations on what a swell guy Sean O'Toole was. Notwithstanding some Catholic child-abusers in Belfast and a psychotic gangster, Sean was held in genuine affection by everybody, everywhere.
Finally, on a sunny Friday evening, just after seven, Sean shot the final take on the final scene of The Brigadier, waited for the gate to clear, then called out in his distinctive tones, 'It's a wrap!' There was a round of applause. He made a short speech thanking everyone and taking the piss out of himself. He had managed to claw back the time he'd lost and completed filming just under budget, which meant, he said, that there was enough left in the kitty for a party. Everybody was happy.
The wrap party was to be held that night at Sean's house out at Killiney. It was strictly cast and crew only. Invitations were handed out only to those named on them. There were to be no guests, no wives, no hangers-on. Not even any biographers. I was sitting on a bench, staring at a wall, telling myself I wasn't bothered, when somebody sat down behind me.
I turned. She was looking wonderful. Her cheeks were flushed from the early summer sun. Her hair was tied back in a little ponytail. She wore a leather jerkin and tight black jeans. I hadn't seen her all week but I hadn't forgotten how nasty she'd been to me or how great a kisser she was.
She said, 'Are you coming tonight?'
'That's a leading question.'
She tutted. 'To the party.'
'I haven't been invited. Cast and crew only.'
'Oh, right enough. Oh, well.'
She hopped down from the bench and walked off around the corner. When, after three minutes she hadn't popped her head back round and laughed, 'Only joking, here's your ticket,' I got off the bench myself and looked for her, but she was gone. Nearly everyone was gone.
I had been part of the scenery for the best part of two weeks, but who invited scenery to a party?
I tramped back to my car. On the way out one of Sean's security guards waved at me. It was the one who'd sucked green slime out of my mouth. I didn't want him to think I was that easy all the time, so I looked away.
Back at the hotel, there was a message to call Trish. We had spoken a couple of times during the week. Cordial exchanges for the most part, marred only by my insistence that she put Little Stevie on the phone to prove that he was still with her. This time, she seemed pleased to hear from me, but for all the wrong reasons.
'Dan,' she said, 'I'm worried.'
'Don't. I'm fine.'
'About Stevie.'
'Is he sick?'
'No . . . I . . . this sounds silly. But I think somebody tried to snatch him.'
'Snatch him . . .?'
'At his playgroup. A man said he was supposed to pick him up. Of course they didn't let him . . .'
I took a deep breath. I'd guessed it was coming. 'I told you Tony would try and . . .'
'It wasn't Tony.'
'How do you know?'
'The girls there know Tony, they wouldn't stop . . .'
'How the fuck do they know Tony?'
'Dan – not now, please! For godsake, somebody tried to take Stevie, and all you can think . . . shit! Dan, please. I'm frightened. I . . . thought I saw somebody outside the house. I might have been mistaken. But what if . . . I don't know. With all that's happened before . . . I'm just a bit . . . y'know.'
I shushed her. I told her everything was okay. These things happened all the time. The papers were full of them. 'Is there anybody outside now?'
'No. I checked. It might just have been . . .'
'Where's Stevie?'
'He's here, he's okay. But why Stevie, why would anybody want to . . .?'
I couldn't hold it. I snapped, 'It's not me you should be asking. Why don't you call lover boy?'
'Dan, he's not . . .'
I put the phone down.
I got two bottles of beer out of the mini-bar and drank them down. I phoned back and apologised. To the answer machine.
I didn't know what to do. Filming was finished. I should go home and make sure everything was okay. It wasn't like Patricia to get upset over nothing. It was more like me. But there was a party going on. And Patricia had been lying to me about Tony, or at the very least she'd been hiding things from me. I had no idea how much of Tony she was seeing, or whether he was wearing his trousers at the time.
She could go whistle for her wedding ring.
I filled my pockets with mini vodkas from the mini-bar and took a taxi out to Killiney. I got it to stop at the hotel below Sean's house and drank several pints at the bar on the off-chance that some of the party-goers would stop in for a quick one on the way there and I could sneak in with them, but nobody showed.
