The Meekering Incident

"So you're the famous fillum star that I have been hearing so much about?"

"Don't believe everything that you hear." I smiled at her and shook her proffered hand.

"So you're not in love with her." She said, smiling at Rosalie, "This would be the first time that she has lied to me." She looked closely into my eyes. "No, she hasn't lied to me." There's something of a conspiracy happening here, isn't there? "I've been hearing about the famous movie star for years now, and how madly in love with him she was, and her passion for him was almost enough for me to believe her, but then yesterday she could hardly contain herself. 'He's here!' She shouted when she came home yesterday afternoon, and she never stopped talking about how the man of her dreams had literally fallen into her arms after he was slugged by that thug Jimmy Bourke."

"She exaggerates, it wasn't like that at all." Rosalie protested.

"Es id os." (Yes it was) Cecelia had that half smile on her face. The rest of that half seemed to have lit up, it was almost as if she was giving us her blessing.

"Shush will you. Look I can't stand around chatting to you lot, I have lives to save so I can't be late. Come on Ben, I'll drop you at your olds' on my way."

I tried to find out what this 'other string' was on the way back to my parents' place, but she wasn't telling me anything. "You'll just have to wait until after you take me to dinner tonight."

"It'd better be good if it's going to cost me a slap up dinner."

"It's better than good." She leaned over and kissed me, her hand holding my head to prevent me getting away from her until she had finished the kiss, not that I was even thinking about struggling to free myself. "Now get out or I'll be late, no wait." Another kiss, this time shorter. "'Bye my darling." She pushed me out of the car and sped off.

I stood on the side of the road watching her disappear around the corner before going inside. "She's a nice girl, don't you do anything to hurt her." Mum said from behind me.

"Like pissing off back to Hollywood just when her Christmases have all come to her, you mean?"

"Something like that. It was your wanting to be a star that broke Cecelia's heart. I know she told you that she didn't love you, but she loved you enough to not want to stop you and your dreams."

"But to get pregnant, I can't understand that."

"It really wasn't her fault. Just after you told her of your plans, before you actually left, Jimmy used that to, I won't call it seduce, more induce her to have sex with him. He was bragging about it as soon as you'd gone, about how he'd fucked the superstar's girlfriend. Then he convinced her to marry him, by then she would have known that she was pregnant, and that made him an even bigger man, at least to him and his mates."

"So what went wrong?"

"He had to be the macho man and not take any shit from his wife. Those were his words, so he treated her like shit. He beat her several times, putting her in hospital on at least two occasions, so it didn't take long for her to want out of the marriage, so she did something that, in hindsight was a mistake, and told him that her child wasn't his. This happened around the time that there was a power struggle brewing between him and one of his mates. This mate, Bob, started telling everyone that Cecelia's baby was his and that he had been fucking her behind Jimmy's back all along. Jimmy was so pissed at this that he accused Cecelia of fucking around, he called her a slut, and beat the crap out of her so badly that she's now in her present condition. He got five years gaol, and she filed for divorce, or at least her family did on her behalf."

"What a mess I've made of her life, how can I make up for it?"

"That's for you to work out. Whatever you decide, we'll help you where we can."

"Thanks Mum." I gave her a hug.

Social media can be a bastard. Facebook featured me, flat on my back with Jimmy standing over me with the hash tag; 'Hollywood star in love triangle', along with a story that claimed that I was involved in a love triangle with Jimmy's wife. It was designed to portray me as a totally bigheaded arsehole, and the villain of the piece. It was followed immediately by several posts from people who had seen the incident and supported me. It was about then that a post appeared from Hollywood, telling the world how heartbroken my supposed current squeeze was, that I had betrayed her love for me. What made it more spectacular was the many images of her sobbing into her tear soaked handkerchief with her left ring finger prominently displaying a large engagement ring.

