Photographic (33 page)

Tam saw a streetcar go by. “Mommy, I want to ride one of them! Let’s ride one!”

Jane and Ian looked at each other, shrugged and laughed. They wandered up the street, looking for a stop. They didn’t have to walk far. One arrived immediately. People piled off, they piled on, after some women with cloth bags full of purchases bustled on in front of them. The concept of a line didn’t seem too rigid. They entered at the front. Jane held out a handful of Euros, gesturing to her other two family members. The driver picked out the right amount and gave her three tickets, expertly and with no time to lose, for they were moving again, on their way none of them knew where. 

The Itabashi Hotel, Tokyo.
After the premiere, Tam asleep in the room adjoining, Jane and Ian lay in bed, shoes kicked off, facing each other. 

“It’s…”

“I know.”

She put her hand on his forehead. He put his on hers.

“Was it like this, before?” 

“I can’t remember.”

“It’s like something melted, here.” She put her free hand over her heart. “How did we get here, from where we were?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did we have to go through all that, to find out how it could be?”

“I don’t know. I was such a fool. I can’t believe what I said to you, how I defended myself.”

“I’m scared.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re so close. It can’t last. We’ll drift.”

“We’ll drift together again,” he said.

She put her hand over his eyes. He took it away and kissed her palm. “A little faith. Can you ever forgive me?”

“Maybe.”

Back at the flat in London, which now felt like home, they picked up the same set of enthusiastic paparazzi they’d begun to think of as their very own, some they’d seen on the tour, plus a few new enterprising freelancers, resented by the old guard. It was an annoyance to their neighbors, attracted attention, and inevitably, before long, gave away their location to the general public. Specifically, a handful of loyal fans who staked out the flat and caught Ian emerging or returning for autographs and a word or two. Or twenty. Some of them, he didn’t know which, were paid off by paparazzi to stop him so the photographers could get better photos. He didn’t mind autographing for fans. Autographs for the benefit of the vultures grabbing their thousandth picture of him that day, he did mind.

As he signed a set of eight by tens for a nervous teenage boy, who didn't have the fan vibe, Ian tested him out. “So, what’s you’re favorite film?” Ian positioned his back to the phalanx who were videoing and firing away. 

“Eh…I like ‘em awl.” The kid swung from one foot to another in a manner reminiscent of gibbons on nature programs, only not quite as graceful. His long arms hung helplessly as Ian had all the pictures in hand. 

“Oh, come on, you must have one or two you enjoyed a bit more? Okay, which did you like least? What shouldn’t I have done?” He had signed them all by now. It was rather fun seeing the boy sweat it. Did he think he was incognito, and could be paid again by the paps to do it another day? The photos were all different, each one of Ian in character from a different role. This was a fragile pretense. The names of his films were on the photos. 

“I like
‘enner’s Beach
!” the boy said, as Ian handed over the stack of photos. “Keen explosions it ‘ad.”

Ian gave him a light pat on the shoulder as he picked up his groceries and walked up the front steps. “It did. I wasn’t in
Henner’s Beach
, though. Better luck next time.”

He walked inside with a chuckle. They’d gotten a good lock on him today. And would continue to wait outside, of course. Some always stayed outside the house in shifts like a kind of guard duty. Suspecting he might sneak back out and provide an amazing photo opportunity at any moment. For them an amazing photo opportunity was him taking out the trash. Unthinkable, the lengths it all went to. When it was a relatively ordinary day, and he was coming back from doing the marketing, they took pictures of him every step of the way, and would sell them, too. Jane could check a website if she wanted to see what he was up to. Why even ask him, How was your day, honey? It was all documented. 

He wondered, how did today’s picture differ from yesterday’s? He tried to wear the same boring shirt whenever he went out, to perhaps dissuade them from their Sisyphean task. If he looked the same in every damn picture, how could they sell the effing things? As he put away the groceries, pondering such questions, he was unaware of the drama unfolding on the front step.

The front door of the flat opened. Tam came out, glanced at the phalanx, shut the door, and wiggled the handle from side to side. With a nod to herself, she sat down on the front step to study the lineup. The whirring flashes took off, grinding on and on, finally tapering to an occasional burst of light. She blinked.

