Popcorn

Chapter TwentyFive

Bruce had scarcely had time to assimilate the catastrophic collapse of Brooke’s brave attempt at dividing the enemy when he was faced with a further and even greater nightmare.

Standing at the door were not only his nearly exwife, Farrah, but also his beautiful and beloved daughter, Velvet. Velvet was the apple of Bruce’s eye. This had not always been clear to Velvet, possibly because Bruce habitually wore shades. None the less, it was the case. Bruce loved Velvet very much. Also, deep down and in a strange way, he still loved her mother.

What a couple they had been.

Fifteen years earlier Bruce had scored his first directorial assignment and his first (and so far only) wife on the same day. The job was a usedcar commercial, one of those sad, nobudget nasties, made purely for local TV, in which the owner of the business is himself the star of the ad.

‘You want bargains? I’ve got bargains. Crazy bargains!’

At which point the script called for a jump cut so that the client/star could put on plastic novelty glasses, a comedy moustache and a dayglo green bowler hat with a spinning helicopter blade sticking out of the top.

‘That’s right, you’d be crazy to miss ‘em. And I’m crazy to give ‘em, ha ha!’

The picture froze on the client/star’s amusing grin (his laughter soundtrack continued, but speeded up: hahahaheeheehee) and the address of the usedcar lot appeared across the screen.

The one bonus for Bruce as he faced that gruesome morning’s work was that throughout his pitch the star was to be surrounded by a bevy of gorgeous babes in bikinis. The original script had stated that after the jump cut these babes would also suddenly be wearing crazy masks and hats. However, the constraints of the budget meant this idea had to be vetoed.

Farrah had been one of the babes, and Bruce would never forget the first time he saw her. She had arrived for the shoot on her own Harley, which roared throatily as she gunned the throttle preparatory to dismounting. All heads turned, of course, and she got off the bike as if she had just fucked it. If Bruce had been a cartoon character, his eyes would have been on footlong stalks by this time, because Farrah had arrived already in costume and ready to work. Under her studded leather jacket she wore only a bikini and bike boots.

He was utterly smitten, and that very night Velvet was conceived.

Bruce and Farrah had had a good marriage, and a long one by Hollywood standards, supporting each other as they climbed their respective career ladders. Eventually, however, their pretensions and aspirations diverged. As Farrah got older and could no longer do bimbo parts, she started to put on intellectual airs, attending drama classes and pitching for ‘proper’ roles, something which Bruce found excruciatingly embarrassing. Likewise, as Bruce became more and more the doyen of hip culture his pose got tougher and sneerier (to the point where he had even considered a tattoo), which frankly turned Farrah’s stomach, knowing him as she did for the nerd he secretly was. Basically, the marriage eventually failed because she was genuine street pretending to be boulevard, and he was genuine boulevard pretending to be street. They ended up loathing the sight of each other.

But no matter how many times in recent years Bruce had wanted not to see his wife, they were all as nothing to how much he did not want to see her now. On this terrible morning when the psychopath ushered the rest of his sad, dysfunctional little family into their own private hell.

For a moment longer, though, Farrah and Velvet were to remain in ignorance of their danger. Wayne had concealed his gun and Scout had quickly enveloped hers in the folds of her dress before putting the everpresent cushion back on her lap. Was it possible that Wayne might be prepared to let these two new arrivals pass unmolested through the drama he had created? Bruce could scarcely bear to hope.

Even without the weaponry, the scene that greeted Farrah and Velvet as they paused momentarily in lounge doorway was disconcerting.

A gorgeous woman lay on the floor in a grubby, bloodied evening gown, her lip bleeding badly. A strange wildlooking creature was just rising from where she had clearly been sitting astride the prostrate woman. And the young man hovering behind them was the worst of the lot: cocky and sneering, he had nasty, violentlooking tattoos on his heavily muscled arms and what looked alarmingly like bloodstains on his vest and jeans.

‘Bruce, your old lady’s here,’ the man said.

Farrah raised a questioning eyebrow and stuck a piece of gum in her mouth. She didn’t much care for such dismissive familiarity, particularly from so obvious a piece of rough trade, but it took more than a couple of tats and a bit of attitude to throw her.

‘What the hell’s going on here?’ she said, striding into the room. ‘Some kind of disgusting orgy?’

Velvet was equally unimpressed. ‘Oh Daddy, this is sooo gross. I mean, you have really lost it. What’re you into now, drugs or something?’

Velvet was alarmingly selfassertive for a fourteen-yearold, although to be fair, as a product of the Beverly Hills private schooling system she was no more cocksure than the majority of her contemporaries.

Bruce could scarcely speak. He was still trying to adjust to his daughter’s horrifyingly unexpected arrival. ‘It’s just a… a rehearsal, precious.’

Velvet’s face expressed some doubt. In fact, it expressed complete and utter contempt for such an absurd excuse.

‘Oh yeah?’ she laughed. ‘What are you rehearsing, a remake of 1 Spit on Your Grave?’

Brooke picked herself up off the floor, dabbing at her bleeding mouth and coughing from the blood she had swallowed.

Farrah eyed her with naked hostility. ‘Listen, sweetie, if this is some kind of S amp; M thing and he’s been beating up on you, you make your claim out of his share of our property, not mine.’

Brooke did not reply. There was nothing to say.

Suddenly, without really thinking about what he was doing, Bruce grabbed Velvet and pushed her back towards the door.

‘Get out, Velvet. Right now, get out.’

He didn’t care if he was acting suspiciously. He just wanted his daughter to run.

‘Please, Daddy, don’t try and order me around. It’s embarrassing. I’m a grownup woman now. I’ve made an exercise video.’

This was true. Teen Workout with Velvet Delamitri had been something of a success, partly because as many sad old men as teenage girls had bought it.

Thus rebuffed, Bruce turned on Farrah. ‘What the hell did you bring her here for? Send her away now. Get her out. She has no business being here.’

‘No business?’ Farrah sneered ‘Well thank you, Bruce, you’ve just proved my point. I brought our daughter here to remind you that she and I are two and you are one, and that fact will have to be amply reflected in the final settlement.’

Bruce could scarcely contain himself. The woman was talking about money. They were all about to die and she was talking about money! Farrah might be unaware of her predicament but, hell’s tits, what was wrong with the woman?

For the umpteenth time since the nightmare had begun, he tried to calm himself. ‘Look, Farrah, you’ll get a fair settlement, I swear. You can have whatever you want, just you and Velvet leave-’

Huuuurgh, glob. Wayne spat. It was a big spit. He cleared his throat loudly, grollied up hard and gobbed the lot into a vase. It was a spit which announced that he was still there, and still in charge.

Bruce understood. Wayne did not like what Bruce had said. Offering Farrah whatever she wanted in settlement was bound to sound strange, and Bruce’s job was to be normal. That was the only way his daughter was getting out of that house in one piece. But how? How to be normal? Bruce could no longer remember what normal was.

Velvet could, though, and this wasn’t it. What is more, whatever it was, she didn’t like it. ‘Daddy, who are these people? Are they your friends? Can’t they go now?’

Wayne strolled across the room and eyed Velvet up and down. Velvet, as most of her contemporaries did,