The rise, p.39
The Rise, page 39
‘Gone. Long story. Actually, not that long. He met someone.’
‘He met someone?’
For the longest time she didn’t speak. Just stared. Not a sound except for the beat of his heart.
‘And so did I,’ she whispered, her eyes locked on his.
For the first time he heard a break in her voice as emotion caught in the back of her throat, as she watched, waited for him to speak. Nothing came. The fear was still there. Was this a set-up? Another sting?
Silence. More silence.
‘So, OK…’ she said, clearing her throat, ‘I’m going to go. I just wanted you to know in case you were worrying, or… scared. There’s no need to be. It’s done.’
He so wanted to believe her. Wanted to pick her up, swing her round, scream with relief and then… but no. Not yet. Not until he was sure and the knot in his stomach had time to fully unravel.
‘Where are you staying?’ he managed to shout, as she reached the doorway.
His question made her pause, turn round, and for the first time she grinned, almost shyly.
‘Same place as last time. When you’re ready, come and get me.’
Davie was still laughing as the noise of her car faded into the distance, crossing over with another, more familiar engine getting closer. Davie was there waiting when Drago braked in front of him. He stepped forward, opened the car door to let his mum out. He hugged her tight, then, arms intertwined, walked into the house.
‘Someone looks happy, son. It’s good to see you.’
‘Good to see you too, Mum,’ he told her, meaning it.
‘But I don’t know why you booked me in first class. You know I don’t mind being in the normal seats. Waste of money, so it is. Why would anyone pay thousands of pounds for just a few hours in a comfier chair?’
‘You’re worth it. I’ll send a private jet next time. Totally freak you out.’
That one got him a punch in the arm.
‘Don’t you dare. Oh dear Lord, I’d be affronted. I could buy a new soup bus with what they charge for one flight.’
They were moving through to the kitchen, both glad he’d persuaded her to come.
‘The kids are dying to see you,’ he told her. ‘We’re having dinner here tonight. I told them you’d make a Scottish speciality. Don’t know where you’re going to get steak pie and chips at this time in LA.’
‘Don’t you worry, son. You could put me in a desert and I’d still manage to rustle that up. Right, a nice cup of tea, I think. I brought my own teabags and some caramel wafers. I know how you—’
Her carefree chat stopped, and as Davie pulled his head out of the fridge, he realized why. The photo. The one Sarah had left. Still on the breakfast bar. Now his mum was staring at it, and it had stolen her words, and slapped her face until it was frozen.
Oh God. Jono’s hand, around his mum’s neck. He hadn’t been going to mention it, but now he wasn’t sure he could stop himself. Other than in that picture, he’d never seen any man touch his mother. And she’d always been so vague about his father, refused to answer his questions, or to say who he was. Maybe there was a good reason for that. One that was staring him in the face.
‘Mum?’ he asked, over with her now, his arm around her, hoping she could feel his love, desperate to ask the question that had been bothering him since the night he first saw it. Eventually, he realized that she couldn’t speak, and decided he had nothing to lose.
‘Mum…’ he began, feeling more terrified than he’d ever been in his life, ‘was Jono Leith my dad?’
66
‘LEGO HOUSE’ – ED SHEERAN
It was a perfect California sunset. Flickers of light popped from every ripple of the ocean, their colour changing from white to burnt orange as they caught the reflection of the red rays of the sun slowly disappearing into the horizon.
On the Malibu beach in front of her home, Mirren and Zander sat on the sands, Mirren cross-legged, in black denim shorts and a grey tank, over forty but looking no more than thirty. It was strange, Zander thought. In the last couple of weeks she seemed to have turned back the hands of time.
In the days after the funeral, they’d talked, twenty years’ worth of conversations crammed into hour after hour of sharing stories, crying, healing and even laughing. How could that be? Such a terrible time and yet there had been moments of light in there, brief but just enough to give them the strength to keep going.
During that time she’d told him that for years she’d lain awake at night listening for Chloe, searching the streets for her when she didn’t come home, panicking that she’d die when she was high or wasted.
