A Lesson In Seduction

‘Well, I don’t see how my running away is going to help,’ said Roz, her green eyes sparkling with ire. ‘People are sure to think it’s because I’m guilty of something.’

‘So what? They think that anyway,’ came another unwelcome brotherly opinion. Sprawled full-length on the floor beside the couch, Richard was genially fending off an assault by two miniature versions of himself.

‘Look, Roz, take it from one who knows—all this hide-and-seek is merely whetting the Press’s appetite and if you won’t oblige them with a scandal they’ll create their own. You’re God’s gift to the tabloid industry, you know: a well-known actress with a reputation for wild behaviour and a sexy body that photographs like a dream. All they have to do if the story threatens to lose impetus is to snap another shot of you in a skimpy dress getting in or out of a cab or threatening to deck another reporter and—presto—instant page three! They love chasing you around... you give such good press.’

‘Mind your tongue in front of the children, Richard,’ his mother chided, rapping him sharply on one up-raised knee.

He grinned irrepressibly, looking much younger than his thirty-one years. He dragged himself up to a sitting position, gently wrestling his sons off his chest. ‘Face it, Roz, they’re not going to just give up and go away, not while you’re dangling yourself tantalisingly under their noses. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better and the rest of us are bound to suffer along with you’

His sweeping gesture took in the various members of the Marlow clan who had arrived for what Rosalind had been led to believe was a quiet afternoon tea with her parents. Instead she had found the house bulging with her siblings and their partners and offspring. In fact, the only ones missing from the council of war were her rock-composer brother, Steve, who was currently in Hollywood working on a film score, and her youngest brother, Charlie, who was a mechanic with a race-team on the overseas rally circuit.

For the most part Rosalind was grateful that she came from a close-knit family with a strong interest in each other’s well-being, but sometimes their loving interference only complicated matters. Right now she didn’t need the extra pressure that they were bringing to bear on her battered self-confidence.

The trouble was that her family still saw her as the over-impulsive, fun-loving and, OK, outright reckless creature that she had been in her teens. Why couldn’t they accept her as the mature, capable, staunchly independent twenty-seven-year-old woman she had become? Granted, her basic personality hadn’t changed; she was still outgoing and gregarious, throwing herself wholeheartedly into everything she did, and some people might mistake her passionate enjoyment of life for recklessness, but her family should know better.

In the last five years the disciplines and rewards of her profession had become the major focus of her prodigious energies. Because her loyalty, once given, was rarely withdrawn she still had some wild and loose-living friends, but it had been years since she herself had had to be rescued from the consequences of her own folly.

She glanced over to the corner where Olivia sat with her husband, Jordan Pendragon.

Normally she could rely on having her twin firmly on her side, but today Olivia seemed oddly reserved. Like Richard and Steve, Rosalind and Olivia were only fraternal twins, but they had always been closely attuned to each other’s emotional wavelength. Olivia’s marriage the previous year hadn’t seemed to jeopardise their closeness and thus it was disconcerting for Rosalind suddenly to discover herself deprived of the psychic support she had always taken for granted.

Olivia’s dreamy, abstracted air was nothing new—as an artist she frequently went around with her head in the clouds—but Rosalind had the feeling that this time the mental aloofness was deliberate, and it hurt. Everything around her seemed to be shifting, changing, veering dangerously out of her control. It was no wonder her nerves were a riot.

‘I’m sorry, I had no idea that this was going to turn out to be such a mess,’ she sighed, thrusting her hands into the pockets of her skin-tight jeans, her slender shoulders hunching under the thin black sweater. ‘The whole thing’s been blown up way out of proportion... all because some greedy hotel employee took it into his head to sell his distorted version of events to the highest bidder!’ she said bitterly. ‘Why can’t people mind their own business?’

‘People figure that since you make your living in public you are their business,’ said Richard unsympathetically. ‘You’re not the only one under siege. My office phone line is tied up handling the constant press calls and I’m fed up with granting interviews that turn out to be a total waste of time... not to mention having to hire security guards to keep reporters away from my cast and crew.’

‘I thought you believed that all publicity is good publicity,’ said Roz, with a pointed look from Richard to his wife which reminded him of the way he had flagrantly used the gossip columns to manipulate Joanna into accepting his proposal.

