Chapter Eighteen
Laurie
sat in his trailer, bored almost to tears.
The
trailer was twenty feet long. Inside its sun-baked silver skin, the
air was cool. Laurie had a bathroom, a day bed, a leisure area
lined with white leather sofas. Because he had now lived with Sasha
for so long that he couldn't help himself, he spent some part of
every day's boredom in calculating how many refugee families could
share this space, make use of and appreciate it.
Which
was a damn sight more than Laurie did. Boredom was the thin end of
the wedge for him. He didn't enjoy his own company enough these
days to put up with it serenely, and at first he'd avoided his
white-leather luxury tomb, wandering round the set between takes in
the hope of finding something to do. In the smaller theatres where
he'd worked, it had been an unwritten rule that an actor with time
on his hands would help out. Laurie, with his scene-painting
skills, willingness to hoist crates, his uncanny gift for coaching
fellow players into remembering their lines, had seldom known an
idle hour.
He'd
been cooped up this time for three. Once in costume and makeup,
Brett would confine him to barracks until shooting started, and
that could mean any time that the director had finished with his
meetings and settled the last detail of his latest exotic,
blindingly expensive set-piece scene. Laurie could have managed
better if any of the other three luxury tombs had been open to him,
but Nicole came and went from hers with an ice-queen's face of
enigmatic calm, Wes Lombard would most likely brain him with an
Ivory Gate souvenir paperweight if ever he darkened his door, and
as for Bailey...
As for Bailey Price-of-Fame, he was coming off his
tracks. Mi trailer is su
trailer, he'd assured Laurie, and he ran in
and out of Laurie's whenever he could, but he was uneasy company.
When Laurie envisaged him, he saw in his mind's eye a toy man in a
snowglobe, glittering fragments of cocaine and prescription drugs
swirling round him. He inevitably had a bottle of white rum or
tequila secreted about him, and he had a deadly gift for whipping
out a pair of shot glasses and sharing the good cheer in such a way
that refusal seemed horribly rude. Laurie had taken Sasha's
point—God, right down to the depths of his soul—about driving
drunk, but a hit or two of Bailey's hospitality between breakfast
and lunch made the hours pass more quickly, and wore off long
before he got behind the wheel to go home. It had been nice in a
way. A friendly face, mercurial chatter, the basic companionship of
sharing resources, even if they were eighty percent proof... These
things had been welcome to Laurie, in what felt like the Valley of
the Ivory Gate Dead.
When Bailey had offered him cocaine, Laurie had suggested they
spend their off-duty time apart. He'd also tried to do the right
thing, which for Laurie meant thinking of what Sasha would have
done, and had begged Bailey earnestly to get himself to a
counsellor or rehab before the snowglobe whirled around him any
faster. Bailey had taken the plea in good part. Thanked Laurie for
his concern—even agreed to leave him alone, for now, anyway.
Blood Moon parts one and
two had been a year each in the making. Laurie had been on set now
for a week.
Christ,
he'd probably end up snorting glue from the technicians' trolleys
by the end of a year. Sighing, Laurie sat back on one pristine
white sofa, trying not to crease his robes. This time the
historical flashback was to Druid England, Brett having discovered
a passion for dressing Laurie up in improbable costumes and pushing
them off his shoulder, or ripping them up one thigh, thus
increasing what he called teen-hormone market hits.
Laurie couldn't get Libby's parting shot out of his head. He'd
enjoyed the tequila, or at any rate the simultaneous sharpening and
blunting of the world it delivered. Colours brighter, anxiety less,
and no harm really. But for God's sake, when had he last drunk
anything stronger than juice in the middle of the day?
It's your buddy Bailey Price who'll bring you
down. Well, Laurie wasn't taking the
chance. He had banished him just in case.
His
reward was grating loneliness. He shifted, stretching out one foot
to press the leather cushions. He had about fifty books downloaded
and ready on his e-reader: he'd better start putting these long
empty hours to good use with a little self-improvement.
A pill bottle rolled out from between the cushions and onto
the floor. Laurie scooped it up and read the label. He almost
laughed—maybe Bailey was
his bloody nemesis. Prescription tranquillisers,
left here by accident or as part of his agenda to get Laurie to
join in with the fun. These were the US brand of the type Marielle
had taken for years, and to which, as far as he knew, she was still
quietly and completely addicted, her doctors having decided that to
break her of her habits now would do more harm than good. Laurie
had used to snitch the odd one from her drawers when the oppressive
boredom of the Mayfair house had been weighing him down.
