Читать книгу Ordinary Joe - Jon Teckman - Страница 9

I still loved New York. Every time I cleared the airport and drove into the city in the back of a yellow cab, I could hear the strains of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and the opening lines of Woody Allen’s Manhattan playing inside my head. I had been here many times since my first visit – not long before 9/11 changed the skyline forever but did nothing to dent the pugnacious, optimistic spirit of the natives. Even from that first visit, the city had been a curious mixture of the new and the familiar. So many of the sights and sounds, even, bizarrely, the smells, were already known to me from movies and TV programmes that I never felt like a stranger here. And yet, even after many visits, I could still be startled by something unforeseen: the hidden squares, an eagle soaring over Central Park, even the sight of a thief on a bicycle stealing rolls from a hotdog van and pedalling off down Broadway like an Olympic competitor while the vendor hurled Bronx-tinted insults at his departing form.

And I still loved the movie business. The whole crazy, over-the-top, passionate, extraordinary process of turning stories into frames of film (or, these days, pixels) with which to captivate millions of strangers sitting silently in the dark. I was one of the money men – one of the guys behind the scenes who helped to introduce the money to the story and hoped they’d enjoy a long and fruitful relationship. That was why I’d been invited by Buddy Guttenberg (the most over-the-top and passionate movie man of them all) to watch the final re-shoot of Nothing Happened and that was why I was back in New York for the film’s world premiere. I had been to a lot of these fancy industry events – but I’d yet to grow tired of them. Whatever the films themselves were like, the parties were usually great, dripping with celebrities, money and Hollywood’s trademark extravagance.

One thing threatened to spoil my enjoyment that night. My new boss, Joseph Bennett, was my ‘date’ for the evening. Bennett was living, walking proof that God could not possibly have created man in His own image. He was an over-ambitious, untrustworthy, supercilious, arrogant prick (Bennett, I mean, obviously), who had been identified early in his career as someone destined to climb to the very top at Askett Brown.

I had never been on anyone’s list of those most likely to succeed, but I’d found my niche in the growing media sector and had done pretty well. It was only in the last few years that Bennett’s superior confidence and connections had seen him rise above me. Now he had been promoted to head the Entertainment and Media Division – my division. Having spent his entire career in the mineral extraction sector, Bennett knew plenty about oil and gas, but less than zilch about the movie business.

This would be Bennett’s first – and, as it turned out, last – film premiere. After all the build-up and hoop-la and the standing ovations as the talent arrived and took their seats, the film itself was disappointing. For all Arch Wingate’s attention to detail, he seemed to have missed the most important element for any film – a decent script. When it was over, I left the cinema as quickly as possible to avoid having to tell anyone intimately involved in its conception and delivery what I thought of their efforts. Nobody wants to hear they’ve given birth to a disappointing baby. I didn’t even wait in my seat long enough to see my name flash past at the end of the credits, or join in the over-enthusiastic applause. I grabbed Bennett and we made our way quickly up Broadway to the aftershow party at a glitzy restaurant near Central Park.

I had been there for lunch once before, but now, all done up for a top Hollywood event, the venue had been transformed. Multicoloured flashing lights bounced off the mirrors that adorned every possible surface, reflecting back on themselves, making it seem like we were in the middle of a newly discovered constellation. Beyond the elaborately decorated tables there was a small dance floor, beside which an aged six-piece band were playing gentle swing tunes, easing people into the evening.

I hate the opening moves of any formal social occasion – having to find someone to talk to who’ll find me interesting too. Not easy for an accountant, I can assure you. Bennett shared none of my inhibitions. Within seconds of our arrival he had attached us to a group of bewildered studio employees, introduced us and, on discovering they were junior back-office staff, made our excuses and moved on. This process was repeated several times as he swept through the party desperate to find someone of suitable seniority to engage in meaningful conversation.

Eventually I spotted a couple of people I knew from Buddy’s production company, Printing Press Productions, and persuaded Bennett they were worth talking to.

‘Hi Len, Di,’ I said as we approached, shaking his hand and giving her a hug. ‘How’s married life, then? Carl still treating you OK?’

‘Fantastic, thanks,’ Len laughed, ‘but don’t they say the first year is always the easiest? Besides, I only got married so I can treat myself to a fabulous divorce when I get bored with him!’

