‘To what?’ She whipped round. ‘It’s one thing you kept this from me, but, hey, we all have stuff in our past we’d sooner forget. What I can’t abide is the idea you were involved at all in something this …
evil
.’ Her voice broke. ‘Who are you? I just don’t know any more.’
‘I’m me.’ He went to touch her but she pulled away. ‘And
I believed I was doing a good thing, OK? Helping people. That’s what JB always said. That we were helping people.’
‘La Lumière,’ she murmured, the pieces fitting. ‘It’s a foil. It gives him an alibi, a day job. It makes him a businessman. What was yours, then? Actor by day, child farmer by night?’
Xander went to the river and put his elbows on the railings, rubbing his hands together against the cold. A boat horn sounded.
‘How could you?’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘How
could
you?’
‘JB and I, we were close at school. He was my best friend. I worshipped him. And after his parents died, I suppose that worship turned to fear.’ Xander stared flatly at the water. ‘I went along with whatever he said. I always did. This was no different.’
‘What were you afraid he’d do?’
But he didn’t need to answer. Stevie could tell Xander hadn’t been afraid of a temper or an act of violence. He’d been afraid that the friend he’d adored would freeze him out, as JB had done that last term before the tragedy, and Xander would never be close to him again.
‘He makes it so you don’t question things,’ he said. ‘You trust him. You put your faith in him.
Not once do you question things.’
‘You question everything.’
‘But I didn’t. What started out as a favour, because it was dressed in a way that made it sound unimportant, inconsequential—just keeping an eye out, a quiet word after a drink or two—became, before I knew it, the most clandestine operation Hollywood has ever known.’
A tube rattled over to Embankment. Red buses over
Waterloo, the chimes of Big Ben and the spires of Parliament … Life carrying on as normal.
Stevie let his words sink in. ‘And I’ll bet it makes money.’
Her husband bowed his head and she could see where his hair was cut above his collar and wanted to reach out and touch him but didn’t.
‘Van der Meyde discovered in the nineties that two of his close friends couldn’t have kids.’ He named a celebrated Hollywood couple. She was an actress, he, a screenwriter. Between them they had over sixty years in the industry, a wealth of Awards, and three children: two sons and a daughter, now in their twenties. All had followed their parents’ path into show business. The daughter was enjoying an especially lucrative career.
‘They were devastated,’ said Xander. ‘It was the only thing they had ever been denied. How could it be they had everything and yet the one thing they truly desired evaded them?’
She pictured the family. ‘You’re telling me those children aren’t theirs?’
His silence answered her question. A short, hysterical laugh escaped her lips.
‘The kids look like each other,’ he explained, ‘because they’re from the same surrogates.’ He was peeling the layers back gradually, with care, so she understood. ‘These days it’s unheard of to do as many as three from the same foundation. The risk is too great. But the money van der Meyde’s friends were prepared to pay, way back then, sowed the seeds of a revolutionary idea. It was realistic.
Supply and demand
. And it was lucrative, highly lucrative. We’re talking tens of millions of dollars—and that was twenty years ago.’
‘And now? What do they pay now?’
‘I haven’t been in it for years. I don’t know. When I stopped, a child could fetch anything between—and this is the whole package, from the initial fee to the twenty-one-year guarantee—thirty million and two-hundred million, dependent on the couple’s means.’
Stevie said, ‘Jesus.’
‘Van der Meyde saw an opportunity and he went for it.’ Xander returned to the water. ‘He’s made a fortune. More than he’s made on any of his other schemes.’
‘These people pay for fake children? How can they? How can they live with themselves?’
‘You’d be surprised at the reasons.’
‘Would I?’
‘Remember the riches these clients possess. Money corrupts. There’s a black irony in having it all, you know, everything you ever wanted, but no legacy and no one to hand it to. Some enter into this because they can’t conceive naturally. It really is as simple as that.’
His voice shook. How she wished it hadn’t.
‘Others do it because they’re afraid to fall. Years they’ve spent building and growing a career based on assumptions of heterosexuality, or sexual potency, or family values, when those things couldn’t be further from the truth. But they’d die before they let the world discover that. They want to show the fans
their own kids
.’
