Darling Sweetheart (22 page)

The whispering stopped.

Through her silent panic, she tried to rationalise… Old buildings make all sorts of noises at night, especially up around the roof where the tiles and the timbers would be cooling from the heat of the day… Surrounded by a forest, there’d be all sorts of nocturnal creatures running about, pine martens and bats and the like, and their scurrying feet and leathery wings could easily mistaken for–

‘Hey bug-face,’ Froggy said, as loud and as clear as if he was on her pillow, ‘it’s nearly time again.’

She screamed and jumped out of the bed, flailing around for the light switch. She bumped into something heavy and yelped again – that stupid wooden trunk. Eventually, she found the switch. The bulb was weak, but she was ever so glad that she hadn’t removed it to recreate Roselaine’s living conditions. She scanned the room, pulling her sheet about her. There was no sign of any activity, except her crumpled bed. Gingerly, she checked underneath it: no wires or hidden devices, nothing that could have been used to trick her. There was certainly no Froggy, because that just couldn’t be. She peeped out the window overlooking the garden. The empty seats and projection screen still occupied the colonnade, but everything had been turned off, and everyone had obviously gone to bed, so she had not overheard part of a film. She took a deep breath, then wrenched the bedroom door open, but there was only the dark spiral staircase, descending into silence. She crawled back into bed, leaving the
light on, but that attracted several huge moths, so she dressed in Roselaine’s scrappy costume and her riding cloak then slipped like a ghost down to the front courtyard. There, she prepared her horse but couldn’t do so in total silence. Looking as if he would quite like to shoot her, Bernstein emerged from the gatehouse and opened the gate. She made her way through the village to the first hint of dawn but then entered the forest and was swallowed by the dripping gloom.

‘I can’t believe she asked you for rent, bug-face – your own mother! How freakin’ cheap is that?’

‘She was upset. She didn’t mean it…’

‘Upset, my sweet, young arse. She was pissed out of her mind.’

Annalise and Froggy lay curled up together in a tatty sleeping bag in a corner of her father’s aircraft hangar. They had spent a very uncomfortable night there.

‘Please, can we just not talk about her?’

‘Oh, but we
need
to talk about Mother. I mean, shaking you awake in the middle of the night, demanding rent for the privilege of staying in your own home? And how come she gets to sleep in the mansion while we freeze our arses off in a fecking field?’

‘It’s not a field, it’s an aircraft hangar.’

‘Do aircraft hangars have rats?’

‘WHAT?’ She sat bolt upright. ‘Where? Where did you see rats?’

‘Errr… I didn’t see any as such, but you’ve got to admit this
looks
like the sort of place where you’d find very large families of them, running around with their big pink tails sticking out as they hunt for young women to chew on.’

‘Oh God…’ She slumped against the corrugated iron of the hangar wall. Froggy was right; the building was really just a barn in an overgrown field, full of useless junk. Late last night, when
Annalise had screamed at her mother and stormed out of the house, it had seemed like the logical place to storm off to, almost as if she had expected to find her father and his little aeroplane waiting for her, waiting to whisk her away. But, of course, her father and his little aeroplane were in bits at the bottom of the Mediterranean. Now, she deeply regretted having come home, because her mother obviously didn’t want her here and certainly didn’t seem to be in mourning. Annalise, on the other hand, was tormented by questions. What had happened to her father? Had he known he was about to die, or had it been sudden? Had he had time to think of her? Had his life flashed before his eyes? What, she wondered, had been the last thing to go through his mind? And don’t say ‘the windscreen’ because that joke is so OLD.

‘I know what’s going through
her
mind,’ Froggy opined.

‘Huh?’

‘Bit slow this morning, are we? I said, I know what’s going through her mind. He’s dead, so she thinks you’ve inherited his money. That’s what Mother wants. That’s why she burst into your room last night, demanding rent.’

‘But that’s ridiculous! I spent every penny I had on a taxi to get here! I’m just a poor, skint student!’

‘Yeah, but try telling her that. She’s insanely jealous.’

‘She always was. Right from when I was little, she always treated me like the competition.’

‘Because you were.’

‘But that wasn’t my fault!’

‘Oh, don’t start feeling sorry for yourself, or we’ll be here all day. This Monica, the woman who gave you the money for the taxi, could she give us more?’

‘She’s in London – there’s nothing she can do for us here.’

