Ordinary Joe
JON TECKMAN

Copyright

The Borough Press,

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

Copyright © Jon Teckman 2015

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

Cover photographs © Henry Steadman

Jon Teckman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

Ebook Edition © July 2015 ISBN: 9780008118785

Source ISBN: 9780008118778

Version 2015-05-18

Dedication

For Mum who so loved books

and

for Mike who so loved life

‘[you are both] so much in my thoughts at all times especially when I am successful and have greatly prospered in anything, that the recollection of [you] is an essential part of my being’

after Charles Dickens

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Queens, New York

Mill Hill, London

Manhattan, New York

Somewhere Over the Atlantic

Heathrow Airport, London

Mill Hill, North London

City of London

Mill Hill, North London

City of London

Brent Cross, North London

City of London

West End, London

City of London

West End of London

Mill Hill, North London

City of London

Balham, South London

Mill Hill, North London

City of London

Mill Hill, North London

Heathrow Airport, London

Cannes, South of France

City of London

Mill Hill, North London

City of London

Los Angeles, California

Mill Hill, North London

Near Hendon, North London

The North Circular Road, North London

Near Braintree, Essex

Mill Hill, North London

City of London

Mill Hill, North London

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

QUEENS, NEW YORK

The first thing I noticed about Olivia Finch – that very first time I saw her in the flesh – wasn’t her breasts bouncing like pale pink pomegranates as she worked herself into a frenzy on her lover’s lap, nor even her ‘billion-dollar backside’ – an epithet conferred upon her in a recent article in Variety, which reported that ‘Olivia Finch’s rear end is now a bigger box office draw than the faces of most of her Hollywood rivals.’ No – God’s truth – the first thing I noticed was the small, amateurish tattoo scratched into her left bicep in blue ink. ‘John 3:16’ it read. I looked it up in the Gideon when I got back to my room that evening: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. I asked her about it later – when all the madness was at its maddest – and she told me it was just a stupid thing she’d had done when she was a kid and off her face on cheap booze. But, she said, she still liked the message: the idea that one person could love another so much that they would give up everything for them.

That first time, all I could think about was how come I’d never noticed the tattoo before. It certainly hadn’t been apparent in her Oscar-nominated role as Cleopatra in the recent remake of Antony and Cleopatra. They must have CGI-ed it out in the edit. It’s impossible to know what’s real and what’s faked in the movies these days. Olivia’s breasts looked real enough, but who knows what work she’d had done to them. And what she was doing to her co-star Jack Reynolds – while a small group of us stood watching in spellbound silence, occasionally nodding our appreciation as the couple pulled off a particularly complex manoeuvre – looked real too, but, of course, was only acting.

I was standing in a makeshift studio in Queens, dressed in a set of ill-fitting blue overalls, watching top director Arch Wingate re-shoot scenes for his latest movie, Nothing Happened. Standing next to me, his huge frame squeezed uncomfortably into a similar outfit, stood the film’s producer, Buddy Guttenberg, beaming like a spoiled child on Christmas morning. The overalls had been his idea. ‘I’ve been in this business twenty-five years, Joey,’ he’d told me as we put on our costumes in an empty trailer in the studio car park, ‘and I still haven’t been allowed on a closed set unless I’ve been togged up as a gaffer or fucking electrician.’

Wingate had a justified reputation for being a perfectionist. The joke in Hollywood was that he would still be re-editing the film while the posters were going up outside the cinema. His passion and attention to detail made him one of the best film-makers in the business but also one of the most expensive. As one of the people responsible for raising the money for this film and ensuring a return on our investment, I should have been concerned about how much he was spending on almost imperceptible improvements to his creation. As a film buff, though, I was delighted by the chance to watch the great man in action.

‘Bit more passion, please, Olly,’ Wingate shouted as the couple cavorted wildly on the oversized bed. ‘Jack, move your left leg across to the right half a foot so I can get a better view of Olly’s butt as she straddles you. That’s it! And give it a bit more energy, guys, OK? You’re supposed to be enjoying this!’

Somehow, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for this beautiful couple to be making mad, passionate love in a tandoori-hot building on a warm October afternoon while Buddy and I looked on like spectators at a lawn tennis championship.

‘So what do you reckon, Joe? Happy with the way we’re spending your money?’ Buddy whispered from the corner of his mouth, elbowing me sharply in the ribs to make sure he had my full attention.

‘It’s amazing, Buddy,’ I replied. ‘The camera angles Mr Wingate is going for are incredible. No one else would dream of shooting it like that.’

‘Camera angles?’ Buddy laughed, ‘Fuck the camera angles, Joey – have you ever seen tits like those? Jesus, Mary and Joseph! She’s like the Venus de fucking Milo with arms! That girl is so hot she’s melting the polar ice caps all by herself. Those UN Climate Conference guys are considering having her banned to save the fucking planet.’

After half an hour of repeated takes of the same scene – each one, to my untrained eye, exactly the same as the last – Arch Wingate announced a break. The actors were handed robes and bottles of water and did a few warming-down exercises, Jack Reynolds flexing and admiring his biceps while Olivia laid the palms of her hands flat on the ground six inches in front of her feet, stretching her hamstrings.

‘Hey Arch,’ Buddy bawled, ‘meet my good friend Joe West from Askett Brown in London. He’s the guy who raised all the money you’re now chucking away on this meshugganah movie. He was just admiring your camera angles!’

Wingate smiled and shook my hand. ‘Glad to meet you, Joe, and thanks for all your work on this. I really appreciate it. Tell me, is there enough cash left in the budget to hire a hit man to get rid of this fat putz?’

I stammered back that I was pleased to meet him and how much I enjoyed his work, but stopped short of agreeing to his request for extra funding. I stood and listened to these Hollywood legends as they exchanged further insults, speaking only when spoken to like a well-behaved child. When the actors walked past on their way to their makeshift dressing rooms, Buddy called them over too.

‘Hey folks, come and meet the guy who’s paying your wages!’ The actors smiled indulgently at me, enjoying the joke. They knew as well as Buddy that it was their names attached to the production that pulled the money in, not me. Everyone was, in effect, on their payroll.

Close up, Olivia Finch had an aura that transcended her physical beauty, lighting up the room more brightly than the thousands of kilowatts of energy pouring from the hot studio lights. Even her feet, peeping out from beneath her long robe, seemed perfect.

‘Hi,’ she purred in a soft Southern whisper, taking my hand momentarily in hers, ‘nice to know ya.’

I tried to reply with an intelligent comment about her work, but all I could manage was an adolescent grunt. While I blushed and burbled, Olivia showed no sign of concern that I had just seen her knicker-naked, throwing herself around in mock ecstasy. There was no more reason for her to be embarrassed by me watching her work than if she’d caught me poring over a particularly complex set of accounts.

