The Passage (32 page)

My heartbeat quickened as I stepped out of the lift, greeted the receptionist, and made my way toward Lawrence Spellman’s office.  I was actually surprised that he was in London during the shooting of the series, but he’d come up for the weekend and stayed through Monday, taking care of some paperwork before returning to Cranleigh tomorrow morning.  I would have gone back to Surrey to speak to him, but this was preferable.  I wasn’t ready to face the rest of the crew or Max, whose reaction to seeing me could be volatile.  I still burned with anger every time I thought of Max.  It was one thing to be a self-serving ponce, but to actually attempt murder against an innocent person was monstrous.  The depth of his hatred frightened me, and I found myself frequently looking over my shoulder, expecting Max to be lurking in a doorway or turning the corner, his desire for revenge against Hugo clouding his judgment, if he had any, and driving him to commit a terrible crime.

“Enter,” Lawrence called out, and I timidly stepped into his office.  Lawrence Spellman always reminded me of an undertaker or a clerk in some Dickensian law firm.  He was slight and balding, his round spectacles perched on his nose, and his “uniform” a black suit with a white shirt and conservative, dark-colored tie.  For a creative person, he looked like anything but.  Lawrence had never been married, had no children, and as far as anyone at the office knew was probably still a virgin despite being in his early fifties.  He made wonderful films though, full of romance, passion, and longing.

“She lives!” Spellman announced as I walked into his office and took a seat. 

“Lawrence, I’m so sorry,” I began.

“Neve, you know that I’m not a stickler for company rules, but you could have at least called – or texted.  You don’t just disappear for nearly two months without a word to anyone.”  Spellman tried to look stern, but his gaze was one of concern.  “Are you all right?” he asked kindly.

“I think so,” I mumbled, putting on my best “girl trying not to fall apart” act.  “I just had some sort of breakdown.  You know; Evan, and all that…”  I let the sentence hang since Lawrence knew of my miscarriage.

“Neve, I know you haven’t had an easy time of it, but you can’t just vanish.  We were all worried about you.  I called the police, but they informed me that you were just hiding somewhere.  Where were you?”

I made a vague gesture with my hand, indicating that I was here and there, but nowhere precisely.  “Lawrence, I know you are angry, but please, can I have my job back?  I promise it won’t happen again.  I’ve been a model employee for years.  This was my first transgression,” I pleaded.  Being out of work right now was not an option.

“All right,” Lawrence replied gruffly.  “You can have your job back, but if you so much as disappear for a few hours without notifying me, you’re out.”

“So, what projects are coming up?” I asked, hoping to distract him from my inexplicable behavior.

“There’s a World War II drama in the works, but I’ve sent the script back to be tweaked, and a series about a posh hotel right here in London.  Naturally, it will be filled with the shenanigans of the staff and the guests,” Lawrence said happily.

“Naturally,” I replied, smiling.  Lawrence was the only person I knew who’d actually use the word “shenanigans,” but if I knew the man, “shenanigans” would be an understatement.  This was just the kind of thing Lawrence loved; developing characters who would grow and change throughout the series and take viewers by surprise when they least expected it. 

“Of course, the series will be filmed mostly on set since we can hardly take over an actual five-star hotel for the duration.  I will, however, need you to find me some suitable locations for filming right here in London; clubs, spas, restaurants, places where wealthy guests would go while in London.  You can start next week.  Why don’t you take the rest of the week off and get your head on straight?  You look a bit peaky.”

“Thanks, Lawrence.  I appreciate it,” I replied, grateful for the extra time off, which I assumed would be paid.  I needed to figure out what to do with Hugo.  “Is Glenn here?”

“Yes, he’s in his lair, I believe,” Lawrence grumbled, already caught up in reading some letter.

**

I made my way through the office as unobtrusively as I could.  Everyone knew of my disappearance, and the last thing I wanted was to answer a bunch of questions from nosy co-workers.  Thankfully, most people were in Surrey on location, so the only people around were those who saw to the administrative duties of the company and were too comatose on a Monday morning to pay much attention to a woman who’d pulled a disappearing act, but had the audacity to come back and ruin a perfectly good mystery and source of water cooler gossip.

Glenn Coolidge was in his studio, surrounded by equipment and tooling with something as I came in.  His black spiky hair was wilder than ever, and his intelligent gray eyes danced with mirth as he saw me enter.  Glenn was the resident computer genius, the person who supervised the Special Effects department and could create, hack, or manipulate any data he could get his hands on.

“Neve, you’re not dead,” he announced.  “Did you bring me a cuppa?”  I set a cup of black coffee in front of him and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“No, I’m not dead, thank you for noticing.  Only you would skip comments about the weather and just blurt that out.”

“I’m American; I don’t do comments about the weather.  Where’ve you been?”  Glen invited me to sit down and took a sip of coffee.  No one ever came to see Glenn without bringing a cup of black coffee with two sugars. 

