But she was gone, out on to the empty dark street, stumbling, unseeing, heading for home though she had no idea where that was or if it even still existed.
50
Aurora
The words went something like:
‘Oh baby, what you do to me, yeah, baby, why can’t we be free,’
but she couldn’t remember what happened after that. It was a crappy, repetitive song, so perhaps if she just spat that part out again and again no one would notice.
In the studio, Stuart Lovell shook his head. ‘This is bad,’ he said. ‘Real damn bad.’
The sound engineer agreed. ‘We can up the quality on the record, but if the lyrics aren’t gonna stick …’
Stuart slurped his latte. ‘Can’t we take samples and piece them together? Get her to sing those bits separately?’
The engineer, bearded in a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt, sighed, exasperated. Starlets like Aurora Nash were good for one thing: spending Daddy’s money. The less the world had to hear about them, the better. Except now she was making another record. Hadn’t one been enough?
‘She don’t look good,’ he supplied, removing his headphones. ‘Someone oughtta hit rehab and fast.’
Stuart gritted his teeth. You’d think Aurora was Tina freaking Turner for how they’d been chewing their own asses off to get her in the studio. The girl didn’t seem to give a shit. Didn’t she care about Tom’s legacy? She was a car wreck.
Aurora removed her own headphones and waited for them to tell her what to do. On the outside looking in, she could see the men in heated discussion but couldn’t hear what they were saying. A bit like her life, really. They appeared to her like two fat parasites, leeching every last drop from her celebrity. She hadn’t even wanted to do this album. Tom had made her. It was his idea of ‘sorting her out’. Maybe she wouldn’t need sorting out if he hadn’t lied to her, the worst, most despicable lie ever told, since the day she was born.
No wonder she couldn’t summon a single iota of enthusiasm.
Stuart Lovell was eyeballing her. He’d been friends with Tom for ages but she’d always found him gross, like he was ready to jump her bones any second. All men that age were the same. She had no doubt Stuart had reaped the fruits of his power before now, pop-tart sweethearts queuing up on their hands and knees with their mouths hanging open.
His voice drifted into the recording booth. ‘Let’s wrap it for today, Aurora.’
‘Fine.’ She was only too happy to.
Rodeo Drive was, or had been, her favourite place to shop. On the way over to Casey’s she hit the boutique she and Farrah used to spend their Saturdays in, cooing over chic
pieces and lying about what looked good for fear of being upstaged by the other.
A handful of paps followed her and she gave them the finger, prompting the inevitable shower of flashing bulbs. People were staring. What had happened to the blue-eyed golden girl of Aurora’s youth? Her hair had grown out, dry and limp with bleach, orangey at the roots, and her pale complexion was hidden behind oversized black shades. She looked forty, an unhappy has-been Hollywood divorcee attempting to conceal bungled surgery beneath too much make-up.
Inside, she drifted between rails of designer gear. Every piece could be hers. Fuck it, she could afford the whole entire store! Nothing to save for and no reason to try. nothing whose acquisition would ever mean anything.
Pretty please can I have it, Daddy?
Of course she could. She could have anything. Take it all.
Except the truth.
Aurora felt like sitting down in the middle of the store with her head in her hands and just waiting for them to carry her away. This wasn’t living; it was surviving—and only just. She could see no exit. Her confession to Casey had been a waste of time. All it did was prove that no one was ever going to believe her. The island’s story was too far-fetched, too much like fiction.
And yet it was real.
Tom was too busy and important to bother with her. He hadn’t even cared when he was away on tour, supposedly fending for the family but what he didn’t realise was that she needed him at home. She didn’t need his cash or his fame or his credit card. She needed answers. She needed explanations. She needed
him
. Her father.
Her father…
She choked on a sob.
Stupid! Don’t cry. They ‘re nobody to you, remember?
Aurora fingered the collar on a thousand-dollar vest. She slipped it from its hanger, checked the tag and held it against her, like any ordinary shopper. Without caring who saw, she wandered with it casually draped over one arm, pretending to browse the other items that caught her eye. Then she slid it quietly into her bag and made her way out.
Easy.
Too easy.
‘Hold it there, miss.’