MILL HILL, LONDON

‘Are you sure you’ve packed everything?’ my wife Natasha called up the stairs. ‘Passport? Dollars? Socks?’

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ I called back, reaching into my underwear drawer to pull out a couple more pairs of socks and throwing them into my suitcase, then checking inside my jacket to confirm that my passport was, indeed, in my pocket. I travelled to the US – either to Los Angeles or, as in this case, New York – seven or eight times a year, but each time we would still go through this pantomime as if, for Natasha, two small children weren’t enough and she was intent on treating me like a third.

I zipped and locked my suitcase, then wrapped a personalised red, white and blue luggage strap around it, ostensibly for extra security but also to help me identify it when it belly-flopped onto the baggage carousel at JFK. I stuffed a few final papers and the latest Stephen King novel into my briefcase and switched off the light as I headed out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Natasha was waiting for me at the bottom, ready to give me some further instructions, while also keeping an eye on Helen and Matthew as they wrestled on the ground nearby.

‘You’re sure you have your passport, love,’ she asked, ‘and your tickets. Remember what happened last time.’

‘It wasn’t last time, Nat, it was three years ago. And since then I’ve made loads of trips abroad and never forgotten anything.’

‘What about a travel plug? We must have dozens of the bloody things upstairs because you have to buy a new one every time you get to Heathrow.’

Damn! She had me there – and she knew it. Without saying another word, she slipped back up the stairs, returning a few moments later with a plug to meet the needs of the New York electrical system.

‘Thank you, love,’ I said, then, ‘my taxi’s here. Better get going.’ The children interrupted their version of The Hunger Games just long enough for me to give them each a hug and plant a kiss on their perfect wrinkle-free, unblemished foreheads.

I kissed Natasha on the lips, more dutiful than romantic now after so many departures. The runway scene from Casablanca this was not.

‘Have fun,’ she said as I turned to make my lonely way out of the house.

‘What? With Bennett there? I can’t imagine it being a barrel of laughs, can you?’

‘Fair point,’ said Natasha. ‘Well, try not to let him annoy you too much. It’s only a few days.’

The door clicked behind me and I took a couple of steps down the path before I was stopped by a thought – an important thought – that ambled up from my fingers through my nervous system to my brain. I fumbled for my keys and turned again to face the house. Before I could insert the key in the door, though, it opened and there stood Natasha, a grin splitting her face from ear to ear.

‘Travel safely, you schmuck!’ she said, as she handed me my briefcase and closed the door.

MANHATTAN, NEW YORK

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.’

SOMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC

As soon as we were airborne, Bennett settled down to watch an unfunny American comedy and for the next two hours proceeded to laugh like the stand-up’s wife at a talent contest. I reclined my seat and tried to get some sleep, adjusting and readjusting my position for maximum comfort and turning up the music in my headset to smother the cackling of my neighbour. Feeling sick with a potent combination of tiredness, guilt, confusion and coffee, I closed my eyes and tried hard to embrace oblivion, but every time I was on the point of dropping off, those indelible images of my crime would reappear inside my head, screaming at me and dragging me back to the new reality I had so casually created.

Nothing made sense to me. How had I ended up in bed with one of the most beautiful women in the world? How could I have allowed it to happen? And how could she? I imagined the look on my friends’ faces if I turned up for the quiz night at the King’s Head next Thursday evening with Olivia Finch on my arm – specialist subject: ‘The Lives and Loves of the Rich and Famous’. The thought made me smile for a split second but then I remembered: this wasn’t a game. This wasn’t a movie or some crappy television sitcom. This was my life and Natasha’s life and the kids’ lives. And I’d just fucked them all up.

I ordered a beer from the stewardess, hoping that a drink or two might help me sleep. But, of course, it didn’t. All it did was send my mind hurtling off in a load of other directions, trying to make sense of all that had happened. Why was Olivia now texting Bennett of all people? Or had he hooked up with someone else and was just playing dumb? Perhaps it really was a wrong number and had nothing to do with me or what had happened last night. Coincidences do happen.

When his film finished, Bennett turned off the screen and fell instantly into a deep, apparently guilt-free slumber. After several more drinks I was finally able to close my eyes and drift off into a fitful sleep myself.

I am woken up by a rough hand grabbing my shoulder, almost pulling me from my chair – I must have undone my seat belt to go to the toilet whilst still half asleep. Wordlessly, the figure leads me to the back of the Business Class section which opens out into a large, splendidly furnished lounge with a bar and pretty stewardesses serving drinks for thirsty, drunken passengers. To my surprise, I spot myself sitting in one corner chatting to Olivia Finch. We are laughing and she is running one of her hands up and down one of my thighs as if it is a piano keyboard. We finish our drinks and stand up and she leads me by the hand past where I am still standing with my mysterious friend, although now I realise that he is no longer there and my hand has been taken by another spirit, who leads me back to my seat and forces me to sit down. The TV screen flickers into life and I see a woman and two children sitting down to tea around a kitchen table – fish fingers, sweet corn and chips. They all look happy. ‘One more sleep until Daddy gets home,’ my wife tells my children and they both cheer and Matthew throws a spoonful of sweet corn at his sister.

The screen goes blank and another hand, skeletal and sharp, digs into my shoulder, forcing me to rise again. I float above Bennett’s prostrate form and my face is forced up against the window, staring into the bright light of the late spring sky outside. Droplets of moisture appear on the window, then form themselves into recognisable shapes. It is the same scene as before – Natasha and the kids again but all a little older now. They seem sadder; they’ve lost their sparkle – not through age but because something bad has happened. Something has ripped the life they knew away from them and left them with a shell. From this single vignette, I can tell that I am no longer around. No longer there to hug them and kiss them goodnight and tell them how much I love them and how proud I am of them. Edited out of their lives. The Director’s unkindest cut.

‘But tell me kind spirit,’ I imagine myself saying as self-pitying tears start to run down my face, reflecting the water droplets on the window, ‘are these the things that will be or just the things that might come to pass?’

The spirit replies in my voice: ‘You’ll have to work that out for yourself, arsehole.’

HEATHROW AIRPORT, LONDON

The next thing I knew, a stewardess was tapping my shoulder and asking me to put my seat in its upright position for landing. The instant the plane touched down there was the usual rush to gather bags and coats from the overhead lockers and to get from the plane to the front of the queue for Immigration as quickly as possible. As we hurried down the gangway and into the terminal, Bennett switched on his phone, which immediately started to warble like a dyspeptic baby crow. I turned mine on, too, but it stayed embarrassingly silent. Not even a ‘welcome home, one of the kids has escaped’ from Natasha.

