Private Lives (17 page)

But Sam’s packed schedule coupled with the strain of maintaining a relationship with Jessica had meant that he barely remembered to send Mike a Christmas card, let alone come out to visit his old friend.

Mike took two tins of pale ale from the cast-iron fridge and handed one to Sam. ‘Tell you what, Mr Bojangles. Let’s go for lobster tonight. Then you won’t feel so homesick.’

‘What about you, Mike? Don’t you get lonely out here?’

‘How could I get lonely? There are twelve sheep per acre here.’ He smiled. ‘Plus there are six families; we even have a school – eight kids on the register, I believe.’

They ducked through the low-slung doorway to head outside, sitting on a low stone wall facing the sea. Sam tipped his head back, loving the feel of the warm breeze on his face. On a nearby bluff there was the ruin of a small chapel, covered with a colony of nesting seagulls. It was just perfect.

‘I can see why you wouldn’t want to leave. How did you find it?’

‘My cousin Lucy moved to Mull. After the clinic I came up to visit, and one day I was walking past an estate agent’s and saw this advert reading “Oyster farm for sale”. I wanted some peace and quiet, and oysters aren’t known for answering back. Plus I always fancied myself leading the
Good Life
. It was just all that fame that got in the way. And the girls, and the cars and the money.’

‘Do you miss it?’

‘No,’ he said bluntly. ‘Twice a year I go and do stand-up in Oban in a pub where they serve cockles and a pint for three quid. Mostly they just throw the cockles at me. But I think secretly they know my stuff is good.’

‘I believe you. So you’re still writing?’

Mike stepped inside the house and came back out holding a dog-eared notebook.

‘This is a script about a priest who goes to work in Hollywood. I’ve written dozens of ’em. Some of it’s the best stuff I’ve ever done. Must be the sea air.’

He threw it into Sam’s lap and Sam flicked through it, feeling a rising excitement.

‘Laugh a minute, old son,’ said Mike confidently. ‘I should know, I’ve timed it.’

Sam didn’t have to read Mike’s script to know how brilliant it would be. The word ‘genius’ was bandied about a lot in LA, but an on-form Mike McKenzie was the real deal. He wasn’t just funny, he was sad too; he made the thoughtful seem so throwaway – you’d catch your breath and realise the impact of his words long after he’d moved on to something else. Sam had never been able to write anything even close to Mike’s output, which was one of the reasons he’d gone off to become an actor. It was hard living in such a tall shadow.

‘Why did we split up again?’

Mike gave a wry smile.

‘Creative differences. That’s what your Wikipedia entry says anyway.’

‘The truth is, I just wasn’t funny.’

‘At least you had the balls to admit it.’

Sam gave him a sideways glance. ‘It was tempting not to.’

Mike shaded his eyes and peered down at him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I thought you were my meal ticket.’

Mike snorted and threw a pebble at him. ‘The international movie star thought I was his meal ticket?’

‘It’s true. You were so fucking funny. I could so easily have tagged along as your Ernie Wise, but . . .’

‘But you wanted to be the star?’

‘Yep,’ said Sam, sipping his tea. ‘And look where that got me.’

‘So do you want to talk about it?’

Sam laughed.

‘Jesus, Mike, I know you’re casual about things, but I didn’t think you’d wait a full two days to bring it up.’

‘Well, apparently the whole world’s talking about it. I wasn’t sure you’d want anyone else chucking their ha’penny’s worth in.’

‘The difference is you’re my friend.’

‘Okay, seeing as you ask, I think you’ve been a right knob. Shall we move on?’

Sam chuckled.

‘That’s what I love about you, you always find me hilarious.’

‘Me and about a million other people.’

‘Ah, you’re talking about the past there.’

‘Come on, Mike. You miss it.’

His friend was quiet for a moment and all they could hear was the bleating of a lamb on the hillside behind them.

‘I miss making people laugh,’ he said finally. ‘Mentally I’m better, strong enough to do it again, but I’m wary of stepping back out there. I mean, look what’s happened to you. You wanted to act. You’ve become a circus show.’

‘Cheers.’

Mike gave a low, thoughtful laugh.

‘They were good, the old days, though, weren’t they?’

‘I knew you were tempted, you sneaky sod. Why else have you been writing about priests in Hollywood when you could be chatting up the local milkmaid. I tell you, Mike, you could be the next Will Ferrell if you wanted to be. You’re certainly tall enough.’

