Kitabı oku: «The Runaway Actress»
VICTORIA CONNELLY
The Runaway Actress
Copyright
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.
AVON
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by
HarperCollinsPublishers 2012
Copyright © Victoria Connelly 2012
Victoria Connelly asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
All rights reserved under International 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.
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
Source ISBN: 9781847562760
Ebook Edition © APRIL 2012 ISBN: 9780007443222
Version: 2018-07-19
To my dear friends, Heather and Margaret. Here’s to our Scottish ancestry!
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Victoria’s Top Ten Escapes
Acknowledgements
About the Author
By the same author
About the Publisher
Chapter One
Maggie Hamill stared out of the window at the great green hills beyond the loch. The third bedroom really did have the best view from the house and she was glad she’d moved into it. There was only one problem: it was such a gorgeous distraction that it was sometimes hard to get on with her work and she had plenty to be getting on with. Only that morning, she’d received half a dozen letters – all with requests for signed photographs.
Dear Ms Gordon, the first one began. I’m a huge fan of your films and think you’re the most beautiful actress in the world. Would it be possible to send me a signed photograph of yourself ? I enclose a cheque for £10 for your Theatre Charity and look forward to hearing from you soon and, if you ever happen to be in Portsmouth, give me a call on the above number, won’t you? I know a fabulous restaurant where we can talk in private.
I bet you do, Maggie said to herself. Still, it was quite tame as fan letters went and she pulled out a ten by eight glossy photograph from the top drawer of her desk. It was one of her personal favourites – a close-up shot of Connie Gordon with her long red hair cascading over her shoulders. Maggie sighed as she flicked her own dark mane away from her face, wishing she had fine silky, well-behaved sort of hair rather than a sheep’s fleece straggling down her back.
Reaching for her silver pen, she paused, bit her lip and then signed across the bottom right-hand corner.
With love from Connie xx
‘There you are, Mr Forbes from Portsmouth. You’re going to love that!’
She was just about to stuff it into an envelope when the shop bell tinkled. Leaping to her feet, she left the room and ran down the stairs.
‘Ah, good morning, Mrs Wallace,’ Maggie said as Lochnabrae’s biggest gossip entered the shop. She was wearing the yellow raincoat she never left home without and her tight perm had been squashed under a headscarf. ‘You’re bright and early this morning.’
‘Not as early as Euan, though,’ Mrs Wallace said, her formidable bosom rising with pleasure at being able to impart such news. ‘I see he’s been in already.’
Maggie nodded at Mrs Wallace’s comprehensive knowledge of the goings on of Lochnabrae’s inhabitants.
‘Well now, I hope he’s left some tobacco for my Wallace.’
‘There’s plenty left,’ Maggie said, picking up a packet of what she knew to be Mr Wallace’s chosen brand and handing it over the counter.
‘And how’s the fan club going?’ Mrs Wallace asked. ‘Any sign of Connie Gordon yet?’ she asked with a little chuckle, knowing full well what the answer would be.
‘No, Mrs Wallace, I’m afraid not. I don’t think she’ll be gracing our community for a while.’
‘Och well, what would her sort do here, eh?’
Maggie shrugged. She’d often wondered herself. What, indeed, would a Hollywood movie star do in a place like Lochnabrae?
‘I’ve just written to her again,’ Maggie said.
‘Have you now?’
‘Aye.’ Maggie sighed, secretly wondering if Connie ever read the letters. She must have posted dozens over the years of running the fan club. Perhaps they were binned by some personal assistant who was put on stalker alert.
‘And she’s never written back?’
‘No,’ Maggie said. ‘Too busy, I expect. All those films and premieres and things.’
‘That’ll be it,’ Mrs Wallace said. ‘No time for the likes of us,’ she said, nodding towards her usual newspaper.
‘Will that be all today?’ Maggie asked, itching to get back to her correspondence upstairs.
‘Aye. For the time being. Might be popping back this afternoon for some bits if we don’t make it to the proper shops in Strathcorrie.’
‘Right,’ Maggie said. Mrs Wallace was, as ever, the complete embodiment of tact.
‘Their prices are so much better,’ she added.
‘But they’re not on your doorstep, Mrs Wallace, are they?’
Mrs Wallace chose to ignore this last remark.
‘Bye, then,’ Maggie said and, as soon as the shop door was shut, took the stairs two at a time and returned to her other, slightly more glamorous job.
Maggie had been running the Connie Gordon Fan Club for five years now. Set up by Lochnabrae resident, Euan Kennedy, it was to honour the screen presence of one of Hollywood’s most beautiful actresses whose mother happened to be from their small Highland community. ‘Ah, yes,’ Maggie remembered Euan Kennedy telling everyone one evening in the pub, The Capercaillie Inn, ‘her mother was a great beauty. Vanessa Gordon.’ His eyes had lit up as he’d relived some long ago memory of Vanessa. ‘But she had her sights set on bigger and better things. Hollywood, no less! Aye, she was an ambitious one.’
Vanessa Gordon had never made her mark in Tinsel Town, Maggie remembered Euan saying, but had passed on all her beauty and ambition to her daughter, Connie. There wasn’t a resident in the whole of Lochnabrae who didn’t know of the ‘Connie connection’ and there was always great excitement when a new Connie film was released, with carloads of residents making the short journey to the old cinema in Strathcorrie. It didn’t matter if it was a thriller or a romantic comedy, a leading role or a voice-over in an animated movie, they were there to support their Connie.
‘We really should have our own cinema here,’ Euan had announced one evening.
‘Where?’ Maggie had asked, trying to imagine such a luxury in the main street of the village.
Euan shook his head. ‘I don’t know but we should do something – have some way of acknowledging our Hollywood lassie.’
And that’s when he’d come up with the idea for a fan club.
‘With websites and everything,’ he’d said, waving a great hand in the air as if he knew what he was talking about.
‘Oh, you have a computer now, do you?’ Maggie had asked wryly.
‘Well, no, but you do,’ he’d said.
