Not the End of the World (20 page)

He hooked up again with Jo at a quiet table on the far side of the terrace, looking out on the Pacific while the cut‐
outs and tables were disassembled and removed. By the time Steff’s drink arrived, there was no trace left of the earlier activity, and within ten more minutes there were people putting up a different promo display in the same spot. ‘I want you on your best behaviour, Shorty,’ she warned. ‘No smartass one‐
liners and no hysterics. We got this interview because Witherson thinks this is the one time she’s going to get spoken to like an intelligent human being.’

‘She is an intelligent human being. I watched the conference, remember. I wouldn’t try taking the piss out of her – she’d eat me alive, pardon the phrase. I won’t say anything, honest.’

‘That won’t do either. I do want you to ask her some questions. She’s doing this because we’re not an American publication, but first thing she’s gonna find is her interviewer’s from LA. Your accent should put her at ease a little, if she can understand a damn word you say. Plus, everybody over here knows – or thinks they know – all there is to know about Madeleine Witherson. British readers know dick about her, pardon the phrase. So if there’s something I’m not covering, feel free to ask, long as it’s not “What’s it like to fuck eight guys at once?”, or something equally sensitive.’

‘I think I’m getting a very bad press here,’ he complained, grinning. ‘You’re a cold and cynical hack, Jo Mooney, with no capacity to see the love and goodness in people. In fact, I think I’ll tell this Witherson lassie she should stay away.’

‘Too late. Here she comes.’ Steff was about to ask where, when he realised he had been looking through her as she walked towards their table. He had subconsciously been looking out for the black dress she’d worn earlier, which he would admit was stupid, but even if he hadn’t he guessed he’d still have been surprised. This wasn’t the porn star, public‐
scandal figure or aspiring actress. This was Maddy Witherson. And this was the moment Steff Kennedy began to experience the sort of feelings only previously inspired by Tommy Coyne and Paul Lambert. She wore light‐
blue Levi’s and a plain white T-shirt, dozens of thin bangles chinking on each wrist. Her hair sat untidily in a mop of wet black strands, still damp from the shower. But it was her face that threw Steff most, divested of all the war paint, glowing from recent bathing, and much younger. Behind the microphone, behind the cut‐
outs, behind the makeup, she had been like a picture in a magazine, attractive in a strictly aesthetic manner, but a cold remove from reality. The woman in the black dress answering journalists’ questions didn’t exist any more than the vamp in Angel’s Claws existed. The face he was looking at now was not attractive in that classical way; indeed some might say it was plain. But in it Steff saw stories, secrets, fears and a natural beauty his camera had taught him was all too rare.

‘You’re Jo Mooney, right?’ she said, as Jo stood up and offered her hand.

‘This is Steff Kennedy,’ Jo said. Steff stood up and tried not to tower too much.

‘Oh my God, it’s you,’ Witherson gasped, taking his hand in a waft of shampoo and body spray.

‘You know him?’ Jo enquired.

‘I was hovering about at the press conference,’ he explained to Jo. ‘Sorry if I freaked you out, Ms Witherson,’ he added.

