Dirty Movies (23 page)

The razor blade made a stinging indentation and the first red droplets rose
, like molten lava, to the surface. They clung together to form a single rivulet before slithering off Christine’s wrist and dissolving into the piping hot water below. She lost her nerve then, the razor slipping from her fingers, slicing through the pink-stained bubbles and landing at the bottom of the ceramic tub with a sharp, metallic ping. At the same time her eyes filled with tears. She may as well list ‘suicide’ as another failure in her life, right next to Actress, Wife and All-Round Decent Human Being.

Anxious
to retrieve the blade before it slid under her bush and severed parts that didn’t bare thinking about, Christine had a sudden image of her sister-in-law’s funeral. It was a bit of a cheek to call her that. The pair had only met once, under exceptionally strained circumstances, and the almighty mess that she had left behind was, in Christine’s mind, instant grounds for renunciation.  Still, if adjectives were pictures then Joe had laid claim to Grief that day, with a full-page spread and a fancy border. She doubted that her own dear, darling husband would feel an infinitesimal fraction of that sorrow if she bled to death in this bathroom. He’d probably dance a jig on my grave and the fucker’s not even Irish, thought Christine fiercely. With her doggie sense of intuition her Chiwowa, Coco, looked up from her basket and gave a yap of agreement. 

‘And he’d probably pack you off to the
sausage factory,’ she cooed at her. Coco whined and put her head between her paws. 

Christine was convinced
, right down to the two gastric bands in her stomach, that she and Michael had been the unwitting dupes in some wicked scheme of his. It didn’t make sense. She couldn’t even remember meeting that hot American, let alone screwing him. Unfortunately, right now, her proof was as thin on the ground as Maisie Peach’s talent.

‘Then why are you letting him get away with it?’

Christine looked at Coco in surprise. Was she that loopy these days that even her pets were talking to her?

‘Twenty years ago you would have chopped
his bollocks off for treating you like this.’

With a start
, she realised that it was her own voice of reason speaking. No wonder she hadn’t recognised it. Decades had passed since their last chinwag.

‘Stop cutting your wrists and cut him down to size instead!’

‘I can’t, he’s too powerful, too strong!’ she shrieked at her Laura Ashley Eau De Nile wallpaper. Coco yapped again in agreement.

‘Then make yourself stronger. He’s the product of you.
You gave him the connections, you created the monster. It’s high time you culled the beast.’

But how, she thought in anguish. I can’t do it on my own and I’ve terrorised and bitched at everyone for so long now I only have enemies.

‘Joe would never count you as an enemy. Not if he knew the truth.’

Joe.

Christine put her face in her hands. She had said such terrible things to him in Morocco. The poor man deserved to know the appalling extent of Stephen’s betrayal. As the clouds of self-pity began to part for the first time in years, she knew that time was now.

Leaping out of the bath
, with Cookie’s rough tongue lapping at her damp skin, she wrapped a hand towel around her wrist and rushed downstairs. Using blind rage as a battering ram, she had smashed the lock to Stephen’s study and overturned the innards of his desk drawer in a matter of minutes.

By
some brutal coincidence, the first items she came across were her marriage certificate and a photograph of her and Stephen on their wedding day. Christine stared down at a woman she hardly knew, wearing diamonds as big as opals and a soppy smile twice as wide, a woman whose confidence in her new husband had belied some pretty serious naivety for a forty-five year old on her fourth marriage.

There’s no fool like a middle-aged fool with dependency issues
, she thought savagely, hurling the certificate and photograph at the grate and then dumping half a packet of firelighters on top of it. Taking up the search once more, she soon found what she was looking for: A crumpled envelope, tainted with age and no bigger than her fist.

Collapsing backwards into Stephen’s Art Deco leather club chair, Christine made two phone calls
in quick succession. The first was to FedEx, and the second was to the celebrity rehab clinic,
Serenity Heights
. If she was going to exact the sort of revenge that would make Glenn Close weep with jealousy then she needed to ditch the booze and pills right away.

In the hotel bar that night, Lucy sat gawping at Polly with more than a touch of envy herself. In three shorts months, her friend’s love life had switched from the odd drunken snog in the dingy, beer-soaked corridor of a nightclub to an all-out sex, stress-and-intrigue-fest.