Maggie had leapt at the chance to run the fan club. She’d always adored movies and this was her chance to be a small part of that magical world, and so she’d got to work, creating a website, updating the pages with new pictures of Connie and all the latest movie news.
Then the fan mail had started to flood in with people asking for signed photos of their beloved actress.
‘What shall I do?’ Maggie had asked Euan. ‘They all expect a reply!’
‘Then send them what they want.’
‘But surely we’ll be done for fraud!’
‘Och! Nobody will ever find out.’
‘But it’ll cost money if we start sending out signed photos and things,’ Maggie said, thinking of the meagre income she had from the shop.
‘Then charge them.’
Maggie had gasped and had taken the problem to the Connie Committee.
‘We could make a small charge,’ Hamish – Maggie’s brother – had said. ‘Just to cover costs, you understand.’
‘That’s not unreasonable, is it?’ Euan had said. ‘We can’t have you out of pocket, can we?’
Maggie waited to hear what everyone else thought. ‘Angus?’ she probed.
Angus hurrumped from his corner in the pub. ‘Waste of time. We should have a decent fan club. For westerns.’
Everyone groaned. They were all well aware of Angus’s obsession with the western. He was even wearing cowboy boots just then.
‘Westerns are the thing,’ he said. ‘I’ve got no time for anything else.’
‘Rubbish!’ Maggie said. ‘I saw those tears in your eyes when we went to see Connie in Waltz with Me.’
Angus shifted uneasily in his seat. ‘That was a fly,’ he said. ‘I had a fly in my eye that evening.’
‘Right,’ Maggie said with a grin. ‘Alastair? What do you think we should do?’ she asked, turning to Lochnabrae’s resident playwright for a sensible answer.
‘Well,’ Alastair said, his dark eyebrows hovering over eyes the colour of the loch in summer, ‘the village hall needs some money spent on it.’
‘Aye, that it does,’ Euan agreed.
Maggie frowned. ‘What’s that got to do with the signed photographs?’
‘If we charge for them, any profit could go to the upkeep of the village hall.’
‘But nobody would pay for that!’ Maggie protested.
‘They might if you call it the Theatre Charity. Make a small donation to our Theatre Charity and we will be happy to send you a signed photograph of Ms Gordon,’ Alastair said.
‘And where do I get all these signed photos from?’ Maggie asked.
‘There’s the newsagents in Strathcorrie. They have one of them big printers now, don’t they?’ Hamish said.
‘Okay,’ Maggie said. ‘But how do I get them signed?’
Everyone looked at Maggie.
‘Use your imagination, lass,’ Euan said.
And so Maggie had. She was really quite good at it too because, as a youngster, she used to daydream about what it would be like to be a film star or – at the very least – a character from a film like the ones Connie Gordon played. How wonderful it must be to be beautiful and adored like Connie Gordon and how very different from the little life that Maggie led working in the village shop in Lochnabrae. She would while away many a happy hour in the shop imagining that she was like a Connie Gordon heroine and that a happy ending of her own was just around the corner. For Maggie, running the fan club was like giving in to her inner film star for a few short hours a week and it didn’t seem like she was doing anything wrong.
During those early days of the fan club, Maggie had found a copy of a signed photo of Connie Gordon online and had printed it out, studying the feminine flourish and practising it over and over again until she felt that the very spirit of Connie Gordon was with her and she’d got it just right. Which was just as well because demand was high even with the charge that they made.
Sitting back down at her desk, Maggie woke up her computer and stared at the image on the screen.
‘Hello, Connie,’ she said with a bright smile. ‘How are you today?’
The beautiful face stared back at her. Soft white skin that was almost luminous, dark red hair like a silk curtain, bright hazel eyes and that gorgeous megawatt smile that regularly graced a million magazines.
‘You’ll be wearing that smile tonight, won’t you?’ Maggie said, checking the online Connie diary and noting that it was the ‘Cream of the Screen’ awards ceremony. Maggie gazed out of the window but, for once, she didn’t notice the view. She was imagining the gowns and the jewels and the wonderful new photos of Connie that she would soon have for the website.
‘How wonderful it would be to walk down that red carpet,’ she said with a wistful sigh. ‘Lucky, lucky Connie.’
Chapter Two
A big bright smile. That’s what everyone wanted so why was it so hard to give? Connie walked down the red carpet, trying desperately not to trip over in the silver sequinned dress, which kept wrapping itself around her legs. It was most uncomfortable even if it did make her look like a million dollars. It was the last time she’d be wearing one of Tierney Mueller’s designs, that was for sure. He’d practically submerged her with clothes for the last few months and she’d finally given in but she was regretting her decision now. She had to give an award tonight and that meant the long torturous walk out onto the stage with the whole of Hollywood watching.
It’ll be fine, she told herself. Or at least it couldn’t possibly be as bad as the time one of her spaghetti straps had fallen down, revealing far more of Connie Gordon than the press had ever seen.
‘CONNIE!’ they shouted now. ‘Over here.’
‘One more!’
‘This way!’
Connie smiled. She felt like such a fraud. It was her third red carpet event that week and she knew she must be the envy of every woman in the world and yet what she wanted more than anything was to be sitting at home in her favourite jumper and jeans, eating a large tub of ice cream in front of the movie channel. It really was absurd. After all, she’d worked extremely hard to get to this moment, hadn’t she? All the years of dance classes and auditions, drama classes and auditions, singing classes and auditions. This was what it was all about. This was the kind of event that said, Hey world, I’ve arrived. Aren’t you jealous? Don’t you wish you were me? Take that journalist over there, Connie thought, sidling over to a female reporter who was gesticulating at her so much her arms were in danger of spinning right off her body. What would the reporter give to change places with Connie – to wear the dress, to be photographed, to present the award? And what would Connie give to exchange places with her? The journalist would be going home in half an hour. For a moment, Connie imagined the scene. There’d be some cute guy cooking dinner for her and an adorable toddler would have just woken up to greet his mommy.