Bennett stared intently at his screen as we made our way through Passport Control and out to the baggage carousels, occasionally pressing buttons and making curious clucking noises. Eventually he let out one of his appalling grunt-laughs, like a vixen on heat caught in a combine harvester, and passed me his mobile. ‘Here look at these, West,’ he said appreciatively. ‘It’s more messages from that same number, but this time, they’re clearly addressed to me. Bizarre!’

There were four new messages highlighted on the screen, all from the same unidentified number:

So Mr Joseph A Bennett. Gone all quiet on me, eh? I didn’t wanna be too bold before but I like REALLY enjoyed last night. You were incredible!!! Cant wait to see u some more.

Olivia xxx

Hi, me again! Forgot to say Im gonna be in London soon with the movie so we can meet then. How cool is that??? Would be great to hook up again real soon.

Olly x

What? Still not talking to me? Hope ur not one of those love em and leave em guys, English!!! What’s up, Babe? Text me pleeese! I miss you!

O

Hey – ur NOT one of those love em and leave em guys are u? You had better fucking not be. I dont give what I gave u last night lightly. Please don’t be mean to me, English.

Bennett looked at me in eager anticipation, waiting for my response. ‘You know what this is, don’t you, West?’ He sounded wistful but amused. ‘Someone’s having a pop at me. Isn’t Olivia the name of that bird in the film we saw last night? The rather tasty one? I bet it’s those bloody studio guys trying to make it look like she’s after me. The bastards!’ He smiled as he tapped the phone absentmindedly on his chin, his expression full of fondly remembered laddish high jinks. He was enjoying this – it meant they’d recognised him as one of the boys. It had taken him a while to crack this crazy business but now he’d done it. Now they appreciated that beneath the highly professional, executioner’s mask he was a regular guy. Someone who got things done but could have a laugh as well; a chap who worked hard and played even harder. ‘Classic, isn’t it? They’ve really made her sound like some crazy neurotic actress. What a gas! How do you reckon I should reply?’

I hadn’t a clue. Something didn’t stack up. No one in Hollywood knew Bennett well enough to joke with him like this and, even if they did, no one would dare impugn the reputation of a star like Olivia Finch.

‘Come on, man,’ Bennett harried me, ‘I haven’t got all day.’

I could have stopped the whole thing right there but something was compelling me to go on, like when you pass a car crash on the motorway hard shoulder and implore yourself not to look but look anyway. I could have said: ‘Hey, Joseph, you’ll never believe this but, guess what? It was me who slept with Olivia Finch last night! Yup! Gave her a good seeing to and, for some reason, she thinks it was you. What a hoot! I say, old man, would you mind terribly not mentioning it to anyone at work? Or to Sandra in case she sees Natasha at their book group and spills the beans. You know how the ladies love to gossip! Thanks, awfully, mate. I owe you one.’

If I had said that then none of the rest of what happened would have happened. Bennett would still be alive. Olivia might have won an Oscar or two by now. And I might still be working at Askett Brown. Living on my own, no doubt, as Bennett would have gone straight home and told his wife, who would have lost no time making sure Natasha knew and my feet wouldn’t have touched the floor. Natasha was not the forgiving kind when it came to infidelity. She had always made it quite clear that there would be no three strikes and you’re out for me. One slip of the libido and it would be ‘hit the road, Jack, and take your dick with you in this bag I’ve knitted out of your scrotum.’

Perhaps it was this thought that stopped me from breaking the chain. The moment passed as quickly as it arrived and I found myself taking the coward’s way, encouraging events forward with my silent acquiescence. Instead of shouting: ‘Cut! Let’s take it again from the top but this time the little fat guy will own up,’ I adopted the role of someone who enjoyed a laugh as much as the next bloke but occasionally had to be the damp squib.

‘Why don’t you text back something like: “Just got off a long flight. Can’t talk now. Catch you later”?’ I said. ‘They’ll think you’re still playing along but soon realise that you can’t be bothered to get down to their level. What do you think?’

‘I see where you’re coming from, Westy,’ Bennett replied, mulling over his options, trying to think at least two moves ahead. ‘Slow-play it a bit. See what they do next. Yeah, I can see how that might work for someone like you, West, but it’s not really for me, is it? If these guys know anything about me, they’ll be expecting me to hit back at them hard. I’ve got to show them who’s in charge here – who’s the prankster supremo – otherwise they’ll think they can walk all over me.’ He paused to tap retardedly on his phone. ‘Hey West, what do you call one of those films that’s almost the same as another film but different? You know – same story, same actors but different title. Comes out after the first one.’

‘A sequel?’ I suggested, after my brain had assessed and dismissed all other options.

‘That’s it!’ he said, ‘that’s the feller!’ He tapped at his phone again, then passed it to me. ‘Here, what do you think?’

Glad you liked it, babe. I had a cracking night too – deffo up there in my all-time top ten. Let’s hook up again when you’re over in old London Town and go for a sequel. JB

I felt a knot tightening in my stomach and my toes curling up in anticipatory horror. ‘Don’t you think that’s a little, well, provocative, Joseph?’ I said, knowing that the more I protested the more likely he was to persist in his course. ‘The old slow-play sounded pretty good to me.’

‘Yeah, you may be right, mate,’ he replied, looking off into the middle distance as I finally spotted my suitcase sliding down the chute and onto the carousel. Then he pressed the Send button anyway.

It was past ten o’clock by the time we had collected our luggage and walked out into the arrivals hall. Bennett tossed me a clipped ‘G’bye, West!’ as his driver stowed his ‘Joseph Bennett’ sign and picked up my boss’s enormous suitcase while I sloped off to queue for a taxi. Every trip Bennett ever went on was, essentially, an ego trip and he wasted no opportunity to make sure I knew where the power lay in our new working relationship. Although we both lived in North London, it would never have occurred to him to offer me a lift and I was glad not to feel obliged to accept.

MILL HILL, NORTH LONDON

The taxi journey home seemed to last an eternity which was nowhere near long enough for me. I felt an oppressive, suffocating guilt about everything that had happened. I was dreading seeing Natasha again and also worried about how Olivia would feel when she read Bennett’s latest text. It was totally irrational of me to blame him for any part of what had happened – yet still I did blame him. Why had he had to make the terrible situation I’d created so much worse? Why, when faced with competing options of what to do, could he not have done the right thing? Why did he have to be such an arse? Was it, as the scorpion said to the frog, simply his nature?

