The Valentine's Card (36 page)

‘It’s all right, Maude,’ said Orla, trying to hold Maude’s head up. It was slipping back, making her choke as if she were drowning.

‘That’s my stalker!’ Anthea stumbled and shrugged off a woman attempting to put her arms around her.

‘OUT! OUT!’ The driver bared his teeth and banged on the back of the
passenger seat with a balled fist.

‘Nonononono,’ chanted Maude, eyes still shut, her body straightening out like a plank in the confined space.

‘We can’t, this lady is, she’s not well,’ Orla coughed out words, unable to string a sentence together.

‘Leave me alone!’ screamed Anthea, thumping the car roof to an affronted and girly shriek from the driver. Tom Best tugged at her elbow as she bawled, ‘I’ll call the fucking police if I see you round here again!’

The word ‘police’ galvanised the driver. He jumped out of the car, barged Anthea out of his way and pulled open the back door. ‘Out. Both of you. Now.’

Tom leaned in to help Maude. He was strong and decisive, and between them, he and Orla manoeuvred her on to the pavement, where she stood like a puppet whose strings have been chopped. The look in her eyes, open at last, was fearful.

‘What’s the matter with her?’ Tom asked Orla, both awkwardly supporting Maude. Their whispered conversation had to compete with the squeal of the cab’s tyres and Anthea’s ongoing diatribe.

‘Of all the people! Orla thingy! You mad bitch! Tonight of all nights!’

Focusing on Tom, Orla said tearfully, ‘She’s agoraphobic. She should be at home.’ She was good in a crisis, but this one was beyond her: Maude was too precious for Orla to think straight. ‘We have to get her indoors,
please.’

Without a word, Tom lifted Maude into his arms and strode back across the road. The guests tailed him, watching him ignore Anthea
who beetled alongside, insisting, ‘She’s not coming into my house! Put her down! I will not let you—’

‘I have a sick old lady here,’ hissed Tom. To Maude he said, ‘We’ll soon be indoors. Everything’s OK. Hang on, love.’ He threw a beseeching look at Orla over Maude’s head.

‘Please, Anthea,’ said Orla, from the other side of Tom’s bulk, as they reached the front door.

Entranced by these developments, the guests looked from Anthea to Orla and back again, as if watching a Wimbledon final.

Anthea glared at Orla, then something seemed to fall away and she said quietly, as if bowing to the obvious need to have this out in private, away from their audience, ‘Oh, bring her up to my room.’

With a heavy angry tread she led the way.

Watched by the multitude, Orla kept her eyes front as she climbed the stairs, aware that the Quinns were part of her audience. The wallpaper on the stairs was familiar from the article she’d bookmarked and she recognised the wide bed under a tented ceiling dotted with stars where Tom laid Maude as gently as if he were putting a baby down for the night.

‘I don’t like her colour,’ he said to Orla.

There was a tentative knock at the door and a plump woman with an up-do peeked her head around the door and said mildly, ‘Tom, darling, what’s—’

‘For God’s sake, Ann,’ snapped Tom. ‘Wait for me downstairs.’

The face receded, cheeks red, lips pursed.

Anthea prowled in and out of the en suite. ‘What’s the matter with her? Who the hell is she? Why’d you drag
old ladies along on your fucking demented hobby?’

The bedroom was smaller in the flesh and as untidy as a teenager’s.

‘Twice I’ve seen you out there, madam. Twice. Never recognised you until just now.’ She shook her head like a hanging judge.

‘This lady needs water.’ Tom, ignoring Anthea as profoundly as if she were a ghost only Orla could see, found a mohair blanket and draped it over Maude as Orla removed her shoes.

They should never have come, but now that they had and the escapade had taken such a terrible toll on the woman, Maude was Orla’s priority. She rubbed life into her freezing hands with her own.
I’ll die my thousand deaths later,
she thought.

Maude revived a little, her face warming up. ‘Tell her,’ she commanded in a weak facsimile of her usual voice. ‘Tell her why you’re here.’

‘Yes,
do
.’ Anthea’s hands went to her hips. Her arms were sticks, like a child’s drawing. ‘I’m all fucking ears, darling.’ She shook herself free of Tom’s restraining hand. ‘Fuck off, Tom, this is none of your business.’ The tall actor recoiled, wounded, and left the room. Anthea looked at the floor for a moment then dashed after him, hobbling, one shoe off, one shoe on.

There was a hissed argument on the stair. Orla ignored it, fussing over Maude who, if not herself, had at least reached a plateau where her
breathing was normal and her eyes open. ‘Soon be home,’ said Orla, adding a whispered, ‘I know, I know, I get it, not without the journal,’ when Maude stirred.