Bennett coughed loudly, inviting me to make the introductions. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘This is Joseph Bennett, the new Head of Entertainment and Media at Askett Brown. Joseph, this is Len Palmer, Buddy Guttenburg’s Executive Assistant, and Diana Lee who works with Len. These two guys are Buddy’s eyes and ears. Between them they—’

‘Hi, guys. How’re you doing?’ Bennett cut in. ‘I guess West’s already given you the low-down on his new boss.’ He emphasised the word ‘boss’ like a plantation owner addressing his slaves. ‘I was a bit miffed when they told me I was moving to film. Thought it might be a bit of a backwater if I’m honest with you. But, you know what, I’m starting to think it could actually be pretty cool.’ He looked around the room loftily, like an owl perched high in a tree’s upper branches, then nudged Len, spilling some of his champagne. ‘A lot better-looking crumpet here than out on the rigs, I can tell you, Les! Only one kind of woman tends to go into the oil business and they’re the ones who aren’t much interested in men, if you know what I mean!’ He gave a short blast of his dreadful braying laugh, like a donkey that’s seen a cow sit on a thistle. ‘But seriously, I’m really looking forward to working with your Mr Goldberg and the other top guys at the office. Bring you a little of the old Bennett magic. Do you know, when I was in oil, I achieved 300 per cent growth in net billings in four years? Three hundred per cent! I mean, I know this is a completely different ball game but it’s got to be a damn sight easier than oil. There, you’re lucky if every fifth or sixth project makes you any money.’

Had Bennett paused for breath, any one of us could have pointed out to him the similarities between making movies and drilling for oil. In both businesses you have to throw truckloads of money into highly risky ventures without knowing if you’ll see any return at all. Every film is, in effect, a prototype – the exploration of a virgin field. Film-makers try to mitigate their risk by reusing elements that have been successful in the past– top stars, top directors, proven storylines. That’s why they make so many sequels.

Diana had developed models and spreadsheets that could help translate Buddy’s more instinctive approach to film-making into something closer to a science. They couldn’t guarantee the success of a film any more than a man with a geological survey map and a big drill could guarantee striking oil. But they could ensure that the studio maximised its returns if it did strike screen gold. She could have told Bennett all this, if he’d stopped talking long enough to let her. And if he hadn’t already written her off as the secretary’s secretary.

‘So you’re both assistants, are you? That must be fun! Are you invited to a lot of these parties or is this a special treat? I think it’s great that companies on this side of The Pond have such an open policy on who they’ll employ as secretaries. At our place, we mainly get pretty young things like you, Diana. It might be a laugh if we had a few blokes as well, don’t you think, West?’

‘Actually, we’re not—’ Di began, but Bennett wasn’t looking for answers.

‘That’s not to say I don’t like having the pretty ones around, mind you. I’m not saying I’d like some old poofter sitting on the edge of my desk taking dictation, or firtling around under it looking for a bonus, if you catch my drift! But it would be a bit different, wouldn’t it, West? Blokes as PAs? Might even be an opportunity for you!’ He let out another rattle of his machine-gun guffaw, entirely oblivious to the fact that, as usual, he was laughing alone.

Di flashed Len a glance that could only be interpreted as asking the silent question: ‘Who is this jerk?’ Len passed the look onto me as if it were the parcel in a child’s party game. I could only shrug apologetically. When a waiter penguined past with a bottle of champagne, I stopped him and invited my three companions to replenish their glasses. This caused Bennett to pause long enough to allow Len to spot an imaginary acquaintance somewhere over my left shoulder. ‘Oh, Di, look – there’s um … Frank and, er … someone else we know. Shall we go and say hello?’

Diana needed no second invitation. Waiting only to flash me a sympathetic smile, she prepared her escape. Bennett looked confused for a second but then remembered his professional training. ‘It’s been lovely to meet you both,’ he said, pouring out the charm he usually kept buried under thick layers of crassness like his beloved oil beneath the strata of the earth. ‘Do keep in touch.’ He handed them each a pristine new business card as if it were a communion wafer blessed by the Holy Father himself. ‘And here’s one for you too, Mr West,’ he said with a barely suppressed snarl as he stuffed the sliver of stiff white paper into the breast pocket of my dinner jacket. ‘Joseph Bennett, Head of Entertainment and Media Division. Try not to forget it!’

As soon as I could, I made my own excuses and put as much distance between myself and Bennett as was physically possible without actually leaving the party. I found myself walking past the VIP area, roped off to provide a sanctuary inside which the top talent could enjoy their evening unmolested by the rest of the guests.

‘Hey, Joey,’ I heard someone call from inside the rope, ‘over here.’ Turning, I saw Buddy Guttenberg beckoning to me to join him at his table. With the casual flick of one eyebrow, he alerted the bouncers to let me through, and with the other he indicated an empty chair next to him and invited me to sit down. I didn’t realise until I pulled back the chair that sitting with Buddy were Arch Wingate, his partner, the multi-Oscar-winning actress Melinda Curtis, and the two people I had recently watched feigning fornication: Jack Reynolds and, peering shyly out of the shadows, the impeccable Olivia Finch.

