Ordinary Joe Read online

  Ordinary Joe

  JON TECKMAN

  Copyright

  The Borough Press,

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

  Copyright © Jon Teckman 2015

  Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

  Cover photographs © Henry Steadman

  Jon Teckman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  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.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American 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

  Ebook Edition © July 2015 ISBN: 9780008118785

  Source ISBN: 9780008118778

  Version 2015-05-18

  Dedication

  For Mum who so loved books

  and

  for Mike who so loved life

  ‘[you are both] so much in my thoughts at all times especially when I am successful and have greatly prospered in anything, that the recollection of [you] is an essential part of my being’

  after Charles Dickens

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Queens, New York

  Mill Hill, London

  Manhattan, New York

  Somewhere Over the Atlantic

  Heathrow Airport, London

  Mill Hill, North London

  City of London

  Mill Hill, North London

  City of London

  Brent Cross, North London

  City of London

  West End, London

  City of London

  West End of London

  Mill Hill, North London

  City of London

  Balham, South London

  Mill Hill, North London

  City of London

  Mill Hill, North London

  Heathrow Airport, London

  Cannes, South of France

  City of London

  Mill Hill, North London

  City of London

  Los Angeles, California

  Mill Hill, North London

  Near Hendon, North London

  The North Circular Road, North London

  Near Braintree, Essex

  Mill Hill, North London

  City of London

  Mill Hill, North London

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  QUEENS, NEW YORK

  The first thing I noticed about Olivia Finch – that very first time I saw her in the flesh – wasn’t her breasts bouncing like pale pink pomegranates as she worked herself into a frenzy on her lover’s lap, nor even her ‘billion-dollar backside’ – an epithet conferred upon her in a recent article in Variety, which reported that ‘Olivia Finch’s rear end is now a bigger box office draw than the faces of most of her Hollywood rivals.’ No – God’s truth – the first thing I noticed was the small, amateurish tattoo scratched into her left bicep in blue ink. ‘John 3:16’ it read. I looked it up in the Gideon when I got back to my room that evening: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. I asked her about it later – when all the madness was at its maddest – and she told me it was just a stupid thing she’d had done when she was a kid and off her face on cheap booze. But, she said, she still liked the message: the idea that one person could love another so much that they would give up everything for them.

  That first time, all I could think about was how come I’d never noticed the tattoo before. It certainly hadn’t been apparent in her Oscar-nominated role as Cleopatra in the recent remake of Antony and Cleopatra. They must have CGI-ed it out in the edit. It’s impossible to know what’s real and what’s faked in the movies these days. Olivia’s breasts looked real enough, but who knows what work she’d had done to them. And what she was doing to her co-star Jack Reynolds – while a small group of us stood watching in spellbound silence, occasionally nodding our appreciation as the couple pulled off a particularly complex manoeuvre – looked real too, but, of course, was only acting.

  I was standing in a makeshift studio in Queens, dressed in a set of ill-fitting blue overalls, watching top director Arch Wingate re-shoot scenes for his latest movie, Nothing Happened. Standing next to me, his huge frame squeezed uncomfortably into a similar outfit, stood the film’s producer, Buddy Guttenberg, beaming like a spoiled child on Christmas morning. The overalls had been his idea. ‘I’ve been in this business twenty-five years, Joey,’ he’d told me as we put on our costumes in an empty trailer in the studio car park, ‘and I still haven’t been allowed on a closed set unless I’ve been togged up as a gaffer or fucking electrician.’

  Wingate had a justified reputation for being a perfectionist. The joke in Hollywood was that he would still be re-editing the film while the posters were going up outside the cinema. His passion and attention to detail made him one of the best film-makers in the business but also one of the most expensive. As one of the people responsible for raising the money for this film and ensuring a return on our investment, I should have been concerned about how much he was spending on almost imperceptible improvements to his creation. As a film buff, though, I was delighted by the chance to watch the great man in action.

  ‘Bit more passion, please, Olly,’ Wingate shouted as the couple cavorted wildly on the oversized bed. ‘Jack, move your left leg across to the right half a foot so I can get a better view of Olly’s butt as she straddles you. That’s it! And give it a bit more energy, guys, OK? You’re supposed to be enjoying this!’

  Somehow, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for this beautiful couple to be making mad, passionate love in a tandoori-hot building on a warm October afternoon while Buddy and I looked on like spectators at a lawn tennis championship.

  ‘So what do you reckon, Joe? Happy with the way we’re spending your money?’ Buddy whispered from the corner of his mouth, elbowing me sharply in the ribs to make sure he had my full attention.