‘Not at all. You were just kinda hard to miss. Call me Maddy.’ Jo offered to get her a mineral water. She asked for a beer, Dos, same as Steff was drinking. Jo got the chat going, Maddy’s answers getting longer with every few mouthfuls. Steff watched her as she spoke, glad that he had the ‘working out your best angle’ excuse to fall back on in explaining why he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Something about her was really getting to him, more so every time he caught her glance, but he had no idea what it was. The natural beauty bollocks didn’t cover it at all; that was just the sort of thing you told yourself to explain the unexplainable, that which you couldn’t render in language. Not without making a total arse of yourself, anyway. She reached for her beer and the bangles slipped down her arm when she tipped the bottle to her lips. As they slid back they revealed that her wrists were scored by several scars, criss‐
crossing the soft‐
looking skin. Steff looked back at her face, where he found the feared confirmation that she knew what he had seen. He felt more shamefully voyeuristic than if she knew he had been watching Babylon Blue that morning. Jo either hadn’t noticed or had been more discreet in spotting the scars. Witherson looked down at the table for a second and swallowed her beer. Steff had seen her capably ride out the press conference earlier on, but just then she seemed a little jolted. This was a lot more intimate, right enough, and the person in front of him looked a lot more fragile than the persona who had paraded for the hacks. She hit her stride again soon enough, quickly becoming expansive in Jo’s easy company, enlivened by the prospect of getting her story across to an audience who hadn’t heard the prosecution speak first. She spoke with an appealing mixture of passion and humour, like she had a lot she needed to get off her chest but wasn’t taking their interest for granted. She didn’t talk much about her time in the porn business; she wasn’t being evasive, it just didn’t stand a chance against the more pressing issues of what had happened since. ‘The weirdest thing was that suddenly everybody felt qualified to pass judgement – or at least diagnosis – on what I had done or what was somehow wrong with me,‘she told them. ‘As they say, opinions are like assholes: everybody has one and they’re usually full of shit. For instance, it was said I had only done this to hurt my father. Did it never strike these people that there were simpler ways to embarrass him, if that was what I was trying to do? Or did they forget that I used an assumed name, told no one who I really was, and that it wasn’t me who broke the big secret to the world? Why did this have to be about my dad? This was about me. And they always talk about it like it was an affliction, or something that “happened” to me. It’s like if you break ranks from society’s code of sexual behaviour, there must be something wrong with you, like mental illness. Like you couldn’t possibly make that decision if you were in proper command of your faculties. That used to be the attitude towards homosexuality Still is in a lot of places.’ She rolled the bottle between her hands, shaking her head with an ironic grin. ‘Some of the feminists have been more vicious than the moralists. I was ready for the stuff about being some kind of traitor to my gender. I never bought that one, and it’s pretty sexist if you think about it. You can’t make these things without guys. Why does no‐
one talk about their bodies being exploited? It’s always the woman’s fault – so what’s new there? But worse are the ones who want to save me, like I’m a victim. Like my sexuality has been somehow damaged or violated or, I don’t know, enslaved. Like I can’t be in control of my sexuality if that’s what I’m doing with it. Let me tell you, doing that was …’ She paused. Steff saw the same look in her eyes as when he had noticed her wrists: afraid of what someone might have seen, but knowing she had no way of hiding it if someone wanted to look. ‘Making porn was about being in control of my sexuality,’ she said, quieter, then reached for the bottle again and finished it off. Steff wanted to spare her any silence that might follow and weighed in with a question. ‘Did you have any security concerns about coming here after what thon eejit across the road said the other day?’

‘Excuse me?’ Her eyes squinted in concentration as though looking into the sun. ‘Who did you say? Jonny Jit?’

Steff laughed. ‘Sorry. I meant that eloquent gentleman with all the laundered‐
looking friends, calling you the Whore of Babylon and generally laying the blame for the decline of Western civilisation at your door.’

‘Is Western civilisation declining? I didn’t catch Sixty Minutes.’ She smiled and shook her head. ‘No, it’s old news, really. The Reverend Luth’s been calling me that for months on CFC. He just brought it up again because, conveniently for him, he knew I’d be attending the market.’

‘So why’d he call you that in the first place?’

‘I was in a feature called Babylon Blue, and as I was effectively having sex for a living, that made me a whore. Again, very convenient for biblical rhetoric.’

‘No, I meant, why you specifically,’ Steff stressed. ‘I mean, you weren’t … I, eh, heard, the top‐
line star of that film. Why wasn’t one of the other actresses singled out?’

‘Why isn’t one of the other actresses sitting here right now? Because their daddies aren’t in the Senate. The film wasn’t remarkable or notorious, it was just one more skin flick that nobody would have heard of, or admit to having heard of, until the big scoop. Porn actresses would normally be too far beneath Luther’s contempt for him to talk about any of them individually, but in the public eye, I wasn’t born a porn actress, unlike those other poor unfortunates. St John got pissed off because he and my dad were sort of allies in the great crusade for all‐
American family values, and some of the embarrassment rubbed off. But what really jerked his chain was that I didn’t sit back and take my scolding. Somebody shoved a microphone in my face, I gave my own moral viewpoint, which shared little with the Reverend’s. That meant I graduated from being a wretched sinner to a full‐
scale force of evil.