Now, sleep still often eluded her, but only because she was sitting on her deck, watching the waves, having conversations with her girl out there in the ocean.
How he wished he’d been there for her.
He’d been so angry when they’d first moved here, so disgusted that they’d pushed him to make the movie, so scared of the demons that it would raise in him. And raise they did. Twenty years of addiction and chaos.
He hadn’t been fit to love or to care for anyone. But as she told him repeatedly, he was here now. And that was all that mattered. They loved each other. Always had. Not in a romantic way, but as brother and sister, family, bonded over two sets of fucked-up DNA that had almost destroyed them both.
Almost.
‘Heard from Jack?’ he asked her, rolling up the sleeves on his white shirt, then shaking sand grains off his jeans.
Mirren nodded. ‘He pops in every couple of days, has a coffee. Says he might go on the road with Logan for a week next month. Mercedes doesn’t seem to be objecting. Think having an affair with someone might be a bit different from being their full-time partner,’ she said, just a hint of a smile playing on her lips. Who could blame her? ‘Especially now that she’s six months pregnant.’
‘Do you think it’s Jack’s? I heard there’s some uncertainty. Charles Power’s wife has cited Mercedes in their divorce.’
Power was the actor Mercedes had starred with in Jack’s last movie. Wouldn’t that be ironic – if Jack lost his marriage for a woman who’d been cheating on him from the start?
Mirren flicked a stray strand of hair from the side of her face and shrugged sadly. ‘I have no idea. Jack’s problem. Not mine any more.’
‘How’s Logan taking it?’
‘Losing Chloe is breaking his heart. Our divorce isn’t. He says he hears from his dad more now than he’s ever done. I’m glad. Anyway, enough about me. How are you doing?’ she asked, nudging his leg with her toe.
‘OK. I think. Mostly. The filming is keeping me straight, and your friend, Lou, has threatened to send Carlton Farnsworth pictures of me with his wife if I fall off the wagon again. I’m not taking any chances.’
‘Wise move.’ Mirren agreed, with a knowing smile. ‘She’s one dangerous lady.’
He’d appreciated the heads up from Mirren’s friend. Apparently, Lou had heard about him and Adrianna from the pap who’d spotted them in New York. Those guys always knew who paid the best cash for their stories of indiscretion, and it was usually Lou.
As a favour to her friend, Lou had brokered a deal on behalf of Zander, with his cash, for exclusive rights to the images and then buried the story.
‘Yeah, you’ve got to love her. But listen, Mir, you know I won’t go back to the dark side. I wouldn’t do that to you. And I wouldn’t do that to Chloe. She deserves better. She deserves me to stay clean for her. And I will, I promise. Please don’t think you ever have to worry.’
‘I know,’ she said, her quiet confidence in him radiating between them. He’d made the promise to himself the night Chloe died. It was over. The drink. The drugs. He was completely clean for the first time in years and it felt… strange. Not great yet. Not even good. But he knew that if he went down that road again, Mirren would be devastated and he wouldn’t do that to her. She deserved better.
‘And what about the delectable Adrianna?’ she asked. ‘Did you see her again?’
‘Are you kidding me? Nope. I’ll save my scenes of dodging death for situations that have a stunt double.’
To anyone wandering past, surfboard under their arm or walking their dog along the Malibu shore, it would look like any two old friends, comfortable with each other, glad to be there.
‘Are you sure that you’re ready to do this?’ Zander asked. They both knew what he meant. Mirren turned to look back at the gap between her house and the one next door.
‘Too late if I’m not,’ she said, raising her hand in greeting. Zander followed her gaze and saw Davie Johnston walk towards them. His stomach clenched, then relaxed. It was he who had left Davie behind, cut him dead, and he’d give anything to change that now. But would Mirren? He’d never seen a love like theirs before. Solid. Complete. Both sure that it would last forever. Maybe their lives would have been better if it had. It was Jono’s legacy. The bastard was dead and yet his actions still had consequences.