  ‘It’s amazing, Buddy,’ I replied. ‘The camera angles Mr Wingate is going for are incredible. No one else would dream of shooting it like that.’

  ‘Camera angles?’ Buddy laughed, ‘Fuck the camera angles, Joey – have you ever seen tits like those? Jesus, Mary and Joseph! She’s like the Venus de fucking Milo with arms! That girl is so hot she’s melting the polar ice caps all by herself. Those UN Climate Conference guys are considering having her banned to save the fucking planet.’

  After half an hour of repeated takes of the same scene – each one, to my untrained eye, exactly the same as the last – Arch Wingate announced a break. The actors were handed robes and bottles of water and did a few warming-down exercises, Jack Reynolds flexing and admiring his biceps while Olivia laid the palms of her hands flat on the ground six inches in front of her
feet, stretching her hamstrings.

  ‘Hey Arch,’ Buddy bawled, ‘meet my good friend Joe West from Askett Brown in London. He’s the guy who raised all the money you’re now chucking away on this meshugganah movie. He was just admiring your camera angles!’

  Wingate smiled and shook my hand. ‘Glad to meet you, Joe, and thanks for all your work on this. I really appreciate it. Tell me, is there enough cash left in the budget to hire a hit man to get rid of this fat putz?’

  I stammered back that I was pleased to meet him and how much I enjoyed his work, but stopped short of agreeing to his request for extra funding. I stood and listened to these Hollywood legends as they exchanged further insults, speaking only when spoken to like a well-behaved child. When the actors walked past on their way to their makeshift dressing rooms, Buddy called them over too.

  ‘Hey folks, come and meet the guy who’s paying your wages!’ The actors smiled indulgently at me, enjoying the joke. They knew as well as Buddy that it was their names attached to the production that pulled the money in, not me. Everyone was, in effect, on their payroll.

  Close up, Olivia Finch had an aura that transcended her physical beauty, lighting up the room more brightly than the thousands of kilowatts of energy pouring from the hot studio lights. Even her feet, peeping out from beneath her long robe, seemed perfect.

  ‘Hi,’ she purred in a soft Southern whisper, taking my hand momentarily in hers, ‘nice to know ya.’

  I tried to reply with an intelligent comment about her work, but all I could manage was an adolescent grunt. While I blushed and burbled, Olivia showed no sign of concern that I had just seen her knicker-naked, throwing herself around in mock ecstasy. There was no more reason for her to be embarrassed by me watching her work than if she’d caught me poring over a particularly complex set of accounts.

  MILL HILL, LONDON

  ‘Are you sure you’ve packed everything?’ my wife Natasha called up the stairs. ‘Passport? Dollars? Socks?’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ I called back, reaching into my underwear drawer to pull out a couple more pairs of socks and throwing them into my suitcase, then checking inside my jacket to confirm that my passport was, indeed, in my pocket. I travelled to the US – either to Los Angeles or, as in this case, New York – seven or eight times a year, but each time we would still go through this pantomime as if, for Natasha, two small children weren’t enough and she was intent on treating me like a third.

  I zipped and locked my suitcase, then wrapped a personalised red, white and blue luggage strap around it, ostensibly for extra security but also to help me identify it when it belly-flopped onto the baggage carousel at JFK. I stuffed a few final papers and the latest Stephen King novel into my briefcase and switched off the light as I headed out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Natasha was waiting for me at the bottom, ready to give me some further instructions, while also keeping an eye on Helen and Matthew as they wrestled on the ground nearby.

  ‘You’re sure you have your passport, love,’ she asked, ‘and your tickets. Remember what happened last time.’

  ‘It wasn’t last time, Nat, it was three years ago. And since then I’ve made loads of trips abroad and never forgotten anything.’

  ‘What about a travel plug? We must have dozens of the bloody things upstairs because you have to buy a new one every time you get to Heathrow.’

  Damn! She had me there – and she knew it. Without saying another word, she slipped back up the stairs, returning a few moments later with a plug to meet the needs of the New York electrical system.

  ‘Thank you, love,’ I said, then, ‘my taxi’s here. Better get going.’ The children interrupted their version of The Hunger Games just long enough for me to give them each a hug and plant a kiss on their perfect wrinkle-free, unblemished foreheads.

  I kissed Natasha on the lips, more dutiful than romantic now after so many departures. The runway scene from Casablanca this was not.

  ‘Have fun,’ she said as I turned to make my lonely way out of the house.

  ‘What? With Bennett there? I can’t imagine it being a barrel of laughs, can you?’

  ‘Fair point,’ said Natasha. ‘Well, try not to let him annoy you too much. It’s only a few days.’