Connie sighed as she thought about the empty mansion that was waiting for her in Bel Air. She had a cook, a cleaner, a PA and a gardener. There was the boy who took care of the pool, the guy who took care of her cars. There was the hairdresser, the image consultant, the agent, the lawyer and the accountant. Then there was the orthodontist, the personal trainer … and on the list went. But there was nobody who’d be there to kiss her when she got home. Nobody to massage her feet and tell her she was gorgeous. Oh, she was told she was gorgeous often enough – by the fans, the journalists, the photographers. But they didn’t count. When she went home, she left the adulation behind and life felt very empty indeed.
‘Connie Gordon!’ the journalist yelled as Connie joined her at the barrier. ‘I have Connie Gordon with me,’ she said, turning to her cameraman. ‘Who are you wearing tonight, Connie?’
‘Oh, it’s a Tierney Mueller.’
‘And you look gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous.’
‘Thank you,’ Connie said graciously.
‘I hear you’ll be presenting an award tonight.’
‘Yes. Best supporting actor.’
‘And which of the nominees do you favour?’ the journalist asked.
‘I think they’re all incredibly talented. I couldn’t possibly choose,’ she said diplomatically. That was the game to play: be gracious, be diplomatic and keep bloody smiling.
The ‘Cream of the Screen’ ceremony was fairly new as award ceremonies went. Not quite as glitzy as the Oscars nor as prestigious as the Golden Globes, they were still an opportunity for the stars to come out and shine. As Connie entered the Art Deco theatre where it was being held, she caught sight of a few of the famous faces there. She had to stop and pinch herself sometimes. At events like this, she still felt like such a newbie even though she’d been in the business since she was six.
‘Connie!’ a voice called. She turned around and came face to face with Carter Maddox, the infamous journalist, and he had a camera crew with him. ‘Over here, Connie!’
There was no getting away from him so Connie dug deep for her smile again and joined him.
‘And you are looking very glam tonight. How are you?’
‘I’m fine, thank you, Carter.’
‘Who are you wearing?’
‘Tierney Mueller,’ Connie said, sighing inwardly at the originality of his questions.
‘And who’s accompanying you tonight?’
Connie’s eyebrows rose. Now, that was a question she hadn’t been expecting.
‘Don’t tell me the gorgeous Connie Gordon is alone tonight?’
‘Yes, I am, Carter.’
‘Well, men of America, you should be ashamed of yourselves,’ Carter said, turning to the camera. ‘I really think you should’ve made more of an effort.’
‘No, really Carter – don’t—’
‘Isn’t there anyone out there who’d kill to have this lovely lady on their arm?’
Connie rolled her eyes, imagining the crank letters from the men of America she’d be receiving over the coming months.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ a voice announced on the tannoy. ‘Please take your seats. The ceremony is about to begin.’
Connie sighed with relief and made a hasty departure from Carter Maddox.
She was just entering the auditorium when she felt a hand on her bottom. Spinning around, she came face to face with Jeff Kline.
‘Hello, gorgeous,’ he said.
If anyone else called her gorgeous tonight, she would scream.
‘What are you doing here, Jeff ?’
‘Nice to see you too! Not still sore, are you, honeybun?’
‘Don’t call me that. I’m not your honeybun! Not since you sold out to the Hollywood Recorder.’
‘But sweetcakes! What did you expect me to do?’
‘You’re a piece of slime, Kline,’ she said, rather liking the rhyme that made. ‘Go to hell.’
She made her way to her seat and hoped that she wouldn’t meet any more of her ex-boyfriends that evening.
But, alas, it wasn’t to be.
They were half an hour into the ceremony when Connie was escorted backstage and given a scarlet envelope and statuette for the award for best supporting actor. It was the moment she’d been dreading.
Just take it slowly, she told herself, hoping she wouldn’t trip over the ridiculously long dress. Nice and slowly.
Waiting for her cue backstage, she wondered how long it would be before she could sneak home. There was a party after the show – several parties – and she’d been invited to all of them but she could think of nothing worse.
‘You’re on!’ a girl backstage suddenly yelled at her.
‘Oh!’ Connie yelled back, venturing forth onto the stage where she was greeted by wave after wave of applause. The host had stepped to one side and the microphone was left for Connie. Walking up to it, she dared to look out into the audience, which was a great mistake because her heart rate doubled almost instantly. It was one of the reasons that the theatre had never tempted her. A live audience – there was nothing scarier.
She cleared her throat and began. ‘Being a supporting actor is no mean feat. It’s often as strenuous and time-consuming as being a lead and yet these vital roles are often overlooked. Not so tonight. We are here to acknowledge and celebrate five fabulous actors in supporting roles.’ She stepped to one side and looked to the screen, which had been set up on the stage to show clips from the five different films. As the lights dimmed, Connie sneaked a look out into the audience. There was Jeff, with a blonde to his right and a brunette to his left. In his element, as usual. And there was Harvey Andreas. She’d really fallen for him. What a mistake that had been, she thought, thinking of Harvey’s inability to commit to just one woman at a time.
As the clips continued, Connie realised, with awful certainty, that she had probably dated about five per cent of the audience there tonight. What a depressing thought. And not one single Prince Charming amongst them. Not one.
As the clips finished and the house lights came on, Connie stepped up to the microphone and opened the envelope and saw the name she had been dreading.
Out of all the nominations …
‘And the winner is—’ she said.
A one in five chance and he had to go and win it!
‘Forrest Greaves!’
There was a huge round of applause and she saw the dark-haired actor stand up from his seat and make his way to the stage. He was tall, fit and desperately handsome – your typical love rat – and he had double-timed Connie with some low-life extra on the set of her last film. She still couldn’t believe it. Whilst he’d been sending enormous bunches of flowers to her trailer, he’d been sleeping with Candy in his. The press had had a field day with it and Connie was still coping with the fallout because Candy was about to have his baby and hadn’t wasted any time parading her enormous naked body in front of the glossies.
And now the awards. It was unbearable.