‘Arch, you remember Joey West,’ Buddy said, brooking no argument as to whether or not that bold statement was correct. ‘I brought him over to Queens last year to watch you burning my money on all those unnecessary fucking pick-up shots. Joey, you remember Arch, of course, and this is Melinda Curtis who I don’t believe you’ve met.’ Judging by his expression, Arch Wingate was pretty sure he’d never clapped eyes on me before either. He managed a disinterested half-smile while his wife raised a limp hand in unconscious impersonation of a royal wave, then returned to haranguing a waiter who had put a little too little ice in her mineral water. She looked thoroughly miserable. It was bad enough having to turn up to these events to support her own movies – sheer hell for a film she wasn’t even in. Undaunted by their lukewarm reaction, Buddy clapped one of his enormous paws on my shoulder and continued: ‘And I’m sure you remember our wonderful stars Jack and Olivia. Guys, this is Joe, my pal from London.’ Jack Reynolds looked right through me with dead eyes as if my very existence was an affront to his celebrity. Olivia, though, looked up and smiled in my direction.

‘Hi, Joe,’ she said before returning to inspecting her nails, an operation which seemed to require all her attention.

I blushed and told the table I was pleased to meet it. Buddy laughed at my shyness but did his best to make me feel part of the group, keeping my glass filled and pitching me time and again as the man who had got the film made – repeated references which did not go down well with the auteur Arch Wingate. ‘Hey, Joe,’ Buddy said, when the conversation lulled, ‘why don’t you tell the guys about that Irish tax deal you did? I love this story. I tell you, this guy is a fucking genius!’

‘It really wasn’t that complicated,’ I began modestly. ‘All I did was tap into a bit of the tax write-off money that’s sloshing around over there, leveraged it up by linking it into a corporation tax offset, and then underpinned it against their enhanced capital allowances to maximise the cash flow impact and net bottom line benefit …’

Jack Reynolds couldn’t contain himself. ‘Jesus Christ, Buddy, where did you find this guy? Fuck’s sake, if I wanted to be bored shitless, I’d have stayed home and watched one of Olivia’s old movies on cable.’

I felt myself reddening to the very tips of my ears. To my even greater embarrassment, while Buddy laughed heartily at my discomfort, Olivia Finch sprang to my rescue. ‘Leave him alone, Jack,’ she insisted, before fixing me with her angelic gaze. ‘You must be so clever to do all that stuff. I am just so dumb with numbers. I bet I’m getting ripped off from here to Christmas with all my money stuff.’

‘Not just numbers, sweetheart,’ Reynolds mumbled, grabbing a half-empty bottle of champagne and struggling to his feet. ‘Not just fucking numbers.’

‘Oh, go screw yourself,’ Olivia shouted after him as he lurched off towards the dance floor. ‘Asshole!’ She turned to me, the anger instantly drained from her face, one expression replaced by another like the swapping of masks. ‘Hey, Mr Money Man, why don’t you shift over here so we can talk properly. I bet it’s real exciting dealing with all that high finance, isn’t it?’

I did as I was told, then sat there dumbly, wondering whether my next comment should be about European tax harmonisation or her film.

‘I loved the movie, Ms Finch,’ I told her, an exaggeration that teetered close to being a lie, ‘and,’ steering closer to the truth, ‘you were sensational.’

‘Oh, do you really think so?’ she said, playing down her acting talents which were almost on a par with her beauty. ‘Thank you so much. And please, call me Olivia.’

The waiter returned with another bottle of champagne and refilled the glasses of everyone at the table. ‘So, tell me,’ Olivia continued after taking a small, delicate sip from her glass, ‘what did you really think of the movie? It kinda sucks, doesn’t it? Go on, you can be honest with me, English.’

‘No, I wouldn’t say that,’ I replied as evenly as I could. ‘OK, I’ll admit, it’s not the best film I’ve ever seen but it’s far from the worst.’

‘So what is the best film you’ve ever seen? You must have seen hundreds in your time.’

‘Oh, you know,’ I said, ‘I like a lot of the old classics. Stuff from before you were born. From before I was born, even.’

‘Like what?’ she persisted. ‘Go on, try me. I might not be quite as dumb as I look.’

‘No, I didn’t mean that,’ I replied, a little too quickly. ‘I’m just trying to think of something that you might have seen as well. They made some great films in the nineties, you know.’

Olivia shifted to a more upright, more rigid, position. ‘Just answer the goddamn question, English – what is your favourite movie?’ She spelled the words out slowly as if talking to a child. Or an idiot.

‘OK, then, if you must know, it’s Sullivan’s Travels. It’s an old—’

‘Preston Sturges movie!’ Olivia almost screamed, ‘Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake. Oh God, I love that film! It didn’t do as well at the box office as Paramount hoped but that might possibly have been because they released it right about the time of Pearl Harbor! I guess that’s what’s known in the business as bad timing! And I absolutely adore Veronica Lake. When I was a kid, I grew my hair real long and tried to get it to flick like hers, you know? Sturges made some great movies, didn’t he? The Great McGinty, The Lady Eve. But you hardly ever hear about him these days, do you? These kids today coming out of UCLA and NYU think cinema began with Quentin Tarantino. They don’t know anything about Sturges or Hawks or Frank Capra. And that’s just the Americans. Try talking to them about Fellini or Pasolini and they’ll think you’re trying to sell them a foreign car.’