“I’ve had some personal problems.  You know how that can be.”  If anyone knew about personal difficulties it would be Glenn.  He was currently part of a triad with a married couple, sharing their flat and bed, and battling his ex-wife in court for visitation rights with his daughter.  His living situation did not make a custody hearing any easier, nor did it help him make a favorable impression on the judge.  I’m not sure how I would feel if the father of my child was openly living in a ménage a trois, but it was none of my affair, and I liked Glenn enormously, no matter what he did.  He was one of the funniest, craziest guys I knew – and a real friend.

“What is it, my girl?” Glenn asked as he studied me over the rim of the cup.  “You look like you want to ask me something, but don’t really know how to phrase it.”  No one could ever accuse Glenn of being obtuse.  He practically read people’s minds as if he could access a microchip in their brain and download all the data a la
Star Trek
.

“Glenn, how difficult would it be to obtain a… eh… fake passport?” I stammered.

“For whom?” Glenn asked suspiciously.

“For a friend,” was all I was willing to volunteer.

Glenn set down his cup and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms behind his head and studying me as if he just discovered that I wasn’t at all what I’d been pretending to be.  He was about to say something then changed his mind, shaking his head as if arguing with himself silently. 

“Glenn??” I prompted.

“Look, Neve, I might know of some people who could furnish you with a fake British passport for a large sum of money, but you’re my friend, and I would not advise it.  If there is any other way – take it.”

“Why wouldn’t you advise it, and how much would it cost?” I asked. 
 

Glenn rubbed his chin as he looked at me, trying to gauge how serious I was about getting involved in criminal activity.  “Look, years ago a passport was enough to establish an identity, but things have changed.  We live in a digital world where your electronic trail begins before you’re even born.  I’m sure MI5 could pull up pictures of your mother’s ultrasounds and determine whether you have your father’s nose or your mother’s ears before you were even born.  A person needs more than just a form of credible identification.  When the fake passport is scanned by a customs officer or a prospective employer, all kinds of flags will be raised.  Where was this person born, where did they go to school, when did they get their driver’s license, and where is the record of their previous employment?  You need a whole file to go along with your passport; you need a life.”

“I see.  They make it look so easy in American movies,” I quipped, feeling hollow inside.  What was I to do now?  This was my only idea to date.  “Is there any way to make it work?”

“I’m not really sure, but I think that if you use your fake passport to drive across the border in some remote spot, you might have a better chance than leaving from, say, Heathrow.  The officials on the other side of the border will not be as interested in your past exploits as long as the passport looks legit, but re-entering the country might be tricky.  Neve, what are you up to?”

“Nothing.  It was just a rhetorical question.  I’m trying to write a crime novel,” I improvised.  Glenn liked to gossip, so although I knew he wouldn’t blab about something as sensitive as this, I didn’t want to give him any ammunition against me, just in case.

“Really?  I tried writing once.  I like horror, like Stephen King, but nothing I wrote was even remotely scary.  I read a passage to my wife, ex-wife, and she just laughed in my face,” Glenn recounted with a grimace. 

“Is that why you divorced?”

“No, we divorced because she caught me in bed with a man, which was apparently much scarier than anything I could write,” he said bitterly.  “It had nothing to do with her.  I still loved her as much as ever.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to this, so I just thanked him and left, gutted that my clever plan had just gone up in smoke.  I couldn’t risk Hugo getting arrested the minute he used his identification, and without it, how could he do anything?  If Hugo were to stay with me in the twenty-first century, he needed to work.  I’d thought that perhaps I could send him to some computer course, which would teach him the basics and enable him to get some sort of employment, but now I knew that wouldn’t work.  Without legal ID, all Hugo could do was some kind of manual labor which paid cash, such as loading trucks or washing dishes for someone who was willing to cheat the government.  And that would never do.

I felt despondent as I walked down the street, reluctant to go home and tell Hugo that my grand plan had failed.  I honestly had no idea what to try next, and I knew that Hugo was too much of a man to just live off me and accept a life of idleness and utter insignificance.  The world had changed much over the centuries, but some things remained the same.  A person couldn’t just drop into a place and build a life for themselves without help.  From the beginning of time people have belonged to families, tribes, guilds, unions, and churches.  Without the connections forged over a lifetime, a person would be relegated to living on the fringes of society, and that was never easy.  Hugo had grown up a nobleman, a man who was secure in his position and comfortable financially and physically.  He’d never done a day’s work.  How could I tell him that he’d have to unload trucks or stock shelves in some grocery, not temporarily, but possibly for the rest of his life?  He wouldn’t complain, but I knew it would be a terrible blow to his self-esteem, and would ultimately change him into someone either of us barely recognized.

By the end of May, our life settled into a kind of strange routine.  I went to work, while Hugo, armed with
London A-Z
, my library card, and a bagged lunch, went off to explore.   He refused to accept any money from me, so walked all around London on foot.  At first, he picked particular destinations, but later on, I think he just walked wherever his feet happened to take him just to have something to do.  He must have covered miles as he crossed London from side to side, but he couldn’t bear to stay cooped up in the flat, and he needed something to tire him out enough to allow him to sleep at night and not dwell on his situation.  Hugo was in Limbo, and in turn, so was I. 