  The door clicked behind me and I took a couple of steps down the path before I was stopped by a thought – an important thought – that ambled up from my fingers through my nervous system to my brain. I fumbled for my keys and turned again to face the house. Before I could insert the key in the door, though, it opened and there stood Natasha, a grin splitting her face from ear to ear.

  ‘Travel safely, you schmuck!’ she said, as she handed me my briefcase and closed the door.

  MANHATTAN, NEW YORK

  I still loved New York. Every time I cleared the airport and drove into the city in the back of a yellow cab, I could hear the strains of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and the opening lines of Woody Allen’s Manhattan playing inside my head. I had been here many times since my first visit – not long before 9/11 changed the skyline forever but did nothing to dent the pugnacious, optimistic spirit of the natives. Even from that first visit, the city had been a curious mixture of the new and the familiar. So many of the sights and sounds, even, bizarrely, the smells, were already known to me from movies and TV programmes that I never felt like a stranger here. And yet, even after many visits, I could still be startled by something unforeseen: the hidden squares, an eagle soaring over Central Park, even the sight of a thief on a bicycle stealing rolls from a hotdog van and pedalling off down Broadway like an Olympic competitor while the vendor hurled Bronx-tinted insults at his departing form.

  And I still loved the movie business. The whole crazy, over-the-top, passionate, extraordinary process of turning stories into frames of film (or, these days, pixels) with which to captivate millions of strangers sitting silently in the dark. I was one of the money men – one of the guys behind the scenes who helped to introduce the money to the story and hoped they’d enjoy a long and fruitful relationship. That was why I’d been invited by Buddy Guttenberg (the most over-the-top and passionate movie man of them all) to watch the final re-shoot of Nothing Happened and that was why I was back in New York for the film’s world premiere. I had been to a lot of these fancy industry events – but I’d yet to grow tired of them. Whatever the films themselves were like, the parties were usually great, dripping with celebrities, money and Hollywood’s trademark extravagance.

  One thing threatened to spoil my enjoyment that night. My new boss, Joseph Bennett, was my ‘date’ for the evening. Bennett was living, walking proof that God could not possibly have created man in His own image. He was an over-ambitious, untrustworthy, supercilious, arrogant prick (Bennett, I mean, obviously), who had been identified early in his career as someone destined to climb to the very top at Askett Brown.

  I had never been on anyone’s list of those most likely to succeed, but I’d found my niche in the growing media sector and had done pretty well. It was only in the last few years that Bennett’s superior confidence and connections had seen him rise above me. Now he had been promoted to head the Entertainment and Media Division – my division. Having spent his entire career in the mineral extraction sector, Bennett knew plenty about oil and gas, but less than zilch about the movie business.

  This would be Bennett’s first – and, as it turned out, last – film premiere. After all the build-up and hoop-la and the standing ovations as the talent arrived and took their seats, the film itself was disappointing. For all Arch Wingate’s attention to detail, he seemed to have missed the most important element for any film – a decent script. When it was over, I left the cinema as quickly as possible to avoid having to tell anyone intimately involved in its conception and delivery what I thought of their efforts. Nobody wants to hear they’ve given birth to a disappointing baby. I didn’t even wait in my seat long enough to see my name flash past at the end of the credits, or join in the over-enthusiastic applause. I grabbed Bennett and we made
our way quickly up Broadway to the aftershow party at a glitzy restaurant near Central Park.

  I had been there for lunch once before, but now, all done up for a top Hollywood event, the venue had been transformed. Multicoloured flashing lights bounced off the mirrors that adorned every possible surface, reflecting back on themselves, making it seem like we were in the middle of a newly discovered constellation. Beyond the elaborately decorated tables there was a small dance floor, beside which an aged six-piece band were playing gentle swing tunes, easing people into the evening.

  I hate the opening moves of any formal social occasion – having to find someone to talk to who’ll find me interesting too. Not easy for an accountant, I can assure you. Bennett shared none of my inhibitions. Within seconds of our arrival he had attached us to a group of bewildered studio employees, introduced us and, on discovering they were junior back-office staff, made our excuses and moved on. This process was repeated several times as he swept through the party desperate to find someone of suitable seniority to engage in meaningful conversation.

  Eventually I spotted a couple of people I knew from Buddy’s production company, Printing Press Productions, and persuaded Bennett they were worth talking to.

  ‘Hi Len, Di,’ I said as we approached, shaking his hand and giving her a hug. ‘How’s married life, then? Carl still treating you OK?’

  ‘Fantastic, thanks,’ Len laughed, ‘but don’t they say the first year is always the easiest? Besides, I only got married so I can treat myself to a fabulous divorce when I get bored with him!’