The Boy From Brazil (1)

by Peacock, Sophie

  The bumping and all sense of speed has stopped. We’ve gone into that deathly quiet scary bit, where we’ve left the ground and are all waiting to crash. She’s turned to look straight ahead, frowning in concentration. She’s either one of those people who has to fly the plane at this stage or I’ve offended her because she’s a Saga lout, I’m not sure which.

  Mini gap year sounds better than unemployed anyway. Urgh. It’s the un bit. Unwanted, unloved, underwear…. Another negative piled on to more negatives. No-one’s actually saying the word on the film community web contact boards. There’s quite a bit of bravado going round. Not least me. We’re a cagey lot, but at the same time we have to keep up the old networking. Stepping out of the work loop altogether like this is risky, but the Brazil bit helps.

  “Taking a rain check in Brazil, back in three months.” Well, it sounds good doesn’t it. Crews are as bad as the actors in this sense. You can’t let on you’re available and gagging for a job. Just because the whole of the UK film industry’s been flushed down the pan won’t hold much on the international scene. You’ve got to be working to get work. Otherwise suspicion takes over. Like, why doesn’t anyone else want her then?

  Like lovers. Especially mine. Unavailability’s a powerful aphrodisiac. This sets me worrying why Benj’s so avail… Why me? NO (daggagag machine gun stop stop fop…..) STOP it. I’ve got to give this a chance. He told me why, repeatedly.

  (‘In a hot climate, you need ice,...’ and there was me, cool Suze covering up a bundle of raw emotion.)

  Good. The seatbelt light has pinged off. There’s a collective sigh of relief and clacking of metal against metal as the loo queue takes shape.

  ‘That’s it, we’re on our way now!’

  ‘Yup,’ I nod.

  ‘This is the best time of year to go away, I hate all the Christmas shopping build-up don’t you?’

  She leaves a gap which I’m supposed to fill in. It’s funny, she looks like the sort who’d be staking out the cracker aisles in September.

  ‘What’s a continuity girl do then? Is it like quality control…?’ she says into my icy silence.

  ‘No, I work in films….’

  Then I’m off. Name dropping like crazy, reeling off the most successful movies I’ve been on. I can’t help it, it feels good to reassert my identity. And she’s loving it.

  ‘Do you get your name on those long lists at the end then? What do you call them?’

  ‘The credits. Of course, but…’

  ‘Oooh, let me write it down, then, Ron, pen…’

  ‘That’s one of the easiest ways of spotting us in the real world. We’re the only ones in the cinema still sat there till the end of the credits,’ I say jokingly, feeling slightly embarrassed as Ron carefully writes my name down. ‘You won’t see me as a continuity girl, we’re called production co-ordinators these days.’

  ‘Why’s that dear?’

  ‘The girl bit, too unPC isn’t it, and continuity person never had the ring…’

  ‘Oh don’t give me all that rubbish,’ she offers to fill my glass. I hold it out. ‘As far as I’m concerned women will never be equal to men till they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut and still think they’re sexy.’

  She throws a disparaging Edna Everage like look at her husband who is proving this point beautifully, managing to make each passing hostess trolley screech to a halt to dispense fistfuls of alcoholic mini bottles beneath a glow of generous, beaming smiles.

  ‘Why do actresses call themselves actors now, can you answer me that?’

  ‘No, I can’t really,’ I say.

  ‘What’s wrong with actress?’

  ‘We still have best boys. Even second best boys now,’ I muse.

  ‘That’s not fair, then, is it? You should get onto your union about it, get them to sort it out.’

  I smile, I can’t see that one up there on my To Do list somehow.

  Ron leans forward, ‘So, tell me, what does a gaffer do?’

  Soon, Ron and Marge are my new best friends and as I’m drinking more I’m feeling increasingly fuzzy round the edges and a complete and utter fake.

  ‘I wish my daughter’d done something like you before settling down.’

  ‘It’s the job that’s interesting, not me,’ I say finally, at the risk of sounding sorry for myself. ‘This is why I’m coming away from it.’