The overheated room was sluggish. When camera-ready, it was a harem of dreams, but tonight it was a mess. Hair extensions hung like roadkill on the outside of the wardrobe door. An open sachet of low-calorie cup-a-soup lay on the carpet, its dusty innards trodden into the pile, in vivid contrast to the feast downstairs. Dresses, some with labels still attached, were strewn on the floor like mating eels: Orla recognised the aftermath of a wardrobe crisis when she saw one. And who, she thought, keeps a weighing scales centre stage on a priceless rug?

Anthea did. This room told many tales about her and, for a stalker, was the holy of holies. So why did Orla feel nothing? No curiosity, no satisfaction.
I’ll get this over with as quickly as I can, nab the journal, spirit Maude out of here
.

Anthea returned. She’d sobered up a little. Pulling off her other shoe she stood in a pile of cracker crumbs and said, ‘Explain yourself. And then I’ll call the police.’

The police were an insignificant threat to Orla. Orla ate worst-case scenarios for breakfast. Flustered, abashed by Ant’s ferocious gaze, Orla cleared her throat. ‘Right.’ The dressing table momentarily distracted her. Anthea’s arsenal of miracle skin cream had a value of hundreds of pounds. Orla always turned the page on the absurd anti-ageing claims of the glossy ads, but Anthea bought every snake oil on the market. Orla marshalled her thoughts, galled by her compassion for Anthea’s desperate
credulity. This was no time to
understand
the woman.

‘I didn’t mean to frighten you, Anthea. I thought I was being discreet.’

‘Ten out of ten on that score,’ snorted Anthea. With her shoes off she was minuscule. ‘My neighbour told me about the freak standing in the hedge.’

‘Oh
God
,’ mewled Orla, mortified at her dirty washing being passed from hand to hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said abjectly. This wasn’t panning out well: who apologises to the bitch who stole their lover? ‘Knowing about you and Sim drove me a bit loopy.’

Anthea teased a hairpiece from the back of her russet mane. ‘Christ, that thing itches.’ She tossed it to the floor. ‘Is she going to conk out?’ Scratching her scalp maniacally, like a chicly dressed Bedlamite, Anthea nodded at Maude.

‘She has a name. Maude’ll be fine when I get her home.’

‘What do you mean you know about me and Sim? How could you possibly know?’

‘He told me.’

‘What?’ Anthea turned Neanderthal in her incomprehension. ‘He wouldn’t. Unless he was a bloody fool. Which, come to think of it, he was, so …’ Anthea threw up her arms in exasperation. ‘What can I say, kid? Welcome to the real world. I always take my leading man to bed. It makes the shoot easier.’

‘You stole him from me.’

The platitude came out shakily. Orla held Maude’s hand tighter for courage. Maude had elbowed her way up to a half sitting position, but she looked awkward, as if she’d landed there from a great height.

Speed this up. Get Maude home.

‘I want an apology but I
recognise I can’t demand that from you. So, give me the journal, Anthea. I’m not leaving without it.’

The weak squeeze from Maude’s fingers felt like a standing ovation.

‘You’re talking in riddles. Sim said you were off centre.’ Anthea sat on her dressing-table stool, hunched over, legs apart, an ungainly pose for a woman in couture. ‘I can apologise, if that’s what you want. I see how it looks but it’s just a bit of fun, shagging the co-star. A good clean fight and nobody gets any ideas. Sim certainly didn’t.’

‘He died loving you. His card said so. I know he was leaving me for you, Anthea, so please stop pretending.’

Orla’s stomach lurched but she didn’t collapse, or want to cry: the truth wasn’t so towering any more.

Anthea folded her skeletal arms. ‘Listen up, Tinkerbell. Sim did
not
die loving me. In fact, I was a pain in the ass. This is
not
a fair cop. So goodbye, and piss off back to whatever crappy postcode you came from.’

This was the woman Orla had envied. Had aspired to.

Her negotiating skills honed in Tobercree Primary, Orla’s first rule was
Never back down
. ‘I don’t believe you. And I’m not leaving without the journal. You don’t deserve it. This time last year you were on the phone to him. Sim’s reaction to me walking in was classic – he laughed to halt your conversation, let you know discreetly that I was in the room without saying so, there was even a
me too
when you said you loved him. Sim made out it was Reece but only a lover calls at midnight on New Year. The entire trip he was cold and distant with me. I knew something was up. But I didn’t press him because that’s the way we rolled. Then he
confessed all in the card, the one you advised me to burn.’