The house was almost completely dark when I walked in. Looking up the stairs, I could see a faint light peeping out from behind the three quarters-closed door of our bedroom. Natasha was probably sitting up in bed reading, looking forward to hearing all my news. And I still had absolutely no idea what I would say to her when I saw her. I rifled through the post on the table, annoyed at the staggering ordinariness of it all, reminding me I was back in the real world of bills and junk mail and putting out the dustbins on a Sunday night.

I took off my shoes, picked my way through the dark living room into the kitchen and ran a glass of water from the cold tap. I gulped it down in one draught, then decided I needed a pee, so I popped into the downstairs toilet and took my time emptying my bladder as quietly as I could before washing my hands as if I was scrubbing up for a delicate operation. Then, bereft of further reasons for delay, I climbed the stairs with all the perky enthusiasm of a condemned man walking to the execution chamber, opened the bedroom door and prepared to meet my fate.

Natasha was propped up on her pillow, fast asleep. The book she was reading – this month’s book-group selection – hung limply in her right hand, a thumb wedged uncomfortably in the crease where it had tried to close, saving her place. She was still wearing her glasses and her soft brown hair had fallen forwards, half-covering her eyes. She looked at peace – as if she had gone to bed without a care in the world.

I made no attempt to wake her, grateful to put off even longer the shattering of her delusions. Carefully, I prised the book from her sleeping hand and placed it on her side table. Then I turned off the light directly above her head, and replaced it with the weaker glow from my bedside lamp. I tiptoed into the children’s bedrooms just to look at them as they slept. Helen was lying exactly as I imagined Natasha had left her. Not a hair out of place, her duvet perfectly even and tucked up crisply under her chin like a floral pie crust. By her head lay her favourite teddy – a souvenir from a previous trip to New York – now worn in places from too much loving. I wanted to hug her and plant a kiss on her perfectly smooth forehead but didn’t feel I had the right. How could I use the lips that the previous night had wandered all over Olivia Finch’s illicit body for such a precious assignment? I watched her breathing for a while, then muttered a quiet ‘goodnight’ and left.

Entering Matthew’s room, I was greeted by a totally different scene. He was spread-eagled across his bed, his limbs arranged in a casual swastika. All his bedclothes were on the floor – his duvet, pillow and even his under-sheet. Perhaps he had woken in the night in the throes of a terrible nightmare and thrashed around wildly waiting to be rescued, or perhaps he’d gone to bed still pretending to be a spaceman or a dinosaur hunter and somehow managed to strip his bed in the midst of the action. Matthew was a deeper sleeper than his sister so I risked stroking his hair as I lifted his head to replace his pillow. I re-covered him with his Thunderbirds duvet and left the room. He would have to make do without his sheet tonight.

Finally, I went into the bathroom, stripped off my well-travelled clothes and ran a bath. After I’d brushed and flossed my teeth and scraped my face with an expensive exfoliating cream (the legacy of some long-forgotten Father’s Day or anniversary), I poured a generous helping of bubble bath into the running water, stirred it to create a thick foam and climbed in. I lay there without moving a muscle for some minutes, enjoying the sensation of the hot water on my skin. Then I scrubbed myself vigorously with a harsh abrasive scrunchy thing of Natasha’s (the legacy of a long-forgotten Mother’s Day or anniversary) like a religious pilgrim purging himself, desperate to obliterate every molecule of my sin.

By the time I hauled myself out of the bath, towelled myself down and walked back into the bedroom, it was after midnight and Natasha was snoring contentedly. After a week of looking after the kids on her own, she would be at least as shattered as I was after my almost sleepless night and long journey home. I turned off my light and slipped into bed. As I closed my eyes, I remembered that I’d left Natasha propped up with her glasses still perched on her nose. I turned my lamp back on and tried to remove them without disturbing her, but as I lifted them, one of the arms caught her in the eye and she woke with a start. For a moment she was completely disoriented as if she didn’t recognise this strange man in her bed and I feared she would scream, but once her vision had cleared and the fuzzy shape resolved itself into the familiar figure of her husband, her look of alarm broadened into the most welcoming of smiles.

‘Ah, honey, you’re home,’ she whispered, ‘am I glad to see you!’ Then a pause as a look of concern spread across her face. Had I already given away something in mine? ‘Is something wrong?’

‘No,’ I replied, hiding the truth with casual ease. ‘I’m just really tired. Go back to sleep and I’ll tell you all about it in the morning.’

‘You’re on earlies,’ she said so quietly that I could barely hear her, her eyes already closed. She was asleep again before my head hit the pillow.

Despite the feeling of almost numbing exhaustion, it took me ages to fall asleep. I was still on New York time and my mind was buzzing. Should I tell Natasha what had happened? She’d never believe it – she’d laugh in my face at the thought of me, plain old Joey West, schtupping Olivia Finch. She’d laugh even more if I told her that not only had I slept with this lustrous, illustrous woman, but, it appeared, she seemed to think I was Bennett.

I can’t have been asleep very long when I was woken by a bouncing bomb of a small boy erupting into the room, jumping up and down and shouting at full volume in his delirium at seeing his daddy after so long. A week is a long time for a three-year-old and quarter past five was as long as Matthew could wait before coming in to check that I really was back.

‘You’re on earlies,’ Natasha reminded me from behind locked eyelids. ‘All week.’

Matthew threw himself on me, forcing me awake. He had some exciting news that couldn’t wait. ‘Daddy, daddy,’ he shouted, ‘we’ve got a new fucking fish! Mummy bought us a fucking fish!’

I was half dragged out of bed and out of the room, pausing only to grab my dressing gown from the back of the door to protect me from the early-morning cold. Matthew swept down the stairs before me and into the living room. He wasn’t tall enough to reach the light switch, but was unperturbed by the darkness, negotiating his way through the cluttered room and skipping over discarded toys as if fitted with radar. When he reached the small, octagonal fish tank in the corner, he felt around on the lid to activate the switch that threw light into the watery casket.

‘Where is it?’ he said to himself as he pressed his nose up against the glass to get a better view inside, ‘where is the fucking fish? Daddy,’ he called, remembering I was there but not bothering to look back, ‘can you fee the fucking fish?’ I shook my head silently to indicate that I could not, in fact, see the fucker, while Matthew remained deep in concentration, searching for this elusive aquatic phenomenon.

‘Ah, there it is!’ he said eventually, a note of triumph in his sweet little voice as he located his prey. He pointed to a louche leopard loach, partially hidden behind the ceramic pirate galleon, busily sucking algae off the inside of the tank as nature intended. ‘There’s the fucking fish, daddy! Can you fee him? Can you fee the fucker?’

I crouched down to look into the tank, but my view was obscured by my own reflection in the glass, so clear in the darkness of the room around it that I could see the tears making their pathetic, self-pitying journey down my cheeks. ‘Yes, I can see him,’ I said then, quietly to myself, ‘I can see the stupid fucker.’