I walked up the hill towards his house. There were no street lights. It was pitch black. I would have to use my charm to get in. For the first time I regretted blanking the guy who'd saved my life. If it came to it I might even kiss him again if it meant getting into the party, but strictly no tongues. A taxi came along the road behind me, then stopped at the security gate. I hung back in the shelter of an overhanging tree while three girls in high heels and low dresses climbed
out. I recognised two of them as set decorators, but hadn't seen the third before. They were all dressed to the nines. Maybe even the tens. They were laughing and giggling excitedly as the outer gate swung open and one of the security guards came out, though not my friend. There was some kind of disagreement. At first I couldn't make anything out, but it gradually became clear from the way their voices rose that the girls only had two invitations between them. They tried flirting. They tried bribery. Then they resorted to curses and threats, at first aimed at the security guy and then amongst themselves. Finally one of the girls climbed back into the taxi and drove off. Sisters, except where Sean O'Toole's involved.
I wasn't going to get in that way.
I retraced my steps, then followed the perimeter of the wall for a hundred yards in the opposite direction as it snaked up towards the top of Killiney hill. It was nowhere less than eight feet tall and there was razor wire strung along the top. Distantly I could hear music, chatter and cutlery. I had long ago downed the vodkas. I was parched and there appeared to be no way over the wall that wouldn't involve a blood transfusion. What was I thinking of, leaving a perfectly good hotel bar to hang about in the dark outside a film star's party? Fuck 'im.
But first, a piss.
I peed against the wall. Sean's house was too high up the hill and too far out of Dublin for there to be graffiti on the wall, so I ended up watching the stream of pee roll back down towards the bay. Except it didn't. It flooded happily under a bush cropping out from the wall, but then failed to materialise on the other side. Perplexed – because at that time of night and in that state of sobriety these things sometimes seem important – I delved into the bush to see what the obstruction was and discovered a narrow drainage channel running out from beneath the wall. Behind it, set into the stonework, there was an archway which was blocked by an insubstantial wooden gate.
It seemed, indeed, a fortuitous piss.
Bent nearly double, I pushed through the bush and placed my hands on the gate. It was old and flaky. With one good shake it came loose in my hands.
I stepped through. There was another bush planted on the other side to obscure the gate from that side as well. I was through it in a moment and into Sean O'Toole's garden.
Almost immediately I stumbled over a couple making love in the grass. It was dark and I couldn't make out who it was. Their clothes were sitting in an untidy pile. I mumbled an apology and walked on. They giggled. I had his jacket under my arm. I quickly located his invitation and pocketed it. I hid the jacket under another bush and sauntered on. I needed a drink.
The house was still a hundred yards distant. I could see dozens of people standing both within and without. I was moving as casually as I could down towards them when I heard a commotion to my right, a little joyful scream and then a splash. I hesitated, then walked towards the sound. I came upon a thin circle of pines, and beyond them spied a hot tub and a small summerhouse.
Sitting in the hot tub was a young girl I recognised from the costume department, which was ironic, because she wasn't wearing one. Her breasts were being massaged or measured for a brassiere by one of the supporting actors from the film. I watched for several long moments, then edged around the trees towards the summerhouse. There was light within; the curtains had been drawn across the main window, but they were so old that they did little to mask the fact that there were people within. I decided to get closer, in case they needed me.
I moved further round until I was at the back of the summerhouse, and facing a much smaller, dirt-streaked window. It was located so close to the pines and at such an angle that it would never catch the sunlight and thus had not been cleaned. I crept up to the window and, after a moment's hesitation during which I debated the ethics of looking through it and came out on the side of the nosy bastards, I peered from the darkness into the light.
It took me several moments to work it out, to decide exactly what I was seeing; it was a combination of the grime on the window, the orange glow of the light within and the complete shock of observing such a heaving mass of flesh. A conglomeration of shuddering, flouncing, vibrating, sucking and fucking body parts, the most recognisable of which belonged to Sean O'Toole.
I counted and divided and came out at four women, two men. Alice was not amongst them. I did not recognise any of the women, though it took me a while to see their faces. I was prepared to wait. I did, however, recognise Sean's male companion. It was Dr Fruitcake. One of the women was performing oral sex on him, but he seemed to be giving more attention to the syringe he was plunging into his arm.
20
I found Alice in the kitchen, lifting a tray of sausage rolls out of the oven. As she set them on the worktop she smiled at me and said, 'Good, you got the ticket then.'
'What?'
'I sent one of the security guys after you with your ticket. But you'd left. You looked so hurt when you didn't get one. It was just a mix-up. I had it sent down to the hotel.'
'Oh. Right. It was you. I wasn't sure.'