‘Give me the Edinburgh Fringe over Tinseltown any day.’

Mike’s eyes glazed over as if he was lost in the nostalgia of their twenties. ‘Remember that first show we did straight out of uni? You were bloody funny, by the way.’

Sam shrugged to accept the compliment. He knew the sharp comic timing that had won him some of Hollywood’s best romantic comedy roles had been honed in rehearsals for that very show.

‘We should do it again.’ Mike’s voice was quiet and nervy.

‘Do what again?’

‘Edinburgh Fringe. Me and you.’

‘Come on, Mike. You know I can’t.’

‘Why not? Too famous?’ he chided. ‘Your fragile movie-star ego not able to handle a few gentle hecklers?’

‘Don’t be daft,’ blustered Sam. ‘It’s just not what I do any more. It never really was.’

‘Don’t look at it as stand-up. See it as entertainment. And no one does that better than you, Sammy boy. Look, it will be too late to get in the official Edinburgh programme, but you know there’s not a promoter in town who wouldn’t bite our hands off if we said we wanted to do a two-man show.’

Mike’s mercurial temperament had undergone one of its mood swings, his reluctance to step back into the limelight, so obvious just a couple of minutes earlier, replaced by a euphoric desperation to make it happen. Sam hated to disappoint his old friend, but the thought of cranking out jokes to a roomful of pissed students seemed as alien to him as joining the astronauts on the next space mission.

‘I can’t. But you do it,’ he said with encouragement. ‘The comedy world needs a new hero.’

‘What’s stopping you?’

‘I have a career. In Hollywood.’

‘Then why do you look so shit-scared when I ask how long you’re staying on Eigan?’

Sam felt embarrassed to be caught out. Eigan
was
idyllic, but that wasn’t the reason why he wanted to stay on the island indefinitely. Its remoteness and solitude protected him, and made him feel so disconnected from reality it was as if the events of the previous few days – Katie, the court case, the showdown with Jessica – had never happened.

Mike looked at him sympathetically, as if he was reading his thoughts.

‘I know how much your career means to you. Go back to LA. Sort things out. Make some decisions. You can’t hide away here for ever.’

‘You did,’ Sam said softly.

‘I’m not you,’ replied Mike, and deep down Sam knew that his old friend was right.

15

‘So I got the anti-harassment order against named paparazzi agencies this morning,’ said Anna, explaining her morning in court to Grammy Award-winning singing sensation Chantal Elliot. ‘They can’t come within a hundred metres of you and we’ll put a notice to that effect outside your house, your mum and dad’s place and at these offices. They’re not allowed to approach or follow you either. It’s not perfect, but it should make things better.’

The tiny star leapt off the sofa in her manager Ron Green’s office and threw herself around Anna.

‘Thank you, thank you, thank you. You’ve saved my life,’ she said, grabbing her tightly.

Anna froze, not knowing how to respond. She couldn’t believe how bony the girl felt in her arms. The twenty-year-old peroxide blonde was like a tiny doll that might break if she hugged her back.

‘Does this mean it’s going to stop? Like, for ever?’ sobbed the singer, black make-up running down her face. ‘’Cos I just can’t cope with it any more. If the paps keep chasing me, I’m going to kill myself. I mean it.’

Anna nodded. Chantal was well known for her struggles with drink and drugs and seemed to be in the papers on a weekly basis for various hysterical outbursts on the pavement outside nightclubs.

‘The paparazzi will have to back off for now at least,’ she explained gently. She could understand how the constant presence of photographers would be hard to handle if you were so highly strung. ‘But you have to know we can never stop it all. Not if you keep . . . well, putting yourself in the news.’

Chantal pouted, wiping her eyes vigorously and smearing her mascara even more.

‘But I’ve been in rehab, I’ve been clean for two months now.’ She shrugged. ‘I mean, why are they still so interested in me?’