‘Hey, gorgeous!’ Forrest said as he sidled up to her on the stage and leant forward for the obligatory kiss, his hand – unseen by the audience because they were standing behind the podium – copped a quick feel of her bottom.
She threw him a heated glare as he stepped back, thrusting the award at him and moving to one side as he gave his acceptance speech. She was not going to make it easy for the press to get a photo of the two of them together.
Once it was over, the two of them left the stage together and, as soon as they were away from the cameras, Connie felt Forrest’s hand on her bottom again.
‘HEY!’ she yelled. What was it with men and her ass? She couldn’t remember putting out an advert in the newspapers saying, Men – please grab my ass whenever you pass.
Forrest’s hands leapt in the air. ‘Only appreciating what was once mine.’
‘You gave up all rights to that when I caught you with that sleaze in your trailer,’ Connie said.
‘That was a misunderstanding,’ he said. ‘I told you at the time. My zip was stuck. She was helping me fix it. I swear we weren’t a couple until after you broke up with me! I swear, Connie!’
‘God!’ Connie said. ‘Can you hear yourself ? You might’ve fooled the judges on the panel tonight but you’re the worst actor I’ve ever met.’
Connie didn’t bother returning to her seat. She’d had more than enough for one evening. She found a nice member of staff who called a cab for her and showed her out of a quiet exit where she could make an escape without the clamour of fans and photographers.
Once home, Connie struggled with the dress fastenings. It was more difficult than she’d imagined and it took several minutes of yoga-like twists before she was free and could wriggle out of the skintight fabric. She shook her head upside down, ruffling her hair as she often did when she was stressed.
What a night, she thought. It was the end of a long and taxing week but next week would be just as bad and the week after that wouldn’t prove any less demanding with parties, ceremonies, press junkets and rehearsals. She hadn’t had a break for months – years. Her agent just kept on putting her up for role after role. It was what she’d asked for in the beginning but she’d made ten films in the last four years and she was exhausted.
Kicking off her impossibly high heels, she sighed and pulled on a cool linen dressing gown before making her way to the kitchen. She needed wine: a nice big glass of something very expensive to take the edge off the evening.
Opening her fridge, she was greeted by a positive jungle. Everything was green. It was the usual problem: a fridge full of food but absolutely nothing to eat. Connie groaned at the sight of it. It was all part of the latest LA diet but, however healthy it was, Connie couldn’t help wishing she could just sit down with a hamburger and fries like a regular person. But hadn’t her agent told her to watch her weight?
‘You’re piling it on again, Connie,’ he’d told her last week. ‘This industry doesn’t tolerate fat.’
Fat! FAT? Connie had never been more than nine stone in her whole life and, at five foot eight, that was positively skeletal. Sometimes she wondered what it would be like to live a normal life. To get up and not have to worry about what the papers were saying about you, to choose your food because it was what you wanted to eat, and not to be constantly told what you were going to be doing for the next year – the next decade.
Grabbing the bottle of wine, Connie padded through to her living room, her feet sinking into the luxurious white carpet she’d chosen for the whole house. It was an enormous room that overlooked the vast swimming pool and gardens, and Connie had filled it with beautiful antiques, from the Regency mahogany sideboard to the satinwood table. A nineteenth-century chandelier hung from the centre of the room. It would have looked more at home in an English Georgian manor house rather than in her very modern Hollywood home but Connie had fallen in love with its sparkling teardrop crystals and insisted on having it.
Her bedroom was the same. Reached by a Gone with the Wind staircase, the room was stuffed with the very finest money could buy because what else did she have to spend it on? There was a vast French rococo bed in antique gold, an enormous gilt mirror that bounced the light back from the balcony doors and an exquisite brass-inlaid secretaire in that she locked away all her personal documents.
Finishing her wine and heading upstairs to her bedroom, she removed her dressing gown and realised that she was still wearing her diamond choker. She unfastened it and returned it to its blue velvet box. She’d bought it as a special gift to herself after she’d heard she’d been nominated for an Oscar. Most actresses hired their jewellery for Oscar night but Connie had wanted to wear something that was hers – something that she could keep. She remembered the gentlemen from the jewellers who had turned up at her house with a selection of necklaces for her to choose from. There had been an amazing egg-sized sapphire pendant, which had reminded Connie of the colour of the ocean. There was a square-cut emerald necklace, which had looked dazzlingly bright when she’d tried it on against her pale skin. Then there’d been the rubies – twelve blood-red stones nestling in a lace of sparkling diamonds. But, in the end, Connie had chosen the diamond choker. It was breathtaking in its simplicity and could be worn with so many of her gowns.
Brushing her fingers over the stones, she closed the box and took it to the vault in the corner of the room. There, it joined a family of jewels from Connie’s favourite garnet earrings to platinum watches and rings set with every stone imaginable. There was even a diamond tiara in there. Connie had worn it just once.
Taking a quick shower and smearing her face with the latest skin-tightening cream that promised to keep her looking like a nineteen-year-old, Connie slipped between the silky sheets of her bed, her head crashing onto the pale pillows. She felt as if she could sleep for a fortnight. Or for ever.
Closing her eyes, she thought about her beautiful home filled with beautiful things. She had more than any young woman had a right to and she knew how lucky she was, she really did.
‘So why am I not happy?’ she whispered into the dark night.
Chapter Three
Connie woke up with a start. There was somebody in her house and that somebody was shouting. Really, really loudly. She groaned and turned over, hiding her head under her duvet. Why oh why had she given her personal trainer a key to her house?
‘Up, up, up!’ he cried as he took the stairs two at a time. ‘Sleepyheads don’t get fit!’
‘I don’t want to get fit. Not this morning,’ she said to herself. ‘I want to sleeeeeeep!’
‘WAKE UP!’ he shouted as he entered the room – all six foot five of him.
‘I’m awake!’ Connie said.
‘I want twenty stomach crunches right now!’
Connie muttered something under her breath.
‘What was that, sweetie? You want to do fifty?’ he said with a naughty grin.