We studied the sucking fish for a while until I felt it was reasonable to turn on the TV and tune into one of the several dozen all but identical children’s channels we had acquired. Matthew sat down next to me and I hugged him like a favourite toy as he stared at the screen. The repetitive squeaky voices drilled into my brain, crowding out the more important stuff I should have been contemplating at that time – like what the hell was I going to say to Natasha when she emerged from her well-earned lie-in. In some circumstances this could probably be used as torture, but for me, at that moment, the cartoonish cacophony delivered blessed relief.

At half past six, Helen glided into the room and perched on my lap. She put both arms around my neck and hugged me tightly, kissing me on my forehead, nose and lips. I realised how much I loved the smell of my daughter in the morning – she smelled of perfection. Not manufactured, thousand-dollar-cosmetic, perfumed Hollywood perfection – just pure, unquestioning beauty, innocence and love. With her face nestled alongside mine, her breath tickling my neck, I risked a couple more tears, hoping she wouldn’t notice them trickling into her hair. My fists were clenched so hard that my fingernails dug into my palms. I wanted to scream – to rail like Lear against my own stupidity. If I loved my children as much as I knew I most definitely did, then how the hell had I let what had happened happen? How could I have risked all of this for all of nothing?

When the programme ended, Helen leapt up from my lap and announced she had something for me. She went out into the hall, returning immediately holding a piece of paper carefully in front of her, the blank side towards me to enhance the surprise. She poured herself back into my lap and turned the paper around to reveal an intricate drawing of four people – two big and two little – standing in front of two buildings – one large, one small. Half the picture was in daylight, the other half in darkness. In the lighter half stood a big person in a dress with brown hair and bright red lips, in front of whom stood a little person in a blue dress and an even littler person in some kind of trouser arrangement. All of them wore sad expressions despite the sunshine. Shrouded in darkness, a large person in blue trousers and a red shirt stood before a very tall building. He was almost perfectly round, like Father Christmas on dress-down Friday in Lapland. His expression was enigmatic – on closer inspection I saw that he had two mouths: one turned up in a smile, the other downcast and gloomy. One eye was bright and twinkling; the other looked sad and lonely.

‘This is me and Mummy and Matthew,’ Helen explained, pointing to the lady with the two dwarves on one side of the page, ‘and we’re all sad because you’re not here. And this,’ she said, pointing to casual Santa, ‘is you in New York and it’s dark because you said that sometimes it’s night-time over there when it’s daytime here and you’re sad because you’re missing me and Mummy and Matthew, but you’re happy too because you’re having a nice time and going to films and parties and stuff.’

‘That’s beautiful,’ I said, huskily and I meant it. Then I noticed a small red figure in the top right corner of the piece of paper. ‘What’s that “6” for?’

‘Oh, that’s the mark Mrs Hodges gave it,’ Helen replied. ‘She told me it was wrong because it couldn’t be light and dark at the same time and you couldn’t be happy and sad. But she liked the drawing of the house and said that I’d coloured within the lines nicely, so she gave it a six and said it wouldn’t be going up for parents’ evening.’

‘I shall be taking that up with Mrs Hodges,’ I heard Natasha say, and looked up to see her standing in the doorway, looking tired but strangely elegant in her white bathrobe and leopard print slippers. I was surprised to see her up so early – usually whoever was on ‘lates’ eked out every possible second of peace and quiet before joining the chaos downstairs. I’d been counting on waking her up with a nice cup of tea in my own time, fully prepared for our first proper conversation.

‘You’re up early,’ I said. She walked across the room to me and draped her arms across my shoulders, kissing me on the top of my head as I lowered my face away from her. My eyes, I feared, would be red and it was too early in the year for hay fever.

‘I’ve got some presents for you,’ I announced, creating a reason to get up and out of the room so I could compose myself properly. ‘I’ll make Mummy her tea and then I’ll get them.’ I heard the chorus of disapproval from the children as I left the room, leaving Natasha to deal with their appeals for the satisfaction of their fundamental human right to receive their gifts immediately. I used the time it took to boil the kettle and brew the tea to make sure I had every angle covered.

Handing out the presents bought me a little more time. Matthew, as usual, received a model plane bearing the livery of the airline that had delivered me safely home, adding it to his collection of twenty or more – one for every time I’d chosen work overseas over time with him and his sister. For Helen, I had found a watch with a selection of different coloured wristbands and Natasha looked pleased with a bottle of her usual perfume and a pair of inexpensive earrings. Everything came from the in-flight catalogue. Everything had to be as normal as possible and even the children knew that I hated souvenir shopping, preferring to spend every possible moment in the Business Lounge rather than joining the fight for last minute gifts at the airport. While Mattie settled down with his new plane, and Helen played happily with her watch, checking the coloured straps against her hair, pyjamas and skin, Natasha and I finally had time to catch up on all that had happened while we’d been apart.

‘Not much to tell, really,’ I lied when she asked me about my trip. ‘Usual stuff. A few meetings with Buddy and the guys at the studio. They’re really expanding fast over there. Buddy reckons they might make twelve movies next year which could mean a lot more work for us. We went to the premiere of the movie, of course – pretty lousy film but it should do OK at the box office. Bennett was a complete and utter prat throughout, as expected. Then I thought I’d come home and catch up on all the broken nights I’ve been missing. I really don’t recommend getting eight hours sleep every night, hon. It’s very over-rated.’ I was aware I was speaking slightly faster than usual but otherwise thought I pulled it off pretty well.

‘Same old, same old, then?’ Natasha said, her tone gently mocking my casual account but otherwise carrying no obvious threat. ‘So while I’ve been back here enjoying myself with the early mornings and breakfasts and packed lunches and school runs and cleaning and tidying and all the other exciting things that define my existence, you were having to go to meetings and film premieres. Poor baby.’ She yawned and hugged her tea a little closer. ‘Go on,’ she said after a short pause, ‘amaze me. How was the party? Did you get to see the divine Olivia Finch again? Or has she taken out a restraining order on you after you watched her doing it last time you were in New York? And did you manage to slip my phone number to George Clooney, by any chance?’

‘Erm …’ I began, hoping that my face hadn’t turned as red as it felt from the inside. ‘Er …’ I continued with a little more conviction. ‘I can’t really remember now. Um. Yes, of course, I did see her at the party. You know, after the film. Just to say “hotel, Olivia” – I mean “hello, Olivia,” you know?’

‘Ooh,’ said Natasha, ‘so it’s “Olivia” now, is it? May I assume we’ll be exchanging Christmas cards this year? If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you fancied her. Can’t imagine why when you have this waiting for you at home.’ She struck a pose, trying to look as glamorous as possible in her ancient, threadbare robe.