‘When it’s about me, yes,’ Richard said deadpan, and with outrageous immodesty, making Joanna put a hand across her mouth to stifle her laughter. ‘But they’re only gatecrashing my set to ask about you...why haven’t I cast you in one of my films? Is it because I think you’re unstable? Do you have drug/alcohol/attitude problems...what kind of breakfast cereal did you eat as a kid? I tell you, it’s driving me nuts! I’m running behind on my shooting schedule as it is; the last thing I need is any more disruptions on the set.

‘Do you know we actually filmed five takes of a scene yesterday before I discovered that one of the dead bodies was a reporter from the Clarion who had bribed one of the extras to let him take his place? The idiot kept breathing and blinking. Apart from not being able to act, he wasn’t even a member of Equity. He could have got me in trouble with the union, for God’s sake!’

Of course, she might have known that Richard was more concerned about his precious movie being completed on time than her problems! Rosalind glared at him as he unsuccessfully tried to detach the two red-headed babies from his now woefully stretched woollen jumper.

‘Now, Sean, stop sucking Daddy’s sweater; you’ll get fur balls,’ he scolded. ‘You too, David; you don’t have to do everything your brother does...’

As usual his twin sons ignored his stern command and continued to gum the soggy wool, until their mother gently uttered a word and they began to crawl obediently in her direction. Richard watched them go with a rueful smile that acknowledged a higher domestic authority. He scrambled to his feet, wincing slightly at the pressure on his lame knee, and turned his attention back to Rosalind.

‘If you genuinely want to deflect press interest the simple solution is to remove yourself as a potential source of information. Disappear completely for a while...at least until the initial feeding frenzy is over. It’s not as if you have to worry about walking out on your job,’ he added with cheerful malice, ‘since you don’t happen to have one at the moment...’

‘I’m currently resting between engagements,’ Rosalind informed him loftily. It was a point of pride that she had hardly been out of steady work since she had left drama school. ‘I’m considering several offers—it’s just a matter of deciding which one to accept.’

‘But you said yourself that none of them start for a few weeks, darling.’ Her mother pounced. ‘So why not make the most of your free time until then? Your father and I know the perfect place for you to go—peaceful, warm, exotic and—best of all as far as you’re concerned—wonderfully remote.’

‘It’s not an island, is it?’ said Rosalind with deep suspicion. ‘I think I’ve had enough of remote islands for one lifetime.’

The film she had just completed was supposedly set in just such an idyllic-sounding location. However, the cast and crew had found themselves virtually camping out on an extremely rugged dot in the South Pacific, in wretchedly primitive conditions and beset by all manner of hardships, including erratic delivery of supplies, a subtropical cyclone and Rosalind’s terrifyingly close encounter with a shark while filming the underwater scenes.

Needless to say, the budget had been horrendously overrun, and Rosalind had been relieved to get back to New Zealand with body and soul intact, only to walk slap-bang into a situation of almost equal peril.

‘Oh, you’ll love this one,’ her mother assured her. ‘Your father and I had one of our honeymoons there a few years ago. We simply adored it. A jewel of a place. Gorgeous scenery, gorgeous weather. A perfect refuge from reality.’

‘And exactly where is this perfect jewel?’ asked Rosalind morosely, unwillingly tempted.

‘Tioman Island!’ announced her mother with a vocal flourish that invited applause.

She must have forgotten that geography had always been Rosalind’s worst subject at school.

‘Is it somewhere around the Great Barrier Reef?’ she guessed, thinking that if she had wanted to wimp out and hide from her avalanching problems Australia would hardly be far enough!

Joanna, the teacher, looked pained. ‘It’s in the South China Sea,’ she said helpfully.

‘Oh, right...’ Rosalind closed her eyes as she tried to visualise Asia in her head, but her overtaxed brain refused to co-operate. All she could see against the blackness were wretched images from Room 405 at the Harbour Point Hotel in Wellington... Peggy Staines’s anguished, pleading face, her body writhing in pain on the crumpled double bed, the frantic actions of the ambulance crew and the avid curiosity of the hotel staff and guests who had seen Rosalind in her bathrobe dazedly gathering up the scattered banknotes from the floor.

