martinsmithstories

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And then it happened, Father. Over breakfast, of all things. As I lay bare-arsed in bed after another night of lovemaking, Tina walked into our bedroom, naked with a tray in her hands and a grin on her face.

‘Good morning, Genie,’ she said, followed by a pout. ‘Look, I’ve made you breakfast.’

Now there’s a first, I thought.

I sat, and she placed the tray on my lap. On it sat a mug of steaming coffee, a glass of water, half a grapefruit and the biggest bowl of porridge I’d ever seen.

‘The water and grapefruit are mine,’ Tina said as her curves sank into the satin sheet.

‘It looks delicious,’ I said as I went to take a scoop of porridge. But it was like hitting granite, and my spoon handle bent in my hand.

As Tina sipped from her glass, I tapped at the porridge with my spoon, but it had set like concrete and didn’t budge. Not even a millimetre. As Tina breathed in the fumes from her grapefruit, I turned the bowl upside down, but nothing dropped out, so I gave the bowl a shake, but still the grey goo remained stuck. Impenetrable, Father, simply impenetrable.

I stretched my arm out and nonchalantly released my grip and allowed the bowl to crash to the carpeted floor. And that did the job, Father, for a fissure appeared on the lunar surface, and a shard of porridge dislodged. As I scooped the shard onto my spoon, Tina placed her glass and plate on the bedside table, straddled me and took the spoon from my hand.

‘Come on, big boy,’ she said. ‘Open up.’ As she held the spoon in front of my mouth, I swear I could see meteorite craters on the surface of the moon rock before me. Now, Father, I know the likes of your ilk can show self-control, but what man, let alone a bear, could resist a naked woman straddled over his bare bear bits, pouting like a princess and ready to feed him the original sin. So I opened my mouth, and in she went. The porridge, that is.

I tell you, Father, I gave it my best shot. I chewed and chewed until I’d not a drop of saliva left and my jaws begged for mercy.

‘What do you think?’ Tina said. ‘Did I get it just right?’

‘Mmm,’ I said, lying. ‘Mmmmmmmmmm.’

I tried, Father, I really tried, but not even a laser was going to break down the concrete block lodged in my mouth. I tried to swallow the lunar lump, but I couldn’t, Father. It wouldn’t go down. So I did the only thing I could do. I spat it back into the bowl.

‘What’s wrong with it?’ Tina said.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Just needs a tad more salt. Mildred used—’ And that’s when I knew I’d made a mistake, Father.

Tina ranted and raved at me, going on about how I didn’t love her anymore, about how no one wants a woman—even if she is the most beautiful woman in the world—if she can’t make her lover breakfast in bed, and about how I’d be rushing back to Mildred and her award-winning porridge. I thought I had calmed her down, Father, when she started the personal attacks. Look, Father, I won’t repeat what she said as I think you might blush, but I will tell you that at one point she accused me of being a big boar. I said, ‘Hey, it’s not my fault. Males run big in my family.’ She screamed at me and said, ‘Not a big boar, you idiot. A big bore! A B-O-R-E.’

It took me the rest of the morning—and a whole heap of sorrys and bearhugs—to get her to calm down. I even ended up downing the whole bowl of porridge. It almost killed me, Father, but it seemed to do the trick because by lunch we were back on speaking terms, and by nightfall we were naked in each other’s arms.

I thought all had been forgiven and forgotten. In August, I headed to Utah to shoot a remake of Grizzly Adams, and Tina jetted to the Venice Film Festival. I suggested to her I postpone the shoot and go as her plus-one, but she shook her head and suggested we might benefit from a little space between us. Space, Father, she said. We’d barely been in separate rooms since that fateful night in Berlin. Now she wanted space. But I respected her request because I loved and adored her.

I travelled alone to Utah, and as I sat outside my trailer in the sun and practised my roar on the first day of shooting, this reporter came up to me and said, ‘Have you got any comment?’

‘Comment about what?’ I said.

‘About this.’ And he shoved a newspaper in my face.

I stared in disbelief, for there—on page one—I saw Tina, my Tina, pouting up next to Bear Grylls. Gobsmacked, I grabbed the paper and flicked through the pages. Pages 4 and 5 had a spread with snaps of them skinny-dipping and sunbaking at a private resort near Venice. Pages 8 and 9 confirmed rumours they had headed to Tina’s love nest on the French Riviera. An astrologer on pages 12 and 13 predicted a long and happy future for them. The editorial rejoiced Tina had at last found true love, and the centre spread confirmed a wedding date and listed an extensive array of merchandise now available.

‘How’re you bearing up?’ the reporter said. ‘Any response for your fans?’

I responded by releasing an almighty roar and mauling him, before escaping to my trailer and locking the door.

I phoned Tina, but she didn’t pick up. I left a message asking her to phone me ASAP. All day I spent in the trailer, Father, working my way through the minibar and phoning Tina and leaving messages. At noon, the director knocked on the trailer door and requested my presence on set. I declined. At three o’clock, the producer arrived with a copy of my contract and a threat. Again I declined. At six o’clock—with still no response from Tina and a huge cohort of paparazzi gathered within shutter-distance of my trailer—the producer sacked me. He then requested the police in attendance to break down my door. As hundreds of paparazzi cameras flashed, the police handcuffed me and escorted me to the local station and charged me with assault.

I shared a cell with a drunk dressed as Yogi Bear. He thought it was Halloween, and he kept on asking me, ‘Trick or treat?’

At midnight, a guard clanked on the bars and told me I had a phone call. Under a glaring light, I picked up the receiver and said, ‘Tina?’