I could have said, ‘Yes, actually, it is “Olivia” and I didn’t just speak to her but spent a good part of Saturday night making mad passionate love to her.’ If I had said that, I know exactly how Natasha would have reacted: she’d have given a long, loud laugh. Not directed at me in an unkind, belittling way but with me in a conspiratorial, in-on-the-joke, pull-the-other-one-it’s-got-bells-on,we’re-not-the-sort-of-people-who-get-down-and-dirty-with-Hollywood-superstars kind of a way.

But of course I didn’t say that. I wasn’t ready to tell such a bare-faced truth. Instead, I said, ‘Yes, Olivia Finch. And, er, what’s his name. The guy who was in, erm, that film …’ I tailed off, aware that every film star reference would provoke another dozen enquiries from Natasha who was far more interested in the celebrity scene than in my role at its margins.

Fortunately, she was already off on a different tack. ‘So what do you say to someone who you’ve actually watched shagging? Isn’t it embarrassing? You’re like one of those awful doggy blokes who stand around looking at people doing it through their car windows!’

‘I didn’t actually watch her doing it’ I protested. ‘She was acting. It’s her job.’ I was digging myself a hole and was relieved when stereo cries of ‘Daddy!’ announced that the uneasy peace that had existed between the children had broken down. They launched themselves at me, both desperate to tell me their version of whatever had happened before the other on the cleverly observed basis that whoever made their case first and loudest usually won my support.

I put on a DVD of one of their favourite animated films and settled them down either side of me on the sofa, glad of the diversion from any further questioning about New York. I closed my eyes and felt myself drifting off to sleep, my arms full of happiness, my head jumbled and confused.

‘You just rest here, my love,’ Olivia Finch whispered in my ear, ‘I’m here to look after you now. You don’t have to worry about a thing.’

I jolted upright, not knowing whether I was at home in London, still in New York, or had died and was languishing in purgatory. As my eyes focused on the TV screen, I saw a white rabbit tending to a bruised and bloodied badger, tenderly placing a damp spotted handkerchief across its brow.

‘That’s right,’ said the rabbit in Olivia Finch’s unmistakeable soft Southern drawl, ‘I’ll look after you now, my brave, brave fellow.’

CITY OF LONDON

I was late into work that morning, using the excuse that, after my arduous journey, I needed a little longer to wake up and get myself ready. My desk in those days was in the open-plan part of the office, right next to the small refreshments area with its coffee machine and kettle and brightly coloured tables and chairs where we were supposed to go to be creative but which were rarely used. Although I was entitled to my own small office I had chosen to stay out in the open. I enjoyed the buzz of other people’s conversations, feeling part of the crowd rather than separated off like a manager. It could be distracting at times, especially when a gang assembled for a chat over their cappuccinos, but that was preferable to the oppressive solitude of four glass walls and a standard- issue pot plant.

Bennett, of course, had the Full Executive Monty: large oak desk with leather swivel chair and two designer armchairs for visitors. An enormous TV dominated one corner of the room, on which he was supposed to keep an eye on the world’s stock markets but which was usually tuned to wherever in the world cricket was being played that day. I looked through the open door as I walked past on the way to my own desk. The office was empty but it was clear from the mess of papers and the Styrofoam coffee cup on his desk that he was already in and hard at work. A high flyer like Bennett would never let a little jetlag disrupt his busy schedule.

I took off my jacket and hung it over the back of my chair as I looked at my almost completely empty desk, girding myself for the challenges of the day ahead. My assistant, Polly, had a habit of tidying my desk whenever I went away, meaning that for several days after my return I had no idea where anything was. I heard the click-clack of her shoes on the wooden floor as she approached and, at that precise moment, realised that, distracted as I’d been, I’d forgotten to bring her anything back from New York. It was an unwritten rule that we always bought our assistants a little something to thank them for organising the trip. I shared Polly with two other guys and we competed to outdo each other with our presents – a box of Statue of Liberty-shaped chocolates just wouldn’t cut it anymore, though none of us had yet reached the levels of excess that Bennett displayed when buying presents for his assistant, Amanda. Then again, none of us claimed our gifts back on expenses either.

‘Hiya, Polly,’ I said cheerily, ‘how’s things? Wait till you see what I’ve brought you back from the States.’ I was pretty excited myself about what it was and where the hell it was going to come from. ‘You’ll love it,’ I hoped.

‘Oh, you shouldn’t have, Joe,’ Polly replied in that curious accent that meant she could have grown up anywhere south of a line drawn across the M1 at Newport Pagnell, and east of Swindon. ‘Did you see what Bennett bought Amanda? Latest fuck-off DKNY watch – she’s been flashing it around to everyone. Looks very expensive. I hope you haven’t gone to that much trouble for me.’ Polly smiled. She, along with almost everyone else in the company, knew that Bennett’s relationship with Amanda was more than purely secretarial. ‘So, how was the trip?’

‘Oh, you know,’ I replied. ‘Same old, same old.’

‘And how was the film? And the party? Meet any stars?’

‘Oh, you know, the party was pretty good – a lot better than the movie – but mainly it was just, you know, boring meetings.’ Whenever I spoke to Polly, I seemed to take on the personality and speech patterns of a Second Division football manager.

‘And how was Benny Boy?’ Polly asked.

‘That’s Mr Bennett to you, Ms Nash,’ I said in mock indignation, ‘and, you know, he was the same old, same old …’ I left her to fill in the blanks as she saw fit.

Polly placed a small pile of neatly ordered paperwork in my empty in-tray and walked back to her desk. I switched on my computer and waited for it to splutter into life, drumming my fingers impatiently as it ate up eight, nine or even ten seconds of my precious time before springing into life, and then I checked my e-mails.

I had dealt with most of my electronic correspondence while I was away, so my virtual in-tray wasn’t much fuller than its physical cousin. Most of the backlog of messages was rubbish I hadn’t bothered to open while I was in New York which could now be deleted without another look. I’d just finished wading through all this junk when I heard the familiar ping of incoming mail and scrolled back up to the top of my in-tray to greet the welcome intrusion.

The message was from Bennett. He was one of those modern managers who rarely bothered to make the short journey from his office to my desk, opting instead for the convenience of the impersonal e-mail. The title caught my attention:

From: Joseph Bennett

To: Joseph West

FW: WHAT THE HELL’S GOING ON?

Hey, West, take a look at this. Even madder than before! It’s not from her e-mail address, so I’m pretty sure it must be one of the studio guys having a pop at me.

What do you reckon I should do? I think they’ve gone a bit far now, don’t you? Isn’t there a law against pretending to be someone you’re not? Drop in and see me when you get a chance. I’ll be here all morning catching up on all the crap.

