Private Lives (27 page)

Sam was glad to be inside the foyer, away from the gaze of the public.

‘There he is, the star of the show.’ Jim Parker strode over and tapped him playfully on the cheek. ‘You ready to see some kick-ass action?’

‘Let’s hope it does kick ass, Jim,’ said Sam quietly, as they walked towards their seats at the front. ‘Because we’re in trouble if it doesn’t.’

Usually at events like this, the stars who walked the red carpet were discreetly let out the back of the movie theatre, but this time Sam couldn’t wriggle out of it. He was already under scrutiny and they couldn’t afford a ‘Sam Snubs Premiere’ headline.

Then again, no one could have blamed him if he had chosen to walk out. The movie was worse than he had suspected; in fact it was a full-on disaster. He sat there almost mesmerised as scene after clunky, unbelievable scene played out before him in full Dolby Surround Sound. He could hear people sniggering in the darkness behind him. It was the biggest, fattest turkey he’d ever seen. As his character ran across the battlefield – ironically enough, a CGI version of downtown LA – to save his girl from the distinctly unscary robot killers, Sam shrank further and further down in his seat, dreading the moment when the lights would come up and he’d have to face yet another humiliation. No one would say ‘Jeez, what a crap movie,’ of course. This was Hollywood; everyone was relentlessly upbeat to your face. But no one could have watched that train wreck of a film and not seen it for what it was: the death knell for Sam Charles’s career.

‘Come on,’ whispered Lauren, as the final scene played out. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

Gratefully, Sam followed her towards the side exit, Jim tagging along behind.

‘What’s up?’ Jim asked as they reached the street door. ‘I thought we were hanging around to press the flesh.’

Lauren shot him a look.

‘Can it, Jim,’ she said. ‘Hasn’t Sam put up with enough recently without hanging him out to dry?’

‘I loved that goddamn movie,’ Jim said earnestly.

Lauren shook her head. ‘Right, Sam, you and Jim go off to the aftershow at Momo’s – the studio needs you to go, I’m afraid: united front and all that. I’ll stay here and firefight as much as I can, then I’ll see you there.’

Sam tried to give her a smile, but he felt utterly miserable. Even Jim had picked up on the mood, and for once sat silently as an SUV carried them to the restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard. They both flashed smiles and waved at the waiting photographers, then ducked inside quickly, being ushered to a booth at the back. Thankfully they were alone for the moment, with the rest of the partygoers still back at the theatre. Jim unfastened the buttons on his tux and let out a deep breath.

‘Okay, so it wasn’t
Casablanca
,’ he said. ‘But they can’t all win prizes, can they? Tomorrow morning we’ll find you something else. The next one’s going to be dynamite, I promise you.’

Sam looked up at him.

‘What do you mean, “find you something else”? I’ve done three back-to-back movies. I start on that Dreamscape thing next month. We agreed that’s enough until the next knockout script comes in.’

Jim’s mouth flattened into a line.

‘About that . . .’

Sam felt his stomach turn over.

‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell me there’s a problem.’

‘Sorry, Sam, the Dreamscape movie has fallen through.’

Sam blinked at him. This was meant to be his big payday. No one won an Oscar for doing voice work on a cartoon, but the financial rewards could be phenomenal. He had been promised ten million for what amounted to a week’s work, plus all the extras for the merchandise: licensing his voice in the talking dolls, mugs, greetings cards, the whole caboodle. After all his hard work, this was supposed to be his golden pay-off, his retirement fund. And now it was slipping through his fingers.

‘It’s fallen through?’ he said, panicking. ‘What do you mean – that it’s not happening at all?’

Jim shook his head slowly.

‘Course it’s happening. Animation’s almost done. The problem is you voicing the lead . . .’

‘But we signed a contract.’

Jim picked up a handful of nuts from a bowl on the table and tossed a couple into his mouth.

‘Look, they’re not happy about the publicity you’ve been getting. Dreamscape is a family company and they can get very jumpy about that sort of thing.’

‘But by the time the movie’s out, this is going to be old news.’

Jim shrugged.

‘Right now they’re pointing at the morality clause in the contract and they’re saying they don’t want to take their chances. It’s Hollywood, baby. They don’t want to add any risk to their investment.’