‘So let’s go to London! I mean, stuff Whin Abbey! I have to say, I’m dying to meet this Lucy, she sounds like my kind of girl! Drugs, late-night parties, casual sex in the Cineplex…’

‘There’s no way you’re meeting Lucy, so forget it.’

‘What? You’re gonna feck off back to London and leave me here again, is that the deal?’

‘No. We can’t go to London because I can’t afford a bus up to Dublin, let alone a boat or a flight. And, anyway, I’m not friends with Lucy any more.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because she did a very bad thing.’

‘What sort of very bad thing?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ Annalise kicked off the sleeping bag. She was fully clothed, in her Oxfam overcoat, black jeans and Doc Marten boots. Stiff and shivering, she set out across the bottom field, carrying the sleeping bag over one arm and Froggy in the other.

‘I’m starving,’ she complained, ‘but there’s no food in the house.’

‘There’s a half a pizza in the oven – remember? We saw it yesterday!’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘It must be at least a week old.’

‘So think of it as mushroom flavour!’

‘Ugh!’

‘Get the yucky pizza and we’ll go to the library,’ Froggy enthused. ‘We can hide there from Mother while we figure out what to do next. Just like the good old days!’

‘I’m seventeen on Thursday,’ she muttered, ‘and look at the state of me.’

‘Hey. You’re never too old to become younger – Mae West said that.’

‘I’m cold, hungry and broke, my father’s dead and my mother hates me – Annalise Palatine said that.’

‘It could be worse.’

‘How?’

‘At least you still have me!’

‘Always look on the bright side, don’t you?’

‘As long as we’re together, I’m a happy bunny.’

‘You’re not a bunny, you’re a frog.’

‘So tell me about this Lucy – what was the really bad thing she did, exactly? Did it involve S-E-X?’

‘I said I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘But you will,’ he cackled, ‘because in the end, you talk to me about everything!’

‘Congratulations.’

She felt something tickle her cheek. She opened her eyes. Bright lights shone into them.

‘Hmm?’ The tickle moved to her chin.

‘I’ve seen the papers,’ the female voice cooed in her ear, ‘what wonderful news.’ She swatted the tickle away, then realised that she must have dozed off in make-up. The restless night and the early start; the fresh air on the ride to work then a nice reclining chair in a warm room… A make-up assistant called Carol was brushing foundation onto her face. She yawned.

‘Sorry, what did you say?’

‘I’ve just seen the papers – congratulations on your news.’

‘What news?’

Carol passed her a copy of
France Soir
from the make-up counter. The front-page photo was fuzzy but nonetheless showed Emerson down on bended knee, before her at the restaurant table.

‘LA DEMANDE EN MARIAGE.’

The marriage proposal; although it struck Annalise that
‘demande’
was a much better word. She dropped the paper to the floor.

‘Shite,’ she breathed. ‘Shite, shite, shite, shite, shite.’

‘Oh dear – did you not want anyone to know?’

The trailer door smashed open and heavy footsteps clumped along the corridor.

‘Where is she? WHERE IS SHE?’

Peter Tress erupted into the room, waving another copy of
France Soir
. ‘You!’ He pointed at Carol. ‘ Get out!’ Carol tiptoed away. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ He thrust the paper at Annalise.

‘I’ve just seen it myself,’ she sighed, pointing at the copy on the floor.

‘Then what do you have to
say
about it?’ He was near-hysterical; his pale-blue eyes bulged in their sockets and his lips were flecked with white. ‘WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY?’ She felt trapped in the chair. She thought he might grab her again or lash out, but she kept her eyes and voice as level as she could.

‘Right now, I don’t know what to say.’

He snorted and slumped against the counter. ‘I’ve been a fool. I thought you were someone else.’

‘Who… who did you think I was?’

‘I thought you were a real person, not some starfucking little fake. I thought you were here to work, but all you want is a rich husband.’

‘Is that what you think?’

‘It’s what everyone thinks.’

For the first time in many years, she wished she had Froggy at her side. ‘How good is your memory, Peter?’

‘What sort of bullshit question is that?’

‘Because you seem to have forgotten that I’ve kept my mouth shut about your behaviour in my apartment. And you seem to have forgotten that when Harry first invited me to dinner, I didn’t want to go. But you said I should. You said we should keep the gods happy – do you remember?’

‘I am bored already. Your point is?’