‘So let
’s get this straight…You screwed some guy in the middle of the Sahara but you’re secretly lusting after some sex-god who’s hung up on his dead wife, and she’s the one who topped herself in unexplained circumstances six years ago.’ Exhausted, Lucy took a gulp of her wine. ‘Polly Winters, you’re one big, bloody revelation tonight.’

‘Oh Lu
cy, I think I’m in love!’ 

‘In love?’ screeched Lucy. ‘Y
ou’re not in love with Joe De Vries, you idiot. You’re in lust!’

But
Polly disagreed. Watching Joe walk away this afternoon had made everything so clear to her, like a dirty windscreen wiped clean at a set of traffic lights.

‘I tried to fight it.
I even told Rachel I had a boyfriend!’

‘
So that’s what Joe was banging on about earlier. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind you dating my brother but I didn’t think goth-metal was your thing.’

‘W
hat do I do? Help me, Lucy, I’m way out of my depth here.’

‘Sit tight.
Joe’s bound to hold a torch for his ex-wife, that’s understandable, but she’s in his past and, right now, there’s a big fat, or rather far-too-skinny, vacancy in his future. Goddamn it Polly, he’s so hot - if you don’t have a shot at him, then I will.’

Po
lly grinned. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’

‘Well maybe not
,’ she admitted reluctantly, ‘I might be saving myself for your desert hunk instead. It all sounds very sexy being seduced on top of a sand dune. Bet Lawrence never got away with those types of shenanigans.’ As if on cue, Danny stalked into the bar with the camera team.

Polly tensed. ‘Don’t loo
k now but he’s right behind you.’

What a silly thing to say
, she reflected, as Lucy whipped round immediately. It was like proffering up a carrot to a starving donkey and then asking him to politely decline it.

Meanwhile
, Lucy was coolly appraising the young Irishman, from the roots of his slicked-back hair, right down to the shell-toes on his trendy trainers. She watched as he turned to blow Polly a kiss.

‘Ugh. He’s so cheesy’
she hissed.

‘Oh I don’t know. I think he’s quite cute
, and he obviously fancies the pants off you.’

Polly huffed and puffed and wished he
was off fancying someone else’s M & S high legs instead.

‘Does Joe know you slept with him?’

‘God no, I hope not anyway. Why are sexual clangers always far more agonising than the average embarrassment?’

Lucy shrugged. ‘It’s a naked thing. Blame Eve. Failing that
, blame your twenty-something rampant hormones for getting you into all that trouble in the first place, and on that insightful note, I’m off. I need to finish my research. This interview with Charlie was re-scheduled for tomorrow morning and I haven’t delved into his history as a pantomime villain yet. All I know is that he can appear behind me anytime!’

‘Nympho
.’ muttered Polly

‘Pot. Kettle. Black
,’ shot back Lucy. ‘Now, try not to lose too much sleep over sexy Joe ok?’ And giving Polly a quick hug she left the bar.

Danny quickly filled her place
.

‘Hello gorgeous.
’

‘Danny
,’ she said tightly, steeling herself for more impassioned pleas for dinner-and-afters. To her surprise he said nothing, just sat there in silence and fiddling non-stop with his lighter. She was struck with a horrible thought.

‘Err
, Danny, can I help you?’ she asked him anxiously, scanning his crotch area for a jewellery box-shaped lump. He followed her eyes and blushed.

Hang on, thought Polly in alarm…Did Danny
, ‘never-fazed-by-anything-even-after-catching-six-actors-engaged-in-orgy-shocker (as verified by Rachel), just
blush
?

‘I owe you an apology
,’ he blurted out suddenly. ‘Joe told me you had some guy back home and I should have respected that.’

Polly
was stunned. A proposal would have been less shocking. 

‘I know the th
ing in the desert was a one off.’

‘Look Danny…’

But he cut her off. ‘Don’t say anything. I feel bad enough as it is. I just wanted to come and clear the air before Wrap.’

There was an embarrassed pause.

‘Anyway, I better get back to the boys,’ he said hastily, jumping to his feet. ‘Simon’s gearing up to smash his bar record of twenty-three pints.’

