Hollywood Sinners

‘I am sorry. I have said too much.’

She wrapped her arms round herself, turning away. ‘Please, go.’

‘I did not mean to upset you.’ His voice was gentle.

Elisabeth shook her head, refusing to look at him. ‘I’m fine.’

A moment later she heard the door shut quietly. She closed her eyes, dragging herself together. Linda was so seldom mentioned that each time it hurt like the first. The mother she had never known, the woman whose legacy she felt it her duty to maintain. Oh, to have had a female in her life when she’d been growing up, someone to be close to. Instead she had been raised almost exclusively by men. Bernstein, Bellini, her grandfather before he’d died–it had made her tough, sure, but what she wouldn’t give for five minutes with the woman she couldn’t even remember.

Thank God for Robert St Louis. He cherished her independence, always said it was one of the things he loved best. Linda would have liked him.

Elisabeth turned back to the mirror. She gave her reflection a reassuring nod. Once they were married, a new future would begin; one her mother would be proud of.

7

London

Chloe French arrived home in Hampstead feeling tired and interrogated. She’d spent the afternoon at a photo shoot for a Sunday paper supplement–the sharp-featured woman interviewing her had insisted on asking all manner of difficult questions about her upbringing, rather than focusing on her modelling and her relationship with Nate Reid, either of which she would have preferred to talk about.

Thank God for PR, thought Chloe, tossing her bag down in the empty hall.

‘Dad?’ she called out. Silence.

She checked the time. Maybe he’d gone out.

Padding into the kitchen, Chloe tried to remember a time when it hadn’t been like this–a house so quiet and still that it seemed to be in mourning for times gone by. Before the divorce her parents had thrown a party nearly every week: Chloe recalled sitting at the top of the stairs when she was little and meant to be in bed, listening to the grown-ups’ conversations; the tinny ring of wine glasses and the distant, merry laughter.

The doorbell went. It was Nate.

‘Hey!’ she said, stepping out to kiss him. ‘How was the studio?’

Nate pushed through. ‘Get me in, I’ve got a pap on my tail.’

Chloe frowned, looking past him. ‘I can’t see anyone.’

‘Buggers don’t let up,’ he said, stalking past in his Jagger swagger.

She followed him into the kitchen. He had his head in the fridge and was picking at an open packet of Parma ham.

‘They were shitty at the Bystander.‘ She pulled out a chair and flopped down.

‘Did they ask about me?’

‘Nah, it was all Mum and Dad.’ She bit her thumbnail. ‘I’m tired of talking about it–it’s like everyone has to have a sob story or something. What’s the big deal?’

Nate snapped open a jar of pickles. ‘Our story’s better,’ he said insensitively, tossing in a gherkin. ‘You should have got them off the subject, started talking about me.’

Chloe smiled faintly. He was only trying to take her mind off it.

‘They’re all over us, babe,’ he went on, popping the jar on the shelf and closing the door. ‘They love all that shit.’

Nate was referring to the night he and Chloe had got together a couple of years before. Under any other circumstances, people might have baulked at the idea of them being an item–sweet, stunning Chloe French and a slightly grimy rock star with an alleged drug problem. But this was a modern-day fairy tale, or at least that was how the press saw it.

It had all happened at a wild party in Shoreditch. Chloe didn’t remember much, just knew she’d had way too much to drink come midnight. She’d fallen seriously ill, spewing up all over the place and blacking out–later it transpired she’d had her drink spiked. Thankfully Nate Reid, supposedly the wildest child of them all, had intervened, got his head together and taken her to the nearest A&E. The following morning iconic images were splashed across the London papers: bad-boy Nate carrying good-girl Chloe in his arms, folding her limp body into a car, waiting at the hospital, taking her home, holding her hand.

For Chloe, Nate was her knight in shining armour.

‘You should have told that to the woman who interviewed me.’ Chloe made a face. ‘She was so uptight, I think she was jumped up on something. I needed the loo halfway through and felt too uncomfortable to say anything.’

Nate snorted. ‘You’re weird, babe.’

‘Yeah, well.’

‘Your dad’s bird’s here,’ he stated, nodding out to the modest garden.

‘She is?’ Chloe should have known–the place was too tidy for her father to be alone, the washing-up had been done for a start. His girlfriend Janet had all but moved in these past few months.

Sure enough, at the far end of the lawn and enjoying the last of the late-summer sun, was Gordon. He and Janet were seated on a blanket, with a bottle of wine and a scattering of food. Her two young sons, frizzy-haired twins with slightly crossed eyes, mucked about nearby. Chloe watched them for a while with a strange mix of sadness and relief. She was happy her father had found someone, but couldn’t help feeling the outsider. The two of them had managed together when Audrey, her mother, had left, and when Chloe had started to make her own money she had decided to stay at the family home, not wanting her father to be alone.

Audrey had walked when Chloe was twelve. She’d met a poet through one of her evening workshops called Yarn–it was actually spelled Jan but for Chloe it remained as it had when she’d first heard it, that strange, foreign sound. Yarn had long hair, no money and a face the colour of the moon. Chloe had met him once, when Audrey had still been interested in maintaining contact. They had been for a strained coffee in Highgate and Chloe had noticed how her mother smelled different, sort of clammy and yeasty, not like she used to smell at all. Audrey had hung on to every word Yarn said, even though Chloe–in the first stage of adolescence but pretty much with the right idea–had thought it was all a lot of sweet-smelling bullshit. She’d known then that she had lost her mother, at least the one she had grown up with. There had been a handful of meetings since and the necessary birthday and Christmas cards, but that was it.

‘Let’s go upstairs,’ said Chloe, taking Nate’s hand. ‘I feel sad.’

Nate grabbed a bottle of beer. ‘Bet I know how to cheer you up.’

‘I know you do,’ smiled Chloe, relieved she had someone as committed to her as Nate. Growing up she’d thought her mum and dad would be together for ever–it had been horrible when they’d split. What happened to her parents wouldn’t happen to them.

They mounted the stairs, she going backwards, his face in her hands. She kissed him hard, unbuckling him as they came to the landing. He tasted kind of stale, like he hadn’t cleaned his teeth in a while. It wasn’t unpleasant.

Nate tripped at the top step and they fell back. A slosh of beer leaked into the carpet.

‘Shit!’ Chloe laughed as she landed on her bum.

Nate didn’t see the funny side. He began unbuttoning her shirt, feeding a hand through, roughly cupping her breast. ‘I’ve got to fuck you,’ he whispered.

‘Not here,’ she managed between kisses, feeling the scratch of the rug beneath her back.

Nate pierced her with a green stare, slowly running his fingers down to the waist of her jeans, sliding towards the heat of her knickers. ‘Here.’

‘No!’ she laughed, attempting to wriggle free.

‘Why not,’ he said flatly, pinning her down. He held her arms above her head with one hand, used the other to unclasp her bra.

‘Because someone might see,’ she said anxiously, aware from the bulge in Nate’s boxers that he could be right outside on the picnic blanket for all it mattered to him.

‘So?’

Chloe made a face. ‘Come on, Nate,’ she said, pushing him off.