As Davie reached them, they could tell he was nervous. His left eye flickered the way it had done in times of stress since he was a toddler. That, right there and then, made Zander get up, throw his arms around him and hug him, holding him so tightly that both of them struggled to breathe. Judging by the way it was reciprocated, Davie felt the same.
‘Whenever you boys are done…’ Mirren said warmly. At once they were fourteen again, and they fell on her, making her scream with laughter.
Those casual bystanders would now assume that they were three adult members of the same family. Had to be.
Only when they got their breath back did they all stop to look at each other properly.
‘Thanks,’ Davie said, ‘for inviting me over. You’ve no idea what it means…’ He stopped, his voice suddenly breaking.
‘We do,’ Mirren told him. ‘Zander and I have been back in touch for a few weeks…’
‘I’m so sorry about Chloe, Mir.’
‘Thanks, and yeah, that brought us back together. But it didn’t feel right without you. So we thought, if it’s OK with you, maybe we could give it another try. Be in each other’s lives. Just friends,’ she said, reassuring him of where they all stood.
‘God, I’d love that,’ Davie said at once, and Zander could see the pain that was still there. ‘But there’s stuff I need to tell you both first. There was a journalist trying to contact us a while back—’
‘Yeah, she called me,’ Mirren confirmed.
‘I told Mir you were too smart to let her anywhere near you,’ Zander told Davie
The awkward pause told them he was wrong. Oh fuck.
Davie’s words came out like bullets of anxiety. ‘It’s a long story. I told her nothing, but she worked out the truth. Or at least what she thinks is the truth. But it’s not going any further. She still doesn’t know where Jono is, has no actual proof of what happened, nothing to go on. And even if she did, I believe her when she says she wouldn’t use it.’
‘Why?’ Mirren blurted, wide eyed, terrified.
‘Because… because I trust her. And she’s quit her job. Moved here. We’re… we’re something. I’m not sure what.’
The three of them took a moment to digest this.
‘Are you sure, Davie?’
‘Yeah. I really am. Danger over. Trust me.’
‘We always did,’ Mirren answered truthfully.
Another pause.
‘Is he still there?’ Zander asked, each word excruciating to spit out.
Davie picked up a stone and threw it at the shoreline, making it skim across the surface exactly as Zander had done a few weeks before.
‘Yeah. I was talking to my mum about it last week. Turns out she knew all along that he was there. Saw us that night, suspected who it was, and that was confirmed when he was never seen again. She thought one of us had killed him, so I told her the truth, that it was Marilyn and we covered it up. Anyway, that’s why she’s never moved house, never will, just stayed there all this time protecting me. Protecting all of us. I own the house now, bought it for her years ago because she insisted on staying there. Now I know why. She was worried someone might move the hut. She had to watch over it. Look, this isn’t perfect, but we’ve lived with it this long and we’ll just have to go on trusting that it will be OK.’
‘Might be easier now that we’re in each other’s lives again,’ Mirren told them, and Zander gave in to his urge to throw his arm around her and give her a hug. She was the strongest woman he’d ever known. They’d be fine. It took him a moment to recognize the emotion, and eventually he realized it was confidence. Confidence in the future. For the first time in perhaps his whole life, he felt sure that everything was going to be fine.
‘Was your mum upset when she heard the whole story?’ he asked Davie, noticing for the first time that they were dressed the same: both in shirts, his white, Davie’s pale blue, both in the same shade of jeans, both in bare feet. There was a synergy to it. Sitting on either side of Mirren, they looked like bookends.
‘No. She says he got what was due to him. She’s a tough one. But I have to tell you something else. And I’m sorry, Zander – so sorry if this hurts you.’
‘Oh bugger, and it was all going so well,’ Mirren murmured, trying to ease the sudden tension with a joke.
‘She told me that… that… Oh fuck. Right. The reason that we lived where we did, the reason that she never found someone to share her life with, the reason that she was so fucking stoic and strong and she never complained…’
‘Was?’ Zander asked, trying to keep the confidence going. It was going to be fine. Wasn’t it?
