Others

  However, there were few greys or whites when it came to his sexual activities: they were mostly all black.

  When it seemed likely that he would be indicted for having unlawful sex with two minors, a couple of under-aged teenage girls who had followed him from the studio one afternoon, money had changed hands so that the girls’ parents, the investigating detective, and a certain elderly District Attorney, who was busy building his own nest for imminent retirement, were satisfied that nothing truly grievous had taken place – a silly piece of childish horseplay was all that was involved – and the charge of statutory rape was dropped. When only a few months later he was charged with proper rape, the character of the other party, a young would-be actress who managed to survive the aspiring actors’ system by waitressing in a cheap but ‘fashionable’ diner six days a week, was so besmirched by the star’s legal team, that the case was thrown out of court. (And the would-be actress never did get a job in the movies after that. Eventually, disillusioned, she moved back to the little town of Hope – there’s irony for you – in Arkansas, married her highschool sweetheart, and together they raised the money to open up their own less-‘fashionable’ diner in the larger, nearby town of Little Rock. At the age of forty-two – I saw all this, and other such episodes, as a kind of subtextual subplot to the actor’s story, by the way – she blew her brains out with her husband’s .357 Magnum – a sledge hammer to crack a nut, you might say – while he was out carousing with yet another later-edition sweetheart.) There were countless similar incidents in the screen idol’s life that never reached court and, amazingly, I had a view of them all. They were sickening, amoral at best, immoral at worst, vile and vicious at their basest, but far too many to recount here.

  He had made it his business to delve into the skeleton cupboards of those equally famous – actors, directors, producers, writers, even plastic surgeons, whose newly discovered skills were the marvel of Hollywood, most of whom had a dark secret or two hidden away somewhere – garnering any misdeed or offence they might have committed during their lifetime, no matter how petty or grand the misdemeanour, anything he could use for blackmail when it might be advantageous to himself.

  It was horrible, but kind of cosy too. I felt comfortably warm and the feeling was not unpleasant. Strangely, I did not judge this man and his actions – I don’t think that was the idea – but I was beginning to pity him.

  He was wicked, but not completely, for he had helped others. Unfortunately, he had betrayed many more. He had loved many, but never as much as he had loved himself; and never enough to remain true to them. He had done terrible things, but he had also inspired and made millions of ordinary men and women happy for a little while. He had caused deaths, but never intentionally and certainly not by his own hand.

  I saw the first woman he had married – actually ‘witnessed’ the ceremony – a pretty young starlet, who cherished and adored him, a girl who had joined in his excesses merely to please him, who was nervous of those who flocked around him, both male and female, all vying with each other in giving him the attention he craved and, of course, felt entitled to. And ‘attention’ often meant ‘sex’. She concluded that if she joined him in all recreation, then she would always be part of every aspect of his life. With him, she indulged in, and sometimes was even a catalyst to, activities she once would have abhorred and been shamed by: the wild parties, the drugs, the alcohol, even the gambling – was part of it all. More than once, when his lecherous eye fell upon yet another pretty girl, she would be part of the seduction. And always part of the outcome, the lovemaking itself. She did everything to keep him happy and content with her, and their marriage lasted beyond all expectation – beyond the expectation of the Hollywood crowd that is, of those who knew him. But naturally, there was a price to pay, for eventually she, herself, became corrupted. She began to enjoy the extremes, the deviation, the threesomes, the foursomes, the orgies, and then back to the twosomes, but not with him or another male (although that sometimes sufficed), but with her and another her, secret liaisons that he did not know of. She loved the parties and the drugs and liquor, she adored the thrill of winning or even losing at the track – there were always plenty more bucks to throw away. But most importantly, she loved him, she still loved him.

  Such excesses, however, have the constant and inevitable consequence of jading the appetite: the habit becomes stronger, the desire more demanding and eventually less satiable (and I’m not referring only to drugs here). She was no exception to the rule (and nor was he, for that matter, only he was more enduring). She started to drink too much, she took too many drugs (that already-nifty dragon always becomes more fleet of foot, so the chase becomes harder and harder), she lost too much money at the racetrack. And worst of all for her, because its effect was on him, she began to lose her looks, her vivacity began to fade, her sparkle to dim. But good fortune never entirely leaves a person’s life, even if at times that seems to be the case: she fell pregnant.

  She had prayed day and night for just this event, for she felt a child would affirm their relationship, perhaps be a fresh start for them both, a chance to reappraise their own lives, the marriage itself, and to turn it into something better. To her surprise and delight, her husband loved the idea of becoming a father, a brand new role for him that could only enhance his image for his millions of fans. He would be able to play the doting father and the public would see the tender side of his nature: he would be the ideal parent of an ideal moppet in an ideal marriage to an ideal woman. It was perfect, precisely the right time for such a career move, for the new breed of scandal magazines were beginning to publish stories on the shenanigans of movie stars, politicians and other prominent socialites, and his own dubious activities increasingly were catching their attention. Long gone were the indulgent publications whose purpose was mainly to follow the public relations line dictated by the big studios themselves: the public wanted more for its money these days, and more meant interesting stories, the kind at which they could shake their heads and tut-tut. Being the father of a little boy or girl, either one would do, would suit the more mature roles he was aiming for and the ageing process, itself, was demanding, so no wonder he was jubilant.

