Bebo

Chapter 26

Once the press got news of what had happened, they went nuts.

Suddenly anger at Angel’s last-minute failure to show-up to her movie’s opening night turned to sympathy. With all of the sensational elements of our real-life drama (big star, stalker, hostage daughter, blah, blah, blah) there was no way that they were ever going to allow us to recover in peace.

And so the decision was made to hold one mega press-conference in Paris, in the hope that they would then just leave us alone. Journalists and photographers had surrounded the hotel. It was impossible to move beyond the confines of the suite. So the venue for the media-frenzy was a no-brainer. A platform had been built in the ballroom of the hotel, and less than twenty-four hours after our ordeal, they were ready to assemble reporters and film crews from around the globe for the interview with Mom.

I knew that all of the press attention was the very last thing that Mom needed. I saw her look out of a window that faced the huge avenue at the hotel front, to see that the media there had brought traffic to a halt. The sound of sirens and horns didn’t exactly do anything to create an atmosphere of calm.

‘It’s time to go,’ said Martina.

Mom nodded.

‘You don’t have to do this, you know,’ said Andre. ‘I mean, I’m sure we could always escape through the kitchen, or something. And now is as good a time as any.’

That made Mom smile.

‘No,’ she said firmly, ‘they would only find us. Let’s get this over and done with.’

But just as we were about to leave, Dina Baden burst into the room. She was carrying a bouquet of roses that was almost bigger than her. Mom rolled her eyes up to the ceiling. She had already seen too many interviews with Dina. The woman had seemed quite happy to exploit the publicity that surrounded our trauma to get as much airtime as she possibly could.

‘Darling, tell me you are not planning to face those cameras alone,’ she said.

‘Dina,’ said Mom, ‘ I know that you are worried about me – I’ve just seen you say so on the news – but I can assure you that I will be fine.’

‘And no hard feelings, I hope,’ said Dina.

‘Hard feelings?’, asked Mom, ‘why should there be any hard feelings?’

‘Well, I know that personal assistants like Martina are hard to come by. I just hope you don’t feel like I’m cutting off your right arm or something.’

Dina suddenly faltered when she saw Martina becoming flustered.

‘I’m not speaking out of turn, am I?’ asked Dina. ‘You do know that Martina is coming to work for me.’

Mom looked at Martina as though she had expected no less.

‘Martina is a free agent,’ said Mom coldly. ‘She can leave now. Turn’s out we have got very different priorities. I’m sure you two will be very happy together.’

And with that Mom turned to make her exit. She opened the huge doors of the suite to reveal a security guard that was of presidential proportions. Bodyguards lined the hall to the elevator. It was all pretty intimidating. Two huge, black-suited guys even escorted us into the elevator. You could tell that they were the real deal because they managed to stay totally frozen and silent, despite Andre’s lame jokes and Portia’s constant flirting.

Mom squeezed my hand as the elevator doors slid open. There was no turning back now. We could all hear the busy hum of the hundreds of excited reporters who were there to get all of the gory details.

We were escorted to a small, private, briefing room that had been arranged next to the press area. A group of busy publicity people came to a halt as soon as Mom entered. The room was silent except for a bank of television screens that were tuned into every imaginable news network.

A black-suited, blond woman greeted us quickly. She spoke fast as she briefed my Mom.

‘There are more than one hundred journalists present; all of the major t.v. networks

The touch on my shoulder made me jump. After the day that I had had, I was not exactly expecting any friendly gestures. I turned quickly to meet this latest threat.

It was Mom.

She towered over me, a vision in the shimmering Versace dress that had finally been selected for her big opening night. Her make-up had been ruined – even waterproof mascara had its limits.

We looked at each other for a long, silent moment. She seemed to be examining me for injury or harm. I was looking for evidence of her anger. On a scale of one to ten, I had pretty well gone beyond any measure of bad behaviour. I had lied to everyone, I had stolen, I had broken every trust. What did she think of me now?

She sat down next to me and gently touched my face as if to check that I was real. And then she pulled me to her. She pulled me to her and she held me like she would never let me go. As she whispered to me, she rocked me gently.

‘Baby, baby, are you okay? I thought I’d lost you honey. I thought I’d lost everything…’

We held on to each other as we sobbed.

‘Mom, I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I’ve been so dumb.’

She pulled away and looked me straight in the eyes.

‘I haven’t exactly been a prize-winning Mom lately, now have I?’ she said. ‘I’ve let you down honey, I should have seen this coming.’

‘How did you find me?’ I asked.

‘When I saw the note you left,’ she said, suddenly sounding pretty choked, ‘well, I called the house in London, to see if you had left any clue. Peter told me about your plans..’

There was a painful silence.

‘Honey, Robert Grand is not your Dad,’ she said.

‘I know,’ I said, trying to stop the tears.

‘You should never have had to go searching for the truth all on your own. It’s my fault. I should have told you about your Dad a long, long time ago. It should never have come to this.’