Hugo had discovered St. Francis of Assisi Catholic church in Notting Hill Gate and went regularly.  I hoped that he’d speak to the priest and maybe find some solace without revealing too much, but we both knew the situation was untenable.  Hugo never complained, but he’d grown more silent and less affectionate, his lovemaking more aggressive than tender.  I could understand how he felt, and my mind rarely strayed very far from the situation at hand.  I’d saved his life, but what kind of life could I offer him in return?  The excitement and wonder of this new world quickly waned, leaving Hugo feeling out of place and out of time.  He wasn’t the type of man to be content with simply being alive; his basic human needs taken care of by someone else.  Hugo needed to feel useful and productive; he needed to take pride in his achievements and be the man of the house, the protector and provider, not a kept man, living in a two-room flat with his girlfriend.

It was quite by chance that I came upon a solution, albeit a temporary one.  I had to take a ride out to Hawthorne Stables in Bayswater, a place I visited often since most of our costume dramas required the use of horses.  The owner, Dmitri Kouros, was a second-generation Greek immigrant, who never forgot the hospitality of his native land.  He always invited me into the office and plied me with ouzo and his mother’s homemade baklava, despite my protests.  I really couldn’t abide ouzo, but the baklava was a weakness of mine, and Maria Kouros made it like no other.  I was on my third piece when Dmitri went into his usual tirade about the lack of help at the stables. 

“Young people don’t want these types of jobs,” he grumbled.  “They want to dress in a fine suit and go sit behind a computer terminal all day in some tiny cubicle.  Show me a young man who wants to muck out stables, in London of all places?  I get some animal-loving teenagers during the summer, but they all leave by fall, and I’m short-staffed again.” 

Dmitri took a sip of ouzo and snorted with disgust.  “I have to do half the work myself.  At least I still have a few riding instructors left, but for how long?”

“Dmitri,” I began, accepting a glass of the hated ouzo and making great pretense of admiring the aroma.  “I have a friend who’s very good with horses and needs a job, but he’s not quite legal… yet.  Is there any chance…?”

I was gratified to see Dmitri perk up a bit.  “Good with horses, you say?  He has experience, this friend?”

“Oh, yes.  Used to own a stable full of horses in his homeland, but times are tough.”  I took a sip of ouzo and nearly choked.  It was like drinking spiked cough syrup. 

“Where’s your friend from?” Dmitri asked.

“Here and there,” I replied and winked at Dmitri.  “What do you say?  Give him a try?”

“All right, bring him in, and I promise I won’t ask any questions.  It’s 8-6, six days a week, fifty pounds a day.  That’s my offer.  If he gives me any trouble, he’s out on his ear.”

“Deal.  I’ll bring him tomorrow.”  I shoved the last piece of baklava in my mouth and gave Dmitri a sticky kiss on the cheek.  “See you tomorrow then.”

**

I wasn’t sure how Hugo would take to doing such a menial job, but I thought he might be pleased to have something to do.  I was right; Hugo was thrilled.  The prospect of earning three hundred pounds a week was most welcome, since he still tended to think of money as having the same value it had in his own day.  Three hundred pounds was a lot of money in 1685, so Hugo didn’t quite realize that he wasn’t going to be making a fortune.  In either case, I was glad that he was happy and eager to contribute something to the running of the household.  Hugo would have been wonderful at teaching adults and children how to ride, but he’d have to come into contact with customers who might unwittingly cause trouble for us.  He needed to stay behind the scenes, and he understood that.

Hugo started the following day, and I kept checking my phone all day to see if there might be a message from Dimitri, but all seemed to be well, and Hugo arrived at home by 7 p.m.  He was hot, smelled strongly of horses, and was starving, but he had a smile on his face, something that had been in short supply of late.

“How was it?” I asked as I presented him with chicken parmigiana and spaghetti with marinara sauce.  I enjoyed introducing him to new foods, which he tried without complaint.  I knew he didn’t like many things, but this was one of his favorites and he tucked in.  Hugo’s hair was still damp from the shower, and the T-shirt stretched across his wide shoulders, reminding me of just how attractive he was, especially when happy.  He’d grudgingly permitted me to buy him some clothes, and his wardrobe now consisted of T-shirts, jeans, and trainers.

“It was good.  Felt nice to be around horses again.”

“And Dmitri?”

“He’s a nice man,” Hugo replied cautiously.  “Likes to talk.”

“Did he pump you for information?”

“He tried, but I just gave him vague answers.  Don’t worry, Neve, I understand what’s at stake.”

“I know you do,” I replied in a conciliatory manner.  “I just wanted to make sure you had a nice day.”

Hugo gave me a loaded look over his wineglass.  Mucking out horseshit was not what most people would think of as a nice day, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, could they?

And so, a new normal had begun for us, but it didn’t last long.