She offered me a sausage roll. I declined. She said: 'Have you seen Sean?'
I had seen more of him than I ever wanted to, but I shook my head and lifted a can of Harp from a plastic-wrapped crate sitting on the kitchen table. Alice, your husband is having group sex in the garden shed. Mower or less.
I stayed long enough to see him shoot heroin into his veins.
They were sharing needles, too.
'No, I haven't.'
'You sure you won't have a sausage roll?'
The house was crowded. There were people slow dancing and smooching to Frank Sinatra in the lounge. Alice was the perfect hostess. She glided about spreading laughter and happiness everywhere. I would have been quite happy to gaze at her all night if I hadn't known that she was being fucked around by her film star husband.
Or maybe she did know about it and turned two blind eyes.
Maybe it was par for the course.
She was a self-confident woman. She wasn't naive or unworldly. Although she had not known Sean for a great length of time, she only had to read the papers to know what the lifestyle could be, to know what was available to somebody in Sean's exalted position.
I returned to the kitchen. I made small talk. The girl from the hot tub came in all giggly, her hair wet. There was no sign of the actor. She cosied up to me for several minutes, but she could tell I wasn't interested and soon moved off. I went out to find a toilet, but there was a queue of five women, so it would be at least an hour. There were stairs, but a chair had been set across the base of them and a handwritten PRIVATE taped to it. I stepped over it and hurried upstairs.
For some reason few stories of high adventure focus on the lack of bladder control which comes with advancing years. It's a gap in the market I am perfectly happy to exploit.
My wife always says to look in a bathroom to find out what somebody is really like. Whereas I maintain it only tells you whether they've bad skin or their hair is receding. Sean's bathroom – Sean's and Alice's, that is – was large and smelled like it had been freshly decorated.
It was done in peach. There was a circular bath, big enough for five or six people, which was handy for Sean. There were gold-plated taps, there was a bidet and a power shower in a separate cubicle. There were no hairs in the bath. There were some Bic disposable razors, toothpaste, toothbrush, Mum deodorant, a damp towel and very little else. Alice, of course, had not moved in yet. It wasn't glitzy, I would tell Patricia, and he used the same toilet roll we did. I had my pee. I exited the bathroom and walked quietly along the hall, opening doors.
There was another bathroom, but it appeared not to be in use. There were five bedrooms, but only two of them with beds. Sean's room was the biggest. There was a giant television. There were several dozen video tapes piled to one side of it. The temptation, of course, was to play some of them. See whether they were porn or he'd been recording Coronation Street. The bed was queen size, but didn't look like it had recently been slept in.
I came
to the locked room at the end of the landing.
There is always a locked room at parties. Where the stuff you don't want anyone to see gets put. I have never been to a party where there has not been a locked room. It may contain something as inoffensive as ironing you haven't done or paperbacks you don't want your intellectual friends to see, or it may contain your stuffed mother-in-law, but there is always a locked room at parties.
I knew immediately that getting into the room by any means other than force would be impossible. I traced the outline of the lock with my fingers. If I'd had a hairpin I could have pinned back my hair. Frank Sinatra was coming to the climax of 'New York, New York'. There was nothing else for it. I put my shoulder to the door and pressed firmly against it, then a little more; then I was getting angry so I gave it a good kicking. Since I was as weak as a kitten, that didn't make the slightest difference. Then I remembered Patricia, and the cunning way she hid keys around our house. I reached up and ran my fingers along the top of the door frame. Bingo. I was inside in seconds. I closed the door, flipped on the light. I was in Sean's study. I could tell that by the desk and the computer and the shelves full of books, but there was more. There were bottles of pills everywhere. Boxes of them. Vials of liquids. Syringes. Powders. The only studying he could have done in here was for his pharmacy exams. But there was none of the tidiness one associates with a pharmacy. The desk, the chair, the computer, they all boasted a rainbow covering of medicinal dust. It was fingerprint heaven. There were several white-encrusted razor blades. Silver foil. Matches had been stubbed out on the desk.
I opened the top drawer. It was stuffed full of prescriptions. They were far dated. They were made out in Sean's name, and they had all been signed by Dr Fruitcake. I took a notebook from my back pocket and started to jot down the names of the medicines to check out later, just in case I was getting hold of the wrong end of the stick and he was really into vitamins. Any self-respecting journalist on the espionage trail would have had a miniature camera, but I had never been a self-respecting journalist.
Shooting Sean Page 10