So I was finally going to hear the truth in the most unlikely of settings. It was just lucky that there were no fans or photographers around to see my Mom and I as we held on to each other on that dirty sidewalk in Paris.

Mom squeezed my hand before she spoke.

‘Bliss, I want you to understand that I did what I thought was best. You deserved a great Dad. It used to eat me up with guilt to know that I could not give you the one thing that you most wanted. I’m sorry about that.’

‘But you should know that, at one time, your Dad and I were very much in love. He was the only actor that I ever dated. When we met it was love at first sight.’

It was good to see her smiling at those memories.

‘His name was Daniel Duffy. He was Irish – so I guess that explains the red hair, huh? Honey, we hadn’t planned on having a baby. It was a shock to both of us when we found out that you were on your way. And it was more than he could handle. He was a young man…’

‘If he had lived I’d bet that you would be the best of friends. You are like him in so many great ways. But sweetie, he died before you were even two years old. He was only twenty-five. It broke my heart…’

It was a lot to take in all at once – finding out who my Dad was and then losing him again. The tears that I cried were for a man that I would never know. My fantasies, however stupid they may have been, were no longer there to comfort me. I would never know my father.

‘Could I see a picture of him?’ I asked.

‘Honey,’ said Mom, trying to console me, ‘he was in a couple of movies that we could watch together.’

I tried to smile.

‘We’ll never be a family now, will we?’ I said.

‘We’ve got the best kind of family in the world,’ said Mom, with huge passion. ‘We’ve got a family that has chosen to be together. We’re tied together by love, even if we don’t share the same blood. You know, Bob has been watching over you ever since you took your first steps. In fact, he’s sitting over there in the car right now just waiting to

I had plenty of reasons to feel nervous on the cab ride over to my Dad’s place. What if his English was as bad as my French? Did I even know the French word for daughter? Come to think of it, how was I hoping to explain myself in English??

I was unprepared when we pulled up outside the huge old apartment block that was home to my Dad. The journey had been too quick. Only my pathetic language skills prevented me from asking the driver to go around the block a couple of times. I threw a fifty Euro note towards him and made a quick exit.

It was obvious that the building had seen better days. There was a hint of the elegance that once-was hidden under a shabby and ageing exterior. An old lady was busy washing the tiled floor of the shared stairwell as I examined the address that I had written down (despite the fact that I knew it by heart). He lived in apartment 3B.

The old lady shouted something at me as I walked across the newly-washed floor. What was the French word for sorry?

‘Merci,’ I shouted.

Oh no! That was thanks.

‘Je suis Americain,’ I said, in a terrible accent, as though that was some sort of excuse for my bad behaviour.

She shrugged, obviously still annoyed.

I made my way up the enormous stairway. It looked as though the place had once been some great, old mansion, but there was little evidence of grandeur now. I could hear a baby crying somewhere and the strong smell of some very garlicy cooking drifted through the building.

When I finally arrived at the drab-looking door of apartment 3B, I took a deep breath. This was my big moment. Please God, I thought, don’t let me blow this.

There was no doorbell, so I knocked.

Nothing happened.

What if he wasn’t home? I hadn’t even thought of that. Was I just going to wait until he got back? I mean, I couldn’t exactly go back to the hotel and I doubted that one fifty euro note was going to get me very far.

I knocked louder, feeling my panic grow. That did it. I heard a loud crashing noise coming from inside. Had he fallen over? Great, I had managed to injure him before I had even gotten around to the rather sticky introduction. Great.

A man’s voice muttered loudly before the door was opened and I was glad that I had no clue what it was he had just said. This was not getting off to a good start.

But just one glimpse of Robert Grand was enough to make everything all right. He had red hair… HE HAD RED HAIR!
I was struck dumb.

He rubbed his eyes as though he had just woken up. It took him a while to focus. He did not look pleased to see me. But I just stood there smiling like one of my Mom’s stupid fans when they had finally got to meet their idol.

I had to speak.

‘Are you Robert Grand?’ I asked in my very broad American accent.

He rolled his eyes.

‘No, I am not Robert Grand,’ he said, imitating my accent, ‘if you are going to speak my name, then you must at least say it properly; it’s Robert Grand,’ he said, delivering his name with the sort of beautiful French pronunciation that I would never be able to match.

‘Are you looking for money?’ he asked suspiciously, looking around me.

‘No, no, it’s nothing like that. I came just to meet you,’ I said, wondering how I would continue. It was big news to break to someone on their doorstep. But I had to start somewhere, so I began to muddle something together.

‘Didn’t you direct Angel in that movie…’ but before I could finish my question, he had run down his dark hallway and I heard the unmistakable sound of vomiting. It made my own empty stomach heave, but, even so, I decided to follow him inside.

Once I had heard a reassuring flush I decided to peek inside the bathroom to see if he was okay. I watched silently as he ran cold water over his head.

‘Don’t tell me you are a fan of Angel,’ he said.

‘Not exactly,’ I answered.

‘Good,’ he said, as he staggered across the living room and pull