‘Off the east coast of Malaysia, north-east of Singapore.’ Her father gently reorientated her.

‘You must have heard of it, darling!’ her mother urged. ‘It’s quite famous. They shot parts of South Pacific there. Remember Bali Ha’i... remember the waterfall? That was filmed on Tioman. Just imagine being able to visit it for yourself...’

Rosalind’s eyes flew open. She loved vintage musical movies. She had a good singing voice and had appeared on stage in a number of musical productions, South Pacific included. She vividly remembered the waterfall scene from the movie and her interest quickened, much against her will.

‘If it’s famous then it’s probably packed to the gills with tourists,’ she said stubbornly. ‘I hate tourist traps.’

‘Funny how I couldn’t drag you away from Disneyland when you came and stayed with me in LA,’ murmured Richard, who had lived and worked in the film capital for several years before he’d turned from acting to directing.

Rosalind poked her tongue out at him. ‘Disneyland’s different.’

‘So is Tioman,’ her mother said hurriedly, before sibling raillery could subvert the conversation. ‘There are a few resorts but the island’s still pretty much uncommercialised, and the pace of life is very slow. There’s no stress, there’s no crime...it’s somewhere you can feel wonderfully safe and anonymous. Even a free spirit like you, Roz, wouldn’t feel hemmed in. You really need to see it to appreciate it. I think I just happen to have some brochures around here somewhere... Now where did I put them...? Michael, do you see them?’

She looked around vaguely, absently retucking a loose strand of red hair into her elegant French twist. Rosalind watched suspiciously as her father obediently took his cue and ‘discovered’ the large stack of travel folders conveniently on hand under one of the newspapers on the coffee-table.

Her suspicions were strengthened by the flagrant enthusiasm with which everyone fell on the glossy brochures. Alluring descriptions of virgin rainforest and white coral beaches were read aloud with typical Marlow panache, the delights of scuba-diving in limpid tropical waters and the merits of Malaysian cuisine discussed. Even the babies drooled in ecstasy over the bright, colourful pamphlets that Richard thrust into their pudgy fingers, although that was probably more to do with the fact that they were teething!

‘It says here that there are references to Tioman in Arabic literature that date back two thousand years...’ murmured Hugh, perusing a hard-back book that had a stamp on the cover indicating that it had come from the library. Something else her mother had just happened to have on hand? Rosalind didn’t think so!

‘You know, you don’t even need a visa to visit Malaysia,’ said Olivia, reading the fine print on the back of a brochure. ‘Your passport’s current, isn’t it, Roz?’

‘Of course it is. Roz is used to travelling light. She can take off at the drop of a hat, can’t you, darling?’ her mother encouraged.

Rosalind thought it was time to put her foot down and inject some reality into the situation.

‘Even if I was thinking about taking a trip, if this place is so wonderful there’s no way there’d be vacancies for spur-of-the-moment travellers,’ she said firmly. ‘And flights up to the East have wait-lists for their wait-lists. Anyway, I haven’t budgeted for any extravagances this month...’

Although Rosalind had inherited a considerable trust fund several years ago, she preferred to live mostly off her own earnings. Large amounts of money made her uneasy. She had no head for figures and small amounts slipped far too easily through her fingers for her to trust herself with serious sums.

Besides, the theatre had a strong historical tradition of poverty amongst its acolytes and it went against the grain to flaunt her unearned prosperity when most of her fellow actors were eking out their meagre pay cheques in a noble state of self-sacrifice for their art. So apart from the occasional rush of blood to the head Rosalind lived a life of cheerful self-sufficiency, content in the knowledge that when she was too old and decrepit to tread the boards she would be able to retire in dignity and comfort.

‘Credit me with a little forethought, darling,’ said her notoriously disorganised mother. ‘As soon as I realised you might need a quiet little bolt-hole I got Jordan to use some of his family’s muscle. He still has pull in the Pendragon Corporation and he’s made all the arrangements for you through their travel section. Of course the economy flights were overbooked but you’re going first class all the way, and don’t look like that—you don’t have to worry about the cost—I booked everything on your father’s credit card...even on Tioman you only have to sign for your accommodation and meals.