Because you’re a one-woman headline machine, thought Anna. She looked at the fragile girl dabbing her eyes, all scrunched up on her manager’s sofa, and wondered if it was all an act. Could she really be so naive? In the weeks preceding their application for the anti-harassment order, Chantal had complained about journalists and photographers peering in through her windows and going through her rubbish, following her to the off-licence and waiting for her when she stumbled out of a club. It was as if she genuinely couldn’t connect the two parts of her life: Chantal the performer who thrived on and desperately needed the attention, and Chantal the damaged little girl with the multiple addictions who couldn’t stand the pressure of living in a goldfish bowl. The final straw had been two days ago when she had popped out for a packet of Rizlas and been besieged by half a dozen paparazzi. As she had run across the road to escape them, one photographer had run over her foot on his moped. Chantal had had a complete meltdown and sat on the pavement screaming until someone had called an ambulance. This, of course, had been splashed across every front page in the country: ‘Chantal Finally Loses It’, ‘Pop Star Taken To Nut House’. Anna had actually been shocked at the complete lack of sympathy the papers had shown her. But then she supposed this was just another in a long line of breakdowns for Chantal. If you couldn’t get this close to her and see just how vulnerable she really was, it could easily look as if she was cynically courting the publicity, then crying wolf when she didn’t like it.

Chantal forced a smile, then started skipping around the office like a child.

Ron touched Anna on the shoulder to beckon her out of the room.

‘Are you sure they are going to leave her alone? You can see how unsettled she is.’

Anna folded her arms in front of her and looked doubtful.

‘Right now, she’s a meal ticket for the media. She’s an addict, so it’s a story. She kicks the habit. Another story. She falls off the wagon – another story right there. The press are just waiting, watching, and if they want pictures, they’ll get them. We’ve got the order against those named agencies, but there’s nothing to stop them employing freelance photographers and cutting a deal.’

Ron smiled.

‘Well, the main thing is that Chantal feels as though the pressure has been lifted for a while. So thanks for that at least.’

Anna shook her head. ‘No, Ron, thank
you
.’

She knew that Ron had particularly asked for her when he needed legal help, and it had been just the boost Anna had needed. After all the publicity with the Sam Charles case, clients were giving her a wide berth; no one wanted her bad professional luck to rub off on them. But Ron was a good friend. She’d done a lot of work for his management company when she’d been at Davidson’s, and he’d stayed loyal when he’d needed help with Chantal.

‘You don’t know how much it means to get back in the saddle and nail a successful injunction for you,’ she said.

‘Come on, don’t get all teary on me, Anna,’ said Ron with a wink. ‘I’ve got enough of that on my hands with madam through there. I came to you because you’re the best, no other reason.’

She blushed slightly.

‘Thank you.’

‘And don’t let the bastards grind you down, all right?’

No chance of that, she thought to herself. I’m back in the game.

She left Ron’s Hammersmith office and got a taxi to Piccadilly. It was a baking-hot day and she pulled the window down, feeling the warm air on her face. Donovan Pierce was a relaxed firm but not so relaxed that she could wear shorts, vest and flip-flops. Her fitted light wool Armani dress had looked good in court, but it wasn’t exactly ideal for walking through the park.

It was almost one o’clock. She’d give herself half an hour here – tops. The up side of her reduced workload was that she had more time to figure out how to get Blake Stanhope for contempt of court. So far she’d hit a brick wall. Neil Graham, the editor of the Scandalhound website, had finally taken her call but had been typically obtuse and difficult. Perhaps he was still miffed about the photo-doctored picture of the actress Serena Balcon she’d sued him for last year. Regardless, there was no way he was going to confirm that Blake had leaked the story. Not yet anyway.

What the hell am I doing here? Anna thought as she paid the cabby and walked through the gates of Green Park. Meeting this strange girl had seemed to make sense yesterday. It had certainly been a left-field conversation with Ruby, but she’d been intrigued by the girl’s story. Perhaps the truth was that she’d been feeling isolated and vulnerable and Ruby’s desperate need had struck a chord with her. Oh well, let’s get this over with, she thought. Ruby Hart, where are you?

Scores of office workers and tourists were teeming on to the parched yellow grass, to sunbathe or have lunch under a shady tree. She glanced at the photo of Ruby that the girl had emailed her, so she could recognise her, but no one seemed to fit the bill.

Anna looked at her watch. She had to be back in the office by two o’clock or Helen Pierce would start asking questions. Although the frosty atmosphere had lessened a little – Ron Green’s business had no doubt helped in that regard – she still felt like a pariah in the eyes of the senior partner, but she knew there was no point in dwelling on the injustice of it all. She just had to pick herself up and prove to Helen that she had been right to hire her in the first place.