‘Better not mention Ford, then,’ I said with a smile. Olivia looked at me blankly before she got the joke and laughed with far more gusto than my witticism deserved.

‘Yeah, you’re right there, Joe. John Ford would definitely be off their radar.’ Olivia paused for a moment and took another sip of her drink. A broad grin spread slowly across her face as if she’d just had a really naughty notion. ‘Do you know who my real all-time favourite actress is? The one I would have loved to have been? Go on, have a guess, Joe. You’ll never guess.’

I had no idea. A few minutes earlier I’d have gone for a banker like Marilyn Monroe or perhaps Elizabeth Taylor, but Olivia’s knowledge and enthusiasm had floored me. ‘Tell me. Who?’

‘Hedy Lamarr!’ Olivia announced, then looked at me, her eyes alive with anticipation, eager to gauge my reaction as if she had just revealed the ultimate secret to the meaning of life. ‘She had it all. She was beautiful. She was a really talented actress and she was so clever. She actually invented the gizmo that makes wi-fi work – did you know that? Isn’t that amazing? When this is all over, I would love to be remembered for something more than having a great body and being able to read out lines that someone else has written for me.’

‘How do you know all this?’ I asked, without fully thinking through the implications of my question.

‘What?’ Olivia blazed back. Her moods, I was discovering, could change like traffic lights at a busy junction. ‘You think I can’t appreciate great movies because they’re in black and white? I was born poor English, not stupid! But I’m one of the download generation. When I was a kid, my dad got hold of a knocked-off laptop and I used to carry it around with me wherever I went, like it was my favourite doll. Any chance I got to hook up to the Internet, I’d see what movies I could find. There wasn’t much point watching Die Hard or Mission Impossible or big-budget wham-bam shit like that because the connections were so bad you couldn’t see what the hell was going on. So I’d watch all the old classics. At least then I could hear what the actors were saying even if I couldn’t see what they were doing. I could probably give you the whole of The Apartment or All About Eve by heart.’

Before she had a chance to deliver on this promise, we were distracted by a commotion and the staggering figure of Jack Reynolds hoving back into view, pursued by one of the doormen who was controlling access to the VIP enclosure.

‘Come on, Olly, we’re going,’ he slurred, grabbing Olivia by the arm and attempting to pull her from her seat.

‘Get your hands off of me, you ape!’ Olivia snapped back, digging her fingers into her co-star’s hand.

‘Hey, hey! Come on, guys,’ said Buddy rising quickly from his seat at the other end of the table and hurrying to get the situation under control. ‘It is kind of late, Olivia. Perhaps you should be going.’

‘I’ll go when I’m ready,’ she replied, staring directly at me for support. ‘And, as it happens, I’m ready now. It’s been lovely talking with you, English. We must do this again some time.’ She rose and air-kissed everyone at the table, her scent lingering in the space she vacated like a jet’s vapour trail, then wafted off into the bright party lights, followed closely by Jack Reynolds. I’d met a few stars in my time but never before been so close for so long to such insouciant, commanding elegance. I felt completely intoxicated by the experience. That and the four or five glasses of champagne I’d already consumed.

My head was starting to spin and I knew I’d overdone it but, what the hell! The drink was free, I was celebrating a successful trip and I’d had to babysit Bennett all week. And I was suddenly feeling very alone in the busiest city on the planet. It was almost one o’clock which made it six back home in London. Natasha would, without knowing it, be enjoying her last few moments of sleep. Soon she would receive our standard early-morning call – assaulted by a hyperactive three–year-old who greeted the dawn of each new day as if it had to be the best one ever. I missed them – even the rude awakenings – and was glad I’d be seeing them again soon. It was time to go back to the hotel.

I should have looked for Bennett to see whether he was ready to leave too. It would have saved a lot of trouble if we’d stuck together – would have saved his life, now I come to think about it. Frankly, though, I reasoned at the time, he was a grown man and could find his own way back to the hotel. I tottered to the exit, slightly unsteady on my feet but not so drunk that I couldn’t hail myself a cab.

Exactly drunk enough, it turned out, to make the biggest mistake of my life.

I’ve always liked to think that, essentially, I’m a nice bloke. In fact, until that night, I would have settled for that on my gravestone: HERE LIES JOSEPH EDWARD GEORGE WEST. ESSENTIALLY A NICE BLOKE. So what happened next – and most of what’s happened since – has to be seen as being out of character.

As I reached the exit, my nostrils picked up a familiar perfume. I looked around and saw Olivia locked in animated conversation with Jack Reynolds. They didn’t notice me and I was almost past them when I heard Olivia yelp and saw that Reynolds had grabbed hold of one of her arms. It wasn’t clear whether he was trying to stop her from hitting him or from getting away. But there was no doubt she was not enjoying the experience and was struggling to free herself from his grasp.