  ‘Time to settle down is it, well, quite right…

  ‘No. No I’m… I’m quite happy as I am…’ I nearly added I don’t need a relationship to be a functional human being, thanks very much. Depending on any one else to make you happy’s a mug’s game, but instead I smile and chirpily add. ‘But you never know do you!’

  ‘I hope it works out for you, love. So – what does a continuity girl actually – er – do then?’

  ‘We’re invisible. That’s what we do. It’s a job about not being there.

  We’re only noticed on the screen when things go wrong.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ she says in a disapproving, vague way, not seeing at all.

  ‘OK, do you remember the film American Beauty?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If you ever see it again, look out for the kitchen scenes. In one of them Kevin Spacey’s drink jug refills half way through. That’s a continuity error. Each scene, you see, is shot from several angles and has to be repeated exactly, only sometimes the tiny details can get forgotten. I’m there to make sure that doesn’t happen.’

  ‘Oh, well who cares about that?’ she turns to Ron. ‘You’d hardly notice that would you?’

  I puff up to defend my corner, my life, my whole existence… ‘Blown up on the big screen it’s more than obvious, believe me.’

  ‘What, so instead of watching the story you think “oi hang on a minute, what happened there!”says Ron.

  ‘Exactly, it can break the spell.’

  ‘Got any more?’

  ‘All right, on the train up to Hogwarts, in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Ron’s hair is constantly changing from a side to a centre parting.’

  Marge laughs. ‘Oh, no, I didn’t see that, did you see that Rog, we can look for that on Emmy’s video. Emmy’s our grand-daughter..’

  ‘In Return of the King, Frodo’s scar keeps jumping around on his head.’

  Ron rummages in his seat net for the list of movies. ‘Here, any of them got anything?’ he folds the magazine over and hands it to me.

  ‘No, not that I know about. Do you remember Gladiator?’

  ‘We got the DVD of that.’

  ‘OK, next time watch for the scene where Maximus is feeding an apple to his horse, behind him you’ll see there’s a crewman hanging nonchalantly around in his jeans and t-shirt.’

  Ron chuckles, ‘I wonder what branch of Tesco shelves he’s stacking now.’

  ‘Or indeed the continuity person.’ I’m almost envious. At least stacking shelves gives tangible results.

  ‘So it wasn’t you then,’ says Marge frowning, still not quite getting it.

  ‘No. Some people reckon that one was left in on purpose.’

  ‘Why’d they go and do that?’

  ‘As an antidote to all the computer imaging I suppose. There are people who say continuity mistakes are what gives a film its inner soul, its character. But the internet’s turned it into a sad-git’s hobby.’

  ‘The internet?’ says Ron with a geeky gleam in his eye.

  ‘Loads of websites have sprung up. Ready to jump on our backs. Take a bow, you’re on moviemistakes.com. It’s hardly the BAFTAs or Oscars everyone else from the stars to the make up artists can aim for is it? We don’t get awards. There’s no best. No best disaster avoided at all times.’

  ‘Come on. It’s worthwhile otherwise they wouldn’t employ you would they?’ says Marge cosily. ‘Look around. Look at all these people watching films. You should be proud!’

  Maybe it’s the drink, but I go into one. ‘Everything’s shot and checked on video now. Computer gene
rated imaging can refill empty glasses, move props around, even bring actors back from the dead. They can do up buttons on cardigans, too, one of my mainstays of the old days. Cardigans could have caused many an expensive re-shoot without me there to keep an eye on their buttons.’ As I’m wingeing on, I’m realising more and more what a totally daft un-job my life’s work has been. As exciting as cardigan buttons.

  At this point Marge changes the subject. ‘Did you find Rio – dangerous, you know, when you were there before?’

  ‘It’s the friendliest city on the planet, you wait, you’ll see.’

  ‘Only, you hear such bad things don’t you.’

  ‘Stay well away from the dangerous places and you’ll probably be OK. No-go means what it says, you don’t ever go there.’

  I go through all the warnings.

  ‘Well, you be careful too, dear.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me, there’s nothing I haven’t covered.’