“Seven in December.” She looked in the direction of a jockey-sized photographer with reddish hair. Everyone turned and looked at him. 

He took the camera away from his face. “Didja say something, luv?”

“I’ll be seven in December. I’m over six and a half. Practically six and three quarters.” Her voice grew louder as she went on. “You asked me how old I was, don’t you remember?” She had sucked in most of her lower lip and scraped it with her upper teeth. 

“Yes, a ‘course. Didn’t think you talked much. You’re a quiet one, you are.”

“I talk. I’m talking right now.”

This set off another round of fire from about half of the contingent, while the other half looked at one another and shuffled their feet. Some of the reluctant half were spurred on by the flurry and snapped off a few rounds to keep up, then lowered their equipment again, with more shuffling and some muttering.

“Do you like London?” 

“Yes. Especially the lions.”

“What’d she say?”

“Eh?”

“Say again?”

“The stone lions. The ones that ate the people. They were real once, and then they were turned into stone so they wouldn’t do it anymore. I like looking at them. Whenever we go to the place with the statues.”

“She talking about Trafalgar Square?”

“Must be.”

“She’s daft, this one.”

“Hush!”

“Do you sleep here?" Tam asked. "Where do you go to the bathroom?”

Tam leaned back in dismay at the raucous laughter that met this practical question. She was concerned that none of them ever knocked or had easy access to a bathroom. She wouldn’t like to be outside someone’s house all day with nowhere to go. 

The compact man she’d addressed drew closer. “Listen here, Miss Tamsin, where’s your Mum at? She might not like your talking to us lot. We’re glad of it, but she like as not wouldn’t be.”

“What’s your name?” 

“Ian.”

“That’s my daddy’s name!”

“Yes. I know.” Another peal of laughter.

“Why are they laughing all the time.” Tam spoke just to the other Ian. This only seemed to egg them on further. 

“They’re idiots. Think they’re too clever by half.” Ian hesitated for a moment, shouldered his camera and crossed the street. The shutters behind him flickered like hummingbirds on the wing. He crouched in front of her. “Listen, luvie, you don’t want to be outside with this lot. They’re a bunch of sharks looking to snap up little fishies like you. They want pictures of your family, understand? So you coming out here is giving ‘em what they want. No human feeling in ‘em. So go back inside and stay with your Mum and Dad where it’s safe. All right?”

At that moment the front door flew open and the other Ian stood in the doorway. His face was marble. He took in the whole scene in an instant. “What’s going on here?” 

Ian the photographer stood and held up his hands in the universal sign of innocence. “The little girl came out and started talking to us. I was just telling her it’d be best for her to go back.”

Ian looked at Tam. “Is that true?”

Tam’s eyes were wide as she gathered she’d done something of enormity. “Yes,” she said in a small voice.

“Did anyone do anything to you?”

Tam opened her mouth and nothing came out at first. “They asked me some questions, and, and, and took my picture a lot of times.”

“Go inside.” She stood there, her shoe rubbing a spot on her other ankle. “Now, Tam. You’re not in trouble. It’s okay.” She turned and went.

Ian walked straight across the street to the photographers, who had been taking pictures up until Tam explained what happened, when they started getting quiet, beginning to perceive they were in for some sort of retribution. Some faded into the background, their cameras tucked behind their backs in case he started grabbing.

The ragtag group of camera hounds left formed a loose semi-circle around him. 

“I know you’re here to make a living.” Ian spoke so they had to lean in. “But that’s a six-year-old girl. That’s illegal in this country, as you very well know. Interviewing her and taking pictures of her by herself is over the line. Do we understand each other?” He met the eyes of every person there, not satisfied until he had a nod from every one. “Right.” He turned and crossed back to where red-haired Ian still stood on the sidewalk. 

“Thank you for looking out for her. She’s getting more independent, hard to keep her in the boundaries sometimes. It’s hard for her to understand things are different here than at home. We live in the country.” Ian offered his hand to the other Ian, who shook it. He went back in the house. 