I still don’t know what possessed me. Instead of continuing out into the cold night air, I stopped, stared for a few moments, then heard a voice that sounded like mine but couldn’t possibly have been, say: ‘Hey, Ms Finch, is everything OK?’

They both looked at me in stunned silence. Reynolds, the archetypal tough guy in so many movies, dropped Olivia’s arm and seemed to shrink as I walked towards them, shuffling a couple of paces to his left to position Olivia between us. She, still a little shocked at this turn of events, could only mutter, ‘Er, thank you, um … English, we’re fine. I was just leaving actually,’ then turned and made her way out of the bright lights into the lobby area beyond.

I followed after her, making sure that Reynolds stayed where he was, skulking in a dimly lit corner of the room. Three liveried cloakroom attendants spotted Olivia approaching and raced to find her coat, fighting for the right to be the man to present it to her. I fumbled for my cloakroom ticket, checking every pocket of my jacket and trousers two or three times before I remembered that I didn’t have a ticket because I didn’t have a coat. It had been a warm April evening when I’d left the hotel with Bennett. Now, looking through the glass doors into the darkness outside, I could see it was raining hard. I contemplated a long, wet wait for a taxi along with every other hapless maggot drawn into the Big Apple.

Olivia pointedly ignored me as she slipped on her designer raincoat and peered out into the rain. She stepped towards the door, then sprang back as if she’d received an electric shock. ‘Oh crap!’ she said, ‘there’s a whole load of paps out there. I hate being snapped when it’s late and raining and I look such a goddamn mess – they’ll have me on my way to rehab by breakfast time. Don’t these guys have homes to go to?’ There was no malice in her voice, only the sad resignation that the huddled masses outside had their job to do photographing her, just as it was part of her job description to be photographed by them. ‘Hey you,’ she called to the doorman, who was standing smartly to attention by the exit. ‘Can you see if my car’s out there?’

The doorman scuttled out only to reappear thirty seconds later, rain dripping off his hat and down his shoulders from even that brief encounter with the elements. ‘Your car is right at the end of the path, Ms Finch, and your driver is waiting to open the door for you as soon as you reach him.’

‘How many of them out there, do you reckon?’

‘I’d say around twenty-five to thirty,’ he replied. ‘A few more down the right-hand side than the left. I couldn’t see any long lenses across the street or in any of the apartments.’ He was starting to sound like he might be in Special Forces or the CIA.

‘I really do not want to get papped tonight,’ Olivia mumbled under her breath. ‘Listen,’ she said to the doorman, ‘can you walk with me to the car and cover me from the guys on the right and’ – to me now as if I was also part of the team dedicated to preserving Olivia Finch’s pride and dignity – ‘English, can you take the guys on the left?’

Before I could even think about an answer, she grabbed my arm and pressed herself into my chest. She was slightly taller than me in her heels and had to stoop to bury her head into the crook of my neck. While the doorman strode out ahead, expertly blocking every flash-fuelled photograph as if it were a sniper’s well-aimed bullet, I struggled along, trying not to trip over her feet, blinded by the bright lights and deafened by the shouts of ‘Over here, Olivia!’ ‘Hey, Miss Finch, look this way!’ and, hurtfully, ‘Oi – Blubber Boy, get out the goddamn way!’

The driver opened the door of the black Lexus, then moved alongside me and the doorman to create a human barrier between Olivia and the photographers who had crowded around the car, snapping away feverishly like piranha attacking a fresh carcass. Just as I was wondering how I was going to work my way back out of this scrum, I felt a hand pull me down into the car. I stumbled and half-fell onto the long back seat. Without a word, Olivia buried herself under my tuxedo, sticking her head up into my left armpit. I turned my face away from the window and ducked down out of view, muttering a silent prayer that the deodorant I’d applied all those hours earlier was still working.

I heard the driver’s door open and close, the click of the key in the ignition and the purr of the engine as we pulled away from the kerb. With the smooth motion of the car, it was a few seconds before I realised that part of the gentle vibration I could feel was Olivia giggling under my jacket. When she was sure we were safely away from the mob, she looked up, her hair splattered across her face like a pair of blonde curtains, make-up smeared around her eyes. ‘That was fun,’ she laughed, the Southern girl cutting through her mask of Hollywood sophistication, ‘and you sure do smell nice under there. So, can I drop you back at your hotel?’

‘Really, you don’t have to. Actually, I wouldn’t mind a walk – clear the head a bit, you know.’

‘Nonsense, it’s – what do you Limeys say? – raining cats and dogs. Please, I owe you for helping me out back there.’

‘Well, OK, if you insist. I’m staying at the Hotel du Paris on Fifth.’

‘Travis,’ Olivia called out to the driver, ‘can we drop my friend here at the Hotel du Paris on Fifth? Thank you. His name’s not really Travis,’ she added, turning to me with a huge smile illuminating her face, ‘I just call him that after that psycho in Taxi Driver. Drives him nuts!’