‘Can’t they adopt like any normal person?’
‘Adoption defeats the point, Stevie. Imagine if—’ here he named a hard-man action hero ‘—had to tell the world he was firing blanks? If the service is there and they can pay for it. What better thing is there to blow a fortune on?’
‘Can they be specific about what they want?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean, this is Hollywood. If you’re going to spend on a baby it might as well be the one you’ve always dreamed about, right? Boy, girl, blue eyes, brown hair? Whatever they want, they get? It has to be happening.’
He nodded, confirming her fears. It was like some nightmare dystopia come to life.
‘And what about the ones that don’t come up to scratch?’ Her mouth was dry. ‘Disabilities, syndromes, complications, stuff like that?’
‘Van der Meyde lets them go.’
‘Explain,’ she demanded, sickened. ‘He
lets them go
?’
‘It’s mercifully rare.’
‘Mercifully? Don’t make me laugh.’
‘The ones he can use stay on the island. They work for him.’
The island …
She and Bibi had been there, the epicentre of this grim machine. Bibi had been vulnerable, as so many seeking the spa’s remedies. Was that how they spotted the ones most likely to cough up? Get them into therapy; have them admit to something missing in their lives.? She’d put nothing past van der Meyde, or Moreau. They were capable of anything.
‘Those with more obvious defects are abandoned.’
‘Abandoned?’
‘It’s too risky to re-engage them in an adoption process. The couples receive a full refund unless they wish to proceed again, but, should the supposed birth already have been announced, it may be that a new child needs to be supplied with immediate effect. In those cases, couples will stall while a suitable alternative is sourced, informing the press they don’t yet wish to share images. People buy that. New parenthood commands that extra degree of privacy.’
‘I’ve heard Hollywood conspiracy theories before,’ Stevie choked, ‘but this is …’
‘I know.’
It made a horrific kind of sense. Stevie thought of those bizarre LA couplings, marriages she wasn’t convinced were real or had heard wacky rumours about but had put down to tattle.
Fifty?
Who were they?
‘Who are they?’ she asked.
He named a few. She was stunned.
‘No wonder she’s such a mess,’ Stevie commented sadly.
‘She doesn’t know,’ Xander reminded her. ‘None of them do. The kids never find out.’
‘And that’s meant to make it better? That’s the worst part of all, surely. How could they, how could
you
, know this when they don’t? People’s lives, their core, toyed with like—’
‘It was an error of judgement. I’m not proud.’
‘And the surrogates? How could they give up their own baby?’
‘Ethics are the luxuries of the well off. You lead a lucky life, Steve.’
‘Don’t patronise me.’
‘I’m not. I’m saying that desperation does strange things. We’re not talking fifty-dollar bills here: we’re talking
millions
. Safety, security, insurance, a
certainty of future
.’
‘And they see the money, do they, these surrogates?’
‘Why wouldn’t they?’
‘Come on, Xander, what’s to stop van der Meyde pocketing the cash himself? I shouldn’t imagine there’d be much the average woman on the street could do about it.’
‘I’d have known if that was what JB was doing.’
‘But not if that’s what van der Meyde was doing.’
Silence.
Stevie rubbed her forehead. ‘Fucking hell.’
‘You don’t need to tell me.’
She wrapped her coat tighter, watching as the world carried on, ignorant of its change, as though every person that passed, every car and dog and smiling child, were flipped inside out, colours reversed like the negative of a photograph.
‘That’s the real reason you didn’t want me to go to Cacatra,’ she said quietly. ‘Isn’t it? Not because of Moreau or your friendship or his parents or any of that, but because of this.’
There was a long pause, before, at last: ‘You think I’d want my wife going anywhere near a man who makes a living from couples who can’t have babies?’
She rested a hand on his back. A small gesture, but she felt him crumple beneath it.
‘How could you imagine I would ever, ever in a million years, consider something like that?’
Xander turned to her. His eyes were tired. She hated what he’d done, the fact he’d been part of it, but she could not hate him. They were on the same side. It was what being married was about. ‘I came here to tell you I’m sorry,’ he said gravely. ‘You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Stevie. Please, give me a second chance.’
She looked at him and took in his sins and felt her love cling on despite it all. She leaned into the warm solidity of his shoulder.
