“Ah…” I said, colouring. “Yes; yes. A great film.”
She swept on, “And of course you must recognise this one…” indicating a woman whose expression seems torn by anguish. “It’s from Winter’s Children, where I played a woman with the ability to look into the future, at the tragedy that awaits her.”
“Of course,” I said. “A classic.”
“I thought so too, Conway.”
She led me around the room, giving me not only a potted filmography of everything she’d ever appeared in, but a good indication of her personality. I wondered if breathtaking beauty was always accompanied by a monstrous ego.
I glanced over at the other guests; they were chatting away as if oblivious of our presence. I recognised none of them as locals, and wondered if they, like Luna, were off-worlders.
“But I’m not the only celebrity here tonight, Conway,” she laughed brightly with, I thought, a stab at false modesty.
“Oh…” I looked across at the guests, hoping at last to be introduced.
“I mean,” she said, laying an exquisitely manicured finger on my forearm, “you. I saw Opener of the Way, you see. It’s a stirring film, Conway. I thought–”
“It bore no relation to what happened,” I interrupted. “It was sensationalised–”
“But surely, Conway, it was sensationalised in order to attain a greater metaphorical truth?”
I snorted at this. “It was sensationalised to get a greater share of the box-office takings,” I said. “It misrepresented the characters and motives of my friends, and trivialised their past traumas. As for how I was portrayed…”
She laid a hand on my arm, her touch electrifying, leaned close and whispered, “Well, perhaps during my stay here I will get to know the real David Conway, yes?”
I smiled, and mumbled something.
“Anyway, what do you do with yourself these days, Conway?”
“Ah…” I opened my mouth, shrugged, and smiled stupidly. How I hated questions like these. In the months following the opening of the way, five years ago, reporters from across the Expansion had hot-footed it to Chalcedony to ask me similarly inane questions, expecting me to have made fabulous wealth, and be living in some palatial beachfront mansion. I think they were disappointed with what they found; a reticent, middle-aged beach-bum who liked nothing more than reading books and relaxing in the company of a select group of friends.
I decided to be honest. “I do nothing, other than read, and walk, and enjoy drinking with friends.”
Her reaction surprised me. I had expected her to be disappointed. “Do you know something, Conway? That sounds like the perfect sort of life, to me.”
I nodded. “I’m happy.”
“Happiness…” she said, and a faraway look came into her eyes.
I glanced towards the far end of the room. “Ah… who are the other guests?” I asked.
Luna returned to the present with a grim smile. “The three upright and handsome gentlemen are all my ex-husbands, Conway.”
I opened my mouth, tried to think of a suitable response, and failed.
“The blonde Nordic type is Bjorn Hansen, the explorer. I married him when I was far too young, just eighteen, and lived to regret the fool I was. To his right, the balding black man is Rudolph Carter, the banker.” She leaned close to me again. “I was twenty when I made that mistake. He was a sadist, and one of the finest. Physical and psychological◦– an expert. Needless to say, it didn’t last long.”
I stared at the group, aware that there was something strange about them, which I couldn’t quite put my finger on. “And the last one?”
“The tall, dark Latino is Edward Rodriguez, the actor. Another catastrophe. How was I to know he preferred boys, and only wanted me as a trophy?”
The odd thing, I thought, was that while we’d be talking about them, only the length of the room away, not once had they glanced in our direction. Seconds later I realised another odd thing: they all appeared to be roughly the same age, in their thirties◦– and yet if Luna had married Hansen when she was only eighteen…
Luna trilled a laugh. “I can see that you’re confused, Conway! Come on, I’ll introduce you.” She knocked back her drink and moved, unsteadily, towards the trio of failed husbands. I took her elbow, lest she trip on the plush carpet, and steered her across the room.
She paused before the group. “Now, which one of you… you detestable bastards will admit–” she hiccuped “–that you’re a bunch of self-centred, arrogant, talentless nothings?”
I looked away, knowing that I must have appeared the epitome of embarrassment.
I glanced at the girl, who stood a couple of metres away, demurely nursing a drink◦– but she failed to return my look. I wondered, briefly, who among the three men was her father: she appeared in her twenties, with raven hair and mocha skin: Rodriguez, then?
I glanced back at the group. Amazingly, not one of Luna’s ex-husbands deigned to be baited.
Luna laughed again, crossed to a small, matte black console mounted on the wall, and touched a sensor panel.
Instantly, the three men winked out if existence.
The girl remained, turning and smiling at Luna.
“Holo-projections…” I said to both of them.
Luna waved, a little drunkenly, at where the trio had stood. “I like to keep them around, Conway, to remind me of my failures◦– to remind me to be more careful in future, to never act impulsively in matters of the heart, to be… to be wary. Oh, Christ, how I wish I’d had the ability to see into the future, Conway. Wouldn’t that be a blessing?”
I said, uneasily, “I’m not sure. If one could see one’s mistakes, and yet be unable to do anything about them…”
“But,” she said, leaning close to me and almost toppling, “but that’s just it, Conway. If you could see your mistakes before they happened, then you’d be able to stop yourself from making them, yes?”
I hesitated, not wanting to get into a debate about determinism with an unhappy and obviously distraught woman.
As if seeking refuge, I turned to the girl and said, “What do you think?”
The girl stared at me, through me.
Luna laughed again. “She doesn’t think anything, Conway. She is stupid. You see, that’s me when I was twenty-five. I’d just divorced Rodriguez and was at the height of my fame.” She reached for the wall.
And the girl, like all the others, vanished at the touch of a switch.
Five
“And not long after that,” I told my friends the following morning as we drove towards the central massifs, “she collapsed in a drunken heap and I made my escape.”
“And she didn’t explain herself, or apologise?” Maddie asked.
I laughed. “That’s why she invited me over, isn’t it? I’d completely forgotten about that. No, she didn’t say a word about her behaviour on the beach the other morning.”
“She sounds,” Hawk said, from the passenger seat beside Matt, “a sad and tragic woman.”
I nodded. “She’s haunted by who she was, the mistakes she made.”
“But what’s she doing on Chalcedony?” Maddie asked.
“That I didn’t get round to discussing.”
Matt laughed. “You can ask her the next time she invites you round for a drink, David.”
I returned his laugh with a hollow version of my own and concentrated on the passing scenery. What I’d neglected to tell my friends was that, immediately after she’d extinguished the ghosts of her past, she had taken my hand and dragged me towards a nearby sofa. There, she’d traced a long finger down my cheek and asked me if I realised what a handsome man I was. Fortunately, as she leaned towards me with predatory lips, she’d lost consciousness and collapsed back against the cushions, and then I had fled.