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‘Yeah, well, I’ve known you for ten years, and in this industry, that is a long time. Whatever happens, I’d like us to stay in touch – even though I might not be representing you for much longer.’
‘What? Why not?’
‘I’m retiring. Getting a bit long in the tooth for this game.’
Aren’t we all, thought Callum, although his agent reallywaslong in the tooth; he must have already been in his mid-fifties when he and Callum had started working together.
‘I’d like to retire and finally write a film script. Did I tell you that’s my dream – to see it made into a movie?’
Callum smiled. ‘Many times.’ He knew that his agent, the one good friend he could count on in Hollywood, had always aspired to be a scriptwriter, even now that he was nearly retired. ‘How’s it going? Have you got an idea for your script yet?’
‘No, not yet. But when I do, I know it’s going to be a corker, and I’m going to insist you are in the starring role.’
‘Well, that’s very kind of you,’ Callum said, with genuine feeling. ‘Do you mind getting a move on with that? I’ve got bills to pay and a house that is going to be repossessed.’
His agent guffawed down the phone. ‘I see you haven’t lost your British sense of humour.’
Callum laughed too. ‘Of course not.’
‘Well at least if I can’t sell my script I know a very good bookbinder, so I can gift it to my friends.’
‘Oh, I haven’t done that in an age.’ Callum had no idea why he’d put that down on his CV when he had approached agents. What it had to do with acting, he had no idea. He’d just put it down there underOther skills.
‘Where did you learn to do that, anyhow? I’ve heard it’s a bit of a dying skill.’
‘My father.’
‘I see. Well, you do realise you’ve got something to fall back on?’
‘What – the lost art of bookbinding?’
‘I wouldn’t call it a lost art. I’ve read that skilled bookbinders are very much in demand. You, my friend, should think about that. You could start over. Perhaps you could go into business with your father.’
Callum went quiet.
‘Cal?’
‘Just write that script will you?’ This time Callum wasn’t joking.
Chapter 10
Callum touched down at Edinburgh Airport the following day. He’d been lucky; he’d got a standby ticket after waiting at the airport in the hope that someone would fail to turn up for their flight, leaving a spare seat.
The previous day, before setting off to the airport, he’d handed in the keys to the fully furnished apartment, packed his clothes in a holdall, and made a phone call to the realtor dealing with the sale of his house in Beverley Hills. There were still no potential buyers. The realtor had the keys. He’d told them his financial situation, and that if it was repossessed, they could hand in the keys to the bank.
Some of his personal possessions were in the house, but only furniture – nothing of particular value, sentimental or otherwise. His ex had already stripped the place of the pieces of artwork that had been on the walls, which he imagined had been the only things of real value besides the house. But as usual, he hadn’t been thinking of money when she’d left; he had been in a state over her leaving him and hadn’t cared what she took. In hindsight, that had been a mistake – that artwork could have paid his mortgage for a few more months. But now it was too late.
His agent had said he’d be in touch if anything came up. As he’d sat in the taxi on the way to Los Angeles International Airport, less than twenty miles away, he’d stared out of the window, thinking that while it had been nice of his agent to say that, they both knew it wasn’t going to happen. And anyway, if an auditiondidturn up, he’d be thousands of miles away, so what was the point?
He stared glumly at his passport as he waited in line, shuffling along in the queue towards one of the desks to have his passport stamped. Behind him, he heard some teenage girls giggling. He felt someone tapping on his shoulder. He turned around to see a middle-aged man looking him up and down. ‘Hey, man, aren’t you that guy in the TV show,The Scottish Laird?’
Callum looked at the American man and pursed his lips. He was tired after the long-haul flight and could well do without the encounter. He was about to deny it when the man said, ‘My girls would love your autograph.’
Callum looked at the two teenage girls. They looked away, embarrassed. He ran a hand through his spiky blonde hair and fixed his dark brown eyes on the American man. As much as he really hadn’t envisaged that this would happen once he got home, he didn’t want to be that git of a celebrity who was stand-offish. It was people like this, those who had watched the show religiously, who had kept him in a job – up until now. It wasn’t their fault he’d screwed up, and made a mess of his life. ‘Yes, that’s me,’ he said. He smiled at the two teenage girls.
‘We adored that show. That’s why we’re here on holiday. We just had to come to Edinburgh. Say, are you a Scottish laird in real life?’
He didn’t want to burst their bubble, but decided to tell the truth. ‘Nah – I grew up on a council estate on the outskirts of Edinburgh,’ he said. His parents had bought their council house years earlier and had put their stamp on it. It was a nice area with neighbours that his family had known for years. His background was the complete opposite to that of the Scottish character he’d played in the TV series, who’d fled his tyrant of a father in Scotland to start a new life in America. Callum’s own motivation for fleeing his background was far more mundane; he had just wanted to be somebody.
