Hearts' Desires (22 page)

             
With an exhausted groan, Vance fell down next to it. He was too tired even to pay attention to his anger. “Thank you,” he m
a
naged gasping for air.

             
“No big deal, my friend,” said his rescuer, stretching his back.
“Couldn’t leave you down there!”

             
Suddenly, Vance remembered the birthday party the ot
h
er man had mentioned. Because of him the guy would be late! He dug in his pockets and found a crumbled bill. He shoved the money into his helper’s big, work worn hands.

             
“Buy your granddaughter something pretty for her birt
h
day!”

             
“Jesus Christ, that’s a hundred US Dollars! I can’t…”

             
“Take it. I don’t have much use of it, anyway.”

             
A dozen heartfelt thank
you’s
answered him. The man got downright misty eyed over his generosity. When his
good
Samaritan finally left, Vance trudged to his Rover and felt more alone than ever.
It was late at night. Some lonely clouds illuminated by silvery moonlight floated across the sky and covered the stars now and then. The hum of various air condition-systems were the only sign of human activity at this hour. Alison stood at the window and stared outside, a little dizzy from the tranquillizers she had taken, but unable to sleep nonetheless. She could see Vance’s bungalow from her window. And the windows were still dark. He was not back – from wherever he had gone to in Max’ Rover. Alison began to feel really sick. All her wo
r
ries and sorrows and regrets seemed to weave themselves into a rope that was going to strangle her slowly.
             
If something happened to him… I know I will never forgive m
y
self!
             
After a while, she went to the mini fridge and helped he
r
self to one of the small bottles of wine offered in the bung
a
low. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea; after all, booze had gotten her into this ‘situ
a
tion’! But at the moment, Alison only wanted to knock herself out, to shut down the thoughts spinning around in her mind somehow. Jake drank; she knew, and lots of her colleagues and friends in the business did as well. Some managed to keep everything more or less under co
n
trol; others made sojourns in a rehab clinic regularly. Well… Welcome to the club!
             
She opened the bottle of wine and started to drain it.
Lauren Bastian fumed at the turn of events as she imagined them. Of course, she had known about Vance’s planned r
o
mantic dinner with Alison. One of the crew had told her, who heard it from Jake
Bertoni
. She had considered it distasteful, to say the least. It had been bad enough to deal with the idea that a man like Vance was bowing and scraping for a boring old Puritan like Alison, but now on top of it that old bitch had apparently told him to hit the road!

             
Lauren got mad just thinking about it. How on earth could someone lucky enough to find such an amazing catch just throw it away? How on earth could this loony woman hurt Vance? At some point of her contemplations, Lauren came very close to marching over to Alison and giving her a piece of her mind.
             
However, then it occurred to her that this was her lucky break! Vance had been an idiot to run after Alison. She didn’t want him? Well, great, women like her didn’t deserve men like Vance anyway! Women like this Alison-chick should hook up with 90-year old eg
g
heads! Hopefully, this experience had set him straight! Musing about this, Lauren calmed down. She lay back on her bed and started to feel hopeful.
Very hopeful, in fact.
When Vance got back to the set, she would be there to comfort him and hold him and show him all imaginable ple
a
sures! He would forget Alison in the blink of an eye! Smiling, Lauren dozed off.
The sound seemed to emanate from the heart of gigantic stomping machinery: roaring, shredding, hurting. It was u
n
bearable. Alison tried to locate the source of the horrible
noise. She discovered that she was lying on the floor next to the bed, curled up in a fetal position. And in fact, she felt as if she had endured a birth. There was still this banging noise…

             
O my God, what the hell is going on out there?
Out there…
Slowly, her memory and her sense of orientation came back.
The bungalow, the set.
Alison tried to stand up. Every bone and muscle in her body uttered a silent cry of pr
o
test, and her head was spi
n
ning. The noise was gone for a moment, and she sighed with relief.
             
But then it started again, accompanied from a voice sounding not pleasant to her at all. Why did everybody always have to roar and shout as if they were in the army?! She blinked, now able to locate the source of the banging. It was her door. And the voice… yes, it sounded like Max… Alison pulled herself together and shu
f
fled to the door.
If I look as bad as I feel…
She swept her hair back, noticed at the last second that she was in her underwear and grabbed her bat
h
robe.
             
“Alison? Thank God! I was about ready to break down the door! We were worried about you!”
             
“I’m sorry… It was… I was…” She tried with all her might to stay upright and speak clearly AND ignore the overall pain nagging at her. “Think I might come down with something and….
And had a really bad night.
I’ll take an Aspirin now.”
Or two or three.
             
“We are about to leave, everything is packed and loaded on the bus and the cars.”
             
Heavens…
She rubbed her forehead. “How late is it?”
             
“Almost 1 PM.”
             
“Max, why didn’t you wake me?”
             
