The Movie (47 page)

‘Fuck you!’ Megan spat, nettled. Tm nobody’s puppy. And certainly not David’s. We split up.’

‘Oh, really?’ Mason asked softly. He kicked the branch to one side and walked across to her, standing over her. Megan shrank back on the log, but Zach reached forward, towards the neckline of her T-shirt, and pulled on the fine gold chain glinting against her tanned skin, yanking it free of the soaking cotton, twisting the small gold star with its cursive ‘D’ between his fingers. ‘You’re still wearing his dog-tag, I see.’

‘I just forgot to take it off,’ Megan snapped. ‘Uh-huh.’

‘God, you’re so infuriating,’ she said angrily, jerking the pendant-out of his grasp. ‘You think you’re so smart. You and loxana, you’re two of a kind. Just because you’re famous you think the rest of the world should be permanently on its knees in front of you. Well, fuck you. You deserve each other. And let’s see how many wild animals in here are impressed because you used to sing in a rock band.’

‘I think I’m so smart? That’s good, Megan, really. Coming from the college graduate who was picking me up on my French pronunciation the ft time we ever met. Do you know how that made me feel? It was like being back in grade school; I felt three feet high. And then you were always so bitchy in reharsals, always putting me down. I never expected anybody to kiss my ass, Megan, everybody does it naturally. You get so sick of it all the time. Or they’re like you, putting me down because I didn’t spend years in a fucking classroom. Nobody is natural with you, except other musicians, maybe. But whatever. Any time you want to get on your knees in front of me, that’s fine, sweetheart.’

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‘In your dreams, you son of a bitch,’ she snarled. ‘I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last man on earth.’

‘Yeah? Because in your case, sugar, I just might be,’ Zach retorted.

Their eyes locked for a second in mutual hostility, then Mason moved away from her.

‘This won’t help us,’ he said finally, reaching for the branch he’d tossed aside. ‘Like it or not, we’re stuck with each other until we get out of this jungle. P, dght?’

‘lLight,’ Megan agreed, although her face was still flushed red with fury.

‘So let’s have a truces Temporarily. We can take up with the insults when we’re back in the hotel.’

Megan looked away, biting her lip again, and just hodded. His words stirred the dread that was constantly with her. Jesus, who knew if they would ever get back to the hotel? She wondered if anybody had ever longed to walk through that lobby the way she did now.

‘Check this out, another one,’ Zach said, pleased, ben.ding down to pick up a second branch with a forked tip. He flung it next to the first and cracked it at the base, smashing it cleanly with his foot.

‘Zach, what are you doing?’ Megan asked.

‘We gotta get you mobile,’ Mason said, holding up his two branches triumphantly. He smiled. ‘Crutches, courtesy of Mother Nature.’

‘You are out ofyou mind,’ Megan told him, but she gave them a hard look, and added; ‘Probably.’

‘Try them. You can’t walk on that ankle, and it’s better if I carry you only when I have to - I can save my strength that way.’ He came over and helped her hook her.arms over the forks in the wood, then lifted her gently to her feet. ‘How are they?’

Td prefer to get around in a cab, but not bad,’ Megan said, testing her weight against the wood. It held fine. ‘You got my height exactly right,’ she told him, surprised:

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‘I should do. I’ve watched you often enough,’ Mason said.

She glanced at him, but he’d turned aside.

‘I think we should head southeast,’ Megan suggested. ‘I remember watching the forest from the ridge - it was

thinnest to the southeast.’

‘Got a compass?’

‘We could use the sun. Rises in the east, sets in the west.’ ‘Right.’ Zach smacked his forehead. ‘Trust Dr Livingstone here to forget something like that.’ He walked across the sunlit patch of ground, shading his eyes, and gazed up into the sky.

Megan tried not to stare too obviously at Zach Mason’s sun-drenched body, the light lovingly accentuating every taut muscle, the tangled, attractive mane of black hair that fell halfway down his back, the distinct, promising bulge between’his thighs … She dropped her gaze, blushing, before he spotted her lusting after him and gave her some superior putdown.

And I’m not that interested anyway, Megan told herselE. Maybe it’s just because he looks like a savage in those calŁskin leggings, with that hair.

‘Hey, Hiawatha,’ she called. ‘Which way?’

‘Over there, I guess.’ He pointed. ‘Why Hiawatha?’

‘You look like a led Indian in those pants,’ Megan said, grinning.