  ‘You’re a sensible girl. I can see that. But still, we’ll be thinking about you. Wondering how you’re getting on, won’t we, Ron?’

  ‘Here,’ I rummage in my bag for my notebook, ‘this is my blog address.’ I scribble down the details and tear the page off.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘My blog. It’s an on-line diary, so my friends and family can hear how I’m getting on.’

  ‘We haven’t got a computer with us.’

  ‘When we get home, love,’ says Ron, ‘she’ll still be there.’

  ‘Of course, silly me. Oooh, thank you, yes, we will.’

  ‘You can comment too if you want, tell me how your holiday was.’

  ‘Really? We’d love that.’

  ‘I’ll probably write about you two in my first entry.’

  This pleases her even more. ‘Fame at last. You were filming in Rio, then, were you?’

  ‘A carnival ball.’

  ‘But that’s not till February.’

  ‘Not the real one. We staged it and bunged our actors in.’

  ‘Who were they?’

  I reel off the GBS’s which delights her even more. It’s amazing the effect movies still have on people. It’s also amazing, as I speak, how empty all that feels next to the carnival scene itself and I’m soon going off on one.

  ‘You’ve seen it all on TV, but even the best director in the world could only get a fraction of that atmosphere through to the celluloid.’

  ‘I wish we were seeing it.’

  ‘There’ll be a similar atmosphere at the football stadium, you’ll get it there.’

  ‘We’ll see how this goes, if we like it, we can always come back next year.’

  ‘You’ll like it all right,’ I say, envying the simplicity of her statement. That her existence is so defined, she can already pencil in plans for a year ahead.

  ‘Just you be careful,’ she pats my knee. ‘Take one step at a time. Tread carefully but firmly, one step at a time.’

  Ron’s stood up to get his bag down from the overhead locker. He’s immediately pounced on by a beaming hostess, offering to help him.

  Instead of looking to see what book he’s pulling out of his bag, my eyes have rested on his holdall, its handle flapping with an orange and green Tomley’s Tours tag. It makes me feel draughty and utterly alone.

  At the airport there’ll be couriers in shiny orange nylon uniforms waiting to feed them into coaches with noisy diesel engines revving. I envy those labels so much I want to steal one.

  A big part of me still thinks I’m going to find a fixer at the airport, waiting to whisk me through customs and on to my hotel, and before I know it we’ll be on slate 1 and zooming off to the happy ending and roll credits.

  But I haven’t got a tag on my bag, a schedule in my laptop, a stash of T shirts and baseball caps covered with the film’s publicity logos.

  Just Benj and his VW kombi.

  CHAPTER 5

  Flashback Ext: Night and Day, Rio

  When we all went back in our mini bus, I was thinking whell, that was fun! Nice guy! A bit of dancing, a memorable fuck and bye bye. But there the next morning he was, sat in the lobby of my hotel. If it had been anyone but Benj I’d have been thinking - arrogant sod, who does he think he is? But I knew this guy didn’t have an arrogant bone in his body. He was the least upfront person I’d ever met.

  He simply got up and came into breakfast with me and, like the way we met and never introduced ourselves, it seemed like the most normal, normal thing.

  Embarrassed by the OTT opulence of the hotel buffet, I kept on offering him food, but he wasn’t phased. Instead he took his little black book out and sketched me while I ate.

  I joked about us meeting up at the wrong time, because by then we both knew, and it was daft pretending he’d come for any other reason. I told him about the rules of filming on location. Being Brazlian, he dismissed any notion of any rules straight away.

  I took his notebook with the half-finished picture of me in it. It was good, very good actually, even though it was a cartoony caricature. It was more than flattering, rounding off the bump at the end of my nose and emphasising my large, blue eyes.

  And that was it. Neither of us was pushing anything or hiding anything. We simply hung out, as if we had all the time in the world. We didn’t touch that day at all. Not even when he left to go home, he backed off and was gone. I had no idea if I’d ever see him again. All I had was this drawing.

  But there he was, the next morning, my last morning, I was so relieved to see him, I kissed him. Then we kissed again and there was more emotion in that kiss than I’d known was possible since Zero.