“
It’s
okay, Alison. We all agreed you might need a little rest. And we thought the noise we made would wake you soon anyway.” Max attempted a reassuring, lighthearted
smile, but wasn’t very successful. Nothing was okay. They had postponed the truth until now, but the time was pressing. He couldn’t spare her any longer.
             
“Alison.” Max sighed. “There is another problem. Vance isn’t back yet. We contacted the police.”
             
She clasped her hands around the doorframe. The world was spinning again.

             
O no…
don’t
say it, just don’t say it!
             
“He is neither in custody nor in a hospital. We already asked in the pub and restaurants of the village. We cannot
initiate an official search yet;
a person has to be missing for at least 48 hours accor
d
ing to regulations. We have to wait –“
             
Alison gasped for air. She might have fainted, if Max hadn’t put an arm around her as precaution. In any case, she was tre
m
bling and felt like throwing up any minute.

             
This cannot happen to you!
She
reprimanded herself with all her remaining strength.
Get a grip!
Dammit
! You cannot behave like that! In front of everyone!

             
She inh
aled deeply. “Max, we have to…”
             
Yelling and shouting of the sort she would call head-splitting at the moment, interrupted her.
             
Max turned around. The next instant, they both under
s
tood what Thabo was shouting: “Hey, Vance is back!”
             
And already the Rover reached the yard in front of the bung
a
lows, stirring up little dust clouds in the midday heat. Alison shaded her eyes and retreated a bit further back into her bung
a
low, not wanting to show too much of her
self in her present cond
i
tion.
Vance climbed out of the car and waved in Max’ direction. “Sorry I’m late! I’m going to hurry now.”
             
Alison was relieved to see he was ok. But in the next moment her relief turned to anger.
He is not nearly in as bad a shape as I am! I almost died from worrying – we ALL did – and Mister Van Sorel is as happy as can be! Just look at him!
             
“Great, Max,” she said fuelled by annoyance, “now that he’s back from his little joyride, we should see that we don’t miss our flight tonight!”
             
She breathed deeply again. The anger was a convenient we
a
pon against hangover, she discovered, and let it grow a bit more. Why had she been worried at all?
About what?
His feelings?!?
Rid
i
culous! Obviously, he was already over it! She had pulled the emergency break just in time!
             
On his way back, Vance had decided to lock up his em
o
tions in a dungeon. There, they would either wither away or he would kill them. He didn’t need a woman that bad! He could live alone, if he had to. He still had his work; this kept him busy enough most of the time. And if not – there were plenty of opportunities in his business to “ease tension”. Noneth
e
less, the wall he had built in all haste to close in his emotions was not that strong yet. Now, seeing Alison standing there, half hidden in the shadow of her doorway, it a
l
ready started to crack. Alison looked so… frail and sad! If she would only take ONE step in his direction! He knew he would run and clasp her in his arms! But – no step. Not even a word.
             
She had turned around and closed the door.
             
“Are you okay, Vance?” asked Jake. “We were pretty wo
r
ried, man!”
             
Vance forced a smile, that didn’t reach his eyes. “Which lion would eat a tough old goat like me?! – The car broke down and had to be fixed, and I didn’t have my cell phone with me. That’s all. Let me go, have a shower and throw my stuff in the bags, so we can leave!” He marched off to his bungalow.
             
Max and Jake exchanged a worried look. But for now, the timetable forced them to drop the subject.
             
Only later, when the crew and cast sat in the bus to Cape Town airport, Jake found the time for a talk with his old friend. However, Vance wasn’t interested at all. He buried himself in
his script and pretended to study his remaining sequences with great intensity. At the moment it wasn’t so bad to play a grumpy, pissed-off-by-live-character like
Arend
Marens
, he mused, since he had to work in such a shitty, boring, far-fetched romance crap at all! Vance would have preferred to star in something more violent and action-loaded right now! Maybe the studio would produce another sequel for
‘Desert Heat’
? He was just in the right mood to play that evil ex-con one more time!
             
“Vance? Did you hear me?”
             
“Jake, sorry.
Have to concentrate on my lines.”
             
“C’mon, pal! I bet you know them back and forth by now and have translated them into Chinese in your head!”
             
“I don’t want to talk.”
             
“So listen, instead!” Jake said, and continued with low voice: “Don’t act like two stubborn mules, you and Alison!”
             
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Vance turned the page of the script and stared at the next lines, but they might as well really have been written in Chinese, because he couldn’t grasp any of it. His mind was simply elsewhere.
             
“I’ve known Alison for a long time. And I can tell you, she was damned worried about you yeste
rday! She was not he
r
self!
She
--”
             
“Yes.”
Vance glanced to Alison, who sat in the rear, cold, unimpressed and faultless like a marble statue with black sunglasses. He turned back. “I can exactly imagine how she broke down in tears,” he answered sarcastically.
             
“Vance, you two have to sort this out!”
             
“There’s nothing to sort out, believe me. I know all I have to know! So stop pestering me about it!” He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.