Davie’s lips were moving, but he could barely hear his own words.
‘Jono and my mum had a one-night stand, same time as he was seeing your mum. When my mum found out she was pregnant, Jono was terrified his dad would find out. Apparently, he was an evil old bastard. Jono pulled strings and got Ena a house in the same street and then he paid her rent all those years, so she’d keep quiet. She agreed on condition that he never try to touch to her again. After his dad died, he carried on with the arrangement, said he wanted to keep an eye on me. She stayed for me. Thought he’d protect me. I think he just liked the fact like he had some control over her. She never had another relationship in case Jono killed the guy. Thing is, Jono was the only man she’d ever slept with. We’re brothers, Zander.’
For a moment Zander couldn’t decipher what he’d said, and beside him, Mirren gasped, her hand over her mouth.
Brothers? How could that be? But then, why would it not? Loyalty was never Jono’s strong point, but control was. It would be totally in character for him to impregnate someone, then use his money and power to manipulate them. Suddenly Zander remembered the presents for Davie’s birthdays and Christmas every year. His dad gave him cash to buy Davie a Walkman, computer games, brilliant stuff, all overly generous for a neighbour’s kid. Zander hadn’t given it a second thought back then. Now he did and it all made perfect sense. Jono would want an option, a standby in case Zander didn’t follow in his footsteps. That was why he’d always tried to keep Davie onside, always had a joke for him, or the odd pound.
‘Mate, say something,’ Davie begged. ‘I just need to know whether or not to start running.’
Typical Davie – defusing everything with a nervous laugh.
And it always worked.
With a slowly widening grin, and a lump in his throat, Zander held out his hand to his brother.
‘Welcome to the family. I’m a complete fuck up so you’ll fit in just fine.’
EPILOGUE
‘SUNSHINE ON LEITH’ – THE PROCLAIMERS
Los Angeles, 2 March 2014
* * *
Helicopters circled the skies above the Dolby Theatre, just high enough so as not to breach the no-fly zone, which would interfere with the sound systems of the eighty-two film crews that lined the red carpet below. The presenters in their tuxedos and ballgowns put as much effort into their appearance as the stars whom they tried to corral into their spaces for a sixty-second sound bite.
The Oscars were late this year, delayed by a week so they didn’t clash with the 2014 Winter Olympics. No one minded. It gave the beautiful people another seven days of sweating, pummelling, injecting and plucking themselves to perfection. Davie Johnston was the first to arrive, co-presenting with Ellen DeGeneres. The thing with someone like Davie was that you could never keep him down for long. As long as he was making money for this town, he was good for business. And he was. His latest production, Beauty and the Beats, had been a monster hit, knocking Lana Delasso’s show out of the number-three slot. Poor Lana – overtaken by a show with a shit title. He’d pondered changing it, but the network had loved it so he had let them run with it. You had to know when to pick your battles. Lana had lost hers. The cameras had followed her to Brazil, where she got ass implants, then married the doctor who’d inserted them. To her horror, one of them had ruptured, so she was now lopsided, and the doctor had released a sex tape, pocketed the cash and scarpered back to Rio de Janeiro. Davie had of course sympathized with her… but only in public. In private, he’d sent her a picture of Kim Kardashian’s butt and a $50 voucher for a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon.
Even that story hadn’t knocked the other reality-TV scandal off the front pages. Sky Nixon, aided by her mother, Rainbow, had been caught attempting to blackmail a New York politician after a sordid threesome involving Sky and her mother. Turns out Daddy was filming the whole thing via a hidden camera in the chandelier. Rainbow was most furious because she said she had the worst lighting and angles. Anyone who’d, rightfully, doubted Davie now believed he was innocent. He wasn’t going to try to convince them otherwise.
Davie waved over at his soon-to-be-ex wife. Jenny Rico and Darcy Jay were officially a couple now, both blissfully happy and sharing parenting of the kids with Davie. Rumour had it he was in a new relationship, but this time around, he said he was keeping it all to himself. Although one Scottish reporter did have the exclusive.
