Chapter Four

Time was getting on, he was going to be late, and Orlando Bloom quickly scraped his fingers through his wet hair. Christ knows where that bloody comb went… any how what did he care? He was only going out down the road, few drinks; no one was going to see. Right. Except the twenty or so paparazzi and ergo the entire world, well alright not the entire world- some might have something a little more interesting on their agenda- like Poverty- their own or someone else’s, impending World War, that sort of thing. Surely no one really gave a shit if his trousers were creased- he grinned to himself as he pulled up his pants, ah shit, no clean t shirt, ah well I like this one anyhow, and he pulled it over his still damp back…Grabbing the keys to his car he slammed the door behind him and set off for that coffee house Cup o’ Chinos, yeah that was it.

His mates were already there, sitting outside on those chrome seats that either burnt yer ass in the sun or froze it, like sitting on lines of ice pops, and he waved as he pulled up a little crookedly against the curve. Ah fuck it, there were no wardens around and anyhow- he was a film star, he should be allowed some vices right? Johnny got to smack photographers, do drugs and drink to excess, screw all the top models; he got to park his car badly. Orlandolaughed out loud, well you had to laugh at your own jokes right? The table was already jammed with  those huge cups that contained enough coffee to keep you awake for a week, trendy South American beers and full ashtrays, with an unpleasant scrape of metal on pavement he pulled up a chair to join them just as the waitress arrived.

Megan had been distracted all morning, dying to get back to her computer to discover more little snippets about this Ned Kelly and the Gang, the little bit she had seen so far however was salutary reading, unfortunately the events never got any happier which ever site one went to, you weren’t rewarded with a happy ending just the once. What she did find out though was that Heath was filming in Europe now, the Brothers Grimm…haah surely he had just done that one. She was still thinking about the aspects of Ned’s life, how he struggled to get his work published and how he had died with so much more to say, when she found herself staring rather blankly at the white notepad in her hand, ah yes an order to take and her head lifted up. Holy Shit. Now there was a sight for sore eyes.

“What can I do for you…I mean get you?”

A perfect soft southern English voice answered well that and a slightly cheeky grin that said he recognised that look “Green Tea please, if that’s not too much trouble in a coffee house”

No No! Trouble? Pah! I’ll just nip over to China and pick the freshest newest leaves for you- back shortly, just stay exactly where you are now…Ok then, not that “Of course not, we have all kinds of tea- the rooibosh is good too, you like that? Though I never liked a fruit tea myself unless it has some honey, too sharp you know what I mean?” Ok so she was babbling just a little

“Green will be fine thank you.” He watched his p’s and q’s, that is for sure, and Megan did her best not to trip up walking back into the café.

“Bloody hell! Orlando Bloom is outside! I knew there must be some perks to working in this hole!” She handed over the order to the girl behind the counter and craned her neck to have another look, a collective craning of necks in fact. Marion, who was in charge of the cappuccino machine by night and a PhD student in Linguistics by day, leaned into Megan as she loaded her tray with frothy chocolate sprinkled bowls.

“Must be your lucky night then- bagging table 3, that and some Irish bloke just came in asking for you- I told him it was nearly your break so he said he would wait- he is out the back having a fag, where you been hiding him then? Cute ass” Whatever else she had a way with words, the right degree course evidently

Megan smiled “Oh that’s just Jamie”

“Ain’t no ‘just’ about him love…” Marion smiled and disappeared off into the dark recesses of the sofa lounge.

In the side lane Jamie leant back against the wall and slid his hand into a pocket for his cigarettes. He had had his own shaky kind of day, which wasn’t such a good plan on a building site, likely to get himself or someone else killed, but he’d hardly slept. Emmy had been good company through the rest of that fillum, held his hand and let him kiss her so he didn’t see that bit again…Jesus...but he could hear it, “I think I need a drink”, the smash of the glass in that fella’s hand the sickening thud of the bullet passing into his groin, even the slide down the counter. Jamie swallowed hard forcing himself to breath normal, but it wasn’t just that. He loved women, always had, he thought he might to love each and everyone of them in a way, but this had been different- women didn’t just come up to you and fuck you in cinemas. Christ, and well not to put too fine a point on it, to tell the truth once she had touched him he wasn’t stopping, it had felt like he had been waiting a century or more, although it had only been about a week.