Zach glanced down and laughed. ‘I see what you mean.

But you kind of startled me; I’m quarter Cherokee.’ ‘No shit. leally?’

‘My father’s mother,’ Zach said, nodding.

Megan shivered. That’s where he gets those strange eyes. Wolf eyes, predator’s eyes.

‘I never knew,’ she said.

‘Never read about it, you mean. That was one of my few successes,’ Mason told her, walking over. ‘I tried to keep my family out of it as much as I could. Besides, with the

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Indian stuffthey’d never let it go. I had as much “New Jim Morrison” as I could take.’ He helped her over the log. ‘Are you ready to go?’

‘As ready as I’ll ever be,’ Megan said. She swung the crotches, moved her right foot, then swung her left foot after it.

‘Aah,’ she muttered, wincing from the renewed stabs of pain.

‘I’ll carry you,’ Zach said immediately, leaping forward. Megan waved him back. ‘No, it’s OK. It’s just a twinge. Nothing I can’t handle.’ She tried again, took a step forward, then another. ‘See? No problem. Give me ten minutes to practise, and I’ll be sprinting.’ She smiled at him, making light of it, trying to distract him. If Zach thinks I’m suffering, he’ll insist on slinging me over his

shoulder. And then it’ll take us three days to get out of here, she thought. I can’t let him know how much it hurts.

She wondered briefly what David Tauber would have done if she’d been stranded with him instead. And felt a chill run through her at the thought.

‘You let me know if you need help, Megan,’ Zach insisted, watching her carefully.

Tm fine, really. Let’s go find a nice restaurant, about four miles due southeast.’

‘I mean it.’ He was hesitating.

‘So do I,’ Megan said firmly. She gave him a bright smile and took three paces forward, walking slowly but surely in the direction he’d pointed out. ‘Now, what are we going to talk about during this little stroll? How about Dark Angel? You guys meant the world to me once, if you can believe that.’

‘You have to be kidding,’ Zach said, but he followed

her.

‘No. And since I’m stuck with you, you’re going to have to answer all my questions, Zach. Because I’m going to need more than the pretty scenery to distract me’.’

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‘Will you answer all my questions? It has to go two ways.’

‘Sure. It’s a better deal for me.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ Zach said, giving her a lazy smile.

‘But OK, Megan. You get the exclusive interview.’ ‘It’ll be the longest one you ever give.’

‘You know that’s the truth,’ he agreed, and they set off together, slowly, walking into the green uncharted depths of the jungle.

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Tom Goldman walked into his office with a heavy heart. Not that anybody would have noticed: he was at his desk by half-seven, as usual; he was smartly dressed, as usual, this morning in a black bespoke suit by Anderson & Sheppard of Savile tkow, a Tumbull & Asset pinstripe shirt and a sober navy-blue tie; and none of the security guards or secretaries noticed anything different about his manner, because Goldman had been acting depressed and low-key for months. It was going to be another blazing hot day on the Artemis lot. Business as usual.

Except not for me, Goldman thought wearily as he loged into his computer. The password had to be changed every week and he did it without thinking. This morning he found himself tapping in Victrix Hotel and smiled grimly. Pretty Fretdian. There was no getting away from it: he just couldn’t stop thinking about Eleanor Marshall, about the miraculous night he’d spent with her, and all the nights that they could have had, and the time he’d wasted and the dumb choices he’d made. Maybe to an outsider, Tom thought; the irony of his situation would seem amusing or elegant; but to him it was simply pain; bitter, crashing waves of regret, and longing, and the hopeless sense of certainty that it was now too late, and it would be too late forever. Jordan, the sensational little sex bomb that he had so foolishly married, thinking she would add a certain shiksa, Bostonian class to his life-what a joke-had turned into a dead weight around his neck. It was impossible to

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talk to her about his work, or art, or music, or sports, or politics - in short, any of the subjects he was interested in. The s01e topic of conversation that interested his wife was social mountaineering, and her babble was conducted in an arcane language that he couldn’t understand and didn’t want to learn - ‘Co-Chairman of the Junior League’, ‘Secretary to the Benefit’s Social Subcommittee’, ‘Vice President’s Assistant for Membership’.

It seemed that that was Jordan’s world - throwing expensive, thousand-dollar-a-plate benefit dinners for causes she didn’t give a damn about and fitting in with a bunch of overdressed, bejewelled, bored Beverly Hi/Is housewives who all hated each other anyway.