Polly forced a smile. ‘Well
, wish that big drunken loony luck from me.’

‘I’ll be wishing
for something else when I’m scraping him off the floor later!’

Perhaps Lucy was right
, thought Polly, as Danny hurried off to join his mates. Perhaps he wasn’t so bad after all. Yes, he was a bit full on and his hair
was
a little too greasy but he had been pretty damn hot between the sand dunes. If only she had fallen for Irish charmer instead of elusive Englishman.  Roving eyes she could handle, but dead wives were a different matter altogether.

From indolent snail pace to champion greyhound haste, the week seemed to pick up sharply after Lucy’s arrival
. Before long, the customary ‘wrap’ on set was a ‘wrap for production’.

By late Saturday afternoon
, preparations were well underway for the end of shoot party, but with most of the crew still languishing in each other’s beds, the lion’s share of the work had once again fallen to Polly and Joe. Earlier that week, Vincent had demanded that the entire pool area and courtyard be covered in fairy lights for tonight’s event, but by the time eight hundred strands had been hastily sourced and shipped over from England, many had been smashed to smithereens. As a result, every bulb had to be meticulously inspected before the whole ‘dangling’ process could commence. 

Worn-out and fed-up after five straight hours of
this, Polly yelped as another stray shard of glass sliced into her thumb.

‘You ok sweetheart?’

She nodded dolefully and sucked the offending finger. Horrid Vincent and his horrid fairy lights. She glanced over at Joe. The skill at which his fingers untangled even the snarliest of strands was sending her brain into fantasy overload. If the hotel generator didn’t have enough juice to power the lights tonight, they could always plug into her sexual frustration. That had more than enough oomph.

‘Nearly done
,’ said Joe cheerfully, handing her another string. ‘All bulbs duly checked and only five more palm trees left to decorate.’

‘Thank god. Vincent wants things to kick off in thirty minutes. This might be the first
thing I’ve done right all shoot.’

‘
Why don’t you let me finish up?’ he said, pinching back the gaffer tape. ‘It’ll give you a bit of time to pop upstairs and change.’

Polly was
thrilled. ‘Thanks Joe!’ she cried, jumping down off the stepladder and tearing out of the courtyard before he could change his mind. Half an hour would buy her just enough time to wash her hair, splash some make-up on and wriggle into that new dress Lucy was lending her.

Joe was all fingers, thumbs and brooding brain cells as he attached the last of the strands. H
e kept dropping the gaffer tape then forgetting to pick up the blasted lights when he climbed back up the ladder. He put it down to exhaustion. The bar staff at wrap parties always reminded him of the stewards at the end of long distance marathons, swathing their shaky, wearied charges in blankets of champagne foil and congratulations.  Hearing a chinking behind him, he watched as the first of the four hundred crates of beer ordered specially for the occasion were stacked behind the bar. He had only just kicked his birthday hangover in time.

Flicking the switch to the outside sockets
, he stood back to admire their handiwork. Begrudging props to Vincent. The gently swaying strands of light complimented the myriad of stars above perfectly. Heaven and earth had collided in one big romantic universe of twinkling lights. Too bad Cassie wasn’t around to share it with him.

But Polly was
.

Joe
rejected that thought immediately. But at the same time he could feel that brick barricade around his heart slowly crumbling. At twenty-two, Polly was hardly jailbait, and the boyfriend didn’t seem serious or her pixie friend would have been more clued up about him. Only the memory of Cassie was proving the stubborn piece of concrete that couldn’t be shifted. Not that he’d be happy consigning her to the rubble heap anyway.

Wondering over to cadge a beer,
he lost his thirst completely when he caught sight of Stephen and Maisie on their way to dinner. Michael deserved to be here tonight. He had worked his arse off controlling Stephen’s spending and Vincent’s firing. GBA had never seen a production come in so tight on budget.

Joe had tried
calling Michael’s office but he kept encountering some battleaxe called Serena who repeatedly told him he was ‘unavailable’. After coaxing a cell number out of her vice-like jowls, he made a mental note to drop the guy a line as soon as he got back to the UK.

