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,