‘But sweetheart, this stuffis so petty, don’t you think?’ Tom had asked her last Friday, when Jordan was insisting on dragging him out to some fancy-dress ball in aid of saving th whales, or inner-city literacy, or whatever the hell it was that week. He was tired, and he really wanted to just stay home, climb in the hot tub and veg out, just stare at the stars for a while.

‘I don’t understand,’ Jordan had replied, giving that litde-gid pout he’d come to dislike intensely.

Tom tried again. ‘It’s not important, Jordan.’

‘How can you say that?’ Jordan’s face was a mask of horror. ‘Don’t ‘you know that Susie Metcalf is the chairman? She’s totally important, Tom!John only married her last year and this is her first big evening! Of course it’s

important, she expects me to be there!’

‘And what happens if we skipit?

‘Skip it? Don’t be silly, Tom!’ Jordan stamped her Chanel pumps in fi’ustration. ‘If we don’t show, Susie and all the other Metropolis Studios girls might not take tables out for my drug-prevention slave auction in November.’

‘Heaven forbid,’ Goldman said with heavy sarcasm, and went upstairs to change.

But it’s my fault, Tom told himself. I married a doll, a

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pretty blonde toy I thought I could never get tired of. I thought I could get companionship from other friends, but it’s too lonely at the top to have that many real friends, and too busy to spend much time with them. You need to be able to talk to your wife, because she’s the only one who’s there all the time. All Jordan and I ever had was sex, and

now …

Something had taken the bloom off that rose, too. He

had been trying not to admit it, but this morning his feelings simply could not be brushed under the carpet. It was that evening with Eleanor. No whips, no chains, no baby oil and blue movies -just two people moving together, and it had been the most incredible ,sexual experience of his life. Like something you read about,

‘ where the climax was more than mere physical relief, where he felt it crash around his heart and his mind, touch his very soul. It had moved him almost to tears. And when it was over, he’d had no desire to go straight to sleep, no sense of slight embarrassment at whatever scene he’d just acted out - he’d wanted to stay there, with Eleanor, hlding her and caressing her and finally drifting to sleep in her arms. It was a feeling of the sweetest, purest happiness.

It was total contentment.

It was love.

Goldman stood up abruptly and began to pace up and down his oflace, distressed.

Why do I have to dwell on it now? he thought bitterly.

Why today, of all days? Today, “when I have to see her, when I have to tell her she’s fired?

The icy winds sliced through him, and Joey Duvall shivered as he turned into the lobby of the elegant brownstone on West 74th Street, clutching his camel-hair overcoat more tightly around him. Another freezing fall day in Manhattan, not ideal weather for trudging around the Upper West Side. ButJoey wasn’t complaining: So far,

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it had been a very profitable morning, and it was just about to get a lot better.

‘Mr Duvall?’ the receptionist enquired. Joey nodded curtly. ‘Mrs Fransen is expecting you, sir. If you’d like to take the elevator to the fourth floor, I’ll ring up and let her know you’ve arrived.’

Joey nodded again, picked up his burgundy leather briefcase and stepped into one of the elevators. He pressed the button and took a casual look around as the car hissed smoothly upwards. All polished brass and marble detailing; very nice. Mrs David Fransen had certainly risen in the world, Joey thought. Like most of her old colleagues. One in particular.

The elevator stopped on the fourth floor and Duvall stepped out into a long corridor, carpeted in thick, expensive-looking navy wool, its eggshell-blue walls hung with various gloomy paintings of horses and fox-hunting scenes. More English than Buckingham Palace. The Fransens’ door was one of only two on that level, marked with a discreet brass nameplate for ‘Mr and Mrs David Fransen’. Joey was amused. What would Babette Delors know from class? But apparently she had learned.

It was gonna be interesting to see how she handled this blast from the past, Joey thought.

He pushed the’bell, listened to a few soft, musical notes chiming inside the apartment.

The door opened immediately. A young woman, the picture of a stylish New York wife, stood in front of him, dressed in a smart dark green shit, with a thin string of emeralds looped across the creamy skin of her throat. She could not have been more than twenty-seven or twenty eight, he guessed, and she was extremely attractive, thick red hair cut in a geometric, Vidal Sassoor-type bob, bright blue eyes and long, slender legs. Everything about her screamed of-money and privilege, from the soft fabric of the suit to the large dark blue sapphire of her engagement