Polly upended her make-up bag and a rainbow mishmash of eye shadows and lip paraphernalia went tumbling into the sink. Rooting about for her favourite liner, she popped the pink plastic lid and set to work but was soon gazing at her reflection in dismay. In the space of a few short seconds she had managed to transform her delicate cupid’s bow into a wonky trout-pout.

Ripping off a ribbon of bog roll, she removed any trace of the aberrant lip-liner and scoured her face for further imperfections
, much like a tax inspector would the books of a particularly crafty client. To her relief, there appeared to be no other beauty equivalents of a fraudulent VAT claim. The spot on her chin which had been threatening eruption all day had vanished and, whilst her dark eye shadow was definitely dramatic, the overall effect was more ‘smoldering and come-hither’ than Alice Cooper rock star ridiculous. It was also moments like these that she thanked god she didn’t have the kind of thickset eyebrows that required a painful pluck every day. In her current state, she would have ended up with two wispy, uneven, tadpole-shaped calamities and a never-ending stream of Fifi’s ridicule following her around all evening.

Dashing her lips with a snail’s trail of gloss, she was suddenly wistful for the enormous, full-length mirrors in the make-up trailer. Polly was 90% sure she looked ok
, but it would have been nice to get confirmation in something that wasn’t the size of a postage stamp and dotted with toothpaste. Perching on the lip of the bathtub for a better view, she slipped on a soggy face flannel and crash-landed into the bidet with a piercing shriek.

There was a sharp rap at the door.

‘Polly? Are you ok in there?’ Lucy’s voice was tinged with amusement.

‘Fine thanks. Be out in a minute!’ gasped Polly, wincing and rubbing her bruises. At least they might go halfway to concealing her awful knees. There were far too many childhood scars, unsightly moles and twiglet-like protrusions for her liking. Fortunately, there was nothing to criticize about her mid-drift. Lucy was right, she
had
lost weight. The little pastry roll of fat under each boob, her foobs, had vanished and her tummy was as flat as a pancake. It wouldn’t stay that way after she flew home and started scoffing them again, but tonight was a night for celebrating Elle Macpherson-style abs
and
underwear.

There
was another knock on the door.

‘If you’re not bleeding to death
in there
Calamity Jane
then can you get a move on? I’d hate for all that booze to be knocked back before we had a look in.’

Polly’s snort reverberated off the chipped white porcelain.
The bar downstairs was so well stocked, not even Oliver Reed at the height of his hedonism would have made a dent.

‘Seriously Polly,
if all that’s left is a bottle of vinegar disguised as a primo Chardonnay, then i’m holding you responsible…’ Lucy halted mid-vino diatribe as Polly opened the door.

Her
friend had detangled and straightened her usual mop of hair so that it hung in a lustrous dark waterfall over her slim white shoulders. Taking note of the latest make-up trend, she had coated each eyelid with black eyeliner and then applied at least five layers of Mega Extra Longer Lashes Triple X Infinitum 4Eva mascara. Wearing a short red shift dress that flaunted every curve, made her legs look Gisele-skinny and gave her more cleavage than Christine LaVelle, Polly easily outshone every Maisie Peach picture that had ever appeared in
Hot! Hot! Hot!

Meanwhile
, Polly was watching Lucy’s reaction and resisting the urge to high-five the air-con unit above her head. Hers was the crème de la crème of unspoken compliments. Feeling light-headed and exhilarated (it was so rare that clothes, hair and make-up came together so successfully), she attempted a victorious strut but wrecked it all by stumbling in her black platform espadrilles.

‘That’s what three months in
Converse and flip-flops will do,’ she joked, but Lucy couldn’t stop gazing at her.

‘Wow, Polly, seriously, wow!
Joe doesn’t stand a chance!’

Here’s hoping, thought Polly
, crossing her fingers. ‘And you look pretty hot yourself,’ she said truthfully, admiring Lucy’s maxi flora number which made her look even more like an impish extra from
Lord of the Rings
.

Lucy beame
d at her in delight.  ‘Oh goody. Glad you approve. It’s my one chance to bag a movie star boyfriend tonight. I might even have a pop at turning Zach later with a full-on oestrogen overload.’