‘You, eh, heard right, by the way,’ she added, looking Steff sharply in the eye. He felt like he had his dick out. ‘I was way down the cast on Babylon Blue. I was way down the cast on everything. I did get second billing on the last flick I made before the news broke, but I guess it’s hard to get a suitable pulpit soundbite out of a title like Clam Lappers IV.’ More beers arrived. Steff was planning to repair his image by taking confident charge of the bill, but he caught a glimpse as it hit the table and backed off sharpish. Jo was on exes. ‘You’re top billing now,’ Jo observed. ‘Above‐
the‐
line credit on Angel’s Claws. That’s not bad going for a feature debut.’

‘Would be if it was the movie people were interested in, but I think we all know why I got the part and why Angel’s Claws isn’t just blending into the market slates along with all the other straight‐
to‐
video trash.’

‘But surely you must be pretty excited about, you know, just being in a movie, aside from what it might lead to?’ Maddy smiled, sipping from the bottle. The bangles were revealing her scars again, but she was either no longer concerned or wanted them to think she was no longer concerned. ‘I am excited. I’m riding this thing for all it’s got, believe me. It’ll be fun, it’ll be different, it’s money in the bank, and it is a great opportunity. I’m not putting it down. Zip and Tobe have been great, they really have. But I guess it’s a little easy‐
come‐
easy‐
go. If I had striven all my days for this I’d be freaked out with worries, hopes, you know? But I didn’t get into adult movies because I wanted to be a “proper” actress, and Christ help anyone who does. This has fallen into my lap and I’m gona take full advantage, but I’ve no delusions about it. Susan Sarandon can sleep easy.’

‘So are you worried about not having acted properly before?’ Jo asked.

‘I’m not sure quite what constitutes proper acting, but I don’t think it’s Angel’s Claws, you know? A film like this, if I can stand up and say my lines with a modicum of expression, the direction, the photography, the costumes and the lighting will all make me look at least competent. But they won’t make me an actress.’ She had a long gulp of beer and shrugged. ‘This’ll be the last lead role I ever get. I was ’ninety‐
eight’s news, my fifteen minutes are almost up. Next picture I’ll probably be the cop’s girlfriend, the one who gets murdered to piss him off before the showdown. Picture after that I’ll get murdered in the first reel. But like I said, I’m gonna ride it as far as it’ll take me. I’ve no illusions I’m gonna be a superstar, but I’d like to think I could learn enough as I go, and one day be a half‐
way‐
decent character actress. Maybe in ten years getting little roles just because the director knows I’ll do a good job, long after everybody’s forgotten why I got my first break.’

‘These sound like very modest dreams,’ Jo said.

‘Yeah, but I don’t know whether I suck yet. If I do a Sofia Coppola out there, the thought of being a small‐
time character actress might seem pretty far‐
fetched.’

‘You sure you want me to quote you on the Sofia Coppola thing?’ Jo asked.

‘Sure, go ahead. It’s not like Francis has me in mind for something and I’m gonna blow it.’ Jo’s mobile interrupted the conversation. She pressed Receive and spoke quietly for a couple of moments, then stood up and made her excuses. ‘I’ll just walk over there and take this call,’ she said. ‘Back in a few minutes.’ Steff was left sitting diagonally opposite Maddy, trying to appear nonchalant but ready to settle for anything north of lurking. He knew Maddy could have looked away, struck a pose, even just smiled to place an ‘intermission’ sign up while Jo was away, but she didn’t. She did smile, but it was a nervous smile, an ‘all right, I admit it, I don’t quite know what I’m doing here, am I coming across okay?’ smile.

‘You’re a much better actress than you make out,’ he found himself saying, perhaps injudiciously. He’d been searching for something to prevent a silence, and voiced his thoughts directly without the usual vetting he employed on those rare occasions when he really did care what the other person thought of him. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, a mite defensively. No way out but forward, Steff thought. ‘Well, you gave a very convincing performance earlier on at the press conference.’

‘Performance?’

‘As the actress, the star. Glamorous, composed, graceful, behaving like it was all second nature. That was acting, wasn’t it? That wasn’t you “just being yourself”.’ She said nothing, simply met his eye, leaving the ball in his court. ‘I mean, everything about you was different, and I’m not just talking about dresses and hairstyles. You talked differently, you even walked differently. Obviously I’ve never met you before, but I’d guess – at least I’d like to think – that how you look right now, how you are right now, is more like the real you.’