This brought a contingent of media into Meekering, all looking for a sensational story that they could sell to the world. I was followed everywhere I went, photos appeared as if by magic of me doing banal things, but making me out to be somehow aloof and uncaring as far as Cecelia was concerned. I was blamed for her condition, having dumped her so that I could pursue my dreams. The attention ruled out the dinner that I had planned with Rosalie. We made do with a takeaway pizza at the Ambulance station, held behind a protective screen of her workmates. I had to be smuggled in inside an ambulance returning from a call out to the street behind Mum and Dad's house. Luckily no-one saw me jumping the back fence.

Jimmy had made himself available for interviews from which a highly coloured version of events emerged. The fact that he was currently on bail for assaulting me was conveniently overlooked in their rush for more and more information.

I placed a call to my agent, Benjy Meisnner, in LA seeking advice on how to handle this mess. "Benson." He was the only person who bothered to use my full given name. "Look at it this way, any publicity at this point in time, (who uses that term these days?) is good for your career."

"So my talent has nothing to do with that?"

"I didn't say that, you are a very talented boy, we all know that, but listen buddy, we need to build some chemistry between you and Caitlyn for your upcoming starring role, and this is playing into our hands quite nicely."

"So no consideration is being given to my family and friends back here, is that it?"

"A little collateral damage, they'll soon get over it, and when the money rolls in from this next movie, you'll soon forget it as well. Believe me buddy, we're on a roll here, and you'd best not do anything to upset it."

"Like bailing out of this deal, maybe?"

"You can't do that!" I had visions of him watching as his commission was flushed down the toilet.

"Why ever not? I know that it is expected that I will sign for this movie, and all of the pre-publicity has been built around that, but I haven't signed yet."

"Are you attempting to hold the studio to ransom? Because if you are, you will find out pretty damn quick that you will never get any more work in Hollywood, ever. Do you understand that?"

"Let us just say that I am reviewing my priorities at present." I hung up the phone. Yes it was a 'proper' phone with a handset that sat in a in a cradle that disconnected the call when the receiver was placed on it.

Rosalie looked at me. "Listen Ben, Darling, I hope that you don't mind me calling you that?"

"It sounds good to me." I leaned over and kissed her. This brought some good natured comments from the rest of the ambulance crew in the next room.

"I am not going to get upset when you leave, I have too much to do to be worrying about you." The look on her face told me a totally different story, one that could well be a repetition of my previous departure from Meekering.

"Look at me, any decision that I make will take into consideration both you and Cecelia. I am not the total arsehole that the media is making me out to be."

"I know that, and I love you for it, among other things, and we haven't even made love yet."

"Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren't you?" I smiled at her, just to let her know that my thoughts had been travelling down that road as well.

The getting out of there took some organising. An 'emergency call' was received, and an ambulance, complete with flashing red and blue lights and a siren, sped from the ambulance station. Its departure took the assembled media people by surprise, they were led to believe that it was a real emergency, so decided not to follow. We drove for some time, until the sound of the siren could not be heard back in town, and the driver returned to town by a circuitous route, to Rosalie's place. To anyone watching, it was the normal event of her being given a free ride home after her shift. I wore a uniform, so it was assumed by the watchers that I was a colleague stopping by for a cup of coffee before returning to the station.

Next morning there was a flurry of activity. The media people all rushed to a clearing just outside of town. News had spread that a very important person was arriving by helicopter. That VIP was Caitlyn Bonner, the very beautiful young star who, it was rumoured, was my latest squeeze, and co-star in my next blockbuster film. I have to admit, watching it on breakfast TV, that it was staged to perfection, and she played her part extremely well.

She emerged from the chopper dressed demurely in jeans and a hoodie covering her face, she had a worried look on her face. "Please, no publicity, I am here to support my man."

"Caitlyn, Benson is not here to meet you, how do you explain that?"

"I, we wanted as little publicity as possible, so it was decided that he would not meet me here. I am checking into a hotel and we will be holding a press conference later in the day when I have recovered from my long flight form LA."

"We noticed that you are wearing an engagement ring, does this mean that you are engaged, if so why hasn't an announcement been made before this?"

