Not the End of the World (36 page)

‘Not many,’ she settled for. To head off any further pursuit by Marco she added: ‘Let’s say we’re talking less than the fingers of one hand, even if this hand was on a yakuza.’

He smiled. He liked that.

She was a long way from relaxed when he asked her to take her clothes off. She stripped down to her underwear, not feeling anything remotely erotic about what she was doing, concentrating mainly on preventing the fit of giggling that this whole scenario was threatening to brew up. She felt a need to disguise her discomfort, fearing Pia’s disapproval if he could sense it, like he’d pull the plug on the whole thing if he thought she wasn’t up to it. It wasn’t that she was afraid he’d get mad at her: he was a very laid‐
back kind of guy. It was that she felt she wanted to please him.

That was when she realised what was going wrong. She was complying. She was trying to be a good little girl for Daddy, and that wasn’t why she was here. Marco Pia wasn’t Daddy, and she sure as hell wasn’t a good little girl.

She was Katy Koxx.

She stopped, put her hands on her hips, and looked at Pia.

‘This isn’t really doing much for me,’ she said.

‘That’s fine, that’s okay. You wanna quit?’

‘No. I want you to get over here.’

‘Is there some kind of release I have to sign?’ she asked. They were in his kitchen, drinking Pepsi from bottles, her hair still wet from the shower. It was Katy Koxx who had climbed in and turned on the faucets, but although it was Madeleine who emerged, it wasn’t the same Madeleine.

‘There is, yeah, but you should cool off first.’

‘Cool off?’

‘Yeah. Come back over here tomorrow. I’ll let you watch the tape. Then, once you’ve seen what it looks like up there on the TV screen, you can decide whether you want to sign the release.’

‘I want to sign it now,’ she said. ‘I want to commit myself before I change my mind.’

‘And that’s why I’m telling you to cool off. Right now you’re still getting off on what you just did. It’s all a big buzz, right? But once you sign that release, for the rest of your days, wherever you go, that tape’s gonna follow. So you should take a fresh look at it in the cold light of day, so to speak, before you “commit” yourself to anything.’

‘But …’

He put down his Pepsi on the table. ‘I’ll be honest with you, Madeleine. I think you’re pretty hot. I think you could go places in this business if that’s what you want to do. I could use you, definitely, and I would really like to use you. But I don’t need you. I make maybe twenty First Timers tapes a year. I cast and direct the same number of professional adult features too. And I can fill all of them with people who want to be there. I don’t need to dupe, deceive or harass anyone to be in one of my pictures.

‘Now, I don’t care what people think about adult movies. I’ve got a clear conscience about what I do. So if you come back tomorrow, watch the tape and you’re cool to continue, great. I’ve got a feature shooting in a fortnight I can put you in if you want the start. But if you’ve changed your mind, then it’s no loss – we both had a good time and that’s the end of it. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘Hey, don’t look so freaked out. I’m sure you came along here today with the idea that everybody in this business is a sleazeball. Everybody in this business is a sleazeball. But some of them are okay sleazeballs and some of them are asshole sleazeballs. You’re gonna be vulnerable if you don’t know the difference.’

In a way it was an extreme form of role‐
playing therapy, stepping outside of herself to become this voraciously sexual person, confident, in control, getting what she wanted. She now fully understood what people meant by the term ‘abandon’. When she was being Katy Koxx she was abandoning everything about Madeleine Witherson, existing without the constraints of fear and worry for a while. And when she returned to being Madeleine Witherson she brought a little more of Katy Koxx back with her each time.

The sex itself was far from great. For one thing, the sense of adventure about what she was doing was always going to wear off, and there was little chance of orgasm when at any second the director was likely to interrupt and call a halt for the dozenth time.

But that didn’t mean the whole thing wasn’t one enormous turn‐
on. It was like having a secret lover: she had this other life, this other self that nobody knew about, and the thought of it was a constant thrill. While she was in familiar company, she got off on thinking how surprised they would be if they knew. The paradox was that the longer she was a porn actress, the more the public Madeleine changed into someone they’d be less surprised to learn that about.