Approaching the doors, she quickened her pace.
‘Miss, you need to stop right there.’
She turned. Security loomed over her.
The big guy took her arm. ‘I think you’ve got something that belongs to us.’
‘What the hell were you
thinking
?’ Tom Nash signed the release papers with an angry flourish and yanked Aurora’s elbow. She’d never seen him so mad.
‘It was an accident,’ she mumbled. ‘It sorta fell in.’
‘Don’t insult me, Aurora,’ he warned. They emerged from the police station and headed towards Tom’s Escalade. He’d recently had his highlights touched and the effect was a kaleidoscope of flashing honeys and coppers. Beautiful hair. Girls’ hair. ‘I’m this close to snapping right now.’ He pinched a sliver of air between finger and thumb.
She got in and slammed the door. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered.
‘Sorry doesn’t cut it. You know I’m up to my neck in it defending you to the record company. First your mother and now you! Don’t think Stuart didn’t call me. Jesus H,
Aurora!’ He banged the steering wheel. ‘Some days it’s like I’m the only one keeping this family afloat.’
Family, my ass
.
For the gazillionth time she opened her mouth to confront him but no words came out. How was she meant to begin? What was she meant to say?
‘I thought that school had finally sorted you,’ Tom ranted on. They crossed the street at speed via an illegal manoeuvre. Car horns blasted. ‘But
theft
? What next?’ He turned to her. ‘Sometimes I don’t know where we went wrong!’
Aurora stared out of the window, biting down hard on her lip.
‘Well?’ He was waiting for the attitude, the backchat. It didn’t come. ‘What have you got to say for yourself?’
‘There’s nothing to say.’
‘Don’t you see how lucky you are?’ His voice trembled. ‘I
never
had what you have when I was a kid. I had nothing. Less than nothing. I never even knew kids
had
lives like yours! You’ve got it all, everything you could ever want or need, and
I’ve
given it to you. I’ve given you everything! But it’s still not enough, is it?
Theft?
When all you had to do was
ask
me for the money? What would make you do such a stupid thing as that?’ He ran a red light. ‘When have we ever deprived you, Aurora? Go on, when have
we
?’
She spoke so quietly that he had to ask her to repeat it.
‘I said,’ she mumbled, ‘who’s we?’
Tom didn’t understand. ‘Your mother and me, who else would I be talking about?’
She snorted. ‘Mother. Sure.’
They drove the rest of the way in silence. Tom’s knuckles were white on the wheel. When they arrived at the mansion, he told her she was grounded.
Being grounded for a day was one thing. Being grounded for a week was entirely another. Seventy-two hours in, Aurora was going out of her head.
The house was empty. Tom had back-to-back interviews and Sherilyn, for once, had ventured out. Trips to see her Lindy were the only incentive she had to leave her bedroom. She was a complete state, a brittle-boned doll. Like mother, like daughter, Aurora thought wryly.
Sherilyn’s room was predictably locked, but she knew where the key was kept. It was in the same place she hoarded all the drugs she imagined no one had a clue about.
The bedroom door opened, releasing a musty, lived-in smell. It was a mix of the cloying scent Sherilyn used to wear and a staleness like breath. Four or five empty chocolate-box trays were strewn across the floor around the bed and it was dark, the blinds drawn.
Aurora sat on the unmade bed sheets. A packet of pills had been attacked on the cabinet, next to a half-drunk glass of water. Aurora examined the packet, some kind of sedative. She felt defiant touching things, as if she were disturbing artefacts in a museum.
Getting a taste for snooping, she padded into Sherilyn’s bathroom and rummaged about. Painkillers, sleeping pills, Valium, Xanax … there was a whole pharmacy in here.
Back in the bedroom she began opening drawers, pulling stuff out and tossing it on the floor. What she was searching for, she wasn’t sure. A birth certificate? A letter? A contract?
A photo of baby Aurora in the arms of a woman who wasn’t Sherilyn Rose?
Ridiculous. Of course her hunt threw up nothing. Real life wasn’t like the movies.