‘Go away, Danny!’ Connie said, sitting up in bed, her red hair tousled and tangled.
‘You don’t pay me to go away. You pay me to get your ass moving! Come on,’ he said, clapping a pair of enormous hands together.
Connie sighed. She loved Danny dearly. He was loyal and sweet and always made her laugh, but there were certain mornings when she wished he didn’t exist.
Ten minutes later and they were in the basement gymnasium and Connie was being put through her paces. It was a rude awakening and she really should have been used to it by now because Danny had been turning up three times a week for the past four years.
‘Your body is your business,’ she would silently chant to herself whilst pounding on the running machine. ‘You have to keep in shape,’ she’d repeat with each stretch on the rowing machine.
But if only her body was her business. The trouble was, everyone seemed to have something to say about her body. Her trainer, her agent, her publicist – to say nothing of the press who regularly snapped her from all angles and then ran headlines such as ‘Podgy Connie Piles on the Pounds’. The unhappy truth was that acting was about more than her ability to inhabit a role and convince an audience that her emotions were real. It was about how she looked both on screen and off and that pressure could sometimes be unbearable.
After ten minutes on the exercise bike, Connie hung her head.
‘Can we go running, Danny? I want to get some fresh air.’ She looked up and caught Danny’s eye. He didn’t look happy with the suggestion.
‘You know what happened last time.’
‘I know.’
‘We weren’t so much running as running away!’
Connie nodded, remembering the hoard of paps that had torn after them with their intrusively long lenses.
‘I wish I could run away,’ Connie said.
‘Aw, don’t say that!’ Danny said, his face wrinkling in dismay.
‘But I do. I want to go somewhere where I can just be me for a while without a telephoto lens poking at me or some journalist tearing me apart.’
‘I don’t think such a place exists,’ Danny said.
‘No,’ Connie said. ‘You’re probably right. But can’t we at least try to pretend?’
‘You want to go to the park?’
Connie nodded.
‘We’ll have to go in my car, then. Everybody knows yours.’
Connie grinned and grabbed her towel.
Danny’s black RV was parked in the driveway. ‘Get in the back and duck down,’ he said.
Connie climbed in the back of his car, buckled up and then laid her head down on the seat. She’d given Danny her remote control to open the wrought iron gates and, as usual, there was a group of paparazzi camping outside.
‘Don’t they have homes to go to?’ Danny asked as he hit the gas.
‘Apparently not,’ Connie said. ‘I thought about inviting them in for dinner one evening. I’d just come back from a charity gala and felt a bit lonely. It’s always odd to be surrounded by hundreds of people one minute and then to come back here and be totally alone.’
‘But you didn’t invite them in, did you?’ Danny asked, eyebrows raised.
‘No, of course not!’
Danny breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Okay, it’s safe to surface.’
Connie got up from the back seat and it was then that she noticed the newspaper on the seat beside her. She picked it up.
‘Oh, don’t bother reading that,’ Danny said a little too quickly. ‘There’s nothing in it.’
‘Danny, you’re a terrible liar,’ she said, opening the paper and staring in horror at the headline that greeted her on page three.
Connie Alone!
Stunning actress, Connie Gordon, one of the world’s most famous movie stars, attended last night’s ‘Cream of the Screen’ awards ceremony on her own. The 29-year-old actress recently broke up with fellow actor, Forrest Greaves, and it would seem that she’s not been lucky in love since …
Accompanying the story was a photograph of Connie from the red carpet but, instead of printing one of the hundreds of pictures they must have taken of Connie’s famous megawatt smile, they’d published one of her frowning. It must have been the millisecond that she’d caught her heels on her dress. There was also a photograph of the heavily-pregnant Candy with the caption: ‘Expecting great things – the woman Forrest Greaves left Connie for’.
‘Goddamn it!’ she cursed and then her eye caught something else. It was a quote from her mother.
‘“Connie is devastated,” Vanessa Gordon told us. “She’d already started planning the wedding with Forrest”.’
‘They’ve interviewed my mother!’ she shouted.
‘I told you not to read it!’ Danny said from the front seat.
‘Why do they do that? Why?’
‘To sell more papers, that’s all.’
Connie sighed. ‘Take me home,’ she said.
‘What? You don’t want to go running?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I just don’t feel like it any more.’
‘But it might do you some good. You know, pound it out of your system.’ He looked at her through the rear-view mirror and noticed the tears sparkling in her eyes. ‘I’ll take you home,’ he said.
Once Danny had dropped her off, Connie kicked off her trainers and wandered through to her office. Her personal assistant had left her diary open on the desk and there was a planner pinned to the wall too. Connie glanced at it. She was meant to be starting rehearsals next week for her next film – and the thought of it made her groan.
‘It’ll do your career no end of good,’ Bob Braskett, her agent, had told her. ‘This is a real up-and-coming director. Teenagers really go for him. You’ll gain a whole new audience here.’
There was also a magazine interview penned in, and two charity events. She sighed. If only she could get away from it all. If only she could escape!
The telephone rang and made Connie jump. She didn’t normally answer the phone but, as her PA wasn’t in until later, she picked it up herself.
‘Connie!’ a voice drawled. It was Forrest Greaves.
‘What do you want?’ she snapped.
‘Aw, don’t be like that, sweetheart. You didn’t give me a chance to talk to you last night.’
‘Yeah? Well, I said all I wanted to say,’ Connie said.
‘Yeah, but I didn’t.’
She sighed. ‘What do you want, Forrest?’
‘I want to say that I miss you,’ he said, ‘and I think we should give it another go.’
‘What?’ Connie couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
‘I miss you so much, honey.’
‘Don’t honey me! You’re about to have a child with that Candy woman, for heaven’s sake.’
‘That could be anybody’s child,’ he said. ‘Anyway, she means nothing to me. It’s you I want to be with.’
Connie felt a shiver of disgust creep up her spine. ‘Forrest—’
‘Listen,’ he interrupted. ‘I know I messed up but I swear that won’t happen again. You’re my one and only, Connie. You know we’re right for each other. I know you do.’