  So that’s why I’m going back. To finish that kiss.

  CHAPTER 6

  Int Day: Benj's Bed, Rua Amaral Camara 961, Santa Teresa, Rio

  ‘All holidays should start like this,’ I sigh, snuggling up to Benj’s warm, damp body.

  We’re in that fucked out phase, letting our bodies find their temperatures again before we go off on the next one. It’s not going to stop. I know that. He knows that. And there doesn’t seem to be any reason why it should stop. I, watch the mid-morning breeze blowing the curtains out like sails.

  ‘Don’t say holiday,’ he strokes my back over and over with one thumb.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t want you to go back,’ his arm tightens around my back.

  ‘I’m not going back. Not yet. Not for a big long yet. I’ve only just got here.’

  Benj’s thighs are a delicious leg version of his arms. Brown, hairy and firm, with a visible but subtle hint of muscle.

  We kiss. ‘Jet lag,’ I say.

  Kiss kiss,

  ‘and Benj Rodrigues da Silva,’

  kiss kiss,

  ‘are two very good reasons for staying in bed.’

  He squeezes my nakedness to his and I feel him harden again.

  ‘At this rate, my visa’ll run out and we’ll still be here,’ I say when we finally surface again.

  ‘Good idea….. Suze?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘I do have to go to work today.’

  I pull away, ‘Not my first day?’

  ‘I’m sorry. Only for a little while.’

  ‘I thought you worked from home?’

  ‘You’re very observant.’

  ‘I can’t help it.’

  I’d spotted his work room off a corridor on our way up to bed last night. It was very organised and tidy (tick), with a wall of drawing boards and shelf after shelf of files and pencil pots. And no, favelas don’t have long corridors. That was my first surprise, instead of a favela we’re in some kind of amazing, old colonial style mustard-coloured villa. When he said he was a neighbour, he meant the next-door-mountain, not the next-door-house.

  ‘I have a meeting at TV Globo.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It’s important. I have to show the new TonTou character drawings.’

  ‘TonTou?’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘You draw TonTou?’
/>   ‘You’ve heard of him?’

  ‘Of course! My friend Nina’s kids will go insane when I tell them..’

  I have to go now.’ He runs his palm lightly over my breasts, ‘but not right now.’

  My nipples harden and the nerves between my legs start tingling.

  Irrational feelings of abandonment mingle with the realisation that not only have I not pulled an artist from a garret, but a TV cartoon genius.

  ‘Will you be working all the time I’m here?’

  ‘No more than usual. Don’t worry, nobody works too hard. Life always comes first,’ he slips his hand between my legs, the dampness grows as he rubs. He slips a finger inside me, leans over to kiss me at the same time, slipping his tongue into me, moving it as he moves his finger, just slightly in advance, so my body goes into anticipatory overdrive. As his tongue circles my mouth, so I circle back in his mouth so his fingers circle inside me, thrusting and circling, thrusting and circling.

  Suddenly his hand moves away.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  We’ve lost contact and I feel bereft.

  He opens the balcony doors next to the bed, turns picks me up and carries me outside. I catch my breath.

  ‘My God, Benj!’

  We’re on top of a mountain looking down across a vertiginous tumble of Alpine-like chalets and old Portuguese-style mansions. The rooftops are patchworked with intriguingly still, shady gardens. Below and all around, stretches the blue of Guanabacu Bay, with Sugarloaf rising unreally out of the sea in the distance like a mini-baguette.

  Benj puts me down and holds me gith, ‘What do you think of your new home?’

  I grab his hands and lean into him, taking it all in. Here I really am. And Benj is here and Rio is there.

  My suspicions that it was Rio I fell for first, and then Benj came along and slotted right in, have faded to oblivion. I know we’ve got something special going. We really have. It feels so Right. A Right I haven’t felt since…. Well, since Zero.

  I hold his cock as he finger fucks me gently.

  ‘I’d heard Santa Teresa was the Portobello area of Rio, but the Golborne Road never looked anything like this. Why did you tell me you lived in the favela?’