Jamie closed his eyes and felt for his zippo as his mind opened the door just a shade on the night before, what was really bothering him, why he had called Megan. He had woken with a jump at fuck knows what unearthly hour, freezing cold and naked, Pikachu having deserted him and laying crumpled up on the floor. Fat lot of good those Pokemon were. Right now he couldn’t quite pull up into his mind the picture of what he had seen, maybe he just didn’t want to, but  then it had been clear as fucking day, some bloke all kind of stiff and tied up but smiling all the same. Intense blue eyes had looked at him and asked him something but he had been too scared to look back, find out what the question was, instead he fought to find some way to make it not what it appeared to be. The lamp had helped some, brought him back into his room and established there were no actual men standing there, but he couldn’t sleep, a doze or two which only ended in a start and a gasp of breath. Now he was here waiting to tell Megan and he wasn’t sure why- she was just going to confirm it- he had gone frigging mad, and in any case what the hell would some cowboy be standing by his bed for?

A shaky hand dipped lower into his pockets, where the bloody hell was his lighter? He glanced up at a group of people taking up that slightly embarrassed vigil, away from the tables of nice clean living folk, at the entrance to the lane…Ah thank Christ someone else in the whole of London smokes…and he stepped up to tap the bloke with his back to him on the shoulder.

Orlando sighed as he started to turn, alright he was fairly relaxed about autographs and photos of him standing next to women and grinning like he knew them well, but sometimes, just sometimes being famous sucked. Like now, when he was having a quiet ciggy and a drink. “Fucking hell!” as the colour drained from his face. A couple of mates stepped forward about ready for anything and Jamie backed off

“Jesus, sorry mate- I just wanted a light…”  

“Who are you?”

Jamie stepped back again, being Irish taught you a couple of things- one of them being you could generally speaking talk yer way out of sticky situations but the other was that when strangers demanded yer name it might be time to go. A vague inkling flashed through his head though and he frowned before his eyes opened wide, there was some merit it appeared in those magazines Katie read- you could t least recognise fillum stars on the street just before they had their blokes kick the shit out of you “Hey you are that fella with them pointy ears” he nodded a bit as he stared back, aye that was it “…Joe Byrne..”

Orlando shook his head, breathing shallow and taking a huge drag on the cigarette in his fingers

“No...I mean my name isn’t Joe Byrne, you played that outlaw Joe Byrne” he couldn’t help laugh a bit “Ah now you would know that, I am guessing. It’s Jamie..Jamie is my name” This didn’t appear to helping so much. “Look I just wanted a light- have yer got one or not?”

Orlando passed him the lit cigarette, damp still from his lips and watched this man in front of him bend to draw smoke from one to the other, their tips just igniting together for a second with his breath. “Fuck...do I know you? Alright well this might sound a little weird..” Jamie looked up from his cigarette with the sort of look that said ‘you have no idea’ and waited while brown eyes searched his “I felt like someone just walked across my grave and I ain’t dead yet..”

“Isn’t that Ned’s line? Jamie who’s your mate…whoah!” Megan emerged a little breathless from the back door having finally made it to her break, a little disappointed that Orlando wasn’t to be found sitting still at the table waiting for her to return from China, but intent anyway on finding Jamie. And here he was, here they both were.

“This is Megan- me mate, I expect she wants a light too.” Megan nudged him in the ribs and tried to look like she did this everyday, but all the fizzle she felt was being overwhelmed by something else. Orlandosmiled but his eyes were still waiting for Jamie, who, having swapped his disquiet for interest as to why  this bloke, a fillum star whom, he understood had his head screwed on fine, couldn’t stop staring and appeared to be having some kind of difficulty sorting out his words, finally answered him “No we have never met!” In fact Orlando had sorted his words out precisely, he just couldn’t quite bring himself to say them, because that made it real. This young man in front of him sent the same chills up his spine as that picture of Joe Byrne hung on the door at Benalla, sent the same leap in his heart as he had felt cantering over the ranges outside Beechworth when he had half believed himself to be Joe Byrne, and made his whole body, every cell, feel like it was burning with life and anger the same as when he had firing at the coppers at Glenrowan, film crew or not. And he couldn’t move away.

“Well I tell you what Jamie, can I buy you a drinkall the same?” ok so that was lame, the guy was going to think he was being hit on if he carried on.

Unphased Jamie took a look at Megan “A while til yer finish isn’t it” for some fucking reason it felt like he had to ask “What do you say I have a few drinks with Orlando here while you work your shift?” Megan nearly laughed out loud, she wasn’t used to being speechless, but the situation seemed to demand it and with a weak nod of the head she watched them take up residence at Table 3 “Well, will yer tell me what it was like filming then? I have seen that Ned Kelly a couple of times.” 