‘But I don’t want anything to do with you, Forrest. I—’
‘I mean – come on – I’m an award-winning actor now. I’m right up there with you, baby. Just think about it – what a couple we’ll make. We’ll send Hollywood dizzy. They won’t be able to get enough of us! “Forrest and Connie”, “Greaves and Gordon”! Just imagine the headlines!’
Connie slammed the phone down and let out a scream. How dare he propose getting back together with her when he’d treated her so badly and when he was about to become a father. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? He really was the limit.
She closed her eyes and took some deep breaths. She needed to calm down before she began hyperventilating.
‘Count to ten,’ she told herself as she breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth for a few steadying moments. ‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘Don’t let him get to you.’
It was then that something caught her eye. Sitting in a neat stack on the desk was the latest fan mail left by her personal assistant. On the top was a curious pink and yellow checked envelope. Connie picked it up and looked at it. It was from overseas. Scotland!
‘It’s tartan!’ Connie laughed, slipping the letter out and unfolding it.
Dear Ms Gordon
It seems rather a long time since I last wrote to you and I’m so sorry! We’ve been very busy here in Lochnabrae. As you know, the fan club is going from strength to strength. We get lots of hits on the website and we even had a Connie Gordon season last month showing a film of yours each night at our village hall. We then voted on our favourite film – it was Milly in the Morning, by the way – and then Isla Stuart, who runs the bed and breakfast here, made a ‘Milly’ cake with pink and yellow icing. You’ll notice we’ve got pink and yellow stationery now too – my brother, Hamish, designed a Connie tartan based on Milly’s gorgeous dress in the film. I hope you like it.
Connie took another look at the envelope and laughed. It really was very pretty.
So, as you can see, we’ve been keeping busy. But that doesn’t excuse me forgetting to write to you and I just wanted to extend our invitation to you once again. You know you’ll always be made welcome here in Lochnabrae. It’s a beautiful part of the Highlands with mountains and rivers and our very own loch in which you can swim. (Well, about twice a year if it gets really hot!) We have a small bed and breakfast and Isla says you’d be made very welcome if you wanted to stay. She has radiators in all the rooms and hot water bottles aplenty if you come in winter. Or summer. And I’ve got a spare room too. That’s to say, most of the time – unless Hamish has too many at the pub and can’t make it home which isn’t often, thank goodness.
I know you’re probably very busy in Hollywood with your films and stuff and we must seem like another planet to you but we’re a very friendly planet and we’d love to see you.
All best wishes from
Maggie Hamill
(Administrator of the Connie Gordon Fan Club) xx
Connie read the letter through once more. Lochnabrae. She hadn’t thought about that place for years. It had been the birthplace of her mother and she remembered being fascinated by stories of it when she was young. Stories about icy swims in the loch, thick mists that clouded the houses and snowdrifts that would cut the village off for weeks. It was a magical, almost mystical place on the other side of the world – so far away from the dirt and dazzle of Hollywood.
Connie’s eyes widened as she thought about it. Hadn’t she just been praying for an escape? For peace? For a place where she could lose herself and leave all her troubles behind her including lying, cheating ex-boyfriends and mothers that couldn’t keep their mouths shut? And here was a letter from her fan club promising her all those things. It was fate. It was destiny. It was plain common sense.
Without losing a single moment, she picked up the phone and called her PA.
‘Samantha? It’s Connie. I’m sorry to ring you so early but I thought you should know that I’ll be leaving town today. I’m going away. No, Bob doesn’t know. Tell him it’s family business. I don’t know how long it’ll be for. Yes, he’ll have to deal with those film people himself, and the charity events too. Tell him I need a vacation. A really good vacation.’
Chapter Four
Maggie had got up extra early to search the web for photos of Connie at the ‘Cream of the Screen’ awards ceremony. It didn’t take long to find some.
‘Oh!’ she cried, her eyes feasting on the sparkling silver dress she was wearing. ‘That’s the most beautiful dress in the world!’ Maggie right-clicked on the image and saved it to her computer for use on the fan site. Copyright? Smopyright! This was fan business and fans needed up-to-date, drop-dead gorgeous photos of their idol.
She searched around some more and found two different angles, instantly recognising the diamond necklace Connie was wearing. Maggie could list the other three events her idol had worn it to and which dresses she’d been wearing it with. She prided herself on her knowledge; she was the keeper of all things Connie.
One of the photos she was now saving showed Connie in profile with her perfect nose. Maggie automatically wrinkled her own huge tuber of a nose, wondering if a lowly shopkeeper could justify plastic surgery. And then she found a photo of Connie handing the award to the actor, Forrest Greaves.
Maggie whistled. ‘Now that must’ve been interesting,’ she said to herself, knowing how he’d double-crossed Connie on the set of one of her films. Still, he was devilishly handsome. Perhaps it had been worth having her heart broken. She saved the picture with a quick click and then got to work updating the website blog.
There was always so much to do. Connie was always in the news and Maggie loved unearthing the stories on the internet although she didn’t publish everything because a lot of the stories were clearly fabricated. Like the time it had been reported that Connie had been abducted by aliens and given birth to ET’s lovechild. Maggie shook her head as she remembered. Poor Connie. It must be so frustrating to have such rubbish printed about you. The UK press was bad enough but the US really did take some beating.
Maggie had often dreamed about visiting America and going to see the homes of the stars in the Hollywood Hills but she didn’t suppose it was ever going to happen. People like her just didn’t travel. She’d once been to Edinburgh on a school trip. They’d seen the castle and heard the canon fire, and had visited the dark narrow streets of the Old Town and the wide Georgian splendour of the New Town but all Maggie could remember about the trip was how sick she’d felt on the coach. It had taken hours to reach their capital city and hours back to the Highlands and Maggie had been completely done in by it all. So how on earth would she fare on a trip to America? She’d never survive the ordeal, would she?