Joseph A. Bennett

Head of Entertainment and Media Division

Then came the apparently deranged ramblings of a Hollywood superstar:

From: CaddyMac@wannabe.com

To: JosephABennett@askettbrown.co.uk

WHAT THE HELL’S GOING ON?

Please tell me what’s going on. We had such an amazing time in New York – I swear I have never laughed as much as I did that night doing what we were doing! Seeing you stripped down to just those crazy socks set me off and after that I just couldn’t stop giggling! Believe me, English, when you act all day for a living it is such a treat not to have to do any pretending on your night off! You were truly magnificent!

I know you like me too, so how come you’re treating me so mean? Like I was just some cheap pick-up for you to enjoy and then toss aside like a piece of trash. Well, let me tell you, Mister Joseph A. Bennett – I know all about trash. Most people would say my family were trash, but I always wanted something better than that. I’ve tasted dirt and I never want to taste it again and I’ve worked damn hard to make sure I don’t have to.

Please don’t be mean to me, English. Send me something nice and friendly real soon, sweetie-pie. I’d hate to have to take this to Buddy. He gets really pissed if people upset me.

Olivia xxx

‘Christ!’ I thought after I’d read Olivia’s message a second time. She really did appear to be barking! What had I done to her?

Still not having a clue what I would say to Bennett when I reached his office, I typed ‘on my way’ into a reply e-mail, grabbed my jacket and got on my way.

Amanda was nowhere to be seen when I arrived, so I knocked and let myself in. Bennett was hunched over his desk, staring intently at his computer. He turned around when he heard me enter, then, without a word, returned to his vigil, focussing intently on the screen. He looked like a scholar analysing a newly discovered Dead Sea Scroll, searching between the lines of Olivia’s message for hidden meanings.

‘Hi, West,’ he said, finally registering my presence. ‘Bloody daft, isn’t it? But it’s really starting to annoy me now. Some bugger’s having a go at me, and I want to know who it is. You know what I’ve been wondering?’

I was used to Bennett’s autocratic conversational style and assumed he wasn’t expecting an answer. True to form, he continued without waiting for a reply.

‘The only people I can think of who might have done this are those two we met at the party the other night – you know the chaps who work for Buddy. What’re their names?’

‘Len and Diana?’ I suggested

‘Yes, that’s them. I wonder whether I might have annoyed them somehow and now they’re trying to get back at me. Maybe even trying to blackmail me. What do you think? I have to admit, it is starting to get to me a bit. And Amanda went off in a right old strop when I showed her this one.’

‘You showed her?’ I said, although it might have come out more like a shriek. ‘What on earth did you do that for?’

‘Because I thought she’d find it funny,’ he replied without emotion, ‘especially the bit about me standing bollock naked in just a pair of stupid socks. I’ve never worn a pair of funny bloody socks in my life, so whoever is doing this has got that wrong for a start. Take a seat, West. Sorry I can’t offer you a coffee.’

I sat down in one of the pair of leather armchairs arranged in front of the television. I crossed my legs, but immediately uncrossed them again and tucked them away beneath me before Bennett had a chance to spot the image of Mr Messy and the legend ‘Have a Messy Monday’ emblazoned on my otherwise black socks.

‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘I’ve asked Amanda to see if she can find out who this CaddyMac might be. See if there’s anyone by that name on Buddy’s payroll. Do you think this could be down to Dan and Wotserface? I gave them both my card at the party so they’ve got my details. Do you think I could have annoyed them?’

‘Len and Diana? Well, it’s possible,’ I replied. ‘I mean it’s possible you might have annoyed them. But neither of them would do anything like this. They’re both professional people. It would be suicide in Hollywood to get caught passing yourself off as a major star.’

‘Yeah, you’re probably right,’ Bennett conceded, after staring at the screen a while longer. ‘I can’t see anything, you know, Chinesey in the way it’s written and I don’t think that the old feller …’

‘Len.’

‘… yeah, Len, would have the balls for something like this. Not at his age. As you say, it would be curtains for them if they got caught upsetting an important business partner like me. Any other ideas?’

I shook my head, then shook it again more vigorously when Bennett turned round to enquire, wordlessly, into my silence. He turned back to his screen and I could almost feel him thinking – hear the cogs whirring around, trying to knock his brain into the right gear. After an uncomfortable pause, he stood up and walked to the back of his office. He peered out through the Velux blinds that were integrated between the two panes of the glass wall: Wellington surveying his troops before the battle of Waterloo. Make that Napoleon.

‘You know me, West, I like a joke as much as the next man. Remember that corker I played on you on our first day here?’ I did. It hadn’t been funny then and it still wasn’t funny now. Bennett ignored the fact that I didn’t join in his chuckling at the memory and carried on. ‘But I really don’t think this is funny anymore. I don’t want to look like Mr Bloody Misery Guts by going in all heavy on whoever’s behind this, but I will have to take it upstairs to Bill Davis if this carries on. What do you think I should do?’

I waited to see if he really was expecting an answer this time. I didn’t have a clue how he should reply to Olivia – and I didn’t really care. All that mattered to me at that moment was that my role in this confusion should remain hidden for as long as possible. For the rest of my life, would be a good start.

‘Well?’ Bennett’s hectoring voice interrupted my thoughts. ‘Come on – you know these people better than I do. What will it take to make them stop this bloody nonsense?’

‘I don’t know, Joseph,’ I said. It wasn’t yet ten o’clock on a Monday morning and already I was tired and wanted to go home. To crawl under my duvet until the world had woken from this hysteria and returned to dull normality. ‘I really can’t think of anyone who would do a thing like this, so I can’t help you. Sorry.’

Bennett’s usual composure deserted him for a moment as he realised that, despite his best efforts to involve me, he was on his own. ‘You are fucking useless, West! I have no idea what those fat bastards in LA see in you. You’ve been a useless turd since the day we both started here. I’ll sort this out for myself and then I’ll tell Bill Davis about the whole bloody thing. And I’ll make sure he knows exactly how much help you’ve been. Now bugger off back to your cubicle while I deal with it.’

I sloped off, leaving Bennett as I’d found him, hunched over his desk staring at his computer, like a heron at the water’s edge following a fish. I went back to my desk and pushed papers around as I watched the minutes tick slowly by towards lunchtime. After about an hour of minimal activity, I heard another ping. I had mail.

From: JosephABennett@Askettbrown.co.uk

To: CaddyMac@wannabe.com

Bcc: Joseph West

RE: WHAT THE HELL’S GOING ON?