We drove on in silence while Olivia repaired the damage to her face and hair, squinting into a small compact mirror. When she was restored more or less to her former glory, she folded the mirror away and replaced it in a pocket at the back of the seat in front of her. Then she turned and stared at me for what seemed like an eternity. ‘Who exactly are you, English?’ she said. ‘What the hell am I doing letting some guy I hardly know into my car? Please promise me you’re not some kind of a stalker. I’ve already got quite enough of those.’

‘I’m not, I promise,’ I said, watching the raindrops racing across the window as the car sped through the Manhattan streets. ‘And I’m sorry that I stuck my nose in like that back at the party. That really wasn’t like me at all.’

‘You don’t have to apologise, English,’ she said, posting her right arm through the crook of my left, until her hand rested awkwardly on my thigh just below my lap. ‘That jerk was really busting my ass. Buddy likes us to be pally off set – you know, to get the media sniffing around for a story, “are they, aren’t they?” and all that crap. But he wanted to carry on the act right through to home plate, if you know what I mean. The guy is old enough to be my father – did you know that? They keep these poor bastards hanging on, still believing they’re God’s gift to women when some of them can hardly stand up in the morning, let alone get it up. With us women – bang! As soon as your tits start heading south, it’s all over. Then twenty years in the wilderness off Broadway before you can come back playing the Next Big Thing’s mom and try to grab yourself a Best Supporting Actress nod.’

The driver interrupted her to tell us we’d arrived at my hotel. ‘That’s a shame,’ said Olivia, ‘I was enjoying our little chat. I know, why don’t I let you buy me a drink to say thank you for rescuing me earlier? I’d love to buy you one but, you know, they don’t let me carry any money.’

Before I could say ‘no’, Olivia had unclipped her seatbelt and the driver had opened her door and was helping her from the car. I would have one drink with her, I told myself, and then go straight to bed. Alone. I was even looking forward to telling Natasha all about it – ‘Hey, you’ll never guess who I ended up with in the back of a limo after the party.’ I couldn’t wait to see the look on my wife’s face.

The hotel bar was still open and I guided Olivia to a table in the corner. It was almost dark, as if Prohibition had never been repealed in this part of the state and drinking alcohol was still illegal. A few hardy, late-night souls chatted quietly in twos and threes or sat silently alone in the dimness. One over-dressed and under-sober woman looked twice at Olivia to make sure it wasn’t her before concluding, loudly, to her companion that the broad in the corner looked a little like ‘that actress, Whatsername?’ But apart from that, and the surly attention of a waiter who was clearly more interested in ending his shift than serving his customers, we were left alone – the middle-aged, middle-class, middle-income Englishman and the brightest star in the Hollywood firmament. What on earth would we talk about?

We talked about her, mostly. With little prompting, Olivia was happy to tell me all about her life so far. How she had grown up in a small southern town straight out of a Dolly Parton song without two nickels to rub together and a father who was a perfect gentleman when he was sober but was never sober. She had discovered at an early age that she had a talent for acting and, as she became a teenager, for turning boys’ heads. At sixteen she had hitchhiked to Los Angeles and waited on tables while waiting for an acting job. She’d been engaged twice – first to her high school sweetheart and then to the guy who directed her first film (the one she didn’t like to talk about) – but right now she was between engagements.

Olivia enjoyed telling her stories as much as I enjoyed listening to them. She played all the roles in each anecdote, switching between accents and characters with the consummate ease you would expect of such an accomplished actress, turning each one into a mini-screenplay any of which would have made a better film than the one we had sat through earlier in the evening. Before I knew it, I had finished my drink and, despite my earlier resolution, found myself calling the waiter over and asking him to refill our glasses.

‘So, Mr Money Man,’ Olivia said as the waiter returned with our fresh drinks and set them down clumsily on the table in front of us, ‘that is quite enough about me for one night. Now I want to hear all about you. I bet you have some fascinating stories to tell. Tell me, did you always want to be an accountant?’

I looked at her closely, trying to find any signs of mockery in her eyes, but there were none. ‘Good God, no!’ I replied. ‘Who would? A career in accountancy isn’t something boys dream of alongside space travel or driving trains. It’s something you fall into – like a hole.’

Olivia laughed out loud, breaking the silence of the room and causing the other bar-dwellers to turn and look at us. ‘You are so funny, Joe. That’s one of the things I really like about you. You know, I’ve always preferred a funny man to a good-looking one …’

‘Gee, thanks,’ I replied, only slightly pretending to be hurt.

‘Oh God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that … you know. In fact, I think you are a very attractive man, Joe. I’ve always had a bit of a thing for older men. Apart from my dad. I hated that sonofabitch. You have gorgeous eyes, you know – deep and soulful. Has anyone ever told you that?’

I smiled and blushed. No, no one ever had, least of all one of the most beautiful women in the world.