She didn’t think much about the future. She had done half a dozen features, and was moving up the credits as her face got known, but she didn’t have any great sense of ambition about it. She was just rolling with it, and that was probably because she always knew it wouldn’t last. Although she had taken precautions to protect her anonymity, she’d always known it was inevitable that her identity – or rather, who she was related to – would be discovered in the end (and that it would be the end). That hadn’t been part of her motive for doing it, certainly not consciously, but deep down she’d always known it was going to limit her stay; and maybe that had made it easier to get involved in the first place.

It hadn’t been a career move; it hadn’t been a springboard; it hadn’t been a protest; it hadn’t been a cry for help. It had just been something she had done, something she had had to do. And something that had made her feel better. Just a pity it was also something that was considered punishable by death in certain quarters.

She pulled out the plug to drain away the water, standing up and turning on the shower as she did so. A bath was soothing, but you ended up sitting around in what you had just washed off, which was bad enough when you hadn’t been bleeding off bruises with a razor blade. The first blast from the shower‐
head was cold, discharging what had been lying in the pipes. It brought her skin out in goose bumps and sharpened her up after such a long meditation.

She thought of the last shower she’d had. It had been that morning, a few hours and a lifetime ago, when the biggest thing on her mind was making the right impression – and on the photographer rather than the photographs. She’d stood there under the spray, nervous and still glowing from their meeting yesterday. The way he’d looked at her, the way he’d talked to her. No games, no postures, no bullshit. Refreshingly, it seemed here was someone who really couldn’t give a shit about her having been a porn star. There’d been so many who didn’t want to know her because of it, and plenty who only wanted to know her because of it. Even those who claimed not to have a problem with it still saw it as a vastly disproportionate part of who she was. This guy Kennedy wasn’t interested in a porn star, ex porn star, to‐
be movie star, senator’s daughter or whatever the hell else. He was interested in Madeleine Witherson, and it had been a while since anyone else was.

He’d said she was pretty. It didn’t matter why he had said that; it only mattered that he had.

Madeleine hadn’t thought she would get to be ‘pretty’ ever again. Little girls were pretty, and sometimes they grew up into pretty young women as long as that little girl remained somewhere inside. Maddy hadn’t been a little girl since she was eleven years old and her mommy got sick. In the business, the aspired compliment was ‘sexy’, which she’d been called plenty of times. But sexy was as much about behaviour and attitude as appearance, and a thoroughly affected appearance at that; sexy was something you became, something you played. Pretty was something you were, something natural, something pure. Pretty was a quintessence of yourself, of a person you had always been.

Stephen telling her she was pretty made Madeleine feel that the little girl she’d once been was still a part of her; it made her feel there were places inside her that her father hadn’t spoiled.

It made her feel she had survived.

Madeleine turned off the water and reached for a towel, shaking her head. Survived, she thought bitterly. Yeah. Survived child abuse, drink, drugs, insanity, self‐
loathing and suicide attempts, so she could be here now – healthy, ‘pretty’ and straightened out – in great shape for a human sacrifice.

‘I see you got Babylon Blue on the in‐
house movies,’ she observed, walking back into the bedroom. Her blue dress was sticking to her skin a little, the heat of the shower having rendered the bathroom as humid as a rainforest. ‘D’you check it out?’

‘Purely for research purposes,’ he answered, going for brazen rather than bashful. If he’d said no she wasn’t sure whether she’d have been disappointed or simply not believed him.

‘Well, I guess you didn’t see a whole lot if it was on SpanVision. Adult movies the whole family can enjoy.’

‘I think you’re being a wee bit harsh,’ he countered. ‘The edits were all extremely sensitive and unobtrusive. The story was still very clearly conveyed. Made me ask myself if there was any need for all those prurient interludes in the first place.’

‘Yeah, great dialogue like that will always stand up on its own.’

Madeleine sighed. Wasn’t smartass banter just the easiest thing in life? You could slip in and engage no matter what the occasion. Even with your own death (or eighty‐
eight others) hanging precariously over your head.

‘So, the room’s got a movie channel. Don’t suppose it’s got a minibar too?’

‘’Fraid not. This any good to you?’

He held up a bottle of whisky, which she assumed must be Scotch. Cragganmore, the label read, but she was only interested in the part that said ‘40% vol’.