  Only it didn’t go as planned. It was a difficult, prolonged birth and the baby boy who was born was not quite right. In fact, he was considerably not right, a misshapen little thing with an abnormally large head and eyes that seemed pressured from behind, for they bulged alarmingly. The couple were informed by one of LA’s finest and most highly-paid obstetricians that the boy would never be normal and that as he grew, the malformations would become ever more exaggerated: his intelligence would never become more than that of a five- or six-year-old’s. The mother was devastated, the father mortified and shamed. How could he beget something like that? What would the millions of fans worldwide think of him? How would they ever accept that their screen idol, who was once voted the world’s most beautiful male, could father a monster? His emotions swiftly turned to rage, which he took out on his wife, blaming her for giving birth to a mongoloid, that nothing so imperfect could be a product of his seed. He blamed her entirely, citing the drugs and alcohol abuse as accessories to the crime (never admitting, especially to himself, the hypocrisy of the accusation). The baby was never to be shown to the public – my God, what would the sight of it do for his image? The baby would have to be put into care – discreetly, of course. There were institutions who knew how to cope with children and infants with such disabilities. Never – never – was it (he called the child ‘it’ from the first moment) to bear his name. It was an abomination to him, a freak best put on one side and forgotten. Better yet, he had suggested, it might be preferable, and even more humane, for the boy to meet with an accident. Perhaps a fall on its head, a mishap in the bathtub . . . These things were never meant to live long anyway. If it died of asphyxiation one night, choked in its sleep, then who would know it wasn’t a natural result of its condition . . . ? After all, what were a few moments
’ suffering against a lifetime’s?

  She pleaded with him, she begged, for no matter how the baby looked, no matter how feeble his brain, he was theirs, he belonged to them, he was their flesh and blood. The ‘flesh and blood’ declaration incensed the actor even more and he informed her that if she did not get rid of the baby herself, then he would do so, and she would be abandoned along with it.

  That was why, in a bewildered, drunken and drugged state, she had smothered her baby with a silk pillow. And even though she had done this for her husband and so that she might remain his wife, the actor had informed the police. Rather than be tried for infanticide, more strings were pulled and more money changed hands, and she was presented to the judge at the closed hearing as a repentant murderess, whose mind had been unbalanced by years of drug and alcohol abuse, and who had finally succumbed to total madness when her longed-for child had been born mentally deficient and physically abnormal. The judge was sympathetic and ordered her to be committed to a mental institution (as he had been bribed to do) where her addictions could be dealt with and, hopefully, her madness cured. She had been in the asylum only five days when she managed to hang herself by tying the belt of her robe around the wall fitting of a shower-head, the other end around her neck, and deliberately bending her knees so that her feet were off the porcelain floor-basin. It must have taken extraordinary willpower to slowly choke herself in that way but, such was her despair and self-hatred, she managed.

  The actor publicly grieved for his lost son and now for his dearly beloved lost wife (some would say, those who knew him only too well, that he grieved magnificently), whose remorse over the killing of her own son had led to the suicide, and the world grieved with him. If there had been Oscars for insincerity, then he would have had a mantelshelf full of them. He blamed himself, he told the world. If only he had known the extent of her sorrow, then perhaps he might have saved her. He still loved her, you see, even though she had been responsible for the tragedy of his beautifully perfect baby son’s death. Women wept for him, men cleared their throats as if to waylay a sob.

  There were many other grave and even mortal sins on the screen idol’s life, although none quite as grievous. Blackmailing business associates over their supposedly secret transgressions, sexual or fiscal (embezzlement was so common among the film fraternity, where money was power and power tended to corrupt), threatening to inform the police, media, shareholders or wife, whatever was appropriate (sometimes all of them jointly), was par for the course for him; promising the latest paramour the earth and leaving them only with bitter regrets was a way of life; stealing of important roles in major movies already won by fellow actors – often good friends – by sly, underhand, behind-the-scenes dealings was merely part of the Hollywood game; having certain people ‘reprimanded’ by two hulking bruisers he kept on permanent retainer for having the effrontery to insult or slight him was normal practice as far as he was concerned. And then there was the business of the two nuns from the order of the Poor Sisters of Nazareth, but you don’t need to know about that; suffice to say that one went to jail, while the other was sent by her Church to a remote mission in the Congo where she eventually died of severe blackwater fever. Our actor’s name was never even mentioned in connection with the scandal.

  I watched it all and I was horrified and contrary to the politically correct edict of the era we live in, I was very judgemental. Because I was judging myself.