"We chose to keep our relationship quiet because we didn't want it to appear as if we were using it to publicise our upcoming movie."

Her entourage of black clad security men pushed a path through the massed media, taking care to not shield her from the cameras. A limousine, which must have been driven down from Sydney for the occasion, was waiting to swallow her up and take her to the hotel.

"She's going to get a shock when she gets to the pub." Rosalie said. "It's a far cry from what she would have been used to back home."

"Do you think that she'll get clean sheets?"

"With any sort of luck, it was washing day yesterday so there's a good chance."

"How long do you think she'll stay before she gives up?" I asked.

"My guess is that she'll be out of here by nightfall."

"That long? I'd give her until lunch time. It'll be about then that she'll realise that I don't want to be seen with her."

Half an hour later we got a call from Mum. "Be warned, we have just had a huge throng of media here looking for you. We told them that you had probably gone into hiding somewhere, and we didn't blame you. And there was some young tart with them bunging on a show for the cameras. She must have just about stretched her acting talents to the limit with her performance. I gather that she is supposed to be your fiancé, something that you conveniently forgot to mention to us."

"She is not, nor will she ever be, my fiancé."

"That's good to know, I didn't take to her at all. I was ringing to warn you that they're probably on their way to you as we speak."

"They've just arrived, gotta go and deal with them." As it was, I didn't have to deal with them. Cecelia must have heard, and understood what was about to happen, she manoeuvred her wheel chair to the front door, and when the bell rang, she pushed a button on the arm of the chair to open the door. "Uyo, tan I elm oo?"(Hullo, can I help you?)

The shocked look on Caitlyn's face was not acting, she was genuinely shocked at the disfigured person looking at her. "Oh my God, who are you?"

"This person," Rosalie cut in, "and she is a person, not some freak, is, or was the girl that is supposed to be the hypotenuse of the love triangle that you have come to rescue Ben from. To set the record straight, she and Ben were friends, close friends, before he left to find fame and fortune in Hollywood. She didn't wait for him to come and get her, as he had promised, but married another guy. As it turned out, it wasn't the smartest of moves. Her husband beat her several times before he completely lost the plot one day and beat her to within an inch of her life, leaving her as you see her now. There is no love triangle, just an angry man who blamed Ben for his actions, and a damaged person who will never be able to have a decent life, ever."

"And you are?" One of the reporters asked.

"I am her sister and full time carer, Rosalie."

"Why is Ben here?"

"He came to see Cecelia, he has been helping me look after her, he's learnt how to change a colostomy bag, he's learnt to feed her, he's very good at this, not the sort of thing that you would expect from a Hollywood hunk, right?" She was laying it on thick for the media, this was an entirely different story to what they were expecting.

"I was going to call a press conference later on today. I need to set the record straight about a lot of things, but we can do it here if you like."

It was crowded in the room, what with the lights and cameras all having to be hand held because there was no room for tripods. There was no room beside Cecelia for Caitlyn who sulked in a corner, she was not the centre of attention that she thought she would be.

"If I might make a statement before the Q&A session, it might speed things up a little." There was a general murmur of assent from the media, so I pressed on. "Years ago, when I was seventeen or eighteen, I managed to get an audition for a small part in one of the long-running soaps that we have in this country. This meant that I was to spend most of my time in Sydney. Around that time Cecelia and I were boyfriend and girlfriend, and life was pretty good for this small town boy. That was all about to change, the small part became a larger part, and it was ongoing, so there was little time for me to get back home to see Cecelia, but when we did get together it was good. Then a big break came in the form of a low budget indie film that went gangbusters at the local box office. This led to a couple more films before I was approached by a Hollywood studio with an offer of a part, not a big part but a part nonetheless, in an upcoming film. You have to remember that Australian film actors were looked on quite favourably, so I accepted. Cecelia wasn't happy about that, she thought that once I got over there I would forget all about her. I promised that, once I was reasonably well established, I would come and get her and take her over with me. She didn't think that I would, and broke off our relationship."

"Then what happened?"