Red-haired Ian turned to look back at the other photographers, to see if they had taken pictures of the two of them together, and was surprised to see that the sidewalk was empty. He looked up and down the deserted street and scratched the back of his head. He decided to call it a day.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

“W
HAT
ARE
WE
going to do?” 

“I don’t know.” Ian folded his hands and looked down at them.

They had been awoken that morning by a phone call at 5 a.m. Ian picked it up. It was the other Ian, the jockey paparazzi, Tam’s friend. 

“Something’s up. You’re in the news, mate. They’ve got a story, about you and some French bird. I know a chappie gave me a heads-up, seeing how's I follow you. I’d get some extra help, bodyguards or something. You’re gonna need it."

Ian climbed out of bed and stood, holding the phone. “What’s the story, exactly?”

“It’s about you and this bird. How you’ve gone and done her on this picture. It’s you and her messing around for real, something a’ that.”

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

“Sorry, mate. Thought I’d give you a heads-up. They’ve got it all over. It’s no joke.”

“Thanks. I’m…I appreciate it.”

“Sorry again.”

Ian and Jane sat in the dim kitchen, waiting for the coffee and the news, whatever might come with the daylight.

“You know what I think?” 

“What?” He didn’t look up.

“Don’t look so tragic. If we’re right with each other, it doesn’t matter what they say. We’ve done the hard part. They can’t make me do it again, because I already have. So screw them.” 

He smiled faintly, but shook his head. 

“What’s more important to me is where we are. We’re not losing it now.”

He heaved a sigh that went deep, to lung and bone. “Do you understand what this will do?”

She pushed her hands out over the table. “It’ll be bad, I know. The press will have their day.”

“The consequences of this….” He turned away, his voice unsteady. “I’m the bloody fool who did it, so why I should be at all surprised now to find myself in this position, I don’t know.” He turned back and his eyes were suddenly paler and more golden, drained of green, refracting light from a slant of morning sun. “There’s the film. The film will be thrown into chaos. The whole thing will be boiled down into those few minutes in everyone’s mind. I doubt the ratings board will stomach it, so they’ll have to cut that scene out entirely. A little piece of something shameful. That’s all anyone will be able to think about. Never mind how good the rest of the film is. It’ll be a novelty, a joke. All the work, all the money, down the drain.

“Then, other actors. What will they think of me? I can hear it now: ‘Personally, I don’t think I could work with him. Who knows what he might try? The man can’t be trusted.’” My job, the people who want to work with me, my credibility. Fourteen years of hard work destroyed."

He inhaled sharply in a mockery of a laugh. “Do you see? Do you begin to see? Oh, God help me.” He got up and went to the sink, hunching over it. 

Jane folded her arms and put her head down on the cool table for a while. At last, she raised her head. “Ian, some of these consequences must have occurred to you before. The possibility of it coming out had to be there all along. You couldn’t have counted on it being a secret indefinitely. So buck up.”

He whipped around, growling, “You have no idea what we’re in for. None,” and stalked from the room. 

At 7:30 a.m., someone helpfully slipped the
Stargazer
in their mail slot.

LIFE OF REILLY: SEX ON SCREEN NO FICTION

Ian Reilly had unsimulated sex with actress Vaughn Santineau, on camera, for the upcoming film
Odysseus
, a source exclusively revealed to the
Stargazer
. Despite his seven-year-marriage to former makeup artist Jane Reilly, Ian reportedly agreed to engage in extramarital relations with sexy Santineau at the request of Norwegian director Tor Torsten. “Torsten believed this would give the scene a reality and heat that nothing else could,” the source told
Stargazer
. “His wife didn’t know anything about it until after the fact. That’s why she has moved to London. To get away and think over their marriage.”

Ian plays the ancient Greek warrior Odysseus in the high-budget epic due out early next year. Santineau has the role of Circe, a sex-crazed goddess who seduces Ian’s character Odysseus, who coincidentally also has a patient wife waiting at home. “The parallels are eerie. Jane is a wonderful wife and mother. She doesn’t deserve this kind of treatment,” the source added. “This is sure to impact Ian’s career and may destroy his marriage.”