Everything he’d said, the promises he’d made … from here on in, it was about trust. A fresh start. A new beginning.
‘You have to keep it to yourself,’ Xander murmured. ‘Do you hear me, Stevie?’
‘Yes.’
‘I mean it. Promise me. You
have to stay quiet.’
She looked out at the water and didn’t say a word.
52
Lori
‘We have to go out with it,’ said Jacqueline Spark. They were at the One Touch offices on Pico Boulevard. ‘There’s no other way.’
Lori nodded. She sat at her publicist’s desk with her hands in her lap.
Jacqueline got up. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, coming round to join her. She might have hugged the Lori she used to know, but not this one. This one was harder, fossilised by the depth of JB Moreau’s betrayal. ‘I did try to tell you.’
‘And I didn’t listen,’ Lori replied. ‘Don’t worry—I’ve been through it a thousand times. I know everything you’re going to say.’
Even if her client was steeled against her emotions, Jacqueline was incensed enough for both of them. Who the
hell
did Moreau think he was? He had a wife, a business. He was one of the most important men in Hollywood. And he thought he could knock up a poor sweet girl like Lori
Garcia and leave her to deal with the consequences? She had always thought him a cold sonofabitch, but this? It was unbelievable.
She touched Lori’s arm, deciding what she needed now was a friend, not a colleague. ‘If I were you I’d have left it on his voicemail. That’s what he’d do.’
Lori put a hand on her stomach. ‘I’ve made it clear enough. He has to know, or at least be able to guess, what’s happened.’
‘That would explain the silence, then.’ With each revelation, Moreau plunged in Jacqueline’s already low expectations. ‘He messed up. He was probably counting on you getting rid of this kid, but, seeing as you haven’t, he’ll have to pretend like it never happened.’ She winced. ‘What a bastard.’
‘He told me he—’
‘Pulled out in time? Was allergic to condoms? Couldn’t have kids?’
Lori grimaced. ‘How did you know?’
‘I didn’t, till half a second ago. Guys like him don’t use protection. It’s a slight on their ego or some shit. He fed you a line, honey. I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t be. The last thing I need is people feeling sorry for me.’
‘You don’t want to try him one last time?’ Privately Jacqueline thought Moreau would deserve everything he got—or everything he didn’t get, as the case may be—but she had to keep her opinions in check before they made the call to go it alone. She didn’t want Lori turning round months down the line and resenting her railroading them into a decision.
‘Why?’ Lori challenged. ‘I agree JB ought to be told the
kid is his, but what am I hoping for? That it’s going to make everything OK? That he’s going to say, “Wonderful, now let’s run off into the sunset and play house”?’ She looked down. ‘It’s a fairytale. It’s not real. It’s time I realised that and moved on.’
Jacqueline frowned. ‘He’s done this before, you know, just vanished for months on end. He can, because he’s got Kirsty running things at La Lumière and an army of subordinates wiping his ass all across America. And before you tell me you thought you were special or different or whatever, don’t let yourself walk into the biggest cliché that ever there was.’
‘I know.’
‘So—’ Jacqueline stood, back to business—this was one approaching shitstorm if they didn’t take cover now ‘—let’s get to the facts. Your baby is due in a matter of months and it’s clear to me Moreau has no intention of being involved.’ She faced the window, arms folded, circling through options. ‘If I felt for one second that it would be any use to you—and you alone—to admit this child is his then I wouldn’t hesitate in advising it. But, I don’t.’ She turned round. ‘I think it will make you appear a marriage wrecker, a tramp and, worst of all, a girl who’s cheated her fans into believing she’s a virgin sweetheart when in reality she had way too much to drink one night and ended up sleeping with the boss.’
Lori moved to object, but Jacqueline held a hand up.
‘I’m not saying that’s what happened, just that’s how it will be perceived.’
‘And it’s exactly what he wants,’ Lori conceded. ‘To keep the whole thing quiet.’
‘I don’t give a crap what he wants. You’re my priority
and fessing up to a one-night stand with a married fashion mogul, when you’re deep in the industry yourself, is a very bad idea. We have to keep this to ourselves or it’s game over.’