‘I’ll never leave Lochnabrae,’ she said to herself. But it wasn’t so bad as fates went. She really did love the little Highland community with its tiny white houses and stunning views, and most of its residents were happy with their lot too. She couldn’t think of anyone from the older gener-ation who’d ever been over the border into England let alone left the UK. Mrs Wallace and her husband holidayed in Mull every single year and Isla had once had a trip to Oban but hadn’t liked it. Sandy Macdonald had ventured further afield in his youth but he was a hearth and slippers type these days. He didn’t even like going into Strathcorrie on market days any more.
‘Too many damned people!’ he’d say. ‘You can’t walk in a straight line without bumping into somebody or other.’
What would Connie Gordon think of them all, Maggie wondered? She’d travelled the whole world, hadn’t she? The people of Lochnabrae would seem so very dull and unadventurous to her.
Maggie looked away from the computer screen, her eyes drifting to the view outside. What would Connie think of their little corner of the world, she wondered?
‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever know,’ she said to herself before returning her gaze to the computer in search of more images of her idol.
Chapter Five
Like most women, Connie had never been very good at travelling light and, as she waited for her luggage on the carousel along with everyone else at Glasgow Airport, she was beginning to wonder how she’d manage on her own. Of course, she could have travelled VIP and had everything done for her but she’d been determined that this trip would be different. She’d booked her own taxi to the airport and had even booked her own tickets, which was a new experience as she usually left such mundane jobs to her PA, but it had felt good doing something for herself for once in her life – even if she had got a bit lost walking into the airport and had nearly missed her flight when she couldn’t find her passport.
To avoid the press and the fuss that usually went hand in hand with luxury travel, Connie had decided to fly to Scotland incognito. She’d scraped her trademark red hair into a ponytail and flattened a baseball cap onto her head. A face free from make-up and the obligatory enormous sunglasses completed the disguise. It was rather like playing a part, she thought – the part of an ordinary girl going on holiday – and she’d been enjoying the experience until it came to hauling her own luggage off the carousel and struggling with it.
‘Can I help you?’ a gentleman’s voice suddenly asked with a soft Scottish accent.
Connie turned around. A tall athletic man in a nice suit stood looking at her. ‘Oh, thank you,’ she said and watched as he found a trolley for her and placed her three suitcases onto it.
‘Are you wanting a taxi?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Allow me,’ he said, leading the way to the taxi rank outside the airport.
‘I can’t thank you enough,’ Connie said, removing her sunglasses and smiling. As soon as she did, she knew she’d made a mistake.
‘Good God!’ he said. ‘Aren’t you—’ the man cocked his head a little and looked at her quizzically. ‘Connie Gordon?’
‘Oh, lord, no!’ Connie laughed, exaggerating her English accent and pushing her sunglasses back on. For most of her childhood, Connie had had an English tutor which meant that she was often hired to play English roles in films and, although she occasionally had an American twang, she could easily get away with being English.
‘I could’ve sworn!’ the man said. ‘You look just like her. Remarkable! You could be in the movies.’
‘Well, I’m very flattered,’ she said, looking up and down for a taxi and hoping for a quick escape to avoid further questioning. ‘Ah! Here’s one,’ she said as the next available car pulled up and a man got out to load her suitcases. ‘Thanks for your help,’ she said to the suited gentleman.
‘My pleasure,’ he said, staring at her in wonder.
Connie hopped into the taxi and the driver was soon pulling out from the kerb.
Phew, she thought. She’d made it.
‘Where to, lass?’ the driver asked.
Connie leant forward in her seat. ‘Lochnabrae, please.’
‘Lochnabrae Road? Lochnabrae Street?’
‘Just Lochnabrae.’
‘In Glasgow?’
‘No.’
‘Outside Glasgow then?’
Connie nodded. ‘It’s near a town called Strathcorrie.’
‘Strathcorrie?’
‘You know it?’
‘Aye, I know it. That’s over a hundred miles. It won’t be a cheap fare, lass. You got the money to pay for it?’
‘Of course,’ Connie said. ‘I wouldn’t get in a taxi if I didn’t have the money for my ride.’
‘Just checking. I don’t want to be stranded in the back of beyond with a lass with no money.’
Connie held back a hollow laugh. Money was certainly no problem for her but that didn’t necessarily mean she was happy. If she could buy some sort of happiness, she wouldn’t be there now, tired and lonely.
The taxi left the airport and Connie felt her eyes closing. Transatlantic flights always took it out of her and she felt she’d been airborne for days rather than hours. A little sleep would do her the world of good.
When Connie woke up, she was surprised to see that the sky had darkened.
‘You won’t need them glasses now,’ the taxi driver said.
Connie took them off but kept her cap on in case she was recognised, but the driver didn’t seem to be interested in who she was.
‘Had a nice sleep, have you?’
‘Yes,’ Connie said. ‘Where are we?’
‘Just approaching Strathcorrie now.’
‘I must’ve been asleep for hours!’ Connie looked out of the window. The road was narrow and straight and there wasn’t a single house to be seen. The countryside had opened out into an elongated valley with a river silvering the land, and great mountains heaved up into the sky.
‘Welcome to the Highlands.’
Connie smiled. She was here at last – the place that her mother had once called home.
‘Can we stop?’ Connie suddenly asked. ‘Just for a moment?’
The taxi driver pulled up at a lay-by. ‘You feeling all right?’
‘Yes. Yes!’ Connie said excitedly, opening the door and getting out. She stood absolutely still, looking left, right, up and down, and then she smiled. It was three hundred and sixty degrees of loveliness and she was smack bang in the middle of it. The mountains soared majestically up into the sky and there was a bright waterfall in the distance that cascaded down to the valley below.
The taxi driver switched the engine off and joined her.
‘Not going to be sick, are you?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Connie said. ‘Although I think I might have been if I hadn’t left LA in time.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘American, are you? You sound English to me.’
‘It’s complicated,’ she said, pulling her cap a little lower over her face. She shouldn’t have said anything about LA; it was too much information. If he knew who she was, he’d most likely drag her off into the hills and demand a ransom for her.