‘You did burn it,’ whispered Anthea.

‘Nope.’ Orla relished Anthea’s surprise, grateful to Reece for keeping one of
her
secrets for a change. ‘In it he told me he was in love with a woman I knew of, a sophisticated woman who could offer him the kind of life he wanted.’

Anthea shook her head, her eyes large. ‘You poor little cow. Reading that after he died. That is
cruel
.’

‘Sim didn’t know he was about to die.’
Now I’m defending him? To Anthea? ‘
Let’s cut to the chase. I won’t ever stare up at your windows in the middle of the night again. That’s over. Because I can see what I came here for.’ Orla pointed at the floor by Anthea’s stockinged foot.

Beneath a knot of discarded and trampled Gucci and Prada and McQueen, a leather book cover peeped out.

‘This?’ Anthea tugged at it, and heaved it on to her lap. ‘You want this? Jesus, you’re petty.’ She threw it over to the bed. It landed, fat and heavy, beside Orla, who almost recoiled at Anthea’s instant capitulation.

Reaching out a tentative hand, Orla touched the tan-coloured hide.

Maude craned to look at it, then fell back.

Pulling the journal on to her lap, Orla had to drag her attention back to what Anthea was saying.

‘Did he name me? Did he write down my name?’

Orla trotted through the memorised text of the card. She blinked. ‘No, actually.’

‘D’you know why, Einstein? Because he wasn’t talking about me. I’m glad he confessed, though. I told him to. Yeah.
Me
. The whore of Babylon was on your side. Believe it or not, I don’t like to see relationships
fall apart. When you see a showbiz marriage that’s lasted for decades, it means that both parties turn a blind eye to a little indiscretion here and there, but typically Sim had to take it further. He left his fingerprints on every bird in the production. That’s why Sim was so pissed off with me, because I threatened to tell you when you came over. I felt you should know what you were getting into, being with a famous man. Dear God, girl, didn’t you know your boyfriend was a tart?’

Orla didn’t answer. She held the journal to her chest.

‘After the traditional rehearsal bonk, I never went near Sim again. Guide’s honour. Besides anything else, I couldn’t spend much time with Sim because of the booze and the coke. I’m not going back to rehab, darling, not for anybody.’

‘Explain why his parents are downstairs, then.’ Rattled by the late realisation that the valentine named no names – Orla had been so
sure
of Anthea’s guilt she’d rewritten it in her mind – Orla was glad to be back on solid ground.

‘They came to the set and we met and we’ve been in touch ever since.’ Anthea shrugged. ‘They’re starfuckers, I guess. I’m nice to them because their son died; sue me.’ Anthea ferreted out half a cigarette from the debris on her dressing table and lit it. ‘Do you want to know my real alibi? The real reason I couldn’t be the
other woman
?’ Anthea locked eyes with Orla and said glumly, ‘I’m in love.’ She hung her head, puffed at her bent little cigarette. ‘It doesn’t happen often but when it does I’m a one-man woman.’ Anthea pressed her fingers to her temples and gurned to keep the tears at bay. ‘And, as usual, it’s a disaster. But you’ve met
him. You tell me, how could I not fall for him?’

‘Are you talking about Tom Best? But he’s married,’ said Orla.

‘No!’ Anthea drew back with feigned horror, then resumed her bitter tone. ‘Yeah, doll, he’s married. They’re all spoken for. I’m a home-wrecking bitch, but I’m not
your
home-wrecking bitch.’

Like Juno said, you know love when you see it. Since Marek had left, Orla was hypersensitive to love and she saw it now in bolshy Anthea.

Absurdly, Orla
wanted
Anthea to be Sim’s mistress now.

‘This,’ Orla tapped the journal, grateful for its bulk as the case against Anthea began to unravel, ‘knows the truth.’ She pulled it open and flicked through the pages, stopping at one near the end, her mind already fluttering at the fact that the paper wasn’t lined, or yellow, as she remembered. ‘Macbeth,’ she said to herself.

‘Yeah, my script.’ Anthea frowned, puzzled. ‘Sim had the binder made for me when I admired his diary on the first day of rehearsal. Cute idea. Now I use it for each new job. My name’s stamped on it.’ She leaned over, closed it and tapped the tooled gold letters spelling out
Anthea Blake, A Class Act.
‘How can it tell you the truth?’

‘It can’t.’ Orla stood, held out the binder. ‘You did. I’m really sorry, Anthea. Really, really sorry.’ She was
wrong
.