‘Hi, Eugene,’ a familiar voice said. ‘It’s Paula here.’ Tina’s publicity agent. ‘Are you OK? Listen, Tina asked me to read you a press release.’

Can you believe it, Father? A press release. Who the hell ends a relationship with a press release? All hope dissipated. I handed the phone to the guard and slumped back to my cell and confirmed to my cellmate that I had indeed been tricked.

They released me the next morning, and I flew back to London. Dumped and despondent, I hit the bottle. Hard. Then the roles dried up. I was yesterday’s bear. Look, Father, I had expenses—what with my London pad and alimony. I auditioned for a minor role in Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth III but missed out. Al said I was a tad too tubby to play the role of an emaciated polar bear stranded on a floating piece of melting sea ice. I got a shoot up in Canada for a few days, freezing my nuts off while filming a salmon commercial, but it was for Chinook rather than prime Atlantic salmon, and the pay was bare minimum equity rates. Some sleaze offered me a brown paper bag full of cash to bare all in a porno film. I was desperate, Father, but not that desperate.

I phoned Mildred and begged her forgiveness, but she told me that I had made my own bed and would have to sleep in it. I asked her—all casual like—how she was and whether anyone had been sleeping in my old bed. She hung up on me.

And that’s when I snapped. I couldn’t bear it anymore. I missed the trappings, adulation and limelight. I hated the poverty, obscurity and loneliness. And what I couldn’t bear the most was the thought of Tina in Bear Grylls’ arms. And that’s when I did it, Father.

I hitch-hiked down to southern France and ended up on the outskirts of Saint-Tropez. I met a local at a bar and told him my life story and my woes, and he ended up giving me a hundred-euro note and a consolatory pat on the back.

I bummed a ride into town and caught the last bus for the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous tour. I sat on the top deck and waited and waited as the bus weaved through the narrow roadways, all while the guide reeled off a Who’s Who list of the famous as we drove past their palatial homes. By my watch the bus was due to return to sea level when it took one last turn, and the guide gushed, ‘Now we have the love nest of Hollywood’s Golden Couple, Tina Trubble and Bear Grylls.’ Tourists turned and cameras flashed, and I hit the emergency brake button, and two minutes later, I stood outside the gate of Tina’s hideaway.

I hid behind a bush and waited until sunset, then jumped the gate and crept up to the villa. The house was dark, except for the flicker of candlelight in one room. I inched up to the window from which the feeble light came and looked in. And that’s when I saw them. Tina and Bear Grylls lying together, naked and asleep, on a Kodiak bear rug.

Look, Father, I wasn’t so naive as to think I was the first bear in Tina’s life, but I had hoped I would be the last. And seeing her lying next to some impostor who wasn’t even a real bear, well, I got a little bit angry and a whole lot more determined to win her heart back.

I tested the door handle, and it gave, so I eased the door open and entered. I tiptoed up to the lovers, knelt down and gathered Tina in my arms. I gave her a gentle squeeze and told her I loved and forgave her.

She stirred in my arms and woke and released a muted scream as I covered her mouth with my paw. I thought her eyeballs were going to pop out of her head as she wriggled about like a salmon hooked on a line. I tried to reassure her with gentle shushing, but she woke Bear Grylls, and I tell you, Father, he sure knew how to apply those survival skills of his because he took one look at me and bare-arsed his way out of the bedroom, out of the villa, into his Ferrari and out of the French Riviera.

Tina continued to thrash about in my arms. I looked down on her with love, but she looked up at me with hatred and fear. I told her I loved her and that I always would. I took her in a bear hug, and with her face buried in my hairy chest, I squeezed and squeezed. I wept tears of joy at having her in my arms again. I squeezed and loved until Tina went limp.

‘Tina, are you OK, my love?’ I said.

She neither answered nor moved.

‘Tina?’ I said.

I loosened my hold on her, and her head lolled as I rested it on my lap.

‘Tina?’ I said, concerned.

Her pale, thin arms lay lifeless on the Kodiak shagpile.

‘Tina!’ I roared.

She was dead, Father, and I released an almighty bellow that threatened to bring the rafters down. Oh, how I wish I had, Father, and ended my pathetic existence, for a life without Tina was to me unbearable.

I’d murdered her, Father. Bear-hugged the bejesus out of her, if you’ll excuse my French. And that’s how I ended up here. On death row. Look, I can accept being found guilty and can bear the consequences of my actions, but what I can’t bear is her fame enduring in perpetuity, whereas people will only remember me as the bastard of a bear who killed Tina Trubble, who murdered Goldilocks, Cinderella, Thumbelina and all those other nuanced interpretations of fairy-tale heroines Tina portrayed. The masses will revere her forever, and people will view her crappy films and exaggerate her talent, and she’ll end up a cinematic legend, whereas I’ll just be a one-film wonder, some lowlife who robbed the world of its innocence. I’ll be like all those sitcom dads whose names no one can remember, or, worse still, I’ll be like that OJ guy. No one will remember my actual name: Eugene O’Neal.

And that’s my confession, Father. I have bared all to you. For this sin and all the sins of my past life, I ask God’s pardon. What’s that you say, Father? You grant me absolution? Thanks, Father. My penance? Yes, I know the drill: ten Hail Marys and five Our Fathers. Amen, and God bless you, too. By the way, Father, I know you’ve been visiting me every week for ten years now, trying to get me to confess my sin and asking me how I’m bearing up. And in all that time there’s been this one question I’ve been meaning to ask you, and I’d appreciate an honest, succinct answer because, you see, I’ve not much time left, for the executioner awaits me this morning down that corridor. What’s that, you ask? Well, Father, what I want to know, now you have granted me absolution, is do they serve porridge in Heaven?