Sherilyn hadn’t updated her walk-in closet in some time. It was a separate room, wall-to-wall with hanging garments, mostly from the eighties in peach and pastels, the underwear compartment filled with baggy, shapeless panties, some of them stained. Whoa. Aurora was pretty sure they didn’t have sex any more, but even so. Morbidly fascinated, she rifled through.
At the back of the space her hand touched what felt like a card. She pulled it out. White on one side, gold on the other. There was script on the front but because it had been torn, the edges papery and ragged, it was impossible to make out what it said.
Aurora felt about for the remaining pieces, just two more. When she pieced them together, she saw what the card was.
Bingo
.
Reuben van der Meyde was having a party. On Cacatra. This summer.
It looked like the mother of all parties.
The mother
.
No doubt Tom and Sherilyn were very special guests. Except they, or at least she, had elected not to go. Surely it was only right their daughter should take their place.
Aurora held tight to the card, so tight that the tips of her fingers deadened, as if she had found herself in a strange unfamiliar country and this was her passport home.
51
Stevie
Stevie could spend hours watching boats on the Thames. One came into view under Waterloo Bridge and she didn’t take her eyes from it till it passed Blackfriars and disappeared off towards Canary Wharf. It was all she could do. If she watched the boats, she didn’t have to look at her husband.
And if she didn’t look at her husband, she didn’t have to acknowledge what he had just told her.
‘I didn’t want you to know,’ Xander said. ‘That’s why I didn’t say anything. Because once you know something like this, it’s impossible to go back. I wish I could.’
She said nothing.
‘You have to understand I couldn’t keep it to myself. It’s a part of my past and I can’t suffocate it and pretend it didn’t happen. Not with you.’ His gaze pleaded with her but she refused to meet it. ‘I don’t want this marriage to fail. I can’t lose you. Please, Stevie.’
The anonymity of London was what she loved. Not because she and Xander were seated in overcoats on a bench on the South Bank, unrecognisable as they clutched polystyrene mugs that steamed in the freezing wintry air, but because English people were too proud to let on that they’d noticed. They might glance over once or twice, bury their chins in their collars and scarves and mention it later: that they’d seen someone famous, but it was no big deal. She was rarely approached in her home city. Now, especially now, she was grateful.
‘What you’re telling me,’ she said, and her voice didn’t sound like hers, ‘is that there are kids in Hollywood whose parents aren’t really theirs?’
‘Yes.’
It sounded absurd. A joke gone too far. ‘How many?’
‘I’d say fifty.’
‘You’d say?’
‘Fifty I know about.’
The world turned on its head, reflections of buildings in the grey line of the river switching things the wrong way round. Terrible, terrible.
‘And you helped make this happen.’ Finally she looked into his dark eyes, wondering at the person she’d given herself to, and the way he shook his head suggested she was wrong but they both knew she was right.
‘I was starting out in Hollywood,’ he said for the second time. ‘I came into contact with dozens of potential couples, hundreds. It was easy.’
Stevie wanted to laugh.
Instead she got to her feet and started walking, thinking only of getting away. She had to be alone. She had to try and process this and work out what to do.
He followed. ‘Moreau needed me,’ he said.
‘To feed back valuable information?’ she tossed angrily over her shoulder. ‘How resourceful.’
Xander kept pace. ‘I was a trusted asset. Imagine approaching the wrong person. Prospective couples had to be observed over long periods of time.’
‘Meanwhile Moreau sourced the surrogates and van der Meyde stuck them all together to make a pretty picture?’ she lashed.
‘Stevie, wait.
Slow down
.’
‘What a happy family you must have made.’
‘It wasn’t happy. That was why I got out.’ He reached for her, forcing her to stop. ‘And I did get out. That has to count for something, doesn’t it?’
A cyclist rode past, head dipped against the cold.
‘Moreau took over?’ His name was ghoulish to her now; everything about him was. ‘That’s why he spends so much time in Hollywood?
Finding people?
’
‘And other cities.’ The wind was stinging, rain turning to sleet. ‘They’ve got scouts all over the world, retrieving the men and women who can make these children and carry them.’
‘You make it sound like a damn production line.’
‘It is, in a way.’
Unable to conceal her disgust, she turned on her heel.
‘Don’t walk away, Stevie. Listen—’