‘Then, you wanted me to help you handle Emerson, because that would make your life easier. Well, since then, my life has been far from easy.’

‘We could have made some real art together, you and me!’

‘Is this about art, or about your ego?’

‘That is such a…
woman
thing to say!’

‘Hmm, the last time I checked…’ she lifted her bodice and made a show of peering into it, ‘…yup, they’re still there. Fancy that.’

He leapt from the counter. ‘People like you find it easy – you are so beautiful, men just fall at your feet! But what good is beauty, if you have no heart?’ With a flick of his ponytail, he paused for effect in the doorway. ‘This is not about art, it is about love. Because I
love
you!’ The door slammed and he was gone. She stared at herself in the mirror.

‘How can you possibly love me,’ she wondered aloud, ‘when you don’t know who I am?’

‘I won’t let you do it, Annalise. It’s too fuckin’ dangerous. Peter, tell her she can’t do it.’

Tress looked up from the complicated camera device strapped to Sergio Palmiro’s body. His expression was indifferent, his tone flat.

‘I am sorry, Harry, but it is in Miss Palatine’s contract that she can do her own stunts within reason.’ Pointedly, he turned his attention back to Palmiro, who puffed and groaned under the weight of his equipment.

‘So who the hell decides what’s within reason? I mean, our lead actress throwin’ herself offa huge goddamn cliff – is that within reason?’

‘It’s all right, I can do it. I
want
to do it.’ Annalise peered over the drop. It was perpendicular. The walls of Beynac Castle melded into the cliff, which ended far below in a jumble of boulders and trees – as it happened, roughly the same spot where she had dropped the runner’s mobile phone.

It was early evening. A crowd of about fifty cast and crew stood on the ramparts above the keep, waiting to film the escape scene, where Bernard, Roselaine and a group of others would be lowered from the rear of the castle while Roselaine’s father distracted
the besieging army with an attack. The abyss was unguarded, for it was considered impassable. The group of soldiers who would pretend to do the lowering were, in fact, stuntmen in costume and all the other actors had asked for stunt doubles – including Emerson.

‘Annalise – I want you to use a stand-in.’

‘And I want to do my own scene!’

‘I’ll be her double! Pick me!’ A diseased old beggar minced out from amongst the assembled onlookers, mostly extras who’d hung around to watch. ‘Pick meee!’ A general laugh went up at the very idea of the warped figure in his hideous latex make-up standing in for Annalise.

‘Get away, ye numpty, or ah’ll chop yer heid off!’

Emerson’s stand-in wore a copy of Bernard’s costume, but when he spoke, it was with a strong Scottish accent. Using the flat of his sword, he smacked the beggar on the backside. That drew another collective laugh and the beggar played along, retreating with a gurgle of curses. Even Emerson, who discouraged clowning in his presence, cracked a reluctant smile.

‘Hey,’ Annalise addressed Emerson’s stand-in. ‘I’ve seen you two around, haven’t I?’

‘We’re paid to be around.’ He sheathed his sword. ‘Ben Proctor,’ he shook hands with her, then Emerson, ‘and mah pal here… now where’s the wee arse gone?’ The beggar had melted into the melange of equally scabrous-looking extras. ‘Never mind. I’m your stunt co-ordinator for this scene and I can assure you,’ now he addressed Emerson, ‘that what we’re doing here is perfectly safe. This is the rope the camera sees,’ and he lifted a stretch of thick, old-fashioned hemp, ‘but we’ll have Miss Palatine harnessed to a steel cable from that winch.’ He indicated a truck parked in the keep. ‘We could dangle a two-ton jeep over that drop, no sweat.’

‘She’s not a two-ton jeep, fella,’ the star grumbled, ‘she’s someone who could close this production right down, if anythin’
happened to her.’

‘You’re the boss…’ Proctor shrugged.

‘Damn right I’m the boss.’

‘… but this stunt is less risky than riding a horse.’

‘Please hurry,’ Palmiro interrupted, sweating, ‘the steadicam ees ver’ heavy.’

Emerson snarled, ‘Then you shouldn’t eat so many tapas, fatboy.’ Proctor raised an eyebrow at Annalise. ‘Harry!’ she admonished.

‘Less danger than ridin’ a horse, you reckon?’ Emerson kept his eyes locked on Proctor, who seemed unfazed.

‘Absolutely. Plus I’ll be going over with her, to get the shot the director wants.’