‘Cool. Just hope you got another one there for yourself.’

There was a knock at the door, and she felt her heart leap. A few moments of bullshit small‐
talk had taken her mind off quite how scared she was, just long enough for it to knock her sideways when it rushed back in.

‘It’s okay,’ Stephen said. ‘Room service. Get back in the bathroom.’

She re‐
emerged once the visitor had gone, to find a tray on the double bed bearing two towering club sandwiches and some cans of Coke.

‘You’re a very, very nice man,’ she told him.

It was only when she started eating that she realised how hungry she was. She tore into the sandwich ravenously, the feeling of food in her mouth like a long‐
forgotten pleasure. A crack about the condemned woman’s last meal flitted into her mind, but she felt that pre‐
sob constriction in her throat when she even thought about forming the words.

She took a long swalow from her can, then poured a very large whisky into a glass on the dressing table and topped it up with the sweet black fizzy liquid.

‘Now that’s my idea of heresy,’ Stephen said, smiling.

‘My apologies.’ She gulped back half the glass, feeling a warmth run through her insides as it went down.

‘Never bother. I’m not a fundamentalist. I like a straight dram myself, but each to his own.’

The word ‘dram’ rolled over his lips in a low growling burr. It was like someone stroking the inside of her ears.

She didn’t want to die.

‘I take it you’re not religious,’ she said, trying to hide from her thoughts in a conversation.

‘Not unless football and whisky count. I was once, I think it’s fair to say.’ He wore a look she recognised, a combination of anger, sadness and vulnerability, as though he was unsure what he was giving away, what doors he was opening. ‘I was at a Catholic seminary.’

This was way out of left‐
field.

‘You mean like priest‐
school? I take it you dropped out.’

He gave, her a strained look, with a glint in his eye like he was only half reluctantly owning up to something.

‘Or did they throw you out?’

‘Bit of both. There was an aspect of the training I objected to.’

‘What was that?’

‘Getting shagged up the arse by fat, middle‐
aged Irishmen.’

‘What?’

‘Long story.’ He didn’t sound like he wanted to elaborate.

‘Bit of a change of track then, vocationally,’ Madeleine said, co‐
operatively changing the subject. ‘Would‐
be priest to photographer. What got you into that?’

‘There was a fire‐
sale at the careers office. Photographer was the only thing left by the time I got there. I actually wanted to be in a guitar band, but in Lanarkshire you have to be from Bellshill to do that. Motherwell doesnae qualify.’

‘Bellshill? Is that like Seattle or something?’

‘I suppose – it’s on a smaller scale but with even more rain.’

‘And that’s where all the bands play?’

‘No, it’s just where they all seem to be from. The Soup Dragons, Balaam and the Angel, Teenage Fanclub … even Sheena Easton.’

‘She was from there? I’ve heard of her. Not the others, though.’

‘Further proof, I believe, that there is no God. Any being that was truly divine would want to spread the music of the Fannies far and wide across the Earth.’

‘The fan … Oh, Teenage Fanclub? So they’re pretty good?’

‘Ay. I’ll send you a tape when … if … I mean …’ He put down his sandwich. The light seemed to go from his face. ‘Sorry.’

Madeleine shook her head. ‘Forget about it.’

Stephen stood up. He was starting to look as beat as she was. He might still be finding life faintly ridiculous, but his eyes suggested they were tiring of the relentless absurdity.

‘I could use a shower,’ he said, and retreated. She was left alone on the bed, watching him disappear through the doorway out of which steam was still drifting. She picked up her drink and glanced at the blank black screen of the room’s TV, from which her face darkly reflected. She knew that if she switched it on she’d probably see the same thing. She had to be one of the few people in the country not watching it right then, but as all good sports fans knew, the tube’s no substitute for being there.

The electronic chime of her mobile phone sounded from inside her bag, and she leaped to pull it out with all haste, like the device had fallen into a fire. Desperation sure sharpened the reflexes.

‘Hello?’

‘Miss Witherson, it’s Larry Freeman here.’ His voice was neutral. Damn. Anything south of euphoria was bad. ‘How you holdin’ up?’