By now the restaurant was beginning to fill up. There was still a party atmosphere – lots of shouted greetings, air-kissing and shoulder-clasping – it was LA, after all. If an alien had stepped into the scene, they would have concluded that the people gathered at the party were the closest friends imaginable, rather than deadly rivals prepared to stab each other in the back for the next movie deal. People were glancing in Sam’s direction, but most were looking away again, embarrassed looks on their faces. Two-faced wankers, he thought angrily. Half the people in the restaurant had done exactly what he’d done at some point in their career, probably on a regular basis. But Sam had got caught.

‘Look, we need to talk,’ said Jim, sipping a fruit juice.

‘More bad news?’ said Sam cynically.

‘Just a strategy.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s Jessica.’

‘Jim, enough of that.’

‘Seriously, I know she didn’t want to speak to you a few weeks ago, but I think you should try again and make it work.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you need her. You need stability. A wife. Even a family.’

‘What I need is you getting off my back.’

‘I mean it, Sam. You have a credibility problem. You need goodwill on your side and you need it fast. Hollywood loves a love story. I can make this work for you. Let me talk to her.’

‘I mean it, Jim. No.’

As the VIP area started to fill, Sam felt as if the walls of the restaurant were closing in on him. He stood up.

‘Where you going?’ snapped Jim.

‘The bathroom.’

‘But Evan Black is coming this way. You need to network.’

‘I need the bathroom.’

His agent tutted.

‘The damage limitation starts in five minutes. You got that long to get back here.’

Damp patches of sweat were collecting on the back of Sam’s shirt and the drag of champagne had made him feel heady. Blaming the sudden onset of nausea on a shrimp roll he’d had five minutes earlier, he pulled at his shirt collar as he fled to the bathroom.

He felt a little better in the cool, quiet warren of store cupboards and corridors. Pushing open the bathroom door, he saw a slim blonde in a tiny black Lycra dress bending over the sink, a rolled-up dollar bill in her hand.

‘Sorry,’ he said, holding up a hand. ‘Think I’ve got the wrong room.’

‘No, this is the men’s,’ said the girl, giving him a glassy smile. ‘The queue was too long in the ladies’.’

‘Well, I’ll just wait outside, then,’ began Sam, but the girl stood in his way. ‘Don’t go on my account,’ she said, holding up the note. ‘D’ya want a bump?’

‘Not for me, thanks,’ said Sam.

‘How about we try something else, then?’ she said, running a finger down his chest.

He backed up against the wall of the small enclosed space. ‘No, I just . . . I just wanted to use the, uh . . .’

‘I know what you wanted,’ said the girl, taking Sam’s hand and putting it on her breast. ‘But I’ve got something else for you to try.’ She sank to her knees, expertly unzipping his fly and reaching inside with a firm, determined grip.

‘Hey, no!’ he said. ‘You can’t . . .’

‘Yes I can,’ murmured the girl, sliding back his boxer shorts and taking the tip of his cock into her mouth.

‘Stop it,’ said Sam, slapping his hand against the wall. Despite himself, he was getting erect.

She pulled back a fraction.

‘I didn’t think
you’d
play hard to get.’

Sam could feel his heart hammering, the blood banging in his ears. What if someone came in? All these influential people, he’d never live it down.

He scrambled away from her, zipping his trousers up, stumbling back to the bathroom door. He tugged at his collar, panting. His head was swimming now. What was going on? Had he been drugged? His pulse was racing and he felt faint. He had to get away, but how? He was cornered, trapped.

‘NO!’ he yelled, pushing the girl as hard as he could. She toppled backwards, with a baffled look that twisted to anger.

‘Fuck you, you Limey fuck,’ she hissed. ‘My dress. This cost me a thousand goddamn bucks!’

‘Listen, I’ll get it cleaned, I’m sorry . . .’ he spluttered, realising the worst thing he could do was hand her money.

The girl’s spiteful laugh followed him as he bounced off the walls into the corridor.

‘Yeah, you run, you goddamn fruit,’ she yelled. Clawing at his throat, gasping for air, Sam fell into a store cupboard and crumpled to the floor. He fumbled in his pocket for his phone and, squinting down, thumbed to Lauren Silver’s number.

‘Sam?’ said Lauren, her voice concerned. ‘What’s up?’

‘Lauren, thank God,’ he gasped. ‘I think I’m having a heart attack.’