Laurie took them into the kitchen. He put them on a shelf,
where he was sure to forget about them soon, or where at least he
might remember to return them to their owner in due course. The
sight of them had filled him with vague cravings, and he opened the
fridge—stocked to overflowing with expensive mineral water, fruit
and other healthy snacks the Blood
Moon producers hoped their actors would
thrive on. What Laurie could really have used at that moment was
pot of tea, preferably shared with Sasha over fish and chips in a
rainy Brighton café.
He sat
down again. What the hell was Brett playing at today, to keep him
waiting for so long? Restlessness ached in his limbs. A desire to
hear Sasha's voice shook him, and he dialled, knowing he'd pick up
on first or second ring.
Third,
fourth. A fifth, and the line went to his voicemail. Laurie sat
paralysed, not knowing what to say.
He hung up, and sat with the phone pressed to his lips,
staring into space, a displaced fake Druid in an alien world. All
his reasons deserted him. What was he doing here? What had he done?
Even if he wanted to reverse it, now he'd looked at the parts of
his contract other than the ones he'd insisted on himself, he knew
how tightly tied in he was. Brett even had an option to retain him
for Blood Moon Four.
A sharp
rap at the door made him flinch. Laurie sprang up. Denying Bailey
access was ridiculous, and made Laurie's situation here more
desolate than it need be. It was up to Laurie's sense and
self-control to see that the companionship remained
benign.
“Good afternoon, Mr Fitzroy. Script and shooting notes for
today. Can you sign for receipt and your usual
undertaking?”
Laurie
scrawled his name on the security officer's datapad. The
undertaking was to return the documents intact at the end of the
day, and not to reproduce, share or divulge their contents to
anyone other than those persons listed, et cetera. The script was
printed in a hard-to-photocopy red ink, in case temptation got too
much for him. He nodded at the guard and took the envelope inside.
Thank God—a focus, a respite from his vortexing thoughts. He'd try
not to absorb his lines like a starving wolf this time. He knew his
gift for that was odd, a detachment from reality. He would just sit
and read them like anyone else, learn them word by word. Devlin
Steele had his flaws, but at least he was someone to
be...
***
Laurie
stood with Douglas Brett looking out over Stonehenge. Wiltshire and
the surrounding countryside would be screened in later, but the
trilithons themselves were convincing enough to make Laurie wonder
uneasily if English Heritage had counted their own lately. Douglas
was beaming in satisfaction. “They're good, aren't they? I think
we'll have a hell of a shoot here today.”
“That's what I wanted to talk to you about, sir. Looks like I'm
on for three or four whole scenes, but...” He leafed through the
script. “I don't seem to have any lines.”
“That's right. Today we're filming Devlin's reactions to the
unseen forces threatening Carmen from the depths of time. Carmen
shares a karmic destiny with Devlin, you see. They spent many past
lives together even before she became an immortal.”
This was
the first Laurie had heard of it. He wondered what Valentine Frost
would make of the news. “I see,” he replied, carefully smoothing
out a quiver of amusement. “So you just want me to...
react.”
“That's right. Carmen's alone and in peril. Your psychic bond
with her enables you to watch, though you're helpless to save
her.”
“Okay. But if you like, I could imply the unseen
forces.”
“What do you mean?”
In the
twenty first century, Carmen was under attack by a vampire-hunting
Christian priest who would turn out to be an ancient Babylonian
demon. Babylon itself was under construction on the set next door.
The demon would have scarlet eyes, a skull-like face and
razor-edged teeth. Laurie let go his hold on his handsome exterior
self, let the demon enter him and...
“Jesus Christ, no.” Douglas had blanched, taken a step away
from him. “What the hell was that?”
“Carmen's demon priest. I can show the army of the undead that
surrounds her house, too. If you like.”
“No. No. We'll CG all of that in post-production. All you need
to do is stand there—we'll have it rain, I think, and a wind
machine to blow your robes around a bit—and look brooding. Can you
manage that?”
“Yes, sir. I... hope so.”
“You know, if you're worried about these scenes—especially the
green-screen work—you ought to speak to Nicole. She'll coach you
how to hold still, how to keep yourself out of the way and leave
room for our tech guys to do their stuff later on.”
“She'll teach me how not to act?”
Douglas
shot him a sharp look. “If you choose to look at it that way, Mr
Fitzroy.”
***
Laurie