‘So what did you want to do?’ Olivia continued.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘When you were a kid. We’ve established that you didn’t lie awake at night fantasising about a life as a bean counter – so what was your dream?’

‘Do you promise not to laugh if I tell you?’

‘Try me,’ Olivia replied edging a little closer along the bench seat, intrigued to learn my deepest, darkest secret.

‘OK. I wanted to write. To be a novelist – or perhaps a screenwriter. I remember when I was about nine we drove past a bookmaker’s – you know, a betting shop – and I asked my mum if they would make my book when I was older. I thought it was the same thing as a publisher!’

‘Aw, that’s so sweet,’ said Olivia, edging closer still. ‘So what happened?’

‘To what?’

‘To your dream, Joe. Why did you end up counting things instead of writing about them. I’m glad you did in one way, because otherwise we might never have met. But it seems like a real waste. You have a creative soul – I can see it in your eyes. Why don’t you write? All you need is some paper and a pencil.’

I took a sip of my drink. The intensity of the memory surprised and upset me. ‘When I was fifteen,’ I began, ‘and had to choose which subjects I was going to study at school, I told my parents that I wanted to be an author and so I needed to study English. My dad said “No, son, you mean an auditor,” and told me to do maths. And so, like the good Jewish boy I am, that’s what I did – what my parents told me to do.’

‘But it’s never too late, Joe. You’re nobody’s prisoner now. You can do whatever you want.’

‘Olivia,’ I said, with a mirthless laugh, ‘I have a wife and two kids and a bloody great mortgage, so I’m afraid the writing’s going to have to wait. God, look at the time. I really should be getting to bed.’

Olivia shuffled closer to me still, placed a hand on one of my thighs and kissed me, lightly, on the cheek.

‘I think you’re right, English,’ she said.

She took my hand and led me out of the gloomy bar and to the lift lobby, pressed the call button and asked me my room number. Somewhere, arrested by the alcohol, the tiredness and those extraordinary eyes that fixed mine and pulled me into the depths of her beauty, was a part of me that wanted to tell her to leave me alone, to let me sleep – but it was as if monochrome pictures of my wife and children were being ripped from the walls of my brain and fed into a neurological shredder, while images of Olivia, in glorious, vibrant Technicolor, were put up in their place. And all I actually said as we stepped into the lift and started the slow ascent to paradise and madness were the three little words: ‘Six Twenty-Five’.

The film begins on the screen inside my head. I see a man in early middle age and a much younger woman, walking down a long hotel corridor. They are making a lot of noise in their attempts to stay as quiet as possible. She is incredibly beautiful. He is extraordinarily ordinary. Her skin is smooth and pale; her shoulder-length hair deep blonde; her blue eyes alive with a heady mixture of alcohol, lust and devilment. His face is lined and creased beneath his thinning hair, his grey eyes reflecting only the alcohol and the lust.

He pushes a white plastic card into a slot on the door and presses down on the handle, takes the card out and turns it over and tries the handle again, then takes it out, swears, turns it around and tries a third time. A green light comes on, reflected in his glasses and they tumble into the room through the half-opened door. He presses a switch on the wall and lights on each side of the large double bed – wider than it is long – snap into life. There is a short canopy at one end of the bed beneath which a single wrapped chocolate rests on an ivory pillow. She pushes him up against the wall and presses her lips to his, giving him no option but to kiss her back. Her dress is bright blue with silver flecks and she sparkles like a diving kingfisher as she glides across the room, kicks off her shoes and pours herself onto the bed. His dinner suit is off-the-peg and baggy, the trousers an inch too long. He fumbles with his unfamiliar bow tie, then hops inelegantly on one leg then the other as he tries to disengage his feet from stiff black brogues.

I fast-forward to the next significant action. The couple are now in the no-holds barred wrestling match of fornication. They are naked, apart from the man’s socks: black with a picture of Mr Silly above the words ‘Have a Silly Saturday’ picked out in red letters, a birthday present from his children which, in his indecent haste, he has failed to remove. I am surprised to see how much of a lead the man is taking – orchestrating their movements, calling the shots.

This is hard to watch. I fast-forward again and come back in when it is all over. She is lying to one side of him, an arm wrapped around his chest, a leg interlocked with his. She sleeps blissfully, while he lies awake staring at the ceiling. He looks as if he has just received the worst possible news.

I open my eyes and the film ends. No stirring John Williams score. No endless credits. No pathetic little mentions of pathetic little accountants just above the line that says that no animals were harmed in the making of this movie. No escape. It wasn’t a bizarre erotic dream. It happened. I was there and she was there. The Hollywood superstar and her man: the frightened, treacherous, adulterous, stupid little bastard.

Me.

I must have drifted off because I became suddenly aware of strange noises in the bedroom and sensed the absence of Olivia from the bed. I peered through the darkness at the source of the noise and saw her carefully picking something up and placing it on a chair. A few seconds later, there was a flash of light as the bedroom door opened, followed by the solid thud of it closing again. Then I heard the diminishing click-clack of her heels on the parquet corridor floor as she stilettoed away from my room and, I devoutly but erroneously hoped, out of my life forever.