*

Danny was flicking through the channels, European football competing with Total Makeover for your House or the prime of British Saturday night viewing- The National Lottery, he couldn’t get into any of it, perhaps because he was pissed off that he was sat in on a Saturday nigh, have been blown off by all his mates and Megan working. Anyway he shifted his legs in the chair and tipped the can back to let amber fluid flow down his throat just as Ant and Dec or some other talent less duo called the numbers, fuck, no trip to Rio for him that week then. On the table in the corner Megan’s phone bleeped, low battery or running out of credit or no signal, something anyway, it was a wonder anyone ever got to talk to anybody else. She must have forgotten it, in a rush to get out he thought, she was never quite so keen to get to work. Danny shook his head and tried to concentrate his eyes on the blonde who was presenting the ‘worthy ways we spend your hard earned cash’ piece of the programme. But now he knew it was there, not so much a white elephant in the corner of the room but a red devil complete with horns, spiked tail and an enormous trident, or just maybe the devil was green. The little light kept on flashing anyway, temptation and mistrust all in one.

He even picked it up and put it down again twice, Jesus had he come to this? Checking up on her and doubting her, an old ache pulled at his heart and Danny did his best to contain something that felt like betrayal even before he had dared to confirm it. A righteous flush of how she wasn’t going to make a fool out of him pressed his thumb onto the key… ‘messages received’... If he had hoped it was from Tom Lloyd even for a second he felt a colder wind blow through his body

Received Friday 10am. Sender: Jamie. 

I need to talk, can I meet you tonight?

And the phone bounced off the wall seconds before Danny grabbed his coat

*

“Megan, will yer stop on about Orlando Bloom for a minute? He was well spooked out though I tell yer- told me that he had nightmares when he was filming Ned Kelly, that he felt like the boys were watching them, what do yer make of that?” he sounded like he was asking himself more than her, bending his head to catch her eye, to see if the question meant more than the words.  Megan looked back at him and just shook her head, if he was any more intense he would burn up, she slipped her hand through his arm as they walked back towards the tube station, the end of the night at last. She was glad he was here.

“The real man didn’t look like him in the film, have you seen a picture?” Jamie shook his head, and dug his hands deeper into his pockets, her arm nestled against his hip and Megan smiled. She was very glad he was here; touching him was like having your feet on the ground somehow, now that was a curious thought but she decided to go with it and worked her arm further into his body  “Well there are only the two pictures; would you be interested to see? I have them on my computer at home, I am sure Danny wouldn’t mind you calling by, probably been sitting there bored out of his brain. Anyway you said you wanted to talk to me?”

“Jesus, Megan I thought you would never ask” he took a deep breath as they turned the corner.

“Ah well now, that looks real cosy” Danny was right there in front of them, his face as dark as a winter storm and his fists clenched into balls. Jamie could feel her stiffen, her arm slipping from under his

“Danny we were just on our way back home”

“And where exactly is home then?” he was almost snarling now, his eyes not leaving Jamie’s for a second. Stepping forward, his forehead full of lines and worry, Jamie put his hand out to touch his friend

“You got it wrong mate...I just wanted to talk to her”

“It ain’t your fucking business talking to my girl Mate.. get your own frigging woman- you never had much problem in the past! What’s up? you lost it and have to steal mine?”

Megan almost pushed Jamie out of the way “What the hell are you on about? ‘Your frigging woman’? I talk to who I like…I go wherever I like” He looked at her with a soul full of pain that had to find more and, with a sudden movement, the bone of Danny’s solid arm caught her shoulder, knocking her back into the wall with a dull thud. Megan stumbled a bit, her face full of shock before the pain took hold, her hands reaching instinctively to the back of her head

Jamie could hardly breathe, a quick look at Megan confirmed that she wasn't about to slip down to the floor, but red fire was rising inside him whipping up in huge flames don’t fucking do that Danny, a voice shouting in his ear that was rage and disbelief and anger. He stepped up to Danny, almost touching, his fingers itching for something that he didn’t know quite the feel of, opposite a man who he had shared every bit of his life with but now was a lifetime away. "You don't do that yer bastard.."

“What are you going to do Jamie?  Fucking shoot me again?” and for a second the world stopped still.