  I understood it all now. I knew why I was here, why I had been born so deformed. And I understood what had driven me to liberate these others, these other people who had been cursed (or tested?) with afflictions far worse than mine. I understood the tests I had been put through, most particularly in these last few days, was suddenly aware of their meaning and their value. I had a vague recollection of that other-world place, the one we call Hell for want of a better name. I even recalled the ‘conversation’ I’d had with the entities I called Angel 1 and Angel 2, and their God-sent (literally) proposition. I now knew of my previous life, because it had just been replayed to me almost as if I were sitting in some watery but comfortable viewing theatre, the screen itself inside my own head, inside my mind.

  I had been that screen idol, the toast of Tinseltown, perfect in physique, countenance and manner, but oh so imperfect in spirit and conscience. The actor was me and I was he. I had been reborn the very antithesis of what I once was: unsightly, malformed, a freak. But it was a new opportunity, a chance to redeem myself, the person I had been. I suffered so that others would no longer have to, and now I was to die for them.

  I was glad, I was exhilarated, because the hard part of dying, the painful part, the bit where you resisted, was over for me, and my only hope was that I’d done enough to redeem myself.

  Yet another thing I understood was that I’d been guided all along, and I don’t mean by the clairvoyant, nor by the dreams and the whispers of the others themselves. My guide had been of a much higher order; the highest Order of all, I guess you might say. Intuitions, motivations, those little ‘insights’ – all had stemmed from that one source – sorry, Source. As I continued to sink deeper into those murky waters, my heart, my spirit, soared.

  There were just two things wrong, though. First, I still carried Michael in my arms and even though I could not be sure he was alive – and the odds seemed against it – if he were, then he had the right to experience a better existence than he’d had before. I was aware that the experience could only ever be limited, but who could tell the joy someone with such harsh disability might feel under more benevolent circumstances and environment? And who of us could ever know the purpose of his confined but sentient life?

  Second, I had found Constance and she meant more to me than any spiritual afterlife. A kind of blasphemy, I know, but that’s the God’s honest truth of it. You have to remember, this was the reciprocal love I’d been denied all my life.

  I started to kick for the surface again and all pain and fear and suffocation returned with a ‘how-dare-you-resist-the-inevitable?’ kind of vengeance. It wasn’t easy with Michael clutched to my chest, but I was able to use one arm, and my legs – even the gimpy one – did their bit. Fresh panic had something to do with it, I’m sure, the idea of never seeing Constance again unbearable, and I broke through to the surface sooner than I’d thought possible. I vomited water, then sucked air, then vomited more water, repeating the process, until I gained more control. I saw the riverbank, surprisingly close, figures running alongside of it, keeping pace and pointing to me, calling my name. Beyond them, further back upriver I saw the burning building that was PERFECT REST, blue flashing lights, dark figures milling about, running around, great jets of water lit by moonlight rearing up the higher reaches of the building. I heard distant sirens, growing louder as more fire engines, ambulances and police cars arrived; I heard raised voices, shouts, occasional cries. I felt a new uncomfortable coldness after the cosy kind I just left and I felt pain, in my arms, my legs, and especially around my scalp so that I wondered if my hair was still on fire. Life itself hit me, and it was harsh and unpleasant and confusing. As they say – it was a bitch.

  Someone jumped in the water near me, quickly joined by another. Then hands were grabbing me, hauling me towards the riverbank, and I realized it was my friends, my new friends – those ‘others’ who had never seen a river before, at least, not in the wet, as it were – who had formed a chain in the shallows so that they could pull me to the grassy bank. Someone strong relieved me of my burden and I was dragged from the water. I lay on my front and coughed river, feeling fists thumping my back, the blows avoiding my hump. Among all the voices and the distant clamour, I heard a surprised curse and saw someone kneeling next to Michael. Whoever it was – and I now know it was a paramedic – started pushing at the little, limbless body’s chest and I prayed he or she would not be too squeamish to give the kiss-of-life. Then legs and kneeling bodies obscured my view and I thought I heard Louise’s voice calling to me. I could only distinguish one
word though. It was a name and it came back again and again.

  ‘. . . Constance . . . Constance . . .’

  My mind drifted away and my body followed willingly.

  49

  They found Constance’s naked body a couple of miles downstream the following day and my first thought, when they told me, was how she would have hated being exposed to strangers like that, her robe torn away by the currents, her little crooked figure and limbs revealed to all, her dignity gone along with her life. Then the shock kicked in and I thought I’d lose my mind.

  The grief was unbearable, but I refused their sedatives and their counselling; I refused their meaningless condolences and their compassion. In fact, I refused contact with anyone for a while and it was left to Ida and Philo to carry on the business until another shock kicked my butt into gear again. Etta was terrific throughout my black time of mourning, keeping an eye on my employees and helping them out when things got tricky. Louise became a good friend, but it was a stretch before I could accept her comfort; and she never bothered me with all that psychic stuff although, truth be told, I was more receptive to it after everything that had happened.