OK. We’ve had our bit of fun and it was a good laugh and all that but it really has to stop now. We are professional people and this kind of thing can easily get out of hand. So let’s put an end to it now before anyone says or does anything they’ll regret. I really don’t think either of us wants to see anyone getting into trouble over this nonsense so I suggest we cool it before things go too far.

I sincerely hope that we can continue our relationship on a purely professional basis in the future and I trust that this will be acceptable to you too.

Yours,

Joseph A. Bennett

Head of Entertainment and Media Division

Although it was still some way off anyone’s definition of lunchtime, I left the office as soon as possible and went for a walk, ostensibly to buy that present for Polly but also because I needed to clear my head. Clearly it was Olivia who was pestering Bennett – nobody else would know about my stupid socks unless she’d posted an account of our illicit tryst on Facebook or put a photo of the offending items on Instagram – but why? And how would she react to his latest awful reply. She was a sweet girl and she didn’t deserve to be mistreated by that oaf. And could I really stand by and let it happen when the whole thing was my fault in the first place, just to save my own skin?

When I got back to the office it was alive with rumours and not much work was being done. Polly seemed pleased with the designer sunglasses I’d managed to find her, but was far more interested in quizzing me about what had happened on my trip.

‘Have you heard about Benny?’ she warbled as she put the glasses down on my desk with barely a second glance. I prayed I hadn’t left any labels anywhere that could identify their source as London EC1 rather than downtown Manhattan. ‘Course, you have – you were with him, weren’t you?’

‘I only know what he’s told me,’ I lied. ‘He denies anything went on out there. He reckons it’s a couple of his mates at Buddy’s place winding him up.’

‘I didn’t think he had any mates over there,’ Polly replied, ‘and you were there. Surely you’d know if he’d shagged Olivia Finch.’

‘I wasn’t with him every second, Poll. And I certainly didn’t spend the nights with him. Askett Brown can still run to a separate room for each for us, you know.’

Polly smiled. ‘Yeah, but you must have seen if he was talking to her or anything. Did you speak to her again? You didn’t set them up, did you?’

I was probably blushing as I conceded that I had indeed spoken to Olivia at the party but had definitely not introduced her to Bennett. It felt like a police interrogation as Polly probed me for more inside gen she could feed to her colleagues. If information was power in the City, good gossip was like the uranium at the generator’s core. God forgive me, but I couldn’t resist adding: ‘But we didn’t leave the party together so I suppose anything could have happened after I left.’

Polly shook her head thoughtfully. ‘In some ways I can believe it – you know, given what a bastard he is – but for the life of me I can’t see her going for him, can you? She seems such a beautiful person and he’s a complete and utter tosser. And if he had done it, wouldn’t he be bragging about it rather than trying to cover it up? He’s not usually so coy about his out-of-office activities, is he?’

‘I see your point,’ I replied, wondering if she had stumbled upon a fatal flaw in my hastily constructed plan, ‘but, remember, at the end of the day he is a married man. And I don’t think Buddy – or Bill Davis – would be too pleased if they found out what’s happened. I mean, what’s alleged to have happened.’

‘Well,’ said Polly as she scooped up her new sunglasses and made to walk away, ‘whether it’s true or not, Amanda has gone completely fucking ape shit. God knows what Mrs B. will say when she finds out.’

MILL HILL, NORTH LONDON

I left the office before five that evening, citing jet lag as the reason I couldn’t put in the usual twelve-hour day. I’d like to say I left early because I was keen to get home to spend some quality time with my family after being away for a whole week. That may even have been partly true. But the main reason was that I wanted to be well out of sight before Olivia woke up in LA and went online to see if her lover had replied to her latest e-mail. I was trying to outrun the Internet.

I also had an important mission to attend to. After kissing Natasha and the kids ‘hello’, I sprinted up the stairs to our bedroom, pulled open the top drawer of my chest (we had matching ‘his’ and ‘hers’ furniture throughout our bedroom – identical cherry-wood chests of drawers, wardrobes, bookshelves and bedside cabinets all arranged in perfect symmetry) and started searching frantically for the smoking gun – the comedy socks that could pin the crime of my adultery on my weak, sloping shoulders. After a few minutes of fruitless excavation, an untidy pile of balled socks, odd socks, boxer shorts and briefs had spread across the floor by my feet.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ I heard Natasha say and looked round to see her standing in the doorway, leaning against one side like a drunken sailor against a lamp post. ‘What are you looking for?’

‘What?’ I replied as if my wife had been addressing me in Serbo-Croat. ‘Looking for? I’m not looking for anything. I just thought it was high time I gave my underwear drawer a bit of a clear-out. There’s stuff in here I haven’t worn for years. Look!’ With some reluctance, I picked up a couple of pairs of perfectly good socks and a few of their unmatched cousins and threw them without ceremony into the waste-paper bin. Then I bent down and picked up the rest of my collection of undergarments and stuffed them back into the drawer. ‘That’s better,’ I said, straining to push it shut, and still wondering where the hell the incriminating items might be.

‘Are you feeling OK, love?’ Natasha said, a look of genuine concern spreading across her face. ‘Touch of jet lag? You do remember that I’m supposed to be going out this evening, don’t you? I’ve got my book group. Would you rather I cancelled? I haven’t actually managed to finish the book so I’m not too bothered about going.’

‘No, you go,’ I said, ‘I’ll be fine. It’s about time you had a good night out.’

‘I’m not sure I’d call sitting with a bunch of pseudo-intellectuals discussing the latest Booker Prize-winner a good night out, but thank you. I could do with getting away from this place for a bit. Are you OK to get the kids’ tea sorted while I get ready?’

‘Of course,’ I said, kissing her on the cheek as I brushed past her in the doorway. ‘No problem.’

Following Natasha’s instructions, I went down to the kitchen and started to prepare the children’s tea, mixing up an off-white, glutinous, cheesy sauce which I then threw over some quick-cook pasta and doled out into their favourite bowls. As I sat down to watch them spooning the goo in the approximate direction of their hungry mouths, the realisation suddenly struck me: the evidence I was looking for would still be in amongst the dirty washing I’d brought back from New York. Leaving the children to eat, I sidled into the utility room to continue my search. It didn’t take me long to sift through the pile of laundry stacked up by the machine and find the guilty parties – my pair of black socks with the brightly coloured cartoon and the slogan picked out in red letters: ‘Have a Silly Saturday’. I rammed them into my trouser pockets – one to the left; one to the right – then raced back into the kitchen just as the first spoonful of cheesy pasta hit the wedding picture of my parents-in-law that hung above the breakfast bar, the product of Matthew’s poor aim or, to be fair, Helen’s quick reactions in dodging the projectile he had aimed at her. His second salvo caught his sister square in the middle of the forehead.

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