Joe had already polished off four beers, lamented United’s lost Premiership title and admired Danny’s new trainers by the time Polly and Lucy emerged from the lobby.  Hearing the approaching clip clop of heels and espadrilles, he glanced over and felt his whole world begin to tilt. Suddenly, it was whirling and whooshing like an out-of-control fairground waltzer. Polly looked spectacular, ethereal even, certainly worthy of every man’s admiration. Well perhaps not every man, he reflected sourly when he noticed Khalil nudging Danny and winking.

‘New Adidas
and
ze romance with Polly Winters,’ he heard the Moroccan mutter, ‘some men have all ze luck on zis shoot.’

Joe looked up sharply. ‘What did you say?’

But Danny pretended not to hear. ‘Hey Khalil, do you think I should purchase some vintage fat laces for my new trainers?’ But it was a rubbish attempt at a subject change and Joe barked back as much.

‘I know what I heard
, Danny. Did you sleep with Polly or not?’

The young Irishman hesitated. Joe sounded like a cross between a whip crack and a seriously narked headmaster.

‘Umm, well kinda…’ he shrugged.

Joe slammed his beer down on the table and the contents fizzed up like an angry McEnroe denied match point. ‘There’s no ‘kinda’ about it
, Danny, unless, of course, you couldn’t get it up!’

Danny was so affronted
by this he was tempted to punch him in the mouth. ‘Ok, ok, we screwed in the desert a few months ago, out by the Bedouin Camp location,’ he boasted. ‘Big fucking deal’

‘What’s she like?’ asked
Khalil, eager to hear all the filthy particulars.

‘A-
plus,’ smirked Danny. ‘More vocal than a Brazilian football commentator.’ He paused then, as if savouring the memory like a cracking pint of Guinness.

‘Oh spare us the details, for god’s sake
,’ snapped Joe. ‘Look up the definition of a gentleman, Danny, you’ll find you’re something of the opposite. What the hell is Polly playing at? I thought she had a boyfriend?’ He wasn’t sure what disappointed him most, Danny’s loose tongue or Polly’s loose knickers.

‘And when has zis stopped ze rest of us?’ reasoned Khalil gently. ‘They were just having a bit of fun
, Joe, no harm done, eh?’

‘Tell that to the poor bastard sat at hom
e waiting for her call.’

Joe was so upset by Danny’s revelations that he stormed out of the courtyard without so much as an eyebrow flicker at Polly who was smiling in his direction.

After p
acing up and down the length of the lobby, with more huffing and puffing than an OAP sex session, he sat down on the edge of the fountain, lost his balance, and would have toppled in if a passing porter hadn’t grabbed his arm. Alas, it was all too reminiscent of the time he had grabbed Polly’s arm outside Stephen’s trailer. With a heart pounding with conflicting emotion, and near-death-by-drowning-in-six-inches-of-water-adrenaline, he cadged a cigarette off the porter and sparked up for the first time in weeks.

‘Don’t tell me the hangover’s kicking in already
,’ joked Rachel, coming over to join him. Clocking the murderous expression on his face, she chose a spot on the fountain edge a good two metres away. He looked so much like Stephen with those crosspatch frown lines that she found herself conceding defeat before the grounds of battle had been drawn.

‘Wha
t’s happened? What have I done?’

Joe gritted his teeth. ‘What makes you think anything’s wrong?’

‘The fact that you’re spitting like an angry llama?’

He looked away. ‘I’m fine…’

‘Joe De Vries, you’re lying skills are on par with a bad politician’s.’

‘Doesn’t make sense
,’ he snapped. ‘Surely bad politicians are the ones who lie best.’ He flicked the smoldering cigarette butt into the fountain and the frown lines deepened. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about Danny and Polly?’

Rachel regarded him thoughtfully. The resentment in his voice
was far more enlightening than the big reveal at the end of a Whodunit.

‘Doesn’t matter now anyway
,’ he said, backpedalling. He pinched her cigarette and took a drag. ‘Better warn Fi and Charlene they’ve got a bit of competition. Between them, they could reach triple figures by morning.’

Rachel snatched her cigarette back crossly. ‘That’
s unfair and you know it, Polly’s nothing like those slappers. She doesn’t have a make-up brush stuck up her arse OR an accent that’ll actively
discourage
you from throwing shrimps on her Barbie.’