When I was sure she had gone, I dragged myself out of bed and took a long, hot shower, leaving the plug in the bath so that the water accumulated at my feet. When it was ankle deep, I lay down in the second-hand suds and closed my eyes, letting the stream of water from the still-running shower drip irritatingly on my head and splash down into the bath. It was a form of torture designed to make me pay for my sins but all it did was drive out all other thoughts and bring to my mind, with a remarkable clarity, the events of the past twelve hours: the chatting, the drinking, the laughing and joking, the creeping along the hotel corridor, the falling into bed – the making love. No, not making love – that was too nice, too husband and wifey. Not making love like you make a promise or make a vow or make a baby. This was committing adultery, like committing a crime or committing perjury – or committing matrimonial suicide. I banged my head with increasing ferocity against the tiled wall of the bathroom, trying to dislodge these thoughts, but they were stuck fast in my mind just as I was now stuck with the reality of what I had done: something awful and despicable and completely un-undoable.

I lay there for what seemed like hours until the water had gone completely cold and my body was as ridged and wrinkled as an elderly bull elephant’s scrotum. I dressed and packed and then went down to the restaurant to meet Bennett for breakfast. We sat mostly in silence, our conversation limited to requests for condiments and butter to be passed and, in my case, occasional offers to fetch more coffee. Bennett seemed keen to sample as many as possible of the myriad items displayed in the gargantuan buffet selection, which included everything from traditional cereals through to corned beef hash and doughnuts. This suited me fine – as long as he was eating, he wasn’t talking.

‘Good do last night, I thought, West,’ he said eventually, as he used his final fragment of French toast to mop up the remaining puddle of maple syrup and drained his glass of cranberry juice. ‘Some very interesting birdlife there, if you know what I mean! Where did you get to at the end? I looked all over for you but you were nowhere to be seen. You didn’t cop off, did you?’

He concluded this remark with a noise situated approximately halfway between a laugh and a snort, leaving me in little doubt that he considered this to the most ridiculous proposition he had ever constructed. Either this or tell-tale signs of my infidelity were etched so clearly across my face that even Bennett could spot them. Or perhaps Olivia had left a physical souvenir for me. Perhaps my neck was covered in love bites or she’d carved her initials into my forehead with a sharpened emery board. Keep calm, you idiot, I told myself, that snort was clearly derisory. Just stay composed and say as little as possible.

‘Yeah, it was good,’ I replied, doing my best to sound nonchalant and avoiding eye contact. ‘And I’m sorry about missing you at the end. I looked for you but couldn’t see you anywhere. And I left pretty early anyway. So, I mean, I wasn’t actually still there at the end when you were looking for me because I’d already left some time earlier. On my own. Newspaper?’

I handed him a USA Today and took one for myself and we flicked through them in a fruitless search for anything of interest to read before both noticing at the same time that this was, in fact, yesterday’s paper, telling the day before yesterday’s news. News from the day before the night I turned into a monster.

The New York streets were quiet as we drove to the airport. Just over the Brooklyn Bridge, I saw a huge billboard outside a large, modern church proclaiming: ‘The Ten Commandments are not a Cafeteria Menu!!’ Another day, I’d have smiled at these evangelistic ravings, but now the sign made me shudder. Until the previous night, I’d been doing pretty well against this exacting 5,000-year-old standard. I’d done a little coveting in my time and worshipped the odd false idol – who hadn’t? – but otherwise I’d stuck to the rules. Now I’d blown it – thrown away the no-claims bonus I’d accrued over the years to be redeemed against eternal salvation – and for what? A night of drunken sex which already I could hardly remember and which I couldn’t mention to another soul for as long as I lived.

When we arrived at JFK, we checked in and headed straight for the Business Lounge. I poured myself a coffee while Bennett helped himself to a Virgin Mary and we sat in silence reading papers and nibbling on crisps and nuts. Just as our flight was being called, I heard a sharp ‘beep’ and saw Bennett reach into his jacket pocket. He took out his phone, tapped a couple of buttons and stared at the screen, looking bemused as he read and re-read the message. Then he thrust the phone into my face. ‘Here, West, look at this.’

Hey there, English. That was some night! I really enjoyed our chat – and the rest of course!! Thx for looking after me. You were grrrreat!

xxx

Now it was my turn to look confused. If this message was – as it seemed – from Olivia Finch, how had it found its way onto Bennett’s phone? Had she slept with him as well? Perhaps she had a thing for accountants. In which case, where was my message? I checked my phone. Nothing. Not even a ‘thank you for having me’.

‘What’s that about, then?’ I stammered.

‘I have no idea,’ Bennett said. ‘Must be a wrong number.’ He pressed another couple of buttons, deleting the message and turning off the phone. ‘Come on, West, we’d better get boarding.’