"This is where it gets a bit messy, and I knew nothing of this until I came back here a couple of days ago. Cecelia had no trouble finding a replacement for me. Jimmy had been sniffing around for some time and saw his big chance. He made a move on her pretty much the day that I left. He was convincing apparently, and did something that I hadn't done, he seduced her, he had sex with her and she fell pregnant. His ego got a huge boost when, after some persuasion, she agreed to marry him. Life for Cecelia went downhill rapidly from that moment. While she did nothing to exaggerate the situation, in his mind, I was always hovering in the background, and he couldn't handle his paranoia. He began to beat her for very minor reasons, he put her in hospital a couple of times and was on a good behaviour bond for assault. But it got worse until the day that she had had enough. She told him that the child that he thought was his was in fact mine. In hindsight it was the wrong thing to say because, instead of storming off, he beat her senseless. She lost the baby and was in a coma for some months, and is now a quadriplegic, as you can see."

"Jimmy served six years for assault causing bodily harm, and has a standing restraining order out preventing him from being anywhere near her. He has blamed me for all of this and when he saw me walking down the street to pick up some beers for my father, who is in the final stages of a terminal illness and has weeks to live, the reason that I am here by the way, all his anger and frustration came to a head. In a rush of blood, he king hit me, hence the shiner, and I cracked my head on the concrete footpath. I suffered a mild concussion that meant that I was in hospital overnight under observation."

"Cecelia's sister Rachel here," I continued, "was the Ambo that came to my rescue, and she brought me around to see Cecelia this morning, and that's it. There is no love triangle here, or anywhere else. I am not engaged to Caitlyn, that was a put up job and I feel sorry for her, coming all this way on what is nothing more than a publicity pretence. I will be here at least until after my father dies, I want to be with him as much as possible in the intervening time, and I also want to spend time with Cecelia, she seems to enjoy my company."

Rachel was standing on Cecelia's other side, and she decided that enough was enough. "I think that this has been more than enough excitement for Cecelia for one day, so if you've finished, we want to be alone."

"What are you going to do now, Caitlyn?" She was asked. I think that they expected her to want to get the hell out of this little town, but she surprised them.

"While it was planned that I would spend some time here with Ben, my supposed fiancé, before heading back to the States, I have decided to stay here with Cecelia, she doesn't need me hanging around, but you have to remember that I have led a really sheltered lifestyle. I want to be with her because she can teach me a lot about pain and survival, something that Drama school cannot teach, not in depth at least. On the way here I saw photos of her when she was much younger, and she was very beautiful. The shock of seeing her as she is now was the most profound experience of my life. I know we see this sort of stuff on a day to day basis on TV, but when it is so close to someone you know, it is really shocking. Having said that, I will only stay if Ben and Rosalie give their permission. What do you say guys?"

Rosalie held her hand out for Caitlyn. Caitlyn pushed her way through the media pack and they hugged. This was not going to be easy for any of us.

"Right, that's all. We have no intention of giving any more press conferences, and hopefully sleepy little Meekering can return to normal.

Return to normal, huh! This place will not return to normal, at least not in the foreseeable future. While I was spending quality time with Mum and Dad as he slowly slipped into his private oblivion, Caitlyn was busy helping Rosalie look after Cecelia. Whenever I took a few minutes away from Dad and dropped in on them, Caitlyn would take Cecelia for a spin around the back yard, allowing Rosalie and me to have a few, now precious moments together. "She's going back to LA tomorrow, and I think that I will probably miss her more than I ever thought possible." She whispered to my left ear, just to make it clear that her feelings for Caitlyn fitted into the non-same sex category. "She has been a great help. It turns out that she comes from a small, by the US standards, farming community similar to Meekering, and she misses it more than she had realised.

Because she had rejected a couple of previous demands that she got on the, to be provided by the studio, helicopter that would take her back to Sydney, when she at last agreed to return she had to make her own way back. This meant a sad farewell on the railway station, witnessed by a few fellow passengers and their farewelling families who, if they recognised her, chose to allow her to have her own space.