‘It’s all so – so – big!’
‘Aye.’
‘Isn’t it amazing?’ she said, thinking how different it was from the manicured lawns and borders of hothouse flowers in Bel Air.
‘Well, it is that,’ he said.
Connie took a last look around before returning to the taxi. The light was almost violet now and the colours of the landscape were beginning to drain into the night and, for the first time in years, Connie felt a real sense of peace.
It was dark by the time they reached Lochnabrae and Connie peered out of the window. ‘Is this it?’
‘Aye,’ the taxi driver said. ‘That’s the B&B,’ he said, nodding towards a white house with a board swinging outside. Loch View. Connie gazed across the road. She couldn’t see any loch. ‘That is where you’re staying, isn’t it?’
Connie nodded. She’d managed to ring ahead before leaving LA and had booked a room for a week to begin with. ‘What do I owe you?’
The taxi driver told her the total and Connie dug through her designer wallet until she found enough to pay him. She wasn’t sure how much it came to in dollars – Connie hadn’t had time even to try and understand the conversion rate as she’d grabbed her cash from the LAX bureau de change and run to catch her flight. But, if it meant not having to worry about driving on the wrong side of the road and navigating her way along dark single-track lanes after a long-haul flight, it was definitely a bargain.
‘I’ll get your bags,’ he said, taking the wad of cash and stuffing it into his jeans pocket.
Connie got out of the car and breathed in deeply. It was good to have finally arrived. She promised herself no more planes or taxis for at least a week. She’d walk – walk everywhere, that’s what she’d do. Nobody ever walked in LA – it was too big – but she’d walk here: by lochs, by streams, through valleys and up hills.
The front door of Loch View suddenly opened, breaking into Connie’s thoughts.
‘Ms Gordon, is it?’ the elderly lady greeted her. ‘I’m Isla Stuart.’ She had a sweet face completely caked in white face powder and her cheeks were two perfect circles of scarlet. ‘I’ve been waiting up for you.’
‘Oh, I’m not too late, am I?’
‘Och, no! But I do tend to nod off in the evenings if there isn’t someone to take care of. Now, I expect you’ll be ready for a cup of hot chocolate and a wee slice of Dundee cake?’
‘Thank you,’ Connie smiled, wondering what Danny would say to that and wondering what on earth Dundee cake was anyway.
‘And your driver too?’
‘Not for me, thanks all the same,’ he said, struggling with the cases. ‘I’ve to get back and it’s a fair drive.’
A few minutes later, Connie’s cases were all lined up neatly in her room on the first floor at the front of the B&B.
Once back downstairs in the hallway, Connie gave her driver a big tip to thank him for all his patience.
‘You know,’ he said as she walked to the front door with him, ‘there’s something familiar about you.’
‘Really?’ Connie said, still wearing her baseball cap and exaggerating her English accent once again.
‘You’re not on the telly, are you?’ he asked.
Connie laughed nervously. ‘You know, I’m always being asked that. I guess I’ve just got one of those faces,’ she said.
He continued to stare thoughtfully at her a moment longer. ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘best get back to the city. You have a nice time, lass.’
Connie watched as he left and then closed the door.
‘Now then,’ Isla said, ‘how about that hot chocolate and cake?’
She led Connie through to a room at the back of the guest house. ‘I don’t often get to invite people here,’ she said. Connie smiled as she saw that a fire had been lit and a small table set with cups and plates. ‘I do like a real fire,’ Isla said. ‘It cheers the place up, doesn’t it?’
‘Smells wonderful,’ Connie said, sitting down in an old armchair next to it. ‘Really homely, isn’t it? I’ve never had a real fire. Wouldn’t dare in my house.’
‘Why not?’
‘White carpets!’
‘Ah, well, that’s why we all have these patterned ones,’ Isla said. ‘It’s messy, a real fire, with ash and the like, but I can’t imagine living without one. It’s like a friend that keeps you company each evening.’
Connie watched as Isla bustled around cutting cake. She left the room briefly and came back with two cups of hot chocolate.
‘The best hand warmer in the world,’ Isla said, handing Connie a cup.
‘Thank you,’ Connie said, taking a sip.
‘Why don’t you take that cap off, eh?’ Isla said. ‘You’ll warm through in no time in here.’
Connie was instantly on her guard. She was exhausted and the last thing she wanted was to go through the whole, ‘Yes, I’m really Connie Gordon’ conversation. That would have to wait till the morning when she felt like herself again.
‘Go on, now.’
‘Oh, my hair’s a real mess,’ Connie said. ‘I’d better keep it on.’
Isla shrugged her shoulders. ‘Suit yourself.’
Connie ate her cake and took another sip of her chocolate, hoping she hadn’t offended her landlady. They both watched the fire for a few minutes and Connie soon found that her vision was blurring as the orange flames danced wildly. Her body began to slump and it was soon a real effort to keep her eyes open.
‘Why, you’re practically nodding off there,’ Isla said. ‘And you’re so pale too.’ She leant forward in her chair. ‘Och, and you’ve not been taking care of your skin. It’s as dry as an autumn leaf.’
Connie flinched, a hand flying up to her face. ‘Is it? But I’ve been using face cream every night.’
‘Some cheap, nasty stuff, no doubt. You should try Benet’s Balm. The monks make it. I swear by it, you know. I’ll let you have some of mine.’
‘Right,’ Connie said.
‘Now, get yourself to bed. A good night’s rest will do you the power of good. Come down for breakfast when you’re good and ready. We don’t have a strict timetable here and you’re my only guest so there’s no rush.’
‘Thank you,’ Connie said, feeling mightily relieved that there was no pressure on her.
As she made her way to her room, she thought about all the people she should call. She should tell her PA, Samantha, that she’d arrived safely, and it would be courteous of her to ring her agent too but, when she saw the bed and the deep soft pillows, she thought better of being courteous. It could wait. Everything could wait.
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