‘Shit, where are you?’

‘I’m at the back of the restaurant.’

‘Find a quiet place and stay there, I’m on my way . . .’

He clutched his knees in front of his chest and forced himself to breathe. Closing his eyes, he felt the rise and fall of his chest regulate. He looked at the phone gripped between his fingers, and knew immediately what he had to do. He scrolled to another number, and when Mike McKenzie finally answered, he felt an uplifting sense of relief.

‘Meet me in London,’ he said simply. ‘I’m coming home.’

25

Matthew glanced at his watch as the lift door closed. It was two minutes to nine and he really didn’t want to be late for his first conference. He cursed himself; he never should have stopped off at his father’s Cheyne Walk place on the way to work, but he was a little concerned. Larry hadn’t replied to any of the messages he had left on his voicemail over the past few days. There was nothing unusual about that in the normal scheme of things; in the past, whole years had gone by without a whisper from his father, but now he was convalescing from his heart operation, Matthew had assumed that Larry would have a little more time to keep in touch. As it happened, there had been no reply when he had rung the bell at the house either, not even a housekeeper to answer the door. It was curious, but Matthew resolved to put it out of his mind. Loralee would have let him know if there were any problems, and knowing his father, being out of the loop meant he had probably gone to convalesce in Vegas.

The aluminium doors were just about to close when a hand shot through the gap, jamming it open.

‘Sorry,’ said a flustered Anna Kennedy, slipping inside holding a coffee cup in one hand and a huge pile of files in the other. ‘Morning,’ she said as she struggled to balance them.

‘Let me help,’ said Matthew, grabbing the files just as they were about to slip to the floor.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I need to get these to Helen or she’ll lynch me. Again.’

He smiled.

‘So how’s the Rob Beaumont thing coming on?’ she asked.

‘Actually I have a meeting with him and Kim Collier at nine. It’s the first time we’ve had them in the same room together, so it could go either way.’ He glanced at her with a smile. ‘And before you tell me off, they’re arriving separately through the back door.’

‘You’ve mastered this celebrity thing,’ she laughed as the door pinged open.

‘Speaking of which, you’ve got a fan,’ said Matthew, helping her carry the files down the corridor into her office.

‘Oh yes? Who?’

‘Wayne Nicholls.’

‘A dream come true,’ she said playfully.

‘I mean it. He sent me an email that said something like “she’s a tough bitch”, which I think is the highest level of praise in his world.’

‘Well, I can use that as a reference if Helen still wants to fire me.’

Matt laughed as he walked quickly towards the boardroom, glad that the atmosphere between them had thawed, but his fleeting good mood vanished as soon as he opened the door. Rob was sitting across the table from Kim Collier and her solicitor Chris Snell; the atmosphere in the room was icy, and Rob’s angry expression suggested that there was going to be none of the grown-up, sensible approach to the divorce he had wanted only a few weeks before.

Matt extended his hand towards Snell.

‘Matthew Donovan,’ he said. ‘I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure before.’

‘No indeed,’ said Snell, his eyebrow raising just enough to convey his disapproval.

The London family law circuit was a small world, and Matthew had gone up against the main players countless times, but Chris Snell was top of the food chain. Dark-haired and skeletal, he had been nicknamed ‘The Vulture’ by the broadsheets, as much for his client base of gold-digging trophy wives as for his reputation of being forbiddingly aggressive in his methods.

Matthew glanced at Kim Collier as he sat down next to Rob and pulled out his files. She was certainly beautiful, there was no denying that, but she was clearly furious at being here. Matthew wondered how much that was anger at her soon-to-be-ex-husband and how much was annoyance that, for once, she wasn’t getting her own way.

‘So I think we all want to keep this simple and uncomplicated,’ said Snell briskly.

Matthew nodded.

‘Hopefully we’re not completely past that. But things are definitely more complex than they once were. As I think we all know.’

Snell shrugged. He clearly wasn’t going to give an inch.

‘My client and yours have had initial conversations about the welfare of Oliver and they both agree that it’s in his best interests for him to stay with his mother. Ms Collier has no objections whatsoever to weekend visitation rights. Possibly even one evening visit on a school night.’

‘Like that’s going to be easy when he’s in Miami,’ said Rob, his voice laced with sarcasm.